Only Been Four Months *1/1* (10th Jan)
Title: Only Been Four Months
Rating: T - to be safe.
Summary: It’s been four long months, and Haley doesn’t know how much more her heart can take. (A little insight into what be going on in Haley’s mind around the time of the first two episodes of Season 5).
Authors Note: I’m kind of mad at myself for writing this. I promised no more one-shots. Nothing new! But here we are. I actually opened up word to work on one of my WIP, but this is what came out! Big thanks to Andie and Lori for their support, and Lori for beta-ing and convincing me to post it.
She didn’t know if she’d ever get used to how big the bed was without him. He used to joke that as the smaller of the two of them she still managed to take up the most space, but she couldn’t see how that was possible now as she stared at the masses of unwrinkled sheets beside her. Climbing out of the bed she crept across the hall to her son’s bedroom, lifting him up and cradling him to her body, his trusting arms automatically reaching around her. All the while promising herself she wouldn’t do this again. It was the same promise she’d made herself every night for the past four months, but after hours of lying in the dark, staring at the ghosts of memories that danced around the room she’d break, and bring their son into bed with her. A memory of making that exact promise to Nathan mere months before rushed over her, he’d came home from an away game early to find Jamie curled up beside her in their bed, and asked how exactly they were meant to get him to stay in his own bed at night if she brought him in with her whenever he wasn’t there. She’d laughed and pouted, telling him she couldn’t sleep without one of her guys beside her.
“Mama?” Jamie questioned groggily as his body hit the bed, curling up on what was once her side, snuggling his head into her pillow.
“It’s okay baby, go to sleep.” She soothed, running her hands through his hair, it didn’t take long for his breathing to deepen, he was used to it by now, some nights he didn’t wake at all. She leant over kissing his forehead lightly, fighting back the sobs that lay thick in her throat. She used to do the same to Nathan, when he’d first come home from the hospital. Before she went to bed every night she’d ask him if he needed anything, before kissing him goodnight and making her way up to the loneliness that was their bed. It took about a month before he snapped, shouting that he wasn’t Jamie and she didn’t have to tuck him in at night. He was an invalid, he’d sneered, not a child, and she was his wife, not his mother. She’d been desperate to scream back, say if he was her wife why hadn’t he looked at her in weeks, touched her, kissed her, but she bit it back, apologising quietly. It had only been a month. He’d come around.
She remembered the night so vividly, leaving the bar on a high she’d hailed a cab, she’d hadn’t drank much, but she didn’t trust she was under the limit, and it wasn’t like they couldn’t afford the cab fair now. Her husband was going to be in the NBA - The NBA! She’d babbled on to the cab driver about how proud she was, how happy she was he was achieving his dream, their dream really, because somewhere along the line it had became hers too. The past four years she’d watched him work so hard to get where he was that day, and she’d supported him through it all, the highs, the lows, the doubts and fears. She wanted nothing more than for him to get what he’d always wanted. To play in the NBA, while she and their son watched proudly on, cheering along with the same unquestioning belief they’d done all through college. She remembered paying the sitter and checking on Jamie who was snuggled up to the Raven’s teddy bear he’d had since birth, and laughing at how he was still wearing the sweat band his Uncle Skills had bought him earlier that day. She’d been taking off the last of her make up when her cell phone rang, Lucas’ name prominent on the display. She answered jokingly stating she hadn’t left that long ago, and they couldn’t be so drunk already that they’d forgotten how to get the Limo to come back to get them when he’d cut her off. She didn’t remember much, just the words Nathan, accident, hospital. He’d kept on talking but she didn’t remember hearing a word as she shoved her feet into her sneakers, an out of place fleeting thought of how they didn’t match her sundress crossing her mind as she woke up Jamie, carrying him down to the car, buckling him into his booster seat and driving across town. To this day she wonders why she got in the car with her son after not trusting herself to drive home earlier, nothing happened to either of them but it still lingers on her mind, of all the things that happened that night she wonders why that haunts her so much.
She’d walked into the hospital, frazzled and confused, an equally so Jamie attached to her hip as she demanded to know what had happened to her husband, Lucas’ voice calling her from behind had her whipping around so fast the boy in her arms let out a startled cry of her name. She remembers shouting at Lucas to take Jamie, practically thrusting him out of her arms before she ran, falling down in tears outside of the hospital, and staying there for how long she doesn’t know, before she pulled herself together and made her way back inside. She hadn’t wanted Jamie seeing her that way - hadn’t wanted Nathan seeing her that way.
She’d sat in the family waiting room, Nathan having been rushed into surgery before she had the chance to see him, Jamie asleep in her lap. He’d asked where she’d gone when she came back, said Uncle Lucas had told him daddy was sick and that’s why they were there. She’d fought harder in that moment not to cry than she ever had before, and rocked him back and forth the way she had when he was just a baby, she’d promised him his dad was going to be just fine, not missing the look Lucas gave her over his head. A look that said you don’t know that, a look that said she shouldn’t lie to him. As she’d held her sleeping son in her lap her mind wandered. Had she told Nathan she loved him that day? She knows she’d said a lot of things about how proud she was, but had she said she loved him? Had he told Jamie so? What were they talking about before that shoe came out? She wished they’d taken their time the night before when they’d made love, savoured each others bodies instead of the frantic pace they had taken.
The next few weeks were hard, most of her time spent at the hospital while Nathan stared unresponsive out of a window. Occasionally she brought Jamie with her, on good days Nathan would at least try to react to their son, on bad days he didn’t seem to even register he was there. Any given day of the week he barely acknowledged her.
She thought once he came home it would be better, when they were together, the three of them, her family. They told him he’d walk again, he just had work for it, and she thought that being in their house, with their things, their son, their life. Her. That it would be enough incentive for him. That they’d be enough for him.
She’d watched his hair grow, seen it getting longer as the weeks passed. She’d offered to call someone out to the house to cut it. She’d offered to cut it herself when he’d simply glared at her and downed more drink from one of those damn bottles he was never without these days. They’d both had their worries he’d turn into his father over the years. It seems they should have been more scared he’d follow in Deb’s footsteps. She’d been driving past the hairdresser’s on her way to pick up Jamie from the boy’s apartment when the sudden urge to go in took over her, sitting down she told them simply told them to chop it off. Cut off her thick long hair that he’d once loved to run his fingers through, taunt him with hers the way he did her with his. She hadn’t expected it to look so good, not that it mattered, she could walk round the house naked and he wouldn’t notice, he only looked at her with blank eyes, and spoke with harsh cutting words. She tried to cling to the old adage of you hurt the ones you love the most, she tried so hard to remember those words as he seemed to forget he’d ever cared for her at all with each passing day.
She looked down at her son’s sleeping figure and smiled sadly. She loved him more than she ever thought she could love anyone, and the fact that he was a product of hers and Nathan’s love only made her love her husband more. She just hoped she was doing the best by both of them. Her biggest fear was that by being there, supporting Nathan with her physical presence if little else, she was harming her son. That seeing his father this way was hurting the most precious thing in her life.
He was a daddy’s boy through and through. His hero picked out the day he was born when he’d clasped tightly onto Nathan’s finger, their identical blue eyes locked on each other with the intensity she was sure a new born shouldn’t have been able to possess. From that moment on it had been two against one in her home, a fact she’d often complained about but always loved. God she missed it, the sound of them whispering behind her back, working out the best way to convince her it was okay to have pizza twice a week, or setting up a tickle attack which always ended in family pile up; her laid on Nathan, Jamie on top of her.
Tears welled in her eyes but she promised herself she wouldn’t cry, not again, not with Jamie next to her. He’d already seen one of his parents fall. She turned and buried her head into her pillow. His pillow. She slept on his side of the bed now, for a while she’d tried sleeping on hers, started by hugging his pillow to her, inhaling his scent, but it hadn’t been enough, and she found the little fitful sleep she did get came easier on his side of the bed, almost as though she could pretend his arms were still around her.
She could hear him moving around downstairs, knew he slept as little as she did, if not less. His slumber brought about by alcohol, hers by pure exhaustion. She used go down, even if he was ignoring her there was something comforting about just being his presence, she’d sit in a chair, watching him drink, and watch the draft over and over. After the first few nights he began taunting her, asking if she enjoyed watching him suffer. She’d tried to explain that she just wanted to be near him, that sleep didn’t come easily without him by her side and he’d just scoffed, said she was better off alone. She knew he hadn’t meant in bed, and it had taken everything in her not to launch herself at his sprawled out figure, to hit him, and scream, and cry, and beg him to take it back. To get him to say it wasn’t true, he didn’t think that, he knew she needed him the way he knew he needed her. Needed him to say he needed her. Instead she’d said nothing, turning and walking back upstairs, crying in her bathroom with the sink running, reminding herself he loved her, he did. He just needed time.
She knew he was hurting, hated it so much it physically pained her to watch, but she didn’t know how much more she could take it. She wanted to make it better for him, wanted to love him enough that it didn’t matter if he wasn’t happy with himself right now, she cared enough for both of them, but it was getting hard. So much harder than she ever thought it would. She’d promised for better or worse, and she’d meant those words with all her heart when she said them. She just didn’t realise how bad worse could be. Didn’t realise how much her heart could ache for him when he was right in front of her.
She took Jamie in her arms and closed her eyes tight as she heard a crash downstairs, followed by a frustrated yell, and she hummed softly into her thankfully slumbering son’s ear. Yes, he was hurting, but so was she, and so was their boy. They were all grieving the life and dream they lost, but unlike him, she and their son were moving forward with the life they had, a life she didn’t want to live without him. She just didn’t know how much she had left to give. He already had her heart, and as he destroyed his own he was taking hers down with him. He was taking them all down with him.
Rating: T - to be safe.
Summary: It’s been four long months, and Haley doesn’t know how much more her heart can take. (A little insight into what be going on in Haley’s mind around the time of the first two episodes of Season 5).
Authors Note: I’m kind of mad at myself for writing this. I promised no more one-shots. Nothing new! But here we are. I actually opened up word to work on one of my WIP, but this is what came out! Big thanks to Andie and Lori for their support, and Lori for beta-ing and convincing me to post it.
She didn’t know if she’d ever get used to how big the bed was without him. He used to joke that as the smaller of the two of them she still managed to take up the most space, but she couldn’t see how that was possible now as she stared at the masses of unwrinkled sheets beside her. Climbing out of the bed she crept across the hall to her son’s bedroom, lifting him up and cradling him to her body, his trusting arms automatically reaching around her. All the while promising herself she wouldn’t do this again. It was the same promise she’d made herself every night for the past four months, but after hours of lying in the dark, staring at the ghosts of memories that danced around the room she’d break, and bring their son into bed with her. A memory of making that exact promise to Nathan mere months before rushed over her, he’d came home from an away game early to find Jamie curled up beside her in their bed, and asked how exactly they were meant to get him to stay in his own bed at night if she brought him in with her whenever he wasn’t there. She’d laughed and pouted, telling him she couldn’t sleep without one of her guys beside her.
“Mama?” Jamie questioned groggily as his body hit the bed, curling up on what was once her side, snuggling his head into her pillow.
“It’s okay baby, go to sleep.” She soothed, running her hands through his hair, it didn’t take long for his breathing to deepen, he was used to it by now, some nights he didn’t wake at all. She leant over kissing his forehead lightly, fighting back the sobs that lay thick in her throat. She used to do the same to Nathan, when he’d first come home from the hospital. Before she went to bed every night she’d ask him if he needed anything, before kissing him goodnight and making her way up to the loneliness that was their bed. It took about a month before he snapped, shouting that he wasn’t Jamie and she didn’t have to tuck him in at night. He was an invalid, he’d sneered, not a child, and she was his wife, not his mother. She’d been desperate to scream back, say if he was her wife why hadn’t he looked at her in weeks, touched her, kissed her, but she bit it back, apologising quietly. It had only been a month. He’d come around.
She remembered the night so vividly, leaving the bar on a high she’d hailed a cab, she’d hadn’t drank much, but she didn’t trust she was under the limit, and it wasn’t like they couldn’t afford the cab fair now. Her husband was going to be in the NBA - The NBA! She’d babbled on to the cab driver about how proud she was, how happy she was he was achieving his dream, their dream really, because somewhere along the line it had became hers too. The past four years she’d watched him work so hard to get where he was that day, and she’d supported him through it all, the highs, the lows, the doubts and fears. She wanted nothing more than for him to get what he’d always wanted. To play in the NBA, while she and their son watched proudly on, cheering along with the same unquestioning belief they’d done all through college. She remembered paying the sitter and checking on Jamie who was snuggled up to the Raven’s teddy bear he’d had since birth, and laughing at how he was still wearing the sweat band his Uncle Skills had bought him earlier that day. She’d been taking off the last of her make up when her cell phone rang, Lucas’ name prominent on the display. She answered jokingly stating she hadn’t left that long ago, and they couldn’t be so drunk already that they’d forgotten how to get the Limo to come back to get them when he’d cut her off. She didn’t remember much, just the words Nathan, accident, hospital. He’d kept on talking but she didn’t remember hearing a word as she shoved her feet into her sneakers, an out of place fleeting thought of how they didn’t match her sundress crossing her mind as she woke up Jamie, carrying him down to the car, buckling him into his booster seat and driving across town. To this day she wonders why she got in the car with her son after not trusting herself to drive home earlier, nothing happened to either of them but it still lingers on her mind, of all the things that happened that night she wonders why that haunts her so much.
She’d walked into the hospital, frazzled and confused, an equally so Jamie attached to her hip as she demanded to know what had happened to her husband, Lucas’ voice calling her from behind had her whipping around so fast the boy in her arms let out a startled cry of her name. She remembers shouting at Lucas to take Jamie, practically thrusting him out of her arms before she ran, falling down in tears outside of the hospital, and staying there for how long she doesn’t know, before she pulled herself together and made her way back inside. She hadn’t wanted Jamie seeing her that way - hadn’t wanted Nathan seeing her that way.
She’d sat in the family waiting room, Nathan having been rushed into surgery before she had the chance to see him, Jamie asleep in her lap. He’d asked where she’d gone when she came back, said Uncle Lucas had told him daddy was sick and that’s why they were there. She’d fought harder in that moment not to cry than she ever had before, and rocked him back and forth the way she had when he was just a baby, she’d promised him his dad was going to be just fine, not missing the look Lucas gave her over his head. A look that said you don’t know that, a look that said she shouldn’t lie to him. As she’d held her sleeping son in her lap her mind wandered. Had she told Nathan she loved him that day? She knows she’d said a lot of things about how proud she was, but had she said she loved him? Had he told Jamie so? What were they talking about before that shoe came out? She wished they’d taken their time the night before when they’d made love, savoured each others bodies instead of the frantic pace they had taken.
The next few weeks were hard, most of her time spent at the hospital while Nathan stared unresponsive out of a window. Occasionally she brought Jamie with her, on good days Nathan would at least try to react to their son, on bad days he didn’t seem to even register he was there. Any given day of the week he barely acknowledged her.
She thought once he came home it would be better, when they were together, the three of them, her family. They told him he’d walk again, he just had work for it, and she thought that being in their house, with their things, their son, their life. Her. That it would be enough incentive for him. That they’d be enough for him.
She’d watched his hair grow, seen it getting longer as the weeks passed. She’d offered to call someone out to the house to cut it. She’d offered to cut it herself when he’d simply glared at her and downed more drink from one of those damn bottles he was never without these days. They’d both had their worries he’d turn into his father over the years. It seems they should have been more scared he’d follow in Deb’s footsteps. She’d been driving past the hairdresser’s on her way to pick up Jamie from the boy’s apartment when the sudden urge to go in took over her, sitting down she told them simply told them to chop it off. Cut off her thick long hair that he’d once loved to run his fingers through, taunt him with hers the way he did her with his. She hadn’t expected it to look so good, not that it mattered, she could walk round the house naked and he wouldn’t notice, he only looked at her with blank eyes, and spoke with harsh cutting words. She tried to cling to the old adage of you hurt the ones you love the most, she tried so hard to remember those words as he seemed to forget he’d ever cared for her at all with each passing day.
She looked down at her son’s sleeping figure and smiled sadly. She loved him more than she ever thought she could love anyone, and the fact that he was a product of hers and Nathan’s love only made her love her husband more. She just hoped she was doing the best by both of them. Her biggest fear was that by being there, supporting Nathan with her physical presence if little else, she was harming her son. That seeing his father this way was hurting the most precious thing in her life.
He was a daddy’s boy through and through. His hero picked out the day he was born when he’d clasped tightly onto Nathan’s finger, their identical blue eyes locked on each other with the intensity she was sure a new born shouldn’t have been able to possess. From that moment on it had been two against one in her home, a fact she’d often complained about but always loved. God she missed it, the sound of them whispering behind her back, working out the best way to convince her it was okay to have pizza twice a week, or setting up a tickle attack which always ended in family pile up; her laid on Nathan, Jamie on top of her.
Tears welled in her eyes but she promised herself she wouldn’t cry, not again, not with Jamie next to her. He’d already seen one of his parents fall. She turned and buried her head into her pillow. His pillow. She slept on his side of the bed now, for a while she’d tried sleeping on hers, started by hugging his pillow to her, inhaling his scent, but it hadn’t been enough, and she found the little fitful sleep she did get came easier on his side of the bed, almost as though she could pretend his arms were still around her.
She could hear him moving around downstairs, knew he slept as little as she did, if not less. His slumber brought about by alcohol, hers by pure exhaustion. She used go down, even if he was ignoring her there was something comforting about just being his presence, she’d sit in a chair, watching him drink, and watch the draft over and over. After the first few nights he began taunting her, asking if she enjoyed watching him suffer. She’d tried to explain that she just wanted to be near him, that sleep didn’t come easily without him by her side and he’d just scoffed, said she was better off alone. She knew he hadn’t meant in bed, and it had taken everything in her not to launch herself at his sprawled out figure, to hit him, and scream, and cry, and beg him to take it back. To get him to say it wasn’t true, he didn’t think that, he knew she needed him the way he knew he needed her. Needed him to say he needed her. Instead she’d said nothing, turning and walking back upstairs, crying in her bathroom with the sink running, reminding herself he loved her, he did. He just needed time.
She knew he was hurting, hated it so much it physically pained her to watch, but she didn’t know how much more she could take it. She wanted to make it better for him, wanted to love him enough that it didn’t matter if he wasn’t happy with himself right now, she cared enough for both of them, but it was getting hard. So much harder than she ever thought it would. She’d promised for better or worse, and she’d meant those words with all her heart when she said them. She just didn’t realise how bad worse could be. Didn’t realise how much her heart could ache for him when he was right in front of her.
She took Jamie in her arms and closed her eyes tight as she heard a crash downstairs, followed by a frustrated yell, and she hummed softly into her thankfully slumbering son’s ear. Yes, he was hurting, but so was she, and so was their boy. They were all grieving the life and dream they lost, but unlike him, she and their son were moving forward with the life they had, a life she didn’t want to live without him. She just didn’t know how much she had left to give. He already had her heart, and as he destroyed his own he was taking hers down with him. He was taking them all down with him.