Summary – (spoilers for end of series) Dexter's life take a new turn after his stint as a lumberjack. One chance meeting would goad Dexter back into darkness and violent tawdriness.

The Luden Dude

Prologue – A New Beginning?

He had given himself to the sea and the sea had hacked him out again. Deb was gone, given and eagerly taken into the sea's embrace but not him. Wet to the bone, he had been spewed on the shore and cried and cried for the first time in his life until he could cry out no more. And there he was – rejected by the beast he had fed for so long, tossed out on the shore, drip, drip dripping in the storm's aftermath. He had to tread on, to places unvisited. He had to away and go to places unseen. He would not go back to his old life. That life was finished. Ended. Shattered. It had been such a horrible mistake, this life of his. He could not repeat it. He would not surround himself with innocents like he did all these years. He would not seek to hide himself in the facade of normality at the cost of all he made dear to him. He would be true to himself from now on. He was through with Harry's teachings.

Covertly he slinked one last time into his old den and retrieved his tools: his knives, his ampoules and needles and his precious cache of anonymous money and false identification documents. There would be nothing untoward for anyone to find her if they searched this place. It would just be plain old tragic Dexter who was croaked with his sister by the storm in his time of grief. And then, he went to the bus station and bought a ticket inlandward.

What should he do with himself now? He'd decided as he was packing his tools of murder and deception in his wreck of a former life to throw away his terrible affectations of normality, to be rid of the whole act; but what should he do with himself instead? He needed a change. He needed it! He couldn't bear himself as he was. And so, he stared at himself in the motel mirror and considered. His smiling, saccharine face stared back at him, an epitome of false cleanliness and normality. That was the first thing he'd be rid of. He'll grow a beard, nothing respectable, no, just a fuzz, yes. And enough with these smiles. Those just had to go. What else? What did real monsters do with their lives between kills? He should be one to know. He'd hunted enough of them after all. But he wouldn't imitate one of his crafty chameleons. That was not at all what he wanted. Dexter closed his eyes and chuckled darkly. What he needed was an ugly truck to house his loner darksome dangersome new self in and what he would become was a lumberjack. That sounded about right. The only thing left to do other than the pesky details was to choose a new name for himself. Dexter Morgan was a thing of the past. Dexter Morgan was done with. Should he try to go back to his roots and call himself something or other Moser or mayhap Driscoll? No, Dexter shook his head decisively. His brother Brian Moser had gone into the sea, just like his sister Debora and his father, his biological, blood-giving father… no. Those were things of the past. He's destroyed them all, one way or another. His brother, his father, his other father, his wife, her kids, his sister, his son in some ways… even Hanna was not exempt from the list. Had he left anyone better off for knowing him? There was Lumen, he admitted to himself. Luminous lunarous Lumen. Lumen Pierce. Maybe he could use her now. A last piece from his past to keep with his lonesome darkened dangerous self. He'd use her name. He would be a piece of Pierce. And for a given name… Dexter's face acquired a hard, ugly grin. He'll be Paul. Paul Pierce. Dexter took out his tools and started to work on his new documents. He had a new life to catch and no time to waste.

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Time passed him by but somehow his life never resumed. Not truly. His plans came to fruition without a hitch. He acquired a truck, he achieved his dangerous loner dark looks, he was even accepted into the lumberjacking circles but the fire, the all-consuming flames of rage and ecstasy that had filled his gut all his life were gone. He just drifted from place to place and, despite his best efforts to the contrary, was even embraced into the circle of his new lumberjacking acquaintances. Trying to listen to the horrors on the news was no use. They didn't do it for him any longer. He felt nothing. He admitted to himself in his downer moments that even if he wanted to, he lost all his powerful vetting and defanging tools when he stopped being a cop. He couldn't run a DNA check or even a fingerprint one. He kept his tools in a corner of his truck for old times' sake but he could tell that it was useless. He was just an outdated has been who lost his killing mojo. Not a super-hero-killer anymore but a lumberjacking has been now. Deb haunted him in his dreams and stole any real joy he could find. He stopped exercising his body and he drank more. He missed her terribly. There was no replacement for his sister. His Dark Passenger was gone as well. Him he didn't miss. And time went on.

It would be two years before anything significant happened in his life and the direction it took was a shocker.

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Author's Note – In case you missed it, the name Paul is a nod by Dexter to Rita's abusive ex-husband that got killed in jail after Dexter framed him.