September First

Rain dripped steadily down Audrey's windows, the fat drops racing each other to the bottom of the sill. Outside it was gray even though it was still early afternoon. And the weather forecaster promised that it would only get worse.

"I'm sure my father and Duke are fine," Nathan said abruptly from his chair, his hamburger still in hand.

"Hmm?" Audrey asked distracted. In the twenty minutes since he'd arrived she'd only picked listlessly at the fries he had brought her, and hadn't touched her burger at all.

Nathan frowned. "I asked you what you wanted for lunch and you have hardly taken two bites of it despite it being exactly what you asked for."

"Sorry-"

"And your eyes keep going to the window, worriedly. I therefore deduce you're worried about The Cape Rouge and her motley crew."

"Very clever, Holmes," she said dryly. He was right, of course. The weatherman took great joy in belaboring the idea that the storm might remain at sea and only continue to brush them as it currently was. Normally she might have been comforted by that idea... but not while two of the people she loved best were out in the teeth of the storm.

"I don't know if it would have been better or worse if Duke had left you his laptop to play with," Nathan muttered, eyeing her. "Worse. I would've gotten here and found you looking up meteorological maps you can't understand."

Heat rushed to her cheeks. The thought had crossed her mind already that she could have gotten more information if she'd had a computer at her disposal. "I'm worried. Sue me."

To her surprise, Nathan smiled and patted her arm. "I would have been surprised if you weren't worried."

This made her heart gallop for a moment. When it settled back down, she cast him a concerned look. "Have you heard something?" she demanded to know, not liking the tremor she detected in her own voice.

Nathan just looked confused. "Heard about what?"

"Something I should be worried about?"

"What? oh. No, of course not. I just meant I'd have been surprised if you weren't worried because you do that."

She shook her head and almost launched into a complaint about his characterization of her as a worrier... but didn't. Somehow, despite worrying almost all of the time about the Troubled she still thought of a worrier as someone who wrung their hands instead of taking action to make things better. Giving Nathan a wry look, she said, "Usually I'm in a position to do something about the things I'm angsting over."

Nathan snorted, making her raise her eyebrows. He held up his hands. "Sorry. I was just trying to imagine what you could have done for Dad or Duke even if you'd gone with them."

The thought of being on the Cape Rouge while it was out to sea in her current condition made her smirk. Most of her experience on boats didn't have them freely moving. She didn't usually experience sea-sickness, but she didn't usually have a big belly to throw off her center of balance, either. All she could imagine was wobbling along the deck with nausea that put her morning sickness earlier on to shame. "Ok," she conceded. "I wouldn't be an asset to them now anyway."

"And even that might be a little generous," Nathan pointed out. "You'd probably be a distraction to Duke."

Audrey sighed. There was little doubt that Duke would have worried about her at least as much if she'd gone along as he had been while he'd still been at home and they'd been on each other's nerves. "But if I was in a condition to go along with them, I wouldn't be on bed rest," she pointed out. "Just pregnant."

"Uh huh," Nathan drawled. "The bed rest's all he's worried about in regards to you."

"He..." She trailed off, knowing what he was getting at. Since their fight months ago Duke hadn't said much about his fears about her soul, but she didn't for a moment imagine that he'd retired that worry. If the injury that laid her low hadn't happened, no doubt he'd be worrying himself ill with the prospect of having something going wrong at sea that would lead to a sea delivery overseen by him and Garland. Audrey was uncertain if he thought that trained medical professionals were more likely to keep her body and soul knit to each other, but no doubt he had no confidence in his own skill at it. "I know," she said at last. Then she started when the baby gave a sharp kick.

"Can I?" Nathan asked, nodding at her belly.

"Sure." She had never grown comfortable with strangers and near-strangers pawing at her, often without even asking, but it was different with those she was close to.

He lightly rested his hand on her belly, seeming a little awed when he was rewarded with another kick. Looking up at her, he said, "I don't think he really believes that this little one is going to take your soul when she's born."

"You don't?" she asked in disbelief. "To me he sure seems to believe that."

Nathan looked out a rain streaked window. "You're going to have to give in and agree to buy a house," he advised, confusing her with the non-sequitur.

"What?" she asked blankly. How would a house keep her soul where it belonged?

Taking his hand away, he looked her in the eye. "He's afraid of losing you, you know. And this whole soul thing, that's just a manifestation of it."

"I'm not sure what you mean." She looked away, uncomfortable.

"Look at it from his point of view. Even expecting his baby doesn't compel you to settle down with him and buy a house like you plan to stay a while."

"I don't know if I do plan to stay," she said, exasperated. "If we can put an end to the-"

"He's afraid that insisting on staying in an easy to leave apartment means you want to keep things easy to leave." He gave her a long look. "That you want to keep it easy to leave him."

"What?" she squeaked.

"Audrey, come on. You've never considered that it's how he'd interpret that?"

"He doesn't even like Haven!" she sputtered. "So how could I think that being unwilling to commit to staying in Haven forever would be equated to being unwilling to commit to him?"

Nathan made a noise of division. "Oh yes, you've demonstrated your desire to stay with him for the long haul by agreeing to marry him, have you?"

Her eyes flew to his face. She had never told him about rejecting Duke's proposal, but somehow he knew that she'd said no. "I didn't say I'd never marry him," she protested. "Just that I wasn't ready to yet."

"Then why did you say no?" he asked. "If you'd said yes but insisted on a long engagement, he would have agreed to it instantly."

Audrey shrugged helplessly. "I...I think he married Evi too soon. I tried to explain that I wanted him to be more sure of me first."

Her brother's look softened. "Buy a house, Audrey. They can be sold again, you know, if the troubles ever end."

She almost snapped that she was aware that real estate could be resold, but decided not to bother. It didn't gladden her heart to imagine offloading a house on an unsuspecting family should she ever get the chance to leave the wilderness of Maine. "Nathan," she said quietly, getting his attention. "When I imagine packing up and leaving because I'm finally free of this town... I imagine my little girl in the back seat, and Duke in the front beside me."

"And Jess and me in the moving van behind yours, moving down the street from you wherever you end up?" he asked drolly.

"The thought has crossed my mind," she admitted. "Though I think you like this place better than any of us."

"My feelings about this town are complicated. But it's not beyond imagining that Jess and I might not grow old and die here."

"Well all right, then." They were just talking nonsense but she still felt a little better about not wanting to stay if leaving wouldn't sever ties with her blood.

After a moment Nathan said, "You need to make sure Duke knows that."

"That you and Jess aren't entirely averse to living down the street wherever we may roam?"

Her amused look faded when he shook his head. "That your fantasies about someday leaving Haven don't include leaving him behind too."

Another woman might have complained that it should go without saying, but she was aware that she hadn't made it easy for Duke to believe that given how long it had taken her to admit to them both that she was in love with him. She thought that she'd gotten better at proving her feelings, but she could understand if he still had doubts." I will."

"Good," Nathan said firmly. "There's a house over on Worth road I think you should take a look at if it stays on the market for a few more weeks. Nice yard, three bedrooms, new roof..."

"Three bedrooms?" she asked, eyebrow raised. She was sure that he wasn't suggesting that one of them could make use of a home office, or that either of them knew the sort of people they'd want to put up in a dedicated guest bedroom very often.

"Did you enjoy being raised as an only child?" Nathan asked evenly. "I didn't."

"Though I guess I should appreciate the votes of confidence in my potential mothering skills, this baby isn't even here yet and everyone wants me to put my mind towards having another one!" she complained half-heartedly.

"Not necessarily," Nathan said, and she was sure that he was going to suggest that she could adopt a sibling for her daughter. Maybe he thought that she could collect a stray Troubled child or two, orphaned by some mishap or another. This led her mind to the wendigo girls that Julia had captured and murdered after they had loss control over their more ravenous impulses. She'd been horrified when she'd learned that the Driscolls and Carrs had dispatched the not-so-innocent children, but she wouldn't have wanted the raising of them.

"How so?" she asked, trying hard not to imagine homing an equally blood-thirsty child. It made her shiver.

"Did I ever tell you that Beaty has fallen into the water and nearly drowned?"

Puzzled by the turn in conversation, she merely said, "No."

"Twice. Fell of a dock once, and off her own damn boat another time. I'm not sure I ever met a clumsier woman."

"Okay..." Audrey found herself distracted, remembering the day she met Duke. Of course, in her case it had been someone's trouble that put her into the water, not clumsiness.

Before she could ask if Beaty had help getting into the water, he went on. "I'm just saying, all it would take was an ill-timed stumble around Duke while he was downstairs chopping vegetables with a sharp knife, and Jean wouldn't be dangerous to Duke any more."

"Nathan!" Audrey shrieked and he ducked out of her way so she couldn't swat at him, laughing at her all the while.

As outrageous as his suggestion was, in a way bringing up Jean did make her wish a little that Duke's older daughter could be cured as easily as in her dream. Not that Jean's adoptive parents would simply hand her over even if she was...

"Well, I guess you'll have to have a second baby, then," he said, still laughing at her shock. "If you avoid four-footed animals, you'll probably have an easier go of it next time."

"Maybe." She really did imagine that having another baby was in her future, just not immediately. "But you'll have to forgive me for not immediately bringing up either way of acquiring a second child to Duke when he and your father get back in a couple of days."

He nodded, looking unsurprised that they'd be home soon. She assumed then that he'd heard from Garland as well. Before she could ask him if he knew anything about the Chief hitting on a strange woman, Nathan asked, "Have you heard anything about the cow?"

"Why would I have heard anything about her? It wasn't like she needed medical attention too."

But had she been put down? Audrey wondered. Dogs and other animals that attacked people often were, she knew. The thought left her sad, it wasn't as though the cow had set out to hurt her, she had panicked in a completely understandable way.

"Jess asked me if Duke had put a hit out on her," Nathan said, barely managing a straight face.

"Oh!" she groaned. "Jess needs to learn more about Buddhism."

"Right, because Duke is such a pacifist."

"I can think of more than one occasion when we would have been well and truly screwed if he was a pacifist," Audrey felt the need to point out. "I'm sure you can too."

This had him quiet for a long moment. "You're right."

She shut up for a bit too. There were things she still couldn't understand about the relationship between the two men. Even though it wasn't as bad as it had been before, Nathan would still complain about the very things that made Duke so helpful to them when they dealt with certain troubled people. He still seemed to think of things in terms of black and white, right or wrong, even when they ran into gray situations.

Laverne's ring tone shattered the silence that had grown up around them, and he fumbled to answer his phone. "I'll put it on speaker phone," he muttered, pressing the button.

She frowned a little, not knowing how to feel about his obvious efforts to make her feel included.

Laverne had no idea so she just spoke. "Nathan, hon, you've got another call about things lurking under beds and in closets."

"Address?" he asked, quickly writing it down. "Be there as soon as I can."

"Hon..." the dispatcher hesitated. "I think another kid got hurt."

"Right." He ended the call without saying goodbye. "Damn it!"

"Nathan?" Audrey asked, a little surprised that he was swearing over a call.

He ran a hand over his face. "Sorry. This is just really getting to me. Things just keep getting worse, and people are getting hurt." Nathan shook his head before correcting himself. "Not people, kids. Of course that just might be because no adult has completely pissed it off yet, whatever it is."

"You still have no idea what it is?" she asked, feeling useless to him again.

"Someone's trouble. Don't know whose, though."

When he got up to leave, she cast him an alarmed look. "You can't go after it alone. Call Dwight or Dave."

She could tell that he wanted to roll his eyes but he managed not to. Instead he scrolled through his phone and hit a button. Since it was still on speaker phone she could hear Dwight's voice mail message. "I'll be all right," Nathan promised. "I'm not calling Dave because he and Vince are acting squirrelier than usual, and I don't trust him not to fire off a shot that'll get someone hurt."

"Then take me with you."

"Audrey," he started in a warning tone, but stopped when she held up a hand.

"Obviously I don't mean literally. Just keep your phone on, so I can hear."

"What good would that do?" he asked, to her frustration.

Giving him her most saccharine smile, she said, "If your phone is on you don't need to worry about it ringing at a bad moment when I call repeatedly to make sure you're okay out there alone."

"Fine," he grumbled. "I'll be glad when you're back to work and can come with me. You're actually less irritating that way."

"Love you too," she called as he hurried out the door.

Nathan sighed as he got behind the wheel of his truck. Where the hell was Dwight? He and Dwight had come to an agreement: since he'd been instrumental in sending both Duke and Garland out of Haven and off to where they couldn't be of use, Dwight would be on-call for long as necessary when it came to this case. So why wasn't he picking up his phone?

Dwight better have a damn good reason, Nathan grumbled silently to himself. The case was difficult enough without worrying Audrey over. Looking at the phone that sat on his passenger seat, Nathan realized that he was actually upset at himself more than Dwight.

When he had first shared the details of the strange case with her, he had told himself that she would feel less anxious and left out if he did. But that had been a mistake. He should have known that it wouldn't just entertain her. She would actually feel like he expected her to help.

At least Duke was coming home soon. They might get on each other's nerves, but him being there would give her something else to focus on. Maybe she wouldn't even notice that he had just decided that he was going to back away from sharing any more about the case with her. For her own good, of course, though she would punch him if he ever said that to her.

When he pulled up to Glengarry Road he had the misfortune of getting there while a train crossed the tracks. Fortunately, it looked like there were only 15 or 20 cars left to pass. He took the opportunity to pick up the phone and speak to Audrey. "Hey Audrey, I'm stuck waiting behind a train. I'm going to hang up for a minute and try Dwight's phone again, okay?"

There was a hesitation that made him cringe. "Okay. But call me back."

Trying not to sigh, he said, "will do."

Several more cars passed by in front of him, and Dwight's phone when directly to voice mail yet again. Gritting his teeth, Nathan jabbed the button to end the call. Where the hell is he? he wondered again, annoyed.

a/n: If I ever decide which fics to update based on amount of feedback per chapter…more of you guys should really consider speaking up more often.