"So what do you think?"

Brooke, standing in the tiny "apartment" she was checking out, was honestly not thrilled with the place. The plus side to it was that she hadn't seen mold or vermin like she had in a lot of the other places she'd viewed. She was beginning to think that maybe her budget, which had been more than fine for getting her a little place in Tree Hill, was not going to work as well in New York.

"It's... charming," she said, trying for diplomatic. "But um, I was kind of thinking for the price you're asking that there'd be, you know, rooms."

"No," the landlord said.

"Not even gonna try to make it better there, are you?" Yeah, that wasn't a great sign.

"Look, for the price you're going for, this is a better place and a better deal than what you'd find anywhere else," he told her. "Do you want the place or not?"

No. Not even a little bit. When she'd said she was moving to New York, she figured she'd start out somewhere awesome and trendy, somewhere befitting and up and coming fashion designer. Apparently she'd just have to pay her dues first.

Trying to look somewhat more thrilled than she was, Brooke said, "I'll take it."

If she'd stayed in Tree Hill, Brooke would have ended up doing a hell of a lot more moving than she ever did in Fandom. Maybe that was why it was so weird to see everything taken down and packed away and sent off now. Everything was down from the walls, the mannequin and all her supplies gone. It was just Brooke and her suitcase, which she kept going back into to make sure she had this or that before calming down again and sitting on her bed and looking around, at least till the next time she had to get up and check that she didn't forget something. The calls she made to tell people she was going today were less about telling them than it was to chill her out for the ten seconds she was leaving the message.

This part sucked and she kind of wished she could skip it. Though there were people she'd hit if she didn't say goodbye to them, so forget skipping anything.


[Brooke's goodbye post! SP while I am at work but around later like woah, and yes I have a goodbye post and radio on the same day. And yes I am planning to be up till 3 am.]

There was a definite upside to having a room to herself, which was that when... issues arose, it was easier to take care of it without worrying about getting walked in on. Unless you opened the door she never locked.

It was best, however, not to ask her how she ended up ramming her head into the wall, because she wasn't going to give you a straight answer. Probably. Unless you were hot.

Having now managed to kill the mood by herself (how did that even happen?), after a moment Brooke began to worry whether she'd actually hit her head hard enough to worry about it. Probably not, but maybe there'd be painkillers involved, so that would be about the time she got up and made sure she looked suitable enough to actually leave.

It meant a change into something more cleavage-baring.


[I HAD TO. IT'S HER USERNAME. Establishy, unless you manage to catch her before leaving.]

Brooke was awake and ready and dressed, and still was laying on her bed moping. She did feel bad about last night, when she'd snapped because she was not only feeling like a bad best friend, but a forgotten bad best friend. She hadn't slept well, and now was stuck having too-deep thoughts like maybe the real difference between her and Peyton's timelines meant that they just didn't have the same connection here, or that Brooke got to be pushed aside in this arena, too.

Finally figuring maybe she should make some effort, she picked up her phone to make a call, only to find a voicemail. And after listening to it, she wondered Peyton if had totally missed the point, and as a bonus, Brooke still had no idea what she was talking about.

As far as she was concerned right now, radio could be full of more things that were Brooke doing things that weren't checking on her bff Peyton. Like more moping.


[Establishy, unless you really want to wait till I get off work tonight for a ping back.]

Prom had been pretty awesome in Brooke's opinion, though doing regular things after getting a crown the night before was a bit on the humbling side. So today it was a stop at the Perk for coffee before doing some errands, because she needed something to motivate her.

She'd spotted some kids around, but didn't think anything of it. Maybe everyone was just tiny again.


[For the world's most adorable child.]

Today Brooke Davis was legal.

And for now, she was hanging out in her room, going over what website orders she'd have to work on while pondering going out. She'd sort of wanted a party, but at the same time when most of the people you thought were likely to go were involved in some sort of drama (never mind that she'd drunkenly helped there, as she had no memory of this), that kind of put you in less of a party mood. Plus she'd spent a week drunk and that cut in on planning time. Details. Maybe this weekend.

The door was open, Brooke was working, and it was totally cover for listening for more birthday wishes from home which usually included demands of "Why am I not leaving messages on your voicemail right now?"


[Open door, open post.]

Brooke had had quite the awesome vacation. And she hadn't wanted to come back here at all. Please ignore the part where for some strange reason she couldn't remember half of it. But she'd talked to people and hung out and... drank a lot? And other things? Maybe?

When she got back to her room, she dumped her bags almost in the doorway and prompty collapsed on her bed, hoping to sleep off the massive hangover she'd probably have till Wednesday.


[Will be a linkdrop! Door wide open, post can be tooooo. She's totes wakeable.]

Brooke felt much better. Shhhh.

She directed some of the credit to the fact that she had a trip to go on, and a lot of new clothes (made and bought, thank you) to pack, and she was intent on bringing all of them that she could. See, there tended to be issues where whatever you brought might not be compatible with the weather, or you might spill a drink on yourself, or you might leave with far less underthings than you arrived with. Things happened, they were totally unpreventable.

Therefore, Brooke was spending her day packing. Yes, this would be an all-day thing, probably. And then tomorrow she'd curse herself out when she realized what she really wanted to wear was at the bottom of her suitcase and she'd have to redo it all.


[Open door, open post!]

Brooke was feeling better today, which she partly blamed on just be able to even go to cheerleading.

And then there was her dress. She was making her own for the dance, under the thought process that if she was going to go alone, she was just going to look extra fantastic. And she was fine with that, even. More boys to steal away to dance with that way. She saw no bad here.

So this was Brooke, sitting by her mannequin and putting the finishing touches on her dress, even if she'd be likely to go "NO NO NO" and throw something over it if anyone came by. She was a dork that way.


[Door and post open!]

Brooke had graduated to opening the door. Because the common room was where the ice cream was and she'd felt in desperate need of it and if she'd made it that far, well, why not leave the door open? She'd just be sitting on her bed with her ice cream. Straight from the carton, natch.

After all, it wasn't like she was going to freak out, turn into Jaina, start writing things on her mirror in lipstick and buy a gun, right? That would be crazy. In high school, you worked through the trauma.

[Door and post are open, but mainly I had to mock canon.]

It had been Brooke's own fault for not really taking Claudia seriously longer than the time she'd been in the common room, but she was probably turning over a new leaf on that sort of thing. Almost getting eaten- or tasted or whatever- by an Amber-looking little girl vampire after leaving the bar would do that sort of thing to you.

It would also meant that you might do something like lock yourself in your room and curl up in the corner of your bed hugging a pillow and finally letting yourself unfreak out enough to cry some. Such as Brooke was doing.

[WOO. CRYING ICON. I'm so mean to her. Post is open, door, definitely not.]

For once the door was closed, and Brooke was dressed down, not doing much but lying on her bed and thinking. Who knew spilling your guts to the world would make you all introspective afterwards?

She was pretty sure she was doing something wrong. The whole random hookup thing worked for her just fine, don't get her wrong, but she wasn't really in the place anymore where she had to settle for that anymore. Maybe she could handle something that wasn't completely weirdly destructive to like, all her relationships, even. Maybe she even wanted that.

She'd also resigned herself to not being able to go there till after she left Fandom.

So for now, there was laying there, thinking, and maybe a little moping.


[Mostly an establishy linkdrop-to-be, though open if you want it to be. This post can be imagined to be part of the musical montage to the Fray or something at the end of an episode, amid Lucas' voiceover and bad hair brooding, Peyton emoing over a mom or two, and Naley cuteness and/or potential breakup angst.]

Of course Brooke thought the truth-telling thing was kind of fun. She hadn't said anything bad yet. Right now it was just sort of nice to be able to say stuff with no filter.

Which was why she was in a pretty good mood still, sitting on her bed and painting her toes, and kind of hoping she didn't smell like Hutt lair. She felt like she did.


[Open door, open post, I am so taking advantage of my girls today. Help me do so.]

Brooke was in a good mood this morning. No reason, she just was.

At least till the phone calls started. The one from Angela just threw her right off (and huh, it didn't sound like Angela. Maybe she had a cold?), and she had to respond. And then hang out in her room with the door open in case anyone needed to come by and confess anything.

And then as the phone calls just kept coming, and she wondered if she'd be in a constant state of up and back, and then decided that yes. Yes, she was. Look, she was bored.


[Post and door open, will likely be adding to the post as the calls come in, la.]

Having woefully neglected her mail the last couple days, Brooke went down to get hers and sort of wished she hadn't. Getting the letter from Lucas saying he wasn't coming back had been bad enough. Knowing it was because of the school shooting and what had happened to Keith was worse. At least tomorrow there were Ewoks? And maybe she could kidnap a fuzzy little baby to carry around and shove attention onto?

And to make things worse was the call she got while moping. ( because the trauma of AU badness has to get lightened up with more trauma )


[A. Closed door, open if you want to have heard the yelling. 2. Lucas modded with permission. D. Brooke being topless on the Internet? Totally canon. As far as I'm concerned, anyone with a computer, or who has a friend with a computer, now has permission to have seen Brooke Davis' boobies.]

Brooke woke up and went to the window, expecting to see a blizzard, or hail, or rain of toads after yesterday's random gorgeousness. Apparently she wanted to depress herself first thing in the morning. So imagine her utter glee at seeing that it was still randomly gorgeous.

She pointed a finger threateningly at the sky and said, "You stay this way."

And then she headed to her laptop, opening it and starting an E-mail.


To: FH Students
From: Brooke Davis
Subject: It's nice. We party.

In case you haven't looked outside yet, go do so. Assuming you came back to the computer after tseeing the utterly beautiful weather, you can consider this an invite. I will be at the beach this afternoon.

There will be bathing suits, and drinks. That alone should get you out there.


B. Davis


And then it was off to get ready for the little get-together she just made up right now.

[Establishy, unless the roomie wants to ping in. All students would have gotten the E-mail.]

You didn't wanna know how long Brooke had spent on her laptop doing this, which was why it was sort of on the dark side when she made her way around the school and town, sticking up posters to advertise Thanksgiving dinner.

Okay, maybe you did wanna know, but Brooke wasn't gonna tell you.

( poster! )

[Posting this here so as to be all-encompassing and not post to two comms. Open if you wanna catch her somewhere.]

Yes, it was Saturday night and yes, Brooke was staying in. For some reason it felt like she'd been very social today. Technically she was staying in to work on some designs, but that was sort of code for laying on her bed and looking through recent issues of Lucky. It was sort of like research, right?

Ignore that she still hadn't done any work on her actual research paper yet.


[Door's open, post can be too. I just wanted a link to grab, really.]

Brooke had decided that this morning required junk food. Because when you thought you were your double's twin and leaving the nunnery to start a new life, only to come down with a rare tropical disease and nearly be killed by your sister in order for her to steal your identity only to abandon it to marry her cheating boyfriend who only wanted her for the family diamond mine, and then woke up after a friend of yours had a heart attack and died at your bedside, and returned in time to ruin the wedding only to recover from the amnesia you've had for years and reveal that your sister was actually a daughter you gave up for adoption, well, that called for cookie dough.

Which was why she was heading downstairs to go into town and get some.


[For one, though open if you need to talk to either of them.]

t was a very calm, very collected Brooke that was packing up her closet, looking all the world like a woman who had just decided to change her entire life. Because, of course, she had.

She was even smiling when she went to answer the knock at the door.

( omg whoever could it be? )

[Mostly establishy, though can be open if you don't mind some SP.]