Thanks for reviews last chapterr…. This is the finale! Hope you enjoy, another authors note at the end…..
Oh yeah I realise I never did a disclaimer so here you go: I do not and will never own any of the characters of One Tree Hill or its storylines.
So for the last time… ENJOY!
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Chapter 18- Tears and Snowfights
She was sat there alone. You'd have thought that she would have a lot of things running through her head but in fact she didn't. Everything was blank. She didn't take in any of her surroundings and she didn't think about the last time she had been there.
If she did it would have been just too painful. If she thought of anything then it would be too painful. So that's why she didn't. She just sat there and… well, sat.
She tried not to think about it, for so long she had sat there and just tried to block everything out. But she knew that she couldn't. She had to try and figure out where it had all gone so wrong.
Maybe that was a stupid question. It had all started with the accident. But shouldn't the two of them have gotten through it, together? Did all this just mean that the love she had thought she felt for him wasn't actually real?
No, Brooke decided. What she was feeling right now was very much real. The numbness she was feeling right now was due to the freezing cold and also the pain that she had been feeling before. She had hurt so much over the past few days that now it seemed that she couldn't hurt anymore. She had tried to get through to him so many times. But each moment he just pushed her that little bit further away. Until she was on the edge, contemplating what to do now.
That was where she was now. On the edge of the abyss, looking down warily, wondering how much it would hurt if she just jumped. Would it be quick and painless? Basically, would it hurt less than if she tried to walk back the way she had come, trying to make her way home.
But that was the problem now. Had his heart ever been hers? Or had she just been the second hand replacement for the love he always held the closest to his heart? Had everything they shared just been a lie?
When he had told her to go for the final time, she knew it had been the end. It had to be. She couldn't keep clinging on to someone that wasn't hers. He had made his choice, and she would just have to live with it. But living wasn't really what she would call it, right now it just seemed that she was existing. She had no purpose anymore, no-one to wake up for. She just did it now out of routine. She couldn't stop everything for just some guy she said to herself. But the problem was, he wasn't just some guy.
He was Lucas.
The guy she had imagined spending every day with for the rest of their lives. When even her hair had gone grey, she could imagine them both sitting on rocking chairs outside their house, him telling her how beautiful she still looked and really meaning it. And of course, she would be reading Vogue still, unless they had made another one for golden oldies. And he would be reading some old book, which he probably would have read thousands of times before. But he would read it because he wanted to, and he would read out sections to her and they would laugh and smile to each other. He would call her his Cheery and she would reply back 'I love you too Broody'. Their thousands of grandkids and great grandkids would then run up to them and ask them to play with them. But now they were getting too old. Too old to play basketball, too old to play dress-up. But still, it would be Broody and Cheery against the world.
She had had this all planned out in her head, but then destiny came and grabbed it away from her without a second glance. Brooke Davis would never get her happy ending.
Ever since she was a little girl, people had always thought of her as a Princess, waltzing around her big house, the most popular girl in the school, however they didn't see what was going on behind the closed doors. At home she felt like Rapunzal, trapped in her tower, isolated from the outside world. She had Haley, Jake and Peyton who were there to help her through it all but they could never fully understand.
It all came down to one thing. They had a family. A family who loved them for who they were and would worry if they were out too late or were upset when they didn't get good marks in a test. They would complain about it, probably to try and make Brooke feel better about it, but it never worked.
All Brooke could think about was how she wished that someone would care about her as much as they did. She didn't mind if someone wrapped her up in cotton wool and never let her go out to parties. All she wanted was for someone to love her.
And she thought she had that with Lucas. He didn't leave her when he found out things about her; for this reason she thought he loved her. She finally thought that she had found somebody to love her who she could love back. She finally thought that she had found somebody who would never let go. But that wasn't the case.
"Why couldn't he just love me back?" Brooke spoke aloud to herself. She was finally fed up. Of everything. Of the way that Peyton and Jake had had their happy ending since they were so young; the way that Nathan chased after Haley when she had left him. Why couldn't anybody chase after her? When she had been physically forced out of Lucas' life, he never came to his senses. She never got anybody to come running after her.
And so she finally needed to accept that. Lucas was running after Cesca and she was running after Lucas - but nobody was running after her.
"I do love you Brooke Davis." Brooke wanted to scream, but she knew if she did that, she'd laugh, and this was a time when she really didn't want to laugh. Brooke turned around, the tears evident in her eyes, her eyes red from the crying she had been doing. Lucas took all of this in, he finally saw how much he had hurt her.
She looked at him, really looked at him, and wondered why he was there. She was about to say something when he brought his hand up to her cheek and caressed it slowly, the action bringing Brooke to close her eyes, the tears slowly seeping down her cheeks and onto his hands. He slowly brought his other thumb to her eyes to wipe these tears. He couldn't stand to see her cry. Lucas tried to look into her eyes but she wouldn't look straight at him when he was looking at her. He slowly guided her face to look at his.
"I am so so sorry for how much I have hurt you Brooke." His voice caught in his throat, her usually sparkly hazel eyes were dark and blank. All the speckles of green had gone and the usual light brown colour was now almost black.
"You keep saying that Luke, but you know what? You hurt me more than you'll ever know, and so much more than I'll ever show. Luke, why are you here?"
They both sat in silence, neither of them knowing what to say. Only a week before, he had told her he loved her for the first time, and it had felt like everything was going so right, but now the world had crumbled around him leaving him and the people he cared about most stuck in the wreckage.
"The accident wasn't an accident. I found out today. I am so sorry but before then, I blamed everything on you. I just thought that if I hadn't been with you, then Cesca may still be alive. But I just don't get it. Why would she kill herself? She had so much to live for. Why would she do it?" The tears now trailed down Lucas' cheek. He didn't expect an answer from Brooke but he got one anyway.
"She was jealous. You were with me yet she had your son. She wanted you to spend time with him and her. But you didn't, you kept coming back to me. So she decided that she would try one last time to get you to see her. She came to Tree Hill and phoned you, but once again you were preoccupied with me. It was the final straw. You didn't want to see her or your son. She needed to do something which would make you realise how much you needed the both of them. She was driving back to New York, she wasn't looking where she was going; she saw that she was heading for a tree and thought, if I just speed up now…. There was no time to think. She never wanted to kill herself. She just wanted to be needed for a little while." Lucas looked at her. None of it made sense, yet it all did.
"How? How would you know that?" Brooke shrugged,
"Girl's minds work in the same way Luke." He chuckled at her but she just kept looking out into the distance through the snow laden trees, a sad smile on her face.
"Brooke I love you so much my heart is aching right now. You're such an amazing person. You could be bitter at Cesca now, you have the right to be, yet you're not. You're taking it all so well, but please, why can't you just tell me how you-" Brooke's head sharply spun around,
"Feel? You want me to tell you how I'm feeling right now? Okay, I will. I don't understand why you came back. You told me you loved me and I tried to be there for you at the hospital, but you just threw it back in my face. Your eyes were so bitter Luke, and it was bitterness towards me. I thought that I'd leave you for a day or two, wait for you to call and say you were sorry. But you never did. I called you every morning and every evening. I told you how much I loved you, I tried to keep it together whilst the message was playing yet when I put down the phone, each time I broke down, I couldn't hold it in any longer. Haley convinced me to try to speak to you one last time, face to face. I didn't want to go, but she said that it was for the best. So I did. I told you exactly what I wanted, and you told me you loved me back. I thought that everything was going to be okay again. But I hadn't noticed the harshness of your eyes at that very moment. The usual cool blue had turned stormy, and I knew that it was all because of me. If I hadn't been around then the woman that you really loved wouldn't be dead. I loved you, so I walked away. I knew that you wouldn't be able to get over her, and so the easiest thing for all of us was to just walk away. And so now I feel like I am on the edge of a cliff, one wrong move and I'll fall deep down into the depths below. And there's only one person who I know can save me. But I know in my heart, and my head that he can't. So I'm waiting, I'm waiting for when the wind just picks up slightly, or I lose my balance so that I fall. And right now I'm thinking that it can't be such a bad thing. Because nothing can hurt as much as what I'm feeling like right now."
They both sat in silence, the tears dropping down from Brooke's eyes, the heat of them melting the snow beneath them. She hugged her knees, needing comfort from anything. She began to shiver, it was so cold outside and she didn't have the proper clothes to be outside. She had just run to the cabin and then out to the place where she had sat with Luke for a couple of seconds before they had fallen onto the ground below. It felt like he was there with her, at least until he did in fact turn up. But now she was cold, her face was turning paler and her teeth began to chatter.
Lucas noticed this and so he reached out to put his arm round her. She stayed rigid, not settling into a comfortable position and so he brought his other arm round and pulled her to him. She was so weak that she couldn't protest or do anything to stop him. His arms held her, she knew that if they weren't, she would have fallen off the roof.
Lucas rested his head on hers as she started to cry once again. It hurt him that she was crying over things that he had done, and he didn't know if he would ever be able to see that Cheery smile she put on for him ever again. The tears started to fall from his eyed, landing on the top of her head. She felt them, but she honestly didn't know what to say to make him feel any better.
She looked up at him, she never expected him to cry over her. Yet he had, and that meant a lot to her. He'd had to let his guard down in front of her and she knew that would have been one of the hardest thing he ever had to do.
"I love you Luke. I tried to get over you, I was sat here trying to convince myself that I didn't need you, but I do. I know that everything won't be perfect for us but I really want us to-" Lucas silenced her by putting a finger to her lips.
"I love you too." She slowly lifted her head to look up at him. The tears had now dried on his face but his eyes were red. She knew she looked worse however, after crying almost none stop for hours, her eyes were puffy and… well she didn't want to think about it. But at that moment neither of them cared. They slowly moved together until their lips touched gently, the pressure just enough for each of them to realise how special this was to them. However the moment was cut short,
"Yipppeeeee-" The very loud shriek was cut off by a hand being clasped over the guilty party's mouth. Lucas and Brooke broke apart and smiled at each other before turning to look at the sight to the left of them.
"God Haley, I'm supposed to be the insensitive one?" Haley giggled guiltily and mouthed sorry to Brooke and Lucas.
"I'm sorry Nathan, but shoot me for getting so excited that these two are… well, I'm not sure what they are but from the fact that their lips were just locked together, I suspect that it's gotta be a good thing," Haley beamed up and winked at Brooke who smiled back.
"You know, if it had been me who had done that, I'd have been in trouble for weeks," Haley stuck out her bottom lip,
"Oh I know baby, but it was me who said it wasn't it?" Nathan sighed, exasperated, Haley could do anything and it would be alright by him. Within reason of course.
Nathan was interrupted from his thoughts with an outburst of 'ew' from Haley. He looked up to the roof and saw Lucas and Brooke with their lips glued to each other once again. Sure, he was happy that they had seemingly sorted out their differences, but they didn't have to be involved in a conversation one minute, and then starting going at it the very next second.
He noticed that Haley was about to shout something out but he motioned her to be quiet as he started to press snow into small spheres. He got one ready and began to aim when Haley gestured for him to wait. She made one herself and began to aim…
"One, two, three, fire!"
Both snowballs flew through the air, Nathan's straight towards Lucas' head and Haley's towards Brooke's. They both smirked at each other when the snow fell apart over the two lovebirds as they screeched and started to topple over backwards…
"Oh my god! Brooke, Luke! Are you ok?" Haley yelled, starting to run around the building towards them. Nathan followed quickly, it definitely sounded like they fell with a bang.
However they were both wrong; when they reached the other side where they thought Brooke and Lucas would be lying, fighting for their lives, they were actually getting ready to pelt Nathan and Haley with snowballs.
"OH no you do-" Nathan was attacked by Brooke and Haley by Luke, leaving neither of them time to run to cover. Soon, though, they were also making snowballs leading to a huge fight which only ended when they were all exhausted and they fell to the snowy ground.
Brooke smiled to herself. They'd made it through the last few weeks. Such a short space of time had felt like a lifetime to her, and she was sure for the others as well. They'd each found someone to love, and really they couldn't ask for more. Lucas had found his son, and it looked like him, Brooke and Billy were going to be a family together. You'd have thought this would be a scary thought for Brooke, but in fact she couldn't think of being anywhere else.
She had been the lowest places of her life over the past weeks, yet she had also been to some of the highest. She knew that the road ahead wasn't going to always be pretty, the sky wouldn't always be lit up by the sunshine, but that was going to make them stronger.
They just needed to hold on to each other.
XXX
THE END
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Awwwww… this feels really sad, I've actually finished it! I hope you enjoyed it, please leave a review and tell me what you thought…
I've got some ideas for some new stories, and I may start up "Singing Her Last Song" again, but at the moment I'm supposed to be revising, so it may not be today…
So I would like to say thank you so much to all of the people who have reviewed this story, they really brighten up my day even if they're only like three words!
I'm going to say thank you, but I'm only going to mention the ones on the most recent two pages of reviews, because I'm guessing you're probably not still reading if you haven't since then…. Soooo…
Sophia Valentine - Thankyou sooo much for your reviews! When I was really confsed about where to go with this, I asked you and you made me feel so much better about it… so I hope you enjoyed this ending and that things turned out the way you would have liked…?….! Xxx
Lilmonkeygirl - thanks so much for your reviews… I did try to start reviewing more regularly! Hope you liked the ending…
x-Brucas-Naley-Jeyton-x - Thanks for reviewing… hope youre happy with what happened at the end… oh and I know you didn't want Billy to be Lucas', and I really was thinking about including that, but I think luke would have looked after him anyway, so I didn't see much point, lol
Treenuh - Thankyouuu for reviews… hey, I don't mind you saying you love me, the more love declarations the better I'd say… teeeheee. Anyway hope you enjoyed reading this…
Naleysocute - Hope you enjoyed the ending, I definitely agreed with all your comments, hope what happened was okay foryou!
Also HUGE thanks to :- brucasroks, othdaddysgirl, prettygirl33,catcat51092 deli41321, starjoyce, Caitlyn, sam, liZ457 and LBHN lover……. And everyone else of course, I would have replied to you all individually but my fingers hurt, and I;m supposed to be revising…
So thank you for reading my story, hope you were happy with it… please review!