Getting It All Back

By Brynne

Chapter Fifteen – Let It Be

‘And when the night is cloudy,

There is still a light that shines on me,

Shine on until tomorrow, let it be’ – Lennon/McCartney

~*~Early December, 2013~*~

“So, how’s everything going?” Luke asks semi-cautiously as I stab at a piece of lettuce that is trying to elude my fork, “Are you and Nathan doing okay still?”

“Well, he’s sober, if that’s what you’re beating around the bush to avoid asking about,” I mutter moodily, seemingly stressed out and pissed off about every little thing these days, “And yes, I know I’m bitchy, and no, I really don’t care right now.”

“Oookay,” Luke drawls out slowly, “What’s going on, Hales?”

“I don’t know,” I admit, tears springing to my eyes, “It’s like he’s there in body, but sometimes not really in mind. And I hate that, I hate that I don’t have all of him.”

He raises his eyebrows at me, looking like he isn’t sure what to say. “Every time I’ve seen you two lately, he seems pretty attentive to you and Mere. What’s happening that you’re getting something entirely different?”

I shrug, closing my eyes as the tears threaten to fall. “It’s just hard, Luke. He still stays at his apartment half the time, and the other with us, and it’s like, why? Why does he have to stay there? What’s wrong with me that he can’t be with us all the time?”

It takes him a few minutes to answer. My eyes are still closed, so I don’t know what he’s doing, but I picture his mouth opening and closing repeatedly like that of a fish. “What happened, Hales? I thought he was living with you fulltime now?”

“So did I!” I exclaim furiously, “I thought he was, too.”

He gives me his most scrutinizing look, trying to figure out what is going on, but gives up and sighs. “Haley James, what the hell is going on?”

“I don’t know,” I sigh, breaking down into tears, “I thought things were supposed to get easier, that we’d get better, but we aren’t. There’s this – this space, this horrible, awful space, between us, and no matter what I do, it won’t go away. I can’t get through it, and it’s like he doesn’t even want me to!”

“Oh, shit,” he mutters softly, staring at me dismayed, “Come on, you don’t want to do this here, do you?”

“Maybe I do,” I snipe at him, glaring through the tears, “I’m so sick of being fawned over, but at the same time, I freak out and cry like this, which just perpetuates it. What is wrong with me?”

“Um, are you still seeing your counselor?” he asks cautiously.

“Yes, of course,” I sigh, rubbing the tears from my cheeks, “But she’s not – I don’t know, Luke. It’s stupid, but I can’t even talk to her about everything, you know? And I should, oh, I definitely should, but I just don’t know how to say some of these things. It’s just too hard.”

“What? What can’t you tell her?”

Taking a deep breath, I look him in the eye, ignoring his worried look. “It’s not really anything,” I try and tell him, “I’ve just been having these nightmares lately, and they’re worse when he isn’t there. Some nights when he’s there, I don’t even have them at all, actually.”

“Jesus,” Luke breathes, leaning back in his chair, “Hales, does he know?”

I shake my head, looking down at the table. “Of course not. Or if he does, he hasn’t said anything. He sleeps like the dead, though, so I can give him the benefit of the doubt that he really doesn’t know.”

“Okay,” he nods, “What are they about?”

Groaning, I regret telling him in that instant. Hell, maybe I regretted it the second it came out of my mouth, this unpleasant truth that I don’t really want to share with anyone. “Maybe it’s for the best if I don’t talk about it,” I try, knowing Luke will never let it go now, “Hey, how are things with you and Lola?”

He looks at me like that was the most pitiful attempt to change the subject ever, which is quite possible. “Haley, don’t do that. If you didn’t want me to know, you never would’ve said anything,” he reasons.

“They’re about Vegas,” I admit slowly, saying it out loud for the first time, “About the things he said, the way he acted.”

“The women that were there,” Luke adds knowingly, but not so helpfully.

“Yeah, that too. And even worse, sometimes it’s about bursting into that room and finding him dead or dying. I can’t shake them, Luke. I can’t seem to get rid of these images and visions in my head, and when I think I have, they come back and they’re worse. They’re so graphic and detailed, and I’ve never dreamt like this before, never so vividly.”

“Hales,” he sighs, “I’m sorry. How long has this been going on now?”

“A few months,” I sigh, “I don’t know, what am I supposed to do about this? How am I supposed to deal with these goddamn dreams, Luke?”

Normally, the pity on his face would put me out, but right now, I know I’m pretty pitiful and it is hard to get upset over it. “I don’t know what to tell you, Hales. You should talk to your counselor about it. Maybe she can help you out a little bit better than I, or anyone else, can.”

I shake my head tiredly. “She’s not a miracle worker,” I point out, “She can’t just make dreams go away.”

“Jesus, I’m not suggesting that she is,” he counters, holding his hands up in the surrender position, “I’m just thinking that maybe she can help you work through your issues with this, Hales. Help you figure out and confront your fears.”

I glare at him, rolling my eyes. “Well, jeez, Luke, I should think my fears here are fairly obvious: Nathan cheating or Nathan dying.”

That’s not all, though. I haven’t admitted to the worst of my fears, the ones that go above and beyond these horrifying images. There’s others, where I’m in a morgue again, and the body that I identified as not being Nathan’s sits up, pointing at me and telling me that Nathan put him there, that it was my fault for letting Nathan drive, and that Nathan deserved to die. The ones where Mere gets into Nathan’s leftover stash of drugs, and she’s the one lying in a pool of vomit or blood. Those are the worst, those are the ones that threaten to break me.

And I shouldn’t let it, I should know how to separate the nightmares from reality, the reasonable anxieties from the unreasonable terrors, but I can’t. There’s suddenly no line between the two in my mind, and I’m inching towards becoming one of those overprotective parents that I used to mock and wonder about.

“I get what your fears are,” Luke sighs, beginning to get irritated with me, “But I’m just saying that you might need to talk through it to figure out how to get past it, Hales. You don’t have to snap at me, anyway.”

“I’m sorry,” I sigh, instantly contrite, “I just don’t know how to talk about it, Luke. What do I say? I have irrational fears of my boyfriend ending up dead in a gutter in Vegas? Because that’s just stupid sounding.”

“No, it isn’t,” he counters immediately, “And let’s face it, as much as we’d both like it to be otherwise, it isn’t that irrational of a fear. He’s given you reason to be afraid of this. You and I both know he has, whether you want to admit it right now or not.”

There is nothing I can say to argue with that, because he’s right; we both know that these fears aren’t completely off the wall. And he’s right in that we both wish it were otherwise, but it isn’t. And maybe that’s part of what I need to face, or come to terms with. But getting Nathan better, that’s what is important right now, that’s what I’m concentrating on. That’s all that matters to me, not anything else.

“I know,” I whisper, struggling to this time keep the tears at bay, “That’s why it’s so hard. Because I know I’m justified in worrying, but I also know what that little bit of lacking faith does to Nathan. The doubts hurt him. My doubts hurt him worse than anything.”

Luke shrugs. “I’m not trying to be callous or unfeeling, but you’re entitled to your doubts and worries, and he’s going to have to live with them. He did this to himself, Hales, and it isn’t your fault. He made choices, and some of them were really awful ones, and he knew that. He knows it now. You don’t have to bend over backwards to excuse those choices or to pretend like they don’t exist or didn’t happen.”

I blink wearily, nodding slightly. “Is that really what you think I’m doing? Excusing his behavior?”

“I don’t know, maybe, maybe not. Sometimes I think you’re crazy, the way you’ve just jumped through these hoops for him, the way you’ve given him all this leeway, given him all the trust back.”

I regard him tiredly, trying to be fair and let the words sink before I yell at him, but it’s a losing battle and we both know it. “What do you know?”

“Maybe I don’t know anything,” he sighs, “But Hales, I’m just worried about you. I’m glad you told me this, but I’m still worried.”

I shrug haphazardly. “What do you want me to do? Because I really don’t know, Luke. I really don’t know what you or anyone else wants from me right now.”

“Believe it or not, all that any of us want is for you to be safe and happy. I promise you that, Hales. That’s all Dad, Mom, and Keith all care about. It’s definitely all that Brooke and Tim care about. We all love Nathan, and we’re all worried and want the same for him, but Hales, you need that, too, and we want it for you.”

Tearing up, my emotional rollercoaster again catching some speed down a hill going into a turn, I nod. “I know. I do know that, Luke.”

“Okay, good,” he smiles faintly, “Because we’re worried. Mom is practically beside herself with worry over you. Um, you do know that you’ve lost a ton of weight, right? And since you didn’t really have a ton to lose, that’s kind of not good.”

I roll my eyes at that, kicking him hard under the table. “Back off, Lucas Eugene Scott. I eat just fine, thanks.”

He glares at me, pouting a little. “Just watch out for yourself for a change. I know that Nathan and Mere are your priorities, but you’re dropping weight and you look exhausted – not that you don’t look great, just like you’re ready to fall asleep in your salad – and all you do is worry and stress over things you can’t control.” Sighing, he shakes his head. “Don’t make yourself sick, Hales. You’ve done it before, but you’ve got Mere, and you can’t do that. Eat, sleep, do the things that people do on a regular basis.”

I nod at him, knowing that one, he’s right, and two, I’m not getting out of here and away from the scrutiny until I agree with him. “I’ll work on getting more sleep.”

“Good, that’s all I ask,” he smiles, reaching across the table to pat my hand. I have to fight the urge to roll my eyes. “Shoot, I have to get going. I’m going to lunch with Lola and her brother and his girlfriend,” he sighs, “Sometimes I forget that when you date someone and it gets serious, it’s like you’re dating their whole family, too.”

“Never getting serious pays off in some ways, huh?” I tease, but my heart isn’t in it right now. After this talk, the thoughts of the nightmares are at the front of my mind, and they’re all I’m seeing, all I’m really thinking. It’s hard to shove them out of the way to concentrate on what he’s saying.

“Yeah, I guess it did,” he agrees with a small smile, “It’s still not really worth it, though.”

That captures my attention. “It’s getting serious then, with you and Lola?”

He nods, a dreamy smile settling over his face. “Yeah, it’s getting there,” he nods, “She’s really great, Hales. Funny, smart, energetic. I feel like we could be really great together.”

“That’s nice,” I reply absent-mindedly, beginning to go over some of the things I need to do for Mere and Nathan tonight, drifting a little away from the conversation.

He stands up, leaning over and kissing me on the cheek. “I’ll see you soon. You coming out with us on Friday?”

I sigh, shaking my head. “Nope, I’m staying in with Nathan. He can’t go out into a situation like that, Luke, and I’m not going to make it worse by going there without him.”

“Yeah, of course,” he nods quickly, “I’m sorry, I didn’t even think about it.”

He ruffles my hair, smiling at me as he makes his way to the exit. I want to call after him that that’s his problem – he never thinks. But I don’t. And is it really his problem anyway? Or is it mine?

~*~Mid December, 2013~*~

The day has barely started, and already things are going to hell. Meredith is being a whiny brat, and Nathan isn’t much better. He’s supposed to be getting her ready so that I can drop her off with Dan, but they’re both dragging their feet. Of course, today is a day I have a major presentation to make to a client, so why wouldn’t they decide that today is a good day to mess around?

“Nathan, is she ready yet? I need to get going already!” I call impatiently from the kitchen, Mere’s breakfast on the table ready for her.

“Just a minute!” he yells back irritably, “We’re coming.”

I don’t respond, too tired to do even that. Despite my taking Luke’s words to heart, and trying to get rest and eat better, it hasn’t been working that great. I’ve been so busy with things here and at work that I haven’t even found the time to see Janie for another counseling appointment. In a way, I think that knowing I need to talk to her and not having the time has added its own bit of stress.

So I haven’t had the chance to elaborate on what I admitted to Luke, about Nathan keeping his apartment and staying there about half the week. I haven’t had the chance to tell anyone that he told me about a week after I thought he’d moved in that he had kept the apartment or that a week after that, he spent as many nights there as he did at our house. Or what was supposed to be our house. I don’t even know what things are anymore.

And the worst part is that I have to be understanding. I have to make myself understand that this is what Nathan needs, for whatever reason. He needs to not be with me. And I can sit here analyzing that forever, but until he’s ready to explain, I won’t even have the benefit of understanding that.

“Okay, okay, we’re ready,” Nathan mutters as they come down the stairs into the kitchen, Mere in his arms, “Are you satisfied?”

I bite back the ‘no, not really’ that jumps to my lips, sighing instead. “It’s fine, I just have to get going. This is a big presentation for me, Nathan.”

He sets Mere in her booster chair, strapping her in. He glares at me as I put her plate on the table in front of her. “Then next time you should just take responsibility and get her ready yourself, Haley. Save all of us this headache.”

Meredith is watching us with wide eyes, and I don’t want to fight with him now anyway, but I can’t help myself. “I was going to,” I remind him as calmly as I can, “This was your idea, you getting her ready. And you promised she’d be ready with plenty of time for me to drop her off at Dan’s, so I don’t know what your problem is now.”

He doesn’t answer that, just fusses over Meredith, and I turn away, unable to watch it for the moment. I hate this feeling, like not only does he not want me, but he doesn’t even like me anymore. And I know I’m not making things any easier for either of us, but I don’t know how else to react to any of this. I can’t let him walk all over me, but pushing back isn’t doing any good either.

I move to stand at the counter, making like I’m waiting for the coffee to finish brewing so I can fill a travel mug to take with me. Can’t say there weren’t nice fringe benefits to Nathan having worked for the CEO of Starbucks for a few years, I guess. I feel him behind me, and when he wraps his arms around me, pulling me flush against him, I relax into him.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers in my ear, “I’m being a jerk, I know it.”

I shake my head, again ready to absolve his attitude. “No, don’t say that, it’s – “

“I am, Hales,” he sighs, his head resting on my shoulder as he peppers kisses over my neck, “I’m being a jerk, and I don’t know why. And it’s obviously upsetting you, and I’m sorry. It’s like I can’t help myself.”

Although more than a little leery of bringing up my thoughts on the subject, I suck it up, plowing ahead. “I read in one of the addiction books I picked up that there are certain periods of recovery where you’re more susceptible to relapses. And it said that these periods could be characterized by crankiness, withdrawing from loved ones, irritability, and great, now I just sound like I’m quoting directly from a textbook,” I sigh, turning in his arms to look up at him, “I’m sorry. It’s just something I read.”

He rubs a hand over his eyes, keeping his other arm around me. “Maybe that’s it,” he sighs, “I’ve been feeling it worse lately, this last week. I spend more time on the phone with my sponsor than I do reading to Mere, and you know how much I read to her, Haley J.”

“I know,” I agree solemnly, not able to do anything else, “What do you need me to do, Nate? You know that I’m here to help you in any way I can.”

He shakes his head, a somewhat blank look on his face. “I’m sorry, baby. I don’t think there is much you can do except give me space. I just think that is what I need right now. You understand that, right?”

He knows that I don’t. I can see it written all over his face, and I decide that now is not the time to give in and give him what he wants to hear, what he’s willing me to say. “No, I don’t. I don’t understand why that, every time things get tough, when things are at their worst, you turn away from me. I don’t understand that.”

“I don’t have a good answer to give you; nothing you’d like, at least.”

“Just give me the truth!” I implore, “I want to understand, I really do, but sometimes you make it really hard on me. I’m trying, though, and I want to keep trying, but I think I need something to work with here.”

He glances over at Mere, and when he’s satisfied that she’s happily ensconced in her breakfast, he takes me by the hand and leads me out of the room. We step out onto the porch, leaving the door open so that we can hear if she needs us.

“I don’t know how to explain this, Haley J,” he admits, his tone mournful and apologetic, “Do you have any idea how embarrassing this is for me?”

“Nathan – “

“No, let me finish,” he continues, bitterness seeping into his tone, “No, scratch embarrassing – it’s humiliating. It’s humiliating for me to walk around every day with the knowledge of what a letdown I am. With the knowledge of the ways I screwed up and the ways I hurt you and oh, god, the ways I could’ve hurt you or Mere. It’s humiliating and horrific and unbearable, Haley, and sometimes I can’t face that. And I can’t face you.”

I bite hard on my lip, trying to keep quiet, to let him speak his piece. I know he has more to say, and I owe it to him to hear it out.

“I can’t face you knowing all the things I’ve done wrong, all the ways I’ve screwed things up for the two of us. And it should be my burden to bear, my problems to fix, but no, you’re doing it all. You’re bearing the brunt of it, you’re fixing my problems with you and everyone else. You’re smoothing everything over and making it easy on me. And you can’t. That’s why I can’t be here – it isn’t supposed to be easy, and if it is, I’m doing something wrong.”

It hurts, what he’s saying. It hurts that not only does he not want my help, not need it, but it hurts that I am actually a hindrance to his recovery. That I’m a roadblock. I don’t even know what to say to that right now.

“Okay,” I say, taking a deep breath, “What do you want me to do? Leave you alone? Stay away? I – I’m not sure what you need, Nate. You’re going to have to spell it out for me.”

He sighs, looking down at the boards below our feet. “I don’t know,” he finally admits, “I’m sorry, Hales, I wish I had a good answer to give you, baby, but I don’t. Not right now, at least. But I’m working on this, I’m working on getting past my hang-ups.”

“I just don’t understand,” I cry again, sniffling a little, “I don’t get why you won’t let me help you. It doesn’t make any sense! What happened happened, and now we have to work together – together, not separately – to get through this!”

“Can you do that?” he asks bluntly, eyeing speculatively, “I know how much this has hurt you, I know that you have nightmares now. And don’t take this the wrong way, but you look like Hell.”

I don’t know if he’s trying to pick a fight with me, or if he’s just saying these things because they’re true, and he’s finally decided we need a little truthfulness between us. It’s hard to tell at this point.

“Luke said the same thing,” I choke out around an inane and rather inappropriate giggle, “I guess it must be really bad, huh?”

“Aw, baby, I didn’t mean it like that. You just look like you don’t sleep or eat, and that you spend all your time stressing. And I’m just – I don’t want to add to your stress anymore, Hales. It hurts me to hurt you, and I can’t do it anymore.”

“And, and you think that withdrawing from me without an explanation hurts less?” I mutter, finally glaring up at him, “You think that makes it better? God, you don’t get it at all, do you?”

He shakes his head, brushing off my words. “Being around me isn’t helping you,” he argues, “It’s clearly not. That’s why – that’s why I think I should stay away for awhile longer. You and Mere don’t need the stress of me being like this, being this withdrawn jerk, and it’s easier if I just move back to the apartment now.”

“I hate that apartment!” I scream, forgetting myself, “I hate that goddamn place that you keep as a way to escape me, escape from us. I hate that it’s your home base and that I’m not! I hate that you’d rather be there than here!”

I’m sobbing by the time I finish my little tirade, the million pieces that my heart is in feeling like they shatter into a million more each. I hate the way our lives are right now, where for every one moment of happiness we have, there are ten moments of pure unhappiness. It’s never easy anymore, and maybe it isn’t supposed to be, but I don’t think it is supposed to be this hard, either.

“You think this is about what I want?” he starts angrily, “Do you really think that I like how things are? I hate it, I hate this, Haley! I hate that I can’t trust myself not to make you and Mere miserable. I love the two of you more than anything ever, and I still can’t trust that I’m not going to break you both! Do you know how horrible that feels?”

“Then let me help you!” I counter, “Nathan, running away is not going to make this easier on any of us! Remember how miserable you were when you were staying at the apartment full time? You hated it, and you missed us! And God, we missed you. Please, please don’t put any of us through that again!”

There are tears in his eyes as he looks down at me. “Don’t do this,” he warns brusquely, his voice harsh with unshed tears, “Don’t make this harder on either of us, Hales.”

“What about Mere?” I prod, the willingness to fight dirty rising above everything else, “What about her? Have you thought about her at all, what it will do if you suddenly stop staying with us completely? God, Nathan, you are so selfish! So damn selfish.”

He stares at me, a few of the tears falling. “You’re right, I am. I can’t face this right now, I’m not ready.”

“Guilt is a selfish emotion, Nathan,” I warn him, “And shutting me out is worse, way worse. It is so detrimental to everything about this, about us.”

“Haley, I can’t face you right now! You’re damn right I’m guilty, I’m guilty as sin of things you don’t know about and things I can’t remember! Of course that changes things, affects both of us. We can’t pretend it doesn’t,” he finishes quietly, “We can’t live in denial that these things never happened. We can’t pretend.”

I gape at him, incredulous. “You think I pretend? I live with all of this just like you do! I carry it around, too! This isn’t just your mess or your problem; it is mine, too. And do you know why?” I press, angry tears streaming down my face, “Because I love you! And your struggles are my struggles, and your pain is my pain. And your messes and your problems are mine, too. And saying otherwise doesn’t make it so, you know. Just because you wish it were otherwise, it isn’t. Chew on that.”

“I don’t want it to be that way,” he says with a degree of finality that freezes me as I am, and I have to fight off a wave of nausea and dizziness that threaten to drop me, “I can’t share those things with you, Haley. I won’t anymore. It’s my decision, and it’d be easiest on all of us if you respected that.”

“At least be honest!” I mutter tersely, my arms wrapped tight around my middle fighting off both the chill of the air and the cold emanating off of Nathan. “It has nothing to do with what is easy on anyone but you, and you know it!”

“That’s not true,” he protests weakly, “I don’t want to make this harder on you, that isn’t my intention.”

“Well, you’re doing a great job with your wonderful intentions,” I cry, wincing when Mere calls out to me, “Hey, saved by your daughter. How nice for you.”

“Come on,” he calls when I turn to go back in, “I’m not trying to hurt you, Haley!”

“How come every time you try not to, you hurt me worse than ever?” I ask before I can check myself and keep the words in.

His face falls, and for a second, I want to take the words back. But I can’t – I can’t walk on eggshells forever, and if he wants to be so honest about what he needs even if not how he’s feeling, then I’ll be honest back. I owe that to the both of us, not to mention Mere.

“Hurting you really is the last thing I want,” he tells me again quietly as Mere calls for me again. She’s nothing if not persistent. “I mean it, that hurts me more than anything, knowing that I’m hurting you.”

“You know what sucks the most?” I ask rhetorically, “I believe you. I know you don’t want to hurt me. Funny how that isn’t much of a consolation, I guess.”

I don’t wait for him to reply this time. Instead, I walk into the house, going and getting Mere out of her high chair after cleaning her up. She wraps her arms around my neck, just holding onto me quietly. She’s so intuitive to our moods sometimes that it breaks my heart. I wish she was completely unaware of this, but that’s just not possible.

Nathan doesn’t come in, and when Mere asks about him, I brush the question off, kissing her forehead and smoothing her hair back. She’s wearing mismatched shoes and her pants are pink while her shirt is green, but I don’t even care right now. I don’t even care that my makeup is smeared and I’m going to have to redo it in my car before I go into work. It doesn’t matter, none of it matters enough to concentrate on right now.

Once I’ve got all our stuff gathered up and Mere settled into her car seat in the back of the car, I look at her, sighing. “I’m sorry, baby. Mommy’s sorry. We’re going to get this all figured out, you know that? Because Mommy is way too mean and stubborn to let him get away with this, I promise you that. He’s not getting away from us again, no matter how ‘for the best’ his crazy mind thinks it is.”

She looks at me for a few seconds before dissolving into giggles, and I add to it by tickling her a little. “Okay, munchkin, you and I are not going to let your daddy get away from us again, are we? No, we aren’t,” I smile at her, kissing her on the forehead.

Acknowledging that there are things I can do this time feels good on some levels, but it doesn’t take away from any of the fear and sadness and anger, or even the sense of betrayal that it all brings. It hurts so badly, so much that it is something of a wonder to me that I’m even upright and walking right now, let alone capable of being rational enough about it right now to know that I can fight him on this, that I can press for him to come to his senses.

The drive to the dealership passes far too quickly, and before I know it, Mere is clapping her hands delightedly knowing that she’s about to see her papa, and I’m dreading walking in there knowing the questions he’s going to ask when he sees me looking like hell. It takes a lot for me to ignore the surprised looks I get as I hurry Mere back towards Dan’s office.

“There are my two favorite girls!” he exclaims, the smile dying on his face when he takes in my look, “Merry, go say ‘hi’ to Angie, she has some new crayons at her desk, kiddo.” Mere smiles widely at him before doing as he suggested and taking off running down the hall. “What happened, Haley?” he asks without pretense.

I shake my head, trying to compose myself. “Nathan told me he’s officially moving back to his apartment this morning,” I relay, proud of how steady and calm I sound when I feel anything but.

Dan blinks, nonplussed. “What? I thought he gave up his apartment a month or so ago. Even two?”

“He had planned on it, but never did. And then he started staying there a few nights a week, and now he thinks he’s going back there completely.”

“He ‘thinks’?” Dan replies at a loss.

“If I have anything to say about this, and we are disagreeing over whether I do or not, then he’s not. No way, no how. He doesn’t need to be away from me and Mere right now, not when he needs our support.”

Dan nods, sighing. “I guess it was too good to be true, how well he seemed to be doing. Because if he were really doing well, I don’t think he’d want to move out on you two.”

“He’s hit a wall where he’s at a weak point,” I try and explain, going over the main points of what I read and what Nathan told me. “And he just thinks that things will be better for me and Mere if he isn’t there anymore.”

“Obviously you disagree,” Dan surmises smartly, “You’re going to fight him on this?”

“I have to!” I exclaim, “If I let him pull away again, if I let him walk away, then I don’t know that I’ll ever get him back. I don’t know that we can trust this isn’t something he’s doing to make it easier for himself to fail. I’m just really afraid right now.”

“Don’t let your fear be a bad thing,” he counsels, “Take it and make it into something constructive, something that you can use to help him fight this, Haley.” He sighs, leaning back in his chair. “I know this isn’t fair to you, honey. It’s not easy, and it’s not fair, but you’re doing well. And you and I both know he isn’t doing this as a way to hurt you this time.”

“Is that supposed to make it better?” I ask rhetorically, “Because he said the same thing, and the funny thing is, it didn’t really help a whole lot.”

He gives me a sympathetic look, sighing. “I suppose there isn’t a whole lot that will make any of this better, is there?”

“No, there really isn’t,” I agree sadly. “Okay, I’m going to be late, so I should get going now. At least be slightly close to on time.”

“Is, ah, there anything you want to do different with Mere?”

“What do you mean?”

Dan sighs, looking grim. “Do you want him to have access to her? You know he has been stopping by some days and grabbing her – I didn’t know if you wanted to let that continue.”

“God,” I laugh bitterly, “How am I here again? How am I again having to worry about this? How did I ever let myself think I could stop? I knew – I knew – that this wasn’t over, that I still had to worry! I just hoped…”

He nods as I trail off. “Go to work, Haley. Concentrate on work for awhile.”

“Yeah, I’ll try,” I agree, even though we both know that isn’t near as simple as it sounds. In fact, some would say it is the farthest thing from simple possible.

Mere comes flying back in the room, a new stuffed animal clutched in her arms. “Mama, look, look!”

“I see, baby,” I smile at her, bending down to scoop her up. “Okay, sweets, Mommy has to go now. You be a good girl for Papa and everyone else here, okay?”

”’Kay, Mama,” she smiles widely at me, showing off her teeth.

“Okay, I love you.” I hand her to Dan. “I’ll see you both later.”

They wave as I walk out, and I swear, if at the end of it all, she wasn’t such a mama and daddy girl, I’d probably be jealous of how easy Dan’s relationship with her is. It’s insane to me – and especially Nathan – that he can have this great of a relationship with her when it was so horrible with he and Luke growing up. Still is sometimes, even.

The presentation seems like it takes forever, probably because I start feeling like crap halfway through it. Everyone is right, I need to take a breather and get some rest at the very least. I’ve been so exceptionally tired lately that it actually causes the bouts of dizziness and nausea, and I’m tired of feeling sick and tired.

I call Dan that afternoon on my way home, and he tells me that Nathan picked Mere up after his meetings in the morning, which is their normal routine. A part of me is a little surprised that Nathan isn’t separating himself from her in that way. I still think that is part of his intention, but I’m glad that he hasn’t gone that far yet. When he completely cuts himself off from Mere, for “her own good”, then I can only imagine where he’ll be.

When I get back to the house, I find them out in the backyard. He’s helping her down the slide, which is her favorite thing in the world, especially now that there are no ducks to feed. She’s squealing and laughing, and he is watching her with such love that it almost hurts. He looks at both of us that way, so why isn’t it enough? Why don’t I know how to give him what he needs?

Meredith sees me first, running towards me when she hits the bottom of the slide. “Hi Mama!”

“Hi baby!” I beam as she crashes into my legs, “What are you doing, silly girl?”

“Pwaying!”

“Looks like fun,” I laugh, “Can I play, too?”

She hops eagerly at that, grabbing my hand to walk me over to the slide. Nathan chuckles a little as I slide down with her while Mere screams her approval.

“Well, that looked fun,” Nathan comments when Mere runs after Sammy, who just stepped into the backyard with us, “You okay? You look tired.”

“I am tired,” I state flatly, “And I’ll work on that.”

“When I’m out of the house, that should help,” he says softly, tucking a lock of hair behind my ear, “Less to worry about for you.”

I roll my eyes, letting him see my irritation. “That is the most ridiculous thing you’ve said in a long time, Nathan.”

“What? I’m trying to be considerate, and let you and Mere go on in peace while I sort things out.”

“Fine,” I sigh, “That part of it is fine. Noble in a misguided way, but fine, despite the inherent selfishness behind it. But the thing is, it doesn’t give me less to worry about. In fact, it just gives me more. Because when you’re here, I know you’re doing okay. I can see if you’re upset, talk to you when something is bothering you, and try and help you. If you aren’t here, I can’t do that.”

He shakes his head, and it hits me that while he is hearing what I say, he isn’t listening to it. It’s all just background noise to him as he tries to dictate what is best for all of us. “It’ll be easier without me here, you’ll see.”

I sigh heavily, but let it go. Mere’s happy right now, and I don’t really want to upset her by having another fight with Nathan right now. I just want to get through this week, send her off with Brooke and Tim or Luke for the weekend, and fight this out with him then. Doing it now doesn’t seem like the best option.

“I don’t want to fight with you, baby,” he tells me, reaching out and taking me in his arms, “I know this is hurting you, but I don’t want to. That’s the last thing I ever wanted.”

Tired, I nod against his chest. “I don’t want to fight either.” He breathes a sigh of relief. “This isn’t over, and I’m not planning on just accepting this, but I don’t want to fight right now. But we are going to hash this out, just sometime when Mere isn’t here.”

“Haley – “

“No, Nathan, you don’t get to just arbitrarily make the decisions here,” I tell him, “They affect me and our daughter, and I’m damn well going to be a part of any decision making processes that go on in regards to who lives where.”

“Oh, like I was when you decided to move the two of you across the country,” he snaps, wincing when I wrench myself out of his arms, “I’m sorry, that’s not fair.”

“No, it isn’t! God, I can’t believe you still think it was wrong of me to get her out of there!” I exclaim, trying to keep my voice down as I notice Mere watching us while she tries to drag the puppy around. “I thought you said you understood!”

“And I thought you said that you were wrong!”

“Maybe I was wrong,” I allow, “Maybe we should’ve stayed in a hotel, or with Damien and Melissa. It wasn’t wrong to get her out of that house, though, and you know it.”

He immediately nods his agreement. “You’re right, I do know that. I was out of control, and neither of you needed to be exposed to that then, and you don’t need to be now, either.”

“It’s different now!”

“No, it isn’t, not really,” he sighs, “I feel that same way, like I could snap at any second. That’s not something you guys should be around, not when I’m like that.”

“You were on drugs then,” I argue, “And you aren’t now. Unless there’s something that you aren’t telling me, because if there – “

“God, no, I’m not!” he interjects, “I swear, Haley J, I’m not using now. If you believe anything from me, believe that!”

I nod, already having been reasonably assured of that. “Then why?”

He looks down at his hands, which I notice are shaking. “Because I’m scared!” he whispers brokenly, “I don’t – I’m so fucking scared that I’m going to fall, Haley. And if I do, then I need to be away, I don’t need either of you to see that again. I don’t need anyone to see it.”

“Oh, Nathan,” I whisper, grabbing his hands, “Oh, baby.”

“No, Haley, don’t, there’s nothing you can say to – “

“I love you,” I tell him, imploring him to believe that, “And I am going to do anything I have to, to help you, Nathan!”

“There’s nothing you can say to make me feel better about any of this,” he warns me even as he lets me wrap my arms tight around him, “Nothing.”

He sounds so despondent and lost that I can’t help but feel bad that I’m pushing him so hard on this. “We could never be better off without you. And this isn’t even about me or Mere right now, this is about you. It’s you I’m worried about, it’s your sobriety I’m worried about. I trust you, Nathan, even if you can’t trust yourself.”

He sighs, resting his head on the top of mine. “I hate this, Haley J, I really do.”

“I know,” I agree, squeezing him tighter, “You can’t run away from me, though. It isn’t what is best for any of us. Especially not you, and getting you through this sober is what really matters to me.”

“It matters to me, too,” he whispers, “The problem is, I don’t know if I can do it anymore. I thought I could, I thought I was doing a good job, but a couple of weeks ago, it wasn’t so easy anymore.”

“What happened?”

He shakes his head, tightening his hold on me. “I don’t know what triggered it. One morning I just woke up, and my first thought was ‘where are my pills?’ It’s just gotten worse since then.”

“What does your sponsor say?” I ask gently.

“That ‘it’s normal, we all go through it, it happens to everyone at some point in recovery, you’ll get through it’,” he relates snidely with a sneer in his voice, “He acts like it is easy or something.”

I pull back far enough to look up at him. “Well, what did he suggest you do to get through it? What does he think about you wanting to move out on your own?”

His frown is answer enough for me. “He said it wasn’t such a good idea,” he admits, “That I need support from you and that being around Mere is the biggest incentive I have to stay sober. He said I shouldn’t deprive myself of that.”

“But you still disagree,” I note, taking a deep breath and moving further away. As I collect my thoughts, I let my gaze drift over to Mere who is now chasing the puppy through the yard. “Nathan, don’t you think that if your sponsor is telling you moving out is a bad idea, that it might just be something of a bad idea?”

“Staying is worse,” he argues, “If I self-destruct again, at least this way you and Mere are out of the blast zone.”

I snort at that. “Why are you playing ignorant? You have to know that no matter how physically far away you are, anything that happens to you happens to us, too! Living away from us doesn’t mean we’ll love or care about you any less at all. Absence makes the heart grow fonder, right?”

He sighs, but doesn’t immediately deny it or argue with me. “This doesn’t change things; I’m not trying to say it does.”

“Doesn’t change what?” I challenge him, “What is supposed to stay the same with you living somewhere else?”

“How much I love you!” he exclaims, “How much I love you and Mere, that would never change.”

“You can’t protect us from this, Nathan,” I insist hotly, “You can’t change the way things are, and running away from a problem doesn’t make it go away. God, you have to know that by now.”

His face reddens, but I’m not sure if it is in embarrassment or anger. “Well, thank you, Captain Obvious,” he snaps, and I guess I have my answer, “Unfortunately, we can’t all learn the easy way like you did.”

I open my mouth to respond, but Mere comes running over. “Mama, Mama, Mama!”

“Hi sweets,” I grin at her, bending to pick her up, “I missed you today. My pretty, little girl.”

“Dad wants to get her one of those motorized cars,” Nathan tells me, “She’s always trying to crawl into the ones at the dealership. Says he’s finally found someone in the family that can take over there when he retires.”

I smile a little at that. “She just likes whatever is available. Maybe you’ll still have your little basketball star.”

“I hope not. Basketball has never been anything but trouble for anyone in this family. She doesn’t need to be exposed to that.”

I can feel my eyebrows shoot up in surprise. This is the first time I’ve ever heard him talk like this, and I’m not sure how to react. In some ways, I think it is a fleeting thought that all of us have had at some point, but in others, it seems like the furthest thing from the truth. And on Nathan’s part, it seems self-destructive, like he’s blaming basketball for his problems.

“I hope you aren’t blaming basketball for – for anything,” I say neutrally, pausing to kiss Mere on the cheek, “It might’ve been a contributor, but it didn’t cause it.”

He laughs bitterly. “All my life, basketball was supposed to be the one thing I could do, the one thing that I was good at. How the hell do you think I felt when I wasn’t good at it anymore, when I wasn’t better than anyone else?”

“I wouldn’t know, you never told me. You never talked about it. Whenever I asked, you’d tell me it was fine and leave it at that! You never, ever told me that any of it didn’t feel right!” I remind him, hoping he gets this, hoping he gets why it scares me that he seems to put so much of this back onto a sport.

“What was I supposed to say?” he asks, reaching out to take Mere, “That I was the worst player on the team. Would you have asked how that made me feel? Not good, Haley J. It made me feel pretty crappy, actually.”

“Nathan…”

“Come on, there’s nothing you can say,” he sighs, bouncing Mere in his arms to make her laugh, “And maybe I should’ve said something about that. But I didn’t, and there’s nothing I can do about that now.”

“You can start talking to me about the things that are bothering you now,” I persist, “You can tell me what you’re worried about, why you’re afraid you’re slipping. I can’t help you if I don’t know what’s wrong; you should know that by now.”

He shrugs helplessly. “What do I know anymore?”

“Nathan, don’t,” I whisper harshly, but Mere doesn’t notice as she spots Sammy trying to sneak back in the house and starts squirming to be let down.

“Don’t what?” he asks when she’s down, “Don’t finally take the chance and be honest with you and myself? Don’t own up to the fact that I don’t know anything anymore? I have to start admitting these things, baby. For both our sake.”

I give him a hard look, wanting to throw my hands up in the air. He gets some parts of this in such a crystal clear way that I just want to yell at him to pull his head out of his ass on the others. “How can you know this but not get that you need me around, that you need me to help you through this!”

“How are you proposing to help, Haley?” he asks tiredly, walking over and sitting down on the steps up to the deck, “Are you going to hold my hands when they shake, pat me on the head when I start dry heaving, whisper platitudes when I want to run – literally run – to the liquor store or that bar on Main Street where they say you can get anything you need?”

“Yes, to all of that,” I state emphatically, “Nathan, if you need it, I’ll do it. I will be here for you in whatever way you need. But you have to be here, or at least willing to not completely kick me out of your life right now.”

He shakes his head. “I’m moving out,” he says firmly, “It’s for the best. You don’t have to agree with me, but it isn’t really your choice to make.”

I gape at him, doubt over whether I’ll be able to talk him out of this inundating me. “Nathan, please, don’t make this decision right now.”

“I made it awhile ago, Haley.”

“No, you – you have to talk to me about this, you owe me that. You don’t get to make these decisions that are about all three of us like this all on your own. That’s not fair. That’s not right!”

He shakes his head, leaning forward to rest his forearms on his knees. “I know it isn’t. I’m sorry for that, but right now, what I need is the space to do this my way. I know how selfish that is, and I know it’s hurting you, and I’m sorry for that. I really, really am.”

“But you’re leaving anyway.”

He nods this time, avoiding eye contact. “I’ll pack up the few things I haven’t already taken over there, and be out of your hair today.”

He’s so resigned to what is happening to us, with him, that in that second, it hits me too and I know he’ll be leaving. I can’t tie him to a chair and make him stay, and he’s clearly not ready to hear anything I have to offer on what he should do, where he should be. He’s going. Maybe he’s already gone, and I just didn’t realize it until this second.

~*~Late December, 2013~*~

“Mama, wake up, mama! Pwesents, I get pwesents!”

I roll over to check the clock, blinking wearily as Mere and her dog bounce on the bed beside me. “Sweets, it’s only 6, can’t Mama sleep some more?”

She laughs at that, like I told her a joke or tickled her belly. “No! Pwesents!”

I roll my eyes, inwardly cursing Brooke and Tim for so thoroughly driving into her head exactly what Christmas is about. “Baby, no presents yet. We’ll open presents tonight at Grandma Karen’s and Grandpa Keith’s house, okay? You have to wait.”

“No,” she says firmly, like that’ll get me to change my mind.

“Yes,” I tell her, managing to keep a straight face even though the mutinous look she’s sporting is about the cutest thing ever and makes me think I should keep a camera by my bed. “Lie down here, kiddo,” I tell her, patting the pillow beside mine.

“Daddy’s,” she says softly, staring at the pillow as her lower lip quivers. Nathan hasn’t been to visit either of us once since he moved out. He calls once or twice a day, mostly to assure me in whatever way he can that he hasn’t started abusing anything again, but shockingly enough, that isn’t enough for me or Mere. We don’t even know if he’ll make an appearance today or tomorrow yet.

“Yeah, that’s Daddy’s pillow,” I agree, pulling her to my side and kissing her forehead. It’s on the tip of my tongue to tell her he’ll be back soon, that we’ll see him today or tomorrow, but I don’t know if that is a lie or not. I just can’t make that promise to her if I can’t necessarily keep it. “We’ll call him later, okay? We’ll let him sleep a little longer than you let me,” I tell her, lifting up her nightshirt and blowing raspberries on her tummy.

“We are going to have such a fun Christmas,” I promise her as she settles down next to me. I mean it, too. She will have a nice Christmas if it kills me. No matter what Nathan decides to do in relation to being here with us and celebrating the holiday, our daughter will have a good day.

“Santa come,” Merry giggles, sitting up when Sammy jumps up on the bed with us, “Santa come!”

“Yeah, Santa’s coming,” I smile at her, “And we get to see everyone today, too. Grandma Karen and Grandpa Keith, Papa and Grandma Deb, Luke, Brooke, Tim, and Eric. We’ll have so much fun, baby.”

We lie in bed together for awhile longer, watching cartoons and being goofy and playing with Sammy. Eventually, I can’t put off feeding her anymore, and we tromp downstairs together in our PJs, and I fix her French toast. She’s mushing her syrupy bread together with bananas, and it is all I can do not to puke right there at the table.

And it is in that second that I have to face, on a lonely Christmas eve no less, what I’ve been trying to deny to myself for the better part of two months: I’m pregnant. And it isn’t that I don’t necessarily want to be pregnant, but it is definitely the case that I have the world’s worst timing with this sort of thing. Still not married, still in a relationship that is in a state of flux, and again not living with my children’s father.

Knowing that I can’t put it off any longer, that it’s time to know for sure, I bundle Mere up and drag her out to the store on the pretense of picking up a few things I need for the baking I’m doing today and tomorrow. Not that she needs a pretense or anything, but somehow I feel like I need an excuse in all of this.

As I walk through the aisles of the store rapidly grabbing a few other things off the shelves, I begin to wonder if part of the reason I didn’t admit that I was pregnant, to myself at least, was because I just know that this is something I can use to play on Nathan’s guilt. A way to bring him back, to try and reel him back in and get him home with us. And somehow, that doesn’t seem fair to any of us. A baby isn’t a weapon, and doing that would be using it as one.

When we get home, I settle Mere in front of the TV with the Rudolph movie, which she loves, even though I’ve always thought claymation was way creepy, and then I immediately go and take the test. It is positive, of course, just like I knew it would be. I’m lingering in this weird place where I don’t know if it is okay to be thrilled about this considering all that is going on with Nathan, or if I should be upset by the lousy timing.

In the end, the thrill wins out. It was never a matter of if Nathan and I would have another child, but when. And sure, the timing would only have been farther from perfect if I’d found this out when Nathan was on his Vegas rampage. I honestly cannot imagine a worse time that that would’ve been, so I can take some comfort in that.

The other thing I take comfort is the knowledge that my last pregnancy drew Nathan and me much closer. It’s possibly selfish, but I have hopes that this will be the same. That this baby will do what Mere did for us. It’s an unfair expectation for all of us, but there it is. Without thinking, I pick up the phone and dial Nathan’s number.

“Hi Haley J.”

“Hey you,” I greet softly, mentally crossing my fingers that he’s amenable to what I’m going to ask him. “How are you doing?”

“I’ve been better, but I’ve been a lot worse,” he concedes, “I, ah, miss you and Mere a lot, baby.”

Bittersweet hope rushes to my heart at his words. “Oh, Nathan, we miss you, too, so much. So damn much.” I pause, weighing what to tell him. “Mere was asking for you this morning. She seemed mildly offended that I told her to lie down on ‘your’ pillow.”

He chuckles quietly at that, so quietly I barely hear it. “Everything’s okay, right? You’re not calling because of some huge emergency?”

“We’re fine,” I assure him, “Are we – god, I hate to ask you this, and I hate even more that I hate it because it makes me uncomfortable – but are we going to see you today or tomorrow? I, um, I have a present for you, one that’s really important.”

He sighs, and I know what he’s going to say. ‘I can’t, I’m not ready, I have other things to do.’ He surprises me, though. “Yeah, I was hoping to come over tonight and spend some time with just you and Merry. I don’t know if I need to do this with everyone else around. I saw Luke and his girlfriend at the store the other day, and Luke gave me an earful and they both glared at me the whole time. Yours is the only opinions that I care about, but dealing with that wouldn’t make a nice night for any of us.”

It is such a relief to hear him say that I almost burst into tears of relief and happiness. Damned hormones anyway. “I’m so glad,” I tell him quickly, “Anytime you want, we can be here. In fact, we’ll cut dinner at Karen and Keith’s short and be back here by 6. Does that work?”

“Hey, don’t change your plans, you don’t have to do that.”

“Oh, I want to!” I exclaim, not wanting him to try and back out of it, “Nathan, I’ve seen them every day for the last couple of weeks, but I haven’t seen you at all. I miss you, and I desperately want to see you and give you your present and let Mere see her daddy.”

I can practically hear his internal debate, but to my relief, he gives his agreement. “I’d really like that. I miss you both, a lot.”

“How – how are things going, Nathan?”

“I’m not using, if that’s what you’re trying to ask,” he tells me, amusement in his voice, which does a lot more to comfort me than the words do. Before, a question like that might’ve put him on the defensive, or got him angry; this is a nice change of pace for us.

“I’m not sure if it was,” I smile into the phone, “But I’m really glad to hear it.”

“You’re a liar,” he laughs with me, “It definitely was what you were asking. And you know, I don’t blame you. It isn’t like I’ve done a lot lately to give you much in the way of faith in me, right?”

“How much do you have in me?” I ask, unable to help myself. That feels like quite the common theme for me lately.

The silence that lingers on his end of the line tells me I’ve managed to surprise him. “Haley J, I believe in you. I believe that you’re the only person who can help me, but that you’re also the only person I can really hurt. Th – that’s why this is so hard, why it has always been so hard.”

“Come over now,” I insist impulsively, “I’ll call Karen, and tell her we’ll be there tomorrow instead. We can drop by Tim and Brooke’s tomorrow, too. It – I love them, you know I do, but I’d rather spend today with just you and Mere. Please, come over now.”

He laughs at the insistence, but when he asks about it, his voice is unsure. I hate to think that I did that to him. “Really? Now? Hales, I meant what I – “

“God, just get over here now!” I laugh, twirling in a little circle in the middle of my kitchen, “Just come surprise your daughter. Bring over the mounds of presents I know you’ve bought for her, and get over here now!”

He agrees, and we hang up after that, and I race around frantically trying to get things picked up and in order. Mere has fallen asleep in front of the TV, so vacuuming is out, but everything else gets put away and wiped off. I don’t know why I care so much all of a sudden, but there’s just this voice inside of me telling me to make things perfect, special.

The call to Karen goes fine. I knew she’d be okay with us begging off, especially once I promise we’ll stop by tomorrow. She understands that Nathan is who we need to be with right now, and she doesn’t begrudge me that. Brooke, Tim, and Luke are a little iffy on it, but Luke and Tim shrug it off fairly quickly. Brooke is always the harder sell when it comes to Nathan; she’s never really cared much for him, and I think she’s felt like he’s her competition for my affections. Rationally, she knows that isn’t the case, but I think sometimes the irrational parts win out.

When he gets here, Mere is so excited to see him that her squeals are intermingled with sobs. It’s sad and funny, but better than him not being here, even if she gets upset by it for a few minutes. She does get over it fairly quickly, as I had promised him when he looked up at me with a shell-shocked expression, and then she’s clinging to him as she tells him all about everything ever. She’s cute enough on her own, but it is his rapt expression that has me pulling out the camera and snapping frame after frame on the digital camera he bought me when I started at the firm in Seattle.

As predicted, he did indeed bring a mountain of presents for both of us. It is so obviously a major way that he spent his time since he moved completely out of here that I can’t even be put out over how much he spent. Meredith loves all of her new things, and crashes out on the middle of the floor while playing with her new Barbie© dream house.

“So, that was fun,” he smiles up at me from his spot on the floor next to her.

I nod my agreement, smiling back. “It was wonderful. I’m really glad we decided to do it this way. Sorry I didn’t have any real food in the house,” I tell him, “I was in charge of desserts.”

“Does that mean poor Lukie is going to have to go without pie tonight?” he asks in a mock sad voice, “Poor baby.”

I laugh at him, throwing a pillow his way. “I’m sure Karen whipped something up. At any rate, no one starved.”

“I suppose not,” he agrees, holding his hand out to me. Eagerly, I reach out and take it, moving down beside him on the floor.

“I have a present for you,” I tell him slowly, looking up at him.

“You already gave me a bunch of stuff,” he reminds me, “What else could there possibly be?”

Reaching into my back pocket, I pull out the baggie holding the positive pregnancy test. “I hope that this is as good for you as it is for me.”

His eyes widen in surprise. “I – how – when did you find out?”

Well, it isn’t the whooping and cheering I was hoping for, but it is significantly better than what I got last time, so I’ll take it. How could I not, right?

“Today,” I tell him, “Maybe I knew before that, subconsciously, I can’t really decide, but I knew it today. Mere was eating French toast, and mushing it together with a banana, and I thought I was going to be sick right there in the kitchen. And I’ve been feeling bad for awhile.”

“Bad like you need to go to the hospital bad?” he asks, immediately switching into his overprotective gear in that effortless way I’ve always admired, “You just found out today? Really?”

“Yeah, really, and no, I’m fine. It’s just nausea, nothing big.” I can see the traces of a smile on his face, and I find myself feeling a little more comfortable with all of this. “You’re the only person that knows,” I tell him, knowing that is what he wants – no, needs – to hear.

He lets out a relieved laugh at that, his hands coming up to cup my cheeks. “I am so happy to hear that,” he admits, laughing again, “We’re having a baby again?”

“Yeah, we are,” I nod, leaning forward to press my lips to his, “You and I are having another baby.”

“Oh, god,” he laughs, throwing his arms around me and yanking me onto his lap, “A month ago, I might’ve thought that we’d never get this again, that you’d never want to expose another child to me.”

“That was never the case,” I tell him, pressing kisses along his jaw, “I’ve always wanted your children – several of your children.”

“We’re having a baby,” he repeats, his hand dropping down to rest on my still mercifully flat belly. This kid is going to be born in the summer, and I am already not relishing the idea of being hugely pregnant in July. Nope, not at all, not even a little. Pregnant? Yes. Pregnant in July? Not so much.

“Is it okay?” I ask hesitantly. His reaction suggests that it is, but I want him to let himself want this, not shut himself away from this like he has been with me and Mere lately.

He presses a long, slow kiss to my lips. “I’m sorry I’ve made you doubt that,” he tells me, “Of course it’s okay. This is what I want, just you and Mere and a baby. Maybe it isn’t as perfect as I thought it would be, but this is what I’ve wanted. And maybe – maybe – “

“Maybe this baby is the way, the reason, that you find a way to stay sober,” I finish when he doesn’t seem to have the words.

“It isn’t like that,” he whispers, his head dropping to rest on my shoulder, his hands still lightly tracing over my abdomen. “You and Mere are my reason for everything, for living. This is just icing on the cake, I guess. Does that make sense?”

I nod, kissing his temple. “Perfect sense. You and Mere are the world to me, and having another baby just makes it that much better.” I pause, not snapping out of my reverie until his hands still on me and he pulls away to look at me questioningly. “Come home, please. If you’re ready, come home.”

“Maybe it’s time,” he agrees, “But this isn’t just for the baby. It’s for all of you. It – it’s for me, too.”

“That’s all I want,” I assure him, meaning it completely. More than anything, I want him to want to be back here, and if that’s the case, then as he said, the rest is just icing on the cake.

Chapter Sixteen – Touch of Grey

‘Oh well a touch of grey

Kind of suits you anyway

That was all I had to say

And it's alright

I will get by’ – R. Hunter/J. Garcia

~*~January, 2014~*~

“What are you and Nathan doing for Valentine’s Day?” Tim asks me in that way where he’s trying to ask me something specific, but doesn’t know how or really think he wants to ask.

I shrug, watching Mere chase Sammy through the backyard, bundled up in a puffy coat with a scarf trailing behind her like a streamer. “We haven’t really talked about it yet. Probably stay in, spend time with Mere.”

“That’s what you do every night,” he points out, sounding more appalled than I really think is necessary, “You guys should go out, have fun. Come on, James, be romantic.”

Looking over at him, I sigh deeply. “Okay, Timmy, what’s going on?”

“What?”

“What do you want to ask me?”

He glares, swinging his gaze out towards Mere and the dog. “Well, you know I chickened out at Christmas, right?”

Boy, did I ever. And Brooke hasn’t let me hear the end of it since. She found a ring that Tim bought, presumably/obviously for her, and waited all Christmas for some big, romantic gesture. It never came. I give him a look that says, yes, I know you chickened out and that you’ve been paying for it ever since.

“Right, of course you know,” he nods dopily, a little of the goofy awkwardness he carried around when he was younger coming out, “I think she knows, too.”

“Oh, Tim,” I sigh, burying my head in hands. “Of course she knows. It’s Brooke. Even if she hadn’t found the ring – “

Oops.

“She found the ring?” he hollers, and I cringe, wishing the ground would open up and swallow me whole, “How – when – how?”

“Damn it, you aren’t supposed to know that,” I sigh, rubbing my forehead in an attempt to ward off the headache I feel coming on. “I wasn’t supposed to say anything. Ugh, Brooke is so going to kick my ass.”

“Well, did you tell her I was going to ask her at Christmas?” he asks nervously, “Because that would be bad, so very bad.”

“Of course not!” I assure him, “I’m not that bad of a blabbermouth. Look, she doesn’t even want you to know she found the ring. I mean, she wants you to know she’s pissed that you haven’t asked, but she doesn’t want you to know that she knows you’ve at least considered it and bought a ring.” Huh. “Does that make sense?”

“Does anything with Brooke ever make sense?” he retorts.

I shrug, unable to argue that point. “Look, Timmy, I’m sorry. God, this is your fault, though! I told you I didn’t want to be in the middle of any of this, and yet, here I am! Smack-dab in the middle. This is just a mess. One that you’re going to fix, right?”

He looks at me blankly. “How? How am I supposed to fix this screw-up?”

I hook my arm through his, smiling brightly at him. Because this, this is something I know. “You ask her, Tim. I know you’re ready, and she’s ready, so do something nice, plan some big, huge thing, and ask her.”

“On Valentine’s Day?” he asks skeptically.

I blink at that, thinking of all the ways that would go badly. “Maybe a holiday isn’t such a good idea. Plus, she’ll expect it then. I mean, not that I advocate torture of any kind, but putting it off until the day after doesn’t seem like such a bad idea, right?”

He laughs at that. “Oh, you’re right. She’ll be livid. She’ll probably say ‘no’ at first.”

“Just at first,” I assure.

“I know,” he agrees, “I know we’re ready for this, and I know she’ll say ‘yes’.”

“Good,” I smile, clapping my hands together, “Ooh, a wedding, Tim! This is going to be so great, I can’t wait!”

He rolls his eyes at me, laughing. “It’ll be huge, won’t it?”

“The biggest,” I confirm. “As if Brooke would have it any other way.”

He looks a little green at that, but to his credit, just nods. “Yeah. Well, okay. Okay, we can do that, we’ll make it work.”

“Yes, you will. I’m happy for you both, I hope you know that.”

“Of course we do, Hales! Why would you think otherwise?”

I look at him pointedly, sighing. “I’m just so wrapped up in my own life and my own problems so often these days that it doesn’t even feel like I have a presence in anyone else’s. I hate that feeling, but at the same time, I don’t know what to do to change it, either.”

“Hey, we understand, James. There isn’t anyone here that doesn’t get why your focus is so devoted to your own things right now. You have a lot on your plate, and we don’t begrudge you that or expect anything from you,” he tells me.

“But you should be able to!” I exclaim in argument, “I’m supposed to be a friend here! Or a daughter or sister! And I’m none of those things right now. I’m just this selfish person that has this world that is narrowed to Mere and Nathan, and honestly, if I could change that, I don’t know that I would.”

He falls silent for a moment, watching Mere pat Sammy on the head. “You know, I feel the same way about Brooke sometimes. Like, no matter how much I love you and Luke and my family, sometimes I just think that if Brooke was all I had, then it would be okay. That I could live with that, happily, even.”

“So you really think that it’s okay, that this is how things are?”

“Yeah,” he shrugs, “I don’t know. I mean, maybe when you find your family, when you know who and what is where your life is, maybe that eclipses some of the other things. And maybe that’s okay.”

I nod, not sure what to say. We sit in silence for a few minutes longer, watching Mere and the dog. He finally announces that he has to leave, and I again assure him that there isn’t a chance Brooke will say ‘no’, and that I still think not doing it on Valentine’s Day is his best bet. We both agree that some things are just too cliché.

“Hey, what about the day after?” he asks out of the blue.

“Day after what?” I ask absently, smiling to myself as Mere lies down, using Sammy as her pillow. Even that dog indulges this child. Somehow, I see her having a huge problem with having a sibling.

“Day after Valentine’s Day,” he duhs me, “To ask Brooke to marry me. Like you said, on V-Day would be too cliché, too obvious, but the day after would be unexpected, it’s a Saturday! That, I don’t know, that could work, right?”

“It would totally work!” I agree, high-fiving him, “In fact, it’s perfect!”

“You think?”

“Hell, yeah,” I laugh, “Tim, think about it, she’s going to be expecting V-day. I could even drop hints that it’ll be V-day. When it doesn’t happen, she’ll probably be livid. But if you do it the next, in this obviously elaborate way that proves you intended to do it that way all along, she’ll love it.”

He sighs, shaking his head. “No matter what I do now, she’ll be pissed at me for at least a small amount of time, right?”

I try to hide my smile, but he knows me too well, and it doesn’t work. So I settle on grinning at him hugely, and nodding. “Yup, I’m sure she will really make you pay when she realizes you aren’t proposing on V-day. She will like this better, though, when she realizes what you’ve done.”

“Huh,” he nods, thinking it through, “So I’ll need to do something big for V-day, right? To throw her off?”

“You’re devious!” I exclaim, shaking my head, “She’s going to kill you. I mean, she’ll feel bad about it when you propose with your dying breath, but she’s totally going to kill you.”

“You said that this was the way to do it!” he protests loudly, “If she’s really going to flip, then you better tell me now!”

“Of course she’s going to flip,” I laugh, patting him on the shoulder, “But it’ll be worth it. She’s going to be so over the moon when you propose. That’s like, every girl’s dream, to be proposed to by the man she loves.”

He sighs, leaning back on his elbows. “So that sounds like you’re talking about yourself there, James. Maybe I won’t be calling you ‘James’ for too much longer?”

“Dream on,” I bite out, sounding bitter enough that I’m embarrassed, “I don’t think that’s coming down the pike any time soon. Nathan and I have too many things to deal with.”

“It’ll happen,” he states confidently, giving me a little bit of the hope that has been torn and shredded on the road Nathan and I have taken, “Give him – and yourself – some time. Fix things first, and you know it’ll happen. God, he worships you. If I was a girl, I’d probably be jealous. Brooke is, you know?”

“What?” I ask, dumbfounded, “Jealous of Nathan?”

“No, of you,” he corrects, “Of how Nathan loves you. Of how he kept it going all those years you two spent apart, and how he can pull himself out of the gutter pretty much just for you.”

I nod, pushing a strand of hair off my face. “We’ll see. He never asked me before, maybe he won’t ask me now, either.”

“You don’t believe that and neither do I,” Tim asserts, “Look, I should get going. It’s true, though, he’ll ask. When he’s ready to be the guy that you need again. The one that you fell in love with a zillion years ago.”

After he leaves, I let Mere play for a few more minutes before calling her into the house. Nathan went to an NA meeting, and was going to go out for coffee with his sponsor afterward, so I go ahead and make her dinner. I’m still having a hard time eating – this no appetite thing is such a dramatic change from the first pregnancy – but I manage to eat an entire bowl of mac and cheese.

When we’re finished, we curl up on the couch together watching one of the Shrek movies. Nathan and I agreed a long time ago that as far as movies that were appropriate for her go, at least we can love these ones, too. Or more even, probably.

“Daddy!” Mere squeals when he walks in the room, “Daddy, Daddy, I pwayed with Tim today!”

“You did?” he questions, dropping on the couch beside me and giving me a sweet kiss, “Hey baby. Did you wear him out, Merry?”

She giggles at that, climbing over my lap to get to him. “Hi Daddy!”

“Hi princess,” he beams at her, winking at me, “Did you have mac and cheese for dinner? I think there’s still some in your hair.”

She frowns, and Nathan and I both laugh. “We decided to watch a movie tonight before heading up for her bath,” I tell him.

“You were just saving bathtime for me, weren’t you?” he accuses lightly, “Now that she’s on that new splashing kick.”

“Oh, you found out my nefarious plan,” I laugh, “What are you going to do about it?”

He winks at me, leaning over me to set Mere back on my other side before sliding his arms around me and dragging me to his side. “Oh, I’ll think of something,” he murmurs, dropping kisses over my neck and up to my cheeks. “It’ll be good, too.”

“I’m sure it will,” I agree, stifling a moan.

“Is it almost Munchkin’s bedtime?” he asks quietly, his hands skating over the slight bump of my belly, “Because I’m suddenly ready for bed myself.”

I giggle, unable to help it. Sometimes I feel like such a teenager around him, even now. “I promised her she could watch the movie,” I remind him, leaning into his touch, “She’ll throw a fit if we turn it off now.”

“Maybe this would be a good time for a lesson in Indian giving,” he suggests, half-kidding, half-hopeful, “You know, promise her something and then bust it away after an hour.”

“Nathan!” I exclaim, choking back a laugh, “That’s horrible!”

“Mommy!” Mere frowns at me, “You’re too loud! I can’t hear Donkey!”

“Oh, I’m sorry baby!” I assure her, kissing her on the forehead, “I’ll be quiet.” She gives me a look like ‘damn right you will’ and goes back to watching the movie. “Guess I got told,” I whisper to Nathan.

“You sure did,” he smirks at me.

“Daddy!” Mere exclaims, glaring hotly at him, “Shhhh!” She holds her fingers to her lips, blowing raspberries against them, and both Nathan and I dissolve into laughter at that. “Hey!”

“We’re sorry, kiddo,” Nathan promises her, “But you’re just being funny. Even funnier than Donkey.”

She looks at him, and I swear, rolls her eyes. “Shh, Daddy!” she yells in exasperation.

Nathan’s eyes are wide when I look over at him. “Did she roll her eyes at me?”

I nod. “Yeah, I think she did,” I affirm, trying to stifle the laugh that threatens to spill out.

“It isn’t funny,” he frowns, “We – are we supposed to let her talk like that to us?”

“Probably not,” I sigh, “I’m just feeling too sentimental about how big she’s getting to get upset with her these days. And then with the new baby on the way, I just don’t want to – well, I don’t know. I guess that sounds stupid.”

He grins at me. “She’s not quite three, baby. I think we have a little time left with her,” he teases me.

“Aren’t the fathers the ones that are typically overprotective and weepy about their kids growing up?” I tease back, “Particularly their little girls?”

“Well, maybe we’ll have another little girl so I can put off the overprotective and weepy days for a little longer.”

I snort back a laugh. “Please, you wouldn’t let Mere out of your sight if you could help it!” I point out.

“Neither would you,” he whispers, pulling me against his side, “But I wouldn’t let either of you out of mine, if I could help it. I like knowing you’re safe and happy. That was one of the hardest parts of being away from you. Any of the times I’ve been away from you, for any of the reasons.” He plants a soft kiss on my temple. “Know what I mean?”

As if I couldn’t. The last year has been a hellish nightmare of waiting to hear from him, waiting to know he’s okay. Luckily I’ve had Mere with me for the vast majority of that time, but it has been more than enough to worry about Nathan’s well-being.

“Yeah, I know,” I tell him, plastering a smile on my face.

“Hey, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean – I mean, I know that you’ve had a lot more to worry about than I ever have. I know that, Haley J. I really do.”

I nod, my smile a little more natural and easy this time. “Yeah, I know,” I assure him, and I do. He gets it now, gets how hard this has been on me and everyone else. It’s a small comfort, but sometimes we have to take what we can get, I suppose.

We fall into a silence, but it doesn’t bother me. It does bother Nathan, though; I can tell by the way he starts fidgeting. He sighs, tipping my chin towards him. “I’m sorry for wrecking the mood,” he whispers, still mindful of Mere and her need for quiet, “Bringing that stuff up is probably the last thing you want right now.”

“We can’t tiptoe around it forever,” I tell him, shrugging, “I’d rather talk about it than avoid it. That’s the one thing I’m sure of. I think talking about it will help us, at least to a certain degree.”

He nods thoughtfully. “We’ve talked a lot the last couple of months,” he points out, “Aren’t you worried that it will start to feel like we’re analyzing things to death?”

I kiss him on the cheek. “Maybe it will,” I agree, willing to let things drop for now. I don’t doubt that there will be a point in time when we’ll need to have these tough discussions, but if now isn’t that time, then I don’t need to force it.

“I love you,” he murmurs, pressing his lips to mine, “I love you so much, Hales.”

“I love you, too,” I smile, wrapping my arms around his neck, “I’m so happy that you’re home with us.”

The movie is nearing the end, and Mere is singing along with the Fairy Godmother, prompting Nathan to whip out his phone and start videoing her. “We have the cutest freaking kid in the world.”

“Think we’ll get lucky again?” I ask, smiling as Mere holds her hand in the air like a little diva as the song reaches its crescendo, “I don’t know if lightning will strike twice.”

“It will,” he grins, “You’ll see. There is just no way that we won’t have another baby as beautiful as her. I know it; I feel it in my bones. You’re way too pretty to end up with a non-beautiful baby, Haley J.”

I roll my eyes, but am surprisingly pleased by the sweet words. After all that we’ve been through, every little thing I get from Nathan feels like the world, and maybe that’s one thing I can take away from all this that is positive. Sometimes all of us probably need a little reminder that the small things can be big and important if you let them.

I smile ruefully at him. “I think you’re actually the pretty one, Nate,” I tease, “Those baby blues and dark hair. Who could resist that?”

He bats my hand away when I reach out to pinch his cheek. “Stop it,” he growls playfully, nipping at my shoulder, “You’re damaging my manhood here, Hales!”

I laugh with him, moving to straddle him. Wriggling around on his lap, I regard him mock thoughtfully. “It doesn’t feel damaged to me.”

”Oh, I am so gonna get you for that later,” he laughs, looking pointedly at Mere who is not looking amused by our antics. “Maybe I’ll get you two or three times.”

“Oooh, big promises,” I laugh, wrapping my arms around him, “You know, in a month or two, I won’t be able to lie against you like this. I’ll miss it.”

He presses a kiss in my hair, holding me against him. “We’ll just find other ways,” he promises, “It’s not like I’ll ever let you go again.”

I smile against his neck, nuzzling my lips against him. “I love you, Nathan.”

“Love you, too, baby.”

“I love you, too!” Mere squeals, and I turn my head to find her face mere inches from mine. “I love you, Mama!”

“Oh, I love you, too, sweets,” I beam at her, leaning back enough to pull her to us, “I love both of you more than anything else in the whole world.”

“Me, too,” Nathan agrees, winking at Mere, “Well, you two and one other person.” That last part is obviously directed at me, and he just grins back at me unabashedly. We haven’t told Mere because I figure that once I tell her, the secret is out. Just like it was when Eric overheard me tell Karen about being pregnant the first time. “This is my world, right here.”

It scares me a little that his scope has narrowed this much. I won’t lie – a part of me loves that this is all his focus is, us. But at the same time, I can’t help but worry that it won’t be enough, and that when that time comes, that he’ll choose the wrong way to deal with it. Or he’ll just plain decide that I’m not enough. And it is a ridiculous, unfounded fear, and I know it, but it’s still there. Always.

“Who’s the other person, Daddy?” Mere asks a minute later, and I shake my head in wonder at this kid’s smarts. Does she really need to pick up on things like this?

“You’ll find out soon enough, Merry berry,” he grins at her, ruffling her hair.

She pouts at him, sticking her lower lip out ridiculously far. “No, now! Who? Who? Who? Who?”

“Meredith, stop it right now,” I warn her, “Or we’ll turn the movie off and go up to bed.”

“Mean Mommy,” Nathan whispers teasingly as our daughter huffs her way back to her end of the couch, glaring at me.

I scooch back closer to him, smiling softly. “Yeah, I saved you from having to be Mean Daddy,” I smirk, my fingers playing in the short hair at the nape of his neck, “One of these days, you’ll have to be the mean one.”

“Never,” he laughs, his hands coming up to rest on my hips, “The movie is almost over.”

“Thank God,” I smile, eyes glazing over as his hands begin to wander over me, “Let’s skip her bath tonight, hmm?”

“Mmhmm,” he agrees immediately, one hand sliding under my shirt to intimately cup my breast, “Anything that gets her – and us – to bed faster is fine with me.”

Stifling a moan, I force myself to focus on him. “I thought you might say that,” I smile, leaning forward to brush my lips against his softly, “Mm, the credits are about to roll.”

“Oh, good,” he grins, his hands sliding down to grip my thighs as he moves to stand, “Let’s go to bed, Mere!”

“No, Shrek on TV, Daddy!” she cries stubbornly, “I watch!”

He rolls his eyes at me, and I tighten my grip on him when he shows no sign of setting me down. “Sorry, Mere Bear, but it’s bedtime now.” He bends down and grabs the remote. “Come on, let’s go now.”

She starts crying, but neither Nathan nor I are very sympathetic right now. “Mama, up,” she orders, holding her arms out to me, still sobbing, “Up!”

“Meredith Ryan,” Nathan sighs in exasperation, and I have to bite back a laugh at the look of pure impatience on his face, “You can walk up the stairs like a big girl. Come on, let’s go now.”

She throws herself back on the couch, crossing her arms over her chest. “I think Brooke taught her that move,” I whisper in Nathan’s ear, trying not to see the humor in this, not when she’s acting like a spoiled brat. “And our daughter is just bratty enough to pull it off, too.”

“She’s never allowed to hang out with Brooke again,” he states flatly, shaking his head when she starts to cry, “That is so not acceptable, Meredith Ryan Scott.”

Is it wrong that I’m turned on by his ‘tough guy’ voice? Maybe a little, but there it is. I can’t even help myself in telling him so, either. “It’s really sexy when you get firm with her,” I whisper, “You use that tone of voice, and it just makes me melt.”

He growls low in his throat, pulling me tighter against him. “Damn it, Haley J, don’t do this when I can’t do anything about it.”

I laugh, and the sound is so husky and desirable that for a second I don’t even recognize it as mine. He shakes his head at me, pausing in his pursuit of getting Mere up the stairs to back me into the wall, grinding lightly against me. “Nathan, put me down, I’ll get her in bed.”

He shakes head. “Hell, no, I’m not letting you go right now.”

“Mommy!” Mere wails from the couch, “Mommy, up!”

“Damn,” he sighs, his grip on me slackening as he lets me slide down his body. “Damn it.”

I press a series of kisses along his jaw, nipping once softly before scooting out of his arms. “I’ll get her in bed, and be in our room in just a minute,” I promise him, lying a hand on his arm, “It’ll just take a few minutes.”

He nods, squeezing his eyes shut tight.

“Okay, Mere, come on, we’re going to bed now,” I inform her, bending down to scoop her into my arms. “Let’s go brush your teethies, okay, baby?”

“No bed, Mommy,” she cries, her head drooping against my shoulder, “I wanna stay with you and watch ‘nother Shrek!”

“Not tonight, it’s bedtime, Meredith. You’re so sleepy, sweets,” I murmur, pressing kisses to her cheek. “You need your beauty rest, pretty girl.”

“No,” she continues to cry, and I berate myself for not noticing how tired she was and putting her to bed earlier, “Mama, nooooo!”

“Yep, let’s go.” She pats me on the cheek, lifting her head from my shoulder just to shake it at me. “Daddy and I are going to bed, too.” Nathan makes a choking noise at that, and I have to stifle a grin. “We’re all going night-night.”

“I go with you,” she demands, and I can practically feel Nathan behind me shaking his head.

I sigh, carrying up the stairs and depositing her on the stool in front of the sink in her bathroom. “Brush your teeth, munchkin.”

She’s exceptionally fussy tonight, and by the time I get her into bed and she stops crying and falls asleep, Nathan is sound asleep in our bed. Inwardly sighing, I change and climb into bed next to him, even if it is only for a few minutes. I need that; I need him.

~*~Mid January, 2014~*~

“We have to tell them sometime,” Nathan tells me, looking up from where his head rests in my lap, “They’re going to notice, you know.”

“I know,” I sigh, leaning my head back against the couch, “But can we just wait until they figure it out themselves? I like it like this, with just you and me knowing. It’s special this way.”

He nods, taking my hand in his and kissing it. “I’m going to head on up to bed. You coming, babe?”

“In a minute,” I promise, smiling at him as he pushes off the couch, “I’m not quite unwound enough to sleep yet, I don’t think.”

He throws a hard and assessing look my way. “You need more sleep,” he tells me, “And I know you’re still fighting the morning sickness thing. I’m worried about you, Haley J. Maybe we should go back and see the doctor again.”

I shake my head vehemently. “No, it’s fine,” I am quick to assure him, “As soon as the morning sickness passes, I’ll be as good as new, I promise. Don’t worry about me, Nathan.”

“I always worry about you,” he informs me, “You’re my whole world. There is pretty much no way I couldn’t worry.”

I smile at him, biting my lip to keep the tears at bay. Damn hormones, anyway. “I’ll be okay, really. This will pass, and I’ll be good as new.”

Reluctantly, he nods. “Okay, well, hurry up. It feels like we never spend more than four hours in bed together a night,” he complains, “And I miss having you draped all over me, trying to steal the covers.”

I laugh genuinely at that. “I’ll be right up. Let me get water and take the dog out one more time.”

“I’m holding you to that,” he winks at me before heading up the stairs.

His estimate of four hours is more than generous, seeing as how I usually end up on the couch as soon as he falls asleep. I just can’t risk being in our bed and waking him up to one of my ‘special’ nightmares. I don’t think he’d understand, and at this point, I’m not sure that him knowing wouldn’t be more damaging than beneficial. Things are better, but there is still this precarious feeling to them sometimes that makes me extra cautious.

I don’t want to mess this up, any of this. And I’m just afraid that if Nathan knows about the nightmares I’m having, if he knows what they’re about, that it will have him shutting down on me. I can’t risk that, I can’t risk losing him again.

I head up to bed after a few minutes, quietly gathering my things and changing in the dark when I see Nathan is already sleeping. Instead of climbing into bed beside him, like I usually do for a few hours every night, I brush my teeth and head downstairs, sprawling out on the couch, covering myself with one of Mere’s blankets.

I’m so absorbed with trying to stay awake for as long as I can that I don’t even hear him come down the stairs. I don’t even notice he is in the room until he’s kneeling beside the couch, staring at me intently.

“What’re you doing down here, baby?” he asks quietly, the mixture of concern and fear and love that I can’t help – I start crying. Which only makes Nathan look more stricken. “Haley, what the hell is going on?”

Shaking my head, I wrap my arms around his neck immediately as he pulls me into his arms. “Nothing’s going on, everything is fine.”

He pulls back far enough to give me an incredulous look. “If everything were fine, you wouldn’t be sleeping down here every night and you wouldn’t be bawling like this right now.”

I look up at him, nodding wearily. I guess we’re having this conversation now, whether or not either of us is ready for it. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to bother you.”

“Jesus, am I that big of a jerk?” he wonders aloud, “I’m not bothered by you crying, I’m bothered that for some reason, you don’t even want to sleep with me anymore.” I blink at him in surprise, my mouth dropping open a little. “Yeah, I know about that. How could I not have noticed? Oh, never mind, now I just want to know why.”

“I’m – Nathan, I just have had such a hard time sleeping, and I didn’t want to wake you,” I tell him, and while that’s true, it’s certainly not the whole story.

And we both know it.

“Why can’t you sleep?” he asks sharply, staring me straight in the eye, “Are you sick? Is it – do you not want me here?”

“God, of course it isn’t that!” I exclaim, clambering to my knees to wrap my arms around his neck, “I want and need you here, I really do.”

“Then what is it, Haley J?”

“I’m having nightmares,” I admit in a very quiet whisper, “Really bad nightmares, Nathan. I just feel like if I sleep down here, then I won’t wake you or Mere up.”

“Jesus,” he mutters, dropping to sit beside me, his arms automatically wrapping around me when I climb onto his lap. “What – ah, this is more than evil clowns or the bogeyman, I take it?”

I nod, leaning my head on his chest as I curl against him. “It isn’t easy,” I admit, “These – well, they hurt me, but I think they’d really devastate you.”

“Oh,” he whispers, the word the barest hint of breath against my forehead. “I – I hurt you in them.”

“No, it wasn’t like that,” I assure him, “It wasn’t – it wasn’t intentional.”

“But I hurt you,” he notes tersely, “What did I do? Threaten you, hurt Mere? Still using, I assume. What did I do to you, Hales?”

I hold onto him tighter, resolving not to give him even a second to retreat from me. “About everything, Nathan. About Vegas, the things you said and did, about you dying or overdosing, and oh, God, about Mere finding your stash. And it’s all the same at the end – I just wake up terrified and wishing I was dead.”

“Jesus,” he mutters, his head dropping down, “Fuck.” He tries to move me off of his lap, but I don’t let go of him. “Haley, let me up.”

“No,” I deny him, “Hold me.” I sound like a child and I know it, but I just can’t quite bring myself to care. “Don’t try and shut me out now.”

“Like what? Oh, like you’ve been?” he asks hotly, “Like you have been this whole time when you come down here and sleep, but wouldn’t say a fucking thing to me about it? Yeah, shutting out is your schtick, I suppose I shouldn’t touch it.”

“You’re right,” I surprise him by agreeing quickly, “I do do that, and I know better. I just – how was I supposed to tell you that, Nathan? I knew it would hurt you, and God, I can’t stand that. I couldn’t even stand the idea that you’d find out and blame yourself or retreat from me again. I’m just getting you back, and I can’t risk you again. I can’t lose you.”

“What – damn, I don’t even know what to say right now,” he mutters, but his grip tightens on me, and that’s all I can focus on. “Shit, Haley, why didn’t you tell me?”

“Because I didn’t want to hurt you,” I tell him, pressing my cheek against his neck, “Because I’ve felt like I’ve been losing you for so long now that I didn’t want to give you any more reasons to leave me. Because I love you, and it’s worse for me if you know than if I have them.”

He shakes his head, looking queasy. “I don’t even know how that could be true.”

“It just is, Nathan,” I tell him, my tone pleading for him to understand, begging him to let it go, “I don’t want to hurt you, I don’t want to make you question me.”

“I don’t!” he yells his promise, “Jesus, you’ve – look at what you’ve stood by me through. Look at everything I’ve put you through, look at all the things you’ve done for me, all the times you’ve helped me.” He removes my arms from around him, taking a step back. “Haley, we talk about me being selfish, and I know I am – but this – you – you’re being selfish here! Shutting me out, pushing me away. That’s not fair.”

“I know!” I cry, turning away from him, “I know that. But baby, you have so much on your plate, and this is my neurosis, my problem, and I don’t want to hurt you. I don’t want to make things harder on you than they already are.”

Sighing, he takes my hand, guiding us to the couch. We sit down facing each other, and to my relief and maybe slight surprise, he doesn’t let go of my hand. “I love you,” he says seriously, “And I know you love me, too. But that doesn’t give us a free pass to keep things like this from each other. Remember how mad you were at me for not explaining things when I left again? It’s worse to not know sometimes.”

I know that he’s right. Of course I do. That just doesn’t seem to make it any easier to swallow, though. “Why does it all have to be so hard?” I wonder aloud, “Why do we keep hurting each other, hurting ourselves? I hate this, Nathan! I hate that I have these nightmares, and I hate that they’re based on reality somewhat, and I hate that even though things are better, they aren’t going away.”

“Maybe you subconsciously don’t think things are better,” he suggests quietly, “Maybe you’re not happy with how they are.”

Taking a deep breath, I shake my head in disagreement. Calmly, I state, “That is just not true, Nathan. Things are better than they have been in a year. I’m happy you’re here, I’m happy that we’re having a baby, and I love you more than anything.”

He nods, pulling me onto his lap. “Want to tell me more about the nightmares?” he asks quietly, his head falling against the back of the couch, “Maybe it’ll help if you get it all out.”

I nod, even though I really, really don’t want to tell him about this. Even though it is the absolute last conversation I want to have with him. “It’s hard to talk about,” I warn him, “Probably even harder to hear.”

“Yeah,” he sighs, “I figured. I’m not quite that slow, babe.”

“I don’t want to hurt you, Nathan,” I sigh in return, “But I’m afraid of what this will do to you. I’m afraid that telling you this might hurt you, and that? That is the last thing that I want.”

“I’ve hurt myself,” he notes, rather maturely, “And any remnants of that, that is still me hurting me. Because I hurt you, and that comes back to me. I need to hear it, Hales. I do, I really do, and I – I know this isn’t fair, but I need you to trust me enough to tell me.”

He’s right; it isn’t fair, and it is asking a lot. But he’s also being mature and reasonable about this, and I owe him my honesty like he’s given me his. I owe it to him, and I owe it to us as a couple, parents, and parents-to-be.

“It’s all just…I don’t know, I can’t shake it off,” I tell him honestly. “I see it all, in my mind’s eye, and I replay it in my dreams. The things you said, the ways you looked at me like you hated me, the things you did or didn’t do. The fear that Mere would be hurt. It’s just eating me up.

“They’re about Vegas, a lot of them,” I finish, and the air around us falls so silent, so still, that you could hear a pin drop. It’s eerie, it’s unsettling.

“Yeah,” he sighs, running a hand through his almost too long hair, and I can practically feel him shrink away from me, “You know that I – if I could – that I’d – “

“I know, Nathan,” I’m quick to jump in and assure him, “I know that you’d take it back, make it go away, all of that stuff, but you can’t. And I can’t. I can’t do it for either of us, as much as I’d like to.”

He hangs his head, his remorse written all over his face. “I don’t know what I did,” he whispers brokenly, “I don’t know if I did anything, even! Fuck, Haley, I can barely remember anything I did there, I was so messed up.”

I nod, reaching out to take his hands in mine. “I know, Nathan. And I’m working on living with that, it’s just…not easy. And I’ve never been good at handling the hard stuff, so there you have it.”

“Oh, Hales,” he sighs, managing a smile for me, “Baby, you’re not as bad as you think at handling the bad times.”

“Get real,” I scoff, “I pushed you away, I tried to force myself into relationships that didn’t work, would never work, and when things got bad, I shut down. And oh, Nathan, I’m so afraid I’m doing that now, shutting down, and I can’t. I can’t! There’s this baby to think about, and God, you and Mere!”

“You aren’t shutting down,” he tries to assure me, and I can’t help it – I cling to him. Arms around his neck, ever tightening grip, the whole nine yards. “You aren’t, Hales. This, all of this, has been scary. For both of us, for all of our family. I accept the blame for that, I know it is what I deserve. You, you’re stronger than this. You had the strength to leave, to lead me back here. This, Tree Hill, might not be where I want to be, but it is where I need to be. See, you’re right about that! I know how you love it when I admit that.”

I manage a chuckle at that, holding him even tighter. “These nightmares, they’re so horrible, Nathan,” I tell him, my voice a tremulous whisper, “God, I see Mere, and it’s so, so bad. I – I can’t even tell you how awful that is.”

He nods, and I can feel the wetness of his tears on my cheek. “Yeah, baby, you don’t have to tell me. I’ve seen it, too.”

I hear his words, and they even register, but now that I am talking about this, I can’t seem to stop. “The worst, the very worst one, in that one she’s playing in our room, the old one in Seattle, and she finds a baggie under the bed, and she starts chewing on the pills. And when I come in to check in her, she takes one step towards me before falling down, vomiting blood. I don’t even know if that’s how it works, but that’s what I see in my nightmares. Or I’m back at the morgue, and this time, this time,” I sob, my voice breaking, “You really are there. It’s you, not some stranger that looks like you, and there’s nothing I can do to fix it!”

“Baby, oh, baby,” he sighs, holding me tighter, “That’s not going to happen, it will never happen. I promise you that, it will never happen. I won’t let it. I would never – “

Jerking away from him, I lean back far enough to slip my fingers up over his mouth. “Shh, Nathan, I know. I trust you, I do. This isn’t about that, I promise. It’s some neurosis of mine, just some fear I can’t let go of. I’m trying, I am. It just isn’t working as well or as fast as I’d like.”

He nods as though he hears the truth in that, like he believes it, but I can still see that he’s so unsure. Of me, of himself, of us. It is so hard, living with my own fears and worries, and to have his on top of mine? Stressful. I wouldn’t trade it for anything, but having to deal with the weight of his burdens, which are great, is heavy.

I pull him to me, and he leans down, his head resting against my ever-expanding belly. “What can I do?” he asks quietly after several long moments of silence, “What can I do to help you get through this?”

“I don’t know,” I admit, “Maybe there isn’t anything either of us can do. Maybe it’s something that I have to work through, something that just takes time. I don’t know, Nathan.”

His arms come around my middle, holding himself to me. My hands are in his hair, trailing over his cheekbones, over his back and shoulders, soothing and comforting him as best I can. “We’ll be okay,” I whisper to him, “This is hard, for all of us, but we’re getting better. We are. You are.”

“You have to get better, too,” he tells me seriously, his cheek rubbing against the thin layer of skin and muscle protecting our growing baby from the world, “If you aren’t okay, then I won’t be either. That’s not fair, I know that, but if you aren’t okay, then I don’t know if I can live with myself.”

“Oh, Nathan,” I sigh, my head dropping so that I can press a kiss to his forehead, lips lingering there, “Don’t say that. Please, please don’t say things like that. It scares me, and there’s already so much on me that I don’t – “

“You’re right, I know that,” he nods, not lifting his head, “But you have to be okay, baby. It – knowing that it is unfair that I’m putting some of this on you, that I need you to do something for me to keep functioning – I can’t help it. I need you better.”

I nod, my fingers tightening on his shoulders when he presses kisses across the taut skin of my belly. “We’re both trying. I think that has to be enough for now.”

“Sleep with me?” he asks quietly, his fingers pushing up the tank top I’m wearing to expose my skin to his lips, “Every night, forever? Come back to our bed, Haley J.”

Taking a deep breath, I nod. “Okay, I think I’d like that.”

“It’ll be better that way,” he tells me, fingers dancing over my skin, lips following in their trail, “I can hold you if you dream. Hold you if you don’t.”

~*~February 15, 2014~*~

“What. The. Hell?” Brooke bites into my ear as she approaches from behind. Nathan groans, almost inaudibly, before pasting a smile on his face as we turn to look at her.

“What’s wrong?” I ask, smiling at her. I’m almost as giddy as I know she will be – and Tim already is, when he lets go of the nerves – and it is really hard for me not to let it show. I’m so excited for her, and I know she’s going to be so thrilled.

“What do you think is wrong? My asshole boyfriend, who buys rings that he apparently deems too good for me, or something, is off schmoozing with his family instead of paying attention to me!” she rants, “And – and! – yesterday was Valentine’s Day! Valentine’s Day! And all that he did was buy me some stupid pink roses. They weren’t even red!”

Nathan raises his eyebrows at her, and I can see that he’s very close to having to literally bite his tongue to keep the words in. “Listen,” I step in, not needing these two to get into anything today, “Brooke, they were beautiful pink roses. Gorgeous. And there were four dozen of them!”

“Oh, that is easy for you to say,” she grumbles, “You got red ones!”

Nathan and I watch in surprise as she storms off, obviously not ready to quit brooding over her not-quite-perfect Valentine’s Day, even though Tim put together a really nice deal for them. “That was odd,” Nathan mumbles to me. Aside from me, the only other person who knows the real deal behind the party that Tim is holding tonight – which he told the guests was practice for some parties he’d be holding for clients soon – is Luke. He swore us to secrecy, not even letting me tell Nathan about it.

“Ignore her,” I advise him, “Her feelings are hurt because Tim hasn’t proposed yet. She thought he would a long time ago. She even found a ring he bought her around Christmas, but still, nothing yet. She’s tired of waiting.”

We’d started walking, and he stops us, moving to stand in front of me. He looks down, his gaze shrewd and assessing. “That wasn’t a hint, Nathan,” I sigh, looking away, “I was just explaining why you should avoid letting her get on your nerves.”

“Should we talk about that?” he asks, scratching the back of his neck, looking a little uneasy, “You know it isn’t that I don’t want it, because I do, I’m just worried that now wouldn’t be the best time. For either of us.”

“I’m not asking you for anything, Nathan,” I assure him, taking a deep breath, “And I’m happy with what we have. Do I want more? Yes, I do, to be perfectly frank, but what we have is wonderful and special and more than enough.”

“I wish I could give it to you now,” he sighs, reaching down to take one of my hands in his, “I love you so much, but we have got this balance going on right now that just works for me. When I’m more stable, when I would be stable enough to give you everything you deserve, then we’ll do it. It’s when, not if. Always when.”

I nod, smiling up at him as he brushes a strand of hair behind my ear. “I never – well, almost never – doubted that,” I promise him back, “And we’ll take all the time that we need. Maybe you’re not the only one not ready at the moment. It would be better if we waited until the nightmares were completely gone. And you know, I wasn’t pregnant.”

He grins. “What if the plan is to keep you pregnant pretty much forever?” he teases, leaning down to buss me softly on the cheek, “What would we do then?”

“We’d have to squeeze it in somewhere,” I laugh, my hands coming up to rest on his biceps, not even trying to resist squeezing them, “You can’t hold me off forever.”

“Wouldn’t even try,” he shrugs, pulling me to him, “You really sure that you’re okay with waiting?”

I slide my hands down his arms to his hands, clasping them in mine. Tugging on him, I get him to walk with me outside, standing on the balcony. He smiles at me, almost shyly, before leaning against the rail with one hip.

“Do you really think I’m not okay with waiting a little longer to get married?” I ask him, searching his face for answers.

“I don’t know,” he admits, “I’ve made you wait so long now, and I know how unfair that is to you.”

“I made you wait longer,” I reason, looking out over the smooth water of the river, “When you left for UConn, and I stayed here, I made you wait that whole time.”

He laughs wryly. “Neither of us were really waiting then. That was different. That was being unable to let go of each other, this is just biding time until we make it official. I don’t want to wait so long that you stop waiting, and move on without me.”

“Without you, there is nowhere for me to go,” I tell him in an urgent whisper, “Nathan, you are so my life. I’ve been waiting to marry you since the day our first marriage was annulled. That was so long ago, and all that time, in some way, I’ve been waiting for it. I’m not going to suddenly stop waiting for this, I promise. It’ll always be here. I’ll always be here for you.”

He opens his arms, and I immediately move into them. He’s my safe haven, after all this time, after all the tears, he’s the place I feel safest. Anywhere that he is, it doesn’t matter, because he’s there. And maybe he’s too much to me, maybe I’ve given him too much of a focus in my life, but I don’t think I could help that if I tried.

“We’ll get married soon,” he whispers against my cheek, his breath fanning against it softly, “And it’ll be pretty and fun and right.”

I nod, content to let him hold me. “We could always elope,” I suggest, giggling a little. “Go to the courthouse with just Merry and this one, and get married.”

“Or run off to Vegas for a weekend,” he suggests, and I know it isn’t until I stiffen against him that he realizes what he said. “Haley J, I was just….”

“I know,” I nod jerkily, backing away from him a little, “Yeah, I know. Of course I do.”

“Haley, stop,” he cringes as I continue to move backwards, “I didn’t mean that, I didn’t mean to bring that up.”

“Yeah, I know,” I repeat, turning away to lean against the railing myself, “It’s okay. It just…it hit. It hit me, and I couldn’t stop it from hitting, and I’m sorry.”

“No, baby, don’t do that, don’t you dare apologize.”

I hold my hand him, effectively stopping him. “No, let me,” I tell him, turning to look at him, “I have to get over this, Nathan. What happened, what did or didn’t happen there, it’s over. I need to be able to keep that in mind.”

“I’m sorry,” he says again, moving closer to me, slow and cautious. This time I hold my ground, letting him come to me. “I wasn’t thinking, Haley J. I don’t want to hurt you, that’s the last thing I want.”

“I believe that,” I assure him, leaning my head on his shoulder, “I know that. And I don’t know why I’m being so ridiculous about this. Vegas is where we got back together, remember?”

“Of course I remember that,” he smiles, bending to kiss me softly, “Maybe…I don’t remember being there the second time, not much of it. When I think of Vegas, I think of that other time, with you. And I stole that memory from you. God, this is hard.”

I shake my head, smiling at him. “You didn’t steal anything from me. I have that memory, those days, locked in my heart. That isn’t going anywhere, I won’t let it. That was such a special time for us, for me, and I’d never let it go.”

“Well,” he smiles, relaxing again, “I’d never let you go.”

I open my mouth to say something else when a bell rings out, and someone comes to the door, motioning us back in. We go in reluctantly, slowly, holding hands and smiling at each other like we were again teenagers in the early throes of young love. Maybe in some ways, we were again. In a small sense, this was starting over, fresh. And nothing is fresher than your first love.

Inside, full champagne flutes are pressed into our hands. Nathan sets his back on a tray, winking at me as he does so. Smirking back at him, I set mine down, too. Even if I wasn’t currently pregnant, I probably would’ve set mine down in a show of solidarity, but for now, it is a moot point.

We still haven’t informed the masses of my pregnancy, but I think, for tonight, attention is mostly diverted from us. Nathan does receive more than his fair share of staring, which I know is a discomfort to him, but he has dealt with it really well so far. Better than I have, at any rate. I’m the one who has gotten snappish, told people to quit staring and mind their own business. He always laughs at me for getting tough, as he puts it, but I can’t take it after a point. He doesn’t deserve the looks they throw him, the whispers. He can ignore it, but I can’t.

“Hey everyone,” Tim says, clinking on his glass to get our attention, which completely snaps me out of my reverie, “If you could all proceed outside onto the deck, I’ve arranged for a tiny bit of entertainment.”

Nathan raises his eyebrows questioningly at me, but I just shrug, and lead him outside onto the deck. I lean against the railing, and Nathan moves behind me, draping his big body over me, keeping me warm. He laughs in my ear when the fireworks start going off, and I curl my arms around his, holding him to me.

“Tim’s going all out for this,” Nathan notes, kissing down my neck, “This is his idea of a practice party?”

“Something like that,” I shrug, leaning back against him. I see Luke a ways away from us, Lola next to him, smiling as they watch the fireworks display. Keith and Karen are here somewhere, too, as is Tim’s family, Deb and Dan, and surprisingly, Brooke’s parents. Luckily, Tim thought to tell her he invited them, on the pretext of wanting to get business tips from her father, so that was one less thing for Brooke to be freaking out about now.

When I see Tim leading Brooke up the steps of a raised balcony, I nudge Nathan, pointing them out to him. His eyes widen in surprise when Tim drops down on one knee, but he recovers quickly, smiling at me. The crowd falls silent, and I can’t help but wonder if a lot of the people here had figured out what Tim had planned, knew that these two were destined for this.

Everyone is mouse quiet as he says the sweet words he’s been planning forever, asks her the questions she’s been stressing out as she’s waited to hear it, and there are more than a few people crying when she squeals out her ‘yes’, practically jumping on top of him. I clap my hands together, holding them to my mouth as I try not to cry. There’s just something really bittersweet in this moment, and maybe I’m not quite as great with waiting as I tried to insist to Nathan. While I’m certainly not unhappy, maybe I do wish for it more than I want to believe.

I don’t know if Nathan senses it, but he pulls me closer, whispering ‘soon’ in my ear. It’s not as though I don’t always display a severely low melting point around him anyway, but something about the husky tone of his voice, the way his arms tighten around me, and his fingers brush over my rounded belly just turns me boneless.

I nod my response, knowing that he’s so close he can feel it along with every hitch of my breath, every sigh, every heartbeat. A few tears manage to escape, but they really are tears of happiness for my friends. They’ve been through a lot to get to where they are now, and I’m proud of who they are and what they’ve become. Ten years ago, I would’ve laughed in someone’s face if they’d told me that I’d be crying with happiness for these two, but there you have it. And I wouldn’t have it any other way.

I’m the first person they look for when they’re done with their private celebrations, and it warms my heart that that is something that hasn’t changed. So much else has for the three of us – they’re them now, and I’m me. I’m part of another equation, one that doesn’t allot space for them. Me plus Nathan times Mere plus baby divided by Sammy the dog. That’s my world, broken down to the simplest formula. And theirs? Was just them.

And that’s okay.

“Congratulations,” Nathan says, holding out a hand to Tim. Things are painfully awkward between Nathan and these two friends of mine – they don’t think that he is good enough for me or Mere, and he thinks the same of them. Neither find it funny when I point out that both sides are harboring the same doubts.

“Thanks, we appreciate it,” Tim nods, shaking it firmly. Brooke is waggling the ring under my nose – the ring I’ve seen, she’s seen, we’ve all seen. But it makes her so happy, so I play along, oohing and ahhing over it like a good best friend. I loop an arm around Tim’s waist, giving him a tight side hug. He ruffles my hair, just like he’s done a thousand times before, and Nathan grins at me.

Luke and Lola approach, and as Brooke and Lola squeal over the ring, Luke and Tim play around making bad ‘your wife, my wife’ jokes that Brooke would crush them over if she heard. I roll my eyes at that, not giving it much thought. It’s what they do. I’m used to it.

But Nathan clearly isn’t. He has this stricken look on his face that he’s trying to cover up with a fake, pasty smile, and he’s studiously looking away, just sneaking glances, but I can tell it hits him that Luke and Tim are friends in a way that he isn’t with either of them. But maybe that he used to be.

I tighten my fingers around his, needing him to know that I’m here, that I’ll try and be enough. I don’t want this to hurt him, to see the easy bond his high school best friend has with his brother, the one that he hasn’t had an easy rapport with for years. He glances over at me, his face lighting in a real smile, and I let out the breath I didn’t even realize I was holding.

Luke and Nathan exchange somewhat terse hellos, and Lola raises her eyebrows at me in confusion. I make a shrug face, and she nods, letting it go. Apparently Luke likes to talk about his issues with Nathan as much as Nathan likes to talk about his with Luke. It’s almost like they’re related or something.

Nathan wanders off to talk to Keith and Karen, the members of his family that he has the easiest time relating to. I think he and I both know that is only because they have the least expectations of him, and he doesn’t have truckloads of baggage from them. Lola stays by me when Luke follows him, nodding almost imperceptibly at me.

“What’s their story?” she asks quietly, “I don’t – I mean, I should ask Luke, he’s my boyfriend, but I don’t want to upset him, you know?”

I laugh a little at that, shaking my head. “Yeah, I know. Nathan gets pissy about it, too. They both always have. Be glad you missed out on their high school pissing contests. It was hard before they became friends,” I admit.

“Let me guess,” she grins, “You were what they fought over.”

“Oh, you know it,” I nod, sighing, “It’s funny, because I could’ve dated any other guy in that high school, and Luke wouldn’t have given a rat’s ass, right? But Nathan? Oh, he acted like I went out of my way to piss him off. Such a baby. And Nathan, well, he only went after me in the first place to drive Luke insane.”

“Guess it worked,” she laughs delightedly.

“Yeah, it did,” I agree, laughing with her, “And oh, I hated it. They both pissed me off so many times in those early days. And then they started getting along.”

She smiles at that, but it drifts off her face as we both watch the uncomfortable ways they face each other now. “What happened?” she asks. “I don’t understand it.”

“Basketball,” I shrug, simplifying it to the lowest common denominator, “It – maybe that’s not really fair, or even accurate, but in some ways, that is what it all came down to. Nathan had too much to prove with basketball, to himself, to Dan, to Luke, maybe even to me, and when Luke gave it up and got all of Dan’s approval, it just…broke.”

“That’s…awful,” she sighs, struggling to find the right word for it, “I’m sure you know this better than I do, but Luke really loves Nathan, and he really worries about him. About both of you.”

I nod, taking a deep breath. “He doesn’t have to,” I tell her, “Well, maybe he does, but – I don’t know. It’s not like his approval makes or breaks something, and – “

“It’s hard for you,” she deduces, “Even now. You still see both of their sides.”

“I see Nathan’s,” I sigh, “And I guess I see Luke’s, too. In a lot of ways, Luke’s is mine. We’re so scary alike that it is totally ridiculous. But he isn’t ready to let go of the bad things, the worst things. And I have to, you know? I have Mere, and honestly, I love Nathan too much not to. It’s just, that’s how it is, I guess.”

“I was so jealous of you when I first started dating Luke,” she confesses, blushing, “And that was weird for me, right? I’ve never had problems finding dates or friends, and then I move here for a stupid job in Durham, and I start dating Luke, and bam, I’m jealous of you. Which sucked, let me tell you.”

“I can imagine,” I snort.

“No!” she laughs, “I know that sounded mean, but it wasn’t intended to be. I just meant that you have this huge place in Luke’s life. And more than that, you have this huge place in the lives of everyone Luke loves. His parents, Eric, Brooke, and Tim, that stupid big dog of his. It was intimidating, I guess.”

“Okay,” I cut in, “You know that there was never anything between me and him. That’s way too Kentucky incest for my tastes, you know?”

She nods, grinning. “I know,” she nods, “I guess it was just that you were so ingrained in their lives, in my boyfriend’s life, and maybe I still resented what you did to my brother.” I can feel my face fall a little at that reminder. “I’m not saying that I don’t understand, because I really do – I’ll tell you about my broken engagement sometime – but you know that Jase is my hero, pretty much. And it just…it was hard that you had all this here, and you gave it up to follow Nathan to Seattle. I didn’t get that, I didn’t get why you were still the person Luke, Brooke, and Tim all turned to.”

Listening to her, I let her words seep in. “I can’t apologize again, Lola,” I tell her calmly, “And if you can’t let it go, then I don’t know what to do. I want to be your friend because I really like you. I always have. I know what I did was wrong and shitty and a thousand other things, but it was a long time ago, and we’ve all moved on.”

“I have, too!” she promises, “That’s sort of my point. Or it should’ve been. I don’t.” I laugh with her at that. “Anyway, I just wanted you to know how much Luke loves you. You’re so important to him, and he’d do anything for you.”

I smile slightly at that, but shake my head. “I’m not more important to him than you are. I hope you know that.”

“Maybe not,” she sort of agrees, “But it’s different. I’m this newcomer to his life, and you and even Brooke are such fixtures in it. It’s hard.”

“But maybe that’s better,” I suggest, “There’s this completely blank slate, clean, with no history to skew things.”

“It’s not completely blank, though. I’m Tim’s cousin, and you…”

“Yeah, but those aren’t the first things either of you think of when you look at each other,” I point out, “I mean, with Luke and Brooke, when they got back together, I think they still saw their past. They still saw Peyton, the girl who was between them then, and they still saw the ways they hurt each other. And when Luke looks at me? I guarantee you he sees his dorky friend who wore ponchos, or the girl who helped him break his brother’s swing set, or his brother’s girlfriend. That’s it, it really is.”

“Rationally, I know that,” she nods, sighing, “But sometimes it is hard to be rational.”

“Sometimes?” I scoff, “Feels like it’s hard all the time, at least for me. At least when it comes to matters like these.”

“Rationale is overrated,” she giggles, her grin brightening when she spots Luke wandering towards us, Nathan in tow, “Ah, speaking of overrated, there’s my boyfriend.”

I laugh with her, flushing a little under Nathan’s regard. He has that predatory gleam in his eye, and I just know he’s about fifteen minutes away from suggesting we blow this off and take advantage of the fact that Mere is staying the night with her Papa. And I’m about twenty minutes away from agreeing with him, so I guess it works.

Luke pulls her to him, whispering something for her ears only. Nathan moves to stand beside me, reaching out to hold my hand. I think we hold hands more now than we ever did before, but it’s nice. Comforting. It’s nice to know he’s here, that he wants to be with me.

“So, how cool is this?” Luke addresses all of us, eyeing Nathan a touch warily, “Who’d have thought those two would end up engaged.”

I roll my eyes at him. “Oh, quit pretending like you didn’t know,” I instruct, poking him on the arm, “You’re being a dork.”

“Play nice,” Nathan admonishes me, smiling widely.

“Yeah, and you’d know from playing nice?” Luke snipes at Nathan, clearly taking Lola by surprises as she gapes at her boyfriend.

“Lucas,” she whispers, blinking at him.

He looks over at her, sighing. “Well, come on, he acts like – “

“Luke, shut up,” I butt in, glaring hard at him. Nathan has gone completely rigid next to me, and I know that he won’t be able to hold his tongue forever – at some point, if this doesn’t stop, he will say something. It’s just a matter of when, not if.

“Oh, give me a break,” Luke glowers at me, “He’s been – “

“No, stop it,” I sigh as Nathan drops my hand, taking a step back, “Please just stop it. I don’t care if you two can’t see eye to eye on everything, you don’t have to act like this, Luke!”

“Well, why – “

“If you have a problem with me, just say it to me next time,” Nathan cuts in, “But don’t you dare take out your problems with me on Haley. I mean it, Luke, if you do that again, you’ll be sorry.”

Luke laughs derisively at that, and Lola grabs his arm, trying to lead him away. He shakes her off, though, looking Nathan up and down. “You don’t deserve anything that you have, little brother.”

“Lucas!” Lola exclaims again, shoving at his back. That actually gives him pause, and he turns around to glance at her. “What are you doing?” she hisses.

“Oh, just telling it like it is, right, Nathan?” he snaps in such a tone that I look at Nathan, wondering what the hell happened, “Isn’t that what you say? Isn’t that what you just said to Keith? ‘I’m just telling it like it is’, ha ha ha!”

I take a step back so that I am close enough to reach behind me and touch Nathan. I don’t get this, get where all of this is coming from with Luke. Well, I suppose I can guess – Nathan still isn’t comfortable talking about most of the things that have happened with anyone other than me, but I don’t get why Luke is so bent out of shape about it now.

“Please stop causing a scene here,” I implore Luke quietly, “This is your best friends’ engagement night and party, and they both deserve better than this from you.”

“She’s right,” Lola chimes in, again trying to lead Luke away, “Let’s go outside, Luke. Please come outside.”

Nathan doesn’t say anything, just stands stock still behind me. He doesn’t back away from me, though, so that’s enough for me. Once Lola convinces Luke to go outside with her, I turn to Nathan, raising an eyebrow at him. He shakes his head almost imperceptibly, and I nod, willing to wait until he wants to talk about it.

“Let’s say goodbye to Brooke and Tim and then go,” I suggest, “It’ll be nice to be at home for an evening without Mere to demand attention. I can concentrate on just you.”

He cracks a smile at that, leaning down to press his lips against mine in a quick kiss. “That’s probably a good idea.”

We walk through the crowd, and I think this is the most outwardly uncomfortable Nathan has been with the staring as far as I’ve seen. It hurts to see the looks leveled on him, and I have to bite my lip and squeeze his hand to keep from saying anything. Brooke and Tim are standing with Jason and his youngest sister, Marissa, when we get there, and I almost curse out loud at that.

Of course, Brooke is an excellent tension breaker, and she’s immediately thrusting her finger with the ring under my nose, and then even Nathan’s, which I think surprises her as much as him. “It’s a really great ring, Brooke,” Nathan says, rolling his eyes.

“Oh, don’t act so put out by the girly stuff,” she smirks at him, “I’d bet good money you have some piece of jewelry that has a bigger rock than this somewhere.”

“He just has boats,” I retort, elbowing him lightly, earning a grin, “Well, we are going now. Mere is at Dan’s house, and that seems like as good of a reason as any to spend the night. Congratulations, we are so, so, so happy for the both of you.”

“Yeah,” Nathan nods, “It’s really great. I don’t think I have ever seen either of you this happy, so I know it’s a good thing.” I beam at him, and he rolls his eyes at me. “What? I notice stuff like that sometimes.”

“Uh huh,” I tease doubtfully, “Okay, we’re going. I’m really happy for you. Oh, and Brooke? Told you so.”

“You knew!” she exclaims, gaping at Tim and me as we crack up, “I’ll kill you! Oh, my God, you knew all along, didn’t you! Tim!”

“What?” he shrugs defensively, “I had to tell someone, and she and Luke – “

“Luke?” Brooke squeaks, “Luke knew? He knew this whole time while I was waiting for you to finally find your balls and propose? And Luke? Knew?”

“We’ll just take this as our cue to leave,” I hastily state, nudging Nathan towards the door. He grins sympathetically at Tim as he slings an arm around my waist.

“Have fun with the engagement thing,” he grins, earning a weak smile from Tim and a glare from Brooke.

”I guess it’s a good thing I proposed,” I hear Tim laugh nervously as we make our way towards the exit, smiling at each other.

We’re quiet as we walk out to the car, me claiming the driver’s seat and Nathan settling into the passenger seat. “I love driving this death wagon,” I comment lightly, not willing to push him on what happened with Luke and everything, “It’s fun to sit up so high.”

“You only think that because you usually see the world from midget height,” he teases, tearing his gaze away from the window to smirk at me, “If you were a little taller, you’d be used to it.”

“Sure, tease the short one,” I laugh, smiling at him, “Oh, baby’s kicking.”

Grinning, he leans over, pressing his cheek to my belly. “He sure is.”

“Why are you always so positive we’re having a boy?” I exclaim, shaking my head at him, “You were positive Mere was going to be a boy, too.”

“Wishful thinking,” he laughs, “In case you haven’t noticed, I’m woefully outnumbered right now. It’s awful to think of what will happen when Mere thinks she’s going to start dating or wearing makeup or God, halter tops.”

“Oh, I guess I shouldn’t tell you that I bought her halter tops for this summer then,” I tease him, laughing at the cross expression on his face, “Calm down, I think we are safe from worrying over that type of thing for a while now still.”

He hmphs out a breath at that. “You’re evil,” he grins, “And you know, it isn’t fair to rub things like that in my face. That’s my baby. The thought of her dating is like a horror movie to me.”

“Nathan,” I sigh, smiling at him with a touch of indulgence, “They all grow up sometimes. Hey, if we can do it, anyone can.”

“Ha ha,” he smirks, “So, you aren’t even going to ask, huh?”

“You’ll tell me when you’re ready,” I state confidently, smiling sideways at him.

“Awfully sure of yourself there, huh, Hales?” he asks, arching his brows at me.

“Nope,” I deny, smiling at him, “I’m that sure of you. When you’re ready, you’ll tell me. And I can wait until then.”

“You don’t have to wait,” he counters, “You can feel free to ask me those things, baby. I’m definitely not trying to hide anything from you. It’s important to me that you know that.”

“I do know that,” I promise him, slowing the car a little so I can look over at him, “That’s why it is so easy for me to wait. Because I know that you will tell me when you’re ready. And yeah, I hope that is sooner rather than later, but I’ll wait as long as I have to.”

He nods, regarding me thoughtfully. “You do know I’m not that patient, right?” he asks, watching me carefully, “I never have been and I doubt that I ever will.”

I have to laugh at that. “Okay, no, that has not escaped my attention,” I assure him once I get the giggles under control, “But that’s okay, too. If I need to ask, I will. If it is something that I can wait for you to tell me yourself, then I will. It’s that simple for me.”

“Yeah, okay,” he smiles, relaxing back in his seat, “Can I tell you now?”

“Nathan!” I sigh, exasperated, “I just told you that you can tell me whenever you’re ready. If that’s now…well, yay!”

He laughs a little at that before turning back to look pensively out the window. It’s a few more minutes of silent driving before he speaks again. “You should show me around Durham someday,” he suggests, “Show me all the places you used to hang out with your friends.”

“Okay,” I drawl out, unsure of what he’s doing, if this is a delay tactic, “Maybe you and Mere can come in one afternoon, I can sneak out of work early, and we can wander the campus.”

“Sure,” he grins, “It’s no UConn, but it’ll have to do, I suppose.”

“Ha ha,” I snort, rolling my eyes, “Well, I have it on good authority that things are much prettier here, so neener.”

“I don’t know how to talk to Luke anymore,” he says suddenly, “I don’t know what we are. We…we aren’t friends, I killed that, and I don’t think we’re really brothers.”

I look over at him, surprised. “Nathan, being his brother isn’t some salient thing, you know. It’s something that just is.”

“He doesn’t seem to like me much anymore, not that I can really blame him for that, I guess.”

“Nathan,” I sigh, unsure what to say, how to make this better for him, “He loves you. He’s…I guess he’s angry with you, but he loves you. That doesn’t just change.”

He shrugs tiredly. “Maybe not. You saw that, though. He just…he’s so angry with me, and I don’t know what I’m supposed to do to change that, to fix it. So we’re just stagnant right now. He hates me, and I can’t do anything about it.”

“Don’t take this the wrong way, because I’m not trying to criticize you or argue with you,” I begin cautiously, stealing sidelong glances at him to gauge his reaction, “But it’s less that you can’t do anything about it and more that you won’t. Have you tried? Really tried?”

“Haley,” he sighs, looking back out the window, the set of his jaw terse.

“No, Nathan, tell me when you’ve honestly made an effort with him,” I push, knowing that this is a fine line to walk with Nathan, “For years, you’ve had problems with your brother and your father and your mother, and I’ve let you be with those. I haven’t pushed you, I haven’t tried to force you to work them out my way. But now you’re saying there’s nothing you can do, and I really don’t believe that.”

“Maybe there are people each of us aren’t meant to be close to,” he suggests, but I know he doesn’t mean that. Some comments are borne out of truth; others out of frustration.

I let that comment hang for a minute, waiting to see if he’ll add anything to it or take it back. When he doesn’t, I respond, “That’s ridiculous, and you know it.”

“I don’t know that I do know that anymore,” he contradicts, but there’s no heat behind the words, “Do I even know anything anymore?”

“What’s this all about?” I ask calmly, “Really. No holds barred, just tell me the truth. Is it more than just things with Luke?”

He shakes his head, denying that. After a moment, though, he shrugs. “It’s Luke, but I guess it’s also Dan.”

I nod, a little surprised, but really, when it comes down to it, maybe I expected that. “I know that me saying this doesn’t make it so for you, necessarily, but their relationship doesn’t change how they feel about you.”

“My brother hates me,” he laughs bitterly, “Maybe changing that would be a good thing.”

“He doesn’t hate you!” I exclaim, smacking my fist on the steering wheel, “Quit pouting and open your eyes, Nathan! He’s mad at you, and hey, maybe you’re right, he has good reasons to be. But you know as well as I do that anger doesn’t take away from love, so I don’t know what you’re on about with this.”

“So what am I supposed to do then?” he yells back, not angry, but rather frustrated with the situation and his inability to make it magically better, “Why don’t you tell me, if you know so much!”

“Oh, knock it off,” I snap tiredly, “We both know you aren’t mad at me, and picking a fight isn’t going to make me forget about this. Look, just talk to him. Talk to both of them. That’s what you need to do, and you know it as well as I do.”

He doesn’t answer that, but he nods, and maybe – just maybe – this time he’ll follow through, and it will be the start of something better for him. And for us.

Maybe someday it won’t feel like everything is a battle.

Chapter 17 - 18

1 :: 2 :: 3 :: 4 :: 5 :: 6 - 7 :: 8 - 9 :: 10 :: 11 - 12 :: 13 :: 14 :: 15 :: 16 :: 17 - 18 :: 19 - 20 :: 21