Daddy Overnight

An OTH FanFic

By AlexB

36

He called me Dad.

Dan hadn't heard those words in so long he almost couldn't believe it when they had touched his ears. Just when an inkling of thought about giving up, to find a new way, he was given hope.

Nathan had called him Dad. Twice. His son had acknowledged him twice. He hadn't heard it the first time because his anger had been so loud. Then he thought that his mind had been playing tricks on him, but he wasn't because he had heard it again clearly. Nathan had called him Dad. Dan had been bound and determined since that day to be in his sons' lives. Nathan was still too raw, he probably hadn't yet noticed is slip. Lucas…

Lucas…

He didn't know what tore at him more; Nathan's anger at him or Lucas' indifference.

They both made him feel likes shit, and maybe they had call to do so, but those were his sons. They'd made mistakes, people made mistakes. All Dan wanted to do was bring his family together. His sons, they were too much like him, stubborn, set in their ways. They were going to make this as hard as possible, and Dan still couldn't blame them. He probably deserved more than they threw at him.

Hell if that didn't get old though.

He'd seen Lucas go into the diner. He would have followed him inside, but that wouldn't have done Dan any good. If there was one thing that he knew to be true about his eldest, it was that Lucas was fiercely protective of his mother. Any kind of friction or disrespect regarding her and Lucas would be harder to deal with.

That boy redefined obstinate.

He lost track of how long he had sat in the car waiting, trying to figure out what he was going to say to the boy he a never known who grew into the man that Dan watched almost desperately trying to find something other than their last name and DNA that connected them.

Contrary to what they thought they knew, Dan hadn't just walked away from his first born son willingly.

He'd made a mistake; one of many early on in his life. Dan hadn't been 20 years old and he had two kids on the way. He's been in love once and that had been with Karen, Lucas' mother. That had scared the hell out of him and he had to find some way to break it. So he'd broken up with her. He accepted the scholarship offered to him from Texas but, in the end, it hadn't been enough; breaking that connection had been impossible. Karen had told him that she was pregnant and he knew that there had been no one else though many had tried and had probably succeeded in his absence after Lucas was conceived.

Breaking up with her hadn't been enough, her having his baby bonded them for life, and he knew that sleeping with Deb was insanity but Dan had done it anyway. He'd slept with Deb. It wasn't his finest moment. He should have listened to his father. Royal had told him about getting too serious with one girl. Dan hadn't thought thing were that serious until the last time what they had laid together. Dan had seen his whole future and he rabbited, but it had been too late to find is way back because Deb was pregnant, too.

"You really fucked yourself, didn't you, boy?"

"So what," Keith asked. "You're just going to abandon the child that you made with Karen? You don't know dick about being a man, little boy."

He'd driven all night from Dallas home to Tree Hill when his mother had defied his father to tell him that Karen had gone into labor. To walk in and see Keith holding his child, smiling at the woman that he loved…No one could tell him that Keith hadn't been sleeping with Karen; not even Dan himself, and he knew the truth; that Lucas was his, and Keith was trying to take him. He should have seen it then that Keith had wanted Karen for himself, too. He'd wanted her all along.

Dan, he had cared about Deb, he even loved her because she was Nathan's mother, but he had never been in love with her because she wasn't Karen, and she never would be. Knowing that that bastard Keith had been sleeping not only with the woman that he loved but his wife, too; he couldn't let that stand. Dan could never be okay with that and he never would. Keith could save his life every day until the day that he died and Dan still wouldn't piss on that son of a bitch to put out a fire. He was passed done with his "big brother."

So no, he wasn't the best example of what it meant to be a father, hell, a person, but he still deserved the opportunity to right his wrongs. He deserved the chance to show his sons that he loved them both.

"What are you doing here, Dan?"

He'd been so lost in his musings he hadn't seen Lucas come his way.

He looked like his grandmother; blonde hair, blue eyes, and a kind smile; one that Dan hadn't seen since his boy was young, and even then it had been directed at fucking Keith.

Always Keith.

A damned thief.

A thief that wanted Nathan, too. He knew about Keith wanting Nathan to come and see him and the de-brewery he as holed up in.

He would fight him to the death.

"I just wanted to see my son." Dan replied.

"Nathan isn't here."

"Lucas," Dan stepped out of his car into the Tree Hill night, helplessness rooted in the pit of his stomach as he watched his son walk away from him. "Son,"

The younger man whirled around on his heels. He got close to his father, pointing a finger into his chest. "You don't call me that."

"Just…tell me what to do to make it right."

"There is nothing." Lucas told him. "You denied me, walked right past me day after day, pretended like I wasn't there; like I didn't exist; you tried to steal me away from my mother when I was a kid. I have nothing to say to you. There is no need for me to be around you. I stopped wanting my father in my life a long time ago."

"You can hate me until the both of us are dead and gone, Luke, but you're my son." Dan told him. "I need you."

"I don't need you."

"Lucas-"

"Have you seen, Keith?" He cut in. Dan puled in a breath and tried to let it out slowly. The young man nodded. "Thought so. I find it funny that you say that you want a second chance with me and Nathan, that you're here asking for the opportunity and feel that we should do so because what, we're your sons; but you can't seem to do the same for your brother. That man saved your life, but we're the ones who are supposed to afford you a gift?"

"The two aren't the same?"

"Oh no?" Lucas challenged. "I see you standing asking me to forget the past yet you are unwilling to do the same. Tell me, Dan, what makes your shit worse than his?"

"Why is Dan staking out the bar?" Peyton asked as she tossed her coat over the back of the desk chair in the office.

"What?"

"Dan is sitting in his car outside." She nodded in the direction of the street. Jake crossed his arms of his broad chest, his brows lowering in a frown. Nathan hadn't said anything about Dan making himself a nuisance. Then again, maybe he had and Jake has just spaced it. He had been in his own head these days.

"What is he up to?" Jake wondered aloud. He really hoped that he wouldn't have to witness his friend being cuffed again. Jake stood up straight and moved to figure out just what the hell the old bastard was playing at, but Peyton stopped him.

"Uhn-Uhm." She shook her head. "No, baby. We have to let Nathan do this his way." Jake sighed crashing his fist into his opened, bear-like, palm. He knew that, but that didn't mean that he had to like the shit. Especially when Dan seemed to take pleasure in his spot under Nathan's skin. She took his and in her pressing a kiss into it.

"Can't go around socking people up. Even if they deserve it." Jake watched as Peyton moved back to the desk, taking her earrings off in the process. "Whatever this is, it had better not hurt Nathan or Nic, or they won't be able to find him."

Jake fought a smile and a laugh as Peyton picked up the bar's phone and dialed, holding the receiver between her cheek and shoulder. "Not above skinning you and selling your parts for scrap on the black market, Buddy."

"Duly noted."

Peyton was informing a distributor that they were fired when Nathan walked in with Nic who saw Peyton and lost his mind. Six months old and he was already woman crazy. He saw his grandmother and he went berserk, he saw Peyton and he flirted, he saw Haley and he flirted and she was taking his temperature or putting food in his face while he did it.

He saw Jake and he still laughed, even after Jake had the bandage taken off his face. His baby was happy. He laughed, he loved, and he was loved unconditionally. He wouldn't have that with Dan. He couldn't even say Nic's name. His son would learn rejection and conditions soon enough, the world would make sure of it. He shouldn't have to endure it from his own grandfather.

"Why is Dan outside the bar?"

Jake and Peyton shared a look at the slight pause in their friend's step. Nathan shrugged then put Nic in his playpen. "Came in the back. Didn't see him."

Jake and Peyton shared another look.

"Come on, Buddy." Jake lifted his godson from the make shift prison. "Let's get some lunch."

Nathan stayed silent as Jake and Nic left the room. "Let's hear it." He said after the door closed behind them.

Peyton sat on the edge of the desk.

"Getting perceptive in your advanced age."

"No, I just know that Jake refuses to give Dan the benefit of shit and that has only gotten worse because of Nic. You…you still lend and ear even though you want to snap the man's neck."

"What's going on, Nate?"

"I went to see Dan, and I'm done."

"Are you?"

"There's a reason why I kept my distance."

"Why'd you go?"

"It's not going to be all smiles and giggles; I know that. I had to try because if me and my boy end up like this…God forbid, I would want him to at least try." Nathan shrugged. "I tried."

Peyton was silent as she watched her friend. She nodded toward the door. "Get outta here."

"What?"

"Go get some fresh air. Nic can stay with us while you just be for a couple hours. I'm pretty sure that you can find something to do with your free time."

He could think of a million things that he had been meaning to do. "I have been meaning to visit the time capsule."

"Whatever the hell that means."

Nathan made his goodbyes to is son and to Jake. When he got to his car he had a need to get in touch with Haley. It was early she was probably with a patient. He would be waiting for her to get back to him anyway, and at least with voicemail he would get to hear her voice.

You've reached my voicemail. Lucky you.

"Hope springs eternal, good doctor. What are you doing for lunch?"

He drove home in silence. It was a good thing, getting away from the bar. He wouldn't have been able to concentrate on anything else anyway. He barely avoided plowing himself into a tree.

He got home and way unnerved by the quiet. Nic's stuff was everywhere; on the couch, on the counters, his coffee table, the floor. He had his own damn bathroom yet Nic's baby stuff had managed to infiltrate Nathan's bathroom as well. This morning Nic wouldn't take his bath. He'd wanted to sleep. Nathan had to get ready. They needed to do inventory so he took his boy in the shower with him. Oh, Nic had loved that. Nathan had nearly busted his ass twice because of the duck that Nic just had to have. He kept throwing the damned thing.

Next to the sliding door in the kitchen that led outside was the door to the basement and the attic. He hadn't been in either since he'd bought the place. One of the rooms upstairs he used for a home gym and he didn't need a man cave when the whole house was one.

The attic held the past; the time capsule. Nathan didn't have an office like Dan to show off all his awards. If he had helped win a championship, he probably would have had to have one. After all that birth certificate nonsense, Nathan had started to keep all of his stuff.

It was all there. His MVPs, his team pictures, his jersey; he's paid his own money to keep that. There was the conference title where he and Lucas had shared the MVP. That shit had been uncomfortable and insulting at the same time. They had lost the championship that year because they had been full of themselves. They had lost the lead and gotten it back so many times they had been forced to go for that last minute three.

Lucas had missed.

Dan had fumed.

And Nathan had sworn "Next year."

It hadn't been accurate to say that Lucas hadn't been a part of the team after the HCM diagnosis His minutes had gone way down because of the illness and the medicine he said that made him feel like he was moving slow when it hadn't looked like it. He hadn't been able to deal with it, and, if he were being honest, Nathan didn't think that he would have been able to deal with it either. Stepping back and looking at it, Nathan could see that he and Lucas had been the same.

In high school Lucas was the better version of Damien Sharpe. He was there in Nathan's face day in and day out. Nathan was always in versus mode with Lucas whether they had been on the court or not. The same could be said for Lucas because his Damien Sharpe had been his illness and they were both trying to outrun Dan.

Between every piece of history that looked through, Nathan kept his eye on his phone waiting for Haley to call. They hadn't been able to have breakfast this morning, so they'd had to settle for their phone call. That only amped the memory of the day before when her body had melted into him when he had kissed her because he could. Nathan smirked as he remembered the dazed look on her face before she had taken what she wanted.

Best morning ever.

The smile fell from his face as he took in the newspaper clipping of he and Lucas holding up the championship that they had won that next season. Their smiles had been forced, the moment tense because Lucas had won the MVP that year and Nathan knew what he was in for.

He'd been the true sixth man that year. Nathan hated Lucas calling plays for him. He hated even more that they worked. Lucas halved his time behind the clipboard and on the court. During practice he never missed a step. When one of the starters went down, Lucas was the next man up. He played like a beast through the playoffs. They couldn't touch him in the championship. This time he made that last shot.

He'd earned that MVP and Nathan's grudging respect even though he hadn't been able to bring himself to show it. Not then.

At the bottom of his footlocker holding all his high school glory was his Tree hill lettermen jacket. Yeah, Nathan had one from Duke, but it was the one from TH that gipped him. He earned that one. He wasn't 100 percent on putting the jacket on Haley. Yeah, she had joked about it, but he couldn't tell one way or another if she was the kind of woman who would wear her guy's jacket. They hadn't been "they" or all that long anyway. He didn't want it to come off like wearing it was expected. He knew how that would play off, and who needed the embarrassment of a joke falling flat?

Nathan slipped the jacket on and shook his head in wonder. The damned thing still fit. He was not the same skinny kid he had been at 17. He could only grimace at how big the damn thing had looked on him nearly decade ago.

His phone rang and Nathan picked it up without looking.

"What are you doing right now?" Haley asked by way of a greeting, the smile in her voice sending heat all through him. Nathan sat back on the floor of his attic and smiled.

"Hoping to enjoy some surprise sun with the girl next door."