Sorry for taking so long, I did plan on updating before the end of 2007 but as you can see, that didn't happen lol. And I just want to say a massive thank you for the lovely reviews.
"So what's it like then?" Skills asked as Lucas pulled himself up onto a stool next to him.
"What's what like?" Lucas questioned, clearly baffled.
"Come on Dawg, you have the blonde and the brunette in your bed, you must be in heaven right?"
Skills smirked and Lucas knew just from looking at him what his childhood pal was thinking about in his head. "It's not like that Skills." Lucas stated firmly. He would have laughed had the situation been different but there wasn't anything remotely humorous about the situation. He had been sharing a bed with two girls who whether they admitted to it or not were scared out of their minds. Nothing funny about that.
"Whatever you say man. Just saying how it looks that's all."
"Yeah well it's nothing like how it looks. They've been through a lot." Lucas responded, beginning to get rather defensive. Skills didn't know what it had been like since the attack, none of them did. Sure he had spoken to Haley and Nathan a couple of times on the phone and they had dropped by to see them, but they didn't know what it was like in the middle of the night, to have the girls wake him and get him to check out a sound they might or might not have heard. They weren't the ones having to stay up all night long because the girls were too scared to sleep, nor where they the ones to see Brooke sitting on the kitchen floor crying her eyes out last night. He had been there. He had been the one to comfort them. None of them could understand what it had been like. They just couldn't.
"How are they doing?" Nathan asked having heard the tail end of the conversation as he made his way over from his wife, who was ordering something to eat. He knew it was common for women to get cravings during a pregnancy but he had no idea it would be like this. She had been craving ice-cream, so trying to do the right thing he had stocked up on ice-cream, he had even got a selection of flavours just in case. However the next day it wasn't ice-cream that she wanted, no, this time it was pickles. He didn't understand cravings and he was pretty sure he was never going to either.
"They're getting there. Peyton seems to be dealing with it now." Lucas answered his brother.
"And Brooke?" Nathan instantly asked picking up on his brother's failure to mention the brunette.
Lucas hesitated as he thought about the answer to that very question, which only gave Nathan further reason to worry. "I'm not sure. I mean she says she's fine, but I don't think she is." Lucas confessed. He couldn't lie to Nathan, he knew his brother would see straight through it and truth be told Nathan and Haley had probably been there for Brooke a lot more than he had leading up to the attack. It had only been in the last week that he had actually had a proper conversation with the brunette.
"Brooke's a tough cookie. She'll be alright." Skills stated, clearly not seeing any reason to worry. Then again he didn't know Brooke like either of the brothers did.
"Yeah well right now I think she's crumbling" Lucas muttered under his breath. He thought his comment had gone unnoticed, and it had by Skills, but when he looked up and caught his brother's eye he realised his words had not gone unheard after all.
The bell rang signalling someone had either entered or left the café.
"Hey" Haley's cheerful voice sounded as she waved over the two girls who had just appeared through the door. Brooke and Peyton both made their way over and took a seat, either side of their pregnant friend.
"So what's this emergency? Brooke asked as she watched Haley dig in to the pie in front of her.
Haley shrugged and waited until she was able to swallow the contents on her mouth. "They wouldn't say 'til everyone was here." Haley explained. "But now you're here that's everyone" Haley added as her husband, best-friend and Skills all made their way over to the girl's table.
"What's this all about man?" Nathan asked.
"See I got this weird message from Mouth." Skills said pulling out his cell from his jean pocket. He searched for the message, which didn't take long and then passed the cell phone to Lucas.
"In Honey Grove. Need ass" Lucas said reading the message out. A look of confusion soon followed and when he looked up he was greeted by similar expressions.
"What's that meant to mean?" Peyton asked
"How much ass does he need, he's with Rachel!" Brooke chimed in. The redhead had sent her a message saying Mouth had gone with her, she hadn't been surprised like everyone else. She was confused as to how Mouth had got to the airport in time when just an hour or two earlier he had been at prom with her but was she surprised Mouth and Rachel had ended up together? Definitely not.
"What's he doing in Honey Grove? Nathan asked clearly baffled.
"Where is Honey Grove?" Haley asked.
"I'm on it" Brooke replied cell in hand as she entered the destination
"Guys what if ass is short for assistance. Maybe he needs us" Lucas suggested as he read over the message again.
"Then why didn't the dude just say need help?" Skills queried.
"Because this is Mouth" Peyton stated
"I found it but if he does need help it's going to be one hell of a long drive." Brooke said as she passed her cell across the table to Lucas so he could see the distance for himself.
1189 miles
"Brooke's right. It's a long drive, too long. I think Skills and I should go and the rest of you should stay" Lucas reasoned. It would be a lot easier if just the two of them went. Haley was pregnant, Nathan wouldn't want to leave Haley alone, and Brooke and Peyton had hardly been out in the last week so it was highly unlikely that would want to go to Honey Grove of all places.
"Come on it will be fun." Haley said excitedly.
"Hales maybe we should just let them go, you are pregnant" Nathan suggested, his protective nature kicking in.
"So what? It's just a couple of hours in a car, we find Mouth and then come home right?" Haley asked refusing to be deterred by her husband and brother in law.
"It's more than a couple of hours tutor-mom." Brooke warned. Obviously she didn't know exactly, her math wasn't that good but even she knew it was more than a couple of hours given the distance that had just been displayed on her cell.
"Try 18" Lucas swiftly answered his best friend.
"I think Haley's right. We should go. Mouth needs us and after the week we've had I think we could all do with this" Peyton added her two cents.
"A long road trip?" Skills questioned. There were a lot of things he needed and wanted but he couldn't say a long road trip was one of them.
"No. Some time all together and a chance to get away from all the drama. What do you say?" Peyton asked looking around the table at the faces that surrounded her.
"I'm in." Brooke quickly answered, giving a smile to Peyton as she did so. Peyton offered a smile back thankful or her friend's support.
"Me too" Haley soon added causing Nathan to groan at his wife's stubbornness.
"I guess that means I'm coming too" Nathan sighed.
"Guess we know who wears the pants in that relationship" Skills quipped causing them all to laugh.
"We do have one problem." Lucas said over the laughter, grabbing everyone's attention as he did so.
"What now?" Skills asked.
"Well there's six of us and only room for five in the car." Lucas pointed out. It was great that they all wanted to come and he would be grateful of the company but it seemed everyone had overlooked the obvious math problem.
"No there isn't" Brooke spoke up causing everyone to turn and face her.
"Huh" Lucas spoke. He didn't want to point out that math wasn't her strongest subject but it seemed either she was unable to count or she knew something he didn't and he was hoping it was the latter.
"Not if we take Rachel's car." Brooke smirked rather proud of herself for the thinking of the car sitting on the redhead's drive. She still had her set of keys to the house where Rachel had left the car keys, and the redhead had told her that her parents would not be back for a few weeks which meant the car was there, available and all gassed up ready for a road trip!
They went on to discuss the arrangements, what time they would leave, how much luggage should they take, which the girls and guys clearly disagreed on, the girls winning in the end. It was settled that Nathan would take the first shift and that Haley would be excluded from the driving schedule. During the discussion Nathan paid close attention to the brunette. Hair and make-up immaculate as usual, chatty, making jokes at his expense, she seemed fine, and yet he remained unconvinced.
He knew Brooke after all. And he didn't want to cast doubt over Peyton's friendship with Brooke but there were things he understood about Brooke, things that no one else did, not even Peyton.
He remembered when they were younger and Brooke had ended up in his bedroom crying about her parents one morning before school, she had completely fallen apart right in front of his very eyes. It turned out Brooke's parents had decided they were taking a family vacation, without her. The brunette had disappeared into the bathroom and yet when she had reappeared, just in time to leave for school, he was unable to tell if it was the same girl or not. She walked down the halls at school and no one knew how upset she had been, no one knew how upset she still was, because what she didn't want to show people, she hid. She had perfected it to such a degree that even he had trouble seeing through the mask she wore.
"I'm going to go and get the car then. Meet at Lucas's at four yeah?" Brooke asked as she slid out of her chair.
"Maybe someone should go with you" Lucas added before the brunette could escape through the door. He hoped someone would jump in and offer to go with her but as the majority of them believed Brooke was fine no one did. Maybe had the brunette shown them a little of what he had seen over the last few days they would have felt the need to accompany her. However that was not the case.
"Bye" Brooke shouted as she quickly exited the building. She let out a deep sigh as the cool air hit her face. For a second she had actually thought Lucas was going to insist on coming with her. It wasn't that she didn't want company but she was going to have to learn to be on her own once again sooner or later. When things got back to normal Nathan would have Haley, Peyton would have Lucas and she would be back on her own. She couldn't afford to be scared. And spending time with Lucas wasn't going to do her any good. It would just make it that extra bit harder and right now it was hard enough.
She steadied her pace as she walked further down the street and further away from the Café. And that was when she had noticed it. As her own pace evened out it became more apparent that there was another sound of footsteps close behind and getting increasingly closer. She felt the fear in her begin to rise and her pace quickened once more. She didn't want to turn around through fear of who it was. The stupid thing was that it could have been a complete stranger, someone completely harmless just doing their shopping or something ridiculously normal, but it was the fear that it could behim, the one who had held the knife to her throat and planned on killing her a matter of days ago, that prevented her from looking.
She could feel it, the person was now directly behind her, she wished she had crossed the street earlier or walked that extra bit faster, but it was too late now. Her instincts were telling her to kick them, punch them, anything, just to do something. But she didn't. She kept walking. She felt a hand grasp her shoulder but she was still too scared to do anything. She thought about screaming and opened her mouth to do so, but before a sound had a chance to escape her mouth the figure behind her spoke.
"Brooke"
"Don't you ever do that to me again" Brooke exclaimed as she spun around and smacked the owner of the familiar voice on the arm.
He couldn't help but laugh at her over the top reaction. But as his laughter came to a halt he realised that the brunette before him wasn't smiling, she was actually shaking and seemingly on the verge of tears.
"Brooke I'm so sorry. I didn't think" Nathan said as he wrapped his arms around the clearly shaken brunette.
"It's ok. Really. I'm fine." The brunette declared as she attempted to regain some composure.
'You're not fine though are you. Lucas was right" Nathan replied causing the brunette to break out of his hold.
"Is that why you are here? Lucas sent you?" Brooke yelled in disbelief. For a brief second she had actually believed that maybe he was there because he simply wanted to spend time with her, like they used to, but now she knew he was only there out of pity or on a order from his older brother. She didn't need this. She was doing fine, why couldn't Lucas just stay the hell out of her business. She was dealing with it in her own way. She didn't need people checking up on her all the time. She wasn't Peyton!
"No I was just worried about you. And I thought you could do with some company" Nathan reasoned but he knew he had blown it. He hadn't meant to mention Lucas, it had just slipped out and now it didn't matter what he had to say as Brooke didn't want to hear it.
"Well now you know that I'm fine you can go back and tell your dear brother." She retorted.
Nathan turned to walk away but something was stopping him.
He couldn't leave her.
He knew she had told him to leave and he knew he should do as she said rather than make anymore of a scene than they had done already. But he couldn't go. Having seen her a minute or two earlier on the verge of tears he knew she wasn't ok, Lucas knew she wasn't either, and he couldn't walk away knowing that. She clearly needed help. Maybe Lucas couldn't help her, but maybe he could.
"I was kinda hoping you would let me come with you. Their all talking about the baby and I'm kind of freaking out. It's getting closer and closer you know" Nathan said as he slowly turned back round to the brunette.
"No offence Nathan but didn't you realise this when you found out Haley was pregnant. I mean a baby is going to have to come out of there sometime, that is generally what happens." A stranger may not have noticed the change in the girl's tone or facial expression but he had. She had softened. Maybe it was the talk about the baby or maybe it was because admitting his own fears made hers disappear if only for a while.
"I know it's just…….. I don't know what I am supposed to do when it's here." He struggled to explain. It had been bothering him for a while now and he had hoped that as it got closer his fears would go away, but it seemed they were getting worse and worse by the day. He needed someone to talk to about it and he knew that someone should be his wife but there seemed to be this barrier that was preventing him from doing so.
"What do you mean?"
"Well I don't know anything about kids." Nathan answered. It sounded silly as he said it out loud, it wasn't like there were an alien species or anything but right now it sure felt like it.
"Neither do I" Brooke quickly replied
"Yeah but you're not about to be a mom."
"No" Brooke swallowed at the painful reminder. Nathan hadn't noticed and she was glad. She had thought she was pregnant, pregnant with Lucas's baby, she had gone out and bought the pregnancy kit making sure Lucas did not find out anything until she was sure, but in the end there hadn't been anything to tell. Part of her wished that she had been pregnant, maybe then she would still have Lucas, although remembering his reaction when he thought it was her and not Haley, and seeing him with Peyton and how happy they were she realised it had all worked out for the best. Everyone was happy.
Except for her anyway.
"I'm fine with going out to the store buying her ice-cream, that's easy. But I don't even know where I am meant to start when the baby comes. Everyone keeps telling me all these things and I can't remember like any of them"
"Nathan you will do great. You both will. Most first time parents don't know what they are supposed to do, it's normal." Brooke reassured him.
"So do you mind if I tag along?" Nathan asked for the final time knowing that if she didn't say yes now then she was never going to.
"Sure but just so you know, if you ever scare me like that again I will kill you Nathan Scott."
I hope you liked it. I am at home sick at the moment so will probably get some more writing done in the next few days, still not sure as to when the next update will be but you shouldn't have to wait too long. And as usual please review as I love reading them.
