Further on Up the Road

Part 4 of the One Tree Hill Road Series

Eleven years have passed since Keith said goodbye to Izzy in Brooke's garden. What has happened in the small city between the river and the sea since then? Who has gotten older? Who has grown up? Who has reached their dreams? Who has had dreams fail? Who has moved away? Who has returned? What happened during the annus horribilis?

Disclaimer

I own nothing


Episode 1: The New Year

January 1st

(BLOG Post is in italics)

There is something to say about New Year's in Beaulieu Manor. The day after is always a hangover from the night before. There is always fun, but in the morning, when it's just the residence it's like being in a big happy family. Yes, if you live there, you're not normal. But we are in some ways no different than anyone else. We are family, dysfunctional but family. The one thing that makes New Year's Day hard is the reminder of the annus horribilis.

RAVENHUSSAR

T3 Collective


Chapter 1: The Hangover

(Song lyrics are in italics)

All is quiet on New Year's Day, Bono once wrote, though he was writing about the Polish Solidarity Movement, the words had meant to the lone figure standing by his aging Ford Explorer. Though he was parked beside the river at this spot, many things happened in his life. As he stood leaning against the front end of the SUV, he was lost in memories, watching the sun come awake in the East, over the horizon and the roofline of Tree Hill.

It was cold, unseasonably cold for the southern United States. The wind came up the river basin and tore into everything, making it feel colder. Yet here he stood, not taking notice of it all, but bundled up. Every so often he would reach up with a free hand, holding a cup of coffee and take a sip.

So this is the new year
And I don't feel any different
The clanking of crystal
Explosions off in the distance
In the distance

The wind would whip by his ears. The wind would nibble and bite at them, turning them red. To his mind, he heard the whispers of past voices in his ears. For the past few years, now, at dawn on New Year's Day, he would come here and watch the sunrise. He would greet the new day, the sun and the new year, never changing, Sol Invictus, unconquered sun. A dance that started before him and would keep going long after he had shuffled off this mortal coil.

After another sip of his coffee, he looked off feeling the emptiness of the early morning. All was there was him, his coffee, the wind, and the sun. The years didn't seem to matter, as he always ended up here, always during his life this one spot on the River Road, by the same bend.

Lucas Scott looked at the rising sun. The crisp, maybe even biting wind, cut at his clothes with new force. But in the first-born hours of the new day, the first of the new year, there is just vast emptiness.

So this is the new year
And I have no resolutions
No self-assigned penance
For problems with easy solutions

Lucas nodded; he was a dad, husband, uncle, and even a granddad. Yet here he stood, on the side of the road, by the bend in the river, staring off into nothingness. This had become his New Year's morning routine. In the morning, before the sun came up, he would come out here have a cup of coffee and watch the sun come up. Rain or shine, he would come out here and watched the sky lighten as the night becomes the day.

He sighed and leaned back, stretching his old back. Age had come to him slowly and robbed him of some of the feelings of youth. There were times he felt strong and twenty, not the fifty so years he felt now. So, the creeks pop, and groans of his joints became a regular event.

The wind picked up and there was a shudder under its cold grasp. It's been cold, unseasonably cold recently, Lucas reflected. Maybe it's a reflection of his life and his emotions.

So everybody put your best suit or dress on
Let's make-believe that we are wealthy for just this once
Lighting firecrackers off on the front lawn
As thirty dialogs bleed into one

Lucas nodded and sipped his coffee. He was a patriarch now, in the classical sense, the head of a family. When did that happen, he wondered? He looked over his branch of his family, in his head, the branch of his brother's family, and his sister's as well. His five children were spread out, forging their own paths. Candi was in California. Keith was away for one of his jobs. Kay was in Chicago playing basketball. Ellie was living in New York. Sawyer, his baby, she was the only one he interreacted with regularly now. At fifteen going on sixteen, she still lived at home.

Cripples, bastards, and broken things, such a great line, Lucas reflected in the cold sunlight. He nodded, he was at least two of those things, well at least since that damn year of all years.

What did Haley refer to that year as? Lucas reflected. He would just call it the black year. That was not how Haley referred to it. Annus Horriblis, that's what Haley called it. It was full of those things Brooke called, "The Moment everything changed."

I wish the world was flat like the old days
Then I could travel just by folding a map
No more airplanes, or speed trains, or freeways
There'd be no distance that could hold us back

Life does exist, but his life revolved around work, family, and basketball now. Not a lot of adventure there anymore. Maybe it was his age. Now he craved comfort and routine. With Sawyer around, the routine wasn't something that happened often.

Again, that would make him laugh, as Sawyer was his daughter. Where her personality came from, he didn't know, but she has been a blessing. His baby girl at his darkest times could pull him out of the abyss. The best way he could, in all his writer's eloquence, describe her personality was fluid or eclectic. She is his fireball, his pistol.

Sawyer was upbeat and lively, nowhere as brooding and introspective as her parents. Sadly, Lucas admitted included himself. Case in point, his leaning against his SUV, on the side of the road and at this same bend of the river. Sawyer, lovely, very blonde and bubbly Sawyer would never stand on the side of the road watching the sunrise, by the same bend in the river, every New Year's Day.

There'd be no distance that could hold us back
There'd be no distance that could hold us back

Lucas smiled. There were moments when he'd tried to parent Sawyer, and she would already have out parented him. There were times when Sawyer, took care of him. It would have been a lot harder to get through all those years, those now approximately four years, without Sawyer.

Lucas drank his coffee and looked out at the waters. Maybe he should take to heart the sentiment "New year, new me." Yet there are some things that are too hard to move on from. Looking down in his left hand he held this simple golden charm bracelet. He closed his hand close around it and sighed. He took another sip of his coffee, no there are somethings he's not ready to deal with yet. So, he finds himself on New Year's Day on the side of the road by the bend in the river. Always he was here alone, drinking coffee, watching the sunrise.

So this is the new year
So this is the new year
So this is the new year
So this is the new year