Chuck comes with her inside the school to retrieve Hailey, but they don't speak. They wait wordlessly in the principal's office until her daughter is escorted inside and Serena exhales in relief.
"Momma," Hailey greets with a pleased smile, skipping over with her backpack bouncing against her shoulders. "You're here early."
"I know, baby," Serena sighs, nodding her appreciation to Principal Knight before taking Hailey's hand. She leads her daughter out of the office with Chuck stepping forward to flank Hailey's opposite side.
"And you brought uncle Chuck!" she notes with delight, latching onto his hand with her free one.
"I begged to come," he tells Hailey with a grin, even as his eyes are scanning the halls, the sidewalks once they're outside. The black suburban is parked only a few feet away along the sidewalk, steps from the building's entrance. "It's been too long since I've seen you."
Serena slides into the backseat first and Hailey follows after her. She notices Bart and the officer at the front seats while Serena buckles her into her booster seat, both offering her easy smiles and soft greetings.
"Mom," Hailey murmurs as Chuck climbs in last, closing the door with a firm slam. Apprehension is invading her small frame and her anxious blue eyes lift to search her mother's face. "What's going on? Is Daddy okay?"
"Yes," Serena promises without missing a beat, wrapping an arm around Hailey's shoulders. "He's waiting for us back at the firm right now. We're going to go on an adventure for a couple of days, all three of us."
"But... don't you have to work?" Hailey asks, her brow knitting.
"Your mom's been working so hard lately," Bart chimes in from the passenger seat, meeting Hailey's curious gaze in the rearview mirror. "I thought she could use a few extra days with you and your dad."
"Oh." Hailey leans into Serena's side, still not necessarily convinced, and damn, her kid is too smart for this. She can probably sense the tension filling the car, humming in Serena's bones no matter how hard she tries to quell it.
She just needs to get back to Dan, needs to have all the people she loves in one place where she can protect them, just in case-
"Hey Hailey, want to hear a joke?" the officer's low voice carries from the driver's seat.
Hailey instantly perks up, recognizing instantly what a treat it is to have that officer with them.
Serena curls an arm around her daughter's shoulders, relaxes back against the seat with a soft sigh of relief.
"Thank God for that officer," Chuck mutters under his breath. Her lips quirk, echoing the sentiment as the officer begins to ply Hailey with knock-knock jokes.
Only when they're back inside the law firm's building does Serena's chest finally loosen. She's carrying Hailey in her arms, Chuck at her side like a bodyguard, but their stride towards the elevator is intercepted by a team of familiar faces waiting for them in the lobby.
"Aunt Nessa!" Hailey squeals, squirming from Serena's hold to jump to the floor. She races up to Agent Vanessa Abrams with open arms and Serena can't help but grin.
She should have known.
"Hey, kiddo!" Vanessa greets with her best smile, one Serena remembers as having been rare in the office. Her once-fellow laywer turned agent bends to accept Hailey's embrace. "Look at you, so grown up!"
"I know! I grew like four inches since you last saw me!"
Serena chuckles and steps up behind her six year old to loop an arm around Vanessa's shoulder in a hug the other woman returns. "I owe you for coming."
"Only the best for you, Serena," she murmurs, squeezing Serena's biceps before pulling back. "These are Agent Hendricks, Agent Smith, and the newest addition to our team, Agent Franklin."
Serena shakes hands with each agent, before Bart and Chuck step forward. They go through their introductions, and start for the elevator as a group.
"How's Dan?" Vanessa inquires quietly during the ride up, but Hailey looks up from her place between the two of them, a bright smile on her face.
"You heard about Daddy coming home?"
"I did," Vanessa nods, her blue eyes gleaming for the girl, but Serena can read the worry in her gaze too.
"He's okay. He'll be better once we have these assholes in custody," she mutters, keeping her voice low, running her fingers through Hailey's hair.
"We'll get them, Serena. In the meantime, we're going to keep you and your family safe." Vanessa tells her with confidence. But Serena merely purses her lips, manages a nod just as the doors slide open to the floor.
"Daddy!" Hailey gasps, running into the firm.
Their daughter snags Dan's gaze immediately, catches his attention with the call of his new title that has been shown excessive use all week.
"Peanut Butter Cup!" Serena hears him exclaim, catching Hailey as she leaps into his arms. She smothers her smile, savors the fleeting moment of joy flickering through her at the sight.
"So not just a peanut, but now a butter cup, huh?" Vanessa muses.
"Couldn't stop him from turning her into a piece of candy," Serena sighs while they exit the elevator, hearing Vanessa chuckle at her side.
Dan's entire body visibly exalts as he catches sight of Serena following Hailey's footsteps. Serena hooks an arm around his neck, breathes out her own exhale of gratitude against him in the middle of the floor.
"And you brought the cavalry?" he asks, extending his hand to Vanessa. "Long time no see."
"Good to have you back, Dan," Vanessa returns, eliciting a genuine curve of Dan's mouth. "I owe Hailey a few favors, so I'll be the head of your protective detail until... for now," she catches herself, taking Hailey's listening ears into consideration.
Dan arches an eyebrow in surprise, glances over to Hailey.
"You're friends with Agent Abrams?" he murmurs.
She nods with a proud smile. "Yep."
"She's only six and has more connections than I ever did," he huffs, keeping Hailey propped on his hip while their team migrates to the break room.
Throughout the remainder of the afternoon, Serena strategizes with the team, studying the route to the safe house until she has it memorized, and going over Tripp and Maureen's history like a power point presentation. She spends an hour on the phone with Fallon as night begins to fall over the city, listening intently to the agent who has dedicated his entire afternoon to interviewing Tripp's family.
"It's not a sure thing yet, I'm heading to check it out as we speak, but Serena, we think we may have found the place where Dan was being held," Fallon reveals and her blood runs cold, ice threading through her veins. "I'll call you the moment I have more information."
"I - yeah, please do," she manages, sucking in a deep breath to melt away some of the chill once the line disconnects. She cuts her eyes to the open blinds of the break room, where Dan sits on the couch with Hailey in his lap, watching cartoons on the TV overhead.
"Serena, we've got the van all loaded. Ready to go?" Vanessa asks.
Serena quickly blinks away the threatening loss of composure, nods her assent, and agrees to meet Vanessa downstairs in five minutes. She raids her desk for the backup piece she saw Vanessa drop there purposefully with a nod as she caught Serena's gaze earlier before she goes to retrieve Dan and Hailey. Her fingers pause at her top drawer, but she reaches for the knife she keeps there, flexing her fingers around the handle before slipping it into the sheath of her had bought for the occasion. She notices Chuck's eyes on her when she straightens.
He offers a solemn nod, a wordless assurance that he'll be working tirelessly here, Nate too, and she returns the gesture with a tight-lipped smile.
When they come back from the safe house, she'll talk to Chuck, make him fix things with Dan if she has to, and hopefully find their rhythm as team again. But for now, she can't afford to focus on anything other than the man in the break room and their daughter dozing against his chest.
Dan carries Hailey to the black (stereotypical) SUV outside of the building, grateful for Serena's closeness at his back. She rests her cheek to his shoulder in a moment of reprieve on the sidewalk before they have to load up.
Vanessa's team is split into two vehicles - herself and Hendricks in the front seats of theirs, Smith and Franklin driving ahead of them in an identical suburban, willing to take the risk of a threat first in order to protect the second SUV. But the noble information fails to provide him with any comfort.
Hailey sits snugly in her booster seat between them once they're all settled inside the vehicle, buckled up and fighting to stay awake. She drifts against Serena's chest, one of her fists curled at her mother's stomach while the other clings to the arm she's stolen from his side, looped through hers. The light nighttime traffic thins out into nothing the farther from the city they drive. These quiet roads would lull him to sleep too if the darkness didn't feel as if it were on the verge of swallowing them whole.
Even after driving for half an hour, his anxiety has yet to calm, his gut continuing to stir with a sense of wrong. And while Serena hasn't said anything, has made no indication of it, he can tell that she's struggling with a similar dread. He notices it in the looks she continues to throw over Hailey's head.
And when the SUV in front of them swerves before it screeches to a stop, he knows instantly why.
It's no more than a second before Franklin and Smith's vehicle bursts into flames.
"Son of a bitch," Hendricks curses, slamming on the breaks.
Dan jerks an arm out in front of both Serena and Hailey, his hand colliding with Serena's elbow as she's quick to do the same. Hailey holds onto them both, her fingers digging into his arm as Hendricks shifts gears.
But just as they begin to reverse, they hear the roar of an engine approaching. Dan jerks his gaze over his shoulder, catches the glare of headlights growing brighter by the second.
Vanessa draws her weapon and Dan catches sight of her rolling down her window, maneuvering her upper body through the slot of space.
"Hailey, ears," Serena commands just before the shooting begins.
Their daughter covers her ears with her hands, buries her face, her scream, into Dan's side. Hendricks is speeding forwards, past the charred SUV, but Serena is already mimicking Vanessa, unfastening the gun from her waist as the glare of the headlights approaches, the foreign van lining up alongside theirs.
"Hendricks," Vanessa yells.
Serena swears under her breath and grabs for Dan's arm, wraps her other around Hailey. She tugs him towards her, away from the door he sits against just as the other SUV rams into their side. It repeats the move even as Hendricks attempts to accelerate, edging them off the road while Vanessa struggles to get a steady shot to their enemy's tire.
"Dan," Serena chokes out, gripping his arm hard enough to bruise, staring back at him through the panic swarming her gaze. He wants to tell her they'll be okay, to just hold onto him, to Hailey, and not let go no matter what.
But there's no time, only a split second of locked eyes, not a chance to even open his mouth and let the words spill free.
"We're going off the road, brace yourselves!" Hendricks shouts, the van already beginning to edge from the shoulder. They run over bumpy terrain of gravel and dirt, debris from the surrounding woods, and Serena curls around Hailey while he curls around her.
Vanessa's gasp as she's yanked back inside the vehicle by Hendricks is the last sound Dan is able to register over the crunch of metal and shatter of glass, Hailey's screaming and Serena's grunts of pain, his own-
Until it all finally stops.
Their van rolls once due to the help of one final slam from the assaulting SUV and plows into something hard enough to force them to an abrupt stop.
Dan tries to see past the pounding in his skull, the black spots in his vision. His ears are ringing as he attempts to raise his head.
"Serena, Hails," he rasps, flexing his fingers around Serena's shoulder, earning a muffled moan in response, a whimper from between them. He needs to move, save his family, but - but he can't feel anything, can't see, can't stay.
"Dan," Serena groans, unbuckling her seatbelt with shaking hands. Hailey is huddled against her, crying against her chest, but her little girl - thank god - was mostly shielded from the blows of the crash, tucked tightly between them. Her worst injury is likely a knock to the top of her head against Serena's chin.
"Serena," Vanessa coughs from the front seat, her voice wavering. "You okay?"
"Yeah, I think me and Hailey are okay, but Dan's unconscious. Hendricks?" She yanks on Dan's seatbelt despite the searing pain in her shoulder until the buckle finally gives in. She brushes her fingers to his slackened jaw, follows the structure of bone to the bloodstained skin above his eyebrow.
"Someone's coming," Hailey whispers and Vanessa lets out a sharp breath, reloads her weapon.
"Stay here."
"Vanessa," Serena protests, but she's already opening her door, slipping out of Serena's sight and into the darkness.
"Momma, why did they blow up the other van? Why did they crash into us?" Hailey questions, her voice trembling, sounding so scared. Serena pauses to cradle her daughter's terrified face in her hands, presses a kiss to her forehead.
"Hailey, the bad people that took Daddy are trying to hurt us and I have to go help Aunt Vanessa stop them, okay?"
"No, Mommy, no!" Hailey cries, scrambling in closer to cling to Serena's chest. And for a moment, Serena holds her daughter as close as possible.
"I'll be right back," she whispers into Hailey's hair. "You have to stay here with Daddy, can you do that for me?"
She feels the hesitation in Hailey's arms before they loosen from her neck. Her little girl sits back on her knees, her red-rimmed eyes glittering in the dark.
"Please come back, Momma. Promise you'll come back," she whimpers.
Serena stains one last kiss to her forehead, bites back her own tears, and takes a deep breath.
"I will," she gives in, even though she knows better, hates to ever make a promise she can't know she'll keep. She has no intention of dying. But Dan is unconscious, and she has precious cargo to protect.
Serena turns to the passenger and grips the handle. It's stuck, bent into the frame by their rollover. She has to ram her shoulder against the door for it to open, hissing in pain as her bone sings with agony, dislocated from the feel of it. She steps out onto the grass with wobbly legs, but the crackle of gunfire sharpens her senses. Serena finds her center, raises the weapon and circles around the back of their mangled vehicle. She spies Vanessa first, shooting at the driver of the enemy van from behind a tree.
The man is perched behind the mangled door of his vehicle, but he doesn't notice her, his focus is intently on Vanessa.
The second he steps out from the cover of the SUV, Serena fires.
He goes down, collapsing to his knees before falling face first into the dirt. Vanessa cuts her eyes back to Serena with a terse nod of gratitude.
"Nice shot."
With a threat neutralized, Serena begins to scan the area. Her heart is pounding hard as she fights to maintain focus, keep it from straying to Dan, to the image of blood flowing from the nasty cut he sustained to the tender flesh above his eyebrow, to Hailey and her fear of Serena not coming back.
Her whole life is in that fucking van and she'll protect it at all costs.
"I can get an ambulance on the way," Vanessa adds, edging backwards towards their SUV with her weapon still raised. "Let's just clear the area first, make sure there aren't any more-" Her gaze snaps back to Vanessa just as she jerks her gun in Serena's direction. "Serena!"
Serena feels the sharp jab before she can even sense the presence at her back. A needle in her arm, the muscle already going numb. She doesn't have to look to know who it is, dragging in a breath of Maureen's harsh perfume.
"Vanessa, get - get them out," she yells, her voice breaking as her knees begin to go weak.
"Oh, Serena, I hate to tell you," Maureen sighs at her back, controlling her descent to the ground. "It's already too late."