Notes: Title and summary taken from the song "You and Me" by You+Me (composed of Pink and Dallas Green.) This is a loose companion to "Clear," an earlier one-shot in this series, only this is from Haley's POV. This was written on the fly this afternoon so it's ramble-y and probably an incoherent mess. Anyway, hope you enjoy this short one-shot. (I took some slight liberties with canon.)

Summary: You and me were always with each other, Before we knew the other was ever there, You and me, we belong together, Just like a breath needs the air.

She was never one of those girls who dreamed of Prince Charming swooping in to save her.

(First, she could save herself thank you very much, and secondly, it just seemed so… pointless.)

Her home life was fairly chaotic growing up – with six older siblings and bohemian parents, it was often a madhouse. With much of her home life feeling out of her control so often, she could focus on the one thing completely in her control: her education. She wasn't going to waste her time dreaming of something that wouldn't be. So she studied and she tutored and she did extra credit and she studied and studied and studied…

Dates were few and far between, not for lack of options, but because she was too focused on her future. Graduate as valedictorian. Get into Stanford. Graduate with honors. Pursue career.

(And maybe a husband and children tossed in at some point, but that wasn't her priority. Not by a long shot.)

Oh sure, she would have occasional daydreams of a Hollywood hunk, or a cute boy in class, but she left the more fanciful imagings to her classmates, the whispered giggles and dramatic sighs over Sue's newest crush, or Jennifer's latest conquest, studiously ignored. It all seemed so silly, so… not her.

She had her future to worry about, she didn't have time for fantasies.

But every once in a while, in the deep of night when she was asleep and her mind was free of all the busy-ness of life, she dreamed of a man with eyes as blue as the summer sky, eyes saw everything she was and would be. She dreamed of hands that held her, that whispered over her skin, setting her nerves on fire. She dreamed of a love that that sent her soaring to heights she never dreamed possible.

And when she awoke those next mornings, she laid in bed a few extra minutes, remembering those dreams of a man she didn't know before tucking the dreams away, for another day, another time.

Then he walked into her life, and never was there a more inauspicious start to a love story.

It was more like he stomped into her life like an overgrown, pouting child, demanding that she tutor him. She didn't take well to his demands and promptly threw him out of the Tutoring Center, confident she wouldn't have to deal with him again.

But he came back, still demanding, still an overgrown child.

She threw him out again.

He came back once more, his tone softened somewhat, enough to throw her off her game so that before she knew it, she had agreed to tutor him.

They fought. They bickered. They rolled eyes and scoffed. She frequently wanted to strangle him and he frequently did everything he could to piss her off.

She also found herself wanting to kiss him and touch him and wanting him to kiss and touch her.

(That drove her nearly as crazy as when he would turn his summer sky blue eyes to her, and she felt like she had found something she didn't even know she was missing.)

Soon those occasional dreams with the faceless man turned into frequent dreams featuring him, and when she awoke in the mornings, rather than tucking them away, she held onto the dreams. Those dreams made her feel like maybe love wasn't meant for another day, another time.

Maybe now was that another day, another time.

Cliches become clichés for a reason. And they were the living embodiment of one.

Bickering turned into light flirting, light flirting turned into heavy flirting, heavy flirting turned into stolen kisses in the Tutoring Center.

(The stolen kisses turned into… well, she's a lady and she won't get into that right now.)

One day they were at each other's throats, seemingly the next day they were still at each other's throats, just in a more pleasurable way.

It felt like she blinked and the next thing she knew, she was in love, he was in love right back, and her carefully constructed plan of what comes next was thrown out the window the day he proposed in his apartment, rain beating against the windows echoing the pounding of their hearts.

Her wedding came before her senior year of high school. The girl who dreamed of Stanford, the girl whose only focus was school, was a bride at sixteen.

It was everything she never knew she wanted.

(However, it still makes her laugh to this day. Miss Tutor, Miss Schoolbook, married at sixteen.)

Life happened. From the mundane realities of high school—tests, homework, basketball, cheerleading practice—to the decidedly non-mundane—rock tours, babies, life-threatening accidents—life happened.

They graduated. After a hiccup or two, college happened. No Stanford for her, but Stanford hadn't been the dream since right about the time he walked into the Tutoring Center for the first time.

(Okay, so maybe shortly after because seriously, he drove her crazy at the beginning.)

After yet another hiccup or two, they were soon college graduates. He was going to the NBA, she was going to teach. They had their life planned out, it was going to be a smooth ride into adulthood.

And then a giant speedbump came along, upending all of their plans. But through it all, they remained at each other's side, fiercely devoted to one another and the family they were creating. But it was hard, it was so goddamn hard at times, and whenever she felt like giving up, he was there, reaching out a strong hand for her to clasp unto, steadying her along the way.

He was her anchor. She was his. And together they made a life for themselves, a life that she never dreamed could be so full of love.

Time marched on. Still, they remained as steadfast and as true as ever. When she looked back on her life, the time before him was hazy, like photographs worn and faded over time. As independent and strong-willed as she was, the girl who once swore that she might get married one day, if ever, seems like someone else.

That girl was not the woman who spent decades loving this man, the man who stood between her legs while she gave birth to their three children, the man who comforted her when her best friend died of a heart attack far too young, the man who, with one glance, sent her pulse racing and with one touch sent her heart soaring, the man who held her, loved her, cried with her, made love to her, slept by her, fed her, bathed her, cared for her.

The man who became so much a part of her she didn't know where she ended and he began.

That long-ago girl was a distant memory, someone so unlike the woman she became, she can barely recognize her.

When she is old and grey, when her eyes can't see as well or her hearing isn't quite what it used to be, when her skin is tissue-thin and crossed with the lines of a life well lived, and her grandchildren cuddle up to her and ask to hear their favorite story again and again, she will tell them of a young man and young woman who fell in love so quickly, so completely, that it felt like that love had always been there, a couple who lived and laughed and fought and celebrated and mourned and loved, oh how they loved, with a love that shone as bright as the sun.

And then she will reach for the hands she knows as well as her own, the hands that have held her, comforted her, caressed her, loved her, hands that are still strong even though time has left its marks.

And then she will look into the eyes that captured her heart oh so long ago, the same eyes that light up anytime she is near, the eyes that warm her soul.

And she will be reminded that their love has always been. As automatic as her next breath, as steadfast as the sun.

It is Haley and it is Nathan, one soul in two bodies. As it was, as it is, as it always will be.

fin