A/N Spoilers for the season three finale! Audrey's thoughts when her hand is on the Barn's door handle. A long drabble that I came up with after I watched the finale. I'm officially hooked on my beloved Haven, and very glad that I only found out it existed two weeks ago, because I can't imagine waiting a whole summer for season 4. Let's see what Friday brings us!
She loves them both.
Some people think that it is impossible, but Audrey has never let that fact stop her from doing anything.
Others say that if you fall in love for a second time, you were never in love in the first pace. But how can that be true when she doesn't remember falling in love?
It was just there one afternoon, when she was sipping her coffee at a crime scene, looking at her boys fighting over the perfect breakfast (waffles versus pancakes).
Maybe it's because there are so many different kinds of love. Or maybe it's just that she has lived at least three lives and will remember none of them the moment she enters the Barn.
Nathan was her first friend. He was the first one to get to know her, the first one to believe in her. They have gone through enough together to be closer than anyone has ever before.
But that's not the love she means. If that were true, she wouldn't have to choose at all.
The love she has for Nathan exists almost purely of his need for her touch. Thinking back to Chris, that makes her a huge hypocrite.
Had Audrey not been immune to her partner's Trouble, she doubts that he would ever have fallen for her as he had now. Doubts that he would've been the father of the child she otherwise may have never had.
But just like he can't live without her touch, she can't live without his. It's like an addiction, the power she holds over him, even if she does nothing with it out of respect for her best friend.
From that physical connection stems the emotional one that goes further than friendship, and developed into a feeling she knows to be love.
With Duke it's different. When she first met him, she knew instinctively that he wasn't her type. Criminal, irresponsible, lazy, and without a steady income was the opposite of which she sought for in romance. While he was definitely handsome, she knew it would be better for her sanity to stay away from him.
How wrong had she been.
Everything from the last few months has connected them on an emotional level that she didn't think him or herself capable of. He fixed his mistakes, went out of his way to keep her safe and stood by her when she dug into her past. Loved her for who she was, because he knew who that was, even if she still didn't.
She and Duke have never really been friends in the way she and Nathan have been. What they had went from acquaintances to something way beyond friendship and progressed from there to their only shared kiss. A kiss that had been breathtaking and far too short.
That's why she says goodbye to Duke with her simple whispered words and a kiss on the cheek. Words will always mean more to them than a passionate kiss squeezed in too little time.
She kisses Nathan as long as she can, because that's what sets her apart from all the others to him. With words she can be any other girl, but her touch is unique and lasting, saying more than words ever could.
Nathan needs her so much he wants her, Duke wants her so much he needs her.
Is it really wrong to love them both?
