Author- Emily-Grace Mendes (Brookebynature)
Disclaimer- I own this story, and the computer it was written on. I don't own any of the characters or One Tree Hill unfortunately.
A/N- I've wanted to do this one shot for a while and it hasn't really turned out how I imagined. Nevermind, I kinda like this version so I thought I'd post it for you guys. Hope you enjoy! xxx
Lost Souls
Tree Hill, North Carolina.
She's seen the headlines on every channel and read the same thing in every damn newspaper that's displayed on the shelves of the local stores. Including the supermarket.
Her eyes are now scanning the latest round of news for any update, even though the information she wants is only a phone call away. Brooke Penelope Davis is too stubborn to do that though. Always was when it came to Lucas Scott.
There's nothing new: he's still in the hospital awaiting test results and his spokesperson hasn't yet released a statement. It might be weird, but she's a little glad of that.
"Brooke there's something I have to tell you." It's Haley on the other end of that phone, sniffling as she holds out for some kind of a response from the girl she calls her best friend (now).
"I already know. I saw it on the news."
"I'm sorry, I should have called earlier." Are the only words Haley can string together before Brooke hears her nephew calling Mama, and Nathan shushing him in the same soft tone he always uses around his son. She casts a small smile, even if it is to no one, as she waits for Haley to regain composure. It takes a while though, but she's able to give Brooke some slight details about Lucas' condition (a small heart attack) as some kind of compensation.
"Does Peyton know?"
Brooke doesn't want to have to ask that question, but knowing Haley, she wouldn't have divulged any information about the girl at the centre of her mind right now. She still has a right to know.
"I was going to call her after you."
"I'm sure she'll be busy." Brooke snorts, giving in to that icy feeling that seems to take over every time her former best friend is in question. She hates that it has to be this way, but none of it was ever her fault, and the punishment for a three-year love triangle has been too severe.
"Too busy to see Lucas?" Haley knows it's a long shot, but this silence has gone on too long.
"Who knows?"
She has to admit (secretly) that Haley's right. Peyton would never be too busy to see Lucas, not now, not ever. Even if the relationship between the two of them hadn't worked, it had always been there. Brooke guessed it probably always would.
"Brooke."
"No." The brunette shakes her head at the girl on the other end of the phone. She can't see, but it doesn't matter. "Don't use that 'don't-talk-about-her-like-that' tone on me."
"Do you think you could just see him?" Haley asks, deciding to void all talk about her least favourite love story- the same one that never made its mind up, never ended, never wanted to, not really.
"I don't know." Brooke admits. It's the truth, she really doesn't know if she can make those tentative steps to his hospital room, because she remembers how events panned out the last time she did that.
"It would mean a lot to Lucas."
"I haven't seen him in a long time Haley."
"And what if this is your last chance?" She's sorry for it being harsh and cold and insensitive. But Haley knows the only way to get Brooke Penelope Davis to do anything she doesn't want to it to exploit her guilt.
It's silence on the other end of the phone while Brooke watches the same information play round and round on the news update.
"Brooke?"
"Maybe." She mumbles after her eyes seep with deceiving tears and a blackened waterfall begins to cascade quietly down her face.
----
Her feet almost won't move. Her heels are clacking along the white corridor, and it's now that Brooke realises how inappropriate her outfit is. Red shirt, jeans and matching boots. Red is the colour of blood, of love. And then she thinks of another connotation: anger.
And an ironic laugh escapes her lips without her realising.
She's at his door, permission from Karen and the nurses to go up to his room. The two girls caught up briefly, a hug for the girl she'd always loved, and tears for the woman who doesn't deserve any of this, not now, not ever.
And she's about to turn away, because every flashback from that time in senior year hits her like a slap in the face. But then he catches her eye.
She has to enter, it would be rude not to, and those blue eyes draw him to her just as they always had (probably always would).
"Hey." She offers a tiny wave and a tight smile as he simply watches her sit down in the chair beside his bed. "You need to be more careful Luke."
The abbreviation of his name comes naturally to her, and she wants to cry and scream and run out of there because even after all of these years apart, he does something to her that nobody else can. She hates it, and she wants him to hate it too.
"You didn't have to come." He tells her, voice hoarse and limbs tired as he watches Brooke play with the hem of her shirt. "I mean, I appreciate that you have."
She lets her hands drop to her sides in frustration and Lucas summons enough energy to keep talking.
"But you didn't have to."
"I know." She replies softly, part of her (most of her in fact) wishing that she hadn't. "But Haley can make you feel pretty guilty if you don't do something."
Lucas laughs a little, and Brooke's grateful for something other than his heart monitor to fill the silenced room, if only for a little while.
"Yeah, she visited yesterday. Made me feel guilty for actually being here."
Brooke grants him a small smile, inching her chair slightly closer while looking around, recalling, and at the same time, trying to forget every little detail she remembers about these rooms.
"You're beginning to make it a habit." Brooke tells him. "You being here. This is the second time I've visited now."
"Third." Lucas corrects her. "You came when I was here during senior year."
She hangs her head, embarrassment and anger clouding her, because even now, even after they haven't seen each other in too long, he can see past every one of her lies, and the deception she's tried to surround him with.
----
It's silent again (has been for the past half hour) as they both sit there, each having everything in their minds that they want to say, and each not allowing the words to flow from lonely lips.
Brooke breaks it though, she's been watching the clock and she has to now.
"We're both to blame right?" She asks, lip trembling. "I mean, it wasn't just me that wanted to go."
Her brown eyes start to cloud with tears and all Lucas can do is watch her. "Right?"
It's silent. Deadly silent, and he thinks that if she stays another minute he might break. Literally. Again.
So he's partially grateful that she exits the room in a flurry of tears and mumbled "It doesn't matter's."
He wants to call her back though-his head is contradicting his heart, (once again) daring it to break her again. He can't though, not now. It's been too long without Brooke Davis and Lucas Scott being anything. Maybe he can't arouse the relationship that was flawed from the start because it just doesn't want to be there.
Peyton's the next person that comes to see him-she's crying (not the same tears Brooke cried) with a heartfelt smile for the man she's missed, but could never really have anyway. When they were together he wasn't with her emotionally. They were there physically, and even if that wasn't what Peyton truly wanted, it was enough. Then.
But they both knew it couldn't work, not ever really because though she had part of his heart, (and probably always would) Brooke had the rest. Her share was bigger, they had realised. It had only been acknowledged silently of course though, because Brooke was long gone, and whatever they were doing had already caused too much damage.
"You want me to go after her?" Peyton asks. She knows what he's thinking, always did. He might have had those same feelings for her once, but Brooke Penelope Davis would always be there for him. He's a famous writer, writing about broken souls, lost souls, confused souls. And now he's one of them, trapped, not only in a bed, but in memories that need reawakening. Brooke can do that. Peyton can't.
Lucas shakes his head, offering a grateful smile, because he knows she'll return soon. She doesn't want to and she'll be putting it off. But she will. Because that's simply Brooke. And he still knows that.
"You scared us all." Peyton tells him sadly. She's known there was no real place for her in his life, but seeing that pan out doesn't make it hurt any less.
"I know." He smiles a little, but then everything falters as he sees Brooke fleeing the corridor. It's a replay of senior year, and it only takes Peyton a second to realise what she has to do.
A friendship that will never be mended, not really, can't matter now, because she can only do this for him. For Lucas.
----
"You need to go see him." She tells Brooke stubbornly. The best friend she knew so well back then looks broken, and even if she wants to go in there right now, she won't without persuasion. That's just Brooke.
"He wants to see you. He needs to see you Brooke."
Hazel eyes meet blue for the first time during the damage, and even if it's only the smallest, tightest of smiles she can offer, Brooke does so, and the curly-haired recipient gives a grateful nod.
"It was always you, you know." She calls. "Every time. It was always you."
He wonders whether she's better when he's not around. He guesses so, she always seemed happy at school, looking through him to Rachel or Chase or anyone that came close. But then he wonders whether it's worse. Whether she aches for anything she could call love, because he always gave her that. Just not enough.
"Every time it seems the same." She murmurs, taking back her seat beside his bed. "Every time I see you, she's there. And every time that pain gets worse."
"We were both to blame." Lucas blurts.
"What?"
"You asked me earlier whether we were both to blame." He repeats. "We are. You pushed me away and I let you. And I never let you back in."
They've been here before, too many times. They've said the same things, felt the same feelings, and maybe they finally need to make things work. Or they need closure.
"Was it always like this between us?" Brooke asks numbly. "Did we always sit here, uncomfortable, not knowing what to say, not wanting to say the things we need to?"
"I did." Lucas tells her. "I should have told you so many things back then that would have made a difference."
"You think?" She asks, shaking her head. "Perhaps we just got lost somewhere along the way."
"I should have told you that I needed to be with Peyton because if not, then those doubts about us would always be there."
She frowns, the realisation that they're having two different conversations hitting her.
"I should have then told you that I didn't feel the same things, and that being with you was real, and it felt right."
"We were never really 'us' even back then. It was you, me and Peyton, and it never really worked. Never will." Brooke tells him. She wonders whether it had to take this for her to realise that.
"But it's not like that now."
Brooke snorts and Lucas tightens his grip on the cotton sheets. "There isn't an 'us' either."
"There could be."
"Yeah." She agrees aloud. "But that was always the thing. There was always the possibility of just 'us' and never once did that happen."
"We tried Brooke."
"Maybe we didn't try hard enough."
"We could…"
"Or maybe it's just impossible." She cuts in, all her thinking spilling out because it's needed to happen for too long now.
She brings herself off the chair, and for a moment, he thinks she's leaving. But then she climbs up to his level, drawing her feet to her chest as she rocks backward and forward slowly on his bed.
Maybe having two conversations isn't so bad. It's what makes them different. Or maybe they're not supposed to be different. Perhaps they have to be the same to make it work.
She doesn't know. Neither does he.
Perhaps the reality of it all, is that they're simply two lost souls. And they need each other to find their way. Again.
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