Duke went topside with the intention of just taking a long walk, possibly off a short pier, but found that his knees weren't as steady as he'd hoped they'd be, so he crashed on the couch, disgusted with his inability to keep it in his pants for more than a week. He'd betrayed Audrey as surely as if he'd cheated on her. Maybe what Nathan had told her when she first came to town was right: he was unreliable and untrustworthy. Maybe Audrey should have been with him, Mr. Law and Order, and together they could have saved her life and saved the town and left him out of it. If Mara was Lady Hitler, then he was Mr. Eva Braun.

But, even if it was evil, it wasn't weird, Duke argued with himself. Mara was literally Audrey's identical twin. Her mind had been inside Audrey's and Audrey's was inside Mara's. On some level, they were the same person. Yep, not weird at all.

They didn't establish how long he had to be nice to Mara, but presumably long enough to make their breaking up look natural and not fake. The problem was that Mara would likely not accept breaking up. Well, that would certainly make fights look natural.

Duke sighed. This was his fault. He had freaked out seeing Mara look so much like Audrey. Mara hadn't actually done anything wrong. For once.

He sighed again and went back inside. He found Mara in front of the computer browsing a clothing website. She was wearing a robe and nothing else.

"I'm—I—" Duke couldn't bring himself to apologize for fucking her and then walking away. "Dinner isn't burned or anything, is it?"

Mara smiled. "It isn't, lover."

Duke bit back a snarl. It was true, they were now lovers. He smiled instead.

"Great, let's eat."

After a week of eating Mara's homemade meals Duke wasn't surprised how good the steaks were and how perfectly chosen the accompanying wine was. He couldn't imagine that the Mara who created the Troubles was a Mara who cooked, which meant it was a skill she'd picked up from one of the overlays. No wonder she didn't know who she was, he thought.

After they cleared the dishes, Duke said, "Thank you for tonight and the whole week. I really needed it. Starting tomorrow I'll be back at The Gull so I'm sure you know that I won't be around much, especially on weekends. I hope Haven won't be too boring for you without the Troubles to liven things up."

"I called Nathan to remind him to keep buying coffee and donuts for Audrey and he made a similar comment. But it'll be fun for me to pretend to be her. At least for a little while."

"Wait, Nathan was buying Audrey donuts?"

"Oh, you didn't know? Oops," Mara tittered.

"She told me she'd cut back on that crap."

"Who died and put you in charge of Audrey'd diet?"

"Everybody died thanks to you. You know our having sex doesn't mean that my feelings for you have changed, right? You didn't win me over."

"You made that perfectly obvious when you walked out right afterwards."

"So why were you crying?"

"Please, I wasn't."

"Don't you dare lie to me."

Mara hesitated. Duke thought this might be a weakness he could exploit. A tender spot that he might just able to use to crawl into her head and make her understand that she was a monster. Call me Charon, he thought. I'm going to ferry her to Hades if it's the last thing I do.

"I was just happy to be having sex as myself for the first time in a long time, that's all. Nothing to do with you."

"You could have been having all the sex you ever wanted if you'd ended the Troubles a long time ago."

"You don't know that. You don't know anything about what I went through."

I don't know what you went through?! Duke almost shouted, but he restrained himself. He supposed she did know what Haven went through. She just didn't care.

"You're right. So why don't you tell me?" he said.

Mara looked surprised at the question and hesitated again. "You don't really want to know," she said flatly.

"Maybe I don't. Or maybe our relationship would improve if you ever gave me the impression that you were a human being and not just the bitch who created the Troubles."

"Will you give me oral sex?"

Duke raised one eyebrow. "The first thing that comes to mind when asked about your life is oral sex?"

Mara's laugh rang out, strong and clear. "Not exactly, but hey, Scheherazade used stories to keep her head, I'm offering head to keep my stories."

Duke smiled inwardly. He had to admit that was a good one. And he liked her laugh, it was so unexpected. Not a bitter snicker or a begrudging chuckle, but an actual happy sound. But outwardly he merely said, "I suppose so. Can't have Audrey cheating because she's not getting it at home."

"How about now?"

"How about you stop trying to change the subject?"

"Fine. Here's the short version: My father loved me and he died. My mother didn't love me, I didn't have any siblings or friends. Then I met William. He loved me but he was a puppy dog. I got to experimenting with aether, created the Troubles, and got caught.

"After a few overlays I wanted out, but they didn't tell me what would happen after I ended the Troubles. I asked Howard and he said in that prissy tone of his, 'I'm sorry, Mara, but I can't tell you that.' I said, 'Can't or won't?' and he said, 'I can't tell you that either.'

"I got really scared that they were going to kill me, but obviously they couldn't tell me because then I'd never end the Troubles.

"The fear wore off but a long time had passed on Earth. I didn't know how much time had passed in my dimension. I didn't know if I wanted to go back there or even if I could.

"The twentieth century on Earth started to get interesting and I really liked Sarah. She was sassy and had a lot of sex, but was such a do-gooder. I didn't want to be a nurse. The only interesting thing about Lucy was that she had an affair with Chief Wuornos—"

Duke interrupted. "Garland Wuornos?"

"Yep."

"Seriously?"

"Well, he was younger then, and I do like older men. William was so much older than me.

"I didn't want to be Lucy. And then Audrey came along and the rest is history.

"So there. Now you know everything."

"Wow," Duke breathed. "There's so much to unpack. This isn't so much 'baggage' as 'the storage facility in Raiders of the Lost Ark.'"

Mara shrugged and the robe slid off one of her shoulders. "You asked, I answered. Now, why don't we go do something more fun?"

Duke hesitated, but it was just to keep Mara off the scent of what he was really thinking. Finally he said, "Yeah, I guess we could."

She took his hand and led him to the bedroom, allowing the robe to fall as she walked so by the time they got there, she was naked. Duke was surprised to notice that after just a week Mara was thinner than Audrey. Must be from not having any donuts. And he was glad of it. It made Mara look less like Audrey.

He kissed her mouth and then made his made down her body until he was kneeling on the floor in front of her.

When he was lying on the bed beside her, Mara said, "I feel like I could come ten times today."

"And I seem to recall you promising oral too."

"Yeah, sure, later. Now I need more."

"I don't really have more."

Mara grabbed Duke's hand and pressed his fingers inside her. After that she humped his leg like she was a dog. And Duke just lay there letting her do it, kind of enjoying watching it, actually.

Afterwards Mara flopped down on Duke's chest. "Maybe ten times was an exaggeration," she said. "Will you hold me?"

Without a word, Duke put his arms around Mara.

"Tighter," she said.

He held her tighter.

"Tighter," she urged.

He held her tighter until it seemed like Mara was having trouble catching her breath so he loosened up a bit.

"Hey," Mara protested.

Duke let go of her completely. "If you think I'm going to jail for killing Audrey Parker, think again. Now, why don't you keep your word and give me that blowjob you promised. Just be careful not to choke on my dick."

Mara stiffened and rolled off Duke. She turned on her side and pulled the sheet up and over her head, curling into a fetal position.

"Fuck you," she muttered, adding: "Asshole."

Duke understood that when somebody seems to be engaging in assisted suicide, sarcasm and a demand for a blowjob are not the right response.

"Why?" he said softly.

"For a moment it felt like I could go out on top. Like it was a way I could hang on to . . . happiness."

Duke let her statement breathe for a moment, then said, "Look, a week ago I would have killed you first and figured out how to dispose of your body later. Now I'm suggesting that I wouldn't kill you if it inconvenienced me in any way. That's real progress."

Mara made a small sound that Duke thought might have been a strangled chuckle.

Gingerly he lay down next to Mara and spooned her with his upper body. His lower body was rapidly deflating but still had some life in it.

"So in six months you'll spoon me for real?" Mara said lightly.

"I don't think you want to feel my eleventh finger right now."

"Not quite as dextrous as an actual finger but I appreciate that you're not so egotistical that you called it your third leg."

"Studying Buddhism has finally paid off."

Mara laughed for real. She reached back and grasped him.

"You don't have to do that," Duke said quickly. "I'll take a raincheck. We can just spoon."

"It's okay, I want to."

"If you're sure."

"I'm sure."

Duke lay back and enjoyed himself and didn't feel the slightest bit guilty when he kissed Mara afterward.

Operation Love Boat was a go.