"Honestly, part of me knew that you two went off and got hitched, or at least engaged... I wasn't expecting you guys to have been married a year and pregnant when you got back though. That was a shock." Nathan says, pausing a moment before taking another shot while the two of them were alone after Skills had made up an excuse to leave the two brothers by themselves.

"We didn't expect that one either, trust me, but it's good. We're happy."

"Can you just answer one thing though?"

"Sure, what's up?"

"Why didn't you ever think to call and see how we were? Why didn't you listen to any of your messages or check your e-mails?" he says, getting frustrated, but keeping it in check.

"Because it was too hard, and Peyton and I needed that time to figure out what was going on with us."

"Well don't you think that was a little more than selfish? What about us? Haley needed you, Jamie needed you, and hell... I needed you, and you guys were gone."

He just waits for a moment staring at his brother, but is then pulled out of his thoughts with the beeping of his watch. "I've got to go, I'll see you later."

"Nathan, wait... can Peyton and I come see you guys this week? Maybe do dinner or something with you, Haley, and Jamie?"

"I think that you and Haley need to talk, but I don't think that Peyton should come over for a while."

"What do you guys have against--"

"Luke, just trust me." he says, leaving Luke alone on the River Court to contemplate what just transpired between the two of them.

Peyton had grown restless with no Lucas and decided that since Nathan reached out to them, maybe she needed to try again with Brooke. Pulling on an outfit quickly and hopping into their car, she drove the short way to where she had lived just a year ago. Where she went when she found out Luke was going to marry another woman... where she was when she read the book that convinced her that they were still a possibility.

Knocking on the door, she was surprised to not see Brooke on the other side, but a teenage girl instead. A teenage girl with disheveled hair who was obviously annoyed by being woken up before noon on a Saturday.

"ummm...I'm sorry, I thought that Brooke Davis still..."

"Brooke!! There is someone here for you!" Sam yelled, letting her loud voice echo throughout the house. "It's some blonde, pregnant lady!" she then added, knowing that Brooke was in the shower.

"I'll be out in a minute!" she screamed back at her foster daughter.

"Come on in, I guess. She obviously knows who you are... wait I do too."

"Peyton." she says, extending her hand to shake the girl's.

"huh..." Sam says, looking the woman before her up and down with a seemingly rude glare.

Picking up on this look of disdain, Peyton had to comment, "You don't know the whole story...and I don't even know you, so don't give me that look..."

"You left a year ago with some guy that you and Brooke both dated in high school, but you were supposedly the 'one' for him so all was well with that. The leaving without warning... not so much. She called, but you didn't call back. Haley and Nathan called, but you didn't call back. Shit hit the fan while you two were gone, and you just came back a week ago with same said boy, married and about to pop out a kid. And you can't seem to begin to understand why the hell everybody is so bent out of shape that you two came waltzing back into town all happy-go-lucky." Sam rebuts in a monotone voice, with a know-it-all attitude only mastered by the teenage generation.

"Well, that about sums it up." Peyton says, after spending just a split second staring at the girl with mouth agape. She knew that she had messed up, but hearing it in such a way seemed to hit her, and hit her hard. "and on that note, I think that this was a bad idea." she says, getting up to walk out of the house.

"Peyton... don't go." Brooke says to her friend, and then turns to the teen, "you are cranky, so you can go back to your hole that is a room."

"blah blah... that is all I hear." Sam says, turning on her heels and making her way back to the bedroom that Peyton had one time inhabited.

"clean clean... that is all I want before you decide to do anything."

All that was heard was a click of the door being shut and the two women were left to themselves again.

"So, that is?" Peyton asks.

"Sam, my foster daughter."

Peyton's eyes go wide at that, knowing that Brooke had wanted a baby, especially after Angie, but not expecting the baby to be 16 years old and sporting an attitude that was strikingly similar to the two of them when they were growing up.

"One of the many things you missed out on when you guys booked it out of here."

"Brooke..."

"Sam was one of Haley's students, and she had a bad history of foster families down the line. Haley somehow convinced me to take her in, and after a few months of craziness, we both realized that it could work if we just talked to each other. She's really a good kid, and a talented writer according to Haley. We just started working on adoption papers this past month."

"That's really great, Brooke. I wanted you to get that family."

"yeah... well, I love her, and she needs someone."

"You have always been that person Brooke, and you are probably the person amongst us who has grown the most in these past years."

"Lucas said that to me once you know."

Peyton laughs at that, which causes Brooke to raise a questioning eyebrow in her direction, "would you like me to tell you the page number?"

"What are you talking about?"

"Lucas said that you were the person he had seen grow the most in two years of knowing you in his book... that was the page I turned to when I missed you the most."

Brooke bit her bottom lip, and turned away from her forgotten friend, acting like making coffee was the most important thing a person could do in their life. Peyton saw a few tears visible on the cheek of the seemingly unshakable Brooke Davis, and made her way around the counter to the side of her friend, wrapping an arm around her shoulder.

"What can I say that is going to make this better Brooke? I did miss you. I missed you everyday, but I can't tell you that what happened this past year is something I regret, because I don't. Lucas and I needed this. I wanted you there with me so many times, but it was so hard, and after awhile we realized that it was too late. I never stopped considering you my best friend, and I never stopped loving you as that."

When Brooke looked up and met the teary eyes of her longtime friend, her resolve finally broke, and she pulled Peyton into a long awaited embrace, "P. Sawyer I missed you so much! I needed you, and you were gone, and all I wanted was for you to come in to my room and play your moody music and tell me that it was going to be all right or sit with me and remind me of all the stupid stuff that you and I have done together. God, Peyton, I have spent this last year in such a bad place, and all I wanted was you here... I needed you."

"Brooke, I am here now. Lucas and I are here, and we aren't going anywhere." she says, grabbing the sides of Brooke's face so she could meet her at eye level.

"Tell me something Peyton..." she says, and then continues after a nod from her blond friend, "...are you happy?"

"Brooke, I married the boy I love, I'm having a baby, and I'm finally home with everyone else that I love... I am more that happy..."

A few tears fill her eyes as she looks at the smile across Peyton's face, "That's all I wanted for you, for you to be happy."

"The only thing that we regret is not having you guys there with us... to celebrate everything."

"We did celebrate for a while... knowing that you two had finally gotten your heads out of your asses and realized that you were supposed to be with each other after all. Then it got too hard to celebrate, and we just wanted you home. We needed you home."

"Brooke, you have to tell me what happened here... even Haley and Lucas aren't speaking. And you know that isn't right. And for her to not come over the second she found out that we were back and we were married just proves that something went down."

"tell me about it..." she says, not in a sarcastic way, but as a question to the woman now sitting on the couch next to her, as they moved from the kitchen to sit in the living room.

"What?"

"You and Luke... the wedding."

"He gave me his mom's ring."

"The one that he gave to Lindsay?"

"Yeah, but he assured me that it was always only meant for me, and after their engagement, he sent it back to his mom... who then sent it back inscribed with the words True Love Always."

"Karen always did have a thing for the two of you... she liked me... but she always knew you and Luke were meant to be."

"Well, Lucas neglected to tell me about that little tidbit regarding the ring, and I discovered it one day... he told me the story and I told him that I wanted to get married the next day."

–

In Charlotte

–

"Peyton, you know that we can wait. We can wait until we decide to go back to Tree Hill... we can have everyone there."

"I want that Luke, I do... but can't this just be you and me for once. Just us. Just this moment?"

He looked at his soon to be wife, standing in front of him in a white dress she bought just that morning, with her hair in long curls, pulled back with a few pins, and realized that he would be amazed by her forever.

"If that is what you want, then that is what I want...let's do this." he says, linking his arm with hers as they walk up the steps, and into the building where they would get married.

A short hour later, and they were back outside the building, nearly sprinting towards the parking lot, in formal shoes and all.

Reaching the car, she breathlessly whispered his name and he pulled her to him, "Peyton, I love you."

"I love you to Lucas... I do."

"So, when we get back to Tree Hill... you think Brooke is going to start calling you P. Scott?" he says, trying to make a joke of their current situation. They were hours from home, they just got married, and no one knew about it.

Though Peyton knew it was meant to be a joke, it hurt her still. Thinking about their family and their friends, and knowing that they wouldn't get to share this moment with them made the happiness wane for just a few seconds.

With a finger under her chin, he drew her eyes upward, causing her to smile that smile that he fell in love with, and making them both realize that what they had done was the right thing, because it ending with them as husband and wife.

It was later that night, their wedding night, that Peyton started to laugh. At first it was just a giggle, which caused Lucas to take pause, seeing as it was just after a few excursions of the bedroom variety. Then the giggle turned into a laugh, and he turned to face her with his head propped up, leaning on his elbow.

"Would you care to enlighten me Mrs. Scott?" he says with an amused smirk on his face.

"Oh Lucas... this is so messed up..."

"What do you mean?"

"I said no to your proposal, you got engaged, you got stood up at the altar, you fell into a drunken stupor..."

"Hey." he says, slightly offended by the crack at his more depressing moments.

"I call it how I see it babe... then you call me from the airport and we run away from our childhood home, our friends, our family... you propose two weeks later, we have a two week engagement, and we just got married."

"and...?"

"Lucas, seriously! Even in soap opera land, that has to be some twisted plot..."

"If our life was a TV show, then yes, but it isn't Peyton, it's just us."

"Well, then we are some messed up individuals."

"Regrets?" he asks, knowing that a great part of her was joking, but the joke was coming from the other part of her that secretly missed what was waiting for them in Tree Hill.

"Only that they aren't here... your mom, Haley, Nathan, Brooke. Couldn't you just see them sitting in the pews of some church all shouting 'I told you so' after we said 'I do'?"

"Sadly, yes, I could, but that is why we are here... we know that they believed in us, and in what we had, but we needed to believe in us."

"I know that, but I can still wish, right?"

"You can do whatever you want Peyton, and I'll love you forever..."

–

Present Day

–

"I would have loved to have been there. Finally seeing the two of you come together."

"It was definitely a sight to be seen... Lucas actually shed a few tears."

"Well Broody was always the emotional type, and I'm sure you looked amazing, so that doesn't surprise me at all."

"Are you mad Brooke?"

"That I wasn't there... not really. It is more of a sad kind of feeling, but I understand that... it's just..."

"We weren't here." Peyton says, knowing that is exactly what her best friend was thinking at the moment.

Brooke silently cursed whoever as Peyton read her like any best friend could read another. That was something that they loved at one time, and came in quite handy many a time, but in that moment, she didn't want Peyton to read her, she didn't want everything to come back to the surface.

"The week after you guys left, I was attacked..."

"Brooke!"

–

Okay, I am sorry that I haven't updated in so long. You have to love it when life happens, right??? So now I am updating a little bit. I hope that you liked this chapter. I didn't want to get too into the details of the wedding and I didn't really want to get into too much of what happened to everyone else, but that is all coming in time, I promise!