Missing You
By: Sari
Summary: Futurefic. Laley. Brathan. Naley. Brucas. One act of passion can change everyone's lives forever.
Chapter 9: Something New
Two Weeks Later
"You didn't have to do this." Brooke insisted watching helplessly as Nathan painted the wall of her new loft.
He gave her a look and Brooke couldn't help the blush that spread over her cheeks. "Were you going to do it?" He asked raising an eyebrow. "You shouldn't even be in here. Paint fumes are bad for the baby."
"I'm keeping you company!" Brooke protested. "Do you not want to talk to me?"
Nathan leered at her. "I want to talk to you all the time."
Brooke giggled. "Nate, seriously, I wake up and you're painting in my house. What's the meaning of this?"
"I thought I'd do a friend a favor." He said seriously. "You've been complaining about your bare walls all week.
"I know, I know…" Brooke sighed. "I really shouldn't be complaining should I?"
Nathan laughed. "No."
Brooke tilted her head. "How'd you know what color I wanted?"
"Brooke you've been complaining about your bare walls all week. I listen."
The brunette couldn't help the rush of emotion at Nathan's simple words. "Okay." She said softly. "Thank you."
"You're welcome. Now leave me to work!" He said shooing her out the room. "I'm not going to be responsible for that baby being deformed!"
Brooke left the room with a small smile on her face. It had been a hectic two weeks. After her and Lucas's conversation she had felt so much better about her situation. She no longer felt as if she was alone in this. She had Lucas who swore on his life that he'd be there until the end…and she believed him. He'd come through for her so many times that she couldn't do anything but put trust in him. It helped that he was overly excited about their baby. She hadn't been in the beginning, but Lucas's attitude was becoming contagious.
Brooke had decided the same day that she told Lucas about the baby that she would have to move out of their apartment. She needed to distance herself from everyone and that meant moving out of the building where everyone was literally a floor away. Nathan had pulled through with his connections to numerous people because of his celebrity status and gotten her a loft nearby, but far enough that she didn't feel claustrophobic, and then she had promptly given everyone (except Haley) a key to her apartment.
She went back to unpacking her clothes in her new walk-in closet and couldn't help thinking about how much of a support system Nathan was being. He was always available to talk to her and he'd been her only confidante about all her feelings in the last two weeks. Not even Peyton knew how scared she was about striking out on her own after being in a relationship so long. Brooke didn't know how to be single, but if she had to be, she was glad she was single with Nathan.
She was so lost in her thoughts that she didn't notice Nathan standing behind her, so when she turned around she almost fainted. She smacked him when he began to laugh. "Hey what was that for?"
Brooke glared. "Being a jerk! I'm pregnant and you're trying to scare me to death. Some uncle you're going to be!"
"Speaking of the little Scott, when's the next appointment?" He asked.
"Tomorrow" Brooke said distracted. "Lucas is taking off work to come with me." She beamed proudly. "I think we're handling this situation pretty well."
"You guys are pretty solid, and so soon after World War III happened. I'm impressed." Nathan said.
Brooke nodded. "I guess this pregnancy thing is forcing me to wake up real fast. I got to be an adult here; it's not high school or college anymore. I'm thinking for two. Lucas…he's apart of that."
Nathan smiled. "I'm really glad things worked out between you two."
"Yeah, it's good to have my buddy back. Even if he's shacking up with Tutorbitch." Brooke said frowning.
Nathan laughed. "She hasn't been a tutor in years."
Brooke shrugged. "I guess I'm falling back on old habits. I don't know."
They lapsed into a comfortable silence and Brooke continued to put clothes up in her new closet. When she turned around again Nathan was gone so she decided to go in search of him. "Nate?" She asked. "Hey where'd you go?"
"I'm in the nursery." He called.
She smiled as she walked in. "You're really too excited about this." She said laughing.
He was sitting on the floor seemingly lost in space, but once she entered the room he quickly smiled and patted the seat beside him. "Hey, come imagine with me."
She giggled but went to sit beside him and let him take her hand in his. "Okay close your eyes." He said.
She looked at him strangely but did as she was told, letting him take her hand and draw tiny circles on it with his fingers. "What are we doing Nathan?" She asked amused.
"Alright, so you know how the room looks right? Well imagine baby pink walls with moon and stars border going around the top and bottom of the room, then an off-white crib in the left hand side with pink bedding and those cute moon and stars pillow cases we saw in the store the other day. Okay? Then in the middle of the room we have a white rug to cover up the wood floors and on the left side of the room we have a rocking chair for you plus a changing station and wardrobe to stash clothes in. Sound good?"
Brooke's heart swelled and suddenly she was feeling the same excitement that Nathan was feeling. She imagined herself taking care of her perfect little girl in a room built for a princess and she couldn't help the tears that welled up in her eyes as she opened them and looked at Nathan with complete awe. "I love it." She whispered. "You have so much faith that it's a girl though, what if it's a little Lucas and not a Little Brooke?"
He shrugged. "Its paint Brooke, I can always do it over, but I just have this feeling that I'm going to have a little niece."
"I don't know how I'm going to ever thank you Nathan." Brooke said squeezing his hand. "You've done so much for me in the past couple of weeks; I don't even know how I would have survived without you."
Nathan's faced turned serious. "It just feels like the right thing to do you know? I feel like this is where I belong right now."
"With me?" Brooke whispered uncertainly.
A loud sigh escaped Nathan and he repositioned himself so he was facing her. "I know it seems weird and strange and like everything is moving really fast, but yeah, this is where I want to be. Here thinking up plans for a nursery with you and the baby that isn't mine. And I'm fine with that because I love my brother and I love anything that two great people like you and him are going to have. Maybe there's a reason why he fell for Haley and why Haley and I are no longer together. We're not meant to be and I'm meant for someone else. But you know what? I don't even want to question it. I just want us to keep on going like we're going and when it becomes awkward or weird then we'll stop. But until then we just let things happen okay?"
Brooke's eyes were round in surprise, never thinking that one day she would be contemplating anything with Nathan but here he was and here she was and she realized with clarity that she didn't want to jeopardize whatever it was they were building.
"Okay." She said looking at him. "We'll let things happen."
Nathan grinned. "Okay, then why don't we naturally do lunch? It's 12 and I'm hungry."
Brooke rolled her eyes and punched him in the arm. "You give me this heart felt speech and then you talk about food. Honestly, I don't understand guys."
He laughed. "You weren't meant too." He stood and then extended his hand out to her. "So come on, I know this great restaurant down the street…"
Lucas stared at the manuscript in front of him lost in thought. He'd been out of the hospital for a week and a half and life had gone back to normal in theory, but in reality it had not. A month ago he and Haley had changed the lives of everyone but actually acknowledging the feelings they had for each other for years, and in the long run he knew he was happy about that because it wouldn't have been fair to anyone he was dating because he could have never given them his full heart. It had taken him almost losing the friendship he had with Brooke and the love of his brother to realize that he couldn't keep on hurting the people around him because he was afraid to pursue a relationship with Haley.
Now things were even more out of order. With inhuman speed Brooke had packed up her things and moved out having found a loft in the same area but out of their building. It was a necessary thing. Haley in turn had moved into his apartment and had filed for a divorce from Nathan. It was still pending but the mutual dissolution of the marriage was going to make it go through faster than usual. They expected the whole ordeal to be over within the week.
So things were getting better, but things were also getting worse. Brooke's pregnancy had seriously thrown a wrench in Haley and his relationship. Lucas could never regret his own child, but he did regret that Haley was feeling hurt about it. He knew her so well that she didn't have to communicate to him that she was in pain; he could see it in her face and in her movements. The problem was she refused to talk about it. They had been distant for days besides the usual inquiries into his health. It was driving him nuts.
Now he was sitting at home waiting for her to come home from a recording session and he was going to get her to talk if it was the last thing he did.
He heard the door shut and the keys being thrown on the counter before Haley's full head of red hair poked itself into his study to announce herself. "Hey, you busy?" She asked.
He shook his head. "I'm getting nowhere with this manuscript. It's all a bunch of existentialist crap basically. This guy is a self absorbed prick."
She giggled. "Nice to know what you think of those struggling writers out there."
Lucas shook his head. "I love the struggling writer. The pretentious ones who think they should get published simply because they have a degree in English? I have no love for them."
"How about lunch?" Haley asked. "If you cook, I'll watch." She waggled her eyebrows.
He laughed. "That sounds so tempting. Me doing all the work and you watching."
She giggled again. "Isn't it always that way? You have like a world famous cook for a mom, you automatically cook better than me. Why torture us both when I have a mini-chef waiting at home for me?"
He laughed and got up. "Let's go to the kitchen Hales."
"Thank you, I'm starved."
They settled into an easy rhythm. Haley setting the table and preparing the salad while Lucas did the real work, the actual cooking of the food. He was stirring the sauce for the spaghetti when he finally decided to break the unintentional silence. "Hales, it's been almost a week since we did this." He mentioned softly. "I was starting to think we weren't going to be able to be comfortable around each other again.
Out of the corner of her eye he saw her wince. "I just had to put some things in perspective." She said. "It didn't have anything to do with you."
"You were putting things with me in perspective, so it actually did have something to do with me." He reminded her gently.
Haley nodded. "I know, but you didn't do anything and it would have been a waste of time to talk about it."
"It's never a waste Hales. I love you. That is a fact that is not going to change, but if we're going to do this and make it you got to let me in. You shut me out and it was like my world got dimmer. I can't handle that Hales." Lucas sighed. "When you hurt, I hurt. When you're confused, I'm confused with you. I don't want you to have to put anything in perspective alone."
Lucas wiped away the tears that had escaped. "I was scared." Haley admitted.
"I know" Lucas replied softly. "You were scared I was going to leave you for Brooke."
"You love her too." She pointed out. "It's plausible."
"I love her like a best friend." Lucas contradicted her. "It's nothing more than that, and just because we have a child together it doesn't mean it's going to change that. I love you and I want you."
"She's carrying your child Lucas." Haley said voice heavy with tears. "You guys are going to have a connection that I'm never going to be able to touch."
"I don't know how else I can explain to you that just because I have a child doesn't mean it has to change anything between us." Lucas said weakly.
Haley pulled away from him, struggling to combat her tears. "I didn't think it'd be this hard."
Lucas's voice grew empty as he realized what was happening. "Haley why are you breaking up with me?" He asked.
"I'm not. I just need some time, and I'm going away to record a couple songs with this really good producer in California this weekend for a week and it's the perfect time." Haley hurried to say. "I'm not breaking up with you."
Lucas's eyes were solemn and he gave her a twisted shell of a smile. "You're running away." He said bluntly. "Do you want me to stop you? Is that what you expect? Because I don't know if I can or if I even want to."
"If you want to?" Haley asked eyes narrowing. "What does that mean?"
"The bottom line, Haley, is that Brooke and I are going to have this child and we're going to have that connection. It's going to be there two days from now, one month from now, and eighteen years from now. It doesn't matter if you take a couple days to think about it when you come back the situation is going to be the same. Running away doesn't solve anything; it just shows that you don't have the courage to fight for what we have. And what are you really fighting Haley? Yourself? Because I can't fight for the both of us. I won't be the only one fighting for us. I'm tired of having to fight." Lucas voice broke. "Haley I can't take another relationship where I'm the only one that cares."
Haley's eyes were filled with tears, but they were also filled with resolve. "I need some time." Haley said. "And if you're not waiting for me when I get back, then you're not waiting for me. But I need the time to myself."
"And you can't tell me why?" Lucas asked her.
Haley smiled ruefully. "I can't even tell myself why. All I know is that all of a sudden my life is changing and it's not as easy as I thought it would be and I need some time to figure it all out."
He sighed, taking the pot off the stove and serving their lunch. His eyes were sad and he looked defeated. "Let's just eat." He said tiredly. "I just want to eat."
Haley nodded. "Lucas, I love you." She tried. "Just let me do this."
"I don't have a choice Haley." He mumbled. "I don't have a choice."
Next up: Brooke and Haley share some more choice words. Nathan and Brooke's relationship gets a little bit hotter.
A/N: I think I need to explain Haley. Look at this from her point of view. The guy she thought she was in love with she really isn't and their marriage is over. Lucas who she's known her whole life is the guy she really wants and she finally gets that taste of happiness when Brooke arrives pregnant. It's a lot to handle in such a short period of time. She knows that she loves him but fear is literally immobilizing her and it's hard to explain that to him.