A/N: Thanks so much for the reviews! They are much appreciated. Hope you all enjoy this chapter.

Disclaimer: I do not own One Tree Hill or any related characters.

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Halo

"I am the most awful, horrible, wretched, disgusting person on the entire planet!"

Peyton Sawyer kinked an eyebrow at her best friend Haley's melodramatic breakdown as she slammed her locker door shut in fury with herself, her lightly colored hair swishing in her face. "Come on Hales…I'm sure it wasn't that bad" Peyton tried to reason with her best friend, but Haley was having none of that.

"You weren't there Peyt…you didn't see the…the look he gave me. It was as if I was the worst person on Earth; worse than a serial killer!" Haley yelled out and Peyton nervously slapped a hand over Haley's mouth, to prevent from spilling any more secrets about herself to the entire school.

Peyton sighed and abruptly stopped walking down the hall to place a comforting hand on Haley's shoulder. "Don't you think you are overreacting, maybe just a little bit?" She spoke softly, relieved that the effort she was making to calm down the light brown haired girl was working. Peyton took her hand off Haley's shoulder and shoved it deep down into the pocket of her jeans and shrugged, "Besides, it's Nathan Scott. You two have been sworn enemies since God knows when. He'll understand."

"Peyton, I crossed the line." Haley's eyes looked up into hers in devastation, the real Haley that cared more about other people than she did herself, coming out. "It doesn't matter if we hate each other. No one deserves that."

Peyton's eyes softened for her best friend, and wrapped her arms swiftly around Haley before she broke down in front of her. She hated to see her best friend so disappointed, especially if it was at herself. "Hales it'll be alright, it's going to be okay. Nathan will forgive you…" Peyton soothed.

"No, it's not that. How can I forgive myself?" Haley shook her head, groaning while she pulled at a few strands of her long, silky hair. She dreaded the moment that she would have to face Nathan Scott for the first time since their confrontation and she wasn't sure she would ever be ready for it. "This isn't something that can be resolved quickly."

Peyton sighed as she continued to walk with her friend down the long hallway crowded with students. "You just have to. You have to learn to forgive yourself or else it'll only make things worse."

Haley rolled her eyes, hating the fact that Peyton was right. The silent agreement that her mind was making aggravated Haley to no end, seeing as she felt her mind was screaming out at the same time. She looked around at the faces of her peers who were laughing and goofing around with each other like nothing could ever be wrong in their worlds. That also annoyed Haley.

Peyton followed her best friend's eyes as they swarmed over the array of teenagers that filed down the halls nosily until one particular set of eyes stopped her in her movement. Hearing the small gasp that sounded next to her, Peyton only guessed that Haley had noticed who stood just meters down from them. She nervously looked down at the light-haired girl that stood beside her, Haley's face gone sheet white.

"He-him…damn…"

The words came out all jumbled up and Peyton had a hard time comprehending Haley's words and translating them as words or mutters. "Why does life have to be shitting on me right now…" That sentence however was clear as Haley snapped her eyes shut and grunted.

Peyton took two seconds to figure out what to do and decided quickly to move in front of Haley, blocking her from the path of view of Nathan. "Okay, well, uhm…do you want to talk to him now? I mean it's your perfect chance…" Peyton cut her sentence off once she received a death glare from Haley.

"Yeah and be lowered down into the ground in my coffin earlier than I'm supposed to be? I'd think not" Haley muttered to her best friend sarcastically, all the while hesitantly brushing strands of her hair behind her ear. "I think I'll stick with laying low today. I haven't had nearly enough time to write up a speech for this…" She took this time to glance up at Peyton who was giving her a lopsided smile, "And yes, a speech is vital and necessary pertaining to the god awful crime I commited."

Peyton stared blankly at Haley, at a loss for the right words. Finally she settled on, "Are you trying to be funny?"

"Does it look like I'm kidding?" Haley hissed under her breath, wearily sneaking glances out from behind Peyton. It was clearly evident to Peyton that Haley was nervous as hell. Now she was certain she knew what Lucas Scott meant when he said that Nathan and Haley could only be easily riled up by each other. Even when they weren't arguing and were instead lamented into a perilous situation that had Haley ready to fall to her knees and plead Nathan for his forgiveness, it was still a mutiny of hell that made Peyton feel like she was watching a damn soap opera. Or at least, MTV, although she could easily defend someone who would tell it's producers that the life story of Nathan and Haley is far more fascinating than the countless numbers of other reality shit that they provide.

There wasn't much that fascinated Peyton Sawyer, though. One would most definitely have to be Guns N' Roses who shocked their fans when they finally released a new record after a fourteen year delay. Two would have to be Nathan and Haley's purely hate relationship ever since Haley caught Nathan dipping her lightly-brown colored braids into a can of red paint when they were six years old. The number three spot, to which she had just discovered, was reserved for right now. Right now, as in when Peyton Sawyer caught Haley James staring towards the back of Nathan Scott's head with gluttony, her melancholy face looking more tortured than she had ever felt. Sure, Haley had always been stubbornly unforgiving to herself when she made a mistake, but this was a scene she had never witnessed before in all her seventeen years of life. It was almost as if she was…

"Haley? Are you sure you're okay?" Peyton trailed off, becoming overall concerned for her best friend who was too busy cutting solemn, depressed holes in the back of Nathan's head.

"If I was okay, why would I be feeling so damn guilty all the time?" Haley mumbled, her eyes brimming with tears. Oh no, anything but this. Peyton could deal with any kind of burning in hell or freezing in Antarctica but this. She was not designed to weep, much less stand there and nonchalantly pat a dear friend on the back while they sobbed helplessly on her shoulder. No, she couldn't deal with that.

Desperate times, call for desperate measures. Smack. "Ow!" Haley cried in pain, pouting softly as she rubbed the slowly yellowing bruise on her left shoulder. "What the hell was that for?" She angrily asked, Peyton still able to trace that hint of innocence in her voice.

"Snap. Out. Of. It." Gritting her teeth with as much force as she could contain, the curly haired blonde pointedly directed a finger in front of her petite friend's face. "Quit feeling fucking sorry for your fucking self!" She blew out a frustrated breath and lowered her vicious finger that had Haley scared stiff. Softening her face so she didn't frighten the smaller girl completely, Peyton grabbed her shoulders encouragingly, "You can do this, Hales. You can apologise."

And then Peyton heard Haley's sharp intake of breath and initially crossed it off as a reaction to her sudden outburst, but knew better to believe that notion for a second longer when Haley grew pale. Her eyes were shifted to a figure behind Peyton and the blonde turned swiftly around to come face to face with Nathan Scott.

'Perfect timing' Peyton laughed dryly in her head, slightly chastising herself in her mind for even thinking about joking around during that particular moment.

Nathan glanced back at Haley's frightened face and suddenly frowned. Peyton racked her brain to possible solutions to what he could possibly be thinking in that moment. His eyebrows scrunched together, his lips pursed tightly in a thin line. Not good, most definitely not good. Peyton remembered the first time she had seen Nathan purse his lips; when their second grade teacher brought in a stack of freshly baked brownies for their class to share and Nathan had discovered that they had nuts in them. Not good.

Peyton ceased the moment where Haley's bog brown eyes softened at the sight of him. Glancing towards the chivalrous dark-haired guy, Peyton watched his ocean blue eyes darken in a split second. Two different forces, soft and dark, joining together in this moment of silence. Neither spoke and neither breathed.

The warning bell shrilled in the aroma of the halls, echoing throughout Peyton's ears. She cursed silently at herself for momentarily forgetting that they were still positioned in the middle of a crowded hallway full of their peers. Nathan shot out of their line of view like lightning, both girls barely able to make out his fading figure sway into a classroom far east down the hall.

Peyton damned life for making her, yet again, the one to witness an interesting confrontation between Nathan and Haley.

--

Brooke Davis was not one to joke. Mostly because she never was joking about such tales that involved her bunging jumping off a bridge held up by only a single cord or spending $1,000 on a velour sweat suit by Juicy. No, she most definitely never kids when it comes to shopping.

And that's the reason she's determined to make her prediction become reality. Her prediction that involves Nathan Scott, Haley James, and an opposites attract sort-of romance all in one. So when her boyfriend Lucas Scott heard this theory, she had him flabbergasted.

"Come again?"

"Think about it, Luke. Nathan Scott and Haley James. Nathan, the egotistic womanizer with Haley, the frenzied aristocrat…Naley." Brooke was so ridiculously enthusiastic about her pairing name that she clutched onto her boyfriend's shoulder, squealing softly in delight. "It's perfect!"

Lucas winced slightly at his girlfriend's tight hold on his arm. "Uh…no." He stated shortly, getting a queasy feeling when it came to Nathan and Haley as a couple. He wasn't sure he could stomach it all. "Maybe in another lifetime Brooke" Lucas suggested weakly as he removed Brooke's already dug-in fingernails out of his shoulder.

Brooke groaned. "But Lucas…"

"No." He stood straight and looked the brunette in the eye. "Do you seriously want to get in the middle of World War III?" His lame attempt at a joke made Brooke glare harshly over at the blonde, nevertheless curling her fingers around his hand softly as they exited the school building from which they came from.

"You can't deny that they would be so cute together…." Brooke hinted as she slightly nudged her boyfriend in the ribs suggestively.

Lucas groaned and unlocked their hands to use them as a shield over his ears. "Stop that! Brother and best friend…no!" He whined dramatically, ignoring Brooke's roll of the eyes.

"What's got your panties in a bind, brother?" Nathan snickered lightly as he came up from behind Lucas and clapped him on the shoulder roughly. Lucas growled in pain, shooting Brooke an accusing glare while rubbing his shoulder, mumbling to himself.

"Apparently I'm going to have to undergo surgery to remove the searing pain in my shoulder right now from the constant abuse it's receiving."

Nathan mocked Brooke's previous gesture with a roll of his eyes, watching Brooke's face intensely as it suddenly brightened. "Oh Nathan! We were just talking about you and Hale…ow!" Brooke whimpered as she clutched onto her leg painfully, hissing under her breath at her boyfriend who intentionally kicked her in the shin.

Nathan's eyes narrowed at the sudden mention of his enemy. He had almost been able to completely avoid her line of path all day except for the short moment they exchanged glances in the hall before 4th period. However the saddened look in her eyes when he spotted her was enough to drive him insane the rest of the day, contemplating in his head what she could have possibly been thinking.

"Help me breathe, you guys!" Peyton yelled drastically over to the threesome as she exasperatedly dragged Jake by the hand over to her friends. "I swear to God if I have to listen to Haley's little pity party she's having today one more time…"

"Relax, baby" Jake laughed shortly, kissing Peyton's soft head full of curls.

Nathan grunted, receiving curious looks from his friends that surrounded him. He looked away purposefully, pretending to be more interested in the ground rather than the knowing glance that he knew Lucas would probably deprive him of.

"What the hell is with you today, Scott?" Brooke distastefully eyed the dark-haired man, knowing very well what buttons she was trying to push. She never received a verbal response however, trading that for the death glare he sent dangerously in her direction. "Just asking…apparently something's up both the Scott brothers' asses today…" She continued mumbling incoherently, crossing her arms and pointedly ignoring Lucas's annoyed expression he had plastered on his face.

Peyton leaped at the chance to quickly turn to Nathan and lower her voice, "Hey Nate, listen…"

"Haley!" Brooke screamed to the petite light-brown haired girl strolling to her car on the other side of the arboretum. Everyone watched as a startled Haley whipped around, her hair flying in her face clumsily. She grinned momentarily and raised a hand to wave eagerly at her friend, only to have her body fill with chagrin as she spotted the one person she tried desperately to avoid standing behind Brooke. The moment was over before Brooke could even comprehend it and Haley was out of everyone's sight as she hurriedly rushed into the mob of students.

Brooke frowned slightly, "That was weird…"

Peyton sighed in concern for one of her best friends, "See what I mean? We'll catch you all later." The group of three murmured goodbyes to Peyton and Jake and watched them silently as they walked hand in hand towards the school parking lot.

Lucas and Brooke turned away from the couple to see Nathan staring intently into the crowd that Haley had disappeared into with a disapproving look on his face. "Yeah, I'll see you two later, also…" He managed to murmur out as he took off in the direction Haley was heading.

Lucas raised an eyebrow. "Well…that's a first. Nathan trying to get his throat cut off." The thought seemed to amuse Lucas greatly and he leaned over quickly to drop a kiss on Brooke's forehead. "I'll call you later, sweetheart. Love you."

Brooke smiled genuinely at her boyfriend, amazed that she still had those little butterflies still fluttering in her stomach when he touched her in an affectionate way. "Love you too. By the way, I thought you were going to try and catch Haley before she left?" Brooke questioned Luke, silently praying that he wouldn't, wanting desperately to give Nathan and Haley some time alone. Even if they were already screaming in each other's faces.

Lucas shrugged dismissively. "Nah, I'll just call her later or run by her house or something."

--

Haley fumbled with the silver key that hung dangling from a chain, her shaky fingers depriving her from getting her car unlocked faster. "Stupid motherfucker…" She grumbled to herself, cursing her damn car that chose today of all days, when all she wanted to do was escape this place, to have her at a halt.

"Having trouble, James?" The oh-so familiar smooth voice sounded out in earshot of Haley and she groaned inwardly to the absolute horror she was experiencing in a single moment.

"What the fuck do you want, Scott?" Haley barely bothered to ask annoyingly, shoving rough pieces of her hair out of her face impatiently. She had finally managed to unlock her car and slung her messenger bag off of her shoulder and tossed it angrily into the passenger seat. She turned around briefly to catch Nathan staring at her with raised eyebrows. "What?" This scene was quite familiar in Haley's mind, remembering their car ride just a day earlier.

Nathan shrugged innocently, all thoughts about their previous argument flying out the window. A small smirk tugged coyly on his lips, "Nothing. Just heard you had quite a…productive day." A chuckle threatened to erupt from Nathan's mouth as he watched Haley's face twist with hatred.

"Says who?" Haley demanded.

Nathan lifted his shoulders again. "Not that it matters, but I sort of think you owe me something…" He mischievously retorted, completely ignoring Haley's recent question.

"I don't have time for your games, Scott" Haley tiredly let out, gritting her teeth as she determinedly slipped into the driver's seat of her car and started it up. She reached over and pulled on the door only to have it not budge. Haley glanced up to see Nathan towering over her, his hands firmly placed on the outskirts of her door. Banging her hand on the steering wheel, Haley threw up her hands in surrender. "I give!"

Nathan couldn't help but smile, applauding himself for successfully ruining her day, as if it was his plan all along. "I believe you owe me an apology" He whispered so that it limited the chances of having someone overhear their conversation. His face turned to all seriousness and Haley suddenly frowned.

Haley glanced softly into Nathan's eyes momentarily, feeling the apology radiating off the tip of her tongue. However, she couldn't even force herself to converse with it. "I don't owe you anything". She settled for the lies and darkened her big brown eyes slightly.

This time, it was Nathan's turn to have his grin fall. "Are you sure you don't want to say anything? Haven't you wanted to…" He could tell by the look in her eyes he had witnessed earlier that morning and the objections Peyton had informed him of about Haley's attitude were enough to prove that she was feeling guilty. Apparently, not.

"Not anymore." The statement was cool, harsh. Nathan instantly backed off of her car, knowing that he had pushed her too far, too quickly. His own eyes grew dark as well as he slightly cursed himself. He should have known that her pride was too much for her to overcome anything.

Without any second of hesitance, Haley slammed her door shut and hit the gas pedal as hard as she could. Her car swerved down the path leading out the exit of the parking lot, leaving unknowingly a pair of ocean blue eyes following her firebird as it evaporated from their view.

--

Lucas Scott was not one to be afraid of anything. No, he most certainly wasn't afraid for his mother when she underwent a life-threatening procedure when he was seven years old, leaving him wondering if his mother would ever return to him. He was instead confident that she would make it, his mother was strong; that's all that he needed, and she did. Karen Scott pulled through.

So no, he most definitely was not afraid of letting Nathan and Haley get close. The idea that Brooke had planted in his head did not frighten him. It merely only had him puzzled. Here were two people, who depended solely on making the other's life as miserable as they could. So was he afraid? No. Slightly worried? You could say that. Lucas would never wish for his friends to be unhappy, so if that was their choice, he would stand by them through thick and thin. But, what if that choice was a mistake? A part of life they wouldn't be able to erase? How could he live with that?

"Stop it, Lucas, stop it" Lucas annoyingly shouted to himself about the thoughts that disturbed his mind. Turning left, onto a new road, he made a silent reminder to kill Brooke for her outrageous theories that suddenly had him frazzled.

He was distracted, by all means, by the thoughts that clouded his whole way of thinking. So distracted in fact, that he barely noticed the light flash above him turn red. So distracted, that he barely had time to react as he heard the squealing sound of tires desperately trying to skid to a halt head on his side of the car. Lucas's eyes were wide as bright white lights flooded his view, and then suddenly his world turned black.

However, in that split second, Lucas Scott was afraid.

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Cliffhanger? You bet. I hope I don't take too long to update, you guys have been great! Reviews are much appreciated.