Disclaimer: I own nothing, except part of the plot and any original characters I create.
A/N: This is my first fanfic in a long time. I know the prologue is short, but I promise much longer chapters in the future.
It started out with a lie. A lie to keep her in denial. A lie to keep her dark secret. And a lie to protect an innocent. This fabrication was so blatant and obvious, yet it was never figured out. Never mentioned. It was the lie that kept Sadie Scott from knowing the truth, from knowing what really happened thirteen long years ago.
Brooke Davis tried not to sob as she sat in the clinic's waiting room. She held a document in a manila folder in her hand. A document that probably weighed less than an ounce, but was the heaviest burden the young woman had ever had before. It was crushing her. She HAD to know. Upon reading the words, so neatly typed on the paper, she was speechless. This was something that was hard for Brooke to accomplish. She liked to speak and she liked to hear her voice when she spoke. She could not be in that place, no not where people were happy and joyous. This was not a happy, joyous occasion. Brooke felt nothing but a somewhat soothing numbness. She quickly left the building, not noticing the heat outside nor the frigid air conditioning of her car as she began to drive.
She had to tell someone, but who? Haley? No, she was busy with Jamie who was nursing a broken heart over the loss of Q. Peyton? God no, Brooke could not ruin Peyton's happiness by her "little problem." This made Brooke question their friendship, though, did she not want to tell Peyton to make sure she was happy or was it because she knew Peyton would not care like other people would? Brooke was not sure. Lucas, she finally decided. Lucas would be the one to talk to, the one to tell her everything would be alright.
The brunette arrived at her ex-lover's house only several minutes after leaving the parking lot of the clinic; a plus to living in a small town, she guessed. Brooke practically ran to the front door, a place she had been many times before. After knocking, she stood there waiting. Growing anxious her eyes began to wander until they rested on the column that held the porch up. "B&L" it read, in her hand writing. It had a heart circled around it, a sign of a love she lost. A love that now belonged to her best friend. Oh how the mighty had fallen.
Finally, Lucas answered the door. "Brooke? What are you doing here?" he asked.
Brooke looked up at Lucas and choked back tears. "Lucas, may I please come in?" So polite and formal, she was truly the shell of who she used to be.
"Yeah, of course." He was obviously confused.
After nearly ten minutes of silence. Brooke cracked; she hated awkward silences, hell, she hated silence. "I'm pregnant!" she blurted out, which she had truly not meant to do. Brooke stared at him for a moment, waiting to know what he would say. What was he thinking? Was he thinking of the time she had said nearly the same thing junior year? Or was he thinking she was a slut? Brooke had to know. "Say something," she begged, her voice desperate and soft.
"Who is the father?" was all he could muster to say.
Brooke sighed deeply. Here goes nothing. "Six weeks ago the store was broken into and I was rape…" she said before breaking down. He had told everyone (but Deb who did not even know the entire truth) that she had fallen down the stairs. She still could not believe how easily they were to accept her lie.
"Oh God, Brooke." Lucas quickly stood up and wrapped his arms around his ex-girlfriend. "It will be alright, I promise."
"Ironic isn't it? All I could think about for months was having a baby…being a mother. And now I'm going to be one." She felt terrible for making that kind of joke, but she had to lighten the mood. Brooke gulped back another sob and pulled away from Lucas. "I'm keeping it. I just don't want my baby to know what happened." Brooke had grown up in a household with parents who resented her. She did not want that for her child, no matter how it was conceived.
"We'll figure something out. We will, I just know we will." Lucas was not sure what he could do, but he had to save her. He had saved everyone else and for the first time he could save Brooke.
The two sat there for a little while, not saying anything. Nothing could really be said.
"We're going to lie," Lucas announced suddenly. "We are going to say that you and I had sex shortly before I got back with Peyton. I am going to be this baby's father."
Brooke was taken back. She could never ask for Lucas to risk his relationship with Peyton just to help her out. She could not mess with his life. "No, Lucas, it's too much."
He shook his head in disagreement. "It's not too much. It feels like the right thing to do. Let me help you, Brooke Davis. Let me in."
With that the lie was set in place. Little did either know how much this one thing would change all three of their lives completely.