Disclaimer: I do not own One Tree Hill or any of its characters.

Overdose of Pain, Onslaught of Reality

Chapter 35

Life can change in the blink of an eye. The most you can do is try and keep up.

Nathan watched in shocked amusement as Lucas picked himself off the floor. He had passed out when he had read the headlines and his face had grown chalky white. Now, he was shaking horribly and Nathan thought he was going to pass out again.

"Luke? You okay?"

Lucas looked at Nathan, his face full of shock. He slowly shook his head.

"Not really."

His voice was somehow calm and composed, despite his outward appearance. Still, as Nathan watched carefully, Lucas drew in a couple of breaths and the color began to come back to his face.

"So… What are we going to do about Dan?" Nathan asked.

"What can we do?" Lucas retorted. He sat on the old ratty couch and leaned back. "I think we should call Keith."

Someone you've known and loved for many years can just up and leave at any second without any reason as to why they're leaving.

Lucas answered his cell phone, half awake the morning after Nathan's birthday party. He was sore and hurting all over from the bruises Dan had inflicted on him. His ribs hurt the worst.

Lucas was staying at Peyton's until the police department could force Dan into signing the emancipation papers that would make him officially on his own.

Peyton was curled up next to him, fast asleep. She had freaked out when she had seen his appearance last night, but didn't fuss over him like Nathan had been doing earlier that night.

"Hello?" he managed to croak, wincing at the effort it took him to speak.

"I'm sorry, Luke. I'm moving back to Virginia," Keith said. The background noise sounded like he was driving.

"Why?" was all Lucas could ask.

"It's not important," Keith said. Lucas could tell that his uncle was lying, but decided to ignore it.

"Will you ever come back?"

"Probably not. I'm sorry, kid, but there's some things I need to get away from here."

"Dan's in jail. Nathan and I turned him in last night."

"Are you okay, Luke?"

Keith knew all about the child abuse Dan was doing towards Lucas. He had actually witnessed it once, but up until last night, Lucas refused to let anyone help him.

"He ended up trying to stab me with a knife. I'm fine," Lucas lied, wincing as he breathed in too deeply. His ribs were killing him!

"That's good. Look, I'm sorry I'm not going to be there to look after you and all, but it's your…"
The phone on the other line was cut off. Lucas sighed and shut his phone, before crawling back under the blankets next to Peyton.

"Who was that?" she murmured sleepily. Lucas kissed her on the forehead before answering.

"That was Keith. He's moving to Virginia."
"I'm sorry, Luke," she whispered, before inching closer to him. "Are you okay?"

No, Lucas thought. I feel like shit and my uncle is moving. Instead, he said, "Yeah, I'm fine."

"I love you, Lucas Scott."

"I love you, too, Peyton Sawyer."

"You positive, Luke? It has been two years since we've seen him," Nathan reminded him. "And he didn't exactly leave a good reason for leaving."

"I know!" Lucas half-shouted. "But what else can I do? Peyton and Haley are in the hospital, Brooke's in the process of moving back to Wilmington, and Deb is dead!"

"There's a chance that he doesn't know you where you live," Nathan suggested. "You don't have to go anywhere, just stay here!"

"What about school? What about basketball, Nate? It is my last year here and I don't want him ruining it for me."

"Lucas…"

"No. You know what? I'm going to see Peyton!"

Lucas grabbed his sweatshirt from the couch cushion and stormed out the door, slamming it loudly behind him.

To see the person you have had a huge crush on since the seventh grade and have been in love with for the past two years lying on the ground, looking like she had just been through a round of Dan beating up on her is frightening. Seeing your best friend lying next to her, and knowing that you're the cause of both of them being there is terrifying.

Two years after Nathan's fifteenth birthday party, Lucas found himself at Henry's, trying to decide whether or not to go in. He had sworn to himself that he wouldn't drink anything, but he had had an extremely long day and just wanted to get away from it all.

Footsteps behind him reminded Lucas of the company with him tonight. Both Peyton and Haley had decided to come with him on their way to the movie theater. They knew about the day Lucas had had and wanted to keep him from doing anything completely stupid.

"Lucas, come on! The movie is starting in twenty minutes!" Haley urged, taking a few steps in the other direction. Peyton, however, put her hand on his shoulder.

"You okay?" she asked in his ear. "Mr. Howard was being a dick. You didn't do anything wrong."

"I know," Lucas said back, feeling drawn to the smell of alcohol and sounds of loud music. "It's just nerve-wracking, having him berate me in front of the entire class like that."

"Lucas! Come on!" Haley yelled, laughing at something ahead.

"Come on, Luke! I really want to go see this movie!" Peyton begged, taking his hand and tugging him forward. "Please!"

"All right," Lucas agreed, taking a few steps forward.

Suddenly, three men, all drunk, came out of the bar. They spotted Lucas, Peyton, and Haley and walked after them.

"Hey, sweetheart!" the tallest, fattest, ugliest one yelled to Peyton. The blonde girl ignored them, while Lucas turned around.

"Come on!" Haley hissed, pulling on his hand. Lucas sighed and let Haley lead him away from the men.

The men, however, weren't through with them. The leanest of the three caught up and grabbed Peyton on the hand. Lucas and Haley hadn't noticed that their friend was with them; they were instead talking about the science project a little ways ahead.

"Hey, my friend was talking to you! I would advise you to answer!" he said. Peyton tried to squeeze out of his grasp, but couldn't.

"Lucas!" she screamed, just as the guy holding her took out a knife.

"Say another word and you're dead," he threatened, pressing the blade to her throat.

Peyton whimpered, but said nothing. Lucas, having heard the scream, turned and was now racing back towards her.

"Lucas!" she shouted again as one of the other men met him halfway. It was the biggest of the three, while the other one went after Haley.

The last thing Peyton saw before everything went blank was Lucas being punched in the left side of his ribs…

Lucas winced from the blow, feeling the already weakened spot break under contact. He managed to throw in a punch or two more before the guy backed off. Lucas tensed, expecting another attack.

That's when he saw Nathan… and Haley. Haley was lying on the ground, unconscious, with Nathan standing over her, cell phone in hand.

"Lucas!" he yelled, just before everything went black.

The last thing Lucas saw was Peyton and he prayed to God that she would live.

The utmost feeling of fear is when you are completely helpless.

Lucas paced around the small waiting room of Tree Hill Hospital, waiting for news of Peyton. She had been rushed back into surgery for the third time since she was admitted to the hospital six weeks ago. This time, her kidneys started to fail due to the poison one of the strangers had put into her system.

"Sawyer family?" a doctor called, nearly two hours after Lucas had arrived at the hospital.

"That's me," Lucas said, stopping his pacing and walked over to the doctor. "How is she?"

"Not good. We aren't sure what kind of drug is in her system, so we can't treat her," the doctor said grimly, putting his hand on Lucas's shoulder. "I'm sorry, son, but until we find more information, I don't think Ms. Sawyer or Ms. James are going to make it through the end of the month."

The moments in your life that you are dreading tend to show up faster than those that you are looking forward to. Things like seeing your abusive father for the first time in two years tend to come at you like a freight train, while waiting for your friend to wake up comes slower than Christmas.

Brooke sat next to Haley in the same spot she had been sitting in for the past three weeks. No one else dared to touch the chair that she sat in now. It was unofficially dubbed her chair.

Haley had been better off than Peyton had in the beginning, because Nathan had arrived in time to beat the other guy's brains out, while Peyton had to fend for herself because of the jerk that attacked Lucas. Now, it didn't matter who was better off in the beginning. If they couldn't find the name of the drug and the antidote fast, there wouldn't be a Haley James or a Peyton Sawyer any longer.

Brooke had only left the hospital when Lucas did, so maybe once every five days or so. She could care less about school and friends. The only thing that really mattered in her life at that moment was Haley.

Brooke used the time alone with her unconscious cousin to think about how her life had changed over the past two years. First of all, at the end of the month regardless of whether Haley made it or not, Brooke was moving to Wilmington with her parents. She had fought and bitched about that for three months, but in the end, her parents won. What threw them over the edge was Haley being attacked on the street. The second thing she thought about, and quite often, was how her life had gotten so out of wak. Before Haley moved in and she started hanging out with Lucas again, Brooke had been the pretty, popular non-cheerleader of the school. She had been vice president of the student council for three years in a row, everybody's best friend, and though her grades weren't perfect, model student for the entire ninth and tenth grade.

It was the end of tenth grade and the start of her junior year when things actually started changing. Perhaps for the better, perhaps for the worse, it was really your point of view on things. Brooke's grades had come up from high C's and low B's, she had even more friends, she was now president of the student council, and she was a cheerleader. But there was something missing from her life, something that she couldn't quite put her finger on.

"Brooke."

Lucas's soft voice at the doorway made Brooke look up. His blue eyes were frightened and full of guilt. Something bad had happened.

"What is it, Luke?" she asked, preparing herself for the worst.

"It's not either of the girls," Lucas promised, looking down at his feet. After knowing Lucas for nearly five years, Brooke could tell when something was up. Now was definitely the time.

"What is it?" Brooke asked again, feeling a cold pit of dread hit her stomach.

Nathan sat on the apartment's steps, waiting for Taylor to drop by to give him a lift to the hospital. Lucas had called ten minutes earlier, barely able to talk, telling him that Haley and Peyton more than likely would die before the month was up. Nathan couldn't comprehend it, it was too awful. Peyton and Haley, the two girls Nathan loved most in the world, gone… The thought was unbearable.

"Well, well, well," an all too familiar voice said as a person cast a shadow over Nathan. The young teen looked up, only to see the one face in the world he never wanted to see again.

Dan Scott loomed above Nathan, glaring down at his son.

Life can change in the blink of an eye. The most you can do is try and keep up.

The quote at the beginning and the end is from Ferris Buler's Day Off. I rewrote it a tad, but that's where it mostly came from. The rest of the quotes I made up myself.

I rewrote this chapter about a billion times (nearly literally), before I finally gave up and completely deleted all the things I had written. I then wrote this chapter. I am still not happy with the way it turned out, but at least it beat my page quota that I set for each chapter.

Review please! They are my inspiration. If not for you guys, I would have deleted this story a long time ago before I ever hit thirty chapters. That, with help from Stormstar... Thank you so much guys!