Daddy Overnight
An OTH Fan Fic
By AlexB
Four
The day that his son was set to come home, Nathan sat in what used to be one of the spare bedrooms. The walls had been painted a pale blue thanks to Peyton. A wooden crib took up one wall. The directions were easy enough, he thought with a shrug. Never let it be said that man didn't know how to follow them, because he did. Even if it had taken him more than once to get it right.
He was doing this, but he didn't know why. Whether it was because he didn't want to be like his father or because deep down he knew it was right, in the end, he was doing it, and that was all that mattered.
He wouldn't deny what was right there in front of him. Nathan was a better man than that.
He could be.
He wanted to be.
Maybe he needed to be.
He wasn't alone anymore, and he hadn't been since he'd let his immediate family in on the new developments in his life. Peyton sat across from him now, her brow furrowed as she looked over the directions of the swing Nathan had bought along with all the other baby paraphernalia.
"This shouldn't be too hard." She said absently. She was still looking at the directions and missed the look that Nathan had sent her way. Yeah, he'd gotten the bed together, but he was sure that the person who wrote the instructions didn't know what the hell they were talking about when they typed the damn things up. For once, he wished the people would just write in a language that a normal person understood. How hard would it be to screw up 'this goes here, and that goes there'?
Life was already complicated enough without instructions making it worse.
"Maybe you should put it together then." He muttered peevishly.
Across from him Peyton raised a brow then smirked. "Nope." She set the piece of paper aside. "This is your job. I'm just the help, Papa." She said the words with a smile.
She had been shocked out of her skull when she learned that Nathan Scott was a father, and that he was actually choosing to step up. Considering the man who raised him, Peyton would have thought that Nathan would have left the child rearing to the mother. She hated to say that about him, even think it, but it was all right there. He thought that he was too screwed up by his parents to be anyone's father. Nathan didn't think that he had the right, and it broke Peyton's heart. He couldn't see what was there, but she could. For his child's sake, she hoped that her friend opened his eyes soon.
"Nicolas David Gattina."
She looked up. Nathan had his head down. He was looking at his hands, a frown creased his brow. "Shows how much Rachel dreaded to tell me."
"Maybe," she said. "One day, she would have."
"Somehow I seriously doubt that."
"You're angry."
"No. I'm pissed."
Nathan shook his head trying to kick away the thoughts, but he couldn't shake them. He didn't know what had been going on in the woman's mind. Not when she found out that she was pregnant, and not before she died, but Nathan was damned upset. He just didn't understand. Had Rachel told him about her being pregnant instead of just walking away, Nathan didn't know what he would have done, but he would like to have thought that he wouldn't have walked out on his kid. He would have liked to have known when she did that he was going to be a father.
He stood.
Nathan kicked an empty box so hard it flew into a wall. He ran his hands through his hair. There was no going back now. Rachel had made her choice and Nathan had made his.
"I can guarantee you that if you give that up, let someone take him away, it will eat at you for the longest time. You'll have hole that you cannot fill. And I don't wish that on you. I wouldn't wish that kind of pain on my worst enemy."
He never wanted to feel that pain. Jake was a strong man who could take anything, but this messed with him. Being a father broke him. It broke him because his right had been taken away. He knew who he was but apart had been taken away from him. Stolen.
Nathan never wanted to feel that. He never wanted to endure what his friend went through on a daily basis. It freaked him out. To care about someone that much meant that you gave a part of yourself a way; and not a small piece. A huge one.
He was having second thoughts, thinking that he made a mistake, but Nathan couldn't make himself go back on the choice that he had made. He was probably already attached and just didn't know it. He didn't want to know it.
When he felt her hand on his arm, Nathan stopped staring into nothing. He'd never been so scared in his life and he was glad. He was glad that Peyton was there and he wasn't by himself with this. He put his hands on her shoulders, touched his head to hers, and blew out a slow breath.
"You're going to be okay, Nate." She said.
He only nodded as he was unable to speak.
-
Well, so much for the guy next door, Haley thought as she watched the man in question walk a striking blonde woman out to her car. She couldn't help but be jealous. It took hours for Haley's hair to even resemble the look that the blonde had, because while Haley's hair curled, it turned to frizz in seconds.
Humidity was a bitch.
I can't believe he has a girlfriend, Haley thought shaking her head.
No, yes she could. It wasn't that she always wanted something that she couldn't have. In her case, she didn't know that she couldn't have it until after she realized that she wanted it. It was the story of her life.
Moving from the window, she lay across the couch. So the guy had a girlfriend. More than a girlfriend if the assortment of baby stuff he carted into his home was any indication. Best case scenario: the baby gear was for someone else. The blonde woman's friend maybe and they were just stashing it at his place because they were throwing some baby shower.
Worst case scenario: the man next door not only had a baby, but he had a baby mama in the blonde woman. Worst case scenarios were always the truth as far as Haley was concerned, and the sooner she accepted it the better off she would be. Closing her eyes, she sighed. It looked big time as if she and the man next door were not meant to be.
Let the mourning begin.
She didn't have much time to grump over what she never had, but had lost anyway, because her phone rang. Peeking open one eye, she reached for the cordless receiver on the coffee table next to her.
"Haley James." She said into the handheld. She listened for all of five seconds. With a quick "I'll be there in twenty, bye." She hung up the phone, switched off the television, rolled off the couch, and dashed down the hallway into the bathroom. Stripping to the buff, snatching her toothbrush from its cup, Haley jumped into the shower. She stunk. No way was she making this trip sweaty and musty.
Okay, so it was going to take more than twenty minutes, because she wasn't leaving the house until she was damn sure that here head wouldn't turn into a ball a fizz that would cause her to blown away in a good, swift breeze.
She was out the door, down the steps, keys in hand. Backing out of her driveway, Haley had to step on the breaks when a sleek Mercedes sped past her, skidding to a stop in front of the house next door. Pulling her glasses down her nose, Haley watched as an older man with dark hair stormed up the walk. He took the steps two at a time then banged his fist on her neighbor's front door.
The door swung open, and Haley's jaw dropped to the floor boards. The man only wore a towel, and from where she was sitting, tall dark and brooding wasn't mad, he was pissed.
God, that was hot.
She was one sick puppy.
She knew what Brooke would say: "You need to get laid."
Closing her eyes, she let her head fall back to the head rest behind her. Would she forever want what she just could not have?
-
"What do you want?" Nathan growled. His heart was pounding so hard in his chest it threatened to shoot right out of his body and right into Dan's hands. He'd been scared to death. When he heard the pounding on the door, Nathan thought he'd missed the phone; that his mother was at the door and something was wrong.
Instead, his father stood on his doorstep. There was something in his eyes that almost made him do a double take.
"Tell me that what I heard today is a mistake." The man demanded. Right then and there, Nathan's back went up. He hated for anyone to talk to him that way, especially his father. Like he was committing some great wrong because his wasn't satisfied with whatever his son had or hadn't done.
"I don't know what you heard, and I don't care." He stepped back to close the door, but ended up not closing it at all. Dan pushed his way in, slamming the door behind him. Nathan fists clenched.
Dan could have cared less about his son's anger. He wasn't afraid. If he and Nathan came to blows he was more than confident that he would come out on top. His son was young, he was spry, but Dan was Dan. He knew what he could do.
"I have something to say to you, and you're damn well going to listen. I'm your father dammit!"
"You shouldn't even be allowed to use that word. You don't even know what it means."
"Every thing I've done, I've done for you."
"Don't give me that crap." Turning his back on him, Nathan started to the back of the house. Dan was one step behind him.
"Nathan," he said only to get the door slammed in his face. He felt like charging in there behind him and making the boy listen, but he wasn't up to catching his kid in the buff, and he knew his son. Nathan wasn't one bit modest.
He got it from his mother.
He put his hands on his hips, blew out a breath, then found himself moving down the hallway. Dan pushed open the door that had been cracked open and his eyes went wide. There was the white carpet on what he knew used to be hardwood floor. Dan pushed open the door wider, stepping completely. Stepping into what could only be his son's worst nightmare.
"No." He groaned out harshly.
-
Nathan found his standing in the middle of the room, his head hung, his shoulders slumped, and a hand was covering his face.
"Why aren't you gone?"
Dan looked at his son over his shoulder, his eyes blazing with anger.
"What the hell is this, Nate?" He threw his hand out to encompass the room around him. Turning back to his son, Dan crossed his arms over his wide chest and waited for answers.
Nathan mirrored the man's movement unconsciously. "What does it look like?"
"A nursery." Dan replied. "It looks like a goddamn nursery, son. What I want to know is why the hell you have one?"
"I need one."
"Why?"
"You already know."
"Some schmuck tells me that my son has a son of his own, but I know that the guy is lying through his teeth because I don't trust the bastard as far as I can throw him."
Nathan didn't know what pissed him off more, the fact that his father knew or the fact that someone else had told him. It was none of anyone's business, but his. Whether he wanted his father to know or not, the choice was his and not anyone else's.
"Is it yours?"
"His name is Nicolas."
"Is it yours?" Dan asked again.
"You think I would get this all set up if I was sure that the baby wasn't mine?"
"So you've had a paternity test?" Dan tried to confirm. "It would have been nice to know that-"
"I haven't had any test."
The words stopped him in mid rant. His blue-gray eyes, so much like his son's, rounded, hardened, and darkened to the color of a desolate storm.
"What to do you mean...you haven't had any test?" The man asked darkly.
"Just what I said-"
"Son of a..." If he had something to throw, Dan damn sure would have thrown it. Instead, he paced around the room like a raging bull trying to calm himself before he did something stupid. Like put his hands around his son's throat before he stroked out or had a heart attack.
"Have I taught you nothing?!" The man roared. "You don't know that this kid is yours, and you're taking care of it like it is? What about the child's mother? Hanging on your jock for the green stuff, right?" Dan rubbed his fingers together.
"Shut your mouth." Nathan spat.
"Excuse me."
"I said, shut your mouth."
Dan jabbed a finger at him. "Now you liste-"
"No you listen." Nathan cut in. "That baby is not an 'it' and his name is Nicolas. Try using it. His mother? She's dead, so it'll do well for you not to speak ill of her. As for your test, I don't need it. All I have to do is look at him to know that he's mine. You may have no qualms about walking out on your kids, but I'm not you."