Saturday, March 22, 2008 3:45 am
Please read & review. Enjoy!
Disclaimer: I do not own One Tree Hill or its characters.
HIS EVERYTHING
Looking back, she had always been his first.
He had a crush on Peyton Sawyer, but Brooke Davis had been his first real date. They went to the bar and played pool and he'd woken up with a throbbing headache and a tattooed bicep.
He had fallen for Peyton, but his first time had been with Brooke. He remembered when Deb caught them buying condoms and whipped cream. That was a memory he wouldn't forget.
The only two embarrassing speeches he'd ever made to declare his love had both been for Brooke. The second time it had been pouring rain and he'd had a bad cold for several days afterwards. But it hadn't stopped him from making sure that Brooke understood how much he cared for her.
The first time he'd said, "I love you," those three little words that meant so much, he'd said them to Brooke. And he had meant them.
The first time he'd thought he was having a baby, it was Brooke's. He would have married her, too, could have told her their entire lives if she had asked. He knew the names of their children, two boys and a girl. They would live in a beautiful white house with blue shutters. There would be a grassy lawn to play on and a rope swing hanging from the old oak tree out
front. He would have told her all that and more. But she never asked. It turned out that they weren't pregnant, after all.
The first time someone told him that his book was going to be published, Brooke was the first to know. It was supposed to be Peyton, but she didn't pick up. So Brooke was the one that he spent the evening with, celebrating his achievement of what he'd wanted all his life. It had been his dream to become a writer, and it was Brooke who was there when his dream came true.
The first time he'd gotten down on one knee and placed an engagement ring on a girl's finger, it had been Brooke's. That time, too, he'd meant for it to be Peyton's finger. But she hadn't even looked at the ring. So when he showed it to Brooke and she playfully put it on, that had been Lucas' first engagement, albeit it was a fake one.
They had spent the evening in New York City pretending to be engaged, slowly coming to realize how fascinated people were with a newly engaged couple. Lucas decided it was because everyone was searching for love, and when those people saw a couple who had found it, had obtained what they'd been searching for their entire lives, those two people became idols, representatives of something much bigger and much better.
The carriage driver had asked Lucas and Brooke about their future.
"We're going to be a power couple," Brooke had replied happily. "He's going to be a famous novelist and I'm going to have a fabulous fashion line."
"But we're still going to have time to have a big family," Lucas had broken in.
"Two boys and a girl," Brooke had added. Lucas had smiled, remembering his vision when he had first thought Brooke was pregnant.
"And I'll coach little league," he had embellished, getting into the idea of this imaginary family with Brooke.
"Ooh, and I'll bake treats for the team," Brooke had squealed. "Or buy them," she had conceded when Lucas had frowned, recalling painfully her past baking attempts.
"And we'll spend our summer in our beach house," Lucas had decided. He had always been jealous of Nathan's and only wanted his children to have the best of everything.
"And summers in the South of France!" Brooke had put in.
"And it won't matter where we are, as long as we're together," Lucas had concluded.
"That's the key," the carriage driver had intoned. "Success is wonderful but finding someone to love, having them love you back…Love is what it's all about."
Lucas had quieted then and Brooke had touched his arm gently, had known he was remembering his rejection by Peyton and had wanted to soothe him.
He had kissed Brooke that night, in the hotel room, and even though it had been because he was drunk and hurt and missing Peyton, he still didn't regret it. She had told him something that night and to this day he remembered her exact words.
"Do you remember when I started Clothes over Bros? It was right after we broke up," she had said. "And I was trying to mend my broken heart by focusing on my work. And you need to do the same right now. You need to go out there and become the best person, the best writer, that you can be. And then you approach Peyton and if she comes back to you, you know it's meant to be."
In high school, he had chosen Peyton. So Brooke had focused on her work and achieved what she set out to do. She had started a fashion line and become a hot name brand that everybody talked about. And now she had come back to him, to see if she was finally good enough. She hadn't admitted such, because Brooke Davis would never put herself out there like that. But he knew the truth now. And he wondered if, finally, they were meant to be.
He knew, now, why Brooke had been so many of his firsts. It was because she had always been there, whenever he needed her. She had taught him to let loose and have some fun, to speak his feelings and to fight for what he wanted most. She had helped him to dream and she had been there when one dream came crashing down on him and when another was realized. And now he understood something else. It had been her all along.
Brooke had come to him shortly before his wedding to Lindsay.
"I want to have a baby, Luke," she had whispered. Her feet were tucked beneath her as they sat on a couch in her shop, formerly Karen's Café. "Something's been missing from my life and I could never figure out what it was. Then I remembered our conversation that night in New York City. Do you remember?"
"Of course I remember," Lucas whispered. "It was the night I found out my book was getting published."
"Yeah. We talked about having a family, Luke, having children."
"Two boys and a girl," murmured Luke softly.
Brooke nodded, smiling. Her eyes were filled with tears. "Now I know what I've been missing. It was a family. A child of my own."
"Brooke, why are you telling me this?" Lucas asked gently, needing her to either confirm or deny what he was coming to believe.
"Because…I still love you, Lucas." Tears were running down her face now. "If nothing else, I'll adopt. There are so many children out there that need good homes, and I can provide one. But if there's still a chance that you love me, maybe we could be happy together. Nobody ever asked me why I came back. Everyone assumed it was to help Peyton and to expand my line. But it was because of you, Luke. It's a lot to process, I know. But now you know why I came home."
"Brooke, are you sure? I mean…are you sure?" He watched her closely, reached out to wipe away her tears, gently, with his thumbs.
"I'm sure. My heart is sure. This is what I want."
"Brooke, did I ever tell you that I imagined our future together?" Lucas spoke slowly.
"You mean in New York." Her statement was definitive but she frowned, confused.
"No. I mean back in high school. When we thought you were pregnant. I imagined our life together."
"What was it like?" Brooke smiled through her tears.
Lucas thought for a moment and his eyes were looking somewhere far away. "We have three kids and we live in a big white house with a white picket fence around the yard. There's a small, curly-haired, shaggy dog that is running around the yard barking at squirrels. It's fall, and I'm raking the lawn and our kids are helping me. But now you've come out and pushed me into
the pile of leaves and now we're all jumping in the piles of leaves and scattering them all over again."
"What do our children look like?" She was curious, almost wistful.
"Well, our oldest son has dark hair like you and a few freckles across his face."
"Does he do the squinty look, like you?"
"Yes, he does the squinty look. And he loves to read novels. In the summer, he spends the entire day lying on the porch swing reading Steinbeck and Fitzgerald and Hawthorne and Camus. Our second son has sandy blond hair like me, and the tufts in the back never lay flat. He has your hazel eyes that look right through you and he's always laughing."
"But you said we have three children."
"Yes, we do. The youngest is a little girl. She's a daddy girl but she looks just like her mother, except for her eyes. Those are sapphire blue, like mine. She has long, chestnut curls and when she smiles you can see her dimples. She's beautiful."
"It sounds like a dream come true," whispered Brooke.
Lucas smiled, pulled out of his daydream to look deep into her eyes. "It is."
A few days later, Lucas stood at the altar looking into another woman's eyes. "It's a mystery how we fall in love," stated the priest, "…who we fall in love with, why we fall in love. But we do." Lucas couldn't understand why, when he said 'I do,' an image of his and Brooke's children flashed through his mind. And he couldn't understand why, when Lindsay handed back her ring a moment later and ran out of the church, what he mostly felt was relief.
"If you really love her man, then go get her," ordered Nathan as they sat in an empty church. Lucas nodded. He knew it should be Lindsay that he was thinking of. After all, she was the one he supposedly loved. Most might have assumed it was Peyton he was picturing. But their story, although it had been wonderful, was over. He had written a book that was essentially a love letter to her. But he had written an ending to it and he had moved on. So when Nathan spoke that day, it wasn't the image of either of those past loves that stuck in his mind. "People who are meant to be together always find their way in the end," Brooke had told him the last time they broke up. And now, he finally understood.
"Brooke!" Lucas pulled to a screeching halt at the curbside outside of her store and raced inside. Lindsay was gone, Jamie was found, Peyton would be okay and Dan hadn't done any harm – yet. But it was Brooke on Lucas' mind right now. "Brooke!" he called again, running through the store.
"She isn't here," said Millicent, stepping out from the back room.
Lucas grasped the counter, gasping for breath. "Well, where is she?"
"You said 'I do,'" accused Millicent. "She worked for four years and all she really wanted to do was impress you, Luke. She just wanted to be good enough for you. But you didn't fight for her."
I didn't know she wanted me to," said Lucas, softly, sadly. "And then she came to me the other night, and said she wanted a baby, asked me if I would have a family with her, and I just got scared. But I understand now. It was always her. She was the one who was always there when I needed her to be and the one by my side not just when my dreams came true, but when they didn't. And isn't that what love is all about?"
"Do you mean it?" came a quiet, slightly raspy voice from behind Lucas. He turned to see Brooke standing there, a tear gently sliding down her cheek. "Do you really love me, Luke?"
"I always have," he replied, sweeping her into his arms and burying his face in her hair, breathing in her sweet scent. She had been his first everything and now he finally understood – she was simply, perfectly, absolutely, his everything. She was his first true love and she would be his last.