Author: wistfuldreamer86

Disclaimer: I do not own OTH or the WB.

Summary: Haley moved to Georgia long ago to escape her mistakes, but the past still haunts her twenty years later.

Location: Savannah, Georgia

Setting: This is an AU piece. Haley still left Nathan and Tree Hill, but instead of going on tour with Chris Kellar, she went to Georgia. Jake never came back to Tree Hill. So he was never with Peyton and Nikki never found him. Set in the distant future with flashbacks.

Author's Note: The characters may seem strange. Not quite how they really are, but it's how I see them given these circumstances. This is my first Jake/Haley fic so I hope you enjoy it. If you read please review.

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Chapter I: Always Blue

"Dancing where the stars go blue.

Dancing where the evening fell."

When the Stars go Blue

Slow circles. Turn to the right, swirl around. The white dress covering Haley's body spun out, like a flower around her waist. White, shimmering lace falling around her short legs. Glowing in the moonlight. The moon bouncing in and out of the barely visible clouds above. Outlined in silver. Elusive sky, never able to be reached; only seen. Everyone up there, dancing among the stars. Winking down at her.

She sighed into the wind, letting it caress her face lightly. Warm and scented by magnolias. Her favorite flower. Had been for years now. Never remembering a time before the summer was tinted with its seductive scent. Tickling the sensitive flesh of her nose. She had come to Georgia on a night like this. A night so very long ago….

"What are you doing here, Haley?" Jake's eyebrows lowered, sitting quietly together, in surprise.

"Had Georgia on my mind," she replied nonchalantly. She lifted her lonely suitcase up a little, pulling it closer to her chest. It was old, beaten by years of use.

"How did you find me?" He pressed to the side of the door, blocking her from entering. Or seeing inside. At his life. Keeping her out.

"Peyton…said you went to stay with your cousin. I….looked up his last name, there were five of you in the book. This is the second house I've been to."

"She told you?"

"In passing…a long time ago. After Nikki left Tree Hill."

"She left?"

"Yeah…don't worry. She doesn't know where you are." She wanted him to ask her in. Invite her into his home. Into his life. She needed someone who didn't know her. Really know her. Who she had been or who she was now. A lost girl. A girl who made mistakes. A girl who just wanted to rest her head on a friendly pillow. A pillow without memories. Or regrets. Or shame.

"Okay…" he studied her pale face. She looked different than when he had left Tree Hill. Her hair was lighter. Streaks of blonde highlights going across it. Her face felt smaller. More gaunt. Her cheekbones more prominent. The innocence that used to fill her face gone. Haunted eyes full of sadness and shame. "Why are you here?" He repeated his original question.

She sighed, she could never escape the questions. Why she left Nathan. Why she kissed Chris Kellar. Why she said she was going on tour. Why she ended up here instead. How she could hurt everyone who loved her. Why she hadn't called anyone in four weeks. Why she was standing on the doorstep of a near stranger. A boy she had known all her life. But had never really talked to. Always a shadow. Never a figure she studied. "I don't know…" Honesty. She had been making excuses to herself for weeks. Excuses to everyone else. But now came the honesty. There was no answer. "I wish I did."

He cocked his head to the side. He believed her. She had never been a liar. Not that he knew of anyway. They had gone to school together for years. It was always distant, never personal. Now she was here. On his doorstep. With a ratty, old black suitcase. Alone. He didn't know what to say. So he just waited. Knowing that any moment she'd continue.

"I don't expect you to take me in." She began slowly, her words slipping off her tongue into the early summer heat. "I was just passing through town and…was hoping, for a night, you could take in a straggler."

"Of course, you can stay the night, but…why are you alone?"

She should have expected that. When he left she had been deeply in love with Nathan. In a crazy, reckless way. To the point that she married him on a whim. A whim she was still paying for months later. "With..Nathan..it's…" It was never easy to say it. To face her decisions. "Over."

"Why?" Her face wasn't the face of someone who was devastated. It was calm. Matter-of-fact.

"Everyone was right." She smiled sheepishly, "We were too young. Too inexperienced. Too different. We had a good relationship…but getting married was a mistake." Cold. She sounded so heartless.

"Haley…" He shifted, feeling her pain. A pain he had felt when things with Nikki had fizzled. "I'm sorry." The worst thing to say. It never helped. But it was all he could say. Shock. He had never expected it.

"Don't be," By now she was willing to admit her faults. Her missteps. "It was my fault. I let him down. I left him for someone else. For my music."

"Oh," It was the only word that filled his mind.

"You know…when you first fall for someone you think it's going to last forever. I only gave it three months. I jumped into marriage too quickly. Then when someone else came into my life that inspired me…I proved to be fautlty." Why had it gotten so easy to say this? To take responsibility. Maybe because everyone had blamed her. Were probably still blaming her. "I lied too. I told everyone I was going on tour, but I'm not."

"That's…a lot to process." He shook his head, taking in her words.

"I know, I just wanted to be honest. I came here….looking for something. Someone familiar, but not close."

He stared at her for a long time. He knew he should find fault in the girl standing on his porch. But everyone made mistakes. He had made his share. She wasn't hiding from them. She was just asking to be accepted despite everything that happened. "Come in…"

She opened her eyes, letting the memory soak through her brain. She had never been able to leave Savannah. Despite her claim it was for a night. Only a night. A night that has expanded into twenty years. Years filled with heartache, pain, joy, forgiveness. Learning to live again. To breathe again. She looked up at the stars through half closed eyes until the balls of fire turned blue. A vibrant blue. The stars hadn't looked this beautiful in years…

"Ever hear that song…" her voice was lazy, full of Georgia summer. Sweet summer.

"What song?" He turned his head toward her, rustling the checkered blanket they were laying on.

"My song, 'When the Stars Go Blue'," She hadn't thought of that song in so long. Of singing in so long. She had been living with Jake, Jenny, and his cousin for two months now. She almost had enough money to rent a place of her own.

"That was you, huh?" Her eyes sparked in the starlight. Tugging at his heart. An attraction he had been fighting since she had stepped onto his porch. She was fragile. Reckless. Chaotic. She wasn't the Haley James of Tree Hill. She was someone else. Someone who lived in the stars. Without dreams. Just moving. Always moving. But at the same time standing. Staying.

"Yeah," she smiled into the starlight. Letting it melt into her face. "Well I was looking…at the stars and I was thinking…are they ever blue?"

He laughed. Deep. Loud. "Maybe if you squint her eyes really hard together they could turn blue."

"Wanna try?" She bit her cheek, forcing her dimples to show. Dimples that used to fill her face so easily now hidden. She didn't wait for an answer, but squeezed her eyes together until everything shifted. Became unfocused. The stars were blue. "They are," she said quietly, not wanting to break the color filling her eyes.

"I don't see it," His voice was warm. Like his heart. Filling up with the blue fire that he could see falling into her doe eyes. She was care free. Child-like in her wonder. At the same time hard. Haunted. Full of past mistakes. Not once had he thought ill of her because of what happened. She was barely seventeen. She had a lifetime to make up for it. And more mistakes to make.

"You have to unfocus your eyes," her eyes began to ache from straining so long so she released them. The stars becoming white-silver once again.

"It's not…wait…I see it," Discovery. She always made him see something new. Unexpected. Like her, showing up. Being so different. Less serious. But more serious at the same time. An enigma.

"It's beautiful," she laughed. Tinkling in the dry air. She stood up, swept the mosquitos off her face, and walked over to Jenny. Fast asleep. Her chubby cheeks rosy from the heat. Sweet. Delicate. Innocent. "Your daddy and I saw the stars go blue," she said softly, for her their ears only. "I'll tell you about it someday,"

He watched Haley bend over and tell Jenny a secret. One she'd never tell him. Everything she told Jenny was personal. That's what she always said. She was good with Jenny. Kind. Gentle. "We should get her inside,"

She picked up the carrier Jenny was laying in and gently rocked her as she walked with Jake to the house. They had been in a nearby park. It was safe. Friendly. "'Dancing when the starts go blue, dancing as the evening fell.'" She sang for the first time in months. She smiled at Jake as he put his hand on her back.

"Mom, what are you doing out here?"

Haley turned, her thoughts breaking. "Hey sweetie, just looking at the stars."

"Have they gone blue yet?" Her daughter teased. Wide grin. Just like her father's.

"They're always blue," she looked up, "You just have to know how to look at them."

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