Original A/N: This is my first attempt at fanfiction, honestly my first attempt at publishing something anywhere for peer review. I'd appreciate any and all feedback from everyone who reads this, so I can know if I'm on the right track or moving too slow. I hope y'all enjoy the story, I'm having fun typing it! Happy reading!

Disclaimer: I do not own the characters of One Tree Hill, but the story line is my own.

The rain wouldn't stop falling. It just kept coming, a deluge of water works that seemed to mirror the turmoil taking place inside the lithe figure framed by the Christmas lights in the window. Things had gone so wrong on so many levels, and she wasn't sure how to get things back on track. Christmas was three days away, and here she sat, all alone, wrapped in a blanket against the cold. There was no fire, no Christmas decorations adorned the walls, no stockings on the fireplace. The only reason there were lights outside the windows was due to the crew that came every year and set them up. Money had it's advantages occasionally. You could mask real pain and loneliness with money. Too bad it didn't honestly provide happiness.

How did I end up in this spot? I was supposed to have it all, wasn't I? I was the queen of everything. I was supposed to be the one with the gorgeous husband, the picket fence, the successful career. Now look at me. Sitting here broken, alone, and unloved. If only I had said the right things, taken the right actions. Maybe I wouldn't be crying for Christmas. Maybe I'd be basking in the warmth of his love. Stop it Brooke. Don't go down that road again. It's over with him. Don't torture yourself.

RING RING! The sound of the telephone in the other room jolted the beautiful woman from her reverie. "Who in the world could that be?" she wondered aloud, not so much because there was anyone to hear her, but because she needed to know she could still talk. Tucking the blanket around her shoulders for the extra comfort, she glided across the wooden floors to the entry way and picked up the receiver.

"Hello?"

"Brooke?"

"Yes, may I ask who's calling?" She didn't recognize the feminine voice on the other end of the line, even though it seemed her anonymous caller knew her.

"I'm sorry to bother you so late at night, but I've been trying to work up the nerve to call you for days now. I'm running out of time, and well, honestly, selfishly, I need your help." Brooke could sense the nervousness and uncertainty in the stranger's voice, and wasn't sure just what to make of the whole deal.

"I'm sorry, I don't recognize the voice. Do I know you?" Brooke tried vainly to place the voice, but despite how hard she racked her brain, she couldn't place the woman.

"No, I'm the one who's sorry. You don't know me. We have a mutual friend and he's in need of your help. Help that I can't give him. He's beyond me, and although I didn't want to make this call, I was told I had to. That you were the only one who could save him." Him. Him who? Who would have known her new location? Who's in so much trouble? What in the world?

"You're being awfully cryptic. Mind being a little more forthcoming in the details?" Brooke was starting to get frustrated, she'd never liked surprises, and this was no exception. She wasn't in the mood for crank calls or cruel jokes. Not that she'd had much going on before the phone rang, but still. It was better than being at the mercy of some paranoid stranger.

"Please don't hang up. I can tell you want to. Look, if you'll give me five minutes, I'll explain it all. It's not something to be done over the phone but I have no choice. Please… Haley….. Haley said you'd help me." Now there really was desperation in the woman's voice. She sounded close to tears. Brooke should know, she'd spent the last two years teetering on the brink of hysterical tears.

"Haley? You know Haley?" Shock. And then realization. Of course. Haley and Nathan were the only two she'd kept in any kind of touch with on a semi-constant basis. She might have lost touch with her own family, but she would be damned if she'd let slip the bonds of family given so freely.

"Yes, I'm sorry. Maybe this is all a bad idea. I tried to tell Haley that I could take care of him, that he didn't need you, but she was insistent. He's been so…black…lately, that she said if I didn't, she would. She said Lucas-"

"LUCAS?" Brooke cut the stranger off. No. The world started spinning. Not again. No. No.

There was silence on the other side of the line for a moment, and then Brooke could hear heavy breathing. There was some sort of mumbling in the background, and then it was like his scent was there, like it had traveled via the phone lines over hundreds of miles to fill her head with memories. She could hear his voice asking who was on the phone, wanting to know what was up. Brooke heard the change in the clarity as the woman covered the mouth piece with her hand, whispered something back along the lines of no one, go back to sleep, before the line was disconnected.