Duke sat at the kitchen table and watched Audrey stuffing things into Raine's diaper bag. He admired the way that she was able to deftly pack it with diapers, bottles of breast milk, and a couple of pacifiers. They had only been at the parenting gig for a few weeks, but Audrey at least looked for all the world like she knew what she was doing.

After a few seconds, he began to feel guilty for sitting there, even if he was admiring his significant other's newest skillset. "Audrey, are you sure you don't want me to go with you?"

The blonde shook her head. "It's a well-baby checkup, Duke. All they're going to say is that she is, you know, well."

"I know, but," he trailed off, hesitant. What he had been about to say was that maybe he needed to know firsthand what happened during those appointments himself. Just in case she couldn't go to them. But he knew that she would take that the wrong way: she would think that he was implying that she wouldn't be able to go herself because she had died or disappeared, and all he'd mean by it was maybe she'd have a case she was working on at the time of one of the appointments someday.

Audrey came over to him, and gave him a kiss on the cheek. "I've got this one." Then she turned, and picked Raine up. Raine's eyes widened in surprise as she was heft aloft, making Duke wonder if his daughter had dozed off during their brief conversation.

"Okay," Duke agreed. He'd have to go to the next appointment, though. Fortunately, that one was scheduled so far into the future that there would be no ambiguity if he insisted he wanted to accompany them.

Rather than leaving the house in a panic about the possibility of being late the way he seemed to remember his own mother doing almost as often as not, Audrey left calmly, shutting the door behind her.

They had only been gone for a few minutes when Duke spotted a family relic - his father's "pirate" coin. Somehow it had ended up next to Audrey's kaleidoscope. Picking it up, he recalled dimly that it was his father's birthday. His father's birthdays were not something he enjoyed thinking very much about, mostly because the man had customarily celebrated the date by getting slightly drunker than usual. There had generally been a lot of yelling surrounding Simon's birthdays.

Sighing, Duke nonetheless found himself becoming slightly nostalgic. That's probably why he decided to pick up his father's journal next, and thumb through it. When they were in Colorado it had surprised him that June Cogan had known Sarah rather than Lucy. If Sarah had brought James from Haven to Colorado, it seemed possible that his father might have known Sarah as well, back when Duke was a kid.

It didn't take very long to find an implication that the ghosts had been right when they said that there were long ties between the Crocker family and Audrey's. For some reason Simon had paper-clipped Roy Crocker's obituary to a page in his journal. Until Duke saw the date, August 16, 1955, he hadn't realized how very young his own father had been when he lost his dad. Roy himself had only been thirty-five years old when he died.

There were strange splotches of darkness on the yellowed piece of newspaper, but they didn't make it difficult to read the text. Curious about what might have caused it, Duke flipped it over, and saw that there was writing on the back of it. "Killed by Sarah Vernon," was written in his father's handwriting. It was an adult's handwriting, not a child's, so Duke pictured it his father taking it out years later to write that, after putting together the pieces later.

Frowning, Duke considered the fact that Simon at least believed that Audrey's grandmother was responsible for his grandfather's death. He had never met the man, of course, but if Roy was anything like Simon, it wasn't difficult to imagine the red-haired woman killing him in self-defense.

Thinking this made him very pleased that Audrey hadn't asked him to kill anybody else. From everything he had been told, he came from a long line of royal bastards, and it wasn't a tradition he had any intention of upholding himself. If things worked out for Audrey, maybe someday he would have his own son, and he wouldn't want him to take up that mantle either.

He was in the middle of musing about how their families would no longer kill each other, unless of course Raine had to kill him or a hypothetical younger brother, when he noticed that there was a name and a date written on the next page of the journal. The date was also that of Roy Crocker's death, and the name was Stuart Mosley. It seemed like the two were connected, so he wondered if it was possible to check it out.

First things first, he hopped onto Audrey's laptop, and looked for obituaries for Stuart Mosley. When he didn't find any, which he considered a miracle if the man had been an associate of his grandfather's, it seemed possible that the man might still be alive. It didn't take very long to find him listed in Haven's online white pages.

Duke looked at the address for a moment, before tearing two pieces of paper off of the pad the for grocery lists. On one of the sheets of paper he wrote out the man's address. And on the other, he began a note to Audrey.

Audrey,

I was looking through my father's journal, and found the name of somebody who might know more about my grandfather's death. And considering my father was convinced that Sarah killed him, it seems like a good idea to go visit him. I'll probably be back before you and Raine are, but just in case I wanted you to know where I was going….

Love,

Duke


It didn't take Duke very long to locate the man's house. And when he did, he found Stuart outside, tending to his garden. Stuart didn't look up, but instead commented about how it seemed a shame to prune a plant that still had tomatoes on it. Duke wondered if he would have said the same thing to anyone who happens into his yard at that very moment, because he knew that some older people were like that. They just liked to talk to people, and didn't really care if the subject was of interest to the other person. That tended to happen to the elderly who lived alone, and if the guy was doing his own gardening, Duke thought there probably wasn't a Mrs. Mosely in residence. Unless, of course, he was the type of guy constantly defending his award-winning roses from the little blond terror next door.

"Hi, um Mister Mosley," Duke began awkwardly, please that he remembered to be polite. "I found your name in my grandfather's journal." Duke pulled the journal out of his pocket, tapping it. The old man didn't turn to look at it, but at least he had it in hand if Mosley wanted to. "It was written on the day he died."

When Mister Mosley turned to look at him, he had a surprisingly hostile expression on his face. "You! What are you doing here?"

Duke was about to say that he was looking for answers, mostly about the woman who had taken Roy's life (he probably wouldn't explain that he needed those answers to keep his girlfriend from disappearing into the ether too, though it might have come up), but he didn't get that far. The old man shook a hand at him, and all the sudden everything went fuzzy.


One second he was staring at the man who was shaking a fistful of greenery at him, and the next he was trying to get his balance on an uneven surface. I can't believe the old bastard tased me - must be real fun being his mail carrier or meter reader. I wonder if Nathan knows that there are people running around Haven with goddamned tasers. Apparently Gradpop didn't run around with a better class of people than Pop did.

It was only after this silent rant that Duke finally realized that he wasn't where he started out, and probably hadn't been tased at all. Instead something else had caused his disorientation: he was at the beach, which explained the precarious foothold he had on the ground. The nearest beach was close to three miles away from Mosley's house. "I hate this town," he said to the heavens, and then began to dig into his pocket for his phone. "I swear, if that old geezer teleported me here I'm going to-" he broke off, shaking his head when he realized that he had his phone in hand.

Pushing speed dial number for Audrey, he held the phone up to his ear. And immediately realized that he heard nothing. Looking at the screen revealed a no service message. "Of course no service!" he yelped. It would figure.

"Now what I do?" he asked rhetorically - there was no one on the beach to hear him. Even if there had been somebody nearby, he wouldn't have asked them. He knew it had to do. He had to walk at least as far as the road so he could get a signal, and get a ride back to his car. That was, assuming that Mosley hadn't vandalized the vehicle in the meanwhile. He wouldn't put it past him, considering that the man a just done to him.

Walking in sand had never been his favorite activity, and it seemed to make him more than reasonably tired by the time he got off the beach. This might be why it took him a few seconds to figure out that things looked a little bit strange. He was across the street from a bar he didn't really remember being there, and for some reason they were tons of classic 50s cars filling the parking lot. He knew that they enjoyed having car shows in various little towns, but he didn't know that Haven had gotten into what it seemed to him to be the world's most boring pastime. Well, most boring after golf.

Again looking at the screen of his phone, he was annoyed to see the familiar "no service" statement still there. So, he went up to the first man he saw, and asked "hey buddy, you getting any service here?"

The man gave him a look like he was a deviant. "It's not that kind of party, fella."

"What party?" Duke asked, puzzled. The guy turned away from him and started to walk away. Duke tried to keep up, aching calves not helping him do that. "What you mean party?"

Then he figured it out. The cars must be related to a party. And that seemed even sadder in a way. These people really had nothing better to do with their afternoon than to dress up in 50s costumes and drive their old cars to the bar? It was an odd theme for a Halloween party, he thought. But he kind of admired the way they went all into it, though. They even got a sign that said Haven Shore Club which looked authentic for the time. There hadn't been a Haven shore club since before he was born.

The fact that everything looked a little bit too perfect began to worry him. So, trying to reassure himself, he went to pester the same man again. "Hey, this is some sort of vintage car club, right?" he asked, fully expecting the man to smile and say of course it was.

The man and looked at him like he was scum earlier, now he looked at him like he was an alien. "Vintage? This is a brand-new Ford Fairlane."

Figuring that the man's opinion of him couldn't get any worse, Duke asked, "What year is this?"

"It's 1955," the man said, looking dismayed. "It's the year you should think about sobering up." Then he gave Duke a condescending pat on the shoulder.

"Hey, actually, I think it's the year that I start drinking… Heavily," Duke called after him as he walked away. The man heard him, of course, and shook his head.

Duke didn't care. Instead he was becoming concerned that it was too warm out for October, too.


There was nothing else to do but walk towards the bar. And maybe, if he could locate Stuart Mosley, he could beat the crap out of him, at least until he got him back to his own time. This felt something like a plan, so he walked into the bar.

A live band was playing on stage, and Duke vaguely recognized the music from records his grandparents played. People were smoking in the bar, which more than anything else told him that it really wasn't 2012 anymore.

Pushing past the people, Duke made his way towards the bar and sat on one of the stools. Alcohol would help make his situation more tolerable, if not any better. Feeling confused and overwhelmed, Duke kept praying that someone would jump out of hiding and yell Surprise! He really didn't have time for this, his daughter and Audrey needed him. For the first time in a very, very long time he could feel the first stirrings of panic twist the sinews of his heart.

A swarthy young man behind the bar yelled something that Duke interpreted as a request for an order. Duke barely paid the man any attention when he replied "Something strong and cheap." He scanned the crowd, watching men and women dance across the floor, desperately hoping he'd recognize someone in the place. Maybe Sarah. She would understand what had happened and help him.

The sound of the glass hitting the bar was out of synch with the music, likely the only reason Duke heard it at all. "Looks like you could use it, Tonto." The slur whipped Duke's head around and he noted that the man serving him looked vaguely Native American.

It took Duke a moment to parse out what the man had meant, as he did have some miq'mac blood but not enough to ever pass as a full native. "Huh?" Duke really didn't have time to deal with whatever was going on in the bartender's brain. He needed to get back home.

"The hair," the other man supplied, while pouring a generous amount of hard liquor into a glass. Duke reached around his head and tugged at his own pony tail, realizing that all the men in attendance had short cropped hair, including the tender. "Could be worse," the other man offered, smiling. "They call me Junior." The kind expression on his face made Duke doubt any ill intent on the behalf of the young man in front of him.

Mentally Duke dismissed him as a threat, and turned back around, still desperate to find someone, anyone he could recognize to get him out of this mess. Would Audrey know he hadn't just left her? Was Raine ok? Would he be able to find them again?

Unfortunately he found someone he did know, but that was not likely to be any help to him whatsoever. Lester McCreedy was dressed in the classic white naval uniform, beer in hand and trouble on his lips. It wasn't that different from his granddaughter, Katie. The man had been as much trouble in his day as Katie still was. The two of them would be terrifying if they could actually put aside their egos long enough to work together. Fortunately Les was currently living in some retirement home on the outskirts of town, placed there after the third time he shattered Katie's mother's nerves with his behavior. She'd welcomed her husband's father into her home and afterword found it frequented by criminals and nearly burnt down. Janice McCreedy had eventually set her foot down rather harshly, and Duke always thought Kevin was glad to have sent his own father to the home.

Currently a much younger Les was making trouble between the armed services. "No girl is going to go with a ground-pounding infantry grunt when she could go Navy." Duke had never had a love for the authoritative role of the military, but he'd been in enough port towns to know thems were fighting words.

The man dressed in drab green replied, "Sure, you swabbies can share house-cleaning tips."

That's all it took for Les's fist to fly into the man's jaw, and for an all-out brawl to start.

"Hey! Hey! No fighting in here!" Junior yelled, fruitlessly. He continued to protest as he ran out from behind the bar and dove into the middle of the battle. Duke considered the situation for a moment, then decided to stay out of the way. The Lester he know was one mean son of a bitch and had a hell of a right hook, something he was not looking forward to being reintroduced to. Instead he tried to pretend that he wasn't stuck in a year that preceded his own birth by nearly a generation, and guard his drink. "That wasn't necessary," he groaned as a couple of the combatants nearly took him out.

The tone of the fight grew meaner. Blood was starting to shine on a couple of knuckles. Property was being damaged. "Not your problem," Duke reminded himself, seeing some poor soul laid out on the floor. He wasn't a hero, and he couldn't get home to Audrey and Raine if he ended up killed in a bar fight. Behind him Junior was fighting off a young man with help from someone that looked like the late Reverend Driscoll. He turned just in time to see the Navy man the two were fighting toss Junior towards a broken chair.

Duke reached out and caught the bartender before he could be impaled on the broken leg that stuck up like a dagger. "Nice save," Junior practically whispered, seeing his death averted. "You Ok?" the bartender asked, concerned about his savior.

"Yeah, I think I'm fine," Duke replied, feeling anything but. He knocked the loosened hair out of his face and trying to force down the adrenaline rush the stress and the fight had raised in him. The police came crowding into the bar ordering everyone to break up the fight. The time lost man was startled when he was thrown up against the bar, beside Junior and cuffed by the cops. "I didn't do anything!" Duke protested.

The cop cuffing him snorted. "sure."

"I mean, this? It's not my fault, okay." The officer ignored Duke in favor of controlling his arms and ensuring that he was secure. Duke was familiar enough with the procedure to know not to fight, even though he certainly wanted to at this point.


Haven Police Station
August 1955

Despite the fact that Duke did nothing to start the fight, he still found himself in handcuffs. But, at least when they put him in the back of the cruiser, he knew where they were headed. It was somewhat comforting to see that the Haven police station looked almost the same as it did in present-day. He supposed in a way that should have been depressing, but it wasn't.

Before long he found himself frog marched into the building, and sat in a chair where he probably had sat handcuffed before. Glancing down at the seat under his behind, he figured that it was possible that it might be in fact the very same chair. Somebody should really suggest that the station do a bit of an update. He muttered to himself that sometimes it felt like the matter where you go you end up in the same place. But his words dried up when he looked over at another person in cuffs, and saw the Guard symbol on the man's forearm. He looked away, sure that that man at least was no sort of potential ally.

One of the police officers wandered over, and asked "got any answers for me yet, Kemosabe?"

Duke just shrugged, lifted his hands, and let them fall to his lap in defeat. He had no answers at all. Not why so many people seem to think he was Native American, or how the hell he's gotten there, or even how he had been drawn into the bar brawl.

The cop did not look impressed by this non-answer. "You got no ID, some counterfeit money-" He waved Duke's cash, and Duke wanted to object and say that it wasn't counterfeit, it was just from the future. But he figured that he knew what would happen next if he did, which was that he could get to spend some time in the psych ward at Haven hospital. Audrey hadn't thought it was anything much to recommend, so he held his tongue. "And, uh, what is this?" The cop shook Duke's smart phone as he spoke.

It is a device of great power from the future! avoice in Duke's brain intoned. He told it to shut up. "At the moment, a paperweight."

The cop smirked at him. And dropped it to the desk. "Well, today's your lucky day."

"It is?" Duke asked incredulously. He began to wonder if the man was using luck in the stereotypically sardonic Irish way, because he sure as hell didn't feel lucky.

"Junior vouched for you… said that you saved his life," the cop told him, and then stood and took off Duke's cuffs. "If I were you, I get out of town."

"Trust me. I'm going to start working on that right now," Duke told him, thinking at least that he wanted to get out of that version of the town. Hopefully, nothing he would do in his attempts to return to the present would lead to him ending back up in the station.

Don't kill the old man, Duke. Even if Mosley deserves it, he told himself sternly. The air seemed cleaner than usual when he pushed open the door and walked outside. He didn't know if it was because there was less pollution in the 50s, or he was just in a good mood because he was no longer under arrest.

Still, he had to figure out a plan. And he didn't know where to even start.


Meanwhile…

It had been a nice day so Audrey hadn't driven to Raine's appointment. Instead, she had walk there, and now that the appointment was over and Raine had gotten a clean bill of health as expected, she was enjoying the pleasant fall weather as they walked back home. Raine was still fairly light in her baby sling, and the diaper bag didn't weigh much either, so she felt relatively unburdened.

Audrey had only gotten about halfway down the main street when she heard Nathan speaking behind her. She didn't turn around. Instead, she let him continue to chase after her.

"Claire told me she'd seen you out here, exhibiting avoidance behavior," Nathan told her as he handed her a coffee, which she nearly refused. She didn't, though, because she figured odds for good that she might douse Raine in hot coffee if she knocked it out of his hand.

"Avoidance behavior?" she demanded to know, turning to look at him. "Like avoiding telling Jess you're alive?"

This immediately flustered him. "You know that I can't tell her."

"Right, because you're worried about her. Because it's awesome for her to think that you're dead. That means you're not engaged anymore, right?" Audrey asked acidly.

Nathan winced. But, he spoke in a steady voice when he said, "I guess it does."

This admission did not in any way placate her. Giving him a long look she said icily, "You're going to have to speak to Vince and Dave."

Puzzled by what he obviously took as a non sequitur, Nathan said, "okay, but why?"

"You don't want them to quote you in articles, or mention your feats of derring-do. Not if you want to keep up the charade that you're dead. If Jess sees your name in some of the Teagues' stories about gas leaks, she's going to figure it out."

"Good point," he said, sounding as though he thought it was good advice. "I will have to talk to them about that."

"Dammit Nathan!" Audrey snapped. "You can't do this to her."

"I have to," he said morosely.

For a moment they just stood there on the sidewalk, staring at each other. Eventually, the need to talk to Nathan about other matters overrode how annoyed she was with him. "Look, I need to talk to about the Colorado Kid."

"New theory?" Nathan asked eagerly, apparently pleased that they had taken this topic of discussion away from the fact that he had done the equivalent of faking his own death.

Audrey looked up at the sign that hung above them, puzzled. Instead of saying Haven Herald, it said Haven comics shop. "What happened to the Haven Herald?" she asked, wondering why since hadn't mentioned that they had moved the office. And also wondering if that was one of the reasons Vince had seemed so sad at the Nathan's-not-dead party. They hadn't finally closed up shop like Dave kept threatening to, had they?

Her brother gave her a blank look. "Haven Herald? What are you talking about?" he asked, as if they hadn't just been talking about the Teagues' stories moments earlier.

A sinking feeling was already was filling her. If Nathan didn't know what she meant, then something had changed within the past few seconds. And usually that meant she was the only person with a damn clue. This meant she would have to go on the assumption that Nathan had no idea about the paper at all. "

The Haven Herald," she explained, "it's a local paper, run by Vince and Dave. They're brothers." Or, at least in normal times it's their paper, and they're brothers, but who knew. Maybe this time they were lovers, and they ran a bake shop. With Haven's perchance for twisting reality you could never tell.

Nathan narrowed his eyes at her. "Vince has been dead a long time. Remember that Dave killed him?" he asked like she should know this, and he was concerned that she had forgotten.

"When did this happen?"

"About fifteen years ago. Why?"

"Okay." she said calmly. "You know where there's sometimes a Haven thing, and because I'm immune to the troubles, I'm the only one that knows it's a Haven thing?" She waited on tenterhooks, hoping that he wouldn't ask her what the hell she was talking about again.

"Yeah," he said to her vast relief.

"This is a Haven thing."

"Okay," he said. This would have made her feel better, but instead it didn't. Because then he said "You really don't remember when Dad told us that Vince had killed Dave?"

Audrey stared at him, trying not to exclaim in confusion. Dad? It was conceivably possible that he could refer to them both calling someone dad, but was he talking about the chief…or Max Hansen? "Um, no I don't," she stammered, hoping to hell that in this reality the Chief hadn't gone through with honoring Lucy's last wish and had kept her at birth.

"Huh."


August 1955

Unfortunately for Duke, he hadn't actually discovered anything of use as he wandered around 50s era Haven. The very first thing he had done was to return to Stuart's house, but he didn't live there anymore. Or, maybe more accurately, yet. The very nice woman with three children small children who answered the door had been polite, but of no help. She had never heard of Stuart. Neither had anyone else Duke had thought to ask.

So, as much as he didn't want to return to the station, he found he must. The officer at the desk didn't seem impressed by his plight. "Look, I'm lost. All I want to do is get home. But to do that, I need to find a man named Stuart Mosley." He wished he could explain that without a cell phone signal he was cut off from the World Wide Web and pretty much any way he knew of to look up Stuart's current address. "And you could help me if you did a search with your…" Duke trailed off, waving a hand towards where the computer usually lived on the desk. He spotted a piece of office furniture behind the man. "-filing cabinet."

Without saying a word the cop turned and picked something up behind him. "Great, thank you," Duke said as the cop handed it to him. His gratitude dissolved as he saw that it was just a Haven phone directory. As he anticipated, there was no Mosley in the book.

Looking at the smirking cop, Duke asked, "You wouldn't happen to know a Sarah Vernon, by chance?" He didn't even bother to respond before he walked away from Duke.

Duke sighed, but then he noticed that the title of the directory implied that it was created by a mail order company that still existed. This led him to be a little more hopeful.


Meanwhile…

Back in the station, Audrey put Raine on a blanket, and then spoke to Nathan. "This is bizarre. I mean, everything in Haven is pretty much the same, except for Vince and Dave…" And, she added silently, the fact that you and I refer to the same someone as 'Dad' but didn't dare say out loud. She was afraid if she did, she would soon enough learn whom he had meant by that. And really, she wasn't up for that discussion right then and there. "Unless… Does Jess think you're dead still?"

Nathan was sitting cross-legged on the floor, dangling a rattle out of the diaper bag for Raine's amusement. He looked up, pained expression on his face. "Yeah."

"Oh." Now she felt bad for bringing it up. "So, I guess that the whole Vince and Dave thing is it."

But then she realized that there was something on her desk. It looked very old, and she picked it up, reading the front of it. After a second or two it became clear that it wasn't just something that had been sitting around for the duration of her maternity leave. "This is… The mailing instructions have it held for several years until today. I didn't even know they would do that."

"What is it?" Nathan asked, grinning down at the baby. Apparently he wasn't too annoyed that she had asked about Jess.

"It's addressed to me. It dated 1955."

Nathan stopped playing with the baby, and came to sit at the desk. "Someone sixty years ago knew that you'd be here today?" he asked warily. She didn't blame him for being nervous about that idea. It didn't fill her with comfort either. And her dismay increased when she read it.

"It's from Duke," she said, choking up. Why hadn't she thought to call him as soon as she realized there was something wrong with the town? But it had been so subtle, she never would've guessed that he could be involved, not when the only changes seemed to be surrounding the Teagues.

Nathan took the letter from her. "It figures."

"That's what's different. Duke is trapped in 1955. And it's changing Haven today," she said tiredly.

Of course, she was worried more about how to get him back than what has changed. They had to get him back. And not just because he was helping them trying to find a way to defeat the Hunter. She needed him.

"We gotta bring him back before it gets worse," she said, hoping that Nathan wouldn't suspect that she was being sentimental rather than practical despite what she said to him. "Before it's too late."

Despite being subtlety altered, Nathan was still apparently enough on the same wavelength not to ask her too late for what, which she appreciated. Instead he scooped the baby up off her blanket. "We'll bring her to the Chief. He said he'd look after her if you were on a case."

"Right," she agreed, grabbing her keys and the diaper bag.


a/n: deeply amused that a "weird news" story from today involves someone doing exactly what Faerax had Duke and Sam do in one of the yet-to-be-posted chapters of this story, though in St. Louis instead of Maine. I'll tell you what once we get this far. =)