There was a knock at the door and Duke shouted for them to use their key, keeping Mara wrapped up in his lap.
Audrey led the way in, a laptop under her arm, and Nathan held up two six packs of ginger ale, opening one and offering it to Mara. She reached to take it and growled under her breath when her fingers wouldn't bend. "Would you just put that on the table for me, please?"
"Sure, Mara. You feeling any better?" Nathan's eyes were gentle and a little sad as he looked at her.
"Nobody ever feels better the first day after an injury. The first three days are the worst, after that you start improving. But the drugs Gloria gave me are lovely."
Duke narrowed his eyes at Nathan. "Mara was just telling me about your fondness for shock belts, Nate."
Nathan blushed dark red and rubbed the back of his neck. "I thought she-" Nathan sighed and looked at the ceiling before looking down at Mara again. "I'm sorry, Mara. I shouldn't have shocked you."
She grinned at him. "I've handled tougher than you and your joy buzzer, Wuornos. We're good."
He smiled back at her. "Thanks."
"What about shocks, now?" Audrey looked up from the computer, where she was typing.
"Show her!" Duke urged. Mara smiled, shaking her head in amusement and letting Duke's new favorite video play.
Audrey looked honestly shocked and angry, opening her mouth to yell at Nathan when Mara said, "Wait for it."
When Mara and Nathan started bickering in the video, Duke cracked up again and Audrey pressed her hand to her mouth, trying to conceal her laughter. "Honestly, you two are ridiculous. I'm surprised Mara didn't develop some kind of tic from all that electricity."
"I said I was sorry!"
"Too late, Nate. Now that I know she can record memories, you'll never be able to lie your way out of anything again."
"I'll still cover for you if it's something good. Or if you bribe me."
Nathan shook his head and walked into the kitchen, coming back with an ice pack wrapped in a clean dish towel. "For your hands. Might help with the swelling."
Mara looked up with a smile. "Thank you, Nathan. Sit down. What's with the computer, Audrey? Usually you only play games at work."
"Nathan plays more than I do, and I'm not playing a game. I have the security footage from last night, I thought you'd want to see."
She didn't. She really didn't. But it was obvious from his expression that Duke did, so Mara sat silently as Audrey finally found the right spot and brought the computer over, sitting next to them on the couch and tilting the screen to them.
Breathing slowly, Mara tried to keep herself distant as the video started, seeing herself come out of the bar and taking her knife out. But she found herself morbidly curious- because she looked like Lexie, it was a little easier to distance herself, to pretend it was just happening to another personality. When the fighting started, she actually admired 'Lexie'; her grace, speed and agility really were almost beautiful.
Duke was staring in rapt fascination, and his arms tightened around Mara when she fell. He didn't look away, occasionally twitching like his body was imagining what it would have done if he'd been out there. She could feel his angry shaking when her clothes were being torn at, and he smiled viciously when he saw Mara break the survivor's nose and end the last attacker.
Mara took a deep breath, blowing it out slowly and keeping her expression impassive. "What does this mean for me?"
Audrey thought over her words before she spoke. "Since the image quality is mediocre and you can't really make out the other two bodies, we've found there's some kind of interference, probably from the storm, in the middle of the video. Nobody will see what happened to the other two, but you can clearly see that they attacked you without provocation, so we'll just have to go by the autopsy reports that Gloria filed. It means that you're free. The last one is currently in the Freddie, because honestly- nobody is going to believe that a girl's eyes turned red and that she 'used magic' on the other two."
Nathan leaned forward. "All you need to focus on now is getting well. Once the paperwork is done, your part of the case is closed."
She nodded, leaning into Duke. She felt odd, a little nauseated and she was starting to shake. Mara wondered briefly if she was having a bad reaction to the medication. "Good. That's good."
Duke's eyes flashed to hers. "What's wrong, Mara? You're shaking."
"I-" she leaned forward a little, wrapping her arms around her middle. "I don't feel very well."
"It's probably shock, maybe you shouldn't have watched the video." He rubbed his hands up and down her arms, trying to warm her up.
"Not shock," Mara gasped, "something's not..."
She lurched forward, only staying upright because Duke's arms were still holding her tight. Her body arched back in an unnatural angle before her spine snapped straight again. Nathan stood quickly, hand already on his gun as he stared intently.
Mara's head jerked back and forth for a minute, like she was seeing something invisible to the others. Her blue eyes turned black as pitch, wheeling blindly and her jaw opened wide. The chaotic roar of the music of the Void poured from her mouth. When she spoke, her lips didn't move, the sound coming from somewhere in her chest, her voice- yet not her voice, too masculine by far to sound like Mara's throaty purr- sounded staticy, like it was coming from a broken radio. The voice was hard to make out, but the cadence and inflection, the tone humorous even with serious words, was painfully familiar.
"In two days, at exactly 12:34- pm, to civilians- you need to open the door. Say it with me now, at 12:34, you must open the door. If I get splattered again because you Luddites forget to put a battery in your watch, I will be, say it with me, unhappy! That's right, boys and girls, unhappy. So far, you haven't seen me unhappy, so I gotta tell ya, spoiler alert- you just won't like it. So! We're gonna try this again. But I gotta say, I'm starting to get just the teeniest bit worried that you're slower on the uptake than I thought.
"The first splatter, eh, whatever- that one's a gimme. The second splatter, I figured what the hell, maybe you're just not listening to her. By the sixth splatter, I started wondering if you got trigger happy and put a hole in her, but I checked once I got un-splattered and nope, same number of holes I had before the splatter.
"Now, I know this girl better than anyone, and I know she didn't just give up and she could talk the Pope into going down on her in the Vatican. So it's not on her. I think the smart money is on- are you listening? You are, aren't you? Do I sound sexy? Do I have a voice for radio or what?- smart money is on interference!
"Now, that technically could be any number of things. Hurricanes, earthquakes, general calamity- I mean, it is Haven. But if it got in her way, sidelined her? I'm thinking fingers in pies they shouldn't be in, if you catch my drift. Oh, you have dirty minds, I like it. So we have the usual suspects. I wonder who it is? I predict... Mommy Dearest. If I'm right, you owe me 20 bucks. If it's someone else, well, you just get bragging rights. I seem to have lost my wallet during the fourth splatter.
"Listen, I told you I like you guys, but if I splatter again, I'm taking Crocker and Wuornos off my Christmas card list. I'm serious guys, the newsletter and everything. Don't test me. Oh, one more quick warning before I go. If either Mara or Audrey- congrats on that, by the way. We're technically triplets now. Mazel tov! If either of them has a kid in hand with no ring on their finger when I get there, I'll show you what else I can use a cigar trimmer on. Kiss my girls for me. No tongue, 'cause that'd be weird. Well, okay, a little tongue, maybe some over-the-clothes action. But that's all.
"Repeat again! At 12:34 you must what? That's right! Open the door. 2 days. Big money, no splatters. This message will self-destruct in 10 seconds. Nah, I'm kidding, it'll just repeat. That'd be stupid, I'd deserve the splatter for that, am I right?"
The old song 'I'll Be Seeing You' played for a moment, and Mara shook, choking and gagging until an orb fell from her mouth as her eyes turned blue and finally focused. "Duke? What happened? Oh gods, my head hurts."
Duke was frantic, and Audrey had rushed to drop to her knees at their feet, her hands on Mara's legs. Nathan was still staring, but his hand moved slowly from his holster so he could lay it supportively on Duke's shoulder, squeezing.
"Mara, baby are you okay? Fucking hell, what just happened?"
She gazed at them all in confusion, and Audrey carefully picked up the orb that had fallen from Mara's mouth. Her eyes were tight, expression tense, but her voice was quiet and strong. "That was William's voice. I'd know it anywhere."
Pressing the heels of her purple hands against her aching head, Mara looked at Audrey. "What voice? Someone tell me what happened, please!"
Audrey held her hand out, the orb sitting on her palm. "You said you felt wrong and then you kind of... contorted. Your eyes were empty but they were spinning around, almost like a seizure, and then the noise started coming out of your mouth even though your lips weren't moving. It- it sounded like what I heard in the Void. Then it turned into words. When it ended, you looked like you were going to throw up and the orb fell out of your mouth."
Mara held the orb up, staring at it for a moment before bringing the fingers of her splinted hand up and crushing it between her stiff fingers. The message played again, this time from her blackened hand.
She narrowed her eyes in concentration as she listened and when it was over, she scrubbed her hands together, trying to re-form the orb. After a minute of trying to rub her fingers together, Mara huffed and let it absorb, stretching as the Aether tried to fit inside her. When it settled in and her shaking stopped, she melted against Duke, exhausted.
"Audrey's right, that's William. He's the only one but me who calls closed-door Void contact 'splatters'. He can't open doors, he has to have me to do that. That's why the door had to be open for Lexie-Audrey to get back from the Barn. I wasn't in control of the door with her dominant. He's been trying to get back but the Thinnies are locked and the door is closed. He must have been desperate to get the message to us quickly, so he swallowed the orb, knowing the bond would force it to work through me. He's coming home." She smiled softly, nuzzling Duke's neck.
Nathan stared at Mara like she'd lost her mind. "Isn't that a Very Bad Thing? He's the one who gave you to Charlotte, right?"
"I didn't get a chance to tell you, I'm sorry. I sent messenger orbs with hidden test coding. To see if maybe Momma had somehow done something to force him to comply, a little like what she's doing to me right now. I got the first orb back last night, and it showed no evidence of deceit. She did something to him. It sounds like he wasn't even aware of a lot of it. I understand he scares you and you don't trust him, but she did something to him. He felt horribly guilty, he was desperate to pull me up and he thought I'd get control and manage to fix the Harker's. He was trying to save me.
"I'm not asking you to trust him or forgive him, but he's experienced with Aether-surgery, he's operated on me a dozen times. I know how scared you are to do it, Audrey. He's the best chance we have of getting the implant out of me and even getting rid of Momma. If I can figure out how she was controlling him I can fix it so she can't do it again. Right now, he's our best hope. I know he scared you, but he's not Momma, and she's not going to just stop coming after me."
Duke kissed her head. "It's okay, beautiful. We agreed on this." He looked between Nathan and Audrey. "He could save my family, guys. Please, for me and for Mara, for our kid. If she says he's okay, I trust her. Fuck, Nate- hasn't she suffered enough?"
Mara gazed at Nathan and he stared back for several moments. Finally he reached out to stroke her hair. "Your word is good enough for me."
She smiled up at him, blinking back tears. "Thank you, Nathan. Thank you." She cocked her head and looked down at Audrey. "What about you?"
"He was only messing with me to get to you. I know you'd never risk Duke or your baby. I trust your judgement."
Mara's eyes slipped closed and she breathed deeply. "Thank you. I give you my word, if I'm somehow wrong about him, I'll handle it. I won't let anyone get hurt. But I really, really want you to know who he used to be."
Duke hugged her gently and looked at Audrey. "Will you please get the meds from my nightstand? Just the liquid and the hydromorphone, she's got awhile before she needs the anti-inflammatory. It's a little early, but she can't relax with her head pounding."
"Sure, of course." Audrey hopped up and headed for the bathroom and Nathan went to the kitchen to get her a straw for her ginger ale.
Mara raised her eyebrows at Duke, whispering, "Did you see that? You spoke and they just did. Did I step into some kind of alternate dimension? Are you a cop? I didn't hear a single argument!"
Duke had to press his face against Mara's shoulder to hide his laughter, still grinning when Audrey gave him the bottles and he fed Mara more medicine. "Watch out, Crocker. I might decide I like this thing with you waiting on me hand and foot." She cocked her head and squinted, pressing her lips to his ear to mutter, "I'd certainly like you to wait on other parts of me."
He coughed hard, turning red as Nathan slipped the straw into Mara's drink. She smiled sweetly, a devilish look in her eye as she thanked Nathan.
Nathan took a seat and Audrey sat next to him, holding his hand. He was obviously mulling something over in his mind, and he finally gave in and asked. "What's a 'splatter' and what does it do, Mara?"
"When you're traveling the Void, you have to either be able to open doors or have someone to open them for you. I can open doors and William can't, so he relies on me for that. When you try to go through a closed door or, it's way worse that trying to go through a locked Thinny. That gives you a painful shock. Hitting a closed door, though, that's like hitting a brick wall while you're going 200 miles an hour. It feels like your body hits the door and you turn inside out, eventually re-forming facing away from the door. It's incredibly painful and for him to have done it six times and be willing to try again... he really, really wants to get home. He wouldn't put himself through that just for Momma, there's no way."
Duke looked at her curiously. "Have you ever splattered?"
"Absolutely. I was the one who first started calling them that. Remember how I told you about my time trapped in the Void? It didn't take me six human years to find the way home, it took that long to learn how to open doors. The first time I did it it took a solid hour of honing my Intent enough to force the door open, and I was full of Aether then. Like I said, I'd been wounded and I'd been so sick for awhile, and the Void is full of Aether, so it tried to help me.
"Now I can open a door on the fly, without any preparation at all. My mother... she's an awful person. A monster. But she did make me stronger, I'll give her that much."
"Bullshit." Duke frowned broodingly. "She didn't make you stronger, you made you stronger. All she did was hurt you and scare you and play god with your life. And why? Because she's obsessed with Aether and she's jealous that it will work with you and not her. She's been using you to try to get power for herself. She hasn't done a damn thing for you. You made yourself, Mara. And she's petty and spiteful and hates that you're stronger than her. And that's not just the Aether.
"Mara, you're stronger than her. That cowardly bitch sent four big guys after you, she thought she'd force you to submit to superior strength. But you won. You lived, and you saved our baby. I hate that you're so hurt, but at the same time, I'm so, so proud of you. Seeing that video..." He shook his head. "You were... you were glorious. The ways you were moving, the speed- especially knowing that the implant was live, bad enough that you were silent and you just kept fighting, it was one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen. It blew my mind, and even the guys you used the Aether on, you were so damn fast I could barely even see your hand moving.
"The closest I've ever seen, the only comparison I could make is when River was fighting the Reavers in Serenity. That scene was beautiful, but it was choreographed and rehearsed. You didn't even have time to think, and seeing something like that in real life, it's just humbling. I'm good in a fight, but you made that look beautiful."
Mara blinked, blushing slightly. It was strange to be complimented on something like killing, but the rational, scientific part of her understood what he was saying. People- humans, especially- were fascinated by violence, and sexuality was so closely related. Seeing real battle with smooth, sinuous movement, a woman at the center of that maelstrom of violence; it hit all the major areas of primal attraction in the species.
"Thank you. I appreciate that so much. I am still sorry, I hate breaking a promise, but I thank you all for being so kind and understanding."
Nathan hesitated, but finally asked, "How did you learn to fight like that, Mara? I always wondered, since you can use Aether, how did you get so good at fighting?"
She smiled gently at Nathan. "It was mandatory. I had to take lessons in hand to hand combat, blades, staffs, swords... five times a week every week. It was before I got put in the Barn, but I don't forget things and I've had a lot of call to practice in each life. It's part of the reason I had so much trouble with that fight. In my lessons, we were taught that if you have to fight, you had to make sure your adversary stayed down. That meant fighting to kill. The idea was that any case that required physical combat was, by necessity, life and death. To save yourself, you had to keep the other person from getting up. When you leave an enemy alive, you're just prolonging another inevitable confrontation.
"The reason I had to learn even though I primarily use Aether is because there is always a chance I could get stuck somewhere and not have extra Aether to use. Which is exactly what happened. Why I had to plot and scheme to get the Aether to save Duke. If I get trapped without extra Aether and I don't know how to fight? I'm a walking target. Because of my uniqueness, I was drilled relentlessly. I was deemed too important to be risked, but not important enough to be free. William was trained too, but he's much better with a gun or blade than hand-to-hand. He's one of the best swordsmen I've ever seen. He once killed between 13 to 17 people- I never got an exact count- in less than the three minutes I was unconcious, when I was in danger."
The medication was finally forcing the headache back, and Mara relaxed, curled up in Duke's lap. Duke smiled wryly. "His message was pretty funny. Has he always been like that?"
Mara's smile was fond. "Pretty much. It started as a way to cheer me up. I told you that I feel everything from the Aether, that I could feel the pain the damage was doing. Even before Samuel, I would fall into these depressive states sometimes, and he'd say something shocking just to make me laugh. It happened more and more as we grew and now it's just... part of him. It's his coping mechanism. In that message, for instance, I could hear his honest fear of getting splattered again, his fear that Momma's done something really bad to me, his joy that Audrey got to live and I got to live too, and his ridiculous protective streak. It was an apology, too. If he could make you laugh, in his mind that wipes away one time he scared you or made you cry.
"Also, I could feel his sorrow over what he'd done. He talked about me like I'm some kind of amazing, unstoppable force. Yes, I can usually talk people into things, but I think the Pope example was a little extreme. He's trying to show his faith in me, his acceptance and honest happiness that Audrey could live and stay separate from me, that he trusted you guys and that he loved us and was sorry all in one message."
Duke kissed her shoulder. "So, the whole baby warning, he did specifically say 'in hand' and not 'in utero', so does that mean I'm safe, or do I have to start hiding the cigar trimmers?"
She rolled her eyes. "He has no say in that department and he knows better than to hurt someone I'm in love with. My William, not the William Momma controlled. He'd never hurt you knowing it would hurt me. He's just doing the 'man of the family' bit, trying to protect me. But I can protect myself. You only just figured out I'm actually in love with you, I'll not have William scaring you off with talk about rings. Besides," she held up her hands, "I can't wear any rings right now, even if they hadn't all gotten cut off. That part makes me a little sad. I loved some of those rings, and Lexie loved them."
Mara shrugged, trying to think of a way to steer them from talk of marriage. She loved Duke and trusted him, but she was still her and she wasn't like them. She wasn't the kind of girl people married. She wanted Duke to settle into the idea of fatherhood. Ideally, she wanted him to want to keep her even after the implant was out and the baby safe. But a human wasn't going to choose to marry and settle down with someone like her.
"Don't be sad. I'm sure we can get them fixed, Mara. There's like 3 jewelers in town."
"Duke, did you see them? They weren't expensive rings to start with, they didn't hold up well. It's not a big deal, no more so than the clothes. Just a passing thought."
He smiled and touched her nose. "At least you still have this."
"Mm. Good point. Hey, Audrey, I told Duke, but I want you to know I'm going to keep my hair long, I want an obvious, visible difference between me and you. I don't want you getting hurt because of me. But you still have to be careful. William is right, you and I are genetically alike, Charlotte could come after you, too. Please stay near Nathan. I know you can take care of yourself, but so can I. That still didn't work out great."
"Don't worry about me. I'll be careful. Do you think he was serious about the whole 'triplet' thing?"
"I do. And he's right. Since we're the same genetically, it's no different than being an identical twin. Hell, that's why I called you for help in the first place. You were the closest thing I had to a sibling and... I was lonely and scared. I've been thinking of you that way since I called you."
Audrey smiled slowly, her eyes lighting up. "I never had a family, and now I have siblings. Wow."
Mara laughed. "I'm going to have to kill your mother though. Sorry. Not really. I'm not sorry at all."
They were laughing when there was a knock at the door. They looked around at each other and Nathan drew his sidearm, approaching the door. "Who is it?"
Vince's voice rumbled through the door. "It's me and Dave. We heard that Mara was injured. We just want to check on her. Dwight is with us."
Duke sighed deeply. "I can send them away if you want."
Mara shook her head with a grimace. "No, let them in. I owe them."
Nathan went to open the door for them and Mara's stomach rumbled loudly. She pressed her hand against it, blushing. "Baby is hungry."
"Well then, I guess the crew can stay for lunch."
"What the hell. I knew I'd have to face them at some point."
Duke pressed his lips to her ear and whispered. "Don't worry. I'm with you. Long-haul, Mara."
She tilted her head, searching his face. "You mean that?"
His smile stole her breath. "Yeah, I do. I've been looking for you for a long time. I'm not letting go now."
Hope and happiness swirled inside her. Almost a thousand years of existence, and her life was finally beginning.