A/N: Hi everyone! Back again, with story number 2, which was actually number 1 in writing time! Please feel free to review- questions, concerns, comments are welcomed. If this inspires anyone, please feel free to borrow my ideas. Your writing means more reading for me, and I am a reader first, so have at it!

Shout out to all the other OTH fanfic writers out there. You've done such a great job with your stories, you inspired me to try some of my own. I've had such fun reading your stories, I just hope I can return the favor. Enjoy!

So mini synapsis to catch you up. Brooke has left for reasons unknown after spring break in season 2. Everything up to and including 3.03 happened, with the exception of all Brooke scenes in season two and three after Naley's marriage and the basketball season is over (in other words, after 2.03). The pillow fight sleepover did happen, just because I loved it and it's a good memory for Breyton to have (move 2.08 to 3.04 and you've got the timeline down), though Brooke did not date Felix. Larry did not stay in town past 3.03 and has gone already, and the Peyton /Ellie storyline is the same, just sped up, as Ellie has already left and Peyton has already read the article and wears the cancer bracelet. Since Brooke is gone, the apartment is gone, and Haley is staying at Lucas' now that she is back home. All the other characters storylines remain the same, since I dont really want to write about them.

Since Brooke never went through the Haley friendship (which I think made her a better person), she is still self-centered Brooke from end season 1 beginning season 2. So this is the Brooke I'm writing about, not the Brooke we've come to know and love from season 5.

Any confusion, just ask and I will clarify.

Disclaimer: I don't own anything, not the characters, not OTH. And I got nothing from writing this fanfic but the pleasure of having the story in my head finally on paper. Everything I quoted from the show has double quotations, so you know exactly where it came from. All other character storylines are the product of OTH, I just changed the stuff impacted by the newest baby Scott.

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Chapter 1 The Morning Life Changed

'Riiinnnnnnnggggg'

Peyton groaned as she reached one hand out of the covers to pick up the house phone. It was Saturday morning and school had been in session for 2 weeks- didn't people know it wasn't polite to call before noon?

"Hello?" she mumbled into the phone.

At the silence, Peyton sat up straighter. Clearing her throat, she tried again. "Hello?"

At the continued silence, Peyton became frustrated. "Look, if this is some kind of joke…" A click and the dial tone was heard in the silence of the room. Peyton stared at the phone in bemusement, still groggy from being woken up out of a sound sleep.

Checking the caller ID on the nightstand, she noticed that the call came from an unknown number. "At 9 in the morning?" Shrugging, she placed the cordless back on the nightstand by her bed.

"Wrong number," she thought as she snuggled back into her covers, preparing herself to sleep a little more before the inevitable call from one of the Scott boys outlining their plans for the day.

It had been a weird summer with only Lucas for company, with Haley on tour and Nathan at basketball camp and Brooke…Brooke. Peyton saddened at the thought of her best friend. They had just begun to mend their broken friendship when her father took a job in California, forcing her to move 3000 miles away over Spring break. It was heartbreaking to the blond when she realized she wouldn't be able to spend the rest of the school year with her best friend, a heartbreak that was compounded by the fact that she had not heard from said best friend since the move. Not one email. Not one phone call. Not even a text.

All of Peyton's phone calls remained unanswered, until June when the message changed from 'Hi! You've reached Brooke Davis' to 'The number you have dialed is no longer in service.' And now, with school in session and Nathan and Haley back in town, Brooke's absence was so much more apparent. She and Lucas had become inseparable over the summer, and some would consider him her best friend, but he was no Brooke Davis.

And even though Brooke had left so abruptly and had been gone for awhile, Peyton continued to maintain a platonic relationship with Lucas. In spite of the connection between them that only grew stronger with each passing moment in his company, in the back of her mind Peyton held the belief that Brooke would pop up on the first day of school as if she had never been gone, bragging about her fabulous summer in California and reinstating her claim on the blond-haired Scott boy.

Sighing, her maudlin thoughts about Brooke guaranteeing that she would not fall back to sleep easily, Peyton dragged herself out of bed and down to the kitchen to pour herself a glass of orange juice. As she began the trek back upstairs to her bed, the doorbell rang. Not expecting anyone, Peyton walked to the door to open it. Everyone she knew would just walk in, so who could it be?

When she opened the door, she was confused to see that noone was there. She began to step out, only to realize that had she stepped any further she would have stepped on a basket laid smack dab in the middle of her porch. Wait, not a basket- a car seat. And a car seat could only mean-

"Jenny?" she exclaimed out loud, getting excited. Looking around for Jake, knowing he wouldn't be far away, she knelt down to pull the snowy white blanket that covered the car seat, placed to protect the baby from the wind.

Surprised, Peyton stared, not at Jenny, but a newborn baby boy, sleeping peacefully in a blue colored onesie. Noticing the writing on the back part of the blanket that covered the baby, she unfolded it down to read the light blue lettering that now lay draped across the baby's chest.

"Brody Sawyer…" she mused, reading the lettering out loud. Unfolding the rest of the blanket, she was able to put it all together. "Brody Sawyer…Scott?"

Now wide awake, Peyton sat back on her haunches, mentally trying to process what was going on. A newborn baby boy at her doorstep, with the last name Scott, and her last name as his middle name…Brody…Brooke! Once again, excitement infused her as she stood up and began to look around, this time for the bubbly brunette. A baby! This would explain why she hadn't heard from Brooke in so long, and why she left so suddenly mid-year. The pregnancy scare from last year must have been true! And it was so like Brooke to just show up out of the blue with some elaborate scheme, instead of just knocking on the door like a regular person.

Tucking the blanket back over the baby, Peyton began her search for Brooke.

", the jig's up. I know you're around here somewhere!" Standing up and walking around the carseat, she absentmindedly noticed the Ravens bookbag resting behind the car seat, propping it up. She walked down the steps to her house, half-expecting Brooke to jump out from a crouch by the steps.

"He's adorable Brooke, love the middle name!" Chuckling, she walked around to the side of the house, ready to be tackled by her friend at any time.

Puzzled, she paused as she made it to the side of the house, only to find noone there. Picking her speed up to a slow jog, she quickly moved to the other side of the house, impatient to greet her best friend. There was no one on the other side of the house either.

Panicking a little inside, she ran down to the curb and looked up and down the street, hoping to see Brooke's familiar bug, or a cab, or a rental car. A car that by this point was the only way left for Brooke to jump out of and 'surprise her.' But there was nothing. Trudging back to the house, she stood over the car seat, and slowly bent to pick it up. Grabbing the bookbag, she lifted it as well, took one last slow look around the neighborhood, and went inside, closing the door behind her.

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Standing several houses down, I slowly lowered the binoculars, breathing a sigh of relief. The excitement I saw in Peyton's movements, hearing 'Brooke' yelled so loudly that I could still hear it where I was observing, the slump of her shoulders as she walked into the house; it sent a pang through my heart, so strong I put a hand to my chest. I longed to jump out and receive the bone crushing hug I knew was waiting for me once Peyton saw me, but I also knew that to interact with Peyton Sawyer, 'my' P. Sawyer, would only make me waver in my plan.

I was a senior this year, and being at a new school I knew I was in for a fight- to become a cheerleader, steal the captain position, be known- There was no room for a baby in those plans. Plus, with my parents and my history, I had no business raising a child, and Brody deserved better than me as a full-time mother. The best way I could love him was to give him to the people who would love him and raise him right, and that was his father, and hopefully, the curly headed blonde, who had loved me for what seemed like forever, would transfer that love to my son. I wiped away the tears that fell from my eyes- the wind was fierce today- found my phone and dialed.

"Hello? Yes, this is she. You can drop them off now. Yes, I'm home. Thanks." Hanging up the phone, I took one last look at Peyton's house, and worked my way back to the taxi waiting to take me back to the airport and back to California, to my life as high school senior, with nothing more serious to think about than how I was going to become cheer captain of the squad of a team I hadn't yet joined.

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Peyton set the car seat and bookbag in the middle of the bed. Perplexed, she sat in her desk chair, resting her elbows on her knees and allowing her arms to flop loosely between her legs, and stared at the sleeping infant, unsure of what to make of the recent turn of events.

"Think, Peyton, think!" she said to herself. "Okay, theres a baby- Brooke's baby- but no Brooke. So Brooke will be showing up soon to get her baby, right? Please let Brooke show up and get her baby!"

"But what if it's not Brooke's baby?" At this thought Peyton sat up in the chair.

"Whose baby could it be?" At this, Peyton jumped out of her seat and peered out of her window to the front below, half expecting to see an irate mother stalking up the walkway to her front porch. The sight of the empty walkway calmed Peyton, and she walked back to her desk to sit down.

Ok, realistically speaking, all signs pointed to Brooke being the mother of this baby. An infant, the same age as Brookes 'pregnancy scare baby' would have been, with the adjusted pet name of her boyfriend Broody, the middle name of her best friend, and the last name of said ex-boyfriend- whose else could it be?

Calm again, she chuckled softly to herself- all that and she was back to square one, knowing nothing beyond the fact that Brooke had dropped a baby off on her doorstep. Well, maybe a clue had been left in the bookbag- a black, blue and white bag with the Ravens logo on the front – yet another sign that pointed straight to Brooke Davis. Peyton smirked as she pulled the bag to her and began to rifle through its contents. In addition to baby paraphernalia, including several outfits (Brooke was never one to leave wardrobe to chance), there was a heavy manila envelope.

Glancing at the baby once more to make sure he was still asleep, Peyton took the manila envelope to her desk and opened it. The very first document she pulled out was a birth certificate. Hoping to find a letter providing an explanation, Peyton pulled out the rest of the small stack of papers, to no avail. Sighing loudly she sat back in the chair. No letter. Picking up the birth certificate, she consoled herself with the realization that she could at last verify what she had suspected- that this child did indeed belong to Brooke Davis.

Quietly, she read through the birth certificate- 'Brody Sawyer Scott, 7 lbs., 3 oz., 21 inches (Hes gonna be tall like his daddy, she thought), born August 24th, Orange County, California, father Lucas Scott, mother Peyton Sawyer…mother Peyton Sawyer!'

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Peyton read the birth certificate three times before looking up in disbelief. She couldn't wait until Brooke arrived to clear up this confusion. What was she thinking, using her name on an official document! This was not the first time Brooke had used her name growing up; to avoid getting in trouble at the mall, for guys she had no intention of seeing again after a hook up, yes, but never for something as major as this!

To kill time, and because she was curious, Peyton began to look more carefully through the papers, hoping that maybe she missed the letter in her first search, but now praying there was no letter, because no letter meant a face to face encounter was part of this crazy scheme. There weren't many more papers, just a social security card, record book for medical information, and a passbook to a local bank in tree hill.

At the bottom of the folder she found what made the folder so heavy- a small tape recorder with a piece of paper taped to it had weighed it down. Peyton pulled it out and read Brookes loopy scrawl that said only her name- P. Sawyer. Pressing play on the recorder, Peyton covered her mouth and a tear escaped from her eye at the sound of Brookes raspy voice filling the room.

"Hey " A half-laugh, half sob burst out of her mouth at the sound of her much loved nickname. "By now you've probably figured out why I've been MIA since Spring break. Yup, total fake out on the whole negative pregnancy test from the doctor. I didn't want it to be real, you know? So I ignored it for a while, went on with life, but it didn't exactly go away.

Then Daddy got the job in Cali and it turned out I wouldn't have to tell anyone, at least right away. You know how I hate being cliché- I didn't want to go down in Tree Hill High history as 'Brooke Davis, yet another knocked up Prom Queen.'" Peyton could almost see Brooke and her air quotes.

"Uh, sorry Karen. Anyway. It took some fighting with the 'rents- Bitchtoria kept screaming abortion, Daddy suggested adoption, but I couldn't do that to 'he who shall not be named', even if we aren't together. He was so upset at the thought that his dad wanted to get rid of him, and he was so sweet when he thought I was pregnant, talking about how he would be there for me and the baby, and how he would be a good father…it got me thinking that keeping this baby wasn't my decision to make, its his. So here it is."

Peyton could hear the deep breath Brooke took before she began to speak rapidly. "Brody is here and he's Lucas' and I hope I made the right choice cause I have no idea if I did the right thing leaving him with you so you can give him to Lucas and let him make the decision if he wants to keep him. Because I can't." At this Peyton's eyes widened.

"Don't give me that look P. Sawyer! I cant be anybody's mother! C'mon P! You've met my parents- not exactly role models there. And I'm still in high school, I can't take the baby to the parties, and I cant exactly leave him with my parents, can I? Then there's my fashion line my mom promised she'd help me start...Oh yeah, you didn't know about that. Ummm sooo, I stole some of your sketches before I left, to use for a clothing line I've been working on…" her voice faded out and silence filled the room.

"And I love him P. Sawyer" she said softly. "I looked into his blue eyes when he was born and fell in love. And it made me realize that what I felt for Broody wasn't as strong as I thought it was, because it wasn't half as strong as the love I felt for Brody at that moment." Her voice got husky, and Peyton had to strain to hear it.

"I would do anything for him, and right now, that means giving him to a dad whose gonna love him with everything he has, and care for him and be there for him, and not keeping him here with a mom whose not ready to give up high school, even for the newest love of her life, and grandparents who keep trying to get rid of him- I'm sorry- I mean send him to that "nice family in Ohio."

Chuckling, Peyton paused the tape to wipe her eyes. Brookes tears, heard through the recorder, had cause Peyton's own eyes to water. And the sound of her voice, disgruntled as she talked about her parents- only Brooke could make you laugh while crying. Peyton restarted the tape, not willing to miss a moment of time with Brooke, even if it was just a recording.

"He has a family in Tree Hill, with Lucas and Karen and Nathan and Haley… and you. You, P. Sawyer, are my other gift to him. You are my best friend P. Sawyer, and I love you. You probably noticed your name in several places on the birth certificate. Sorry about that, but I couldn't put it past my loving mother to find Brody and take him on a road trip to Ohio while I was in the hospital if I used my name, so I checked into the hospital under your name. Plus, I didn't exactly want it on record that I had a kid somewhere that I wasn't raising. That could come back and bite me a big one if someone found out.

Anyway, when I saw the birth certificate say mother: Peyton Sawyer, it made me think about you and how great you were with Jenny, and I wanted that for my son too. I want you for my son. All those memories and family moments Anna and Larry gave you, I want you to give that to my son. And as much as you talk about people always leaving, I know that if you decide to do this, you will never leave him."

Brooke hesitated and then blurted out, "And it doesn't hurt that you are in love with his dad. It's ok, P. I understand, and I'm not mad. Anymore." Peyton was too shocked to laugh, but just sat there, listening.

"Being pregnant gives you time to think, especially when you're stuck by yourself so no one will notice the humungo stomach you spot while breeding. We both know that if I wasn't in the picture, you and Broody would so be somewhere brooding together. Tortured artist and tortured athlete, right, P.? Although, if you're gonna be my baby's mama, you might want to loosen up on the tortured part.

And Lucas loves you too by the way. When you get a chance, totally go cat burglar on his room and look in all the boxes. You'll see what I mean when you find out. But I'm off topic.

Listen, Auntie Peyton or Mommy Peyton, whatever you decide to do, I love you for it. I love you P. Sawyer, and you will always be my best friend, even though I won't be back. Take care of our boys." The tape recorder went silent, then cut off.

Tears poured down Peyton's face. She felt such a conflict of emotions- relief that her friendship with Brooke remained intact, sadness at the idea that Brooke would not be walking through her door anytime soon, shock at the realization that Brooke had recognized and actually encouraged the connection between her and Lucas, confusion over the box in Lucas' room- who cares about a box?; pride that Brooke thought she would be a good mother, panic at the thought of being someone's mother, fear at how to tell Lucas he had to be a full-time father. And how do you tell someone their life is changed forever? 'Hey how's it going? What time can you come pick up your son?'

But before she could even being to call Lucas, she had a decision to make. Did she, a 17-year old loner cheerleader with a dead mom, an absent dad, and a new found adoptive mother that she just recently kicked out of her life even though she was dying of cancer, want to take the responsibility of raising a child that wasn't hers? Become a statistic voluntarily? Risk her future, undecided as it was, and that of a 2-week old baby because of a spur of the moment decision by a drugged up on epidural Brooke?

Yet, her mom had done it for her, even though Peyton wasn't hers biologically, and wasn't she willing to do the same recently with Jake and Jenny?

Peyton was startled out of her musings by a cry. Spinning around, she rushed to the car seat to find Brody with his face scrunched up as he took a deep breath and let loose another cry. Peyton racked her brain for her limited knowledge of newborns- Jenny was 6 months old when she had begun to care for her regularly.

"Ok, cry = wet, hungry, tired, or in need of a cuddle. He had just awoke from a nap, so tired was out. So start with wet. Wet= diaper. Oh yeah Peyton, hold the head." At the last minute she remembered to support his head and neck, easy to remember because unlike Jenny, Brody was almost boneless and light as a feather as she lifted him out of the carseat.

Laying him on the bed, she quickly checked the diaper, only to feel that he was dry. So hunger next. "Hungry= bottle. Bottle, bottle, bottle, where are the bottles?" she muttered to herself, Breathing a sigh of relief she saw that in the bookbag not only had Brooke premade bottles, there was a travel bottle warmer stuffed in the bag as well. It was like the Mary Poppin's bag for babies. If she looked deep enough, she'd probably pull out a crib and changing table next!

Brody's cries escalated, tiny fists flailing as Peyton attempted to hold him and set up the bottle warmer. Finally, Peyton placed Brody in the middle of the bed to focus on getting the bottle warmer plugged in and warmed faster. Frustrated at how long everything was taking, Peyton felt like crying along with Brody.

"See, this is exactly what I mean! How can I be a mom to this baby? A smart mom would have had everything ready for when he woke up!" When the bottle was ready, Peyton quickly scooted with her back to the pillows, gingerly picking up the screaming baby and popping the bottle into his mouth. Quieting quickly, Brody settled into Peyton's arms and began to suck, relaxing his arms and smoothing out his brow.

In the quiet, the only sound being Brody slurping his bottle, Peyton shook her head again. She was crazy to think for a moment she could be his mom. How could she be a mom? To Brooke's son? To Lucas' son? She didn't know what she was doing. He'd be okay without a mom, right? Look at all the people who grew up without 2 parents, they were… she was interrupted from her thoughts by a cessation of sucking and a sigh from Brody. In concern, Peyton looked down, and into the most beautiful blue eyes she had ever seen. Brody began to drink again, this time holding Peyton's gaze with his own, and at that moment, Peyton gave her heart to yet another Scott man. It was at that moment she felt that she could do anything…Anything for Brody.

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Did you get that the first person POV was Brooke? If you didn't, let me know, and Ill be sure to label her pov's in the future. Chapter 16 of William Sawyer up tomorrow!

Do you like it? Hate it? Don't believe it? Can't conceive it? Tell me all about it in a review.