Author's Note: It has been a really, really long time since I last updated this story. So sorry for the delay! I'm hoping to have it finished before Haven returns in a few weeks. Of course, you guys know that I don't own Haven, don't claim to own it, and certainly make no profit.

Previously in Tomorrow's Child:

After thwarting an assassination attempt on Reverend Driscoll, Audrey was shocked to discover that the would-be assassin was her daughter—with Nathan. While seemingly impossible, the duo finally come to terms with the notion that somehow they have a child together in the future, Holly. Only, through Holly's reactions to Nathan, they infer that he was not around for her upbringing. Holly has a bit of her mother's snark, her father's Trouble (at least when in her own timeline), and a deadly determination to end Driscoll's life "for the greater good."

Meanwhile, a series of strange (other than future daughter) occurrences begin to happen around town. Seemingly normal people suddenly become violently crazy: Sam Barthelemey and William Netherton. These are people who have come into contact with Holly.

Netherton's foray into insanity has far graver consequences, though. After taking a woman hostage at the Good Shepherd Church, he kills himself as a sacrifice. Driscoll, meanwhile, uses this to his advantage to gather followers and supporters, positioning himself for an even greater power play within the community.

When last we left our characters, Audrey and Nathan had begun to explore their feelings for one another.

Holly, on the other hand, encountered Duke when she broke into Audrey's apartment. A connection developed between the two of them as Holly explored the world around her, touching her surroundings and Duke. He coaxed more of her story from her. She explains that if she fails to kill Driscoll, Haven will be destroyed. Yet in the process of ending Driscoll's life, Audrey Parker will also have to die…

Part Six: The Pivot Point

"Run that by me again. You're saying Audrey has to die?" Duke nearly choked on the words. He wasn't sure whether to laugh at Holly or start climbing the walls. He waited for her to crack a smile, anything to hint at levity, that this was all one huge practical joke or…something.

Instead, she somberly replied, "There's no other choice that I can see."

"You want to kill your own mom? I've heard of a dysfunctional families. Hell, I come from a dysfunctional family, but this…"

Holly's patience wore thin. "Oh, get off it. I don't want to kill her."

Duke held up his hand, his fingers splayed in a gesture that silently screamed 'hold on'. "But you just said…"

"We have our differences, but she's my mom, and I do love her."

"You've got a funny way of showing it." But as he stopped and let her words sink in, he could hear the turmoil in the young woman's slightly quivering voice.

"I'm thinking of the greater good."

"I hate that phrase," Duke muttered. "Translation from the original martyr dialect: 'I get to be miserable'."

"Well, it sucks, I know, but tell me how to fix this without Audrey Parker dying and my never being born, and I'll be game for it."

Her eyes beseeched him. Blue. The color of cornflowers. Expressive. Haunted.

She wasn't going to come out the other side of this either.

And he felt his center of gravity lurch. He plopped on Audrey's small sofa to try to cover his own unsteadiness. "You look a lot like her."

"I hear that a lot."

"Audrey smiles more than you do." To not see Audrey's smile anymore? She was his friend, one of the few genuine friends he had. Duke didn't want Audrey to die. Simple as that. For that matter, he didn't want Holly to die, either. There was something there. Given time, he might call it a spark, but it would be an ember that he'd have to bury quickly.

How strange to hear Holly announce she would have to die and subsequently try to carry on a meaningful conversation.

She settled on the couch next to Duke drawing her long legs under her. "I never knew my mom to smile much. Not unless she was talking about my dad."

Holly steered the conversation away from her own impending demise, Duke realized. But he would play along. It was the least he could do. "That one, I still don't get."

"I do," Holly countered. "Can't you see that spark with them?"

"No." Yes. But he didn't particularly want to admit it. Especially not when her expression mirrored his own thinking so closely.

"I asked her once when she knew she loved him."

"Oh?"

"She said it hit her when he asked her out for a lobster dinner."

Duke furrowed his brows. "Nathan hates lobster."

"Exactly, but he knew she liked it. My mom's told me stories about him, and that's when I could see the light come back into her eyes. Not when she was looking at me but when she was thinking about him. He was always putting her before himself. It accounts for why he's dead and I'm alive, I suppose."

Her wistfulness, her vulnerability, were such a contrast to the swaggering young woman he met on the sidewalk outside the Haven Police Department. "How could you have anything to do with that?"

Holly shook her head. "You know she's not like other people, right?"

"I've figured that out."

"Look, she gave up…she gave up her immortality to keep me. For the love of a child who would cause her to lose everything she ever held dear. My father died saving me, trying to save Haven, and it has all been for nothing."

"Because you say that Haven is just…poof…destroyed."

"You don't believe me."

Duke didn't want to believe her. Not if it meant losing his friends, his home. Try as he had over the years to leave Haven behind, he had never succeeded. Not entirely. And he sure wasn't willing to give up on it now. But this had to be one very elaborate practical joke or con or…something. Surely. "I've seen strange things, but you have to admit that even this is stretching it."

Holly inhaled, steadying herself for what she had to say. "I need you to just hear me out, okay? I'm not sure that if Audrey shows up here, I'll have time to explain before I have to go."

"Go? Go where?"

She reached out and touched his forearm. Warmth. The feel of him was pleasant, new. Get a grip, she scolded herself. This isn't about exploring the sense of touch. "Okay, that part about listening, I meant it, Duke."

As a response, Duke held his hand behind his ear to indicate he was listening.

"I asked you what you know about the Troubles. And trust me, there's plenty you don't know yet. Have you ever wondered why they seem to return in cycles?"

"Who from Haven hasn't?"

She continued. "Do you believe one person can be a pivot point?"

"What? You mean everything hinges on that person?"

"Yes."

"No. I believe we make our own choices," Duke replied.

"I wish I could believe what you do," Holly murmured. "Look, the woman you call Audrey is here each time the Troubles come. It's been that way since the beginning."

"So you're saying Audrey is the cause of the Troubles?"

Holly shook her head. "Not quite. All around us is a battle. Maybe some would call it a spiritual battle. Others an elemental one. A lightning rod draws the Troubles out. Edmund Driscoll is that lightning rod this time."

"So? The Troubles went away before. They'll go away again. I'm not going to let Audrey die for…for this."

He was a good friend to her mom. Holly could sense that when she was a small child, and she could see it now. How was she going to get Duke Crocker, of all people, to understand and to play his part? Could she ask that of him? "This time is different." Holly grabbed a decorative pillow from the sofa and hugged it against herself. "This time Driscoll is going to destroy Haven." A chill ran through her, enough that goose pimples formed on her skin.

Duke yanked at a throw he'd halfway sat on, pulling it out from under himself and spreading it atop Holly. "How is that even possible?"

"How am I even possible?" Holly shot back. "When you look at me, what do you see?"

What was he supposed to see? A combination of Audrey and Nathan? A sexy woman? A nutjob? Holly Wuornos was starting to become very, very real to him as something more than an oddity of the Troubles. "Is this a trick question?"

"You are infuriating. You know that, right?" She spoke drolly before regaining her seriousness. "Audrey—for lack of a better name—is the counterpart to the energy that has poured itself into the Rev. Each time the Troubles come, she appears and provides balance. Light to dark. Good to evil."

"Then why won't you just let her do that? Let the Troubles go back to…wherever."

"When she had me, the rules changed. I somehow anchored her, and now everything is off balance, which has enabled the Rev to gain a foothold." She looked up at the ceiling. "You have no idea how bad it is."

"But that hasn't happened yet."

"Time isn't a straight line. It's fluid."

"I've heard of the past affecting the future, not the future affecting the past," Duke countered.

"I know it seems impossible to believe and maybe even harder to understand, but I'm right about this. In the past, the two sides could just battle it out. It would be a stalemate, but the power has shifted and this is it, Duke. This is it."

"So when you kill Driscoll, you'll be killing Audrey…"

Holly pursed her lips before finally uttering, "Yes."

"We need to find another way. I don't want Audrey to die." Duke studied the woman closely before adding, "Or you, Holly."

The intensity of Duke's stare made Holly avert her gaze. "I've had a long time to think about this—no pun intended. I just don't see a way out of this. Neither did my mom."

"So Audrey—future Audrey—is in on this?"

"Yes."

"That's just messed up…" his voice trailed off.

"The Audrey you know, wouldn't she give up her life if she thought it would save the people she cares about, save this town?"

Duke swallowed hard. "And what about you?"

"What about me?"

"You're willing to give your life for people you don't know? A town you don't know?"

Frustration pored from her. "What choice do I have? This is hard. Especially now."

"It wasn't hard before?"

"It…" she paused. "No. Where I'm from, living the life I'd lived, definitely not. But being here, feeling…there's this whole world that is so unlike everything I've known, and I want to explore it, but I can't."

"Why can't you? While you have the chance, I mean."

"Evidently, I have…a bad effect on people."

"Let me tell you a secret," he replied, moving closer to her so that he playfully patted her leg. "I've been told the same thing."

"Really? By whom?"

"Nathan, for starters. But you don't have a bad effect on me, Holly, and I don't think I have a bad effect on you."

"Wow," she said flatly as she raised her eyebrows. "I understand so much more now."

"What do you mean?"

"Mom always said you had a way with women."

"Women are so much more interesting than men. Case in point."

Holly rolled her eyes.

"Tell me about yourself."

She shook her head slightly. "What?"

"Not a trick question."

"Technically, it wasn't a question at all."

"I want to know about you," he asserted.

"It's a moot point, Duke. Anything I tell you will never have happened if everything works as it should."

"But you are here now. And you're real. And if this is the last time I see you, I want to know you."

Nathan had lost track of how many times he'd climbed the steps leading up to Audrey's apartment perched atop the Grey Gull. Of course, none of those times had seemed quite like this. For so long, he had buried his feelings for her, told himself that they had no place in their partnership. And he was okay with that. Mostly. Having Audrey as his friend had been enough.

But it wasn't enough anymore.

Now as he stood outside Audrey's apartment, waiting to go inside, he anticipated…everything: the physical act of sex, holding Audrey, feeling her and knowing she felt something for him, spending time with her, shutting out the world if only for a little while.

It had been years since his last time. He hoped it would be like a bicycle. Then again, if their earlier kiss at his house was any indication, he wasn't going to have any trouble remembering how it all went.

He watched the petite blonde. Audrey. His Audrey. She was spunky, smart, sexy.

She was nervous?

Her keys clanged against each other as she pulled them from her pocket. Her hand shook a bit, and to the deck the keys went. At the moment she had the grace of a fish in a tree. He was glad he wasn't the only one with jitters.

She half-laughed, half-groaned. "Sorry. I'm a little…"

"Me, too," Nathan admitted. "We can slow this down. If you want. I'm not going anywhere."

Audrey took one of his hands and pressed it against the crook of her neck before leaning into it. "Will you still respect me in the morning if I tell you that I don't want to slow this down?"

In the morning.

Such promise in three words.

He could almost forget the last three days. The attempt on the rev's life. A daughter he would never know. Tomorrow's child. William Netherton's self-inflicted death, helped along with a dose of the crazies from the aforementioned child. Audrey's willingness to finally—finally—see him as more than a drinking buddy, more than a co-worker, more than a friend. It was undoubtedly the chaos that led her to reevaluate. Nonetheless, he was grateful. More than that, he was hopeful.

Holly said the rev had to be stopped. Nathan agreed. And while at that precise moment, he wasn't sure what was going to happen, he could see the dark cloud around them lifting, the air rife with possibilities.

And it was because of Audrey. Things hadn't been the same for him since he pulled the sarcastic, gun-wielding woman from her car perched on the edge of the bluff. And their relationship was about to change even more.

In the morning. Three beautiful words.

"I hope not," he admitted with a smirk.

And then her lips were on his, and rational thought escaped him. Impulses, like forces of gravity pulling him in so many directions, surged through him. This was what living felt like. This was what love felt like.

If desperation were tangible, Audrey was certain she could reach out and grasp it, much the way her hands tangled with Nathan's, her body with his.

This was insane.

There were so many reasons to stop or to slow down. And all she could think of was him. Feeling Nathan. Touching Nathan. Being with Nathan. She felt like she had to remind herself to breathe around him. Or was it that she could barely catch her breath from their kisses?

It had been a slow burn between them, feelings buried and built in the depth of friendship. But now it seemed like everything was surging to the surface, erupting. Maybe it was the fear of borrowed time, the worry that Nathan wasn't going to be around. Maybe it took life and death for her to finally see what had been staring at her all along.

As a general rule, she didn't lose control like this. In the past, other lovers had accused her of being too unfeeling, too matter-of-fact, too detached. And it was true, the other times when she'd been with someone, there had been a degree of calculation and distance.

This was hardly calculated. When she'd awoken that morning, it never crossed her mind that this would be the day that she would sleep with Nathan. Her best friend. Her former partner. It seemed silly to call him that when he was so much more.

And now here she was, pushed against the clapboard wall of her apartment. They'd not even made it inside yet. She could feel the unevenness against her back where the boards overlapped, forming a barrier against the salty water and air. And those boards formed a barrier from what she wanted. Privacy with Nathan.

The intensity of her feelings startled her. She had no frame of reference for any of it. This was so much more than an itch to be scratched. She needed him. She wanted to melt into him. To see his lashes flutter as they had earlier when they had touched. She wanted to bring those parts of him that had long lay dormant back to life.

"Audrey…" Nathan said her name as a deep sigh.

"Mmm?" she replied against his mouth as she dug her fingers into the muscles of his back.

He pulled away slightly to meet her eyes. "I want you to know…this isn't casual for me."

Ever the gentleman.

It made her crave him all the more. She mattered to him, which she already knew. Nonetheless, it was nice to be reminded.

"Me either," she assured him. "But maybe we can have this conversation later?"

"You dropped your keys," he reminded her with a lop-sided smile.

"You distracted me." She ran her hands down his back and pulled them from under his shirt, eliciting a groan of disappointment from him.

He knelt, retrieved the keys from the deck, and pressed them into the palm of her hand.

She wasn't sure how she managed to unlock the door of her apartment. No matter how certain she was, the anticipation had her hands quivering.

As soon as they were inside, his arms crept around her waist, finding their way under the Henley she wore, snaking their way from her stomach upward. He pulled her back against him and buried his nose in her hair, breathing her scent.

"Not in front of impressionable eyes," Duke chastised from the sofa upon seeing them enter. He turned to his companion. "Is there anything grosser than seeing your parents make out?"

Audrey froze. A blonde head and a dark head. On the couch. Close. So close. Under a freaking blanket.

"You've got to be kidding me," Nathan muttered letting go of Audrey.

But fear gripped Audrey. "Duke, you need to get away from her."

"Relax, Audrey, Nathan." Duke replied soothingly. "I didn't put the moves on your…daughter. There's more going on. Things you need to know."

"You're making people sick," Audrey said pointedly to Holly, ignoring Duke.

"That's not a very nice thing to say, all things considered," Duke deflected.

"No, I mean it, Holly. Sam Barthelemey. William Netherton."

"I know," the other woman admitted as she pushed the blanket aside. "I figured it out. After the fact," she added.

To Holly's credit, Audrey thought she detected concern in her daughter's (how weird!) voice.

"I'm fine," Duke supplied. "No crazier than usual."

"Holly, you have to stay away," Nathan warned. "Innocent people are getting caught in the crosshairs. A woman almost died today at William Netherton's hands. Netherton himself did die."

"I can't stay away," she shook her head and moved toward Audrey and Nathan. "Not yet. Bad things are coming. Fast and soon. Driscoll has to be stopped. Surely you can see that."

"Listen, we agree that Driscoll is dangerous," Audrey said soothingly. "But all you're doing is giving him ammunition. Nathan and I will handle this. Trust us."

"There's more to this. So much more. That's why I'm here." Holly looked at Nathan. "But first, I need you to know I'm sorry."

"For what?" Nathan asked.

"I wish I could've known you." Moisture dripped from her nose. She lifted her hand and brought away red. "Not yet. How can there not be enough time? Dammit!"

"Nathan's not going anywhere," Audrey replied insistently as she reached for a box of tissues from a nearby table.

Holly looked back to Duke. "Tell them."

Duke grimaced as he rushed to Holly's side. "Fight this. Try to stay."

"Tell them," Holly insisted, holding fast to her own message. Her form began to fade. "Please Duke."

"I will," he promised.

Her lips formed thank you, but no sound came out. And where Holly Wuornos had stood was nothingness.

"The nosebleed again," Audrey murmured, trying to assimilate what Holly said, as well as her daughter's literal disappearing act.

"Being around you makes her sick," Duke bluntly explained.

"Nice. See," Audrey turned to Nathan. "You would be the favorite parent." She looked back to Duke. "Is she okay?"

"She will be when she has distance."

Nathan's eyes narrowed as he looked at the other man. "What were you doing here with her?"

"She was…entering the apartment without permission…"

"You mean breaking in," Nathan supplied. "So naturally you decided to break in with her."

Duke grinned. "How it must irk you, being the law-abiding stick-in-the-mud that you are, that your daughter doesn't seem to have your rigid code of conduct."

"Why was she here?" Audrey asked.

All the lightness of the moment suddenly seemed to dissipate from Duke. "About that. We've got trouble."

To be continued...