Author's Note: Happy Haven Premiere Day! Is anyone else as nervous as I am? I'm afraid all we're going to get is angst, angst, angst, and I'm not sure if my shipper heart will be able to handle it.

To combat that, here's some fluff *and* some plot.

As for the question of how long this is going to be … there's still quite a bit of story left. I'd say around 10 chapters, at least. Although I really hope I can finish this by November. I've been neglecting my original fiction all year, and come November it'll be time to write another novel. But we shall see.

Thanks to everyone who's read, reviewed, followed and favorited. I'm so excited to have broken 100 follows – thank you!

There's a sentence on my father
On my sister, on my brother
There's a terror in the corner
That will make your blood run cold

And it goes back to my blood line
When we tried to walk away
But I want you as my lover
You are where I want to stay

"Turn Me On," The Fray

Half an hour after his father disappeared Duke kicked them out of the Gull with an exaggerated yawn, claiming he had to open the restaurant in the morning. James offered to let them crash upstairs, but Nathan declined. What he needed now was Audrey, and he didn't want to make the kid uncomfortable.

She hadn't said anything to him since Garland faded – no one had – but the warmth and pressure of her hand on his thigh under the table had been a suitable distraction, and she repeated the gesture as soon as they climbed into the Bronco and kept her hand there all the way home. The drive passed quickly since there was no one else on the road at that ungodly hour. It wasn't until they were standing in their bedroom that Audrey broke the silence.

"Are you okay?" she asked softly.

"Yeah," he answered automatically, because that was always the answer expected of him.

She raised one golden eyebrow and frowned.

Only then did he let the enormity of the past two days wash over him. All his father had revealed and the way he'd looked at him caught in a lump in the back of his throat.

"He said he was proud of me," he whispered, his voice a hoarse mess.

She launched herself at him so quickly all he could process was the warmth of her body enveloping his. "Course he was," she said. Her fingers stroked through his hair and he closed his eyes and breathed her in. He'd felt like he was seconds from detonation ever since his father appeared in the station, but she was carefully defusing him. "How could he not be?"

He didn't know how long he stood there, whimpering into her shoulder, before she said, "You know I'm proud of you too, right?"

"Why?"

"Because you're you."

He pulled back slightly so she could see his puzzled expression.

"It's too late for sappy speeches, mister. Ask me again in the morning." With a quick swipe at what must have been a tear on his cheek she spun away from him to get ready for bed.

"We are so playing hooky tomorrow," she said when she emerged from the bathroom. "There's no way I'm going to be at the station in five hours."

"You're a bad influence on me," he teased.

She rolled her eyes. "Oh please. Usually I'm the one telling you we need to get to work."

"Never wanted to stay in bed until you were in it with me."

The snappy reply he expected never came. She blushed and climbed under the covers. "It's too late," she muttered, and he chuckled as he climbed in beside her.

His heart flipped at the sight of her in one of his old t-shirts. He supposed he should prefer her in something slinky or skintight to show off her gorgeous curves. But seeing her in his clothes, even if they were far too big for her slight form, always set off something possessive deep inside him, like by wearing his clothes she was declaring she was his.

Truth was Audrey didn't belong to anyone, and she'd probably smack him for such archaic thinking. But it was still a choice to wrap herself in his stuff and his scent. She could have had any man in Haven, with a body and a mind like hers. But she'd chosen him.

There was no doubt that he belonged to her. She owned him, body and soul. During the mess with the Hunter that had made him angry, because it hadn't seemed fair that she could crush his heart so effortlessly when she didn't even want it. But now that they were finally in sync he was happier than he'd ever been when he was in control.

As she grabbed his hand and guided it to her back he remembered another reason he loved it when she wore his clothes – there was always plenty of room for him to join her. While she was still tentative about expressing her feelings and many other facets of their relationship, she was never shy about telling him what she wanted physically.

Good thing, because he'd never been great at reading cues.

He let himself revel in the softness and warmth of her skin, watched her eyes flutter closed and felt her shiver as he stroked slowly upwards. She brought both her hands to his chest and traced absentminded patterns across his skin in a gesture she probably thought was soothing.

He'd never tell her, but it was impossible for him to sleep when she was doing that. The warmth and pressure of her body pressed against his was comforting, and once he got used to its presence it could lull him off to dreamland. But movement was a distraction his mind couldn't ignore. Her touch was comfort and passion, love and need, a taste of normalcy and something extraordinary all at once, and there was always a moment when his brain and his heart didn't know how to handle it.

It would have been enough to have her golden hair splayed across his pillow, her blue eyes shining at him in the dark as he listened to her breathing and took in the subtle scents of her shampoo and body wash and her. She overwhelmed all his senses, and she was surely more than he deserved. But the fact that she could touch him and bring him back to life meant more than he could possibly put into words. It was a miracle in a place better known for curses, and it bound him to her more strongly than any drug. He would have loved her even if he'd never felt her touch, and been so blessed he couldn't lament what he was missing. But now that he had – there was no force on Earth that could make him give that up.

He closed his eyes and allowed himself to savor the contact. Late as it was, he was in no rush to sleep. Thanks to his affliction he never felt tired. He was not immune to exhaustion – her body collapsed beneath or above his as their hearts hammered in synchrony and his lungs sucked in air while his brain struggled to reboot – she made quite sure to remind him of that often. But simple tiredness from a long day followed by hours of just feeling his partner – he'd never notice it in the morning.

But Audrey would, and her still roaming hands betrayed the fact that she was awake. He opened one eye and then the other to find her staring at him intently.

"Audrey?"

"Are we okay?" she asked.

"We wouldn't we be?" Perhaps he wasn't entirely immune to tiredness after all. He was fairly sure he should know what she was referring to, but his brain was sluggish and the only thing that was entirely clear at that moment was her.

"Because I didn't tell you what Howard said. About how to stop the Troubles."

"By killing me."

She flinched as if he had struck her. "I never considered it," she swore. "Not for a second."

"Course not." It was a ridiculous notion, being afraid of Audrey Parker. "Though maybe you should have."

"Don't!" She sat up quickly but clamped a hand around his arm. "This is why I didn't tell you. I can't listen to this. Killing you is not an option."

He wasn't about to put up an argument why she should. Still... "Would have preferred not to hear it first from my father."

"I am sorry about that. I didn't think you'd ever have to find out."

He frowned, something about her glib honesty making him uncomfortable. "That's the problem. We're okay, Parker. But we need to be honest with each other. Especially with anything about the Troubles. Even if it's not a viable option, it could still be a clue to work this all out. When you find something out, I want to know."

She gnawed on her lip, and he could see the wheels in her head turning. Instead of laying back down she crossed her legs as if she was preparing to be up for awhile. "Last night I went to see your father after you fell asleep," she admitted.

"Why?"

"To give him hell for the way he treated you," she said sharply. She paused, pushing her hair behind her ear. "And to ask him about Lucy."

The fact that she'd never been cowed by the Chief was another thing he loved about her. "Did he tell you anything?"

"Yeah. I'll give you the full rundown in the morning. But he said he didn't tell me about Lucy because she didn't want him to. She wanted me to have a chance to be Audrey."

He'd met Sarah, but he still couldn't imagine Audrey as anything but herself. He knew how her identity crisis plagued her, but in his head it was simple. The Barn could change memories, but it couldn't change her.

"How do you feel about that?" he asked.

He got the impression that the way she linked her hands with his and started playing with his fingers was more to distract herself than him. "I haven't decided yet. I went to see him thinking I would have wanted more time to work this out – but there's no guarantee we would have even if your father was straight with me from the beginning. When I first found out about Lucy – that shook me. But you and Duke were there to cheer me up and keep me grounded. If I'd found out before we were close, I don't know how I would have dealt with that."

"I would have been there for you no matter when you found out."

"Even when I was just the pain in the ass FBI agent digging around in all your secrets?"

"You intrigued me from the moment we met. After our first few cases I would have done anything you needed." He felt like maybe he was revealing too much. They'd never talked about how fast and hard he'd fallen. He'd been ready to admit it, back at dinner and pancakes, but after that all went to hell there had never been a good opportunity.

She smiled at him but she looked down quickly at their joined hands. Her thumb skimmed the sensitive skin on his palm.

"It was weird to hear your father talk about Lucy," she admitted, still not looking at him. "I had this whole other life, right here, and I only remember a few snatches of it."

He could sense she was tired of being the center of attention, but she wasn't quite ready to fall asleep. And she wasn't the only one who'd learned something from the Chief's visit. "He told me how my mother died."

Now she looked at him as her hand stilled and squeezed his. "Do you want to talk about it?"

He shook his head. "Tomorrow. Maybe." She was the only one he could possibly imagine telling, but it was still so raw, even though he only had his father's recounting. If he could actually see her lying there… A shiver passed through him involuntarily. "He said Vince tampered with my memory so I wouldn't remember."

"The Teagues are the ones wiping memories?" she asked in her detective voice.

"Yeah. Makes sense too. With Vince's ties to the Guard, he'd be poised to clean up after them."

"And the paper's the perfect cover. They snoop around, 'investigating' any suspicious activities, and they can wipe anyone who knows something they shouldn't."

"While they fly under the radar and pretend to be harmless old men, which we've seen isn't true."

"I'll have to talk to them tomorrow."

"Want me to come along?" he offered.

"Because that went so well the last time?" She paused a moment to let him remember that train wreck. He hadn't thought she'd been coherent enough to tease him about it. "Nah, I'll go alone. I've got a theory."

"Care to share?"

"I'll tell you tomorrow after I test it."

Yawning widely, she sunk back against the pillow and wriggled into position. Her body heat was radiating toward him, but in his estimation she was still too far away. He resisted the urge to pull her closer. Focused on the day's other revelations instead.

"Dad said Lucy came to see me after Mom died."

He could hear her breath catch. "What did she do?"

He reached a hand toward her shoulder to demonstrate. "She touched me."

Audrey stared.

"Not in a creepy pedophile way."

She snorted and smacked his shoulder lightly. "Obviously." She was smirking at him, but he'd shaken her, he could see it.

"I lost my sense of touch when I watched my mother die. Then Lucy came and held me together. Just like you did earlier."

"She knew you were James father," she concluded.

"I think so." It was the only theory that made sense. The thought of her looking out for him when he'd needed it most – even though she'd been someone else and he'd been a kid – warmed him from the inside out, like his mother's chicken noodle soup on a blustery day.

"Did you tell Sarah your last name?"

"Yeah."

"Her letter must have told Lucy to find you."

"There's more." He tugged at the chain where it laid on his chest. "We were right. She gave my father this ring to give to me."

"Did she say why?"

"No." It wasn't a lie, but he couldn't help recalling his father's words. Only one thing a man does with a ring like that. In that moment he'd pictured it – Audrey in a simple white dress, a lily in her hair, promising to spend the rest of her life with him – and now the image would haunt him until he found a way to make it reality. If only they weren't constantly distracted by curses, quests, and crime. She'd spook if he asked her now. Between her childhood as an orphan and the fact she'd never really lived it commitment didn't come easy to her. She'd think he was desperate, and she wouldn't be wrong. But if they made it through the next four months and finally put a stop to all this then they could slow down and do things right. He was sure he could convince her, eventually. What they needed was time.

"One more mystery," she said wistfully. She was wearing down, he could tell, and truth was sleep seemed mighty appealing to him too.

"We'll figure it out in the morning."

"Or just come up with five more questions." She seemed to stretch, but when her arm extended it grabbed on to his and tugged. "Come 'ere."

He didn't need telling twice. He let her position him like a mannequin, throwing his arm around her waist and kicking his legs out of her space.

"Better?" she slurred from above his heart.

Her shoulder dug into his chest and her hair tickled and it was glorious. "Much."

She chuckled, and the vibrations went right through him like magic. "Love you."

"Love you too," he echoed.

It was hard to have a bad day when it ended like this.

Audrey's morning began with a wild goose chase. Figuring she might as well skip the station entirely and let Nathan catch up with some of his paperwork, she went directly to the Herald office. A hand-written sign taped to the door informed her that the place was closed for the day.

She tried the Haven Hunt Club next and found Dave there shooting the breeze. The other club members didn't hide their disdain at her appearance, and she yearned for the days where she could fire off a few perfect shots and win their approval. Instead she resigned herself to their anger and asked him where she might find his brother. He seemed relieved to be rid of her, and she knew she'd been right to target Vince.

She found him on the beach near where Garland had exploded, where the Colorado Kid had been found, where Nathan and Sarah had kissed – where it sometimes seemed like nearly everything important in her life happened. He sat in the sand facing the water with a sketchbook on his knees. The fact that he'd sketched the waves in charcoal gave them a particular stormy appearance.

She sat down beside him, facing the ocean but watching him out of the corner of her eye. "You're the one making people forget things," she said conversationally.

He didn't startle, even though he hadn't reacted to her approach. His hand stilled, but he didn't look at her. But she noticed how old and weary he seemed, as if more than two years had passed since she went away. The starkness of his drawing told her more than the wrinkles around his eyes. "Where did you acquire that piece of information?" he asked, as if he'd been resigned to her finding out eventually.

"Nathan's father."

His head snapped quickly to the side, his bushy eyebrows furrowed. "Garland's back?"

"Not anymore. Bernie had a little fun – but the Chief faded like the rest of his tricks. But not before telling me you're the reason Nathan doesn't remember Max Hansen. Why did you do that?"

"Because she asked me to." There was only one she the pronoun could be referring to. He said it like she should have known, but there was nothing obvious in this town.

"Lucy?" she asked in wonder.

"Course," he said gruffly. "She was real shook up, and it took a lot to shake that woman. She said Garland's boy needed my help. It wasn't a for hire service – but she was insistent."

"You loved her," she concluded. The brothers' behavior started to make more sense once she'd realized that. "You and Dave both. That's why you freaked out on Nathan for abandoning Sarah."

"It was impossible not to," he admitted, the master of spin suddenly painfully honest. "This crazy town, and the girl took it in stride. Even being pregnant and unmarried. Everyone talked, and it didn't phase her. She wasn't ashamed. She had guts."

"She never told you who James father was? Not even a hint?"

"Not until she was leaving. 'His father hasn't even been born yet,' she said, before she disappeared into a legend and a mystery." He looked away to watch the waves break across the shore. "I didn't believe her. Truth was I always thought Dave was the father and even she didn't know it. I expect he thought the same about me."

There was something ugly about Vince's words that she wanted to shy away from. When she'd first come to Haven Vince and Dave had been like the grandfathers she'd never had. The bumbling was a façade – she'd seen that on her last terrible day in Haven. But she preferred it to the reality that Vince could lead a militant underground group, and the brothers were capable of turning on each other at any moment and either might have gotten Sarah pregnant and then made her forget to cover their tracks.

She must not have done a convincing job hiding her disgust.

"You might think our Trouble is less dangerous than others you've seen. We've never killed anyone accidently. But what we kill is the certainty in someone's mind that what they've experienced is true. And that can be a terrible thing."

She understood the gaping maw of missing memories, and how not knowing who you've been could wreak havoc on all your beliefs. Her identity crisis was about as subtle as a freight train. But she remembered how tentative Nathan had been when he'd first told her he didn't remember his mother's death or his biological father. When they'd finally pulled themselves out of bed this morning he'd needed to run off to the station, but he'd promised they'd talk about all they'd learned as soon as he was off shift. But she could see how much the topic of his tampered memories bothered him, and he was a pretty difficult man to shake when her safety wasn't involved. It was if the sanctity of his mind had been violated, and she understood why that would make anyone squirm.

She wasn't sure it was worse than murdering people for their skins or making them combust, though.

"I need your help." There was no use pretending she was here for anything but that. She'd wanted to confirm her theory, but self preservation was far stronger than her curiosity.

"I got in a lot of trouble for my interference last time," he said sharply. "Worse yet, I went against Sarah's wishes. She would be furious about all the lives ruined on her behalf. You should be, instead of asking me to do it again."

She knew she had to placate him. "You're the one making sure no outsiders tell the world about Haven. You've been running damage control to keep the Guard in check."

He puffed up like a porcupine. "Least I could do. Haven's a powder keg, and if the outside world finds out the whole place will explode."

"You're protecting the town, just like Sarah wanted. I get that. But if I don't find a way to stop the Troubles in four months the Guard's going to kill me and everyone I care about."

"Shoulda thought of that before messing up the natural order of things. I can't stop them even if I wanted to. They know what I can do, and they have safeguards against it. I won't interfere again. I should have learned my lesson last time."

Before she went away she'd never realized that it was guilt that drove the Teagues. She'd thought they were just born cantankerous and ornery, or became that way as age set in. Now she couldn't help but look at Vince and think of Nathan. Is this what he would have become in sixty years?

Maybe she had an inflated sense of self-importance, but she didn't think he'd have lasted that long.

"Do you think Sarah wanted to die?" she asked softly. Because even if this man was bitter and standing in her way, Sarah had cared for him once, and it was her fate that had turned him into what he'd become.

"She wanted to protect this town and everyone in it. She was willing to leave her own son to do so! But Lucy ran and you – I don't know what went wrong."

Nor did she, really. Her love for Nathan didn't make sense but she knew that it defied all this.

"I don't think Sarah wanted to go into that Barn. But I think she knew she couldn't stop this – not yet. But Nathan and I, together – I think that we can. But I don't know how, and I don't have much time to figure it out. If the Guard kills me, maybe I'll pay for my crimes, but the Troubled are just going to keep on suffering forever. Sarah certainly wouldn't have wanted that. Do you want to live with that on your conscience? Because I don't."

She waited, just like she'd been taught in Quantico, hoping the silence would make him break, but she caved first. He was stony as the coastline, and she was as desperate as a beached whale.

"Please, Vince. If you loved her, don't let her sacrifice go unrewarded. I do have to help this town. And I want to live. I think she wanted that too. I think she wanted more than anything to raise her child but she knew that she couldn't. But she sent James to look for Lucy. There had to be a reason for that, when he was surely safer staying far away from this place. Maybe she knew that Lucy wouldn't be able to stay either. But I think Lucy discovered that I would be different. Maybe she didn't like that I'd get to stay when she needed to go – maybe that's why she ran. Maybe she was just scared. But I need to know what she did."

He sighed as if the entire weight of the world was in that singular exhale of breath. "I didn't spend much time with Lucy. It was too painful. We were old men to her. Too old to be in the thick of the Troubles. That's why we sent her to Garland."

"He told me about Lucy," she said. "But he didn't know anything about how she could stay. Said she ran around a lot with James, looking for something."

"You should ask the boy, then."

"Funny thing, though. I have. He remembers the Troubles we encountered and how Lucy helped. He knows Sarah left a journal for Lucy that he knows he read. But he can't recall what Sarah wanted Lucy to do. Can't remember a thing about what they were looking for."

"I'm not the only possible cause of that," he said quickly, as if offended by her implication.

"Are you saying I should talk to Dave?"

"I'm saying the kid spent time in the Barn, and you're case in point of what that place can do."

"The Barn's never been so selective with my memories."

"You have a different purpose than he does. Maybe the Barn protects the cycle."

All these maybes got her nowhere. She hated that she was back home and finally with Nathan and she was still living with an expiration date. "So there's nothing you can give me? I know you know more than you're saying. You always do."

"When Lucy wasn't at the station, I sometimes saw her around town with Eleanor Carr."

"Julia's mom?"

"Of course. Interesting Trouble that family has. It's said that when they get too close to someone they can see their worse memory."

She thought of the medical examiner and narrowed her eyes. "Even if the person is dead?"

Vince chuckled. "That would almost be cheating, wouldn't it?"

"You think Eleanor saw Lucy's worst memory?" Audrey asked, latching on to the possibilities that could create. She wondered what the woman had seen when they'd first met. If their previous friendship was why she'd seemed to take pity on her and tried to help her fit in. "Would she have told Julia?"

"Oh I doubt it. Those two fought like gulls and toddler squabbling over potato chips. Julia was always running off somewhere long before she went to Africa."

But Eleanor was lost, another victim to the Troubles like so many others. She'd like the woman, but she had died so early into her stay in Haven she never wondered if she'd known Lucy. "Then I'm not sure how this will help me, unless I write a story and get Bernie to do me a favor." Come to think of it, that wasn't so bad a plan, though maybe this wasn't the situation to try it with.

"Isn't Bernie that needs to do the reading. From what I recall Eleanor Carr always took meticulous notes."

Of course. She'd seen the ME make observations in the well bound notebooks she preferred, had even been in Eleanor's house and saw a bookshelf full of them. If she and Lucy had been friends – and Eleanor had known most of the townsfolk's secrets – who knew how many answers she could find. "Thank you!" she exclaimed, practically gushing. She wanted to throw her arms around the man – but he wasn't her grandfather and given everything she knew, that wouldn't be appropriate. "I'm sorry for – I'm just sorry."

He narrowed his eyes, examining her with something she couldn't decipher. "Sometimes I can't decide if you're nothing at all like Sarah or exactly the same."

Sometimes she wondered the very same thing. "Did Sarah really believe she was the cause of all this?" she asked.

He shook his head slowly. "No. Dave and I told her the same story we told you. But she said it didn't seem true – and she always trusted her instincts."

She wished she was as certain. Trouble was her instincts were telling her she'd do anything to hold on to Nathan.

She rose, brushing the sand off herself. He stared out into the ocean. The tide was coming in.

"I'm sorry that Sarah never loved you the way you deserved. But she was in love with Nathan before you even met. I think maybe that was as inevitable as the Barn coming for her."

He didn't look at her, so she saw his melancholy in profile. Once again she thought of Nathan.

"I meant what I said. I can't hold the Guard back anymore. And they're anxious for vengeance. Mr. Smith is not a man to be trifled with."

But her instincts were telling her she didn't have to worry about him. "I'll put this all right." She leaned down and tapped his sketchpad. "You should add some color to that."

He looked at her then, and his eyes were misty. "She always had hope too, Sarah did. Until her very last moments."

Audrey was glad she now knew that Vince's Trouble wasn't premonition. But there was still something in his tone that made her shudder.

And I don't know what it is, what it is, what it is about you
What it is, what it is but ohhh
The way you movin'ohh
You turn me on, I wanna touch you till we're burning
Ohhhh you turn me on

Okay, so maybe I'm a little too worried about tonight's episode! But I did get this posted before I saw it, which was my goal. If things go bad tonight, can you leave me some reviews to lift my spirits? Or if things go awesomely tonight, we can gush about it together?

Happy watching, everyone!