A.N Finally I'm back with a new chapter for you all. I hope you all think its up to standard. This story has taken a bit of a different direction from what I originally anticipated but I think its still one that you will enjoy. So here it is please let me know what you all think.

Chapter Fifty-two

The Depths Of Denial

Haley arrived the next morning completely unsure of what she should expect. The night at Deb's had been uneventful although she had known that Deb had wanted to talk she had somehow managed to avoid it. There was no doubt in her mind that Deb meant well but still there was only so much she could take and at the moment a conversation about where things stood with her and Nathan was not something she was ready for.

It felt strange to ring the doorbell of a house that she had spent more than a month treating as her own and yet she knew she didn't belong here. This was Brooke and Lucas' home and they wanted Nathan there, yes they may have wanted her to stay there originally but she had chosen to leave and although she had spent most of the night doubting this decision she couldn't back down on it now.

The door opened and she felt herself inhaling deeply trying to prepare herself for what Nathan's reaction might be. The truth was she didn't know how he would greet her or if in fact he would even speak to her. Nathan was not exactly one of the most talkative people at the best of times and this could hardly be considered to be a good time.

Finally the door was pulled back and she looked up into Nathan's face as he stood regarding her stonily. Cory was in his arms and Haley couldn't help the smile that came to her face at the sight of the baby in his arms. She was amazed how much she had missed the baby in only one night away from him but the fact was she had. Other emotions warred within her at the sight of Nathan holding Cory in his arms. It never failed to touch her in ways that she would rather not think about. There was too much possibility of pain if she allowed herself to delve into the feelings it brought out in her. It was safer to just push it all aside while promising herself that she would think about it later but later never seemed to come and for that she was eternally grateful. She had become more than adept at putting off the difficult things for another time and saw no reason to change this now.

"Well," Nathan's voice interrupted her, "Are you going to come in?" he asked stepping aside to allow her into the house.

Dragging her gaze away from Nathan and Cory she stepped past him into the house unable to resist the temptation to inhale deeply and allow the smell of his cologne to overwhelm her senses. If he noticed her odd behaviour he didn't say anything and she continued past him into the kitchen where Lucas sat finishing his breakfast.

"Hey Haley, we missed you last night," he said looking pointedly at Nathan.

Haley looked up and saw the daggers shooting between the brothers and wondered about the obvious tension between the two of them. Maybe Brooke wasn't the only one trying to push them back together it appeared that she had enlisted the help of her husband also. Nathan almost looked like he was going to explode and she spoke quickly not wanting or needing to hear it all again. She could almost predict word for word the argument that would ensue between the brothers if she didn't intervene and the last thing she wanted right now was to be reminded of just how Nathan felt about her.

"Oh I'm sure you all managed just fine without me," she said breezily, "besides it was nice to actually have another woman to chat to," she lied easily wondering at the same time why she felt the need to lie to them. After-all it was her lying that had got her into so much trouble in the first place, not that such a simple white lie as the one she had just told was likely to have far reaching consequences but still for some reason she found lies creeping out and it unnerved her to know that it seemed her first instinct still seemed to be to fib. She had always found a way to convince herself that when she lied she was doing it for the good of the other person, she had done it to 'protect' Nathan in the past and to make Josh feel more secure, even now she told herself that she was doing it to smooth things over between the brothers but that didn't make it right.

Shaking herself out of her thoughts she walked to Nathan taking Cory from his arms ignoring the way both Lucas and Nathan were watching her clearly interested to see just how things would be different now that she was simply a visitor in the house.

"Well little man, how about we go and get you dressed?" she said to the baby smiling as she saw the way he reacted to the sound of her voice, turning his head in her direction, a hand coming out to swat at her hair. At least one male in this house was happy to see her and didn't hold an ulterior motive for wanting her here. She walked out of the room taking Cory with her leaving two bemused men behind her.

"I still can't believe you let her move out," Lucas said as soon as she was out of earshot.

"Here we go again," Nathan said with a sigh. "What exactly is it you think I could have done Luke. Believe me Haley is not someone who can have her mind changed easily once she has decided something."

"Yeah well that was obvious when she left last time. Brooke must have called her just about every day trying everything under the sun to convince her to come back and nothing worked. I don't think Brooke could quite believe that someone was actually able to refuse her when she started to use the three B's."

"The three B's?" Nathan broke in curiously.

"Yeah Bitching, Bribery and Begging. Believe me I can never survive the first one without giving her whatever she wants never mind the other two. But you've got a weapon that Brooke never had."

"Oh yeah and what's that?" Nathan asked sardonically. "Nah let me guess I'm supposed to give her the gift of love, use this whole amazing love that the two of us are supposed to have, play the 'we're meant to be together forever' card. Well you know what Luke I'm sick of hearing you and Brooke and my Mom and whoever else feels like adding their two cents telling me that she's the only girl I'll ever love. God this is the real world not some stupid love story. She's no Juliet and I sure as hell ain't any Romeo. We'll be friends and be whatever we need to be for that baby but that's it Luke, we're never going to get back together. I can't do it again and you know what there's no point, all we've ever done is hurt each other. We'll both be better off when we find someone else and move the hell on."

"What? Don't tell me you really believe that. You really think you're going to find another woman who can make you feel the way Haley does? Are you insane or just plain delusional? Have you forgotten that I was here when Haley left and you fell apart? I know that you barely even looked at another woman in all those years that she was gone. God even when you did go on a date you always managed to find something wrong with the woman. Remember Claire, great girl, gorgeous face, built like a swimsuit model and despite expectations she actually had a brain, you went out with her for two weeks and then came out with some shit about how you didn't like her accent. She was from fucking Texas for Christ's sake hardly the other side of the world."

"Luke why don't you just shut up ok? I didn't ask for your opinion and I sure as hell don't want it. Maybe the dating thing didn't work out so well last time but that's because she had me all screwed up. She had taken off and I had no idea why or if she was ok. It was hard to just switch off those feelings but its different now. I've got closure and I'm more than ready to start dating again. In fact I was thinking of heading down to the bar tonight and checking out the talent. What do you say, do you want to come? I'm sure we can get my mom to watch Cory. It would do you good to get out of the house, have a few drinks and just unwind. You've been through a lot lately man. So what do you say?" he asked again.

"You want me to go sit in some bar with you while you try to pick up chicks?" Lucas asked incredulously.

"I'm not saying I'm going to go out and grab the first woman I see," Nathan said "but I think it's about time I at least put myself back out there. Come on, come with me, we'll have a few beers and just get out of this damn house for a night. God we're turning into hermits, when was the last time we went out and just did guy stuff?"

"Nate in case you've forgotten I've just got out of the hospital, I'm not exactly up for a night on the town."

"That's ok," Nate said a certain eagerness coming into his voice as he thought more about it. "We don't have to do anything extreme. What are you telling me that you can't just go sit in a room and have a beer or two while we watch the game?"

Lucas sighed knowing that Nathan was not going to easily give up. "Yeah alright," he finally agreed more for the sake of keeping the peace than anything else, "we'll go out for a few beers but that's it. I'm not about to become your wingman as you single-handedly try to hook up with every half available woman there tonight." Seeing Nathan's incredulous look Lucas glared at him. "You forget man I know you far too well, you'll probably go out there trying to hook up with a different woman every night just for the sake of trying to prove a point, trying to prove that you aren't still in love with Haley."

Lucas saw the way Nathan's jaw tightened at his words and knew he had pushed him about as far as he could for the moment, it was time to back off a bit. Like he had just said he knew Nathan only too well and he was far from stupid enough to piss him off especially when he could almost guarantee that it would only have the effect of driving him into some other woman's arms. God Brooke would kill him if he did that.

"Look why don't you go call your mom and see if she's free to watch Cory tonight. I'd like to finish my breakfast in peace if that's ok with you?"

Nathan grunted in response before walking away in search of his phone.

"So was she happy to baby-sit while you go out in search of some ass?" Lucas asked hearing him re-enter a few minutes later. "I can just imagine what Deb's reaction was to that news. I just hope you told her that I'm only going for the beer. I've got no more interest in seeing you hook up with some slut then she has."

When he remained silent Lucas turned. "Let me guess she shot you down when you asked her?" he asked his voice trailing off into silence as he saw Haley standing there with Cory.

Her face was a mask of horror as she took in the meaning behind his words.

"Oh God Haley I didn't realise it was you. I'm sorry I didn't realise…"

She stared at him blankly and he could see her fighting hard against the tears forming in her eyes. She swallowed against the lump in her throat as she opened her mouth to speak but no words would form. Lucas heard Nathan's voice as he came back to the kitchen.

"Hey Lucas, it took some talking but she agreed. Be ready to go at eight."

Her face crumpled up momentarily at the sound of his voice before with effort she composed herself again. He saw Nathan move into the doorway behind her and saw the flash of something through his eyes as his eyes rested on her stiff back standing in front of him.

"Uh Haley, I uh" he stopped knowing there was nothing he could say at that moment. He looked at Lucas imploringly as if begging him to somehow break the tension that surrounded them but Lucas was as lost for words as the two of them. The silence stretched around them as Lucas found himself watching Haley half expecting her to break down into tears but she remained stoic, almost as if she were frozen in place.

His voice was echoing through her mind, but she couldn't seem to hear the words properly. Something about how the two of them could only be friends and she had gone along with it telling herself that whatever they had was over. So didn't that mean that she didn't have the right to be upset by this news? Surely she must have known somewhere deep down that the day would come where he would decide to start seeing other women. But was that day here already? How had this time come already? Were there warning signs that she had missed? Question after question chased its way through her mind; almost without knowing what she was doing she turned to face Nathan wanting to get out of that kitchen. His eyes locked onto her face but no matter how hard she tried she couldn't school her features into anything resembling neutrality. She knew that every ounce of pain and confusion she was feeling was written all over her face for him to see.

He wanted to ignore the hurt on her face but it was impossible. Something inside of him was telling him to reach out to her, to somehow erase the pain he had caused and almost unconsciously his hands came to rest on her shoulders pulling her towards him. The movement though snapped her out of her trance like state and she deliberately pulled away from him.

"Um I think I'll just take Cory for a walk," she mumbled. "I'm sure he could do with some fresh air. I'll leave you to it," she said her words thrown back over her shoulder vaguely in Lucas' direction.

Without another word she walked out her gaze lingering on Nathan for a moment as she did so.

The moment the door slammed Lucas turned towards Nathan in disgust, "You really are an ass you know?" before he wheeled himself away leaving Nathan alone with his thoughts.

Somehow she managed to avoid him for the rest of the day aided in no small way by the fact that he spent most of it hidden away in his room. It was only as she finally put Cory into bed that she realised just how late it was getting. She heard the doorbell downstairs and the sound of Nathan's footsteps going to answer it followed by the sound of Deb's voice.

Looking back at the sleeping baby once more she took a deep breath and walked down the stairs pasting a fake smile on her face to greet Deb with. She tried not to notice Nathan standing there making small talk with his mother dark jeans riding dangerously low on his hips, his black shirt unbuttoned exposing the smooth brown skin of his chest. Her mind flashed to how good that skin had tasted when she had last licked her way down his chest and she had to stifle the involuntary gasp that rose to her lips. She saw him look at her, his blue eyes seemingly boring into her soul and couldn't help but think about how those same eyes flashed with desire when he'd looked at her naked. She tried to look away focusing her gaze instead on his mouth and those lips of his that had kissed her senseless on so many occasions. God what was wrong with her? She had to stop thinking like this. The only problem was she didn't know how.

"So Haley," Deb said with a hint of hope in her voice "Are you joining the boys on their night out tonight?"

Bingo…There it was the exact thing she needed to drag her out of her ridiculous fantasies. A stark reminder of just why Nathan was dressed the way he was. He was going out with Lucas to find some other girl who by the end of the night would probably be licking her own way down his chest, seeing the flash of desire in his eyes or at the very least being kissed senseless by him.

She felt Nathan's eyes shift uncomfortably away from her but couldn't bring herself to look at him.

"Um no I thought I'd just spend a quiet night at home or um maybe go and see Brooke. I'm sure you're looking forward to getting to spend some time with Cory anyway."

Deb's eyes lit up at the mention of the baby. "Oh yes where is that darling little boy? I got here a little early hoping that I would catch him before he went to bed."

"Did I hear someone asking for me?" Lucas said with a laugh entering the room only slightly grazing against the doorframe as he manoeuvred his electronic wheelchair into the room.

Deb laughed along with him "Well I was actually referring to your son but sure you'll do," she said going to him and leaning over to give him a quick hug.

Haley chanced a glance at Nathan and found him watching her intently she quickly averted her gaze looking exaggeratedly at her watch.

"Well I really should get going if I'm going to get to the hospital before visiting hours end. Cory is all tucked up in bed so he should be fine for at least a few hours," she said even though Deb and Lucas gave no appearance of listening, "Have a good night out you two," she said with a forced brightness to Lucas and Nathan before picking up her bag and walking towards the door.

"I uh, I'll walk you out," Nathan said quietly.

"Don't worry about it," she said hurriedly.

"It's fine," he interjected starting to walk towards her.

"I said don't worry about it," she said with a touch more force before turning and walking out the door slamming it slightly behind her. Deb sighed as she and Lucas exchanged knowing looks having caught the whole exchange.

Nathan turned back to see them both looking at him, Deb sorrowfully while Lucas was practically glaring at him.

"Save it," he said, "Both of you just save it ok," before stalking off upstairs to finish getting ready. "Lucas we're leaving in twenty," he added as he left the room.

Haley walked into the hospital room fifteen minutes later to find Brooke sitting up in bed flicking disinterestedly through a magazine.

"Oh Tutor-girl thank God you're here. I was starting to get scared I might actually have to talk to the nurses to try and stave off the boredom. God you'd think if they were going to keep people in here for this amount of time they would actually provide us with something to do. I mean God I can't even get my legs waxed and I don't want to even think about what sort of state they're in right now. You'd think the least they could do is have some sort of beauty therapy room for us to go entertain ourselves in. I mean how do they honestly expect us to get better when we look like crap? Surely it wouldn't take much to do, just set up a manicure table, a few blow dryers, some mirrors…" she trailed off and for the first time since Haley had heard that Lucas and Nathan were going out for the night she found herself genuinely smiling.

"Brooke this isn't some holiday resort it's a hospital. I really don't think how your nails look has much to do with your recovery."

"Huh says you," the brunette said huffily. "So," she said breezily seemingly switching topics and moods with practiced ease. "How are my boys doing?"

Haley smiled as she started to relate little anecdotes about Cory to his proud mother. Brooke listened avidly until Haley finished speaking.

"And Lucas how is he? I was kind of hoping he might come in tonight since I didn't get to see him today."

"Um well he's um kind of busy tonight," Haley said evasively her mood taking an instant downturn as her thoughts once again turned to Nathan and his little slut finding mission.

"Too busy for me, huh that's impossible," Brooke said with a laugh. "So where is he? Is Nate bringing him over tonight?"

Haley couldn't hide the flash of pain in her eyes and Brooke latched onto it immediately.

"What was that about?" she demanded glaring slightly at Haley.

"What?" Haley asked pretending ignorance towards her friend's question.

"Don't you what me Tutor-girl. Tell me what the hell that look was about right now. Has that ass done something to upset you again?"

"Brooke please just don't worry about it. You have more important things to be concentrating on."

"Don't you dare try and tell me that this is none of my business Haley James. I swear I will get out of this bed and slap you if you try and tell me that nothing's wrong."

Haley couldn't help the small smile that came to her lips at Brooke's words but it didn't last long as Brooke continued her interrogation.

"So where are those idiots?" she demanded once again.

"Brooke calm down they just went out for a drink."

"They what?" the other woman screeched as she heard Haley's explanation.

Haley looked at her askance clearly having expected her explanation so go some way towards placating the volatile brunette.

"Are you telling me that my idiot husband actually went out to help that moron Nathan try to find some little Ho to bang? Actually forget that he's not even worthy of that name anymore. From now on he'll be known as Super Bastard. God I really didn't think he was capable of making me this pissed off. I don't even think I can find the words. Just as well I still have the use of my hands because I swear the next time I see that bastard I am going to bitch slap him so hard he'll be on his knees begging for mercy. I am this close to hiring a lawyer and making sure he can never be alone with either of our children ever again."

Brooke paused in her little rant as she once again saw a flash of hurt contort Haley's face.

"Oh Haley I'm sorry. I wasn't trying to upset you. You know that don't you? Sometimes my mouth just runs away with me. Lucas tells me and tells me that I have to be more…"

"Brooke its fine," Haley broke in. "Yes Nathan and Lucas have gone out for the night and yes Nathan may end up meeting some woman at the bar but it really doesn't bother me." She knew her voice was lacking in the conviction that she needed but she pressed on regardless. "And as for Lucas you really shouldn't be angry with him. I'm sure after everything he's been through he was in need of just a night of relaxing with a few beers besides I'm sure Nathan talked him into going."

"I don't care," Brooke said stubbornly, "he should know better. I swear if that man let's Super Bastard bring some woman home with him I will literally kick his ass. Actually I'll kick both their asses and then when I'm done kicking their asses I'll kick them again just to make sure they get the message. I'm not having those two idiots setting a bad example for my baby boy."

"Brooke you might need to hold off on any ass kicking until you can actually get out of that bed. Have the doctors been able to tell you any more?" she asked anxious to change the subject away from Nathan and the women he was probably occupying himself with even as they spoke.

"They still don't know anything," Brooke said exasperatedly. "God I mean how hard can it be? They know there hasn't been any major damage to my spine so why can't I walk?" she said throwing her hands up into the air for emphasis.

They chatted for a little while longer until the nurse came in telling Haley that it was time to leave. Reluctantly she leaned over giving Brooke a hug. "I'll see you soon ok."

"Haley whatever happens tonight just remember that I'll support you in everything you decide. He loves you Tutor-girl he just can't admit it."

Haley tightened her grip around Brooke's thin shoulders. "Thanks Tigger, you just concentrate on getting better ok. Don't worry about me and Nathan. We'll work it all out somehow."

"And if you don't I get to bitch slap him into the middle of next week ok?"

"Deal Tigger."

Haley left feeling so much better than she had just half an hour before when she arrived.

Lucas wheeled himself out of the bar ahead of Nathan shaking with silent laughter. "What did I tell you man?"

"Shut up Lucas, just shut the hell up. This doesn't prove anything ok."

"Are you kidding me man. You looked like you were going to pass out when that hot blonde grabbed your crotch and it sure as heck wasn't from pleasure. For a minute I thought you were going to cut and run and leave me there all on my own."

"Lucas shut the fuck up or I swear I will cut and run and leave your sorry ass here in the parking lot."

"Now, now Nathan I don't think mommy would be too happy if you arrive back at the house without me now would she?"

"You're pathetic Luke you're actually using my mother to win an argument."

"I may be pathetic but at least I'm not pussy whipped like you man."

Nathan shook his head in bewilderment. "You don't really believe that do you? I'll lay money the moment Brooke steps foot back in that house you'll be back to being at her beck and call."

Lucas smiled wistfully. "Trust me Nate if it meant having her home I'd be at her beck and call for the rest of my life."

Nate patted him understandingly on the shoulder before helping him into the car. Having finally got Lucas situated into the car and his chair placed in the back Nathan walked around to the driver's seat. "Let's just go home man it's been a long day."

Driving home he silently admitted to himself that perhaps this whole moving on thing was not going to be as easy as he had imagined.