Well, this is it. It's the very end. And I feel so bad that it's taken me months to get it to you. Things have been so hectic these past few months, and this story just fell from my mind. Buuuut I was thinking about it a minute ago, and i've had it written for forever so I figured I would put it up for all of you. Thank you for the support and all the feedback. You guys are awesome! :)

-Lindsay

She stared Nathan down. He was not supposed to be in Tree Hill! Tree Hill was her place! It was her space away from him, and from the horrible memory she had of him in California when she went to tell him she wanted to try again. This was not right. She was going to have to fly back to California now. She didn't want to be around Nathan right now. She wasn't prepared to deal with him.

"Nathan," she returned, unable to keep the edge off her voice. "What are you doing here?"

"I could ask you the same," he returned easily. "Don't you have a house in California?"

"Don't you?" she retorted, crossing her arms. "You know, it's the big one with the half naked girl inside! That ring a bell?"

He shook his head. This wasn't going to be as easy as he thought. He figured she'd be slightly excited to see him, he would apologize, tell her the truth, and she'd fall into his arms. Okay, so this was not as easy as he thought it was going to be! Shit! "You don't even know what you saw, Haley."

"I think I do," she replied, watching the river behind him. "I saw a shirtless you, and a half naked Alyssa. That doesn't take much genius to know what was going on, Nathan."

"You don't understand!" he exclaimed as he threw his hands in the air. She was so freaking stubborn! "That was just bad timing! Haley, I love you, and I don't love her! I want you, I've always wanted you, and as much as I thought that had stopped all those years ago, it didn't! You're it for me!"

She sighed and tried to calm down. Those were some of the sweetest things he'd ever said to her, but it just wasn't that easy. This wasn't just some television show or movie where the guy apologizes and everything ends up right and wonderful in the end. This was her life!

And she didn't know if she could risk it on Nathan…no matter how much she loved him too.

"You can't just come to Tree Hill and spew a few endearments and expect it to all go away, Nathan," she replied, finally looking up into those deep blue eyes. The most gorgeous eyes she'd ever looked into.

"No, I can't," he agreed. "But if I can at least get you to listen to me, then I can tell you what happened, and how I feel about you…if I can do that, then I'll be happy. Whether you believe me or not. I'll feel better if you'd at least let me explain."

She nodded. She could give him that. As much as she really didn't owe him because of what he'd done to her, she could give it to him. She would give it to him. She led him over to the only empty picnic table, and if memory served her correctly, it was the spot of their very first tutoring session.

Hmm. Was that a sign?

Maybe she really was supposed to be with Nathan.

"Go ahead," she said softly when he sat down across from her. "I'll listen to you."

"Thanks," he said gently, watching as the emotions played in her big brown eyes. He could see the fear and the hurt…but he could still see some love. And that gave him the strength to talk. "It was all a misunderstanding," he began. "I got home the day before and I broke up with her. It wasn't fair to anyone for me to be in a relationship that wasn't going anywhere…because I'm in love with you. So I told her the truth, and she left…the next day, she came back and told me that she'd forgive me for my lapse in judgment or whatever. She said she'd take me back because she didn't see you around. And then I told her to get out, and she dropped her coat, revealing her…self," he said, for lack of a better word, "to me.

"Then you came. When you left, I made her leave. I wasn't going to get back with her just because you weren't around at the moment. I love you, Haley, and that's not going to change anytime soon."

"As far as excuses go, that seems pretty solid," she admitted to him. "But that still doesn't tell me why you were shirtless!"

"She woke me up!" he said loudly. "She woke me up, and you know I really don't like sleeping in shirts! So I just went to the door, not even caring what I looked like. I was tired, and I didn't feel like putting anything on. I was just going to go back to bed anyway."

"I see." She folded her hands together on top of the table and cleared her throat. "Well. I guess I have some things to think about, huh?"

He gave her his lopsided grin. "Hales…do you…I mean, is there any way…" He sighed. The right words just were not coming out!

"Is there any way I could ever be with you again?" she guessed, smiling back at him a little.

"Yeah," he confirmed. Haley got it; she always got it. "I mean, I guess I can understand if you don't want that, but…just know that I don't think I'm complete without you, and I mean that, Haley."

"You know," she started, "when I married you, I was sure that I was doing the right thing, you know? I really was. I had this great guy that I was totally in love with, and was going to be with forever, and I had a great group of friends…still do, actually. I knew what I wanted to do with my life, and now…now I just don't know anymore, Nathan." She cringed as his face fell a little. She had done that to him. She had disappointed him.

"Are you trying to tell me politely that you want nothing to do with me anymore?" he asked quietly, trying his best to avoid looking her in the eyes.

"I don't know," she whispered. "Seeing you with Alyssa in the position that you were in? It just made me see that I've had no part in your life for six years, and you seem to be doing just fine without me. I don't see how I could improve your life and vice versa."

"Are you kidding me?" he scoffed. "Haley, I'm miserable without you! Ever since I saw you again, I can't stop thinking of you! You know, for those six years, I just went from one lousy relationship to another…trying to force something to happen. And I didn't have to do that when you were there all along. I shouldn't have sent you away when you came home. It's as simple as that."

"It's not," she argued with him. "It hasn't been that simple for us in a long time."

"But it could be!" he argued back. "You love me, I love you. See? Simple."

She frowned. He was totally wrong. Maybe it was simple six years ago. They'd been in love, gotten married, and figured the rest would be a fairy tale. But they were grown up now, and things in the grown up world were not simple. Everyone had their own careers and dreams and goals - things that were too huge to be simple.

She knew she loved Nathan. It was easy to know now. And looking back on the past six years, she should have known it back then as well. He was her soul mate, and there wasn't a doubt in her mind on that. But that didn't mean she could be with him. He had a life that involved basketball, and hers was all about music. Who was to even say they'd have time to be with each other and repair their relationship in the way it truly needed?

"Nathan…"

"Hales." He took a chance and placed his unbroken hand over her smaller ones. "I know that you love me. I can see it every time I look in those beautiful eyes of yours."

"I'm not saying I don't," she defended herself, looking down at their hands. "I do love you. I've loved you for the past six years even when I thought I didn't."

"Then why can't you keep loving me now?"

"I'll always love you," she said honestly. Hell, it'd been over six years since she'd started. Why stop now? "But that doesn't mean I have to be with you!"

"Why not? If you don't, you know you'll spend your whole life wondering what we would have been like…what our next wedding would have been like, how many kids we'd have, what they'd grow up to be, if we'd get any pets, what our house would be like…there are so many other things you'd wonder about, and I know you will if you don't take a chance on us."

"My whole life's been like that," she responded, letting a sigh escape her lips. "What's some more?"

"Why are you so fucking stubborn, Haley!?" he blew out as he stood up. He couldn't handle this anymore. He couldn't talk to her when all she was doing was shutting down everything he was saying.

"Me?" She stood up and placed her hands on her hips. She glared up at him, the fire apparent in her dark eyes. "How about when I came to see you and tell you I wanted to come home?! Who was the stubborn one back then, Nathan?!"

"You're right," he agreed. "I was stupid and stubborn, and…it was a mistake, Haley. I should have told you to come home. I should have begged you not to go again."

"Nathan." She shook her head at him. She couldn't hear this. "What's done is done. You made your decision then, and I have to make mine now."

"I changed my mind, Haley!" he argued with her. "I changed my mind, and you can too. Decisions aren't always definite!"

"When it comes to us, they have to be," she said quietly, looking him in the eyes. "We've caused each other enough hurt already without bouncing back and forth between being together and not."

"Then be with me," he requested simply, linking his fingers through hers. "Be with me, and don't ever look back."

She trembled a little when she saw the intensity radiating from those blue eyes. He was so serious about everything. He was dead set on being with her, and he wasn't willing to let her go. And that scared her a little. Not that he loved her, but that he was so set on doing it forever and being committed to her when he didn't even know what she wanted for the two of them.

"I don't know how to answer that," she said quietly, her eyes matching the intensity in his.

He nodded and stood up. "I think you just did."

And with that, he walked away from her. This time, he took his own advice and didn't look back.

---

"He just walked away, Brooke!"

Brooke looked away from Haley while they ate lunch, and rolled her eyes. This was like the thirtieth time Haley had whined about Nathan leaving her at the docks. What was Brooke supposed to do!? Call Nathan and beg him to talk to Haley again? No way. She'd already suggested he come to Tree Hill, and when he did, nothing good came of it. He was mad, and Haley was just…whatever. She was being a whiner about the whole thing.

"I know honey," she replied, mustering up as much sympathy as she could. But quite frankly, all sympathy had flown out the window after hearing the story for like the tenth time. "But you did kind of push him to that point."

"It's not like I wanted that!" she defended herself. "I'm just unsure of it all. I don't know if we can just forget everything that happened and get back together."

Brooke sighed. "Look, you're going to have to decide this. You can't decide you want him and then you don't…and then want him again. It doesn't work like that, and you know it. So does Nathan." She touched her friend's shoulder. "Haley, Nathan loves you. He's in it for the long haul. And if that's what you want then go get him."

"Why does everyone make it seem like it's the simplest thing in the world?" she wondered out loud. "It's not."

"To me, it is. I love Lucas, and I know I want to be with him. It's simple. Nathan loves and wants to be with you. Simple. And for you, I can't seem to understand why it's so hard to grasp that you love a guy who would give you the whole world if he could."

"I know I love him, Brooke," she blew out, brushing a piece of her blonde hair away from her face. "It has nothing to do with love."

"If you love him, just be with him," she advised her friend, looking her square in the eye. "The rest you can figure out later."

"I don't want to figure it out later!" she exclaimed. "I want it all figured out now! I want to know if my being with Nathan again is just going to get us both hurt in the end! We hurt each other back then way too much to even think about doing it again."

"Then don't think about getting hurt or hurting him," Brooke retorted.

She had spoken to Nathan after he'd walked away from Haley at the docks, and from what she understood, he regretted the way he had done that. He just couldn't sit there and listen to her doubt them the way she was. He was so completely confident in the two of them together, and it killed him that she wasn't. He wasn't going to sit there listen to her degrade their being a couple. And looking back on it, she could tell that while he was sorry for the way he acted, and he was pretty pissed about how it all had gone down.

"How?" she questioned. "How can I not when half of our relationship was spent hurting?"

"God, Haley," she addressed. "That's probably because you got married in freaking high school! Your relationship was like a year!" She stabbed a piece of broccoli that was on her plate in annoyance. Haley needed to get her whole Nathan act together…before it was her eye instead of the broccoli that Brooke was stabbing.

"Brooke, anything you say is just confusing me even more," Haley admitted to her, taking a sip of iced tea. "It's like it's supposed to be so simple because Nathan and I are some great, romantic love story, but you're right. Our relationship was like a year! How can we base anything off of that?"

"Because you love him!" She ran her hand through her dark hair, frustrated. Someone had to get through to Haley. It was obvious to Brooke that without Nathan, Haley wasn't happy.

She nodded. It was true. She loved Nathan. Always had, always would. And maybe she was being childish about the whole thing, but she didn't know how else to act. Hell, she'd been a child bride. She figured she might as well act like one a little longer. She hadn't gotten to play that role too long.

"Haley, Nathan is being really mature about all this," Brooke informed her, as if she just read her mind. "I don't know if you realized that, but it's so hard for him. I bet all he wants to do is pout and call it quits on you, but he's not because he loves you. That takes real maturity to just handle everything you keep throwing at him."

That was true. During the course of their short but loving relationship, Haley had been the mature one. And Nathan had been the boy who hadn't yet grown up all the way. And now their roles were kind of reversed. It was weird for Haley. She never thought she would sink down to how she was being now…but she couldn't help it.

"I need to talk to Nathan again," she finally said quietly. It was probably more to herself than Brooke, but Brooke still heard it. She smiled in satisfaction. She was getting somewhere with Haley now.

"What will you tell him?"

"That I love him, but things are too complicated?" She shrugged. "I don't know."

"Well…" Brooke sighed. "I suggest you figure that out before you just call him up and tell him you're ready to talk again. You're probably walking on thin ice with him now, Haley."

She raised her eyebrows. "You really think so?"

"You push him away and then pull him back, and then you start the cycle right back up again. It's not good for either one of you, and I think that if you want him, you go get him, and don't look back. Nathan isn't going to put up with this shit forever."

There was always a point when someone had just had enough, and Haley understood that. She knew that Nathan was probably at that point, and if she wanted him back, she was going to have to do something about that. She was going to have to show him that she did love him, and pull him back from the point.

Her problem was that she didn't know what to do. She loved him with her whole heart. That would never change, even when she tried to force it to. She was just afraid…afraid to get back in that situation with him when so much had gone wrong the first time.

"I'm just afraid, Brooke," she said softly, looking her friend hard in the eye.

Brooke sighed. "I honestly don't know what to tell you. I think you and Nathan belong together. Nathan thinks that. Lucas thinks that. So do Peyton and Jake…but if you don't, then don't do anything about it. Don't hurt him again."

"You think I want to hurt him?" she asked incredulously. "That is the last thing I want to do!"

"I don't think you'd hurt him intentionally," she said calmly. She knew that Haley didn't want to hurt Nathan. After all the hurt she'd caused him in high school, she knew that Haley would never want to do that to him again. She'd heard the horror stories of how distant and shut down he'd become from Lucas and Brooke, and she wouldn't wish that on him ever again. "I just think you're confused and that confusion might end up hurting him…as well as yourself."

Haley stayed silent. She didn't know how to respond to that. She'd been hurt through this whole thing already, and she was sure Nathan had been too. But maybe in the end, if she and Nathan could work it out, that hurt would be worth it. If they had to go through all of these hard things to be happy again, then she could deal with that. If hurting got her Nathan in the end, then it would all be worth it.

"I need to see Nathan," she announced a few minutes later. "I don't care where he is or how long it takes to get there…I need to see him."

Brooke smiled. She was seeing the light. "I'm not sure where he is. I don't know if he's already left Tree Hill or what. I talked to him once, and he seemed a little broken up, so I didn't talk to him anymore."

"I see. Has Luke?"

"Probably not," she answered. "Trying to give him space, you know?"

"That is one thing Nathan usually needs when he gets upset," she replied, nodding. "I wonder where he is."

"I don't know." She shrugged at Haley.

Haley sighed and tried to think back on all the places in Tree Hill that Nathan would go. Most likely he'd be at the River Court. That was the sanctuary of a lot of the boys growing up in Tree Hill. She herself had spent a ton of time there…but something told her that Nathan wouldn't go there. It was too easy. Anyone could find him there, and he wanted to be alone, she was sure.

She stood up, throwing some money on the table. "I'm going to take off, Brooke. I'm going to find him."

Brooke smiled. "Go get him, girl!"

---

Haley smiled to herself when she got to the last destination she could think of. She'd already been to the River Court (just in case), the spot where they had gotten married, which, by the way, was no longer a spot at the beach. It was like a condo area now. She'd tried the gym, she'd tried their old apartment, and she couldn't find him.

And now here she was, the last place she could think of. The bench on the street where he had first told her he loved her. They'd just gotten over a fight over her tattoo, which honored him. He couldn't figure out why she would get something that permanent, but she wouldn't have sex with him. And she knew that it was because she was falling in love with him. She was in love with him, and her tattoo was just a way to remember that. After that fight, he'd loved that tattoo. He'd spent a lot of time focusing on that thing.

She remembered every detail of the night he told her he loved her. She could remember what they were both wearing. Nathan in his dark jeans and sweatshirt, her in a denim skirt and high boots. She remembered the way he told her - in his soft voice that he only used on her. She could recall the way he smelled, and the way she hadn't even cared that they were making out on a bench on a public street in Tree Hill.

"Nathan!" she called out when she was close enough to him.

He glanced up and saw her. She looked pretty, and even though he was pretty upset with her, she wouldn't stop looking that way. He'd always think she was pretty. His breath caught in his throat as she got closer to him, and he got a whiff of the vanilla she was wearing. "Haley," he breathed out. "What are you doing here?"

She smiled gently. "Looking for you. What are you doing here? Reliving some old memories?"

He nodded and patted the spot beside him, looking out at the cars that were passing them. "The best ones."

"They were the best," she agreed as she sat down next to him. She smoothed out her long hair and turned to face him. "I've been looking for you."

"Oh yeah?" He turned his head. "What for?"

"I wanted to talk," she said simply, shrugging.

"Hales, I don't want to be rude, but…we did a lot of that already. It's gotten us nowhere."

"Well I didn't know what to say then," she explained. "But I've done a lot of thinking since then. I know what I want now, Nathan."

"Jared?" he guessed. He knew it wasn't Jared, but he was hurt. She'd hurt him by not wanting what he wanted, and he didn't want to get his hopes up if she decided after all the she didn't want him back. He didn't want to go through it. He'd lost her before and it nearly killed him. He wasn't ready to deal with that all over again.

"Jared just pisses me off," she said, rolling her eyes. "You know that."

"I don't know anything anymore, Haley," he replied. He watched as an old junker car passed by the two of them, and it reminded him of the car he and Haley used to share. Keith had helped him fix that car up, and Haley had been so excited when he told her. He wondered what happened to it. When he left Tree Hill, he'd left the car, telling his father to do whatever he wanted with it, but he'd never cared enough to find out where it went…until now. And that was probably only because he was sitting next to Haley.

"But you know that," she countered. "You know that I'm not even considering ever going back to him."

"Yeah," he agreed quietly. "I know."

"So…" She took a deep breath. "You're what I want."

Nathan shook his head. He couldn't believe that she'd just said that to him. He'd been waiting a long time to hear those words come out of her mouth, but since he'd been waiting so long, they were hard to believe. When he'd walked away from her, he didn't think she'd come back to him, telling him that he was what she wanted. He hadn't seen it coming…not by a long shot.

"Hales…"

"I've been thinking about it a lot," she told him, placing her finger over his lips. "I realized something at lunch today, and it's not that I love you…because I already knew that. I know it's going to be hard, but I don't care." She smiled at him. "I realized I'm not who I'm supposed to be when I don't have you. I'm this person that I just don't recognize…and I realized that all the hurt is going to be worth it if I have you in the end. I don't care about anything that happened back then. All I care about is you and me and that we belong together. None of the past matters…as long as I have you now."

He didn't know what to say. She'd just made every single dream he had come true for the two of them. And so he did the only thing he knew to do. He kissed her. He kissed her long and hard, and that was how the two of them sat. Kissing on the bench in Tree Hill where everything had started.

The End.