Chapter 8

"Serena, if I didn't know any better, I'd say we're headed to the Hamptons."

It's the first time Dan's spoke in over an hour and it makes her startle in surprise, glancing over towards him to find he's staring right back at her. There's still a lingering look of barely repressed anger in his eyes, but it's mostly hidden by confusion. She swallows down her stubborn pride that had prevented her from making idle conversation in the first place.

"You're right, Dan. We are."

Dan absorbs the information quietly and she turns away from him to face the long, endless road again, surrounded by acres of field and the occasional not-quite-a-mansion-yet-house. Focusing on the road seems easier than giving him information about where they'll be staying. Something about the confusion and curiosity in his voice sends warning bells to her mind.

"So are we passing through the Hamptons or...Are we actually staying there?"

He's smarter than she's given him credit for.

"We're staying."

"We are staying. In the Hamptons." Dan repeats astounded.

"Yes."

Dan falls back to silence for a moment, reaches out to mess with the radio and she doesn't have the energy to tell him to stop. She's running on nothing but sleep and adrenaline, regretting that she hadn't even spared the time to grab a cup of coffee from the Starbucks two blocks away from Dan's apartment.

"So, you have a house there, or you're presuming that you can use mine? Because I've got to say, that's not the most excellent of hiding places."

Oh- She hadn't realized that's what this was about.

"No, Dan." She laughs, sparing a glance at him. "I have a house there."

"What?" Dan practically yelps.

"What's so shocking about me having a place in the Hamptons?" Serena asks, rather offended. "Just because I'm not a rich, bestelling author doesn't mean-"

"No no no! I didn't mean anything like that." Dan cuts across hastily, holding his palms facing forwards to calm her down. "I meant- it's just- obvious? I suppose."

Serena spares a glance at him in the corner of her eye but otherwise keeps her eyes focused on the road, finds it easier to keep her mind going through the logical steps of driving than looking at him. Because he just looks so crushed and confused and strangely excited by what must be the most bizarre turn of events in his life. And something about it- something about the pain on his face over leaving his son and the childish excitement over this strange adventure- makes her want to stop the car and just kiss the look from his face, wishing she were able to feel like that, to be able to feel anything other than this irrevocable emptiness that forces her to keep breathing every day.

And that just- That's not an option she has. She's spending two weeks with him, tops. Nothing more. He's just a guy. He can't be more; she doesn't have that kind of life.

"Dan, you know what they'd be expecting of us? They'd be expecting us to hide away in some deserted place, much like where we've just been, keeping a low profile. Not in a glaringly obvious, expensive house in the Hamptons that I bought two years ago. Under a false name, may I add, before you panic again."

"Oh."

Serena can practically hear the whirr of his mind as it digests this information and her logic.

"I- I guess that makes sense."

"Trust me, Dan." She says, not batting an eyelid at the words. "I know how to hide."

He doesn't say a word more and she doesn't dare look at him. Because she thinks she knows how his expression would react to this one. It would be just like how he reacted back at her place in the Bronx, as he'd studied the bare room and her less than satisfactory living standards.

With pity.

"You're kidding me, right?"

It's the first thing Dan says when they pull up at her luxurious house, shrouded by glaringly green leaves that always seem far too artificial to her than should be real, but they grant too much privacy for her to actually do anything about it. The house is large, not as large as most standards set in the Hamptons, but shows enough of her wealth to blend in. It's a mute white in colour, lacking any way of standing out from the crowd, only appearing vaguely homely by the shrubbery around the front porch.

The house is isolated too, he notices. It stands alone and has been the first one to crop up in at least ten minutes- and Serena drives fast. When he climbs from the car he can hear the sound of the waves of the sea chopping against eachother, a bitter wind picking up from being so close to the sea, but the heat of the midday sun warms his skin.

Now his brain isn't sure how to feel about anything anymore. Because, as lovely as this house is, he knows how inexplicably lonely it is to be in such a grand, large house built for relaxing and being surrounded by family, but spending time in it alone. Many times, when Milo was with his mom and his own father preferred staying at his loft and inviting "friends" around, he would escape to his own place to just get his head in gear and write. He found that the loneliness forced him to write, because the quicker he wrote the sooner he would once again be with his family.

But Serena doesn't have a family to return to. Not really. If she isn't here, then she's in that cramped, deserted room of hers, isolated from the world. And he's not quite sure which one is more heartbreaking.

"What?" Serena asks at his statement, throwing him a puzzled look as she pulls her own bag from the boot of the car.

"This place. It's a thirty minute drive from my own house up here." He tells her, not sure whether he's pleased about this information or not.

"Uh, okay?" Serena arches an eyebrow at him as she shoulders her bag, clearly confused as to why he feels this information is worth sharing.

"I just...It's strange. I guess. I've not really been so far away from you all this time." He attempts to explain and he's still not quite sure what point he's supposed to be making. So what if he doesn't live far from her? Why does it matter? He only needs her to protect him. Nothing more.

But Serena's grinning widely at the way he fumbles over his words. "Come on, Dan. I'll show you around." She murmurs, ducking her eyes away from him in some strange form of embarrassment and heading towards the house.

And for some reason, this small moment just steals his breath away. Something about the large grin that lights her eyes, the way they sparkle with amusement and the golden colours of weaving into her hair from the sun is just so beautiful, so unlike the cold assassin he's known for a matter of hours and he just wishes he could live in that one moment forever and get to know the real Serena; the one who was there before this troubled life she leads.

Yet the moment passes and she's heading towards the house without looking back at him. But he manages to smile at the subtle tinge of pink that stains her cheeks, revelling in this new, strange intimacy they're going to have.

She is so beautiful.

Serena shows him to his room, grimacing at the fact that she only has one guest room set up and he tries to ignore the way that makes him increasingly sadder. Nobody ever comes here to visit, she's so alone everywhere she goes.

Then she shows him around the house, starts off by pointing at the door of her room and telling him that he is never, ever allowed to even think about going in there, reminding him that she sleeps with a gun. He tries on his best look of nonchalance at that, all the while worrying whether she truly would use a gun on him depsite it being a joke.

After that she shows him the several bathrooms upstairs as well as a study. He gives her a strange look for that one and she blushes. "In case you want to write." She clarifies and his mind is spinning wildly about Sabrina, about this new character he has in his mind that is based off of Serena and how amazing it would be to write about Sabrina in Serena's house.

Then she leads him downstairs and through the large kitchen, informing him that she's neither his maid nor his chef and he'll have to take care of himself. She shows him through to the several sitting areas as well as one more bathroom, and even a secret library she has hidden downstairs. The urge to run through the room and study all the books on the shelves overtakes him until she grabs him by the ear and tugs him away from the room, him crawling after her and mock-whimpering about the pain she's causing and the permanent damage to his ear.

She leads him through to her back porch and while she turns to indicate the whereabouts of the pool, Dan finds himself paralyzed by the beautiful view.

The view from his house, he'd thought, was gorgeous. But this...He'd never seen anything like it. There's a small amount of grass that soon blends into tall, thick beach grass, merging onto a white beach. The sea stretches beyond them endlessly, nothing interrupting the horizon, just one horizontal line where the sea meets the sky and the promise of infinity.

"Dan?"

He turns away from the view because the only thing less beautiful than it is her and he finds her watching him with a concerned expression, brows furrowed so much they almost meet.

"I'm fine." He assures her, but he can tell she's not convinced. "I..I'm just blown away by how beautiful it is. I wasn't expecting this."

Serena grins wryly. "What were you expecting, Dan? Guns lining the walls? Blood on the ceiling?"

"Oh, ha ha." He grumbes, trying to act as though the sight of her smile doesn't make his heart pound. "I just didn't expect you to invest in something so lovely."

Serena tilts her head to the side slightly, smile disappearing. "Why do you say that?"

"You really want the answer to that?"

She purses her lips and then her eyes find the horizon, something sad reflecting in those blue depths. "No." She sighs as her shoulders fall. "But I know what you mean. It's endless, isn't it?"

Much like her loneliness, he supposes. Because then she waves a hand at him and slinks back inside the house and he's left alone.

And that's when he pledges it. His promise to her, as an exchange for saving his life.

To give her a friend, to make the loneliness go away and show her how much more she can be.

Serena's gone for most of the day, says she needs to go shopping since she ran out of food the last time she was here. The act is rather domestic and he's stunned by it, but doesn't say a word as she warns him not to leave the house and she won't be away for more than a couple of hours.

He rummages through things as he does. There's nothing to be found in any of the sitting areas, apart from the rare novel (he finds that she's a large Hemingway fan) that lies on a counter. He tries to familiarize himself with his surroundings, largely because this will be his home of sorts for a while and partially because these small tidbits are part of her home and they bring him one step closer to knowing her more intimately. Purely for story research of course.

Serena stumbles through the door with half a dozen grocery bags as he's heading into her library, tearing him away from his snooping. He helps her carry the bags into the kitchen but she shoos him away when he attempts to help her unpack, a familiar blush staining her cheeks.

So he returns back to the library of hers, curious as to her taste in books. He's impressed, to say the least, but he had already gathered that she's intelligent, so he's not surprised at all.

His fingers run over the spines of the well-worn books, silently trying to understand the workings of this woman's mind.

He doesn't think he can.

"Dan?"

He turns to find her standing in the doorway, illuminated by the soft light of the sun behind her, setting now over the sea.

"Yeah?"

"You wanna come see something with me?"

There's this intensely shy look on her face that he feels he may explode with how suddenly open she's being with him, so he doesn't resist in nodding earnestly and following her from the room.

At the last moment he catches the sight of a familiar novel placed on the desk in the room, stumbles when he realises it's Inside, his own work. And his hands are reaching out in wonder for the book when he hears her call him from down the hall and he lurches away, deciding that he can confront her about this later. For now, there's something too personal about this moment to interrupt it- even with something so important like this.

So he sets the book down on the desk and trails after her, finds her walking across the grass of her garden and towards the white sand- barefoot.

He slips off his own shoes eagerly, chasing after her now because he's fallen behind, flushing in embarrassment when she briefly turns around to look at him over her shoulder and flashes a grin.

Serena stops when she hits the edge of the dry sand, where it begins to merge with the cobalt blue sea. He catches up and stands beside her, trying not to wince at the feel of the cold sea barely whispering against his bare toes.

"You thought it was beautiful earlier? Just watch it now."

He does, for a moment. And it's stunning, the way that the sun lowers down on the horizon, casting a beautiful orange glow over everything, spreading warmth straight to his heart. She's right. It's beautiful.

But his eyes stray to her and watch the way she absorbs the sunset, eyes wide as she drinks it all in. And he can't help but wonder whether this is a regular thing for her- watching the sunset because it's beautiful and watching a beautiful thing because she needs to be reminded that there are such things that exist in real life and not just in stories with the make believe.

And he really, really wants to kiss her.

He wants to kiss her because she's so lost but enchanting and gorgeous and she's saving his life and she's also sharing this beautiful moment with him because she wants to and not because it's a part of the job description. He wants to kiss her and hold her in his arms and pull her down to make love at the beach and memorise every inch of her skin and fill her with so much happiness that she feels as though she's going to explode. He wants to make her gasp and writhe beneath him and feel the pounding of her erratic heart against his chest as he reminds her of all the ways that life is beautiful.

But then the sun sets and the sky is dark and the only light left in her eyes is the faintest glimmer of reflection of the stars and she turns away.