Author's Note:After fanfiction and its lovely document manager have given me lots of trouble the past few days I'm now finally able to update this fic. I'm sorry that I posted this chapter somewhere else a little sooner but as I said, this was due to technical difficulties. For all you readers who have gotten an email saying I updated but not being able to find the chapter I'm sorry. The document was all messed up and I had to delete it again. This chapter is somewhat of a peace offering, a B/L shaped cookie if you will, and I hope it consoles you lol.

Thanks to every single one who reviewed. It means a lot. This chapter is for my friend Sarah who pwns not only the chapter but also me. lol.

Disclaimer: I don't own OTH, so don't sue. The poem in this chapter is based on a beautiful poem by the Carribbean author Lorna Goodison. She is amazing. The poem's title is the same as in this chapter. The title of the novel in the chapter is the title of a play by German playwright Bertold Brecht.

Now on to the good stuff...

Pandora's Box

"Let the key guns be mounted, make a brave show of waging war, and pry off the lid of Pandora's Box once more."

Amy Lowell

When he had told her he wanted to show her something, Brooke hadn't known that Lucas would drag her all the way across town. But then, after a twenty minute walk she mostly spend trying not to fall onto her face, (stilettos and champagne, so not a good combination) she realized where they were.

"This is it."

Lucas held the door open for Brooke to enter the small house. He had made an effort not to touch her, but when she walked past him, he felt the irrational urge to put his hand in her hair and pull her close. Get a grip.

Brooke stepped inside and breathed in the familiar scent. Everything inside of Karen's home still looked the same it had ten years ago. Yet she felt strangely misplaced. She did not belong here anymore. She could no longer call this place home and she was surprised how painful that thought actually was.

They had had made their way into Lucas' old bedroom and as soon as she saw that Karen had not really changed a thing in here either, she could not hide a smile and a sarcastic snort.

"Like a freaking shrine."

Lucas chuckled. "A little bit."

Some of the tension seemed to ease and Brooke gingerly sat down on his bed. Trying to fight the memories the place held. Shoving her thoughts aside she looked up at him.

"So, what did you bring me here for, Scott?"

Although she was trying to be suave, Brooke had never been one for patience and seeing the curiosity under her mask of casualty made Lucas snicker.

"I wanted to show you something. Hold on." He reached inside his closet and began digging through all the stuff that had accumulated there throughout the years. When he had found a ragged shoebox he let out a sound of triumph. "There we go." He handed her the shoebox and sat down next to her, looking at her expectantly. "Go on. Open it."

He looked so eager; his eyes staring holes into her own, she had to avert his gaze and concentrated on the box in her lap instead. Lifting the lid, Brooke looked inside. There was a single book. It was a hardcover, a simple brown one adorned with black letters.

She held it up to read the title.

Mother Courage and Her Children

By Lucas Scott

She looked up at him, her expression one of utter amazement.

"You wrote a book."

He looked a little smitten. "A selection of poems actually. I know it's not one that would get me a Nobel Prize like you expected but…"

"You wrote a book." Her voice was soft now, all arrogant tones gone. "Wait, how did I not know? Haley never told me." She waved the book in the air.

He smiled. "That's because this is the only existing copy."

Now she looked flabbergasted. "But… why?"

"I never sent it to any publishing houses. I don't know… I got this small printing shop by the river to print and bind it for me but…"

He looked at Brooke who gently ran her hand over the cover. So he still had his dreams. And he had made one of them true. What had she done all these years? Where had her dreams gone?

"You really did it."

There was something in her voice that made him want to reach out and touch her, to reassure she was not alone. But that was ridiculous of course. Her icy exterior made that impossible and most of all, she didn't need him. She was strong. She was Brooke.

"You should not be hiding this in a closet."

He smiled gloomily. So many things in his life were hidden, buried. Never to come out but stored away.

Shrugging his shoulders he retorted: "I don't know if I'm ready for everyone to see it."

Her curiosity got the best of her. "What are the poems about? Can you tell me?"

Lucas cleared his throat.

"About a lot of things. About family. About love. About children and parents and the ties that bind us…"

Brooke turned her face towards him, his voice drawing her in. She remembered a time when Lucas Scott had been able to fill that void in her heart. A void that seemed to be expanding lately, threatening to consume her. There are no heroes for you, Brooke Davis, she told herself.

"Read one for me. Please?"

He took them book from her offering hand and began turning the pages in search of a particular poem. When he had found it, he started to read, the low murmur of his voice soothing her, lulling her in.

"For My Mother (May I Inherit Half Her Strength)

My mother loved my father
I write this as an absolute
in this my twenty fifth year
the year to discard absolutes

He appeared, her fate disguised,
as a player in this match they had
he had driven from a town
one hundred miles south of hers.

She tells me he dressed the part,
looking dandy in his navy blazer
cream serge pants, seam like razor,
and the cap and the cotton white shoes.

My father stopped to speak to her sister,
till he looked and saw her by the oleander,
sure in the kingdom of my blue-eyed grandmother.
They didn't win the match that day.

He wooed her with words and he won her.
He had nothing but words to woo her,
On a visit to distant Charleston he wrote,
'I stood on the corner of Market Street and looked,
and not one woman in that town was as lovely as you'.

When I came to know my mother many years later, I knew her as the figure
who sat at the first thing I learned to read: 'SINGER',
and she taught me to read while she sewed and
she taught me right from wrong as she sewed

and she sat in judgement over my character as she sewed.
She could work miracles, she would make a garment from a square of cloth
in a span that defied time. Or feed twenty people on a stew made from
cabbage leaves and a carrot and
a palm full of meat.

And she rose early and sent me clean into the world and she went to bed
in the dark, for my father never came home.

There is a place somewhere where my mother never took me
a country where my father with the always smile
my father whom all women loved,
who had the perpetual quality of dazzling people... hurt his bride.

When he died, she sewed a dark dress
and she summoned that walk, straight-backed,
and buried him dry-eyed.

Just that morning, weeks after
she stood delivering potatoes from their skin
singing
she fell down a note to the realization that she did
not have to be brave, just this once
and she cried.

For her hands grown coarse with the years lost
For the time she worked the café for my college fees
For the man she couldn't love soon enough
and for the pain she bore with the eyes of a queen

and she cried also because she had loved him."

He finished and looked at Brooke, tentatively, as if he was seeking her approval. She swallowed.

"It's beautiful." Somehow he knew she was being earnest. "Really, Lucas. Are they all about your mother?"

"No. And it's not just about my mother, it's about mothers and sons and fathers in general, you know? Sure, some of it is autobiographical, but a lot of it isn't." He stopped to think for a moment, trying to find the words for what he wanted to say. "It's…it's about love and about bonds that run so deep - no one can sever them." He swallowed. "Even if you wish you could."

The words seemed to take on a new meaning, a new dimension. She was no longer sure what he was talking about. But then, she had had a lot to drink that night. Maybe it was just the champagne.

Lucas found himself staring into her deep, green eyes. Losing himself in them. They were no longer distant and closed off. Ice queen Brooke Davis was gone and it was as if he could see right into her soul. See the hurt, the pain, the vulnerability. He wished he could take that pain away, make it all better for her. Maybe then he would be able to heal himself.

"Can I read it?" Her voice was merely a whisper now.

He nodded and handed her the book. Brooke opened it, glancing at the first page.

To my mother who taught me right from wrong.

To my father who taught me how to be a man.

To my wife who taught me how to be a husband.

To my daughter who taught me how to be a father.

To a pretty girl who taught me how to love.

When she looked up into his eyes that was what she saw. Love. And passion. It made her feel like eighteen again.

The seconds seemed to extend into eternities. And then all Brooke felt where his hot, soft lips on hers. None of them could have said who initiated it, which one had moved in first. But the very moment the gap was closed between them and she felt his lips on hers, everything fell out of focus.

After that it was a blurry mess of hasty struggling, a brisk discarding of clothes, the insatiable, irrepressible need to feel naked skin on naked skin. It was fiery kisses on exposed shoulders, necks, and chests, hurried ripping of seams and buttons, roaming, searching hands underneath pants and shirts and underwear. It was sighs and moans long suppressed, rushed breathing, swift motions and an overwhelming, burning want to be one, to fill each others voids. With recklessness that scared them both, they tore each others clothes off as if they could tear the years off too, the disappointment, the pain.

She didn't know how it happened but she soon found herself naked on the bed, her slick, heated body pressed against the cool sheets. Waiting for his strong, lean form hovering above her while he was putting on a condom; hurriedly, impatiently.

She stared into his eyes, dark and blue in the shade and for the first time that night it didn't feel like he was shielding himself anymore. He was still the boy she had loved more than life. It was like homecoming.

She cupped his cheek, lingering for a moment, wondering why he had to be the one to make her feel alive again. And then he lowered himself into her, and the world fell away.

-----

t.b.c.

Bit of a shocker here...reviews are love!