Chapter 28

A/N: 28 down, 2 more to go :) As always, hope you enjoy. Also, Dan was the one Milo's Nanny reported missing, I know that probably confused some of you, because it could've easily been read as "Milo has been reported missing." Thanks to pty for mentioning that. And I know this is such an angsty fic, but that's just the way I wanted it to happen, and I know some of you have lost hope, want more fluff and everything, but that won't make me change my storyline. I love you guys to pieces, and I hope you respect that.

He watches as she raises up on her knees, piercing blue eyes that had once filled with warmth now filling with nothing but ice cold hatred; and he can see now the way that she detaches herself from her victim. The way that she bites her bottom lip as she concentrates, the warning quiver in her hands as she raises the blade. How she's trying to hold back the guilt. Telling herself that he deserves this, that he deserves a death at her hand.

He wants to tell her to stop, but not just for his sake. Sure, his life is on the balance here, and his heart is pounding hard with fear, and his mouth has gone dry with the acceptance of death. But this is her life. She is better than this, he knows it, he's seen it within her, if only he can get her to see it within herself.

She places a hand above his racing heart, fingernails curling into his shirt. He wonders if she can feel it breaking in two.

Her nimble fingers flex around the blade as she lifts it, eyes falling from his own and towards her target. Sizes him up.

"Serena." He whispers. "Don't do this."

She hesitates. For a fraction of a moment.

"Freedom, Ms Lawyer." Mortem practially sneers.

Something lights in her eyes. Like fire. Amber flecks amongst her blue eyes. Long forgotten, something rekindled.

He will not win. He is not enough.

"You're more than this." He tells her anyway, because if he's going to die, he needs her to know this, what he sees in her. "You don't have to do this. You are more. You always have been, Serena."

But her eyes remain closed off, and she pulls the blade back, takes a deep breath.

He closes his eyes.

Waits for death.

It doesn't come.

Instead, there's a loud bang and shouts filling the room, and his vision is blurring and the world is tilting on its axis-

"S..." He tries to choke out her name, but it doesn't work. His lungs aren't filling the way that they're supposed to. What is going on?

She senses it the moment before it happens, blade poised in the air, Dan holding his breath, Mortem's presence floating through her mind and making it hazy at the edges. But not enough- because the hairs on the back of her neck prickle for a second, goosebumps rising. Mind clearing through the drive for freedom and betraying the only man she's ever truly loved. There's that telltale silence, the way that everyone in the room is holding their breath, waiting for her move. A crackle in the air- of electricity- like the calm before the storm. A creak on a broken floorboad outside. Complete stillness. She knows these tells. She's been part of them before. Far too many, in a distant past that she can hardly remember but looks fondly upon, regrets ever giving up.

Before they break down the door and throw the flash grenade, she turns to Mortem, ice freezing her veins. She wants to yell at him. Wants to scream. Is this him? Has he set her up, playing the victim card, so that she'll never gain her revenge? Her freedom?

But then the door is splintered in half and the flash grenade is thrown, so she lunges herself into the shadows of the room, hidden from the view of the flickering bulb, landing with a loud thud and whoosh of breath as her body comes in contact with the concrete ground.

Familiar shouts fill the room. Something like 'get down!' or 'put your hands up!'. But her head is spinning and white noise overwhelms her.

She curls into a ball, closing her eyes shut tight to ignore the sudden whiteness she can see with her eyes open. Drops the blade on the floor and clamps her hands over her ears, trying to recover, to gather some sense of control over her body, to take advantage of being hidden in the dark. Until they inevitably find her in this small, cramped room, despite the darkness she's found.

A familiar face swims into his view.

It can't be- But it is.

"Dan! Just stay still. You know where Serena is?" Chuck sounds like he's yelling.

Dan blinks at the man, once, twice, just to be sure- What is going on? How have they found him?

Wait-

"Serena?" His voice sounds rough with exertion.

Chuck nods, eyes looking up and around the room. "You and Mortem are here, but she's not. Is she being kept in another room?"

Dan shakes his head blearily, flexes his hands and finds that they're suddenly free of constraints. Someone must have cut him free of the rope. He tests his feet, finds that they're free too. So he reaches out with clumsy hands for Chuck's shoulder, uses him as balance to pull himself up onto his feet, even though it feels as though his legs are made of jelly. Weak. Clumsy. He looks around for Serena but only sees Mortem being cuffed by a police man and Nate. BUt where is Serena?

"She was..." His voice is rough, and when he tries to withdraw his hands from Chuck, he almost falls over.

Chuck catches him before he does, understanding in his eyes. "Dude, think. Was she in this room?"

Dan catches his breath, finds the ringing in his ears lessening, the blurred vision moving past, deteriorating. "Yes." He confirms, eyes scanning the room. "How did you know... How did you know about Mortem?"

"Dan." Chuck hisses, grabbing his shoulders and forcing him to meet his eyes. "Where is she?"

"I- I don't..."

Dan pivots, scanning the room, and that's when he sees it. A flash of silver in the darkness. Like a blade.

And then-

Serena lunges from the shadows of the room, grabbing Mortem with one arm and pinning him to her, pressing the blade to his throat. Wild eyes and clenched jaw, scanning the room, fitting past him as though he means nothing. Trembling.

Immediately, every cop in the room springs into defence. Raise their guns, aimed towards Serena- even Nate and Chuck have guns, hard eyes aimed on her. They reflect her own. How do these people remove their personal emotions and feelings from these situations? How does Serena convince herself that he deserves death? How do Nate and Chuck forget that this is the woman they once felt such fierce loyalty for, that they would even take a bullet for her, that they would kill for her?

He cannot separate himself from those emotions. He will not.

Yet-

He's heartbroken. Betrayed.

She tried to kill him.

"Let me go." She growls, eyes wild like fire, pressing the blade closer to Mortem's neck.

Chuck creeps forwards, gun trained on Serena. "Serena, come on, let him go."

Serena laughs, though it's strangled, savage eyes turning on him. "Don't you... Don't you dare tell me what to do!" She yells, spitting blood as she speaks. It's then that he notices the scrapes on her right cheek, red and bleeding, raw. She must've gained it from the force of the grenade. And he can't help the ache of need to help her that overwhelms him for a moment. How could he? He loves her. He shouldn't. He does.

"Let go of me, Miss van der Woodsen." Mortem tells her, hands wrapped around the arm she's wrapped around his neck, bowed slightly as he's pulled down because of her height.

How does he still manage to have such a calm, chilling voice? In these circumstances? Facing death?

Dan's mind is spinning. He presses his fingertips against his temples, rubs them, trying to rid himself of concussion, of his ridiculous thoughts that are distracting him from what's right in front of him.

Serena's nostrils flare with anger, digging the knife into his neck so that it creates just the smalles of cuts, blood leaking from it straight away.

"You can go to Hell, you bastard." She hisses.

"Miss van der Woodsen."

The man from before, that had been arresting Mortem with Nate, steps forward, gun trained on Serena. These guns panic him, and he thinks that they're panicking her, too. Serena. Because she's been shot before, and she had to go through so much pain, and that's what had started this whole side of her life. The slow descent to madness, way past her morals, too low to even shed light upon with how much he loves her. That hurts him, just thinking about it. And now she's facing guns again, half a dozen, holding the man who killed her father hostage, and he can't even begin to imagine what her thoughts are right now.

That's it.

That wild look in her eyes, it isn't wild at all.

It's fear.

She's terrified.

Serena recognizes the man from the moment that he steps forward. Stiff posture, training his gun on her, eyes narrowed and focused. Softening around the edges, as though he's trying to help her out.

"You're the Captain, huh?" Serena spits at him, watching confusion play in the man's eyes. "You're all corrupt. The lot of you."

"Miss van der Woodsen." The man has a voice of steel, undamaged. "We have information on him. We can give you the justice you want. He killed your father, we know, but you've got to let him go."

Laughter bubbles in her chest and she can't keep it there. It spills from her crazily, in rhythm of Mortem's pounding heart that she can feel beneath her palm. Funny, that.

"Yeah? He won't go anywhere. You're all corrupt. All you care about is money."

"Serena." Nate steps forwards, voice calm, blue eyes icy as a freezer. "You know that's not true."

"Sure it is. Just look at me. Oh, but I'm crazy, right?" She snaps, feeling blood on her hands. Mortem's blood. It warms her. It shouldn't. It does. "Just because I want revenge, just because I go against your rules.. I'm crazy. Have I always been, Nate? When we were working together? Me, you and Chuck? Was I crazy then, huh? Was I?"

She is breaking his heart into two pieces.

He stands amongst the tatters and watches as she falls apart.

"You know..." Her eyes glitter with tears, sparkle in her madness. She presses the blade further into the Senator's neck, eliciting a choked gasp from the man as his blood begins to stream out at a ridiculously fast rate, "You know, I am so tired. I am so tired!" She screams, voice hoarse. "So why don't I? Why shouldn't I do it, huh? Why shouldn't I take him with me?"

Take him with me.

No. She isn't going to die here.

He won't allow it.

"Serena."

Her eyes snap at him, crinkling around the edges with a worn smile. "Dan. You're okay. You're okay, yeah? The flashbang didn't hurt you?"

The anxiousness written into her features, her concern for him lacing through her blue eyes- It throws him off balance for a moment. How does she do that? Switch from cold-blooded killer, ready to kill him, to anxious lover in the space of a second?

He holds his palms face-forwards, taking a step forwards. "I'm fine, Serena. See?"

Serena nods slowly, tears streaming down her face, throat bobbing. She stumbles slightly with the weight of Mortem twined with her own trembling. He notices that Mortem is starting to look pale, blood leaking from his mouth as the knife only drives deeper into his neck. Is she aware that she's doing that? Is she aware of anything at all?

"Dan. I'm so sorry." She sobs, stumbling again, trembling. He eyes her warily, especially her leg which keeps jiggling. Is she still in pain from the car accident?

"Serena. Let him go."

"He ruined my life. I- I almost killed you because of him!" She cries, desperately searching his eyes with hers.

"If you love me, you'll let him go."

The statement makes her gasp, brow knitting together in confusion, and she takes a step back, dragging Mortem with her. The man's practically limp now, palce-faced, eyes closed as scarlet blood covers him whole.

"You can't make me choose, Dan. You can't." She practically whispers.

"It's your choice, Serena."

Her breath stutters and her eyes close. He thinks that somehow- through some sort of miracle- he has managed to get through to her. That somehow he is appealing to her humanity. As though she has any left.

But then she slices Mortem's neck wide open with her blade, making crimson bubble everywhere, clouding his vision as it spurts across the room at them. Dan throws his hands up and steps away, watching in horror as she smiles through the bloody mess. A maniac. Something glittering in her blue eyes that he has never seen before and that he never wishes to see again, because it terrifies him to the bone. This, her- He can see it. The cold-blooded killer within her that he's always tried so very hard to ignore.

She drops Mortem's body in an instant, and what he sees next terrifies him even more.

By some miracle of adrenaline, despite her injuries and her unstable mind, she manages to wrestle the gun from the Captain's hands. When the man makes a move to fight back, she pushes him to the ground, then kicks the next man in the stomach, spinning around so that she can then elbow him in the face with a loud thud echoing through the room when the officer drops to the floor.

Her eyes connect with his, just for a moment, one splinter of everything they deserve.

And then she turns for the door, hand reaching out for the doorknob, and the unspeakable happens.

Of all of the people there, he doesn't expect it from Nate.

Nate raises his gun, points, aims, and pulls the trigger. Dan doesn't even have the time to even think about telling him to stop. The bullet cracks through the room and lodges itself into her right shoulder, the force of it throwing her into the door, head bouncing off of the wooden block.

Serena!" He yells, watching as her eyes flutter closed, blood seeping through her clothes.

And here it is, he thinks as he rushes over to her side without a second thought, here is the inevitable.

He drops to his knees, cradling her skull in his palm. She's so fragile. Inherently so. Why can't they see that? The tired lines of her face, the downwards turn of her lips, the bags beneath her arms.

"No more running away, Serena." He tells her, choking on his tears.

In the background, he hears Chuck odering the ambulance, Nate yelling about the lack of pulse for Mortem.

He doesn't care. He doesn't care for one moment.

He leans down, presses a kiss to her forehead, lets his tears drip down to her own skin.

Let them see. Let them all see.

This is how he loves her.