A/N: As promised the second part posted at night California time; PST. I probably should have given a more accurate time.
Little Green Bird-That's right! Lucas loves to color. I think he does it because Peyton draws and he loves her 3 ;) Elevator talk, huh, what did that revolve around? Oh and Fin and Oli would be so proud bout the Uncle Jesse bit lol. Haha Nathan cake. Hmmm. You make me smile like this *smiles widely*
Redunicorns01-I'm happy your enjoying it! It's always fun to hear from a new reviewer :D
Missyhay-Yay I'm glad you liked the theme! I was hoping people would :D
And thank you to LGB and Gosal thank you for the well wishes regarding my mom. It means a whole lot!
Chapter Twenty-Five: Let's Make A Night To Remember Partie Deux
The night wore on, still hours before midnight came, and all the people around having the time of their lives drinking, gambling, and making obscene gestures to the opposite sex. Dancing had gone on, but it wasn't to classical music as it would have been in the late 1800's but more of today's genre. A bit of everything; rock, hip hop, pop, R&B, country, and even soul. The large floor to ceiling windows keeping the rooms cool and from becoming stuffy with all the body's that seemed to be packed inside.
"I'm parched." Fin spoke walking down the grand staircase meeting up with Peyton and Oli who were surrounded with other gentlemen and women.
"Try this." Oliver took the glass from Peyton's hands and passed it over to him.
"Hey." She protested.
"Thank you, Duke." Fin clinked the glass into the air and took a huge gulp empting the contents of the cloudy green color known as the color of an Appletini. "That tasted pink."
"How could it have tasted pink if it was green?" Oliver smirked knowing full well what he was doing when he handed the women's choice of a 'fruity' drink over.
"I don't know. All I know is that it tasted pink, like really really pink." Scrunching up his nose he lifted up his mask slightly and smelt the inside of the glass. "Ugh, God that tasted horrible. It was like drinking a my little pony."
"Henri, it couldn't have been that bad."
"Have you tried it, Satine? It shouldn't even be considered a drink, it puts to shame all those other real drinks."
"I have! I think it tastes delicious." Someone voiced from the back.
"Have I met you yet?" Fin's grin was lopsided while he walked closer to the girl who'd made her way forward, her bosoms popping out of her dress.
"Several times." She smiled removing her mask from her face for a brief second before the stick went right back to its original place.
"Alright than." He turned his attention back to his group of friends; he had wanted to meet someone new.
All Peyton could do was giggle seeing as Fin had already been tipsy to begin with as she played with the silver chain around her neck filling the pendant sway across her chest as she laughed.
Running to her room Peyton looked through every crook and nook, her closet, underneath her bed at the same time trying not to mess up the hair that took hours to complete, it isn't as if she cared if it became ruined she just didn't want to sit in the stylist's chair for another three hours trying to perfect it once again.
"Come on, where are you?"
She spoke to the inanimate object that she was searching for. That's when she remembered she had taken her mother's tennis bracelet with her to Tree Hill and those suitcases had yet to be unpacked. Grabbing the largest bag she wheeled it over to the middle of the room and dumped out its contents the once clean hardwood now a covered mess with jeans and shirts. She searched for the safety box cursing herself for not putting it in a place she would remember more.
"Aha!" Peyton cheered finding the long black velvet box that kept her bracelet from any harm. Opening it she was shocked when it wasn't there. "Wha?" The letter T falling silent on her lips and her eyes growing wider as she pulled out the necklace with a small pink diamond pendant in a shape of a ribbon. She ran her thumb across it the symbol already meaning so much to her while she tried not to turn into a sap. She searched for anything that would tell her what exactly this meant, not having to look far she spotted the dislocated blank envelope.
Closing her eyes she took a deep breath and unsealed the letter the handwriting very familiar letting her eyes intake on what the words said as she read them out loud to herself just above a mousy whisper.
"I regret not saying this to you with all the chances that I had and now you're gone, no permanently but you're still not here with me and so I will let Elizabeth Barrette Browning say to you what I did not."
She looked down two spaces and didn't see a computer print version of the poem, but a true Lucas Scott handwriting of 'How Do I Love Thee? Let Me Count The Ways.
"How do I love thee? Let me count the ways. I love thee to the depth and breadth and height my soul can reach, when feeling out of sight. For the ends of Being and ideal Grace. I love thee to the level of everyday's most quiet need, by sun and candle-light. I love thee freely, as men strive for Right; I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise. I love thee with the passion put to use. In my old grief's, and with my childhood's faith. I love thee with a love I seemed to lose. With my lost saints,—I love thee with the breath, smiles, tears, of all my life!—and, if God choose, I shall but love thee better after death."
"Peyton, I knew it from the moment you came to my doorstep drenched in rain what I was going to get you for Christmas even if it was a month month away at the time. So it wasn't hard for me to give when I made a donation to the BCRF foundation in your mother's honor. That was only part of your gift; the second half happens to be lying in that jewelry box. If it makes you feel any better I'd be more than okay if you didn't wear it because I got it for you, but because you have hope that your mother's passing wasn't all in vain."
The party was huge inside and outside and Lucas felt like he's done numerous amounts of circles not being able to find her as he followed each girl with a head of blonde curls or ones who had seemingly matching green colored eyes to only be disappointed each time when it wasn't the one he was looking for.
He made his way back indoors the crowd coming together as a band known as the Virgins were announced and they begin to play. They were different from what any of them heard although they were considered in the Alternative genre they seemed not to fit the pattern, now that wasn't to say they were any good because they were.
All that time Lucas spent looking for Peyton he was oblivious to the fact that she was only a mere ten feet away, but how could he have known when all he heard was music and shouts of men talking loudly.
"My best lost year was sophomore year." Fin spoke to the crowd of merry gentlemen around him with the exception of his sister and best friend. "I went to Spain for a week to immerse myself in Cervantes wound up staying for two months and almost joined the French Foreign Legion."
"But you were in Spain." Peyton joined in taking a sip from the replaced Appletini hoping that her father wouldn't catch her underage drinking.
"Yes, but Sinatra didn't sing about the Spanish Foreign Legion."
"Two months is nothing Toulouse-Lautrec." Oliver challenged.
"So, Duke, you think you can out due me?" Fin laughed.
"Try junior year three and a half month cross country road trip. This was pre-navigation systems people."
"Last December I dropped all my stuff at home jumped on a plane to Australia and surfed until Christmas."
"You did not." Oliver argued with Fin's proclamation.
"I did."
"Where was I?"
"Being in class like a good little boy."
"Amazing they're actually having a loser off." Madeleine laughed.
"Oh look how she mocks. The girl stayed home for a month after she had a tragic haircut." Fin retold the story of his sister's refusal to show her face in school months before she ran away.
"It wasn't a tragic haircut. It was apocalyptic highlights. I looked like a Tim Burton character. Besides I don't think wasting your time doing nothing that has yet to be matched by man or actual sloth is something to be proud of."
"My darling, we are the reigning kings of the sloths." Fin spoke taking a shot of what he considered a real drink.
"Well the two of you may have been kings of the sloths, but this year I might give you a run for your money." Peyton told them brushing her hair back over her shoulders.
"Oh really?"
"Yes! All kings must be dethroned eventually and the upcoming year that crown will be mine."
"All hail Satine, Queen of the sloths." Oliver spoke feeling not at all threatened by her statement.
"All hail." Fin agreed smashing his glass with Oli's.
She found herself reaching for her neck, but when her fingertips came across the bare chest she froze. "My necklace."
"What was that?" Someone she didn't know asked.
"My necklace it's gone." She replied. "We have to find it."
She looked around her on the ground, but found nothing giving a quick description of it to the patrons around her.
"Don't worry we're on it." Oliver spoke as they all separated into the crowd in search of the future queen's treasures.
The horde around Lucas began to disintegrate as the band finished their second song announcing that they'll be taking a break and be back in an hour. He watched the crowds grow smaller and found himself looking around the sights before him still astonishing, up at the chandelier, the gorgeous rare paintings that hung on the wall, and the people who dressed the part.
Gazing toward the staircase a shimmer blinded his sight for a second and when his eyes came back into focus he could see the familiar pendent swaying off of a brunette who hung over the banister her shouting words muted from where he was standing.
He shoved past people not carrying if they called out to be obscene words because he needed to get to that girl who wore a necklace that had no right hanging from her neck. Spinning her around he grabbed her by the shoulders, he hadn't meant to be so forceful, but the urgency to know was in full potency. She looked shocked her chocolate eyes worse than a deer in headlights, the mask covering how big exactly they had grown.
"This isn't yours?" He grabbed onto the pendent that stood for breast cancer awareness while his jaw locked.
"Get your hands off of me." She warned intrigued by who this man was, his eyes intense which gave her the thought that he could do amazing things with just those blue orbs, his bone structure that of a gorgeous man.
"Where did you get this."
"I found it on the ground." She shrugged it off as if it was nothing. "Now how about you do more than just undress me with your eyes." She purred.
Lucas wanted to laugh, that wasn't even the last thing on his mind. Hell that was nowhere close on what he wanted to do. He stepped closer to her the both of them mere inches apart as he whispered into her ear. "You're not the one. You're not her." Backing away he slid the necklace into his pocket and headed down the staircase.
He would try again outside looking for anything that would remind him of her. The way her eyes would still shine even in all darkness, the way she had a natural sent of a fruity tart, the smell of lavender shampoo, or when someone would laugh he hoped it was her contagious laughter that had him joining along.
He walked by the large gazebo a girl brushing across his shoulder causing him to stop. He moved his head to profile view and caught her looking over her shoulder the green eyes glistening in the dark. He watched her and she watched him as she kept on making her way back to the mansion. Something inside of him sparked after seeing the girl behind the pearl embroider mask.
"Satine!" She had stopped turning around and running toward the mansion.
Maybe that wasn't his Peyton after all? But something wouldn't let him believe that as he followed her steps. Once inside he lost her to the crowd unable to locate the girl he had brushed past.
"Attention fellow men and gorgeous woman. I know the clock is nearing midnight, but I need your full cooperation" Lucas watched the masked man with a long nose and foreign accent get the attention of the party's people via microphone. "My dear Satine-"He brought the girl in the campaign Can Can dress to the center stage. "-has lost something dear to her. A necklace that is close to her heart. A sliver chain with a pink diamond ribbon latched on. Now I know going out on a search party isn't what we all want to do, but if it's necessary than by golly we will do it. So if you've already found it please do return it to its rightful owner or you can always hand it to me, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec or my good friend The Duke."
Lucas watched on from the far end of the room. Knowing immediately that the girl he had a run in with outside was indeed Peyton, but for some reason going by the name of Satine. How he knew was obvious. The necklace in his pocket held all the answers. That's when it clicked. The theme Moulin Rouge the names all belonging to its characters.
"Yes yeh there." Fin pointed to the back of the room. "What's yer name?"
"Christian." Lucas spoke going along with their game as Satine's one and only love; assuming that the masked man calling to him was Fin and the one standing next to Peyton was Oliver.
"Well that's some sort of coincidence." He said into the microphone, but looking at Peyton. "Christian" He turned back to look at the crowd. "-what can you do for us?"
"I can do many of things. After all without Satine I would have never experienced a first love. Without me Satine would have not known a love as grand as the one we share-" he grinned the entire time even after he was cut short.
"Someone sure sounds cocky." Oliver took the microphone out of Fin's hands. "Listen, if you have nothing else for us-"
"Satine, how do I love thee? Let me count the ways. I love thee to the depth and breadth and height my soul can reach, when feeling out of sight. For the ends of Being and ideal Grace. I love thee to the level of everyday's most quiet need, by sun and candle-light. I love thee freely, as men strive for Right; I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise. I love thee with the passion put to use. In my old grief's, and with my childhood's faith. I love thee with a love I seemed to lose. With my lost saints,—I love thee with the breath, smiles, tears, of all my life!—and, if God choose, I shall but love thee better after death. Satine."
Peyton's breath came to a halt as she studied 'Christian'. His eyes as blue as the Atlantic Ocean's waves, his jaw chiseled like the North American rocky mountains, and his skin as smooth as the sand of the Arabian desert.
Lucas, she mouthed his name unable to let an auditable tone out. It was impossible, it had to be. He couldn't be here not when he had family back in Tree Hill to celebrate the holidays with. It was an absurd idea that she let past her brain and an even more ridiculous notion that she even tried to believe it.
The large wooden antique known as the Grandfather clock, that was placed in the corner, let out a thunderous dong. It was only five minutes before midnight, three hundred seconds till the new year, the music began and the party goers forgot all about Christian and his declaration.
Lucas seemed to get lost in the heads of people around him, bodies moving past him rapidly like when you go to take a picture of people moving and all you get is a blurred image that's the only thing his eyes would see hazy colored shadows swaying past him laughing as they were swung to one side. He tried to move past them but somehow always seemed to get cut off; his only other option was to back away and try to find another route to her.
Peyton looked on peering through the peepholes in her mask trying to locate this Christian fella to prove her head right and show that her heart was wrong all along; that this guy was indeed a Christian the coincidence nothing more than that. She stepped off of the large pedestal stage and walked through to where she had last spotted him.
Ten.
The countdown already beginning, but she didn't seem at all interested as glasses were overfilled with crisp wine or Champaign; the extra contents falling to the floor.
Nine.
She had reached her destination only to find that he indeed was gone. She looked to her right than to her left unsure of where exactly he might have gone. Everyone in masks made the task a bit more difficult seeing as how every man except for Fin and Oliver was wearing a single face mask of course each one with different colors, but there were more than a handful wearing a black and gold one.
Eight.
She spun around slowly at a one hundred and eighty degree angle feeling the black ruffles of her under dress get caught in between her thighs before falling into place.
Seven.
Lucas had made it to the side of the stage, finding that she wasn't there he hopped on with a single leap and stood in the middle getting a better view atop everyone's head.
Six.
He scanned carefully looking for the white pearled embroidered mask until he was sure he found it.
Five.
The people gathering close to the person closest to them ready to get their first kiss of the New Year before they toasted to it.
Four.
Feeling a presence behind her she didn't seemed fazed by it considering she was too busy keeping her eyes peeled for a certain guy who had insisted he was the Christian to her Satine.
Three.
The smell of lavender filled his nostrils as he stood close behind her bringing his hands over her head.
Two.
The odd sensation of something lukewarm touching her skin as hot hands hovered behind her neck caught her attention; the light weight pendent resting on her chest where she almost couldn't feel it. Gazing down Peyton held the diamond ribbon in between her thumb and index finger caressing it softly.
One.
"They are not you." He whispered into her ear his warm breath sending goose bumps down her arms. It was the same words she had written across the faceless picture of him, but she hadn't known there was more meaning to it. When he said those words to her he had meant that all the women in this world, whether they were trying to hit on him or not, would never compare to Peyton because she's the one for him.
She spun herself quickly only to be met with a pair of gorgeous blue eyes staring back at her. She didn't have time speak feeling his fingers brush across hers while she held onto the ruffles as if it were for dear life and feeling them loosen from the netted fabric once he intertwined theirs together. He didn't snake his arm around her back and bring her close, something inside of him screaming that it was all too soon, so he did the next best thing and convoluted their fingers together and touched his lips to her and quickly she allowed him entrance.
Happy New Year.
The crowd shouted clinking their glasses together, whistling, hollering, and throwing confetti into the air unaware that the festivities had seemed to fall on deaf ears and blind eyes to the two lovers who continued to hold hands.
Pulling away only came to be when breathing became a huge factor between the two. He rested his forehead on hers and truly smiled for the first time.
"Luke?" She asked almost afraid of what the outcome might be.
"Peyt." He answered back."There's something I need to tell you-" He began, but was cut off once again bythe softness of her lips.
"Not here, not now." Peyton told him once they pulled apart. "Follow me."
She led him out to the backyard to one of the lighted vacant round tent. It wasn't your average camping tent, but one that could have been used to house American Settlers during the prairie days; the large tan sheets rounded at the top was held up by seven poles all around. There were about five of them set out in the back yard, you would be able to tell that half of them were occupied by the shadows that moved in them.
Peyton had removed her mask letting it hang loosely onto her finger tips while she waited for Lucas to do the same. She was sure her face was flushed, but didn't seem to mind moving a piece of strand away from her face.
He carefully lifted the mask as if it was proof to what she wasn't sure she already knew.
She wrapped her arms around his neck quickly attacking his lips forgetting that he had something to say and he losing focus when all he tasted was her sweetness. Sure she could yell at him for all that he's put her and them through, but all this was going by so fast. In the heat of passion, in the heat of the night, in the damn heat of it all for Christ sake.
The tent's flap opening wide. "Oh my bloody eyes." Fin had walked in searching for Peyton hoping that she would be alright after all that she's been through. He hadn't thought he'd see her, in his words dry humping a guy. "I can't see." He turned quickly. "I can't blooming see. I think I've gone blind." He blinked rapidly trying to adjust his orbs to the quick change of lighting his mouth open as he did so.
"Fin." Peyton shrieked and Lucas hid his disguise once again with a mask. "What are you doing here?"
"I came to see why yeh weren't at the bash celebrating and now I can see why. In turn it has cursed me with loss of sight."
"Stop being such a nancy boy. Do you think Hemmingway ever gave a crap on walking in on his friend making out with a guy?"
" Firstly I wouldn't mind so much, but yeh're more like a sister and when Madeleine was off snogging her boyfriends do yeh think I cheered them on? I think not. Secondly Hemingway blew his brains out, also. How much of a role model do you want me to make this guy?" The heat had been gone, the passion along with it. Thanks a lot Fin. "Listen, I have to go throw acid in my eyes just to get them to stop burning from what I've just witnessed. Keep it PG when I get back will yeh?"
"So." Lucas dragged out the O sound once he was sure the intruder was out of earshot.
"What are you doing here Luke?"
"Since we're getting straight to the point? I came to see you."
"Why? When you successfully dodged me every time back in Tree Hill."
"I know and I was a jerk for that. God, Peyton, I'm so sorry."
"Sorry for ignoring me, breaking up with me, or assuming I didn't trust you?"
"For all of it. I might sound like a jackass, but I didn't consider what you were going through. Any of it." He cupped her face with the palm of his hand. "It's not like you chose to hide all of this and who goes on bragging about all of their families fortunate luck and yet they're living in a small town as Tree Hill driving around in old cars."
"I love that car." Peyton defended.
"I know you do and so do I. I just get it now, Peyt. I understand why you had to do what you did and I don't blame you for not telling me. You did it because your dad asked you to and I could never ask let alone force you to go against your dad's wishes."
They stared tenderly at one another not knowing what to say. It's what she's wanted him to say to her for three weeks already.
"Luke?"
"Yeah?"
"I think you should go back home to Tree Hill, now."
"What?" That surely wasn't exactly what he was expecting. "Why?"
"I need to process all of this. Plus, if we do decide to try again later on after you do some major groveling I'm going to need you alive and seeing as you're on Fin and Oli's hit list it wouldn't be wise for you to stick around a second longer because they'll come back looking for me in about a minute." She smiled.
There was that bit of hope again.
"Groveling, huh?"
"What can I say Brooke's taught me well."
Once more Lucas met his lips with Peyton's in a fair well kiss before he headed out the back of the tent.
"Go, get out of here."
He turned to leave, but looked back once. "I'm in love you, Peyton." He told her for the first time before he disappeared into the darkness.
Eight seconds later Fin and Oliver were making their way into the interior of the tent.
Name of Title is a song by Bryan Adams
A/N: There you have it ladies and gentlemen. Next chapter will take place back in Tree Hill and it will be the school shooting chapter just for a heads up. As always review because they make me happy and laugh sometimes at what y'all have to say :D