Hi everyone! I finally found a moment to write up a chapter for you... it's a fun one, so I hope enjoy. Let me know your thoughts in the reviews!

Chapter Thirty-One - I'm Sunk

3 months had passed since Clay arrived in Raleigh and things had been quiet around the hospital. Almost too quiet. It was starting to make Brooke anxious. She was expecting the ball to drop on them all soon and for some disaster to occur. Lucas was having to tell her everyday that she needed to appreciate the calm and that there didn't always have to be fires to put out in life. So, she was trying to live more in the moment. Sophie's first birthday had been and gone and Brooke and Lucas couldn't believe how fast their baby was growing up. She was a bright, bubbly little girl who had inherited her parents' good looks along with their big brains. She was already talking a little more than babies her age were supposed to be able to and she was quick on her little feet. She certainly kept her parents on their toes.

While Sophie had been thriving, Brooke had also been thriving in her job. She finally felt like she was back in the game. She managed to convince Andy that neuro was where she should be. It also helped that Clay had managed to secure a job in the neuro department too. He whispered a few good things in Andy's ear and soon enough, Andy was pushing to have Brooke on his service every day. Brooke was finally getting her medical dream and she was due to hear about fellowships in just a few months' time.

Clay's arrival in Raleigh had proved beneficial for more than just Brooke. He really slipped in nicely with the crew at Raleigh Med. He and Lucas had put any potential differences aside and formed a fast friendship. Along with Nathan, they were a strong trio, much like Brooke, Haley and Rachel had become. Clay also had taken a shining to Rachel. He found her bold and brash and kind of scary – and he loved it. He was so into her and it made Brooke laugh. She wanted nothing more than to see Rachel and Clay happy – and she fully supported this relationship. Well, it would be a relationship if Rachel ever gave in to her feelings. Brooke knew they were there, she could see it in her eyes every time she looked at Clay or even spoke about him. She was just afraid. She hadn't had the best track record with relationships.

So things kept ticking along and Brooke was trying desperately to watch the world go by and appreciate that it wasn't going down in flames. She patiently rode the elevator down from the resident's lounge to the ER one Thursday morning and as she was about to get off, she looked up and saw Lucas standing in front of her at the doors, his hands in his pockets and a smirk on his face.

"Are you sure this is your stop?" he asked as he body blocked her from getting off.

Brooke gulped; "You know, I'm—I'm not so sure."

Lucas stepped on the elevator and stood beside her, waiting for the door to close. As soon as it did, he turned around and kissed her, their hands immediately roaming everywhere. They were still living in their married life bliss.

"Being married is so great" Lucas said against her lips.

"Tell me about it. It's like we're just starting out again and it's incredibly hot" Brooke said as Lucas's tongue dove straight through her open lips, taking in all that he could of her in this short elevator ride.

Eventually, the elevator doors popped open and they groaned by smirked at the same time as Lucas took a step away from her.

"To be continued." Lucas said as he got off the elevator with a smug smile. Brooke held back for a minute, trying to contain her own smile as her husband walked away from her. He could really make her feel like a giddy schoolgirl sometimes.

As Brooke stepped off the elevator she bumped straight into Haley and Nathan, who looked like they were having a stressful conversation. Brooke followed behind them from a safe distance, but close enough that she could do a little bit of eavesdropping.

"Why not Oakwood Green Estate?" Haley whined. Nathan sighed, "It's too pricey Hales." He said for what felt like the millionth time. It didn't long for Brooke to clock on that they were talking wedding venues and her interest was immediately peaked. "But, if you really like it then we can make it work." He added at the end. He wanted Haley to have her dream wedding, even if that meant spending a little more than he had anticipated.

"No, it's fine, we can look elsewhere." Haley insisted. As much as she wanted her dream wedding, she also didn't want it to be a burden for Nathan. "Glenwood Green?" she suggested.

"Glenwood Green is gorgeous, but you'd need a time machine. You'd need to go back at least 6 months if you wanted a date for this year. But have you thought about Blossom Grove? Oo, Juniper Meadows, look that one up!" Brooke interjected as she reached between them and snatched the tablet Haley was holding from her hand so she could look up the venues.

Haley and Nathan paused before turning around and eyeing Brooke curiously. How long had she been following them for?

"You know a lot about wedding venues in Raleigh Brooke..." Nathan observed a little confused. Brooke shrugged as she continued to look at the tablet.

"A lot more than us anyway. We've been trying to plan for months now but we suck at it. We just don't know where to even start." Haley complained.

Brooke's head shot up, "I'll do it." She said they raised their eyebrows at her. "Plan your wedding I mean." She clarified. "I know I only got married at a court house, but I had plans before that little impromptu evening and you'll not be surprised to know that what I had planned was planned to a tee, so if you need help I can do it. I just need a date and a budget." Haley's face lit up. If she had no idea how to plan a wedding, who better than to ask her best friend to do it instead?

"Yes!" She exclaimed. "Nathan, we're doing it."

"Seriously?" Nathan asked. He had no doubt that Brooke would plan a great wedding, but to put it all in her hands seemed crazy. She had enough going on, she didn't need a wedding to plan on top of it all.

"Yes, we hate party planning and if I promise not to just leave you at the alter can we let her do it?" Haley said with pleading eyes as she clasped her hands together.

Nathan smirked; "I think we just won the lottery."

Brooke jumped up; "Yay! This is going to be the wedding of the century." She said dramatically. "Send me through any details and I will get right on it. My god this has been a great day so far. I love love!" she exclaimed as she skipped away.

"Oh yeah… right there… oh god"

"You are so tight."

"Tell me about it, surgery isn't exactly a job that relaxes the muscles…"

Brooke chuckled and continued to massage Lucas's back in one of the on calls rooms. He'd placed a lunch time booty call with her but as soon as he walked into the room and awkwardly stretched his back, Brooke launched at the opportunity to massage him and try and get him to relax.

"That's true." Brooke said as Lucas continued to groan as Brooke straddled his back and dug deeper into his shoulders.

"How did I not know you were such a good masseuse?" Lucas grumbled.

Brooke smirked, "It's one of my best kept secrets… my nana taught me when I was in high school, she's very into this kind of stuff." She told him. Brooke's nana was a little cuckoo and gave off real hippie vibes. It was amazing Ted turned out so level headed and stern.

"Ow, geez."

"Sorry… I did say this would hurt" Brooke reminded him. She had given him fair warning. "I'm a strong gal… and this is real muscle, unlike your glamour muscle" Brooke teased.

Lucas chuckled deeply, "Watch it Davis…"

"I like this" Brooke said quietly with a small smile.

"Massaging me?"

"Yeah, but it's more than that. The past few months, we've basically been like –"

"Two horny teenagers?"

"No!" Brooke said with a laugh as she lightly swatted him. "We've just been having flirty fun. We've been in love and it's amazing and sweet and romantic and I just love you." She rambled as she leant down and kissed his cheek. "You know I love a good flirt" she said quietly in his ear.

"Well I can certainly do flirty fun…" He said as he rolled them over so she was now beneath him, causing her to let out a squeal in surprise and a little laugh. "You are so perfect" he said as he gazed down at her.

"Well nobody's perfect… but I need to be perfect in surgery right about now…" she said as she pushed him off her and stood up, lifting her white coat and slipping it on.

"Go kick ass baby" Lucas encouraged.

Brooke quirked her eyebrow, "Oh I will—" she said as she turned to open the door. Just as she reached for the handle, the door opened and smacked Brooke straight in the head.

"Shit!" Brooke exclaimed as her hand jumped to her forehead. She looked up and saw Peyton standing on the other side, looking at her with wide eyes. "Well… this is eerily familiar." She grumbled as Peyton grimaced.

"Sorry…" she grumbled. "Some charts for you to sign Luke" Peyton said as she dropped the tablet on the chair by the door before making a quick escape.

Luke walked towards Brooke with furrowed eyebrows and moved her hand away to inspect her forehead to inspect it. He saw a substantial cut across it. "Yeah, that's going to need a few stitches…"

"Are you kidding me? I have surgery!" Brooke moaned.

"Not anymore you don't. But it's ok, I can make it disappear." He said. He would stitch it up and ensure that no scar was left.

Brooke pouted, "Good because the only reason I married you was for situations like this." She teased. He had fixed up her nose after all.

Lucas quirked an eyebrow as he lowered his hand from her head, "Peyton does seem to be making it a habit of hitting you in the face with doors."

Brooke gave him a sarcastic tight-lipped smile and nodded, "Oh yeah."

"But yeah it is a good thing that you're married to one of the best plastic surgeons in the country…" he joked, even though it was entirely true.

"Oh wow, way to blow your own trumpet…"

Lucas took a step back and held up his hands, "I could always leave it"

Brooke folded her arms and looked pensive, "Well scars are cool… especially facial scars."

Lucas grimaced, "Yeah, but is it really a story you want to tell? Oh yeah, my husband's ex-girlfriend hit me in the face with a door… twice…"

"You make a strong case Scott…"

"Besides… don't you want to see my skills?" he asked teasingly as he took a step back towards her and wrapped his arms around her waist.

Brooke quirked an eyebrow, "Oh I have seen your skills plenty of times…"

"Then you know it's a show worth seeing again. Come on" he said as he took her hand and led her out the door.

Soon enough, Brooke was sitting in one of the plastics treatment rooms while Lucas began putting the stitches in.

"Am I the first girl you've ever tried to charm with your surgical skills?"

"No… but you're the only one it doesn't work for." He teased back as Brooke playfully rolled her eyes. "You may not have been the first… but you'll most certainly be the last."

Brooke couldn't help but blush at his comment. "It only doesn't work on me because I know better than to inflate your ego."

"It's not about ego. It's about skill. I've been trained to pay attention to every last detail when I'm working. To make sure every little piece of someone has all the attention it deserves. That my patient has everything they need. I may not be trained to slice open skulls like you are and poke around in a brain… but I do have a number of skills that I know you find come in handy." He taunted, making sure to keep as little distance between himself and Brooke as possible. He was deliberately trying to drive her crazy with all this talk of his skills – and he had a funny feeling it was working.

Brooke gulped, "Uh huh…"

Lucas let out a breath and stepped back, "And we're done –"

Before he could move any further, Brooke grabbed him by the lappels of his coat and pulled him down for a hard and fast kiss, her hands roaming straight to the back of his neck.

"Dr. Davis, this all feels very rushed…"

"Shut up Scott" Brooke demanded before kissing him furiously again. Lucas smiled against her lips before picking her up and slamming her against the wall, ready to let out all the tension this back and forth had caused.

Later that evening, Lucas walked into the lobby of the hospital to find Brooke talking with Haley. He assumed it was about this wedding she'd agreed to plan and smiled to himself. While he and Brooke wouldn't have wanted to change how they got married for anything, he knew planning a wedding was something Brooke would have loved to do. She really was living vicariously through Nathan and Haley right now.

He watched as Brooke said bye to Haley and bent down to speak to Sophie, who had been sitting patiently in her pram. He smiled wider as he watched Brooke make Sophie laugh. He watched as Sophie reached out and touched the bandage on Brooke's forehead, before leaning forward and giving her mom a kiss – just like Brooke did to her when she hurt herself. It was the sweetest thing in the world. He loved his girls more than anything in this world. He couldn't have imagined ever having a family filled with so much love and joy. Brooke soon looked up and spotted Lucas, smiling at him and beckoning him over.

"Come on, let's get you girls home" he said as he wrapped his arm around Brooke's shoulder and kissed her head.

"Yeah, this cutie is ready for bed. Aren't you love bug? Hm, I just love you." She said as she bent forward and kissed Sophie's head. She took the handles of her stroller and began pushing her through the lobby, while Lucas suddenly held back for moment.

"Hey" he called as Brooke stopped walking and turned around to look at him.

"Yeah?"

"Let's have a baby."

"… what?"

"A baby. Let's do it again."

The following morning Brooke was walking through the hallways when Lucas caught up with her. Instead of greeting him, she simply smiled up at him.

Lucas sighed; "Are you done giving me the silent treatment?"

"I'm not giving you the silent treatment. I have rounds—"

"Which you could talk to me on your way to—" he suggested.

"I just need to think." She mumbled quietly. It was quite the bombshell Lucas dropped on her last night and she didn't know what to say. She certainly wasn't expecting this. She could barely say two words to him and it wasn't deliberate, she just didn't know what to say.

"You can say no Brooke, it's not a matter of life and death—"

"It's not as simple as that Lucas." Brooke snapped as she stopped to look at him. She pulled him into a supply closet as to not draw attention to themselves.

"This is an easy decision for you, you're not the one who has to carry the baby for 9 months, you're not the one who has to take maternity leave, you're not the one who is supposed to be starting her fellowship soon, you're not the one who was stabbed in the heart—"

"So you don't want to have any more kids? Is that what you're saying?" he asked as he crossed his arms.

"That's not what I'm saying—"

"Sophie is the best thing to ever happen to us and I just want to experience that again and I want our kids to be close in age so they can have that close bond—" he reasoned. Two years was the perfect gap in his mind.

"There is 12 years between me and Matty, 14 between him and Harry, I think we're doing ok on the bond front, not to mention the 30 odd years between us and Maya—" Brooke reminded him.

"Are you saying we have to wait till Sophie's 30 before we have another kid?" Lucas asked in disbelief.

"No, no, I'm just saying—let me think about it. It's easy for you to want this but I have a lot more to give up than you." Brooke reiterated.

"I'm not exactly an absentee father Brooke." Lucas defended.

"Don't twist my words."

"Ok, ok. Think about it, but please also talk to me about it. This should be a joint decision." Lucas reminded her, before leaving her in the dark closet.

Brooke hadn't stopped thinking about what Lucas was suggesting all day. She wanted this so badly, but it was a huge decision to make. Another baby would change their lives completely. It was some next level parenting. To make matters worse, she had lost two patients today and it was heart breaking. She wasn't sure how much more her emotions could take. That afternoon, she hit the elevator button and the door soon opened to reveal Lucas. She reluctantly got on beside him, not sure if she was in the mood for his new list of justifications. They stood in silence for a moment before Lucas jumped in.

"We're good parents." He said.

"I know." Brooke bluntly replied.

"We had good parents too. Well… Three good parents."

"I know."

"We would be good parents to two children."

"Do you think Sophie would be a good sibling?" Brooke asked out of the blue.

"What?"

"What if she's particularly hostile to a new baby and acts out and goes crazy."

"Sophie is the most chilled kid in the world, you know that." Lucas reminded her. Yeah, she had a flare for the dramatic, much like her mother, but she could be really mellow when she wanted to be – just like Lucas.

Brooke shrugged; "I don't know Lucas, siblings change people. Sometimes not for the better."

Lucas pinched the bridge of his nose; "This is ridiculous…"

"I'm just making sure we consider all possibilities"

"That list is endless with you."

"Well then, we better get considering." She said as she patted him on the chest and exited the elevator.

Brooke rushed round to the scrub room off OR1 and managed to find exactly who she was looking for- Kate. She figured if anyone could give her solid and reasonable advice it would be her.

"Hi. You busy?" Brooke asked as she awkwardly rubbed her hands together

"Just scrubbing in for surgery"

"Ok I'll be quick then. Do you remember that time in our lives when you were literally the last person I ever would want to talk to about something?" Brooke questioned with an awkward laugh.

"Yes." Kate confirmed. It really wasn't that long ago, but where was she going with this?

"Well, I am super glad we're past that and we can do this—"

"Spit it out Brooke."

"Lucas wants to have another baby and I don't know what to do." She blurted out quickly.

"…oh."

"Yeah."

Kate thought about it for a minute. "Well, do you want another baby?"

"Yes. No. I don't know."

"Pick one. Your gut instinct." Kate encouraged.

Brooke took a breath before answering. "Ok. I want to have more kids, I just don't know if I want to do that right now."

"Two kids is hard work, plus with a very demanding job on top of that." Kate reminded her. She wasn't trying to sway her either way, but she wanted to make sure she'd really thought about it.

"The last thing I want is for us to be absentee parents because we jumped the gun on having another kid." Brooke told her honestly. She wanted to give everything to her kids and she hated the thought of being in a position where she couldn't do that.

"I can guarantee that will not be the case. If this is an issue of you thinking you won't cope, then you shouldn't fear that. You're Brooke Davis. You're a superhero. You can handle two kids. But if it's about something else, if it's about Lucas—"

"No, no, it's not about Lucas." Brooke made clear. She would love nothing more than to repopulate the earth with him, but this was about her.

Kate placed an encouraging hand on her upper arm; "he loves you. I've never seen anybody look at anybody the way he looks at you. It's like he's genuinely amazed. If you want this—go for it."

Brooke's day really didn't get much better from that moment on. She lost yet another patient and as she was telling the man's wife that her husband was gone, she had an epiphany. She rushed home, burst through the front door and straight into the bedroom where Lucas was getting changed for bed.

"People can't be with the people they love." Brooke announced.

Lucas frowned as he set his shirt down on the ottoman at the end of their bed. "What?"

"All over the world people can't be with the people they love because life has a really cruel sense of humour and just loves to kick us in the as, so I can see how people think it's a little crazy that we, us—" Brooke said as she paused to consider what she was trying to say. "Our fights are epic and regular, and people don't get why we bother, why we waste our time fighting and getting ourselves into bothersome situations but—people can't be with the people they love and we should appreciate and treasure that we can be. We can be together we can have a life together, an incredibly passionate and crazy one but—I wouldn't change it for the world." She said, letting out a breath she didn't even realise she was holding in.

"That—that's good." Lucas said, a little unsure how he was supposed to respond to this. "I wouldn't either." He quickly added on to the end.

"You could literally have any woman that you wanted, yet you chose me to have this life with." Brooke asked with a laugh.

Lucas smirked; "I think it was more you choosing me. And why would I want aanybody else when I have you? Davis' are like rare gems—

"Oh god…"

"So precious but so hard to find, only the lucky few can get one and I consider myself very lucky." He said as he wrapped his arms around her waist.

Brooke laughed; "You are such a dork."

"You have a hell of a lot of power over me Brooke. I'm completely sunk, you have been given every reason to walk away and then I throw having a baby at you and it's yet another reason to you to walk away—"

Brooke quickly cut Lucas off with a kiss. It was only a few seconds long, but it stopped Lucas entirely as he just looked down at her, completely captivated by the woman in his arms.

"I don't want to walk away. I never want to walk away. We can be together when so many other people can't, we can go after what we want—and I want this. I want you, I want our family. I want a baby." She said quietly.

Lucas looked completely surprised; "You—you want a baby?"

"Yes. I want a baby. I want lots of Davis-Scott babies. I want the Von Trapp family except instead of singers we're surgeons."

Lucas laughed; "Now who's the dork?"

"Just shut up and kiss me."

And he did just that.