The amazing Rachael's birthday is today and she asked ever so kindly for season five Paley. This can standalone or I could add something to it, this could be read as friendship or as something more. I'll leave it up to all y'all but mostly to the birthday lady because she's the queen.
Happy twenty-fourth, Rach.
Disclaimer: I don't own a damn thing.
Tucked behind twenty-four different copies of An Unkindness of Ravens and every issue of B. Davis Magazine is the very first recording of the last song that ever made her feel a thing. Haley cut the first demo of Halo in her closet, lips too close to the mic Peyton used to record her podcasts and her voice rough from a bout of bronchitis she had still been fighting to get over. The redhead had burst into her room and flung herself across the foot of the bed in one smooth motion as she'd thrust the notebook in her face – it was Haley, brokenhearted and fighting for love like every other teenager. It had been six months since she spoke to Haley, a quick phone call on Jamie's birthday. She tucked the copy of Ravens on to the shelf and snaked her arm in behind to pull the cheap jeweled case containing the home burned CD out; Haley's familiar scrawl greeted her: For Peyton, the bedroom sessions. Dust had gathered since her last listen and she wiped it away with her thumb before removing the CD and placing it in the player.
"Is this thing on," seventeen year old Haley's voice greeted her. "God, Peyton, I don't know how to use this fancy shit."
She hid a small grin in the back of her hand just like she had five years ago. The window seat called to her and she tucked herself into the tight corner, knees at her chest and arms protectively folded. Haley's honey and sawdust voice poured out of the speakers and surrounded her like the gentle call of a lighthouse guiding a ship home through the storm.
Home. It had been four years since she touched foot in Tree Hill. Everyone besides her had managed trips home over the last few years. So easily she had set up camp in Los Angeles; her dad made port up and down California as often as he could, Luke had made the trip to see her on more than one occasion, she caught Brooke whenever she was in town, and she'd even managed to see Haley once for lunch when Nathan was talking contract negotiations. She convinced everyone she was fine, she was busy and would make it home as soon as she could, but the truth was that she had dreamed of getting out of Tree Hill all her life and she was deathly afraid that if she went home she would never leave. Los Angeles wasn't home, no matter how hard she tried to convince herself and everyone else. It didn't feel like home, it felt like a one night stand that overstayed its welcome.
The CD cycled through two rough cuts of Halo and a few covers – the Elvis Costello song Haley knew she loved, The Beatles' Come Together, and a bad cover of Sugar, We're Going Down that was littered with the blonde's laughter and the redhead's swearing. Her fingers curled around the remote and she hit the 'play' button with her thumb then nudged the volume up as much as she dared without pissing her neighbors off.
"Sing me home, Hales," she pleaded the memory.
Her heart hurt. John's words had cut her deeply and she wanted to scream loudly not because he was wrong but because he was so horribly right. She'd been a pawn, sucked into the game of business, and it scared her that she had so unwittingly sold her morals down stream to the highest bidder. She wasn't the same girl she was when her dad had dropped her off downstairs four years ago and, if she was being brutally honest, she didn't care much for who she saw in the mirror these days. She wanted to be the girl who believed that Haley's voice could save a life and that people who made music like that could make someone out there feel something they had never felt before.
Before she realized what she was doing, she was dialing a familiar old phone number and pausing the music. "Hey... It's Peyton," she said when the line clicked. "I know it's late there."
"S'okay," the quiet voice on the other end of the line promised. "Wasn't sleeping."
"I was just listening to that CD," she explained quietly. "The one we made in my closet in high school."
A soft chuckle made her grin. Haley cleared her throat, "The Bedroom Sessions? You still have that thing?"
"Like I would ever get rid of it," Peyton scolded. "No one else will ever have a copy."
"Thank god. My mom would kill me if she ever heard the swearing I did on that last song."
The blond laughed into the crook of her arm. "I've met your mom – she'd probably be proud."
"Okay, she might not kill me but Karen would."
"Fair enough."
They quieted for a moment before Haley softly cleared her throat. "Peyton, why did you call?"
"I miss home," she whispered. Tears pooled under her eyes and she wiped at them angrily, willing them away. "I miss knowing who I am. I thought this was going to be the great adventure and it's just not. I miss Tree Hill and... you. I miss you. And everyone else."
"I miss you, too, Peyton," Haley promised. "No one's forcing you to stay in California. If you're that unhappy, come home?"
"I can't just come home – I've thrown my whole life into becoming this and if I give up now what am I?"
"You're Peyton Sawyer," she told her firmly. "And you should come home because everyone deserves the kind of peace that comes from knowing where they belong. You don't have to give up the dream just because you come home – open your own damn recording studio in your closet, I'll be your first client."
"Promise?"
"Of course," Haley swore. "Life is just too short to be unhappy, Peyton."
Peyton sighed as she began to relax, her panic ebbing. "Are you happy, Haley?"
Silence greeted her and then she heard a loud crash in the background.
"Haley! What was that? Is Jamie-"
"It was Nathan," Haley confessed. "He's downstairs drinking himself stupid, apparently tonight is an angry drunk kind of night."
"Hales..."
"He's coping, Peyton. Being told he'll never play ball again has been hard on him, being confined to the wheel chair has been hard on him, seeing me and Jamie living life has been hard on him." Peyton closed her eyes and she could see Haley, the same Haley she had seen senior year when she'd taken the weight of the world on her shoulders. "I'm doing everything I can but it seems like every day just brings a little more Dan out in him."
The thundering of little feet sounded softly on the other end of the call and she listened as Jamie climbed in bed with his mama, Haley comforting him as she tucked him into bed next to her. "I'm going to come home," Peyton decided.
"Text me your flight info," the redhead instructed. "I'll pick you up at the airport."
"I will... It's going to be okay, Haley."
"That goes for you too, Peyton Sawyer."