hey guys if you've been missing the 2 MAIN characters of this story - LEYTON you'll be pleased to know theyre back from here on wards ) enjoy

Old friends & older enemies

'Hey Mums who're you talking to?'

Peyton turned away from the glass table to see her 16-year-old son walking in swinging his school bag. He threw it carelessly on the floor on flopped himself on the sofa opposite her.

'Nobody…' she replied. "And no throwing please Shane Scott.'

'Oopsie,' he said picking up his bag and putting it in the study before resuming his seat opposite his mother. Peyton watched him with the same glow of maternal pride that she still found a pleasant surprise. Somehow in her heart of hearts she knew that she hadn't expected to enjoy motherhood. And with each day that went by, she found delight in the fact that her children were everything life wasn't for her. Happiness.

This time her son leaned forward at looked at her biting his lip, as if trying to decide what to say.

'Just spit it out,' Peyton suggested with a teasing smile.

Shane's mouth fell open in a look of surprise.

'I am your mother you know,' Peyton chided. 'I should be able to tell what you're thinking.'

Peyton watched as her son leaned back again, his eyebrows furrowed as he concentrated on what to say. It was a habit he'd developed since he was young, a habit he'd acquired from Nathan. Nathan used to laugh about how Shane seemed to have inherited nothing from him, except that look of concentration.

In conversations like that, Peyton usually laughed uneasily and changed the topic.

'So what is it…' she said.

'There's this girl…' he began shifting his eyes uneasily.

Peyton was so amused that she had to bottle up the laughter that was escaping her throat. Her son, all grown up and getting a steady girlfriend.

'I wanted to invite her for dinner, she's kinda special,' he said. 'But you can't tell Beth, she'll tease me non-stop about it…'

'Can't tell me what??' a tiny dot of a girl burst into the living room like a spitball of fire in a swimming costume, dripping water all over the carpet.

'Oops gotta go!' Shane said quickly running up the stairs.

'What is it Shane what is it!!!' Beth cried scrambling up the stairs after him.

'Tell your friend to come over tomorrow Shane, and Beth stop disturbing your brother!' Peyton called out.

'Okay!' they both shouted back as Peyton heard a door slam and her little girl pounding violently on the door of her brother's room.

Yes, her children definitely brought much happiness into her life, especially Beth. She was the spitting image of Nathan, brown hair, brown eyes, athletic, spunky but the tiniest 6-year-old you've ever seen. What she lost in height she certainly made up for in sound though, she was the loudest 6-year-old Peyton had ever heard. The house was never quiet when she was around and Nathan loved spending time with her – she was his little basketball protégé. More than that she had a certain spirit that Peyton didn't know where she got from, sometimes she liked to think that that spirit would have been in her, if only life didn't happen quite so much to her.

Her son was more silent, thoughtful and kind. His HTM prevented him from ever becoming the basketball star Nathan was but he shone in school in his own way. He was smart, sweet and undoubtedly the nice guy around. If Beth was her joy in life, Shane was her pride and she loved them in a way she never knew she could love anyone else.

Sometimes her only disappointment was that neither of were remotely artistic, neither of them drew, sketched or painted.

But then again, neither did she anymore.

Peyton sighed to herself and resumed her position on the sofa, she seemed to be sitting around a lot lately, just thinking. Maybe it had something to do with a remark she had heard Karen make to Deborah in the cafe make a few months back. Something about Lucas thinking of coming back to Tree Hill. They had hushed up when they caught sight of her and she hadn't had a chance to find out if it was true.

She hadn't seen him around though, so maybe he had changed his mind.

Peyton gave an annoyed scowl at the entrance of a certain shadow at the doorway.

'I'm old,' she said. 'And you're still here?'

'You know there's only one way to get rid of me Sawyer,' the ghoul replied lazily.

'It's Scott…and what way would that be?' Peyton hissed.

'Clear your mind of all those questions we've been having all these years… get the answer to that which has been bothering you for 17 years!!!' she replied dramatically.

'I don't need any answer from you,' Peyton snapped.

'No, no… not from me,' she said smiling. 'Since I'm you anyway. Besides I know the answer to that question.' She began a slow and steady walk around the sofa, the glass table. She was almost parading her confidence, her sureness of herself. Peyton watched her with extreme irritation crawling up on the inside of her. 'But no… you don't need the answer from me… you need it from him.'

'What question and what answer are you talking about?' Peyton demanded.

'We both know the question Sawyer dearest,' she drawled lounging across the sofa, her hands behind her head. 'The answer is of course "no".'

'No?'

'No,' she said smiling. 'No, 17 years ago you didn't make the right choice. And there's nothing you can do about it.'

'Get out!' Peyton screamed grasping the empty air fruitlessly. 'Go away! Leave me alone!'