Title: Trouble Is Her Only Friend
Author: heythereanna (Anna)
Pairings: Brooke/Nate, Rachel/Chuck
Rating: MATURE; Language, Adult Content
Disclaimer: I own absolutely nothing, even though I wish I could take Mark Schwahn's position and remake seasons four through eight of One Tree Hill.
Author's Note: Thank y'all for sticking around while I rewrite this!A few things to be alerted of: Peyton, Lucas, and Brooke all went to Duke together, Victoria and Bart Bass are married, Chuck and Brooke are stepsiblings, Clothes over Bro's has not been created yet, Rachel went to New York after being expelled.

- - - - x - - - -

"But one of these nights you're gonna realize it; I'm the guy for you Brooke Davis. You'll see."

She remembers the first time she ran away.

Brooke had been seven, maybe eight. Her mother and father had been squabbling over his most recent salacious affair, not that she knew what that or what "scheming gold digging whore" meant at the time. The staff of nannies and maids and cooks had been sent home early in an effort for Victoria Davis to corner her husband without prying eyes, leaving the little girl to her own devices as she became a pawn in a game of power and misery that she wouldn't learn till she was much older. And so amidst her mother's furious screams, Brooke had quietly snuck out of the kitchen with a blanket, pillow and a box of Lucky Charms; the sound of wedding china shattering against the wall the last thing she had heard as she had bolted from the only home that she had ever known.

She had gone to the park across town. It had always been her favorite place to go, where whatever nanny was on rotation would rush her off to whenever Victoria started on another undeserved rampage. She had played on the monkey bars, let herself wildly fly off the swings without worrying about hurting herself, laid on the grass and watched the clouds move ever so slowly across the oh so blue sky. She had hid in the fake pirate ship, pretending that she was a princess who had given up her crown to marry a poor sailor. She must have been tucked away in that very ship for hours, eyes squeezed tightly shut as she imagined her own little fairytale and blocked out the rest of the world. It was her own personal little slice of heaven as she escaped the horror that the Davis household.

Nathan Scott had finally found her there the next morning when he'd come to the park with Tim and Jake to play a game of basketball. She had fallen asleep somewhere amidst her daydreams, curled up in a ball with her blanket wrapped around her and the now empty box of Lucky Charms in her arms. They must have stood in front of her for at least ten minutes as she silently sucked her thumb in her sleep, trying to figure out if they should wake her up or not. It wasn't until more people started showing up that Nathan had finally run to a phone booth and called his dad, who drove over immediately and happily brought her back home to a very angry Victoria and Richard Davis, who had only just noticed that their daughter was missing.

"The truth is I care about Peyton."

"But what is the difference?"

"The difference? The difference is I love you, Brooke. I want to be with you, not Peyton."

But that had been ten years ago, back when she didn't have access to her trust fund or her six credit cards that she gladly would have used back then to get her the hell out of Tree Hill. Back before her parents had divorced, before her mother had remarried a business tycoon even more powerful that her first husband had been. Back before she had been ferried back and forth between New York and Tree Hill in an effort to keep her life normal. Back when Peyton had been her best friend who would never betray her, when no one really cared who Lucas Scott had been, when Nathan was her regularly scheduled play date, when she believed in happily ever after's and knights in shining armor.

It had been an entire lifetime ago.

That had been before her friendship with Nathan now consisted of tequila and filthy sex until she had fallen in love with his older brother, deep and irrevocable love that had consumed every part of her life and left her completely at a loss when it had disappeared. Before she had gotten her heart broken when her beloved best friend had slowly become the traitorous whore who had insisted upon taking her brooding knight in secondhand armor away. There's only one thing that has remained the same, even after all this time.

She wants to run away. The only difference is that there's no one there to bring her back home. Not Dan Scott, not her happily divorced parents, not her so-called best friend, not even Nathan and his incredible wife.

Not even the boy who had once promised to never let her slip away again.

"I watched you rescue Peyton, and you told me that you rescued Dan and sometimes, I just wish you could rescue me."

"From what?"

"From all of it."

"Okay then, I will. If you promise to rescue me back."

She hopes it's because they finally all understand that she needs to leave, that she can't survive another day in Tree Hill waiting to become the bitter woman that she could easily keep growing into. She had barely been able to stomach Fauxdilocks and Broody doing their whole indie rocker thing, stomping on the fragile shards of her heart with every one of their kisses and lingering gazes across the room.

It's probably why she's bounced from man to man since she'd turned eighteen, hoping to find something she could cling to in the madness of her chaotic life. It's also probably the reason why she'd been on a first name basis with the bartenders at the Blue Post from junior year and on, why she can drink grown men under the table.

But now everything has changed, all with one simple event. A day she had once dreamed would be hers to have, that would begin the beautiful life that Brooke had always dreamed of. And yet, it isn't hers.

Peyton Elizabeth Sawyer-Scott, the girl who had destroyed her world, had now hijacked her perfectly dreamed up future with a broken condom and a missed period. And there's nothing she can do to stop it that actually agrees with her moral center. Because exactly seven months from now, the baby the curly headed bitch from hell now carries will enter into the world. After all the heartache, after all of the love lost, Peyton will get her happily ever after with the boy Brooke had once thought was her prince charming.

"The truth is I care about Peyton."

"But what is the difference?"

"The difference? The difference is I love you, Brooke. I want to be with you, not Peyton."

She stares at the neon sign of incoming and outgoing flights in Raleigh-Durham International Airport, snapshots of her ill-fated love going through her head. The words are blurring together into a stream of green and red, the tears she refuses to let fall making it near impossible to see past their wall of cloudy gloss as she sits in the gate waiting for her flight. It's early, as red eye flights always are. She'd scheduled her flight by design, sneaking out of her hometown in the darkness so that no one would hear her quietly load her suitcases into the town car that had been sent for her. There would be no friends chasing down her plane, no painful goodbyes that could try to keep her from leaving, no long drawn out dramatic speeches from the boys she loves. No one will fight to keep her here, and for the first time in her life that's all she wants.

The private wing of the airport is practically deserted but she's still tragically attempting to hold it together as if there's a busy crowd milling about her. It's a failed endeavor to say the least as she resorts to praying, praying that some part of her would wake up and remind her that Lucas Scott isn't worth smearing her make up for, and her heart hardens with every tear she has to push down.

"What I wanted? I wanted you to fight for me! I wanted you to say that there was no-one else you could ever be with and that you'd rather be alone then without me. I wanted the Lucas Scott from the beach telling the world that he's the one for me!"

"How was I supposed to know that?"

"You just are."

She reminds herself that this had to be expected, that she had been the one to give him up oh so long ago because she knew deep in her heart that he loved Peyton more than he could ever possibly feel for her. She had loved him with every ounce of her being, with every corner of her heart, and how had he repaid her? He'd gone and fallen in love with her best friend, leaving her in their wake of destruction. After all, true love sure had always had a way of fucking up everyone else's lives.

It's funny now, considering just forty eight hours prior he had been moaning out Brooke's name, and not Peyton's. He'd kissed her sumptuous lips, professed how much he had missed the curves of her body, how much he still loved her after all these years apart. On that night, Lucas had made love to her, not his wife, and had promised her that they would finally get their happy ending.

And then he'd gone back to Peyton again, because why not make her the footnote in their love story for what had seemed like the ten thousandth time. That hadn't been funny. Not even a little.

And the best part?

She can't even blame him this time.

She stands up, smoothing out the fabric of her jeans as she feels her phone go off in her pocket. It's Lucas, no doubt; he's called six times today alone, another twelve the day before. Apparently, he hasn't quite grasped the concept that when she'd found out that his wife had in fact been carrying his child, he would lose the chance to keep the promises he'd made to her. But she pulls it out anyway, opening it up and hanging it up without a word. She isn't interested in talking to the man that she'd turned herself into a whore for, not anymore.

"I need you to trust me and believe me when I tell you my heart is with you. But a part of me feels like ever since we got back together, you've just been waiting, waiting to push me away."

"Oh, great. You kiss Peyton, again, and I'm pushing you away!"

Brooke swallows down a sob, her teeth clenching as she thinks of him. The last thing she wants is to hear his voice, mostly because the quiet and patient sound of it pulls at her heartstrings more than any other sound she'd ever heard in her life. She doesn't want to be convinced to stay, especially not when she knows the heartache that awaits her if she does. She doesn't have it in her to be Auntie Brooke to a baby she wishes had never been conceived.

The only people that actually know that she's leaving are Haley and Nathan, but disclosing the location of her escape had been another story. It had been better than making them promise they wouldn't tell anyone what she had planned, especially Lucas. They had cried, they had pleaded. She and Haley had even had a blow-out fight right before she'd walked out the door of her apartment, but it didn't cause her to falter. Her mind has been set, the plane has been chartered, the bags are packed and the plans made. Her hometown holds far too many bad memories for her liking and she's utterly and completely spent. She's done with all of it.

No more Bermuda triangle of love, no more Team Peyton vs. Team Brooke. No more Lucas trying to fight for her when he hadn't ever even known what it meant to fight for anything without having another option brewing on the back burner.

"I love you, Brooke. I don't know how else to say it."

"How about how you show it? I'm not pushing you away, Lucas; I am holding on for dear life, but I need you to need me back! Why wouldn't you tell me about the kiss, and why didn't you call me when you were away? And why won't you ever just let me all the way in?"

She's barely breathing as she walks up to the gate's entrance with her purse, her hap-hazardously packed suitcases already loaded onto the plane. She's trembling like the weak and vulnerable girl that she's regressed back to during the last few days, biting down on her lower lip as she fumbles with the bag in her hands, all the while swaying back and forth because she can't stand still without crumbling to pieces. The entire bottle of vodka that she's consumed over the past twenty four hours probably isn't helping with her balance either.

She takes one last look at the welcome sign that she knows so well as if she's saying her final silent goodbye to the town she had reluctantly called home for the last twenty-two years, before pulling in a shaky breath. Sniffling quietly, she turns back to the woman that stand with a cheery smile behind the counter, awaiting her hardly timely arrival.

She feels a bitter laugh rise from her throat at the words she'd chosen for the flight attendant. Cheery: the adjective that he had used to describe her once upon a time. How very far she's fallen from the cherry chap-sticked cheerleader that had once referred to him as Broody. As Hotshot. As Boyfriend.

"Good evening Miss Davis. Shall I take your purse for you? We're just about ready to have you board." The flight attendant says with the sweetest of smiles.

"You told me to fight for you and I did. But you never fought for me."

"And I'm not going to."

Handing her the hefty bag, Brooke nods weakly, completely drained of emotion. She hasn't gotten any sleep since she'd heard the news, a fact obvious by the worn down and tuckered out appearance that's so unlike her that she barely recognizes her own reflection in the window beside her.

Her phone goes off in her hand once more, Lucas's name flashing across the screen one last time. Brooke's body instinctively reacts as she throws the phone down on the floor, watching the screen shatter against the bottom of it without a single word.

The flight attendant watches on, almost frowning in disapproval at her actions. "Miss Davis, shall I call ahead to have a new phone waiting for you? I'm sure-"

"That will be all, thank you." She interrupts icily, glaring at the woman before storming past her with her heart freezing a little more with each step.

"I guess I was wrong. I'm not the guy for you, Brooke Davis."

- - - - x - - - -

He waits outside of her private flight gate, his assistant having gifted him the arrival and departure times of the flight she'd chartered at his insisting. Normally, he would be throwing a fit about being awake any time before seven, let alone out of the house and dressed in his sharply tailored suit. He'd have sent his chauffeur to fetch her back to his Manhattan hi-rise and would just be rising for his breakfast meeting. He'd have refused to move his day around because his schedule is of the utmost importance to keep his company working at its well oiled speed.

And yet, Chuck Bass stand in the middle of JFK International Airport's private hangar at the crack of dawn with a copy of the New York Times in one hand and a small serving of freshly made espresso in the other, impatiently waiting for the Bass Industries Cessna Citation X to make her landing.

Why?

Because the woman coming off of his plane is the only person who had ever given a damn about him in their fucked up little family. Promises had been made long ago that they would always protect each other, promises that they continued to keep, and so he sits while the little masses watch from their commercial gates.

He had been in a business meeting regarding his acquisition of the Empire Hotel when she had called him. He had been mid pitch, giving one of the best presentations of his life to his high-profile investors and board members with his witty charm and devilish demeanor. He had just been about to close the deal when his assistant of nearly five years had quietly walked up to him and whispered into his ear that his stepsister had been on hold for the last twenty minutes and had insisted it was a family emergency.

He hadn't even hesitated.

The two hadn't seen each other in almost four years, when Bart and Victoria had forced them both to come to an overzealous banquet at The Plaza for Thanksgiving. Not since they'd screamed at each other over the carefully curated meal because he had made a comment about her decision to enroll at Duke over Parsons Fashion School being about a certain small town jock that was never going to give her the life that she deserved. She'd thrown a plate, he'd sworn his head off, and she'd walked out of his life.

But the Bass step-siblings had always kept a bond between them that no amount of time could wound, that nothing could possibly break. Not even shattered William Yeoward china.

One of his older colleagues had come barreling into the hall, nostrils flared and veins protruding from his bullish neck. "You better get your ass back in that conference within the next ten seconds or-"

"Or what, Patrick? You'll pitch a fit because I had to take a phone call from my sister? I'm sure Bart and Jack would just love that, considering that she's only Bart's stepdaughter and Jack's favorite niece." The skilled businessman had snapped back, eyes boring holes into the executive before he had snatched his phone away from Alice like the diva he'd always been and pulled in to his ear, all whilst the board members had stood waiting in anticipation.

He had glared them all down as he'd slammed the door, having never quite gotten over the devil in disguise title, but his expression quickly had softened by the sound of hiccuping sobs in the background. "Brooke?" Chuck had asked into the phone, the quiet cries of his clearly inebriated stepsister flowing over the line.

"I'm so sorry for calling, Chuck, but I...I didn't know who else to turn to..."

The sound of her breaking down had been enough for Chuck to walk down the hall and into his office, trying to get some privacy from the ever-watchful members of his company. He had known then that it was truly bad, that someone was potentially dead because his sister had never been one to cry, let alone sob.

"What's going on?" He had inquired into the phone softly, all the while listening to Brooke's tears. Chuck would never admit it out loud to anyone but her, but every one of her excruciating wails had been like a rusty knife to his gut. There had never been anything more painful than listening to Brooke cry, nothing.

"I need to get out of Tree Hill..." A whimpering Brooke Davis, a girl he had thought could handle anything, had choked out over the phone. "I can't stay here anymore, I just-"

But Chuck had interrupted her, not because he was being rude or because he had grown tired of the girl's tears, but because he had felt tears of his own rising just from knowing that his stepsister is in this much pain. He had known how much it took for the resilient Davis daughter to ask for help. Or even more importantly, to give in to the pain and run away.

He didn't even need Brooke to tell him what had happened. The urge to protect the girl that had become more of a sister to him than any of Bart's bastard children had trumped curiosity, as it always had in their relationship.

"I'll send you the Bass Industries plane. And if that doesn't work, I'll buy another plane. I don't care if I have to buy an entire airline, I'll have you here in the next twenty four hours. Do you understand me?" Chuck had ordered, fixing his hair in a nearby mirror as he had prepared to go back to the meeting. Although he had known that he sounded like a complete asshole, he also had known that tough love was what the normally bubbly brunette had needed, even if it was the last thing she had wanted.

After a few moments of silence, the heart wrenching sobs turn into sniffles and relief had washed over him as Brooke had begun to calm down. "You would do that for me?"

"Oh god, don't tell me you're going to get all sappy on me." Chuck had groaned out in fake annoyance, laughing softly. "Set up the details with my assistant, she'll handle the details. We'll enroll you at Parsons, I'm sure they'll accept you - if they don't, I'm sure they will after greasing some palms. I don't even know why you went to Duke, it's positively wretch-"

"Thank you, Chuck."

The interrupting whisper had been almost inaudible, but it had stopped him in his tracks. He didn't even bother scolding Brooke for interrupting him, he'd simply hung up the phone without saying another word.

Chuck taps his foot impatiently, setting down his paper and rising to his feet. Even with his face plastered across magazine covers and his name all over page six of the New Yorker, the now CEO of Bass Industries still the impatient and quick-tempered man he's always been. Except instead of slutty little Constance Billiard bred school girls following him around, he has the paparazzi stalking him in hopes of just getting a snapshot of him.

"Chuck?"

A quiet voice attracts his attention, and he turns to face it. It isn't until he sets his sights on her that his face pales in horror.

If she hadn't have spoken up, Chuck wouldn't have even noticed her, the girl before her barely even resembling his cheery stepsister. Her once infectious grin has been dimmed to a numbed expression that barely even qualifies as a smile, the dimples that usually accompany it missing from the curves of her mouth. The dark circles under her normally radiant green eyes are hidden behind oversized black sunglasses, her exhaustion seeping from the pigment like a fire alarm. Everything about her brings a chill with her, frigid and as hard as diamonds. The woman standing before him reminds him more of Victoria Davis than her loving and carefree daughter.

But then again, this isn't Brooke Davis, at least not the one he knows.

This isn't the sister who had raided his liquor cabinet at the tender age of fifteen, nor the one who had covered for an infinite number of times to keep him out of trouble. This isn't the southern debutante that gets vulnerable after too many tequila shots and makes grown men look like pussies who can't hold their liquor, who had withstood the likes of Victoria Davis and come out stronger in spite of it.

This is not his Brooke, and he has no idea what to do. She's a ghost of her former self, a fragment of of the woman she truly is as she walks up to Chuck, practically collapsing into his strong arms.

He feels paralyzed for a moment as he wraps her in a tight hug, utterly speechless as he feels Brooke begin to cry. As the tears fall upon the shoulder his perfectly tailored suit, his hand runs up and down her back like any other brother might comfort a sister. For the first time in their lives, they are normally functioning and emotional human beings, and he's not sure how he feels about it.

They stand like that for what seems like hours, clinging to each other for dear life as Chuck feels tears spring to his own eyes, both the only sailors left upon the sinking ship that's known as Brooke Davis's life.

Finally, Chuck pulls back, his arm still around Brooke's shoulders as she catches her breath, readjusting her sunglasses to hide the pain in her eyes. Smiling sadly, he brushes the stray hairs from Brooke's face before pressing a dainty kiss to her forehead, leading her towards the doors as he murmurs the only words that he thinks will comfort her in that moment.

"Welcome home, baby sister."