…Ten months later…

Chapter 1. The Quiet American

I laughed when you were leaving so you'd remember me that way and then I
Found a little hole to crawl in and I cried for a year and a day and it's
Really good to see you, I'd love to touch you too
I know things have changed and you keep away, but can't I say I miss you?
/Diana Anaid/

There are many reasons why he still remembers Brooke Davis occasionally, apart from keeping the 82 letters taped in a box safe in his bedroom back in Tree Hill and the fact that every goddamn corner of every street in his hometown has some memory of her, and Graham Greene now proves to be one of those reasons. It is because of her fascination with Wong Kar Wai's "In the Mood for Love" and all things Asia that he once read "The Quiet American" to her out loud. And he wonders if he should have known back then.

It is because he's once more in touch with Mouth that Lucas finds himself in a small provincial Vietnamese city, where the old French colonial buildings sit out in the rain like ruining meringues. He finds this kind of rain pitiless, like hot water poured from a bucket. The smell in the air is bilgy, that of a river, but it's been a few lifetimes since something could gross him out. He's seen the river before he came here. He's crossed it.

So it's strange seeing Mouth again, although not really strange seeing him here, since Mouth is the sort of person you're not really surprised to see anywhere, but he can't help the feeling of familiarity, and it doesn't really go with the place. Mouth rises immediately from his chair beneath the café awning and waits unmoving for Lucas to reach him, to fold his umbrella, to realize that he's soaked despite it. Hair a little longer and a little messier, still he doesn't look any different from the last time Lucas saw him, his wedding day to Peyton, what, seven months ago.

"Hey, Lucas. You look grown-up."

"Shit happens," he makes no move to hug or something, neither does his friend. They just sit down.

The waiter comes up, and Mouth speaks to him in a language that may or may not be Vietnamese, and Lucas isn't quite as surprised as he supposes he should be. The waiter comes back soon with another bottle of the local beer that is already open on the table.

"You know not to drink water here," Mouth says, as if it isn't really a question.

"I've traveled a lot recently." And Lucas has. He can now write anywhere, anytime. Except maybe home.

"So I've read," and there's a pause, an 'insert a joke about Lucas Scott's novels here' one, but Mouth is just squinting, looking not at him but across the small shabby square. The traffic consists of older cars and rusty bicycles, sometimes carts drawn by people who either bike them or drag them on foot. Lucas can't help but wonder if he's looking for someone else. He can't be looking out for… of course he can't. That is, after all, the reason he is here.

The pause is getting further along pregnant, dragging out, and Mouth doesn't seem the least bit uncomfortable. Lucas tries and fails to wait it out, and finally says, "So, read my new book?"

"Yeah. This is why I thought I'd better get in touch now. Because when I saw that dedication, I figured you just considered her dead." Lucas shudders, because he does.

They all do, Haley and Nathan, and Peyton and everyone in Tree Hill. When eight months ago the Clothes Over Bro's new president Victoria Davis announced that her daughter, founder and former leading designer of the company, is missing after the latest tsunami in Southern Asia, Lucas started waiting for a call from her, to him or Haley, or Peyton, or Deb, or, hell, a voicemail to Nathan again. In the middle of the night, incapable of sleep for multitude of reasons, he still waits for that call sometimes. His third book has been released just two month ago, written in three short weeks blurred together by anger and hurt and Peyton and Brooke, mostly, because that's who it always comes down to. Written and complete with that sentence in italics that landed him here: "In loving memory of Brooke Davis, wish someone could've saved you." And no, the irony isn't lost on him. He struggled over this single sentence, voicing it out loud, twisting it around and embarrassing himself, but what was he supposed to write, really? I miss you? I'm sorry? At least that saving part was true.

Because he couldn't. Save her, that is. But God, does he wish to sometimes.

Lucas swallows some beer. For the past 40 hours or so, since Mouth called, he's been thinking of this obsessively. It formed a headache between his eyes that doesn't go away. Brooke's dead and he's processed that, it's over and finished with. Finished in a stupid and frustrating manner, the whole damn thing is inflamed and truncated, like a severed limb that just wouldn't quite scab over.

Eight month ago, he just pushed it to the side. All of it, meaning to come back to it much, much later, and sublimate it in a painfully sad novel.

Eventually.

When he wouldn't want to slash his wrists every time he thinks about it. When he has more of… something he doesn't have right now. What? He's busy. Being a successful published novelist is time-consuming and a pain in the ass, and he did just break his writing dry spell a little over a year ago and is well on his way to finish a third novel since then, forth in the general count. All before the age of thirty. God, he sounds like a cheesy article on himself. He wonders what his marriage would sound like in an article. Flesh of paper, blood of printer toner. Shallow and toxic, good metaphor. He lets his mouth curl in a sardonic smirk.

The label of his beer bottle is as wet as the khakis that are sticking to his legs, wet as his sandals. He peels the corner off with his fingernail and fidgets. "She was smack in the middle of the storm in Singapore. They said there's no way she could survive it."

"Yeah," Mouth pauses again. Lucas tries to recall if his friend was ever given to such strange pauses. "The other night, I've been to Hanoi CNN office, and to do some shopping. I saw the 'Silhouettes' by Lucas Scott in the newest books section and I couldn't not buy it, y'know. Weird title for a book, by the way, but congratulations on finally writing fiction and not letting out pent up sexual tension. Guess you figured Brooke wouldn't want the book to actually be about her after that cameo she had in the first one. Anyway, saw the dedication, gave you the call."

And said absolutely nothing, that's why Lucas is getting restless and really irritated. Mouth left a message for him at the reception, and gave no specifics. Lucas remembers coming to his hotel room in Bangkok after shooting hoops for four hours with the guys he's met in these past three weeks he's spent trying to finish the book in Thailand, sweaty and tired, and reading a short note telling him to come to Vietnam if he wants to know something about Brooke Davis. Lucas reminds himself to feel guilt over not talking to Mouth for a very long time, only calling him once after he left town, and finding out Marvin McFadden is a reporter for CNN now, covering for Eastern and Southern Asia. But he can't force himself to feel guilty. Too many shoulda woulda couldas haunt Lucas Scott lately – or always. Too few times he picks up his own phone anymore, especially when his wife calls.

"Mouth, I haven't slept for about forty hours, it took two flights to get to Hanoi and a six-hour ride to get here. I'm dead tired, so please tell me what it is. What did you find? Is it about Brooke's death?"

"Four months after the storm, I arrived to Singapore, it was my first job in this part of Asia, I only spoke Chinese then, so I mostly worked in China, but that was huge news with hell of a coverage, it still is to some extent. And anyway, a few days after that I was in provincial Malaysia working on a human interest story, and I got my hands on this video," he opens his hands, palms up front as if the laptop or DVD-R will appear out of thin air by magic trick alone. "There were shots of a hospital there – a little infirmary, really. Good stuff, too, documentary, various angles, shaky frame, blood, gore. A couple of interviews, too, and many talked about this white girl there who only spoke English and French, so the guy shooting the material decided to talk to her." Mouth stops there and sips his beer, as if not planning to continue.

"So, he talked to her?" Lucas is not really sure what to think of it, except that his hands are a little wobbly and his heart booms so loud he remembers he has heart condition.

"I recognized her voice even before I actually saw her. Her swearing was pretty colorful," and it is the first time throughout the conversation Mouth's eyes become a smidge softer.

But it couldn't be true. Lots of girls can swear in a colorful manner. It couldn't have been her because she is dead.

"Why would this girl be in the hospital?" he asks and smacks himself in the forehead mentally. A week after one of the largest storms in the region, where else would half the nation be. But he can't think of it, not really. Lucas can only peel the beer label and try not to remember how it felt, the longest time ago, when they were young and stupid and sincere and better people. How it felt when she was still alive. He promised Brooke she could take the world.

The world took her instead.

He's trembling now, and it disgusts him that Mouth might see it. That Mouth might pay attention to his ring finger. That he himself actually sees it. He's supposed to be over this big rotten mess he's made. And Brooke is dead.

"She was pretty different. Ran around shouting something in French, doing stuff. There was no interview so I didn't see much, but I talked to the reporter, the camera man, some locals, found out that she moved, found out where."

They're silent for another minute, then Mouth speaks up, not sure if Lucas understands what he's saying. "Brooke's alive. I talked to her last week, Luke. I talk to her every week. I didn't even know you thought she's dead until I bought your book. I called you as soon as I did."

"And here I am," Lucas mumbles, feeling a tightness in his chest he never even realized was there dissolve. Feeling a nauseatingly butterfly-like hope come alive in his stomach.

"I thought you should know," Mouth adds after one of his now customary pauses. "I thought you'd be happy. That she's… you know… alive."

Lucas flings the half-empty bottle so it smashes against the blank café wall. He rises then, chair tipped backwards. "So do you know where she is?"

There's no change in rain.

Here, it makes its own dimension, nearly stifling, the steady tattoo of its falling giving Brooke the feeling that she's gone a little deaf. She still loves rain, though, just as much as she did back in North Carolina, if not more. Dai Phuong is a small town, a little like Tree Hill, just a few squares connected by a few streets, scattered messily in all directions. It even has its own river.

She understands bits and pieces of Vietnamese by now, although French gets her by most of the time, and the irony of learning the language to gossip with couturiers and only using it in the foundation-related papers and for grocery shopping isn't lost on her at all. She knows that Dai Phuong means something in the vein of 'the End of the Road', and she recognizes that irony as well.

It's been weeks now, raining relentlessly every night. As water falls and bubbles on the pavement in a steady soothing rhythm, she starts humming to Billie Holiday pouring her heart out from Brooke's laptop speaker (her stereo system, work, lover, life). It's not helping her concentration any, but she's too tired to go through financial reports anyway. It's not helping her horrible mood either, so as soon as she hears Billie whining how excruciatingly hard it is to be "smoking, drinking and never thinking of tomorrow", Brooke bites hard into her pillow, pulling her knees up to her chin, and starts bawling. For a while now, she stubbornly believes that this sort of hysteria is merely the easiest way to let all of her emotions go, so she does this simple exercise every friggin' evening, resolutely and steadfastly, with a conviction that would amaze any therapist. After that, she usually just falls into a deep, clammy sleep.

Brooke's in Vietnam for three months already, the foundation renting her a tiny apartment, part-time office and living quarters in one. Her door is made of adjustable wooden slats, as is the covering of the glassless window beside it. Both set into a faded colorless stucco wall, both newly painted bright red by her. It's a hundred-year-old French building, repurposed so many times since construction that it's impossible to tell whether it started out as residential. The walls are so thin, everything going on in the street is plainly audible, and vice versa. She used to find it unlivable. The appalling apartments she was provided with, the heat, the odor, the desolation. But Brooke's a cheerleader. No, scratch that, now, Brooke's a survivor. Quite literary, too, not just that Destiny Child song.

"This is it," she wakes abruptly to hear someone saying in a voice suspiciously like Mouth's. "Would you like me to stay?" Brooke feels her irritation rising, because it is Mouth, who said nothing about visiting when she called last week. She's not expecting guests, she's not dressed for them either, but Brooke's also too riled up with the aftereffects of her crying fit and interrupted nap to do something about it. There's a quiet, except for the rain running thick in the gutters of the poorly-paved street. Then…

"Hello," she hears a pitched voice through the slats, "can I come in?" It sounds reasonable and almost calm. It sounds… Lucas Scott. It makes the skin on her nape crawl, the heat rush up into her face and her heart waits a long terrible moment before committing two stumbling beats at once.

"Come in," she answers automatically, brain cells paralyzed, voice raspy and low. Well, raspier and lower then her usual. The knob turns sharply, surely, and there he is, blinking furiously, as if incapable of seeing in the dull light of her room with window slats only half-open, and then incapable of believing what he sees. And in an infinite moment, the spell is broken.

Lucas furls his umbrella quietly and takes a deep sigh. Brooke is sitting still, heart double-beating in that painful way that surprises her so much, yet isn't surprising at all, waiting for him to make the first move.

Any move, really.

And he's staring, taking in the general proportions of her tiny room, the untidy bed draped in mosquito netting, the bedside table littered with documents, drawings and a couple of books, the slowly whirling ceiling fan, the rattan chair with a girl curled in it. The walls and ceiling are a brownish yellow, mapped with cracks and dark patches of damp. It's as if she sees herself with his eyes, tiny top and shorts serving as her pajamas, body too thin and tired, eyes red and blotchy, she must look almost sick. While he looks so, so good, gorgeous and broody and grown up, lean figure all too visible because of the wet polo shirt sticking to every muscle, every inch of him handsome and successful. Something she used to be.

The silence is hanging over their heads like an old wet mattress, stifling, tiring, disconcerting, and Brooke's heart keeps stumbling over it's own beat, as if to catch up with the world suddenly spiraling at dizzying speed around the room.

And then finally he darts forward without a thought and she's breathless, pulled up and crushed in a hug almost too tight for her ribs to endure. He's touching her, all over, and Brooke is almost embarrassed, but the touch isn't intimate at all, and he keeps asking, "Are you alive?"

She is. She thinks she is, so she answers, "I am."

His skin is hot and slick with fresh sweat and raindrops when she puts a hand on his arm. She's been sweating all day long — they both probably were. Another moment, and then she can't help it anymore. She shrinks back from his touch, but not before he's felt the life in her body.

"I'm OK. What are you doing here, Lucas?" And she sees him deflate after those words, as if something that helped him stand before has just left his body. And Brooke even feels for him – here he is, in a far, far away place, and he finds his friend – that's how she supposes he perceives her – in what he thinks is terrible trouble. Right about time for that hero complex to kick in. And she knows that her life now looks, and smells and sounds like trouble. And Lucas has always been so good at looking after people – other then her, of course – and taking care of them. It's a bitter and ugly thought, so she murders it violently.

"Brooke," he starts and falls silent again. Shakes his head confused. She slumps back in the chair as he paces around the room until settling finally on the edge of her bed. He sighs again, even deeper this time. "You didn't die. How?.. I mean, you didn't... Why didn't you.. call and tell me?"

She casts about for some answer to this, glancing around helplessly at the standing lamp with its dirty canary yellow shade, the table where Vietnamese newspapers are spread amidst more documents and drawings, and her laptop, from which Chet Baker now pitifully confesses that he and Brooke both "fall in love too easily, fall in love too fast, fall in love too terribly hard for love to ever last".

Brooke feels all his instincts on her: forcing her to look at him, to talk. Those are old, bad, wrong instincts, back from the time when he had a right to force her like that, to demand her undivided attention, her blatantly truthful answers. But he's still Lucas Scott, so of course he doesn't care about what he's got a right for.

Seconds blend together in an almost solid mass, so tangible that has she even had an answer, she'd be unable to voice it. But she doesn't.

Have an answer, that is.

"Brooke, what happened to you? After, and during… you know, the storm? We all thought you died there. And when you left… how come you couldn't…" He keeps pushing, pausing, demanding and her eyes are now closed tightly. "I thought you died." And he sounds so condescendingly full of pity, so broken that her anger flames instantly under her eyelids.

"Well, as far as you're concerned, I did, about a year ago." And Brooke knows it's mean and cold-hearted, but Lucas is the first one to act inappropriately, coming here and acting as if he's some sort of scorned boyfriend she ran away from. After his sharp intake of breath, she continues quietly, quickly, yet not quite apologetically. "And it's not like it's your fault or I blame you, or anything. But even before the storm… It's been a while since we've been friends, Luke. I left Tree Hill behind for a reason, you know. I had a reason to stay away. And it's a little to late to act as if you missed me."

"It is not fair," and the hurt in his voice is even more apparent. "I still cared if you were alive or dead. We all did!"

"Isn't it, though?" She chuckles humorlessly, hands twitching slightly on her lap, eyes still downcast, but now watching him from the corners. "We once went almost three years without a single phone call, or even e-mail. And being busy is a lousy excuse. At least I know why I never bothered to contact you from New York. Bet you don't even have an explanation."

"At least up until eight month before we all knew you were OK," Lucas talks to her empty and somewhat dirty floor now, studying the cracks, not quite willing to repeat eye contact either.

"Did you really?" she asks, words dripping sarcasm, and he flinches, as if slapped. He very much hates it when he is wrong; at the fact that she is right to some extent makes it even worse.

"So this was your punishment? To me, to everyone? You let us think that you died and you let us blame ourselves for not saying goodbye, not being there when it counted. How could you do that to Peyton, your best friend? God, Brooke, what happened to you? This isn't you." He's switched on to furious now, up from her bed, pacing.

She's paused for a moment, her heart skipping beat after beat. "Would you consider the fact that for once, not everything is about your precious Peyton?" She can't force a tinge of bitterness out of her voice. "I'm not afraid to admit I was selfish, because I was, but for fuck's sake, wasn't I allowed to? For once, I did what I had to do – not what Peyton needed or Haley thought was right, or you sweettalked me into. I needed to get away. And you know what, Lucas Scott? I needed to get away from you. From people of that bumfuck town. You know what else? I've never really hidden the fact that I was alive and kicking. From press, maybe, but certainly not from you. Rachel, or my bitch of a mother, people at Cloths Over Bros offices… anyone could have told you I was OK. Mouth definitely would even tell you where I am, seeing as that's exactly what he did. So the question you should be asking yourself, Haley and your precious Peyton, is how come you never even thought of asking either of them, or any people in my life, about what happened to me after the storm? God, I don't even know if you ever once wondered why I left in the first place…" And Brooke feels so tired, like it's more effort then she can gather to just pronounce the words.

Lucas is frozen by then, so quiet it appears he's not even breathing. He seems shell-shocked by her words, desperate to take a breath and say something, anything, but Brooke continues talking before she won't be able to say anything at all, before she just melts from his mere presence. "One thing I wonder, though, is how come you even decided I was dead? It's not like there were invitations to a funeral or memorial. I bet there are no graves or tombstones of mine for either of you Tree Hill folks to visit for respect-paying and a little mourning, or maybe even grieving, and if you'd only tried to find me I'm pretty sure the lack of a resting place would give away my current living status." She sighs dejectedly. "I don't even want to deal with it right now. Go back to your life, Luke. Go home, to Peyton or whatever."

Brooke stands up and walks slowly to the door, opening it again to force him to get out. She hopes Lucas will never be able to tell how utterly petrified she is.

It's a mistake, coming here. What Brooke just said hurts like hell but isn't completely true, Lucas recons. He closes his eyes for a second, and the truth washes over him in a cold tidal wave. This is all a huge misunderstanding. But all of their relationship, ever since he found Brooke Davis stripping in the backseat of his car, was a series of misunderstandings, of hurting each other while never really intending to.

But he is, despite himself, curious about her. Curious and worried sick.

"All right, Brooke. I won't impose on you right now. But just tell me, are you… OK? Is this," he gestures vaguely around her place, "is this of your own free will? What you chose?"

His gaze settles on her once again, and Lucas can't look away, he feels like he'll never be able to. She would make a perfect scene right now. A portrayal of some emotion he can't quite name yet, a beautiful and sad scene in that book he knows he's not yet ready to write. He keeps noting every detail about her, every little thing that's changed in the girl. She's even smaller then he remembers her to be, and he remembers her tiny. She's not slender anymore, she's plain thin, closer to anorexic, but she looks much stronger, all bones and toned, supple muscles. Her hair is really long now, ends reaching the small of her back, but it's lost its reddish tint or silky shine that came from ridiculously expensive hair products. The Brooke he knew would never style her hair so carelessly, as if she only remembered of a hairbrush every other day. He realizes again, alarmingly, that he doesn't know her at all, and he never really bothered to get to know the new, out-of-high-school Brooke Davis. Her eyes are different, not just the expression, because he doesn't even want to go about deciphering what's in her gaze. She's obviously been crying. Her irises are greener, as if the golden hue that's been there was just the reflection of her bubbly optimism, as well as her now-absent dimples. He remembers her complexion: all cream and peaches and summer and girl. She's that much paler now, almost sickly so.

He takes a deep breath, as if expecting an answer, but after a long empty pause, Lucas continues nonetheless. "Do you, maybe… do you have enough money? Because if you're broke, or sick, or in any trouble… I don't want to leave knowing you're in some kind of trouble, Brooke." He doesn't want to leave at all. Lucas rubs his ring finger absentmindedly, not allowing his thoughts to drift in that particular direction.

But it's none of his business, sort of. Except that he wants to make it his business. Brooke's unmoving, only her knuckles on the doorknob are getting whiter by the moment. The door is still wide open, and some of the raindrops glisten on her skin now. They're both silent for another second, and then she deflates visibly.

"I know you mean well, Luke. And I know you'd really like to wrap me up and ship me off to Tree Hill. But I'm living my goddamn life here. The life that I deserved." Like this is any kind of life, really. "I'm sorry, too. If I'd have known you were worried, or thought I died or something, I'd of course let you know I'm OK. And I'm sorry for what I said about Peyton and everyone. I mean, you really were good friends and it wasn't your fault I couldn't stand to be in Tree Hill anymore. And I'm also terribly sorry you had to come all the way to Vietnam for this. And that I couldn't turn it into a nice friendly visit, although a nice friendly warning that I'll have guests would have helped."

And he feels that she's serious and honest about it. He's at a loss as to what to say or do. Brooke watches him silently for a couple of minutes, then sighs and comes up to embrace him lightly. He sucks in a breath, surprised by her sudden softness and unexpected painful tightness in his own chest.

"For what it's worth, I'm not mad at you, and I don't want you to be mad at me, Luke. I don't wanna part ways, possibly forever, with us hating each other." And it's been a very long time since Lucas was insanely in love with Brooke Davis, but the verbal expression of them parting ways forever tears something in his heart silently, a gashing hole he doesn't think he can live with. "I wish we weren't quite as estranged as we are, but being friends shouldn't be this hard, you know?"

"Yeah," he answers tiredly, "I know." And he does. It used to be too hard to be Brooke's friend, but only because it felt so good… too good. And this is not something he should allow himself to think if he wants to remain sane. He pulls her into another hug, this one so much tighter, but lasts just a second, just enough to inhale her smell before letting go of her completely.

He is out the door, umbrella in his hands, water already in his hair again, when he finally says what he wanted to since he saw her curled in that chair, sick, small, lonely and a little pathetic, but still obnoxiously beautiful.

"I really, really missed you, Brooke. And I'm sorry that I didn't make an effort to be there for you, or that I wasn't the friend you wanted and deserved me to be. And I'm sorry Tree Hill is such a thorn in your side now. I'm sorry you never let me take care of you. But that doesn't mean that I didn't miss you like hell."

"So you keep saying," she comes back, closing the door slowly, with finality.

And Lucas believes it is a blessing that the walls of the building a hear-through, because it's after she closes the door and he's drenched in hot sour rain, incapable to move his back away from the door, that Brooke whispers that she missed him too.