Death Pays a Visit (Chapter 5)
THREE DAYS LATER
Haley walked into the hospital and smiled at one of the med students who said hello to her. She looked at the board and groaned. One of the other nurses followed her gaze and nodded. "They're killing us with this workload," Haley commented. She nodded.
"Gabrielle brought up a sick-out," she told her. Haley looked at her in surprise.
"A strike? Are you serious?" Haley asked, looking to Gabrielle. Gabrielle looked at all the med students who were now paying very close attention to their discussion. She motioned for Haley to follow her.
"Let's talk while we go check up on some of your patients," Gabrielle said. The patients that Haley had were all in curtain two. The nurses had long ago split up the curtain areas. Two or three nurses per curtain area and Haley was assigned to two, which coincidentally the same area that Nathan was so he automatically became one of her patients. The nurses didn't keep their own patients like the doctors did; they shared them, but since Nathan and Haley had been married, the other two nurses assigned to the same area usually made Haley help Nathan much to her dismay. But she knew they were trying to get them back together even though she had told them that they had gotten divorced more than a year ago.
"I'm only half-serious about the sick-out," she admitted.
"What does that mean?" Haley asked as she walked over to where a young girl was sleeping.
"It means that I want to teach the doctors a lesson," she said.
"How does threatening a sick-out teach them a lesson? It would make more sense if we did go on strike," Haley pointed out.
"Well, the truth is I don't want to go on strike. What if they fire us?" Gabrielle asked.
"They can't; we have a union and a contract," she replied.
"You sound as if you want to go on strike," Gabrielle said. Haley laughed.
"Believe me, that's the last thing I want. I want some of the doctors to learn a lesson, but I think we should at least write a letter to the Chief of Emergency Medicine before we take such a drastic measure," Haley commented.
"Typical reasonable Haley Scott," Gabrielle teased.
"There's nothing wrong with approaching them peacefully first. If we go on strike with no warning, they could and probably would choose not to try to negotiate with us," Haley said.
"Fine. I'll draft up a letter, but only if you'll sign it," Gabrielle said. Haley looked at her as if she were crazy.
"Of course I'll sign it," Haley said.
"By the way, your husband had his surgery yesterday. When I came in, I went to check on him. He called out for you," Gabrielle said. Gabrielle's shift started an hour earlier than Haley's did. Haley looked over at Nathan's bed. The curtains were pulled all the way around him so she couldn't see him.
"At least I'm pretty sure that it was you. He said 'Hales'," Gabrielle said. Haley felt a tug on her heart at the mention of the nickname that Nathan had stolen from Lucas. Only people from Tree Hill called her Hales.
"That's me," she said quietly.
"Did you two have a fight or something?" Gabrielle asked. Haley shook her head. She wasn't about to tell Gabrielle the truth. She didn't want to bring up the suicide attempt around the people she worked with. When it happened, she had been brought to this hospital. When she came back from sick leave, they tiptoed around her for months. She didn't want to go back to that.
"Well, maybe you should poke your head in and visit him. He seemed to be in pain," Gabrielle said.
"He just had major surgery. Of course he's in pain," Haley said.
"Not just that physically," Gabrielle commented.
"Gabi, I appreciate that you care enough to try to get me to spend time with him, but, like I told you before, we've been divorced for a while," Haley said. She rolled her eyes at her.
"Absence makes the heart grow fonder," she said simply and walked away. Haley looked over in Nathan's direction. She stood still for a minute. She was about to walk over when someone called out to her.
"Nurse?" Mathew asked. Haley took one last look at where Nathan was, and then walked toward Mathew.
TWO HOURS LATER
Haley brought Mathew back from X-ray and helped him get back in bed. "You were quite a trooper there, Matt," she said. He smiled proudly and yawned. "Are you tired?" she asked him as she put his IV back in. He shrugged.
"Can you stay for a few minutes?" he asked. Haley smiled and looked around. She grabbed a chair and sat down beside him.
"Sure. What's on your mind?" Haley asked. Mathew had been a patient at the hospital for at least two weeks now and Haley had grown fond of him. He was a cute kid who had been cursed with having an irresponsible parent who didn't watch his medications properly. And because of that, Mathew had been rushed to the ER and until Social Services could get to the bottom of his living situation, he had to stay.
"Are you and Nathan related?" he asked. Haley looked at him in shock.
"How do you know Nathan?" she asked.
"He's a basketball player for California State College. I watch a lot of basketball games with my uncle," Mathew explained.
"What makes you think he and I are related?" Haley asked.
"You have the same last name and I heard him talking about you with some of the people that came to visit him. Since I don't have a lot of visitors, he let me come over and spend time with some of the people who came to see them," he said.
"Well, we used to be married," she said.
"You got divorced?" he asked. Haley nodded. "My parents got divorced," he said.
"I'm sorry," Haley said. He shook his head.
"They weren't happy together. They only stayed together because of me, but I could tell that they were miserable," he said.
"And how are they now?" Haley asked.
"My mommy's remarried and even pregnant with my little brother right now," he said excitedly.
"And your dad?" Haley asked.
"He has a girlfriend and he's happy," Mathew said. Haley smiled. "Are you happy?" he asked. Haley looked at him in confusion.
"What do you mean?" she asked.
"Well, when my parents got divorced, they got happier," he said. Haley shrugged. "I think Nathan wants you to go and visit him," Mathew said. Haley looked at him carefully. "I think you should go see him," he said.
"I will do that," she said, laughing at Mathew. She loved that he had so much confidence in himself to be able to say something like that. "We'll talk later, kiddo," she said.
Haley took a deep breath before she walked over to Nathan's bed. She gently pulled the curtain back and was shocked to see that he was alone. He looked like he was asleep. Haley started to turn around until he spoke. "Don't go," he said. She stopped moving immediately. Then, she turned around.
"How are you feeling?" she asked.
"Like hell," he replied flatly. She walked over to him. He looked over at the chair. Haley smirked and sat down. He moved his bed up and took her hand in his. Haley went rigid at his touch. "Look, I wanted to apologize to you," he said. Haley looked at him in confusion.
"For bringing it up," he continued. Haley nodded. "I wasn't trying to force you to have a conversation about it because I want to lecture you. I know that it's kind of crazy for me to say I want to understand it when I know that it was because of something I did," he said. Haley felt her eyes watering as it all came flooding back to her and the guilt in his voice.
"It wasn't just because of you," she admitted. He looked at her in surprise.
"Haley, you don't have to talk about this if you don't want to," he said. Haley sniffled and shook her head.
"No, it's ok. Who knows? It might actually help to talk about it," she said.
"What was it then?" he asked.
"It was everything. The whole situation was just a little overwhelming and all of that added with the fact that your father came to see me," she said.
"What do you mean?" he asked. Haley took a deep breath as she started to tell Nathan about Dan's visit to her apartment.
(FLASHBACK)
Haley put a few of her books down on the kitchen table and opened them up when the buzzer rang. Haley walked to the front door and pushed the intercom button. "Hello?" she asked. She was not up for visitors today. She had a ton of work to get done plus she was doing for work at the hospital in about two hours.
"It's your father-in-law," Dan Scott's harsh voice came through the speaker. Haley's brow wrinkled.
"What do you want?" she asked.
"Just to talk," he replied. A voice inside her head screamed at her not to trust Dan Scott. Nothing was ever just a discussion with him and she knew it, but she ignored it and out of curiosity, pressed the button that unlocked the door.
A few seconds later, there was a knock on the door. Haley walked over to open it. Dan was dressed in a black suit with a pin-striped tie around his neck. "Can I come in?" he asked. She moved out of the way and closed the door behind her. He observed the apartment with a critical eye. "Love what you kids have done with the place. It seems a little crowded but then again this is a three-bedroom apartment and there are five people living in it," he sad.
"Lucas is out with Peyton, so, if you came here to see him…" she started to say.
"Oh, I didn't. I came here to see you," he said. Haley looked at him in disbelief. "Oh, right. To talk," she said sarcastically.
"Well, I'll talk after you read this," he said. He handed her a big envelope.
"What is it?" she asked as she carefully opened the letter.
"I don't want to spoil the surprise," he said. She rolled her eyes and unfolded the piece of the paper. Once her eyes scanned over the words "notice of divorce" in big capital bolded letters, she dropped the paper. When she looked up at him.
"Is this some kind of a joke?" she asked. Dan shook his head as he laughed at her cruelly.
"You see, Haley, when Nathan and you first got married, I wracked my brains to figure out some way to end it. I researched the legal aspects and I tried to appeal to Nathan as his father, but nothing worked. So, two and a half years later, your marriage is in shambles and Nathan, being the sensible son I raised him to be, decides to break away before someone really gets hurt and he didn't even tell you. Sometimes I'm so proud of him. But do you want to know what the best part of it was?" he said. Haley didn't bother answering. She knew he was going to tell her anyways.
"I had absolutely nothing to do with it. Your marriage fell apart all on its own," he said. Haley wiped away the tears that were streaming down her face.
"I didn't think he would actually file for divorce," she admitted. Dan laughed.
"You didn't seriously think that you two would work things out did you? Come on, Haley. You're a smart girl. When a guy leaves you when you're not around and then has someone else call you to tell you that things are over, that's a pretty clear sign that he wants nothing to do with you," he said.
"Get out," she said.
"Well, that's very rude," he said. Haley shrugged. "This is the perfect revenge for me. You took my son away from me when you helped him emancipate himself and giving that notice is my way of taking him back," he said, leaving the apartment and slamming the door. It wasn't long before the tears started coming and Haley didn't even try to fight them. She walked over to the kitchen and cried while she put the clean dishes away in the cupboards. Then she got a headache while she was still crying and grabbed some fiorinal.
Fiorinal was a migraine medication that Haley had been prescribed when she started having migraines again after Nathan had left her. She felt an enormous amount of pain and just looking around the room reminded her of the fact that her husband had filed for divorce. As if it were an unconscious jerk, she put all of the pills into her hand and began swallowing them all, at least three or four, at a time. Then, she felt nothing.
(END OF FLASHBACK)
"I don't remember much about what happened after that. I know that I woke up in the hospital with a sore throat. They told me later that Lucas had found me," she said. There were tears streaming down her face as she was forced to face the reality that she was not over what had happened. Nathan shook his head in disbelief. She broke down.
"I'm sorry," he said, putting his hands on her shoulders and pulling her over to him. Haley didn't fight it. She let him put his arms around her and hold her close. She clung to him for support as she cried.
"I'm so sorry. My dad was wrong, Hales. I didn't not tell you because I didn't want anything to do with you. I didn't tell you because I was weak and I didn't know how to face you," he said, tightening his arms around her. Before either of them knew what was happening, Haley pulled back and smiled up at him through her tears. He bent his head down and hesitantly kissed her. Haley responded and kissed him back and put her right hand up to his face and ran her left one through his hair, tousling it a bit. His hands came to her face now and he was now cradling her face in between them. When the kiss ended, he was still holding her face. He brought her head closer to him and kissed her on the forehead and then pulled her entire body closer to him and hugged her tighter. A few minutes later, Haley came to her senses and moved away from him. She stood up and looked at him regretfully.
"What are we doing, Nathan?" she asked. He looked up at her in confusion. "We shouldn't have done that," she said reasonably.
"Well, I wanted to. I've wanted to do that for a while now, Hales. I've missed you," he admitted. New tears sprang to her eyes.
"And what do you think we should do? Pick up where we left off? Pretend as if nothing happened?" she asked. He looked up at her sadly.
"No," she said, shaking her head and taking a few more steps back. She turned on her heel and left.