So - I wrote this story and even I hate Lucas a little bit lol but hopefully you won't for much longer! This is a Brucas endgame story and I PROMISE you won't have to wait long for some sweetness and fluff! It's so cool seeing you all so invested.

The next few chapters are largely from Brooke's perspective - as is the whole story really - so there really will be no Pucas to suffer through. A mention here or there, but this story is not about them. That doesn't mean that Lucas is going to disappear. He has a lot to make up for and a friendship to repair!

For now - there's a little time jump in this chapter, Brooke works to get her power back, Lucas is desperate to make amends and there's a new doctor in town...

Enjoy!

Chapter Nine – The Demons Within

2 MONTHS LATER

It didn't take much for Brooke to convince her dad to let her take an extended leave of absence. She felt like it was a long time coming, but now she was desperate to get away. She was desperate to escape and sort her head out. She spend a little over a month in New York with her mom and brothers before coming back and spending the final few weeks hyping herself up to come back to work. She hoped the distance would make her stronger, but she was still scared over what she might encounter when she got back. Lucas had been trying to contact her non-stop, but she wasn't one bit interested in hearing it. Rachel had told her that she verbally kicked him in the balls over what he did and made sure that he and Peyton had packed their bags from Brooke's house. Brooke hated to think it, but she wasn't too sure she was ready to have a fairly empty house again.

She came down the stairs of Ted and Kate's house the Monday morning she was due back at work. She had been hiding out at their house as part of her avoidance strategy, but she knew it was time to come out into the real world. She knew it was time to face her demons and humiliation and just get on with her life. She refused to let anybody make her feel like less than she knew she was worth.

As soon as she opened the door to the kitchen, Ted and Kate were standing there with sympathetic expressions.

"Don't look at me like that." Brooke mumbled.

"Like what?"

"Like my boyfriend just ran off with his ex at a public hospital event." Brooke said as she said at the island and rested her head in her hand. She had no clue what happened in the aftermath of the gala between Lucas and Peyton - but she was fairly certain she could assume he picked her. She didn't really give him much choice in the matter anyway.

"Sorry." Ted apologised as he pushed a plate of banana pancakes in her direction. "So, back to work today?"

"Do I have to?"

"It's been two months, maybe it's time to get back to it and not let him put your life on hold." Kate suggested.

"I'm not convinced I won't punch Lucas in the nuts as soon as I walk through the door. Did you know mom almost got on the plane with me, so she could do just that?" Brooke told them as they looked at her wide eyed. As soon as Victoria heard what happened—she was livid. Lucas seemed so kind and steady and not someone who would mess with her daughter's heart and he did just that - in the most public way imaginable.

"Well she can join the queue." Ted said bitterly. "Harry, Matty and I are next." Naturally, Brooke's brothers got overprotective on the issue and the whole Davis clan had practically waged war against him. You could say a lot of things about them, but the Davis' certainly were a loyal bunch.

"I just—I just don't know if I can face it." Brooke said seriously as she pushed the pancakes around her plate.

"Yes, you can." Ted encouraged her. "You are Brooke Penelope Davis, you can get through anything."

"I feel like an idiot." Brooke said in a whisper as her eyes filled with tears.

"The only idiot in this situation is Lucas Scott. Go to work and kick surgical ass." Kate threw in. She and Brooke may have no always seen eye to eye, but she really felt for her step daughter in this situation. She also considered lining up to punch Lucas in the nuts.

"Will you have my back?" she asked them sheepishly.

Ted nodded; "Always."

"If she doesn't want to talk about it, then we're not going to make her talk about it." Rachel warned the other residents before Brooke arrived in the hospital that morning.

Bevin held up her hands; "All I'm saying is that it's been two months and we haven't been able to get one scrap of intel on what happened with Sawyer and Scott? They're avoiding each other, Brooke's avoiding us and nobody is saying anything!"

"That's because it is none of our business!" Rachel warned. She had no clue what was going on with Lucas and Peyton. No one did. Lucas had just started his plastics fellowship while Peyton was now a trauma attending and that was all they seemed to be focusing on. They seemed to be avoiding each other in the hospital. Like something bad had happened. But no one knew because no one had the balls to ask.

"Everybody in this hospital is always up in each other's business, Rachel—"

Before Rachel could protest further, Brooke quietly walked into the resident's lounge and Bevin jumped to her feet.

"oh my gosh Brooke, hi! You came out of hiding." She said semi-happily, semi-sympathetically.

"I haven't been in hiding…. Okay, I've been in hiding, but time heals wounds or whatever." Brooke said as she put her stuff in her locker.

"Really?" Rachel asked quietly as Brooke looked at her, trying to see through her words.

"Really." Brooke insisted. She wasn't sure how this day was going to go, but she was sure that she was going to approach it boldly. She was here to do what she loved, not mope over Lucas.

As everyone around them scattered, Rachel and Nathan walked over to Brooke.

"We've got you Davis. Always." Nathan told her confidently as Brooke nodded her head and gave them her best mustered smile.

Brooke's day started off relatively smoothly. She was focused and she'd managed to avoid talking to anybody about anything other than medicine. It was around mid-day when Lucas started to walk in her direction that she felt her strong exterior crumble. She was going to try to ignore him, but she wasn't convinced he would ignore her.

"Brooke, I've been trying to call you—" he said once he spotted her.

"I really don't want to talk right now." She insisted as she tried to move past him. She noticed he was now in his attending navy blue scrubs and she really hated that he looked so good in them. He looked good in the light blues ones too, but there was something about the navy ones that really just made his eyes pop.

"Brooke, I need to explain—"

"You telling me how guilty you feel only helps you. Not me." She said harshly as she quickly walked away.

Lucas sighed before turning around and coming face to face with Rachel, who was glaring right at him.

"Something I can help you with Dr. Gatina?" he asked.

"You couldn't have given her a heads up? In the months that you were seeing each other, she was worried about Sawyer, she asked about it and you didn't say anything. Brooke freakin Davis, the most perfect girl in the world was worried about Sawyer! Were you just waiting for the right time to publicly humiliate her?" Rachel exclaimed.

"I have been trying to apologise to her for months now. She walks away the moment she sees me coming. I am miserable about what I did to her. I had no idea I was going to do it." Lucas defended.

"Still, Brooke's alone, Sawyer's alone, you're alone. Everyone's miserable. Seems like it all worked out pretty well, doesn't it?" Rachel retorted before pushing past him and down the hallway to find Brooke.

She soon found her sitting on a stairwell, tears flowing down her cheeks. All it took was one small encounter with Lucas to send her over the edge. Rachel rushed towards her and sat beside her.

"Are you ok?" Rachel asked her as she wrapped an arm around her friend.

"It's all my fault. I knew I shouldn't have gotten involved with him. I knew it was a mistake and I did it anyway. It's so hard being here around him and—I am not a quitter… but maybe I should go to New York—"

"Leaving is not the answer." Rachel said firmly. She wasn't about to let her friend be run out of this place by someone else's mistake. "He took advantage here, not you. He knew your vulnerability, he knew your past and he threw it back in your face. You shouldn't let him treat you as if you're expendable because—you're amazing. You're one of the best people I know and if Scott can't see that then that's his loss. But you deserve better and you're going to get better. I just know it."

A few days later, things seemed to go from bad to worse for the doctors at Raleigh Med. The tension over Brooke and Lucas' failed relationship had caused a number of anonymous complaints to roll in over sexual misconduct in the hospital, forcing Ted to essentially outlaw any new relationships that hadn't been signed off by human resources – including Rachel's budding relationship with one of the orthopaedic surgeons, Johnny Lincoln.

Despite everything Rachel had told Brooke on the stairs the day before, she assumed Brooke was the one to make the complaint.

"You do realise this means I can't see Johnny anymore, right?" Rachel asked her bitterly.

"I'm pretty sure they just said it was anonymous." Brooke reminded her. She was jumping to pretty big conclusions here.

"Yeah, right." Rachel said, not believing that it wasn't her. There was no one else who was in a position to make a complaint like that. Brooke sighed as she felt yet another person drift away from her for something that wasn't her fault. She turned around and saw Kate walking towards her with a sympathetic smile.

"Hey, about this complaint—" she began, also thinking it was Brooke who made it.

"You people really don't understand the meaning of the word anonymous." Brooke mumbled. She really didn't have the energy to fight against this.

"I just wanted to say I'm here for you if you want to talk about it—"

"Who said it was me?" Brooke asked.

Kate looked confused; "It wasn't?"

"Anonymous Kate." Brooke reminded her, before walking away.

That afternoon, Brooke was working in one of the side rooms with Bevin when Rachel barged in bearing a grudge, but also a real concern for her friend. After a secret meeting in a supply closet with Johnny, she unfortunately managed to find out the truth behind Lucas and Peyton's relationship.

"I'm really sorry for what I'm about to say and I want you to know that I'm not trying to be mean, but I think that you should hear it from me." Rachel said quickly.

"Ok…" Brooke agreed slowly.

"Lucas and Peyton are together."

"… what?" Brooke said quietly. Rachel had walked in on them furiously kissing, revealing that they were being a lot more coy about their relationship than anyone assumed. While Brooke was a little upset by this, naturally, she was also kind of relieved that everything that happened wasn't for nothing. She figured it was just natural instinct to want what was best for others over herself. Also, she'd walked away from Lucas, it was unsurprising that he took this as an opportunity to see things through with Peyton.

"Yeah. It seems that because you took the choice away from him, he took the opportunity to see if he and Peyton are meant to be." Rachel told her a little harshly.

"So this is my fault? It's my fault that he lied to me and it's my fault that decided to announce in front of the whole hospital that he still had feelings for her?" Brooke questioned.

Rachel sighed, "That's not what i'm saying. Look, I know that you were trying to punish them when you made your complaint, but they're fine Brooke. The only one who is being punished is me. This is going to force Johnny and me apart, do you know how long it took me to find a decent guy around here that didn't just want to get me into his bed?" Rachel asked. "And you know what Brooke – when you go through a break up, you talk to your friends and we will get you through this, that is a promise – but you didn't need to file a complaint!" Rachel reasoned.

Brooke eyes glistened with tears as it was her turn to snap at Rachel; "I don't know how many times I have to tell you this, it was an anon—"

"Anonymous complaint." Bevin completed the sentence. "What is even the point anymore... it was me, ok? I filed the complaint. You guys are so wrapped up in your love lives that you can't see that our education is being compromised." Bevin said, revealing her reasonings. All this relationship drama and tension was beginning to affect the job they came here to do. "God, I don't even know why I bothered, somehow it's just made everything worse! We came here to be surgeons, but you guys couldn't seem to care less about that right now." Bevin angrily said, coming clean about the situation before Brooke and Rachel really lost it.

Rachel, Bevin and Brooke sat in an uncomfortable silence as they look a moment to gather themselves. This whole thing was a complete mess. They were allowing their focus to drift to unimportant things and not focusing on what they came here to do—to be the best surgeons they could be.

Brooke wiped her tears away before clearing her throat; "This job is a privilege and a gift and we are royally screwing it up. I think it's about time we took our power back and did something worthwhile with it."

Rachel and Bevin nodded, knowing that Brooke was entirely right. It was about time they showed this hospital what they were made of.

The following morning Rachel was walking towards the entrance of the hospital with two coffees in hand. As she walked through the door, she managed to bump straight into the person she was looking for—Brooke. She extended one of the coffees in her direction.

"Peace offering." Rachel explained. "I'm really sorry about what I said. One minute I was on your side and the next I was acting like I wasn't, and I was a complete jerk. If you had been the one to make that complaint—I should have been more understanding."

"It's ok. Really." Brooke said sincerely. "If it was me, I would have been a little pissed off too. But I uh—I heard you got busted."

Johnny and Rachel hadn't been as stealth as they thought concerning their relationship in the hospital, and Ted had caught them red handed, and was now keeping Rachel away from paeds.

"Yep. I have to miss out on my education, so they can keep me on a separate floor from Johnny."

"See, I want that rule. If I find myself in a room alone with Lucas, I'm afraid I'm going to nut punch him. So, every time he has a consult in the ER today, I'm taking a break." Brooke explained as she moved a bit of dirt beneath her with her feet.

"You shouldn't. That is not the Brooke Davis I know. The Brooke Davis I know would just nut punch him. We'd all want to see that." Rachel joked as Brooke chuckled lightly, but her smile quickly fell from her face.

"He chose her, Rachel. One day he's with me and then the next day it's like I never existed. So, what the hell was I all that time that he could just forget about me?" she asked.

"Lucas Scott is a piece of garbage and I swear Brooke if you start forgetting that I will smack you." Rachel warned as Brooke chuckled.

"Alright, I won't forget it…" she said as Rachel walked the opposite direction.

"Good!"

Brooke smiled down at her feet, glad she had made amends with her friend. She was so focused in her own world that she ran straight into someone, causing him to drop his files everywhere.

"I am so sorry—" the man quickly apologised as they both bent down to pick everything up.

"No, completely my fault, I shouldn't have been walking so fast and blindly—" Brooke said as she finally looked up and looked the stranger in the eye. He was cute. He didn't look much older than Brooke and he had fair hair and the most piercing hazel eyes. He gave her a light smile and then continued to pick up the pages.

"I should really look where I'm going more often."

"Seriously, don't apologise." She insisted as the stood up.

"You seem far too nice to be a surgeon. Every other surgeon that I've bumped into in this hospital has almost bit my head off." He joked.

"Surgeons are egotistical maniacs it's in their DNAs to be stand offish. I, however, grew up surrounded by surgeons. I know what makes them tick and I know that being grouchy will get you nowhere." She replied with a laugh.

"The new face of surgery" he said.

"That would be me" she joked back. "You new here?" she asked, not recognising the man in front of her.

"Yeah I'm a new neuro attending. I'm Julian" he introduced.

"Brooke." She responded with a smile as they shook hands and Ted walked around the corner.

"Ah! There you are Dr. Baker." Ted said to Julian.

"Dr. Davis" He greeted back.

"And the other Dr. Davis" Ted greeted Brooke. "How are you?"

"I'm ok, ask me at the end of the day though, I just got here..." Brooke said.

"I see you've met our new neuro attending." He said turning again to Julian.

"It appears so" Brooke said with a smile.

"You said the other Dr. Davis?" Julian asked, wondering the connection between the two.

"Yes, this is my daughter. Did you know that Julian is the son of George Baker, the neurologist? He's changed the face of medicine as we know it. " Ted asked Brooke. Great, another surgical dynasty, that's just what this hospital needs – Brooke thought.

"No, I only got a first name. Very cool. I should get going, have a lot of work to do. It was nice to meet you Dr. Baker." Brooke said, flashing in one more smile before walking away.

"You too Dr. Davis." Julian replied, already intrigued by her.

"She was a good person to bump into, she will make you feel right at home" Ted informed him as they walked in the opposite direction.

"Good to know…" Julian said as he briefly turned to look back at her, already intrigued.

She didn't know why, but meeting Julian had put Brooke in a good mood. He seemed really nice and he just made her feel calm. As she pushed a heavy supply trolley through the ER, her mind was completely occupied by the new handsome attending—so occupied that she ran straight into Lucas with the gurney, smacking his knee and causing him to fall.

"Oh my god!" Brooke exclaimed as she covered her mouth in shock.

Kate quickly rushed over to him as Lucas tried to stand up, but his knee gave way. Brooke then rushed over and helped Kate as Lucas leaned on them and hobbled into a bay.

"I'm fine, ok?" he insisted, a little embarrassed that his ex-girlfriend had taken his out with a trolley.

"I am so sorry" Brooke sincerely apologised. She really didn't mean to hit him (as much as she had fantasised about it).

"No, no you warned me to stay out of your way." Lucas snapped.

Brooke glared; "I didn't do this on purpose."

"Brooke, I'm about to take his pants off, go be someplace where you won't be a danger to others." Kate told her as she sighed and left the bay.

So much for being in a better mood. As she closed the curtains behind her. The other nurses and doctors started clapping for her.

"Good job Brooke" "Way to go Dr. Davis" she heard various choruses off.

Clearly, she wasn't the only one who thought Lucas deserves that just a little bit…

Brooke made her way up to the OR gallery to find Rachel, who was observing Johnny's surgery. She was supposed to be in on this one, but their new rules meant she was on the bench.

"That should be you down there." Brooke told her as she sat down.

"Who cares? I'm doing an organ recovery. Did you hear about the new neuro attending? I heard he's super-hot" Rachel asked as she wiggled her eyebrows, immediately thinking Brooke could have found her rebound boy.

"Yeah, I met him actually. My dad already worships the ground he walks on, it's like Kirk and Lucas all over again." Brooke said with a little laugh.

Rachel looked at her and noticed she looked relatively happy for the first time in the past while. Was it do to with this guy?

"Looks like someone has a little crush…"

"No—"

"Oh come on! He's hot, you're hot, the perfect match!" Rachel insisted.

Brooke shook her head. "Not interested." The last two relationships she had didn't work out too well for her, so she wasn't about to jump into another one just yet.

"My ass you're not interested. This is the perfect thing to get you out of your post-Lucas funk."

Brooke grimaced; "Can we not talk about my dating life?"

"You need to make Lucas jealous. Fill him with regrets." Rachel said, trying to empower her a little to show Lucas that she was better off without him.

"He and Sawyer are walking around here like Cupid has shot them in the ass with multiple arrows, I don't think he has any regrets." Brooke grumbled. Truth be told, she hadn't really seen them together, but she'd heard the stories and that was more than enough to make her want to barff.

"Yet. You're Brooke freakin Davis, he's going to eventually have regrets." Rachel insisted as Brooke chuckled and rolled her eyes.

"Is this seat taken?" a voice asked them as they looked round and saw Julian standing there with a smile on his face.

"N—no, sit." Brooke awkwardly insisted as Rachel subtly nudged her with her elbow, trying not to get excited. "Rachel, this is Julian Baker, the new neuro fellow. This is Rachel Gatina"

"Nice to meet you" Julian said as he shook Rachel's hand. "So, your dad told me earlier that you come from a surgical dynasty." He said to Brooke.

"Yeah, we're a bit of a staple in the medical world." Brooke joked.

"More like a tourist attraction" Rachel added.

Julian laughed and smiled, "Must be a lot of pressure on your shoulders. To make sure the good name is maintained… how to you make sure they call the right Davis for stuff?

"We have nicknames…" Brooke revealed as Julian raised his eyebrows.

"Oh really?"

Brooke nodded, "Yeah there was one time when my mom and brother, who normally work in New York, were both here performing surgeries and my god did that get confusing."

"What are the nicknames?"

"Dad just gets Chief, my brother got Prince Charming, my mom got Devil Davis – she gets a little crabby in the OR and I get cheery." Brooke told him as he let out a laugh.

"Those are quite the nicknames."

"There were a few other rather choice ones given to me too… Personally the She Davis 2.0 is my favourite. There was also Satan, the devil spawn, Cruella." Brooke told him as he raised his eyebrows, not getting devilish vibes off Brooke at all. Brooke's mood swings were normally pretty spectacular.

"How did you go from cheery to that?" he asked.

"She's always been cheery, people who don't know her judge her unfairly when what really is unfair is her cheeriness." Rachel told him as Brooke swatted her.

"Stop it" she said with a laugh. "It's a long story that's really not worth telling. How are you finding your first day?"

"It's been ok. I think I'm going to like it here." He said, flashing Brooke a devilish smile before leaving the gallery.

Rachel and Brooke both sat back in their chairs, unsure what to say at that moment.

"Ok" Brooke said, trying to avoid Rachel making any more comments about Julian. "I have to go to HR and fill out an accident report form." She said.

Rachel furrowed her eyebrows; "What did you do?"

"I hit Lucas with a supply trolley" Brooke said with an unsympathetic shrug as Rachel tried to hold in a laugh. Instead, she subtly gave Brooke a fist bump before she left.

Brooke made her way up to HR and quickly filled out her accident report form. Just as she was about to finish, Lucas walked into the room and froze.

"I uh—I can come back" he suggested as he started to back away.

Brooke sighed. She wasn't going to be that petty, she had one more section to fill out. "It's fine, I'm almost done." She explained as he nodded slowly as sat down beside her. "How's your leg?" she asked, figuring she should show at least a little compassion. She really didn't mean to do it.

"My knee is fine." He clarified. "How about you? How are you?" he asked quickly.

Brooke shook her head; "I didn't see you coming—"

"That's not what I meant—"

"I know." She just didn't want to answer his question.

"I'm sorry Brooke. Will you please let me say that to you? Okay? I am so sorry. I had no idea I was going to do that. None. I told myself that I didn't want her, that Peyton didn't want me and you and I w—Brooke, you are so—" he said, trying to find the right words, but couldn't.

"Don't. Don't do that." She didn't need him trying to be nice to her, she just needed him to leave her alone.

"I'm trying to say that I didn't see it coming. There's no way I wanted to hurt you and I don't know how I can make it better—"

"You can't." She made clear. "You know, for the first time in a really long time I was pitied when you did that. I've only been pitied two other times in my life. The first time, I was 16 and my parents just broke up and people felt sorry for the girl who tried so hard to keep something that was never meant to be, together. Second time, I was 18 and my boyfriend just died in a car accident and people pitied the teenage girl who gave everything to this boy and then he was gone. Now, I was suddenly the girl who wasn't good enough or just not deserving enough. That's a pity look I've never gotten before because I am not that girl."

"I know that. Look, you can hit me with as many trolleys as you want to, because I'm going to feel terrible about this for the rest of my life. Brooke, I really did love you—"

"No, no." she said as she stood up. This was not that time that he should be saying those words. He couldn't even say those words to her when they were together. "You didn't. If you loved me, you wouldn't have done that to me. You were just holding on to your options to make sure you chose the right one and apparently that's Peyton which is fine - just don't stand here and expect me to be happy for you when you trampled on me to get there." she said fearlessly, but Lucas wasn't convinced Peyton was the right choice, but it was who he was with at this moment in time and that had to count for something.

"You know what? I'm not going to be pitied anymore." Brooke continued. "I'm not going to feel like less than I am just because one person made me feel that way." She said boldly. For the first time in a long time, Brooke felt the strength that everyone around her had been trying to convince her she had. "I'm not going to care about you anymore Lucas. Whatever we had—it is nothing now. So if I don't say hello or make small talk or even acknowledge you—it's because you don't mean anything to me anymore. Goodbye Lucas." She said as she handed the form over to the receptionist and left the office.

That night, Rachel and Brooke decided to go to Tric for a drink to celebrate the old Brooke coming back. She didn't realise it would take her actually having it out with Lucas to feel better about the whole thing. She finally felt like she was getting her power back.

"Vic" Rachel called to the bar tender as they walked into the bar; "We will take 2 of your finest tequila shots because this girl is a true hero."

Brooke laughed; "and this girl is the best sidekick I could have asked for."

Rachel laughed and got their shots for them.

"Cheers"

As they downed them, Rachel almost choked on hers when she saw someone walk up to Brooke.

"Brooke hottie to your left…" Rachel mumbled as Brooke looked round and saw Julian beside her.

"Hey, could I get a beer?" He asked Vic. "You know, it's a pity" he said, turning to Brooke.

"What's that?" Brooke asked.

"That you're my boss's daughter."

"And why is that a pity?"

"Because I really want to ask you out." He confessed as Brooke and Rachel's eyes widened.

"Oh. Well, it's also a pity that I don't date doctors." She teased as she got up from her stool. "I'll see you around Baker" she said with a smirk before walking towards the door.

Rachel sat there stunned for a few moments, before smiling at Julian and quickly walking out of the bar after Brooke.

"What was that?!" Rachel asked when they made it outside.

"Nothing" Brooke said with a shrug.

"He has clearly taken a shining to you and boy am I jealous. The hot, young, neuro attending—damn."

"I don't date doctors." Brooke said, making her new rule abundantly clear.

"Uh… hate to break it to you Brookie, but last time I checked, Lucas is a doctor…" Rachel reminded her.

"He's the reason I don't date doctors."

Rachel nodded; "Ok, ok, be boring like that…"

"You're the one who's being screwed over at work for dating Johnny!" Brooke reminded her.

"I'm trying to get you back on the horse!" Rachel whined.

"I am perfectly fine being off the horse. Come on." Brooke said, for the first time truly meaning it. They laughed lightly before linking arms and walking away from the bar, ready to start afresh.

Next chapter, Brooke struggles with her feelings for Julian and reluctantly asks Lucas for some help when Peyton causes some damage...