"Brooke, Keith let's go!" Lucas yelled from the foot of the stairs, Penelope was holding his hand while he supported Tyler in his other arm.
"I'm still wrapping presents!" Brooke yelled back.
"Well hurry it up!"
"Lucas, it's six o'clock in the morning, stop screaming at me!" she screamed.
"You're both breaking the rules." Penelope yelled, dropping Luke's hand and walking up the stairs to find her brother.
"Pen, baby girl." Lucas called, and groaned when she didn't turn around, "Alright Bud," he added to Tyler who looked up at him sleepily, "Let's go hurry mommy up."
"Lucas," Brooke started as he entered the room, "you know how important wrapping presents are to me."
"I know." He sighed, placing Tyler in the play pen and sitting down at the table next to her.
"Hold this down." Brooke said, and Lucas reached over to hold down a corner, while Brooke scotch taped it.
"Wait a minute," he said seeing the box poking out from under the paper, "This is what I got Pen."
"I know, but Lucas, hon- Luke," she corrected herself, "You know you can't wrap presents."
"So the reason we haven't left yet is because you went into the trunk found all the presents I bought for the kids and re-wrapped them?" he asked.
"Yep, here hold this side."
Lucas groaned, "We're never gonna get to Nathan and Haley's."
"Here, just write 'to Penelope' on this one." She said ignoring him, he rolled his eyes but complied, "There, now doesn't that look better than how you did it."
Lucas had to admit, it did. Brooke had even tied a bow on it, "Yes, fine, can we go now?"
"As soon as we round up the kids." Brooke shrugged.
Lucas looked around and groaned, "I had them ready a half hour ago."
"Now remember Jenny, El, No mentions of mommy and daddy's separation." Peyton said as Jake put the bags in the trunk.
"Yeah, yeah, we get it. We keep our lips zipped and in three years I get a car." Jenny said.
"And a pony." Ellie said happily.
"Had to bribe them." Jake muttered.
Peyton glared at him pulling out a cd, "Let's just go."
"Andy honey, get dressed, they'll all be here in a couple hours and the house isn't clean yet." Haley called to her daughter, "Nathan get up." She growled at her husband, who was asleep on the couch.
"What?" he groaned.
"Our oldest friends are gonna be here in a couple hours. They're staying for a whole week and this house is a mess." She said, "And you are not, let me repeat not!, going to be falling asleep on the couch any of the seven nights they are here. Do you understand me?"
"Dr. Grossman told you to stop ordering me around." Nathan all but whined like a child.
"Nathan, I don't want to hear the words "Dr. Grossman said" for the next seven days." Haley said, handing him the Christmas lights, "I asked you to put these up three weeks ago. Jamie's outside waiting for you."
Nathan took the lights and walked out the door still in his pajamas, not caring that it was freezing out, he slammed the door behind him, "Jamie?"
"Up here dad." Jamie called from the roof, "Climb up, so we can get this over with. Mom's having a meltdown or something."
"I noticed." Nathan sighed to himself.
"Stop playing with the radio." Lucas complained hitting Brooke's hands away from the dash.
"I can't take this lame emo crap. I'm having flashbacks to junior year with Peyton. Might I remind you that junior year wasn't exactly my favorite?" Brooke said glaring at him.
"You're both bordering very close to fighting guys." Keith warned.
"Just listen to your ipod." Lucas said and it was unclear if he was talking to Brooke or Keith but no one asked.
"Daddy?" Penelope asked from the back seat.
"What is it Baby Girl?" he asked.
"Tell me the story of how you meet mommy."
Brooke chocked on the water she'd been sipping, Lucas gripped the wheel tighter while Keith stifled a laugh from the backseat.
"I don't know if now is the right time for that story Pen." Lucas said.
"But you told it to me last Tuesday." Penelope whined, "And I forgot, please."
Brooke looked up at Lucas but he avoided her gaze, "Read your book babe." He said ending the conversation, though Penelope kept pouting.
"Okay mom, all the lights are up." Jamie called entering the house, with Nathan in tow.
"Thank you. Now I've made a list of things that need to go in the guest rooms. Brooke is staying in the downstairs guestroom, while Lucas is in the office across the hall from her, she'll complain, but it's all I've got." Haley said, "Jake and Peyton are in the upstairs guestroom and your cousins are staying with you guys."
"Wait, so I've got Keith and Tyler, and Andy's got Jenny, Penelope and Elizabeth?" Jamie asked.
"I don't know if Jenny's gonna want to share a room with two eight year old and her five year old sister." Nathan pointed out handing Andrea a juice box.
"Well Jamie, maybe she can stay with you boys? You know the older kids in one room, and Tyler can be in with the girls, though since he's the baby maybe Brooke wants him in with her or Lucas." Haley pondered, serving herself and Nathan some macaroni and cheese.
"I don't mind." Jamie said answering his mother's original question.
"Okay, good." Haley said pulling out a piece of paper that Nathan and the kids recognized as one of her 'charts.'
"Oh no, mom." Jamie said, while Nathan stifled a laugh and Andy giggled, "Not the charts. You remember how the chore chart turned out?"
"You remember how the chore chart turned out when you first implemented it back when you lived with Brooke?" Nathan asked.
Haley rolled her eyes, "This is different."
"They're always different." Andy said.
"Can't you just make a to-do list?" Jamie asked.
"A chart is practically a to-do list."
"Yeah only confusing as hell." Nathan insisted, then added to his daughter, "Never say the word hell." Andy giggled.
"Look it's really simple," Haley said, "Nathan you're the blue, I'm the red, Andy is the pink, and Jamie is the green. We each do the chore that's written in our color. That sounds simple right?"
"Yeah so far." Nathan said, "But whose purple?" he asked pointing to the purple chore.
"Well purple is for the person who gets done with his or her chore first."
"Right and brown?" Jamie asked.
"For the person who finishes after the person who took the purple chore, so they aren't both doing the same."
Nathan and the kids exchanged glances, "Jamie, clean your room, and the bathrooms, Andy clean your room and get the blankets down from the attic, I'll do the guest bedrooms, and Haley you do what you do best, finish decorating the house." Jamie put his hand in the middle, Nathan placed his hand on top of his son's and Andy followed suit. The three looked up at Haley who was still staring at her chart trying to make sure Nathan didn't forget anything.
"Oh fine." She sighed, placing her hand on top of her daughters.
"Jake, it's this right." Peyton said.
"No, it's the next one."
"Jake, I'm telling you, look at the map."
"I don't care what the map says. This stupid goddamned machine is telling me to go straight. The machine has never steered me wrong."
"Oh and I have?" Peyton asked. Jenny rolled her eyes to Ellie, who started giggling.
"Hmm, remember that little roadtrip when we were seventeen?" he asked.
"Yes!" Peyton said annoyed, then paused and thought about it, "Oh yeah." She added softly in embarrassment.
"What happened?" Jenny asked, suddenly interested.
"Nothing." Peyton insisted while Jake said, "Well, see honey this was when I came back to Tree Hill-"
"Why?" Jenny interrupted knowing the answer.
"Because Lucas told me your mom- ehem- needed me." Jake said not taking his eyes off the road, "Anyway, I decided that I was going to stay in Tree Hill with grandma and grandpa-"
"Well." Peyton said softly.
"What?" Ellie asked.
"Yeah, what?" Jake asked confused.
"No, it's nothing, it's just… well yeah you decided to stay in Tree Hill, but it wasn't to stay with your parents… your uh your dad stayed with me." She directed to the girls.
"Right…" Jake said coughing to gloss over the moment, "Anyway, once I decided to stay in Tree Hill, no matter the reason, your mom and I figured that we needed to go and get you, Jen. So we hopped in the car, all we had was music, beef jerky and some flat soda, and a map. A map that as it turns out, your mother couldn't read very well. And by very well, I mean at all."
Jenny and El giggled in the back seat, "I can so read a map." Peyton said.
"Right, and how many times did we need to stop to ask for direction?"
"Once." Peyton said, Jake turned to look at her, "Okay three times."
"Mom." Jenny said from the back seat.
"Fine ten. We had to stop ten times to ask people for directions."
The girls giggled louder while Jake grinned at Peyton.
"Are we there yet?" she whined.
"Does it look like we're there yet?" Lucas asked.
"No, but I'm so hungry and I have to go to the bathroom." She continued to whine.
"I told you to go when we stopped an hour ago."
"I didn't have to go then. I have to go now." Brooke said, wiggling in her seat.
"You want me to pull over?"
"No. Just drive faster."
"I'm going sixty."
"It feels like forty."
"Guys." Keith said.
"You're breaking the rules." Penelope added.
"We're not fighting." Brooke said, "Mommy just really has to go to the bathroom, and daddy's driving like Grandma Karen, when he should be driving like Aunt Peyton, when there's a red light."
"What?" Keith asked.
"Nothing." They both said.
"Look I can see the mailbox." Penelope cried.
"I can see Uncle Jake's car." Keith said.
"Perfect timing." Brooke said, "If you didn't pull over at that rest stop we wouldn't have gotten here at the exact same time as P. Sawyer!" she added Peyton's name in a yell out the window.
"B. Davis!" Peyton yelled back.
Brooke hopped out of the car at the same time Peyton did and the two girls ran to each other.
"Oh my god, it's been so long." Brooke cried.
"You're here!" Haley yelled from the door, as she ran to the two.
Lucas and Jake got out of their cars as Nathan got to his door, "Should we all run to each other and hug to?" Luke called to his brother and friend.
"Oh shut up." Brooke cried.
Okay so they are all reunited. No one knows Jake and Peyton are separated, Haley and Nathan's marriage is on the rocks… again, and while everyone knows Brooke and Lucas are divorced it's still pretty awkward between the two.
So review if you wanna more. Like if you want to find out how long it takes for Jen or Ellie to spill the beans, who breaks the rules first Lucas and Brooke, or Keith and Penelope, and what's the deal with Nathan and Haley?
-Em