Title: Back to Normal
Author: Lady_of_the_Refrigerator
Word Count: 391
Rating: R for language
Disclaimer: Don't own Dexter, never will.
Notes: Something I threw together when I couldn't get the season four finale out of my head.
I moved back in with Dexter after Rita died. It was kind of like it was after the Ice Truck Killer, only completely fucking different, you know? I've never seen Dexter broken like that before, not even after Dad died. And the kids, shit... the kids were ghosts for a while. Dex was so lost, he didn't know what to do for them. Not that he would have, anyhow. Dex can be fucking clueless sometimes.
Astor and Cody spent a lot of time with their grandparents. Not Rita's mom, though, thank fuck. They were even talking about maybe having the kids move in for a while, because Dex could hardly take care of himself and Harrison, and I know fuck all about raising kids, no matter how hard I try.
Anyhow, one day Dex found Cody burying an animal in the backyard, a squirrel or a snake or something. I don't know what the big deal was, some asshole probably ran the thing over with his car and left it to rot, but for some reason, it snapped Dex out of his stupor or whatever. I mean, shit, he was still an idiot sometimes, but he was Dexter again.
He started spending more time with Astor and Cody. Mostly Cody. Astor didn't mind much, though. She got along with me better than Dex anyway. Not like I'm some sort of fucking role model or anything, I'm a walking cautionary tale, but Dexter doesn't really get girls. He's kind of like Dad that way.
Anyway, after the roadkill incident, everything kind of went back to normal. Well shit, not really, but pretty much as normal as fucking possible, you know? And after Trinity ruined both - all - our lives, pretty normal is pretty fucking nice. Harrison started talking and walking, Astor played guitar in a girl band at school, Dex took Cody to do guy stuff, camping and shit, and I got used to saying "fudge" a lot more. Well, no, I fucking didn't, but I tried and that's what counts, right? We were a big happy family and all that shit.
A few months later, I shot some douche-bag at work. Completely justified, he pulled a gun and would have fucking killed me, but I was faster and he died. I didn't cry.