Haley sighed heavily and brushed her hair back away from her face. She leaned her head back against the white paneling of the bathroom cabinet and closed her eyes. It was the third time she'd thrown up that day. The bouts of nausea she'd been experiencing were getting worse and worse every day. There was even a bucket waiting back stage for her at her concerts in case she needed it. Thankfully she'd managed to make it through every song without having to run off stage and throw up. Brooke kept threatening to make her go to the doctor, but Haley kept waving her off. She was fine. It was just the stress.

"Feeling better?" Brooke asked, walking into the bathroom and offering Haley a glass of ginger ale.

Haley took her glass from her and cautiously took a sip. She pressed the cool glass against the skin of her neck, trying to cool herself down. She hated being sick. It was even worse when she was on tour. She hadn't even been able to ride in the tour bus. The motion sickness was completely unbearable. She'd tried after her stay in New York and it hadn't been pretty. She'd had to fly to Chicago and wait for the band to get there. She felt her stomach start to roll again and quickly took another sip of the soda. It didn't help. Seconds later she was once again emptying the contents of her nearly empty stomach into the toilet with Brooke holding back her hair.

"I'll take that as a no,' Brooke said, rubbing her back with soothing circles.

"I feel like I'm dying," Haley said as soon as she stopped retching.

"Are you sure you shouldn't go see a doctor?" Brooke said.

"I'm fine," Haley replied.

"Says the girl who just said she was dying."

"Seriously, Tigger," Haley said, taking another sip of the soda. "I'll be okay. It's probably just a stomach bug or something."

"If you're not better in two days, you're going to the doctor," Brooke said, rising to her feet.

"I don't need to go to the doctor," Haley replied stubbornly.

"You're going if I have to drag you there kicking and screaming," Brooke said. "Are you feeling well enough to get up? We have to hurry if we're going to make our flight back to L.A."

"I'll be up in a minute," Haley said. "I just want to make sure it doesn't come back."

Brooke nodded and quickly made her way out of the bathroom. Haley waited until the bathroom door clicked shut before scooting away from the cabinet so that she could open the door. She reached behind a couple of the hotel towels and grabbed a bag from the drug store that was just down the block from their hotel. She carefully unwrapped the plastic from the box inside and set it down on the tile next to her. Haley stared down at the box and could feel her hands starting to shake as she read the instructions on the back. She was Tutor Girl. She'd aced nearly every test she'd ever taken. It seemed unbelievably ironic that the most important test she would ever take had nothing to do with any book she'd ever read and everything to do with peeing on a stick.

She took another sip of her ginger ale and then carefully slipped her nail under the tab at the top of the box. She read the directions one more time and then sighed heavily. She couldn't even remember the last time she'd had her period. She'd thought it was just stress until the nausea started. She'd tried to write that off too. She'd thrown up before when she was especially stressed about something. Then Brooke had commented on how her boobs looked bigger. Of course Brooke Davis would notice something like that. It just hadn't been possible to ignore after that.

She held the pregnancy test in her hands for the few minutes before standing up and locking the bathroom door. The last thing she needed was for Brooke to walk in while she was taking it. She carefully followed the directions on the back of the box and then set the test down on the counter face down. Ten minutes. In ten minutes her life could be changed forever, although part of her was fairly certain it already was. She placed her hand against her stomach and sighed, sinking back down to the floor.

Haley stared off into space, absentmindedly caressing her stomach. She might be having a baby. The idea of a son with Nathan's eyes or a little girl with his dark hair and her curls sent a little shiver down her spine. Nathan… They hadn't spoken once in the week she'd been gone. He'd tried to call her during her concert a few days ago, but hadn't picked up when she called him back. God, she had no idea how he would react to the news. It was probably the worst possible time for them to have a baby. She wasn't even sure he would want it. Haley wrapped her arms around her stomach protectively. Nathan might not want it, but she could already feel herself falling in love with this little life she wasn't even certain existed.

"Haley," Brook called, knocking on the bathroom door. "Are you okay? It's almost time for us to go."

"Just a minute," Haley said, looking down at her watch.

It had been ten minutes. She quickly rose to her feet, thankful that the nausea didn't return. It was time for her to check the test. She stared down at the piece of plastic sitting there innocently on the counter. Her hands shook a little as she reached out to grab it. She slowly flipped the test over and felt her heart stop beating as she took in the results. She pressed her lips together in a thin line and sighed heavily. She slipped the test back in the box and stashed it back in the cabinet. The maid service would find it and take care of it. She couldn't risk anyone seeing it.

"We're gonna miss our flight, Tutor Girl," Brooke said.

"I'm coming," Haley replied.

"Are you sure you're up for the flight?" Brooke asked. "It's a long time on a plane."

"It's Nathan's first game since his accident," Haley said, coming out of the bathroom and grabbing her bag off the bed. "I have to be there, Tigger."

"Okay," Brooke said. "But if you start getting sick again at the airport, you know they might not let you fly."

"I'll be fine," Haley said.

"Hales…"

"Brooke," Haley said, making her way towards the door. "Come on. If we don't make this flight we're going to miss the game."

"You're awfully smiley for someone who just spent the last hour with their head in a toilet," Brooke said, grabbing her own bag off the table by the door. "Anything you want to tell me?"

"No," Haley said shaking her head. "Now let's go."

…

Haley stepped out of the limo in front of the Staples Center amid a flurry of camera flashes. The return of Nathan Scott had the celebrities coming out in droves, which meant that the paparazzi were there in full force. She blocked her eyes from the bright flashes. They were doing nothing to help with the nausea that had returned almost the minute she stepped off the plane. Thankfully it had at least held off until they'd landed in Chicago. She hadn't thrown up again yet, but she could feel it coming.

She paused with Brooke for a few photos and plastered a smile on her face. It would be terrible for the paparazzi to get a couple pictures of her looking green. They would automatically assume she was drunk or something. So, she just smiled as best she could and clung to Brooke's arm a little tighter, thankful that Brooke had let her wear ballet flats instead of the ridiculous pair of heels she'd wanted to force on Haley. At least Haley loved the dress she was wearing. It was black and purple (in honor of the Lakers) with a geometric pattern and a bow that cinched lightly at the waist.

"I need to get inside," she said quietly to Brooke. "Or me puking is going to be the front page of every tabloid in the country.

"Jake is supposed to be out here with our passes," Brooke replied. "Look! There he is."

Haley swayed a little on her feet as she spotted Jake pushing his way through the crowd. He was almost immediately by her side. He and Brooke flanked her on either side to shield her from pictures as best they could. Haley clung to Brooke's arm as she felt her stomach start to roll again and Brooke instinctively upped the pace.

"Bathroom," Haley gasped as soon as they got inside. "Now!"

Jake pointed her in the direction of the nearest bathroom and Haley took off at a run. Brooke frowned heavily and chewed on her lower lip as Haley raced away. They could hear her retching before the bathroom door had swung shut and both Brooke and Jake winced simultaneously.

"I am so making her go to the doctor as soon as we get back to Chicago tomorrow," Brooke said.

"How long has she been getting sick like that?" Jake asked.

"Since the third day of the tour," Brooke replied. "She keeps saying that she's fine and it's just a stomach bug but she hasn't been able to keep food down for the last three days."

"I'm better now," Haley said, walking out of the bathroom and straightening her purple dress. "Good thing I packed my tooth brush and tooth paste in my carry on."

"Yeah," Brooke said, giving her a worried look. "Are you sure you're okay?"

"I'm fine, Brooke," Haley replied. "How many times am I going to have to tell you that?"

"Until you stop throwing up all the time," Brooke replied. "So, where are we sitting, Jakey?"

"I hate when you call me that."

"You love it and you know it," Brooke said. "So, where are we?"

"You're up in the suite with the other players' families," Jake said. "I figured it would be best if Nathan saw you after the game."

"Yeah," Haley said. "That would probably be best. How's he been?"

"Hey, Brooke, Lucas is already up in the suite," Jake said, rubbing the back of his neck.

"I'm pretty sure that's just a ploy to get rid of me," Brooke said, looking suspiciously between Haley and Jake. "But I haven't seen my boyfriend in a week so I'm just going to go with it and go see him."

"Has he been that bad?" Haley asked after Brooke had made her way to the elevator, her eyes searching Jake's face.

"It hasn't been good, Hales," he said.

Haley sighed heavily and ran her fingers through her hair. She hadn't wanted to hear that Nathan was doing fine without her, but it was painful to hear that he wasn't doing well either. She hated knowing that he was hurting. She wrapped her arms around herself and stared down at the floor for a moment before looking up and offering Jake the best smile she could.

"Well, let's hope tonight makes it better," she said. "Does he know that I'm here?"

"I told him you were coming," he said.

"What did he say?"

"He didn't want to talk about it," Jake said. "I'm sorry, Hales. You know how he gets."

"I know," she said, nodding her head. "If you see him, tell him I'll be cheering for him."

"They'll let you down to the locker room area after the game," Jake said. "He should be waiting for you."

Jake led Haley up to the suite where Brooke and Lucas were waiting for her. She chewed on her lower lip nervously as they rode the elevator up to the right floor. She'd never been more nervous in her life, not even the time Brooke and Lucas dragged up on stage to sing at that club for the first time. She'd straightened her hair and as she reached to toy with the ends it was weird not have a curl to play with. She fidgeted nervously for the quick elevator ride and had to fight herself to stop when they got to the door of the suite.

"Haley!" she heard Lucas exclaim and his arms were immediately around her.

"How is he, Luke?" she asked him quietly.

"He's ready for tonight," Lucas said. "You know Nathan. Whenever something's bothering him, he just throws himself even further into basketball."

"Yeah," Haley said, going back to fidgeting with the ends of her hair. "Jake said he's expecting me…"

"He won't talk about it," Lucas said. "Hales, you should know that he tried to come after you."

"What?"

"He made it to the airport right as your flight was leaving the terminal," Lucas said.

"Oh, god," Haley said, sinking down into the nearest chair. "I didn't know, Luke. He tried to call me a few days ago and I was in the middle of a set."

"Yeah, it was probably a good thing you didn't answer that," Luke said, rubbing the back of his neck. "It was definitely drunk dialing."

"Great," Haley said, brushing her hair back away from her face. "So the only time my husband has called me in the last two weeks was because he was drunk. Way to make a girl feel good about herself, Luke."

"Sorry," Lucas said, helping Haley to her feet and guiding her over towards the front of the suite. "He does miss you though. He hasn't said it. But everyone can tell."

Haley nodded her head as they took two empty seats next to Brooke. She looked down at the court and saw that the Lakers had just coming out onto the court to start their warm up. They were fairly high up, but she could immediately pick out Nathan in the sea of yellow and purple jerseys. He effortless took a ball and sank a three point shot. Haley smiled faintly and pressed her hand against her stomach as her nausea finally started to subside.

Her breath caught in her throat when she saw Nathan look up towards the suite she was sitting in. Even from a distance his eyes were mesmerizing. His mouth twitched ever so slightly as their eyes met. She couldn't call it a smile, but she could call it a reaction. It was something at any rate. He quickly broke their eye contact and refocused on what was going on around him. Just like that the connection was broken. Haley sighed and settled back into her seat. The next two hours were going to last forever.

…

"Yo," Nathan barely registered a voice saying. "Yo, Nate, where's your head at, dog?"

"Huh?" Nathan said.

"We just won the game and you look like your dog just died," Skills Taylor, one of his teammates, said.

Nathan looked around him. The rest of the team was clapping one another on the back. Discussing where they were going to celebrate. Nathan was getting dressed as slowly as possible, like he was about to face his executioner or something. He buttoned his pale blue dress shirt as slowly as possible and actually took the time to retie his tie. They'd beat the Sonics 98-74. He'd scored 27 points. It was a hell of a comeback. He should be happy about it. Too bad he was too preoccupied with his struggling marriage.

"Haley's here," he said after a long pause.

"Shit, man," Skills said, smacking him on the back. "Shouldn't you be racing out of here? That sexy ass wife of yours left her tour to come see you and you're acting like you don't want to see her.'

"Yeah," Nathan said, looking down and mentally debating whether or not he wanted to tuck in his shirt.

"Dog," Skills said, shaking his head. "I don't know what happened between the two of you, but she's here and I heard she's looking hot as hell tonight. Hurry your ass up and get out of here."

Nathan shook his head and looked down at his shirt tails. He might as well leave them untucked. It's not like it really mattered anyway. He looked at his tie and decided to untie it as well. After he'd finally finished tying his shoe laces he was the only one in the locker room. He grabbed his gym bag out of the bottom of his cubby and slowly made his way towards the door. He should have known that she would be waiting.

"I was starting to think you'd snuck out some other way," Haley said, tugging at a lock of her hair.

Skills was right. She was looking hot. Hell, she always looked hot in his opinion. She looked a little pale, but still beautiful. Her dress stopped at mid thigh, leaving her legs exposed. His eyes traveled from the tips of her black ballet flats up to her face. She definitely looked pale, and maybe like she'd lost a little weight. It had only been a week, yet her face was definitely thinner.

"I thought about it," he shrugged. "What are you doing here, Haley?"

"It was your first game since your accident, Nathan," she said, her brown eyes reflecting her hurt. "I wouldn't have missed it for anything. I had it scheduled into the tour."

"Your boyfriend didn't mind you leaving?"

"For your information," Haley said, trying to ignore the tears springing up into her eyes. "I've barely seen Chris since the start of the tour. I've been too busy puking my guts out every ten minutes."

"You're sick?" he said, taking a step towards her. "Have you been to the doctor?"

"No, I haven't," she said. "I've been a little busy with the whole tour thing."

"Well," he said. "I guess it's just one more thing you put the tour ahead of."

"What?"

"Your health," Nathan shrugged. "Our marriage."

"Nathan," she sighed, pressing her hand against her stomach as she felt a painful twinge. "I didn't come here to fight with you."

"I don't want to fight with you either, Haley," he said. "But I'm not going to stand here and pretend like everything is fine."

"What happened to the guy who came after me?" she asked. "Lucas told me that you came to the airport."

"His wife didn't call," he said. "Not once."

"I did," she said. "After you tried to call me. God, Nathan, this going back and forth isn't doing us any good."

"Then maybe you should go," he said.

Haley opened her mouth to say something, but closed it again. She grimaced as she felt that sharp twinge turn into a legitimate pain. She pressed her hand against her stomach and leaned back against the wall. She took a couple of deep breaths and rubbed her hand against her stomach. She shouldn't be feeling pain like that. She wrapped her arms around her stomach as a sudden fear came over her. She took a few ragged breaths and looked up at Nathan.

"Haley…" he said hesitantly.

"I think you should call an ambulance," she said as tears sprung up in her eyes.

"Why?" he said, coming over and laying his hands hesitantly on her shoulders so he could look her in the eye. "What's going on?"

"I think I'm having a miscarriage."

…

Nathan paced the waiting room in the hospital nervously. He probably looked like some sort of wild person. He'd rolled up his shirts sleeves not long after getting to the hospital. He'd ridden in the ambulance with Haley, but hadn't been allowed to stay with her when they'd taken her back to examine her. His tie was loose around his neck and he'd unbuttoned the first few buttons in his shirt, exposing the white undershirt beneath. He kept running his fingers through his short dark hair and was pretty sure it was a mess at that point.

He'd called Brooke and Lucas as soon as they'd gotten to the hospital. Lucas must have let Brooke drive, and break at least twenty different traffic laws, because they were there in under ten minutes. Brooke had come running into the ER in her stilettos demanding information from every nurse and doctor in sight before Nathan had been able to get to them.

"She said she might be having a miscarriage," he said quietly. "Did you know she was pregnant?"

Brooke looked like she'd just been slapped as she sank down into one of the hard plastic chairs. She buried her face in her hands for a few minutes, trying to absorb what Nathan had just said. Lucas sat down in the chair next to her, wrapping his arm around her shoulders as Nathan started to pace again.

"God, I should have figured it out," Brooke said after a long pause. "That's why she's been so sick lately. I thought it was just nerves and stress. Or maybe her appendix or something. Oh, God, Nathan, I'm so sorry. I should have forced her to go to the doctor. I should have…"

"It's not your fault, Brooke," Lucas said, kissing the top of her head.

"I was with her every day, Lucas," she said. "I should have known something."

"Anyone here for Haley Scott?" a voice called out.

"That's me," Nathan said, spinning around to locate the voice. "How's my wife?"

"Will you come this way, please?" the doctor said.

"How's Haley?" Nathan said, close on the doctor's heels as he was lead down a long corridor with pale peach walls.

"Your wife hasn't had any bleeding," the doctor said. "Which is the main sign of a miscarriage. She said that she just found out that she's pregnant today, so we're going to do an advanced ultrasound to see if we can detect a heartbeat and get a picture of what's going on. We thought you might want to be with her for that. She was also slightly dehydrated from her morning sickness, so we've got her on an IV to replenish her fluids."

Nathan nodded as the doctor paused in front of a room. Nathan had never been more nervous before in his life. The next three minutes or so of his life could be some of the happiest or the most devastating. The doctor opened the door slowly and Nathan could see Haley looking pale and worried in the large hospital bed. Her hair was matted and she was swamped in the large pale green hospital gown. As soon as she saw him, she reached out her hand. Nathan was by her side in an instant.

He laced his fingers through hers with one hand and wrapped his arm around her. He'd never seen her look so scared before in his life. He kissed the top of her head softly and tightened his grip on her as the nurse helped Haley lift the hospital gown to expose her stomach. Haley gasped a little as the doctor spread some sort of gel over her stomach. He was pretty sure she stopped breathing the nurse pulled over the sonogram machine. Haley closed her eyes and turned her head towards Nathan as the doctor moved the transducer towards her stomach.

"There's your baby," the doctor said, pointing to a small blur on the screen of the ultrasound machine. "The heart beat is strong too."

"Our baby?" Haley said, turning to look at the screen.

She watched the monitor for a moment, her face a picture of complete awe. Nathan's eyes darted back and forth between his wife and the black and white monitor. Their baby. It was so surreal. They were having a baby. Suddenly he felt Haley turn in his arms and bury her face against his shoulders. Her shoulders started shaking as she sobbed and Nathan wrapped his arms around her.

"Why are you crying, baby?" he asked, smoothing her hair back away from her face.

"I was so scared," she gasped out between sobs. "I thought I'd lost our baby and you didn't even know about it yet."

"It's okay, Hales," he said, kissing her forehead. "It's okay."

"Your blood pressure is a little high, Haley," the doctor said. "That's what was causing your pain. We're going to keep you overnight for observation and then evaluate whether or not you should be on bed rest."

"But I'm supposed to catch a flight back to Chicago tomorrow," she said.

"What?" Nathan said, looking down at her and frowning heavily. "You just almost lost our baby and you're talking about going back to the tour."

"But my blood pressure was high because coming home to see you was stressing me out," she said, pulling away from him. "Not because of the tour. The tour was fine.

"Oh, so it's all my fault," he said, moving away from the hospital bed.

"I didn't say that," Haley replied.

"You implied it," Nathan said, crossing his arms over his chest.

"Okay," Brooke said, bursting into the room. "Someone had better tell me what's going on because I am not sitting in that waiting room another minute."

"I'm out of here," Nathan said, turning towards the door.

"Nathan," Haley nearly pleaded. "Please don't walk away. You do it all the time."

"It beats running away," he said and then slammed the hospital door behind him.

"I take it you two didn't get everything all patched up," Lucas said as he walked through the door his brother had just stormed out of.

Haley just shook her head and buried her face in her hands. That couldn't have gone worse. She really shouldn't have mentioned the tour. She should have known better. Lucas sat down on the edge of the bed and rubbed her back softly as Haley's mind raced through everything that happened that day. It should have been one of the happiest days of her life. Instead it was just one nightmare after another.

"So," Brooke said, turning to the doctor and the nurse. "There's a little thing I'm going to need you two to sign called a confidentiality agreement. Because that little… spat does not leave this room."