CHAPTER FOUR

Day breaks

A week had passed since the last time she had spoken to Mouth. After Karen had decided in front of them to buy that damn rabbit-shaped lamp, she had tried her best not to run into him.

She knew what he would say to her, and she simply didn't want to hear it. That was also the reason why, a week ago, she had dashed off from the Café before Mouth could say anything. It was also why she had been ignoring his texts and calls. She had replied once, the week before, to tell him that she didn't want to talk about this anymore, whatever "this" was. She didn't enjoy ignoring him, especially since she had sought out his help in the first place, but she didn't want to think about "this" anymore.

Avoiding Mouth had not been that easy; they often ran into each other at school, so she had had to take different routes to get to class.

This morning, she had once again wormed her way to homeroom. Peyton was walking besides her, telling her about the catastrophic date she had gone through during the weekend. Brooke had told her best friend that she was hiding from someone, though she hadn't told her whom. If she had, then she would also have had to explain why she was avoiding Mouth, as he appeared to be the last person Brooke would want to avoid in their school.

After taking a turn to the left, Brooke suddenly froze as she recognized Mouth's hair from afar, walking swiftly towards them. She grabbed Peyton's arm and ran off in the other direction, dragging her confused friend along. Her eyes stopped on the girls' restroom on her right; she flung the door open and unceremoniously threw her friend inside, before closing the door behind them.

"What the hell was that about?" Peyton asked her, bewildered.

Brooke looked around them; all the stalls were empty, yet they weren't alone. There were three different groups of girls hanging out there, chatting together.

"Nothing. I just want to talk about" ─she quickly thought of an excuse─ "my dad. He told me yesterday he bought the house in L.A."

"And you need to tell me this in the toilet because?"

"I'm not supposed to tell anyone. Anyway, that's good news, right? He's buying us a vacation house, so it can only be a good sign, right?"

"I guess so."

"But for some reason, my mom doesn't agree."

Peyton looked surprised, "She told you that?"

"No," she said, shaking her head. "But she looks even more depressed than before. I don't know, maybe she hates it? I mean, she didn't seem to have a good time there this summer."

"Yeah maybe that's just─"

Peyton didn't get to finish her sentence. Someone had just barged in, prompting the other groups of girls to shout at the intruder, who happened to be Mouth. He startled for a second, probably not expecting to see this many people, then looked straight at Brooke.

"Hi, can we talk?"

Before she could say anything, a redhead on her right marched towards him. "Get out, you perve!" She opened the door and pushed him out of the room.

Brooke and Peyton watched as she went back to her friends, then looked at each other and struggled to keep in fits of laughter.

They left the restroom after Brooke had checked twice that Mouth was nowhere around, then headed to their classroom. Everyone else was already there, including Nathan and Lucas who were talking together at the end of the room.

She still had not apologized to Lucas for lashing out at him. Since Mouth had rightfully pointed out that she had no reason to be mad at Lucas, she had tried to talk to him, but… She just didn't know how to. She somehow felt closer to the Lucas she had seen in her dreams ─ yes dreams, because there was no other possible explanation to what had happened to her, none at all ─ than to the one standing right now in front of Nathan.

When she walked over to them, he fled away to his seat, just like he used to around Peyton. Maybe he would be easier to approach without Peyton on her side? She looked back at Nathan who was now talking to Peyton.

"So, we're still on for movie night?" Peyton asked him.

"Sure. My mom will be out."

Once a month, the three of them would get together on a Friday night to watch a movie. Nathan was supposed to host this month but a few days ago had told them he wasn't sure he could do so.

Brooke noticed that he furtively glanced at his brother before asking her, "You still haven't talked to Luke?"

"No."

He shook his head, looking exasperated. "Brooke…"

"I know I have to, alright? It's just that I'm─"

"Too stubborn," Peyton said with a grin.

"Like a mule." Nathan added in the same tone.

She glared at them. "Wow, you guys are the best friends I could wish for," she mumbled as she went to her seat.

Their grins got even wider; Brooke was terrible at pretending to be mad at them.

During first period, Brooke kept thinking about Mouth's abridged intervention from this morning. She couldn't understand why, despite her firm refusal of speaking about whatever had happened to her, he kept trying to talk to her. Part of her hoped that the way he had been thrown out this morning had convinced him to stay away.

It turned out that it had not convinced him at all, to the contrary. That very same day, he approached her as she was having lunch with Peyton and the rest of her squad. She hadn't noticed him coming over to their table; what kind of ninja skills had he used?

"Brooke, we need to talk," he said, sitting between her and another cheerleader. "But, erm, I don't want to intrude," he told the other girls with an awkward smile. They didn't seem to mind since they went back to their lunches.

She stared at her lunch, "No, we don't."

"Yes, we do."

"No, we don't." She sighed and threw a quick look around her before holding his gaze, "I told you, I don't want to talk about it anymore. Thanks for helping me, but now I just need you to drop it."

His voice got lower, so that only she could hear him, "Look, I get that you're freaking out, but─"

"I'm not freaking out," she hissed. He clearly looked like he didn't believe a word of that. "I'm not!" she repeated. "Peyton," she said looking at her, "tell him I'm not."

Peyton's eyes went back and forth between Mouth and her. "Wait a second, you're avoiding Mouth?" she asked in disbelief. "Why would you avoid him?"

Brooke knew she would ask her that. She could either find an excuse and, let's be honest, blatantly lie to Peyton, or she could agree to talk to Mouth. "Fine," she said, turning to face him. "Karen's Café, 6 o'clock tonight."

This appeared to please him, as he smiled from ear to ear and left to eat with his friends. Brooke briefly watched as he sat next to Lucas, who seemed to be in a heated conversation with Haley.

"So, are you gonna tell me why you were avoiding Mouth?"

She glanced at Peyton, "No, I can't. But it doesn't matter now, since I'm seeing him tonight."

Peyton looked half-convinced as she replied, "I guess, yeah."

Thankfully, she didn't bring up that subject anymore. That afternoon, Brooke wished time could flow slower, or even stop for a little while. She knew what Mouth would tell her, and part of her didn't want to hear it. He had been right: she was freaking out. But who wouldn't be, when they learned that─ no, she didn't want to think about it.

She arrived first at the Café and sat at the nearest table. She noticed with relief that Lucas wasn't working tonight. Haley was waitressing; she was cleaning a table when she saw Brooke. She quickly finished her task and walked swiftly to her table, asking her what she could get for her.

"A coffee."

Haley nodded and turned on her heels, before slowing down and stopping after a few steps. She looked over her shoulder at Brooke, seemed to hesitate for a second and finally decided to come back to her table and sit across from her.

"I don't want to butt in," she said with worry in her eyes, "and Luke will kill me if he knows I'm doing this, but, erm… He feels really bad about what happened, when you, er─"

"Yelled at him?"

"Yeah."

Brooke frowned. "But why does he feel bad? I'm the one who shouted at him."

"He thinks he messed up when he talked to Peyton and he doesn't know how to apologize to you. Actually," she added with a sigh, "he thinks you won't forgive him at all."

"But that's ridiculous, I'm the one who should─" she stopped abruptly, remembering that she was telling all this to Lucas' best friend.

Hale's eyes twinkled. "Let's make a deal. If you don't tell him what I just told you, then I won't tell him whatever you tell me."

Brooke pondered on it for a few seconds and realized that Haley was the best person who could help her. "Deal," she said, shaking her hand with a crooked smile. "So here's the thing: he doesn't have to apologize to me, I'm the one who should."

This seemed to confuse Haley. "Why?"

"It's just… I was mad at him, but for the wrong reasons. And I see that now, but I just… I don't know how to tell him that I'm sorry."

"Just say the words, Brooke," Haley said with an encouraging voice.

"No, I mean, he keeps avoiding me at school and there's no way I can just walk up to him and ask him to grab coffee with me!"

"Oh, but then why don't I just tell him─"

"No!" Brooke shouted, startling her. "You said you wouldn't say anything."

"Fine, fine, I won't, I swear. But… Okay, so if you two were to meet somewhere, say outside of school, would it be easier for you?"

She thought about it for a second. Sure, if they were stuck in a room with nowhere to run to, she wouldn't have any other choice but to talk to him, no matter how hard her brain kept picturing him naked or calling her his pretty girl. "Probably, yeah."

Haley's grin widened at that. "Alright, I can work with that."

Brooke's face fell. "What do you mean, work with that?"

"Oh no, don't worry, I won't tell him a thing, but maybe─ Mouth! Hi!"

She looked up at her right and saw that Mouth was walking over to them. Haley exchanged a few words with him then got up and said that she had to get back to work.

"Do you have your journal?" Mouth asked her as he sat across from her.

"Yeah," she said, reaching for her bag on the floor. She took out a sheet protector, in which she had carefully folded the photocopied pages of her journal that concerned her "dreams".

"Alright," ─Mouth looked at the pages then back at her─ "let's summarize this. September 10th you have a, erm─"

"Dream."

He raised an eyebrow. "Seriously, we're still going for that version?"

"Let's just do that for now," she shrugged. "I had a dream that took place in Lucas' bedroom."

"Lucas' exact bedroom", he corrected, "even though you had never been there before. During that dream, he tells you not to hit him with his lamp, which looks just like a rabbit, because you already broke his last one. And then he asks you what date it is, and says that it means that it is the first time. And then seven days later─"

"I went to his room and actually broke his lamp," Brooke mumbled, gazing down at her intertwined fingers.

"And a week ago, Karen decided to replace it with the rabbit shaped lamp that you saw in your dream," he said, with air quotes on the last word. "It all fits Brooke."

She sighed, looking up at him. "I know," she admitted.

Mouth's voice got lower, "You didn't have a dream, Brooke, you saw the freaking future!" He sounded incredulous, as if he himself could hardly believe it. "You said so yourself in your second, erm… Episode. Look," ─he pointed at a specific paragraph on a journal page─ "you wrote that he looked older. And he said that Rocketman was out a couple years ago, but it was just a few weeks ago for us!"

"No," she said, slightly shaking her head, "I didn't see anything."

"You still think it was all just a coincidence?"

"No, I mean… I don't know." She let out another sigh, "But I do know that I didn't see anything. You said so yourself, all this" ─she waved her hand over the pages spread on their table─ "sounds like a memory."

She stopped for a second, thinking about what she was about to say. Was she going crazy? Was Mouth going crazy too, because of her? She had gone through many medical exams and she had been told that she was just fine, but maybe what she needed was a shrink?

No, she didn't need one. Somehow, deep down, she knew she wasn't going nuts. She was just going through something very… unusual.

"I didn't see it, Mouth, it happened to me."

He looked like he finally understood what she was thinking, "So, what you mean is that you didn't see the future, you went in it."

"Which is impossible! People don't do that in real life. In books or movies, sure, but not in real life!"

Mouth wasn't as adamant. "We don't know that."

"What?" she asked, confused.

"I mean, there's got to be stuff we don't know about, that the government hides. Do you know what's in area 51?"

Brooke rolled her eyes. "Oh come on, let's get serious here."

"We're talking about time travel Brooke," he replied with a shrug, "anything is possible."

"But if that's really what's happening to me, then… It doesn't make any sense. How can I be dating Lucas in the future? It can't be."

"And why not?"

She stumbled at that. "It just can't. Wait, if we're saying that time travel is possible, then, erm… Could I be going in a different world?"

Mouth was confused. "A different what?"

"You know, like a parallel dimension or whatever─"

He clicked his fingers, "You mean an alternate universe. Like in Lost." He noticed her puzzled look and asked, "You've never watched it?"

"Just a few episodes."

"Well in season five─ no wait, I think it was season six. I can check that real quick," he said, taking out his phone.

"What's your point, Mouth?" she asked with impatience.

He stopped tapping away and looked up at her. "You're right, it doesn't matter. Well, at some point, there's an alternate timeline where the plane didn't crash. And Desmond─ that's one of the characters, well he has the ability to move from one timeline to the other. So," he added when Brooke looked like she still didn't get it, "maybe you're our Desmond."

"Sure, I could roll with that." And it certainly would explain why she was with Lucas in the future. It wasn't really their future, just an alternate one.

To her disappointment, Mouth shook his head, "Yeah, except it's probably not what's going on."

"Why not?"

"Because so far, it all fits. It fits too much for an alternate future."

"But how do I make sure of that?" she asked with a sigh. "How do I confirm that I'm not just having weirdly accurate dreams?"

"You're not saying those were just─"

"It's kinda hard to believe, don't you think?"

"Yeah, it is, but… Okay, fine, then just look for the date."

"Huh?"

"During your next, erm, episode, just check the date."

"But that wouldn't prove anything. I could just dream that I'm in the future without actually being there."

"You're right," he said, scratching his head. "Well then I don't" ─he froze as he looked at her journal's pages─ "know… Wait, you journal everything that goes on in your life."

Where was he going with this? "So?"

He looked up at her with an excited look, "How long have you been doing that?"

"I started in middle school, but how does─"

"And how long do you plan on doing that?"

"I don't know, a while?"

"What are you gonna do with them, when you go to college, are you gonna throw them away?"

"Are you nuts? I can't do that, they're way too precious to just─ Oh." Mouth's grin broadened. "You want me to check my journals during my next thingy?"

"Episode," he corrected.

She made a face. "I don't know, episode sounds medical, like I'm going crazy."

"Alright," he chuckled, "so let's say travel instead."

"Hypothetical travel."

"Yeah, sure," he said a bit dismissively, "hypothetical. So, during your next hypothetical travel, just read your journals."

It still didn't sound feasible to her. "But how do I get to them? I don't know where they'll be, and it's not like I leave them in plain sight!"

Mouth thought about it for a second, "Who else knows about your journals?"

"Peyton."

"Does Peyton know─ I mean, could she know in the future where your journals are?"

She shrugged. "If someone knows, it's gotta be her."

"Alright, so that's the plan."

Brooke frowned. "Can we even call that a plan? I mean for it to work, I have to arrive exactly where my journals are hidden, then talk to Peyton, and then have time to read said journals."

Mouth agreed on that but stated that they didn't have any other solution for now. He would think about it though.

That night, after bidding goodbye to Mouth, she went home to have dinner alone with her mother. She had expected her father to be home by dinner that day, so that they would celebrate the new house. However, as her mother explained to her, he had been too busy at work.

When she went to bed, she thought about Mouth's plan, and wondered if she would be able to pull it off. It relied on too many factors she couldn't control. She didn't know when, or even if it would happen again. It could be in a week, or a month, or even never!

It turned out that her next hypothetical travel, as she had put it, didn't happen after a week or a month. It happened the very next day, at school, during 2nd period with Mrs Campbell, her science teacher.

She knew it was coming. She was reading page 34 of her book, as asked by their teacher, when she started hearing a voice. It sounded like a kid's voice, humming a tone she didn't recognize, coming from afar. She instinctively looked around, though she knew there was no kid in the room.

About thirty seconds after that, she felt a tingle starting at the tip of her fingers and toes, creeping up her hands and feet. And then a low, buzzing sound started ringing in her ears. It all lasted for a minute or so. She hesitated; should she ask Mrs Campbell to get out of class? No, she would never accept that, especially from Brooke; that teacher had never liked her and had several times stated that it was a mystery to her how Brooke had ever been elected president of anything. Maybe she could pretend that she had a headache or something? That way she wouldn't─

It was too late to ask now, as she suddenly felt lethargic. The last thing she thought, before closing her eyes, was that she was going to be in trouble with her teacher.

When she opened her eyes, she was still sitting on a chair, but she knew right away that she wasn't in her classroom anymore. Her head was resting on her folded arms. She lifted it up, sat up straight, and looked down at her hands. She was sitting at what looked like a dining table. Her right hand was holding a pencil, her left one had an eraser in it. Underneath it, there was a sketchbook. Brooke dropped what she was holding and grabbed the book. There was a drawing of a cocktail dress. She would have done anything to get that dress in real life, she thought.

She put it down, stood up and looked around her; she had never been in this place. She didn't recognize the furniture, though she did think it had been tastefully decorated. There were a bunch of pictures on the walls and she was about to look at them when she heard someone humming nearby.

Brooke went towards the sound; she left the dining room and walked into a spacious living room. It really was a kid's voice. There was a child, sitting on the floor, using the coffee table to write something on paper. As she came closer, she realized that he wasn't writing, he was drawing.

He looked up and gave her a wide smile as he saw her looking at his drawing. "Did you finish your work?"

She blinked, then kneeled next to him. He looked… Well, he looked somehow awfully familiar. She didn't know how old he was, but probably no older than 6. He had blonde hair and bright blue eyes.

"Are you okay?" he asked with a little frown, looking genuinely worried about her lack of reaction.

"Yeah, erm, who are you?"

He froze, looking confused for a moment, then heartily laughed, making her smile. "You're being funny again Aunt Brooke."

Her smile disappeared right away. "Aunt Brooke?"

He didn't notice her bemusement and went back to his drawing. Brooke noticed that he had made another one and took it in her right hand. It was signed "Jamie". She looked at the little boy, then at the drawing again; so his name was Jamie?

"That one's for you," he said without looking up, as he was still very focused on his current drawing.

"Oh," she said a bit awkwardly, "thanks." It represented a house, with a garden, a huge sun and an apple tree. "Wow," she said as she was impressed, "this is a great drawing. Remind me, how old are you again?"

He lifted his left hand and stuck out four fingers, "And a half."

Four and half, then. But that still didn't tell her who he was. Why was he calling her Aunt Brooke? She was an only child, technically she couldn't be aunt to anyone.

And then she remembered the whole plan. She shot up on her feet and observed the room around her. Once again, she thought it was nicely furnished. Her eyes got caught by a large three-panned bay window on her right. She got closer to it and realized that she wasn't in Tree Hill. She wasn't even on ground floor. She didn't know what floor it was, but from the view out there, she could tell that she was definitely very high. The view was truly magnificent; it showed a huge park below that looked oddly familiar. She squinted; where had she seen this lake before? And was that a carousel on the right?

Wait a second, was that Prospect Park? In Brooklyn?

She had been there several times, and she loved it; she loved everything about Brooklyn. She had always thought that if she were to live in New York someday, it would be in this borough, but… She shook her head and remembered that she couldn't waste time with the view. She turned on her heels, checked with a quick glance that the kid, Jamie, wasn't paying attention to her weird behavior, and left the room. She went back to the dining room and saw that it was attached to the kitchen. She quickly looked around, but there was no calendar here, and no phone either. However, there was a bunch of pictures on the fridge.

Her eyes stopped on a picture of Lucas and her, in a pool with Jamie. It must have been taken recently because Jamie looked just like in the picture. Lucas, on the other hand, looked different. He looked a little older, though not like a grandpa either. He looked more… Mature. His hair was shorter and she couldn't help but think that it suited him. She also looked a little older, her face was thinner than now. They all looked very happy. Her eyes went from Lucas to Jamie on the picture; that's why the kid looked so familiar. The hair, the eyes… He looked just like Lucas!

She took another picture: one with Mouth, Haley and her. Was Mouth going to the gym? He looked like he had been working out. And holy crap, Haley was blonde! She looked surprisingly good with blonde hair. This picture also seemed recent, as Brooke looked just like in the previous picture, except that she had short hair. Brooke dropped the picture as she patted her own hair, and looked down to see that her long hair was gone. Wow, she hadn't had hair this short since Nathan had stuck gum in it during 4th grade. She bent over to pick up the picture and put it back on the fridge.

There was a photograph that she knew very well but that she hadn't seen in a long time: 5th grade Halloween with Peyton and Nathan. They were all dressed up as skeletons.

Her eyes landed on another picture of Peyton and her, one she had taken this summer, just before leaving for L.A.

Another one showed Nate and Lucas playing basketball together; from their looks, Brooke thought it must have been taken not long after high school.

And finally, another one with Lucas and her. She had no idea when it had been taken; it didn't look like they were in high school, but they didn't look as old as in the other pictures either. They were sitting on a bench; she quickly recognized the River Court. Lucas had an arm around her shoulders, and she was wearing his grey hoodie, the one from Keith's shop. There were candles on the ground, at their feet, and for some reason, she looked somewhat sad. Lucas was kissing the top of her head, so she couldn't clearly see his expression, but she could see hers very well, and she seemed down. She also looked like she had lost weight.

She put the last picture back on the fridge and left the kitchen; she still had no idea how to get to her journals. Peyton was nowhere around, but if she could find her phone then maybe she could talk to her.

As she was walking down a corridor, she froze in front of a mirror. She immediately got closer, scrutinizing her face. She looked… really good! No white hair, no wrinkles and she was really rocking that short hair! Focus, she reminded herself, focus. She looked away from the mirror and went to the other end of the hall, which led her to what seemed to be the master bedroom. She scanned the room until she saw a cellphone lying on a chest of drawers. She ran to it and with relief saw that her password was still the same.

Okay, first the date, check the date…

February 24th 2025.

She suddenly felt dizzy and had to sit down on the bed. It only lasted for a second, but still, she felt like she was going to faint. 2025? That was five years from now! Five freaking years. This had to be a dream, right?

She went through her contacts, looking for Peyton's number. If someone knew where her journals were, it had to be her. She scrolled down her screen but didn't see Peyton's name. She frowned, and thinking she missed it, started over, only to reach the end of the list once again without finding her best friend's name. There was like 500 names on this, but not Peyton's. How could that be? Was she registered under a nickname?

She sighed and threw the phone on the bed; she was not getting any help from that. She stood up and looked around helplessly, under the bed, in the drawers; her heart stopped for a second when she went to the bedside table and saw the white rabbit-shaped lamp sitting there.

She turned away from it and looked at the wardrobe and… There it was, under the coat rack, a huge cardboard box with bold, black capital letters on it reading "Brooke Confidential". Why the hell would that be in plain sight? She would never do that, it didn't make any sense. She kneeled, pulled the box towards her and opened it to see a dozen of journals in there. That was five more volumes than what she had written so far. She looked for the one she was filling nowadays, volume 7. When she found it, she opened it to the entry she had written the night before, summarizing her day and mostly her talk with Mouth.

Her heart was beating so fast, she thought it would stop from exhaustion; she was just as excited as she was nervous. She turned the page and read the entry for today, the one she would, hypothetically, write tonight. It was mainly a description of the dream she was having right now. She skimmed through it and went to the next paragraph: "When I woke up, Mrs Campbell was obviously mad at me. She said her class was boring me too much. I tried to say it didn't, but she wouldn't listen and gave me detention. And then, out of nowhere, Lucas tried to talk her out of it, which only angered her more, so he got detention too." Why would he even do that? "It's just like it was written in my dream's journal (should I still call that a dream? We'll see at the end of the week) I managed to talk to him in detention and apologize to him. I still don't understand why Lucas asked me to, but I didn't tell Nathan about that."

Brooke frowned; none of that made any sense to her. She flipped several pages and stopped when she read Larry's name. Peyton's father; why would she write about him? It was this Friday's entry: "I can't believe it. But then I have to believe now, haven't I? I mean, he's really here. Larry came home last night, just like I had read in my dream travel. He's staying for two weeks, Peyton is thrilled." Now that was ridiculous. Larry hadn't come home in ages, the chances of him showing up this week were near to zero.

"What are you doing?"

Brooke looked up to see that Lucas was standing at the doorframe, staring at her with a curious expression on his face. He looked just like in the picture at the pool.

She shut her journal and waved it at him. "Why isn't this hidden somewhere safe?"

He frowned, stepping towards her. "What are you talking about, you're the one who asked me to put it here, you said you needed it." Befuddled, she looked back at the box full of her journals and put away the one that she was still holding. Lucas kneeled next to her and asked, "Are you okay? Wait you're… Did you travel again?"

Her eyes grew wide. What had he just said? "Travel?" she repeated, stunned. Her hands started shaking. "Th─ This is too much, it can't be, it can't…" She could feel her breathing speeding up, just as it had in Lucas' room. She had to calm down, otherwise she would end up having another panic attack.

"Come here," Lucas said, suddenly hugging her. Her initial reaction was to jerk away, but he ignored that and held her closer to his chest. "It's okay, Brooke, you're okay," he kept repeating as he was cradling her head.

At first, it didn't seem to work at all. But after a few seconds, she closed her eyes and focused on two things: his heartbeat and his voice. Both appeared to be soothing her: her breathing slowed down and she finally relaxed in his arms. He probably noticed that for he pulled away from her, though still sitting close to her.

"Are you alright?"

She nodded, and hesitated before saying, "You're good at this."

He cocked his head. "At what?"

"Making me feel better."

"I've got experience," he answered with a wink. She looked away at her journals, feeling a slight blush appearing on her cheekbones. He followed her gaze, "So, do you think I can put these away now?"

She frowned. "I don't know. You should ask… Me, I guess. Where was─ oh wait, I tried to call Peyton."

"You─ You did?"

She looked up at him. "Yeah, but I couldn't find her number in my phone."

"Oh, erm, that's because it's your work phone."

She raised her eyebrows. "I have a work phone? Wow." She frowned and turned her head to the door, thinking she had heard someone.

"What's wrong?"

"Can't you hear it?" she asked him with a frown. It was very faint, but… Oh, Mrs Campbell's voice. Uh oh, she didn't sound too happy. "I think I'm in trouble."

"What's wrong?"

"I, erm" ─she looked down at her hands as a familiar tingling sensation appeared on them─ "I fell asleep in science. Mrs Campbell is gonna be mad for sure."

He frowned a little, as if he was trying to remember something. "Oh right, it's that day then."

She tried to ignore the buzzing sound in her ears. "What day?"

"Nothing special," he quickly said, clearly avoiding her gaze.

"So what you meant to say was: oh right, it's that absolutely normal day?"

He chuckled. "Yeah, exactly that. Wait" ─he frowned, as if he was struggling to make a decision─ "maybe I should tell you, erm…"

"Tell me what?" she asked, trying her best to focus on his voice, which was not that easy with all her senses currently gone awry.

"I don't know, I don't think I'm supposed to─"

"Look, if you want to say something you've got about ten seconds before I wake up."

"Don't tell Nathan you apologized to me," he blurted out as she was closing her eyes.

She wanted to ask him what he was talking about, but didn't get time to.

When she opened her eyes, she was back in the classroom, her head lying on her table. She let out a small sigh, knowing perfectly well that their teacher was towering over her right now, ready to yell at her. She sat up and, lo and behold, Mrs Campbell was indeed staring down at her, looking furious.

"Am I boring you Brooke?"

"Not at all," she quietly answered. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to fall asleep but─"

"But you did. Since it looks like you need time to rest, maybe you should do so in detention tonight?"

"Tonight?" she repeated, ignoring her teacher's fuming expression. "But I have a council meeting and I already missed one─"

"Do you think I honestly care about you little meetings?"

"Well no, you have no reason to, but…"

"Precisely. And if you're terrible at your job, well I can only feel sorry for your fellow students."

Brooke had to stay calm, getting mad here would only get her extra hours of detention. "I'm really sorry, it won't happen again."

Her teacher ignored her and walked away to the board. "You can't get away with everything."

Another voice rose from the classroom and said, "That's not really fair."

The whole class held its breath as Mrs Campbell froze and slowly moved to face the student who had dared to talk back to her. Brooke stared at the back of Lucas' head, sitting 3 seats in front of her. Why the hell would he say that to their teacher? Did he have a death wish?

"What was that?"

He could still say something else, say anything but─ "I said you're not being fair."

Brooke, like most of their classmates, was dumbstruck. She didn't know if he was being brave, honest, or just plain stupid. Still, a warm feeling appeared in her chest. And then it abruptly vanished when she realized that he was probably doing that because she was Peyton's best friend.

Self-serving or not, his reaction got him detention too.

During the next period, she spent her entire time writing down her last "dream", trying to get every detail right. There were just so many things to talk about, that she texted Mouth to ask him if he could meet her in the library for lunch.

She once again ran into Nathan and Haley; they were sitting there at a table, studying. She briefly said hi to them before heading out to where Mouth was sitting. She wondered for a second how often Haley was tutoring him, but then put that thought aside when Mouth started reading what she had written down.

"Wow, this is… Wait, Haley is blonde?!" he exclaimed, startling her and the nearby table.

After an apologetic smile to the librarian, who was still looking disapprovingly at them, she whispered, "Yes but that's not really─"

"You think I go to the gym?"

She shrugged. "That's how it looked like, but seriously it's─"

"And you're living in Brooklyn?"

"Mouth, who cares about all that! I got the freaking journal!"

"Right," he said, reading again the last part. "So, it said that you got detention when you woke up, did that happen?"

"Yeah it did, but that was expected, Campbell hates my guts and─"

"And did Luke get detention too?"

He sounded more and more enthusiastic. "Yes."

"Brooke, that means─"

"No," she interrupted him, "there's still the part about Peyton's dad."

Mouth rolled his eyes. "I can't believe you still think, after all this, that it's all just coincidences."

"I─ I don't," she admitted reluctantly, "but I still want to see if that last thing happens, before we can say that I'm… doing whatever it is I'm doing. You know, I'd rather be 100% sure that I'm not just crazy."

"You're not," Mouth said in a soft tone, "but if that's what you want, fine, let's wait until Friday and see if Peyton's father comes." She gave him a grateful smile. "So now, back to that picture you saw, did I look that good?"

She chuckled, "Yeah you did."

They talked a little more about the other pictures she had seen, and what Lucas could have meant at the end, right before she had woken up. After a short while, it was already time to go back to class.

She asked Peyton, as nonchalantly as possible, if she had heard any news from her father. Her friend had replied, quite gloomily, that no, she had not.

At the end of the day, instead of going to her meeting, she went to detention. She saw with relief that Whitey, still wearing his sweatpants, was sitting behind the teacher's desk, his legs crossed and his feet resting on the desk. He raised his eyes from over the book he was reading, acknowledged her presence with a nod, and went back to his reading.

Whitey was notoriously famous for being very hard on the basketball team he was training, but also very laxist when it came to detention. It was his way of stating to the school administration that he thought they were all wasting time.

She took a seat and looked around: there were 5 other students in the room, including Lucas, who was sitting at the far back. She turned to the board again and looked at Whitey. She didn't have much of a choice now, did she? She had to apologize to Lucas. And thank him. Hopefully she wouldn't have to buy him another book.

"Is there something you want to ask, Miss Davis?"

How he could know that, without looking away from his book, Brooke had no idea. "Erm, yes," she said a little startled. "Can I sit somewhere else?"

"Sure, make yourself comfortable."

There was not an ounce of sarcasm in his voice. She grabbed her backpack and walked with a firm step to the end of the room. She sat right next to a puzzled Lucas, on his left.

"Hi," she managed to say with a shy smile. Before she could lose her nerve, the words seemingly tumbled out of her in one breath, "So, erm, I just wanted to say that I'm sorry I acted like an ass with you the other day, I shouldn't have yelled at you like that, and also thanks for trying to help me with Campbell today, you really didn't have to do that."

"Okay," he replied, still bemused. "I mean, I shouldn't have said anything to Peyton without─"

"No, you didn't do anything wrong," she insisted, shaking her head. "It's just that, sometimes, when I'm pissed, I just don't listen to people at all."

A lopsided smile appeared on his lips. "Tornado Brooke?"

Nathan and his big mouth. "Yeah," she admitted with a chuckle. "Anyway, I never told you not to tell Peyton, and there was no way you could have guessed that so… And thanks again for Campbell."

"That was nothing, and it didn't even help you."

"No, it wasn't nothing, so please just accept my thanks because I suck at picking up books as thank you gifts."

He laughed, making the warm feeling appear again in her chest. "You don't suck at that." He bent over to his backpack and took out the book, the one she had given him. "It's really nice."

"You started reading it?"

"Yesterday, yeah."

"What is it about?"

He blinked at her, confused. "You don't know?"

"I didn't read it," she said with a shrug.

"But didn't you read the back cover?"

She didn't see why that sounded like a problem to him. "No. I picked it up because I thought the front cover looked nice."

Lucas glanced at the cover, then back at her, and laughed heartily for several seconds. She wasn't offended though, because it didn't sound like he was making fun of her. Actually, he sounded delightful. "It's a collection of short stories. I just finished the first one, it's about this guy in Baghdad who finds an alchemist with a portal connected to the future."

She must have heard wrong, she thought. "To the what?"

"The future."

Brooke had to appreciate the irony. She fought hard not to break into a nervous laughter, and asked, "Does he go through it?"

"Actually, the first part is all about the alchemist telling him stories of people who used it before him."

His eyes kept shining as he told her the story in detail. Brooke tried to pay attention, though her mind kept wondering how in the hell she had managed to get him a random book about time travel.

She had always seen Lucas with a book nearby, but it was the first time she had heard him speak about one; it was obvious he was passionate about reading. He became so chatty that even Whitey, as tolerant as he was with them, cleared his throat several times to notify that they should be quieter. Although a bit reluctantly, she went back to her homework for the rest of the hour.

That evening, before going to sleep, she wrote an entry in her journal. She didn't realize it on that day, but she ended up writing down the exact same words that she had read in her latest "dream".

Mouth kept texting her every day, asking her if she had heard from Larry. To his disappointment, and she had to admit, to hers too, Peyton had not had any news about him. Not on Tuesday, nor Wednesday, nor Thursday. When Thursday night came and she still didn't receive a call or a text from Peyton telling her the good news, she went to bed thinking that maybe it had all just been her imagination. But the more she thought about it, the more she did not want it to be a dream.

The next morning, she knew right away, when she saw Peyton waiting for her at her locker, that something was up. She had not seen her best friend that cheerful in a long while.

"My dad's here," Peyton announced with a huge smile.

"What?" Was that a joke? Had Mouth asked her to say this?

"He came last night! I got home and there he was, cooking dinner."

"B─But how? Why didn't you tell me sooner?"

Peyton seemed surprised by her second question but still answered, "I kinda lost track of time, we talked all night. So anyway, I can't make it tonight. Brooke?"

"Yeah?" she asked, still in a daze.

"I said I can't come tonight."

"For movie night? Oh sure, I mean your dad's here so… I can't believe he's here."

"And he's dying to see you, so you're having lunch with us tomorrow."

"Sure," she said with a grin. "I'm so happy for you," she said as she hugged her. "I have to tell Mouth."

Peyton took a step back, holding her by her shoulders. "Tell Mouth? Why?" she asked, raising a quizzical eyebrow.

"No, I meant, see him. I have to see him about something, that, er, has nothing to do with your dad. I mean why would he want to know about your dad, right?" she rambled with a nervous chuckle.

Thankfully, her friend didn't dwell on that. "You'll have to wait for that, homeroom starts in five."

She was right; she didn't have enough time to talk to Mouth and get in class on time. She certainly could not afford to be late after getting detention earlier this week.

Keeping her attention on whatever her teachers said this morning happened to be an almost impossible task. Every minute felt like an hour, and every hour felt like a day. Finally, lunch break came. She rushed out of the classroom, sprinted across school until she was outside. She spotted the table where Mouth and his friends were sitting and marched over there.

"Mouth!" she yelled as she was arriving behind him. He had barely started to turn around when she yanked on his arm and ripped him from his table. "We need to talk. Now." She tried hard not to pay attention to the bemused looks that Mouth's friends, including Lucas, were throwing her.

"Uh, alright."

They walked away as Brooke was looking for a safe spot in the schoolgrounds; she didn't want anyone sneaking up on them. She decided on the gym; it was empty as they sat on the bleachers.

"What's up Brooke?"

"He's here," she simply said, her voice suddenly very hoarse.

She didn't need to say more; he figured it out in a second. His eyes grew wide and showed a mix of amazement and thrill. "B─ But that means that you're, you're…"

"Time-travelling, yeah."

"You don't look very pleased."

"Because it's not pleasing at all! It's terrifying, that's what it is," she admitted in a quiet voice. "I mean… I don't even control it. What if it happens when I'm driving?"

"But you said you know when it happens, it takes more than a minute from the moment you start having the tingle to the moment you" ─he paused, as if he didn't want to scare her away─ "travel. So even if you're driving, you still have time to stop your car before it happens."

"Alright, so I'm not in any mortal danger, but still… In five years, I'll be living with Lucas, raising the son he had with someone else?!"

Mouth looked completely lost. "What are you talking about? You mean that kid?"

"Jamie, yeah."

"You think that's his son?"

"Trust me, I grew up with Nathan, that boy definitely has Scott genes. And his hair and eyes were just like Lucas'."

"But, that would mean… How old did he say he was?"

"Four and a half." She gasped, finally putting two and two together. "Wait, that means he'll be born next year!"

"Well, you were in February 2025, so he'll be born… Yeah," he said after doing the math, "in exactly one year, more or less."

"And if we take out the nine months of pregnancy, then he's gonna be conceived in a few months."

He nodded, "Probably beginning of 2020, yeah."

"Holy crap. Lucas will be a dad in what, three months? How does that even happen? And who's the mother? Oh God," she gasped again, tightly grabbing Mouth's arm, "what if it's Peyton?"

"What? Why?"

"Well the hair matches. And he's still crazy about her, so if someone is more likely to bear his child, it has to be her! And that would explain why he called me Aunt Brooke."

"He's not crazy about Peyton," Mouth said with a chuckle.

"Okay, so I exaggerate a little. But he's still into her."

"No, he's not." Mouth hesitated, before adding, "It's probably not my place to say this, but, erm, he hasn't been into Peyton for a while now. Remember when she rejected him last year?"

"No, no it can't be," she mumbled. "I swear, I see him looking at her every day. Even this morning, he was─"

She stopped, confused by Mouth's conviction. Maybe he was right, he did know Lucas very well. But then, was she imagining things? No, no, even this morning, she had noticed him sneaking a peek at Peyton when she was talking to her. He couldn't pay her that much attention and not be into her, could he?

"And anyway," Mouth said, pulling her out of her thoughts, "even if he were, he's still dating you in five years."

She sighed. "I know… But how the hell does that happen? And what am I supposed to do with this information? I can't tell anyone else about it, they'll think I'm insane."

"We need to do some research."

"I don't think we'll find information on time travel in the newspaper."

"No, I'm not sure but─" He frowned and stared at the part of the gym on their left, the one connected to the locker room. "Someone's coming."

Two seconds later, Nathan was crossing the gym and walking to them. "What are you guys doing here?"

Brooke glanced quickly at Mouth then said, "Secret meeting for the council. What about you?"

"I was just training."

"Where's your stuff?" Mouth asked him.

"My stuff?"

"Your sports bag. There's no training this afternoon."

"I, er, I left it in my locker. It's not like anyone's gonna steal it." He suddenly looked like he was in a hurry to leave. "See you tonight, Brooke."

"About that!" she said, making him face her. "Peyton can't make it, her dad's in Tree Hill."

"Larry?" Nathan asked in surprise. "That's great!"

"Yeah, and that also means she can't come tonight, so do you want to cancel?"

"Cancel? No way, I've already picked the movie."

"Please, tell me it's not a car movie?"

He winked. "You'll see." He started leaving the gym but once again stopped in his tracks and looked at Brooke. "Hey, have you talked to Lucas yet?"

She was about to say that yes, she had, but then remembered what Future Lucas had told her. He had asked her not to tell Nathan about her apology. She had thought about it and had not figured why he would ask her that, yet she still felt as if she should trust him. "No."

Nathan gave her a nod and walked out of the gym.

Mouth looked at her with questioning eyes. "Why did you lie?"

"I don't know," she said with a shrug. "Lucas asked me to, I mean the one in the future. There's gotta be a reason."

Later that day, at 7 pm sharp, Brooke showed up with two pizzas at Nathan's door. She was about to ring the doorbell when someone called her name. "Brooke?"

She turned around and froze as she was face to face with Lucas. She took a step back. "Lucas? What are you doing here?"

"I was gonna ask you the same. Nathan invited me over."

"Tonight? But it's movie night."

He cocked his head to the side. "I don't know what that means."

It meant Nathan had tricked them into coming to his place tonight, without telling them he was inviting the other one. Was that why he had asked her earlier if she had apologized to him? But why would he─ Haley. She said she would do something about them, that she would help her out.

"We should get in before a bus full of secret guests shows up," she said, glaring at the door.

Nathan looked extremely proud of his ploy. He took the pizzas and let them in. Lucas went in first, and as he was walking next to his brother, gave him a playful slap on the back of his head.

Nathan looked offended, "What the hell?"

His brother spoke in a low voice, but she could still hear him say, "You know what that was for."

As they both went to the kitchen to get some beers, and also, she guessed, so that Lucas could tell him that they had already made up, she went straight to the living room and sat on the couch, stretching out her legs on the chaise longue.

So, if she had gotten this right, on Haley's advice, Nate had invited Lucas so that she could apologize to him. He hadn't warned her because he probably thought that she wouldn't have come if she had known, and he hadn't told Lucas that she was coming because… Well that she didn't know. On the other hand, Future Lucas had asked her not to tell Nathan about her apology. If she had told Nate, then he wouldn't have needed to invite Lucas anymore. Which meant that Future Lucas had basically made sure that they would spend the night together. But why?

She quickly texted Mouth to get his opinion on this. He replied not even a minute later: "Maybe something big is happening tonight." And then, "Maybe you start dating tonight."

She laughed at that. "No way," she texted back.

A few minutes later, they came back with pizzas and beers. Nathan sat on the armchair, leaving the couch to his brother. Lucas sat next to her, leaving an acceptable amount of space between them.

This was not going to be easy. How was she supposed to go through an entire movie with him next to her, when she had just found out that they were going to live together in a Brooklyn penthouse five years from now? And that she was possibly helping him raise the son that he was about to have with some other girl?

"Are you all ready?" Nathan asked them, theatrically turning the TV on.

Brooke watched as the screen lit up and showed the movie's title. "Batman begins?!" she read out loud with horror. "You know I hate superhero stuff!"

"I didn't complain with your last pick," Nathan retorted.

"You didn't know what movie he chose?" Lucas asked, raising an eyebrow.

"No, that's the whole point of movie night. We each choose a movie and we don't tell the others what it is. The one who's hosting gets to choose."

"What did you choose?"

"Legally blonde."

Lucas chuckled, while Nathan pointed at his brother, as if proving a point, "See? And I didn't even complain!"

"That's because you loved it! You laughed harder than Peyton and I combined!"

That made Lucas laugh out loud. "Just watch it, Brooke," Nathan said with a grin. "It's so much more than just a superhero movie, it's… It's a book of philosophy."

"Alright," she mumbled, looking back at the screen. "Just play it."

She was nervous when the movie started, as she kept thinking about why Future Lucas seemed to believe that this was an important night. But after a short while, she got into the movie. It was hard not to.

After almost an hour, she asked for a break.

"There's ice cream in the freezer," Nathan said as he was standing up and stretching out his arms. "Hey Luke, why don't you help her?"

Brooke frowned at her friend. "I don't need─"

He didn't let her finish her sentence as he pushed her to the kitchen, Lucas following behind. What was up with Nate tonight? She looked over her shoulder and saw that he was typing away on his phone. He had been doing that the entire time.

"Don't tell Nate I said this," she told Lucas when they entered the kitchen, "but this movie is so good!"

He chuckled. "I won't."

"Can you get the spoons? They're in there," she said, gesturing at a drawer on his right.

"Sure." She took the ice cream out of the freezer and three bowls to fill. Lucas handed her the spoons and asked, "So where's Peyton?"

She looked up at him. "Peyton?"

"Didn't you say she usually came to these, er, meetings?"

Was that why he had accepted to come? No, that couldn't be, he had been surprised to see her, so why would he have been expecting Peyton… Unless that was how Nathan had convinced him to come? "Her dad is here. In Tree Hill. He works on a boat, so he's not often around." She started filling the bowls, avoiding his gaze. "It's usually just the two of us. Three, with Nathan, but… She's great, you know, she's just hard to approach. She built these huge walls around her but once you get through them, she's really amazing."

"Uh, okay," he said, sounding somehow muddled.

She lifted her chin and finally met his stare. "I told her you tried to help with my detention."

He gave her a puzzled look. "Brooke, do you think that─" He fell silent as Nathan came into the kitchen and walked around them to get a beer from the fridge.

"Do I think what?" she asked, her head tilted.

Lucas looked stealthily at his brother, then shook his head. "Nothing," he said before leaving the room.

What was that about?

Nathan closed the fridge and turned to her with a guilty look on his face. "Did I interrupt something?"

"No," she said with a frown, "why would you think that?"

"No reason at all."

"Didn't he tell you that I already apologized to him?"

"Yeah he did."

"Then why do you keep acting as if─" Nathan's phone chimed again, notifying him of a new text. "Who have you been texting all night? Your secret 5th grade girlfriend?"

He rolled his eyes. "There's no secret 5th grade girlfriend, and stop saying that, it sounds so creepy."

She chuckled. "Fine, I won't say she's in 5th grade anymore. Where's your mom by the way? I thought I'd see her tonight."

"She went out with some friends. How are your parents?"

"Oh, you know," she said, taking a spoonful of vanilla ice cream, "they're still acting weird around me. I don't think they're fighting, because that usually involves a lot of shouting and broken plates."

"They'll be okay."

"How do you know that?"

"They've come through every time, right?"

"Yes, but─"

He shrugged. "So they'll be fine."

She put down her spoon and gave him an intrigued look. "Since when are you such an optimist when it comes to parents?"

"People change, Brooke," he said with another shrug, taking the other two bowls with him as he left the kitchen.

Brooke was so focused during the rest of the movie that she forgot about her ice cream, which turned into a lukewarm soup. When the ending credits rolled, Nathan looked rather satisfied.

"There's a sequel, you know. I have it here, but I know you're not into superhero movies, and I wouldn't want to impose anything─"

"Just put it on already!" she exclaimed, making them laugh.

She looked at her watch and saw that it was getting late, but hey, if the second movie was as good as the first…

In her opinion, it was even better. However, she started feeling sleepy after an hour or so, and fought hard to keep her eyelids open. She managed to do so once, twice, and then she eventually shut her eyes.

It was a loud, door-slamming sound, that pulled her out of her slumber. She jumped up, confused as to why the Joker was suddenly in a nurse outfit, and looked to her right. She smiled as she saw that both Lucas and Nathan were asleep. She heard more noise coming from the entrance hall and wondered who it could be, before she remembered Nathan had told her that his mother had gone out. She got up and quietly left the room to greet her.

Had she known what she was about to see, Brooke would have definitely pretended to be asleep. When she walked in the hall, Deb was intertwined with a man; both had their tops off, though thankfully she was still wearing her bra. The man was unzipping her skirt as Deb was eating his mouth off.

They hadn't seen her; she could have slipped away unnoticed, but her mouth opened on its own and words came out before she could think twice about it, "Oh God." Everyone froze as they unlocked their mouths and turned to Brooke. She quicky covered her eyes with her hand and turned her head away. "I'm so sorry, I didn't see anything." Except for Deb's breast of course.

Deb shrieked and Brooke heard them move around, probably to pick up their clothes and put them back on. "Brooke! You're still here?! I thought you were just here for a movie!"

"Erm, yeah, but it turned into two movies instead, and we ended up falling asleep," she said, her hand still covering her eyes. "Can I look now?"

"Yes," Deb mumbled, and as Brooke uncovered her eyes, she could see that she looked mortified.

A sluggish but surprised voice came from the doorway on her left, "Deb?"

They all turned to see that Lucas was now awake too. This seemed to further intensify Deb's discomfiture. "Lucas? What are you doing here? I thought it was movie night?"

"It is," Brooke answered, "but we extended the invitations."

"Well, erm," she said, looking at her date, "I think we should call it a night."

The man, who still hadn't put his shirt on, came close to Deb and whispered something in her ear. She stealthily looked at Brooke, then back at her date, and finally said, "Actually, I should drive my friend back to his place since he has drunk. A very respectable amount," she quickly added, as her friend was putting his shirt on, not bothering to button it.

Brooke shared a look with Lucas, then said, "Good night, Deb."

Deb waved at them and hurried out of the house. As she closed the front door, Brooke couldn't help but break into uncontrollable fits of giggling. She turned to Lucas, who was still staring at the front door, gob smacked. He murmured, "That was…"

"Horrible," she said, laughing even harder. "And you didn't even see them half naked sucking each other's face off."

He winced. "Wow, thanks for burning that image in my brain."

"You're welcome," she said with a wink, making him chuckle.

"There's no way I'll get any sleep tonight."

"That makes two of us. And I'm hungry."

He followed her as she went to the kitchen, using the flash on her phone to find her way. When they got in the kitchen, she figured she still couldn't turn the lights on, as it would spread in the living room, and subsequently wake Nate up. She walked to a cabinet, took out a few candles, then found a matchbox and lit them up on the kitchen island. There, now she could see properly and Nathan could keep dreaming away.

"You really know your way around this house," Lucas said, looking impressed.

She grabbed a pair of bowls and once again took the ice cream out of the freezer. "I know every room by heart. When we were kids" ─she offered him a full bowl─ "we used to play here all the time." Lucas sat on a kitchen stool, opposite her. "I bet I could still win at hide-and-seek."

"Is that an invitation?"

She grinned. "Maybe another day. And I would have to find another secret spot."

He laughed. "Of course you had a secret spot. But why another?"

"There was a trap door in a closet, in one of the guest rooms upstairs. Nathan never found me there," she remembered with nostalgia. "But last year I went to see if it was still there and it's not, it's been clogged. Too bad, really, it was the perfect hiding spot. But I probably wouldn't be able to fit in anymore. Back then I could, but now… Things have changed," she said with a shrug, "I mean I never thought I'd ever run into Deb in heat."

"And thank you for reminding me of that."

She laughed. "I can't believe Deb has a more thrilling love life than me."

He raised an eyebrow and said, "Come on Brooke, it can't be that bad."

She wondered why she was telling him this, but still answered, "Oh trust me, it is."

"I'm sure you'll be just fine."

She looked down at her ice cream and took a spoonful, avoiding his gaze. They were overlapping once again, Future Lucas and Present Lucas. She could hear him say that she was okay, she could feel his arms around her.

"I don't think we should tell Nathan," she murmured.

"About what?"

She looked up at him. "Deb. I mean, it's embarrassing enough for us, so I can't imagine Nathan's reaction if he finds out.

"You're right. I walked on my mom and Keith in bed one day and it scarred me for life."

She chuckled. "So when did they get together? I know they were close before but─"

"How do you know that?" he asked, intrigued.

"Tree Hill's a small place, there's always rumors going around," she said with a shrug. "And we're in high school, which makes it worse. I've heard about their will-they-won't-they relationship for a while now."

He seemed genuinely surprised by that. "Last year."

"You must have been thrilled."

"I was. But honestly, our lives haven't changed much, I mean Keith was already spending most of his time with us anyway. He, erm, he asked me how you were doing. My mom asked too. They were worried, after what happened in my room."

"What did you tell them?"

"That you looked like you were just fine, since, um─"

"Since I had made it impossible for you to ask me," she said with an apologetic face.

"Yeah." He seemed to hesitate and said, "You didn't go to school the day after that."

"Yeah, I went to the doctor's that day. Actually, I went to the hospital. My parents wanted to make sure that I was fine. I am fine," she quickly added, when she noticed his frown, "I'm just a little tired these days so I tend to easily fall asleep."

They talked about the tests she had gone through; she told him about the mean nurse she had met, and how they had observed her in her sleep. "Wasn't it scary?" he asked after she fell silent.

"No, it was actually interesting. And at least now I know for sure that I'm fine."

In the days to come, she would try to remember how they had ended up talking about their respective summer vacations. It had just happened, somehow. She told him about the summer house in L.A. that her father had just acquired, and he told her about his camping trip with Keith. He used to go every year camping with him, each time in a different place.

They talked about what they wanted to do after high school. She was amazed to learn that he wanted to be a writer. She thought for sure that he would want to pursue a sports career, just like Nathan. But then again, he was always reading something, and he always aced their literature tests. He was surprised but somehow impressed when she told him that she wanted to be a fashion designer, and some day have her own brand. When she told him about the fake fashion shows she had hosted as a kid in her house, he said it was cute. And when she let it slip out that Nathan had posed as a model once, she made him swear not to tell anyone she had talked about this because otherwise, she was a dead person. She did promise, in exchange, that she would show him the pictures of Nathan dressed up with Victoria's dress and heels. He also promised he would let her read his texts if she agreed to show him her sketches; they shook on it.

He told her about Haley, and how he felt that she had been pulling away from him in the past months, little by little. That reminded Brooke that since school had started, she had indeed seen Haley more accompanied by Nathan than Lucas. Before she could hold that thought, he asked her where she was planning to go after graduation. She said she was applying for NYU; their guidance counselor had told her that she had a fair chance at getting in. And she had always wanted to live in New York. He agreed that it would be a nice place to live in. But not in Manhattan, no… Brooklyn, they both said at the same time, startling each other. He then told her he was applying in different schools, mostly in the East coast, as he didn't want to be too far from his family. She noticed that amongst the schools he named, some of them were in New York.

They talked about many things after that. That she had borrowed Norah Jones' albums from Peyton and how she was enjoying her music. That he often wished that Dan would move out of Tree Hill, though him living in his beach house meant that he at least didn't have to run into him as much as he used to. That before high school, he had never talked to Nathan, and he had thought he was just an obnoxious spoiled kid. He laughed when Brooke told him that that was precisely what Nathan had been in grade school, until she had put him back on the straight and narrow.

She thought they had spoken for not even an hour, but realized, when the sun started rising, that it had been in fact several hours. She couldn't remember when the last time she had pulled an all-nighter was, but she did know that alcohol and partying had been involved. She had never spent an entire night just… Talking.

Nathan woke up not long after that, and looked confused as hell when he saw them drinking coffee in his kitchen. "You guys are still here? When did you wake up?"

"Just now," Brooke said, trying to avoid any future teasing. Lucas seemed to understand why she had said that, for he didn't correct her. Instead, he gave her a lopsided smile.

Lucas looked at the time and told them he was starting his shift at the Café in a couple hours. He needed to get home and shower. He left first, and Brooke followed soon after that; she was having lunch with Peyton and Larry today, and she needed to get some sleep before that.

When she got home, her mother was having breakfast. She didn't seem worried to see Brooke come home only in the morning; she knew her daughter was at Nathan's.

Brooke managed to sleep the entire morning and woke up just in time to take a shower and head out to Peyton's. When she got there, she was welcomed by Larry's bear hug. The table was already set when they all sat and started eating.

He asked her how she was doing, how her parents were doing. She stayed evasive about her parents and then asked him how life on the boat was. They talked about their post-graduation plans, and mostly about the art school Peyton wished to attend in L.A.

When they were done eating, she went to do the dishes with Peyton. She told her about the movie Nathan had picked, and the fact that Lucas had been invited too.

Lucas was a charming guy. He was a really nice person, who was into her best friend. And even though the universe was telling Brooke that in the future, they would be together, she couldn't help but think that right now, that was not what he wanted. And she had to face it: part of her didn't want him to get what he wanted, but she needed to be selfless. She had to. He simply deserved it.

Brooke handed a clean plate to Peyton and said, "We talked a lot, with Lucas. He's… Well, he's really nice, and funny. He's a great listener, too."

Peyton looked at her, raising an eyebrow. "Brooke, are you saying that you─"

"No, I'm saying this for you."

"Me?"

"Any chance you would change your mind on him?"

"It's been a year, why are you bringing this up again?"

She handed her another plate to wipe. "No specific reason. So, would you?"

"No. And anyway, Lucas isn't into me anymore."

Brooke snickered. "Yeah, right."

"No, I'm serious."

She stopped for a second and stared at her friend. She was being serious. "For real?"

Peyton shrugged. "Seems pretty obvious to me that he's─" She paused and squinted at Brooke, "You know what, never mind, you should figure the rest by yourself."

"The rest? The rest of what?"

She didn't get an answer that day; Peyton had decided to stay cryptic, and there was no changing her mind. Was there something she was missing here?

That day, she texted Mouth and asked him if he was free this weekend. They agreed to meet on Sunday afternoon. When she entered the Café, he was already waiting for her, sitting at a table, his laptop in front of him and an empty glass next to him.

"When did you get here?" she asked him as she sat next to him.

"Never mind that. What happened?"

She frowned, "What do you mean what happened?"

"During movie night! You didn't tell me." He then added in a lower voice, "Did you figure out why Future Lucas thought that night was important?"

"Nothing happened," she said with a shrug. "We just talked."

"That's it?"

"Yeah, we talked the whole night and then we went home."

"The whole night?" Mouth repeated.

"I, er, didn't really… We just lost track of time."

"And you're still wondering how you end up together?"

She decided to ignore that comment. "Anyway, we didn't finish our last conversation. How do we get any information on you-know-what? And how do we know for sure that it's reliable? I keep wondering, can other people do it too?" She glanced at his laptop. "Have you found anything in there?"

He shook his head with disappointment. "Just a bunch of lunatics."

"Lunatics?" she repeated, a little hurt.

"Not you," he quickly added, "I don't mean you. It's just that almost every testimony on you-know-what includes a UFO or some kind of alien race. But I did find something else." He pulled his laptop and placed it in front of them both. He had bookmarked several scientific websites and was currently reading an article titled: Scientists explain why time-travel is possible. "In all of these, it's explained that it is actually and physically possible."

"Not physically, no," she murmured, thoughtful.

"Sorry?"

"I'm not physically going anywhere. I mean if I were, people would have freaked out, right?"

"Right," he said with a nod. "Your body stays here, asleep. Meanwhile, you wake up in your Future you's body. But then what happens to you? I mean Future you, what happens to her when you're in her body?"

"I don't know."

She hadn't thought about that. Where was her future self going? Were they swapping bodies? No, that couldn't be, people kept telling her that she was just asleep. If her future self really woke up in the present, Brooke would have heard about it by now.

"Look at that," Mouth told her, pulling her from her thoughts. He was pointing at a word found in a new article.

Brooke squinted as she tried to read the word. "Met─ Metempsychosis? What the hell is that?"

"Transmigration of soul," Mouth read out loud, "when your soul leaves your body to go in another's. They say here what you go through could be called transtemporal metempsychosis."

"That's a bit of a mouthful. Isn't there a simpler word? Preferably very short?"

"Mental time-travel. That's what it says here. Hey, look at that one." It was another article, titled: Time Travel Via One's Own Thread of Consciousness. "This list includes stories about people who travel through time along their own thread of consciousness," Mouth read monotonously. "Typically, this means their future self 'possesses', if you will, their past self and relives a scene. One may or may not have the ability to act independently: typically not." He looked up at her, "That sounds about right."

"Except I do act independently when I get there."

"Books and TV," Mouth said, watching the screen. "Books and TV, Brooke. That's what you said, it only exists in books and TV."

"So?"

"So that's our starting point." He noticed her skeptical face. "I know, it's not great, but it's all we have right now."

They made a list of every fictitious time-travel they could think of and find on the internet. Books, TV, movies, anything that mentioned going in the future or even in the past.

During the next month, they met three to four times a week. They did most of their homework on their own and shared their notes. Some movies they watched together: Looper, Back to the future, About time, amongst others. Mouth watched three seasons of a show called Dark. Overall, it was quite a tedious work and was definitely not all fun; they kept taking notes as they were reading or watching. Soon enough, they had written more than 50 pages full of personal notes on time travel.

Meanwhile, she didn't travel. She was ready for it to happen any time, but it just wouldn't happen, which became a growing source of frustration. Now that she finally knew what was happening to her, it stopped happening!

In all the sources they used, time-travel took various shapes: many characters used a sort of machine or device, most of them went to the past rather than the future, most were physically travelling, and only a small group left their bodies behind and went into their future or past's self.

After three weeks of non-stop research, Mouth had shown up at the Café with a bunch of diagrams he had drawn, seemingly in a haste, on a couple of napkins. As he was sitting next to her, she looked at those, wondering what they meant.

"Sorry, I can't stay too long this time, but here, I think I've narrowed it down correctly."

Last time they had met, they had decided to cross out every story that was too dissimilar to her own type of travelling. He took out a list from his bag and handed it to her. Arrival, About time, The butterfly effect, and…

"Why did you keep the Time traveler's wife?"

Brooke had read the book, and it didn't seem to fit. The main character's body kept leaping in the past or the future.

"Because the guy can't control his travelling," Mouth explained, "and he's one of the only ones who travel in the future."

"Oh, okay." She looked at the diagrams. "And what's up with that?"

"Well, from everything here," he said, pointing at the pile of notes they had taken, "there's mainly two, er, ways of travelling." He handed her a napkin on which he had drawn a straight line, then arrows starting from the line and going back. These arrows started new parallel lines to the original one. "This is About time, and The butterfly effect. You go to the past, or the future, and it changes everything when you get back to your time. You create an alternate timeline."

He then handed her the other napkin: there was two arrows connected, each tip touching the other's end, taking the shape of a circle. "In Arrival, and in The time traveler's wife, future events influence the past, and past events influence the future. It's a loop."

Brooke frowned, staring at the napkins in her hands. "So in one case, I could change the present or the future depending on my actions, but…"

"On the other case, you can't, no matter how hard you want to."

"Which one do you think applies for us?"

He sighed. "I have no idea. I guess we'll just have to see how it goes." He looked at the clock above the counter and apologetically said, "I have to go."

"It's okay, we've pretty much covered the subject anyway."

"Are you staying?" he asked as he stood up.

"Peyton's picking me up. See you at school."

Once alone, she studied their notes once again. She felt as if she had spent, for the past three weeks, all her free time thinking about time-travel. Even her journal's latest entries were all about that. She stared at the sketches Mouth had made and wondered if she could actually change the future. Did she want to change it? So far, she had no reason to want that, except… Well, except if she tried to get Lucas and Peyton together. And if that was what he wanted. It could actually be a way to test out this theory.

Lucas was working there tonight; she had greeted him right before getting a seat and told him she was still working on her project with Mouth. That excuse had come up three weeks ago, when Peyton had first noticed how often she hung out with Mouth. She watched out of the corner of her eyes when Lucas moved from his spot behind the countertop; she started panicking when he started walking over to her table. She gathered all her notes and quickly hid them away in her bag, swapping them with her math homework.

He sat across her, and said with a grin, "I finished it."

She knew he was talking about her gift. Over the past weeks, he had told her about the short stories, one by one as he was reading them. "What's your verdict then?"

"That you're great at randomly picking books."

She did a dramatic hair flip. "What can I say, I am a woman of many talents."

"I heard I have to thank you too for my new lamp. We just received it yesterday."

Her face fell. "I'm sorry, do you hate it?"

He opened his mouth, ready to answer, but marked a pause before saying, "Not at all. It's very... original. Anyway, can I get you something to drink?"

She checked the time and estimated that Peyton wouldn't get there before a good ten minutes. "I'll have a hot chocolate please."

"Coming right up," he said, standing up.

The front door opened and a young couple came in. Brooke was ready to shiver, since the weather had drastically changed and was now giving them constant cold wind, but instead, she felt a ray of warmth on her back. It felt as if a huge lamp had been pointed at her. She turned around, but there was no such thing around her. The tingle started a few seconds later. For a moment, she wondered if it was all in her head, but when it started spreading up her limbs, and when her ears started ringing, she knew it was happening again. She checked one last time that she hadn't left any compromising paper lying around on her table, and when she was done, felt suddenly drowsy. This time, she didn't even try to fight it.

When she opened her eyes, she thought for a second that she hadn't travelled after all. She was sitting at a table, her head lying on it. She sat up and looked around; she had definitely just traveled.

She was in a café, just not Karen's. She had never been there before; it was twice as big as Karen's, and three waiters were walking around tables to get to their clients. She looked behind her, through a window: the sun was shining high in the sky, hence the warmth on her back. People in the street were wearing summer clothing. She herself was wearing a short-sleeved dress. The seat across from her was empty but didn't stay that way for long; after a minute, Lucas came back with two cups. He handed her a cup of tea and took a sip of his own drink.

He looked different. Well, actually, he looked younger than the last time she had seen him; he seemed more like when she had woken up next to him during her first travel. But the main reason why he looked so odd to her, was that he had a worn-out face. His eyebrows were narrowed in a deep frown, and he was staring at his drink, thus avoiding her eyes.

"So?" he asked with an unusually stern voice.

What was she supposed to say now? "So what?"

He looked up, and she could see that he was angry. "You said you wanted to talk."

Brooke had never seen him like that before; neither him nor Present Lucas. So far, he had always been kind, patient and understanding. She felt as if she was seeing a whole new side of him. "Are you mad at me?"

He sighed, pinching the skin between his eyebrows. "Look, if you made me come here just to─"

"I should be mad at you. You didn't tell me I was time-travelling." He raised his eyebrows in surprise. His anger diminished a little, though it was still visible. She looked down at her feet and saw a purse; she took out her phone and checked the date: April 18th, 2022. "What are we fighting about?" she asked Lucas after putting her phone away.

"Doesn't matter." His anger seemed to fade away a little more. "You look relieved that we're fighting."

Wow, he really knew her. "I am," she admitted with a smile, making his expression soften a bit more. "So far you've been way too perfect. It's nice to see that you get mad, too." She managed to give him a lopsided smile. "Where are we?" she asked, looking around.

"In a café."

She rolled her eyes. "I can see that, thanks a lot. But where?"

"Doesn't matter."

She frowned at him. "You're not very helpful."

He shrugged and said, "I'm just being cautious."

"Why would you have to be cautious? You're not the one time-traveling all over the place."

"Well, for one thing, I never know when my Brooke is replaced by Past Brooke, I mean, you." Her cheeks took a light shade of pink when she heard him say "my Brooke". She knew he had noticed, as he showed her a grin, but he was nice enough not to tease her. "Then I never know when you come from, so I don't know right away how to interact with you. And last time we met, you were really pissed at me."

"What are you talking about?" she asked with a frown. "I wasn't pissed at all when─ Oh."

Last time she had seen him was in 2025, but that wasn't the last time he had seen her, because he was currently living in 2022. "See how confusing it can get?" he asked her with a crooked grin.

"Yeah," she muttered, gazing at her drink. She then remembered what he had just said. "What do you mean by really pissed?"

"Oh, er", he stuttered, suddenly embarrassed, "you were angry at first, and then, um… Not so much."

"Wait, was that the first time I travelled? You know, when I woke up in your bed? Did that already happen to you?"

He chuckled at that memory. "That was two travels ago. Right before last Thanksgiving."

So, that was around November 2021. She made a mental note to write it down as soon as she'd be back in her time. "So, what happened last time for me to be that angry?"

Lucas shook his head, though with an apologetic face, "I'm not telling you."

"Why not?"

"You told me not to."

"I never─ Oh, you mean the me from your time." He nodded. She remembered what she had talked about with Mouth three weeks before. "What happens to her anyway? I mean, when I'm here, where does she go?"

He looked like he was pondering on whether or not to answer, but eventually said, "Nowhere. You describe─ I mean, she describes it as falling asleep. She doesn't dream, just wakes up right after you're gone."

More answers to give to Mouth. "But how do you know all this?"

He sounded surprised by her question. "You told me," he said as if it were an obvious answer.

"I told you I could travel in the future and you believed me? Why? How? When did I tell─?"

"Too many questions for one travel, Brooke." He smiled as he saw her pout, "Sorry, your rules, not mine."

"Why would I do that?" she wondered aloud, knowing very well that he wouldn't give her an answer. "Why would I tell you not to tell me stuff, it doesn't make sense at all."

"Right now it doesn't, but someday it will."

She took a sip of her tea. "We really are together then?"

"Yup," he said with a beaming smile.

"But how can that be?"

He laughed. "Is that so unrealistic?"

"No!" she hurriedly said, "I mean…" She hesitated and figured it wouldn't be a problem to say this to him. Present Lucas wouldn't know. "I thought about it, you know, last year. September 2018," she added when she saw his thoughtful frown. "After Nathan's party, I was, er, intrigued. I tried to get to know you better, but you didn't let me."

"I… You're right."

"Plus, what I don't get it is that you're… I mean, back in my time, October 2019, aren't you supposed to be into Peyton?"

Lucas' smile faded away and his eyes darkened a bit. "No Brooke, I wasn't into Peyton then, and…" He hesitated some more before saying, "And at that point, I hadn't been for a long time."

"Wh─ No but, you're… You're always looking at her. And you used to be so quiet around her."

He raised an eyebrow. "Was I? Think about it Brooke, was I really doing that?"

She looked down at her tea, mechanically twirling her spoon. Why was everybody so dead set on telling her that she was missing the point completely? Mouth, Peyton, and even Lucas himself. But she knew what she saw, and─

Her head shot up when she heard Lucas call her name. Except he hadn't moved his lips, and he was still waiting for her answer. She heard him say her name again, and knew for sure it hadn't come from him. She felt a soft pressure on her right shoulder, as if someone was touching it, though no hand was there. She didn't want to go back yet. She still had so many questions!

He noticed her disarray and asked her, "What's wrong?"

"I" ─she started feeling prickles in her hands and feet─ "I'm going back."

"Oh," he sounded disappointed.

"There's still something I want to know," she said, struggling to find her words as she started hearing a buzzing sound, "and I'm pretty sure you won't answer me but I'm trying anyway." Why was she wasting time rambling on? "Who's Jamie's mother?"

Lucas' almost spat out his drink. "His mother? You don't know yet?"

"Yet? No, I don't. So who is─"

Her words got stuck in her throat, and she suddenly felt so sluggish that she knew they would only come out as a slur. No, no, no, she really wanted to know about that boy.

Too late, she had closed her eyes, and a second later, she was back in Karen's Café, in her own time. She sat up: Present Lucas was staring at her with obvious worry. He handed her the hot chocolate she had asked for.

"You slept for like a minute."

"Yeah, I didn't sleep well last night," she said, trying to sound nonchalant.

"You don't mind if I keep reading here?" he asked, lifting up his book.

She looked at the title. A midsummer night's dream. "Not at all." She grabbed a pencil and started working on her homework but couldn't focus; she was trying to remember a line she had read in that same book, what was it again? She seemed to recall it as she unconsciously murmured the words, "The course of true love never did run smooth."

He lifted his eyes above his book, astonished. "Did you just quote Shakespeare? When did you read this?"

"Last year, I think. It's in my father's library." She shrugged. "I really liked it. Which reminds me, you still haven't shown me your texts."

He squinted and put down his book. "And you still haven't shown me that picture of Nate."

"Fair enough. But by showing you that picture, I would be risking my life, and I don't think you're taking the same risks with your texts."

"Right, silly me, I hadn't thought about the possibility of Nathan murdering you." She laughed, making him grin. He looked over her shoulder, "Hi Peyton."

Brooke turned around to see that her friend was here. "Hi Luke," Peyton told him with a smile. "Is Karen here? I wanted to talk to her about Tric."

"Not tonight, no. Deb is in the back, though."

"That's okay, it can wait."

He stood up. "I should go back to the counter."

Peyton sat where he had been; she watched as Lucas walked away then stared at Brooke. "What was that about?"

"What do you mean?"

"You were flirting."

"What?" she asked, offended. "No, I was not."

Peyton rolled her eyes. "I know your flirting voice, Brooke. But that's great if you're─"

"I wasn't flirting!" she insisted. "You're seeing things. Or hearing them. And anyway, he's still pining for you."

Peyton sighed with exasperation. "I don't know how many times I have to tell you this, but Lucas is not into me anymore."

"Is," Brooke corrected.

"Is not."

"Come on, even now" ─she noticed that he furtively looked at them─ "he's looking at, er…"

She stopped for a minute and thought about it. She really thought about it, the way 2022 Lucas had just asked her to. He had been looking at someone, and quiet around someone, but it wasn't Peyton. Everyone kept telling her it wasn't Peyton. And they were right, Brooke could see that now.

It was someone who was always with Peyton.

Her friend's smile broadened. "Finally getting it, huh?"

"It's… It's not you," she murmured. "He wasn't being weird around you."

"Nope," Peyton said with content. "Well, in a way he was, but that's only because we're always together."


I know I'm a little late, I was actually done on time, but I wasn't satisfied at all with the chapter (the first version stopped when Peyton tells Brooke about her dad being home). It was just too short and the story didn't seem to move forward enough. So I just kept writing and I added what I had planned for chapter 5, which is why this took a while. Then I thought it was too long, and I tried to cut it somewhere but just couldn't. So, this is basically a double chapter, with lots of stuff happening.

I'm really sorry about these long weeks between each chapter, I know it takes me a while to write these, but with the sci-fi part, I have to triple check everything I write, so that in the end, if you ever want to read it all from the beginning, it will all fit.

I really hope you enjoyed it.

I'm not sure when the next chapter will be up, but probably in three weeks or so.

And thank you again, so much for your reviews! It's nice to see that you're enjoying this story and even more to read all your theories!