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.