Boxes in the Attic
Pairing/Characters:
Nathan, Audrey, hints of Nathan/Audrey
Rating: T, for mild language
Words: 3,288
Disclaimer: As far as I know Haven is owned by Jim Dunn, Sam Ernst, and SyFy/Universal. If I did own it...well...I wouldn't be writing fan fiction, would I?
Author's Note: Okay, not to freak any of my readers, but, uh, I'm feeling the steam running out. Now, I'm still have unexplored ideas that I want to work with, and I'm certain I can get a few more chapters from that. But to get through all of the rooms in the house? I may gloss over cleaning the bathrooms. It may prove more entertaining to let you all imagine what the Chief's bathroom looks like. I imagine it looks like my ex-boyfriends - you'd need a biohazard suit to go near it. Anyway, I'm going give this the old college try and see this out to the end, mostly because I feel that there is something about the relationship between Nathan and Audrey can be strengthened by exploring their pasts, together. Annnnnnnnd, I'm rambling. On with the story!


After Nathan's old room had been cleaned and all that remained were empty and bare pieces of furniture, Audrey and Nathan began the arduous task of hauling the packed boxes down to the Bronco. Everything that Nathan planned to take back to his house was stacked carefully into the back seat while everything that would be donated was packed into the back. Audrey equated it to Tetris without the Russian folk music, which Nathan started to hum the second after she said as much.

She pinched his arm in retaliation and was rewarded with a sharp yelp of pain and an accusing, "Hey!" from her partner.

After the Bronco was packed, they headed to Goodwill to drop off their first round of donations, with the promise of more to come, especially in terms of house wares. The two employees on shift, whom Nathan greeted as Brenda and Sal, offered their condolences for the loss of his father again, which he received with a stoic nod and a murmured, "Thank you." He stalked back out to the Bronco as quickly as he could, leaving Audrey to dash after him.

"Hey, are you okay?" she asked as she climbed into the cab.

"I don't know if I'll ever be okay. They say that the pain lessens as time goes on, but I'm having a hard time believing it," Nathan replied as he started the truck and pulled out of the parking space.

They made the rest of the trip to his house in silence, Audrey fully aware that there was nothing she could say to her partner that he hadn't heard before. It was better that they rode in silence, speaking only when they arrived at his house and she asked where he wanted the boxes. After unloading them in his living room, they headed to the kitchen where Nathan made sandwiches and poured iced tea. They chattered mindlessly as they ate, discussing the various goings on around town, speculating about Evi and Duke's relationship, and what would happen when Vince and Dave discovered social media and networking. The idea of the Teagues using Twitter or Facebook was extremely amusing, especially since Dave's van pretty much qualified for the junkyard and he insisted on using film to shoot his photos. One of these days it would get him in trouble. Nathan commented that he hoped he was off that day, much to Audrey's amusement.

After lunch was cleaned up, they stocked up on more boxes and garbage bags and headed back to the Chief's house. "So, where are we starting next?" Audrey asked on the ride over.

"I figure the guest room and office is what we'll get through today. We lucked out, there wasn't a lot in the storage room so it only took us forty-five minutes or so to go through everything and clean it."

"Isn't there a bathroom upstairs that should be cleaned out, and the utility and linen closets?" Audrey asked, wondering why Nathan wanted to start in downstairs when they hadn't finished upstairs.

"I'll take care of it at a later date. I really don't think you want to clean out the Chief's bathroom. He was…not the best housekeeper," Nathan explained. "I wouldn't wish that on anyone. Me? I grew up with it, I can handle it. But I'm not going to send anyone I like into clean it. I wouldn't even send someone I didn't like." He emphasized the horror with a shudder.

"I'll take your word for it, then," Audrey noted as she leaned against the door. "Did we want to start in the guest room or the office?"

"We can start in the guest room. I'll stay late working on the office – I'm sure there's a lot of paper work I'll have to go through and there's no point in having you do that," Nathan said as they pulled into the Chief's driveway.

They got out of the car in silence, Nathan and Audrey each grabbing several flattened boxes and a roll of tape before going back into the house. Nathan led the way to the guest room, which was located at the back of the house. Audrey noted that they headed through the house as if they were going to stairs, but passed by the stairs and hung a left at the small hallway that led to two bedrooms and a bathroom.

The guest room was nautically themed, a fact that didn't even phase Audrey at this point. She tossed her empty boxes on the bed and looked around. Aside from a few prints on the wall and a model ship on the armoire, the room was fairly devoid of décor. "Kind of like a hotel room," Audrey noted as she began to tape up the bottom of a box.

Nathan shrugged as he checked the closet for any boxes that the Chief might have stashed in it. "I'm pretty sure that it hasn't changed since my mom did it years ago."

"Did your mom decorate the whole house? Except what was your room," she amended.

"Mom was something of an interior decorator. She wanted to start her own design business, but then she started to get sick," Nathan explained as he pulled his head out of the empty closet. He headed to the window and smacked the heavy curtain, sending a cloud of dust into the air. That, paired with the rather stale smell in the room, was proof enough that the Chief probably hadn't used the room since the last Wuornos family reunion going on five years ago. "And I'm guessing the last time this room got used was when the out of town family came for the reunion almost five years ago."

"There are more members of Wuornos clan?" Audrey asked in surprise.

"The Chief has some cousins and an uncle near Portland," he replied as he began to pull down the draperies and fold them up. "My mother's parents retired to Florida years ago."

"I take it you aren't particularly clannish," Audrey surmised as she began to strip the bed and pack away the sham covers and accent pillows.

"We really only see each other when someone decides that it's been too long since the last family reunion, in which case we're all reminded of why it's been so long since the last one," Nathan explained with a soft chuckle and wry smile.

"I will admit that this is some pretty gorgeous furniture," Audrey said as she ran her fingers over the footboard of the bed. All of the furniture was done in a country style. The oak was simply carved, with a panel design on the armoire, footboard and headboard, as well as sturdy arches on the top drawers of the dresser and on the mirror above the dresser. There were also matching night stands, one on each side of the bed.

"You can have it if you want it," Nathan told her.

Audrey shrugged. "I would, but I don't think it really goes with the rest of my apartment. I have this whole Bohemian thing going for me. Why ruin it with a beautifully handcrafted oak bedroom set?"

Nathan laughed in response. "So what do you suggest we do with it, Parker?"

"Craigslist would probably be your best bet. You can offer the whole set for one price or sell the pieces individually," she suggested. "You can even write up a really snappy ad, 'Beautiful bedroom set, barely used. In fact, so barely used there's even a fine layer of dust on it to prove it!' And then you can put in parentheses, 'Don't worry, if you decide to buy it, we'll polish it up to look like it came straight from the showroom.'"

Nathan was really laughing now, leaning up against the wall, shoulders shaking as he tried to suppress it. It was a lovely sound, and one that Audrey hoped to hear more of. "I'll see about Craigslist. I'll probably also put an ad in the Haven Herald, but probably not as entertaining as whatever ends up on Craigslist."

"I'll write the Craigslist ad if you want," Audrey offered. "That way it's snappy. 'Country chic meets nautical sensibilities! The best of both words, and that way both you and your significant other can be satisfied. See, marital strife really can be resolved with a little retail therapy!'"

"Okay, Parker, that's enough. Let's just get through packing all of the bedding and then get the room cleaned up. There's enough dust in here I'm pretty sure anyone with asthma would have an attack taking one step in here," he said between chuckles. He only hoped that the rest of the rooms were so easy to clean out. The Chief hadn't exactly been one for "stuff," and his perpetual habit of getting rid of whatever he didn't use meant that cleaning out his house was easier than expected.

Of course, Nathan did wonder what was in the basement. There were still Christmas decorations that he hadn't seen in ages, and surely those had to be down stairs.

"Crap," Nathan said as he paused, half-way reaching up to remove the valance from the window.

"What's wrong?" Audrey asked as she tried to stuff the quilt from the bed onto the blankets on the bottom of the box.

"I'll be right back. I need to change over laundry," Nathan grumbled as he stalked from the room like a chastised child.

Audrey snickered at her partner before going back to trying to shove the quilt into the box. After getting creative with the folding and stuffing, she closed it up and moved on to the sheets. She hummed softly to herself as she stripped the sheets from the bed and carefully folded them up and placed them into the nearest empty box. It wasn't hard work, just mundane, but that didn't change the fact that it had to be done. The faint scent of fabric softener was still on the sheets so she knew that they had been clean when put on the bed, so she didn't worry about sending them down to be washed.

She was attempting to maneuver the mattress so she could get to the dust ruffle when Nathan returned. He stopped at the door and studied his partner as she tried to lift up the mattress enough to where she could pull the dust ruffle off, but it always managed to get caught on something. It would have been much easier with a second person to help, but Nathan was rather enjoying listening to her colorful curses at the bed to step in and lend a hand.

Suddenly Audrey stilled, slowly straightened her back, and spun on her heel to glare at her partner, who was casually leaning against the doorframe, a look of admiration on his face. Had he been checking out her ass? "You know, you could have stepped in to help me at any time, Nathan."

He shrugged. "I could have, but it wouldn't have been nearly as entertaining." His bright blue eyes were dancing with laughter at this point.

She narrowed her gaze at him before marching the short distance to where he stood. She assessed all six feet two inches of him (plus another inch or so for the soles of his boots), before reaching out and yanking his tee shirt from his jeans. She then reached under his shirt and ghosted her fingers along his torso, causing him to let out a very un-masculine giggle before sliding down the doorframe to the floor. A look of pure triumph graced Audrey Parker's face as she looked down at her prone partner. "Oh ho! The invincible Nathan Wuornos is ticklish!" she gloated.

Nathan protectively crossed his arms against his core. He hadn't been able to feel for so long he honestly couldn't remember if he had been ticklish before the Troubles came back. "Audrey," he whined in a very un-Nathan-like manner. She merely smirked at him before reaching down the front of his shirt to dance her fingers across his collar bone, causing him to ball up and squirm in a desperate, if futile, attempt to get away from his partner. "That's not fair!"

"All's fair in love and war, Wuornos!" she crowed as she continued her relentless assault. Being the only person he could feel had its advantages. She was the only person who could reduce him to a giggling mass on the floor. She pulled back and stood over him, hands on her hips as she fixed a mean glare down at him. "So, are you going to help me remove the dust ruffle?"

Breathing heavily, Nathan looked up at Audrey and noted how the light shining through her blond hair made it look like she had a halo. Audrey Parker, his personal angel. However he pulled himself from those thoughts and sighed. "Fine, fine. I'll lift up the mattress, you pull off the dust ruffle."

"Thank you," Audrey said smugly as she stepped away from him.

Nathan tilted his head back against the wall and muttered a soft prayer to whomever was listening that his partner wouldn't get any ideas and continue to torture him in a way that only she could. And torture him she would, if she thought it would give her the upper hand. As it was she had already resorted to pinching him or lightly flicking his ear if he irritated her. He hated to think what would happen if she started tickling him in order to get him to do what she wanted.

"Nathan, are you going to sit there and sulk or are you going to help me?" she asked as she turned to face him, an arch stare on her face.

"I'm coming, I'm coming," Nathan mumbled as he stood up. He made his way to the foot of the bed where he reached down and lifted up the mattress while Audrey scrambled under it in order to pull the dust ruffle free. He was tempted to drop the mattress on her briefly, but seeing as she was the only person who could inflict pain on him, he quickly dropped the notion from his mind and patiently waited until she moved free of the mattress to drop it.

"Now, was that so hard?" she asked as she started to fold up the dust ruffle.

"No, but it was time spent that I could have been doing something else," he informed her.

"Oh yeah? Like what?" she challenged as she tossed the dust ruffle into the same box with the shams and matching throw pillows. She frowned for a moment before removing the quilt from the box of blankets and tossing it in with the rest of the matching bed set.

"I don't know, getting the curtains down?" he supplied.

Audrey looked at him, eyebrows raised in disbelief. "Wow, I thought it might have been something important."

He rather liked her sarcastic side. It was something they shared, a mutual love of sarcasm. It tended to be lost on most of the people of Haven, excluding a few choice residents, and they could always snark back and forth when thing started getting a little too crazy for them. So he smiled at her and enjoyed the flustered look that crossed her face.

"I'm going to tackle the linen closet now. I'm pretty sure I can get all of the sheet sets into one box," she said as she hefted up the mostly empty box and carried it into the hallway.

Nathan hid his look of pleasure at his ability to cause Audrey discomfort. For the most part she was all about keeping it cool and not getting ruffled, and the fact that he could get under her skin? Well, it evened the playing field in a way. She could inflict pain, he could get under her skin. While she busied herself with packing away sheets that had long sat unused in the downstairs linen closet, Nathan removed the curtains, debating if he should take them out and toss them over the laundry line and try to beat some of the dust out of them or just pack them up. Realizing that in a small town like Haven not beating the dust out the draperies would most likely earn him the stink eye, he grabbed the box with the draperies and started for the back door.

"Where are you going?" Audrey asked the minute he was in the hallway.

"I need to beat the drapes."

Audrey bit her lip in an attempt to stifle snicker at her partner's rather casual comment. As if beating draperies were an everyday occurrence for him. "Do you have something to beat the drapes with?" she managed to ask, keeping the laughter from bubbling up.

"There should be a badminton racket in the garage that should work just fine," he shrugged.

"Because using it for just badminton would be lame," she noted with a slight smile.

"Everything should have multiple uses, even badminton rackets," Nathan agreed with a grin.

"Well, if you finish with the drapes, I'll finish packing up the sheets and then dust and vacuum the guest room. Sound fair?" she asked.

Nathan gave a quick nod. "Sounds fair to me."

"Excellent. Also, I'll watch you from the window, and if your form is poor, I'll be coming out to help you," she informed him as he headed towards the back door. She watched him walk away, admiring how his jeans fit his backside with a dopy grin until she realized that she was burning daylight checking out her partner's ass.

"Get a grip, Parker," she chastised herself. "This is not the time to be noticing just how nice Nathan's ass looks in those jeans."

Taking a couple of deep breaths, she again returned her focus to the task at hand – packing up sheets and towels that smelled slightly musty due to a lack of use. Once the closet was emptied of its contents, she headed upstairs to grab the vacuum cleaner and the bucket of cleaning supplies so she could tackle the guest room.

She managed to stay focused on her cleaning until she started cleaning the windows. The one that faced the side yard was no problem, but the one that faced the backyard, and the clothes line Nathan had hung the drapes on in order to beat them, was the issue. Again she stared at him as he worked, but this time instead of admiring the fit of his jeans, she started to contemplate their relationship.

Something between them had clicked almost immediately. They quickly established a rapport and a friendship, but sometimes there was a shift in the dynamic. Sometimes she wondered what it would be like to have more to their relationship. She was pretty sure that he wondered the same thing. All that talk to her about lips being the most sensitive part of the body and asking about the nearly lip kiss may have been his way of testing the waters with her, to see if she was open to the idea of perhaps progressing in their relationship. And she, in true Audrey Parker fashion, had been completely oblivious to it.

Nathan turned to look at the house and Audrey quickly ducked away from the window, leaning up against the wall, flushed from head to toe. "Stop acting like a love sick school girl, Parker!" she snapped at herself. She took several steadying breaths before getting started on the dusting, and she was actually glad that the bedroom set was so massive.

Dusting the whole set would give her plenty of time to get her mind off what she'd like to do to Nathan and back on cleaning.


Raise your hand if you're guilty of checking out Lucas Bryant's ass while watching Haven. (Slowly raises hand...)

Yeah...that's what I thought. Hee...

No idea when the next update will be. Sorry, my lovelies. I wish I could give you something to look forward to, but I have Real Life to look forward to, especially in the coming weeks. But hopefully I'll be able to set aside some time to write in the evenings (granted NCIS doesn't keep distracting me. Oh look, Mark Harmon!).

As always, I love to hear from my readers! Please let me know what you think of the story so far!

Mercy_Angel_09