a/n: I'm sure you've all heard by now that we get another two years of Audrey, Duke, and Nathan on our TVs. Yay! Now, if they only renew Hart of Dixie too, I'll be one over the moon dork :)

Audrey really wanted to go to court with Duke, but she hadn't been able to. Nathan had asked her to help him with the case, and Claire was right. She really did want to smooth things over with him. In fact, Audrey got home later that day than Duke did.

"It's good not to see you behind bars," Audrey said, hugging him as soon as she got inside the apartment.

He hugged her back. "I'm pretty glad about it myself." He scowled, obviously remembering something. "The judge didn't like it, but when I explained that Syd was attacking me when I pushed him, he had no choice but to throw out the charge. Because, obviously I could just counter-sue Syd for assault, and he said that it would be a waste of the court's time."

"Well, thank God for that," Audrey said.

"I sort of like to think that our daughter had a hand in convincing the judge to let me off," Duke said, reminding her that he had brought the baby with him. As he carefully took Raine out the crib he made goofy faces at her. "It was too hard to put Daddy in jail when he knew how cute the baby that would be left behind was, huh?"

"Duke... While I do think that our girl is probably the prettiest baby on the planet, justice is blind." She had to hide a smile as she fought to keep a straight face saying this.

"Kinda like that up skirt photographer," Duke immediately quipped.

"Funny. Hey, let's do something to celebrate," she enthused.

"What did you have in mind?" Duke asked. He looked a little surprised when she held a colorful booklet out to him. "What's this?"

"Real estate listings."

She almost laughed when she saw how shocked he looked. "You want to go look at houses?"

Nodding she said "I want to go look at houses. I actually found a realtor who will put up with our hours. If you want, we can go see this house tonight on Worth Road that Nathan told me about."

He still seemed dazed, but he said "yeah, let's do that."

Audrey didn't waste any time making sure that the realtor was still available for the evening. Duke was so excited that he didn't moan and whine over getting Raine ready to leave like they both did most of the time they took her anywhere.

Later

Seeing the house on Worth road left Duke in good spirits, even though it wasn't really the house he was interested in buying. There were three bedrooms, true, but he didn't like the look of the backyard. It would be difficult to fence in, and if Raine was anything like him as a child, fencing in the yard was important. He couldn't help but wonder if things might've turned out differently between him and Lucy if she hadn't been able to wander into his unfenced yard and talk to him back then.

The biggest reason he was pleased that they had gone to look at the house was because he took it as a sign that Audrey was going to fight her fate as hard as she could. Why else would she be interested suddenly in putting down roots in Haven if she didn't believe that she was going to be able to live in the house? Even novice home buyers knew better than to expect a house's sale to finalize in the time she supposedly had left.

As he turned off the Land Rover, he gave her a fond smile that he didn't explain. For a while he had been worried that she was just going to go into that good night without a struggle, but now, now he thought otherwise.

She didn't return the smile, mostly because her eyes were fastened on the windows of the Gull. In fact, she grabbed his arm quite suddenly. "Duke, is there somebody in there?"

"There shouldn't be," he started to say, but then he realized that the door was ajar. "You have your phone?"

"Yes, of course."

His expression was concerned as he looked between her and his restaurant. "Stay here, and be ready to call it in, okay? I'm hoping it's just one of the employees hanging around late. So I don't want to go in there with you in official cop mode if it's just one of the kids waiting for a ride or something."

"Why would I need to call it in?" Audrey demanded to know. "I am a-" Her words dried up when his eyes cut towards the back seat, where Raine was sleeping in her car seat. "Right."

"Hopefully it's nothing," he muttered, getting out of the car. She didn't say anything when he reached back into the car, and pulled a gun out from underneath his seat. His aim had gotten a lot better at the firing range since the attack at the police station the winter before. Neither Audrey nor Nathan made any more jokes about his legendarily poor aim because it wasn't funny anymore.

Still, he moved cautiously as he reached the door, and stepped inside. To his relief, the very first thing he saw was a man sitting at the bar. Or, perhaps more accurately the proper term was slumped.

"Hey, what are you doing in here?" Duke asked loudly, poking at the man's shoulder.

After a moment, the man's eyes popped open, and he looked at Duke with the blurry gaze. "This is a bar. This is where you drink."

"Not when the bar's closed," Duke said with more patience than he felt the intruder deserved. Normally, the bar might have been open at that time of night, but there had been so many people out sick that he'd made the call to close early, right after they stopped serving food for the night, instead of trying to call someone in to help Teri cover the remainder of the shift. It was a weeknight, and there was little hope that enough patrons would have stopped by in order to justify paying whoever he called in time and a half.

"I didn't break in," the drunk insisted. "Back door was unlocked."

"Fantastic. I think I need to hold a closing procedure staff meeting, thanks for letting me know that there was an issue."

The man did not seem to understand his sarcasm. "No problem, guy." Staring at the empty shot glass in front of them, he asked, "Can I get one for the road?"

"Nope. You're drunk. And I need your keys." He deftly removed the keys from the man's slack fingers and pocketed them.

"How would the hell am I supposed to drive home then?"

"You're not supposed to drive home," Duke irritably explained. "That gets people killed."

The drunk opened his mouth, as if to complain again, but he cut him off. "Look, if you can't find someone to drive you home, I'll give you a ride."

"Maybe she'll give me a ride home," the drunk said, looking over Duke's shoulder. "How about it, sexy, want to go home with me?"

"Hey, that's hardly called for-" Duke objected, automatically assuming that the man was talking about Audrey. But when he turned to look out the window, he could see Audrey sitting in the passenger seat of the Land Rover. It took him turning his head further to realize that there was a woman in the bar with them. "This is getting ridiculous. Are you here with him?" Duke started to ask.

It rapidly became apparent that the slender blonde was not the drunk's girlfriend, or, considering his age, his concerned daughter. The most telling clue? A long, slim blade in her right hand.

She gave Duke a hard stare, and then within a blink of the eye was standing before him, about to lunge at him. Startled, he jumped backwards. And by some luck, her knife managed to stick into the wood of the bar, rather than into his side.

"What's she doing?" the drunk mumbled, goggling at them. "I think you pissed her off, guy." He squinted, taking another look at her. "Uh oh, that's not your girl. Your girl has some more meat on her now. It's not a bad look cause she was too thin, but I think you're going to get into trouble."

Duke's heart was beating too hard to really pay much attention to what the drunk man was saying. Although, he did seem to be implying that screwing around on Audrey would get him into trouble. Like he didn't know that already. The woman had gotten her knife back and circled them, but the drunk didn't have the wherewithal to be cautious.

This led Duke to make the decision to shove the man off the stool when the woman lunged at them again. The drunk fell to the floor, yelling "hey! I'm going to call the cops on you. You can't treat customers like that!" which Duke ignored given she'd just stabbed the stool his unwanted patron had been perched on.

Instead, he trained his gun on the woman, and was about to fire, when she vanished.

"Where the hell did she go?" the drunk asked as he stood up. He'd managed to split his lip when he fell, and when he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand he noticed the blood. It didn't take very long before he made good on his warning that he was going to call the police.

"Who was that woman?" Audrey demanded to know as she ran inside the bar.

"I don't know," he admitted, listening with one ear to his drunken trespasser complaining to police dispatch.

"And where did she go?" Audrey asked as he took the baby from her.

"I don't know that either," he told her.

By the time the police came, either taking the drunk's complaint seriously, or because Audrey had called it in as soon as the woman first tried to attack them, and made him and the drunk man go down to the station, he had other things to worry about. Another court date for following morning, for example. He wished that his statement had been taken by either Nathan or Stan because the officer who did talk to him about the incident didn't know him from Adam, but wasn't inclined to believe that there had been a third person in the bar.

The Next Day

"Mister Crocker, so nice to see you again so soon," Judge Boone said sarcastically the moment that Duke came forward to stand in front of him again. "Perhaps we can see you next week, too. Is your liquor license up to date?"

Despite knowing that the judge was merely yanking his chain, Duke said, "it is. I'm trying to run a good business. It's made a little bit more difficult when people break in to it." He gave the drunk man, who fortunately for himself was sober, a narrow-eyed stare.

The drunk's lawyer immediately objected. "Technically, since the door was unlocked, what my client did was just entering, not breaking in."

Boone turned his sardonic gaze on the lawyer. "And that makes it all right, does it?"

"Well no. But it doesn't justify assault, either."

"I didn't assault him!" Duke automatically protested.

"You pushed him off of a stool," the lawyer shot back.

"Only to keep him from being stabbed by some crazy chick," Duke insisted.

"Right, a woman who could appear, and disappear, without using the door," the lawyer retorted.

"She was there." Duke pointed at his accuser. "Even drunk guy saw her."

"Bill," the lawyer snapped at him. "Don't add slander to your list of charges."

"I'm pretty sure that an accusation has to be false in order to be slander," Duke said before backpedaling. "And I'm not saying that Bill doesn't have a right to drink. We all have our crosses to bear." Duke smiled out at the people gathered before them, and his eyes fell on the stenographer. "I'm sure there are even things that drive Lynette to drink. Am I right?"

Although some of the people in the galley looked like they agreed, Lynette looked affronted. "Anyway, Bill has a right to drink, but he doesn't have the right to do it in a closed up bar. And, I think he should be grateful that I was looking out for his well-being when he was not capable of it himself." Looking at Bill he asked, "Did you even need any stitches? You would've if she managed to stab you."

Bill opened and closed his mouth, and then motioned over his lawyer. The two men conferred for a moment, before the lawyer, looking pained, spoke to the judge. "Your honor, my client would like to drop the charges. He's had a change of heart, and now believes that Mister Crocker's actions were not intended to injure him."

Judge Boone rolled his eyes. "Fine. Case dismissed."

Audrey felt like a failure as a girlfriend when she had to miss Duke's second court appearance too. As much as she would have liked to have gone with him to court to lend moral support, and perhaps insisted that she be allowed to back up his claims that there had been another woman there too, Nathan called her to let her know that the pervert had been joined at the hospital by what seemed to be a second victim of the same attacker, and Duke had said that her helping to investigate was more important than sitting in the galley.

This time, the person being hospitalized had broken nearly all of her bones, and they learned from a child protective services employee that she had been accused of shaking her six-month-old baby when she had been injured in the room by herself. Seeing the way the woman had moved about Duke's bar, even if she had been watching the only through the window and from a distance, left Audrey wondering if the woman could walk through walls like Casper the friendly ghost.

Fortunately, just after they spoke to the CPS woman, Duke called her to let her know how his case had turned out, and promised to meet her and Nathan at the hospital so they could put their heads together.

"So, come up with any great theories while I was being harassed by Haven's most boorish judge?" Duke asked, coming up upon her and Nathan as they spoke.

Audrey sighed. "Between what happened to the two victims, all I can think is that she is trying to punish people for the wrongdoings and in some twisted way making the punishment fit the crime when she does so."

"How much do you think she knows?" Duke asked, looking like he was on the verge of panic. "She could be going down a list of all the things that I've done wrong lately like, I don't know, killing somebody." At first Audrey wondered about his open fear but then she thought about the way the woman had lunged at Duke with the knife. It reminded her uncomfortably of when that troubled boy had died the fall before. "You need to do something to protect me before I'm victim number three."

Nathan's response was to smirk, and Audrey immediately snapped "what?" when he didn't say anything.

"Normally I would suggest a jail cell is the safest place in Haven to be, and you know that I love it when he's a guest in the jailhouse, but I think that Duke is going to be pretty safe tonight with you."

"Because I'm immune to the troubles?" Audrey asked, expecting him to agree.

"Sure. And you're still hormonal. You got that whole grrr mother bear thing going on lately."

"Nathan!"

His response was to laugh, and then begin to run when Audrey unexpectedly chased him down the hallway.

Duke, who stayed where he was, called out to him, "I'll get Jess to make sure they play 'Is That All There Is?' at your funeral!"

There were only a few cars left in the parking lot when Nathan arrived at Gun & Rose that night, so he was unpleasantly surprised when he walked inside and found that the sole patron that Jordan was serving was trying to get fresh with her. It was more than clear that the man's attention wasn't welcomed.

It only took flashing his badge at the man to dissuade him from continuing to harass Jordan. Nathan frowned as the man wandered off. Apparently he was bold enough to harass a woman in private, but too much of a coward to continue to do so once another man was around. He hated men like that.

Jordan gave him a grateful smile, but it left him wondering why she hadn't handled the situation on her own. "Why didn't you just let the man grab you?" he asked, giving her a long look. "He would've gotten what he deserved if you did."

To his surprise, Jordan looked insulted. "Contrary to what people say I don't actually enjoy inflicting pain on people. People say that touching me is the worst thing they ever felt-"

This had him thinking suddenly of Jess. While he and Jordan were similar in that touch was their problem, at least he had somebody that he could feel all the way. Jordan didn't have that and some part of him pitied her for it. He tried not to let it show, though. Somehow, though he didn't know her well, he didn't think that Jordan was the type of person who accepted pity any easier than he did.

"You can't touch people, and I can't feel them, we're sort of the same, you and me," he said, hoping to make her feel better. Also, hoping to make her like him a little better too: he hadn't been kidding when he told Audrey that he would do whatever it took to get it good with the Guard.

Jordan didn't buy it, though. After telling him that he hadn't come there to listen to her sad stories, she cut to the chase. She told him that she had spoken to the members of the Guard, and they had rejected the idea of him being involved, sharply telling him that you can't just ink loyalty onto your arm and expect to be trusted.

He made a move to leave then, but Jordan called him back. If he had thought that he had somehow managed to charm her more than was outwardly visible, he was sadly mistaken. She told him that if he wanted into the Guard he would have to prove it, and told him that the way to do it was to get a troubled prisoner who was suffering from cancer and refusing treatment transferred out of maximum-security and closer to home where his wife would stand a shot at convincing him to get treatment.

Since Nathan thought that the man was guilty, and deserved his placement, it was difficult for him to agree to do it. But he thought that the Guard knew more about the Hunter than anyone else in town, and he thought about his about to get in with them to save Audrey, so he found himself agreeing...on the condition that Jordan would make sure that he was accepted into the group if he did it. She agreed, and he left abruptly, leaving her to watch him walk away.

That Night

"Audrey, are you awake?" Duke hissed from his side of the bed.

"Yes," she groaned.

Somehow, they both found themselves out of bed, and making a fire to warm up an unseasonably cool autumn evening. Duke took this opportunity to discuss things with her that had been on his mind, things other than the woman who was possibly trying to kill him.

"You're not your mother," he told her seriously.

She looked semi-amused. "I see you've been reading my magazines. Good on you for not comparing me to my mother. That generally doesn't go over well for the guys who try it with their significant others."

"I'm not making a joke," he insisted. "Just because your mother didn't survive the storm, doesn't mean you're not going to. Hell, if it wasn't for my father, maybe Lucy would have. She was smart enough to leave, after all."

"And I'm not?" she asked sharply.

This left him more flustered than he wanted to admit, and he tried not to show it. He wasn't trying to make that point, but still. "You've come to different conclusions than she did. Maybe you're right, and the answers are here."

"I had a dream," she admitted then. "It took me a long time to work it out, but I think that I was dreaming that I was her."

"And what happened in the dream?" Duke asked, trying not to wince when he imagined that she was going to tell him that in the dream Simon was disemboweling Lucy.

"She was looking at the Colorado Kid, and she was unimaginably sad about it," Audrey said quietly. "It was only tonight as I was listening to you and Raine breathe as I tried to fall asleep that I began to wonder something."

"What?" Duke asked, because he knew she expected him to.

Audrey crinkled her nose and narrowed her eyes. "I think she loved him. I think that maybe that's what the man who assaulted Lucy Ripley was getting at. He said other people in Haven had loved the Colorado Kid, and I think my mother might really of been one of them."

"Wait, your mother loved Max. At least as much as anybody could love Max Hansen."

Audrey shook her head. "I don't mean that kind of love, Duke. It didn't feel like that."

"Then what, like how you feel about Nathan?" He only been making a suggestion, but when he looked up there was a shocked expression on her face. "Was it like that?"

"Maybe."

"Maybe," Duke repeated. "I wonder if that means he's connected to the Hunter too, more than we thought." Until then he hadn't really stopped to consider how the Hunter might be connected to the bolt gun killer, which had until then just seemed like another unnecessary distraction from trying to keep Audrey from leaving. But, if the man who had attacked Lucy was the bolt gun killer, and he knew the Colorado Kid, and the Colorado Kid had died just before Audrey's mother lost her own life... He shook his head, trying to make sense of it all.

"I don't know," Audrey said with a deep sigh. "I just want to know why women in my family keep having this happen to them every few decades, over and over again." She looked at the fire. "I know that Nathan feels like the troubles are a curse, but I think this might actually be a curse, to be untroubled but still lose everything after a relatively short life."

It took all Duke could to keep from looking over at the baby's crib. They were going to solve things long before Raine entered her twenties. "It seems like you and me have been fighting our fates full-time lately. And losing I might add."

"I know that you only did what you did because I asked you to," Audrey said quietly.

Duke got up and poured himself a glass of wine, hoping to change the subject, and sorry that he had brought it up in the first place. There was no need to rehash that all again. Giving her a wry smile he said, "Look, whatever happened between your family and mine, whatever happened with Simon and Lucy, and maybe even the Colorado Kid, that's all in the past. There's no reason that we need to let them drag us down with this too. We're better than that." He glanced over at the sleeping baby. "We have to be."

He sipped his wine, still across the room. "The one good thing about the troubles is at least I got to meet Audrey Parker." Duke had thought that her quietness had meant that he had finally talked her to sleep, but when he looked over at her, her eyes were still open if sleepy.

"And I got to meet you," she said with a small smile before finally closing her eyes.

Duke got up and covered her with a throw blanket, thinking that Raine would wake her up long before she had the chance to get stiff from sleeping on the couch.

He hadn't made it all the way back to their bed before he was grabbed from behind, and reflexively found himself grabbing up a knife to defend himself from the blonde woman in the white gown who stood behind him and gave him a look of pure hatred.

Audrey woke up, instantly alert, then picked up and aimed her weapon in a single fluid motion. They soon discovered that the woman didn't bleed, not when stabbed, and not when winged with a bullet. But when Audrey shot her a second time, she crumbled into dust.

They didn't even get the chance to catch their breath before, to their horror, she rematerialized and beat on Duke for a couple of moments longer before abruptly disappearing.

As soon as Audrey helped him to his feet they looked for her, but she was nowhere to be found. This left the two of them standing there together in shock, at least until they realized that the shots or the fighting had woke the baby, and they went to reassure her.

Duke watched as Audrey rocked the baby in her arms, and murmured that nothing was wrong. But he wondered. He really wondered.