Riley looks down at the little boys, unsurely. The last time a baby was near her, it puked on her. Riley kind of decided to stray away from them until further notice. Babies are weird, well most of them are; Riley wonders if her Mum took care of her when she was a baby.
"Have you ever been around babies before, Riley?" Julian asked sitting down beside the girl.
"Last time I was, it barfed on me" the nine year old informed with an uneasy smile.
Julian snorts causing Riley glare at him half-threateningly. Brooke nudges her husband with a grin. "Things like that only happen when the baby is sick. Davis and Jude aren't sick; so you have nothing to worry about" Brooke stated sitting down beside her foster child.
Davis offers Riley one of his toys. Riley glances at Brooke who nods and she takes it. "Thanks" Riley grins at the dark haired little boy.
He smiles back causing Riley to giggle. Dave and Riley start putting a puzzle together. Jude watches feeling jealous of his brother and older person. This new person can't give Davis all the attention and not him. How is that any fair? Jude frowns as he waddles over and plops down in Riley's lap.
Riley looks up at Julian; alarmed. "Don't worry, he's just jealous and wants your attention" Julian answered sitting up and going into the other room to retrieve his video camera.
Brooke leans against the couch and adds another piece to Dave's puzzle. Jude starts to babble to Riley about his life, Riley doesn't understand a word he's saying, but nods like she does.
Julian re-enters the living room with video camera in hand. "Okay, so this is our new foster daughter Riley with Jude and my hot, sexy wife with Davis" Julian said as Riley tries to hide her face.
"Stop it, Julian. I don't like being filmed" Riley shields her face and giggles.
Jude follows her lead and hides his face with his hands. Davis looks at the two and follows both of their leads. He hides his face with his hands. Riley looks over at her new brothers and giggles. Julian watches the scene with a smile. His boys never take to anyone like they're taking to Riley.
"Look at that, they like you Rye" Julian answered giving his foster daughter a teasing smile.
Riley grins and pokes out her tongue. Davis crawls over to Riley and slides onto her other knee. Brooke laughs giving her husband a mock hurt look.
"I feel so abandoned" Brooke laughed causing Riley to shrug meekly; she hadn't expected them to like her. "Oh look they're fighting for your attention now."
Julian has the camera set on the children. They're all getting along with one another, so well. Growing up, Julian always wanted a little brother or sister. "Can I see the video camera?" Riley asked reaching for the camera.
"Just don't drop it" Julian hesitantly hands it over to her. Riley sits up causing Jude to frown, feeling abandoned.
"Oh yeah, now you know how I feel. Come here baby boy" Brooke opens her hands and Jude runs into them. Davis moves to his father's lap. Julian ruffles the top of his blonde mop of curls.
Riley films them for another couple minutes until there's a loud knock on the door. Everyone glances at the door; Riley fumbles, but quickly manages to catch the camera. Julian watches feeling his heart practically leap out of his chest. He smiles when she catches it, but more out of relief than anything else.
"Riley, could you bring the camera upstairs and press this button to turn it off" Julian shows his foster daughter the button.
"Okay" Riley quickly goes upstairs and puts the camera back in their bedroom. She watches at the top of the staircase as Brooke invites several people in. Brooke catches her watching and calls her downstairs.
Riley looks at the people at this supposed party. Brooke said it was for her, but it doesn't feel like it is. Haley, Nathan, Lydia, Jamie, and Madison were the first to arrive. Madison it seems is one of Jamie's closest friends. Riley thinks of her friendship with Austin and how different he and Jamie are.
Austin knows every swear word ever made. He can rattle off details about topics he shouldn't know about. Austin also had a knack for mouth off. Natalie once threatened to wash his mouth out for telling a guy to do something to himself. Jamie is different, a lot different. He offered to watch Lydia while his parents were inside.
Madison didn't say anything to her. In fact, Riley started to notice that Madison was ignoring her. While they were all meeting one another, Madison pointedly glared at Riley who squinted; confused. She hadn't done anything for this Madison girl to hate her.
Quinn, Clay, and Logan came next. Quinn has her camera and started snapping pictures of everyone and everything in sight. She's nice, though. Her husband didn't say much, he smiled awkwardly and went into the kitchen to fetch himself a drink. Riley likes to think of herself as a decent judge of character; Clay and Quinn seem okay in her book.
Millie and Mouth walked through the door only a couple of seconds after Clay and Quinn. The duo makes themselves comfortable on the couch. Riley has seen both of them on T.V. and they seem nice in person. Well as nice as anyone can be. They both questioned Riley about Charlotte; it felt more like an interrogation.
Riley honestly feels overwhelmed by all these people. She remembers Brooke telling her only their friends and family were coming, the nine year old didn't think more than half the town would come over.
Haley puts baby Lydia in the playpen with Davis and Jude. "How are you doing with Riley?" she asked grinning down at the babies.
"I don't know" Brooke admitted shamefully. "But, right now it's good. Riley's a good kid, I think" Haley frowns, not sure whether it's her place to tell Brooke, that she shouldn't judge a book by its cover. For some reason, Haley has a strange feeling Riley is going to be a mini-Brooke.
Quinn walks into the kitchen. "Brooke, the camera really loves your kid and I don't think she knows it. You should totally have her be your new kid model" she announced taking a few pictures of the babies.
Logan rushes into the kitchen, almost colliding into the playpen. "Bud, run outside, not in Julian and Brooke's house" Quinn reprimanded softly, offering Brooke an apologetic smile.
Brooke waves it off. Whenever Jamie comes for the weekend, he runs around with Julian following. Logan starts to open the back door. He hasn't gotten the chance to run since before his time-out.
"Wait, just a minute there. You haven't said hello to me, yet" Brooke said raising her eyebrows joking causing the little boy to blush.
"Hi B…Aunt Brooke" he corrected remembering an incident last week when he didn't call Brooke, Aunt Brooke. She told him about a million times that it was okay and he could call her that. Logan decided he would just to make her happy.
Logan glances past Brooke and at Riley. He frowns wondering if he had met everyone in his mother's family. His Dad doesn't talk much about his side of the family. This girl doesn't look like anyone he remembers from past parties. Or maybe, he just forgot her; Logan does that sometimes. He is only six after all.
He's been racking over every person in their family and can't seem to figure out who that girl is. It's not Madison, cause Madison has brown eyes. This girl has blue eyes. "Who's that, Mom?" he asked tugging on his mother's hand.
Quinn smiles apologetically at the fourth grader. "Riley, she's Aunt Brooke and Uncle Julian's foster child" Quinn explained slowly and patiently.
"Is your last name Foster?" Logan turns to Riley with slight confusion in his big brown eyes.
"No, it's O'Connor" Riley answered looking at Brooke for help. Logan's too little to understand foster kids and stuff like that.
"So you aren't their foster child, then. You're their O'Connor kid" Logan corrected as he runs back into the living with a carefree smile.
Quinn shakes her head, wondering if she was this difficult when she was six. Her poor parents probably had themselves running around in circles trying to track down their siblings.
Riley looks at Brooke; confused. "He's younger than you, it's hard for him to understand all of this" Brooke explained looking fondly at her. The fourth grader nods and looks down.
She's never liked being known as the poor kid or nowadays the foster kid. In Charlotte, all the kids in her class looked at her weird because of it. Brooke sees a strange look flash through the child's face. The foster parent lifts up Riley's chin, so they have eye contact. "Are you okay?" Brooke asked looking and sounding concerned.
"Yeah" Riley lied.
"Are you sure? Cause, if you want we can go for a drive" Brooke reaches for her car keys. "I know this is a lot to take in on our first day together" she said not letting go of the child's chin.
"I'm okay…it's just different is all" the curly headed child answered wanting to be honest, Riley figures even though, she's leaving she might as well be a little nice.
"If you need a break, just tell me. We can go for a drive or something, okay?" Brooke offered as Riley nods.
Really, all Riley wants is to be alone, but Brooke is trying. That much is obvious; Brooke's trying her best and nobody's ever done that before; tried to do some good by her. Not even Grams, but it was probably cause Grams was always sick or working or something.
Julian comes into the kitchen. His eyes scan the entire room in search of his foster daughter. When he sees her with Brooke, he pauses for a moment to smile at how great the two look together. "I need to borrow, Riley for a few minutes. Any complaints?" he asked grinning sexily at his wife who shakes her head.
"What do you think? You wanna leave us and go with Julian?" Brooke asked with a half-teasing smile.
Riley grins following her foster father into the living room. "Have you met, Nathan yet?" Julian leads her to a dark haired man with an easy smile.
"He was on the Bobcats" Riley briefly remembers watching Nathan Scott on T.V. Grams always said he had more heart than all the Bobcats put together. Riley never understood what Grams meant by that, but she was always saying weird phrases like that.
"I was, until a back injury, but now I'm a sports agent for a company I co-own with Clay, called Fortitude" Nathan explained in the simplest way he can for the child. "Do you know what the word fortitude means?"
"Having a fort?" Riley asked shrugging.
Nathan grins at the child's logic. "It means having courage while your pain" he stated ruffling Riley's brown curls.
Riley feels her breath catch. She blinks back tears thinking of Grams. Riley wonders if she has fortitude. She hasn't been that brave. Really, she's been more or less going through the motions with a forced smile. That isn't bravery, that's pretending.
Julian lifts up her chin. "Hey, are you okay?" he asked staring into those beautiful blue eyes of hers.
Riley nods and pulls her chin away. The nine year old patiently waits a few moments, before excusing herself to her bedroom. She opens her walk-in closet and sits inside as the tears roll down her cheeks. Grams would think she was a baby for crying like this, but meeting all those people. It's too intense for her. This entire day has been too intense and Grams doesn't even know she's gone.
Riley looks at the clock, it's a little after seven. Austin's having dinner now. They had planned on sneaking out and going to their fort tonight. Well, they do that every night, but still, its apart of their ritual and symbolic.
The closet door creaks open. Riley looks up expecting Brooke or maybe Julian to be standing there, it's a dark blonde haired boy. "Are you okay?" Riley struggles to remember his name.
Riley rolls her eyes; she's getting sick of everyone asking her that. She's fine! She came here without much complaining, didn't she? "Fine" she sniffled wiping her tears.
Then it hits her, Jamie. He's Nathan and Haley's son, even though he doesn't look like his father. "You don't look fine, to me" Jamie takes a seat beside her.
Jamie continued, "Aunt Brooke and my Mom sent me up here to check on you…to see if you were okay" he wonders what he's going to tell them if Riley doesn't come down with him. Aunt Brooke will have to come up and talk to Riley. Jamie doesn't want to embarrass Riley. Having her around might be fun, family parties can get boring, fast.
"I'm fine" Riley repeated, sounding like she's trying to convince herself more than Jamie.
"I know, but they don't" Jamie looks at her knowingly. Madison is going to give him such grief for being alone with Riley.
Riley laughs and takes a deep breath. "I don't wanna go back down there. Everyone won't quit staring at me. Why can't they stare at you?" Riley giggled jokingly.
Jamie considers this. "You're new, I'm old" he answered grinning, showing off his multi-colored braces.
"Your smile's cool" Riley said with a genuine smile as she gets up and starts out of her bedroom. "You coming or are you gonna stay in a closet all day?" she asked waiting impatiently.
"I'm coming" Jamie gets up and follows her lead.
Clay watches Quinn with Logan perched on her lap. After he got home from talking with a future client, they all had a long talk. He and Quinn agreed they would only spank Logan as a last resort of if nothing else worked before or if they need to get his attention when he's throwing a tantrum.
Logan didn't seem too traumatized about the smack. When Quinn and Clay went to talk to him about it, they found him asleep. He had actually forgotten all about it. He also promised, he'd do his best to behave which is better than nothing.
Clay can tell his wife is still wracked with guilt. The way she keeps stroking Logan's hair and chewing on her lower lip are dead giveaways. Clay studies her feeling sorry guilty for not putting an end to Logan's behavior.
Hell, they're both new at this. They've only been parents for ten months and it's harder than they thought. At first, it was fun; playing on the beach and camping indoors. Then they all got used to one another and Logan started testing the boundaries.
"Hey babe" Clay sits down beside his wife and takes her hand. "Wolf-man, why don't you go play outside?" he offered as Logan slides off his mother's lap and runs outside in search of Jamie.
"What's the matter?" Clay asked stroking her knee.
Quinn shifts uncomfortably. "I still feel guilty for spanking Logan" she whispered so no one else will hear their conversation.
"Would you feel better if I spanked you?" he asked rubbing his chin; methodically causing Quinn to swat his knee.
"This isn't funny, Clay" Quinn reprimanded giving her husband a look.
"You shouldn't feel guilty. We talked about it with Logan and the only time we'll ever do it is as a last resort of if his temper gets the best of him" Clay answered realizing his wife is actually nervous Logan won't love her anymore.
Quinn answered, "He gets that from you."
"Oh no" Clay shakes his head with a smile. "That's all you" he laughed carelessly placing an arm around her waist and pulling her in. "I love you, Quinn Evans."
"I love you too" his wife kisses him, running her fingers through his dark blonde hair while she does it.
Out of the corner of her eye, Brooke watches Riley. She's worried about her, ever since the party got in full swing; Riley's been quiet. Brooke remembers her parents having parties when she was young. She hated the boring conversations with her father's associates and future clients.
"I'm going to take Riley for a ride" Brooke informed her husband who is starting upstairs to put the boys to bed.
Julian glances over and sees Riley's boredom written all over her cherubic little face. "Good idea" he kisses Brooke on the cheek. Brooke kisses Davis and then Jude. Riley thought they were cute, but seemed hesitant to participate in family activities.
Riley is so incredibly bored. After she came downstairs with Jamie; Madison glared at him and they went off to talk. Riley should've stayed upstairs; upstairs is better than downstairs. There are far too many people downstairs and they won't quit staring at her. She wishes Austin was here, he'd talk to her. Actually, they'd joke with one another and make fun of everybody.
A shadow darkens her view and Riley looks up. "Come with me" Brooke ordered taking her hand and leading the child out of the house.
Chase hands his favorite customer a glass of Root Beer. "Your mom told me, you've been having some trouble in school" Chase looks pointedly at his 'little' brother.
Chuck looks down and shrugs his shoulders. "So? Everyone messes up in school sometimes" Chuck answered becoming defensive.
"Yeah, well nobody messes up enough to almost get suspended" Chase raises his eyebrows, causing Chuck to realize that Chase knows what happened last week.
"I just…is it my fault you don't fly anymore?" Chuck asked. He's been thinking more and more about Chase's decision to fight back for him.
"No, that's not your fault" Chase glances down at Chuck looking concerned. "I loved flying, but I love you a lot more, Chuck" he replied reaching out and tussling Chuck's dark blonde hair.
The door to the bar opens. "Sorry, we're closed for the day" Chase called out as his eyes widen at the person standing before him.
"Oh I think you can make an exception" Alex Dupre announced sitting beside Chuck winking playfully.
Chase's mouth drops open in shock meanwhile Chuck shakes his head. Things in Tree Hill just got a lot more interesting.
Samantha Walker pours herself a glass of wine. She glances at an email; Brooke sent her a few weeks ago. Apparently, she and Julian are fostering another kid. Her name is Riley Grace O'Connor and she's nine. They want her and Jack to come for a visit or somehting. Sam isn't so sure, if she wants to meet this little kid.
"What's the matter, Sam?" her boyfriend, Jack sits down beside her. His light brown hair has become less scruffy and more short and tamed.
"We should visit Brooke and Julian" Sam blurted, suddenly.
Jack smiles, "yeah. I haven't seen them since Davis and Jude's first birthday. How are they doing?" he wondered looking at the email.
"They're fostering a kid, Riley" Sam tries not to sound hurt, but she can't help it. She always thought of herself as Brooke and Julian's only girl.
"What's the matter? Brooke told you about maybe adopting another kid a few months ago?" Jack asked looking concerned.
"I don't know. Maybe, my former, teenage self is trying to make me jealous or something. Did I make the right choice?" Sam asked, Rebecca was great to her, but so was Brooke. It was one of the hardest decisions of her life, choosing Rebecca over the mother Sam had come to know and love.
"By dating me? Hell yeah" Jack kisses her cheek. "I think at the time, you felt like you needed to get to know, you're real Mom. Not all of us are that lucky" Jack murmured.
Sam leans into his chest, wanting to hear his heartbeat. "Let's visit, Tree Hill. I want to meet this Riley" she answered putting down her glass and rushing upstairs.
Jack watches her go wondering whether this is the best thing. Tree Hill has a lot of bad memories for him; his brother and his past. Everything good is here with Sam and the parents who took him in and loved him no matter what. Life is good where it is.