Chapter Twelve

Author's note: For Ange, who almost, but not quite, managed to convince me not to post this.

Nathan left fairly early the next morning, but not before he and Haley had had many chances to get reacquainted.

She was not sad to wave goodbye to Gabby and Taylor several hours later, partially because Taylor was hounding her for details and partially because she needed time to process the thoughts that were galloping through her mind.

Haley was annoyed at Nathan, but unreasonably so. In her sleep deprived fever, she did not have the presence of mind to call him. She hoped he would telepathically come and take care of her.

He didn't.

She lay on the couch for hours that could have just been minutes, aching for sleep, water and comfort.

"Hales?" came a voice from the door many minutes after the buzzer had rung. She weakly called back to him, and almost smiled when she heard his large feet pad down the hall toward her.

"Hales?" said Lucas again, this time in concern as he saw her huddled, shivering despite the thick blanket.

Lucas frowned in concern and crouched down beside her. Reflexively he reached out and pushed a brown lock away from her sweaty face.

"Hey buddy," he said gently, smiling to reassure her as she raised her eyes to meet his own.

"Hey loser," said Haley. His low chuckle filled the room.

"Where are Taylor and Gabby?" he asked, touching the back of his hand to her hot cheek.

"They went away for the weekend," explained Haley as Lucas tucked another blanket around her.

"Without you?" he asked, crouching on the hardwood.

"I didn't feel like it," she said as he walked out of the room and down the hall in search of her bathroom.

He frowned when he checked her temperature, but didn't say what it was before lifting her, still wrapped in her cocoon of blankets, into his arms.

For one confused moment Haley was stunned. On some level she'd always seen him as the boy she'd first known him as, and his act was so gentlemanly, so all-grown-up, that her thoughts had trouble settling. For some reason that Haley did not remotely comprehend, the gesture seemed completely natural to Nathan and not in the least to his brother Lucas.

She experimentally huddled closer to him while he carried her to her bedroom, guiltily comparing him to his brother. Despite the last few days, she still felt as though Nathan would have left her on the couch and taken care of her from there.

He let her down gently on her bed, covered her with her blankets, shut off the lights and left. Sometimes Haley felt fairly certain that in addition he had brushed a solitary kiss on her forehead, but she never could be sure.

Lucas was worried the next day when Haley still had a high temperature and was still emptying her stomach every few hours, but he said nothing to make her worry, merely supplied her with Pepto-Bismal and kept an ever present bucket at her bedside.

On the third day, Haley got out of bed. She was finally able to keep down meals, and enormously proud of her success.

"You don't have to stay," she said again to Lucas, later in the day when he had made her a cup of tea and entreated her to sit down on the couch, not to wear herself out.

"I want to be here. I haven't seen you in a while," he said, coming to sit beside her.

"No, I've been terribly neglected," she said dramatically, rolling her eyes.

"How's the kid?" he asked.

"Gabriela Travers, thirteen. Silent as a mime," said Haley.

"She'll change, with you and Taylor around. Speaking of which, how's she doing?" he asked.

"She's fine. Much better with Gabby than me, too," admitted Haley.

"You'll do fine. Haven't you been doing this since we were in grade school?" he asked. She smiled.

"It's more different than I would have imagined," she said. She sounded wistful to Lucas' ears. Did she wish that she and Nathan had had a..?

"You'll do fine. I'd love to meet her. I heard you and Peyton mended fences."

"Or attempted to. I think we'll be okay, but I'm not so sure about Brooke," said Haley laughing. Lucas silently admired how tough she could be, despite all that had happened.

"Brooke's a tough nut to crack," he admitted.

"You and her are..?" Haley's sentence trailed off and she made a questioning gesture.

"Not at all. You and Nate?" he asked.

Images, thoughts, answers and questions flew through Haley's mind: the smell of Nathan's body so close to her, the feel of him after so long. How it had felt so good, yet so very wrong.

"Not at all," she said, smiling as if one nostalgic and tragic.