I know, I know. It's been a while, but I've been dealing with the end of the year rush and have barely had enough time to check my email on the computer, so I've been chipping away little by little at it, very slowly. Finals are over and now I've just got to start helping w/ my brother's Grad party. :( Here's your update, not very long.. sorry.

Chapter 16: Part One: In Spite of Our Fears

"Well, when are you coming home?" Brooke sighed angrily into the phone as she flipped through a gossip magazine. She would have looked better in those Gucci pumps than Jennifer Lopez anytime. Except now, when she's pregnant and her feet are swollen to the size of watermelons.

"Brooke, it's only two. Not for hours, I'm really tied up." Lucas' exhausted voice came through the phone. He shuffled around about a million manilla folders before finally landing upon the Riberson file. Jerry Riberson was his current whiny Freshman that couldn't solve his dorm room problems by himself. God forbid he would have to room with a lacrosse player he didn't know. When he had gone to college, he took whatever they gave him, and thanked his lucky stars he didn't have to pay for it. He covered the mouthpiece with his hand and shouted over his cubicle to the intern nearby, "Get me the number to the housing office. I've misplaced it."

Brooke once again let out an extended sigh, "Luke, I need you right now though."

"Are you and the baby okay?" He asked at once, searching for the keyboard underneath the immense stack of papers.

"Yes, we're fine, but all you've done lately is work. Broody, I miss you!" She complained. She stared down at the 'Baby Watch' page before her and felt a sinking feeling. Why did they get to look like a million bucks while pregnant, when she looked like a dollar twenty five? It just wasn't fair.

He didn't want to admit it, but his wife was becoming annoying. This was the fourth time she had called that day, not that he didn't want to talk to her, but every time she called he found himself wanting to leave and go be with her. But they had a baby coming, and money doesn't grow on trees. "I miss you too, but I need to get some things sorted out. I'll call you on my way out, okay? I love you."

"I love you too. I put some granola bars in your suitcase pocket. I read some where they help brain function. You should eat one, you sound tired." She told him, rubbing her belly.

"I will. Talk to you later. Bye." He hung up the phone just as the intern came back with the number. "What's your name kid?"

"Chad." He said, straightening his tie.

Lucas cleared his throat and punched in the number, "Well, Chad, let me give you some advice, quit now, this job blows and so do all the other jobs on his floor."

Chad looked at him with panic, "They promised me promotion after a few months."

Lucas laughed hollowly as he listening to the holding music play in his ear and pointed to a forty seven year old man with the assistant director title, "He's been here since he was twenty two, like most of us. They promised him promotion too. One promotion is about it, kid. The pay is good, but the work is tedious and- Good afternoon, Mr. Young... Yes, this is Lucas Scott... I'm very well sir, how about you... That's terrific, listen, I was calling on behalf of one of our players, Riberson is the last name. There seems to have been a mix up with his room... Of course I can wait, thank you sir." He was interrupted by the sudden answering of the phone, "-the work is tedious and gives you a migraine everyday. Walk away while you can." He warned to the intern.

"Yes sir," He answered politely and quickly bustled off.

-.-.

"Peyton, please!" Brooke begged into the phone again. "You can put off doing that until later!"

"Brooke. Some of us have deadlines. And those deadlines mean that 'later' will get me fired." Peyton chided, tapping her pen against her sketchpad and watching as Jenny softly fell asleep in the couch in front of her.

"Oh puh-lese, Peyton. You've been working there for so long. You have such good job security by now, they love you Peyton!" She protested, couldn't her best friend understand she was bored out of her mind?

Peyton rolled her eyes, "Brooke. Jenny just went down for her nap, I need to finish this sketch and you need to start that stuff for your class." Peyton sounded to Brooke like she was trying to shut her up. And why in the world did she tell her that her layout was due next week?

"You're becoming boring, P. Sawyer." She groaned.

Peyton replied cooly, "Yes, I am. Why don't you call Haley?"

"Cause she probably has her tongue down Nathan Scott's throat right about now! Besides, it's Megan's nap time too." Brooke complained, throwing her hairbrush across the room in frustration.

Peyton sighed, "When you going to end the Cold War with Nathan? I mean, we have been happy all this time with Lucas and Jake and Haley rarely said anything negative. She is constantly doing things and trying to keep her and Megan afloat-"

"-Which she wouldn't have had to do if Nathan had just stayed here!"

"You don't know that. Think about it Brooke, he stays, they're happy.. For a while. Until the bills start rolling in and they can't pay for them. Until they are both dropping out of school to pay for Megan. I mean, he's here now, and has more money than most of us ever dreamt of having. You need to put the past behind you, let it go, Haley obviously has. She's happier than I've seen her in a long time, and Megan finally gets a dad. Just leave it alone and let them have a chance to be a family." Peyton lectured.

"I don't trust him." Brooke pouted.

Peyton laughed airily, "I think we're all a long way away from trusting him again, but we can try.. For Haley."

-.-.

Routinely speaking, the day has been nothing out of the ordinary. After just returning from her parent's summer home in Connecticut, she had moseyed about her hometown, casually attending to the errands a new science might attend to. She had caught up with the small town's abundant gossip while meeting her lifelong best friend, Melissa, for a late lunch. However, in the early evening her day's outlook took a drastic leap from leisure to panic.

Coming out of the post office, she walked the short distance from the door to her parallel parked car and expertly pulled into traffic. She stopped at the red light and rolled down her window, letting in the humid summer breeze. She glanced simply to the right and saw him instantly. He was tying a young girl's shoe and the child was singing a Little Mermaid song. A car behind her honked their horn and she looked up to see the light had changed to green. Before she could stop herself, she pulled her car over and reassessed the situation. From her angle now, it was even more difficult to be positive that the man she was intently staring at was indeed the man she believed herself to be fixated on.

"Gosh, this is just ridiculous." She cursed at herself as she hastily climbed out of her SUV. In the process, her purse strap became stuck in the door. She tugged mercilessly at the piece of fabric, but it remained wedged. Letting her emotions out on the purse, she used one foot to brace herself by resting it on the side of the car and both hands to tug at it. Seemingly out of nowhere, a male's hand came into her view and lifted the door's handle gently, opening the door and letting the purse and herself to fall backward. One of the male's muscular arms wrapped around her back and caught her fall.

He smirked as he looked down into her eyes and let out a simple, "Hello Meredith."

–.-.

After spending most of the day in the scorching summer sun, Haley found herself to be exhausted and run down. She sat curled up in one of her patio armchairs, watching Nathan laughably trying to start a bombfire. She let her eyes close peacefully, listening to the frequent cursing from Nathan and tranquil trickle of the neighbor's pond. The night's air was as humid as the day's and gave her little reprieve with the temperature. It was predicted to hit nearly ninety degrees as nightly low, causing Haley to be grateful for her air conditioning. Making matters worse, the forecast for July's end was just as horridly hot and humid. It almost made her want the month to end rapidly. Her eyes fluttered open and she remembered th exact reason why she wanted it to never end.

Nathan left August 8th.

She let out a sigh and he looked over at her. There was a black soot line on his cheek and he looked throughly pissed off, "This is impossible." She let out a small giggle, but his look silenced her.

"The only way to discover the limits of the possibilities is to go beyond them into the impossibilities. Arthur C. Clarke." She rattled off perfectly, giving him a mega watt smile that he couldn't help but laugh at.

"You're ridiculous, you know that?" He chuckled and she feigned offence.

Turning away her head, she grumbled, "I was going to help you start that fire, but now I think I'd rather just go to bed."

"You sure about that?" His voice had turned from irritated to a seductive, challenging tone, and she had to really work at not letting her resistance falter when she felt his breath on her neck.

She stayed adamant, "Positive."

"Well, I'm pretty sure that it's hot enough out here without the fire. And I think we are both positive I'm hot enough to keep us both warm so," He added, confidently smirking and pressing a warm, hot kiss into her neck. "So, I think going to bed sounds pretty nice, especially with you."

"Mmm, yeah. Except, guess who should be coming home any minute now?" She grinned teasingly.

He groaned, "You know, having a kid really kills the mood."

Her smiled faded, "Wow, I'm sorry, I didn't know she's such an inconvenience to you." She sarcastically snapped and drew back away from him. She gave him a defensive glare.

"Haley," He whispered, she pushed him away from her and she began to walk away. "Hales, come on. Don't be like this, you know I didn't mean it like that."

She spun around fiercely, "I know huh? See, I'm not so sure I do. So, please enlighten me, Nathan. Which way did you mean it?"

He hesitated, how did he mean it? It was a pretty low thing to say now that he thought about it, but why was she flipping out so badly? "Hales, baby-" He started.

Her face contorted to frustration along side anger, "NO! No, 'Hales baby,' this time Nathan. You don't get that as an out! I want to know why everything about our lives is set according to when it is convenient for you! It wasn't a good time for a baby back then, it is a good time for a kid now. It's a great time to try and recover our marriage now, but it meant nothing to you then! And it's convenient for you to have a family for a few months in the summer, but not so much when you need to step back into the spotlight with your precious Clippers, right?"

He sucked in a deep breathe and sighed, "I don't want to fight, Haley. I didn't mean anything bad about what I said, okay? You know I adore Megan, just as much as I love you."

Haley shook her head, "Unbelievable! You don't want to fight because you know that I'm right and you are the one wrong here, but you can't take anyone yelling at you!" At this he started to chortle, trying desperately to keep from angering her more. "Damn it, Nathan! What are you laughing at!"

"You're cute when you're angry, you know that?" He told her in his best smooth and alluring voice, but she didn't crack. She had always been good at standing her ground, it's one of the things that first attracted him to her.

She sighed and went back inside, throwing over her shoulder coldly, "Go home Nathan. Now."

-..-.-.

Quietly, he shut the door behind him. He set down his briefcase, wincing when it made a loud thud. He paused and listened for signs that he may have woken his wife. After a moment, he let out a sigh of relief and continued his walk into the house. He saw her laying on the couch as the television flashed the evening news from the corner. The What To Expect When You're Expecting book lay sprawled on her chest as if she had been reading it. Silently, he crept over to her, set the book on the coffee table, covered her pregnant body with a blanket, and pressed a loving kiss on her forehead.

The shrill ring of their home telephone pierced through the room and he nearly pounced on it to answer it before it rang again, for the chance it would wake his cranky wife. "Hello?" He whispered hoarsely as possibly while taking large, fast steps out of the room.

"Hey Luke." A meek, tired sounding woman's voice came through the phone.

"Haley? What's wrong?" Worry quickly filled his tone as he took steps back out the front door and sat down on the tall backed white rocking chair on the porch.

She hesitated and he predicted she was shaking her head, "Nothinss wrong Lucas." She slurred.

"Haley, have you been drinking?" He asked, almost amused as much as he was worried. It wasn't just a just best friend secret that Haley rarely drank. In fact, it wasn't much of a secret at all, most people knew.

He heard a hiccup, "A little."

"Is Megan home?"

She seemed to ponder the question for a moment, "Owen dropped her off, she's sleepin." He couldn't be sure, but it sounded as if a country twang had entered her voice, which only made him want to laugh harder. As children, they would make fun of Taylor together for getting a thick accent when she became drunk. The only other time she heard Haley get it was when they visited Haley's maternal grandma on her old plantation house back when Megan was still an infant. Then again, everyone acquired an accent when you visited 'Nanna Boo.'

"What's wrong , Haley?" He asked again, this time slightly more demanding.

"Why can't your brother be more like you Lucass?"

His brother. What did that idiot do now? "What happened, Hales?"

She ignored him, "Why couldn't he of been born to Karen, too? He would have been caring and understanding, handsome and charming, and sweet and sensitive and all of the other things Brooke brags that you are?" So Brooke does brag about him..interesting.

"Hales, what did he do?"

"NOTHING! He didn't so anything!"

His eyebrows furrowed in confusion, "Haley, I have no clue what that means. Is that girl code for something good or bad?"

"Pft. Why does my best friend have to have a penis." She miffed. Lucas let out a surprised burst of laughter. Did Haley just say that? Since when does she say things like that? "It means it's bad, stupid."

"Alright, alright." He soothed to his bad-tempered, drunk best friend. "So, was it you who did something!"

She let out an exaggerated breathe, "Nooo! It wasn't me!"

"Huh?"

"He just doesn't get it, is all! He thinks the world owes him something! But, newsflash, it don't!" Did she just speak ungrammatically? Maybe he should go check on her... "And - and- and..." She trailed off.

"Hales, why don't you try enjoying the time you have left with him?" He suggested quietly.

She let out a small whimper, "How am I supposed to enjoy the time if he's leaving, Luke. I mean, he's really leaving, again. I don't want him to leave, again." He should have known. And to think, he just wasted a good five minutes of his life trying to figure it out.

"Haley, why don't you just go to sleep? We'll talk in the morning okay, meet me at the Café before work?" He offered.

She cursed under her breath and Lucas found himself sighing in relief that Haley rarely drank and that dealing with her like this isn't a common occurrence. "Time?"

"About eight..." He has to be at work at eight, that wouldn't work. "After seven?"

She paused again to figure out what he said, "Eight after seven in the morning? That's reeeally random, Luke."

From inside he heard a loud noise and quickly jumped and rushed back inside adding hastily to Haley, "Just be there."

Shout Outs:

Deli41321: That's weird about the email thing, I have that same problem.When I created Owen, I thought about Taylor being Haley's opposite, then thought about my brother's and pretty much based everything off that. Haha, And I had alot of fun with Brooke's mood swings. When my aunt was pregnant, it was bad, she was either crying or screaming at my uncle. From my viewpoint, it was rather humerous.

Nicolec: Owen's storyline is pending at the moment, he's a good way to break up the normalcy, butI also think that sooner or later he might kill the story's momentum and kind of get in the way. I don't know, we'll have to see, I suppose. "Catch you on the flip side," Ditto, Nicole. Ditto.

Coupling-All-The-Time: Brooke is one of my favorite characters, she's got such spunk and reminds me so much of my friend, Bree. I made Owen up, in case you didn't know. I based him loosely on my brother's, who are older than me as well. I hope you enjoyed this short update.

HaleynNathan23: Hey Chelsea, brownies are amazing. I happen to rate them as a 9.2, right there with penne pasta and grilled cheese sandwiches. As for your idea of Brooke and Nathan talking, I had that idea and it's coming up. I'm having serious trouble finding a spot for it, but I have a good idea of how it's going to play out now that I have this update finished. Owen is my filler/idea that's been in my head for a while/ family relation storyline.

RoseRows: I'm glad you like Owen, I was worried about it. He's just kind of a filler storyline that I had in my head for a long time. Now that's he's in the story, however, I have no idea what to do with him. Brooke's mood swings were based on my aunt when she was pregnant with her youngest, weirdly named Brooke. She had serious mood swings and because my cousin has down syndrome she had to take vitamins and she hated it so basically she was insane andI stayed away from her during her pregnancy as much as I could.Haha.

xSmile: I hoped someone would be tricked, haha. Owen is NOT her ex lover, however. That's a little creepy and too Flowers In the Atticfor my taste.