'Fate Averted' - Chapter Nine (Part Two)
“You know what I think?” Haley says out of the blue, “I think that if we’re both still single when we’re thirty, we get married.”
“What?” Luke gasps, spit-taking the sip of soda he’d just taken, “Are you insane?”
“Maybe,” she smirks, “But come on, let’s face it: we’re pathetic. I haven’t gone on a date since before Katie was born, and I think it’s been even longer for you. What are we doing, Luke? What are we waiting for?”
He gives her a knowing look. “We all know what you’re still waiting for,” he mutters darkly.
“Nathan?” she asks, raising an eyebrow at him, “I’m not, you know. Waiting for him, I mean. That part of my life is over, and I couldn’t revisit it even if I wanted to. Which honestly, I don’t. Loving Nathan killed my pride and broke my heart a few too many times, you know?”
“That hasn’t stopped you from loving him,” Luke points out.
She shrugs. “Maybe not, but it also hasn’t got me out there going after him for quite awhile now, has it?”
“Fine, I’ll give you that. But it’s only because you were like the puppy that kept peeing in the house: he hit you on the nose with the newspaper three hundred times, but somehow, it was that three hundred and first time that made it stick.”
“You’re comparing me to a puppy that pees in the house?” she asks incredulously, kicking her foot out in his direction, “I’m so not flattered.”
He grins at that. “I’m just saying that it took you long enough, that’s all. I know you were married and all, but you held on for a lot longer than seemed healthy.”
“Okay, Mr. I stare down trains for breakfast, you want to talk healthy?” she retorts snarkily.
“Hey, yeah, go ahead and throw that in my face, thanks,” Luke mutters, grabbing her foot and pulling her towards him, “You’re a real pal.”
“Yes, I know I am,” she beams at him, winking. “So you didn’t say what you thought of my idea.”
Luke regards her with a curious expression on his face. Nathan tries to keep from digging his fingernails into his palms too badly. This combined with the stress of being seen by Katie at the last visit has seriously frayed his nerves.
“What’s going on?” Luke asks, raising an eyebrow at her, “Are the mean ladies at work teasing you about being single or something while you’re on your breaks? This is pretty random, Hales.”
She glares at him, shaking her head. “It’s not like that, I don’t care what people think of me, you know that.”
“Then what’s this about?”
“It’s about us, I guess,” she shrugs, “Look, you can just say ‘no’. Spare me the embarrassment of having basically proposed to you.”
“That’s your idea of a proposal?” Luke snorts, his hands still on her leg, which irritates Nathan to no end, “That’s kind of weak, Hales.”
“Shut up,” she grumbles, glaring at him as she tries to jerk her foot away, “Don’t be such a - a butthead.”
”Oooh, you have been hanging out with Katie Lu too much!” Luke crows, “’Butthead’? That’s the best you got? Those are strong words, don’t say something you can’t take back!”
She starts laughing with him, unable to help herself. “I hate you!”
“Aw, then you really shouldn’t be proposing, huh?” he grins, leaning forward to lift her onto his lap, “So, you wanna tell me where this is coming from?”
She takes a deep breath, a tremulous smile on her lips. “You’re the best part of my life aside from Katie, and I want you to always be here.”
“Hey, I would be here for you forever,” he assures here, “We don’t need a piece of paper for that.”
She stares at him, not wavering. “I know this is weird, and probably feels like it is coming from nowhere. But come on, Luke, you make no effort to date anyone else. You spend all of your free time with me and Katie! You have other options, you could have woman you wanted pretty much. But you’re still here, with us.”
“I love you both,” he sighs, “And Haley, what we have, this friendship that we’ve had all these years, it’s incredibly important to me. You know that’s why I’ve never acted on this just like I know that’s why you’ve never brought it up before now. So why now?”
Taking a deep breath, she smiles faintly at him. “Because I don’t want this to pass me by. Because I like this, having you in my life, and I think it could be better for both of us. Because it’s you, and at the end of the day, you're all I have other than Katie.”
She’s moving closer to him, and Nathan has to look away as Luke tightens his hold on her, unable to make himself watch this. “You think we can do this without messing up? Because I don't know if either of us has the best reasons for doing this, Hales.”
“Yeah,” she says, and Nathan can’t help but force his eyes open to take this all in, “We’ve both screwed things up so many times so many ways in the past that we have to at least have a good list of what not to do between us, right?”
Luke rolls his eyes, letting his head flop back against the couch. “Okay, that’s a ringing endorsement.”
“Luke, I could love you,” she whispers, “You're my best friend, and one way or another, we're going to spend our lives together. Maybe we could try the other way for awhile. See what happens.”
“Haley,” he groans, squeezing his eyes shut, “I - we can’t start this if you aren’t sure. It’s just too much of a risk for me, okay?”
“I know,” she agrees, “It’s a risk for me, too. More for me, even! If I mess up, and drive you out of my life, that leaves not only me broken and devastated, but Katie, too.”
“Hey, that would never happen, I’d never leave you two,” he protests immediately.
“Come on, Luke, you and I both know what bad breakups do to a person,” she points out with an ironic smile, “You get irrational. You stop thinking and just feel, and that’s all you act on. Feelings, and not thoughts.”
“Well, I’d like to think we’re both smarter than that,” he insists with a smile.
“You can say that because we’ve both only been broken up with, never the one doing the breaking,” she laughs, “Come on, Luke, there isn’t room for promises in anything in life. Just action, and doing your best with what you have when you have it.”
“We’re not waiting until we’re thirty, are we?” he asks slowly, smirking at her when she tightens her hold on him.
“Why should we?” Haley asks in a husky voice as she leans closer to him, her lips grazing against his. She smiles against his lips when he tightens his hold, pulling her closer. “There’s no time like the present, Luke.”
“I guess not,” he agrees, and Nathan turns away before he can see any more of this.
Obviously, Katie’s birth had enlightened him to the fact that Haley hadn’t joined a nunnery or something like that after she left Tree Hill. He hadn’t even expected that. But to have it be thrown in his face that she’s taking up with his brother, his rival, is one of the worst feelings he’s ever felt.
“I’m sorry that this is something you have to see,” Keith tells him sympathetically, “We can move on to our last stop, if you’d like now.”
Nathan nods mutely, not trusting himself to speak at the moment. In the span of a heartbeat, Keith has transported them forward in time, but they remain in the same place. “We’re still here,” Nathan chokes out, and for some reason he feels like that tells him all he needs to know.
“This one is short,” Keith sighs, motioning for Nathan to head down the hall. They enter a bedroom, and Nathan cringes at the sight of the present-day Haley and Lucas lying on a bed together, each facing opposite ways. “Look at them,” Keith encourages, “Really look at them and tell me what you see.”
Taking a deep and what he hopes is fortifying breath, Nathan nods, looking over at his brother and ex-wife. Who are in bed together. It’s like his worst nightmare come true.
“They’re sleeping far apart,” Nathan gets out in a shaky whisper, “And - and they’re wearing wedding rings. So they married?”
“Yes, they did,” Keith nods, “Tell me what else you see.”
“Luke looks like he has a migraine,” Nathan starts with him, since he can see his face, “He looks like he’d rather be anywhere else but here.” He walks around to the other side of the bed. “She’s crying!” he exclaims softly in surprise, “Why is she crying?”
Keith looks down at the floor. “It’s like this every time for them. The first time they slept together, she puked her guts up before spending the rest of the night on the bathroom floor sobbing and he drank a pint of rum straight out of the bottle. Quite the ringing endorsement, yeah?”
“I - I don’t understand,” Nathan admits, “Are they not attracted to each other? Is it that bad?”
Keith shakes his head. “That really has nothing to do with it. Remember those emotional attachments and previous relationships they talked about before they agreed to give this a go?” Nathan nods. “Apparently, those aren’t as easy to let go of as they’d hoped.”
“They do this every time?” Nathan repeats, incredulous, “She cries and he shuts down? That’s just insane, why are they doing this to themselves?”
Keith shrugs. “How do you get out of this type of a relationship with the one person you were never supposed to be in it with, but the one person you know you can’t ever let go of because they're just about the only thing anchoring you to life?”
That puts it into a slightly better bit of perspective for Nathan, but he still doesn’t quite understand why they’re doing this to themselves. To each other, for crying out loud. “It still doesn’t really work out in my mind why they’d hurt each other like this, I guess.”
“They don’t care,” Keith explains gently, “Luke knew going in that Haley loved him, but that she’d never be in love with him. And vice versa for her him. They just thought that since they had their friendship, and that they were attracted to each other, that the rest would come. That they could ignore the ‘in love’ part of the equation. Or at least pretend they weren’t still so in love with other people that it didn’t hold them back from ever falling in love with each other.”
“That’s so - I don’t know, messed up, I guess,” Nathan offers, his heart constricting over what they’ve done to themselves, to each other. “I hate seeing them like this. It’s almost worst than thinking they’re happy and doing it like rabbits all the time. Almost, but not quite.”
Keith smirks, shaking his head. “Nate, I think there’s a whole new sense of honesty in you, or at least honesty with yourself. I’m impressed. I think you’ve come a long way in the span of this evening.”
“Thanks,” Nathan mutters sarcastically, slipping back out of the room, enjoying the new ‘through the wall’ trick. Of course, he’s got bad luck and bad timing and apparently bad Karma, so Katie is there, stopping dead in her tracks when she sees him come out of the wall.
“Oh, my God,” she whispers, the little girl now older, but still so young and little. She opens her mouth to scream, and Nathan instinctively reacts, clamping a hand over her mouth. That seems to shock her into silence.
“Where’s your room?” he asks tersely, nodding when she points towards it. He motions her towards it, taking his hand off her mouth as she precedes him into the room.
”You’re real,” she whispers, letting out a little whimper, “And you’re back. Are you here to be my daddy now?”
“No, Katie, I’m not,” he whispers back at her, “I’m sorry, munchkin, but I can’t be your daddy. Besides, you have Luke, and I know how much he loves you.”
“I know that, too,” she states regally, “But he’s not my daddy. He’s supposed to be Uncle Luke, not Daddy. You were supposed to be my dad. Why aren’t you again? I can’t really remember last time I saw you.”
Nathan takes a deep breath, sitting down on the girl’s desk chair. “Last time I saw you, I kinda messed things up for you, didn’t I?” he asks her, glancing over towards Keith. She still hasn’t acknowledged Keith, so he’s guessing she still can’t see him.
“Mommy and Luke couldn’t see you,” she says forlornly, “How come I can if they can’t?”
“I don’t know, Munchkin,” Nathan sighs, wishing that he had an actual answer to give her about any of this, “You aren’t supposed to.”
“My mommy calls me ‘Munchkin’,” she announces, wrinkling her little nose at him, “How come you do, too?”
“Uh, I don’t know, maybe because your mommy does?” Nathan suggests, frowning lightly at her as he tries to figure out what to say to her about his reappearance in his life, “Listen, Katie, maybe this time you shouldn’t tell them you see me, oaky?”
“Is it because you can walk through the wall?” she asks, “Oh. Are you a ghost then? I guess it would be hard to be my daddy if you were dead.”
“I’m - I’m not exactly a ghost,” he tells her, “And I’m not here to hurt anyone, okay? I was just checking up on things, making sure that you and your mommy and Luke were all doing okay.”
She looks at him, biting her lip as she tries to decide whether or not to make her admission to him. “I know who you are,” she finally says, “I saw your picture in my mommy’s book. You’re Uncle Luke’s brother.”
Surprised, he nods. “Yeah, I am.”
“I thought so,” she smiles, pleased, “They didn’t want to talk about you with me in the room, but you kinda look like him. And in the picture, you had a basketball and did you know Uncle Luke plays basketball? Well, he used to play in college, but now he plays for fun. He coaches my friend Pete’s team, and Mommy says it bums him out cuz I don’t play for him to coach.”
“That is a bummer,” Nathan agrees, unable to keep the fondly amused smile off of his face.
“How come you weren’t my daddy?” she asks, “You used to like my mommy, I know you did.”
A thought springing to his mind, he looks at her a little more intently. “Did you tell your mom and Luke that it was me you saw that day?”
She shakes her head. “They wouldn’t have believed me,” she sighs, “They think you’re my made up Daddy. I guess you kind of are.”
“I’m sorry I can’t be real for you, Katie.”
“Me, too,” she agrees, “Do you have to leave? You keep looking over at the door.”
Keith, who is what he is looking at by the door, nods that they do need to leave. “Yeah, I do need to go.”
She nods, accepting this. “I won’t tell them you came to visit again. But maybe they wouldn’t be mad. Maybe they’d be happy to see you.”
His smile at those words is bittersweet. “I don’t think they’d be very happy, actually. It’s okay, though. Soon things will be the way they were meant to be.”
She’s just as solemn and serious as he is as she regards him. “Are you going to fix it and be my daddy like you’re supposed to?”
Nathan smiles, shrugging. “I don’t know how everything will turn out, but I hope get lucky enough to be your daddy.”
“Me, too,” she grins. She puts her hands on her hips, tilting her head to the side as she regards him silently. “I bet you can do it.”
That proclamation startles a laugh out of him. “Well, I guess we’ll find out.”
“If you aren’t a ghost, what are you?” she asks, “Or is it a secret?”
“It’s kind of a secret,” he sighs, not having a better answer than the one she inadvertently gave him, “But I’m not a bad guy, okay?”
“I know,” Katie beams, “Otherwise you wouldn’t supposed to have been my dad.”
“Uh, can you tell me why you think that?” he asks the question that has been bothering him throughout this.
She blinks in surprise at the question. “Well - “ she cuts herself off, giggling, “I don’t know. It’s just something that I know.”
“How do you know it, though?” he persists, needing some understanding of what’s happening here, why she’s so sure that she should’ve been his, that he should’ve been hers.
She shrugs. “I just do. Maybe that’s why I can see you and Mommy and Luke can’t!” she enthuses, “So I can tell you to do things right and be mine! Be my daddy!”
“Maybe Luke is the one who is supposed to be your daddy,” Nathan suggests, voicing his worst fear.
She is clearly surprised at the suggestion, and he wants to curse himself for even planting it in her mind. “No,” she says slowly, “It’s not him. It’s you.” She sighs in frustration. “I don’t know why I know that, but I just do! Don’t you believe me?”
He glances over at Keith, who kind of shrugs before nodding. “I believe her,” he smiles. I’m not sure why I do, but if she can see you, there’s something going on here. Tell her yes, let yourself believe, Nate.”
He nods slowly, his gaze swinging back to Katie. “Yeah, I believe you, Munchkin.”
She squeals, throwing her arms around him. “Oh, I knew you’d believe me!”
Nathan sees Keith over her shoulder, pointing to his watch. “Hey, uh, Katie, I have to get going.”
“What? But you just got here!” she exclaims, pulling away from to look up at him, “How come you gotta go?”
“I know, but I have things to do. ‘Miles to go before I sleep’.”
She beams up at him. “My mommy read me that! It’s her favorite of all time.”
“Yes, I know,” Nathan says quietly, “I remember that.”
“Am I going to see you again?” she asks, looking him in the eye.
His throat clogs with tears he cannot shed right now at the question. “I sure hope so, Munchkin.”
“Me, too,” she smiles. She pauses, biting her lower lip in thought. “I think I will see you again. I think this time, you’ll be my real daddy, and you’ll be with me.” She frowns as if uncertain where that came from. “How come I know that?”
“Maybe you’re just the smartest little girl in the world,” he suggests, ruffling her hair.
She laughs. “Yeah, probably.”
The purple mist thickens, and she gasps as she notices it. He waves to her, his heart heavy at the knowledge that going back would blink her out of existence, along with his younger half-siblings. His last thought as he looks at her is that he has a whole lot of thinking to do now that the show and tell portion of the evening is over.
“What?” Luke gasps, spit-taking the sip of soda he’d just taken, “Are you insane?”
“Maybe,” she smirks, “But come on, let’s face it: we’re pathetic. I haven’t gone on a date since before Katie was born, and I think it’s been even longer for you. What are we doing, Luke? What are we waiting for?”
He gives her a knowing look. “We all know what you’re still waiting for,” he mutters darkly.
“Nathan?” she asks, raising an eyebrow at him, “I’m not, you know. Waiting for him, I mean. That part of my life is over, and I couldn’t revisit it even if I wanted to. Which honestly, I don’t. Loving Nathan killed my pride and broke my heart a few too many times, you know?”
“That hasn’t stopped you from loving him,” Luke points out.
She shrugs. “Maybe not, but it also hasn’t got me out there going after him for quite awhile now, has it?”
“Fine, I’ll give you that. But it’s only because you were like the puppy that kept peeing in the house: he hit you on the nose with the newspaper three hundred times, but somehow, it was that three hundred and first time that made it stick.”
“You’re comparing me to a puppy that pees in the house?” she asks incredulously, kicking her foot out in his direction, “I’m so not flattered.”
He grins at that. “I’m just saying that it took you long enough, that’s all. I know you were married and all, but you held on for a lot longer than seemed healthy.”
“Okay, Mr. I stare down trains for breakfast, you want to talk healthy?” she retorts snarkily.
“Hey, yeah, go ahead and throw that in my face, thanks,” Luke mutters, grabbing her foot and pulling her towards him, “You’re a real pal.”
“Yes, I know I am,” she beams at him, winking. “So you didn’t say what you thought of my idea.”
Luke regards her with a curious expression on his face. Nathan tries to keep from digging his fingernails into his palms too badly. This combined with the stress of being seen by Katie at the last visit has seriously frayed his nerves.
“What’s going on?” Luke asks, raising an eyebrow at her, “Are the mean ladies at work teasing you about being single or something while you’re on your breaks? This is pretty random, Hales.”
She glares at him, shaking her head. “It’s not like that, I don’t care what people think of me, you know that.”
“Then what’s this about?”
“It’s about us, I guess,” she shrugs, “Look, you can just say ‘no’. Spare me the embarrassment of having basically proposed to you.”
“That’s your idea of a proposal?” Luke snorts, his hands still on her leg, which irritates Nathan to no end, “That’s kind of weak, Hales.”
“Shut up,” she grumbles, glaring at him as she tries to jerk her foot away, “Don’t be such a - a butthead.”
”Oooh, you have been hanging out with Katie Lu too much!” Luke crows, “’Butthead’? That’s the best you got? Those are strong words, don’t say something you can’t take back!”
She starts laughing with him, unable to help herself. “I hate you!”
“Aw, then you really shouldn’t be proposing, huh?” he grins, leaning forward to lift her onto his lap, “So, you wanna tell me where this is coming from?”
She takes a deep breath, a tremulous smile on her lips. “You’re the best part of my life aside from Katie, and I want you to always be here.”
“Hey, I would be here for you forever,” he assures here, “We don’t need a piece of paper for that.”
She stares at him, not wavering. “I know this is weird, and probably feels like it is coming from nowhere. But come on, Luke, you make no effort to date anyone else. You spend all of your free time with me and Katie! You have other options, you could have woman you wanted pretty much. But you’re still here, with us.”
“I love you both,” he sighs, “And Haley, what we have, this friendship that we’ve had all these years, it’s incredibly important to me. You know that’s why I’ve never acted on this just like I know that’s why you’ve never brought it up before now. So why now?”
Taking a deep breath, she smiles faintly at him. “Because I don’t want this to pass me by. Because I like this, having you in my life, and I think it could be better for both of us. Because it’s you, and at the end of the day, you're all I have other than Katie.”
She’s moving closer to him, and Nathan has to look away as Luke tightens his hold on her, unable to make himself watch this. “You think we can do this without messing up? Because I don't know if either of us has the best reasons for doing this, Hales.”
“Yeah,” she says, and Nathan can’t help but force his eyes open to take this all in, “We’ve both screwed things up so many times so many ways in the past that we have to at least have a good list of what not to do between us, right?”
Luke rolls his eyes, letting his head flop back against the couch. “Okay, that’s a ringing endorsement.”
“Luke, I could love you,” she whispers, “You're my best friend, and one way or another, we're going to spend our lives together. Maybe we could try the other way for awhile. See what happens.”
“Haley,” he groans, squeezing his eyes shut, “I - we can’t start this if you aren’t sure. It’s just too much of a risk for me, okay?”
“I know,” she agrees, “It’s a risk for me, too. More for me, even! If I mess up, and drive you out of my life, that leaves not only me broken and devastated, but Katie, too.”
“Hey, that would never happen, I’d never leave you two,” he protests immediately.
“Come on, Luke, you and I both know what bad breakups do to a person,” she points out with an ironic smile, “You get irrational. You stop thinking and just feel, and that’s all you act on. Feelings, and not thoughts.”
“Well, I’d like to think we’re both smarter than that,” he insists with a smile.
“You can say that because we’ve both only been broken up with, never the one doing the breaking,” she laughs, “Come on, Luke, there isn’t room for promises in anything in life. Just action, and doing your best with what you have when you have it.”
“We’re not waiting until we’re thirty, are we?” he asks slowly, smirking at her when she tightens her hold on him.
“Why should we?” Haley asks in a husky voice as she leans closer to him, her lips grazing against his. She smiles against his lips when he tightens his hold, pulling her closer. “There’s no time like the present, Luke.”
“I guess not,” he agrees, and Nathan turns away before he can see any more of this.
Obviously, Katie’s birth had enlightened him to the fact that Haley hadn’t joined a nunnery or something like that after she left Tree Hill. He hadn’t even expected that. But to have it be thrown in his face that she’s taking up with his brother, his rival, is one of the worst feelings he’s ever felt.
“I’m sorry that this is something you have to see,” Keith tells him sympathetically, “We can move on to our last stop, if you’d like now.”
Nathan nods mutely, not trusting himself to speak at the moment. In the span of a heartbeat, Keith has transported them forward in time, but they remain in the same place. “We’re still here,” Nathan chokes out, and for some reason he feels like that tells him all he needs to know.
“This one is short,” Keith sighs, motioning for Nathan to head down the hall. They enter a bedroom, and Nathan cringes at the sight of the present-day Haley and Lucas lying on a bed together, each facing opposite ways. “Look at them,” Keith encourages, “Really look at them and tell me what you see.”
Taking a deep and what he hopes is fortifying breath, Nathan nods, looking over at his brother and ex-wife. Who are in bed together. It’s like his worst nightmare come true.
“They’re sleeping far apart,” Nathan gets out in a shaky whisper, “And - and they’re wearing wedding rings. So they married?”
“Yes, they did,” Keith nods, “Tell me what else you see.”
“Luke looks like he has a migraine,” Nathan starts with him, since he can see his face, “He looks like he’d rather be anywhere else but here.” He walks around to the other side of the bed. “She’s crying!” he exclaims softly in surprise, “Why is she crying?”
Keith looks down at the floor. “It’s like this every time for them. The first time they slept together, she puked her guts up before spending the rest of the night on the bathroom floor sobbing and he drank a pint of rum straight out of the bottle. Quite the ringing endorsement, yeah?”
“I - I don’t understand,” Nathan admits, “Are they not attracted to each other? Is it that bad?”
Keith shakes his head. “That really has nothing to do with it. Remember those emotional attachments and previous relationships they talked about before they agreed to give this a go?” Nathan nods. “Apparently, those aren’t as easy to let go of as they’d hoped.”
“They do this every time?” Nathan repeats, incredulous, “She cries and he shuts down? That’s just insane, why are they doing this to themselves?”
Keith shrugs. “How do you get out of this type of a relationship with the one person you were never supposed to be in it with, but the one person you know you can’t ever let go of because they're just about the only thing anchoring you to life?”
That puts it into a slightly better bit of perspective for Nathan, but he still doesn’t quite understand why they’re doing this to themselves. To each other, for crying out loud. “It still doesn’t really work out in my mind why they’d hurt each other like this, I guess.”
“They don’t care,” Keith explains gently, “Luke knew going in that Haley loved him, but that she’d never be in love with him. And vice versa for her him. They just thought that since they had their friendship, and that they were attracted to each other, that the rest would come. That they could ignore the ‘in love’ part of the equation. Or at least pretend they weren’t still so in love with other people that it didn’t hold them back from ever falling in love with each other.”
“That’s so - I don’t know, messed up, I guess,” Nathan offers, his heart constricting over what they’ve done to themselves, to each other. “I hate seeing them like this. It’s almost worst than thinking they’re happy and doing it like rabbits all the time. Almost, but not quite.”
Keith smirks, shaking his head. “Nate, I think there’s a whole new sense of honesty in you, or at least honesty with yourself. I’m impressed. I think you’ve come a long way in the span of this evening.”
“Thanks,” Nathan mutters sarcastically, slipping back out of the room, enjoying the new ‘through the wall’ trick. Of course, he’s got bad luck and bad timing and apparently bad Karma, so Katie is there, stopping dead in her tracks when she sees him come out of the wall.
“Oh, my God,” she whispers, the little girl now older, but still so young and little. She opens her mouth to scream, and Nathan instinctively reacts, clamping a hand over her mouth. That seems to shock her into silence.
“Where’s your room?” he asks tersely, nodding when she points towards it. He motions her towards it, taking his hand off her mouth as she precedes him into the room.
”You’re real,” she whispers, letting out a little whimper, “And you’re back. Are you here to be my daddy now?”
“No, Katie, I’m not,” he whispers back at her, “I’m sorry, munchkin, but I can’t be your daddy. Besides, you have Luke, and I know how much he loves you.”
“I know that, too,” she states regally, “But he’s not my daddy. He’s supposed to be Uncle Luke, not Daddy. You were supposed to be my dad. Why aren’t you again? I can’t really remember last time I saw you.”
Nathan takes a deep breath, sitting down on the girl’s desk chair. “Last time I saw you, I kinda messed things up for you, didn’t I?” he asks her, glancing over towards Keith. She still hasn’t acknowledged Keith, so he’s guessing she still can’t see him.
“Mommy and Luke couldn’t see you,” she says forlornly, “How come I can if they can’t?”
“I don’t know, Munchkin,” Nathan sighs, wishing that he had an actual answer to give her about any of this, “You aren’t supposed to.”
“My mommy calls me ‘Munchkin’,” she announces, wrinkling her little nose at him, “How come you do, too?”
“Uh, I don’t know, maybe because your mommy does?” Nathan suggests, frowning lightly at her as he tries to figure out what to say to her about his reappearance in his life, “Listen, Katie, maybe this time you shouldn’t tell them you see me, oaky?”
“Is it because you can walk through the wall?” she asks, “Oh. Are you a ghost then? I guess it would be hard to be my daddy if you were dead.”
“I’m - I’m not exactly a ghost,” he tells her, “And I’m not here to hurt anyone, okay? I was just checking up on things, making sure that you and your mommy and Luke were all doing okay.”
She looks at him, biting her lip as she tries to decide whether or not to make her admission to him. “I know who you are,” she finally says, “I saw your picture in my mommy’s book. You’re Uncle Luke’s brother.”
Surprised, he nods. “Yeah, I am.”
“I thought so,” she smiles, pleased, “They didn’t want to talk about you with me in the room, but you kinda look like him. And in the picture, you had a basketball and did you know Uncle Luke plays basketball? Well, he used to play in college, but now he plays for fun. He coaches my friend Pete’s team, and Mommy says it bums him out cuz I don’t play for him to coach.”
“That is a bummer,” Nathan agrees, unable to keep the fondly amused smile off of his face.
“How come you weren’t my daddy?” she asks, “You used to like my mommy, I know you did.”
A thought springing to his mind, he looks at her a little more intently. “Did you tell your mom and Luke that it was me you saw that day?”
She shakes her head. “They wouldn’t have believed me,” she sighs, “They think you’re my made up Daddy. I guess you kind of are.”
“I’m sorry I can’t be real for you, Katie.”
“Me, too,” she agrees, “Do you have to leave? You keep looking over at the door.”
Keith, who is what he is looking at by the door, nods that they do need to leave. “Yeah, I do need to go.”
She nods, accepting this. “I won’t tell them you came to visit again. But maybe they wouldn’t be mad. Maybe they’d be happy to see you.”
His smile at those words is bittersweet. “I don’t think they’d be very happy, actually. It’s okay, though. Soon things will be the way they were meant to be.”
She’s just as solemn and serious as he is as she regards him. “Are you going to fix it and be my daddy like you’re supposed to?”
Nathan smiles, shrugging. “I don’t know how everything will turn out, but I hope get lucky enough to be your daddy.”
“Me, too,” she grins. She puts her hands on her hips, tilting her head to the side as she regards him silently. “I bet you can do it.”
That proclamation startles a laugh out of him. “Well, I guess we’ll find out.”
“If you aren’t a ghost, what are you?” she asks, “Or is it a secret?”
“It’s kind of a secret,” he sighs, not having a better answer than the one she inadvertently gave him, “But I’m not a bad guy, okay?”
“I know,” Katie beams, “Otherwise you wouldn’t supposed to have been my dad.”
“Uh, can you tell me why you think that?” he asks the question that has been bothering him throughout this.
She blinks in surprise at the question. “Well - “ she cuts herself off, giggling, “I don’t know. It’s just something that I know.”
“How do you know it, though?” he persists, needing some understanding of what’s happening here, why she’s so sure that she should’ve been his, that he should’ve been hers.
She shrugs. “I just do. Maybe that’s why I can see you and Mommy and Luke can’t!” she enthuses, “So I can tell you to do things right and be mine! Be my daddy!”
“Maybe Luke is the one who is supposed to be your daddy,” Nathan suggests, voicing his worst fear.
She is clearly surprised at the suggestion, and he wants to curse himself for even planting it in her mind. “No,” she says slowly, “It’s not him. It’s you.” She sighs in frustration. “I don’t know why I know that, but I just do! Don’t you believe me?”
He glances over at Keith, who kind of shrugs before nodding. “I believe her,” he smiles. I’m not sure why I do, but if she can see you, there’s something going on here. Tell her yes, let yourself believe, Nate.”
He nods slowly, his gaze swinging back to Katie. “Yeah, I believe you, Munchkin.”
She squeals, throwing her arms around him. “Oh, I knew you’d believe me!”
Nathan sees Keith over her shoulder, pointing to his watch. “Hey, uh, Katie, I have to get going.”
“What? But you just got here!” she exclaims, pulling away from to look up at him, “How come you gotta go?”
“I know, but I have things to do. ‘Miles to go before I sleep’.”
She beams up at him. “My mommy read me that! It’s her favorite of all time.”
“Yes, I know,” Nathan says quietly, “I remember that.”
“Am I going to see you again?” she asks, looking him in the eye.
His throat clogs with tears he cannot shed right now at the question. “I sure hope so, Munchkin.”
“Me, too,” she smiles. She pauses, biting her lower lip in thought. “I think I will see you again. I think this time, you’ll be my real daddy, and you’ll be with me.” She frowns as if uncertain where that came from. “How come I know that?”
“Maybe you’re just the smartest little girl in the world,” he suggests, ruffling her hair.
She laughs. “Yeah, probably.”
The purple mist thickens, and she gasps as she notices it. He waves to her, his heart heavy at the knowledge that going back would blink her out of existence, along with his younger half-siblings. His last thought as he looks at her is that he has a whole lot of thinking to do now that the show and tell portion of the evening is over.