I know. It's been awhile. This chapter is very short and I apologize. Journey sort of topped my list of fanfic priorities for a little bit. This fic is a bit difficult to write sometimes because it isn't as plot driven as Journey is or even Bear Witness which I haven't forgotten either.

Anyway I hope this satifies at least a bit. Thanks for all the reviews and reminders that you guys want more. It's been fantastic.

Brooke Davis didn't do a lot of things. She didn't do skim milk or crash diets, films with bathroom humor. She didn't do halfway or size zero on any of her models and she didn't do second best. She didn't do regrets either. Life was far too short, but as she set her bags down in her lavish and achingly empty apartment, she realized she was doing it. She was regretting. A lot.After Rachel all but dragged her away from Lucas and Peyton's house and into the car, the brunette had sat in utter shock for a good two and a half miles. She thought this must be sort of what it felt like for a wife to walk in on her husband with another woman. However, there was obviously no betrayal. How could there be? Lucas wasn't her husband. He hadn't even been her boyfriend in seven years. There was just more shock at the sight than you could light a small town with.

And it was this amount of shock that gave Brooke pause while they crossed Virginia. There was nothing shocking about a man making love to his wife…well maybe sort of, considering the divorce statistics and the fact that they were doing it outside where just about anyone could see them. She had somehow gotten it into her mind that what Lucas and Peyton had wasn't supposed to be. That the life he had with Peyton could be so much better if he was with her. But it was hard to believe such things after witnessing the raw, unadulterated passion they had for each other, slaked against the side of their home.

This was passion she and Chase had lacked, passion that if she was honest with herself, even she and Lucas had lacked when they were together. But her mind wouldn't let her make those leaps now as she sat down beside her bed and began playing her messages. Several were from Victoria, two from Chase, only serving to make her feel numb, a handful from 'friends' who wanted the skinny on her trip back home where her "hottie ex-boyfriend" lived. That made her heart ache in a different way.

The image of said hottie and Peyton together wouldn't leave her mind. She thought long and hard about everything that had occurred while she was in Tree Hill. She had gone through a strange metamorphosis that even she couldn't explain.

It hadn't just been jealousy for the life Peyton had and she didn't. Although, she would have given anything for Peyton's life; to call those sweet children hers, to call Lucas her husband, and lay down beside and make love to him every night. To hear him whisper he loved her in her ear, to live for simple pleasures and family. Instead she had this fashion empire and life that was growing increasingly empty, emptier now that she saw what her life lacked.

And she knew it was her own fault that she didn't have any of these things. It was her own fault for letting him go all those years ago and it was her own fault that she didn't fight for him when there was still even a chance he might feel the same way. And for that she would always regret.

Lucas Scott was and would always be the boy she would have lost everything for, the boy she realized after all this time, she was still in love with, and now she had nothing.

Picking up the phone, Brooke speed-dialed her office and let them know she was home and coming in. Brooke had miscalculated a hell of a lot over the past several days and she hated admitting any wrongdoing or defeat. And Brooke Davis also didn't do pain. So she returned to a tried and true method of mending a broken heart. Brooke Davis went to work.

Three weeks later

When Peyton opened her eyes that morning it was to the hyper awareness of cool breeze, the warm and peacefully slumbering body beside her, the hand the body belonged to grasping hers across the bed, lusciously soft downy sheets that smelled of her husband and lingering laundry detergent and the quiet sounds of the morning. Birds twittered in the Willow Tree, her son snored softly over the monitor, car engines started, signaling another work day. Lucas sighed beside her in his sleep, drawing a smile from her, and she squeezed his hand lightly.

It had been three weeks since Brooke ghosted out of Tree Hill without so much as a goodbye. Peyton hadn't really expected one after Lucas told her in so many words to stay the hell away, but the idea of the lost friendship saddened her, although she was loathe to admit it. On the heels of Brooke's departure was the beginning of a stint without Dan. There hadn't been a peep from the man. No one had even seen him from a distance.

So, at some point the Scotts begun lowering their guards as life as it has a tendency to do, kept going. A new school year was beginning for Lily and Jamie in two weeks. Nathan was beginning a new coaching job at Tree Hill High, filling in the late Whitey Durham's old shoes. Haley was thrilled that they would get to drive to work together everyday. In the other Scott's house, Lucas was shuttling back and forth between Tree Hill and New York to edit his latest book. This left Peyton at home with the children, much to their delight. Unlike their father, Peyton would let them have fun make it yourself pizzas for lunch and bucket-o-chicken for dinner.

Unfortunately it was during these moments away that the children decided to change on Lucas. In his absence, William had acquired a new habit of falling asleep in strange places. This new quirk of the smallest Scott's was learned after several small panic attacks at not being able to find him, only to have Anna stumble across him under a coffee table or in Lucas's office under his desk. The police were nearly called at one point, until Lily found William snoozing under Anna's bed.

Meanwhile, Anna had become excited about the prospect of school after tagging along with Jamie and Lily on a back to school shopping trip and had let her parents know in no uncertain terms that she wanted to go too. Delighted that her granddaughter was so excited about learning Karen bought the girl a Dora the Explorer backpack that the child refused to take off and was stuffed with an assortment of bizarre things. Peyton quickly realized who was pilfering all the pens and pencils from Lucas's desk, art equipment from her studio, and packets of raisins from the pantry. Both parents were chagrined when Karen said the dreaded P word. At this Lucas had put his foot down and refused to speak of preschool with his mother or Peyton-ever.

Life in their anything but quiet town had returned to normal. And as Peyton turned over to scoot her body closer to Lucas's, she finally believed it. Lucas draped an arm around her waist and tugged closer, exhaling hotly against her neck. Peyton smiled.

It was going to be a good day.

"Hmm," Lucas hummed, sleepily behind her. After a quick glance at the clock he settled back into bed and began dropping kisses on her shoulder. Squeezing her to him, Peyton lifted a corner of her mouth at what she felt pressing into her back and then turned over. They smiled leisurely at each other.

"Good morning, love," he husked, his hands beginning a warm, lazy journey all over her body. Wetness pooled between her legs at his gravelly salutation and her hands grasping his boxer clad hips, began a trip of their own up his bare chiseled torso and chest.

"Mmm," he moaned, lowering his head to suck on the hollow of her throat. She echoed his sentiments and let him pull off the giant sleep shirt she was wearing and then her panties before moving back over her to press his bare chest against hers with a satisfied moan. Another sense of hyper-awareness. Warm naked skin upon warm naked skin, specifically Lucas's warm naked skin. Their sheets were now the smell of hot arousal and sex.

Lucas had returned from another New York trip late last night on the red eye for what he said was the last time. He missed his family terribly when he was away, especially when Peyton would call him so the kids could say goodnight, even William who would babble some excited baby words upon hearing the familiar voice, between trying to stuff the phone his mouth. William had also recently decided everything was for eating.

They bumped noses and he tilted his head. "I missed you, Peyton," he husked.

"I missed you too, Luke," Peyton replied, quietly. "Are you going to have to do another book tour?"

"Yeah," he sighed at her pout. "It's going to suck being away from you. When I get back Anna will probably have colleges picked out for herself."

They shared a laugh at their precocious four year old.

"I miss you when you're away," she whispered seriously.

"I know," he murmured, Eskimo kissing her. "I hate leaving you. I hate it….But," he lowered a hand between her legs and began to stroke her there. "I'm here now."

With a smile he reached the tip his tongue out to swipe at her lips before lowering his own to meet hers. Her mouth opened beneath his with a groan, uncaring of morning breath after years of waking up beside one another. Their tongues began a slow and lazy dance that had them shivering in want.

Lucas shimmied out of his boxers and within seconds he was buried deep inside her. He interlocked their fingers and raised her arms above her head and began moving inside her, bringing one hand down to stroke the side of her body from her arm to her knee. Breaking the kiss, in favor of breathing, she arched her back like a cat.

"Oh God," she gasped. Hot, pulsing, thick. He filled her so completely and had somehow mastered the art of swiveling his hips in such a way that his cock circled her cervix in the most delicious fashion.

Moaning, he pulled back, felt her tightening around his rigid penis and slammed back inside her. He wrapped both his arms around her and began a slow grind before burying his face in her neck.

"Peyton," he whispered, nibbling on the soft flesh of her neck, hissing in pleasure she milked him, letting wave after wave of pleasure carry him up. She sensed he wanted it to last so she let herself float. She shut her eyes and lost herself in the surprisingly soft feel of his skin, the hotness of his breath on her neck, the feeling of him filling her body. She let her hands caress the hard muscles of his arms, back, and shoulders. To glide through the messy strands of blonde hair.

This wasn't a race to completion. Having tuned all of their awareness to nothing outside of the other, it was simply slow languorous lovemaking in the still hours of the early day.

"Your heart," she breathed, making him raise his head to look at her through heavy lidded eyes. "I feel it beating."

She was pressed so tight against his chest that she could feel his heart beating opposite hers. The statement was simple to anyone but them and taking hold of her ring hand Lucas placed it over his chest and placed his own hand over hers.

"Yours is as precious to me as mine is to you."

"Luke."

"I want to spend the rest of my life with you," he panted. God, he said the most amazing things to her when they made love.

She gasped his name as he reached between them and flicked her clit once, twice three times and then he kissed her again deeply like they had forever.

Their orgasms swelled up within them and crashed over them like a wave of water and left them warm and basking in its afterglow.

Peyton sighed happily. Forget good. It was going to be a great day.

See? When in doubt throw in some smut. :p