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The Troubles finally ended, in pain and death and heartfelt goodbyes. They ended, and forever, but at such a high cost.
It was a week later. The little yellow house by the sea was dark and quiet. Nathan sat alone in front of a half-empty bottle of Jack Daniels. This time yesterday, it had been an empty bottle. This was progress.
The curtains wafted in the breeze and Nathan’s eyes turned towards the movement. It took him a moment to frown; the window wasn’t open. There was no breeze for the curtains to waft in.
There was a shape, in the shadows in the corner of the room. Or the shape itself was a shadow - Nathan was not sure what he was seeing, but he was sure that it didn't make sense. He glared at the whiskey bottle accusingly, but surely he hadn't drunk enough to be literally seeing things.
And then he heard something too, fading in and out, snatches of an all-too-familiar voice, threads of improbable hope and concern running through it, “... work this time … whiskey might actually help … a lot of whiskey Nate.”
Nathan turned his gaze back to the shadows in the corner, shadows which had now moved, were now moving around the curtains. He frowned again as he watched the shadow move nearer still, coalescing into a person-sized shape as it reached the edge of the coffee table.
“Duke?” said Nathan, incredulous and horrified. “What is this?”
Getting no response, he buried his head in his hands, ran his fingers through his hair. As he closed his eyes he heard that impossible voice again, “... know this doesn't make sense and I'm not sure how long I can stay or when I will be able to…”
Nathan snatched his head back up and saw Duke’s ghostly form looking at him intently. He appeared to be dressed all in black, head to toe and gloves included, and it was all black enough to merge with the shadows around them. All Nathan could really see was Duke’s face.
“How…?” he began, and he saw Duke frown at the question. But no answer came. Nathan stood and turned to pace in frustration, and the voice came back.
“...knew you might not be able to hear me, but I had to try anyway, I had to see how you're doing,” Duke finished, the worry and frustration evident in his voice.
“How I'm doing?” wondered Nathan. He looked out of the window to the sea, where the last of the day’s light was catching the tops of the waves. “I'm sat home alone and I'm so drunk I'm seeing things, that's how I'm doing.”
“No, Nathan it's me. I swear. I know it doesn't make any sense, but it's me. It's Duke.”
Nathan doubted this. The Troubles were gone; he could feel that in the knocking of his heart and the thumping of his head. Ghosts weren't really real were they, when there was no aether to power them? How could they be? Maybe he was just going crazy. Maybe this was his life now, talking to himself and staring at the sea, a local legend to scare the town's kids with, now that the real monsters were gone.
But, maybe talking to his delusion was the best way to work through it. And then also, it was Duke, and he wanted to talk to Duke. Oh god how he wanted to talk to Duke.
“How come I only hear you if I look away?” Nathan said to the window.
“I don't know. Better than last time when you couldn't see or hear me at all.”
This was a fair point. “I wasn't sure if Dwight was just losing it.”
“I know. And now you're not sure if you're just losing it. But this is real. I'm sorry if I freaked you out, I wanted to see if you're OK.”
Nathan laughed a bitter laugh, “You're the one who died, Duke. Shouldn't I be asking if you're OK?”
“I'm OK.”
“Then you’re not in …” Nathan took a deep breath, shook his head. “I mean it … worked? Croatoan didn’t trap you in some awful place, or …?”
“No, Croatoan didn't get his hands on me again. I died as myself, which was what I wanted. You gave me that. As for where I am now, it’s … strange. It’s hard to describe, and I shouldn't tell you too much in any case. Don’t want to spoil the ending for you,” he added, and Nathan could hear the incongruous smile in his voice.
“So will I … join you there? When I die?”
“What did I just say? I can't tell you what's going to happen, though I can see some of what's in store for you. You're going to be alright, Nate, Haven too. I just wanted to make sure you knew that.”
Nathan shook his head, ran his hands through his hair again. “But … How can you be OK? How can you even be asking how I am, as if I wasn't the one who …”
“Nate,” said Duke softly.
But Nathan didn't let him continue, cutting in with a sudden urgency, “I don't expect you to forgive me for how… for what I did...” he began, words tumbling out of him in a rush.
“For how I died? There's nothing to forgive. You only did what I asked. I couldn’t have stood it if Croatoan had got hold of me again. Without what you did, I would have lost myself completely. That wouldn’t have been just death, that would have been annihilation; there would have been nothing left. You helped me be myself, stay myself. That meant … means … everything.”
Nathan shook his head at the window again. He wanted to believe that Duke was alright, but he wanted to believe it so badly he didn't think he could accept that it might possibly be true. Not after what he'd done. “You're not telling me you're OK with what happened?” he asked.
“Everything that happened? No. But lots of things happened, Nathan. What what bothers me most is what came before. I mean … were you ever going to tell me?”
Nathan turned to him, confused and somehow hoping to find more meaning in Duke’s gaze. “Tell you what?” he asked and they stared at each other for a moment before he turned back to the window so that he could hear the reply.
Even so he waited through the pause before the words came. “I know you meant what you said, your last words to me. It’s just … would you ever have told me otherwise? If I hadn’t been dying, if you hadn’t had to …. All that time I thought you hated me; were you ever going to tell me that you didn’t?”
Nathan nodded and took a big breath in, before turning back to look Duke in the eye as he spoke: putting a voice to some of what he had been thinking about as he drank his way through the week. “It was hard to find the words. Hard to find the time, or the right moment. But those are just excuses. I should have told you long before. There’s a lot I should have told you long ago.”
Duke nodded back and as Nathan saw in that movement and in Duke's eyes, that Duke somehow didn't hate him he felt a burden lift from his shoulders. There were plenty of others left to weigh him down, but still; it was a relief. He saw in Duke’s eyes that he was upset, frustrated, sad, angry, confused ... but he didn't see hatred there, and he was almost surprised how much that helped.
“It's no excuse, but I thought you hated me too,” added Nathan as he turned back to look at the sea. There was something about conversation that didn't involve eye contact that was easier, he reflected.
“We were both pretty stupid, I guess,” offered Duke.
Nathan closed his eyes, leant his head on the cool window pane. “I never really hated you Duke. I'm sorry for the conditions you had to hear that under; for everything that led to that moment. There was so much more I wanted to say; should have said. I'm sorry for so many things that happened, things that I did, this stupid tattoo…”
“Don’t worry about the tattoo Nathan, not for my sake.” Nathan thought he could almost hear Duke shake his head. “I know it might be an uncomfortable reminder, but I don't think I ever believed you really intended to kill me. I didn't think it was you that Vanessa saw in her vision. I was scared of the tattoo for what I thought it represented. I thought ... I thought it meant that I would die alone, hated for what I was. I thought it would be about the Guard cutting me down as a Crocker, no matter what I said or did. Instead, I died surrounded by friends, loved for who I am, for everything I had tried to do. I know you didn't want to kill me that day.”
“I never should have got it done,” Nathan said, looking down at the offending patch of skin on his arm.
“No,” Duke agreed firmly. “You shouldn’t. But don’t you see? It wouldn’t have changed what happened. It would just have changed the vision. I would just have been told the last thing I’d see would be a pale arm reaching for me and I would have suspected almost every single person in Haven, not just those with tattoos. It wouldn’t have changed what happened in the end. You didn’t kill me because you got the tattoo. You killed me despite it.”
“I … I killed you because I left you with no choice. Should have talked to you more, looked out for you properly, maybe things would have gone better, maybe we could have stopped…”
“Nathan,” Duke said, firmly but kindly, “It was always going to go this way, always. Back to the dawn of Haven, it was all set in motion before either of us was even born. We just had to do the best we could with what we were given. And we did; I didn’t turn into my father, and you learnt to feel from the inside out. And Haven is safe again; as safe as anywhere.
“And, you know,” Duke continued, “You didn’t turn into your father either, and you are going to hold it together now, because Haven still needs you, it still needs a good Chief of Police. I mean it’s not quite a normal town still is it? There will be lots of consequences left over from what people went through. The place needs someone in charge who knows that. And look, here's the point: I am OK, and you will be too.”
Nathan huffed out the kind of laugh that said I don't think so.
“You will be OK because you told Audrey that you would be. It's as simple as that really. I know it's hard, but you can do it. And I can’t tell you if you will come here one day to where I am now, but I will try to come see you in Haven again. To keep an eye on you. Because I’m going to hold you to what you said to me as well, you know. ‘Spend the rest of my life trying to repay that debt’. I mean you don’t have to start tomorrow, but you do know that sitting here drinking on your own’s not going to cut it, right?”
Nathan did know. He deflected the question, “Audrey? Is she …?”
“She's not here. I think it’s different for her. The Barn …”
“Right.”
“But look, I know you meant what you said to me, and I know you meant what you said to her. And you will be OK. Spending a week drunk is just a step on the way there, I know that, and I think you know that too. So I want to look out for you, I want to help if I can. But I’m going to come back to check up on you as well; to make sure you’re keeping your word to both of us.”
Nathan had lost count of the number of times Duke had told him he was going to be alright. Whether Duke was trying to make sure it sunk in to Nathan's whiskey-soaked brain, or whether he was trying to convince himself, Nathan wasn't sure. Maybe it was a bit of both. Maybe it was one last impossible thing for the both of them to hope for.
“I don't deserve this, Duke,” Nathan said suddenly. “I don't deserve to be the one still here, still …”
“Maybe not,” agreed Duke. “But it's not about what you deserve; it's about what you can do . It's about what Haven needs, and Haven still needs you.”
Nathan nodded glumly.
“I gotta go Nate, I can feel myself getting pulled back.”
Nathan nodded glumly, then before it was too late, quickly blurted out, “Good to talk to you.”
“You too. Things are going to get slowly back to normal in Haven Nathan, but things are also going to change for you soon in a way that you would never… well; I shouldn't say too much, and I really have to go. You can tell me all about it when I see you again.”
And with that he was gone.
Nathan stood and looked at the sea for a while. Then he took the bottle of whiskey to the kitchen and poured it down the sink. Bit dramatic perhaps, he thought to himself, but he left the empty bottle there as a reminder for himself tomorrow.
He had made promises to the two people he loved more than anything, and he was going to make sure he kept them.