A.N Well this is a story idea that came to me today and I just couldn't get it out of my head so here it is all done...It's a one shot but there will be a follow up that deals with Karen's P.O.V...Hopefully I'll get thatdone tomorrow and will have it up for you all to read...It's a bit different to the stuff that I normally write so I would love some feedback on what you all think of it...
When All The Hope Is Gone
"Come visit us in ten years and I bet you can meet the kids and get a tour of our big house and see how happy we are." The words played through his mind as he watched the two figures on screen. The sound was muted but he didn't need to hear her voice to know what she said. He had been there when she said it, he had watched this very tape hundreds of times since then and those words were burned into his brain.
It had seemed such a simple statement back then, the idea that they would get married and have kids seemed almost a foregone conclusion. They had everything going for them and he couldn't imagine ever being in love with another woman the way he was with her.
So why didn't it work out? What the hell went wrong to interfere with what surely had been their destiny? Although he tried to tell himself that there was more than one answer to that question he knew that in truth the only thing that had gotten in their way was his own actions. It was his fear and panic that had drove them apart, his ego that had come between them and his desire to be something more that had ultimately pushed her out of his life.
That night when she had come to him and told him that she was pregnant it was as if he had seen his whole future crashing down around him. All the dreams he had held of being a professional basketball player, all the hell that his father had put him through had all been for nothing. College was almost here and yet at that moment it had felt further away than ever before.
College was never going to happen for him if he had a wife and baby in tow. That was not what college was supposed to be about. How could he go to college with them hanging like a dead weight around his neck? He had listened to his father go on and on with all these arguments about how they would destroy his life, telling him that Karen had deliberately gotten pregnant as a way of forcing him to remain there in Tree Hill with her. At first he had argued with him telling him that it wasn't true and that none of that mattered because he loved her and his life was with her and their baby but then Royal had taken a different tack asking him what sort of future he could hope to provide for them when he was such a failure.
Dan had wanted nothing more than to argue but deep down he knew the truth in those words, he had barely made it through high school, the only reason he was even going to college was because of his athletic scholarship. Could he really hope to provide for a wife and baby on some medium wage job when he knew that he could offer them so much better if he just left them behind while he attended college? He was going to be a basketball star, top player of the NBA and when he got his foot in the door then he could come back for them.
So he had gone off to college telling himself that it was not the end for him and Karen, that they would still have the life she dreamed of, they would have the kids, the big house and most importantly of all they would be happy.
Somewhere along the line though, those plans got messed up. Going to college had been a mind blowing experience, nothing in his time as part of the Tree Hill High elite had prepared him for this. Every day there was another party going on with booze and gorgeous girls throwing themselves at him and slowly the importance and strength of those feelings for Karen had started to fade. He had allowed himself to be drawn into the live for the moment mentality that seemingly surrounded him and the calls home had become less and less frequent.
That was when Deb Lee had come into his life. Pretty, blonde, rich sorority girl Deb who had promised him nothing but good times with no strings attached and so he had begun seeing her, telling himself that he was entitled to have a bit of fun before he settled down to a life of domestic bliss with Karen and their child. The child that he was sure would be one of many, his first son who would surely grow up to love basketball just like he did. That would be what he would want to teach his son more than anything, the love for this game.
But somehow he could never quite just relax and allow himself the fun that he wanted so badly to believe that he deserved. He knew that Karen was still at home waiting for him, that she was growing bigger with his child and he was fast coming to a realisation that college maybe wasn't all that it was cracked up to be.
Basketball was no longer fun the way it had once been. He was no longer the star player of the team. He was now surrounded by players that had been specially chosen for their basketball skills and he had become just another number in making up the team.
The final straw had come one night after finding himself warming the bench for most of a game. Showering afterwards he had come to the conclusion that he didn't belong there, that he didn't belong anywhere except back home in Tree Hill with Karen.
When he had got back to his room that night he had picked up the phone desperate for the sound of her soft voice, her breathy laughter and her whispered assurances of how much she loved him. Listening to it ring he had waited impatiently for her to pick up, suddenly nothing more important to him than hearing the sound of her voice.
Finally he heard the phone being picked up at the other end and he felt his breath catch in his throat only to be released in a whoosh of disappointment as he heard his brother's voice at the other end of the line.
"Keith it's me I need to speak to Karen."
He had heard the catch in his brother's voice as he had agreed to bring her to the phone. Although he rarely admitted it to himself he knew how Keith felt about his girlfriend but he also knew Karen and that she would never ever think that way about Keith.
"Hello," he heard her hesitant voice and immediately felt a weight lift off his shoulders.
"Hey baby it's me."
"Dan?" she said and he could hear the relief and happiness in her voice at hearing from him and he felt a stab of guilt in his gut as he tried to work out just how long it had been since he last called her. One week or was it two?
"I'm so happy you called," she said and he heard the distinct sound of a door slamming in the background and knew that Keith had gone.
"I've been missing you baby," he told her. "I've decided that I'm going to finish this semester and then I'm going to come home to you. I want to be there when our baby's born."
"Oh Dan," she said and he could hear the joyful tears in her voice and for the first time in a long time he knew that he was doing the right thing. His life wasn't here it was back in Tree Hill with Karen.
He hung up the phone that night with a renewed sense of purpose. Suddenly the idea of a career in basketball didn't really seem that important. He was going to be a father and he was going to be a damn good one at that. But most importantly he was going to be raising a child with the woman he loved more than he ever thought he would love anyone.
Those next few days passed with him walking around as if his head were in the clouds, nothing could dampen his mood well apart from the fact that he hadn't been able to find his kind of girlfriend to break it off with her. Having people come up and ask him whether he and Deb would be attending the next huge party was uncomfortable but he could hardly tell these other people that he and Deb were over when he hadn't yet had the opportunity to tell her that things had changed. He didn't think it would be that much of an issue though. Deb had assured him from the start that she wasn't looking for a long term commitment, she just wanted to have some fun and see where that took them. Besides she was a pretty girl he was sure she would have no trouble finding another guy only too happy to fill his place in her bed.
But still it had eaten away at him knowing that while Karen sat at home preparing for the birth of their child another girl might possibly be imagining a future with him despite what she had said. So that night he had gone to seek her out, to tell her that it was over and that he was returning to the girl that he really loved, the one who was about to make him a father.
That was the night though that he had lost any chance at having a future with Karen, that was the night that his plans for his future truly had crashed down around him, that was the night that Deb Lee told him that she was pregnant with his child.
Hearing her say those words he had never in his life felt such a strong urge to flee as he did just then. He wanted to escape from the truth that she was telling him because no matter how much he wanted not to believe her he had seen the truth written plainly in her eyes almost as soon as he had entered her room.
A million thoughts had flashed through his mind in the seconds after she had said those words but the one that had echoed clearest in his mind was that whatever chance he had of making a life with Karen was now over so he had done the only thing he could do. He had proposed to Deb and promised to be with her and their child for the rest of his life.
He could still easily recall the time years later when he had for the first time allowed himself to wallow in the regret of what he might have had.
He had sat in his car across the street from the café looking at the nine year old boy sitting at the table scribbling something down in the book in front of him as he read something from the text he held in his other hand. He watched as Karen walked over to where he sat reaching out a hand to ruffle his hair as she leant down to get a better look at what he was doing and offered her assistance. He saw the smile of pride lighting up her eyes as he nodded and grinned in understanding of what she was explaining.
He wanted nothing more in that moment then to get out of his car and cross the street and go and join in on this family scene. They were after all his family perhaps more so than Deb and Nathan even though the two of them were probably considered to be more his in the legal sense of the word. He never experienced a sense of familial warmth in his own home which undoubtedly he had to accept some of the blame for but he also knew that the warmth wasn't there because the love wasn't there. He knew he loved Nathan and that that child meant more to him than anything he had in his life these days but although she had given him his son and in some respects the car dealership he ran today he couldn't help but resent Deb. She had gotten in the way of the destiny that he had been so sure had been in store for him and Karen and now it was too late.
As he watched Karen looked up and for a moment her eyes locked on his and he saw a flash of something in her eyes, a certain wistfulness, a longing for what might have been but then almost as quickly as it had appeared it was gone and replaced with nothing more than the same coldness he had gotten from her ever since he had returned to Tree Hill with his ready made family.
He reached down starting his engine and driving back to the life that he had chosen, the life that had him ensnared in its grasp and would never let go.
He had sat in his home that night watching as Deb spent half the night on the phone trying to sort out business with the foundation, as his son sat in front of the TV watching the game eating his dinner off a tray in front of him and wondered not for the first time why he had ever chosen this life.
The only thing that kept him there was his son. Nathan was a good kid, obsessed with basketball just the way he had been at his age but he knew that he wasn't really a good father to him. He knew that his own bitterness with the life he was trapped in had festered and infected his relationship with Nathan. He wanted to be a good dad to the boy but something always held him back from loving him the way he knew he should.
Perhaps it was knowing that he hadn't been conceived with love the way his half brother had been, perhaps it was the knowledge that it was his conception that had stopped him from going back to the woman he loved to raise his child with her or perhaps it was knowing that the day he was born any chance he ever had of being the man he wanted to be, the man he could be with Karen had died.
So the years had passed and in the place of the love he had once felt bitterness had entered his soul. A bitterness that grew stronger with every day that went by, every day that he stayed with Deb and watched Karen and her son enjoying a life without him.
He saw Nathan turning into a heartless jock and didn't care; he couldn't bring himself to care. Deb went away on increasingly long business trips and he barely noticed her absence. Nothing really got through to him until the night that he found Keith and Lucas tangled up in the mangled mess of a car after Keith ran the red light in front of him. Seeing Lucas there had torn at his heart, torn at all the walls he had put up. Dragging him out of that car he had been terrified that his son might be about to die before he had ever gotten the chance to know him.
When they had asked in the hospital if he was his legal guardian and the words had spilled forth from his lips claiming him as his son for the first time out loud it had been almost cathartic. But it had taken only moments to realise after he was rushed to surgery that his presence there would not be welcomed by Karen when she arrived. She wouldn't want to see him and he being here would only make things worse.
So he had left and spent the rest of the night trying to push the images of what had happened out of his mind until finally the alcohol he consumed had allowed him to escape into a blessed numbness.
The next day he had hidden away in the dealership trying to convince himself that he couldn't go to the hospital that he had no business being there. The hours had dragged by and his fingers almost ached from the numerous times he had dialled the number to the hospital asking for the latest information, every time though he had been greeted with the same news that his son was in a serious but stable condition and as yet had not regained consciousness.
Seeing Karen come through those doors for a moment he was sure his heart stopped. She could only be there for one thing. Lucas must be dead and she was here to deliver the news. But the look in her eyes was not one of grief instead she seemed relieved. He started speaking almost before he knew what he was saying sure that the only other possible reason that she could be there was to yell at him for giving permission to the doctors to act without waiting for her. She had told him once before that she didn't want him as a father to her son and this was the ultimate act of claiming his son.
"They handed me the consent forms, he needed surgery, you have a right to be upset but…."
Then her arms were around him and he felt a wave of familiarity wash over him as he inhaled her scent and recognised it as the same one that she had always had. She still smelt of jasmine and something that was just her. He had never smelt it from anyone else and doubted that he ever would.
She had choked out the words Thank-you and then as quickly as she had come she was gone again and he was left alone with nothing but his loneliness.
He had lived in hope for a time after that, hope that somehow things would be changed after that moment with Karen but nothing did change, nothing except his marriage to Deb which ended. If he was honest with himself he knew that it had been over for some time. It ended with little fanfare and although he was for the most part glad to be rid of her for some reason he couldn't just let her walk away. Maybe it was because he couldn't bear to let her walk away when she had already taken the best part of his life with her. He wanted to punish her for taking away his chance at love and could think of no better way then to force her to remain with him in a loveless marriage. If he was going to suffer than so was she. After that night he tried to close off his heart and for the most part he succeeded. He told himself that none of them mattered to him anymore and acted like the monster they all believed him to be.
Time had continued to pass in that same monotonous tempo and he had done everything he could to make them all hate him. He knew that he would never have Karen again so could see no point in letting any of them in. If he made himself despicable then he would not have to deal with any more rejection.
Then he had had his own failings shoved in his face in the most blatant way possible with the news that Karen and Keith were involved. He hadn't wanted to believe it, had tried desperately to convince himself that it wasn't true but had been unable to do that when he had been confronted with the truth in front of his very eyes. That was the time when he had seriously wondered about escaping from it all, moving towns and just leaving it all behind. But that wasn't possible he was the mayor and he had to stay.
The day that he had gotten the phone call telling him that there was a gunman in the school he had felt desperation unlike anything he had felt before. His sons were in there and they were in danger. He had rushed to the school wanting nothing more than to get his boys out of there. Karen had been there and he had wanted to go to her, to comfort her, to tell her that he understood how she felt because he felt the same sense of helplessness and panic but Keith had been there doing what he wanted to do, holding her in his arms and comforting her in the way he yearned to do himself. He had watched them overcome with loneliness knowing that there was no-one there who cared in that moment about the fear he felt.
He remembered how less than two weeks before he had sat outside the café just like he had years before but this time Keith had been there in the place that he should have been, eating with them, laughing with them and being part of the family that he wanted nothing more than to be part of himself. Keith had come out to him telling him that he should go home, that it wasn't his life and his gut had clenched because he couldn't argue with him or the innate truth in his words. So he had driven away as requested and Keith had gone into the room to be with the family that he had chosen to walk away from all those years ago.
Standing outside the school he had listened as Keith promised her that he wouldn't let anything happen to 'their boy' and his stomach had churned. When was it that Keith had so effortlessly assumed the role of father in his son's life? He'd always known that Keith was there but his role had always remained on the sidelines up until recently. It had always been obvious that Keith was in love with Karen but it had been equally obvious that Karen didn't return those feelings. When had that changed? When had he been usurped?
He had been surprised when Keith had come to him with the request to go into the school and try to talk to Jimmy although just what surprised him about it he wasn't sure. Keith had always been the mediator in the family it made sense that he would once again take on that role. For a moment he wished that he could be that man, be the man he once hoped he could be, the saviour to all around him but he knew it was a vain hope. He was no more that man than he was father to Lucas or the man to whom Karen could turn in times of crisis. No he wasn't that man and with Keith there he probably never would be.
He had taken Keith into the school and stood in the background as his son had emerged with Peyton in his arms. He had listened to Keith tell Lucas the one thing that he had never been able to work up the nerve to tell him himself. Keith could tell Lucas that he loved him and yet he as his father was unable to utter the same words. It brought crashing home just how badly he had messed up his own life and those of everyone around him.
He had remained in the shadows though even as Jimmy had brandished his gun sobbing about the pain he felt. He had hung back listening as Keith talked about understanding how it felt to buy a gun with the intention of using it. He had known in that instant exactly who it was Keith had planned to use that gun against and it had torn at his insides knowing that he had turned into such a monster that his own brother had wanted him dead. How was he ever going to be able to look at him again? Every time he did he would see his own failings and what a truly despicable human being he had become. He looked at Keith kneeling over the now dead Jimmy and saw the image of him with Karen and Lucas in the café flash before his eyes. He couldn't bear to look at his brother anymore when all of his own shortcomings seemed to be written all over the other mans face. He picked up the gun and looked him in the eye before pulling the trigger.
Taking the remote off the nightstand beside him he clicked off the flickering screen of the TV and rested back against his pillows. He knew that sleep would be a long time coming. He looked at the petite woman in the bed beside him her brunette hair fanned out around her face. She gave every appearance of sleeping but he knew better. He knew that she only pretended to sleep so that she would not have to leave. He didn't kid himself that she really wanted to be here with him, in a perfect world she would be curled up in bed with his brother but he had shattered that perfect world barely a week ago and instead of being dealt some sort of punishment it had brought him the one thing he had longed for ever since he had lost it. It had brought him Karen.
Seeing her standing there on his doorstep that night had shocked him. She was the last person he had expected to be ringing his doorbell in the middle of the night. He had opened the door at the same time opening his mouth to ask her what she was doing there but had been shocked out of his speech as she had stepped inside and started removing every vestige of clothing that she wore. He had tried once more to speak but she had stopped him, stepping up to him and covering his mouth with her own she had kissed him. She had grabbed his hands pulling them up to rest on her naked flesh standing on tip toes she had looped her arms around his neck pressing herself into his body. He had stood there not responding for a moment, not knowing what to do and her small teeth had nipped at his bottom lip causing him to gasp with pain. As soon as his mouth opened she had thrust her tongue into his mouth stroking against his. He wanted to resist her but it was as if everything that he had been longing for in the past eighteen years was now his for the taking and he couldn't hold back. He groaned wrapping his arms around her tiny body relishing the feel of once again holding her.
Her hands were pulling at his clothes and hastily he helped her to get them off. He wanted, no he needed to feel her naked against him. He needed to feel their flesh pressed together the way they used to be before everything had gone so wrong. They hadn't even made it up the stairs, devouring each other on the floor just inside the door. When it was over she had turned and gone up the stairs saying nothing. He had followed after her eagerly trying to make sense of what had just happened. He tried to ask her about it but she simply stared at him blankly.
"I didn't come here to talk," she said simply and he knew in that moment that she was simply using him. She needed to feel alive, to lose herself with someone else and she had come to him. He wished he had the strength to turn her away but he knew that he never would.
Now hours later he lay watching her pretending to sleep and knew that at last his prayers had been answered. He had his Karen back, the only woman he had ever really loved. But at the same time he knew that he was lying to himself because this wasn't his Karen and he didn't have her back. She would get what she needed from him and she would be gone again. All he could do was relish what time they had.