AN: Hello, hello, hello. I thought I'd say that three times so that it sunk in. Did it work? Oh well, if not, then HELLO!!!
Now, onto more important things. I wrote this story ages ago for my own private enjoyment because I didn't realize a site like fan fiction existed, so when I realized it did I was very excited and decided to try this out. All the chapters are split into two parts: a flashback at the beginning (in italics) and then the main timeline for the main part of the chapter (in normal text). I promise, it's really not as confusing as it sounds. The summary was on the front page but I'll write it here anyway…
SUMMARY: BRUCAS future fic. Brooke Davis and Lucas Scott used to be in love, but when they split up, they swore they would never meet again. That meant keeping their daughters apart. What happens when they meet? How will they get their parents back together?
So, basically it's a play on the Parent Trap with Brooke and Lucas as the main characters.
Oh yeah, and it's kind of AU in that Jake never lived in Tree Hill, but he's still in the story. As are Naley and Peyton (so obviously, it's a Jeyton.)
Feel free to read, and feel even freer to enjoy (but only if you want to…)
One Tree Hill
Across the Ocean
Chapter One
"Get out!" Brooke Davis shouted, her eyes full with tears as she pulled her wedding ring off her finger and threw it at the man in front of her.
"Its my house," Lucas Scott shouted back, ducking the ring. "You get out!"
Brooke Davis gritted her teeth as she looked at her husband. "Fine," she said, turning her back on him and running upstairs. "But I'm taking the girls with me!"
She heard Lucas run up the stairs after her and she ran quicker, running into her daughters' bedroom and slamming the door, pressing down the button on the knob so that it locked. She knew Lucas wouldn't bang or yell while she was in here. He may have been a jerk, but he loved his daughters dearly and wouldn't cause a scene while they were sleeping.
Brooke leaned her back on the door and heard Lucas breathing on the other side. He didn't sound angry anymore, just worn out. With her adrenaline from the fight gone, Brooke felt the tears spill down her face. She made no attempt to wipe them away, but she refused to make any kind of sound that Lucas might hear. Her ring finger felt bare and empty, and she regretted throwing it as twisting it over and over again was her favorite way to relieve stress.
She looked across the room where two small beds with the side guard on lay side by side. She wiped her eyes on the sleeve of her sweatshirt and walked towards them.
Penelope was Daddy's little girl, and already she was a lot more energetic and excitable than her younger-by-six-minutes sister Elizabeth. Elizabeth favored her mother, and while Penny continued to ask question after question in her babyish lisp, Beth was far more content, preferring to let her twin sister do the talking while she sat and looked cute.
And she was cute. They both were, with their wavy brown hair that was already long for a two year-old, and their mother's green eyes. Penny's even had their mother's mischievous twinkle, while Beth's were more calm and observant, just like Lucas's.
The thought of Lucas made Brooke shake her head as she bent down, leaning over Penny's crib so that her long dark hair brushed the two-year-old's blanket. Penny shifted a little in her sleep, her tiny fists balling up and moving up over her head. She slept exactly like Luke, Brooke noted, as she had noted many times before, lying on her back with one arm over her eyes and the other balled up under the quilt.
She stood up and walked over to the door, pausing only briefly before turning the handle and pushing it out. Lucas was leaning against the opposite wall, and his eyes were red-rimmed. He'd been crying. He didn't do it often, only when he was really upset.
"We need to talk," Lucas said, and Brooke nodded in agreement. With unspoken words, the two of them walked into their bedroom. The sight of the double bed that they had shared for three years now caused a lump to form in Brooke's throat. She promptly swallowed it away.
"This isn't working." She was the first to speak. Lucas didn't reply at first, just sat down on the bed and stared at her in that way that made her feel like she was caught in a net underwater. Trapped and unable to breathe.
"No, it's not," he said finally. "So, what are we going to do."
Brooke shrugged. She didn't know. She wasn't the smart one, he was. He was supposed to have all the answers, not her.
"Are we… breaking up?" Lucas asked, his eyes watery and unfocused.
Brooke gave a harsh laugh. "I think it's a little more complicated than that," she said. "We're married, we have children - two beautiful daughters. We're not 'breaking up' Lucas. Kids in high school 'break up', people who've been going out for a month 'break up.' Not people who have been together for five years."
"Fine," Lucas said, licking his lips like he had to prepare himself for what he was going to say next. "Fine, so are we… are we getting a divorce?"
Brooke's face scrunched up and a sob escaped from her throat. Lucas jumped up off the bed and wrapped his arms around her. Brooke rested her head on his chest and kept her arms by her side as she continued to sob.
"What went wrong?" she whimpered. "When did we start to fall apart? I've been in love with you since I was seventeen Lucas. That's so young…"
"Too young," Lucas added, stroking her hear and resting his chin on her head. "Maybe we jumped in too soon. We knew it would take work, but we didn't realize how much. It's like…" he paused, taking a deep breath. "It's like the whole time we've been together, our loves have been categorized into these big events. High School Graduation, college, pregnancy, marriage, having the girls, graduating college… it's like now it's only us, and…"
"We're not enough," Brooke finished for him, her heart breaking at the words. She didn't want to believe that it was true, but lately nothing had been the same. She still loved him - God, she still loved him so much - but it felt like that wasn't enough anymore. It had never felt like that before.
"No," Lucas said. "No, I guess we're not."
And with that, the two of them broke away.
--x--x--x--x--
"Da-ad!" Penny Scott cried, an annoyed frown spreading over her pretty features.
"What?" Lucas asked, laughing at his daughter, much to her annoyance.
"What part of cheerleader camp do you not understand? The 'cheer', or maybe the 'leader'," Penny asked, putting her hands on her hips and cocking her head to one side. "I'm a cheerleader! Cheerleader's need to go to cheerleader camp! God, you're such a… a…"
"Yes?" Lucas asked, his eyebrows cocked up. Penny didn't answer but instead grunted in frustration.
"I hate you!" she screamed, walking away and stomping up the stairs two at a time. Lucas grimaced at the sound of the door slamming.
"Well, that went well," Haley Scott, Lucas's best friend since forever and sister-in-law laughed. Her long blonde hair had been shoved hastily back into a pony tail and her eyes looked tired. Apparently, James - in his terrible twos - hadn't been getting much sleep lately, and as a result the rest of the Scott household - husband Nathan, son Keith and daughter's Ayla and Natalie - hadn't been getting much sleep either.
Lucas ran a hand through his short dark blonde hair and shook his head. "And she's not even a teenager yet. Is Ayla this bad?" he asked, referring to Haley's eleven-year-old daughter, and Penny's best friend.
"Yes. Luckily though, Nathan bent to his daughters commands and paid for her to go to cheerleading camp, so we didn't get the 'I hate you' discussion on that. We did, however, get it last week because we wouldn't buy her eyeliner… although, your brother was about that close to giving in on that one."
Lucas laughed. Nathan was with Ayla exactly how Lucas normally was with Penny. He spoilt her horribly and was strangely averse to saying no. However, Lucas had put his foot down on cheerleading camp.
"Why won't you let her go, anyway?" Haley asked, picking up a fussing James and sitting him on her knee.
"Are you kidding? Do you know what they get up to at Cheerleading camp?" Lucas asked, shaking his head.
Haley laughed as she bobbed James up and down on her knee. "Lucas, Camp Pom-Pom or whatever is no where near a boys camp. It's girls only."
Lucas still shook his head. The truth was, cheerleading camp reminded him of his ex-wife, and anything that reminded him of his ex-wife generally upset him, unless it was his daughter. It was bad enough that Penny was exactly like her mother without coming home from Cheerleading Camp telling the same stories Brooke had. Lucas didn't think he could deal with that.
"Besides, you know Penny isn't interested in boys. She's far too dedicated to her 'art', as she calls it."
"Did someone mention art?"
Lucas and Haley turned around to see Peyton emerge from her lair. Her lair being the garage downstairs which Lucas had cleared out long ago so that Peyton could have an art studio.
Peyton had been living with Lucas and Penny for ten years. She had moved in when Brooke moved out, leaving not a trace of herself or a forwarding address. The relationship between her and Lucas was one of friendship. Maybe even something more. Peyton had often told Haley that Lucas was her soul mate, but in a completely platonic sense of the word. She had been there for Lucas when he needed her most, when the love of his life walked out with one of his daughters, leaving him a single parent. She had helped take care of Penny and was pretty much a glorified nanny who happened to be an artist too.
"Good afternoon," Haley greeted. "And I meant 'art' in the cheerleading sense of the word. Didn't you hear Lucas and Penny's screaming match?"
Peyton raised an eyebrow. "Camp again?"
"Yeah, she just found out that Ayla was going and decided to throw it back in my face. And for the record, I was not doing any screaming," Lucas replied, leaning back on his chair and rubbing his face in his hands.
"Ah, its just an awkward age," Haley said. "When Keith was twelve, he was always yelling at me because I refused to let him spend every waking minute playing basketball."
Peyton rubbed her eyes and sat down on the couch beside Haley. After playing peek-a-boo with James for a couple of minutes, she turned towards Lucas. "You know, she'll come back and thank you. Camp Chestnut was great when I was a kid. Besides, they have a cheerleading team for the girls soccer team."
"I am NOT cheering for GIRLS," Penny shouted from where she had been blatantly eavesdropping upstairs.
--x--x--x--x--
"Camp?" Elizabeth Davis asked, her green eyes looking at her mother with curiosity. "Like, as in, a tent in the middle of nowhere, with a portaloo?"
Brooke laughed at her daughter and stroked her hair. "No, like as in, a camp in America."
Beth's eyes widened. "America? Really? Wow, that's so brilliant! Are you coming too?"
"No sweetie, no parents allowed," Brooke replied, standing up from the breakfast table as Hugo came running up for her empty plate. "Thanks Hugo," she said brightly. She turned back to her daughter, who followed suit and slid off her chair. The two girls walked into the drawing room and Elizabeth sat down on the floor, her legs crossed and drawn up to her chest.
"So, Hugo's coming?" Beth asked softly, looking up to where Hugo had just passed the door on his way to the kitchen. Hugo was their butler. Brooke had always wanted a butler. It seemed so very… British. And that's what she was now, a British citizen. Well, technically she was an American citizen too, with her dual nationality, but she had been living in London for ten years with her wonderfully eccentric Aunt Felicity.
"No, darling. It's just you," Brooke clarified, drawing her legs up under her.
Beth bit her bottom lip and suddenly didn't seem so happy with the situation. "By myself!" she exclaimed. "Mum, that's not fair! I can't go by myself. I'll… I'll have no one to talk to!"
Brooke knew it was a mistake to home-school Beth. The girl was naturally introverted anyway, but without school she didn't have as many avenues for a social life. Felicity had insisted on it though, offering the very best tutors and indeed, Beth was an incredibly smart young girl. Quietly inquisitive, she seemed to have an answer for everything.
And besides, it wasn't as if Beth had no friends at all. In fact, she had a lot that she had met through parties and Felicity's friends granddaughters and such. In fact, Beth and her best friend Alexandra who lived two doors down were practically inseparable.
That all didn't matter though when Beth, after being thrown into a new situation - would find it hard to adapt.
"You'll get more of a summer holiday," Brooke said, trying to level with her daughter. The camp she was going to was a six-week one that started in the second week of the British summer holidays, so Beth would get two months off. Of course, Brooke had forgotten one little fact:
"Mum, I love learning! I don't want more time off school!"
Brooke bit her lip. "Oh yeah, there is that," she muttered. She leant down close to her daughter and smiled softly. "Sweetie, I'm going away for two weeks to Milan, and in the lead-up to that I'm going to be busy putting together my collection for the fashion show. I just… I don't want you here on your own, okay? I need you to be having fun." So I don't feel so very guilty for abandoning you, she thought to herself.
Beth sighed. "Fine," she muttered. It was very important to her that her mother got to do her work. After all, Beth adored her mothers designs, and she wasn't even that much into fashion. "So what is this camp called?"
Brooke squealed in delight and pulled her daughter up close.
"Mum! You're squishing me," she protested, though she hugged her mum just as tightly back.
"Oh baby, you're going to have so much fun!" Brooke cried. "And it's called Camp Chestnut."
--x--x--x--x--
AN: Well, what did ya think? Was it good? Was it bad? Should I continue?
