Haven, Maine, Monday Fandom time
Mar. 1st, 2021 10:23 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
betterthanaplanThey were in the middle of a session, one in which Duke was just rambling on about whatever the hell he happened to think about to avoid talking about anything of any importance (which Claire occasionally let him get away with just, she insisted, because sometimes he was entertaining), when Claire spotted it. Duke couldn't say for certain whether it had actually just appeared on the shelf while she was sitting there, or if he had actually put it there sometime the last time he was in town. He couldn't say for certain where he would have left it, just that he knew he'd left it out of the silver chest of weapons when he'd buried it in his father's grave.
The Crocker family journal.
She'd picked it up, idly turning it over in her hands, and Duke cut off mid-ramble. "Put that down."
Claire looked up, one immaculate eyebrow raised curiously, but she obeyed. "What is it?"
Duke grimaced. He knew better by now than to think she'd let him dodge this and talking about his feelings for Audrey. "It belonged to my father."
Claire nodded slowly. "You haven't talked about him much. He died, right?"
"When I was eight."
"And he had the family trouble, too?"
"Yes."
He didn't elaborate, which he knew was a major tell. Claire just looked at him, then cut her eyes sideways at the book again.
Duke sighed, then reached over to flip it open. He turned it to face her and tapped the first page.
"This is a list of every person my family has killed," he said quietly. "Of every trouble we've ended."
Claire's eyes went wide, and she looked almost hungry, staring at the book. "Really."
Duke nodded and sat back in his seat. He didn't say anything else, but when she slipped her finger under the first page and gave him a questioning look, he gave her a faint nod.
She started flipping through, eyes skimming over each page. "This goes . . . way back."
"Yeah," Duke agreed. "There are hundreds of entries."
Claire paused, then flipped faster, speeding through the entries — through the decades — until she got to the more recent pages. "Have you put yours in here?"
Duke looked away. "No."
"Why not?"
Duke's jaw clenched, and he forced it to relax. "I'm not exactly proud of it."
"Why not?" Claire said again. "You saved a lot of people, Duke."
"I know." Duke shrugged. "That doesn't actually make it any better."
Claire nodded slowly. She turned the pages more slowly as she approached the end. "Have you read any of these?"
Duke shook his head. Then, before she could ask her favorite question of the day, he said: "I skimmed some, when we first found it. The ones my dad wrote — I remember some of them. The people, the way they disappeared. Never really put it together when I was little, but Dad would have gone AWOL for most of them. Disappear for days, come home bloody. Make me clean him up."
Claire looked up at him, her mouth pursed. "Does it make a difference?" she asked. "Knowing now what he was doing when that happened?"
"Knowing he was killing people?" Duke shook his head. "That doesn't make it better."
"But does it make it worse?"
Duke opened his mouth, then let it shut. He looked away.
It was quiet for a long moment, save the sounds of the port, and the flipping of the pages. Then Claire paused, and he heard something crinkle. She was holding a little yellowed newspaper clipping.
"Roy Crocker."
Duke sat upright, leaning over the table to take it from her. "My granddad. This is his obituary. 'Survived by his wife and son.'"
"There's something on the back," Claire said. Duke turned the article over.
"'Killed by Sarah'."
"One of Audrey's past lives."
Duke handed the article back to her. "Must be why Dad thought Lucy had to die," he said. "Why he expected me to take out Audrey." He saw her staring at him and gave her a little smirk. "I'm not going to."
"Didn't think you would," she said. Duke had an odd sense that she wasn't being entirely honest, but let it go. He reached for the journal. "This entry's for the day he died. She must have taken him out before he could get all the details."
Before he could take another victim.
"'Stuart Mosely'," Claire read. "Do you know him?"
Duke shook his head. "Never heard of him." He passed the journal back and sat back again.
"You should try to find him," Claire said. Duke frowned.
"Why?"
"You're not curious?" Claire asked. "This is your family history, Duke. Maybe this Stuart Mosely knows more about what happened to your grandfather. Why Sarah killed him."
"Sarah killed him because he was a murderer."
"Do you think Audrey's going to have to kill you?"
Duke jerked up from the table. "Jesus, Claire. Of course not!"
"Okay." Claire held up her hands. "I was just checking."
Duke paced away, feeling jittery. "Isn't our hour almost up?"
"It can be." Duke turned to find her watching him, that odd look on her face again. She tucked the newspaper article carefully back into the journal and closed it, tying the little leather strap into place around it. "I have some paperwork to do before my next appointment, anyway. But — think about what I said. Maybe it'll help, if you tried to — connect a little more with your family's history."
"Of murder. My family history is a history of death."
"And you don't want to repeat it," Claire said. She slid the journal towards him. "I'm pretty sure there's a saying about repeating history."
She gave him a final knowing look, then left. Duke watched her, leaning against the wall, then glared down at the journal.
"I left that on the Rouge," he said. To nothing. To Haven. To the multiverse itself. "Why would I have brought it here? No. This . . ." He picked the journal up, shaking it at the ceiling. "This is all you. Is she right? Am I supposed to look up my family history?" He flung the journal at the wall. "Fuck you!"
The journal bounced off the wall and flopped onto the table. The leather tie somehow came loose, and the journal landed face up, open to Roy Crocker's last entry.
"This is what's important to you?!" Duke yelled. "This is what you thought I needed? Not my — my people. Not the damn charm that's supposed to keep me alive. This!"
He grabbed the journal up, ready to tear it to pieces. Something fell out, landing with a faint clink. Duke looked down and saw a gold coin.
His gold coin.
The doubloon his father had given him for his sixth birthday. The last birthday he'd had that had been good. Or at least uncomplicated.
He let the journal go and picked the coin up, remembering. When his dad had been — not good, maybe. But a dad. When he'd filled Duke's head with pirates while they went out fishing, and sung him songs and taught him to tie ropes. His birthday would have been around now, Duke realized. He hadn't thought about that in years.
"Happy birthday, Dad," he said softly, and wrapped his hand around the coin. He looked at the journal again. "Alright. You win. Just this once, you win."
Stuart Moseley was not only still alive, he apparently still lived in Haven. Duke headed over with his journal. With any luck, Moseley would be a dead end, and he could go back to keeping his head down and trying to survive until the multiverse decided to send him back to Fandom.
He did not in any way expect to be lucky.
Moseley was in his back garden tending to some tomato plants that seemed very enthusiastic about Haven's ridiculously unseasonably warm November. "Just can't bring myself to pull these yet," he was mumbling. "They've still got fruit on them!"
"Mr. Moseley?" Duke asked, standing a respectable distance away and fumbling with the journal. He felt incredibly awkward, suddenly. If he were Audrey or Nathan, he could just flash his bag and claim to be on a case, but now he was just bothering an old man for, what, the multiverse's amusement? "I found your name, uh, in my grandfather's journal. It was written on the day that he died. . . ."
He trailed off as Moseley turned to him with a frown. He offered an awkward smile as Moseley's eyes went wide.
"You!" Moseley cried. "What are you doing here?!"
Before Duke could do more than raise his hand to answer, there was a bright flash of light. And suddenly he wasn't standing in the back garden of a cute little residential house, but on a narrow strip of beach, pointing at nothing.
For a brief, glorious second, he thought maybe that was all the multiverse had wanted, and that he'd been sent back to Fandom. Then he recognized the beach — he wasn't in Fandom. He was just on the other side of town.
"I hate this town." He fumbled in his pockets. "I swear, if that old geezer teleported me here, I'm gonna. . . ." The phone screen lit up to cheerfully inform him that it couldn't find any signal. "Of course no service!" He growled and stomped up the beach, into the town. There was an old bar up the road from here where he should be able to catch a ride. He held up his phone as he went, looking for the edge of the dead spot. Waiting to see bars flash up on the screen.
Nothing.
"Hey, buddy," he called when he saw a man climb out of his car on the edge of the bar's parking lot. "You getting any service?"
The man looked at him like he'd just asked where he could find a hooker.
"It's . . . not that kind of party, pal."
Duke blinked. "What party? What do you mean par . . . ty. . . ." He let himself trail off again as he tore his gaze from his cellphone and actually looked at the bar and it's parking lot. The sign was different, "Haven Social Club", and it seemed to have gotten a fresh coat of bright white paint at some point. There was some kind of doo-wop playing from inside, and all the cars in the lot were the hulking, rounded and finned behemoths that had been popular in the middle of the last century. Women wore their hair up in carefully tended curls, their dresses reaching well past their knees, The men wore button downs and khakis, if not some sort of military uniform. A pair of children hurried by, fighting over a bicycle that looked like it would be at home in a Frank Capra movie.
Duke was getting a very bad feeling about this. He turned to the guy again.
"Hey, uh. This is some kind of . . . vintage car club, right?"
"Vintage?" The guy patted his car, looking offended. "This is a brand new Ford Fairlane!"
A very, very bad feeling about this.
"What year is this?"
"It's 1955." The man looked like he thought Duke was insane. Which — fair. "The year you should think about sobering up."
Duke forced a laugh as the guy walked away. "Actually, I think it's the year I start drinking!" He pressed his fingers to his forehead, feeling a headache coming on. "Heavily."
Fortunately, he was right next to a bar. Or "social club", whatever. 1955 wasn't Prohibition era, so he should be able to get some alcohol. He stumbled in, dodging around the various guests, and tried to ignore the stares he was getting. He made his way up to the bar, slipping past a group of sailors in a heated conversation with a handful of soldiers, and flagged down the bartender.
"What can I get you?"
Bless him. Bless bartenders everywhere. "Whatever's strong and cheap," Duke said.
The bartender looked him over with a faint smirk. "Looks like you could use it, Tonto."
Duke frowned. "Huh?"
"The hair."
Duke reached up, feeling the base of his ponytail, while the man poured him a drink.
"Could be worse," the bartender said. "They call me Junior."
Duke nodded. How was that worse than a racist stereotype, exactly? "Good to know." He picked up the drink with a faint, exhausted smile of thanks, then turned to look the club over again, trying to figure out his next move. Moseley was clearly troubled. And a trouble that sent people randomly careening through time was definitely a dangerous one. Duke would have to tread carefully, and not just because his look was a bit too modern for the era. He'd read enough sci-fi — and watched enough movies — to know what could happen if he messed with the wrong part of the time stream.
(He wondered if the multiverse could find him in 1955. He wondered if the Guard could. He had a vague, fleeting curiosity about whether he could find an 80s kid somewhere around here about to invent rock and roll.)
Then the sailors and the soldiers started throwing punches.
Duke did his best to ignore it, even as the brawl spread into his personal space. He dodged a thrown solider, holding his drink up out of the way, and noticed a freshly broken chair lying not far away, the sharp tip of its snapped off leg perfectly positioned to give someone a very bad day.
"None of my business," he murmured. Then Junior came around the bar to try and break things up, and one of the fighters socked him in the jaw, and before Duke could think twice, he was stepping in and catching the bartender inches away from impaling himself on that chair.
"Nice save," Junior said with a gasp. Duke just nodded back, hauling the guy upright again and patting him on the shoulder — and then was immediately yanked away, the familiar feel of handcuffs closing around his wrists.
Haven PD had arrived. And apparently some things never changed.
"I didn't do anything," Duke protested, though he made sure not to give them any reason to think he was resisting arrest. The cops just laughed, and hauled him off with the rest of the fighters.
Officer Hardass shoved Duke into a seat in the police station bullpen. Duke looked around, taking in the dark wood accents, the scattered desks, the green, smoke-stained walls.
"You ever feel like no matter where you go you always end up in the same place," he mused. He glanced over to the greaser sitting cuffed at the next desk over. Specifically, the very familiar tattoo on the man's upper arm, just under his shiny white t-shirt sleeve.
". . . Wow."
Seriously. Nothing ever really changed, did it.
"Got any answers for me yet, kemosabe?" Officer Hardass asked. Duke pretended to think that over, then raised his cuffed hands and shook his head.
"You got no id," the cop said, tossing Duke's wallet onto the desk. "Some counterfeit money. . . and, uh. What." He held up Duke's phone. "What is this?"
"At the moment?" Duke sighed. "A paperweight."
The cop glared at him a moment longer, then leaned back. "Well. today's your lucky day."
"It is?"
"Junior vouched for you. Said you, uh. Saved his life. If I were you, I'd get out of town." The cop moved to unlock Duke's hands and Duke gave him his best innocent look.
"Trust me," he said. "I'm gonna start working on that right now."
And he did. Unfortunately, thanks to being in, you know, the dark ages, that meant talking to more cops.
"Look," he told the bored looking desk sergeant. "I'm lost. And I just want to get home. And to do that, I need to find a man named Stuart Moseley. And you could help me if you did a search with your —" He gestured behind him, and felt his heart sink. "— filing cabinet."
How did anyone get anything done before computers?
The desk sergeant's expression never changed as he pulled out a small, slim paper volume labeled "Haven Telephone Directory." Duke sighed.
"Thank you."
He flipped through it, finding the M's, but there wasn't a Moseley in sight. He looked up at the desk sergeant, taking one last chance. ""You wouldn't happen to know a Sarah Vernon, by chance?"
The desk sergeant just walked away. Duke took that as a 'no'. He dropped his head into his hands, staring vaguely down at the little phonebook again, and noticed an ad at the top of the page.
"Worldwide Post Delivery. . . ." he murmured. "Well. They still exist."
Finding pen and paper wasn't the easiest thing, especially when the first cop had confiscated all his 'counterfeit' money from his wallet. Duke briefly considered tearing some pages out of his family journal, but that suddenly felt vaguely blasphemous, in a way he didn't want to examine too closely. So he hovered in the doorway of the station, trying to look inconspicuous despite apparently having criminally long hair for the era, and snatched a pad of legal paper and a pen off one of the desks when no one was looking. And then picked a pocket on the way out for good measure.
Eh. Like he'd told Audrey: a clean slate was overrated.
He wrote Audrey a quick letter, letting her and Nathan know that he was stuck in 1955, thanks to a man named Stuart Moseley. He gave them Moseley's address and the address of the Haven Social Club, where he'd be waiting. Then he wrote another letter, this one to Lucifer and Octavia, care of the Fandom radio squirrels. Those things abducted people to do radio broadcasts even when the whole island went on some grand vacation, they could probably find the Rouge out at sea. Maybe. Hopefully?
Dear Octavia and Lucifer,
Greetings from Haven in 1955. It's not nearly as nice as New York in the '40s, but there's been slightly less murder. So far. I was an idiot and let the multiverse talk me into looking into my family history and got my ass booted back here by a trouble my grandfather failed to off before he died. They hate my hair more than Lucifer hates plaid. I'm pretty sure I even just got arrested for it. Philistines.
Anyway. I'm OKAY. I've been in Haven for about a month and half now. Running the Gull, talking to Claire, trying not to kill or be killed.Occasionally failing. Claire says she's sorry, by the way, Tavi. She says she's glad that you're trying to find someone local to talk to, and not to get too discouraged if they prescribe you meds that don't work right right away. Apparently that's kind of hit or miss? But you will eventually find something? Maybe therapy's all a crock of lies I don't know Talking to her has helped, so I'm sure you'll find someone who can help you there, too.
Gloria says she misses you. And that gin is what she uses when she's depressed. But also that you should try meds, because she's ancient and already kind of settled, I guess? I don't know, she might have said that last part because her boyfriend was giving her looks.
Audrey doesn't say hi, but was very entertained by my stories about the two of us as raccoons last Halloween. Halloween here sucked ass, we just nearly got eaten by a haunted house and then Dwight blew it up. Did you meet Dwight? He's okay. Big beefy dude. Looks like he maybe should have been carved out of concrete. Lots of muscles. Just oceans of muscle.
Please be okay. Abandon the Rouge if you have to. Lucifer, knock her out and carry her somewhere safe or something if she won't go. I love my boat, but you two are way more important.
I loI miss you both. So much. Try not to die have too much fun without me.
Love Sincerely Fondest regards Love
xo Duke
As promised in his letter to Audrey and Nathan, Duke headed back to the Haven Social Club. It was the only spot in this version of Haven where he even vaguely knew anyone, after all.
The party from earlier had broken up, possibly because of the big brawl, and Junior had the place all put to rights again. Duke headed for the bar first up and flashed him a small, hopeful smile. He'd already spent what little he'd managed to lift on two letters with weird instructions for the Worldwide Post, which meant he was down to his last dime. Or, rather, doubloon.
"Hey," he greeted, when Junior took notice of him and came over. "I just wanted to thank you for bailing me out. Thought I was going to be in there until the Beatles."
Junior frowned. "The who?"
". . . Them too. You know the thing is, I'm actually looking for an old friend of mine. And, uh, truth be told, I'm a little low on funds." He pulled his father's doubloon from his pocket and held it up. This is a real gold doubloon," he said. "My dad gave it to me. And I will trade you for whatever you've got in your wallet right now."
Junior studied the coin for a moment, skeptical. Duke was all set to get turned down, when he nodded. "I got a kid who loves pirates. He'll get a kick out of this," he said, and pulled out his own wallet. Duke let out a sigh of relief and offered him a bright smile.
"Alright." He swapped the coin for the cash from Junior's wallet. "Thank you." Junior nodded and turned to another customer.
"Got your letter," a familiar voice said. (Though not any of the ones he might have hoped for.) Duke turned and stared. Nathan stood behind him, wearing his usual stuffed up "I'm the Chief now" suit — which Duke would never admit out loud suited him really well — and a hat he must have stolen from somewhere.
Duke was going to tease him ruthlessly for stealing a hat if they ever made it back to the present.
"Said you'd be here," Nathan said, a little uncomfortable. Duke realized he'd been staring for a while. Duke turned and signaled Junior to get a couple beers, then ushered Nathan over to a table to catch him up. Nathan caught him up in return — apparently, Duke had already managed to change things, though only Audrey seemed to be able to tell.
"Moseley's gotta be in 1955," Nathan mused. "We gotta get him to send us back, but before we do, we gotta fix whatever it is you did to change the future."
Duke shook his head. "No, look, I kept a low profile, okay? I know the rules."
"The rules?"
"The time travel rules." Duke opened his mouth to point out that this wasn't his first rodeo, then remembered that Nathan didn't know about Fandom and 2021. So he just left it at that.
"So. . . . nothing of consequence since you've been here?" Nathan didn't sound at all like he believed that.
Duke bristled. "Absolutely —" He cut off as he spotted Junior out of the corner of his eye, and groaned. ""Okay, I, mmmmm. I maybe have saved one person's life."
Nathan followed his gaze. ". . . The bartender?"
"It was instinct."
"Great." Nathan scowled. "If he was supposed to die, you've screwed up the natural order. Now even if we get home, it's a completely different Haven."
Duke snorted, trying to lighten the mood a touch. "You mean like the Gull could be a frozen yogurt shop and I could be a total douche?"
Nathan just watched him, totally deadpan. ". . . Or it's a completely different Haven."
Duke barked out a laugh and shook his finger at him. "That was good." He dropped his hand again and sobered. "Okay, look. Junior here is a good kid and all but. . . if he's supposed to die, then he has to die. Those are the rules." How the fuck was he supposed to kill a random bystander? Even if it would save the future.
Junior was heading over with a fresh pair of beers. "Here you go, guys."
"Little old for a Junior, aren't you?" Nathan asked, making friendly conversation.
"Real name's Roy." Junior said with a shrug. "Roy Crocker."
Duke choked on his beer.
Oh. Fuck.
Junior headed off, none the wiser. Nathan watched him go, then eyed Duke.
"Any relation?"
Duke felt his throat tighten. ". . . That's my grandfather."
"You saved your grandfather's life."
"I didn't know who he was!" Duke hissed. "And according to the journal, Sarah's supposed to kill him today! She wasn't in that bar fight, hell, she's not even in Haven!"
"You knocked Roy off his path," Nathan shot back. "Okay, maybe Sarah was supposed to get to him at the hospital. Or run his ambulance off the road. We'll never know how it was supposed to happen!"
Duke looked up at Junior — Roy — again helplessly,. "He just seems so . . ."
":Harmless?" Nathan offered.
"Yeah." It came out barely more than a breath. Duke had never had much by way of family, for all that he technically had several siblings. His parents were barely worth the title, and his grandparents were all either dead or disinterested, he honestly didn't know which. Except for Roy. Who was a sweet guy who gave random strangers a chance in exchange for what he had no reason to think was real gold. Who kept those strangers out of jail. Who didn't look like he could hurt a fly, much less kill any of the people listed in the journal.
He was just . . . some guy.
"Roy's like your father," Nathan said, his voice low. As though he thought he needed to remind Duke of any of this. Maybe he did. "He murders the troubled. If he lives, Dave kills Vince."
"So what do you want me to do?!" Duke said. "Do you want me to kill my own grandfather?!" How would that even work? Simon was already alive, the obituary said that he was survived by his wife and son. Duke himself wouldn't cease to exist or anything, but — "Oh my god." He pressed his head into his hands. "Then maybe my trouble ends, too. Lucky me."
He was the least lucky bastard on the face of the planet.
"Kill your own to kill your trouble," Nathan said, like this was nothing.
"No." Duke picked his head up, shaking it off. "I-I can't think of it like killing him. Okay? It's just — setting things right. I mean, he was supposed to die anyways. In fact, I actually gave him a little extra time!"
Nathan frowned. "Are you sure you can do this?"
No. No he wasn't. "If I do . . . The future Haven goes back to normal. Everybody wins."
Nathan watched him for a long moment, then nodded. "I'm going to find Stuart Moseley. You said you saw one of the Guard at the police station?"
Duke nodded faintly. "Yeah."
"Moseley's troubled. Maybe the Guard will know where he is." Nathan stood, pushing in his chair like the conscientious young man he was. "Got the ink, may as well use it."
Duke could do without the reminders of the ink of Nathan's arm, but he just nodded.
He had bigger things to worry about, just now.
Duke stuck around the club, nursing his beer. Roy didn't seem to notice anything odd about this. He also didn't seem to do anything outright suspicious, or serial-killer-y.
Not, Duke supposed, that he would. Not in public.
In fact, when not tending bar, Roy was mostly occupied by a little greeting card with the picture of a happy looking dog on the front. For Simon, Duke guessed. Roy even pulled the doubloon out again and tucked it into the envelope with the card.
Duke had given Roy the coin to give Simon, which Simon would then pass along to Duke. Where did the coin even come from originally? It just . . . existed. Endlessly. In this one little loop.
His head hurt.
Roy got a call maybe an hour or so later, and headed out. Duke left his half-finished beer on the bar and trailed him at a decent distance, though Roy didn't seem to know enough to keep an eye out for a tail. He met up with a man down by the docks, one of the officers from the police station, who told him his next target would be arriving soon by ferry. Roy asked for the guy's name. The cop gave him grief for it, but then said "Stuart Moseley."
"Oh, no way you're killing my ride home," Duke muttered. He noticed some discarded pipes on the ground and crouched to pick one up. He'd clock Roy over the head, save Stuart and the timeline in one fell swoop, and then hopefully he and Nathan could just go home. And then Duke would have a long, confusing session with Claire about having ended his own trouble via grandpatricide.
"He's an injured war vet," the cop was saying. "In a wheelchair. But he's dangerous."
Damn right he was. Duke crept closer
"An injured vet?!" Roy said. He backed up several paces. "No. No! I'm done."
Duke froze. Roy didn't want to kill. He hadn't gone mad with power, like everyone said Crockers did. Like Duke was so afraid of doing. He didn't want to kill.
The cop laughed and grabbed Roy by the arm. "You don't say no, Crocker. You've killed before. This is what your daddy did. What your daddy's daddy did. You think you're better than them?"
Yes, Duke thought, just as Roy said "Yeah. I do." He pulled away from the cop and turned to go.
The cop pulled a gun. "Crocker!"
Duke moved. He did not, it turned out, feel at all bad about smacking a cop over the head with a lead pipe.
Roy snatched up the cop's gun and stared at Duke. "What are you doing here?!"
"I'll explain later," Duke said, grabbing the cop by the arms. "Just get out of here."
Roy did. Duke dragged the cop into the alleyway, then noticed Nathan lurking around and went to go meet with him.
"Did you do it?" Nathan asked first thing.
"Kill him?" Duke sighed, running his hand through his hair. Tugging at the ends. He'd been trying to stop, but that had just resulted in him gnawing half the skin off his thumb in the haunted house, so. "No. Roy is suppose to murder Stuart."
"What?" Nathan hissed.
"But he refused!" Duke said. "My grandfather doesn't want to kill troubled people either! Roy Crocker is a good guy!"
"Who's supposed to die, remember? Time travel rules."
"The timeline is already screwed," Duke said. "But maybe — maybe we can make the future better."
Nathan shook his head. "We are not messing with the time-space continuum so you can work out your daddy issues."
Duke bit back a growl. "Okay, Nathan . . I can convince Roy to leave Haven. That way, he never has to meet Sarah, and she doesn't have to kill him!"
Nathan started to answer, then spotted something past Duke's shoulder. Duke turned to look, and saw a man in uniform being eased down off the ferry and settled into a wheelchair.
:"There he is," Nathan said.
The nurse, a slim woman in army green with deep red hair, turned to wheel him off. Duke and Nathan both sucked in a breath.
Sarah.
They watched her as she helped load Moseley into a car, wheelchair and all, then head off.
"Even if Stuart can send us back, we may not have a Haven to return to if you don't fix things with Roy," Nathan said.
"If Sarah's here," Duke answered, "Roy may die whether we want him to or not."
"I'll follow her. Find out what she knows. Maybe get close to Stuart."
Get close to Sarah, more like, Duke thought. Nathan might be dating Jordan back in the present, but Duke knew how he felt about Audrey. He knew Jordan was doomed.
"Watch yourself," he said. "She may look like Audrey, but she's not. And apparently she's a killer."
Nathan flicked him a glance, but otherwise didn't acknowledge the advice before heading off after them.
Duke went back to the social club. Roy was back behind the bar, though the rest of the place was deserted. Duke wondered if anyone else even worked here. He watched Roy jot something down in his journal — maybe the entry he never finished in Duke's timeline — then leaned onto the bar and got his attention.
"I think we should talk."
Duke tried. Roy was a hard sell. Someone had been feeding him a lot of crap about family and honor and heritage and all of that horseshit. If he was anything like Duke or his father, then pressing too hard would just make him bear down, cling on tighter. So Duke tried to keep it loose.
"I'm just saying, just — think about leaving Haven. Think about never having to take orders from guys like Hank again."
"My family's been here for generations," Roy said.
"You've got your own family now to worry about," Duke pointed out. "You've got a wife and kid, right?"
Roy nodded. "I send them every penny that I earn so they can live in a house near Derry."
So Simon hadn't even grown up in Haven. And yet he still ended up in the middle of things by the time Duke came around.
"Right," Duke said, shaking that thought off. If this worked, maybe Simon and even Duke could grow up without the shadow of Haven and the troubles hanging over them. He might never make it to Fandom, then, but — well, Lucifer and Octavia would still have each other, at least, right? Without him showing up and making an ass out of himself all the time. . . .
He was making his head hurt again. He turned his attention back to Roy. "You think they're going to be any safer when this guy Hank comes back at you? You've got to get them as far away from here as possible. Alright, take them to California. Take the kid to Disneyland!"
Roy was bending. "Simon would love that. Need a lot of dough to get that far."
"What if I could give you foolproof investment advice?"
"Says the guy who only carries pirate money?"
"Says the guy who saved your life," Duke said. "Twice."
Roy grimaced — then gave in. "Okay. My wife may take some convincing though."
Duke grinned. . "Hey, convince away!" The couple of beers he had were starting to hit him, and anyway, Roy would probably do better convincing without him hovering over him. "Uh. Where's your bathroom?"
Roy hooked his thumb over his shoulder, "Over there."
"Good man." Duke clapped his hand on the bar, then headed back. "Good man!"
What to tell him? What kinds of stocks would offer fast enough dividends to get Roy and his family out of Maine? It was the '50s, so computers were coming up. Also . . . the Cold War. Were there stocks for fighting the Russians? He'd probably be better off with sports tips.
He mused over this the whole time he was in the bathroom, then started talking even as he headed back into the bar proper. "There's gonna be this thing called a microchip. Invest in it. Secondly, don't bet on the Sox this entire century —"
He stopped with a frown when he saw Roy was no longer behind the bar. Before he could take much of a look, though, something exploded against the back of his head, and the world went dark.
Duke woke gagged and bound to a chair.
He really hated when this happened.
Roy was sitting on a chair across from him, the cop's gun on the table next to his leather bound journal. One of his leather bound journals. The other was in his hand. Duke realized with a start he'd left it on the bar when he went to the bathroom.
Fuck.
"You know what I find most . . . distressing?" Roy asked. "Besides the entries for years that don't even exist yet?" He pulled out the clipping Claire had found. "My obituary. 'Roy Crocker, survived by his wife and son.' This woman Sarah is supposed to kill me. You see the date?" He held the clipping up for Duke to see. Duke tugged uselessly at the ropes holding his arms to the chair, pressing against the bar rag in his mouth with his tongue. "That's today," Roy said. He stood, setting the journal and the clipping aside, and picked up the gun. "Now listen. I know about the troubles." He yanked the gag from Duke's mouth, and Duke worked his jaw, trying to get some spit into his dry mouth, even as Roy aimed the gun at his face. "So why don't you tell me who you are and what's going on?!"
"I'm from the future," Duke said. His breath was coming fast. If he said the wrong thing, if Roy didn't believe him —
He was not going to die in 1955. He refused. Especially not at the hands of his own grandfather. That was too stupid to contemplate.
"My name is Duke . . . Crocker," he said slowly. "And I'm your grandson."
Roy scoffed. It wasn't working. Duke hurried on.
"Simon is my father."
Roy tucked the gun away at least, but the look on his face said he didn't believe Duke. He grabbed the rag, looking ready to shove it in Duke's mouth again. Duke spoke as fast as he could, leaning away.
"When the blood of a troubled person touches our skin, our eyes turn silver!"
Roy froze. His eyes had gone wide. Duke had him.
"Because killing curses by killing the troubled is what we're supposed to do," Duke continued. Slower. Calmer.
Roy backed up.
"Roy. . . ." Duke said. "I'm your grandson. I don't want this power any more than you do. Roy, you don't have to die today. We can change our fate."
Roy nodded. He had the gun out again. "You're right. I can change my fate. Simon can't grow up without a dad."
Duke didn't like the look on his face. "No. . . ."
"It's the only way." Roy shook the gun in his hand. "I have to kill Sarah before she kills me."
Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck.
"Roy, don't do this. Think about the future!"
Roy shoved the gag back into his mouth, shoving Duke's whole head back in the process. Duke tugged at the ropes, but Roy was as good with knots as any sailor. He wasn't getting free on his own.
"Oh," Roy said. "I am thinking about the future!"
He ran off, leaving Duke behind. Duke jerked against the ropes, shouting into his gag, but to no avail.
Fuck.
Duke wasn't sure how long he was stuck there before Nathan found him. His arms had started to hurt, but that didn't really take that long. His mouth tasted like ass. Nathan thankfully didn't waste any time looking smug at Duke's predicament before rushing over to untie him.
"Roy found my journal," Duke said, the moment he could speak again.
"What did you tell him?" Nathan made short work of the ropes around Duke's wrists and started on the ones holding his arms to his sides.
"I told him the truth!" Duke said. "That we were from the future and that I was his grandson."
"So he thinks you're nuts."
Duke leaned forward, rubbing his wrists, as the last of the rope fell away. "No. Worse. He believed me. Nathan, he saw that Sarah kills him. So he went to kill her first. If that happens. . . ."
Nathan's face went hard. "He kills Lucy. And Audrey, too."
They rushed off, heading for the hospital where Sarah was treating Moseley. She and Nathan had apparently become fast friends, to the point where she'd actually loaned him the car she was using while staying in Haven.
Or maybe Nathan had stolen that along with the hat. Duke didn't ask.
They managed to hammer out a plan by the time they got to the hospital. Nathan would go find Sarah and warn her about Roy, directing her into the basement. Where Duke would wait to lead her out and to safety. It was a simple plan, which Duke figured up their chances of it working. Or at least, it should have.
If Roy hadn't come up with a similar one, first.
Duke was just waving Sarah down the hall towards the back door he'd found when Roy suddenly darted in between them. Sarah stopped, eyes wide, and Duke cursed.
"Duke, stop!" Roy ordered. "Sarah Vernon?"
"Oh." Sarah was unflappable. "You must be Roy."
Both she and Roy pulled their guns at the same time, cocked and aimed at each other. Duke felt like he was going to be sick.
"Roy!" he tried. "Don't do this!"
"It's nothing personal, sweetheart," Roy said, ignoring him. "Just simple self-preservation."
"Women's Army Corps," Sarah said coolly. "I know about self-preservation too. I've seen what killing does to a man. It makes you hollow."
Was that true? Was Duke now . . . hollow?
He couldn't let this happen.
"Wait, stop!" he shouted. "Just listen to me! It doesn't have to be like this. Just put the guns down!"
"I will if she will." Roy said.
Sarah stared at him for a long moment. Measuring. Calculating. Duke swallowed and watched, his heart in his throat.
"We'll do it together," she said finally.
Both she and Roy aimed their guns away from each other, and slowly crouched to the floor. Duke let himself breathe, let himself think, just for a moment, that maybe things would be okay.
And then Roy reached under his shirt, revealing that he carried a knife.
Duke broke into a run. "Sarah! No!"
Sarah lifted her gun and fired without a single hesitation. She hit Roy dead center, sending him careening backwards. Duke dodged to the side on instinct just before Roy would have collapsed on top of him, and stared down at him. His grandfather. His impossibly young grandfather. Shot and bleeding out from a wound inflicted by Audrey's previous life.
Just the way he was supposed to be.
Duke slid to the floor as Roy pressed a hand to his wound. He seemed surprisingly calm. Like he'd known this would happen all along. He reached over and caught Duke's arm, his hand slick with blood. Duke felt his trouble hit him, even as he watched the light in Roy's eyes begin to fade.
"I know you were trying to help," Roy whispered. "But we can't escape our fate. It's in our blood."
And then he was gone. Duke's trouble faded, going dormant, but not disappearing. Duke hadn't killed him, after all. Sarah had.
It had happened just the way it was supposed to. Maybe just the way it always had. Duke had given Roy the coin and Roy had given it to Simon and Simon had given it to Duke. Roy had left the journal to Simon, and Simon had left the journal to Duke, and the multiverse had made sure Duke had it and the coin just in time to bring it back here and bring Roy to Sarah.
To bring Roy to his fated death.
Duke hadn't changed a goddamn thing.
Nathan and Sarah had become more than "fast friends", judging by the way Sarah kissed him in the hall. Duke had held back, giving them space, and tried not to judge. Sarah was a force of nature, he'd seen that himself down in the basement. Just like Audrey, Duke knew she would do anything to get what she wanted.
And just like Audrey, she wanted Nathan.
He gave her one last piece of advice as she prepared to help them trigger Moseley's trouble, sending them back to 2010. To find Vince and Dave. They'd be friends. They were to Audrey — mostly — and he knew they had been to Lucy. And maybe he and Nathan were why they were to any of them.
Maybe that was fate, too.
Sarah fixed Moseley's trouble just like Audrey had fixed so many in their time, and Nathan and Duke were soon safe at home. Audrey stood behind the still gardening Moseley of the present, shooing them away before he could see the two of them again, and Duke and Nathan hurried off down to the street, waiting for her to come meet them.
It was an odd place for a debrief, but Audrey wasted no time in telling them how close it had been. How a Guardsman's bullet had been fired at her before time finally reset again.
"You did good," she said. "I think Haven's going to be okay. You know, for now."
Nathan laughed softly, but Duke could only look away. "I tried to make things better," he admitted. "But — it didn't matter. Everything that happened was already decided. It was . . . fate."
"Hey." Audrey reached for his arm. "Whatever you did, it was the right thing."
Duke stared at her. He wondered if she knew how empty those words sounded. How . . . hollow.
"I told Sarah to kill my own grandfather," he said. She frowned faintly, and Duke turned away, his hands shoved into his pockets. Heading for his truck. For his boat.
For the big ass bottle of booze waiting on his boat.
Audrey and Nathan didn't follow. He didn't know why he expected them to. They were clearly fated for each other, after all, and you couldn't fight fate. Even if you tried, even if you ran away to Maryland and swore you would never come back, fate would grab you from your bed and throw you headlong back onto your path. Props and all.
He missed Lucifer and Octavia so much it hurt. From his toenails to the ends of his hair, his whole body ached with the need to hold them. To taste their skin. To lose himself in the heat between them, where he could fool himself into believing that things could ever be okay again. That he wasn't doomed to play the part of the villain in Haven's grand tragedy.
Nathan and Audrey couldn't understand, but Lucifer and Octavia would. They knew how it felt to get thrown around by forces beyond your control. To have blood on your hands no matter what you tried to do to avoid it.
(Not even on his hands, in them, Duke could feel it, all the blood that had soaked into his skin over the years. Nathan's and Kathy's and Octavia's, Dwight's and Kyle's, and Lucifer's. Moira's. Tommy's. Daphne's. Nix's. Roy's. He wanted to tear off his skin, open it up and bleed it all back out, but it wouldn't help. It'd never help. He could pull out his hair and chew off all his fingernails and bleed and bleed and bleed and he'd never be clean.)
He pulled out his phone and called Claire, recognizing in some distant way that this was a problem. That he needed help. It rang and rang, then dropped into voicemail. Duke forced his voice out as steadily as he could. He'd gone to find Moseley like she'd said, and it had all gone wrong, and he'd told her —
He hung up before he could start yelling. That'd be enough anyway, he figured. She'd be able to tell he wasn't okay, and she'd come. Or send someone else. Gloria would come check on him, or maybe Audrey would realize he was hurting. Someone would come.
He stayed on his boat all night, and through the next day.
No one came.
[NFB, NFI, OOC welcome. Adapted from Haven 3x09, "Sarah". CW for an existential crisis, and thoughts of self-harm in the last scene. And time travel mayhem and the usual death and misery through the rest]
The Crocker family journal.
She'd picked it up, idly turning it over in her hands, and Duke cut off mid-ramble. "Put that down."
Claire looked up, one immaculate eyebrow raised curiously, but she obeyed. "What is it?"
Duke grimaced. He knew better by now than to think she'd let him dodge this and talking about his feelings for Audrey. "It belonged to my father."
Claire nodded slowly. "You haven't talked about him much. He died, right?"
"When I was eight."
"And he had the family trouble, too?"
"Yes."
He didn't elaborate, which he knew was a major tell. Claire just looked at him, then cut her eyes sideways at the book again.
Duke sighed, then reached over to flip it open. He turned it to face her and tapped the first page.
"This is a list of every person my family has killed," he said quietly. "Of every trouble we've ended."
Claire's eyes went wide, and she looked almost hungry, staring at the book. "Really."
Duke nodded and sat back in his seat. He didn't say anything else, but when she slipped her finger under the first page and gave him a questioning look, he gave her a faint nod.
She started flipping through, eyes skimming over each page. "This goes . . . way back."
"Yeah," Duke agreed. "There are hundreds of entries."
Claire paused, then flipped faster, speeding through the entries — through the decades — until she got to the more recent pages. "Have you put yours in here?"
Duke looked away. "No."
"Why not?"
Duke's jaw clenched, and he forced it to relax. "I'm not exactly proud of it."
"Why not?" Claire said again. "You saved a lot of people, Duke."
"I know." Duke shrugged. "That doesn't actually make it any better."
Claire nodded slowly. She turned the pages more slowly as she approached the end. "Have you read any of these?"
Duke shook his head. Then, before she could ask her favorite question of the day, he said: "I skimmed some, when we first found it. The ones my dad wrote — I remember some of them. The people, the way they disappeared. Never really put it together when I was little, but Dad would have gone AWOL for most of them. Disappear for days, come home bloody. Make me clean him up."
Claire looked up at him, her mouth pursed. "Does it make a difference?" she asked. "Knowing now what he was doing when that happened?"
"Knowing he was killing people?" Duke shook his head. "That doesn't make it better."
"But does it make it worse?"
Duke opened his mouth, then let it shut. He looked away.
It was quiet for a long moment, save the sounds of the port, and the flipping of the pages. Then Claire paused, and he heard something crinkle. She was holding a little yellowed newspaper clipping.
"Roy Crocker."
Duke sat upright, leaning over the table to take it from her. "My granddad. This is his obituary. 'Survived by his wife and son.'"
"There's something on the back," Claire said. Duke turned the article over.
"'Killed by Sarah'."
"One of Audrey's past lives."
Duke handed the article back to her. "Must be why Dad thought Lucy had to die," he said. "Why he expected me to take out Audrey." He saw her staring at him and gave her a little smirk. "I'm not going to."
"Didn't think you would," she said. Duke had an odd sense that she wasn't being entirely honest, but let it go. He reached for the journal. "This entry's for the day he died. She must have taken him out before he could get all the details."
Before he could take another victim.
"'Stuart Mosely'," Claire read. "Do you know him?"
Duke shook his head. "Never heard of him." He passed the journal back and sat back again.
"You should try to find him," Claire said. Duke frowned.
"Why?"
"You're not curious?" Claire asked. "This is your family history, Duke. Maybe this Stuart Mosely knows more about what happened to your grandfather. Why Sarah killed him."
"Sarah killed him because he was a murderer."
"Do you think Audrey's going to have to kill you?"
Duke jerked up from the table. "Jesus, Claire. Of course not!"
"Okay." Claire held up her hands. "I was just checking."
Duke paced away, feeling jittery. "Isn't our hour almost up?"
"It can be." Duke turned to find her watching him, that odd look on her face again. She tucked the newspaper article carefully back into the journal and closed it, tying the little leather strap into place around it. "I have some paperwork to do before my next appointment, anyway. But — think about what I said. Maybe it'll help, if you tried to — connect a little more with your family's history."
"Of murder. My family history is a history of death."
"And you don't want to repeat it," Claire said. She slid the journal towards him. "I'm pretty sure there's a saying about repeating history."
She gave him a final knowing look, then left. Duke watched her, leaning against the wall, then glared down at the journal.
"I left that on the Rouge," he said. To nothing. To Haven. To the multiverse itself. "Why would I have brought it here? No. This . . ." He picked the journal up, shaking it at the ceiling. "This is all you. Is she right? Am I supposed to look up my family history?" He flung the journal at the wall. "Fuck you!"
The journal bounced off the wall and flopped onto the table. The leather tie somehow came loose, and the journal landed face up, open to Roy Crocker's last entry.
"This is what's important to you?!" Duke yelled. "This is what you thought I needed? Not my — my people. Not the damn charm that's supposed to keep me alive. This!"
He grabbed the journal up, ready to tear it to pieces. Something fell out, landing with a faint clink. Duke looked down and saw a gold coin.
His gold coin.
The doubloon his father had given him for his sixth birthday. The last birthday he'd had that had been good. Or at least uncomplicated.
He let the journal go and picked the coin up, remembering. When his dad had been — not good, maybe. But a dad. When he'd filled Duke's head with pirates while they went out fishing, and sung him songs and taught him to tie ropes. His birthday would have been around now, Duke realized. He hadn't thought about that in years.
"Happy birthday, Dad," he said softly, and wrapped his hand around the coin. He looked at the journal again. "Alright. You win. Just this once, you win."
Stuart Moseley was not only still alive, he apparently still lived in Haven. Duke headed over with his journal. With any luck, Moseley would be a dead end, and he could go back to keeping his head down and trying to survive until the multiverse decided to send him back to Fandom.
He did not in any way expect to be lucky.
Moseley was in his back garden tending to some tomato plants that seemed very enthusiastic about Haven's ridiculously unseasonably warm November. "Just can't bring myself to pull these yet," he was mumbling. "They've still got fruit on them!"
"Mr. Moseley?" Duke asked, standing a respectable distance away and fumbling with the journal. He felt incredibly awkward, suddenly. If he were Audrey or Nathan, he could just flash his bag and claim to be on a case, but now he was just bothering an old man for, what, the multiverse's amusement? "I found your name, uh, in my grandfather's journal. It was written on the day that he died. . . ."
He trailed off as Moseley turned to him with a frown. He offered an awkward smile as Moseley's eyes went wide.
"You!" Moseley cried. "What are you doing here?!"
Before Duke could do more than raise his hand to answer, there was a bright flash of light. And suddenly he wasn't standing in the back garden of a cute little residential house, but on a narrow strip of beach, pointing at nothing.
For a brief, glorious second, he thought maybe that was all the multiverse had wanted, and that he'd been sent back to Fandom. Then he recognized the beach — he wasn't in Fandom. He was just on the other side of town.
"I hate this town." He fumbled in his pockets. "I swear, if that old geezer teleported me here, I'm gonna. . . ." The phone screen lit up to cheerfully inform him that it couldn't find any signal. "Of course no service!" He growled and stomped up the beach, into the town. There was an old bar up the road from here where he should be able to catch a ride. He held up his phone as he went, looking for the edge of the dead spot. Waiting to see bars flash up on the screen.
Nothing.
"Hey, buddy," he called when he saw a man climb out of his car on the edge of the bar's parking lot. "You getting any service?"
The man looked at him like he'd just asked where he could find a hooker.
"It's . . . not that kind of party, pal."
Duke blinked. "What party? What do you mean par . . . ty. . . ." He let himself trail off again as he tore his gaze from his cellphone and actually looked at the bar and it's parking lot. The sign was different, "Haven Social Club", and it seemed to have gotten a fresh coat of bright white paint at some point. There was some kind of doo-wop playing from inside, and all the cars in the lot were the hulking, rounded and finned behemoths that had been popular in the middle of the last century. Women wore their hair up in carefully tended curls, their dresses reaching well past their knees, The men wore button downs and khakis, if not some sort of military uniform. A pair of children hurried by, fighting over a bicycle that looked like it would be at home in a Frank Capra movie.
Duke was getting a very bad feeling about this. He turned to the guy again.
"Hey, uh. This is some kind of . . . vintage car club, right?"
"Vintage?" The guy patted his car, looking offended. "This is a brand new Ford Fairlane!"
A very, very bad feeling about this.
"What year is this?"
"It's 1955." The man looked like he thought Duke was insane. Which — fair. "The year you should think about sobering up."
Duke forced a laugh as the guy walked away. "Actually, I think it's the year I start drinking!" He pressed his fingers to his forehead, feeling a headache coming on. "Heavily."
Fortunately, he was right next to a bar. Or "social club", whatever. 1955 wasn't Prohibition era, so he should be able to get some alcohol. He stumbled in, dodging around the various guests, and tried to ignore the stares he was getting. He made his way up to the bar, slipping past a group of sailors in a heated conversation with a handful of soldiers, and flagged down the bartender.
"What can I get you?"
Bless him. Bless bartenders everywhere. "Whatever's strong and cheap," Duke said.
The bartender looked him over with a faint smirk. "Looks like you could use it, Tonto."
Duke frowned. "Huh?"
"The hair."
Duke reached up, feeling the base of his ponytail, while the man poured him a drink.
"Could be worse," the bartender said. "They call me Junior."
Duke nodded. How was that worse than a racist stereotype, exactly? "Good to know." He picked up the drink with a faint, exhausted smile of thanks, then turned to look the club over again, trying to figure out his next move. Moseley was clearly troubled. And a trouble that sent people randomly careening through time was definitely a dangerous one. Duke would have to tread carefully, and not just because his look was a bit too modern for the era. He'd read enough sci-fi — and watched enough movies — to know what could happen if he messed with the wrong part of the time stream.
(He wondered if the multiverse could find him in 1955. He wondered if the Guard could. He had a vague, fleeting curiosity about whether he could find an 80s kid somewhere around here about to invent rock and roll.)
Then the sailors and the soldiers started throwing punches.
Duke did his best to ignore it, even as the brawl spread into his personal space. He dodged a thrown solider, holding his drink up out of the way, and noticed a freshly broken chair lying not far away, the sharp tip of its snapped off leg perfectly positioned to give someone a very bad day.
"None of my business," he murmured. Then Junior came around the bar to try and break things up, and one of the fighters socked him in the jaw, and before Duke could think twice, he was stepping in and catching the bartender inches away from impaling himself on that chair.
"Nice save," Junior said with a gasp. Duke just nodded back, hauling the guy upright again and patting him on the shoulder — and then was immediately yanked away, the familiar feel of handcuffs closing around his wrists.
Haven PD had arrived. And apparently some things never changed.
"I didn't do anything," Duke protested, though he made sure not to give them any reason to think he was resisting arrest. The cops just laughed, and hauled him off with the rest of the fighters.
Officer Hardass shoved Duke into a seat in the police station bullpen. Duke looked around, taking in the dark wood accents, the scattered desks, the green, smoke-stained walls.
"You ever feel like no matter where you go you always end up in the same place," he mused. He glanced over to the greaser sitting cuffed at the next desk over. Specifically, the very familiar tattoo on the man's upper arm, just under his shiny white t-shirt sleeve.
". . . Wow."
Seriously. Nothing ever really changed, did it.
"Got any answers for me yet, kemosabe?" Officer Hardass asked. Duke pretended to think that over, then raised his cuffed hands and shook his head.
"You got no id," the cop said, tossing Duke's wallet onto the desk. "Some counterfeit money. . . and, uh. What." He held up Duke's phone. "What is this?"
"At the moment?" Duke sighed. "A paperweight."
The cop glared at him a moment longer, then leaned back. "Well. today's your lucky day."
"It is?"
"Junior vouched for you. Said you, uh. Saved his life. If I were you, I'd get out of town." The cop moved to unlock Duke's hands and Duke gave him his best innocent look.
"Trust me," he said. "I'm gonna start working on that right now."
And he did. Unfortunately, thanks to being in, you know, the dark ages, that meant talking to more cops.
"Look," he told the bored looking desk sergeant. "I'm lost. And I just want to get home. And to do that, I need to find a man named Stuart Moseley. And you could help me if you did a search with your —" He gestured behind him, and felt his heart sink. "— filing cabinet."
How did anyone get anything done before computers?
The desk sergeant's expression never changed as he pulled out a small, slim paper volume labeled "Haven Telephone Directory." Duke sighed.
"Thank you."
He flipped through it, finding the M's, but there wasn't a Moseley in sight. He looked up at the desk sergeant, taking one last chance. ""You wouldn't happen to know a Sarah Vernon, by chance?"
The desk sergeant just walked away. Duke took that as a 'no'. He dropped his head into his hands, staring vaguely down at the little phonebook again, and noticed an ad at the top of the page.
"Worldwide Post Delivery. . . ." he murmured. "Well. They still exist."
Finding pen and paper wasn't the easiest thing, especially when the first cop had confiscated all his 'counterfeit' money from his wallet. Duke briefly considered tearing some pages out of his family journal, but that suddenly felt vaguely blasphemous, in a way he didn't want to examine too closely. So he hovered in the doorway of the station, trying to look inconspicuous despite apparently having criminally long hair for the era, and snatched a pad of legal paper and a pen off one of the desks when no one was looking. And then picked a pocket on the way out for good measure.
Eh. Like he'd told Audrey: a clean slate was overrated.
He wrote Audrey a quick letter, letting her and Nathan know that he was stuck in 1955, thanks to a man named Stuart Moseley. He gave them Moseley's address and the address of the Haven Social Club, where he'd be waiting. Then he wrote another letter, this one to Lucifer and Octavia, care of the Fandom radio squirrels. Those things abducted people to do radio broadcasts even when the whole island went on some grand vacation, they could probably find the Rouge out at sea. Maybe. Hopefully?
Dear Octavia and Lucifer,
Greetings from Haven in 1955. It's not nearly as nice as New York in the '40s, but there's been slightly less murder. So far. I was an idiot and let the multiverse talk me into looking into my family history and got my ass booted back here by a trouble my grandfather failed to off before he died. They hate my hair more than Lucifer hates plaid. I'm pretty sure I even just got arrested for it. Philistines.
Anyway. I'm OKAY. I've been in Haven for about a month and half now. Running the Gull, talking to Claire, trying not to kill or be killed.
Gloria says she misses you. And that gin is what she uses when she's depressed. But also that you should try meds, because she's ancient and already kind of settled, I guess? I don't know, she might have said that last part because her boyfriend was giving her looks.
Audrey doesn't say hi, but was very entertained by my stories about the two of us as raccoons last Halloween. Halloween here sucked ass, we just nearly got eaten by a haunted house and then Dwight blew it up. Did you meet Dwight? He's okay. Big beefy dude. Looks like he maybe should have been carved out of concrete. Lots of muscles. Just oceans of muscle.
Please be okay. Abandon the Rouge if you have to. Lucifer, knock her out and carry her somewhere safe or something if she won't go. I love my boat, but you two are way more important.
xo Duke
As promised in his letter to Audrey and Nathan, Duke headed back to the Haven Social Club. It was the only spot in this version of Haven where he even vaguely knew anyone, after all.
The party from earlier had broken up, possibly because of the big brawl, and Junior had the place all put to rights again. Duke headed for the bar first up and flashed him a small, hopeful smile. He'd already spent what little he'd managed to lift on two letters with weird instructions for the Worldwide Post, which meant he was down to his last dime. Or, rather, doubloon.
"Hey," he greeted, when Junior took notice of him and came over. "I just wanted to thank you for bailing me out. Thought I was going to be in there until the Beatles."
Junior frowned. "The who?"
". . . Them too. You know the thing is, I'm actually looking for an old friend of mine. And, uh, truth be told, I'm a little low on funds." He pulled his father's doubloon from his pocket and held it up. This is a real gold doubloon," he said. "My dad gave it to me. And I will trade you for whatever you've got in your wallet right now."
Junior studied the coin for a moment, skeptical. Duke was all set to get turned down, when he nodded. "I got a kid who loves pirates. He'll get a kick out of this," he said, and pulled out his own wallet. Duke let out a sigh of relief and offered him a bright smile.
"Alright." He swapped the coin for the cash from Junior's wallet. "Thank you." Junior nodded and turned to another customer.
"Got your letter," a familiar voice said. (Though not any of the ones he might have hoped for.) Duke turned and stared. Nathan stood behind him, wearing his usual stuffed up "I'm the Chief now" suit — which Duke would never admit out loud suited him really well — and a hat he must have stolen from somewhere.
Duke was going to tease him ruthlessly for stealing a hat if they ever made it back to the present.
"Said you'd be here," Nathan said, a little uncomfortable. Duke realized he'd been staring for a while. Duke turned and signaled Junior to get a couple beers, then ushered Nathan over to a table to catch him up. Nathan caught him up in return — apparently, Duke had already managed to change things, though only Audrey seemed to be able to tell.
"Moseley's gotta be in 1955," Nathan mused. "We gotta get him to send us back, but before we do, we gotta fix whatever it is you did to change the future."
Duke shook his head. "No, look, I kept a low profile, okay? I know the rules."
"The rules?"
"The time travel rules." Duke opened his mouth to point out that this wasn't his first rodeo, then remembered that Nathan didn't know about Fandom and 2021. So he just left it at that.
"So. . . . nothing of consequence since you've been here?" Nathan didn't sound at all like he believed that.
Duke bristled. "Absolutely —" He cut off as he spotted Junior out of the corner of his eye, and groaned. ""Okay, I, mmmmm. I maybe have saved one person's life."
Nathan followed his gaze. ". . . The bartender?"
"It was instinct."
"Great." Nathan scowled. "If he was supposed to die, you've screwed up the natural order. Now even if we get home, it's a completely different Haven."
Duke snorted, trying to lighten the mood a touch. "You mean like the Gull could be a frozen yogurt shop and I could be a total douche?"
Nathan just watched him, totally deadpan. ". . . Or it's a completely different Haven."
Duke barked out a laugh and shook his finger at him. "That was good." He dropped his hand again and sobered. "Okay, look. Junior here is a good kid and all but. . . if he's supposed to die, then he has to die. Those are the rules." How the fuck was he supposed to kill a random bystander? Even if it would save the future.
Junior was heading over with a fresh pair of beers. "Here you go, guys."
"Little old for a Junior, aren't you?" Nathan asked, making friendly conversation.
"Real name's Roy." Junior said with a shrug. "Roy Crocker."
Duke choked on his beer.
Oh. Fuck.
Junior headed off, none the wiser. Nathan watched him go, then eyed Duke.
"Any relation?"
Duke felt his throat tighten. ". . . That's my grandfather."
"You saved your grandfather's life."
"I didn't know who he was!" Duke hissed. "And according to the journal, Sarah's supposed to kill him today! She wasn't in that bar fight, hell, she's not even in Haven!"
"You knocked Roy off his path," Nathan shot back. "Okay, maybe Sarah was supposed to get to him at the hospital. Or run his ambulance off the road. We'll never know how it was supposed to happen!"
Duke looked up at Junior — Roy — again helplessly,. "He just seems so . . ."
":Harmless?" Nathan offered.
"Yeah." It came out barely more than a breath. Duke had never had much by way of family, for all that he technically had several siblings. His parents were barely worth the title, and his grandparents were all either dead or disinterested, he honestly didn't know which. Except for Roy. Who was a sweet guy who gave random strangers a chance in exchange for what he had no reason to think was real gold. Who kept those strangers out of jail. Who didn't look like he could hurt a fly, much less kill any of the people listed in the journal.
He was just . . . some guy.
"Roy's like your father," Nathan said, his voice low. As though he thought he needed to remind Duke of any of this. Maybe he did. "He murders the troubled. If he lives, Dave kills Vince."
"So what do you want me to do?!" Duke said. "Do you want me to kill my own grandfather?!" How would that even work? Simon was already alive, the obituary said that he was survived by his wife and son. Duke himself wouldn't cease to exist or anything, but — "Oh my god." He pressed his head into his hands. "Then maybe my trouble ends, too. Lucky me."
He was the least lucky bastard on the face of the planet.
"Kill your own to kill your trouble," Nathan said, like this was nothing.
"No." Duke picked his head up, shaking it off. "I-I can't think of it like killing him. Okay? It's just — setting things right. I mean, he was supposed to die anyways. In fact, I actually gave him a little extra time!"
Nathan frowned. "Are you sure you can do this?"
No. No he wasn't. "If I do . . . The future Haven goes back to normal. Everybody wins."
Nathan watched him for a long moment, then nodded. "I'm going to find Stuart Moseley. You said you saw one of the Guard at the police station?"
Duke nodded faintly. "Yeah."
"Moseley's troubled. Maybe the Guard will know where he is." Nathan stood, pushing in his chair like the conscientious young man he was. "Got the ink, may as well use it."
Duke could do without the reminders of the ink of Nathan's arm, but he just nodded.
He had bigger things to worry about, just now.
Duke stuck around the club, nursing his beer. Roy didn't seem to notice anything odd about this. He also didn't seem to do anything outright suspicious, or serial-killer-y.
Not, Duke supposed, that he would. Not in public.
In fact, when not tending bar, Roy was mostly occupied by a little greeting card with the picture of a happy looking dog on the front. For Simon, Duke guessed. Roy even pulled the doubloon out again and tucked it into the envelope with the card.
Duke had given Roy the coin to give Simon, which Simon would then pass along to Duke. Where did the coin even come from originally? It just . . . existed. Endlessly. In this one little loop.
His head hurt.
Roy got a call maybe an hour or so later, and headed out. Duke left his half-finished beer on the bar and trailed him at a decent distance, though Roy didn't seem to know enough to keep an eye out for a tail. He met up with a man down by the docks, one of the officers from the police station, who told him his next target would be arriving soon by ferry. Roy asked for the guy's name. The cop gave him grief for it, but then said "Stuart Moseley."
"Oh, no way you're killing my ride home," Duke muttered. He noticed some discarded pipes on the ground and crouched to pick one up. He'd clock Roy over the head, save Stuart and the timeline in one fell swoop, and then hopefully he and Nathan could just go home. And then Duke would have a long, confusing session with Claire about having ended his own trouble via grandpatricide.
"He's an injured war vet," the cop was saying. "In a wheelchair. But he's dangerous."
Damn right he was. Duke crept closer
"An injured vet?!" Roy said. He backed up several paces. "No. No! I'm done."
Duke froze. Roy didn't want to kill. He hadn't gone mad with power, like everyone said Crockers did. Like Duke was so afraid of doing. He didn't want to kill.
The cop laughed and grabbed Roy by the arm. "You don't say no, Crocker. You've killed before. This is what your daddy did. What your daddy's daddy did. You think you're better than them?"
Yes, Duke thought, just as Roy said "Yeah. I do." He pulled away from the cop and turned to go.
The cop pulled a gun. "Crocker!"
Duke moved. He did not, it turned out, feel at all bad about smacking a cop over the head with a lead pipe.
Roy snatched up the cop's gun and stared at Duke. "What are you doing here?!"
"I'll explain later," Duke said, grabbing the cop by the arms. "Just get out of here."
Roy did. Duke dragged the cop into the alleyway, then noticed Nathan lurking around and went to go meet with him.
"Did you do it?" Nathan asked first thing.
"Kill him?" Duke sighed, running his hand through his hair. Tugging at the ends. He'd been trying to stop, but that had just resulted in him gnawing half the skin off his thumb in the haunted house, so. "No. Roy is suppose to murder Stuart."
"What?" Nathan hissed.
"But he refused!" Duke said. "My grandfather doesn't want to kill troubled people either! Roy Crocker is a good guy!"
"Who's supposed to die, remember? Time travel rules."
"The timeline is already screwed," Duke said. "But maybe — maybe we can make the future better."
Nathan shook his head. "We are not messing with the time-space continuum so you can work out your daddy issues."
Duke bit back a growl. "Okay, Nathan . . I can convince Roy to leave Haven. That way, he never has to meet Sarah, and she doesn't have to kill him!"
Nathan started to answer, then spotted something past Duke's shoulder. Duke turned to look, and saw a man in uniform being eased down off the ferry and settled into a wheelchair.
:"There he is," Nathan said.
The nurse, a slim woman in army green with deep red hair, turned to wheel him off. Duke and Nathan both sucked in a breath.
Sarah.
They watched her as she helped load Moseley into a car, wheelchair and all, then head off.
"Even if Stuart can send us back, we may not have a Haven to return to if you don't fix things with Roy," Nathan said.
"If Sarah's here," Duke answered, "Roy may die whether we want him to or not."
"I'll follow her. Find out what she knows. Maybe get close to Stuart."
Get close to Sarah, more like, Duke thought. Nathan might be dating Jordan back in the present, but Duke knew how he felt about Audrey. He knew Jordan was doomed.
"Watch yourself," he said. "She may look like Audrey, but she's not. And apparently she's a killer."
Nathan flicked him a glance, but otherwise didn't acknowledge the advice before heading off after them.
Duke went back to the social club. Roy was back behind the bar, though the rest of the place was deserted. Duke wondered if anyone else even worked here. He watched Roy jot something down in his journal — maybe the entry he never finished in Duke's timeline — then leaned onto the bar and got his attention.
"I think we should talk."
Duke tried. Roy was a hard sell. Someone had been feeding him a lot of crap about family and honor and heritage and all of that horseshit. If he was anything like Duke or his father, then pressing too hard would just make him bear down, cling on tighter. So Duke tried to keep it loose.
"I'm just saying, just — think about leaving Haven. Think about never having to take orders from guys like Hank again."
"My family's been here for generations," Roy said.
"You've got your own family now to worry about," Duke pointed out. "You've got a wife and kid, right?"
Roy nodded. "I send them every penny that I earn so they can live in a house near Derry."
So Simon hadn't even grown up in Haven. And yet he still ended up in the middle of things by the time Duke came around.
"Right," Duke said, shaking that thought off. If this worked, maybe Simon and even Duke could grow up without the shadow of Haven and the troubles hanging over them. He might never make it to Fandom, then, but — well, Lucifer and Octavia would still have each other, at least, right? Without him showing up and making an ass out of himself all the time. . . .
He was making his head hurt again. He turned his attention back to Roy. "You think they're going to be any safer when this guy Hank comes back at you? You've got to get them as far away from here as possible. Alright, take them to California. Take the kid to Disneyland!"
Roy was bending. "Simon would love that. Need a lot of dough to get that far."
"What if I could give you foolproof investment advice?"
"Says the guy who only carries pirate money?"
"Says the guy who saved your life," Duke said. "Twice."
Roy grimaced — then gave in. "Okay. My wife may take some convincing though."
Duke grinned. . "Hey, convince away!" The couple of beers he had were starting to hit him, and anyway, Roy would probably do better convincing without him hovering over him. "Uh. Where's your bathroom?"
Roy hooked his thumb over his shoulder, "Over there."
"Good man." Duke clapped his hand on the bar, then headed back. "Good man!"
What to tell him? What kinds of stocks would offer fast enough dividends to get Roy and his family out of Maine? It was the '50s, so computers were coming up. Also . . . the Cold War. Were there stocks for fighting the Russians? He'd probably be better off with sports tips.
He mused over this the whole time he was in the bathroom, then started talking even as he headed back into the bar proper. "There's gonna be this thing called a microchip. Invest in it. Secondly, don't bet on the Sox this entire century —"
He stopped with a frown when he saw Roy was no longer behind the bar. Before he could take much of a look, though, something exploded against the back of his head, and the world went dark.
Duke woke gagged and bound to a chair.
He really hated when this happened.
Roy was sitting on a chair across from him, the cop's gun on the table next to his leather bound journal. One of his leather bound journals. The other was in his hand. Duke realized with a start he'd left it on the bar when he went to the bathroom.
Fuck.
"You know what I find most . . . distressing?" Roy asked. "Besides the entries for years that don't even exist yet?" He pulled out the clipping Claire had found. "My obituary. 'Roy Crocker, survived by his wife and son.' This woman Sarah is supposed to kill me. You see the date?" He held the clipping up for Duke to see. Duke tugged uselessly at the ropes holding his arms to the chair, pressing against the bar rag in his mouth with his tongue. "That's today," Roy said. He stood, setting the journal and the clipping aside, and picked up the gun. "Now listen. I know about the troubles." He yanked the gag from Duke's mouth, and Duke worked his jaw, trying to get some spit into his dry mouth, even as Roy aimed the gun at his face. "So why don't you tell me who you are and what's going on?!"
"I'm from the future," Duke said. His breath was coming fast. If he said the wrong thing, if Roy didn't believe him —
He was not going to die in 1955. He refused. Especially not at the hands of his own grandfather. That was too stupid to contemplate.
"My name is Duke . . . Crocker," he said slowly. "And I'm your grandson."
Roy scoffed. It wasn't working. Duke hurried on.
"Simon is my father."
Roy tucked the gun away at least, but the look on his face said he didn't believe Duke. He grabbed the rag, looking ready to shove it in Duke's mouth again. Duke spoke as fast as he could, leaning away.
"When the blood of a troubled person touches our skin, our eyes turn silver!"
Roy froze. His eyes had gone wide. Duke had him.
"Because killing curses by killing the troubled is what we're supposed to do," Duke continued. Slower. Calmer.
Roy backed up.
"Roy. . . ." Duke said. "I'm your grandson. I don't want this power any more than you do. Roy, you don't have to die today. We can change our fate."
Roy nodded. He had the gun out again. "You're right. I can change my fate. Simon can't grow up without a dad."
Duke didn't like the look on his face. "No. . . ."
"It's the only way." Roy shook the gun in his hand. "I have to kill Sarah before she kills me."
Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck.
"Roy, don't do this. Think about the future!"
Roy shoved the gag back into his mouth, shoving Duke's whole head back in the process. Duke tugged at the ropes, but Roy was as good with knots as any sailor. He wasn't getting free on his own.
"Oh," Roy said. "I am thinking about the future!"
He ran off, leaving Duke behind. Duke jerked against the ropes, shouting into his gag, but to no avail.
Fuck.
Duke wasn't sure how long he was stuck there before Nathan found him. His arms had started to hurt, but that didn't really take that long. His mouth tasted like ass. Nathan thankfully didn't waste any time looking smug at Duke's predicament before rushing over to untie him.
"Roy found my journal," Duke said, the moment he could speak again.
"What did you tell him?" Nathan made short work of the ropes around Duke's wrists and started on the ones holding his arms to his sides.
"I told him the truth!" Duke said. "That we were from the future and that I was his grandson."
"So he thinks you're nuts."
Duke leaned forward, rubbing his wrists, as the last of the rope fell away. "No. Worse. He believed me. Nathan, he saw that Sarah kills him. So he went to kill her first. If that happens. . . ."
Nathan's face went hard. "He kills Lucy. And Audrey, too."
They rushed off, heading for the hospital where Sarah was treating Moseley. She and Nathan had apparently become fast friends, to the point where she'd actually loaned him the car she was using while staying in Haven.
Or maybe Nathan had stolen that along with the hat. Duke didn't ask.
They managed to hammer out a plan by the time they got to the hospital. Nathan would go find Sarah and warn her about Roy, directing her into the basement. Where Duke would wait to lead her out and to safety. It was a simple plan, which Duke figured up their chances of it working. Or at least, it should have.
If Roy hadn't come up with a similar one, first.
Duke was just waving Sarah down the hall towards the back door he'd found when Roy suddenly darted in between them. Sarah stopped, eyes wide, and Duke cursed.
"Duke, stop!" Roy ordered. "Sarah Vernon?"
"Oh." Sarah was unflappable. "You must be Roy."
Both she and Roy pulled their guns at the same time, cocked and aimed at each other. Duke felt like he was going to be sick.
"Roy!" he tried. "Don't do this!"
"It's nothing personal, sweetheart," Roy said, ignoring him. "Just simple self-preservation."
"Women's Army Corps," Sarah said coolly. "I know about self-preservation too. I've seen what killing does to a man. It makes you hollow."
Was that true? Was Duke now . . . hollow?
He couldn't let this happen.
"Wait, stop!" he shouted. "Just listen to me! It doesn't have to be like this. Just put the guns down!"
"I will if she will." Roy said.
Sarah stared at him for a long moment. Measuring. Calculating. Duke swallowed and watched, his heart in his throat.
"We'll do it together," she said finally.
Both she and Roy aimed their guns away from each other, and slowly crouched to the floor. Duke let himself breathe, let himself think, just for a moment, that maybe things would be okay.
And then Roy reached under his shirt, revealing that he carried a knife.
Duke broke into a run. "Sarah! No!"
Sarah lifted her gun and fired without a single hesitation. She hit Roy dead center, sending him careening backwards. Duke dodged to the side on instinct just before Roy would have collapsed on top of him, and stared down at him. His grandfather. His impossibly young grandfather. Shot and bleeding out from a wound inflicted by Audrey's previous life.
Just the way he was supposed to be.
Duke slid to the floor as Roy pressed a hand to his wound. He seemed surprisingly calm. Like he'd known this would happen all along. He reached over and caught Duke's arm, his hand slick with blood. Duke felt his trouble hit him, even as he watched the light in Roy's eyes begin to fade.
"I know you were trying to help," Roy whispered. "But we can't escape our fate. It's in our blood."
And then he was gone. Duke's trouble faded, going dormant, but not disappearing. Duke hadn't killed him, after all. Sarah had.
It had happened just the way it was supposed to. Maybe just the way it always had. Duke had given Roy the coin and Roy had given it to Simon and Simon had given it to Duke. Roy had left the journal to Simon, and Simon had left the journal to Duke, and the multiverse had made sure Duke had it and the coin just in time to bring it back here and bring Roy to Sarah.
To bring Roy to his fated death.
Duke hadn't changed a goddamn thing.
Nathan and Sarah had become more than "fast friends", judging by the way Sarah kissed him in the hall. Duke had held back, giving them space, and tried not to judge. Sarah was a force of nature, he'd seen that himself down in the basement. Just like Audrey, Duke knew she would do anything to get what she wanted.
And just like Audrey, she wanted Nathan.
He gave her one last piece of advice as she prepared to help them trigger Moseley's trouble, sending them back to 2010. To find Vince and Dave. They'd be friends. They were to Audrey — mostly — and he knew they had been to Lucy. And maybe he and Nathan were why they were to any of them.
Maybe that was fate, too.
Sarah fixed Moseley's trouble just like Audrey had fixed so many in their time, and Nathan and Duke were soon safe at home. Audrey stood behind the still gardening Moseley of the present, shooing them away before he could see the two of them again, and Duke and Nathan hurried off down to the street, waiting for her to come meet them.
It was an odd place for a debrief, but Audrey wasted no time in telling them how close it had been. How a Guardsman's bullet had been fired at her before time finally reset again.
"You did good," she said. "I think Haven's going to be okay. You know, for now."
Nathan laughed softly, but Duke could only look away. "I tried to make things better," he admitted. "But — it didn't matter. Everything that happened was already decided. It was . . . fate."
"Hey." Audrey reached for his arm. "Whatever you did, it was the right thing."
Duke stared at her. He wondered if she knew how empty those words sounded. How . . . hollow.
"I told Sarah to kill my own grandfather," he said. She frowned faintly, and Duke turned away, his hands shoved into his pockets. Heading for his truck. For his boat.
For the big ass bottle of booze waiting on his boat.
Audrey and Nathan didn't follow. He didn't know why he expected them to. They were clearly fated for each other, after all, and you couldn't fight fate. Even if you tried, even if you ran away to Maryland and swore you would never come back, fate would grab you from your bed and throw you headlong back onto your path. Props and all.
He missed Lucifer and Octavia so much it hurt. From his toenails to the ends of his hair, his whole body ached with the need to hold them. To taste their skin. To lose himself in the heat between them, where he could fool himself into believing that things could ever be okay again. That he wasn't doomed to play the part of the villain in Haven's grand tragedy.
Nathan and Audrey couldn't understand, but Lucifer and Octavia would. They knew how it felt to get thrown around by forces beyond your control. To have blood on your hands no matter what you tried to do to avoid it.
(Not even on his hands, in them, Duke could feel it, all the blood that had soaked into his skin over the years. Nathan's and Kathy's and Octavia's, Dwight's and Kyle's, and Lucifer's. Moira's. Tommy's. Daphne's. Nix's. Roy's. He wanted to tear off his skin, open it up and bleed it all back out, but it wouldn't help. It'd never help. He could pull out his hair and chew off all his fingernails and bleed and bleed and bleed and he'd never be clean.)
He pulled out his phone and called Claire, recognizing in some distant way that this was a problem. That he needed help. It rang and rang, then dropped into voicemail. Duke forced his voice out as steadily as he could. He'd gone to find Moseley like she'd said, and it had all gone wrong, and he'd told her —
He hung up before he could start yelling. That'd be enough anyway, he figured. She'd be able to tell he wasn't okay, and she'd come. Or send someone else. Gloria would come check on him, or maybe Audrey would realize he was hurting. Someone would come.
He stayed on his boat all night, and through the next day.
No one came.
[NFB, NFI, OOC welcome. Adapted from Haven 3x09, "Sarah". CW for an existential crisis, and thoughts of self-harm in the last scene. And time travel mayhem and the usual death and misery through the rest]