This entire story is for Maggie, but I just thought I'd say it again. Here you go, impatient one.

Hard to Find

Two Steps Back, One Step Forward

Some days are better than others. Peyton Sawyer knows this better than anyone, and it's this same thing that causes her to hesitate at the threshold of the apartment. On the other side could wait one of two things. One could be a calm man, broken but content, playing the hand dealt to him. Or she could find an angry, bitter guy, raging like a man possessed. Either way, she would find her friend on the ledge he had been teetering on for the past few weeks. Pushing open the door with only the quickest of knocks, she sighed to herself.

Well, it's one or the other.

If a tornado had swept through Tree Hill and Peyton had somehow slept through it, the apartment of Nathan Scott would certainly prove it to her. The video game controllers were tangled on the floor. Beer cans were strewn all about. Clothing was tossed haphazardly around the room, including shirts on the kitchen counter and boxers hanging from the lamp shade. Anxiety began to gather in her stomach, wondering exactly how much she'd see when she finally saw her friend.

"Nate? Nathan, you here?" she called, mentally smacking herself in the head. Of course he was here. Who the hell else would be? Haley's been gone for months, and Lucas has finally stopped babysitting. Instead, they alternated checking up on him, trying to make it appear as casual as possible. She had first argued against this idea, knowing that though Nathan wasn't the sharpest tool in the shed, but even he would catch on that every third day, the same people would arrive at his doorstep. But Lucas refused to relent, and so their schedule took off.

"Yeah Peyt, I'm in my room," she heard his voice, slightly raised, call from the back room. A small smile crossed her face at his words. For the first few weeks, he had continued to refer to everything as theirs, and ours. It was their apartment, it was their bedroom, it was their marriage. But now half of them was gone, and it was his apartment, his bedroom, and his broken heart. It was sad, but strangely refreshing. A step in the right direction, anyway. Heading down the hall, she stepped carefully around his open overnight bag, still half-full, and shook her head sadly at the story it told.

She found herself in a situation so similar to the one she found now. Clothes all over, luggage on the floor. But this time, Nathan Scott was hopping around in the midst of the madness, tugging on tube socks as he threw a t-shirt into his bag.

"Nate?" she questioned, and he finally stopped, as if just noticing her there. The smile she hadn't seen in weeks spread across his handsome face. The true, happy, million-watt smile. They had known each other since kindergarten, and she had seen this expression so many times since, but it warmed her heart to see it now after all this had happened.

"Hey Peyton, what's up?" he stilled, hastily doing up the zipper on the nearest black bag and tossing it onto the couch. There was a twinkle in his eye that seemed out of place in the apartment that reeked of emptiness, and she raised a pale eyebrow in the luggage's direction.

"I thought maybe you'd want to get some pizza, or whatever. Maybe hang out with Jake and Jenny?" she shifted, realizing after the words had left her mouth exactly how lame they sounded. Her love for Jake was seeping in through her brain again, infecting her thoughts and revealing itself through her words. God, she couldn't even comfort a friend without thoughts of him sitting at home, just a few blocks away. Nathan didn't seem offended or turned off by this at all, an amused smile forming.

"Very appealing, but I'm going to have to pass."

"Oh, come on Nate! We can hang out with Brooke and Lucas. Or, I could hang out with Brooke, and you could hang out with Lucas. Or you could hang out with Brooke, I guess. I'm not sure if you'd ever really want to do that, but there's always that possibility—" Peyton rambled on, ways to get him out of the house. She flinched. With the way she was babbling on, she was even reminding herself of Haley, and she knew how easily Nathan went off lately.

"I can't just hang out with you?" he teased good-naturedly.

"That was option E," she grinned.

"Well, you should've started off with that fine offer. Maybe when I get back, okay Peyt?" he kneeled in front of the couch, tying his shoes.

"Oka—hey, wait, where are you going?" she plopped down onto the couch, forcing him to face her.

"Atlanta," he said nonchalantly, looking up and meeting her eyes while his fingers continued to work at the laces of his shoes, so used to the movements that he no longer needed to look to be sure of himself. Much of Nathan was like that. It was one of the things most people admired about him, once they got to know him. It could come off as arrogance, but once Nathan knew what he was supposed to be doing, he never second guessed himself. He believed in himself, and so he succeeded. As a note Brooke had cruelly and drunkenly passed around once said, "Believing you'll do well is half the battle".

"And why is that?" Peyton pried.

"Because I'm going to get Haley," said Nathan, and she recognized the new tone of his voice as that of sheer determination. That explained the smile, she knew. It was at this moment when she realized that nothing she could say or do would make a difference. An ominous feeling began to grow within her, and she could practically feel her heart sinking. Instead, she pasted on an encouraging smile.

"Then go get her Nate. But hurry back, okay? I like this whole friendship thing everybody's been doing lately," she explained lamely, but honestly. If Brooke and Lucas and Nathan and Peyton, two of Tree Hill High's most infamous couples, both of which had gone down in flames, could find themselves the best of friends, anything was possible. Peyton herself was currently waiting on an end to world hunger, but it appeared that Nathan was reaching for something less far-fetched. She just hoped it wasn't something equally hard to attain.

"Aww, look at Peyton Sawyer getting all sentimental," he laughed, and she slapped his arm playfully.

"Do not mock my affections," she said crisply, in a British accent that the blonde made thoroughly obnoxious.

He laughed again, louder this time, as he tackled her backwards. She couldn't remember the last time they had done this, but she was enjoying having back Nathan instead of pod-Nathan, so she certainly wouldn't complain. His hard chest was pressed firmly against her much softer frame, and she could hear him inhale the scent of her hair.

"I'll be back before you know it," he whispered into her ear. "And then everything can be normal again."

Part of her wanted to whisper that at age seventeen, having two of your also-seventeen year old best friends married was not normal, even when one wasn't running off to become a rock star. But she couldn't bear to burst the happy little bubble of hope that had sprung up and found herself conjuring up another fake smile.

"I'll try not to miss you too much," she scoffed, exaggerating a roll of her large hazel eyes for effect.

"Please, we both know that's not possible," he smirked, brushing a light kiss against her forehead. She wrapped her arms more tightly around his back, leaving zero space between them. That feeling within told her that this was the last time she would see Nathan Scott whole in a very long time. She couldn't help but think that the lashing out they had seen prior would be nothing compared to the shell he would become if all didn't go exactly as he planned. She held onto this Nathan, the one she had known all her life, because she didn't know the next time she'd be able to. She only let go when she felt him shift above her, and remembered how awkward their position was. He was virtually pinning her to the couch. She unwound her arms, pulling them back to her and pushing him backwards slightly.

"Well, now that we've established I'm going to miss you, you can get off of me, because I sort of can't breathe."

Taking two steps back, she angrily kicked the bag. A large portion of her was hoping that some mysterious voodoo would kick in, and Haley James (Scott?) could feel exactly what was happening to the baggage. Then again, if that was true, she'd probably have to drag it outside and run it over a few times. Peyton could remember clearly what had happened the day he left, and she could also remember exactly what happened the night he came back.

"Sorry," he croaked from the doorway. "I forgot to ring the bell."

Acting casual, as if she had not just spent the last ten minutes sitting completely rigidly in her bed while hearing strange shuffling noises downstairs, Peyton nodded.

"No, it's cool. What's up?" she raked her fingers through her long blonde curls. Suddenly it dawned on her who she was talking to. "NATHAN! Oh my God, when did you get back? Why didn't you call me, asshole? What are you doing, sit down, how's Georgia, how's Haley, how's everything? Tell me everything. But not if it gets sexual, because that'd be a bit of an over share."

Peyton was starting to think she had picked up on Brooke's "stupid quotient" when stressed. She was tired and hysterical and happy and delirious, but even in the darkness of her bedroom, she could see his eyes darken, and knew a major mistake had been made. Yes, she was most certainly going back to being Stoic Peyton.

"I'm not sure Peyton, I'm not really privy to the details of Haley and Chris's sex life," he answered, and his cold words hung in the air. She swore she didn't breathe for the longest time, and finally the air forced its way out of her lungs, her disbelieving sigh puncturing the silence. He didn't look at her, but his gaze seemed to be intently upon her infamous 'People Always Leave'. Following it more closely, she could see that it wasn't that photo, which had summed up so much of the angst in her life, but the one beside it that he was staring at.

He had given it back to her when she was feeling especially down, and she wondered vaguely why they seemed to be on such a teeter-totter lately. If he was up, she was down. If he was down, she was up. Right now was definitely the latter, but even thoughts of Jake and Jenny waiting for her in the morning could warm her heart right now. She had never seen such visible devastation. It was as if he had become carnage right before her eyes, victim of his own wife and his own heart.

"Sometimes They Come Back". It hung in the place of honor on her walls, her new philosophy as of lately. She couldn't even muster up outrage as he strode across the room, tore it from the walls, and the drawing became two half drawings, then four quarter drawings, and then a million little pieces, right before her eyes.

Instead, she held out her arms, and he came towards her. He dropped beside her onto the bed, but ignored the hug waiting to be given. She understood completely, knowing exactly what it was like to try and hold it together and having the last thing you needed be tears, which is exactly what would come if you accepted an embrace.

"Do you want to talk about it?" she asked quietly, the steady rhythm of their combined breathing doing nothing to lull her back to sleep. Her heart raced, her head pounded, she could feel her blood pulsing through her body. She had never been this angry in her entire life. They both lay on their backs, side by side, with two or three inches in between. It was awkward, almost, as if they were siblings stuck on a hotel bed instead of the former lovers they were. Then again, if they lay like lovers did, it wouldn't really bode well for her relationship with Jake, but that was beside the point.

"Is there really anything left to say?"

"Can you at least tell me what happened?" she asked, but amended quickly. "That way I know the extent of hatred I'm supposed to feel." Somewhere in her heart, she was just happy Nathan knew that he could come to her. All through their dating years, she had huffed and puffed and changed the subject when he tried to open up about his parents. She regretted that now, now that she could truly see what a number Dan Scott had done on his baby boy. But even that was nothing compared to what had happened now. Yet she knew that pushing him was getting them nowhere.

Instead of the small chuckle she had been expecting, the corner of his mouth quirked upwards a fraction of a centimeter. If she hadn't been studying his face intently, she would've missed the change of his expression completely. Moments passed in this tense fashion.

"Is there really anything left to say?" he repeated. "She left. She left with him even though I told her that it would be over if she did. She left anyway. And she left the bracelet. Nobody else really gets what that bracelet means. Damnit, she may as well have left her ring. It's not like she's going to get much use out of it anyway. And then I followed her to fucking Atlanta, and she told me what everyone else had told us. She loved me, we were too young, we made a mistake. Or maybe that wasn't this time, but she said it once, I think. And then she went on stage. That's all she said. So I left."

It was almost a monotone, the way he spoke. He had been drained of emotions, and was merely telling the story as if he was an objective narrator. She wondered if he even knew she was there, because he seemed to be talking to himself in the darkness.

"She looked really beautiful. A lot blonder than before, I think, but I've always had a thing for blondes," he ploughed on, missing the way Peyton's hand flew subconsciously to her hair, the slight blush staining her cheeks. "But she wasn't Haley. Not the Haley I married. So I didn't hang around after the show. I just couldn't believe that I offered to come with her, or to wait for her, or…just, anything really, and she just left to go on stage. I didn't want to talk after the show, I wanted to talk then. And if she couldn't give me that, I didn't want to give her this. But I was driving home, and Taylor called."

She wasn't sure who 'Taylor' was, but she didn't really like where this story was going.

"And so I stopped there on my way home. She was working at some bar in Mississippi, and I took a bit of a detour after she called. Remember that time you made me watch Coyote Ugly? It was sort of like that. And during dance time, I ended up getting pulled onto the bar, and was pretty much surrounded by hot girls in heat. And I felt like the old me again, like how I was before Haley. And I wanted to fuck Taylor again. We actually even went upstairs, and she totally would've, but I tried to kiss her, and I just couldn't. And the old me would have, I know that. I wish I did. I just feel… I don't know, I feel so alone Peyt."

Jolted a little at the realization that he was actually talking to her and not just thinking aloud, she tried to find her way through the fog of her own thoughts. That was probably the most consecutive words Nathan Scott had spoken in his entire life. So he had a past with this Taylor girl? Part of her wanted to ask exactly how ancient this history was, but realized that sounded a little too jealous girlfriend-y. His words, a jumble in her mind, became more and more clear until they were almost crystal. She could almost visualize them that way, crystals falling to the ground, its shattered pieces cutting everyone around.

She reached out for his hand and was surprised when he let her hold on. Their fingers laced together out of old habits that had yet to die hard. It was as if this meager link had provided all the contact needed. She felt like his feelings were transferring into her. As the tale of Nathan and Haley came fully out, the quiet things that no one ever knows were revealed, and she had all new feelings on the subject. Actually, her feelings seemed to drain completely, her anger evaporating completely along with the golden shield she seemed to have over her since Jake's return. In its place, there was nothing. She felt hollow and empty, a searing kind of pain so strong that she trembled to think what Nathan himself could be feeling.

She had been right, before. It would be a long time before Nathan Scott could be held.

She wasn't really sure what she was doing here now. After all, if she was down, Nathan would be up, in accordance with their sick see-saw. She was supposed to be cheering him up, but ever since Jake had asked her not to come see him anymore, she had been the one in need of some serious cheering. Not even Brooke, nicknamed for the very same emotion, could get the job done. A mess was in no position to help a mess. She just hoped that the thought would count.

Nathan Scott lay sprawled across his bed. He tossed a basketball in the air, his clear blue eyes following the motion. Up. Down. Up. Down. She tore her eyes away from the same, and mustered up a weary smile.

"Hey, how you doin'?" she asked, as she did every single time she had walked in through his doors lately.

"What are you doing here, Peyt?" he asked, eyes wandering over to a calendar on the wall. It was surprisingly up to date. She wondered how someone who had been as screwed up lately as Nathan had been, who couldn't keep track of his own food or clothing, could remember to keep the calendar correct. Then she thought that it was probably to be keenly aware of just how long Haley had been gone, and she reached levels of sympathy she didn't even realize she was capable of. "Isn't it Brooke's day?"

She squirmed guiltily. She knew he would catch onto their system. It really was "Brooke's day", and she wasn't sure how she had ended up at the apartment. Yet here she was.

He didn't sound bitter, which was good. There was maybe even a joking undertone in there, but it wasn't as obvious as it would be some days. She couldn't really determine if this was a good day or a bad day, but at least he hadn't hurled the ball at her as she'd walked in the door. She'd heard whispers that the same thing had happened to Lucas or Dan on a few occasions.

"There's ice cream in the fridge. I think we should just hang around today. Maybe we can talk?" he suggested, the basketball ceasing the motion that seemed endless. His eyes met hers, blue on hazel, and hers almost teared up. This was Nathan's way of saying that he knew what was going on, and wanted to be there for her. He had never been incredibly good with words. He was more a man of action. She appreciated the gesture more than he could ever know.

"It better be fudge swirl," she bestowed a watery smile upon him, knowing Haley's favorite had been butter pecan, God knows why, and that another bullet had been successfully dodged. She found her weapon of choice waiting for her in the freezer, grabbed two spoons, and bounded down the hallway. She slowed just a little bit, finally realizing what was off about the apartment. It had been thoroughly de-wifed. All traces that a woman had ever lived there were gone now, except for a pink paint splattered portrait that she herself had done, but Nathan had… improved? Sighing, she shook her head and continued into his bedroom. But when they lay down this time, her leg crossed over his, as they watched old Jerry Springer's, talking quietly and relishing the fact that there really were people more screwed up than they were.


Thanks SO MUCH to everybody who reviewed. Feedback is always appreciated, as I'm fumbling blindly with this story. So please please please let me know what you think.

Thanks for reading!

xo Sam