In anticipation of the season 8 premiere, I made this. *happy/sad face*

No matter what she wanted, all night and for the foreseeable future, he had to get it for her. She'd saved him, after all; it was only polite. He couldn't let his dear sister Debra wander off all alone and have her mental state spiral after what she'd done for him.

When she awoke from her stupor he would most likely catch all the repercussions very loudly and violently with no lack of colorful language, but for now she was quiet. Disturbingly so. Dexter couldn't blame her, not really, but he had hoped. If she could've accepted him just a bit more- but, no, it wasn't Deb's fault. He couldn't blame her. Not for her actions and certainly not for her silence.

Debra looked up at him in the vague direction of his eyes and he smiled to the best of his ability, but he showed no sign that she even saw he was there let alone that he was smiling. Her grip on his arm was like a vice and that grip loosened only to clench again when someone approached. Deb looked around like a paranoid schizophrenic with glazed eyes and Dexter let his fake smile drop.

He should take her home. There were many reasons to be at the party, yes, but there were many, much more appealing reasons not to be. She was damaged, dazed, disoriented, and when she came back to herself, Dexter didn't even want to be there, so he knew the crowd wouldn't appreciate it. Things like an emotional falling-out about unavoidable homicide were better handled in private. There was no telling what she'd say in that state.

But, his worries were not about his secret, they couldn't be. He was worried about Debra, first and foremost, about what she'd do, what she'd think of him. He knew his sister could be very emotional at times and it was because of that knowledge that he had to question whether she might hurt herself or not. The thought thawed his frozen heart long enough for it to thump painfully in his chest. He didn't think it was very likely, but stranger things had happened, on a daily basis, even.

Deb started to pull away from him, still holding tight to his forearm. She was staring with the most focus he'd seen in her eyes since they left the storage container at the dark, dormant water. He pulled his arm back slightly and Debra almost looked him in the eyes again, gravitating back to his side without question.

He frowned. Although she sometimes got on his nerves and took things to the extreme and beyond, he wanted his domineering, defiant, determined Debra back. The real Debra, the Debra before she knew the real Dexter. Before she was tainted by his darkness and affected so deeply. He wanted things back the way they were and the vacancy in his dear sister's eyes told him that he wasn't the only one.

The sound of an unskilled chorus spilling their attempts at song into the night air filtered into his ears as if he were underwater. Or maybe they were. Maybe the dismal, decayed world had sunk below the Miami sands and now he and Debra walked alone in the city.

Well. He could hope.

Debra's cast bumped into his ribs as they walked through the crowd side by side. She didn't seem to notice it at all, even though he remembered an instance where some cop brushed her cast with a small stack of paperwork and she'd cussed at them 'til she was blue in the face. Dexter couldn't comprehend, even at a time when he really needed to, how badly it had altered Deb. He had killed plenty of people and never been so shaken up. But Debra was human, unlike deranged, dead-inside Dexter. She could feel things with an almost entirely unnecessary depth. This time it wasn't just silly.

Dexter handed his sister a drink, some amber-colored something in a glass whose identity he did not feel the need to find out. She accepted it dazedly and there may have been a muttered "thanks, Dex." He tried to smile at her again, but her unfocused gaze had traveled down to her mystery drink so, whether he succeeded or not, it was pointless. She swirled the contents of the glass around very slowly, ice cubes clinking innocently. Then in one gulp she finished off the liquid and handed the glass back to Dexter.

Slowly, a little color returned to her cheeks and, of all the stupid human things he could've done, Dexter felt a little hope bubbling up inside him. It was ridiculous, he knew that. But there it was, right in front of him, a sign that his mind chose to translate as progress. Possible mumbled speech and drinking and color- she was getting better. Accepting it, maybe?

No. He couldn't allow himself to hope like that. If Deb recovered and forgave him in as little as six months, he'd be surprised. Even if she and LaGuerta had not been on the best of terms, even if she had killed someone before, even if it had been a while since she found out about his Dark Passenger, Dexter knew it would take her some time to come back from that. Whether she would still protect him or even like him anymore when she did come back, Dexter did not know. After the events of the past month, he was poised to say she would stick with him, but he'd been surprised by Debra before. Like the time she found out he was the Bay Harbor Butcher and didn't shoot him in the face.

Dexter led dear, desolate Debra to the first available seats inside Batista's restaurant, where it was much quieter, and sat her down. She looked like a mental hospital escapee, fidgeting and looking around and starting to stand only to be urged back down by Dexter. Whyever she wanted to return to the crowd, he couldn't guess. His sister in her right mind didn't much care for crowds.

He watched her for a while as she just stared off into space, started to get up off the seat, eased back down. Without anything else external for him to have to focus on except the occasional well-wisher, Dexter began to dissect the situation.

It was worse than when she found out about him, he was sure about that much. She wasn't even so hysterical, and definitely not catatonic, when she found out about the Ice Truck Killer/her fiancé. That was a big one. But, she was having a worse reaction to what? Simple homicide. Deb wasn't that rattled when Lila almost killed Astor and Cody, or when her boyfriend was abducted by a serial killer. It couldn't be just because she knew LaGuerta, since she'd known a lot of people who had met misfortune. Debra had been unshakeable through everything, even when Rita-

Beside the point. Deb was strong. A lot stronger than he gave her credit for at first. Then, why was she so bothered? She'd saved his life. Her beloved brother rescued by her own hands. Wouldn't something like that make her proud? He thought so. What would he have done if she hadn't made the choice she had? If she'd shot him instead? What would Deb have done? Would she have been better off if she had shot Dexter instead of LaGuerta?

He shouldn't be completely forgetting that he could be in big trouble, too. She could decide it wasn't worth it, he wasn't worth it, and turn him in. He'd told her to do what she had to do in the heat of the moment, but after the smoke cleared he knew he couldn't just let himself die, or worse, get arrested. What would happen to Harrison if that happened?

He'd been too selfish. He needed to protect his family, above all things. Including Deb. He needed her not to go off the deep end because he wasn't ready for her to really hate him, he wasn't ready to have to leave. He had to gather himself, deeply devoted, driven Dexter, and batten down the hatches. He needed to make sure Deb was okay and that she wasn't going to turn on him. He needed more time with Harrison.

There were things to be done, important things that nature itself was telling him were not resolved, but there were also preparations to be made so he could resolve them. He couldn't be arrested, it just wouldn't do, and he needed Deb on his side to avoid that outcome.

She hadn't handled the first big step very well, he observed for the nth time, as Debra leaned slowly forward and reached across the table for somebody's abandoned drink. When his Dark Passenger had taken the wheel, Deb had been in the back seat screaming. That was very, very bad. But she'd made the guiding choice herself; he hadn't forced her to shoot LaGuerta. That may be a good thing. He could reason with her like that. If he'd killed LaGuerta, maybe there would be no redeeming himself in her eyes. Maybe he'd be behind bars by now- but, no. Deb had done it herself in the face of his surrender and maybe, just maybe, he could help her out of the mysterious, emotional, human, figurative hole she'd sunk into.

"Dex." His sister squeezed his arm, staring down at the table. For the first time since she told him she hated him, since she zoned out and wouldn't even speak, she looked him in the eye. "I want to go home."

"Okay," he answered. They stood and started out through the crowd of stumbling, laughing idiots, and Dexter felt a new hope surfacing from the bottom of his dark, dingy heart. She looked at him and spoke to him. At the same time, even. Things were looking up already. It was small, but improvement was improvement and he would take what he could get. When they arrived at Debra's house, he would most likely suffer her wrath, but that was okay. He would endure. He would be there to buckle her seatbelt before the next big swerve.

That was super cheesy, wasn't it? Ah, well. 'Tis my tribute to the series, however small, and I am proud of it. Reviews are loved.

NineSoul~