Thanks you so much to deli41321 RhsGuard06 for your reviews! Here's the next chapter, and only one left after this. I hope you enjoy it!
Wake-up
Chapter 6
What if you never heard a word they say
And up were down and night were day
I bet you'd have a lot more time to play
If you'd let yourself go
Two months of marriage, and things weren't much better than they were in the beginning. Nathan continued spending his time at the office and a bar or club, while Haley spent her time at school, in classes or at parties, but on the cold November night, things changed a bit. There was a massive rainstorm, which closed down all the roads, forcing Nathan and Haley to both stay home that Saturday night. Just as Haley was about to make something to eat the house was surrounded in darkness.
"Haley?"
"In the kitchen." Nathan walked into the kitchen a second later with a flashlight.
"Hey. Do you know where the candles are so we can get some light in here?"
"Yeah, they're in the closet upstairs next to the bedroom. I'll go with you to grab them."
"No, that's okay, I can get them."
"No, I'll help." Haley could have cared less about helping Nathan get candles. She sort of hoped he would trip on the stairs and break his neck. Horrible? Yes, but still the truth. Actually, feisty little Miss Independent hated being alone in a blackout; they've spooked her since she was a little girl. They placed candles all around the kitchen so it was veiled in a delicate glow. They sat at the island on the barstools in an awkward silence.
"Want something to drink?"
"Sure. I think there's a bottle of wine in the fridge." Nathan grabbed the wine and poured a glass for Haley before grabbing a glass and some Jack Daniel's for him. In an attempt to ease the tension they drank their first round pretty quickly. Same with the one after that, and the one after that…
"Okay, my turn. I've never used drugs." Nathan took a sip.
"Sophomore year I took some performance enhancers because I was trying to beat my dad's record. Ok, I've never have gotten a tattoo." Haley took a sip of her wine. "Where?" Haley pulled down the corner or her pants to show a small black Chinese character. "What's it mean?"
"Hope." Nathan reached out and lightly traced it with his fingertip causing Haley shivered at the sensation. "I've never had sex with more than one person at a time." Nathan didn't drink causing Haley to raise an eyebrow.
"The Johnson triplets? Nah, just a rumor, but I would not mind if it were true. I've never been arrested." They were both far beyond a good buzz and in the territory of I have no control over the words that are spilling from my mouth like I should and normally do.
"I've never slept with a teacher." The exchange on "I've Never's" increased, shooting one off right after another.
"I've never had sex in the office."
"I've never been in love."
"I've never 'made love'."
"I've never made love in the rain."
"I've never made love with my wife."
"Guess we might have to do something about that." Their lips crashed together in a kiss filled with passion and lust. Somewhere along the way getting when they were getting drunk they let down a small part of their shields, giving the other a glimpse at their Achilles' heel. The vulnerable side of them that they kept hidden from the public, their family, and their friends, the part of them that is not only their most prized possession, but also their most fragile—their hearts.
Nathan stood up and gripped Haley's hips, hoisting her up as she wrapped he legs around him. Haley raked her hands over his chest before pulling back gasping for air, before she moved down to nip at his neck before soothing it with her tongue. Nathan groaned as she used her legs as leverage to ground into him, adding more heat to the fire that had already ignited between the two. Haley's hangs began to wander up his shirt, but she stopped as she felt Nathan walking.
"Where are you going?"
"Taking care of another one of your 'I've Never's'." He opened up one of the French doors and carried them out onto one of the chaise lounges on the Veranda. Haley smiled up at him as the raindrops fell upon them and she realized what he meant. They hungrily tore away at one another's soaked clothes, the sounds of them slapping the pavement barely audible over the sounds of the beads of rain hitting the ground. Their moans and screams of rapture where concealed with the load clapping of the thunder until they both reached ecstasy, coming back down together in a slow and sensual kiss.
Haley awoke tangled in wet sheets. Haley moved her arm down to fix the sheets so she could go back to bed till her headache went away, but in the process she felt the fact that she was in fact naked. The thought of last night came rushing back to her. Nathan. Her. The rain. And the countless waves of ecstasy they rode. She pulled the sheet up to cover herself before she looked over her shoulder to see Nathan still sleeping. She debated on falling back asleep and just getting up after Nathan, or getting up and getting dressed now. She picked the latter, still unsure of what really happened last night. Unsure of how she really felt about him. She grabbed a clean pair of jeans and tank top before heading downstairs to grab something for breakfast.
In the middle of eating her Cap'N Crunch Nathan came walking down the stairs and grabbed a cup of coffee sitting next to her at the island.
"Morning."
"Morning." An awkward silence enveloped the two as they sat there.
"So, are we going to keep ignoring the elephant in the room, or are we going to talk about it?" Nathan looked over at Haley waiting for her to answer him.
Haley was too confused; she wasn't sure how to answer. Ever since the beginning of the summer after their parent's had announced their engagement, they had to act like a young couple in love. She wasn't sure where the acting ended and the true feelings started, at least for her. Now her heart raced whenever she was around him and her palms got sweaty and she felt tongue-tied. It took everything in her to act normal and suppress these feelings. It took everything in her to not cry all night when she knew that he was with other women, feeling like she wasn't good enough to be with him. It took everything in her to act that catching him with Rachel wasn't like pouring salt on a fresh wound. She didn't understand why she felt this way, she never did. Maybe it was that common ground they had of growing up under the watchful eye of Tree Hill, having to act as if they live the perfect life. Guess that's the strange thing about love, you can never fully explain.
"What do you what do you want me to say about it? We got drunk and the game we were playing just…got out of hand." She still couldn't tell him how she felt; she could barely admit it to herself. Both their armor's were back on, concealing their hearts to each other and the rest of the world.
"Yeah. I just wanted to make sure that there wasn't anything weird between us now."
"No, of course not. Why would there be?"
"There wouldn't."
They never did seem to get rid of that elephant in the room that followed him wherever they went, but they got amazingly well at ignoring it. They each kept to themselves and their own schedules in the attempt to eliminate their feelings for one another. They were successful in hiding their feelings from each other, but their armor was slowly crumbling as time went on.
Sitting by the pool watching the clouds roll in, Haley highlighted the chapter she had to read before the next class. She picked up the cordless phone beside her after it rang for the third time.
"Hello."
"Haley, you should come down to the hospital. It's Whitey." As her father's words echoed through her head she felt like her heart stopped.
"What? Dad, what's wrong?"
"Just come down here Haley. I'm sure he would like to see you." Haley's response was caught in her throat, so she just pushed the end button and let the phone slip through her hand, breaking as it hit the pavement. She ran inside, throwing the things she had brought out back with her on the kitchen table. She ran into the bedroom, grabbing her shoes and purse, when Nathan stopped her.
"Where are you going?"
"Hospital…um, Whitey…I have to go."
"Wait, you shouldn't drive like that, I'll take you." Haley just nodded her head and followed Nathan out to his truck. The ride was silent as Haley tried to figure out why her Grandfather would be in the hospital. She prayed that it was nothing serious, just some sort of precautionary thing, but she couldn't help but shake the feeling that things were about to get a whole lot worse.
"Room number…um, I need the room number for Whitey Durham."
"Room 208, take the elevator up to the second floor and go to your right." Haley mumbled some sort of acknowledgement as she started towards the elevator with Nathan right behind her. She hit the up button a couple of times, and when the elevator didn't come she started pounding the button.
"Come on, hurry up. Damn it, get down here."
Nathan grabbed her hand, pulling it away from the button. "Hey, relax. It will come down. Just breathe." He tried to rub her arms to relax her, but she stood stiff, waiting for the ding to signal the arrival of the elevator.
"Where is he?" Haley found her parents sitting in room 208 with an empty bed. She couldn't help but feel like she was already too late.
"They had to take him for some more tests."
"What kind of tests? What's wrong with him? Why is he here?" Jimmy stood up and walked over towards his daughter.
"Whitey had some trouble seeing last year, remember when he had to have that eye surgery?" Haley nodded, signaling Jimmy to continue, "Well they ran some tests then and they found a tumor. It was in the Occipital Lobe, which he why he was having the vision problems. By the time they found it the tumor was no longer benign, so treatments were fairly limited. They included brain surgery, radiation, and chemotherapy. He felt that the side effects of the treatments were too abrasive, so he would let nature take its course."
"How long…Answer me, how much longer does he have?"
"The doctors gave us about three days."
"What…How…Why didn't he tell us?"
"There was no need to worry you darlin'." A nurse wheeled Whitey into the room and helped him up onto his bed.
"Yes there was Grandpa. We love you, we would have wanted to know."
"Sweetie, I'm old and my time has come. I'm not bitter, and you shouldn't be either. I've lived my life, and even though things weren't like I expected them to be, they turned out to be so much better." Haley nodded her head her head at him, willing the tears the tears that were threatening to fall to stay.
"I'm sorry, but Mr. Durham needs his rest now. You can all come back later." They all followed the nurse out of the room before they headed down to the cafeteria to wait until they could go up again.
Haley spent the next few days at the hospital, only leaving for an hour at the most to shower and change or grab something to eat. It was the morning of the second day that she was there and she was finishing reading the newspaper to him while he rested.
"So, tell me what's new in your life. How's school going?"
"It's good. I really like it."
"I knew you would. You've always had this unquenchable thirst for knowledge; it's who you are. So, how's marriage been? Everything you thought it would be?"
"Um…yeah, it has been." Haley didn't want to tell him the truth. He only had a little longer. He didn't need to know.
"You know I can tell when you're lying. I always have been. I've been waiting for you to tell me the truth, but I don't have much time left. You could at least grant a dying man's wish and tell it to me."
"Grandpa, I don't…I just can't. I want our last bit of time together happy instead of talking about that."
"I'm dying, there's not too much happy about that. Let me guess, your parents forced you two."
"Pretty much. If we didn't we would have been cut off.
"Let me guess, you two hate each other?"
"Pretty much. We just never really got along too well."
"I've never seen eye-to-eye with your mother on some issues, one of them being the way you were raised. I watched you play the part of the perfect daughter, but I have always been able to see past that. What's underneath is so beautiful; you need to let the world see it. And it's not just you Nathan does too. You have both grown up in a place where you have to play a part, but now you have to be yourselves."
"I wish we could, but it's too difficult to change ourselves now."
"Of course it won't be easy, the good things never are."
"Thank you for everything. I love you so much, I'm really going to miss you."
"Don't need to miss me yet, I'm not gone darlin'."
A few hours later Jimmy and Lydia came into the room, and not long after Nathan followed with lunch. The five ate as they exchanged small talk, acting as though they weren't in a hospital and someone was about to die. Whitey laid his head back and shut his eyes.
"Do you want us to leave dad so that you can get some rest?"
"No, I'm just resting my eyes, plus I like you guys here. Just stay and talk, or turn on the TV or something." The four were watching the news when they heard it. The constant beep…
Haley ran out into the hall and grabbed the first nurse she found. The nurse looked at Whitey's chart before checking vitals and paging a doctor.
"Aren't you going to do something? Save him!"
"We cant. He's DNR, he didn't want to be resuscitated."
"That's it, we just watch him die now? No!" Haley took off running through the door and down the stairs, heading for the sliding door that would lead her outside. Nathan took off after her, already drenched by the rain when he found her huddled in a ball under a tree on the side of the hospital. He sat down next to her and pulled her against him. She fisted the front of his wet shirt as her body began to tremble and she let out a sob. Pent up tears began falling relentlessly from her eyes as she finally began to grieve after all of these months. Grieve for her life with Nathan. Grieve for her Grandfather. And grieve for the person she has become.
Thank you so much for reading and I would love to know what you thought of it! Only one more chapter left!