"I'll come back after supper," Lucas said, leaning down and kissing Haley on the cheek.

She used her knuckles to straighten her upper body on the bed. "OK," she said, so thankful to have Lucas' friendship back. Granted, it had taken this horrible accident to make it happen, but if something good was going to come out of it, this was definitely it.

He gave her a wave as he left her room just as her parents were walking in. "How's my girl?" her dad asked as he, too, leaned down and placed a kiss on her cheek.

"I'm…OK," she said hesitantly.

Her father grinned at her. "Would it make you feel better if I told you we got you some contraband?" he asked as he pulled a McDonalds bag out from behind his back.

Haley's eyes instantly filled tears as her mind swam with visions of golden arches. She choked on a sob.

"Honey?" her mother asked expectantly, immediately coming to her side.

"Where is he mom?" she asked as she began to cry.

"Lucas?" her mother asked, puzzled.

"Nathan!" she wailed. "I've been here for two days and he hasn't come to see me yet!" she said.

"I'm not sure why he hasn't been here," Lydia said evasively.

"Just tell me, Mom!" Haley ordered.

"Tell you what?"

Haley began crying hysterically and put her face in her hands. "He's…dead. Isn't he?" she said in a whisper, her voice breaking and tears soaking her cheeks. "And you're too afraid to tell me!"

"Oh, honey!" her mother said, sitting down beside her on the bed and wrapping her arms around her. "Is that what you think?"

"Why else wouldn't he be here?" she asked, clinging to her mother.

"Honey, Nathan is just fine." Physically, she thought to herself.

"He is?" Haley asked hopefully, pulling away so she could see her mother's face.

"Of course he is!" her mother said emphatically.

"Then where is he?" she asked again.

Her mother sighed. "Haley, I don't want to upset you."

"Mom! Look at me! I think it's a little too late for that! What is going on?"

"I can't be certain," Lydia began, "because I wasn't in the room when it happened."

"When what happened?" Haley asked, her impatience growing.

"Nathan came to visit you after you got out of your surgery."

"He did?" She sighed in relief.

Her mother nodded. "And Lucas was in here."

Haley nodded, urging her mother to continue.

"And I think there was an exchange of words. But I can't be sure what was said."

"Well, did he come back at all after that?" Haley asked.

Her mother shook her head. "He hasn't been back since."

"Well…maybe he's mad at whatever Lucas said, but he wouldn't be mad at me! I don't…I don't understand. Nathan would never not come to see me because of Lucas."

Her mother shrugged her shoulders. "I don't know, Honey."

Later that night, after her parents left, Haley picked up the phone to call Nathan.

777

Nathan looked at the screen on his cell phone and noticed the first three digits were from the hospital. He hit the ignore button so it would go immediately to voice mail and then sighed, throwing his arm up so his forearm covered his eyes. The last time you saw her, you almost killed her! ran through his head again and again, just as they had for the last two days.

He rolled up onto his side and stared at the wall, waiting for his phone to beep indicating a voice message. When it did, he hit number one on the speed dial and waited to hear Haley's message. "Hey." Her voice came softly and uncertainly to his ear and then he heard her sigh. "Mom told me that you're fine, but…I really need to see you for myself, Nathan. Not because I think that she'd lie to me, but…I just need to see you. I haven't talked to Lucas yet, but Mom thinks that he might have said something to you when you came to see me." He heard her choke on a sob. "If he said something he shouldn't have…well, I'm sorry. But please don't let him stop you from seeing me, Nathan. He never has been able to before." He heard her hang up and then clicked the off button on his phone and closed his eyes, trying for the sleep that had been evading him for the last two days.

777

"Hey," Lucas said when he walked into Haley's room later that night.

"Hey," she said tentatively, using the remote to turn off the television.

"Everything OK?" he asked as he sat down on the chair next to her bed.

"I…think…so," she said, studying his face.

"What do you mean 'you think so?'?" Lucas asked.

Haley took a deep breath and ran her hands through her hair. "Did you…say something to Nathan, Lucas?"

Lucas sighed and his eyes grew steely. "That guy has a big mouth," he said instead of answering her.

"For your information, I haven't seen Nathan or even talked to him since I woke up. You don't happen to know why, do you?" she asked, feeling for the first time like her mother was right on the money. Even when she'd left that message on Nathan's voicemail, she'd been hoping she was wrong.

He sat there, his eyes moving around the room, looking at anything but her.

"Lucas?" she asked, her voice rising.

"I might've said something to him that was a little offensive," he admitted.

"Well, tell me what you said so we can get this cleared up," she insisted.

Lucas sighed. "I might've told him that it was his fault that you almost died."

"What?" Haley asked shrilly.

"Hales," Lucas said. "You need to calm down." He stood up and looked down at her as she used her hands to try and straighten herself, her movements awkward with the help of only one leg. "You're getting yourself worked up over nothing!"

"Over nothing!" Haley cried in disbelief. She looked at him as if seeing him for the first time. "Not over nothing, Lucas! Over your brother!"

Lucas opened his mouth, but Haley held a hand up.

"I know, I know. He's not your brother and all that…junk," she said, waving her hand dismissively. "Except here's the thing, Luke. He is your brother. He shares your father, and he shares your last name."

Lucas scoffed.

"But that's it, isn't it? You really don't share anything else, do you? Because from what I've seen of Nathan—he's a decent guy. He's a good guy. The kind of person…I thought you were. It's so ironic, Luke. All of the things you told me you hate about him," she shook her head, her eyes filling with tears. "I haven't seen them. In him. I've only seen them in you," she whispered.

"Well, all I can say, Haley…is wait. You'll see them sooner or later."

"Or maybe I won't. Because maybe the Nathan you've created in your warped, 'I've gotten the short end of the stick' mind…doesn't exist," she said cuttingly.

"Hales…" Lucas said.

She shook her head again. "And to think, I was so desperate to have you back in my life, Lucas. Here I was missing you like crazy while you were hooking up with Brooke Davis and taking on that whole jerk-jock lifestyle you've claimed to have despised your entire life."

"That's not what I'm doing," Lucas said.

"Well, that's what it looks like," Haley said, lifting her chin defiantly. "You can go, Luke," she told him. "Because contrary to what I thought, I don't need you. "

"Hales—"

"Open your eyes, Lucas! You have played right into Dan Scott's hands! For the last seventeen years, his entire life has been trying to create a rivalry between his two sons, and he's succeeded. Because you've acted just like a puppet on a string!"

Lucas laughed, but there wasn't an ounce of humor in it. "Wow," he said quietly. "Tell me how you really feel."

She turned her television back on by way of dismissal. Lucas stood there for a moment, staring at her, waiting for her to look up at him, but she refused to. After a few minutes, he left.

777

When Lucas finally exited the room, Haley shut the television off again and fell backwards onto her pillows, covering her eyes with her hands as she began to sob.

777

Haley was wide awake at midnight when a movement by the door caught her eye. The drowsiness this morphine was causing was really messing with her internal clock. Assuming it was the nurse coming to check her IV again, she continued reading her Anatomy & Physiology textbook until she felt her bed move.

"Hey."

"Nathan!" she said, her eyes flying to his face as he sat down next to her. She dropped her textbook into her lap and threw her arms around him, the crying starting all over again. "I didn't think you were gonna come."

"I wasn't going to," he admitted quietly, stroking her hair with one hand, the other around her waist.

"Why changed your mind?" she asked, pulling away from him.

Nathan shrugged. "The same thing that always changes my mind about you, Haley James. I couldn't stay away."

Haley nodded. "You're really OK?" she asked looking him up and down.

He nodded as he reached out and tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear. "Much better that you," he said tenderly.

"Well, suddenly I'm feeling much improved since you've arrived."

He grinned at her, taking her face in his hands and giving her a soft kiss on the lips. "You're color has returned rather quickly," he teased.

She laughed, and then her expression sobered. "Lucas told me what he said."

Nathan nodded. "Yeah," he said quietly.

"You know it's not true, right?" she asked.

"I do now," he said. "But I have to admit, I felt so guilty anyway, and that just added to it."

"You shouldn't feel guilty, Nathan," she said fervently. "It was an accident."

"I know it was," he agreed.

"I can't…" she sighed. "I am so sorry that you had to hear him say that, Nathan. Lucas is…practically unrecognizable to me now. I don't even know what I ever saw in him."

Nathan studied her face. "I'm sure there were lots of things you liked about him," he told her.

"Well right now, not one springs to mind. I am so angry at him for what he said. He had no right—"

"Haley," Nathan said firmly to get her to stop talking.

Her eyes met his. "Yeah?"

"Give the guy a break."

"What?" Haley asked, not sure if she heard him right.

"You almost died coming out of a surgery from a car accident where I was driving, Hales. I…I can't even imagine how I would have acted if this had been the other way around."

"With much more dignity, I'm sure!" she said, defending him.

"Well, I'm not so sure," he said. "Your faith in me might be misplaced in this case, because I'm telling you right now, that if our positions had been reversed, I would have had a hell of a lot more to say than what he did."

"Nathan—"

"Haley, I almost just lost you," Nathan said gruffly, his eyes glistening with tears that he blinked back. "Let's save this topic for another time. For now, I just want to be here with you...knowing that you're OK," he said, taking her hand.

Haley nodded as she swallowed past the lump in her throat.