After spending her time praying to the porcelain god, so to speak, she took a shower and went downstairs, glad that Lucas hadn't stayed the night last night. She had been making him go home lately, because she seemed to be puking more and more. She knew in the back of her mind what it probably was, but she refused to really see that as the reason. She knew she was in denial, but with everything else going on, she couldn't handle that right now.

It had been a few days-almost a week-since she had gotten the call from the guy who said he was her brother, and she still didn't know what to believe. She did know for sure that the guy who had claimed to be her brother wasn't, but did she really want to try to get close to someone else, when it always seemed to end in disaster? She just didn't know anymore.

Sitting on the couch and placing her elbows on her knees, she put her face in her hands, wondering what her next move was going to be. She wasn't sure if she would be able to handle doing this whole business, now that she didn't have a partner. It was supposed to be a way for her to bond with the guy she shared DNA with, and then it had all gone up in flames.

Even though she tried her hardest not to, she could still remember the night following the night of the phone call. She had tried to block it out, but there was something in her mind that kept replaying the memory, almost as if she was subconsciously trying to get herself to realize something. She just wanted to move on, but right now she wasn't sure she could.

FLASHBACK

Sitting in her desk at Tric, she couldn't really focus on what she was supposed to be focusing on. She kept replaying the phone conversation from last night. After she had told Lucas that the guy had said he was her brother, she had told the guy on the phone that she would have to call him back, and she had quickly hung up. Lucas had told her he had something to take care of, and then he'd changed and left. She barely noticed, as lost in her thoughts as she was.

Now she was still thinking about Derek, if that was even his name, and wondering how the heck he knew who she was? How did he know she was looking for her brother? These were the questions she just couldn't figure out. She looked up when she heard the door close, and she saw that her thoughts had seemed to bring him to life. She stared for a moment, and he stepped forward. "Who are you?" she asked, the first words she thought of slipping off of her tongue.

As he continued approaching, she didn't like the aura coming off of him. She stood up out of her chair and backed up to the wall as he reached the front of her desk. He didn't bother with the pretenses anymore, because there was no reason for them. "I'm your soul mate, Peyton. Haven't you realized that? I am so much better for you than him. We should run away together, leave all this behind," he proposed.

Shocked, Peyton just didn't know what to say. She could tell he had been holding this in the whole time, and she wondered how she had never seen it before, how she had never realized that he wasn't being completely honest, how she hadn't noticed that he was holding all that back. "I don't even know you. What makes you think you know me? How could we be perfect for each other?" she inched along the wall, trying to get further away from him, and closer to the door.

Smacking the table, he watched as she froze, weary of his next move. Her eyes kept darting toward the door, but fear and curiosity kept her from screaming. He hadn't actually raised a hand to her. Yet. "Of course I know you, Peyton. I've heard every one of your pod casts. I know we're meant to be. You just have to trust that, and come away with me. I can make all your dreams come true," he promised, with a bit of a manic glint in his eyes.

Now she just wanted to leave, but he was standing between her and the door, and she didn't have many options. There was no one in the bar, because it was too late at night. She had just sent the last members of the Tric staff home not too long ago, and Karen had locked up the Café hours ago. There was no one but her in the building, because she had been stupid enough to try to avoid people.

Trying to keep him talking while she figured out what she was going to do, Peyton swallowed, trying to figure out what to say. "I don't know you. You lied to me, this whole time. How can you do that, and still say we're meant to be? You don't lie to the one you love," she almost mentioned Lucas, and her love for him, but she had a feeling that wouldn't go over well. She was hoping to get out of this without damage.

This time he picked something up from her desk and threw it across the room, making her jump, though she barely managed to keep herself from screaming. "How else was I supposed to get you to see the truth? You were so blinded, thinking you're in love with Lucas," he spat out the name like it was a curse word, and she flinched. "You never would have let me in, and then I heard the pod cast about your brother, and I knew I had the perfect in," his eyes were filled with love, and mania.

Closing her eyes, Peyton took in a deep breath through her nose, and let it out through her mouth, like her counselor had taught her to do when she was fighting panic. "Please, just leave," she begged, tears slipping out from beneath her closed lids. She was scared of the look in his eyes. She didn't want to know what would happen if he lost control. She was just wishing him gone.

Suddenly, she felt lips crashing on hers, and she hadn't even heard him move. She just stayed limp, unable to even fight him away as his arms wrapped around her tightly. The tears began falling faster. He reached up and grabbed her shoulders when she didn't respond, and began shaking her. "Come on. You have to feel it. You have to know what I know. We're meant to be. I love you, Emily," he shouted.

Before things could get worse, Nathan entered the room, catching the guy by surprise and knocking him out with a punch. Peyton allowed Nathan to pull her into a hug as she continued crying, and they waited for help to arrive. She noticed him talking on his cell for a few moments, but she didn't hear the words. She was too lost in her own world.

When Lucas arrived with the police, Peyton quickly dismissed herself, after giving a statement to the officers. She told Lucas that she needed to be alone, and went home, even though she wasn't sure it was the best idea. She just wasn't ready to hear the speculations about what happened. She just needed time to be on her own. She had always been like that.

END FLASHBACK

Ever since then, Peyton had been spending a lot of time away from Lucas. She spent her time at Tric, or at home, with her cell phone right next to her as she waited for the phone call about the building she had put the down payment on. She didn't know yet if she was going to sign the contracts and continue to make payments, or if she was going to just ask to take back her deposit, but she hoped to figure that out by the time she got the call.

For some reason, she just wasn't ready to talk to Lucas about this. She needed time, especially with what else she was keeping from him. Well, on that case she was lying to both herself and him, but she was subconsciously pushing him away because she knew she shouldn't be keeping this from him. She just couldn't make herself deal with it.

Looking up, she noticed Lucas come into the room. She smiled as she felt that familiar flutter of her heart, before she felt the rest of the emotions wash over her. She could tell he had something on his mind, so she gestured for him to sit down, and she finally realized what her subconscious had been trying to tell her. "How did you know to look for him, and how did he know that we knew the truth?" she asked.

Sighing, Lucas moved forward and entered the room. He had known this was coming, and he had been giving her space, but now he was tired of it. He didn't want to allow her to push him away anymore. He wanted their life back, and she needed the whole truth, so she could get over it. First he would have to tell her where he went that night when she had got the phone call.

FLASHBACK

After leaving Peyton's, Lucas went to the hotel, where the guy who had told Peyton he was her brother was staying. He had known from the start that something wasn't right about the guy, but Peyton had trusted him, and so he had allowed her to get herself more and more involved. Well, he wasn't going to stand idly by anymore. He was going to protect her, and get this guy out of here.

Knocking on the door, he waited until it was opened, and then punched the guy in the gut. "You need to get the hell out of town. I don't know who you are. I don't care. You even think about hurting Peyton, you're going to deal with me, and I won't be as nice next time," he said before he looked around the hotel room, noticing a display on the back wall.

Pushing past the guy who was still on the floor from the punch, Lucas looked at the display, studying the pictures of Peyton, most of them candid in a way that told him she hadn't known they were being taken. He looked closer and noticed another picture, in the middle of the board, that wasn't Peyton, but it sure looked a lot like her. There was a caption underneath, that read simply, Emily Banks.

Before Lucas could mull this over in his mind, he was spun around, and received a right hook to the face. He recovered and ducked the next blow, quickly kneeing this guy in the balls and then punching him in the gut again. He had figured out what he needed to know, so he stepped over the body, headed for the door. "You better get out of here tomorrow. If I come back and you're not gone, you'll regret it," he promised before he left.

END FLASHBACK

Sitting there for a minute, Peyton tried to digest this. She wondered who this Emily actually was, but, of course, Lucas wasn't finished. "I didn't have much but the name, so I Googled it. I came up with a lot of stuff, but I quickly found what I was looking for. His name is Ian Banks. He escaped from a mental hospital not too long ago, where he'd been living ever since his wife died. He had computer access and TV and everything. He was basically living there for his safety, because after Emily died, he slowly started losing his mind," he stopped, looking at Peyton.

The blonde was biting her lip as she listened. She couldn't believe this. A mental patient had been listening to her pod casts, and he had made himself believe he was in love with her. Was she destined to attract only freaks, or people that would leave her? How was she ever supposed to trust other people, when she couldn't trust herself to make the right decisions about who to trust?

Unable to see her expression, Lucas went on with the story. "When I found all that out, I tried to figure out what to do with the information. I alerted the police, who said there wasn't much they could do. When I couldn't find you that night, I called Nathan, and sent him looking for you, while I went down to the police station, to convince them to help me. We went to the hotel and found nothing, and then we got the call from Nate," he finished.

Nodding, she needed some more time to digest. She also needed to call the realtor. It had been too long, she knew, for the paperwork to be drawn up. She needed to figure out what was going on, and she knew it was the perfect thing to use to distract herself from everyone else. "I have business to take care of, and I need to think. I'll see you later?" she prompted.

Staring into her eyes for a long moment, Lucas seemed to be looking right into her soul, and she had to look away, because she was afraid that he would see everything that she wasn't ready for him to see. He nodded, and she saw it out of the corner of her eye. He stood and walked over to her side of the desk, bending down to kiss the top of her head. "I'll see you later, Blondie," he said, and left the office, because he knew that was what she wanted.

Closing her eyes as he left, she waited until she could hear his footsteps no more. She wished she had gotten a chance to say those very important three words to him, but there hadn't been a moment since that night, and she was too much of a coward now. She shook that away and made the call to the realtor.

When she heard a greeting, she explained her situation, and asked what was going on. "What do you mean you can't find my file? I just put my down payment on the building. It should be right there," she said, pausing as she got an answer. "What? No, of course I didn't withdraw it. Why would I do that?" she cut herself off as she realized what must have happened. "Who authorized this?" she asked.

Once she had her answer, she quickly got off the phone, folding her arms on the desk and resting her head on them. She just didn't know what she was going to do anymore. The psycho had apparently gone into the office when a secretary was there, and removed the money she had put into the building. By now he would probably have cashed the check. He was good, she would give him that. He definitely thought things through.

Not that any of that helped her at all. She felt the tears slipping out of her eyes, as it all piled up, and she knew there was some place she had to go, some place she should have gone a long time ago. She locked up her office, got into her Comet, which made her smile at the thought of Lucas restoring it, even though the thought of Lucas was bittersweet right now, and drove to where she needed to be.

Getting out of the car, she walked over to the headstone, looking down at the name on it. She suddenly collapsed on the grass, bawling her eyes out. "Hi, baby girl," she managed to speak through the sobs. "I am so sorry I haven't been here. Momma hasn't been that great of a Momma, but it's hard, baby girl. You should be here now. I should have been able to hold you in my arms, and I'm never going to get to," she had to stop, because she lost her breath in the tears.

Getting a hold of herself, she continued to speak to her unborn daughter. "I'm not ready for this, and I don't know if I'll ever be. On the one hand, if I could choose anyone to do this with, then I would choose no one except Lucas, but still, even if I have Lucas, can I do this? I couldn't protect you, and now I just seem to be a magnet for crazies. How can I be expected to take care of anyone when I can't take care of myself?" she sniffled and wiped at the tears.

Reaching out, she traced the letters of her daughter's name. "Annabeth Angel Jagielski," she softly spoke the name as she traced it. "My Angel. I miss you so much. I know you would want me to be happy, but why does being happy feel like such a betrayal to you? I just wish you were here, and things were back to the way they were before my life fell apart," she cried.

"Do you really mean that Sawyer?" a voice asked, and she didn't need to look up to know that it was Nathan Scott behind her. The nickname alone told her, but she also knew him well enough to know that tone of voice. She didn't say a word, and he sat next to her. "If your daughter was here, you never would have found your way to Lucas," he added.

Shaking her head incredulously, Peyton finally turned her tear-stained face towards Nathan, her green eyes meeting his blue ones. She opened her mouth, but closed it for a minute before finally speaking. "I'd give anything to have my baby girl in my arms, Nathan, even if it meant giving up Lucas. At least I thought I was happy then. Everything wasn't messed up before. I don't know what I'd do without him now, but if I could change things, I wouldn't be here," she retorted.

Taking that in stride, he just nodded. "I understand you want your daughter back, but do you really want to go back to the ignorance? Do you want to go back to being naively unhappy, because you didn't realize what you were missing? Do you ant to go back to living life without the one you truly love?" he came back quickly.

Looking at the headstone in front of her, she avoided Nathan's gaze. "Don't feel like your betraying your daughter by being happy now, Peyton. You can be in love and be happy, just don't forget her. I know you won't, and you know it too, you're just scared, because you've always been scared of Lucas, and loving him, but you can't run away forever, because pretty soon you're going to forget the way back," he advised.

Then he gave up conversation altogether, hugging her and comforting her as she grieved for what she had lost. He knew she hadn't been to the headstone since the funeral, and he knew sometimes Peyton just needed to let out her emotions sometimes in a long sob session. He was going to be there for her, because he knew she wasn't letting his brother be there for her.

A/N: I was going to add just a little bit more to this chapter, but I think I'll stop it here, because that seemed like a pretty good ending. There is still more drama, but it should be resolved pretty soon. I don't see there being much more than 20 chapters in this fic. I guess we'll have to see where it goes. I changed the Psycho Derek background a bit, and I was going to do it a bit differently, but the reviews, and the way the writing of this chapter went changed my mind. I hoped y'all liked it, and be sure to leave reviews, because I appreciate them all!

Disclaimer: I don't own anything.