FIC: [Haven] House Divided - Mara/Nathan/William, Explicit (5/10)

[roseveare]

This is the other chapter to which most of the warnings apply (which isn't to say that the rest of the fic is all hugs and puppies). Halfway point. Image (reluctantly) behind cut because of vague nudity.

Chapter 4.




Audrey punches out at William, breaking his grip with a move that comes as instinctive as breathing -- though both are a bit of a struggle at the moment -- and rolls away from him fast. "Get off me, you creep!"

It matters less that she's naked as she springs off the bed than that she's no longer naked and being pawed over by William. The vague pull of attraction she feels towards him, knowing he's slime and she shouldn't, isn't enough to excuse him this. She looks around for a weapon and takes a few more stumbling steps to grab a long metal poker from the medieval-chic open fireplace in the far wall of the bedroom.

She was in William's bed.

--Mara, she tells herself. She tries to slow her pounding heart. She was Mara then, and Mara makes her own choices, the same as Sarah, or Lucy, or any of them. It's an old argument, an old fear: Where has her body been? Who has it been with? Only the evil part is new. Protests beat like the wings of trapped butterflies deep inside the cage of Audrey's chest: Mara is wounded by her rejection of William. Mara's presence is much closer than it ever was. Close enough it almost seems Audrey could reach down into that darkness and pull out memories that interest her, and if she was careful, if she was selective, the consequences might not diminish her.

"No, no, no, no, no, no." William says words fast-stuttering like a machine gun rattle. "You can't be Audrey Parker. You know who you are now. Audrey's gone. Audrey's--"

"Fuck you, William!" She swings the poker as she lunges back around toward the bed. She knows now that William never wanted anything but her destruction. Subsumed by Mara, existing in phantom snatches, she has watched them toy with Nathan... Although, truly, her clearest memories of the last few weeks are of Nathan telling her about things, and she knows he doesn't tell her everything. But she has seen what they did to him in his haunted demeanour, in his scars, and she wants to make them pay.

William flinches back and slides from the bed with a thump and a yell. He scuttles upright. "No, no, this isn't pos--" He dodges the next swing but slams into a wall. If she weren't so furious, it might be funny to watch him lurch and stumble, falling over his feet to get away from her. It's still deeply satisfying.

Audrey frowns down at the blunt end of the poker as she steps after him. Maybe she should redress the balance for the liberties he's taken with Nathan right now. William's face flinches in panic as if he can tell what she's thinking, and he tips his head back and does the very last thing she expects.

"Nathan!" William howls.

It freezes her just long enough for him to get to the door. His hands scrape at the door jamb. He's still falling over his feet, looking over his shoulder for her actions more than minding his own. A few bare stone steps lead down from the room's threshold. Less than a foot to the left of the door, outside on the landing, is the start of the grand staircase that curls down to the ground floor of the castle.

If he falls and breaks something, she won't be sorry.

"Nathan! Na--!" As he starts to yell a third time, he chokes on the name and stops. He gapes at Audrey again. His lower lip trembles.

"No, he's not going to help you," Audrey hisses. "Not against me." She whispers a seething promise, waggling the poker very minimally in the direction of his groin. "I'm going to castrate you."

William manages to catch the low blow, sealing his hands around the end of the poker. "Audrey... stop." His breaths are still harsh, but she can see he's starting to overcome his shock -- devastation, even. "You hurt me, you still hurt yourself, remember? I don't believe you'll escape completely unscathed even if you do aim there." She takes the residual hint of mirth in his voice for habit.

"I might risk that." It's the first time in weeks she's been able to do anything.

But there are footsteps, or at least there's faint padding noise, coming up the staircase, attached to Nathan's very reluctantly concerned call of, "William?"

Abruptly, Audrey is struck by the promise that in just moments they'll be together again in the flesh. "Nathan, hurry!" she shouts. She flicks her head at William. "Get out of the way."

He surrenders his grip on the poker to sidle back to the bed, toeing fallen objects on the floor. His sullen gaze never strays for more than half a second away from her, even when his head is bowed.

When Nathan walks in, Audrey grabs onto him and wraps him in her arms. "Oh, Nathan, Nathan..." It feels like an eternity since she's been herself and they've been together.

She keeps the poker held downward away from their bodies and half an eye on William, all the same.

Audrey tells herself it's only because he'd so little expectation of the alternative that Nathan's arms feel reluctant embracing her and he says, uncertainly, "Mara?"

"It's not Mara," she says next to his ear. "It's not Mara."

His body stiffens further before he starts to relax into her and then she hears and feels his heart start pounding so fast it's almost frightening. "Audrey..." He whispers her name in a trembling voice. "You're back."

"Yeah... yeah..." She wills him not to let slip, because William is still there and listening, that Audrey has been around before this, for all this time. Though there may be no avoiding revealing that now. She has no way of knowing what this -- her return to consciousness and control in Mara's body -- is or means.

William's face is sour and pinched, shut-out and sidelined. The naked lines of his long body are filled with unhappiness, and she wishes him all the more of it.

Nathan's eyes flicker, uncertain. "Are you really back?" His hands clutch her, trying to convince himself she's no hallucination or ghost, this time. "Really you?" He searches her eyes, retreating a step, hands staying on her shoulders. He's searching for Mara, suspecting a cruel joke.

"This is real," Audrey promises him. "I'm back."

"Noooo..." William's hands fist in his short hair, body twisted over, face reddening. "Mara! Honey!"

"Shut up," Audrey barks the words viciously, even though the stirrings within her aren't strong enough to be a problem.

"William--" For a moment, Nathan's face flickers with conflict as he looks at the other man. It's almost sympathy. Audrey prods tentatively at Mara's recent memories for the reason and it takes her breath away. But Nathan's still speaking. As William looks back, face open in hope, Nathan bluntly tells him, "Go away."

"W-what?" Audrey's belligerently thrilled to see William so comedically crushed.

"You said," Nathan grits his teeth and forces the words out at a slow, even pace, and it looks as though it's an effort, on some level, but he makes them come all the same, "if Audrey Parker comes back, she's mine. She's Audrey Parker now."

"That was -- that --" The stricken man flails for purchase.

"We should tie him up," Audrey says, pulling back from Nathan's arms to have a better run at William with the poker. "This place has to have a dungeon. Right?" He made it for Mara, after all.

Nathan shakes his head blankly. "It'll be okay."

Audrey knows she can't trust Nathan's judgement where William is concerned. They did that to him... Her body turns cold thinking of Mara trying to use Nathan's affection for her to turn him into their creature, to force him to love William. Sickness rises in her. That, the physical violations... In Mara's memories, hers the hand that commits those acts.

"I don't want him trailing behind us, harping about Mara, trying to bring her back," Audrey says. "I want to deal with him."

Nathan looks conflicted.

"Don't do it, buddy," William begs. He's raised his hands in response to Audrey's new posturing with the poker.

"William..." Nathan begins slowly. "Shut up." To Audrey he says, "There's no dungeon. Why would I indulge Mara like that?"

"Then I want him tied face-down to the bed with this poker rammed up his ass," Audrey says.

"He'll enjoy it," Nathan murmurs.

"Just find some rope."

She expects Nathan to leave the room, anticipates a free run at William while he does that, but instead he shuts his eyes and stands very still. After a few seconds, his hands start to move, aping weaving motions. His face breaks out a trickle of sweat. Then a few coils of rope appear in his hands, seeming paltry for the effort that went into making them. He hands one to her.

"Get on the bed," Audrey orders William. Nathan goes and strips the sheets from it, leaving only the unadorned mattress. "And be grateful Nathan's here to make me be nice, because you don't deserve it."

"Oh, Mara," he breathes, not moving. "I always love it when you play with ropes."

Audrey blinks and her senses spiral a bit. Apparently he's decided to change tactics. "Nathan," she orders tightly.

The two men tussle. After a moment it becomes clear it's not so much a fight as William trying to turn in Nathan's arms so they're pressed front to front, then he's pushing into the grip, going for a limpet-like embrace, and it's Nathan who's trying to shove William away.

"Nathan...! Don't make me lose you both!" He relinquishes his leverage in order to cup Nathan's face with his hands, stroke it, pull their lips together for a kiss. "Don't you love me?"

"It's not real." William's lips mush against Nathan's hair as he not only turns his face aside, but jerks forward an attempted headbutt. "I still know that, bastard! I'm choosing her." He shoves with his hands and curls a tripping foot around William's ankles, sending the other man sprawling onto the bed. He retrieves the rope from the floor and catches William's wrist. Their struggle isn't overly successful in getting any numb-fingered knots tied until Audrey joins in, beating down William's efforts to grope Nathan or wriggle free with jabs of the poker.

"Unk." She grunts as she feels an impact in her own shoulder, hard enough to bruise. He's right that their connection remains intact.

"Nathan, you can't leave me here like this!"

Nathan silently threads the rope between the decorative whorls of the bed head and grabs William's other wrist. He has, Audrey notes, opted to tie him face-up.

Leaving William wrenching to free his hands, Nathan takes the black box from the night stand, a widening of his eyes betraying his apprehension. It's lucky that apparently William won't bring his nasty toys out to fight them, but Nathan's obviously alarmed by the oversight, glaring as he shoves the box into the back of his jeans. Audrey abandons the poker to catch William's legs, and the rope she has is just long enough to tie one ankle to each end bedpost, leaving a trailing length between.

"I'm not staying here all day!" William insists, bucking up from the mattress in tantrum while Audrey dresses quickly in Mara's clothes, only because the other choice is nothing. "Nathan, c'mon--"

Nathan averts his face and his mouth twists sourly.

"Come on." Audrey intentionally echoes William as she places her hand in his and pulls him away, toward the door and the stairs. "We need to get out of here." If they can't kill William, and she has no idea if the ropes will keep him for long, then maybe they can at least strand him on the island. "We need to reach Duke and Dwight."

Nathan has William's box. Can she access enough of Mara's memories without losing herself to help fix Troubles, really help fix the Troubles this time? Her heart picks up and her breath goes panicky thinking about it. Mara squashed her effortlessly before. Can she risk it again?

They clatter down the steps hand in hand, and she's so keyed up she jumps out of her skin as another person unexpectedly speaks from the shadows of a doorway.

Give that the person says, "Oh my God," and tries to frantically back off, their appearance is not particularly imposing. Audrey's definitely too jumpy. The woman hits the wall and stumbles. "You're better!" she says, and, panic increasing, "It wasn't me!"

"Who is she?" Audrey asks Nathan, deciding it's better to ask for an explanation than risk poking Mara's memories. "What did she do?"

"This is Sophie. Mara and William brought her here to cook. She didn't do anything." Nathan pats down the woman's hysteria, as her voice rises to protest. "It's okay. This is Audrey. She's not Mara. I know they look the same."

Audrey can sense something beginning inside Sophie, ready to fly off from her, ready to explode. It's nothing good. She'll be all right: she has her immunity. Nathan... has forcefields. Whether those will be enough, she isn't sure. She grabs the woman's wrists. "Don't! Stop, relax, breathe. It isn't going to happen. You're safe right now." Whatever it was she sensed, it drains off, averted for now.

What was that? What was any of that? Is this what it feels like to have Mara's full powers at her command?

"Are you going off the island?" Sophie's eyes fall on Nathan, widening. "Please... please... I'm sorry about before. Please take me back!" She's looking at Nathan like she expects to be refused by him.

"We'll take you back," Audrey says.

"If you lose control in town, a lot of people could die," Nathan opposes. "Audrey, it's not a good idea."

"Nathan--!" she starts first with shock, then catches herself and sighs. No breather, then, no chance to strengthen herself before she's tested. "I'll... I can try to... remove it." Mara did this; she did this. Accessing the memories makes that fact all the more acutely undeniable, seeing her hand imprint this horror. But when she pulls shakily into the present again, she knows what Mara did and thinks she might be able to reverse it. The world only wavers a little as she forces her eyes open. "I need to touch your skin," she tells the woman. "I need you not to flinch away."

"She'll help you," Nathan says, nodding earnestly.

"I don't believe it," Sophie chokes. "This is some kind of sick joke. You're the same! I can see that you are. You'll do something else awful."

"Hey, hey." Audrey says, holding shy of grabbing her again. "I know that you were frightened. I know they brought you here against your will. But this is not a trick. They wouldn't need to trick you, all right? You're already in their power."

"I wouldn't play along with it for their amusement, either," Nathan says, which earns him a sidelong look, and he flushes. With both women looking at him, he protests, "Some things I didn't have a choice about."

Audrey touches his wrist, but she feels a little jump under his skin as she does. Of course... both Mara's and William's touch is the same as hers.

She wonders if, after this, she'll ever be able to touch him the same way again.

"Okay, we're doing this." Audrey shakes her head and refocuses her attention. She frowns at Sophie, who nervously pulls up her shirt to mid-chest. There's a handprint, alternating glowing black and gold, on her belly. Audrey reaches out and matches her hand to the mark that her fingers so perfectly fit.

It she feels herself enveloped by the Trouble; it feels like a living thing; it almost speaks to her. It writhes under her palm as she calls it back. Darkness rushes in on her, and she only just clings to herself -- she thinks she clings to herself -- as she wavers on her feet and Nathan catches her. She holds her black palm out, disgusted and uncertain what to do about it. Mara would call the black substance -- aether, her mind whispers -- back into a ball and re-use it, but Audrey has no use for it. As though her disgust prompts the decision, it starts to peel off of her skin, falling in a shower of disintegrating flakes.

Nathan's intake of breath is loud next to her ear. Sophie is wide-eyed, watching. "Is it gone?"

"It's gone," Audrey says, feeling unwell.

"Well done." Nathan hugs her from behind. There's so much in his voice. Love, of course, but it's also thick with relief. Gratification. Benediction. Salvation, Audrey thinks, but that initiates a sense of doom inside her. She thinks she nearly lost herself just now. How many times can she do it before Mara takes over?

Yet how can she not?

"Do you need me to remove anything before we get out of here?" she asks Nathan, trembling inside. Mara heaped curses on him, and those will be harder to remove, more dangerously personal, more tightly tied to his essence and Mara's.

He shakes his head. "I can hold it together. We need to get away, first."

They turn for the door. Nathan stops at the rack next to it and says, "You should wear their coats. William's is big, but it'll be cold at sea." Audrey thinks, amid a tumult of other things, of him taking extra effort to remember discomforts they'll feel that he can't--

Something moves beyond Nathan's shoulder.

"Look!" she points urgently. It's a black sphere, just hovering in the air. Nathan grabs for the thing -- with a bare hand! -- but it loops out of the way and back up the stairs, where they came from. A small flurry of others cloud up out of Nathan's pants and follow it. William's box -- damn it: it was in the back pocket of Nathan's jeans...

"Don't!" Audrey catches the back of Nathan's shirt as he swears and gives chase. It's clear the things are moving way too fast to catch. "Let's just go. Taking the boat will still trap him."

"I'm sorry," Nathan says tightly. "I don't know everything he can do with them yet."

"It's all right. Let's get out before he comes down." She feels so much at siege for her self that it seems unfair she has to bolster Nathan from his misery. But then William and Mara haven't left him much for himself, and he's been fighting for all of the weeks when she could not.

Go, she thinks, like a drumbeat inside her. Go. She doesn't want to stay here, surrounded by what's happened on this island. The memories are too close to the bone... Get out. Out of their castle... She can't believe that Mara had Nathan build a castle.

Apparently she muttered that aloud, because Nathan says, voice subdued, "She didn't mean it. But I knew it would take time, and I... well, I got into it."

She can't believe Nathan built a castle to frustrate Mara. Then again, that sort of thing does seem to have been his strategy all along.

There's a great thumping and clamour from the steps as they're grabbing at coats and pushing at the door, and Audrey staggers as pain punches her hip and left leg in quick succession, then her right side. William comes rolling down the steps, lands on his face -- another flare of pain -- and scrambles toward them, half on hands and knees. "Oh, no. Oh, no, no, no. You're not leaving here without me!"

Nathan's arms are already around Audrey, supporting her. Now, William's hands land on her roughly as he barges in to shove them apart.

Audrey breaks his grip with a practised move. "You're not my friend, William! I don't want you near me!"

Nathan's eyes crawl uncomfortably around. William's touch makes his cheeks go pink again, Audrey notices, and that enrages her. The memories of what they did to him rise... and she chokes and rabbit-punches William in the neck, then jabs the nerve cluster of the arm he's using to hold onto Nathan. It's another kind of violation again, what Mara made her do to Nathan, and that she has the memories of it through Mara's eyes. She tastes vomit in the back of her throat. Her arm hurts, and her neck.

"Stop," Nathan protests, through her dizziness. "You're hurting yourself."

"Thanks, Nate," coughs William. Audrey doesn't trust that Nathan didn't stop her partially for his sake. She sees William's hand sneak a caress over Nathan's wrist, and Nathan not flinch from it, instead look at William with glazed eyes. "You're not seriously going to leave me, are you?"

"Get off him," Audrey snaps. She starts to calculate how much pain she's prepared and able to endure to put William out of the picture. To see him punished. She reaches out to knock him away from Nathan again.

That's the moment when she loses herself.

***

Mara rises up, reborn of anger. It isn't a victory. She re-emerges in fear and devastation. She had thought the sanctity of her identity was on its way to recovery. She had thought she had safety. Nothing is safe anymore! Nathan is looking at her in abject concern, seeing someone else, hands reaching out, and she hates him. William's face is wary and hopeful. Their link isn't functioning so well as usual, but he's surely receiving something. She can sense enough to know he doesn't understand the full implications of what just happened.

Mara does.

Mara knows what was done to her. The spirit of Audrey Parker did not just take over her mind, because Audrey doesn't exist. Audrey is no more than a memory set, the most fully intact one out of her many years of torture, with the emotions that go with those memories still fully raw and real, but nonetheless the one Mara chose to integrate first so as to better deal with Nathan. And because she has never been a coward, and should rather face the way she's been compromised head-on.

Audrey reappearing as a distinct identity by definition cannot happen, unless there is something very wrong with Mara.

She fought them all the way, but they marked her. Perhaps they conquered her after all. Evidently they twisted her enough that there's a part of her that wants to be Audrey more than Mara -- if not precisely good and sweet then at least more invested in fixing Troubles than creating them.

The indoctrination of many years has taken hold. She's doing this to herself, now, without Howard or the Barn to enforce it. Somehow, she must find a way to stop this before everything is taken from her and she ceases to be Mara at all. Forever.

"Audrey?" Nathan's voice is cautious.

"Honey?" William's response is hedging its bets.

"Audrey? Come on..." Nathan's hand reaches out to touch her.

She gouges her palms with her fingernails -- remembering, now, lost conversations and moments with Nathan, going all the way back to their first night in the void. 'Audrey' is only now sharing sufficiently close space with her regular consciousness to present those events in her memory, but has never truly been gone.

"Traitor..." She seethes the word through a raw, cracking throat as her eyes burn with unwanted moisture. Nathan unhands her and steps swiftly backward.

"No," he says. She witnesses the world falling away from his eyes.

Good. Apt that he should feel it, too, when he has conspired to hide this from her. It may already be too late to do anything about it.

"Mara!" William says, delight shot through his voice, in direct contradiction with her mood. That rarely happens, with the nature of their minds' connection. But he is just so happy to have her back, and their connection feels... dwindled, not as strong as it was and should be.

In that moment, Mara hates him almost as much as she hates Nathan.

But she needs William, who knows her mind and will support her. As for Nathan, killing him last time was a mistake she will not repeat, but she refuses to tolerate this. What kind of lesson is escaping punishment, after all?

"Nathan," she growls, and already there's black coating her palm.

Nathan has seen this look on her before. He abandons pride and turns and runs. With Mara blocking the door to the outside, he heads deeper into the castle, forgoing the main staircase to open a door and hare up a narrow flight of service stairs into the areas he knows better than she does.

Mara gives chase like a panther. She prefers that physical exertion be left to her underlings, but Audrey is still so much alive inside her, who chases down criminals and solutions to Troubles, and the taste of the hunt sparks new fires of excitement, instincts she never had. Hah. She appreciates intensely that Audrey will help her catch and punish Nathan.

"Mara! Honeypot! Sweetie! No!" She can hear William coming after her, his naked feet pounding on stone. The fact he's left the girl alone is her least concern. They can find another cook.

She corners Nathan in a storage chamber off the kitchens, in the heart of the castle. Trying to hide from her will not work. Maybe she can't sense him with the bright certainty she can -- ought -- William, but after what they put in place this morning, unfinished as it remains, he will always be a dim spark on her internal map.

"Mara," he says, voice flat, face whipping up from its bowed position, from his hiding place behind a box. His panic wars with his pain. He chooses the latter. "Audrey, I know you're still in there. You can come back. You can fight her." He's rising onto one knee, edging upright as he speaks.

Mara picks up the nearest heavy object and hurls it at him, knocking him down again. "Bastard! Do not call to her!"

"Audrey--!" He will be persistent unto death.

She has known from the beginning that Nathan is not her true ally. Nathan will not support her. He was happy when she was consumed. Her demise would make him smile. She pelts him with the contents of the store room, anything that comes to hand, knocking him down, kicks him while he's on the ground, as he grabs at her feet and calls for Audrey.

That name...! Mara has to make an effort to breathe without choking on her anger, stifled by the weight of knowing that she is still not safe. All the years she struggled for her freedom, within the Barn's tangles, the threads of others' memories, and it is not over. Now, when she thought she had her identity back... she could be compromised at any time, and Nathan will revel in it.

"This is me, you wretch. Not that false shell, me! There is no Audrey Parker!" She aims for his face and arms with her bare feet, trying to score his vulnerable flesh with the bony part of her heel.

"She came back," Nathan says, stubborn to the ends of the earth. "She'll beat you in the end."

It is entirely the wrong thing to say.

William falls through the door, gasping for breath, as she's taking Nathan's face in her hands. "Mara, Mara, no, not after last time..." His begging comes entirely too late.

"Die," Mara hisses.

William grabs her and pulls her back, wrenching her arms from Nathan so roughly it hurts. Nathan's body is already starting to glow with an internal heat. He gapes, draws in a breath, and starts to say something through his open mouth, but the faint orange glow coming through his skin grows stronger. Then, his skin is red, darkening to black like coals. A spark of life remains in his eyes at the moment they melt in their sockets. Lifeless, now, his form flops as far as arms and knees, but the charred rigidity of his blackened flesh makes it seem like he's holding himself upright in death. William makes an anguished noise. Mara grabs onto him and pulls him back to the doorway. Things close to Nathan are already smoking from the intense heat.

"What did you do?" William wails.

"Wait."

She would not be foolish enough to cut Nathan down irreparably a second time. The charred form falls forward on the stone floor, and with the impact, the black shell that was his skin cracks and starts to disintegrate.

There's pink, undamaged skin underneath. Nathan rises, grunting, muttering, groaning in confusion as his burned coating flakes off to reveal new skin everywhere. His clothes are gone, but his flesh is whole. He totters to his feet to take a single step, and William's face clears in relief as he moves forward to catch him.

This time, Mara lets him get burned. As the orange glow, faint at first, takes hold of Nathan a second time, William jumps back from the heat with a cry. Nathan raises his hands and stares at them while they glow more fiercely, until his eyes pop and dribble down his face again, and he falls back to the floor as a burned husk.

"Mara," he grunts, crawling toward her as life returns and his skin begins to flake and renew. "Mara, you bitch..."

She narrows her eyes and backs William and herself through the door, out into the corridor. It wasn't entirely well-thought, she reflects, in an oddly calm fashion, for he still cannot feel. She would have preferred him to feel her wrath.

Still, as he gets no more than three feet and burns to embers again, she cannot deny the appropriateness of the Trouble, fuelled by passion and despair, eating him up and renewing him simultaneously in an ever repeating cycle.

William is leaning back against the corridor wall, sagging in shock throughout the fourth repeat. Nathan's forcefields try to kick in to protect him and everything loose in the room is flattened as the invisible walls crash outward, even to the point where the stone walls of the castle shake. But Nathan still burns.

As he renews again, Mara kneels beside him and catches his face, pinning his new eyes with hers. "I will see that you love only me," she tells him. "For I intend to eradicate every trace of Audrey. You may enjoy the distraction of this Trouble until you are prepared to change your mind. Be sure to keep your guards alert, or I shall be further displeased."

She backs away as he's starting to get too hot to handle, dodging from his clutching fingers. He manages to place a hand on her calf, burning through her clothing, leaving an ironic palm print on her skin. She gestures William back and then slams and locks the heavy door, shutting Nathan in. She waits outside the door while the cycle comes around again to him gasping, semi-coherent.

"Command your armies from here," she orders, to make sure he got that. The advantage of him being unable to feel is that he should remain lucid enough of the time to ensure his practical functions stay online. If he were to feel the agony of the constant immolations, she wouldn't have that. "If you don't, there's no reason for me not to let you feel this."

William pushes off from the wall and staggers after her as she marches down the corridor. They hear Nathan fizzle and burn again behind them. "You can't leave him like that!"

"I can and will." She lets her feet carry her onward. She still isn't feeling this. Perhaps Nathan's numbness has spread to her, in crisis.

"I love him! You love him!"

"He loves Audrey Parker!" she snaps, turning on William, on the verge of violence. The command she thought she had is undermined. How much of Nathan's willingness to stay was only ever about the presence of that phantom?

She doesn't want to alienate William. She takes deep breaths. The ground is unstable beneath her. Everywhere she turns there could be traps. There is so much she has to do.

"We always knew that," William retorts.

Mara cannot be bothered to truly explain. Cannot muster patience for words where there should be a link strong enough for intuitive understanding. She shoves at him the bundle of memories associated with Audrey's 'ghost' and William makes a startled noise as they hit him, then goes quiet. Momentarily. "That's... unexpected. But the way he acted, that isn't anything we didn't know. Mara, Mara, we're more than halfway to making him one of us...!"

And that is a process of seduction and guile, not cruelty, not punishment. Mara snorts. "Go find the girl," she tells William. "Before Nathan's things kill her, or she discovers the boat."

William hesitates, but he goes. Mara hovers in uncertainty, as it occurs to her she doesn't trust him not to go back and try to release Nathan himself.

It would be dangerous and foolish, to muddle with such a potent Trouble, created by somebody else and wrapped up, moreover, in Nathan's complicated array of pre-existing Troubles. She'll know if he does that, and can take him to task on it.

She lets him go. Then Mara returns to the living room, curls herself up in a plush chair, and tries to figure out how to make herself unassailable again.

***

Mara sits, and sits, and is aware of the afternoon stretching, into evening, moving around her. But she is still, because she does not know where she can move that is safe. Inaction, right now, seems the safest. She examines, cautiously, the memories of the spectre that would reach out to Nathan while she slept. It makes sense, now, of so many mornings waking with fragments of sentences, in her voice or Nathan's, playing at the edges of her brain. Those conversations were real.

In a way, she has been wooing Nathan to remain with her in her sleep from the very beginning.

But they are converging dangerously, if she can remember the experiences of the alter, if 'Audrey Parker' can access memories that are hers without becoming her.

She fears that it's too late. Nathan, who knew, has betrayed her, and any opportunity to salvage her identity is gone.

Nathan would always betray her.

As she sits and ponders on it, her anger dulls, having too many other things to contend with -- and William is correct. She always knew what Nathan was and would do. She used the taunt that she encompassed all that was left of Audrey specifically to tie him to her. It isn't altogether his fault that Audrey materialised and those proclamations became manifestly true.

Hit and miss whether she expected he might betray her to the outside world sooner or later anyway. She could not expect him to betray Audrey to her.

Still, he deserves his punishment no less. They can resume their efforts to bind him to them later. In the meantime, it would be detrimental to have Nathan any more present inside her head, given the pull he exercises upon Audrey. It is as well that they didn't finish yet.

Mara has been aware for a while of a lot of noise from the rest of the castle, but has ignored it, considering it William's responsibility and far less important than the things she has to contemplate. At least, she is satisfied to ignore it until it knocks upon the door to her room.

Specifically, William knocks; very tentatively, but he pushes straight in, after, without waiting for a reply. The girl is hanging over his arm like a deflated sex doll -- literally: she is flat, and draped, flopping with his movements. Mara can see a new handprint on her face, which is virtually two dimensional. The expression on the flattened features is an entertaining mixture of surprise and horror. And -- Mara sees it shift -- also conscious.

"What is it?" Mara demands. She can hear more noise beyond him somewhere. Things breaking. Her stomach rumbles at the reminder there are things which exist outside of this room, joining in the clamour. Unhappily, she reflects that Nathan may well by now have destroyed the kitchens.

"I need you," William begs. He looks harried. His face is reddened and some of the hair on his forehead is wispy and thin, as though caught too near flames.

"I told you to leave him," Mara says sullenly. The passion and fury has had time to subside, but she is still very irked. William usually obeys her wishes. He loves Nathan too much, and he has always been kinder than she is, favouring softer persuasions.

"It's not that simple," William says, and she senses he would have left her alone if he could. "Nathan got out. I don't know how. Half of the castle is -- it's flattened. There's structural damage. Stupid forcefields. And those things of his attacked me... Me! I think he's losing it, honey." His mouth twists. "Definitely his temper. Maybe more."

Mara blinks at him slowly. All right, she locked Nathan in a room with a wooden door, even if the wood was thick and tough. It's not unreasonable that he should be loose. She also supposes she should have expected the tantrum.

"Very well." After hours spent paralysed in fear, it's with a dull disinterest that she stands and moves again. Something in her has stopped caring that every step is one taken over a precipice. Her body keenly informs her that she needs a bathroom. She supposes she must deal with Nathan first. Quickly.

"I tried to reverse it," William admits nervously, voice hushed behind her as they creep -- he creeps -- toward all the noise, which quiets and then rises every couple of minutes with Nathan's immolation and rebirth cycle. So she made of him a phoenix. Her mouth curls. It's fitting, after he managed to survive the volcano world.

She knows how he did that now.

William stutters on with his explanation. "It's too much a tangle in there. I -- there's not enough time to figure it out before the cycle kicks in again." He unconsciously brushes his palm, which is scorched. Mara looks down: she hadn't noticed the small pains, preoccupied with her thoughts. "He's really pissed," William adds.

Nathan, burning to ashes and reviving instantly, is a destructive force now wrecking the dining chamber. The furniture he created is charred and splintered. William just manages to turn in time to shield the skein of a woman over his arm with his own body as another forcefield shoots out at random, before Nathan burns again.

"Hey!" William yells at the charred human shape on the floor, as it starts to sluggishly move again. "Nathan, stop being an ass. You almost killed Sophie."

Nathan's reply is a collection of expletives. Mara supposes that's only to be expected when you've spent half the day living in thirty second snatches in between dying in flames and resurrection.

Mara goes to him, ignoring the flick of another forcefield that cannot touch her, but which makes William curse. She ignores, too, the shadow figures that appear in the corners of the room and start to advance toward her. "Really, Nathan? You think I will be fooled that you could ever truly hurt me?"

She kneels down and watches while he burns for one last time, as his eyes turn vacant and melt, as his body crumbles, then fills out again and starts to revive.

Mara sighs, because this is dangerous, she is sure, and not because he might burn her. But she cups her palm over the latest handprint even as his skin becomes whole enough to see it. He struggles against her, hands rising to clutch and fight.

"Stop."

The moment holds its breath. Everyone there does, certainly -- maybe even Sophie the Inflatable Cook. Then... nothing. Nathan doesn't burn. He looks up at Mara with nervous, fearful eyes as she removes her hand. She realises he could not know that she was releasing him rather than ensuring that he would feel again in order that he should feel himself burn to death on infinite repeat.

Nathan lurches away from her, staring around at William, Sophie, the mess he has caused, and scrabbling to get his legs under him. Then his eyes go vacant and his body drops as emphatically as ever it did on the repeating cycle, planting the side of his face and his shoulder into the stone floor with a meaty slap.

Mara gives an involuntary cry and hurries over to him. Her fingers go to his neck. But his pulse is strong, his breathing harsh and visible. The Trouble she inflicted on him for punishment has even, she notices with unexpected pleasure, regenerated his hair, as well as done wonders for the pre-existing burns.

"Unconscious," she declares to wide-eyed William, who breathes out in relief. "The Trouble exhausted him, I think." She glances at the windows. It is night, and she is still Mara, and she realises that she is very tired. "Take him up to bed," she orders William. "I'll follow in a while."

William gives an acknowledging grunt and gestures vaguely with his draped arm. "What should I do with our inflatable cook? We can blow her up any time we want to eat, now."

"Take her to the kitchen and hang her with the tea towels until we need her, then. No, wait." Mara reaches out her hand. "I'll do that. Put Nathan to bed. Clean him up first." She wrinkles her nose at the burnt smell that clings to him, mingled with sweat and fear.

She takes the wretched thing from William's arm and leaves him with his task. She hangs Sophie on the doorknob while she uses the bathroom.

Nathan has done a lot of damage. She shakes her head as she follows the trail back to the storeroom, which is near the kitchens. The door is burned through with a vaguely-human shape. He must have stood up and leaned upon it for several cycles to char right through it. He could only move a matter of feet at a time in between the violent auto-destruct and reset, but he made it halfway around her home in his campaign of destruction.

Her mixed feelings would be improved by being secure in her own identity, but in general she is pleased with him. He is being honed into a weapon of startling destructive power. One fit to be wielded by, of course, her hand.

She puts Sophie in the kitchen. Perhaps she only imagines the flattened woman to be glaring at her.

Mara returns to their bedchamber to find William is just carrying a still-unconscious Nathan to the bed. Both men are slightly damp and smell of orange blossom soap.

Mara lets him put his burden down in the centre of the bed, then leans over to stroke Nathan's hair. It's tousled from a vigorous towelling, and soft. It's a funny thing to smile about among all else this day has brought. Nathan doesn't stir.

"He hasn't shown any sign of waking," William tells her, lying down on the other side of Nathan. "Our first bath together, and he was snoring the whole time. I'd have hoped for more responsiveness." His hand brushes over Nathan's hip, and he adjusts how they're both lying until his partial erection is buried against the crease of Nathan's ass. "You don't mind, do you?"

Mara does not particularly want physical comfort and does not want to touch either of them right now. That is the benefit of three. "Do as you please," she allows benignly.

She doesn't care if William intends to fuck Nathan while he's unconscious -- or indeed, if he already has, their two bodies sliding together in soapy water, which is an image she might enjoy under other circumstances. And it is one time she supposes Nathan can't complain, and what he doesn't know can't make him cranky. He should be so stretched from this morning that he really isn't going to notice further use.

But right now she sees no sign of William doing anything but nestling into Nathan's body for comfort. He rolls Nathan's head back so it's resting against the curve of his neck, and wraps arms around his chest and middle. William almost lost them both today, but Mara isn't being very welcoming. If making Nathan into his comfort blanket serves as a balm for him, then fine.

Despite her tiredness, Mara can't sleep. It takes her a long, long time of lying staring at nothing with her back to the men, thinking about losing herself, thinking about the risk of waking up as someone else.

William behind her snores and sleeps and then wakes, and she hears scuffling rise to subdued grunts and then quiet sex noises and a careful movement that gently shakes the bed, as William makes good on his plans for Nathan. She doesn't think Nathan wakes up even then, but she isn't really interested. Nathan is hers and she gave him to William, too, and he has the right, especially making up for the lost time of the last few tedious weeks. After a while, the noises go quiet and William's breathing turns back into soft snores.

Inevitably, she can't stay awake forever. The world tunes out, becomes the haze of sleep. They tumble and shift in their unconscious state. She ends up pressed against Nathan's chest. It's growing lighter outside by then, somewhere between four and five in the morning. She has enough consciousness to think, fleetingly, that it was a mistake not to insist William sleep in the centre, or that they sleep in separate beds. But she is not conscious enough to act upon the concern. Nathan rises near enough the surface of consciousness to register her presence and he mumbles and automatically snakes an arm around her which is still trembling faintly.

Audrey Parker wakes some hours later, with the sun streaming through the window to bathe the bed, enfolded in Nathan's arms.

***