From now on – Chapter six
Brooke walked out of their bedroom and into the kitchen where her exhausted husband stood with a jug of coffee in his hand; she walked past him and flipped his cup before he poured the coffee all over the bench. It had been two weeks and three days since William Ray Gattina had been born and the last five days the residents of the Baker household hadn't been getting much sleep since then, they were all walking around like zombies. Rachel walked down the steps with the baby monitor in her hand, Brooke wanted to tell her that she didn't need it, that there was no way that they wouldn't be able to hear that baby if it started crying.
"He is finally asleep" she said walking up and sitting on a stool at the bench as Julian passed her a cup of coffee
"Look alive boys" she said directing her gaze to her sons who looked as though they were going to fall asleep during their morning cartoons, she grabbed the coffee from Rachel and handed her an orange juice instead.
Rachel took a sip of the juice and then spoke in a matter of fact tone "I'm moving out" she said it and everyone looked at her a little taken back. "You guys are absolutely exhausted"
"So are you" Brooke said pointing out the very obvious bags under the red heads eyes
"Yes but I am a new mother, I am supposed to be tired, you guys have jobs and kids who don't keep you up all night, you guys need to focus on that not focusing on having to stay awake because of my screaming baby" this wasn't something she was getting emotional over it was a fact and she knew that she would have to move out eventually anyway.
"Where will you go? Will you look for a place in Tree Hill?" she asked kind of upset that she was going to have to say goodbye to a friend that she was just rekindling things with and the gorgeous baby boy who she had already fell in love with.
"Mum called last night, can you remember the cabin that we stayed in at high school?" she asked as Brooke nodded "well mum said that they had just had it renovated and offered it to me"
"Whoa, whoa, whoa, wait that is so far away, Rachel you just had your first baby, we can help you here, me, Julian, Chase and a whole bunch of other people but only if you are in Tree Hill"
"I know that its far away and I know that it is going to be hard but I know I can do this, I know that Will and I will be fine but I also know that if I am in trouble you are a phone call away or a drive"
"I don't want you to go" she sulked as a sleepy Julian put a hand on her shoulder
"It had to happen eventually" she said trying to hide that the idea of leaving Brooke again was making all the emotions and hormones inside of her want to scream. Brooke sniffed, putting a hand on Rachel's, quickly regaining her composure, wiping a tear from her eyes before walking across the bench grabbing Rachel's head and kissing it before picking up her bag.
"Come on boys" she said in a shaky voice as the boys who usually were quick got up rather slowly and stumbled from the couch.
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Telling Brooke was hard, she couldn't imagine telling the guy that had been at her side whenever she needed for the past few week, the guy that already adored her baby boy, the guy who had made her coupons for babysitting, the guy that was determined to be a role model to her little boy because his friend wouldn't be, the thought of doing this was unthinkable but she knew she had to. Will was strapped to Rachel's chest, his little arms out the side holding onto his mother's shirt as his little legs kicked with his woollen blue booties, she walked in to TRIC catching the eye of Chase who smiled at the sight of her, but she didn't doubt that the true reason he was smiling was because Will was in the room. His girlfriend Alex turned and smiled too. Rachel made her way to the bar and retrieved the baby out of the carrier and passed him to Alex, he was starting to get restless and so were the adults in the room.
"I'm going to need to see some identification buddy" Chase said with a smile as he played with the baby in Alex's arms, Will grabbed onto his finger and refused to let go, Chase laughed before looking up to Rachel who stood in awe, looking on at what she had created, his greatness, all he could fulfil with his abundance of amazingness. "You look tired; do you want us to take him for the afternoon?"
"I actually need to talk to you" she said as Chase gave Alex a look, he assumed that it had to be something about Owen and he felt that it was a private matter
"Come on baby boy I'm going to give you a tour of red bedroom" she said standing up from the barstool and walking away.
"She looks good with a baby" Rachel said sweeping her hair to the side and taking a seat where Alex was previously sitting.
"Yeah. What has he done now?" Chase asked with this look of seriousness
"He?" she asked with a look of confusion not knowing at all what he was talking about
"Owen, you said something is wrong, that you needed to talk, has he done something?" he asked in full on protective mode
"No" she said realising that the sleep deprivation and preoccupation had led to forgetting about Owen for a week "It has nothing to do with Owen, as a matter of fact I haven't heard from him or thought of him in over a week"
"Then what's going on? What do you need to talk about?" he said now with a smile on his face
"First of all I really want you and Brooke to be William's godparents" she said it with this sheepish smile on her face as he practically jumped over the bar to hug her "Second" she said as he composed himself and leant back up against the bar "I'm moving away"
"Wait what?" he asked all of a sudden confused and a little upset
"My mum has offered me, well us, our family cabin and I'm going to take it, set Will and I a home up, live our lives" she said and she could see the tears in Chase's eyes, there was no doubt that he had formed a connection, she put a hand on his "It's nothing you've done, in fact I wouldn't have survived the last couple of days without you, you've been my rock Chase, but I have to move on, I have to start living a better life for me and for Will"
"I get it" he said continuing to hold her hand, they sat in silence for a moment "Hey Rachel?" he asked and she looked up
"Yeah?"
"Can I take him for the afternoon?" he asked with this look on his face that she found herself not able to deny.
"Of course you can" she saw Chase's smile as the words left her lips.
"Look at this picture" a male voice said from the doorway before they both turned to see Chris Keller holding baby Will with Alex standing behind him looking over his shoulder "You could have had all this with the Keller, Look I usually don't offer twice but if you want the Keller you can have the Keller, I'm sure your body will recover in time"
"Shut up Chris" said Chase as Rachel got up and walked over to him, picking her baby up out of Chris' arms and leaning forward to whisper in Chris' ear, he had this look of childish delight as she went to whisper
"No chance in hell Chris" she said before kissing his cheek and walking back to the bar with a sleepy-eyed William in her arms.
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"So when does she leave?" Alex asked as they walked side by side up the boardwalk, keeping a watchful eye on the carrier strapped to her fiancés chest
"Brooke, Julian and the boys are going to drive up with her tomorrow and help her set up and then they will come back and leave her and Will there on their own" he said as he looked down at the sleeping boy on his chest.
"Have you heard from Owen?" she asked as they continued to walk forward
"Nah, not since I called him before Will was born, I didn't hear anything when I texted him through the picture of him, I'm really disappointed, I thought that maybe he would see this guy's little face, fall in love and race to be here, be at his sons side"
"Does Rachel want that? Does she want Owen to swoop in and be part of her or even his life?"
"I don't know, she always looks so hurt when I bring him up" he said looking down as Alex put a hand on his shoulder, they were at the river court waiting for Chuck, Chase had promised him that he would help him practice, Chase disconnected a sleeping Will from his chest and back into Alex's doting arms. Chase walked up to the court as Alex held Will up in the air
"Hey dude" Chuck asked as he threw the ball "Are you and Alex going to have a baby?"
"What?" Chase asked shocked letting the basketball hit him in the stomach, he lurched over for a second before standing back up and looking at Chase "What makes you think that?"
"You and Alex have been spending all your time with William, look at her she has got baby face"
"Baby face?" he laughed while getting delivered the 'don't laugh at me I am serious' face from Chuck "Look man, Will is like you, he doesn't have a dad" just saying the words hurt him, and made him hate Owen "well not a dad that is around, We've got to stick together" that answer seemed to satisfy Chuck's fears and questions.
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It had been hard to say goodbye to the little community of people that had accumulated outside the café to say goodbye to her and her little boy, especially Chase who's eyes welled up when the door was shut on the baby boy in the back seat sleeping peacefully away blissfully unaware of everything surrounding him, She had promised that any chance she got she would come back to Tree Hill for a visit, that he was always welcome to come and visit and that she would send him as many pictures as he required, but it still was incredibly hard to say goodbye to him, not because she had romantic feelings towards him it was just this abundant love and devotion that he had for the baby boy, originally she would have assumed that it was due to this feeling of guilt and empathy nothing more but looking at them interacting she knew that he had well and truly fallen for this little guy. On the road they drove, stopping at a baby furniture that Brooke, Julian and the boys joined her at for some manic baby shopping, it was hard not to laugh as all three of Brooke's boys ran back and forth from the toy section showing them 'cool as' toys that they should 'totally' get for Will. She didn't have the heart to stop them but she didn't have the funds to support them so when they went on wild toy raids she and Brooke would find the cutest ones in the pile and put the not so cute one's back down into the store. They paid for the masses of furniture and decorations, toys basically whatever you could think of and piled her car up with it, Will sat on the right side sleeping as boxes and bags sat piled next to him and behind him, they had put her suitcase on the middle seat and as she looked behind her to check on her sleeping baby she found herself shocked that this much stuff fitted in her car. As the drove into the secluded town memories came flashing back to her, holidays, fights, first loves, crushes, first times and she felt herself smiling, she hoped that this was a good decision, she hoped that Will would enjoy a good upbringing just hopefully with more parent input, But her last vivid memory was when she had come up for the Sunkist tour with the rest of the tree hill group, it was so much fun, she sat there wondering what Brooke was thinking in the car behind them.
Brooke chuckled gleefully in the passenger seat, her two boys sitting in the back watching a movie and fighting to keep their eyes open, her husband sat down next to her with a cheeky grin on his face, the one he always got when his wife laughed or smiled.
"What are you laughing at?" he said diverting his attention from the road back to his ever so gorgeous wife
"I was just remembering the last time I was here" she said giving him her killer smile before facing the window "great memories, Nathan stole Haley's wedding band and Lucas accidently gave it back to her…" Julian had heard this story many times but he loved that his wife still killed herself laughing as she recalled it "I was in charge of getting it back off her"
"And how did that go for you?"
"Let's just say her watch was never the same after I dropped it in the toilet" she said with another laugh
"What else do you remember from here?" she thought back, most of it was being with Lucas but she really didn't want to bring that up with Julian, and the other thing she remembered wasn't something she wanted to tell him when their kids were in listening distance "Skills and Bevin got lost in the woods and I….. Kissed Pete Wentz" she said with this massively sheepish grin on her face, Julian looked at her shocked, although she had reminisced with him about this part of her life for some reason she had never actually mentioned it to him, maybe because she knew it meant nothing and barely registered it as a moment other than when she wanted some massive celebrity bragging rights, but even then she had others to recount.
"You kissed Pete Wentz? Fall out boy's Pete Wentz?" he asked as she nodded with this crazy smile on her face "But I thought Peyton had the thing with Fall out Boy's boy" he stated confused as he looked at the road before abruptly turning to face her "Wait please tell me that this wasn't a whole Lucas like scenario or even worse please tell me you didn't share him" he practically pleaded
"No of course not" she said gently slapping his forearm "Peyton was talking the whole trip up how Pete Wentz was supposed to be coming and we were calling him her imaginary friend, so when I walked into the kitchen the next morning he was standing there making breakfast and I thought it was a dream so I walked up and kissed him" she said with a laugh
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They finally finished there long trip in the driveway of the massive cabin, Rachel jumped out of the car and walked to Will's side of the car she opened the door before turning around just to look at the house, she smiled as out of the corner of her eye and mind a car parked and two boys excitedly ran into the mass of outdoors, there reaction to the place or maybe it was the reaction of finally being able to get out of the car reminded Rachel of when she was about their age and her family would drive up, she wouldn't be able to sleep the whole trip down because she was just too excited and when they finally she would unbuckle her seatbelt, jump out of the car and spend the rest of the day, or until her mum told her to come inside, running around and having a blast.
"JUDE, DAVIS" she yelled from where she stood at the passenger side door of the car
"Don't worry babe I've got them" Julian said as he ran past Rachel's line of vision, she smiled at him and then moved back to imagining her life here, she awoke back into reality when Brooke put an arm around her waist, she smiled and turned to face the friend she thought she would never speak to again, let alone be here with again or sharing children and lives together, she linked her arm to Brooke's waist and they just stood there admiring the greatness that sat before them.
"Great memories?" Brooke asked and sort of stated at the same time as Rachel nodded
"Only the greatest"
To be continued