Hey everyone! So I'm back with yet another oneshot( y'all should expect two more within this month lol. I've got ideas swarming in my head lol). I actually never intended for this to be a fanfiction. I had originally had to write this for history(it only had to be a paragraph, I made mine into three pages lol). But I liked it so I figured why not? I'm not completely happy with it but I have to say I enjoyed writing a period piece. That being said, this takes place in the 20s, which year I'm not too sure(there is a reference to the 1918 flu epidemic). I used some 20s slang which might be a little confusing and if you want to know what they mean feel free to message me. Ummm let's see... I could possibly end up deleting this soon and go back and make it lengthier but for right now it is what it is. Enjoy!
Before, Lucas could never wait to get home. Before, he'd rush to get out of the office and take side streets just to get home faster so he could spend as much time as possible with his family. Now, he never wanted to go home. Now, he rushed out of the office only to rush to a gin mill or the closest speakeasy. There, he would drink two drinks, so that Brooke wouldn't be able to smell the giggle water on him. Then spend the rest of the night wallowing over his beer nuts and brushing off Dumb Doras until he knew he had to go home.
When he stumbled into his nice suburban home with a bright red door around eight, Brooke would be sitting in their living room doing needlepoint in her rocker. Before, he would've rushed up to her and kissed her and told her how much he missed her. Now, he just murmured 'Hello' before going into the kitchen to eat the dinner she had cooked earlier for their family.
They were the youngest couple on their block and when they moved in, they had probably been the happiest. They had gotten married young, a lot younger than most but it never mattered because they were in love. Lucas had a good eye for business and got great jobs and Brooke always said it was enough for her to just take care of him and the family they had started. Now, he's almost positive that the other couples on the block whisper about them. They never necked in public anymore, in fact they rarely showed any sort of affection in public and he was seldom home.
"You're home late," Brooke nearly whispered from the living room. She didn't look up from her needle point, just kept forming the red rose on the coarse off white material surrounded by the wooden hoop. "Later than usual," she mused, her voice soft and unaccussing.
Even from her spot in the living room, she could smell the little alcohol he had consumed. He'd never been able to hide anything from her. But instead, she let this lie go because she knew she had no room to talk. They had grown distant, something that she was okay with. She wasn't ready to face what happened, not yet, not now. Not when so much needed to get done around her. That was how she helped fill the void; she just submersed herself in house work and her needle point and most importantly, Robert, their son.
"The office has been busy lately," he lied and he saw her nod out of the corner of his eye. "What did you make for dinner," he called from the kitchen, trying to put forth some sort of effort so that they actually talked to one another and weren't just like two ships passing in the night.
They lied next to one another in their bed, both curled towards the edges. They slept as far away from each other as possible. Before, she would rest her head on his chest, his left arm wrapped around her shoulders.
Brooke waited until she heard Lucas's breathing steady to climb out of bed. She walked on the cold hard wood floor to the bathroom that was just across the hall. She locked the door behind her and began to rummage around behind their filled shelves. She reached the silky material of her dress and pulled it out. She slipped out of her flannel nightgown and put on the dress. It hung on her body the way it should've and she rummaged through the shelves again to find her black pantyhose and garter belt.
Every night she sneaks out to the first joint she sees in town. She submersed herself in the flapper lifestyle even if it is just during the night. She dressed like one and she had even cut her hair into a bob. Lucas hadn't reacted and she just took it as another sign that they were no where near being where they had been. At first, joints used to give her the heebie jeebies, but now she loved them. Sheiks would surround her and she was almost certain that the bar owner had a crush on her.
She would act like a completely different person when she went out. She always took off her wedding ring, something that at first had killed her inside. But when she noticed that Lucas had removed his, it hurt a lot less to take the ring off her finger. She smoked, and drank, and sometimes even flirt when she got too bored. Every once in a while, some lounge lizard would get a little too hands on with her and she'd have to tell him to scram, the hard boiled guard threatening to remove him when they didn't acknowledge her warning.
Every night she'd walk home, cold and once again feeling empty. The good thing about the joints was that people wanted her. They cared about her there, even if it was just to try and neck or pet with her. At least they acknowledged her there. It was better than being ignored by the only person she loved completely. Every night she'd crawl back into bed, Lucas still slumbering next to her.
Only Brooke didn't know that Lucas would wake shortly after she left and stay awake until he saw her coming back down the street.
It was a Saturday, the one day that Lucas had always promised not to work on. Robert was away on a Boy Scout camp out, leaving his two parents alone in a house of silence. Lucas had left early in the morning, promising he'd only work half a day and that when he got home, they'd go out to watch a film to which Brooke had replied with a sarcastic 'Whoopee'.
It didn't surprise Brooke when Lucas returned at five that evening.
They ate their chicken dinner in silence and drove to the local theater in their Model T. They never spoke a word to each other; in fact, Lucas probably talked more to the employees of the theater than to Brooke herself. They stood outside their theater waiting for the audience of the previous movie to get out. A throng of people exited almost immediately and at the very end was a mother with her infant daughter.
Both Lucas and Brooke stiffened as they watched the mother coo to her child. Lucas glanced over at his wife who looked extremely uncomfortable by the scene in front of them. For the first time in months, Lucas reached out to touch Brooke. He placed his hand on the small of her back and lead her away from the happy mother and child. As they walked past the talking people, he could almost hear Brooke whisper, "It's not fair."
The theater was empty when they walked in and they chose their seats in the very back as they always did. Before, it would be so they could fool around a little but now it's so they can avoid having contact with anyone they may know. The news reel had already begun rolling and they both try to get comfortable in their seats. Then, they heard it.
"The Spanish Flu!" boomed through the theater's new sound system. Both heads flew up to stare at the screen. Images of little children from all over the world with the disease flashed before them. It was ironic that the news reel was about how countries were coping after the loss of so many lives.
Brooke's hand went up to her agape mouth, tears filling her eyes. Lucas sat wide eyed in his seat as he watched the ill infants flash on the screen. Before either one of them knew it, an image of their daughter appeared. Lucas gasped as he watched their daughter in pain on the large screen. "Oh Lucas," Brooke whispered, her tears making their way down her cheeks.
When Sophie died, everything changed between them. That's when they grew distant and less loving. They didn't know how to react. There daughter had been taken away from them so quickly that they barely had any time to love her as much as they wanted to. It seemed like one day she was a happy little one year old and the next she was in a hospital bed near death. Her bright blue eyes that she mirrored her fathers had dimmed when she had gotten sick, appearing as if the life was draining right out of her.
Seeing it all over again was too much to bare and Brooke let her head drop into her hands. She sobbed hard, the tears leaving hot paths in their wake along her porcelain cheeks. Lucas gently put his hand on his wife's shaking shoulders, tears slowly making their way down his cheeks as well. She hadn't cried this hard since the day Sophie had died. She muttered the same words then that she did now. "It's not fair. She was ours... she was to young."
The words are enough to make his salty tears quicken and before he knew it, Brooke was in his arms, her head against his chest. Her tears soaked his shirt but some how that didn't matter now. What mattered was that they were letting each other in. When Sophie died they closed themselves off. They didn't speak to one another about what happened because it was just easier to not talk about it. They didn't touch because it felt wrong, like they were some how forgetting Sophie in doing so.
But as they sat in the darkness of the movie theater, alone with one another, they both began to feel relief. Relief that they could let it out and that they could show how they felt. That they could just embrace the loss they both felt. Lucas lifted Brooke's head and kissed her cheeks slowly to try and stop the tears. "She was our baby," Brooke muttered as her green eyes locked with his blue. She sounded heartbroken, which was better than the emptiness he usually heard in her voice.
"She still is our baby," Lucas said softly, telling her the truth as a few more tears fell from his eyes. He kissed Brooke softly on her red lips before looking into her eyes once more. He searched his head for some sort of answer that would make this better but found none. There were no words that would make this better. Only time could help them heal. So, they lied in the sound of the narrator's words. The words that spoke of the happiness that other families were fortunate to have.
Brooke's head returned to Lucas's chest and she shut her eyes to remember her daughter as the bubbly baby that she was. "I love you," Brooke whispered. They hadn't said those words in nearly two years.
"I love you too," Lucas replied. And to lie in the sound of those words filled them with the feeling of happiness that they had long since forgotten to feel.