Flashbacks in Italics

Chapter Thirteen:

Peyton couldn't believe that Lindsay had done something so intentionally cruel to the man she was supposed to love. She managed to find Lindsay sitting alone on one of the kitchen stools. A half empty glass of Beaujolais Nouveau sitting atop of the island.

"Hey can we talk for a second?"

"Sure." Lindsay agreed taking a sip from her drink. "One. Times up. Wow that was the best chat we've ever had."

Her sarcasm angered Peyton, but she did her best to keep it in check.

"So how about a lot of seconds?" Peyton took a clean glass from the cabinet and grabbed the bottle of wine pouring it into her cup. Only receiving five drops of the purple red colored wine. "Lucas left out that you were a total boozy."

"Look, Peyton, I don't need the worlds perfect person with a thousand flaws to criticize me."

"I'm not criticizing. I just came to talk." Her hands came together. "Well more like ask you why you lied about your son having HCM."

"He told you." Her laugh was bitter. "I shouldn't be surprised."

"Lindsay, why did you do it? You know how much the subject hurts him. You shouldn't have said something so cruel."

"Excuse me? Who do you think you are?"

"I'm just…"

"No, you have no right in judging my marriage. Hell you're one of the problems."

"I'm sorry you're so insecure, but that still doesn't give you the right to lie."

"Don't you hear what's coming out of my mouth? I don't care because I'll do anything to keep my family together."

"Even if one of those things could virtually tear it apart?"

"Listen, I know you're still jealous that Lucas chose me and my son over you and your children, but that was sixteen years ago so give it up."

"Can you even hear how ridiculous you sound? If anything you should be ashamed of yourself. You had to lie that Elliot was sick just to think that Lucas would stay by your side."

"Shut up."

"If anything I feel sorry for you. You're really just a sad miserable person."

Leaving because she didn't want to start a fight with a person she'd be living with for the next couple of weeks she ran into the man of the hour.

"Lucas, hey."

"Hey, I've been looking all over for you."

His hands managed to find their way inside the pockets of his jeans. A classic nervous trait of Lucas Scott. She was still suprised she could make him feel like a seventeen year old. He wasn't.

"Well, don't I feel special."

He laughed leading her towards the living room.

Watching the scene unfold before his very eyes was like watching a movie play. He looked on as the woman he loves comforted her baby and he yearned to be a part of the beautiful moment. Her luscious green eyes saw right to his soul and something about that caused him to think. He counted and he counted over and over again. The infant didn't look more than a couple months old and he counted down.

"Peyton, why don't you go in the room and feed that beautiful baby girl of yours?"

Brooke spoke, but when she noticed her friend didn't budge she led her into the room she just came out of moments earlier; the nursery.

"She's mine. Isn't she?"

Lucas' voice broke taking a seat on the couch as he still counted the months in his head double and triple checking. Brooke ignored the statement and the question gathering up the bottles and infant car seat trying to figure out a strategy.

"Your book signing was last month, Lucas. Why did it take you three weeks for you to come to me for help?"

"I wanted to find her on my own, but when I went to her job they told me that she hadn't been working in over four months. I thought she quit, but now I know the truth."

Peyton sat in the oak rocking chair nursing her daughter, her son sleeping peacefully in his crib, and hearing Brooke and Lucas' conversation through the baby monitor.

"She gave birth to a baby. To my child. To our daughter. And I didn't know."

He was growing frustrated about the subject. How on earth did she not tell him he was going to be and now is a father? Was she ever going to tell him about the baby? Or was she going to let him become the man he never wanted to be, Dan. Brooke could feel the heat radiating off of the man that sat next to her.

"Yeah well maybe if you didn't let Lucas Jr. go running around in someone else's business than maybe she would have told you." He gave her a confused look. "Don't play stupid Luke. You slept with another girl. Did you seriously relive the past with Nikki number two?"

Brooke stood up almost tripping over the car seat that was placed on the side of the couch.

"Didn't you just put that car seat in the other room?"

Lucas asked thankful to get the conversation away from him.

"What?" Her voice came out squeamish. "No. Don't be ridiculous." She laughed nervously. "You're crazy you know that."

The four sentences left her mouth quickly and Lucas questioned her sudden nervousness. His eyes found that of the blue and brown car seat. He wondered why it wasn't pink. Brooke watched as Lucas eyed the car seat and she quickly walked away putting it into the other room, but what she didn't realize was that Lucas followed close behind her. He stopped her from closing the door and spotted both car seats.

Placing the now sleeping child into the empty crib she could hear Brooke shouting; her words incoherent. Suddenly the door opened and there stood Lucas his hand placed on the door's knob. He walked into the nursery standing slowly and stood in between the two cribs. His eye's scanning the lightly lit neutral colored room before looking into the crib on his right, the blue blanket draped over a sleeping infant, than looking into the crib on his left where a blanket of a different color covered another baby.

Lindsay stood in the open dining room watching her husband talk to the woman that was no good. She'd been watching for more than half an hour and not once did Lucas look her way or any other way. He just stared; stared at the blonde woman in front of him, the blonde women with the emerald eyes.

'I can't stand her.'

She heard the young girl that looked so much like Peyton say and that was the last straw storming off to where the teenager stood; next to her brother, godmother, and uncle.

"What the hell is your problem?" Lindsay grabbed Leighton by the shoulders shaking her, hard, a couple of times. "I let you little brat into my home and you disrespect me and get my son admitted into the hospital."

The outburst from Lindsay caught everyone's attention as they witnessed the brunette raising her hand and every aspect of terror that was written in the young blue eyes as the moment moved in slow motion.

"HEY!" The word sent a shiver down every person's spine. "Don't you dare lay a hand on my daughter!"

Peyton's hand twisted Lindsay's wrist just before that very hand came across her daughter's cheek. She didn't know how she got there, the last thing she did remember was talking to Lucas and now she stood in front of Lindsay twisting her wrist into a position that would cause agonizing pain.

"Fantastic." Lindsay tried to get out of Peyton's death grip. "The mother of the year comes to the rescue right before she's about to nail MY HUSBAND."

"You're insane!" Peyton's words were harsh. "You have no idea what you're talking about."

"Oh, I think I do. You see I never knew what Lucas saw in you. You were nothing but a pathetic lonely girl who ended up getting knocked up at nineteen. But now I can see why; you were easy."

The crowd had gasped at the untrue comment. The only reason that Peyton let go of Lindsay was because that very same hand that could have broken the woman's wrist ended up meeting with her face. Chris Keller laughed loudly muttering 'Face meet fist.'

Lounging towards Peyton arms grabbed Lindsay roughly midair.

"You need to stop acting immature. You are not in high school anymore." His voice pierced though her ears scolding her. "Get the hell out of this house." He ordered. "Take a walk and when the Lindsay I use to know comes back then we'll talk. Until then I want you out."

Those were the first words that Lucas had spoken to her and he was telling her to leave as he shoved her out of the house and slammed the door in her face; she was left speechless.

Walking back into the living room his gaze immediately found that of Peyton consoling her daughter who was still shaken by the step mother's actions.

"I'm sorry."

He spoke both to his daughter and mother of his children.

"Lucas you don't have to be sorry. If anything its Lindsay that should be apologizing. You're just lucky that was all I did to that lovely wife of yours."

Shutting his eyes as soon as the word wife left her lips he wondered if he made the right decision.

"Luke."

The shortened name left her lips while he made his way to the crib on his right. His hands softly roamed the blue blanket stroking the infants rosy cheeks.

"You should go."

"No, its okay, Brooke. Let him stay."

Brooke reluctantly agreed leaving the two in the room giving them some privacy.

"What's his name?"

Lucas asked as the baby boy began to whimper. Peyton stood next to Lucas their elbows touching, the electricity still there, while they rested on the crib. As soon as the cries became more excessive the new mother swooped him into her arms and as if knowing who was cradling him the boy stopped his eyes opening revealing his blue-green eyes; a mixture of both his parents.

"Preston Luke Scott."

Moving past Lucas she made her way opposite of the room to the crib on the left side of the room. The infant still sound asleep as her mother looked lovingly at her.

"And this is Leighton Penelope Scott."

A smile grazed his lips when he heard his daughter's name. It was a combined name of them both; more Peyton than his but that's what he adored.

"Why didn't you tell me? I could have helped. I would have been there."

"I didn't tell you because of that very same reason. You left and I knew you'd come waltzing back if you knew that I was pregnant. You'd go straight into superhero mode and save me."

"So what if I did?"

"We're still so young, Luke, I'm barely turning twenty; here I am with two babies and I'm terrified out of my mind. I can't just think about me anymore because this little boy and this little girl are my new hopes and dreams. Lucas, you'd only be coming back out of obligation and pity and what if someday you recent everything. I didn't want that."

"I still had a right to know, Peyt."

"Now you do."

She gently placed the wide awake boy into his father's arms. He looked down in amazement as his son began to make cooing sounds and any kind of anger that he had towards Peyton immediately subsided. Not because she was the mother of his child, but because he was in love with her and she gave him this wonderful gift.

"So than were does that leave us?"

He asked looking away from the baby boy that was placed perfectly in his arms and up to the woman who stood besides him hoping for an answer that there would still be a 'them.'

Elliot stood behind the glass watching the women slap his mother his hands balled up into fists; he though his father would have done something to protect his mother, but he didn't. He watched as his dear old dad stood there looking angry at her and concerned for the other woman.

"Man all you needed to do was add a pool of mud and get the both of you into bikinis. That would be a show to watch."

Chris spoke the image coming into his mind the look of bliss forming on his face. Peyton shoved her friend violently in the arm causing his once bliss look to turn into one of mock hurt as he pouted.

"Okay. How about we truly start this party?" Haley spoke as the awkward tension left the atmosphere. "Who's hungry?"

"Famished."

Peyton replied laughing.

The group gathered around the table, many of them thinking that this is the way the family should have always been, and took a seat.

"Pres, how about you go get your brother so we can eat."

Lucas spoke and Preston agreed. Each step he took led him to the backyard and found the guy he was forced to call brother.

"Hey idiot."

Pres called walking down the coble steps and onto the patchy grass a few yards away from the house.

"It's Elliot."

"Well you're an idiot who walked in front of a moving car. So, idiot, lunch is ready."

Opening the glass door he noticed his father's eyes never leaving his mother's form. What in the heck was going on?

They could have had it all. Everything that every person wanted in a family. They could have been the doting parents to the beautiful kids. They could have been the all American family. They could have been. They should have been.

Peyton didn't have time to answer the question as Lucas' cell phone began to ring. He answered quickly the sound of his editor's voice on the other end.

"Are you sure?"

Peyton could only hear his end of the phone line and wondered if it was the other woman. The same woman who stole her happy ending away from her.

"But you were on the pill." she heard the distress in his voice as his body began to tense up. "How could you forget to take it?"

Peyton picked up their baby boy from his arms cradling Preston close to her body. Blue eyes met green the tears building up in Lucas' eyes when both realized that fate wasn't on his side.

"Okay…okay…okay."

After many 'okays' he closed his phone ending the call. She automatically knew what it must have been about when she heard 'the pill' and she couldn't let him say those words to her. The words that some other girl was pregnant with his child.

"I'm seeing someone else." She lied. There was defiantly disappointment written on his face. "So I guess that leaves us where we were always meant to be. Me in Los Angeles and you in Tree Hill."

"What about Preston and Leighton? We should be thinking about them!"

Lucas wanted to scream. He'd move to Los Angeles for Peyton for his children anything to be with them. This guy that she was seeing would get the chance to watch his kids grow while he was across the country.

"I AM!" Her tone came out louder than she attended. "You will be a part of their lives Lucas. I'm not going to take that away from you, but you should think about the baby your about to have with someone else. I'm not going to let you become Dan. So I'm choosing for you. I don't want you in my life, but I want you in theirs."

Yes they could have been the perfect family. All that was left were the coulda shouldas.

A/N: So I don't know about this chapter…it took me longer than I had planned to write it and it still didn't turn out the way I wanted it to. But I hope y'all like it.

-Please review! it would make me happy! and if you have any ideas for this story I'd love to hear them! :D