A/N: So this is shorter than usual..but I figure one could only comprehend so much info at once..and there's a lot here. So..please review and I hope you like it:)

continue flashback

She turned away from him to head back down the stairs...to hide the tears that had slowly started to fall down her face. This was why she didn't want to get into a relationship with him. Her heart was held too much on the line...she was too vulnerable and she hated feeling that way. Lucas was the only one who could make her fold down her fortified walls..who could make her open up...and then rip her heart into shreds in the end. He had done the same thing when he had slept with Nicki..and now it was more personal, more close to home. It was about her and Brooke. Did he really think that everything with her had been a mistake..when he said that he had to be with her..when he said she wasn't Brooke...was it just a lie? Or is he lying to Brooke about the box? Did he really still have feelings for Brooke...even when he had told her differently? The more questions that flew through her head, the faster she walked. She had expected him to come after her...but everything had changed with one phonecall from her best friend in California.

Lucas stood on the porch watching her retreating back. He couldn't call her back...couldn't move. Why? Why couldn't he run after her? What was wrong with him? She disappeared from his sight and he felt...empty. And yet he still couldn't move. He had hurt her again...she was crying. Was this it? Had he lost her again? He clenched his fists at the thought. No...he couldn't lose her. He wouldn't. He didn't know what he would do if he didn't have her in his life. His feet started to move towards the beach..their spot...because he knew she would be there. He knew her...she would be there.

She had stopped feet before the petals and candles that surrounded the table. He came to stand up next to her. Glancing sideways at her, he noticed she had stopped crying..but she hadn't bothered to wipe the tears off her face. "Peyton I-"

"You did this," she whispered, motioning towards the table.

Lucas nodded. "Yeah," he said softly. "Listen, I know-"

She cut him off again. "Can we just...eat. Enjoy the meal?"

Lucas was taken aback. How was he supposed to eat and enjoy a meal with their relationship hanging delicately in the balance? But if that's what she wanted..."Sure.." he said slowly. "Yeah, we can do that." He pulled out her chair for her and she sat down without a glance or a word to him.

Lucas watched her as she moved the food around on her plate aimlessly. Her eyes were on the waves, and she seemed to be staring at nothing. He knew this meant that she was thinking. Neither one of them had said a word for at least twenty minutes as they both pretended to eat their food. Lucas cleared his throat to maybe grab her attention...but she didn't even turn her head. He put his fork down with a clang. "I know that you want to just enjoy the meal...but I can't Peyton. I can't sit here and do nothing..". Her eyes left the waves and focused on his face for the first time that night. The look she was giving him broke his heart. Her face held dissapointment...and pain. He swallowed hard. To think, he had set up this dinner tonight to tell her how much her cared about her..how much he loved her. And now.. he had to save them.

He sighed. "When I said that to Brooke..."

Peyton shook her head. "I really don't want to hear an explanantion, Lucas."

"Well then what-" Lucas bit his lip. "What can I do...?"

"Nothing," she said simply. "We've already been through this whole thing...why you told Brooke you wanted to be with her and all that. I don't want to hear about that...because I understand it. The part that I'm not quite grasping is..."

"Why I said it was a mistake?" Lucas finished for her. She nodded. "I lied to her, Peyton. She was leaving and I was desperate...so I lied."

"How do I know you're not lying to me right now, Lucas? How do I know it's not just one of your lines?"

Lucas scoffed and rubbed a hand over his slightly scruffy face. "Do you really believe that? That I would lie to you? Has there ever been a point in our whole relationship, when we were friends or now, that I've lied to you?"

Peyton shook her head. "But you've hurt me, Lucas. You just keep hurting me again..and again..and I keep letting you. Everytime I put myself out on the line for you, you make me regret it."

Lucas raked a hand through his hair. "Okay...do you remember that day in the library...where you were drawing and I was reading...and Whitey came and called me into the gym to join the basketball team? Where you caught me staring at you..and you rolled your eyes in that cute little way you do?"

"Yeah...?"

"That was it for me. That was the day I fell for you. The day that I knew I wanted you. And my feelings haven't changed since. The one thing you don't understand, Peyton, is that no matter who I'm with...or what I say..it's always there. The feelings I have for you. No one I have ever been with has made me feel the way that you make me feel, okay? You just...when I'm not with you, I have this hollow, aching feeling in my chest...when I'm around you, it's hard to breathe, it's hard to concentrate on anything...I feel so much for you that it scares me sometimes, because who would think you could feel this way when you were still in highschool? But I do, Peyton. I guess what I'm getting at here is that...I love you, Peyt."

She just stared at him, her eyes wide. "And I know this is a bad time to tell you that..but...I needed to say it, Peyton. I needed you to know it."

"What do you want me to say, Lucas? That what you just told me makes everything better? That I love you too, and we can just forget about the rest of the world because of it? Pretend there's no Brooke...pretend it's just you and me in this world...is that what you want?"

"I-"

"I'm leaving, Lucas," she said as she rose from her seat and headed away from the table..from him..from them.

No, he said to himself. He wouldn't loose her. He tore out of his own seat and chased after her. "Then I'm coming with you."

Peyton shook her head. "I doubt your mother would let you leave the state."

Lucas stopped walking. "What?" Peyton walked a few more paces before stopping and turning around to face him. He was looking at her like she was crazy.

"When my dad called this morning..he told me that he was going on a year long trip- to the Bahamas. He offered for me to come with him." Peyton paused.

"So you're going?" Lucas asked, his throat suddenly dry. "Wait- did you tell him you would this morning on the phone, Peyton?"

"I actually..turned him down this morning. I said I wasn't going to go..because of school, it is our senior year..and college applications...and..you."

"Peyton, you..can't.."

She continued like she didn't hear him. "But then I called him on the way over here...I leave in the morning."

Lucas watched as she walked away...again. How many times was she going to walk away from him?

pause flashback

Ellie's funeral was over. Lucas had spent it at Peyton's side, his hand on her back for a small support. Lucas had headed his seperate way from Peyton and Nathan..mainly just to clear his head. More like to clear Peyton out of his head. Lucas found himself at his mother's now. The door was unlocked so he pushed it open. "Mom?"

He came into the living room to find his mother's face plastered to a man's. They sprang apart when Lucas came into the room. It was Keith. His mother was kissing Keith...Keith was kissing his mother. His jaw dropped a bit at the scene in front of him. "Lucas! What are you doing here?" his mother asked him before pulling him into a tight hug.

"Definately didn't come to see that..," Lucas muttered before pulling Keith into a hug. "So you guys are..."

"We've been meaning to tell you, Luke," his mother spoke up. "Are you okay..with us dating?"

As hard as Lucas tried to act defiant, he couldn't stop the grin that came to his face. "Of course."

Both Keith and his mother looked relieved. "Just..no more of..that..in front of me, please."

"Deal," Keith said as he took Karen's hand. "Not that it's not great to see you, Luke...but what are you doing here?"

"Oh..right. Sorry," Lucas said with a laugh. "Just in town," he said with a shrug.

"Just in town...you do realize how far you live and how silly of a statement that just was?"

Lucas ran a hand through his hair. "I'm here with Nathan..and Peyton." Lucas' mother knew everything about him and Peyton, but she didn't know that Peyton had come to New York.

"Peyton?" his mother asked.

Lucas nodded. "She's in New York..internship at MTV. Her...ummm..birth mother's funeral was this morning and we came back in town for it."

Karen nodded. "Is she okay?"

"Nathan and I are getting her through it..she'll be fine."

Karen glanced at Keith for a moment. "Could we have a second?" Keith rose, "Sure", and walked into the kitchen. She turned to Lucas when he was gone from hearing range. "Are you okay?"

Lucas sank into the couch next to his mother. "Yea..I mean..I don't know. I'm just..confused. I thought I had gotten over her..and pushed those feelings for her down enough they wouldn't bother me anymore..but then she came back. The second I saw her face..everything feeling, every thought I had about her came rushing back. And then there's me and Brooke..that's not going so well."

"Why...what's going on?"

XOXOXOXOXOXXOXOXOX

At the same time, Nathan had taken Peyton for a walk..in a seemingly random direction. Peyton had been silent as they walked and Nathan chanced a glance at her. "How you doing, Peyton?"

She blinked and her eyes rose from the ground to meet his. "I'm fine."

"Don't lie," Nathan said. "I know you're not fine. Of course you're not."

She nodded and he caught a ghost of a smile upon her face. "I just..I keep thinking that I had this second chance to have a mother...and I left town. I always seem to leave..don't I? I just left her..took advantage of the fact that she was there, in my life. And I left. And now..she's gone. Once you leave something..I guess it's hard to get another chance to have it again. Me and Elie, you and Haley.."

"You and Lucas," Nathan finished for her. "Speaking of..what's up with you two? You two seem pretty..close lately."

Peyton shook her head. "You're forgetting something here, Nathan. Lucas is married to Brooke. There's no 'me and Lucas'...it was just something in the past.
something that is obviously over now."

They walked in silence for a moment. "Do you believe the lies you tell yourself?" he asked suddenly. "Do you really think that there's nothing there between the two of you..? That all the looks and the touches mean nothing?"

She opened her mouth to respond, her facial expression irate, when a basketball came bouncing against Nathan's legs. "Emma! What did I say about playing with the ball on the sidewalk?" rang the voice of a woman.

Peyton's eyes widened at the name of the child in front of them..then the appearance of the child. Her eyes were the same blue as Nathan's..the hair and the face was Haley's... "Emma..?" she breathed. "Nathan you-"

But she stopped mid sentence as Nathan picked the ball up from the sidewalk and walked a few feet closer to the three year old. "Did you loose something?" he asked her playfully. Emma giggled and took the orange mini basketball from Nathan's hands. "
"I'm sorry about that...". Emma's adoptive mother had made her way down the sidewalk after her active child. She hoisted Emma up onto her hip and faced Nathan and Peyton.

"It's not a problem," Nathan responded, his eyes still on the- his- child. He extended his hand out and she took it up in a handshake. "I'm..Lucas," Nathan told her. "This is Peyton." Peyton waved her hand in greeting with a meek, "Hi."

The woman grinned at the two of them. "I'm Maddie. And this here is Emma," she said referencing to the child in her arms. "You two new to the neighborhood?"

Nathan glanced at Peyton. "Yeah.." he lied slowly. "We're actually looking around for an apartment for the two of us," he said as he pulled Peyton's hand into his own. He nudged her in the side. "Yeah.." Peyton said as she nodded. "It's such a nice area."

"It is..my husband and I actually moved here a few years back..right before we adopted Emma here."

"Oh she's adopted?" Nathan asked with a feign innocence.

Maddie bent down to put Emma on the ground, who was still holding tight to her basketball until she reached the ground. "Yeah she is..." Maddie replied. Emma teetered on her feet over to Nathan. When she reached him she held the ball up in her the air for him to take. "Play wih me?" she asked him in her adorable voice.

Peyton bit her lip over the look that had just taken over Nathan's face. A look like someone had just punched his face..or broken his heart. Sometimes they felt the same, didn't they? He just stared at her with that look on his face. Peyton cleared her throat. Maddie was starting look at him strangely. "Um.
Lucas..hun.." She put a hand on his arm, squeezing him slightly. "Don't you think it's time we got going? We do have that..appointment to look at the apartment in a few minutes."

Nathan's eyes remained on his daughter. "Yeah..", he said slowly. He tore his eyes off of her, placing them on the woman who was the mother to his daughter.
instead of Haley. "It was nice to meet you," he managed to choke out. His chest felt tight...his head was spinning...He felt Peyton guiding them away and down the street.

Peyton glanced back to see Maddie watching them walk away, Emma at her feet playing with the ball. She threw them a wave and Peyton waved back, guiding Nathan down the street away from them.

"How..why...what do you think you're doing?" she asked him in a low tone. "I thought we were just walking...but you knew where Emma was this whole time.
you can't just show up at the house of the adoptive parents like that."

But Nathan wasn't responding. "Nate?"

"I just.." he said slowly. "I don't know what to think anymore. About Haley..or Emma..or anything. All Haley has done is confuse my life..make it more complicated. I just..need some time for myself.." He glanced back at Emma playing with the basketball. "She likes basketball," he stated quietly.

"Nathan-" she said again, her voice almost a whisper.

"I'll be back tonight..." he said as he headed away from her.

"Where are you going?" Peyton yelped after him.

He shrugged and crossed the street, leaving Peyton looking after him. "Well that's just great," she muttered. She looked around her, not quite sure where she was at the moment. "Hhhmm," she said as she spotted a bar.

Poor Nate :( Please review!