A/N: So apologies for the boring filler chapter that follows. It needed to be done. I'm already hard at work on the next chapter and it will (hopefully) be better and it will definitely be up by tonight or tomorrow, by the absolute latest.

Things I love: How hot Lucas looked in the last episode, the concept of the NEXT episode, and Reviews! (Very subtle hint there!)

_____________________________________

Lindsey let herself into the house. "Lucas?"

Her only reply was the sound of typing coming from his room. She sighed. She knew that she should be happy that he was writing again, but it bothered her that he was only interested in writing (and rewriting) that goddamn screenplay.

For the last six weeks, ever since Lucas had come back from LA, the screenplay was the most important thing in his life. He went to bed really late and woke up really early. Well, on the days he bothered to go to bed at all. And when he wasn't busy writing it, he was on the phone with Julian, the producer, talking about it. She didn't understand how he could have been so ambivalent to it before and now his passion for it was consuming him.

Lindsey never thought that she would be so jealous of a piece of writing. But she was jealous. Her boyfriend had barely looked at her these last six weeks. It felt like she was losing him. She had tried talking to Haley about it, but the young mother had not wanted to get into it and had quickly changed the subject.

Lindsey walked in to his room to see him hard at work in front of his laptop. "Lucas?"

He looked up at her. After a beat, he gave her a faint smile. Then he turned his attention back to the laptop. "Hey, Linds."

"Lunch was great. Haley says hi." No response from her boyfriend. "She wanted me to tell you that we're invited over for dinner tomorrow night. Apparently Jamie's going to be cooking for us, so it'll be a real treat."

"That's great," he said, a little distractedly.

"Also, I'm going to be leaving for New York on Sunday," she said, struggling to keep her voice light. "I have a meeting with a writer on Monday and another meeting scheduled for Wednesday, so I was thinking I'd just spend the week up there."

"Okay," he said, obviously not having heard a word she said.

"And once there, I'm going to shave my head and become a mime…"

"Uh huh…"

"Lucas!"

His head shot up and he looked at her. Wait, what about shaving? "What?"

"You're not listening to me."

He nodded. "You're right, I'm sorry. It's just… Julian and I finally agreed on the final draft and I just wanted to get it done."

"The final draft?"

"Yeah, once I've finished it, that's it. It's done."

That was the best news that Lindsey had heard in a while. "That's great, Lucas. I guess I'll leave you to it, then."

She left the room and Lucas was about to go back to his writing when a funny little feeling hit him. He asked, "Linds, did you say something about a mime?"

-----------

Peyton was standing in line at the stupid overpriced coffee shop around the corner from her job. She had always hated getting coffee, but lately it had been so much worse for her. The thick strong aroma of coffee would make her stomach turn every time she stepped into the shop. The heavy stench of roasted beans seemed to envelope her and she had to struggle to keep her breakfast in her stomach, where it belonged. She had been fighting off waves of nausea for the last two weeks. The last thing she needed now was to come down with a stomach virus.

She tried to stifle a yawn as she checked her watch. She was surprised to see that barely a minute had passed since she had just checked it. Ever since that fated elevator ride, time seemed to move at a snail's pace. It didn't help that she wasn't sleeping well. She was constantly tired and achy and the whole situation had made her incurably cranky.

Peyton felt like she was slowly going crazy. Everything in her life appeared to be going sour. Nothing seem to give her the slightest bit of joy, anymore. Her encounter with Lucas had shaken her to her very core. It was like being with him put everything else in her life into perspective. It had made her realize something that she hadn't wanted to admit. That her life sucked. The only thing that she had that was worth a damn was her friendship with Brooke.

Her body relaxed a bit at the thought of her very best friend. She didn't know how she would have been able to have gotten past what happened with Lucas if it hadn't been for Brooke. Once again, the brunette proved what a wonderful source of solace she could be. Brooke Davis selflessly gave herself over to being her friend's pillar of strength. Just like she had when Anna had died and when Peyton had called her to let her know that it was over between her and Lucas.

Peyton had lost track of how many hours she had spent cried to Brooke about Lucas. The blonde was enormously grateful for her best friend's support and was starting to feel a little guilty about monopolizing the conversation for the past six weeks. She knew that the whole thing hadn't been very fair to Brooke and it saddened her a bit.

But that was it. No more. Peyton had made up her mind to stop wasting her time (and Brooke's) dealing with her stupid ex-boyfriend. She was done reliving every single moment she spent with him, wondering why he no longer wanted her. As far as she was concerned, that part of her life was over. She was putting an end to feeling depressed over Lucas Scott.

It wasn't like she was fooling herself into thinking that she was over Lucas. She knew she wasn't. Not by a long shot. However, Peyton was over the initial shock of seeing him again. Crying wasn't doing a damn thing to help the situation. In fact, it was impeding her from moving on. Well, at least from getting back the feeling of status quo.

A soft groan escaped her lips when she realized that the line had not moved an inch in all the time that she lost herself in her thoughts. It was going to be one of those days, she could tell. After another quick check of her watch, she realized that it hadn't been too long. But still, she should have been on her way back to the office by then. Any second her boss was going to call her to ask where his coffee was. John Knight wasn't going to ask where she was, because he didn't care. All he would want to know was where his coffee was.

She smiled to herself. If he did call, she was going to spit in his drink.

Unfortunately, the smile did not last long on her face. Something felt wrong. She couldn't quite put her finger on it, but something wasn't right. Then she shivered. She felt cold. And more than that, she felt disconnected.

She knew she had to sit down, but she didn't want to lose her place in line. As she tried to decide what to do, her vision swam and she felt as if she might throw up. Peyton took in some deep breaths, hoping that it would fix her.

It didn't.

She had never felt this way before and it scared her. She needed help. +She had just decided to step out of line when she felt numb. As to what happened next, Peyton would never know because everything suddenly went black.

----------

"Here's your coffee, Mocha double Latte, extra foam."

Brooke took the coffee in her hands and gives Millicent a look. "Is there foam? Because the last time I asked for foam, I didn't get foam." Brooke pouted. "And I like foam."

"I know. Extra foam. I made sure."

Brooke smiled, her dimples showing. "Thanks, Millie."

Millicent groaned. "Please don't thank me."

"And why not?"

"Brooke Davis!" The voice that could make a world famous designer cringe heralded the arrival of one of her least favorite people.

"That's why…" Millie said, unnecessarily.

Victoria made her way over to Brooke. The older woman took the young brunette by the arm and started leading her away from Millie and into Brooke's office. "Listen, we need to have a little chat about that friend of yours."

"Uh, no, we don't." She didn't even want to know which friend Victoria had an issue with. Someone needed to remind Brooke why she put up with this hag of a woman. "My personal relationships, thankfully, fall out of your jurisdiction."

"Actually, this one doesn't." Victoria gave Brooke a smug smile. "When your friendships encroach on your business, it falls directly into my jurisdiction."

Brooke wasn't up to playing games, she had a company to run. "What are you talking about?"

"You know perfectly well what I'm talking about."

"No, no, no! You're not going to fire her!"

"You're right, I'm not." Victoria smiled insincerely. "That's not part of my job. However, you are going to fire her."

Brooke was about to argue with her when her cell phone rang. Usually, she turned off her phone during important meetings, but never when she was meeting one-on-one with Victoria. If it rang, it gave her an excuse to hightail it out of there. In fact, Millie had strict instructions to call her phone if their private conferences lasted longer than twenty minutes.

"It hasn't even been five minutes, yet," Victoria said as she watched her young designer search for her phone. Brooke took it out of her purse and looked down at it. The call display showed a number that she didn't recognize. On the other hand, area code seemed familiar. Ignoring the older raven-haired female's death stare, she answered it.

"Brooke Davis."

"Ms. Davis, hello. I'm calling you because our records show that you are Peyton Sawyer's emergency contact-"

Everything else seemed to fade away for her. Emergency contact? That implies that there was an emergency. "What happened? Is Peyton all right?"

Victoria huffed. If it wasn't one useless friend trying to pull Brooke down, it was the other. She wondered if she could put a call block on Brooke's cell phone.

"Um, ma'am. I don't really know… She was brought into the hospital for observation after she passed out…"

Brooke's heartbeat was pounding in her ears and so she missed the rest of the what the person on the line was saying. "Where is she right now?"

Her hands grabbed the first available scrap of paper and writing utensil and scribbled down the information. She forced herself to keep it together, she had too much to do to fall apart. She closed the cell phone and dropped it into her bag.

"As I was saying-" Victoria began.

"Not now." Brooke started heading towards Millicent. She knew that Millie would be a huge help in getting things done quickly and correctly.

"Brooke, I'm not done…"

"Not NOW, Mother." Brooke spit it out with such ferocity that Victoria took a step back.

"Fine. We will continue our conversation at a later time, then."

Brooke didn't care. All that mattered at that moment was getting on a plane and being by her best friend's side. It didn't matter if it turned out to be nothing, the brunette needed to be with Peyton. She couldn't lose her. Not her P. Sawyer.

'Please God,' she prayed silently. 'Please let her be all right. I need her.'

She hoped that God wasn't too busy to do the world's youngest up-and-coming designer a favor.

-------

"Do me a favor and get me a doctor to talk to or get me my clothes."

The nurse gave her a sympathetic smile and quickly rushed out of the room. Peyton groaned. She had been in the hospital for four hours already and hadn't seen an actual doctor the entire yet. She didn't understand what the whole fuss was about. She had regained consciousness well before the ambulance had even gotten there.

When the ambulance arrived, Peyton was dead-set on going home. However, the EMTs wanted to put her in a neck brace and take her to the hospital. After a brief argument, a compromise was reached. She would go to the hospital, but there would be no neck brace.

When she had arrived, she was placed in a wheel chair and wheeled over to a bed. Two nurses came in and quickly helped her out of her outfit and into an extremely drafty hospital gown. Once barely dressed, another nurse appeared to stick an IV in her arm. After that, every fifteen minutes, like clockwork, a different nurse would come in, check her vitals and her IV drip and promise that a doctor would see her soon.

The stupid IV pretty much chained her to the bed. Her cell phone had been turned off and taken away from her. Thankfully, the nurse had let her have her mp3 player and her book. Even after seeing Lucas again, Peyton couldn't help carrying An Unkindness of Ravens with her. She knew she was simply torturing herself with it, but she needed it. It was a constant reminder to her that Lucas really did love her once. And she needed to believe that, especially after the way that Lucas acted towards her six weeks ago.

She sighed and went back to the book, glancing up every couple of seconds. Eventually, she hoped, one of the times that she looked up she was going to see a doctor standing in front of her. Alas, fourteen and a half minutes later, it was only another nurse.

The nurse efficiently went through her little routine and was about to leave when she stopped. "I love that book!"

Peyton looked at her, not surprised. Whenever she read the book in public, at least one person stopped to rave about how good the book was.

The blond patient nodded. "Yeah, me too."

"Give you hope, ya know? If that boy could love Peyton that much… well, surely there must be someone like that out there for me."

"Yeah," Peyton said, half-heartedly. She never told any of the book's admirers that she was the Peyton from the book. And that her story wasn't nearly as happy as the book's story. After all, there was no happy ending in her story. "Listen, this IV thing…"

The nurse smiled. "You gotta use the bathroom?"

Peyton nodded and the nurse laughed. She disconnected Peyton's IV from the wall and told her how to get to the restroom. The young artist was thankful that they weren't making her use a bedpan. A little less grateful, though, when the nurse handed her a cup.

"Fill 'er up."