I've been trying to write a Brooke and Lucas story for the longest time now. I think I kept stopping because I was so disheartened by the show. I have no faith in Mark Schwann as he
obviously ruined what was once a great show, but I do have faith in this couple. So here is my vision of Brooke and Lucas which takes off from 6x01.
I do not own One Tree Hill, Brooke and Lucas, or the quote I used from Dawson's Creek.
Show Me What I'm Looking For
Lucas is sitting in the hospital waiting room. His hands are through his hair and nerves course through his body.
He's been waiting for this day his entire life, but not under the circumstances.
He looks up and sees Peyton approaching him and he wonders how he got here.
His leg is shaking, something he tends to do with stress.
"Luke!" He turns around and sees her approaching with a bag in hand. She's coming.
He stands up and jogs to her.
"Are you sure you want to do this? Running away won't help." He knew she would think he was running away, but the truth was he needed this.
"I'm not running away. Believe me."
"So what Peyton wrote on the river court has nothing to do with this?" She lifts her eyebrow in a questioning way. Something he only finds as sexy.
It was always going to come back to Peyton with Brooke Davis.
"No. It hasn't been about Peyton in a long time."
She looks him in the eye for a minute and he knows she's trying to read him.
"Okay! Let's go to Vegas, broody."
They had made it back to their hotel room after dinner.
She lied some of her shopping bags down and stood at the window admiring the view.
This is what he was afraid of. In front of him was the girl he fell in love with a long time ago. The girl who took his heart and never actually returned it. All these feelings though had been buried over time.
He was entranced by her beauty, but even more so by the question of why he ever stopped fighting.
Why did he ever settle?
She turned around and caught him in his trance.
"What are you doing?" She laughed.
He pulled himself out of his reverie.
Maybe this was it. Maybe this was his now or never. After all, what happened in Vegas stayed in Vegas. Right?
"Do you remember that night at my house with Angie?"
She nodded her head in a confused way.
"You asked me if I could go back would I change anything."
"You wouldn't take anything for granted." She finished for him.
"Brooke, I would've fought harder."
"For what?"
"Us." Four years of repressed feelings were now in the open.
He saw the change in her demeanor as she looked away. She seemed to tense up. It was exactly as he had expected her to react.
"Don't." She looks up at him and sadness is overwhelming her eyes.
"That night at the state championship game, I should have told you what was really going through my mind."
"Luke, I know what was going through your mind. Your dreams came true and you looked to Peyton. I had my answer!"
"No, Brooke I went to Peyton because you pushed me. I know it's a lame excuse, but I was tired of losing. I was tired of fighting only to be turned down. You pushed me and I accepted because I knew Peyton loved me. I wouldn't lose if I went to her."
She's silent. "What about the book?"
He knows exactly what she's about to say.
"Simple clarity. The realization that we had been meant for each other and every instinct to the contrary had simply been denial of the following truth. I was now and would always be in love with Peyton Sawyer."
They're both silent.
"So was I just denial?" She asked through eyes of tears.
"Thing just got lost in translation." He whispered.
"What does that mean?"
"It means I wrote a book about my life. The editor's didn't just want the truth. They wanted a seller. An epic love story was what they called it. My voice got lost when they asked me to revise some of the book."
She tilts her head and bites her lip to avoid crying.
"Brooke, I don't want to make excuses. I screwed up and I've had four years to think about it. I can't change what I've done but I have control over what I will do."
"Please don't say it. It'll make things complicated."
"Hasn't it always been though?"
"It doesn't need to be. This isn't high school anymore. You can't just feel what you want to feel when it's convenient for you."
"Feel what I want to feel? I wish it was that simple!" He's yelling now, but he doesn't care.
"If it was, I would be with Peyton. But I can't choose who I love. It might not make sense but I'm in love with you."
He steps closer to her.
"Maybe Peyton's my soul mate, but no matter how hard I ever tried I never felt about her the way I felt about you."
"Why did you say that?"
"Because I don't want to be like my father. He settled for Deb even though he loved my mom."
"I finally told myself I moved on from you. From this!"
"It'll always be there. Brooke, if you love me like I love you, you can't walk away because it's easier. I know from experience."
"I'm not Peyton. I won't do to her what she did to me."
"You're not Peyton. But stop being a damn martyr."
"I'm sorry, I can't." She turned to the door as tears spilled down her face.
And in a moment that felt like déjà vu, he grabbed her arm and kissed her.
She pulled away for a minute, but soon gave in.
Four years of absence, slowly faded and they kissed with a desperate fervor.
Knees hit the bed, and they removed items of clothing.
What neither of them knew was that this night would change their lives forever in more ways than they thought possible.
As Peyton approached him, he grew worried. He wasn't sure he had another fight left in him.
He's sorry for what happened between them. But even more so, he was sorry about the broken fantasies of what they could have been. He was sorry he gave her hope, when in his heart he was in love with her best friend.
It had been two weeks since he arrived back to Tree Hill. Two weeks since Brooke last talked to him.
After their night in Vegas, he woke up to a note saying she was taking the next flight back to Tree Hill. Brooke had written that it didn't matter how much she loved him or how much he wanted her. In the end, it would cause too much pain and she's not strong enough to deal with it. She had said that it might not seem like it now but she was doing him a favor. She had fallen for his words before and it had always come down to Peyton.
It had been the hardest letter he ever had to read. He flew home to Tree Hill immediately.
He hadn't left his house. He hadn't spoken to anyone but Nathan and Haley who had been wondering what the hell had happened on his brief hiatus.
He heard a knock at the door one night.
He opened it and was surprised with who he found on the other side.
"Can I come in?" Her raspy voice sounded tired.
"Yea, please."
She wrapped her arms around herself in a protective, vulnerable manner. Brooke looked so fragile and terrified.
"I tried to call you like a million times. Brooke, I-"
She cuts him off.
"Luke, I'm pregnant."
His heart stopped. But not in the same way it had in junior year. This time, it was replaced by a thrill.
He smiled.
"It's gonna be okay, Brooke." He pulled her into a hug.
After a minute, she pulled away.
"How can this be okay? My best friend has been crying over you for the past two weeks and I was trying to comfort her all the while knowing that I loved you too and that I was pregnant with your child. It's far from okay."
"I know it's not easy. But if you love me too then we can get through it together. All of us. "
He brings a hand to her stomach.
She shakes her head sadly and she lets out a tearful moan.
"I don't know how I'll ever tell Peyton."
"You don't have to." A tearful voice comes from behind them and in that moment their faces go pale.
She sits down in the chair next to him.
They say nothing at first. Lucas feels like in those few seconds of silence they communicate everything they've held back for months.
"I don't know why I was surprised." She admitted honestly.
"About what?"
"You and Brooke. I listened to you back in senior year after the two of you broke up. You were broken and lost."
"Peyt-"
"All this time, I selfishly held on to us because I was in love with the idea of what we could have been."
She looked down as she took a deep breath.
"We're both guilty Peyton."
She gives him a broken smile, and he puts his hand on hers.
"For the first time in a long time my life is real. It doesn't matter who ends up with who. In some earthly way, it's always going to be you and me. Peyton, what we have goes beyond friendship, lovers. It's forever."
"I love you Lucas."
"Ah I love you too Peyton."
"Go make things right, okay?"
She kisses him on the cheek and wipes away a stray tear.
Before he knows it, she's gone.
__
Go make things right. It was ringing in his head.
He's on the opposite side of his future. When he opens the door, he's staring his future in the face.
Nathan and Haley are already inside talking to her.
She's lying in the hospital bed. She has no makeup on and a simple ponytail. But she has this glow and Lucas wonders if he's ever seen her look more beautiful.
They all realize he's in the room now and he sees Nathan smile.
There's something comforting in his smile. There's a proud undertone in it like maybe he'll finally make this right.
"We're gonna go pick Jamie up."
Suddenly it's just the two of them in the room.
"Hey." She says nervously.
"I've been sitting outside for the past hour."
"Why?"
"Having a family with you is the only future I know. All I could think about was how when they release you from the hospital, we don't get to go home as a family."
Pain is evident in his voice by now.
"Luke, I just don't want to live together because we have a baby."
She sees the frustration in his face. She knows that's a lie. They both love each other and at this point she's just hiding from giving her heart to the man who has hurt her so many times in the past.
"Do you want to know the real reason why, Luke?"
His eyes meet hers.
"I know that if I give my heart to you again the way I did, then I'm yours forever. I would give myself to you fully this time and that scares the hell out of me because on some level my insecurity of the past always haunts me. I can't afford to get hurt again especially now that I'm not only looking out for myself. What scares me the most is I spent four years building these walls and in one night you broke them down. You scare me Luke."
He smiles at her.
"Most of the time the greatest rewards come from doing the things that scare you the most."
Now it's her turn to smile.
"So wouldn't you rather be in love and feel then spend the rest of your life afraid?"
He saw her look away from him for a moment as she put her hand on her stomach.
"I'm in love with you, Luke." She says just loud enough for him to hear.
And after four years of wondering what it would be like to hear her say that again, she does.
--
Six hours and 42 minutes later, they were looking their son in the face.
William Keith Scott.
He's sitting on the edge of the bed watching as Brooke interacts with their son.
Watching them, he decides that all the pain and heartache was worth it.
"He's gorgeous." She says marveling their son.
"We made that." He squeezes her hand.
"You owe me two more." She says remembering their night in New York City. The dreams they spoke of that night were something she held onto to this day.
"You can count on that." He looks at her and they get lost in each other's eyes.
It's the first time since Las Vegas that they've kissed. This time it's not of desperation or longing but simple love. The past didn't matter anymore because they knew the future was theirs.
--
"Is that all you got Uncle Luke?" Jamie taunts him.
"Trying to show me up in front of my son. Low Jaime."
"It's okay. He knows you suck at basketball."
Nathan and Jake laugh loudly.
"Come on Will, let's show them."
He put his son on his shoulders and helped him dunk the ball. He mocked cheering as his son giggled in delight.
It's been three years and as he's on the river court with his friends, he fills at peace.
He looks around and sees that everything has fallen into place.
Nathan and Haley still give them all hope every day. They've raised two beautiful children, Jaime and Isabella, their newest edition. When he first heard that Nathan and Haley had gotten married at seventeen, he never would have imagined that eight years later they'd still be in love and together.
Peyton focused on her work for a year. She promised herself she wouldn't throw her heart into another relationship. She needed her independence and everyone's noticed how she grew as a person in that time. One of her clients had been Jake, and it turned out that their someday was now.
As he approached, the picnic table of his friends, he realized that this was his world. Everyone who belonged in it was here.
"Hey baby girl."
Lucas took his new born daughter Emma from his fiancée's hands. They had no date, but in their minds they had all the time in the world.
"She's a total daddy's girl." Brooke gushed as she was talking to Haley.
"Yea you are." They watched as his daughter smiled at his voice.
"Haley, you want to hold her so I can borrow Brooke?"
He handed her off and laced his hands with Brooke as he walked with her to the river side.
"What's that in your hand?"
"My new book."
"Babe, that's great!"
"Turns out we are a power couple." He joked.
"I love you, Brooke Davis." He wasn't joking anymore.
"I love you too."
"Daddy!" He heard in the distance. "Come play with us!"
"Okay bud!"
"Read the dedication, okay?"
She agreed. He pulled her closer to him and kissed her. As he ran off she smiled watching her husband interact with his son.
This was her dream.
She opened the dedication and began reading
"For all those still hiding from love:
The important thing is not to be bitter over life's disappointments. Learn to let go of the past. And recognize that every day won't be sunny, and when you find yourself lost in the darkness and despair remember it's only in the black of night you see the stars. And those stars will lead you back home. So don't be afraid to make mistakes, or stumble and fall, cause most of the time the greatest rewards come from doing the things that scare you the most. Maybe you'll get everything you wish for. Maybe you'll get more than you ever could have imagined. Who knows where life will take you. The road is long and in the end, the journey is the destination. After all, people who are meant to be together always find their way in the end."