Fix Me Chapter 5: Shattered, an one tree hill fanfic

Yesterday I died, tomorrow's bleeding
Fall into your sunlight
The future's open wide beyond believing
To know why hope dies
Losing what was found, a world so hollow
Suspended in a compromise
The silence of this sound is soon to follow
Somehow sundown

xxxx

Lucas Scott smiled as he took in the familiar city. He'd spent many of his days over the last five years in this city promoting his novel and trying to follow up the novel's success with another novel. He was standing in front of Brooke's apartment building in New York, preparing himself to pack up the last of her things. She claimed that she didn't have a lot of things to be brought back but somehow Lucas didn't believe that. Brooke Davis loved to shop and she loved to spend money. He felt strangely out of place as he entered the building. He was wearing a pair of old jeans with a t-shirt and a pair of scuffed up sneakers but everyone else entering the building was wearing fancy dress clothes and nicely pressed suits with shiny shoes. He kept his head down as he reached the elevator, the sound of heels clicking against the marble floor in perfect rhythm driving him nuts. He looked at the piece of paper in his hand, decorated in Brooke's distinctive handwriting, and pressed the button for the top floor. It was a long ride up the skyscraper high building to her penthouse suite. The elevators only other occupant was a stiff uptight woman with her hair in a tight bun and her nose held high in the air. As he stepped out of the elevator he sent the woman a polite smile and headed down the hall in the direction of Brooke's suite.

He wasn't surprised when he pushed open the door at what he found. The apartment was very Brooke-like. Large but empty. She had always lived an extravagant life but he'd noticed how she liked the simple things in life. She didn't need to have all the extra accessories. He placed his sports jacket on a barstool and ran his fingers along the smooth countertops. A smile made its way across his face as he pictured Brooke trying to cook. He looked around the room and sighed. Where the hell did he start? He had rented a u-haul and Nathan had offered to allow Brooke to keep her things in his storage room until she bought a house in Tree Hill.

Several hours later and most of Brooke's belongings were packed away in boxes and placed in the rented u-haul. There were just a few things left in her bedroom. Lucas wiped a bead of sweat from his forehead as he swung open the closet to grab the last few of her possessions. He was reaching up high for a few various pieces of clothing that were scattered across the top rack when he knocked over the box. The contents spilled and he bent down to pick them up instinctively. He was surprised to see the things that he did. There were high school yearbooks from each year that she'd spent at Tree Hill High, her old cheerleading uniform, several newspaper articles which mentioned the ravens or the cheer squad, and a wide variety of pictures from her high school years. He recognized some of the pictures from before their lives had even collided. Most of those pictures were of her wasted at parties with Nathan and Peyton. He was stuffing the high school reminiscent photos and memorabilia into the box when a picture caught his eye. It was very faded and he noticed that it was ripped into three parts. It was a picture of Brooke. One in which she looked oddly familiar, he was sure that he had one of the same at home. He reached back into the pile of photos and pulled out the other two pieces. There was one of Peyton and one of himself and sure enough the fit perfectly together. The love triangle from hell, he thought as he stuffed the three pieces of the picture back into the box. He was shocked when he picked up the last of the spilled contents. There were about thirty letters tightly bound together with a tie, each addressed to him. He was confused because he hadn't returned those letters to her in High School; he'd kept them in his closet in a similar box. He knew that snooping through her private belongings was wrong but in all fairness to him, the letters were addressed to him. They were not sealed so he quickly unfolded the last letter, noticing that it was dated back to a few years ago.

Dear Lucas,

Last summer I wrote you 82 letters, one a day, but I never sent them because I was afraid of you and the way that you made me feel. And I guess I still am. I've only been here in New York for a few years and it's a nice city. I could see myself being happy here. Writing those letters to you last summer helped me get my emotions out so I decided to write you more letters but this time I'm not giving them to you. Not now and not ever. I'm so confused right now. I hate you so much. I hate you for breaking my heart and for cheating on me with my best friend TWICE, I hate you for getting in between my best friend and I and tearing our friendship apart, I hate you for dictating my happiness and most of all I hate you for making me feel this way; alone, worthless, weak, powerless, insecure. I hate it. But if I hate you so much, then why do I still love you so much? I don't understand it and it beats the shit out of me. I want to feel again but I can't. It's like I'm stuck in the past and everything I see reminds me of you. But tonight I'm making a promise to myself, I will never fall in love with you again and I will never let you get close to me again. Tonight I will let go. You see, tonight I met this guy. His name doesn't really matter but what does is that I'm going to finally let myself be happy and stop pushing people away. I've already pushed everyone I've ever loved away and cut them from my life entirely. I've lost everybody that I've ever cared about and as much as I want to blame you I can't because I did it myself. He won't be you no matter how hard I try to convince myself that he's replacing you in my heart, but I'll just have to pretend. So yeah Lucas, I hate you for what you've done to me but I hate myself even more for letting you do it, for letting me feel this way, and for making me insecure and incapable of loving someone. So I hope it was all worth it in the end. I hope you got what you wanted and I hope you have a nice life with Peyton Sawyer. I can see you rolling your eyes at this if you were to read it but it's true. Although the history is always gonna be there between you and me, Peyton is your other half, the one that you want standing next to you when your dreams come true. I was always just the footnote, the roadblock standing in your way. This is the last letter I will write to you. I'm done feeling this way and I'm done letting you dictate my happiness even when you're not here. I will always love you for showing me the immensity of love and for loving me when nobody else would but tonight I'm letting go of the past. I'm letting go of you because no matter how much I want it to be, love isn't gonna be enough for us. Not this time.

Love, Brooke.

Lucas could feel a small tear slip from his eye as he shoved the letter back in the envelope and placed the other stack of letters in the box, tightly shutting the lid and scooping it up in his arms. He could hear those cruel words in her letter haunting him. "I'm letting go of you because no matter how much I want it to be, love isn't gonna be enough for us. Not this time." And, "So yeah Lucas, I hate you for what you've done to me but I hate myself even more for letting you do it, for letting me feel this way and for making me insecure and incapable of loving someone."

He took one look around the room before flicking the light off. She was just speaking from a place of anger, he convinced himself as he shut the bedroom door and scanned the house, and making sure that he had everything of Brooke's. He turned back around and pulled the door open to leave, only to be met with a face. He'd never met the woman but he knew who she was. She looked like an older version of Brooke. Her long raven hair fell to her shoulders and her brown eyes had a spiteful glare that sent chills down his spine.

"What are you doing here?" he seethed, his own glare matching hers.

"I could ask you the same," she smirked as she pushed past him. She turned back around and glared at him. "Where is everything?"

"I'm taking it back home with me Victoria," he announced coldly. "Your daughter no longer lives in New York."

"How the hell do you know my name? Who are you?"

"Lucas," he smiled cockily as he extended his hand out towards the older brunette woman. "Lucas Scott. I don't believe we've met before."

She looked him up and down with a disgusted look. "So this is the boy that ruined my daughter's life? I never understood why she kept coming back to you after you left her for her best friend."

"I never left her for Peyton!" Lucas growled as he made his way towards the door. "Goodbye Victoria."

"But you cheated on her."

He turned around and sent her the coldest glare he could. "You don't know shit! If you would stop trying to make everyone miserable and you opened up your eyes for one fucking second maybe you'd realize the world doesn't revolve around you. I didn't wreck Brooke's life. You did. You made her a pawn in your fucking game and then you attacked her. And just so you know, I'm not giving up, I will prove that you attacked her and I will put you behind bars. You may have gotten away with stealing Brooke's company but you won't get away with this."

Then he was gone.

And finding answers
Is forgetting all of the questions we call home
Passing the graves of the unknown

As reason clouds my eyes, with splendor fading
Illusions of the sunlight
And the reflection of a lie will keep me waiting
Love gone for so long

This day's ending is the proof of time killing all the faith I know
Knowing that faith is all I hold

"You wanted to see me?"

The brunette cocked her head as she turned her body to face the familiar voice. The voice that she now hated with an undying passion.

"How could you do this to me? How could you do this to her?" She could feel a tear almost fall from her tired brown eyes. Almost. But Victoria Davis didn't cry.

"I thought this is what you wanted?" he emphasized, his lips curving into a smirk. "I thought you wanted her out of the way so that you could have the company all to yourself."

"No," she shook her head at the heartless man standing before her. "I wanted you to simply steal the designs from her. I never asked you to physically hurt her. God, how could you be so stupid?"

"Oh, well that was just an added benefit." He gave her a sinister smirk as he clasped his hands together anxiously. "You see Victoria, I could have loved her but she was incapable of loving me. She hurt me so badly. She destroyed me, ripped my heart into a million pieces and left me behind to bleed. Do you know how that made me feel? And the worst part is that she didn't even feel remorseful about any of it. I wanted her to feel the same pain that she made me feel. I wanted her to bleed."

"You wonder why she left you huh?" Victoria sneered back, her eyes burning up with a passionate hate. "She left you because you treated her like shit! My marriage was the exact same way and she didn't want to end up in a marriage like mine, so she got out while she had the chance."

"It doesn't matter now does it?" he asked with a sly grin. "She thinks you hired someone to attack her and she'll never believe you."

"I hate you," she growled coldly before turning her back on the man before her. "You ruined my life."

"No, I think you ruined that yourself," he chuckled lightly, giving her another vindictive smile before walking right back out the door.

Her mind took her back to the day she'd approached him about stealing Brooke's designs. That day would forever be imprinted in the back of her mind because it was also the day that she'd made the biggest mistake of her life.

FLASHBACK

Anger coursed through her body as she stared harshly at the walls of her apartment. She grabbed the picture off the table and hurled it with brutal force at the wall, watching it crash into a million pieces.

"How could she do this to me?" the brunette hissed venomously. She'd given her daughter the best life she could have ever asked for. She'd made her daughter a multimillionaire by the age of 22 and surely to god Brooke could not have done that alone. And now she goes and fires her. Brooke was going to pay for her actions. Victoria was going to steal her sketches and present them to the board before Brooke had a chance to do so. Without those sketches she is nothing and she has nothing.

A sly smile crossed the older brunette woman's face as she reached for her blackberry and scrolled through her contacts, stopping as she reached the name of a man that she absolutely despised, although she did have to admit that he was impressively aggressive and vindictive. He was one of the most coldhearted people she had ever met in her entire life and they shared one thing in common. In this very moment they both hated Brooke Davis with everything inside of them. Brooke had broken his heart just months ago. Their relationship had been short-lived and full of dramatic twists and tumultuous turns. He was aggressive, abusive if you will, and he'd nearly ended Brooke's life once. She knew that he would steal those designs for her because he wanted to see Brooke fail just as much as she did. She took in a deep breath as she hit the green button and held the device to her ear impatiently.

"Hello?"

"Hey, it's me. Victoria. Listen, I know you hate me and trust me, the feeling is mutual. But, I have a proposition for you."

"Now I'm intrigued. What kind of a proposition?" he asked with the raise of his eyebrows.

"You and I share one thing in common. We both want to see Brooke Davis lose her dreams. She fired me from the company this morning and now I'm seeking revenge. I want you to steal her designs for me and then I will present them to the board. What do you say?"

"And what do I get out of it?"

"You get to see Brooke Davis go through pain. You know just as much as I do that she is nothing without that company and as soon as it's gone, she will have nothing."

"Good point," he nodded his head interestedly. "I love making people suffer. Especially those that hurt me."

"So you'll do it?"

"Hell yeah, I'll do it." His lips curved into a belligerent smirk as he took a swig of the bottle in his hand. "Tomorrow night Brooke Davis is going to get a taste of her own damn medicine."

Then the line went dead.

END FLASHBACK

Who I am from the start
Take me home to my heart
Let me go
And I will run
I will not be silenced

All this time spent in vain
Wasted years
Wasted gain
All is lost
Hope remains
And this war's not over

"Jamie, I want you to meet someone," Haley smiled as she led Brooke into her house. "Hey Deb," she smiled at the older woman that was watching her son.

Brooke looked at Haley nervously and sent Deb a light smile. "Hey," she offered, her eyes glancing at the ground as she spoke.

"Nice to see you again Brooke," Deb replied back as she looked at the brunette sympathetically, having been filled in on the gist of the situation by her son and former daughter in law. "I'm going to go watch my soap opera and allow you guys to have some alone time with Jamie."

A little boy bounded into the room with a wide smile on his face. He was definitely a Scott and ironically enough looked more like Lucas than Nathan. He had sandy blonde hair, which he had inherited from his beautiful mother, and his father's icy blue eyes.

"Momma, that's the lady from the pictures right?" he asked inquisitively, his blue eyes swirling with perplexity.

"Yes Jamie. This is your Aunt Brooke," she smiled warmly as Brooke bent down to the little boy's level.

"Why does she have bruises on her face?" he asked out of the blue. But after all he was a five year old.

"Jamie!" Haley gasped, her eyes hardening at her son. "Be polite."

"Sorry," he looked down shamefully.

"It's okay buddy. I was in an accident," she answered with a disheartened smile. "But, I'm all better now," she lied.

"You mean like a car accident?"

"No," Brooke shook her head. "Not a car accident. It doesn't really matter what kind of an accident it was but I'm okay now. That's all that matters right?" she asked looking at Haley for support.

"Right," Haley nodded, her honey blonde locks shaking behind her. "So, Jamie, why don't you show Aunt Brooke your bedroom while I have a word with grandma Deb?"

"Okay," he nodded as he grabbed Brooke's hand and dragged her up the stairs.

"This is a very nice room Jamie," she smiled as he opened the door excitedly.

"This is my rabbit Chester," he grinned as he showed her the bunny cage. "He's my best friend ever."

Brooke smiled as Jamie showed her Chester, and then put him back in the cage. "Can I ask you something Aunt Brooke?" the five year old asked as he turned towards his estranged Aunt.

"Sure Buddy," she nodded for him to continue as she sat on the end of his bed.

"Why did you leave?"

Brooke was taken aback by the little boy's question. But then again he was Haley's son after all. "It's complicated Jamie… you'll understand when your older and faced with tough decisions of your own."

"I don't wanna understand when I'm older. I want to understand now," he persisted. Staring into his blue eyes reminded her of Lucas. It was almost haunting.

"I left because I had my heart broken…"

"By Uncle Lucas?" he cut in with a bright smile, glad to have known something about Brooke from the past.

"How'd you know that?"

"I eavesdrop sometimes," he shrugged innocently. "Please don't tell my mom."

"Your secret is safe with me," she smiled as she linked her pinkie with his. "And yeah, it was Uncle Lucas," she nodded her head as she spoke. "When he broke my heart, I buried myself in work and started a company. In a few short years it became a huge national success. What started out as a way to mend my broken heart ended up being the most important thing in my life."

"Why'd you come back?" he asked quietly as he looked at her with demanding eyes.

"I came back because I realized that even though I had all the money in the world, I was missing something; Love."

"You mean with Uncle Lucas?"

"No," she shook her head. "Not just that kind of love kiddo. I was missing my friendship with both your mother and your father. I was missing my friendship with Lucas," she smiled, stressing the word friendship before Lucas's name. "And I wanted to meet you, because I knew I'd love you just as much as I love your parents.

"I think you're pretty cool Aunt Brooke," Jamie smiled as he wrapped his arms around her. "I wish you weren't so sad."

She'd only spent about fifteen minutes with the kid and he could already read her better than most.

"I think you and I are gonna be great friends buddy," she grinned, her dimples showing for the first time in a very long time."

And I've lost who I am
And I can't understand
Why my heart is so broken
Rejecting your love
Without love gone wrong
Life
Less words
Carry on

xxxx

"Lucas is home," Haley smiled on the drive back to Lucas's house. "I'll drop you off there and then I'll head home to keep Peyton entertained and Nathan has Jamie for the night."

"I really liked meeting Jamie today," Brooke said as she turned to face Haley. "He reminds me of you in so many ways."

"He's a good kid," Haley nodded as a smile crept across her face. "And he's being dealing with the divorce much better than I would have ever guessed he would."

"Yeah," Brooke nodded as she stared out at the streets of Tree Hill, the sun slowing sinking down over the horizon. "Today was a good day."

"It was," Haley agreed.

A comfortable silence surrounded the two women and Haley flicked on the radio to get some noise flowing through the quiet vehicle.

Hey, girl, you know you drive me crazy
one look puts the rhythm in my hand.
Still I'll never understand why you hang around
I see what's going down.

Cover up with makeup in the mirror
tell yourself, it's never gonna happen again
You cry alone and then he swears he loves you.

Do you feel like a man when you push her around?
Do you feel better now as she falls to the ground?
Well I'll tell you my friend, one day this world's going to end
as your lies crumble down, a new life she has found.

A pebble in the water makes a ripple effect
every action in this world will bear a consequence
If you wade around forever, you will surely drown
I see what's going down.

I see the way you go and say you're right again,
say you're right again
Heed my lecture.

Face down in the dirt, she said,
"This doesn't hurt", she said,
"I finally had enough."

Listening to that song brought back of string of memories. Bad memories, from one of the darkest times in her entire life.

FLASHBACK

It was late when she heard him come in. She glanced at the clock beside her bed and saw that it was 2:33 in the morning. She could hear his footsteps approaching the door and she tightly shut her eyes, pretending to sleep. If she was sleeping, maybe he'd leave her alone. But she highly doubted that. She wasn't with him because she loved him. She was with him because she was afraid of him. If she ever left him, she was afraid of what might follow. She would have to bear the consequences and she wasn't prepared to do that just yet. She hoped that one day, she would find the strength.

The door opened and the room filled with the strong scent of whiskey and smoke. He was an addict. He drank alcohol to numb the pain of life and to lift the burden of life from his shoulders. And he turned to drugs for the very same reason. In fact, she'd met him through Rachel. They'd gone to rehab together about a year ago and after they'd both been released, Rachel had set them up. She'd just gotten out of a relationship that had lasted almost a year and was clearly not ready to move on yet but he had been a nice guy and she decided to take it slowly and see where things headed. However, he had other plans and soon she was trapped in a deadly relationship with an abusive, alcoholic boyfriend. Shortly after his release from rehab, he had reverted back to his old ways. Nobody knew about the relationship except for her mother. One night, she'd broken down and told her mother what was going on. She trusted Victoria because she was a hard, emotionless woman and Brooke was certain that she wouldn't even feel sorry for her.

"You awake?" he whispered softly as he slid under the covers. No response. "I said are you awake?" he repeated, much louder this time.

"Yes," she grumbled, slowly sitting up and pretending to rub her 'sleep-filled' eyes. "I am now."

"What the fuck is this?" he asked harshly as he flung a piece of paper in her face.

Brooke grabbed it from him and scanned it quickly. "How the hell did you get this?"

"Earlier today, I was checking your internet history on your laptop. Guess, you should have deleted it Brooke," he chuckled bitterly. "WHAT THE HELL WERE YOU THINKING SEARCHING YOUR EX-BOYFRIEND UP ON GOOGLE?"

She gulped, unable to find her voice.

"Answer me when I'm taking to you, goddamit!" he yelled, aggressively pulling her face towards his and making her look at him.

"I was just curious," she answered with a small sigh. "I was just wondering what my friends from High School were doing…"

"You still love him don't you," he questioned, his eyes full of resentment.

She didn't reply yet again.

"Answer me Brooke! You don't have the right to ignore my goddam questions!"

"Yes," she whispered as she closed her eyes momentarily.

"Well guess what Brooke?" he asked rhetorically. "You love me now. He's in your past and I'm your future. So fucking get over him. If I ever catch you searching him up again or contacting him, you'll fucking pay."

She looked at him, her eyes filled with tears. And then she stood up. It was possibly one of the dumbest things she could have done but she just wanted out.

"Where the fuck do you think you're going?" he asked vituperatively.

"I'm leaving," she whispered softly as she stood at the door, reaching up to wipe a tear from her eye.

"You're leaving?" he asked with a sinful grin. "And where the hell are you gonna go? Newsflash Brooke, nobody loves you and they never will. Your ex-boyfriend loves your best friend more than you, you have virtually no friends except for Millicent, and your own mother even hates you. Without me you are nothing!"

"Goodbye," she croaked as she turned to leave but he grabbed onto her wrist and spun her around. "You're hurting me!" she cried out in agony, his fingernails digging into her flesh. He was strong, much stronger than her.

"You're not fucking leaving me," he smirked wretchedly as he threw her against the wall. "I fucking own you."

"I'm not your property anymore," she growled as she tried to wriggle from his grasp.

"Yes you fucking are," he bit back.

"No… you're not. I'm my own person and I will…"

SLAP. His fist connecting with her cold flesh silenced her. "Don't fucking talk Brooke. Now come to bed. I'm really fucking horny."

"I'm not going anywhere with you," she hissed as she yanked herself free from his grasp. But it wasn't enough.

He threw on the floor, kicked her a few times, then started at her with disgust."You're a gutless, worthless bitch."

She was done with this. She was done feeling this way. And she was done with him. She wouldn't even allow herself to cry. Slowly she picked herself up off the floor, her eyes showing no emotions at all. She was numb inside.

"You ruined my life and I'm done being a pawn in your fucking game. Find someone else's life to make miserable but I can assure you that it won't be me. And you wonder why I'm incapable of loving you? It has nothing to do with Lucas. It has to do with you and only you. The only reason I am still in this relationship is because of fear. But, I won't let my fear of you and the things that you can do to me hold me back anymore. I'm done feeling like this. I am worth something and I don't need a piece of shit like you to tell me that I'm not." Her eyes were lifeless as she spoke those harsh words to the man that had nearly destroyed her life and made her become a person that she hated.

She placed her hand on the doorknob and pushed it open before his words stopped her.

"Fine, leave you little bitch but one day I'll be back for you and you'll get what you deserve."

END FLASHBACK

She felt a tear slip from her eye as she thought back on those days and the hell he'd put her through in just four short months. They were the worst four months of her entire life, but they also made her stronger. She knew that she could overcome anything after being put through that.

AN: Any guesses as to who might have attacked Brooke? You'll have to wait to find out! Mean, I know. Next chapter will be Julian coming to town and some Brulian and Brucas interactions as well as more Naley insight. I'm sorry that there was no Brucas in that chapter but it was a much needed chapter in order to explain the attack from Victoria's point of view and give some insight into Brooke's dark past. I promise for some more Brucas next chapter! Songs used are 'Shattered' by Trading Yesterday and 'Facedown' by The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus in case anyone was wondering. Please review and lemme know what you think of this chapter. (By the way, formatting was not my friend so excuse any issues with the song lyrics).