Story of One Tree Hill (season four)

Season Four : 2006-2007

As the end of high school approaches, everyone finds themselves at a crossroads in their lives. Nathan survives the accident and after some initial confusion, Haley is revealed to be pregnant while Rachel turns her attentions to Nathan after Cooper leaves town, using Nathan's theory that it was really Keith who saved him from the accident to get Nathan's attention. Rachel backs off when she learns that Haley is pregnant and Nathan later learns that he had a vision of Keith and it was this vision that gave him the strength to get out of the water.

Shortly after finishing her friendship with Peyton, Brooke also breaks up with Lucas and then moves in with Rachel. Rachel sets Brooke up on a date with an older guy, Nick Chavez (guest star, Reynaldo Valentin), who turns out to be Brooke's new teacher. After Brooke dumps Nick for cheating on her, Rachel informs Brooke that she is failing calculus and together, the two girls steal the calculus test from school but to cover their tracks, they are forced to join the "Clean Teens: Virgins for Life". Newcomer Chase Adams (guest star, Stephen Colletti) also joins the Clean Teens and he and Brooke begin dating while Rachel is expelled for taking the fall for the stolen calculus test and later leaves Tree Hill with Mouth, who returns alone after she goes AWOL.

Skills Taylor (Antwon Tanner) becomes a Raven and Lucas is granted permission from Whitey to rejoin the team (as long as he keeps taking his heart medication and doesn't play for more than fifteen minutes per game). In the run-up to the State Championship, Nathan borrows money from a loan shark, Daunte Jones (guest star, Rick Fox), who tells Nathan that the only way he can repay his debt is by shaving points in the semi-final and then by losing the State Championship. When the Ravens actually end up winning, Daunte attempts to kill Nathan but instead hits Haley with his car and she is rushed to hospital along with Lucas, who had a heart attack because he didn't take his medication before the game. While Lucas is unconscious, he has a vision of Keith, who shows Lucas how he has changed so many lives for the better and also tries to help Lucas remember what he saw on the day of the school shooting. Lucas wakes up with serious doubts about who killed Keith while Dan is in jail, covering for Nathan who beat Daunte to death in a rage for running Haley down. Daunte's autopsy results, however, show that he was killed in the car accident he had after hitting Haley, and not by the beating he was given so Dan is released and Nathan is overjoyed to learn that both Haley and the baby are going to be fine.

When Karen discovers that Dan was protecting Nathan all along, she starts to let Dan back in, realising that he wants to be there for her and the baby. Deb, however, alienates everyone, including Karen, when her pill addiction resurfaces and she ends up taking an overdose. To keep Deb on the straight and narrow, Nathan and Haley move in with her and throw a party on the night before prom where Mouth loses his virginity to Clean Teen Shelly Simon (guest star, Elisabeth), who runs out on him afterwards, and a tape from Nathan's past shows him having sex with Brooke at a time when he was seeing Peyton. Chase breaks up with Brooke because of this and any chances Brooke had of reuniting with Peyton are diminished. When Brooke learns that Peyton isn't coming to prom, she goes looking for her and finds her tied up in the basement by her stalker, Ian Banks (guest star, Matt Barr), who terrorised her earlier in the season by posing as the half-brother she never knew she had, Derek Sommers (guest star, Ernest Waddell) and by sending her instant-messages under the username of "WATCHMEWATCHU". The two girls defeat Ian together and restore their friendship in the process, moving into Nathan and Haley's old apartment together.

At prom, Lucas realises that a student named Abby Brown (guest star, Allison Scagliotti) witnessed Keith's murder and he confronts her about it - she tells him that Dan was the one who killed Keith, however Karen (having gotten together with Dan) refuses to believe Lucas. Lucas steals Deb's gun and is about to shoot Dan when Karen collapses and is rushed to hospital with eclampsia. After an emergency C-section, Karen gives birth to a baby girl, Lily, though her own life hangs in the balance. Dan, meanwhile, turns himself in to the police.

Having finally gotten together, things are going well between Lucas and Peyton until she is offered an internship in Los Angeles. Chase and Brooke get back together and Brooke owns up to stealing the calculus test, though is still allowed to graduate while Nathan also owns up to his point-shaving; Duke retract their scholarship offer but Whitey is offered a coaching job at a nearby college and convinces Nathan to come with him as his star player. At graduation, Haley goes into labour during her valedictory speech.

In the season finale, Nathan and Haley become the proud parents of a baby boy named James Lucas Scott, choosing Lucas and Brooke as godparents, while Deb, in her role as grandmother, seems to have finally found happiness. Chase and Brooke consummate their relationship while Rachel returns to Tree Hill and throws a party for everyone. Mouth does something he's always wanted to do and kisses Brooke, while also making his peace with Shelly. Karen has a dream in which she introduces Lily to Keith and Dan's attempts to hang himself in prison fail. Karen visits Dan (only to tell him that one day she'll have to explain to Lily that her father was killed by the brother he loved so much) but Lucas and Nathan both agree that they never want to see Dan again. Lucas reveals that he will be Whitey's Assistant Coach at college and supports Peyton as she and Brooke prepare to go to LA together. In the closing scene of the season, everyone heads to the River Court for a game of basketball; boys against the girls, followed by a one-on-one game between Lucas and Nathan, taking them back to the night Lucas became a Raven.

Story of One Tree Hill (season Three)

Season Three: 2005-2006

Three months later, things pick up where they left off at the beginning of the summer. Lucas and Peyton spent their summer together and are hiding a secret from Brooke when she returns from California and proposes a non-exclusive relationship with Lucas. Brooke takes pity on a homeless Haley and takes her on as her roommate. Haley tries to win back Nathan, who has spent the summer at "High Flyers", a basketball camp, however Nathan isn't ready to trust Haley again. He pays Chris to come back to Tree Hill and help Haley with her music. Chris causes even more trouble this time round when he sleeps with Brooke, almost destroying her relationship with Lucas. Nathan and Haley get back together as do Lucas and Brooke and Chris leaves Tree Hill for good. Peyton tries to come to terms with the fact that Ellie is her birth mother and the fact that Ellie is terminally ill. They make a benefit album together in aid of breast cancer research but Ellie dies before the album is finished.

Everyone returns to Tree Hill High to begin their Senior Year and basketball practice starts up again. Whitey reveals to the Ravens that win or lose, this is his last season as coach while Lucas tries to conceal his HCM from Karen and Whitey, despite the serious impact it is having on his performance. Dan survives the fire at the dealership and it is revealed that Lucas rescued him. Dan decides to run for Mayor but gets a nasty shock when Karen announces that she is running against him. However, Dan wins the election and Deb flees Tree Hill when Lucas tells her that he knows she tried to kill Dan. Keith returns and he and Karen start seeing each other, even getting engaged. Dan is convinced that Keith tried to kill him and sets about plotting his revenge.

Newcomer Rachel Gatina (Danneel Harris) tries to come between Lucas and Brooke before setting her sights on Mouth Mc Fadden (Lee Norris). Mouth falls for Rachel only to discover that she is seeing Nathan's uncle Cooper (guest star, Michael Trucco) who is oblivious to Rachel's true age, 17. Rachel also opens the Time Capsule recorded in Season Two and exposes it to the whole school in an attempt to cause trouble, but neither Rachel nor anyone else is prepared for the damage it does cause; Lucas and Mouth's former friend, Jimmy Edwards (guest star, Colin Fickes), bullied and tormented for voicing his contempt towards other students on the Time Capsule, takes the school hostage with a gun. Peyton is shot in the leg and kisses Lucas when he takes care of her in the library. Edwards turns the gun on himself, despite Keith's attempts at talking him round. Dan finds Keith kneeling over the student's dead body and still believing Keith tried to kill him, Dan picks up the gun and shoots his brother.

Keith's death affects everyone; Nathan and Haley move back in together and get engaged, Peyton has a brief romance with Pete Wentz of Fall Out Boy before going to find Jake in Savannah, Lucas finally admits to Karen that he has HCM and can no longer play basketball and Dan is haunted by visions of Keith as a child. Peyton proposes to Jake but Jake discovers Peyton's feelings for Lucas and encourages her to go back to Tree Hill to deal with them. Brooke is outraged when she discovers that Peyton still has feelings for Lucas.

In the season finale, Nathan and Haley renew their vows in a beautiful ceremony. Deb has by now returned to Tree Hill and when she discovers that Dan thinks Keith was responsible for the dealership fire, she sets the record straight and tells him that she tried to kill him. Dan realizes he murdered his brother for no reason and breaks down at his grave. Later, Karen tells Dan that she is pregnant and Dan promises her that he will be there for her this time. Brooke is not speaking to Peyton and when Lucas lets slip that he and Peyton kissed on the day of the school shooting, she is devastated and tells Peyton that as far as she is concerned, their friendship is over. Rachel is bitter over Cooper's rejection and drunkenly tells everyone at Nathan and Haley's wedding reception that Cooper slept with her even though he knew that she was only seventeen. Rachel takes off in the wedding limo with Cooper and his attempts to talk her round eventually work. As Lucas and Karen leave the reception, he finds a pregnancy test in someone's purse. Lucas asks his mother if she is pregnant and she tells him that she is - but that's not her purse. Rachel asks Cooper if there is anything that she can say to keep him. He solemnly tells her that there isn't, prompting Rachel to reveal something that causes a ferocious argument between them when Cooper refuses to believe her. Rachel grabs control of the wheel and after a near-collision with Nathan and Haley (en route to London for their honeymoon), the limo veers off the bridge and into the water. Against Haley's wishes, Nathan dives in to save them but ends up becoming trapped and stuck for air himself. And when Dan gets home, he finds the word "MURDERER" smeared on his wall - someone knows what he did.