Author's note: Usually I write shorter chapters for this story than for my other one, but since you guys we're so gracious in your reviews, I made this a long one. ;)

I really am grateful for the support in your reviews. It's nice to see that so many of you like what I'm doing with the story even if it takes a while for me to get Brucas back together.

But as many of you probably know; I does take a while to mend broken hearts…

Shedyourmask; "Tortured Brooke element"... lol, that was actually very well put. Maybe i can use that:)
Typokween; I agree with you. lol. But for morality-reasons, i can't really make that happen in this story...
And pOoLbEeRtAtToOs; To think that you read and reviewed my story while watching last weeks episode... lol. That's some support:)

Title is from the song with the same name, played by OneRepublic

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CHAPTER 9 – Goodbye Apathy

Everybody is watching you. Everybody is watching me too…

"Is this really my health-class?" Haley thinks when entering through the door of the classroom. "It looks more like something from a zombie-movie…"

She looks at Lucas who sits up front with his bruised face still shifting in purple. But added circles of tiredness under his eyes actually make him look even worse than yesterday, and he keeps eyeing Brooke in an ice-cold way over his shoulder. Brooke in turn looks more hung over than Haley has ever seen her. Her hair is tied up in a sloppy bun that she otherwise never would've left the house with, and even through her make-up, it's evident that she's sporting the same black circles under her eyes as her ex-boyfriend.

"I really have to have a talk with the both of them…" she thinks and feels the sting of worry in the pit of her stomach.

In the back Nathan is slumped over his desk looking like he's sleeping and she is not surprised. It had taken her forever to wake him up this morning.
Peyton, who's on the other side of the classroom just keeps looking back and forth between Lucas and Brooke with an uneasy curiousness and if Haley didn't know better she would think that there had been a huge party yesterday. But then Rachel would probably be wearing sun-glasses indoors and Rachel seems to be the only one who looks even half alive this morning.

She's a little late after showing a new student around and she holds up the piece of paper signed by the principal, but Mr. Crane just waves her in. She walks over and takes a seat next to Nathan and she nudges his side.

"Hey sleeping husband…"

Nathan flinches and sits up straight in his chair looking embarrassed, and she smiles at him.

"You kept twisting and turning all night…" she whispers. "No wonder you're tired."

He shrugs his shoulders and his eyes drift off towards Brooke two desks in front of them.

"Yeah…"

She sees him look and pats his back. "At least she's here, right? You couldn't have done more than you did…"

Mr. Crane hushes them and she turns towards the teacher's desk and flips her book open, softly rubbing her belly with her free hand. It's not significantly bigger but she is three months pregnant now and her clothes are starting to get uncomfortably tight. The constant tiredness is starting to pass, but not today of course. She had woken up last night when Nathan came back from Blue Post and then she had been up listening to him ranting on and on about how stupid Brooke was and how he would want to beat Lucas up all over again. But she knows that he had only been worried. And she understands why. Brooke's erratic behavior lately had her worried as well.

"You should talk to her you know" she whispers to Nathan when the teacher starts to hand out their exams, but he just mutters something she can't make out and she sighs. No wonder her husband and Brooke had been such close friends, she thinks. They were both more stubborn than anybody else she knew. Except for maybe Lucas…

What was it that Nathan had said last night?

"If Brooke keeps this up she'll just drive Lucas further away and however much I want them apart, we all know that they belong together…"

Couldn't Lucas just catch on and get himself together? Because Nathan was right. Everybody that had the least bit of brain-activity could see that he and Brooke was a match made in heaven and however much Haley liked Peyton, the blond girl was just meant to be Lucas' friend, nothing else. Two broody people like them together just created a mess. A depressing mess at that.

She looks at Lucas who still has his eyes on Brooke and for the umpteenth time lately she wishes that Brooke had never broken up with him. Sure, he had deserved it, but Lucas had never really been good at fighting for Brooke and this time Brooke wasn't going to help him either. Not since the brunette girl was certain that he loved Peyton.

"What am I going to do?" she thinks and sighs again, before turning her concentration towards the math-problems.

------------------------------

The class is over and Brooke gathers her stuff and gets up from her seat. It feels like she's sleep-walking.

She has slept maybe two hours at most. The rest of the night she had just stared up into the ceiling, thinking of Lucas. However much she wanted him out of her head he was staying put, and finally she had just given up and admitted to herself that she loved him just as much as before. And that it wasn't going away, not even now that she knew he loved Peyton.

Still, she knows that this apathy and downwards spiraling that she has allowed her self to be sucked into lately has got to stop. This morning, while standing in the shower, she decided that she needed to talk to Lucas and at least try to mend their friendship, even though he was probably going out with Peyton by now. She can't stand not to have him in her life at all.

But then she arrived to her math-class and she suddenly changed her mind. For the entire hour she felt his eyes on her and her exam had gone surely down the drain, because for some reason his eyes had been so angry.

As he walks past her on his way out of the class-room, he stops for a second saying;

"I hope he was good…"

And before she has any chance to ask him what he means by this, he's already gone.

The day passes in a blur. She keeps to her self in the different classes and she spends lunch-hour in the library so that she won't have to face Nathan. She knows that she has to talk to him too, preferably before tonight's game. She's feeling guilty for just leaving like that last night, he had only been trying to look out for her, but right now she's way too tired to have another argument with him.

How she will ever muster up the energy for tonight's game against Oak Lake is beyond her. Cheerleading was almost a joke for a person as hung-over as herself and the thought of having to go to an away-game made her cringe. Forty minutes in a bus with anyone today was bad enough and that amount of time in a bus with Lucas and Peyton was unbearable.

So when they're heading out of their last class she pulls Rachel to the side.

"Rach, I really don't want to go to the game… Can you tell Whitey and the squad that I became sick and had to go home?"

"Uh-uh…" the redhead says, shaking her head. "If I have to go, then you do too! I hate busses and I'll probably die of boredom if you bail."

Brooke sighs loudly and wines; "But Rachel, you'll have the other girls. I'm too tired…"

But before she can escape, Whitey appears around the corner and smiles at them and Brooke knows she's stuck now.

"Damn it…" she mumbles under her breath and Rachel must think that it's directed towards Lucas who's standing further away by his locker, because she whispers;

"Don't worry about Luke. I fed him some crap about you having a new hook-up… he'll leave you alone know."

Brooke gasps. "You did what? When?"

"Well, he came by the house last night before you came home. He was kind of pissed off when I told him that you were with some guy, but I think he got the message."

Rachel smiles proudly, obviously sure that she's done the right thing, but Brooke glares at her. Suddenly Lucas' strange and angry behavior became much clearer.

"You're such a bitch Rachel…"

"No I'm not. I'm only looking out for a friend who can't see that she's much to good to be hung up on some stupid guy who doesn't appreciate her enough… so I just took him out of the equation." She smirks. "You can thank me later."

"Whatever…"

She picks up her bag and heads towards the locker-room. Not only does she have to share the bus with a really upset Lucas, she has to do it in her damn cheer-uniform. Could this day suck any more?

-----------------------------

Nathan grabs his bag and heads outside where the team is already standing, waiting for the bus that will take them to the Oak Lake. Lucas is sitting on a bench to the left and Nathan isn't looking for any more trouble with his brother, so he goes right and leans towards the building wall. He's a bit apprehensive about the bus-ride since he still hasn't talked to Brooke, and with Lucas and Peyton in the bus as well, it could all turn into a real mess if she was in a bad mood.

But just as he thinks that, Brooke comes over to him, already dressed in her cheer uniform.
A small smile appears on her face and he knows that the smile is meant to be a peace-offering. Because knowing Brooke, he knows that they would probably never talk about the change of words they had in front of Blue Post last night, and that's a shame since he knows that she had taken so much of what he said badly. But he hates being on bad terms with her and he gratefully smiles back.

"Have I ever told you that you look good all dressed up?" she asks and touches the arm of his suit-jacket. And he laughs.

"No, you used to say I looked silly…"

She raises an eyebrow and pretends to think. "Well, you didn't really have the shoulders to pull it off when we were fourteen Nathan. And you did look stupid in your father's silk tie. You still do, you know, even if that one probably is yours…"

He looks at the ugly knot under his chin. Haley always did his tie for him, but today she had been busy at the tutoring center and she wasn't coming to the game either.
Brooke sees him look down and sighs.

"Oh come here Nathan… Let me help you with that." She grabs his tie and starts to loosen it. He stands still and lets her fix the mess he's done while asking;

"How did you learn how to tie that? I mean your dad was never home…"

"I screwed the entire debate-team…"

He laughs. "Yeah right Brooke, as if it wasn't enough with the basketball-team…" But then he thinks of something. "Hey, isn't that a line from 'Pretty Woman'?"

Brooke hits him over the head, giving him a fake-angry look. "You dumb-ass! You actually thought I was serious at first!?"

"Well yeah… you never know… You used to be kind of wild…" He winks at her and smiles, reassuring her that he's joking this time.

"Fuck you Scott!" she laughs. It's a bubbly and beautiful sound. A sound that hasn't been heard nearly as much as usual lately.

"Actually, I think that's Haley's department…" he says with a playful half-smirk.

They both laugh and she tightens the now perfect tie before giving him a sisterly kiss on the cheek. "There you go. All nice."

"Thanks B."

She winks but there is seriousness behind the green eyes' smiling glimmer.

"No, thank you, Nathan. Thank you…"

----------------------------

The bus pulls up and Lucas grabs his bag and stands up from the bench. Watching Brooke laughing with Nathan is a strange kind of self-inflicted torture and it feels good to walk right passed them and into the yellow bus. He walks all the way to the back and puts the earphones to his ipod in his ears, letting the sound of OneRepublic fill his head before getting comfortable in his seat. He saves the seat next to him for Peyton and just moments later she slumps down on it.

"Thanks" she says and he nods back, not really in the mood to talk. Peyton seems to get the hint because she leans over and starts talking to Theresa who sits on the other side of the aisle and leaves him alone.

Brooke sits a couple of rows in front of him but on the same side as Theresa, next to Rachel. She has her legs stretched out in the empty aisle and the extremely short skirt allows him to see almost every inch of her naked legs. He follows the tanned skin all the way from the white sneakers up to the hem of the little blue skirt and once again the jealousy washes over him. Yesterday someone else had touched those legs, someone else had kissed her lips…

I can't sleep. No, not like I used to

I can't breathe in and out like I need to

It's breaking ice. Now, to make any movement

What's your vice? You know that mine's the illusion...

This song playing from the earphones was maybe not the best choice right now since it reminds him of Brooke. She had listened to it one morning right after their trip to Rachel's parents' cabin and for some reason the memory of her in the early morning light had kind of stuck to the song. And he can't make himself to switch it, or turn it off. Instead he closes his eyes and succumbs to the pictures already filling his head.

His big sweater hung loosely on her where she stood in his kitchen, making herself a sandwich. It covered her to a point on the upper part of her thigh but her legs were naked and she was barefoot. The oversized collar had slipped down over one shoulder, leaving her porcelain skin free for his touch, and he stood there in the doorway for a while just looking at her.

Then he walked up to her and wrapped his arms around her waist from the back, softly pressing his lips against her neck. He felt her shiver and even without seeing her face he knew that she smiled. And he kissed her again, this time a little higher up under her ear.

As the song picked up the pace in the background he heard her whisper "Good morning boyfriend…" with a voice still raspy from sleep and he breathed in the scent from her.

All at once, (as i'm trying)

I can help you out (just to keep things right)

I'll be what you need, (I'll kill myself to make it perfect for you)

I'll do anything...

Goodbye apathy

The simple beauty of her appearance in the early morning hour made his heart beat faster just by looking at her and he untied the messy bun on the back of her head to make her long dark hair fall freely down her back.

He kept kissing her skin as he untangled the strands of chocolate brown silk and she turned in his arms and captured his lips with hers, her tongue warm against his.

It was a long calm kiss and when she finally pulled back he leaned his forehead against hers.

"I love you so much that it hurts Brooke…"

She smiled again and her hands slid up under his t-shirt, slowly stroking his back, and as the song ended on the radio she whispered;

"Then come here and let me make you feel better…"

He opens his eyes to look at Brooke again and for some reason she looks back and sees him watch her. Maybe she felt his eyes on her, and feeling a bit embarrassed, he looks away. In the corner of his eye he sees her whisper something to Rachel who shrugs her shoulders, looking like she's about to pout. Nathan leans in from across the aisle and with heads close together Brooke says something to him too, making Nathan shoot glances back at Lucas.

He thinks that she's probably telling Nathan how pathetic she finds him for sitting here and staring at her, but surprisingly she stands up and walks the few steps back over to his row of seats. She leans herself on the headrest in front of them and looks at Peyton.

"Could you move for a while?" she says coldly. "I'd like to have a word with my ex-boyfriend."

Peyton gives him a look and he nods for her to go. She sighs but stands up and goes to sit with Bevin somewhere up front. Brooke slides down on the now empty seat, neatly tucking one leg in under her.

"I didn't go home with that guy last night…" she says bluntly. "I just want you to know that."

"Eh… what?"

It so typical of Brooke to just come out and ambush him with the one thing that has been on his mind for 18 hours, and to make it sound like it was it was not important.

She looks at him intently, seeks his eyes out until he has to look at her.

"Rachel just said that I went home with a guy to make you back off from me. I didn't know what she said to you up until twenty minutes ago. …I mean, that's why you're mad, right?"

He squints at her, trying to make out if she's telling him the truth and at the same trying to figure out why she is telling him at all. As she has so coldly pointed out several times lately, they were not together anymore, so who she did or did not sleep with was not his business. But her eyes force him to say something. Even though he hadn't planned on asking her this;

"Have you slept with someone else since we broke up?"

At first she's just quiet, but then her shoulders tense up and she nods.

"Yes."

It hurts like a knife-stab in his chest and he swallows. Neither of them breaks the eye contact and if it wasn't for the slight tremble of her bottom lip, he would think the time had just frozen. He doesn't ask 'who' or 'when', he just breathes in and out.

"Okay…" he says then. "Okay."

She gets up and she gives him a weak smile before going back to her own seat. He puts the earphones back in place and presses the reverse-button. The song starts all over again.

So don't sit still… but don't you move away from here.

Goodbye apathy

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The game goes by quickly and Brooke is happy with the squads performance, especially since she herself didn't really help. And the Raven's pulls of a great win, ending the game with 118-76 in favor of them.

Afterwards the tension in the bus is high and laughter mixes with recaps of great shots or steals. Brooke sits next to Nathan and it's weird to have the happiness of the win all tumbled up with her sadness about Lucas. He's sitting with Skills, Brandon and Zach just two rows in front of her and she can hear his voice.

She misses that voice so much. She used to love listening to him telling her stuff late at night when they laid in bed together. Or when he read her his boring books out loud. But it has been a long time since he told her anything of importance.

Leaning towards Nathan's shoulder, she looks out the window. The worst thing with his voice though, is that every time she thinks of it now, she only hears him saying two things;

Either "Then I guess I'm not the guy for you…" or "I care more for Peyton than you ever did!"

That's why she can't understand the hurt that had been in his eyes when she answered his question earlier. If he moved on to Peyton, then why couldn't she move on too?

The bus rolls to a full stop outside Tree Hill High and she looks at her watch. A quarter to ten. She hugs Nathan and Rachel goodbye and strolls off to her car. It's chilly and she pulls up the zipper of her jacket. Rachel's off to the after-game party with Bevin but she needs some peace and quiet first. The party would go on for hours and she could get drunk later, there was always the time for that. She turns the ignition-key and backs out of the parking-lot.

Goodbye apathy, so long apathy…

-----------------------------

I don't walk right, not like I used to.

There's a jump in my step as I rush to see you...

Lucas still has all too much adrenaline left in his body after the game. And after dumping his bag of at home and changing out of the suit Whitey had them wear at the away games, he walks down to the Rivercourt with the ball tucked under his arm.

And crossing the lawn in the park, he sees her right away. Brooke is sitting on the table at the side of the court, with her arms wrapped around her knees, and she looks up as he walks up to her.

"Hi" she says softly and he answers her the same way, adding a smile.

"Hi…"

Maybe it's the short conversation they had shared at the bus that stops her from leaving right away, but what ever the reason is, he decides to take advantage of it, hoping that they can talk some more. Not about the fact that she had slept with someone other than him, he just wants to forget that. But the thoughts of Brooke were what kept him up at night and maybe, if he could be near her for a while, sleep would finally come when he got home.

And there had to be a reason to why she had come here, and he hopes that that reason is that she unconsciously wants to see him too. So he sits down beside her on the table and takes in the complete calm of the night. They sit like that for well over five minutes without either of them saying anything. Then he decides to try.

"Why have you been trying so hard to avoid me?"

It's been quiet for so long that she flinches by the sound of his question. But then she looks up at him and in the soft light from some distant streetlight she looks gorgeous.

"It hurts too much to be around you" she answers honestly and he is so surprised that for a second he forgets to breathe.

"It hurts?" he finally says. "Why? I thought that you weren't in love with me anymore…"

She looks away and stares off into the darkness.

"I never said that… I said that I couldn't do it anymore, that I didn't have the strength…"

His eyes search for hers but she keeps looking away.

"Why? Because of Peyton and me?" he asks carefully and this time she just nods.

"But I never got together with Peyton after you found out about us Brooke. I picked you. I fought for you…"

He sees her tilt her head to the side and she makes a face as if she is debating with herself whether or not she should even continue this conversation with him.

"You do realize that you never actually 'picked' me over Peyton, right?" she says slowly. "You seem to think that you did but you didn't. You wanted to choose Peyton. And when you did pick me it was actually over Anna…"

He doesn't know what to say to that and laughing dryly she says; "I mean Peyton moved on to Jake after you had sex with Niki, so you never had the chance to pick Peyton at all. So you can never say that you held the feelings you had about me higher. Then you dated Anna for a while before deciding that you wanted me back. And what does that make me? Your fourth choice?"

She sighs.

"You know what Luke… Recently I've started to think that it was just because I was dating Felix at the time. I mean admit it, you always want what you can't have…"

He knows she has a point. Maybe even more than that, but he hates it. Sure, at the beginning of all this he had been confused as hell. But since last spring, before she left for California, he had loved her so much that it hurt, making everybody else fade in comparison.

"Brooke…" he tries quietly but she just waves her hand at him to shut him up.

"You wanna know something ironic though Lucas…" she says and kind of trails off in thoughts and when she doesn't continue he nods to make her keep going. She takes a deep breath.

"Do you remember the first time I told you that I loved you?"

He nods again, this time feeling reassured that this was a question that he understood and actually could answer.

"Of course I do Brooke. It was that night on my doorstep when you had just given me all those letters… When we got back together."

He smiles but she just looks down at the table and bites her bottom lip before shaking her head slowly.

"No…"

"What? …Yes it was Brooke. I said that I forgave you and you said that you loved me… and then I said that I loved you too."

She keeps shaking her head without looking at him and he's back to total confusion. What did she mean? That night had been one of the most emotional nights in his eighteen year old life. He knew the entire conversation they had by heart. Frowning he asks;

"Then when?"

"The first time we were together… You and Peyton were at the motel and you called to tell me that it wasn't her father in that morgue… You told me that you were heading home and I kind of… I kind of just blurted it out."

Closing his eyes for a second he tries to remember, but for some strange reason he can't.

"…I was so scared at first," she continues, "almost hoping that you hadn't heard me… but then you said 'you too' and I could breathe again because I thought that maybe you felt the same."

She looks up now and smiles sadly. "I guess that's not something you should say over the phone …and that I shouldn't have expected you to remember since you had so much else to think of right then. I mean, Peyton was an emotional mess and you had to take care of her… It's just so ironic since less than ten minutes after I said those three words to you, you and my best friend were in a motel-bed together, making out…"

He is the one looking away now. He remembers that… and he remembers how torn he had felt when that necklace Brooke had given him got caught in Peyton's hair. Torn between really wanting to be with Peyton and not wanting to hurt Brooke in the process. Funny how things had changed over the past year.

"I don't remember that phone-call…" he whispers. "I'm sorry."

"It's okay Luke. I don't even think that you registered what I said in that moment… It's just so ironic that the first time I ever said those words to a guy, he just had to screw me over…"

As she stands up and walks away he can hear her whisper; "I was screwed up enough as it was…"

He feels as if he should follow her. Make her understand how sorry he is for all the pain he's caused her, but last time he said 'i'm sorry' to her, it had just felt belittleing.

"Where are you going?" he shouts after her instead, suddenly realizing that she's dressed up. She doesn't turn or stop but she calls back; "To the party..."

Watching her back as she leaves, it dawns on him how different Brooke is nowadays. Not just lately but really ever since she found out about him and Peyton the first time. The girl she had been when he first met her was wild, a little out of control and crazy energetic. And sure, she had held up a tough façade against the main population of Tree Hill, but towards him she had been so unguarded, almost carrying her heart on her sleeve.

But somewhere in the midst of his teenage-confusion between her and Peyton he had managed to somehow break her spirit and knock the trust she had for him right out of her. And as he sits there by the picnic-table, he suddenly can't understand how she ever found the courage, or the will for that matter, to ever get back into a relationship with him. Not after she had given him her heart and he had just thrown it back at her feet.

And that had just been the first time he cheated on her.

Yet the strangest thing was that when she had broken up with him this time, it had been because he wouldn't let her in. That was ironic if anything.

It's dark at the Rivercourt and as the sound of her car disappears in the distance the silence is almost deafening.

"How the hell do I fix this?" he whispers but of course no one is answering.

He gets up and walks back towards town. The basketball lies forgotten on the ground by the table and his thoughts of shooting free-throws forgotten with it. It's already almost midnight but he doesn't make a left onto Burnette Drive. Instead he turns right. He suddenly knows what's wrong, and he needs to see Peyton.

I could be happy here, as long as you're near to me

As long as you're close to me

Now that I'm alright, I can help you out

I'll be what you need, I'll do anything

Goodbye apathy…

Everybody is watching you. Everybody is watching me too.

Goodbye apathy.

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Author's note: So how was that? A little Brucas for you all… Please tell me what you thought.

XXX

/Lynn