Stupid midterms. Stupid research papers. Stupid school.
Sorry this chapter took so long. Thank you to everyone who reviewed the last chapter, you all keep me going!
Hope y'all enjoy it.
"Whatcha got there?" Jake asked, sitting down next to Lucas at lunch.
"Andy gave me 50 free iTunes."
"Nice. What's the occassion?"
"I guess he's still trying to make up for the whole custody fiasco."
"Ah. Aren't you all okay now?"
"I guess...Andy just doesn't get that buying me stuff isn't going to make me like him any better. I already like him a lot, and I'm glad he and my mom are getting married. I don't know, I guess I should tell him again that we're okay?"
"Absolutely, make sure he knows that you are okay with everything. Okay so...50 free songs. You'll need guidance, this is a big gift you've been given here..."
"Would you like to come over and help me pick out songs?" Lucas asked, smiling.
"Well I suppose I could spare some time after school." Jake said.
"Gee, thanks. You've got practice though don't you?"
"Yeah but it's short. Game tonight."
"Just drop by my dad's whenever."
"Okay. So...tonight...would you want to come to the game? I know you would probably rather do anything else right now, it's just that the team misses you, and it would be fun...and plus, our girlfriends will be cheering, which is always great." Jake said quickly.
Lucas was silent for a moment.
"Look, you don't have to." Jake said
"No it's fine. Yeah, I'll come."
"Great. I'll see you around 4:00 then."
"Sounds good."
"Later." Jake called as the bell rang.
As Lucas was heading to his English class, he felt someone hook their arm through his.
"Well if it isn't my MIA best friend." Haley said.
"Hey Hales. MIA?"
"I feel like we haven't talked in forever, despite the fact that we go to the same school, have many of the same classes, including the one we're going to now, and oh yeah! I just moved to the same apartment complex as your girlfriend!"
"You did? Where the hell was I?" Lucas asked.
"That's what I want to know."
"I'm sorry...I suck. It's just, you know, a lot's been going on."
"Yes I do. And that's what I'm here for."
"I didn't know how much you wanted to hear about Nathan...I mean you guys haven't exactly been talking."
"Look, Lucas, it's bad what Nathan and I are going through, but we'll work it out. I am going to talk to him when he gets home, no matter what."
"Good."
"So anyways, this weekend, major catching up time?"
"Definitely." Lucas agreed as they got to the classroom.
Nathan got out the cab and stared at the house in front of him. He had only been gone a few weeks, but it felt like a lifetime. He swallowed hard, thinking about the nightmares he'd been having for the past few weeks, hoping that he could work everything out with his family and friends.
He slowly walked up to his front door and let himself in.
He could hear his parents in the kitchen, so he went to the doorway and called out "Mom! I'm home!"
"Oh my God!" Deb shrieked excitedly, running over to Nathan and hugging him tight.
"Missed me?" Nathan grinned.
"Oh honey, I'm so proud of you." Deb said.
"Thanks." Nathan said.
"Welcome home son." Dan said, giving Nathan a hug too.
"Thank you."
Nathan sighed with relief, knowing that the stuff he saw in his dreams wouldn't come to pass. He could still make everything okay.
"Why didn't you call or something? We could've picked you up." Deb said.
"I wanted it to be a surprise."
"Well you definitely succeeded." Deb said.
Nathan stood there, surveying the house, smiling widely.
"Your brother is upstairs with Jake, in case you were wondering." Dan said knowingly.
"Great." Nathan grinned.
"He's going to be so excited to see you." Deb said.
"We all have to go out tomorrow night to celebrate." Dan said, smiling.
"Definitely." Nathan said.
He stood there for a moment, smiling.
"Go see your brother." Deb said.
Nathan smiled excitedly and ran upstairs.
He knocked on Lucas' door, feeling both excited and a little nervous. He could hear the new Yellowcard song blasting from his room.
"Come in." Lucas called.
Nathan threw open the door and smiled. Jake turned around first from the computer and dropped his jaw. Then he grabbed Lucas by the shoulder and turned him around.
"Ouch! Jake you are so..." Lucas trailed off once he saw Nathan.
"...impatient." He finished almost inaudibly.
"Okay your face right now was almost worth the last few crappy weeks." Nathan said.
"Welcome back, man." Jake said, slapping hands with Nathan and giving him a quick hug.
"Thanks Jake."
Lucas was still sitting and staring, wide eyed.
Nathan was about to say something when Lucas stood up and slowly approached him, his face still blank. Then his face broke into a megawatt smile and he jumped on Nathan, catching him off balance, and they both fell on the ground, laughing and hugging.
"Busted out, did ya Nate?"
"Yup. I checked out this afternoon."
"I'm really proud of you."
"Thanks, Luke."
"Congratulations, Nate. Alright, I better get going. I'll see you two later, you still coming tonight Lucas?" Jake said.
"Like I promised."
"What are you doing?" Nathan asked.
"I told Luke he should come to the game tonight. You should too. You probably couldn't play, but the team would be psyched to see you."
"Definitely." Nathan replied.
"Great. See you tonight then. Bye."
"Bye Jake." Lucas said.
"See ya, man." Nathan nodded.
Jake left, and Lucas stood up, holding out his hand to help Nathan up. Nathan grabbed it and jumped up.
"This is amazing." Lucas said, smiling.
"I know. Sometimes I felt like I would never get out of there, that I would never stop wanting those stupid painkillers."
"But you got through it. Just like I knew you would."
"I'm done with it."
"Good for you."
"Thanks. So is it just me or are you even scrawnier than before?"
"Shut up." Lucas grinned.
"Seriously man."
"I'm fine. What about you?"
"Havent had a whole lot of time to do weights. Did play basketball though."
"Really?"
"Yeah. With Kyle, my roomate. I told you about him."
"Do you think I'll ever meet him?"
"Definitely."
"You look tired." Lucas observed.
"Yeah...I've been having trouble sleeping. I've been meaning to talk to you about that..."
"So I was right." Lucas said slowly.
"Huh?"
"When I first visited you, you seemed out of it. I asked you if something was wrong, but you said you were fine."
"Yeah, I know, it's just that-"
"What happened Nate? What changed so much that you can't talk to me about the important things anymore?"
"Whoa, relax." Nathan said.
"Relax? This is exactly what got you into rehab in the first place. Because you couldn't talk to
me about stuff that was bothering you. Me! I'm supposed to be your best friend,Nathan. Why can't you talk to me about the important stuff?"
"Okay... we're doing this now." Nathan sighed.
"Yeah, we are. We've put this off too long."
"Look...I'm sorry. After the accident, I just felt horrible. I felt horrible about Haley, about my
knee injury, about getting you involved in the accident after you were so happy with Brooke...I just wanted to forget it all."
"Nathan, I know it was an accident. You don't have to feel guilty about making a mistake. Is
that why you didn't tell me how you were feeling?"
"Mostly...and I knew you had your own problems."
"Oh come on." Lucas sighed.
"You hadn't told your mom about the HCM yet, you were still working stuff out with Brooke, and I don't know..."
"Just because I have stuff going on in my life doesn't mean I don't care about yours."
"I'm really sorry, okay? I just didn't know what to do. I kind of just kept to myself..."
"Until I pushed you over the edge..." Lucas mumbled.
"Yeah. Look, I know we had our moment and everything right before I left, and we've been talking since, but I...our fight...that was..."
"Bad." Lucas finished for him.
"I said the crappiest things to you."
"I know. But I kept fighting too. I kept punching you too. I'm sorry Nate, I just was so frustrated with you, doing that to yourself."
"Still...that crack about your heart rate...calling you a bastard..."
"Yeah...you kind of sucked that day." Lucas said with a weak smile.
"Yeah." Nathan laughed.
"Look, we both did. We learned from it, and we moved past it."
"Are we past it?"
"That's what I've been wondering..."
"I think we can be. Starting today. I'm out of rehab, we can work it all out."
"Okay."
"Okay."
"So...nightmares?" Lucas said, sitting down on the floor, leaning against his bed.
"Yeah. Pretty creepy." Nathan said, sitting beside him.
"Like ax murderer hacking away at you creepy?"
"No. And also, you have a sick imagination."
Lucas grinned at him.
"So basically, it's raining...pouring down rain, I'm in the mud and you're beating the crap out of me, yelling in my face every crappy thing I've ever said or done to you."
"Wow..."
"It gets better. Then you keep saying that you hate me over and over, and all these people come over to I assume repeat what you were doing."
"Sheesh. I'm sorry, Nathan. Wait, so you only see me doing the whole beatdown thing?"
"Yeah...but I can hear what other people are saying."
"I'm so sorry. You know I don't hate you though." Lucas said, putting his arm around Nathan and rubbing his shoulder.
"Yeah...it just weirded me out. Because it's all true. What everyone said."
"Look, it may have been. You've made some bad decisions, said some horrible stuff, but that doesn't mean you aren't a better person now. You just have to make-"
"Amends. Yes, I know." Nathan finished for him.
"But we're good." Lucas assured him.
"Are we?"
"Yeah."
"Promise?"
"I promise. I wuv you widdle brother." Lucas said in a baby voice, trying to hug Nathan.
"Dork." Nathan laughed, moving out of the way.
"That's not very nice."
"Yeah, well."
"I'm sorry I freaked out on you."
"Don't worry about it."
Whitey quickly instructed his team as the game was about to begin. Jake was grinning widely, not exactly listening to the coach.
"Jagielski, what's got you so happy?" Whitey asked.
Jake just smiled and jerked his head toward the bleachers.
Whitey searched the crowd and saw two teenaged boys sitting together, laughing and talking like the world around them didn't exist.
"Well I'll be..." Whitey murmured.
"Nathan!" Tim shouted.
Nathan stopped in the middle of his sentence and waved to his friend.
"Don't suck alright?" Nathan called as he made his way down to the team along with Lucas.
Tim laughed.
"I'll be back!" Nathan said, smiling.
"I expect you in my gym next week. You've got work to do, boy." Whitey said.
"I know." Nathan nodded.
"Maybe now that you're home, your brother will look me in the eye finally."
Lucas swallowed hard, but luckily he was interupted.
"Nathan!" Peyton called over, running up to him with Brooke.
"Welcome back!" They exclaimed, each giving him a hug.
"Thanks." He said.
"When did you get here?" Brooke asked.
"This afternoon."
"Good to have you back." Peyton said as she went to join the squad.
Brooke hung back for a moment and glanced at Lucas who was smiling.
"Have fun out there." Lucas said.
Brooke grabbed him and gave him a quick, passionate kiss.
"Wow." Lucas said.
"You bet your ass that was a 'wow' kiss." Brooke grinned as she ran to the squad.
Lucas laughed to himself. Then he realized the game was about to start.
"Okay, uncover your eyes Nate. Time to watch the game." Lucas said.
Nathan cracked up and followed Lucas to the bleachers.
Lucas came home from his date with Brooke andwent into his bedroom and changed for bed. Then he tiptoed across the hall to Nathan's room.
"Nate?" He whispered.
"Yeah?" Nathan said, turning over.
"Just wanted to check in on you. I'm going to bed."
"Oh. Okay. How was your date with Brooke?"
"Great. How was Tim's party?"
"It was alright. It was good to see everyone again, even though I have the feeling that as soon as I turned my back, they were talking about me."
"Um...yeah, there were some pretty ugly rumors around school."
"Gotta love Tree Hill."
"Are you okay?"
"Yeah...maybe...I'm not sure..."
Lucas sat down on Nathan's bed.
"They just don't get it." Lucas said softly.
"What do you mean?"
"They have no idea what really happened, they have no idea how hard you worked, they just want something to gossip about."
"Yeah...screw them."
"That's the spirit." Lucas grinned.
Nathan laughed and layed on his back.
"I missed this room. All my stuff."
"Yeah, I bet."
"I see nobody cleaned it."
"I wasn't about to go through all the crap you throw on the floor. It's like a minefield in here."
"Yeah I don't know, this past summer I stopped caring about it being neat."
"Lazy."
"Yeah. Do you care if I put on the TV? I haven't seen anything for like a month."
"Sure." Lucas said.
They sat there watching some late night movie on Comedy Central. After awhile Lucas saw that Nathan had fallen asleep, so Lucas reached over him, grabbed the remote and turned it off.
"Night little brother." He whispered, and went to sleep.
The next morning, Nathan woke up early, and smiled at the sight of the familiar bedroom around him. He was so excited to be back.
He rolled over and saw Lucas, sleeping on his stomach, his head turned away from Nathan.
"Lucas."
No response.
"Lucas Lucas Lucas." He said, bouncing up and down.
"What?" Lucas whined.
"Oh sorry, did I wake you?" Nathan grinned.
Lucas sat up and rubbed his eyes.
"Enjoy your few weeks of having a full night of sleep?" Nathan grinned.
"Yup."
"Okay, so do you want to go to the cafe? We can eat and hang out with Jake."
"Sounds good. What else are you doing today?"
"Catching up with Tim, and tonight we're all going out to dinner."
"Great. I'm going to go see Haley."
Nathan sighed.
"I guess we'll have to talk at some point."
"Yeah, she's pretty determined."
"She always is." Nathan grinned.
"Yeah. Alright, I'll go get ready and then we can go."
Nathan got up and pulled out clothes from his dresser.
Lucas walked into his own bedroom to get dressed.
"Hey, have you seen my black hoodie?" Nathan called out after a few minutes.
Lucas looked down. He was wearing dark jeans and a black hoodie.
"I think I'm wearing it." He called back.
"Dude, we're not sisters."
"It was in my dresser!" Lucas protested.
"Uh huh." Nathan said sarcastically.
Lucas was about to respond, when he felt a sharp pain in his left arm.
"Not...now..." He said weakly, slowly sinking to his knees and leaning against his wall, taking sharp breaths.
"Hey Luke, stop primping and lets go...Lucas!" Nathan said, running to Lucas.
"Get...Dad..." Lucas said almost inaudibly.
"Dad!" Nathan hollered.
"What's wrong?" Dan said, poking his head in the door and stopping dead in his tracks when he saw :Lucas and Nathan.
"Call an ambulance." Nathan said weakly.
Dan ran and called the ambulance.
"They're coming son...just hold on..." Dan said softly.
Sirens came closer and closer to the house as Lucas lost consciousness in Nathan's grasp.
Nathan sat in the waiting room by himself, clutching the black hoodie that the paramedics pulled off Lucas in the ambulance.
He pulled his cellphone out of his pocket and scrolled through the numbers until he found Brooke's.
"Nathan, do you know what time it is?" Brooke grumbled.
"No." He said shakily.
"Nate...what's wrong?" Brooke asked, sensing the tone of his voice.
"Lucas had a heart attack. We're at the hospital." He said hollowly.
"Is he going to be okay? What happened?" Brooke asked tearfully.
"I don't know, we just got here. My parents are with the doctors, I'm just... sitting here." He said, feeling useless.
"I'll be right there."
"Great. Can you call Jake and Peyton?"
"Sure. What about Karen?"
"They're on their way."
"Okay. See you soon. Hang in there, Nate."
"I'm trying."
"I'll be there as soon as I can." Brooke said, hanging up.
Nathan flipped his phone shut, his hands still shaking.
He decided there was nothing he could do, but wait. But he had a sinking feeling in his stomach that just wouldn't go away.
Okay...so I kind of lied about the whole issues thing. But at least Nathan and Lucas worked theirs out...right? Right! Okay, so I suck. My apologies, I changed this chapter around a lot.
Next chapter, definitely some waiting room drama between all our lovely inhabitants of Tree Hill. Definitely. I promise, y'all.
Please read and review!