A/N: I apologize for the long delay in updating. Hopefully, I will get the last chapter up in a couple weeks and not a couple months again. Thanks again for reading!

- Chapter 2 -

The pills in Nathan's hand rattled as he read the label on the antibiotics prescribed to him, while Parker sat across from him in the table booth reading the menu. As promised, Parker agreed to pancakes after his trip to the hospital. The doctor bandaged his wounds, but he thought Parker did a better job, but then again it was mostly like he felt Parker did a better job. During his visit to the hospital, Parker had remained by his side the whole time. Sometimes he wondered how Parker would respond when he told her he could feel her.

He watched Parker as she bit the inner edge of her lip trying to decide on what to eat. He didn't need a menu since he always ordered his "usual" and the waitresses here what his "usual" consisted of, which were the best pancakes in town.

"Good Morning, Nate, Agent Parker," a middle aged waitress with rosy cheeks greeted them with a smile. Her graying blond hair was up in a neat bun, but the morning bustle had caused it to come slightly loose. "What can I get you two this morning?"

Nathan gestured his hand out towards Parker to say "ladies first".

The waitress expertly pulled her order pad out, reached for the pen tucked behind her ear, and turned to Parker, who wasn't quite ready, but she put her menu down anyway and smiled.

"Good morning, Clara" Parker said peeking at the woman's name tag. Nathan smiled. Parker was still slowly trying to learn the names of the locals. It wasn't going as well as it should, but she was trying, and he gave her credit for that. "I'll have the Belgian Waffles combo." She pointed to a picture on the menu, which had a tempting picture of an over-sized Belgian waffle on a plate with two sunny side-up eggs and two sausage links bordering the edges.

"Anything to drink?" Clara asked.

"Coffee, black, please," she replied, thanking Clara before handing her the menu.

Nathan raised an eyebrow at Parker's meal choice.

"How about you, Nate? The usual?" Clara smiled at her regular patron. "Or are you going to be adventurous like your partner here?"

Nathan pursed his lips together as if he contemplated being adventurous. "I am going to stick the usual," he finally said.

"Detective Wournos just doesn't know how to live on the edge," Parker said shaking her head.

"One of these days I might try something else," he said. "But I just love the pancakes here."

"You just love pancakes," Parker teased.

"We do have the best in town," Clara said proudly. "So how about your coffee?"

"Black."

The waitress smiled. "Back to black, I see."

"Yes, he's finally seen the light again," Parker said.

"I'll have your coffees in a jiff," Clara chuckled as she wrote down the last orders onto the pad.

"Belgian waffles?" Nathan asked when Clara departed from their table.

"What's wrong with Belgian waffles?" Parker furrowed her brows in confusion, for a second, she thought she had done a town faux pas by ordering waffles.

"I thought you were coming for pancakes."

"I did, but then I saw the menu, and the picture of the Belgian waffles looked really good. Besides waffles and pancakes are basically the same." She waved a hand dismissively. "And you already ordered pancakes, I could always get a couple bites off of your plate."

"No, waffles and pancakes are not the same," Nathan said. "Waffles have the eggs folded in not blended in. Also waffle mix has more oil to make it crispier."

"The fact that you know that little detail kind of worries me."

"It does? I thought good detectives are supposed to be observant about minor details."

"Who are you Nursery Crime Detective Jack Spratt? If you haven't noticed, most of our cases haven't involved eggs and cake batter."

"Not yet," Nathan said knitting his brows together trying to figure out if Parker had just made an obscure reference or was insulting him.

"Not yet," Parker agreed nodding slowly, trying not to imagine how the Troubles would cause baked goods to kill people. She shook her had to remove the morbid thought. "Anyway, back to you being Martha Stewart, it's kind of disturbing. I can barely figure out the difference between grilling and broiling something. You really need to get out more."

"And where would I 'get out' too?" he asked.

Parker bit her lip again trying to think of something then she shook her head. "You're right. You're screwed. It's a lost cause. It's not like you can't make your own decisions and just leave this town."

"You know why I can't leave Haven," he said.

"Why not? Julia left."

"And now she's back."

Parker made a face. It was true Julia had left and now she was back in Haven, but she did not seem happy to be back. Then again when Julia Carr returned to Haven, her mother died. There was something about this town that people couldn't seem to leave behind. Including herself. Something about Haven was preventing Audrey from wanting to leave. She kept telling herself it was because she wanted to find out more about her mother, but a niggling feeling inside was telling her that she was involved in the inner workings of Haven more than she knew, and she was going to get to the bottom of it, hopefully, sooner rather than later.

A few moments later, their meals arrived. Parker stared at her over-sized Belgian waffle. "I swear this waffle looks bigger in person than in the pictures."

"That is why this place has the best pancakes in town." Nathan smiled like a boy on Christmas morning as he spread the glob of butter around the top of his equally over-sized stack of fluffy buttermilk pancakes with his fork.

Parker was pouring syrup on each nook of the giant waffle when a beep came from Nathan's radio.

"Nathan, dear?" the radio chirped.

Stuffing a syrupy pancake bite into his mouth, Nathan reached for the radio with his free hand and spoke into it. "Yes, Laverne?"

"We have another bird situation, hon," the dispatcher said mirthfully.

"What kind of bird situation?" Nathan glanced at Parker wondering what kind of bird situation would give Laverne a good chuckle. Although their little encounter with the seagull in the Rust Bucket earlier could be categorized as amusing.

"I hope it's not another seagull," Parker said before taking a bite of her sausage link.

"No, not another gull call."

Parker smiled sheepishly, she had not expected Laverne to hear her comment.

"It's a parrot this time," the dispatcher continued.

"Parrot? There are parrots in Haven?" Parker blurted out.

"The Landing boy's parrot is stuck in a tree," Laverne informed.

"I'm sorry, did you say parrot?" Nathan asked, "or did you mean cat."

"No, you heard right, Nathan. I said parrot," she assured him.

"Isn't that where parrots should be? In trees?" he asked apparently voicing Parker's exact same thoughts.

"Apparently, not this one."

"So my partner and I are supposed to go and catch a parrot in the Landing's front yard?"

"You were always so smart, Nathan," Laverne teased in her raspy voice.

Parker suppressed a chuckle by stuffing another waffle bite in her mouth.

"Thanks, Laverne. We'll get to the Landings' as soon as we can." He put the radio back down, all the while, Parker was looking at him with a raised eyebrow.

"Don't firemen usually rescue pets from trees?" Parker asked.

"Sometimes."

"So how do you propose we rescue a parrot from a tree?"

"I don't know. Why do you ask?"

"Because 'you were always so smart, Nathan,'" she teased.

"Actually, I think I am going to take a page out of the Agent Audrey Parker book and just make it up as I go."

"Touché," Parker said and reached across the table and took a syrupy chunk of his pancake.