Note: story title from "I get to love you" by ruelle.

because season 3 naley is and always will be my favorite. enjoy!

… … …

When she looks back on it now, she wonders why she took his ultimatum so personally, why she believed there was really a choice to be made. Sure, music is important to her, and it was fun to have something for herself for a change, to have a career she could see a future in. But she loves Nathan more than anything in this world, and being away from him for the last few months (not to mention coming so close to losing him forever) has just made her realize the truth of it all.

It's him. It's always been him, and it will always be him. And none of it matters without him by her side.

She's not naïve enough to think that she'll knock on his door, and he'll take her in his arms, and it'll be like nothing ever happened. She knows he's been hurting for months now, that he's probably resigned himself to a life without her, maybe even embraced it. Maybe she's hurt him so bad that he hates her and won't want anything to do with her. He did initiate the annulment papers, after all.

But her heart hopes that he still feels the same way she does. That even with the hurt and the anger and the damage she's done that he still loves her, that he still cares. Because then, at least she'll know there's something there to build on.

… … …

He doesn't know what she expected, really, showing up on his doorstep this way. The world – his world – didn't just stop because she left. (Okay, maybe it did for a while.) He wasn't just going to sit around waiting for Haley to come home, not after she made it more than clear that she was happy being on the road. Of course, now that he's finally decided he's ready to move forward without her, she decides she wants to go back to the way things were.

He wishes he could give her some grand speech about how there's nothing left for her here, how it's time for her to move on with her life without him in it. Wishes he could just kick her to the curb, push her out of his life the way she did to him. But he can't, because as much as he wishes he didn't, he still loves her. He'll always love her. 'Always and forever' wasn't an empty promise. (At least not on his part.)

But contrary to what he used to believe, love doesn't solve everything. Love isn't always enough, and even if he never stops loving her, he doesn't know if things will ever get back to the way they used to be.

There wasn't a moment when I was away that my heart wasn't with you in Tree Hill, she tells him.

That's great, he deadpans. But I'm still leaving tomorrow. And unlike you, I'm taking my heart with me.

… … …

She could handle anger, and hurt, and she could even handle it if he lashed out at her, said things he didn't mean. She could handle any sort of emotion he decided to throw her way.

But this indifference? This complete detachment from any feeling toward her at all? It absolutely breaks her heart.

It's bad enough that he could barely muster a goodbye before he left for High Flyers. At least then, she had their moment from the night before he left to remind her that he still cared. (I still do love you. I always will.) But the fact that he didn't even bother to tell her he was home…

It's been months since they've spoken. She wrote letters, but he never responded. She told herself that he was just busy, reminded herself that she's the one who screwed up and that she's still got a lot of making up to do, that he doesn't owe her anything at all. Now, though, it's starting to look more and more like he hasn't thought of her once all summer. Like he's decided that he's just… done.

Her heart can't bear the thought of that, so she won't go there, not yet.

She realizes there's really nothing she can say to make things better at this point. She came home to apologize, to make things right, and he doesn't want to hear it. Her promises seem empty, her words fall on deaf ears.

I'm not going anywhere, she tells him.

Okay, he responds.

He still doesn't believe her. That's fine. She'll prove to him that she's in it for the long haul, for better or for worse. Always and forever.

… … …

He doesn't like hurting her, okay? Sure, part of him wants her to feel the same way he did, wants her to feel even a fraction of the hurt he's felt over the last few months. But he still loves her. His life would be a thousand times simpler if he didn't, but he does. So instead of pushing her away completely, he keeps her at arm's length, doesn't let her get close enough to see the scars she left. It's easier to pretend like he doesn't care than to show her that he does, to give her the power to reopen those scars.

He won't go through with the annulment papers. There's a reason why they got married, and they had plenty of good times together before everything went sour. But after everything that's happened, the fact that they're so far away from the way things used to be… he thinks they have to at least consider a divorce.

He doesn't like it anymore than she does. It feels… final. He's not sure he wants to completely shut the door on them, on what they have. (Had? Are they past-tense? He doesn't really know anymore.) But since the state requires at least a year of legal separation, he figures they've got plenty of time to figure it out, one way or the other.

A year from now, things will be good for us again, Haley insists.

(There's a part of him – a part of him that's bruised and battered and hidden deep in his heart, a part that most of the time he tries to forget is there – that hopes she's right.)

… … …

A sexy masquerade costume isn't going to fix anything. She's not naïve enough to think it would. But she'd hoped that maybe it would spark something in him, even if that something was just raw attraction. She's starting to realize that every decision she makes lately is with the intent to get some sort of reaction out of him, and it makes her feel stupid. Pathetic.

Nathan fell in love with her once, when she was just a girl with a four-point-oh GPA who helped him get his grades up and helped him realize he was worth more than his scoring average on the basketball court; when she was just Haley. It was enough for him, back then, and she was strong enough to realize that if he didn't want just Haley, then he didn't deserve her anyway.

What happened to that girl?

She's done playing games. If he doesn't want her the way she is, then he's not going to want her at all, and as much as it breaks her heart, she needs to learn to be okay with that. She hurt him – maybe more than even she realized – and as much as she wants to prove to him that she's not going anywhere, that she still loves him enough to make this work, she needs to give him the space to decide what he wants.

She hopes that he decides he wants her. But if he doesn't, she wants to be strong enough to be okay with that. So she's done with the stupid high school games. It's time to grow up.

… … …

He calls Chris because… well, sometimes he doesn't really know. Sometimes he thinks he's just a fucking idiot, because Chris Keller is a self-serving jackass who doesn't care about anyone but himself, and there's really nothing stopping him from screwing Nathan over.

But if he's being honest, he did it for Haley. Because even though she gave up the tour to come home, even though she says the music wasn't worth it without him, he knows better. He knows that she loved it, that she still loves it, and to him, she's not really Haley if she doesn't have her music. And as much as he hates to admit it, she would never have gotten as far as she had with it if Chris hadn't pushed her.

He plays it off, when Haley asks, like it's some sort of twisted test to see if he can trust her. (And, okay, maybe part of him wants to see if she ever truly had feelings for the guy, but it seems like even if she did, those feelings are long gone.) But when it boils down to it, it's as simple as what he told Chris.

She loves it, and I love her.

… … …

She told herself she was going to stop with the stupid high school games, that she was gonna grow up and handle this like an adult. But that was before Nathan kissed her at the masquerade party and walked away without a word, then basically implied that she had to work with Chris again to prove that he could trust her. So even though joining the cheerleading squad just to see more of Nathan seems like a pretty stupid high school game, she figures she's just evening the score.

And then Brooke comes up with this stupid 'fantasy boy draft', and Peyton threatens to pick Nathan, and Haley starts to realize that stupid high school games are unavoidable, because they're in high school, so she might as well play along.

… … …

All she wanted was one night. One night to be alone with Nathan and just… remember the way things were. She wanted to reminisce on their wedding and have a nice dinner with good conversation and just be together. She wanted him to remember the way he used to feel about her, even if it was just for one night.

What she gets instead is another opportunity to remind him that she came back for a reason. That no matter how much she loves music, no matter how much she loved being on tour, that she's always loved him more. That regardless of what she would have if she'd stayed gone, she always would have missed what she left behind.

And then, standing on the rooftop of Karen's Café, she gets a little sliver of hope in the form of a tiny purple flower, and it almost brings tears to her eyes.

The roots are still there. It just takes time.

(Don't say I never gave you anything.)

… … …

He supposes oh-and-two wouldn't be so bad if it wasn't his senior year, his last chance to impress college scouts. It wouldn't be so bad if he actually got along with his "co-captain" (why Whitey thought that was a good idea, he'll never understand), or if his dad wasn't being his usual over-bearing, controlling self, always looking over his shoulder (or shoving him up against lockers in front of the whole damn team). Oh yeah, and speaking of his over-bearing, controlling father, he's about to be the fucking mayor of Tree Hill.

But the fact that the Ravens are also oh-and-two? That's just icing on the cake.

Maybe the worst part of it all, though, is that even though he and Haley are finally making progress, they've still got a lot to work through. And she's the one person who could maybe help him make sense of it all, help him work through it.

So when Dan gets elected mayor, and his mother leaves for good, he calls her because it's the only thing he knows can help when things get this way.

He kisses her because she's sympathetic and comforting and understanding and she's here. He kind of can't believe that even after everything they've been through this year, after the way he's treated her lately, she's still (always) on his side, one-hundred-and-ten percent.

He asks her to stay because he loves her, and he's tired of pretending he doesn't.

… … …

Just when one thing starts to go right, everything else starts to go wrong.

First it's the birth control debacle, then the realization that she and Nathan want to go to college across the country from one another. Then she realizes Lucas isn't on his HCM medication, and to top it all off, a prominent scout shows up to watch Nathan play… and he has to ride the bench.

So when Nathan asks her what she wants to hear, there's really only one thing that can make everything okay.

Say you love me.

Of course I love you.

The rest they can figure out later.

… … …

It's only fitting that just when he feels like he and Haley are finally back on stable ground, some idiot lets the time capsule out, and all of his angst from last year is aired to the entire school. Including Haley. Which is just perfect, considering she supposed to go on stage that night for the first time since she left the tour.

So yeah, it kind of sucks to reopen those wounds, especially since things have been going pretty well lately. He finally feels like they've aired out most of what the issues were, like they're finally able to put everything behind them and focus on moving forward.

He wants to reassure her that he's not worried, that her going on stage again doesn't bother him at all, but he can't, because he is, and it does.

It's not about the music. He loves that she loves it, and he loves watching her love it. But watching his time capsule back… he just doesn't ever want to be that guy again. He doesn't ever want to feel the way he felt back then, or act the way he acted. It's one of those issues that they can't just talk through or work through and it's fixed; it's one of those wounds that's only healed with time.

It's a good thing they've got nothing but time.

… … …

And then, just like that, with one pull of a trigger, everything changes.

Does this darkness have a name?

… … …

Through all the grief, and the sadness, and the anger, and the confusion of the weeks after Keith's murder, the only thing she can be grateful for is that suddenly, everything is sharply in focus.

Suddenly, the issues she thought they had before don't mean anything. Suddenly, the only thing that matters to her is that Nathan is here. She is here. They're alive, and they're together. In the midst of everything that's happened, they've been able to lean one another, to comfort one another, to love one another. Love. Love is what matters. Life's too short, too precious to focus on anything else.

So she decides, as she's kissing the love of her life in the sprinklers on the football field, that she won't focus on the rest of it. She'll remember the way she feels right now, in this moment, and she'll focus on that for as long as it lasts.

(Always and forever.)

… … …

If you asked him at the beginning of the school year, he could have given you a myriad of reasons why he would never feel this way again, why he and Haley would never be together the way they used to be. He's never been more glad to be completely and utterly wrong.

After everything that's happened this year, and especially after losing Keith, he's realized what's really important in his life. And sure, that includes his mom, and his brother, and the rest of their friends. It even includes basketball, especially now that they've made the playoffs and have a chance to send Whitey out on a high note.

But the most important thing to him is Haley, and he wants to prove it to her. He wants to give her that big wedding she always dreamed of, and he wants to tell her in front of everyone who matters how much he loves her, how much she means to him. Sure, they've already got rings on their fingers that symbolize all that. But he thinks that after everything that's happened between them in the year since their beach wedding, it's the perfect time to renew those vows, to make those promises again.

As she walks down the aisle toward him, Lucas on her arm, in her white dress and with her bouquet of their favorite purple flowers and happy tears in her eyes, he thinks that he loves her more in this moment than he did a year ago. He knows that it doesn't matter what happens in their future, or what obstacles they face, because they're going to face it together.

This I vow to you, today, and always, and forever.

… … …