Chapter 9

A/N: I honestly don't like how this turned out, I have no idea what's wrong with me lately, but let me know what you think. Thank you for all the lovely reviews btw, they really keep me going! :)

The cell phone leaves him teetering on the edge of anticipation and fear for a moment, as the dialing tone seems to go on just a slight bit too long and he's suddenly afraid for a moment that Milo isn't going to answer the phone. He does warn him not to pick up to unknown numbers after all.

Serena is still leaning against the doorway, watching him, although the glassy look in her eyes makes it appear as though her mind may be elsewhere. Not that he'd blame her. After that argument that they just had, he also has a lot on his mind too.

Dan closes his eyes in frustration, tries not to remember the all too enticing feel of her just inches away from him.

"Hello?"

Dan almost leaps out of his skin, fumbling with the phone for a moment until that all-encompassing relief floods through his veins at the innocence and unawareness in Milo's voice.

"Hello?" Milo repeats through the phone and he chuckles at his own awkwardness.

Dan grips the phone tighter in his hand and presses it against his ear, grinning widely. His son is okay. He's safe. Serena is saving them both from harm; both physically and emotionally.

That tightening in his chest uncurls. If only a little.

"Milo," He says calmly, "It's me."

"Dad? What are- I got your note. Why aren't you using your normal phone?"

"Uh," Dan laughs, eyes sliding over to Serena. She seems to have back to herself because she's making strange signals at him, hand motions and widened eyes that he doesn't understand until she snatches the phone from him and changes it to speaker with a raised eyebrow in his direction. "I left it at home."

"Oh. Okay. How long do you think you'll be gone?" Milo asks with a slight sad edge to his voice.

Dan glances at Serena, who mouths one to two weeks at him. Dan runs a hand over his face tiredly, how on earth is he supposed to make this excuse work with one or two weeks? He's been to LA and back in a matter of a weekend- during his crisis about feeling alone and Milo was with his mom, he wasn't completely reckless to leave him unsafe- and now he's supposed to play off the idea of being in LA for that long? No, Milo is smart. And he's a terrible liar. He's going to figure out something's wrong eventually.

"Probably a week, maybe two?" He says, though it ends up as a question, wincing when he hears Milo's quiet intake of surprise.

"Two weeks? But Dad, how can this possibly take so long? I thought you'd told me that they had no plans to make any Inside Movies."

"Uh, exactly." Dan says and can almost feel the methaphorical light bulb light in his mind. "We're in meetings trying to convince them to, uh, to do it."

Milo is silent for a long while and he holds his breath, doubtful. Milo is smart and even in the silence he can hear the cogs of his mind whirring. Digesting the incorrect information. Wondering why he's lying.

"Okay, Dad." He sighs, weary. It makes Dan ache deep down to his bones, knowing that Milo won't push, doesn't ever push. "I...I thought you were gonna write. You seemed quite obsessed with this new idea."

He can feel Serena's eyes on him, but he can't meet hers, feeling rather sheepish. New idea. New idea about Serena- Who's stolen him away from his home with his son and his comfortable life to hide him away in her house in the Hamptons, all because someone's after him, trying to take his life. Yeah, now it sounds kind of Meta.

"Yeah, I- I don't know, sweetie. Maybe when I get back I can go back to writing it." He says, glancing up when Serena sits beside him on the bed.

She motions to the clock on his bedside table, mouthing something about the time. Dan closes his eyes in frustration. Right. He can only talk to his own son for a limited amount of time now. That's so wrong. Difficult. Sinister.

"Listen, Milo, I'm gonna have to go now. But, uh, I'll call later or tomorrow, okay?"

"Okay, Dad." Milo murmurs. "I love you."

"Love you too." He sighs, pressing the end call button.

Serena doesn't say anything when he simply sits and stares at his new, unfamiliar cell for a moment. Nor does she move. He's surprised. Waits for her to slowly shuffle out of the room at any moment and leave him to his thoughts, but she doesn't. Perhaps she's just there as some sign of moral support. Or perhaps she's just checking that he doesn't try ringing Milo again to tell him the whole truth. He's not sure which one is more likely. After all, who's he trying to kid. He doesn't know her at all. He'll never know her.

The sooner this whole experience is over, the better.

"I'm sorry."

He looks up to Serena and finds her watching him sadly, reaching out and prying the cell from his hands. He lets her.

"Are you?"

Serena's eyes flicker from this intense gaze back down to the phone and he finds himself inexplicably angry at that. She can't meet his eyes any more than she can ever tell him the truth, despite this whole situation.

But then her eyes find his again and it all slides into place, the way it shouldn't; because this is wrong and she is wrong and they are wrong and everything about this situation is so wrong- yet it all fits perfectly into the jagged corners of his ink-stained heart.

"Yeah, Dan. I am."

Serena leans forwards and tentatively presses a kiss to the corner of his mouth. Warmth fills him up, so much he's certain he's going to combust, so without thinking his hand reaches up and circles around the back of her neck. Holds her there, even once her lips have left his skin and it simply sings through his blood at the loss. Just breathing. He can feel her pulse hammering against his wrist where he's certain his own pounds wildly too, if the blood rushing to his ears is any way to judge it.

"Serena." He barely breathes her name.

He feels her swallow, the bones and muscles at the back of her neck twitching slightly against his large hand and he moves to cup her skull, threads his fingers through her hair as though she is the most exquisite thing he has ever known.

It makes her eyes water. Nobody has ever touched and looked at her the way he does.

His other hand rises and presses above her heart. Feels it pulsate wildly beneath his palm and he smiles. Smiles because she is the most beautiful creature he's ever known and he is going to write about her. He is going to write and write and then he is going to wear her down, knock down those walls until, when time comes that they go their seperate ways, she won't have to leave him at all.

Serena's fingers twine with his above her heart. He hides his jolt, though he sees the way her lips twitch slightly with amusement. But he ignores it, drags his eyes up to her own blue ones. They're so intense right now, but guarded; he wants them to be open and free.

"Be honest with yourself." He says, delighting in the way her tongue slips from the confines of her lips briefly, as her body leans into him just a little more. "Be honest with yourself as to why you're doing this."

He is so wonderful.

He is so worth it- This fight.

She doesn't know exactly why yet. She hardly knows him at all.

But the light in his eyes and the way he holds her, the way he watches her every move and studies her as though she is a fine and precious thing-

He is so worth it.

Serena's hand reaches up, fists itself in his pajama top. Gripping on tight as her forehead leans against his. A crutch in case things go wrong. They always do.

Will he?

She's not quite sure and the warmth is too thick in her veins, her mind clouded with what feels like cotton wool, to figure it out. To figure him out. She'll just let him figure her out; which his strange and unfamiliar but not unwelcome, because usually people get bored of the puzzle.

Not him. He's here.

"You're different" She breathes and it feels as though she's breathing fire. "I don't know why but- You're different."

Dan's hand abandons her heart, bravely wanders down and grips her waist tightly. She arches in surprise but he's already pulling her forwards, onto his lap until she straddles him on the bed he's claimed as his. She cannot find herself to care about boundaries. Not one tiny, miniscule bit.

His head bows and paints love across her neck with the stroke of his tongue.

"Dan." She murmurs.

"Why did you start calling me that right from the first second?" He asks lightly, even as his mouth finds her collarbone and nips gently.

"Call you- Call you what?" She responds, fingers tightening in his hair.

"Dan. Almost no one calls me Dan. They all say Humphrey, because that sounds apparently so much more fun than Dan."

He breathes across her clavicle and she has a hard time focusing on the answer. That's probably why she lets the answer slip out instead of ignoring his question altogether.

"Force of habit. It's what I do-did- in the law firm. I even called my clients by their first name.

Dan suddenly goes very still.

Oh, no.

The law firm?

She used to be a lawyer.

Serena's hands scrabble madly in his hair and pull him towards her, tightening her legs around his hips as she moulds her lips against his. He falls into it for one small, insane moment; lost in the velvet feel of her lips and the way her tongue races against the seam of his mouth.

But then.

"Serena." He gasps, pulling away, staring at her with wide eyes.

"Ignore it. Forget I said-"

"Serena." He cuts across her, despite the small part of his mind that is screaming at himself to stop. Sleep with the hot chick while he can.

But he's not like that. The playboy image had always been just that- an image. A facade. He has one failed marriage to show that he's useless at commitment, but a healthy and happy seven yeard old son to prove that he can do commitment if the other person is willing for it too.

"Please, Dan." She sighs, head falling to his shoulder as she catches her breath. "Let it go."

"I can't." He tightens his grip on her waist. "I want to- I need to know you."

Serena pulls away from him to stare at him with something akin to wonder playing openly in her eyes, mouth parted just enough to look absorbed as well as sexy.

"Tell me, Serena. Tell me everything."

"Why?"

Her voice is small and soft and so fragile- so fragile that he feels as though he could weep. Why? Why would he not want to know everything about this wonderful woman? How could she ever doubt herself so? How come she could kill without a second thought, but the moment intimacy came about, she ran for the hills?

He's about to voice his thoughts but there's something lost and confused and so vulnerable in her eyes that he stops and thinks his answer through. Don't scare her off. He can't scare her off; not now that they're so close. Closer.

"You intrigue me." He tells her honestly.

Her head tips slighty to the right. "You intrigue me, too."

But then she's puling away from him and out of his grasp and no, Serena, don't go. He clings to her waist but she wriggles away and leaves him abandoned on the bed, aching for her.

"Serena?"

Serena backs away to the door frame. She looks like a deer trapped in headlights. He wants to dive in and save her.

"I can't-" She gestures between them, arms jerking with nerves. "This isn't- I'm here to save you, Dan. Nothing more. You don't need to know me. That's not true."

He keeps his mouth shut. He doesn't think she'll listen to a word he has to say.

Before she leaves, she gives him a soft smile over her shoulder. "You know where the study is. In case you want to continue writing that mysterious idea of yours."

Ten minutes later he's down there, mapping his idea out on an A3 piece of paper since his whiteboard is still back at home.

Her copy of Inside is suspiciously missing from the room.

Serena loses herself in his words, tucked up in her own bed with her battered copy of Inside, taking a break from hunting down the elusive Mr Carmichael.

She can still remember the trace of Dan's tongue on her neck.

She imagines him painting her story there.