They had decided that Lucas was just going to get himself to her apartment this time around. He opted to leave right after classes on Friday, making his flight arrive in LA later than he knew that Peyton would be able to stay up. That way they would have all of Saturday and Sunday together without any airport interruptions.

It was nearly 10:00PM when the cab dropped him off in front of Peyton's apartment, and excited to see his girl, he hopped up the two flights of stairs with ease, letting himself into the small apartment quietly.

Slowly, he made his way to the bedroom, just turning on the hall light before stepping in, which cast a glow across her sleeping form that allowed him the pleasure of just watching her sleep for a bit. He sat down on the bed, watching her brow knit in sleep at the feeling of someone in her bed.

"Peyton...." he whispered, then watching as a smile came onto her sleepy face.

"Luke... you're here..." she says, glancing up at him with heavy eyes.

"That I am... how are you?"

"We're good." she says, rubbing her small bump under the covers.

"And you're tired?"

"Not anymore.... give me another hour and a half and I'll be tired again, though, trust me."

He laughs a little bit, getting off the bed, "can I grab some food? I'm totally hungry."

"You want cereal or something here, or do you want to go out and grab something?" she asks sitting up in bed, but not moving yet.

"Why don't we go out and grab something... maybe get you some ice cream..."

Her ears perk up at this, his mention of her craving. That has been the one thing that the woman can't get enough of during her pregnancy... ice cream. Since he wasn't in LA to help her with that craving, he would send her a gift card to a new ice cream place each week, with instructions to call him when she went, even if it was 2AM, which it often was.

"Chocolate?" she asks, now standing up, putting on a pair of jeans.

"Anything you and baby...." he trails off as she walks towards him.

She smiles, knowing exactly what caused him to stop his thoughts.

"When did that happen?" he asks, pointing in the vicinity of her stomach.

"Well, when and man and a woman love each other." she starts, and then catching the squinting eyes of Lucas stops, "a week ago. I woke up and it was just there."

He places his hand gently on her stomach, "I bet that was a great realization for you..."

"Surprisingly, after trying on three different outfits that morning with no success, I was still smiling. I was excited that I could actually see what was going on down there. It made it so much more real."

"That it does." he says, still stroking her form, "God, you are beautiful Peyton..."

"I'm glad you still think so."

"I'm positive that I'll always think so."

"Good to know. Now, can we get some ice cream?"

He laughs at this, but is excited that he gets to be there for one of her random cravings.

True to her word, Peyton was passed out on his shoulder sitting on the couch about two hours later. He stayed there for a moment though, taking in her slightly rounded form, his hand wrapped around her waist and settling on her stomach.

It made it all so real in that moment. The combination of his hand's current resting place, the glint of light reflecting off the ring she wore, and the smile on his face solidified it. He was happy. Nothing in the world could make him happier in that moment, and it was glaringly beautiful to him.

Not wanting to wake her, but knowing that she wouldn't get the best rest with her neck at that angle, he slid from under her, taking her up in his arms as he stood. Walking down the short hallway to the bedroom, he flicked off the hall light, letting the streetlights be the only illumination in the small room. Kissing her forehead, he laid her down, taking off her shoes and pulling the covers over her form, and slipped off his own shoes to lay beside her.

They woke the next morning tangled up in each other as always, her head using his chest as a pillow and his hand splayed across her back. As always, they reached for each other then, linking their hands on his chest, with her placing a kiss across each of his knuckles as she looked up at him through still sleepy eyes.

"Good morning."

"Yes, it is..." he says, smiling and taking in the scent of her shampoo.

"What time is it?"

"Close to ten..."

"We have to start getting ready Luke, get up." she tells him, sitting up in bed and pulling him up with her.

"Why do we need to get ready for anything? I thought that you said we didn't have anything planned for this weekend."

"We didn't, until I was able to work in a surprise for you..." she says cryptically, raising a teasing eyebrow in his direction.

"What is this surprise you have planned Miss Sawyer?"

"That, my dear love is for me to know and you to find out."

"I hate it when you do that!" he says, laughing at her words.

"Too bad! Time to get up!"

As she says this, she jumps out of bed, clearly excited to do whatever it is that they were going to do that day. He starts to join her when his whole world seems to stop as she yanks the shirt she has on over her head, leaving her in her bra from last night and a pair of jeans that dip down to her hips, missing the very thing that has his attention.

While looking at the lack of clothing she has in her closet she groans, "Hey, maybe you could come shopping with me for some new clothes this weekend? I'm sick of wearing the same five tops over and over again."

He smiles at her frustration, but still doesn't make a move to change, happy to just watch her for a moment.

"Lucas, did you hear me?" she calls out from inside the closet but still gets no answer, so she looks out at him, "Luke?"

His eyes finally meet hers, "yeah, I heard you."

"Lucas Scott, were you staring at me?" she says playfully.

"Peyton, you are absolutely gorgeous..." he says just above a whisper, which has her moving towards the bed where he sits on the edge.

"Are you sure I'm not just getting fat?"

Tentatively reaching his hand out, he places it just near her belly button and looks up into her eyes, holding her gaze for a moment before he speaks, "Peyton Elizabeth Sawyer, you are the most beautiful creature I have ever laid eyes on, and I am so unbelievably lucky that I get to spend the rest of my life with you and that you are having our baby."

Hormones getting the better of her, she just starts to cry, which turns to laughing as she reads the expression of horror cross his face thinking that he said something wrong, "God, Luke, you didn't say anything! It's just the damn hormones again. I got over the morning sickness, but I'm still pathetically emotional."

He stands up then, grabbing her face in his hands, kissing her lips and every other spot that he can reach.

She, in turn, responds to his kiss, wrapping her arms around his neck, bending hers to give him better access to the spots that he knows drive her wild. And as she reaches down to peel off the shirt he has on, he asks, "How long do we have?"

"About an hour..."

"Good enough for me..." he says, pulling her tighter to him, and turning them so he could gently lay her out on the bed.

Forty five minutes later, the pair was throwing clothes on and trying to make it out the door in one piece, running down the stairs to hail a cab.

As she spit out the address to the driver, Lucas tried again to get out of her where they were headed, "Come on, please?"

"Nope, you'll figure it out when we get there."

"Peyton, you only get to see me once a month, and you're going to keep secrets from me?"

"Yes, I am..." she says, nodding her head and resting back into the seat.

Ten minutes later, they were pulling up in front of a small building located just down the street from Peyton's offices that had no clear signs that Lucas could make any sense of, but had a smell that seemed familiar to him in some way. They got into the elevator to the third floor and Peyton confidently pulled him by the arm toward the closed office door.

When the door opened, and the cool smell of a doctor's office as well as the appearance of a waiting room filled with babies, women, and just a few men, Lucas understood where they were.

"Peyton..." he says, not really believing that they were here.

"I told my doctor that I didn't think it was fair for you to keep missing my appointments, and she decided that she'd get me an extra ultrasound before my twenty weeks... I want you to be here Luke...", she says, playing with the sides of the jacket he wore, and allowing him to pull her in for a kiss.

The receptionist broke them away with a giggle, "Peyton, that is what got you into this mess in the first place... haven't you learned?"

Smiling at Luke, she turned towards the woman, taking the sign in sheet from her hands to let them know that she was here.

"Sit down for a bit and Dr. McCullough will be right with you."

"Okay, thanks Julie." she says, turning back to Lucas and gently pushing him in the direction of a pair of open chairs.

It was only a few minutes of waiting, watching women stroke their tummies and toddlers play with the toy train set that they called her name to come on back.

The doctor was in just a short while later, "Peyton! How are you feeling?"

"I'm hormonal, but good."

"Well, that's as good as we can expect young lady, so I'm happy... and so are you..." she says, indicating Lucas with the tilt of her head.

"Dr. McCullough, this is my fiance..."

"Lucas... it is very nice to meet you, and I'm glad that you were finally able to come catch a glimpse of this baby of yours."

A very green Lucas just attempted to smirk as he took in his surroundings for a minute. It looked like any other doctors office, but there were diagrams of deliveries and models of pregnant women all over the room. One particular poster that caught his attention was that of a cone-like apparatus being attached to a baby's head in something called a vacuum extraction delivery.

"Luke?" Peyton asks, catching the loss of color in his face.

"I'm good..." he says, looking down and pressing his lips together in a thin line.

"It's the pictures, isn't it?" the Doctor asks, grinning a little bit as he nods. "I think that we partly do that to scare the young teenagers out of having sex.."

"I think it'd work..." he says with an uncomfortable laugh.

"Lucas... give me a minute here, and I will have you thinking about nothing but that baby in there in no time." she says, patting his shoulder and telling Peyton to lift up her shirt and unbutton her pants so she could get the doppler on the baby.

As she glided the wand across Peyton's stomach, searching for their little one, he couldn't breath. He was literally frozen as he held his breath and watched the screen in front of him, convinced that even if they did see the baby he would have no idea what he was looking at. Finally, it was clear as day, a tiny little head and arms and legs, and... it was perfect.

"There you have it, kids... here's baby Scott."

Peyton was still overwhelmed by the sight, letting the tears fall easily as she watched the screen, seeing the baby move his or her arms every now and then.

"Oh my gosh... that is the... that's... wow." Lucas says, trying to come up with a description for even a tiny bit of how he felt.

The doctor turns to him laughing, "Peyton says you're an author... kind of hard to believe now...."

She waits for a moment, checking different things as they stare on at the baby, "Now, I have two very important questions for the two of you... one being, would you like to hear the heartbeat?, and two being would you like to know the sex?"

"You can tell?" Peyton asks.

"I'm pretty sure that I can see what I need to be able to tell you."

"Luke?" Peyton asks, looking up at him as he nods his head up and down, "Yeah, we want to know..."

"All right..." the Doctor says, moving the wand around for another angle, just trying to catch what she was seeing one more time, "There we go... do you see those three lines?"

The couple squint at the screen, trying to see what she's pointing at, but failing miserably, and answering "No."

"Well, trust me... they're there..."

"and that means?" Lucas asks impatiently.

"That the two of you are the proud parents of a beautiful baby girl."

"A girl..." Peyton says, looking at the screen and back to Luke.

He smiles for a minute, and then looks at the screen again frowning, "Oh God... if she is half as cute as you were, I'm going to have to board up the doors when she's a teenager."

Peyton laughs, hitting his stomach with a playful swat. "She's going to be fine..."

"Can we hear the heartbeat too?"

With a smile, the Doctor turns to the machine, flipping a switch and letting the sound of the baby's heart reach the rest of the room.

"Sounds nice and healthy."

And with that, the couple got to hear what they really needed to hear, which was that the baby was perfectly healthy. Peyton was instructed to come back in another three weeks for her twenty week checkup and the couple was back to their weekend.

"So... a little girl, huh?"

"Yup."

"You realize that the family is going to spoil her like crazy..."

"The family! You realize that Brooke is going to go insane when she finds out that I'm pregnant, let alone that it's a girl."

"True..." he laughs at the statement, knowing full well that Peyton was spot on when it came to the craziness that was her best friend.

Then, as usual, the weekend flew by. Shopping for Peyton, shopping for the baby, and looking around at cribs and things for wherever the nursery would be took up most of the weekend for the excited expected parents. But Peyton was now the happy owner of more than five tops and a bunch of pants that she could actually wear in public and to work, and the baby now had enough clothing to last the first month of her life without having to do laundry. And they were happy.

"So..."

"Christmas."

"Yup... only 27 days this time." Peyton says, smiling up at him.

"And we're going to tell everyone then?"

"It will be the most talked about Christmas present of the year."

"I can't wait to see their faces..."

"It will be one for the books, that's for sure." she says a little uncertain.

"What?" he asks, picking up on her hesitation.

"I'm just... you don't think they're going to be mad, do you?"

"No... the last time you were in Tree Hill, you were only like three months pregnant, and that was too early to tell them, and I wasn't about to tell them without you there, and I know how much you want Brooke to be there when we tell the family too."

"You're right."

"I know."

She puts a hand flat on his chest and another on her stomach, leaning in to kiss his lips ever so softly, "We are going to miss you."

"I'm going to miss you too, don't you worry."

Stepping back from him, she reaches in her purse, pulling out a small folder and handing it to him.

"What is it?" he asks, and then starts to open it as she remains quiet.

Opening the envelop, he finds three copies of the ultrasound photos that they had done yesterday, "Peyton... when did you do this?"

"This morning, while you were still sleeping. I figured that this way, you can have us with you when you go back to Tree Hill."

"I love you, you know that?"

"Oh, I do..." she says finally, pushing him away and towards his gate, memorizing his form once again as she is forced to wait another month. She always reminds herself in these moments though, that what they have is so worth what they are doing now, and then she smiles.

–

Okay, so I realized that he wasn't really getting to be a part of the pregnancy stuff, and that was kind of making me sad, so I fixed it. I hope you like this latest edition of fluff weekly, cause I feel like that's what I'm doing. It's fun though, and wait till next time!! And sorry that it is sooooo long this time... I got a little carried away!

Review review!!