A/N - Hello!!

I'm glad a lot of you like the new story!! And don't worry, all your questions will be answered as time goes on!

Thanks: othfan326, onetreehillgirl066, classifieds215, bd-ls-islove, Kajal, Polia, bibleboymary4ever, BDavis427, brucas333, MissUnderstood92, brucas3, Brucasxo4ever, CheerandBrood323, chebelle, and Brooke D.

Enjoy chapter 2!! Review, too, please!! :)

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Searching For What We Lost

Chapter 2 -

--Two Months Earlier--

"Brooke, come on. The limo's here."

It had been a rough week, and Lucas knew things were only going to get a lot worse. His wife was dying inside, and it was killing him that he couldn't do a thing to help her. After all, he was definitely suffering, too.

He wanted the two of them to be able to talk about it together...talk about their feelings...talk about what had happened.

Brooke had other plans, though. And because of that, he had to stay strong for the two of them, and bottle up his emotions in the meantime.

"Brooke?"

He still got no answer.

Walking down the hallway, he examined the walls, the bare walls. Only a few days ago they were lively and were covered with pictures.

Now they were bare and boring.

He stepped into their bedroom, and wasn't surprised to find his wife in there crying on the bed. She had basically lived in that room since it happened.

"Brooke, we need to go."

"I'm not going." Her voice was almost inaudible, but he heard. "I can't."

He sighed, and closed his eyes. He didn't want to go either. Who would? But they both needed to.

"Oh, Brooke." She was making it so difficult to even begin to deal with what was going on with their lives, and it had been difficult enough to begin with. "We need to go, babe."

"I can't. I can't, it's my fault. It's all my fault."

She cried. He wanted to cry with her.

Her body shook. He wanted to hold her in his arms.

She closed her eyes that stung from the tears. He watched with sad eyes.

"No. Nobody blames it on you." He rubbed his face with his hands, and wiped his eyes. "It is not your fault, okay? But we...we need to go."

"I can't."

After staring off into space for a few seconds, he nodded his head and got off the bed. "Fine." He wasn't in the mood to fight with her. Not now, anyway. "But if you change your mind, you know where to go."

He was disappointed. Disappointed in his wife, and disappointed in himself. She should have agreed to come, and he shouldn't have given up trying on her.

He got outside, and got into the limo.

He was dying inside, too. Just like his wife.

They were slowly dying together. Just like their son.

--Present Time--

"Luke, are you alright? I didn't mean to get you worried or scared or anything..."

"I know, I know. It's just...a lot to process, I guess." Lucas explained, his eyes still wide in shock. "I mean, what am I even supposed to say to her after all this time? 'Hey, what's up?'" He shook his head. This was too surreal.

"I...I don't know." Haley responded, and Nathan took her hand in his, rubbing it comfortingly. They, too, were speechless. They were concerned about Brooke just as much as Lucas had been. "Well, at least we know she's okay. We all spoke to Peyton that one time, and she said she was going to be alright."

"And how the hell would Peyton know?" Lucas nearly shouted, outraged. "That woman hadn't seen my wife in years before Brooke went to live with her two months ago. We're the ones that all saw how she was, not Peyton...Brooke needed help. And fleeing to California to stay with an old friend and getting a tan wasn't exactly the therapy I had in mind for her." He finished off angrily. Brooke had been a total, complete mess. He groaned in frustration thinking about it all. "I'm sorry, it's just...I don't know what to do. She just flat out left when things got its worst. And now that she's back,...I just don't know what to think or what to do."

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Her feet slowly made their way onto their lawn. The house still looked the same as it had looked two months ago, except the garden was now adorned with taller, and healthier looking flowers.

Her car was still parked in the driveway, in the same exact spot she had left it.

His car, however, wasn't there, and she thanked god for that, because that meant he wasn't home. She'd have more time to think of what she was going to say to him.

Walking further, her heart dropped. This was where it happened. This was where her life practically ended.

"Is he gonna be okay?" She choked out.

"Miss, we need you to take a step back." One of the paramedics stepped in and held their arms out to prevent Brooke from going any further.

Her hand covered her mouth as she watched the scene unfold in front of her.

This couldn't be happening.

She blinked and then the memory faded out. It was gone. Just the way she liked it. A blank mind, free of the nightmares.

Her cell phone vibrated in her pocket, and without looking, she already knew who it was.

Peyton.

She just left her without notice, just like she had done two months ago with Lucas.

Brooke waited until the phone stopped vibrating before taking it out of her pocket.

1 new voice mail

Erase.

If only she were able to erase the past two months of her life as easy as it was to erase a message on a phone.

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"Hey, buddy." Lucas breathed in and placed a small orange ball on the ground next to the headstone. He was propped up on his knees, one hand playing with the rubber ball, the other running over the inscribed words on the stone.

Alexander Nathan Scott

He was only four years old. A small boy, full of energy and life and already at a young age, an interest in basketball, had his life taken from him.

"I think mommy's back in town. I'm sure she'd love to come visit you...but it's just a little hard for her. She does love you, though, Alex. We both always will." His voice cracked towards the end of his sentence and his face was then buried in his hands.

He hated crying because that made it seem all the more real. The same reason why Brooke had never once visited the grave.

It made everything feel one hundred times more real, and it made them have to come to terms with it all. Alex really was dead and he and Brooke were more broken apart than ever before.

Nothing would ever be the same again. And they both weren't ready for that big of a change.

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She had been sitting on the front steps for an hour and a half, and in that time she had almost given up and ran away. Three times.

She had almost decided to call car service to take her to the airport for a flight back to California. Two Times.

But everytime she had gotten up, or had taken out her cell phone ready to dial, she would think of her son. And Lucas.

And then she'd think of herself and thought of what was best for her. And as much as she tried to deny everything and pretend like things didn't happen, there was a part of her that knew it did, and knew she needed help.

Headlights bursted out from the corner of the street, and she felt her throat begin to close up, her eyes begin to tear.

Seeing Lucas was one story, but talking to him...that would be completely different.

The next few seconds felt like a blur until she saw his full figure appear in front of her.

He looked just as surprised and just as scared as she did.

"Hi." Her voice was weak and sounded tired.

He didn't say anything.

Silence overtook the air.

She was still sitting, and he was still standing.

Time to face the truth.

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A/N - So there's the next chapter! I hope you enjoyed it!

Please review!! Thanks a bunch!

(Also, I'm working on the next chapter of 'What's True', so expect that fairly soon. And yesterday I updated 'Finding My Way Back'.)

–Melissa