Title: Who's To Say
Author: Hana (thedreamygirl)
Rating: Teen
Spoilers: Up to 1x06 "Every Night is Another Story"
Summary: Sort of AU. The night of their junior prom Nathan and Haley discover that having a private prom is much more…fun.

Author's Note: Season 1 veers off after 1x06; BLP have their triangle drama ending with Brooke and Lucas getting together but NH remain in their "just tutoring" stage. And now it's some months later, and the night of their junior prom.

Author's Note 2: I got the idea for this story the first time I heard Vanessa Carlton's "Who's To Say" (hence the title) but I was a little slow in getting it written until the prom challenge at DareYouToWrite was posted and I realised that it fit! This is the first of three parts. Thanks to Miranda for the beta. This is for the lovely Brittbee as thanks for her confidence boost and to hopefully cheer her up ;)

Part One

"Boo."

Haley jumped at the sound of the voice behind her, the element of surprise ruling over the fact that she knew who it belonged to. They may have only said one word, but she would recognize that voice anywhere, which was something that both excited and irritated her at the same time.

Haley didn't want to remember all this stuff about Nathan. Like the way his hand almost touched her back every time he draped his arm on the back of her chair when she was showing him what he had done wrong on his tests. Or how, when he found a problem particularly difficult to answer he started to frown, causing two wrinkle lines to form across his forehead. It was bad enough that she wanted to reach forward and smooth out those lines whenever they appeared, she didn't need to be remembering all that other stuff as well; it was just as useless as her ability to quote her favorite lines from her favorite films. Yet, somehow, she still managed to retain enough information about him that would get her an A+ on the Nathan Scott test.

Now, that was a test she'd like to study for…

Haley shook her head, trying to control her thoughts from going somewhere that they had no place going to. However, she ceased the shaking as soon as she remembered Nathan was still standing there and was probably wondering what had gotten into her.

Haley turned around to face him, but any hope of a witty comeback died the moment she laid eyes on him. In the comfort of her own bedroom she had many a time admitted to herself that Nathan Scott was handsome; hot, even. But that was before she had seen him dressed up in a suit. It was classic black with a white shirt and a thin black tie. Haley liked that he wore a normal tie and not a bow tie. There was just something she liked about a man wearing a tie. She had this fantasy where –

No, she thought to herself and shut her eyes quickly. She was not going to go there, especially not when the person who had recently begun starring in said fantasies was standing right in front of her.

"Er, hi," she said finally after opening her eyes. It seemed somewhat inadequate after being silent for so long, but it would have to do.

"Hi. I didn't scare you, did I?" Those two wrinkle lines appeared on his forehead as he said it so Haley quickly shook her head and was rewarded when they disappeared instantly. "So, what are you doing here?" he wondered.

Haley looked around at where she was standing at the furthermost corner in the room. She was so far back that if a wall had been in place as a partition instead of the long dark curtain then Nathan wouldn't have had any room to creep up behind her. "Well, you know me. I'm not really much of a joiner."

Nathan chuckled. "Actually, I was referring to you being at prom. You told me during tutoring one time that you weren't coming."

"Oh, oh right!" Haley flushed slightly as she realized his meaning. "No, I wasn't planning on coming, but thanks to Brooke I somehow ended up here."

"Thanks to Brooke?"

"Yeah, she told Lucas that I just couldn't skip prom. She said it would be a travesty – I wouldn't have thought that Brooke had even heard the word travesty before. But, anyway," Haley continued, "she made a big fuss so you know Lucas. He told me to just come with them so…here I am. I thought you said you weren't going to come either," she commented, remembering his reply that particular session.

"No, I wasn't, but…Tim really wanted to come and all the girls he asked said no so he asked me to come with him so he wouldn't look like a loser showing up without a date."

"I don't have a date," Haley responded immediately, but then wished she had just kept her mouth shut.

"But you could never look like a loser. This is Tim we're talking about, Haley."

Haley smiled shyly and tried to compose herself by looking away from Nathan to glance down at her feet which were currently encased in the blue heels Peyton had lent her, although they still didn't do much to close the height gap between her and Nathan. "Um, that was nice of you…to come here for Tim even though you didn't want to," she clarified. "It's really sweet of you to do that for a friend."

Nathan, however, just shrugged it off. "There was also a deal involved regarding Play Station games. So…you came with Lucas and Brooke, then?"

"Yep, and Peyton and Jake."

"Oh?" Nathan said conversationally, but from her reaction to it Nathan could tell Haley had misunderstood.

"Just as a group," she replied. "Like, the five of us arrived together, but Peyton and Jake didn't come as each others dates or anything…in case you were wondering," she added softly.

He wasn't, but somehow Nathan doubted that he would be able to convince Haley of that. Ever since those first few weeks after their break-up, when he had mentioned Peyton a lot during tutoring, Haley seemed to have gotten it stuck in her head that he wanted to get back together with Peyton. And yeah, at the time that had been kind of true, except that he had wanted to get back together mostly because he thought she had dumped him for Lucas. Now, however, he definitely didn't want to get back together with Peyton – and not just because Lucas was already dating Brooke – but he couldn't really tell that to Haley without explaining the whole thing and Nathan had more than just a feeling that that wouldn't go over too well.

So they had sort of become stuck in this weird just-friends mode. Nathan had never had a girl as just a friend before, but it was turning out to be kind of nice – if only he didn't spend a lot of his time wishing they weren't just friends.

Because the truth was that Haley James was turning him into a wuss.

Ever since he was fourteen Nathan had gone to almost all of the school dances; the girls looked hot and there was free food so as long as he avoided the dancing part what wasn't to enjoy? However, he'd always said he would never go to prom. Because at prom you had to wear a suit and tie. It was like a rule. At the dances he could get away with just a jacket and no tie, but at prom it was no tie, no entry. That hadn't been a problem for Nathan. Now they were juniors they didn't need school dances as an excuse to check out the girls so he'd said from the beginning of the year that he wasn't going. But that was before he'd met Haley James.

Not only had she made him rethink going to prom, he had actually been about to ask her to go with him – it had been the best way he could think of them going on a sort of date – except after he had subtly introduced the subject of prom into their conversation she had said how stupid the whole thing was and that she never wanted to go. Granted, he agreed with her on the stupid comment, but that hadn't made the sucker-punch to his stomach hurt any less.

Still even that hadn't been as bad as how he'd felt when he'd overheard Peyton and Brooke talking the previous day as everyone was on their way out from the gym after basketball and cheerleading practice. Hearing them, mostly Brooke, discussing how "cute" they were going to make Haley look for prom – as if she needed their help – had made him think two things. One, she had lied to him and said she didn't want to go because he hadn't been as subtle about bringing the whole thing up as he had thought. Or two, someone else had asked her and she had said yes. Neither of those options had been particularly pleasant to deal with and since they hadn't planned to have a tutoring session between that practice and the prom he'd been left with two options. Either he could make up a fake assignment he was having problems with and call her for help, cleverly introducing the topic of prom once more or just go to prom and find her. Since both served to clarify how much of a pansy she'd turned him into he decided in the end to just go to the damn thing and see if he could find her there.

The thing about Tim not wanting to go stag hadn't been a lie, Tim had asked him a while ago to come for precisely that reason. Only Nathan had said no and continued to do so every time that he asked until he had heard Haley was going to prom. He hadn't gotten his suit out of the back of his closet and worn a stupid tie that was already choking him because he had wanted to do something sweet for a friend. He was wearing a tie for her. Not that he could tell Haley that.

Resisting the urge to pull on the tie and loosen it Nathan shook his head in reply to Haley's comment. "Not really. Have you been enjoying prom so far?"

She bit the side of her lip in that cute way she always did while she contemplated for a moment. "Um, it's been kind of uneventful, but okay. Have you?"

Shrugging, Nathan answered, "It's kind of boring, really. It's gotten better lately though," he added with a smirk and he grinned when she blushed. He loved it when she blushed; she totally liked him!

The smaller and less used, but more sensible part of his brain decided to butt in just then, reminding Nathan not to get ahead of himself. Haley blushing didn't necessarily mean that she liked him. After all, it wasn't as if he would know if she blushed a lot when he wasn't around. Nathan started to think of her blushing around Lucas and suddenly became irrationally jealous. He may have called a halt on his on and off court rivalry with Lucas because of Haley, but that didn't mean they were going to be friends anytime soon, and even though he knew it was selfish of him he often became jealous when Haley would mention having plans with Lucas. It was just annoying that Lucas got to see her whenever he wanted to while Nathan could only do so when schoolwork was involved. No matter how many times he steered the conversation to other topics Haley would always bring it back to his studies.

However, studying was the last thing on Haley's mind at that moment in time. It was always pretty hard to think of anything else when Nathan was smirking at her. At least when they were in the Tutoring Center the environment would remind her of what they were supposed to be doing and she'd make him concentrate on his work so that she in turn could as well, but here everyone was having a good time and on top of the smirk Nathan was all dressed up and it made Haley feel all excited - even if he did smirk at everyone.

Realizing she had been silent for a while, she opened her mouth to say something about the décor when Nathan suddenly asked, "Do you want to get out of here?"

Haley had to blink for a second as she took in what he had said. "Wha…" she trailed off not knowing how to respond. "Where would we go?"

Nathan shrugged his shoulders once more. "Anywhere."

"Anywhere?" Haley repeated incredulously.

"Yeah. Where do you want to go?"

"I-I don't know…I didn't think I'd be going anywhere else tonight…"

"Well, now you can."

"I…But…But what about Tim?" she asked finally. "I thought you came to keep him company-"

"Tim's with some of the guys from the team, he'll be fine. Do you want to go or not?"

Haley stared at him for a few moments before glancing back over her shoulder. "Maybe I should tell Lucas…"

"Why? Does he tell you everywhere he's going?"

"Well, no, but-"

"Then you don't need to tell him. Look, you said prom hasn't been all that interesting right?"

"Yeah, b-"

"So, let's get out of here!" Nathan stressed, with the kind of excitement in his voice and his eyes that she used to wish he'd tackle his homework with. Not knowing how to reply she stared at him wordlessly for a few moments before Nathan piped up, "Haley, look. We never do anything just fun together. And you strike me as someone who needs to let loose a little bit –"

"Just because I don't go to parties every night and get drunk-"

"That's not what I mean."

"Then what do you mean, Nathan?"

"I mean…You're like…you're the routine girl. You have your routine and you stick to it and you never do anything differently-"

"But I like my routine," Haley cut in, pouting slightly.

"And that's fine. But there's nothing wrong with doing something different sometimes, just for a change. It'll be fun, I promise."

Haley remained quiet, her arms folded against her dark blue dress and Nathan could almost see the wheels turning in her head. A bit more nervous than he'd like to admit he waited without prodding her, but he knew she'd made up her mind when she asked, "You're not planning anything illegal are you?"

"Not if you don't want to."

Haley took a deep breath and clutched her purse tighter in her hands. "Okay. Let's go."