It hurt. It hurt to be lying on the stretcher as the cold of the sterile hospital sunk into her bones. It hurt to know that Brooke was sitting beside the makeshift bed, there to protect and defend her. Her skin felt sore and fragile, as if to touch or be touched by anything might rip her skin or crush her bones. It hurt to know that her husband still hadn't answered his God damned cell phone. If she thought back, everything in her life seemed to hurt. No positive, no happy memory came without pain. Not even her wedding day. Not even the day she had found out she was carrying the man of her dream's baby. Oh God, it hurt.
The door opened and the light hurt her eyes further. They were all ready dry and red from the tears. They had been a constant flow until the very moment she had known that they had taken the life from her. She prayed that it wasn't Lucas walking in. As much as she wanted to see him, be with him, she knew that she might destroy him if he came to her now. She might scream and rage until he collapsed.
"Hales," Nathan went to her side and before she could protest he took her hand into his and bent until they were eye level.
"We're waiting for her discharge information and medication," Brooke told him quietly. Her eyes told him more than anything could have. Nathan nodded a bit, replying with his simple gesture that he would strong enough to stay with Haley while Brooke went off to find Lucas. If his stupid older brother wouldn't answer his phone Brooke would find him.
"All right Haley, Brooke is going to go but she'll meet us home," Nathan told her.
Haley choked on a breath, "it's gone."
"I know," Nathan took her into his arms and held her as Brooke quietly left the room. There was nothing that he knew how to do that would help her. He knew from experience that she would have to ride out the initial pain, fight through the coming anger and try and find a middle ground after. He wondered why every woman in his life was so unlucky. He wanted to, even needed, to help them but it didn't matter. He was never able to save them.
XOXOXOXO
Jake watched Peyton rise and talk quietly with Brooke before Brooke walked out of the hospital. She stood for a moment blinking at the spot where Brooke had just stood. Her eyes mirrored a pain that he had seen all a handful of times before, desolation and devastation. He rose and took her into his arms, he held her tightly, his forearms gripped securely around her tiny waist. When she snuggled her face into his neck, as if hiding, he sighed. This was the way it should have always been. There should have never been a moment where he wasn't the one to shield her and stabilize her.
"I love you Peyton Sawyer," he whispered the words. Her reply was a muffled sob into his throat. He knew that she loved him too. There had been days when he hadn't been sure if it was enough, but there had never been a day when he hadn't known it was there. She was too transparent to him, every emotion was so clear to him that it was as if her soul spoke directly to him.
"I don't think they'll make it through now," Peyton admitted.
Jake sighed and drew her to the waiting room chairs they had been occupying since Brooke had called them to the hospital. He kissed her hand, "as much as I love them, as much as I hurt for Haley right now the most important thing I can do right now is make things right with us Peyt."
"Jake, I don't think-"
He gently put one finger over Peyton's soft lips, "I do think so. I know that Jenny's birth mother is a huge hurtle for you but I know that you have an unimaginable ability to forgive. I need you to do me a favor Peyton and if you can do it then I give you my word that I will do a few things for you."
"What's the favor," Peyton asked suspiciously.
"I will love you with everything in me. I will ride with you wherever you want to go, lie for you and die for you. I love you. I will do everything I can to make you smile every moment of every day for the rest of your life. But you have to use that ability to forgive to forgive your mother and Nikki."
She looked away, her nose flaring with the effort to contain her tears, "I don't think I can do that."
He gently pulled her chin back until her gorgeous green eyes were settled on him again, "your mother would be so proud of you Peyton. She would look at your art work and your love of music and its message and weep at the beauty in you. Forgive her for dying. And Nikki caused us all so much pain but she gave the biggest and most meaningful apology she could, she gave me Jenny. I know you love me, forgive her because she gave me my baby girl."
"She took away…everything," she choked on her words.
"Yes, she took away a lot but you holding on to this doesn't hurt her. She's gone forever Peyton. By not forgiving you're hurting yourself and I refuse to allow anyone, including you, to hurt you. Stop being a victim Peyton."
Stop being a victim, Peyton repeated the sentence again and again in her head. She wondered when she had begun to play that part so well. When had she allowed the natural pain of her mother's death to become her pass into constant victim status? Her mother would turn over in her grave if she could see her acting this way. As for Nikki, the best way to get back at her would be to be the best woman in the world for Jake Jagielski, to love him the way she never could. She sobbed out loud because she finally realized what she had almost given up.
"I love you," she launched herself into Jake's arms.
He breathed out a sigh of relief. He had taken a huge risk, knowing he could have alienated her further but the pros had outweighed the cons and he'd come out on top. He held her to him and smiled into her hair, "I love you too."
XOXOXOXO
"I want to call Haley, she and Brooke have been calling your phone constantly," Rachel told Lucas as she paced at the end of his bed.
Lucas watched her as she paced and shook his head belligerently, "no way. Haley would freak and God knows what that would do to the baby. Brooke would tell Haley. We tell no one that this happened!"
Rachel stopped and glared at him, "you had a precursor to a heart attack Luke! You're not even seventeen yet! Don't you think that's strange?"
He took a deep breath, "when I was fourteen Dan sent Keith a message telling him that he had inherited my grandfather's heart condition. My mother immediately had me tested, the tests said that I was positive but my mother never saw that letter. She only saw Keith's letter, the one that I put my name on."
"You've had a heart condition this whole time," Rachel squeaked in outrage.
Luke almost smirked, "I would never have been allowed to remain on the basketball team if they all knew."
"What the hell is wrong in your head? Are you that stupid? Really? Is it possible for anyone to be that stupid?"
"I knew that a heart attack was a risk but I didn't think it would happen, it never happened to Dan," Luke rationalized.
"Well what now smart guy?"
"I need to get out of here and find my wife," Luke told her.
Rachel sighed, that hadn't been what she meant and they both knew it but she didn't have the patience to question him further, "fine, let's go then! I can't wait to see her reaction anyway."
Lucas' heart skipped again, that was something he wasn't looking forward to. He would just have to tell her that they would make it work. He'd tell her everything would be okay with her and the baby and that he would protect them all. He just hoped it was a promise he could keep.
XOXOXOXO
Brooke exited the hospital and immediately put her hands on her knees to support her suddenly weak frame. She couldn't help but think that her negative thoughts and anger toward Haley and her baby had somehow made the sad state of events come to pass. She had looked Haley in the eyes that morning and told her that they would get through what ever happened, never ever expecting that Haley's baby wouldn't be viable, wouldn't have a heart.
"Oh Haley, I'm so sorry," Brooke choked on her own bile as her body finally rejected the heinous emotions of the past few hours. As she rose and wiped her mouth, desperate to begin her search for Luke before his absence was officially counted as a disqualification, she saw Luke in the parking lot with Rachel Gattina.
Luke looked up when Brooke was exactly ten feet away from him. Before she could yell, or rage, she noticed how pale he was, how hard he was breathing. She stopped and her eyes softened, thinking she knew what was wrong, "who told you?"
He looked at her guiltily and wondered briefly how it was that Brooke really did know everything in all of their lives, "the doctor?"
"Rachel?"
Rachel shrugged, "you know I don't reveal sources. Damned good to see you again though."
Brooke smiled briefly, relieved that Luke hadn't been alone when he found out, "come inside, she's almost ready for discharge but they wanted to wait a few more hours just to be sure she was okay."
Luke nodded, that was all he wanted as well, for Haley to be okay.
"She'll be angry as hell at you but I think that if you take her home and take care of her eventually the anger will be a little less," Brooke talked as they walked, she walked slowly noting that the closer they approached to the floor and room Haley was in the more out of breath Luke became. She didn't realize that it could have been because of the five flights of steps or the speed walking. Not when she was with a basketball player in the prime of his life.
"I hope she'll just forgive me. I hope she knows I'm just a stupid ass and I'll do better next time. I hope she knows that I'll be there for her through this no matter what," Luke told Brooke.
She smiled then, thinking he had more of Nathan in him than he realized and led him to the door. Nathan saw them and rose so they could have privacy. When the door was closed behind them Luke walked slowly to Haley, seeing her tears and completely misinterpreting them.
"I know I've been acting out of sorts lately and I'm so sorry for that. It won't ever happen again. I know you don't have a reason to believe me, but allow my actions to speak for me until you can trust me again."
Haley's eyes were fixed on the wall behind him but they were beginning to leak steady streams of tears, "it's gone."
"No, baby," he knelt in front of her. He tried to take her hand but she snatched it away, "our love is not gone. We've been through too much, I love you too much. I will be the prince you've always dreamed of, I will!"
"You should have been here," she cried still.
"I wanted to be, but Hales," he put his shaky hand on her stomach, "I'll be here for every other appointment until he or she is born. And when you have our little son or daughter it will the happiest day of life."
Haley's eyes widened in true horror as she shoved his hand from her body like he'd burnt her, "was that some kind of sick joke?"
Luke took a step back in surprise at her agitation, "no, I meant every word. I'll do everything I can to be the best husband and father from here on out."
"It's dead Luke," she spoke every word clearly and eventually without emotion, "it didn't have a heartbeat so the doctor took it out of me."
Luke took a step back until his legs hit the guest chair and he fell into it. Now he knew exactly what she'd meant when she had said it was gone. Their baby had been aborted because it didn't have a heartbeat. Luke almost choked on his breath, like him his child had a defective heart, and it had left the love of his life's heart broken.
XOXOXOXO
Nathan shifted uncomfortably in his chair. He didn't want to be here, not when he had just driven Haley and Luke home and they were both devastated and angry, not when Brooke was trying her hardest to take care of them both, usually at the expense of herself. He didn't want to be here at all and he was damned irritated that he'd been forced into it.
"So Nathan," the therapist that Brooke's therapist had suggested, aka Therapy Man, began their first chat together, "what brings you here?"
"You don't know," Nathan wondered, "Brooke's therapist didn't tell you anything?"
"Well we're both psychological pathologists so I can gather a bit of data simply from deductive reasoning, but I'd rather you tell me why you're here and what you expect of our time together."
"I thought you were an expert in couple infertility counseling," he questioned.
"I am that as well," Therapy Man smiled and it reminded Nathan of a younger Whitey, which calmed him more than anything else about the man did.
"Look my girlfriend is still going through a tough time right now and she needs me to be here tonight in case any of my feelings have been squashed in the meantime. We don't have to really do anything. All I have to do is be here and then you tell me that in your opinion I don't have to come back and we're done!"
"Well if that's the case then you might as well use the money you've all ready invested in me," Therapy Man rationalized.
"I don't need a shrink," Nathan told him vehemently.
"I'm not a shrink," Therapy Man sounded offended, "I help people, usually couples, come to terms with that fact that for one reason or another they will never have a child of their own, at least not the old fashioned way. If that's not a problem for you then I envy you. But I'm not a shrink, awful kind of insult!"
Nathan wasn't quite sure that Therapy Man wasn't mocking him, or just being really sarcastic. He was beginning to remind him more and more of Whitey and before he could stop himself he asked, "why would you envy me if it wasn't my problem?"
"Because Brooke's therapist is my wife, and is completely unable to become pregnant."
Nathan looked him over. Tall man, looked like he swam, mysterious but had an attitude like Whitey and he had a good hand shake. Despite his normal composure Nathan admitted, "my girlfriend is unable to become or maintain a pregnancy as well."
Therapy Man nodded and must have decided something about Nathan as well, "tell me about her."
"Well, she's five foot two on a good day and one hundred and ten pounds soaking went. She's intuitive and sensitive and strong. She's the strongest person I've ever met. She has these deep dimples that sink right in when she's really feeling an emotion. She has the most amazing hazel eyes. When she loves," Nathan paused, making sure Therapy Man understood, "she loves forever, with every ounce of everything she is."
"One word," Therapy Man prompted.
"Incredible," Nathan replied immediately.
"Are you comfortable telling me why Brooke cannot have children," Nathan responded to the question with the bare minimum of facts regarding the whole situation that had led to the day at the pier.
"I'm sure people tell you often that you're both too young to worry," Therapy Man had to know where this young man stood.
"I am too young," Nathan grinned, as if to a private joke, "by the time people believe I'm not, that she's not, we'll still be together. This isn't a young love, misguided situation. There's no way for me to prove that except to say look at us in ten years. I would be all sorts of foolhardy to let someone who makes me so happy go, especially when I make her feel the same."
Therapy Man sat back, "I could tell you right now what you want me to say. I could say, 'Mr Scott you don't need to ever come back'. However, if you want to come back next week and maybe start talking about the time right after the accident then I'll leave this hour open for you."
Nathan rose and nodded. He thought of Brooke and how much better she'd been doing. He thought that maybe her earlier words were right, maybe it was time to start taking care of himself. He rationalized that it would help him take better care of Brooke. He didn't even dare think that it was because beneath his tough guy exterior he had been weeping just as often and as hard as Brooke had.
