Disclaimer: As much as it pains me, I own nothing. One Tree Hill, and it's characters and it's storylines are only mine in my dreams.

Author's Note: Any feedback on the story is very and truly appreciated. But know, I don't comment on coupling. My goal isthat you like the story enough that it doesn't really matter who is with who. I hope that this doens't lose me readers, but if so...I guess it can't be helped.

Daddy Overnight

An OTH Fan Fic

By AlexB

One

In through the nose, out through the mouth. In. Out. In. Out. Up. Down. Up. Down. The music was so loud he couldn't hear the phone ringing in the back ground. His eyes saw nothing. All he could do was feel. The coolness of the bar as it hit his chest. He strain in his arms as he pushed it away. The burning in his muscles, the rapid beat of his heart. The sweat dotting his face, soaking his shirt, seeping on to the bench under him.

Ten more.

Ten? Is that all you can do? If I wanted a daughter I would have had one.

Screw you.

The words ground out in his mind. He mouthed the words with his lips as he pushed out fifteen more in rapid succession, then set the bar on the rack behind him. It was the faint pounding on the door that finally got his attention. Guess the music only took out so much.

Sitting up on his workout bench, Nathan Scott rested his arms on his thighs. With his head hung low, he pulled in deep breath after deep breath. Then, taking the towel from the chair beside him, he wiped his face as he stood, moving toward the door.

"Yeah," he called when the pounding continued. "I'm coming."

The house was his. Paid in full. Nathan's first place if you didn't count the small apartment he lived in while he was in high school. His years in the NBA had treated him well. He would still be there if it hadn't been for a career ending injury.

"Shit." He kicked the thought out of his mind as he opened the door. Immediately he felt like closing it again. That's what he got for not looking through the peep hole.

That's what the hole in the door was made for.

"Are you not answering your phone?" The man said. "What if it was an emergency?"

"What do you want?"

"Do I need to have a reason to come see my son?"

Dan Scott. Tree Hill's resident basketball king. Old news compared to his son. Seeing as Nathan was the one who went all the way to the top and Dan had not. The man quit before he had his shot. And when he finally came to his senses it had been too late.

"What do you want?" he repeated.

"Came to see if you were alive."

"See?" Nathan opened the door wider resisting the urge to turn in a complete circle. It would piss the man off, he knew. That was the best part. But he didn't have time for a Dan Scott lecture. He had somewhere to be. He was just about to tell the man so when the door opened next door and a familiar woman stepped out.

Every time, Nathan thought to himself.

Every time he saw her it was like seeing her for the first time. He steeled himself for it, but she always seemed to take his breath away. Even when she was dressed in something as simple as jeans and a T-shirt. The woman was beyond beautiful.

Stunning.

Absolutely gorgeous.

Nathan watched her as she walked. Her hair was a burnt gold color with a kind of red tint to it when the sunlight bounced off its strands. Sundown had become his favorite time of the day. Especially when he was lucky enough to catch his neighbor out in the sun's rays. The curly strands fell down to the middle of her back. Was it soft to the touch? He could only wonder as the mass slid against her shoulders, moving with her as she walked to her truck.

Yeah, a truck.

Not one of those girly VW Bug deals. Her mode of transportation was one more thing that was seriously, seriously hot about her.

"O-ho." The elder Scott chuckled. "Nice."

He shot his father a look. One that Dan didn't catch because he was too busy with his tongue hanging out his head.

It shouldn't have bothered Nathan that his father was watching her too, but it did. It bothered him a whole hell of a lot. It wasn't like the guy was a married man anymore. His mother had taken care of that a long time ago. Not that the man had cared. He was free to do whatever he pleased now. Long as it had nothing to do with him, Nathan was content to let his father be. Things would be so much easier if his dad would return the favor.

-

"It's about time you showed up."

"Got caught up." Nathan explained. "Had a little something to take care of." Slipping into the empty stool at the bar, Nathan motioned to the blonde woman behind the bar.

Peyton Sawyer. She had been his girlfriend back in high school. She the cheerleader to Nathan's the jock. The relationship was destined. Not that it lasted very long. They didn't love each other. They didn't know what it meant. Nathan hadn't cared about it then. He still didn't now. It was amazing really how he and Peyton had still remained friends.

She and Jake Jagielski, another friend from high school, owned Jeyton. It sounded like the name of some hot spot club, but it was just a bar in Tree Hill. Nathan had a piece of the establishment, too. But he was more of a silent partner. He was not only one third of the partnership, he was the tie breaker. Being the deciding vote was like being the third wheel in a complicated marriage.

The bar was a hit from the day it opened. Jeyton was where you came for good friends, great beer, awesome wings, live music on the weekends and every other Wednesday, and sports until last call. If Jake had TV control. If not, you only had to ask Peyton really, really nicely.

"Excuse me?" Soft, feminine voice cooed behind him. Nathan looked over his shoulder into the face of a blonde haired, blue eyed siren. "Are you, Nathan Scott?" She asked with a smile. He heard Tim groan behind him and he smiled.

"Yeah. I'm Nathan Scott." He swiveled around on his stool, holding out his hand.

"I knew it." The woman smiled bigger. Dimples winked on either side of her mouth. "My friends and I," she pointed to the table of equally attractive women on the other side of the room. Nathan nodded their way with the crooked smile was so known for. Two of the ladies nodded back, the other raised a come-hither brow. "We had a bet." The woman in front of him continued.

Turned back to the woman. "A bet?"

"Yeah." She went on. "They didn't think that it was you, and I was certain. So, they dared me to come over here see if you really were in fact the Nathan Scott. And if you were, I'm supposed to get you autograph."

"You want my autograph?" The way she was looking at him told him that his woman wanted more than his autograph. It wouldn't be the first time that he was given an unspoken offer. And as much as he would have been tempted a couple years back, he was more discriminate now.

"If it wouldn't be too much." The smile gave him had Nathan searching his pockets. "I don't have anything to write with." He looked at the woman expectantly, and she looked back a faint pout on her lips.

"Here you go, Nate-man." No smart person in the world would call Tim Smith reliable, but he always managed to somehow come through in a pinch. "Okay, now you got something for me to write on?"

"This is the bet part." The woman explained. "I bet my friends over there that I could get you to autograph me."

Oh, man. This day was just looking up.

"Oh, please."

He ignored the comment grinned wider and stood. He was close enough to the woman that he could smell her perfume. She turned around lifted up her hair and asked, "Could you make it out to Cindy?"

Peyton's sniggering behind him had Nathan grinning to himself as he glanced the bartender's way. He signed the woman's neck, a first if you could believe that, with a short message, his name and his jersey number. As he retook his seat, both Nathan and Tim watched as the woman sauntered away.

"Cindy? Are you kidding me?" Peyton raised a slim brow her lips smiling. She had her curly blonde hair pulled atop her head with a pencil; arrant strands fell around her face. Her hazel eyes were filled with amusement. "You still attract 'em, Scott." She teased.

"What can I say?" Nathan shrugged winking at her.

The woman rolled her eyes. "Thank God for silicone?" She offered with a cheeky smirk. Setting Nathan's beer in front of him, Peyton gave his cheek a pat and went to wait on other patrons.

"You're still the luckiest guy I know when it comes to the opposite sex." Tim commented. Nathan couldn't remember a time in his life when Tim Smith wasn't present. The two of them had been best friends since kindergarten. He had fond memories of the both of them sitting in the Principal's office. Had even fonder memories of them flooding the girl's bathroom in the third grade. No one else had the guts to go in the girl's room. Nathan smiled at the memory.

"I'd say you're the lucky one." He nodded to the gold band on his friend's finger. "You married a good woman."

"Yeah. I did." Tim replied, smiling softly. "But just once, I would like a woman to throw herself at me. That would totally make my day."

"You sleep beside a beautiful woman every night," Nathan looked over at him. "And you're complaining about not having women throw themselves at you?"

"Am I hearing a little jealousy, Scott?" Tim raised his brows. "Is that envy I'm detecting? Weren't you the guy who said that you would never get married? That you weren't the marriage type?"

Nathan nodded. "And I still stand by my story. You're the one with 'home & hearth' tattooed on your ass. I'm happy being single. All I'm saying is that you don't have anything to complain about. Teresa is a beautiful, beautiful woman."

"That she is." Tim said wistfully. "That she is." Any other time, the sight of a guy going dumb over a woman would have made Nathan nauseous, but this was Tim. All he's ever wanted was Teresa. Now, he had her and Nathan couldn't be happier for his friend.

"So what kept you?"

"What?"

"Why are you late?" Tim asked again. "What was the thing that you had to take care of?"

"Dan stopped by." Nathan took a deep drink of his brown beverage, wiping the foam from his lip with his thumb. "The guy just doesn't know when to quit."

"What did he want this time?"

"What he's wanted since before I left for college. To be one big happy family with him and his other son." Nathan felt his fist clench. It took real effort for him to un-ball his fingers.

A brother. That was what Lucas Scott was by blood. They shared a father. Dan didn't admit to having another son until the day of graduation. Nathan knew. The whole damn town knew, but Dan thought that not talking about it made it not so. At least in his screwed world.

Lucas knew, too. And he was just as opposed to the big happy family with the three of them that Nathan was. So, if Dan wanted a Brady Bunch family where everyone was wanted, were everyone got along, then the man had better look somewhere else. He wasn't interested. He liked his life just the way that it was. It would be a cold day in hell before he was apart of anyone's happy family.

-

Nathan wasn't about to be pulled out of the best sleep he'd had in months. Burrowing deeper into his pillows, determined to hold on to his sleep just a little longer, he pulled at the stray pillow that was about to fall to the floor. Putting it over his head, he covered his ears.

It was morning. He didn't have to see the daylight to know it. He heard the birds in the tree outside his window. Why had he left the window open again? Didn't people in this cul-de-sac sleep? Was that a lawn mower? Three months in one place and Nathan still wasn't used to it.

Next chance he got, he was drugging the town's water supply with Niquil. Then they'd all sleep until noon on Saturday. That sleep that he so badly wanted to get back to was gone. He turned to lie on his back just as the clock at his bedside went off.

He'd set his clock? How tired was he when he went to bed last night? Have to been the walking dead to set the friggin' alarm clock for Saturday of all mornings. The throbbing in his knee was always the worst right when he woke up. Used to the pain, Nathan resisted the urge to massage it. It would stop, eventually. Pillowing his hands behind his head, he stared at nothing. He didn't have anything to do. He had to be at the bar to do inventory later.

Sitting up, he tossed his sheets away. It was too hot last night for heavy blankets.

Hence the open window. He shook his head with a smirk. Swinging his legs over the side of bed, he found himself looking down at his knee as he did every morning. The scars from his surgery were still there. Not as prominent as they used to be, but still there.

Stepping into his shorts, he pulled them up over his hips as he stood, then he dropped to the floor, cranking out push-ups until his arms started to get tired.

He wasn't out of the shower two minutes before his phone started to ring. He was pulling an old Duke T-shirt over his head as he walked into the kitchen. The answering machine had picked up before he could get to it.

"Nathan?"

He pulled his hand back from the phone slowly. Leaning into the counter behind him, he rubbed a hand over his eyes, down the sides of his face, then back up through his dark hair.

"Nathan, are you there?" The voice continued. "Please pick up."

He wouldn't. Nathan never did. It wasn't that he didn't want to talk to his mother. He just didn't know how. He never knew how to speak to his mom, actually. It only got worse with the two of them as the years wore on. He didn't talk to his mother unless he had to. He consoled himself with the fact that he didn't do it out of spite, or because he didn't love her.

For all the good that it did.

"You aren't home." Her voice sighed. "Or at least I hope you aren't, and not standing by the phone listening to me."

If she only knew how many times it was so.

She called him every morning. He never missed a message. He didn't erase them, or record over them. That said he had a soul, right? Nathan rubbed his knuckles over his chin. He'd forgotten to shave. Again.

"Okay. Well. I thought that I would try again and ask you to come to the house for dinner."

It was his turn to sigh this time. It hadn't the first time that his mother had asked him to come to her home for dinner either. And it hadn't the first time that Nathan chose not to show. He knew what his mom wanted and he couldn't give it to her.

"Nathan?" She said again.

He'd turned away from the phone. His hands were braced on the counter. His head hung, and his jaw was clenched so tight he was grinding his teeth. The sound echoed loud inside his head.

"I wish that you didn't feel the way that you do, Nathan. He loves you. We both do."

I don't wan to hear that, Nathan shouted in his head. He despised that word.

Love.

It didn't mean anything to him. It was just another word. You could find it in the dictionary between louver and love-bird. Some people believed in it. Nathan wasn't one of them. The way people threw that word around now, it was like people doing stupid things in the name of God.

"I won't stop trying." His mother said. "You're my son, Nathan. And I want you to be in my life. It's important to me. You never know when your time will be up, and I want to spend as much time as possible with the people that I love."

There it was, that word again. He looked back at the machine. He should pick up, at least to make sure that nothing was wrong. He didn't like the last words that came out of his mother's mouth.

You never know when your time will be up.

What did that mean? Was she sick? Before he could find out, his mother was speaking again.

"Were your family Nathan. He's your family."

"Last I checked, families weren't supposed to treat each other the way that we treat each another." Nathan said to no one.

"What are you going to do when you have children, Nathan? A wife and family of your own." He remembered his mother saying not so long before.

His answer? Nathan didn't plan to. He was too much of a bastard to be any woman's husband or any child's father. It was the Scott curse passed down from father to son within their family for generations.

"And the truth shall set you free." Nathan whispered. Wasn't that the saying? He wouldn't subject anyone to what was inside him. You could say that it all stopped with him.

"Okay." Said almost sadly over the line. Nathan balled his fist to keep from snatching up the phone receiver. He wanted to punch something. Himself. Really, really hard.

"I love you." His mother managed before she hung up.

-

He felt like shit. Nathan made sure not to let it show when he stepped into the bar. Last thing he needed was well meaning friends trying to help him with something he didn't feel like talking about.

"I didn't expect you to show up." Peyton said over her shoulder as he walked in. "What happened, you and Cindy didn't hit it off?"

They hadn't as a matter of fact. And contrary to what Peyton obviously believed, Nathan didn't leave with Cindy the night before. Cindy took it upon herself to follow him out. Nathan took it upon himself not to get caught up. He wasn't looking for a relationship and that's exactly what Cindy had on her mind. A one night stand wouldn't have been enough for her, and that was all that Nathan could give. Had he been interested. Five minutes of Dan talk with Tim the night before had killed what little of the good day he had after his father had made a visit.

"I let her down easy." Nathan smirked.

"You got shot down." Jake's laughter boomed from behind the bar. He was washing glasses; the smile on his face nearly reached his eyes.

"Come on, you know better than that, Jagielski." Nathan slipped into a seat on the bar. "You know I'm the guy who gives the turn down service."

"Yeah," the other man chuckled.

The three of them spent most of the day setting the bar up for the night. It was early yet, and the place wasn't set to open until lunch. Even then, things didn't pick up until the regulars came in after the end of the work day. They were sitting at one of the booths when the first customer came in. Jake went to tend bar, Peyton stayed with Nathan at the table.

"It would be great." She commented. "It's been a while since you guys got up there and did your thing."

"And it'll be longer." Nathan informed her. While Dan had been adamant that his son would play the game of basketball, Nathan's mother did what she could to make sure that Nathan wasn't all sports all the time. Which was why Nathan could play a mean piano. It wasn't often that he, Tim and Jake picked up their respective instruments and had some fun. But when they did, the men went all out.

"You're smiling." Peyton said. "Which means that you're thinking about it."

"A man smiles for many reasons." Nathan did his best impression of Jake. "What's not to smile about when you have a beautiful woman in your company?"

"Please." She muttered.

"You take real pleasure in wounding my pride." Nathan rubbed at his chest with his knuckles.

"Your pride is as hard as your head." Peyton pointed out. "Nothing could dent that thing." She glanced away from him saying, "Your mother called me this morning."

"Why?"

Peyton looked back at him. "For some reason she thinks that I can talk some sense into you."

"Leave it alone, Peyton." He warned her. He didn't like the fact that his mother was bringing in reinforcements. He didn't need anyone else giving their two cents about the matter.

"I wasn't about to say a thing." Peyton crossed her arms. "Only that you're an idiot."

"Dammit, Peyton." Nathan rubbed a hand over the back of his neck. History told him that she wasn't about to let this go. Especially when she thought that he was acting like a jack-ass. Which was damn near all the time.

"I don't think you have any idea how much your mother loves you. It's more than any of us get in a life time."

Shit. He hated that she was right. And Peyton spoke from experience. Her mother died when she was young. Peyton had never gotten over it no matter how hard she tired.

"I know how much my mother cares." Nathan said to her. "I don't want to hurt her, that's why I'm staying away."

"Wrong." Peyton shook her head. "You're hurting her by staying away. She doesn't have to say it to feel it. And neither do you. You're still angry with her. And him. My advice to you. Get over it. And quick. Love is love, and family is forever. Your life would be so much better with the both of them in it."

-

It was dark out. Nathan had called it an early night hours before. The light from the street lamps lit up his driveway. The air's cool breeze was heaven on Nathan's heated skin. He had been out in the drive shooting free-throws and playing against himself since sundown. He was so used to playing in his knee brace that he forgot that the thing was even there. Aside from the occasional pick up game he and they guys got started a few times a month, this was the close as Nathan came to playing the game.

Your life would be so much better with the both of them in it.

Dammit.

He hated when their words got stuck in the back of his mind. Peyton or Jake, it didn't matter. It was like the two of them were thinking with the same brain or something.

Nathan liked his life just fine. He had his home, his health, what was left of it. His personal life was lacking, but he could take care of that if he wanted to. But he didn't. Not right now. His family life was always the pits. And it had only gotten worse. He couldn't do anything about it before. He was an adult now, and he chose not to deal with it.

He didn't want to think about what would happen if he chose to deal. If he let his mother back in, then she would want him to let in her husband as well. Nathan couldn't do that. Could his mother be happy if he let her back in? Would she settle for it being just the two of them? And if he decided to give his father a break, would he let up on this whole family deal? Probably not, but the guy had no power. Both Nathan and Lucas had vetoed the whole happy family thing.

It was just too damn much to think about now. And shooting around wasn't doing anything to calm his nerves anymore. The sound of the ball on cement did nothing for his mood. The left-handed basket he shot bricked off the rim. Nathan let the ball roll down the drive and into the street. It was dinner time now. He guzzled down half of the water bottle he had brought outside with him. The thought of the dinner ritual his father had insisted on having when Nathan lived at home had him grimacing.

It was hard to be sorry those days were over.

He was ordering a pizza with everything.