CHAPTER 6
After a long day of packing and lugging around boxes, Lucas eventually made his last journey to the apartment he was being exiled to. Nathan had already moved in the last of his stuff and when Lucas and Karen arrived, he was sulking in front of the plasma TV he'd brought with him from his old place. Deb as trying her best to organise the tiny kitchen just off the lounge room, but kept chastising herself for buying too many utensils.
"Deb, I really don't think the boys are going to need 6 pots. . ." Karen said as she joined Deb and sized up the chaos around her. Lucas stomped into his new bedroom and threw down his duffel bag of clothes and sat down on the bare mattress of his bed. He couldn't believe his mom was making him do this. He had barely spoken to her all day for fear of saying something he might later regret. Hearing his name being called, he got up and went back into room he assumed was supposed to be a kitchen, almost tripping over a stack of frying pans.
"I don't know what you boys are whining about." Deb threw up her hands and looked around her "You've got the life of Reilly here. Your own rooms, all the hi-tech gadgets Nathan could possibly splash out on, all your utility bills paid for - you have what every 17 year olddreams of."
"Yeah, except my room-mate isn't Mischa Barton." Nathan replied sarcastically.
"Well, I'm sure if you ask nicely, this Mischa-girl will come over and visit." Deb ignored her son when he half smiled and rolled his eyes. Letting out a frustrated sigh, she gave up trying to fit everything into the drawers and cupboards.
"Deb, I think it's time we left these boys to fix up their own apartment." Karen led Deb away from the mess she had created and toward the boys who how both sat rigidly on the same sofa, their arms folded across their chests. "Ok boys, Deb and I are leaving now. You should probably start unpacking and get it all done tonight." Both women leaned over their sons and kissed their foreheads. "And stop sulking. Just think of this as making up for the last 17 years. The room sharing, the fights over what toy to play with, the camping trips." Karen and Deb smiled at each other and dropped the apartment keys on to the coffee table as they practically skipped out the door. "Have fun!" they called over their shoulders.
Now left alone, Nathan and Lucas sat in silence for a full 10 minutes staring at the television, both too peeved to actually pay attention to what they were watching. Eventually Lucas stood and walked over to the kitchen to pick up where Deb had left off. After about an hour, he stood back and observed the now pristine room. A place for everything, and everything in its place. Oh my god, I sound like my mother. Lucas thought to himself as he made his way to his bedroom, piles of boxes and clothes awaiting him.
Later that evening, Lucas was vaguely aware of Nathan pitching in with the tidying and unpacking. He also heard the doorbell ring but chose to ignore it. It was probably Tim and Lucas just didn't have the patience to make conversation with that guy right now.
After the third ring, Nathan cursed as he left his own room to answer the door. He swallowed hard when he realised who was standing on the other side.
"Hi." Haley smiled nervously and half waved at him. "I heard you guys got new digs." She looked around. "Nice. I thought I'd bring over a house warming gift." From behind her back, Haley produced a rolled up poster and a six-pack of beer. Nathan stood aside and let her in, mumbling something that sounded like 'Thanks' when she handed him the six pack. He was definitely going to need a drink.
"So what's the poster of?" He asked, his voice strained.
"It's the Sin City/Jessica Alba one. It's for Lucas. He's got kind of obsessed with her ever since he saw that movie. He thinks I don't know that he has the 'Honey' DVD." Haley bounced on the balls of her feet and knotted her hands together, her eyes darting around the room trying to avoid eye contact with her former husband. Nathan half smiled. If they were still together she would know that he also had the 'Honey' DVD stashed at the bottom of his 'Jessica' collection right behind Blade Trinity and Dukes of Hazard and she would tease him relentlessly for it.
An awkward silence followed as both stood in the middle of the living room, trying desperately to avoid eye contact yet trying to find something to say to each other. This never used to be a problem because Haley always had something to say.
"Lucas is in his room. Down the hall on the right." Nathan finally says and she lets out the breath she'd been holding, her face flooding with relief as she quickly follows Nathan's directions.
Haley knocks on Lucas's door and lets herself in without waiting for a reply. Throwing herself onto his newly made bed, she screams her frustrations into his pillow.
"Good evening Hales." Lucas smiles sympathetically at his best friend and continues to stack his DVD's onto the shelf at the end of his bed. Sitting up again, Haley throws the now crumpled poster at him and grimaces. "Why did you have to move in with him?" she wails. "Why couldn't your illegitimate brother have been 5 feet tall, acne-scarred, 250lb, blonde fisherman who goes to sea for weeks at a time and reeks of trout? I definitely wouldn't have married him then. I'm pretty sure I hate trout." Lucas chuckles as he unrolls his poster and positions it on the wall
"He's an ass. You have to be able to speak ass-ish to communicate with an ass."
"And you're fluent are you?" Haley smiles devilishly as Lucas joins her on the twin bed. He ignores her jibe and goes quiet. Haley immediately picks up on her friends mood change and asks him what's wrong.
"Nothing. I'm just thinking about Deb. She's meeting Dan tonight. I guess it's kind of like a final showdown. After this, hopefully Dan will stay out of her life. I just hope Deb is strong enough to stand up to him - in the past she's been kinda fragile when it comes to Dan Scott. I hope she's ok is all." Haley takes Lucas's hand into her own and gives it a squeeze.
"The Deb Scott I know isn't fragile - she's a force to be reckoned with especially when it comes to the happiness and well-being of her kid. Don't worry, she's more than a match for Dan. She always has been."
Meanwhile…
Sitting in the President's leather chair at Scott Motors, Dan idly swivels his chair from side to side as he swallows the last drop from his third glass of good ol' Jack D. He licks his lips, savouring the bitter taste as the liquid burns the back of his throat. Dan was never really a whiskey man, but after years of vodka being his alcoholic beverage of choice, he had become immune to its effects therefore it just wasn't going to do the job. Hence, the whiskey. The last 48 hours, Jack had become his friend. Your only friend - well done Danny. Dan angrily shook away his father's condescending voice and poured himself another glass.
After leaving the lawyer's office the other day, Dan had wrecked his brains trying to come up with something, anything to regain the upper hand. He'd had many ideas, some legal, some not, and he knew that some of them would work. He knew he could bring Deb crashing to her knees, begging for forgiveness, begging for redemption. He could make her pay a thousand times over for sleeping with his brother, for turning his son against him and for thinking she could ever get one over on Dan Scott. He could - but for some reason, he couldn't. Dan had done a lot of shitty things in this life - he's destroyed lives - including that of his own brother, but could he really destroy Deb? Could he destroy Nathan? Dan despised not being in control but if he took control of this situation, would he really be able to live with becoming the man he always swore he would never become? He always promised himself that he would never make Nathan feel the way his father had made him feel. But he had. He would never manipulate or lie to his wife. But he did. He would never do anything to make his family hate him. But they did. And now look at where he was. He had lost control, lost his wife, lost his sons and now he was going to lose his daughter. His daughter. Dan couldn't quite believe it when Deb had told him. He didn't think it was possible, he thought Deb was past being able to conceive a child. How could he have been so stupid, she was only 36.
When Nathan was a child, Dan would secretly fantasise about having a little girl. Deb hadn't wanted anymore children so he agreed and took the necessary precautions to prevent that from happening. In his fantasy, his little girl was called Kaylen. She had blonde hair like her mommy and she hated sports, especially basketball. She would wear her hair in braids because she didn't like it in her face and whenever they went anywhere she would insist that her Barbie come with her because Barbie wanted to see the world too. She would always make her daddy push her higher on the swing and when she ate chocolate ice cream she would always ruin her pretty dress when it dribbled down her front. When Nathan pinched her, she would always run into the house and sit on her daddy's lap and cry onto his shoulder, her tears soaking his shirt as he rubbed her back and kissed her hurt better. Kaylen didn't care that she had another brother somewhere because brothers were annoying. Kaylen didn't listen to Nathan and Dan arguing about his game because it wasn't her he was yelling at. Kaylen was a Daddy's girl.
The office door clicked open and Dan looked up to see Deb walk confidently into his office. He had never seen her look more beautiful than she did at that moment. Pregnancy obviously agreed with her - there was the woman he fell in love with. He hadn't seen that woman in a lot of years. Dan reached for his glass and bottle and put them in the cupboard beside him, painfully aware of Deb disapproving glare. She can talk - he wasn't the one in rehab he thought bitterly.
"Dan." Deb nodded at him and sat in the chair on the opposite side of the large desk. She placed her purse on the desk and pulled out a thin stack of papers. Time to sign my life away. Dan watched his wife calmly leaf through the forms, checking everything was in order.
"Was it all bad, Deb? The whole 18 years?" Dan leaned back in his chair and laced his fingers together waiting for his wife's response.
"I'm not here to talk about the past, Dan, I'm here to talk about the future." Having second thoughts, Deb answered his question carefully "It wasn't all bad. You just got worse as the years went on and I made the silly mistake of believing that I could change you. But I couldn't. I realised that too late." Deb began to sign her name in the appropriate sections.
"Do you think that if I'd let Karen and Lucas into my life that I would be the same man?" Dan leaned forward, silently praying that her answer would redeem him, help him to blame everything on circumstance and bad choices. Deb stopped mid-signature and looked up at Dan. "We'll never know." she lowered her eyes and continued shuffling through the papers.
"I'm not taking Scott Motors." Deb's gaze darted up towards her husband once more, her eyes wide.
"Excuse me?" She put her pen down and took in a deep breath, preparing herself for the fight she had expected since that day in the lawyers office.
"I'm leaving."
The breath left Deb's lungs and she searched Dan's face for that telltale sign of a lie. "What do you mean, you're leaving?"
"I mean, I'm packing my bags, I'm getting in my car and I'm driving away." Dan watched his wife's reaction, slightly amused yet completely heartbroken.
"So you're going to sell up and take off? Very gallant of you Dan." Deb grimaced, disgusted with him. "So you think you're going to get custody of this child? You're more full of yourself than I gave you credit for, if you think that any judge in his right mind -"
"I'm not selling anything, bar the beach house, of which you'll get your share. You can have Scott Motors. I don't want it." Dan rose to his feet and towered over Deb. "I'm not going to gain access to her. Although, you know that I could easily win this fight Deb, and walk away with that child. But I won't. You're not going to ever see me again."
Deb stared up at him, too stunned to speak. Dan walked around to her side of the desk and kneeled down in front of her as she turned to face him.
"I don't want my daughter to have the kind of father that Nathan and Lucas had. I've made many, many mistakes, Deb, and even I know that I can't fix them. I can't make you or the boys forgive me. I can't make them love me. It's too late for that. I have destroyed any chance of being a part of their lives and I've made them hate me. I can't stay here and live with that. So I'm leaving, Deb, I'm going without a fight - for the first time in my life, I'm giving in. You win." Dan looked into his wife's eyes, saw the tears matching his own and reached for her hand. She didn't pull away. "I know it's too little, too late but I love you Deb. I have never regretted choosing, never. But this is who I am." He stood and Deb stood with him. "I'm leaving in the morning." He let his fingertips brush lightly against Deb's stomach. "I'd really like it if you call her Kaylen."
Dan turned to leave but Deb's voice stalled him for a moment. "They do love you, Dan. Nathan and Lucas. You may not see it, but it's there." Dan nodded and the tears rolled freely as the man Deb had loved for 18 years walked out of Scott Motors and out of her life for good.