Chapter 12

Lucas crept down the stairs as if on a mission. He'd been in a deep sleep when all of a sudden he'd found himself on the cold, hard floor. Haley had managed to knock both him and Nathan out of bed, and while Nathan had remained curled up asleep on the floor, Lucas found it impossible to sleep. It wasn't so much the floor that made it difficult to sleep but rather the intense hunger he felt. Realizing that he'd not really eaten since before the accident, Lucas had set off downstairs in search of food.

Looking at a clock as he made his way through the massive house, Luke noticed that it was barely after midnight. The house was deadly quiet, and Lucas couldn't help but wonder if things were getting back to normal. After all, it had been less than 24 hours since he'd been caught trying to leave. Now it seemed like the entire house was settled down, and back to a regular routine. If there was such a thing for this house, he cynically thought.

Luke wandered through a series of formal living areas, trying to remember where the kitchen was. He'd only been in his father's house once, the night of the basketball party, and his short-term memory refused to cooperate with him. Pushing a door open, he flipped on a light, and was relieved to see hunter green marble counters and stainless steel appliances.

Running a finger across the immaculate counter top, Lucas couldn't help but notice the difference in his lifestyle and his father's. Their current house was one of the nicest places that he and his mom had ever lived, but it was still insignificant next to Nathan's freaking vacation house. It wasn't enough that Dan's house was a mansion, but the house that they used for social occasions was ten times bigger than anything Lucas had ever lived in.

He moved around the counters, both looking for something to eat and lost in memories of the past. He remembered when he was younger and times were really hard. They'd moved from one seedy apartment to the next, sometimes just steps ahead of an eviction notice. More than once, they'd ended up on Keith's doorstep in the middle of the night, looking for a place to land between evictions.

Things were better now, especially since Lucas could work and help his mom out with the bills. But basketball was eating into his work hours, even though Keith refused to cut the size of his paycheck. Lucas was going to have to address that situation soon. He couldn't take hand outs from the man, even if he were Luke's biological uncle. Sighing, Lucas wondered if his life would be simpler if Dan had tried to help out with expenses.

His thoughts quickly turned away from the past and toward the food he found on the counter. Grabbing a loaf of bread, Luke craned his head, looking for a toaster or something to heat the bread up with.

Dan tossed the paperwork on his desk and stretched his large frame as he stared off in thought. His eyes roved around the dark wood paneled walls, taking in all the relics of his past basketball glory. He recalled Karen's words from the night of the party, urging him to live in the present and leave the past behind. Prophetic words considering that the past kept hitting him in the face in the form of his oldest son.

Exhaling, Dan leaned back in his leather office chair and moved folders around on his desk. He'd not been to the dealership since the day of the accident, and the paperwork was piling up. It had been a banner year for his business, he concluded. Dan had one of the most successful dealerships in the southeast and had more than paid off Deb's parents for any investment that they'd made in the past. And all that money still couldn't buy him contentment.

Hearing a noise in the kitchen, Dan got up and moved through the rooms until he reached the kitchen door. He leaned against the door frame, watching as Lucas searched through the large refrigerator. The boy had his back toward Dan, which allowed the older man to quietly indulge in a few moments of observing his son as he moved his lanky frame around with a feline kind of grace. It was the same way the boy moved around the basketball court, he surmised, which was vastly different from the way Nathan pounded around, with an intense sense of ownership. Dan watched as Lucas emerged from the fridge clutching a jar of jam and immediately launched himself into spreading the sticky substance on a piece of bread.

"Surely we can do better than that," Dan finally said, watching as Luke wolfed down his snack. Luke wearily watched as the older man walked into the kitchen and moved behind the kitchen island where he stood. Dan pointed to one of the bar chairs near the island and said, "Sit."

Luke silently fell onto one of the stools and watched as Dan moved around the kitchen, gathering pots and pans. "I think I have enough culinary skill to whip up something other than cold bread and jam, don't you think?" Dan said in a conversational tone. He looked over at Lucas, who regarded him with a cold, neutral expression. Dan continued on, ignoring his son's silence. "The doctor told us that you would eventually regain your appetite. If you were hungry, you should have told us."

"Do you people ever sleep?" Lucas replied, somewhat disgruntled. No matter when he woke up or moved around, there was always an adult hovering around. As far as he could tell, Deb and Dan were up most of the day and night.

Dan cracked some eggs into a skillet and tossed the shells into the trash. "We sleep, but lately we've had these three cranky teenagers running around the house at all hours of the night, keeping us awake. That is when they aren't sleeping together in one bed," he added slyly, watching as Lucas' face remained impassive. "To answer your question, I was in my office doing paperwork. I do actually have a job, you know."

Lucas shifted uneasily. "Really? I thought you just sat around counting your money." As much as it pained him, Lucas was actually salivating at the scents coming from the skillet. It was surreal to sit in the same room with his father and watch him prepare a meal. The sheer normality of it rocked Lucas to his core.

Dan reached up and grabbed the toaster from one of the top shelves, before turning to answer Lucas. "No, we only count money at the beginning of the month, not the end." He turned back to his cooking, wanting to move off the topic of money as fast as possible. Dan could tell that Lucas was assessing his surroundings and he knew that the boy couldn't help but compare his house to his father's.

Ten silent minutes later, Dan placed a steaming plate of scrambled eggs in front of Lucas and put a glass of milk near his hand. The doctor had encouraged them to keep the food bland. "Not exactly gourmet, but it won't kill you," Dan said, as he starting eating from his own plate. He surreptitiously watched as his son tried to remain disinterested in the food, moving and poking it around his plate. Eventually Lucas lost his internal battle of self-control and devoured it despite his attempts to ignore the man who provided it.

A few more uncomfortable minutes of silence passed. "Well, this is awkward. So are you always this quiet or is it just around me that you can't seem to talk?" Dan asked, genuinely curious, as he'd always heard Nathan refer to Luke as a zombie or antisocial. Yet when Dan spied him in town with Haley or his mom or Keith, the boy seemed to be an animated conversationalist.

Shrugging, Lucas remained silent and focused on his food, preferring that to the anger that welled inside of him. He had always longed for and dreaded the day he'd have a chance to tell Dan what he thought. And this moment was building into a major bitchfest, if he ever saw one. And for the first time since he'd gotten to this house of horrors, Luke finally felt decent. He had some energy and that energy was pushing him toward confrontation.

Dan felt a burgeoning sense of competition growing: his need to force Lucas into talking versus his son's obvious desire to ignore him. "So, how are you feeling?" Dan questioned, growing amused at Luke's pained expression.

Breaking, Luke bitterly spit out, "You've never cared before about my welfare, why should you start now?" He shoved the now empty plate away from him and leaned back in his chair expectantly. Dan wanted this fight, he thought, he was going to get it.

"Well that was an entire 20 minutes with no recriminations from the past. That must be a record for us," Dan said, not expecting much more from this situation. It had almost felt natural to him, preparing a meal for his son, making sure he was feeling better and that his needs were being met. It was only a matter of time before things returned normal between the two of them. Dan put his empty plate on top of Lucas' and turned to face his son. "Do you really want to do this now?" he asked his stoic son.

"Who knows when you'll actually lower yourself to talk to me in the future," Luke explained. "It's not as if we have regular discussions or anything."

Dan shrugged his shoulders. "I told you last night that I've made mistakes in the past regarding you. And you know that an apology won't make up for whatever wrongs you feel that I've committed against you."

Shaking his head, Lucas stared at Dan in shock. "Feel? Wrongs that I FEEL you've committed? How about us starting with you not taking responsibility for a life you helped create? Or helping my mom out while she was pregnant? Or hell, how about the fact that you've refused to even acknowledge my existence for 16 years?" Lucas sneered at the older man for a few moments before continuing, "And let's not even talk about child support. Or telling anyone who'd listen that you wished Mom had just gotten rid of me."

Dan watched as Lucas seethed. He wanted the boy to get whatever he had to say off his chest. It was past time for them to have this conversation, he realized. "I tried to give Karen money a few times and she refused."

"You didn't try very hard, did you? Tell me, did you ever sit here, in your huge house, or in your $ 60,000 Jag and wonder if my mom and me were eating?" Lucas demanded, sick at his stomach over the inequities that life had thrown at him. He'd watched his mom work herself to death to get the bare necessities when he was a kid, and now that she was having a bit of success with the café, Dan was still evading his responsibility.

Dan considered Lucas' words and then looked up to stare the boy in the eye. "I didn't really think of either of you," he said, noting the look of hurt and shock that crossed his son's eyes. "Once Deb and I moved back to Tree Hill, I focused on building my own family. It was easier to act like you didn't exist, rather than dealing with you."

Rubbing his eyes, Lucas fought off yet another headache. "My god, you say that so matter of factly." He looked up and stared into Dan's cold blue eyes. Eyes that were not so very much different from his own, he realized with a shock.

"Lucas, I was only a little older than you are now when Karen told me that she was pregnant. How would you have handled it? I was 18, I didn't handle it the way I should have." Dan wasn't exactly pleading his case before his son, but rather trying to put things into perspective for the boy. He could sense that Lucas needed answers and at this point, Dan was the only person who could provide them.

Lucas leaned in across the kitchen island in order to get closer to where Dan sat opposite of him. "I would have been a man and provided for my child. Or at least learned about birth control so that I didn't knock up another girl three months later."

Frowning, Dan reacted to Lucas' word choice. "Well, I didn't learn. And I refuse to regret something that ultimately gave me my wife and Nathan." Sighing, Dan tried to decipher what Lucas was NOT saying. "Do you want me to say that if I hadn't gotten Deb pregnant that I would have moved home and married your mother? Because the truth is that I was planning on doing just that. And you'd have had your perfect family and Nathan wouldn't exist. Is that what you wished for all these years? Because I can't undo what I have done and wish that Nathan didn't exist," Dan asked, not sure how he was supposed to placate both boys.

"But you'd gladly wish me out of existence?" Lucas said, turning his head in order to hide the pain he knew was written on his face. He didn't need to give Dan Scott any more weapons against him than he already had.

Dan reached out and turned Lucas' chin back to face him. "I'd wish your pain out of existence. I'd wish this situation didn't exist, or that I'd handled it better. I'd wish that you had the father you needed so that you could stop hurting." Dan allowed himself to lower the walls he'd built up around his heart toward this boy for once. He knew he could be difficult and emotionally unavailable, but it was a patterned he'd learned early in life, from a father who viewed the world in absolutes.

Watching as Luke lowered his head to rest on the island; Dan hesitantly reached out and touched his son's head. "Luke, you are a talented and smart young man. I am amazed at how fast you've picked up the varsity game in such a short time. And from what everyone says, you have grades that will more than likely get you a free ride to any school in the country. Don't let the past screw up your future," Dan urged him, trying to find something positive to point out to his withdrawn and morose son.

Lucas straightened himself up, avoiding Dan's tentative touch. "And yet none of those words make a difference when you walk around with the knowledge that your biological father wishes you didn't exist."

Dan sat back in silence, uncertain what to say to make the boy's pain go away, or even in defense of his own past actions. He had wished that Lucas had never been born, he'd blamed the kid for destroying his life with Karen, and he'd wished the complications from having an illegitimate son in such a small town didn't exist.

A few moments passed in silence, before Luke stared Dan in the eyes and earnestly asked, "Do you hate me?" He wasn't sure if he really wanted to hear the answer, but knowing he had to ask the question just the same. Luke needed answers if only for his own peace of mind, and so he could move on from this never-ending quagmire of pain.

Dan evaluated the boy, weighing Luke's need for answers against the subsequent pain that might come with the truth. He realized that these questions weren't coming easily and that Luke must therefore have a great deal invested in the answers. The question was, did Dan give the boy the truth or did he follow the small, tenuous thread of paternal protection that dwelled inside him. Looking up, Dan decided to do the only thing he could.

That's an evil place to leave you, isn't it? Thanks for reading and replying. I always love to see what people think of the chapters!