A/N: This is an AU look at the ups and downs of Rayna and Deacon's relationship if they had tried to make a go of things together after Maddie was born. This story is a collaboration with TamiTaylor.
Disclaimer: I don't own Nashville or any of the characters I'm just borrowing them for a little while.
Chapter 1
Rayna stood at the back of the church with her hand resting on her stomach in what had become a habit for her. She gazed at the altar that loomed at the end of the aisle. To her it looked more like a tombstone than a symbol of hope. This should feel like the beginning of her life instead of the end. She should have been filled with hope instead of the impending sense of doom.
The man she was less than twenty-four hours from marrying wasn't the man she wanted to spend her life with. The man she wanted to spend her life with couldn't give her or their unborn baby the kind of life that she wanted their child to have. So, as much as it killed her inside she made the choice to do what was best for her baby.
From across the room Tandy could see her baby sister with a far-off look on her face. She walked over and put her arm around her. "How are you doing?"
"I'm fine," Rayna forced a smile.
"You're not fine. I'm sure I know who you're thinking about right now. You're doing the right thing by marrying Teddy. You did the right thing by not telling him. I know that you don't love Teddy the way you thought you loved him, but those feelings will come in time. Not every couple who has gotten married did it because they were in love." Tandy advised her.
"I am fine. I know I have to do this for the baby." Rayna sighed.
What she couldn't say to her sister was that she had told Deacon about the baby. Tandy wouldn't understand why she'd done it. Part of her didn't even understand why she'd done it. Though there was another part of her that knew exactly why she'd told him. She'd wanted him to get jealous and stop her from marrying another man. She was disappointed that he hadn't tried to talk her out of marrying Teddy.
She didn't know why she was expecting some sort of last minute Hail Marry pass from Deacon. He'd shown her time and again that she couldn't count on him. It wasn't that he didn't love her it was that he loved whiskey more. She couldn't say that he didn't love her. When he was sober, he was the best man she'd ever known. The problem was keeping him sober.
"I know that you're sad right now and that'll take a while to pass. Look at Teddy standing down there waiting on you. He loves you and wants to take care of you. Focus on that. You may never be in love with him, but you can at least love him for what he's willing to do." Tandy told her.
"This feels wrong." Rayna admitted.
"Of course, it feels wrong he is normal and well put together. You're used to a messed-up alcoholic. This man is good and he is stable, but most importantly he's gonna be a good father and provider. You'll never have to go track him down in a bar either." Tandy pointed out to her.
"You're saying that I don't know what normal is like?" Rayna questioned.
"I'm saying that you don't know what it's like to be with a stable man." Tandy corrected her.
"Deacon isn't as horrible as you make him out to be. He does have good qualities." Rayna flashed an annoyed look at her. Her sister had always been critical of Deacon.
"Focus on Teddy and the way he looks at you and how that makes you feel. You will never be able to do that if you don't stop comparing him to Deacon. The best thing you can do is forget about Deacon Claybourne and the hell he's put you through." Tandy shot a frosty look back at her.
"You do know that this is more than likely his baby, right? I'm gonna have to look at his son or daughter every day and be reminded of him. It's gonna be hard not to think 'bout him." Rayna ran her hands over her face.
"Think of it this way. It's Teddy's child Deacon just supplied half the DNA." Tandy patted her back.
"That's easy for you to say. You at least had a choice in the matter when it came to picking your husband." Rayna scoffed.
Teddy walked down the aisle with a huge smile on his face. "Rayna, it's time to get this thing started if you're ready."
"Yeah, I'm ready. Just let me flag down my daddy." Rayna waved Lamar over.
"I'll go take my place." Tandy excused herself.
Lamar walked over and took Rayna's arm. "You've made a fine choice in a husband, Rayna. He comes from a good family and he makes a good living. For a while there I didn't think you'd settle down with a decent man. Now you can start your family and not worry about life on the road. You got that out of your system."
"Daddy, this is supposed to be a happy day. Please don't do or say anything that will make me angry." Rayna groaned.
"If this is supposed to be a happy day, why don't you look very happy?" Lamar countered.
"Just walk me down the aisle, daddy." Rayna rolled her eyes at him. There was no reasoning with that man. She didn't feel the need to even try, nor was she in the mood.
Lamar wisely didn't argue with her. Instead he walked her down the aisle.
The minister made his opening remarks like he would during the ceremony. "I ask now that if anyone know of any reason these two should not be joined in holy matrimony speak now or forever hold your peace."
The doors of the church busted open with a bang. Deacon came running in. The soles of his cowboy boots made an echoing click as he marched down the aisle.
"Deacon, you need to go, right now." Tandy turned around and pointed a finger at him.
"I will as soon as I say what I came here to say." Deacon was wild eyed and breathing heavily.
Rayna turned around to look at him. She couldn't help the hopeful feeling that surged through her.
"Ray, before I came here I was sittin' on the couch starin' at a bottle of Jack. I had two options I could open that bottle and finish it off or I could come here and beg you for one more chance. For the first time I chose you over the whiskey. I'm here and I'm askin' for one more chance. I love you more than anythin' in this world and I can't live without ya." Deacon held his hand out to her.
Rayna worried with her bottom lip nervously, but she didn't speak.
"Deacon, you have no brain in your head, son. Why would she pick you when she has a chance to be with a better man?" Lamar looked at him like he was crazy.
"Come on, Ray, take my hand. Don't make a mistake that you can't take back. Just take my hand and walk outta here with me tonight. We can put this thing back together. We can build a life together like we've always talked 'bout." Deacon's eyes had a pleading look in them.
"Claybourne, you're too late. She's pregnant, we are having a child. You came to your senses a day late and a dollar short." Teddy got up in his face.
"She's havin' my baby, not yours. Don't you ever refer to my child as yours again." Deacon turned on him with a cold look.
"Rayna," Tandy hissed at her sister.
"Deacon, I can't do this with you now. You have to go. If you love me you'll do this for me." Rayna ignored her sister.
"I ain't leavin' here without ya, babe." Deacon kept his hand extended to her.
"You're gonna have to. You walk out that door with her over my dead body." Teddy pushed him.
"This has nothin' to do with you. I'm gonna forget just this once that you put your hands on me." Deacon did his best to keep his temper under control.
"Deacon, if you love your child you'll go. The stress isn't good for either of us." Rayna tried to get him out of there before he could cause any more damage.
Deacon closed his eyes tightly and shook his head. "If you change your mind you know where to find me." He went to talk away, but he turned back around and kissed her deeply before he walked out.
"Rayna, you have no idea how embarrassed I am right now. You didn't even discuss this with me before you went and told him." Teddy followed Rayna into her apartment with a scowl marring his handsome face.
"Teddy, that's how you wanna start this conversation?" Rayna turned to glare at him. He'd been silent the whole ride home from the church.
"I don't want to be having this conversation at all. Do you have any idea how bad I look right now?" Teddy pulled a bottle of whiskey off the top of the fridge. He twisted the cap off and drank from the neck of the bottle without using a glass.
Rayna's jaw dropped in disbelief. For whatever reason she kept falling for men who thought drinking was the way to deal with their problems. "I'm sorry that you're embarrassed, but you're not the one who looks bad in this situation, I am. You're the good guy willing to marry the woman who doesn't know who her baby's father is. I'm the whore who spread her legs for two men and now doesn't know which one is the father of her baby. As bad as this is for you, it's much worse for me."
"We wouldn't be in this position right now if you hadn't gone behind my back and told him that this baby is his. As much as I want to believe this is my child I think we both know that it's Claybourne's and that's the way you want it. You'll never have him out of your system. He's no good for you and he's only ever going to leave you broken." Teddy took another swig from the bottle.
"It was the right thing to do, Teddy. I couldn't live the rest of my life with that secret hanging over my head. One way or another Deacon would have found out that this is his child and then there would have been hell to pay. It wasn't fair to any of us to have to live our lives that way. It would have been much worse for this child if it came out years from now that Deacon was the father. And you better believe that knowing him the way that I do he would fight to the death for his baby. We couldn't build a marriage on that lie even if we were both in on it." Rayna took a deep breath and sat down on the couch. She was trying her very best not to get overwhelmed by stress. The most important job she had from now on was making sure her baby was happy and healthy.
"Forget that that drunk just made a fool of me in front of my family. What are you going to do about this? I know what I'd like to do, but the ball is clearly in your court. How and where we go from here is up to you." Teddy sat the bottle down on the counter and stared at her intently.
"Please don't look at me like I have all the answers, because I don't. I don't know what to do in this situation. I'm a woman torn between doing the best thing for her child and picking the man that she loves." Rayna put her hands over her face.
Teddy's face turned the shade of a tomato. "You can't be serious right now. Tell me there's no way that you're thinking about going back to him. He had his chance. He doesn't get to show up with this last minute Hail Mary pass and win you back. Not after all the chances he's had to get this right and he's never rose to the occasion." He fumed.
"Would it really be fair to anyone in this situation if I married you? I'll be honest I'm not in love with you. I care for you, but we haven't been together long enough for me to have those deep feelings for you yet. I will always be in love with Deacon no matter what. I will be honest about that too. Does he deserve another chance? I don't know the answer to that. Does my baby deserve the truth about everything? Absolutely. This child deserves to have my love and Deacon's love. I don't know what that looks like yet and I think it would be unfair for me to marry you with an unclear picture in my head. I can't say that I don't want to go back to him." Rayna was open and honest with him about what she was feeling.
"Rayna, please don't do this. We are getting married tomorrow. I've always known that I love you more than you love me and that's ok. If you want Deacon to be a part of this child's life we can work that out. He can have visitation or something. We both know that I'm better for you and for the baby. He's had every chance to make this right with you, but he hasn't. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again expecting a different result." Teddy took another drink from the whiskey bottle.
Rayna gave him a derisive snort. "You're right about that. You want to prove to me that you better for me than Deacon is, but you're handling this the way he would."
"Oh, come on, there's a difference between me having a drink now and him drinking all the time. Rayna, the only thing he's going to do is hurt and disappoint you like always. I can't believe you'd want to risk him doing that to a baby. At least if you married me this baby would have one father it could always count on no matter what." Teddy argued with her.
"My head is telling me that I should marry you, but my heart is saying something different. As long as the two of them are battling it out I don't think I can be with either one of you." Rayna admitted.
"Please don't do this to us. I love you even if you say you don't love me I know that you can in time." Teddy pleaded with her.
"Teddy, I don't see how I can marry you. I can't bring a baby into the world with this much confusion." A tear fell down Rayna's cheek.
"Just give me a chance to change your mind." Teddy begged her.
Rayna sighed and ran her hands over her face. "You can talk and I'll listen. I can't promise you anything more than that right now."
The sun shone down on the water making it sparkle. The light spilled through the gauzy white curtains that were on the windows. Deacon rubbed his eyes and blinked to bring everything back into focus. He'd told Rayna that those curtains were a bad idea that they would get blasted with the sun. She hadn't listened to him like usual. Apparently, that wasn't his problem anymore.
He'd put it all on the line to tell her how he felt about her and she hadn't left with him. That spoke volumes more to him than any words could. He hadn't moved from the couch since he got there. He'd been staring at a bottle of whiskey all night. More than once he'd wanted to pick it up, but he stopped himself. He may not have had Rayna anymore, but he did have a child on the way.
He was already going to have to fight to be a part of his child's life. He wasn't going to do anything to make that any worse. Everyone had known about this baby before he had. That didn't bode well for his chances of getting to be a major part of its life. He'd be damned if he was just going to sit back and let Teddy Conrad raise his child though. He was going to fight with everything he had in him to make sure he got to be a daddy.
He was so engrossed in his staring contest with the bottle of Jack that he didn't notice the door to the cabin open. He only looked up when he noticed a figure out of the corner of his eye.
"Tell me that you didn't actually drink that. Tell me you've just been looking at that bottle all night. I swear to God, Deacon. I will put you right back in rehab if you so much as sniffed that whiskey." Rayna had her hands on her hips.
"What are you doin' here, Ray? I think you said everything you needed to say when you didn't walk out of that church with me last night. I'm not your problem anymore." Deacon grumbled.
"Did you drink that?" Rayna ignored his question.
"No, I didn't drink it. I wanted to. I wanted to so badly. I knew I'd never get a chance to be a father if I did. One more drink wasn't worth losin' my baby. I obviously already lost you." Deacon looked up at her with the saddest eyes she'd ever seen.
"Don't be an idiot, Deac. If you'd lost me I wouldn't be here right now. I would be back at the house getting ready to go through with the wedding I just called off. Teddy begged and pleaded with me all night not to call things off with him. I couldn't go through with it. I didn't want to spend the rest of my life being miserable. He may have everything going for him, but he's not you and that's the only thing that matters to me." Rayna stared him down.
"You mean it? You're not gettin' married?" Deacon's eyes shone with joy and unshed tears.
"It wouldn't be fair to anyone involved if I did. I know as sure as I know my own name that this baby is yours. It wouldn't be fair to it, you, me, or even Teddy if I married him. I don't want to raise this baby up with him I want to raise it up with you. You're on your absolute last chance and I need you to know that now. If you slip again I really won't be there waiting for you this time." Rayna laid down the law.
"I promise you that I'm gonna do everythin' in my power to say sober." He swore to her.
To prove his point, he picked the bottle of whiskey up from the table and poured it down the kitchen sink. He needed her and his child more than he needed a drink.
She watched him intently. "I'm proud of you. I was so afraid when you weren't at our house I was gonna come up here and find you drunk and tearing the place up. That's what happened the last time I came up here to talk to you. You have no idea how relieved I am that I found you sober."
"What happens now?" He slipped his hands into the back pockets of his jeans.
"I don't know what happens now. I just want to live right here in this moment if that's ok with you." She shrugged her shoulders.
"That's more than ok with me." He opened his arms to her and crossed the floor in long strides. He took her into his arms and kissed her deeply. He was grateful that he was still able to do that. She was really still his.
Rayna pulled away from him and stared into his eyes. "I just spent all night convincing Teddy that I wasn't going to take you back. I was lying to myself as much as I was to him when I said that."
"I thought you just said you wanted to live in the moment." Deacon looked at her confused.
"I think you and I both know that the minute you prove to me that you're serious about your sobriety and being a father to this baby I'll take you back. That's the problem I'll always take you back. You've gotta stay clean this time though, all that back and forth can't happen with a baby." Rayna stared into his eyes.
"I don't want to be to this baby what my old man was to me and I don't wanna make you my momma." Deacon's eyes filled with tears.
"I know that. And that's why I think rehab has never really worked for you. It addresses the drinking, but not the reason you drink. I think that we need to get you into therapy. I know that you hate the idea and before this I would have never tried to push it on you, but we created a life together that's more important than both of us. It's not just about what we want anymore." Rayna rubbed his biceps.
Deacon bit his bottom lip nervously. "Is that a condition of gettin' you back or me gettin' to be a daddy?"
"No, I know better than to try to push you. I know that you wanna be a good daddy, so I know you'll do this on your own. You will be sober and stay sober for at least a year before I feel comfortable leaving this baby alone with you." Rayna put her foot down.
"I can handle that. I've already got some of that time down." Deacon couldn't fault her for her reservations.
"Other than that, we will play it by ear." Rayna nodded her head in agreement with him.
"Is there anythin' else?" Deacon hated like hell that she was dictating the terms of him getting to be a father, but he had caused this.
Rayna looked down at the floor and then looked up at him lustfully. "Take me to bed and have your way with me like it's the last time it's every gonna happen."
Deacon scooped her up in his arms and kissed her so hard it took her breath away. For a change he carried her upstairs to their bedroom and he kicked the door closed behind them.
A/N: Here is the first chapter. I hope you guys enjoy it. Until next time please review.