CHAPTER SIXTEEN

To live

"I have a what?"

Brooke's gaze moved beyond the man who had been talking so far. Leaning against the wall, Dr Adler shifted on her feet before echoing her colleague's words. "An AVM," she answered, taking a step forward. She shared a look with the older doctor sitting at the desk and continued: "It's short for Arterio-Veinous Malformation."

The man – Dr Saroha, as he had introduced himself just a few minutes before – turned his computer screen so that Brooke and her parents could see it. "Notice this spot?" he asked, pointing at it with his brown, wrinkled index. "This is it."

Brooke's hands clenched the sides of her wheelchair as she leaned forward, squinting at the screen. Dr Saroha, one of the hospital's neurosurgeons, had just explained to her that there was an anomaly on her brain MRI. Brooke had known right away that something was up when her parents had told her earlier that day that she needed to meet a doctor – yet another one – but she had not expected this.

She glanced at Dr Saroha when he spoke again: "These white curvy lines are your blood vessels, but see right here, it's not a smooth line, is it?" She looked at the screen again, and finally noticed that right next to the doctor's finger was a tiny spot, one that did look different from the rest of the lines. "This is an AVM."

Brooke's eyes lingered on the screen, and on the bright spot – her AVM. "How long have I had this?"

"You've probably had it for years," Dr Adler answered. "We noticed it when you first got here, but we decided to prioritize treating your brain oedema."

And now that the oedema was gone, and that Brooke was speaking again, they had decided to tell her about it. She frowned and turned to her doctors: "Is it, like, um… An aneurysm?"

Both doctors shared a cautious look. Brooke's frown deepened and she glanced to her right; her parents hadn't moved from their chairs and looked unfazed. They had obviously been informed about this, probably when Brooke had been comatose. Although her mother gave her an encouraging smile, Brooke could tell that she was upset, just like she had been these past few days whenever she had been around her ex-husband.

Dr Saroha leaned back in his chair, carefully took off his glasses and put them on his desk. He raised a hand to scratch his chin, giving him a thoughtful expression. "Not exactly," he answered in a slow, careful voice. "An aneurysm is when an artery gets dilated. An AVM affects both an artery and a vein. And AVMs are much more silent than aneurysms." He noticed Brooke's confounded look, as he added: "Many people live their whole lives without knowing they have an AVM. Actually, most of the time, we only diagnose them by accident, while treating something unrelated."

"So, it's not that bad then?" she asked, hopeful. "I could be one of those people."

Dr Saroha's lips curled up in an apologetic smile. "Unfortunately, Brooke, I don't think you are." His hand moved to the mouse and after a couple of clicks, another picture of a brain showed up next to the one they had been talking about. "This is what your brain looked like when you got here," he said, pointing at the new image. "It looks much different, but that's because of the oedema you had, so never mind that. Your AVM was 32 mm large, but on your more recent MRI, it's 35 mm large." Brooke stared at the screen, failing to see why that was an issue. "If it keeps growing, an AVM can lead to several complications, which is why Dr Adler wanted us to talk."

Brooke met his eyes; he looked as though he was studying her face, searching for the first signs of panic. "What kind of complications?" she asked, keeping her voice steady.

"It can cause intracranial hypertension, and it could eventually rupture. But even before it gets to that stage, it can become problematic."

"Problematic?" she repeated with a frown.

Dr Saroha briefly glanced at Ted and Victoria, and for the first time looked hesitant. When her parents stayed silent, he turned to Brooke and said: "Depending on its size, it can cause a great number of physical symptoms, such as headache, changes in vision, facial paralysis… And sometimes even backache, a buzzing sound in the ears" – Brooke's heart skipped a beat – "numbness, speech disorders… And the list goes on."

"A– And, um…" Brooke stammered, her voice trembling. Her fingers curled around the wheels of her chair, gripping them tightly. "If I got any of these symptoms, would it be, um, all the time?"

Dr Saroha's eyebrows twitched at her question. "Not necessarily. Sometimes they can come and go, usually when they're accompanied by seizures." He paused, then shifted in his chair. "Have you had any of these symptoms?"

It probably wasn't the case, but Brooke felt like he could read her thoughts just by looking into her eyes. She cleared her throat and tried to keep her composure. "Seizures? You mean like convulsing?" she asked back.

"Sometimes, they can appear as convulsions, yes, but epileptic fits can be more complex than that."

Brooke glanced around her; once again, her parents looked as if they had already heard all of this. Her eyes lingered on her mother's upset expression, before landing back on Dr Saroha. She hesitated, wondering if her questions would raise any suspicion, and asked: "What do you mean?"

Thankfully, none of the adults around her seemed to question her behavior; they probably thought it was normal for her to try to understand what was going on in her body. "An epileptic fit is basically an overactivity of your brain," Dr Saroha explained. "Sometimes, it appears as convulsions, but sometimes only a small part of the brain is affected, and that can result in many different symptoms, depending on the brain area that is impacted."

"And, erm, just out of curiosity, what would it be like with my AVM?"

Dr Saroha chuckled and turned to the screen. "That's actually hard to tell." He pointed to the bright spot again and said, "Your AVM's localization isn't very helpful."

"How come?"

"Well, when it's next to the area of language, for example, it manifests as speech disorder. Visual and hearing areas, people see and hear things that don't exist. And so on," he said, his hand drawing an invisible loop.

Brooke pointed to the screen. "So what area is this?"

"It's your hippocampus," he answered matter-of-factly. When he realized that Brooke had no idea what this meant, he added: "To put it very simply, it helps your brain create and file your memories."

Her memories?

Could it be… But if that was how she could travel, then how could she have memories of the future? That didn't make sense at all, but again, did any of it? Maybe Haley had been right, maybe it wasn't supposed to make sense at all, maybe it just was. Brooke had frequently thought of her friend's words for the past five days, and although she still struggled to accept that idea, she was starting to get used to it.

Dr Saroha's voice broke her trail of thoughts. "You haven't answered me, Brooke," he said, his dark, almost black eyes narrowing on her. "Have you had any of these symptoms lately?"

She held his stare, fully aware that everyone around her was examining her face. Maybe now was the right time to tell the truth. "No," she answered, feeling a pang of guilt as the lie crossed her lips.

They all looked relieved by her answer – even Dr Saroha, who let out an almost imperceptible sigh. "Good. Now, about the surgery, we've already explained everything to your parents, but you should know about this too. There's two different ways of proceeding, but –"

"Surgery?" Brooke repeated, her eyes growing wide. As in someone opening her skull and fiddling with her brain?

"Don't worry, it's not what you have in mind," Dr Saroha answered. "We'll go through your femoral artery, then with a small catheter go all the way up to your AVM and clog it with a special kind of glue. You'll wake up with just a small scar on your thigh, and you'll be able to leave the hospital after a few hours of observation."

While he was busy telling her about the possible complications of such a procedure – something he was legally bound to do, apparently – Brooke stared at the screen, at the small bright spot that could be the source of all her troubles. Well, maybe not all of them, but it had apparently started from this tiny part of her brain. She recalled how Nathan had asked about her health – she couldn't believe he had been right about her needing another check-up.

But hadn't she had an MRI back in September? Why hadn't they seen her AVM back then? And if it hadn't been there, then how could it explain her travels?

Brooke lowered her gaze to her lap, feeling lost and confused. She needed to discuss this with the people who knew the whole story, and luckily, they were visiting her this afternoon, which gave her enough time to process all this. She knew she couldn't grasp everything that her AVM implied, but she did understand that if it really was how she could travel, then once it got clogged, she no longer would be able to go to the future. It did explain why Future Haley and Future Mouth had told her that she would stop travelling after high school.

Brooke felt a light pressure on her knee and noticed her father's hand squeezing it. She looked up at him as he said: "Brooke? Dr Saroha asked you a question."

Before Brooke could ask the neurosurgeon to repeat himself, her mother spoke: "He asked when you wanted to have the surgery done."

"I get to choose?" Brooke asked, her eyebrows raised in surprise.

Dr Saroha chuckled for the second time. "Well, I know you're getting discharged in about ten days, so we could do it right before that." He paused and glanced at his colleague. "But Dr Adler told me that you've been through a lot lately, so we could also consider postponing your surgery for a little while."

Dr Adler's lips stretched into a faint smile that Brooke reciprocated. The ICU doctor had visited her the day after she had started speaking again, and in the five days that had passed since then, she had frequently checked in with her, encouraging her to work hard on her physiotherapy.

"What's the best option?" Brooke asked.

"Either is fine," Dr Saroha replied with a shrug, "so it's up to you."

What was she supposed to answer to that? Brooke turned to her parents, wondering what their thoughts were.

"I called James," her father said with a nervous, sidelong glance to Victoria, "and he said it was safest to have the surgery right away, before your AVM grows any further and –" He fell silent when Victoria scoffed, prompting them all to stare at her. Ted let out a small sigh and turned to his ex-wife. "Look, I know you're not his greatest fan right now but –"

"You really want to follow the advice of the one who failed to see this in the first place?" Victoria retorted, her eyes darker than usual.

Brooke startled at that. "Wait, so it was already there in September?" she asked her doctors.

"Most probably, yes," Dr Saroha answered. "After your car accident, you had an MRI and an angiography – which means that we injected a contrast agent into your blood to see your vessels in more detail, and that's what allowed us to see your AVM. But if I'm correct, back in September, you didn't have an angiography, did you?"

Brooke shook her head; she didn't remember anything being injected into her blood back then.

"Because someone assumed it wasn't necessary…" Victoria muttered with spite. Brooke turned to her mother: when was the last time she had seen her being this angry? If they were to run into Dr Merrick right now, he probably wouldn't make it without a few bruises and scratches.

"It's not that simple," Ted said tentatively, "you know it's not. Back when he saw Brooke, James had no reason to do a, erm…"

"Angiography," Dr Saroha said.

"Right," Ted added with a nod, "so he didn't need to, but if Brooke had kept fainting after that, he would have done one for sure. But anyway, Brooke, you stopped fainting after that, didn't you?"

"Yeah, sure," she answered dismissively. "So, um, what do you think I should do?" she asked again, this time to Dr Adler.

"Well, considering its growth, we think you can wait another month. You're moving to New York in September, aren't you? We should take care of it while you're still here."

Brooke blinked at her, confused for a second at the mention of New York. Somehow, she had completely forgotten about her impending move; she had been so absorbed about what had happened to Peyton that thinking about college was not just difficult, but also unnatural now that her best friend was gone. Brooke ignored the pang she felt in her chest and slowly nodded. "I'm fine with that."

As she wheeled herself down the hallway, Brooke thought that it was probably for the best that she didn't get the surgery right away, and that she had deserved a few weeks of rest after everything that had happened. Before leaving Dr Saroha's office, she had pondered on telling her doctors about her travels, only to quickly brush that thought aside – no good could come out of this.

When the elevator reached Brooke's floor, Victoria didn't follow them out. Brooke looked up at her; she seemed calmer now, and even smiled a little when she pecked her daughter's cheek. "I'll call you tonight."

"Sure," Brooke answered before waving her goodbye.

Before the doors closed, Victoria mumbled a few words to Ted – something that sounded like 'see you later'. He stood still for a few seconds and kept staring at the elevator doors with a concerned frown.

"Are you coming?" Brooke asked him. She grabbed her left wheel, making her chair turn around, and when she noticed her father's hands approaching its handles, she shook her head at him. "Thanks, but I can manage."

It wasn't just that she could; she had to. Dr Willis kept repeating to her that spending fifteen days without moving had made her muscles waste away, and that her week of barely eating anything hadn't helped her case. Now, she needed to get her strength back, and not just in her legs, in her arms too. The day before, she had managed for the first time to walk with clutches, but only for a minute – though it had felt like an hour during which every single muscle in her body was fighting not to collapse. And she did collapse in the end, although she didn't hit the mat since Amanda, her physiotherapist, had caught her right on time. Brooke had expected her to be disappointed with her short-lived performance, and was surprised to see that Amanda was, on the contrary, quite pleased. She explained that the first steps were usually the hardest, and that things always got easier after that. According to their treatment plan, Brooke would be able to walk out of the hospital in ten days, only using clutches, but to do so, she needed to put in a lot of work.

"How's the cohabitation going?" Brooke asked, turning her head to her father.

"Weird," he answered with a shrug. He hesitated then said: "Larry's going home tomorrow."

"I know," she murmured. "Mom told me last night. I just hope that…" her voice trailed off. She couldn't begin to imagine what it would be like for him to be back in his house, without his daughter.

"He'll tell us if he's not fine," Ted said as he guessed her thoughts.

"Can't he stay with you guys just a bit longer?"

"That's exactly what we told him, but he said that he'd have to go home one day or another, and… I think he's right."

"So, it will be just you and Mom then?" Ted nodded, and although he was trying to hide it, he clearly wasn't comfortable with that idea. "She'll come around, don't worry."

"I know," he said as they reached her hospital room.

Brooke watched as her father walked inside; he had told her a few days ago that when he had arrived in Tree Hill, he had first planned on getting a hotel room, but that Victoria had insisted he should stay with her, since their house was big enough for the two of them. Brooke had a hunch that, with her daughter in a coma, Victoria had probably not wanted to stay alone.

"Well, it's only gonna last for another week or two," Ted added with a shrug, walking over to the window to open it. A light breeze came into the room as Brooke wheeled herself next to the bed. "Once you get discharged, I'll go back to LA." When she didn't reply, Ted walked up to her and sat on the bed. "How are you feeling today?"

Brooke shrugged and looked away; she was still struggling with the pitiful looks people gave her. She knew they didn't do it on purpose, but nonetheless couldn't stand it. Her father grasped her shoulder and murmured, for what seemed like the hundredth time, that he was there for her. "I know," she whispered back. Everyone kept telling her that, but that wasn't enough: despite that, Brooke kept feeling sad, constantly. Every time she saw or heard something interesting, she would instinctively look around her, trying to get Peyton's attention, until she remembered that she could no longer do that.

Fortunately, her days were now filled with her physiotherapy program, and although it didn't make her forget everything that had happened, it did help her to focus on something else. The medical staff always kept an eye on her, making sure she finished her meals – she couldn't gain any muscle without eating any protein. Dr Willis, though quite optimistic on her recovery, wasn't very kind on her; he was sometimes even harsh, but only for Brooke's own good – at least, that's what his team kept telling her whenever she complained about him. Thankfully, he was only monitoring her from afar, dropping by once a day to evaluate her progress; otherwise, she was under the care of Amanda and Tom, two of the physiotherapists who worked with him.

Amanda and Tom both talked a lot during their sessions; they had explained to Brooke that they had to, since they spent hours and hours with their patients. Somehow, working with them turned out to be a sort of therapy for Brooke – nothing like the psychologist they had made her see a week before.

In a matter of a few days, Brooke had come to learn about Amanda's child not sleeping through her nights, and Tom's rocky marriage, and in exchange, it had only felt natural for her to share her own issues. They had already read all about it in the newspaper, but they had been kind enough not to comment on it until she had brought it up herself.

Brooke's lack of hunger hadn't changed much in five days, but she did understand why she needed to eat, so she did. It seemed to work for she had already gained a few pounds and her rehab exercises seemed a little easier each day. While she had only lasted a minute on her clutches the day before, that afternoon, after her father had left the hospital, she managed to stay on them for almost twenty minutes, with breaks in-between. When her session ended, Tom waved her goodbye with a bright smile and told her to keep up the good work. Her limbs were so tired that she genuinely wondered how she would get back to her room, but somehow, she still had enough strength in her arms to wheel herself through the hospital; maybe it helped to know that her friends were waiting for her.

They were already here when she reached her room, except for Lucas, who had stayed at the Café to take over Haley's shift.

"Did you ask Larry?" Nathan asked as he hugged her.

"Not yet," she replied before heading to her armchair. "I'll ask him the next time I see him." She pulled on her hand brakes and noticed from the corner of her eye that Mouth and Nathan were shifting toward her. "I'm fine," she said as she hopped into the armchair. She glanced at Mouth who sat back on the bed next to Haley. "You can tell your mother that the cookies were delicious."

"Good," he answered, motioning at the nightstand, "because you got muffins today."

Nathan leaned against the window. "Haley's eating her second one," he said with a smirk that grew wider when Haley glared at him.

Brooke wasn't surprised: Mrs Mc Fadden had warned her on the day she had visited that she would get her some extra food every day – despite Brooke's objections. Mouth's mother had not been the only surprise visit she had received since the beginning of the week: she had also seen some of her teachers, including Whitey.

The half an hour she had spent with the coach had been strangely intimate. Whitey had talked a lot, and for a long moment Brooke had had no idea what his point had been. He had kept talking about his wife, about how they had met, and how they had moved in together, the kind of food she adored, the way she smiled… And then Brooke had remembered that Whitey's wife had died a long time ago.

Whitey had told her that when he had lost her, life had stopped making sense, and that after all these years, it still didn't, most of the time, but that it had become easier to go on without her. When Brooke had asked him how long it had taken him to reach this point, Whitey had gazed down at his intertwined fingers and murmured: "A long time."

"Brooke?" She looked up at Nathan, who was staring at her with a slight frown. "Are you okay?"

Brooke gave him a dismissive shrug. "Yeah, just a little tired."

"So, um…" Haley said, her fingers fiddling with one half of a muffin. She shifted to a cross-legged position and sent Brooke a cautious look. "What did the doctors tell you?"

For the first time since this had all started, Brooke hesitated on telling them the truth. She didn't know why, but she did. She quickly brushed that thought away and told them everything that had happened that morning.

A heavy silence engulfed them all when she stopped talking. Brooke watched as her three friends were obviously trying to grasp what she had just told them.

"So that's how," Mouth murmured thoughtfully before taking out his phone.

"We don't know that for sure," Brooke said with a weak shrug.

Haley glanced at her. "But it does explain a lot."

"Does it?" Brooke retorted. Haley seemed surprised by her reaction. "I mean yeah, the doctor said that this area of my brain is linked to my memories, but…" She paused, searching for the right words to express her confusion. "How can I have memories of the future, of something that hasn't happened yet?"

Mouth and Haley shared a look, before the latter turned to Brooke and said: "You keep picturing it as a line, Brooke, but it's not. What happened to Peyton only goes to show that too. It's not a line –"

"It's a loop," Brooke murmured.

Haley nodded. "You're travelling in time, so why not have memories of your future?"

"But remembering the future is different from actually going there."

"The hippocampus serves a critical function in memory, navigation, and cognition," Mouth read aloud from his phone. He gazed up at them – well, except at Nathan, who was staring at the floor, his arms crossed against his chest – and held out his phone to Haley. "Here, check it out."

While Haley was busy scrolling down the phone, Brooke's eyes shifted to Mouth as she asked: "Navigation? What does that mean?"

"Memories and navigation," Haley answered as she kept reading. "It says here that there's still a lot to learn about the hippocampus, but that when memories are encoded, they're done so through 3D-like maps, and that we have specific cells to help all this. Time cells and space cells that help us navigate back and forth between each memory." She put down the phone and gazed up at Brooke. "Your doctor talked about seizures, right?"

Brooke gave her a nod. "He said it was like a brain overactivity."

"So… What if you have seizures, and that's what activates your time and space cells?"

Brooke was about to reply that it sounded absurd, but again, she was travelling in the future, so maybe Haley's theory wasn't that much of a stretch.

"Well, it's easy to find out whether your, um…" Mouth's voice trailed off as he was looking for the correct word.

"AVM," Brooke said.

"Yeah," Mouth nodded, "whether that's what makes you travel or not. The moment it's cured, you should stop travelling."

Nathan's voice startled them all; since he had stayed silent so far, they seemed to have forgotten he was even there. "You said it kept growing while you've been here?" he asked with a frown.

"Just a little, yeah," Brooke answered with a shrug.

"Wait," Haley said with a gasp, her eyes growing wide, "do you think that's why the buzzing and tingling have been getting worse?"

"And why I started getting headaches," Brooke murmured thoughtfully. "Could be, yeah. I think –"

"When are you getting it removed?" Nathan cut her off impatiently.

"Not right away," she answered absent-mindedly, her eyes lingering on her lap. "You know what," she told Haley, "that's gotta be it." She relaxed her shoulders and leaned back in her chair. Finally, something that made a little sense – if she could say so.

Mouth was scratching his chin and staring out through the window. "So, maybe that's why you travelled again this weekend? Because your AVM gained a few –"

"What is wrong with you?!" Nathan shouted. They all startled; Brooke turned to him and finally noticed his scowl. His jaw tensed and his fingers seemed to be digging into his crossed arms.

Where was this anger coming from? Brooke blinked at him in confusion. "What do you mean?" she asked back, which apparently wasn't a satisfying answer to Nathan: he glared at her one last time before storming out of the room.

"What was that about?" Mouth asked. He sent a puzzled look to both girls then turned to the door that Nathan had left wide open. "Where did he go?"

Haley let out a soft sigh. "I'll go talk to –"

"No," Brooke said, shaking her head. She was already getting into her wheelchair when Haley protested. "It's okay, I can handle him."

The hallway was almost empty on the third floor; Brooke greeted a few nurses as she rolled past them and stopped at the elevator. Knowing Nathan, he must have gone for a walk to clear his mind, so she went to the first floor. As she wheeled herself toward the main exit of the hospital, she spotted Nathan's head sticking out from a swarm of visitors.

"Hey, Nate!" she shouted. Her childhood friend turned to face her – and so did a bunch of other people to whom she sent an apologetic look – before quickening his pace. Brooke rolled her eyes before speeding down to the doors, just as Nathan was reaching them. "You're really gonna make me chase you down when I'm in a wheelchair ?!" This seemed to work, as Nathan came to a sudden halt. When she reached his side, she looked up at his annoyed expression and poked his leg, forcing him to meet her eyes. "Where are you going?" she asked, this time in a lowered voice.

"I don't know," he grumbled. "Outside."

"Alright," Brooke said, wheeling herself through the glass doors. She noticed that he wasn't following her and sent him a look over her shoulder. "Are you coming or what?"

Nathan blinked at her, and after a moment during which he looked like nothing in the world could make him move, he started walking toward her. "I was gonna walk on my own," he muttered angrily when he strode past her.

"I know," she said, her hands moving fast to catch up with him, "but I'm coming anyway."

They stayed silent for a few minutes. While Brooke followed her friend into the hospital's park, she pondered on telling him that she was tired, and that she wasn't sure how far she could go. In the end she kept quiet, afraid that he would take it as an opportunity to run away.

Nathan did pick up on her fatigue, as he soon sat down on a bench; although, from the way he kept staring at anything but her, Brooke wasn't sure he had stopped for her sake.

She parked her wheelchair next to him and turned to him, leaning over her chair to get a closer look at his face. "What's wrong with you, huh?" she asked, mimicking his earlier words.

His scowl deepened even more when he turned to face her. "Me?" he asked, his voice trembling with anger. "Nothing's wrong with me! You're the one who has a ticking time bomb in your brain and won't do anything about it!"

Brooke raised her eyebrows. "What? Who said that?"

"You did!"

"No, I didn't," she retorted, shaking her head. "I just don't know when exactly I'm getting rid of it." When Nathan stayed silent, she added: "The doctors said we could wait a few weeks, we just haven't decided on a date yet."

Brooke had thought that this would calm him down, but somehow, it didn't. "Great," he muttered, rolling his eyes, "so now it has time to grow again and –"

"Do you really think that if it were dangerous, they would let me postpone the surgery?"

"Did you tell them about your travels?" he asked back, his eyes narrowing on her. "About your headaches?"

Brooke shifted her gaze away. "No," she admitted, "but it doesn't –"

"Then they can't advise you, they don't even know the full story!"

Brooke sighed and looked up at him. His anger seemed to have faded slightly, only to be replaced by fear. "What am I supposed to tell them, huh?" She glanced around them and lowered her voice. "That my AVM apparently makes me travel in the future? Who's gonna believe me?"

"I'm not saying you should tell them," he murmured back. "I'm just saying you shouldn't wait to get the surgery."

"Nate, I just went through days of coma, and now I'm going through intensive rehab, I'm…" her voice trailed off. "I'm exhausted," she whispered, once again averting her eyes. "I really don't feel like having brain surgery in a week, does that sound unreasonable to you?" she asked, her voice cracking on the last words. She glanced at him; now there was nothing but worry left on his face. "Look, Dr Adler said I could have it before I leave for New York."

"But –" He paused and studied her face for a few seconds. "What if you travel again and it gets worse?"

"Then I'll have the surgery right away, I swear."

Nathan sighed and slowly nodded. "You have to get this thing removed…" His eyebrows twitched. "I– I can't…" His voice died down as he buried his face in his hands.

Brooke sighed and gently rubbed his back. "You don't have to worry about me, Nate." When she noticed that his shoulders were slightly shaking, she felt a lump appear in her throat. "I'm fine." Nathan scoffed and after lowering his hands, stared at her with bloodshot eyes. "Alright, maybe fine is an overstatement…" she admitted with a sigh. "But who's doing fine right now?"

"Not me," he grumbled, his fingers curling into his thighs.

Her hand moved to his shoulder, squeezing it. "Besides, I'm okay in the future, so nothing bad can happen to me."

Nathan blinked at her, as if he were just now remembering this. He wasn't as used to the technicalities of her travels as Haley and Mouth were. "Right," he murmured, slowly nodding.

Brooke's hand slid from his shoulder. She gazed around them, her eyes lingering on a couple walking around the park. The woman seemed healthy, but the man beside her was struggling to drag an IV pole with him. Nevertheless, they were both smiling, and even started laughing after the man whispered something in her ear. Brooke felt her chest tighten and turned her attention back to Nathan. "How's your mother doing?"

"I'm not sure…" he answered with a frown. "It's like she doesn't know how to feel about Dan." He paused with hesitation. "And neither do I. I mean, I'm angry, that much I know," he added with a dark look. "All the time," he said after another pause.

"I know,' Brooke murmured.

Nathan sent her a startled look and seemed to realize something. "What did Haley tell you?"

"That you go on long walks in the middle of the night… She's worried about you."

Nathan sighed and slowly shook his head. "This can't be good for her or the baby."

"She's much stronger than you think."

His lips curled up for a fraction of seconds. "I know that." He sighed and leaned back against the bench. "I keep thinking about that night, and about what you said." When he saw Brooke's confused expression, he added: "That when Dan saw you, he tried to stop his car. And you're sure of that?" Brooke nodded, recalling once again how the blue Chevrolet had screeched before ramming into them. "But he's still responsible for what happened, and, and…" Nathan's eyes kept wandering aimlessly around them. "And I keep thinking about how he was spiraling down, and I could see it, but I did nothing to –"

"Stop that," Brooke cut him off, her voice hardening. "He was awful to you for years, and then to Haley. And anyway, even if you had reached out to him, I don't think he would have ever really changed."

"What makes you say that?" Nathan asked thoughtfully.

Everything that had happened since September pointed to the fact that the events leading to the future she had witnessed were simply bound to happen. Brooke felt her throat tighten as she answered: "Just a hunch."

Nathan sent her a quizzical look and seemed to understand that she wanted nothing more than to change the subject. "Have you seen Keith?"

"Not yet," she replied, shaking her head. "Why?"

"Every time I see him, he keeps telling me that he'll visit you soon," he explained with another worried frown.

"Lucas said he's been withdrawn."

"Yeah," Nathan said with a nod, "I guess he's even more conflicted about this than I am… Speaking of my brother, what did he say about your VMA?"

"AVM," Brooke corrected. "I haven't told him yet." When Nathan sent her an accusing stare, she rolled her eyes and added: "It's not exactly something I can explain over the phone." She cleared her throat and shrugged. "I'll tell him when I see him."

"And what about the rest of it?"

"The rest of wha– Oh." Brooke averted her eyes and murmured: "I know, I have to tell him."

"So why haven't you yet?" Nathan asked.

"Because I've been pretty busy these past few days, haven't you noticed?"

Nathan scoffed at her poor excuse. "How does that stop you from talking to him?"

"I… I don't know," she admitted half-willingly. Brooke gazed down at her lap and noticed her fingers playing nervously with the fabric of her shorts. "It doesn't," she said with a frown. "I guess I'm just a little scared."

"Of what?" Nathan asked, puzzled. "That he won't believe you?"

"He will," she answered matter-of-factly. "I know he will," she murmured, more to herself than to Nathan.

"Then what is it?"

"I don't know," she repeated with a shrug.

She truly didn't know what she was fearing. She knew that Lucas would listen to her and believe her. She also knew that he would be supportive; after all, she had seen it in the future, and had she not, she would still think the same, because she knew him. She knew how he was with her, and how much he loved her. And he had told her that he could wait some more until she felt better, but how long would that take?

Longer than a day, surely. When Lucas came by the next afternoon, she once again failed to open up about her travels, but she did tell him about the AVM. He seemed worried at first, but eventually relaxed when she told him that Dr Adler agreed on postponing the surgery. Why wouldn't he, when he knew nothing of her travels?

"Brooke?" Lucas' voice called, catching her attention. She leaned back against the rowing machine she had been using for what seemed like forever and threw him a glance. "Come on," he said with a frown, "Amanda said five more rounds."

"I'm tired," she murmured, crossing her arms against her chest.

Lucas shifted on the bench next to her and reached out to the handle she had just dropped. "Brooke," he repeated, his voice hardening.

"Come on," she retorted, "I've already done ten."

"Eight," he corrected, unfazed by her pleading eyes.

Brooke glanced around them before murmuring: "Can't we just tell them that –"

"The only reason why I'm allowed in here is that I promised I'd make sure you go through all your exercises." Brooke sighed and looked away when he waved the handle at her. "Fine," he said, his lips twitching, "then how about we get some ice cream after you're done?"

When her eyes twinkled and her hands grabbed the handle, he chuckled and started counting again.

Brooke had only been out of the hospital once since she had woken up from her coma, for she had to stay under the hospital's supervision. Three days ago, with Lucas' help, she had managed to negotiate a 2-hour stroll around town; they did so again, and after a quick shower, Brooke was able to hop into Lucas's car – or rather, his mother's car that he had borrowed.

When they reached the pier, Brooke gripped the sides of her wheelchair while Lucas pushed her to a picnic table. Before leaving the hospital, she had pondered on taking her clutches – she had managed to stay on them for two hours that morning – but had eventually admitted that she was too tired to even try using them.

She glanced around her, and just like the other time she had been out of the hospital, an uncomfortable feeling crept into her. The last time it had happened, she had wondered what that had been about. She had felt it again the day before, while talking to Nathan in the hospital park. And now, sitting at the pier, she finally understood what felt wrong: it seemed as if nothing had changed. People were walking along the pier, holding hands, chatting and laughing, just like always.

Didn't they know? Didn't they care at all about the death of an eighteen-year-old from their own town?

Brooke knew that she couldn't expect complete strangers to feel sorry about Peyton, but surely, many of them had already lost someone they had once deeply cared about. And yet, none of them looked like they were still grieving. How did they do that? That very morning, Brooke had cried for half an hour after reading a reminder on her phone about picking a movie for tonight, then realizing that there would never ever be another movie night now that Peyton was gone. The idea of hosting one without her was simply too depressing.

"There you go," Lucas said as he sat across from her and put down two scoops of ice cream between them.

Brooke couldn't help a moan of appreciation when the first drops of ice cream hit her tongue. "Now this," she said, pointing at it with her spoon, "this I call ice cream. Nothing like the crap they have at the hospital."

Lucas chuckled, his head shaking slightly before he reached out for the second spoon. "Only ten more days to go, right?" She nodded, and when she stayed silent his eyebrows twitched. "You don't seem too thrilled about that."

Brooke gave a weak shrug and gazed down at the table, not caring that her ice cream was dripping from her spoon onto her lap. Lucas' arm extended below the table until he could grasp her hand and squeeze it gently. She looked up at him and tried to ignore the lump that was forming in her throat. "It's just…"

She couldn't wait to get out of the hospital, but at the same time, she was terrified about going back to the real world. "I know," Lucas told her before she could word out her thoughts. He glanced around them before asking: "Is there anywhere else you want to go?"

Brooke knew where this question was coming from; four days before, Nathan had asked her if she wanted to be taken to the graveyard. "I'm fine staying here," she answered, taking another mouthful of ice cream. "How's Keith doing?"

"Same," he said with a sigh. He had another spoonful of ice cream then added: "Still isn't speaking much. He's just working non-stop." His brow furrowed slightly when he added: "And my mom, she's… Well, she's hurting, since he won't talk to her or to me, but I feel like there's something else going on."

"How come?"

"She…" He seemed to ponder on the words to use. "She's almost always absent-minded."

It probably had to do with the fact that, if their calculation had been right, she was now pregnant, and that Keith looked far from ready to raise a child. "Can you tell him that I'd like to talk to him?" Brooke asked.

Lucas looked surprised for a second. "Yeah, sure," he answered thoughtfully. "Maybe if I put it that way, he'll feel like he has no choice but to come and see you."

"That's the idea." Although, she wasn't just trying to get Keith out of his corner; she had questions about that night, about things she still couldn't understand. "Maybe you could tell him to –" Lucas' gaze was fixed somewhere over her left shoulder; his hand tightened around hers, and only then did she realize that he hadn't let it go. "Luke?"

"Larry's here," he said in a cautious tone.

She almost snapped her neck when she turned to see that he really was there, standing near the wooden railing. He was on his own, staring at the boats sailing away from him. Brooke turned back to Lucas. "Could you –"

"Sure," he answered as he jumped to his feet. Brooke watched as Larry flinched when Lucas approached him, before patting his shoulder. After Lucas said something, he then turned in Brooke's direction and noticed her.

She was relieved that he hadn't gotten skinnier since the last time they had met, at the beginning of the week. He still looked like a ghost though, but she had a feeling that he would keep doing so for a very long time.

"It's nice to see you outside of the hospital," Larry said as he sat down next to her.

Brooke gave him a faint smile after he pecked her cheek. "Are you out for a walk too?"

"I am," Larry answered, sounding unsure of himself. "Just getting some fresh air, you know." She nodded and squeezed his arm. "But I, erm…" He paused, his eyes travelling between Lucas and her. "I keep ending up in places that Peyton talked about."

Her heart sunk once more; that was exactly what she was dreading. Would she become like that too, once she would be out of the hospital? Always looking for traces of Peyton wherever she would go, only to be crushed every time she did?

Larry was once again lost in his thoughts; when he had visited her earlier that week, they hadn't talked much either. They had only kept holding hands.

Brooke glanced at Lucas, who didn't seem to know what to do either. But after a few seconds, he turned to Larry. "So, um, where did you go?" Lucas asked tentatively.

"Tric." When they both sent him a surprised look, he explained: "Your mother was there, so she let me in. She said that… That it could help, to see where Peyton used to work, and what she used to do there." His lips twitched a little, and his face seemed to gain some color. "She said that Peyton was passionate about her jobs."

Lucas threw a quick glance at Brooke, and when she stayed silent, he said: "Yeah, she really was."

"Well, she had always been this way, ever since she was a kid, right Brooke?"

"Yeah," Brooke answered, her voice quavering. Her hand was slightly shaking, but it stopped when Lucas reached out from below the table to grasp it.

"She wouldn't shut up about her paintings back in grade school." Larry's lips stretched a little, in what looked like a quarter of a smile. "She kept hanging them up wherever she could in the house. But then she grew up, and she started keeping them all to herself in her bedroom. She became less talkative, too, except maybe recently."

Brooke turned to him with raised eyebrows. "What do you mean?"

"Well, you know, we usually called each other once a week."

"On Sundays, yeah."

"But a few weeks before…" His voice trembled, but he managed to steady it and said: "Before the accident, she called me several times a week. Sometimes even every day."

Every day? "Why? Was she worried about you?" Brooke asked. That was usually why Peyton would do that; she sometimes had a bad feeling about her father and felt the need to reassure herself.

Larry's expression was thoughtful when he answered: "I don't think she was. She just… She just wanted to tell me how her day had gone, and to know how I was doing, though most of the time I didn't have anything thrilling to share." Why would Peyton do this? It didn't sound like her at all. "I… I did remind her to get her car checked. It was getting old, and…"

Brooke gazed down at her lap and felt herself drifting away, despite Lucas' hand gripping hers tighter.

Her future self should have said something too. If she had known that it would all start with Peyton's car being down –

She startled at Larry's voice: "Don't think like that Brooke."

"How do you know what I'm thinking?" she asked, puzzled.

"Because I'm thinking exactly the same," he answered with a sigh. "But I did warn her several times, and she kept saying that if she got her car checked more time, the garage would take it away and she didn't want to risk that."

"What's gonna happen to her car now?"

"It's been stripped," Lucas answered. She turned to him, mouth agape. His mouth turned into a frown: he clearly wasn't sure of how much he should tell her. "Keith tried to fix it, but there was nothing he could do."

Brooke felt another pang in her chest. "I really hoped I could have it fixed," Larry said, "but maybe this is all for the best. I mean, I couldn't even have kept it, not with my work."

"I would have taken it," Brooke murmured, her eyes stinging.

"It wouldn't have been good for you, trust me," Larry said as he grasped her shoulder. She looked up at him and felt her throat tighten when she saw his pained expression. Larry's voice lowered: "I don't think that's what she would have wanted, for neither of us." He sighed and slowly shook his head. "None of this is," he lamented.

"Actually, I thought of something," Brooke said tentatively. "Well, Nate and I did. You know how you said that Peyton wouldn't have liked her funeral?" She paused, and when she saw that Larry wasn't collapsing in tears, she went on: "We were thinking that we could maybe hold a wake, before you leave town. With, um, only the people who knew her best. But only if that's okay with you." She gazed down at her lap and murmured: "It's just that, since I didn't get to be there, I thought we could…" her voice trailed off. She tightened her lips and clenched her fists, aware that if she were to speak any further, she would probably end up crying again.

When Larry stayed silent, she wondered if a wake wouldn't simply make things worse for him. Maybe he wanted nothing more but to hop onto his boat and leave this cursed town that had taken both his wife and child's lives. But then he eventually murmured, his voice filled with emotion: "I think it's a wonderful idea."

Now that Larry had given the green light, Brooke could keep herself busy in between her rehab exercises. She had thought at first that planning her best friend's wake would have been heartbreaking, but somehow, it wasn't – at least not all the time. Sometimes, she even felt as though it helped her get through the day.

With Larry's approval, they decided to host it on the 30th of June, which gave them ten days to plan everything. Nathan spent the next few days going through Peyton's bedroom, digging up some of her art that had been stacked up in there for many years. With Haley's help, Brooke went through her best friend's laptop to get her favorite music, and in a matter of a few days they managed to come up with a track list.

"So? What do you think?"

Brooke paused for a moment and waited for Lucas's answer. She held back a sigh when she saw that she still had fifteen minutes to go on the training bike, and wondered how she would ever get through them alive. Tom had decided that afternoon to intensify her exercises: he had raised the bike's level of difficulty from 3 to 5.

Lucas eventually raised his eyes from her phone. "I think she would have loved it." He leaned forward and glanced at the bike's timer. "Come on, only fifteen minutes left."

She groaned but went back to cycling. "Maybe we should include more tracks."

"Brooke, it's perfect," he said softly. "And I'm sure that –"

He paused to look at his phone and when his eyes stayed glued to it, Brooke called his name. "What's wrong?"

"It's Keith," he answered, gazing up at her. "He's here." Although they knew it would happen, they were both surprised that Keith had really shown up. "I guess he couldn't say no to you, huh," Lucas murmured thoughtfully.

"He can wait in my room. Can you tell him I'll be there in thirty minutes?"

"Sure," he said, his fingers tapping on his phone.

It took a bit longer than that for them to get to the room, mainly because Brooke was now using her wheelchair as little as possible. She was to be discharged in seven days, and she could now walk long distances with her clutches.

Keith had been staring through the window when they reached the room. When he turned around, a mix of emotions flashed across his face, and although it happened too fast for Brooke to see it all, she did notice that among his surprise and sadness, he also looked guilt-ridden.

For a short moment, Brooke found herself frozen, unable to do anything but to stare back at him awkwardly. But then she moved her legs again and walked over to him. Keith looked frightened at first, but when she reached his side, he didn't hesitate for a second before pulling her into his arms.

With her clutches, she was unable to hug him back, so instead, she closed her eyes and rested her head on his shoulder. "Hi Keith", she whispered. A slight tremor went through his arms before they tightened around her.

"How are you feeling?" Keith asked after pulling back.

She gave him a weak shrug before sitting on the armchair. Lucas grabbed her clutches then looked at his uncle for a second before turning to Brooke: "I'll get some drinks." After a pat on Keith's shoulder, he quietly left the room.

Keith turned to her, his brow furrowed with sadness. When he stayed silent, Brooke murmured: "It's not easy, huh?"

Keith didn't ask what she meant by that, because he already knew: along with Mouth, he was the only other person who had been on that bridge that night and who could still talk about it.

"I'm sorry," he said with a sigh. He sat down on the bed to her right, keeping his eyes fixated on her. "I should have come sooner. It's not that I wasn't worried about you, because I was but –"

"I know." Lucas had told her that he would ask about her every single day. And after spending days without uttering a single word, Brooke couldn't exactly blame him for locking himself up in his shop. In fact, she knew exactly where he was coming from.

Keith was startled by her reaction, but only for a second; he gave her a thoughtful nod and gazed down at his hands. "Luke said you're getting discharged very soon."

"In a week." She noticed that Keith's eyes were lingering on her clutches. "I'm doing better with them. The doctor thinks that by the time I go home, I'll only need them for long distances."

"That's great," Keith whispered. Although she could sense that he was genuinely glad, she could also hear the sadness seeping through his voice. She dug her fingers into her thighs, hoping that this pain would prevent her tears. "What about your surgery? Luke said you'd have it in a few weeks."

She nodded; her doctors had agreed on holding it at the end of July. But that was not what she wanted to discuss with Keith. "So, um…" She pondered on the words to use. "There's something I want to ask."

"I know," he said, mimicking her earlier words. "I guess that's why I kept delaying my visit here, because… Well, I knew you'd want to know, and I wasn't ready to talk about it yet." He closed his eyes and shook his head, his face filled with self-disgust. "I can't get any more selfish than this, can I?" Before Brooke could protest, he added: "I did tell Larry, but not in detail… And I felt terrible after that. I just keep replaying it in my head, all of it, and I keep wondering what I should have done differently. I –"

He fell silent, and for a while he looked like he didn't know where to begin with, so Brooke decided to help him a little. "Peyton called you that night."

"Yes," he whispered. "She said that she was on the Molina bridge with Mouth and that her car was down." His gaze slowly moved to her face, though he was avoiding her eyes. "I left the shop right away, and when I got onto the parking lot… Dan was there. He was waiting for me." He paused and briefly closed his eyes, as if he was recalling the scene. "He was… unhinged. I mean, more than he had been for a while. He had been drinking too, and he started blaming me again for everything that had gone wrong in his life, and I… I don't know why, but I snapped." His hands clenched into fists. "I told him that he was responsible for all of it, for driving away his loved ones, not me. But I didn't have time to deal with him, because I knew Peyton and Mouth were stuck on that bridge, so I tried getting in my car, and that's when he punched me." Only then did Brooke notice the bruise next to his left eye; it had faded almost completely, and only a very pale shade of yellow lingered on his skin. "We, um… We exchanged a few blows and he stayed down, so I left. It was dark, and with the rain and him keeping his lights off, I didn't even notice his car. I was just hurrying to the bridge… I never thought he'd follow me." He sighed and shook his head, and once again Brooke could tell that he was shaking his head at himself. "And then I got to the bridge…"

"That part I know," Brooke murmured with a frown. She remembered it so vividly; some nights she would wake up panting and screaming, and it would take her a full minute before realizing that the blue Chevrolet wasn't about to hit her. Mouth had told her that he too had similar nightmares. "We were really confused, because we couldn't see much either. But then we saw that there was a car next to your truck and… He tried avoiding us, but it was too late."

"If only…" Keith sighed, then pinched the skin between his eyebrows. "If only I hadn't…"

He was speaking exactly like Nathan, as if their actions could have changed anything. "You didn't do anything wrong."

"I gave up on him. That night, on the parking lot, I gave up on my brother. Everyone kept warning me about him losing his mind, and I didn't take it seriously enough… If I had, then maybe –"

"No." They both startled and turned around to see that Lucas was back, leaning against the doorframe and holding a cup in each hand. He walked over to them, and after giving Brooke a cup of coffee, leaned against the window to face his uncle. "Even if you had tried talking to him, he would have snapped eventually."

"You don't know that," Keith murmured with a sigh.

Lucas hesitated for a moment and glanced at Brooke. When she gave him a quick nod, he turned back to Keith and said: "Actually, I do."

"How?" Keith asked, puzzled.

"Because he already did once." Lucas placed his own cup on the window sill and cleared his throat. "He, um, he strangled me."

Keith's mouth fell open, and his eyes soon widened in horror. "He did what? When?" After Lucas was done telling him what Brooke already knew, his eyes kept darting between them, as if he was expecting one of them to tell him that they were messing with him. "B– But why didn't you tell me?! Or Karen?!"

"Because I" – Lucas shook his head and shrugged – "I was scared of him, of what he could do to you if you went after him." And rightfully so. "You have no reason to feel guilty about this," he sighed, "because he was beyond any help."

Keith remained silent, stunned by what he had just heard. Brooke shared a look with Lucas and wondered whether they should leave him alone to process all this. When Lucas stayed put, she turned to his uncle. "There's something else I wanted to tell you." Keith sent her a frightened look, one that quickly faded when he didn't read any resentment on her face. "Thank you," she murmured, her voice once again cracking.

Keith blinked at her in confusion. "W– Why are you –" he stammered.

"Mouth told me what happened after we crashed into the water." She glanced down from his face to his fidgeting fingers. "You saved us, and you tried saving Peyton… He said you did everything you could to help her. So" – her voice quavered – "thank you."

Keith's hands suddenly froze. He stared back at Brooke, his expression unreadable for a long moment, until he let out a long sigh – not out of guilt or self-disgust this time, but out of relief. He looked like an enormous weight had been lifted off his shoulders. He dropped his face in his hands, his shoulders shaking when he started crying in silence.

Going through her rehab felt a little easier after that afternoon, now that Keith had shed some light on the last questions she had had about that fateful night. Obviously, they would never know for sure whether the outcome would have been different, had Dan been handled in another way, but Brooke had a feeling that Lucas was right about his biological father being uncontrollable. Even if he had somehow stayed put that night, what was to say that he wouldn't have lost it at another time, leading to a similar tragedy?

Just as she had told Keith, Brooke was allowed to leave the hospital after another seven days. Although she did feel relieved on the morning she was discharged, she also felt an aguish that kept growing as she started packing. Only then did she realize that in a matter of three weeks, she had piled up a lot of things: get-well cards, teddy bears from her classmates and her squad, her graduation diploma that her mother had picked up for her… It took her longer than expected to put it all in her duffle bag, and after struggling with the zipper for a couple of minutes, she gave up and sat on the bed. Her eyes wandered around her, taking a last mental picture of her hospital room, until they drifted back on her bag and on one of the many objects sticking out of it. She took the brown leather notebook in her hands and started flipping its pages: the first ones were now filled with her handwriting. Now that she was going home, she would be able to use her own journal, which meant that she could finally give this one back to Lucas. Despite knowing that, a part of her didn't seem ready to let it go.

She had been staring at the journal for a few minutes when her parents came to pick her up. After her father tried to close her duffle bag, and failed just as she had, he and Victoria each grabbed a handle and carried it together.

Brooke had already said her goodbyes to the floor's staff; Dr Adler had even come by the day before to wish her good luck. Brooke hadn't slept much that night and had repeatedly wondered about what the ICU doctor had been referring to: completing her rehab at home or her impending surgery – it was probably neither.

When she walked into her house, she felt unsettled, and even more so when she went to her bedroom. Almost a month had gone by since the last time she had been there, and thankfully her mother had cleaned up her room since then; otherwise, she would have had to deal with all the make-up and hair accessories she had left scattered all around her room when she had left for Prom, and with the memories that came with it.

Everything else was just as she had left it: her sewing machine, her sketching books and her pencils… Yet nothing around her felt the same. For a moment, all she could do was to stand there and blankly stare at her bag, waiting for her limbs to move and unpack. Instead, she ended up sitting on her bed, hoping that her queasiness would soon tone down. She glanced down at the journal that she had kept carrying so far and frowned, wondering why she felt this conflicted. It was almost as if something was missing.

A loud knock on the door made her startle and gasp. "Sorry honey," her father said as his head popped in through the door crack. He pushed the door open and stepped in. "I didn't mean to scare you," he added apologetically, "but, um…" his voice trailed off as his gaze fell on the duffle bag that Brooke had left at her feet, untouched. "Do you need some help with that?" When she shook her head, he hesitated for a second before sitting next to her. "I got you something," he said, his voice suddenly nervous. She sent him a puzzled look and took her phone when he motioned to it. "It should be in your mailbox."

Brooke blinked at him. "Tickets for LA?" She scrolled down to read that they were dated for the beginning of August.

"They're refundable," Ted said after clearing his throat, "so it's fine if you don't use them, but…" He squeezed her shoulder. "I thought you could use a few days at the ocean, you know, after your surgery."

Brooke stared blankly at the email, unsure of how she should react. She knew that her father had wanted to help her, and she could also understand why he had thought of this, but although she didn't want to hurt his feelings, she also couldn't fake her excitement. After all, LA was where Peyton should have gone after graduation, where she had always dreamed of working, where she should have turned into an adult… But that was all gone now; Peyton's dreams had disappeared the moment she had stopped breathing. Could Brooke really go there and enjoy her summer, when her best friend had just been robbed of that chance?

"There's two tickets," she noticed. She turned to her father, confused. "Aren't you going back tomorrow?"

Ted seemed relieved that she wasn't straight up rejecting his offer. "The other one is for Lucas." When her eyes grew wide in surprise, his lips twitched into a lopsided smile. "I thought you'd want to come with him." His grip tightened on her shoulder. "Look, just think about it, alright? And again, they're refundable."

Brooke nodded and glanced up from her phone. "Thanks Dad." What else was she supposed to say to him? That she didn't know if she could ever use these tickets without getting crushed by her guilt?

"He's a nice kid. I mean, Lucas," her father added when he saw her puzzled face. "Helped out a lot when you were in a coma. He came by every day to ask about you and to check on Larry."

"He did?" she asked, although she wasn't surprised to hear this.

"He loves you a lot, I can tell."

"I know," Brooke murmured, "I can, too."

For the first time since she had woken up from her coma, the sorrow that had engulfed her seemed to lift – although only slightly – and give way to a warmth that she had thought she would never be able to feel again.

When her father left her alone, she picked up the leather journal and, filled with a new resolve, started writing one last entry for Lucas to read. One that had been long overdue.

Nathan arrived soon after she had finished writing. "I thought Luke would be here," he said as he sat on her desk.

She shook her head and briefly gazed at the journal she was still holding in her hands. "Keith needed some help. But he'll stop by later," she explained, putting the journal down on her nightstand.

"Why didn't Keith call me then?"

"Maybe he thought you were better off taking care of your pregnant girlfriend." She lifted her duffle bag and dropped it on her bed. "Actually, why aren't you with her right now?"

Nathan scoffed and slid down from the desk. "She's the one who told me to check on you," he retorted, walking over to the bed. "Wow," he said as he took out a few greeting cards, "looks like the whole school wrote to you."

Brooke sighed and dropped some of them on her bed. "I don't know what I'm gonna do with those." She noticed Nathan's perplexed look and added: "I'll probably just stack them up somewhere, but…" She shrugged and looked away. "I don't know, sometimes I just want to burn them all."

"Then do it," Nathan said matter-of-factly. "Why not?" he asked when she sent him a shocked look. "If it makes you feel better, then –"

"But that's the thing, it won't," she cut him off. Her eyes landed on her bag. If destroying all this could ease her pain, even just for a little bit, then she would do it without a second thought. But she knew that it wouldn't work, since it wouldn't bring Peyton back into their lives. Her voice lowered as she said: "There might be something else, though." She fell silent, and for a moment she had to fight hard not to get overwhelmed by her fears and hesitations. There were some things that she couldn't keep postponing forever, not now that she was back home; she would soon run out of excuses. "I need a ride," she quavered.

Nathan answered in a heartbeat. "Sure," he said with concern. "Where?" Tears were pricking her eyes when she looked back at him. "Oh," he murmured, his face now sullen. "Sure, I'll take you."

Brooke could have gone on her own – she only needed her clutches to walk long distances, just as planned by Dr Willis, and would have no trouble driving – but she wasn't trusting herself. With Nathan by her side, she knew that she wouldn't be able to cower at the last minute and run back to her house.

After less than five minutes spent in the car, Brooke dozed off. When Nathan gently shook her shoulder to wake her up, she startled, her eyes darting from left to right until she realized that they had arrived. Nathan's car was stopped on the parking lot, a few steps away from the entrance gate. She threw a glance over her shoulder, to her clutches lying on the backseat.

"Do you think I need them?" she asked Nathan.

He seemed to give it a thought, then answered: "It's just a few minutes from here."

She nodded and climbed out of the car. Her legs were gradually turning to jelly, but she had a feeling that it had nothing to do with her physical condition. She staggered when Nathan suddenly grabbed her arm and turned to him.

His fingers loosened their grip when he met her eyes. "We can do this another day, you know."

She could tell that he wasn't saying this out of pity, but simply because he was concerned about her, and that somehow gave her enough strength to walk toward the gate. "Let's go," she murmured.

As soon as they arrived, and although she had promised herself that she would keep her composure, she broke down in tears.

Of course she did, how else was she supposed to react upon seeing her best friend's grave?

Brooke felt a surge of sorrow tighten her chest, making it hard for her to breathe – though this time it didn't threaten to swallow her whole. For a while, she could do nothing but sit on the ground and sob uncontrollably. Nathan tried to console her, but he seemed to know that he couldn't help her as much as he wanted to, especially when he, too, was struggling with his tears. So instead, he sat down next to her and wrapped an arm around her shoulders, pulling her closer to him, and silently reminding her that despite what she was feeling right now, she wasn't alone.

"I…" she muttered after her sobs had eventually stopped. Her voice was hoarse and quavering. She cleared her throat and said: "I knew this would be hard, but…" She sniffled and took out a tissue from her pocket – she always carried one with her, just in case. She then turned to Nathan, whose eyes were red. "Oh, Nate," she whispered, her voice cracking again, "I feel so…"

What was the right word? Down? Sad? Depressed? None of these could fully describe her current emotions.

"I– I know," Nathan stammered.

Her eyes were dry now – though for how long, she couldn't tell – and they slowly moved around them to the other graves, before going back to the one right in front of her. For what seemed like the hundredth time, she silently read the words engraved below Peyton's name: 'Too well loved to ever be forgotten'. She glanced down at the fresh flowers that had been carefully placed in front of the headstone.

Nathan followed her gaze. "Larry brings them almost every day," he explained.

She extended her fingers until she could graze the white tulips. "Do you think he'll ever get back on his feet again?"

Brooke felt his arm tighten around her shoulders. "Will any of us?" he murmured.

They would; she knew that for sure. She had witnessed it with her own eyes. The real question was: how could they reach that point? And how long would it take them? For now, it only felt like a distant, unattainable dream to her, and one that was painfully unfair to Peyton.

Brooke shifted on her legs and cleared her throat. "Everything's ready, right?" It had to be: Peyton's wake would take place in two days.

"Yeah," Nathan answered. "My mom got the candles this morning."

"Good," she whispered, her hand mechanically moving to wipe her eyes. She squinted at her friend, who looked both pensive and conflicted. "What's wrong?"

Nathan blinked, as if her voice had torn him away from his thoughts. "Nothing," he answered with shifty eyes.

"Nate," she called in a firm voice.

He sighed and met her gaze. "What if it makes it all worse, especially for Larry? I mean…" He hesitated before saying: "Aren't we just reminding him that" – he closed his eyes for a second and sighed – "that his daughter died a month ago?"

Brooke took a moment to think about this; she too had wondered about that, at first. "I don't think so," she answered. "I don't think it can hurt him any more than he already is." She sighed, "Nothing can."

"Did he tell you when he's leaving?"

"His boss gave him six weeks…" she replied after giving it a thought. "So, he still has a couple of weeks here."

"And what about the house?"

Brooke shrugged: that she didn't know. She could, however, easily guess that Larry had no interest in keeping a house that he barely occupied and that was now filled with memories of the two people he had loved the most and whom he had lost.

As they left the graveyard, Brooke looked around them and read the names of the many other people that had been buried there. One particular name caught her attention and immediately made her sick to her stomach. She froze and stared at the cold headstone that read Dan Scott's name. No dates, no epitaph, no flowers. Nothing but his name.

Brooke turned to Nathan, who had kept on walking; he hadn't slowed down or even had a glance toward his father's stone as he had passed it. The only reaction she could notice from him were his clenched fists. After a last look at Dan's grave, she sped up and reached Nathan's side. A stranger wouldn't have read past his unfazed expression, but she could: the anger and pain that he was trying to hide were painfully obvious to her. Brooke linked their arms together and, after a sidelong glance in her direction, his pace slowed down and his shoulders relaxed.

The ride back to her house was quiet; neither seemed to know what to talk about, so instead they listened to the radio. Brooke placed her chin in her hand, her elbow propped up against the lowered window. She closed her eyes and let the warm summer breeze tickle her face. After a while, she caught herself humming – she immediately fell silent and opened her eyes, only to be confused by where they were. Nathan wasn't taking the shortest route, and it took her a full minute to understand why: he wanted to avoid driving past Peyton's house.

Victoria was waiting for them on the porch. Brooke could see that her mother had been worried but that she was trying not to let it show. Even Nathan seemed to pick up on it, as he apologized to her for taking longer than planned.

She gave him a soft smile, then turned to Brooke and placed a hand on her cheek. "How are you feeling? Do you want anything to eat?"

"I'm good," Brooke said, shaking her head.

Victoria turned to Nathan: "What about you?"

"Thanks," he said with a slight frown, "but I'd better go check on Haley."

Nathan was about to leave when Brooke remembered that she had to give him something. "Wait!" she cried as he was reaching the last porch step. He sent her a puzzled look over his shoulder. "Come with me for a sec."

Brooke realized with much relief that she wasn't struggling to climb up her stairs, though she wasn't exactly running either. When they reached the landing, Nathan asked her what this was about, to which she replied with a hand movement toward her bedroom door, prompting him to follow her.

He still looked like he had no clue as to what was going on, until she took out a small, carefully wrapped box from her dresser and handed it to him.

"Crap," he breathed out as he examined it more closely, "I forgot about this." Nathan plumped down on the bed, his gaze stuck on the gift he had bought weeks before. "There's no way I can give this to her now." He frowned and murmured: "Not now."

Brooke raised an eyebrow at him. "Why not?"

"Because we weren't exactly in the mood to celebrate anything during our anniversary," he answered, looking up at her.

"So?" Brooke asked as she sat next to him. "That doesn't mean you shouldn't be allowed to show Haley that you love her." She motioned to the gift with her head: "Isn't that what this is for?"

"I don't know, it's just weird, with Sawyer –"

Brooke rolled her eyes. "If Peyton could hear you, she would smack you on the head."

They shared a knowing look before doing something they both hadn't done in a while: they laughed. And for a brief moment, it felt good to do so, until a sense of guilt seeped inside Brooke, gnawing at her.

After Nathan left, she finished unpacking and lied down on her bed, her body overcome with exhaustion. She ended up falling asleep and learned only on the next morning that Lucas had stopped by. Her mother explained that he had stayed a few minutes in Brooke's room before coming downstairs to chat with Ted and her. The journal had stayed on her nightstand, unopened.

"Have you thought about it?" Ted asked her.

Brooke briefly glanced at her father then back at the road. She had been driving for fifteen minutes now, and apart from a little anxiety when she had started the car, she seemed to be doing just fine. "I, um…" She frowned, her hands tightening around the wheel. This morning, she had thought about what she had told Nathan about the bracelet and wondered if her reasoning shouldn't simply be the same regarding her father's flight tickets. But in her mind, their situations were too different: Nathan's involvement in everything that had happened was insignificant, compared to hers. "Not really," she lied.

"That's alright," he answered with an encouraging smile. "You still have time."

When they reached the airport, her father made her promise to call him more often and to take care of herself. After a long hug, she waved him goodbye and went back to her car. She threw a quick glance at the paperback sitting on the passenger seat and pulled onto the road.

The Café was quite busy for a Tuesday morning, which shouldn't have come to a surprise since every student was now on vacation. Thankfully, Brooke didn't see anyone from her year when she walked inside; she quickly spotted Lucas, serving three clients at a table.

Before she could walk over to him, her eyes caught some movement on her left and she was soon pulled into a tight hug. Startled at first, Brooke eventually relaxed when she recognized Deb and wrapped her arms around her.

"It's so nice to see you out of that hospital," Deb told her with a smile. She pulled away and asked: "Do you want anything to drink?"

"No thanks," Brooke answered, "I was just stopping by to see…" her voice trailed off when, just as she was pointing to him, Lucas noticed her.

"I'll leave you two then," Deb told her. She gave her another hug and dashed behind the counter, taking Lucas's empty tray in her hands when they walked by each other.

"Hey you," Lucas said before pecking her lips. He grasped her hand and gently tugged at it, inviting her to follow him to a table.

"Why didn't you wake me up last night?" she asked after sitting down.

Lucas pulled his chair closer to hers and let his left hand rest on the small of her back. "You looked so peaceful," he answered with a shrug. "No nightmares this time?" His right hand moved to her forearm and started stroking it mechanically.

"No."

His lips curled into a gentle smile. "Good." His eyes moved to the paper bag on her lap. "What's this?"

She took the small, rectangular bag and handed it to him. "It's your journal."

After peering inside the bag, Lucas looked back at her. "You can keep this you know, if –"

"No, it's yours," Brooke said, shaking her head. "And anyway, I can write in mine now, so I'm good." She glanced down at the paper bag and bit her lower lip. "A– And, um…" she stuttered. Lucas raised an eyebrow at her, intrigued by her sudden nervousness. "You really should read my last entry." Lucas' gaze shifted back and forth between her and the journal. "It's very long, but, um, I think you'll find it… interesting."

She knew that the moment Lucas was done reading it, he would get back to her, and when he didn't mention it for the rest of the day, she guessed that he hadn't had time to open the journal. Or maybe he had, but he hadn't yet reached the last pages, since she had filled quite a few ones during her stay at the hospital. He did text her a few times that day, and even called her in the evening, but the journal didn't come up in their discussion. Instead, he talked about his mother, and how he was seriously starting to worry about her: she was acting more and more aloof, locking herself in the bathroom every now and then, sometimes for more than fifteen minutes, only to come out every time with a pallid face.

When they met again the next day, Brooke knew after a single look that he had read the whole journal. He was already there when she arrived at the River Court with Nathan and Haley; he was moving some tables with Mouth's help, while his parents and Deb were busy moving carboard boxes around. She could tell, from the way he barely met her gaze after he kissed her, or the way he kept fidgeting whenever she was around him, that he was unnerved. She wanted to talk to him, but it took a while until she actually had a chance to do so in private.

Brooke had been dubious at first when Nathan had suggested organizing the wake at the River Court. Why would they host it there, when it wasn't a place that Peyton had particularly enjoyed? They had hung out there several times, but to say that it was one of her favorite places would have been more than a stretch. However, Nathan had insisted, stating that no one would bother them there, and that they would be free to stay however long they wanted.

When they were done lighting and spreading the candles everywhere around them, and putting up Peyton's paintings on the trestles and tables that Lucas had brought with Keith's truck, and after Haley – who was wearing her new golden bracelet – had finished connecting all the speakers that they had brought, Brooke took a moment to look around her; now that everything was in place, she could only admit that Nathan had been right. This was the perfect location, away from any prying crowd; they could also play Peyton's favorite music without bothering any neighbors.

The sun was just about set down when the first guests arrived: several classmates, most of the cheerleaders, Skills, Fergie and Junk, along with a few of Peyton's colleagues from the Post. And of course, Larry. Victoria was walking right next to him; she had told Brooke the day before that she would pick him up.

Brooke kept a close eye on Larry, watching out for his reaction. She got scared at first when she saw that he was on the verge of tears, but then he started to mingle, and seemed to relax a bit. He kept speaking of his daughter, telling old stories that sometimes even Brooke didn't know of. He may have been teary-eyed, but for the first time since Peyton had died, his face seemed to gain a little color.

Now that she felt slightly relieved, Brooke moved to the food table and grabbed a plate. After taking two of the sandwiches that Karen had made, she looked around her and noticed that Lucas was sitting on one of the benches, away from the crowd, and was staring blankly at the horizon.

Yup, he had definitely read her last entry.

He had been so lost in his thoughts that he didn't even notice her when she approached him; he even flinched when she sat next to him.

"Hey," she said, placing the plate between them, "are you hungry?"

Lucas threw a quick glance around them. "Yeah," he answered before grabbing a sandwich. "Starving," he said, taking a bite. He then turned to her, looking suddenly apologetic. "I'm sorry, I didn't even… Are you okay?"

Her lips twitched. "Actually, I am. This is not as hard as I thought it would be, it's even…" Brooke's voice trailed off as she gazed around them. Larry was now talking to a cheerleader and one of Peyton's colleagues, showing them a painting from her grade school years. "I don't know, I just… I think Peyton would have loved this."

All his nervousness vanished in an instant; he wrapped an arm around her and pulled her to his side, kissing the top of her head. He blinked at her and slightly moved back. "You're shivering. Are you cold?"

"Just a little yeah, but –"

Before she could finish her sentence, Lucas jumped to his feet and hurriedly crossed the court to his truck. He came back a few seconds later, holding his grey hoodie. "There you go," he said as he sat back next to her.

"Thanks," Brooke murmured before putting it on. Larry was now speaking to her mother and Karen; Haley and Mouth were chatting with Skills and Junk on the bleachers. She sighed and placed her head on Lucas' shoulder. It was now her turn to feel nervous. "Luke?"

"Mmh?" he mumbled, chewing on another bite.

"You read it, didn't you?" He froze and slowly turned to her. After gulping down his bite, he nodded slowly. "All of it?"

"Yeah," Lucas murmured with a concerned frown. At least he wasn't staring at her like she was crazy, but he did look greatly disturbed. Brooke tried to hide her disappointment: somehow, she had expected him to believe her right away. She knew it was absurd to do so, but maybe she had been biased by her interactions with Future Lucas, forgetting along the way that there must have been a time where he hadn't fully believed her.

"I know it's hard to believe, but –"

He interrupted her: "Have you told your doctors about this?"

"No," she answered with a sigh. "The only ones who know are Mouth, Haley and Nate."

"Well, um…" He put down his sandwich and cleared his throat: "Maybe you should tell them."

Brooke shifted back. "Why?"

"Look," he said very cautiously, "don't take this the wrong way, but" – he squeezed her hand – "I think the accident is still affecting you."

Brooke jerked her hand away, startling him. "What do you mean, affecting me?" And for the first time since her coma, she saw pity in his eyes. Her face fell and she moved further away from him. "I meant every word I wrote," she said, her voice hardening.

"I know that," Lucas said in a soft voice, reaching out for her arm. "I just think that…" He hesitated. "Well, maybe it's a way for you to cope. And I'm not saying it's a bad thing, just that you may need some help with this."

"No, you don't get it," she retorted, "I didn't make this up. Everything I wrote is true." Her eyes moved to her right: Haley and Mouth were still on the bleachers, chatting with their friends.

"So the reason why you keep fainting is because you're" – he marked a pause as if he was struggling to get the words out – "time travelling?"

She gave him a firm nod. "Yes. And also probably because of my AVM."

Lucas looked even more concerned now. "Maybe we should just talk to –"

"Why don't you ask Haley? Or Mouth?" she asked, turning in their direction. "They've known about this for a while." She sighed and looked back at Lucas. "I know it sounds insane, but this is not me coping, or having another nervous breakdown." Thinking back, he did have good reasons to second guess her version of the story. "It's what really happened."

Lucas still looked disbelieving, but at least she could tell that he wasn't about to burn her at the stake. And unlike his brother, he wasn't about to run off and tell everyone about the nonsense she was spouting. He frowned and placed his hand on her cheek, gently stroking it as if she was about to break at any moment. "Brooke," he murmured, his voice soft, "there's no such thing as –"

"I didn't think it existed either!" she cried, grabbing his hand with force. "I didn't, but I swear I'm not lying to you!"

He cocked his head to the side. "So, you're saying you went to the future?"

"Yes."

"Several times?"

"Yes," she said, her brow furrowing.

"And you met me? I mean, in the future."

She held back from rolling her eyes. "Yes."

"Alright," he said, squinting at her. "What's in it for me then?"

Brooke could have told him everything right there on the spot, but instead she remained silent. Firstly, because there was no saying that even if she did go into details about his future life, he would start believing her – there was even a risk of him getting more concerned for her psychological well-being – and secondly, because his future-self had specifically asked her not to disclose any crucial information about his career.

She threw another glance in her friends' direction and this time, Mouth caught her gaze. "I don't think I should tell you," she said as she turned back to Lucas.

"And why not?"

"Because in the future you didn't know all the details, so if I tell you now, it might change a lot of things for you." Or maybe it wouldn't at all, since everything kept repeating itself.

Lucas was still eyeing her with utmost caution. "Brooke…" he murmured, his mouth turning into a frown.

"I'm not making this up," she asserted once more. "But you know what" – she glanced over her shoulder and saw that Mouth was heading their way – "why don't you ask him?"

Lucas looked completely lost. "Ask who?"

As if on cue, Mouth appeared in front of them. "He doesn't believe me," Brooke told him with a sigh.

After a brief, awkward moment during which Mouth seemed like he had absolutely no idea what she was talking about, his jaw dropped. "You told him?" – he swiftly turned to Lucas – "She told you?" Brooke could almost hear the word finally hiding behind his question.

Lucas stared at Mouth for a moment, before his frown deepened – this time not out of concern, but rather of anger. Why was he getting angry at Mouth? "You knew about this?" he asked, his voice hardening. "And you didn't say anything?"

"Er, Luke," Mouth said, taken aback by Lucas' sudden change of demeanor, "she's telling the truth."

"I can't believe you," he retorted, his head shaking slowly. "She needs to be helped, not to be…" – he paused for a second, as if he was searching for the right word – "enabled. Brooke," he added with a sigh, and his expression softened as soon as his eyes landed on her, "you need help."

"I don't," she pleaded. "I really don't."

How could she get him to see this? How could she prove to him that –

And then she remembered how she had convinced Haley.

"Lily!" she cried, startling them both.

"Who?" Lucas asked.

Brooke shared a brief look with Mouth, and when he didn't interrupt her, said: "Lily. Your sister."

Lucas blinked at her, confusion spreading over his face. "My… My what?"

"Your mother's pregnant, Luke. You'll have a sister in about, er… six to eight months, according to Mouth's calculation," she said, pointing to their friend.

"B– But…" Lucas stammered. He stood up and gazed around him, until he could spot his mother standing on the court and talking to Keith. "But that's… How do you know that?" he asked, spinning around to face her. "Why would she tell you before –"

"She didn't tell me," she said, shaking her head, "I… I know because I've met Lily. I mean, your sister, I've met her. In the future."

Lucas' eyes kept darting from her to Mouth, as if he was expecting one of them to burst out laughing at any time. "I'll be right back," he mumbled before striding away.

Brooke watched as he walked to his mother and Keith and pulled them aside. He said something to them, and even from afar, Brooke could see the shock on Karen's face. Lucas' mother stood frozen for a moment, and then she said something back, and after another couple of seconds during which no one moved or spoke, Keith pulled her into his arms; their intertwined bodies swayed, almost in rhythm with the music, and eventually Lucas broke out of his trance and hugged them too.

Lucas was still stunned when he came back to the bench. He slowly sat down next to Brooke; she shared a worried look with Mouth and wondered what they should say now. Lucas gazed up from his lap, cleared his throat, and turned to them. "So, erm… My mom's pregnant. Almost three months now. But she doesn't know the gender yet, she'll know in two weeks."

Crap. Did that mean that she had to wait another two weeks for him to believe her? What would happen until then, would he keep staring at her warily, expecting her to blow another fuse at any moment?

"I didn't tell her it's a girl," Lucas murmured thoughtfully.

Brooke blinked at him. "Does that mean you believe me?"

He nodded slowly; his eyes travelled from her to Mouth. "I never told you this, but… Lily is the name that my mother had picked out if I'd been a girl." He glanced up at the sky and ran his hand through his hair. "So, erm… you're really not making this up?" he asked. After sharing a brief look, Brooke and Mouth shook their heads in unison. "B– But how… How is this possible?"

"We actually figured this out not so long ago," Mouth explained. "We think it's the AVM."

Lucas leaned back against the bench; his lips were parted, as if he was about to say something, but he remained silent and kept staring at a point above Mouth's head. "So everything you wrote…" he eventually murmured. He turned to Brooke and frowned. "About how you knew that Peyton would die… That's not made up either?" Brooke shook her head again, her lips pressed together in a thin, trembling line. "That's why you kept having those nightmares? Why you couldn't sleep at all, and, and… and your weight loss?"

This time, Brooke nodded. "We…" She paused and gazed down at her lap. "We tried everything, but it wasn't enough."

"And you knew about all this?" Lucas asked Mouth.

"Yes," he answered.

"You knew?" Lucas repeated, still in a daze. "And Haley? Nathan?" With each name coming out of his mouth, Brooke could hear a change in his voice; it was very subtle, but he was without a doubt getting upset. "I… I don't get it," Lucas murmured, his voice hardening, "why didn't you –" He threw a quick sidelong glance at Mouth, who nervously cleared his throat and mumbled something about getting some food before dashing off. "Why didn't you tell me sooner?" Lucas asked her, visibly hurt. "I could have helped you, I could have –"

Brooke put a hand on his thigh. "But you did help me." In that moment, she understood why she had been scared to tell him the whole truth; not because she had been worried about him not believing her, but because there were still some things that she wasn't ready to admit. "You helped me so much," she added, emphasizing on the last words. "I… I spent weeks feeling anguished and hopeless, but whenever I was around you, I felt a little better, precisely because you didn't know. When I was with you, I could stop thinking about Peyton's future, even if it was just for a short time. You were like…" She paused, frowning at her inability to explain herself. "You know the thing that prevents a pipe from blowing up when there's too much pressure in it?"

Lucas' lips turned into a faint smile. "A safety valve."

"Right!" she exclaimed, her hand squeezing his leg.

"But…" Brooke sighed; he still wasn't fully convinced. "If I had known…"

"It probably wouldn't have changed anything," Brooke murmured gloomily. "Everything I learned from the future, everything that was supposed to happen, happened. I –" She sighed and corrected: "We tried everything we could, but it wasn't enough." Lucas gazed away from her, lost in his thoughts. "Are you mad at me?" she asked, her voice shaking against her will. "Please, tell me you're not because –"

When Lucas met her eyes, there was no trace of anger on his face. "I'm not," he answered, confirming her thoughts. "I just… I knew something was up, but I would have never guessed that you were…" His fingers were playing with a strand of her hair. "You were terrified that night. Prom," he added when she looked confused. "When you left for the bridge, I could tell that you were terrified, and I never understood why." His hand moved to tug her hair behind her ear, stroking it gently. "Now I get it." Brooke's eyes filled with tears – tears of relief, this time. "But why didn't you tell me sooner?"

Hadn't they just gone through this? "I told you why, I –"

"No," he answered with patience. "I mean after the accident. After you woke up. You've had three weeks," – he frowned and corrected himself – "I mean, two weeks to tell me. And we've spent almost every afternoon together since then." Brooke bit her lower lip and glanced down at her lap, her hands fidgeting with her skirt. "Brooke?" he said, his fingers moving to her chin. He gently lifted it up, making her meet his eyes; they were filled with concern and… Well, love. "Come on, Pretty Girl. You know you can talk to me."

A warm feeling appeared in Brooke's chest, chasing away her uneasiness. "I was scared," she admitted sheepishly.

"That I wouldn't believe you?"

"No," she breathed out, closing her eyes for a brief moment. Now she understood why she had been scared. "I was afraid that you would believe me, and that you, um…" Her voice lowered until it was barely audible. "That you'd be disappointed in me, because I was helpless."

"Brooke, I –"

"I know it sounds stupid," she said, her fists clenched. "But I just can't help it. Maybe… Maybe it's because I'm disappointed and mad at myself, so I thought you'd be the same."

He sighed and pulled her to his chest. She remained still for a second until eventually her body relaxed and her arms wrapped around his back. "I'm not," Lucas murmured, his breath tickling her ear. "Didn't you say you tried everything?" She closed her eyes and tightened her grip around him, her face buried in his neck. When her answer came out as a mumble, he chuckled and said: "I can't hear you at all."

She moved back a little. "I should have done more," she repeated, tears filling her eyes. "So much more. I just…" She hesitated: how much could she tell him without confusing him any further? "I can't shake the thought that there had to be a reason for this time travel stuff, and if it wasn't to save Peyton, then… Why the hell was that for?" Lucas stayed silent, as if he knew that there was more that she needed to get off her chest. "I actually miss those weeks before Prom. I mean, it was really stressful, but it was much easier, because back then I didn't know for sure if we could change Peyton's future. I knew that she could die, but I didn't know if she would."

"Like the cat," Lucas murmured thoughtfully. "Schrödinger," he added when she seemed puzzled by his words.

That was right: it was exactly like the cat. Hadn't she dreamt about it, during her coma? Her memories of her dreams were too hazy for her to tell.

Lucas didn't talk much for the rest of the night; he was probably too busy waiting for everything he had just learned to sink in. Brooke did see him walk up to Haley and Nathan, and she could easily guess what they were talking about.

The night came to an end; people started leaving, one by one, and Victoria asked Brooke what she wanted to do.

"I think I'll stay with Lucas, if that's okay with you."

Her mother's eyebrows twitched almost imperceptibly, but then she gave Brooke a faint smile and hugged her. "Of course." Victoria pulled away, her hands lingering on Brooke's shoulders, until she noticed something behind her. "I think Larry wants to talk to you."

Brooke spun around; Larry was on the opposite side of the court, talking to Keith. He caught her looking at him and immediately said something to Keith before walking over to her. His face seemed to have gained a few other colors.

"Thank you," Larry told her as he hugged her. His arms were shaking slightly. "What you all did tonight… I think Peyton would have…" his voice trailed off, and they shared a look, agreeing silently on the words left hanging in the air. He took her in his arms again. "Brooke, there's something I wanted to ask you, but I don't want to – I mean, you've been through so much too and if it's hard for you, I get it but –"

"What do you need?" she asked, stopping his rambling.

Larry sighed and broke their embrace. "I need to sort out Peyton's things. I keep putting it off, but I'll go back to work soon, and I have a feeling that if I don't do it now, I won't ever do it." He glanced around them, his lips forming a faint, sad smile. "What you guys did tonight… It helped me realize that I really need to do it. But I might need some help."

Brooke ignored the pang in her chest and replied: "Sure, I'll help you."

He sighed in relief. "Thank you" – his face darkened a bit – "I feel like I'm asking too much –"

"You're not," she retorted, shaking her head. Her eyes landed on Nathan and Haley, who were sitting on the bleachers. "I'm sure Nathan will help too."

After almost everyone else had left, Brooke asked Nathan if he was available this weekend to help out Larry.

"Sure," he answered in a heartbeat. "I'm working shifts on Saturday, but I can come on Sunday."

Brooke picked up the last of Peyton's paintings and placed them on the cardboard box that Nathan was carrying. "That's it, right?" she asked, looking around them.

The candles were out and gone now, all that was left to do was to fold the tables and carry them to the truck. Haley was still sitting on the bleachers – Nathan had begged her not to carry anything, not even the candles – and was talking to Lucas and Mouth. "I wonder what that's about," Nathan said sarcastically after following her gaze.

Brooke scoffed at him, took the box from him and strode toward the truck. "What did he tell you?" she asked after Nathan ran up to her.

"Not much," he answered. "He's trying to understand how your travels work."

Nathan moved to take back the box but she jerked it away from him. "I can carry this, Nate, it's not that heavy."

"Fine," he murmured, eying her warily, as if she could crumble at any step.

Just as they were reaching the truck, Brooke heard a faint music behind them. She looked over her shoulder, wondering if they had forgotten a speaker, but after a quick scan around the court, didn't see one.

"What's wrong?" Nathan asked.

"Is there another–" She froze and looked down at her hands where the tingle was spreading fast. "Shi–"

She yelped and dropped the box on the grass. Her hands moved to her head, holding it on each side: it was about to explode, she could feel it. The buzzing wasn't even bothering her this time, it was completely overshadowed by the sharp, excruciating pain going through her skull. She fell to her knees and let out another scream. She could barely hear Nathan's shouts next to her, or feel his hands shaking her shoulders. It lasted for another long second, and then she was out.

Brooke's eyes flickered open. The first thing she noticed, with much relief, was that the pain was gone. She was lying on her stomach, resting on something soft: a blanket. Her hands were folded under her head and resting on something hard. From her position, she could see a dresser. It took her a few seconds to realize, with much confusion, that it wasn't any dresser, it was her own, the one that was in her bedroom in Tree Hill. And every object standing on top of it was exactly the same as it was now: her lamp, her white candles, her jewelry holder and two framed pictures.

She propped herself on her elbows and scanned the room. What was going on? She was in her bedroom, and she couldn't see any difference from her current room. How could it not change at all in the future? She glanced down at the hard object on which her head had been resting: her senior trigonometry book.

She shifted to a cross-legged position and moved her eyes to her sewing machine. It was sitting at its usual spot, and above it, was hanging an unfinished blue dress. She blinked at it in confusion: she knew this dress very well. She had finished it back in May.

She startled when the door flung open. Brooke turned to it, and her heart stopped when she saw who had just walked into her room.

"Hey sleepyhead," Peyton told her with a crooked grin. She went to sit at the desk and glanced over her shoulder at Brooke. "Your mom left just a minute ago." She turned back to the window and grabbed a pencil.

Brooke watched as Peyton was scribbling on a notebook and humming at the music coming from her speaker. She opened her mouth and tried talking, but she failed to do so. She couldn't even breathe properly; she felt as if someone had punched her right in the stomach, driving all the air out of her lungs.

Her breathing, shallow at first, started quickening, until she felt dizzy. Her sight was getting blurry now, due to the tears filling her eyes. "Peyton?" she whispered.

Brooke couldn't even think properly anymore. What was going on? How could Peyton be here? Was she dreaming? Had all this been just a dream?

No, it couldn't, but she wasn't in any state to process all this, because her best friend who had been dead for a month now – and for whom they had just held a freaking wake – was sitting in front of her, alive.

Peyton noticed that something was wrong with Brooke's breathing: she glanced at her over her shoulder before turning the chair in her direction. "Brooke?" she called, her head tilted to the side. Brooke's tears rolled down her cheeks. It really was Peyton. It was her face, her voice, her worried expression. "Hey Brooke," Peyton said, standing up, her voice filled with concern. "What's wrong, you look –"

Before she could finish her sentence, Brooke jumped out of the bed and rammed into Peyton, almost crushing her ribcage. Peyton drew a sharp breath and stumbled back; she managed to steady herself by leaning on the desk behind her. "Y– You're alive!" Brooke cried, sobbing into Peyton's arms. "You're – I can't believe you're – You're here!" She couldn't form a proper thought anymore; nothing made sense right now.

"Brooke, you're hurting me," Peyton complained with an unusually hoarse voice.

Brooke couldn't care less about that, because she was there, she really was there, right there in her arms. What was going on? Had she just woken up from the most horrible nightmare? Had she just travelled into another dimension?

"Brooke," Peyton called again. She placed her hands on Brooke's shoulders and slightly pushed her away, her eyes scanning Brooke's face. "What do you mean I'm alive? What's going on?" Brooke tried to reply, but nothing but a swarm of unintelligible syllables left her mouth, mixed in another wave of sobs. Peyton was at a complete loss, and after standing still for a moment, hugged her again. "Brooke, what's going on?" she repeated. "You're starting to freak me out." She was cradling Brooke's head, patiently waiting for her to calm down; Brooke suddenly felt a sharp pain on her scalp and winced. "Sorry!" Peyton cried, immediately removing her hand from Brooke's head. She stepped back and said apologetically: "I forgot about those."

Those?

Brooke moved her hand to her head; her fingers carefully moved in her hair until they found the source of the pain and felt something metallic stuck on her skull. She knew right away what her fingers were grazing: three staples.

The staples were exactly where they had been after getting her head injury at the championship's final. But how could it be? This was impossible. She… She had always travelled to the future, she had never… She had never gone back.

Brooke stepped back until her knees hit something soft and she slumped down on the bed. Her eyes kept darting around her, to her dresser, her trig book, her desk, the unfinished dress.

"Wh– What's today's date?" she asked, her voice only coming out as a weak murmur.

"Huh?" Peyton asked back. She frowned at her and approached her. "What did you say?"

Brooke wiped the tears that were still streaming down her face and cleared her throat. "What's the date?"

Peyton snorted and squinted at her. "Alright, what kind of joke are you trying to –" She fell silent and stared at Brooke for a second, and when she realized that she really was serious, answered: "May 3rd." Peyton frowned and sat next to her, once again scanning Brooke's face worriedly. "Brooke, the championship was two days ago, don't you remember?" Her eyes landed on Brooke's head, right where the staples were. "Does your head hurt? Are you feeling dizzy?"

She really was in the past, then.

Brooke was having trouble getting her breathing in check, and when she started wheezing, panic flashed on Peyton's face. "Hey, slow down," she urged her, her hands resting on her shoulders. "Look at me, Brooke."

Brooke didn't comply; at least, not right away. She tightly shut her eyes, dug her nails into her thighs, and tried to slow her breathing down. She thought at first that she wouldn't be able to do it, but then gradually, one breath at a time, she managed to get back some composure.

She had to: she didn't know how long she had left before she would go back to the present. How much longer could she stay with Peyton like this?

As soon as Brooke looked back at Peyton, she welled up again, prompting Peyton to gently shake her shoulders. "Brooke, will you please tell me what the hell is going on?!"

Could she?

Could she actually tell her?

Brooke was still lost and confused, but she did realize that she couldn't waste her time crying and wheezing. She needed to warn Peyton, but how could she do that without making it look like she was having a psychotic break?

"I need you to listen to me," Brooke murmured in a hoarse, barely audible voice. She cleared her throat and said: "I know it's sounds crazy, but I'm from the future." Peyton blinked twice before letting out a snort. "No, I'm not kidding, I really am, and I don't know how much time I have left until I go back to my time!"

"I don't know if I should be worried about your head injury or offended that you thought this kind of prank would work on me," Peyton said with a lopsided smile.

"It's not a –" Brooke groaned and jumped on her feet. "Just listen to me, alright?!" she shouted, making Peyton startle. "You know how I've been fainting since our senior year started?" Peyton's brow furrowed. "I'm not just fainting, P. I'm going to the future." Peyton opened her mouth, but before she could utter a single word Brooke waved her hands at her. "Don't! Just let me explain this, please. I usually wake up in my body in the future, and after a little while, I faint again and go back to my body in the present" – she looked around her and gestured to the room – "but this is completely new, it's… It's the first time I've travelled to the past, I didn't even think it was possible…"

"You're from the future?" Peyton asked, deadpan. "Tell me then, are there flying cars where you're from?"

Brooke sighed and turned around to face her. "No, I'm not from that far in the future. Not far at all," she said, her voice cracking. "Anyway, this all doesn't matter, you need to –"

"Are you sure you didn't hit your head too hard?" Peyton asked worriedly. "I think we should get you checked out by –"

"No, we don't have time for this!" Brooke cried, making Peyton startle again. She sighed and sat back next to her. "I'm sorry, but I don't have time to wait until you believe me, I need to –"

"Brooke, stop, you're not making any sense at all. How could you even – that's just not possible."

Brooke groaned in frustration; how much time did she have left? Could she get straight to the point and tell Peyton that she was going to die on Prom night? Would it have any impact if Peyton didn't believe her?

Brooke breathed in sharply. "I have an AVM, alright?" Before Peyton could ask what that even was, she explained: "Arterio-Veinous Malformation. AVM. It's like a brain tumor," –Peyton's eyes grew wide in panic– "it's not that bad at all, but it does give me seizures that apparently make me travel in the future – well, in the past too, now. I was supposed to have it removed soon but now I don't think I'll – whatever," she said shaking her head, "I'm getting off the point here. Where I am from, you're…" She choked up and forced herself to take a deep breath. "Where I am from," she repeated, this time more slowly, "you're –"

"Dead?" Peyton asked. She shifted on the bed and stared back at Brooke.

Brooke bit her lower lip to stifle her sobs. "Yes," she breathed out.

Peyton slowly shook her head. "No," she said. "No, no, no," she repeated, her head shaking more erratically with each word. "I'm not… I can't –" She got up and started pacing down the room. "I mean I'm… No, Brooke, why would you even…" Her feet kept moving, but her eyes stayed glued on Brooke. She wasn't dubious, but rather… shocked. "I don't get it, how does a brain tumor make you travel in time?!"

"I– I'm not sure, but it's in the area of my brain that deals with my memories, so Haley and Mouth think that –"

Peyton froze. "Haley and Mouth?" she repeated, stunned.

"Yes, they've known about this for a while, but it doesn't matter Peyton, you –"

"Wow, wow, wow, wait a minute…" Peyton murmured thoughtfully. "Is that why the three of you have been –"

Brooke sprung on her feet and grabbed her friend's shoulders. "Peyton, stop, just listen to me!" she begged. "Maybe this is it! Lucas said that I always tried to change the future but I never could, but maybe he was wrong!"

Peyton blinked at her in confusion. "Lucas?"

"Not the one you know, but the one from the future." Brooke's fingers were now threatening to crush Peyton's shoulders. "Whatever, this is all just details! What matters is that now I do have a shot at –"

Peyton jerked herself away from her grip and stepped back until she bumped against the desk. The blood had suddenly drained from her face, making her look like she was about to throw up. She broke out of her daze and patted her pockets until she found her phone.

"Peyton?" Brooke called tentatively. Maybe she should have taken more time to explain the situation. This had to be too much to handle at once, if Peyton even believed her…

Peyton's fingers were tapping rapidly on her phone, until they stopped and she kept staring at the screen. Her eyes suddenly landed on Brooke, and after a moment of hesitation, she tossed her phone in Brooke's direction.

Brooke caught it swiftly and sent Peyton a puzzled look. When Peyton gestured to her phone, Brooke glanced down at the screen.

At first, she didn't know what she was looking at. It was a picture, one that was slightly blurry, as if it had been taken hurriedly. The lighting wasn't great either, so she had to bring the phone closer to her face and to squint to see a wrinkled paper with handwriting all over it.

Wait a minute, that was her handwriting. The picture may have been blurry and dark, but Brooke could tell that it definitely was hers.

She squinted harder at the screen and managed to decipher the first sentence; that was all it took for her to realize what Peyton had taken a picture of.

It was her entry, the one she had written during the ride home from Fayetteville.

"Wh– what… How did you get this?" Brooke stammered.

And then it all came back to her: how she had folded the paper in four and handed it to Mouth, how Mouth had been forced into a midnight bath, losing his pants in the process, how they had looked everywhere around the house, praying that no one had read it. And they had found it eventually, still folded in Mouth's pants, so why would they have suspected that anyone had caught sight of it?

"It was in Mouth's pants," Peyton murmured. She leaned against the desk behind her and crossed her arms against her chest. "I didn't mean to read it, but it fell out of a pocket, and I was going to put it away… Until I read my name. And then, I recognized your handwriting."

But then, didn't that mean that Peyton already knew? Hadn't Brooke written all of her travel in this entry, including the part about the newspaper clip she had found on Peyton's death? Brooke lowered her eyes to the screen and swiped to the right, looking for the picture of the second page she had written that day. She didn't find it though; instead, she saw a picture of a set of paints that Peyton had spotted in her favorite store.

"Lucas came down, so I didn't get time to read it fully," Peyton explained, her voice slow and distant. "I snapped a picture and then placed it back in Mouth's pants." Brooke was at a loss for words. Why hadn't Peyton told her about reading the entry then? She hadn't mentioned it, not once! "I, um, I was wondering why you'd write something about me being dead, I thought maybe you were cooking up some kind of sick joke… But then I thought you'd never do that."

"I can't believe you found it," Brooke murmured. "He had to be wrong then!"

"Who?" Peyton asked, still in a daze.

"Lucas! I mean, the one in the future, he's the one who said that no matter how hard I tried to save you, I always –" Brooke fell silent; her eyes grew wide in fear and stared at Peyton, watching out for her reaction.

"Always what?" Peyton asked, her voice lowering to a murmur. "Fail?" she asked. Peyton's eyes were now wet, and Brooke could tell that she was struggling not to burst into tears. "So, um," – she cleared her throat – "I'm gonna die then?"

Peyton flinched when Brooke shouted alarmingly: "No!" Brooke closed the distance between them and grasped her hands. "No, you won't," she assured, her voice hardening, "because now that I'm here, we can change things!"

"B– But you just said that…"

"Forget about that!" Brooke cried, throwing her hands up. "He was wrong, he had to be! Maybe…" – she shook her head in disbelief – "I don't know maybe the Brooke he knows never got to travel to the past."

Peyton broke out of her trance. "Wait, what? The Brooke he knows?" she repeated, obviously confused.

Brooke was about to tell her that it didn't matter, that they should not focus on that right now, but she didn't; it did matter, because she had just revealed to Peyton that she was going to die. "Haley and Mouth would explain this better than me," Brooke said with a sigh. "It's like a loop. It all keeps happening over and over again, so the me in the future, the one that Future Lucas lives with, she's already gone through everything I'm going through right now."

"A loop," Peyton repeated, her eyebrows closing on each other.

"Yes."

"Always repeating itself," Peyton said, her voice trembling.

"Ye– No!" Brooke shouted. She knew Peyton so well that she could read her like a book, and in that exact moment, she knew what her best friend was thinking about. "No, not this time!" she insisted, her tone firm. "This time we can change things!"

Peyton slowly shook her head; tears were now rolling down her cheeks. "You've already tried."

"But I'm not done yet!"

"Brooke you –"

"No!" Brooke shouted, anger seeping through her voice. "Stop thinking that way! This," she said, pointing an accusing finger at Peyton, "this is exactly why I didn't tell you when you were ali–" Her voice strangled and she took a step back. She couldn't lose her temper now, she had to think clearly about this. "A– Around," she said, finishing her sentence. She knew she was on the verge of tears, but she couldn't afford to cry, not now. "I knew you'd say some bullshit like it's your fate or whatever, and that you'd…" Her voice trailed off as she read Peyton's face. "No, no, no, please don't do this," Brooke begged, shaking her head, "please just listen to me, you have to listen to me, because once I go back to the future, I" – she shook her head and corrected herself – "I mean, not me, but the Brooke from your time, she will wake up in this bedroom and find you gone, and she'll just think that she fell asleep and she won't know that we talked about this!" Brooke stopped rambling in order to catch her breath. "We can still change the future. All you have to do is to stay –"

"Don't!" Peyton cried. Her eyes were wet, yet fierce at the same time. "Don't say anything," she said, this time in a calmer tone.

Brooke felt as if her legs were about to give way beneath her. She took a step back and wondered if she had heard this right. "W– What?"

Peyton stared at her through pleading eyes. "I don't want to know anything, Brooke."

"B– But then how can we avoid it?"

Peyton's face fell; she wiped her tears with shaking hands and gave her a weak shrug. "From what you just said, there's no avoiding it."

Brooke fumbled on her words: "That's not what I… N– No, he had to be wrong! Why else would I be here?! Look, on the night of –"

"Brooke," Peyton said, glaring at her, "I'm serious, I don't want any details. If I can't avoid it, then what am I supposed to do with that kind of information?"

"What you're supposed to do?" Brooke repeated, distressed. "You're supposed to save yourself, that's what you're supposed to do!" Peyton crossed her arms against her chest and gazed away, her mouth turned into a frown. "Fine," she hissed, "do whatever you want! I'll just wait for my AVM to get bigger so that I can come back here over and over again until –" Brooke fell silent and froze when Peyton slowly shook her head in disagreement. Her blood was boiling now. "Do you have any idea of what the past month has been like for me?" she asked, clenching her fists. "Or for your dad?" Peyton's eyes were welling up. "Do you even care at all? I love you Peyton, and I'll always do whatever it takes to keep you alive." Even if that meant letting her AVM grow some more.

Peyton turned to her and sniffled. "Brooke…" she murmured, her voice cracking.

There was so much more Brooke wanted to say to her, to convince her to at least fight for her own life, but she found herself unable to: the tingle was back in her fingertips. She raised her hands to her eyes' level and clenched her fists. "No, not now," she whispered with despair. She broke down in tears, feeling once again helpless.

"Brooke!" Peyton cried, rushing to her side.

Brooke winced when the buzzing hit her ears and covered them with her hands. "I'm going back," she murmured before shutting her eyes tight when the headache kicked in. She staggered back, and when her knees bumped into the bed, she fell backwards, passing out just as she hit the mattress.

Her eyes snapped open; she could feel her back resting on the cold concrete of the River Court. Four familiar heads were looking down at her, all with the same concern plastered on their faces.

Brooke sat up slowly, holding her head in her hands; she let them drop at her sides when she realized that her head wasn't threatening to burst open anymore.

Haley was on her left, sitting cross-legged next to Nathan. She tilted her head at Brooke and asked, her voice soft: "Are you okay? Where did you go?"

Everything that had just happened flashed back into her mind. Brooke gasped, startling them all, and pressed a hand against her mouth to muffle her sobs; it didn't work, and soon enough she was bursting into tears in front of her distraught friends, hiding her face in her hands.

She heard several voices calling her name and asking her what was wrong, but she found herself unable to utter a single word.

Peyton had been there, right there in front of her, talking to her and… Why? Why hadn't she just listened?

A pair of arms wrapped around her; she stiffened but then immediately relaxed when she heard Lucas' voice whispering in her ear that he was right here. She uncovered her face and buried it in his neck, her arms circling him until her hands could grasp his t-shirt, desperately clinging onto it.

Haley whispered something about giving her some space, and after a few seconds of rustling around her, Brooke knew that she had been left alone with Lucas. She closed her eyes and tried to forget about her travel, and mostly about how powerless she had been. She tried to stop thinking about how, once again, she had failed, and instead tried to focus on the soothing, comforting words that Lucas kept whispering. She did manage to calm down eventually, after what seemed like an eternity, and when she did, the exhaustion that had built up in the past hours swept her up.

She hadn't realized she had fallen asleep until she opened her eyes again. For a few seconds, she wondered where she was: she was lying on her back, resting on something soft – a bed, surely. There was a source of light coming from her right: Lucas was sitting next to her, his legs spread out in front of him. The rabbit lamp was on, allowing him to read the leather journal.

He startled and turned to her when she sat up. He slowly put the journal down on his nightstand and cupped her face with his hands, examining it closely. "How are you feeling?"

"Lost." Brooke winced: her voice was painfully hoarse. "What am I – How did I get here?" She had been at the River Court for Peyton's wake, and then…

"You were sleeping soundly," Lucas explained, his thumb stroking her cheek, "you didn't even wake up when I carried you in here."

"I see," she quavered, making him tense up.

"What happened, Brooke? Did you, um…"

"Travel," she said with a nod. "Yes, but this time, I…" She could not believe what had happened. Had she dreamed it all? No, she hadn't, there was no way that she had imagined all that. "I went to the past." She looked up at Lucas, her eyes brimming with tears. Her voice came out as a whisper: "I saw her. I saw Peyton."

Lucas' mouth fell open. "I thought you only travelled to the future?"

"I thought so too," she replied with a sigh. "But this time was different?" Her eyes moved to his face; he clearly needed more time to let it all sink in. "I know how it sounds, that all of a sudden, I can do that and that I got to see Peyton, but… I swear to you, I'm not making this up, it's not a way for me to cope." If anything, it had quite the opposite effect on her mental health.

"I know." Lucas' face was mostly shadowed by the dim light coming from the lamp, so she had to squint to take a better look at him. He seemed and sounded genuine – no sign of the slightest doubt. How could that be? "When you fainted" – he shook his head – "I mean, um, traveled, Nathan lost it." This surprised Brooke, until she remembered that Nathan had never seen her travel – well, he had once, but he hadn't known back then what was truly happening. "But Haley and Mouth calmed him down, and I don't know, the way they talked about your travels and… I mean, there's no way you're all lying about this. The probability that you're actually travelling in time is much higher." He paused and gave her a cautious look. "So, um… You really saw her?"

Lucas was clearly afraid of her having another mental breakdown. "Yes," she whispered.

They stayed silent for a long moment, both of them needing some time to process all this. Lucas cleared his throat and asked: "Where were you?"

"In my bedroom. It was the Sunday after you won the championship. I woke up in my bedroom, and…" She closed her eyes, the image of Peyton casually walking in her room flashing in her mind. "There she was. She really was there," Brooke insisted, though she knew Lucas believed her – she needed to repeat it to herself. "I hugged her," she quavered. She gazed down at her trembling hands, and felt grateful when Lucas grasped and squeezed them. "I told her."

"Told her wha– Oh."

She could understand his surprise; she herself couldn't believe what had happened and what she had done. Had she made the right decision? "But I couldn't tell her the whole story, she wouldn't let me and…" She fought back her urge to cry. "What if I made things worse?" Her fingers dug into Lucas' skin, and if it hurt him, he showed no sign of it. "What if… I mean, she didn't come back to life, right? So…" She gasped in shock, wording out her thoughts as they came to her. "Oh god, that means she spent a whole month knowing she was gonna die! She must have been so scared and lonely and, and…"

She had to go back again. And again, and again, until she could fix this.

Lucas didn't know what to say, so instead he held her in his arms and cradled her head, waiting for her to fall back to sleep. She didn't want to, not after what had happened – she needed to stay awake and find a solution – but her body once again betrayed her and she did eventually doze off.

The next morning, after texting their friends, they all met in Mouth's attic. His mother was absent this time, but her pineapple pie was there waiting for them. None of them touched it, however; they were all much too busy listening to Brooke.

They always stayed silent whenever she recounted her travels, but this time felt different: it was as if they didn't even dare to move. They were all in apnea, waiting for her to stop talking.

When she did, Haley slowly crawled to her side and hugged her in silence. Mouth's initial shock had slightly faded, and he now looked lost in his thoughts. Nathan's face had never been this pale before. Lucas looked lost, but less than during the previous night: maybe if he kept hearing about her travels, he would get used to it.

While everyone was busy collecting their thoughts, Brooke's eyes landed on the white board. It had been covered with a dusty, grey sheet that she had never seen before. Mouth followed her gaze and with a sharp head movement, motioned to Lucas. Right, Future Lucas never seemed to know when she would show up, just as Future Mouth and Nathan had been surprised to meet her.

When her friends' stillness began to overwhelm her, Brooke cleared her throat, making all of their heads – apart from Nathan's – turn to her. "I, erm…" She didn't know what to say. "I'm not sure if I did the right thing. Or if I did enough." She gazed down at the pineapple cake on the coffee table. "Because now, Peyton knows that she's gonna die, but she doesn't know how or when, so she'll just keep thinking about it."

Mouth leaned toward the table, his elbows pressed against it. "Kept thinking," he corrected in a murmur. "If what happened changed things, then –"

"If?" Brooke repeated, her eyebrows raised. "I wasn't supposed to go to the past."

"We don't know that for sure," he retorted with caution. "Brooke, I know what you're thinking…" He paused hesitantly and after glancing at Haley, said: "That if you can travel again to the past, you'll change what happened, but maybe… Maybe Future Brooke also did the same things."

"That… No, it can't be." Brooke threw a quick look at Haley; her heart sunk when she read on her friend's face that she was sharing Mouth's thoughts. They both thought that it was still all part of the loop. "Come on, think about it, if I can go back just one more time, I can tell her everything. And it won't matter if she doesn't listen to me, I'll get her to listen."

"Brooke," Lucas said, thoughtful, "didn't you say that she didn't want to know?"

"I won't give her a choice," she retorted with a shrug. "I'll text her or whatever, I know I can find a way to force her to listen to me. We just need to find out how before I get to travel again and…" And then she could fix this.

Nathan finally looked away from the floor and stared at her, his brow furrowed. "Again?" he repeated.

"Well yeah, that way the next time I go there, I'll –"

"The next time?" Nathan's voice was hardening with each word. Brooke felt Haley stiffen next to her, but she kept her eyes on her childhood friend. "You said you'd go see your doctors if you ever travelled again!"

Brooke crossed her arms against her chest and stared back at him, her eyes darkening slightly. "That can wait a little."

"No, it can't!" Nathan retorted, his hands clenching the table. "That thing in your brain keeps growing!"

Brooke held back a sigh and tried to stay calm. "We don't know that."

"Then let's go to the hospital now and have another picture of your brain, and then we'll see!" Brooke was about to retort something, but stayed quiet, forced to admit to herself that he was right. "You all said it yourselves," Nathan added, his voice lowered, "that thing gives you seizures and makes you travel. And now all of a sudden you can go to the past too?" He glanced at their other friends before staring back at Brooke. "What the hell do you think it means, huh?"

"It means it's not too late to save Peyton!"

Nathan's shout startled them all: "She's dead, Brooke! We buried her! She's not coming back, but it's not too late for you to…" His voice trailed off when he noticed that she was close to tears. His anger immediately faded, and when he spoke again, his voice was filled with concern: "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to – Brooke, you have to accept that she's gone."

Brooke clenched her fists. "But I just saw her," she retorted, her voice hardening. Why didn't he get that? "I talked to her."

They both glowered silent silently at each other, waiting for the other one to admit that they were wrong. Mouth, who was sitting on her opposite side, cleared his throat to get their attention. "And, um, she believed you?" he asked tentatively.

Brooke turned to him. "She did, yeah. She had a picture of that entry I wrote on the school bus."

"Alright…" Mouth murmured with a thoughtful nod. "So, what happened after that?"

She raised an eyebrow at him. "Well, I woke up at the River Court and you were all there."

"No, I mean in the past. Was Peyton still there in your room when you woke up? Do you remember what happened before?"

Brooke gazed down at her lap, trying to recall that day. "I was working on my trig," she murmured, "and then I felt really tired… Peyton was gone when I woke up, she had texted about something going on at the Post and how she had to get there quickly."

"And after that?"

"Nothing," Brooke said with a shrug, "nothing out of the –"

"She got sick," Nathan said in a murmur, making them all turn to him. He still looked upset, but Brooke could tell that he was mostly mad at himself. "She didn't come to school for four days straight."

"Didn't she say that she had the flu?" Haley asked.

"That's right," Brooke murmured with a nod. "She knew," she breathed out, her eyes growing with shock. "She had to…" Which meant that by going to the past, Brooke hadn't changed a single thing; Peyton had always known. She looked at Haley and Mouth, memories of their future meeting popping up into her mind. "You guys – I mean, your future selves, they said I'd stop travelling eventually, after our senior year… Maybe that's why I never managed to save Peyton. If I get the surgery right now, I'll stop travelling, but if I can postpone it just for a little bit then… I mean, it's just one more travel."

"So no one's gonna say anything?" Nathan asked, his anger once again rising. His eyes travelled to their friends until they landed on Brooke. "Peyton already knew, alright, and it didn't change anything! Even if you go back again, you'll…" When he noticed Brooke's resolved face, he sighed in defeat. "You're really willing to risk your life –"

Brooke snorted, which made him glare at her. "I'm fine Nate, I –"

"You have a ticking time-bomb in your brain, so no, you're not fine, Brooke," he said, clearly struggling not to shout again, "and you need to get it fixed." He shook his head at her and shifted to stand up. "I can't stay here and keep listening to you fooling yourself."

No one tried to stop him when he stormed out – they all knew it was too risky to even try talking to him right now. Haley sighed, prompting Brooke to turn to her. "Do you agree with him?" Brooke asked her.

"Well, I wouldn't exactly put it the way he did," Haley admitted hesitantly, "but, um… I think it's only natural that you would be so hopeful after meeting Peyton one more time, and that you want to give it another try to save her. But…" her voice trailed off, and she looked like she had no idea how to end her sentence.

Mouth seemed like he did: "Even if it all just happened to you," he said with concern, "it still happened in the past. I mean, Peyton knew for a whole month, and if she had wanted to know more about her death, then she would have definitely come to you, right?"

And yet she hadn't; not once. She had never mentioned anything about – "Wait a second, my mom said something once," Brooke murmured. "That Peyton kept asking her if I was fine, if I was talking about headaches or nausea…" She shared a look with Lucas. "And Larry said that she had kept calling him almost every day. And all the things she did, I mean the paragliding, and the concerts, and the surfing lessons…"

They all stared silently at each other, stunned by the realization that all this time, Peyton had known that she was going to die.

Brooke glanced down at her lap, feeling nauseous. How awful it would be, if that was it, if she couldn't do more than this. Peyton had known for a whole month that she was condemned, and that she couldn't do anything about it…

She felt torn: if she could travel back one more time, then it all wouldn't have been for nothing, but if she couldn't… Then that would be it. This couldn't possibly be the last conversation she would ever have with Peyton. It just couldn't.

They didn't speak much after that: there wasn't a lot left to say. Haley and Mouth did say that although they couldn't tell her what to do, and although they understood why she felt conflicted about all this, she should really take her time and consider having her surgery soon; after all, didn't it get worse every time she travelled? Haley told her that Nathan had been worried sick after she had passed out: he had never seen Brooke in so much pain before.

Lucas stayed quiet in the attic, but once they were back in Keith's truck, he shared his thoughts with Brooke when she asked him if he agreed with their friends.

"I'm not sure what to think of all this," he admitted. Blinded by the sunlight, he squinted at the road before briefly glancing at her. "Or how I can help you. I'm definitely still confused about everything, but…"

"But?" she asked when he left his words hanging.

"I think Nathan has some very serious reasons to get this worked up. Haley told me that he's been doing a lot of reading on AVMs."

Brooke raised an eyebrow at him. "He has?"

"Yeah," Lucas replied with a nod. "It's not that surprising, though… He just lost one of his best friends in a car accident that was provoked by Dan. He's still blaming himself about that," – he sighed and shook his head in dismay – "so, if anything happened to you too, I don't think he would ever forgive himself."

Brooke knew that feeling; she had been crushed by it for the past three weeks. Did she want Nathan to feel the same way about her? No, of course not. But things weren't that simple.

Peyton was dead; buried, as he had put it. But now, she wasn't anymore. Not in the past. Seeing her again seemed to erase everything that had happened in the past month.

She didn't know if there was still a way to save Peyton and prevent all the suffering that had come with her death, but if there was, then removing her AVM would shatter any hope she had left.

Part of her did acknowledge that Haley and Mouth must have been right, that Future Brooke had gone through the exact same things in her own past… But even if she couldn't change the past, even if she couldn't save Peyton, if she could travel just one more time to the past, then she could speak to Peyton again, even for just a few minutes. She could get more precious moments with her best friend.

Brooke spent the rest of the day cooped up in her room, constantly replaying the past few hours in her mind. Lucas offered to stay with her after dropping her off, but she told him that she'd rather stay alone for now. He didn't seem vexed by her answer, and instead made her promise to call him if she needed anything.

Unfortunately, he couldn't give to her what she needed right now; no one could. What she needed was to be able to think clearly about everything that had happened, but how was she supposed to do that?

"Have you decided yet?"

Brooke lifted her head to look at her mother, who was sitting across from her at the dinner table. She remained silent, waiting for her mother to elaborate; she knew that Victoria had noticed that something was up. The day before, after Lucas had dropped Brooke off, she had asked Brooke if she was fine, and Brooke had blatantly lied to her mother's face. But now that she had spent another day in a lethargic state, Victoria had apparently decided to speak her mind.

"Your father's flight tickets," Victoria explained. "I think it's a great idea." Brooke shrugged and gazed down at her plate, playing with a couple of peas with her fork. "You should at least consider it."

"I… I'm not so sure about that," Brooke murmured with a frown. Her eyes shifted to her mother's puzzled face. "It was Peyton's plan."

Victoria let out a long, tired sigh and slowly shook her head. "You can't do that. You have to live your life, to…" She paused with much hesitation. "To move on."

Brooke's eyes darkened immediately. "I can't forget about Peyton," she replied, her hand tightening around her fork.

"And you shouldn't, that's not what moving on means." Victoria leaned back in her chair and gazed at her with soft eyes. "It means that you accept that the person you lost is gone, and that you'll keep on living without them. You'll always think about Peyton, but that's what grieving is about, it helps you not to fall apart when you do. It makes you remember her fondly. But mostly, it prevents you from being scared or ashamed to go on without her." Somehow, and although she did not know about the travels, Victoria had figured her daughter out. "I was waiting to see how things go before telling you this…" She paused and examined Brooke's face for a moment. "I think you have survivor's guilt. You speak about Peyton like… Like you should have saved her. But it was an accident, Brooke, and like every other accident, it happened due to a series of events that can't be undone."

Brooke didn't know how to answer. Yes, she did feel guilty.

She was guilty. Guilty of failing. And now that she had learned that Peyton had known about her death, her guilt had grown much bigger and seemed to constantly hang onto her shoulders.

And what about Peyton? How had she felt during her last weeks? What had been her thoughts on Brooke? Had she hated her for telling her the truth and ruining her last month on Earth?

Brooke went through her memories of these weeks, over and over again, and kept reading the last pages of her journal, searching for any sign of animosity in Peyton's behavior – in vain. Peyton had not shown a single hint of anger or resentment toward her.

When Haley texted her the next morning and suggested that she should come over to the Café, Brooke thought that it could indeed be a good idea; she knew for sure that Haley wouldn't force her into a decision. She almost turned around and went home when she saw that Haley was sitting at a table and talking to Nathan.

When they both saw her coming in, Haley got to her feet and after sending Brooke an apologetic look, she hurried off to the kitchen. Brooke stayed still on the Café's threshold and stared at Nathan, who looked like he had no idea what to do.

She glanced over her shoulder at the door and pondered on leaving right away; although she understood why Nathan was angry, she wasn't in the mood to deal with him, not if he was about to shout at her once again.

He did look much calmer than the last time they had met – sheepish, even. When she still didn't budge from her spot, he gave her a timid wave, inviting her to take the seat across from him.

Brooke held back a sigh and slowly made her way to his table. She stared back at him and crossed her arms against her chest, waiting for him to say something.

Nathan cleared his throat: "I figured you wouldn't come if I asked you to." His fingers were fidgeting nervously. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have talked to you like that."

She sighed and frowned at him. "I get that you're angry, I do, but you can't just keep yelling at me whenever I say something you don't agree with."

"I'm not angry," he replied, shaking his head, "I mean, not at you."

Her shoulders relaxed. "Nate, what happened to Peyton wasn't your fault. You're not responsible for Dan's actions."

"I know that. I just wish I had seen it coming, I know I couldn't, but I can't help it." He glanced at the clients surrounding them, leaned over the table to get closer to her, and lowered his voice. "I couldn't do anything about Peyton, but with you… You didn't hear yourself when you passed out, but I did, and I get chills just remembering your scream. You looked like you were being tortured."

This actually was an accurate description of how it had felt, but Brooke decided to keep that to herself; she didn't need to fuel Nathan's worry any further. "I haven't made my decision. I know you all want to me to have the surgery as soon as possible, but…" Her eyes lowered to her lap as they filled with tears. "You don't know what it was like, Nate," she breathed out, her voice trembling. "I know she's dead, but she was there, right in front of me, breathing and speaking and, and… I can still feel her," she murmured, staring at her hands. "Nothing made sense before, and now it's even worse." She glanced up at Nathan and sighed. "I know I'm being reckless, but it's like you said, I can't help it."

They stayed silent for a moment; Brooke knew that Nathan was staring at her, but she kept looking away at the clients sitting around them. There was one girl sitting on her own and reading a book, and four people having drinks together. Haley appeared from behind the counter and went to the red-haired girl to ask her if she needed anything else. After taking her order, Haley shifted to the counter, and on her way, threw a brief glance at Brooke – relief immediately crossed her face.

"At what time will you get there tomorrow?"

Brooke turned to Nathan and sent him a puzzled look. Her face fell when she realized what he was asking about – she had completely forgotten about giving Larry a hand with Peyton's belongings. "Larry said something about early afternoon," she murmured. When Larry had asked her, she hadn't hesitated for a second before accepting to come, even if she had known that it would be hard to go through Peyton's stuff; but now that she had seen her again, things were different…

"It's okay," Nathan said, "I'll be with you."

Her lips curled up into a faint, grateful smile.

Brooke had not stepped inside Peyton's house since the accident, and although it was still full of her things, it felt completely hollow now that Peyton was gone. When they arrived at the house, Larry welcomed them – Brooke knew right away that he had been crying. He told them that he was dealing with the living room and the kitchen, and that they could go to her bedroom.

Peyton's scent was still lingering in the air; her bed was slightly undone and her make up was still scattered on her nightstand. Nathan and Brooke both stared at the three cardboard boxes that Larry had placed on the bed, each labeled Donate, Throw away, and Keep. Larry hadn't given them a lot of instructions; he had simply told them that he wanted to keep any item that truly mattered to Peyton, and that they could do the same too if they wanted to.

Brooke's first thought was that she didn't want to keep anything, not if it meant crying every time her eyes landed on it. But when she started going through Peyton's furniture and pulling out her drawings one by one, she did think that she could keep a thing or two. She scanned the floor until she found an empty shoe box and carefully placed the drawing in it. It wasn't until she had taken a few pictures and Ellie's bracelet that she realized that she had already seen this very same memory box, back in the future.

Nathan's presence helped her a lot; there was no way that she could have done this on her own without breaking into sobs every ten minutes. He too decided to keep a few things: a dozen of pictures, and a few records that he knew Peyton had been fond of, despite never listening himself to this kind of music.

Brooke was almost done emptying Peyton's dresser when she saw that there was still a t-shirt lingering in the bottom drawer. It was the Tric t-shirt she had sewn herself last Christmas. She got down on her knees and grazed it, her eyes travelling from the shoebox to the donation box. When she made up her mind, she grabbed it and right before she could place it in the shoebox, startled when something fell out of it. She glanced at the floor and slowly put the t-shirt away; her hand reached out for the USB-key that had fallen from it. It was a simple, black USB-key, with a tiny white paper taped onto it. She froze and blinked at it, her heartbeat quickening when she read what was written on the USB-key.

Nathan was almost done sorting out the records; he was leaning over the donation box when he noticed that she had stopped moving. "Brooke?" he called, a hint of worry in his voice. "Brooke, what's –" She raised her hand in the air, showing him what she was holding. He seemed puzzled by her sudden shocked reaction. "What's wrong with that key?"

"My name's on it," she said, her voice hoarse.

His mouth fell open and he rushed to her side. "Wait, what?" he asked, kneeling next to her. His eyes landed on the USB-key and on Brooke's name that was written in Peyton's handwriting.

Peyton's computer had already been packed away by Larry, so they had no immediate way to know what was on this key. Fortunately, they were almost done sorting out the bedroom; after another hour of helping out in the rest of the house, Larry thanked them with a warm hug and told them that they were free to go. They did hesitate before leaving, wondering if they should spend the evening with Larry, but he told them not to worry about him and promised that they would have dinner together in a few days, before he left town.

Nathan had texted their friends about the mysterious USB-key, so they were already waiting for them at his place when they reached it. Deb was out that night, which meant that they wouldn't be interrupted.

Brooke sat on the couch between Lucas and Haley, and threw a nervous glance at Mouth, who was sitting on the floor, at Haley's feet. Like the rest of them, he was also confused by what this could be. They all waited quietly until Nathan came back from upstairs with his laptop and placed it on the coffee table in front of them. He sat on the couch arm next to Haley and extended his arm until he could plug in the USB key.

There was only one file on it: a video named 0

After a click, a video popped up on the computer screen. The image was zoomed on someone's face, so that they could only see their chin, but Brooke knew already who they were about to see; and soon enough, the image trembled a bit before zooming out and stabilizing on Peyton's face.

"Hey Brooke," Peyton said with a faint smile.

Brooke sprung on her feet and slammed the laptop's screen, startling her friends. Well, they weren't stunned just by her reaction, but also because they hadn't heard Peyton's voice in a while. Before anyone could say anything, she rushed out of the living room, her feet moving on her own until she found a place where she could be alone. She shut the kitchen door behind her and leaned over the kitchen top, her fingers clutching it tightly until it almost hurt. Her eyes were brimming with tears, once again, and her breathing was starting to hitch.

She heard the door open but didn't turn around and instead shut her eyes tight. She knew within the first two steps she heard that it was Lucas who was walking toward her; he stopped right behind her, pressed his hands on her shoulders, and rested his chin on the top of her head.

"I can't," she quavered, her tears rolling on her cheeks. "I can't do this."

He let out a small sigh and kissed her hair. "Yes, you can."

She sniffled and shook her head sharply. "No, no way. What if…" She turned around to face him. "What if she tells me that she hates me? T– That I ruined her life?"

Lucas pulled her into his arms and cradled her hair. "I have no idea what's on this video. And from everything I learned recently, anything, and I mean anything is possible, including her explaining that she's from another planet." Brooke snorted at that. "But the one thing I am sure of is that she won't say that she hates you. Would you hate her, if the roles were reversed?"

"W– Well, no, but…" Lucas was right, she wouldn't.

Brooke took a minute to clean up her face and when she felt ready, they went back to the couch. None of her friends made any comment, and they all waited until she clicked herself on the play button.

Peyton's frozen face started moving again.

"Hey Brooke." Peyton looked thoughtful and added: "And, um, I guess Mouth and Haley too?" Haley gasped next to Brooke and clenched her hand. "I don't think Nate or Lucas or anyone else knows about this, because you three have been the only ones acting weird lately." Brooke shared a knowing look with Haley and Mouth; yes, the three of them had spent countless nights without getting much sleep. Peyton's voice caught their attention: "I was wondering what was up with you guys, but now I get it… I think. I'm not sure I really do, I'm sure I'm missing a lot of details here, but I do understand that I'm going to…" her voice trailed off and her eyes drifted away from the screen. Peyton's jaw tightened for a second, before she started speaking again in a shaky voice: "To die. Well, sooner that I thought I would." Peyton's eyes were getting wet, but she was ignoring it and kept staring at the screen – at them. "I still haven't gotten used to that idea, and I don't think I will. I just spent three whole days locked in my room, trying to make some sense out of all this, and it's been hard." She paused and cleared her throat. "Really hard. Hey, at least I'm past the crying phase… probably," she admitted, before wiping her cheeks with her hand. "It's just, you know, hard to grasp, the idea that I'm dying soon… Though I'm not exactly sure that it's gonna happen very soon, but I keep replaying our conversation in my head, Brooke, and how alarmed and shocked and you were… So, it's only a wild guess, but I do think that it won't take long. That's why I'm making this video, in case it does." She chuckled at herself and shook her head. "Technically, this is my fourth try, so I'll do my best to say this without fumbling."

Brooke leaned forward and squinted at the screen to get a better look at the paper lying on Peyton's lap. It must have been her notes.

"It wasn't easy sorting out my thoughts," Peyton said with a slight frown, "but that's all I've been doing in here." She briefly glanced at her lap before looking back at the camera. "Brooke, you said something about always trying to save me and never managing to do so, and I think I know what it means," – Brooke frowned at the screen – "but don't be mad at me just because we think differently on this. You said so yourself, you've tried. I know for a fact that there are some things that we just can't prevent from happening. When I…" She looked away for a second. "When I lost my mother, and then Ellie, I was… I was crushed, and mad at everything because of how unfair it all seemed to me. Do you see? I know exactly how you must be feeling right now. But then, with time, I also realized that some things are just supposed to happen, and that not everything is supposed to mean something. When my mother died, and then when Ellie died, there was absolutely no point to it, it just happened." Her eyes moved to her lap once again and she sighed. "I'm not sure I got this part right, but you said something about having an AVM and how that made you, well, um… time-travel. And knowing you, Brooke, you'll never stop trying to help me, no matter what other people tell you." Peyton's eyes hardened and her voice got steadier. "But I am asking you, Brooke, to stop trying. You've done your best, I'm sure you have, and you can't ruin your health for my sake, or anyone else's. You tried, but I'm still…" She paused for a second and looked like she was searching for the right word. "I'm still gone, and that's okay," she said, her voice cracking. "Do I wish I had more time to go to college and build myself a career and maybe someday a family? Sure, I do, but it seems like I won't be able to, but that's okay. I mean, no," she added with tears in her eyes, "it's not okay at all, but that's just how it is." Brooke sniffled and wiped her own tears. "In the mean, I'll do everything I can to enjoy every day I have left." Peyton's lips formed a faint smile. "You know, Brooke, it's kind of a miracle that you got this… I don't how I'm supposed to call this, but this, um, ability. If you hadn't, then I would have never learned about this, but now that I know, well I'll make the most out of it until I'm gone. And when I am gone, I don't want you to be stuck in the past." Peyton sighed and closed her eyes. "I remember how I felt when Ellie died, how I would have traded anything just to be able to see her again, just one more time… But that's not how life works, and we both know it. People come and go. Always have, always will." She shrugged and added: "I mean, if we weren't all supposed to die one day, how could our lives even matter?" She sighed and leaned back on her chair. "So, I wanted to say thank you to you guys for what you've tried to do for me, and what you're still trying to do. I know you did your best, and that means the world to me." Haley pressed a hand against her mouth, trying to muffle her sobs. Peyton cleared her throat and glanced down at the paper on her lap. "Now, um, I have a few requests for you. I need you to keep an eye on my dad, because" – Peyton bit her lip, the same way she always used to when they were kids, and she was trying to hold back her tears – "he'll probably feel very lonely for a while." Haley couldn't suppress her sobs anymore, and neither could Brooke. "But I'm sure he'll get better, you all will. Haley, I want you to keep an eye on Nate too, because even though he matured a lot in the past year, he can still act like a complete fool sometimes." Nathan let out a faint chuckle. "Brooke, I don't know if you'll show this to Lucas or tell him, but I assume you will someday, and if you do, I want him to know that if he ever hurts you, I will gladly haunt his ass down. And finally…" Peyton took a deep breath and raised her eyes to the camera level, as if she was looking straight at them. "I need you all to do something for me. I need you to live and to enjoy your days to the fullest, just like I'm gonna do for however long I have left. Who knows, maybe we'll get to see each other again someday… The later the better."

Peyton gave one last lopsided smile, before the screen turned to black.


This is it. Well, almost: I still have an epilogue to write.

I hope you have enjoyed this chapter, it hasn't been easy to write... But it feels good to finish it. I think you got most of your questions answered with this, and if there are still a few left, don't hesitate to ask about it, but I still have some answers to give you in the epilogue.

I'll try to have it done by the second week of September.

Thank you again for your kind reviews and messages, it truly means a lot to me. I'm both excited and sad to finish writing this story, and I really want to thank you for reading this chapter, so long after I posted the first one.