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Every Day

The bright red numbers on his alarm clock blinked at him, over and over. The four switched to a five and Lucas sighed and rolled over.

"Lucas?" His wife murmured beside him, "It's 3:45 in the morning. What are you doing up?"

"Shhh. I had a bad dream. Go back to sleep," he whispered. But she was already asleep again, a wisp of golden hair brushing her cheek as she breathed softly. He brushed it back from her face and laid a gentle kiss on her temple before climbing out of bed and pulling on his shoes.

There was already someone at the rivercourt when he reached it. He was a few feet away before he saw that it was Brooke, huddled on the bleachers in the darkness.

"Brooke?" Lucas inquired quietly. "What are you doing here?"

"I couldn't sleep," she replied softly, looking up at him.

"Yeah. Me neither." Lucas took a seat beside her and she shifted over to make room for him.

They sat in silence for a few moments before Brooke broke it. "Do you believe in fate, Luke?" Her voice was soft and vulnerable and slightly husky, as though she had been crying. After all that had happened between them, he was surprised that she still trusted him enough to open up to him. But perhaps it was because of all they had been through together that had made them that way with each other.

"I believe there's always a reason behind things," he spoke softly and slowly. "Sometimes, late at night, when I can't sleep, like tonight, I come out here and lay on the blacktop and watch the stars. It's like all the answers are up there, waiting for us to come and grab them, only we can't." He looked at her and he saw she was crying now, silent tears running down her cheeks.

"They say the great kings of the past are up there, watching over us," Brooke smiled sadly through her tears.

"You got that from the Lion King," grinned Lucas, putting his arm around her shoulders and pulling her to him, comfortingly. "I remember the first time we watched that together."

"Yeah. At your house the night of our first date, after Peyton left." Ah, there it was. The name that meant so much to both of them and that both had avoided mentioning. Brooke looked at him. "She wouldn't like to know that you're here, with me. It's not fair to her."

For the second, or twentieth, time that night, Lucas sighed. "I love her. I really do. But sometimes it's just too much, you know? Like it was a long time coming, but then it happened too fast."

"Yeah, I know." Brooke was silent for a moment. "Do you ever wonder, Luke, what might have happened if we had chosen different paths?"

Lucas looked at her, serious and with an unidentifiable pain in his eyes. To Brooke, it looked almost like regret. He lifted his hand from his lap to cup her face and wiped a lingering tear from her cheek with his thumb. "Every day," he whispered.

***********************

Lucas smiled as he watched his wife sleep. His wife, he thought. It was hard to believe. Just several hours earlier, he had been on a plane flying over the country, his thoughts a tumble. He had been ecstatic, of course, because the Cobras had just won the championship. He had been sad, just a little bit, that Keith was not there to see the game – that he would never be there again. He had been excited, as he fingered the engagement ring hidden deep in his pocket. He had been anxious, just in case she didn't love him as much as he loved her. But he had known, above everything, that this was the right choice. And it was the only choice, too, when you were Lucas and Peyton and you were destined to be together forever and you had true love always.

And so he smiled, and ran his long, tanned fingers through Peyton's golden locks as she dreamt of a life happier than her own past. Lucas knew, even then, that it wouldn't be easy. He knew that they were young, that they both had pasts and they both had dreams. But that didn't matter now, not as much. Because he was Lucas Scott and the woman sleeping beside him was Peyton Scott and the only emotions he felt right now were joy and contentment.

***********************

"Do you think," wondered Brooke, breaking Lucas out of his thoughts, "do you think that somewhere it did happen differently?" He looked at her, confused. "Like when you proposed to Peyton. That here, and now, she said yes, but somewhere else, in a different time, she said no?"

"Do you mean a different universe, Brooke? Is that what you're thinking?" Lucas asked carefully, utterly confused but trying to understand what she was attempting to tell him.

"No." stated Brooke. "Well yes, maybe. I don't know. It's just, how do we know that this is the life we were supposed to live, Luke? What if it went wrong somehow, and this isn't who we were supposed to be at all?"

"Do you believe that, Brooke?" Lucas asked quietly.

"I don't know. Maybe." She replied just as quietly.

"I think…" Lucas paused. "I think that we are allowed to become whoever we want to be. So the real question is, Are you happy with who you are, with your life and the people in it. I think that as long as we can remember that, we can find the answers we need."

Brooke nodded and leaned closer into Lucas' comforting side. He squeezed her shoulder and rubbed his cheek against her soft, brown hair. "I'm not happy, Luke," she whispered into the gentle breeze, and if Lucas hadn't been listening so closely to her he might not have heard it.

Lucas nodded sadly, hugged her tighter. "I know."

***********************

When Lucas woke the next morning the sheets beside him were cold. Getting up, he wandered into the kitchen to find Peyton making French toast. She was humming softly to herself as she dipped a slice of bread in egg yolks and dropped it into the frying pan. He watched her for a moment, stunned that the person in front of him had agreed to be married to him, forever. Or at least, until death did them part. But that was a long, long time away. Lucas came up behind her, wrapped his lanky arms around her waist and kissed her on the back of her neck. She spun in his arms, kissed him long and hard, the perfect start to a perfect morning after a long, sleepless night.

But then Lucas smelled the smoke coming from the frying pan and the baby started crying in her crib and the moment was ruined, as was the French toast. Lucas rushed off to get the baby, to comfort his crying daughter.

"Hey, hey, Daddy's here," soothed Lucas as he picked up the whimpering baby, felt her little body relax into his and her sobs subside as she recognized the man who loved her more than anything. "Shhh, it's okay now." He patted her gently on the back and carried her into the kitchen.

Peyton was crying. "I just wanted it to be perfect, Luke. I just wanted us to have a peaceful, family breakfast together. Why does it always have to be so hard?" And now Luke found himself comforting the other love of his life, rubbing his free hand in steady circles on her back as he held their baby tightly with the other.