Therapy goes surprisingly well.
He likes Colin Fitzpatrick, can see why Serena does too. Even though this is only his first session and they've barely scratched the surface of all that's happened in the last six years, everything he yearns to work past, the psychologist makes him feel hopeful with his quiet confidence.
They spend the hour Fitzpatrick graciously worked into his schedule getting comfortable with one another, exchanging introductions, briefly discussing his relationship and its recent - wonderful - developements with Serena ( which is apparently very familiar territory for the therapist). They venture slowly into his encounters with Tripp and Maureen prior to his abduction, summarizing what he can remember of his time away.
Fitzpatrick takes notes, but doesn't say much, listening intently and indulging Dan's anxious humor with a twitch of his lips. He shakes the other man's hand when it's time to go, then schedules another appointment for next week with the receptionist up front. He rides the elevator down to the building's lobby.
Serena is already waiting for him outside, using her lunch hour to drop him off and pick him up. He trots out to her limo with his chest feeling lighter, a smile tugging at his lips as he opens the door and slides into the backseat next to her. But it promptly falls away at the look on her face.
"What's wrong?" he questions, watching the column of her throat work with a swallow, her skin so pale, ashen. She's already scaring him. "Serena."
"Penelope, Blair's minion in High School, was found strangled to death this morning," she answers, her voice rough, scraped raw, and all of the hope leaks out of him. Because there's only one reason a purposeful asphyxiation would drain her face of color, sharpen her jaw. Dan closes his eyes. "Street cams caught footage of Tripp leaving her Penthouse."
He's known it was coming, but his heart still lurches with horror, with panic, and no. No, he can't do this. He won't.
"We have to leave."
Serena's eyes finally startle over him, her lips parting with what's sure to be a protest, but he denies it before it can come.
"We have to go away. I can't - no, I won't - won't go back, Serena. I won't-"
"Dan, no," she whispers, but even as his heart his hammering, the blood is leeching out of him with every beat. He quickly searches his jacket for his phone with hands that shake so badly, he can barely feel his fingertips.
"Dan, you're not going back, you're not going anywhere," she states firmly, but he jerks when she touches him. He startles away from the gentle graze of her fingers to his neck, smacking his shoulder against the passenger door's window, and shuts his eyes once more, can't bear to see the expression that must be claiming her face. "I won't let him come anywhere near you-"
"You can't stop him," he says incredulously. He knows he's growing hysterical, can hear it in his own voice, but all he can think about, all he can see, is that room he was kept in. All he can feel is the heat of his own blood spilling down his back, the taste of copper on his tongue, and Tripp's voice, his face, and that nauseating grin. "No, he'll find a way. Him and Maureen, and - oh god, you. They'll come after you instead, or Milo, Hailey." He steals her hand, grips her fingers probably a little too hard. "Serena, please."
She stares back at him with so much heartache in her eyes, a blend of concern and fear spilling through her features. But she has to understand, she has to say yes. They have to get the kids, pack up, and go. Run and just keep running until his captors are finally caught.
"You were right all along," he babbles on. "We'll never be safe until they're behind bars, so please just - we have to run, Serena. We can't stay here-"
"But where?" she finally gets out. "Dan, the FBI has already issued a manhunt, along with the NYPD. They're patrolling every road out of the city, every ferry and airport-"
"Exactly, they'll be trapped here and we won't," he presses, but she still doesn't look like she's completely on board with his plan yet.
"You don't think they would find a way to follow us?" she asks, her question soft, as if he's a client she has to handle with care. He can't stop the noise of distress that gets caught in the back of his throat as he bows forwards, buries his face in his hands. "Dan, look, what if we go to a safe house? Fallon mentioned it on the phone earlier, said he could spare a team of protective details."
Not as good as running away to a foreign country, but... the noose of panic around his throat reluctantly begins to loosen.
"Tripp and Maureen combined have pulled off a lot, they're both highly intelligent and obviously capable of more than anyone has given them credit for, but when it comes down to it, they're just two human beings," she tells him, resting a tentative hand on his bad knee, allowing her palm to cover his patella when he doesn't startle or jerk beneath her touch. "And it would take someone with superhuman abilities to take you away from me again, Dan. Same goes for Hailey, Milo too. No one's touching my family."
The growl of tenacity in her words has his heart easing quicker than it could with any soothing attempts at consolation. He's still not wholly convinced that Serena is completely aware of who she's dealing with, but she does have a point. And, not to mention, Serena van der Woodsen is as close to superhuman as it gets.
"Okay," he finally relents on the first steady breath he can manage. "A safe house."
"I'll set it up right now," she promises, her thumb smoothing over the bone of his knee. "Dan?" He lifts his head, prepared to give his agreement, but her eyes are shiny and her bottom lip is pinned, painfully white beneath her teeth. She shakes her head when he opens his mouth to ask what's wrong, to apologize for reacting so viscerally. "I'm just so sorry."
The cracks in his heart that have slowly started to heal fissure deep once more and Dan shifts in his seat to reach for her. He cups her crumpling face in one of his hands and fuses a kiss to her mouth, tasting the sorrow on her tongue, remorse in the velvet press of her lips.
"It's okay," he rasps, stroking his thumb to the paper thin skin beneath her eye, touching his lips to the tension between her brows before dropping his forehead to rest against hers. "You're right. It'll be okay. Nothing's going to take me away from you, our family. Nothing's going to happen."
He wants to believe it so badly, knows that she does too, but he doesn't think either of them can. Not anymore.
Dan accompanies her to work after his therapy session and she feels so guilty about it, about ruining whatever progress he may have made with Fitzpatrick with her bearing of bad news. But there's no keeping this from him. She learned a long time ago that secrets only make things worse, that they're stronger together, and that meant keeping him in the loop. No matter how painful it is.
When Serena and Dan return, Fallon is already stationed at the firm, grave determination written all over his face. At least she has a team leader to work with who is just as serious about tracking down Tripp and Maureen as she is, who also cares about Dan's safety.
Fallon lets her know about a safe house in White Plains that's large enough for a small family and she makes arrangements to pick Hailey up within the hour, contacts Milo at work.
"Serena, I can't go," Milo responds to Serena's explanation of the situation in a hushed tone. "I'm working on a case of a missing nine year old girl right now and we may have a lead. I'll stay with Grandpa. If you, Dad, or Hailey need me, of course I'll come, but if it's my safety you're worried about, I'm protected here."
"Milo, your dad is... I don't think he'll accept that," Serena sighs, fisting a hand in her hair as the headache pounding through her skull worsens. "You can imagine how rattled he is over all of this and I don't blame him."
Milo is quiet for a moment, contemplative. "Let me talk to him."
Serena purses her lips but steps out of the break room to find Dan in front of her desk. His eyes are roaming over the file of notes of information and theories, the photos of Penelope, the security cam footage shots of Tripp, and the connection to Dan himself.
"Dan," she calls, coming up from behind him, but not touching. "Milo wants to talk to you."
He accepts her proffered cell phone with a furrowed brow. "Milo... what do you mean?"
Serena drifts a few feet away to give him some privacy, not necessarily looking forward to his reaction either, but it doesn't take long. She waits until she hears the distinctive words of 'I love you' and a goodbye minutes later before she glances back to see him lowering the phone from his ear.
"You okay?" she asks once she makes her way back to him. He holds out the phone to her with a frown that slices away at her heart.
He just wants to protect the people he loves from the monsters that practically destroyed his life. She knows Milo isn't trying to make that harder for him, but she's not sure if Dan can see that right now. Although, he does appear reluctantly accepting of whatever was said during that phone call.
"Do you really believe he's safe there?" he inquires, lifting his troubled eyes to meet hers, and Serena nods.
"He works in a secure facility in Midtown with a multitude of other trained lawyers, ex-cops, ex-agents and people who work in the justice system. I think it would be too big of a risk for anyone to go after him there," she answers honestly and his shoulders lose just a fraction of their tension.
"Okay," he concedes on a sigh, raking a hand through his already disheveled hair. "I - it doesn't help, but Tripp didn't talk about Milo as much when he would threaten me. And he obviously never mentioned Hailey. I'm still not sure if it's because they weren't aware of her existence or not. But it was always you he talked about."
It doesn't scare her, but the new piece of information does send a shudder down her spine. The blank expression of Dan's face, the haunt of memories in his eyes, causes her gut to churn.
"It was like he was fascinated with us," he recounts, his nostrils flaring. Serena shifts a little closer, leans back to prop against the edge of her desk next to him.
"You remembered more," she assesses, but he doesn't answer that, his jaw only squaring with confirmation.
"He enjoyed using you to torture me the most," is all he says, his voice a low growl in the back of his throat.
"He's not going to get to me, Dan," she murmurs, finally earning the flicker of his attention back to the present, to her. "Tripp knows me too, remember? Knows us. It's probably why he focused on me more."
"Maybe," he mumbles, flipping his hand atop of his knee. She immediately slots her fingers through his. "After this, I want to go to the Hamptons. Has Hailey ever been?"
Surprise flutters through her chest, hope, because he believes that there will be an 'after this'.
Serena remembers to shake her head in response, but leans into his side as she replies. "No, she hasn't been. Everything there would remind me of you - remind me of our, uh, planned wedding there," she confesses, earning the turn of his head at that. But she keeps hers down, her eyes on their tangled hands, not wanting to see any unwarranted guilt she may have accidentally elicited with the information. "But I know Hailey would love it there and I'd like to take her, to go back with you. Make more memories, better ones."
Dan's lips press against her temple, his nose in her hair. She squeezes his hand, rests her chin on his shoulder.
"It's a date," he murmurs, his words whispering against her forehead.
Her mouth dares to curve with the beginnings of a smile.
There will be an after this and they will be spending it in the Hamptons with their daughter. And that is what will get her through this.
After Fallon sends them confirmation that the team chosen to escort them to White Plains is on the way, Dan watches as Serena shrugs on her coat. It's still the early afternoon and they aren't planning to leave until nightfall, but he can already feel Serena's anxiety to get him and Hailey as far away from here as possible thrumming through every inch of her frame.
"I'm going to pick up Hailey," she murmurs.
Dan rises from his place against her desk to follow, snagging his jacket as well.
"I'm coming with you," he states before she can argue. But she only sighs, as he feared, and places her hands on his shoulders, stills him.
"Dan, you have to stay here," she says, her expression pleading with him. "You're the one Tripp wants the most, the one he and Maureen will be after, and you're safest here."
"So are you," he points out.
"Myself, an officer and one of my people will be accompanying her, Dan," Bart intervenes softly. The way even Bart Bass talks to him now, with such care, almost makes him miss when he used to hate his guts. "She won't be alone and we are going to and from the school only, coming straight back here."
Serena's hand hooks at his waist, her fingers in his belt loop, and he returns his attention to her as he feels Bart Bass backing away.
"Believe me, I don't want to split up," she admits, her knuckles pressing into the sensitive flesh below his hip. "But I don't trust anyone else to get Hailey and you and I going together presents too much opportunity."
Dan averts his eyes to the ceiling, because yeah, she has a point. Wouldn't it just be Tripp's dream to have them both?
Would you like it if I went to grab your girl, Dan? Maureen's in the city right now while she's having lunch with Nate's mom.
He can still remember grinding his teeth so hard it felt like his jaw was going to crack. He was being specifically punished at the time, being reminded of what they would do if he disobeyed, what he still had at stake.
There's probably enough room down there for two, I could string her up right beside you.
The words came through the speakers attached to the wall, echoing through his cell, and he's never felt such a strong confliction of fury and defeat all at once.
The thought, the recently acquired memory, makes him cringe.
"I'll come right back," she promises, her other hand ascending to catch at the collar of his shirt. Dan steals her fingers, holds them against his chest as he looks down at her.
He really doesn't want her to go.
"Okay," he croaks, clearing his throat and closing his eyes when she leans into him. "If anything happens to you, Serena-"
She cuts him off with the bruising press of her mouth. Dan slides one of his hands into her hair, tangles his fingers in the strands and holds on tight until she parts from him.
"I love you," she whispers, breathing the words against the corner of his mouth, imprinting them there.
He squeezes her nape once before letting her go. "I love you too."
"I'll see you soon," she swears, nodding to Bart over his shoulder before withdrawing from him with a final sweep of her fingers to his cheek.
He releases her, even though every inch of him screams against it, and lets her stride towards the elevator with Bart, an officer, and - oh, his biggest fan - Chuck.
"Don't worry, Dan," Nate murmurs, appearing at his side with the same nervous look in his eyes that Dan feels twisting through his gut. "We're going to end this. Once and for all."
He latches onto the conviction in Nate's voice, grateful for his confidence, hoping he's right. Hoping, but still not quite able to believe.