Debra knows for a fact she's not supposed to be awake yet. She knows that she's not supposed to hear Rudy, or Brian or Biney or whoever the absolute fuck he is trying to convince her brother, and apparently his brother, to kill her.
"I don't usually do things this way," he had told her as he stuck the needle in her. "I'm just paying homage to a fellow traveler I greatly respect." She had been confused, of course, but barely had time to process it as the drug spread through her system and knocked her out.
But now, as she heard Dex talking about how "freeing" it felt to have someone who "understood" him, the reality of the situation shot down through her veins faster than the M-99 had, and she fought the urge to vomit. Her brother was a fucking serial killer, just like her fiance, and they were debating over whether they should kill her or not.
A small hope filled her when Dexter told Rudy that he had a code. That he only killed other killers. But when he went silent at Rudy's comeback, the small spark died. She was always second choice, she thought. She was second choice to Harry, her own father, who ignored her for almost her entire childhood to instead, apparently, teach Dexter how to be a serial killer.
She was second choice to LaGuerta, who constantly insulted her and took every single possible chance to undermine her, and she had been second choice to both Dexter and Rudy, who had both blown her off to spend time together, talking to eachother in the same way she had tried and failed to talk to Dexter for decades. They were probably planning my murder, she thought bitterly.
And now, she was to be second choice for the last time. Obviously, Dexter wouldn't choose her. He had never trusted her with his big secret, probably afraid of her reaction. And then here was Rudy - Not Rudy, fuckin' Brian, she has to correct herself, Dexter's real biological brother who "understood" him so well, giving her brother (and a part of her is shocked that she still thinks of him as her brother), the final ultimatum: Kill her, and finally live a life free of hiding.
The only possible, if improbable way she can get out of this, she realizes, is to convince Dexter that she understands him too. That she accepts him and all his darkness. She isn't sure if she does, obviously, that's going to take some thinking and a lot of slapping him to figure out, but she's running on survival instincts.
The only problem is that her eyes refuse to open. Her vocal cords refuse to stir, and she realizes that for the first time, she's frozen in terror. The cold fear she feels starts to thaw when she hears Dexter whine "not Deb..." in such a broken voice, and she realizes in that moment how stupid it was that she would ever think he would hurt her.
But Brian doesn't like his answer very much at all and snaps, screaming at his brother in rage as he grabs the knife and goes for her anyway. Her eyes snap open and her every muscle is fueled with fiery adrenaline as she tries in vain to dodge his knife, but Dexter stops him at the last second, and they begin to wrestle for control as Debra begins to hear sirens.
"Shit, Dex, look out!" she screams out, perhaps unhelpfully as Dexter narrowly dodges a swing from a raging Brian. "In the garage! We need help!" Dexter yells out to the cops outside as Brian swears under his breath and runs. Suddenly everything is a blur as the moment ends and she's finally loose, and cry-vomiting over the end of the table as Dexter awkwardly pats her shoulder.
"Are you ok?" he asks her, completely calm if slightly concerned, and for the first time she realizes that he doesn't share his emotions with her because he genuinely doesn't have any, or at the very least doesn't allow himself to feel them. She sobs harder, dry heaving now as her stomach is long since completely empty. She isn't sure whether to feel guilty for how uncomfortable he must have been all those times she tried to harass him into opening up to her, or absolutely livid with him for how much of a lying, sack of shit fuck-nugget he was.
"Fuck you." She mutters as she settles for both, weakly hitting him as she sobs into his shoulder, barely even registering that she still doesn't have any clothes on. She doesn't fully realize it until Dexter hesitantly lets her go, the paramedics gently pulling some clothing onto her and leading her toward an open ambulance.
She looks back at him and not for the first time, wonders what he's thinking, ashamed to realize that even with her new insight on him, she still can't get in his head. Doakes and LaGuerta pull him aside, questioning him, and she listens in, curious as to how he'll explain everything.
"I got a call from him, he told me to come here alone or he'd kill Deb." Dexter started, his eyes gaining a faraway look. "Once I got here he came up behind me and drugged me, when I woke up he was offering me a knife."
She could faint hear LaGuerta gasp in shock as Doakes simply huffed, clearly disbelieving. "What'd he want you to do, help him kill her? He see a fellow nutcase in you?" Doakes spat at him, and she resisted the urge to punch him in the face even as she knew what he was saying was true.
"He told me he would kill us both, make us watch eachother die. But that if I would kill her before she woke up, he would let me live. I managed to grab the knife from him, and we fought for a little bit, but when you all got here, and Deb woke up, he ran."
Doakes slammed him against the wall, his face red with anger. "I don't believe you, motherfucker. You're hiding something. You know something we don-" He didn't get to finish his sentence as Debra shot up, pushing past paramedics and slapped him in the face.
"He saved my goddamn life you magnum asshole." She yelled, tears streaming down her eyes once more. "The only thing wrong with his story was when I woke up. I heard their conversation, everything he's saying is true."
She was lying through her teeth, and she didn't even know why. She saw Dexter's face contort in horror as she realized that she had just indirectly told him she knew what he was. Goddamn bitch fuck shit nugget, but she couldn't stop now. She thought back to the final words Brian had spoken before he attacked.
"You can't be a hero and a killer, Dexter, that's not how it works!" He had screamed before lunging at her with his knife. If Dexter wanted to be her hero, she thought as she drafted her final lie in her head, she was damn well going to let him. "Dex is my fucking hero, so leave him the absolute fuck alone, Doakes."
There it was, the final nail in her coffin of lies. Doakes looked pained for a moment, almost regretful, before the anger in his eyes returned and he stormed off, a stunned and thankfully wordless LaGuerta in tow. Debra turned to her brother, their eyes finally meeting, and simply said "We need to talk."