Stockholm
Day Five. 09:23am
The moment their lips crashed, ever so softly, Julian felt his heart racing in his chest. He spent the day before trying to erase everything that had happened between them in the few hours they spent together in that store. He tried to deny the feelings that he knew were rising because he couldn't do it; he shouldn't do it. He tried the best he could to take Brooke out of his head but it seemed impossible and the moment she touched him everything that he tried so hard to erase had been brought to the surface again, in full swing. And then she did the unthinkable and kissed him and unlike the first time she did it in that same bed, his lips moved along with hers. It was quick and tender but it was enough for him to know that he tried to forget her too late. She had already left her mark on him and he was afraid that nothing could change that.
His lips were exactly like she remembered. And she did spend a good part of her days trying to remember how they tasted against her own. They tasted like perfection. It was the immaculate union and the indescribable taste. It made the hair on the back of her neck stand and her stomach flip. It had been just a few mere seconds but it sent air to her lungs and she found herself really breathing again.
"You forgot your phone in the car" the annoyed voice interrupted them and Brooke stopped her movements immediately. She knew that voice too well.
"Lucas…" she closed her eyes but although not touching, her face was still too close to Julian and he suddenly remembered how she had mentioned that she had a fiancé and he was named Lucas. That must be the infuriated blond standing in the doorway now, looking like he could kill Julian. Maybe that was what Julian should do after all. He was sure that he wouldn't be able to bring the rape to court. He didn't want to expose Brooke even more than he already had. Nobody needed to know about his disgusting acts with her while they stayed there. But seeing how the man in the doorway looked like he could kill him, Julian wondered if he should tell Lucas what really happened in there. He didn't need to know the blond, whose face was red, to know that he loved Brooke more than anything else in his life. Anyone that was lucky enough to have the brunette in their lives would die for her. And certainly kill too. The moment Julian told him the truth Lucas would put an end to his pain but looking back at Brooke, and seeing how she looked flushed and confused, Julian knew he couldn't do it to her. It would send Lucas to jail for the rest of his life and he couldn't destroy her life any more than he already had. He had to find another way to be punished as he deserved. A way that wouldn't break that girl more than she had already been. By him nonetheless.
"I've got your favorite, you're lucky we have a Starbucks across the street. Latte, extra foam" Angelina said cheerily as she entered the room not really catching any of the tension in the air. She didn't even realize Brooke was moving away from a very close position from Julian but she did realize he didn't acknowledge her and talked to Brooke instead.
"I'm sorry for everything Brooke" his eyes were tortured and filled with sorrow and Angie could swear she hadn't seen such anguish not even directed at her and she knew she had made Julian life really difficult and painful at some moments.
"You shouldn't be sorry, Julian. If someone is responsible for me being here today and not buried in a cemetery, that's you. You saved many lives that day and I appreciate what you did" she tried to put her heart in those words. She needed to convince him that what he did was heroic and brave.
"I'm leaving" Lucas announced irritation clear in his voice. Not only did he have to see his girlfriend, fiancée or whatever kissing another man but she was also there professing her gratitude and appreciation to said man. That was more than he could take.
"I'm going with you, Lucas" she announced and the blond was somewhat relieved that she wouldn't let him leave because he didn't know what he was going to do about it. She seemed to care about the man lying in the hospital bed much more than he was comfortable with and that made the kiss they shared something even bigger.
"I brought you some coffee too, I thought you were going to spend more time" Angie then turned to Brooke and the brunette was surprised by the gesture. The woman had stepped in the room a few seconds after Lucas made himself known and while she didn't see the kiss she probably still saw Brooke in a compromising position, Brooke's face too close to her boyfriend or whatever but still she was being nice to Brooke. The brunette shook her head slightly. It only made sense that Julian had a woman with a big heart by his side. That was what he deserved and someone had certainly assured it. Whatever reason the curly haired girl had to put Julian in such situation in the first place couldn't have been on purpose. Maybe it had been one of those situations where you don't have control at all and just the day before she seemed devastated for being the responsible for her boyfriend lying in a hospital bed probably going straight to jail when he was released.
"Thank you, I'm Brooke" the student walked to the girl and accepted her offer while Angie smiled, though she was confused about the situation with the blond guy and the two brunettes and why the guy standing in the doorway seemed to be so irritated.
"I'm Angelina, or simply Angie, nice to meet you Brooke" the light brown haired woman handed the cup to Brooke who smiled back and nodded.
"Nice to meet you, Angie but I have to leave now. Get better Julian" she thanked the girl and then turned to the man that looked confused but also hurt.
"Thanks Brooke" he said quietly with a faint smile while the light haired brunette looked between them catching the tension only now and seeing that something else happened, though she couldn't say exactly what.
Without any word to any of the occupants of the room, Lucas turned on his heels and walked away, leading Brooke to go after him just as soon.
"Did something happen?" the girl asked confused by the events unfolding in front of her.
"A lot of things happened in the past few days Angie, but the only important thing is that you're here and now you're free" he accepted the cup she offered him and watched as she sat by the bedside chair.
"But you may not be, Ry" she remembered the policemen who came to his bedroom the previous day to ask him some questions.
"It was never about me, Angel, it was never about me…" he answered as he looked to where Brooke had just left following her fiancé.
The only reason why he had gone back to the hospital was to give the mobile to her. That phone was the only way for him to talk to Brooke. She would only come to him when she wanted but he needed to check on her, he needed to know how she was holding up. He couldn't go the whole day without hearing from her and the device in his hands was the only way she allowed him to contact her. He couldn't wait only for when she appeared late at night in his apartment.
But he never imagined that he'd enter some guy's room to see her kissing him. And the way her hands were cupping his face made it clear to Lucas that she was the one who initiated it. And the way they looked at each other after he finally found some words was worse than the kiss itself. It seemed like there was something there, something much bigger than just two lips touching and while it hurt Lucas a lot in that moment it just enraged him.
"Brooke you kissed him!" Lucas argued loudly as they reached his car.
"Lucas you should kiss him too. Can't you see that if it wasn't for him I could be dead now?" Brooke answered back as she entered his car. She didn't know what she was going to do about this situation; she was confused about her feelings towards both men. The feeling all over her body when Julian actually kissed her back couldn't be compared to when she kissed Lucas after she woke up. But she knew the man by her side now and she believed most of the days that he loved her. And there was Angelina, or Angie, or Angel as she had heard Julian say the previous day. Should she be pining for a man that although set her heart on fire also had someone in his life? Someone he loved to the point of becoming a criminal just to save them. She knew she should walk away from his life because he already had someone but the more she learned about Julian and who he really was the more she wanted to be near him and farther from Lucas but she had decided to leave with the blond anyway.
"If it wasn't for him you wouldn't be a hostage in the first place" he blew off. When Brooke admitted that Julian was initially one of the criminals he couldn't understand why she still cared about his recovery and hoped for him to wake up. Because it was clear that she didn't want Julian to rotten in jail for what happened.
Brooke had shared that important piece of information because she tried. She really tried to open herself to Lucas after everything she lived through in those hours. Brooke had always been collected about her feelings when she was hurting. She normally shut completely down. It all started when her parents died. She knew they didn't have the perfect marriage and she was used to seeing and hearing their many arguments but when she lost them it didn't matter anymore. She missed them, they were flawed but they tried to stay together for her sake. They didn't love each other anymore, and she wasn't even sure if they ever did as their marriage had been planned by their families to merge their fortunes.
She didn't talk about the horrible fights she had witnessed while growing up and how in more than a few occasions they had been violent. She was an only child and she didn't feel comfortable sharing this with her friends when they all seemed to have just the perfect and loving parents. Brooke could never say her parents didn't love her but the lack of love between them damaged her more than they ever realized.
Growing up she didn't have anybody to share her pain with and when they died in a car accident when she was fifteen it only became worse. It wasn't a common knowledge to everybody in the city that Richard and Victoria didn't have a perfect marriage. Most people thought the richest family in town was as happy as their family portrait and when they died everyone who approached Brooke to offer their sorrows couldn't stop talking about how happy they were. She never found any comforting words and she learned that even when she tried, nobody could offer anything to comfort her through her painful patches. And that was when she stopped bothering sharing anything at all. And Lucas knew she was like that.
But now she had tried to share it with him. Not only because of her but also because of her boyfriend. She was very conflicted about what to do but she knew she had to at least reciprocate everything he was doing for her. She felt like this time she needed someone to at least try to make things better for her. She had nightmares about those hours and sometimes when she blinked she remembered things that she wished had never happened. But she should have known better. Nothing changed, no matter how awful and painful the situation was nobody would ever be able to make it even slightly better.
"He didn't plan the robbery; he helped not only me but all those people. We're alive because of him and if anything you brought me to that store" she burst but regretted it the moment the words went out "I didn't mean it like this. Lucas, I could have been raped. He not only saved my life but he also saved me from being violated" she blurted the information she didn't want to ever say out loud. The memories of that moment were the worst of her whole life.
"And that gives you a reason to kiss him?" in his enraged condition he barely absorbed her words. It was like his anger didn't allow him to acknowledge that his girlfriend could have been raped because now he was blind from jealousy.
"Wasn't it the reason why you kissed Bonnie when the car ran over her in front of the school? Wasn't it because you were her hero? Didn't you kiss her back because you thought you were losing her?" Brooke fired back. How come she shared that important piece of information with him for the first time and he didn't even seem to care? All he could seem to care was about her kissing the guy who saved her life? Moments like this never helped Brooke's security issues about their relationship.
"Peyton was my friend Brooke! What would you do if you saw someone you've known your whole life being shot? I loved her but you didn't meet this guy until three days ago! He is nothing!" he yelled as he drove. He couldn't believe she was actually comparing the two situations. What could have happened to Brooke in those hours to change her so drastically? She wasn't reasonable anymore and maybe he'd need to look for professional help.
"He may be nothing for you but he was everything for me while I was there. You will never know how I felt when that guy threatened to rape me, you will never know how disgusting he was and how Julian risked his own life to save mine. You will never know how it is to feel that you could be killed at any minute but also know that someone was willing to risk their life to prevent it and the fact that I didn't ever hear of this man before three days ago just makes what he did for me bigger! You will never know how it is to be afraid of never seeing the man I love again, the man that I regretted saying 'no' to and feeling like I was being punished for turning his proposal down" Brooke confessed some of the thoughts that crossed her mind while she cried after Julian and she had had sex. In the turmoil of her thoughts she thought about Lucas, her parents, the people the criminals killed and obviously what had just happened on in that office table.
Lucas was silent for a moment. He didn't expect that. Ever since the robbery Brooke had been so unpredictable. She spent most of the time in the hospital, no matter how much Lucas told her to let it go and now he knew why she was there. He knew who she was there for. She used to arrive at his apartment and lie on his chest and cry while he tried to comfort her with soothing words. She would sleep in his arms and though she would never say a word to him, he knew he was the one she came back to. But the moment he saw her kissing the guy he thought if she wasn't crying on his chest because the guy she really wanted to cry on was unconscious. Brooke hadn't kissed him or allowed any other sort of physical contact ever since the night she woke up. She would only cry but then she kissed this guy.
He stopped the car. He realized with so many things going on in his head he couldn't just be able to drive and that would probably lead both of them to come back to the hospital very soon.
"How do you expect me to feel when I walk in on you kissing a guy that for all I know planned the robbery that almost cost me your life? How do you expect me to feel when you didn't do as much to me ever since you left that hospital, Brooke? I don't know where we stand. You say things like this in one minute and in the other you won't say anything. You say you're thankful for the guy who allowed you to come back to me and fix what you're now considering a mistake but ever since you're back you haven't done anything that showed me you really wanted to be with me. You didn't even share with me that you got almost raped Brooke! I don't know what happened in there because you won't tell me. I'm trying to understand you, I'm trying to be there for you but I don't even know where there is because I don't know where you stand or what happened. And I don't know because you won't let me know. I want to help, I want to save you Brooke but it seems like you don't want to be saved by me. Actually the only thing you shared with me was about him and that wasn't the most reassuring information I could get especially if a couple of days later I find my girlfriend kissing a criminal" he moved his hands from the steering wheel to his hair. Everything was so confusing now that his rage was finally subsiding and with that the frustration grew. Understanding Brooke had always been a challenge to Lucas because she never let her walls down completely, not even after so many years and he didn't know if they could really have a relationship when she wasn't willing to be fully let him in.
"I wish I had answers to give you Lucas. I wish I knew where I stand and what I want but I don't. Sometimes I feel like everything that happened in that store was to punish me for saying no to you. But then I remember the events while I was there and what really led me to say no to you. I don't know where I stand Lucas but I think it's only fair for you to know where we stand. And that's nowhere. I can't be with you right now Lucas" she explained and taking her cell phone she opened the door and stepped outside leaving Lucas bewildered.
AN: So I guess you guys didn't read my note in the prologue. I decided to adapt this story to The Vampire Diaries (Delena) as a way to complete this one to OTH as I didn't feel like inspired to write OTH fics anymore. This way I don't leave any story incomplete. I changed a few things in this update and from now on everything is new. xoxo, Babi
