everything is eclipsed by the shape of destiny...

xxx

Spoilers: Through s3

Chapter Rating: T
Chapter Warnings: None
Chapter Characters/Pairings: Audrey/Nathan, past!Audrey (Vera Bunker)
Chapter Summary: But god, she doesn't want to do this alone.
Author's Notes: Thanks to my awesome beta cherrygurl1225, who managed to not break my fragile writer's ego ;)

Thus begins the epic past!Audreys. Seriously, they are awesome.

Song for this chapter is "No One Would Riot For Less" by Bright Eyes


death may come invisible, or in a holy wall of fire
in the breath between the markers on some black i-80 mile
from the madness of the governments
to the vengeance of the sea
everything is eclipsed by the shape of destiny

xxx

The days count down, and she comes no closer to answers. It's as though the town itself is conspiring against her, throwing up barriers to every question, leading her in circles and circles until she's too dizzy to figure out a thing. She feels like she's barreling toward her death with eyes glued open, can see vague glimpses of the horror that awaits, but never enough to know. Only twists and turns that always pull her away at the last moment, that keep her from truly seeing, that spiral closer and closer to that dreaded deadline while somehow still crawling away. Ever closer, never approaching.

But she knows – she knows that she'll hit that wall. Wants to close her eyes but can't, can't risk dragging the entire town into that vortex with her.

They find the body – burned, unrecognizable. And it's Tommy, impossibly dead for five weeks, and she should be surprised but somehow nothing in Haven can really shock her anymore. It only makes her job that much harder, only makes protecting Nathan and the rest that much more difficult. Audrey Parker doesn't give up, ever, but god is it tempting.

Keep going. She has to keep fighting, even if only for another couple days. She won't give up this close to the end; she won't have that be her last memory. Won't have that be everyone's last memory of her.

She wonders if somewhere, whoever had orchestrated this entire sick game is watching. Laughing. Waiting for her to make a move, waiting to see what she'll do when she's backed into a corner.

xxx

little soldier, little insect
you know war, it has no heart
it will kill you in the sunshine or happily in the dark

xxx

[She's different, this time. It starts slowly, a gradual self-awareness that grows with each reincarnation. Maybe it's her; maybe it's humanity, with its leaps and bounds. For so long he'd relied on her need to serve, on her blind faith in his higher power, her belief in miracles. But she begins to question, begins to wonder, begins to stray from her carefully planned path.

She figures it out earlier, each time. He does what he can to mitigate the damage but there's never enough time and she's too clever; she's always been too clever. The written word makes it hard, photographs harder. Newspaper and computers, databases available in an instant – it becomes impossible to hide all traces. And he'd bred her to be open, accepting of all possibilities. It had been inevitable, really.]

xxx

he says, help me out
hell is coming
but could you do it now?
hell is here

xxx

Nathan watches her, concern slashed across his face, and she desperately wants to reassure him but finds she simply can't anymore. She's so tired, of hiding and lying and searching for answers that never seem to come. Or when they do, they leave her only a thousand more questions. And she continues hurtling toward that nothing, the void that will consume her, spit her back out in 27 years with nothing left.

She wonders, not for the first time, if she could take anything with her. Anyone. She doesn't know where she goes, or how, but she can't help wondering. If. If, at the end of all of this horror, that silver lining did prove real – if Nathan could come with her…

She can't believe she's even thinking it. But the thought won't shake itself, no matter how much she presses it down. It isn't fair to him, to drag him down with her into that sinister gloom of her fate. (A little part of her screams it's his choice, but she can't even dignify that with a fully formed thought. She doesn't get to refuse his choice to help her before, and accept it when it benefits her. She can't be that selfish. She won't.)

But god, she doesn't want to do this alone.

xxx

well wake, baby, wake
but leave that blanket around you
there is nowhere as safe

i'm leaving this place
but there's nothing i'm planning to take
just you
just you

xxx

[Vera is the first. It's purely luck, really, stumbling onto an old painting in the basement of the little trade shop she'd starting working at a few weeks back. Buried under a mound of junk, but reverently wrapped as though someone had wanted to preserve it.

She doesn't understand it, at first. Vera had crossed to the Colonies alone, had left no family behind. She has no blood relations in this world, and even if she did, they'd be across the ocean.

It isn't possible.

A lot of things that shouldn't be possible crop up in the next few months, and it should be surprising that she can handle them but somehow it's not. Somehow it just seems natural, right, even in the face of all the abnormality and transgression. A path she follows easily, a groove she fits into with absolute perfection.

But still, that painting nags at her. Wriggles in the back of her mind, knocking loose a few bricks in that precise path, and sometimes it's not quite as easy to follow.

Still, when the man appears and tells her to come with him into a barn in the middle of nowhere, it feels like coming home.]

xxx

see the sterile soil, poisoned sky, yellow water
final scraps of life bringing new tears

xxx

I got this. You go find whoever-
-we will. I can't just abandon one child for another.
I've gotta help this little girl. That's what we're here to do, right?

xxx

Fate, it seems, will always be against her. Nathan finally wants her to go after her son, and she's finally ready to give in to whatever happens. She wonders if they'll ever really be in sync again, and it makes her so unbearably sad it's all she can do to laugh.

Helping the Troubled – it's what she's here to do. Not him. Never him. It's her job, her fate. Her destiny. She can't drag him into it, no matter how badly it tears at her soul. She can't ask him to come with her, wherever she goes. That had destroyed James, and it's the last thing she'll do to Nathan. (Because she knows – she knows that if she asked, whatever the price, Nathan would come. Even if it killed him, she knows he'd try. And selfishly, so selfishly, she can't allow that. She wouldn't survive that.)

"Hey, Parker." She's already halfway back to her car from the ice cream stand, so lost in her thoughts she jumps. Nathan touches her arm, stopping her. "We will find him, whoever it is. Whoever is hunting your son." Audrey looks away, smiling tightly, and can't help wondering if it even matters anymore. So little time left, and so many questions – too many. She'd somehow convinced herself that after she'd found James, there would be time to fix things with Nathan, time to find a way to stay. (Time to make herself believe again, that she can do this. That they can.) But there's no time left, only a desperation that's settled so deeply on her chest it's all she can do to breathe. She'd given up on herself a long time ago, she realizes absently. All she's had to cling to is the Colorado Kid, and that hope keeps getting pulled just out of reach again and again and again.

She almost wants the deadline to be here, to end this constant anxiety that only increases moment to moment. She can see no better way out.

But Nathan – Nathan won't give up. "Audrey," he says sharply, and her eyes flick back to his. Recently so conflicted, so tortured, now they blaze with a clear sense of purpose. "We are going to figure this out."

He sounds so certain that she can almost, almost believe.

xxx

so love me now
hell is coming
yeah, kiss my mouth
hell is here


(Vera Bunker = Truth/Faith of Good Heart)

Reviews are love!

NEXT CHAPTER: Horse & I