Same disclaimers apply!

"Danielle. That's her name, right?"

Joey Quinn's hand quickly dropped from Deb's face as his own face turned pale. "You don't know what you're talkin' about."

"That girl Batista and I interviewed," she stood her ground. "She had a picture of you on her desk from when she was a little kid."

"How'd you know it was me?" It couldn't possibly be her. What were the odds? Of all the places in the U.S. she could be at right now, what were the odds of the two of them ending up in the same city? When he'd told her before that he was going someplace far, he was telling the truth. But never in a million years would he have pictured himself where he was. If he believed in fate, he would've dared say the stars aligned one night when his uncle (from whom he inherited his current apartment) came into town for a visit while he was living in his crappy apartment with rent that cost him half his paychecks, telling him how Miami Metro could use more efficient, dedicated cops. Quinn hadn't thought it through at the time, but as far as he was concerned, it couldn't be worse than his current situation, so he seized the opportunity.

"You might've grown fatter, thinner, tanner, everything in between, but your eyes haven't changed a bit. And neither has your smile. What's the big deal?" Deb let out a disbelieving laugh when Quinn's face suddenly turned angry. "Lots of people have siblings, it's nothing new…"

"Deb, stop…"

"Besides," a surge of confidence spread through her. It felt good confronting someone not in an interrogation room. "It's not like I looked into your file! It was a coincidence. A pure, fucking coincidence. What, did you not get along or something? 'Cause that's nothing new, either…"

"Drop it, Deb!" he roared, kicking his couch in frustration to avoid shoving her the way he'd accidentally shoved his mother. He took a deep breath to calm himself. I'm not gonna lose it, he mentally chanted. I'm not gonna lose it the way Dad did…I am not my father…I am not my father…I am not my…

"You're not your what? What's going on?" Deb had seen her father angry many times, and she'd seen Dexter angry on a few occasions as well, mostly when he and her father were arguing. Tempers were nothing out of the ordinary, but in that moment, she sincerely felt that Joey Quinn was about to beat the living shit out of her. She'd never seen him get so angry…over his sister, no less. What could a girl at least ten years younger than him possibly have done to agitate him at the mere mention of her?

"Jesus fucking Christ, I said that out loud," he groaned, plopping on his couch and bringing a pillow to his face.

Deb pried away the pillow, moved his legs to the floor and sat next to him. She'd never been the best with confrontation, often running away instead of facing it head on. She had no problem calling people out on their bullshit, but when she was the one being called out, it was different. Her defenses would go all the way up in full blast, and it didn't always end well for one or both parties. It was also probably why she and Quinn had gotten along so well. Instead of working through an argument, they'd just fuck, since neither of them wanted to deal with the emotions that came with it. But this time, she wanted to work through it because – as much as she hated to admit it – he was growing on her as more than just a friend-slash-coworker-slash-fuck buddy. And as far as she was concerned, from that moment on, she was going to do whatever it took to work through it and make him do the same.

"I'm sorry," she began. She saw nothing wrong with the way she confronted him about his sister, but it was obviously a sensitive topic for some reason, and if she was going to find out the truth, she'd have to put aside her own stubbornness for the time being.

Quinn didn't answer, though he did shift his focus onto her as she went on, "I probably could've worded that a little better. You know how I kinda suck at talking to people sometimes, right?"

She could've sworn she saw a small nod and a barely-there smile as she went on.

"I meant what I said, though. I don't understand why it's such a big deal for you to you to talk about your sister, but I want to. It's just, for me personally," she leaned forward, placing her chin on her hands, "the fact that Dexter was adopted doesn't make him any less of a brother to me. I can't imagine my life without him. I've told you this before, but really, I can't. Yeah, he can be real fucktard sometimes. But he always listens, and he always believes in me, even when I don't believe in myself. I guess that's why I can't imagine how you could just live like she doesn't exist, or something."

He sighed. He hoped he'd never have to talk about his family background again, but if he and Deb were going to take things to the next level, the conversation was inevitable. "I should warn you, what I'm about to tell ya, it ain't pretty."

"Obviously not," Deb agreed, "if you kept it to yourself this whole time."

"Ya might hate me a little," he added.

"I want to understand," she sat up more attentively. "I'm all ears, Quinn. Give it all you've got."

You asked for it, he mentally answered her, so you're gonna get it. All of it. "I was a bastard kid."

"What?" Deb turned to face him as he sat up, closing the small gap between them.

"My mom was eighteen, almost nineteen, when she had me," he quickly clarified. "My dad was twenty-three. My mom, she was a fuckin' mess. Sex, drugs, partyin', drinkin', the works. They went home together one night after she stumbled out of a bar – she hardly remembers what happens next – and a couple weeks later, she's pregnant."

"What does this have to do with…"

"Just wait," he laughed dryly. "My dad didn't want me, wanted nothing to do with me. He tried to force her to get an abortion, but she wouldn't have it. Pregnancy changed her. They got married, had a small wedding when I was two. I stayed with my grandparents during their honeymoon. It ended up working out alright…for a few years, anyway."

"You're not avoiding the question about your sister, are you?"

"Ya wanted to understand, didn't you?" he snapped. "When I was seven, I was playing with this remote control truck I got from my grandparents – his parents, actually – and accidentally ran into my dad's alcohol cabinet. I ended up breaking this really expensive bottle of scotch that was right on top of it near the edge. That was the first time he ever beat me."

"Joey…" That explained a lot about him, she realized. His random bouts of roughness, his short temper, and his trouble with emotions – who knew they were all a result of a fucked-up childhood?

"Thought maybe that was a one-time thing, but it wasn't. Anytime he didn't get he wanted – if he lost a bet, the Yankees lost a game, stupid shit like that – I'd receive either a punch in the gut or a whipping from his belt, from the side with the belt buckle, too. And that wasn't even the worst part. The worst part – get this – is that my mom just stood there. She stood there like nothin' fuckin' happened! She never believed that my dad could be anything but a good, kind man."

Deb pursed her lips. She hadn't expected Quinn to tell her his life story; she only wanted to understand why his sister was so difficult to talk about. It was a simple enough question. But then again, with him things were anything but simple. She couldn't even tell where she stood with him sometimes. "Wow. I…I didn't know."

"'Course ya didn't," he brushed her off. "When my mom got pregnant with Dani, it was the first time I'd seen my dad happy in awhile. My sister was his pride and joy, if you will. Everything I wasn't."

"So you were jealous?"

"Fuck yeah, I was," he scoffed. "I was just the bastard kid who came into the world thanks to my mom gettin' a little too fucked up one night. Dani was the kid my parents actually wanted. No," he corrected himself, "the one they always wanted. But I loved her anyway. She was a sweet kid. Real smart, too. Somehow she'd always know when I was pissed, and she'd come 'round and give me hug to try and make me feel better. I promised myself I'd never let anything happen to her."

"Made it real difficult for me to leave when I did," he brought his head to his hands as his elbows rested on his knees. "By far the worst fuckin' day of my life."

"Go on," Deb sat patiently, which Quinn knew was uncharacteristic of her. She was usually an impatient, exploding ball of emotion, but she was holding herself together surprisingly well.

"The night before I left," he wasn't ready to talk about his last unfortunate memory with his mother just yet, "Mom made it clear to me that she wouldn't go up against Dad, so I packed a duffel without a second thought. I didn't even listen to what she had to say. As far as I was concerned, I was done. With everyone's bullshit!" he wasn't sure why he'd yelled the way he did, but Deb figured it was a buildup of past emotion catching up with him.

"I was gonna leave first thing next morning, but I remembered I'd promised Dani I'd walk her to school for her first day," Quinn suddenly got the most emotional she'd seen him in all the time she'd spent with him, "so I told her I was goin' away on a trip. That I didn't know when I was comin' back, even when I knew I never was."

"Seeing my little sister cry like that," he swallowed. "It broke my heart. You have no fucking idea. I still remember how she held onto me that day…she cried because she didn't want me to go. I cried because I had to go."

Mary, mother of fuck. Deb pursed her lips together, resisting the urge to tear up a little. She instantly regretted how harsh she'd been earlier; obviously she didn't know him as well as she thought. He'd warned her before that he came with a lot of baggage, but she never took him seriously, mainly because he'd revealed that under the influence of one too many shots of tequila.

"So…hate me yet?"

She looked up with a start. "Surprisingly…no."

"No?" he raised his eyebrows. He'd just revealed how he'd left behind the one person in his family he love and cared about the most, leaving her hanging with the expectation that he would eventually come back, and Debra Morgan still didn't hate him? She was definitely a keeper.

"Don't get me wrong," she held up her hands. "I'm still trying to process this shit. Your shit. Oh, fuck me." She dug her nails deep into her scalp, letting out a deep breath.

"Deb?" Quinn asked, "Ya know you asked for it…" he stammered nervously, suddenly afraid he'd made a mistake opening up to her. Poor choice of words, he chastised himself. Good goin', buddy.

"I gotta go," she hastily grabbed her purse from the foot of the couch. When he leaned in to kiss her, she quickly turned so that his lips landed on her cheek instead of her lips.

"Wait," he grabbed her forearm before she left.

"Quinn," she tried to shove him off, but he subtly tightened his grip. "I told you, I have to…"

"How is she?" he couldn't help but ask.

"The fuck if I know," she shrugged. "I only went to talk to her about the missing girl-slash-potential-victim."

"Deb…" She stopped for a minute to look into his eyes – to really look into them. Where before she'd see someone who was really damn good in bed and also happened to care about her, now she saw a face full of regret, pain, and sorrow.

"When she caught me looking at that picture I told you about, I could see it in her eyes," she relented. Dani hadn't openly said so, but Deb had an instinctive knack for those things. "She misses you."

She reached into her pocket for a now-crumpled slip of paper and pressed it into his hands. "You're welcome."

Before Quinn could ask what it was, he opened it to find his sister's University of Miami residential address, email address, and cell phone number. It had been fourteen long years since he'd seen her, but he never went a day without being reminded of her in some way. He could only hope she did the same.

Sorry this took a little longer to post than I thought! It ended up being much longer than I anticipated. There were a few scenarios I considered, but I'd just finished the second to last episode of season 2 of The Walking Dead as I was writing this (personally, it was my favorite episode I've seen so far). Anything I felt while watching that episode kinda carried over into the tone for this chapter, so if you were wondering why I chose this particular route, you can blame that. As always, thanks for reading, y'all!