I've never written a BL fic before, so please be gentle! This is an AU fic but I think it explains itself pretty well as it goes on!

Brooke Davis-Scott was a strong woman. A self assured woman. A business woman, a wife, a mother...and a cheat. She hadn't planned it this way. No, infact she'd planned it so very different, had fantasised of Lucas Scott giving her the life she'd always dreamed of from the first time Haley had introduced them. It was orientation day freshman year at Duke university and Brooke had seen herself as the perfect fourth to the trio in front of her as two very attractive men had strolled unannounced into her new home. Nathan had picked Haley up and kissed her like he hadn't seen her in days, and not the meer hour ago when Brooke had seem him leaving her dorm as she arrived. Lucas had explained they were newly engaged, good naturedly rolled his eyes and sent Brooke a smile that warmed her from head to foot. It was lust at first sight, which had quickly turned into more. Somewhere, somehow that had all changed, and here she found herself 29 years old, and gearing up to tell her best friend she'd been cheating on her husband, who just so happened to the woman before hers best friend and brother in law.

A big part of Brooke wondered if it was going to be harder to tell Haley than it was Lucas. She'd wanted to, so many times. After all she'd confided everything in Haley all her adult life, and she was sure Haley had done the same, a thought that made her feel even more guilt. It had taken Brooke and Lucas six months of flirting and dancing around each other before they'd admitted they felt something, and when Brooke had backed out of her first real date with Lucas it was Haley who had calmed her down. The blonde had convinced her she was worthy of a real relationship with an honest and good man, and that she was just as beautiful on the inside as the out, before cooking dinner for her two friends and locking them in a room together so Brooke couldn't run away again. And when Haley had been confusing the hell out of everyone, freaking out about the fact she'd followed her boyfriend and best friend to college, instead of going through with her adolescent plan to attend college across country it was Brooke who she'd finally broken down to and confessed she thought she might be pregnant, and didn't know what to do.

By the end of freshman year the room mates had become such good friends, that at Nathan and Haley's august wedding Brooke was appointed maid of honour, and when the shorter girl had moved out of their shared room and into married housing the couch was affectionately referred to as Brooke's bed. By the time baby Jamie arrived Christmas break of their sophomore year Brooke had attended just as many birthing classes as Nathan had. Good job too, because the icy roads had meant the raven haired man had missed the birth of his child, and it was Brooke who'd coached her godchild into the world.

It had been a strange mirror, when Lucas proposed to Brooke the night of their college graduation, the same way his brother had proposed to a young Haley James four years earlier at their high school ceremony, but the thought hadn't occurred to Brooke until much later. All she could think about at the time was that her dreams were coming true. She never thought she'd get engaged as early as 22, but after watching Nathan and Haley navigate college as husband and wife, and parents to their cherished little boy, neither of the newly engaged couple were scared of the idea of settling down young. It had taken 18months for Brooke to plan her winter wonderland wedding, and Haley's prominent bump from underneath her maid of honour gown had began a running joke that the woman could just not attend a wedding without being pregnant. Turns out they'd underestimated the power of Scott sperm and James eggs, they should have broadened the joke to any milestone event, Nathan appeared to only have to look at Haley and she got knocked up.

Brooke had been the first and most persistent when it came to teasing the couple about the fact that although Nathan's career in the NBA took him away from his family often, his super Scott sperm seemed to know no bounds. The joke quickly lost its shine when it became clear Lucas and Brooke weren't cursed with the same easy fertility. Although they'd began trying on their honeymoon Caleb hadn't arrived until nearly 3 years into their marriage. They'd been strong through all the pain and heartache, and Brooke never thought she'd loved him more than when Lucas had broken down in her arms when a year into their attempts Nathan and Haley had carefully broken the news they were expecting twins. She thought all their problems were over the day she'd held her son in her arms. Emotional and exhausted, she'd fallen asleep to the sound of her husband telling their son how lucky he was to her have as a mother, thinking that she would never have reason to be sad again. If only she had known that a year later her world would be turned upside down at the news her precious child had inherited her husband's inferior heart.

"I'd apologise.." The blonde laughed, breaking Brooke from her reverie, "But you know what it's like around here, no peace for the wicked."

"Don't worry about it." Brooke smiled, holding her hands out for the baby that Haley swore was her last who was squirming in her mother's grasp at the sight of her aunt. "I can't believe how big she's gotten."

"Well maybe if you were in town more." Haley teased good naturedly, but it sent a pang straight to Brooke's heart, she really should be home more. Maybe if she was none of this would ever have happened.

"Yeah.." She frowned, not moving her eyes from the baby's blue eyes. So trusting, so caring and open, so unaltered by the pain and evil of the world.

"Are you okay, Brooke?" Staring across the table at her friend Haley was confused, Brooke had been her usual bubbly self, if maybe a little preoccupied before Emma's cries had signified the end of her nap, calling the mother of 5 away , now the brunette beauty looked ready to burst into tears.

"MOMMY!" A rambunctious call stopped Brooke in her tracks as the tears she'd been attempting to keep at bay had just started to dampen her cheeks. Plastering a bright smile on her face she shifted her niece in her arms and turned toward the running 3 year old. "Yous home!"

"I'm home!" She grinned back pulling him onto her lap and smothering him with kisses. A lump growing in her throat as she breathed in his sent. She missed him so much when she was gone, he was her world, and yet she could very well be about to wreck his.

"Caleb sweetie why don't you go upstairs and pack up your things so you and Mommy can go home and see daddy huh?" Haley knew it would be hard to tear the little boy away from his mother, but also knew that he loved nothing more than the sadly rare times he got to spend with both his parents so that would be incentive enough to give her a few minutes to quiz Brooke on her crazy mood. "Jamie will help won't you buddy?"

Smart for his age, and the image of his father, Jamie scowled, he knew he was just being used as a diversion for the little kids again. Haley smiled, and blew him a kiss, and despite all his bravado Jamie softened. Deep down he was really a mama's boy, just like his Uncle Lucas had been before him, and with so many younger siblings that took up attention he cherished all the affections big and small that Haley would lavish on him.

"Thanks Jay, I really appreciate it." Brooke smiled, holding Emma out toward the young boy. "Could you take Em into the living room too? Your brothers and sister are watching a movie I brought back with me. Advanced copy. You'll be the first of your friends to see it."

"It's okay Aunt Brooke. Come on Caleb." Eagerly the toddler climbed from his mothers lap and followed his older cousin out of the room. The mothers stopping to smile for a minute at the way the younger boy adjusted his stance to mimicking his elder.

"Spill." Haley said when she was sure the children were out of ear shot. "You told me when you called to say you'd landed you had something to tell me, and you've been all over the place since you got here, so what's up?"

Brooke shook her head, the tears once again dampening her cheek, if she didn't have to she wouldn't be doing this, and maybe she should be telling Lucas first but she needed to build up to that, and hopefully Haley could stop hating her for long enough to give her some support. "You're going to hate me."

"Honey, how could I ever hate you?" She moved around the table and crouched to wrap her arm around her friends seated form. "We're sisters right? We can tell each other anything."

Brooke cried harder as Haley called her, her sister. "Hales, promise me you won't judge me?"

She knew it was an impossible thing to ask, lord knows she was judging herself.

"Brooke, you're starting to scare me. What's wrong?"

"I'm having an affair." There. She'd blurted it out. She'd said it. There was no going back.

"You're what?" Haley blinked, convinced she must have heard wrong.

"Well, no, no, that's not right, I've been having an affair. It's over now."

"Does Lucas know?" Unable to find her voice Brooke shook her head.

"Oh, Brooke." Powerless to think of anything else to say Haley slumped back down onto her heels, trying to take it all in. She was in shock. Never in a million years would she have guessed this was what Brooke had been holding back, although she'd known there was something.

"That's not all." Brooke continued, scared she'd lose her nerve if she stopped.

"What else can there be?"

"I'm pregnant."