Brooke and Lucas struggle through the difficulties of a newborn... enjoy!

Chapter Twenty-Four – Boring Miracles

8 WEEKS LATER

After 8 long and tiring weeks everything was beginning to fall into place for Brooke and Lucas. Sophie was finally released from the hospital after the doctors had confirmed she was now one healthy and fat baby, much to her parents' delight. Now that she had grown, she was starting to look more definitively like her parents. She was a carbon copy of Brooke – Victoria had even supplied baby pictures to prove it – but her eyes were all Lucas. She was perfect in every way imaginable and Lucas and Brooke were so thankful that they could bring her home in that cute little yellow onesie with the ducks on it.

Brooke had also recovered from her traumatic incident, though she still had regular check-ups to make sure everything was ok. Lucas had also officially moved into the house. Rachel and Kate had decided that after a few weeks in, it was probably best that they move on and give Lucas and Brooke their own space. Brooke was sad to see them go, she had loved hosting the crazy house, but she was also excited for this next part of her life and bringing her baby home.

What Brooke hadn't anticipated about bringing Sophie home and being on maternity leave was the boredom she would feel. She loved her daughter so much, but she was so used to being in a high stress environment and always doing something. It felt so unusual to her to be Sophie at home – she really didn't think the miracle of life could be so boring.

A week after Sophie had been brought home, Brooke tried to inconspicuously slip into the ER—with Sophie in tow. She had heard that a big accident had come in and sitting at home was just driving her nuts. It was entirely true that surgeons were egotistical maniacs and found it incredibly difficult to leave the job for more than a night.

Brooke barely got through the front door of the hospital before she was stopped by Lucas.

"Hey, what are you doing here?" he asked.

"It's bad for me to just be sitting around all day, so I figured some exercise and fresh air would do me good – would do both of us good." She tried to justify as Sophie sat peacefully in her arms.

Lucas folded his arms; "You can walk around the block. It's a nice neighbourhood, you should check it out." He saw right through her excuses to the heart of why she was here and he was prepared to challenge her on it in a jokey way.

"Yeah, totally, it's super nice." Brooke thought about it for a second before looking down at Sophie, another idea coming to mind. "I figured you'd want to see Soph"

"That's sweet babe, I did just see her an hour ago at breakfast…" Lucas reminded her as he delicately ran his finger over his daughter's soft and chubby cheek.

"But look at her little face, you can't get enough of this nugget." Brooke said with a wide smile that Lucas soon returned.

"No, I guess you can't…"

"Ok, so we are just going to go down to the ER for a minute, check out what's going on down there, I hear there's a big accident being brought in, multiple cars—" Brooke said as she started to walk away.

"Really? You're going to take a newborn down to the ER with all the blood, germs and dying people?" Lucas questioned as Brooke stopped in her tracks.

"… right. Bad idea." She said as Lucas nodded. Another idea then sparked in Brooke's mind. "Who wants to go see daddy?!" Brooke cooed to Brooke as she set Sophie in Lucas's arms.

"Brooke—Oh okay then." He said as she dropped her baby bag at his feet.

"Bring her back when she's hungry, I love you!" she called to him as she rushed round to the ER.

Lucas looked down at Sophie as she rested perfectly in his right arm, gazing up at him with her bright blue eyes. "Your momma is crazy Soph… but I wouldn't change her for the world" he said as he kissed her head and walked away with her.

Brooke managed a whole half hour to herself before Lucas gave Sophie back to her. He had tried to give her the space to get her surgical fill, but he was the one actually supposed to be at work and he couldn't delay his surgeries any longer.

While Brooke knew the ER wasn't the best place for them to be, she didn't see the harm is sitting in one of the perfectly sanitised hallways just off the ER where there were windows into some of the trauma rooms. She sat on one of the gurney's opposite the window while feeding Sophie, watching as the doctors ran codes and what not.

Soon enough, Nathan walked past, surprised to see them sitting there.

"What's going on here?" Nathan asked as he looked through the window.

"They're running a code" Brooke informed him.

"I just froze off a wart." Nathan told her with a sigh as he sat beside her. He'd been having an annoyingly boring day.

"I just wiped a butt." Brooke responded quickly.

"I did that too."

"Well my body is making food for another human, I guess that's something." Brooke said with a shrug. She had desperately been trying to find some sort success in motherhood. As a surgeon, she was always looking for the remarkable. Always looking for ways to be the best she could be. Unsurprisingly, she didn't look at motherhood much differently.

"You got me beat there." He grumbled as they watched the latest trauma come in.

"Man, I can't wait to get back to this place." Brooke commented.

"It really does miss you Brookie" he confirmed as Brooke finished feeding Sophie. She took the blanket off her – before having another thought.

"You want to burp her?" Brooke asked as she held Sophie out to him.

Nathan grimaced, "I don't know how to do that"

Brooke rolled her eyes, "You're a doctor man, you know how to burp a baby. Besides – this definitely falls under godparent duty of care"

Nathan frowned, "I'm not sure that it does – oh ok" he said as Brooke handed Sophie to him before he could say no.

"See, you just set the cloth here and then gently pat her back – look, you're a natural!" she said as she jumped up from the gurney. "Thanks Nate, bring her back when she gets hungry again!" she said quickly before power walking away.

"BROOKE!" Nathan called after her. "I did not agree to this! Brooke Davis! Get back here!" he called, but it was no use. Maybe babysitting wouldn't be such a bad thing to do today.

Nathan figured if he was on babysitting duty he could at least take the time to observe some surgeries from the viewing gallery. Sophie was perfectly content up there – for about half an hour. She soon started crying and the smell coming from her diaper proved why. Nathan cursed under his breath as he laid Sophie out a mat on the ground of the gallery to change her. He couldn't remember the last time he changed a diaper, so he knew this could go horribly wrong. Sophie was being fussy too, so Nathan tried desperately to keep her still and occupied.

"A-B-C-D— oh gross—" Nathan sang as he removed Sophie's diaper. "E-F-G. H- I- this couldn't suck any worse—"

Before he started singing again, Haley walked into the gallery and looked down at the scene in front of him, completely confused.

"Nathan?" she questioned, hoping for an answer to what was before him.

"Hi Hales" Nathan said with a nervous laugh. "Sorry for the smell, we had a bit of an… incident."

"Are you having trouble with the diaper?" she asked with an amused smile.

"Pfft, no—" he said, trying to play the whole thing down. If he and Haley were ever going to have a family one day, he wanted her to have at least some confidence in his diaper changing abilities. "I have a 4.0 GPA and I'm sitting at the top of my class at med school, I can handle a diaper… unless you want to?" Nathan said, looking up at Haley with pleading eyes.

"And ruin this perfect moment? I don't think so." Haley insisted, secretly loving this dose of reality Nathan was getting. Haley quickly snapped a picture before running away from a glaring Nathan as he desperately tried to finish the changing.

After changing Sophie's diaper, Nathan left to quickly find Brooke. She looked after babies all the time in the NICU, hell he'd operated on some of the tiniest hearts in the world, but this was too much. He wasn't ready for this, but Brooke was, this was her baby, she chose this! Nathan couldn't find her anywhere, but he did manage to find Rachel in the canteen having her lunch.

"Rachel, take her" he pleaded, holding Sophie out to her.

"Nope." Rachel replied as she continued to eat her salad.

"Oh, come on! You want to go into neo-natal surgery, this is perfect! You need to be good with babies!" Nathan justified as Sophie looked between her two godparents with curious eyes.

"Yeah, but those babies will be unconscious and in the womb when they're with me." She reminded him. "Nathan, she is perfectly happy in your arms, look at her! She can't take her eyes off you." Rachel said as Nathan looked down and saw Sophie staring right up at him.

"Yeah, well— it's a natural response." He boasted as Rachel rolled her eyes. "I smell like vomit and crap, this is the reason some species eat their young."

"I have work to do…" Rachel said as she stood up from the table.

"And you call yourself a godmother!" Nathan shouted after her as Rachel smiled and waved while she walked away.

"Well I'm glad I got to witness that…" Brooke remarked as Nathan turned around and saw her smiling with her arms crossed over her chest.

Nathan let out a breath and walked towards her, holding Sophie out in front of him "I love this kid Brooke. I love her a heck of a lot. But no more diapers. No way." He made clear as Brooke chuckled and took Sophie from him.

"Aw, did you make a stinky in your diaper for Uncle Nate?! Aren't you the sweetest little monkey, getting him a present like that…" she teased at Sophie as she smiled widely at her, causing the baby to give her mother a lopsided, toothless smile.

"Where have you been anyway?" Nathan asked as he cleaned his hands with a baby wipe.

"Trying to get in on some surgical action but no one was having any of it…" Brooke said with an eyeroll. "It's probably time I accept my fate and go home…"

"You know… the nurses love babies." Nathan suggested as Brooke quirked an eyebrow. "They would love to meet her, they'd all want a turn and that could take a while…"

"… this is why you're my bestest friend Nathan Lee." Brooke said seriously as Nathan nodded his head.

"Your welcome."

That evening, Brooke eagerly inspected the OR board while the nurses all took turns at holding Sophie. Nathan was right – the nurses couldn't get enough of her. Lucas walked around the corner ready to go home after his final surgery and was surprised to see his girlfriend and daughter still there.

"I thought you would be gone by now" Lucas commented as he approached her.

"Oh you know how it is with a baby, everybody wants a turn" Brooke said as Lucas looked over to all the nurses cooing over his daughter. He then looked between the board and Brooke and a smirk rose on his face.

"Pretty bad tibia fracture in OR 3." He commented.

"Yeah, I saw that…" she mumbled.

"You should have seen the intake, it was gnarly." Lucas added as Brooke spun around instantly and looked at him with pleading eyes.

"How gnarly?"

"About 8, 9."

"Nice." Brooke said with a lopsided smirk.

"You are bored out of your freakin mind aren't you?" Lucas said figuring he should just address the issue head on.

Brooke let out a breath; "oh my god I am so bored." She confirmed, relieved that she could finally just be honest about it. "I love Sophie, so much, she is the most precious little thing in the whole world. She'll smile at me with her toothless mouth or make a weird noise and I'm in awe of her and filled with so much joy and thankfulness that she is here and she is safe – but the joy fades when she goes back to sleep and I have nothing to do. I did not realise a miracle could be so boring."

Lucas chuckled at Brooke's words. He figured he would probably feel the same if he was in her position. "Why don't you go check out the fracture for yourself?"

Brooke's eyes brightened; "Really?"

Lucas nodded as he walked over to the nurses; "Has everybody had their turn? Cause daddy would like one." He said as he took Sophie in his arms and kissed her little nose lightly.

"Are you sure you've got her?" Brooke double checked before getting ready to dart to the OR.

"Yes and I am going to take her home and put her to bed and then I'm going to get us some dinner."

"Pizza?"

"Texas BBQ?"

"My god I love you." Brooke said before quickly kissing them and then walking as quickly as she could to OR3 for a much needed gory surgery.

A week or so later, Lucas sat in one of the conference rooms, resting his head on the table. Things hadn't been easy in the Davis-Scott household since Sophie's arrival. They had weird routines not only because Sophie wasn't into a sleeping pattern, but because Lucas didn't want Brooke putting too much stress on her body following the surgery – despite the fact that it had been 3 months since.

Nathan walked into the conference room and frowned when he saw Lucas there asleep.

"Lucas?" he shouted as his head shot up.

"Yeah, I'll get her" he said quickly, before realising that he was not in fact at home and it was Nathan shouting at him and not Brooke.

"Wow, tough night with Sophie?" Nathan asked as he lent against the door frame.

"Yeah, she got up like 6, maybe 7 times." Lucas said as he ran a hand down his face. "I lost count after a while…" he grumbled as Nathan nodded his head. "Brooke wanted to take it turns but she's with Sophie all day, she needs to rest, I need to do my part, but then she gets mad that I didn't wake her and she tries to help and then we get mad at each other…"

"A vicious cycle."

"Exactly... And then there's the fact that she makes me breakfast every morning."

Nathan frowned; "What's the problem with that? That's a nice a thing to do…"

"She always makes it as a kind gesture which I appreciate, but sometimes, I don't have time to sit down and eat but I can't not eat it without feeling like an ass who doesn't appreciate what she's doing." Lucas concluded with a sigh. Despite having lived with Brooke before, there was a completely different dynamic now, and it appeared it was taking them longer to adjust than anticipated. "So we drink the coffee and eat the pancakes in silence because we're both too tired to talk. We used to spend our mornings laughing and having sex. I want those days back." He whined. "But I'm ready to work, I'm plowing through all this paperwork..." Lucas said unconvincingly as he looked at all the papers sitting in front of him.

"Yeah… good luck with that Mr. Plastic Surgeon, I've got a trauma on the helipad to get to" Nathan said as he rushed away.

Lucas moaned and put his head back on the desk. He could sense this was going to be a long day.

Meanwhile, Brooke sluggishly walked into one of the on call rooms, to find that Rachel was already there and taking her shoes off.

"Hey, you're back!" Rachel greeted happily. She had really missed having her best friend around here. It was like a part of her was missing.

"I'm not back, I have an appointment with Johnson… in 6 hours. Sophie's in the hospital nursery. So, I'm here to sleep. Dibs on the bottom bunk." Brooke said as she pushed past Rachel and got into the bed.

Rachel folded her arms; "Don't you have your own bed at home?"

"I miss my old bed. Lucas insisted that we get one a little bit bigger so I wasn't constantly kicking him in the middle of the night, which I understand, but I miss my cosy queen-sized bed. This new king-sized bed is too big and I can't day nap there either cause it's cleaning day and people are polishing and vacuuming, it would be rude." Brooke explained, frustration evident in her voice. Lucas had insisted on getting a cleaner so it was less thing for them to have to worry about, but it was interrupting her nap time...

"You are making very little sense." Rachel said as she climbed into the bunk above Brooke.

"You know that thing they say about you sleeping when the baby sleeps? That's a lie, babies don't sleep." Brooke grumbled.

Rachel sighed; "I'd like to sleep." She's been here for almost 24 hours, she needed to otherwise she might not make it through her next shift.

"At least my baby doesn't. And when she does sleep, I don't. You know why?"

"Because you keep talking to her?" Rachel asked, referring to herself in this situation more than anything. As much as she wanted her friend to be able to talk to her – why couldn't this wait for just a few hours?

"Because I feel like a guest in my own home. I am so tired, yet for some reason, I get up before Lucas and make him a really nice breakfast. I would never do that otherwise, it's every man for himself in the mornings." Brooke concluded. She really wasn't a morning person, so this was entirely unusual for her.

"Why don't you just tell Lucas you don't feel at home?"

"I don't even know what would make me feel more at home." Brooke mumbled. "Apart from a smaller bed. A smaller bed where I can actually reach out and feel Lucas beside me."

"Brooke, I empathise, I do and I want to discuss this best friend to best friend after I sleep because I just spent 16 hours in surgery—"

Suddenly, Rachel could hear light snoring noises from beneath her. She looked down and saw that Brooke was fast asleep.

"You have got to be kidding me." Rachel said as she flopped back down on her pillow, covering her ears to block out the noise.

That night, Lucas arrived home and walked into the living room to see Brooke sitting on the sofa, with Sophie sleeping in her baby chair as Brooke gently rocked it with her foot.

"Shh, she's finally sleeping" Brooke told him as he sat beside them.

"Shouldn't she be in her crib or something?"

"I don't care, as long as she's sleeping. I feel like if I stop this she'll wake up." Brooke explained.

Lucas nodded; "Probably. I'll go put the game on in the other room—"

"Hey, can we talk?" Brooke said, stopping him before he went any further.

"Now?"

"Or, whenever—" Brooke said awkwardly. This wasn't like them, being so weird with one another and it was driving them both insane.

Lucas pinched the bridge of his nose; "Brooke this has got to stop."

"What?"

"You walking on egg shells in this house. You can't even talk to me normally—"

Brooke let out a breath, relieved that he'd picked up on the awkwardness too; "I know, that's what I wanted to talk to you about."

"Oh. Ok."

"I don't feel like this is home anymore. I make you breakfast every morning… I've never even made myself a proper breakfast before this."

"Yeah, it's weird…" Lucas agreed as he moved closer towards her. She really wasn't much of a cook.

"Right? And there's just—there's too much of my former house mates here." She said with a grimace.

"What?"

"It's full of junk from when we were young and care free. It's not a family home, it's basically an abandoned frat house, and that bed—that bed is horrible." She confessed as her body shivered.

Lucas raised his eyebrows; "Our bed is horrible?"

"Yes, it's way too big, it just feels so empty… I miss my old bed." She said with a pout.

Lucas nodded; "Your old bed was comfortable…"

"So I have a proposition. This weekend, let's revamp this house. Let's make it ours. So we can start laughing and having sex in the morning again… if the sleep deprivation doesn't kill me. She's stronger than me, so it probably will—"

Lucas chuckled; "Nah, she's double teamed…" he said as he ran his hands over her shoulders.

"And we can compromise on who gets up with Sophie at night until she gets into a less ridiculous sleep schedule" She said. Her appointment with Johnson had gone well today and she was fully healed – it was time Lucas accepted that and let her get on like normal.

"Absolutely."

Brooke looked down at Sophie and smiled; "She slept through this entire conversation."

"She can be quiet when she wants to be." Lucas said with a proud smile.

"Just not when we want her to be… we'll work this out." Brooke said with certainty.

"Yeah. We will."