Author Note: Hey ya'll! First of all, thanks to those who have read so far and those who have subscribed! I really appreciate it. Second, I changed the title from Jamie's Keller Instinct to Keller's Little Cahoot (If you perfer the last title, let me now. I might change it back) because I didn't want the story to be strongly about Jamie. Both titles suggest Jamie I think, but this one does less. So far it has been strongly about Jamie, and that's just because imagining Jamie's reaction to Chris Keller is amusing. However, I'm really not a fan of when Jamie has big storylines on the show. He's adorable and the storylines can be cute, but I'd much rather watch a hot Naley scene or Haley's own storyline. That's not to say there won't be lots of Jamie because, fortunately or unfortunately, there will be. I've kind of got an idea from where the story is going, but I don't think the story has really started picking up yet. This next chapter is the shortest so far (which isn't saying a lot seeing as it's only the third) and I don't know if it's the best. I think it's alright, though! Anyways, beforeDocument Manager (Upload) I ramble on (which I tend to do a lot), I just want to say feel free to reveiw! I've read it a few times, but I'm going to reread this chapter soon just to make sure it's grammatically okay. I thought I'd post it incase anyone was waiting on this chapter (plus I'm feeling lazy). Thanks again!

PS- When you read "neighbourhood", yes, I intentionally spelt it that way. It's Canadian spelling.

-3-

When Nathan and Jamie first walked into their home with bags full of groceries in their hands, the first thing Nathan noticed was the distinct smell of cleaning supplies. Haley was nowhere to be seen and neither was a speck of dirt or dust. While most people would enjoy coming home to a recently cleaned and fresh smelling house, Nathan found it troubling. He knew that with a stressed Haley also came a clean house. "Great" he thought. Not only would he have to tell Haley of Chris' return, but he'd also have to do it when she was stressed about something. Jamie clearly never noticed a difference in the house's cleanliness, however, because he walked into the kitchen while tracking mud with his sneakers.

"Uh, Jamie, why don't you go play outside? And try to stay away from the mud this time." Nathan asked his son, who insisted on petting the cat that was sitting in Haley's recently watered flowers on the way into their house.

Jamie was happy to not have to help bring groceries in. "Okay!" said Jamie who quickly headed outside and into the front yard with hopes of seeing the cat again.

Nathan was glad to have currently gotten rid of the mud issue, but the real issue of talking to Haley about Chris Keller's return was yet to come. That was, if he could find her.

Once Nathan had brought all of the groceries into the house and put them in their appropriate locations, Nathan ran around the house trying to find Haley. He checked the basement, laundry room, main floor, upstairs and every other room he could think of. The last room Nathan checked was their bedroom and Haley was still nowhere to be seen. Nathan had given up hope until he heard some scraping sounds coming from outside. He could not see anyone on their balcony through the window, but he decided he'd check outside anyways.

"Haley?" He called from the doorway onto their balcony.

"Nathan? Oh, um, I'm right here!" Haley called back to him, still nowhere to be seen.

Nathan quickly walked onto the balcony and followed the direction of Haley's voice. When he finally spotted her, she was just below the balcony's right side on the slanted roof of the house. Haley may have cleaned the house to be fit by military standards, but she sure did not keep herself as clean in the process. She was covered in dirt and was wearing old jeans and one of Nathan's old t-shirts while cleaning out the rain-gutter and emptying its contents into a bucket.

"Haley! What are you doing out there?! Seriously!"

"Oh, I was just cleaning the house and it was on my list of things to do. It was pretty far down the list. Actually, it never should have been there in the first place seeing as you promised me that you'd clean the gutter a month ago. Oh, but, nope, you never did that…" Haley smiled at her husband, which would have looked much hotter to Nathan with her current outfit if she hadn't just been nagging him. Did he not just pleasantly surprise her that morning by doing her errands? Surely he didn't deserve to be nagged. He thought she'd have at least been relaxing, writing music, at the studio or with one of her friends, but somehow she still managed to find other obscure errands to do.

"And I still plan to keep that promise to you Haley, just as soon as the roofing company is back up and running so that I can call them to hire us a professional." Nathan sure as hell was not going to be climbing up on their roof like his wife and even if he would, he wouldn't have enough time to do so anyways. "Would you please just come down from there, baby? I don't want to see you fall and break another bone. Plus Jamie might see you and get ideas. He's been getting a lot of those lately. I really need to talk to you when you get down."

"Fall! What are you trying to-" Although Haley didn't appreciate Nathan doubting her balance and coordination, she had to admit that he was right in doing so. She loved the protective side of Nathan. It made her feel safe and could also be so persuasive, especially when she didn't really want or need to be doing what she was doing in the first place. She continued, "…Yeah, okay. You know, I could really use a warm bath right now. This outdoor cleaning isn't really working out for me." Haley looked around her, now eying the ladder on the side of the house that she would have to climb down in order to get onto their lower balcony. Then she eyed the bucket. "Could you grab this for me, Nathan? I don't know what to do with it." Haley said as she picked up the bucket and started to hand it to him, but she stumbled a little on her way to stand up only to drop the bucket and have all of its contents fall out and slowly move to the gutter, once again. "Oh… well, I guess that takes care of that! Never mind." Haley said as she watched the bucket roll off of the roof and onto their lower balcony.

"Haley!" Nathan had now seen enough of roof-Haley. "You really need to get down from there! C'mon, what if that was you falling off the roof?" he said, worried.

"Oh Nathan, I love you. You are definitely right too. This should be left to the professionals." Haley said while giving him one of the most genuine of concerned smiles before she started to go down the ladder.

After seeing Haley's recent stumble, each step Haley took down the ladder put another bad memory into Nathan's head. From guns pointed to her, to being run over by a car, to almost driving off of a bridge, to being chased by a psycho bitch, to high school sluts Haley got into fights with, to the pains of pregnancy and even to Haley's smaller and daily stories of stubbing her toe or running into things, after all she had been through, Nathan had more than enough reasons to worry about his very uncoordinated wife getting into an accident. He knew that she would think he was overreacting if she knew, but he didn't care because he "needed [her] on this planet" and Jamie did even more. Thankfully for the entire Scott household, Haley made it down safely.

"What?" She yelled at her husband from the second story when she noticed he was watching her very uneasily.

"It's just that you've been through so much. Haley, what is it that's bothering you? The house looks cleaner than humanly possible and I know you, Haley, something's up. If I'd have known that earlier, I never would have left you alone this morning." He yelled back.

Jamie, who had taken notice to the sound of his parents' shouting from the front yard, had come around the house only to see his parents communicating from different levels of the house.

"Mamma! What are you doing? Can I come up?" Jamie, who was one story below his mother and two below his father, yelled up at Haley.

Both Nathan and Haley looked down to their son who looked smaller than usual from the distance.

"No, baby. It's dangerous up here. I was just doing some cleaning." Haley shouted.

At the word "cleaning", Jamie quickly became disinterested.

Haley then brought her attention back to her husband. "Nathan, we'll talk inside, okay? I think we've probably attracted some attention in the neighbourhood with our shouting."

"Yes, that's a good idea." Yelled Nathan who now looked from his wife to his son who looked like he had more mud fastened on to him since the last time he saw him. "Jamie, come inside and take a bath, but you better not touch anything on your way to the bathroom!"

"Okay, daddy." Jamie said with the most force possible for his size so that he could be heard from so far away.

The Scotts then entered their home all in different doors, on different floors and in different mindsets.

Haley first went downstairs to find Jamie who was at the back door taking off his shoes. She shook her head and then walked over to her son who was equally as dirty as her. "And do I get my kiss today?"

"Ew, Mamma, you're all dirty!" Replied Jamie.

"Well so are you! C'mere…" Haley grabbed his head and started giving Jamie random kisses all over it.

"Well, I'd join in, but from the looks of you two, I think I might also need to take a bath after touching you." Said Nathan who had been watching his wife and son for a few seconds before speaking.

"Oh, honey, you know you're definitely going to need a bath, anyways!" Said Haley right before she started giving Nathan kisses all around and on his mouth and then embraced him in a tight hug. His protectiveness a few minutes before was so sexy to Haley and she had been waiting just to be able to touch him that day. Jamie quickly joined in by making it become one little, messy and familiar group hug.

Once they let go of each other, Haley looked down at her son and then back to Nathan, still smiling from their recent positions. "Nathan, I'm going to set up a bath for Jamie and then take a shower. We can talk after okay? Will you make sure Jamie's okay?" Haley was still planning on taking a bath that day, but she did not feel like doing it until evening when Jamie was and Andre's. More importantly, Nathan would be home to take that bath with her since she already told him he would need one too.

"Okay, I'll see you in awhile then." Replied Nathan, quickly followed by giving Haley a quick forehead kiss before she and his son ran off.

Nathan was not that dirty compared to his wife and son, but he could use a new pair of clothes and his hands needed to be washed, preferably in the bathroom Haley was showering in.

The next hour went by quickly. When Nathan wasn't checking up on Jamie in the main bathroom, he was checking up on his wife in their bedroom bathroom. Once Jamie's water got cold, Jamie left and got dressed, while Nathan went downstairs to watch TV. A few minutes later, Haley came back downstairs with her hair in a wet bun and sat next to her husband on the couch.

"Where's Jamie?" She asked.

"He's still upstairs, probably getting dressed. The boy loves playing in that bath. He could do it for hours if the water didn't get cold."

Haley smiled, but soon after her thoughts were not on her son. "What is it that you wanted to talk to me about?"

"Well, I saw someone today…" Nathan started.

Haley's heart dropped. "Shit" she thought, "did Nathan see Chris? Did Jamie see Chris?"

"Okay…" She said. It was all Haley could think of. She didn't want to start the Chris conversation just yet if she was wrong.

"… and, well… I thought I should tell you I saw him, Haley. I just want you to know that I didn't touch him or anything…"

"…Chris?" Asked Haley, no longer caring if she was wrong. She'd have to let him know she saw him sooner of later.

"Yeah! I saw him when Jamie and I were driving home. The punk cut me off."

"Oh." Said Haley, now thinking of the verbal things that could have happened in place of the physical ones that didn't. "You didn't say anything to him in front of Jamie, did you?"

"… Well, I might have called him an ass… well… okay yeah, actually… I said a lot." Said Nathan, a little unsurely.

Haley couldn't help but laugh a little. "Oh… boy. Nathan, you have got to start controlling yourself. I mean, especially around Jamie…"

"I know that. It's just that seeing him again… it brought back some memories. And now that we're talking about your music career again it just put me into a different place."

"Nathan, we're not that couple anymore."

"I know, and I'm so glad." Said Nathan truthfully. "What was it that was bothering you today, Haley? I leave the house for three hours and I come back to find you on the roof."

"Oh, um, well… you weren't the first to see Chris." Replied Haley, but that was not her entire answer.

"Wait, you saw Chris before I did? Why didn't you say something?"

"I was going to, I promise. It's just that, by the time I got home last night, you were so tired and then you got me a little distracted." She smiled. "I was going to tell you today, but you left before I had the chance. Somehow you ran into him. You must have the worst timing."

"It's a small town, Haley." Nathan then felt Haley's head fall on his shoulder.

"That's not all of it, though." She said, continuing on her reasons for the excessive cleaning.

"What?" Asked Nathan, now confused, but listening intently.

"It's just that… Chris is still playing his music. He's still successful and he always seems so happy in his interviews. I'm just… jealous, I think. It's a different jealously than I sometimes feel towards Mia, too. Chris started when I did, and now when I see him he's on TV and sitting next to Mariah Carrey. I just miss music, that's all."

Nathan knew of his wife's dreams. He knew she was perfectly happy just being a mother, wife and teacher, but since teaching was no longer one of her priorities, her thoughts went back to her other passion for music. "You don't need to feel like that, Haley. I know you're going to release a great record and soon Haley, I can feel it. They're going to love you all over again…"

"Thank you, that means a lot to me."

"You mean a lot to us, Haley James Scott." He said and soon after gave her a short, but sweet kiss.

Once the moment was over, Haley knew she had one more thing to tell him. "I'm going to see Chris again, tonight." Nathan furrowed his brow, but showed no anger when she looked up at him and so she continued, "He's doing a song with Mia and seeing as I'm now her full-time producer, I need to be there."

"Okay." Said Nathan with a gentle reassuring smile. He was completely fine with the situation. He was not, however, completely fine with Chris and if he had to deal with working with him, he knew he would have far less class than his wife did.

Nathan and Haley really were not the same couple they were in the past. Both were relieved after their conversation now that the useless pressure they had felt earlier had been taken off of their consciousness. It was a good thing they had grown so strong because Chris Keller had a way of getting into people's business, especially theirs. Both found Chris to be annoying, but they also knew of what he had helped them accomplish in the past. Even if it was in some twisted way.

Author Note: Sorry if this chapter was slow. I know I kind of wrapped it up in the end of the chapter, but the next one gets back into the story. There is lots of Chris in the next chapter, too. So if you were disappointed that there were only mentions of him in this chapter, the next is mostly with him, I promise. Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed this chapter.