A/N: It's baaaaaack. :)

Sorry for the wait, I really am. I intended to get back to this much sooner, but my muse went to several other places, school got crazy, and now, to top it all off, I'm sick.

To those of you who've sent patient PMs and reviews asking for updates, I love you for your investment in this story and you are all kinds of wonderful for letting me take a break.

To everyone and anyone, if you don't mind, review just to let me know you're still out there and interested. And of course, I always welcome your feedback. You guys are terrific, you really are. I hope this chapter was worth the wait, and I'm going to try to update again soon. With Christmas coming up I might have a little bit more time on my hands.

Transposition: a change from the original key or tempo, slowing down or speeding up in order to suit the needs of singers and/or other instruments

Peyton sighed when Lucas showed up at her door in the late afternoon, but he caught the small, reluctant smile that touched her lips even though her cheeks reddened a little bit with the memory of her breakdown the previous evening. She sighed again as she set her laptop to the side. "This is turning into a pattern, Lucas."

"I know," he said, closing the door behind him. "I'm sorry."

He could see that she swallowed hard. "I'm glad that you've been here for me, for last night, for all of that but…it needs to end. God," she sighed yet again, leaning back in her chair. "Where does your wife think you are right now?"

He winced, but he was prepared for that very question. "Brooke's in New York meeting with her new accountant. Adam, or something."

Peyton just stared at him for a moment, and he took the opportunity to stare back. She was sitting on one of the chairs at her kitchen table, her feet propped up on another. Her jeans had holes in the knees and she was wearing a thin black tank top. She had a headband on, which was uncharacteristic, but it suited her, black material printed with little white music notes. There was something so casual about her outfit and something so peaceful about the atmosphere that Lucas suddenly wished that this was his daily reality.

"I hate to sound like a broken record, but this has to stop. We're not kids anymore. Love triangles aren't supposed to last over a decade."

He took a few steps toward her, resisting the urge to touch her. "That's the thing, Peyton. Back then I was so infatuated with you…but now that we're older, it's…more than that."

She closed her eyes and massaged her temples. "Lucas. You are married. I've been home for what, a couple weeks?" She smiled sadly at him, tears shining in her eyes. "I know how you feel. I'll always…love you, even when I shouldn't, even when I can't. And I can't, not now. It's way too late for you and me."

Lucas nodded, swallowing painfully. He had come to fight for her, not with her. This was his one last attempt before he pulled back and respected the meaning of the choices they'd both made. It had been a whirlwind, with her, these past few weeks. But it had been years since they'd seen one another. He had a daughter to think about, as did she. If, in the end, she turned him down yet again...he would acknowledge the fact that she was making the right decision, a perfect sacrifice for them both.

But no matter what…nothing was going to be the same.

"I just…I wanted you to read this," he said quietly, handing her a file.

She arched an eyebrow as she accepted it, almost as though she was afraid to talk, scared of what she'd say.

"It's everything I've written since you came home," he explained quietly, feeling much younger as he tripped over his words.

"Oh…Luke. You can't expect this to change anything."

He shrugged. "It did for me. It changed everything for me."

Peyton gulped audibly as he walked away from her. "What's it about?" she asked.

Lucas turned and grinned briefly. "Just a boy…and a comet."

-x-

Jenny giggled as Jordan jogged around the edge of the river court, arms flung into the air.

"Pretty sure basketball players don't take victory laps," she called out to him, planting her hands on her hips.

He breathed heavily as he walked back toward her, grinning. "Pretty sure I'm gonna change that stupid tradition."

She grinned back fondly, softly commenting, "Of course you will."

His gaze softened and he opened his mouth to speak, but they were interrupted by the familiar sound of a basketball hitting tarmac in a practiced pattern.

"Sorry," a male voice said. Jenny turned to see Lucas Scott, who was wearing a genuine yet somehow…unhappy smile.

"Hi," she replied. "Um…Jordan, meet Lucas Scott. Lucas Scott, Jordan Lynd."

"Jordan," Lucas replied. "Good name for a basketball player."

"Or a musician," Jordan countered with a cocky grin, but he could clearly feel that this was Lucas' territory, his home turf. "We could go –"

"No, stay," Lucas insisted, cutting him off, that honest sadness shining in his eyes again. "I guess that, in a way…you could say that I fell in love on this court, too," he finished, winking at them.

Jordan's eyes bugged out of his head as he spluttered, "I – we – no – well, maybe, we, uh –"

Jenny picked up on his words: they made her smile, but she didn't acknowledge it. She stared at Lucas Scott's retreating form contemplatively. "I bet you did," she whispered.

-x-

"Well," Brooke said as she set her purse and coat on a chair near the door. "You certainly know how to make a girl chase you around."

The man sitting on the other end of the table in the boardroom looked much kinder than she'd expected her accountant to, and his smile was sweet as he said, "Just being true to my name." He stood up and extended a hand, "Brooke Davis. I'm Chase Adams; it's a pleasure to finally meet you."

As she shook his hand her eyes raked down his body – a habit even marriage hadn't been able to break her of. She swept her bangs out of her face, and remarked, "Pleasure to meet you, too."

"Should we get started?" he suggested.

Her eyebrows shot sky-high but she decided not to make any inappropriate jokes. Instead, she sighed and settled into a chair. "Yeah…sounds good."

Chase hesitated. "Are you okay?"

She opened her mouth to insist that she was fine, but then she stopped, closed her mouth, and shoved her stack of papers aside. "How much time do you have?" she asked softly, going for a joke, but it didn't sound as casual as she'd wanted it to.

He studied her for a moment, eyes drifting all over, from her brown hair, up in its businesslike bun, to her hands, which she was wringing nervously as they rested on the table. She felt the pressure of his gaze when his eyes scanned over her cleavage, but they flew upward again and rested solely on her own brown orbs. "Plenty," he finally said.

Her lips twisted into what was meant to be a smile. "And why should I trust you?"

His smile, in return, was sympathetic and almost understanding. "Because you look like you could use someone to trust."

Brooke sighed. There was a lot of truth to that statement, for sure. "Well, I…" she trailed off and sighed again before lifting her chin and making another attempt. "My best friend fell in love with my boyfriend," she stated. "Twice."

-x-

"Auntie Haley, look!"

Haley turned away from the counter to inspect Miranda's drawing. "Wow!" she exclaimed, examining the swirls and vibrant, waxy crayon. "That's beautiful."

"Can you tell what it is?" Mira asked, eyes shining hopefully.

"Um –" Haley was stuck. This was, in her personal opinion, the worst thing about having children under eight years of age – that and the classic where do babies come from? She could never decipher what any of her children were trying to draw, and the same went for her niece. "Is it a…castle?" she suggested weakly, aware of Miranda's royalty obsession.

Miranda's disappointed face was very similar to Brooke's – a pout so wounded that it actually made you want to grovel for forgiveness. "No," she sighed.

"What is it then, honey?" Haley asked, crouching down so that they were eye level.

"Doesn't matter," she lamented with a dramatic sigh. "I can't draw anyway."

"Oh, sweetie, sure you can."

"Nuh uh."

Haley wracked her brain for the right thing to say. "Well, baby…that's okay, you don't have to be a good artist. I can't draw at all, not even like you can. But that's okay, because you're an awesome ballerina, and I'm a pretty good singer, right?"

Miranda smiled reluctantly, nodding. "But my mommy and daddy can draw," she argued. "Why can't I?"

She was well aware that Brooke could pull off some very professional clothing sketches, but Haley had never seen any proof that Lucas had artistic ability. In fact, she'd seen a hell of a lot of proof to the contrary. "I know your mommy can," she agreed. "But what makes you think your daddy can draw?"

"Well," Miranda began, "I was looking for an eraser, 'cause my drawing was bad, so I went into Daddy's office and opened the drawer to look for one."

"Yeah…" Haley prodded her onward.

Miranda shrugged; her story was clearly anticlimactic in her own opinion. "And there was a drawing there, of a boy and a girl. The boy looked like Daddy. He drew that, right?"

Haley smiled gently. "Sure he did." She stood upright again, taking the abstract drawing from Miranda's hands. "How about you let me put this on the fridge, alright? We'll show it to Daddy when he comes to pick you up. And for now, go get your cousins, okay? I've got cookies and carrot sticks for you guys."

Miranda scrunched up her nose. "Carrots?" she asked doubtfully.

"Yup, and you've got to eat five of those before you get a cookie, so I hope you're hungry. Off you go, kiddo."

Grumbling about healthy food, Miranda scampered off. Haley sighed, moving from the kitchen to the living room, where she studied the wall of photos she'd put so much work into. Lucas, Brooke, and Miranda grinned back at her from just right of the centre, Miranda riding piggyback, one of Lucas' arms making sure she stayed safe and in place, the other around his wife's shoulders. Haley let her gaze drift to the topmost corner, where Lucas and Peyton, young and hesitant and very much in love, smiled softly out at her.

A boy and a girl. There was no doubt in Haley's mind as to who the artist of that particular work was. She didn't know whether it was old or new. In the end, it really didn't matter.

It was odd, how entangled lives could become. Miranda had yet to meet Peyton, but Lucas' inability to let go and Peyton's inability to deny him were already wreaking havoc on Miranda's small but stable family. Haley hated to be judgmental, because she loved all of her friends, she really did. She just didn't have the same experiences, the same understanding.

Haley had one in her life. One man. The only man she'd ever loved, ever slept with, ever married, ever wanted to have children with. She didn't know what it was like to have loved more than once, to have contemplated a future with anyone else. She didn't know, as Peyton did, what it was like to lose your husband. She didn't know, as Brooke did, what it was like to be on the verge of the end of a marriage in which her husband felt trapped.

It was hard for her to get into Lucas' head in these circumstances. She believed wholeheartedly that he had been in love with both Peyton and Brooke, at different times and to different degrees. She knew how very torn he was now. It was just that Haley could not imagine ever loving anyone as much as she did Nathan, enough to get married and start a family. Lucas and Peyton had both done so, and yet…

And yet.

Haley guessed that if something was written in the stars, then that was how it was going to be, even if they all had to take the hits of a couple asteroids first. Sometimes it was easy to read your fate and give into it. And sometimes it wasn't – sometimes it was full-out battle and it took the sun blazing into your eyes to finally put an end to your blindness, to finally bring about the realization that all instincts to the contrary, all the paths that guided you away were wrong.

Jenny had borrowed Peyton's sunglasses and accidentally left them at the studio the other day. Haley chose to see that as a sign.

-x-

Lucas was stuck in a gloomy funk that night, staring miserably at his laptop. Miranda was over at Nathan and Haley's for the night, which left him alone in a large, quiet house. Still, the silence and the space could not hold his thoughts.

He sighed and paced down the hallway, turning onto the stairs. He needed to get out into the world, to find what he was looking for, once and for all. The night air was invigorating and energizing, so much so that he made the impulsive decision to go for a run. He had a destination in mind, a sense of home he was searching for. But it was a person rather than a place who filled that void for him.

-x-

Peyton was lying flat on her back in the middle of the river court, Lucas' manuscript laying open over her stomach. The stars twinkled above her, giving her a sense of impossible hope, a feeling she hadn't had since the first time Jenny called her mama.

Her view of the sky was abruptly disrupted by the sight of Lucas' face looming over hers. "You're crying," he said gently. "Is it that bad?"

She sat up and brushed away her tears, running her left hand over the pages that had fallen into her lap. She tilted her chin, looking up at the brightness of the stars and the glowing, pale blue of his eyes. "It's that good."

She lifted one of her hands upward. He took it automatically and she tugged lightly, pulling him down to sit on the tarmac beside her. "I can't…I can't believe you wrote this, it's…it's beautiful."

"It's about astronomy," he shrugged, and she knew he was testing her.

"No, it's about…love. Love and faith and…yearning. It's about longing. It breaks my heart."

His grip tightened on her hand. "I couldn't have written it if not for you. If you hadn't come back."

"This is it," she said meaningfully, continuing to run her hand across the page.

And suddenly his life had meaning.

"We both…we know what this is and what it means. It's a…a tribute. It's our ending."

"Or a new beginning," he countered.

"No," she insisted hotly. "I will not be the girl who breaks up a marriage. I already did that, to you and Brooke. Don't do that to me, don't put me in that position!"

"You're not," he soothed. "I'm not. This isn't your fault."

"Luke…no." She didn't want any situation to occur in which there would be blame that needed placing. "You love her. Don't you love her? You married her, you had a child!"

"I'm not trying to hurt them," he said quietly.

"But you are. You and I…us. That'll hurt people!"

"So, what?" he demanded. "We just put our own happiness aside for everyone else?"

"Lucas, we had our chance. We messed it up. So yeah, that is what we do. We can be happy apart. We've been doing it for years. It's not as though we can't be…friends." She winced the moment the word left her lips, and Nathan's voice, unbidden, popped into her head. Lame, Sawyer. Very lame.

"You once told me…" Lucas began, "that the only way you can truly know that you're alive is to be in love. Why do you insist on denying yourself that?"

She stared at him in shock. When she'd said that to him, she'd been referencing her relationship with Jake – who had just disappeared. Lucas was with Brooke. The two blondes were sitting on the beach, toes buried in the sand, just talking. And while she had said those things about Jake, she had really been talking about how she felt with him, with Lucas. She'd never suspected that he knew that. But he did. He clearly did.

She glanced down at the manuscript again before she met his eyes, shooting back, "Why do you insist on breaking Brooke's heart? This triangle should have ended a fucking decade ago!"

Lucas' eyes were dark with meaning. "It can't end until we're with who we're really meant to be with."

She turned away. "I should never have come back. Stupid Chris Keller and his music camp."

"I never thought…I would thank Chris Keller. But I do, for starting that 'stupid' music camp."

"If you love me, Luke, just let me go," she begged tiredly.

He shook his head, staring deeply into her green orbs. "If you really meant it, Peyt, I would try. But you don't."

She was breathing erratically, the night air cool enough so that her breathe left her lips in smoke-like puffs. "I hate you," she choked out, but the look in his eyes told the truth that both knew, and she couldn't help but admit it. "I love you," she whispered, and suddenly she could breathe again. "God, I love you."

His arms circled around her and it seemed like no time at all had passed before his tongue was begging for entrance to her mouth. Their bodies moved in sync as if they could read each other's minds, and before long her was on his back and she was half on top of him, half tucked into his side, her lips attacking his.

A sudden gust of wind rushed over them, and it picked up all the loose sheets of Lucas' manuscript, blowing them into the air, where they swirled around the couple before they mounted higher, flying toward the stairs.

Peyton pulled back, looking up and gasping, "Luke, what about The Comet?"

His hands on her cheeks called her attention back; his fingers felt soothingly cold against her overheated skin. "I've got her, haven't I?"

-x-

Haley sighed contentedly as she pressed her index finger to a button, stopping the song that Jenny had recorded earlier that day. She was killing it, that girl, and Haley was incredibly proud.

Nathan was at home with a houseful of kids – the twins, Miranda, and Sebastian were asleep when Haley left, and she could practically picture the scene at home. Nathan, half asleep on the couch in front of a basketball game, Jamie and Jenny playing cards outside, feet dangling in the pool. Her family. She couldn't wait to get home.

Just as she closed her binder and was about to stand, she heard the door open and fall closed. She frowned, glancing over at the clock and swivelling around in her chair. She was really not in the mood for Chris Keller, so she called, hopefully, "Peyton?"

Brooke came into view, dropping her purse on a nearby chair and raising her hand in a meek wave. "Nope, me," she said. Unspoken was, y'know, the other girl Lucas claims to love.

"Hey, honey," Haley said. "I thought you were in NY."

"Yeah, I…took an early flight back," she replied, flopping down into the chair closest to Haley. "I was hoping you'd be here. Well, you or Chris. I could use the sex," she said sarcastically.

Haley's frown deepened with worry as she tried to get to the root of the problem. "Did your meetings not go well?"

"No, they were…all my financial stuff is fine. Pretty much perfect, actually. And my new accountant's…he's a good guy. We had a good conversation."

"Good," Haley nodded, still studying her friend worriedly.

"Yeah," the brunette whispered, staring at the floor. "It made me realize how much I missed home, so I thought I would…come back."

"Brooke," Haley said softly. "What is it, what's going on?"

Brooke's lips trembled as she smiled, but she pretended to be blasé about stating, "Lucas and Peyton are sneaking around behind my back again. Total and complete déjà vu."

Haley shot her a look that she hoped was both comforting and reprimanding. She spotted Peyton's sunglasses out of the corner of her eye. "Not funny."

Brooke's eyebrows lifted and her gaze was unfaltering. "Not a joke."