A/N: Title and quote are from Dante. So, basically every shipper is having this fantasy right now, I think. You know, the fantasy where Audrey and Nathan actually talk instead of going around with their miserable hurty-faces brimming with stoic martyrdom? And where they kiss and make up and have, like, two minutes together that isn't a giant angst-fest? Weeell, so that's where this fic comes from - the only way I can deal with this show which is currently breaking my heart into a million pieces every week. I know other people have been writing their own fix-it fantasies lately - well, here's mine! :D Apologies for re-treading already-covered ground with this, I just had to get my shmoop on.

La Vita Nuova

...

In that book which is my memory,
On the first page of the chapter that is the day when I first met you,
Appear the words, 'Here begins a new life'.

- Dante Alighieri

...

She stood out on her balcony with the sea breeze in her hair, listening to the steady drone of the bar crowd downstairs, the occasional car coming or going, and below that the slap of water against the old oak pylons. It was peaceful. Familiar. And she still didn't feel safe.

Not because it was late and she was alone, just a few feet away from where, not long ago, she had been taken down by a serial killer and abducted. No, the truth was, nowhere in Haven felt safe anymore. Whether it was late at night, standing outside her door where she had been attacked, or walking down main street in broad daylight surrounded by people - nowhere was really safe. She was just the one person who really knew it.

But she had more important things to think about than her own safety - or lack of it. These other thoughts were a teaming jumble in her head she spent almost every waking moment these days trying to sort through - a thousand puzzle pieces, none of which fit together in just the right way. It was endlessly frustrating, but what else was there for her to do? Nothing but stare out at the inky black expanse of sea and think about it some more. So that was what she did.

When she heard the footsteps on the stairs she gripped the rail hard to quell the instinctual flood of panic. She never opened the door of her apartment these days without her gun - let alone actually went outside. So she was armed, and she was standing beyond the circle of light from the open doorway, so she would see whoever it was before they saw her.

And also, when she stopped to actually think past the fight-or-flight response, she knew those footsteps. The knowledge didn't exactly make her less tense, however.

Nathan rounded the corner and stopped, looking alarmed at the open door for a second before starting forward again, eyes searching around wildly, her name on his lips.

That was when she spoke. "Nathan."

His gaze found her in the shadows and he visibly relaxed.

Maybe she wasn't the only one who knew that nowhere was safe around here anymore.

"Audrey," he said, stepping towards her, his motions hesitant and unsure.

"Are you all right?" He didn't look all right. He looked agitated, distressed even, weight shifting back and forth, hand scrubbing through his hair, looking back over his shoulder as if he didn't know whether to stay or go. "Did something happen?"

He didn't answer right away. Whatever was going on, it was bigger than the little moment she'd just witnessed him having at the sight of her unsecured door. But then it would have to be - Nathan didn't just drop by these days.

She braced herself internally for whatever it was. The body-blows just kept on coming. She was almost used to it by now. Almost.

"I was with Jordan," he said.

"Okay." So it was something about the Guard, then. Whatever it was, it didn't look like good news.

He turned away from her, gripped the railing and looked out over the dark water. "I was with Jordan."

She had no response for that.

"I kissed her. And now I guess I hate myself."

"Why are you telling me this?"

There was a sound that might have been a laugh, or maybe just a sigh. His head hung down heavy between this shoulders. "Who else am I gonna tell?"

Now a whole slew of responses presented themselves to her. She picked one. "Wow, well you said 'whatever it takes'... Guess you meant it, huh?"

"You don't know the half of it."

She bit down on the inside of her cheek, physically stopped herself from speaking again, because the next words out of her mouth were going to be are you going to sleep with her, too? And then she was going to go inside and lock her door and do something extremely uncharacteristic but not wholly unwarranted like huddling on the floor of the shower and crying for hours.

But she really didn't have that kind of time, so instead she just stood there, arms wrapped around herself like a protective shield.

Nathan looked over at her then for a reaction and got none. But his eyes lingered, travelling over her, and she had to wonder what he was seeing as she stood there all hunched over and shrunk so far in on herself it was a wonder she didn't just up and disappear weeks ahead of time.

"It's her affliction," he said, breaking the silence when she didn't. "Anyone touches her skin, they feel excruciating, crippling pain. So she never touches anyone - she's starved for human contact. I know what that's like. But I - I can touch her."

"Well so could I, you don't see me going around making out with her."

So much for holding her tongue.

It was probably the pettiest thing to ever have come out of her mouth - in any of her incarnations, she would bet.

Nathan's lips thinned and she could see he was angry now, his next words coming short and clipped. "She hasn't done anything wrong. Not really. Do you know what it felt like, kissing her?"

"...Nothing?"

So apparently there were still unexplored depths of pettiness for her to explore.

He laughed humourlessly. "Yeah, nothing. Except I can still feel like an asshole. I can still feel like... What does it make me, using her Trouble against her like that? Seducing her to get what I want? The person I am with her - I don't want to be him. It's all wrong, Parker."

She couldn't muster any sympathy for him. She was too busy losing her grip on a slew of emotions she didn't have a right to feel because - whatever claim she might have had on him, she had stepped away first.

"I didn't ask you to do this. You should stop."

His answer to that was as unsurprising and it was unwelcome. "I can't. No matter what it turns me into."

She wanted to grab him and shake him and make him stop because this was the opposite of what she wanted for him. But she was afraid - too afraid to say anything to him, because who knew what else might come out?

"Or what I end up doing," he spoke again, pressing the point. "If I have to sleep with her." He stepped closer, his eyes boring into her while she stared steadfastly at his chest, keeping her face frozen. "She's a good person, Jordan. She's beautiful. I'd be lying if I said there wasn't a connection."

"Good, that's great."

"It wouldn't be a chore."

"Yeah. I'm going inside." She tried to move past him but his next words stopped her as effectively as if he'd grabbed her. "You don't get to be jealous."

She swung round, bypassing hurt and moving happily into anger. "I'm not. It's all fake anyway, isn't it? Because she's just some poor woman you're just using to meet your own ends?"

"That's right, it's all fake. One giant lie. And why is that - why, if she's so pretty and intriguing and she wants me?"

"Because you're a stubborn jerk of a control freak, and you're just - just acting out trying to get yourself killed because you can't handle the reality of the situation?"

Suddenly he did grab her, his hands on her arms, speaking urgently right in her face like he hadn't even heard her. "It's a lie because I don't want her back. I want you. I - you know it's you I want."

She knew, of course she knew.

She only wished she didn't.

The anger was gone then, and it left her empty and so, so tired. "What am I supposed to say, Nathan?"

His hands squeezed her arms reflexively. "Say you don't feel the same way."

She opened her mouth, but the lie wouldn't come out. No, I don't feel that way about you - it shouldn't have been that hard to say, just one more lie on top of the giant pile of lies that was her existence. But...

"It's not that simple," she managed finally.

"Some things are that simple, Audrey." His hands were no longer gripping her tightly, but just resting on her shoulders, thumbs brushing lightly up and down. She could barely feel it through her shirt. "Compared to everything else we deal with? This is as simple as it gets."

He took her hand then, and god, she wished she was strong enough to pull away. To push him away. Again. How many times was she going to have to do it before it stuck?

She just stood there, frozen, caught by her own weakness. She kept looking past him over his shoulder so she didn't have to see his eyes, those Nathan-eyes that looked at her like no one else did.

She shrugged helplessly. "It's just... I can't see a way out. It's too late."

"It is too late," he agreed, and it was unexpected enough to make her fall into the trap of meeting his eyes just as he continued, "Because I already love you."

The breath left her like he'd sucker-punched her in the gut. Talk about a body-blow.

Then she was shaking her head in denial. "Nathan, no -"

"It's too late. You want me to just let you go? Screw that. I'm getting tattooed and using an innocent woman who doesn't deserve it... I'm - I'm bribing judges and - and you know what I'm going to do next? I don't! I don't know, just that whatever it is, I'll do it because I'm already losing you and I'm terrified that it won't be enough. That you'll disappear no matter what and - what, you think by pushing me away I'm just going to be okay when that happens? I mean, are you out of your mind? Do you know how stupid that sounds? You came into my life and you just - changed everything. And I'm not just talking about the touching thing - you know that. I'm talking about... everything. I'm not going to sit by and let you go, it's just, it's not going to happen."

He was panting by the time he was done. And his hands, which he had been waving around to punctuate his words flopped back to his sides and were still.

Audrey stared up at him like she'd never seen him before.

"I think that's the most words you've ever strung together since I met you," she said.

"I - huh." He shrugged almost imperceptibly. "Think I'm losing it?"

And there he was again. Her Nathan.

She took a shuddering breath, and let it out with a laugh.

Then she shook her head. "You're right," she said. "I am stupid. God, I'm so stupid." This was so stupid. Reaching for him, letting his hands fall on her waist and pull her in as she stretched up to meet his mouth as it crashed down on hers. Clutching at him, his shoulders, his hair, arching up into the lean wall of his body while she kissed him with all the fury and longing that had been sitting like a stone inside her for too many days now. Stupid. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

He was stupid for loving her.

And what did that make her? Too stupid to stick to the one firm plan she had: protect him; keep him out of it; keep him at arm's length.

So much for good intentions.

His hands were on her back beneath her shirt and he turned her swiftly to press her against the railing as his tongue dove into her mouth and the road to hell never looked so good.

She hooked an ankle around his, lips still fused together with no sign of that changing, only now when he leaned into her their bodies fit more intimately than before. Hips pressed into hips, making her clutch at his shirt and him break away with a gasp to rest his head against hers.

But only for a moment. Then his mouth was under her jaw and his palm was skimming over her ribs. His earlobe was between her teeth and her hands were under his shirt, running over his back, feeling the play of muscles under warm skin with his every movement.

The moment stretched on, hot and heady, and so perfect it hurt.

To think, if she was any other person in the world, this might never have to end.

"I hope you're happy. You ruined my plan," she murmured the next time she got a chance to speak. He drew back and she met his eyes more seriously. "This is not a good idea. You don't know everything. You can't know what's going to happen."

"And I don't care. It can't change how much I want you."

She sighed, closing her eyes as the last of her protests dissolved under the warmth of his gaze. "Well you can have me. You just can't keep me."

"We'll see."

She wanted to believe the conviction in his voice, in his eyes and the set of his mouth and firm grip of his hand as he took hers and lead her inside.

But then she wanted other things more base and immediate like shirts off and pants off and as much of his skin as possible pressing against as much of hers. Other concerns fell away before the storm of sensation and desire that overtook them and carried them off to a place where all the things Audrey wanted were things she could have: His hands and mouth on her body; his taste and smell and the feel of him all over and around her and inside her.

For the first time in a long time the maelstrom of thoughts in her head were quiet and didn't trouble her.

It wasn't until after, when they were cocooned together in a mess of sweaty sheets and bare skin, the long line of him curled around her smaller body, chest to her back, his chin nestled in the curve of her neck, that those thoughts crept back in like unwelcome thieves.

"I remembered her," she said, no more than a whisper, almost not wanting him to hear. "Lucy, I remembered... being her. Just a flash of a memory. The Colorado Kid - whatever happened to him, it was my fault. And I - Lucy, she - she really cared about him. What if..."

She felt his sigh stir her hair and his arm tightened around her waist. "Tell me."

Her next words were stronger. "What if the same thing happens to you? What if you get yourself killed because of me. And the last thing I know before I... go, is that you're dead and it's my fault?"

"Not going to happen."

"Oh really?" She shifted away from him and turned over to face him, leaving inches of mattress between them - more space separating them suddenly than in the whole hour since she had first reached for him out on the deck. "I bet the Colorado Kid didn't think anything would happen to him. What makes you any different, Nathan?"

He just looked at her for a moment. Then he said, "The Colorado Kid was a wimp, for one thing."

She blinked. "What?"

"A weenie loser. Kind of shrimpy, too. I'm sorry, it had to be said."

"What? You don't know that."

"I'm almost positive he was a loser. Me, on the other hand? I'm the Chief of Police. I'm impervious to pain, and cold, and hunger. I carry a gun."

"Nathan -"

"Badass is my middle name."

"Thought it was Thaddeus."

"I'm Batman, basically."

She couldn't keep from laughing any longer, it bubbled up out of her and for a few seconds she couldn't stop, laughing as he just watched her, that half-smile on his face that always appeared when he was pleased with himself. Shaking her head, she smiled up at him, helpless in the face of the truth.

"God, I love you."

He looked away for a moment, keeping his reaction from her. When he looked back he said, "And, uh, you know the number one reason why the Colorado Kid had nothing on me? Look, I'm sure Lucy Ripley was great. But I've got you, Audrey Parker, watching my back. You think I'm worried? It's them that should be worried."

She bit her lip. She heard what he was saying, really, she had been listening, and it was a nice sentiment. But... "I just said 'I love you'."

He shrugged. "Well, sure, everyone loves Batman."

She gaped, and just had time to punch his shoulder and sputter, "Seriously, you're joking right now?"

And then his mouth was on hers in a searing kiss and okay so she was maybe willing to let it slide. For now. Especially when his lips left hers and rediscovered the place at the base of her throat that made her toes literally curl.

His attention shifted lower again, and he paused, his mouth hovering over her breast. "So you know, I never joke about Batman."

One of her hands, which had become busy between them, gripped a little tighter. "I will kill you."

He sucked in a breath. "Keep touching me like that, you just might."

She took that as encouragement - and hopefully an end to any and all superhero jokes for the time being. But then he took both her hands and brought them up, pushing her over onto her back and pinning her wrists by her head. She didn't resist, watching his face become serious as he looked down at her.

No more jokes, then.

He spoke, and the tenderness in his eyes was enough to break her heart. "You don't see it, but I do. It's just... with you, anything seems possible. Absolutely anything."

His face, it was lit with unmistakable love and hope, and she suddenly found it was impossible to be afraid when someone believed in her so completely.

"Nathan..."

He smirked. "It's okay, that's all I had to say. Don't worry, I'm not going to start monologuing again."

Then he kissed her once more quickly and gathered her up against his chest and rolled them over across the bed in a tangle of arms and legs and laughter.

And even if it only lasted as long as this night together, for now at least, she believed, too.