COLLIDE

What if history repeated itself for Rayna and Deacon? And what's it like for Maddie to look on the sidelines as her mother continues to bet on the safe choice instead of betting on her happiness and Deacon's ability to change. Will they finally get together?

A / N : Hello everyone! First off I wanted to thank all of you for reading and sharing your thoughts with me! It's greatly appreciated! So yes, I'm back with continuing this story although this is the second to last chapter. I'm loving Nashville right now, especially Chip, he's blowing everything out of the water! And I'm sorry for not getting those two together in the story, it's just more complicated than it seems, they both blame each other for so many things, but hope it's what dies last, right?

And also, I'm throwing my own theory on who might save Deacon's life, I've been thinking about this since Deacon muttered "Wheels up jackass!" so bare with me.

I own nothing but my imagination and frustrations.

Chapter 14:

Deacon was asleep when she reached his room. She looked at the man she'd loved for most of her life, right now, wanting nothing to do with her, she'd tried getting trough him with their children and he kept pushing her away, towards Luke, which she knew he didn't like in the one bit, but he'd been nothing but kind to her, a lot of people only saw Luke as merchandise and an image and yes, he did have an ego and he and Deacon had bumped heads more than once in their lives but she'd seen another side of him, and another side of Deacon too.

"Rayna?" Deacon's raspy voice pulled him from her thoughts. "What. What happened?"

"You fell asleep and Scarlett couldn't wake you, so she called 911." She said, not moving from the chair next to the bed, she'd been for the last half an hour. "The poor girl's terrified."

"I'm sorry." He said truly. She knew he wasn't just reffering to Scarlett. She knew she was talking about the last few years. Since finding about Maddie, since Robbie's birth. They both had tried so hard to let go, to move on, thinking it'd be in the best interest of their children. They had tried the white picket fence thing once and it'd only ended in tears, they didn't want that. Not for Maddie and not for Robbie.

But know time had caught up with them, with all the mistakes and broken promises, of tries and failure and it was ready to make them pay.

With Deacon's life.

"Rayna..."

"You've done most of the talking lately, made it pretty clear you didn't want anything to do with me, even so, I haven't given up on you, I never have, so why'd keep pushing me away? Thinking you'll save me from all the pain? Because you're only making it worse." She couldn't look at him because her eyes were filled with tears. She had wanted to yell at him, hate him and say this was all his fault because she hadn't listened to him, but she couldn't. She couldn't lay it all on him.

She had made a choice too. To keep her children and make him part of their lives at her extent, according to her rules, because she was so mad that history was repeating itself, back when the crash happened, she didn't know she was pregnant, she had wanted it to be true for so long, that he'd heal because he had been given a second chance, but he'd gone back to rehab, only to be with her in the last months of her pregnancy, things back then had been easy, they had fallen into a routine in which he'd gotten to know Maddie and she wasn't alone. But something had changed the night Robbie had been born, it all had been more real and Deacon couldn't deal with it because all he saw was betrayal.

He'd decided to be there for his son and Maddie, but he and Rayna had to be just parents, just two people who loved their children deeply, because he hadn't been able to forgive, he'd been too caught up in his own demons that he didn't stop and think what this meant, she'd fallen into the arms of other people because she didn't want to be alone.

"I know what you're doing" Maddie said as soon as Luke came into view, Colt and Robbie in tow.

"Excuse me?"

"Maddie..." Teddy warned. He wasn't ready for a scene, and by the look on Daphne's face, she was sure she'd make one.

"You are trying to win over my mom, but she doesn't love you, she just doesn't like being alone. She never learned how to, that's why she married my dad in the first place and not Deacon and now that he's dying she's running to you because she doesn't have the real good thing." There was nothing but despair in Maddie's voice and Luke knew it too well, he too was a single father. Colt was about to speak when Luke stopped him.

"Maddie! that's enough!" Teddy roared.

"Whatever you think I'm doing, it's your own thinkin', but you have to know one thing Maddie, Deacon ain't the only one your mom's left hanging and for some insane reason he's still around. I am just trying to help, do my part, cause lord knows that is what your mama needs right now... she needs a friend."

"Uke!" Maddie heard Robbie scream as he handed her the ledge of the stroller and moved away to tell Teddy something, then grabbed Colt by the shoulder and walked away.

"Wait, Luke!" Daphne was faster, she could see the despair in her little sister's face. Both she and Robbie had been around Luke a lot, more than she had because she couldn't stand the idea of another man taking Deacon's place. "Don't go," She heard Daphne beg. "I mean, you can go but can we at least say goodbye? Me and Robbie?"

Luke knelt to the little girl's level with a smile. "I ain't so far away if you ever need me, you just have to call." Daphne smiled. "Plus, you and I have a collaboration hangin' in the air, it has to be taken care of at some point, right?" Daphne nodded as she leaned to hug Luke. "You take care Daph, take care of that brother of yours kay, she's gonna need you."

"You wanna say goodbye?" The little girl asked, Luke smiled. "You want me to say goodbye for you?" Luke nodded. He couldn't handle another goodbye from Rayna's kids, this was turning to be too hard on him. He smiled up at the little girl as she hugged him again and he and Colt walked away, not before the teen looked back at Maddie, she didn't know whether he was mad or just disappointed, he had been the only person in this whole time she'd become close to lately, although she had not really gone public with the whole thing since her mom and Luke were sort of, umm dating, not that she was dating Colt or anything but she didn't, well she hoped her parents to get back together by now, she never expected to become this close to a boy whom she was sure, hated her now.

"Maddie, was that really necessary?" Teddy asked after a moment, Daphne had refused to say a thing to her while Robbie had began to get fuzzy, Teddy held him close.

"Luke's my friend!" Daphne added. "He is my friend and you scared him away!"

"Daph..."

"He can't be your friend, he's just trying to... replace either of our dads! Or both! can't you see that?"

Daphne was about to reply when Rayna appeared on the side. "Teddy, thank you so much for this..."

"Of course." He said with a smile as Rayna took Robbie from him. "Maddie, I need you to come with me, it's really important, alright?"

"Is it dad? When is he getting out of here?" Maddie looked at Rayna but she refused to make eye contact with her, she couldn't tell her that Deacon's time was running out.

"Maddie, please come with me." Rayna begged again, the teen came along reluctantly. Daphne held on to her mother's hand as they headed for Deacon's room.

"What happens if the infection spreads?" Scarlett asked Dr. Rand. "What can we do?"

"We can try and fight it again, with a new round of antibiotics but we cannot grantee his body won't reject this new treatment." He said after swallowing hard because Scarlett had began crying.

"How much?"

"Deacon!"

"How much time doc, give it to me straight." Deacon said tiredly.

"If we don't find the option to keep fighting the pneumonia, I'm afraid you might have less than a week, If your organs don't begin to shut down first." Deacon sighed. "There's however another option, we've ran some tests and if my gut is right, it appears that the medicine we've given you for the tumor has had some side effects with the round of antibiotics, if my assumption is right, a new round of medicine might be the solution, if not. I'm afraid the only solution we have left is that we find a donor within the next 48 hours."

So... What did you think? I was going to continue but sadly my eyes are closing... I hope this doesn't too far fetched, I am not by any means a doctor and there might be a thousand things wrong with my diagnosis or whatever this was, but it's what it has so happen so we can get to the next and final part of the story...

Thank you so much for reading and do hope you liked it!