AN: I'm sorry for the long absence. Please know that I appreciate the support from all of you more than you know. The title and lyrics come from a John Mayer song.
----x----
CHAPTER 40 – The Heart of Life
I hate to see you cry
Lying there in that position
There's things you need to hear
So turn off your tears and listen
-l-
At eighteen, he shouldn't be watching a nurse draw blood from his daughter. At eighteen, he probably shouldn't even be a dad. Yet Lucas stands in a hospital room, at 6.30 in the morning, teeth clenched together and hands balled into tight fists at his sides, while listening to Emma wailing in the plastic hospital cot.
It's not a good feeling. Not at all. But it's definitely better than how he felt while waiting for the ambulance, or when the emergency doctor whisked his daughter away without a word when they arrived to the hospital and nobody would tell neither him nor Brooke what was going on.
At least the sound of Emma screaming tells him that she's alive and breathing.
"There, all done," the nurse soothes and rubs a cotton ball over the prick of blood coming from Emma's tiny pink foot. "Such a good girl, aren't you?"
Brooke forces a tight smile in return for the woman but her hazel eyes never leave their daughter's little face, all scrunched up in tears. His hand instinctively unclenches and he reaches out to rub his girlfriend's shoulder. After almost three hours in the hospital without getting any real information, Brooke looks about as tired as he feels.
For the last fifteen minutes, while the nurses started getting ready for morning rounds, she has just been standing there, pale and silent, but now her cracked voice breaks the silence.
"Can I pick her up now?"
She looks so young with her tear-streaked cheeks and tangled hair. His jacket hangs loosely around her shoulders and she bites her bottom lip while looking at their daughter in the plastic cot.
She looks so young but still; she looks so strong.
"Of course", the nurse smiles reassuringly and starts unhooking the heart-monitor. "The doctor said he'll be in any moment and as long as you leave the oxygen cannula in place for now, you can hold her."
The machine starts beeping when the wire comes off and honestly, it's freaking him out.
Don't unhook anything, Lucas thinks. Just keep every safety precaution in place.
But Brooke looks relieved. "Okay…" she mumbles and reaches down to lift up Emma. Their baby daughter seems to instantly recognize the feel of Brooke's familiar hands and when she cradles Emma to her chest, his daughter seems to relax a little.
Even so, Lucas Scott decides that he hates hospitals.
The last hour or so he's been doing some major thinking, desperately trying to figure out if there's something wrong with his karma. It's like they just can't catch a break.
First there had been all the drama with Peyton, then Brooke almost miscarried at the basketball game. After she spent weeks on bed rest, the stupid sex-tape came along, and then the fight that almost split them up for good. Damn, he had been so stupid back then.
When Brooke's dad wanted a paternity test, he had already started feeling like they were in an episode of MTV's 'Punked' and that was before their daughter was born with a heart-murmur and before his future mother in law showed up on a tension-filled surprise visit.
Wasn't the fact that he and Brooke were teenage parents enough?
Now their tiny infant girl had been infected with something called the RS virus?
Sighing, he wraps his arms around Brooke and Emma from behind and Brooke rests her head back against his shoulder. As if reading his thoughts she mutters, "Isn't it enough soon?" while he presses his lips against her temple. And right then Victoria walks into the room.
"Brooke?" she starts, the name falling off her lips in more of a command than a greeting, "What's going on? Is Emma okay?"
"She had trouble breathing," Brooke mumbles silently, barely audible over Emma's consistent crying. "The doctor says that she has a really bad cold. Her lips were turning blue and it sounded like she was choking."
Victoria's facial expression is cold and tense when she snaps, "And why didn't you call me at the hotel? She is my granddaughter!"
But just as he's about to protest and tell her that she should use a different tone, then he sees the worry in Victoria's eyes. Her gaze travels between her daughter and her grandchild and for a second she reminds him of his own mother.
Brooke mumbles something about not wanting to wake her in the middle of the night and for once Victoria doesn't protest. Instead she mumbles out a few soothing words and disappears, only to come back five minutes later with two cups of coffee and the doctor.
"Brooke, Lucas," the man says offering a smile, "I'm sorry that I kept you waiting. I had to wait for the RS-labs. How's your little princess doing?"
"You tell us," he mutters back, trying to make himself heard over the sound of Emma crying, and he's surprised when Victoria hands him the second cup of coffee. Probably because Brooke is still holding their baby and declines.
A minute passes while Emma screams bloody murder and the doctor sits down on the armrest on one of the visitors chairs and starts to flip the pages in her file. Then Dr. Sanchez clears his throat.
"The tiny hole in her left ventricle is closing itself nicely," he starts with a nod, "but she did test positive for RSV. I'm guessing that the virus-induced apnea caused cardiac arrhythmia and infantile bradycardia. That's why her lips turned blue."
Brooke paces next to him and her voice is harsh when she snaps "Is it so damn hard for you to just speak English?"
She sounds angry but he knows his girlfriend, knows that she's so stressed out that she's seconds from breaking down and he pulls in a deep breath and asks the question he's dreading the most. "Is this connected to the HCM?"
The doctor shakes his head. "From what we can see based on Emma's first round of labs, none of this is connected to any type of heart decease. This is just a virus, kind of like a bad cold, and we're already treating it with antibiotics." He pats Brooke's shoulder, "A lot of babies catch it and I know that it looks scary but in a few hours she'll be as good as new."
Instinctively he pulls Brooke back toward his chest and kisses her temple. "You hear that, pretty girl?" he whispers, "don't worry."
Don't worry, because I'm worrying enough for both of us.
"You were supposed to come in this afternoon anyway, right?" the doctor says while flipping the pages again, "To receive the results from the HCM-test, no?"
"Yeah, at 3 pm."
A hint of nausea comes over him at the thought of that and Brooke's hand comfortingly brushes over his. But the Doctor just smiles.
"Well I've called down to the lab and asked to have them brought up now. It will save you guys a couple of hours of wait and the results will tell us if we need to address this with more concern. "
"What results is he talking about?"
He has almost forgotten that Brooke's mother is in the room with them. The dark-haired woman has been standing by the door like a statue, but now, when his eyes stray over to look at her, she looks concerned.
"Mom, not now…" Brooke mumbles tiredly.
"Brooke?" Victoria presses, "What was that he said? Is Emma sick? What is going on?"
To take some of the pressure off of his girlfriend, who's doing her best to stay composed while trying to calm a fuzzy baby still connected to machines, he locks gaze with the older woman and tries to keep his voice normal. "We've had her checked for heart decease," he starts. "We were supposed to find out today if she has Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy."
The concerned expression Victoria sports turns into a confused frown, probably due to the medical term he just used. She looks at Brooke for an explanation but Brooke is completely devoted to rocking their baby. She hums soothingly, caressing Emma's dark hair while being careful not to move the tiny oxygen tube, and his heart constricts. Especially when Emma still keeps crying despite Brooke's efforts.
"Is it alright if I nurse her?" she mumbles over the sound of Emma's kitten-like cries. "She's probably hungry and I…" She sighs and looks at the doctor who nods.
"How about this?" the man suggests, "You and Lucas tend to your baby and I will explain the HCM tests to Mrs. Davis? Then in a few minutes we'll all sit down and look at the results?"
Victoria starts to object, obviously still wanting the explanation from her daughter, but Brooke's bottom lip trembles with threatening tears of tiredness and Victoria stays silent. Then the doctor puts a hand on Victoria's arm and says something in a low voice that Lucas can't hear and surprisingly she agrees to leave them alone. A nurse still busies herself at the other side of the room but he's glad.
They've barely graduated high school after all, and their baby is just eleven days old. Having a nurse there when his daughter is sick only feels comforting.
Brooke sits down in a chair and she leans Emma uncomfortably against one arm while trying to get out of her sweater. She looks frustrated and her elbow gets stuck in the fabric so he steps closer.
"Here, let me take her," he mumbles softly and lifts his daughter from her arms. She smiles faintly, whispers a watery "Thank you," and detangles herself from the material.
It feels good to do something helpful but just as he hands Emma back to Brooke, his cell phone vibrates in his pocket and he steps out of the room to take the call. He's pretty sure it's his mom because she's been calling every hour, but instead it's Haley.
"Luke, Karen called us," her voice comes laced with worry through the phone, "is Emma okay?"
"Yeah," he sighs. "She's better. They gave her medication and some oxygen. She's got a really bad cold. Some baby virus…"
Haley sighs. "Oh, Luke, I'm so sorry…"
"It's fine. I just worry about Brooke, you know? She's under so much pressure with her mom and everything and we've barely been home with Emma for a week." He kicks the wall absentmindedly with his sneaker. "It's been enough lately… Don't you think?"
"I know sweetie," Haley says softly. "All you can do is try and be strong for her. And it will calm down. You'll get the results back today, Emma will kick this virus, and then everything will get better. I promise, Luke. It will."
"I don't know…"
From inside the hospital room he can hear Emma start wailing again and feeling more than frustrated, he groans and lets his head thump back against the wall in the corridor. All the worrying over the past week lies heavy on his shoulders and he absolutely hates that he can't do more help Brooke, who's taking an even bigger emotional hit by all this since she hardly gets any sleep.
"God, Hales," he groans, "how did everything become so complicated?"
Turn back time less than a year and his biggest problems had been sneaking in after curfew without having his mom catch him or trying to decide what fucking pair of sneakers to wear for school. His biggest worries were insignificant compared to what they're dealing with now and he almost laughs at the drama between himself and Peyton. It all feels so damn juvenile and dumb in comparison.
"Brooke's mom knows about the HCM-test," he then mutters to his friend on the phone, "and if that woman didn't hate me before… Well, I guess this will seal the deal."
Haley sighs. "Stop that, okay? No one hates you. And no one blames you either. We've talked about this, remember?"
"But what if we can't deal with this?" he keeps probing, "What if Emma has it and it all becomes too much? Brooke and I… I mean– This isn't how we planned things…"
"How you planned things?"
Haley sounds a little confused, maybe even a tiny bit irritated, but he keeps banging the back of his head against the dull white plaster wall.
"There're just a couple of weeks left before summer is over," he mutters, "and we planned to take Emma to the beach. I'm not sure it's a good idea but Brooke really thinks she'll like it. And then Mouth and Skills promised to help us drive most of the stuff up to Raleigh next weekend and we're supposed to move into the apartment the weekend after that. But if Emma needs to have surgery, then how the hell can we move?"
A nurse glares at him in passing and he stops the thumping long enough for the woman to disappear around the corner. Then he promptly resumes the idiotic outlet for his nervousness.
Thump… Thump… Thump.
"And if we don't move, then how will Brooke go to college?" he mumbles while rubbing his face tiredly with his free hand, "Hales, I told Brooke that everything would be fine, but how can it be if she can't take that scholarship? We planned all this so that she could have the baby and still go to school but if we can't even move out of my mom's house, then how-"
Apparently Haley is tired of listening to his complaining.
"And you think I planned to get pregnant with twins?" she deadpans. "Or even to get pregnant in the first place?" The pause she leaves is not meant for answering, at least he knows that much about girls. Instead he chews on his bottom lip and waits.
"Seriously, Luke? Do you really think that Nathan and I sat down one night and decided that he should knock me up even though we could hardly support ourselves on our part-time jobs? Or that we chose the 'two for one deal' just to spice things up a little?"
Another pause and this time he's not sure if maybe he's meant to answer after all.
"Uhm…" he starts but Haley snorts in an annoyed manner and he can picture her rolling her eyes and glaring at the phone.
"Yeah, of course we did because it was just so convenient for us to have premature twins on the night of my high school prom!"
"Hales…" he tries again, because he's starting to feel a little stupid now. Of course they didn't choose that, but that's not the point he's trying to get across. Is it?
But just like always when Haley's temper starts to rise, it's very hard to stop her. His childhood friend has the patience of a Saint but once the switch flips? Then dealing with a temperamental Haley James-Scott is like walking in a mine-field. Anything can trigger an explosion.
"And how about your mom, huh?" she pushes on. "I bet Karen planned to raise another child on her own, just as the first one was about to leave for college. And I bet that she really couldn't wait to become a grandma before turning forty. Jesus, Lucas, grow up!" she barks in a considerably raised voice. "None of us planned these things but they happened anyway. And guess what? Your mom was just as young as you are when she had you and she might not have known that you carried the HCM gene but she was alone."
Stunned, he looks at the phone in his hand before returning it to his ear. Haley sounds pissed off. Really pissed off.
"Dan left Karen high and dry and yet she managed to raise you and keep you fed and healthy without any freakin' help what so ever. And she might not have gone to college but she managed to start a freaking business while taking care of you. Because that's what you DO, Lucas! When life gives you a shitty hand of cards, then you do the best you can. You deal with it, okay? Just like the rest of us has to do!"
Sometime during Haley's rant, his head has stopped hitting the wall. Now he just stands still, listens to his best friend's breathing on the phone and feels like a real idiot.
In the beginning, when he first found out that Brooke was pregnant with his baby, then he had thought about his mom and drawn parallels between her situation and his own. But he had actually thought more about Dan's decision to leave and not take his responsibilities as a father.
And during those first months he had felt proud that he was different. Like when he held Brooke's hair back for her when she had morning sickness, or when he tried to satisfy her 3am food cravings. Then he had felt good about himself.
But now he realizes that he never really pictured it from his mom's point of view. He'd always been aware of the huge sacrifices that his mother made for him but he never really thought about how she felt.
"I get that you're scared right now, Luke," Haley's voice drifts into his ear in a much softer tone.
Scared?
Talk about a fucking understatement.
Ever since he heard his daughter's heartbeat at the doctor's office six months ago, he has been constantly worried. About Brooke's health, the baby's health, their future, their dreams. About his parental skills or Brooke's. About money and school and things as pathetic as if they've picked a good name for their child or if his daughter will get teased for it.
He's been more or less scared every day for seven months.
But during all this, he's had Brooke right beside him. They've had each other and when shit got too much to handle, then Brooke had shouldered the worries for a while. On top of that, they've also had the support of his mother and their friends.
Like Haley and his brother for example, who've got two babies that they couldn't even hold for the first couple of days because they were too small. But not once has Haley whined about that to him.
"I'm sorry…" he mumbles while his cheeks grows warm and probably pink with shame. "I didn't mean to unload it all on you. I know that I sound like a pessimistic and selfish asshole. I'm just so worried…"
He can hear her shuffling over the line and her voice is softer when she sighs, "I know that you are worried about your daughter, Lucas. You are allowed to worry about her. I just feel like you're... I mean, look at your mom, Luke. It was tough for her as well but she wouldn't trade you or your baby brother for anything… Not one day of it."
He lets the last words sink in and Haley probably thinks that his silence means that he's angry because she breathes out and mumbles, "I'm sorry. Forget it. I don't even know what I'm talking about…"
But she does. She knows. Because Haley and Nathan are going through all the same stuff that he's dealing with and for the first time since he was told that Emma might be sick, he realizes that Haley probably battles these same kind worries daily.
Money, school, relationship-issues, the constant fear of doing something wrong or screwing up her kids.
And for the first time in weeks, he actually hears how tired his friend sounds.
"How about you, Hales? Are you okay?" he questions carefully and as response another sigh comes through the receiver.
"No. I'm not 'okay'," she bites back, "I'm tired and I'm frustrated because as soon as one kid sleeps, the other one wakes up, screaming his bloody lungs out. Which of course wakes up the first one and then the whole song and dance starts over again."
As if on cue, Lucas hears the sound of a baby crying in the background and when Haley continues talking, she sounds even more tired.
"I'm also feeling really guilty," she sighs, "because my two best friends are stuck in a hospital with a baby that might have a serious heart-condition and I can't even be there to comfort them like they did for me. Why? Because I'm stuck at home since I'm too scared to bring Jamie and Josh in fear of them catching the same virus that Emma's got, and I can't leave them at home with Nathan since he had to go work."
Something that sounds very much like a sob interrupts her rambling and she sniffles, "So instead of being supportive, what do I do? Well I decide to act like a complete bitch towards my best friend and I end up biting his head off although he's done nothing to deserve it."
She lets out another sob and it's clear now that she's crying, "But that's the thing, Lucas. It's life. Sometimes it's shitty and unfair but there's not much you can do about it except for dealing with it."
And maybe Haley is right?
So he thinks about that for a second, while people rush by him in the corridor of the pediatric ward and his friend on the other line tries to calm down Jamie or Joshua – and probably herself as well.
He thinks about life. And about dealing. He ponders what kind of life he has to offer Brooke if Emma has HCM and they'll have to postpone college indefinitely in order to work so that they can pay for Emma's surgery. How they'll deal with it and what kind of problems they might face. But then he realizes that this is exactly what Haley is trying to make him see. That life – and dealing with it for that matter – happens in the 'now' and not in the 'what if?'.
"Haley, don't beat yourself up so much," he sooths while walking back towards Emma's room. "It was a hell of a lot easier for me and Brooke to comfort you guys when the boys were in the NICU because we didn't have a baby then. And I still wasn't around that much, remember?"
His godson – whichever one it was that made all that noise – has calmed down and he can hear Haley mumble something that sounds like, "It doesn't matter. I still knew that you cared."
"Exactly," he replies softly. And when he steps inside the room he simply picks his now contently sleeping daughter up from Brooke's arms, completely ignoring the surprise on his girlfriend's face, and hands her the phone.
"Haley misses you," he just says as if that explains it all and then walks over to sit in the chair across the room.
They way Brooke almost sighs out in relief upon hearing Haley's voice tells him that she feels the same and he smiles when Brooke starts recounting every word from the doctor over the phone.
Then he sinks back into the cushions and looks at his sleeping baby. She's beautiful, even with the nasal cannula taped to her face and her cheeks tinted red from fever. She's perfect, whether she has HCM or not.
It's life, he thinks to himself and traces her ridiculously small button-like nose with the tip of his finger. Sometimes it's shitty and unfair but there's not much you can do about it except for dealing with it.
And there are parts of it – like Brooke and their baby girl – that he sure as hell wouldn't trade for the world.
-b-
You know it's nothing new
Bad news never had good timing
Then the circle of your friends
Will defend the silver lining
It's weird how something as small as talking to a friend on the phone can make things feel so much better.
After just a few minutes of hearing Haley's voice, Brooke feels like at least half the tiredness she felt earlier has been swept away. And Lucas seems to feel the same because instead of pacing back and forth like he's been doing most of the time since they got here, he now sits calmly in the chair across from her, gently playing with Emma's wispy locks of hair.
"You know," he says when she places his cell phone on the small table next to her, "I keep thinking that if Nathan and I hadn't gone to that Bobcats game in Charlotte, I wouldn't have known about my heart-problem until the championship. And that nosedive I took on court would have come as a complete surprise. I mean, I never felt sick from it or anything like that."
He says it softly but she shudders involuntarily never the less, because she really doesn't like to think about that championship game.
"Maybe, but things could have ended in an even worse way," she whispers back, not to wake Emma. "If you hadn't taken any medication at all during that time, you might have done permanent damage to your heart."
She gets to her feet without thinking and walks over to sit on the armrest next to her boyfriend. "I'm glad Nathan tricked you into taking that test. You went seventeen years without any medical supervision and you were lucky that you didn't end up dead on that court, Luke."
Her fingers rake gently through his messy blond hair and he smiles up at her.
"And leave you?" he half-jokes, "Not likely."
"You better not."
He probably knows that she doesn't find what he said funny at all and his blue eyes meets hers apologetically before he wraps his hand around her wrist and brings it down to his lips so that he can kiss her palm.
"What I meant to say," he mumbles as he intertwines their fingers, "is that I was born with the defective gene and for what I knew, I was healthy for seventeen years. If Emma ha–"
She starts to interrupt him because she doesn't want to hear it. He keeps blaming himself and she's tired of it. But he looks at her seriously and keeps talking. "If Emma has HCM, Brooke, then she might feel normal for even longer than I did. If she gets the right medication from the start and she doesn't get involved in sports that put too much strain on her heart, then she might never feel it." His eyes turn to their daughter, "I mean, maybe I misunderstood the doctor, but didn't he say that the hole in her heart was closing up by itself?"
"Yeah," she nods, glad that he's starting to see this her way, but she's still not really following.
"Well if the hole in her heart is closing, then there's no need for surgery, right? So even if she has the defective gene, she could still feel healthy for years."
Her first reaction to his words is to frown because she has to make sense of what he's saying. She'd been so caught up in Emma when the guy was talking and she hadn't listened as hard as she should have. But it sounds logical, the way Lucas says it now, and her frown unconsciously gets replaced with a much more relieved expression.
"You're right," she breathes and leans her head against his. "You've never needed surgery. She –"
This time, Lucas interrupts her by kissing her. And it's not until she hears her mother's fake cough behind them that she realizes exactly how deep the kiss is getting. Blushing, she stares at the floor for a second, but when she finally does look up, both Dr. ?? and her mother seem amused.
"Sorry for interrupting but we have the test results," Dr Sanchez says and holds up a file. "Shall we?"
-l-
He holds his breath and his hand instinctively searches for Brooke's, intertwining their fingers. Emma is still sleeping on his chest and her slightly wheezing breathing sounds doesn't really calm his nerves. But the doctor is smiling and he really hopes that he and Brooke's mom are bringing good news.
Just because the phonecall with Haley had reminded him that he should cherish his girls and that Emma could have a good life even with HCM, it doesn't mean that he has stopped hoping more than anything that their infant daughter is healthy.
More than anything he wants their baby to be well.
Even more so when he feels Brooke's increasingly rapid pulse through the thin skin of her wrist. More than anything he wants this to be over an for it to end well so that his girlfriend won't have to through all this stress.
"What did it say?" Brooke whispers next to him and he realizes that Victoria is smiling as well.
"The labs came back negative. Little Emma does not have HCM."
"Are you sure?"
This time it's his own voice he hears, kind of like in an out-of-body experience, and the doctor nods.
"Yes. We tested for both the defective gene and for the carrier-trait. And your daughter has neither. This little princess takes after her mother. Other than the cold, she's healthy as a nutcracker."
Every ounce of worry that has plagued him for the last week –or maybe since he first realized that he could pass it on to Emma– disappears and the relief is so enormous that he almost breaks out in tears.
"And-, Um… I-," he stutters and starts over, "You, well you said that the hole is healing, right? And this cold or virus or whatever it's called is gonna go away?"
Brooke's hand, still clenched around his, tightens its grip almost to a point of being painful. Automatically he squeezes back and with the other arm he holds Emma just a little bit tighter.
"Yes. The oxygen has already handled the discomfort she felt when breathing and the antibiotics will kick in shortly. You can take her home in an hour or two."
He blinks. Stares back at the doctor, probably with an almost dumbstruck expression on his face. The whole thing feels close to unreal and it takes a couple of seconds before the words actually reach him.
Emma is healthy.
She has no sign of heart decease.
All the worrying during this past week was in vain and we can take her home…
He looks at Brooke and she has the same expression on her face. Just minutes ago they had finally leveled with the thought that their baby had a heart condition. And now she hasn't.
There's a tug on his hand and then Brooke's lips are pressed against his.
"I love you," she whispers with such relief that he can almost taste it and he repeats the three words back to her while she wipes her tears away against his shirt.
Then she kisses Emma's face and mumbles, "You're okay, baby… it'll be fine."
He knows that she's saying it out loud because she needs to actually believe it, not because their week-old infant needs the reassurance. Emma is blissfully unaware of how much he and Brooke have been worrying over this.
Then, in the corner of his eye, he sees Victoria walk over to Brooke and hesitantly reach out for her. For a second, Brooke doesn't move, but then she takes the step forward and lets her mother hug her.
And by the look on Victoria's face, it's clear that she needs the silent forgiveness that is included in Brooke's acceptance of the hug, just as much as his girlfriend needs the silent motherly comfort.
"I'm sorry I was so hard on you, Brooke" the older woman mumbles into his girlfriend's hair. "I'm so proud of you, hun…"
Silently he agrees. He's damn proud of her too.
-b-
Pain throws your heart to the ground
Love turns the whole thing around
No, it won't all go the way it should
But I know the heart of life is good
By three in the afternoon they're at home again and she's so tired that she's about to fall asleep standing. Not even the residue hormones after carrying a baby for nine months can give her the boost of extra energy that she needs to be able to keep standing up.
But Lucas is her savior. Ever since this morning, when getting the news that Emma hadn't inherited his heart-problem, he's been so calm, so strong. He handled everything at the hospital. Dealt with the insurance papers, the instructions from the doctors on Emma's antibiotics, the constant nagging worried questions from her mother and the continuous phone-calls from Karen. He took everything with stride, all the while she just sat in a chair, either nursing Emma or watching her baby sleep.
While she'd been exhausted, he had seemed almost invigorated. And in all honesty, he should be a lot more tired than her.
"I'm sorry," she mumbles, collapsing onto the bed in Lucas room while he puts Emma down in her cot and cleans away their stuff. "I'll help you clean up later."
"What are you sorry for, Pretty girl?" he mumbles over his shoulder, keeping his voice soft not to wake up their baby. "You're tired, Brooke. It's totally understandable. You haven't had more than two hours of sleep in the last thirty-six hours."
"Neither have you," she mutters and feels even more guilty when he comes over to comfort her.
"No, but I haven't spent the last 9 months pregnant," he says and sits down on the bed next to her. "And I didn't give birth to a baby less than two weeks ago; neither did I spend half of all my hours awake with said baby stuck to my chest."
She giggles sleepily. "No, and thank God for that. That would have been awkward, Luke."
"Oh, shut up," he chuckles and rest against the headboard before pulling her close so that she can put her head on his chest. And then his fingers comb through her hair with soft movements.
"Thank you, broody," she breathes and rubs her cheek tiredly against his t-shirt. "I wouldn't have gotten through the last month without you."
"The last month?" he asks and she nods.
"Yeah. The extra weeks of being pregnant, giving birth, thinking that Emma might be sick and then everything with my mom…"
She can feel him smile as he kisses her hair. "You know that it's starting, right?" he mumbles, "now there's college and of course the whole 'being parents' thing to conquer."
She's about to answer him but instead she yawns and Lucas goes back to playing with her tangled locks. "Just go to sleep Brooke. We can talk more later," he whispers, "you should take a nap while Emma is sleeping."
His voice is so soothing and for the hundredth time she wonders how the hell she would have dealt with all this – this being a mom and a teenager at the same time – if she didn't have him to constantly reassure her.
She's been so worried and tense but with Emma sleeping peacefully in her cot, declared healthy and everything, she finally starts to relax. The muscles in her neck and back protest and ache but she still sighs contently and her hand finds its way up underneath his t-shirt. Its subconscious almost, the need that she has to always feel his skin when they're lying next to each other like this.
She can feel his abs tense for a second under her hand but then he pulls her even closer and tucks his hand into the elastic waistband at the back of her shorts, almost as if he was tucking it into her back pocket.
"Should we give her more medication?" she asks sleepily and listens to the light sound of their baby snoring. But Lucas simply tucks her head in under his chin and hushes her.
"She's okay, Brooke. Now sleep."
And she trusts him. She trusts him so much. And less than five seconds later her eyelids fall closed.
-l-
Its closer to six o'clock in the evening when he wakes up, probably from the sound of car stopping outside. Brooke still sleeps at his side and after raising his head to take a quick look at Emma in the cot, he realizes that so does his daughter.
He squirms a little to get more comfortable because Brooke is still resting on his arm and it's numb from being in the same position for three hours, but the movement just causes Brooke to shift closer and he groans quietly when her thigh slides against his groin.
Torture.
"Brooke," he mumbles silently and rubs her back with the hand of his half-asleep arm.
She hums something inaudible and nuzzles her nose into his neck, tickling him with her warm breath. He bites his lip and wills the growing bulge in his basketball shorts to go away. It's been eleven days since Brooke gave birth to Emma and they're not supposed to do anything even remotely sexual until it's been at least a month. That said, it doesn't mean that he doesn't want to.
Carefully he moves her leg and tries to shift away from her sleeping form. Emma is going to wake up any minute and he wants to give his girlfriend a couple more hours of sleep. There's breast-milk in the fridge and he has bottlefed their baby before. But Brooke moves after him and still sleeping she keeps molding her body after his in a delicious way.
Her hand is still inside his t-shirt, resting on his chest close to his heart. She's slept like this pretty much ever since they got back together and he loves it, loves having her close. It's just that during the last week – ever since coming back from the hospital – they've both been so worried and there's been so much occupying his thoughts that he hasn't paid much attention to these kinds of feelings.
Now, when Emma is safe – apart from the cold she still has to kick – and Brooke keeps running that hand softly over his torso while sleeping, it reminds him of all the things that usually occupies his teenage mind when he's in bed with Brooke Davis.
So for a couple of minutes he allows himself to run his hand up her naked thigh and his fingers slides just along the hem of her tiny summer shorts. Then up along her waist and side until he feels the material of her bra underneath the tank top. She sighs contently and still sleeping, her lips press against the skin of his neck.
Three more weeks…
Maybe longer.
Biting back a groan, he finally detangles from her and tucks a pillow close to her so that she won't wake up when he gets out of bed. Then he gets up and silently retrieves his infant daughter out of her cot.
"Come on, Ems," he hushes and holds the baby close while walking towards the kitchen. "Daddy's got you. We need to get away from mommy for a little bit."
And as he makes it into the room, waiting for his child to wake up so that he can feed her, the backdoor opens and Rachel steps inside.
"What's up, loser-boy?" she says and throws her purse on a chair. "How's my god-child."
"She's better," he smiles back. "The antibiotics are working."
Brooke had of course already told the redhead that Emma doesn't have HCM and even though Rachel wears her usual nonchalant smirk, he knows that she's relieved.
"Where's Karen?" she asks and slumps down on a chair at the kitchen table, "and where's my skank ass friend?"
"My mom's at Deb's with Keith. Emma might still be contagious and if it wasn't my baby-brother who gave her the virus then she doesn't want him to catch her cold." The baby in his arms starts fussing and he bends his head and places a kiss on her dark hair. "Brooke's sleeping. She was exhausted."
Rachel chuckles, "And you couldn't sleep because you're too horny?" she asks and winks, making him drop his jaw in surprise.
"Um, what?" he croaks out but the redhead just rolls her brown eyes and laughs.
"Come on, Lucas. You were tenting when I walked in. It's not brain-surgery."
Groaning in embarrassment, he turns and walks over to the fridge to prepare Emma's bottle.
"Not cool, Rachel…" he mumbles exasperated and juggles Emma on one arm while roaming around on the shelves to find the milk. But Rachel laughs.
"What's wrong with an old fashioned jerking off in the shower?" she asks innocently and takes Emma from him to help him out. She makes a concentrated face as she tries to get a good hold on the baby and carefully walks back to the chair to sit down.
Brooke's best friend is crude and utterly annoying and sometimes he wants to tell her to just shove it where the sun doesn't shine, but even though he'd never admit it to her, this time she's probably right.
Because it doesn't matter that he's a father now and that the last months have held more drama than anyone would need in order to grow up faster than one should. He's still a eighteen year old guy with a girlfriend that's hotter than most. And he's going to need all sorts of distractions in order not to maul Brooke at every available moment.
"Just shut up, Rach," he mutters and grabs a clean baby-bottle from the cupboard.
It's going to be three very long weeks.
Pain throws your heart to the ground
Love turns the whole thing around
No, it won't all go the way it should
But I know the heart of life is good
I know it's good
---x---
AN: this story has been giving me a lot of grief during the past months and I'm sorry that I've disappointed so many of you by not updating in such a long time. I love all of you that still reads it and do my best to finish this for you in the best way I possibly can.
Love
/Lynn