Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The bell rings above the Claw’s front door, announcing Nancy’s arrival. It’s a slow night, and the thick drizzle in the air outside seems to be keeping Horseshoe Bay’s residents indoors. Since the tsunami that almost destroyed the towns waterfront, the foot-traffic through the town had dwindled significantly. Nancy found herself fearing for the small business’s that freckled the few main streets. With the added costs of repairs and reduced sales, it was only a matter of time before boards would begin replacing window displays.

It seemed like lately, all Nancy could see was darkness all around her. Dread and anxiety held Nancy hostage, making every breath feel deep and shaky. The darkness had seeped into her and wrapped itself so tightly around her heart, that even somedays, Nancy wondered if she had picked up another soul-sucking demon. But alas, she was simply suffering from heartbreak. And boy, did it ever hurt.

“Evenin’ Nancy, be out in a sec!” Nick called from the office, the sound of rustling papers and closing filing cabinets following closely behind.

Nancy’s body oozed onto a red bar stool and her head immediately fell to the counter. She took another deep, shaky breath and closed her eyes. The will to do anything else right now seemed unfathomable. It wasn’t that Nancy had had a bad day. In fact, it had been a really successful day. Someone had come into the precinct to report a set of missing wedding bands just hours before the ceremony was to take place. After hearing the groom’s heartfelt, and frankly terrified plea for help, Horseshoe Bay’s community liaison was on the case. It took exactly 32 minutes for Nancy to figure out that the wedding bands had been taken by the groom’s 11 year old son, who was worried about losing quality time with his father after he got married, and decided to pawn the rings and buy a new gaming system so that his dad would still have an excuse to hang out with him.

The whole thing was actually really sweet in a way. And Nancy could relate to the boy’s fear of losing his father. The loss of Ryan in Temperance’s fake reality still sat heavy in Nancy’s gut. A lot of things from that reality sat with her. But Nancy was still trying to seek out happy moments to help stave away the darkness. She even stayed for the wedding ceremony that afternoon, and had found herself smiling at the flower girl stumbling down the aisle and the reverend’s corny dad-jokes during his officiation.

It wasn’t until the happy couple began exchanging their vows and the groom referred to his soon-to-be-wife as his “sweetheart” that Nancy’s day once again took a turn for the depressing. She thought about the day of Detective Con when they had first learned of just how strong Charity and Beckett’s love for one another had been. In that moment, she had wondered whether she would ever feel that for someone. She had also wondered if that someone could have been Ace. Then, in Temperance’s fake reality, she got her answer. Despite the short time they had been together, Nancy knew pretty quick that Ace was it for her. That defining love that she would chase for the rest of her life. She had never felt her heart race like Ace made it race. It was exhilarating and terrifying, all at once, and it wasn’t long before that feeling consumed Nancy completely.

The words between the couple at the wedding were so full of love and longing, and Nancy was reminded that she would likely never have the chance to share that kind of love with Ace. That is, if she wanted to keep Ace alive and not be the reason for his premature demise.

Temperance sure was a cruel bitch.

When Nancy opened her eyes, Nick stood before her, one eyebrow cocked in confusion, or maybe concern. Nancy was too tired to try and determine which one it was.

“Don’t take this the wrong way Nance, but you look like you could use a drink” He said as he wiped down the counter around her.

“Just one? I’m thinking maybe a few at least,” she replied, resting her head on her fist and giving Nick a sly wink. It was the only energy she could muster.

“What’s eating at you?” Nick asked, brow now fully furrowed in concern.

“I don’t know. Do you ever just get in those moods where all you want to do is drown your sorrows in junk food and sad movies? That’s the mood I’m currently in.”

Nick gave her one of his warm smiles that never failed to make Nancy feel at ease. “I know the feeling well, actually. And I think I have just the thing to help you get that fix,” he replied with a cheeky grin. “Grab your coat and I’ll cash out. We can drown some of these sorrows together at the loft. And I have the perfect film for the occasion.”

***

When Nick opened the door to the loft, Nancy was immediately struck by the familiar smell of stained wood and leather. It was the same smell Nancy had woken up to the morning after her and Ace… she couldn’t even finish that thought before she felt the inklings of tears welling in her eyes.

“Make yourself at home, I’ll get the snacks” Nick said as he walked into the kitchen.

Nancy flopped onto the couch and relished in the way the cushions sucked her in. Part of her wondered what it would feel like to be eaten by the couch completely. But before she could fall too far into that dreadful thought, Nick was returning with a full tray of snacks. He had everything, from salty to sweet, but there was only one item that held Nancy’s attention like a vice.

“Is that mango sorbet?” Nancy asked, her voice cracking as the question rushed out of her.

“Yeah, it is! I was hoping you might like this stuff. I’m honestly not the biggest fan, but Ace bought like, 10 pints of it shortly before he moved out and then never ate it. I still don’t know why he bought so much… When I tried to ask him about it, he just said it was an impulse-buy. Bit of a weird impulse-buy if you ask me though,” Nick said with a laugh.

Nancy slowly reached for the pint of sorbet, the tears now seconds away from spilling from her eyes. “This is my favourite sorbet, actually,” Nancy said with a sniff.

“Well if you finish that one, there’s 9 more where that came from,”

Nick cued up the movie and moved to the arm chair beside the couch. The familiar sound of a tin flute filled the apartment, lilting in the longing way that only the Titanic theme could. By the time Leonardo DiCaprio was winning his ticket onto the boat that would eventually lead to his demise, Nancy was almost done her first pint of sorbet. Without shame or regret, she shuffled to the kitchen to retrieve another. If she was going to survive two and a half hours of Jack’s hair falling over his forehead in the same way Ace’s hair does, she would definitely need more than one pint.

As she watched Jack and Rose fall harder for each other, Nancy found herself wondering if Jack resented Rose at all. She had been on a life boat, but then made the choice to leave the safety of the lifeboat to spend just a few more moments with Jack before the ship sank. What she didn’t know was that her choice would ultimately result in Jack being left in the icy water to freeze while Rose croaked for help on a door that totally could have fit them both.

Her choice killed the love of her life. And she had to live with that.

The parallels to Nancy’s unfortunate situation with Ace were uncanny. If she made the selfish choice to be with him, even if just for a little while,Ace would die. And it would be all her fault.

Many pints of sorbet later, Nancy’s eyes drifted closed and she dozed off on a tear-soaked pillow, while Nick softly snored in the armchair beside her.

***

“Hello, anybody home?” Ace called softly from Nick’s front door. It was late, and the graveyard shift at the morgue had been keeping him occupied most evenings. Tonight, he had come home to his apartment to find his fridge almost completely empty. He had been stress eating a lot lately, and hadn’t realized how quickly he had eaten through his groceries. He hoped Nick might have something he could steal.

When Ace stepped into the loft, the first thing he noticed was Nick snoozing soundly in this armchair, his mouth was hanging open and he had a good start to a drool stain brewing on the collar of his shirt. The credits to The Titanic were rolling across the TV screen, illuminating the rest of the living room.

Empty pints of mango sorbet littered the coffee table and floor by the couch, and Nancy lay curled toward the couch cushions, her back to the TV. Ace could hear her deep, heavy breathing from where he stood. He crept closer to her and saw that she was holding yet another empty sorbet container. He smiled at how cute she looked with the container clutched between her delicate hands, and was happy that the sorbet had finally made it to it’s intended owner.

Shortly after killing Temperance, Ace had seen the sorbet on sale at the store. He knew it was Nancy’s favourite because Ryan had told him on more than one occasion when he’d forgotten to get it for Nancy and had called Ace in a panic asking if he could pick it up. Even though Nancy seemed to be avoiding Ace in the fallout of Temperance’s death, he had still found himself wishfully thinking she might show up on his doorstep in need of sorbet and a shoulder to cry on, preferably his shoulder. Like any good Boy Scout, Ace wanted to be prepared.

When Nancy did eventually show up at his doorstep though, the conversation didn’t quite go as expected, and the sorbet had sat abandoned in Nick’s freezer ever since. Until now, it would seem.

Nancy stirred on the couch and rolled onto her back. The hem of her shirt rode up ever-so-slightly, and her arm fell limply across her torso. Her brow furrowed and she let out the softest whimper Ace had ever heard. He tiptoed even closer to her and gently picked up the sorbet container and placed it on the coffee table. He looked around for a blanket that he could cover her with, but found nothing.

Without a second thought, Ace shrugged off his flannel and draped it over Nancy. As he did, another whimper escaped Nancy’s lips and Ace wondering what she could be dreaming about. Whatever it was, it seemed like the dream was of the unpleasant variety. Her head swung back and forth, and she began talking in her sleep.

“Please,” she gasped, “somebody help me”. A tear fell from her firmly shut eyes, and Ace couldn't help but kneel down next to her. “Ace,” he heard her whisper, still fast asleep.

“Shhh, it’s ok, I’m here,” Ace whispered back as he placed his hand lightly against her cheek and brushed the tear away softly with his thumb. He could feel Nancy unconsciously lean into his hand just a bit. He never wanted to forget this feeling. The feeling of her skin against his. It was so soft, and it felt so good to be next to her again. It had been weeks since he had even spent more than one minute in the same room with her. She was definitely avoiding him, but for what reason, he didn’t know yet. His gut told him something was very fishy about her behaviour though, and he couldn’t shake the feeling that there was a bigger reason behind her sudden animosity towards him. Her calling his name in her nightmare fuelled that theory even more.

Ace’s thumb took on a life of its own as it brushed Nancy’s cheek lightly. As he did, the worry in her brow began to ease. He wished he could hold her like this every day. He wished he could chase away whatever was weighing on her with the brush of his thumb against her cheek. But lately, even a simple conversation seemed impossible.

Ace suddenly became very aware of how creeped out Nancy would probably be if she were to wake up and find him like this. He likely still smelled of formaldehyde, which would be a red flag for any girl.

Ace slowly removed his hand and stood up. If his self-control was weaker, he would have liked to stay like that with Nancy all night. But he had a feeling that the increasingly loud growling from his empty stomach would ruin the moment fairly soon anyway.

As quietly as he could, he grabbed a package of instant noodles from the pantry in the kitchen and tiptoed back to the front door. With one last look at his two sleeping friends, he closed the door silently behind him.

***

Nancy woke with a gasp. The image of Ace’s bloody body laying in front of her car was still imprinted on her retinas from the nightmare that had been plaguing her every night since Temperance died. As she took in the room around her, she became immediately aware to two things. The first was that she clearly needed to get her sorbet consumption under control. The second was that she was covered in one of Ace’s flannels…

Chapter Text

Nancy sat at the edge of her bed, staring at the green and brown flannel draped over her desk chair. It had been almost a week since she woke up on Nick’s couch covered in the mysterious garment. Although she didn’t know exactly how the flannel ended up with her on the couch, she could hazard a pretty good guess. Considering that Ace lived in the apartment right below Nick, and that the flannel smelled so strongly of Ace when Nancy awoke that morning, she suspected that he might have stopped by after her and Nick had fallen asleep watching Titanic.

Nancy hated to admit it, but waking up to the smell of Ace and the soft material of his well-worn flannel made her stomach flip flop with restrained glee. She knew she couldn’t let herself get too lost in her feelings for him, but she couldn’t deny that the thought of him draping the flannel over her while she slept was making it hard not to feel things.

There was an unbearable ache deep inside Nancy that was making it impossible to return the shirt. It should be an easy task really, but the thought of confronting him made her want to crawl into a hole and hide forever. What would she even say to him? If she wanted to be honest, something along the lines of “Hey, sorry it took me so long to return your shirt, I’ve secretly been sleeping with it for the last week” would be the most appropriate.

To say Nancy had become attached to the shirt would be an understatement. She had become so attached in fact, that she had fallen asleep wearing it pretty much every night since she had acquired it. Each night, she would return home and sit on her bed, much like she was doing now, staring at the shirt while trying to convince herself to return it. Instead, she always ended up convincing herself to put it on “just one last time”. She’d slide her arms into the soft sleeves, which were so long that they covered her hands completely. Then, she would pull the collar up to her face and bury it in the fabric. Ace had the most intoxicating smell, warm and sweet like his mom’s chocolate chip cookies. He smelled like a home, and for a brief moment, he had become Nancy’s home. Now, she felt like this flannel shirt was the only thing keeping her from falling apart completely, and she couldn’t fathom giving it back.

Like every night before, Nancy stood up from her bed and pulled the shirt on. It draped over her black turtle neck like a cozy tent. The minute it was on, she felt her shoulders relax a bit. Her eyes closed as she took a deep breath and allowed her hands to run down the shirts lapels. She knew she shouldn’t, but she wished that it was him wearing the shirt while her hands drifted lower. Her palms were aching to remember what Ace felt like beneath them, strong and—

The sudden bang of someone knocking on Nancy’s front door tore her from her sadistic imagination. She slapped her cheeks lightly to bring herself back to reality, and headed for the stairs. Two at a time, she flew down them and whipped the door open. On the other side, Bess stood with her fist poised for another deafening knock. She jumped when Nancy appeared so suddenly in the doorway.

“Oh! Nancy, thank heavens you’re home!” The expression on Bess’s face made it clear to Nancy that something had happened. Something bad.

“Bess, what’s wrong?” She said, feeling her brow furrow with concern.

Bess was silent for a moment, her mouth hung open like she had gotten caught up on what to say. “Uhhhh, well, it’s a little hard to explain, but there’s been a—“ she paused again to think of the right word, “an incident, at the cemetery.”

Nancy wasn’t surprised. The cemetery had become a hotspot for vandalism these last few weeks. “The cemetery again? More vandals?” She asked.

A thin sheen of sweat was starting to bubble on Bess’s forehead. “Not exactly, no. More of an attack, really.”

An attack?! That was new. Up until now, most of the incidents that had happened at the cemetery had been tame, if not a bit weird. Tombstones toppled, graves dug up, bodies disappearing. But nobody had been hurt. Nancy grabbed her shoes and began lacing them up. This case was going to require her immediate attention.

“What happened? Who was attacked? Are they alright? Do we know who the attacker was?” She rapidly fired off the questions while stuffing her phone and keys into her messenger bag.

“Well, that’s sort of where it gets weird.” Bess said as Nancy shut the front door and they began walking toward Bess’s car. She continued, “The victim was Mrs. Smythe, the hotel manager at the Horseshoe Bay Inn. She turned up on the doorstep of the Historical Society earlier tonight covered in blood and grime. She was crying and looked a fright, so I sat her down and asked her what happened. She told me she had been heading to her sister’s grave to drop off some fresh flowers, when she noticed someone watching her from behind a nearby tree. She said when she confronted the person, they rushed her and sent her flying almost 10 feet in the air when they hit her.”

“Oh my god! Is she ok?” Nancy’s heart immediately clenched as she thought about how scared poor Mrs. Smythe must have been. She was over 60 years old and had always been on the frail side.

“She’s a little banged up, but alive which is good. When the medics arrived, they took her to the hospital to clean her up and get a full statement. But Nancy, that’s not all. When I asked her who had attacked her, she turned so pale I thought she might pass out right then and there. But then she said, and I quote, ‘it looked like my sister’…”

Silence fell between Nancy and Bess as they stared at each other over the roof of the car. Once the initial shock had passed, all Nancy could think to say was “I’m sorry, what?”

They both got in the car and Bess began backing out of the driveway. “It sounds crazy, right?! I mean, how could Mrs. Smythe’s sister attack her when she died like, 7 years ago? But then, me and Ace decided to swing by the cemetery to check out the scene of the crime, and who’s grave did we find freshly unearthed and empty?”

Nancy tried to ignore the pang of jealously she felt at the thought of Ace visiting a crime scene with Bess and not her. “Let me guess, Mrs. Smythe’s sister?” Nancy asked. The look Bess gave her in return told Nancy that her guess was correct.

“Like, I’m trying not to panic, but the whole thing is giving me zombie-apocalypse vibes, especially when we take into consideration all of the bodies that disappeared from the cemetery last month!” Bess said in a voice that was sounding more shrill and panicked with each syllable.

“Bess, I’m sure it can’t be zombies. In all our time of fighting Horseshoe Bay’s supernatural spooks, we’ve never encountered the living dead. There has to be another explanation. Where are we headed now?” Nancy asked.

“I thought maybe you should take a peek at the crime scene, see the evidence for yourself?” Bess said, just as her phone began to ring. She sent the call to the car’s bluetooth. “Hello?”

“Hey, it’s Ace.” Nancy hated how the sound of his voice made every nerve-ending in her body trill with excitement. “Where are you right now?” The question was followed by a muffled grunt and a heavy thud.

“I just picked up Nancy. I was going to take her to the cemetery to check out the scene.” Bess replied.

“You might want to just come straight to the morgue,” Ace suggested.

“Why?” Bess and Nancy asked in unison. There was trepidation in both of their voices.

“Well, the body of Mrs. Smythe’s sister is no longer missing, which is a great,” Ace always prefaced bad news with optimism. Nancy braced herself for the worst. “but ummm, she’s definitely giving off some weird vibes…” Ace finished with an audible gulp.

“See! Zombies, Nancy, I told you!” Bess exclaimed, her eyes wide with terror as the car’s tires squealed through a tight turn. They were only minutes from the morgue, which meant Nancy was only minutes away from seeing Ace. It had been weeks since she had spent more than a few minutes with him and her stomach was doing backflips. She had never visited him at the morgue before, and despite the fact that there might be a literal zombie waiting there for them, she still felt giddy. She was so giddy in fact, that she completely forgot about what she was wearing.

Ace’s flannel…

***

As soon as Ace hung up the call with Bess, he felt frantic. Nancy was on her way to the morgue right now with Bess. She had never visited him at the morgue before, and he was suddenly feeling extremely self-conscious. He had been loving his Assistant job, even with the brutal hours, and he was beginning to feel like he was finally getting the hang of things. He enjoyed the daily routines of bleaching the tables and floors, entering coroner notes into their online record system, and driving to and from the hospital to pick up bodies. The job was morbid, sure, but Ace found himself liking it more and more with each day.

It also helped that the quiet solitude that he often worked in gave him lots of time to think about Nancy. Some days, he would simply daydream about her, passing the night-shift with thoughts of how her hair always seemed redder when the sun was setting, or how perfect it felt to wrap his arms around her waist when they hugged. Other days, he’d obsess over his memories from the day Nancy killed Temperance. His gut was telling him that something hadn’t been right with Nancy ever since.

Ace had compiled a mental list of evidence that supported his running theory that something had happened to her that night and she was keeping it from everyone. He reviewed this list every day, multiple times a day. First, and perhaps his weakest piece of evidence, was how Nancy had been acting toward him that day, before Temperance escaped. She had been by his side, gazing at him with those big doe-eyes as they worked to split Charity’s soul from his. Ace didn’t consider himself an expert in the field of women, but he had definitely picked up on a new kind of intensity in Nancy’s behaviour toward him that day. To Ace, it seemed to suggest that she might feel as strongly for him as he did for her.

Article #2 in Ace’s list of evidence was how Nancy had hesitated to kill Temperance at first. Ace had seen something in her eyes as she held the axe above Temperance’s head, about to land the killing blow. For a moment, it looked like she zoned out. Then, she bailed and told him she was doing if for them. And not them as in the whole Crew, but just him and Nancy specifically. She clearly had second thoughts about that decision though, because after a tearful apology to him directly, she’d turned around and finished the deed. Afterwards, she had committed to avoiding him and making her feelings toward him, of lack-there-of, pretty obvious.

But what had sparked this conflicted behaviour and heartfelt apology? And why was she now pushing him away? Ace had seen this behaviour from her before, when she was infected by the wraith and it made her alienate herself from the people who cared about her. He was worried something similar could be happening to her now. She had been distant and closed-off in much the same way she had been when the wraith was sucking the literal life out of her.

Finally, his final piece of evidence and the most supernatural of them all, was his barometer. He was sure Nancy had been mere moments away from kissing him in Nick’s loft. Her hand was wrapped in his shirt pulling him towards her, their noses had brushed together as they both leaned in— and then all three dials on the barometer shattered, wrenching her out of whatever moment they were about to have.

There was no denying it, something was definitely off with Nancy, and the more hours Ace clocked reviewing the evidence at the morgue, the more sure he felt about this suspicions.

Ace heard the basement door clang shut followed by footsteps descending the metal stairs into the cold-storage room where he had told Bess and Nancy to find him. This was the room where the dead bodies were kept for “processing”. It was also the room where Mrs. Smythe’s zombie-sister was being kept. She lay on the metal table in front of Ace, and she appeared to be pretty dead. Her skin was a greyish green, and it was torn into varying states of decay. The smell was beyond anything Ace had ever smelled before. When the police had dropped her off just 20 minutes earlier, he thought he might pass out from the smell. Now, the entire room carried the stench, and the medical mask Ace wore didn’t help much, but it did make him feel better about only breathing through his mouth.

Even though she looked and smelled extremely dead, Ace had been positive he’d seen her body twitch a few times, which should be impossible seeing as the woman had been dead for about 7 years. He was relieved that Bess and Nancy had arrived so that he didn’t have to be alone with the body anymore. He had seen enough zombie movies to know that it wasn’t smart to take on the living dead alone.

Bess entered the room first, and her hands immediately flew to her face to cover her mouth and nose. “Oh my god, I think I might be sick, that stench is unbearable!” She gagged as she finished the sentence, turning around like she was about to walk right back out the door. Nancy was close behind, and she entered the room with her arm over her nose. Her eyes found his immediately, and they looked at each other for what felt like an eternity. Ace couldn’t help his gaze from lingering down as he took in the green and brown flannel Nancy wore over her black turtleneck. It was his flannel. She was wearing his flannel that he had covered her with at Nick’s last week.

Well this was a tad bit confusing…

Nancy seemed to clue into what she was wearing just as Ace did, and a deep blush spread across her cheeks. He cleared his throat and looked away from her, and grabbed two masks to offer her and Bess.

“Hi, I’m glad you guys were able to come, this body was starting to freak me out a bit.” Ace said as Nancy and Bess secured their masks and approached Mrs. Smythe’s sister cautiously. The three of them surrounded the metal surgical table, but left a good two feet between them and the zombie-accused.

“I mean, she looks pretty dead to me,” Bess said as she took in the corpse.

“There is a significant amount of decomposition here, are we sure something didn’t get lost in translation from Mrs. Smythe’s account of the attack?” Nancy’s brow was furrowed, and Ace knew that to mean that the dots inside her head weren’t adding up. She had her arms crossed in front of her chest, closed off like she usually was toward him. But she also kept looking down and tugging at his flannel to adjust it, like she was embarrassed that he had caught her wearing it.

“I had wondered that too, that is, until I saw the body twitched a couple times… Now I’m thinking that we ought to believe the victim on this one. Since I started here I’ve been pretty comfortable around most of the bodies —“

“Not sure if that’s something to flaunt hun,” Bess whispered with a cringe.

Ace continued. “— they don’t give me the heebie jeebies like this one does.”

“Twitching certainly falls under the category of ‘suspicious behaviour’ for dead bodies…” Nancy said, her eyes meeting Ace’s again. He nodded in agreement, keeping his eyes locked on hers. He noticed her gaze slip ever-so-briefly down his body and back up, and his cheeks flamed just as red as hers had. God, they were a mess. He was starting to majorly regret ever admitting his feelings to her. The tension between them was wound so tightly, it felt painful to be in the same room. No wonder they hadn’t spoken to each other in weeks.

“So now what? How do we find out if this dead body is really dead or not?” Bess asked.

As if on cue, Mrs. Smythe’s sister shot up from the table wailing like a feral cat, catching them all off guard. Nancy stood closest to the table, and the zombie swiped at her, grabbing for her neck. Ace didn’t stop to think, he just reacted. His hand found the small buzz saw that sat on the tray table beside him, thumb flicking the power switch. Before he knew it, Ace was slicing the saw through the corpses neck. It rattled in his hands as it cut through decaying bone and flesh, spraying chunks of black goo everywhere. With a sickening snap, the head of Mrs. Smythe’s sister tumbled from her shoulders and rolled across the floor of the morgue, her body fell back against the metal table, lifeless once again.

***

When Nancy arrived at the morgue, she hadn’t been prepared for how insanely attractive Ace looked in his work-attire. He wore light blue scrubs that brought out the icy blue of his eyes, and a classic navy long sleeve underneath. Even with half his face covered by a mask, she struggled to keep her eyes off him.

She was sure he had caught her checking him out shortly after they arrived, and the embarrassment she felt about showing up wearing his flannel was completely consuming her. In her preoccupied state, Nancy barely had time to react to the zombie thrashing towards her before Ace sprang into action like he was her own personal bodyguard.

The whole scene happened in slow motion for Nancy. One second, there were ghoulish hands reaching for her throat, and the next, she was watching Ace decapitate a corpse with a buzz-saw. She couldn’t tear her eyes from the sight, even as decaying flesh flew in every direction. She became mesmerized by the way the saw shook in Ace’s hands, his muscular arms bunching with the recoil as it hit bone. The look of deadly determination on his face was making Nancy swoon internally.

Even thought Nancy had never really liked the show Dexter, looking at Ace now, she was starting see the appeal of the morally grey and murderous medical examiner. Blood and flesh were splattered across Ace’s chest and face. After the zombies head fell to the floor, he dropped the buzz saw on the table and ran his black and bloody hands through his hair as he processed what he had done. The look of Ace covered in gore with his hair slicked back like that was oddly the most attractive thing Nancy had ever seen, but she didn’t feel like dwelling on why her attraction to this particular ‘look’ might be problematic.

“Damn Ace, nice reflexes!” Bess cheered beside her.

“Thanks, I think?” He replied with a cringe.

Nancy cleared her throat before chiming in. “Yeah, uhh— very resourceful use of the buzz-saw. Thanks,”

“Well, I’m not sure if I’ll ever be able to watch Texas Chainsaw Massacre again, but I’m glad you’re alright, Nancy.” Ace rubbed the back of his neck nervously and chuckled to himself. God, his laugh did so many things to Nancy’s insides. “I’m going to deal with this body really quick and then wash Mrs. Smythe’s sister out of my hair. Are you two alright to stick around for a few minutes while I clean up? Then we can review the case?”

Bess clasped her hands enthusiastically in front of her. “Actuallyyyyyyy, I have to meet George at The Claw, and I was sorta kinda hoping you two might do that beautiful thing where your brains work together to solve a mystery, then you could drive Nancy home afterwards, Ace?” Bess was already backing away from the two of them as she was saying it, giving neither of them a chance to object. “Thank you both so much, I owe you! Luv ya!” And just like that, Bess was flying out the door.

Nancy and Ace stood in the silence, shocked by her quick departure. When their eyes finally found each other again, Nancy’s breath caught at the sight of him. She was in big trouble.

“If we’re going to be working on this case for a little bit longer, did you want to shower too?” Ace asked. “You can use it while I clean up this Jackson Pollock.” He gestured to the goo that speckled the floors and walls.

“Sure, that would be great,” Nancy said, smiling behind her mask at the cheeky art reference.

Ace walked into a small walk-in closet and came back with a towel and fresh scrubs, handing them to Nancy. “Just head up the stairs and turn left. The shower is the second door down the hallway. Just leave your dirty stuff in the basket up there and I’ll run everything through the wash.”

“Thanks, um— I guess I’ll meet you upstairs in a few,” Nancy felt so awkward as she took the towel and scrubs and headed up the stairs. Once she was in the washroom with the door locked behind her, she took a shaky breath. This evening had taken so many unexpected turns, from zombie attacks to zombie decapitations. And now, Nancy was stripping her clothes off in Ace’s place of work and taking a shower. It all felt a bit surreal.

She quickly washed the grime from her hair and skin, and got dressed in the scrubs Ace had given her. They were surprisingly comfortable, and reminded her of pyjamas. Unfortunately, they were also extremely unflattering, but maybe that would end up working in her favour. She needed all the help she could get to keep from jumping Ace’s bones every time she saw him.

Nancy tossed her dirty clothes in the laundry basket by the door before leaving. The last item she tossed in was the flannel. She so wished she had remembered to take it off before she had come to the morgue. Not only had it lost its wonderful scent to that of rotting flesh, but she would probably never get the chance to fall asleep in it ever again.

It was just another loss to mourn in Nancy’s increasingly miserable life.

***

It took every ounce of Nancy’s strength to keep her jaw from falling to floor when Ace emerged from his shower. He was dressed in black sweatpants and another long-sleeve, this one burgundy. His hair was still damp, but it was already starting to dry, curling into sharp golden wisps at the ends. Nancy decided that it should be a crime for anyone to look that good.

Nancy became very focused on the file in front of her. She needed her body language to communicate that she didn’t actually have feelings for Ace. Right now, all her body was communicating was unbelievable thirst.

“Finding anything useful?” Ace asked her. She lifted her gaze back to him like she was coming out of a deep focus, even though she hadn’t been reading a single thing.

“No lightbulbs yet.” Nancy said.

Ace pulled up the chair beside her and open the laptop that sat on the table in front of them. His fingers moved effortlessly over the keys, typing at a speed that shouldn’t be humanly possible. He pulled up an article and turned it toward Nancy.

“While I was cleaning up downstairs, I got to thinking. It seems fairly plausible that the bodily disappearances of last month could be connected to tonight’s attack, and I take it you’re thinking the same thing.” She was.

She gave him a curt nod and he continued. “So I asked myself, what kind of supernatural event could cause dozens of dead bodies to rise again? Or maybe a better question is, what kind of supernatural being could do this. And I kept coming back to the same thing.”

Nancy waited, her eyebrows raised in anticipation. “And what would that be?” She asked.

“Necromancers.” Ace replied, definitively, like there could be no other possible explanation.

“Necromancers? As in, someone who uses magic to raise the dead?”

Ace snapped his fingers and shot her finger guns. “Precisely. What if all the recent supernatural activity in Horseshoe Bay attracted a new spook to town? One who practices the dark art of raising the dead?”

Nancy turned the term over in her head. Necromancers. Weirder things had happened in Horseshoe Bay. “I suppose it’s a possibility. But to what end could they be raising the town’s dead? What’s the motive?”

“Maybe to build an army?” Ace was thinking out loud. “Or to use as a sacrifice for something bigger?”

Both seemed like reasonable scenarios, but there simply wasn’t enough evidence to support anything conclusive. They combed through file after file, article after article, quietly working side-by-side to collect any information they could on necromancers, zombies, and incidences of the walking dead. After two hours, they didn’t have a lot, but Nancy was feeling like Ace could be onto something with his theory.

Nancy couldn’t stop yawning, and Ace had taken notice. He shut the lid of his laptop and turned to her. “You ok to head out? All your yawning’s got me feeling sleepy.” He said with a teasing smile.

“Ha ha,” Nancy replied through yet another yawn. “Yes, let’s go. It’s way past my bedtime.”

“I’ll get our clothes from the dryer. Be back in a sec.” He disappeared down the hall.

Nancy packed all her files into her bag and threw it over her shoulder just as Ace rounded the corner. He flicked off the lights, grabbed his keys off the table, and they walked out into the parking lot where Florence waited for them under the warm amber glow of flood-lights.

***

Ace fumbled with his keys as he unlocked the passenger door for Nancy. After a few shaky tries, he finally managed to jimmy the temperamental lock and held the door open for her. If his mother had taught him anything, it was that women were perfectly capable of opening doors for themselves, but they also tended to appreciate the gesture. All those years of working in the library had made her quite wise, and he was grateful for the wisdom she imparted on him.

Ace shut the door gently as to not rattle Florence too much, and then rounded to the driver side. He tossed the folded stack of laundry he held into the back seat and sat down beside Nancy. Never before had Florence’s cab felt so small. Usually, Ace would brag about her surprisingly vast cargo space, but tonight, it felt crammed between her wooden panels.

“Still handling Florence with the utmost care, I see.” Nancy said to him with a smirk. Her hand brushed over the dash affectionately, and Ace’s stomach began doing somersaults.

“Did you expect anything less?” Ace responded rhetorically and Nancy shook her head, chuckling lightly. He slide the key into the ignition. Two clicks and his trusty wagon roared to life. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Nancy jump and tense up at the sound.

That was odd, Ace thought. She had been in Florence plenty of times before, and knew how loud she could be to start. He’d never seen her jump like that. Maybe it had just been a while?

Ace slowly backed out, hoping that once they started moving, she might relax. But instead, it had the opposite effect. Nancy had become so quiet, her hands clutched together on her lap with white knuckles that practically glowed white with every passing streetlight. Something was definitely not right.

Ace made a point to slow down a bit. “Are you ok, Nancy?” Ace asked, glancing over at her a couple times with concern.

“Yeah, I’m uhh, I’m fine. Just been a bit weird about driving at night lately.” She didn’t elaborate further, and Ace decided not to push. Whatever Nancy was dealing with in his passenger seat, he didn’t think now was the right time to grill her for details.

They pulled up to a stoplight and everything in the cab became cast in a red glow. Ace risked a peek at Nancy, who was looking out her window. She still seemed tense, but not in the “this is awkward” kind of way, but more so in a “this is terrifying” kind of way, and Ace had not idea why. She had been fine at the morgue, and even pretty flirty when they first got into Florence. Things hadn’t taken a turn until they started driving. In all the stories Carson had told him about Nancy, he had never once mentioned any kind of car accident, and Ace knew Nancy loved cars. Her vintage Sunbeam in its pristine condition made that pretty clear.

Lost in his thoughts, Ace completely missed the light turn green. Someone behind them laid on their horn, making Ace jump. The horn also startled Nancy, who gasped at the sudden sound. In what seemed to be a knee-jerk reaction, her arm flung across Ace’s chest, holding him firmly against his seat.

They both sat frozen, breathing heavy as the car behind them sped around impatiently and flew through the intersection. Once gone, Florence was the only car on the road. Ace looked down to find his shirt clenched in Nancy’s tight grip. He turned his gaze to find her already looking at him.

As quickly as her arm had pined him moments early, she snatched it away and looked down shamefully. “Sorry, I’m a little on edge tonight.” She said without meeting his eyes.

“That’s ok. No need to apologize.” Ace replied. He eased into the intersection, turning down the road that led to Nancy’s house. They weren’t far now. “I know you know this already, but with everything that’s happened lately, I just wanted to say that I’m still here if you ever want to talk about anything. I’m always here.”

Nancy turned and offered him a small smile of appreciation. “I know.” She brought her hand to cover Ace’s on the gear shifter and gave it a light squeeze. Her hand was so soft, and Ace would be lying if he said he hadn’t thought of what it might be like to hold her hand while they drove side by side in Florence. Actually, that had become a personal favourite of his daydreams during his lonely shifts at the morgue.

All too soon, Nancy removed her hand from his and returned it to her lap. A few minutes later, they were pulling up to her house.

“Thanks for the ride. Oh, and for the quick reflexes with the buzz-saw,”

“Anytime,” Ace said with a smile.

Nancy turned to get out of the car, then Ace remembered her clean laundry in the backseat. “Oh, wait, don’t forget these!” He retrieved the neat stack of clothes, placing it gently in her outstretched hands. He had intentionally put his flannel at the bottom of the pile.

Nancy noticed right away. “I’m pretty sure this one actually belongs to you…” She said as she pulled the shirt from the stack to hand back to him.

“Yeahhhh, but I like it better on you. You should keep it.” It was the honest truth. When Ace had seen Nancy arrive earlier in his shirt, he couldn’t believe how much better it looked on her than it did on him. He could have spent the entire night sneaking glances at her wearing his flannel, if only he hadn’t had to decapitate Mrs. Smythe's sister.

Ace expected her to object, and for a moment, she looked like she might. But then, she nodded to herself and popped the shirt back into her pile of clothes. It seemed she wanted to keep it just as much as he wanted her to have it.

“Thanks again. For everything.” Nancy said one last time before getting out of the car.

“Talk soon? We do still have a necromancer to locate.” Ace said hopefully.

Nancy turned back toward him and gave another nondescript nod. “Talk soon.” Then she opened her front door and disappeared inside.

Ace sat in the driveway for a minute, replaying the night in his head. He still had so many unanswered questions about Nancy’s odd behaviour and the events of the night only left him with more questions. Perhaps it was time to talk to the rest of the crew, see if they had noticed any changes in Nancy lately.

Just before he pulled away, a light on the second floor of Nancy’s house came on, the room Ace knew to be hers. Moments later, he saw Nancy pass by the window and his heart skipped a beat.

She was already back in his flannel.

***

Chapter Text

Nancy lay on her bed, running through the events of the night. The minute she closed the front door to her house after Ace dropped her off, her brain began over-analyzing every conversation and every moment they had shared.

She wasn’t entirely sure what she was looking for as she replayed the night over and over again in her head, worrying the edges of Ace’s flannel as she did. She wished she could convince herself that she was obsessing out of fear that Ace would catch on to the real reasons behind her avoidance lately. But not-so-deep-down, she knew what she was really obsessing over.

It was the intensity behind his eyes when they connected with hers. It was the sincerity in his voice when he said he would always be there for her. It was the inescapable terror she had felt when she realized she was driving in a car with Ace for the first time since their accident. Nancy’s stomach was still clenched with anxiety from when the car behind them laid on their horn during the drive home. She had been so sure that she was going to blink and find his body sprawled broken in the road 30 feet away.

The stress from the entire evening had drained Nancy completely. She laid in her bed, letting a sleepy haze fall over her, and was grateful when her mind started to drift toward happier memories of Ace. She thought about how good he looked in his scrubs tonight, and how she might even like his morgue-look better than his classic dishwashing look from The Claw. As she fell deeper and deeper toward sleep, one last memory popped into Nancy’s head. It was of the first real conversation she had ever had with Ace, confiding in him while sitting on a shaky stack of pallets during a break at The Claw.

This memory would be the start to the first good dream Nancy had experienced in weeks.

***

5 months earlier…

Every table at The Claw was full, and Nancy was feeling overwhelmed. It was only her 3rd shift at the kitschy restaurant and the evening’s dinner rush was well-underway. Thanks to her photographic memory, Nancy already had the menu memorized. What she hadn’t anticipated was how poor her time-management skills were. She had a number of tables waiting for their orders, and she could sense the growing agitation among her customers.

She didn’t anticipate she’d be getting many tips tonight. She’d have to add it to the growing list of things that she couldn’t seem to get right lately. First it was her final exams, which she bombed. Then it was her college applications, which she also bombed. Now, she couldn’t even pull herself together for her minimum wage job at a homely 3-star restaurant.

“Drew, pick up the pace! You have tables waiting.” George hollered at her from the food pick-up window. Nancy rushed to the waiting plates and brought them to their tables. Three separate trips into the dining room later, and she was able to take a second to catch her breath. She was genuinely winded, and wishing someone had warned her about the cardio-heavy nature of waitressing…

Her breather only last a few seconds before George was yelling at her again to hustle. “The deep breathing needs to wait until after the dinner rush, Drew. Let’s go!”

Since starting at The Claw, she hadn’t received much positive feedback from George. To be honest, Nancy was pretty sure George hated her. Or at least, that was the impression that her brutal honesty was giving off. Despite the rocky start to their work-place relationship, Nancy could admire George’s tenacity. She was pretty much the only reason The Claw was still open, spending countless hours processing payroll, building schedules, and completing food orders. Based on the few interactions Nancy had witnessed between George and her younger sisters, she also suspected that she played a huge role in taking care of them at home.

The burden of responsibility George carried would harden anyone. It was no surprise that she wasn’t the warm and fuzzy type, and Nancy was starting to appreciate that about her. Plus, she loved how George refused to take any BS from The Claw’s unruly customers. It was so refreshing to see grown men cower in the face of a confident and unapologetic woman.

The mild fear of being yelled at by George again motivated Nancy to push through the rest of the dinner rush. A lull around seven helped her get caught up on her tables, and once they were fed and cleared, she was able to take a 15-minute break.

Nancy’s feet ached, and the dull throb settling in behind her eyes told her that she was dehydrated. She grabbed a glass of water and headed for the back entrance to get some air. She wasn’t a smoker herself, but she had identified early on in her employment that the smoker’s pit in the back of the restaurant was the best place to put one’s feet up during a break.

Tonight, it seemed that Nancy wasn’t the only one thinking this. As she exited The Claw into the fading light of dusk, she noticed that the air carried a slightly skunky smell, and out of the corner of her eye, an ember from a burning joint caught her attention. Ace, The Claw’s full-time dishwasher, sat on the large stack of pallets that lined the back wall, his hat flipped backwards and his legs dangling in a carefree way that Nancy had come to recognize from the restaurants resident stoner.

Ace turned to face Nancy, joint hanging from his lips like he was the dude from “The Big Lebowski”. He quickly grasped the contraband between two fingers and exhaled a large cloud of smoke, fanning it away frantically with his hand. “Oh, hey Nancy!” He said with a surprised cough, sounding uneasy about her catching him colluding with the devil’s lettuce.

“Hey Ace. How ya doin’?” She returned with a genuine smile. She wasn’t about to judge him for it. What he did in his own time was really none of her business. Plus, it wasn’t like Nancy hadn’t smoked weed once or twice before during parties in high school. To each their own, she thought.

“I’m better now that I’ve had a minute to sit.” Ace said. “That dinner rush was wild! I think my fingers might stay prunes forever.” He replied with a chuckle, looking down at his wrinkly hands, the smouldering joint still teetering between his fingers.

“Mind if I sit and rest my feet with you?” Nancy asked while also chuckling at his pruny hands.

“The more the merrier!” Ace scooted over on the pallets, making room for Nancy to hop up and join him.

The minute she was off her feet, she groaned in ecstasy as they began to relax. “Wow, it feels good to sit.” She relished in the way her feet felt as she flexed them back and forth.

Ace was watching her with a smirk, clearly amused by her reaction to sitting. He held the joint out in her direction, offering it to her. “Do you partake?” He asked.

Nancy thought about it for a second before answering. “Sometimes, yeah, but considering how much I struggled to survive that last rush, I think I’ll need all of my synapses firing if I’m going to make it through the rest of this shift. Thanks though,” She smiled again. She noticed that he did that often — made her smile, that is. She hadn’t been in much of a smiley mood as of late, and it felt good to feel her cheeks stretch upward again.

He nodded and returned to smoking. Through another exhale, he asked, “How are you liking it at The Claw so far? You seem to be catching on pretty quick!”

Nancy was thankful for his compliment, but wondered if he was offering it out of pity. She certainly didn’t feel like she was catching on quickly…

“It’s going alright.” She replied honestly. “I have the menu memorized, so that’s been helpful. I think George might fire me though if I forget to bring one more table their food.”

Ace snickered. “Nah, George is like that with every new hire. She use to yell at me all the time about how slow I am at washing dishes, but then I explained my process to her and she chilled out a lot. Or maybe she just gave up on trying to make me faster. I’m fine either way!”

Only recently had Nancy noticed Ace’s unique style of washing dishes. He would always meticulously organized the dishes by size, and took the “art of dishwashing”, as he liked to call it, very seriously. The Claw’s dishes were treated with the utmost respect when Ace was on dishwashing duty, and Nancy found it kind of endearing.

Nancy held her glass of water up in a faux-salut. “Well, here’s to hoping she forgets about how awful I am at waitressing soon. I don’t need anymore reminders of my perpetual failures in life.” Nancy was surprised at her sudden candidness with Ace. Something about his easy-going presence enticed the truth out of her, and she hadn’t felt like talking to anyone about her troubles since her mom passed away. She sipped on her water awkwardly as silence fell over them.

Ace took one last drag from his joint before snuffing it out against the wood of the pallet. “Even with a few failures here and there, I think you still have a lot to be proud of. I mean, I’ve never met someone who could solve FBI-calibre mysteries at the age of 13. I always assumed you were a genius or something.”

Nancy laughed sarcastically. “Yeah, well, someone might want to tell that to my exam scores and cringe-worthy college applications…”

Ace’s lips pressed together in a tight smile. “Just because things don’t go as planned doesn’t mean you can’t still achieve greatness. I mean, just look at me! I was no Albert Einstein in high school, and yet here I am, revolutionizing the world of dishwashing.” He winked at her and any self-deprecation Nancy had been feeling vanished.

Then, she was serious again as a question popped into her head. “Can I ask you a personal question?”

“Shoot.” Ace replied easily, as if no question could be off limits to her.

“Do you ever wish you had left Horseshoe Bay? Started new somewhere else?” It was a thought that had plagued Nancy endlessly since her mom died. Everything in Horseshoe Bay reminded Nancy of her mom, and even something as simple as walking down Main Street felt painful.

“All the time.” Ace replied easily. “But I’ve also never felt the need to rush into figuring out who I want to be. When I graduated, everyone was in such a hurry to leave Horseshoe Bay. They seemed so sure of what they wanted to do and where they wanted to go. But no matter how many hours I spent mulling over what my future should look like, I was never able to land on anything concrete. I still haven’t, to my father’s dismay. With my mom’s cooking though, he can’t really blame me for sticking around.” He finished with another sly smirk.

It was refreshing to hear someone else talk about not knowing who they were meant to be just yet. And hearing Ace mention his family reminded Nancy that she also had people here; Her dad. And right now, he needed her more than ever. Although Nancy still wasn’t feeling great about her lack of achievements lately, she did feel slightly less alone knowing Ace was rowing a similar boat.

A light breeze blew off the water of Horseshoe Bay, catching wisps of Nancy’s hair and making them dance around her face. She turned her head to find Ace zeroed in on the tendrils, watching them intently before bringing his gaze back up to hers and then quickly looking away again.

She hadn’t noticed them before, but now that Nancy was up close and personal with Ace, she was developing a new appreciate for how pretty his eyes were. They were the softest blue, like well-worn denim reserved only for lazy Sundays.

“Hey Nancy?” Ace asked gently.

“Yeah?” She looked over at him and their eyes met. His seemed to hold more sadness than before.

“I’m really sorry about your mom.” He held her gaze for an extra few seconds, and Nancy saw the sincerity in his eyes. Somehow, she knew he wouldn’t expect her to say anything back. She looked down and nodded, desperately trying to swallow the sudden lump that was forming in her throat.

They both sat quietly, and Nancy let the sounds of the Bay wash over her; cool, salty air rustled the leaves of a nearby tree, and somewhere further away a seagull cawed. The sky had taken on a deep indigo blue as she found herself reflecting on the unexpectedly-sage advice Ace had offered her. In a comfortable silence that Nancy didn’t think she had ever experienced before, she spent the rest of her break sitting next to Ace and watching the last few rays of sunlight sink into the horizon.

***