Hey guys! Wow, over 30 reviews for the last chapter, which is the highest number I've had yet, so thank you so much to everyone who reviewed! This chapter involves far too much Peyton for my liking, so sorry about that, but there are a couple of Brucas moments too, don't worry! Oh, and the Dawson's Creek quote is from episode 319, 'Stolen Kisses'. Anyway, enjoy!
Chapter Eight"Who is it?" Peyton called in response to the gentle knock on her door.
"It's just us," Haley responded, opening the door with one hand and edging inside. "We just came to see how Auntie Peyton was doing, didn't we angel," she continued, directing her voice to James, who was lying in a sling around his mother's neck.
Peyton shrugged. "I'm okay," she answered, feigning nonchalance.
Haley sighed. "Lucas really shouldn't be allowed to play 'I Never," she observed, as her friend smiled wryly.
"True," the blonde concurred, and Haley sighed again as Peyton failed to continue.
"So, the others have gone to the beach," she announced brightly, "and we were just about to go and join them. Do you want to come?"
Peyton shrugged, weighing the options in her mind and realising that she didn't really have an alternative: if she didn't face Lucas then he would simply be left with Brooke all day. Not that he'd complain, she thought bitterly, climbing slowly off the bed and picking up a bag. "I guess," she muttered, grabbing a towel and stuffing it into the bag.
"Yay," Haley cheered, as James cooed in agreement, and Peyton couldn't help but smile at the other girl's enthusiasm. Seeing the reaction, Haley paused for a moment before deciding to make another attempt at getting Peyton to open up. "Pey…" she started, and the other girl looked up in response, "uh, well, I just wanted to say, if you ever want to talk, well, I'm here, okay?" Receiving no response, she continued to ramble, "I mean, I know Brooke's your best friend and everything, but I just thought, given the situation, you might want someone who can be a might more impartial…" her voice trailed off as she glanced anxiously at the blonde.
"You mean someone who isn't in love with my boyfriend?" Peyton questioned, a hint of bitterness clear in her voice, and Haley blanched.
"Uh…" she stuttered helplessly, uncertain of how to respond.
Peyton smiled wryly. "It's okay," she told her friend, "I don't blame her. Hell, she was in love with him first. Its just…" she paused for a second, before turning to look directly into Haley's eyes. "Do you think he's in love with her?"
Haley gulped, weighing up her options for a moment before deciding to answer honestly. "Sometimes I do," she admitted, feeling a pang of guilt as she saw the pain in Peyton's eyes at her words. "But then, "she continued, "he chose you, and that has to mean something."
Peyton sighed, running her fingers through her curls in frustration. "I guess," she acknowledged, "but their relationship was so different to mine and Luke's, I can't help wondering if that was because he loved her more."
The other girl nodded, smiling at James as he gurgled before turning back to Peyton and considering her suggestion. "He loves you differently," she opined finally, elaborating after seeing the confusion on her friend's face. "Brooke and Lucas are opposites, you and Lucas are practically the same. No one could love you and Brooke in the same way, you're too different."
Peyton nodded, seeing her friend's point. "But then how do you know which sort of love is the right one?" she questioned.
Haley shrugged, knowing in her heart what the correct answer was, but not wanting to hurt her friend any more. "I don't know," she whispered.
The blonde girl nodded sadly, seeing the truth in her friend's eyes. For a moment there was silence before Peyton spoke again, voicing a question that had been plaguing her for weeks. "Hales, you know how last night I said that Lucas and I had only had sex three times?" she questioned, continuing as her friend nodded. "Well, is it weird that I'm okay with that?"
A frown furrowed Haley's brow. "You seemed pretty upset by it last night," she pointed out, confusion evident in her voice.
"I know," Peyton admitted, "but if I'm honest, that was because I was scared that all of his and Brooke's sexual history meant he loved her more, not because I actually mind not having sex. I mean," she continued, "when Lucas and I get into bed at night, I don't feel this overwhelming lust for him. I just feel…safe. Like nothing can hurt me while his arms are around me, y'know?"
Haley sighed, uncertain of what to make of this new admission. "Is that how you felt with Jake?" she asked bluntly, choosing to bring in the fourth member of the tangled web her friends had created.
"No," Peyton whispered quietly, almost shamefully. "With Jake I felt safe, yeah, but I needed him physically as well. We were no Lucas and Brooke," she smirked, as Haley smiled, "but the chemistry was there in a way that it isn't with Lucas."
The young mother shook her head, trying to make sense of the information. "You need to talk to Lucas," she announced finally. "And you need to do it soon, because if this goes on much longer someone's going to get their heart broken." Probably Brooke, she added silently, crossing her fingers as she hoped that her friends could sort out the muddle into which they had become embroiled.
Peyton nodded, knowing her friend was right. Picking up her bag she stuck her feet into flip-flops and moved towards the door. "You said they were at the beach, right?" she questioned, and seeing Haley's nod she continued. "Okay, then lets go."
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"There they are," Haley commented a few minutes later, pointing out their friends who were some distance away, in the midst of a game of chicken, Brooke balanced on Nathan's shoulders whilst Rachel competed with Mouth.
"Yes!" Nathan shouted as Mouth tipped backwards, sending Rachel flying into the sea.
"Nice work tutor-boy," Brooke agreed, grinning as Nathan bent down to let her climb off his back, "and nice hair," she continued to Rachel as she emerged, shaking seaweed out of her long red mane.
Rachel glared at her friend. "I demand a rematch," she announced.
"Fine by me," Brooke shrugged, "we'll happily beat you again, won't we Nate?" she taunted, turning to the younger Scott for confirmation.
"Uh-huh." Nathan shook his head, rubbing his shoulder in mock agony. "I'm out. And Rachel's right, you do have a fat ass!"
"Hey!" Brooke protested, slapping Nathan's other arm before gazing up at him, pouting, "Pretty please?" she wheedled.
"Nope," Nathan remained firm. "Luke'll play with you though," he suggested, gesturing towards his brother.
For a second Brooke froze, unsure of what to do, but the potential for awkwardness was quickly outweighed by her desire to beat Rachel again, so she transferred her gaze to Lucas. "Luke?" she begged, opening her eyes wide and sticking out her bottom lip.
Lucas sighed, knowing full well that he was powerless to resist the pretty brunette. "Fine," he agreed, wading further into the sea and bending down, "hop on."
"Yay," Brooke squealed excitedly, clambering onto Lucas's shoulders and trying to ignore the jolt of electricity that coursed through her as her former boyfriend gripped her legs in order to stop her falling. "You're going down Gattina," she taunted, sticking her tongue out at her friend, who had by now climbed back onto Mouth's shoulders.
Rachel rolled her eyes. "Puh-lease," she drawled, gripping Brooke's hands with her own, "like you two are gonna be able to concentrate with all the weird chemistry you've got going on. I give it five minutes before you get all hot and bothered and have to run home to brooke your – oww!" she interrupted herself with a yelp of pain as Brooke's foot made contact with her leg.
Brooke glowered at her friend, glad that from her position on Lucas's shoulders there was no way he could see her face, knowing that Rachel's words were completely accurate. The feel of Lucas's naked skin around her legs was almost unbearable and she shook herself slightly, trying to erase her aroused state. "Let's get on with the game," she finally managed, launching herself forwards and pushing at Rachel with all her strength.
"Whatever you say, slut," Rachel taunted as she pushed back.
"Whore."
"Bitch."
"Ho."
"Slut."
"You already said that!"
"So? You are a slut!" Rachel laughed at Brooke as the two bickered.
"You know, we'd have a much better chance of winning if you didn't waste all your energy bitching at Brooke," Mouth pointed out affably from underneath Rachel.
"Don't be so boring Mouth," Rachel scolded him. "Besides, we all know Brooke's gonna win, she's got more weight behind her."
"Okay, enough with the fat jokes Gattina!" the brunette protested. "I've got a perfectly decent figure thank you very much, haven't I Broody?" she questioned the boy underneath, unable to resist the flirtatious comment.
"Perfect," Lucas agreed solemnly, attempting a faint mocking tone in order to disguise the sincerity of his response.
"Ha!" Brooke taunted, sticking her tongue out at Rachel again and loosening her grip on the redhead's arms. "Aaargh!" she screamed as Rachel gave a gentle push and Brooke began to topple backwards, saved from landing in the water by Lucas, who twisted his arm behind his back and caught the girl, hoisting her back upright with the same motion. "Nice hands Broody," Brooke gasped in relief as soon as she had caught her breath.
"Well, you would know," Rachel teased, laughing, as Brooke once again glared at her friend in annoyance.
"Okay, Broody, we're gonna beat this bitch," she announced, pushing against the redhead with all her strength, and letting out a squeal of triumph as Rachel went tumbling backwards over Mouth's shoulder, and landing in the sea with a loud splash. "Yes! Ha ha, you suck!" she crowed, before screaming in shock as Rachel grabbed Lucas's leg from underwater and pushed, sending them both tumbling backwards into the sea.
"You okay?" Lucas chuckled, disentangling himself from the brunette and twisting his body so that he knelt just above her, laughing harder as he saw the disgusted look on her face.
"I've got seaweed in my hair," Brooke moaned, sticking out her bottom lip and sitting up to look at the blond boy.
Smiling, Lucas leant down, gently running his fingers through her damp waves until he was satisfied that no seaweed remained. "Better?" he asked gently.
Brooke nodded, her heart in her mouth as she felt the tension escalate between them. Unable to remain in such close proximity to the boy who owned her heart she attempted to shift backwards, but stopped immediately, wincing in pain. "My butt hurts," she complained, glaring at Lucas as burst into laughter. "It's not funny Broody," she told him, pouting dramatically.
"Come here," he told her, still chuckling as he got to his feet before bending down and scooping her up in his arms, carrying her out of the sea and back onto the beach. "Now," he teased, looking down at her as she lay in his arms, "why don't you show me where it hurts and I can kiss it better?"
"Eww!" Brooke squealed in mock outrage, pushing away the small voice in her head that piped up in support of Lucas's suggestion.
"What?" Lucas laughed, feigning offence. "It's not like there's any part of you I haven't already kissed," he pointed out, his voice husky, and the smile faded from Brooke's face as she bit her lip, tense with longing.
"Hey guys," Haley called loudly as she followed Peyton towards them, having seen the angry look on the blonde's face and realising she had better alert Lucas and Brooke to their presence.
Lucas spun round quickly and, seeing Peyton, Brooke jumped out of his arms, almost falling in her haste. "I…umm…I think I left my…something…back in the cabin," she stuttered, desperately avoiding the gazes of both Lucas and Peyton. "Back in a bit," she muttered, sticking her feet into her flip-flops and heading back in the direction of the cabin at a frantic pace.
The blond boy sighed, turning to face his girlfriend. "It wasn't what it looked like…" he tried, but she merely rolled her eyes.
"We need to talk," she announced, grabbing his arm and leading him firmly away from the group, who had begun to gather around them, as Lucas sighed again, knowing he wasn't going to enjoy this conversation.
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"I don't really know where to start," Peyton admitted as she and Lucas sat down on a bench a few minutes later, nervousness clear in her demeanour as she looked at her boyfriend.
Lucas smiled gently, his expression softening as he read the fear in her eyes. "Just tell me how you feel, Pey," he offered.
"Okay," Peyton agreed, taking a deep breath. "I'm not sure we should be together," she blurted out.
"Wow," Lucas exhaled, clearly shocked. "I wasn't expecting that."
"It's not that I don't want to be with you," the girl hastily qualified. "I love you, Luke, it's just…we don't have any chemistry."
"Chemistry," Lucas repeated, confusion clouding his features.
Peyton sighed, realising she wasn't explaining herself very well. "Last night, when we were playing that stupid game," she explained, "I realised that you and Brooke must have had this amazing connection to have been so desperate for each other that you had sex in all these weird places." Sensing that her boyfriend was about to protest she held up a warning hand to stop him and continued. "And I had that with Jake…although probably not to the same extent, I'm not quite the horn-dog that Brooke is," she joked, and Lucas smirked, silently agreeing with her. "Anyway, I'm not blaming you for the lack of sex, I'm just scared that if we don't have that lust, we're really nothing more than good friends."
The boy sighed, seeing the logic in Peyton's argument. "You might be right," he admitted, carrying on as he saw her face fall, "but then again, it might just be that you and Brooke are different people, and so are me and Jake, and so we can't possibly have the same relationships we had with them with each other."
Peyton nodded. "That's sort of what Haley said," she admitted, and Lucas smiled, glad that his best friend had been willing to listen to Peyton's worries despite her close friendship with Brooke.
"Hales usually knows what she's talking about," he agreed, ignoring the part of him that was fiercely crying out in support of Peyton's theory. "So where does this leave us?" he wondered.
Peyton shrugged. "I guess we see how it goes," she suggested uncertainly, looking up into his blue eyes. "I love you Luke, I really do, but I'm still not sure. This sounds awful, but in some ways I think I just needed to be with you so that I wasn't wondering what if all the time."
Lucas nodded again, impressed by his girlfriend's honesty. "You know, if you hadn't rejected me that time we might have managed to sort all this out by now," he joked. "Either we'd still be happy together, or we'd have realised we weren't compatible and…" he tailed off, uncertain of how to frame the rest of his thoughts.
"You'd be happy with Brooke?" Peyton finished, a knowing expression in her eyes as she looked at him.
"Yeah," Lucas whispered, realising he owed it to the girl in front of him to be honest. "I'm always gonna love her Pey," he admitted, "same as you're always going to love Jake. But that doesn't mean we can't love each other, does it?"
"I don't know," the curly blonde murmured. "But I guess we'll find out," she shrugged, as he pulled her towards him, holding her comfortingly.
"I guess so," he agreed, but as he bent to drop a kiss on his girlfriend's lips, the image at the front of his mind was one of a beautiful brunette who, less than an hour ago, had been encased by his arms.
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"Where's Brooke?" Lucas whispered softly in Haley's ear a few minutes after he and Peyton had returned, keeping one eye on his girlfriend as she squabbled good-naturedly with Nathan over whether he should be allowed to play hip-hop music on her CD player.
Haley rolled her eyes. "She went back to the cabin remember?" she told her friend, annoyance clear in her voice.
Lucas ignored the tone. "She hasn't come back?" he asked anxiously, concern cocktailing with guilt inside him.
His friend shook her head, her eyes softening as she read the worry in the boy's blue orbs. "Maybe I should go check on her?" she suggested, but Lucas shook his head, as she'd known he would.
"I'll go," he told Haley, before glancing back to his girlfriend. "Tell Peyton…" he trailed off.
"…that you've gone for a walk to clear your head?" Haley obliged, a reluctant smile on her face as Lucas nodded.
"Thanks Hales," he whispered, dropping a kiss on her cheek before jogging off in the direction of the cabin.
Within minutes he was there, and he paused for a second to compose himself, before opening the door and slipping inside. His heart rose as he saw the pretty brunette curled up on one of the living room sofas, biting her lip as she stared at the television screen, clearly entranced by whatever she was watching. "Hey pretty girl," he murmured, moving towards her.
Startled, she spun her head round to face him, a faint blush tingeing her cheeks as she realised who it was. "Hey," she muttered, trying to hide the smile that longed to etch itself onto her face at the sight of him.
"What are you watching?" Lucas asked, sitting down next to her.
"Dawson's Creek," she replied, forcing herself not to move away as his bare arm brushed hers and a jolt of electricity ran through her.
"Oh," Lucas nodded, "mind if I join you?"
Brooke sighed, turning her head to face him. "Shouldn't you be sorting things out with Peyton?" she asked grudgingly.
Lucas shrugged. "We talked," he acknowledged. "She's not mad at me any more, so…" he trailed off, shrugging again as his words disappeared. "I wanted to check you were okay," he admitted finally.
Brooke smiled sadly. "I'm fine Luke," she told him, but the lack of conviction in her voice hung in the air between them and he sighed. "I am," she repeated, emphasising the second word, "I just felt like a quiet afternoon watching cheesy teen dramas, that's all."
"So I take it that means you want me to shut up and let you watch this in peace?" he questioned teasingly, but the hint of sadness in his voice told her that he was genuinely upset that she didn't want to talk to him.
"Well you can talk during the commercials," she offered, a small smile on her face and Lucas grinned back.
"That seems fair," he nodded, settling more comfortably onto the sofa, and for a while silence reigned.
Joey: Pacey are you okay?
Pacey: Not so much, no.
Joey: Well what's wrong?
Pacey: It's the history. It's killing me. I mean how can I compete with that? You guys have your own karaoke routine.
Joey: Pacey you're not supposed to compete. We're supposed to have our own hist- I didn't mean that.
"I don't get it," Lucas looked confused and Brooke tore her eyes away from the screen for a second to glance at him.
"Get what?" she asked.
"This," Lucas gestured at the characters on the screen, before elaborating. "I mean, I never really watched Dawson's Creek, but I thought Dawson and Joey were supposed to be together. And yet here she is clearly into this Pacey guy."
Brooke smirked at the serious expression on Lucas's face as he pondered the love lives of fictional teenagers. "It's a matter of perception," she told him. "See, Peyton always used to tell me Joey belonged with Dawson: they've got the whole soul mate thing going on, they've been best friends forever, know each other inside out, blah blah blah. But I always preferred her with Pacey: he saw her as the love of his life, not just a best friend who he made out with. I dunno, it just seemed like the differences between them made it work, y'know?"
Lucas nodded. "Like you and me," he murmured softly. "And Peyton and I are like Joey and Dawson," he continued, feeling satisfied that he had managed to logically create a parallel between his own life and that of the teenagers on the screen, "we have everything in common."
Brooke smiled. "I guess," she shrugged non-committaly.
"So, who does Joey end up with?" Lucas asked, his curiosity piqued.
For a moment there was silence. "Pacey," Brooke finally admitted in a whisper, turning her gaze to look into Lucas's eyes.
The boy nodded slowly, his heart pounding in his chest as he almost drowned in the green pools that shone up at him, and he bit his lip. "Oh," he managed to stammer finally, desperately trying to shake the desire to kiss the brunette.
"Relax, Luke, it's not real," she smiled sadly at the bewildered look etched on his features. "Just because Joey chose someone who was her complete opposite, that doesn't mean you have to."
"Yeah," Lucas agreed, blue eyes clouding over with confusion as he considered her statement. Bu maybe I should, he added silently, letting out an inaudible sigh as he gazed at the girl next to him. Maybe I should.