Royal Scott is still causing problems from the grave... enjoy!

Chapter Thirty-Two – A Kick From the Grave

A month or so had passed and in what felt like forever in the making, the attendings at Raleigh Med were due to be presenting their project ideas for the contest Lucas was secretly funding with the money his grandfather had left him. Lucas was thrilled to finally be competing with his colleagues – something he couldn't really do when Royal Scott's name was over every award and grant given in the medical world. Pulling things together for their presentations at the end of the week meant that Lucas had been spending all day everyday at the hospital. He knew it was only temporary but he was seriously missing Brooke and Sophie.

As he was putting on his shirt in one of the on-call rooms that Tuesday morning, the door flung open and Piper, the chief of surgery, appeared looking pale and frantic.

"I'm pulling the plug on your contest, it's done, over" He said sternly as Lucas furrowed his brow.

"Wow, wow, wow—" Lucas said, completely confused by Piper's sudden change of heart. He had been all for surgical innovation in the hospital, why the sudden change of heart?

"No, if word gets out that Royal Scott's grandson funded a competition that he then entered himself? That's just going to mean more nasty headlines that we do not need right now." Piper reasoned.

Lucas scratched the back of his neck. "I'm I missing something?" Lucas asked, feeling like something must have happened to warrant such a panic from Piper.

Piper looked at him funnily. He really didn't know? "I uh – I think you should probably speak with your mother." He said, before quickly shutting the door – only to reveal a half naked and shocked Brooke standing behind the door. That was quite the interruption to their little rendez-vous. Thank god he didn't see her, cause that could have been awkward.

"You funded the contest?!" she asked as Lucas sighed and ran a hand down his face. No one was supposed to find out, not even his wife. Brooke's face fell. "I think I'm going to be sick." She announced as she threw her top on and ran out the door, leaving Lucas still in a completely dumbfounded state.

Was no one going to wait for him to speak?

After taking a minute to breathe, Lucas made his way round to the conference room where Karen had paged him too. As he walked into the room, he saw a random lady rushing around, writing on whiteboard, flinging papers all around her – and Karen sitting her head in her hand at the conference table.

"What's going on mom?" he asked cautiously as he closed the door behind him.

"Your grandfather seems to want to torture us from the grave too." Karen grumbled as the anonymous lady looked up at Lucas and smiled as she looked him up and down.

"Well aren't you just perfect for the camera." She said with a smile.

"Excuse me?" Lucas asked.

"Yes, yes this could work… oh! Also, what about your wife Brooke Davis?" she asked as she looked to Karen for approval.

"What about her?" Lucas questioned as he crossed his arms, not really understanding what was going on here.

"Honey, this is Octavia Mason, crisis management. She's going to try and save the Scott dynasty before it completely crumbles beneath us." Karen explained.

"Why does it need saving?" Lucas asked.

Karen looked up, "Have you not watched the news this morning?"

"I uh – I've been a little busy…" Lucas said quietly, not exactly wanting to admit to his mother that he'd been having a quickie with Brooke not 10 minutes ago.

Karen sighed and stood from her seat, taking Lucas' hand in hers, "A number of people are making some serious accusations about your grandfather. Mostly cases of medical negligence, violent assaults. All things that Royal paid to keep quiet. Now these people want more. They want justice… and I don't blame them." Karen said as Lucas silently nodded. He wished he could say he was surprised, but it seemed fitting that Royal would kick them in the ass even from the grave. It seemed fitting that he would leave Karen and Lucas to clean up his messes.

"This is ridiculous… the man is dead, we shouldn't have to be dealing with his crap anymore." Lucas exclaimed. He was so beyond livid that he'd ruined his contest and that he'd done so many horrible things to people.

"I know honey, but this is the last thing. We deal with these cases, we reduce the crisis and we can go back to normal." Karen insisted.

"Now back to your wife, Brooke." Octavia said as she sat down behind her computer and Lucas clenched his jaw, not appreciating this woman's tone at all. "We need to make her the face of the Scott Foundation and this hospital. She's a face people will remember and love and perception is everything."

Lucas glared; "This has nothing to do with Brooke, she's a surgeon not a poster girl—"

"Oh and your daughter!" Octavia said as the idea came to her. "A united, incredibly camera-friendly family is perfect."

"We are not dragging my wife and my daughter into this, no way in hell!" Lucas made clear.

"… it's ok. We can come back to that little nugget." Octavia said with a little laugh as Lucas clenched his fists. "So the lawsuits that you're facing—"

At that, Andy stormed into the room. "So this is how you get out from under the name of Royal Scott? A surgical innovation contest funded by his damn grandson?" he questioned.

"What?" Karen questioned.

"And that's out, ok…" Lucas grumbled as he sunk down into a chair.

"Lucas, you're the anonymous donor?!" Karen asked, shocked that this is what he'd done with his inheritance. "You put up the money and then entered your own contest?!"

"You entered your own contest?" Octavia questioned. Lucas pinched his nose. Seriously? Was no one keen on letting him speak today? His own wife ran away saying she was going to be sick before he got a word in. "Is this some kind of tax evasion scheme?"

"No! It was just me trying to do some good without feeling restricted by the Scott name!"

"Well that didn't work." Octavia responded. "Remember what we said about perception being everything? They would destroy you if this gets out."

"Well then let's not let it get out, alright?" Karen said, wanting to take the heat off Lucas. She sighed as she sat back down in her chair, "I spent my whole career building up the Scott name to what it is… and now he's going to tear the whole thing down. He's going to ruin everything good that we have done. I suppose I could go back to being Karen Roe."

"That's great mom, from your Scott son and granddaughter." Lucas said bitterly.

"I'm sorry sweety, I didn't mean it like that" Karen insisted. She shook her head and looked at her feet. "What the hell are we going to do?"

After a brief talk with Brooke, explaining everything that was going on, Lucas decided that the best and only thing he could do right now was to get on with his job. He scheduled in back to back surgeries. He just needed to be in his safe space and he didn't need Octavia Mason barking demands at him in an attempt to manage this 'crisis'. He just needed to think.

Meanwhile, Brooke had desperately been trying to get into surgery too – but she couldn't stop chucking up her insides. She was lying down in an on-call room, bucket at the ready beside the bed. Just as she was about to fall asleep, the door flung open and Peyton appeared behind it.

"Did you know?" Peyton demanded.

Brooke covered her eyes with her hand; "Dear god…" she grumbled. She really didn't need Peyton's annoying squeak making her feel worse.

"About the contest?" Peyton clarified, clearly annoyed about the whole thing. "I have never cheated a day in my life—"

"Well good thing this isn't about you then Peyton, isn't it?" Brooke said as she sat up in the bed.

"Because of this people may not get the chance to benefit from ground breaking surgical innovation and everything I thought I knew about Lucas—"

"He has an explanation." Brooke said cutting her off.

Peyton folded her arms; "What is it?"

Truth was, Brooke had no clue. She ran out to throw up before they could have a conversation about it and when she spoke to him earlier, their minds had been elsewhere. Right now, her mind had been a little preoccupied with the fact that she couldn't keep anything in her stomach. She assumed he just wanted to do some good in the world.

"I don't know but he has one." Brooke said as Peyton frowned. She sighed; "Look, Peyton, I know you've known him for a long time, but I know that boy through and through. Yes, he can be complicated but he knows his own mind and he has good morals. He is a good man and he didn't do this out of badness. He deserves the benefit of all of our doubts and if you can't give him that – no wonder you two didn't work out." She barked, a little more harshly than she intended, but she needed the message to sink in. In all honesty, it felt kind good sticking it to Peyton for once. She'd learned to bite her tongue over the years, but she felt it was reasonable for her to say something now. "Now, can you please go away, there is a reason I am lying down in the dark." Brooke grumbled as she lay back down and Peyton grumpily left the room. However, as soon as the door closed, it opened again to reveal Kate.

Brooke groaned; "Oh my god." She said before chucking up in the waste bucket beside her.

Kate grimaced; "Nice…"

"Helpful. If you're here to have a go at me about Lucas too—" Brooke began.

"No, I heard you were chucking up all day and wanted to make sure you were ok."

"I'm fine. Is that it?" she replied bluntly. As much as she appreciated Kate checking up on her, she really just wanted to take a nap.

"Here." Kate said as she threw her something in a plastic wrapper.

Brooke sat up to look at it. It was a pregnancy test. She looked at Kate with a raised eyebrow.

"You are trying. Right?" Kate asked.

Brooke couldn't believe that it didn't even cross her mind that she could be pregnant. She and Lucas had been at it like rabbits for the past month.

"… you're worse than my mother." Brooke said with a pout.

"You're welcome" she said with a smug smile before leaving the room.

After an incredibly long day, Lucas arrived home to the smell of something delightful coming from the kitchen. As he made his way through the house. He smiled when he saw Brooke standing over the stove cooking.

"Hey" he greeted as she turned around and gave him a soft smile.

"Hey" she replied. She walked towards him and kissed him. "I get why you did it. You wanted to compete, you wanted to get back in the game and… I get it." She figured he'd been getting a lot of grief for it and after thinking about it for only a short time, she could see exactly why he didn't and she didn't blame him in the slightest. He needed this and she was so sad for him that it was being taken away.

Lucas looked at her appreciatively. She was the first person today who hadn't gone through him about this. "Thank you." He said sincerely. "This looks amazing" he said as he looked over the cooking pot.

Brooke handed him a glass of wine with a smile; "A celebratory dinner. You were very impressive today. It was pretty hot." She teased, referring to his big surgery today that she'd managed to calm her stomach long enough to watch. Octavia had wanted him to perform a life changing surgery on a little boy for good press and he agreed to do it – but not for the Scott name. It was for the life he was changing. What anyone else chose to do with it was up to them.

"Oh really? Am I still going to be hot if I go broke?" he questioned as he played with the rim of his glass. It was looking like he was about to lose his entire inheritance and then some as a fall out of his grandfather's actions. Someone had to pay the lawsuits that they were fighting against.

"Are you going broke for noble reasons?" she asked.

Lucas shrugged; "Maybe."

"Then yeah. Still hot." She said as she gave him another kiss and walked back over to the stove.

Lucas watched as she set her glass of water down on the counter and then furrowed his eyebrows.

"Water?" he questioned. He figured he wouldn't be the only one who needed something a little stronger than water after today.

"Yeah, like I said it's a celebratory dinner." She said cryptically.

It took a moment for Lucas to catch on, and when he did—his face beamed.

"Brooke- you weren't throwing up this morning because you were repulsed by me funding the contest, were you?"

Brooke laughed. "No! Did you actually think that?!"

"I didn't know what to think to be honest, but I guess I do now…" he said as they stood a breath apart. "Are you pregnant?" he asked quietly.

Brooke smiled; "Yeah. I am."

Lucas's face broke out into the widest smiled as he lifted Brooke up and hugged her tightly.

He set her back down on the ground and placed his hands on his cheeks; "I love you." He said as he kissed her. "So much" he said as he peppered her with kisses and hugged her again.

"I love you too" she said with a giggle.

Lucas stepped back, his face falling slightly. "And uh—I'm sorry that our kids have the Scott name… that you're associated with it."

Brooke shook her head immediately; "No. Our kids have Lucas Scott's name. Not Royal Scott. There is a difference. You are not your grandfather, your mother is not your grandfather, you are not responsible for what he did. You do a lot of good in this world Lucas and Sophie and this baby are going to be proud to carry the Scott name. Because it is your name." she assured him.

He nodded. Words could not describe how much he loved this woman standing in front of him and now he was getting to expand his family with her. Maybe things would work out for the better after all.

Despite the happy news that blessed the Davis-Scott household, Lucas still had some serious fires to put out. He got up extra early the following morning to go to the hospital to get things sorted once and for all, while Brooke got Sophie ready for the day—and tried to let her morning sickness get the better of her. After she'd taken the test, Brooke had a sonogram done and it revealed that she was only 4 weeks pregnant. It was still very early days and was surprised she had been feeling sick so early on, but her mom had always told her that a healthy pregnancy involved a healthy dose of morning sickness.

As she took Sophie down to day care that morning, she ran into Andy on the way. She knew he was in the middle of awarding fellowships and she figured he deserved to know Brooke's full picture before he gave it to her. She didn't believe that a pregnancy should hinder her chances, but she knew this place was cut throat and that was just a reality.

"Dr. Davis." Andy greeted as Brooke smiled at him. "This must be Little miss Sophie, I don't believe we've had the pleasure of meeting yet. I've heard a lot of great things" she said with a smile and a wave as Sophie smiled back before burying her head in Brooke's shoulder.

Brooke chuckled and rubbed her back, "she's not normally shy. She's my bright and bubbly baby aren't you Soph?" she asked as Sophie let out a little giggle. "But uh – speaking of babies. I know you're processing neuro fellowship applications—"

"Yeah and I think you know what our answer is going to be…" he said with a smile. Of course, they were going to accept Brooke, the position was pretty much already hers. "What does that have to do with babies?"

"I may have another one on the way…"

"Oh, wow, that's amazing congratulations" Andy said sincerely. He'd never come across as the friendliest of guys, but it appeared he could be decent when he wanted to be.

"Thanks, it's really early days and we haven't told anyone yet, not even our moms, but I know you're in the middle of awarding jobs and I thought it was only fair that you had the whole picture of what was going on with me—" Brooke explained.

"Brooke, you are more than capable of being a great surgeon and a great mother at the same time. It's not something to be frowned upon or to be considered a hindrance. This is wonderful news. Enjoy it." He encouraged as he walked on, leaving a relieved and surprised Brooke behind him. Maybe this would all work out for the better after all.

After leaving Sophie off and getting changed for the day, Brooke made her way through the lobby to get started with her day. Unfortunately, it was swarming with reporters, just waiting to take a jibe at Lucas should he appear. As she fixed the badge on her coat, Brooke was approached by an unfamiliar woman.

"Excuse me, you're Dr. Brooke Davis, right?" the woman asked.

Brooke assumed she was a patient or the family of a patient, so naturally she smiled and nodded; "Yes, can I help you?"

"I'm Gianna Monroe. I just wanted to know… how could you do it?" she asked.

Brooke frowned; "I'm sorry?"

"How could you marry into the Scott family, knowing the kind of man Royal Scott was?"

Brooke then realised that Gianna was in fact a reporter and was looking for a story through her. Brooke folded her arms, ready to take a bold—but controlled— stand. There was no way in hell she would allow this reporter to run with a story that could damage Lucas further.

"I didn't marry into the Scott family, I married Lucas Scott for who he was. His grandfather had no bearing on that." Brooke made clear.

"The Scott legacy has been washed down the drain, are you really willing to be associated with that? Or is that why you've stayed away from the press during this time. Because you want an out." Gianna speculated.

"I don't think fabricating stories is going to get you very in this world Ms Monroe. I am more than willing to be associated with my husband because he is a good man. I'm staying out of the press because I don't need mine or my daughter's life on display. Privacy is everything, which I'm sure as a journalist you understand and respect wholeheartedly." Brooke replied without a second thought.

"Dr. Davis… I don't respect anyone that remains silent when their family has caused serious damage." Gianna made clear as she straightened her posture.

"Ms Monroe…" Brooke addressed as she took a step forward. "I don't respect anyone that seeks to tear apart a young family through the acts of a vicious old man. I think you would be wise to stick to the facts and to stick to what matters—these victims who are getting their justice. Not looking for juice where there quite simply isn't any." She finished, before swiftly moving past everyone and went upstairs to work.

Later that afternoon, Brooke went to take a breath in the lounge. She had been mulling over everything she had said to Gianna and was worried something could be taken entirely the wrong way and ruin everything Lucas was doing.

She flicked through a pregnancy magazine for a short while before Lucas came in in search of some coffee and was more than happy to see her there.

"Hey" she greeted with a small smile.

"Hey… everything ok?" he asked as he walked over to the coffee machine.

"I had my first encounter with a news hungry journalist today." Brooke told him as she set her magazine down on the table.

"You're kidding?" he said, clearly annoyed. "I told them in no uncertain terms you were not to be dragged into this—"

"It's a free press Lucas, they can do what they want." Brooke reminded him as she stood up and sat on the arm of the sofa.

"Are you ok?" he asked he walked towards and ran his hands up her arms.

"I'm fine. I think I said everything right I just—I'm sorry if something is printed and it doesn't seem that way."

"No, no, I trust you. I'm sorry you had to deal with them." He said solemnly.

"It's not your fault. It's none of our faults. Are you ok?" she asked he backed away slightly and ran a hand over his head.

"Well, I spent all day cutting cheques. We had $38 million before lunch, then I took a break to read a hard hitting article titled 'too little too late, how much did grandbaby Scott know?' Good stuff." He said sarcastically.

"Although it's unfair, it's also easy to sit outside a complicated situation and attack anybody who knew him." Brooke reminded him. It almost wasn't personal – these people were just looking for a good story and if they couldn't get anything out of a dead man, they'd go to the next best thing – his family.

Lucas nodded; "Right… but uh, here's the money I was able to set aside for Sophie and the baby. Everything I have may be up for grabs, but they can't touch this." He said, handing her the file he had set down on the table on the way in.

Brooke opened the file and smiled softly; "This—this is more than enough Lucas."

Lucas nodded. "They're going to be ok."

"They are definitely going to be ok. I was thinking about setting up trust funds after the baby is born. We can lock this money away and some of mine and nobody can touch this. Nobody can touch their future."

"Absolutely."

"But uh—is everything else really fair game?" she asked, knowing this must have been so hard for Lucas. He didn't want the money in the first place, but to lose it was a huge knock. Especially when some of his own money was having to be thrown into the mix too.

"Well, the foundation has to keep the hospital afloat, so… I want to pay all the personal settlements myself."

Brooke raised her eyebrows; "Really?"

"Yeah. I wanted to talk to you about it first. I know when we got married we agreed to keep our finances separate, but a big part of me still feel what's mine is yours—"

"Lucas, I love you for thinking to ask me about it but—it's your decision. For what it's worth, I think it's incredibly noble of you to do that. For these victims and for this hospital even though I hate that you feel like you have to. I know people will really appreciate that."

Lucas shrugged; "There's always going to be people who are out for blood. It's never going to be enough." He said pessimistically. He was afraid that this would haunt him for the rest of his life.

"I know… but the fact that you were able to set aside this money for our kids… it means a lot and it will to them one day too." Brooke assured him.

"I know… you uh—you don't happen to know anyone looking to buy a boat, do you?" he asked.

Brooke pouted; "You're—you're selling the boat?" After talking about it, Lucas actually did it and they'd had some great days out there. More importantly, it was treated like a man cave by Lucas, Nathan and Clay. Boy were they going to miss that.

"Yeah… I think I'm going to have to…"

"Damn. It's been a loyal and faithful boat." Brooke joked.

"Indeed it has, but it's got to go."

Brooke stood up and walked towards him, wrapping her arms around his waist; "Maybe one day, when the kids have grown and left us and we're hitting retirement age we can repurchase the boat and sail the Mediterranean."

"… well it looks like our retirement is planned"

Brooke giggled; "Honestly, I already can't wait."

Lucas pulled her in to his chest and hugged her tightly. When he held her, everything just felt so much better. He felt so loved and so safe.

"You're the best retirement partner I could ever ask for" he mumbled against her hair.

Brooke smiled; "Hm… say that to me again in 30 years… you uh—you want to go somewhere private? Take your mind off money?"

Lucas smirked; "Man, I forgot how horny a pregnant Brooke was—" he teased.

Brooke playfully swatted him; "Watch it…"

"You know, if we keep doing this every time I write big cheques we're never going to get any work done…" he said as their noses brushed.

"That is more than ok with me." She said, finally closing the gap between them.