A.N Sorry its taken me a while to get another chapter up its been one of those weeks that I'd rather forget but finally I got it done and here it is. I just want to say a special thankyou to Jess and to my wall Cathy. LOL. Hope everyone enjoys this and it explains some of the connundrums that the last chapter left some of you with. I'll do my best to write another one in the very near future but I've got no guarantees that my hellish week is definitely over yet. Can't wait to hear what you all think.

Chapter Forty-two

Lucas lay quietly in his hospital bed. He'd been asleep most of the day but for some reason he was still exhausted. This recuperating thing was really taking it out of him and so his eyes remained closed and to the outside world it appeared that he was still sleeping. He heard a noise inside his room and assumed it was one of the nurses coming in yet again to check up on him. He was so tired of the way the younger ones fawned over him and the older ones looked at him with pity. If he had one more offer of a sponge bath from some pretty young nurse he was going to go insane. He knew that some may find his attitude at the moment hard to understand but even with the older staff, the ones who respected the fact that he was a married man with a newborn son he struggled to stave off his impatience. But the look of sympathy constantly present on their face was getting on his nerves and so his eyes remained closed hoping that whoever it was this time would simply assume that he was asleep and leave him to his thoughts once again.

Haley and Nathan had been by earlier with Cory and at the moment they were the only people he really wanted to see. Well providing you took Brooke out of the equation anyway. There was nothing he wouldn't give to open his eyes and find her standing in front of him smiling at him with her dimples on full display but he knew that wasn't going to happen anytime soon. Thinking about it some more he realised that there were other people he wouldn't mind seeing. He couldn't understand why Deb had not been by since he had woken up he had honestly expected her to be the one of the first and most regular visitors he had. One of the nurses had informed him that an older woman had been by to see him earlier in the day but had left when she saw that he was sleeping. He wished she would have stayed. He could do with Deb's calming influence right now. If he couldn't have his own mother here, and that was highly unlikely since her and Keith were to the best of his knowledge still in Tuscany, then Deb was definitely the next best option.

He heard a sigh from beside his bedside and ascertained that it was one of the staff though whether it was one of the young ones sighing with sexual frustration or one of the older ones sighing with pity he had no inclination to find out. A hand gently stroked over his forehead and he had to work hard to keep his expression neutral. This was just great obviously one of the nurses was in here hoping against hope that he would open his eyes and tell her that she was just what he had been looking for all his life and to hell with his comatose wife.

The hand slowly removed itself from his forehead and he listened for the sound of retreating footsteps but instead heard the low hum of voices, voices that he instantly recognised. "Karen honey, he's going to be just fine. He's a fighter just like me. Have you ever seen anything stop me?"

Lucas lay there in shock listening avidly to this exchange surely he couldn't be hearing this right. Then he heard the sound of his mother's laughter and didn't know what to think. Surreptitiously he peeked out from under his eyelashes vaguely making out the shapes of his mother and his father from across the room. They were standing close, a lot closer than Lucas would ever have expected to see.

Karen's voice sounded again and Lucas strained to make out every word that she was saying. "No Dan I've never seen anything that can stop you from getting what you want. Why do you think I love you so much?"

This was more than Lucas could bear and his eyes flew open just in time to see his father leaning down to place a loving kiss on the lips of his mother. He blinked trying to focus his eyes not able to believe the sight before him. He briefly considered the possibility that he had slid back into an unconscious state and this was all just some weird ass dream but he knew in his heart that what he saw before him was real. It was real and it was wrong. He cleared his throat loudly and fixed his eyes on them in a death-like stare. "Do you want to tell me just what the hell is going on here?"

Karen turned to look at him first her eyes registering surprise before she quickly masked it. Moving towards him she smiled genuinely pleased to see him. "Lucas honey I'm so happy to see you awake."

He submitted to her hug only because he had no choice but made no effort to return it. He cut his eyes to Dan and for the first time that he could ever remember he found his father looking uncomfortable. Dan stood shuffling from one foot to another nervously before he saw Lucas' attention trained on him and forced the normally confident smirk back to his face.

Neither Dan nor Karen made any move to answer his question and he glared between the two of them. "I'm glad to see you're back with us son, very glad," Dan told him.

"Yeah you're glad I'm back but so what. That is not what I asked so why don't you answer my damn question."

Karen began to look uncomfortable. "Lucas honey, do you really want to discuss this now?"

"You better believe it," he answered with more than a trace of anger.

"Lucas," Dan said warningly "this isn't the time."

"Well it seems to me that it is," Lucas responded "I mean it was obviously the time for the two of you to forget about your marriages to other people and start screwing around."

"Lucas," Karen said with shock "Do you really think I would be here if this was just a chance to screw around as you put it? Surely you don't believe that myself or your father would put Keith and Deb through this unless we were certain that it was something that was going to last."

"Yeah well speaking of them how are your spouses?" Lucas spat at them venomously.

"That's enough," Dan roared causing a pair of nurses who were passing by to jump in surprise. They glanced nervously into the room but after meeting the eyes of Dan Scott they quickly hurried on.

Karen intervened swiftly her own happiness at being with Dan was in danger of being destroyed unless she could make her son understand. "Lucas please try to understand."

"Understand what Mom? What exactly is it that you're hoping I can understand? Do you want me to understand how after all these years of being treated like dirt by him you all of a sudden decide that you love him? Or is it…"

Karen cut in then "There was no decision Lucas I always knew it I just didn't want to admit it. I never stopped loving your father. I know we've had some tough times and there were times when I tried to convince myself that I actually hated him but somehow I just couldn't do it."

Lucas looked at her in disgust "then what the hell was it all about Mom? All those times you begged me to stay away from him. Why did you do it mom, if you were still in love with him?"

"I guess I was just scared," Karen admitted quietly.

Dan moved to stand behind Karen resting a hand on her shoulder. It was a small gesture but Lucas could see how much it meant to her. He hated this, for as long as he could remember he had wanted to see his Mom happy and he thought that day had finally come when he had received the phone call from them in Italy telling him that they had eloped. He thought that maybe just maybe their chance had finally come. That was why when they had said they were going to stay on in Italy for an extended period of time he had been full of encouragement. He had hoped that being away from the drama of Tree Hill they would have a chance but it seemed that the biggest obstacle to their happiness had followed them and he had succeeded in driving them apart.

"Mom you know I want you to be happy but I just don't understand why you couldn't find that happiness with Keith. You married him you must love him." His tone now held a trace of desperation and Karen could feel tears welling in her eyes as she looked at the despair on her son's face.

"I guess I did love him but it wasn't in the way that you should love someone that you intend to spend your life with. Keith was and will always be very special to me but he should have only ever been a friend to me. I was fooling myself into believing that we could ever be anything more. For the first few weeks after we married I tried to pretend even to myself that I was happy and it was what I wanted but I just couldn't do it."

Lucas turned to look at his father coldly "and let me guess that's when you swooped in and destroyed things for them. What was it Dad you just couldn't stand to see someone else making her happy or was it just because it was Keith? Let's face it there hasn't exactly been any love lost between the two of you for a long time hell practically my whole life the two of you have been at loggerheads. So was that it Dad was it just because it was Keith?"

Dan spoke for only the third time since he had entered the room. His voice was low but it was clear that he meant every word. He spoke with a conviction that Lucas had rarely heard before from anyone and any words of argument died on his lips as he listened to his father speak.

"It was nothing like that Lucas. The only reason I went there at all was…" he paused looking to Karen for permission to continue. She nodded at him and he continued where he left off "the only reason," he said again "was because your mother called me one night. She asked me to come to her Lucas."

Lucas looked between the two of them incredulously. "Why would you do that Mom?"

Karen shrugged her shoulders lightly. "I was miserable Lucas and there seemed to be nothing that I could do to get myself out of the depression that I was falling into. Keith and I were fighting almost constantly and one night after a particularly bad fight I went to the bar and I started drinking and I just got this idea in my head that I had to speak to your father. I tried to ignore it but it wouldn't go away. So I called him Lucas and I told him everything. I told him exactly how miserable I was and somehow I just found myself opening up to him Lucas. It was such a relief to have someone to talk, someone who understood me. I hadn't had that since before you were born Lucas."

Although she didn't say it the implication was clear no one in her life had ever understood her the way Dan had. Silently Lucas absorbed the information trying to process it but he was filled with too many conflicting emotions at that moment to be able to understand it all.

"But surely the two of you had to know this was wrong? You're both married to other people. How could you do this to them?"

"That's what I'd like to know," a new voice said from the door. All three heads turned towards the voice.

"Keith," Lucas said in a tone of disbelief.