AN: Okay so here's the final chapter, with just next week's epilogue to come. Then after next week I'll start posting my next Haven project which is...

Well it looks like the nearly unanimous winner was the Beauty and the Beast AU. I'm kind of glad, I've actually written a lot more of that one so far and it's turning out pretty interesting, if I do say so myself. So look forward to the first chapter of that on the 20th.

Chapter Twenty-Four

AUDREY

It's been hours and I still haven't gotten any word. I pace a frantic line, a jagged zig-zag in my distraction, in the hallway while the doctors are working away on the other side of the second door on the left. Working to save Nathan's life. The life he only just got back.

Everything is such a whirlwind in my head that I can't keep track of anything. The morning started with trying to persuade Vince that the Corpses were changing. Then we were running, first from the people of Haven and then from the Boneys. Nathan lost his friend Gr - no, not his friend. His father. And then we fell into the pool, Nathan using his own body to cushion my landing.

The split on the back of his head was just one more injury that came back to haunt him when his heart started beating.

I take in a shaky breath as I think over that mesmerising fact again. His heart beats. He's alive. By some strange miracle of fate, Nathan has come back from the dead. Which means it's possible for the others as well. There's a chance that the other Corpses can get their lives back too.

Somehow, we found a cure.

The front door opens and a moment later Duke appears at the end of the hall, his hair coming loose from the ponytail and his eyes panicked. When they fall on me his face visibly blanches. "Jesus, Audrey," he says and he hurries toward me. His eyes are lingering on my chest and when I look down I realise it's because my shirt is stained a bright crimson.

"It's not mine," I say to assuage the terror on Duke's face. "It's his."

"Is he okay?" Duke asks, knowing right away who I'm talking about.

"I don't know." A choked sob fights its way up my throat and I press my knuckles against my lips in a futile attempt to keep it in. "I don't know, Duke. It's been hours and no one has said anything. There was just so much blood. What if... What if he-?"

"No, don't think like that," Duke says immediately. He puts a hand under my chin and tilts my head up so I'm forced to meet his gaze. "He'll pull through. He's a fighter, Audrey. And he's got you to come back to so that can't hurt."

My lip quivers and Duke folds me into his arms. I cry silently into his shirt in the middle of the hallway, letting out all of the emotions that I've had to keep bottled in for the last twenty-four hours. A hurricane of feelings rushes through me and by the time my eyes run dry, I'm exhausted.

We sit down against the wall opposite the door and Duke slings an arm around my shoulders. I lean into him companionably and we settle ourselves in to wait.

I have no idea how much time has passed before Duke shakes me awake with a whispered, "Audrey." My eyes reluctantly pry open, but once they land on the doctor I bolt upright so quickly the world tilts a little.

"Nathan?" I ask breathlessly. God, there's so much blood on her clothes.

The pretty doctor smiles and nods, her rich red-brown ponytail bobbing. "He's going to be okay," she says. "It was touch and go for a bit but he should make it." My legs are shaking so badly that I have to lean on Duke for support as relief rushes through me.

"What happened to him?" Duke asks.

"Corpses heal more slowly than humans," the doctor explains. "When his heart restarted and got the circulation going again, it forced blood into all of those unhealed injuries. We also had to remove a few stray bullets and bits of shrapnel that the skin had healed over so they wouldn't cause him any more trouble. And it'll take a while to replenish the blood he lost, because we don't have the supplies to perform a transfusion." She smooths down the front of her blood-stained scrub top. "But you'll be happy to know his heart rate is rising slowly but surely towards normal and so is his core temperature. Give him a few days and he'll be just like any one of us, only with a few more scars."

"Can I-?" I can't even bring myself to finish the hopeful sentence but it turns out I don't need to because she nods again.

"He's asleep right now, we had to give him quite a bit of sedative to counteract the pain, but you're welcome to sit with him," she says and steps out of the way of the door.

"Thank you so much, Doctor...?"

"Callahan," she supplies. "Claire Callahan."

"Thank you Claire," I say and then I slip passed her into the room.

There's a single bed set up in the middle of the spare bedroom and Nathan is lying on it, tucked in beneath an old wool blanket. His clothes are gone but in their place are countless bandages. Strips of white wrap around his arms, head, and chest, and I imagine that they probably continue down underneath the blanket as well.

Still, despite it all, he looks alive.

Duke brings in a chair and sets it beside the bed with a knowing smile. "I'll be upstairs, just shout if you need me," he says. I can't express my gratitude, but he just grins and kisses my forehead. "Take care of zombie boy."

I chuckle as he lets himself out of the room and leaves me alone with Nathan. Repositioning the chair by the bed, I sit down and take Nathan's hand - one of the few bits of him not wrapped in gauze - in both of mine.

NATHAN

The pain is the first thing I'm aware of, which is odd because last thing I remember, I couldn't feel anything. Except no, that's not true. I remember the touch of warmth that came from Audrey's skin. I remember the phantom throbs in my chest. I remember the feeling of heartbreak.

The further I come out of the fog in my head, the more pronounced the pain gets. It's an all-over aching, but its definitely worse in certain spots. My shoulders, my stomach, the back of my head, the back of my left calf, my right upper arm. Also the further I come out of the fog, the more I can remember. The details come back to me one by one until I'm reliving the fall, the landing, the pool.

I allow myself a few minutes to just sit and enjoy the feeling of my heart beating. Now that I know what it is, now that the muscle is starting to settle back into its old pattern and function, it hurts less than it did before. With time the muscle will strengthen itself and soon I won't even notice it anymore. Except I don't know if I could ever do that. I don't think I'll ever take the steady throb of my heart for granted again.

Breathing in deeply, I'm met with the smell of brightness and white and purple and life. The combination is unmistakable. I gingerly force my eyelids apart and when I look down the length of my body I see a heap of blonde hair nestled on top of my left hand. It takes me a few tries to summon up enough breath but I finally manage to scratch out, "Au-drey."

Her head shoots up so fast that my tired eyes have a hard time tracking the movement. A brilliant smile spreads across her face. "Nathan, hey," she says, straightening up and combing back the twisted curls of hair that have fallen around her face. "How are you feeling?"

"Hurt," I answer, but I'm having a hard time sounding upset by that fact. Honestly, I'm just thrilled that I can feel anything. I hurt, but at the same time I can feel the softness of the bed, the rub of the sheets on my bare skin, the brush of air flowing across my ultra-sensitive nerve endings. I can feel my stomach twisting with hunger - and proper food hunger, not Hunger - and the flow of air in and out of my lungs. I feel it all and it's euphoric.

Audrey seems to sense what I'm thinking because she traces her fingertips along the lines of my wrist and hand. They pause at the little patch inside of my wrist where I can see the vein jumping with my heartbeat. "You have a pulse," she says and a faint smile crinkles up the corners of her eyes.

I feel my own lips curl. "Alive," I say and the word comes out like a prayer.

"You're alive," she agrees and I can see a bead of moisture hovering along her lower lashes. It looks like liquid crystal, bright and beautiful because it's not a tear of sadness. She's happy. "The doc says you're going to pull through all right. It'll take a little while for your muscles to get used to the blood flow and get back to full health, but you'll get there. You're going to be okay."

There's a waver in her voice that makes me frown. "Audrey?" I ask uncertainly, because just a moment ago she was happy.

"Sorry," she says and quickly wipes at her eyes. "I just - you really scared me, Nathan. I thought I was going to lose you."

"Sorry," I say, tightening my grip on her hand.

She gives a watery chuckle. "It wasn't your fault," she points out. "It was just the way it happened. Just - " she looks up and meets my gaze, her eyes burning with that fire and passion that drew me to her in the first place, "Just don't scare me like that again, okay? You're not just my partner anymore."

"P-partner?" I ask with a small smile.

Audrey shrugs. "It sounded better than 'travel buddy.'"

I smirk - wow, that's a new expression - and nod. "Partners," I agree. Then I thread my fingers between hers and add, "And m-more."

My eyelids are inordinately heavy and I can't seem to stop them from drifitng downward. There's a fuzzy feeling in the back of my head that's making it hard to focus. Audrey seems to recognise the struggle on my face because she smiles. "You're tired, Nathan," she says affectionately. "You've had a long day and you've got a lot of healing to do. Get some sleep."

Sleep. Proper, human sleep. "Yeah," I say, already feeling the pull of exhaustion. Then I open my eyes again, not having realised they'd closed, as a thought occurs to me. "Stay?"

The smile that greets me in response is sweet and bright and gentle all at once - sometimes it amazes me how many feelings a human can have at once. I wonder distantly if I will ever be like that again, so full of emotions that they seep out into the air around me like an aura. "Yeah, I'll stay," she says and settles herself back into the chair, never letting go of my hand. "Don't worry, Nathan, I'll be here when you wake up."

I nod and let my eyes flutter closed again. And there, somewhere between waking and sleep, I hear her add, "I'll always be here."