Title: Number One with a Bullet
Author: hauntedd
Rating: T
Couple: hints of Nathan/Haley
Summary: What's going through Haley's head during the shooting.
Disclaimer: These characters are so not mine.
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They always said that your life flashed before your eyes when you were about to die. And, since she'd had no near-death experiences to rely upon, she believed them. But as she stood huddled in Nathan's arms, Jimmy waving a pistol at all of them, spewing cliches about how high school was bullshit and none of them mattered, she was beginning to see there was truth in the rumor.
Nathan tightened his arms around her and she pressed her face against his chest, her tears staining the black cotton of his shirt, salt licking the fresh-air scented fabric that never smelled like the outdoors at all. These were the things that were running through her head and she frowned against him, unsure what she should be thinking. This was going to be her last day on earth and here she was with Nathan. And that should be enough. Except it wasn't and that scared her.
She heard the gun flop from one hand to another as Jimmy continued to talk about a line that they couldn't cross and she sighed. She knew he was talking literally, but there were always lines, and her marriage was a testament to that. Love was supposed to be unconditional, forgiving, and yet everything with them was based on something else. And she'd accepted that, at least since she had come back to Tree Hill the scorned woman, the wife who turned her back on her unsupportive husband, who was looking more and more like a petulant child.
Even this act of derring-do was more because he relied on her for salvation than anything else. And it was cute, if there wasn't the underlying supposition that she had everything he needed. It was a bitter pill to swallow, but as her fear mounted and the seconds drew on, she was seeing that their love could not survive all. They were going to die, and this wasn't some cartoon with kitschy powers that could project their love onto others and be a panacea for this situation. And it made her wonder, what else had she sacrificed to save the man she loved?
Haley sighed and pushed herself away from Nathan, turning to face her would-be killer. He was just like the rest of them, like she had been, like she was again. Faceless, described in context of who she was friends with. She wasn't Haley James, singer, she was Nathan's wife, Lucas' friend, Tutor Girl. And she'd thought it was enough, that she was enough, this small town living would be alright as long as she had Nathan.
And she did have him, he'd risked his life to come back for her, but in the end it didn't matter. He'd be a number too, and not in the sense of Jimmy blending in. He'd be one of the shooting deaths, hell he might even be marked for his valor, the boy who fought to save the woman he loved. And wasn't that what Nathan always wanted – to be remembered? Why was it ok for him to strive for recognition, but the second that she'd done it, she was shunned.
She would be that girl who sang that song who was married to that guy, the hero. That was how the public would remember her. And the string of demonstrative pronouns that would define her memory was grating. Haley had never thought that she was concerned with fame or even name recognition but as the barrel of the gun stared her down, she just wished she mattered.
It was, of course, true that family and friends meant the most, and she was sure that her parents would care, when they heard the news weeks later on a stop that they'd made on their travels around the United States. And her sister would find out sometime, whenever she came up for air – she was too busy with her own issues to pay attention to the news. Chris might write a line in a song about her, but that was it. But other than that, and Lucas, to an extent, no one knew her as anything other than Lucas' friend or Nathan's wife. She'd had that chance, to define herself as something different, herself, but it'd faded the second she'd decided to put her marriage first.
The only problem with that was putting the marriage first only worked if both parties were invested in it. Nathan wasn't sure what he wanted, the video broadcast hammered that home for her, and she'd been deluding herself into thinking otherwise.
She heard idle chatter in the background, but she wasn't paying attention, not really. She was sure she'd been asked a question or even heard Nathan reaffirm his love with words, they were always words, not actual emotions. Instead her mind was drifting off to another buzz, another hum, that of the crowd waiting for her to come on stage and sing. She may have left the road, but the road hadn't left her. She still remembered every moment, every high, every low. And as she stood there, her thoughts and her life flashing by now in little blips, that was what she wanted more than anything.
Silence.
It was the silence that pleased her the most, and made her the most nervous. She was the star in those moments, it was her job to create noise out of nothing. She inhaled, forgetting where she was, and she opened her mouth in a perfect o, preparing to sing. She moved forward and her foot hit something, knocking her small body off balance. And she opened her eyes, to steady herself when she realized where she was once again, and who wasn't there. Jimmy had gone from the room, leaving the group huddled in quiet, awaiting his next bold move.
Then she heard the crack of a gun. one bullet, then two. And the screams rising, terror reaching a fever pitch til they formed a chorus, the crack of the door and not Jimmy, but Dan standing in the doorway. His mouth was moving but there was no sound that she could make out, and then there was an arm, Nathan's arm around her shoulder, pushing her out of the room.
The hero once again saving the damsel in distress.
She frowned at that, pushing his arm off of her and sprinting forward. She'd made the mistake of falling into that trap once, she wasn't about to do it again. It was time to start becoming Haley James again, and she was starting now.