Take Two

What if the Season 1 finale ended differently? What if Deacon didn't storm out of Rayna's dressing room after receiving confirmation that Maddie was his child? This picks up the night of the Season 1 CMAs.

This was meant to be a one shot but I got a little carried away. The next chapters are drafted so I will post them soon.

Rayna is in her dressing room, hair and makeup people making sure she's ready to present on stage. She's been focusing on doing her job, rather than on how angry Deacon seems. She doesn't know what is going on between them, but she can't think about that now.

Deacon walks towards her dressing room. His natural instinct is to run away when life gets tough, to hide out, but he's changed, he's not the same man he used to be. After more than a dozen years in Alcoholics Anonymous he's learned that your problems will always find you. It's better to face them head on.

He knows he was in bad shape "back then," but he's not now. He's waited nearly 14 years to be with this woman again, his soul mate, and he's not ready to throw it all away, at least not just yet. He knows he wasn't always there for her in the past, he knows he didn't always love her the way she deserved to be loved. There has got to be a good explanation for Maddie's conclusion and he at least owes Rayna the chance to explain herself. He can man up for once. He owes her that. No matter what happens, he reminds himself, what matters is Rayna and him…together.

"Hey."

"Hey," she responds, more wary than surprised.

"Ugh I need to talk can I have a minute?" Deacon asks this very matter of factly as he takes a seat in Rayna's dressing room.

"Maddie came to see me."

"What?" Rayna asks, both confused and afraid. She's sensing something is not right.

"She wants to know if I'm her father. She found this, ah, report, and it said that Teddy wasn't, so, you know, so she wants to know if I am." His anger is rising, a wealth of emotions rushing through him. He wanted to prove to her she'd been wrong about him, that if this was something she had hidden from him...that he could have handled it back then, and he sure as hell can handle it now. But, always one to wear his heart on his sleeve, his emotions are getting the best of him.

"I need you to tell me that it's not true, that you haven't been lyin' to me every moment of the last 13 years." He doesn't just want her to tell him this, he physically needs her to tell him. He needs to know that the woman he's loved for his entire adult life has not doubted him so much as to hide his own child from him in plain sight. He needs to know she hadn't willingly chosen another man over him, all the while carrying his child inside of her. He needs to know he hadn't been chasing some crazy dream of them like a damn fool for the past 14 years. He feels nauseous.

Deacon appears eerily calm at first, but his eyes are wide. Rayna can almost feel his adrenaline pumping. She speaks as calmly as she can, as though he might attack at any moment. She pretends to take control of the situation, something that comes naturally to her after years of practice, but underneath it all she feels broken, as broken as if he'd physically laid his hands on her himself. Deacon has seen that look before. It's the look his own mother wore far to often during his childhood. He sees the same fear in Rayna's eyes that he remembered on his mother's face.

Rayna casts her eyes down, which is all the answer Deacon needs. He lets the deep breath that he'd been holding in for the past 3 hours.

"How is it possible? Huh? You wanna start by telling me that?" He doesn't like the rage that is building inside. He's losing faith in himself, in their relationship, and in this moment he wants her to feel all of the pain he is feeling, the pain of being stabbed right in the heart.

"Try to remember how you were-"

He cuts her off. "I remember Rayna. I got sober." He worked so damn hard to get sober. So damn hard. And for what?

This was not how he planned for this to play out but the pain in this moment is almost more than he can bare. He got sober. He got sober and he still wasn't good enough.

"I know you did get sober but it took you 5 times in rehab." Rayna's old frustrations, her old feelings of helplessness are returning. She tries again to explain. "You broke every stick of furniture in my apartment."

"You're not answering my question. What does that have to do with you not telling me she's mine?" He can't trust himself enough to even call her his daughter at this point, his child. He'd wanted a family with Rayna once, he even thought he'd be a good dad, but she didn't...she never thought he was good enough. Maybe she was right about that. What did he know about being anyone's father?

Rayna tries to get the words out before he can walk out on her. She knows that's what's coming. She can feel that old anxiety building. It hurts just as badly as the first time he walked out, as it did when her own father kicked her out of the house, as it did when her mother died.

"I am answering your question. I found out I was pregnant. I ended up talking about it with Teddy and we decided that we would get married. We would do a paternity test after we were married. And then Coleman said that I should cut you lose because I wanted you to get better and he thought that would be the way to do that. So then Teddy and I made a decision to do what's best for Maddie so-"

"So she's mine?"

Rayna nods. She never lost faith in him. She lost faith in herself. Why can't he understand that?

Deacon has heard enough. He crosses the room just as the stage manganese opens the door.

"Ms. Jaymes you're on in 40 seconds."

"Deacon..."

He's fighting an internal battle and he is determined to win this time. He's done bowing down to the demons that have followed him for so many years. He's not that same man. He's done running.

He sighs and crosses the room to sit down, wiping one hand across his face.

"I will be right here when you get off that stage," he says firmly, if only somewhat more calmly.

Rayna pauses to assess the situation. She nods, almost imperceptibly, before taking a deep breath, straightening up, and heading for the stage to announce the next award.