Daddy Overnight
An OTH Fanfic
By AlexB
29
"Mama?" Haley's voice rang out in her childhood home. "Daddy told me that you weren't feeling too great when we had lunch today, so I came to check…" Her words died in her throat when she walked into the kitchen and saw Taylor and Jessie at the island.
Said something that Haley would rather deal with a horde of kids with hand foot and mouth disease, hell, Haley would rather deal with Brian's bald headed ass than deal with Taylor.
"Mama upstairs?" Haley asked her oldest sister completely ignoring Taylor's existence. Jessie nodded. Haley started for the steps and to their mother when her sister stopped her.
"Mama's resting."
Haley flipped and youie and headed back toward the front door. "Then I'll call her later."
"Bear-"
"Nope!" Haley didn't have to deal with her sister. She gave zero fucks about Taylor's feelings and or emotional state.
"Haley, come on." Taylor's voice called from behind her as she walked back to her truck still ignoring the air that Taylor breathed. "You slapped me. The least you could do is give me five minutes of your precious time."
"You're right, Taylor. My time is precious. Which means that I'm not about to waste a minute of it dealing with your bullshit."
"God, you are so damned 'holier than thou'." Taylor nearly spat. "Like you've never messed up. Like you've never made a mistake."
Haley's laugh was incredulous. "Answer me something. How many times have you 'mistakenly' introduced married, engaged, and or taken, dong to our fly trap? What?" She asked at Taylor's expression. It was shocking that her sister did the most crass, foul, things but turned into a shrinking violet at the mere utterance of optional vernacular or the male sex organ.
"I cleaned it up for you. I said dong instead of dick, and fly trap instead of p-"
"Did you ever stop to think that Jason didn't tell you everything?" Taylor wanted to know. "Did you ever stop to think that he and I were in love? That I loved him first and that he loved me?"
The nerve of this bitch. "Yeah," Haley replied. "I did. I asked. He wasn't. When I found out, he begged me to forgive him. He wanted another chance. He wanted to start over, but he slept you, my sister, for damned near half of our relationships. I couldn't get past that."
"He wasn't for you, Hales."
"But he was for you?" She wanted to know.
"Yes."
"Fuck YOU, Tay. Do you really think that I didn't know that it was a damned set up? You didn't even try to cover yourself up. 'Oops?' More like 'Surprise Bitch.' You may have thought that Jason was for you, but he didn't think that you were for him."
"And you just believed him after her stabbed you in the chest and left you bleeding?"
"Whose knife went the deepest?" Haley asked her. "I believed him years later when I ran into him at the Neonatal conference in Charleston. He needed me to know all of it because I hadn't allowed him to tell me afterward. I wouldn't have believed him then. All I wanted to do was burn my bed in effigy with him in it. That's how I knew about you going with him to pick out a damned ring."
"You wouldn't have worked." Taylor tried to reason.
"You didn't have the right to decide that for yourself."
"Doesn't your halo just shine so bright?"
There she was, Haley thought. That was Taylor snipping and snide when her attempt at explanation yielded absolutely nothing that she wanted.
"What do you want me to do, Haley; beg?"
"I don't want you to do anything." Haley told her. "You want everyone to pat you on the head and say 'Oh, Taylor,' but I'm not. I won't do that anymore. I'm not about to waste my time on one more foolish gesture. Just…leave me alone, Tay."
"Haley-"
"No. No. You asked me what I wanted from you and that's it. I want you to leave me the hell alone. I am done. Do you hear me? DONE."
Nathan had just finished up with a consult when he turned to see Dan's doctor. He had a tired smile on his face.
"You're just in time."
"I am?"
"Yes. Your father's discharge papers have just been drawn up. He's doing remarkably better."
Dan was getting out today?
Nathan didn't ask why the man thought that he was taking Dan home. They probably would have kept him a few days more if there wasn't going to be someone there to monitor him. Nathan drug his feet. He hoped to see Haley, but that was no go. He walked into the room just as Dan had finished getting dressed.
Dan wasn't shocked to see his son at all. It was like Nathan's coming was expected; it started a fire burning in the pit of his stomach.
"What are you doing here?" Dan asked almost belligerently. "Thought that you were done."
"Apparently I'm supposed to be taking you home." Nathan told him. "Why did you lie?"
"I want to go home." He told his son. "If I'm going to die, I want to be in my own damned bed when I do."
"You aren't dying." Nathan shook his head at the man's game. "Your doctors say that you're in good health. If you take your meds and change your diet, you'll stay that way."
"I can get home on my own." Dan wanted Nathan to now. "But I wouldn't say no to a ride."
That's how Nathan ended up spending 30 minutes in the car with Dan.
"You're not going to speak to me? At all?"
"I remember how that sentence ended the last time."
"Why were you in the hospital? Is it because of your knee?" Dan asked. "I thought that you already had your surgery."
Nathan knee throbbed insistently inside the brace that was designed to keep the joint immobile. He probably wasn't supposed to be driving, but Nathan was determined to get back to normal.
"We aren't talking about this." He told the man. "This is just a ride home; remember?"
Dan shook his head, his lips pulled in a terse, smirk of a smile. "You're a contrary little prick, I'll give you that."
"Wait a minute." He knew that he was giving in, starting some shit that he knew would lead to him being pissed off, but Nathan couldn't stop it. "You bounce my head off window glass, split the skin; cause stitches; you have me taken into custody where I have to explain, to a judge, why you punched me in the face and I'm the prick?"
Nathan wasn't in the least bit surprised. This ride couldn't be over fast enough.
"I'm not wrong."
"Of course you're not." Nathan replied sarcastically. "You never are."
"Smartass, you wait." Dan told him. "You wait. Everything that I said was going to happen will. You wait and see. You haven't gotten that damned paternity test because you know that that kid isn't yours. You know that letting that woman back into your life is a mistake."
"My relationship with my mother is none of your business. My son is MY business. I ever hear you call him 'that damned baby' or 'that dead woman's bastard,' DNA aside, I will bury your ass alive." Nathan threatened. "You won't have to worry about your heart giving out. I promise you."
"Big talk little boy, but I don't hear you telling me that I'm wrong."
Nathan couldn't stop. Was it? He thought. Was it a mistake? Nathan couldn't be completely sure. After not having much of a family for so long, he had been surprised, humbled even, at how starved he had been for people to be close to; like everyone else.
Was that starvation affecting him?
Or was this Dan fucking with his head?
Again.
"You'll have to forgive me, Dan if I don't subscribe to your crystal ball of doom." Nathan told him with complete confidence, never once taking his eyes off the road in front of him. Starvation be damned. No one dictated his life but him.
"How are you?"
"Honestly?"
"Always."
"I'm frustrated." Nathan admitted. There would be no rehabbing this time. Nathan was starting to see that surgery was going to have to happen. The only choice that Nathan had was when. Yes the human body had the possibility to heal itself, and yes, the little things were essential, but there was no amount of sleep, no amount of water he could drink, amount of rehab that he could do that would adequately help to facilitate this. His knee needed help and Nathan was having a hard time with that.
Nothing was ever easy, and when it rained, it poured.
He should have known that Dan wouldn't stay away for long. He'd shown up for breakfast this morning, laid eyes on Nic and had bolted but not before snapping at Nathan's for his stupidity and railing at Peyton for not opening his eyes.
"What kind of family are you?!" Dan demanded.
"The best kind." She spat right back.
What pissed Nathan off wasn't that Dan had blown up the way that he did about his son, not entirely because he hadn't said one derogatory word toward Nic. What pissed Nathan off was that he was sure that Dan was up to something. He was sure that the man was manipulating something, Nathan just didn't know what, and it pissed him off that he cared.
Then there was this woman. This beautiful, insanely capable, inherently sexy, and completely real person that Nathan was sinking in deep with; this woman who he had been on exactly one date with.
Nathan didn't understand any of it.
"What can I do?"
Nathan sat back in his bed, darkness sat all around him, enveloping the room. His knee braced, his son sleeping soundly down the hall; his sleep noises coming loud and clear through the baby monitor that sat at his bedside.
"Nathan?" Haley's voice asked through the telephone line.
"Hmm?"
"Tell me how I can help you."
"Do you think…" he started his mouth on autopilot, his voice husky with him impending sleep. Hell, maybe this was a dream. "Do you think that dreams tell our futures?"
"What?"
"Dreams. Do you think that they mean something?"
The question had come out of nowhere for Haley Nathan could tell, but she was the only one he felt that he could ask. Jake, Peyton, even his mom, they would try to dissect the question and him. All Nathan wanted was an answer to the question at hand. Even if it was 'I don't know.'
"I think that dreams, they can reveal a lot of things." Haley spoke softly. "If they tell the future, I don't know, Nate, but I do think that they're powerful; that they can sometimes make you see what's right in front of your face, that they can help you to answer questions that you may not see all on your own." She went quiet on her end of the line, and then she asked:
"Why? What are you dreaming about?"
"You."
Nathan listened as Haley pulled in a deep breath that shuddered out slowly. He knew the feeling, but he couldn't explain it to himself; no way could he explain it to her.
"I dream about you, Haley." He told her. "In this bed with me, in the shower with me, in this house with me. Don't ask me how to explain it because I can't. I don't think that there are any words."
"Nathan, I-"
"Be with me." He spoke softly. "Be with me, Haley; lay with me. Even if it's just for a little while. Even if it's just a dream."
She hung up on him.
Haley couldn't say why. Alone in the dark she sat in bed.
Be with me. Lay with me.
He dreamed about her and admitted it. He had to have just taken his medication. The question about dreams had come out of nowhere. She hadn't expected it.
"He dreams about me." Haley spoke, her voice a hush whisper in the room around her.
What did that mean?
He dreamed about her because of what? Was she someone that he wanted but couldn't have to him? It wasn't like she was on Pluto. She was right here with a 30 year mortgage and a lawnmower named Sandi keeping her grounded. Was she someone that Nathan wouldn't allow himself to have? What?
What?
She couldn't sit in bed any longer.
She kicked off the blankets around her. Haley paced the room. She pulled her hair from the messy knot atop her head and pulled her fingers through the thick strands before winding it up again.
She stopped in her tracks. What did it mean? What did she want it to mean?
That's what it all came down to. What did she want?
Brooke had come to the realization that she wanted forever. Haley wanted that too; she'd always wanted it. Was that what the dream meant? Was Nathan telling her that he wanted her forever?
"Stop it!" She groaned aloud. "Best case he's out of his mind on is meds and has no idea what the hell he's saying. Worst case…" She couldn't think about worst case.
"What do you want right now?" She asked herself. Haley knew that she didn't want to get back in that bed alone.
"Lay with me." Nathan's words played back in her head. "Even if t just for a little while."
Haley sat in her chair and let all of hit her. Watching Nathan, meeting him, the bathroom, and the porch. All of it, the balcony, dancing, and the phone calls between the two of them. The laughter, the teasing, the want the need.
There was no angel on her shoulder telling her not to be stupid. There was no inner Brooke telling her, "Bitch, test the mattress." Haley's mind was completely quiet. It was a decision that she would have to make on her own. No help.
She didn't need it.
Her mind was quiet as she pulled on clothes. There was no interruption as Haley stepped outside into the cool, dark night. Winter would be here soon enough, she thought offhandedly; her path lit by the lone street light on this end of their block. Maybe they would get to see snow.
Cold air slapped at Haley's face as thunder rumbled I the sky above her. Lightening crackled and the sky opened up drenching Haley in seconds as she made her way to Nathan's door.
She stood on his porch, her arm raised, poised to knock then she stopped, her arm falling slowly to her side. Haley watched through the big picture window as Nathan made his way from the back of the house coming from the baby's room.
His hair was disheveled and he had a brand new start to a beard on his cheeks and jaw. The sweats he wore hung low on his hips, and the faded Duke t-shirt he wore molded to his torso like a second skin.
He moved better with the crutches, well, crutch because he was only using one. His steps were measured. Even from the outside looking in Haley could see that Nathan was in some pain, if not a lot.
His gaze came up and he stopped where he stood. His eyes we so blue, so dark, that they looked almost black. They stared at each other for long seconds; minutes then Nathan moved. Haley's heart beat so hard, so deep in her chest with every slow step that Nathan made; she could feel it in her throat.
For a split second she thought about going back because this was crazy. It had to be, right? If there was another word for what Haley was feeling right now, she had no clue what that word would be.
All thought evaporated when the door came open and there Nathan stood. There were no questions. There were no words. Nathan and Haley just stood there watching one another. Neither one of them could even fathom what was going on, but whatever it was, they weren't letting go.
Haley wasn't sure she ever wanted to be free from it.
Nathan wasn't sure either. All that he was sure of was that Haley was here and he didn't want her to leave.
