Author's Note: New Material. Please review! You know I love them :)

Thoughts Run Unspoken

"The best day of your life is the one on which you decide your life is your own. No apologies or excuses. No one to lean on, rely on, or blame: the gift is yours – it is an amazing journey – and you alone are responsible for the quality of it. This is the day your life really begins."

Bob Moawad

Chapter 1: Same Mirror, Different Reflection

The fight had been inevitable. Spanning the eight weeks since the accident that had thrown a spanner in their otherwise working relationship, Brooke had felt it coming on like a wildfire set to slow burn. Unavoidable, it was only a matter of time before the brunette fashionista had snapped. Stepping into the dimly lit bar, she was encompassed with the smell of stale cigarette smoke and beer. The floor was littered with peanut shells and used cigarettes, shoulders slumped as bodies slouched over circular tables. This was never a place where Brooke Davis had intended to find herself at this point in her life – yet she knew the moment she stepped into the run-down bar on the outskirts of town that she would find exactly what she was looking for.

An instinct that was to be proven right as emerald orbs darted to the left corner of the room and landed on the familiar shape of a drunken husband. Anger flared within her as strappy Monolo's weaved in and out of the scattered nobodies en route to her somebody.

"Julian," raspy, her voice hit his ears and stirred a reaction. "What the hell?"

Wrinkled, heavy eyelids had shielded the downtrodden producer from the prying eyes of the bar's patrons for better part of the day, but they were not match for the fiery woman before him. There was a point in time where he had found her tenacious nature exciting. Admirable. Intoxicating. Now, it felt more like a lump of coal in a Christmas stocking – his own form of torture and torment for his incapability of being a decent husband.

Even worse, a decent father.

Bloodshot eyes shot up and connected with her furious gaze. Hiiccuuuppp. He was clearly drunk, a sight the young designer has seen every night for the better part of two months. Destroying them, it made her feel more inclined to slap him than to love him, but she had taken vows and so here she was.

Again.

"It was a rough day." Slurred, his words hummed over lazy lips. Bringing the glass to his mouth, the miserable producer swallowed down his hundredth sip of beer that night, closing his eyes as the amber ale cascaded down his throat.

"It's always a rough day," his wife responded, the irritation evident in her tone. "Why don't you try a new excuse?"

She was annoying him, in a way a mosquito attacks warm flesh in the middle of the night, buzzing around his ear and offering him no sign of reprieve. He didn't want to fight. He didn't want to sit there and listen to whatever guilt trip she was about to lay on him. He simply wanted to get drunk and forget about everything that made him feel about the size of an ant.

"What the hell is your problem?" Angered, his snarl came out more venomous than he even realised, Problem was, he was married to Brooke Davis and she was perhaps the feistiest woman on the planet.

"My problem?" Fuming, lips trembled as deeps breaths tried to calm. "My problem is that my husband is a drunk and our kids miss their Dad!"

"Our kids," came the pathetic reply, Julian rolling his eyes at her statement like it was borderline preposterous. "I'm barely allowed to touch them these days."

Oh no! Red alarms sounded off within her mind, a few patrons looking up from their monotonous conversations to gaze upon the fragile, arguing couple. They had seen it all before, yet this couple seemed different. She seemed stronger than most of the accepting wives of alcoholics. Reeling from his worlds, Brooke stepped forward and pointed an accusatory finger. He was not going to lay the blame onto her shoulders. It if wasn't for her, he would be in worse shape than he was in that moment and their sons would be damaged beyond repair. No, he wasn't going to do this.

Not again!

"If you weren't so drunk all the time then I'd be more than happy to see some father-sons bonding time. But when you're in this state-"

"-I'm dealing," he snapped, eyes growing dark with resentment "Just get off my god damn case."

"What the hell has happened to you?" Flaxen lashes tried to cover the oncoming tears, emerald orbs sparkling from the watery onslaught."To us? "What happened to for better or worse?"

"I left our son in the car." His words were harsh, infused with all the anger that he felt at the world. At her. At himself. "You don't just get over something like that."

Of course, they were back to this again. Back to Julian agonising over that one mistake. Back to him making it all about himself rather than about their family and their sons. Frustration came out as she breathed deeply, delicates hands throwing themselves up in the air in semi-resignation.

"No, according to you it's a matter of drinking the problem away." Click-clack. Stepping forward, the fashionista pushed for a better answer. One worth hearing. "What about your family?"

"You have never forgiven me," hatred-filled, he spat he words at her like they were some kind of weapon. "Why the hell should I keep trying when you won't even let me try?"

"This is you trying?"

"Yes-" Cutting her off again, Julian prepared himself to continue his verbal onslaught when something inside of his wife snapped. Reaching out, a delicate hand struck out at the nearest object she could find, the empty glass sailing across the floor and shattering into oblivion. As eyes darted towards the feuding couple, Brooke began shaking, her voice raised higher than Julian had heard it in months. Boiling point now reached.

"Bullshit! This is you finding the easiest way out."

"Just leave me the hell alone, okay?" Leaning back into the soft pleather of the booth's chair, Julian waved her off like she was nothing more than a nuisance. "I don't need you yapping in my ear about how everything I do is wrong."

"I never said-"

"Just let me do this my way!" Snap! Standing to meet her, he growled the words out in defence Curling thick fingers under the table, the drunken father pulled up the wood and growled, Brooke stepping backwards as the table fell to the ground with a thud. Eyes widened as she saw the rage within her husband, Brooke gazing at him with eyes of pure shame. He had let her down, and he could see that. The problem was he didn't care. He hadn't cared for some time now and the more she tried to get him to care, the more he pushed her and their two sons away.

The more he made her realise that she couldn't save him and keep their children afloat. Protected. Safe.

"I can't do that." A whispered hush, her words fell on his ears as the bar grew eerily silent. "Because your way doesn't work for us. Not any more." Stepping back from the debris that lay strewn between them, Brooke shook her head in disappointment at her husband. He let out a quick breath before slumping backwards into his chair, gazing up at her with eyes so unfeeling he almost looked like a stranger

These days, he might as well have been.

"Don't come home tonight. I don't want you there."

Turning on her heels, the brunette mother made her way back out of the bar, holding back the tears until she had made it to the pavement outside. With a hand held firmly across her quivering lips, Brooke shed another tear for her husband, adding it to the thousand more she had cried that month.

Adding it to the inevitable ones she would cry in the days to come.

x~X~x

"Again?"

Peyton's words hit her husband's ears as he turned his back towards her, the honey-haired former record producer gazing down at the half-packed suitcase that lay spread across their bed. He could tell by her voice she wasn't pleased with the sight, Lucas turning around to face the irate blonde with an apologetic shrug.

He didn't want to fight. He'd had enough of doing that with her.

"Haley needs me." The words seemed simple enough, yet for some reason they ignited a flame within his wife that couldn't be ignored. It was like his sentence was a challenge, sent to her as a way of seeing what she could come up with in retaliation.

"And so do your wife and daughter." It was a low blow bringing Sawyer into this, but she wasn't prepared to let him just walk away again. He had commitments, responsibility. He was a husband and a father. He didn't have the luxury of gallivanting off and saving every damsel in distress that sent out a beacon call of S.O.S.

"Nathan is missing-"

Rasing her hand to cut him off, Peyton stood against her husband as his hands continued to shove folded clothing into a suitcase. "And there isn't much you can do there that you can't do here."

"Peyton, come on." The brooding writer couldn't understand her reasoning, let alone her continued need to fight about every little decision he made. She knew Nathan, she'd grown up with him. Hell, she'd been in his life a lot longer than Lucas had. She also knew what it felt like to have a brother. Why then, was it so hard for her to understand this?

"He's my brother."

"And I'm worried about him too, Luke. Okay? But we can't keep doing this." Frustrated, bony arms folded across the blonde's chest and rested with intent. Lucas knew the move well – she wasn't anywhere near done with this conversation. "If we can't keep dropping everything the minute someone we care about is in trouble we'll never get to live our life the way we want to. There was a reason we left Tree Hill, remember?"

baby blues opened wide at the statement, Lucas shaking his head as he slammed a pair of socks into the packed clothing. "Can you hear yourself right now?" Fuming, gritted teeth forced themselves to stop grating against one-another. "He's my brother and he's missing. Vanished! No one has heard from him in weeks. Do you honestly expect me to just sit on my ass and do nothing?"

"I expect you to understand where I'm coming from." It was as if she wasn't hearing a word he said, the action pulling at Lucas' patience.

"And I do," he countered, zipping up the suitcase and turning to face his wife. She gazed at him with expectant eyes but he knew he couldn't give her the answer she was looking for. "I just don't agree with you."

"So what?" Fuming, irises danced around clouds of anger. "You're just going to walk out on your family because Haley needs you?"

And here she went again, somehow twisting the situation around so that it seemed worse than it was. So that he seemed worse than he was. It infuriated him, Lucas rolling his eyes at Peyton before lifting up his luggage and brushing past her en-route to the front door.

"Stop being so dramatic. You know it's not like that."

Dramatic. She hated it when he called her that and he had been doing it far too often lately for her liking. Bare feet flopped against the wooden floorboards of the couple's hallway, peyton storming after Lucas as wild hands flailed in the air while she spoke.

"All I know is that the last time you went back to Tree Hill you came back with her two kids. What are you going to come back with next?"

Stopping mid-stride, Lucas whirled around to look at his wife with irate eyes. Was she serious? They had both been guilty of saying things in the heat of the moment when mad, he could concede that fact. It was only human to do. But right now, listening to her talk about Jamie and Lydia like they were an inconvenience made his blood boil.

That was pushing it too far.

"What the hell is wrong with you?"

"Nothing," Peyton stammered, eyes welling as she registered what she had just said. "I'm just-" she stumbled on the words, mind fogging over without acknowledging what she should say.

"What?"

Hazels softened as they looked at Lucas, tired and desperate. She had run out of things to convince him with, run out of ways to get him to change his mind.

"I just don't want you to go, okay?"

Her voice was timid, painful to hear. He hated it when she sounded like that. So vulnerable and uncertain. He'd thought that once they'd been married it would stop, but it hadn't. She was still waiting for the other shoe to drop. Waiting for him to walk away and never look back. Waiting for him to leave.

Because people always leave, according to Peyton Scott. Even after they'd promised forever.

"Peyton," calmly, he breathed out her name without the anger that once infiltrated his tone. "I'm sorry. I am. But if Haley needs me then I'm going to go."

"And what about your family?" She shook her head as he picked up his suitcase, turning to give her one solemn look before opening the door. The night was cold and the wet road glistened back at the fighting pair who couldn't seem to find common ground. Lucas wished that Peyton could understand, but she didn't. She hadn't for a long time.

What about your family?

There was only one answer for that question.

"Haley is my family."

With one last glance, Lucas stepped out into the darkened night and towards the waiting cab that had pulled up beside their tiny abode. The trunk slammed shut from the weight of the driver's hands, the brooding blonde sliding into the back-seat and looking up at his angered, forlorn wife. Her lips quivered as she watched him go, her voice dropping to a low hum as she whispered after his shadow.

"We're never going to be able to fix us if you keep running away, Lucas Scott."

x~X~x

Okay, so I know I have other stories in the works but my gorgeous Todd asked me to write this for him and so here it is. I'm not sure where it's headed or what will happen or anything like that, but please review and tell me what you think so far... and maybe even tell me what you'd like to see?

Also, I just wanted to let everyone know that I am currently suffering from a condition that is causing my hands to cramp severely. I will still try my absolute hardest to get updates out weekly, but my focus is on Equilibrium, The Truth Shall Set You Free and A Beautiful Mess – meaning, it may be a little while between updates for this fic (but I'm hoping not! Pray for me haha)

Much love and god bless,

Chrissy

xox