A/N: Hey guys, here's the next chapter. And guess what? It's another one that had to be broken into two so yep, still one more chapter, then the epilogue. Apparently I'm still not very good at judging the sizes of my chapters...lol. Oh well, I'll get better in time, I suppose. I hope you enjoy this one. Thank you, as always, to everyone reading and reviewers, you know you rock. Love ya.
Also, for those who mentioned me writing another N/P fic after this one, and for anyone else who might be interested and doesn't already know, I do have another one in progress right now. It's called Buzzworthy. They are older in that one, and Jamie and Sawyer do exist. (not with each other. Jamie is Haley and Nathan's son, and Sawyer is Peyton and Lucas' daughter, just like the show). Nathan and Peyton are endgame in that story too, but be forewarned before you read, they're not actually a real couple right away, but actually start off being in an adulterous relationship. Thought I'd put that out there in case anyone doesn't want to read them starting off as cheaters...lol.
Anyway, onto this story now. Hope you like this chapter.
...
Nathan and Peyton sat in the airport, their long faces a far cry from the jubilant selves they'd been only a few hours ago.
They'd come alone, both of them angry and despondent over the confrontation that had taken place at Brooke's place.
Confrontation? No. More like an ambush. An intervention they'd said—as if they were both junkies or something.
They'd gone on the defensive. Of course they had. What else were they to do with the way they'd all come at them as they had? They'd felt attacked on all sides, forcing them to defend their love for each other. And the simple fact they'd all gathered in one spot with their united intent to 'talk sense into them' was enough to suggest that it had been, indeed, an attack.
They'd gone around the room, everybody taking a turn to tell Nathan and Peyton exactly why he or she felt they shouldn't marry today.
Some of their friends had little to say and looked uncomfortable more than anything. Nathan and Peyton's only beef with those people was for their lack of backbone to say they wanted no part in the intervention.
Others had much more to say. Granted they weren't all for bad reasons. Most of them just wanted to be a part of their wedding day and basically stated how selfish they were being to run off and elope.
Yeah, the ones wanting only to be included said they were the selfish ones. Beat that. Brooke, Rachel, Tim, even Cooper wanted to form a part of the wedding party as they'd expected to be. Wasn't that selfishness in a word? Even Peyton's dad was upset he wouldn't get to walk her down the aisle. Wasn't that selfish too?
And how they all made it a point to say that it was what they, Nathan and Peyton, wanted too, was really rich.
Flashback
"You wouldn't have asked Cooper to be best man if you didn't want him there," Brooke said reasonably.
"I was wasted," Nathan excused, his entire body rigid with anger. Yeah if they were having a big wedding, Cooper would be best man. But they weren't. Nathan was so angry he actually had to watch himself to keep from squeezing Peyton's hand too hard. He'd already made her flinch from the magnitude of his fury.
"Drunken words are sober thoughts," Rachel piped in.
Nathan glared but didn't respond.
"We're quoting song lyrics now?" Peyton replied cattily.
Rachel shrugged. "Why not? You do it all the time."
Brooke jumped back in before this turned into a lyrics battle instead of what it was supposed to be. "Peyton, you and me, we've had our dream weddings planned since we were ten. What happened to that?"
"We grew up," Peyton snapped. "It was a childhood dream, Brooke. It doesn't apply anymore."
"Why not? You guys are the only ones keeping it from coming true. You wouldn't be any less married if you did it the way you always envisioned it."
"You mean how you still envision it," Peyton replied coolly. "Because honestly, Brooke, how we get married doesn't matter half as much to me as it seems to matter to you."
"Don't say that P. I know you better than that, and the only reason you agreed to eloping is to please Nathan."
Peyton crossed her arms angrily, but made no reply. How could she when what Brooke said was true? She didn't want to elope. Of course she'd rather all her friends and family be around. But she had to think of Nathan too, and what he wanted.
"Well, don't you see?" Brooke pressed as though reading her mind. "He wants the same thing as you do. He asked Cooper to be best man," she repeated. "Does that sound like a guy who wants to run off to Vegas for a hush-hush wedding?"
Peyton glanced at Nathan uncertainly. "Is she right?" she had to ask, her tone soft and beseeching now as she addressed her fiancé. "Do you want a real wedding with everyone around?"
He looked down at her, his eyes sad at the prospect that they wouldn't marry today. His heart had been so set on it, but it seemed she was caving under the pressure of their friends. "Do you?" he asked though he knew the answer. Of course she wanted a real wedding. What girl didn't? Especially when everyone pooled together to tell her it was right in her reach.
"I want what you want," she told him honestly. It wasn't pressure from the crowd she was caving into like he thought. Sure, a real wedding—her dream wedding—would be nice, but it wasn't the important thing. Like she'd told Brooke, it hardly mattered to her, and because of that, she was willing to marry whichever way Nathan chose. It wouldn't be these people to change her mind, but if Nathan had changed his, that was a different story.
But he seemed unsure and reluctant to speak, and she knew that probably had a lot to do with the fact they weren't alone. He wasn't going to open up with a few dozen sets of eyes on him.
End of Flashback
She'd pulled him off to the side to talk to him privately and, after a while, she'd been starting to get the impression that he wouldn't mind the presence of family and friends on their big day. Of course, she'd had to get past his understandable anger at them first before she'd been able to pry this out of him. A few more minutes of privacy and they probably could have come up with a mutual solution that would please everyone all around, but themselves first and foremost.
But they didn't get that time, for that's when the parents got involved. Or rather, more involved.
Flashback
"Ok, no one's saying it so I'm going to," Deb said, standing from the couch and calling Nathan and Peyton back into the center of the room.
"We're talking, Mom," Nathan argued, reluctant to go back into what he presently considered the lion's den.
"There's plenty of time for talking," she countered, dismissing her son's argument and ordering them back in again.
Nathan remained rock still so Peyton grabbed his hand and urged him on. No sense upsetting her future mother-in-law. Not yet, at least.
"Thank you," Deb said to her.
Peyton pressed her lips together and nodded, staring at the woman expectantly and a little suspiciously. She had a feeling neither she nor Nathan would appreciate what she had to say.
She was right.
Deb took a deep breath before speaking her mind, hoping to get through to the young couple. "First off, let me just say that I understand the two of you care very deeply for each other," she acknowledged.
Nathan rolled his eyes and pulled Peyton into him, mocking the sheer understatement of his mother's words. "We love each other," he said defensively.
Deb cleared her throat before going on. "Yes," she said. "And if it's real, it'll still be there next year and the year after that and so on and so on."
"If it's real," Nathan snickered under his breath.
"My point is the two of you are still kids. Why be in such a hurry to take that drastic step? Why not wait a year or two, and be sure?"
"We're already sure," Nathan stated firmly.
"Fine, then take that time to get your footing, to get on solid ground. You've both been through a horrible ordeal recently, and you're just coming back from that. You're just kids," she repeated. "Enjoy your youth while you can. There's plenty of time for marriage and all the stresses that go along with it. And let's face it, your relationship is going well right now, but it's been...stormy, at best in the past."
"How would you know?" Nathan countered. "You were hardly ever here."
"Your mother's right," Larry piped in. "The two of you may be going strong now, but considering past history, I'm not sure you're strong enough to withhold the test of marriage."
Peyton opened her mouth to defend their relationship, but Nathan beat her to it.
"No offence, Mr. Sawyer," he began, gritting his teeth in an attempt to be somewhat civil, "But you've been around even less than my mom so you don't really know. And you," he went on, addressing Ellie before she could take her turn to speak, "haven't been here at all so you definitely don't know."
"But I do," Dan spoke now. As the only constant parent in the room, he felt he had more insight than the others, and it was true. He did. But he too felt they were much too young to even be talking about marriage. "I've watched you two play the same push-pull game for a year and a half. You're together, you're not, you're together, oops, broke up again."
"That hasn't happened in a while," Nathan muttered argumentatively
"What, four months?" Dan scoffed. "Five? That's what you consider a while? Cause I gotta tell ya, son, in view of a lifetime, a couple of months is hardly a great span of time."
Nathan shook his head angrily. They didn't understand his feelings for this girl. None of them did. But he didn't know how to convince them they knew what they were doing. And he was too furious to try anymore.
"And what about basketball?" his dad continued. "What about Duke?"
"What about it?"
"You gonna put all your dreams on hold to get married and raise babies?"
"I'm not pregnant!" Peyton snapped.
"Not yet," Dan returned condescendingly. "But give it time and you will be. And then what?"
"This is stupid," Nathan said. "She could just as easily get pregnant now," he pointed out. Okay, not exactly now, but they got the point.
"But even if I did," Peyton jumped in. "It wouldn't stop Nathan from playing basketball. He could still go to Duke."
"And what about you, sweetheart?" Larry asked. "You just gonna follow him there?"
Peyton shrugged her small shoulders. "Well yeah, that was my plan, and way before he asked me to marry him. I mean, as long as he wanted me with him."
She noticed Nathan smile at her. She'd never told him that before and she was glad to know that it pleased him.
"So you're gonna be that girl," Ellie came out with.
"What girl is that?" Peyton challenged coolly.
"The girl who plans her life around her man's dreams and aspirations."
Peyton glared at her biological mother, green eyes blazing. She didn't see that going with Nathan should be an issue. She loved him and it's not like she had any clue about her own future, career-wise. Why shouldn't she go with him then? "Well, it's not like I'm selling off my newborn daughter to the highest bidder to feed a drug problem," she lashed out cruelly.
Ellie definitely felt the sting of the intentionally hurtful words. "All I'm saying is it's a huge sacrifice to make."
"It's not a sacrifice at all, actually," Peyton denied. "But if it were, it would be mine to make. And you know what else is mine to make?" she went on bitterly. "The mistake you all insist I'm making. Come on, Nate," she said, pulling at his hand. "Let's go."
"Hold on," Cooper finally spoke, coming to stand before them and giving them an apologetic look. "I only wanted to be best man," he admitted. "I had no idea it would all come down like this. I'm sorry I was a part of it." Another look of apology and he left ahead of them.
Many followed suit, expressing sincere regret before leaving as well.
A few friends and all four parents remained, staying their ground, pushing the issue further with questions about where they would live, how they would pay their rent and buy food while they were still in high school. While he was a student at Duke even. How on earth would they manage? Surely they understood that they couldn't live on love alone. Love would not put a roof over their heads or food in their bellies.
Feeling defeated, Nathan admitted that he figured his parents would help.
Dan scoffed at the idea. "Oh no," he said. "Son, if you're man enough to marry, you're man enough to support yourself and your wife. That's what a man does; he provides."
"Then I'll get a job," he mumbled.
"While also in school, which you already struggle with, I remind you, and trying to get a scholarship? Son, come on, be reasonable."
"I can work too," Peyton said. She wasn't going to let all the responsibility fall on Nathan. "Yeah," she continued, shooting Dan a mocking look. "See, there's this thing called the twenty-first century. Women can work and speak and vote and everything."
Despite the direness of the situation, Nathan found it difficult to suppress a chuckle at his girlfriend's mocking, sarcastic tone. In the end he wasn't able to.
"And this is what I mean about added stress," Deb continued. "Both of you working, struggling to pay the bills while staying in school. It's so unnecessary if you'd only take the time to think this through. Peyton, sweetie, you originally wanted to wait till after college to marry," she reminded her. "I think that would be the wisest option, and I believe you do too."
She did believe that. She couldn't deny it. Even so, all of this just felt so wrong. To be come at in this way...it was just wrong, and she wished, for once, that everyone would stay out of their business. "You all suck, you know that?" she fumed, pulling Nathan away again.
"You guys," a tear-filled Brooke stepped up, stopping them.
She wished she hadn't done this. Wished she had thought this through better. She'd only wanted help convincing them not to elope so all their loved ones, herself included, could be a part of it. She'd wanted them to realize how everybody wanted to share in their joyous moment. She hadn't considered that they'd feel threatened and attacked, yet she could see why they did. This whole thing hadn't gone as planned at all. They were supposed to be convinced, and everyone was meant to be happy for them, and a celebration should have been in order.
But this...nobody was happy, least of all her best friends, and no one was in any mood to celebrate. How had it gone so awry? "I'm sorry," he cried earnestly.
"You should be," Peyton shot out unsympathetically.
"Just stay away from us," Nathan said just as coldly. "All of you."
End of Flashback
They continued to sit in silence for the longest while, both lost in their own reflections of the day as they waited to board the aircraft that would take them to Vegas.
Finally, Peyton spoke up to say what was on both their minds. "It sucks what they did."
He simply nodded solemnly, something telling him to expect a 'but' in there.
"How they did it was even worse," she continued.
He swallowed the painful lump in his throat and closed his eyes in anguish. He could sense what she was thinking even though she hadn't said it yet. "We're not getting on that plane, are we?" he asked so softly she barely heard him.
"They did raise some valid points," she said reasonably.
He nodded in despair. He should have known she'd listen to them. She'd wanted to wait in the first place so, of course, it didn't take much to convince her she was heading down the wrong path. "Fine," he muttered, standing abruptly. "Let's go."
She stood too. "Nate, don't be mad," she pleaded beseechingly.
"I'm not mad," he grumbled in denial, and then changed his mind. "No, actually, I am," he said. "I'm pissed that everyone can just stick their nose in our business whenever they want and you just let them win."
Several curious eyes turned their way at what was beginning to be a scene.
"It's not about winning," Peyton spoke softly, hoping he'd get the hint and keep his own voice down.
Apparently he got the picture, for when he spoke next, his voice had dropped considerably. "No?" he asked doubtfully. "Then why do I feel like I just lost?"
He walked away from her then, and when she went to the car, he was already sitting inside, waiting for her.
He didn't say a word, didn't help her with her baggage, just sat in complete silence until she took her place in the passenger seat, and then he turned the key to rev the engine.
She hated that he was upset and because of that she offered to go back in and catch the flight.
"Why, if you don't even want to?" he returned glumly.
"Because you do," she confessed.
"Don't do me any favors," he snarled.
"Nathan, I want to marry you, but most everything they said made sense."
"They didn't raise any issues we weren't already aware of," he argued.
"But we've hardly talked about them. Ignoring the issues even though we're aware of them doesn't make sense at all. It doesn't make them go away. We don't have jobs. We don't have money. We don't even have a place to live. I know you'd rather just brush those things aside, and so would I, but Nathan, we can't."
He wasn't responding so she pressed him to. Finally, he shrugged. "What do you want me to say?" he lashed out. "We've been through this before, and I don't wanna fight."
"Then let's not fight," she said. "Let's stick to our plan to get married ASAP and start making real, solid plans toward that so we're ready when the day comes. Can we do that?"
He nodded. "If that's what you want," he replied glumly.
"Ok, don't do that," she said. "Don't just say stuff to pacify me."
"Look, I agreed, ok?" he snapped. "Don't expect me to pretend I'm happy about it."
Now she nodded. "Fair enough," she conceded.
They drove a long while in complete silence, Peyton swallowing back the tears that threatened to spill. She understood Nathan's disappointment and anger. She felt much of those same emotions too, though she was more cautious than he. She was still saddened that their marriage plans had blown up in their faces. Her heart ached for the loss she felt just as strongly as he did. She only wished he saw the reality as clearly as she did and didn't see this as her not wanting to marry him. In truth, she wanted nothing more than to spend the rest of her life with him.
"Listen," she broke the silence. "When we get back to Tree Hill, can you stop by the school?"
"What for?" he asked, his tone still hard.
"Umm, I forgot to grab my English book," she lied. "I have an essay due Monday."
He sneered at her. Their wedding day was ruined and she was thinking about her homework?
She smiled a secret smile. If he took a second to look at her, he'd know she wasn't thinking about her English paper. What she had in mind was much more personal. They may not be exchanging vows today but that didn't mean she couldn't stick to her own vow that she'd made to herself about what would happen afterward. No, it wouldn't be in a cheap, sleazy hotel in Vegas, but rather in a place she instantly deemed more profound. A place that should have already been checked off as one in the long list of places they'd 'done it'. A place that would have been if not for another set of unforeseen circumstances and the bitter jealousy of one man.
Her smile turned tentative as they drew nearer to the school and she began to lose her nerve. But she brushed aside all her doubts and fears, determined to see this through this time. She wouldn't let him down in everything.
...
"What are we doing here, Peyton?" Nathan demanded in a disgruntled tone. Of all places, she'd had to bring him here? As if this day didn't suck enough.
He'd wondered why she'd insisted he come inside the school with her but had let her drag him along anyway, buying the fib of the school being creepy with nobody around. Considering how it had taken her months to step back in the school after everything that had happened, he didn't think it such a stretch that she'd still be leery to enter alone.
He'd even offered to go in for her to get her books despite being quite put off with her at the moment, but she'd insisted they both go in, and he hadn't questioned it.
But he did now as he stood in the very place everything negative had happened. The damn boiler room! Why? She generally made a point of avoiding even walking past this room so her bringing him here specifically was mind boggling.
And he didn't like it. He thought he was over it all, but flashback images assaulted his memory as soon as he stepped inside. Damien touching Peyton. His gun pointed at her temple. His taunts of already having raped her. His threats to do so again in front of him and everybody else. His hand creeping up her leg. It was too much to remember—not that he'd ever forget even though he thought he was past it—and he was decidedly ill-at-ease, his body shuddering involuntarily as the flashbacks continued to flood his brain. The excruciating pain when Lucas, on Damien's orders, had brought and held his arm to the boiler plate. Over and over again. Oh, the agony. He could still feel it and wondered how Peyton could stand being here now, looking so...unbothered. She'd been terrified to return to school while he had done it without effect, without even blinking an eye.
But this room, it got to him. More than he cared to admit. How did it not get to her?
Peyton watched her boyfriend, almost kicking herself for not considering how being here might affect him. He'd been so carefree about going back to school that she hadn't thought this would faze him in the least. Hadn't he said before that the school was just a building and that what had happened there could have happened anywhere?
Apparently he didn't feel the same about this particular section of the school though. He didn't say it but she could see his discomfort, for his body practically shook with trepidation. Maybe this was a bad idea.
She was feeling quite on edge herself but, surprisingly, nowhere near as anxious as she'd expected to be. It was strange to her that Nathan should feel more anxiety than she did.
And yet it wasn't strange at all, she silently realized. While true that a horrible incident had occurred to her here, she'd been drugged for the greater time she'd been in here. Her memories were hazy for the most part. And even though Nathan had come in much later, his non-drugged mind had been clear, enabling him to easily recall every sordid detail of that dark and painful day.
And she could see the confusion on his face. He clearly wondered why they were here.
"This place," she began to explain. "The things that happened here," she amended. "It stole something from us. A huge part of us. It almost destroyed us, individually and as a couple."
"Peyton, I don't understand. Why...?"
"In some ways it's made us stronger," she went on as though he hadn't tried to interrupt. "And I'm so glad for that," she said earnestly before her eyes went downcast. "But in other ways, it's crippled us. Well, me, I should say."
"That's not true," he denied. "Peyton, you've always been stronger than you think you are."
She shook her head. "I haven't been strong," she declared firmly, truthfully, daring him to contradict the truth of her words again.
He couldn't. She'd been weak, just as he'd been for a while. "But you're getting better," he said instead. "The counselling's been helping you. You're not crippled."
"I have been getting better," she agreed. "The nightmares have practically stopped altogether, and here I am in the school, something I couldn't do a few months ago."
"Exactly."
"But there's still one thing I haven't been able to do, and that's make love to the only guy I've ever loved. The guy that I'm so turned on by that I can't think straight half the time. The guy I want inside me. The guy I want to cum with in an explosion of pure ecstasy."
Nathan stood very still, listening as she spoke. He probably shouldn't find her words so erotic, but he did. And he probably shouldn't be developing a bulge down South, but he was. He couldn't help it. Her words were more than a little intoxicating.
But they were where they were and because of that he was also uneasy. And because he was uneasy, he smirked and responded to her seriousness with a joke. "I hope you're talking about me cause, if not, some poor dolt's gonna have hell to pay."
She smiled at him. She could come up with some sarcastic remark in response, but she wasn't feeling the sarcasm right now. "There's no one else I'd be talking about," she returned seriously. "What do you say we take back what was taken from us in here?"
He eyed her, puzzled. "How?" It almost sounded like she wanted to have sex right there, but he figured he was probably reading the signs wrong.
Her brows lifted in a provocative way. "Do you remember why we were supposed to meet in here that day?" she asked him.
He swallowed hard, his body reaction crazily. Of course he remembered. She'd been wearing that tiny skirt that barely covered her, and they were supposed to hook up in here at lunch. But then Damien happened instead, severely thwarting the young, sexual couple's plans. "Yeah," he answered throatily. The rendezvous made perfect sense then, not now.
It seemed she felt differently. "Well, we never got the chance to follow through with those plans," she said. "I promised you a lunch hour of heaven, and instead you got three hours of pure hell."
"That wasn't your fault," he told her because it sounded like she blamed herself for the failure.
"I know," she acknowledged. "But if it's ok with you, I'd like to make it up to you. Feel free to make it up to me too."
"Babe, what are you...?" He stopped mid-question when she pulled off her t-shirt and dropped it to the floor. His breath hitched in his throat and his tongue ran over his lips as his body burned all the more. Despite the oral pleasure she'd been bestowing upon him the past months, she still never let him touch her, or even see her, really. She always remained fully clothed as she serviced him. So her taking her top off was a big deal. He hadn't seen this much of her body in ages and to say it aroused him to see it now would be a huge understatement. His hard member pressed against his jeans, pulsating with need and anticipation.
"Yes," she said, reading the questions in his baby blues. "I'm saying what you think I'm saying," she added. "Make me yours again."
He swallowed hard at the same words she'd said to him before their very first time together. Even so, he was a little uneasy, disturbing images of what happened last time they were in here still flooding his mind. He tried to will them away, but couldn't.
"Here?" he asked incredulously. As much as he longed to do exactly what she said, he could think of far better places to do it than the very place she'd been raped.
"Why not here?" she challenged, unclasping her bra and stepping closer to him to run her fingers up and down his chest tantalizingly.
"Umm," he began an explanation, and then completely forgot what he meant to say, his thoughts drifting at both her touch, and her bare bosom displayed before him. Damn how he wanted to touch those perky, naked globes. It had been so damn long since she'd let him. His solid erection was almost painful now.
She flashed him a knowing smile, loving how his eyes darkened a few shades, a tell-tale sign of his desire. But she saw doubt there too, and she understood why. Surely he thought her crazy to want to have sex in this place after everything dark had happened here, and especially after long months of abstinence due to those very catastrophic events.
But she wasn't crazy. She just felt strongly that it must happen for them here in order to fully and completely let go and get past all of it. And she was pretty confident that her sexy fiancé could be easily convinced of her will. He'd never been able to turn her down when they had sex regularly so, surely, he wouldn't be able to do so after months without intercourse, especially since he looked half ready to jump on her this very second.
"It was supposed to be you that day," she reasoned, snaking her arms around his neck and pressing her firm breasts against his clothed chest. "So take me right here, right now," she whispered in his ear, "and erase Damien from here forever."
He wanted to. God, how he wanted to. But he had to question her new bravado. Still ingrained in his memory were the other two times she'd thought she was ready, seduced him, and then discovered she wasn't ready after all. It's not something he wanted either of them to go through again.
But when she, again, whispered for him to take her, all rational thought escaped him, and all he could focus on was the hunger and the longing that she was stirring within him, the hot blood that pumped through his veins. His hands came up to cup both her breasts, and they both moaned.
And as the delicious sensations ripped through her body, she silently prayed that she'd be able to follow through this time. A ripple of doubt caused her to tremble. Or maybe that was Nathan's eager hands or his hot mouth on hers. Oh God, please let it be that.
Please say I can do this this time.