Title: Trouble Is Her Only Friend
Author: heythereanna (Anna)
Pairings: Brooke/Nate, Rachel/Chuck
Summary:
Rating: MATURE; Language, Adult Content
Disclaimer: I own absolutely nothing, even though I wish I could take Mark Schwahn's position and remake seasons four through eight of One Tree Hill. :P
Special Thanks: To my beloved Chelle for all of the help and advice for this. I couldn't have gotten back to writing without you.
Author's Note: A few things to be alerted of: Peyton, Lucas, and Brooke all went to Duke together, Victoria and Bart Bass are married, Chuck and Brooke are stepsiblings, Clothes over Bro's has not been created yet, Rachel went to New York after being expelled.

- - - - x - - - -

"But one of these nights you're gonna realize it; I'm the guy for you Brooke Davis. You'll see."

Brooke remembers the first time she ran away.

She had been eight, maybe nine years old. Her mother and father had been fighting over his most recent scandalous affair, not that she knew what that or what "scheming gold digging whore" meant at the time. She had quietly snuck out of the kitchen with a blanket and a box of Lucky Charms while Victoria screamed at her husband, the sound of breaking china the last thing the little girl had heard as she bolted from her home.

She had gone to the park. It was her favorite place to go, where she ran whenever Victoria started on another undeserved rampage. She had played on the monkey bars, let herself fly off the swings, laid on the grass and watched the clouds move ever so slowly across the oh so blue sky, sat in the fake pirate ship and pretending that she was a princess who had given up her crown to marry a poor sailor. She must have hid in that very ship for hours, eyes squeezed tightly shut as she imagined her own little fairytale and blocked out the rest of the world. It was her own personal little slice of heaven as she escaped the horror of the Davis household.

Nathan Scott had finally found her there the next morning when he'd come to the park with Tim and Jake to play a game of basketball. She had fallen asleep somewhere amidst her daydreams, curled up in a ball with her blanket wrapped around her and the now opened box of Lucky Charms in her arms. They must have stood in front of her for at least ten minutes as she silently sucked her thumb in her sleep, trying to figure out if they should wake her up or not. It wasn't until more people started showing up that Nathan finally ran to a phone booth and called his dad, who drove over immediately and happily brought her back home to a very angry Victoria and Richard Davis, who had only just noticed that their daughter was missing.

"Sometimes, I just wish you could rescue me."

"From what?"

"From everything."

But that had been ten years ago, back when she didn't have access to her trust fund or her six credit cards, which she gladly would have used back then to get her the hell out of Tree Hill. Back when Peyton had been her best friend who would never betray her, when no one really cared who Lucas Scott had been, when Nathan was her regularly scheduled play date, when she believed in happily ever after's and knights in shining armor. Now, she's twenty one years old and has all of the money in the world at her disposal; Peyton had become the traitorous whore who had insisted upon marrying Lucas, she and Nathan had fucked on more than one occasion, and Lucas is the so called perfect boy who had wound up breaking her heart in the end.

There's only one thing that has still remained the same, even after all this time: she wants to run away.

And now, there's no one there to bring her back home. Not Dan, not her now divorced parents, not her so-called best friend. No one.

Maybe it's because they finally had understood that she needs to leave, because she wouldn't survive another day at Duke. She had barely been able to see Fauxdilocks and Broody doing their whole indie rocker thing, stomping on her fragile little heart with every one of their kisses, every one of their lingering gazes across the room, every single fucking thing they did. But now, the're engaged. In exactly ten months, Peyton Elizabeth Sawyer would say her vows to Lucas Eugene Scott and live happily ever after with the boy Brooke had once thought was her prince charming. Peyton, the girl who had destroyed her world, had now hijacked her perfectly dreamed up fantasy, news which had made her so sick to her stomach that the second she had heard, she had run to the nearest bathroom and hurled up her guts.

"The truth is I care about Peyton."

"But what is the difference?"

"The difference? The difference is I love you, Brooke. I want to be with you, not Peyton."

She stares at the neon sign of incoming and outgoing flights in Tree Hill Airport, snapshots of her ill fated relationship going through her head. The words are blurring together into a stream of green and red, the tears making it near impossible to see past their wall of cloudy gloss as she sits in the gate debating her options. It's late, her flight having been scheduled at three thirty in the morning, but she's still tragically attempting to hold it together, a failed endeavor at that. As she holds it all in, she's resorted to praying that some part of her would wake up and remind her that Lucas Scott isn't worth her tears, that this had been expected, that she had been the one to give him up because she knew deep in her heart that he loved Peyton. She had loved him with every ounce of her being, with every corner of her heart, and how had he repaid her? He'd gone and fallen in love with her best friend, leaving her in their wake of destruction, or "true love always" as carved on Peyton's closet door.

It's funny now, considering just a few nights ago he had been moaning out Brooke's name, and not Peyton's. He'd been telling her how much he had missed the curves of her body, how much he still loved her after all these years. On that night, Lucas had made love to her, not his girlfriend, and had promised her that they would finally get their happy ending. And then, he'd gone and proposed to Peyton, because why not make her the footnote in their love story for what had seemed like the ten thousandth time.

That hadn't been funny. Not even a little.

She stands up, smoothing out the fabric of her jeans as she feels her phone go off in her pocket. It's Peyton, no doubt; she's called six times today alone, and another twelve the day before. Apparently, she hasn't quite grasped the concept that when you decide to marry best friend's ex, you would become nothing to the person. But she pulls it out anyway, opening it up and hanging it up without a word. She isn't interested in talking to her peroxide blonde ex-friend anymore, nor is she all too excited to talk to Lucas either. The last thing she wants to do was hear his angelic voice, mostly because the sound of it pulled at her heartstrings more than anything else she'd ever heard in her life. She doesn't want to be convinced not to leave, especially not when she knows the heartache that awaits her if she stays. Of course, she had let Haley and Nathan know that she's leaving, but disclosing the location. It had been better than informing them and then making them promise they wouldn't tell anyone where she had planned, especially Lucas. They had cried, they had pleaded. She and Haley had even had a blow out fight right before she'd walked out the door of her apartment

But her mind is set, the ticket has been bought, the bags are packed and the plans made. Her hometown holds far too many bad memories for her liking, and she's far too tired of hurting. She's utterly and completely spent, and she's done with all of it. No more Bermuda triangle of love, no more Team Peyton verse Team Brooke. No more Lucas trying to fight for her when he doesn't even know what it means to fight for something.

"I'm not pushing you away, Lucas; I am holding on for dear life, but I need you to need me back! Why wouldn't you tell me about the kiss, and why didn't you call me when you were away? And why won't you ever just let me all the way in?"

She's barely breathing as she walks up to the gate's entrance with her carry on, her hazardously packed suitcases already on the plane. She's trembling like the weak and vulnerable girl that she's regressed back to during the last few days, biting down on her lower lip as she fumbles with the ticket in her hands, all the while swaying back and forth because she can't stand still without crumbling to pieces.

"You told me to fight for you and I did. But you never fought for me."

"And I'm not going to."

She takes one last look at the welcome sign that she knows so well, as if saying her final goodbye to the town she had reluctantly called home for the last twenty one years, before pulling in a shaky breath. Sniffling quietly, she turns back to the woman that stands so cheerily behind the counter, awaiting the passengers of the jet.

She feels a bitter laugh rise from her throat at the words she'd chosen for the flight attendant. Cheery: the adjective that he had used to describe her once upon a time. How very far she's fallen from the cherry chapsticked cheerleader that had once referred to him as Broody.

"Checking in?" The flight attendant says with the sweetest of smiles.

Handing her the ticket, Brooke nods weakly, completely drained of emotion. She hasn't gotten any sleep since she had heard news of the engagement, a fact obvious by her worn down and tuckered out appearance that's so unlike her that she barely recognizes her own reflection.

The woman looks down, almost frowning in disapproval at the title on the ticket. "One way? Honey, are you sure they gave you the right tic-"

"I'm sure." She interrupts icily, glaring at the woman before storming past her with the utmost grace, waiting until she gets to her seat to mumble beneath her breath, "why would I ever come back here?"

"Okay, then I guess I was wrong. I'm not the guy for you, Brooke Davis."

- - - - x - - - -

He had been in a business meeting regarding his acquisition of the Empire when Brooke had called him. He had been mid pitch, giving one of the best presentations of his life to his high profile investors with his witty charm and devilish demeanor, when his assistant, Maureen, had walked up to him and whispered into his ear that Brooke Davis had been on hold for the last twenty minutes, and he drops everything in a heartbeat.

The two hadn't spoken in almost three years, when Bart and Victoria had forced them both to come to an overzealous banquet at The Plaza for Thanksgiving, since Brooke had enrolled at Duke's fashion program and he had taken over Bass Industries from his father at the tender age of twenty five, but the Bass step-siblings had a bond between them that no amount of time can break, that nothing could possibly wound.

But one of his older colleagues comes barreling out into the hall, nostrils flared and veins protruding from his bullish neck. "Chuck Bass, your ass better be back in that conference within the next ten seconds or-"

"Or what, Michael? You'll hire a doppelganger and tell my father that you couldn't get the job done with the real Chuck Bass because he had to take a phone call from my Brooke Davis-Bass? I'm sure Bart and Jack would just love that, considering that Brooke is Bart's stepdaughter and Jack's favorite niece." The skilled businessman snaps back, eyes bearing holes into the executive before he snatches his phone away from Mandy like the diva he truly was and pulls in to his ear, all whilst the board members stand there in anticipation.

He glares them all down before answering, having never quite gotten over the devil in disguise title, but his expression quickly softens by the sound of hiccuping sobs in the background. "Brooke?" Chuck asks into the phone, the quiet cries of his baby stepsister flowing over the line.

"I'm s-so sorry for c-calling, Chuck, b-but I...I didn't know who else to turn to..."

The sound of her breaking down is enough for Chuck to walk out of the meeting and into his office, trying to get some privacy from the ever watching members of his company. Their conversation isn't something Michael or the secretary who had been checking him out needs to know about, just him.

"What happened?" He inquires into the phone softly, all the while listening to Brooke's sobs. Chuck will never admit it out loud to anyone but her, but every one of her excruciating wails is like a rusty knife to his gut. There's nothing more painful than listening to Brooke cry, nothing.

"I need to g-get out of Tree Hill..." A whimpering Brooke Davis, a girl he had thought could handle anything, chokes out over the phone. "I can't s-stay here anymore, I just-"

But Chuck interrupts her, not because he's being rude or because he's tired of the girl's tears, but because he feels tears of his own rising just from knowing that his stepsister is in this much pain. He knows how much it takes for the resilient Davis daughter to cry like this. Or even more importantly, to give in and run away.

He didn't even need Brooke to tell him what had happened. The urge to protect the girl that has become more of a sister to him than any of Bart's bastard children trumps curiosity, as it always has in their relationship.

"Pack your things and get your ass on a plane to New York City. If you're not here within the next twenty four hours, I'll drag you up from that hellhole myself." Chuck orders, fixing his hair in a nearby mirror as he prepared to go back to the meeting. Although he knows that he sounds like a complete asshole, he also knew that tough love is what the normally bubbly brunette needs, even though it's the last thing she wants.

After a few moments of silence, the heart wrenching sobs turn into sniffles and relief washes over him as Brooke begins to calm down. "You would do that for me?"

"Oh god, don't tell me you're going to get all sappy on me." Chuck groans out in fake annoyance, chuckling softly. "Just get your ass on a plane, text me what time you're supposed to land, and we'll enroll you at NYU. I don't even know why you would have gone to Duke, it's positively wretch-"

"Thank you, Chuck."

The interrupting whisper is almost inaudible, but it stops him in his tracks. Saying thank you is as hard as an I love you for Brooke, and he knows that. He doesn't even bother scolding Brooke for interrupting him, simply smiling sadly.

"Anytime, Davis."

- - - - x - - - -

He waits outside of the gate of Brooke's flight exactly twelve hours later, his soon to be house guest having texted Mandy the details of her departure and arrival after she had bought the ticket. Normally Chuck would be throwing a fit about being awake anytime before nine, but there he is in the middle of JFK International Airport at six thirty in the morning.

Why?

Because it's Brooke Davis who's coming off that airplane in t-minus five minutes. It's the only person who had ever given a damn about him in their fucked up little family. Promises had been made long ago that they would always protect each other, promises that they continued to keep, and so he stands with the little masses waiting for her.

Chuck taps his foot impatiently as people begin to walk out of the gate, standing on the tips of his toes as he looks for his stepsister. Even with his face plastered across magazine covers, his title now CEO at the age of twenty eight, and his name all over page six of the New Yorker, he's still the childish and quick tempered man he's always been. Except instead of slutty little Constance Billiard bred school girls following him around, he has the paparazzi stalking him in hopes of just getting a snapshot of him.

"Chuck?"

A quiet voice attracts his attention, his face paling in horror as he finally sees Brooke a few feet away. If she hadn't have spoken up, Chuck wouldn't have ever noticed her, the girl before her barely even resembling his cheery stepsister.

Her once infectious grin has been dimmed to a faint hearted expression that barely even qualifies as a smile, the dimples that usually accompany it missing in action. The circles under her eyes are dark as night, indicating her exhaustion. Her normally perfectly styled and glossy long brown waves are unkempt and messily pulled back, a state which someone like the Brooke Davis he knows would have never approved of going out in public with. Even the way she moves was different, her graceful saunter having turned into a begrudged shuffle.

But then again, this isn't Brooke Davis, at least not the one who he knows. This isn't the sister who had raided his liquor cabinet at the age of fifteen, nor the one he had covered for an infinite number of times to keep out of trouble. This isn't the debutante trashing party girl that gets vulnerable after too many tequila shots and makes grown men look like pussies who can't hold their liquor. This is not his Brooke, and he has no idea what to do.

She's a ghost of her former self, a fragment of what she truly is, as she walks up to Chuck, practically collapsing into his strong arms. The young man feels paralyzed for a moment as he wraps her in a tight hug, utterly speechless as he feels Brooke begin to cry. As the tears fall upon the shoulder his perfectly tailored suit, his hand runs up and down her back like any other brother might comfort a sister. For the first time in their lives, they are normal and emotional human beings, and he's not sure how he feels about it.

They stand like that for what seems like hours, Brooke clinging to him for dear life as Chuck feels tears spring to his own eyes, both the only sailors left upon the sinking ship that's known as Brooke Davis's life.

Finally, Chuck pulls back, his arm still around Brooke's shoulders as she sniffles softly, eyes puffy and red from crying. Smiling sadly, he brushes the stray hairs from Brooke's face before pressing a kiss to her forehead, leading towards the doors as he murmurs the only words that he thinks will comfort her in that moment.

"Let's go home, baby sister."