AN: I'm going to apologize in advance for how long it's going to take me to update from here on out (not that I was ever speedy in the first place). I have a lot of scenes written out, but I need transitions. As for this chapter, fluff, the return of the penny, and a cliffhanger (sorry).

Jennifer sat back, exhausted, and closed her eyes, but opened them again as visions of the night's events came flooding back into her mind. Her hand reflexively tightened around Duke's. It meant so much to her that he was still there. That he hadn't run scared when she opened up to him about her past. That he refused to leave her side. She'll never know how she got so lucky or what she did to deserve a man like him.

When he felt her squeeze his hand, he sat up a little closer to her. "What's wrong? Is the pain getting worse?"

"No. It's just… everything." She wanted a distraction. "How did your meeting go?"

"Not well enough to warrant this," he sighed. "Truth is, I feel like this is all my fault. I didn't have an important meeting in Portland today. I did have some business I attended to while there, but that wasn't my main motive for going."

Jennifer was starting to get anxious. It wasn't like Duke to lie to her.

"I had special ordered something from a store there. They were going to ship it to me, but I really wanted it for tonight, so I told them I'd pick it up." Duke reached into his jacket and pulled out a long, black, velvet box. "I was going to give you this tonight at dinner, but…" He handed the box to Jennifer.

Jennifer opened the lid and her jaw dropped slightly. "Duke! It's beautiful!" She lifted out the silver necklace and examined the dolphin charm hanging from it. She had always loved dolphins. Something about their grace, intelligence, playfulness, and the way they could actually be rather mischievous and terrifying at times had always appealed to her. The necklace had two dolphins entwined around each other with a diamond in between.

"A beautiful necklace for a beautiful girl," Duke told her, his voice full of sincerity.

She looked away from him shyly and flipped the charm over. The back was inscribed with a date, exactly one year ago from today's date. It took Jennifer a minute to determine the significance the date, but once she figured it out she smiled. "The day I broke you out of the hospital."

"I figured today was kind of like our one-year anniversary." He took the necklace from her and secured the clasp around her neck. She liked the feel of the weight of it against her chest. "I mean, I did get to see your boobs that day so we might as well consider it out first date."

"I thought you said you didn't see anything!"

"Yeah," he gave her a guilty grin, "I lied. I didn't want you to feel embarrassed, but I thought you were cute so I snuck a peek!"

She smiled at him and laughed. "Jerk! If I could move quickly enough without hurting everywhere I'd smack you right now!" The weight of what she just said didn't take long to reach her – what had happened as a result of the last time she hit someone.

Duke watched as her smile dropped and she downcast her eyes and knew he needed to change the subject. Quickly. "The real reason I was so late was because right as I was getting ready to leave, I walked past this cart that was selling these, and, well, it seemed perfect." He pulled something else out of his pocket, held her hand palm up in his, and dropped the object into it.

She looked at it and smiled, immediately knowing the significance of it this time. It was another necklace with a long, metal chain. Strung onto the chain was shiny penny, and another penny-sized piece of copper with an inscription. "For your thoughts," Jennifer read out loud.

"This way one of us will always have a penny on us at any given time."

Jennifer rubbed the metal between her fingers. She looked over at Duke, who was giving her a strange look that she couldn't quite identify. She wanted to know what was going through his mind and, well, she did have the penny. She dropped the necklace back into his hand and curled his fingers around it.

Duke had momentary panic, wondering if she was rejecting it, before realizing she was smiling at him and just wanted to know what he was thinking. He was more than happy to tell her. "I had this whole speech planned out for tonight. I was going to order a bottle of wine to ease my nerves because this is not something I say to just anyone. So, this might not be exactly the romantic setting I imagined, and of course I can't remember a single word of my speech now, which, mind you, was extremely eloquent, but it doesn't make what I'm about to say to you any less true." He moved his chair so that he was as close to her as he could possibly get without actually climbing back onto the bed with her. He placed his hand on her neck and looked deep into her eyes. As swollen and bruised as they were, they looked more like her eyes than they had when he first saw her in that hospital bed. The pain and fear was still there, but not as prominent as they had been. He thought he would be more nervous with the words he was about to say. The fact that he wasn't let him know just how true they were. "I love you, Jennifer Mason. With every inch of my heart and fiber of my being."

He saw Jennifer smile before she looked down and hid her face with her hair. He brushed his thumb gently across her cheekbone and felt a dampness. He picked up the penny chain and slipped it around her neck.

Jennifer choked out a mixture of a laugh and a sob. "Ow," she let out as the emotions wracked through her sore body. She fiddled with the penny hanging around her neck, gathering her emotions and trying to figure out what to say. Finally she looked up at Duke. "You know, for the first time since I lost my parents, I actually believe the person saying those words to me truly means them. And, for the first time in a long time, I can honestly say I mean it when I say, I love you too, Duke Crocker." She smiled up at him.

Duke leaned down and gently brushed his lips against hers. They lingered together for a brief moment before Duke pulled away and sat back in his chair again. Jennifer leaned back against her pillows and Duke saw she was fighting to keep her eyes open.

He reached out and smoothed down her hair. "The doctor said you should rest. Why don't you try to get some sleep?"

"I'm scared of the nightmares," she admitted quietly. She was no stranger to having her dreams plagued by Alec, although she hadn't had a nightmare since she'd met Duke and ran away to Haven. "I'm afraid that if I close my eyes I'll end up living through it all again."

Duke squeezed her hand. "You have nothing to be afraid of anymore. I'm not going to let him hurt you. Neither will Nathan or Audrey, who are right outside, or Dwight, who I saw had stopped by earlier. By now the entire Haven P.D. will be looking for Alec." It occurred to him that none of the people he just mentioned really knew anything about Alec yet, but he wasn't going to tell Jennifer that. As soon as she was asleep he'd go talk to Nathan and Audrey.

Jennifer looked at Duke with pleading, watery eyes. "Will you lie with me until I fall asleep?"

Duke didn't even bother justifying her question with an answer and just climbed into the bed barely big enough to fit the two of them right next to her, taking her in his arms. She still fought sleep, so he started humming softly to her, and soon enough, she drifted off. When her breathing slowed, Duke gently laid her down on the bed and stepped outside of the room, taking a vacant chair next to Audrey.

She grasped his hand as they sat in silence for a few minutes before Audrey broke it. "How's she doing?"

"Okay, I think. She's in a lot of pain and she's petrified, but I think she's going to be okay."

"And how are you?"

"I'm just about ready to kill someone."

"Do you know who did this to her?"

"Alec. I don't know his last name. He's Jennifer's ex-boyfriend from Boston. She had told me a bit about this abusive boyfriend she used to date, months ago, and then earlier this morning we ran into him downtown on our way to get coffee. You know, with all the troubles I've helped out with, I've never seen anyone as scared as she was when he started talking to her. He wanted to buy her a coffee but I could tell that was the last thing she wanted to do so I got her away from him and we headed home. She told me about him. How he terrorized her, put her in the hospital, and abandoned her when she started to think she was going crazy. I didn't want to leave her when I went to the city, but she insisted she'd be fine and wanted some time alone to think. I should never have left her."

"You forget you left the door open earlier. I heard everything you said to Jennifer. Congrats, by the way. Big steps there," she teased him. A momentary, bashful smile crossed his face. "I know why you did it, why you left her even though you didn't want to and I can't blame you. Jennifer doesn't. And blaming yourself isn't going to help anything. You couldn't have known anything like this would happen."

"I know, I just- I can't stand to see her hurting like this." Audrey gave his hand another squeeze. "Where's Nathan?"

"He went to pick up some stuff for me and him as well as for you and Jennifer. He should be back any minute now." And as if on cue, Nathan rounded the corner and walked up to them.

He handed one bag to Audrey, and another to Duke. "Jennifer left her keys on the bar, so I used them to get some stuff off the boat for the two of you. I hope you don't mind."

"Thanks," Nathan accepted the bag.

"How's Jennifer?"

"She's asleep now. I'll actually give you your seat back. I don't want her to be alone when she wakes up." He threw the bag over his shoulder and headed towards the door.

"One more thing, Duke," Audrey called out.

"Yeah?"

"Dwight was here earlier. He wants to get formal statements from both you and Jennifer whenever she feels up to it. Just let us know."

Duke nodded and headed into Jennifer's room, this time closing the door behind him.

He took Jennifer's hand and watched her sleep, looking more at peace than she had since before they ran into Alec at the coffee shop.

"I grabbed this for you." Nathan handed Audrey her gun.

"Thanks." She accepted it and handed his back to him, both attaching them to their hips before retaking their seats.

Nathan wrapped his arm around Audrey and she leaned into him. "The Gull is swarming with cops. I think Dwight called in every off-duty officer to help out, and it seems like they all jumped at the chance."

"This town really has taken to her. Do you remember how long it took for the people of Haven to really start liking and trusting me as a member of law enforcement?"

"Yeah, well, Jennifer can remember everyone's name."

"Fair enough," Audrey shrugged, remembering how long it took her to finally call Stan by the correct name.

"Plus, she's a lot more creative than Vince and Dave. We've had about one-third of the 'gas leaks' we usually would have since she started working at the Herald."

Audrey laughed in agreement, "I love when she twists a trouble into some social justice piece. Like the spontaneous quicksand that formed in the middle of the town park being a result of global warming and that we should all start paying more attention to our carbon footprints."

Nathan smiled, "Girl's got talent. I'm still not exactly how she spun the piece about the trees that grew to twice normal size and almost fell on that group of partying high schoolers into something about animal rights, but I was still fuming days later."

"Oh I remember! She really is good at distracting people from the troubles."

"Vince and Dave were at the Gull. They wanted to come see Jennifer but I told them she wasn't up for visitors just yet. I told them I'd let them know when she was, but something tells me they're going to show up here tomorrow morning anyways. Did you learn anything new?"

"Just a few basics. His name is Alec and he's Jennifer's abusive ex-boyfriend from Boston. I guess she and Duke ran into him downtown this morning and he tried to talk to her but she refused. I suspect we'll have to wait until Jennifer's ready to learn more."

Nathan pulled out his phone and texted Dwight the new information. "Something tells me this isn't the first time he's done something like this to her."

Unfortunately Audrey had to agree. "Duke did say something about her being unconscious for two days before and said Jennifer mentioned Alec putting her in the hospital. My guess it the two events are related."

"I'll never understand how someone can do that to another person. Especially someone as sweet as Jennifer."

Audrey just shook her head. "I don't know. But it happens more often than you want to think about. And sometimes it ends even worse." Audrey had seen a few really bad domestic abuse cases when she was an FBI agent. She did her best not to think about them.

Audrey needed to move. "I'm going to get a coffee. Do you want one?"

"You can go home and get some rest if you want. I'll take the night watch."

"I won't be able to get anywhere near a decent sleep even if I try. I just need some caffeine."

Nathan understood. He felt the same way. "Make it two then."

Audrey grabbed her wallet out of the bag Nathan had brought and headed down to the cafeteria.

Duke watched as Jennifer's chest slowly rose and fell. She didn't look as peaceful as she usually did while asleep, but she seemed relaxed. Satisfied that Jennifer was okay for the time being, and that she wouldn't fade away if he took his eyes off her, he dug into the bag Nathan had brought him. There was a change of clothes for both him and Jennifer along with toiletries. Nathan had also grabbed Jennifer's Nook and the book he had been reading off their bedside tables. Jennifer's phone wasn't in the bag. The police must have taken it for evidence.

He pulled out his book and started trying to read it, but kept looking up at Jennifer every few minutes to make sure everything was still okay. It wasn't long before he realized her was reading the same paragraph over and over and gave up.

There was a soft knock at the door. He looked over in time to see Audrey step in, holding two cups of coffee and a grocery bag.

"I thought you might be able to use this." She handed him the steaming cup.

"You thought right." He took the cup and blew on it before taking a large sip.

Audrey held up the bag. "These are just some snacks and sandwiches for you and Jennifer. I know you guys missed your dinner so you must be hungry."

"Thanks, Audrey. I really appreciate all you're doing for us. And Nathan."

"Don't worry about it, Duke. What are friends for? Just let us know if there's anything else you need."

Duke gave her an appreciative smile before Audrey quietly made her way out of the room. He quickly drank the rest of the coffee before sitting back in his chair, holding Jennifer's hand. His eyes scanned the monitors around her, stopping on the one measuring her heart rate.

At first it was slow and steady. But then it started to become faster and faster. He looked down at her. He breathing was rapid and shallow. Her eyes moved quickly back and forth behind her eyelids. She was having a nightmare.