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Duke knows better than to get close enough to eavesdrop, but that doesn't stop him from keeping a close eye on the pair at the end of the bar. They looked happy enough half an hour ago, but now he thinks they're on the verge of an argument. Even as he watches, Audrey drains the last of her drink and walks away, looking miserable, and for a few moments Duke is concerned that if Nathan clenches his hand around his beer bottle any harder it's going to shatter in his grip.
Both men watch Audrey leave, heading for the stairs up to her apartment, and Duke turns back in time to see Nathan slump against the bar, head in one hand. He hesitates, knowing that it's none of his business and that it would take something of a minor miracle for Nathan to listen to anything he has to say, but Duke cares about Audrey and, in spite of everything, finds that he still cares about Nathan, too.
"Lovers' spat?" he asks as he sidles up to Nathan's end of the bar, hoping to goad him into responding.
Nathan, though, doesn't fall for the provocation. Instead he stands up, throws a few bills on the bar, and starts to walk away, all without looking at him.
"Really?" Duke calls after him. "You're gonna walk away, just like that?"
When Nathan clears the door and turns for the parking lot rather than Audrey's apartment, Duke almost lets him go. Audrey's a big girl, after all; if she wants to be by herself for a while, then who is he to interfere? And if Nathan's going to be his usual stubborn self and refuse to push her on it, well, he certainly isn't going to allow Duke to change his mind.
Except.
If he were Audrey, with only a month and a half left before he disappeared, he wouldn't be spending his nights alone if he could help it. And Audrey Parker is her own brand of stubborn, but Nathan should know better than to let her push him away.
"Dammit," he mutters to himself, then yells over at Jenni to watch the bar for a few minutes before taking off after Nathan.
He catches up to him just as Nathan reaches his truck. "Hey," he says, then backs up a step with his hands in the air when Nathan shoots him a glare. "Look," he starts, "I know it's none of my business—"
"Never stopped you before," Nathan all but growls, his expression suggesting that Duke's one wrong word away from being punched.
"--but," he continues with a pointed look in Nathan's direction, "are you really just going to walk away and leave her up there alone?"
"You're right. It's none of your business."
"Nathan—"
"Not that I owe you an explanation, but she asked to be left alone and unlike some people, I try not to intrude where I'm not wanted."
"And that's that?"
Nathan narrows his eyes at him. "That's that."
"You really are an ass, you know that? She's got, what, six weeks before she disappears for the next three decades and you're going to let her run you off for one of the few nights she has left?" Duke throws up his hands. "And she chooses you over me. The universe is seriously unfair."
Nathan's gone very still, and Duke rocks back on his heels as realization sets in. "She didn't tell you."
"What do you know?"
Duke takes a step back. "Look, Nathan, if Audrey didn't tell you then I'm not sure—"
"What didn't she tell me, Duke?" Nathan's voice is low, soft, dangerous, and Duke finds himself putting another step between them.
"The Hunter." He gives in without wasting his breath in further argument; Audrey's on her own with this one. Nathan's just going to get it out of her anyway, so he can't see any reason to keep it a secret. "It's not a who, it's a what. A meteor storm that happens every twenty-seven years, and Lucy and Sarah both disappeared the night it appeared." He's sure Nathan's already put the pieces together but he adds in the last part anyway. "The next one's in six weeks."
Nathan just stares at him for one breath, then two, and then he's taking off across the parking lot in the direction of the Gull. For a brief moment Duke considers calling Audrey and giving her a heads up, but he won't be able to reach her before Nathan does.
Besides, he has to admit, he's kind of on Nathan's side for this.
**
"Nathan?" she says as she pulls it open. "What's wrong?"
She doesn't know what she was expecting, maybe a case, maybe another attempt to get her to tell him why she's been avoiding him for the past week, but she definitely wasn't expecting the anger that's practically radiating from her partner. "Forget to tell me something earlier?"
Confused, she tilts her head. "What are you talking about?"
"The Hunter." He throws out the words with feigned indifference, and for a second it feels like the floor's dropped out from beneath her feet. "Forgot to mention that you figured out what that is."
"Nathan." She isn't sure where to start.
"That's okay. I can see how such a small detail might slip your mind. It's not like you're going to disappear off the face of the Earth or anything."
"I was going to tell you. You know I would've told you."
"When?" he demands. "The night of the meteor storm? Were you going to send me a text before you disappeared? Or maybe just leave a note on my desk for me to find after you're gone?"
He's not angry, she realizes then. He's afraid, for her, of what's going to happen to her.
"Doesn't matter now, I guess, since I got to hear the news from Duke."
"He's the one who figured it out." She can give him that much, at least; she didn't go to someone else – didn't go to Duke – before she went to him. The way things are between the two men, she knows that that would hurt him almost as much as the information itself. "He figured out what the Hunter is, the timing of Lucy and Sarah and their disappearances. He told me about it last week."
He seems to deflate, though she's not sure if it's because she didn't confide in someone else before him or if he's starting to bend under the weight of the news. "Why didn't you tell me?"
"I didn't know how." Her eyes blur and she swipes at them impatiently, seeing Nathan take a step closer, his hand held out toward her though he doesn't touch her. "What was I supposed to say? 'Hey, Nathan, I know we were going to give this whole dating thing a try but it turns out that I might vanish into thin air in a couple of months, so maybe we should wait and see'?" Her voice cracks on the last few words but she's too far gone to be embarrassed. A week of trying to absorb the news of her impending disappearance, seven days of thinking of almost nothing else, and Audrey feels the weight of it all more acutely than ever.
The other reason for not telling him is, quite literally, staring her in the face. Already she can see the grief in Nathan's expression and Audrey's not sure she can take that on top of everything else. She doesn't blame him in the slightest – she knows how she would feel if their positions were reversed – and she'll never tell him what it's doing to her, but it adds just that much more to the burden on her shoulders.
Atlas, she thinks, has got nothing on her.
"Audrey," he starts, then falters for a moment before he continues, the desperation clear in his voice. "We still have time. We'll hire another private investigator, talk to Lucy Ripley again, re-interview anyone who ever talked to Lucy or Sarah. We can… we can make Vince and Dave tell us everything they know. We'll get Dwight to help, and Duke can – Duke can—"
He falls silent at the first touch of her hand against his, and Audrey doesn't know if she wants to laugh or cry. She settles for taking a step closer. Nathan's arms come up around her, tentative, but when she wraps her arms around his waist and leans her full weight into him his grip tightens, holding her secure, and this is the safest she's felt all week. Maybe longer. "Thank you," she murmurs against his chest.
She feels his head come to rest against hers. "I don't know what to do," he admits, voice low.
This, she thinks. Just this. Aloud, she says, "I'm tired," which isn't really an answer but Nathan takes it as one. He loosens his hold enough that they can make it to the bed without tripping over each other and lets her go only so that she can climb under the covers. Without invitation or question he lies down beside her, and she reaches into the space between them to take his hand. "I should have told you." It's the closest she can come to an apology.
He squeezes her hand. "We'll talk tomorrow."
Audrey wants to talk now, wants to stay awake as long as she can, because when the end is so close and so definitive it seems such a waste to spend any time sleeping. But this burden she's been carrying for so long has exhausted her, and she barely has the presence of mind to squeeze back before she falls into a solid, dreamless sleep.
--end--