Chapter 18

A/N: You guys should see the goofy smile on my face whenever I see a new review ;)

Dan sits on the bed stoically and watches her as she gathers up all of his things from him. Removes every piece of evidence that shows that he was ever here, in this house, in her life. Watches her find every last crevice and pull his trace from it all- his shirts, Sabringa, even his damn shampoo. She takes it all and shoves it into a gym bag. Refusing to make eye contact with him as she does. As though he's already gone.

"Serena." He murmurs, catching her wrist.

She stills, turning just a fraction to stare at him. Above his eyes, staring at his forehead, where she can't see the pain.

"This is the only way, Dan." She says softly.

And then she roughly shoves the bag into his lap. If he didn't know better, he'd be sure there were tears in her eyes.

Dan stands and leaves the room with his bag and she takes a moment to hold back a sob. Here's the end. Dammit, why had she ever fooled herself into believing that he was different- that she could be different for him? Of course that never would've happened. She ought to know better. She's always known better.

She grabs her own bag that she'd already packed. Before thinking twice about it, she grabs the shirt that smells so heavily of him, the one that she had left at the bottom of the drawer. Stuffs it into her bag as though she actually deserves some sort of memento from this time that they've spent together, a memento to remember him by. When really she ought to be erasing him completely from her life, as though he had never existed at all.

Fool, her mind screams.

And she can't help but agree.

"Serena."

At the sound of his voice, Serena turns from placing their bags in the trunk of the car towards where he stands on the porch of the house, unmoving. She has seen many terrifying things in her lifetime; death most predominantly. But something about the way he holds himself, as though he's ready to crumble to dust, eyes as detached as her own, completely terrifies her. What has she done to this man? The funny, sarcastic man that she'd first seen in him is gone. Who is this man who stands before her in replacement? She's not quite sure that she knows who he is. She's not quite sure if she wants to know him.

Where is the man that she could love?

"Where's the body?"

"Huh?"

His voice pulls her from her thoughts suddenly, and she blinks when she finds that he's now stood before her, empty eyes bearing down on her.

"I said: Where's the body?"

Serena swallows harshly, tries to ignore how her heart suddenly leaped into her throat.

"It's, uh..." She runs a hand across her eyes. Does she tell him the truth?

She considers it, but there's too much emptiness in his eyes for her heart to embrace the guilt.

"His body is taking a swim with his car." She tells him bluntly, unsure of how else to tell him.

That causes something to pierce through the emptiness that had been swimming in his eyes. She's not quite sure what it is because it appears in staccato bursts of light- anguish, anger, grief, it all blends into one. She regrets her blunt words immediately and reaches out for him, his name trembling on her lips, but he takes a step away from her. There's another flash of some emotion in his eyes, something that looks so incredibly like nausea it makes her own stomach roll. Is he sickened by her?

"Y-you..." He stammers, eyes wide.

"I dumped them in the sea." She murmurs softly, reaching for him once again but he keeps stepping back, recoiling away from her again and again. She's breaking his heart, when all she ever meant to do was help him.

Look at him now. She's broken him.

"Oh God." He says, hands coming to cover his mouth as he lets out a strangled moan. "Oh, God, I'm a murderer."

"Dan-"

"What am I supposed to tell my son, Serena? How am I supposed to look him in the eye and forget that I'm a murderer?"

"Dan." She chokes out, reaching for him as he slumps on his knees. "Dan, please."

"How am I supposed to do that, Serena?" He asks, tears glistening in his eyes and she feels her heart ache for him so keenly that she drops down to her knees too.

"He's a trained killer, Dan. He had it coming."

She tries to soothe him, frantic hands awkward and out of place, but he recoils from her once again, tears flowing and staring at her in horror.

"Serena." He whispers. "So are you."

They're quiet, then, on their knees beside the car as he cries and she can't do anything at all, can't help him or move to him or breathe air into her corrupted lungs.

So she closes her eyes and listens to the sea, the sound of the tide washing Max Coleman's body away, away, away.

The protests come halfway through the drive back. She's rather surprised. She hadn't expected him to last that long. She hadn't expected him to even get in the car at all.

"Serena, please don't do this."

The request is quiet yet demanding. She flexes her fingers on the steering wheel but does nothing to suggest that she even heard the utterance at all, eyes trained on the road ahead of them, stretching for miles, seemingly never ending.

"Serena."

She can't ignore the sorrow in his voice so she gives him the smallest of sighs, eyes fluttering as though they wish to close themselves off from this whole situation. But then she opens them wide and focuses again. There's no point in hiding anymore. It's going to be over soon. All of this. They can move on. Especially he can move on. He should move on. There's not promises that she can though. After all, that would be hypocritical. She's stuck in a loop of grief over her father already, she doesn't know how to move on, she's never tried.

"Please turn the car around."

"No, Dan."

"Serena."

He places a hand over hers. She remembers when it had been covered in blood, thankfully washed away merely an hour ago.

"Dan, drop it. I'm not going to change my mind."

"Serena, I can't just..." He trails off and that catches her attention, glances at him briefly to see his eyes filling with tears again. Oh, no. Oh, Dan.

"I'm sorry."

"Oh yeah?" His voice is bitter. It stings.

"Yeah, Dan." She confirms. "I never should've gone about saving you this way. But I..." She hesitates, before sighing and deciding she may as well give him the truth now, if she can give him anything. "I've never saved anybody before."

The hand on hers only tightens, clinging to her like she's driftwood amongst the raging current.

"How do you expect me to do it?" He asks in a small voice.

She flexes her hand beneath his, testing. "Do what?"

"Go home and act as though nothing's different. As though I'm not a murderer."

Serena slows the car on the long road and pulls to the side. The road is empty anyway, rarely frequented by cars but she's always preferred the lonely path, so she doesn't know why she does it. Then she shuts the ignition off and turns to him, pushing his hand away from hers and hiding hers away in her lap where she hopes he won't reach out.

"You're not a murderer, Dan." She says quietly, staring at her hands.

"Could've fooled me." He mutters.

Serena suppresses the urge to roll her eyes. "Dan, your life was endangered. You had every right to take that shot."

"No, I didn't, Serena." He says, voice raising with anger. The hair on the back of her neck prickles as he speaks. "I had no right to take a life. I've never had the right. Nobody deserves that right."

"He shot me, Dan." She says thickly, surprised when she feels wet tears on her cheeks. When had she started crying? "He almost shot you. I'm glad the bastard is dead."

Dan's eyes widen and she's fairly certain she's on the edge of giving up on figuring out his expressions, the way his emotions are currently switching faster than they ever have. Unpredictable now and she hates this because she doesn't know this man. This isn't the man she's learned to know and almost learned to love. She grieves him. She'd give in to him, she thinks. She'd turn around for him. She'd do absolutely anything for him so long as he were happy and safe and alive.

"Is that how you justify what you do?" Dan growls. "By thinking that they deserve death? That they had it coming?"

Oh- Wow. That- That she hadn't been expecting. A blow so close to her heart, missing by mere inches but plundering through her broken lungs. She needs to take a moment to simply breathe.

"Isn't that how humans justify everything?" She asks, lips trembling when she uses the back of her hand to wipe away the hot tears.

"No," he murmurs, "not all of them."

Just her, then.

She is so terrifyingly alone in her thoughts and her dreams and her heart.

"How do you do it?" He asks her, eyes wide with expectancy, as though there's a secret antidote to the pain.

Serena smiles wryly. "I do it because I have to, Dan."

Dan sighs and looks down at his hands, and she can't help but follow the trail. They had been covered in blood not too long ago. Scarlet and sticky. The blood of a man who had once been alive and had thoughts and dreams and a heart just like her, despite how cold he seemed because he had turned to murder.

Oh.

She closes her eyes against the sudden onslaught of pain.

No- No, she does not feel regret for the dead, she does not identify with them. Certainly not with the man who had shot her. The man who had caused the dominoes to start falling.

"Please can we go back?" Dan practically begs. The tone in his voice makes her heart ache, so she keeps her eyes closed.

"No, Dan. We can't go back."

"Please, please Serena. Dammit, I don't want to let you go, I don't want you out of my life!" He exclaims, making her shudder but she just presses her hands over her ears like a child would do. Blocks out the noise as though not hearing the words will make them any less real.

Dan's hands tug on her own and she lets out a low moan, followed by a sob that gets caught halfway between her heart and her throat and she doesn't care. She doesn't care and oh, she loves him, she loves him.

"Dan, no, please." She cries, nails digging into his hands.

"Please, Serena. Let me fix this. I'll do anything."

"There's nothing to fix."

"There is- There's so much."

There is so much pain. And she doesn't know how to stop it.

"Serena, please. Serena."

She opens her eyes and finds empty eyes staring back. This is not the man she could love.

"Please, Serena. I love you." He tells her.

"I don't care." She lies.

Dan balks. "That's a lie."

"No, it isn't. Love doesn't mean a damn thing in this world, Dan."

"Yes, it does." He insists, and dammit she wishes he wouldn't, because doesn't he see how hard it is for her to let him go? "It means something. It means something to me and I know it means something to you, too."

"No, no, it doesn't."

Dan grips her wrists tightly in one hand and forces her to look at him with the other, hand clutching her jaw in a way that's almost painful. Good. Good, she can focus on the physical pain of his hands that had once brought so much joy and laughter and life to her broken body rather than the emotional ache she feels deep in the dead weight between her lungs.

"You love me too." He says. "I know it. I can feel it. So don't leave me, Serena. Save my life and then leave this frankly unbelievable life of yours behind."

If she closes her eyes and blocks him out then it's all just not real.

"Serena." His fingers dig in a little sharper on her jaw.

"No." She says, eyes opening and seeing through a hazy layer. There's something like fire in his empty eyes now. Something that reminds her of the man he was before all of this. "I would do anything except leave this life. I need this life."

His hands flex around her jaw, a little lighter in their hold. Brush there tenderly and she remembers how he touched her in the bed in the Hamptons, as though she were a precious thing, as though he saw the woman she used to be; the woman that she had forgotten long ago, had given up on her halfhearted quest to find her again.

"You love me?" He barely makes a noise, disbelieving it seems.

Serena feels a tear drip onto her lips. She's not sure whether it's his or hers. It's the right kind of bitter for this wrecked relationship that they've created.

"Yes." She whispers.