All You Need Do Is Ask

Nathan had decided the best part of all the scheming they'd been doing was spending time with Haley. She was smart and funny and friendly and just everything he liked in a girl, but as much as he wanted to ask her out, he was afraid. While he and Lucas had come far, there were still raw areas in their relationship he didn't want to rub, and he was pretty sure Haley might be one of them. Lucas watched them a little too closely for Nathan's comfort, and was generally reluctant to leave them alone. But it had been six weeks and it was time to take the bull by the horns. "Lucas?" he said, standing in the doorway to his brother's bedroom. It was his weekend at Karen's house, which they'd started doing so both boys were there at the same time. Nathan even had his own room there, although there was almost nothing in it but a few changes of clothes and a picture of his mother. Lucas looked up from his homework.

"What's up?"

"I wanted to talk to you about Haley."

"What about her?"

"Well, I'd like to ask her out. But I wanted to run it by you first."

"You're asking me my permission?" asked Lucas, incredulous.

Nathan fiddled with a fringe on the curtain. "Yeah, I guess I am. I've just gotten the feeling that you wouldn't necessarily be hip to the idea."

Lucas regarded him. "I'm not. She's like a sister to me, Nate. You can't go swooping in there and go all Vegas on her."

"What makes you think I'd do that?"

"I saw you with Peyton, man. That kind of stuff would really hurt Haley."

"Peyton? Man, that was just playacting. I was doing it to get a rise out of you, and she was doing it because she was mad at you. It was all for show."

Lucas snorted. "Well, it worked. That was kind of low, Nathan." Nathan said nothing and merely cocked an eyebrow at the older boy. "Okay, no lower than anything I did. But still, you hurt her and brother or no I'd have to hurt you. Just go slow, okay?"

Nathan nodded, knowing that was as close as Lucas was going to get to giving it his blessing, and left him to his homework. He found Karen downstairs, deep in a cookbook. "Looking for something new to serve at the cafe?"

She looked up and smiled. "I'm just looking for a cake recipe for Lucas' birthday. He's not a big fan of celebrating it, but it is his 16th and the least I can do is cake and candles. What are you up to?"

"Nothing. Avoiding homework."

"Nathan...." said Karen ominously. He held up his hands in surrender.

"I'll get to it soon, I promise. I'm just feeling kind of restless."

"Worried about the hearing?" The next hearing was in three weeks.

"More keyed up for the end of the season." Which was in two weeks.

Karen smiled and nodded. "Makes sense. By the way, I never told you how proud I am of you two for agreeing not to fight over the shooting guard position. That was an elegant and noble solution to the problem."

Nathan grinned and shrugged. "Not so sure Dan feels the same way."

Karen pursed her lips. "Dan doesn't really understand the idea of compromise. It's all or nothing with him. That was a possible belief when he only had one boy to push but he hasn't quite figured out how to make it work with two boys yet. He's still working off the old model."

"Past tense..." Nathan murmured to himself.

"What?"

Nathan, who hadn't really meant for Karen to hear him, started. "It's uh, just something Dan said to me when we first met. I used the present tense for something about my mom and he corrected me. Said she was gone and I had to get used to using the past tense."

Karen's face was a thundercloud. "He said that to you. Dan, you freakin'.... How long had she been dead at that point?"

"About 10 hours, maybe? Don't worry, I went off on him, called him a jackass. But since then it's been sort of a theme, people talking about things that should be in the past being in the present. Like me and Lucas getting used to not being only children anymore, or Dan trying to figure out how to be a father to two sons instead of one."

Karen looked at the floor and appeared to be considering her response. Finally she looked up. "Do you ever look around you when you're in school and see someone and think - that guy, there, this is his peak?" Nathan nodded, wondering where she was going with this. "See, Dan's not that guy. He's done really well for himself since high school-great job, great wife if I do say so myself, great son. But he thinks he is. As far as he's concerned, those were the best years of his life."

"So what you're saying is he's the last person who should be lecturing me about what should be in the past?"

Karen chewed her lower lip. "It's more complicated than that. He's obsessed with the future, but he doesn't understand evolution and change. If the greatest achievement of his life was playing shooting guard on the Tree Hill Ravens and getting recruited into the NCAA, then those will be the greatest achievements of his sons' lives as well. That's what he's trying to make happen with all the practicing and drills and workouts. He simply doesn't understand that people change over time, and from one generation to the next. Take Lucas. He'd be just as happy to spend the whole day in the library as the gym, which completely baffles his father. You, I don't know. Is there something you'd rather be doing than basketball?"

Nathan shrugged. "I have no idea. Mom was starting to put a lot of pressure on me about what I wanted to do when I grew up, but I couldn't think of anything. The weird thing about growing up in Vegas is you only see casino-related jobs, and I just couldn't see myself as a pit boss. I had a friend who's dad was in security, and that seemed cool, but it was also kind of dead end. Now I'm seeing other kinds of jobs, but I still don't know."

"Security... hmmmm."

"What? You look like you have an idea."

"Well, I was just thinking. Security, not dead end. What about the police? With a college degree you can be a detective and get promoted up through the ranks. The police officers I deal with at the caf‚ are all great people - I'm sure if I asked they would let you talk to them about what it's like and you could see if it's for you."

Nathan gaped. Police. Why hadn't he thought of that? He thought back to the police officers that had come to get him from school and how nice they'd been. How they'd stayed with him right up until Mrs. Lopez had come to explain what had happened and held his hand when he'd been given her things. He could do that. "That sounds... that sounds..."

Karen grinned and struck a little pose. "Thank you, thank you very much," she said, in a truly terrible Elvis impersonation.

"Karen, you are the absolute bomb. You're amazing. I bow before your greatness," he said, bowing deeply.

"Well, consider this my interference for the week, per the judge's orders."

Nathan abruptly set aside pondering his future on the thin blue line. She'd just given him the window he'd been looking for for a while. "Karen. You know that letter? The one my mom wrote?"

"Yes," she said, suddenly serious as well.

"I was wondering.... Would you mind if I read it?"

Karen's eyes widened. "Of course not, Nathan. You have every right to read it. But, just out of curiosity, why now? I'd sort of given up on you ever asking to see it."

He studied his toes. "I wasn't ready at first. And then there was all that stuff with Lucas, and then I couldn't figure out how to ask. It seemed like a private thing. Your relationship with her, not mine."

"Okay, first off, that's hogwash. My relationship with your mother is you. For me, you and it are not two separate entities. Second, you can always ask me anything. I mean it. Got me?" He nodded dumbly. "Right. Come with me." She lead him back to the office she used to keep track of her personal and professional business and opened a file cabinet, pulling out a very thick folder. "This is the Nathan folder."

Nathan's eyes widened. "All that is about me?"

"Anything to do with custody. You should see the one for Lucas' custody battle. I thought I was going to have to get the floor reinforced. Anyway, here's what you're looking for." She pulled out an envelope, "Karen Scott" written across the front in the much missed handwriting. "I'll leave you alone."

Nathan nodded and she left. Nathan sat at the desk and began to read.

"Karen:

Right at this moment, you probably think I'm a little crazy, giving my son into the care of a total stranger, and I feel I must write you and explain myself a little. I hope by doing so I can give you what you will need to make a family for Nathan.

There was never anyone else but Dan, and there is no question that he is Nathan's father. I was going to tell him I was pregnant the night he told me about you, and I just felt so betrayed for both of us, that he would know about you and your baby the whole time he was dating me. So I chose to not tell him, to deprive him of his son. I was so angry at him for such a long time. Finally I just couldn't do it anymore.

I knew I had to plan for Nathan should something happen to me. I am completely alone in the world. I have friends who I know would take Nathan in a heartbeat should it come to that, but no family I can turn to. To be honest, if I didn't know exactly where Nathan's father was, I might have decided to go with the friend option, but I do know. He's with you, and your son, and I can't continue to deprive Nathan of his father just because I felt betrayed.

I only saw you once, for a few minutes. You were playing with your son, and I saw enough that I believe I can depend on you for this. You and I, we are different women, but we are the same. We are the mothers of Dan Scott's sons. We know what that means. Perhaps it would have been easier if we had had girls, but the dice didn't role that way, and it's on us, or rather you, to balance out Dan and his single-minded drive and focus.

For whatever reason, I am no longer in Nathan's life. Right now, he's only 10, and he's still my baby. I can't imagine anyone else taking care of him, but I have to. I am depending on you to give him a brother and father and all the things I never could give him. I am depending on you to give him family. I am depending on you because you are a mother. You know what I am asking, and what it means, better than anyone else possibly could. Please, though you may hate me right now, don't let me down. Don't take out whatever anger you might feel toward me on Nathan. I'm sorry; more sorry than you can imagine, for whatever disruption I have caused you and your family, but you're the only one who can protect him. You're the only one who can understand. You're the only one I can trust.

Sincerely,

Deb Carver"