He'll never get used to the multi-colored hair, he's decided. Nathan has seen Audrey Parker's face every day for the better part of three years, has dreamed about that face framed in blond hair, and now…
"Stop staring at me like I'm some kind of zoo animal," Audrey says from her desk across their office. She's in profile, her gaze concentrated on the computer screen in front of her.
Nathan starts at the sound of her voice - her voice, not Lexi Dewitt's - and pretends to shuffle paperwork. He taps his stapler a few times for effect. "I'm doin' paperwork, Parker. Your paperwork."
She turns to look at him, a half smile on her face. "You're full of shit, Wurnous." Their gazes lock and he sees the challenge there - go ahead and laugh, partner - I dare you.
"It's the hair," he says finally, breaking the stare and averting his eyes.
"My hair?" He nods. "What about my hair?" She pulls a long strand out to look at it, sees nothing amiss.
He sighs, leans his head back, and tilts his chair backwards. He stares up at the ceiling. "It's...different."
Audrey snorts in a very Audrey-like way and he hears the wheels of her chair squeak across the hardwood floor as she pushes back from her desk. He closes his eyes, then, and hears her walking towards him. Even her proximity overwhelms him now. She shifts his wire inbox to a different spot on his desk, hears the shuffle of papers as she sits down where they once were. He can smell her perfume - lilacs and salt air - as she leans forward, his dead nerves almost tingling with anticipation.
"Let me get this straight, partner: You're having technical difficulties over here because I'm walking and talking just like myself...but my hair happens to be a different color? One that you associate with a certain hip slinging bartender who told you she didn't like pancakes?"
He doesn't move, doesn't nod his head in agreement or say a single thing to suggest she's absolutely, one hundred percent correct.
To be honest, he should have expected what happens next. She slaps him.
Electricity. Every hair on his body stands on end, his eyes shoot open, and the precarious balance he achieved between the angle of his chair and the hardwood floor gives way. He lands on that floor and his head makes a sound like a hollow melon.
"Jesus christ, Parker!"
"Snap out of it, Nathan." He looks up at her and there's an angry expression on her face that's masking both a laugh and worry. "Are you okay?"
"Don't know. My face hurts, though." He rubs at his jaw. "Never thought I'd miss that."
"Masochist." She helps him to his feet, her hands lingering on his bare forearm longer than they need to. They stand that way for a few seconds, staring at each other, until a loud knock separates them. They look at the doorway, find Duke and Jennifer staring at them.
"Are we interrupting something?" Duke asks.
Nathan says "no" while, at the same time, Audrey says "yes". The flush that rises on Nathan's face is worth the smirk from Duke.
"What can we do for you, Duke?" Audrey asks with a smile.
"Actually," Jennifer says, stepping into the office, "we're here because of me." Three sets of eyes turn to look at her and she shrinks a little under their collective gaze. Duke must sense it; he reaches out and takes her hand, squeezes it quickly before letting it go. Audrey and Nathan notice it, exchange a quick glance and a knowing smile.
"Duke told me that you're Audrey...that you've been Audrey since the moment you arrived," she says and Audrey nods. "There's something you need to know, now that you're back. The barn," she says and falters. She shakes herself out of it, starts again. "I can hear the barn again."
Audrey stands, her eyes wide. "What do you hear, Jennifer?"
"Voices, sounds. It's all jumbled..." She trails off and Duke takes over.
"She's been hearing one work in particular," he says.
Jennifer squares her shoulders. "Tituba," she says. "They keep saying Tituba."
