Author's note: There's a good chance this might be the second to last chapter – I can't believe this story has almost come to an end. This chapter has been a long time coming, and I hope it does justice to the BL relationship and to Lucas and Brooke as individual characters. It wasn't easy to write but I enjoyed it thoroughly.

Thank you guys for everything, and enjoy the reading!

Laurie

Chapter 17: Ride

You are everything I wanted,
The scars of all I'll ever know

If I told you you were right, would you take my hand tonight?
If I told you the reasons why, would you leave your life and ride?
Ride

You saw all my pieces broken
This darkness I could never show

If I told you you were right, would you take my hand tonight?
If I told you the reasons why, would you leave your life and ride?
Ride
Ride
Ride

Brooke winked at Lucas as he drowned his pint of beer. He set it down loudly on the bar counter and smiled back at her. Never taking her eyes off Lucas, she walked up to him, grabbed his hand, and together they strolled through the patio and towards the entrance of the bar. Brooke pulled him to her once they reached the hallway, and he backed her up against the wall, both his hands framing her body.

His mouth lingered over hers and she felt him – rather than heard him – chuckle. "This feels familiar."

She laughed as she shook her head. "If you think you're gonna get another glimpse at my tattoo, think again, Broody. You have to earn that right."

Lucas pressed his lips against hers. "Anything for you."

"Actually, I was hoping you would take me home? Peyton left a while ago and we drove here together."

Lucas drew himself back and held out his hand to her. She gave him hers eagerly.

Maybe the best explanation as to why she'd finally stopped fighting the way she felt about him was the simple fact that he made her happy. She cherished that feeling.

Lucas pulled her to him the second the elevator doors closed, and he didn't free her lips until they reached the ground floor. She didn't protest because she felt just like he did: now that he was hers again, she never wanted to let him go.

-----

Lucas stopped the car's engine and silence settled inside his red Mustang. He shifted in his seat to face Brooke, but he remained silent. She smiled.

"Thank you for taking me home."

"Thank you for letting me."

Brooke looked away. Now that the night was coming to an end and it was just the two of them, she could feel the atmosphere shift. There were so many questions to answer, so many amends to make, and she knew the tension would not subside until Lucas and her talked. But she wasn't ready for it tonight. She wanted to keep the memory of this night intact; untouched.

"I should probably go. It's getting late."

Lucas nodded. "Okay. But I have one favor to ask before you go."

Brooke nodded in response.

"Meet me at your store tomorrow night, at eight PM?"

"Okay."

She knew better than to ask him for an explanation. She could tell from the look in his eyes he wasn't going to give anything away; plus, she liked not knowing.

She reached for the door handle, but his voice stopped her.

"Brooke?"

She turned to face him. She expected to find him struggling for words, hesitating – brooding, as he did so well – but instead she found his lips closing in on hers.

His kiss was deliberately slow, and she felt her heart rate pick up.

"Goodnight," he whispered as he tore his mouth from hers.

She chuckled. "Not fair."

He pretended not to hear her, or feel her frustration. "I'll see you tomorrow night."

Sighing, she finally stepped out of the car. He waited until she was inside her house before starting the engine again, and she watched his Mustang driving away in the night.

Tomorrow night could not come soon enough.

----

With her sketch book in one hand and her purse in the other, Brooke hurriedly stepped out of her house. She was busy shuffling through her purse in search for her car keys when she walked down the flight of stairs in front of her door. She was so distracted by her task that she missed the last step, and for the span of a second, she cursed herself for being so careless and braced herself for the fall. But instead of landing on the harsh concrete, she slammed into a warm, strong body.

Brooke looked up in a daze and found herself looking straight into Lucas' eyes.

"Are you okay?" were the first words that escaped his lips.

She nodded, unsure. She hadn't fallen on the ground, but colliding full force into him had knocked the breath out of her all the same.

She felt him relax. "Good morning," he said, now reassured that she wasn't hurt.

Composing herself, Brooke greeted him the best she could given the circumstances. "Morning."

"Would you be inclined to my giving you a ride to work this morning, Ms. Davis?"

She smiled. "I would love to."

"I was hoping you would say that."

Lucas moved the hand he'd been keeping behind his back and revealed a bouquet of red tulips.

Speechless, Brooke stared at him.

I just figured, since it's the first day of school, the guy for me would pick me up, bring me flowers, maybe a bagel…

She reached for the flowers tentatively. "You remembered."

Both of his hands now free, Lucas reached out and cupped her face. "I remember everything."

Brooke's eyes went from his eyes to the flowers and back to him again. "I love them."

Lucas almost replied, "I love you", but managed not to let it slip. "Come on," he told her. "Let's go."

He took her sketch book from her, and as she walked besides him towards the car, he took her hand in his.

"Luke?"

"Yeah?"

"You have bagels in the car, right?"

She felt the way his body shook in her hand when he laughed, and a silent thrill ran through her own body.

Maybe she was still dreaming.

Maybe if she wished for it hard enough, she would never wake up.

----

Brooke's day at the store passed in a flash. With Millicent gone, she had twice the amount of work she usually had. The pace was a welcome distraction – it kept her mind off of other things… namely, Lucas.

She had been planning on going home to change before Lucas arrived, but she was still engrossed in her inventory when she heard someone walk in the door. She looked up, and Lucas was standing in the threshold, smiling. Only when she saw him did she realize exactly how much she'd longed for this moment all day long.

"Hey you," he said as he walked up to her. "How was your day?"

She had placed the red tulips he had given her in a vase on the counter, and she was standing right next to them. Lucas took one flower and handed it to her with a smile.

"Good," she said, louder than she'd intended. Could he hear her heart hammering in her chest? She felt like it was the only sound in the room.

In an attempt to calm herself down, she smelled the tulip she was now holding.

"It means believe me," Lucas said.

She looked up to him, confused, and he went on. "The red tulips – they're a declaration of love. True love. They person who is giving the flowers is asking the other, believe me."

Brooke willed her lips to move but no sound escaped them. She wanted to say, "I do," but she wasn't ready. Not yet.

Sensing her struggle, Lucas didn't press the subject any further. "Are you ready?" he asked.

"Give a minute to get my things."

"You don't have to," he told her. "We're not going anywhere."

"What?"

He held out his hand to her. "Trust me."

She gave him her hand without pausing – which meant more to him than he could tell her – and followed him to the back of the store. Once there, he stopped.

"Close your eyes," he said. She pouted, but he insisted with a "please," and she closed them eventually.

Lucas carefully led her up the stairs. Once they were on the rooftop, he had her wait for a couple of minutes while he put the final touches to his surprise. Then he walked back to her and took her soft, warm hand in his again. "You can open your eyes."

She did.

And she stopped breathing.

Somehow, while she'd been gone, Lucas had redecorated the entire rooftop and transformed it into her own personal oasis.

To the left, under a beautiful dark-red tent, there stood a white couch. In front of it was a wooden coffee table covered in a long white rectangular table cloth. And at the center of the table stood another big bouquet of red tulips; the cloth itself was covered by a trail of petals.

The trail continued up to the railing, which was adorned with a dozen of candle jars. Dark-red candles were all floating in water. Their lights cast beautiful shadows on the railing.

To the right, Lucas had brought in dozens of plants; they brought more life to the rooftop. A huge palm tree stood over the rest of them, dominating the rooftop with its majesty. Brooke could see more petals scattered on the ground; the trail came up to where Lucas and her were standing.

It was like she had just landed on another planet.

It was like a dream.

"Do you like it?"

She heard him ask the question but couldn't really process the words, let alone find it in her to answer him.

"Brooke?"

Finally tearing her eyes away from the rooftop, she turned to him. "You did this for me?"

"You're always going out of your way to make others' lives better. I thought this would make you happy."

She stared at him as he spoke and found she had to close her eyes. She was losing her balance. She was in way too deep, and she would never be able to get out.

God, she was so in love with him.

When she opened her eyes again, he was still there.

It wasn't a dream; it was real.

"Thank you," she mouthed. She wanted to say more – so much more – but the words wouldn't come. So she brought his hand – which she'd been holding all this time – to her chest, and put it where her heart was. It was pounding in her chest, and she hoped he would feel it.

She didn't realize she was crying until she felt him wipe her tears with his thumb. "Hey, it wasn't supposed to make you cry!"

She smiled through her tears, and his face lit up. "Now that's better." She nodded in agreement, still at loss for words.

Lowering their hands, Lucas led her to the sofa where they sat down next to each other. He angled his body so he faced her, all the while never letting go of her hand.

He reached in his back pocket and took out the four letters Brooke had written to him over the years. He watched her face as he placed the stack on the coffee table. Almost instantly, the lines on her beautiful face hardened and her jaw tightened. But what struck him the most was how scared she looked at the sight of the letters.

"Where did you find those?"

She sounded harsher than she'd intended, but fear overwhelmed her at the possibility of him reading those letters and knowing… knowing everything. The mere thought paralyzed her.

"Peyton gave them to me."

Brooke briefly closed her eyes in disbelief. "Peyton?" She forced herself to take a deep breath. "So you both… you both read them?"

Brooke looked so hurt that Lucas actually feared that those four letters would bring them apart rather than together. Trying to keep his calm, he thought of the best way he could explain to her how he had ended up with her letters – letters he was never supposed to read. Except the words that they held were what had finally made him see the light… and for that he could never bring himself to regret reading them.

"She was trying to figure out where you'd gone the morning she found your room empty. She came across these… and I guess she immediately realized what it meant. I think that's why she read them, because she knew it would explain everything. She brought them to me – she said she hoped it would help fix things."

Lucas stopped, unsure whether he should continue or not. Brooke's face gave away no emotion, and it scared him more than if she'd been raging mad.

"Brooke. Say something, please."

But she couldn't. He knew. He knew every crack in her heart. He knew how in love with him she had been – and by extension, how much she still was.

She had once accused Lucas of never letting her all the way in. The thing was, since he had broken her heart, she'd learned never to let anyone all the way in either. She was guarded, careful not to give her trust unless she was absolutely sure the person deserved it. And even then… she never fully trusted anyone. She never showed her true colors.

But now Lucas could see. He could see everything. And that scared her more than anything ever had.

"You had no right to do that."

Lucas flinched at her tone. It was a side of Brooke that he had glimpsed during their senior year but had forgotten existed. It was a side of her he'd hoped never to see again. She was cold, detached – so unlike the Brooke he knew and loved.

"I know," he said. "I know you never meant for me to read them. But I'm not going to apologize," he said firmly – as firmly as she'd been cold. Brooke's eyes shot up to his face immediately, daring him to go on. He did. "Brooke, if Peyton hadn't given me those letters, I wouldn't have known. I wouldn't have realized –"

"Don't!" she interrupted him. Her hand flew up in front of her, forming a shield between her and him. "Please don't."

She rose from the couch in one motion and started moving away from him, but Lucas managed to hold onto her wrist before she was out of his reach.

"Brooke, look at me." When she didn't, he rose too. She had her back to him so he leaned into her, his lips inches from her ear. "Please turn around."

He could have easily made her, but he didn't want to brusque her – she was scared enough as it was. But more importantly, he wanted her to do it of her own will

"I'm not gonna hurt you this time." He'd thought maybe those words would prompt her to turn around and face him, but the reaction she had was not the one he expected.

She wasn't detached anymore. Her eyes shone with unshed tears, and her arms were wrapped tightly around her small frame. "Really?" she asked half-laughing, half-crying. "That's what you said last time, and look where that got me!"

There was no point in pretending anymore. He knew how damaged she was now. She wished she could remain indifferent and walk away from him unmoved. She couldn't trust herself in this state.

Lucas closed his eyes in pain. He couldn't blame her for her words. He deserved them – and so much more. He'd come to resent himself so much for his actions he wondered how Brooke could still bear to even look at him. But he was too much of a coward to ask her that question.

"Please let me explain," he pleaded.

She started to move away from him again, but this time his grip was iron-strong.

"You came back," he said softly, his eyes searching for hers. "You're here now. Please hear me out."

They had been doing so well up until a few minutes ago, when he had shown her the letters, that he had almost fooled himself into thinking that they were fine. But that's what he had done with Peyton, and he wasn't about to make the same mistake twice. For one thing, Brooke was all he wanted – he wasn't going to mess it up this time around. And for another, he owed it to her to explain everything.

He had read her words – now she needed to hear his.

"Okay," she said almost inaudibly.

He let out of a sigh of relief and made her sit back down with him. This time she was careful to keep her distance.

"When you broke up with me," he began, "I really thought you'd stopped loving me. I thought you didn't want us anymore. Maybe I chose to believe you because I thought you'd abandoned me, too – first Dan, then Keith, and then you – and it was easier to accept it than to try and fight back. I didn't have to put my heart on the line anymore. But whatever the reason, I let myself believe your lie.

"And when I read your letters, and I realized what you'd done… I literally stopped breathing. All this time, I thought you had moved on when you'd sacrificed your own happiness for mine and Peyton's. And I never knew. I was so blind – it kills me just to think about it."

Brooke spoke quietly, without looking at him. Her eyes were fixed on a distant light, over the rooftop. "You weren't blind, Lucas. You were in love with Peyton."

He shook his head, immediately correcting her. "I wasn't. Not when you broke up with me. I loved you, Brooke. I wanted you. You have to believe that."

"It doesn't matter," Brooke said, sounding almost tired. "You would have gone to Peyton sooner or later."

"Brooke, listen to me." He reached out and placed a hand on her face. She tried to move her head away but he brought her eyes back to his. "I was in love with you. You have to believe me when I tell you that you were the one I wanted by my side. You still are."

Brooke let out a shaky, unsteady breath. How could she not believe him when he was so open with her? How could she deny him anything when his eyes were boring into her soul?

"A lot happened ever since," she whispered.

"I know. But I also know now that if I hadn't thought that you didn't want to be with me anymore, it wouldn't have happened like this. I… the way I thought I felt about Peyton, the things I wrote… I know that if you hadn't pushed me toward her, it wouldn't have been that way."

"I only broke up with you, Lucas. You did the rest all on your own."

"Maybe I did. But what I'm trying to tell you is that everything I thought my relationship with Peyton was, everything I built it up to be, it was only because I was trying to move on from you. I was too blind to see your sacrifice, but what I did see was you trying to get Peyton and me together. That night during the championship – it would have never felt the way it did if you hadn't sent me to her first. What I thought was clarity was my heart trying to make sense of my world without you in it."

A handful of seconds passed by before Brooke spoke again. She was trying to process everything he was saying, but she could feel his words swirl around in her head and she almost felt dizzy. Despite how much she still loved him, she couldn't get herself to believe him. There was something – like a shield around her heart – that made his words bounce right back. And logic refused his explanation. It was too easy, after all these years, to say that she'd been the one all along when he'd done nothing but break her heart.

"If you loved me that much," she spoke quietly, "how could you even think that you and Peyton were destined to be together?"

Lucas shrugged helplessly. He wished he had a way to let her see into his mind so she would understand how clear it all was for him. "I was lying to myself. I was trying to move on – and I guess I fooled myself even better than I fooled everybody else."

Brooke stared at him, studying his face, trying to find something that would tell her it was okay to trust him. "That's not enough," she whispered.

He moved closer to her, attempting to break through her defenses. "I wish you'd had enough faith then," he said softly. "I wish you'd given me a chance. I know things would have been different."

Lucas regretted his words the moment they'd escaped his lips. He knew how it had sounded – like he was accusing her – and he immediately wished he could take them back.

"I did give you a chance, Lucas!" Brooke said, her body shaking with a sob. She could no longer fight the tears that were flowing down her face. This moment was so reminiscent of the fight they'd had at Nathan and Haley's wedding, and it broke her heart that in the end, it always came down to the same thing. She'd always had the faith in their relationship, and he'd never fought hard enough. "I gave you everything. But you never fought for me!

Lucas watched with difficulty as Brooke looked away, feeling more powerless than he ever had. Her emotions were so raw he could feel them as if they were his. Her heart was open for him to see – the heart he had so carelessly broken over and over again. How could he have ever accused her of never fighting for him? He could remember with painful clarity the look on Brooke's face when he'd told her he wasn't going to fight for her anymore because she'd never fought for him. He knew now that what he'd interpreted as cold indifference from her part had been a mere façade concealing how much she'd been hurting. But this time, he was going to make it right.

"Why me?" she asked, almost pleading him. Why me this time?" She needed to know. She needed the truth.

Lucas flinched at the words she used. He knew what they meant. Last time she had asked, he'd answered and then he'd gone and broken her heart. She probably thought he was a liar, and he couldn't blame her.

This time would be different.

"Brooke… you're the one for me," he spoke with more conviction than he'd ever had in his whole life. "The fact that I thought otherwise for so long was the biggest lie I ever told myself. And now that I realize that you're the one I've been in love with for all these years, it's like everything makes sense again. It did when we were together during senior year, and it still does now – maybe more than ever. My heart… it's yours. It has always been. That night I found you in the backseat of my car – that was the moment when everything changed."

Lucas stopped. He wasn't sure whether he had said too much or not. He watched her face as she continued to gaze at him. Her eyes were so full of tears he could almost see himself reflected in them.

A full minute passed by before Brooke spoke. "I – I don't know what to say."

"Say you believe me."

In the end, it all came down to the same thing. Trust. But it was unreasonable, not to mention somewhat delusional, for him to think she could still trust him after everything he'd done.

Brooke blinked, and a single, lonely tear rolled down her cheek. She felt like her whole world had been turned upside down in a single conversation. She didn't know how to even begin to grasp everything he had just said.

That night I found you in the backseat of my car – that was the moment when everything changed.

She took a long breath.

"I believe you," she said, her voice barely above a whisper. But he heard her.

And maybe his next reaction should have been to talk more, to explain more – because he knew that there was a lot left to talk about – but the rush of love and desire he felt for her in that moment would not be denied.

So he did the only thing that he knew to do to prove his words.

He kissed her.

And what took his breath away was not the almost-frantic way they clung to each other, or how her porcelain skin felt under his touch, or even the sounds that escaped her soft lips when she gasped for air. What left him breathless was the way he felt Brooke open her heart up to him. She wasn't holding back anymore. She was trusting him with her feelings and with her heart, and he knew he would cherish both and fight to keep them, with everything that he was, for the rest of his life.