Disclaimer: I don't own one tree hill

In all honesty i have no idea what this is, just a one shot that started with no ending in my mind. I'm still not sure about it but that what the heck it's the holidays who cares if its a messy ramble with no true ending. Ok i wrote and posted this during the night while i was half asleep, now I'm going back and fixing a few things lol.

Flowers for a Ghost

Black was a horrid colour, too solid, too lifeless, it sucked all colour from Sawyer's pale appearance, clashing with her ethereal beauty. Usually, Sawyer Scott avoided the colour black like the plague, it held too many memories, it represented death.

A sea of black mourners, she still remembered them so many years later.

It was for the same occasion, death of course, which had Sawyer don the dreaded shade for a fourth time in her life. This time it was different though, there was no crowd, no condolences given one after the other. Just the pastor and the stiff comforting form of her own fiancé.

The coffin is lowered into the hole in the ground, Sawyer watches with dry eyes, never feeling as alone in the world as she did in that moment. For fifteen years it had been just the two of them, Larry Sawyer had not been a perfect man, losing first his wife in a car accident and then years later his only child in the same way had hardened the man, had made him a over protective and often over bearing guardian for an orphaned girl who wasn't sure if she remembered how it felt to be loved so warmly anymore.

At the reading of the will Sawyer sat alone, her fiancé Etienne at work, she did not see the point of it because everything was going to come to her, after all there was no one else. So, she sat alone across from the lawyer, twirling her diamond engagement ring around and around, still contemplating if till this day she still didn't know what love was. Her grandfather had told her stories about her parent's great love story, her mother was an angel, practically a saint the way Larry told it. It wasn't always easy living up to the memory of dead women, let alone dead saints.

Once, years ago, Sawyer had even read the novel her father had written, it too told a love story of her parents but as hard as she tried Sawyer could never feel like it was anything other than what it was sold as. A story. A story of two people who didn't resemble the little that she did remember of her parents, let alone of the girl her grandfather had spoken of.

There wasn't much of an inheritance yet it was more than most people would receive Sawyer supposed. A house Larry had owned outright, the boat that was no longer even worth enough to bother selling, old furniture.

And lastly, a storage container and its contents.

It was two months before Sawyer unlocked the dusty container, a sneeze broke the silence adding to the mist of dust. Stale air, the scent of paper, cardboard and perhaps mould.

There were a lot of papers, amongst other stuff; clothes, records, photographs, trophies and other memorabilia. Soon Sawyer realised the containers contents were not the belongings of her grandfather, not truly, it was everything her grandfather had inherited from her mother Peyton, and in turn the belongings her mother had inherited when Sawyer's father Lucas had died.

Etienne watched Sawyer sift through the boxes she'd moved into the small spare room of their tiny apartment, a curious look in his dark brown eyes.

"You never talk about them" his French accent was still thick, it was what had drawn her too him when they met four years ago, something exotic in her little simple world.

"Who?" she didn't even look up, her blue eyes flicking through the latest documents she had discovered, not really taking them in. Some legal thing. When he was silent Sawyer guessed, "my parents? I barely remember them, my Mom died when I was ten, my dad the year before, before that it's really all a blur"

"You must remember something?"

A memory flashed in Sawyer's mind, of a curly haired laughing blonde whose green eyes danced with joy, her memory always came with music, of songs Sawyer could not place names to, only emotions.

Sawyer wasn't sure if she even remembered her father's face, she thought she could picture his smile though she couldn't be sure, and on quiet nights she thought she could remember the timber of his voice, telling stories, whispering that she was loved.

They existed in another life, for another girl.

Sawyer began to wonder how much she really knew of her parents. The next day she found the box of letters, all addressed to her father.

As hard as Sawyer looked she never found the matching ones so she took the single box that had been tied with twine and settled down on her cream couch by the fire with a glass of wine and picked a letter.

Dear Lucas,

I miss you, I never thought I could miss anyone as much as I miss you right now and you're not even gone. You're close enough for me to touch which makes it that much worse. My wedding ring burns, does yours? I should take it off, place it in a drawer, put it away and move on from my own little love story. How do we do this? How do we begin again? My heart aches. It still aches for you. Do you remember when we were just kids, falling in love for the first time and causing havoc every which way we turned. Chaos. Is love always chaos, a storm inside us that rages. All storms end.

This love sounded almost painful to Sawyer, she looked at her own ring and wondered again if perhaps she should do what the letter she just read had said. Slip it off and place it in a drawer somewhere. And she wondered for not the first time if the love story her grandfather had tried to sell her was not exactly as he had said. Memories teased Sawyer. There had been half a year between her parents' deaths, yet Sawyer remembered her father being gone long before that day her mother had buttoned up the thick black coat with trembling fingers, with whispers that they were saying goodbye to her father.

Her first funeral, though not her last.

Etienne watched his fiancée read the letters; her face emotionless yet her eyes wide with feelings he could not describe. Some nights after Sawyer went to bed, he would pick up the delicate papers and read what she had left out.

My flesh still burns from your touch, and I wonder if your mark is seared into my skin like a brand. If I can ever escape from it. Can everyone see it? I think of you, it's only you when my hands explore my own body, your blue eyes I picture staring back at me. Hurry home, my love, come back to me before the cold sheets lose your smell and I forget what it's like to fall asleep surrounded by all that is you. I need you. I need your warmth for the nights here are far too cold.

The order was unknown, some spoke of passion, others of loss. Etienne was as entranced as Sawyer was, though she would never say so.

I took it off today. I did it. I took my wedding ring off and slipped it onto the chain and tied it around my neck. Now the cold metal hangs above my heart, the same heart that burns hot for you still. Everyone said the day would come and I didn't believe them. I have to say goodbye. I never got the chance to, I didn't speak at the funeral. I hate black. I hate it so much. But you taught me how to love, so I say goodbye because I know love is worth the pain. You are worth all the pain my heart can take, for all the joy you have given me too.

Sawyer read each letter three times over, putting them in different orders trying to piece the story together but it never quite fit. Her mind went back to the other documents she had found and Sawyer pulled them out again, another peace of the puzzle for everything she never knew or did not remember. Dated two months before her father's death were unfiled divorce papers, unfiled, and unsigned, made by her father. A marriage on the rocks. An absent husband and father who died in a different state on the other side of the country from the family he left behind.

And the court case, a custody battle, one Sawyer had never been aware of even though she was at the centre of it. Etienne read over her shoulder, "who is Nathan Scott?"

"My uncle. He was my father's brother, he and his wife tried to gain custody of me after my mother's death" she flicked through the papers, "I had no idea"

"They never told you?"

"They live in Tree Hill, North Carolina, I haven't seen them… not since I was eleven I think" and from what she gathered from other angry letters from lawyers her grandfather had done everything in his power to keep his only family away from the rest of her own.

"Tree Hill?"

"Where I was born, my parents moved from there when I was a baby"

"You don't ever think about going back?"

Sawyer shook her head, "when my parents went back they both died, the town is a graveyard" though once the idea was planted Sawyer could not get it out of her head.

How different would her life had been if her Aunt and Uncle had succeeded and raised her instead, a house with a Mom and a Dad to love and look after her, cousins who would have become siblings, noise instead of silence. It would have been a full house.

One letter before the trial described a different life, one Sawyer imagined one night as she dreamt.

Haley and Nathan Scott, the aunt and uncle of the child in question wish to raise their niece Sawyer within their own home. They are a respected and upstanding family in Tree Hill, the home town of Peyton and Lucas Scott, and the birth place of Sawyer. They live in an eight-bedroom home with access to the best schools in the area, Haley is the principal of the local high school and Nathan is a successful sports agent. Living with them are their children, sixteen-year-old James, seven-year-old Lydia, six-year-old adopted sons Jude and Davis, and an infant sibling Penelope Scott. Awaiting Sawyer is a loving family home ready to embrace her.

Larry had been a wonderful grandfather in many ways, memories of him, especially a much happier Larry, were sprinkled throughout her life even before the sudden deaths of her parents. Nathan and Haley Scott were really little more than a barely there memory.

The fourth reading of the letters had Sawyer stop and rethink her curiosity.

Lucas,

I've come to the river court thinking it would bring me closer to you, it's been a week and I hurt with missing you. You don't seem so far away here, if I close my eyes I can almost picture you walking towards me, the sound of the basketball pounding on the gravel that we wrote our names on so many years ago. You are here. I can feel you. Then I open my eyes and you're not here. I don't know why I'm writing this to you, it's not like I have anywhere I can send it to. I hate this. I hate that you are not in my arms when we just found our way back to each other. I do love you, so much, but I hate how much loving you can hurt.

Three weeks later Sawyer Scott stands on the same river court looking out at the water and tries to picture her parents here. There's a flash of a memory, of laughter, of blonde heads swinging around.

This town is a graveyard for Sawyer and she briefly wonders if it'll be her own funeral, she will next attend, and if so, would there be anyone even left to drop the dirt on her coffin.

She had left Etienne a note saying she needed to get away, think things over, she had no idea if he even realised she was talking about the two of them and not the stench of death that was her past yet she had slipped the diamond engagement ring off and left it in an envelope in her glove compartment.

The picture of her parents was not any clearer by the river, Sawyer sat at the picnic table and pulled out another old letter fingering the corner, running her fingers over tear stains.

I hate you sometimes. I hate you for loving me, for confusing me, for even making me happy. I hate you for leaving, I hate you for staying. But I don't hate you, not really. I love you. I love that you make me a better woman, a better mother, a better friend, a better person all together. That even without you here you still do all that. I love you. But I hate not having you. I hate that everything I have does not seem enough without you here, but I know it will be again. The world is too beautiful and wonderful to worry about what I don't have, you reminded me of that.

Sawyer wondered what her memories would have been of the woman if her mother had instead a chance to live, if on that fateful day she had not gotten behind the wheel.

Life was full of what ifs. So Sawyer chose to wonder about one she could get closer to, and she went to that big eight bedroom home that had almost been hers.

The woman who answered the door was in her late forties, dyed dark brown hair that fell softly to her shoulder and large warm brown eyes that instantly lit up in recognition, "Sawyer?" Haley Scott covered her mouth with her hand after she gasped.

And Sawyer didn't have to speak before Haley gently pulled her niece into the home, "NATHAN! NATHAN! COME HERE!" and a dark haired, blue eyed prince charming appeared.

"Peyton" he whispered in shock and Sawyer froze. He blinked and then slowly smiled as reality clearly hit him, "Sawyer? Is it really you?" and he pulled the almost twenty-five-year-old into a hug. Sawyer remained stiff, not quite used to such familiar shows of affection, though she tried to smile and confirmed her identity.

"We always hoped we would see you again, you're so beautiful, so much like your mother" Haley hugged her too, this one gentler and less intense, and the older woman couldn't stop smiling, "but you have your father's eyes"

"Scott eyes" Nathan nodded.

They did most of the talking, asking so many questions and not seeming to mind Sawyer's stilted answers. When Larry's recent death came up they gave their condolences though they both looked awkward, Sawyer knew they must have had little love for the man after everything that had happened.

Eventually the silences grew longer than the conversation, and Haley asked what brought Sawyer here after so long.

"I guess I wanted to go somewhere I could be closer to my parents, maybe try to figure them out some more"

"You must have so many questions" Haley sounded too sympathetic.

Sawyer shook her curls, "not so many" she almost pulled out the letters but didn't, the moment was broken when the front door opened and a teenage girl came running into the room. She was short, with those Scott blue eyes and dark hair, Sawyer looked between her uncle and the teenager who had suddenly appeared and gathered from the age that this must be…

"Penn" Haley called excited, "come here".

Penelope Scott narrowed her gaze and eyed the older blonde, Haley introduced them with expectant glee, "Penelope, this is Sawyer" and she placed a hand on the small of Penelope's back pushing her forward.

Out of a sense of politeness Sawyer held out her hand but the dark-haired girl span around and ran upstairs, "I'm so sorry" Haley apologised, "don't take it personally, I guess you're more strangers than family" and she went after her.

Sawyer stood awkwardly, "I should probably go" she gave her excuses and disappeared before Haley returned.

Later that night in the comfort of her hotel room Sawyer read through another letter, wondering if she would ever feel the type of love sprinkled within these letters.

All those years I spent away from Tree Hill searching for anywhere else that could be home, searching for a home in a place. Home is not a place, it's the people in it. It's love. Still if a place was home it would be here. It would be a stroll on the Riverwalk, a kiss on the basketball court, the sand on the beach, it's the porch at your mother's house. My home is your arms, my home is my baby cradled in my arms, their arms clinging to my neck, it's our friends. My home is everyone here.

Sawyer longed for home. She found herself at the edge of the cemetery and dared herself to walk in, she couldn't find it in her too.

The next day Nathan found her at the hotel and invited her over for dinner any night she wanted, an open invitation. Sawyer nodded though made no promises, she rented a small apartment and explored the town, places mentioned from her father's novel or from the letters.

Sawyer danced at Tric and jogged every morning across the bridge to the little court by the river, she didn't go to the house again though for over a month.

Occasionally she would see one of the Scott's around town, Haley and Nathan always sent her a smile yet never went further and Sawyer knew they hoped and waited for the knock on their door again.

And then a familiar date came and all of a sudden Sawyer could not resist, she went to Tric first and had three shots for courage before heading to the Scott home. Cars were parked outside, she barely noticed them but when the door opened Nathan stared at Sawyer in shock, not in the welcome Sawyer had expected. He gave her a sad smile and let her in.

The blonde wondered if he remembered what the day was, she started to doubt it when she saw the purple and blue balloons, saw the crowd around the table, no one noticed Sawyer slipping in beside Nathan, their attention on Haley as she carried out a white iced cake with fifteen candles burning and they all started to sing Happy Birthday.

Penelope blew out the candles, a strange smile on her face, and Sawyer wondered if the girl had any idea that her fifteenth birthday was also the fifteenth anniversary of Peyton Sawyer Scott's death.

As the cake was cut and handed out the others noticed the new addition, Penelope screwed up her face, "why is she here?"

"Is that Sawyer?" the other younger brunette girl asked in a whisper, Lydia Scott placed a hand on Penelope's shoulder as Jamie, beard covering his jaw looked around the room and quickly went to stand by his mother, he looked at his siblings, "hey, let's remember-"

"Get her out of here!" an angry voice yelled, and Sawyer found herself staring at a pair of hazel eyes she did not know. Jude Baker knew his colour had faded from his face, knew it was more fear than anger that drove him.

She didn't know why she was not welcome in this family that should have been hers, so Sawyer ran out. Tears were not something Sawyer let happen to herself, not that most people would consider tears something you allow but she let herself cry before returning to Tric and the bar that had become familiar to her.

This was where her parents had drank, had danced, and had loved.

Ten drinks in Sawyer heard a familiar voice next to her, "you don't belong in Tree Hill" and she turned her blue eyes to his. Sawyer Scott had no idea who Jude Baker was, he knew her though, "do you have any idea what it's like to see your face around town, you walk around wearing it, come to my home tonight of all nights"

Sawyer froze confused.

"You don't like me very much"

"I don't know you" he hissed, "but your face is the face of my nightmares"

Her breath hitched, emotions stirring, this town was so filled with emotions, she had thought the town was death yet the emotions that swirled was closer to life than death.

"I don't understand-"

"Your mother killed mine"

"No-I-what-" Sawyer shook her head, "my mother was Peyton Scott, she died in a car crash fifteen years ago"

"I know exactly who she was" and he stormed away.

Sawyer wasn't sure how she returned home that night but the next day she looked up her mother's accident, she'd never done so before because Sawyer had known everything she thought she needed to about it.

The article she found was from the day after the crash, a large photo of the tangled comet was on display with two smaller pictures of two different women.

The driver, Peyton Sawyer Scott, 34, is believed to have died on impact after her car hit a tree while going twice the speed limit. Passenger, Brooke Baker, 35, a local mother of two, is still in intensive care…

For fifteen years Sawyer had believed her mother to be a victim of a tragic car accident, perhaps hit by a drunk driver, or skidding on ice, or hit by some teenager on a joy ride running a red light. Peyton Scott had been speeding, losing control of her prized car and dying in an accident that also took the life of one of her oldest friends.

In the stories she was told Peyton had been the angelic saint, gone too soon, yet for Brooke Baker's sons it had been very different, Peyton had been the villain of their story. Sawyer went out that night and once again had too many drinks, counting down the days until her lease was over and she would leave this town and its secrets she wasn't so sure she wanted to know anymore.

Sawyer placed the letters back in their box, tied it up with string and placed the box on her highest shelf, unable to read the woman's words anymore.

A few days later Haley knocked on her door, a nervous smile on her face with a plate of cookies in her hands, "I'm sorry about the other night"

"No, I am. I… even you said it, I look just like my mother" Sawyer shrugged accepting the fact, "I should never have come here"

"It was an accident, Sawyer, the blame should never be on you, Jude is… it was especially hard for him, losing Brooke so suddenly, especially after how their father died, he had someone to blame then and he needed someone to blame when Brooke died too"

"My mother was speeding"

Haley shook her head, "we will never know what really happened that night, grief is a terrible thing, please don't stay away because of this. All we've hoped all these years is that you would one day return to the family, no matter what Larry said, we always loved you, we always let Penny know all about you hoping one day you two will finally be able to meet"

Sawyer didn't question her aunt's comment not until a frenzied Haley added, "I know Larry was your grandfather and he obviously did a wonderful job raising you, and you must have loved him dearly, but I can never quite forgive him for keeping the two of you apart, Lucas would have never wanted that for his daughters"

The words went over and over inside Sawyer's mind, she stumbled back and all her practiced cool disappeared, "what?" she whispered.

And Haley stared as comprehension hit, "he never told you!"

"I have a sister?" Sawyer asked, her mind raced as more pieces fitted together, "that girl is my sister? How?" Haley was hesitant so Sawyer added a "Please, tell me"

"Your parents had decided to separate, I don't know if you know that now, and he started to visit Tree Hill, and he got involved with Brooke, the twins' mother, she was a friend of all of ours, and she fell pregnant. Your father never knew, he had the heart attack just before Brooke found out about Penelope. Your mother didn't know about them, I think a part of her had still thought if he hadn't died they would have gotten back together, and with Lucas gone Brooke didn't know how to tell her but after she found out she was having a little girl she had wanted the two of you to know each other, she asked Peyton to come to Tree Hill"

"And then the accident happened"

"Yes"

"Did my mother know about the baby, that it was my dad's?"

"I don't know" Haley let the words linger between them.

Sawyer could picture it, a dark night, a road a little too slippery, two friends both battling grief over the same man, and a revelation. A heart broken angry woman behind the wheel briefly losing control when she learns the husband she loved and lost was having a baby with another woman.

"She was born that day?"

"Emergency c-section, eight weeks premature. It's a miracle they survived the accident long enough for it to happen"

"A sister" Sawyer had thought she was alone in the world and suddenly her whole truth had changed, a little sister with the same blue eyes of their dad.

Her parents hadn't been so perfect after all, a mother who made a mistake that cost her a life and took another, and a father who had been torn between two women. Sawyer had always known her father had died of a heart attack, she wondered if having a heart pulling in two different directions was too much for Lucas Scott's damaged organ.

With a sigh Sawyer sat herself down on her couch, and looked up at Haley, "do you think, maybe if my father hadn't died, my parents would have stayed together?" and she thought of those unsigned divorce papers, of the letters talking of a marriage on the rocks, a ring being slipped off, but also of second chances and finding love again. And how that would have imploded when the other woman showed up with a positive pregnancy test.

Haley didn't answer, she shrugged instead, seeing no point in telling the young woman that the last time she had seen her father he had been talking about proposing to Brooke once his divorce was final, showing her the ring that had still been in his pocket later that night when he'd collapsed on the Riverwalk while on his way to the restaurant where Brooke had been waiting for their date.

There had seemed so point so she simply held Sawyer's hand.

The next day Sawyer renewed her lease and started her new job, no longer counting down the days for her chance to leave the town.

Three days later she ran into Penelope at the river court and sat by her sister, she imagined that once upon a time their parents had done the same completely unaware about all the drama and heartbreak ahead of them.

They didn't speak for a long time, Penelope, brushed her long dark hair away from her face, tucking it behind her ears and turned her narrow blue eyes to her older half-sister, "so you didn't know about me?"

"Yeah, I guess we're sisters or something" Sawyer shrugged but she tried to smile, "I've never had a sister before"

"I have Lydia, and Davis, Jude and Jamie" the younger girl didn't look at Sawyer as she said it, she felt cold on the inside, and she fought the urge to shiver.

"That's nice, you're lucky" Sawyer said instead of all the other thoughts that crossed her mind, "would you, maybe, like another sister? I'm not sure how this whole sibling thing works but I'm going to be in town for a while" Sawyer shrugged again.

Penelope tells her most people call her Penn, and then suggests they go for a walk. It's a first step.

A week later Etienne receives a diamond ring in the post with only a note that said sorry. Sawyer Scott isn't planning on leaving Tree Hill, she is creating roots for the first time in her life. She's not ready for everything, it is one small step after another, and every time she finds herself on the edge of Tree Hill cemetery she gets a little bit closer to stepping through the gateway.

They meet every couple of days at the court, Sawyer jogs there, Penn gets lifts, they never play basketball, the younger girl says she doesn't play which seems strange because their family is all about sport which Sawyer quickly learns.

Jude hasn't changed his attitude, though he tolerates Sawyer's growing presence because of his little sister, and his twin Davis makes up for all his brother's surliness with his easy going smile and kind words.

At first Lydia is reserved and Sawyer realises that the other Scott is jealous, perhaps a little afraid of losing the girl who has always been her little sister and so Sawyer does something she's never had to really do before. She learns to share. And Lydia goes from rival to friend, and it's a different relationship but soon Sawyer realises she's not just gained one sister – she has gained two.

It's five months later that the two sisters are walking down Grace St, licking their ice creams as they go, Sawyer likes vanilla, Penn likes strawberry, they don't have much in common but they always find things to talk about. Sawyer is more serious, sometimes sarcastic with a straight face and a fierce determination when she sets her mind to things. Penelope is quick to emotion, anger or joy, she's a little silly, always trying to get those around her to laugh, she has lots of friends, too many for Sawyer to keep track of but the younger girl doesn't date, she's not interested in falling in love. She tells her sister there's no point which Sawyer frowns at because she has always wondered what it would feel like to be in love. Truly, deeply, madly in love where you can't imagine life without the person, where just the thought of them not being there is enough to have you start missing them.

They strolled slowly down the sidewalk, side by side, Sawyer licks her dripping ice cream as the conversation goes quiet, slightly surprised her disagreeing on the hotness of some CW teen heartthrob is enough to make Penn speechless which was no small feat. It's a few more steps before Sawyer realises something isn't right, her younger sister's shape is not at the corner of her eye and she turns around not knowing how her world was about to change all over again.

There had been no sound, no warning, Sawyer froze at the crumpled figure on the floor, the cone abandoned on the paving, strawberry ice-cream already melting on the ground.

"Penn" she whispered, unable to move for only a brief second and then she runs forward to pick the too small fifteen-year-old up in her arms. She'd looked small and fragile for her ages but even more so in Sawyer's arms.

She screams for help, for someone to call 911 not considering doing it herself because she's too busy holding her sister, too busy begging her sister to be okay because Sawyer is not ready to be alone again, she just got used to having some semblance of family.

It's the scariest day of Sawyer's life, she can't count the seconds it takes for the ambulance to arrive, its too many minutes, and it was a stranger who came to her aide first taking Penn from Sawyer's shaking arms and beginning chest compressions.

She can hear him counting, sees the chest being forced to go up and down but Penelope looks too pale, something off about her colour, and Sawyer's afraid her own heart is about to stop.

It doesn't.

And they manage to get Penelope's going again. Later Sawyer is sitting by her bed side, "why didn't you tell me?"

"What, that I was the lucky one who inherited the Scott heart along with these baby blues?" the teenager gives a weak shrug, "eh, not a good conversation starter"

For a moment Sawyer laughed and then she started to cry, once she started Sawyer couldn't stop, she should be the strong one but it's Penn who tries to comfort her older sister.

She feared this, from the moment she had stepped into town, like every other time she had come to Tree Hill. For Sawyer Scott the small town was a graveyard, just another hole in the ground waiting to be filled.

It didn't seem fair. Sawyer didn't believe in god but she found herself in the hospital chapel trying to bargain to a power she didn't even believe in to let her sister live. To take her instead. Penelope was too happy, too loved, too needed, and too alive to be taken away from the world, she deserved the good heart.

Penn is sent home with warnings, and a new beeper that is meant to carry hope but for every second Sawyer spends with her sister the silence is a deafening reminder of how short their time could be together.

By her sixteenth birthday Penelope Scott has had her fourth heart attack, she barely survived the last one and her family had gathered around and said their goodbyes fearing it would be their last chance.

But Sawyer couldn't find the strength to say it, she refused to, and she let the tears fall when no one else was looking.

They all knew Penn wasn't going to come home so easily this time, and Sawyer showed up every day as soon as she finished work, sometimes just to read to her sister who became quieter with each day that went by.

Even Jude stopped resenting Sawyer's presence, the two bonding over the love and living grief for their shared sister. Now when Sawyer drank at Tric he was by her side, a shot in his own hand, and then one night she took him back to her apartment and they cried together. They did more than just crying, but the next day they decided to ignore what had happened and put it down to too many emotions and two much alcohol. Being so close to death it had felt reassuring to prove you were alive in an act as old as time. Their eyes don't quite meet anymore but no one notices because it had always been slightly awkward between the two anyway.

One day Sawyer is surprised to find Jude still there by Penn's hospital bed when she arrives, a wooden box held in his arms. He quickly says good bye and wanders out leaving the small chest behind, it sits there still, resting beside Penn's legs as Sawyer takes the seat Jude had just vacated.

"What's in the box?"

Penn protectively placed a hand over the object in question, she pulled it further to her side, her eyes closed yet a small smile graced her pale lips, "the letters"

"Letters?" Sawyer asked, a chill running down her spine.

"They-" she stopped, "-my real parents, Brooke and Lucas, they wrote letters to each other. I don't know where the ones Brooke wrote are, but these are the hers from Lucas" she gave another little smile, "our Dad". They weren't words Penn said often, it wasn't easy to talk about two people you never got a chance to meet let alone know.

Another piece fitted in for Sawyer and after Penn had fallen asleep Sayer returned to her tiny apartment which had slowly gone from being blank and white to having a little more colour in it each week. For the first time in nearly a year Sawyer pulls down the box she had tied up and hidden, cuts it open and fingers the familiar pieces of delicate paper, she rereads the unordered letters with a new light.

Not her mother's words, not her mother's love, the wedding ring that had burned against the heart that loved Lucas had been for a husband who had died in a mugging gone wrong. When Lucas was missing and gone it was from death but from visits back to his hopeful wife and little daughter. They had never really made sense to Sawyer, vague as they were, they never matched completely and now she knew why.

Lucas, I don't know if I can do this. Loving you is easy, it's the easiest thing I can do. But is it the right thing anymore? During the day I can distract myself with work and being a Mom, throwing my heart into everything else as a distraction. At night it's harder, in bed with you next to me, I cling closer, not wanting to let you go. But is it right, or am a destroying you slowly from the outside in.

While she reads them all again Sawyer drinks her wine, once again shifting the puzzles of the past and her what ifs in her mind. The next day Sawyer takes her own box of letters to the hospital and anxiously hands them over, her hands didn't tremble though inside she shook, "these should be yours" she tells her sister, "they're the letters your mother wrote to our father" and Sawyer ensures the letters go to the right daughter.

Black is no longer Sawyer's least favourite colour, instead it's replaced by the blues that are all over the godforsaken hospital she has to step through every day. The waiting is endless especially after waiting fifteen years to find Penelope in the first place.

They can't go for walks anymore so instead Sawyer reads the books aloud, sits on uncomfortable hospital chairs watching movies and tv shows, and tries to have conversations about a world as if they were still out there living in it not trapped in a flashing room that smelt like chemicals.

Sawyer doesn't know how to say goodbye, one day she returns to the little chapel and meets another sister, older, with her own tears running down her face.

And in a move that she wouldn't have made a year ago Sawyer places her hand on the stranger's shoulder in an act of solidarity. Eventually they begin to talk.

"How do I say goodbye?" Maisie's tears flow freer, her brother was on life support after a car accident, there was no waking up for Miles Green. Maisie wonders aloud if he is in pain, Sawyer wonders silently if it was a blessing her Mother had died on impact.

Sawyer walks back upstairs with shaking legs and grips the dying teenagers' hands, "I need you to know I love you" she can't remember the last time she had said those words to anyone, sixteen years ago maybe.

Five hours later Penelope Scott is told she's getting a new heart and Sawyer weeps, pushing off a goodbye she never wants to say.

The Baker boys and the Scott's are all there too, Sawyer cannot remain waiting with them, family yet not really one of them, so she escapes, walks the halls and hopes.

Her face must be deathly pale when she runs into Maisie whose tears are beginning to dry, "is your sister okay?"

In shock Sawyer nods, "they found her a heart, she's going to be okay" she considered hugging the older woman whose eyes were edged with her own grief but Maisie stepped back in horror.

And then the horror settled and Maisie gave Sawyer a sad smile, "take care of it" and she hurried away as if being chased, not thinking about what black outfit she would wear to her own brother's funeral.

There's a big party to celebrate Penn coming home, and Sawyer eats cake with everyone else, Jude finds her and sends her a little nod, "I'm glad you're here"

Sawyer moves her eyes away from him not able to meet his honey gaze, and she wonders if Brooke had been right about love being chaos. So, she nods and takes a bite of the best cake she had ever had.

The girl who didn't remember what love felt like, who had twirled a diamond ring on her finger debating whether to take it off or not, who had no friends to confide in when she didn't know the answer, was gone. When they went for walks before Penn did most of the talking, sharing her adventures at school and with her friends, now Sawyer could do the same, she spoke of her job and the colleagues who had been upgraded to friends, she spoke of her new night classes, of Sasha from the gym who she went out to coffee with twice a week and out drinking every other week.

Sawyer doesn't confide in Penn, there's some things you don't tell your little sister, like how every now and then you find yourself kicking out the same honey eyed Baker boy and promising it won't happen again only to tumble back into the same mistake a week or two later.

Out of all the people to get feelings for Jude Baker is the last person Sawyer should fall for, he's wrong for her in each and every way possible. Her mother is responsible for the death of his, they have a little sister in common, he's younger than her, too young in many ways, and he smokes, she hates smoking.

It doesn't matter though because Jude never talks to her about whatever it is that they're doing, and Sawyer only sometimes wonders what it would be like to tell Penn about the boy she likes the way the sixteen-year-old talks about Colt from third period.

There was prom and spring formals, heartbreaks and highs, Sawyer missed fifteen years of her sister's life but she spent three being there as much as possible. She was there for graduation and it was big sister Sawyer who helped pack Penn's bags for college, the two sisters alone in the yellow room.

"Aunt Haley still wants you to stay here" Sawyer folds a shirt, not meeting the eyes that were so like her own.

"She'd wrap me in cotton wool and keep me here for ever if she could, I want to live on campus" Penn shrugs, she continued to pack. After five more minutes Penn sat on her bed and sighed out her frustration, "I'm not dying anymore"

"I know" Sawyer shrugged, "we all just worry"

"Because you love me so much"

"Something like that" Sawyer whispered.

While they go through all Penn's belongings Sawyer comes across the two small boxes she hadn't seen in well over a year and her hands freeze.

Penn watched her sister hungrily eye them, "would you like them?"

"Sorry, what?"

"Would you like the letters he wrote? I can't take them with me, maybe you can look after them until I come home"

She nods.

Morning, Cheery. I wish I was beside you when you wake up but if I stay a moment longer I'm going to miss my flight. I want to be here when you open your eyes, I want to have my arms around you, to whisper in your ear that this wasn't a mistake. Because I know that's what you are thinking right now. And you're wrong. It's okay to feel something, it's okay to be happy again. And if you haven't figured it out yet my plan is to make you very, very happy. I plan to do better this time, with you, with us. With everyone. I don't know how this will work, I know your life is here in Tree Hill and so half my heart is here with you. The other half is with my daughter. I want to read her bedtime stories and wish her sweet dreams every night, and I want to wake up with you and kiss you good morning at the start of every day. It's painful to think I may never have both. I'll take every morning I can though, so know this, Brooke Penelope, next time I will be there when you wake up, the first of many, many mornings of me telling you with everything in me that I love you. That's a promise.

Sawyer found it satisfying to be able to finally have the other half of the letters, and more than anything was the sense of connection, of truth, she received reading her father's cursive script. His thoughts, his observations, his feelings. Her heart had skipped every time she read her father words about herself, and the more she read the more she remembered.

Tea parties in her princess tent, piggy back rides through the hallways, tickle wars and bubble baths with shampoo that smelt like apples.

Summers spent building sandcastles, winters putting on plays in their living room, and his voice telling her it was a just a dream when the nightmares became too real.

Now it's Sawyer who sits at the court by the river hoping to feel closer to an absent Lucas Scott, closing her eyes and trying to picture his short blonde hair, his sleepy blue eyes that crinkled at the corner of his eyes with laughter, the dimple that showed when he grinned, the shadow of a beard was always pricklier in winter. She remembered the sound now, hearing the thump, thump, thump of the basketball as he practiced.

One day as she sat by the court, eyes closed, Sawyer opens her eyes and finds herself looking at a pair of sleepy blue eyes that crinkle with laughter, eyes identical to the pair she sees in her own mirror every day, and Penn smiles at her sister, a single dimple showing in one cheek.

Penn holds up the flowers, three different kinds tied by three different coloured ribbons, "come on, let's go" and she hands one bunch over for Sawyer to take.

After three years in Tree Hill, Sawyer Scott finally found the courage to step through the gate of the cemetery, she didn't wear black and she wasn't alone.

-x-

Of course its BL since when did I write anything else, I've written BL fics from Peyton's pov before why not via an LP kid. This one shot was from an idea of a story I had, multi chapter going between the past and the present, but in the end i'm like meh I'll never write it I will just write it out as a oneshot, kinda like a fun synopsis of the story I had planned. I am curious, at what point was it obvious it was a BL fic and that the letters were from Brooke, was the Penn reveal a surprise when Haley reveals it or was anyone suspicious? Originally it was meant to be twins but well Brooke already has one set of twins and other fics in the works have them having multiple children so I scrapped that.