Dwight hadn't reached Duke when Audrey asked Nathan to check, and hadn't the next four times, either. It bothered him but he wasn't surprised. He could only hope that meant the storm hadn't done something awful to the Cape Rouge. He'd already lost Garland once and he wasn't sure he could bear it again.

And if Audrey lost Duke, she'd be shattered. Nothing he said over the past few hours seemed to make her let up on herself even a little, and he knew she'd feel responsible if anything bad happened to Duke while he was on the trip she'd conspired to get him to take.

She was holding up better than he expected her to, though. There were a few tears, but she wasn't completely hysterical. It made him think back to when he'd gotten deliriously ill and decided he was going to have an alien baby. If that had actually been possible, he would've been a complete wreck if Jess couldn't be there. Unfortunately, that was as close to being empathetic as his imagination would allow him to be. Audrey was resting as comfortably as she could, a difficult proposition when her body was working to ready itself to expel another human being.

He was in the middle of reassuring Audrey that Duke wasn't going to hate her for what had to be the tenth time that day when her doctor intercepted a moment after examining Audrey. "Nathan? Can I speak to you for a moment?"

He followed Edington, his heart suddenly in his throat. "What's wrong?" he demanded to know as soon as they were outside of Audrey's range of hearing.

"Nothing."

"Be straight with me, doc." Maybe Duke was right all along. What else would she be taking him aside to discuss? Suddenly he wished he could go four months back in time and kick his own ass for having suggested he take over medical power of attorney for Audrey. He'd promised her that if a choice had to be made between her and the baby, he'd respect her wishes and have them save the baby. But how could he do that? He didn't want to lose her any more than Duke did, and had only agreed because he thought it was never a decision he'd be called upon to make...

"I don't hide it from my patients when something goes wrong, Nathan. Being kept in the dark doesn't lead to better outcomes for them or their babies." Unlike him, the OB was suspiciously calm, her gaze on him impassive. "What I wanted to ask you is do you want to see your niece's birth?"

Nathan gave her a confused look. "See?"

"Emerge. Exit the womb. Come out of your sister's-"

"Ah, no," he admitted quickly, before she could complete that thought.

"I figured as much," she said, nodding.

Now that the doctor had him thinking about it, he was deeply uncomfortable with the idea. It just didn't seem right. Not as not-right as ending up one of those doomed pairs of long lost siblings that unwittingly fell in love and married, but it still was pretty wrong. Lord, maybe he should thank Duke for being a rival to her affections to spare them a Springer situation because God knows it wasn't his own doing that made things turn out the way they had.

"I think, then, you should take a seat up by her head and stay put," Edington advised, pulling him out of his sordid imaginings.

"The baby's coming soon, then?" he asked.

"Pretty soon."

"Okay..."

"What's wrong?" Audrey fretted when they reentered the room.

Edington smiled at her, but it didn't appear to make her feel better. "I was just explaining to Nathan that I'm glad he can be here for you considering your husband is away, but he needs to stay put out of the way for now on."

Nathan forgot to pay attention after that, hung up on the OB's word choice.

"Really?" Audrey asked him.

"Um, yes," Nathan eventually answered. "I'm supposed to stay in this chair and not bother anyone."

His hesitation didn't reassure her, but he couldn't exactly explain to her what he'd been thinking about, even though it wasn't what she probably assumed and worried about. It wasn't her odds or even Edington's fib to spare him glimpsing way more of Audrey's anatomy than he ever entertained thought of anymore: Edington had once again referred to Duke as Audrey's husband.

Audrey probably had her own reasons for not correcting her OB when she made that mistake, and they could be wrapped up in either guilt or simple embarrassment over being pregnant and unmarried, but he was more interested in what kept him from saying 'actually, he's her boyfriend.' If it had been up to Duke, they would have gotten married months ago. Not that Nathan knew that until a few weeks earlier. Shortly after Audrey's accident he'd confronted Duke while he closed up the Gull for the night.

And he hadn't believed Duke. Not until he'd spoken to Audrey about it before the monster call had led them here, and she hadn't denied it.

"That must mean the baby will be coming soon." Audrey wiped a worried hand down her sweat covered face.

Nathan couldn't help it, he'd hung out near Duke too long. "I think she's been coming for a while now, Audrey."

Her only response was to glare at him, at least until the next contraction hit. Then she grabbed his hand and did her best to break it. "Thank you Captain Grammar. I mean that she'll be born soon."

"Ah, yeah." Nathan was distracted by a flurry of activity by the staff, and started up, worried that it meant something was wrong.

Audrey aborted his motion by grabbing a fist full of his shirt and nearly asphyxiating him as his momentum was abruptly checked. "Do you support the North or the South?" she asked through gritted teeth.

He sat back in the chair, wishing he knew what was going through her mind. "What?"

Audrey repeated her question, more calmly and with less manhandling. "Do you support the North or the South? In the civil war?"

"The north, of course." The officer looked at her, worried that something was seriously wrong. How had we gone from birthing children to a war over 150 years ago?

Audrey curled her fingers around the placket of his button down shirt, managing to pop a button or two off. "THEN STAY ABOVE THE MASON DIXON LINE!" She gestured with the other hand to her navel. "I do not want you south of the border. It's bad enough the doctors and nurses have to be there. You are not invited."

Nathan settled back in the chair. "Ok," he replied meekly.

While her labor progressed, all Audrey could think was "I want Duke, I want Duke" and she didn't realize that she'd actually said it out loud until Nathan squeezed her hand and said "I know."

"Big push, okay, Audrey?" Edington asked, but Audrey realized it wasn't so much as a request as a command. Pain flared when she pushed, and it didn't surprise her when Edington said something to the effect that the baby's head was nearly out.

But then the doctor's tone changed. "Audrey," Edington said sharply. "Don't push."

"I have to," Audrey said, voice strangled.

"You can't," Edington said firmly. "Don't push."

Nathan gave the OB a stricken look. What was going wrong?

Much, Much, Later

Duke had wished that the soothing sound of the ocean from the back balcony would lull his daughter to sleep, but it seldom did. Instead she continued to bound around, still up for action, even if he wasn't.

"Hope..." he started, but trailed off tiredly. Sometimes, it just wasn't worth the effort.

He realized that she had heard him when she turned and looked at him. Her blonde pigtails made her look quite innocent, but there was a hint of his devilishness in her dark brown eyes. "Daddy! I want to hear about Mommy and those people. Miss Dora said-"

"No," he said flatly.

"But Daddy," Hope whined, sounding disappointed.

"You know I don't like to talk about your mother."

In the four years since Audrey had died, Duke had really tried to be there for their daughter. It was just hard. Every time he looked at Hope and noticed that she looked something like Audrey from this angle or that, it felt like it'd just happened all over again. Dr. Lucassi had recommended that he try anti-depressants to cope with his grief, and he'd attended numerous grief counseling sessions, but he still felt a large empty hole in his heart where once he held Audrey.

Hope stamped a small foot. "You never want to talk about Mommy!"

It grated on him when she said "mommy" because she only said it when she wanted her own way. It wasn't as though she had ever gotten a chance to call Audrey mommy, considering that Audrey had died the day she was born, giving up her soul to their daughter.

"You're right," he shot back. "I just want you to behave."

"You're mean," Hope complained, sticking out her lower lip.

"Don't I know it," he muttered.

This seemed like the wrong thing to say because her response was to begin knocking things to the floor. Then, she joined the objects on the floor as she lay among them and kicked her feet, screaming at the top of her lungs. Unfortunately this was a frequently played out melodrama in the Crocker household.

Duke looked down at the tiny fury in despair. Everyone told him that he would grow to love her in time. They just hadn't told him that it might take years longer than anticipated.

He went through all of the right motions to be a good dad, including giving up Cape Rouge and the sea so he could keep her safe until she fulfilled her destiny to take Audrey's place in defeating the Troubles, but still there was a big part of him that wished that Audrey was with him instead.

Guilt began to chew on him as he thought this yet again. It wasn't the child's fault, no more than it had been Audrey's fault that Lucy had died, but he still couldn't help but blame her some...

Finally sick of her squalling, he reached down and tried to get her attention. "Dammit, Hope, enough. You are too big to act like this."

Fury marked the little girl's features as she stared up at him. "I hate you!"

Wounded by the remark, he was caught off guard enough that she managed to land a solid blow with her foot as he leaned over her. It made him rock back where he stood. Somehow, she managed to continue raining blows on to his shoulder.

He used his superior strength and size to bodily pick up the tiny child and pull her into the old apartment where he sometimes fancied Audrey's ghost lingered. It was the only reason he could stay there still. It was the last place he'd seen her alive and well.

Hope continued to abuse her father as he firmly, but gently, dropped her into her bed. "Go to sleep," he ordered, not really believing that she would. The child had more energy than he did on the best of days, and this day was not one of them.

Hope let loose an ear piercing screech that would surely have the patrons downstairs wondering. Maybe he could call Nathan and Jess, and they could take her again for a while. Being a single dad wasn't easy, especially with a gifted but troubled child. She continued to rake at his shoulders, sharp little dagger like nails sinking into his flesh but failing to find a purchase to get in a good rake. Still it had been enough to break the fragile barrier and let loose some of the blood to slide down his arm and over his hand.

No, he corrected himself, not troubled, Troubled. Could it have started again so early? He'd seen Hope play games that didn't seem quite right, and she always, always fought for the underdogs in pre-school. At the time he put it down to her mother's influence in her genetics. But maybe it was the beginning of her Trouble manifesting. He continued to hold down her shoulders, pushing her into the mattress.

An old quote he'd once read and long forgot the source of: Madness is not the sound and the fury, it's the quiet voice in the night asking if there is room for one more. He could almost feel his father leaning over his shoulder, reminding his son of the command in the long ago found diary. Kill her, and it will end. Maybe that's what the Rev and his own father knew, and took to their graves. As long as one of Audrey's line lived, she would continue to bring back the troubles, forcing them on everyone, making not just his own life miserable, but all of Haven's.

Somehow his hands hand drifted off his little girl's shoulders, and the fingers were wrapped, still firmly but gently around Hope's neck. Such a fragile thing... he could feel her heartbeat through the thin skin. All it would take would be a little more pressure and maybe it would all end. He began to tighten his hold around his victim's neck, listening as she gasped, unable to cry out, feeling her struggles weaken beneath him.