It is so hard to write anything even vaguely resembling angst right now (I'm pretending the last five minutes of Friday's show didn't happen, obviously.) How perfect was the beginning of Crush? Oh, my shipper heart. This show.

So, turns out this idea wasn't as crazy as I thought when I wrote it (I honestly believed there was no way the show wouldn't make us suffer through a Lexi doesn't remember being Audrey storyline), but the other chapters are quite obsolete now. But I'd already had them planned out and I'm hoping to explore a theory of mine before the show invalidates it, so I hope you enjoy anyway.

Audrey woke to the smell of Nathan on her sheets, but he wasn't there. It took a few hazy minutes to remember that she had sent him away. Her body was slightly sore and thoroughly sated, but her mind was another matter entirely. Although Lexi was satisfied with how the night had progressed, Audrey was left unsettled. This was not how their morning after should have gone. There should have been soft touches, chaste kisses, gently teasing words and wide smiles. He should have tried to make pancakes, while she tried to distract him. He should have been there.

But she'd been the one to send him away, and it was her legacy that had gotten between them. There was no use whining about what couldn't be changed. She needed to find another solution so they could make up for lost time.

She showered and changed before wandering down to the Gull. Since it was only seven in the morning she expected to find the place abandoned. But Duke sat behind the bar, polishing tumblers.

He looked up when she entered. She caught his split second of shock at her unfamiliar appearance, but it morphed almost immediately into a casual half-smile. "Morning. Sorry if the noise kept you up last night. I took a little break from Haven, and apparently in my absence my brother decided to turn this place into a nightclub."

He seemed to have accepted Lexi with an ease Nathan was incapable of. The smart move would have been to make some brazen remark about whether his brother was as attractive as he was. It was imperative that the Guard believed she was Lexi. She would not let them put a gun in her hand and make her pull the trigger. The more people who knew the truth, the more opportunities for someone to slip up.

But under Duke's friendly veneer he looked nearly as worn down as she felt. She didn't want to add to that or face the consequences when he finally found out the truth. And she really didn't want to have to pretend here, in her safe space, when she desperately needed a confidant.

If she was going to be Lexi most of the time, she needed a chance to be Audrey every once in a while so she didn't forget.

So she ditched the innuendo and went for the truth.

"I didn't know you had a brother. Probably should have realized, since the firstborn son plague didn't affect you."

He didn't startle. His eye widened as he put down the glass he was holding, but he fixed her with an easy grin. "That's one hell of a long con, sweetheart."

She smiled back, knowing immediately that her decision was the right one. She felt slightly better already.

"Best I could come up with on the spot. Too many tempers and guns. There was no way that was going down the way the Guard wanted."

"I find that good advice to live by, generally."

It felt so good to laugh again. Duke came around the bar and she met him halfway in a fierce hug. "I'm glad you're back," he told her, pressing a kiss to her hair. She didn't usually allow him such liberties, but she was willing to make an exception just this once. He smelled like contraband and the sea – salt water mixed with some exotic spice.

"Glad to be back."

"Does Nathan know?" Duke asked as he pulled away. "Wait. I take that back. Of course he does. I knew something was off last night. He made a spectacle of himself, but he didn't really seem upset. Not the kind of devastated he'd be if you were really gone."

"Nathan knows," she confirmed.

"I hope he gave you a proper welcome back."

She felt her cheeks heat at exactly how improper it had been – his warm mouth and curious hands and the way he had arched into her every touch.

"Eww. I didn't think before I made that statement. Can I just say – finally – but I don't want any of those details. Like ever. We are not girlfriends. We will not be swapping stories of that kind."

"That's probably wise," she said with a chuckle.

"You want some breakfast? Maybe you can clear up a few things that won't scar me for life."

"Breakfast would be wonderful."

She followed him into the kitchen, bringing a bar stool with her so she'd have somewhere to perch as he cracked eggs and began mixing up ingredients. She told him about her time in the bar as Lexi, and how she hadn't realized anything was odd until a mysterious stranger upended her life by convincing her to jump through some cross-dimensional door.

"He was really there, I think," she concluded, spinning one of the thick metal rings on her finger. "Everyone else faded with the illusion – the patrons and my co-workers – but William was still there, urging me on. He had to be real."

"Maybe it was your subconscious, convincing you to hold on to Audrey. Fighting the new personality."

"I've never been able to fight it before. Why wouldn't my subconscious choose someone familiar – like you or Nathan?"

"I'm flattered, but between the two of us I know who your mind would conjure."

There was no spite in his tone, but something about his words hurt nonetheless. So she tried for levity, feeling slightly guilty about it the whole time. "I don't know. If I needed someone to create a compelling and creative argument, you might be my guy. Nathan's never been great at communicating how he feels."

"I hope he said something last night. Because it's been pretty damn obvious to the rest of us." Duke turned with two plates in his hand and set one down in front of her. Next to a pile of eggs were three fluffy pancakes.

"Oh God," she moaned, burying her head in her hands and closing her eyes against the shock of it, like she'd just come across a fatal accident. She had seen the haunted look in his eyes, the bowing of his shoulders, the new scars. Last night Nathan's guilt had practically scalded her. Duke's gesture tossed it right back in her face.

"What? You haven't been lying to Nathan all this time about liking pancakes, have you?"

"He was really that bad off?"

Duke peered at her through narrowed eyes. "He was totally off the reservation. But I'm not sure how you got that from my choice of breakfast foods."

"These are sympathy pancakes." She had to fight the urge to push them off the table ledge. Duke was not the one who should have made her pancakes this morning. "You prefer waffles. You've said so a million times. You made these because he would have. You're getting along. You're looking out for him. And for him to let you…" She trailed off with a shudder. So many times she had hoped for her boys to set aside their differences but this was surely too good to be true.

"Maybe my waffle maker just broke." She frowned, and he avoided her eyes by smothering his plate with syrup and cutting himself a bite. After a few chews he dropped his fork with a clatter. "I was right. These are crap."

He sighed, running his hand over his hair. "We were friends once, you know. When we were just kids, before the Troubles came and his father started protecting him and my father started raving about how it was our job to help cleanse the town from the damned."

She hadn't known that, actually. She knew frightfully little about what drew these men together and tore them apart. She only knew that she loved them both dearly, in different ways, and she couldn't imagine facing this town without them.

"I'd like to hear some of those stories."

"Maybe someday. Look, I don't know what he told you. The truth is I should have realized something was up last night because I'm not sure he would have survived if you were really Lexi. Though he seems intent not to survive you being Audrey and I've spent the past month trying to convince him that's an awful plan, but he won't listen to reason. I hope you've got a few tricks up your sleeve because his self-hatred's not something I've got a remedy for. And it kinds of ticks me off that I do care whether he gets himself killed."

Relief flooded through her that she had an ally in this. "I'm not going to kill him – and that's my choice, not his. We need to find another way."

"Any thoughts on how to go about doing that? Cause apparently Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum have nothing." He picked up his fork again and went back to his breakfast, starting with the eggs.

"Not at the moment. Until we figure it out, I need to keep being Lexi. No one else can know about this except you and Nathan."

"You really think you can pull this off?"

"I have to. Might not be too hard, though. Lexi's still in there."

"What do you mean? She like, possessing you or something?"

Audrey stared down at Lexi's iron studded and black tipped fingers. "It's almost like I'm possessing her. She's the one who's supposed to be here this time around."

"You don't mean that," Duke said sternly.

She wished that she didn't. How many times since she found the scar on her foot had she wished her life was less of a complicated mess? She was a puzzle, not a person. "I guess we're both parasites. There's a real Audrey Parker out there, which probably means there's a real Lexi DeWitt and this body isn't supposed to be either of them. The only thing that's actually real is what happened to me in this town. William said when I came back I'd be whoever I most wanted to be, and I wanted to be the one who befriended you and fell in love with Nathan and helped those who couldn't help themselves. But I still have Lexi's memories. They don't feel real, exactly, but they're there. So's her personality. I just need to let it take over and make sure I don't let any of Audrey's knowledge slip."

"What if Lexi gets – stronger – the longer she's here?"

"That's a risk I need to take." She looked Duke straight in the eyes and willed herself not to fold. She wished she had a stiff drink. Lexi had always been fond of liquid courage. "Speaking of which, do you happen to need a new bartender?"

"Depends." Audrey watched the seriousness melt away, leaving behind the mostly above board charming businessman. "Is she any good?"

"The very best in all of Arizona. If all of Arizona is part of a supernatural barn."

"Wouldn't be a bad idea to keep you close. Except it means there'll be a cop mooning around here all the time. I can't believe my bar is going to become your secret love nest. I'm gonna say it again – I don't want to hear about it. No oversharing, or I'm raising your rent. And I better not walk in on you two."

"It won't. We can't," she floundered, shaking her head. "No one else can know I'm not Lexi. Nathan knows, but we can't act on that."

"Sure. Good luck with that."

She snorted at Duke's obvious skepticism. "Lexi's not the only one who could use a drink right now."

"Lucky we're in a bar, right? Mimosas or Irish coffee? Bloody Mary, maybe?"

"Definitely coffee."

Duke left to grab a bottle of Bailey's, and Audrey used the time to mentally regroup. What if Duke was right? She used to be a pro at ignoring her attraction to Nathan, but that was before she'd gotten a real taste of the power she held over him. Now she knew the shade of his eyes when they were darkened with lust and what was hiding under every stitch of clothing. Even more intoxicating was the way his body could make her forget all of this for a few blissful minutes. Could she really act like none of that had happened, when she desperately wanted it to happen again?

For awhile they both nursed their spiked coffee in silence. Audrey was grateful for the way the booze and caffeine steadied her, warm and comforting – but not as warm and comforting as Nathan's arms would have been. Desperate for a lighter topic, Audrey latched onto the newcomer of their little band.

"So, Jennifer."

"What about her?" Duke's response was a little too deliberately nonchalant. The Duke Crocker she'd met when she first came to town would have had an immediate physical judgment.

"She's staying with you on the Rogue."

"It's temporary. She'll need a new place since you're home."

"From the look on Nathan's face when she suggested staying with you he seems to think there's something else going on."

"There isn't – yet."

"But you'd like there to be," she pressed.

"You're awfully pushy this time around."

"You told me not to overshare my personal life. We didn't say anything about yours."

Duke poured a measure of Bailey's into his empty mug and tossed it back. "What the hell, right?" She smiled encouragingly. She didn't know Duke could be shy about anything. "First thing Jenn did after I met her was break me out of the hospital. There I was, cuffed to a bed, raving about some Barn and needing to get back to Haven, and instead of running for the hills she flashed an orderly and took me on a road trip. She's taken everything about this crazy town in stride. We never would have gotten you back if she didn't figure out how to open that door."

"We'll have to figure out how she's connected to the Barn."

"Yeah. And whatever we ask of her she'll do, without reservation. Nathan went a little overboard at first, needing to figure out where you were, and all I wanted to do was protect her. That's not a natural instinct in me. Crockers look out for themselves. That's what my old man used to teach me."

Audrey recognized that protective spark. She'd never had anyone to watch out for until her trouble-prone partner made it clear he did an awful job of taking care of himself. Now she'd do nearly anything to keep him out of harm's way.

She was glad Duke had found someone to care for like that.

"She thinks I'm a good man. That's not a popular opinion around here. Probably not a right one, either, but she believes it. And damn if she doesn't make me want to be that person she sees."

"I've always known you were a good man."

"I'm not replacing you."

"Course not. I was never yours to replace." The words flowed from her tongue without thought, and she only regretted them after she saw the look on Duke's face. "Sorry, that was rude. Lexi's kind of a bitch."

Duke reached for the bottle again, but this time he poured some for the both of them. He raised his mug toward her, and she saw it for the peace offering it was. The mugs clunked with a deeper thud than wine glasses, and Audrey downed the liquor quick. "You were always terrible at these sorts of things. But you're right. It was always you and Nathan, from the beginning. I knew that since the night you blew me off to catch crooks with your stick in the mud partner. I didn't always want to accept it. But I knew."

She couldn't exactly say that she wished things had turned out differently. Aside from the fact that her love might kill him, she couldn't even fathom wanting to give up what she felt for Nathan. But she couldn't abandon Duke either. There had been times when he'd held her together when Nathan wasn't there to do so. She was only sorry she'd given him false hope of anything more. "You're my friend, Duke. I haven't always been able to say that about Nathan, but you…"

"Always what a guy wants to hear." He didn't sound bitter, exactly, but she still flinched at the sudden coldness in his tone. She hoped this Jennifer could return his feelings, because he deserved someone who could love him unconditionally.

But she didn't tell him that. It was a little too honest, and he was right – she was awful at this sort of thing. So she tried for levity instead. "The self-preservationist in you should be glad. Loving me's fairly dangerous these days."

The joke fell flat. There was little that was funny in their lives at the moment.

"Worth it, though."

But she thought of the look on Nathan's face when he'd asked her to kill him, and the echoed devastation when she'd pretended to be Lexi and when she'd kicked him out of bed. Even in their few stolen moments together he hadn't let joy take hold. "How can any of this be worth it?"

"Look, you don't get to give up," Duke said sharply, his vehemence taking hold of her as if he'd grabbed her shoulders. "Maybe Lexi's a quitter, but Audrey's not. There's too much at stake here. I'm gettin' real tired of having to play the hero. That's your job, and you used to do it well. You and Nathan. It's time for you two to get your act together and start putting this place back together, because it's falling apart without you."

She was startled to realize how right he was. She was feeling sorry for herself, and that wasn't something Audrey or Lexi could usually abide. But there was one thing he got wrong.

"You followed me into the Barn."

"Yeah?" he asked, derailed from his train of thought by her apparent non sequitur. "So?"

"Why?"

Duke hesitated. His breathing seemed particularly deliberate, as if he was using it to calm himself. "Because Nathan asked me to. The Barn was breaking up and he couldn't go after you himself. I know you'd chosen to go, but you weren't supposed to die in there."

"You could have died, or forgotten who you were. And you pretend not to even like Nathan. But you jumped in anyway. You're not playing at being a hero, Duke. You are a hero."

"That's debatable."

She shook her head. "Not to me. If we're going to figure this out we'll need your help. Three of us against the world."

She glared at him. Nathan had told her more than once that she could be scary when she was riled up, and she wasn't above using fear to get this point across. If he wasn't going to let her feel sorry for herself, she wasn't going to let him hide from who he really was. There was a certain allure to the rouge, yes. But he was far more than that underneath, and she's seen it time and again.

"We might have to make it four," Duke conceded. "Jennifer doesn't like watching from a distance."

"We can work with that." She'd have to get to know this Jennifer, make sure she realized what a catch Duke was. But anyone who could get Duke to voice what he'd shied from when Audrey implied it had to be good for him. "One more thing."

"Shift today starts at four. And you can't ask for a raise when you haven't even started yet."

"Smartass." But she laughed, and that was surely his intention. "Look, I don't know what's going to happen when I have to be Lexi all the time. I need you to keep an eye on me. Make sure Audrey's still in there. All right?"

"I think I can manage that. Now, my new bartender's got some paperwork to fill out. How about we go to my office? I may just have an embarrassing story or two about Nathan's misbegotten childhood if it doesn't take too long."

"Thank you."

"Don't mention it. Really, don't mention it. But if Lexi wants to keep dressing a bit more provocatively than Audrey, I wouldn't mind."

She smacked him on the shoulder, but he chuckled and stepped to the side. "Gotta keep that armor a little tarnished."

But as long as he kept wearing it, she wouldn't mind.

Next up: James. Plus more of The Return. I've forsaken writing another novel this NaNoWriMo for 50,000 words of Haven fanfic, so there should be lots coming from me this month. Reviews are even better motivation than caffeine, so I'd love some feedback to keep me going!

Thanks to all of you for reading.