We'll Do It All Again, Part IV { 2

[27yrsandwelldoitallagain]

But I'm starting to believe
Oh, I'm starting to believe
That this could be the start
of something good



Audrey isn't paying it any mind when the heavy, night dark shifts

and slips, slowly, softly, sideways.
Into sunlight and hardwood.
A padded chair.

Into the gentle tapping of a pen.
Then, writing. Pausing. More writing.

Impatient nerves, that are edged with a bubble of excitement at every just barely leveled glance toward the door in front of her under her brim. Something about the last few days. It's left her charged. The days all the paperwork on her desk are about. Long days. Confusing Days. Weird days. Complicated families and friendships. Strange things. But it's lead around to this.

This sparking lightness. The necessary levity.

The bouncing need for the right person to come in the door.

Comments

[dont_feel_it]

The air in here has changed, just slightly. It's not really a joke anymore, and they both know it.

But he knows what it means to her. Wanting to belong. And what she says next --



It reminds him of the Rev, working up to a lather at his pulpit. Talking about the sides they have. That they need to take.

Glancing back up at her, face clear, open. The words he's known to say since he was old enough to know they're a lie falling out easy as how's the weather.

"Sounds like every town."

[27yrsandwelldoitallagain]

He does that too easily, too. That suddenly too-careful edge to the patience he's using. At the beginning, she might not have noticed. But, here and now, and after this day, after the cases they've worked? It's impossible. It's that same edge that lines everything else. Everyone else. Sheers it like a cliff break, or a cold breeze. Right at the edge of a glance. A voice. "It's not like every other town."

It's not like any other town she can even think of.
She doesn't look away when she calls him on it, either.

"But you, Nathan," Audrey says turning her chair to face him, and rearranging herself so she can lean on her desk for a moment. "You live in both Haven's, and I think we're going to find that very useful."

[dont_feel_it]

She never pulls punches, and she doesn't now, either, and though the way his mouth presses wry might look like a smile, it isn't.

It's a reasonable enough thing for her to think. Parker. Who even now doesn't know all that there is to know about this place. The Troubled.

Or him.

But because it's a reasonable thing for her to think, he nods, brief, meets her eyes. Unwilling to give away more than the bare minimum.

"Might be."

Or she might find he's a liability. He doesn't know yet how it all might play out.

But it's true. It might be useful. She isn't wrong.

[27yrsandwelldoitallagain]

Maybe it scores. Maybe that's all part of this strange, strange place, and this new partnership she has. A concession on both sides. For not belonging, and for knowing well and clearly where the cards are, even if she doesn't have them. But there's no point beyond the glance of touching it. An acknowledgment in his two words that are as much as her Yeah, it will had been.

Which is maybe, why she decides it. Because it's just that. An acknowledgment from Nathan. Without an additional rebuff, doubled down, or shuffling off to leave her there, with that empty draw, alone. Still the outsider, the intruder, unwelcome even when she's right, or more so because of it. But he doesn't. Move. Leave. Say anything but those two, and maybe it's even at the very least.

Audrey leans back, just enough to get the space to fold and unfold her legs, to cross her far too hot, and far too winter-booted feet on the corner of her unsuspecting desk. Doing her best to try and not let her smile get out too soon, dropping her pen dramatically on the desk as she twists to reach for the college stickered coffee mug on the far side of the desk behind her.

His expression has already started trying either to contort or definitely-not-to, and Audrey adjusts her hold on the coffee mug in her slouched easy, laid-back position, giving him a prim order of that refuses by its middle to be anything but martialed teasing: "This is one of those times where you need to say absolutely nothing."

[dont_feel_it]

She leans back, content with his concession, and punctuates it by dropping one, two booted feet on her desk, one over the other. That he can't help but look at.

And then can't look away from.



Unruly edges already tugging at his mouth when she commands, makes him meet her eyes and face that grin.

Which he does, straight-faced, nodding. "'Kay."

Absolutely serious.





Until it cracks, just a little, at the corner of his mouth.

Because he can't keep from glancing at her feet, and it is ridiculous. Parker. Huge furry winter boots. Gone native.

He can't feel this smile, but that doesn't mean he doesn't know it's there.

[27yrsandwelldoitallagain]

Nathan tries to keep his one word controlled, but almost nothing about it is. His voice, his face, and Audrey finds her own laughter escaping between her and the coffee cup she can't honestly and truly hide behind. Not that she's trying really. It's worth it within the second to watch Nathan go from that rusty, compressed smile, into one full-blown chuff of laugh after she starts giggling and can't find it in herself to stop at all.







Doesn't feel like she does at all stop, except that when her eyelashes flutter closed and open between one second and the next second it's a silent high vaulted bedroom instead of the blinds and windows pouring in light. And Nathan. Nathan isn't there above her. Before her. Anywhere. There's the warm bed, and morning's early defused light around the curtain into the dark, dark bedroom.

Audrey rolled on to her side and the cooler part of her pillow, squishing part of it between her shoulder and her cheek, not so much seeking more sleep as pressing herself into that still ringing echo of the laughter just for a few seconds longer while her smile became a warm, possibly even childish, secret between her and pillowcase.

The silent echo of that laughter seems to get everywhere, tugging at her already to get up.

To find Nathan. To tell him, in the very least, that he had a terrible poker face.






It's that day again.


(It's Nathan.)