Title: Then it Rained
Author: Treesh Aradia
Rating: PT
Disclaimer: Not mine
Spoilers: Where we are now
Summary: She left and never planned to come back, not when everything is going so well. Then it rained.

Pairing: Leyton. Peyton, Lucas.

Then it Rained

She never wanted to come back again, preferring the metropolis culture than the close knitted customs that was prevalent in Tree Hill. But her flat tire and exhausted disposition from her six hour drive made her stop and get a room at the motel off the side of the road. It's not the way she dressed that attributed to the muted silence and disbelieving glances in the café but the familiarity of her face, that and the fact that she was once a Tree Hill Princess.

She wishes she had curbed her coffee impulses and wasn't such a bean addict, maybe then she would not have to deal with the person at the booth.

"Peyton Sawyer?"

The voice that was once a welcome reprieve from the chaos that was her life now only served to grate her fraying nerves. She rolls her eyes and turns, smile ever ready. "Brooke?"

"Oh my god! P.Sawyer it's been too long!" And suddenly there is an Armani blur as the boom box flies off her seat and rushes to crush Peyton in a vice-like embrace.

She waits and realizes that the grip will not budge unless she pats the attention grabbing, label conscious, ex-cheerleading-pep-rally woman. So calmly, like a red-faced red-neck at an anger management meeting, she reaches with controlled calm, and pats her…acquaintance. "It's nice to see you too Brooke."

She gets a rude shock as Brooke pushes her back with much gusto, "don't you nice to see you too! You horrid biatch. What happened to keeping in touch?"

Peyton laughs. How can one be so clueless, especially since they are a long way since high school. She shrugs. "Been busy, and I really did want to come back sooner."

Lies.

"Well, I'm glad you're back. What have you been doing? Gosh has it been five years? You left after graduation and never came back P.Sawyer!"

I never wanted to. I still don't.

She smiles, letting her …friend talk. She preferred it better this way, it was familiar.

"So anyway, everyone's here, well of course without Hayley and Nathan. They've separated and Hayley's off singing at some gig thing, you know, she was on MTV the other day and Nate's been busy running his own company in the east coast, he moved out two years ago…"

She listens without listening and nods mechanically and at appropriate moments, thinking about whether she would have to hear about him and his marriage to the woman currently in her face. "And Lucas is coming home for the Christmas eve dinner tomorrow, he's living in New York, doing even better than Nate, if you can believe that."

She pauses and actually looks at Brooke this time round. "What?"

Brooke rolls her eyes. "If you were listening at all, I said that Lucas is an attorney in some high flying firm in New York. He's been living it up I guess, even though he does seem as broody as usual. If that makes any sense. He calls sometimes, which is more than I can say for you!"

Just the mention of his name sends her into panic mode. All the previous bottled up fear, anxiety and… passion suddenly bounces off the walls of her sanity. She left because of her father, and him. After Larry decided to get another job closer to Manhattan she realizes that having two houses when they were just one family was stupid. That and that she had nothing really going for her in Tree Hill, made her leave and start anew in New York. His relationship, and his blind, illogical devotion to her best friend then was something she never really opened disapproved but rankled her in private and she was glad she left before it started weighing down on her. There was enough on her plate then.

And she left without much fan fare and no word at all to the people whom she had spend the better years of her teenage years with. Save for the heartfelt letter to Nathan, whose impression of she has since come to reanalyze for the better and whose companionship during those last few months have sealed their friendship. And the little "Goodbye I am leaving here is my number" note for Hayley and Brooke. Of whom, she has since then come to realize were not really people whom she would want much in her life.

The fact that Nathan was her friend and Hayley's betrayal hurt not only him but her as she was left in the dark about it all when Hayley should have talked to her, made her a candidate for the Peyton can't care enough to write you properly goodbye card. And Brooke. Well Brooke she was never really fair to. She was already without a few brownie points when Peyton herself became second choice and a mistake. What sealed the deal was the fact that Brooke could potentially harm her relationship with him by being insensitive and reckless (and with CHRIS?).

"Peyton! You never change. Anyway you will come by right? I am not leaving you till you agree, dinner starts at seven!"

And it was then that Peyton realizes much too late that she has just obliviously agreed to reopening all the wounds and discords in her life. She was expected for dinner.