Don't blame me (entirely, anyway) for the delay: I've been trying to upload this chapter for about three days now but fanfiction . net wouldn't let me!

Thank you for reviewing hybridwolf10, steffyoth, Lorilozz, SnowWhite213, Nataliegirl1214 (massive understatement – you 'don't like Dan much' – who does, really?), xSmile, lilmonkeygirl31, krizue, CCScott23, JeniRose, iftheyonlyknewthetruth, naley-obsseshunz-xOx, and boombaibe. I realise last chapter was a severe cliffhanger – it's good of you to hang in there!

SnowWhite213: I agree about Dan, he IS always evil. On the other hand, murdering him has always seemed rather an extreme solution to the problem (and by now very repetitive on the show – who hasn't tried to murder Dan at some point by now?). So I probably won't be doing that. I do like to imagine it, though!

krizue: thanks for picking up on the error – it has been corrected! And you'll be relieved about what is about to be revealed about those pictures.

This chapter will provide something of an explanation for the previous chapter. Hopefully it'll make all of you feel better about what is going on!

Nathan knocked on the door to Haley's suite, his mind recalling the last time he was there. The time he had found out his own mother had – not known, but suspected – that Dan was behind Faith's kidnapping.

The time he had told her to leave, and that he never wanted to see her again.

She had gone, more easily than he had feared, and he didn't regret that. Even though now he could not help but think of her face as it had appeared after he had made his repudiation. Exhausted. Devastated.

But even as Brooke opened the door to Haley's suite, ushered him in, and then left herself, shooting an almost sympathetic gaze in his direction as she shut the door behind her, he knew that something bigger was at stake now.

Haley, her face calm, sat in the sofa in her sitting room, her face hidden behind a large newspaper. Nathan squinted, trying to make out the cover. As it turned out, he needn't have tried.

"What is this?" Haley queried, throwing the tabloid to the coffee table.

Nathan approached closer, glanced down, winced, and looked back up at her.

"I don't know?" he tried.

Haley's eyebrow rose, and her face reddened.

"Try again, Nathan. This is you, right? Trying to throw dirt to help with custody?"

Nathan smirked a little.

"I don't know that that'd actually help with custody, Hales. It'd be more likely to hurt – I mean, those photos are time stamped, apparently, and you seem to have hit on the only tabloid that's not hinting that Faith's Chris's kid. I mean, I would have the DNA test to back me up, but the facts don't appear to matter."

Haley looked even madder.

"You're the only one with any reason to let something like this get out!"

Nathan shook his head.

"Come on! Like you having an affair would help me, the one whose father kidnapped his kid and whose mother helped to cover it up? Besides, you're forgetting Dan."

"Dan? Why on earth would he care if these photos got out? He's in jail, Nate. Something like this is hardly going to help his case."

Nathan nodded.

"It might not help his case, no. But it'd sure as hell upset everyone else. And you know Dan. Besides, they're his photos."

Haley nodded. She could believe that Dan would be that malicious. But – her head snapped toward Nathan.

"His photos? How would you know that unless you had something to do with this?"

Nathan paused.

"Well?"

"What do you want me to say, Haley? I saw them six and a half years ago, okay? He showed them to me."

Haley's eyes widened. Her gaze shot from the tabloid to his stubborn face, and she gasped.

"When did he show them to you, Nathan?"

He was silent.

"Did you believe them, Nathan?"

June 12, 2005

Nathan Scott sat in his apartment, alone, the aftermath of his confrontation with Haley – a pregnant Haley – ringing in his ears and echoing in his brain.

"Not mine, Haley."

"Don't come back, Haley."

It was over.

And he had never felt so alone.

He had been tempted, throughout the argument, to just let it go. To pretend he hadn't seen those pictures. To pretend he didn't know the truth. To raise a child that couldn't be his, not with how small Haley's belly was. She should be bigger at five and a half months.

No, it had to be Chris's.

His wife was pregnant with another man's child.

Nathan lowered his head into his hands, closing his eyes.

It didn't help. He could still see those photographs, mocking him, taunting him, telling him something he didn't want to know.

The problem wasn't even that Haley had been unfaithful or that she was pregnant with Keller's spawn. The problem was that she had to be in love with him.

Despite everything that had come out, Nathan knew Haley. He knew what she was like. He knew how important sex was to her. He knew how important love was to her. And if she had really loved Nathan, she would not have slept with Chris Keller.

The real problem was that if Haley had not loved Chris Keller, she wouldn't have slept with him.

Haley must love him. It was the only explanation.

And yet Nathan still loved Haley. Loved her enough to know that she'd never be happy with him now. Loved her enough to let her go.

So she was gone, leaving Nathan alone and devastated in a world that would never be as bright as it had been only months before.

But Nathan would love her forever.

And he'd never tell anyone what she'd done. Haley deserved to be happy. Haley deserved to have friends – especially now. She'd need them to help her get through the pregnancy.

Silence was the least he could give her.

December 4, 2011

"You did believe it."

It wasn't a question.

"You believed I'd cheated on you?" Haley's voice was rising, and Nathan gave thanks for the fact that Faith was playing with Brooke and Lucas in Lucas's room. "With Chris? After everything I told you? After how much time I spent telling you that nothing had changed?" She eyed him in disgust. "How could you, Nathan? This is why you told me to leave, right? Because your father showed you photographs of me and Chris?"

Nathan could take a little yelling, but enough was enough.

"How could you, Haley? You left. And then you came back, no excuse, no real explanation, five and a half months pregnant but not looking pregnant at all, and expected me to take you back? What exactly were you expecting?"

"You, Nate!" Haley's voice was loud, and harsh. "I expected you. Not some scared little boy whose daddy had convinced him that his wife was cheating on him. Why didn't you ask?"

Nathan shook his head. "Ask? Ask what, exactly, Haley? 'Oh, my dad showed me some pictures but I figured they had to be fake – you're not in love with Chris, are you?' I saw the photos, Haley. And you were gone, and they were . . . convincing."

Haley's mouth quirked in disgust. "Sure. Convincing. As long as you didn't realise that there is such a thing as Photoshop and that your father hates me! And that that pose there –" Haley jabbed her finger at the offending tabloid "- is identical to that photo we used to have of the two of us playing mini-golf. I'm even wearing the same clothes, although it looks like my sweater has been altered to look blue instead of green."

Nathan closed his eyes. He hadn't actually made that connection, but Haley was right. That photo, taken by Luke after he and Haley had been dating a few months and during a time when he and his brother were starting to get along, had been displayed in a prominent position in the apartment after he and Haley married.

"Yeah, Haley, I did realise they were fake eventually."

"Eventually meaning when, Nathan?"

Nathan didn't answer. He couldn't answer.

"When, Nathan?"

Nathan opened his eyes again.

"I realised after we lost Faith."

Looking into Haley's eyes, Nathan saw them darken with fury.

"So my daughter gets kidnapped and suddenly you realise 'oh, my father hates Haley, he must've been lying and Faith must've been mine'! Now wonder Lucas has been telling me about how guilty you've felt for so long, Nathan! Of course you felt guilty! It shouldn't have taken that to convince you of something that was so patently obvious, Nathan. Do you have any idea how I felt? How you made me feel? How difficult that time was for me – pregnant, and alone?"

Haley shook her head, the fury fading, to be replaced by a quiet sadness.

"And all the time you were just listening to your father. You should've known better, Nathan. I trusted you to know better than that."

Haley paused, and Nathan could not speak. She stared at him, clearly processing a vigorous internal argument as her features reflected grief and uncertainty. Finally, her face cleared as a curious calm spread across it.

"But I suppose this was all so long ago that it doesn't matter anymore. It's not as if we're the same people we were seven years ago. And I suppose at least I'm glad that you had a reason for doing what you did." Haley smiled hesitantly at her husband. "You know what, maybe we can start over. For Faith, at least. Friends?"

And even as he listened, one word rang in Nathan's head.

Alone.

So – I hope this makes all of you feel a little more sympathetic toward Nathan. It's not entirely his fault, after all – we can blame pretty much everything that went wrong on Dan, now. That's the way it should be, after all.

Please review.