A/N: Wow! All I can say is Wow! You guys are amazing! Not only is this story plus 200 reviews I guess you all enjoyed the last chapter even though the end result was that Julian is no longer with us lol. I don't think I ever got so many reviews in one chapter GO YOU GUYS :D You truly made my day!

Flashbacks in Italics

Chapter Twenty Two:

She didn't know how she managed to do it, but she had just told Brooke she would call her back later erasing the shock and hurt for a matter of four seconds before it consumed her again. So here she sat legs brought up to her chest, muffling the quiet sobs with her hands, the tears making stains down her cheeks before the droplets blemished the knee of her jeans.

Peyton walked out of the terminal of LAX airport hoping to see the spiky haired musician that had insisted on picking her up since even before she left, but when she noticed the man she hadn't seen in about five months holding a sign that had her name printed across it she knew Chris wasn't going to be there.

"Peyton!" He called out making his way over to her quickly holding his arms out so Peyton was able to place the infant carriers in his hands. "It's me, Julian, Chris' friend."

"Yeah, I remember. I had two babies inside of me not amnesia." Handing over the heavy car seats she smiled and laughed when he groaned. "Watch out they're no longer newborns."

"You know I could probably weight bench with these too." He joked

"Please don't." she chuckled

Going into an easy conversation didn't take long. They talked about her trip to New York leaving out the fact that the father of her children had stopped by and he told her how Chris spoke about the twins constantly showing pictures to the girls he would date for the week even when he was at a club he would pop out the picture from his wallet of his godson and niece.

"Chris really loves these two little ones."

Julian told Peyton unhooking the car seat from the base that Chris had put in his SUV the night before when he realized he wasn't able to pick up his best friend and her children at the airport.

"Speaking of the devil where is he?"

"He forgot about the gig at Roxy and the fact that he had to leave earlier to help set up."

Walking into her apartment she offered the man a drink something to refresh his thirst after carrying the twins in their carriers along with a large duffle bag around his back up four flight of stairs, apparently the elevator had been out of service, without complaining.

"I hope you didn't miss any appointments on behalf of me."

Peyton spoke taking a sip from her cup of the cool iced tea Julian quickly shaking his head from left to right as he swallowed the remnants of is drink his Adams apple moving in the process.

"No, not at all-"

The sudden cries of the infant in the blue car seat interrupted what he was going to say next.

"Hold that thought."

Walking towards the couch she lifted the five month old in hopes that it would sooth his lament that Peyton knew he'd been feeling since Lucas left New York. She didn't know how she knew that; I guess you could say it was a mother's intuition. The baby boy who missed his father's embrace even though it didn't last longer than one week; he must have known that the man with the strong arms would protect him from everything and anything and when those arms disappeared her boy hadn't recovered from the lost connection.

"He's just fussy."

She had told Julian when he gave her a concerned look making his way next to her.

"Do you mind if I give it a try?"

"It wouldn't hurt to give it a shot."

Extending his hands out Peyton carefully placed Preston into Julian's arms who placed the baby boy onto is chest in an upright position patting the infants back carefully, rocking from side to side, and humming a tune Peyton didn't know. Almost instantaneously the wailing became softer until it stopped the sound of soft cooing replacing the pervious cries.

"You're a natural, Julian."

"Thanks. When my sister had her daughter a couple years back it was just her and Addison. Isabelle would call me at three in the morning to come over and help get my niece back to sleep. I was the only one who could get her to calm down and thus I was knighted with the touch."

He spoke the last couple of words in an English accent causing Peyton to chuckle. This was the beginning of it all.

She must have played the message three more times before glancing at her missed calls. The last one had been no more than twenty minutes ago. Julian's name written across the screen with an X marked by it attested her that he was the last to dial her number.

Why could she never keep her phone charged? It wasn't a hard task. Just plug in the damn phone before it died. If she kept up with it she could have heard her phone ring, she would have picked it up, she should have been able to hear his voice one last time because he needed to hear hers before he- she can't even think of him and death in the same sentence. It's too hard.

"I don't understand how you think keeping your phone's battery alive is such a burden?"

He had laughed when Peyton told him of her forgetfulness when it involved her cell phone and its life expectancy.

"They should just make Energizer batteries for cell phones. You've seen that pink bunny, right, it just keeps going and going and going."

He chuckled again causing the baby in his arms to stir awake while the little girl in Peyton's arms stayed silently asleep unaware of the world around her.

"Way to go, you woke Preston up."

"Technically you woke him up with your hilarious self."

It had been a month since her return from New York and it was the last day of her maternity leave before she'd have to go back to work. If she wasn't so strapped for cash she probably would have quit tomorrow, but she wasn't so she couldn't. Offerings from Chris and even Julian had been denied about three times already, today. These children weren't anyone's responsibility but her own she kept telling them. So when Julian insisted that he would pay for the diapers because her pay of leave check hadn't come in the mail yet she quickly declined his generous offer.

"There still enough diapers to last me a couple of days and hopefully my check will come in by then. Besides there solely my-"

"Responsibility. Yada, yada, yada. I know you've told me about a billion times. But there not just yours they do have a father. Where is he at in this picture."

Julian never really got the back story to the whole scenario. Only catching his name a couple of times; Lucas that's what it was, but where was Lucas now? He hoped by letting the last part in he'd get some kind of insight about the man he's never me, but he wouldn't push the subject. She became hostile the smile that was gracing her lips now gone.

"It's okay you don't have to tell me."

"No, it's okay." Peyton took a deep breath letting it slip out shakily. "He's with his other baby mama-"

"I see you've been watching Maury again." She laughed. "There's that smile that I love so much."

"You know if you want to hear this story you're going to have to stop being too funny."

"Sorry, sorry. Go on."

"Since high school there has always been this epic romance that surrounded us. Lucas and Peyton. Everyone thought we'd end up together and live happily ever after. Boy where they wrong. But their belief in true love always just grew stronger especially when he wrote about our love, a love that was suppose to outstand the harshest of storms-"

"Wait you used to be in a relationship with Lucas? As in Lucas Scott? Thee Lucas Scott that wrote 'An Unkindness of Ravens' Lucas Scott? How did I not get that? You're Peyton the girl in the book was named Peyton Sawyer. Your baby daddy is Lucas and the guy in the book was Luke Scott." Peyton sent a glare his way that asked why he was interrupting again. He quickly apologized. "So what happened?"

"Things were proposed, words were said, an ultimatum was given, and all good things come to an end."

"But he has two beautiful children with who I'm sure is the love of his life and he didn't fight to keep it?"

"You read the book right?" Peyton questioned and at Julian's nod she continued. "If there's one thing Lucas never wanted to become it was Dan. I wouldn't let him befall into that pattern because in the end some child would still be abandoned by a father. So I chose for him."

"You're either the most selfless person I've ever met." He paused. "Or the craziest. You love him he loves you I don't get how you're making the right decision for either you or your kids."

"I wouldn't expect you to understand." She sighed. "He still has another child out in the world and I don't know if it's mother would even let Lucas have any contact with the kid if he did decide to come back to me-"

"Which he would in a second if-"

"If he decided to be with me and our kids there's always that chance that he might not ever see his other child again and he would think of himself as Dan even though the circumstances are different. But I know with me I would still let my kids be with their dad whenever they want."

"I still don't understand how he easily let that go as an excuse. I don't know him personally, but it sounds like nothing he'd ever do."

Julian sat staring at Peyton then glancing down at the infant boy who was now wide awake and gazing back at him.

"I told him that I was with someone else that I fell in love with."

"You basically lied to him."

"Yeah."

Silenced loomed over them the sound of Preston sucking on his fist could be echoed throughout the room. That's how quiet it had been.

"Well if you need me to be that guy for you I'm always there."

That sentence was meant for a friend by a friend, but what he didn't know at the time when he said those words to her that it would lead to something more later down the road. The friend she always needed would turn to a lover and that lover would turn into a companion she would share the joy, hurt, love, and other things that would occur in her life. Not a soul mate, but something pretty close to it.

The sadness of losing the person who has been with her through the up and downs of her rollercoaster life was now gone. Who would she share the next loopy loop with? Not him. The guilt that the last words to him where 'See you later' and not 'I love you' ate at her till it hurt. And the hope that it wasn't him on the plane that crashed vanished when she played his last message to her once again. He was gone and he would never be coming back.

"Thank God." He spoke bringing her into a hug. "I don't believe in marriage either."

The twins were now five and Julian had moved in two years prior and a year and a half after they said 'I love you' as they became an official item talking about what the kids would be like when they were older. Preston's fascination with the guitar only grew when Julian had played a ballad for his mother and Leighton was exactly like Peyton only in a girly Brooke version. They had spent their first winter vacation with Lucas in Tree Hill and that's where they were now as Peyton and Julian sat in the living room different shades of wrapping paper surrounding them.

"Who needs a stupid paper basically stating out the obvious? As long as you and I know that we love each other that's all that really matters anyway."

Peyton had come clean about her thoughts on marriage. Of course she refused to tell him that being proposed to scared her silly because let's face it her last one didn't go so smoothly.

"Plus it's like we're practically married anyway. You moved in, you cook, you clean, you watch the Elle and Pres, and you help around the house."

"You do know you just described me as a Manny right?"

"Yes, but I don't have a Manny." Laughing Peyton wrapped her arms around his neck."And even if I did I wouldn't do what I was going to do next to you with him."

She brought her lips to his the Christmas tree lights in the background bringing light into the room.

"All I can say is that I'm glad I'm not your Manny either."

He collided his lips back onto hers as things progressed into what married couples did.

It felt like her head was going to explode with the agony she was feeling. The rest of her life with Julian flashed before her bits and pieces of her favorite moments with the no longer existing man played like a hologram in front of her.

"Mom?" She heard her daughters voice, but didn't acknowledge her the heartbreak winning over all her other emotions as she sat in the same position she had been in holding onto her legs looking ever so broken. "Mom!"

Leighton had walked in to tell her mom that the food was going to get cold if she didn't hurry and get off the phone with her Aunt Brooke, but when she came in the image of a woman she's never seen frightened her. Her mother never looked so vulnerable in her entire life. The clouded look in her eyes along with the anguish if it where doable she looked so lifeless and if it wasn't for the violent jolts in her body she would have looked like a statue with the frozen fear sprawled across her face.

"Preston! Dad!"

She roared out noticing that getting her mother's attention was next to impossible and called for the men in her life that she knew were able to fix about anything.

They came storming in quickly asking what was the matter, but when their gaze went to the woman on the ground they knew something was wrong. Preston tried his best to coax his mother from her instability. When he wasn't able to Lucas quickly stepped in getting on his knees in front of her forcing her to look at him.

"Peyton what's wrong?"

She didn't answer only freighting her children more making them wonder if their mother had gone mad. So he asked again his voice still calm, but this time he took his hands into hers.

"Julian-"She choked out a fresh batch of tears welled up in her eyes. "Was on the plane."

He didn't need to ask what plane because they all knew which one. The plane that had landed in the ocean with no survivors. Lucas quickly brought her into a strong embrace causing her to wrap her arms around his neck. She heard the 'No, it can't be' from her daughter and the accusations from her son asking her why she would lie. But it wasn't a lie and when he radiated his anger by throwing an object against the wall he knew him mom would never joke let alone fib about this. Not ever.

A/N: I'm not sure if it was hard reading Julian and Peyton all couply because to tell you the truth it was kind of hard writting it. So I kind of just wanted to sum up the Julian/Peyton relationship, sixteen years is a long time. Because yeah they did love each other through out that time and it was never as strong at Lucas and Peyton's but it was still love. There was also some more clues on why Lucas didn't chose Peyton cause we all know he would have if he could ;)

So now beings the comforting to Peyton by Luke? The anger of Preston, but at who-Lucas for being there or Julian for not by dying? And the sadness from Leighton? But how long will it last since there's a glimmer of hope that her mom and dad could be reunited? Will she feel guilty about even thinking that? And are Peyton and Lucas even thinking about it? Um..

what else? There's something on the tip of my tongue…Oh yeah reviews are always great! :D

I'm also going to LA on Friday, but I will try to find a computer and post a new chapter while I'm there as soon as I can ;) Cause you are wonderful and you all deserve it! Now I'm off to bed having to work at 7AM really bites. Enjoy :D