The next moments are a chaotic blur punctuated by sharp moments of painful relief, like eye-stabbing flashes of light against smoky darkness.
He remembers devastation that swept over him in a wave when he picked himself up to see that the door had vanished.
He remembers how arrested everything became when he caught sight of that familiar form prone on the ground. Dressed differently than Parker, maybe, with different hair and her eyes looking darker under heavy makeup—but that's all peripheral next to the blazing recognition in his soul as he meets Parker's eyes. Alive. Awake. Seeing him. As he helps her sit up. Alive. Warm. Here.
Where was Duke, then? Nathan doesn't know. Later, he can't remember anything but Audrey. Audrey alive and well and here and looking at him without a single hint of anger or blame or disappointment in her eyes.
She looks at him the way she used to, back when Haven still kept its many secrets and the sun was golden and her smile was easy. Back when she sought him out and chose him and confided in him and trusted him (before Duke). She looks at him as if she could and would spend lifetimes looking at him and figuring him out and cajoling him out of isolation.
(She looks at him like Sarah did, once, so briefly.)
He remembers a kind of reckless daring filling him, here in the last few moments of his life. His hand was already on her arm, but he slid it up, up, to her cheek, to her hair, to the slender line of her neck.
She let him (or did she?).
He remembers wanting, remembers tilting forward, as if she would grant him a kiss hello in the same way she'd granted him one as goodbye.
And he remembers Jordan stepping forward to demand his death. Vince's silence, Duke's protests (or just questions? maybe he just wanted to know the plan; it's not that Nathan could blame him for wanting him dead after Nathan elbowed his way in between Duke and his reunion with Audrey), and the way not a single one of the Guard protested when he took Jordan's gun from her ungloved hand.
Parker didn't smile at him this time, he thinks abstractly, but she looked at him so openly and didn't flinch from his touch and for last moments on earth, this could have been a lot worse.
Nathan wraps her hand around the gun (feels the weight and heft of it through her touch, feels the chill nip of the air between her fingers) and has to look down to make sure it's resting against his heart.
"I'm ready, Audrey," he says.
And then it gets worse.
(Her silence should have clued him in. The tilt of her head should have been a giveaway. The way she didn't look disappointed in him should have been proof. He should have known.)
Parker tilts her head, her hand limp around the gun. "Who's Audrey?" she asks, and that's when total chaos erupts.
(Her eyes weren't open on him; they were blank.)
"He has to die!" Jordan exclaims over the surprised clamor.
(She didn't welcome his touch; she tolerated it much the same way he tolerates Jordan's.)
"Let's all just take a minute here," Dwight yells, but for once he is ignored by everyone.
(He did kill Audrey. She's still Parker, of course, that doesn't change, but just as he will never see Sarah again, Audrey's now gone from him forever too.)
"Nathan, you may want to think about running," Duke hisses as he pushes Jennifer safely behind him.
(All she ever wanted was to be Audrey Parker, and he took that away from her. James and Audrey, both dead at his hand.)
"I'm not killing anyone," Parker says after the gunshot she fires into the air brings a startled silence.
(She doesn't love him, not even a little bit. Once again, he is useless. Valueless. Nothing more than a reminder to ensure no one forgets the sins of reaching too high, wanting too much, holding on too tightly.)
Nathan remains slumped on his knees at the peak of a hill he thought would be his salvation.
(He should have known that was impossible.)
He should have known better than to hope.
Another moment or two, and Nathan ends up behind Parker and Duke, the two of them already partnered together. He should be grateful, but instead he is only jealous. She will love Duke again, choose him again, and Duke will be the one they force her to kill and she will be the one broken by the loss of the person she loves and Nathan will yet again be left to survive and endure the unendurable.
Somehow, Dwight and Jordan pull him back into Guard custody. Somehow, Audrey (Lexie, another name, another face, still Parker, fighting to save the helpless, the guilty Troubled with their good intentions and bloody hands) and Duke manage to finagle time for negotiation and planning. And somehow (probably by virtue of sheer repetition), Nathan is once again dragged away, banned from being included in the actual decisions (and why not, when the last time he made a decision, it ended in death?).
The Guard-members beat him on the way back to the Herald, a visceral punishment for a disappointment too great for the already burdened Haven to bear. Nathan welcomes the blows, hoping one will drive him into blissful unconsciousness. He is not so lucky. The sound of flesh against flesh buffets him, but he is numb as always. Untouched and untouchable.
They lock him back in the Herald, the closest thing (now that Audrey is permanently gone) to a home anymore.
It's worse than the beating. Worse than a gun aimed at his chest in the hand of the woman he loves. Worse than anything they've ever done to him. They gave him hope (purpose) and then snatched it away (he cannot believe his own gall, to have ever thought he could save instead of destroy). They tore open the box he kept locked so tightly over all his memories (the blue of her eyes was the key; the curve of her lips was the lockpick; the sound of her voice was the sledgehammer; the feel of her chilled skin beneath his chapped fingers was the dynamite that obliterated every trace of that protective box) and now he is defenseless, drowning under the deluge.
Audrey's elbow in his hand as he pulled her from her teetering car.
Audrey's smile when she teased him and pulled him along after her.
Her protectiveness and her trust when she asked his help to stop a serial killer.
Her tentative hope when his Trouble vanished so temporarily.
Her lips when she stepped so close to him and brushed a kiss over his cheek.
Her kiss and her touch and her love offered so freely, so unconditionally, when her hair was red and her uniform white and her tools a stethoscope and kindness rather than a gun and compassion.
If those were the only memories, the punishment would still be too cruel, but at least he might have been able to withstand and endure and pretend he could fight again. But there's more, other memories like bitter salt tainting the water and rubbing the wounds raw.
Audrey's silence when he begged her not to give up. Her back every time she turned away from him. Her hand reached out to touch—not in comfort, not even in friendship, but to manipulate, to restrain, to control. Her cold anger whenever he tried to save her, the way she always shut him out and called for Duke to come stand at her side.
It is the juxtaposition of them both that destroys him, even still, even now that Audrey's gone. The way she first reached out, then turned away. The way she kissed him, then fled to Duke's arms. The way she gave him hope, then crushed it with a smile and a murmured Partners, right?.
She didn't choose him, didn't love him the way he so desperately longed for her to…but she didn't abandon him either, didn't cut him loose to mourn his losses and move on.
Caught in between, trapped between her and the town, her and Duke, her and the Barn.
Nathan slumps down on the floor, not entirely purposely, his back propped up against his bare cot, and tries not to remember. Tries to forget as much as Parker has.
But he can't. This is his lot in life: to stand alone and to remember what everyone else has already moved on from. This is his future: to remember and to never ever be able to atone.
He has no idea how much time has passed when the door finally opens. With no time even to make his body uncurl into a standing position, he can only stare as Audrey (Lexie) is politely but firmly escorted inside.
She looks around the cramped room, composed, eyes alert, chin up. Then she sees him and he can tell she didn't expect him to be there by the way her eyes widen and her hand flies up to play with a lock of her hair—long and brown and streaked with reminders of Audrey's hair color.
"Wow, hey there," she says. He wishes he were still numb enough not to notice the backwards step she takes away from him.
She's afraid of him. (And why not, after he touched her and crowded her and put a gun in her hands?)
"I'm not going to hurt you," he says, surprised at how hoarse his voice is. "And neither will they. Don't worry, you're safe here."
"Yeah, I'm having a hard time believing that," she says. "Just today, I found out that my life wasn't real, my workplace was some kind of trick, and the only way out was to jump through some kind of mindscape freakier than anything I ever saw while on drugs. And let's not forget that army of guns pointed my way, the strange things happening in this town, and the fact that everyone apparently wants me to kill you. Safe is not what I would use to describe this situation."
One part of Nathan can't help but lap up every piece of information she gives him, every hint of what she's been through, what she's thinking, who she is (the differences between Lexie and Sarah and Audrey; the similarities of Parker). The other part of him (the bigger part, if he's honest) is distracted by the drawl coating her words, the turns of phrase so different from Audrey's, the nervous mannerism she uses to try to calm herself.
It was one thing to see Sarah in the context of a Haven he didn't really know in a life he knew would never be his. It's something else entirely to see Lexie amidst familiarity, to see her and recognize her and be surprised by her and to know that there is no going back to Audrey.
This is who she is now: Lexie DeWitt, bartender.
And, most importantly, not his. Not his friend. Not his partner. Not even his ally.
"Hello in there? You still with me?"
Nathan blinks and the mirage of Audrey fades away. "Haven's a strange place," he says, "but you don't have to be afraid here."
Her nod is more thoughtful than agreeable. "You might need to be afraid," she says. "No one out there seems to like you very much."
Scoffing, he makes himself stand up (slowly, so slowly because he doesn't want fearless Parker to be afraid of him) and move to sit on the cot. "Yeah, well, I've never been a popular guy."
When she says nothing, he chances another look. Her mouth is drawn tight, her eyes narrowed, as she stares at him. Or maybe just in his direction.
"What happened to you?" she finally asks, and if he wasn't trying his hardest to appear sane and normal, he'd laugh until even his sides hurt.
"I'm fine," he says. "The real question is why you're in here instead of out there with them."
"You know, I may not be a nurse, but I can bandage up a few wounds. That's one useful skill you pick up after your first couple barfights."
Barfights. Sarcasm. Abrasive attitude. It's like Audrey playing Jordan. Like the parts of Parker that always pushed him away merged with the elements of a lifestyle he's never understood or been drawn to.
The Barn, he thinks, has a particularly vindictive sense of irony.
He didn't notice Aud—Lexie—approaching, so he startles to see her out of the corner of his eye, hand outstretched to his arm where a bruise peeks out from beneath the sleeve.
"Sorry." She makes a face. "It's just…someone really should look at those."
"I'm fine," he says again (imagines his Bronco at their backs and a bullet-graze on his arm). "I can't feel it."
"Oh, tough guy, huh?"
Nathan sucks in a sharp breath.
Her fingers graze his wrist.
He's real. He's alive. He's still here, living and breathing and hurting (not a ghost, after all).
"Sorry," she says again, snatching her hands away.
For a moment, it's Audrey standing here. Audrey with her hand between them and an apology splashed over her features. Audrey wanting to reach him but not wanting to push him.
"So much for fine," she says with a smirk, raw around the edges where Audrey would have been teasing, and it's Lexie here with him again.
He's saved from having to make a reply when the door slams open.
"Nathan," Duke says. He pauses to give Lexie a smile and a nod before turning back to Nathan. "A word?"
Nathan sits at his old desk, void of all his personal belongings (a picture of the Chief in a drawer, the vials of scents that calmed him whenever the world seemed too far away, his ever-present bag of notebooks and pens and press badge) but otherwise unchanged. Well, unchanged aside from Duke perched on the edge with his arms crossed over his chest in a half-hearted effort to contain his irritation.
"This, this, was your plan, Nathan? Well, at least now we know why Audrey was the one who usually came up with the plans—yours suck."
"This was the way to save everybody," Nathan says calmly, "and it still is."
"Nice try. Except that's Lexie in there and she has no idea who you are."
Nathan fiddles with the edge of his desk, scored with a black mark where his Sharpie once got away from him. It gives him something to look at besides Duke and whatever thoughts his expression reveals.
"We don't know that the person she kills has to be her true love. I know…I know you love her, too, Duke—and I know that she loves you. But that's why this is perfect. If she kills me, the Troubles are gone and you both can be—"
"You're an idiot," Duke says in a perfectly even tone. "Even saying I believe that about this magical solution working for just anyone—which I don't, FYI—but saying I do… Audrey's never going to shoot you. Never in a million years."
"To save all the Troubled? To save you?"
"By killing you?" Duke hisses. On the other side of the room, the others (Dave, Vince, Dwight, Jennifer, Jordan, and Nathan's usual escort) look over before once more pretending they're not just waiting around for Duke. "You think Audrey's just going to be fine and dandy after losing you?"
Nathan takes a deep breath. "She's done it before. A couple times, actually. Besides, I know you'll be there for her."
Duke lets out a loud snort. "Nathan, forgive me for saying this, but you don't know what you're talking about. You weren't actually, you know, alive to see what she's like without you. She needs you."
"And she loves you," Nathan says with a note of finality (even his masochism has a limit and this conversation has overshot that mark by a mile). "But you're right about one thing—that's not Audrey anymore, and Lexie doesn't care about either of us. Not yet."
Duke's shoulders sag as he runs his hands down his face. "Yeah, about that… I might have talked the Guard into sticking with your original plan. They apparently like bad plans."
"What?"
"They might have only agreed on a few conditions. With a couple tweaks."
"I don't understand."
"That's becoming more and more obvious with every word you say." Rolling his eyes, Duke leans close so he can lower his voice. "Look, Nathan, they were going to kill you. Jordan had her gun out and her hand on the door before Dwight could convince her to hear me out. I didn't have a lot of options left that keeps you alive." He hesitates, then says, very sincerely, "I'm sorry."
"Don't be. If I can die ending the Troubles forever, that might make all this worth it."
"I would have volunteered myself," Duke says as if Nathan didn't speak (maybe he is a ghost after all, only tied to his former life by the touches of his medium), "but in case this doesn't work, they don't want to let go of the Crocker curse."
Nathan studies Duke. This close, he can see the threads of silver in his hair, the lines around his eyes, the tiredness weighing him down. "I'm sorry," he offers (all he has to give).
"Yeah, whatever. Look, the thing is, I convinced them that since we have proof both Sarah and Audrey fell for you, we can make Lexie fall for you too."
Nathan squints, but Duke talks over him.
"That gives us time to find another way. Or at least a way to get you out of town and far away from the Guard."
"You…" Nathan lays his hands flat over the empty desk and studies the place where his skin becomes wood. "You really think this could work?"
"I still know some people. Dangerous people. And not that I'm admitting any past crimes here, but I think I could smuggle you out by sea if nothing—"
"No, I mean…you think Lexie really could care about me enough to bring an end to all this?"
"Nathan…" Duke sighs. "I think I'd rather put my faith in you and Audrey than in some creepy Barn."
"And you don't mind? If the Guard tries to push me and Lexie together…well, I know how painful that could be to witness."
"Let's focus on what's most important here." Duke moves as if to clasp Nathan's shoulder before drawing back (strangely, Nathan almost feels disappointed; maybe the friendly touch would have erased the memory of this last beating). "Jennifer may be able to help us find another way. All we need is a bit of time. So, stall."
Nathan nods, though inwardly, he's panicking. If they're relying on him trying to charm Lexie into caring about him, they're going to have nothing but time.
"Don't give up, Nate," Duke says softly. "As much as you wanted Audrey to fight her fate—that's how much she'd want you to fight yours."
"But she didn't fight," Nathan says (the first time he's let himself even think it since the Barn fragmented apart and left him bleeding out). "She walked into that Barn knowing she wasn't going to walk out again. This time, it's my turn."
"Nathan—"
"I hate to interrupt," Dwight says suddenly, "but I just got word of a homicide down at The Rope Loft. If we want Lexie to start where Audrey left off, I'd say this is the perfect opportunity."
Nathan's halfway to his feet when Jordan moves to stand between him and the door. "Not you," she says. "We can't risk you dying until it counts. Duke, you go with Lexie."
"Hey!" Duke says. "If you want Lexie to fall for Nathan, you need to let him go with her. That's how it worked before, both of them working cases together."
"Actually," Dwight says, "Audrey worked more cases with you, Duke. Nathan, once this case is solved, we'll bring you down to the station. You can interview her—say it's a story for the paper."
"I don't even work for the Herald anymore."
"You don't work for Haven PD either," Dwight says with his characteristic bluntness. "Right now, you work for the Guard and you're more valuable to us alive than dead."
"For now," Jordan interjects acidly.
"Duke, get Lexie. I'll take you both to The Rope Loft. Jordan, follow along in case they need backup. Vince, you'll watch Nathan?"
Vince nods, Dave doesn't protest, and as easily as that, Nathan's once more relegated back to his (not his anymore) empty desk. On the sidelines. Out of sight, out of mind.
Lexie looks at him curiously as she's led out of the backroom, following Duke outside, but Nathan can't bring himself to meet her eyes.
Sarah only chose him because she hadn't met Duke yet and because she didn't know anyone else in town. Audrey didn't choose him at all (though she led him to believe she could, she might, she was tempted). And Lexie? Lexie's Parker and she won't care about him at all if he can't help the Troubled.
His end has never seemed so far away.
Surprisingly, it is Dwight who comes to drive him to the station. Maybe to fill up the dead silence growing between them, he tells Nathan about the body-snatching Trouble. A particularly brutal introduction to the Troubles for Lexie, Nathan thinks.
"She's fine," Dwight offers almost begrudgingly. "Duke's Trouble ended up saving the day."
Nathan's pretty sure that unlike everyone else in Haven, he will never get used to the Crocker Trouble. Of all the cruel twists provided by their curses, he doesn't think he's seen any crueler than that inflicted by having such a lethal solution to the Troubles. But then, what does he know? He's banking all his hopes on Parker having to kill him to end everything once and for all. Not so different in the end (but still unspeakably cruel).
"Dwight." Nathan catches the police chief's arm just outside the station. "I need to talk to you away from the Guard."
"Look, Nathan, I don't like this plan either, but until we get a better one—"
"What? No. I don't have a problem with the plan."
"No, of course you don't." Dwight shakes his head. "That would make my life easier."
Nathan narrows his eyes before deciding it doesn't matter. Without knowing when he'll get another chance to talk to the chief, he can't afford to waste this one. "You have to stop benching me. Parker's never going to care about me if I'm not out there helping the Troubles. That's what matters to her above all, and keeping me away from that isn't going to help anything."
"It's safer for us if you're not out on the front lines," Dwight says as if he's reading off a script.
"I don't know exactly how you think this is going to go," Nathan says, "but locking me up to 'protect' me and letting me out just to…what? Wine and dine her? That's never going to work."
"You never know. Maybe that's exactly the kind of thing Lexie DeWitt goes for."
Nathan regards him for a long moment. "She's still Parker. Her name, her memories, those change, but inside she's still the same person."
With a heavy sigh, Dwight gives him a short nod. "All right. I'll talk to Vince, see about getting you back out there—as a reporter, Nathan, not a detective."
It's been months since Nathan's seen Dwight except from a distance; Nathan almost forgot why he's okay with that. Dwight was the first person to believe in him (besides Audrey, but then, her belief in him stopped at the badge, didn't it?), the first person to give him a chance to prove himself. He freely offered Nathan what Garland had withheld for years.
And Nathan let him down. Betrayed him in a desperate bid to save Parker. Of everyone who turned on Nathan so quickly, the one he can blame the least is Dwight.
"It's nothing against you," Dwight says, perhaps the closest to gentle Nathan's ever heard him apart from when he's talking to children. "In any other town, any other place, I'd even say what you did was the right thing. But this is Haven and it's not like any other place. What you did hurt a lot of people and I can't make them forget that."
"I'm not asking you to."
"I know. Which is why I'll give you what you're asking for."
"Thank you."
Dwight's eyes slam into him with palpable force. "Don't thank me. All I'm doing is getting you killed that much faster."
"Well, like you said—any other town." Nathan gives him a condoning nod. "But this is Haven."
Dwight smiles grimly. "Lucky us."
Someone has dug up his old camera bag. Nathan does his best not to think about the Guard rifling through his belongings, ransacking his house and denting his Bronco, and instead sets about refamiliarizing himself with the contents of the bag. The notepad inside still contains remnants of half-written articles, a few discarded beginnings to the stories he wrote on Audrey Parker's lasting contribution to Haven.
In the end, maybe it's fitting that he start out with Lexie the same way he began with Audrey.
He's sitting at his old desk staring at Audrey's old desk when Duke brings Lexie in. She's wearing some of Audrey's clothes and she's used Audrey's shampoo (Nathan is frozen solid for a full minute, mesmerized by the familiar smells that bring up devastatingly familiar scent-memories), but she's very obviously not Audrey. The way she walks, the way she lets Duke show the way without once trying to bluff her way into figuring it out herself, and of course, the lock of hair she twirls between her fingers.
"Nathan! Good morning!" Nathan's taken aback by Duke's overly exuberant greeting until he realizes that throwing Parker at someone else, even for a good cause, can't be easy for him. A bit of overcompensation is much better than the punch he probably wants to land instead. "Lexie, you've met Nathan Wuornos, right?"
"The tough guy," she says with a smirk that falls a bit flat. "I remember."
"You solved your first Trouble," he says. As hard as he has to fight to sound normal, he's kind of proud of how nonchalant he manages to be.
"What? Are you going to ask her a few questions about it?" Duke's grin is almost crazed, his eyes unusually intense. "Great! This? This is a good idea. The two of you, talking together, you know, getting some things out in the open."
"I don't know." Lexie shrugs. "Shrinks have never really been my thing. Besides, I didn't really do that much, remember?"
She and Duke exchange looks that wouldn't pass for casual even to a blind man. Nathan's far from blind, though he does look away on the thin pretext of rearranging his pen and notepad. One day, he thinks. One day, one Trouble, and already Duke and Aud—Lexie are close enough to speak whole conversations without words.
If he wants her to care enough about him for a bullet to fix everything, he'd better get busy.
"All right," Duke says a moment later. "I'm going to get us some breakfast. You want anything, Nathan?"
Nathan blinks. "Anything what?"
"Breakfast. Food. You know…" Duke trails off. Nathan feels, suddenly, incredibly self-conscious. He avoids mirrors as much as possible, but he's sure he's lost weight on the feed-him-only-if-you-happen-to-think-of-it diet the Guard have him on. "You know what?" Duke says slowly. "I'm really hungry. I'll bring a lot. Have fun, you two."
"Does it feel like he's trying to set us up?" Lexie asks. She's grinning, though, so Nathan supposes she's not serious. Instead of sitting at her own desk, she moves to plop down on the couch, curling her legs underneath her and drawing some of her hair forward to play with.
"You don't look too scared," he says when he can't take her silent perusal any longer. "Not ready to run for the hills yet?"
"Someone told me I didn't have to be afraid." She gestures to his bag's contents spread out before him. "I thought you were a cop. That doesn't look like a badge and gun."
"I'm…suspended indefinitely. For now, I'm going to be doing some freelance work for the Haven Herald."
"A writer, huh?" She sounds amused. "Some women really dig that mysterious, brooding poet stuff, you know."
"I'm not a poet," he says shortly. "Or very mysterious."
Only after he says it does he wince at his own abruptness. The Guard probably would have wanted him to play up that angle, to try to be attractive and alluring. But Nathan doesn't know how to pretend to be anything but what he is—and even if he could, he wouldn't try to trick Lexie into caring for him. Besides, he might not know exactly why Audrey liked him, but he's pretty sure it didn't have anything to do with poetry.
"Oookay," Lexie arches her brows. "So…what story are you writing?"
"You probably know that everyone thinks you're Audrey Parker," he says. "So I'm going to write a story about her getting amnesia so people don't keep pressuring you to be someone else."
Lexie snorts indelicately. "Amnesia? No one will believe that."
Nathan tries not to wince. "You'd be surprised."
After a long moment (he can only imagine what she must be thinking), she says, "So…what do you want to know? Name? You already know that. Age? Not sure I want to divulge that information. Birthplace? That's a funny story actually—"
"What? No, that's…" With a breath to brace himself, Nathan gets up and abandons the protection (psychological if nothing else) of the desk. "I know we're asking a lot of you. More than most people would be willing to give."
"But you think I can?" She's trying to sound bold, but he's heard this note of vulnerability before. He knows what it means when Parker can't quite meet his gaze.
"I know you can," he says unwaveringly, and just like before (with Sarah, with Audrey), Lexie gravitates to that surety. Stares at him and drinks in every word, and even if her orphan heart won't let her believe it, he can see how much she wants to. And for the first time in months, in an eternity, he feels seen. Heard. He feels real, his ghostlike body solidifying beneath the weight of her trust.
"You help people," he says. "No matter where you came from or what your name is, you always help. And you never, not once, let this town down."
"It's hard to believe that," she admits, then immediately rolls her eyes, breaking the moment. "Like everything else in this town."
Nathan steps back to give her (to give himself) space. "It's true. But, anyway, you don't have to answer any questions. You don't have to do anything you don't want to. You don't owe this town anything, and if you deserve anything, it's a bit of privacy."
He's surprised her. For once, she has no sarcastic retort or brash assertion. Even beneath the heavy makeup, her eyes are so clear. So blue. So familiar that his whole being aches.
Duke's arrival is a relief, giving him the opportunity to stand back and remind himself that this isn't Audrey (that he doesn't have enough days left to him to even dare think about the possibility her open gaze seems to be hinting at).
"Black coffee for Lexie," Duke takes a long second to hand her the cup, probably communicating nonverbally again. Fighting back memories of his own countless coffee deliveries to a different version of this woman, Nathan looks away and is taken aback when Duke sets a paper cup in his hand. "Black for you too—don't worry, I made sure yours was lukewarm."
That's barely sunk in when Duke hands him a Styrofoam container of pancakes drenched in syrup and Nathan is startled all over again.
How long has it been since he's smelled maple syrup and golden batter? How many days, weeks, months, since someone has cared enough not to give him a too-hot drink?
His eyes dart to Lexie as he remembers just who else cared this much, and then back to Duke as he realizes that Duke actually does care. He's not thinking about punching Nathan; he's bringing him the first true kindness Nathan has received in months.
The pancakes are the best thing he's ever tasted. It's all he can focus on for a while, really, each swallow of syrup chasing back the lump threatening to choke him. But as the food disappears, he grows conscious of the pointed looks Duke keeps sending his way. As soon as Nathan meets his eyes, Duke tilts his head toward Lexie.
Just like that, Nathan's mind goes blank and doesn't start up again until Duke drags him out into a quiet corner of the bullpen (Nathan pretends he's not aware of every eye turned his way). "What are you doing?" Duke demands. "I know the longer we can stall, the longer you get to live, but seriously, Nate? You have to at least make an attempt."
"I am!" he protests. All the defensiveness he used to feel in Duke's presence comes roaring back in. He already knows that Parker loves Duke; does he really have to rub Nathan's face in it? "I'm not worried about dying. I just…I'm not very good at all…this."
Duke's eyebrows nearly reach his hair. "This? You mean interacting with the fairer sex?"
Glaring, Nathan folds his arms over his chest (a defensive move he knows Duke will recognize, which only makes him more self-conscious). "I don't… Trapped in an office she doesn't remember—what am I supposed to do? It's not like there's a lot of options here. And anyway, Parker's always been more into action than romance, hasn't she?"
"Hopeless," Duke mutters into his hands. "Actually, literally hopeless."
"Stop!" Nathan snaps. "Just stop making fun of me. I…I don't know why Parker started caring about me when she first came to town. I don't know what made her see me when no one else ever did. And I certainly don't know what made her fall in love with you, so forgive me if I take a few minutes to try and figure—"
"Nathan." There's something very soft in Duke's voice, something protective in the set of his eyes and the way his hand falls on Nathan's shoulder (slowly, so Nathan can see it coming). "There are so many things wrong with what you just said. First off, I'm not making fun of you, I swear. Secondly, I know why Audrey attached herself to you so quickly—and Sarah for that matter, and Lexie too if she'd had the chance. You care. All right? You care and you believe in people. You believe in them so strongly that they can believe it themselves. Trust me, that's more amazing than you know—I may have been on the wrong end of your belief, but it still made me want to rise to the occasion. And thirdly—and most importantly—Audrey loves you."
"I know." Nathan nods to cover how off-balance he feels (he's paralyzed by the contradictory urges to apologize, to reassure, to run). "That's the only reason killing me will end the Troubles. But loving someone and being in love with them are very different."
Duke stares at him as his hand falls from Nathan's shoulder. "I take it back. I don't know why anyone would be attracted to someone so dense."
Nathan narrows his eyes but doesn't get the chance to reply (probably a good thing; he's never handled charged moments with Duke very well). Lexie leans out of the office with an impatient expression.
"Hey! Are we actually here for a reason or can I go out and try to find some clothes that aren't so beige?"
"Yeah. Yeah, absolutely we're doing something!" Duke calls out over Nathan's shoulder. "Nathan was going to interview you, right? Right. Go on, Nathan, don't let me keep you from your very important conversation there."
With no other options (and no particular desire to keep talking to the mercurial smuggler), Nathan lets himself be pushed back into the office that smells overwhelmingly of Audrey, all lilies and lilacs and coffee. He ignores the (not entirely sincere, he's sure) thumb's up Duke gives him and tries not to panic when the door closes behind him.
"I don't bite, you know," Lexie says. "Most of the time."
It's just Parker, he reminds himself. Under all the makeup and nose ring, the new memories and brash persona, it's Parker. Strong and lonely and compassionate and insecure. He knows her. He can talk to her.
"So, Lexie," the name sticks on his tongue, "what do you want to know?"
"For starters, why everyone wants you dead. What is the plan here exactly? And do I get paid for any of this, because if I'm staying, then I've got to eat."
"You get paid," Nathan says. "Dwight will see to it. And the plan is for you to help the Troubled."
"And the reason you're Mr. Popular?"
She's playing with her hair again. Nathan decides that he hates the mannerism as much as he likes it (it calms her even as it distracts him). This is Parker, but it's also Lexie—a version of her that doesn't hate him or blame him or avoid him. A version he hasn't failed yet. Is it so wrong to want to keep that for just a bit longer? To let himself pretend, if only for a few days, that more is possible?
But then, that's what he told himself with Sarah. That's the kind of reasoning he used to justify their picnic and the kisses and the hours that led to a son he loves so fiercely despite the fact that they've only spoken once. This is exactly the kind of thinking that led to him pulling the trigger in a field outside a supernatural Barn.
"They want me dead because I deserve it," he says (it's honesty and it hurts every bit as much as it eases). "The Troubles are here because of me. Because I don't know how to let go."
"Nathan…" At the soft note adorning his name (a tone he never thought to hear from her again), his eyes leap to her. But she's looking behind him, at the name stitched into his bag. "Wuor-nose," she pronounces (badly), and then looks at him. Friendly. Kindly. (But not tenderly). "It can't be that bad. Didn't someone say these Troubles have been here forever? That can't all be your fault."
"Enough of it is," he says shortly.
He's never been so grateful for an interruption as when the door bursts open to Dwight.
"We've got Trouble," he says. "Tater was found downtown dead—maybe frozen, maybe petrified. Lexie, you willing to go check it out?"
Nathan isn't surprised at all when Lexie nods and heads out the door. He is surprised (though he shouldn't be) when Dwight stops him from following. "You'll be involved," he promises, "just not out on the front lines. Stay here and figure out your next step."
"Next step with what?"
Dwight sighs. "Your next step to make Lexie fall for you. And, Nathan? Make it good. Jordan's not the only Guard-member getting impatient, and I think we both know that they're not above taking matters into their own hands."
