Author's Note: I'm well aware that I'm in no position to be starting new stories, and this really wasn't even planned, but sometimes I just can't help myself, and I go crazy and just write. So far, I'm kind of in love with this idea and I keep getting even more ideas to go with it. I hope you enjoy it too!

This is very, very loosely based on the film 'The Lookout' starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt. I took the main basic concept, and will be using some of its great ideas, but this definitely isn't about a bank robbery.

Also, I'm not a Lucas/Peyton fan at all, so don't expect to really see any of them in this. But I'll be trying out a new ship I haven't before, and I hope you'll like that one, too, though they obviously won't be the main focus.

I'm honestly not even sure where I'm going with this, but I hope you'll stick around to see!

Circles and Squares

Prologue

He'll always remember this feeling, he thinks.

It is prom night, and as his dark Mustang speeds down the even darker country road, the top down and the wind blowing through his hair, he understands the feeling of invincibility. He will last forever. This can last forever if he wants it to.

Nathan can't help but laugh as Peyton and Lucas giggle from behind him, and he hears Lucas murmur something about her being a tease, bringing himself up to a sitting position.

"Hales," he breathes her name huskily and yet somehow softly, not even meaning to. She is looking up at the sky with a content smile, and when she looks over at him, her large chocolate eyes ready for him to speak, he swallows hard. "Fireflies, they mate at night. And they glow as the look for each other, flying just a certain way so they can meet their match."

She makes a face, clearly disappointed. "That's romantic."

She glows, he thinks to himself, but says nothing.

His brother grunts from behind his seat. "How you've gotten so many girls in the past, I will never know."

Haley looks uncomfortable as Lucas says this, and Nathan would like to punch him. She looks so pretty tonight, with her hair curled, falling in cinnamon-colored ringlets around her shoulders, and her dress, white and simple. He imagines this is the type of dress she'd wear to their wedding.

"Ready," he winks at Haley, and then turns off the headlights. There is a collective gasp as his passengers fear this move, but almost instantly the uncertainty is forgotten as the road lights up.

From overhead, hundreds, perhaps thousands of fireflies flutter through the sky, casting such a glow over the road, the teenagers feel as if they're floating through some sort of wonderland.

Haley's eyes widen as she laughs gleefully, and he can distinctly remember how she smelled like lavender when they slow danced that night, or how her lips had felt soft and confused in his mouth, and had tasted so sweet when they had first kissed just weeks ago.

She looks over at him in amazement and he can't help himself as he leans towards her, pulling her in for a kiss. She complies eagerly and when they pull away, foreheads balanced together, she is illuminated, the fireflies blazing just for her.

Peyton and Lucas have lifted themselves up onto the seats of the Mustang, probably feeling some form of euphoria themselves. They hold hands and scream with joy.

They are most certainly the only seniors not returning home from prom in a limo, but he's planned this since the beginning and it's so, so worth it.

He can tell Haley thinks so too, as she squeezes his hand in his.

As the synchronized large groups begin to dissipate, Lucas says nervously from the backseat, "Nate, maybe you should turn on the lights now."

Perhaps Nathan doesn't hear him, or he doesn't want to hear him because he does not want this to end. He shakes his head, and presses his foot on the gas petal.

Peyton seems panicked now, the darkness suddenly enveloping them. "Nathan!"

He glances at Haley once more as he flicks on the lights, so sure of himself, like when he flicks his wrist to toss a basketball into a net, poetry in motion, knowing the ball will simply swish through however he wants it to.

But the lights shine on something he did not expect to see there. A tractor, is it? It's so yellow, and so quick to appear. He can't even break or turn the wheel, and his athletic reflexes fail him for the one time he actually needs them.

All he hears is the sickening crash of metal on metal and the cries from behind him and then there is darkness, and all he wants to do is hold Haley's hand and watch the fireflies with her again.

But he is disappearing, and he can't remember ever feeling so alone.