A/N - so I made quite a few mistakes last chapter, sorry - but prepare to be amazed at how well I worm my way round them, or how well I don't- haha... : .
Anyway, without further ado:
Stalemate
06:16
The toothbrush sags in Deb's mouth as she listens to this morning's 'Breaking News' report:
'One unidentified white female found dead near the shores of South Pointe Beach'.
South Pointe Beach - that is her fucking beach. Her's and Harrison's.
She rushes to the window and parts the blinds. Peering on her tiptoes, she takes a panoramic scan for anything out of the ordinary...
Nothing. Must be further up the beach. She snaps the blinds shut and goes back to the report on the news:
'Waist length brown hair, pulled back into a plait'.
'Presumed high school student by her uniform'.
'Private school'.
Her days of desk work are well and truly over now. Deb grumbles, not completely sure if she likes that or not. Now that Harrison's in the picture...
She frowns. Suddenly, wondering why her phone hasn't been ringing off like a priest on a bunch of sinners.
From the images on the television, it is already building to be a media frenzy.
She grabs her cell from the kitchen counter for messages, there are none, text nor voice.
Why in hell hadn't she been notified?
She rushes to the kitchen sink to spit. "Harrison!" She calls, grabbing the nearest cup and gargling. "Harrison!" Stray hairs from her wet bundled hair, stick to the small blonde ones down her back.
Now her phone buzzes.
"Yeah", she answers disjointedly through a combination of water and minty fresh toothpaste spit.
Quinn.
"Yeah, I just saw it on the God damn news. How come I heard it from a fucking news reporter with the rest of Miami? It's going to be a bitch of a media frenzy by the time we get there".
She scoffs at Quinn's response. "Yeah, well you really gotta worry about society, and how well the public think we are doing our jobs, when a person thinks to call the media before the law".
"Well, I'm on my way-", she rests her cell against one ear. Not long out the shower, she's still only in her underwear, and rushes into her room to grab her dark navy blue pencil skirt out of the wardrobe, before grabbing the coordinating shirt, and nude heels. She glances at her top drawer across the room - fuck tights, it's too fucking hot out for nylons. "Lucky me, it's in my shitting neighbourhood".
"Ma-ma!" an excited Harrison bounces into her room; Clarence tightly in his grip.
"Gotta-go Quinn", she hurries, abruptly ending the call.
Deb regards Harrison and smiles; he's still only in the pull ups that he slept in. His hair is all disheveled, and the expression he is wearing on his face, reminds her of-
She doesn't allow that thought to finish, and kneels to his height. "We have to go somewhere for Mommy's work really quickly before we drop you off at nursery, OK?"
"OK", he repeats unsure and sticking his fingers in his mouth.
Deb pulls them out and kisses them, before dropping all the items in her hand and scooping Harrison up in the air so he squeals in delight. Then attacks his neck with kisses, making him squeal even louder.
"Well-let's-get-you-dressed", she says in between kisses, walking them both to the guest room.
"Harri' want w'r 'ull upses to nurs'ry!" he declares jovially.
06:41
It's hotter than hell outside, and no amount of AC deters the suns rays from pounding down against Deb's forehead through the car windscreen, helping to contribute to what may be, the biggest fucking headache.
What the fuck to do? What the FUCK TO DO!?
She's at a crossroad, the light is green for her to go. If she turns left, she's enroute to the crime scene - where she should be. Forwards - Miami Metro. Right - Harrison's day care, which she can't leave him there for another hour and twenty minutes.
The collected honking cars behind are not making her predicament any easier.
Fuck! Think. Deb. Think!
She glances up into her rear view window to the back, Harrison is nestled comfortably in his car seat, Clarence safely sucking in his mouth. It seems to be a habit of his, she should really tell him to stop... germs...bacteria... She glances back at the crossroad and sighs in relief as the lights turn red again.
She can't take Harrison to a crime scene. That's out of the question. What the fuck was she thinking?
She could wait the time out at the nursery car park... or even better work - work, yes, that is where she will go. She lets out a sigh of relief. The lights turn green again, and she moves to go, but not before about four or so cars whiz past her; the blacked out wound up windows not entirely omitting her directed obscenities.
"Happy fucking morning to you too", she mutters.
07:11
"Dada works here!" Harrison squeals excitedly, pointing to MMPS building as Deb manoeuvres him out of his car seat and on to her hip. She places his sun hat on him.
"Mama my dada works here", he repeats again over her silence.
"Really", she indulges, reaching in for his small rucksack.
"Yes!" he says certain. "Are we going to see my dada?" he asks, poking his finger into is mouth.
Deb removes it and kisses it, placing his toy train in his hand. "He's not here, Little Man. Here, take care of Clarence".
After locking the car, she reaches into her skirt pocket for her cell. Resting hers and Harrison's combined weight against the car, she scrolls through the names. Angel...? Masuka...? Quinn...? She decides Masuka, he'll ask the least questions.
She puckers her lips at Harrison for a kiss, who kisses her hard on the lips. She giggles.
"LT?"
"Masuka-"
"-LT you are seriously not calling me mid-sex. Unless your with a girl, and then its totally hot".
She hears Angel ask if that's her on the line.
"Get your mind out of the fucking gutter. Harrison was giving me a kiss".
"Dexter's kid?"
"No, Mary fucking Teresa's", she sighs, "I told you I'm looking after him for a while".
"Well how longs a while, my balls could use a second opinion, and we could really use our LT down at the crime scene".
"Give me an update".
"Well there's blood", he pauses, and Deb rolls her eyes. "Everyone knows how I'm the fucking expert on blood", he sighs before continuing. "The body was flung into the sea, although the killer won't be representing us in upcoming Olympics, as it washed back. From the heavy blood spatter on the beach, it seems like the killing was done not too far from the waters edge... maybe in a haste...?"
"That's great Masuka. Keep me updated. I'll be in my office. I hope to get to you guys in the next hour and half", she hangs up before he can complain, and heads from her LT car spot to the building entrance.
She's so preoccupied by Harrison, that she doesn't notice the swarm of reporters until one of them shoves a microphone between them.
"Lieutenant Debra Morgan, Miami Metro Homicide. Update us on the private school girl killing case. Has she been I.D'd? Do we know what school? Has the school been informed? And should parents be keeping their high school aged girls at home until further notice? I see that you have brought your own child to work, should the warning transcend to keeping all children at home, or if parents can, to work?"
Flustered, and off guard, Deb merely gapes. Shifting Harrison and their bags uneasily in her arms, she brings his head down to her chest to conceal his face from the cameras, glad that she put his hat on.
"Excuse me", she mumbles eventually, dodging her and Harrison through the myriad of reporters.
11:43
Miami is sizzling by lunch time, and despite the cooling blast of AC in the ride over, Deb is still hot and sticky from the crime scene. And for the life of her why...? Sand, where there is not supposed to be sand. She is going to have to start packing her own extra clothes for work like Harrison.
Fanning her chest with her shirt, she smiles at the thought, whilst locking the car and making her way to MMPS. LT spot again, close to the air conditioned building.
She brakes suddenly however at the sounds of a insistent car horn.
What the fuck?
That's the second time she's almost been ran over today. Now, and as she made her back back to the car after dropping Harrison off.
Like before, the car hover and waits.
"Well go the fuck up, if your in such a hurry", she mumbles, but gestures widely with her hands.
It goes, she frowns after it. Georgia licence plate. Is it the same car? She wasn't really concentrating the first time, she was so preoccupied with just getting to the crime scene. A white blur maybe. This car is white...?
She shrugs, there is a murder to solve, and Miami are hot on their toes. This time she does stop to give the press a statement.
Once inside the building, she's glad to find herself the only one waiting for the lift. When it arrives, she presses her level and the lift door close, but someone slips in. Her lips twitch in annoyance, focussing her attention on her heels. The lift moves and she lets out an audible irritated sigh; she's come to like her quiet moments in the lift. Nowadays they are the -
But suddenly, and before she knows it, the lift stops its ascent with a heavy jolt.
Her arms are twisted uncomfortably behind her back.
She is pinned against one of the lift walls.
Her assailant breath, heavy down her neck.
She's not worried though.
Albeit the slightly repugnant odour, she knows that scent.
It's distinct to her.
... Dexter.
A breath hitches in her throat but other than that, she gives nothing away.
Her wrists are bundled into one tight grip, while the other one clamps over her mouth. Her nostrils flare at the smell of blood, she brings her gaze down and spies some trapped underneath his fingernails.
Languidly, he moves the hand from her mouth to grip around her neck, taking her long dark sun-tipped plat to one side with it. He yanks it harshly before a finger playfully worries a protruding neck vain; his hand draws her closer to him, squeezing her hyoid bone so that her mouth instantly salivates as it panics for air.
Because of her heels, she stands slightly taller than him, but they line up perfectly. Deb feels uncertainty, repulsion, but even worse, aroused. His lips ghost her ear, nipping the bone deliciously as he speaks.
"You can't just take me son away from me", he hisses like the vile but apple-tempting snake that he is.
Don't bite.
"He is my son!" He shouts stubbornly.
But she stays quiet, and his hands tighten their grip on her skin.
His chuckle makes her hairs prickle.
"All I need is to tighten my grip", his voice is hot and breathy travelling through the hollows of her ear, beating hard on its drum.
Deb remains silent.
Roughly, he grabs her by her hip bone and whips her around so she is facing him.
Her heart is beating out of her chest because of the suddenness of the movement, and takes in apt lung fulls of breath. Her forehead frowns slightly in confusion when she realises, so is he.
Adjusting her bewildered eyes, she takes in his appearance more. He looks fucking shit. His jaw is covered with thick gingerish-brown bristles; heavy lines etched around his forehead; his eye sockets look bruised and hollow and his pupils are fully dilated, black and wild, like shark eyes.
His nostrils flare as he breathes in and out noisily; an exposed tooth bites hard on his bottom lip. The gusts of his breath hit forcefully on her face.
They stand without speech.
After a while, she instinctively squirms against his restricting grip. She is surprised when he lets her go.
He steps back and she can take in more of his appearance.
His muscle forest-green t-shirt is quite heavily soiled with blood, dirt, and other stains she doesn't know. His grey khakis and army-esque lace-up boots are also heavily soiled with dirt.
Her sage eyes reach back to his. Harrison's intent stare. But there is something else in his glint, it is almost as if he is putting on a show for her. That he wants her to see him like this. What she has made him become.
So un-meticulous.
So against his code.
Giving him the once over again. She turns her back to him and presses for the lift to go again.
It re-starts its ascent with a jolt, and she fixes back her hair and suit, trying to re-compose herself.
"I could ruin you", he hisses.
"So could I", she whispers. "Then where would Harrison be?"
She hears his retort hitch in his voice.
The natural thought is his step-children, Astor's and Cody's grandparents, but they're slowly reaching their seventies; it's a wonder they can handle two teenagers, let alone a three-year old.
"I'm warning you Dexter. Back the fuck away from us", she warns.
The lift doors open and she exits.
She doesn't turn to gauge his reaction, or to see if he is following her.
Once inside her office, she calls the nursery to make sure Harrison is still there. He is. She repeats her instructions, no one but her can sign him out of nursery. They assure her that no one will. She puts the phone down, and sighs a disimbangled sigh of relief; her body is too smart to believe that she is safe.
12:52
Lunch for the Miami Metro Homicide staff, is feasted with an array of strong smelling greasy Gringo-Mexican food, around the main conference room. Set in the background,in the middle of the room, a blank flip chart, blank white board, and expanse white cork board, with a collection of photographs of the unnamed murder victim taken by Masuka earlier that morning.
Deb sits at the forefront of team, shovelling some sort of greasy meat flour tortilla, with minimal salad down her throat. "OK people"' she says in-between chewing, "what have we got?"
But it's going to take them a while to settle, like Deb, this is probably their first meal of the day.
"Hey Angel", Masuka shouts across the rooming, loudly slurping his soda down with a mouthful of meat. "Pity you don't still have that restaurant, this meat tastes like dog", he spits, taken a second hungry bite.
"Only you would know what your own kind taste like", Quinn teases and Angel laughs.
"If you got it from that little shack down the road, it probably is".
"My insides were devouring each other, fuck was I going to wait twenty minutes for Al to get to my order", he stops and stares dubiously at his sandwich, before shrugging, "meat is meat".
"OK people", Deb tries again, putting her food to the side. "Where are-", but she is interrupted by Masuka again. Fuck Masuka, she is about to complain, until she follows everyone's eyesight.
Dexter.
Washed and changed.
He's kept the beard though.
"Hey guys, sorry I'm late, but I thought you could all wash your lunch down with some doughnuts", he grins his cheesy, over-the-top 'doughnut giving grin', opening his two boxes of dozen jam glazed doughnuts. It's so fake, it makes Deb's skin crawl, why can't the others see it to...?
But instead, just like that, people accept. Crowding around him and his blood offering like he's a long lost heroic soldier.
He laughs with others at his beard.
At his clear weight loss.
His raggedy shit tired face.
He talks animatedly...she guesses about where he says he has been.
She has to fight admiration.
"OK people", she tries for a third time, but this time they instantly quieten and draw their attention on her, and she wonders annoyingly, if this is because Dexter is back.
She doesn't look but she can feel his stare in her. It makes her hot, flustered, fight for her breath, her voice and hands tremble, as she picks up whatever memo she had written to address. She can't even make her own writing.
"Uhm...", she starts.
"New homicide case", she hears Angel whisper to Dexter, and she raises her eyebrow.
"Yeah, I heard it all on the news. That's why I'm here. Deb insisted I came in".
She can't move, she knows his stare is still on her, and its suffocating. She thought going back to normal life would be hard, but these few days proved that it wasn't, but Dexter turns out to be the real clincher, and she doesn't know if she can do it. A mixed fountain of unwanted thoughts and feelings that she thought she put to rest, start to slowly rise again, drowning her.
"Uhm...", but she is saved by the knock on the office. She looks up, straight into Dexter's eyes, she quickly averts them round him and his very prominent, fully erect body before she even has time to read them.
Matthews. Signalling her over.
She nods and clears her throat. "Uhm... Angel?"
Angel nods understanding and takes her place at the front.
Deb has been made captain and Angel lieutenant. That's why Matthew's had called her in, the board had to and made their final decision, Matthew's had brought her in to congratulate her. And at the same time, warn her over her conduct of the first ambushed interview earlier this morning, especially now that she was captain.
"Debra?" Matthew's asks over her silence.
Dexter. Harrison. Maria. Harrison. Dexter. Deb blinks, and smiles, knowing that she most look like a deer trapped in headlights. Then nods. "Sorry sir, I have to leave", she says getting up. "Harrison wasn't feeling well this morning. I only took him to nursery because of this ca-"
Matthew's holds up his hand and chuckles, "say no more. Consider it an early perk of your promotion. Take the rest of the afternoon off".
She nods thanks, wondering whether an 'afternoon off' would be enough. Or whether she would be away for a much longer time...
"Say, was that your brother I saw the back of?"
"Y-ye-yes", she managed.
"Good", he smiled, rubbing his hands together. "I'm sorry I couldn't get him that promotion".
She frowns and shakes his head.
"He's back to work on the case?"
She is silent.
"Yes", she says, making Matthew's eye contact. "I insisted he came in", she repeats Dexter's lie.
13:45
Enroute to Harrison's nursery. Deb couldn't help but think whether there was a link between Dexter's sudden appearance and the new homicide case. But Dexter wouldn't kill a high school girl - would he...?
Harrison was overjoyed to see her, and she held him for a long time when he ran up to her hug. Inhaling his scent.
In the car park, she was almost ran over again, but not by a car, another human being.
"Oh sorry", the figure apologises and she chills, instantly.
"Dada!" Harrison lets go of her hand and rushes towards his father.
"Hello Son...my sun", he breaths his son's scent in deeply.
Deb stays silent, bundled with Harrison's things, her eyes fixed on the tarmac, until she feels his hand enclose her neck, he squeezes it slightly, reminding her of earlier in the lift.
"Where's your car?"
14:17
Deb drives the three of them back to her bungalow on Beach Pointe.
They are stuck in traffic for about 10 minutes at the cross roads.
They enter the house together as a family, and Dexter suggests they spend the rest of the day at the beach.
He doesn't let Harrison out of his sight, and neither does she. Both understanding that neither will run and leave him with the other.
A stalemate.
"No 'wim cos'um?" Harrison asks Deb, when he sees that they are about to leave and she is still in her work clothes. Dexter still fully clothed, he doesn't question.
Dexter smiles and raises an eyebrow at her.
She takes Harrison into the bathroom with her while she changes. Dexter follows and stops her from closing the door, leaving a slither of a gap open. "Just in case you get any ideas", he says.
She slips her gym clothes on over fawn bikini, tying the laces of her running shoes in a double knot.
They walk with a wide distance between each other down the beach; Harrison happy on his father's shoulders, Deb trudging a few paces behind them.
Does he not feel the heat? She wonders looking on at Dexter's laced up boots, his brown combat trousers and white muscle shirt.
She starts to slow as they approach closer to the crime scene. Dexter stops at the tape, looking on before turning to regard an uneasy Deb.
He waits a few moments before trudging back down the beach.
What the fuck was that about? Deb wonders, playing nervously with the end of her plait. Not liking the ideas of why that are already forming in her mind, and once again a prickly sweaty heat encompasses her body, as she troubledly walks behind father and son.
Deb strips down into her bikini and spends the next couple of hours playing in the sea and on the beach with Harrison. Dexter watches on with a non-committed stare.
Harrison alternates, bringing his bucket and spade to his father, and Deb runs up and down the beach, a close eye always fixed on the both of them.
Never once do brother and sister play together.
The sun is already setting when they reach the bungalow.
Dexter announces that he will make dinner, and Deb wordlessly excuses her and Harrison to the bathroom. He follows closely behind them, leaving a wider gap open on the door. She can hear him chop chop chop the onions through the silent home, and echoing chopping board wood, until she turns the shower spray on her and Harrison.
Dried and dressed for bed, she leaves Harrison to play in the spare room, while she goes on a hunt for her cell. Entering the kitchen, she see's it close to Dexter's side. Carefully placed.
She sniffs the air, he's made steaks. Red meat, bloody and rare, his speciality.
She walks up quietly and quickly to grab her cell, she doesn't even have time to react as his hand shoots out and grabs around her neck, a syringe quickly at its side.
She starts to hyperventilate and searches Dexter's eyes for anger, remorse, but finds something worse - no emotion at all.
She frowns incredulously at him. By his grip on her neck, she knows she can't make a sound even if she tried. She sees something flicker in his eye, but its gone too quickly for her to read what.
Her hands desperately grab around her for something...
Anything...
Her hand finds her cell, but clumsily pushes it on the floor, it makes a loud banging noise but nothing more.
Dexter snarls, and Deb tries to swallow, but can't...
The saliva building within her bridges her nose...
She gasps...
She gasps again...
Tears collecting in her eyes as she feels everything go fuzzy and white...
He moves the syringe into her view, and her eyes shakily watch it move closer back to her neck.
She looks back to search Dexter's eyes. In desperate last attempt to find something that they once had, that they had before she betrayed him and his trust.
She gasps...
Her eyes closing...
"You' 'urtin' Mama?" Harrison asks confused, fingers lodged in his mouth, and Dexter drops everything, stepping back, breathing just as heavily as Deb, with the same confused look as Harrison, darting between his sister and his son.
Queens advantage.
