Chapter Summary: Audrey tries to smile, she really does, but memories of Lucy flash through her mind and everything hurts again, everything. She'd looked so sad every time in every flashback, so lonely. Maybe that's who she really was, underneath this network of other people's memories. Lonely.

Spoilers: through 3.06 (Real Estate)

Characters/pairings: Audrey + Claire friendship (dear muse, we're keeping it that way, kay?), (hopefully) eventual Nathan/Audrey, Duke Crocker (probably, to kick Nathan's ass, I hope), Jordan McKee, Jordan/Nathan (possibly? I don't even know what this story is doing)

Author's Notes: Written for my hc_bingo prompt "disappearing".

I have 4 parts written, and I think there will be at least... 4 or 5 more. I have a nasty habit of writing episode tags but never finishing them before the following episode, so I never get around to posting. So this will probably go AU, but for now it's all canon.

I'm trying really, really hard to make this Nathan/Audrey, because 1. FEELS 2. REASONS 3. My friend threatened me with horrible things if I don't (aka I don't get my christmas present. Yeah I'm shallow like that). But they're really not cooperating, especially Nathan who is being a jackass. Also Audrey and Claire are kind of trying to hook up, and my muse is really not cooperating with me. I don't know what this story is doing.

The whole story is going to be Mumford & Sons themed, because literally every fucking song on their new album SCREAMS Haven to me. Song for this chapter is "Babel".

and my ears hear the call of my unborn sons,
and i know the choices color all i've done
but I'll explain it all to the watchman's son,
i ain't ever lived a year better spent in love

Nathan disappears with Jordan, and for half a second Audrey contemplates shooting herself in the head.

It already hurts enough to believe she had, between the bleeding and the passing out and probably hitting her head on the floor a few times.

She's pretty sure seeing Nathan with Jordan is worse, though. Or not just that; Nathan doesn't even seem to realize Audrey exists anymore. He won't even look at her, like she's already disappeared.

It makes everything seem a thousand times worse, makes it not even worth fighting to stay.

"How you doing?" Claire's voice startles her, more than it should.

She waves a hand vaguely, mutters, "Fine, just tired." Claire gives her that therapist look, and Audrey sighs. "I just want to go home, okay?"

"You really need to see a doctor."

"I thought you were a doctor?"

Claire's mouth twitches. "Cute," she drawls. Watches Audrey for another moment, then sighs. "Okay, come on. I'll take you home." The thought of driving in any car but Nathan's makes her stomach turn. But he clearly didn't care how Audrey got home, or if she even did, or if she was okay, or-

"Audrey." Claire's voice is gentle and Audrey realizes she must look like absolute crap. "Come on."

She slips into a half-doze on the drive, hazy bits of memories flittering in and out of her mind. She has no idea whose they are. Claire shakes her gently awake when they get to the Gull, and Audrey moans. God, but her head hurts. Claire looks at her with concern, visibly biting her tongue, and helps her stand. Audrey wants to protest, but knows she probably won't make it inside on her own at this point anyway.

By the time they get up the stairs and inside she's almost crying with pain and exhaustion, and Claire looks ready to call an ambulance.

"I'm okay," Audrey gasps, collapsing on her bed. "I just need to sleep."

"You're not even close to okay," Claire retorts tightly. "And I don't know how I let you talk me into not getting you to the hospital."

"And what the hell would they do for it?" Audrey snaps, patience beyond worn. "I just need to last another couple weeks, and then it doesn't matter." Fuck. She hadn't meant to say that, not to her fucking therapist. Claire looks almost heartbroken, her face a mask of concern and sadness that makes Audrey want to cry.

Instead she rolls onto her back, closing her eyes. Her head is pounding so hard there's no way she'll be able to sleep, but she can't bring herself to ask the doctor for anything.

The bed creaks as Claire sits beside her, and Audrey opens her eyes at the shake of pills in a bottle. She gulps them down with a mumbled "thanks", closes her eyes again.

"It matters, Audrey." Even Claire's soft voice makes Audrey's head pound louder. "Of course it matters. Maybe not to you, but the people here who care about you don't want to watch you suffer." Then why did Nathan just leave me all alone? she wants to scream. But screaming would hurt, and hearing the words would hurt even more.

"Not so sure about that," she mutters instead.

She opens her eyes to see a flash of anger on the therapist's face, wonders what the hell she did wrong this time. "Nathan was an asshole today," Claire almost growls. It makes Audrey smile unexpectedly; the muscles ache from disuse.

"I thought you were supposed to be understanding and nonjudgmental, doc," she quips.

Claire's mouth tightens. "Yeah, with my patients I am. Nathan's not my patient." Audrey finds her smile fading, presses her hands to her forehead. She can feel Claire staring, hopes she's not bleeding again. "You know you can talk to me about that too, right?" Claire asks. "We don't only need to talk about the troubles."

Audrey huffs a laugh. "Yeah, but then you'd be my therapist therapist and not just a… a work necessity." It comes out a little harsher than she'd meant, but her thoughts seem to hit her mouth entirely unfiltered at the moment. "Sorry, that sounded…"

Claire shakes her head. "Believe me, I've been called worse. Look, why don't you just think of me as a friend right now? This entire situation is pretty… abnormal…" (Audrey chokes) "…and I think you could really use one."

Audrey winces, pushes herself into a half-sitting position against the pillows with her legs curled up. "Never really been good in that department," she sighs. The dizziness has passed, some, although her head still hurts horribly.

"I don't think that's true." Claire shifts to sit cross legged in front of Audrey. "Okay, so I didn't know you before you got to Haven, but you have friends here, Audrey. There's a lot of people who care about you, past lives or not."

Audrey tries to smile, she really does, but memories of Lucy flash through her mind and everything hurts again, everything. She'd looked so sad every time in every flashback, so lonely. Maybe that's who she really was, underneath this network of other people's memories. Lonely. A walking aberration, the only one to truly see these troubled people, the only one who can help them, but a complete outsider. Never remembering enough until too late, never truly a part of the community. And yet so integrally connected to it, so drawn, like helping the troubled was written in her DNA.

What kind of sick person would make her need to help people in a place that could never love her?

Claire's hand on her arm snaps her back to reality and she realizes she's crying, tears dripping onto the pillow. "Sure," she chokes. "A smuggler and a cop who seems to want to forget me as quickly as possible. Very long list." She wipes angrily at her cheeks, finds a little blood dripping from her nose. "Dammit." Claire already has kleenex for her, and the look of deep concern is back.

"Audrey, you can't keep doing this," the doctor almost pleads.

"It's probably just… leftover from before or something," Audrey hedges. "I didn't pass out, I didn't remember anything else, okay? I'm not trying to anymore. Not yet."

Claire's head whips up and she glares with doctor eyes. "Not ever. You're killing yourself, do you understand that?"

Audrey's first thought is so? and somehow she doesn't think she should say that out loud.

"It won't matter soon," she says instead, again, because isn't that her excuse for everything these days? It's her shell, the mantra she repeats over and over to keep herself sane. Soon I won't have to deal with any of this, soon I won't have to care, just a few more weeks…

"Okay, you need to stop with that," Claire snaps. "You're not positive you'll disappear, Audrey. You don't know what is going to happen. Maybe your injuries carry over to next time, did you think about that?"

Honestly, she hadn't. Because she really doesn't care, because whoever she is next won't remember being Audrey Parker. Until she does, and by then future her probably won't care either.

"So what, I'm supposed to just… just continue with this cycle forever?" she demands. "Just keep building up memories, keep coming into people's lives and tearing them apart and then just vanishing?" Sometimes she wishes she'd never reincarnated. Wishes Lucy had just died, without leaving her this mess to deal with. A mess that isn't hers and is, so intimately.

"You save people's lives, Audrey," Claire insists. "You know that."

"And Nathan?" Her voice cracks on his name and she can't bring herself to care anymore. "God, what have I done to him?" There are tears streaming down her cheeks now, unstoppable. "I didn't want to hurt him, I just... I just wanted to be a normal person, just in this one thing, I just…" She sees anger flash on Claire's face again, but she just squeezes Audrey's hand gently. And that one simple touch just breaks her.

Audrey Parker doesn't cry. Except when she does, and then it's like the floodgates of months of pent up emotion come roaring open, and suddenly she's sobbing so hard she can't breathe or see or hear or think, can only feel pain. Physical, mental, emotional, every kind there is; Jordan's touch couldn't possibly be worse.

She feels Claire's hands on her shoulders, supporting her gently, and suddenly Audrey is desperate for touch, connection, belonging. She lists forward, collapses against her… friend? and buries her face in the doctor's shoulder. And cries, and cries.

Claire wraps her arms carefully around her, murmuring what are probably soothing things in Audrey's ear, but Audrey can't hear anything but her own mind and sobs. Because after all of this, after everything they've been through together, Nathan isn't here and she needs him more than anyone or anything she's ever needed in her life, in any of her lives. Because she's scared, she's beyond scared, she's remembering things she shouldn't or should and she'd given herself brain hemorrhage to get him out of that house and he couldn't even look at her, couldn't see anything but fucking Jordan.

Because all of this is her fault, because he'd only gone to Jordan after Audrey had pushed him away, because all she wants is to keep him safe and try to make her inevitable disappearance as easy as possible for him but instead he's bribing judges and setting prisoners free and it's all so fucked up, so far from where they'd started, so far from where they should be.

And she'd take all of it back, she'd forgive everything, if he could just be here right now.

Audrey's intensely glad that Claire hadn't let her get away, that she'd pushed and pushed until Audrey had agreed to see her. Because right now she's pretty sure she'd just snap without someone here. Fingers run soothingly along her back, grounding her, reminding her that she's still here, she's still real, she's still Audrey. Whatever the hell that means.

She has no idea how long she cries, but eventually the tears run out and she just feels beyond drained, throat hoarse and face puffy. Claire brushes hair from her eyes when she pulls back, that look on her face again. There's an ache in Audrey's chest, that part of her that always craved human connection so desperately. The family she'd never had, the friends she'd never made. The basic sentimentalities she'd missed, affections she'd never learned to receive. Support she'd never learned how to ask for.

She's not used to someone pushing past the rigid boundaries she's set, refusing to let her wall herself in.

Claire grabs some more kleenex. "Feeling better?" she asks. Audrey gives a watery chuckle, shrugs.

"Not really," she mumbles. "I hate crying."

Claire smiles a little. "Most of us do, but sometimes it's necessary. You've got so much bottled up, Audrey, you need to let some of it go." She holds up a finger before Audrey can open her mouth, snips, "Don't you dare say it only needs to last a little longer, I am not letting you use that excuse any more." Audrey just rubs her eyes wearily.

"You need to talk to Nathan," Claire continues, not unkindly. "I get that you want to protect him, but this is… it's so far beyond that now, Audrey. He's your partner, if nothing else. Your friend."

"That's why it's better this way." Audrey hears her voice tremor. Traitor. "It'll be easier for him when I…" She swallows, turning away. The closer it gets, the harder it is to think about. What will it be like? Will it hurt? Will she experience time, or just… nothing? Will she watch the world turn for 27 years, unable to see or touch or feel, witness the people she cares about grow and love and hurt and die?

It's too much. It's far too much, and Nathan doesn't need to be sucked into it with her.

"It'll be easier if he hates me," she finishes. "And I'm… I'm glad he found Jordan. I want him to be happy. This way… this way will be easier."

"For him." Claire's voice actually sounds a little strangled. "But what about you, Audrey?"

"Nathan-"

"I don't care about Nathan!" Claire's anger snaps Audrey's head up. "Nathan is not my patient or my friend. You are." Audrey's mouth works, speechless. She's never speechless. "God, Audrey, you are so convinced that everyone's life matters but yours, that you're just here to… to save everyone else. But you're a person. You're a human being with thoughts and feelings and emotions and even if you're only around for a few months that doesn't change the fact that you are as alive as me or Nathan or anyone else in this town. You are a living, breathing, feeling woman who has been through a hell of a lot in these past few months, and I don't care what everyone else says or what you think you need to do for this town, you are not just a… a tool." Audrey finds herself swallowing against a lump in her throat, pushing down the panic that comes at someone actually voicing it. She's known it, she's always known that half the town hated her and the other half was using her, but no one ever said a damn thing.

Except Claire.

And she's not done, apparently. "Maybe you pushing Nathan away will help him, but frankly, I don't give a damn," she's saying. "It's hurting you, Audrey, and that's what I care about. You shouldn't have to carry this entire town on your back all alone."

When Audrey can speak, she whispers, "You're really not giving up on me, are you?" Claire smiles.

"Wouldn't be any good at my job if I did." Audrey feels her face crumple a little, tries desperately to smile through it. Claire, of course, will have none of it. "You do know I'm a therapist, right?" she deadpans. "And I'm trained to read body language?" She raises an eyebrow at Audrey. "You can't fool me, Audrey. I probably have a better idea of what you're feeling than you do." That gets a laugh, because it's so horribly true.

"Okay, you need to sleep," Claire orders gently. "You've been through way too much today." Audrey nods, too tired to argue. She'd forgotten the pain in her head momentarily, distracted by thoughts, but it suddenly comes raging back in. Claire grabs her shoulders as she clutches her head, moaning. "Shh, alright, just lay down."

At this point it's all she can do to collapse on the pillows, praying she doesn't bleed on them during the night. Claire pulls a blanket over her, hand resting on her shoulder as Audrey shivers. She feels tears on her cheeks again, but this time from pain, and covers her face with her hands.

"Audrey…" There's an almost panicked undertone to Claire's voice.

"I jus' need to sleep…" she chokes out. Because really, that's all. She needs to be oblivious to the world for awhile, give her brain a chance to reset. She'll be fine tomorrow. Of course she'll be fine tomorrow.

Claire's hand leaves her shoulder, and she feels inexplicably colder. Smaller. But then her fingers comb gently through Audrey's hair, soothing and methodic, somehow taking the edge off the pain. Audrey feels tense muscles relax, slowly, realizes she was almost panting as her breathing evens out.

"That help?" Claire asks softly. Audrey gives the slightest nod, not trusting her voice. "Okay, then close your eyes. Sleep. Just let everything go for tonight." And somehow, impossibly, Audrey's mind obeys. She finds herself more relaxed than she has been in weeks, now that she's not alone. She's been so on guard, ever since the kidnapping, never fully sleeping. Never enough.

It's been so draining.

She trusts Claire, she realizes, as she slips toward sleep. Even if she's a shrink, even if she doesn't know how to use a gun, Audrey trusts her.

So she finally sleeps.

i press my nose up to the glass around your heart
i should've known i was weaker from the start
you'll build your walls and i will play my bloody part
to tear
tear them down

Comments are love!