Author- Emily-Grace Mendes (Brookebynature)

Disclaimer- I don't own any of the characters or One Tree Hill

A/N- Okay so I just can't stop it with these one shots! I have too many on the go right now so I'm going to focus on a new chapter for 'Nude, With Calla Lilies' when I'm done posting this. Hope you enjoy guys! xxx

Another Letter

He's not surprised to have a hand-written addressed envelope passed into his hands. Fan mail has become more frequent for Lucas Scott these days, especially after the announcement of his own column in the New York Times. He can successfully add author to his growing list of accomplishments, though the titles of husband and father hinted at by his Mom will have to wait for now.

He doesn't recognise the writing, but then again, he never had a particularly great memory anyway. Ripping the letter open with two hands, it's only when he reads the few words for the second time that he leans forward in the large leather-bound chair, a frown and hand clasped to his open mouth as his eyes focus on the name of the girl he hasn't seen in years.

There aren't many words. No small talk, no structure, not even a date. It only asks if he would save her? Please.

It's signed, Rachel, in loopy handwriting that is effortlessly neat, but evident to Lucas that time wasn't taken over the inked letters. He's a little surprised to have her write to him. After everything, he thought it would have at least been from Brooke.

But it's not, and when he tries to ignore it, tries to put the past behind him by focusing on his relationship now, the one he has with Peyton, not Brooke, it seems as though the letter is screaming at him to go save her. For the first time. It doesn't mention his ex-girlfriend's name, and Lucas knows she doesn't have to for him to understand what she means.

-

"Are you okay?" Peyton asks him at dinner, her left hand free from any ring because he hasn't crossed that bridge, not yet anyway.

"Yeah." He mumbles, leaving the fork at the side of his plate, the pasta and salad left uneaten.

"You sure? Because you haven't touched your dinner." She comments, taking a sip from the glass of wine by her plate.

"I'm fine."

"Lucas…"

"Peyton!" He snaps back. "I said, I'm fine."

He's not fine though, and they both know it. She doesn't know why, and he knows he won't ever be able to tell her. He can't face telling her that he needs to lie his way through the day to believe that he loves her more than he ever loved the brunette girl who needs him right now.

Rachel hadn't said why. She hadn't told him any details other than her address, none of it matters anyway. Lucas knows he'll be on a plane to California within a day. But he doesn't know whether he'll be able to save the girl who he could never seem to save in the first place.

-

"I have to go to California." He tells Peyton when she frowns upon him packing a small suitcase in their bedroom.

"Tonight?"

"Tomorrow morning."

"That's kinda short notice Luke." She says, somewhat annoyed. "We were supposed to be having dinner with my Dad tomorrow evening."

"I'm sorry." He replies, offering a tiny kiss for her forehead. His lips are trembling almost too much for him to leave them there any longer. "There's this new writer I have to interview before he leaves. I shouldn't be gone for long."

She's upset, he can see. But that can't mater enough to him right now, because Brooke is in California and she needs him. He wasn't there for her enough back when they were dating, he figures. Rachel's request is the least he can do.

"I'll miss you." She tells him, opening drawers to assist him in his packing, handing smart ties and cufflinks that he would have forgotten to take otherwise. He can't tell her that really, all he needs is the old Keith Scott body shop hoody he doesn't wear anymore, and a few pairs of jeans.

When Peyton looks at him questioningly, straight blonde hair framing her face, he remembers to return the thought, telling her that of course he'll miss her, but it's only for a couple nights at most. He can't specify the amount of time he'll be away. He doesn't know what he's saving Brooke from.

-

She's not there when he finally reaches the apartment after a delayed flight and a long cab ride to sunny Los Angeles. He's glad, of sorts, because he can accept Rachel's offer of clean towels for a shower, complete with a toothbrush he forgot to bring.

"Took you long enough." Rachel tells him a little frostily when he emerges from the bathroom in a clean t-shirt and jeans. He'd managed to put a few items in his case when Peyton had been out buying groceries, including his infamous hoody, and a pair of comfy sweats.

"The shower? I was only in there fifteen minutes at the most!"

"Not the shower dumbass." She shakes her head. "Getting here."

"I couldn't help that the flight was delayed."

"What about all the flights that you've missed in the last six years?"

"The flights that I've missed?" He questions, a puzzled expression plastered across his forehead as he runs a hand through slightly damp hair.

"You're about five and a half years too late you know?"

"What's all of this about Rachel? Why write to me now? Why write to me at all?"

"Because you're all I had left to try."

He sighs exasperatedly, still not knowing what on earth she's trying to get at. "Are you going to tell me why I'm here or not?"

"Guilt?" Her eyebrows raise in the same way Brooke's always have, and for a moment, he's transported back to high school where they all played too many games and ruined too many chances.

"Look Lucas, I'm worried about Brooke. Really worried. She doesn't eat, she doesn't sleep, all she seems to do is work and I'm pretty sure she chases pills with vodka."

"But this doesn't have anything to do with me." He protests, eyes burning to see the girl he's almost sure he might still love.

"It has everything to do with you." Rachel tells him, setting a mug of fresh coffee in front of him before pouring another for herself. Her face is older now, her curves fuller than the skinny figure she cut back in high school. Yet he can't figure out her hostile personality. Before, she had always been so…friendly.

"Can you just tell me?" He almost begs.

"You know you were the only guy she ever loved right?"

"What about Chase? She was happy with him."

Rachel only shrugs. "Happier than she was alone."

Lucas notes the many pictures around the house, mainly the two women together, in elegant dresses posing with glasses of champagne, he guesses, at fashion shows. There's a couple of Rachel with some guy that he figures is her boyfriend, or at least, some guy that she's had some sort of a relationship with in the past. None of Brooke with any guy.

"So she might have lied about being okay with you and Peyton together."

Lucas shakes his head. "You cant bring me and Peyton up, not after the six years we've been together, and not after we haven't seen you guys since graduation."

"You think that's how Brooke wanted it?"

He shrugs. "I don't know what I'm supposed to think any more."

"Remember crashing that prom in Honeygrove?"

"Yeah I remember." He tells her. "But you weren't there."

"No. But I was on the other end of the phone when Brooke was telling me about how she'd just walked in on your and Peyton…getting busy."

He sighs into the mug of coffee, his blue eyes closing as he recalls the look on Brooke's face. He'd tried to forget that look for the rest of the night, and for the rest of that year. But he couldn't, and he could only sympathise with what she might have felt when thinking about the time he walked in on her in bed with Chris Keller.

"You should ask her for the rest." Rachel says flatly. "She should be home in a few hours. Unless she's stopped by a bar first."

"Does she do that a lot?" He asks. "Drink?"

Rachel shrugs. "She buys two bottles of vodka a week. And I only drink wine at home."

"What happened to her Rachel?" He questions. "Really."

"She forgot how to get over you."

-

He's awoken from a very large guest bed by some sort of banging, followed by keys dropping onto floor tiles as high heels clatter on hard wood. Rubbing his eyes as he looks at the clock beside his bed, Lucas notes that it's almost 3am, and the banging might well be Brooke seeing as he had gone to bed before she had returned home last night.

When he flicks on the light switch, he watches as her disorientated eyes search the room, confused, her body unbalanced in the ridiculous heels she's wearing. Her dress is gold, the hemline stopping just below her knees to reveal stick legs, nothing like the legs he remembers back in her cheerleading skirt during high school.

"Rachel?" Her eyes squint in the harsh light, but widen when she focuses on his body. "Lucas?"

"Hi Brooke." He manages to whisper, his eyes searching all over her body as he realises that her dress is hanging off her, and her once radiant face is sunken around her eyes, her dimples barely noticeable as she moves forward.

"What the hell are you doing here?" She almost spits, slurring a little. "In my apartment?"

"I asked him to come." Rachel tells her, appearing in the doorway in a white dressing gown with a comical-looking eye mask on top of her head. Lucas might have laughed if the situation had been different.

"Why?" She demands, her dark hair cut into almost the same style she'd had it in the latter end of their junior year.

"Because look at you Brooke!" Rachel tells her. "Maybe he can help you because God knows I've tried."

"I don't need any help! And if I did, Lucas wouldn't be able to do anything. He never has."

And in that moment, he knows that she's just summed up their relationship. He didn't love her enough when they were together, and now he can't even save her from herself.

"I'm going to bed." Brooke tells them, slipping her body past Rachel's, as the red head can only stare back at him.

"You should have loved her like she loved you." Is all that she says before retreating to her own bedroom, the door closing behind her.

-

"I need to talk to you Brooke." He tells her when she finally emerges from her room the next morning, with a hand raised to her forehead as she forces a couple painkillers down her throat, no water, no doubt to kill a pounding headache.

"Why?" She shrugs. "We don't have anything to talk about any more."

"It's been six years." Lucas replies. "So I think we do."

"Like what?"

"Like why I'm here."

"Then why are you here?" She asks coldly, shutting her eyes as if not even wanting to hear his answer.

"I don't know." He admits. "But maybe we could talk about why you drink so much, or why you look like you haven't eaten in years."

"How dare you!" She shouts, her face flushed with anger. "You don't get to waltz back into my apartment after six years of not talking to me and tell me that I look like crap!"

"I never said you looked like crap."

"You might as well have!"

"Okay then." Lucas shouts back, just as loud. "I'm going to say it, you look like crap. Remember when you used look healthy and you didn't drink enough vodka to last an entire party? Remember when you couldn't ever dry-swallow pills? Remember when you used to actually give a damn about everyone back home?"

"Remember when you used to love me no matter what?" She shouts back at him, her throat sore and hoarse. "Oh no, that's right, it was only Peyton you loved when we were together, not me."

When she laughs icily, Lucas' throat tightens, and suddenly, there's nothing left for him to feel towards her but regret that he didn't love her enough, and embarrassment for what he might have let her do to herself.

"That's not fair to bring that up."

"No Lucas, you know what's not fair? This. You can't just come into my life after six years and start telling me that I don't give a damn about anyone back home. You know nothing about me."

"Then tell me." He demands. "Tell me what it is that's so bad that you're living like this."

She opens her lips, her eye clouding over a little. And for a moment, Lucas thinks she's going to tell him everything. But she only shakes her head silently, walking away without another word.

-

"Sorry you had to hear that." He tells Rachel a little guiltily as she wanders out of her room, dressed in the kind of clothes that Brooke used to wear, back when her collarbone didn't jut out and her legs weren't spindly.

"Whatever." She shrugs, the quick raising and falling of her shoulders becoming a common feature. "I've said it too her too, but she's too God damn stubborn to admit we're right."

"It doesn't help that I don't really know what caused all this."

"She'll listen to you, eventually." Rachel tells him. "It's always been you."

"No." Lucas shakes his head. "It hasn't."

"You really think so?" Rachel asks him. "You think she's loved those other guys as much as you?"

He's not entirely sure what they're talking about right now, never was really. He needs to know what it is that Rachel's got him here for, and he knows he has to save Brooke, from whatever it is that's caused all this.

"Rachel can you just tell me about her? Please?"

"Fine." The red-head says in the same tone she would use throughout high school when trying to appear like she didn't want to do something. "But none of this gets back to her."

Lucas nods, and adjusts his position on the stool at the breakfast bar in the kitchen.

"She was pregnant, in senior year before you guys broke up. She told me she was going to tell you after the wedding, but then with everything that happened…sorry about that by the way." She interrupts herself, offering a guilty smile as he can only wait to see what else she has to say.

"After everything that happened, she said it wasn't the right time because you all had so much to worry about anyway. And when she realised she was loosing you, after you hadn't called and stuff, she didn't want it to seem like she was going to tell you just so you would stay with her. So imagine when she broke up with you and you didn't even try and stop her. She was pregnant with your child." Rachel stresses the word 'your', and Lucas is left to process all of her information.

"But I didn't know she was pregnant!"

"And if you had?"

"I'd have told her we could make it work."

"Exactly." Rachel nods. "So imagine Brooke thinking that the only reason you guys would be in a relationship was because of your child. Hardly makes her feel loved Lucas."

He dips his head, blue eyes burning as Rachel keeps talking, her voice the same tone so as not to crack, herself, recalling the telephone conversations she'd had with her best friend.

"So she thought she would have an abortion, I mean, college was coming up and she had her fashion line. A baby wasn't exactly what she needed. But she couldn't go through with it, and so she decided she would keep it."

"Was she going to tell me any of this?" He half-shouts, consumed by anger and disappointment towards himself that she felt she couldn't talk to him about any of this.

Rachel only shrugs. "That night in Honeygrove she rung me to say she was going to tell you, and that she didn't expect any money or a relationship between you two."

"And?" He urges.

"And then she walked in on you and Peyton in bed together."

-

He paces the living area, head in his hands as he runs through what Rachel had told him. It's night already, the city light up by seemingly tiny lights in the black sky. And then he can't stand it any longer.

She gives him the address of where Brooke is working on dressing girls for a charity benefit fashion show; some country club just outside of the city.

And when he arrives, no tux, only grey hoody and worn jeans, he can only watch from the sidelines, hidden, as models walk the runway, dressed in fabulous Brooke Davis creations with no sign of the girl herself.

But then he spies her, sat alone, just near the dressing rooms with several glasses of champagne, each one taking her only seconds to knock back, with almost trembling fingers and a pained expression. The smile fixed onto her face as she watches the girls in her designs is fake, forced, no dimples, no lines at the corner of her hazel eyes to emit true happiness.

She's sad, Lucas knows now, and he can only pray that this hasn't been the case for the last six years. He's not sure whether he can stand it if it has.

"What are you doing here?" She asks, tiredly, her eyes rolling at him in his messy attire, no match for the navy dress covering her near skeletal frame.

"I came to see you."

Brooke shakes her head at him, no attempt to hide the alcohol around her. "I'm busy."

"Yeah." He agrees. "Busy drinking your way to death Brooke!"

Her face stays calm, her eyes never moving from the runway. "You don't know me Lucas. You never did and you can't start trying now."

"You're right. I never did. But I know one hell of a lot about you now. And if you think I'm not going to talk to you about it, you're wrong."

"I don't know what you're talking about." She replies flatly, avoiding his eyes at all costs. She can't afford to slip up her act now.

"About the baby." He tells her softly. "I know."

-

They're shouting in the kitchen again, and Lucas is glad for Rachel's sake that she's out partying.

"I can't believe she told you!"

"If it wasn't for Rachel, I wouldn't have even known that you lost our child!"

"It wasn't our child." Brooke bites. "It was mine the day I walked in on you and Peyton in bed together."

"Peyton and I didn't do anything wrong." Lucas shouts. "We were dating then."

Brooke raises an eyebrow, sighing in a scream as she marches to the refrigerator, taking from it, the almost empty bottle of vodka.

Lucas watches as she pours the last drop into her glass, then jumping as she smashes the empty bottle against the floor in a hysterical, convulsing mess.

"God damnit!" She screams, her shaky hand bringing the glass up to her mouth.

"Look at you Brooke." Lucas says with disgust. "What are you doing to yourself?"

Her eyes close as the alcohol pours down her throat, her chest aching with each stifled sob as she wishes for him to hold her against him.

"Do you want to hurt me?" He asks with a raised voice. "Is this your way of trying to punish me for my mistakes?"

Her sobs are a little louder as she leans against the counter, the glass still in her limp hand as his eyes finally catch hers, and all she has left to do is feel ashamed.

"Because you're doing a damn good job."

He moves closer, and she stays, rooted to the spot as he apologises. "I'm sorry that you couldn't tell me you were pregnant. And I'm sorry for never loving you enough, and that you had to walk in on Peyton and me."

Brooke shakes her head, but he continues.

"I'm sorry that you lost the baby, and that you still felt you couldn't tell me. And I'm sorry that I didn't find you earlier, because if I'd have known, I'd have been here the day I found out."

She breaks down then, because she can imagine he would have been there, and she's feeling guilty, because she knows it's unfair to blame him for any of this, yet the love for him that she's always had has never gone away, and the only weapon of disguise that she has left is anger.

"I still love you, you know?" He tells her, his body moving closer as hers shudders violently with each cry for help. "I couldn't stop, even after all that time, even now."

"Don't tell me that." She manages to choke. "Because you still love her."

She's right, he knows. But it's a different love he has for each of them now-a diminished love for Peyton, a love of lust, a love that he feels he has to have, a love that he'd wanted for so long before things finally happened for them.

But his love for Brooke; one of passion and of every detail about her-the little things, is taking over. And now he has a desperate need to save her, because he'd failed her so many times before.

"What was it about loosing the baby that brought you to this?" He almost whispers, brushing wet hair away from her eyes. "The drinking and the weight loss?"

She shrugs into him, her lips still shaking. "It was the only part of you I had left. And I couldn't stand it that it was gone."

"Brooke…"

"I'm sorry." She cries. "About all of this, I just…"

He shushes her, pulling her to his chest, her tears staining the grey hoody that he once used to see on her body. His lips are on hers then, almost without him realising as his hands slip to her hair, moving it gently behind her shoulders.

She pulls away slightly, cheekbones hollow and sharp, her sunken hazel eyes staring at him, as his close at the sight of the broken girl in front of him. And she sinks then, to the floor against him, his back propped up against the kitchen counter.

"I just want you to tell me it'll be okay." She sobs, her hands dangling in mid air until he catches them, pulling them towards him to cover with his own. He can't think about his life back in New York, his professional life as a journalist, his home life as a boyfriend, because Brooke needs him right now, and it's the first time he's needed to save her.

"It'll be okay." He whispers, kissing her again, her heavy eyes closed now against the feel of him, her lips aching for an action which hasn't occurred in too long. Sex for her over the past six years had been purely about the act itself, with guys that she didn't know and wouldn't care.

He won't move. Even as he feels her breathing even out against his neck, her eyes closed for sleep, her body drained and exhausted as the broken shards of glass lay on the floor in front of them, he won't move. Because he's finally saving her. And for six years, this is all she's ever needed.

Please review guys xxx