How could I not update this when I updated Bliss, hmmm? Sorry about the shortness of it though.

"We need to tell him."

Nathan slammed the door behind him and marched into the kitchen where Haley had stopped what she was doing to stare up at her husband.

"Nathan-"

"He's killing himself Haley! He's killing himself and there is nothing any of us can do. Can you really look at me and say this is all for the best? Huh? Lets respect Peyton's wishes? Fuck that, Haley."

"Nathan," she hissed, nodding her head behind him. Nathan turned around and looked guiltily down at his son who stood there and stared at him with his mouth agape.

"Hey, buddy. Sorry. That was-"

"You said a very bad word," Jamie informed him, breathlessly. "Momma does he get a time out?"

"Yes he does," Haley said. She glared at Nathan before turning her attention back to Jamie. "But sweetie I need you to go upstairs and play. This is grown up talk."

Instead of listening to his mother, the five year old asked, "Is Uncle Lucas gonna die?"

Haley and Nathan looked at each other, seriously. It was Nathan that spoke up, honestly.

"I hope not, bud. Go on upstairs for now. We'll shoot around later."

The little Scott that took after his uncle turned and went upstairs.

"Sorry," Nathan apologized. Haley waved him off and crossed her arms with a sigh.

"How is he?"

"It's bad, Hales. You know it is. He's got a bottle in every corner of that room."

Tears burned Haley's eyes and she walked into Nathan's embrace. She'd watched her best friend's slide in the abyss; Watched him become a person she didn't recognize.

"He's fading Haley."

"Where is Brooke?"

"New York. I don't know when she'll be back."

"I don't see how telling him will help Nathan, it might hurt him more than anything."

Nathan held her at arms length, disbelief written all over his face.

"How can you say that? Haley, the man has a son that he doesn't know about. That could pull him back."

"Or push him farther! Think about it Nathan. Not only will it hurt him to know he had a son she didn't tell him about, but what if he were to go down there? You think Peyton would just let him waltz back into her life? She has never once said that child is Lucas's. Not once."

"Oh Haley don't gimme that. We may not have seen Keith in person, but…Anyone who knows Lucas Scott would look at the picture Jake sent us and know without a doubt."

"I know that, Nate. I know! But, do you remember when Peyton finally told us she was pregnant? What she said? She said Jake and I are having a baby. Jake sent that picture and if he didn't I'm pretty sure we wouldn't know what Keith even looked like. She is obviously insistent about Lucas having nothing to do with him. If Lucas knew and went down there…It would kill him to have her say it to his face."

"That's…conjecture Haley. Do you honestly think she would do that?"

"She's keeping Keith from him isn't she?"

"That doesn't matter, Haley. We know that kid is not Jake's, okay. You can't seriously tell me Lucas would see Keith and believe any of the shitty excuses that Peyton uses."

"Maybe he will, maybe he won't. But he'll walk away when she tells him to leave- because he's punishing himself for something, Nathan," Haley's voice broke off in a sob, her heart breaking for her oldest and best friend.

"Hey," Nathan cupped the back of her head and rested it against his chest as she cried.

"I don't know how to help him anymore either, Nathan, short of conking him on the head and dragging him to rehab."

"I know, babe."

"I know its wrong Nathan. It is so wrong to keep him from his son, but it's just not our place."

Nathan wanted to say, "Fuck, not our place." His brother was dying, and even though he saw part of Haley's point, he couldn't just sit back and do nothing.

Brooke certainly wasn't doing anything. He knew it wasn't her job to fix him, but he couldn't understand how the woman stayed and watched his brother crawl deeper and deeper into the bottle. He knew it affected her. He could see it every time he ran into her on the street. She looked tired, hassled, and rightly so.

The two did nothing but argue. It was their old high school relationship minus the good times and the sex. Lucas treated her like a doormat on the best of days and Nathan couldn't help the niggling feeling that maybe-just maybe Brooke was punishing herself for something too.

The shrill ringing of t telephone interrupted the couple's thoughts and Nathan pulled away to answer it.

"Hello?"

As Nathan took the call, Haley looked back at the forgotten dinner, her thoughts falling back upon her wayward friends. She almost laughed. Wayward was an understatement. They were lost at sea, caught up in a maelstrom. Lucas was so lost, not even his mother could pull him back, but things between Lucas and Karen had never gotten back to normal after Jimmy Edwards shot Keith and then himself.

Karen had not come back to them and although she never said it out loud, Haley got the impression that she blamed Lucas for Keith's death, leaving her to wonder how they'd all diverged so completely from their destined paths. She couldn't fathom that the journey would be this hard for someone, yet stone after stone and thorn after thorn sent her closest friends on a lonely path towards destruction.

"What now?" Haley sighed, gearing herself up for yet another blow.

Every moment, every happening sets our course, sends us left, right, leaves us standing still, looking backwards or running for cover…..

Nathan hung up the phone, his mouth agape.

And at any given moment a landmine can appear….

"Dan's in jail. He-he confessed to murdering Keith."

And it can blow us to pieces.

"

"Why? Why after so long?" Nathan fumed, pacing back and forth on the carpet. From the couch Haley looked at her raging husband pleadingly. Karen sat beside her a complete and utter mess. She was beside herself when she called Nathan and the two had hurried over, stopping to drop Jamie off at Skillz' apartment. When they arrived Karen had relayed the whole story.

Dan had been acting strangely for a long time. He barely slept. And sometimes she caught him talking to himself. He also spent vast amounts of time at Tree Hill cemetery, but Karen had forced herself to think it was remorse for being so horrible to his brother when he was alive. That morning before he left he looked at her with an unreadable expression painted across his face.

And then he had said three chilling words that made Karen realize her life was about to take another unexpected and unwelcome turn. Three words that made her realize her life for the past few years had been a sham, had been in vain.

"I'm so sorry," he'd said. Two hours later she'd gotten the call.

"How did I not see," Karen demanded. Her skin was crawling. She felt sick and like the biggest fool on the planet. For two years she had shared a bed with the man who stole the love of her life away, his own brother. A man who had abandoned her son and after fracturing her own relationship with Lucas over Keith's death, had put the final nail in the coffin, so to speak, by pursuing her. And she had helped him.

Her thoughts turned immediately to her son who she had essentially abandoned. She had blamed him for Keith's death and now to find out it had been Dan….

"Oh God," Karen cried, for the hundredth time. "Oh God, how didn't I see?"

"Karen, it's not your fault," Haley shrugged helplessly. She had thought Karen had lost her mind when she began dating Dan, but had kept mum, because Karen seemed relatively happy. It was the best anyone she knew had acquired up to that point. Everyone else was just plain miserable.

Nathan glanced over at the pair in annoyance, but his annoyance was solely for Lucas's mother. He had no sympathy for the woman who knew Lucas wasn't doing well, yet did nothing but shack up with the bastard who'd abandoned him.

He had just wanted to come over and see for himself that it was true, even though as soon as he heard the news he knew it was.

At that moment the front door opened and shut, then Lucas appeared in the doorway. His face had a days worth of stubble upon it, and his eyes were bloodshot. They could smell the booze from clear across the room. Haley and Nathan were used to it, but not Karen Roe.

When she looked up at him, new tears began to fall. "Lucas," she breathed in astonishment. This was her boy? What had happened to her little boy?

Lucas ignored her. "Is it true?"

"How did you find out?" Nathan asked.

"I work for the newspaper," Lucas replied, shortly, before his gaze landed on his mother. "Well is it? Your boyfriend murdered Keith?"

Haley gapped, as she felt Karen cringe. "Luc-"

"Yeah," Nathan cut in. "It's true."

Lucas chuffed and nodded. "Figures."

He turned to leave, when Nathan's voice echoed behind him. "Did you drive here?"

Sighing Lucas turned around. "No. My license is suspended. Dui," he added with a shrug.

"You didn't tell me that," Nathan said in shock.

"I think I just did," Lucas shot back in irritation. He was going to turn again when Karen found her voice.

"A dui? Lucas-"
"Don't Mom. Don't give me that," he spat. "Your boyfriend is gone so now you wanna be my mom again?"

"Lucas I was always your mother," Karen tried.

"BULLSHIT!" Lucas's voice shook the house. Haley's hand flew to her mouth, shocked at the curse that had been hurled so violently from son to mother. Nathan gapped at him completely flabbergasted, but knowing this had been a long time coming. Karen sat like a statue for a moment and the complete silence of the room was broken when she stood, marched over to him and slapped him in the face.

"Don't you ever speak to me like that again! Look at you! Look at you, I didn't raise you to be a drunk! I didn't raise you to just give up on your life!"

The slap in the face didn't phase him, but her words did.

"Don't turn this around on me! Don't make this about me. Where were you! Huh? Two years Mom! Where were you!? I needed you! My whole world was falling apart and you were fucking the guy who took away the only person who really loved me. He took my father! And you blamed me! You know you did!"

Karen stood there, shocked, tears swimming in her eyes. She didn't want to. God help her she didn't want to blame him, and a large part of her knew logically that it was not her son's fault that Jimmy Edwards brought a gun to school that day or that he went into that school to save someone he loved. It wasn't his fault that Keith walked into that school for him or that Dan took the opportunity to do away with his brother once and for all.

But a part of her did. The part that was grieving. The part that saw her son and that Sawyer girl together and knew she would never be able to have that again.

"You didn't have to go into that school," she cried, brokenly.

"Yeah I did," Lucas replied, quietly. "Because the man Dan murdered went into the school for the exact same reason I went in. And that's how Keith raised me."

The trembling of Lucas's lower lip was all that betrayed the hurt he felt. "You left me, Mom. You gave up first. So don't you dare, even think of lecturing me for my life and loving a woman the way Keith loved you."

Tears fell down Karen's cheeks. She was choked with regret. "Lucas, I-"

"Don't," Lucas shook his head, deflating in seconds. His chest felt heavy. He was tired, so tired of all of it.

"How do I make it right, Luke?" Karen pleaded, grasping her son's hands. "God, how do I make it right? I will do anything."

Lucas looked down at their hands and then up at her, before pulling himself from her grasp. Two years was a long time to have a mother seemingly not give a damn. And at this point, nothing and no one mattered anymore.

"There's nothing to fix," he murmured, before turning to leave.

"Lucas please!" Karen pleaded.

"Luke, at least let me drive you home," Haley offered. The blonde shook his head, and without turning, replied, hollowly.

"Doesn't matter. I'll walk."

"Lucas," Karen cried again, desperately. She had a sinking feeling that if her son walked out the door she would never see him again. But this time, Lucas didn't stop.

I know what you're thinking. Day-um, Lexlady, what's with all the angst? Bear with me peeps. It'll get worse, but then it'll get better and then you can mail me candy! Until then, leave a review. ;)