Disclaimer: I do not, as much as I wish I did, own OTH or any of the songs in this story. All I own is the plot of the story, and I barely own that.

AN: Dude, so many angry Brulians and cheerful Brucasers! I was dying with laughter when I read the reviews and PMs people sent me. Next chapter is primarily Brulian. Brooke's gonna learn what it means to fight for someone romantically.

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Chapter 16: There For You

Brooke groaned as she woke up; her head was aching painfully and she was having trouble keeping herself from falling back asleep. She rolled over to the other side of the bed but was stopped by the feel of another body lying next to her. Her eyes got huge and she immediately looked down at herself; she breathed a huge sigh of relief when she realized that she was, in fact, wearing pajamas. She squinted and reached over, pulling the comforter off of the man next to her and let out a giggle of relief when she saw that Chris Keller was her mystery man. His arms and legs were wrapped tightly around her pillow, and she let out another giggle at the sight. She quickly hopped off the bed and ran downstairs to get her camera, believing that Sam was the last one to use it.

"Sam, where's the camera?" she asked the sleeping girl as she shook her slightly.

Sam groaned, covering her head with a pillow, "Leave me alone."

Brooke grinned, poking the girl's side, "Come on, Sammy. Where is it?"

"On your nightstand! Go away!"

The older brunette laughed as exited the room, hitting the play button on the younger girl's radio as she went, giggling to herself when Sam let out at a whine at the sudden sound of screaming guitars and whining lyrics. She started up the stairs again, this time with Sam in tow.

"This better be something important. You shouldn't wake a girl from her beauty rest unless there's an emergency," the younger girl growled as she followed her foster mom up the stairs.

Brooke scoffed, "Yeah, yeah. Come on."

Both girls entered the room and immediately Sam started laughing at the sight before her. Brooke picked up the camera, from exactly where Sam said it would be, and started taking picture after picture. Sam raised her eyebrow, surprised that the flash wasn't waking the sleeping musician. He was snoring lightly, and the way he hugged the pillow was similar to how a child would hug their favorite stuffed animal or security blanket.

Both girls grinned when he suddenly sat straight up, "What do you want, Brookie? Go away!"

Brooke laughed and gave him a look, "You realize that you're in my bed right?"

Chris frowned and looked around him, "So I am." He shrugged and his head fell back on one of the pillows, and, within seconds, he was back asleep.

Sam rolled her eyes and walked back toward her room, "Moving on already, are we?"

Brooke frowned at her foster daughter, "Nothing happened, Sam."

She shrugged, "Right."

Both girls frowned then, hearing a banging on the front door. Sam shook her head and walked back to her room while Brooke answered the door. The older brunette half smiled at the person on the side of the door, slightly shocked to see her standing here, "P. Sawyer, hey."

XxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxX

Julian sighed as the actors in front of him and Luke attempted to perfect the Brooke and Lucas fight scene from Nathan and Haley's wedding. Lucas kept glaring at the actors, angry that none of them seemed able to understand the intensity behind the scene.

Luke shook his head, angry, "Stop." Everyone looked over at him, confused because he'd never stopped a scene before. Reese rolled his eyes, shooting a glare at Julian for giving Lucas creative control, "You're not doing it right. Brooke wasn't mad about the kiss. She was…hurt that the boy she loved didn't understand her; that he never really knew her."

The actors and actresses all glanced at him in awe, none of them knowing that the words he was speaking belonged to the fashion designer herself. Julian, on the other hand, wore a frown as he looked over at Lucas, noting a certain sadness in the other man's eyes. Up until this point, the brooding blond had pretty much stayed out of the way when it came to actually shooting the movie; he'd only interfered a few times before when he felt as if Peyton wasn't being portrayed right. He had never gotten in the way of a Brooke scene before. Julian shook his head, something was up.

XxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxX

Peyton sighed as the two girls sat comfortably on the couch, "You were right about me and Lucas; we needed to talk all that stuff out before we could promise our hearts and our lives to each other…I'm sorry I cut you out, B."

Brooke nodded but no words escaped her mouth, her thoughts kept veering toward the impromptu kiss she and Lucas had shared the day before on the River Court, and, even though she hadn't kissed him back, the guilt was eating her alive. The brunette's gaze fell to a picture on the wall of the two girls laughing, and a sad smile fell on her lips, "I missed you, P. Sawyer, almost Scott."

Peyton nodded, "Me too, B. Davis, almost Baker."

As soon as his last name slipped from the blonde's lips, Brooke was unable to hold back the tears she'd been repressing for the last few days. Until that moment, she hadn't accepted that she and Julian were really over; there wouldn't be an engagement, or a wedding, or little babies with her dimples and his grin. None of it existed anymore. He was no longer hers.

Peyton's arms slipped around Brooke like a vice, both comforting and calming all at the same time, "What happened, sweetie?"

Brooke buried her head in Peyton's shoulder, dampening her shirt with a cornucopia of tears, "Julian broke up with me…"

Peyton's eye grew wide and shocked, "What? Why? You two seemed so happy…" But if she was honest with herself, she would accept the little bit of relief she felt that they would never get married. She knew she didn't love Julian Baker, but that didn't mean it would be easy for her to watch him promise his forever to her best friend; not when he'd left her all alone once upon a time.

The petite brunette grew quiet then and extracted herself from the bottle-blonde's warm embrace, "He uh, he thinks something happened between me and Jake." The skinny blonde glanced down and it became evident that she already knew at least part of the history between the two. Brooke wiped at her tears, "But you already knew that, didn't you?"

Peyton nodded, "Kind of. I went to his parents' house to talk to him and there were pictures of you guys all over the table; he was reminiscing. I asked him if you were ever in love, and he didn't really give me a straight answer…" Her eyes were sad, "Why didn't you tell me that you guys were in touch all these years? I missed him so much."

"Because I felt like I was stealing something from you. Even if you were with Lucas, it felt like Jake would always be yours…But he became my best friend when I was in New York. He, Chris, and I would go see silly plays that none of us were interested in, and they'd sing duets together in bars, making them appear very gay, but that was just us. We were silly and fun and," her face fell then, "I fell for him, sort of."

Peyt shook her head, not angry, but hurt, "Sort of?"

"We…kissed the first night I went to Savannah. And it was amazing and we had this passion, but it didn't matter. I wasn't going to let myself fall for him; not when he already belonged to you emotionally…so I left that night and we went back to just email chats for a while. Eventually we started hanging out again, but it was hard, seeing him and thinking of what might have been; thinking of what I'd given up."

"Is it still hard?"

Brooke shook her head almost immediately, "No, I love Julian – I do. And Jake is…just a friend. That's all we can ever be. That's all I want to be." She avoided her friend's gaze, thinking of another kiss she'd never share with her blonde friend, "Are you mad?"

Peyton shook her head, tears in her eyes, "No, I'm not mad. But I need my best friend now, Brookie. I made a huge mistake."

The fashion designer nodded, "What is it?"

"I kissed Jake last night…"

Brooke's eyes shifted from their usual green to a dark brown almost instantly, anger and a bit of remorse shining through, "What? You cheated on Lucas?"

The other girl nodded, gnawing on her bottom lip, "And the worst part is, I know he would never do something like that to me…"

"Actually, Peyt…I uh…"

Peyton shook her head, standing and wiping her tears away, "I'm sorry I kept you out so long, best friend. I love you."

Brooke nodded, her eyes filling with tears as she thought back on that unexpected kiss with Lucas, and the even more shocking one with Jake, and she quickly wrapped her arms around the blonde, "I love you, P. Sawyer. No matter what…"

Peyt nodded and headed for the door, "Later, BFF."

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"You're a fraud, you know that, right?"

Brooke glanced up at Sam, shocked that she would say something like that to her, "What are you talking about?"

Sam glared down at her, "You told me that love is amazing and hard and wonderful and painful, and that, no matter what, I should fight for it…But here you are, sitting on the couch moping. Julian loves you. Fight for him!"

The older brunette looked up, sad, "He doesn't want me to, Sam."

"Then make him! You're Brooke Davis…he wants you to fight; to show him that he's the guy that owns your heart. Not Lucas or Jake or…anyone else. He needs to know before he can trust you again."

Brooke nodded, an idea forming in her brain, and said hesitantly, "I may need your help with something…"

Sam nodded, "Of course I'll help. I want my parents back together…"

TBC…