Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

- one -

The pancakes are divine.

Okay, so maybe she isn’t an impartial judge, and she might still be giddy from the most incredible night of her life, but she’d still swear under oath that Nathan’s pancakes are by far the best she’s ever tasted.

Audrey suddenly understands why he’s so fixated on the breakfast staple – though if he can cook like this it must be a letdown every time he orders them.

Apparently this man knows his way around a kitchen like he knows his way around a woman’s body – neither of which she would have guessed when she first met him.

Seems life has a few pleasant surprises mixed in with all the fiascos.

It’s the look on his face that gets her. He’d spent half the night worshiping her body and then served her heaven on a platter, but now he’s looking at her like a puppy whose entire self-worth hinges on her approval of his pancake making skills. Affection surges through her, and even though she’d intended to wait to tell him she finds she can’t contain herself. She wants to make him as happy as he’s made her.

“I love you,” she admits. It’s the first time she’s ever said those words to anyone, and it isn’t as terrifying as she imagined. In fact it’s somehow liberating. The weight that’s been settled in her chest for so long she can’t remember being without it dissolves.

His smile widens, but not quite as much as she expected. “It’s my mother’s recipe. There’s a secret ingredient.”

She’s pretty sure she tastes cinnamon, but that’s too ordinary. There must be something else. She does want to know what, eventually, but in that moment she couldn’t care less.

She’d bared her soul to him, and he’d been too distracted by breakfast to notice.

She huffs in fond exasperation. It’s a little bewildering that after everything he did to her last night right now she finds him adorable. “Not the pancakes, silly. You.”

It takes a few seconds for that to sink in. But as soon as it does it’s like the sun bursting over the horizon. He beams at her, and she’s never been so aware of how devastatingly handsome he is.

“Say it again.”

She’s more than happy to oblige, the words bubbling out of her. “I love you.”

He crosses to her side of the kitchen island and pulls her off her stool. Suddenly the world starts spinning as he swings her around like she’s a child. “Nathan!” she shrieks as she latches her arms around his neck and her legs around his waist, but he laughs as he spins her and his joy is infectious. Soon she drops her head onto his shoulder and laughs with him, feeling young and glorious and invincible.

Her laughter is cut off by his lips, warm and insistent. He tastes like maple syrup.

She lets herself enjoy it for a while, but when he tries to tug her blouse out of her jeans reality intervenes.

“We have to be at the station in half an hour,” she reminds him. She glances down and is shocked by how far off the ground she is. Sometimes she forgets that Nathan is tall.

Undeterred, he nips at her earlobe. “We can be fast.”

“Oh no.” She shakes away from his wandering mouth and tries to figure out how to get down. “With this kind of news, I want us to be slow.”

She feels the shiver that goes through him as she draws the last word out. It distracts him enough that she unlatches her legs and stumbles loose.

“Just not right now. If we’re late everyone at the station will know why, and then Laverne will want to talk about it and I may be so emotionally scarred afterwards I’ll never be able to sleep with you again. So it’s really better for the both of us if we wait until after our shift.”

“Don’t want to,” he pouts. She doesn’t either, really, but they’ve got to put some boundaries on this thing if they’re going to keep being partners, and if she drags him to bed right now the whole day will be lost, hands down.

“What did your mom always say?” she asks from the safety of a few feet away. “Good things come to those who wait?”

“Something like that,” he answers reluctantly.

“Well, Wuornos, time to practice that patience. I promise it’ll be worth your while.”

“I think you’re trying to kill me,” he groans, but there’s a vibrancy about him that belies his words. It’s as if her touch has made him more alive, somehow. As if the effects of the stimulation linger even after her skin leaves his.

“Only in a Shakespearean sense,” she says with a smirk as she picks up her fork again. “Now go take a shower. I want to finish my pancakes. I love them too, by the way.”

you're so delicious
you're so soft
sweet on the tip of my tongue
you taste like sunlight
and strawberry bubble gum

you bite my lip
you spike my blood
you make my heart beat faster

own me, you own
you rattle my bones
you turn me over and over
'till I can't control myself
make me a liar
one big disaster
you make my heart beat faster

  Faster, Matt Nathanson

Chapter Text

- two –

Through the driving need to save Rosalyn and find a way out of captivity one thought keeps cutting through her chaotic mind – she’s worried about Nathan.

Usually her partner has a cool head in a crisis, but she remembers his rage when she’d told him about Duke’s legacy and she knows he won’t take her abduction well. He’d tear Haven apart to find her – she knows he’s coming. She’s just afraid for whoever might get in his way.

So when the lamp tips over she knows she needs to find a way to stop the fire not just because Rosalyn is counting on her but because she doesn’t think Nathan will recover if he finds her burned corpse. She cuts through the rope heedless of how the glass slices her wrists because she will not be the victim of some faceless psychopath and leave Nathan forever saddled with guilt. She isn’t a damsel in distress, but the danger in Haven is very real and Nathan’s got a white knight streak a mile wide. She knows he’ll blame himself even though none of this is his fault.

After she escapes to the lobby and hears Nathan calling to her from the doorway she allows herself one moment of weakness and sinks into his arms, desperately glad she didn’t have to make it all the way home on her own. He presses his forehead to the side of her neck and his hands to her bare shoulders and she’s afraid he can’t feel her arms wrapped around him through his heavy jacket. She’s been meaning to experiment, to discover exactly how much her touch affects him with clothing in the way, but that always leads to ditching the clothes entirely and all she’s 100% sure of is that skin to skin contact shoots straight to his nerves. But she presses herself closer and breathes him in and allows herself a few precious seconds of relief. He is here and seemingly whole and whatever damage he caused trying to get to her, they’ll deal with it.

“I was so worried,” he whispers into her skin.

It reminds her that as safe as she feels in this moment they are not. She pulls away and launches into an explanation about her kidnapper and Rosalyn. She meets Rosalyn’s son and they all take off looking for the woman.

But after Duke and Wesley leave the room instead of immediately following Nathan pulls her back to him and slants his mouth over hers. Even though there’s a case to solve and danger lurking she gives in, because just half an hour ago she’d watched a fire start and been terrified she’d never get to do this again.

“Are you okay?” he asks afterwards. He raises a hand as if he wants to touch her cheek, but doesn’t. As hard as her abductor hit her, she figures it’s probably bruised.

“He wanted information on the Colorado Kid.” She wants to be strong, but her voice wavers at the thought of the phantom in the bright light who seemed to know more about her life than she did. “Wasn’t too happy that I didn’t have any. He got so angry when I wouldn’t give him what he wanted, and all I could think was I couldn’t die without telling you I loved you.”

He crushes her to him with a strangled sound that might have been a sob, except Nathan doesn’t cry. “I love you too,” he swears. She already knows this, but it floods her cold, battered body with warmth anyway.

“You’ve already established that. It’s my emotionally stunted self that took so long to get there.”

“We’re going to celebrate,” he says as he pulls away. “Soon as we save the town from aliens.” His sardonic tone promises everything is going to be okay even more than his words.

But after finding Rosalyn’s charred remains and watching Wesley disappear into his own delusion, neither Nathan or Audrey feel much like celebrating.

He drives in silence, and she doesn’t fight him when he pulls up to his house instead of her apartment. She’s not ready to face whatever she’ll find there. The Gull was her sanctuary, and it had been breached.

Thankfully Nathan is more stalwart. He opens the door for her and she goes straight to his couch, pulling her knees to her chest and dropping her forehead against them. Rosalyn’s terrified voice swirls through her mind and tears build behind her eyes. But Nathan is suddenly there beside her, his large, warm hand running soothingly up and down her back and she leans into him, letting his chest muffle her sobs.

“I promised I’d get her out of there,” she cries, the injustice of it all consuming her. She’d watched people die since coming to Haven – even sometimes been the cause. But she’d never felt so responsible.

Nathan doesn’t feed her empty reassurances. He just keeps rubbing her back until her tears dry.

“You should get cleaned up,” he says eventually, running his fingers softly across her face to free her hair from where it had matted in her tears. “I’ll make us something to eat.”

“I’m not hungry.” She can still smell Rosalyn’s burning flesh, but she’s not sure whether it’s a memory or the stench has sunk into their clothing. Either way, the thought of food turns her stomach. She’d already wretched once today.

“I know. But we need to eat.”

She figures she’ll argue with him about that after her shower. As much as she doesn’t want to leave his side, she wants to be rid of all traces of this awful day. She throws her black and red stained blouse into the bathroom trash. She cannot believe that a little over a day ago she was flitting around her apartment, making a special dinner for Nathan, for once not thinking about work or the Troubles. Things have been tense in Haven ever since she shot the Rev, but the longer she was with Nathan the easier it was to forget. She’d gotten careless and complacent, and now Rosalyn was dead.

She turns the water as hot as she can stand it and uses Nathan’s soap to scrub away the grime, even though she’s filled his shower with all sorts of girly concoctions. The water scalds her slashed wrists through the bandages the EMTs had hastily applied, and she swallows the pain as she swims in the guilt of wishing she had Nathan’s Trouble, even for a minute. If she’d died in that inn, there was a chance he’d never have felt anything again.

So when she pads into the kitchen wearing some of his old clothes she sneaks up behind him. He’s staring out the window as something on the stove boils. While one of her hands grasps his the other wraps around him and snakes under his shirt to spread against his stomach.

He twitches back into her with a gasp, but she holds on. “Hi,” she whispers. He’d taken off the jacket, so her breath ghosts over his neck.

“Hey.” His voice is low and breathy as she moves her fingers in tiny circles.

She hears his breathing deepen, and he lets her touch him for a while before he slowly turns in her grasp.

Finally she lets herself study him. The bags under his eyes are pronounced, but not as vividly as the bruise blooming across his face. In the dim light of the inn she hadn’t noticed. His lip is split too. She reaches up to touch his wounds and then catches herself.

“What happened?”

When he looks to the ground, ashamed, she knows.

“I guess I should be grateful Duke’s still alive, huh?” She’s too tired to give that the bite it warrants, but she raises her eyebrows and tries to glare.

He rubs uselessly at the back of his neck. “I found his whistle in your apartment! Your place was a mess, you were gone and all clues pointed to Duke. I couldn’t think straight, I was so terrified.”

She’s not shocked by this, and she finds that she can’t really blame him. She brings her hands to his shoulders and tries to sooth the tension from them. She watches him swallow as his eyes drift shut automatically, and she knows it’s working. “How long did you two spend beating on each other before you realized he had nothing to do with this?”

“A while.”

“Oh Nathan.” She knows now is not the time to remind him that she’s certain Duke is on their side. He’s still alive, so there’s time to rectify this, and right now that’s all that matters. They’ll worry about the fact her abductor knew them well enough to turn the men against each other in the morning.

“I knew you’d be mad if I killed him.”

“Damn right.” She doesn’t even want to imagine that. She drops her head to his shoulder and lets herself absorb his closeness, his body solid against hers and his breathing steady in her ear.

He smooths a hand over her hair and pulls reluctantly away. “Let’s eat so we can get you to bed.”

She doesn’t have the energy to argue that she’s not a child. The soup is warm and salty and she doesn’t bother identifying a single ingredient. The hot chocolate he’d made her is lukewarm and she tastes the alcohol he’d laced it with. She finishes that even though she can only manage half a bowl of soup. As miserable as she still feels she’s overwhelmingly glad that he’s here, taking care of her. She can’t imagine how she’d cope with this alone in her trashed apartment.

She waits up while he takes a shower, and when he slides into bed beside her she rolls toward him and kisses him deeply, her hands seeking his bare skin.

When she needs to breathe she pulls away and rests her forehead against his. He smells like her body wash.

“I’m so tired,” she mumbles. It’s more than just the heaviness in her battered limbs. Her soul is weary.

“Then sleep, Audrey. I’ve got you.”

She shakes her head, her nose brushing against his. Sleep isn’t what she needs most right now. “I want to feel you. I want you to feel me.”

He’s so gentle with her it makes her ache, and she cries, “I love you,” on her release. He echoes her devotion and keeps her gathered in his arms. “No one will take you again,” he swears.

He’s there every time she wakes, sobbing or shaking, and as time passes and her abductor remains at large she never forgets his determination to protect her, even when she’s no longer sure he has the authority to keep that promise.

When the world breaks your heart
I can put it back together
Write your name across the sky
So I'm always with you
Now it's you and me
Like the stars we burn forever
So listen when I say to you I
'll be there, you're not alone

When the World Breaks Your Heart, Goo Goo Dolls

Chapter Text

- three -

Every breath is excruciating.

She knows it’s for Nathan’s own good and that’s the only reason she can go through with it. But pushing him away hurts worse than slicing her wrists with a jagged shard. She eases into it, thinking that will be easier – cancelling their movie date with a claim that she’s tired, staying late at the station so she doesn’t have to join him for dinner, inviting Duke to lunch so they don’t have a chance to be alone. She makes herself watch his face crumple in disappointment every time because the guilt of looking away would be suspicious, but it’s like swallowing glass and she knows she’ll never survive forty-three days of this.

There had been a moment this morning, when Duke had suggested forgetting all this and enjoying whatever time she had left, that she had contemplated just that. She could drag Nathan off to a tropical island somewhere and tell him she needed a vacation – and nothing else. At least then he’d always have those memories of paradise. There’s something intoxicating about the thought of having him to herself – no late night calls from the station, no small town politics or traumatizing Troubles. But the practical side of her knows she can’t vanish into thin air without warning and leave him stranded in a foreign country. Lucy couldn’t run from the Hunter, and she’s afraid she’s no different. She can’t let anyone dangerous think Nathan is keeping her from her destiny. Whoever she is, she isn’t meant to be happy. She’s meant to help the Troubled, and she needs to keep doing that for as long as she can. She can’t let Nathan get in the way of that – for his own good as much as for anyone else’s.

She’s made up her mind – this is the only way. Better to rip it off like a band-aid.

She can’t believe she actually wishes the meteor storm would arrive sooner.

“How about we get some takeout and call it a night?” he asks, hovering by her desk. He hasn’t been this tentative around her since – well, ever. She hates it.

She’s about to hate everything a whole lot more in a minute.

“I don’t think this is going to work.”

He goes still and silent. Usually she has a good idea what he’s thinking, but in that moment she has no idea.

“Pardon?”

She desperately wants to allay the fear that’s crept into his tone. Instead she takes a deep breath and spits out lies. “You and me. This more than partners thing. It’s a distraction. There’s a serial killer on the loose and we need to focus on that, not on screwing around.”

“We’re not screwing around,” he argues, immediately defensive. She grabs on to the touch of anger in his tone, because it’ll be easier to play off that than the sadness that is sure to come.

She narrows her eyes. They’re not just screwing around. But they’re definitely screwing around. A lot.

Or they were.

She tries to appear aloof, unaffected. “It’s unprofessional.”

“That’s never bothered you before. You didn’t give a damn about professionalism after you shot the Rev.”

“What I give a damn about is helping the Troubled. I need to focus on that, and you need to let me. So we need to cool it.”

“This isn’t about work. I don’t know what the hell is going on in your head, but that isn’t it. You’re not leaving here until you tell me.”

“Are you forbidding me from breaking up with you?” She finally feels anger begin to spark in her stomach, and she tries to fan it because this would be so much easier if she was enraged instead of heartbroken.

He huffs out a labored breath. “Lord knows you’ve never listened to me before. Don’t know why you’d start now. But after everything we’ve been through, I thought you’d at least have the decency to tell me the truth.”

It feels like she can’t breathe, except she’s still sucking air into her lungs. It’s just not doing any good as her chest constricts and her heart pounds and her traitorous lips almost tell him everything. But she clenches her jaw and keeps silent. Because she remembers that glimpse of the Colorado Kid’s bloody form, the overwhelming devastation that had consumed Lucy that felt exactly the same as when Nathan had been hit by that car on the endless day, and she’d stroked his hair and watched the light fade from his eyes as he whispered that all he could feel was her. Something inside her had died both those times. It feels like it’s dying now, but as long as he doesn’t she’ll carry on as long as she needs to. It’s only forty-three days.

Maybe not remembering is meant to be a mercy.

She glares back but she doesn’t say anything, and she wills him to fold first.

Except that he doesn’t.

He’s too damn stubborn and that’s the problem exactly. So she pulls out her final weapon, which she knows will break them beyond repair.

“Look, I’m sorry you’re not going to be able to find another fuck buddy but some things are more important than getting off.”

She’s not expecting how quickly his outrage melts into desolation. He’d been far more peaceful dying in her arms – but the sudden dullness of his eyes is so similar the magnitude of what she’s done shatters her resolve. She was so certain this was what’s right but he’s actually crying and suddenly she’s crying and she can’t handle it and this is wrong, so wrong, so very wrong.

“See you around the office, Parker,” he spits, and disdain is so foreign from this man who has bandaged her hurts and soothed her soul. He doesn’t look at her as he turns around and as soon as he reaches the door something inside her just snaps.

“Lucy loved the Colorado Kid and it got him killed,” she whispers brokenly as she stands up to follow him. He stops with his hand on the doorknob. “I love you too much to let the same thing happen to you.”

He’s like a whirlwind as he turns back towards her, grabs her tear drenched face and kisses her with bruising force. He’s never been rough with her before but she doesn’t push him away. For better or worse, she’s done with that. She can’t save him – not without breaking him – and if it’s too late for both of them all she can do is accept that. She kisses him back just as desperately, all clashing teeth and feuding tongues, because she’s angry at him for not letting her save him and angry at herself for failing and angry at this damn world for putting them in this inescapable situation.

When he finally tears his mouth away, panting, he drops it to her neck and she knows he’ll leave a mark.

“We can’t do this here,” she hisses, surprised by how angry she sounds.

“Because you’re determined to use some moronic argument to break us apart?”

“Because we’re in my office and you’re giving Stan a free show.” Indeed, the officer is standing outside the window, probably drawn there by the sound of the commotion. At the mention of his name he startles out of view.

Nathan closes the blinds so forcefully Audrey thinks he might rip them down.

“Now he probably thinks we’re going to have angry sex on my desk.” She can’t help it – these things just come out of her mouth before they cross her brain. And now suddenly she’s thinking about exactly that and she can’t keep herself from blushing.

“You don’t have to protect me,” he says through gritted teeth once he recovers from her awkward comment. “I’m a grown man. And a cop. I’ve been looking out for myself my whole life.”

“Are you saying you wouldn’t try to protect me if our places were reversed?”

He ignores her question, but they both know the answer. “We don’t know who killed the Colorado Kid or why. That was twenty-seven years ago. The Hunter may not even be alive.”

She had spent the first day after Duke’s revelation wishing he had never told her. She’d rather live her life oblivious than spend what was left of it dwelling on its ending. She understood Duke’s paranoia about the tattooed man a helluva lot better than she used to. But now that her future was known, there was no way to unlearn it. “The Hunter isn’t a person,” she explains. “It’s a meteor storm.”

“How do you know that?” The ferocity of his emotions seem to have faded, but he’s still tense and it makes her nervous. Instinct tells her to reach out to him and drown his fears with her touch, but that would be a false and temporary balm.

“Duke did some digging in the Herald archives. The storm hits every twenty-seven years. And when it comes ... I go.”

“Go where?” he demands.

Wasn’t that the question of her life. “I don’t know. But Lucy and Sarah – the woman before Lucy – both vanished the night of the Hunter.”

She waits for a freak out that never comes. He crosses his arms and scowls, as if bracing himself for an attack. “I’m not going to let you walk off into some meteor storm. We’ll figure this out.”

“The next one’s in forty-three days.”

His eyes widen and his fingers twitch, but his voice is steady when he tells her, “There’s still time.”

Hers is a wavering mess. “There isn’t. That’s less than two months away! I thought if I broke up with you now it would give you some time to get over me, so it would be easier when I go.”

“There’s nothing that could make losing you easier.”

She wraps her arms around herself. The tears keep falling, and she can’t stop them. “Damn it Nathan! I need you to be okay when I’m gone.”

“That’s impossible.”

“Don’t say that. Please,” she begs. She cannot bear the thought of leaving him alone and heartbroken any more than she can stomach him dying because of her. He has suffered so much already. All she wants is to ease his pain, but she’s about to make it so much worse.

He approaches her like she’s a wounded animal and places two gentle hands on her shoulders. “Long as you stay, I’ll be just fine.”

“I don’t think it’ll be my choice. Lucy wanted to stay and the Colorado Kid died.”

“We’ll find a way. We always do. I’m not losing the best thing that’s ever happened to me.”

His resolve is so comforting and familiar that she throws her arms around him and holds on. He relaxes against her, his hands rubbing soothing patterns across her back. He presses a kiss to her forehead and she wants to remember this forever – this wonderful man who loves her so much that she can’t push him away as much as she tries. She doesn’t understand how love can be erased – but she had loved the Colorado Kid and all she can remember is his death. She doesn’t want that to be the only thing she can remember about Nathan. But she doesn’t know how to fight this anymore.

“Why do you put up with me?” she whispers into his neck. “I’m a mess, and my life’s some cosmic joke.”

There’s one obvious reason for his attention, of course. He’s told her that isn’t it but she can’t fathom anything else being strong enough to bind him to her when she’s a moody and erratic disaster.

When he doesn’t answer immediately she wishes she could burrow into the ground. “Gosh, you don’t have to answer that. I can’t believe I even asked. Just forget it.”

“Give me a second. I’m trying to find the words.”

He pulls away, and she’s not sure she’s ever seen him look so determined. “I put up with you because you’re the most extraordinary woman I’ve ever met. You have a single minded determination to help others, whatever it takes. You’re smart. Gorgeous. You make me laugh and keep me on my toes. You’ve never treated me any differently because of my Trouble. You’re strong, inside and out, and you can kick anyone’s ass, including mine, which is sexy as hell. You fixed me, not just because you made me feel again, but because you made me want to live. And you spend so much time looking after everyone else that you never look after yourself. I want to be the one to do that – to make you breakfast and remind you to sleep and make sure you take some time off from saving the world to enjoy yourself. To be a shoulder to cry on when you need it and the one to tell you you don’t need to face the future alone.”

Never before had compliments made her want to bawl. She doesn’t feel like the woman Nathan described, but his eyes are brimming with sincerity and hers are brimming with tears. “You’re the best man I’ve ever met,” she tells him, and it seems inadequate compared to everything he’s said but it’s the singular thought running through her mind. “You’re just so good. Honest and patient and kind and so nice to me even when I don’t deserve it. I’m so sorry for saying such terrible things. I didn’t mean them, I swear. I know this isn’t about your Trouble or my immunity. I just needed something to make you mad enough to leave.”

She’s glad when he doesn’t tell her it’s okay, because it isn’t. She’d crossed a line when she’d reduced his love to something crass and she’s afraid she’ll relive that horrible moment for the rest of her short life.

“I would have come back as soon as I cooled down.”

Her own personal boomerang. But instead of making her feel cherished it just frustrates her. “I was trying to save you. Now I don’t know how to do that.”

He wipes the tears from under her eyes and she imagines she can feel his pulse through his fingers. “If you really love me, then don’t give up on yourself. I’ll fix this.”

She wants so desperately to believe him, but she’s never believed in fairytales. “No one’s been able to before.”

“My father didn’t love Lucy – thank God.” She wrinkles her nose at that thought. Thank God, indeed. As if her life isn’t already a soap opera. “And if you don’t think I’m more capable than Vince and Dave I’m going to be offended.”

That coaxes a half-hearted chuckle from her. “There’s my girl.” His hands trace the contours of her face and she closes her eyes, letting the sensation steady her. He values her strength, but she’s never let anyone else see her so weak.

“What if we can’t stop this?” she asks, keeping her eyes closed.

“We will.” If he doubts that at all, she can’t tell by his voice.

She opens her eyes. “What if we can’t?” she demands.

“If you only have forty-three days left as Audrey Parker, then I want to spend every one of them at your side.”

She launches herself into his arms, needing to feel his lips open under hers. He’s right, of course. If they only have forty-three days, then they need to make them count. She isn’t a quitter, and she isn’t one to sit around and complain that life isn’t fair.

“Whatever’s coming, you’re not gonna face it alone,” he whispers against her lips, and he kisses her until she feels like she is drowning.

Though it’s the sweetest damnation imaginable, she can’t help but feel like she has failed him.

This is our life, it's all that we get
The days are all numbered
And the nights are all spent, losing our focus
We're starting to drag, we're running in circles
And we start to feel bad
But it don't mean that this ain't right
We just both need a little more time

Snowblind, Rob Thomas

Chapter Text

- four -

They’re so busy searching for a solution that doesn’t even seem to exist that they haven’t taken a day off for weeks. So Audrey’s shocked when Nathan wakes up one morning and tells her he’s not going to the station.

She’s even more shocked when he brings her to a graveyard.

Their first stop is the flower shop, where he buys a bunch of daises. But instead of handing them to her he holds on to them until he lays them on his mother’s grave.

This isn’t East Side Cemetery. They’re behind the First Presbyterian Church, and Audrey’s so used to Nathan’s aversion to the Rev’s domain on the other side of town that it’s hard to imagine him here as a boy, all dressed up and half-asleep beside his parents without any thought that God has cursed and forsaken him.

But there is something boyish about the way he collapses in front of the tombstone, his legs dropping out from under him as he runs his hand reverently over a marker he can’t feel. Her heart falters in her chest as she reads the inscription. He’d been silent all morning, even for him, and she’d wondered what he was up to but hadn’t expected this.

She stands behind him and rests her hands on his shoulders as they bow toward the earth. She knows now that he can feel the pressure of that through his shirt but the sensation is muffled like she’s screaming at him but he has cotton in his ears. Present but not precise.

She notices that the first date on the stone matches today’s, but she doesn’t say anything. He knows this, obviously, and it feels wrong to intrude on this moment. He hadn’t invited her along, exactly. She’d just followed.

Audrey didn’t know this woman – though maybe Lucy had; it seems each time she comes to town she meets everyone – but she knows who she left behind. And that makes the loss of her hurt as if they’d been friends. He didn’t deserve this, on top of everything else. He didn’t deserve any of it.

“The Chief always came here on the day she died. I thought that was morbid. I’d rather visit on her birthday.”

She reaches down and grabs one of his hands. His fingers curl under hers and she wants to do something more, to make this better, but she doesn’t know how. She cannot think of a single comforting response that is true.

He is silent for a long time. It gets uncomfortable leaning over him but she doesn’t want to let go, so she drops down beside him and he drapes an arm around her and latches their fingers together. He’s staring at the tombstone so intently it’s almost as if he’s communing with the dead. Anything is possible in Haven, and Audrey’s already seen him talk to the ghost of his father, so she wonders if maybe he can see his mother here.

Finally he seems to rouse himself a little and starts poking at the daisies with his free hand. “She loved daisies, so that’s what Dad would buy for her. Nothing traditional or romantic. He taught me to give a woman what she wanted, not what the world said she wanted.”

She would have been shocked that Garland Wuornos was capable of something so sentimental and yet so true if she wasn’t already reeling from the fact it was the first time she’d ever heard Nathan call the Chief “Dad”.

She glances sideways at him, expecting a look of melancholic nostalgia to match his tone of voice. But it’s raw pain that radiates from him, and it catches her heart in a vice.

“Nathan,” she breathes, trying to infuse that word with everything she feels but cannot say. And then she grabs his shoulder and pulls him into her, one hand running through his hair and the other rubbing across his back, trying desperately to be soothing. He sinks into her and his composure shatters, and she feels the silent heave of his chest. He doesn’t shed any tears, but she can feel them in the charged air around them and she wishes he would just let them go. It does neither of them any good, keeping them locked inside.

“Why does everyone leave?” he whispers, and it’s like he’s dropped ice down her back.

She knows what he wants her to say. And God, how she wants to promise that she will be different. That she will never leave him, not for anything. But one of the many things she’s learned in Haven is that history repeats, and it’s not kind. She can no more make herself stay than she can resurrect his parents.

There may, indeed, be someone in this town who can do both those things. But it’s not her.

But she knows the next best thing that she can tell him. And maybe in the end it won’t help, maybe it will only reinforce his notion that everyone who loves him leaves, but he deserves to know and she’s kept him waiting far too long, waiting for some perfect moment when so many other perfectly fine moments pass them by.

They’re running out of time.

She pulls back enough to cradle his head, her thumbs skimming across his cheeks, causing him to close his eyes against his haze of self-pity. It’s impossible for him to feel alone when she’s touching him, demanding his attention. She tilts her forehead against his and waits until he opens his eyes to look at her.

“I love you,” she finally tells him, and she hopes it’s enough.

In her imagination he’s always jubilant when he hears this, but in reality the joy seeps across his face more gradually, and it’s more of a half-smirk that he gives hers than a grin.

“That supposed to be a surprise?” he drawls, and she’s so thrown by this for a few moments all she can do is gape at him with her mouth open.

“Yes?” she finally manages. He laughs softly at that, but she is so grateful for the sound, even if this whole declaration didn’t go at all how she expected.

It’s something she already knows about Nathan. While she tends to wallow in her emotions he switches his off rapidly. Both anger and sadness fade quickly with the right kind of persuasion.

“How long have you known?” she asks him.

“Since the night you wouldn’t sleep with me because I was too important to you.”

She pulls back just a little because she can’t think about this objectively when his shining eyes are so close to hers, staring deliberately at her lips. “I didn’t even know I was in love you with you back then.” But if she really thinks about it, she supposes she was. Dating Nathan didn’t change her feelings, really. It just gave her the freedom to dwell and act on them.

The smirk is back. “When did you figure it out?”

She doesn’t need any time to contemplate that answer. “After we finally slept together.” He does grin at that, and she elbows him in the ribs. “That isn’t why. It was the way I felt afterwards. I just wanted to stay there with you forever. I’d never felt anything like that before.”

It’s not the fireworks she’d been expecting. He doesn’t swing her around or kiss her until she’s breathless. But his joy is still so tangible it’s like she can feel it warming her own skin. She has made him happy, without a doubt, and that is all she wants.

“That was months ago.”

She rolls her eyes at him. “Obviously. I wanted to plan some big romantic gesture. But we’ve been so busy. It never seemed like the right time.” She looks around at their surroundings: it’s a cloudy day and the grass is overgrown and browning beneath them. And they are in a cemetery. “This probably wasn’t it,” she says wryly. “But I wanted you to know.”

He lifts one of her hands and brushes his lips softly across her knuckles. “Thank you.”

She is never quite sure what to do in these moments of intimacy, when he is just so perfect in her eyes that her heart swells and she isn’t sure she can handle it.

“So what about you?” she asks after a few moments under his spell. “Did you really figure out you loved me at a dinner theater in Derry, or were you holding out on me too?”

He shakes his head, and the way he hesitates makes her nervous. “It was the day with those killer plants. I showed up to rescue you, but you already had everything under control. You walked off with Brody – and I knew the Teagues had been right. I’d waited too long.”

“Nathan.” It had been heroic, the way he’d showed up with a hockey stick and a torch, but she’d been so distracted she’d hardly even noticed. Knowing how he’d felt back then made her even more regretful of the unmitigated disaster that was her relationship with Chris Brody. She wished she could go back and do it all differently. She hated the thought that she’d hurt him, even unintentionally.

“It’s all right. He’s not a threat anymore.”

In truth he never was, because even when she was sleeping with Chris the scientist could never hold her attention. Nathan has never had that problem – in the bedroom or outside it. “I didn’t know you had feelings for me for so long.”

“That’s when I realized what they were. That wasn’t when they started.”

That seems even more incomprehensible. “So when did they start?”

He is still holding one of her hands and he looks down at it, his thumb drifting over her skin slowly. “When I thought the chameleon had killed you I couldn’t fathom my life without you in it. When we found you alive it didn’t matter than Eleanor was dead and my father had thought I was a monster – because you were still here.”

The fact he’d carried a torch for her for so long and never gave any indication floors her. “You barely even knew me then.”

“I knew enough.”

It takes a while for the second implication to sink in. If he couldn’t fathom being without her then – when he barely even knew her – what does that mean for him now?

She’s already worried about what he will do when she is gone. She can only hope that the Troubles will go with her so he can have a normal life. Maybe since she has taught him the importance of touch he will find it elsewhere. She doesn’t like the thought of that exactly – part of her wants him to wait for her return, because surely she’ll love him no matter how old he is – but that part of her is selfish, and she really does want him to be happy. If she can’t be there for him then it is best if someone else is.

“I will always want to stay with you,” she swears, and she closes her fingers around his and holds on. “I need you to remember that. No matter what happens – even if I can’t – I will always want to.” She pushes a few strands of hair out of her face to give herself a few second to regroup before she makes her final admission. “Sometime it feels like I always have.”

He nods, but he doesn’t argue or swear that he will always keep her by his side. She fears they’re growing beyond that, that even his faith is faltering.

Or perhaps he realizes how much his distress hurts her. Or on a day like this, maybe he just doesn’t have any fight left.

“Tell me more about your mother,” she eventually prompts. “I can’t picture Garland Wuornos as a romantic. She must have been some woman to bring that out in him.”

They while the hours away with stories of his childhood and she learns more of him than she’d ever known. She imagines if their lives had been different, and they were going to a birthday party today instead of a memorial. Garland is gruff and feigns disapproval on the grounds of fraternizing in the workplace, but he smiles at Audrey when Nathan isn’t looking. His mother is delighted by the woman at her son’s side, and they talk like old friends. It’s normal in a way Audrey isn’t accustomed to, and she yearns for a life where this is possible – where they both have a place to belong. She wants that for him after she is gone. But later, when they go to the Gull for drinks and Duke regales them with tales so outrageous even Nathan is snorting into his beer, she thinks maybe she ought to broaden her definition of family. Maybe if her guys have each other, they’ll both be all right.

So hold me when I'm here
Right me when I'm wrong
Hold me when I'm scared
And love me when I'm gone
Everything I am
And everything in me
Wants to be the one
You wanted me to be
I'll never let you down
Even if I could
I'd give up everything
If only for your good
So hold me when I'm here
Right me when I'm wrong
You can hold me when I'm scared
You won't always be there
So love me when I'm gone

Love me when I'm gone...

Love Me When I’m Gone, 3 Doors Down

Chapter Text

- five –

Two weeks before the Barn is slated to appear, Audrey realizes she’s waited long enough.

The plan has been brewing for awhile, but she’s been too distracted to enact it. Part of her has been waiting for a perfect moment to appear, like her life’s some sappy romantic comedy. She’s normally more rational than that. She blames Nathan and his ability to look at her with those big blue eyes and turn her into such a girl. There are no perfect moments in Haven, so she’ll just have to create one herself.

She raps on his office door shortly after lunch. He raises his eyebrows when he looks up and sees that it’s her. They both know she never knocks.

“I need the afternoon off, boss,” she tells him, making a halfhearted attempt at professionalism even though she’d never been so flippant with Agent Howard. Not when she thought he was a federal agent instead of a potentially supernatural imposter, anyway.

They both know she never takes time off either. Especially now, when the countdown is frighteningly close to switching from weeks to days.

“Did you catch a lead?” he asks, immediately ready to leap into the fray and follow her.

They’re both great detectives and the stakes have never been higher, but they’ve caught very few leads since she put a stop to his ridiculous plan to infiltrate the Guard. They might have an ATM video of the Bolt Gun Killer, but Frank Grady is nowhere to be found and the trail has gone cold even though bodies keep turning up. They know the Colorado Kid’s identity but not how to find him. And they have no idea why the Barn comes for her and what makes her willing to leave.

But today she isn’t going to think about any of that.

“Nope.”

“Then why?”

She ignores his disappointment and summons her most seductive purr. “Show up at my place at seven and you’ll find out.” She slinks out the door, but turns back before she’s out of sight. He’s still watching her go, looking slightly dazed, and she can’t help but laugh. “And wear something nice.”

She knows that Nathan’s other senses have sharpened to compensate for his lack of touch, and tonight she plans to dazzle them all.

Smell is easy. The florist gives her a funny look when she buys his entire stock of lilacs and lilies, but she knows Nathan is partial to the flowers she’d brought him after their first case. She’s been experimenting with different perfumes – because despite their hectic lives it’s still fun to drive him crazy – and she already knows the perfect one to wear to complement the flowers.

Sound is more difficult. Audrey Parker knows next to nothing about music, so it’s a good thing Lucy Ripley was somewhat of an expert. Composers and concertos come back to her when she sits at her piano, and she’s taken notice of the ones Nathan likes most. When she gets to the music store she thinks about the way her fingers glide across the keys, the melodies running through her mind stronger than memories, and she knows what CDs to buy even though she doesn’t know Lucy’s middle name or where she grew up. But even if she chooses wrong this won’t matter so much – it’s the words she has to tell him that he most wants to hear.

Taste is both the easiest and the hardest. She knows immediately what she needs to feed him – has known since the first case they worked together of his love affair with pancakes. They are a shared joke, a comforting remnant of his childhood, the first meal he cooked for her after they made love. They are, without a doubt, his culinary specialty. So she has always let him make them, but she’s been watching how he does it. It wasn’t hard to get him to reveal his secret ingredient – when her hands are on him it’s difficult for him to deny her anything.

It’s harder to find time to practice. They spend nearly every waking moment together, but sometimes she tells him she needs some time to think before dinner and goes back to her apartment to experiment. She teaches herself the perfect pancake size and shape, learns to flip them with ease, and modifies the recipe until it seems to match his exactly.

Her fridge and pantry are already stocked with everything she needs, but she buys new eggs and milk anyway, as well as a dozen chocolate covered strawberries for dessert.

Maybe she’s being ridiculous, but getting the pancakes right seems particularly important, as if his reaction to her confession hinges on that.

But it’s sight that almost throws her off her timeline. She already has a few dozen candles and a plan to clean her apartment. But as she stands in the store staring at the racks of dresses she is at a loss. She wishes Vince and Dave would happen by to offer advice. She holds up dress after dress and isn’t sure what the mirror tells her. Is this dress too revealing? Not revealing enough? Does the color clash with her eyes or wash out her skin? She knows Nathan approved of the blue dress Dave picked for her – but she wants something different for tonight. Something that is just for him, not a case.

She finally settles on a red dress with a sweetheart neckline edged with black lace. The color seems appropriate, and it’s easy to find lingerie to match.

Behind schedule, she throws herself into cleaning the apartment as if it’s a Trouble she needs to solve – how can she scrub away months of dust and bring some light into the dark corners? She changes the sheets and leaves flowers everywhere, and then shimmies into her dress. She takes the time to curl her hair and put on the earrings he gave her, which she’s almost positive were his mother’s. Then she starts the music and sets to work on the pancakes.

She has just flipped the first batch onto a plate when her doorbell rings at 6:59. She turns to slip on her heels and déjà vu grips her so strongly she nearly knocks the pancakes to the floor. All this time she has not let herself think of the last time she tried to cook for him, but suddenly she is keenly aware that her abductor is still out there.

She will not let him ruin her plans again.

Breathing deeply to steady herself, she grabs her phone and calls Nathan.

She can hear his ringtone in the hallway, but she asks anyway, “Is that you?”

The question seems to throw him. Her throat tightens through a moment of silence, but then she hears, “Were you expecting someone else?” echo through her phone and her thin wooden door.

She exhales and tries to brush it off as she fastens the straps on her shoes. “Well, I told Stan to come over tomorrow but you know how sometimes he gets confused.”

He chuckles and starts to say, “Please don’t,” when she opens the door.

He stops mid-sentence and she watches his eyes sweep over her. She wants to laugh at his gobsmacked expression, but she’s too caught up in his appearance. He’s wearing a black vest over a gray shirt with a matching tie, and damn, he looks hot. She’s well aware that Nathan’s an attractive guy, but after seeing him almost every day for nearly a year, she’s used to it. But there’s something about the way he looks tonight that sets her body on edge in the best kind of way. There’s something playful about it, as if he knows he’s teasing her. Boy is it ever working.

She swallows, licks her lips, and makes the conscious effort to recover first.

“Don’t what?” Her voice is all low and strange, and taking notice of that seems to focus him a little.

“Was gonna ask you not to joke about dating Stan. But dressed like that, you can say whatever you want.”

She smooths a hand down her skirt self-consciously. “You like?”

She’s barely registered his devilish grin before he grabs her, one hand splayed against her hip and the other tangled in her curls, and kisses her until stars fall behind her eyes.

“That a clear enough answer?” he murmurs into her neck.

She toys with the top of his tie to steady herself, but that just makes her want to undo it. Perhaps she has overdone all this. The flowers are going to her head and she hasn’t wanted to jump him right now this badly since the first time they slept together.

She hums noncommittally. “Words might be clearer.”

She feels him nuzzle his nose up her neck until his breath is warm against her ear. “You look ravishing,” he whispers.

She cannot resist baiting him. “Wait till you see what I’m wearing underneath.”

He almost finds out a whole lot sooner than she intends, but he can’t find the zipper and his distraction gives her a chance to gather her wits. She’s a grown woman, not some hormonal teenager, and she’s gone to a lot of trouble for everything that’s supposed to come before the sex. “Hold your horses, Romeo,” she says, pushing him gently away and backing into her apartment. “There’ll be time for that later.”

He pouts a little, but once he steps inside her apartment he notices she’s turned it into a garden. “Guess this explains why the flower shop was out of lilies,” he tells her, and then he retrieves a bunch of flowers he must have dropped during their make out session. They are a little worse for wear – as if perhaps they’d been trampled on by amorous lovers – but he hands them to her anyway.

White daisies. His mother’s favorite.

“They’re beautiful,” she says without looking at them too closely, overwhelmed by the sentiment behind that particular choice.

He raises an eyebrow. She looks more closely at all the buds bent at unnatural angles and the torn and missing petals.

“They were beautiful,” she amends, and then she laughs because they are such a delightful mess. “You’re looking pretty hot yourself tonight, partner.”

He treats her to an easy grin, and then he looks around the apartment, taking in the ambience she has created. “What’s all this for?”

“I made dinner,” she tells him, avoiding the question. He walks behind her toward the kitchen, and she knows why, so she puts an extra sway in her step.

His eyes go even brighter when she puts the plate of pancakes before him. “Predictable,” she teases fondly, but she’s glad that he’s excited. She stands beside him as he drenches them in maple syrup and takes the first bite. She didn’t get a chance to taste them before he arrived, and though the process seemed to go smoothly she’s not sure that they’re up to his standards.

“These are really good,” he tells her. He seems sincere, but she cannot be certain.

“Tell me the truth. I don’t want to find out fifty years from now I’ve been doing this wrong the whole time and you were just humoring me.”

She’s usually so careful not to talk about a future they won’t have, but she’s so wrapped up in enjoying this evening that she’s forgotten. The way he freezes means he surely noticed her slip – and she’s sure he’s imagining the two of them growing old together, losing their youth but not their humor. But the moment passes and he takes another bite, which he chews thoughtfully.

“Ease up on the cinnamon,” he suggests. “But honestly, these are delicious.”

Needing a final confirmation, she reaches down and snatches a piece from his plate. The syrup is sticky under her fingers as she pops it into her mouth. He’s right – the cinnamon is more pronounced than when he makes them, but they’re still better than any restaurant’s. They’re slightly cold, but that’s his fault as much as hers.

Content with his assessment, she licks the syrup from her fingers and watches his gulp.

“Oh crap, the champagne!” She pulls the bottle from the refrigerator and places it in front of him, along with two wine glasses.

“Fancy.”

“Didn’t know if pancakes went better with white wine or red. I figured champagne goes with everything, right?”

“Sure.” She can hear his smile.

“Can you pour it? I’ll make some more pancakes.”

She’s intent on her task, utilizing all the techniques she’s practiced, but when she finally looks up with two steaming plates she realizes he’s been staring at her.

“What?”

“You. Dressed like that. Making me pancakes. That’s the sexiest thing I’ve ever seen.”

She throws back her head and laughs, because she believes him.

“You really do have some sort of fixation,” she says as she sets one of the plates in front of him. “Maybe we should bring this up with that department shrink.”

“Claire,” he supplies as she settles across from him.

“Whatever.”

“You had three sessions with her,” he reminds fondly.

“And I told her I didn’t need any more, because I have you to talk to.” She grabs the champagne glass and swirls it around, pretending a level of sophistication she certainly doesn’t possess. “Besides, you know it takes me at least three months to learn someone’s name. But I think the shrink – Claire – would find your obsession with pancakes very interesting.”

“That would definitely be a good use of town resources.”

Maybe it’s the champagne, maybe it’s nerves – or maybe it’s just him, but she laughs through dinner. They’ve been so serious lately that she’s forgotten they could be like this – carefree. Happy. Normal.

“Dance with me,” she requests once the pancakes and strawberries are gone, along with most of the champagne.

“I don’t dance.”

“I remember. The night at the Gull after you got demoted was pretty awful. But you were sad and drunk, so I’ll give you a free pass.”

“How very gracious of you,” he quips dryly. “It’s hard when you can’t feel your feet.”

“Stan always dances with me.”

He shakes his head. “You’ll give a guy a complex.”

“Come on. I’ll make sure you can feel your feet later.”

“You’re incorrigible.”

“You like it.”

“Yeah,” he admits. He offers her his hand and she takes it, smiling, as he leads her into her living room. It’s awkward for a few seconds as they search for the proper positions, but then one of his hands is linked with one of hers and the other is settled on her waist. She leans in to him, and smiles at the fact that he’s wearing cologne, which isn’t typical. They sway to the music, and she doesn’t really know what she’s doing either, but it doesn’t matter. If she could turn Haven into a snow globe this is the moment she’d encapsulate, his heart racing under her ear and his palm slightly sweaty against hers and a goofy grin on his face she can’t help but match. She lets her free hand drift across his chest, catching on the buttons of the vest she really wishes he’d wear more often. He hums in appreciation, and part of her still wants to tear it off of him, but a bigger part of her wants to stay like this forever.

“This isn’t so bad, is it?” she murmurs.

He drops a kiss to the top of her head before answering. “Not so bad at all.”

A few songs pass as she savors their closeness. The anxiety she expected to feel does not arrive. She is certain of this, just like she is certain of him. He is everything she has ever wanted – integrity, kindness, and passion wrapped in good looks and a quick wit. He puts up with her quirks and amuses her with his own. And he showers her every day with a devotion she couldn’t begin to fathom until she met him.

She wants to match that devotion, make him feel as cherished as she does. She hopes tonight was a start.

She hopes she has more opportunities to show him than she expects to.

But tonight they will not contemplate the future. He is relaxed against her, and she thinks that if she just reaches up and kisses him he will overwhelm all her senses without any elaborate planning.

The prospect is too enticing to ignore. She pushes herself up on her toes and presses her lips against his cheek, where she first touched him and reanimated his world. After a few moments she drags her lips softly down his jaw. She’s playing a dangerous game, because she’s not trying to seduce him – not at the moment. But she wants him to feel how close she is, and she’s brimming with so much affection for him she’s sure she will burst if she doesn’t release it somehow. She sinks a little lower and kisses his throat, and she feels his sigh as much as she hears it.

For a long time she’d been surprised by the way a chaste touch seemed to affect him almost as strongly as one in the throes of passion. She’d been amazed when she’d begun to understand – when sometimes she needed his arm around her shoulder or his hand covering hers more than she needed his tongue down her throat. It was just another lesson he’d taught her, that love was stronger and more precious than lust.

“What’s going on?” he asks her shortly afterwards, his voice soft and low like a lullaby. “Tonight’s been wonderful. But why? Did I forget something?”

They haven’t had enough time to accumulate many milestones. But he’s got a mind like a steel trap and a deep appreciation for sentiment, and she’s certain he’d never forget an anniversary.

She tilts her head up so she can look at him. “I wanted everything to be perfect when I told you I loved you.”

She lets that settle for a moment – watches the way his smile deepens and feels him tighten his grip on her. But she isn’t finished.

“Because I do. So much. Sometimes it feels like that’s the only thing I really know about myself – that I love you. I have for a long time. I didn’t understand what love was when you told me back in Derry. But I get it now. You’ve shown me day after day, despite all the crazy this place throws at us, how to be patient and selfless. And even when I didn’t know what love was, I still felt it. The need to keep you safe, to have your back, to be there beside you. To make you smile and laugh and feel. To help you see that it doesn’t matter what your father thought, because you’re a wonderful man and he’d have to be a damn fool not to be proud of you.”

He is gazing at her like she is the most precious object in the world, and she feels herself blush under his admiration.

But one thing completely missing from his expression is shock.

“You already knew, didn’t you?” she realizes, feeling slightly foolish.

He smirks, just a little, and God if that doesn’t make her want to run a hand through his hair and then kiss him senseless. “Yeah. Sure is nice to hear you say it, though.”

So she tells him again, whisper soft against his ear, and he repeats her words against her lips.

There is nothing frantic in the embrace that follows. He doesn’t kiss her like she’s going to disappear in fourteen days and he must bind her to Haven with the strength of his devotion. The kiss is slow, thorough, like a promise of experiences not yet shared. He kisses her as if they will have an eternity together, and just for the night she lets herself believe him.

That smile on your face like a summer
The way that your hand keeps touching mine
Let me be the one to make it right

And maybe, maybe let me hold you
Baby, let me come over
I would tell you secrets nobody knows
I cannot overstate it, I will be overjoyed

Overjoyed, Matchbox 20

Chapter Text

- one –

They kiss in the shadow of the Barn as the sky falls around them. Terror claws at her, demanding like her hands on his back. All their fighting to escape her fate has been in vain. The cycle will claim her again – and again and again and again – and she does not know how to do this anymore without him by her side.

As soon as her lips leave his her heart shatters.

They have spent so long trying to prevent this very moment that she never told him the most important truth of all.

She knows she has to do it now. It isn’t fair to him, isn’t right that he should only hear this now and then watch her disappear, but she cannot let Audrey Parker die without telling Nathan Wuornos that she loves him.

She presses a hand against his heart, which seems surprisingly steady. Hers is throbbing.

“Nathan, I—”

He cuts her off. “Don’t say it. This isn’t goodbye. I’ll die before I let you go.”

That’s exactly what she’s been afraid of all this time.

Duke is just a few feet behind her. She wonders if he could hold Nathan off if she passes him the gun she has in her back pocket. He would try for her, she’s nearly certain. But she doesn’t want her last action toward Nathan to be a betrayal, and she can’t stand the thought of seeing the desolation she feels mirrored on his face. Why can’t he just kiss her again and then let her go?

“I have to go in there,” she says slowly, trying to sound placating, but her soul is bleeding. “Haven will be destroyed if I don’t. I can’t let that happen. Even for us.”

“I know. That’s why I’m going with you.”

The mirage his words conjure is so sweet she wants to run toward it, no matter the hellfire she’ll pass through on the way. It would not be so bad to lose twenty-seven years – again and again – just as long as he was there with her. They could rewrite the mystery, make it the couple who always appear to help the Troubled, and disappear when the Hunter comes. And maybe, together, one day they’ll fix the Troubles for good and live out the rest of their lives in hard-earned normalcy.

Except he is not a template waiting to be rewritten. All his memories are his own. He had a family who loved him and friends and co-workers who are not really someone else’s and a life that is not meant to be erased. He might not survive whatever the Barn would do to him. Even if he did, the sacrifice would be too great.

“You can’t give up your life for me, Nathan.”

“Without you, there’s nothing here worth staying for.”

“You have your job. Duke.” She tries to come up with a third example and fails. His life has seemed to revolve around her these past few months.

“Do you honestly think I’d choose Duke over you?” he scoffs.

“I can’t let you do this,” she whispers, tears streaming down her face.

He reaches out to brush them away. She did not expect him to be so composed. “My father never recovered after he lost my mother. I’ve seen what I’ll become without you. I don’t want to be that bitter, lonely man.”

“It’s not the same. Your mother died.”

“Exactly. The Chief couldn’t follow her. But you’re not going to die, Audrey. In twenty-seven years you come out of that Barn. Your memories may be gone, but you’re still you. You don’t have to go through that alone.”

“We don’t know what will happen if you go in there.”

He cradles her head, his long fingers warm against her face, steady as the world crashes around them. “That’s a risk I’m willing to take. I promised you that whatever happened you wouldn’t have to face it alone. Let me keep that promise.”

Part of her wants to fight tooth and nail to give him a long, normal life, because that’s what he deserves. But it isn’t what he wants. And he has taught her that love is a two way street. She has made her choice – she must go into the Barn. If his choice is to follow her, then she has to respect that.

And oh, how the rest of her wants to.

“Okay,” she whispers. “Come with me.”

He presses a kiss to her forehead and she feels some of the adrenaline drain from her. She is utterly exhausted, emotionally and physically, and she feels her legs begin to quake. One of his arms drops to her waist to steady her. “It’s going to be all right,” he says against her skin, and for the first time in days she thinks that it might be.

She can hear the crash of meteors signifying her selfishness. Haven is burning, and it is her fault. They have lingered too long. “I need to say goodbye.”

She steps out of his grasp and crosses to Duke. From his awkward expression she knows he has heard what’s transpired. “I’m sorry,” she says as she launches herself into his arms. There is no more time to dance around what’s acceptable now that she’s dating Nathan. She loves this man, though in a very different way, and she would miss him like crazy if she could only remember that he’s gone. “The two of you were supposed to take care of each other.”

His arms come around her gently. “It’s better this way. He’d be insufferable without you.”

When she pulls away he adds, “You take care of him, all right?” She manages to smile because she always knew deep down her guys cared about each other.

“Of course. Can you do me a favor?”

“Anything.”

He’s so earnest it’s unnerving. “Duke Crocker, helping a cop.” They have come such a long way.

“Only the pretty ones.”

She rolls her eyes, because she knows he’s not nearly as much of a cad as he pretends to be. “I left a video for myself in my desk at the Gull. When I come back, can you see that I watch it when I’m ready?”

“I promise.”

“There are two letters in the glove compartment of my truck,” Nathan adds. “One for me. One for Audrey. See that we get those too?” He fishes the keys out of his pocket and tosses them to Duke.

“Yeah.”

Audrey spins toward him with wide eyes. “How long have you been planning this?”

“Since we found out about the Barn.”

“Nathan, I—” she tries to tell him again, overwhelmed by his love and foresight, but he presses a finger to her lips.

“Tell me when we come out of the Barn,” he says, and she recognizes it for the challenge it is. She must remember her love for him even if she forgets everything else, because she needs to tell him and he will not let her until they face whatever is coming.

It would not be such a bad fate, she decides, to spend decades rediscovering that love.

“I wonder if Nathan’ll get a free makeover too. I always thought he’d look fetching as a blond,” Duke teases.

Audrey chokes on a laugh, and she hears Nathan chuckle softly beside her. She hopes Duke won’t have lost his sense of humor by the time they return.

“Thank you,” she tells him softly, meaning it in more ways than she can articulate. He tries to smile back at her, and she forgives the way it looks more like a grimace.

She is pleased but not shocked when Nathan’s clap on the back turns into an awkward half hug. She glances away to give them some privacy so neither man will have to admit that it happened.

When she turns back Nathan is standing beside her. Her knees and insides are quivering but he looks impeccably calm.

“Together?” he asks, lips upturned in a half smile that makes her heart flip even now.

“Together,” she promises.

Hand in hand, they walk into the Barn.

And maybe, I'll find out
The way to make it back someday
To watch you, to guide you
Through the darkest of your days

If a great wave shall fall
It'd fall upon us all
Well I hope there's someone out there
Who can bring me back to you

If I could, then I would
I 'll go wherever you will go
Way up high or down low
I 'll go wherever you will go

“Wherever You Will Go,” The Calling