Hey everybody! I really wanted to give you guys a killer huge update before school starts (first day of grade nine tomorrow! I AM SO SCARED!) but all I managed was this one! Thank you so much for reading everybody, all the reviews mean the world to me! I hope everybody has a promising last few days of summer!

"You can't be brave if you've only had wonderful things happen to you."- Mary Tyler Moore

Dan Scott felt near schizophrenic; he was two people: the mayor and the father, and right now, the father was telling the mayor to shut the hell up and grieve for the death of his son. Except, the mayor reminded him, his son wasn't exactly dead, so to speak. His heart was still beating, but only because it was hooked up to a machine; he was still breathing, but only because something else was doing it for him. There was no brain activity, no sign that Nathan Scott was having thoughts or emotions or any sort of technical thing that qualifies someone as alive rather than dead.

He was sure that it was a silly mistake and that any moment now, Nathan would sit up, smile and say, "What the hell was that all about?" But more and more time was passing in which all Nathan did was lie there, and yet somehow, the more more minutes that went by, the meow Dan grew convinced that Nathan was going to be fine. Ironic, he knew, as all possible evidence suggested the exact opposite, but it was Nathan Scott, for god's sakes, his son.

When Nathan was four years old, he fell out of the tree house in their backyard, and smashed his head on their outdoor fireplace. The doctors had said that he might have had severe trauma to his tiny little head and that they should prepare themselves for the worst; Nathan came out of the ER with a few stitches and a Spiderman Band-Aid. When he was seven, the pit bull from down the street bit Nathan square on the nose while he was home alone; Nathan had fainted and it had been almost two hours before anyone found him. The doctors said he was lucky that the dog hadn't completely bit off the tip of Nathan's nose, or that Nathan hadn't bled out in the time he'd been. Damn it, when Nathan was seventeen, he jumped off a bridge to save his friends, and almost drowned in the process. He went home that same day, absolutely fine. And yet, something as simple as going out to get ice cream could turn into a life or death situation?

Why now? Why now, did fate decide to take his son from him when everything was just beginning for him. Perhaps a more stoic man would have pointed out that Nathan could have easily died all those times before, and perhaps Dan could just be thankful for the eighteen years he had with his son.

A more stoic man would not be sitting in the waiting room of the hospital, looking up ways to bring someone out of an irreversible coma (the name enough should have been a clue to Dan that there was no way.)

But right now, this was all that Dan knew: he knew facts and, more importantly, he knew that he wasn't going to be able to sit beside his son's death bed, and say something that resembled a goodbye, an apology, an inspiring speech to make him wake up.

Dan couldn't do any of these things, so he sat and Googled cures to a disease that was not fixable.


One Tree Hill

Haley once had a dream where something like this happened; her and Nathan were out for a walk, when an airplane swooped down and decapitated her husband. Okay, so it had been a transport truck and not an airplane, and in real life he was brain dead, not missing a head, although Haley reasoned the two were the exact same.

In the dream, Haley had picked up Nathan's head, put it into her purse, and continued walking down the street, patting his head affectionately every few minutes. When she woke up the dream had horrified her and she'd looked over at Nathan sleeping beside her, and suddenly, it was all okay, because he was right there beside her.

"And so," she was saying, into Nathan's ear, "if you could just open your eyes, that would be really nice. I need you, Nathan. Our son needs you and I.. I think if you die, I will too. I'll die on the inside. Please," she squeezed his hand, "please, Nathan." She repeated it over and over like some kind of sick mantra, until all the words blended together and didn't even sound like words anymore, just letters, shoved together to make some kind of warbled sound.

Lucas opened the door gently. "Hales? The doctors want to talk to you."

"I'm sick of doctors," she said quietly.

He held out his hand to her. "Come on."

"I mean it, Luke. They think they know everything about Nathan, they think they understand the way he works, but they don't know him the way I do! They don't know that he's a fighter, that he won't let this thing consume him."

She didn't know she was crying until Lucas reached up and wiped a tear from her cheek. "Oh, Haley." He folded her into his arms, and held her tightly, while she cried into his sweater. "I am so sorry this is happening to you," he said over top of her head, because it was the only thing he could think of to say.

Dr. Gould was the man that had been dealing with Nathan's case; he was tall and balding, and he often looked as though he'd much rather be at home with some coffee and a good book, than at the hospital, saving (or in this case, trying to save) lives.

"Haley," he smiled down at her. "I'm really sorry to have to bring this up with you, but.. do you think we could go somewhere to talk. Alone?" he raised his eye brows.

"Whatever you say in front of me, you can say in front of him," Haley said, nodding towards Lucas, and Dr. Gould sighed, before leading them into a small room equipped with a cold, wooden desk and a few chairs.

"Haley, it's about Nathan and.. the life support. Essentially, it's the only thing keeping him alive. If we-"

"I know," Haley said sharply. "I know what life support means."

"If we take him off it it-"

"I know!" Haley cried. "If you take him off of the god damn life support, he will die. I understand that."

"Hales," Lucas said to her, out of the corner of his mouth. He put his hand on top of hers. "It's okay."

"I'm sorry, Mrs. Scott, we just need to make sure you understand, before we move on to talk about what you want to do," Dr. Gould stared kind of sadly at Haley.

"About what?" she said, calmer this time.

"Well, as Nathan is eighteen, and married, you are the person that is left to decide whether or not we.. for lack of a better word, turn off the life support," Dr. Gould folded his hands together. "Of course, we'll give you as much time as you need to think about it, and there's no rush we just.. I thought I'd let you know it's something you might want to start thinking about."

"Okay," she nodded. "Okay," quieter this time, her legs shaking hard as she stood up.

"Haley. I'm so sorry."

She smiled up at him. "It isn't your fault."

Dr. Gould nodded and shut the door gingerly behind him, leaving Lucas and Haley alone. "Hales," he tried to reach out to her someway, but she shrugged it off.

"I have to go, Luke."

"Haley.. where are you going?" She knew he meant it as where the hell did she have to go; she was supposed to be deciding whether or not her husband was going to be kept alive, or die.

"I need a minute, okay? I need to get out of here and I just.. I need to think."

"I'll come?" he said it as a half question, half statement, because although Haley was his best friend and under normal circumstances he would follow her, no matter what. But this sure as hell wasn't a normal circumstance; neither of them knew what exactly was expected of them, how they were supposed to react.

"No," she shook her head. "I need to be alone, I think?" she looked at him for approval and he nodded his head.

"Sure, Hales, whatever you need. Just.. I'm always here, okay? Don't forget that."

One Tree Hill

"They need her to decide if she's going to turn off the life support," he explained to Peyton; she nodded, and took in a deep shaky breath.

"I mean," she tucked a strand of hair behind, "is there any chance he's gonna wake up?"

He wanted to tell Peyton what she wanted to hear; that, statistically proven, Nathan was bound to wake up eventually, that of course he'd be fine and of course we would remember all their names and his own name, for god's sakes. But he couldn't, because it was a lie, and as much as it hurt, he needed to be honest.

"It.. it doesn't look good, Peyt. The doctors said-"

"Sometimes," she said deliberately, as if slowing everything down made any difference," doctors can be wrong. Right, Luke? You said it.. there was that thing on TV last week, and that kid came into the ER and all that was wrong was that he had the flu, but they diagnosed him with leukemia, or something?"

He nodded. "Sure. I remember that."

"And so, maybe they think Nathan's not going to wake up, but they could be wrong. Doctors.. they're just people, and they make mistakes, and it doesn't mean that Nathan still isn't Nathan."

"But Peyton," he said gently, "he isn't really Nathan anymore. His heart is beating but everything else that makes Nathan, Nathan; his personality, his laugh.. all those things, they're gone."

Her shoulders sagged, and all the hope and the fire that Lucas always saw in Peyton Sawyer were suddenly gone.

"Peyton.." he said.

She looked up at him, tears spilling out of her eyes. "This sucks, Luke."

"I know," he said, as he stepped forward to put his arms tightly around her. "I know."

One Tree Hill

"Haley?" Brooke wasn't sure where she expected to find Haley, but it sure as hell wasn't in the cancer ward of the hospital, sitting outside a hospital room housing a little, bald girl. She sat down carefully beside Haley and stared curiously at her for a second. She almost asked if she was okay, but it was a question ridiculous beyond belief.

"Do you believe in miracles, Brooke?"

Brooke wanted to be careful here; she wanted to be wise and sophisticated and reassure Haley in all the right ways. But she didn't know how. "Miracles like Nate waking up?"

Haley nodded, a quick little nod that Brooke would have missed, had she not been eying her so closely. "I think that sometimes, Hales, good things happen. You and Nathan met each other, and that was a good thing. You got married, and you got pregnant, and those were other good things. But I think that on top of being a great place sometimes, the world.. it can also be a really, really shitty place, and sometimes things happen to amazing people, like you, people that really don't deserve it."

"So?" she asked.

Brooke sighed and offered her hand to Haley. "So, I think that.. you never know. Because life is unpredictable, and sometimes that means good things and sometimes it means bad things. And, Hales, I know that's not what you want to hear, it's not what I want to tell you, but it's the truth."

Haley was shaking now, her hands clamped to her elbows, her knee caps supporting each other. "It's okay, Haley," Brooke said gently. "It's okay."

"No it's not, Brooke. Nothing is okay. My husband is brain dead, he's a god damn vegetable. Nothing is okay."

"I mean," she said, "that it's okay to be scared, and it's okay to cry. You shouldn't keep everything bottled up."

"If I cry," she said, "then it means Nathan is really never going to wake up and if I believe it, then it will happen."

"Sweetie, Peyton has cried. I've cried. Damn it, Lucas has even cried. It's okay for you to."

Brooke waited for a minute, and as soon as Haley's hands unclasped and her shoulders went slack, she pulled her tightly to her. The little girl on the hospital bed smiled at Brooke sadly, as she rubbed Haley's back.

"There you go," she said. "See. It's okay. It's all okay."

One Tree Hill

When Haley woke up, Lucas was crouched down beside her, gently trying to shake her awake. "Come on, Hales."

"Luke," her voice cracked, and she wiped the sleep out of her eyes. "What's going on?"

"I'm gonna take you home, buddy. Nathan's.. asleep and the doctors said it's probably good for you to get some sleep, okay?"

She was too tired to protest, so she let Lucas help her up, put his arm around her shoulders, while she put hers around his waist and leaned into him. "Can we go to your place?"

"Sure," he said, no questions asked.

"I just.."

"You don't have to explain anything to me, Haley. I understand."

A tiny voice in Haley's head said No, you don't. You don't understand what it's like to have the person you love more than anything in the world taken from you, for no good reason. You can't imagine the way it feels to have your heart broken, a million times over, every time you forget, every time you see the machines and feel the cold of his skin. You don't know what it's like.

One Tree Hill

She woke up more times than she could count, gasping for breath, shaking, sobbing. She woke Lucas up every time; she apologized profusely every time, and every time he shook his head, and held her tight to him, soothing her back to sleep.

She was asleep now, but it didn't look like a peaceful kind of sleep; her face was contorted and she'd moan every so often, calling out Nathan's name. He didn't understand why this was happening to her; his Haley, who was so good, and deserved so much better than this.

For a second, he was angry at Nathan for leaving her like this, he wanted to hurt him for doing this to all of them, he wanted to make him see that he didn't just get lie their in his god damn hospital bed (even though the logical part of Lucas knew that that Nathan, the Nathan that was lying in the hospital bed, was not the Nathan they knew), acting like a prince, while the rest of them sat around and waited, and hoped, and cried for him.

Lucas almost wished that Nathan had died, and he knew it sounded horrible, but if he had died, that would have been it. It would have been horrible still, of course, but at least then they would have some sick form of closure; Haley wouldn't be left to choose the fate of a husband that barely even existed anymore, he wouldn't have to stand by and watch as it all crushed his best friend into a thousand tiny little pieces, into a fragile creature that he barely even recognized anymore.

She twitched again, eyes flying open. "Damn it," she muttered. "I'm sorry Luke. I'll sleep on the floor, or something."

"Haley," he waved away her apologies. "Don't."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes, Hales, I'm sure. Absolutely positive."