A/N: Thank you so much to everyone reading and reviewing, favoriting and following! It's so great to know that there are other people out there who enjoy this show as much as I do. Hopefully, all my little tweaks are seen as a way of delving further into the world rather than messing it up! Also, I really struggled on the Duke and Nathan backstory, so here's hoping that it doesn't come across as anything but believable!

It only figures that when everything is going right in his world for once, that's when it all gets turned upside down.

The first report of a dead man being sighted—or really, a dead man causing a murder—seems like just another day in Haven (though he won't deny that his first thought was the fervent hope that Max Hansen was not about to rise from the grave with a smile stretched over his cold face). The next report follows directly on the heels of the first, so even though he's tired and groggy, Nathan gets up and heads into the office.

He stayed up almost all night waiting for Audrey before he finally headed to bed (before admitting that she wasn't coming, maybe wasn't ever coming back at all). He'd slept restlessly (nightmares visited him, worse than ghosts, dreams of Audrey coming face to face with Lucy Ripley and being erased, Audrey Parker gone forever and a blank slate left behind in her place, her blue eyes burning with mute reproach that Nathan ever thought he could help instead of just stand helplessly by). The first call from Vince about Arlo hadn't woken him (by then, he'd been awake for nearly an hour), just distracted him from his brooding worry.

He's just parked across from the Herald when he sees Audrey getting out of her own car (parked haphazardly across two spaces, as usual, which makes him shake his head in amusement). She's headed into the Herald, and Nathan knows even without looking in the reflection on his window that he's smiling. Excitement surges in him, hazing his thoughts, lining them in gold and sky-blue.

She's come to see him. She must have gotten back to town late and didn't want to disturb him (unaware that she is never a disturbance), but here she is, bright and early (and Parker hates early mornings), coming to fill him in on what she learned. Coming to reassure him that she is keeping her promise (to prove she's come back to him).

Nathan's halfway out of his truck when Duke catches up with Audrey, cupping his hand over her elbow, leaning in close to her. They're across the street and speaking in quiet tones, but Nathan's hearing is better than good, and he picks up enough words to freeze him statue-still.

"You left the boat too fast for me to tell you," Duke says, intent and open, more unguarded than Nathan's ever seen him before. Parker's wary, not quite meeting his eyes, almost distracted, but she clasps his hand briefly.

"I know," she says, "but we'll talk about this later. I need to ask Vince and Dave a couple questions."

Vince and Dave. That's who she's here to see. Not Nathan (because he's not important, not vital, not necessary).

Nathan swallows and reverses his movements back into the Bronco.

Well, now he knows. It's better to know, so he doesn't waste time and effort on imagining or hoping for anything…well, anything more. She told him they were friends and partners, and he believes her (it's his own fault he thought the list was incomplete; that he didn't let himself realize there isn't another definition there to be added).

So. Audrey and Duke. Duke and Audrey.

He'll get used to it. He'll be able to nod and listen to their flirting and leave them alone at the Gull. Maybe, one day, he'll even be happy for them.

Maybe.

(As much a maybe as the possibility of this turning out differently and more in his favor.)

But not today.

Nathan starts the Bronco and drives. He has no destination in mind, nowhere to go that will escape what he saw, but as long as he gets away, he doesn't care.

In a while, he will be a friend and a partner. But for now, for just a while, he needs time to be a man (with hopes he barely admitted to ground into dust).

He needs time to mourn.

With the revelation outside the Herald, Nathan forgot all about the appearing ghosts. When Vince's call recalls him to his job, Nathan compiles a hasty list on the ghosts and heads to the house of the grave-digger, the only common link between the walking dead.

Kyle Hopkins isn't home, but his pregnant wife is. She's standoffish and in a hurry to be elsewhere (but then, most people are when he ambushes them for an interview), so after a few questions, Nathan lets her go. He thinks about following her, but aside from that one commonality, it's not like he has any proof that Hopkins is connected to the ghosts. Instead, he heads to the cemetery, in case he can catch Hopkins there.

He doesn't see Hopkins, but he does see his dad (not Max Hansen, a monster revisiting him in more than his nightmares. His dad). Garland Wuornos, stout and solid and so immovable (despite his transient state) he never quite blended into the nothingness of that measureless sea that is Nathan's world.

For a long moment, Nathan just watches the chief, who's examining a gravestone as if it's important even though Nathan can tell he's just trying to get his bearings. Truthfully, Nathan thinks he might be better off just turning and walking away. Safer by far to leave without daring a conversation with the dad he never thought he'd see again.

But it's his dad. It's one last opportunity to ask the niggling questions he thought he'd get to ask. It's a chance.

So Nathan goes forward to meet Garland.

And just like he thought, it's definitely a mistake.

"Where'd you bury me?" is the first thing Garland says, without even bothering to look over at Nathan.

"Don't worry, I made sure you have a good view."

"What do I care about views?" the chief asks caustically. "I'm dead."

Nathan takes a deep breath, holds it for a moment, lets it out soundlessly. Still, the chief doesn't seem to realize the absurdity of his own statement.

"This is Haven, son," Garland says with a shrug. "You get used to it after a while."

You certainly grow to expect it, Nathan thinks, but he doesn't know that he'll ever get used to the myriad ways people can be emotionally scarred and physically hurt and psychologically damaged. He doesn't think he wants to get used to it, as if that means he accepts it as the way things are meant to be and will always be.

"What'd you tell people?" his dad asks (his familiar abruptness almost makes Nathan catch another breath sharp in his throat).

"That you were lost at sea."

Garland scoffs. "I never wanted to be a martyr, exactly, but it'd have been more helpful if you'd found a way to blame Driscoll for it. How much trouble is he causing?"

"Audrey shot him. He's gone. Dwight's chief now."

"Good for her." His smile is quick and genuine. "Dwight, huh?"

"You trust him?" Nathan watches him closely, looking for a sign (though he's not sure of what, maybe just if he was right to trust the giant cleaner so quickly).

"He's a good man to have on your side." The chief hesitates. "But he's switched sides before, so he's not always the most reliable ally. Has a bit of a self-righteous streak, too. But he'll probably be a good chief. Not my first choice, but…"

"Parker didn't want it."

"Wasn't talking about her either."

Nathan actually takes a step back at the intensity of his dad's sudden, pointed stare. There's no way he means what it seems like he's saying, but… No. No, the chief would never trust him to be in charge.

"You never even wanted me to be on the force." He hates how defensive he sounds, like a small child making excuses.

"I did," Garland says quietly, but he looks away.

A stir of anger slithers up from somewhere deep inside him, causing his bones to straighten so he stands taller, more confrontational. "The other ghosts are coming back for revenge, using the living to settle their scores. What are you here for?"

"I don't know, Nathan. Dying's disorienting enough without adding coming back as an incorporeal being on top of it."

"Or maybe you just don't want to tell me. Like everything else in my life."

"Nathan, this is exactly why I knew you weren't ready, because you get caught up in the little things when you should be seeing the bigger picture."

"What bigger picture?"

"The Troubles, of course!" Garland exclaims. He reaches up to his pocket, as if searching for a pack of gum or a cigarette, then huffs when he finds nothing there. "Every twenty-seven years they come back—and so does Audrey. And then they disappear for another twenty-seven years. It's an endless cycle that's been going on for who knows how long, punctuated by the town splitting into warring factions with disparate goals. With all of that, we don't have time to dither over smaller issues just because your feelings are hurt."

Nathan swallows (his mind is reeling at everything the chief said, revealed, dropped before him like it isn't more information than he's ever received from him in his entire life, and it only figures that it happens now that the chief is dead). "This isn't about feelings. How am I supposed to protect Audrey if I don't know what's going on?"

"You know what's at stake—the fate of Haven. That's what matters."

"Chief, before you died, you said that things changed last time. But if the cycle's endless, then what happened? What changed?"

The chief stares out at Haven for a long moment before turning to face Nathan. "Maybe it doesn't have to be endless. Maybe there's something that can stop it all. The Troubles. The war. Audrey losing her memories."

An absolute stillness captures Nathan, the boundless ocean turning into a deep well down which everything echoes with endless reverberations. His every sense, every cell in his body, strains toward the chief, heightened and alert at this implication that Parker will be taken from him, erased and nullified to be sent back out into Haven (but not knowing him, not remembering him, no longer his friend or his partner, just a stranger, and he doesn't know why she likes him this time, how can he possibly replicate it again?).

"How?" he demands, looming over the chief (who's short, he realizes with a distant surprise, so much shorter than him). "How can I save her?"

"I don't know!" Garland huffs and shrugs, as if Nathan actually shook him. "I just don't think we should get so caught up in the way things are that we don't at least try to find another way. A better way."

"But you must know something. Something to keep Audrey from being erased." (All Nathan can see, then, is that other Audrey Parker, so blank and slow and scared; all he can think of is his Parker looking like that, hesitant, tremulous, reaching for Duke because he's all she almost remembers.)

Garland studies Nathan. "How close are you and her?"

This rattles him, enough to break him free of his fear. "What do you mean?"

"You and Audrey. How close are you two?"

"We're…we're friends. Partners."

"Are you in love with her?" the chief asks, as blunt as he always is (except when dancing around secrets and lies).

For just a moment, standing in a graveyard with his dad's ghost, Nathan lets himself believe that their relationship is different. Close. (As if it is what he mourned after that day in the rock-strewn field rather than all the things he'd never know, all the things they'd never be.) For just a moment, Nathan lets himself be brave enough to examine his deepest, most fervent hopes.

A hesitant smile curves his lips up and he admits, "I don't know what it is. I—"

"Well, don't!" Garland orders him.

And the moment ends. Because this isn't Dad; it's the chief. The man so intent on holding the town together that smaller issues (like the son he got stuck with when he married his mom) got pushed aside for later.

"Why?" he asks dully. (He already knows the answer.)

"She's too important to this town. If she has feelings for you, she'll be distracted."

Nathan nods. "Well, I don't think you have anything to worry about. Sorry you wasted your time coming back."

"Nathan…"

They both look down at Garland's hand on Nathan's arm, but this time, in an odd reversal, it's Garland who can't feel anything, his fingers fuzzing straight through cloth and flesh alike.

"Nathan," he says again, softly, dropping his arm back to his side. "It's dangerous, being close to her. You're not the first man to fall for her charms, and you won't be the last. It's not worth it to put yourself through all that."

"And she's important," Nathan says (not quite bitterly, just resigned). "And I'm not."

Narrowing his eyes, Garland shakes his head. "Nathan…"

"No, I get it." Nathan forms the basis of a smile, though he's sure it doesn't look any more real than his dad's fingers disappearing against his arm. "Don't worry about my feelings."

If his dad would have said something to that, Nathan doesn't find out. His phone beeps insistently, and when he answers it, Audrey does what he was afraid she never would again.

She asks him for a ride.

The rest of the day is a jumble packed so tightly in Nathan's mind that he can't pull any one piece clear to examine it in greater detail. He remembers finding Audrey where Duke abandoned her, and how he was afraid to look at her in case he saw any hint of what he suspected had happened the night before. But she was happy to see him, even reaching out to squeeze his hand, saying she's so glad she finally gets to talk to him.

He remembers her telling him what Lucy Ripley said, and he thinks he must have felt mind-numbing terror at the revelation that Duke's father tried to kill Lucy (the Lucy who is, was, will be Parker). He must have, but mostly, he just remembers wondering if Duke is happy with all the answers he's gotten about his family (Nathan certainly isn't happy with the ones he got).

The shack they follow Hopkins' wife to is chillingly familiar, so much so that Nathan sinks into a strange mental haze where every detail is piercingly sharp but it all blurs together in comforting gauze. He's not even surprised when a gun is pointed at him and the Rev is there and Duke's given a weapon (it's all happened before, and maybe he never got out of it at all, just dreamed that Parker came to rescue him, but no, she's here with him this time, in double the danger because she can't see the ghosts or hear the revelations Simon Crocker spills out like water wasted on parched sand).

Only vaguely does Nathan become aware that Garland's there, facing down both Simon and the Rev with his usual crusty stubbornness. Duke is horrified and adamant and too slow to pull the knife away from Kyle's lunge. And then he has blood on his hands (blood that so easily could have been Nathan's, and maybe still will be one day; or worse, if this cycle doesn't end, Parker's blood) and a Trouble dies.

Important. Vital. A tool of the chess players multiplying war atop the bodies already cut down by the Troubles. As Duke stares down at his hands, at the knife trembling in his grasp, at the blood staining his skin, Nathan almost pities him. Better, maybe, to be unimportant than to have a fate like this one.

"Duke," Audrey says, so softly, so gently. "Drop the weapon. It's okay."

But instead, Duke turns it toward the Rev. "I won't kill for you!" he declares.

("I'll be your friend," he once told Nathan. "I just want to catch up," he said. "I have your back," he promised.

All lies.)

As the Trouble dies, the ghosts fade. Nathan hears them talking, trading threats and last words, but his eyes are locked on the pregnant wife, kneeling over her husband's body with quiet sobs. Smiling so proudly. It amazes him with a sort of horrified fascination that she was so quick to pull away from her husband, then so equally quick to forgive him…as long as he sacrificed his life. What kind of love is that?

"My son will clean up this town," Simon Crocker says, and even if he's a monster, he sounds proud. Confident. So ready to believe in and trust his son.

"I have a son, too," Garland says, and Nathan wishes he could believe it was anything more than just a parting shot to Crocker.

Then the ghosts are gone, leaving the living to haunt the world.

Unsurprisingly, Duke doesn't want to talk about anything that happened. Audrey cajoles and pleads and soothes, but Nathan could have told her it wouldn't work. Duke's never been one to do what he's told (he wonders if, when Duke comes after Parker and thus Nathan, that trait will end Nathan's life…or save it). Eventually, the smuggler just turns and walks away. Audrey watches him go but makes no move to follow him (and Nathan can't help but think that finding a box of weapons, and throwing aside the new chief of police with his eyes turned silver, and going through an old journal, all of that probably took most of the night, so much so that maybe that's all the conversation he witnessed was referencing.)

(He hates that thought, because it reawakens his weak and trembling hope.)

"Are you okay, Nathan?" Audrey asks him. "I know it can't be easy being back here."

"I'm not tied up this time," he says casually, but he doesn't hesitate in turning to lead her back to the Bronco, hoping they can get out of here quickly.

She casts him a sidelong glance but lets him get away with the evasion. "So…your dad."

"My dad," he says, and only then realizes that he didn't ask him about the ring around his neck. He forgot to ask what it was, what it means, and now he'll never know.

"You're really not going to tell me what he said?" Audrey grins at him as he opens her door for her. "You know I'll get it out of you eventually."

"He said that we shouldn't be afraid to try to change things. He said this cycle doesn't have to keep going forever. He said that the Troubles leave for twenty-seven years and when they come back, so do you."

That wipes the smile off her face, leaving a frown in its place. "Like…like I bring them with me?"

"No." He stares up at her, distracted by the change in their heights now that she's seated in the Bronco and he's standing at her side. "Like you take them away."

"Did he say that?"

"Yes," he says, though he can't remember the exact wording. It doesn't matter. Audrey could never cause Troubles; she fixes them.

"Hmm." She looks away and remains silent until he's in the driver's seat and starting up the engine. "I'm glad you got to see him," she says. "Get some closure."

"He's…" Nathan hates to crush her idealistic thoughts on family, so he just shrugs and lets it drop.

"Nathan, I'm sorry." Her voice is so small, so quiet, that he's looking worriedly over at her before he even realizes what she said. "I didn't mean to leave you hanging so long. It's just when Lucy Ripley said that about Simon Crocker, I wanted to ask Duke about it, and then he was fighting Dwight, and then…well, then everything happened, and the Teagues were singularly unhelpful, and…I really meant to come find you sooner."

"It's fine," he says, and he thinks there's probably a smile reshaping the lines of his mouth. "I'm just glad you came back."

"I was always going to come back," she says calmly. But then it must be too serious for her because she grimaces and says, "Apparently every twenty-seven years."

"Well, this time will be different," Nathan promises. "The chief said it didn't have to be this way, and he never was a believer in pie in the sky, so he must know more than he said—not that I'm surprised. We'll find out what's going on."

"Yeah." Even with his eyes straight ahead on the road, he can feel the warmth of her smile. "Partners."

"We're more than just partners," he says without thinking. The Bronco almost swerves when his brain catches up to his mouth (and since when do words come so easily to him?) and he dares a quick glance over to Audrey.

But. She's smiling. And nodding. "Definitely more than partners," she says. "We're allies now."

"Allies," he repeats. "But still friends."

She tilts her head to study him. "Of course."

And he's not sure (can't pull this jigsaw puzzle of kaleidoscopic emotions and moments apart long enough to really figure it out) if he is more relieved or disappointed.

"Nathan." Duke strolls into the Herald as brazenly as if he owns the place, so cocky and confident that, in comparison, Nathan feels small and hunched (cowed). "We should talk. You know, before the old geezers come back from wherever they're sticking their noses this time."

"They're out delivering the afternoon edition," Nathan says as he slowly sets aside the newspaper he was combing through. "They won't be back for at least an hour."

(He knows because he's begun to count on this time, when they're back and away and not likely to surprise him by barging in and distracting him or misdirecting him or even just finding out what he's doing.)

Duke makes an exaggerated expression of surprise. "Why, Nate, you're not actually rebelling, are you? That's not your style."

"What do you want, Duke?" he growls. He doesn't like Duke here, in his space, too close, too arrogant, still carrying the smell of the woods and that shack with the bodies piled inside. He doesn't think he wants to hear what Duke has to say to him (not when he's still smarting from the chief's warnings and confused about Audrey's definitions). "Here to try to kill me again?"

"What? No!" Duke actually looks wounded. "In fact, I came to tell you that you don't have to worry about me. There's no way I'm ever using whatever this…this…thing…is."

"A Trouble," Nathan says for him. "You have a Trouble."

"Yes. I do," Duke takes a deep breath, "but it doesn't control me. It doesn't change who I am or the kind of person I refuse to be."

Nathan studies him closely. "Well, your father seemed pretty convinced that you'd follow in his footsteps."

"My father only ever decided to act like one long after he was dead and gone. He lied and hid things, and lest we forget, he killed people and let self-righteous monsters like the Rev control him. That's not me, Nathan. That's not who I am. So why would I let that no-good excuse of a genetic donor dictate my future?" Duke frowns at him (he's so good at this, so good at playing the injured party and the sincere reformer). "I'd have thought you would understand more than anyone, Nathan. Didn't Max Hansen think he could manipulate you by talking about your Trouble?"

"Get out," Nathan grits through what must be clenched teeth. "For some reason Parker trusts you. Even knowing what you're capable of, even hearing about Lucy and your dad, even after the Rev and—" Nathan tastes blood but makes himself keep going (makes himself draw the battle lines and set his stance to endure whatever comes of it). "She trusts you. But I don't. I know that when push comes to shove, no matter how many good intentions you started out with, you'll always do what benefits you most."

"And you think killing you will benefit me? You think I want your blood on my hands?"

"It wouldn't be the first time."

Duke stares at him, and there's something so unrecognizable in his eyes (something like guilt, like shame, like remorse) that Nathan actually thinks he's going to bring it up. To talk about it. (To apologize.)

And Nathan thinks he'll let him. (He thinks he wants him to address it.)

Those days, a few years back, when Duke came back to town, and he sought Nathan out and smiled at him, invited him for drinks, for fishing, for card games. When Nathan let himself believe bygones could be bygones and good could come his way in Haven. When he'd let his guard down and imagined the possibility of a friend. When Duke asked him about his life and his job and his place here, and Nathan had answered because it felt so good to know that someone cared, someone was interested in his life, and it had been so long since he'd had any kind of conversation at all.

And the day when Duke told him he had a job opportunity for him that would use his stubbornness and his aloofness and his press pass. A job working for Duke, with Duke, bodyguard to the smuggler, criminal partners, outlaws and outcasts. He'd said that so many doors would open for them. Nothing would be able to stop them. No one would be able to get in their way.

The moment when Nathan said no, and all the friendship evaporated like a mirage. Duke's cool response (Your loss, he said, as if Nathan needed to know that Duke wouldn't miss anything, that he'd faked it all), and the sudden absence of all his smiles and jokes and commiseration.

That moment, when Nathan realized that nothing was ever going to change. That Haven was his home, but it was treacherous and would always, always take away everything he wanted. That moment when the numbness swallowed him whole and Duke couldn't seem to understand why Nathan was so mad he threw the first punch (but Duke hadn't minded throwing quite a few in return, had he? hadn't minded bashing his face in until the Coast Guard pulled them apart and Nathan realized that Duke's betrayal, his apathy, was the last thing he would ever feel).

It will always be this way. Duke dared him to brave the steep hill so slick his sled went out of control and exposed his Trouble to all their classmates. Duke congratulated him on a girl actually liking him and added insult to injury. Duke pretended to be his friend so that he could use him for his own illegal good. And Duke is conning Audrey, manipulating her, and this betrayal, this inevitable end, will be the most painful of them all.

So yes, Nathan wants Duke to bring it up. He wants this to finally be pulled out into the open.

But Duke sighs. His eyes drop. His hands fall to his sides.

And that's it. He's not going to say anything. Nothing to explain. To justify. To apologize. (Maybe he knows nothing he says will ever be enough.)

"Stay away from Audrey."

Nathan knows it's a mistake as soon as he hears himself make the demand. It's not something he can enforce, or that Audrey will even allow, and it reveals far too much of his own fears (his private hopes).

"No," Duke says softly. "Audrey and I are friends, Nathan, and like you said, she trusts me. Besides, I have a feeling she needs all the allies she can get."

"What?" Nathan actually staggers back a step, causing Duke to look at him uncertainly. That word. Allies. Not special, either. Duke and Audrey are friends. Duke and Audrey are allies. And partners? Is that something he has to share too?

(Petty, so petty, Nathan knows, he knows, but he has nothing and no one in this town except Audrey and it's hard, so very hard, not to cling too tightly, to let go instead of hold on.)

"I'm not who you think I am," Duke says. "So you can get all territorial and irrational if you want, but Audrey needs more than just you and your press pass on her side."

There will be blood on his palms from the force of his white-knuckled fists, just as much blood as there is in his mouth, enough so that he should be worrying about biting through his tongue. But none of it matters next to the smirk on Duke's face as he leans forward to pull one of the old copies of the Herald closer. The paper on top of it falls away to reveal a picture of Audrey-as-Lucy.

"I don't mean to tell you how to do your job," Duke says archly, "but if you're really looking for clues, don't just read the stories she's mentioned in. Read all the articles surrounding it. Those old coots are professional showmen, which means they know how to distract with one hand while accomplishing the trick with the other."

Whistling, Duke winks and strolls out the door, a blast of wind swirling inside to upset Nathan's world before flying onward to warmer places. Classic Duke, to leave him with parting words that sound like advice but could so easily double as a threat.

Still. Nathan looks down at the piles of yellowing newspapers he's gathered. With Parker's life on the line, he can't afford to leave any stone unturned.

And Duke's right: he's going to need more than a press pass and a pen for this.

The office looks nearly the same as it did the last time Nathan was in here. Or he thinks it does; he can't remember the last time he was here. Whenever it was, he's sure it ended with an argument and him storming away while the chief went back to whatever it was he did here (another thing Nathan will never be able to ask him about).

There's one major difference, of course. The man sitting at the desk, hair newly cut to make him look slightly less scary, who peers worriedly at a pile of papers in front of him.

"Suits you," Nathan says softly.

Dwight looks up. He seems strangely touched (as if Nathan's opinion matters to him). "The office?"

"The haircut," Nathan says, daring to enter the office and approach the desk (he doesn't want everyone in the bullpen to hear what he's about to say).

A laugh escapes the giant and he beckons Nathan even closer. "Dave suggested it, and I was tired enough with Crocker calling me 'Sasquatch' not to dither over it for long. Besides," he sobers, "people around here need someone they can trust. Someone they can put their confidence in."

"Well, not many people would be brave enough to say anything against you."

"You?" Dwight's stare is suddenly intense, catching Nathan off-guard. "Would you stand against me?"

"I told you it was fine. This may have been my dad's office at one time, but it wasn't always. And you're right. Haven needs someone in charge, someone willing to make tough choices."

"I know, but…" Dwight stands and moves to join Nathan on the other side of the desk. "Truthfully, people are lost and confused after everything that's happened. People who know are worried about power struggles, and people who don't know…they're aware enough of the tension in town. But I don't just need people who will follow me because they're scared. I need people who will lead the charge when I can't be there. People who will call me out on things."

"Trust me, if you're wrong, Parker won't be afraid to tell you."

"Yeah, she's got a spine of steel." Dwight runs a hand over his hair, as if still surprised at its new shorn length. "I just… I know you don't know me well, but I feel like I know you. I've seen you around, read your articles, listened to your dad talk about you. I think you'd be a good man to have on the team."

Nathan takes a breath (hopes Dwight doesn't laugh at him, or worse, look at him with pity). "About that…how serious are you? Did you really mean it when you said you thought I could belong here?"

Dwight narrows his eyes. "What are you saying?"

"I'm saying I want to apply."

You need a real partner, Audrey, his dad had said. A cop.

Audrey needs more than just you and your press pass on her side, Duke said.

They're right. Nathan's gone as far as he can with his pen and notebook, won as many allies to her as the Herald can manage. It's time to do more. To step up.

To be a real partner.

"You want a job?" Dwight asks (Nathan thinks he sounds hopeful). "Now?"

"As soon as possible." Nathan shrugs. "Haven's getting more dangerous all the time. It needs more protectors. And Parker needs someone to watch her back. So what would I have to do to become a detective?"

"In Haven? You need to be willing to risk your life on a daily basis. And I already know you're qualified."

"So?" Nathan makes himself meet Dwight's eyes. "Willing to hire me?"

Dwight doesn't look pitying. He doesn't laugh. He doesn't shake his head and give him excuses.

Instead, he reaches out a hand, and when Nathan hesitantly puts his own forward, Dwight shakes his hand.

"Welcome to the Haven PD. It's good to have a Wuornos here again."

He really wasn't sure that Dwight would actually hire him. He'd half-thought he was just reaching for a pipe dream that would never happen. But now there's a badge on his hip and an appointment to the shooting range to get certified to carry a government-issued firearm and his signature on a lot of official papers back in Dwight's office. He has a desk ("Good thing there's one already open and waiting in Audrey's office," Dwight said with a sly smile) and a training program and a short note serving as his resignation sitting on his emptied desk in the Herald.

He's a member of the police department. If he can finish the training necessary (if he can prove that repressed memories of childhood trauma won't hold him back in the field), he'll be a detective.

And he hasn't told Parker.

Hasn't asked her what she thinks about it. If she wants him as a real partner. Whether she likes having an empty desk rather than a socially clumsy, Troubled partner.

He hasn't lied to her, he tells himself, or at least, not by more than omission if anything.

As a consolation prize, he carries the two articles he found after combing through the papers that mentioned both Lucy Ripley and, much earlier, a woman called Sarah Vernon. Two articles that may mean something or nothing (but at least it gives him an excuse to knock on Audrey's door without being invited).

Nathan looks down to make sure he hasn't unknowingly dropped the papers, then looks up so he doesn't stumble on the steps leading up to Parker's place. Some sort of luck (or maybe a Trouble that hasn't revealed its downside yet) is shining on him because Duke is nowhere in sight. Nathan quickens his steps just in case.

Parker, he thinks, trying to rehearse what he'll say (trying to imagine that she'll be pleased to see the badge on his hip that matches her own). You remember how when that serial killer was on the loose, I worked from your office. That wasn't so bad, was it?

Huffing, he shakes his head. No good. It sounds stupid and…and it carries too many treasured memories he doesn't want to risk being marred by whatever her reaction might be (can't bear to hear her refer to those days as something besides amazing and wonderful and tantalizing).

But he really didn't need to worry. In fact, he should have known that it wouldn't matter. Too much had already gone his way that day. Of course something horrible would happen to even the scales.

Audrey's door is open. There's broken glass on the floor. Overturned chairs. Drawers pulled open. Audrey's scent spices up the place, but it's punctuated by the smell of sea and blood and electricity.

Audrey's gone. Missing. Taken.

And Duke's whistle (so familiar, probably stained with Nathan's blood from when he grabbed it and pulled Duke back to him for another right hook on that fishing boat so many years before) is lying on the floor. Like a red herring. Like a warning sign. Like a target.

Nathan goes cold and still and silent. He imagines he can feel his left arm, just under his elbow, where the tattoo gleams with absolute purpose.

A guardian. A protector. An avenger.

It's a good thing, is his last clear thought, that he's allowed to carry a gun now.