Audrey opened her eyes blinking against the bright light of the morning. A quick squint at the window confirmed that last night's blizzard had resulted in a complete whiteout. She was about to turn over and pull the covers back over her head when she caught a glimpse of her clock face, which was persistently blinking a red '12:00' back at her.

"Damn," she muttered. What time was it anyway? She'd guessed it was much later than when she normally got up with her alarm, but then why hadn't Nathan called. Even with the blizzard they were in the middle of a trouble case. He wouldn't just take the day off. And if he'd gotten to work and seen she wasn't in, wouldn't he have tried to get a hold of her? She sat up and fumbled on the nightstand for her cell trying unsuccessfully to hold back a sudden wave of panic that was surging within her. The roads had been terrible last night and he hadn't called to say he'd gotten back to his place in one piece. Audrey quickly located Nathan in her contacts and hit 'send'.

"Morning, sleepyhead," came Nathan's voice sounding very much like someone who was not mangled and frozen on the side of the road.

"Nathan," she smiled with relief. "What's going on? It's…" a quick glance down at the phone, "10:30. Why didn't you call?"

"Sorry. Thought I'd let you get some rest."

"Thanks, I guess," she replied feeling both thankful and irritated he'd given her the morning off. "Any news on our troubled Christmas fan?"

"Well, the good news is we've made it past the birds."

"Come again?"

"You know, the song. It's about someone sending their true love gifts for Christmas, and except for those rings Duke was so enamored with last night, the first 7 gifts are all birds: partridges, doves, swans. Always seemed like a weird way to say you care, to me. But thankfully we're through the woods, or the skies I guess, for now."

"Ooookay," said Audrey thinking for the hundredth time what a strange man Nathan Wuornos was. "So if that's the good news, what's the bad news?"

"The bad news, Parker" replied Nathan more seriously, "is that these are getting more dangerous." He paused, "Well, the rings were sort of funny, actually. Bill Denbrough woke up this morning with some new piercings, ears, lip, eyebrow and other," he paused, "more exotic locales."

"Ouch." Audrey laughed.

"Yeah," Nathan agreed. "I shouldn't laugh, but Bill's always been kind of a jerk, so…I've actually got Duke with him now trying to convince him he was at the Gull last night overindulging. Not sure how we're going to convince him he got all that done voluntarily when the last thing he remembers is going to bed early last night sober as a judge."

"Look at you and Duke working together," Audrey teased, "just like the Hardy boys."

"Funny. So does that make you Nancy Drew?"

"Alright that's enough name calling," Audrey laughed. "That takes care of the rings. Where do all these birds come in?"

"Right, Denbourgh's goose farm. Bill's brother Sam woke up this morning to find all the geese dead. I guess that's 'geese a-laying'. Guy's devastated, place had been in the family for ages, not to mention all the interrupted Christmas dinners. Bill had dozens of orders in place for tomorrow."

"Well it sounds like a pretty crappy morning if you're a Denbourgh or a fan of Christmas goose, but otherwise I'd say we've gotten off pretty easy so far. I thought you said these were getting dangerous?" Audrey asked.

"Yeah I did," Nathan answered simply.

And for the first time in the conversation Audrey became aware of voices and beeps coming from the background of Nathan's line. "Nathan, where are you?"

"Haven Memorial."

"What? Are you okay? We've been on the phone this whole time and you're just telling me this now!" Audrey had jumped out of bed in her tirade and was quickly double tasking chastising Nathan and getting ready to head over the hospital having momentarily forgotten her car was back at the station.

"Parker, relax. I'm fine. It's just a cautionary check-up," he reassured. "Turns out 'swans a-swimming' meant flooding the Swann's residence. Luckily I was already on the scene. The father was at Frank's yesterday and when I heard the name I figured something like this could be coming so I went over to their place first thing this morning. Living room filled up pretty quickly though. Not sure what would have happened if I weren't there to shoot out the windows."

"Nathan. I want you to stay at that hospital until you've been cleared to leave, do you understand me?" Audrey warned.

"Yes, ma'am," he smiled to himself at her concern.

"And then I want you to meet me at the station. You've given me an idea for how we might solve this thing."