'So is everyone in this town a freak or just the lucky ones?"
The alarm clock light blares a red 3:00 am at him as he reaches a panicky arm towards the phone. Before he can choke out 'Wuornos residence' the voice on the other line shrieks "freak" followed by a host of delirious giggles. He's fairly sure he can make out Duke Crocker's laugh amongst the symphony of boys on the other end. Exhausted he goes to place the receiver back into it's cradle just thankful the call did not wake the Chief, when the man himself booms across the line, "If I ever find out who this is I'll have you in lockdown faster than you can say prank call." If this isn't bad enough the biggest injustice comes the next morning when Garland corners him on his way out the door for school. "These phone calls need to stop, Nathan. I don't know what you're doing to antagonize these boys, but you need to figure it out. Toughen up for God's sake. They're waking up your mother and we all know how much she needs her rest."
"Troubled, not freaks; we call them troubled," he pauses to collect himself as he realizes how hostile his tone sounds. "And no, so far as we can tell they only run in some families, not others." It's a pretty good question actually, why some folks seem afflicted and not others, and he reminds himself to bother the Teague brothers about it soon. Doubtlessly they've got some information about the 'who' and 'why' of it all that they're holding close to their chest.
"What about you? You got a 'trouble'?"
"I can't feel anything." Like the idiot he is, he holds his breath waiting for the familiar exchange.
You can't feel anything? Can you feel fire? Ice? You can feel ice!
Instead he gets, "Wicked. Must be nice for police work." He lets out his breath in a small huff. He's going to have to learn to stop expecting things from Lexie, but he can't silence the voice inside of him whispering, 'Be in there; be somewhere in there,' every time he looks at the familiar blue eyes surrounded by foreign dark smudges.
"Not so great for sexy times though, huh?" She presses on; and he thought Audrey talked a lot. Unbidden the memory of Jess Minion's dead kisses come to mind.
"Can you feel that?"
"Everything to gain, and nothing to lose."
But with Audrey, there was everything to lose and he had lost, lost all of it. He wouldn't be able to feel a bullet ripping through his heart, but he could feel this. Not for the first time, he wondered what he was still doing here. Maybe they should have let Jordan blow off his head with that shotgun. Maybe this, being forever in the company of a living and breathing reminder that Audrey was gone, was the punishment he deserved for those 17 lives he'd lost.
"Is that why things were so 'complicated' with you and Audrey?" She pushes on relentlessly despite his obvious discomfort. At least she shares Audrey's tenacity, he thinks humorlessly.
"Audrey was immune to the troubles. I could feel her touch,"
"That day when you kissed my cheek, that was the first time I'd felt anything in a long time."
"I can feel yours too." Her touch was worse than the physical resemblance. A reminder that no one could fake, that Audrey, his version of Audrey, was gone forever. Whereas Audrey's touch had pulled him out of his self-pity and self-imposed exile, Lexie's seemed to push him deeper in. He can't quite control the disappointment he feels as he looks at her now.
"Is that why you loved her, cause you could feel her?"
He remembers the woman's face as he tells her she'll never be able to touch her husband again, sad but not broken.
"It's going to be tough for them," Audrey states.
"Touch isn't everything." Ironically it had been Audrey's touch that had proved this to him.
"I don't know what it is that made Audrey Audrey, but I knew her. I loved her."
"I know who you are. I do, because of you I can…"
Nathan had never wavered on who Audrey was before. Not when her face peered out from a newspaper story decades old, not when a federal agent came to town with her badge and her memories, not even when the sun beamed off her red hair as she flashed him a carefree smile and told him they had time. But this, this time with Lexie had rattled him. He knew Audrey, hair and accent and clothing be damned, he knew her. But Lexie was different. He'd been so sure when he'd dared to imagine the worst, that she'd come back as someone new, he'd been sure he'd see her somewhere in there. But Lexie seemed designed to thwart him. She didn't even like pancakes.
"We should get back to work."
Just then Stan comes into the office. Nathan is relieved to find Stan's presence actually manages to derail Lexie's incessant interrogation of his and Audrey's relationship. As if he needed more reason to be grateful to the other officer. Ever since he's come back to Haven PD Stan's been going out of his way to let Nathan and all the rest of the squad know he doesn't hold Nathan responsible for all that's happened over the last 6 months. Nathan would appreciate it more if he could feel the same.
Still he gives a smile to the other man and a 'thanks' for the coffee he's brought him. He's chuckling to himself over Stan's clear embarrassment over 'Audrey's new look and about to take a sip when sensation floods the side of his hand and Lexie is standing before him grabbing the cup from his grasp.
"Too hot," she says looking down on him. And he'd swear over the cooler of his dead father that he is staring up into Audrey's eyes.
"Too hot. Give it a minute."
"Next time tell Officer Pervert there I take it with 2 creams and a sugar," and she turns away from him the cup in her hands. 'Be in there, Audrey. Please be in there!' he feels like screaming as she walks away from him. He knows he needs to learn to be without her, finally let her go like he couldn't all those months ago. But his heart has not quite learned to do it and as the saying goes, old habit die hard.