Hello all,
Someone did this with Alias last year and it really stuck with me. The idea is to fill in scenes/thoughts of current episodes. Sometimes they will be extensions of scenes, or the thoughts behind actions of Haley and Nathan. As always, I don't own anything.
Let me know your thoughts...I live for feedback (both good and bad)
always
carys

"Oh, my god," was all that came to mind. Full on panic was setting in. She thought she was feeling nostalgic when she shut off the light in her , her old room, but it wasn't nostalgia. It was the beginnings of a panic attack. Remorse, regret, fear, all those lovely negative feeling were starting to take hold. The whole day had been spent with Nathan and when she was around him, those feelings were just faint rumblings in the back of her mind. When they got home from the hospital Nathan had wanted to go shoot hoops at the river court. Haley figured she could clean out her room on her own so she told him to go. She understood that basketball was Nathan's way of clearing his head and after all the shocks of the day she figured he deserved a little alone time. Once Haley got back to the apartment and started sorting the CD's the nagging voice in the back of her head started gaining some volume. When Nathan had said yesterday that she was his family and that he could love her forever she got swept up in the moment. When he bravely stood before her parents and said that he wanted to marry her, she nearly burst at the seams she was so proud of him. And those vows...well he took her breath away. Now though, when she was all alone with the thoughts in her head, the negative ones were starting to get louder - you are too young, you don't know what you are doing, you've ruined your life, and possibly his too. They were all screaming at a deafening volume – impossible to ignore. She wasn't worried about what she might miss – she had no desire to be a serial dater like Brooke, but the rest of her life seemed like a really long time right now. She desperately wanted to call Lucas, as she normally would in confusing times, but after his reaction, or non-reaction to the news, she decided against it. So she pulled off the ring that Nathan had placed on her hand not even twenty four hours earlier and let the voices take control. With the voices came tears...a floodgate that opened and wouldn't be stemmed. In the middle of her full on break down, Nathan walked in the door to his , their apartment, carrying his basketball casually under his arm. His face changed immediately when he saw her tears. It wasn't hard to tell that something was wrong.

The funny part was, he said all the right things, everything she needed to hear. And he quieted the voices in the back of her head that were screaming, "RUN! Run as fast as you can Haley James! This is a huge mistake!" His faith reassured her, brought back the calm she felt when she stood before the justice of the peace and pledged her life to him. The panic subsided. But as she lay in bed, waiting for him to finish brushing his teeth, the doubts started creeping back in. She worried that they would have to fight the whole world – that everyone would feel like Deb did. She had expected Dan to take the news badly, but Deb...well that had genuinely surprised her. Hell, even Karen had doubts and Karen had known her since she was a kid. Haley was not an irrational, impulsive person, which Karen knew, and still she questioned Haley's decision. That rocked her confidence. What would their friends think? Haley wasn't sure if she was up to facing them. When she had suggested that morning to Nathan that they keep things under wraps she had expected him to agree. She was surprised that he wanted everyone to know – he seemed so....well proud. It was a long way from their first date when he didn't want his friends to know that they were together. Now here they were, less than a year later, married...joined for all eternity. It was such a huge change.

The day had been full of surprises, and most of them weren't really good ones. Dan's heart attack, Deb and Karen's reaction to the news, even her parent's acceptance was a little surprising. All of these things threw her for a loop, but none more than Nathan's unwavering faith. She was used to playing the role of calm, cool and collected while Nathan's world spun out of control. She was used to comforting him in times of trouble, not having him take care of her. That realization seemed to quiet the voices...the knowledge that he would protect her and take care of her...it let her relax enough to fall asleep. Who knew what the next day would bring?

"What a day," was all he could think as he brushed his teeth. After he rinsed out his mouth, he placed both hands on either side of the sink and took a long look in the mirror. He couldn't see any visible changes in his appearance – same dark hair, same blue eyes. He looked closer, hoping to see something else, some proof that his life had changed. After a few seconds of staring at himself, he gave up and headed to bed. Haley was already asleep. Despite the commotion of the day, she still managed to look calm and peaceful as she slept. She really scared him tonight. Coming home and finding her crying was not something he was expecting. If anyone was supposed to fall apart, it was him. Shit, his dad was in the hospital, his mom had gone off the deep end and Lucas had run away. She was supposed to be the one reassuring him, not the other way around. He didn't exactly know how to be the supportive cheerleader type. It had never been something he needed to do. He never expected her to want to give up twenty four hours into their marriage, and over music of all things. It just seemed so out of character for her to fall apart like that.

The scene in the hospital flashed through his head. He was still a little taken aback by his mothers outburst. It was so complicated with him and her. She hadn't been there to stand up for him with Dan when he really needed it – when he was seven and playing little league baseball, when Dan had told him to go after Lucas like an enemy, that summer she disappeared. He'd admit that she had made a sincere effort lately, like at dinner with his grandparents, but her outburst today at Haley made him think she was channelling Dan. Where the hell did that come from? Haley was the first person to support him having a life outside of basketball and Deb had been totally on board with that. Then in one instant she lashed out at Haley. Why? Because she was the nearest available target? Just because her marriage sucked didn't mean that his would. Hell, he had their mistakes to learn from. He wasn't his dad and Haley certainly wasn't Deb.

It wasn't fair what she said and it certainly wasn't true. Haley didn't make him get emancipated. The fault for that laid squarely on Deb and Dan's shoulders. All Haley did was point out the options. She didn't judge Deb or Dan, she never defended them or made excuses for them. She just calmly, logically explained all his options. The reason that stuck with him because it was so nice for once to have someone not pushing him or telling him what to do. That was part of what made Haley amazing. Peyton had said that he was becoming a good guy for Haley, but that wasn't exactly true. He didn't do it for her, he did it because of her. Haley was the first person who didn't expect anything from him, but expected more of him.

He couldn't help but compare the reactions of his parents and hers. Mr. and Mrs. James were a little strange to him – mostly because they seemed to genuinely like each other and he had never really experienced that before. If they had an opinion about their marriage they seemed to keep it to themselves at the time, instead choosing to support Haley in whatever her decision was. His family, well his mom at least, took the low road. He expected her to be unimpressed but the way she treated Haley...just thinking about it again made him shiver. He kicked himself in the ass because he should have stood up for her immediately. He was a little ashamed that his mother had treated his wife that way, but that would not be happening again.

Haley rolled over and curled herself into Nathan's side. He smiled at her unconscious movement. Despite all the confusing thoughts that were running through his head, that one simple thing, something she did in her sleep, was reassuring to him. He told her she was his family, that he believed in them and that he would protect her. He would keep telling her everyday until she wasn't scared anymore. Haley may be scared when she was awake, but in her sleep, she turned to him. He figured that was a pretty good start.