Howdy all. So, since I updated Bliss, I figured hey...why not give the people what they want and update Journey too. Sorry bout the angst though. I don't think the people wanted angst. But it won't be for much longer...okay that's a lie. There is more angst on the way, but I promise this story will have an angst free ending.

That being said, I want to thank everyone for sticking with the super angsty turn this story has taken. You shall be rewarded. I promise!

All the italics are Lucas's writing/thoughts.

Also-The language ain't so cute. Just your run of the mill F-word usage, but still. Just thought I should warn you if it offends.

I almost said your name last night when I was making love to her. It is not the first time I've done it. My eyes were shut so tight I wasn't sure I even existed save for the image I had of you in my mind, the image I always have of you when I lay with her. I imagine you are beneath me and the feel of your skin sliding against mine and the way your soft curls feel between my fingertips. And you say my name and I am utterly lost. But in a good way. Not the way I'm lost now.

Peyton's eyes flew open and her disorientation settled when her eyes landed on the head of tawny curls playing on the carpet. Keith was babbling quietly to himself, in a whisper and it made Peyton smile, despite the knots in her stomach. Keith had always been a quiet child. He barely cried at night, whimpered for his meals, and was content to lay in one spot and stare until someone came to fetch him. Which was a good thing when Peyton fell asleep on the couch.

Rubbing her eyes she sighed when they came away wet with a few stray tears. She cried in her sleep and she knew it had to do with the dreams she had.

"You fall asleep?" She looked up to find Jake standing in the doorway regarding her seriously.

"Yeah, I just dozed off for a second there," she laughed, shaking her head. The smiled vanished off her face as she shook the foggy thoughts from her head. Insomnia had kicked in several months ago, and she didn't know why. Maybe because no matter what she did her thoughts always seemed to settle upon one thing. Jake came and sat down next to her, peeking at the comic strip she was working on for the local paper she worked for.

"Ja'." The baby was looking at them with half a smile. Grinning Jake, pressed his lips to Peyton's before kneeling down on the carpet beside the toddler. Peyton didn't bother trying to correct the child as she had in the past.

Keith never called Jake Daddy, no matter how many times Peyton tried to get him to do it. It had just been Momma and 'Ja' since he could distinguish who was who. No one thought anything of it in public, and even thought it was cute that Jake's son would call him by his first name. Everyone assumed Keith was his son with Peyton and Keith did resemble his mother from his thin puckered lips to his wild head of curly blonde hair, which his mother lovingly called his 'baby fro'. There was no doubt who his mother was and people just assumed he took after his mother more.

That is…until they peered into the boy's bright, but solemn and piercing blue eyes.

The day Peyton gave birth, and Jake looked into the child's eyes he knew they would never be able to escape the shadow of Lucas Scott in their relationship. There was a reason Keith didn't call him daddy, as Peyton would have liked. Jake knew all about parent-child bonds and he thought, as silly as it sounded, that little Keith knew his real father was somewhere out there.

The quiet little boy with the serious blues was waiting. So was he.

"You want Thai for dinner?" His question brought her momentarily out of her thoughts.

"Sure." Peyton nodded, smiling at Jake. It made him wince. He knew she tried. The smiles she gave him were genuine and he knew she loved him as best she could, but he knew an integral piece of her lay in Tree Hill.

He spoke to Haley and Nathan sporadically and they called Keith his son, but never brought up the fact that the boy obviously wasn't his. They never brought up Lucas if Peyton was within earshot and he got the feeling that Haley and Nathan glossed over how badly Lucas was doing.

Jake hated that Peyton wouldn't tell Lucas, kept Keith's paternity a secret. He'd had countless arguments with Peyton about it. They'd argued when she found out she was pregnant. They had argued sporadically throughout her pregnancy and somewhere between the arguments Jake had taken a chance and kissed her. She kissed back. They got together three months before Keith was born.

The doctors thought Jake was the father and his heart broke a bit for Lucas Scott that late night when a Peyton gave birth to 5 pound 7 ounces of screaming baby. Peyton took one look at her son and burst into hysterical tears, when Jake peered into his eyes, he realized why she was crying. He felt like crying himself.

From that day on, Jake had been on the verge of calling Lucas himself several times, but always stopped himself. He felt like a hypocrite keeping Keith from his father. And as much as he loved that little boy he knew that some day…one of them would wake up. Be it Peyton or Lucas.

He knew he should have been the one to let go a long time ago, but he couldn't help how he felt. As broken-spirited as this Peyton Sawyer was, she was still Peyton Sawyer and he was in love with her. So until the day Peyton and Lucas found their paths crossed again, he would hold onto Peyton as tightly and for as long as he could.

I miss you more than words can express and this life that I live, this man I've become, it would all be worth it to know that you are happy wherever you are. I just need to know that you're happy, Peyton. To let you go, so you can stop haunting my every thought.

I haven't spoken to my mother in two years and it seems the only source of genuine joy in my life is Jamie. I'm surprised Haley still lets me see him considering the shadow I've become. I get drunk almost every night now. Every day is a hangover, but it's okay. I need to feel something other than this steady ache that was left when you walked out of my life for the last time.

I honestly don't know why she stays with me and I'm beginning to resent her for it. What self respecting woman stays with a man who barely sees her, drinks himself stupid everyday, and imagines he is with someone else when he makes love to her? I ruined her just as I ruined us and everything else in my life. I have done everything wrong and I have been wrong about a lot. But I do know, loving you is the only right thing I have ever done in my life. Peyton, I was right about that. And although it has brought us nothing but pain I won't apologize for it. I am a miserable man, but I…if only for a moment, I was a king when I had you. I love you still and it hurts.

Do you know what I want more than anything? For us to lay together and for me to know that you won't leave me. I dream you belong to me and me to you and we know that we will never be parted again and happiness does not become this elusive . That's my dream is to know what that feels like.

Sudden sunlight invaded his corneas and he groaned, feeling the familiar headache set in. He reached down by his bedside and began rooting around for the bottle he had left there the night before.

"It's not there."

Lucas's eyes shot open at the unexpected sound of his brother's voice, and he immediately regretted it. Slumping back down on his bed, he covered his head with a pillow, mumbling.

"Go'way Na'."

"Lucas, you can't keep doing this to yourself," Nathan said, gravely. When he got no answer he shook his head and began moving around the room. Sock drawer: a bottle of whiskey. Bookshelf: Scotch was nestled between Faulkner and James Joyce. He dropped bottle after bottle into a bag.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" Lucas spat, finally sitting up to glare at him.

"You need to stop this Lucas. The drinking has gotten way out of control. We never see you sober anymore, Luke. Never! And that's if we see you at all. What kind of example does that set for Jamie!"

Lucas only sighed heavily, and reached under Brooke's pillow for his flask. He stared at Nathan challengingly as he took a swig. Nathan looked back at his brother like a stranger.

Lucas's downward spiral had begun after Peyton had left for the last time. That had been nearly two years ago. He woke up and got drunk. He spent his days drunk, and the few times he went to bed anymore he was drunk. He lost his job as the coach of Tree Hill high, and just barely held on to the one he had at the Tree Hill Mirror. Lucas had simply….given up.

"Nathan is there a reason you're here," Lucas's voice was gravelly as he downed his flask like it was water.

"I was just checking to make sure you were still breathing bro." His sarcasm was laced with pain at seeing his brother so low.

"Well, I'm breathing," Lucas murmured, glancing at the laptop on his desk. He had written last night, but as always it was about her. He really wished he could stop thinking about her. He didn't understand why it was still so hard and why the hurt just wouldn't go away.

This hurt, Peyton. It doesn't go away.

His mind was not clouded enough. Stumbling out of bed he walked over to his dresser and reached underneath it. Nathan sighed as his brother pulled out a bottle, untwisting the cap.

Nathan shook his head. He felt like crying. This man in front of him was not his brother, with the three day stubble, splotchy skin and constantly red eyes. His demeanor was dour and his attitude nothing short of surly. He was shocked Brooke was still with him. He was a shadow of the man he used to be.

"What the hell happened to you man?"

Lucas didn't look at him.

"Peyton called the other day," he said under his breath, raising his eyebrow when Lucas's eyes flew up to his. Nathan knew he probably shouldn't have brought the curly haired blonde up. The few times they saw Lucas over the years her name was studiously left from conversations, especially after Haley let it slip that Peyton was now with Jake over dinner. Three pairs of eyes had skittered to the brooding blonde whose own eyes had lowered quickly to hide the sudden flood of tears.

"How-How is she?"

His voice was steady, but Nathan knew it was killing him to ask. He wanted to tell him. He really, really did. Let him know that there was something else to live for, to fight for. His name was Keith and he should have his real father.

Peyton had never told him outright that the baby with the curly hair was his brother's, and he had to wonder who the hell she thought she was fooling trying to pass the kid off as Jake's.

"She's okay," Nathan shrugged, thinking about the vaguely empty tone he had come to associate with Peyton's voice the very few times he'd spoken to her. She put on a good act, but Nathan could see right through it. The only thing Peyton didn't act was her role as a mother to Keith. She loved that little boy like no other and he was the sole person that kept her sane.

Lucas narrowed his eyes at the tone of his brother's response, but said nothing more. He didn't deserve to know how Peyton was.

It hurts all the time. I hope you don't feel this. I hope I didn't break you for good.

"Lucas, I actually came by to tell you that…I can't have you come by the house anymore, unless you're sober."

"Think I'm an alcoholic Nate?"

"I think you're killing yourself. I think you're trying to kill yourself and…I can't let my son watch you do it. He loves you too much for me to put him through that."

"I'm sorry," Lucas said, genuinely. He truly did love his nephew.

"Do you want me to get you some help Luke?" Nathan asked the question for the hundredth time and for the hundredth time Lucas shook his head slowly.

"I deserve this."

I hear your I hate you everyday. Well, I fucking hate me too.

"But you DON'T," Nathan exploded. "You don't deserve what you're doing to yourself."

"Yes I do."

"Does Brooke? Huh?"

"I don't ask her to stay," Lucas countered, through clenched teeth.

I am afraid to be alone, which is why I am with her. Whenever the mood strikes me, and it is rarely, I do make love to her and my soul cries for you every time.

"God only knows why she does," Nathan threw his arms up. "Where is she anyway?"

Lucas shrugged. "New York. Some fashion thing."

"Luke-"

"Go home Nathan," Lucas ordered.

"The darkness doesn't hold any answers Lucas."

"I'm not looking for answers, Nate. I just-I want-"

Redemption.

"Lucas, I know you know how to fight. You have fought for what you want before. Fight for it again. Fight for her."

"It's too late Nathan,"

"Bullshit!"

Lucas's eyes flared and he shot up and he charged at his brother and got into his face. The two stood nose to nose.

"Don't come into my fucking place and yell at me okay! You don't know anything! You don't fucking know what I know! I hurt her! It's ME! Nathan! I hurt her! It's what I DO!"

"This isn't just about you, Luke! Stop being so fucking stubborn!"

"Fuck you!"

"Yeah that's right. Lash out at everyone around you. You know that you are to blame for the way your life turned out. But you know what? A man would pick himself back up, not crawl into a hole and die! You're taking everyone down with you!"

Lucas was shaking with fury. "I swear to god if you don't get out now, I'll throw you out myself!"

"You don't know what I know and you are going to kill yourself before you see it!"

Lucas's eyes narrowed and Nathan bit his tongue. "What the hell does that mean?" Lucas asked.

"Things just aren't always what they seem, Luke," Nathan said, his voice finally lowering.

Nathan watched the fight go out of him. The man seemed to age before his eyes. Tiredly he murmured, "Go home Nathan."

Lucas got up and walked into his bathroom and shut it behind him.

I still feel you out there Peyton. I do. And it has to be you, otherwise I would have been dead a long time ago.

Hey it's not a knee in the testicles, but Lucas torture it is. Sorry Journey Lucas. You aren't The show's Lucas, but it still felt good making you miserable. Don't fret. Your frown shall be turned around in due time.

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