A/N: 'Business As Usual' tag

Nathan/Audrey angst and smut - if you're into that sort of thing... Adults only.

(wrote it a little while ago so here it is all at once. Same 'verse as 'Ricochet' and 'Dana'. Thought it might help for those who doubt me about Dana. There is only one true 'ship. )

Risky Business

Nearly midnight at the Gull, the weeknight crowd was thinning out, and no one was paying any attention to the Chief of Police dining with his very attractive lead detective. Nathan hoped. And if they were, screw them, he thought. He was through with hiding.

They should talk about Lucy Ripley, Audrey had said, so he came. She was back from visiting the woman – not the one who had come to Haven so long ago, but the original owner of that name, still alive and well and living outside of Bar Harbor. Come back and tell me the answers, he'd said. She had no more answers, only more questions, but they should talk.

So he came. They didn't talk about Lucy though, they talked about the meeting, and brand new tattoo on his arm. It stung when she put her hand over it, as if to hide it from the rest of the room. It stung more when he saw she didn't approve.

"What were you thinking, Nathan? You're a cop."

"I am one of them, Parker. I am Troubled. I'm done hiding from it."

"You don't," she hissed, then pulled herself back. "You don't have to put a goddamn barcode on it. This is a mistake."

"I know which side I'm on." He rolled his sleeved down again, unable to hide how she had hurt him.

"You can't take sides. That's what I mean. Your affliction –" and her hand slid down to hold his wrist, her fingers of her left hand tracing a rhythm against his knuckles, "You are not your affliction." He didn't know if she realized she was doing it, just her own nerves, even as it sent shockwaves through him.

"But you can?" Take sides. Act outside the rules. Risk everything, throw everything to the wind in order to do what she thought was right. It was a different version of the argument they'd had this morning, when she'd declared war against Patrick Grolsch, risking her career against the aggressive lawyer and – it turned out – violently bigoted 'normal'. Nathan had reacted badly, he knew, but it had finally pulled an admission of his feelings out from between his lips. For that he was almost grateful to the bastard.

Now they were back at the same point, almost. She'd wanted him to go to the meeting, hadn't she?

"I don't want to argue with you. But I'm not like you, Nathan." He tried to pull away finally, a reflex, but her hand clamped his, not letting him go without a fight. "Whatever I am," she muttered to herself.

"What do mean, you're not like me?"

They were hanging on by their fingertips. To their lives, to each other. He pulled back from her, but couldn't quite make himself break that connection where their fingertips touched. Audrey leaned forward, hunched in on herself, elbows on the table. He knew that pose, as if it helped to keep your insides inside and not out where they were messy and bloody and exposed.

He also knew it didn't really work.

Not just partners. Hah. As if they'd made such huge strides in just admitting that much to each other. But some things you could risk, and some things you just couldn't. The state police investigation into the Rev's death, Patrick Grolsch, and even Audrey's own seeming indifference to how ordinary events and everyday rules could tear them apart - let alone the Troubles and the Troubled - it made him crazy.

He saw through her eyes. He breathed through her lungs. He felt, god, he felt through her skin.

Not like him? Not… what? Attached to him? Dedicated to a career as a Haven police officer? Willing to make a public declaration of her loyalties? Nathan had news for her. The Rev's death was pretty fucking public.

Of course, that wasn't news at all. And the fallout was only beginning. She'd brushed off the shooting like it hadn't affected her. Nathan could only hope she'd downloaded it somewhere else, even with Duke, and not kept it all inside. But he could guess. Now he'd added Lucy to the mix going on inside her. At the time, he'd wanted only to erase the untethered pain in her eyes. Now he wasn't sure he hadn't made things worse.

Audrey shook her head, refusing to answer. Nathan knew a wall when he ran headlong into it, and let her keep this one.

"Tell me about Lucy. What did she say?"

"Nothing, really. She's this perfectly nice woman, a reporter. Never been to Haven. She knew me – as Lucy."

"And?" Because there was an and, he could tell.

"Simon Crocker came looking for me, months after Lucy – I –" she corrected herself, getting tangled, "months after I left Haven, according to Lucy."

"Simon Crocker, as in?"

"Duke's father." That seemed to be the final straw, because she threw her napkin on the table and stood, turning him loose at the same time.

*.*.*

Nathan caught up to her just outside the door, catching her elbow and turning her to face him. "Hey. Hey, don't run away from me. Explain it to me." Tears streaked from her eyes and he wiped them away with his fingers, twisting her hair behind her ears at the same time. They were off duty, but they were still in public – he could see the thought cross her mind. They worked together. Technically, he was her boss, even.

"Nathan," she whispered.

Let them all hang, he thought. Witnesses and gossips and accusers. He loved the way she said his name. They stood too close, and neither of them wanted to be the first to move.

"Explain it to me."

"Nathan," she said again, different layered meanings that he could spend the rest of his life trying to pull apart. "Not here. Upstairs."

Memory of her kiss was not the same as feeling it, but something uncurled inside him at her words, a dangerous serpent stirred to life after years of hibernation. A wolf, as if the tattoo had somehow turned hunted into hunter. And yes, holy shit, maybe a snake of a different order entirely, limp as if dead for years, now pulsing with life. Could he feel that? Was that what he felt?

Maybe not literally, but jesus, he wanted her. He'd gone to that meeting still stoned on her kiss. Flying. She had hugged him out of surprise and gratitude, but that kiss…

She escaped under his arm and ran up the stairs.

Were they going to do this? Now?

He was aware she was avoiding the question about Simon Crocker. Ran from it like it kicked in a flight reflex. So, he would let it go for now. If this was about Duke somehow – which he suspected – then he wasn't ready to deal with it either. Where Duke was concerned, Nathan knew that his emotions were tangled beyond Solomon's ability to unravel.

He wondered if anyone else knew how intimately feeling and emotions were tied. To most people they were the same word. You felt your feelings. And if you couldn't feel things, what to do with the emotions that built up with no outlet?

When Audrey touched him, it was like oxygen to a starving fire. It roared inside him. It threatened to burst out of control and consume him. He'd spent months trying to sort out what her touch did to him versus what his heart and his mind felt – that word again, but there was no other. It had taken a while, but he was comfortable with the knowledge that he admired and loved her, as a partner, as a friend. Trusted her, more than anything else. She punctured his walls of self-importance and tragedy with easy gibes, she saw through his affliction to him, supported and believed in him. And he, her. She'd opened up his eyes to the Troubles – but she'd let him in to her own secrets and fears as no one else.

That still did not touch the fire that was between them. Man to woman, body to body. There was still one wall that had not fallen inside him. The last one. The one no one else could touch because he could touch no one else. If he – who was he kidding? If the wall fell and the fire consumed him, he would die with a smile on his face. There was not much more to wish for.

*.*.*

Upstairs, Audrey had time to tidy, brush her hair and brush her teeth, and still he didn't come. She changed the sheets – no point in pretending this wasn't what she intended right at the start now. They were adults, they were unattached except to each other – and she'd seen the fire in him for her.

Still he didn't come.

She knew he wanted her. She wasn't wrong about that, but maybe – oh Christ, not maybe, it was even likely – that he'd decided that their partnership was more important than their desire to make like bunnies… Audrey cursed herself for her presumption. Nathan was right. Nathan was the sensible one and if she was lucky he would sweep the entire night under the rug as one of those things they never said to each other ever again.

Then his tall lean outline darkened her door, a light rap on the frame.

She opened the door, and all doubts vanished at the look on his face. His eyes devoured her. "What took you so long?"

"I couldn't walk."

She laughed, and stood on tiptoe to kiss him. He swayed into her, but they didn't touch except at the lips. It was enough. He looked drunk, his eyes closed as he stood there, unmoving.

"Are you sure about this?" he asked.

More sure than nearly anything else she'd done since coming to Haven. Just standing there and she knew. He was her other half. "Are you?" Because a partnership had two sides. There was no going back after this. She held the door open.

"Parker." Humor lightened his eyes as he looked down to her. "Audrey." Savoring her name like it tasted of caramel. "Audrey."

This time she threw her arms over his shoulders, wrapped them around his neck as she kissed him, open-mouthed. He groaned, vibrating it all the way through her as he wrapped his own arms around her, picked her off her feet and stepped them both inside the doorway, until the door shut behind them, and he fell back against it.

"Audrey."

Not candy this time, but like he couldn't breathe. She looked through the fog of her own spiraling sensation to feel his heartbeat against her palm, too rapid and light. "Breathe, Nathan." Too much, too quickly, and it could literally kill him. She stepped away from him. Or, tried to, because his fist clamped onto her arm tight enough to bruise.

She felt him force his own grip loose, shake it free. She put her fingers over his apology – they were not going to dissect this. She led him to the bedroom. He followed her, but with a look on his face like a man going willingly to his own execution. It was called a curse for a reason, but that didn't mean there weren't ways around the curse.

She was lucky in some ways that he was who he was. Other men would have made some quip about how she was going to kill him. She didn't want to joke about this. She couldn't bear to think about hurting him, let alone what would be left to her if he -. No, they were not going to joke about this.

*.*.*

She turned off every light. Then she turned to him. "You're in charge. You're in control."

"Audrey, I'm really not." Hadn't they just proved that? Hadn't he nearly lost it, everything, just from that one kiss?

"I'm not going to touch you." She took one of his hands and put it on her waist. The shirt she still wore prevented the explosion from repeating, but just her hand on his was enough to send an electric shock through him. Their eyes met, and the feeling merged with the emotion inside him. This was her gift to him, but she wanted him too, she wanted him as a woman wanted a man, wanted him. "Nathan," she started, and then seemed to run out of words, unable to speak her need – this from a woman so rarely short of words.

It gave him a confidence lost earlier. He'd been so focused on his own vulnerability, he'd missed hers. He smiled as he lifted her sweater over her head, like undressing a child. Her arms flopped back down to her sides.

"What?" she demanded. "What's so funny?"

Nathan didn't answer. He cupped her breast with one hand. He could see the material of her bra was shiny, glossy and smooth. He could not feel it. He remembered what silky was supposed to be, but it was not the same as actually feeling it. He saw the way her nipple stiffened and formed underneath his thumb and heard her breath stumble as he drew circles there. His name again, tumbling from her lips.

That was silky, when his thumb slid under the material of the bra, and circled there. That was what silky felt like.

She undid the bra herself, hands reaching and releasing the catch faster than he could object. It was not the same as touching him, but it wasn't exactly leaving him in control, in charge, either. She stood there, eyes closed.

Watching her, the last wall fell. Nathan was utterly lost. There was nothing left.

"Nathan, please, touch me," she begged.

Nathan tilted her chin up with one finger, explored her lips with his. Let them roam to her cheek, to her closed lids, up to her hairline. Paused there, because he felt lightheaded again. He didn't know if it was his heart or his soul. One or the other was going to break in two before this night was over, he was sure of it. Regardless, there was no turning back now. "In the bed," he managed.

*.*.*

Audrey suppressed a whine as Nathan laid down beside her. She was naked, he was naked, still he wouldn't touch her. Not really, not the way she craved. Nathan lay on his side, and she could feel each spot where their bodies met – probably the same way he could, she realized – where knee met knee, where hip met hip, her shoulder to his chest. He brushed her hair out across the pillow.

He was long and hard against her and she wanted to feel that silky softness. His restraint was driving her wild. Her hand slid across her stomach, on its own, towards him – but he captured it, kissed her palm.

She'd taken advantage of his warmth on more than one occasion, out early at a crime scene on a Maine morning, the wind biting. Just standing in his shelter, whether he knew it or not. Now, lying beside him, he was like a fire, banked coals. A tear leaked out of her closed lids. His lips caught it before it gathered another, or slid away. He held his cheek against hers, his hand holding her whole head against his, a touch more intimate than a kiss somehow. Not passion, not lust.

Love.

"Nathan, please." She'd fled the emotions of the day, only to land somewhere infinitely more dangerous. She didn't know what to do with these ones either.

He scared her. Or, she scared herself when she realized this was real, this was happening and this was Nathan. Her Nathan. He wasn't the only one to keep his emotions under lock and key. She had a vault, in an underground bunker. Walls of reinforced concrete. And Nathan walked right through them without noticing they were even there. She'd let him in. Apparently her secret password consisted of dry humor, sky blue eyes, cleft chin and an intense concentration on her.

She'd had a good time with Chris. She was no virgin, and knew she could attract men, that a pretty dress looked pretty on her, good hair, clear skin. She was good with people even if she tended to work more than socialize, but when she made the effort, men paid attention. She'd even had romances at work – or affairs, rather than romances. FBI work sometimes took long hours and stressful situations and it was easy to relieve that stress with a co-worker's willing body. Affairs that led to that tingling attraction, or tingling attraction that led to the affair – either/or – but now Audrey knew that she'd never been in love.

"Tell me what to do," she whispered. He'd scared her, there by the door, his heart racing out of control. Not his grip, clamped down and bruising – that strength reassured her more than anything, but she knew almost nothing about what it was to live with his affliction. This wasn't just testing the temperature of his coffee for him.

"I don't have any protection," he admitted.

She laughed. She couldn't help it. Neither did she. Nor was she on the pill or any other form of birth control. He lifted his head to look at her, at her laugh.

"We could ask Duke," she suggested. She'd left him on the boat, but knowing his proclivities, he probably had a box somewhere in the restaurant's office.

"Bite your tongue," Nathan growled. "I don't suppose your friend Chris left one, by any chance?"

She arced up against him. "One is not going to do it."

Nathan groaned, both from the implications, and from the fact that her movement had captured his dick between them, as she had more or less intended. He held both her hands away from him, in both of his, but that left her hips free to do what they wanted. And they wanted, so much. "What happened to 'I'm in charge'?" She could feel his smile against her cheek, hear it in his voice. Underneath the growled frustration.

"You are in charge," she said, smiling back at him. "But you'd better hurry, because I'm about to start without you."

"Hurry is not the problem."

Audrey had figured this much. Nathan was a grown man and had been – celibate – for years. Not even able to relieve himself. Now she saw that, in addition to the extreme overstimulation her touch brought him, now it left him humiliated at the thought of losing control so suddenly.

She put his hands on her hips. Pulled him between her legs, was rewarded by a twitch and a gasp. "Do it, Nathan, please. You won't embarrass me." Even as she spoke, his fingers dug into her flesh, and he took control, pulling her towards him, using their pressure against himself. "I want all of you," she continued. "I want this part too."

Audrey arched up against him, letting her breasts trace up against his chest. Clamped her legs together. There were going to be bruises where his hands held her, but she only hoped they were first of many more. Not unexpectedly, his rhythm rapidly grew, peaked, and spilled over. He shuddered against her.

He did not look at her, nor say her name. Her lack of embarrassment was not the same for him. But it was over now. Audrey rolled out of bed and got a towel for him, threw it at him and washed herself in the bathroom.

Nathan lay on his back, one hand behind his head, and the other holding the tiny towel over his genitals. Audrey leaned up against the doorjamb of her bathroom, her arms crossed, just watching him. She'd never been in love, until now, and now here she was with the most beautiful specimen of man she'd ever seen – one who, moreover, loved her back.

There was so much pain in Haven. Surely there had to be a point where it tilted back into balance with an equal amount of joy.

"I was almost afraid you'd left me," he said, eyes still closed, when she crawled back into bed beside him.

His words sent a sudden chill through her, and she shivered.

"Hey," he said, noticing her withdrawal. "Hey, what's wrong?" Nathan brushed her hair back, not letting her use it to hide behind.

"Nathan-" She felt her own pulse speed up; fear, adrenaline. Fight or flight. She was trapped, for good and all, now.

"Audrey, Jesus, tell me."

"I want to stay. I want to stay with you. Always." He held her, gradually gathering her to him as the words started to spill out, until she spoke against the cords of his neck, his leg around her waist, her arms trapped against his chest. "They always win. Sarah, Lucy - if they take me away –" The mysterious 'they'; 'they' who had erased the other Audrey, the original Audrey, the real Audrey. They who had, perhaps, conspired with the Rev and even Max Hansen, generations of invisible 'theys' who controlled and jerked around people's lives – and not just hers – for their own inscrutable purposes.

"Shh. It won't happen. We won't let it."

"I can't promise you anything." She didn't understand how he could say that so easily. How could he believe that, when all the different versions of her had failed in the past?

"I wouldn't ask you to."

Nathan kissed her temple, then the spot right in front of her ear. Because they were closest. It wasn't enough. Audrey felt that yawning uncertainty that was her future, even her past open up inside of her and she wanted to fill it with him. Maybe then she would be whole, and real. She knew it was unfair and impossible. Neither of them were in control of her mystery, neither of them had the slightest clue what to do about it.

He could not fix her either.

But as soon as he filled again, which didn't take long as she reached down and stroked him, she directed him to her entrance. His eyes hooded, but he did not hesitate this time, plunged inside her, a key into a lock, an Acapulco diver into the sea.

She cried out his name. He held her still, gasping breath. "I'd forgotten what that was like."

"It was never like this," Audrey said. His words did little to reassure her. She wanted action. She wanted him to make her believe him. She wanted him to make her forget her own name, that it wasn't her own name.

"No," he agreed softly. "Not like this."

She wanted to stay. God, she wanted to stay with this man. Whatever it took, she would do it, she vowed. She could be selfish too. She could, she could.

*.*.*

Nathan wiped away her tears, kissed them away. He stroked her hair, and stroked inside her even as she continued to cry. He knew it wasn't him, wasn't his fault, but just the mere fact of her tears kept his passion at bay long enough for Audrey to catch up to his body. Her tears dried up as she grew more demanding with her hips. Her fingers bit into him, her teeth too, and his name turned into more physical sounds, long pleased vowels and demanding grunts.

He knew she couldn't stay. Of course he knew that. If they didn't figure out what or who took her – she would disappear the same as Lucy had, as had who knew how many others before her. Of course he knew that. He'd figured that out months ago. It wasn't because he was shy that he'd hesitated in declaring himself to her months ago. It wasn't even that he'd feared that she didn't feel the same. He had, but that wasn't why.

He'd feared that last wall. His last bit of himself held safe from loving her, held safe from being torn from him when she left.

He'd given her Lucy's address – deciding at the last moment that he couldn't just go himself – believing that he could somehow live with whatever her decision was with that information, whatever outcome. If it helped her discover who she really was, even if it took her out of Haven, even out of his life – he would live with that and be glad that he'd helped her.

Now, her tears felt worse than his own. Now, jesus, now… with her in his arms, abandoning reason in his arms, his skin alive and sensitive to her breath stirring his hair; he knew his soul was lost. If curing the Troubles meant losing Audrey, he would sentence every one of them to a lifetime of their afflictions. As long as she stayed.

It built to breaking in him, all of a sudden, and Audrey kicked at the sheets, trying to gain an extra bit of purchase with her heels. They exploded together, harsh rasping moans together, and sudden higher pitched moans of relief and release.

No, not like this, ever before.

"Nathan, I'm so sorry. I scratched you."

He flinched as she tentatively, and not so, poked at the damage on his back. He stopped her, threading their hands together. "If you stop touching it, I'll stop feeling it." He laughed, could laugh even at that feeling.

"Is that how it works?"

He propped himself up on one elbow. "Only the spots you touch." He slid one palm down her skin from shoulder to hip, reveling just for a moment where her curves lifted from waist up to iliac crest. Iliac crest. Who knew that could be a phrase to inspire lust. "Or where I touch you, I can feel you, feel your skin."

"That is so not fair."

He smiled at her. Fair. That was not a word uttered very often in Haven. Other people did not believe in the fantastic supernaturally weird world here. Haven did not believe in fair.

"Again," she said. "Let's go again."

"How can you possibly…" Then he shut up, because he could feel her, feel himself within her, and no, he wasn't anywhere near finished either.

*.*.*

"Explain it to me," he said. Because he was about as naked before her as he was going to get, and maybe she was ready too.

Audrey curled up next to him, one leg over his, her head on his chest.

"She said that Lucy – that I said that no one could know I'd been there. But Simon Crocker showed up months later. Penny Driscoll – Gwen Glendower – said that Lucy disappeared right after the Colorado Kid's murder."

It was hard to concentrate with the way Audrey was tracing something along his leg, up around his hip and back down again with her fingers. His dick was not interested, not at the moment anyway, but it could be. He trapped her hand in his. He wanted to hear this.

Audrey pulled herself even closer to him in response, if that was possible.

"What did Simon want?"

"Me. She didn't trust him, Lucy, that is. She didn't tell him anything."

"So the timing..?"

"It's weird. I was running from something, she said. Afraid I'd be erased."

"Erased. She used that word?"

"Exactly. But Simon –"

"What about Simon?" She kept skipping this part. Without details, Nathan could only guess why. He did not like where his guesses led.

"What happened in the months between when I left Haven, and when Simon came looking for me at Lucy's place? If he was involved somehow in my disappearance, why was he even there?"

Nathan was aware of great big gaping leaps in her reasoning – not that it was faulty, necessarily, but that she was leaving things out. It made it hard to follow along. Was he supposed to just nod and pet her and tell her it would all be all right? No, no more guessing.

"Audrey, tell me."

"Simon left a box of weapons for Duke. And a diary, with my – Lucy's – picture in it. And me again, in the fifties, as someone named Sarah. Simon told Duke…" and she hesitated again. Nathan stroked her hair. "Simon left instructions that if he couldn't do it, Duke was supposed to kill me."

"Hah." It burst out of him. Nathan couldn't help it. Finally, a target, and a plan. "That's easy. We kill Duke first."

She slapped him, hard, on the ribs. "Stop it. I'm serious." It stung, hard enough to make him gasp, way more than the tattoo, shockingly loud.

"Jesus, woman. I could charge you with battery. Assault on an officer." That he'd been more than half serious himself he was not going to admit. Not now. But he filed the information away, another brick in the wall between him and Duke. A fucking big brick.

"I'm sorry," she smiled. "Shall I kiss it better?"

Trying to distract him? "I take it you talked to Duke about these instructions?"

"Duke won't hurt me, Nathan. You know that. I trust him."

He pulled her on top, all the better for her skin to meld with his, over as much of his skin as possible. Nathan didn't want to examine his trust issues where Duke was concerned – in fear of his life when the plagues of Exodus had threatened a few months ago, he'd latched onto Duke as emergency backup. When Duke's life had been threatened by Beatty's life draining alter – Nathan had been unable to leave the other man's side. But if it came down to a choice between Audrey and Duke, Nathan had already made that choice. If Duke decided somehow that his dead, abusive, abandoning father's last wish was something more than chicken scratch on dead trees – he would find himself the wrong end of Nathan's own weapon.

*.*.*

Audrey let him roll her over until she lay on top of him. She straddled him as she pushed herself erect. She wanted to see him, watch him. She let him set the pace, his hands on her hips as he thrust into her. She'd wanted to go again, but she didn't think she would come again, not this soon, not after the mind blowing last time.

Why on earth had they waited so long? Partners, friends – they had worked together with this frisson of attraction between them for so long she had almost gotten used to it. Until that day she saw him die. The day she had realized her happiness was tied irrevocably to him. Until today, yesterday now, when she realized his happiness was hers. When he'd given her Lucy Ripley's address and… let her go.

So much wasted time. They could have been doing this for months.

She spread her hands out across his chest, pleased to see how his eyes darkened and his lips drew back against his teeth. Not really a smile, not quite a grimace.

She groaned, feeling heat building up inside her again, unexpected. His over-sensitivity – that life threatening sensitivity was duller now, dampened – but he still nearly jumped out of his skin when she reached behind herself to find his balls, tight and hard. She held them, rolled them between her fingers. He whined, crushing her breasts in his hands and pumping his hips even as she tilted down into him. Her name rolled nearly continuously from him.

She stilled, quieted. Slowly, he did too. She could feel his heartbeat, listened to it with one ear on his chest. She could hear the blood rushing in and out, hear the air he sucked into starved lungs. She curled herself on top of him, he was broad enough that she fit him like a cat. He wrapped arms around her, and eventually pulled a sheet over them. He did not question her, or seem to need to finish what they had started.

"Can we stay like this forever?" she whispered, the thought escaping before it had fully formed.

"Yes," he said, fierce and gentle at the same time. "I will find someone who can stop time for you. If that's what it takes."

That is what it would take, because even as they lay there, time muttered on, and their driven passion slid away.

"What did you mean, you're 'not like me'?"

Audrey lifted her head to look him in the eyes. The hesitation there, the vulnerability in his voice surprised her. Resignation, almost. What on earth was he afraid of? "I only meant that you have your life. For the rest of your life. When the Troubles end, life goes on. You are not your affliction. You're the Chief of Police. You have to be Chief for everyone, not just the Troubled, and that tattoo – it implies things." It probably carried meanings that none of them understood yet. Max Hansen had carried that tattoo. Nathan knew that too, while the Chief his father hadn't.

"No."

"What, no? Of course it does."

"No."

"Nathan!" She wanted to beat on him again. "What?"

"Not without you."

Ah, that was it. She kissed his stubble-roughened cheek. She loved that classic jawline of his, stubble or no, and held her cheek to his. She thought she'd been clear about this. He was not his affliction, not defined by the one thing that made him different. She, on the other hand, was. Today of all days underlined that. She was her affliction to the point that when the Troubles stopped, her life somehow stopped. Even if she came back, as she'd so foolishly promised him earlier today, she wouldn't be Audrey anymore.

He knew this. They both knew this.

So much for their joy. Haven was not going to let them have even this much. Christ, they had wasted so much time. When they could have been banging their brains out, taking, grabbing what pleasure there was in each other. Because there was so little of it – time, pleasure, love – to go around wasting it was the sin.

No promises. She wanted to say something, reassure him, but it could – probably would – turn into a lie almost before it was uttered. She wanted to stay, but she could only imagine that Lucy had felt the same. And the one before her. Her only consolation was that the Chief had carried on after Lucy – she – had gone. Carried on and raised Nathan as his own. Built him - backhanded, to be sure - into the man she loved, strong enough to carry on without her.

"I love you," she told him. That was never going to be a lie. He said nothing, his eyes closed, and his expression writ with pain.

She stroked the lines of his face with the back of her fingers, until she realized he was desperately holding onto tears he would not shed in front of her. "I have to see a man about a salmon," she said, changing tactics. "In the morning. And Duke has a box full of weapons from his father, and a diary that says he should kill me."

They could briefly put aside the problems of day, but they could not shed them. Things to do, actions to take, mysteries to solve. That's what Nathan needed right now.

Nathan's grip on her tightened unconsciously. "He should try," he threatened. She moved, to relieve the pain more than anything, but it only made the want and the need flare to life between them again. That was better than tears, at least. "I will kill him this time." He rolled her over again, pinned her beneath him. This time he concentrated all his strength on holding her to him, using her like it wasn't her, like she was only the route to his own satisfaction, his only route.

She fought with him – with, not against him – testing how far he would let her go – not far, and she never seemed to reach the limit of his strength. It made her wild. No one had ever protected her, not as a child and not as an adult, and she had never believed she needed protection. Now, barred and shielded by him, encompassed by him; she felt safe, and free of the need to protect herself. She let herself go, just for now, let him take what he wanted, everything.

She did not wait for him, as her orgasm took her, a cry ripped from her, breath lost nearly to unconsciousness. She did not hear his equally desperate cry as he fell apart; emptied, and shattered.

*.*.*

Nathan carefully wrapped her arms in front of her chest, then his around hers. His knees underneath hers. He pulled the blankets over them both. Audrey was already asleep, he believed. The musty smell of sex permeated the room and the bed – even over her scent or his, despite how he buried his nose in her hair.

He still had a very sensitive nose, despite the way every other sense was completely overloaded, to the point of shutting down like tripped electrical breakers. His mind was officially blown. Her back warmed his chest, but that electrical current between them was quiet. Grounded, or so equally shared that no current flowed.

"I love you," he said. Told the back of her head, through her hair.

She murmured something inarticulate. So, not quite as asleep as he'd thought. And somehow, that didn't stop him.

"I love you," he said again. Letting the words form and letting them go, like he was practicing. Love. He loved her, and knew he needed to say it. Wanted to, of all the surprising thoughts. Wanted her to know that she was loved, of course, but wanted her to know – of all the scary things that were certainly out there – he was not scared of loving her.

"I love you too," she replied, surprising him and not surprising him at all. What after all had he intended, saying it aloud like that. That she shouldn't hear him?

"But don't kill Duke," she continued. Her eyes were closed. Maybe she was asleep after all? "I still need him."

"Audrey…"

"Promise me," she demanded, opening her eyes.

"If he hurts you-" Hurt was as far as Nathan was going to consider. Anything else was unthinkable.

"Promise me."

Nathan looked into Audrey's dark eyes, hard and unblinking, and wondered again if she was awake or not. All that had just happened and there was no recognition of it in them. Of him. "I promise."