A/N: Firstly, I want to say a very sincere thank you to all of you who reviewed or favourited my first story. I haven't really ever before shown anyone my writing, and I didn't realise what an overwhelming effect reviews and feedback can have. It makes me want to keep writing. Honestly, if I could afford the international postage, I would send each of you a big bunch of flowers! Thank you, thank you, thank you! And please keep reviewing!
This story will probably be only a two or three parter. I wrote it quite quickly and am a bit unsure about where it's going but I wanted to post and see what you thought. I've written two chapters of another different story which is proving incredibly difficult to write, so I took a bit of time to cool off and wrote this instead. It picks up two years into the hiatus between seasons 4 and 5, and the rest should be self-explanatory.
Also, please tell me if I've got my geography all wrong - apart from some cursory internet research, I'm clueless on the best beaches in North Carolina, and Emerald Isle might be completely off base!
Title is from a song by The Jezabels. Hope you enjoy!
Can one week change a life?
This is what Peyton Sawyer is wondering as she stands stoic at the outside porch of a sprawling wooden house whose shutters crash and bang and seem altogether unlikely to survive the week of stormy weather almost guaranteed ahead.
She stands, looking at the sea in front of her, which already whirls and dumps huge wrecking waves unceremoniously onto the shore as if predicting and eagerly anticipating the wild weather to come.
And beyond the breaking waves is the cusp of the vast North Atlantic Ocean, and at its visible horizon is the orange setting sky, which yawns down on the world tonight invitingly, amiably, although tomorrow it will certainly turn furious and grey and send down rain and thick forks of lightning as a menacing reminder or a punishment for daring to be the foolish humans that they are.
But right now, even for the briefest moment, Peyton stands, and looks at the friendly sky, and the unruly sea, and thinks that maybe this is the start or the end of everything her world is supposed to be, one or the other. It feels like it must be, somehow.
And then she hears the sounds of suitcases bumpity-bump up the stairs at the opposite end of the house (Brooke never did quite grasp how to pack lightly) and the holler of Skills shouting to Mouth about the beers and then, shockingly, for the first time in a year, a low honeyed murmur which means her ex-boyfriend has actually arrived, and Peyton lets out a shuddering breath she didn't realise she was holding and holds onto the balcony railing to dizzyingly steady herself.
Soon she will go inside and Brooke will hug her for the first time in two years and Skills will high-five her and Lucas will inwardly knock her down with one casual flick of his eyes, but for now Peyton will still stand, and look, and wait for the future to come to her.
It seems surreal now to think that the whole history of this trip starts only three weeks earlier. Three weeks ago, when Peyton is still a sleep-deprived music intern with permanent smudges of faintest purple under her eyes, a mobile phone constantly affixed to her ear and, most importantly, no intention whatsoever of leaving this cosy little existence in Los Angeles anytime in the near future.
She doesn't date. She travels from home to work, then work to home, then repeats the cycle exhaustingly five or six times over. She works twelve-hour days, surviving on scarce more than two avocado-cucumber sushi rolls at midday and two – or make it three – jumbo cappuccinos spaced intermittently throughout the day.
At nights, she lies on her bed with her iPod and looks out at the L.A. night sky through her window. If the solitude gets too unbearable, she ventures to any bar playing a random indie act just to have the feeling of being around people again, of unity, of intimacy, although she travels defiantly solo and invariably returns alone to an empty bed at the end of the night.
Her cell phone rings constantly, jarring her thoughts with its insistent little jingle. The calls are work-related. Never personal. She doesn't know who outside of work would know her number, besides her housemate, but they're two strangers who have never actually had a real conversation and the number is really only a courtesy for our-apartment-is-flooding/on fire/up for inspection-type emergencies.
She hasn't spoken to Brooke in three months, not since an obligatory, overly-friendly birthday phone call in March which lasts all of three minutes and ends with a rather awkward question about Lucas at which Peyton mutters something politely evasive and leaves otherwise unanswered.
She hasn't spoken to Lucas in all of twelve months, since a lonely encounter in a hotel room in which a marriage proposal was nervously offered and angrily revoked an hour later, since a night full of bitterness, accusation and regret that achingly lingers on for a year and counting.
Of course, Peyton has spoken to Lucas in her imagination ten, twenty times since then. She runs through their final conversation obsessively, turning it over and over, phrasing it differently.
She tells Lucas what she would have said that morning after the proposal, if he had only stayed until she had woken up. If she had opened her eyes a minute earlier and seen a pair of light blue eyes staring sadly back at her instead of a gapingly empty hotel room.
She would tell Lucas that she doesn't know how to live in a world without his voice waiting safely on the other end of a telephone line. How L.A. makes you kick and scratch and fight and hang on for dear life just to survive, and without Lucas, she feels like maybe it's simpler to sink.
She would explain to Lucas how easy it is to forget how comfortable his embrace is when she doesn't feel it for months and months on end. How the Los Angeles lifestyle makes a young, impressionable girl jaded to the concept of true love, and she needs him beside her just to remind her sometimes.
But she didn't say those things a year ago, and she is not brave enough, or too proud, perhaps, to pick up the phone and say them now.
Her phone rings loudly, shaking her firmly out of her reverie, and she remembers it is a sunny Friday in Los Angeles, California, and she is three thousand miles away from the object of her musings so she should really be getting back to work, because she is the in the copy room at Sire Records with a healthy stack of memos which aren't going to miraculously copy themselves four hundred times over. She sighs.
"Yeah?"
She answers her phone abruptly, too aggressively. Above all her other stresses, deadlines and responsibilities far too old for her meagre twenty years, it is her phone's constant ringing that puts her permanently on edge. She resents the unknown caller already for the mere presumption of dialing her number and expecting her welcoming answer.
"Peyton."
Peyton breathes out. It's not work. It's a raspy little lilt that rushes her immediately back to cheer practice and drinking on the beach in the summertime and long, meaningful talks in her bedroom in Tree Hill.
"Brooke. Hi."
"Look, I know you're busy and I really don't want to keep you."
Brooke – clearly – has noticed the unfriendly way in which Peyton has answered the phone, and Peyton winces, regretting her unwelcoming greeting.
"No. Sorry. I'm not too busy. It's just my phone – constantly ringing, you know. Gotta learn how to screen pretty fast."
"Yeah, I know the feeling."
Peyton forces an uneasy laugh, and there is an awkward pause. Perhaps each girl realises how precious little besides work that they now share in common.
The pause grows broader, and Brooke suddenly realises that Peyton is patiently waiting for her to speak. Perhaps in her rush to express herself, to immediately fill the sudden silence that has appeared, Brooke's words come out in a hurried tangle and sound rather more dramatic than first intended.
"So, I have this great idea," she announces, and Peyton raises her eyebrows and laughs genuinely this time. Historically, Brooke's ideas got them in a lot of trouble. She surprises herself at how tempted she feels to get caught up in one of Brooke's schemes once again. How wonderfully reckless it would be to do something unpredictable.
"An idea?" Peyton exclaims sarcastically. "A real Brooke Davis-commissioned scheme with a guaranteed outcome of trouble, pain, suffering or heartbreak? I can't wait to hear this. It's been a while."
"Whatever," Brooke snaps. "My ideas are always fun."
"Oh, was that fun in junior year when you made me camp out in the mall overnight so we could be the first in line for Harry Potter books? It was creepy, Brooke. And you'll never be allowed in that pet store again." She laughs. "Or what about when we were seniors, and you convinced Bevin she could do a backflip in the middle of cheering at a Ravens game? Flat on her face, butt in the air, of course on the only night she's not wearing her cheer bloomers. The whole crowd saw. Everything."
"Peyton," Brooke replies incredulously, "that was hilarious."
Peyton pauses to consider, then giggles. "Oh yeah. It was totally fun. Completely worth it."
The two girls laugh in unison at their teenage antics, and Peyton is wondering why it's only been a two-minute phone call and already she feels better than she has in months.
"Okay, B. Davis," she says. "Hit me with it. Shoplifting? Pregnancy pact? Nudie run? Because I hate to say it, babe, but you've done, like, two out of the three already."
"As have you," Brooke shoots back slyly, and Peyton is forced to concede this is true.
"So," Brooke asks, "how many weeks of holiday leave do you get per year?"
"Four," Peyton answers slowly, suspiciously. "Why?"
"And how many weeks have you taken so far?" Brooke responds, bypassing Peyton's question bossily.
"Well. None, technically," Peyton says in an ashamed whisper.
Since New Year's Day, she has worked virtually nonstop. She loves to complain about how busy she is, but the sad truth is that she doesn't have anywhere to holiday to, and she certainly doesn't have anyone to go with. In L.A., all she has is work to keep her occupied.
"Thought so," mutters Brooke smugly.
"What's that supposed to mean?" Peyton shoots back.
"Oh, nothing. I just had this idea, that's all. There's some logistics I need to figure out, babe, but I'll call you soon with all the details, okay?"
"Wait, Brooke – what's going on? Details for what?"
"Just something I've been thinking about a lot, that's all," says Brooke soothingly. "It'll be fun, I promise. Oh, and Peyton – "
"Brooke," says Peyton, ever-skeptical of Brooke's version of 'fun'. "Tell me what you're up to. Right now."
"Just chill out a bit, okay? Loosen up. You're working way too hard. I can tell."
And Brooke Davis hangs up her phone with a slam and a giggle, knowing that in one short conversation she has managed to infuriate, embarrass and humble Peyton Sawyer from almost 3000 miles away.
Peyton, thoroughly annoyed at Brooke's elusive answers, spends the most part of the next week in some kind of hybrid state of resentful curiosity. She spends huge chunks of time in a daydream, awakening to discover she has mixed up coffee orders or printed triple the amount of posters she needs. She stamps around the office loudly, angrily. She flings her handbag down onto her desk and upends a desktop lamp by accident; she sets her coffee cup down a little too forcefully and burns her hand with a sprinkle of boiling water. The worst is when a stranger bumps smack into her and Peyton berates him rudely before she realises she has been swearing at the label president for the last two minutes.
She gets into trouble for her carelessness more this week than ever, and instead of accepting the blame quietly as she might have done before, she finds herself angrily snapping back, in too unpleasant a mood to continue acting agreeable to her colleagues.
Loosen up, she thinks indignantly. Working way too hard. Since when did Brooke have the right to judge what was best for her?
And though she doesn't acknowledge it, a little voice in her head answers her candidly back. Since forever, since you first became best friends, since she knew everything there was to know about you and vice versa.
Brooke phones a week after their first conversation, and Peyton almost lets it ring out, still irritated and slightly in awe of her friend's insolent honesty from the last time they spoke. After a furious internal battle, she reluctantly picks up.
"Finally decided I'm not too boring for you?"
"Jury's still out on that one," replies Brooke with a grin. "And you know what will convince me you're still the crazy P. Sawyer we all know and love?"
"Oh, so I'm finally going to hear your big idea after you've kept me in suspense for a week?" asks Peyton grudgingly.
"You'll totally forgive me when you hear what it is," Brooke replies. Then, after a pause, "Beach trip," she announces, as though expecting a drumroll.
"Okay, are you visiting L.A.? We can go to the beach, yeah. Malibu or something? Santa Barbara? I'm free weekends," Peyton responds without enthusiasm. While she's glad Brooke hasn't suggested something totally outlandish or – well – Brooke-like, she is perhaps secretly disappointed. After two uneventful years in L.A., she inwardly craves something out of the ordinary, something interesting to break the monotony of her featureless life.
Then Brooke drops the bombshell.
"No, not in L.A. Back in North Carolina. Emerald Isle. It's beautiful there in the summer. Remember when we went there for a field trip in junior year? I figured we could all use a break back home. I've booked everything. Flights, a big house on the ocean for a week. We leave in two weeks tomorrow. Exciting, right? Everyone's already said yes. Our whole high school group will be there. You're the last one I've told."
While Brooke continues to gabble, Peyton stands stunned. She doesn't know whether to laugh or yell. She removes the phone from her ear and stares at it, as though in disbelief. North Carolina? In two weeks? Impossible. She doesn't think she has ever before been quite as shocked at something Brooke has said, and that's quite a sizable achievement.
She lets her silence on the phone linger, while excuses run rapidly through her mind, with only one thought remaining constant: I cannot go. Peyton desperately tries to think of some reason to explain her absence, some way to let Brooke off lightly, until –
"Work!" Peyton exclaims almost too triumphantly, then immediately tries her best to act disappointed. "I can't go, Brooke, sorry. I have to work every day."
"Oh, but you already said you had four weeks of holidays," Brooke replies innocently. "You told me that on the phone last week, remember?"
Shit, thinks Peyton. She's good.
"Yeah, but it's work policy to give notice if we want to take holidays, Brooke. I can't just take off. I have forms to fill in, people that need to cover for me," Peyton says.
"And how much notice do you need to give?" Brooke asks, still in that light, innocent tone.
Peyton pauses and breathes out, chuckling despite herself at Brooke's sheer nerve. She's really good.
"Two weeks," she says, her heart sinking. "I have to give two weeks' notice."
"Well, go and give it, then," Brooke replies, victorious. "Do all the boring paperwork today, and then in two weeks, you'll be good to go!"
"Brooke," Peyton begins again, exasperated. "You booked a flight for me across the country, and probably some mansion on the beach in one of the most expensive towns in North Carolina, all without asking me. I just can't afford it right now. I'm sorry, but it's just not possible."
"Oh, there's no problem with that," Brooke replies smoothly. "Sorry, didn't I say? The trip's on me. 21st birthday present. You're welcome, by the way."
"I'm not 21," Peyton says through gritted teeth. "I'm-barely-even-20."
"Early 21st present, then," Brooke says, barely containing her glee. "Very early. Honestly, Peyton, it's like you don't want to come."
Is it really, thinks Peyton, almost grinding her teeth in her state of agitation, annoyed with Brooke for calling her unexpectedly after two years of near-silence and forcing this on her as though nothing had changed. Brooke's trick, though sneaky, had worked exactly the way she planned it, and Peyton, thoroughly duped, has no more excuses left to give.
"Brooke," she whispers, and suddenly her resolve shifts, and her voice breaks, and Brooke is no longer a stranger but her best friend once more, the person who she can spill her heart to, the person who best understands her.
"Brooke," she repeats, urgently this time, imploring her to comprehend. She breathes out heavily, finally defeated into telling the truth. "Come on. It's not that. Of course it's not. It's Lucas."
Perhaps because the name has been near-unspeakable in their recent conversations, Peyton says his name in a low hiss, with an unintentional degree of reverence. Brooke breathes down the line, whistling slightly, and Peyton knows she understands.
"How long's it been?" she asks.
"A year," Peyton whispers. "A whole year." And it seems to Peyton that the gulf between herself and the rest of the world widens then by a whole lifetime, and nothing else in the world can cure her except perhaps Lucas' arms wrapped tightly around her, or a cheeky quirk of Brooke's eyebrow, or Haley's motherly embrace.
Brooke murmurs her concern, and Peyton can feel her sympathy.
"Peyton, I know it's really none of my business anymore, but I've spoken to Luke already and he seems pretty miserable. I think he's really missing you. And he said… he said he was really excited for the beach, and to see everyone again. Especially you."
"He said that?" Peyton asks incredulously.
"Yeah, he did," Brooke says, and Peyton wonders fleetingly whether the slight pitch change in Brooke's voice then has some significance, or if her distrustful nature is just in overdrive.
"Brooke, if this is some kind of cutesy plan of yours to get the two of us back together in one week, I can tell you right now - "
"Of course that's not what this is," Brooke cuts in. Her voice is back to normal. "You know, Peyton, it might come as a shock to you, but not everything is about your love life." She sounds mildly amused, but also slightly pissed, and Peyton suddenly gets a piercing image of her, reclining at her desk twenty stories above Fifth Avenue, stiletto-clad feet propped up on her desk, shaking her head bemusedly.
"I just thought it would be fun to be our little group again, you know? Have our real friends around. Get away from everything. Just for a week."
Peyton closes her eyes without thinking and nods her head slightly. And as if in some kind of subtle concurrence, the L.A. sunshine seeps through her window at that very moment, and Peyton basks in the unexpected warmth and realises that summer has finally arrived once again.
Brooke's idea seems suddenly almost irresistibly tempting. To go back home. To be with people who have loved her for years unconditionally, without demands, without a price. To do nothing all day, but still feel fulfilled. To be crazy again. To act her age. To have fun.
And although she would never admit it, perhaps her chance, offhand mention of Lucas' name has given Peyton courage. Perhaps her recent sensation of being so enclosed, too tied down, has provoked this need to break free. Perhaps it's as simple as feeling the sun shining on her face. Whatever it is, everything else just fades away.
"You know what?" Peyton says, breathing quickly, her heart beating fervently. She feels like she is on the edge of a cliff, inches away from reckless abandonment, from freedom, from uncertainty.
"What?" Brooke replies, giggling. She knows what Peyton will say, has always been uncannily able to predict Peyton's reaction.
"Count me in," declares Peyton, and the two friends grin down the phone line, each exhilarated to do something unpredictable together again, each needing this trip, and each other, more than they would otherwise care to admit.
Brooke hangs up the phone five minutes later, having wrapped up the logistics of flight times ("7am at LAX, Saturday fortnight"), directions ("a driver will pick you up at the airport and he'll know where to go"), and what to bring ("vodka, tequila, and a bikini").
Brooke sits at her desk in her huge office, biting her lip. She angrily grabs a random pencil off her desk and chews on it furiously. Her heel taps the floor incessantly, making a loud echo on the tiled surface. Her feet ache, and, finally surrendering, she peels her stilettos off. I'm the boss, after all, she thinks mutinously. I can go barefoot at the office if I want to.
She exhales a deep breath. That phone call was a tricky one to pull off. Peyton has never been an easy person to persuade, and today was no different. But after their phone call a few months ago, in which Peyton sounded so tragically sad and pessimistic, Brooke knew she had to do something. Her best friend was hurting and lost. Los Angeles was choking all the life, and spirit, and hope, out of her, and the only thing that would help was a visit back home, back to normality. And, yes, back to Lucas. She was absolutely shocked when they broke up, and in these past twelve months had witnessed the two of them falling apart almost simultaneously. They needed each other, and it seemed like they were the only two people in the world who didn't realise that.
So Brooke was going to force them to realise through the most obvious way she knew: simple geography. It was easy to ignore their feelings when they were across the country from each other. But in the same house for a week, and back home in North Carolina where all their memories were made in the beginning…well, she thinks, things could get complicated.
Peyton, of course, would immediately refuse to come if she knew Brooke's true motives. Brooke feels guilty for lying to her. Deception had always been an unfortunate part of Peyton and Brooke's friendship, and Brooke regrets continuing that tradition. But she knows it is necessary. She'll forgive me on her wedding day, she thinks grimly.
Brooke looks desperately around the room for some kind of distraction, something to defer the phone call she now has to make, and finds nothing but her phone winking at her smugly, reflecting the New York summer sun now streaming in through her floor-to-ceiling windows. She picks it up, sighing, and for the second time today, dials a number which, apart from in the last week, she hasn't otherwise had reason to call in months.
The voice on the other end picks up the phone on the seventh ring, just before it clicks to voicemail, and Haley James Scott seems out of breath when she answers.
"Hello?"
"Hales. It's me. Brooke."
"Brooke! How are you?" Haley trills excitedly, then pauses. "Hang on – " she seems distracted – "I've got a two-year-old on my hip and a batch of cookies burning in the oven, can you hold on for a sec?"
"Absolutely," Brooke replies, happy to indulge in this kind of domestic scene so foreign to her own life.
"Nathan!" Haley calls in the background, and Brooke can hear the heavy steps of Nathan Scott coming closer. "Nathan, can you take Jamie, please? I've got Brooke on the phone."
"Hey, Brooke," Nathan directs cheerfully into the phone. "See you in two weeks." Brooke can hear him muttering something to Haley then cooing as he lifts Jamie out of Haley's arms.
"Brooke," Haley says happily. "So good to hear from you! What's up, girly?"
"I just wanted to let you know that Peyton's coming," Brooke says brightly, feigning cheerfulness, eager to bring this conversation quickly to its point.
"To what?" Haley says obliviously, and Brooke can hear her still in the kitchen, opening drawers, banging cupboards, setting an oven timer.
"To the beach," Brooke replies impatiently. "In a fortnight."
The noise in the kitchen stops. "She's coming?" Haley asks incredulously. "Really? I find that hard to believe."
"Really," Brooke said firmly. "Which means I've held up my end of the bargain."
"Meaning what? You want me to convince Lucas to come to the beach?"
"Well, yeah. That's what we agreed when I called you last week. I'll talk to Peyton, but it's your job to persuade Lucas."
Haley scoffs. Her chirpy demeanour of seconds before has all but disappeared.
"He's not going to like it," she warns. "He's going to put up a fight."
"Oh, and you think Peyton didn't?"
"Brooke – he's not going to want to come. It's as simple as that."
"Neither did she," Brooke soothes. "It's called being persuasive. If things get tough, just mention Peyton. Tell him she's really missing him. That's what I did, and Peyton melted like butter at the sound of his name. It was heartbreaking, really."
"Lucas doesn't want to see Peyton," replies Haley, outraged. "Brooke, she broke his heart. She rejected his proposal. Do you know how devastated he was after that day? He's miserable. He won't look me in the eye if I ask about her. Basically refuses to discuss it. He barely talks at all, in fact. So I hardly think he's going to jump up and down at the prospect of a big happy holiday with his ex-girlfriend and the rest of his friends who all knew him predominantly when he was in love with her."
"Well, what did you think was going to happen when you agreed to get Lucas on board?"
"I thought Peyton would say no outright, and we'd all go without her," Haley says flatly. "Honestly, Brooke, I love Peyton, and I can't wait to see her, but wouldn't that have been easier, really?"
"I don't care if it's easier," Brooke says emphatically. "You know as well as I do that they're both meant to be together. They're both hurting, Hales. It's obvious they both don't know what to do without each other. Peyton's the same. Working all the time, totally antisocial, lives this depressing lonely existence. Soon she's going to slip away from us completely, and we'll have ourselves to blame. They need this, and you know it as well as I do."
Haley sighs. "Girls' trip?" she offers, as a last, hopeless attempt, and even she can hear the desperation in her voice. "I can leave Jamie at home with Nathan, just us three at the beach? Leave Lucas and the rest of the guys out of it?"
"No," says Brooke, adamant, and from the tone of her voice Haley knows any further disagreement is futile.
"Well, I'll do my best," Haley concedes, thinking privately that she would be very lucky to even get Lucas to consider the idea. "I'll give Luke a call in a few minutes and I'll let you know soon."
"You better do more than that, Haley. You better make him come. Change his schedule, lie, make something up, I don't care. Just get him to that beach, okay? It's important."
"Okay, okay. I'll do whatever I can, alright?" Haley replies, slightly startled at her friend's dedication.
"Oh, and one more thing," Brooke begins. "I kinda told Peyton that Lucas was definitely coming, so you better think of something good to convince him, okay? Because I think Peyton's going to be even more crushed if he doesn't turn up after I promised he would."
"And why the hell would you - " Haley begins, scandalised, but Brooke cuts her off.
"Gotta go, Hales. Can't stay and talk all day! Just do it, okay? Now. Byeee!"
And, characteristically, Brooke Davis slams down her phone, leaving Haley in a sour, cheated mood, with a pounding headache and an incredibly difficult job ahead of her.
Haley steels herself. Although she doesn't anticipate her forthcoming task and the inevitable argument that will follow, she knows the importance of having Lucas at the beach. It would be truly great to find a way to pull him out of this depressing low he has been in, and Haley is fresh out of ideas. But she knows, as Brooke emphasised, that there is a difference between the easy way and the right way to achieve something.
Sighing, she opens her phone and dials Lucas' familiar number. In the year since she, Jamie and Nathan have moved to Maryland, she calls Lucas once or twice a week, and as far as she can tell, his social life consists of lying brooding on his bed with his iPod every night or spending long nights holed in the office with his editor poring over his book manuscript one more time.
"Lucas," Haley coos sweetly, as soon as he picks up the phone. Hating herself, she plasters a fake smile on her face, and can hear how unconvincing she sounds down the phone line. "Hey, Luke. You know how much Jamie misses his uncle, don't you?"
So I know this chapter was mostly set-up and a flashback, but next chapter will be Peyton and Lucas at the beach, so stick around! Thanks for reading, and please review!