"We don't sell the maternity line here, but you can get it online at Bdavis dot com." the sales girl said from behind the counter.

"I was actually looking for the owner, is she--"

Overhearing the conversation, Brooke Davis strutted around to the counter coming face to face with the last person she would have expected. "Peyton..."

"Hey!" she says, not moving to hug her friend because of the look of shock that was still on her features.

"How long are you visiting for?" Brooke asks, a little too cold to a friend that she had known for years.

"We're back, Brooke. For good. "

"We?"

"Me and Luke."

A small glimmer forms in her eye, but is quickly gone and replaced with that same cold look of surprise when she first walked in the room. "Well, I'll try and stop by to see you guys."

"Brooke..."

"Peyton, I've got stuff to get done here, so maybe I'll come by in a few days." she says, trying to look like she was extremely busy when she had been interrupted.

With a small shrug and smirk to her friend, she said a quiet "See you later then..." before turning to walk out of the store.

"Peyton." Brooke calls, causing the blond to turn around, "It's going to take some time..."

"I get that Brooke... I do."

Small smiles exchanged, and both went on their separate ways.

While Brooke and Peyton had their little reunion, another reunion had been happening across town between Lucas and Haley. It seemed to be going just as well as the scene in Clothes over Bro's, but Haley wasn't about to let Lucas walk away.

"Seriously? You just show up without letting any of us know that you are back, and you are expecting us to welcome you with open arms?"

"I never said that!" he screamed back at her throwing his arms up in the air in surrender.

"Luke, you left over a year ago! You took off and left nothing but a note, didn't answer any of my phone calls, obviously didn't listen to any voicemails, and didn't have anything to do with e-mail. Over a year Luke... and nothing."

"Haley I know you were worried about me, but you guys knew that I was with Peyton, you--"

"Worried! Oh no, Lucas, I got over being worried a long time ago. I went from being concerned to becoming worried. Then I was just pissed. Then I was sad. Then I was heartbroken. Then I got here... angry. I stopped caring enough to be worried about you Lucas Scott." she says, allowing her voice to drop down to a forced whisper at the last comment before walking out of the room to wipe her tears.

He started to go after her, but was stopped by his brother, who had stayed close by to keep an ear on the conversation. "Don't. She needs time for this... all of this."

"We wanted to talk to you guys right away...we did... but then after a while, it was so much easier to not have to explain everything."

"Well, you guys better start coming up with some explanations, because the door opened to a pregnant Peyton with a ring on her finger and you off in the shower like you just settled back in. A lot can happen in a year Luke. A lot."

"Nathan, what happened here?"

Nathan shakes his head, not meeting the eyes of the older Scott brother. "You should go. I need to go check on Haley."

He walks towards the door as Nathan turns to go after his wife. It was then that he noticed how quiet the house was. What once was a loud house where everyone came to be with each other and be loud and have fun was no longer there.

When he arrived home, he found Peyton sitting on the couch with a hand rubbing her stomach and her brow knit in thought. He watched her for a moment, taking in her beauty, seeing the sun hit her in just a way that brought out the gold in her hair. He watched as the same sun allowed him to see a stray tear roll down her cheek. How did they get here?

–

One Year Ago

–

"So we're in Charlotte... now where do we go from here?" Peyton asks, sitting down on the bed of their hotel room, exhausted after driving through the night and seeing the sun start to rise.

As he sits down next to her, he moves to pull her in his arms. "Where do you want to go?"

"Why don't we just stay here in Charlotte?"

"That isn't too close?"

"To what? Tree Hill?" she asks, turning to look up at him.

"yeah..."

Finally she takes herself out of his arms and grabs his hand in hers, "Luke, what are we doing? Why are we running, and what are we running from?"

"We aren't running..."

"Luke, you just asked me if we were too close to home? Now that leads me to believe that you want to be as far away from there as possible."

"It is too hard to be there. All of my good memories with you are there, and all of my bad memories with you are there."

"I can see leaving the bad behind, but why would you want to leave the good ones behind too?"

"Because I don't believe in them anymore. They don't hold the magic for me that they once did. I'd rather forget all of it."

At that, she stood up and walked out of the hotel without a word, leaving him calling after her.

When she stepped back in the room a few hours later, he was sitting in the same spot with his head in his hands, trying to make sense of what happened just a few hours ago. "Do you understand what it feels like to have someone say that they want to forget some of the best memories you have?"

"Peyton, I didn't mean--"

"When you left me in that hotel room in L.A., that was all I had to hold on to. That was all that I had to make me believe that somewhere in all of this you still loved me, and that I hadn't just thrown away the love of my life. When I came back to Tree Hill, that is what drove me to finally confront my feelings about you and us, and everything. I know you didn't mean it the way it came out, but it still hurt."

"I didn't mean it to hurt you, but I just want to start over with you. I don't want to think about the crap that happened with Lindsay, and I don't want to think about all the drama that we had in high school. We are the same people at the core, and that should be enough without the memories."

"So, what? This is a test? Can we forget the past and still fall in love?" she asks, getting annoyed with not being able to really see why they left.

"No, because I already love you, and I told you once that I always would, so I'm not going back on that. I just want a fresh start with you and with everything else in my life."

"Oh Luke, I love you too... I'm just still trying to wrap my head around the fact that I am even here with you."

"It has always been you Peyton, you know that, and you've known that all along." he says, putting a finger to her chin, and tilting in up so he could see the morning sun glance across her cheek.

–

Present Day

–

Both were jarred out of their contemplation by a knock at the door, and as Peyton turned to get up and answer it, she saw Lucas leaning against the wall.

"Watching me again?" she says, wiping a small tear from her eye.

"Always..."

"I'll get the door, and you get the dinner started?"

"Sounds good!" he says, kissing her before making his way past her and into the kitchen.

The person standing on the other side of the door was the last one she thought she'd see again today, but there she was. Standing on the front porch, with two boxes in tow was the woman she knew to be her best friend, Brooke Davis.

"Brooke, what are you doing here?" she asks, trying to hide the surprise.

"You had boxes at my place from when you left, and I thought that I would bring them by, and they have been in my attic because there is... well, don't worry about that, but here they are, and I thought that you might like them because some of them are some of you drawings and then there are some clothes in there too, but that is probably a stupid thing for me to --"

"Brooke!" she says, cutting off her friend as she became faster and faster while ranting about the two boxes she brought.

"I'm sorry, I'm just nervous."

"Nervous? Brooke, you're my best friend!"

"I am?" she asks, not in wonder that the title is still there in Peyton's mind, but wonder that she could think them best friends and not call in a year.

"Can we talk?"

"Coffee?" Brooke asks, tilting her head toward the street.

"Ice Cream?" Peyton counters, rubbing her stomach.

Brooke nods, as Peyton calls back into the house, "Hey baby, I'm going to get some ice cream with Brooke, and I'll be back in a bit."

He yells something about dinner, but she ignores it, focusing on the friend she had abandoned.

While sitting down for ice cream, the two barely speak a word to each other. They glance up and their eyes meet occasionally, rousing questions in both women that they can't muster up the courage to voice.

Brooke was the first to break the silence, "Why did you leave? I mean, I know that Lucas asked you to, but why did you guys leave, and why did you stay gone for so long?"

"We wanted to know that we could do this on our own."

"What... this?"

"Us... together... loving each other, being together."

"Peyton, I never knew two people who were so meant to be together." Brooke said, causing Peyton to smirk and widen her eyes.

"That is why."

"Because you were meant to be together? Couldn't you have been meant for each other here instead of in... wherever the hell the two of you were?"

"Charlotte."

"What?"

"We were in Charlotte."

"As in North Carolina, not even four hours away Charlotte."

"Yes?" she says, wondering why that was even significant.

"Un-frickin-beleiveable. You guys were only four hours away!"

"Okay, Brooke... You all told us we were meant for each other... you, Nathan, Haley... hell Skills wanted me to break up the wedding, and Karen even gave Lucas the ring for me."

"I don't see the problem!"

"It kept getting told to us so much that we thought that maybe we were really just attracted to this idea because everyone else was telling us that we were supposed to be together, and somewhere along the line, I think that we started doubting our actual love and going off what others were saying."

"So you guys left because we kept telling you that you were meant to be together?"

"No, we left because we were both unhappy, and needed a fresh start, and wanted to do it together."

"Well, you got your fresh start..."

"Yeah, we both did..."

–

A Year Ago

–

For the past few weeks the two of them have moved incredibly slow with their newly renewed relationship. They tested the waters and realized that what they had was true and perfect, and had many a fight along the way.

It was a week after they had left and it was after the first time they had made love that she heard it.

"I love you..." Lucas says in a below whisper voice.

She knew that he assumed she was asleep because right afterwards, he would sigh and then wrap his arms around her and not wait for any type of response. It kept on the entire week after that until one day, his whisper changed.

"Marry me," he said that night before settling back into the bed.

It was finally time to let him know though, that the exchanges were not as secret as he had intended them to be.

"Yes." she finally says, after waiting for him to wrap his arms around her like he always did after his small confessions of love.

"What?"

She turns at his question, casually glancing back at him with tired eyes, "I said yes..."

"Peyton, are you... I mean do you know what I..."

"Are you seriously going to question whether or not I want to marry you?" she asks, grabbing onto his arm, "after I told you two weeks ago that all I do is dream that we are back in that hotel room to me and you propose and I say yes... Luke, I've known since the summer after our senior year in high school that I wanted to marry you, and nothing has ever changed that."

"Wait!" he finally exclaims, throwing up the covers and getting out of bed to search through a bag for something.

Finding it, he crosses over to her again, pulling her arms so she could sit up on the edge of the bed. He kneels down in front of her and opens up the black box in his hands, "Peyton, will you marry me."

"Yes."

–

Okay, so I am trying to do a present day/flashback thing, and I hope that it isn't confusing anybody. I keep having these different ideas come into my head about what happened to them while they were away but what happened to everyone else too, and my head is crazy right now... I can only imagine what Mark Schwahn deals with on a daily basis... And he has people that hate him and love him for the things he does to the characters (ahem... Peyton... I hope that it ends with them riding off into the sunset together and not her dying, because seriously... I am going to miss like a week of school if that happens... those of you that know anything... don't spoil me!)...

Anyways, I LOVE writing fanfic and I hope you like reading it! If you do REVIEW!!!