Haven: After the Farmer

 AFTER THE FARMER

 

I'm seeing spots when I get up to the road. Very glad Audrey is gone--last person I want to see. The paramedics come up to me.

"No. I'm fine--the guy, weird noise--dead, maybe?" I point. Maybe. Right.

Auto-pilot driving gets me back to The Gull, thankfully without incident. Wonder if there are missed alerts on my phone but I don't check. I go round the side door and slip in, not going through the front and all the people, but I want to check in.

"Oh, hey Duke!" I'm too unfocused to recognize which of the employees is attached to the voice, "How much are we supposed to upcharge for the--"

"Don't bother Boss man right now," Julia scoots them as I lean against the storage cabinet nearby and try to calm my head, "Use your eyes and read the menu. It's on there."

"Thanks," I tell her.

She smiles, "What do you pay me for?"

I manage a laugh.

"You don't look good. Did you guys not find him in time?" she puts a hand on my arm and I realize after a moment she's pulling at my jacket which I had stopped taking off halfway through when the kid started questioning me.

"No...we found him."

"Oh," she says. She takes the jacket and folds it over her arm.

"I just wanted to check..."

She leans back against the wall so that we're facing each other. She looks serious and concerned, "Do you--are you okay to tell me what happened?"

"I..." All I can do is see his eyes as my hand gripped over his nose and mouth tightly and hear the noise of the liquid in his lungs.

I don't realize I'm looking at my hand until she takes it from me and kisses the fingers gently, "It's alright."

"It was a Family thing...never alright."

Her face falls, "Bar?" she asks, after a moment.

"Yeah," I agree, instead.

She keeps my jacket and I follow her through the restaurant part of the Gull towards the bar. Eyes on her keep my feet steady. We're fairly slow which is good. I do not want to deal with people. Julia slips behind the bar and pulls down one of the whiskey bottles and sets me a glass. I open it but stare at it for a while before actually pouring some in the glass, get my hands focused, and swilling it around. I can feel Julia's eyes on me as she's doing other things for people. She tells the servers that we're closing up early as it's slow and to not let anyone else in.

I'm on my third, maybe fourth, and starting to feel a little warmer, and not so shaky, when I hear a familiar tread. Julia sets herself to busily cleaning and "not paying attention".

"Can I get one of those?" Audrey asks me.

I deliberately drain my glass and pour another one and do not give it to her but slowly drink some of it myself and set it down without turning towards her. I can't look her in the eye.

"I have good news," Audrey continues, sitting down next to me, "Everyone's getting better: Stan's nephew, that Miriam girl. I'm sure you knew that."

I look at her sideways.

"Duke, what happened back there? What made you change your mind?"

No. Not talking about this with you, especially not right now. I will not say good things.

What was I supposed to do though? Leave those poor kids to turn out like him--turn on their families or hunt down the rest or die trying? No, so I went back and...I...

...and the blood--that's the worst part of it--it feels--so damn good--not since--don't want to think about that...because...and I know that is coming.

No. There is nothing I can say right now.

I get up and leave taking the glass and bottle with me.

 

The air is chilly. I let it cut through me for a moment before walking towards the Cape Rouge hearing Audrey walking upstairs and the front doors locking. Julia runs to catch me up as I'm walking up on to the boat she links my arm, takes the bottle and has a swig.

"What do you feel like doing?" she asks as we switch bottle and glass and she unlocks the cabin.

"Shower. I need to be clean," there's a snort though--don't feel I'd ever.

"Do you want company? or I can make food while you shower?"

"Don't know if I can eat."

"Company?"

I nod, "Yeah, sounds good, actually."

Things are getting a fuzzy. Whiskey kicking in well.

Shower is warm. We wash of course, and then I sit, safest. I feel the strength of her shoulder as she massages my scalp, the scent of shampoo as things shake out of me.

"I'm still here," she whispers, through the water, "I'm not going anywhere unless you want me too. You're still a good person. You're not a monster. You're not him. But--But we should get out of the shower before the water gets freezing. We can go to the couch? or lie in bed? After we dry off."

I nod slowly, "Bed."

She kisses me on the forehead and gets up to turn the shower off. I manage to pull myself to my feet, bracing against the wall when everything spins as I stand. She hands me a towel and I start to dry myself off and she puts another around my head. She already has two wrapped around herself body and head, and she scrubs my head and kisses me again, gently on the lips and links arms with me to lead me to the bedroom.

 

When we go into the bedroom in dizziness I flop onto the bed before I intend to. I forgot how comfy the bed is. I lay back on it. Julia pulls on one of my shirts and flops down next to me, hair still wrapped in a towel. She drops a pair of pants on the bed by my head but I don't touch them. I close my eyes but the dizziness is worse. I shift around on the bed instead, carefully, and she follows me so we're laying with heads actually on pillows.

She puts a hand on my cheek, "How are you feeling?"

"Damp."

She gives a slight smile.

I stretch. I did I forgot how great the bed was. It feels comfier than it's ever been and the boat gently rocking. She moves in closer, wrapping her arms around me and pulling my head towards the crook of her neck and resting her hand on the side of my face she strokes my cheek gently.

"She knew."

"Hm?" Julia asks.

"Audrey. When she called me this morning to help her," I shake my head, "We argued about it, before I..." I pull myself back and up, sitting up in the bed.

She sits up, turning to face me legs crossed face concerned and slightly angry, "What do you mean?"

"The guy...he was harvesting organs from his family. He needed to because of his Trouble so he would stay alive, it was messed up but...he'd used the sperm bank to father all these kids, so he could have spare parts."

She scoots forward and takes my hand, rubbing her thumb across the back of it.

"And...if he didn't get them--get the part he needed, they--their Trouble, the same one activated so they would die if they didn't start doing the same thing."

"That's--" she looks up at me, "That's awful."

"Yeah."

"If she'd just said I might..." I shake my head, "I'd still..." my brain can't form the right words.

"What do you mean?"

I run my hands through my hair, scratching my head, "I went there because she called--said there were so many adopted kids they needed help tracking them all down to see where Nix--that's the guy--might have gone. No mention at all that she wanted me to--that she was going to want...that. I mean, I saw what he was doing to them. That poor girl, when we stopped him from attacking her--she just started convulsing, and then Audrey comes at me with these family pictures from Nix's house. She could have pulled anything for the fucking A.P.B."

Julia wraps her arms around me.

"I don't--I didn't expect that from her. She could have just been straight with me."

Julia kisses my forehead again, "She should have been. I don't blame you for not talking to her when she came down earlier. I would have probably hit her."

I can't help but smile a little. Tiny angry wench. I shake my head, arms resting across my knees.

"She knows how you feel about your family's...ability."

I lower my head, "All those kids though. I couldn't--I couldn't let them go through that. I had to..."

"In the service of the greater good," she says, "One life to save many."

"Yeah. It's what I'm trying to remember."

Even if it does remind me too much of ghost Dad's sanctimonious tromp through the field where the Girl Scout killed her troop with a fear wave.

At some point she must have put the whiskey on the night stand and I reach for it now and drink from it. I offer her but she says no. I can feel the burning warmth settling down my throat and in the pit of my stomach too.

"None of them will go through that," I mutter.

"Right," she kisses my cheek, "You saved them."