Seeing the small boy lying in that hospital bed struck a nerve with her, as it would have any other feeling person. Now as the word 'Aunt' slipped out of Haley's mouth, the images flooded back with even more emotion attached.
"I'll be there tomorrow...bright and early."
"No...call Nathan and find out when he's coming. You can go relieve him for a few hours. And please don't talk to Jamie about Lucas."
"Haley..."
"Me coming here is for Jamie and for Nathan. It isn't for me, and it sure as hell isn't for the two of you. This does not make everything okay. Nathan needs a break from all of this. It took too much away from him. So you coming in will help him."
"You need a break too."
"That's the brunt the mother bears, Peyton. You'll find that out soon enough, though I hope not in the same way that I've had to. I came here to get you to come to the hospital, but don't think that it's an invitation back in."
Peyton just nods as Haley looks into her eyes once more before settling on the rings she had been admiring before.
It was just before she stepped off the last step that she turned back, again not meeting Peyton's eyes, and with bitterness said, "I'm glad you got what you wished for."
The coldness and bite in the voice she had used caused such a start in Peyton, that it wasn't until Haley had gotten back into her car that she whispered, "We never wished this..."
Once Lucas had finally gotten home, he put his things down in the living room and made his way through the house and into their bedroom, where his wife was very obviously sleeping peacefully.
Since all was well there he moved into the kitchen to grab a bottle of water from the fridge. As he closed it, he glanced at the grocery list that was scribbled onto the magnetic pad placed next to a picture of the two of them in Charleston. The list contained the typical bread, butter, milk, but halfway down the list it said 'I love you' in Peyton's scrawl before going back to listing frozen peas and pasta. He smiled and took a sip of the cool water and then walked back into the bedroom to watch his wife sleep.
–
While They Were Away
–
She was sleeping again, which was odd for the night owl that was Peyton, but the day had been long and she needed the nap. In fact the week had been long, and she found herself waking up each night after hearing the door open from Lucas coming in from his part time newspaper job not realizing that she had fallen asleep.
That was where he found her that night, in bed.
"How was your day?"
"Pretty long."
"That why you're napping?"
"Yeah, it was just a long day, and crap! I didn't even get you any groceries for tonight. I wanted to go to the store, and I made the list, and then I fell asleep. I'm sorry baby."
"Give me the list, and I'll go." he says, getting up, "is it in the kitchen? I can grab-"
"NO!" she says and he steps back for a moment. "I mean, I can do it."
"Peyton, what's up? I can go, it's no big deal."
"Lucas, do me a favor?"
"Anything..."
"Just don't look at the grocery list until you get there..." she says, biting her bottom lip as she always did when she got nervous.
"What? Why?"
"Please?"
"Whatever you say...I'll be back in a bit." he says, grabbing the list and folding it into his pocket.
The second he was out of the house she felt sick to her stomach and ran to the bathroom.
Once he was finally at the grocery store he scanned the list, trying to figure out what his game plan was, always in that coach mentality. Bread. Milk. Lucky Charms. Chocolate Chip Cookies. Pregnancy Test. Cheerios. Frozen Peas. Wait.
"Pregnancy Test?" he said to himself and then it all clicked together.
He got all the groceries listed. Every single thing on the list has been purchased and he felt good. He had a moment in the grocery store when he mistakenly took a turn and ended up in an aisle with diapers and baby food. The moment was a scary one as he realized all that a baby needed, but then the moment was gone when he spied a soft basketball rattle next to something that looked like a plastic funnel that he didn't think he wanted to know about.
When he got home, he wanted to make sure that she knew that he was okay with this, but when he got to the bedroom, expecting to see Peyton still lounging in bed, he saw rumpled sheets and no Peyton. His ears caused him to turn down the hall though, to the bathroom, where he found her, on the floor with a glass of water sitting beside her and her pink tipped toes stretched out in front of her, lights out and a few candles lit.
"Yeah, I'm about 80% sure about this, but we'll take the test anyway." she says, reaching her hand up to get him to help her stand.
Neither says anything for a moment, worried that the other would say something that the other didn't want to hear.
"Well, either way, I'm about 70% nothing but excited about this whole thing and 30% scared shitless."
"Huh... I would have thought you to be more of a 60/40 kind of guy" she says back, allowing tears to finally come to her eyes after the past two days of freaking out by herself.
"Hey... where are these tears coming from?"
"Luke, I'm sorry. I didn't mean for this to happen, at least not so soon, and we're not ready for this, and I know that you don't want a baby right now, and maybe we should have-"
"Peyton!"
She stopped her rant and looked into his eyes, which were glimmering in the soft light of the candles lit in the bathroom. "If we are having a baby, I'm happy... I couldn't think of anything more amazing than that."
"Aside from a few jokes here and there we haven't even talked about having kids Luke, how can we ignore that fact?"
"Do you want kids?" he asks, starting the conversation that they were supposed to have before getting in this situation.
"Yes."
"How many?"
"I'd love two, but I could be open for more."
"Do you love me?"
"More than anything."
"Conversation had. I want the same things you want... I know that we have over used that phrase, but I do. If this is the everything we hinted at when we were just seniors, then I want it and you have been the only person that I've wanted it with."
"You and Lindsay never..."
"No. We had a scare one time, and I was petrified. Partly because I knew that she wasn't the one that was supposed to give me that. You know me though, the stubborn one... I couldn't bring myself to say that it was you all along."
"Well, you are quite stubborn, but I love you for it."
They stand there for a few moments in silence, him holding onto her in the doorway of the small bathroom. Nine months into their marriage and about to possibly face another rocky nine months of a child.
"So..."
"It's on the counter in the kitchen."
Five minutes later, they were parents.
–
Present Day
--
As Haley arrived back home, she was greeted by a very tired looking Nathan.
"What's wrong?" she asks, automatically assuming that something happened at the hospital.
"Nothing, I'm just tired, but I didn't want to sleep until you got home, I figured that you went to see them."
"I saw Peyton. Lucas wasn't there."
"...and?" he asks, hoping that she had made some progress with regards to letting back in her best friend and brother-in-law.
"She's going to try to start coming to the hospital to visit Jamie. I told her to keep Lucas out of this, and I don't want her to talk to Jamie about Lucas."
"Haley..."
"No, Nathan! The only reason why I'm doing this is because you need a break. You look exhausted and I know that it is all those hours practicing and then having to be at the hospital all the time."
"But what about you Haley!? You need a break too!" he starts to scream. "you haven't slept an entire night since everything happened, and I think that it would lift Jamie's spirits to see his Uncle again."
"No, he doesn't deserve to get another chance with Jamie. I can't risk him getting attached and leaving again. That isn't fair to Jamie."
"But what about not getting to ever see his Uncle again, Haley! Is that fair?! And what about Lucas. He doesn't even know, and he could never see him ali...." he stopped his rant before he could finish that sentence, noticing the way his wife's face had turned.
With a chilling silent whisper, she spoke, never tearing her eyes from his, "Don't you dare say those words Nathan Scott... don't you dare."
"Haley, we have to face it sometime."
"No. We've already done this once this year, I can't do this again."
–
While They Were Away
–
Exhaustion wasn't the word for what she had been feeling these past few months. In and out of the hospital nearly every day with a sick son was taking a toll on her. With Jamie, she hadn't been as tired, but she had also not been under that much stress either, so it made sense.
No matter how much Nathan and Brooke tried to keep Haley away from the hospital, she insisted on staying with her baby boy through all of the tests and treatments that he would endure. It didn't matter that she was seven months pregnant and tired. It didn't matter to Haley at all, but it was taking an unknown toll on her.
They were at home when she started having the contractions. It was all so different from when she had Jamie, but she thought that it was all okay. Jamie was still in the hospital and Nathan was out with Skills at the rivercourt, so she figured she would wait it out for a few to see if the contractions would subside.
A half hour later, her water broke and she called Nathan to get her to the hospital.
It all happened so fast. The intense cramping she was feeling, the blood she didn't think was supposed to be there.
Three hours later, at 7:19 PM, Elizabeth Scott was born.
She was never meant to be though, so just twenty minutes later, Haley and Nathan lost their second child, and Haley hadn't stopped blaming herself for the entire thing.
"Haley it just wasn't meant to be..."
"What did I do? My son has cancer...my daughter was gone before her first breath... What did I do to deserve this?"
"Nothing..."
They held each other for the longest time, needing the comfort found there, until the nurse from Oncology called down to say that Jamie was starting another round of chemo, and was asking for his mom and dad.
Before Nathan stepped away, he turned to his wife, "Do you want me to call Brooke?"
She nodded.
"What about Lucas?" he asked, knowing that it was a hard subject to break.
"Don't bother... he won't come..." she says, looking out the window of her room, "go take care of Jamie, and tell him I love him."
–
Present Day
--
The conversation they had led on well into the night, with Haley forced to face the memories from just a few months ago. The tears were shed, and the two parents, all energy spent fell into a deserved sleep in each other's arms. They felt like there was always tomorrow to fix everything again.
When Peyton woke up the next morning, the weight of his arm around her let her know that he had gotten home safely, so she smiled. Being about six months pregnant, she also had the realization that she had to hit the bathroom quite quickly and slipped out from under his arm.
"You are so breathtakingly beautiful Peyton Scott, do you know that?"
Most women brushed off that comment, automatically saying that they were a whale or refuting their significant others by mentioning the extra person creating an extra five pound on their rear. Peyton was not most women though, and Lucas Scott was not most men.
The two had that connection that no one could ever really understand, and their looks seemed to share conversations that none could decipher. The look on his face when he said those words told nothing but love, so all she could do was smile and crawl back into bed.
"How were all your meetings."
"They want to start talking about a book tour, but I told them that we would have to wait until you had the baby."
"How did that go over?"
"Aside from the wide eyes of Lindsay, I thought that most of them understood."
"Lucas! I thought you had told her everything...that isn't fair."
"I told her about us getting married, and I told her to keep our whereabouts unknown, but that was just a piece of information that I thought she didn't really need to know.... until they started telling me that I was going away for weeks at a time."
"Weeks?" she says, eyes going a bit wide with a frown forming on her face.
"Not so mad at me now, are you?" he says with a small chuckle.
She got quiet for a few moments, with the thought of him being away for so long not settling right with her. As she curled into him a little bit more, she sighed.
"What is going on in that head of yours Peyton?"
"With... everything... I just don't want you to leave. Can you just stay?"
"I wasn't planning on going anywhere, didn't you hear the first part of that conversation?"
Distracted still, she shook her head quickly, "I'm sorry... this pregnancy brain is just killing me. I can't keep anything straight anymore"
"Doctor said you were okay though, right? Everything with you and the baby is fine?"
"The move caused some stress, so I need to take it easy. I'm only going to work a few hours a day for a while... will that make you happy?" she asks, smiling up at his 'I told you so' face.
"Yes."
"Okay."
"Why don't you just work from here? You did it while we were in Charlotte..."
"I want to be in the studio with everyone, I miss that, and I feel like I need to be in that space again."
"Peyton... I can't lose you, you know that."
"Luke, you are NOT going to lose me."
A part of him knew that everything was going to work out, but another part of him was still holding on to the fact that there was the slightest bit of a problem. That part of him won out and made him cuddle his wife just a little bit closer that morning for a few more minutes.
–
I know that you guys are like ready to kill me for the lack of updates, and I'm totally sorry about that, so please don't kill me. Getting uber excited about One Tree Hill tomorrow night, but at the same time I'm feeling bittersweet about the whole thing. I know I get my way, but at the same time, my reason for the show is gone, and I know that there are going to be tears.... lots and lots of tears. So I'm getting the kleenex ready, and I am going to suck it up and watch, and cry... a lot.
Hopefully you enjoy this little chapter of drama from yours truly. Review, cause I love hearing from people!!
Thanks!