For the next few days, Karen and Andy kept careful watch over Lily, and talked nervously whenever they could spare a moment. Andy had moved in with them, and Karen began seeing more and more of that need to voice something, but she still didn't know what he wanted to talk about.

Peyton had completely dropped off the map. After Lucas talked to her that morning, she hadn't been seen again. Lucas knew it had to do with what he had said, and he wanted to make things right with her, but he didn't know how. He also saw that Brooke seemed to be getting more nervous about it, but she never said anything.

After that day, the official sense of closure for Lucas, the next few days became a string of hazy dreams of spring afternoons and warm nights to him. He bonded with Brooke over Jamie, together most of the time, watching him at the park or at home, and spent nights making dinner and fighting over the remote after Jamie was asleep. But it had to end, and though he willed it not to, the night before Nathan and Haley's return quickly came upon them.

Lucas lounged on the couch, anxiously awaiting Brooke's descent downstairs from tucking Jamie in. He didn't know why he was so anxious, but the night when he had discovered Brooke loved him, something had awoken inside of him, a new feeling or sentiment or emotion or power that he hadn't felt in a long time, one that had been sleeping dormant in him for several years. That passion— was it passion? That was certainly what it could be best described as— the newfound passion had taken over his normal systems, and made him feel things that were irrelevant to the current situation. Well, irrelevant in his eyes.

But the anxiousness disappeared when Brooke stepped carefully down those stairs. From the couch, he could just see one side of her, but a sudden calm washed over Lucas. He and Brooke were friends. Maybe she had been joking or angry, or just not thinking when she had said that. Just like Lucas had thought the first night; even Brooke couldn't possibly have buried something like that for five years. Maybe he had been too frenzied when he had broken it off with Peyton, maybe he was just assuming things, imagining them. He was almost done convincing himself when Brooke walked up to the couch. Then she smiled at him and ruined it all.

"Hi," she said in a soft voice, sitting down on the couch.

The way Lucas was sitting, he was leaning with his back against the arm of the couch, legs spread apart, with one foot on the floor and one leg stretching along the backrest of the chair. Brooke sat on the opposite end, shivering slightly in the frosted, air-conditioned room. But it wasn't only that. Her shoulders were hunched in a way that was alien to Lucas; this wasn't the usual bubbly, independent Brooke. Lucas knew just by looking that a deep sadness flowed through her.

"Here, Brooke, come sit with me," Lucas said in a jokingly begrudging voice, trying to cheer her up as he opened his arms. To his surprise, she curled into his open arms, laying her head comfortably against his chest. He wrapped his arms around her and rested his chin on her head.

It was that moment that everything changed. In the instant that their skin connected, Lucas felt a shock run through his body, and not the cliché "Love at first sight" shock. It was a jolt of passion, a manic energy that awakened something deeper than the feeling that had first stirred within him nights ago. This, this was an ardor yet unfelt to him, at least that he could remember.

Which was why he was suddenly alarmed when Brooke's body heaved a strange shudder against his, and Lucas felt the first warms splashes of tears fall against his chest.

"Brooke, Brooke, what's wrong?" Lucas cooed softly into her ear, but got no response. The tears began falling thicker and faster, soaking his shirt. "Brooke, its ok, just tell me what's wrong, and it'll be ok." It was strange that he had suddenly taken on such a strong, protective, soft side. But he never would have been able to sit there without knowing what was going on in her mind.

She tilted her head up to his, and he suddenly regretted losing touch with her after high school. Even when they weren't dating back then, he had still been able to read every thought, feeling, ambition in her eyes. She may have been acting impassive or angry, but Lucas had always been able to see through the façade straight to the pain or the sadness or the hurt. In retrospect, he realized that had had always been able to see it, he just hadn't paid nay mind to it, never acted on it, nothing. Now he was just as lost in her eyes as he had been on the first day he had ever really talked to Brooke Davis.

Shining hazel eyes met soft, ocean-blue ones, and Brooke broke down.

"I miss this, being with someone at night. Having someone like you there."

"Brooke—"

"I always feel so alone, Luke. Yeah, I have Millicent, and you, and Peyton, and everyone else, but no one really knows me. I feel as if they don't really see me. I even feel as if I'm drifting away from Peyton sometimes."

With an unpleasant jolt Lucas realized that ever since she had come back, he had only seen Brooke when she was with Lindsey, or to ask for advice, or to confess his own problems to. Never, not once, had he asked how she was doing other than to start a conversation that he knew would soon be switched over to him.

She continued on, unaware of the distress in his eyes at her pain. "I need someone, Luke. Someone I can lean on, so I don't have to be so goddamn independent all the time. I mean, I come down here after tucking Jamie in, and there's no one. I haven't seen Peyton for days, Owen left, there's just no one here for me. I hate being alone." Her voice took a bitter turn, and he pulled her into a tight hug, as if relieving and protecting her from everything. Really, that's what he was trying to do. He didn't want her to feel alone, he didn't want her to have to feel independent. He wanted her to feel safe. As he embraced her, the tears turned to racking sobs and her whole body convulsed in his arms. "There's no one, and I just want someone who isn't going to break my heart."

"Your heart is going to be fine, Brooke," Lucas whispered, trying to soothe her. As long as I'm here, he added in his head. She pulled back from his body to look up at him.

"How would you know, you've never had your heart smashed," she told him bitterly as she watched the pain flit across his face.

"I have Brooke," he whispered hoarsely, and her sour eyes softened.

"I'm sorry, Lucas, I didn't mean that. Peyton turned down your proposal, and Lindsey left, I'm sorry, that's two times that it has happened to you." The apology seemed to make her feel worse, and she collapsed into his arms again.

As she sobbed, he buried his face in her hair, taking in the musky coconut vanilla smell, rocking her gently back and forth and whispering words of comfort 

and solace into her ear. Soft sounds meant to console and soothe and calm, and it seemed to work. Brooke quieted, her sobs fading into gentler tears of a sorrow Lucas had rarely seen in her.

All the while, he continued to whisper into her hair, and finally, on an impulse, sighed, "It will all be ok, pretty girl." He belatedly realized the slip, having grown so accustomed to saying it that it came freely.

She raised her head from his shoulder, wonder and a certain shocked familiarity showing through her tear-stained face. The name was evoking such powerful memories in her, beautiful memories that played rapid-fire in her head…

She had just given him the letters and, receiving no response from him, had taken off down his steps, already re-building the walls around her heart she had torn down in that moment.

"Brooke!" he called, and she turned to see him walking down his porch steps towards her, his arms open. "I'm sorry. What you did with Chris, it's ok."

She was taken aback at this. "It's not, it can't be, it's too much to forgive—"

"Well that's too bad," he interrupted, "Because I forgive you."

"You can't," she cried, shaking her head as more tears fell.

"I just did. So you're just going to have to deal with it."

She looked up at him with almost disbelieving eyes. He continued: "I'm the guy for you, Brooke Davis. And I know I hurt you the last time we were together—"

"I love you."

"I love you, too" he had replied, twisting a lock of her hair before pushing it behind her ear. "Pretty Girl."

He led her onto the Rivercourt, where his friends were all playing.

"This is my world, Brooke. Or at least, to used to be," he said with a small laugh, looking out of the worn blacktop.

"I have been here before, you know."

"I know, but I've just never told you what this place is to me. It's not just a court; it's where I came from, it's where I belong. It's my world."

"So do I get to be a part of this world?"

"The biggest part."

Then Mouth had announced something from across the court, causing Brooke to look over and laugh. Then she looked back into Lucas's eyes.

"Go get 'em, Boyfriend.

Pretty Girl and Boyfriend.

Brooke leapt back into the present, where she was sitting, lying against Lucas Scott, and she had previously been sobbing hard against his chest. There were few tears now, though; she just looked at him with an expression that seemed to mirror his on the inside: newfound passion. Then she leaned up and kissed him, as pure and as natural as a kiss between the two of them ever could be. And then—

Lucas kissed her back.