-It's been over ten hours since they had walked into that room and not much had happened. At first, he'd almost passed out when he'd seen her. That bandage around her head, the beeping of the machines she was hooked up to, the tubes of medicine entering her veins, it was all making him sick.
-Anna hadn't looked that much better. For a few seconds he had been certain that she'd run out. The expression on her face, she had looked totally horrified, but then he had seen her close her eyes, really hard. Her whole face was totally rigid for a few seconds and then she opened her eyes and let Lucas guide her to a chair near her mother. She had maintained a death grip on his hand ever since but at least she was there.
-Nathan had called Haley and the others to inform them of the situation. He told them that he'd call when they could come visit. Since then, none of them had moved much.
-Anna was now sleeping fitfully on the couch and the three of them were sitting there in silence. Suddenly, Lucas felt a hand on his shoulder and he looked back. Anna was standing there looking at him.
-"Anything you want Ann?"
-She didn't say anything, just pointed toward the door, and Lucas understood.
-"You want to got to the bathroom?"
-The little girl nodded.
-"Alright, I'll take you."
-"Huh Luke, why don't I take her. I have to go and call Haley anyway, they probably want some news. Anna and I could also stop by the cafeteria and get some food while we're out. What do you say angel?" He turned to the little girl who nodded.
-"Alright then."
-Nathan grabbed her hand and the two of them left the room.
-"It freaks the hell out of me, the not talking thing I mean." Brooke spoke, sometime later.
-"Yeah. She was like that for three weeks when…after the crash." He had meant to say 'when Peyton died' when it had all came back to his mind, she wasn't dead.
-"How'd you deal with it? I just…It's like I can't think of anything to say to her and it's killing me. That totally awesome little girl…she shouldn't be hurting like that Luke."
-"I know, believe me I know. I hated it then, having to watch her suffer and not being able to do anything about it, I still hate it. I just…I keep trying to get her to open up, maybe it'll work eventually."
-"So, would that tactic work with you?"
-Lucas' head shot up and he looked up at her.
-"What are you thinking about Luke?"
-He hesitated, and she thought that he was going to brush her off, just like he'd been doing with everybody since the crash, but at the last second his face relaxed.
-He reached out and took a hold of Peyton's hand. It was warm and that gave him a huge sense of comfort.
-"I'm trying to figure out what I'm going to say to her, when she wakes up I mean."
-"Luke, just you being here, it would probably be plenty for now."
-"No, no it's not, not really. You know, I hate how cliché this is."
-"What's cliché?"
-"The whole 'someone you love almost dies and it makes you realize that you're an idiot and should have treated her better thing'. I always thought that I was better than that, that I was the kind of man who realised his mistakes and owned up to them, but hey, here I am."
-"Luke, it doesn't really matter how you realised it, only that you did."
-"I know, but you know what the worst thing is? All the things that I told her, you know, about the break up, I never really meant them."
-"She thought you did."
-"Yeah, I know."
-"Luke, if you want to talk about it?"
-Of course she was going to ask. All of them had wondered about what had happened between the two of them and Lucas had always refused to talk about it. Sure, it wasn't anything about his present state of mind, but if she could get something out of him, she'll consider herself lucky.
-"You know, I was going to ask her to marry me. " He took a deep breath and then continued.
-"I remember, after she came back from the internship, I was considering moving to New York to work on my book and she all but packed for me. It was never really a question, her coming with me or not, she was so excited about it. I'd work on my book and she'd work on her art. For over a year, it was like living in a dream. One day I was walking back home and I stopped in front of a jewellery. It's weird, I'd passed in front of it about a million times before, and I never even gave it a second glance, that day, I couldn't look away.
-I walked in and there was this ring, it made me think of Peyton instantly. Before I even realised what was happening I was walking out of the store with the ring. I'd never really thought about proposing before that time. It was weird, things were going incredibly well, I'd never been happier and yet it hadn't ever really crossed my mind. Sure I thought about the future, I mean I thought about getting married and having a family but not about the specifics you know.
-But from the moment I bought that ring, suddenly, it was all I could think about, and I started to plan it, I wanted it to be perfect. Then that letter came for Peyton one day. It was an offer for this great music program in L.A., with internships included and everything. The moment Peyton told me about it, I knew that she couldn't miss that opportunity. They only took twelve students a year and they were offering her a position. She had to go, we both knew it."
-"So you didn't propose?"
-"I knew…I knew that if I asked, that she was going to say yes. I knew it in my heart that she would have said yes. We would have gotten engaged and she would have stayed. She would have stayed in New York and we would have been happy, I know that. But I would have always asked myself if I had done the right thing, if keeping her with me had been the right thing for her, and not just for me.
-That program was her dream, and I loved her too much to keep her from realising it, no matter how much I was going to miss her. It was awful of me to accuse her, to blame her for leaving when there was a number of things I could have done to stop her. She wouldn't have left without my blessing. I could have done so manythings to keep her here, proposing being only one of them. I chose to let her go because it was what was best for her, I have no right to blame her for that."
-"So you guys broke up?"
-"No, not right away. We'd done the long-distance thing before, we knew we could make it work. During her internship, we found the way to see each other nearly every two weeks, we spoke every day, it went great. We figured we could get through the next three years easily enough."
-"What went wrong then?" She hadn't gotten that much information from Lucas in years. She'd be damned if she didn't get as much as she could.
-"I found a publishing house ready to publish my book, Peyton got really busy with school and internships in L.A. We knew that a long distance relationship required work and after a while I guess that we just stopped working at it.
-Neither one of us wanted to take time off to visit the other, we started talking less and less. You can love someone more than anything in the world, if you don't talk, things go downhill pretty fast. After a while, we both realised that we had nothing to say to each other anymore, ending it seemed like the only thing left to do."
-"So that was it, just like that?"
-"Yeah, over the phone one night. I don't even know who did it actually. I think that we both just came to that realization at the same time and then it was over.
-I remember, it didn't hit me until I laid down the phone. Suddenly it struck me, I had lost Peyton. At that moment, it was like I lost my purpose. It was weird, we hadn't really been together for months and yet it was in that moment that it really hit me. Peyton was what gave my life meaning, she was my motivation, the reason why I did pretty much anything. Even three time zones away from each other, just knowing that she was there, that she believed in me, it made me want to do as great as I could.
-And then, it wasn't there anymore, and even the knowledge that she was still out there somewhere, it wasn't enough to rid me of this feeling of purposelessness that I had."
-"Luke…"
-"It's ironic I think, Peyton and I, we spent most of our lives sacrificing our happiness for each other, and in the end, this habit that we had to always put the other ahead of us, it's what caused our downfall. She refused to let me let go of my dream to be with her, and I refused to let her give up hers for me. Ultimately, we pushed each other toward our dreams and it caused us to lose each other. Maybe if one of us had been more selfish, maybe we would have lived happily ever after."
-"Lucas, it's not too late, you can still fix it."
-"So much happened since then. I got lost after the break up. I had a book getting out that I couldn't bare to look at, and I couldn't for the life of me write another one for the longest time. I told everybody that I was focusing on the press for my first book and that that was the reason why I wasn't working on the second one. The truth is, I wasn't writing because I had nothing. It was like losing Peyton made me loose all inspiration, I just couldn't write anymore.
-I got stuck in this sort of limbo. I convinced myself that I was happy, that things were exactly the way I wanted them to be. I guess that I was just too weak to admit the truth to myself.
-Fixing things with Peyton, it involves digging up so many emotions, painful ones, and I'm terrified that I'm not strong enough to do it."
-"You are Lucas. You and P. Sawyer, you're the strongest people I know. You two can do anything. I'm not saying that it'll be easy, you've been pushing things back, refusing to deal, for so long, it'll be hard, but hey, at some point you have got to make a choice, you fight or you hide."
-"What if I fight, what if I dig all those feelings back and she doesn't want me? What am I going to do then?"
-There was this fear, this terrified, wounded expression on his face and it tore at her heart. She really hoped they worked it out, these two deserved to be happy, more than almost anyone else she knew.
-"Luke, do you love her?"
-He didn't even hesitate.
-"Always has."
-"Then you'll be fine. Be honest and let her in, and for God's sake, be selfish and don't let her get away this time. This back and forth between you two is killing me."
-"You? It's killing you now?" He smirked.
-"Yeah, you're miserable, then she's miserable and I'm friend with the two of you so I'm miserable and that's bad for my skin."
-"And of course we can't have that." He smiled and Brooke laughed, it was great to laughed, it released all the tension they had accumulated these past few hours.
-"You know what sucks?" Brooke asked a few seconds later.
-"What now?"
-"I'd designed this great plan for Peyton to get your attention. It involved a lot of walking around in towels and stuff. Now, I'm never going to get to see it in action."
-"Wait? What? Why?"
-"Peyton pointed out that you wouldn't look at her so I suggested a few ways that she could get your attention. I have to admit, the towel was one of my favourites."
-"You wanted Peyton to walk in front of me in a towel? Are you insane?" He laughed, shooting a look at the sleeping blonde.
-"She didn't like the idea much."
-"That's good. It probably would have killed me. I have a heart condition you know."
-"So the not looking at her thing, not an attraction problem?"
-"Brooke, I hadn't seen Peyton in over seven years, I thought she was dead, believe me, thereare times when I want nothing more than to hold onto her and never let go. Hell, there has been moments whenI had to stop myself from basically jumping her." He blushed at the admission.
-"Hum, well that's an interesting side of you, I'm sure that Peyton will appreciate."
-"Brooke." His face is heating up as he warns her.
-"I'm just kidding, I'm sure she already knows." She has a knowing look on her face that kind of scares him.
-"Well on that note, I'll go see where Anna and Nathan are, they've been gone awhile. Just call me if there's any change okay?"
-"You know it Scott." Brooke smiled, and Lucas got up. He put a hand on her shoulder.
-"You're a good friend Brooke. Thanks."
-"You're welcome." She smiled and he smiled back before quietly leaving the room.
-Brooke waited a few seconds. When she was certain that Lucas was gone, she spoke.
-"You were never good at faking sleep. Welcome back P. Sawyer."