Author's Note: Let me just start off by saying how absolutely blown away I was by all your wonderful reviews. I guess there are a lot more budding Brooke/Julian fans out there than I thought. So I'd like to say thank you for all the kind words and encouragement. And while this is most definitely a Brulian fic, in order for me to tell this story, I feel like there are a lot of unsaid things that need to come out regarding B/L and P/Ju so I hope you understand when we have a few of those moments. Thanks again, and I hope this chapter doesn't disappoint!

And... please forgive me for the very long delay between chapters. Studying for finals pretty much occupied every free second I had when I wasn't working but I'll try to get the next one out quicker. Also... there will most definitely be a lot of B/Ju in the next chapter. Thanks!

White Horse - Taylor Swift



Chapter Two – White Horse

I'm not your princess, this ain't a fairytale
I'm
gonna find someone someday who might actually treat me well
This is a big world, that was a small town
There in my rear view mirror disappearing now
And it's too late for you and your white horse
Now it's too late for you and your white horse to catch me now

"…just go home."

Silence stretched between them as their eyes waged a war of wills. Brooke held her ground, tired but determined to see him walk out the door. And in his infinite confusion, he couldn't understand when things had changed between them. Why he was suddenly the villain of the piece.

"Brooke…" he opened his mouth to say as her cell phone began to ring.

Finally breaking the staring match, Brooke reached into her purse to retrieve the ringing object. The number was one she didn't know, but hoping that it was Sam, she eagerly answered it anyway. "Hello?"

"It's Julian," the voice greeted, sounding about as tired as Brooke felt. "Explaining everything would take a really long time, so I'm just gonna say that Sam's alright. She's with me now and we're on our way back to Tree Hill."

She stopped breathing. Brooke was sure that she had stopped breathing as she heard the words he quietly spoke. "How did you..." she managed to say, while Lucas came around the counter to place a comforting arm around her shoulders. To provide some reassurance when he saw her eyes fill and watched her skin turn white as a sheet. "How?"

But he didn't answer. Instead, Brooke heard him sigh before finally saying, "Thirty minutes. Then Sam can explain everything."

Nothing more or less. Then the silence told her that he'd hung up the phone, so she slowly lowered her hand and stared at the screen. "Brooke, what is it? What happened?" Lucas gently asked as he took the phone from her hands and set it down on the counter. "Is it Sam?"

"It was…" she trailed off before realizing that she could still feel Lucas' arm around her. So she cleared her throat and discretely stepped out of his embrace, ignoring the frown that turned down the corners of his lips. "That was Julian," she said, sounding much stronger as the information began to sink in. "Somehow he's with Sam." She forced calmness into her voice while inside, her heart continued to beat a frantic staccato. "She's safe."

Confusion once again lit Lucas' eyes as he stared back at Brooke. "How do they even know each other?"

Shaking her head, Brooke said, "She loves to write. Apparently she's interested in movies and... I guess she thought Julian could help."

It occurred to Brooke then, how inane the conversation was becoming.

Sam's connection to Julian didn't matter… at least not right now. The important thing was the relief of finding out that Sam was safe and on her way home. Even if Brooke still didn't know how to feel about the fact that Julian knew where to find her foster daughter and never said a word.

"If he's using her to get to you, I swear I'll…"

"You'll what?" Brooke demanded. The jealousy she heard in his voice quickly snapped her attention back to the present. "God, Lucas… I don't need you to be my hero. This isn't some twisted fairy tale. I'm not some princess that needs saving," she snapped. "And I will not give you another reason to hit Julian Baker just because you're still pissed that he fell in love with Peyton while you were busy falling in love with Lindsey."

Their eyes locked, fighting another unspoken fight.

But he gave in first and when he did, his expression told her that he wasn't just confused, he was hurt by the harshness in her words. "Fine. Forget I said anything," Lucas replied, holding his hands up in surrender as he backed away. "Do whatever you want."

Suddenly it was senior year again and he was declaring to a party full of classmates that he wasn't the one for her.

"I always do," she murmured to the empty store as she watched him walk away.

---

"Most people wouldn't have done what you did," Sam quietly commented. "For either of us."

"Well I doubt Brooke will feel too grateful," Julian replied. "Now that she knows I left without telling her that you called," he added, thinking about the woman whose tears had elicited more of a reaction in him than anyone else had in over a year.

A woman who intrigued and frustrated him to the point that he had to fight to hold onto his common sense when she was around.

"When it comes to me, your 'mom' isn't particularly forgiving."

"Why? What'd you do to her?" Sam wondered. Oddly, it didn't occur to Julian to be offended by the accusation. "I mean... you know... aside from today."

He shrugged. "I dated her best friend... seems to be all the reason she needs," Julian answered as he remembered the way she stormed out of his hotel room after their kiss. The words she flung at him with more hurt than anger.

He wondered if she even realized how much she actually resented her "best friend."

Not that Julian really blamed her. Not after reading Lucas' book at least a hundred times.

"It's hard for her, you know," Sam said after a few contemplative moments. "There's the whole glamor and money thing but that's not all she's about. It's not easy for her to let her guard down," Sam continued, driven by some unexplainable desire to let Julian in on Brooke's world. To give her someone she could finally trust. "Everyone she opens up to just lets her down... including me," she quietly continued, wondering if things would ever be the same between them despite what Julian insisted.

"I told you how out of her mind with worry she was," Julian gently reminded. For his own unexplainable reasons, the girl brought out his protective side. Something that Brooke had recently begun to do as well. "She's been all over town looking for you."

"I don't know why," Sam muttered under her breath.

"She cares a lot about you," Julian said simply. "Even someone like me can see it."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

He shrugged once more and glanced at Sam's curious expression. The one that had thankfully replaced her self-deprecating on. "It means that I'm no expert when it comes to Brooke Davis... far from it, actually... but even standing at a distance, I can still see how much you matter to her. Attack and all."

"Oh."

Her pensiveness kept Sam silent until they reached the Tree Hill city limits sign.

"I like Peyton well enough. I mean, she got me backstage at the USO concert and introduced me to Mia, which was pretty cool," Sam quietly said, all the while watching the passing trees turn into buildings the closer they got to Main Street. "But I get the feeling that she's the reason why you and Brooke are so closed off. So I kind of figured that it'd make sense for the two of you to..."

"I'm not that guy, Sam," he interrupted. "I'm just here to shoot a movie."

"Right," she agreed, nodding her head. "That's why you drove to Charlotte in the middle of the night, lied to a cop about who you were and convinced me to come back to Tree Hill," Sam reminded. "To shoot a movie."

"Sam..."

"You already are that guy, Julian. I think you're just too scared to admit it."

"Who needs a shrink when you've got Sam around?" he muttered.

"I'm just trying to help."

"Then do me a favor," Julian said. "The next time you think about running away in the middle of the night... don't."

---

"So I guess I'm grounded, huh?"

Brooke's gaze snapped up as the words and the ringing bell above the door reached her ears. She was devoid of makeup and the clothes on her thin frame were the same from two days before. But she was still Sam and Brooke wasted no time hurrying around the counter to pull the dirty teenager into her arms. "Thank god you're okay," she murmured against Sam's hair as she held her close.

"I'm so sorry," she cried and clutched at Brooke, allowing herself to feel safe for the first time since she walked out of the house. "I know that I screwed up and..."

"Shh..." Brooke quieted. "None of that matters anymore."

Pulling away, she looked Sam up and down, searching for any signs that she'd been hurt. "Where were you?" she asked once she was satisfied that there were no visible injuries. "How could you just run off like that?"

"I'm sorry," the young teenager sniffled. "I just... I couldn't stand that I'd hurt you."

Tears fell as Brooke pulled her close again.

"You didn't do anything to me, Sam," she whispered. "I'm so sorry that I didn't say that before you left. I should have. I should stopped you."

"That's basically what Julian said you'd say." Sam felt Brooke stiffen and pulled back just as her guardian's expression began to harden at the mention of his name. "If you're gonna be mad at someone, Brooke... it should be me. Not Julian."

"Speaking of the coward... where is he? Was he too scared to come inside?" she asked as her temper began to flare.

"He had some work to do," Sam explained.

Brooke snorted. "That's convenient."

"It really wasn't his fault. He didn't have much of a choice."

"There's always a choice, Sam." Brooke crossed her arms over her chest and shook her head. "He knew how worried I was and he still left without saying anything. Not a phone call... not even a text to let me know that he'd heard from you. That you were safe."

Sam glanced down and stared at the ragged toe of her shoe. Brooke had been trying to convince her to give up the old skater shoes in favor of a new pair but she kept putting it off. Now they carried the mud from outside a ragged Charlotte house. From two days she wished she could forget.

"I guess now we've come to the part of the after school special where I tell you what happened," she quietly said.

Brooke steeled her resolve and nodded her head. "Yeah... I think we have."

---

Sitting together on the purple couch in the corner, the two girls faced each other as Sam began her tale. "After I left, I called Jack and met him under the bridge. His brother..." she trailed off, thinking of the scarred face and malicious brown eyes of the man who attacked Brooke. "He picked me up."

"The same brother who knocks Jack around sometimes? That brother?" Brooke questioned as frustration, anger and worry all began to meld into one.

"Yeah... that brother." Sam knew that if Brooke detested the guy now, she was really going to hate him once the entire story had been told. "We started driving around for a while," the young brunette continued. "Mostly just county roads and he was sort swerving around every few minutes, like he was falling asleep or something. So Jack asked if he could drive instead and..."

Frowning, Brooke prodded, "And what?"

Tears began to fill Sam's eyes once more, but this time she refused to let them fall. "And he said that Jack had done enough damage for one day. He wasn't going to let him make anymore mistakes."

The way it was said, Brooke was positive that he wasn't talking about something as simple as forgetting to take out the trash. "Okay, what mistakes did he think Jack made?" But when her question went unanswered, Brooke's frown stretched wider. She reached for Sam's hand, hoping to provide whatever strength the young girl needed in order to finish the story. "Sam?"

"He told me the truth," she finally managed. "His brother... he... he's the one that attacked you."

It was out and it couldn't go back in.

Sam thought that despite all the second and third chances Brooke had given her, there wouldn't be another after finding out the whole truth. After learning that she got in the car with the man who had bruised and broken her over a few stolen clothes and some angry words.

But when the shock on her face began to fade away, Sam didn't see anger... she saw sadness.

"Considering my very un-noteworthy past in academics, I don't throw this word around lightly... but are you stupid?"

Now it was Sam's turn to be shocked. "What?"

"I realize that common sense tends to take a leave of absence when emotions are running high, but... Sam, how could you get in a car with a guy like that? He could have hurt you or.. or...raped you and..." she trailed off as memories of her own past denial came flooding back. "Did he hurt you, Sam? Honestly. Because I swear to god, if he touched you, I'll..."

"Woah, terminator... I'm fine," Sam quickly assured. "I promise."

Brooke took a deep breath and nodded once. "Okay. Then keep talking."

Now it was Sam who breathed in deeply as she relayed more of the story. "He just kept driving... he said that he couldn't risk staying in Tree Hill until he knew that I wasn't going to tell the cops," she explained. "So he drove into Charlotte because he had some friends there. Three losers that all live together in this broken down house that smells like urine most of the time."

"Charming," Brooke muttered.

"Jack was so freaked," Sam continued, trying to get it all out as quickly as she could. "We were pretty much just stuck there until the second day when one of the guys came back with something."

"Back with what?"

"Drugs. I don't know what kind," Sam replied. "They all got pretty high and one of them started seeing things that weren't there. Spiders crawling on his arm or something underneath his skin... I'm not really sure. He just got really freaked out and attacked one of the other guys," she relayed. "They were pretty much just clawing at each other like two girls cat fighting and while they were busy with that... I ran out."

"What about Jack? Did he go with you?"

"No... he said he understood why I had to but that he had to stay and take care of his brother," Sam answered. "I guess its a regular occurence in their family, or something. His brother messes up, Jack cleans it up."

"Sounds pretty broken to me," Brooke quietly stated.

"Aren't we all?"

Said so simply, it took a moment before the fist closed around Brooke's heart. Sam's words were so cynical, so broken all on their own, that she wanted to shake her until she realized that it didn't have to be that way. That Sam's world would never be like that again as long as she let Brooke help hold it together.

"Sam..."

"So I went to the cops," she said before Brooke could offer up any sympathetic words. "I told them everything I knew. Jack, his brother, the attack... the drugs... everything."

"Which was how Julian got involved," Brooke deduced.

"How'd you know that?"

"Well I might not rank in as foster mom of the year, but I did do a lot of research before our arrangement became a permanent one," the older brunette explained. "I know your rights, the things you can and can't do... I know that you were a minor reporting a crime and that they would most likely need your guardian around to come and get you."

Sam sighed and fought a losing battle with her tears. "They said they'd bring him in... I just didn't want to take the chance that you'd come pick me up and... and have to see him. I didn't want you to feel scared again. And Julian...he understood."

Her anger towards him began to fade away. While she didn't agree with the way he'd done things, she understood why he did them. Brooke was even a little bit grateful that he'd given Sam one more person she felt like she could trust.

"Sam," she said and cupped the girls cheeks as the tears began to fall. "Thank you."

"What?" the girl asked, surprised.

"We're gonna get through this, Sam. Me and you... it's all gonna be okay. I promise."

When she pulled her into her arms, she felt only the slightest hesitation before Sam clutched her close. "I'm so sorry," she mumbled through the tears.

"So am I," Brooke murmured. "So am I."