23
By Grace (purplemud)
Pairing: Naley and a bit of Leyton and Brucas
Summary: Nathan Scott is done playing basketball. In fact, if he's going to be honest about it, he's done with living. But one funeral just might change that. AU. Totally.
Warning: Character death. Strong language. Some sexual content in the future. Maybe.
Author's note: I am so sorry for it took me such a long time to update. I had gotten slightly out of touch with the story and ugh, was feeling bad for all the angst. Anyway, there would be more angst (sorry) to come. Feedback is much, much appreciated.
Disclaimers: Standard disclaimers apply. Me don't own. Borrowing the journal idea from The Beginning (OTH novelization). Please don't sue.
Nine
Cotton white clouds drift overhead, silent, slow and dream-like. It's a lazy summer day and Nathan changes his mind about today being just beautiful. It's gorgeous. The kind where you're supposed to be looking up and thanking the heavens for everything that you have. Like being alive. He's not sure if he can do that right now, especially since he's currently on his way to stand over his brother's grave.
His brother's grave. It's so… wrong. To be thinking of it, to be saying that phrase out loud. It feels like his brain has accepted it, but other parts of him hasn't yet. Like his conscience, for one thing.
Nathan takes long strides, his leg muscles stretching and aching as he walked up over a hill. He had asked the guard by the gate where Lucas was buried and even the guard knew Lucas.
"Poor kid. Everyone liked him. Just not right, you know? Dying so young and all."
Looks as though everyone's general consensus about death is it's only a tragedy if you're haven't gotten past thirty. Or at least had not yet fathered two sons or divorced a wife, had gone to places, had tasted power and success. That sort of thing. If that's the case, he didn't want to die like this, like a tragedy. He's going to start living his life. Really living it. Nathan feels like he's on the verge of figuring out just how to do it and maybe, in a way, Lucas kind of helped him get to this point.
Nathan has heard about this sort of thing happening: people going through their lives, everything becoming just one tedious day after another and then all of a sudden, you wake up and finally realize that life is precious – all those numerous cheesy clichés his parent's marriage counselor used to throw at them during the few counseling sessions that he was required to attend. He'd always secretly and sometimes not so secretly sneered at those. He never believed in them but today, right now, he's determined to change that.
He's not going to be a sad, sorry lost little boy with a dead father and brother. He's going to be better than that and hopefully it would mean that he had lived a life that wasn't a complete let down to what his father had wanted from him. That he had lived a life somewhere closer to what Lucas might have had if he hadn't gotten into that car and died so suddenly.
Nathan feels that this just might be his last second chance and so he's going to do everything he can to get past all these. Make peace with everyone: his dad, his mom, Lucas. Maybe then he'd be able to forgive and forget. Maybe then he could wake up in the morning and feel like he deserves to be here, to be alive.
Taking a deep breath, he stops at the foot of the hill, eyes scanning the place. It's exactly how the guard had described it to him. It's not like he'd missed it anyhow. There are about a hundred flowers surrounding Lucas's grave and probably a thousand crushed petals still lying on the ground. It's a typical sight. He remembers walking away from his father's own grave, looking back and seeing the same thing. What surprises him is the lone figure standing over the newly placed headstone. No one stayed behind at his father's grave when it was time to go home. Everyone arm in arm, eyes still wet and stinging with tears. In black droves, they all walked away from Dan Scott.
Nathan walks closer, his shoes leaving imprints against the soft dark earth. A light breeze dances between him and the girl standing by Lucas's grave, her black dress gently fluttering with the wind. She makes a solemn picture, standing so very still, like an angel of sorrow. He doesn't make a sound, at least as far as he knows but the girl slowly turns her head around and raises her eyebrows at him.
"Hey, babe, can I help you with something?" Her voice is husky and broken. The kind, if she hadn't been crying since God knows when, would sound sultry even if she doesn't want it to sound that way. She has her arms tightly wrapped around herself, like she's trying to keep herself warm even though it's practically the height of summer.
Nathan takes a small step back as he finds himself staring at a widow's face. He'd seen that expression before. From his mom the day she told him his dad had died at the hospital. Broken, stoic, pale, tear-streaked, even the faded-red painted lips is startlingly the same. His eyes wanders over to the headstone and sure enough, there's a mark of a last farewell kiss on the smooth gray-white marble bearing Lucas's name, date of birth, date of death.
"Babe, you know, I'd really like to be alone." She tells him carefully, as though trying not to offend him but her tone clearly says that she's about to lose her patience. She turns her face away, bows it a little, her eyes focusing on Lucas' headstone. "You can come again some other time, but today it's just me and Luke, okay?"
Nathan mumbles an apology. He hadn't meant to interfere. He takes a deep breath, looks around, thinks about where else Haley could be. He has no idea where to start looking for her. Oak Lake is a big town and he's more than likely to spend the whole afternoon driving around, completely, totally lost. He didn't want to go back to the café. He didn't want to intrude again on his Uncle Keith and Karen's grief. He glances back at the girl who seemed to have forgotten that he's still there.
He makes up his mind. He isn't leaving Oak Lake, not just yet. Not without seeing Haley. "I'm sorry, excuse me, I just…ugh," he stammers a little, clears his throat and straightens his shoulder. "I'm looking for Haley."
The girl visibly stiffens, like he had just shot her or something. She twists her neck towards him, eyes searching his face. Nathan meets her gaze, frowning a little. He starts to wonder where he had seen her before. He feels a nagging sense of…something familiar, just by looking at her.
A few seconds later, the girl mirrors his frown, scowls darkly at him and then in an unmistakable cold voice, she says: "Broody's Tutor Girl."
"What?" He asks, confused at the sudden display of hostility.
"She's not here." The tone is dismissive and so is the hand gesture that followed. She focuses her attention back to Lucas' grave, clearly expecting that the next time she turns around, she wouldn't find him there.
It hits Nathan. She was the same girl Peyton had been talking to right after they had taken Lucas's coffin out of the chapel. The angry girl. Nathan isn't going to let some angry chick get in the way of finding Haley. Something tells him that she knows where Haley is. "Would you know where-"
With a heavy sigh, the girl drops her arms, does a graceful half-pirouette and pins him with her stare. "You're Nathan aren't you?"
Nathan feels as though he's been sucker punched, suddenly stripped off the mask that he's been wearing all these time. He didn't know how it's possible that this girl – and not just any other girl, but a girl standing by Lucas's grave – would know who he is. "I don't…" he starts off, going through the murky memories of his past, trying to place a name on her face, but coming up empty.
"Nathan Scott." The girl declares and then adds with conviction, "Lucas's younger half-brother." Narrowing her eyes, that were glittering not with tears but with anger, she whispers through gritted teeth, "I know all about you."
Utterly confused, Nathan shakes his head, forgets to deny the unvoiced accusation of cruelty or any of the sins he had committed in the past, instead, he asks in a slightly shaking voice. "I... have we met before?"
The girl snorts out loud, shakes her head. "No, I don't think so. I stayed in Tree Hill for a whole summer with my mom before junior high but then I got shipped to LA to live with my dad. It's a custody thing."
"I never...I don't," Nathan pauses, takes a deep breath, not wanting to offend her any more than he already had. "I don't remember you." He tells her sincerely, almost apologetically, even though it can't be helped that he didn't know her. For one thing, he didn't have so many friends growing up. He lived in a kind of bubble. It has to be expected of him. After all, if you think about it, basketball – high school, college, even professional – it really is a small world. Nathan's whole life encompassed only two things: playing and winning. And the truth was, in all the four years he played high school basketball, there was no real relationship ever built. It was more of a hierarchy, really. His father at the top, then his coach, then his teammates, then the cheerleaders who'd hang out with them – which included his girlfriend of the month and all the rest were outsiders. People who didn't belong to the world of playing and winning. Small world, all inside the bubble.
And anyway, she had only stayed in Tree Hill for a month. There is no way he could've known her. But she would definitely have known him. And how he's connected with Lucas.
"Brooke Davis." She states, the anger in her voice still present. "And I remember you."
"Why, cause I was jerk to you?" Nathan can't help the defensive tone in his voice. Can't help but feel as though he's being treated so unfairly over something he had done in high school. "Or was it because I didn't pay you any attention?"
"Oh my God." Brooke rolls her eyes, chuckling a little. "Wow, you're still the same self-absorbed bastard, aren't you?" She gives him a cold, long hard look. "Unfortunately, I didn't stay in Tree Hill long enough to be brushed aside by the cool, popular kids." The sarcasm cuts through her sugary voice. "And it wasn't something that you did to me. It was something you did to someone I love."
The silence surrounding them seems to have answered the question: who? And Nathan couldn't deny the truth of that statement. He had been a complete bastard to Lucas and maybe, that sort of thing, you do carry it with you all the time. Even if it had been years ago, every taunt must have still felt like fresh wounds. And he understands, really he does, why Brooke could still be so mad at him. He hangs his head low, mutters apologies that wouldn't mean anything. Excuses like: I was a kid back then. I didn't know any better. Because those weren't excuses, they were lies. He had known better. He just didn't do what was right.
"What are you doing here anyway?" Brooke asks after a few seconds, not bothering to hide her dismayed tone. She seems awfully offended by Nathan's mere presence.
Nathan shoves his hand inside his jeans, clutches his hand in tight fists. Question of the day. He wishes he can easily answer that but there is no one, simple neat little answer. "I heard about what Lucas-"
Brooke quirks her eyebrows up."Yeah? From who?" She asks the question bitingly, giving him a suspicious glare. "Didn't know you and Luke had a common friend." Her delicate eyebrows furrows together in a frown as she takes a small step closer towards Nathan, sneering into his face. "Didn't you call Lucas bastard all the time?"
Nathan snaps his head, glares at Brooke. "I never called him that."
"Oh, right, you let your friends call him that." Her voice is heinously sweet. She purses her lips and slants her eyes. "And by the way, you should stay the hell away from Haley. She doesn't need another Damien West." The way she says West's name, it was as though he was nothing but dirt, had done nothing but hurt Haley in the worst possible way.
Nathan feels the heat rushing from his chest to his scalp. It stings and burns and through tightly gritted teeth, he barely makes out, "I am nothing like West."
Brooke smiles sadly at him, a look of pity cutting through her features. "You are Nathan. You're exactly like him. If not worst. Can't fight who you are, Scott."
Nathan feels his jaws working as he bites his tongue for the retort he keeps locked inside his head. He knows that she's trying to be cruel. Her voice is wavering, probably from trying to keep herself from crying and he could almost sympathize with her. He remembers how he had lashed out at anyone who tried to talk to him after his father's death. It must be some sort of grief-reflex. Like a knee-jerk reaction. She's probably feeling the way he had been feeling the day they buried his father. Angry at Lucas, for dying out on her. But then, you aren't supposed to be angry with the dead, so you turn that anger towards yourself.
Or at least that was what his mother's hired grief-counselor had told him. He didn't really need someone with a degree on psychology from some pansy-assed, ivy-league school to tell him that. Of course he was furious with his father. He wasn't supposed to die. Nathan was used to having his father throw their lives upside down but this was a new low, even for Dan Scott. And yeah, he was beyond angry with himself, because he feels as though he had been cheated out of something.
The last time he saw his father, Dan had been bitching about how Nathan had unceremoniously announced to the world that he was seriously considering the offer from San Antonio to play for the Spurs. His father had been livid.
"The plan was Boston, Nathan. Not Texas. Go get a map son; they're not even in the same time zone. I can't imagine how you can confuse one from the other."
But Nathan wasn't confused. And he sure as hell knew about the plan, since everything had been mapped out for him the day his first shot made the basket. But it was his father's plan, it wasn't his and dammit, he wanted to makes decisions for himself. It was his life. He wasn't a little boy anymore, for God's sake. And okay, San Antonio may be the wrong, impulsive choice, but it seemed far enough from Tree Hill. He knew his father - Dan wasn't going to uproot his whole life for his son. It was the escape route he had been looking for. He figured his dad would throw a fit, skulk about it but in the end he would just have to respect and accept his choices.
He had been a little too optimistic about that. His mistake.
"You play for Boston or you don't play at all."
"And what is that supposed to mean?"
"Are you sure you really want to find out, Nathan?"
"You know what dad, this is my life and I'm going to live it that way I want to. Away from you."
His father had muttered something about picking the wrong son and that had set Nathan's temper off. "Wow, I feel the same thing. Look at that, there's actually something we can both agree on. I wish you had just packed your bags and left college to go be with your high school sweetheart, that way, you could've ruined someone else's life."
"Is that how you feel, Nathan, that I've ruined your life?"
"Yeah, pretty much."
And those were the last three words he had told his father.
It really was a typical father and son conversation, the kind he and his father was known for and it would have been just that if only his father hadn't died so suddenly. The truth is, Nathan had said things more cruel than that, but still… he wishes there was a way to take those words back. He hadn't meant it.
Nathan shakes his head, clearing his mind off the memory. He heaves a heavy sigh as he switches his attention back to the present. Back to Brooke. "You can be mad at me all you want for the way I treated Lucas but you don't know me. You don't have any right to tell me that." He meets Brooke's defiant glare and in a lowered, gentle voice he adds, "I'm sorry about what happened." And without waiting for a response, he turns his head and briskly walks away.
"Wait, wait!" Brooke calls from behind him. Turning his head, Nathan watches as she half-jogs, half-stumbles over to him, her high heeled shoes making small puncture wounds against the slightly damp earth.
Wet from tears? Nathan isn't quick to dismiss the idea, especially after seeing the many mourners who had come to his brother's wake. Brooke stumbles in front of him and Nathan is quick to grab her elbow, pulling her up. This close, the rich scent of something cloyingly sweet and definitely something alcoholic fills his nostrils. It takes him a second or two to identify the smell: whiskey.
Nathan feels his eyebrows rising. "You shouldn't be drinking." He tells her as he helps her up, steady on her feet. She didn't seem drunk minutes ago. Nathan peers into her eyes and is a little relieved to find them clear and alert.
Brooke frowns and looks up at him, blinking. "Really?" She asks in the same sarcastic tone.
Nathan doesn't answer. It there is one event people are excused from drinking, it's a funeral. There are a lot of ways to drown out sorrow and numb away the pain – but none as popular or as easy as with a bottle filled with your poison of choice. Besides, he had drunk himself practically into a comatose when his father died, who was he to tell Brooke what to do?
Brooke finally sighs, dropping the callous tone. "I know. Lucas doesn't like it either. When I drink, that is." She places a hand against her forehead, her black nail polish matching her somber, angry mood. "Hell, I don't like it either."
Nathan shoves his hands inside his pocket, unsure of where this conversation would lead. He's eager to get going and find Haley. But he can't just leave yet. He thinks it's just heartless to leave Brooke out here, even though she had asked just minutes ago to be left alone. No one wants to be left alone in a cemetery. "So why do you?" He asks, tilting his head, trying to figure her out – another piece of the puzzle in his brother's life.
"'Cause, I dunno, it helps a little." She bends her head down, her hands groping inside her small purse, plucking out a familiar looking silver flask. Brooke wordlessly stares at it before turning her attention back to him, offering him the drink, a small tentative smile curling up her lips.
It's an apology of sorts, Nathan guesses and he hesitates for only a fraction of a second before taking it from her proffered hands. He lifts the flask in a silent, solemn salute, eyes locked on Lucas's headstone. He takes a huge swig, tastes the all too familiar sour-mesh of whiskey with a splash of seltzer. God, he needed that. He just realized it now. He takes another quick, healthy swallow before returning the flask to Brooke who drops it back inside her purse. Nathan wipes his mouth with the back of his hand.
"I'm sorry about what I said. You were right, I don't know you. I shouldn't have said those things."
Nathan shrugs his shoulder. She really isn't sorry, he could tell but he's really not that offended. Not anymore. Now that he had time to consider what she had said. It still stings but she was telling the truth. He had been the Damien West of Tree Hill High. What was the point in denying that anyway?
He watches as Brooke turns towards Lucas's grave, standing out, stark white. "God, I miss him already!" Brooke blurts out, "What will I do tomorrow and next week and next month and the month after that?"
Move on. What else? But something tells him that Brooke just isn't ready to hear that yet. The pleading tone in her voice wants a different answer and Nathan isn't sure if she's ready to accept the fact that this is where Lucas ends. It's sad and abrupt and maybe even cruel, but, hey that's life. Nathan realizes that he isn't the best person to offer kind, supportive words. Not that there are any, with this kind of situations, but he's never been good with words and with showing empathy. He takes a deep breath, the taste of whiskey still swirling in his mouth. "Look, I'm sorry, you're right. I shouldn't be here. I have-"
"It's okay. I guess..." Brooke said, interrupting him. "I just wanted to be alone with him for a little while, you know."
Nathan follows Brooke's eyes, wincing at the lost-little girl voice. She doesn't seem to be aware that she had dropped the coy 'babe' she had been using early on. He glances back at her, notices her long, graceful neck. She's a real pretty girl. The usual kind of pretty. The kind Nathan would've been interested in, years ago. It's a good thing she had escaped from Tree Hill – he didn't think he could handle another ex-girlfriend popping out for Lucas's funeral. Strange how he and his brother seem to be drawn to the same girls: Peyton. Brooke. Haley.
Although Nathan can't figure out how to connect the three girls. They're all so different from one another and yet they seem to rotate around his older brother. Lucas was their sun and now without him, they're all lost and alone. In a dark place.
"Do you want to know something funny?" Nathan asks, then pauses, reconsidering. "Or not funny. I'm not sure which." He waits for Brooke's nod and then, with a deep sigh, he mutters a confession. "Peyton and I used to date. In fact she's been my first and only serious girlfriend."
He's never admitted that before.
Brooke's eyes widen with disbelief and then with mild amusement. "You're kidding me."
Nathan shakes his head. "No, I'm not. We dated when we were in college."
"Peyton never mentioned anything about you." She frowns a little, "But then again, Peyton and I aren't exactly friends. In fact the only reason she and I are even talking is because of Lucas." Brooke's face twist into a smile-cringe. Nathan can tell that she's thinking about what this means. Whether Lucas had known. Whether Peyton had known.
"You and Peyton. Small world." She mumbles, more to herself.
"You can say that again."
Brooke straightens her back, gives Nathan a long look. "Let me guess, Peyton doesn't know that you and Lucas are half-brothers." Nathan nods his head, a little too reluctantly and Brooke is quick to notice as she gives him a questioning look. Silently asking how the world manages to get two estranged brother to date one girl – maybe even fall in love with her – and not be aware of it.
"I never really talked about Lucas. Not to anyone." Nathan explains, the same sense of guilt tugging at him.
Brooke turns her attention back to Lucas's grave, smiling softly. "Well, this is really weird, isn't it, Broody? It's the oldest story in history. Two brothers, one girl. I know how you hated stories like that." She starts off towards Lucas's headstone, gently touching it, brushing away imaginary dusts that have yet to settle. It's almost a tender gesture. Like knuckles brushing against a cheek. "Your half-brother dated your precious Peyton." Brooke sneaks a quick glance at him and then dropping her hands, she adds in a voice meant to be heard, "And now he wants Haley too."
Nathan jerks his head, feeling his face flush, "I don't..." He starts off but Brooke cuts him off, still talking to Lucas.
"If you hadn't died on that stupid accident, I bet you'd be having a heart attack just about right now." Brooke tells Lucas, her tone is light, almost joking but Nathan can sense something vicious in her voice. She's back to being furious again and Nathan is sure that he doesn't want to be on the receiving end of that anger once more.
"I think I better go." He tells her backing away.
"Do you want to know something funny? Or not funny. I'm not really sure which too." Brooke turns around, facing him. "But, here it is. The truth: I saw him last. I kissed him last. I made him not be Luke, 'cause Luke, he's really good, you know? The honest kind of good. The kind that's very rare. The kind that wouldn't cheat. And I just... I couldn't stand it. I wanted him too. He loved me first! He was... he was going back to me and we were going to tell Peyton, we really were."
The revelation isn't a revelation anymore. Somewhere during their conversation, Nathan has pieced the puzzle together. Brooke had gotten the story wrong. Its two girls and one boy. And that's the oldest story ever. "Am I really the one who you're supposed to be telling this?" He carefully asks.
Brooke brokenly shakes her head. Something in her must've snapped, because the tears she's been trying to fight back suddenly bursts forth and she staggers back into Lucas's grave, her hand clutching the cold (Nathan imagines it to be cold) marble.
"No." She sobs, letting her tears run down her cheeks. "But she'll never forgive me. Because of me...I didn't want to… I didn't want to hurt her that way. Oh, God, Luke," She twists her body, kneels on the ground. She's partially draped, partially hugging Lucas's gravestone. "Luke, I'm so sorry. I'm so, so, sorry."
Nathan has never seen a girl be so broken. He swallows hard, takes a tentative step towards her, not sure of what he's supposed to do, but wanting, needing her to stop crying. He can't stand the awful sound of her sobbing. She sounds just like his mom whenever she locks herself inside the bathroom, thinking he wasn't inside the house. "Hey, now... hey, don't cry."
Brooke stops him with an outstretched hand and Nathan stays rooted to his place. He hears her sniffling, taking deep breaths, trying to calm herself down. "I'm fine. I'm fine." She mutters like a well-practiced mantra. He watches as she wipes her tears away, fingers angrily brushing against her cheekbones. Taking a deep, watery breath, Brooke finally faces him and Nathan is surprised to realize that she's smiling at him. Beneath her crumpled, tear-stain face, there's that same apologetic smile she had given him earlier.
"Look, hey," She starts off, pausing to sniff, "if you're looking for Haley, try the basketball court at the park. When you find her, can you please tell her that I'm sorry? I can't face her. She's so disappointed in me. And in Lucas and I know Haley, she's hurting because of it."
Nathan feels his heart suddenly starting up. "I thought you said I shouldn't see Haley."
Brooke nods her head, wincing a little. "Luke is so not going to like this." She lets out a strangled sound, like maybe a chuckle or another sob, Nathan isn't sure which. "Bu you'll eventually find her anyway, who am I to keep you from her, right? And anyway, I know what it's like," Brooke tells him solemnly, her eyes meeting his, her voice soft but certain. "Not to be able to turn and just walk away."
Nathan feels his jaws slackening, his mouth going dry. He swallows hard. "I don't know what you mean."
"I think you do."