A/N - Sorry for the wait! This is a longer chapter, so I hope that makes up for it. It moves through time quicker than the last three, but it'll slow down after this point. Keep in mind that because Lucas chose not to pursue Peyton senior year in my fic, she is no longer the focus of his book. ;)


It is a Tuesday when Peyton asks him out on a date. He is completely caught off guard. After a year away from Tree Hill, and from each other, Lucas had assumed that her feelings were long gone. He's left only to stare blankly at her, much like he had a year and half prior to this point.

"I love you."

"Oh."

He knows he didn't handle that particular night very well. She'd looked devastated but he couldn't say it back for as she said those words he could not help but think of the last person that he'd said them to. As Peyton looked at him, waiting for his response with a fleeting look of hope on her pretty face, he froze. And he thought of someone else.

So is the case as she sits in front of him in his mom's café, waiting for him to say yes or no to going on a real date tonight. She bites down on her bottom lip, which irritates him because its Brooke that does that a lot and he doesn't like it when Peyton does things that remind him of Brooke.

"Peyton, I don't really know how that would work. We don't live in the same town anymore—" He begins but stops when she rolls her eyes.

"Cut the crap, Lucas." She sighs, shaking her head. "Call me crazy, I had to ask. We're home for the summer, I don't know, I had to try. And, you know—" Now she's the one who stops talking. But she hasn't stopped because of his expression. She seems to have stopped right before saying something crucial.

"What?" He asks, raising an eyebrow.

"Forget it." She mumbles looking down at her coffee. He doesn't say anything, knowing that his silence will be enough to get her to fess up. She glances back up at him and smiles weakly. "I was going to say that Brooke won't be coming home this summer. I thought it might be a sore spot."

Hearing her name is like a punch to the gut. Over the course of his first year in college he'd managed to avoid the subject of Brooke any time he'd spoken to someone. Somehow, they all knew not to bring her up. He doesn't know how to talk about her anymore.

"You guys keep in contact?" He asks after a few seconds of silence.

Peyton nods her head, her smile growing for a split second. "We call each other once a week. We email too." She pauses as if she is considering her next words carefully. "She asks about you."

Lucas smiles but does not say anything. Instead, he tells Peyton that he wants to be just friends.

The day that Peyton asks Lucas out is the day that he sits down to write his first letter to Brooke. He writes only one sentence.

It's a boring world without you around.

-Lucas

He doesn't hear back from her for two weeks. When he sees his name on the front of the envelope in her neat, loopy handwriting his heart immediately quickens. He has not spoken to her since the day that she stood on his doorstep with her address on a piece of paper asking him not to disappear completely.

Excitement comes in all forms, Luke.

All the best,

-Brooke

He is tempted to write back and tell her that he prefers his excitement in the form of her but he holds off. He can't say that he's had a bad year. He'd written quite a bit. He'd gone on a few first dates and zero second dates. Every time, he would think that this was it, this was the girl that would get a second date; then she would do something like scrunch her nose or bite her bottom lip and that would be it.

He's not hung up on her, not exactly. But he can't seem to explain why he can't bring himself to talk about her. He can't explain why he can't write her back. He can't explain the quiet longing that sits below the surface, soft and silent but ever present. He'd loved her with a fierceness that wasn't blinding, but rather eye-opening. He doesn't know where to go after something like that.

He spends the summer finishing his book. He hangs out with Nathan, Haley, and Peyton almost daily. He and Peyton babysit Jamie together a lot, but her mind is often elsewhere on these days. He gets the feeling that she prefers playing house with another boy, one whom she'd said goodbye to a long time ago. He wonders if Peyton misses Jake Jagelski as much as he misses Brooke. He wonders if this should make him feel jealous.

Instead, he feels tired.


The day he gets a call saying his book is going to be published is the first time he gets genuinely excited in years. He is celebrating his twenty-first birthday as typically as he possibly can, at a bar in New York City. He is well on his way to being drunk, all of his old friends had come up for the weekend and they are surrounding him when he gets the call. The publisher wants to go into editing immediately so the book could be in print within a couple of months. He hangs up the phone, about to announce to his friends that he was about to become a published author.

Instead, he pretends his mother had called to say happy birthday.

He can't explain why he decides not tell them. He could have at least pulled Nathan and Haley aside from everyone else and told them privately. He could have called his mother and shared the news. But something is nagging at him and he doesn't know what it is but it's stopping him from telling anyone. It's his dream come true and he keeps it a secret.

"This is a dream come true."

Everyone makes it to the bar for his birthday. Everyone except two people. He'd called Peyton and left her a message about the time and place. When the time had come to decide whether or not he would call Brooke he'd decided to write her back for the first time in two years.

It's the big 21. Please say you can make it.

-Lucas

He'd scrawled the time and address at the bottom. He knows it's not fair of him to expect her to come. She'd written him a few times, even called. He always let it go to voicemail. He just doesn't know how to talk to her anymore.

He is about to take on his sixth beer of the night when he notices the door of the bar swing open. They walk in arm and arm, already laughing. He isn't sure what he feels. He hasn't seen them together since that night on the beach when they'd walked off together to talk. He certainly hasn't them giggling and arm in arm since the beginning of their senior year in high school.

It's the first time he's seen Peyton in a year in a half. She doesn't look much different, albeit a little happier than she had the last time he'd seen her. She looks lighter, less sullen. She waves from across the room when she spots him.

It's the first time he's seen Brooke in three years. Her hair is shorter, stopping just at her collarbone. She looks older than twenty-one, but in a good way. Her eyes meet his as she walks up to him and before she can so much as say 'happy birthday' he grabs her hand and pulls her aside.

"They're publishing my book. Brooke, I'm going to be published, it's like a dream come true." He says. She looks startled at first but only for a second. Her eyes light up, her hand flies to her mouth.

"Oh my goodness, Lucas!" She says before throwing her arms around him. It is the first time they are hugging in forever and it feels immensely wonderful. It feels familiar in the best way possible. She still fits perfectly in his arms, her head nestles into the crook of his neck, his cheek presses lightly against the top of her head. It feels like they are holding each other for hours before he can feel her squirm a little. He lets her go, laughing sheepishly.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to just drop that on you. I just got the call and it didn't feel right telling anyone until I saw you." He admits. Her smile falters a little, as if this isn't something that she wants to hear. But she recovers quickly, which does not surprise him in the slightest.

"Well, now we have two reasons to celebrate tonight, birthday boy." She says with a wink. She takes his hand, pulls him over to the bar. "Two shots of your most expensive tequila please!" She says to the bartender.

Hugs are given all around once everyone realizes that Brooke and Peyton have arrived. The bartender sets the two shots in front of Brooke. She pushes them both towards Lucas.

"I thought one was going to be for you." He says, raising an eyebrow.

She smirks, and it quickly turns into a very smug, very familiar smile. Suddenly, they are sixteen years old again and she's handing him a beer over a pool table in a smoky dive bar. His eyes wander to the spot where he knows she has a tattoo of an ancient Chinese symbol to match the one that is on his shoulder. His roaming eyes don't slip past her notice; when he locks eyes with her she's got one eyebrow raised slightly in curiosity. She reaches over and picks up one of the shot glasses.

"Cheers." She says before they each down their shot. It tastes awful but goes down smoothly. The alcohol burns beautifully, leaves his chest extremely warm. She orders them another two shots each, which they quickly down.

He doesn't remember much else after this. Somehow he is in his pajamas, lying in bed. He could have sworn that he'd been at the bar only five minutes ago. The time on his alarm clock tells him that it is ten in the morning. When he tries to sit up it feels like the world starts to spin faster so he grabs the trashcan that for some reason is conveniently by his bedside. He hears footsteps as he finishes throwing up. He looks up and is instantly embarrassed.

"I guess I should apologize. I didn't know you'd been drinking quite a bit before I had you take five tequila shots." She says sheepishly, sitting down slowly. His head feels like it weighs eighty pounds.

"I could have sworn I only had three." He says groggily. She chuckles, shaking her head. "Did you stay the night?"

"Nathan and Haley wanted to bring you back to their hotel room to take care of you but I said that you'd want to wake up in your own bed and that I'd stay with you." She shrugs as if to say that it's no big deal. He reaches over slowly and takes her hand in both of his. He is pleased when she doesn't stiffen or pull away.

"Thank you for being so phenomenal when I am a complete mess." He says, squeezing her hand gently. She smiles sweetly and, mercifully, it touches her eyes. It feels as if time has stopped and that they are the only two people left in the world. There is a calm stillness, a quiet peace that he cannot quite explain. The chaos that has been brewing inside of him for more than three years now is at ease.

She opens her mouth to say something but closes it abruptly, as if she'd second-guessed herself. Instead, she says, "So you're going to be published."

He laughs, despite his throbbing head. "I guess I am. I just hope my editor doesn't rip it apart. She says she's only skimmed it, but she's got lots of notes for me." He rolls his eyes, thinking of his editor Lindsey, the pretty blonde with the sharp tongue and an extraordinary tendency to disregard his feelings as an author.

Now it's Brooke who gives his hand a gentle squeeze. "I'm sure it'll stay true to what you wanted. I can't wait to read it." She says. At this last part, his heartbeat quickens. He's nervous for her to read it, especially the parts about her. This book was his most honest piece of work, he'd hidden nothing.

She gives him some painkillers for his headache and he quickly falls asleep. When he wakes up a few hours later he finds that yet again she's dropped out of his life as quickly as she'd dropped in.


He knows by his third date with Lindsey that he is in for something potentially serious. If he is being honest, he has to admit he's kind of known that for a while now. Late nights in Lindsey's office reworking his book proved that they are a force to be reckoned with. She's witty and sharp and knows and understands literature in ways he could only dream of. She's quick to figure out his intentions in every chapter, every line of his work. He is enthralled by her.

"So, I've never really asked you this because I was trying to think of all your characters as fictional, but Ravens is based on your last two years in high school, right?" Lindsey asks him over dinner one night. They'd gotten together, just the two of them, to celebrate the release of his book in the coming morning.

"Right. But you knew that already." He says, his curiosity peaked. After months of editing, what questions could she still possibly have about his book?

She takes a sip of her wine, her sparkling blue eyes watching him carefully. "So whatever happened with those girls? Whatever happened with Brooke and Peyton? Your book ends with your first day of college."

Her question catches him off-guard. He figures that he should get used to answering it though, it is sure to be the question anyone who reads his book will ask him. He takes a deep breath, not knowing where to start.

"I stayed close friends with Peyton after high school ended. A year after graduation she asked me out." He pauses because he says Lindsey's expression, sees the gears turning and knows there is a question forming in her inquisitive mind.

"You said no. But you thought about saying yes." She guesses with a smile.

He laughs, nodding his head. "I could have said yes. I could have fallen in love with her and we would probably still be together now and I wouldn't be sitting here with you. But too much had happened since the last time we'd been together, things I couldn't overlook."

"Things like Brooke?" Lindsey asks.

He shrugs. "Amongst other things. Peyton and I catch up from time to time. I haven't seen in her six months, since my twenty-first birthday."

"Does it hurt, when you see her?" Lindsey pushes.

His answer comes to him surprisingly quickly. "Yes. There is something between us, something almost foul. Everything that happened senior year tainted our friendship. It makes me sad. It's always going to be hard seeing her." He thinks about the summer they'd spent babysitting Jamie for Nathan and Haley, thinks about the distant, cloudy look she'd get in her eyes. She'd wanted it to be Lucas, wanted him to be the one so badly. But that summer she'd been longing to be with someone else.

"What about Brooke?" Lindsey's loaded question brings him out his own thoughts.

"Brooke Davis is, and always will be, very special to me." He says, smiling.

"Do you still talk?" This question comes out terser than the others and he knows that she is asking him as his girlfriend and not his editor. She is jealous.

He opens his mouth to tell her that he and Brooke talk on the phone everyday and have done so since his birthday six months ago but something stops him. He decides that he doesn't have to be that specific with his answer. "Yeah, we're still friends. She and Peyton are very close now."

"You wrote her so beautifully. It feels weird saying this because she's a real person, but she is my favorite character in your book." Lindsey says.

Lucas smiles but does not say anything. She is his favorite too.