Fix You

I have developed a better idea of better idea of what this story is concerning. It's going to be a little mysterious and more confusing than I originally thought - and more of a Lucas/Brooke/Nathan/Haley love web. It is not AU, but it is a future-fic, and will be explaining in flashbacks what happened after and during high school, and secrets that people tried to conver up

1. Remind Me Why I'm Here

As soon as Lucas stepped into the house, he knew something was up. Karen's new oddities - tiptoeing quietly through the house, nervously twisting her hair between her fingers, and pacing silently past his bedroom door – all contributed to his belief that something was definitely up.

He dropped his bag by the front door, and as he did, realized that an unmarked suitcase was leaned up against the coat rack.

"Mom, what's going on?" he asked, as she greeted him.

"Oh, nothing, nothing. What's the bag for?"

"Don't you remember – they're starting to paint my new house today – you said I could stay here for a week or so."

Karen clapped a hand to her forehead. "Oh, that's right! I forgot!"

"What's wrong, mom? Why are you acting so weird? And whose suitcase is that?"

Karen sighed and nodded her son into the kitchen.

"Coffee?" He nodded and took note of two already empty cups sitting on the kitchen table. He collapsed into the chair.

"Hard night?"

"Grading papers. You will not believe how dull it is to have to sift through 50 essays on Ethan Frome, only about 8 of which are decent."

"I can imagine. But I would give them a break. Their only High School freshman."

Lucas laughed. "Okay, back to the subject. What's going on?"

Karen sighed and lowered herself into the chair. "You remember how after the accident, you and Nathan and Haley tried to get in touch with Brooke?"

The worry wrinkles on Lucas' face set in. "We never did. God, I just hope she's okay."

Karen cleared her throat. "There's something I never told you. Just with getting your lives back on track, and Nathan and Haley having to deal with Cody and Sarah, and now Brian too, I figured it would complicate things if I told you that…"

"That what?"

"About a month after the accident I got in contact with Brooke." A look of shock registered on Lucas' face but Karen kept going. "She called me, actually. Sounded pretty depressed. Wanted to check up on how things were doing."

Lucas stood up. "Why didn't you tell me?"

"I promised her, Luke! She said that she didn't want to be another burden on the shoulders of all of you."

"Didn't she realize that worrying about where she was has been more stressful than if she'd come home?"

Karen was at a loss for words. Finally she spoke up. "Why don't you ask her yourself?"

Lucas looked to his room and swallowed. "You mean she…"

Karen nodded. "She got here about an hour ago."

"Why is she here now?"

Karen shrugged. "Whitey's funeral."

"So she came back for Whitey's funeral, but not her own best friends?"

"It could have just been to hard for her."

Lucas sighed and his face softened. "I just wish she had gotten in touch with us."

Karen stood up. "Well, she's here now. Look, I've got to go pick up Alda from Deb's. Are you gonna' stick around?"

Lucas nodded. "I'll probably just wait for her to get up."

"Okay. I don't know if she's going to want to see Nathan and Haley today. It may take awhile."

Lucas rolled his eyes. "She dug herself into that hole when she cut ties with us."

"I think she knew she would have to deal with it eventually."

As he entered the room silently, his eyes immediately went to the curled up form on the bed. Brooke lay on her side, facing away from him, a pair of white socks sticking out from her faded pair of jeans. He made his way around the bed and saw her hair, which was shorter, and had a red tint, sprawled across the pillow. His breath hitched in his throat as he found her face with his eyes, a frown playing across her lips, her eyes closed. Though it had been a year since he last saw her, her face looked exactly the same – only more broken – more fragile.

Lucas realized she was stirring as her weight shifted across the mattress, and her eyelashes fluttered. In an instant, her eyes opened.

Her stare was fixed on him for a few seconds, before he think she realized where she was, or what was going on.

"Lucas." She sat up quickly in his bed, and brushed the bangs out of her eyes.

"H-hey." He was just as startled by her sudden awakening as she probably was by his presence in the room.

"What are you doing here?" She realized as the words came spilling out of her mouth, that it was a dumb question – this was his room after all.

"I was going to ask you the same thing," he replied softly, resting his weight on the edge of his desk. Her eyes moved to the floor, stumbling across her answer.

"I…I was kind-of, I don't – I…I came back for Whitey," she finished, finally meeting his eyes.

His look was sad – if not disappointed. She could tell her was already looking through her – judging her. It's all people every did anymore.

There was honestly nothing she could do anymore. It had been like this for the past week. He would sit in front of the tv with a beer in one hand, watching old basketball game footage, and brood like Lucas used to do.

Haley knew that it would take awhile for the shock of it all to eventually wear off Nathan. (Although to her, it hadn't been all that shocking. Whitey was 80 after all.) But his utter lack of contribution to running the household had reached an all time low – and Haley threw him out, told him to go to the Rivercourt, just to get him out of her hair.

The sun was just beginning to dip below the skyline of the buildings, as Nathan slowly turned the ball around in his hands. It was the one he had used in high school, and each wear in the material, each scratch along the rubber – each of those markings had a memory.

He let the ball drop to the concrete. It made a hollow sound when it hit, and as it did, he heard the approaching clacking of flip flops.

He turned and saw her cross the court. A look of surprise crossed his face, and he stood still for a second as he registered that she was actually standing in front of him.

Brooke Davis and Nathan Scott would always have history. Separately, the times their lives had intertwined, they didn't measure up to much. But when added together, their past was not something to be ignored.

"We don't tell anyone."

"Brooke!" he said with an air of desperation as the girl to be feared hurriedly buttoned up her jeans and pulled her tank top over her head.

She escaped from the linens and retrieved her bag from where it had been thrust into the chair.

"Brooke!"

"Stop it, Nathan." The words were muttered – yet sharp. They were a warning.

And so he stopped. Watched the fifteen-year old girl with the broken dreams and the lost character leave without so much as a goodbye.

They slept together to feel satisfied. Now all he felt was empty.

He stood at an edge of uncertainty – deciding whether to retrieve the ball from where it was rolling to the end of the court – or to envelop her in a hug. He chose the former.

Brooke hovered by the hoop, fidgeting with the zipper on her sweater. "Are you okay?" she finally asked, as he turned back to face her.

"I was going to ask you the same thing," she heard for the second time in the day.

Brooke looked to the ground. "I'm sorry about Whitey."

"Is that really what you're sorry about, Brooke? About Whitey? Really?" There wasn't much will left in him to be angry – not at her anyway, but the words kept coming. "You aren't sorry about not visiting for a year? Or how about cutting your friends out of your life for the past four months? Or maybe, just maybe – "

"I get it!" she interrupted. "I fucked up! I just couldn't deal with it – you know? It was too much."

"Don't give me that shit. You may have been Peyton's best friend. But I dated her for three years. Lucas went out with her for two. She and Haley were like sisters. You don't get to think you have the privilege of being a total bitch, just because you think you were the most affected."

Brooke knew that the tears were coming, and she hated it. She hated to let people see her cry. So with a turn on her heel, she retreated back across the court, and disappeared into the dusk.

Nathan stood there for another few minutes, just staring at the spot where she had been, before getting into his car, and driving home.

She was sitting on his bed, puling off her shoes, when Lucas entered the room.

"The funeral's tomorrow," he said bluntly, moving to the closet to find his suit.

"Sorry about crashing in here," she responded, avoiding the question. "I'll sleep on the couch tonight."

"Don't be ridiculous," he muttered, grabbing a book from his desk. "Are you ready?"

"For what?"

"To see her."

"To see who?"

Lucas gave Brooke a look. "Don't play stupid. You know who. Although, I doubt she'll be at the funeral. I mean, Haley loved Whitey. But with Sarah and Kyle, I don't think she'll be able to make it. And of course, now there's Ryder."

The last jab hit Brooke hard. "You had to bring it up, didn't you?" she responded sharply. "The guilt train just keeps on rolling. I get what I did. I get that I fucked up."

"You know what, Brooke? I'm not so sure you do!" There was a new fire to Lucas' voice that hadn't been there before. "You know, it would have been one thing if you weren't so god damn woven into our lives. If you were just a friend that couldn't handle coming home. But you had a responsibility! You still do! And now everything that you left behind – that is what's weighing down on us. On me, but especially Nathan and Haley."

"Lucas…"

"I just can't believe you would do this. To your best friend. She left Ryder to you. She trusted you with her son. And you broke that trust. And handed off that burden to Nathan and Haley. Without even telling them why. So why don't you dwell on that for awhile," he added, before retreating into the hallway and slamming the door, leaving a broken girl inside the bedroom in which she used to feel safe.