- four -

They're so busy searching for a solution that doesn't even seem to exist that they haven't taken a day off for weeks. So Audrey's shocked when Nathan wakes up one morning and tells her he's not going to the station.

She's even more shocked when he brings her to a graveyard.

Their first stop is the flower shop, where he buys a bunch of daises. But instead of handing them to her he holds on to them until he lays them on his mother's grave.

This isn't East Side Cemetery. They're behind the First Presbyterian Church, and Audrey's so used to Nathan's aversion to the Rev's domain on the other side of town that it's hard to imagine him here as a boy, all dressed up and half-asleep beside his parents without any thought that God has cursed and forsaken him.

But there is something boyish about the way he collapses in front of the tombstone, his legs dropping out from under him as he runs his hand reverently over a marker he can't feel. Her heart falters in her chest as she reads the inscription. He'd been silent all morning, even for him, and she'd wondered what he was up to but she hadn't expected this.

She stands behind him and rests her hands on his shoulders as they bow toward the earth. She knows now that he can feel the pressure of that through his shirt but the sensation is muffled like she's screaming at him but he has cotton in his ears. Present but not precise.

She notices that the first date on the stone matches today's, but she doesn't say anything. He knows this, obviously, and it feels wrong to intrude on this moment. He hadn't invited her along, exactly. She'd just followed.

Audrey didn't know this woman – though maybe Lucy had; it seems each time she comes to town she meets everyone – but she knows who she left behind. And that makes the loss of her hurt as if they'd been friends. He didn't deserve this, on top of everything else. He didn't deserve any of it.

"The Chief always came here on the day she died. I thought that was morbid. I'd rather visit on her birthday."

She reaches down and grabs one of his hands. His fingers curl under hers and she wants to do something more, to make this better, but she doesn't know how. She cannot think of a single comforting thing that is true.

He is silent for a long time. It gets uncomfortable leaning over him but she doesn't want to let go, so she drops down beside him and he drapes an arm around her and latches their fingers together. He's staring at the tombstone so intently it's almost as if he's communing with the dead. Anything is possible in Haven, and Audrey's already seen him talk to the ghost of his father, so she wonders if maybe he can see his mother here.

Finally he seems to rouse himself a little and starts poking at the daisies with his free hand. "She loved daisies, so that's what Dad would buy for her. Nothing romantic or traditional. He taught me to give a woman what she wanted, not what the world said she wanted."

She would have been shocked that Garland Wuornos was capable of something so sentimental and yet so true if she wasn't already reeling from the fact it was the first time she'd ever heard Nathan call the Chief "Dad".

She glances sideways at him, expecting a look of melancholic nostalgia to match his tone of voice. But it's raw pain that radiates from him, and it catches her heart in a vice.

"Nathan," she breathes, trying to infuse that word with everything she feels but cannot say. And then she grabs his shoulder and pulls him into her, one hand running through his hair and the other rubbing across his back, trying desperately to be soothing. He sinks into her and his composure shatters, and she feels the silent heave of his chest. He doesn't shed any tears, but she can feel them in the charged air around them and she wishes he would just let them go. It does neither of them any good, keeping them locked inside.

"Why does everyone leave?" he whispers, and it's like he's dropped ice down her back.

She knows what he wants her to say. And God, how she wants to promise that she will be different. That she will never leave him, not for anything. But one of the many things she's learned in Haven is that history repeats, and it's not kind. She can no more make herself stay than she can resurrect his parents.

There may, indeed, be someone in this town who can do both those things. But it's not her.

But she knows the next best thing that she can tell him. And maybe in the end it won't help, maybe it will only reinforce his notion that everyone who loves him leaves, but he deserves to know and she's kept him waiting far too long, waiting for some perfect moment when so many other perfectly fine moments pass them by.

They're running out of time.

She pulls back enough to cradle his head, her thumbs skimming across his cheeks, causing him to close his eyes against his haze of self pity. It is impossible for him to feel alone when she's touching him, demanding his attention. She tilts her forehead against his and waits until he opens his eyes to look at her.

"I love you," she finally tells him, and she hopes it's enough.

In her imagination he's always jubilant when he hears this, but in reality the joy seeps across his face more gradually, and it's more of a half-smirk that he gives hers than a grin.

"That supposed to be a surprise?" he drawls, and she's so thrown by this for a few moments all she can do is gape at him with her mouth open.

"Yes?" she finally manages. He laughs softly at that, but she is so grateful for the sound, even if this whole declaration didn't go at all how she expected.

It's something she already knows about Nathan. While she tends to wallow in her emotions he switches his off rapidly. Both anger and sadness fade quickly with the right kind of persuasion.

"How long have you known?" she asks him.

"Since the night you wouldn't sleep with me because I was too important to you."

She pulls back just a little because she can't think about this objectively when his shining eyes are so close to hers, staring deliberately at her lips. "I didn't even know I was in love you with you back then." But if she really thinks about it, she supposes she was. Dating Nathan didn't change her feelings, really. It just gave her the freedom to dwell and act on them.

The smirk is back. "When did you figure it out?"

She doesn't need any time to contemplate that answer. "After we finally slept together." He does grin at that, and she elbows him in the ribs. "That isn't why. It was the way I felt afterwards. I just wanted to stay there with you, forever. I'd never felt anything like that before."

It's not the fireworks she'd been expecting. He doesn't swing her around or kiss her until she's breathless. But his joy is still so tangible it's like she can feel it warming her own skin. She has made him happy, without a doubt, and that is all she wants.

"That was months ago."

She rolls her eyes at him. "Obviously. I wanted to plan some big romantic gesture. But we've been so busy. It never seemed like the right time." She looks around at their surroundings: it's a cloudy day and the grass is overgrown and browning beneath them. And they are in a cemetery. "This probably wasn't it," she says wryly. "But I wanted you to know."

He lifts one of her hands and brushes his lips softly across her knuckles. "Thank you."

She is never quite sure what to do in these moments of intimacy, when he is just so perfect in her eyes that her heart swells and she isn't sure she can handle it.

"So what about you?" she asks after a few moments under his spell. "Did you really figure out you loved me at a dinner theater in Derry, or were you holding out on me too?"

He shakes his head, and the way he hesitates makes her nervous. "It was the day with those killer plants. I showed up to rescue you, but you already had everything under control. You walked off with Brody – and I knew the Teagues had been right. I'd waited too long."

"Nathan." It had been heroic, the way he'd showed up with a hockey stick and a torch, but she'd been so distracted she'd hardly even noticed. Knowing how he'd felt back then made her even more regretful of the unmitigated disaster that was her relationship with Chris Brody. She wished she could go back and do it all differently. She hated the thought that she'd hurt him, even unintentionally.

"It's all right. He's not a threat anymore."

In truth he never was, because even when she was sleeping with Chris the scientist could never hold her attention. Nathan has never had that problem – in the bedroom or outside it. "I didn't know you had feelings for me for so long."

"That's when I realized what they were. That wasn't when they started."

That seems even more incomprehensible. "So when did they start?"

He is still holding one of her hands and he looks down at it, his thumb drifting over her skin slowly. "When I thought the chameleon had killed you I couldn't fathom my life without you in it. When we found you alive it didn't matter than Eleanor was dead and my father had thought I was a monster – because you were still there."

The fact he'd carried a torch for her for so long and never gave any indication floors her. "You barely even knew me then."

"I knew enough."

It takes awhile for the second implication to sink in. If he couldn't fathom being without her then – when he barely even knew her – what does that mean for him now?

Damn.

She's already worried about what he will do when she is gone. She can only hope that the Troubles will go with her so he can have a normal life. Maybe since she has taught him the importance of touch he will find it elsewhere. She doesn't like the thought of that exactly – part of her wants him to wait for her return, because surely she'll love him no matter how old he is – but that part of her is selfish, and she really does want him to be happy. If she can't be there for him then it is best if someone else is.

"I will always want to stay with you," she swears, and she closes her fingers around his and holds on. "I need you to remember that. No matter what happens – even if I can't – I will always want to." She pushes a few strands of hair out of her face to give herself a few second to regroup before she makes her final admission. "Sometime it feels like I always have."

He nods, but he doesn't argue or swear that he will always keep her by his side. She fears they're growing beyond that, that even his faith is faltering.

Or perhaps he realizes how much his distress hurts her. Or on a day like this, maybe he just doesn't have any fight left.

"Tell me more about your mother," she eventually prompts. "I can't picture Garland Wuornos as a romantic. She must have been some woman to bring that out in him."

They while the hours away with stories of his childhood and she learns more of him than she'd ever known. She imagines if their lives had been different, and they were going to a birthday party today instead of a memorial. Garland is gruff and feigns disapproval on the grounds of fraternizing in the workplace, but he smiles at Audrey when Nathan isn't looking. His mother is delighted by the woman at her son's side, and they talk like old friends. It's normal in a way Audrey isn't accustomed to, and she yearns for a life where this is possible – where they both have a place to belong. She wants that for him when she is gone. But later, when they go to the Gull for drinks and Duke regales them with tales so outrageous even Nathan is snorting into his beer, she thinks maybe she ought to broaden her definition of family. Maybe if her guys have each other, they'll both be all right.

So hold me when I'm here
Right me when I'm wrong
Hold me when I'm scared
And love me when I'm gone
Everything I am
And everything in me
Wants to be the one
You wanted me to be
I'll never let you down
Even if I could
I'd give up everything
If only for your good
So hold me when I'm here
Right me when I'm wrong
You can hold me when I'm scared
You won't always be there
So love me when I'm gone

Love me when I'm gone...

When I'm Gone, 3 Doors Down