In the weeks following Jamie's hospitalization, Brooke was even more cautious and paranoid than normal. Every little thing was liable to send her into a fit, and Lucas had been the target of several of these fits, particularly when he had taken Jamie outside without putting socks on him. He had figured that a quick walk to the car in which Jamie's feet didn't even touch the ground would be fine; he had been wrong, apparently. On top of everything else, Brooke and Lucas were both dealing with the stress of the fact that Brooke's trust fund was slowly running out. Lucas's editor, Lindsey, was currently in Tree Hill, and his meeting with her hadn't gone quite as well as he had planned. Brooke was trying to work on more designs, but it appeared that her chance had passed her by. The people who had been interested had loved her image as a young, single woman independently rising to the top. Now she was a mom, far less glamorous. Her priorities no longer lay with her ambitions, and it was having an affect on her ability to sell her work.

"He's doing fine, Brooke," Lucas said softly as he watched her observe the sleeping baby with a furrowed brow. "You don't have to worry so much."

"I was so scared, Lucas," Brooke whispered, leaning back into him. He sighed, wrapping his arms around her waist from behind.

"I was, too, Pretty Girl. It was probably the scariest thing that I've ever seen."

"What if something worse had happened?"

"You can ask yourself that all day long," Lucas said with a shrug. "But ultimately, there's nothing you can do to prevent things like this. As much as I hate to say it, awful things happen sometimes with no rhyme or reason."

Brooke nodded thoughtfully. "Thank you for being so great in all of this, Lucas. I know this isn't what you wanted it to be."

"What do you mean?" he asked, confused.

Brooke nodded toward the hallway, quietly shutting Jamie's door behind them as she lead the way to the living room. "Well, you know," she said, louder now that they were away from Jamie's bedroom. "This isn't how you pictured started a family. Or what your life would be like when you were nineteen. You figured you'd be off at college right now, enjoying yourself. Not taking care of a baby with your ex-girlfriend."

"Brooke," Lucas said seriously. "You're more than just my ex-girlfriend. And you always have been."

"Oh boy," Brooke breathed. "Look, Lucas, I did not mean to start this conversation."

"Well I did," Lucas challenged. "Ever since that night Jamie got sick, you've avoided this conversation and I understood, when we were still waiting on what was going to happen to him. But it's over now, he's fine, and you're still pushing me away."

"I am not pushing you away, Lucas," she hissed, her eyes narrowed. He stepped up to challenge her once again.

"Yes, you are. You just don't want to hear that I'm completely in love with-"

"Stop!" Brooke exclaimed, halting him. "You can't just say things like that!"

"Yes, I can," Lucas insisted. "Because it's true, Brooke. And I know that you love me, too. You're just too afraid to admit it!"

Brooke shook her head, exasperated. "This isn't high school, Lucas. You can't just jump back and forth between girls. We have a child to think about, a child we're raising together. If we get together and something goes wrong, which it will because it always does with us, Jamie will be left heartbroken and confused."

"But you're assuming that we'd fall apart," Lucas argued. "You don't know that, Brooke."

"Yes I do. Because we always fall apart. You've spent nearly an entire year with my best friend, Lucas."

"And you've spent the last year with plenty of other guys, I'm sure," Lucas defended. Brooke stepped back from him with an incredulous look on her face.

"You don't know the first thing about my life in the last year and you know it," Brooke hissed, crossing her arms.

"I'm just saying that I'm sure you've dated," Lucas backpedalled.

"Just so you know, I haven't," Brooke said coldly. "I was too hung up on the fact that my ex ran away with my best friend and that I was raped."

"Brooke-"

"No, Lucas," Brooke nearly yelled, holding up her hands protectively. "You're saying all of this right now, and I know that you believe it. You're not a bad guy. But you're always confused about who you want and when you want them. And honestly, if Jamie wasn't involved, I might have given this a fair shot again, because I didn't have a damn thing to lose before him. But now I do, and I'm not going to risk it."

"You can't keep using him as a shield."

"I am not using him!" Brooke shouted. "I am protecting him! Like a mother should!"

"Just because you're raising a kid doesn't mean you're not allowed to have relationships, Brooke!"

"I know that! You know I dated Jackson-"

Lucas snorted. "For all of about five minutes and we both know that was just to spite me. "

"Don't give yourself that much credit," Brooke spat. "I liked him, okay? He just turned out to be an ass. A lot like someone else that I know."

"Brooke, come on," Lucas began to beg. "Don't be like this. Please."

"What do you want me to be like?" Brooke demanded ."What, Lucas? What do you want from me?"

"I want you," Lucas said plainly, watching the tension melt from her shoulders as she stared at him blankly. "I want to wake up next to you in the morning. I want to coach Jamie's basketball team and watch you try to make brownies for the kids. I want to hold your hand in public and kiss you whenever I feel like it. I want to hear that special voice you use when it's late at night and you're talking about the kind of thing you'll never say in the daytime."

"It's not that easy!"

"Look me in the eye and tell me you don't have feelings for me," Lucas said, his voice low. "If you can do that, then I'll leave this alone. We'll pretend it never happened."

"I-"

Brooke tried, she really did. She wanted more than anything to be able to tell him that she didn't feel the same. All she wanted was to return to her bubble of them being a purely platonic little family, but it seemed those days were out of the question now. She could hear the rain pouring down outside of the window, an early summer storm. She kneaded her eyes with the heels of her palms in frustration.

"I can't say that," Brooke said weakly. "But I can't say that I think we should be together."

"Don't think about what you think should happen," Lucas pressed, taking a step toward her and reaching to gently brush her fingers with his own. "Think about what you want. Do you want to be with me, Brooke?"

She found herself stuttering again, feeling like a silly school girl and she cursed herself mentally for allowing herself to become this way because of one boy. Or one man. She supposed he would really be considered a man by now.

"I don't want to discuss this," Brooke whispered, backing away. She went to leave, but he spun her around and kissed her, hard at first but softening as he felt her slowly become less tense.

"Please, Brooke," Lucas breathed. "Give this a chance. I know that it would be amazing."

"I just don't know if I can," Brooke said sadly. "I just need some time to think."

Lucas growled in frustration. "You always say that! And you never come up with an answer!"

"Stop pressuring me!" Brooke yelled back, angry once again. It was certainly easier to be angry with him than it was to try to resist him. "I'm still in a really horrible place right now emotionally! I lost the only two people who were there for me!"

"You use Haley and Nathan just like you use Jamie!" Lucas shouted.

"No, I don't!" Brooke yelled. "You have no idea what you're talking about, Lucas. I'm going to go, okay? Because I just don't want to be around you right now."

He watched helplessly as she slammed the door, her headlights turning on in the rain as she sped off. He groaned, running his hands over his face in exasperation. There was nothing he could ever say to convince her, and it was understandable. He had messed up too much too many times, and fixing it wasn't going to be easy. It was starting to sink in that maybe it wasn't possible at all.

Lucas sat himself down in his room for several hours with his laptop, writing away, until his anxiety got the best of him and he went to the front room to wait for Brooke. He sunk down onto the couch, thinking about his day, when there was a sudden knock on the door. He sighed, swinging it open to reveal Lindsey, who smiled at him softly.

"Hey Lucas," she said cautiously, umbrella over her head. "I just wanted to talk to you about our meeting earlier."

"Come on in," he invited. "Jamie's asleep but he's out pretty cold."

"I can come back later if you want," Lindsey suggested.

"No, no, it's fine," Lucas insisted. "What did you want to talk about?"

"I shouldn't have just shot down your idea," Lindsey said seriously, taking a seat on the couch facing him. "It's just…we just published Ravens six months ago. I don't think people want another version of it."

"I know," Lucas sighed heavily. "It's just the version that's more true. It means more to me. I was hoping I could let the world see that version."

"Unfortunately, people fell in love with the love story of Lucas and Peyton, not Brooke and Lucas," Lindsey said sympathetically. "Although reading your first version certainly made things a little more clear."

"What do you mean?"

"When I met you, you were with Peyton. She came to the launch party, and I remember you two bickering a little bit because of something you had written about Brooke in the book."

Lucas chuckled lowly. "Yeah, it was the beautiful and brave line. She hated it. She always envied Brooke's courage."

"But Brooke virtually didn't exist in the version we published," Lindsey said. "And I always wondered why you were so adamant that that line stay in the book when it seemed so out of the blue. She was a secondary character at best, but you demanded that she stay in it."

"Brooke was always important to me," Lucas explained. "No matter what she was to me."

"She's who you're raising Jamie with, right?"

"Yeah," Lucas said. "She's a great mom."

"I never thought the Brooke Davis from the first version would turn into a good mom," Lindsey joked. "I mean, the girl got you tattooed on your first date."

Lucas laughed heartily. "Yeah, she was something else. But like I said, she grew up more than any of us. The most selfless and caring and loyal one, for sure."

"If you really want to publish this other book, the first version," Lindsey explained, "we can do it. We'll have to change the names and location, obviously. We can't have people knowing that it's the same characters or they won't read it. They need to have Lucas and Peyton's happily ever after."

Lucas nodded pensively. "I'll think about it. I also have something else you should look at. It's something I've been working on. Brooke's actually really been helping, too."

He dug into the drawer in the coffee table and produced a thick manuscript, handing it to her. "It's Nathan and Haley's story. Brooke had to help a lot with Nathan's side, because I'm a little bias toward the first seventeen years of his life, obviously."

Lindsey looked at the manuscript in shock. "They've only been dead for a few months. I've been trying to get you to write for almost a year!"

Lucas shrugged. "My inspiration came back I guess."

"Or Brooke came back," Lindsey said stealthily. She didn't miss the shadow that crossed over his face. "Oh, Lucas. What happened?"

"She left," he said quietly. "We were arguing over why she won't just be with me, and she got really frustrated and left."

Lindsey's brow furrowed. "Lucas, the weather is really bad out there. Do you know where she went?"

"She had her car," Lucas said. "I'm sure she's okay. She's only been gone for…okay, shit, she's been gone for three hours."

"Why don't you go look for her?" Lindsey asked. "Jamie is asleep, if he wakes up I can handle him."

"I don't know," Lucas said wearily. "Brooke doesn't like to leave Jamie without one of us there."

Lindsey nodded in understanding. "You should at least call her. It's really bad out there."

Lucas pulled out his phone and tried her several times. He finally got her to answer.

"Hey Luke," she said, her raspy voice worried. "I can barely see, I'm crossing the bridge back into Tree Hill. Listen, I'm sorry-OH MY GOD!"

"Brooke?" Lucas asked. "Brooke?"

The line was dead, and Lucas immediately began to put his shoes on. "Is she okay?"

"I don't know," Lucas rushed. "I'll be back as soon as I can. I'm sorry about this."

"Save her, Lucas," Lindsey said softly as she watched the blonde rush out of the door. That had been her favorite part of the first edition of his book, the scene between he and Brooke in which her vulnerability was so obvious. Well, obvious to everyone who read it except for Lucas.