I'm sorry. Nathan shut his eyes and placed his hands on the weights. I was wrong. With a grunt, he slowly lifted them over his chest. I don't hate you. Holding it for a moment with difficulty, he let out a breath as he lowered his arms again. I still care… I'll always care. He repeated the motion. Why is it so hard to say that out loud?

"I meant the over exertion thing." Haley commented from behind him. Nathan was torn between ignoring her and putting the weights down.

He settled with continuing the motion and giving her an answer, "I'm fine."

"I don't want you to end up in a hospital bed again."

"I won't, I can handle myself. And in case you've forgotten, I healed just fine last time, without you there."

"Because you told me not to come!"

"So you chose that time to start listening to my requests?" He felt her hesitation, could feel the silence pressing down on him.

"I care about what you have to say. I always have." She exhaled slowly. "But sometimes I don't agree with what you have to say. And if I believe that my opinion is valid, then sometimes I won't do exactly what you want me to."

"Of all the things I had ever seriously asked of you that you might have disagreed with, not getting on that bus that night was the most important to me. Of all the times I needed you to reassure me that you loved me, that was the time I needed you the most." His voice sounded detached even to his own ears as his arms mechanically continued lifting the weights.

"I don't understand you. I left, but I never stopped loving you. I'll always love you more than anything else in this world, can't you see that? I left the tour because I realized that music, success, fame…a record deal, a national tour, nothing mattered without you. I'd rather have been at your side than in front of all those people." She took a breath, "And if you loved me as much as you say you did, I don't see how you can act this way. I hurt you. But I'm back. I don't think what I did was unforgivable. I would have never asked you to stay with me instead of pursuing basketball, because I knew how important it was to you. Even if you would be with a hundred hot girls every night ten thousand miles away from me, I would have trusted you. But you never trusted me like that, did you?"

"You kissed Chris Keller." His voice didn't even shake.

"You tried to sleep with my sister. And I don't mean when you lost your virginity, Taylor told me about your visit with her." Haley responded.

"As far as I knew, you had just left me for good."

"Nathan, what was it you were trying to tell me earlier today?"

"Nothing."

"Do you want to annul our marriage?"

"I sent you the papers, didn't I?"

"Will you ever want to be with me again?"

"What do you think?"

"For God's sake Nathan! Could you put down your stupid weights for five minutes and just look at me?" Haley angrily exclaimed.

Nathan caught the desperation in her voice and instinctively obeyed, placing the weights neatly back onto the holder. He sat up slowly and turned his gaze towards Haley, who he saw was gingerly sitting on a chair near the door.

"…Thank you." She muttered, fighting the urge to look down.

"What is it that you want me to say, huh? That I forgive you; that I don't care about what happened, the past is in the past and I just want to be with you? That I'm over the pain you put me through, that I trust you again after you crushed me?" Nathan coldly said.

"By asking me to stay behind, it's obvious you never trusted me." She retorted, refusing to back down.

"You knew how hard it was for me to open up to someone. I opened up to you, and I did trust you. I trusted you enough to let down all my barriers, to forget my reputation, and to let you see all of me. It was Chris I didn't trust. It was fame, and the music industry as a whole that I didn't trust. But I trusted you." He told her, holding her gaze.

"Then why didn't you let me go?" her voice was quiet now, hesitant. He knew she was scared of being hurt by his words.

"I said I trusted you. You must know by now that I can be possessive. The fact that you could be whisked away by some hot shot singer who had more in common with you and could take you more places than I could, it scared me. I was insecure. And I just needed you to brush them away. But you proved me right."

Haley stood up and looked as if she might cry again. "And now, now you can't trust me anymore? Because I left for barely a few months, and I called you, and I wanted to fix things, because I left you no longer care? How can a person fall out of love like that? How? How can you not care about me at all, after all we've been through?"

He blinked. She had been so calm throughout this talk that he had forgotten that she was still really fragile. He hadn't been anticipating her crying. He couldn't watch her cry again.

"I love you, Nathan Scott. I would give you the moon and stars if it would mean that you'd be with me again. But there's nothing I can do, is there? I love you and the words don't mean anything to you anymore." She turned around to leave, her movements quick. She didn't want him to see her cry, didn't want him to think of her as weak.

"Haley. All you had to do was tell me that you loved me more than you loved music. That night you left, if you had just told me those words… I would have believed you. I just wanted reassurance, baby, nothing else." He followed her to the door, his tone light as he reached out for her hand.

"But I do." She whispered, her eyes already welling up despite her best efforts.

"Why didn't you tell me that when you left? The way I saw, you chose that night. Your actions told me that you loved music more than me. And that's what I can't forgive."

She let out a cross between a sob and a sigh, the tears would fall soon. Nathan took a calming breath and slowly started to close the door. "Good night."

He listened as her footsteps took her away from his door, and after a few minutes, when the footsteps were gone, he opened the door again and walked out himself. He wanted to hold her again, to beat the crap out of whoever made her so sad. It was just too bad that the person who was hurting her was him.

Nathan walked through the doors of the gym and breathed in the cool night air, watching his breath drift out of him in a cloud as he exhaled. He was just starting to walk home when he heard Haley's voice. He was about to change directions to avoid having to hear her cry but it took him half a second to realize she wasn't crying, she was yelling. He squinted into the distance and realized that the dark objects around her weren't trees-they were people. Getting an overwhelmingly sick feeling growing in his gut, Nathan walked faster to see what was going on. In a moment he was close enough to hear the word exchange.

"Leave me alone." Haley snapped.

"Come on, girlie. All we're asking for is that cute little purse of yours."

"Really? I was hoping for a little lovin'. You're not bad on the eyes, darling."

"Rob me and rape me. What gentlemen." Nathan smiled. She chose a great time to let her independent no-nonsense attitude come out. His smile faded as someone reached out and wrapped an arm around her. "-Get off of me." She shoved the guy off of her but another had grabbed her wrists from behind her. Her next words, though angry, were laced with a note of fear that had been absent before. "Don't you fucking touch me!"

"Play nicely. You came out of that gym looking mighty sad. It being a man's gym and all, did angel cake get dumped by her boy?" They were looming way too close for Nathan's comfort and his feet sped up into a sprint unconsciously. He was gripped with rage and fear…no one touched Haley. Nathan reached the group and slammed his fist into any one within range.

He wrenched the grabbing hands off of his woman and snarled, "She told you not to touch her, so you sure as hell gotta believe that I'll rip your arms off if you so much as take a step closer to her." They backed away. He spat at them for good measure and wrapped a protective arm around Haley. After he gave them one more vicious glare, he gently led Haley away.

They were on the sidewalk and out of ear shot when Haley whispered shakily, "I didn't think they would do anything."

"You were holding up all right on your own." He said.

"That's never happened to me before. Not in Tree Hill." She sounded so scared that Nathan tightened his grip around her shoulder.

"I won't let anything happen to you."

"You told Brooke you didn't care about me anymore."

"Haley?" he waited until she met his eyes. "Brooke was wrong." They had reached Haley's apartment, and Nathan's old home. He bowed his head closer to her and said, "I could never stop caring about you. So you're not to go walking around in the dark by yourself again. Get a ride, or walk with Lucas or Brooke. You've got to be careful. Because I would never forgive myself if something happened to you."

Haley had been crying when she walked out of the gym and they only increased now as she wrapped her arms securely around his neck and pressed against him in a tight hug. To feel her in his arms again felt so wonderful, and he couldn't shake his desire to comfort her when he felt the sobs radiating from her body. "Thank you." She quietly told him.

"Don't cry anymore, Hales…you deserve to be happy."

"Nathan…" He loved the way she said his name. "I'll never move on. I could try to, if you want it of me, but I will never stop wanting to be with you. I'll wait until you can love me again, I will."

"Haley, are you all right now?" he prodded, the two still locked in an embrace.

"Just tell me that you love me, please?" she sniffled.

"You've got to know that I do. I've always loved you. That's what hurts so much. I still love you but I can't trust you any more. I can't be with you."

"Not now, not ever?"

"I won't string you along. Baby, go home."

"It's your home too."

"You must understand, Haley. I helped you tonight, but things haven't changed."

"You just said you love me, how can things not have changed?"

"Haley. I can't. Please. Just try to enjoy the moment."

"Because there won't be much more like it again."

"Yeah."

Haley shut her eyes and pulled him to her, her lips pressing against his. He pulled back after only a second and said, "There won't be any more."

"Then can you stay with me tonight?" she pleaded. "If I can have nothing else after you leave, can you stay? Just for a little while?"

He hesitated. Then he took her hand and squeezed it. They slipped into their old home together and cuddled up under he bed covers. He held her all night, speaking rarely and then only of good things. His hand held hers comfortingly. She kissed him again, so sweetly, and her hands brushed his cheek, felt his arms, and fingered his hair. Her head lay on his chest and the two felt comforted just being in the others presence. Haley didn't sleep that night; too scared of losing the precious minutes that he was with her. It was with a lump in both their throats that Nathan kissed her hand at dawn and slipped his arm off her shoulders. She gave him one more hug, resigned to the fact that it was time.

"Nate and Hales, always and forever." He murmured. "This moment is forever."

"Don't forget about me, or about this. Or about us, okay?" she quietly answered back.

"Never." He smiled.

"I wish you could stay."

"I wish a lot of things."

"If I told you that all I wanted was you, would you give me what I wanted?"

"I'd give you the moon and stars, Haley James."

"Scott. Don't forget. I'll always be a Scott."

She felt the wetness of just two tears slip from his eyes and onto her neck as he breathed in her scent for one more second. And then he pulled back gently, and left their room as she watched his retreating back. He didn't look back once.


A/N: I needed to have some happy Naley, if it can be called that. Thanks as always for reviewing : )