'Ich will brennen' AU scene
Aug. 28th, 2016 09:18 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
moonshadowsCoffee in hand to ward off the unholy hour of ten in the morning, Duke Crocker wandered towards the deck to see what nefarious cleaning activity Julia was up to this time.
"Ich will brennen. Ich will brennen! Auch wenn danach nur kalte Asche übrig ist!"
He didn't know enough German to understand what the words meant, but the wench sounded pissed.
"Ich will brennen. Ich will brennen! Selbst wenn du meinen Namen morgen schon vergißt!"
Faintly through the door, and not-so-faintly with it ajar, he could hear electric guitar and a driving, pounding beat. A cautious glimpse showed her in the middle of hanging his laundry, practically glaring at a pair of his jeans while she announced grimly, "will ich brennen, ich will brennen!"
Okay, if he'd somehow pissed the wench off enough that she was speaking in tongues, he'd better figure out what he did and apologize for it before she knifed him in his sleep. And then stole his boat. Duke slipped back inside.
===
When Julia slipped back into the cabin with an empty laundry basket on her hip, a fully-dressed gypsy poured a generous shot of damn good whiskey into a mug of coffee and offered it to her. Cautiously, considering his 'I know I fucked up, please don't fillet me just yet' expression, she put the basket on the floor by the door and accepted the mug. They both waited in silence while she took the first symbolic sip, the apology implicitly accepted. He'd wracked his memory for anything he could have done to incur the wrath of wench and come up with nothing. While she appreciated the flavors of her bribe, she wracked her own memory for anything he could have done that he thought he needed to apologize for, and also came up with nothing.
"So," he said, sinking down onto the couch, "do I want to know what has you so pissed off?"
She gave him a puzzled look. He hadn't been expecting that. So now they were both confused. Great.
"You were singing?" he clarified. "Sounded pretty angry."
The confusion cleared, only to be replaced with mild horror. Julia took another drink of spiked coffee while she scrambled to get her reaction under control and sat on the opposite end of the couch. "That...wasn't angry," she said in a small voice, staring down into the depths of her mug.
"You sure?" Duke asked warily. "Sounded like you were going to burn someone. Or...something," he amended, remembering his jeans.
Julia shook her head, still staring into her coffee. "It's frustrated. Determined. I want to burn, I want to burn, even if cold ashes are all that's left afterwards."
Eyebrows in his hair, Duke tried without success to tell his penis that that's not what she meant. "And the bit about a name?"
"Even if you forget my name in the morning," she mumbled, taking another drink in a vain attempt to hide her blush.
A solid minute of awkward silence passed while Julia drank her coffee, wishing the booze were stronger, and Duke tried very hard to think unsexy thoughts.
"Julia..." he said slowly. "If you want to bring someone...if you need me to not be here for a few hours..."
Emphatically, she shook her head 'no'. "No," she said in case that wasn't clear enough. "There's no one..." A small, humorless laugh escaped her. "That's the problem."
Duke wished wholeheartedly that he'd fortified his coffee as well. "So you're..." He cut the rest of the sentence off while she blushed. "You want to burn."
"I'll take care of it," Julia told her empty mug firmly. "Like I've always done."
"You've never-" the words spurted out before he consciously realized the implication he'd instinctually grasped. The look she gave him said yes, she'd never, and she was well aware of the absurdity, thank you. "Never?"
"Had a boyfriend in Texas. Didn't get past second base before I found out he was stringing me along and dumped him. I've kissed a lot of guys, but I haven't met anyone else I wanted to go further with." She turned the mug around and around in her hands. "Well, there was one, but he was an asshole."
"Oh?"
Julia stared into her empty mug again. "He was gorgeous. Greek gypsy. Reminded me of you. But he called me a child to my face, so...nope."
"And he was the only one?" He was going to hell for this, he knew. Plying a wench with booze and getting her to spill her sexual history or lack thereof in hopes of...he wasn't even sure what he thought he was doing.
"You know there's another one," she shot back, only to immediately clap a hand over her mouth.
"Do I now?"
That got him a glare, and the fingers moved out of the way long enough for her to mumble, "Promise you won't laugh, Boss."
Naturally, he laughed. But not at her, off to the side with his hands in his hair because seriously, this could not be going where he thought it was going. The glare intensified. "Okay, okay. I promise. But I can't think of anyone you've ever expressed any kind of interest in..."
"It's okay," she said softly, putting the mug on the table between them. "I don't blame you for not being interested in my skinny fourteen-year-old self."
Every neuron in Duke's brain stopped firing. After what felt like eternity, he sucked in a lungful of air and they all started firing again. "But that was before you found out what a dirty manwhore I was," he half-asked.
Both hands went over her bright red face. "Didn't matter," was the muffled disavowal.
Fuck. Fuck. Duke took a deep breath and mentally stepped off the end of the metaphoric plank. "Well, I didn't exactly clean up my act until...end of June...but if you're looking for something with no strings..."
The hands didn't come down, but the fingers parted briefly and then closed again. "Komm mir nicht zu nah," she mumbled, "sonst kann's geschehen, daß wir beide lichterloh in Flammen stehen."
"English, wench," teased Duke.
The hands moved to reveal her lips. "Don't get too close to me or I might fuck your brains out," Julia translated.
"That," he said, firmly, "is a risk I'm willing to take."
Julia peered at him from between her fingers, one eye checking to see if he was serious.
Duke spread his arms in a challenging gesture. "I'm the one with an ungodly amount of experience," he teased. "Not you. I'd say you're more at risk, for getting your brains fucked out, but I promise I'll be gentle and stop whenever you want. Just say the word."
The hands came down. "You mean it? You'd...you actually want..."
A thousand joking, teasing comments flashed through Duke's mind, but he didn't want her to think he wasn't serious about this. He also wanted to be sure she was actively consenting, considering her dubious sobriety. "You want to burn?" he asked solemnly, holding her eyes for a long moment before she nodded.
The sound of his jeans being slowly unzipped echoed in the surprisingly silent cabin. Feeling uncertain and vulnerable was not
something Duke was used to experiencing while he revealed his genitals to a woman, but this wasn't just any woman. This was Julia, and she...was not moving her eyes from his face. But she was standing up, which was promising, and moving towards him, and lowering her head...right past his mouth?
If they were going to do this, Julia thought, then she was going to be damn well sure he really wanted it. And, if she were being honest with herself, she had no idea how good she was going to be at actual sex but she knew she was amazing at giving head and she wanted to make a good first impression. The sound Duke made as her lips slipped down over his penis practically set her on fire. Desperate now, she put all her skills to use in a perverse fit of determination. If she just made Duke orgasm hard enough, she thought, he'd be done and she could slip off to take care of things herself and avoid the humiliation of having her inexperience put on display. As much as she wanted him, wanted to hear him make those sounds inside her vagina instead of her mouth, she wouldn't be a pity fuck.
With that thought firmly in mind, she dove down and took Duke into her throat, for once not faking the wanton moan that vibrated down his shaft, both hands clutching handfuls of his jeans as he made a sound she was all too familiar with but had never heard from him. Almost regretfully, she pulled away from his softening shaft and stood. He almost looked like he'd died of bliss, except for the slow rise and fall of his chest. Mission accomplished , time to make her escape.
Two steps away, however, a hand closed on her wrist and a vaguely-challenging gypsy voice said, "I thought you wanted to burn."
Duke was looking up at her, she saw when she turned to him, his expression one part angry disappointment and one part hurt disappointment.
Eighteen years of unrequited feelings and sexual tension congealed in Julia's throat, combined with the fear of losing what she had with Duke. Suddenly, she didn't want no-strings. "You won't forget my name in the morning?" she whispered, trembling with the force of how much she wanted and how badly she wanted it.
For the second time that day, every cell in Duke's body forgot what it was supposed to be doing as the implication filtered through that Julia wanted more than just casual sex, and wanted it badly enough to turn down casual sex. There was no way he would be able to form any kind of verbal response, much less one that would reassure of all the things he hadn't let himself think about since she walked back into his life on Carpenter's Knot. So he pulled her down into his lap and kissed her.
She was, to his gratified surprise, amazing at kissing. In what felt like point-three seconds they were scrambling to get each other's clothes off while keeping the time spent not kissing to a minimum. Only after the glory of actually being inside Julia faded did he remember the condom he wasn't wearing and groaned at the thought of pulling out to put one on.
"Duke?" Julia asked, concern vying with the nearly overwhelming need to grind her way to bliss.
Eyes closed, he scowled. "Condom."
"I'll take that risk," she retorted, kissing at his neck.
"And if I get you pregnant?" he asked as solemnly as he could.
"Uncle Vince will throw a fit, but I need to have a child to carry on the Carver line eventually...what's wrong?" she asked as her answer failed to erase the stricken look on his face.
"I don't want to be spreading bastards like my dad."
Julia sat up, eliciting a moan as he moved inside of her, and fixed him with a stern look. "Then put a ring on it, Crocker."
Duke stared. "You're serious. You would put up with being Mrs. Gypsy Pirate and having my kid?"
"I don't have anything planned past the laundry. We could elope today. No one has to know. Just you, me, and a Completely Legal Errand."
The only logical answer to that was to kiss his wench like he'd never kissed anyone before, so he did. She kissed delightfully back and started moving in a practiced way, and it wasn't long before she broke the kiss to shudder around him and moan. That's when he remembered that he was the first person to watch her in the grip of bliss, and in awe he paused to admire her look of rapture. Then she caught her breath, opened her eyes, and smiled at him for a brilliant three or four seconds before bouncing in a very determined way and sending him over the edge in turn.
Julia admired the results of her handiwork, surprised to discover she was actually hoping Duke'd just knocked her up. She was even more surprised when a few minutes of post-coital kissing resulted in round two (three?) and her anticipatory squeak was met with a wicked chuckle as Duke wrapped his arms around her and laid her on the couch without ever disengaging.
"Did you want an actual ring?" he asked, kissing along her collarbone. "Because rings get can lost, but if you're actually willing to put up with having me as a husband, I want to do something to show my commitment. Get your name tattooed on my wrist or something."
"Property of Julia Carver tattooed above your dick?" she teased back. "So everyone else you sleep with knows who owns you?"
"That would be an option," he said mildly, "if I were going to be having sex with anyone but you." The look of utter astonishment on her face made him smile. "I told you I cleaned up my act, wench. Now, if you were serious about letting me knock you up..."
A pair of slender legs locked around his hips, pulling him slightly deeper. "Do it, Crocker," she challenged him.
They did it.
===
Julia's phone rang, out of the blue. Nathan's number.
"I understand now why trust is so important to you," he said tersely, intensely, as soon as she picked up. "I just wish I had someone I trusted the way you trust Duke."
Then he hung up, and all her frantic calling back over the next five minutes got her nothing but voicemail. Finally, she left a message.
"When you want to talk," she started, "tell me where and I'll listen." Nothing else came to mind, so she hung up.
Hours later, past sunset, she got a text.
Graveyard. My mom's.
"I'm going out, Boss," she called absently to Duke as she texted back her acceptance. "Taking a six-pack. Dock my wages."
"Very funny," he shot back, coming up behind her to peer over her shoulder. "Gonna play counselor to Nate?"
"Chief's under a lot of stress right now. Be better for everyone if I can help him and Nathan reconcile."
Gypsy arms snaked around her torso, pulling her against his chest while he nuzzled her hair. "Need a lift?"
"I'll take my bike," she answered, leaning into the hug. "May be back late. And don't worry, I'm not drinking any of the beers."
Duke hugged her a moment longer before letting go. "Take one of the good ones. It's on the house."
===
Julia parked her motorcycle by Nathan's truck and shucked off jacket and helmet, leaving them and taking the cardboard carrier of good imported beer as she hiked across landscaped grass and past stone markers to where Nathan was sitting at the foot of his mother's grave. Without a word, she sat next to him and set the beer down on the grass between them. A long moment passed before Nathan pulled one of the bottles out of the carrier and popped the cap off. Another hesitation, and then he took a long pull from the bottle.
"Does Duke know you're here?" he asked sourly, eyes downcast. That wasn't the most gracious thing to have said, and he knew it, but he was hurting too badly to stop himself.
"Yup. Says the beer's on the house."
Nathan just grunted and took another swig. "Aren't you having one?"
Julia shook her head. "I think I might be pregnant. Don't want to risk hurting the baby if I am."
That knocked Nathan momentarily out of his misery. "Pregnant? Who's the fath- never mind. Doesn't matter." Anything else he might have said got swallowed with the rest of the beer in the bottle, which he then glared at as if accusing it of having been empty on purpose.
"I never got to know who my father was," Julia said softly. "Not until he was already dead and buried. My bio-mom was an unwitting egg donor who got the kid she paid for and never knew what happened to the rest of her eggs. Eleanor was the only parent I ever had, and I hated her. But now that she's dead," she continued shakily, "and I'm facing the prospect of being a mother myself, I'm wishing I had her back. My future son or daughter will never have grandparents. My bio-mom doesn't even know I exist and the only mother I had will never hold her grandchild. That hurts more than I thought it would," Julia finished in a choked whisper, wiping away tears.
Nathan leaned over and hugged her for a minute. When she moved to pull away, he straightened up and took another beer, turning it over and over in his hands before opening it. "Chief's not my dad," he said with heavy finality. "He lied to me. My real father is Max Hansen."
"Your biological father is Max Hansen," Julia corrected firmly. "Family is more than just blood. Family is who you can trust to be there for you when you need them, and who you'd be there for when they need you."
There was silence for a few minutes while Nathan mulled that over, sipping at his second beer.
"None of my family is biological," she said defiantly. "I have a black grandmother in Texas and a gay brother in Singapore and an Iranian uncle I last saw at the airport in Africa. But here in Haven, aside from Duke, all I have is the unborn baby I may not be carrying and two uncles at the paper who like keeping secrets." A glance to the side showed Nathan looking at her with an expression of stunned awe. "They told me about the Wuornos Trouble," Julia said gently. "Chief holds Haven together; Haven's stress is his stress. When things are bad and he has trouble holding it all together, Haven starts cracking." She paused to let him think about the cracks that had been popping up around town. "If things get too bad, he'll literally fall apart."
Nathan stared at his beer as if it were the reason the world had suddenly turned upside-down. Then, slowly, he put it back. A shaky breath, hands covering his face, fingers sliding down his cheeks, and he reached for his cell phone. "Dad," he said shakily a few moments later. "Yeah. I'm at Mom's grave. I...I want to talk. Dad? I love you. Okay. See you soon." He put his phone away and then, suddenly, embraced Julia. "You have a brother," he said hoarsely. "Thank you. Tell Duke he's still a lowlife criminal, but he has good taste in beer."
Julia hugged back, just as tightly as he was hugging her. "You have a sister," she whispered into his shoulder. "I'll tell Duke you said thanks. You'll be okay?"
"Yeah," he said, pulling back to wipe his eyes. "I think I will be."
===
It had been an exceedingly long and annoying day, between the imposter who thought she was Audrey Parker and dealing with the plagues chasing a guilt-stricken young father, and the only reason Nathan Wuornos wasn't punching the Rev in his smugly sanctimonious mouth was the thought of what that stress would do to the Chief. So when Duke introduced the chic black woman as "Evi" and she jumped in with "Evi Crocker. I'm Duke's wife," he wasn't in the mood to entertain any more bullshit.
"No, you're not," he told her brusquely.
Evi looked momentarily stunned while Duke's eyebrows drew together in suspicious but gratified surprise. Parker just gave him the silent look that asked if he was sure he knew what he was doing.
"Excuse me? I'm-"
"You're not his wife," Nathan repeated firmly. "My hobby is running Duke's name through various government systems to see what he's been up to. If he'd gotten married, I would know about it."
"Yeah, nice try Evi but your name's Evidence Ryan and that was a cover." Duke verbally elbowed his way into the conversation, using the same tone as he did when he told Nathan what he was really doing after Nathan had told him what he was getting the ticket or arrest for. Just by that, Nathan would have known he was telling the truth even if he hadn't found the marriage license and confirmed it with Julia. Then Duke looked at him and said, "Really?"
In other words, was Nathan bluffing, or had he found the record and inexplicably decided to not use it to give him a hard time?
Nathan looked steadily back into Duke's skeptical eyes, ignoring that Parker was silently asking him the same questions. "Really."
The silence stretched for two beats before Duke looked away. "Okay then," he said with a sort of half shrug. "Evi, what are you doing here?"
"That's a good question," Nathan interjected in Cop Voice before the black woman could do more than open her mouth. "Considering you've just tried to scam two police officers-"
"And an FBI agent," the imposter interrupted.
"-and a federal agent, we already know you're a con artist. Duke's vouched for that which, trust me, isn't to your benefit. So welcome to Haven, Miss Ryan. Keep your nose clean while you're in my town because Crocker's been remarkably well-behaved recently and I'm starting to look for a new hobby."
Duke gave him that really? look again, but this wasn't exactly the best time to tell him about Chief's request that they bury the hatchet.
"You keep your nose clean, too, Crocker," Nathan deadpanned. "It's been a long day and while I wouldn't mind arresting you again, I don't need the paperwork right now."
That got him a quiet "Nathan!" from Parker, but Duke gave him a rueful half-smile and headshake at the reestablishment of normality.
"I make no promises," the smuggler teased. "C'mon, Evi. There's a few things I need to tell you."
One of which, no doubt, was that there was another woman who could claim to be Duke's wife and actually back that up.
Nathan turned to his partner and her imposter. "We should get back to the station. Got reports to make."
And a new name to run through various government systems. Maybe two.
===
In the long-abandoned living space above the Grey Gull, Duke was dancing with a broom. Audrey and Nathan had taken Audrey Two on the day's Trouble hunt in attempts to gain her cooperation by showing her the weirdness that was Haven, and Duke was more than happy to be left out of any Trouble that involved boats killing people. He didn't think the Cape would want to kill him after all the work he did making and keeping her shipshape, but he also didn't want to take the chance that she'd be feeling murderous for other reasons. So today it was just him and another type of restoration project, because the Audreys were looking for somewhere to stay that wasn't rented by the week and who knows? Maybe he and Julia would need someplace that was friendlier to little feet in the future. So he hummed snatches of songs and swept, the majority of his attention on cataloguing the various things littering the room and planning what to do with each one.
That's why it took him completely by surprise when an unfortunately familiar voice cooed at him for being domestic.
He recovered quickly, of course. Then he pasted a blatantly false and sharp-edged smile on his face and turned to face his own personal scourge. "Yeah, well, you know, I learned it living with you," he told Evi pointedly.
That wasn't exactly true; he'd learned how to clean up after himself as a child, living with his crack-whore mother. But after living with a woman who was not only as scrupulous as he was about keeping living spaces clean but also was up at the crack of dawn doing chores, well...the memory of doing all the work while Evi sat around admiring herself was especially repugnant.
"I cleaned!" she protested.
Duke shot her a look of purest bullshit-calling.
"Well, I cooked," she amended.
Nothing edible, said Duke's expression.
Evi smiled flirtatiously. "I was fun."
She was aggravating and used sex to buy her way out of the trouble she got herself into with him, but he smiled against the memories that made him want to punch her and reluctantly said, "You were fun." Before she could follow up on that admission, he asked, "How did you know I was up here?"
"The bartender told me. He also said you were looking for a tenant." She glanced around the clearly not-livable loft and then announced, "I'm gonna take it."
"Yeah, you know, I would love that, Evi," Duke said in his most unconvincing voice, "but I just rented it. To the Audreys." Technically, they were still in the rough negotiations phase, but Audrey was the type to take a vague statement as a promise sealed in blood.
"Really?" Evi asked, skepticism in every line of her body as she advanced on him, hips swaying.
Duke backed up as she came closer, not wanting to give her an opportunity, until the counter met the small of his back and he held the broom's flimsy shelter between her and the part of his body that could not be relied upon to behave.
"Wow," she said as she took in his defensive stance. "You really don't trust yourself around me, do you? Which..." One hand traced a wandering path up his chest while he clenched his jaw. "...you know..." The other hand settled on the counter beside his hip. "...I have to say..." The broom handle was little comfort between them when she pressed her body against it - and the hands holding it there. "...I find..." Evi smiled up at him, knowing from his expression his eyes were dipping down into her cleavage against his will. She took a deep breath. "...encouraging."
Duke forced his eyes to lock with hers. "Evi? Get out."
"But I don't want to leave," she mock-pouted. "And I don't think you want me to leave, either."
"I told you," he said evenly, "I don't want you here. I don't want you in my town, I don't want you in my bed, I don't want you in my life." Then he sucked in a sudden breath because the hand that had been on the counter was now on his groin. "Evi, stop."
"You don't want me to," she said, squeezing lightly.
The broom clattered to the floor, forgotten as Duke reached into his pocket for his phone and fumbled with it until he got it recording video. "I do not consent to this," he said clearly, bringing the phone into range to capture what it was he wasn't consenting to. "No. Stop. I do not consent to this physical contact!" he said in something just shy of a shout as she unzipped his jeans, then directed his gaze upward and tried to think of Julia's uncles while warm, wet - "Stop! No! Evi, stop!"
She didn't stop.
"Evidence Ryan," he growled through gritted teeth, still not looking down, "if you do not stop this instant, I am going to call the cops."
There was an unfortunately pleasant buzzing that might have been "yeah, right" if Evi's mouth hadn't been full.
Duke punched half-blindly at his phone, hoping it would continue recording while the call went on. Speakerphone was a necessity in this situation.
"Wuornos."
"Officer Wuornos, I want to report a crime!" The words came out in a rush, as if racing against what Evi's mouth was doing. "I'm being sexually assaulted in the loft above the Grey Gull."
The silence stretched in a way that was not reassuring. Please don't laugh, please don't laugh, please don't hang up, Duke prayed, eyes squeezed shut.
"Roger that." Nathan's voice had never been so welcome. "We'll be there as soon as possible." Then, as Duke was wondering if he was being blown off, Nathan said something completely unexpected and sounded like he actually meant it. "Hang in there, Duke."
Duke opened his eyes and stared in shock at the phone as the call ended. Did that really just happen? Nathan was being reassuring? Did this have anything to do with him potentially knowing about being married to Julia? Oh, shit, don't think about Julia while Evi's doing that. Think about her uncles. Yeah. That's Vince down there...ew. Much better-worse.
"I still do not consent," he said loudly. "Stop what you're doing and leave now. Stop, leave Haven, and I won't press charges."
Evi didn't stop. He could almost swear she was laughing at him.
For what felt like an eternity, Duke stood there trying his damndest to think of the most vile and disgusting things he could. Rotting fish. Rotting food. Senior citizens on nude beaches. Rusting ships. The Rev. After each one, he repeated his disavowal of interest and denial of consent, but it was a losing battle and they both knew it.
"I...do...not...consent!" he ground out as his climax finally took him. The only good thing about this was that Evi finally removed herself from his personal space, well, okay, two good things. Video of her spitting on the floor.
Duke grabbed for his jeans and held them protectively over his junk as she stood and wiped her mouth, and then swung the phone over to cover the door as Nathan and the Audreys came through. He wasn't sure if he wished they'd been ten seconds faster or not.
"Sexual assault," FBI Audrey said dubiously as they took in the scene.
"She performed an oral sexual act on me without my consent," Duke said, thumbing the recording to stop. "I have video proof."
Nathan crossed the floor to Duke, giving Evi a hard look as he took the proffered phone and retreated to the other two badges. Duke took the opportunity to fasten his jeans. For a minute they clustered around the phone and his recorded protests could be faintly heard, then they straightened with identical looks of disgusted resignation.
"Normally I would dismiss any claim of an attractive woman performing oral sex being unwelcome," FBI Audrey said, "but that's pretty open-and-shut."
Normal Audrey brought his phone back over to him. "Are you okay?"
"I could use a drink," he answered dryly.
Evi looked between them and grim-faced Nathan. "You're not actually taking this seriously, are you?" she half-asked with a breathy little laugh.
"In fact," Nathan told her, "we are." The handcuffs came out, and suddenly she was much less amused. "Evidence Ryan, you're under arrest for sexual assault. You have the right to remain silent..."
"Hey," Duke said to Audrey as Evi was being Mirandized. "Tell Nathan I want Judge Boone. He knows me."
"And likes you?"
Duke snorted. "Hell no. He hates my guts. But I've been in his courtroom enough that he knows all my tricks, and if he knows my tricks, he's not going to fall for Evi's."
"Duke," Nathan called from the door. "If you're going to get that drink before you come in to give your statement, let Parker drive you. I've got enough on my plate today, I don't want to have to arrest you, too."
For a long moment, all Duke could do was stare. "Why are you being nice to me?" he demanded. "Stop it, you're creeping me out."
Nathan smirked for the briefest second. "I make no promises."
===
"I can't imagine not having your children for...that long of the year, they're just...out to sea like that. No way of getting in touch."
Duke shot Audrey a dirty look. "Oh, now you're concerned with that?"
Julia glanced around the table in confusion. Duke looked furious, Nathan looked angry on Audrey's behalf, and Audrey looked hurt at being snapped at. Whatever Duke was so angry about, the other two clearly knew what it was.
"Duke..." Audrey bit her lip. "You know you can't be near her."
Her. There was a 'her' involved?
"I know." Duke poured himself another drink and tossed it back. "That doesn't mean I don't want to be in touch. Or," he continued, pointing the bottle at her accusingly, "that I can't be in touch." While Audrey's expression melted from hurt to crestfallen, Duke glowered at her and took a pull straight from the bottle. "But you didn't even ask."
This was not good, and apparently Nathan agreed. "Duke's right," he said to his partner. "We made that choice for him. That wasn't our place."
"Nathan?" Audrey directed her hurt look at him, surprised by this betrayal. "But you said..."
"Still wasn't our place," he repeated firmly. "We need to make it right."
Duke looked at him, visibly unhappy but reining it in. "I still have no idea why you're being nice to me, but I'm not arguing it. Not if it gets me contact with whoever has Jean."
Okay, so the 'her' was named Jean. Julia filed this away and sipped at her mint tea, watching to see what Audrey would do.
"I...I'm sorry, Duke. I'll talk to Beatty. She's bound to know who has Jean; it's her daughter, too."
Nathan gave Julia a piercing look as her expression hardened and she grimly raised the mug to her lips so she could hide her expression while pretending to drink. That Duke had a child was statistically not a surprise. That he had a child with Beatrice Mitchell made her question how desperate he'd been that night, but she wasn't judging. Even the reference to not being able to be near his daughter didn't raise any flags; it was Haven, there was probably a Trouble, and she could look into that tomorrow. No, what had her biting back her temper was that Audrey and Nathan had apparently made the decision to spirit Jean away somewhere and not bothered to keep tabs on her.
But it was okay, or it was going to be okay, because Nathan knew that Haven's stress was the Chief's stress and he was actively working to straighten those out when he ran into them. In the meantime, though, Duke was less confident and still drinking straight from the bottle. This was not going to end well unless someone stopped him, and with her new understanding of how deeply he wanted to be a part of his child's life, Julia thought she knew how to calm him down.
Duke was slumped sullenly in his seat. Julia leaned over and whispered something the other two couldn't hear.
The effect was immediate and startling. Duke sat up like he'd been goosed and stared at her in utter shock, not even noticing as she pulled the bottle from his slack fingers and slid it in Nathan's direction. "You're sure?" he demanded. At her nod, he leaned over and hugged her to his chest, struggling not to cry.
"I think we should leave them alone for tonight," she heard Nathan say over Duke's frantic whispers of 'thank you'. "Let's go talk to Beatty."
Chairs scraped. "We're going to head out, Duke," Audrey said. "I'm sorry. I'll see you both tomorrow."
One hand left Julia's back to wave as two sets of footsteps made their way to the door, which shut behind them. Only then did Duke pull away enough to see her face. "You're sure," he repeated, like he wanted to believe but couldn't let himself because he'd been burned so badly in the past.
"I haven't had my period since I was in Africa," she said quietly. "The pee-on-a-stick tests have come back positive for three weeks straight, and my stomach's been touchy lately. I have an appointment with my doctor next week to confirm it for the uncles, because they don't know about us and I don't want to tell them yet. You knocked me up, Boss," she teased, and was promptly crushed to his chest again.
"I'm sorry," he said into her hair.
"For what, Boss?"
"For being a drunk gypsy whore with a bastard child instead of the husband you deserve."
"You don't get to decide what I deserve," she teased. "But you are drunk. Need to get some water in you so you're not hung over in the morning."
Reluctantly, he let his arms drop and leaned back in his own seat. "You're too good to me."
Julia kissed him lightly as she stood. "Deal with it, Crocker. You sit, I'll get you that water. And some food."
Duke groaned and repeated, "You're too good to me."
As she stood, Julia grabbed the bottle and its cap to be sure he didn't get any dumb ideas. She came back a minute later with a tumbler of water and a promise that food would be out soon.
"Thank you for putting up with me," Duke said quietly.
"Boss..."
"I mean it, wench. I wouldn't blame you if you wanted to back out. Especially after hearing..." one hand waved vaguely at where Audrey and Nathan had been sitting.
"That after all these years, the odds finally caught up with you?" Julia asked dryly. "That doesn't change anything. I'm not going anywhere, Duke. I knew what I was getting into. I've known since high school."
"You didn't know about the drugs," he muttered darkly. "Not until after. You married me under false pretenses."
"You didn't know about the people I've killed," she countered. "You married me under false pretenses. You gonna back out?"
For a long moment he just stared at her. "You really want to do this?" he asked finally.
Julia stood and sat on his lap, then promptly leaned into him holding her tightly to his chest. "I've wanted to be Mrs. Gypsy Pirate since before I was legal. Didn't have strong thoughts one way or the other about kids, but if they're important to you then they're important to me. So the next time you try to thank me for putting up with you, just think about the next eight months and how much you're going to have to put up with me."
"That's different," he protested. "That's...hormones and shit. That's not being a manwhore with a rap sheet and a history of substance abuse."
Discreetly, a server scurried up and set a heaping plate of some rice dish on the table before scurrying away again. Julia grabbed the spoon sticking out of the mess of spiced grains and bits of meat and vegetables. "Is that how you talk to your wife and the mother of your child?" she chided. "Open up, Crocker. You're drunk and I'm going to feed you and you're going to let me."
"I'm sorry," he tried to say, but found a spoon in his mouth.
"You can make it up to me when you're sober," she told him, taking a spoonful for herself.
Duke buried his face in her hair. "Thank you," he whispered, holding her tighter. "Thank you for everything."
===
Of the things Duke Crocker reasonably expected to happen on a lazy Sunday morning, a cop knocking on the door of his boat was not on the list at all. While Julia squeaked and vacated his lap in search of pants, her bare legs flashing under the white of his stolen shirt, Duke grumbled and answered the door in nothing but his jeans.
"Nathan?" he squinted against the morning light and looked for Audrey, but she was nowhere in sight. "What the hell?"
"Can I talk to Julia?" the other man asked, completely ignoring the rhetorical question.
Duke crossed his arms. "Why?"
Surprisingly, Nathan looked uncomfortable. "She said once that family is who's there for you and who you're there for, and I need someone to talk to." When Duke didn't move, he grimaced. "Please, Duke. I'm sorry if I interrupted anything."
"First you tell me why you've been nice to me," demanded the disgruntled pirate.
Nathan sighed. "Chief's Trouble. He feels all of Haven's stress, and if it gets too much for him to hold Haven together...he falls apart. He asked me to bury the hatchet with you. He also approves of you and Julia being married."
"So you do know about that. You weren't just bullshitting Evi."
"Julia asked me to keep it secret. She was there for me when I needed someone, so I kept it secret." Nathan waited a beat, then looked Duke straight in the eye and said, "Congratulations on her pregnancy."
Duke made a grumbly sound and waved Nathan inside. "Fine. WENCH! NATHAN NEEDS SOME GIRL TIME!"
"BOSS!" came the shouted reply. It sounded scandalized, but Duke was certain she was giggling. She came into the state room a moment later, wearing sweat pants and one of her own shirts. "Hey, Nathan. What's going on?"
Nathan glanced at Duke, who was settling onto the couch in a vaguely challenging sort of way. Julia sat next to him, snuggling up to her husband, and with an internal sigh Nathan sat on the other side and resigned himself to baring his heart in front of his effective brother-in-law.
"Chris Brody is coming back tomorrow," he said.
Duke raised one eyebrow. "And this is a problem because...?"
"Because I think I have feelings for Audrey." Nathan winced, waiting for the teasing, but Duke sat straight up.
"Oh, geez, Nate, I'm sorry. Hey," he protested at the look of skeptical disbelief that got, "I am painfully aware of what it's like having feelings for someone you work with day in and day out and not wanting to risk that friendship for something more."
Nathan nodded to concede the point. "I just...if she's really happy with Chris Brody, I don't want to get in the way of that."
"But if she's not," Julia piped up, "then you need to say something. I talked her through the realization that she was more than the sum of her memories. Right now, she's exploring. Challenging everything she thought she knew and liked. Dating Chris Brody is something Audrey Parker, FBI Agent would never do, so she's doing it. But when she realizes that all he likes about her is that she doesn't fawn over him, it'll be over and she'll look for someone who likes her for more than that."
"So you're saying I should..." Nathan trailed off.
"Keep being yourself. Solid, steady, unflappable, deadpan Nathan. And when she tells you she broke up with Chris Brody, tell her he was a jerk and offer to make her pancakes. Or bring her half a dozen of Rosemary's cupcakes, the kind with sprinkles, and ask if she wants to talk about it."
"Family is who's there for you," Nathan said slowly.
"And she doesn't even know who she really is. She sure as hell doesn't have any family."
Nathan nodded. "Thanks, Julia. Have you..." he glanced at Duke. "Um, discussed baby names at all yet?"
"It still doesn't feel real," Duke admitted. "I don't want to get my hopes up, you know?"
"Ich will brennen. Ich will brennen! Auch wenn danach nur kalte Asche übrig ist!"
He didn't know enough German to understand what the words meant, but the wench sounded pissed.
"Ich will brennen. Ich will brennen! Selbst wenn du meinen Namen morgen schon vergißt!"
Faintly through the door, and not-so-faintly with it ajar, he could hear electric guitar and a driving, pounding beat. A cautious glimpse showed her in the middle of hanging his laundry, practically glaring at a pair of his jeans while she announced grimly, "will ich brennen, ich will brennen!"
Okay, if he'd somehow pissed the wench off enough that she was speaking in tongues, he'd better figure out what he did and apologize for it before she knifed him in his sleep. And then stole his boat. Duke slipped back inside.
===
When Julia slipped back into the cabin with an empty laundry basket on her hip, a fully-dressed gypsy poured a generous shot of damn good whiskey into a mug of coffee and offered it to her. Cautiously, considering his 'I know I fucked up, please don't fillet me just yet' expression, she put the basket on the floor by the door and accepted the mug. They both waited in silence while she took the first symbolic sip, the apology implicitly accepted. He'd wracked his memory for anything he could have done to incur the wrath of wench and come up with nothing. While she appreciated the flavors of her bribe, she wracked her own memory for anything he could have done that he thought he needed to apologize for, and also came up with nothing.
"So," he said, sinking down onto the couch, "do I want to know what has you so pissed off?"
She gave him a puzzled look. He hadn't been expecting that. So now they were both confused. Great.
"You were singing?" he clarified. "Sounded pretty angry."
The confusion cleared, only to be replaced with mild horror. Julia took another drink of spiked coffee while she scrambled to get her reaction under control and sat on the opposite end of the couch. "That...wasn't angry," she said in a small voice, staring down into the depths of her mug.
"You sure?" Duke asked warily. "Sounded like you were going to burn someone. Or...something," he amended, remembering his jeans.
Julia shook her head, still staring into her coffee. "It's frustrated. Determined. I want to burn, I want to burn, even if cold ashes are all that's left afterwards."
Eyebrows in his hair, Duke tried without success to tell his penis that that's not what she meant. "And the bit about a name?"
"Even if you forget my name in the morning," she mumbled, taking another drink in a vain attempt to hide her blush.
A solid minute of awkward silence passed while Julia drank her coffee, wishing the booze were stronger, and Duke tried very hard to think unsexy thoughts.
"Julia..." he said slowly. "If you want to bring someone...if you need me to not be here for a few hours..."
Emphatically, she shook her head 'no'. "No," she said in case that wasn't clear enough. "There's no one..." A small, humorless laugh escaped her. "That's the problem."
Duke wished wholeheartedly that he'd fortified his coffee as well. "So you're..." He cut the rest of the sentence off while she blushed. "You want to burn."
"I'll take care of it," Julia told her empty mug firmly. "Like I've always done."
"You've never-" the words spurted out before he consciously realized the implication he'd instinctually grasped. The look she gave him said yes, she'd never, and she was well aware of the absurdity, thank you. "Never?"
"Had a boyfriend in Texas. Didn't get past second base before I found out he was stringing me along and dumped him. I've kissed a lot of guys, but I haven't met anyone else I wanted to go further with." She turned the mug around and around in her hands. "Well, there was one, but he was an asshole."
"Oh?"
Julia stared into her empty mug again. "He was gorgeous. Greek gypsy. Reminded me of you. But he called me a child to my face, so...nope."
"And he was the only one?" He was going to hell for this, he knew. Plying a wench with booze and getting her to spill her sexual history or lack thereof in hopes of...he wasn't even sure what he thought he was doing.
"You know there's another one," she shot back, only to immediately clap a hand over her mouth.
"Do I now?"
That got him a glare, and the fingers moved out of the way long enough for her to mumble, "Promise you won't laugh, Boss."
Naturally, he laughed. But not at her, off to the side with his hands in his hair because seriously, this could not be going where he thought it was going. The glare intensified. "Okay, okay. I promise. But I can't think of anyone you've ever expressed any kind of interest in..."
"It's okay," she said softly, putting the mug on the table between them. "I don't blame you for not being interested in my skinny fourteen-year-old self."
Every neuron in Duke's brain stopped firing. After what felt like eternity, he sucked in a lungful of air and they all started firing again. "But that was before you found out what a dirty manwhore I was," he half-asked.
Both hands went over her bright red face. "Didn't matter," was the muffled disavowal.
Fuck. Fuck. Duke took a deep breath and mentally stepped off the end of the metaphoric plank. "Well, I didn't exactly clean up my act until...end of June...but if you're looking for something with no strings..."
The hands didn't come down, but the fingers parted briefly and then closed again. "Komm mir nicht zu nah," she mumbled, "sonst kann's geschehen, daß wir beide lichterloh in Flammen stehen."
"English, wench," teased Duke.
The hands moved to reveal her lips. "Don't get too close to me or I might fuck your brains out," Julia translated.
"That," he said, firmly, "is a risk I'm willing to take."
Julia peered at him from between her fingers, one eye checking to see if he was serious.
Duke spread his arms in a challenging gesture. "I'm the one with an ungodly amount of experience," he teased. "Not you. I'd say you're more at risk, for getting your brains fucked out, but I promise I'll be gentle and stop whenever you want. Just say the word."
The hands came down. "You mean it? You'd...you actually want..."
A thousand joking, teasing comments flashed through Duke's mind, but he didn't want her to think he wasn't serious about this. He also wanted to be sure she was actively consenting, considering her dubious sobriety. "You want to burn?" he asked solemnly, holding her eyes for a long moment before she nodded.
The sound of his jeans being slowly unzipped echoed in the surprisingly silent cabin. Feeling uncertain and vulnerable was not
something Duke was used to experiencing while he revealed his genitals to a woman, but this wasn't just any woman. This was Julia, and she...was not moving her eyes from his face. But she was standing up, which was promising, and moving towards him, and lowering her head...right past his mouth?
If they were going to do this, Julia thought, then she was going to be damn well sure he really wanted it. And, if she were being honest with herself, she had no idea how good she was going to be at actual sex but she knew she was amazing at giving head and she wanted to make a good first impression. The sound Duke made as her lips slipped down over his penis practically set her on fire. Desperate now, she put all her skills to use in a perverse fit of determination. If she just made Duke orgasm hard enough, she thought, he'd be done and she could slip off to take care of things herself and avoid the humiliation of having her inexperience put on display. As much as she wanted him, wanted to hear him make those sounds inside her vagina instead of her mouth, she wouldn't be a pity fuck.
With that thought firmly in mind, she dove down and took Duke into her throat, for once not faking the wanton moan that vibrated down his shaft, both hands clutching handfuls of his jeans as he made a sound she was all too familiar with but had never heard from him. Almost regretfully, she pulled away from his softening shaft and stood. He almost looked like he'd died of bliss, except for the slow rise and fall of his chest. Mission accomplished , time to make her escape.
Two steps away, however, a hand closed on her wrist and a vaguely-challenging gypsy voice said, "I thought you wanted to burn."
Duke was looking up at her, she saw when she turned to him, his expression one part angry disappointment and one part hurt disappointment.
Eighteen years of unrequited feelings and sexual tension congealed in Julia's throat, combined with the fear of losing what she had with Duke. Suddenly, she didn't want no-strings. "You won't forget my name in the morning?" she whispered, trembling with the force of how much she wanted and how badly she wanted it.
For the second time that day, every cell in Duke's body forgot what it was supposed to be doing as the implication filtered through that Julia wanted more than just casual sex, and wanted it badly enough to turn down casual sex. There was no way he would be able to form any kind of verbal response, much less one that would reassure of all the things he hadn't let himself think about since she walked back into his life on Carpenter's Knot. So he pulled her down into his lap and kissed her.
She was, to his gratified surprise, amazing at kissing. In what felt like point-three seconds they were scrambling to get each other's clothes off while keeping the time spent not kissing to a minimum. Only after the glory of actually being inside Julia faded did he remember the condom he wasn't wearing and groaned at the thought of pulling out to put one on.
"Duke?" Julia asked, concern vying with the nearly overwhelming need to grind her way to bliss.
Eyes closed, he scowled. "Condom."
"I'll take that risk," she retorted, kissing at his neck.
"And if I get you pregnant?" he asked as solemnly as he could.
"Uncle Vince will throw a fit, but I need to have a child to carry on the Carver line eventually...what's wrong?" she asked as her answer failed to erase the stricken look on his face.
"I don't want to be spreading bastards like my dad."
Julia sat up, eliciting a moan as he moved inside of her, and fixed him with a stern look. "Then put a ring on it, Crocker."
Duke stared. "You're serious. You would put up with being Mrs. Gypsy Pirate and having my kid?"
"I don't have anything planned past the laundry. We could elope today. No one has to know. Just you, me, and a Completely Legal Errand."
The only logical answer to that was to kiss his wench like he'd never kissed anyone before, so he did. She kissed delightfully back and started moving in a practiced way, and it wasn't long before she broke the kiss to shudder around him and moan. That's when he remembered that he was the first person to watch her in the grip of bliss, and in awe he paused to admire her look of rapture. Then she caught her breath, opened her eyes, and smiled at him for a brilliant three or four seconds before bouncing in a very determined way and sending him over the edge in turn.
Julia admired the results of her handiwork, surprised to discover she was actually hoping Duke'd just knocked her up. She was even more surprised when a few minutes of post-coital kissing resulted in round two (three?) and her anticipatory squeak was met with a wicked chuckle as Duke wrapped his arms around her and laid her on the couch without ever disengaging.
"Did you want an actual ring?" he asked, kissing along her collarbone. "Because rings get can lost, but if you're actually willing to put up with having me as a husband, I want to do something to show my commitment. Get your name tattooed on my wrist or something."
"Property of Julia Carver tattooed above your dick?" she teased back. "So everyone else you sleep with knows who owns you?"
"That would be an option," he said mildly, "if I were going to be having sex with anyone but you." The look of utter astonishment on her face made him smile. "I told you I cleaned up my act, wench. Now, if you were serious about letting me knock you up..."
A pair of slender legs locked around his hips, pulling him slightly deeper. "Do it, Crocker," she challenged him.
They did it.
===
Julia's phone rang, out of the blue. Nathan's number.
"I understand now why trust is so important to you," he said tersely, intensely, as soon as she picked up. "I just wish I had someone I trusted the way you trust Duke."
Then he hung up, and all her frantic calling back over the next five minutes got her nothing but voicemail. Finally, she left a message.
"When you want to talk," she started, "tell me where and I'll listen." Nothing else came to mind, so she hung up.
Hours later, past sunset, she got a text.
Graveyard. My mom's.
"I'm going out, Boss," she called absently to Duke as she texted back her acceptance. "Taking a six-pack. Dock my wages."
"Very funny," he shot back, coming up behind her to peer over her shoulder. "Gonna play counselor to Nate?"
"Chief's under a lot of stress right now. Be better for everyone if I can help him and Nathan reconcile."
Gypsy arms snaked around her torso, pulling her against his chest while he nuzzled her hair. "Need a lift?"
"I'll take my bike," she answered, leaning into the hug. "May be back late. And don't worry, I'm not drinking any of the beers."
Duke hugged her a moment longer before letting go. "Take one of the good ones. It's on the house."
===
Julia parked her motorcycle by Nathan's truck and shucked off jacket and helmet, leaving them and taking the cardboard carrier of good imported beer as she hiked across landscaped grass and past stone markers to where Nathan was sitting at the foot of his mother's grave. Without a word, she sat next to him and set the beer down on the grass between them. A long moment passed before Nathan pulled one of the bottles out of the carrier and popped the cap off. Another hesitation, and then he took a long pull from the bottle.
"Does Duke know you're here?" he asked sourly, eyes downcast. That wasn't the most gracious thing to have said, and he knew it, but he was hurting too badly to stop himself.
"Yup. Says the beer's on the house."
Nathan just grunted and took another swig. "Aren't you having one?"
Julia shook her head. "I think I might be pregnant. Don't want to risk hurting the baby if I am."
That knocked Nathan momentarily out of his misery. "Pregnant? Who's the fath- never mind. Doesn't matter." Anything else he might have said got swallowed with the rest of the beer in the bottle, which he then glared at as if accusing it of having been empty on purpose.
"I never got to know who my father was," Julia said softly. "Not until he was already dead and buried. My bio-mom was an unwitting egg donor who got the kid she paid for and never knew what happened to the rest of her eggs. Eleanor was the only parent I ever had, and I hated her. But now that she's dead," she continued shakily, "and I'm facing the prospect of being a mother myself, I'm wishing I had her back. My future son or daughter will never have grandparents. My bio-mom doesn't even know I exist and the only mother I had will never hold her grandchild. That hurts more than I thought it would," Julia finished in a choked whisper, wiping away tears.
Nathan leaned over and hugged her for a minute. When she moved to pull away, he straightened up and took another beer, turning it over and over in his hands before opening it. "Chief's not my dad," he said with heavy finality. "He lied to me. My real father is Max Hansen."
"Your biological father is Max Hansen," Julia corrected firmly. "Family is more than just blood. Family is who you can trust to be there for you when you need them, and who you'd be there for when they need you."
There was silence for a few minutes while Nathan mulled that over, sipping at his second beer.
"None of my family is biological," she said defiantly. "I have a black grandmother in Texas and a gay brother in Singapore and an Iranian uncle I last saw at the airport in Africa. But here in Haven, aside from Duke, all I have is the unborn baby I may not be carrying and two uncles at the paper who like keeping secrets." A glance to the side showed Nathan looking at her with an expression of stunned awe. "They told me about the Wuornos Trouble," Julia said gently. "Chief holds Haven together; Haven's stress is his stress. When things are bad and he has trouble holding it all together, Haven starts cracking." She paused to let him think about the cracks that had been popping up around town. "If things get too bad, he'll literally fall apart."
Nathan stared at his beer as if it were the reason the world had suddenly turned upside-down. Then, slowly, he put it back. A shaky breath, hands covering his face, fingers sliding down his cheeks, and he reached for his cell phone. "Dad," he said shakily a few moments later. "Yeah. I'm at Mom's grave. I...I want to talk. Dad? I love you. Okay. See you soon." He put his phone away and then, suddenly, embraced Julia. "You have a brother," he said hoarsely. "Thank you. Tell Duke he's still a lowlife criminal, but he has good taste in beer."
Julia hugged back, just as tightly as he was hugging her. "You have a sister," she whispered into his shoulder. "I'll tell Duke you said thanks. You'll be okay?"
"Yeah," he said, pulling back to wipe his eyes. "I think I will be."
===
It had been an exceedingly long and annoying day, between the imposter who thought she was Audrey Parker and dealing with the plagues chasing a guilt-stricken young father, and the only reason Nathan Wuornos wasn't punching the Rev in his smugly sanctimonious mouth was the thought of what that stress would do to the Chief. So when Duke introduced the chic black woman as "Evi" and she jumped in with "Evi Crocker. I'm Duke's wife," he wasn't in the mood to entertain any more bullshit.
"No, you're not," he told her brusquely.
Evi looked momentarily stunned while Duke's eyebrows drew together in suspicious but gratified surprise. Parker just gave him the silent look that asked if he was sure he knew what he was doing.
"Excuse me? I'm-"
"You're not his wife," Nathan repeated firmly. "My hobby is running Duke's name through various government systems to see what he's been up to. If he'd gotten married, I would know about it."
"Yeah, nice try Evi but your name's Evidence Ryan and that was a cover." Duke verbally elbowed his way into the conversation, using the same tone as he did when he told Nathan what he was really doing after Nathan had told him what he was getting the ticket or arrest for. Just by that, Nathan would have known he was telling the truth even if he hadn't found the marriage license and confirmed it with Julia. Then Duke looked at him and said, "Really?"
In other words, was Nathan bluffing, or had he found the record and inexplicably decided to not use it to give him a hard time?
Nathan looked steadily back into Duke's skeptical eyes, ignoring that Parker was silently asking him the same questions. "Really."
The silence stretched for two beats before Duke looked away. "Okay then," he said with a sort of half shrug. "Evi, what are you doing here?"
"That's a good question," Nathan interjected in Cop Voice before the black woman could do more than open her mouth. "Considering you've just tried to scam two police officers-"
"And an FBI agent," the imposter interrupted.
"-and a federal agent, we already know you're a con artist. Duke's vouched for that which, trust me, isn't to your benefit. So welcome to Haven, Miss Ryan. Keep your nose clean while you're in my town because Crocker's been remarkably well-behaved recently and I'm starting to look for a new hobby."
Duke gave him that really? look again, but this wasn't exactly the best time to tell him about Chief's request that they bury the hatchet.
"You keep your nose clean, too, Crocker," Nathan deadpanned. "It's been a long day and while I wouldn't mind arresting you again, I don't need the paperwork right now."
That got him a quiet "Nathan!" from Parker, but Duke gave him a rueful half-smile and headshake at the reestablishment of normality.
"I make no promises," the smuggler teased. "C'mon, Evi. There's a few things I need to tell you."
One of which, no doubt, was that there was another woman who could claim to be Duke's wife and actually back that up.
Nathan turned to his partner and her imposter. "We should get back to the station. Got reports to make."
And a new name to run through various government systems. Maybe two.
===
In the long-abandoned living space above the Grey Gull, Duke was dancing with a broom. Audrey and Nathan had taken Audrey Two on the day's Trouble hunt in attempts to gain her cooperation by showing her the weirdness that was Haven, and Duke was more than happy to be left out of any Trouble that involved boats killing people. He didn't think the Cape would want to kill him after all the work he did making and keeping her shipshape, but he also didn't want to take the chance that she'd be feeling murderous for other reasons. So today it was just him and another type of restoration project, because the Audreys were looking for somewhere to stay that wasn't rented by the week and who knows? Maybe he and Julia would need someplace that was friendlier to little feet in the future. So he hummed snatches of songs and swept, the majority of his attention on cataloguing the various things littering the room and planning what to do with each one.
That's why it took him completely by surprise when an unfortunately familiar voice cooed at him for being domestic.
He recovered quickly, of course. Then he pasted a blatantly false and sharp-edged smile on his face and turned to face his own personal scourge. "Yeah, well, you know, I learned it living with you," he told Evi pointedly.
That wasn't exactly true; he'd learned how to clean up after himself as a child, living with his crack-whore mother. But after living with a woman who was not only as scrupulous as he was about keeping living spaces clean but also was up at the crack of dawn doing chores, well...the memory of doing all the work while Evi sat around admiring herself was especially repugnant.
"I cleaned!" she protested.
Duke shot her a look of purest bullshit-calling.
"Well, I cooked," she amended.
Nothing edible, said Duke's expression.
Evi smiled flirtatiously. "I was fun."
She was aggravating and used sex to buy her way out of the trouble she got herself into with him, but he smiled against the memories that made him want to punch her and reluctantly said, "You were fun." Before she could follow up on that admission, he asked, "How did you know I was up here?"
"The bartender told me. He also said you were looking for a tenant." She glanced around the clearly not-livable loft and then announced, "I'm gonna take it."
"Yeah, you know, I would love that, Evi," Duke said in his most unconvincing voice, "but I just rented it. To the Audreys." Technically, they were still in the rough negotiations phase, but Audrey was the type to take a vague statement as a promise sealed in blood.
"Really?" Evi asked, skepticism in every line of her body as she advanced on him, hips swaying.
Duke backed up as she came closer, not wanting to give her an opportunity, until the counter met the small of his back and he held the broom's flimsy shelter between her and the part of his body that could not be relied upon to behave.
"Wow," she said as she took in his defensive stance. "You really don't trust yourself around me, do you? Which..." One hand traced a wandering path up his chest while he clenched his jaw. "...you know..." The other hand settled on the counter beside his hip. "...I have to say..." The broom handle was little comfort between them when she pressed her body against it - and the hands holding it there. "...I find..." Evi smiled up at him, knowing from his expression his eyes were dipping down into her cleavage against his will. She took a deep breath. "...encouraging."
Duke forced his eyes to lock with hers. "Evi? Get out."
"But I don't want to leave," she mock-pouted. "And I don't think you want me to leave, either."
"I told you," he said evenly, "I don't want you here. I don't want you in my town, I don't want you in my bed, I don't want you in my life." Then he sucked in a sudden breath because the hand that had been on the counter was now on his groin. "Evi, stop."
"You don't want me to," she said, squeezing lightly.
The broom clattered to the floor, forgotten as Duke reached into his pocket for his phone and fumbled with it until he got it recording video. "I do not consent to this," he said clearly, bringing the phone into range to capture what it was he wasn't consenting to. "No. Stop. I do not consent to this physical contact!" he said in something just shy of a shout as she unzipped his jeans, then directed his gaze upward and tried to think of Julia's uncles while warm, wet - "Stop! No! Evi, stop!"
She didn't stop.
"Evidence Ryan," he growled through gritted teeth, still not looking down, "if you do not stop this instant, I am going to call the cops."
There was an unfortunately pleasant buzzing that might have been "yeah, right" if Evi's mouth hadn't been full.
Duke punched half-blindly at his phone, hoping it would continue recording while the call went on. Speakerphone was a necessity in this situation.
"Wuornos."
"Officer Wuornos, I want to report a crime!" The words came out in a rush, as if racing against what Evi's mouth was doing. "I'm being sexually assaulted in the loft above the Grey Gull."
The silence stretched in a way that was not reassuring. Please don't laugh, please don't laugh, please don't hang up, Duke prayed, eyes squeezed shut.
"Roger that." Nathan's voice had never been so welcome. "We'll be there as soon as possible." Then, as Duke was wondering if he was being blown off, Nathan said something completely unexpected and sounded like he actually meant it. "Hang in there, Duke."
Duke opened his eyes and stared in shock at the phone as the call ended. Did that really just happen? Nathan was being reassuring? Did this have anything to do with him potentially knowing about being married to Julia? Oh, shit, don't think about Julia while Evi's doing that. Think about her uncles. Yeah. That's Vince down there...ew. Much better-worse.
"I still do not consent," he said loudly. "Stop what you're doing and leave now. Stop, leave Haven, and I won't press charges."
Evi didn't stop. He could almost swear she was laughing at him.
For what felt like an eternity, Duke stood there trying his damndest to think of the most vile and disgusting things he could. Rotting fish. Rotting food. Senior citizens on nude beaches. Rusting ships. The Rev. After each one, he repeated his disavowal of interest and denial of consent, but it was a losing battle and they both knew it.
"I...do...not...consent!" he ground out as his climax finally took him. The only good thing about this was that Evi finally removed herself from his personal space, well, okay, two good things. Video of her spitting on the floor.
Duke grabbed for his jeans and held them protectively over his junk as she stood and wiped her mouth, and then swung the phone over to cover the door as Nathan and the Audreys came through. He wasn't sure if he wished they'd been ten seconds faster or not.
"Sexual assault," FBI Audrey said dubiously as they took in the scene.
"She performed an oral sexual act on me without my consent," Duke said, thumbing the recording to stop. "I have video proof."
Nathan crossed the floor to Duke, giving Evi a hard look as he took the proffered phone and retreated to the other two badges. Duke took the opportunity to fasten his jeans. For a minute they clustered around the phone and his recorded protests could be faintly heard, then they straightened with identical looks of disgusted resignation.
"Normally I would dismiss any claim of an attractive woman performing oral sex being unwelcome," FBI Audrey said, "but that's pretty open-and-shut."
Normal Audrey brought his phone back over to him. "Are you okay?"
"I could use a drink," he answered dryly.
Evi looked between them and grim-faced Nathan. "You're not actually taking this seriously, are you?" she half-asked with a breathy little laugh.
"In fact," Nathan told her, "we are." The handcuffs came out, and suddenly she was much less amused. "Evidence Ryan, you're under arrest for sexual assault. You have the right to remain silent..."
"Hey," Duke said to Audrey as Evi was being Mirandized. "Tell Nathan I want Judge Boone. He knows me."
"And likes you?"
Duke snorted. "Hell no. He hates my guts. But I've been in his courtroom enough that he knows all my tricks, and if he knows my tricks, he's not going to fall for Evi's."
"Duke," Nathan called from the door. "If you're going to get that drink before you come in to give your statement, let Parker drive you. I've got enough on my plate today, I don't want to have to arrest you, too."
For a long moment, all Duke could do was stare. "Why are you being nice to me?" he demanded. "Stop it, you're creeping me out."
Nathan smirked for the briefest second. "I make no promises."
===
"I can't imagine not having your children for...that long of the year, they're just...out to sea like that. No way of getting in touch."
Duke shot Audrey a dirty look. "Oh, now you're concerned with that?"
Julia glanced around the table in confusion. Duke looked furious, Nathan looked angry on Audrey's behalf, and Audrey looked hurt at being snapped at. Whatever Duke was so angry about, the other two clearly knew what it was.
"Duke..." Audrey bit her lip. "You know you can't be near her."
Her. There was a 'her' involved?
"I know." Duke poured himself another drink and tossed it back. "That doesn't mean I don't want to be in touch. Or," he continued, pointing the bottle at her accusingly, "that I can't be in touch." While Audrey's expression melted from hurt to crestfallen, Duke glowered at her and took a pull straight from the bottle. "But you didn't even ask."
This was not good, and apparently Nathan agreed. "Duke's right," he said to his partner. "We made that choice for him. That wasn't our place."
"Nathan?" Audrey directed her hurt look at him, surprised by this betrayal. "But you said..."
"Still wasn't our place," he repeated firmly. "We need to make it right."
Duke looked at him, visibly unhappy but reining it in. "I still have no idea why you're being nice to me, but I'm not arguing it. Not if it gets me contact with whoever has Jean."
Okay, so the 'her' was named Jean. Julia filed this away and sipped at her mint tea, watching to see what Audrey would do.
"I...I'm sorry, Duke. I'll talk to Beatty. She's bound to know who has Jean; it's her daughter, too."
Nathan gave Julia a piercing look as her expression hardened and she grimly raised the mug to her lips so she could hide her expression while pretending to drink. That Duke had a child was statistically not a surprise. That he had a child with Beatrice Mitchell made her question how desperate he'd been that night, but she wasn't judging. Even the reference to not being able to be near his daughter didn't raise any flags; it was Haven, there was probably a Trouble, and she could look into that tomorrow. No, what had her biting back her temper was that Audrey and Nathan had apparently made the decision to spirit Jean away somewhere and not bothered to keep tabs on her.
But it was okay, or it was going to be okay, because Nathan knew that Haven's stress was the Chief's stress and he was actively working to straighten those out when he ran into them. In the meantime, though, Duke was less confident and still drinking straight from the bottle. This was not going to end well unless someone stopped him, and with her new understanding of how deeply he wanted to be a part of his child's life, Julia thought she knew how to calm him down.
Duke was slumped sullenly in his seat. Julia leaned over and whispered something the other two couldn't hear.
The effect was immediate and startling. Duke sat up like he'd been goosed and stared at her in utter shock, not even noticing as she pulled the bottle from his slack fingers and slid it in Nathan's direction. "You're sure?" he demanded. At her nod, he leaned over and hugged her to his chest, struggling not to cry.
"I think we should leave them alone for tonight," she heard Nathan say over Duke's frantic whispers of 'thank you'. "Let's go talk to Beatty."
Chairs scraped. "We're going to head out, Duke," Audrey said. "I'm sorry. I'll see you both tomorrow."
One hand left Julia's back to wave as two sets of footsteps made their way to the door, which shut behind them. Only then did Duke pull away enough to see her face. "You're sure," he repeated, like he wanted to believe but couldn't let himself because he'd been burned so badly in the past.
"I haven't had my period since I was in Africa," she said quietly. "The pee-on-a-stick tests have come back positive for three weeks straight, and my stomach's been touchy lately. I have an appointment with my doctor next week to confirm it for the uncles, because they don't know about us and I don't want to tell them yet. You knocked me up, Boss," she teased, and was promptly crushed to his chest again.
"I'm sorry," he said into her hair.
"For what, Boss?"
"For being a drunk gypsy whore with a bastard child instead of the husband you deserve."
"You don't get to decide what I deserve," she teased. "But you are drunk. Need to get some water in you so you're not hung over in the morning."
Reluctantly, he let his arms drop and leaned back in his own seat. "You're too good to me."
Julia kissed him lightly as she stood. "Deal with it, Crocker. You sit, I'll get you that water. And some food."
Duke groaned and repeated, "You're too good to me."
As she stood, Julia grabbed the bottle and its cap to be sure he didn't get any dumb ideas. She came back a minute later with a tumbler of water and a promise that food would be out soon.
"Thank you for putting up with me," Duke said quietly.
"Boss..."
"I mean it, wench. I wouldn't blame you if you wanted to back out. Especially after hearing..." one hand waved vaguely at where Audrey and Nathan had been sitting.
"That after all these years, the odds finally caught up with you?" Julia asked dryly. "That doesn't change anything. I'm not going anywhere, Duke. I knew what I was getting into. I've known since high school."
"You didn't know about the drugs," he muttered darkly. "Not until after. You married me under false pretenses."
"You didn't know about the people I've killed," she countered. "You married me under false pretenses. You gonna back out?"
For a long moment he just stared at her. "You really want to do this?" he asked finally.
Julia stood and sat on his lap, then promptly leaned into him holding her tightly to his chest. "I've wanted to be Mrs. Gypsy Pirate since before I was legal. Didn't have strong thoughts one way or the other about kids, but if they're important to you then they're important to me. So the next time you try to thank me for putting up with you, just think about the next eight months and how much you're going to have to put up with me."
"That's different," he protested. "That's...hormones and shit. That's not being a manwhore with a rap sheet and a history of substance abuse."
Discreetly, a server scurried up and set a heaping plate of some rice dish on the table before scurrying away again. Julia grabbed the spoon sticking out of the mess of spiced grains and bits of meat and vegetables. "Is that how you talk to your wife and the mother of your child?" she chided. "Open up, Crocker. You're drunk and I'm going to feed you and you're going to let me."
"I'm sorry," he tried to say, but found a spoon in his mouth.
"You can make it up to me when you're sober," she told him, taking a spoonful for herself.
Duke buried his face in her hair. "Thank you," he whispered, holding her tighter. "Thank you for everything."
===
Of the things Duke Crocker reasonably expected to happen on a lazy Sunday morning, a cop knocking on the door of his boat was not on the list at all. While Julia squeaked and vacated his lap in search of pants, her bare legs flashing under the white of his stolen shirt, Duke grumbled and answered the door in nothing but his jeans.
"Nathan?" he squinted against the morning light and looked for Audrey, but she was nowhere in sight. "What the hell?"
"Can I talk to Julia?" the other man asked, completely ignoring the rhetorical question.
Duke crossed his arms. "Why?"
Surprisingly, Nathan looked uncomfortable. "She said once that family is who's there for you and who you're there for, and I need someone to talk to." When Duke didn't move, he grimaced. "Please, Duke. I'm sorry if I interrupted anything."
"First you tell me why you've been nice to me," demanded the disgruntled pirate.
Nathan sighed. "Chief's Trouble. He feels all of Haven's stress, and if it gets too much for him to hold Haven together...he falls apart. He asked me to bury the hatchet with you. He also approves of you and Julia being married."
"So you do know about that. You weren't just bullshitting Evi."
"Julia asked me to keep it secret. She was there for me when I needed someone, so I kept it secret." Nathan waited a beat, then looked Duke straight in the eye and said, "Congratulations on her pregnancy."
Duke made a grumbly sound and waved Nathan inside. "Fine. WENCH! NATHAN NEEDS SOME GIRL TIME!"
"BOSS!" came the shouted reply. It sounded scandalized, but Duke was certain she was giggling. She came into the state room a moment later, wearing sweat pants and one of her own shirts. "Hey, Nathan. What's going on?"
Nathan glanced at Duke, who was settling onto the couch in a vaguely challenging sort of way. Julia sat next to him, snuggling up to her husband, and with an internal sigh Nathan sat on the other side and resigned himself to baring his heart in front of his effective brother-in-law.
"Chris Brody is coming back tomorrow," he said.
Duke raised one eyebrow. "And this is a problem because...?"
"Because I think I have feelings for Audrey." Nathan winced, waiting for the teasing, but Duke sat straight up.
"Oh, geez, Nate, I'm sorry. Hey," he protested at the look of skeptical disbelief that got, "I am painfully aware of what it's like having feelings for someone you work with day in and day out and not wanting to risk that friendship for something more."
Nathan nodded to concede the point. "I just...if she's really happy with Chris Brody, I don't want to get in the way of that."
"But if she's not," Julia piped up, "then you need to say something. I talked her through the realization that she was more than the sum of her memories. Right now, she's exploring. Challenging everything she thought she knew and liked. Dating Chris Brody is something Audrey Parker, FBI Agent would never do, so she's doing it. But when she realizes that all he likes about her is that she doesn't fawn over him, it'll be over and she'll look for someone who likes her for more than that."
"So you're saying I should..." Nathan trailed off.
"Keep being yourself. Solid, steady, unflappable, deadpan Nathan. And when she tells you she broke up with Chris Brody, tell her he was a jerk and offer to make her pancakes. Or bring her half a dozen of Rosemary's cupcakes, the kind with sprinkles, and ask if she wants to talk about it."
"Family is who's there for you," Nathan said slowly.
"And she doesn't even know who she really is. She sure as hell doesn't have any family."
Nathan nodded. "Thanks, Julia. Have you..." he glanced at Duke. "Um, discussed baby names at all yet?"
"It still doesn't feel real," Duke admitted. "I don't want to get my hopes up, you know?"