seaoftroubles | Season one catchup preplay

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Season one catchup preplay

There'll be more detail in the OCD, but the basic shape is this:

As You Were: Duke and Octavia head back to Haven for Audrey's surprise birthday party (braced for troubles). They head out to a remote island off the coast where everyone's gathered at an old, closed down hotel. The proprietor turns out to be a shapeshifter that kills the people it turns into. Everyone wonders who the baddie really is. The ME dies, Lucifer sends up a demon to possess her body and yell at Duke for dragging Octavia back into his world's bullshit. Audrey is revealed to be the shapeshifter, but didn't die because She's Different. They all go back to the mainland, where Duke reveals that he's the kid in the Colorado Kid murder picture, and Audrey emotionally blackmails him into sticking around longer to answer some questions.

The Hand You're Dealt: Duke and Audrey hunt down and question a couple of the other people in the Colorado Kid photo. Meanwhile, Nathan and Audrey try to track down someone with a fire trouble. Duke's old babysitter turns out to have death visions when she touches people, and after getting blown up by the fire trouble, tells Duke how he's going to die right before she dies herself.

The Trial of Audrey Parker: ~~Audrey talks Duke into hosting a poker game before leaving. Two of the other guests hijack the boat to try and get something Duke's smuggling for a client.~~ Honestly there are a lot of holes in this thanks to the way things are shaping up with Fandom in the mix. Why would Octavia let Duke stick around when now they KNOW someone in Haven is going to kill him? Octavia isn't a good replacement for Julia, Julia's a ninny. Octavia would just beat the shit out of the baddies for being mean to Duke. And getting the boat cracked delays them too much in going back to Fandom. Maybe we should skip this one. It doesn't really add much to Duke's character development that hasn't kinda been covered by Fandom anyway.

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SURPRISE, AUDREY! It's a birthday party! We meet the suspects:

Nathan
The Chief
Vince
Dave
Eleanor
Julia

and Vaughn Carpenter, the proprietor, who will shortly go off and SHED HIS SKIN AND TAKE SOMEONE OVER.

The hotel on Carpenter's Knot was a grand affair, enormous and sprawling, and surrounded by wild, overgrown gardens. Duke led them all up to the front door and into a small, but well-appointed foyer.

"This place gives me the creeps," Audrey noted. Duke didn't say a word, just stopped at the foot of the stairs an turned in place, looking around.

"I've seen worse," Octavia said, with a vaguely, faintly joking tone that Duke was probably more likely to interpret correctly than Audrey - or anyone else in earshot - was.

She tilted her head up, as if to look towards the top of the stairs, but her eyes flicked back down to Duke almost immediately.

Audrey turned to respond, but before she could do more than open her mouth, someone grabbed her from behind. She spun, ready to defend herself --

Only to see a whole crowd of people in party hats with noisemakers, led by Dave with his camera, all cheering and shouting "SURPRISE!"

Audrey damn near had a heart attack, but managed to scrape up a grin for them before turning an amused glare on Duke and his girlfriend. Duke already had a party hat out and ready for her.

"Got ya," Duke said softly, as he put the hat on her.

Octavia really didn't like sudden things, even ones like this where she was in on the surprise. She hadn't been obvious about the way she'd braced for it, though. Only flinched internally when it happened.

She gave Audrey's look a little shrug, then watched the two of them, watched Duke's face -- Then turned her attention on the small crowd, instead. She didn't know the two women. Everyone else sparked memories of annoyance past at varying levels.

Maybe she should have stayed in Fandom. Or at least on the mainland side of Haven.

The party-goers all chattered happily at each other as they made their way back into the living room area where they'd set themselves up. Duke probably should have looked over at Octavia at least, made sure she was still doing okay with the whole 'lots of loud people' aspect of this whole deal, but his eyes were still on Audrey instead, reaching out to chuck her chin playfully as he caught sight of the moisture in her eyes.

"Are you crying?" he teased. "Because crying will not be tolerated today."

"Shut up." Audrey smacked him back. "I am so armed."

Duke did look back at Octavia then, with a conspiratorial grin. "And we're not?"

Octavia had already drifted into the doorway, her shoulders squared, her chin up. Her face impassive. Parties with strangers were kind of like battle, right? And she didn't shrink away from a fight.

(Especially when she could use it to distract herself.)

For a second, she considered pretending she hadn't heard Duke, that she hadn't even been listening. Then she glanced back over her shoulder.

"Always."

". . . Forget the hotel," Audrey muttered. "She's creepy."

"Yeah," Duke agreed fondly, smiling at Octavia.

The rest of the party guests were focused back on Audrey again, who was pulling her hat back off with a laugh. "No one's ever thrown me a surprise party before," she mused.

"Well, after all you've already done for Haven," Vince said. "It's the least we could do!"

Octavia hung back, watching. Quiet.

She found she was having one of those moments where things felt a little surreal. Like she could've found out this was all just a cryo sleep dream, and wouldn't have been surprised.

"I never even expected it," Audrey said. "I didn't even know you guys were plan --" She cut herself off with a shake of her head as she realized there was another younger brunette here along with Octavia. "I definitely didn't expect it from the girl I don't even know! Hello!"

The woman stepped forward, shaking Audrey's hand. "Julia Carr. I'm Eleanor's daughter, I just got back in town."

"She was in Ethiopia," Eleanor said proudly. "With the Peace Corps!"

"Darfur, actually," Julia said. "With Doctors Without Borders."

"Well, thank you for coming," Audrey said. "And Octavia, thank you, too! Guys, have you all met Duke's girlfriend?"

Julia looked over at Octavia with a faint expression of disappointment. "You actually managed to nail him down, huh?"

Right, she wasn't just a spectator going unnoticed. Octavia blinked, faltering for just a second before pulling back into her mask of mildness.

She swallowed the first two words she almost said, and chose "Seems that way," instead. Then she gave the room at large a small nod of greeting. "Hi."

It was the best she could do.

Duke went to go put his arm around Octavia. "Don't mind Julia," he said, shifting into a faint Irish accent. "She had the biggest crush on me when she was just a wee lass."

"Please," Julia scoffed, covering not nearly as gracefully as Octavia could. "I put up with your hipster chin fuzz so you would tell me cool traveling stories."

"She looooved me," Duke teased, then tugged on Octavia's arm as Nathan swung into the room with a hotel luggage cart full of presents. "We're just gonna. . . ."

Give Octavia a break from all the people while also avoiding the hell out of Nathan!

Well would you look at that! Octavia had zero problem with that plan. She said nothing, just went with his tugging.

That bit of awkward could wait.

Duke kept half an ear trained on Audrey and Nathan's awkward conversation, but otherwise kept focused on Octavia as he led her to the space under the stairs.

"I know," he was saying. "I know, they're a lot. But hey, we'll get the niceties out of the way, I'll pull Audrey aside to give her her present, and then we can go check out the rest of the island, just you and me, huh?"

"Sure," Octavia said, a little bit mild but what else was new. Because that was what her unease was about, right? People being a lot.

Yeah.

She knew she should have said more.

They were really going to have to work on their communication issues at some point, yeah.

"Cool." Duke leaned in to kiss her on the forehead, just as an old man walked by.

"Am I, uh, the last one here?" he asked to the room at large. Distant thunder rumbled. "Well, I always enjoyed making an entrance!" The group laughed. "I'm Vaughn Carpenter," the man said, "welcome to the Knot. Mi casa es su . . . hotel for the weekend!"

"I slipped Old Gus an extra fifty to come get us tomorrow morning," Duke told Octavia quietly. "We'll be out of here in no time."

That was the first thing that seemed to make Octavia's expression open up. Not a lot, certainly not so much that anyone else would have noticed.

"Good."

But that also wasn't why, after a beat, she suddenly leaned up to actually kiss him.

Duke kissed back firmly.

Thunder cracked above the hotel, making the power blink. Back in the party room, Vaughn made his excuses and announced he was going to check on the generator.

He didn't check under the stairs as he slipped by, heading for a bedroom.

Octavia had kind of been trying to crowd Duke against the wall as the man went past, anyway. Just a little bit aggressive after a slightly more tentative start.

But she pulled back now, looking back towards the lights. "If this place loses power," she rasped, "you're going to owe me, jaka."

Don't say these things, Octavia.

"Oh yeah?" Duke asked with a soft laugh. "Owe you what?"

"Don't know yet," Octavia rasped, turning her gaze back on him. She was still all up in his personal space, one of her hands curled tightly in his shirt at his side. "Something good."

She just did not want to get stuck huddling in this house with all these people.

This was Haven. So what they were going to get was exactly what she didn't want.

"Something good," Duke agreed. "I think I can handle that." He leaned in to kiss her again, but paused when he caught a glimpse of an old woman hurrying silently by behind her.

". . . Huh. Wonder who that was."

Octavia turned again, but was too late to catch a glimpse of her own. So, she shrugged.

"Yet another person."

". . . Guess so." He started to turn back to her, when people started pouring back out of the party room. "Dammit."

"If they still have bunkbeds," Dave was saying, "I get dibs on the bottom!"

"No fair," Vince whined. "You always call dibs!"

"That's 'cause I'm older!" Dave cackled. "But I'm faster!"

"And you're short," Vince said.

"Guess people are claiming rooms," Duke said, and slid past Octavia to grab Audrey before she left.

For a brief, unpleasant moment, Octavia wondered whether he even noticed how slow her fingers were to untangle from his shirt as he left her.

Then she shoved that thought aside, and suppressed the sigh that went with it, and stepped out from under the stairs to join the group at the back of the pack.

Well, the two of them needed a room, too.

Season one catchup preplay

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