Though it was just the two of them, Duke kept cringing over the noise they made, and had him wishing for once that it had snowed heavily recently. As it was a coating of frost made things seem even more crisp when clumsily stepped upon. It reminded him of the time he and his mother had sat in the backyard and listened to wild turkeys crashing though the woods. The turkeys had been oblivious to the racket they made, and no matter how careful Duke was, he couldn't seem to make less noise himself.

At any moment he expected that their noise would draw a hail of bullets, but it never came. Rather than be relieved, he became paranoid, believing that Julia and her merry band of madmen were simply biding their time, waiting for what they somehow considered the right moment. What the right moment could be, he could only grimly speculate. If killing them in the woods wasn't on the menu, would something public so they'd serve as a warning to the troubled back in Haven be the aim instead?

Audrey had gamely followed him for what was literally miles, but eventually he could feel her tiring. "Are you okay?" he asked in a low voice.

Face drawn, she shook her head.

Of course she wasn't okay, he chided himself. Okay wasn't even in the same zip code for either of them, but her much more than him. Looking around, Duke decided that they were as far as they were going to get on foot. "Hey. I think I'll make that call now."

"Okay." Audrey sounded tired and tremulous, which led him to a snap decision.

Thankful that he'd sprung for the prepaid phone with internet capabilities rather than the ten dollar model on the shelf next to it, Duke searched online for a rental company that would pick you up. He found a Hertz, and a local company, and instantly decided to go with the local place because it felt less obvious.

Out of habit he stepped away to make the call. When he turn around, he saw that Audrey had her arms wrapped around herself, and was shivering so hard that she was visibly shaking.

"Still not used to this fine New England weather, huh?" he asked lightly as he stripped off his jacket. "I might not be able to fix much, but this I can improve." If the jacket had come with a hood he might have been less inclined to give it up, but it didn't so he couldn't see how giving it up would make him any worse off.

As he draped the jacket over her shoulders, she looked up at him with an unreadable expression. Normally she would have either told him not to give up his coat, or have thanked him profusely. Instead she just stopped shivering so hard. "When I requested the car, I asked them to hurry, telling them that we were freezing our tails off out here. They said it'd only be a few minutes."

Cold air bit at Duke, especially his head given his still damp hair, as he paced back and forth waiting for their rental to arrive. It was only as he watched Audrey stand there motionless that he realized that he wasn't reacting normally either. At any other time he'd of suggested that they huddle together for warmth after offering up his coat, but it didn't feel right at that moment...and it wasn't just because he figured that she would have refused the suggestion.

When they heard the sound of a car engine, Duke's hand automatically skimmed along his waistband, reassuring himself that he was still armed. Fortunately, the bulk of his layered shirts disguised the butt of the gun even without his coat. It was damn unlikely that someone on Julia's side had hijacked their ride, or infiltrated the car rental place, but he'd had too many close calls with damn unlikely things to completely discount the possible danger.

Two vehicles pulled up and nothing about them immediately set off his alarm bells. One car was a late model ford, and the other was a company car emblazoned with a huge logo on the sides of it proudly advertising Davis Pick-U-Up Rentals.

The driver of the ford rolled down the window. "Hey, you folks look cold."

"No kidding," Duke said flatly. He didn't have to suffer fools gladly just because they didn't seem to be gunning for them. "Cash, right?" he asked, pulling out his wallet while thanking the universe for giving him the foresight to have hit up an ATM while looking for Audrey.

"Cash is king," the driver agreed. "How'd you end up here, anyway? There's nothing around for miles."

"Boating accident."

The driver craned his neck, as if he expected to see the boat despite them standing just outside a forest. "Right. Well, it's really none of my business, anyway."

"No," Duke started to protest that there really had been a boating incident, but he gave up when the guy just smiled tightly and nodded, apparently hoping hard that they weren't dangerous. If you only knew, buddy, Duke thought.

As soon as the appropriate amount of cash was handed over, Duke was given a key in exchange, and the driver hopped out of the car. He brought his hand around behind himself instinctively, but left the gun where it was when the driver immediately walked over to the company car and climbed inside it.

They watched the other car drive off before piling into the rental. "A rental again, huh? You must be so sick of that-" Duke found himself blurting out before realizing that Audrey had no lingering unhappy memories where her deer-slaughtered car was concerned.

He really wished that she did.

Inside the car the first thing Duke did was to turn the heater on full blast. It was nice that someone had already driven it because they didn't have to wait for the engine to warm the air streaming in through the vents.

"Thanks," Audrey said quietly.

Duke assumed she meant for turning on the heat, but didn't bother to ask for clarification. "How are you feeling? Physically, I mean. We can talk about our emotional trauma at another time. Hungry? Tired?"

"Exhausted," she replied, yawning as if for emphasis.

Until she said it, he had been able to ignore the fact that he was weary too. The cut along his calf began to throb too, as it wanting to speak up now that he was cataloging the ways he felt like crap.

"Your pal Nathan loves to lecture people about driving while tired," Duke told her, trying not to grit his teeth when the throbbing intensified. "So I think we should take his advice and not drive home while half dead from exhaustion."

"Won't they be looking for us?" Audrey asked, and for a moment he got his hopes up that it meant she was beginning to remember something. "Whoever it is you said is after us."

Trying not to sigh, he replied, "If they consider us staying somewhere tonight, they'll figure on us driving towards Haven. I think we'll go northeast of here, and spend the night. I won't be insulted if you fall asleep on me, okay?"

"Okay."

"I'm going to make two stops along the way, too. One for food, and the other to pick up some first aid supplies."

She looked concerned suddenly. "Are you hurt? I'm not."

"Yeah, a little. It's not that big a deal, but antibacterial ointment and some bandages would probably be a good idea."

"Sorry."

"That I'm hurt? Not your fault."

"No. Sorry that I don't remember you getting hurt, or anything." Audrey looked like she was on the verge of tears.

"Hey, it's going to be okay. You'll see. It's just a long scratch." He instantly decided to keep his near-downing to himself if she was that upset about a cut.

"Not deep as a well or wide as a church door?"

He turned to stare at her. Audrey's own memories might be gone, but somehow she was able to recite Shakespeare. Maybe it was a hopeful sign.

When they were shown their room, the first thing Duke did was to pull out his phone and call the number Jess had given him for Nathan's hospital room. The phone rang three times before the call connected. "Nathan, it's Duke." Niceties dictated that he ask how the other man was, but he didn't have time for them before Nathan spoke.

"Did you find her?" Nathan asked, his voice slightly raspy.

"Yes."

"Is she okay?"

Duke glanced over at Audrey. She was staring out the room's only window. "No."

There was a long pause. "Is she hurt?"

"No. Not physically. Nathan, she...she remembers us a little, but nothing else. It's like the other Audrey." To his alarm, his voice thickened. "I thought maybe it would help if you talked to her. I don't know what else to do," he confessed, feeling broken.

"Give her the phone."

"Audrey, Nathan's on the phone, here," Duke said gruffly as he got up and pressed the phone into her hand. For a moment she stared at it, and for a horrified second he worried that she'd ask what it was for, but she eventually held the phone to her ear.

While Audrey was occupied, Duke stripped off his pants and took a good look at the gash on his calf. The pants were beyond salvaging, and he was faintly surprised that no one had said anything about the hole and the blood splashed around it. The wound itself was an angry pink, and he had to literally bite his tongue to keep from cursing as he pour hydrogen peroxide on the wound the way that he'd been told not to by people more medically knowledgeable than he. So far it had never hurt him, so he figured it'd do more good than harm. He managed to get himself fixed up and put on a fresh pair of pants in record time.

Audrey listened to Nathan's voice on the other end of the phone for a while, but Duke couldn't tell what she was thinking about because her expression never changed. She never said a word, either. After a while she walked to him and handed the phone back.

Duke put the phone to his own ear. "What are you going to do now?" Nathan asked immediately.

"Spend the night and bring her home tomorrow." He wanted to demand to know what Nathan thought he should do instead, but he had the terrible feeling that Nathan didn't have any of the answers either.

"Okay. We'll get her help when you get her back to Haven." Nathan suddenly gave a bitter laugh. "Or at least as much help as I can offer from this bed."

The awful thought of visiting Audrey at The Freddy flashed through Duke's mind, but he tried hard to banish it. They couldn't let her end up that way, they just couldn't. "Right. I'll let you know when we're back."

"Right."

When he hung up, Duke looked over at Audrey. There were dark shadows under her eyes. "You look as tired as I feel. Maybe it's time that we get some sleep."

"Which bed do we use?" she asked hollowly.

Duke recoiled as if he'd been slapped. The thought of sleeping in the same bed with her as if nothing was wrong made him feel sick again. To pretend that nothing was wrong would be like violating a child. Pointing at the bed closest to her, he said, "You take that one, I'll take this one."

She didn't argue. Instead she striped out of her clothes and put on the pajamas he offered her, and got into the other bed.

He fell asleep that night, still missing her even though she was right there.

Haven
Meanwhile...

Nathan hung up the phone and covered his face with his hands. There wasn't anything he could do to help Audrey or Duke, and it felt alien to be so helpless in the face of a crisis. Part of him wanted to leap out of his bed and race up there, as if he thought his mere presence could bring Audrey's memories back from whatever crevasse they'd fallen into, but the more realistic part of him knew that it wasn't possible. He'd never been shot before, so he wasn't sure how long it was supposed to take before he felt better, but he certainly didn't feel anything approaching well.

At that moment he wished more than anything that his father was around so he could ask him what to do. As much as he wanted to trust that Duke would do everything he could to help Audrey, deep down he didn't believe that Duke's best would be good enough. Not that he thought that merely to condemn the other man - Nathan didn't think he best would have been good enough, either. At least he had the excuse of being injured to explain away his lack of ability.

Of course, if the chief had been there Nathan was sure that his father would have looked upon him with bitter disappointment. He'd told Nathan that his only job was to keep Audrey alive. Was an Audrey without her memories alive? Or was that woman gone, leaving just an empty shell he wasn't inclined to fill up? At that very moment he didn't feel strong enough to commit to starting over again with her in a very literal way. Instead he felt on the verge of throwing up.

The thought of starting over again with someone who no longer knew you made Nathan feel an unexpected pang of sympathy for Duke. Maybe Jess was right about the other man starting to mature, because Nathan was certain that the Duke he'd grown up with would have abandoned a woman who couldn't remember why she loved him. Yet Duke had been making plans, or at least trying to, like he intended to stick by her no matter what happened. It was the possibilities of what might happen that were so painful.

The click of heels on the tile flooring made Nathan look up, and he felt deflated when he realized that it wasn't Jess entering his room. She'd spent as much time with him as she could since he regained consciousness, but she had a job to do and hadn't been at it long enough to have earned time off, so he'd told her not to lose wages just to watch him being bored and restless in his room. Unfortunately, he hadn't committed her schedule to memory, so he was constantly assuming that it was her whenever he heard a woman's lighter footsteps approaching his room.

When she entered the room, his nurse smiled. Nathan recognized her and didn't have to look at her badge to know that her name was Jennifer. "How are we doing?" Nurse Jen asked affably.

Nathan grimaced. "My stomach is killing me," he told her, finally realizing that the pain that gripped his stomach had been trying to make its presence known before he answered the phone, so it wasn't psychosomatic.

"Sorry to hear that," the nurse replied in a soothing tone. "I can ask your doctor about increasing your pain meds."

"No," Nathan told her. He'd shaken his head as he said it, but dizziness made him regret that. "Not like that. I feel sick to my stomach rather than pain where I was shot."

"Oh. Sorry, hon. I bet that's the antibiotics. Some people's stomachs don't like tetracycline very much. We'll have to see if you can eat before we dose you again."

"All right," he reluctantly agreed. The thought of eating anything filled him with dread, but he didn't want to make an issue of it just then. It was possible that he might feel better when someone put a tray in front of him.

His tone must have clearly conveyed his dismay, though, because Nurse Jen shook her head. "I know this is no fun, but a massive infection would be considerably less so, and that old boat where you were injured just has to be a breeding ground for all sort of unpleasantness."

He almost said that it was cleaner inside than you'd ever imagine, but the thought of starting that conversation just made him feel tired Instead Nathan sighed. "I just wish I wasn't allergic to penicillin and amoxicillin, and a few others I can't even remember the names of now."

Nathan thought back to an ear infection he'd had when he was small that had gotten so bad that his eardrum had burst without him ever feeling the pain, and how Petie had freaked out when he'd reacted badly to amoxicillin during recess, struggling badly to breathe. When no teacher had responded to their yells, Petie and Duke had practically carried him to the nurse's office, and that day he'd ended up in the e.r. for the nth time.

"Well, those make some people sick to their stomachs too, so you might not have been better off even if you could take them."

"Great," he muttered sourly.

Nurse Jen patted his shoulder. "Just remind yourself that things could have been worse, all things considered."

Nathan stared up at her, at a loss for words. The nurse seemed like a nice person, but she had absolutely no idea how bad things were for him because she couldn't see beyond the four walls of his temporary room.

When the sun streaming through the cheap motel room curtains slapped Duke into wakefulness late the following morning, his first thought was to hope that Audrey would be perfectly fine. His nana had been a big supporter of sleep as a curative, and he really wanted to believe that a good night's rest would have been all Audrey needed to recover. They'd slept more than ten hours, surely that had to have been restorative.

But when she woke up and looked up at him with the same vague and faintly frightened expression she'd worn since the day before, he sighed and decided that he was a fool.

"Hi," he said tentatively.

She just stared back at him.

"I was thinking we should check out now."

"And then what?" Audrey's tone was listless, and he felt a small lump of ice in his belly when it occurred to him that she was already convinced that things were hopeless.

"Then we'll go home," he said with forced cheer. "And see if we can jog your memory that way."

"Do we live together?"

"Uh no," he replied, startled. "But we spend most nights together, either in your apartment, or on my boat."

"You have a houseboat?"

It was beginning to become difficult to not allow himself to wallow in despair too. She really, truly didn't remember things if she thought there was a possibility he was the sort of man to live on a houseboat. What else was she picturing, a shelf of Hummels carefully anchored in place so they wouldn't fall when the boat listed? "Not exactly. You'll see."

"Okay."

The sense of loss that Audrey felt made it hard for her to get moving when Duke indicated that they ought to pack up their few things and make their way out of the motel. Dispirited, it took her an effort to even kick things into low gear.

She gone to sleep praying to remember everything when she woke up, but her brain still felt like a paper a child used an eraser too roughly on after making an error. Things were still there, but all balled up and tattered where they'd worn through, and she didn't know if there was any way to smooth them back out and make sense of them again.

If she wasn't plagued by the gnawing sense that her memories were just out of reach, she might have been happier. Babies are not unhappy to have blank memories, so maybe it would have been like that for her too if things had been completely severed.

"Hey, let's go," Duke eventually said softly as he stood by the door with his backpack in his hand.

Of all things, that bag had been one the ones to upset her the most. He'd pulled it out of the rental the night before and showed her that it contained a few of her things too, not just his. It was the act of staring at clothes she couldn't remember buying or wearing that made things feel devastatingly real. Someone had gone to the trouble of deciding that she should wear low cut briefs and polar fleece pajama pants, and it could have been a stranger for all the connection she felt to those preferences.

As they walked to the lobby, she followed Duke like a duckling. The tie to him was one of the few things that made her feel at all grounded instead of wanting to succumb to the urge to fly to pieces and separate from the world entirely. And therefore she felt terrified by the thought of him leaving her line of sight. The night before she'd been upset when he'd insisted on sleeping in separate beds, but not because she'd wanted to do anything; it was just that the possibility of waking up and not having him be the first thing she saw was paralyzing. He was the only spark in her darkness.

It soon became clear that her worry was plainly visible because the clerk collecting their room key took one look at her and quietly asked Duke if she was all right.

The urge to laugh at the absurdity of the question bubbled up in her, but before she could say something rash, Duke murmured something about her having a just suffered bad shock. She bit back a remark about that being the understatement of the century.

As soon as they exited the lobby, she stood there blinking in the sunshine. It occurred to her that she didn't even know what state they were in, but it seemed a little late to ask. It was cold so she thought it was somewhere in the northern part of the country. Seeing his Maine license plate confirmed that.

While he drove, she leaned her forehead against the icy glass and looked out as the trees whipped past them. If she didn't know who she was, how did she guess their approximate geographical location? Why was she sure that it was nearly winter? Why did she know all sorts of facts when her biographical memory had been excised?

Duke kept glancing at Audrey every time they passed a sign that said how many miles more it would be until they reached Haven. Some naïve hopeful part of him apparently expected that she'd see the town name and remember everything. It switched to buildings once they reached town. When she saw Rosemary's she'd remember. When they passed the police station she'd remember everything.

When they reached the Gull she asked "Are we here?" and his heart broke.

"Yes, we're here," he said gently, trying not to let the hurt show.

By the time they reached her door he'd been cured of his expectation that she'd suddenly be bowled over by a flood of memories, which was a good thing because she looked around the apartment with polite interest, not with a proprietary eye.

It had taken several hours to drive back from northern Maine and it was already growing dark again. When Duke had been away from Haven, he'd never missed the short days that led up to the winter solstice. In fact, there were a few years when he'd spitefully made a point of positioning himself somewhere warm on the first day of winter, just to thumb his nose at the small, closed-in nights he'd grown up being subjected to during the winter months of his entire childhood. The thought of driving Audrey around and torturing her with the expectation that the key to unlocking her memories would be being shown this place and that in the dark made him want to slit his wrists, so he decided not to do it.

But that left just one other grimly realistic option.

Things were both baffling and scary once they arrived at the e.r. At first the intake nurse directed questions at Audrey, but eventually realized that she couldn't give them answers and was only becoming upset, so the nurse asked him instead.

Had she suffered a head injury? Duke could only say that he didn't know, but it was a likely possibility. Was she on birth control? Yes, and he could even supply the brand name since she enjoyed making fun of the commercials. Had she been exerting herself? Running from bad guys, yeah, so he said yes. Did she smoke? No. Did she need treatment for high blood pressure? Not that he knew of. Was there a family history of stroke? No idea. How was her diet? Largely cupcake-based, so probably not great. Had there been a lot of stress or trauma right before the memory loss? Yes, big time.

A doctor began a neurological exam, then Audrey was whisked away for a head CT. Eventually Duke was allowed to rejoin her, and a doctor came in to speak to them. "What did the CT show?" Duke asked, squeezing Audrey's hand.

"Nothing conclusive," the doctor admitted.

"So, now what?" Duke demanded to know. His frustration was growing with every passing minute. Bringing Audrey in was supposed to help make her better, or at least help solve the mystery of what was wrong with her, and nothing had been done that did anything but waste their time.

"Why don't we step out into the hallway?" the doctor suggested, and like a fool Duke led Audrey into the hall without questioning the request. It was only then that he realized that there were nurses and orderlies in the hallway, most of them giving them pointed looks and talking in hushed tones.

"What's going on?" Duke asked nervously.

"We're just going to admit Ms. Parker for observation so we can make sure that we keep on top of her symptoms."

"How long?"

"Oh, probably just a day or two. Maybe three."

"I don't know if that's a good idea," Duke said doubtfully, very aware of how terrified that she looked. It intensified when the doctor took his arm without asking and tugged him away from Audrey's side. The nurses and orderlies began to approach.

"No!" Audrey looked over her shoulder at him, her face anguished. "Duke, don't let them!"

"I'm sorry," he whispered, feeling tears begin to prick at his eyes. "But I don't know what else to do." Duke darted forward to kiss her on the cheek before stepping back again.

A pair of orderlies flanked her, and he expected - almost hoped - that she'd flail at them and try to run off. But his heart sank when she seemed to shrink into herself and meekly allowed them to lead her away, only pausing long enough to shoot him a betrayed look. The doctor trailed after them.

As the group walked down the hall, a nurse put a sympathetic hand on his arm. "This is really for the best. It could be transient global amnesia or transient ischemic attack, the latter being more serious. We can only figure out what's going on if we keep her for observation."

"When can I see her? I need to explain this to her. Apologize." God. I didn't expect it to be like this, he thought to himself.

"Not until tomorrow."

"Tomorrow?" Duke gasped, horrified all over again.

"Visiting hours start at six a.m." The Nurse glanced down at her watch. "That gives you several hours to go home and get a good night sleep."

Instead of saying anything in reply he watched Audrey disappear into the distance, becoming as small as the child he felt like he'd just abandoned.

a/n: if we were the writers of Chuck we'd just slap a "the end" on the next chapter, but we're not =)

And speaking of Twitter, some of you need to tweet at havensam tooabout how many people are not completely wed to the idea of Audrey/Nathan. Be vocal!