"I'm gonna be huge at prom," Haley whined.

"And I might be dead, but that doesn't mean that we don't dress shop regardless," Brooke sassed. Haley shot her a dark look and Brooke gave her a sarcastic little grin, holding up a slinky purple number before shaking her head decisively. "Lucas likes me best in red."

"I think Lucas likes you best in nothing," Peyton teased from where she was looking at white dresses.

"Planning a wedding, ?" Brooke shot back.

Peyton stuck out her tongue. "I was actually thinking for you."

Brooke shook her brown locks. "No way. I'm way too pale to rock white."

"I think it would look gorgeous on you," Haley agreed.

The dress was gorgeous, with a tight bodice of criss-crossed taffetta that led to a puffy, pillowy mermaid style bottom. The back dipped low, with a couple of criss crosses. Brooke bit her lip before conceding, agreeing to try it on.

"Tight things look bad on me," she said loudly from the dressing room as she wriggled into it. "I'm too scrawny now."

She came out of the dressing room, brushing her bangs out of her eyes. She obviously had not looked in a mirror yet. Haley gasped, Peyton's eyes went wide, and several other shoppers turned to stop and stare.

"What?" Brooke said self consciously.

"If you don't get that dress, I'm going to hurt you," Haley said.

Brooke turned to look in the mirror, and even she had to admit that it fit her like a glove. She looked angelic and yet still sexy. She beamed.

"This is the best I've felt about myself in a long time," she said softly.

Peyton threw an arm around her shoulders. "Lucas is going to have a heart attack when he sees you in this."

"It's perfect," Brooke whispered, running her hands over it.

Standing in that beautiful white gown, Brooke couldn't help but think about a conversation she had with Chance when she took her out to breakfast that morning.

"If you die, what is Lucas gonna do?" Chance suddenly asked. She didn't seem to notice Brooke's utter shock at her candidness.

"He'll move on, find some beautiful girl to marry who will make him happy," Brooke said softly, sipping from her tea to keep herself from unloading her emotions on a five year old.

"I don't think that would happen," Chance said pointedly. "I think he'd wait for you forever. You'd become a beautiful white butterfly and he'd keep you with him all the time until he died, too."

"Chance, this is all very morbid," Brooke admonished.

"What's that?"

"Sad."

"I just don't think that Lucas would marry another girl," Chance shrugged. "You two are taking long enough to get married as it is."

Brooke laughed. "Chance, I've told you a hundred times, we're too young!"

Chance leveled Brooke with an adorable stare. "And my name is Uncle Sam."

Brooke crinkled her nose and giggled. "Where did you get that?"

"Peyton," Chance answered. "But that's not the point!"

"Eat your funny face, Funny Face," Brooke teased. Chance laughed and took another bite of her pancakes.

"I have a question," Brooke asked as the girls rung up their dresses. "Could you ever see Lucas and I getting married?"

Both Peyton and Haley turned to her with surprised expressions. Peyton answered first.

"Of course."

"Did he propose or something?" Haley exclaimed.

"No," Brooke said, shaking her head. "Chance just keeps telling me how she thinks we should get married."

"She's also five," Peyton said wryly.

"You just wait until Jenny starts pressuring you and Jake!" Brooke exclaimed.

"You make it sound like Chance is your kid," Haley said.

"It feels like it sometimes," Brooke shrugged. "Lucas and I spend so much time with her. He goes with her to chemo a lot now. It's too hard for me to watch, but he stays strong for her."

Haley gave Brooke a tender expression. "How is she doing?"

Brooke sighed heavily. "She's okay. The best she can be. Any day now, she's going to lose all of her hair."

"Yours has been hanging on," Peyton commented, giving Brooke's dark locks a gentle tug. Brooke smiled, closed lipped.

"I also put fakes in there, too."

"Brooke, you know that you don't have to be so tough all the time," Haley said. She sat on a bench suddenly, causing Brooke and Peyton to stop. Haley tugged Brooke to sit beside her. "You're playing mom to Chance and wife to Lucas, but what are you doing for yourself?"

Brooke looked at her friend, puzzled. "Being with them. That's what I want."

"When was the last time you let yourself talk about being afraid?" Haley questioned. "Or let yourself cry?"

Brooke bit her lip. "I'm not afraid."

Peyton sat on her other side. "Brooke, that's not possible."

"What do you two want?" Brooke suddenly exclaimed, standing and whirling on them. "Do you want me to stand here and sob? To tell you that I'm terrified of dying? That I don't know what Lucas will do? That I wake up every morning praying to God that Chance doesn't die? Is that what you want to hear?"

Brooke's shouting had drawn quite a bit of attention. She realized this and shook her head, tears beginning to fall down her cheeks. She turned to go, and suddenly she felt arms wrapped around her.

"That is what I wanted to hear," Haley whispered. Brooke buried her face into her friend's hair, letting herself finally cry. Peyton wrapped her arms around her other two friends, leaning her forehead on Brooke's hair.

Brooke pulled away with a watery laugh. "I think we've just started about fifty rumors."

Haley rolled her eyes. "As we always do."

"The rumors about you being preggo were true," Peyton teased as the three began to leave the mall.

"And so were the ones about you and Lucas!" Haley teased back, poking out her tongue. Brooke froze for a moment, and Haley and Peyton's eyes both went wide.

"Brooke, I'm-"

"Don't worry about it," Brooke said firmly.

She walked off to her car alone without a goodbye. Haley watched her go with a worried expression. Peyton glared from her side.

"Good going, Haley."

Haley rolled her eyes. "I didn't mean to!"

"I've gotta warn Lucas," Peyton said, pulling out her phone. "She's gonna be paranoid and upset."

"I didn't meant to start anything," Haley said softly. Peyton softened at this.

"I know, Hales," Peyton comforted. "Things between Brooke and I healed up too fast to be true. Of course she's still sensitive about it all."

Haley nodded. "I'm gonna go put away this dress at home and then go see if I can talk to Brooke."

Peyton said her goodbye to Haley and hopped in her Comet, dialing Lucas. "Hey Luke, listen, Brooke's probably going to be a little upset-"

"What did you do?" Lucas growled.

"I didn't do anything!" Peyton yelped. "Haley made a joke about the rumors about us being true and then Brooke sped off without even saying goodbye."

Lucas sighed. "Great. The last thing I need is Brooke being paranoid."

Peyton rolled her eyes. "This isn't about your feelings, Luke. It's about Brooke."

"I know," he groaned. "I just...I've been having a hard time lately."

"What do you mean?" Peyton asked, concerned.

"Can you meet me at the Rivercourt? I could use someone to talk to, actually," Lucas said.

"Yeah, of course. Be there in a sec."

Minutes later, Peyton arrived where Lucas was sitting on a bench. "Hey buddy, what's up?"

Lucas smiled weakly at her. "I've just...things are hard lately. Brooke is so sick. Way sicker than she's letting on. She makes us think that she's let us in so that we feel better, but really...she's dying, Peyton."

"She isn't!" Peyton said adamantly. "She's beating this."

Lucas shook his head. "That's what she wants us to think. Look what I found in her nightstand drawer."

He handed her a file, which she opened slowly. Her hand slowly made its way to her mouth. "No."

"Those are funeral plans," Lucas choked. "She bought a plot, Peyton. She picked out a casket. She has a list of songs on there that she wants to be played. She wrote out who she would want to speak."

"No," Peyton whispered.

She dropped the file to the ground and launched herself into Lucas's arms, crying. They sat there for a while, holding each other in their grief that Brooke was hiding the gravity of the situation from them.

"Well isn't this cozy," a voice said angrily from behind them.

Peyton jumped away from Lucas as if she had been burned. Nathan stood with his arms crossed, staring at them stonily.

"It's not what it looked like."

"It better not have been!" Nathan shouted. "She trusts you! Both of you! And you go and do something like this?"

"Do something like what?" came a feeble voice from Peyton and Lucas's other side. There was Chance, standing in her cheer uniform that looked just like Brooke's. "What's going on?"

"Nothing, sweetie," Peyton said softly. "Why are you here?"

"Charlotte dropped me off because Brooke and I are cheering today," Chance explained. "She left when she saw Luke was here."

Lucas went to pick her up in a hug but she stepped away from him.

"Why is Nathan angry at you?"

"It's complicated," Lucas said shortly. Chance blinked in hurt. Nathan went to her and kneeled down.

"Luke and Peyton have done some things to hurt Brooke before, and I thought they were doing them again."

Chance furrowed her brow in anger. "You're supposed to love Brooke!"

"I do love Brooke," Lucas reassured. "You know I do, honey."

"Then why would you hurt her?" Chance seethed.

"What's going on here?" Brooke exclaimed, running out her car. She was in her cheer uniform, but her eyes were obviously red and swollen. She swept Chance up in a hug and kissed her cheek. "Come on, sweetie, let's go have some fun and forget about all this mess, huh?"

She glared back at Lucas as she led Chance away. He groaned, putting his head in his hands. Nathan bent down and picked up the discarded file. He opened it and his face fell.

"What the hell is this?"

"The reason why we were holding each other," Peyton said. "Brooke is planning her own funeral."

For the second time, the file hit the ground.