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: So, if I'm being completely honest, I have changed my mind about which guy Brooke is going is going to end up with, and I still have no idea!! One of the ships is going to be ending soon though (but who knows, I may change my mind and bring it back before it sinks completely).

I apologize if any of my information is incorrect in this chapter. One of my sister's is a nurse and the other is a medical assistant, so I'm taking their word on it; hopefully I don't screw it up too badly!

Hey, I haven't had time to check this for mistakes, so if you notice any, let me know and I'll be sure to fix them!

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Chapter 20: She Talks To Angels

Her hazel eyes shined brightly as she gazed back and forth between the light pink walls and the man sitting next to her. She wrung her fingers, glancing at the door in apprehension. Fear ached in her belly as more minutes passed, leaving her and the man alone to wait for the test results. For three weeks she'd been living with the knowledge that she was pregnant, and for three long weeks, she'd been putting off this appointment with the doctor.

She sighed loudly and looked around the room, her eyes falling on a poster displaying a mother and father holding their newborn baby. She bit her lip as she looked at the picture, trying to imagine herself and Julian as the happy parents holding their new baby. Her eyes widened and her smile softened when the image became one of her and her baby; she frowned when she looked at the man in the picture, watching his eyes change from blue to deep brown and back again. She sat back in her chair as his entire face changed several times, going from sweet and pensive to moody and handsome and then to arrogant and beautiful.

"Brooke?"

She shook her head, freeing her mind from the confused thoughts and looked over at him, breathing heavily, "Yeah?"

"Everything is going to be fine; this is all just a formality. They just want to make sure that you and the baby are all right, okay?"

She nodded, though the fear bled through, "But what if it's not? They did so many tests, Jake…what if the baby isn't okay?"

No words escaped his lips as he reached over, taking her hand in his. She leaned against his side, entangling their fingers tightly as she fought to keep control on her breathing. He turned his head, resting his forehead against hers. She closed her eyes, her breath flowing raggedly through her lips. Both friends looked up quickly when they heard the soft knock on the door before the quiet squeak that announced the doctor's appearance.

"Mr. and Mrs. Davis?"

Jake raised his eyebrow and gave Brooke a confused look; she smiled sheepishly at him and nodded toward to the doctor, holding out her hand, "Dr. Stanwell, right?"

The older man nodded and shook her hand, "I understand that you've taken a home pregnancy test with positive results, yes?" Brooke nodded, "And lately you've been feeling some stomach pains and have been spotting, is that correct?"

Brooke nodded again, squeezing Jake's hand, "Yeah, for about two weeks now. I've been cramping and last week I still had my period. Is that a bad thing?"

The doctor sighed quietly and pulled a small stool from against the wall and sat, looking her in the eye, "Well, it's certainly not a good sign, but many pregnant women still spot during the early stages of pregnancy, and the blood tests my assistant administered should give us a bit of insight into your cramping problem." Brooke breathed a sigh of relief and Dr. Stanwell smiled, "Is this your first child?"

Brooke smiled pleasantly at the old man and shook her head, "Well, this is my first baby, but I have two daughters at home, Sam and Jenny." She turned her head toward Jake whose smile had grown tenfold when she called Jenny her own; she winked at him and he shook his head in awe.

A few seconds later, the medical assistant popped her head into the room, "Dr. Stanwell," she glanced at Brooke and Jake and frowned, "We have the test results back."

He nodded and took the file from her hands, "Thank you, Miss Ross." She nodded and exited, shooting one more glance toward the couple as she fled from the room.

Brooke gripped Jake's hand more tightly, her eyes watching the doctor's facial expressions closely as her read through her file. He glanced up at her with a reassuring smile, "Mrs. Davis, when did you say you took the home pregnancy test?"

Her expression grew into one of confusion, "Um, three weeks ago…it was a Thursday. Is, is something wrong?"

He frowned, "I don't want to alarm you, but the blood test came back negative."

Jake glanced up, "What does that mean, Doctor?"

Dr. Stanwell looked down for a moment, "I'd like to do a few more tests along with a sonogram if that's all right with you?"

Brooke nodded mutely as the doctor left the room, her left hand held tightly to her flat stomach. Her eyes met Jake's and one tear fell down her flushed cheek, "I knew something was wrong…"

"Nothing's wrong. You're worrying about nothing."

XxXxXxXxXxX

"Where is she?!"

Haley groaned and turned toward the pregnant blond for the third time in the last five minutes, "Brooke will be here; she's just going to be a little late. Calm down!"

"It's just…I need to talk to her."

"She'll be here.

Haley sighed and checked her phone for the twentieth time as Peyton walked away; Brooke had promised to show up as soon as the appointment was over, but it had been over an hour and she had still received no call filling her in on what the doctor had to say.

Peyton frowned, angry at Brooke for not being here to help set up for the party like she promised. She sat down on the couch, her eyes making a sweep of the room she'd helped Haley decorate for the baby shower, and though she knew that it didn't look as good as it would have had her best friend kept her promise and helped, she was proud. There were pink and purple balloons everywhere, and Haley had set up several games throughout the room.

"Well, this party's kind of a drag."

Peyton glanced up into her ex boyfriend's grinning face and rolled her eyes, "That's because it hasn't started yet."

He shrugged and sat next to her, throwing his arm on the back of the couch behind her head, "Have you seen Brooke today? We had another fight this morning and I just want to make sure that's okay."

Peyton shook her head and leaned against him, "Nope. She promised she would come early today and help us set up, but she never showed." She tilted her head, "What did you guys fight about this time?"

"Jake."

"Again?"

He nodded, "She spends all her time with him lately." He lowered his head and sighed loudly, "I feel like she isn't even pretending to be mine anymore."

She sighed sympathetically and laid her hand on his knee and leaned closer to him, her lips near his ear, "I'm sorry, Jules…Have you told her you're going back to LA?"

He shook his head, his eyes sad, "I can't…I can't say goodbye to her yet."

Peyton turned her head and placed a gentle kiss on his cheek, not noticing the two pairs of eyes watching them.

From across the room, Haley watched them with fire in her eyes. She shook her head and muttered to herself, "First Brooke and Jake…now Peyton and Julian. These people need to get their lives sorted."

"You're right…they do."

Haley turned and wrapped her arms around her husband, who smiled down at her pleasantly. She ran her hand down the side of his face, kissing him softly, "You know, the part doesn't start for another twenty minutes."

She raised her eyebrow playfully and he picked her up, throwing her over his shoulder and heading toward the stairs, laughing at her giggles. He dropped her on the bed, hovering over her to place soft kisses along her jaw line, "I love you…Let's never be like them."

She nodded, "Never."

XxXxXxXxXxX

Lucas shook his head angrily as he watched the way Peyton was fawning all over Julian because he knew that all the casual touching, all the secret smiles and winks, meant something. He tapped his foot as he watched them, growing angrier by the minute. He watched as his fiancé kissed the producer, slight jealousy burning in his chest. He stormed out of the room, knocking a few of the party favors off of one of the end tables. He scratched the back of his neck, as he always did when he was worried about something, and sat on one of the stools in the kitchen.

For nearly a month, he and Peyton had been having problems, and for the last three weeks she'd been turning to Julian instead of Brooke to help her solve her problems. And for those three weeks, Lucas had been truly alone, unable to talk to Nathan and Haley because of their deep commitment to both Brooke and Peyton. And he couldn't tell the dynamic duo about his problems – they were the cause! Lucas Scott had no one to turn to, except for his computer. He'd written over two hundred pages in those three weeks, but he knew he could never publish it, not after the way that Peyton had reacted to it when she'd found it on his computer this morning.

XxXxXxXxXxX

Peyton shook her head, her gaze hateful, "What the Hell, Lucas? 'The Red Door?' Your next damn book is called the fucking Red Door?!"

Luke sighed, "Peyt…"

"I know you kissed her."

His gaze dropped the floor and she waited for his denial…there was none.

"How could you kiss her? My best friend?! Do you love her? Just be honest with me for once!"

"I don't know, Peyton…Are you in love with Julian?"

She glared, "We've already been through this, I love…"

"Stop lying!" Her eyes widened and he took a step away from her, "You've been sneaking out of the house almost every night, going to his hotel…don't act like I'm the only one who's guilty of deceit."

"Nothing happened! It's just…you barely look at me, and you only speak to me to ask if the baby is okay. Julian…Julian cares – when's the last time you gave a rat's ass about how my day was? I bet you can't remember, can you?"

He lowered his eyes to the ground, "No, I can't…"

She glanced toward the computer screen, his face devoid of all emotion, "The red door was painted black years ago, Luke. Grow up…we're having a child. There's no time for petty jealousies or pathetic high school heartbreaks. I love you…but I can't take much more of this." She grabbed her purse and headed for the door, "Julian said he would drive me to Haley's…don't be late."

And the last thing he heard was the slam of the door as his fiancé walked into the arms of her best friend's boyfriend. He sighed and sat at his computer, his eyes unfocused as they gazed upon the screen. He ran his fingers along the words on the screen and let another sigh escape his lips.

"…I love her."

XxXxXxXxXxX

Lucas shook himself of his reverie as the house began filling with guests. He asked himself silently why they had decided to have the men at the baby shower because, at that moment, he would rather have been anywhere but here.

He walked back into the living room; his eyes darkened at the sight of Peyton and Julian hugging, their fingers entangled as if they were lovers. He shook his head as he had many times already that day and grabbed his jacket, storming out of the house.

XxXxXxXxXxX

"…I'm so sorry Mr. and Mrs. Davis, but conception at this point is ill-conceived and improbable."

Brooke's face fell at the doctor's words and she collapsed into Jake's arms, no longer able to hold herself upright, clutching his shirt as if he was the only thing keeping her grounded. Tears were falling down his cheeks as well as he listened to the doctor drone on and on, using terms the single father had never heard in his twenty-three years of life, and he tried his hardest to catch every word, knowing that he'd have to repeat most of this conversation back to Brooke once she was calm enough to hear it; if it was even possible for her to ever be calm enough for that. And as he gazed upon the woman he'd always viewed as strong, he felt himself finally knowing the true Brooke Davis; all her insecurities and splintered pieces of her heart lay open and exposed on that hospital bed. All her dreams lay shattered and unfixable in the image of a blank sonogram.

He couldn't quite wrap his mind around the concepts that the doctor was throwing at them. Several words caught his attention though, and he memorized them, knowing he'd have to use them later when he explained to Brooke why she wasn't ever going to have a baby of her own, why she was never going to have the family of which she'd dreamed: the little girl with beautiful dimples and dark curls; a girl who had her mother's smile and her father's eyes, whatever color they happened to be.

But he listened to the words anyway, the wrongness of this loss tearing at his heart. Because even though he would not have been the father of her child, he mourned with her. Mourned as the doctor fed him meaningless words explaining the loss, trying to make it more bearable, more understandable…and failing:

Miscarriage. Infertile.

Blank sonogram. Blood tests.

Blunt trauma. Ovarian scarring.

Jake wiped at his eyes, holding his best friend closer to him as her sobs shook her entire body, "Doctor…how could something like this happen? I just don't understand…"

"Your wife's body was simply too weak to sustain childbirth, and so her body treated the fetus as it would any other harmful substance, it aborted the fetus in order to save itself. I'm very sorry for your loss…"

His usually calm exterior broke and he had to gasp for breath, "And what about the future? Can she..?"

Dr. Stanwell sighed quietly, "Sometimes blunt trauma to the abdomen can cause ovarian scarring, which, in this case, makes it improbable that your wife will ever have children. The scarring is very extensive; the left ovary is undoubtedly unusable, and the right ovary is not in much better condition. This is not to say that you can't get pregnant, but there is a 99 percent chance that even if she does manage to get pregnant again, she will lose that baby as well." Jake choked back more tears and held Brooke's shaking form more tightly against him, "I wish I had better news."

XxXxXxXxXxX

Everyone in the room glanced up at the smiling brunette when her phone rang again, the tone piercing the calm in the room. Haley smiled sheepishly at Peyton and stood, "Sorry, Peyt. I'll be right back."

Peyton nodded and went back to talking to Mia and a few of her friends about all the gifts they'd gotten for her and the baby. The blond smiled down at the assortment of little dresses she'd received that morning in the mail from Karen. And though Lucas had assured her that his mother had wanted to be there, and would have been if it were possible, she was not quite convinced.

She sighed and shoved the box of dresses under another package of clothes, her grin growing as she glanced at the gift from Mia. Peyton grinned and hugged the little Italian girl when she came face to face with a guitar costume; everyone in the room laughed and gave Mia a questioning look.

Mia shrugged, "Halloween."

A few minutes later Haley reentered the room with tears in her eyes, sitting in the chair furthest away from the party. She watched Peyton gush about all the baby clothes she'd received, unable to catch onto any of the little conversations going on around her. Her mind was filled with one sentence which seemed to be set in instant replay. She took a shaky breath and forced a smile for Peyton's sake; the fallacy in her eyes being noticed by no one.

"Brooke lost the baby..."

TBC…