Well.
warning: talk of and attempted suicide.
disclaimer: I don't own anything from Dexter, all of it goes to Showtime. None of this is for profit, blah, blah, blah.
She had eventually slipped away from me later in the party, mumbling something about taking Harrison home. It hadn't occurred to me that 'home' didn't mean my apartment, and it took me all of five minutes to finally think of Deb's house. The drive there wasn't calming, it wasn't silent, it was loud and outstanding, the inner chaos of my mind leaking out.
The smell of salt in the air jolted me back to my senses as I approached the beach. It wasn't like me to not be aware of my surroundings, but I could feel my mind lagging. A quick look at the house told me that nobody was inside, the lights off and the doors locked.
I finally spotted her sitting in the sand. About twenty yards from the beach. I stood there for a moment.
It had occurred to me earlier how shaken Deb was.
Where were we now?
Only one way to find out.
As I came closer, I could see Harrison asleep in her lap, just a peek of blonde hair blowing in the wind. Deb had her back to me.
I didn't say anything, just sat in the sand next to her and listened to the waves. I turned eventually, taking in her blank stare and faraway eyes.
"Deb?" I'd never seen her like this. Not ever. I wasn't sure I liked it.
She didn't move. She blinked once, twice. Her hand stroked patterns on Harrison's shirt.
What should I say? I'd never been good at human emotions, and yet I was feeling them now, in this moment, and not for the first time. Regret came in waves, stronger at times, while weaker at others. I sighed, deep and heavy, and it was only then that her eyes flickered toward me.
I could see everything in her eyes. I could see the flash of the gun shot and I could see my face, filled with anguish and trepidation, from what I only guessed as after Deb's bullet had been fired.
For the first time that night, as I looked into her eyes, seeing her fear, her anger, her sadness, I wished that she'd shot me.
We sat there for what seemed like an eternity, her staring into the eyes of a monster and me staring into the eyes of a good person.
"It should've been me," I said after a long while. I saw her jaw clench, and her eyes close. Tears bubbled over her bottom eyelids and I wanted to offer some brotherly comfort, but I knew enough not to touch her.
She bit her bottom lip. "Fuck, Dex… No."
"Why not? It's my fault. Everything is my fault."
She knew I wasn't blaming myself for this, just stating the obvious. She didn't respond, and I took that as a confirmation. She wished she'd shot me, and now LaGuerta was dead.
"I'm sorry." My voice came out softer than I'd hoped, but the words behind it were real. I was sorry.
She choked out a laugh, the sound of it was bitter. "Little late for that now." She closed her eyes again, and shook her head slowly, as if trying to clear out the clutter. "I just – I need to be alone right now."
"I understand," I said, before standing up slowly. I leant down and picked up Harrison, who mumbled slightly in his sleep. The normal-ness of it made the corners of my mouth twitch.
When I looked back to Deb, I found her watching me intently, her eyes filled with an emotion I had never seen before. I held her gaze for a moment and walked back to my car. I took one long look back at her, still faced toward the ocean and long hair blowing in the breeze. I got into my car and went home.
Jaime came the next morning a little hung over, but still fit to watch Harrison while I went to work. I learned quickly that Deb had called in sick, and I figured a break was due for her. I, on the other hand, was called to the grisly crime scene of a double homicide.
Our double homicide.
Estrada had shot at LaGuerta and she had shot at him, ending badly for both parties, was what the report said. No witnesses. Clean and done.
There was a sad cloud hanging over the department when I got back and started to do my work. Quinn came to me later asking if I'd talked to Deb recently, that he couldn't catch her on her cell. He thought she ought to know about LaGuerta. I shook my head no and said I'd call her myself.
And call I did.
One ring, two, three, and then, "Hey, you've reached Deb Morgan, uh, leave your name and a message, I guess."
"Deb. Call me when you get this."
I glanced at the clock. I could get to her house and update her and get back in enough time to fill my lunch break. No one noticed me leaving anyhow.
The drive went faster than I expected and I could see Deb's car in the drive way. I went up to the front door and knocked. No answer. I knocked again. Nothing. There was a small nagging in the back of my mind that told me to go in through the back. So I did.
She had overdosed. Too many pills that didn't go together at all. And she was still unconscious, IV fluids taped to her arm making her look like some sick science experiment. The doctors threw medical terms at me that I could've understood if I had listened. Their words left me feeling empty, hollow even.
Exactly how I had felt when I found her lying on her living room floor.
I grabbed her hand. I expected her eyelids to twitch open, green eyes to smile at me like she had many times before, but she stayed still. Her face was pale and sickly looking.
I'd been awake for twenty seven hours, thirty two minutes when she finally woke up. She coughed and blinked, confused at the white walls of the hospital and the warm and slightly sweaty hand clenching hers tightly. I sat on the edge of my chair, waiting to grab whatever she needed, if anything, but she just laid there and sighed.
"Fuck," she exhaled a breathy rendition of the word that faded into the beep of the heart monitor. She didn't look at me, but I could tell by the way she pointedly avoided looking at me that she knew I was there.
"I called you," I said quietly. "Quinn was wondering where you were. I had time to come check up."
She still refused to look at me.
"Doctors have you on a thirty-six hour suicide watch."
"Fantastic."
I swallowed. I... I could feel the clench inside of my chest. I let out a stab of breath, which sounded more like a broken sob more than anything else. That caught her attention. She'd never seen me cry before, hell, I wasn't sure what the was happening to me recently.
I wasn't crying. Positive.
I just felt. Felt everything. And everything hurt. "You could have died, Deb."
She glared at me stubbornly, but all I could see was the fear in her eyes. "I can't live with – I can't, Dexter."
I took a staggering breath. I could feel the air scrape the insides of my throat and for a moment I couldn't speak.
She didn't let me get a word out. "And I know that you're going to say that it should've been you. Yeah, it probably should've. But if it had, Dex, I'd be a lot more fucked than I am now."
Despite everything, she still cared. "You're a good person," I repeated, saying what I believed was true. She closed her eyes as she remembered. "Too good of a person to lose. I won't let you go."
She nodded.
For a moment, in that small hospital room, I saw the first flicker of hope I'd seen in Deb's eyes for months. I saw her fire return.
And it burned with a fierceness that was so very Deb.
Is this a new beginning, or the beginning of the end?