A.N Hi all sorry for the delay in updating this. I actually expected to have this chapter up a lot sooner but then just when I was almost finished I got distracted by starting a new story. Its called A Time Best Forgotten and the first two chapters have been posted on this site so if you haven't done so already please check it out and give me your thoughts. Naturally I'm looking forward to hearing your thoughts on this chapter too and now that I have more than one story on the go I am probably going to be a little slower with updates so don't forget that reviews will definitely encourage me to update quicker. Enjoy the new chap, hopefully I'll have the next one up within the week.

Chapter Fifty

Nathan watched as Deb stalked away down the hall and heaved a sigh of relief. He couldn't remember another time in his life that he had ever been so relieved to see the back of his mother. He turned towards the room looking in at Lucas and Brooke and the smiles of pure joy on their faces as together they experienced for the first time being parents. At that moment all he wanted to do was go into that room and somehow allow himself to become enveloped in the warmth that exuded from them. But he knew it was a false hope for the moment he entered that room that feeling of warmth would disappear and he would once again find himself the outcast.

He wasn't totally sure how it had happened, how he had become the bad guy in this scenario. Sure maybe what he had said to Haley that morning had been slightly harsh but he wouldn't have said it if he didn't have reason. But the truth was that when she had walked into that kitchen that morning and put her arms around him like that he had completely freaked out. All of the unresolved issues from the past had flashed through his head, all the lies, the half truths, the missed opportunities but most of all had been the words. The venomous words exchanged between them, the way they were so capable of hurting each other with just a few simple words.

How could they bring a child into a world between them that was constantly hanging in the balance, neither one of them ever knowing when something would happen to once again upset the applecart? That was not the sort of environment he wanted his child to be brought into and if it meant that they had to be apart then so be it. He had woken up that morning and known what he had to do unfortunately though he just couldn't bring himself to do it. He had heard the sound of the shower running and all thoughts of sitting down and having an honest discussion with Haley had flown out the window. All he had been able to think about was how she would look naked and wet with the water flowing over her body. And so despite his best intentions his libido had over ruled his head and he had gone into that bathroom with her and lost himself inside of her.

When it was over for the first time he felt what it was like to actually hate himself, to be so disgusted with his own actions that he couldn't even bare to look in the mirror. What sort of person was he when he could knowingly sleep with a woman that he had no intention of pursuing a relationship with? A woman that he had known most of his life and who even at this moment was pregnant with his child. She wasn't just some random woman that he picked up in a bar and slaked his urges with, this was Haley and she was worth so much more than that.

So when she had come into the kitchen so obviously happy and full of hope he had pushed her away. Pushed her away out of fear but also out of the knowledge that if he didn't he would hurt her worse than he ever had before. The words that had spilled forth from his mouth calling her nothing but a release he wasn't even sure where they had come from but he had known instinctively that they would have the desired result. There was no way that Haley would continue to torment him with her body if she thought that it was leading nowhere. He knew her well enough to know that her actions over the past few weeks had been aimed at somehow rekindling their relationship and not just about sex as they would have appeared to the outside eye. But there had been a moment there when he had seen a look flash through her eyes, a look that overrode her hurt and it had terrified him because just for a moment he had seen temptation in her eyes, temptation to agree to his insane proposal and that was the moment that he knew that Haley was unlike any other woman he had ever known. He knew that she had actually considered it and that scared him more than anything else ever could because Haley was willing to consider doing something like that, something that went against everything that she believed in just to be with him. The fact that she had however briefly considered degrading herself like that had been like a knife inside his heart. He didn't know what he would have done if that brief moment of insanity hadn't passed and she hadn't rejected him because he wasn't sure that he would have had the strength to turn away from her if she had decided that being treated like that was worth it just to be with him.

His life was a mess and he had no idea what to do to put it back together. All he knew was that he and Haley were in no position to be restarting their relationship not with the yawning chasm of mistrust between them. Not when there was so much at stake between them. If they were going to give their relationship another go then they had to be sure that they could make it work and at that moment he couldn't remember ever being less sure of anything.

He was broken out of his thoughts by a nurse pushing past him to enter the room. "Mr Scott are you ready? I'll take you and your son down to get his check up now."

Nathan started in surprise "Luke where are you going?" he asked unable to ignore the sinking sensation in the pit of his stomach that told him he was about to be thrown into the lions den.

"Have to take Cory for his check up," Lucas answered his face a picture of innocence.

Nathan glanced nervously at Brooke who was glaring at him from her place in the hospital bed. "Well uh why don't I take you down? I'm sure the nurse has other things she needs to be doing."

"You're not going anywhere Mister," Brooke spoke up determined to make herself heard. "You and I need to have a little chat."

For a moment Nathan actually felt a small sliver of fear pass through him before he banished it. This was Brooke after all sure she could give him a tongue lashing like few other people were capable of but they were just words he could deal with it. Sauntering into the room he looked Brooke directly in the eye "What would you like to talk about Brooke?" he asked his tone blasé.

"Don't you give me that," she screeched. "I can't believe that you would do that to her. What the hell were you thinking?"

"Brooke look it's none of your business ok, what goes on between me and Haley is our business and has nothing to do with you."

"Like hell it doesn't," Brooke said her fury with him bubbling over. "For months I've been forced to sit back and watch as you two do everything in your power to push each other away and I like just about everyone else am completely sick of it. Where has it gotten you Nate? How many times do we have to listen to the two of you insisting that this time its really over just to have the two of you try again? What I don't get though Nathan is how the two of you think you're ever going to be able to make a go of this relationship when neither one of you will speak your mind."

Nathan stared at her mutely he knew his sister in law well enough to know that there was no point trying to break into her tirade. His best bet was just to wait her out; he could only hope that she would tire a bit quicker now while she was still in the process of recuperation. He had known her to go on for more than an hour with barely a pause to draw breath. With any luck she would run out of breath after 20 minutes or so.

"I refuse to believe that you don't love her so what the hell was with the disgusting way you spoke to her this morning?"

Nathan looked up at her in surprise as she paused seemingly waiting for an answer he gaped at her as he tried to find any sort of words that would satisfy the feisty brunette now glaring at him thoughtfully.

"I uh….I…" he stopped not knowing what to say.

"Oh my God," she said a sudden flash of inspiration flashing across her face. "I know exactly what this is about."

Oh great, Nathan thought well this is bound to be good.

"You're scared." She said triumphantly pleased with herself for seeing through him. "That's what this has been all about hasn't it? You're afraid so you're just doing what every man does and pushing her away. God men, I'll never understand them."

Nathan didn't know what to say or even more to the point if there was anything he could say. He knew that any attempts by him to tell Brooke that she was wrong and imagining things would be contemptuously dismissed. In her own mind Brooke Davis-Scott was never wrong and even if she was well she would never admit to it.

"Ok," Brooke said thoughtfully "So you're scared now what are you going to do about it?"

"I'm not going to do a damn thing about it," Nathan said finally regaining the use of his voice. "I may be scared as you seem so determined to believe but I'm also right and Haley and I are just not meant to be. All we do is hurt each other when we're together."

"Yeah well that was all well and good when there were only the two of you to consider but now you have a baby on the way and for its sake you need to find a way to figure this out."

"Yeah we have a baby on the way but you know what that only strengthens my belief that we are doing the right thing. No baby deserves to be brought into a messed up situation like the one that exists between me and Hales now. Hell I wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy. I'll find a way to make up to her for what I said this morning but as far as I'm concerned she and I can only ever be friends. There's been far too much shit that's happened between us in the past for us to ever even consider being anything more."

"Come off it Nathan who are you trying to kid. You and Haley may be a lot of things but friends is not one of them. There is no way you could ever be just her friend."

"Watch me," Nathan said determinedly. "You just watch and see. Anything else between us is just far too screwed up. I'm going to do what's best for all of us myself, Haley and our baby and the best thing I can do is just to be her friend."

"Nathan please just think about this. You have a chance to make a life together as a family don't throw it away now. Not when you're this close to having everything you ever wanted."

"But that's just it Brooke at the moment it feels like I'm further away then I've ever been before. I've been kidding myself thinking that Haley and I could ever recapture what we once had. We had our chance and we blew it and if we don't stop now while we still at least have a friendship then we are going to find ourselves with nothing and I don't want that for us or for our child."

As much as Brooke hated to admit it she could see his point at that moment not that that meant that she agreed with him. She still believed that they would find a way to be together. When two people were as perfect for each other as Nathan and Haley were how could they not find their way back together.