Thanks for the reviews again. I love the feedback. This'll probably be the last update before Christmas, so I'm telling you now: MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Good things will happen this chapter; my gift to you.

Brooke woke up the next morning at about 11:00. She hadn't heard from either Lucas or Peyton since the previous day's incident, but that wasn't a bad thing in her eyes. Honestly, she didn't know what else she was supposed to do. She was over Lucas, and she was over Peyton. She was over Lucas and Peyton. At least that's what she enjoyed telling herself, even though it never turned out to be the case.

"What're you doing?" Brooke heard. She turned her head to see Rachel in the doorway of her big closet putting on shoes.

Brooke stretched her arms and sat up slowly. "What do you mean what am I doing?"

"I mean it's 11:00 and you're in bed. Still. Get your sorry butt up and do something."

Brooke rubbed her eyes. "Do what? Where are you going?"

"Lunch. Want to come?" she asked. "I'd grab a coat though, it's sort of cold."

"It should be. It's December," Brooke said.

"Come on," Rachel said.

"Ehh," Brooke complained.

"It's the only chance you'll get to see everyone together for Christmas. Come on."

"Who all's going?"
"Oh you know. The usual," Rachel said, matter-of-factly. "Mouth, Haley, Nathan…"

"That's it?"

"Oh well Bevin's coming too," Rachel said. "And Peyton and Lucas." Rachel finished, laughing at herself. She lived to torment the crap out of Brooke.

Brooke groaned and laid back down, throwing the covers over her head.

"Thinking about it?" Rachel said as she buttoned up her coat.

"No," Brooke said. "But I am thinking about moving out of this crackwhore's house."

Rachel laughed again and walked to the door. "I'll be sure to tell Peyton hi for you.

"Do what you want. But just leave me out of it all, please."

"Oh, that won't be an issue." With that, Rachel walked out of the room.

They were all sitting at the café waiting for Lucas to show up at 12:00. "Where is he at?" Nathan asked.

"He said he was coming," Haley defended. "I talked to him this morning."

Peyton was afraid for him to come. She hadn't seen Lucas since Brooke had; she'd waited and waited for him to come back to his house, but he never did.

"Is he….with Brooke?" Mouth asked, noticing she wasn't there either.

"Are you kidding me?" Peyton said.

Everyone looked at her. She took a drink of her pop quickly.

"Brooke was in bed moping when I left her," Rachel spoke up. "She definitely hadn't seen Lucas."

Haley whipped out her cell phone and speed-dialed Lucas.

"Hello?"

"Luke, are you coming?" Haley asked.

Lucas was walking out on the pier with two cups of coffee, trying to hold them with one hand and his phone at the same time. "Uhm…"

"To the café, Lucas. For lunch with everyone," Haley clarified impatiently. She knew he couldn't have forgotten that quickly.

"I'm sorry, Hales," Lucas said. "I don't think I can make it."

"What're you doing that you can't make it?"

Lucas took a drink of his coffee as he set the other one down on a rail overlooking the cold ocean. "Is Brooke there?"

"No, she wouldn't come," Haley said slowly.

"I'm not going either then," Lucas stated simply.

"You're not making sense, Lucas."

"I'm getting Brooke back, Haley. What is there to make sense of?"

Haley smiled to herself. Yes, she thought. "Oh. Wow. Uhm…"

"Is Peyton there at the café or something?" he asked, ignoring Haley's stuttering.

"Uhm, yeah," Haley answered. "She sure is."

"Well tell her that I need to talk to her for me, okay?" Lucas said.

Haley looked around at her friends who weren't paying attention to her and she sat in her chair sideways, stood up and walked over to the counter pretending to get a straw for her coffee. "Right…right now? Lucas now wouldn't be a good time to break a girl's-"

"Haley."

"I'm just saying. I think you should wait at a time when the surrounding's are more efficient…-"

"Haley. Stop talking," Lucas laughed. "I wasn't going to do that right now."

"Why are you in such a good mood about this?" Haley asked, happy to hear the joy in his voice.

"I don't know. I just realized that I'm going to spend the rest of my life with this girl…"

"Haley let me talk to him," Peyton said abruptly.

Haley jumped and saw that Peyton was standing right next to her at this point. "Wh-what?"

"I said I'm happy because-" Lucas started.

"Not you, Luke. Hold on." Haley put her hand over the speaker and looked back at Peyton. "What, Peyton?"

Peyton held her hand out. "Let me talk to him."

Haley handed her phone to Peyton hesitantly. What was she supposed to say to her? No? Right.

"Lucas?"

Lucas felt jolted a little bit at the voice of whom he thought he loved but was wrong. "Peyton?"

Haley backed away slowly and sat back down with her six straws that she pointlessly had in her hand.

"Look, I just wanted to tell you something," Peyton said.

"What's that?" he asked, trying to sound casual.

"Please be with Brooke. Don't think you love me, because you really don't, and I know it. I understand it now. I mean…I thought you loved me. I really did. And you do. But not like Brooke. It's not what you have for Brooke. You're in love with Brooke. And she's not happy without you. I don't want to see that missing piece I see in her when she's not with you. She's not the Brooke Davis that I know when she's lacking you in her heart."

Lucas looked down at his hands. Even though she'd just said everything that he needed to tell her, it felt so much worse to hear it from her. He felt horrible, because he knew he was breaking her heart. "Peyton…."

"Is it true?" Peyton asked. "Tell me I'm right." A distant part of her hoped and longed that she wasn't right. But she knew the answer.

Lucas swallowed hard. "You're…right."

Peyton looked down and felt tears come in her eyes. "Okay," she whispered. "Take care of her for me. Because I can't anymore."

Lucas nodded to himself. "Peyton we're still…we're still friends, aren't we?"

Peyton shook her head. At this point she was sitting on the ground back in the supply closet of Karen's Café. "I can't be friends with you Lucas. Not yet. I need…time."

Lucas set down his other coffee and put his cold hand into his pocket. "Peyton…I'll always be here for you. All right? Don't think that I'm not just because I have Brooke too. I want you in my life too, you know."

"You don't have her yet," Peyton said. She took it back before she even realized she said it. She was slightly bitter to give Lucas up to Brooke like this, but she knew she had to do it. It was just hard to let go of someone else she loved.

"What?"

"Never mind," she whispered. "Just…never mind."

Lucas licked his cold, chapped lips.

"Bye, Luke," Peyton said. And quickly she shut Haley's phone. She sat in the supply room and cried. Haley soon came in to comfort her friend, for she knew what was going to happen before the rest.

Brooke was still lying in the bed at 1:00. She had no reason to get up, so there she lied. 'I mean it's 11:00 and you're still in bed. Get your sorry butt up and do something' Rachel's words replayed in her mind.

Brooke scoffed. "I really need to find a better roommate," Brooke said out loud to herself.

"Why, Rachel's not the angel you wanted her to be anymore?" Brooke heard. She opened her eyes wide at the voice and looked over at the door.

Lucas. He was standing in the doorway with the two coffees in his hands. He smiled.

"What're you doing here?" she asked, sitting up. She wrapped the comforter tighter around her body as she did so.

Lucas walked in the room and handed her one of the coffees. "Double mint Mocha Latte with extra whipped cream."

Brooke slowly reached for it. It was her favorite Christmas flavor. She wasn't even with him the previous Christmas, and he still knew this. She stirred it with the stirrer suspiciously.

"I forgot my poison at home. You're safe," he joked.

Brooke looked back at him. "What are you here for, Lucas?" she asked, cutting to the chase. She took a drink of her coffee. Delicious, she thought.

"You're here," Lucas said, sitting Rachel's bed, drinking his own coffee.

"Lucas, we're not together anymore. You can't just come visit me and not give me a reason why," Brooke said.

"Why?"

"Have you met me?" she asked. "I don't allow it. Now why are you here?"

"I talked to Peyton today," Lucas said. He looked down into his cup and shook it around.

Brooke didn't talk. She didn't want to hear the rest of this at all.

"She knows that I don't want to be with her. And she told me to take care of you," Lucas said.

"You told her you don't want to be with her? Lucas she's in love with you," Brooke said.

"Brooke, I'm not in love with her," he said. "And no. I didn't tell her that. She…told it to me. And I told her she was right."

Brooke watched him quizzically. "What are you saying?"

"I don't know," Lucas said. "But I do know what I want to say."

She bit her lip. "Well don't say it. Because in a year from now, we'll end up right here again. And quite frankly, I don't want this anymore. It's too many nights of no sleep. It's too many days I don't want to get out of bed simply because I don't find the use. It's too many days that I'm not myself. And if I don't have myself…I don't have anything. I need myself, Luke-"

All in one motion, Lucas cut her off with his lips. He held her kiss, and he felt her kiss him back. With that he opened his eyes. "I need you too."