Title: Hard Times Don't Come Until Tomorrow
Genre: Television
Series: Haven
Characters: Audrey Parker, Nathan Wournos
Spoilers: 1x9 - As You Were
Rating: PG
Summary: She can't seem to find the right combination of 'different' to make this day end.
Prompt: serenitymeimei - Time loop AU. What if there was a troubled person in Haven who had a serious grudge against Audrey and could make her relive the last 12-24 hours over and over again? Required- At least THREE looks at what she would do. Remember, there's no consequences!
Audrey couldn't seem to make herself get out of bed. She'd always been one of those people that never hit the snooze button or lingered, instead bolting into motion the second her feet hit the floor and not stopping until she dropped. That day, though, she felt weighed down and incapable of wanting to move. She laid there and watched the shadows on her ceiling grow more transparent as the sun rose higher and listened to the minutes on her alarm clock tick past.
She was startled from the morose lethargy by a stern knocking on her front door and with a sigh of resignation Audrey moved to answer it. She shook her head to try and dispel the vague sensations that seemed to pull at her and opened the door with a mild glare. "What?"
Nathan quirked an eyebrow at the surly tone, but having worked together for so long had inured any sensitivity on his part to that particular trait of hers. "Morning to you, too, Parker. Intending on coming in to work today?"
"I'm not feeling well," she replied hesitantly, as if she herself didn't quite believe it. It was one way to describe what she was feeling, but it also didn't quite fit. It wasn't so much that she didn't feel well as that everything around her felt unwell. The instant that thought formed in her consciousness Audrey honed in on it and felt it sharpen under her concentration. Something very much didn't feel right, and without waiting to invite Nathan in she turned back to her home and started to look around for something out of place.
Nathan lingered in the doorway and she felt him watching her as she looked around. "What's wrong?"
"Is anything different in here? Like...something new? Something that wasn't here before?" Audrey figured he'd be a good person to ask since beside herself he was here more often than anyone else. They shared dinner over cases and paperwork, and on their days off more often than not they would still end up together at least for a couple of hours.
"Is this one of those female questions where you've done something different and I'm supposed to notice and compliment you?" Nathan smirked and Audrey rolled her eyes and shrugged as she turned back to him. She didn't see anything out of place, nothing moved and nothing new, but still the feelings of displacement didn't subside. "Nice...haircut?" Nathan tried, twisting his mouth into a boyishly charming shy smile that always managed to make a small part of her melt in response.
"No," she replied as she returned to standing in front of him. "I don't know, it's just...I feel weird today."
Nathan started to reply but the loud 'thunk' of something colliding with him interrupted whatever he was about to say. Audrey smiled and slipped past him to wave to the paper boy, who'd skidded to a stop to shout apologies. "Hey, Peter! Nice aim!"
"Sorry, Detective Wournos! Hi, Audrey!" The teenager waved back before pushing his bike back into motion and continuing down his paper route.
"Did you actually just remember someone's name?" Nathan asked with a small bite of humor. He stooped and picked up the Haven Herald, handing it to her in such a way that his hand casually slid against her own in the transfer.
"Shut up, Nathan," Audrey replied with a mock glare, reaching over and lightly punching him in the arm. It was pure chance that had her looking at his face as she did so. It was pure chance that she saw the light flinch and rush of pleasure that crossed his face in that moment.
Suddenly, with a clarity that had been eluding her all morning, Audrey realized what she'd been missing for months. "You felt that."
"No, I didn't," the denial was automatic, but Nathan was not a good liar and Audrey had learned his tells a long time ago.
"You did!" She retorted with something bordering shock and awe. She couldn't decide whether to be upset by this new development or excited, though the fact that he'd kept it from her for God knows how long had her leaning towards upset. "You didn't flinch or anything when Peter hit you with the paper, but I lightly hit you and you completely lose your poker face."
"Audrey," Nathan started, stepping back from the harsh poking of her finger in his chest, his hands raised in surrender. "I always intended to tell you, it just never seemed like a good time. If we weren't in the middle of a case, you were off looking into the Colorado Kid case, or out with Duke..."
"How long?" She interrupted, throwing her paper in the general direction of her living room and cornering him on her porch. "How long have you known?"
"Since Jess left. We were outside Thornton Aarons' house and you kissed my cheek. That was the first time."
"Did you just not realize it before then, or is that the first time it actually happened?" She'd slipped into FBI interrogator mode and hadn't realized it. Even in pajama bottoms and a camisole, with sleep ruffled hair, she was intimidating, especially with anger and a small touch of hurt sparking in her eyes.
"I don't know," he replied honestly, his arms crossing defensively as he stared down at her. "I've thought about it a lot since then and I couldn't figure it out."
"Since Jess left?" Audrey reiterated, breaking off her intense questioning to stare out into the foggy morning view outside her porch. "That was six months ago, Nathan. Seriously? You just...kept it to yourself?"
"Duke knew," Nathan offered, and Audrey knew a scape goat when it was offered to her.
"Duke knew, too? Did the whole town know and this was just another one of those grand secrets no one wants to tell to the new girl in town?" He didn't know it but Nathan had just managed to stoke her anger to greater heights. It was something she hid well, but even after almost a year of being here Audrey still often felt like an outsider. When that small truth panged most sharply she hid her hurt, but she'd thought at least Nathan didn't still feel guarded around her as so many others did. Now it seemed that not only did he still hold his secrets tightly, but so did Duke. The two more often bordered on intense dislike for each other, but even Duke had kept this from her.
Audrey closed her eyes briefly and wondered what Nathan could see on her face. There were so many things she was feeling right now, both negative and positive, but the strongest was hurt. She'd never had a best friend in her childhood, but she'd believed if anyone had garnered that description in her adult life it was Nathan.
Without another word she turned and retreated into her home, slamming and locking the door behind her. She called the Chief and in as neutral a voice she could manage she asked for a few days off, lying about a sickness she didn't feel and grateful when he didn't push. Then, because she could, she crawled back into bed and steeped herself in the feelings that stormed within her. She wanted to hold onto the pain of being on the outside again, wanted to remember the sharp edges of the walls people kept between themselves and her, and fight off the nostalgia of the memories that stirred under her thoughts. She remembered being this person, being in this place. As a child she'd never understood why the other children in school had avoided her, and why their parents' hadn't seemed to find anything wrong with the behavior. She'd been treated as if being an orphan were contagious, and so she'd consoled herself with being alone. She'd observed everyone else, learned to recognize facial expressions and what they meant, and to read body language that people weren't even aware of transmitting. In college she'd taken psychology classes and her natural skill with the subtleties of human interaction had led one of her professors to suggest a career in law enforcement and through that path Audrey had found a place where being removed from natural human relationships was a boon, and celebrated for the unbiased treatment of her cases that she could give it.
Since she was naturally gifted and professionally trained in the art of observation, however, Audrey couldn't remain angry at Nathan for long. She sifted through her recollections of their interactions both before and after Jess leaving, from when she arrived in Haven to just hours ago when he'd confessed his secret. She couldn't deny that he'd never been closed off from her, that he hadn't been malicious in his intent to keep the information private. In some ways she supposed he was just as isolated as she was, and through thinking over the way they were together Audrey couldn't help but conclude that she and Nathan were a single unit in almost every way except the most intimate. The way he held himself changed when they were together, especially when they were alone. Around anyone else he closed himself off, shoulders squared and slightly hunched, his entire body wary and stiff with anticipation. He was loose with her, however, and he always stood closer to her than he ever had anyone else, including Jess; it was as if he trusted that she wouldn't hurt him in a way he didn't trust anyone else.
From there it was easy to forgive him, and she could admit there'd never been a real question of forgiving him. She decided, though, that as a point of contention she'd let him stew until tomorrow morning before easing the weight of guilt she hoped he felt.
Audrey didn't want to get out of bed. She'd turned off her alarm and slid to the side of the bed, her feet bare centimeters from the cold wood floor but couldn't seem to finish the movement. Her hands clenched on the sheets, her knuckles white from the effort and her face contorted with concentration. The minutes ticked by slowly and she deliberately relaxed against the bed and pondered this strange turn of events. There was no force keeping her from touching the floor, but it was if her body were fighting the very action. Her stomach squeezed itself and spread the solid pressure into her chest and she found breathing difficult, her vision darkening in spots, but when she stopped trying to leave the bed it all eased and she felt as normal and healthy as ever.
After half an hour of attempts to exit her bedroom, Audrey sprawled out on the bed and consigned herself to waiting. She unconsciously relaxed into the pillow and studied the shadows the morning sun cast above her. There was something relaxing about waking to the same sight every morning, rather than a different motel ceiling and the same brand of scratchy sheets that cheap roadside places seemed to specialize in.
Her doorbell rang and instinctively she slid to the side of the bed and stood. The ease of the motion immediately caused her to stumble and Audrey stared incredulously where her feet were planted on the floor. She wondered if it'd all by psychosomatic, if she'd dreaded the inevitable conversation with Nathan so much that she'd subconsciously kept herself from being able to have it.
The doorbell sounded again, followed by a hard knocking of fist on wood, and Audrey shook off her train of thought. She'd never been hesitant about difficult conversations before, so why would she have started now? She couldn't help but conclude that something 'troubled' was going on, and she looked around her house as if the perpetrator would be hiding in plain sight or cowering behind her sofa. A third round of the doorbell and a steady rhythm of knocking brought her attention to the front door, and she abandoned her useless perusal.
The silhouette through the frosted glass was one she was familiar with and despite her decision last night Audrey still felt nervous about seeing him. She opened the door, though, because as she'd thought seconds ago, she wasn't one to avoid the difficult. "Hi, Nathan."
"Hey, Audrey," he replied, his easy smile thrown off by the serious expression on her face. "You coming into work today?"
"Yeah, just..." She sighed and threw caution to the wind. "I forgive you. It's okay that you didn't tell me, because I guess I can understand why it was something you needed to meditate on before talking about it, though six months is a while to keep it to yourself." She felt a stirring of her anger and repressed it quickly. "The point is, I'm not mad at you anymore. Still a little mad at Duke, but I guess I'll have to forgive him too if I'm forgiving you."
Audrey waited for his reply but he only stared at her blankly. "Forgive me for what?"
"Forgive you for being able to feel my touch and not telling me?" Audrey supplied sarcastically, her head tilting as she tried to figure out why he would play ignorant about something she felt was serious.
Nathan's eyes sharpened and anger slid across his face before it lapsed back into the mask she'd grown so familiar with in her first months as his partner. "Duke told you," he stated, his eyes shifting to the left in a glare as if Duke could feel his anger even from across town.
"No, Nathan, you told me. Yesterday? On this very porch?" Audrey's exasperation slid into confusion and she stepped closer to him, laying her hand on arm. "Are you feeling alright?"
He looked back at her and from their positions and closeness Audrey found her face to be only inches from his own. From that close she could see the cornflower blue of his eyes had soft gray pockets within it. Audrey could felt that last wall between them, the one that kept them from being a true couple in every sense of the word, slowly crumbling under their attention.
The sound of a newspaper slamming into the wall beside her door broke the moment and Audrey stepped back instantly. Ignoring the slight tremble in her hands she threw a negligent wave to Peter over Nathan's shoulder and bent to pick up the Herald, glancing at the familiar front page with a tingle of alarm. "Nathan, what day is it?"
"It's Thursday," he replied, willing to ignore the "almost" that had just crystallized between them.
"No, it's Friday," she corrected absently, unfolding the paper to study the front page in greater detail.
Nathan tapped his finger against the date of the paper lightly. "No, it's Thursday."
She shook her head, but before she could utter the words of impossibility that were already on her tongue the ear-splitting sound of car brakes being slammed echoed through the air, followed seconds later by the harsh clang of metal on metal, and the sickening thud of a body hitting the concrete roughly. Instantly she and Nathan were in cop mode, taking off towards the noise with a speed ingrained to their bodies. Audrey ignored the sharp cuts of rocks in her bare feet and hit the scene seconds after Nathan, staring in horror at the sprawled body of her paper boy and the mangled mess of his bicycle. She dropped to his side and glanced over to find Nathan looking just as stricken. Together they checked Peter for breathing and a pulse, relieved to find both however faint they may be. Nathan used his phone to call for an ambulance, before turning his attention to the driver of the vehicle who stood just outside his car in shock.
Audrey could hear them speaking behind her, but she focused on the young boy so broken on the ground. She knew just by looking that both of his legs were broken, twisted unnaturally as they were. He was bleeding from somewhere behind his back, the small puddle of blood growing slowly but steadily. She was tempted to take his hand, to give what little comfort she could without risking hurting him worse, but several of his fingers were twisted awkwardly as well. She settled for brushing the small strands of his hair from his blood sticky forehead and talking to him. "I need you to stay awake, Peter. Until you get to the hospital I need you to stay awake."
"This wasn't supposed to happen," he murmured, his eyes staring at the sky blankly, the pain thudding through his body and keeping him from being able to fully connect to the outside world.
"Shhh, it's okay. You don't have to speak, just stay awake for me," Audrey said quietly. "Just a few more minutes for me? Thank God your mom got you this helmet for Christmas, right?" Audrey smiled unconsciously, remembering how he'd stopped just in front of her house as she was leaving for work to show her the new gear, particularly proud of the flames the crawled down the sides of it. Audrey had never been a fan of children, but the small moments of contact she'd had with Peter she'd found herself liking him. It wasn't easy growing up in Haven, but Peter seemed to thrive here.
It was somehow shocking to find a victim of something that seemed so mundane compared to some of the things that happened to people here.
"It protected that pretty face, didn't it?" Audrey commented but jumped when he laughed just a bit. "Sorry! No laughing, huh? I think you're the only one in this town who thinks I'm funny, by the way. Usually my little quips only get silence, but hey, the kids think I'm funny. Hey, guess what, Peter? The ambulance is here. They're going to take such good care of you. They're going to patch you up and you'll be back to hitting Nathan in the back with newspaper before too long."
Peter's brows lowered with confusion, and there was a somber question in his face as he finally managed to focus on her face. "I missed him this time. I hit the wall. I didn't-"
The medical team crowded the two of them and Audrey found herself stepping back so they could work, unsure of just what Peter had meant with his words, but more than thankful that he might be okay now. Nathan was talking to the driver still, was insisting that the man accompany him down to the station so they could fill out the paperwork and everything, but Audrey was fairly certain this was an accident. She didn't think the older driver seemed the type to deliberately hit a child, but she approved of Nathan taking such precautions.
As the ambulance pulled away Audrey gestured to Nathan that she was going to get dressed and be back to help with the clean up. Someone would need to call Peter's parents, and make sure they knew which hospital he could be found at. Then there was the paperwork to fill out, and see if there were any witnesses to the accident. At this hour of the morning it was unlikely anyone else had been around, but there was always a chance.
Audrey woke up late the next morning, having been at the hospital until 1 a.m. waiting for Peter to wake up futilely. The doctors had explained that he was in and out of consciousness, but that he would be okay with some physical therapy and a good deal of rest. Audrey had spoken to his parents and found herself shaken by the force of their gratitude for her having been there. Nathan seemed to have a second sense for when people were going in for a hug and avoided the mother's arms but Audrey had found herself squeezed tightly with some alarm. For such a small woman she was very strong.
Audrey was smiling as she slid from the bed, however, because it was an accident that hadn't ended tragically. Peter would be fine in a few months, and though the driver had been shaken, he too had been fine. He'd also certainly be watching more carefully for children in residential neighborhoods, which could only be considered a good thing.
The doorbell sounded when she was halfway across the living room, heading for the kitchen and her nirvana-inducing coffeepot. Changing direction mid-step she opened the door on a yawn and found Nathan on the other side with some surprise. "I thought I was meeting you at the diner for pancakes?"
"We only have breakfast at the diner on days we're off, Parker. As it is, we're late. You are intending on working today?" He asked as he lifted an eyebrow at her lack of attire.
A newspaper came flying past his shoulder and hit the wall with a sudden sound that made her jump, and Audrey suddenly had a very bad feeling in her chest. She didn't answer his question, but picked up the newspaper and unfolded it with a sickening feeling. "Something is wrong, Nathan. Something is very wrong."
She couldn't count the number of times she'd gone through the same scenario, adjusting the little things she did and then the increasingly larger details, but every time she woke up it was the same day. Things never went as bad as they had that second morning, at least not for her, but nothing she did seemed able to make the day stop repeating. She was the only one who seemed to remember any of the events of the previous day, but as she grew increasingly desperate she found herself confiding in Nathan. At first he struggled with believing her, but she'd made him tell her things that only he knew, things she had no way of knowing, and it was as if the words were a secret password. He believed her after that conversation, and together they tried to figure out what was happening. It was irritating to have to go about the same routine everyday, convincing him that she was telling the truth, and then going over the details of what she knew and what hadn't worked to fix it, and sometimes she was tempted to just not do it for a single day.
Sometimes she told him that she knew that he could feel her touch, sometimes she didn't. It depended on her mood, and with each passing repeat she found her mood sinking lower and lower. It wasn't the first time she'd found herself at a loss as to what was causing the trouble, but it was the first time she couldn't rely on her partner to take up the slack and see what she was missing.
She opened the door in a blur of movement that startled the normally placid man on the other side. He stared at her for a moment, taking in the almost manic look in her eyes, before speaking. "Hey, Parker. Coming to work, today?"
"No."
His hands slid to his hips as he looked at her sternly. "Only an officer for five months and you're playing hooky already?"
Audrey smiled and before she could question herself she grasped his lapels and jerked him down to her level. "Only if you'll play with me."
"Audrey," her name was a hoarse whisper of concern that she swallowed with her lips and gave back to him. He was taller than she was by a good six inches and even pulling him down to her she had to stand on her tiptoes. Though he was definitely into the kiss, his lips moved and matched the fervency of hers, the rest of him seemed frozen in place. His arms rose towards her, fingertips tracing her forearms where she gripped his lapels, but it was only when she broke their embrace that he actually touched her. "Audrey." He sounded almost scandalized and that more than anything made her smile.
"Sorry," she chirped, releasing him and stepping back. "Needed something to make me feel better."
"Do you? Feel better now?"
She considered the question, before smiling wider than he'd ever seen. "Yep."
"Okay," he drawled slowly, "I'm not sure what to say here, so I'm going to ignore it."
"Probably for the best," she agreed. She felt pretty safe in knowing that in exactly 22 hours he wouldn't remember her doing it.
"I think Little Pete Winchester just rode his bike into the bushes. You do know he's a teenage boy, right? This is going to be all over town by lunch." Nathan grinned at the thought and seemed to find the thought greatly amusing. "I wonder if Duke will try to beat me up."
"Don't even think about it, Nathan," Audrey scolded, though her heart wasn't in it. "You and I have work to do. Have you ever seen the movie Groundhog Day?"
In the end, the solution had been staring her right in the face the entire time.
At exactly fifteen minutes past nine Nathan would knock or ring the doorbell, and Audrey opened the door. Instead of exchanging witty repartee with him, however, today she stepped past him and made her way down her front walk. Nathan asked her questions from the porch but she couldn't hear them. She was focused, intensely so, on the soft whir of the wheels on a bicycle as it made it's way around the street block she lived on.
When Peter came around the corner he skidded to a stop a few feet from her and his guilt was splashed across his face like scarlet paint.
"I didn't mean to," he said immediately, stepping off his bike and holding it to his side. "Things just kept going wrong, though. I kept trying to fix things, to make things right but something else would go wrong then."
"How did it start, Peter? We've found that when Troubled people become really stressed it triggers their abilities. What happened that started this?" Audrey spoke calmly even though her nerves were jumping inside her skin. She hoped this was it, but she'd thought she had it all figured out before only to find herself waking up on another Thursday, for the same routine.
"I hit Nathan with a newspaper. He couldn't feel it, but that didn't make it right. There are these boys at school and when they see him in town they hit him with spitballs and stuff just 'cause he can't feel it and they think it's hilarious but it's not. Then, I did it too on accident. I thought...I'll just make it so I don't hit him again, and then I'll have time to study for the pop quiz in algebra and when Laney Mills says hi to me I won't freeze up, I'll say hi back, but then I went back and I didn't hit him but-"
"But you got hit by a car," Audrey finished for him. She glanced over at Nathan, saw that he was moving closer but she shook her head and he stopped several feet away. "Then there was always something, right? Nothing ever lined back up to work out best for you." She sighed and looked at Peter, feeling so very old in that moment. "Nothing is ever going to line up just right for you, Peter. You're never going to have a perfect day, and sometimes you're going to say the wrong thing, or do the wrong thing, or fail a test. Some days you get hit by a car, and some days you get a paper cut. This has to stop, though, Peter. Honestly, I don't think I can go through another one of these days without losing my mind. I've drank my way through the days, slept my way, made out with Nathan five times, Duke twice, and danced on my desk at the police station, but I'm getting pretty tired of having the same conversations and seeing the same television shows every night."
Peter was nodding before she was halfway through her impromptu speech, and seemed relieved to have someone taking the decision away from him. "I won't do it again, Audrey. I promise."
"That's good," she told him, before smiling at him. "I think that maybe this can stay between you and me. This is very dangerous, though, Peter. Remember that second Thursday? You changed something and something very bad happened. You could've died. Remember that next time you think about using your ability willingly. You could have died, and more than a few times during this rinse and repeat cycle, I've watched Nathan get hurt, and Duke get hurt, and many others in this town. You set off a row of dominoes and people can die. Always remember that."
Peter didn't reply, but his eyes grew wide as he stared at her.
"Go on and finish your route, Peter, and get to school," she said, taking a solid grip on his handlebars as he slipped onto the seat and readied to push off. "Watch for cars," she admonished, "and good luck on your test."
Audrey waited until he was out of sight before she turned back to Nathan, who stood silently watched the exchange. "How much of that did you hear?"
"Not much," he admitted.
Audrey took a deep breath and fully aware that just maybe this time would stick, she asked the question that had been bothering her all along. "Why didn't you tell me that you could feel me, Nathan? I've heard dozens of reasons, made up even more in my head, but just...I want the real reason. Once you were past the shock, and the disbelief, and the awe, once you were over Jess leaving, and you knew I was going to stick around. Why didn't you tell me?"
"Audrey, I-"
She held up her hand to stop whatever he was about to say. "Not yet. I'm not done yet. I know you first noticed it when I kissed your cheek right after the Shadowman case, I know that you used it to save my life during my birthday party, I know that you kissed the chameleon to do it, thinking it might be me. I know that you tolerate Duke because if you want to be around me, then sometimes you have to be around him. I know that you've been asking around about Lucy, but haven't told me because you don't want to disappoint me because you're not finding anything new. I've done this conversation with you dozens of times already, and every time I ask you this question I get a different answer. Sometimes I even think it's the real answer, but most of the time I think it's you telling me what I want to hear. I want the truth, Nathan. Why didn't you tell me?"
Audrey waited for his answer and steeled herself against another lie. Nathan had a look on his face, a slant to his eyes, and Audrey feared he was going to back down again. There were only so many times she could drag him to the precipice with her, but if he never stepped off then she couldn't fall with him.
"I didn't want you to think," he started, hesitating as he shuffled his gaze from his feet nervously and back to her face. "I didn't want you to think that when I finally made my move that I only did it because I can feel you. It's not like that. I really do like you. The touching thing is just icing on the cake."
Audrey felt laughter in her chest and she tried to hold it in, but it tickled its way out of her throat and filled the air between them. She couldn't seem to make them stop either, and holding her hand over mouth didn't muffle them at all. Finally they subsided and she got a good look at Nathan's face, and it stole the amusement from her. "Oh, Nathan. 'When you make a move'? Have you met you? You don't have any moves." Her words didn't ease the hurt that furrowed his brow, but Audrey felt she was getting there. She stepped closer and grasped his hand, twining their fingers and waiting for him to return the grip. When he did, she spoke again. "Watching you with Jess did teach me a few things. Like, for instance, don't wait for the mountain to move when you can go to the mountain."
He looked confused and she let slip another small laugh. She leaned up and placed a gentle kiss on his dimpled chin. The hurt had eased completely now and under the morning sun Audrey felt like something new was beginning, and it was the most glorious thing she'd felt in a long time.
"That, Nathan, was me making my move."
Review, please.