I realised that I hadn't put a DISCLAIMER in, and even though it would be ridiculous to think I owned OTH, I am supposed to include one so here goes: I own Michael, Annie, and some other minor characters in this fic, but I don't own the OTH, its characters, or anything related to it.

Chapter Three

Haley stood in front of the entrance to her apartment block, wondering how to get in. She had just picked up the children from their nursery school, and today had been the day they had to take home the models they had made of farms, complete with miniature farm animals (who knew little kids did so much work?). Annie was carrying her model, but Michael claimed that he could not carry his, because he didn't have enough milk in the morning and therefore not enough 'Cal-say-um'. "Calcium," Haley had corrected him, but had carried his model anyway, even though she knew he was just lazy. Boys.

However, Haley would not be in her current predicament if not for the fact that Peyton had convinced Haley to spend her morning break going shopping. Thus, Haley was faced with the impossible task of entering the building carrying her backpack, a number of shopping bags and one ridiculously large piece of cardboard with lots of things stuck to it. Of course, she would have no help from her children, who had strolled inside ahead of her and started speaking to Peter, the concierge. Haley took a deep breath, walked up to the front door, turned around, and tried to push it open with her backpack, the various shopping bags hanging from her arms, while she held the farm model in her hands. Surprisingly, this was quite successful. At least until Haley slipped on her heel and landed bottom-first inside the building, dropping the model on the ground.

Annie, Michael and Peter up to her. "Mummy, are you okay?" Annie asked, worriedly.

Haley nodded in reply as Peter pulled her to her feet. "I'm fine, honey." Except for the throbbing pains in my back and head, she added mentally.

"Mummy, you broke Nathan!" Michael exclaimed, horrified.

"Nathan?" What?

Michael held up a white yogurt cup painted black in splotches. It had broken in half.

"Is that supposed to be a cow?" Haley asked.

"Yeah, it's Nathan the cow."

"Nathan the cow?" Haley raised an eyebrow.

"Mrs. Hill said to name everything on our models." Annie explained.

"Oh. Do you also have a 'Nathan the cow'?" Haley asked her daughter.

"No, I have Farmer Nathan," Annie said as if it were completely obvious.

"Aha." Haley thanked Peter and took her children to the elevator, this time making Michael carry his own model. "So," she said to her son as the elevator doors closed, "what's your farmer called?"

"Farmer Michael. Duh."

The real Nathan was at that moment waking up. It was past one o'clock and Nathan decided to finally drag himself out of bed. He was wearing only his grey sweats, so he pulled a white T-shirt on as walked to his front door to fetch the newspaper. He had just picked the paper up, and was about to close the door behind him when he heard the elevator bell ring. He looked to the side and saw the doors open, and Haley, Annie and Michael step out of it. His apartment was closer to the elevator so they had to walk past him to get to theirs.

"Hi," Haley said. Annie and Michael grinned.

"Hey. What are those?" he inquired after their models.

"We had to make farm models for school," Annie told him. "My farmer is called Nathan," she added, excitedly.

Nathan smiled back at the little girl. "Well, thank you, Annie. I'm very honoured."

"And Michael has a cow called Nathan."

"Oh." As Nathan looked up at Haley he noticed she was smiling. "You think that's funny?"

As she tried to suppress her laughter, Haley's smile grew. "The look on your face was."

"Don't be sad Nathan," Michael told him as he and Annie walked into the apartment. "In my model, Mummy is a cow too."

"What!" Haley exclaimed. Nathan started laughing. Haley soon joined in. It was only a few moments later that she noticed what he was wearing. "Nathan did you just get up?"

"Kind of."

"Brooke kept you up late?" Haley said, jokingly. However, she was surprisingly interested in the answer.

"No, I had work. Plus, Brooke and I broke up."

This was not the answer Haley had been expecting. She didn't know what to say, so she went with the conventional, "I'm sorry," although it wasn't exactly what she was feeling.

"It's okay. It was about 2 weeks ago," Nathan replied nonchalantly.

"What happened?" Haley asked, unable to contain her curiosity.

"She met my brother."

Haley burst into giggles. "You're joking!"

"No, I'm very serious." Nathan tried to look offended, but he wasn't. Despite the fact that he got dumped, the hilarity of the situation had not been lost on him.

Haley kept laughing. Nathan glared at her. "I'm really sorry, I just can't help it!"

Annie put her farm model down on her bed. She was very proud of it. Unlike her brother, she had done it all by herself. She looked down appreciatively at Farmer Nathan, Haley and Peyton the sheep, Jake the dog, Michael the chicken and all their farm animal friends. Then she walked out of her room and into the living room. Her brother was, as usual, already in front of the television, his model on the floor. She looked past him and saw that the front door was still open. The shopping bags were on the floor inside, but Haley was still outside and, for some reason, laughing.

Annie walked up the entrance and saw her mother was talking to Nathan. Haley noticed Annie and remembered that she and Michael hadn't eaten. "Oh, Nathan, I have to serve lunch for Annie and Michael."

"Yeah, I haven't had breakfast, either," Nathan admitted

"It's a little late for breakfast, don't you think?" Haley smiled.

An idea suddenly formulated in Annie's head as she remembered what Peyton had told her in private, the night they met Nathan's brother Lucas. "Why don't you come have lunch with us? We have enough, don't we Mummy?"

"Oh, no, it's okay," Nathan said.

Haley had been taken off guard by her daughter's remark. But she did want Nathan to come in. She tried to convince herself that it didn't have anything to do with what Peyton had said about the two of them, or the fact that Nathan was single once again, when she said, "No, you should come. Do you even have anything to eat in there?"

Nathan smiled. She was right; he didn't. And it would be more fun eating with Haley than eating alone. I mean, eating with Haley and the kids, he corrected himself.

Nathan took a quick shower, before going back to Haley's for lunch. After he explained to Michael that cows were female, Nathan sat down to eat with Haley, while Annie and Michael had already started eating at their small children's table. They started talking and Haley quickly steered the conversation back to Brooke. "So, what happened exactly?"

"I introduced them one night at a party; the next morning Brooke called and said she wanted to break up because she had fallen in love with my brother. The day after that Lucas told me they were going out."

"You seem really…okay with this." Haley said, surprised by Nathan's attitude. It wasn't like in the time she'd known him she'd seen him get distressed over break-ups. But most of the time he was the one who wanted to break up. She supposed that there may have been occasions when he'd been dumped for another guy. But for his brother? That had to be a first.

Nathan just shrugged. "Brooke and I had fun, but it's not like we were in love. If Lucas wants to marry her, then I'm happy for him; for both of them."

"Hold on a second - marry her?" Haley squealed.

"Oh, didn't I tell you? Lucas called me last night, he and Brooke are engaged."

"Since when?"

"Yesterday," Nathan said.

"But- but-" Haley was finding it increasingly difficult to wrap her head around the situation. "How long have they been dating?"

Nathan thought for a moment. "9 days."

Haley was shocked. "And they're already engaged?" Nathan shrugged again. "And you're not fazed at all? Your brother suddenly decided to get married to a woman he's known for 9 days and you're not worried even a little bit?"

"Lucas can take care of himself. Plus, he's known her for 11 days. It's just that they started dating 9 days ago."

"This is crazy!" Haley exclaimed. "I mean, leaving aside the whole issue of whether there really is such a thing as love at first sight – although I don't see how there can be since you don't know someone the first time you see them, or what they're like, or anything, really; it's just based on looks, which isn't a pretty meaningful way to start a relationship – and a marriage! How can you base a marriage on looks? I mean, they can't know each other in just 11 days – they only know each other well enough to be certain that they'll have beautiful kids! Plus, the whole–"

"Do you want to go with me to their engagement party next Saturday?"

"What?" Haley said, unsure of whether she had heard him correctly, since she had just been rambling away.

"Next Saturday is Lucas and Brooke's engagement party at my parent's house." Nathan exclaimed. "I thought you might like to come."

"Oh." Haley had never met Nathan's parents, or any of his relatives, besides Lucas. She suddenly felt very nervous.

"It's okay if you don't want to," Nathan said hastily when she didn't answer his question. "I mean, clearly you don't approve. Did you fall in love with Lucas too?" Nathan said it as a joke, but meant the question seriously. The fact that Haley might have liked Lucas – as in, really liked him – bothered him much more than when Brooke told him that she did.

"No!" Haley responded immediately. "Of course not. And it's not that I don't approve, it's just surprising, that's all. It's kind of sudden."

"Yeah it is." Nathan didn't feel very relieved. He noticed that Haley still hadn't replied to his invite. And he didn't know what to say next. He had, after all, asked her twice (technically speaking). If he asked her a third time, he'd just seem desperate. The thought crossed his mind that she was subtly refusing him. He then wondered why he cared so much. Not liking where this thoughts were going, he excused himself to go to the kitchen for some water.

The moment Nathan had gone Haley heard a voice cry, "Mummy!"

Haley looked to her side, down at the smaller table near by. Her son was busy eating his food, but her daughter was looking at her with an extremely cross face. It reminded Haley of the look her own mother used to give her when she didn't clean her room. "What is it, Annie?"

"Why did you do that?"

"Do what?"

"Nathan asked you out on a date-"

"He didn't ask me out on a date!" Haley said too shocked by the accusation to realise it meant Annie had been listening to her conversation.

Annie rolled her eyes. "Well, he asked you to go somewhere and you didn't say anything."

"I di-" Haley cut herself off because she realised that Annie was right. She hadn't replied to Nathan when he'd asked her to go to the engagement. She'd just been in so much shock by Nathan's news that she – oh, what was wrong with her! If Nathan didn't care about the marriage, why should she. She didn't care about Brooke or Lucas, she cared about Nathan. Wait-what? No-of course she cared about Nathan. He was her friend. Her very good friend. Her very good friend with a nice smile, and amazing blue eyes, and hair that looked really soft and– Oh. My. God.

Haley remained in a frozen state of shock until Nathan came back from the kitchen and sat down across her. It looked to him like she suddenly pulled out of a trance. "You ok?" he asked.

"Uh-huh." As they continued to eat in silence, Haley wondered what the best way was to bring back the subject of the engagement party. Until she realized there was no best way. She breathed in deep, and took the plunge. "So, about the engagement party…"

For the first time in 5 minutes Nathan looked up at her. "Yeah?"

"Does that offer to go still stand?"

Nathan grinned and Haley noticed that when he did, his blue eyes looked even bluer. Bluer? Oh, she had it bad.

Damn it.