your hand forever’s all i want

by andsocanshe

In the many years since the last Ghostface attacks, a lot has changed. Between personal lives and professional endeavors, Gale and Dewey’s attempt at normalcy has begun to take a toll — just in time for masked assailants to strike again. — Or, Scream 4 (2011) where everything is the same except Gale and Dewey have a child the way they were initially supposed to.

This is going to be a bit of a long note, so I apologize but the resurrection of my long-dormanted Gale/Dewey brain cell is real, and I can't stop thinking about their cut storyline from the fourth film. The storyline where, initially, they were supposed to have a child, and on some level, I think you can actually feel that that's missing from the movie. Because of that, I figured why not take a stab at it and actually write it?

That being said, everything else is the same besides the fact that they are parents — so everything is not the same, actually — and I hijacked the name Wes so Wes Hicks probably does not exist because personally, I think Judy Hicks can kiss my allergic-to-lemon ass. If anyone in this franchise should have had a child named after Wes Craven, it should have been a member of our beloved trio (which, in non-canon divergence would mean Sidney but you know what, I do what I want).

Now, without further ado...

[I OWN NOTHING BUT MY OWN WORDS.]

—

one.

The chirp of his cell phone erupts throughout the room, pulling Dewey from his state of unconsciousness and into the harsh early morning sunlight. He silences it quickly before it can wake Gale, still asleep next to him and climbs out of bed to start another day patrolling the sound streets of Woodsboro.

"Daddy," a little voice calls as Dewey steps into the hall, immediately met by a four year old clad in Spider-Man pajamas colliding into his legs. "Play wifh me!"

"Hey, hey, buddy," he says, hushing the little boy. "Shhh. Mommy's still sleeping."

Normally, Wes would rush into their bedroom and wake Gale, or curl up on Dewey's side of the bed after he left, but today he feels like he should let his wife sleep. He feels like he should let her have a few minutes alone to be her own person, because lately, there's been a tension between them that has never been there before. Between a schedule that has him out the door before either of them are up and home after bedtime most nights, and Gale's own struggle to write while taking up the brunt of parenting, things feel unbalanced. And though he would like to pretend that there's nothing wrong, it's gotten to a point that Dewey can't ignore.

So he ushers their four year old son down the hall, deciding that his deputies can handle the first call of the morning without him.

—

Like most mornings, Gale pretends not to have been woken by the sound of Dewey's phone. It was an alert from the station today, not an alarm so as soon as he leaves the room and she hears the sound of Wes calling for his father, she expects her day to start. But it doesn't, and there isn't a preschooler crawling into their bed demanding playtime or breakfast. Instead, Dewey takes over and Gale thinks that maybe that shouldn't annoy her as much as it does.

It's not that she doesn't want the break or that she doesn't want her husband to spend time with their son, but a part of her hates that they've conned themselves into this position. This lifestyle. A life so normal and stereotypical that they've become less of the team they've always been and more of a bad afterschool special. Dewey goes to work all day while she raises their kid, cleans the house, and grocery shops. The only chance that she has to write are the days that Wes has preschool, and even then, she doesn't know what to write — being stuck in small town suburbia isn't actually the fuel for fiction that Desperate Housewives depicts. So while her sweet, loving, amazing husband means well when he takes over for the morning, she can't help but mock the cliche of suburban husbands and housewives that names fathers as babysitters rather than the full-time, hands-on parents they signed up to be.

It pisses her off, and then she's pissed off at herself for being upset with the gesture so after roughly ten minutes, Gale forces herself out of bed, pulls on her robe, and follows the trail containing a dropped sock, a matchbox car, and a yellow LEGO toward the bathroom where her husband and son stand gathered around the sink.

Dewey's face is free of both stubble and shaving cream as he rinses his razor in the sink, and Wes is stood on the stool by his side with a grin and an absurd amount of white foam plastered on his chin and cheeks. There's something — a flosser, Gale realizes — gripped in his little hand like a makeshift razor. He looks so much like every picture she's ever seen of Dewey at that age.

Gale walks into the bathroom, fingers trailing past her husband's waist and up into her son's light brown hair, leaving a light kiss on the crown of his head. "You could have gotten me up," she says, her eyes meeting Dewey's in the mirror.

"I know, but—"

"Mama, I'm a grown up like Daddy," Wes interrupts as a lump of shaving cream drips from his chin and into the sink.

"Yes, you are," she replies and reaches for a washcloth to wipe the rest off of his face. "For as much of a grown-up as your daddy is."

Wes doesn't entertain the meaning behind her snarky reply, instead racing out of the bathroom as Dewey huffs a laugh in her direction. "You're with him all day and I haven't been… I wanted to give you a break."

"I know." Gale drops her frustration and pulls her toothbrush from the cup on the counter.

Dewey takes the moment to change the subject. "So, uh, you going to Sid's signing? I think it would be really nice if you did. It's her first time back since her dad died. I'd go if I could, but I gotta work, you know… Not that you don't have to. You know what I mean. I hear, uh, writer's block is awful."

She holds the eye roll in, a reaction that has softened over time — with him, at least. He gets nervous when he puts his foot in his mouth, even eleven years into a commitment, a ten year marriage, and after four years parenting together so she has learned to adapt her edges to his, well, lack of edges. "Yeah, writer's block is awful, but not as hard as getting nail polish out of the carpet when your son refuses to give me enough peace to work."

"I'm sorry."

"Yeah. I know."

—

Dewey leaves Wes with a hug followed by a promise that he'll be home in time for a bedtime story tonight — a promise he hopes he can keep — and throws a sincere "I love you" to Gale over his shoulder as he heads for the front door. She returns the sentiment, and for a second, the routine feeling that envelopes their actions has him wondering if he should take the day off. But he's missed two calls from Deputy Hicks and three from the station so just as quickly as the thought came, he's following the unanswered messages out the door instead.

Their little neighborhood in the heart of Woodsboro is quiet this early in the morning and only one car passes Dewey as he walks down the path from the front porch toward his SUV. It's Kirby Reed, a high school senior, driving way too fast for his liking as both law enforcement and the parent of a young child that lives on this street. He yells after her, only faintly able to hear an apology over the music and mutters her name under his breath.

Teenagers. The carseat in his backseat that belongs in Gale's car — his mother has their spare — reminds Dewey that they'll have one of their own in about a decade.

…

Not bothering to go into the station first, Dewey drives to town square to follow up with Deputy Hicks as she watches maintenance workers pull Ghostface masks down from every lamppost along the pathway. It's the anniversary of the first killings — the fifteenth anniversary of his sister's death — and for a moment, he can't believe he'd forgotten that.

Judy doesn't seem to bother acknowledging it either. "Morning, Sheriff."

"Morning, Deputy," he responds, looking up at the man on a ladder with a mask in his hand. "Morning, Joe."

"Morning, Sheriff."

"Looks like the celebration's begun."

"High school kids, probably."

Dewey sighs, "Yeah. One generation's tragedy is another one's joke."

He tries not to get lost in the memory of that night — of that original tragedy, and of the cult following the incident gained thanks to incessant media coverage and a franchise of poorly made films. Gale is no longer attached to them, she hasn't been since the third set of killings, and he wonders if the coming generations of high schoolers will hold any sort of empathy for this town's dark history. If not, he hopes that his now four year old son won't be in on or become part of the joke someday.

"Sorry you can never get away from this. You know, I wish I'd been old enough to be a part of the force when you were solving those crimes. It's those intense investigations that really bond relationships," Judy admits. She means well — he thinks — but this isn't the first of her remarks about his past and his personal life.

Running a hand through his hair, Dewey tries to hide his own embarrassment. It's second-hand based on Deputy Hicks' somewhat pathetic attempts at stepping into something she has no part in. His life. His marriage. He, of course, knows of the relationships that can transpire because of an intense investigation. He's lived one. He has a wife and a son because of it. "Well, yeah."

"How is Gale, by the way?"

"Gale's good. She's writing." He lies, because though he can't tell her to mind her own business, his deputy has no right to the inside of his home-life. "Fiction."

"Hey, I made some lemon squares. They're in my car."

"Thanks, Deputy, but no thanks."

Unable or unwilling to take the hint, Judy shoves the Tupperware into his hands. "Sheriff, you're not cheating on your wife if you eat my lemon square."

"Yeah, but I would be cheating on my diet," Dewey deadpans. He wouldn't be cheating on Gale if he accepted a baked good from his deputy, but it's the contrast of this reality that's gone over her head that still applies. Judy believes that something is lacking in his life, in his marriage, and on some level, she sees herself as making up for that. As being the sort of woman that he longs for. But that isn't the truth and couldn't be further from the truth because Dewey has never longed for a small town, middle class suburban housewife who cooks and cleans and bakes lemon squares or brownies or muffins. He isn't longing for a member of the PTA because he longs for Gale Weathers, even a decade into their marriage where it aches to be away from her or kills them both when they fight; a woman whose bark is just as bad as her bite, who has enough fire to make him lose his mind. Dewey has never wanted a housewife, he wants an equal, a challenge and even at their worst, even when they struggle with routine and imbalance, he has that. Gale isn't just the woman who chose to marry him and raise a child, she's the woman who has been in the trenches with him for fifteen years, who sees him for who he is and vice versa, who's better than him in so many ways. And Judy Hicks isn't that — she can't compete with that. So, no, he won't accept a baked good with some fictionally corrupt strings attached.

"Sheriff Riley!" Deputy Perkins radios in perfect timing. "Come in, Sheriff Riley!"

"This is Sheriff Riley. Go ahead."

"You gotta get over to the Randall house right away. It's bad, Sheriff. Real bad."

—

Some morning talk show interview with Nancy O'Dell and Sidney plays from the desktop in hers and Dewey's room as Gale dresses for the day, having abandoned yet another empty Word document in favor of time before Wes has to be at school.

Sidney speaks highly of Gale, noting that the past is in the past even in spite of the multitude of Stab movies manifesting from her books, which is completely true. There's no longer any animosity between the two — hell, Sid's practically an aunt to her son — and even despite her own jealousy regarding the other woman's free time, current press, and lack of writer's block, both women have created some semblance of a sisterhood having faced five masked murderers and Gale's decade long marriage to Sidney's pseudo-brother together. She can be proud of her friend's success and envious of it at the same time.

Gale decides then that Dewey had been right — she should show her support, even if she would be a little late to Sid's event. She begins rummaging through the closet.

There's something so Gale Weathers about the form-fitting, too expensive for a Sheriff's wife, deep purple dress-blazer combo and too impractical to chase a toddler in heels that she decides on — trading in what had become her usual athletic leisure — as she straps her son into the carseat that Dewey had thankfully remembered to put back in her own car. Her hair falls past her shoulders in curls today, absent of the routinely messy bun or ponytail, too.

She feels almost as cutthroat and ruthless as the hardly thirty year old version of herself in neon with a tacky dye job. She finds that she still loves it.

"Mama, you look pretty," Wes says from the backseat, his dimpled cheeks and big hazel eyes flashing up at her in the rearview mirror. Give him twenty-one years, a mustache, a badge, and a few crinkles around the eyes and Gale would swear she was looking at her husband the first time they ever really spoke. If I do say so, Miss Weathers, you are much prettier in person.

"Thank you, baby." Gale puts the car in reverse, backing out of the driveway.

…

A crowd of Woodsboro's inhabitants has formed around Sidney Prescott by the time that Gale arrives after dropping her son off at school. Sid reads a passage from her novel, seeming slightly uncomfortable under the eyes of everyone applauding and Gale again can't help the bit of jealousy that creeps up. It is childish, but she doesn't care because she's not envious of her friend or of her success, she just… feels a little bit self-effacing these days.

"Gale," Sid says once she spots her. "I'm glad you came."

"Congratulations, Sidney. I haven't had a chance to read it yet, but…" she admits.

"I know where you can get a copy."

Gale chuckles and Sidney reaches for her, each pulling the other into a hug. They've come a long way, the two of them, and years have softened both the physical and metaphorical blows they have taken at the hands of the other.

"But seriously," Sid adds, "I'm sure you hardly have time to think let alone read a novel with Wes running around."

"You're right about that."

The other woman pulls back, "Where is he, by the way?"

"School. Pre-school," Gale replies. "I had to drop him off on the way."

"Pre-school already? Well, I'll have to come by and see him while I'm here. Maybe take him off your hands for a bi— Dewey!"

Looking over her shoulder, Gale's eyes land on her husband just as Sidney pulls him into a hug.

"Hey, Sid. Gale, you made it," Dewey says.

And because she knows him, because she knows Dwight Riley better than anyone, Gale knows that he's not here for a reunion. He's here officially, on police business, and something is very very wrong. "What's going on, Dewey?"

"Sid, I'm sorry," he feigns ignorance. "I've gotta do something here. I'm really sorry."

Police sirens sound as the sheriff aims to control the crowd and throw out commands, but it isn't long before his little blonde sidekick tries to step in and step on toes. Gale watches Sidney hide the smirk that comes with her own scoff.

"Can this wait, Barney Fife?" Sid's agent, Rebecca, asks, clearly taking note from The Woodsboro Murders. "I'm running an event here."

"Ma'am, this is a police event now," Dewey interjects, looking from the woman to Sid and Gale.

"What is going on?" Gale asks again, keeping her voice low as she pulls him aside.

Judy butts in, "Gale, this is police business. If you could just let us handle this—"

"I'm talking to my husband, Deputy Judy," she backfires with as much annoyance as she feels necessary, and Gale faintly feels Sidney reach for her arm.

Much to Judy's dismay, her husband gives in ever-so slightly, "Listen, there's a phone we believe may have been taken from the scene of a crime. Deputy Hicks has traced its location back to these coordinates. The rest… is need-to-know."

"I'm not 'need-to-know'?" She is, or thinks that she should be but Dewey moves away from her, dialing the number of the missing cell phone instead.

"Sheriff! It's ringing out here!" Deputy Hoss calls from outside the bookstore.

The group rushes out — the police, Gale on Dewey's heels, followed by Sid, Rebecca, and a few of the store's patrons. The ringing is traced back to the trunk of a rental car.

"Dewey," Sidney says.

"Gonna need everyone to stay back!" Hicks interrupts.

"Not now, Sid."

"It's my rental," she says, leaving the crowd around the vehicle to look up to her in surprise. Rebecca tosses Dewey the keys.

A gasp echoes from Dewey's deputies once the lid of the trunk lifts open, and Gale can't help the sinking feeling that settles in her stomach. A mask, a bloody knife, and various promotional photos of Sidney are strewn inside and it all just… feels too familiar. If it's a joke, it's a cruel joke, but the writer — the investigator — that lives inside of Gale Weathers-Riley knows better.

It's happening again.

She reaches for Sidney, thinking of the seventeen year old girl nearly killed by her own boyfriend, of the college student that stood on an auditorium stage and fought through stab and bullet wounds with her, of the fear that dissipated from Sidney, dripping like fresh blood, as she killed her murderous illegitimate half-brother. Then she thinks of Dewey now controlling the scene, and of each of the nine stab wounds covering his body. She thinks of the nerve damage that keeps him up some nights, of the limp that took him years to overcome, of the number of times he has nearly died in front of her. And she thinks of Wes, her four year old son, who knows nothing of the tragedy his parents have been through, who has seen no bloodshed, no death, and knows the marks of hers and Dewey's past injuries as a sign of their bravery but not how they got them. She thinks that if this is happening again, her child is a target. Her family is a target.

Gale decides then and there that she has to know, she has to be a part of this for Sidney's sake, for Dewey's sake, for her son's, and for her own. It's ambition that drives her too, but the need to end this once and for all radiates through her, anxiety driven by fear, by her fear of losing the most important people in her life.

"Please tell me this is a prank, Dewey," Sidney says.

"I'm afraid not."

He ushers Sid into his cruiser while Gale tries to get a closer look at the inside of the trunk. She fights through Judy, who's guarding it in a way Gale knows she wishes she could gate-keep her husband, and takes in the blood smeared pictures of her friend along with the mask and the knife. She wants answers.

…

"It could all be something right out of a Gale Weathers bestseller, and where is she now? Well, living right here in Woodsboro as the wife of Sheriff Dwight Riley."

The media has already taken to the streets outside of the Woodsboro Police Department, plying Dewey, his deputies, and random bystanders with questions by the time Gale arrives. She escapes the reporters and heads in through the side entrance, stopping by a box of dry, trying-too-hard-to-fuck-someone-else's-husband lemon squares at the front desk. She would know they were made by Hicks whether she pressed for details or not. Appalling.

"Mrs. Riley." One of the young deputy's greets as she walks through the bullpen.

"Hoss."

"First Lady," another smirks in passing.

"Perkins."

They're kiss asses, all of them, but it doesn't hurt to have her husband's deputies behind her — most of his deputies — whenever she comes around, and when she has Wes with her, their thirty minute lunch breaks tend to become a solid hour of babysitting done by Woodsboro's finest. Gale can't complain about that either.

As soon as Gale arrives at Dewey's office, she finds Judy standing guard. The blonde puffs her chest as if ready for a fight, fully adamant on standing her ground. It's clear that the younger woman has not had the chance to go toe to toe with her boss' wife. "Excuse me, Gale. He's conducting an interview."

"Great. I love interviews." She moves to get around Judy.

"You'll have to wait, Gale. Sorry, I can't let you in there."

Gale scoffs, "What are you gonna do, arrest me, Deputy Judy?"

"If it comes to it. Civilian interference with a police investigation poses many a problem in a court of law."

"Okay, listen to me, Judy," she bites. "I don't mind that you're working with my husband, or that you even bake him those little treats as you do. But if you're gonna start acting like him, you gotta put a mustache on because you sound ridiculous."

She moves for the door again and Judy continues to block her, yelling her name until Dewey pulls it open. "Deputy! Gale!"

"Dewey, would you please explain to Betty Crocker that I have every right to be here? If there's been another murder in Woodsboro, obviously—" Dewey grabs her arm, gently ushering her into his office after Sidney excuses herself. "What?"

"That is not public information!"

"It is all over the internet, Dewey!" Gale exclaims, her exasperated tone suffocating his apparent naivety.

"It is?"

"Yes! The whole world knows about it before me!"

Judy takes this moment to interrupt, throwing a belittling comment through the open doorway. "She wants to be a part of the investigation, Sheriff."

Dewey sighs and Gale rubs her forehead, trying to gauge how much attitude will or won't make even more of a scene. "Ha, okay. Hang on. Are you familiar with the phrase 'I wrote the book on this'?" She asks Judy, slamming the door against the blonde woman's back.

"Gale, with all due respect, I don't see how that pertains to—"

"Because I wrote the book on this!" She argues. "The Woodsboro Murders by Gale Weathers?"

Dewey nods, trying to check his tone. "But you're not a reporter anymore, Gale. And even if you were—"

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Don't treat me like the media," she raises her hand between them defensively, fighting his objections. "I helped solve these things. Three times, remember? You and me, together."

"But I'm the sheriff now, Gale."

"Right?" It takes a moment for his nod in agreement to sink in before she understands exactly what he means. He is the sheriff, and it would be unprofessional — in his eyes, in his superiors and subordinates eyes — to allow a civilian in on the investigation, much less a civilian that he happens to be involved with. Even if she, again, wrote the book on this. "What? You're not going to let me help you with this?"

"I can't." Dewey replies, attempting to stand his ground. The stoicism might be sexy if he weren't denying her a role in solving a spree of murders that changed her life, too.

"You can't? What do you mean 'you can't', Dewey? This… this sick fuck is after Sidney, so it's safe to assume that they're after both of us, too and if they're after us, then Wes isn't safe either. You can't keep me out of this if my child is in danger."

"He's my son, too, Gale!"

"Exactly, Dewey! I know!"

"And you're my wife. What am I supposed to do? Put both of your lives in danger?" Dewey raises his voice just slightly, a hint of fear embedded in his tone. "I can't… I can't do that."

"I'm not asking you to do that."

"Yeah, you are."

"No, you're trying to protect me and Wes the best way that you can, I know that. But I'm asking you to let me protect you and our son the best way that I can. I need to be in on this."

Dewey falters but manages to stand his ground.

"Fine," Gale surrenders. She knows that he wants to protect her, but she isn't about to be the wife who sits at home while her husband and her friend are killed, or while a serial killer puts a target on her four year old's back. She knows that Dewey isn't doing this because he doesn't trust her or because he doesn't think she can handle her own. He's doing this because their life has changed in the decade since the last round of Ghostface killings, and he can't bear to lose her the way that he has lost so many others. But even so, the anger gets the best of her and Gale decides, against her better judgment, to throw a tabloid trash crime journalist style tantrum in the name of being treated like an invalid. "Then I'm going rogue. This is what I'm good at, Dewey. This is what I know how to do."

Turning on a heel, she walks straight toward the door and pulls it open with more force than intentional. She's pissed — she's hurt and upset — and she's been stuck in this role of wife and mother who writes fiction on the side for far too long now, so she needs to be out there. It's her chance to have that momentum back, to prove that she's not just this person; her chance to prove that she can use what she knows and what she does best to protect her family.

Deputy Hicks is still by the door as she leaves the room and Gale stops, venom lacing her words as she says to the other woman, "Your lemon squares taste like ass."

—

"They don't. They really don't," Dewey insists apologetically, always trying to keep the peace as he watches Gale walk out of the precinct, determination tensing in her shoulders as its' fire draws down the purple of her dress and through the strut of her stiletto clad feet. Fuck.

"Thank you, Sir."

"Sheriff." Perkins says as he approaches.

"Yeah?"

"We've got a couple high school kids in here. Two of them, they say they got threatening phone calls this morning from the victims' phones. Names are Olivia Morris and Jill Roberts."

Jill and Olivia. They are teenagers that Dewey has known most of their lives, the former being Sidney's younger cousin while the ladder has been roped into whatever trouble Jill and Kirby had managed to get themselves into since the girls were pre-teens.

"That's Sid's cousin. Damn."

Hearing of Jill's involvement makes his heart sink just slightly because as Gale had predicted, a member of Sidney's family becoming a target likely because of their relation puts a potential target on their son's back, regardless of his age. Regardless of the fact that none of the previous killers had ever harmed someone younger than about sixteen.

…

The station's makeshift interrogation room that looks much more like some conference board room contains three teenage girls when Dewey walks in, Judy and Sidney in tow. Kirby, Jill, and Olivia sit on one side of the table — a look of panic on Olivia's face, annoyance on Jill's, and Kirby looks like she's either on the verge of making a joke or starting a fight. He isn't sure.

Sidney and Jill exchange greetings while Dewey takes a seat on the other side.

"So, two of you got phone calls?"

"Yeah, us two," Jill points between Olivia and herself. "'What's your favorite scary movie?'"

"It was the killer's voice," Kirby adds. "From Stab. Or, I mean, you know, from your life. I'm Kirby, by the way. I'm their friend."

"And the killer didn't call you?"

The blonde begins to panic, "No. Is that a bad thing? Does that mean I'm not gonna live as long as these two?".

"No," Dewey says, a slight twinge of humor in his tone. "Maybe. Of course not. Just be careful."

"Oh my god, did you hear that? I'm gonna be next!"

Known for her dramatics, Dewey's attention falls from Kirby and back to Sidney, who insists that she should leave town but it's only a second of protest before Deputy Hicks steps in — annoyingly fast and overly eager as she is — and insists that she can't leave.

"Nobody thinks you're involved but everyone's a suspect, I'm sorry."

"And there was evidence in your car connecting the killer to you. You may be a material witness."

"So, look, you'll have twenty-four hour police surveillance," promises Dewey, though he feels like maybe he should apologize for that. Sidney has never liked the idea of being babysat, much less by cops that were in grade school during the first attacks.

—

Gale struts out of the sheriff's department, anger in each of her steps. The walk from Dewey's office to the front of the building has done nothing to calm her, instead making her even more determined and, well, in a hurry to pick up her son. She would have put Dewey on kid duty had she thought of it during their argument. Just for the sake of pettiness.

"Excuse me, I have to geek out," Rebecca exclaims, stepping in front of Gale. "I didn't get a chance to say something earlier, but it's such an honor to meet you."

"Oh, thank you."

"Rebecca Walters."

"Hi."

"When I was a kid, it was all about Top Story with Gale Weathers. You were my nineties."

Gale fakes a smile in an attempt to suppress an eyeroll. "Well, it's Gale Riley now."

"You gave it all up for love, I know that. How long have you and Dewey been married?"

"Ten years."

"Aww," Rebecca fibs. "Just like your characters in Stab 3. Wow."

"'Wow'." She mocks, passing Sidney's nuisance of a PR agent.

"I didn't mean bad wow. It just always seemed like more of a movie romance than a real one because it was a movie. In real life, you two would never be…"

Rebecca's words trail off but silently, Gale practically begs her to finish them. To give her a place to put the anger she's feeling, and where better than in the face of someone questioning her compatibility with the man she married and conceived a child with. She and Dewey; they aren't perfect but they've fought long and hard for what they have. How dare someone trivialize that? Especially based off of an inconsistent portrayal in a poorly executed slasher franchise.

"Oooh, dug a hole. Climbing out here. So, anyway, kudos on being brave enough to drop off the professional map. Any plans on revitalizing your tarnished brand?"

Gale stops dead in her tracks, turning to face the younger woman with a rival of arrogance in her wake. "Listen, in about two seconds, I'm gonna revitalize your face with my tarnished brand."

"Ooh!" Rebecca backs off, stepping back like she has been burned — and maybe she has.

"I've still got it," Gale smirks to herself, allowing the momentum to carry her down the street toward her car. Turns out that settling down in a little town full of white picket fences, marrying the local sheriff (then deputy), and having a kid hadn't robbed her of the cutthroat demeanor after all.

…

A few hours later, she finds herself digging through an old box of notes and newspaper clippings on the living room floor. Wes is playing across the room, and just as he manages to throw a toy truck through a makeshift block building, the front door opens. It's not abnormal this time of day — it's usually Dewey taking a late lunch break or his mother dropping by for a visit with her grandson, but today, it's neither.

"Aunt Sidney!" Wes exclaims, abandoning his toys mid-play before charging toward the front door. Sid bends down to give him a hug and a good once over before flashing an apologetic smile Gale's way.

"Wow, Mister Wesley," she notes, scanning him from head to toe. "You've grown a whole foot since the last time I saw you."

"How many is that?" He asks, curious as ever.

"Um…"

"Why do you call me by my whole big name?"

Sid laughs. "Because you call me by my 'whole big name', so maybe it's our thing."

Wes' face morphs into his big, boyish Dewey Riley inherited grin before dragging the other woman into the living room by the hand.

"Sorry for crashing," Sidney says once she notices the newspaper clippings from the past Ghostface attacks cluttering the coffee table.

Gale shrugs, "You're always welcome here, Sid. Dewey have you under twenty-four hour surveillance until…?"

"Yep. I'm staying with Kate and Jill, but he wanted to run credentials on everyone before I get set up there tonight so I figured… Well, actually I figured I would stop by here first and pass on a couple of developments that transpired after you took off."

"Oh, so he told you that I'm going 'rogue' because he won't let me in on the investigation?" Stealing a quick look at her son, their conversation lost on him, Gale decides not to add more to her explanation.

The younger woman chuckles, "No. I could tell by the way you walked out of there that you were on a mission. For what it's worth, though, I don't agree with him, you know, keeping you out of this."

"Thanks."

It's a little too close to dinner time for a snack, but Gale sets Wes up with animal crackers and a movie before moving her research and leading Sidney into the kitchen where they can talk uninterrupted and sans innocent ears. Her son may be a target or at least one by proxy, but that doesn't mean that he needs to know the inner workings of the lives she, Dewey, and Sidney lived long before he had ever been a thought.

Sidney explains the calls from the morning — Olivia's first, and Jill's while both girls had been in the car with Kirby on their way to school. It was the same voice that haunted their lives years earlier; the steady monotone with an eerie buzz that sent chills up the spine of the victim on the other end of the phone. The caller drawled on, asking the same question she had heard that first night, all alone in the Prescott house on Elm. It's a night that both women recall clearly, from different perspectives of course. The first night that Sidney had been chased through her home by a teenage boy in a mask until then-Deputy Dewey arrived, Tatum not far behind, only to escort Billy Loomis down to the station. Gale, on the other hand, remembers showing up at the scene. She remembers seeing Tatum but not Sidney, and catching what may have been her first glimpse of the man she would end up marrying.

"Both of their calls came from the victims' cell phones. The girls were classmates of theirs like… like Casey and Steve the first time so Jill and Olivia are pretty shaken up by it."

"Like you were?"

Sidney shrugs. It's hard for either of them to think about the emotions trapped by the memory of those first few days.

"You said that Jill and Olivia were shaken up by it. What about Kirby?"

"Kirby was more bothered by not getting one. Dewey kind of… stuck his foot in his mouth and said that it may or may not mean she's the next target. You don't think Kirby could be the killer, do you?"

Shaking her head, Gale looks down at the past newspaper clippings on the kitchen island. "Well, I've left my kid with her before so I sure as hell hope not."

A grimace falls upon Sidney's face and Gale can tell she's thinking the same as her. "Nothing is going to happen to him, Gale."

"I know," she replies, not quite believing her own words. Even in the beginning, she and Dewey had been adults that willingly stepped into this mess but now… now they had a child. An innocent, vulnerable little boy that didn't belong anywhere near any of it. If she were smart, maybe she would take him and get the hell out of dodge for a while but that would leave Dewey alone and she just… she couldn't do that. That isn't who she is or what she does.

—

The sky is already darkening around Woodsboro once Dewey arrives at the Roberts family house, leading deputies Hicks, Perkins, and Hoss in perimeter patrol before seeking Sidney out inside. He finds her alone in the living room while her Aunt Kate, Jill, and Kirby converse in the kitchen.

"Hey, Sid," he says, taking a seat on the couch next to her. "How are you holding up?"

"I'm… hanging in there," Sidney replies honestly, looking from her family in the other room back to the sheriff next to her. "How are you? How's Gale? I stopped by the house earlier to see her and Wes, but you know how it is when he's around."

"Kid's not much of a conversationalist? Bit of an attention hog?" Dewey chuckles knowingly. "I'm good. But Gale… It's been hard on her. Small town, small-town husband. Not much to write about. And even if there were, Wes is a handful."

He feels guilty, to be perfectly honest. He knows that they chose this, but increasingly more so in the last few years, it's felt a lot more like he boxed her into the town that he couldn't seem to want to get out of with a ring and a kid while her career as a journalist and a reporter took a deep dive. Gale had always been happiest when she was writing and lately… Well, lately she hasn't written anything at all.

Sidney looks at him sadly, concern carved into her features. "You two okay?"

"I read somewhere once, 'Just when you think things can't get any worse, sometimes they don't. Sometimes they get better.' Out of Darkness by Sidney Prescott, page 220," he chuckles, before another thought involving the word "book" registers in his memory. "Shit."

"What?"

"I've… It's too late but I've gotta get going," Dewey explains, mentally kicking himself for breaking yet another promise to his kid. "I promised Wes that I would be home in time to read to him tonight but… shit, he went down an hour ago. I'm sure bedtime was rough. I've gotta call Gale."

"Good luck. You know, Dewey," she stops him as he begins to leave the house. "You're a good parent. You both are. I mean that."

"I don't know about that but thanks. And, Sid? We'll get through this."

Dewey tells her to lock up as he heads toward the cruiser in the street, fishing the cell phone from his pocket. Gale will have something to say about yet another missed nighttime routine, as she should, and dammit, he really needs to get better about this. She didn't sign up for this. She didn't agree to do this alone when he became the sheriff and besides, Dewey doesn't want to be an absentee parent or husband either.

As soon as he's in the front seat of his SUV, he reconsiders the call, though. The house is minutes away — just one neighborhood up the street — so making an appearance feels more adequate than a phone call. It won't be calling it an early night, that's for sure, but at least Dewey will be home to face the music in person.

He puts the car in drive and drives up the street.

The front porch light is on and Gale's car is in the driveway when he gets home, the same way it is most evenings. There are a few circumstances when this differs — when his mom takes Wes for the night, on girls night or date night but for the most part, it's yet another routine sense of normalcy that he steps into.

Shutting the door quietly, he walks through the entryway and toes his boots off by the stairs, leaving them amidst Gale's abandoned heels and their four year old's favorite light up dinosaur rain boots. Wes' jacket has fallen from the hook above the pile so he reaches down, returning it to its place.

"He's already out," Gale announces from the kitchen at the other end of the hall. She flips the hall light on and begins to move toward her husband.

Dewey sighs, shaking his head apologetically. "I know. I'm sorry."

"It's fine," she shrugs. "He was too excited about seeing Sid to get worked up about it anyway, but you do owe him a whole day at the park on your next day off."

A whole day at the park with a four year old means two hours and an ice cream cone — mint, his and Gale's favorite — while the rest of the day is spent running errands to do his part and give her a day. Dewey can certainly manage that.

"He drives a hell of a bargain," he chuckles.

"Mhmm."

It's her subtle way of providing him her own list of consequences because she's upset. Because they fought — hours earlier they fought in the sheriff's office of a crowded police station in the middle of a murder investigation, and their relationship has been tense for awhile now. Years, maybe, at this point but there's something about the ease between them even after today as he steps forward, fingers trailing up her arm. It's not sexual — he's not trying to turn her on, but it's comfortable. It's marriage; the intimate ease of someone else knowing you better than anyone, for every fault and flaw and scar. "Hi." he whispers.

"Hi," she sighs softly, tension falling away under his fingertips.

Dewey hates to even bring it up, but… "I'm sorry… about today. I just—"

Gale cuts him off, "I know. I understand where you're coming from, Dewey, I do but I'm not… I can't let this go. I won't."

"I know you won't. I mean, I— I wish you would but I know you won't."

"A part of me…" she laughs weakly, "A part of me thinks that I should take Wes and get out of here until all of this blows over."

"You can. I mean, that's… you could take the kid and go see your cousin in Sea—"

"—No. No, I can't."

"Why not?"

Gaze softening, she tilts her head slightly as if to get a better, more sincere look at his face. As if to imply that her answer is obvious. "Why not? Dewey, because you would still be here, you idiot."

His wife is a lot of things. She can be ruthless, she can be ambitious, and she can a bitch — he means that endearingly — but he knows better than to believe that she doesn't care more deeply than most people he has ever met. It had been his draw to her initially, he thinks, because where everyone else saw a narcissistic, tacky tabloid journalist looking for a break, he saw the person beneath the facade. The woman who wanted to help, the woman who worked her ass off to save people through their stories. The woman who carried her vulnerability so deeply, forced down as if it were a weakness. What he learned instantly, others learned overtime but there was a genuine heart hidden behind her own mask of pantsuits and pageturners, the fierce need to protect what was hers. For years, Dewey had been behind that shield she upheld; a shield that had grown tenfold since she became a mother. So he forces himself to understand what she's saying, where she's coming from, when she makes the choice to be here, with him. "Okay."

They stare at each other for a moment in silence, hazel eyes meeting blue as they try to meet in the middle of whatever this is but it's only another moment before his phone rings in his pocket.

"Sheriff Riley."

Another victim. Another teenage girl, this time the third to Jill Roberts' and Kirby Reed's trio, Olivia Morris. The girl had been slain in her bedroom while the other two watched from the house next door. The house where Sidney was currently staying.

"What is it?" Gale asks as he hangs up the call.

He sighs. "Another attack. I'm sorry, babe. I have to—"

"Go." She isn't completing his sentence, she's giving him permission, an out from the apology on his lips, to do the job that he loves. The job that he does best.

—

It's only in the moment that the front door clicks closed behind Dewey that it truly hits Gale what just happened. Another child killed, just down the street from their place — their house where their own child sleeps upstairs — and it's another solidifying factor as to why she has to be involved in this case. She can't leave her sleeping kid to run down to the scene, and she sure as hell can't imagine bringing him with her, so instead, Gale decides on the next best option.

Reinforcements.

Surely there will be a press conference following the recovery of Olivia Morris' body, likely at the hospital or at the station, which means that she has roughly an hour to make her move. The next step comes easily before she has time to reconsider and Gale's phone is in her hand, pulling up Dewey's mother's contact while picking an overwhelmingly pink blazer paired with a chunky necklace from her closet. With that, she collects the all too familiar supplies of a job she left behind, the adrenaline of being a journalist in the crowd flowing through her bloodstream, weaving through her DNA. She's ready for this. She can do this, even if it will be the first time that questions typically directed at the county sheriff will instead be directed at her husband. The county sheriff.

She manages to pull herself together by the time that her mother-in-law arrives; the fear and worry in the old woman's eyes a feeling that Gale knows deep within herself. Dewey's mother promises to look after Wes, admitting that she's sure her daughter-in-law will do the same for her own son. "Dewey, that boy, he needs you. Even when he thinks he can do it on his own."

…

The scene outside of the hospital is buzzing by the time that Gale arrives, checking her phone once more to make sure that there are no missed calls or messages as she climbs out of the car to join the gathering press, Woodsboro community members, and apparently a few high school students gawking at the scene.

Two of the students; two boys that hardly look older than her own son, have taken it upon themselves to narrate the events from what looks to be a camera attached to one of their heads. She recognizes them as two of the kids involved in the film club at the high school.

"Our local legacy, the Stab movies, is coming to life," the one with the camera says.

Gale finds a window to quickly approach. "Excuse me, are you recording with that thing?"

"Live video-blog upload," the other answers. "He's webcasting right now."

"Oh," she feigns understanding. "Mind turning it off for a little old school off the record?"

"Can't. Owe it to my audience."

"Turn that fucking thing off."

The boy with the camera reacts as if he's been scorned, shutting the camera off immediately. "Okay."

"So, you two are the boys that run the movie club at Woodsboro High?"

"Well," Camera Boy replies, "Charlie runs it. I'm just VP in case he takes a bullet."

"It's called Cinema Club," Charlie, apparently, corrects in the nerdy, ego-fueled way that boys believe makes them intelligent and assertive.

"So you must have a very unique insight into the movie buffs at your school."

"Maybe."

"What if we could catch the killer by working together?" Gale says, enticing them in a way that's solely fishing for detail. "Two generations of cutting edge journalists intertwining our passions for media? What would you say?"

Camera Boy answers instantly, "I love you."

"Very good." Exactly what she wanted. "Now you give me your expertise on the gore geek scene at Woodsboro High and maybe I give you something in return. Say, a celebrity appearance to your 'Cinema Club'? By me."

"What about Sidney?" Charlie asks.

"What about Sidney?"

"Yeah, you know her, right? I mean, you're friends with her?"

"No offense, but that'd be a big deal for Cinema Club. A visit from Sidney Prescott? I mean, she's the star."

Gale tries not to take offense to that. Tries. "Ooh. Yeah, she's Bella Swan to my Stephanie Meyer."

"Without the book sales and the box office."

"Or the vampires."

"Plus, Twilight is for pre-teen girls," Charlie adds in disgust. "Stab is for real film aficionados."

Or psychopaths. Besides, she and Dewey had found Twilight a bit over the top, but entertaining nonetheless. "Whatever."

It doesn't matter, Gale supposes, knowing that Sid will agree — not for the sake of press or for the satisfaction of two seventeen year old cinema geeks, but to help her friends, her family, and because they both know that Gale Weathers can worm her way into places and seek out information that the sheriff's department cannot. And that, her ability to pry behind the barriers of legality, will keep more people alive. It'll keep Wes, Dewey, Sid's aunt, her cousin, and the two of them safe. Gale will get these boys what they want and take it as a win.

…

Being the wife of one of the town's finest has perks, as she has learned, so making it up to the front row in the crowd full of on-lookers and reporters just as Dewey takes his place at the podium makes for an easy feat. He looks uncomfortable up there; his stoic facade a mask to those around him but of course, Gale knows better. Husband of the press hates press conferences — she could write a novel about that. Or at least a short story.

"This is an ongoing investigation but rest assured, we're pursuing a number of leads. The less I say about that, the better." He sounds awkwardly on-script. "So, I'm… taking questions."

An outburst of calls for the sheriff filters through the crowd, flashes from cameras directed at his face as reporters, news anchors, and the like try to get a word in. But Gale is a master at her craft, even now, and his name falling from her lips at the center of the front row grabs his attention first, stealing it from the rest. "Dewey!"

"Gale?"

"Any comment on the fact that these killings seem to resemble the pattern of the original Woodsboro Murders?"

"Hon?" Dewey covers the mic, quietly directing his deflection toward her. "Later."

"What?" she mouths back, annoyed. In shock.

"Sheriff, what was that?" Another reporter asks.

"As I was saying, uh, my officers are hard at work, and we just want the community to know that we are very close to bringing this whole situation under control—"

Screams echo through the crowd and Gale catches Dewey turn around as she looks up. Something — someone — comes plummeting from the roof of the hospital's attached parking structure. The body crashes down onto the KQWK news van, the force alone busting the lights as it craters into the roof. What the fuck?

Just as quickly as it happens, Dewey's officers are dispersing — running for the roof, running to start crowd control as Dewey himself climbs to the top of the van. Gale follows after him.

When he looks down at her, she throws him a pitying look. A look between I told you so and something sympathetic. "It's all under control, huh, Sheriff?"

"What am I supposed to say?"

"Listen, I may not be wearing a uniform, but I happen to have a lead and you don't. So let me know when you're back on Team Gale." She walks away then, unwilling to start a fight amidst an already chaotic crime scene and pushes through the mass hysteria of swarming reporters, "Move it, amateurs!"

—

The scene outside the hospital isn't officially locked down and cleaned up until a little after two and it's another hour before Dewey gets home for the night — finally. But he's too wired to sleep and too smart to know that pulling an all-nighter while trying to catch a serial killer is a bad mix. An individual impasse is where he lands instead, climbing the stairs to his and Gale's room though something — the anxiety in his chest knowing that his family is in danger — tells him to stop at the room down the hall. Wes' room.

The door is slightly ajar, as it always is, with the light of a night light casting a yellow glow across the wooden floor just outside. Dewey pushes the door open and leans against the frame, looking in at the four year old sound asleep in his bed.

He looks like Gale when he sleeps; all messy hair with a hand curled up next to his face, little lips stuck in a pout. It's the innocence that gets to Dewey the most — having seen the world in the worst of ways, from this town to this state to the country, and knowing that it could hurt Wes before he even has the chance to understand it. His son is safe and sound six feet away from him, but what happens when he isn't? What happens when Wes wakes up tomorrow, the sleepy face that looks like his mother's morphing into the miniature version of his father and there's more pain and suffering in the world he lives in? What happens if this time, they aren't so lucky? What happens if something happens to Gale or Dewey, himself?"

Dewey knows that Gale is right, on some level. He knows that they work best as a team. Always have, even in the days that she was the one to deny it. But he also knows the stakes of that team, the potential costs and he thinks about tonight — seeing her face in the crowd, knowing without a doubt that even though she was there with him, she had made sure that their son was protected and he thinks… He could never do this without her. He has the instincts to be a parent but Gale's… She just seems to know exactly what she's doing even when she doesn't and he can't do this without her. Any of it. He can't be a father or a sheriff or… The one thing he's been sure of for a long time, more sure of than anything else, is that he can't live without her. So he can't risk it, he can't risk her.

Not when he has everything to lose.

"Is this 'later'?" Gale's hushed voice comes from just outside the doorway of their own bedroom. She's in an old robe — his, not her own — and the floorboards creak under her bare feet.

Sighing quietly, Dewey looks from her back to their son. "Can it wait?"

She studies him, looking him up and down and taking it all in. The crumpled uniform — the shirt only half button — and the drained look in his eyes. Whatever Gale finds there, she gives into and hums a sigh of her own. "Yeah."

The subject is dropped quickly and neither speak again as she takes the spot opposite him in the doorway, a perfect sight line of Wes and they just watch him. His fluttering eyes and even breaths, chest moving up and down. He's safe and he's alive and both of his parents are alive. Dewey reaches for Gale upon realization that she's there, that his family is tangible, his fingers moving up her back and behind her neck, squeezing her shoulder.

The breath he releases is one that he hadn't realized he had been holding.

—

two.

There are no more murders over night. Thank god. The killer or killers, whoever he or she or they may be, must actually sleep so Dewey manages to take the morning off while Gale prepares to get Sidney fully on board with their little visit to Woodsboro High. An attempt had been made at the hospital only hours prior, but it was interrupted by a certain blonde deputy.

"Your mom can't take Wes until noon today," Gale fills her husband in as she fills her purse, stocking it with all the essentials she would need for a day out as well as the ones that she would need if a story broke. "And I can't miss this— I need to talk with Sid."

"It's fine, I've got him," Dewey replies, setting his cup of coffee on the kitchen island. He looks as exhausted as she feels but even so, stressed and anxious, she trusts him as a father. She trusts him more than anyone. "I'm gonna do what I can from the house but if something comes up, I'll figure it out. I don't really think," he lowers his voice, "It's a good idea to bring him to the station with me today, you know, with everything…"

Gale agrees. It's much more than just safety that their son needs. He needs to be sheltered from the investigation — from the blood and violence and deaths of people in his life. He's too young for the nightmares that have haunted hers and Dewey's lives for the last fifteen years.

"Yeah," she nods with a glance over her shoulder to catch the time on the clock on the microwave. It's just after eleven, and for as much as she would like to stay home with her husband and kid and pretend there isn't a psychopath after her friends and family, she knows that she has a lead to chase. One that could flip this whole investigation on its head. "Alright, I need to get going. I'll pick him up after—"

"I know," Dewey reassures her because of course, he knows. He trusts Gale the way that she trusts him, and though she will reiterate her demands until she's blue in the face, he understands that she needs to be able to control as much about this situation as she can.

Their four year old comes running into the room for a hug and a kiss goodbye then, noting the abnormalcy of Mommy going to work while Daddy stays with him as if it's a fun change of pace or an opposite day. He's the face of innocence plastered through a spree of murders and it breaks her heart a little.

"Bye, babe," Dewey says to her as he lifts Wes up into his arms. There's a look in his eye — one that Gale tries to ignore because she knows what it is. His worry, his fear. It's Dewey wishing that she could just let it go because in his mind, this incessant need for this story and to solve this case isn't worth risking her life. She can't fault him for that, but she has that man standing in front of her and the baby that they made in his arms to protect, too.

"Bye," Gale returns, reaching up to give him a quick kiss on the lips before hurrying out the door.

…

To her credit, Sidney agrees just as easily as Gale believed she was going to the night before. Any lead was necessary at this point, even if it meant skirting the police's investigation. So by the time the after school bell rings to release students for the day, she and the younger woman find their way through the halls of Woodsboro High School and into the classroom marked for Cinema Club.

As Robbie and Charlie had anticipated, the room is packed today.

"Okay, Cinema Club, we are now in session," Charlie states from the front of the classroom and Gale is already over this kid's attitude. "Tell you a little bit about ourselves; we are a sanctioned after school activity one rung below the Glee Club, two above Nintendo Wii Fit, and let me just say to our guest, Sidney Prescott, it's an honor."

Everyone in the room claps as Sidney stands uncomfortably, and Gale can't help but feel a little bad for throwing her to the wolves — or in this case, a hormone crazed jerk fest with walls immortalizing the trashy film franchise that depicts their lives, along with other horror films based entirely on fiction. She eyes a Halloween poster, The Hills Have Eyes, and Dawn of the Dead mixed with Stab and its' sequels. The sheer amount of paraphernalia covering the walls is surely not on par with fire regulations.

"Beyond Jamie Lee Curtis, forget Linda Blair. I mean, this is the ultimate," Robbie adds.

"Thanks, uh, I guess," Sidney replies before directing her question at his head gear. "This? You film your entire high school experience, and what? Post it on the net?"

"Everyone will be doing it someday, Sid."

"It's kind of the one component the killer is missing."

This peaks Gale's attention much more than anything else. "Wait, what do you mean?"

"Well, if you wanna be the new-new version, the killer should be filming the murders."

"Yeah, it's like the natural next step in a psycho slasher innovation. I mean, you film 'em all real time, and then before you get caught, you upload them into cyberspace."

The boys go on to explain that the killer is likely a Stab fan attempting their own remake as Robbie circles the room with his live video-blog. He captures Sid, Gale, and his classmates and it's in that moment that a "psst" sounds from a few rows over to call their attention. Kirby Reed holds her smartphone out between the aisle, the screen mirroring exactly what Robbie's camera records.

"Audiences become savvy to the rules of the originals, so the reversals become new standards," Charlie explains. "In fact, the only surefire way to survive a modern horror movie? You pretty much have to be gay."

"So, why are you so sure that the killer is working by the rules of a horror remake?" Gale asks.

"The original Stab structure is pretty apparent."

"Two kids killed in a house when their parents are away?"

"And then the school's 'hot chick' savages beyond recognition."

"We all know where it goes from there."

Sidney picks up on the clue first. "A party."

Both boys agree.

Taking the last few strides toward them, Gale raises an eyebrow, "So do you know of a party happening tonight?"

"Well, there's Stab-a-Thon."

Despite Sidney's concern of what a party while a murderer is on the loose could mean for these boys, their friends, and their lives, Charlie goes on to explain that "Stab-a-Thon" is a back-to-back screening of each of the seven Stab films, location need to know. Kids these days, so desensitized to trauma and tragedy that their own history has become a joke.

"You have to call it off," Sid insists, but Gale can tell that for as much as Charlie and Robbie apparently value their "star", they don't value her opinion on the cancellation of their plans.

Robbie argues, "It's Friday. I'm sure we're not the only party that's going on in Woodsboro."

The only one themed with murder, Gale thinks. "So where is this circle-jerk gonna take place?"

"So, who's ready for this Q&A?" An attempt at a diversion. It's cute that either of them think it will work..

"No," she stops them, "I really want the location."

Charlie refuses because again, a party full of teenagers watching a fictionalized murder documentary is apparently need to know.

"What, you're not gonna tell me? Really? We're working together, remember?"

Still, they refuse and Gale has had it. She's had enough. Taking Sidney's arm, she throws a "fuck you" to the boys and a "let's go" to her friend, the two women leaving the classroom. They got as much as they were going to anyway, she supposes.

…

"You gonna find out where that party is?" Sidney asks as they exit the high school.

"You bet your ass," Gale replies with enough confidence that it's pulling her own ego just slightly over the top. She stops for a second to check her own phone out of habit, noting that her last text from Dewey was sent ten after one when he'd dropped Wes off to head into the station. Other than that, she has no other notifications.

"Be safe, okay?" Sid tells her, clearly noticing the absentminded habit of checking in on her family. "I know why you're doing this and I… I do agree with you but I don't think I have to tell you that Wes and Dewey need you safe, too."

"I know." And she does.

…

When it comes down to it, finding the secret location of Stan-a-Thon isn't all that difficult after all. Kirby Reed's Cinema Club attendance was a sure-fire promise that she would be there, so as soon as Gale sees the seventeen year old's silver Toyota RAV4 pass the house, she pulls her car out of the driveway and follows, leaving just enough distance between the two as to not alert anyone of her presence.

Kirby leads her to an abandoned farm about a mile from Woodsboro's town limits and sure enough, the signage outside along with the bustling of teenagers and genre fans confirms that this is the place. Putting her plan into action, Gale buys a ghostface mask off of a vendor and slips into the farm with four wireless cameras — just enough to give her insight throughout the entire building before sneaking back out to her car. Once there, she pulls up her laptop and begins monitoring their feeds.

"Oh, yeah. Back on my game," she says, beginning to narrate what will hopefully become her next bestseller.

But before her external monologue can surpass the first full sentence, the first camera goes blank. Then the second, and the third, until the feed in the top left is looking directly at her — the hollowed, blackened eyes of Ghostface covering her cameras. "What the hell?"

There's a pit in her stomach telling her that this isn't just some kid partying in a purchased mask, it's the real deal and she needs to call Dewey. Now.

His contact is pulled up on her phone screen, her fingers dialing without a second thought.

"Gale, where the hell are you?" Her husband asks in a panicked tone, picking up after just two rings. She can tell that he's driving and likely going fast, over the speed limit in the way he rarely does unless the situation is dire. The last time Gale can recall a similar scenario had been the night he came rushing home after Wes took his first steps.

"I followed the kids to the Stab-a-Thon," she tells him. "There's an old abandoned farm on Fort Dillon Road. Listen, I've got it under surveillance but I think… I think the killer's about to make his move."

"What makes you so sure?"

"You do a remake to out-do the original. That's what the kids said. This party is all about the Stab movies, come on! How meta can you get?"

Gale can almost picture Dewey's expression. "How 'what-a' can you get?"

"I don't know. I heard them say it," she responds. "Dewey, listen to me. You have to get out here. Come on, you catch the killer, I get the story. We protect our kid. It's a win-win-win."

"Well, I thought you were going rogue, Gale." Childish.

"Oh, come… Are you serious? Come on. Don't be an ass, Dewey. You know what, forget it. Thanks for having faith in me. I gotta fix my equipment."

Angrily, Gale hangs up the phone.

—

"Gale!" Dewey yells, though the line has already gone dead. He was an ass, she was right, but he's worried about her, about Wes, and about this town that he is responsible for and the last thing she needs to be is reckless. So rather than re-dial her number or second guess her actions, rather than continue toward the station, Dewey mutters the word "shit" as he flips on his lights and hauls ass toward the abandoned farm on Fort Dillon Road. He knows the one.

The drive feels too slow even so, weaving in and out of traffic as his eyes scan for the dirt road in the dark. Panicking will get him nowhere, but this is Gale and there's a serial killer after everyone he loves and he's been an idiot. He let the pressure of this job — a job — get the best of him, and now the love of his life, the mother of his kid, the one person that he respects more than anyone believes that he has lost faith in her. If something happens to her… A train of headlights with blinkers indicating a right turn catches his eye and Dewey knows that he's made it.

The dirt road is a long stretch leading over a steep hill that hides just enough of the light and chaos that it's no wonder a group of teenagers believed they could stay under the radar here. He follows the strip, gravel crunching under his tires until Gale's SUV is in his sight. Dewey pulls up to it urgently, stepping out of his own vehicle and radioing for backup as he walks around to the driver's side, examining the scene for any sign of his wife.

She isn't there, but her laptop is positioned in view of the window and he can see each of the cameras pulled up on the screen. Two, three, and four are covered but Dewey can see as she uncovers the first, her face in the frame as she readjusts it. But the camera drops to her side and he knows her — he knows she's found something — yet before he can see exactly what it is, another terrifying image is caught behind her. The killer.

"Gale!" Dewey screams, knowing that she can't hear him but the air in his lungs is her name, her life and his heart drops into his stomach, plummeting into his feet as the mask moves closer. "Gale! Behind you!"

He's running. He's running with just one thought on his mind — one thought that contains a thousand others, but all the same, it's her, the thought of losing her. The need to get to her, to put himself between her and the killer like he has before. It's the need to protect her the way she does him every day.

His feet are numb on gravel and hay and grass, kicking up dirt in his wake as he screams her name over and over and over again. The sound echoes through the night, off the walls of the building ahead but it's not enough. It's not louder than the mass amount of people or the movie playing over mounted speakers. He's not loud enough and he doesn't feel fast enough, and he's not sure that any of this could be enough because she could be gone — dead — already or she could be dying in that moment and he could lose her because it's not enough. But he also knows Gale and he knows with every fiber of his being that she is stronger than others give her credit for. In fact, she might be the strongest, bravest person he knows.

There's just enough time to fire off one shot when Dewey finally makes it through the entrance of the open barn doors, spotting Gale up in the rafters with the killer hovering above her. There's a knife held just inches above her chest, and he watches the familiar blade plunge into her from his place below. It hits him upon seeing blood that for every wound she has endured, this is the first he's been witness for. It makes him feel sick.

Ghostface is gone a second later and Gale forces herself from the rafters, the roll evidence enough that she's at least alive and Dewey takes one last opportunity to make the shot and climb the ladder after the killer but in the end, the killer isn't there and he just… doesn't care about catching them more than he cares about the woman he loves bleeding out on the ground.

The woman he loves who has been a cop's wife for a decade and has been shot before, so it almost makes him laugh with relief — heartbrokenly — to see her lying with a hand over her wound, applying pressure as the blood seeps through her fingers. The killer got her in the right shoulder, missing anything vital and as long as she doesn't bleed out before him, she should live. But still, she took a nasty fall and that might worry him more than anything. "Put pressure on that," he says, though that's exactly what she's doing, but his mind is on autopilot running through what first-aid he's required to know for the job. He puts his own hand over hers.

"Did you catch him?" Gale asks weakly.

"No. Hopefully your cameras got something."

"They weren't the only ones, Dewey."

"What?"

"There's a webcam that's hidden up there. It was watching me."

"A webcam?" He asks in surprise, and the words "it was watching me" feel heavy because as they had both predicted, Gale had become a target and that meant…

"He's recording the murders."

"What?"

"This time…" she explains, forcing the words from her lungs with a breath of labored air, "he's making the movie."

EMS arrives a moment later, and it's when Deputy Hicks rushes in behind them that Dewey admits how little he cares about the investigation right now. Not because it's unimportant, or because the killer doesn't need to be caught but because his deputy wants him to climb up in the rafters to find the webcams and give her a statement and he just wants to be with his wife. To hold her hand, to ride in the ambulance next to her and protect her with everything that he is and has.

"It's okay. Go," Gale tells him as they load her onto the stretcher. "They need you."

"No." There isn't a single ounce of hesitation in his voice, nor a single part of him that believes this job is more important than being by her side. So, Dewey tosses his keys to another officer before following the paramedics, and hauls himself into the ambulance next to Gale, leaving his cruiser parked next to her car and his deputies to lock down the crime scene that nearly took everything from him.

The ride to the hospital is fast and short, but it feels too long because he's scared — they both are — and every regret about this case and the last year floods to the forefront of his mind as Dewey clings to Gale's blood coated hand with his own. He can feel the ring on her finger, the one he gave her the last time they went through this, when the injuries they'd managed to escape with weren't much more than a concussion and some rope burn. A lot has changed in the time since he gave her that ring, and she has given him and given up so much. For him. For their family.

The last thing he should have done was undermine her abilities.

…

"You're gonna be fine, alright?" Dewey insists — promises — as Gale is rolled into the emergency room. She's weak and covered in blood, but her grip on his hand is strong and he can't help but force every ounce of fight that he has into her. "I swear. No more 'on your own'."

He means that. With every fiber of his being, Dewey means that. Not during an investigation, not in their marriage, not raising their son. He'll give it all up if he has to — his career, this town. He'll give it up if it means that she is okay. "It's you and me, forever."

Gale smiles delicately, her skin more pale than usual from the loss of blood and it kills him to be the one in this position. She's resilient, she can handle it. She can watch him nearly die because she has before, more than once, and she can send him off to a job that jeopardizes his life every single day but he can't. He can't. Not with her.

The medics, doctors, and nurses transfer her from the gurney to a bed but it's all a blur as they pull Dewey away while he fights the shock and loss of contact.

"Dewey?" Gale calls for him.

"Yeah?" Urgently, he's gripping her hand in his again, holding it as tightly as he can.

"Promise me something."

"Anything."

"Tell Wes—"

"No, hon, you'll tell hi—"

"Dewey," she demands, forcing his own objections and reassurance back down his throat. "I need you to check on our son and tell him that I love him."

"I will," Dewey promises, but not because she will never get the chance. He can't accept that.

"And I need you to get back out there and catch that mother fucker." The fire and determination in her tone is her own promise made to that look in his eyes. It's a promise that she will be okay, that they will be okay, and she needs him — the one person that she trusts with everything — to end this. Tonight. For her, for him, for Sid. For Wes.

"Absolutely." He leaves a kiss on the back of her hand. "I love you."

"I love you."

…

Everything feels heavy — relief, fear — as Dewey walks out of the emergency room. His wife's blood is on his uniform, under his fingernails and he has to lean against the wall to catch his breath. To focus. To decide what to do and where to go next.

The first step, the most obvious, is to do as Gale requested and check on their son, so he searches his pockets for his phone. Hands still shaking, he calls his mother.

"Dewey!" She exclaims in relief as soon as she answers. "Are you okay? Is Gale okay?"

It's only then that he realizes this must be all over the news already and shit, he prays that Wes hasn't seen it. "Yeah, uh, yeah we're both uh, Gale's… She's awake and the doctors say that she's gonna be okay. Look, Ma, has Wes… Has he seen—"

"Oh, dear, no," his mother promises. "But he is a smart boy, Dwight. He knows that something is wrong."

"Put him on for me? Please?"

Dewey's mother puts Wes on the phone, and it takes a weight off of his chest hearing the four year old's voice as he rambles about his day with Grandma and the cupcake she gave him after dinner. He should be in bed, Dewey realizes, but at this moment, he's just grateful for their lives — Wes' and Gale's. The promise that Gale made him agree to comes easily as the call comes to an end, and Dewey tells their son that his mother loves him. More than anything. He tells him that she's alive and safe and okay, just like he is, and promises that he'll see her tomorrow. It's a promise that he vows to keep, even if Dewey can't promise that he will be the one to make sure of it.

"Wesley," he says before ending the call. His son's name feels heavy, the same way it had the very first time he said it so Dewey repeats it, knowing that it may be the last. The following words feel thick in his throat, strangled. "I love you, you know that? So much. If… If anything ever happens…"

He can't say it — not to a four year old child. It isn't fair. Wes and Gale could still lose him tonight, and it almost feels cruel of Dewey to know that he can't live without them but they may have to live without him.

"Wes, Daddy loves you." He says instead, fighting back tears. "Now I need you to be good for Grandma, okay? Listen to what she says, go to bed… okay?"

The yawn on the other end of the phone is an agreement. "Okay. G'night, Daddy."

"Goodnight, son." And the call ends. Dewey can't help but stare down at the cellphone for just a second longer, the lock screen image of his entire world staring back at him. The stakes; they're higher than they've ever been.

Palming the keys to the car that one of his deputies had dropped off, Dewey heads toward the parking lot and braces himself to go face to face with yet another killer in a cheap Halloween mask.

The phone in his hand ringing as he starts the engine has him nearly jumping out of his skin.

"Dewey, it's Hicks."

"What's up?" He asks as he pulls the SUV out of the parking lot and onto the main road.

"Kate Roberts is dead." Sid's aunt. Fuck. "And Sidney fled the scene."

"What?" His confusion comes in two forms — from where were the officers guarding the house and why does Hicks sound accusatory of Sid? Questioning the latter feels unprofessional. "What happened to Kate?"

"She was stabbed just like the others."

"What about Jill?"

"No sign of her at all."

"Where the hell were Hoss and Perkins?"

"They were found dead in their car two blocks away. Multiple stab wounds."

Again, fuck. "Okay. I'm on my way."

He's doing this for Gale, if he's being honest. Not because he believes that it's smart and maybe not even because he's the sheriff and it's his responsibility, but because he made a promise to her that he would end this and a promise to himself that the bastard wouldn't get away with hurting her.

Dewey throws the vehicle across the lane, doing an illegal U-turn, and hits the gas.

…

The Roberts' house is a mess; Sidney's aunt in a body bag along with two of his best young deputies — that news is going to be hard to break to his four year old — and the place is covered in blood and glass. Someone put up a fight, that's for sure, and the only real win is knowing that two people got out alive. Hopefully.

Dewey walks the perimeter with Hicks, who seems self-conscious for the first time since she joined up, like she's aware that this isn't the time nor place to fuck with a man who nearly lost his wife. Especially when either of them could be gutted at any second.

They're scouring the front porch when Dewey's phone rings again, and it's in his hand instantly — before he can read the caller ID and fear for bad news about Gale or Wes or… "Hello?"

"Dewey," Sid's voice is quiet, a panicked whisper as if she's hiding.

"Sid, where are you?"

"I'm at Kirby's. The killer is here. I need your help."

Not that these killings ever go by the book, but this one is really throwing him for a loop tonight. He has enough sense to think that maybe the plot would have been less twisted if he had just listened to Gale in the first place. "I'm on my way."

"Okay."

A loud bang comes from the other end of the phone and Dewey hears his friend grunt, moaning in pain.

"Sid? Sidney?" Dewey turns to Hicks, "I need all units to 329 Whispering Lane."

Judy calls for backup as Dewey rushes toward the street, climbing into his car. Kirby's house isn't that far from the Roberts' home, just ahead of his own, actually, but between the police barricades and the ambulance out front, he's not sure if he can make it out of here with enough time to get there before someone else dies. In fact, once he realizes that they have to take the back way out of the block and hit the main roads, he knows that he won't.

…

He doesn't. They find Robbie Mercer on the porch, while Charlie Walker and Trevor Sheldon are dead on the kitchen floor. Kirby is in the backyard with a knife wound to the abdomen, but to the paramedic's surprise, she has a shallow pulse. Sidney is in similar critical condition among the bodies in the kitchen, with Jill out cold next to her in much better shape. It's brutal, and reminiscent of the attacks fifteen years earlier, although much of what he remembers of that bloody aftermath comes from photographs.

The three survivors are loaded up and taken to the hospital, while the three dead are loaded into body bags and sent off to the morgue.

…

In the quiet hall, Dewey can see Jill through the window of her hospital room as she gives a statement while a doctor examines her. She identifies Trevor and Charlie as the killers and she looks so scared, so hurt and angry that two of her classmates could have done this.

She's just a kid, he thinks and the image of Tatum at the same age merges into his mind. Her last eyeroll and her snark, the way that he had gotten stuck with his nickname because of her. Dewey can only wish that she had been as lucky as Jill. Or even Kirby, currently in surgery.

He also thinks of his own kid; four years old now but it could have been him on the kitchen floor or it could be him there someday. It isn't fair.

"You can go in now, Sheriff," the doctor, Dr. Warren, informs Dewey as she exits the room. Her voice tears him from his thoughts and he takes the open door offering as a cue to check on the teenage girl that he had been able to save.

"Jill, you made it," Dewey reassures her, finding the innocence of his son and his late sister in this bruised and beaten child. "That's all that matters."

"Trevor and Charlie, they tried to kill me," Jill cries. "And I heard they killed my mom. And Robbie and Kirby, too."

"Shhh. Just lay back. Try to rest."

"Is… is your wife…?"

Dewey can't help his relieved smile. "She's gonna be fine. She's recovering."

"I'm glad your little boy didn't lose his mom like I lost mine."

So is he. "Me too. I'm so sorry, Jill."

"If I ever write a book one day, I'd want her to write it with me. We'd be a good team with our matching wounds and all," Jill adds, motioning to her injured shoulder. "We're survivors now. I just wish Sidney was, too."

Suddenly, he's grateful that he can give this kid some good news. It may not be her mother or her friends, but her cousin has been hanging in there. "Jill, they're not sure yet. It's still touch and go, but she's in ICU. And they think Sidney just might make it."

"What? But— but I saw Trevor kill her."

"Look, we don't know yet but she's hanging on."

"I wanna see her."

"She's not awake yet," Dewey apologizes. "And she may not remember anything. You'll have to help her with that. All in time. Just get some rest, okay?"

—

Gale can sense Dewey before he even reaches her room, the sound of his boots trudging against the floor sluggishly in the way that they do when he's overtired and his limp is acting up. It's comforting to know from her own recognition rather than hear from the hospital staff that he's alive and okay — especially because she is the one person that would know, deep down, that he isn't.

"She gonna be okay?" She asks as he walks into her room, and Gale can spot the exhaustion under his eyes. The waking nightmare they've just endured is etched into his face.

"Yeah. She's a strong kid."

"She's gonna have to be," admits Gale, noting Jill Roberts' age in comparison to Sidney's fifteen years earlier. Teenagers shouldn't have to live with these traumas. They shouldn't have to lose their lives like his little sister had.

"Yeah," Dewey agrees. "I talked to my mom. Wes is fine, he went down after I called the first time but he was upset that he couldn't say goodnight to you first."

That breaks her a little, knowing that her son wanted her while she was fighting for her life. Knowing that she couldn't have gotten to him even if she had tried. And apparently that ache shows on her face because Dewey sits down on the edge of the bed and reaches for her hand.

"I'm gonna stay here tonight but I'll go pick him up and bring him by first thing in the morning."

"You don't have to stay," she argues. "You hardly slept last night, and I know you have to be itching to get to him as much as I am."

Shaking his head, Dewey throws her a small smile. "Our son is safe at my mom's, sleeping in the bedroom that I grew up in. He's fine. Right now, I just wanna be with my wife."

Unable to argue with that, Gale pulls him down for a kiss. It's awkward — the angle — and it pulls at her shoulder just a little but again, she'll live. She's alive and so is her husband, and Dewey is right. Their child is safe.

"You slept in that room until you were twenty-six, honey."

Dewey huffs a laugh, one that's almost a snort and it's almost enough that some of the bloodshed of the night dissipates, dissolving from just around the corners of his eyes.

"You know, Jill asked if you were okay. She thinks you guys should write a book together with your matching wounds… But maybe leave my childhood bedroom out of it, though."

"She was stabbed in the shoulder?"

Dewey nods, and for a second, a chill creeps up Gale's spine. A truth coming to light that neither had considered after six bodies had been carried out of that house — three alive, three dead, two murderers.

"How did she know I was, too?"

Panic and surprise crosses Dewey's face, an epiphany drawn from Gale's eyes into his. Only a moment later, he goes running; rushing out of the room with the word "shit" left behind in his tracks.

It's enough for Gale to agree that something is very very wrong, and she's here and she's healing so she isn't about to let the love of her life go charging into another mess without backup. "You and me, forever", right?

…

She's slow, but not that slow making her way down the hall after Dewey. Between the blood loss, the drugs, and the wound, she's a bit weak but Gale Weathers has been through worse and Gale Riley has grown and birthed a human so this… this is nothing. Or, so she tells herself.

The sound of metal clanging against something has her stumbling into the room that she assumes to be Sid's and she's right. Sidney is on the floor, backed into a cabinet while Dewey is out cold in the opposite corner with a bedpan next to his head. Gross. Jill on the other hand, the conniving little psychopath, stands in the middle of the room with her back to Gale, rage evident in the tense rise of her shoulders.

"Dewey? Sid!"

Jill turns around as the words tumble from Gale's lips and that's when she sees it; Dewey's gun in the young girl's hand.

"Easy, okay. Wait. What about the book?" Gale offers, trying to diffuse the situation but it turns out that whatever patience she has for her child likely isn't enough to qualify in a hostage negotiation.

"Looks like I'll just have to write it myself," Jill answers, firing the gun once as a small mop of blonde hair throws Gale across the room.

Judy. God dammit. She's grateful, but if they make it out of here, she's going to owe the other woman a change of attitude. Or, she'll consider it, at least.

The deputy makes a move as she lifts her head from the other side of the bed and pulls her gun from the holster with one click. But she isn't fast or quiet enough because Jill is on her almost immediately, gun aimed at Dewey's head. "Don't even think about shooting or I'll blow Dewey's head off. What, you think I won't do it?"

Panic rises in Gale's throat, a lump sticking, preventing a single word from escaping as she watches Judy consider the risk. It makes her blood boil; the idea that the thought even crosses the younger woman's mind as she crouches next to his wife.

"Gimme your gun!"

Judy hesitates but doesn't move and it's then that Gale has had enough of this, of whatever conscious this girl has that has her prioritizing anything over the life of the father of Gale's kid. "Do it!"

Looking back to Gale in question or maybe reassurance, Hicks finally obliges and passes the gun to Jill.

"Get up and put your hands over your head," the teenager demands.

"Don't do anything stupid," Deputy Judy replies, but it's too late. Jill pulls the trigger, knocking the officer back into the wall.

"Don't fucking tell me what to do."

"Oh god," Gale murmurs. Judy is down, Dewey is down, and as far as she knows, half the force is down at this point given that Perkins and Hoss became victims tonight, too.

And Jill isn't finished yet. "Get up, bitch."

Gale closes her eyes, practically envisioning her own fate. But it isn't the image in her head of her little boy with his dad's messy bedhead and big hazel eyes climbing between them too early on Saturday mornings, and it isn't the grin on Dewey's face when Wes dozes off there with one hand grasping his father's shirt. Her fate isn't the image of safety in her mind, of her son's safest place in the world. It's a seventeen year old girl with a gun pointed at her and her husband unconscious on the floor. Dewey will go next, she's sure, and Wes will be alone while a killer runs free.

She stands, following Jill's demands and moves but she can't help that Dewey's whimpering from the floor below steals her attention — not because she thinks he'll wake in time to save her, but because she's worried that his movements will take him first. That Jill will put a bullet in his head in front of her, and she'll watch him die the way she almost has before and never wants to again.

"Let's go, get your skinny ass out here."

"Okay."

"I'm gonna enjoy blowing your head off," Jill says with excitement, like the lunatic that she is.

But that isn't really what Gale's paying attention to now, because across the room, behind the teenager threatening her life, Sidney eases herself up off the ground. She then manages to reach for the defibrillator, flipping the switch. Smart girl.

"Okay," stalls Gale, "But can I just have one final word?"

"What? 'Please'?"

"No…" The machine comes to a full charge. "Clear."

"Clear?"

Sid stands, holding the paddles up to Jill's head in an instant, "Clear."

The electricity vibrates through her, without a doubt turning her brain to mush and the young girl falls to the ground before them.

"You forgot the first rule of remakes, Jill. Don't fuck with the original."

Gale pants, taking a moment to stare at the electrified body of her friend's cousin before collapsing to the floor to check on Dewey. His head is covered in blood and she's sure that he has a concussion, but he's alive. "Oh my god, Dewey."

He stirs, palm reaching for his forehead. "What hit me?"

"Don't ask," Sid says with a grimace as she eases herself onto the floor next to her married friends.

Gale reaches protectively for her, too. One hand on her husband and the other on her sister-in-trauma bonds. "You okay?"

She throws Gale a nod as Dewey tries to lift his head, annoyed that Jill had managed to catch him off guard. "She was standing right behind me."

One last commotion comes from behind, and Sidney turns — either Dewey's or Hicks' gun in hand — and draws on Jill, brain fried with a glass spear in her hand. One shot takes her down. "They always are."

Exhaling, Gale allows herself a moment to reel over the last minute of their lives, though it somehow spirals into the last two days and the last fifteen years. They have been through too much, all of them, and at the moment, it's enough that she can feel both Dewey and Sidney breathe under her hands.

"Nice one," a fourth voice calls opposite the trio. Hicks.

"Hicks? You're alive?" It's a shock, actually.

The blonde rises, ripping her shirt open to show a black Kevlar vest. "Wear the vest, save your chest." Her pride fails her in that moment, though, and the young deputy hits the ground just as quickly as she stood.

"We've got two officers down," Dewey radios. "Several injuries. And a new suspect."

Her husband is too weak to move, as is Sidney who has no doubt ruptured a few stitches and over exerted herself, so it's on Gale to make the next move. She can do that because somehow, she's in better shape than the rest after being stabbed in the shoulder so she pushes up off the ground and runs for the hall. "We need a doctor, god dammit!"

…

three.

Dewey is sporting a pretty thick bandage wrapped entirely around his head by the time morning comes, and he peers in through the doorway of the sterile hospital room they spent the night in with that goofy grin that makes her chest ache spread across his face. "I come bearing gifts."

"Oh yeah?" Gale replies curiously. He hasn't been cleared to drive thanks to the head wound, so she's expecting a shitty but thoughtful gift shop bouquet or a red Jell-O from the cafeteria instead of a green. It's what she did for him during his recovery after the second set of attacks.

Instead though, he pulls one hand from behind his back and reveals a brown paper bag from the bakery up the street, but the next surprise comes with a familiar giggle as Dewey steps further into the room. Wes is perched in his arms, the little boy's own tiny hands wrapped securely around his father's neck and the smile on his face, of course, is a match in miniature. "Breakfast or the boy?" Dewey offers. "Your choice."

"I'll take my boys," Gale says sincerely, reaching for her son while making room for her husband on the side of the bed.

Dewey follows her unspoken instructions and passes Wes to her before taking a seat. "You can have a muffin, too."

"Thanks," she replies sarcastically before pulling the four year old close to her. Wes nestles so instinctively and it hits her, really, for the first time that she could have lost this. That she almost did. Gale plants a kiss on the top of his head but her eyes find Dewey's and she can tell that, once again, he knows exactly what she is feeling.

"I meant what I said," Dewey says quietly. "Last night. It's you and me, forever. You know, whatever that means. I can delegate a lot of my duties onto the deputies… I mean, I might as well get some use out of Hicks' and her— how did you word it? Ass-kissing? Or… I… we can leave. Maybe you can take a couple of gigs or we can get away for a while so you can write. Maybe you can take an anchor position somewhere or find one here, I don't—"

Gale reaches forward, placing a hand on his cheek the same way that she has so many times in the last fifteen years. The stubble beneath her fingertips is more rough than usual, but at the same time, a familiar reminder of their past — from the mornings after bloodshed in different hospital rooms to the countless nights they spent awake with a newborn. "We'll figure it out. I just… I want you home more. I don't want to do this alone," she admits. "And I want to get at least a part of myself that I lost or… gave up back, Dewey. I want us to do this together. All of it."

"So do I."

"Okay. Good. I'm glad."

The way he smiles into her touch feels like a promise, a silent vow to make this work even when it's too hard or too much, and before either can say another word, Wes decides to make his presence known.

Pushing up to his knees, the four year old eyes the bandage on Gale's shoulder curiously. He pokes it, unafraid of her reaction or that it might hurt before turning to his father's head injury to do the same. "Are you and Daddy gonna be okay, Mommy?"

Looking at her husband over the top of Wes' head, Gale's eyes meet his in agreement; in love and in promise, acknowledging both the physical and the deep, life affirming meaning behind that question.

"Yeah, we are, buddy," Dewey answers, unwilling to break eye contact. "We're gonna be just fine."

End.

—

Title courtesy of "Don't Take the Money" by Bleachers (thanks for sniping my fancam to this song, Jack Antonoff).

Thank you for reading and I hope you enjoyed! As always, comments and criticism are always welcome but never required, and remember — #DeweyLives 3

(Also, yes, Dewey exudes girl dad but consider that Gale has boy-who-looks-exactly-like-her-dumb-husband mom.)