((Hey guys! Finally, you get the real conversation. So much for having it done quickly, huh? Thank you so, so much to everyone who reviewed. You guys are totally keeping me going. Gimme your thoughts on how I handled this (incredibly difficult) scene. Hope I did it justice. Sorry I can't reply to everyone individually this time. I'll make up for it next update!))

Peyton's bedroom, 2002

Brooke leaned against the doorway, wishing she were here for some other reason. Her eyes still stained red from earlier tears, she knew that the waterworks would return once she entered the room. Peyton had seen her like this before. That was part of the beauty of their friendship – it wasn't worth putting on an act because the other would see through it. Whether Brooke walked into that room with a smile plastered across her face or tears streaming down her cheeks, she'd get the same response. What's wrong? The phoney smile may fool her classmates, but never Peyton. The strength of their bond comforted her and frustrated her at the same time. While she adored her best friend whole-heartedly, Brooke hated that anyone could break through her tough exterior so easily. Only Peyton could pull out the vulnerable girl that Brooke tried so hard to lock away.

The brunette rolled her body from the edge of the threshold to the inside of Peyton's bedroom. "Hey, lady friend," she said softly. She managed to speak in a way that was light and bubbly, but the words clearly came from her broken heart.

Concern flashed in Peyton's eyes before they even hit Brooke. "Hey," she replied with uncertainty. A beat passed as she took in Brooke's condition. "So, you gonna come join me, or what?" From her position on the bed, she patted the empty space next to her and set down her sketch pad.

Brooke nodded, and her lips stretched and thinned as the tears came back. "I'm so sorry," she cried, crawling in next to Peyton and resting her head in the crook of her friend's neck. The truth was, she hadn't been in this room in weeks. She saw Peyton at school, but their conversations were limited. Dillon blinded her with visions of a popularity that extended past their freshman class. Unfortunately, the invite to the top of the social ladder didn't say 'Brooke Davis plus guest.'

"What happened?" Peyton's arms encased the girl beside her. Her tone, her embrace, her expressions – everything about her conveyed to Brooke that no apology was needed.

"I was so stupid," Brooke breathed out, speaking partly to Peyton but mostly to herself. "I went over to his house. We were just supposed to watch a movie but then we started fooling around… Peyton, I told him to stop. I said, 'slow down, this isn't the right time.' You know what he said to me? 'How would you know? You're just a kid.'"

Brooke boosted herself up to rest on her elbow. She peered down at Peyton, immediately comforted just by looking at the girl who'd always been there for her. The cheerleader gulped and redirected her gaze just over her friend's shoulder as her eyes welled up again. "He kept going until I gave in." Her voice degraded to a whisper. "It was just easier to go along with it than put up a fight."

Brooke saw her pain reflected in Peyton's eyes. The blonde didn't offer any words of consolation, and Brooke didn't need them. The two had mastered the art of silent communication. Peyton simply tightened her grip and brought the girl back to her body. She tilted her head down to kiss Brooke's forehead and Brooke's tears finally fell free without grace or inhibition.

I'll never leave you again, Brooke thought. Life without her best friend was a desolate place that she'd rather die than revisit. If she ever doubted it in the past, she knew it now. Peyton kept her alive.

--

How did she forget that? The memory flooded back to her now as she adjusted to the sunlight, and the fact that her best friend was in her bedroom. She wasn't here last night, was she? Oh! Oh no… definitely not here last night. With a surge of energy, Brooke flipped her body in the opposite direction, eyes frantic as they surveyed her bedroom.

"I kicked him out," Peyton said.

Brooke squeezed her eyes shut. She was really hoping for a different answer – maybe one like, 'who are you looking for?' or something else she could lie her way out of. She had no way of countering that one. Instead, she figured her best course of action would be the classic avoidance technique. She lay back down facing Peyton and forgot about her friend's comment. "So own up, Blondie. You out before 6 a.m. and voluntarily reading a book from the teen fiction section? This can't be healthy for your troubled rebel child image."

"Yeah well, from the looks of it, I think you won that title this year. Maybe it's my turn to be the unnecessarily enthusiastic cheerleader. I can do the books, but I draw the line at Mariah Carey."

Brooke smiled, "Deal." She shifted so that her back was only a few inches from the edge. When Peyton gazed at her uncertainly, Brooke rolled her eyes. "Like we ever used the full bed anyway."

Peyton placed the paperback on the ground and joined Brooke on the single bed. "So… what's with the redecorating? Gotta say, I like the whole minimalist thing you've got going on," she asked with soft sarcasm.

"The, like, UPS or whatever came to take all our stuff so that we could pay off some of my dad's debts. It'll only take about thirty years after his death to pay them the rest."

The blonde settled as Brooke spoke. By the time Brooke had finished explaining, a mass of curls had taken over the better part of her pillow. "I'm sorry, Brooke," Peyton said, now eye-to-eye with her. "Are you okay?"

Brooke shrugged. "I'm getting there. I mean, I built my life on being 'the rich girl'. When I got that taken away, it was like... I was no longer me. I watched them take away my bed, and my shelves, and my clothes, and each time they left the house, I felt another part of me go missing."

"Are you crazy?" Peyton said, her voice rising as she tossed her friend a reassuring smile. "No, you're so much more than that. People are complicated. You can't just slap a title on them and say, that's it – that's all that person will ever be. It doesn't work that way. You're still you, Brooke. Just… trust me on that one, okay?"

"Sure," Brooke said. She didn't know how Peyton was saying these things. Not after last night… and this morning. She didn't feel like the same girl that stormed out of Peyton's bedroom all those months ago, and yet, this was the closest they'd ever come to acting like their former selves. "But then why do I feel like such a mess?"

Peyton's thoughts were immediately silenced by her cell phone. "Sorry," she said and slipped it from her pocket. She hardly glanced at the screen before she shut it off.

"Who was that?" Brooke asked. She knew the answer. Peyton fidgeted with a sudden discomfort as she dropped the phone to the floor.

"No one," Peyton replied reluctantly and sat up, creating space and an emotional disconnection between herself and Brooke.

That's it. Brooke shoved the covers to the side and stood up. She ignored the mallet that pounded in her head when she moved. She and Peyton were playing the same game. They were both avoiding all subjects that related to their double date. Brooke was done. She forfeited. This conversation had to happen, hangover or not. "Are we ever gonna talk about what happened last night?"

Peyton's jaw dropped as she struggled to catch up to Brooke. "Uh, yeah, we can do that." Her eyes flicked between Brooke and the footboard.

Brooke nodded and crossed her arms. She'd put it out there. Now what? She didn't have a clue where to start.

"I guess I'll start."

Thank you!

"Sorry I flipped out on you, you didn't need that. I was just so confused and shocked, and the only thing I could think to do was run away. I've gotten pretty good at ignoring problems, hoping they'll disappear."

Brooke shrugged. "It wasn't your fault," she said groggily. "I didn't exactly express myself in the best way."

A pause brought Brooke's wandering eyes back to the girl on her bed. She'd wondered why Peyton wasn't firing questions at her. Now she realized that Peyton was interrogating her, but just like old times, she didn't have to say a word. After another moment, the blonde snapped back into their verbal conversation. "Brooke, do you…"

"Peyton!" Brooke interrupted. "Do you really have to ask?"

A gulp and then, "I need you to tell me. I need to hear it. Whatever it is that you think you feel…"

"What I think I feel?" Brooke said, her voice heavy with frustration at Peyton's accusation. "You can't be serious. This isn't some kind of emotional hallucination. I wish it were, especially right now, but unfortunately I'm stuck with the real thing." She began to pace the room as she continued. Suddenly the mallet in her head wasn't so bad. "I tried ignoring it, I tried fighting it… I tried blaming it on Lucas but it won't go away and I don't know what to do anymore! And I need you to just join me in reality already and admit that it's happening. Okay, so maybe it isn't happening to you but, clearly, it's happening to me because I'm acting like a total crazy person. And I'd like to think that I don't always act like a crazy person and the only reason I am right now is because I love you and I don't know how else to deal with that."

Brooke froze as soon as the words left her mouth. She'd gotten so caught up in her defence speech that she could no longer censor herself. With fear etched across her face, she turned back to her best friend.

A fleeting smile crossed Peyton's lips. "Got you to say it," she said meekly.

Brooke's fear transformed right back to confusion. "And yet you aren't halfway through the door."

"Yeah, well, you're kinda blocking my path."

Brooke glanced over her shoulder at the door and smirked, "Good." The grin was wiped from her face almost instantly, as the weight of her confession finally hit her. In fact, it seemed to soak the whole room. When she turned back to Peyton, her worried gaze met a curious one.

"When'd it start?" Peyton asked.

The question seemed simple, but nothing about this scenario was. The tiny question, likely an opener for more difficult ones, was just a compound question in disguise. Luckily, Brooke had the full night's worth of deconstruction to help her out. Another million nights like these and I actually might be able to figure it out. She may not have a definite answer, but now she at least had a ballpark figure. "Freshman year… we went almost a month without speaking. You remember that?" Peyton's nod prompted Brooke to continue. "I don't think I ever hated high school as much as I did then. And I must have been delusional or something because I thought it'd be worth it. Well, it wasn't, and the second I realized that I practically ran to find you.

"Peyton, I was so scared that I'd done something unforgivable. I tried to think, what would I do if you wouldn't take me back? For the life of me, I didn't have an answer. I didn't even have a shadow of an answer. But then I got to your bedroom and you just acted like nothing happened. And I felt like the luckiest girl in the world, and I really didn't deserve it. I do something completely inexcusable and then you go and not only let me back into your life but, just like before, you fix me up after I crash. That day something changed. I had no idea what it was, but I felt it." Brooke paused, her eyes boring into Peyton's. She didn't break their connection as she wandered back to the bed and took a seat next to the taller girl. "Was it just me?"

Peyton swallowed and from her expression, Brooke guessed she was still back in 2002. "Something might have… shifted – but how do you know that's what it was, Brooke? What if it was just a mind trick? I mean, we'd been apart for so long, what if we were just reconnecting?" Peyton picked up speed as she spoke.

Is that fear in your voice, P. Sawyer? Welcome to my world. "It wasn't just me," Brooke muttered.

Speechless, Peyton considered the statement before rapidly shaking her head.

"So… what do we do with that?" Brooke asked, trying desperately not to let the hope creep into her tone.

"Nothing."

And just like that, Brooke didn't have to try any longer. Peyton's sharp response cut through her so effortlessly that she didn't have time to mask the wound.

"That was a long time ago. We talked about this, remember? Last weekend we didn't even know if we could be friends again, now you wanna go open up something like that? You and me, we've gotta forget about the past and move forward if we wanna get anywhere. And yeah, it hurts, but you know as well as I do that we aren't those people anymore."

Brooke tried to hide the pain. It wasn't so hard, considering that she'd seen it coming. What she didn't expect was the anger. "You just finished telling me that I'm still me, that I was foolish to think otherwise. So what was that? A lie? A way to make me feel better that you didn't think would come back to bite you in the ass later?"

"You are you, but people change. And even if the people don't change, relationships do. And ours has – a lot! I'm not saying that we'll never go back to the way we were but right now… it doesn't look good, Brooke." Peyton had become much more cautious. She spoke sympathetically, trying to soften the blow. She almost seemed to plan the words that she said aloud. Brooke didn't trust them.

"Fine. Look, I'm really tired. I didn't get much sleep. Maybe we can continue this wonderful conversation tomorrow after practise? Or just forget the conversation and work on that starting over thing you seem so eager to try."

Peyton nodded, and Brooke swore she looked relieved. Why am I surprised?

"Okay," Peyton agreed. "After practise." She grabbed the phone from the floor and strode to the door. In the hallway, she paused and looked back. "Thanks, y'know, for telling me," she stammered.

Brooke said nothing, simply raising her eyebrows and looking away. She didn't have much of a choice.

--

Peyton slammed the driver's door shut, and slumped forward over the wheel. This time she was in no rush to get onto the roads, for many reasons. Not at the bottom of that list - her haven of a bedroom was occupied by a certain cheerleader that she'd rather not confront. She leaned back in the seat and rested her right hand on the wheel, cell phone still tightly grasped. A sigh rumbled through her as she pressed the number 5 followed by the miniature green phone button. She balanced the phone between her shoulder and ear and backed out of the driveway.

"Hey, Nate," she said into the cell. "I think I love Brooke so, uh, I'm coming over, 'kay?"