Summary: For Brooke and Lucas Scott, over the past five years nothing could shock them anymore. It was a rollercoaster ride that they call their life. But after all, Brooke was a wildcard. Shocking Lucas even more every day. Sequel to Like We Weren't Crazy!
Disclaimer: I don't own anything at all. I own a couple- or around twenty pairs of sweatpants from different colleges but that's about it. Oh well. Broke college student right here. What-what!
Baby, You're My Wildcard
#2.
"Damn it, Lucas answer your phone!" Brooke paced around the house trying to find her keys. She was running around like a chicken without a head.
"Brooke, calm down. It may not be that bad." Haley was just as worried but since Lucas was not there she took over the job of making everything calm for Brooke.
"Hales," Brooke paused and turned on her heels to face her best friend. "They wouldn't fucking tell me what was going on with my daughter! All they said was get to the hospital as soon as possible!"
"I'm not letting you drive." Haley stole the keys and ushered her out the door. "She'll be okay."
"Haley, I knew something was wrong with Gemma! I knew it. She's been pale lately and I was just shaking it off as nothing. This, this can't be happening." Brooke broke down in the passenger seat. She couldn't stop shaking. "I was going to call the doctor, I just decided to hold off. I was so stupid for it."
"Brooke, listen to me." Haley pulled to a red light. "This is Gemma we are talking about. She's such a strong little girl and she will be okay."
"I hope so."
The rest of the ride to the hospital was silent. Brooke was praying that either the school would call her saying it wasn't her daughter being rushed to the hospital or it was all a dream, a terrifying dream that if she pinched herself she'd be a wake and none of this happened.
Brooke ran into the hospital and ran right to the reception desk. "My daughter," she paused mumbling, "Gemma Scott, she's here somewhere." Brooke looked around trying to see if she could find her.
"Take the elevator up to the third floor and then they receptionist will tell you were to go." The older lady smiled. It comforted Brooke to some extent but not enough to do anything.
"Brooke," Haley was by her side for the whole thing. They waited for the elevator to ding letting them know that they reached the floor. Both stopped dead in there tracks when they realized what floor they where on.
Pediatric Intensive Care Unit
That's what the sign read and that scared Brooke even more. "No, no, no." Brooke shook her head. "This is all wrong. All terrible wrong."
"Let's just see what we can find out, okay?" Haley had this tightness in her stomach that something was most definitely not right. They walked up to the desk and said Gemma's name again. Only to receive the response of sit over there while they wait for someone to come out to talk to Brooke. "Try calling him again."
With shaky hands, Brooke dialed the familiar number praying for him to answer.
"Brooke, what's going on? I just got out of my meeting and turned my phone back on."
"Luke," Brooke cried out and answered him in a mumble of words that no one could comprehend.
"I can't understand you, Pretty Girl. What's going on?" Lucas voice was shaky. "Are the kids alright?"
"It's Gemma." Brooke managed to get out.
"Where are you Brooke? What's wrong with Gemma?" Lucas managed to understand the word hospital. "I'm going to get on the next flight home. I'll be right there. Call me if you hear anything please."
"I love you."
"Love you too, Baby. I'll be there as soon as I can." Lucas hung up the phone. Brooke knew he'd be there as fast as he could.
"Mrs. Scott?" A younger doctor walked over to the friends in the waiting room.
"Yes?" Brooke stood walking over to her. "How's Gemma? What happened to her? I haven't heard anything."
"Sit and we will talk." The doctor said guiding the broken mother to a chair. "I'm Dr. Adams, I've been given Gemma's case to look over."
"Can we please start at the beginning? No one at the school told me what was going on." Brooke rambled along. So many thoughts rushed through her head at this moment. Lucas was still going to be gone for most likely four hours and she was alone. Haley was here but eventually she knows Haley would have to go home to her family.
"Do you know if Gemma has ever had a seizure before?" The Doctor Adams looked at the young mother. Brooke tried to thinking back through the years of Gemma's medical case.
"I don't think so. I mean, no." Brooke paused for a moment.
"Okay," The doctor wrote something down on the note pad in front of her. "Well we think Gemma had one today."
"You think?" Brooke answered shocked.
"They're very hard to diagnose Mrs. Scott. The school sent her here because she collapsed during class and started jerking around. We think it was a grand-mal seizure."
"What does this even mean?"
"It means we are still trying to figure it out, Mrs. Scott. These are very difficult to determine unless we see one ourselves. We do know there are about five, as some may say, reasons for these, epilepsy, high fever, head trauma, progressive brain disease and congenital conditions. Does Gemma have any of these?"
"No!" Brooke yelled causing Haley to jump a little in her seat.
"Brooke..." Haley pleaded. "We need you to just stay calm. They're going to make Gemma better. I'll answer the questions for you if needed."
"No, I, I think I got this Hales." Brooke paused breathing in deeply, "My daughter is, was, fine this morning. Just a little paler then normal, but I didn't think anything of it. She's had some medical problems in the past, but, but Dr. Jensen said she's been doing fine lately."
"If it's okay, I would like to get in touch with Dr. Jensen? Maybe it will help." Dr. Adams smiled. She hated this part of the job were the parents looked so vulnerable and broken. "I want to run some test on her, if that's okay?" Brooke nodded in agreement. "I just want to see if we can find a reason behind this."
"Can I see her? Please?" Brooke begged.
"Yes, of course." The doctor's soft smile help reassure Brooke a little more. "Follow me."
"I'm going to stay and call everyone, you go Brooke." Haley informed her. "Go, she needs you."
Walking into the stark hospital room she was at her breaking point. Her baby was laying still in a hospital bed that was too big for her little body. She had wires and tubes coming out in ever direction. She didn't look like her happy baby girl.
"My little Gem," Brooke grabbed a hold of her hand. She looked up to the doctor and had so many questions going through her mind.
It seemed like Dr. Adams read her mind and spoke softly. "The breathing tube is somewhat just for precaution, Mrs. Scott. The wires are to track her brain waves and her heart and breathing. It looks scary, I know, but she's a fighter so far."
"She will be okay, right?" Brooke wanted the doctor to declare that Gemma would be perfectly fine and would get to go home tonight but she knew that was far from the truth.
"We hope so, but she's a fighter. I'm going to go see when we can bring her in for a CT scan. This will let us know what's going on in her brain and if anything was affected from the seizure." Dr. Adams carried on, "In the mean time, just stay put. We will do our best to make sure everything is okay."
"Hey baby Gem," Brooke spoke softly. She wanted to brush the wavy locks from her eyes but was scared to touch anything. She didn't want to hurt her. "I love you baby, please get better. Maybe I should've listened to you when you didn't want to go to school. I should've known you weren't ready."
"Mrs. Scott?" Dark haired petite women entered the room. "I'm Gina, the nurse going to be taking care of Gemma. Dr. Adams wanted me to let you know that we will be bringing her down any minute for the CT scan. If you have any questions, don't be afraid to ask them."
"What is a CT scan?"
"It's sort of like an X-Ray but it shows us what her brain looks like. It's traditional procedures for a patient with a possible brain injury."
"So wait are you saying," Brooke looked back to Gemma, "that, that Gemma has brain damage?"
"We aren't sure, Mrs. Scott. I'm going to tell you the truth and I won't sugar coat it. We aren't exactly sure as to anything with her brain. This will provide some information for us to move forward. She'll be in safe hands, trust me."
"Okay," Brooke mumbled. She had so many thoughts running through her head.
"We'll be taking her now. You can either stay in here or go back out to the waiting room. We will inform you when she's done." Gina stated starting getting all the machines ready. "It will be about thirty minutes. Get yourself some coffee and hang tight."
Brooke walked out the room and sat in the waiting room. So many thoughts, and none could make sense. She didn't under stand why this is happening to her right now or even happening to Gemma. Then she remembers the three other five-year-olds that also need her.
"Hales," Brooke spoke when Haley walked over to her. "I need to get them."
"Brooke," Haley stopped her. "You're staying here. Karen's already on top of it, she'll get them and keep them for the night. Stay here and don't let your mind wonder too much, she will be fine."
-XO-OTH-XO-
Lucas rushed into the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit in search of Lucas and his little girl. He was out of breath and in a panic since getting the phone call four hours ago. He got on the first plane he could and had Nathan pick him up and drive him directly to the hospital.
"Pretty Girl?" Lucas walked into the room that said Gemma Scott. He froze in his tracks at the sight of the room. Wires coming from all over and Brooke looking as scared as ever sitting next to their baby. "Oh baby," Brooke ran right into his arms. "She will be okay. She's a Davis-Scott and that means she's a fighter."
"But," Brooke's tears were making the blue shirt Lucas was wearing wet but neither cared right now. "They, they don't know anything. It's been test after test, Lucas."
"Then that's good. It means they're trying." Lucas was just as nervous, but like always he had to be the strong one and let Brooke depend on him.
"They, they said that she had a seizure. Well they think it's that." Brooke managed to get out.
"Mrs. Scott?" Dr. Adams walked into the room with another doctor following her in. "Ahhh, you must be Mr. Scott?" Lucas nodded his head to the doctor before waiting for her to continue. "We got some results back from the CT scan."
"And?" the brunette mother said impatiently. Brooke's been waiting for hours for these results. Every time Dr. Adams walked by the heavy wooden door Brooke silently prayed she'd walk in and say everything is perfectly fine and now Gemma just needs to wake up. But those hopes faded every single time.
"We found something, a sort of mass on her brain."
Everything turned silent. Brooke looked like she was ready to collapse to the ground in a fit of tears while Lucas stared at his daughter.
"A mass? What kind of mass?" The brooding blonde spoke. He couldn't believe what he was hearing. His baby Gemmy had something wrong. It had to be a mistake, a big fucking mistake.
"We are not too sure right now." Dr. Adams sighed. "I showed the results to Dr. Brennan here," She pointed to the young male doctor next to her. "He's an oncologist in the children's department. He can explain it better then I could possibly."
"Well, I looked at the results, and it does concern me slightly about the location of it." Dr. Brennan opened the file that the parents assumed held Gemma's results. He pulled out an image from the CT scan and showed them it. "Here is the mass," he pointed to the cerebrum. "It's pretty large in size, and I think they best option is to remove it to see if it's medulloblastoma or not."
"Wait, what?" Brooke couldn't digest the information that the doctor was spewing to her. Today was supposed to be a happy day; her babies started school for the first time and yet here she was in the stupid PICU finding out her daughter may have cancer- brain cancer.
"I know this is shocking, if it wasn't I would be worried. But for right now, I think we should do the surgery as soon as possible. It may be the reason she had the seizure earlier."
"Do it." Lucas spoke up. "Do whatever you need too." Lucas didn't even see what Brooke wanted to do. All it was was a gut instinct. If this ends up helping Gemma, then so be it.
Doctor Brennan nodded and smiled that the parents. "I'll go try to get the OR ready and we will let you know when it will happen." He left the room leaving the parent's thoughts to engulf them.
"You." Brooke mumbled pointing her finger at Lucas. "It's your fault this is all happening."
"Brooke," Lucas looked hurt and confused at the same time.
"No!" Brooke's voice became louder and stronger. "I told you they weren't ready for school yet, I knew it. This wouldn't have happened if you just agreed with me!"
"Brooke, Pretty Girl, this was nothing I could control. Me or you couldn't control at all."
"Get out." She went back to mumbling. Her pale cheeks have been rosie red since she got the phone call and her dimples haven't been displayed since this morning. "I want you out. This is your fault!"
Lucas stared from Brooke to Gemma and sighed before throwing his hands up in the air. "Fine, Brooke. Just know one thing, I didn't cause any of this mess. I'll be out here."
"It's all your fault." Brooke managed to get out before falling into the uncomfortable chair next to Gemma's bed.
Lucas looked at Brooke before just walking out of the room. He made a point to never ever fight in front of the kids. They didn't need to see it. This situation was similar; Gemma didn't need to hear it. So he left. He left to sit in the stark waiting room waiting for hope to come and rescue them.
Chapter two is now complete! I'm enjoying writing this story a lot! I hope you all like it a lot! Thanks for reading, please review to tell me what you think. I really like to hear everyone's opinion on it.
Thank you time:
Dianehermans: I'm going to write this story super fast because I have a deadline for it! May 28th, every story has to be complete or it will be a while in between updates! Hope you enjoyed this chapter!
Sandygirl: Good thing you're loving the start of it, I hope you love the rest with what I have planned! Drama follows Lucas and Brooke around all the time, even on the show. I just felt like drama without Tree Hill is not Tree Hill.
Akinka: Glad to make you happy! Hope you enjoyed this chapter!
B (Guest): You are right. You should never underestimate any mother's instincts.
VFBFan: I still have no clue what path I'm going to exactly lead with for Gemma, but I have some ideas floating around. Every kid will have their fair share of scenes. Just with this chapter, I wanted to focus on Gemma a little. Kind of like, get the feel that everyone is going through. The other kids will be around next chapter! Hope you like this. If you have any ideas, let me know! I'll gladly look at them! Thanks for reading! Hope you enjoy it!