…0…

Only time will tell, the violins will swell

In memory of what we used to call in love

…0…

Three weeks later…

"Among other things," Haley recited, eyes rising briefly from the page of her book to check discreetly over her class, "you'll find that you're not the first person who was ever confused and frightened and even sickened by human behavior. You're by no means alone on that score, you'll be excited and stimulated to know." She glanced back down at the page, making sure she was reading the words correctly though she had long ago memorized them, tuning out the squeaks and shuffles she could hear throughout the small room. "Many, many men have been just as troubled morally and spiritually as you are right now."

Another voice interrupted her, coming from the door of her classroom. "Happily, some of them kept records of their troubles. You'll learn from them - if you want to. Just as someday, if you have something to offer, someone will learn something from you. It's a beautiful reciprocal arrangement." Lucas smiled at her brightly, hands deep in the pockets of his faded jeans. "And it isn't education. It's history. It's poetry." He looked to her then just exactly like the Lucas she had known her entire life. He looked like her best friend and she wanted nothing more in the world than to throw her arms around him and hug him like she always had.

But, as she was reminded by the stilted and awkward clearing of a throat by one of her students, she couldn't very well do that in the middle of her sixth period English class. Nor could she keep on staring at Lucas with what she could feel was a very sappy, sentimental smile on her face. She looked away from him, feeling heat flood her face and turning it red like she was a teenager who had just been caught staring at a cute guy in class, and set the book down onto her desk. Clasping her hands together in front of her, she smiled at her students, taking on a cherry voice that sounded fake even to her and told them, "You know what guys, since it's such a beautiful day outside, I'm going to let you guys go outside and finish reading the chapter in the fresh air for tomorrow's quiz, okay?"

When Haley stood, so did her class; gathering their books and bags as they hustled out around Lucas who was still in the middle of the room as he waited patiently for the room to clear and ignoring the pointed glances and whispers coming at him from the kids sidestepping past him out the door.

The room cleared and a heavy silence fell in place of the twenty bodies that had previously occupied it. "Hey," Lucas said quietly.

A relieved smile tugging at the corner of her lips, Haley walked over and took his hand. "Hi," she whispered. "I missed you."

"Really?"

The question in Lucas's voice, the awe (and she hated to admit that was what it sounded like) filling those two syllables, made Haley feel as though the bottom of her stomach had fallen out.

One of the first things the doctors had made sure to tell them after Lucas regained consciousness sans memory was that there was no way to predict how long it would take for him to get back to his old self, no way to be sure if it were possible to be that man again. That's what Haley had been reminding herself repeatedly for the past three weeks while she fought every instinct she had to call him, to rush over to his house and see him. It was what she and Nathan told Jamie when asked why his Uncle Lucas hadn't been around, why they hadn't been to see him if he was still sick.

And she had let the blind hope that he was her best friend again outweigh her common sense the second he looked at her like he used to.

"Yeah." Taking a step backwards, she let his hand fall free of hers and turned to walk back towards her desk. "So how's everything going with you and Peyton?"

It would have been impossible to ignore the way the air in the room changed. Haley closed her eyes briefly, her back to Lucas, to calm herself before she set about packing up her things. When Lucas spoke, his voice had lost the warmth it had held when reciting the passage earlier and she knew she was to blame for that; because she had made a point of asking about Peyton just to remind them both of what was going on around them.

"Things are…" his voice trailed off, unsure, and despite her better judgment, Haley turned back to face him just in time to see him shrug. "Things are weird." Lucas walked up to her desk and sat down n the edge. She felt his should and knee brush against her side as he moved. "I'm trying, Hales, I really am but its just not enough. You know?" His eyes seemed to be pleading with her to agree. He needed her to, she could see that so clearly. So she nodded in silence and settled onto the desk beside him.

"My mom left town yesterday," he said a few moments later.

Haley nodded her head again. "I know. She brought Lily over to say goodbye before they left. She said that some stuff is coming back to you."

"Nothing important," he muttered, picking up the discarded book on her desk. "Just where things are around the house, some song lyrics. Things like that."

"And quotes apparently." She inclined her head towards the tattered paperback he was holding.

A chuckle escaped him. Turning the book over between his palms, he lifted it up as if it were suddenly something more important. "Well, Catcher in the Rye is a very good book."

"It is," she agreed.

The smile on Lucas's face was just as easy as ever. His posture was relaxed, unlike the last time she had seen him in the hospital when his shoulders had been so tense he had looked ready to break. It felt again like she was looking at the same little boy who had first read the book in question in his mom's café and brought it right over to her house when he was finished.

"Man, you loved this book the first time you read it," Haley whispered, taking it from his hands instinctively. "You talked about it for weeks."

"I don't really remember that yet," he confessed, drawing her attention. "Just bits and pieces."

"And yet you can still quote it from memory," she said suspiciously, one eyebrow arched.

He rolled his shoulders, offering up a lopsided grin when he replied in a sheepish tone. "I've had three weeks with nothing to do and a stocked bookcase."

"Same old Luke."

The two of them let their eyes meet again; locking in an affectionate gaze similar to countless others they'd shared during their long friendship. But as the moment stretched on and Lucas's gaze lost none of the softness, a touch of worry eased itself into Haley's brain.

"Haley…"

She stood abruptly, walking over to the window of her classroom. Several of her students were still littered about, reading or chatting, while others had taken off, only to happy with the early day she'd given them. In the distance she could see the river, and the two hoops of the River Court looming up in front of it. So much of her and Lucas and what made up their friendship was tied up in that court. Seeing outside of her window every day of the past few weeks had been a tough pill to swallow.

"You want to go for a walk?" he asked, breaking into her thoughts.

"A walk?"

"Yeah," he grinned at her, moving to stand beside her at the window. "You know, going somewhere without a car or other type of mechanized transportation."

"Ha, ha," she replied dryly. "Just let me get my stuff."

…0…

It came as no surprise that they ended up down by the River Court. Even the few students that were still milling around on campus had moved out of the way in that direction. They walked along the edge of the blacktop, the fading lyrics that Peyton wrote calling out to them like a siren they tried vainly to ignore; acknowledging them now would only remind them of how much things had changed since then.

"So…" Haley swung her hands back and forth, bringing them in front of her to clasp them together. "Why the walk?"

Lucas's hands found their way to his pockets. He shrugged, kicking at a pebble with his toe. "I've been ending up here a lot lately." Their eyes meet momentarily, unsaid, unnamable somethings flickering between their gazes. It gives Haley chills. "I see Peyton in my house-our house-and it makes me feel like a guest, or at best roommate. Wanna know why?" Now his eyes have gone back down to the concrete, to the quickly graying reminder of Peyton's grand gesture, and goes on before she can respond. "Because I look around the house I've lived in my entire life and I see you." Haley swears her heart stops. "I see my mom, Keith. Sometimes Jamie and Lily…but I never see Peyton. There's a whole lifetime of family memories in every inch of that place and she's not there. So I come here-to look at these words she wrote me, to try and remember how it felt to be completely in love with her. But I can't."

Its not a conscience decision to stop, or to take his hand in hers, but Haley does just like she has on countless other occasions in their lives. "Luke…" Words, always easy and natural for the two of them, failed her. It wasn't often that Haley James Scott was speechless, but then again, it wasn't everyday that her best friend was teetering on such a high, slippery precipice. There was no precedent here. Before she'd even realized it was happening, Lucas had raised her joined hands and laid them palm down on his chest. Haley felt the steady rhythm of his heart against her palm, and, unintentionally, her fingers flexed, stroking the firm muscle that formed his chest. If it were possible, she would do anything in her power to heal his heart, in every way, so that nothing bad like this would ever touch him again.

A car whizzed by at that moment, effectively breaking the spell they had fallen under. Cheeks scarlet, Haley walked to the bleachers at the far edge of the concrete and sat down carefully. Her knees were feeling a touch too wobbly to hold her up at the moment.

Even though his recollection of the moment was biased, for lack of a better word, Lucas's memory went back in time to a different day in this same spot, when the darkness in his world seemed to lift slightly; Haley, younger, smile bright against the blue sky and the wind ruffling her mane of blonde hair. He remembered the feeling of pure joy that bubbled up within him just by knowing she was there with him and knew, just knew, that the feeling may be placing a rose-colored haze over the events, but not the emotion behind it.

"I was thinking," he said "the day you came home from the tour. Hearing your voice behind me, I didn't even need to turn around because I knew that if you weren't staying that it would only hurt more."

A small smile curved her lips upwards, her face going soft in remembrance. "Depends?"

"Yeah."

Brown eyes locked onto his and Lucas felt that tug deep in his soul that he'd been trying to kindle in himself for weeks now whenever he looked at Peyton. And it hit him that he was in fact, drawn to someone in the way you should be when your entire world revolves around them.

It just wasn't Peyton.

…0…