Disclaimer: I don't own anything, all rights to their respective owners!
A/N: This one is for all you Chaley lovers who, like me, want more Chaley love in the world!
Chapter 1. Coulda, woulda, shoulda
Haley closed her eyes and let out a long over-due sigh. Her bed creaked against her weight, but didn't protest half as much as she had expected. Staring at the ceiling, Haley thought back over the past year and all the things that could have been.
She could still be married to Nathan Scott, if she hadn't gone on the tour with Chris and The Wreckers…
She could have lived with Nathan in their apartment.
She could have gotten pregnant.
She could have had a family with the man she loved.
She could have lived out her days in quiet contentment.
But, that was not the case of this Haley James. No, she had gone on tour with Chris, causing her marriage to fall apart and her future to go with it. So when the letter came in the mail, she had been accepted to Columbia University, full ride and everything, she hadn't been able to say 'thanks, but no thanks'. She had answered the immediately, 'I will be attending'.
The white ceiling seemed to come down on her, inch by inch, as she repeated the image of Nathan yelling at her. Of Nathan crying. Of Nathan's face when she threw the divorce papers at him. The ceiling kept crawling closer and closer, until she couldn't stand it for another second. She shot out of bed and threw clothes on.
This was New York City, there had to be better things to do than lie around thinking about your ex-husband?
Dan punched him. Actually punched him. And for what? Well, for sleeping with his sister, of course. In retrospect, feeling the blood trickle out of his nose, he knew he should have been a better man about it. But he had been so eager to get Blair back, it hadn't even mattered. Jenny had suddenly been this footnote, something that seemed to be in a different life. When he saw Blair, all he could think about was her. About getting her back.
She had explained. She had been almost as desperate as him to find a way for things to work.
Until Dan had punched him.
He grunted as he felt the icepack clunk against his nose, Lily standing there beside him even after what he had done.
"I should have-"
"Charles," her calm, soft voice said. It sounded like a song after all the screaming that had gone on that night. He was tired. "I should berate you, but you need someone too. Let them be mad at you, take some time away, but let me be here for you." He nodded in agreement.
"Get off me!" Haley screamed, stumbling away from the guy grabbing at her ass. She waved her left hand in his face. "I'm married, you ass!"
He looked at her with utter shock. "Sorry," he muttered and stumbled away, drunk as a skunk. She pushed her drink away, the annoying feeling of him having put something in it pricking at the back of her mind.
"Water," she yelled at the bartender as he leaned in to get her order. He frowned, but complied. She smiled a friendly smile before then cruising the crowd, trying to fit in. She had seen half of these kids before she realized, on various TV-shows, talking about their wealthier-than-God parents, in the papers and on the newest thing she had found – the gossip-column service that was appropriately enough named Gossip Girl.
Somewhere across the crowd she heard someone yell out a name, it sounded like a fish. Her muddled, drunken mind somehow managed to get the name to be Salmon, but she severely doubted that had been it. "What the hell happened to you?" one of the guys asked as he dunked the Salmon on the back. Haley passed them, the answer fading fast, but she managed to overhear a few words. "I did the Humphrey girl, I need a drink-" and she shook her head, detesting the boy for all his faults. She cursed all of them for being so… so… Urgh! None of them were men, not like her Nathan had been, he had been all man- She broke those thoughts off before she started to focus on some of his more masculine features, and it wouldn't be his chiselled jaw she would be thinking of.
She put her glass of water down and exited the club, gasping in the cool night air. One thing was on her mind. Then she admitted to herself she was actually thinking about Nathan's – well, not jaw, that was for sure – and upped the count to two, two things were on her mind. One of which being sleep, the other being unimportant. She caught a cab, gave the driver the address and were about to leave, when someone banged the top of the cab. He stopped and she protested loudly as the door opened.
"This guys needs a ride," someone slurred from outside, and Haley slurred back, pissed off they'd hijacked her cab.
She even swore.
But that didn't help.
She recognized the guy now sleeping on her shoulder.
It was the Salmon man, the one who was such an ass. She slapped him, and he grunted in his sleep, so she slapped him again.
He opened his eyes, looked at her and smiled. "You're beautiful," he slurred, but she could put money on him not being drunk already. He'd just gotten there.
"And you're drooling on me," she half-slurred back. He laughed and then started to fade out, like he was slipping. She slapped him again. Suddenly she felt a lot more sober, cos this guy seemed to be out of it for the both of them. "What's you name?" she asked, now a bit concerned. He hadn't been there long enough to get this drunk.
Something was wrong.
"Chuck." His eyes were still closed.
"Chuck, open your eyes."
He wrenched one eyelid open and peered at her. "Why?" he mumbled.
"How much did you have to drink?"
He laughed, and his eye closed again. "Just a whisky," he smiled. Yes. Unless he could handle no alcohol, something was wrong.
"Any medication?"
He nodded with that goofy grin. "Mmmhm, sure thing, painkillers and something else…" His smile turned into a frown. "Can't remember what though." He stumbled on the words and she turned to the cabbie.
"We're gonna need to go to a hospital instead," she said, and with a single look at Chuck she added: "And quick."
He woke up in an all too bright room, the white walls so bright it cut through his already pounding skull. The bed has was in was beyond uncomfortable and he squinted to see where he was.
Hospital.
Great, he thought, his mind soggy and his mouth feeling sticky. Looking around the room as his eyes slowly adjusted to the harsh light he noticed small annoying birds in the ceiling right above him. Fugg'em. Then he discovered he wasn't alone. On his arm he felt something warm, and looking down he saw a brown head of hair. Almost like Blair's, but not. The shade was softer, richer and not as perfect. He moved his arms a little and she jostled, looking up at him from her uncomfortable position. She sat up, her back cracking as she made a face and then she stretched.
"How are you feeling?" she asked, her voice low and soft, like she expected him to be hung over. He smiled.
"Peachy," he retorted and she smiled.
"You really shouldn't take pain-meds and drink you know," she said, almost sweetly. He snorted. She shrugged and then, almost to herself, she added something he barely caught. "Coulda, woulda, shoulda." She then looked up at him, her eyes thinly veiled with grief. "Just don't do it again," she said. Her voice was firm, caring and way too stubborn. He liked her.