Thanks for all the reviews! I'm glad everyone likes where the story is going. I know that I've had Peyton and Lucas dancing around the relationship for a long time, but they will be together by the end of this story. Here's the next chapter, hope you enjoy!

Chapter 14 When the Bottom Drops

It was almost four on a Tuesday morning and Peyton was just beginning to fall asleep, her pencil falling from her hand and landing with a soft tap on the sketchpad that sat on her bed. Sleep came even less frequently in her new apartment, but it gave her more time to work on her artwork. That was the justification she had to give herself almost every day. She was awakened from her tiny catnap when she heard a thud in the outer hallway. Sitting up, her senses immediately alert, Peyton gripped the pillow that had been sitting in front of her. She listened for another moment and realized in horror that the sounds were coming from right outside her own door. She reached out and attempted to grab the telephone, but she had apparently left the cordless out of its charger. Silently scolding herself, she quietly stood and walked slowly towards the kitchen counter, where she knew her purse and cell phone to be. Her hand was on her purse when the door was roughly forced open.

The sun had barely risen Tuesday morning when Lucas was awoken by the sound of his telephone, ringing mercilessly from its cradle beside his bed. His eyes still closed, he picked it up and answered in a brusque voice still drenched in sleep.

"May I speak to Lucas Scott?"

"Speaking," he said gruffly, hoping for this woman's sake that she wasn't a telemarketer calling that early in the morning.

"Mr. Scott, I'm calling from the University medical center. We have a patient who was just brought in, Peyton Sawyer—" Lucas sat up with a jolt and jumped out of bed, any fragment of sleep quickly gone.

"Is she alright, what happened?"

"Mr. Scott, calm down. Ms. Sawyer is fine. You were the local contact in her medical file and she needs someone to take her home."

"I'll be there in ten minutes," Lucas said without a pause. "Where is she?" As soon as the woman told him where he could find Peyton, he hung up the phone, threw on a shirt and khakis, and flew out the door. He reached the hospital in record time and jogged the stairs to the fourth floor, not bothering to wait for the elevator. She was sitting in a waiting room of sorts, her pajama clad legs pulled to her chest and her forehead resting on her knees. Using her cascade of curls as a curtain was useless in hiding her identity; Lucas would have known those golden locks anywhere. He slowed down as he approached her, not wanting to scare her with his current panic. There was a woman, probably a nurse, sitting on the other side of her and apparently trying to offer her something to drink. She noticed Lucas approaching and stood up.

"Here, you try," the nurse said gently as she handed the glass of juice to Lucas. "The doctor will be out to talk to you in a minute. Then you can take her home." Lucas nodded and set the glass down on a nearby table before sitting next to Peyton.

"Hey," he said gently. He tried to get her to look at him but she refused, keeping her head buried in her knees.

"They shouldn't have called you," she said with what Lucas believed to be a sob.

"Peyton, just tell me what happened. Or at least look at me." She finally did, and he attempted not to gasp when he saw the recently formed bruises and several scratches that covered her beautiful face. Her eyes were red and puffy, probably from the tears she was currently fighting. "What happened to you?" His voice was strained now, almost of the verge of tears himself.

"It's nothing—" she said in a whisper. Lucas was about to challenge that comment when the doctor interrupted him.

"Ms. Sawyer, are you sure we can't convince you to stay?" Peyton shook her head firmly before the doctor could continue.

"Do you think she should?" Lucas asked, ignoring Peyton's protests.

"I think it would be best if she stayed for observation but I can't force her. She's over eighteen; the hospital cannot hold her against her will."

"Peyton, maybe it's not a bad idea. Just to make sure—"

"No," she said firmly, her eyes pleading with Lucas.

"Ms. Sawyer, a few of those wounds had to be stitched and those broken ribs are going to make it difficult to get around. Coupled with the trauma of the attack and clinical exhaustion—"

"I want to go home," she told Lucas, who nodded and looked apologetically at the doctor.

"Let me talk to him alone for a minute," Lucas said gently. Peyton nodded and watched as they both walked outside of the waiting room, speaking in low voices on the other side of the glass wall.

"She's just going to be difficult if she's kept here," Lucas said as soon as they were out of hearing range.

"Are you the boyfriend?"

"If that's what works," Lucas mumbled.

"Pardon?"

"Yeah," Lucas answered quickly. "What happened? What's this about an attack?"

"The police would know more. They called for the ambulance. Something about an intruder. She wasn't too badly hurt. She got a hold of the police before too much damage was done but she was already suffering, as far as I can tell, from clinical exhaustion. These are prescriptions for sleeping pills, pain medication, and an antibiotic. Make sure she takes them all. I'd say physical activity is out for at least two weeks. Too much movement is going to pull those stitches and the ribs are going to hurt for a long time. She should make an appointment with her primary care doctor as soon as possible."

"He would be back in North Carolina," Lucas answered.

"I can have the nurse give you a few names for here in New York."

"We'd appreciate that," Lucas said with a nod. "Can I take her home now?"

"Yes. Keep an eye on her for the next few nights. If anything starts to hurt more or she develops a fever, bring her back in."

"Will do. Thanks," Lucas said as he stuck his hand out to shake the doctor's hand. He turned back to Peyton and saw that she was now lying across two chairs, curled up in a ball. Regardless of all the time he had spent telling himself that she was not the one, Lucas couldn't help but see the woman of his dreams every time he looked at her; no matter whether she was dressed elegantly for some dance or still in her pajamas.

"Where are your shoes?" Lucas asked when he saw that her feet were bare.

"I don't know." Her voice was a bit confused, a sign he took as positive. The scary scenarios occurred when she refused to show emotion.

"Okay," he answered nonchalantly. "Come on." Without waiting for her approval, he picked her up and carried her toward the exit and then into the nearest waiting cab.

"You're just trying to show off," she teased weakly.

Lucas carried her back to his apartment and tucked her in under the familiar blue and gray comforter his mother had picked out and brought from North Carolina. His bed was now in the bedroom, right where her queen-sized bed had previously stood. While the room looked a little bare, it was still more familiar and comforting to her than anything in her new apartment. They had stopped at the hospital pharmacy long enough to fill the prescriptions and so Lucas was handing her pills as soon as he had enough time to pour a glass of juice.

"I don't need them," she argued weakly.

"Peyton, take the pills. You're lucky they even let you out of the hospital. You don't want to wind up back there." With that thought in mind, she took the three pills and swallowed them in one gulp of apple juice. The nurse from earlier that day had been trying to tempt her with orange juice; apparently Lucas knew better.

"I can't stay here—"

"Would you just shut up for a while? You're not moving from this bed until further notice, got it?" Peyton didn't answer but also didn't argue immediately, which Lucas took as a good sign. She fell asleep less than ten minutes later, right in the middle of an argument over whether or not she was going to stay in the apartment. She contended that it was perfectly safe for her to return to her new apartment while Lucas declared that would happen over his dead body. Luckily she fell asleep before she threatened him with any bodily harm. Lucas tucked the covers around her and dropped a kiss on her forehead before going out into the living room and grabbing his telephone. After he alerted his brother and sister-in-law to the situation, he sat back and tried to calmly replay the day. It was impossible considering he was no longer exactly sure which day it was.

"Luke?" Haley didn't knock on his door anymore. Now that she had her own key and the doorman knew to let her in, she often walked in as though entering her own home. He often wondered if that was how Peyton had felt in Tree Hill, when no one ever felt the need to knock before walking into her house. "Luke, is she alright?"

"She's fine now," Lucas answered. "In the bedroom." Haley dropped her coat on a chair and hurried back to the bedroom, leaving the two brothers sitting together in utter confusion. Nathan wasn't exactly sure what was going on and Lucas wasn't exactly sure what to do. Together, they were the perfect combination of completely clueless and helplessly baffled.

"So what happened?"

"I'm not really sure," Lucas answered. "The nurse was pretty cryptic and Peyton's not exactly fit for sharing right now. But apparently someone tried to break into her apartment. And she got roughed up in the process."

"Did he—" The look of horror on Nathan's face supplied the question he couldn't bring himself to ask.

"No," Lucas answered quickly. "She fended him off. The doctor seemed to think the police were impressed that she held the creep off for so long."

"I can't believe we let her stay in that building," Nathan said seething. "I knew it sounded off, but I let it go—"

"If I wouldn't have been so wrapped up in my own ego she never would have left in the first place," Lucas said in commiseration.

"I guess it is more your fault," Nathan said with a nod, followed quickly by an elbow to the side by his brother.

"She can't go back there," Lucas said after a few minutes of silence.

"Yeah, but she's not to happy with you, so I don't think she wants to stay here."

"I don't care what she wants. It's not safe." Nathan nodded and the two brothers began to concoct a plan that would keep Peyton in their field of vision and out of harms way.

The title for this chapter comes from Vanessa Carleton's "Paradise."