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"Shut up."
It's the best piece of advice he's heard from anyone in years.
Being the responsible one, who could always be relied upon to do the right thing, has served Frank Lundy well throughout his career. He's never cared for politics, and that simple fact has won him friends in Bureau field offices across the US, even if his paycheck had never been quite as large as maybe he'd deserved.
While others engaged in playground dick-swinging contests, he'd only ever cared about catching killers and saving lives. His boss might have taken much of the credit in the press and with his superiors, but Frank had been able to sleep at night.
Things had gone more or less the same way with his wife. It had been almost a cliché, just how right they were for each other. Nothing had been perfect, especially with his long weeks in other cities, but they'd been happily married for almost thirty years, and raised a well-balanced daughter who seemed to like them. They'd lived a quiet life, but a good one.
For him, doing the right thing had never been hard. He'd never longed for column inches, or cared about sleeping around with other women, even when he was away from home for months. Over the years, people had called him naïve, even with a gun on his hip and his hands deep in a victim's entrails. Connie had simply mussed his hair and straightened his tie with a smile. "You're just a good guy, Frank," she'd said, and he's always done his best to prove her right.
But where Debra Morgan is concerned…
Even when they were together, sleeping in the same bed, constantly affectionate in every stolen moment, he was always reassuring himself that he'd never asked for any of it.
Dating anyone had seemed deeply wrong after Connie died, and that feeling had only settled down into a vague unease by the time his old college friends and colleagues in DC started setting him up with friends-of-friends around the country. It hadn't been so bad. They'd usually been pleasant enough women to spend an evening with in an unfamiliar town. But he'd never wanted anything to go further than dinner, let alone develop into a lasting relationship.
And then Debra Morgan had walked into his life, and his heart had felt about ready to burst.
It feels the same way now, with her lips pressed hard to his after two long years he'd tried desperately to forget about her, assuming that everything he'd felt for her during their brief relationship was nothing more than some kind of midlife crisis. After all, what man in his fifties wouldn't have been flattered by the attentions of a beautiful, intelligent young woman? His better judgment had made him cut off all contact with her, fleeing to another state, absolutely confident that staying would have been deeply selfish. She deserves a man her own age, someone young and vital who she can grow old with, have kids with if she wants...
But, even after two years, all the feelings he'd ever had for her had reappeared instantly as if they'd never been apart. He'd wanted to sweep her up in his arms and kiss her the moment he'd seen her at the station, vowing to fight anyone who tried to take her from him. Instead he'd been polite and evasive, and never even touched her. Later, in his hotel room, he'd run a background check on her boyfriend Anton Briggs, not sure if he was hoping to find an abusive criminal or Mr. Perfect. The FBI database had only turned up a couple of drug violations, and he'd erased the search.
She's happy. She's moved on. And yet…
He usually tries not to profile his romantic partners, but on the couple of occasions he'd said more than he should, when he'd admitted that his feelings for her might still be very much alive, he'd seen reason for hope in her eyes. And here she is, stopping any objections he might have with kisses, pushing him back into his hotel room, fingers tangled in his hair.
He should do the right thing. He should stop this. He should take it all back, remind her that she's in a committed relationship with a good man, and…
"I love you," he whispers, barely able to breathe, as the door clangs closed.
Debra looks up into his eyes, reaching back to turn the lock. "Good," she says. "Don't ever fucking leave again."
His room is filled with casefiles, maps and autopsy photos (the maid has already complained). They've been his obsession for two decades, but now they only seem important because they're what brought him back to her. His beautiful Debra, who had brought love back into his life after so long, who had been ready to go ice fishing with him...
His hands trail down her back as he kisses her, breathing in her warmth and her scent, hating himself for thinking he was doing either of them a favor by running away. She's a smart woman. She knows what she's doing. She knows what she wants. And if what she wants happens to be him, he would be an idiot to object.
"Frank…" Her palm is smooth on his cheek. "Fuck, Frank… I think we…" The heat between them isn't only in his imagination, and there's desperation in her eyes. "I really need you."
If there's any advantage to a hotel room, it's that you never have to go far to reach the bed. Even if, in this case, he has to dump files and his half-unpacked suitcase on the floor first.
She pushes him back onto the rumpled duvet, straddling his hips with graceful ease. The years have been good to her. There's a little more confidence in her bearing, even if she curses as much as ever and still weighs about 50 pounds.
God, she's gorgeous though. The kind of girl he'd have stared longingly at when he was her age, and never made a move on unless she… well, unless she knocked on his door, kissed the breath out of him, and pinned him to the bed. Some things really don't change.
His hands smooth over her breasts, move down over her hips… He's getting hard and he knows she can feel it. How much he wants her. All that irrational need that just can't be constrained by all his better judgment.
She unbuttons her shirt while he watches, and then he carefully unloops her belt while she strips off her bra. He should have spent so much more time in the gym. Her new boyfriend had practically been made out of muscle. But Debra leans forward as his thumbs drift over her nipples, feeling them harden at his touch, and murmurs: "You're wearing too many clothes, Agent Lundy."
Her smile could get him to do almost anything.
He'd been nervous the first time around too, the adrenaline surge getting to him when he'd asked her to dinner, and then when he'd answered the door on their first date, even though it was just a simple meal in his apartment. But she's always set him at ease the way she claims he does the same for her, and it had only taken ninety seconds of that date to be absolutely certain of just how much they wanted each other.
That sense of pure need, both physical and emotional, is even stronger now.
He switches off the light before pulling off his shirt and the t-shirt beneath it, suffering her amused comments throughout. The lights from the parking lot outside mean it's hardly camouflage anyway, and soon her hands are over him, touching, feeling, exploring.
"We're both morons," she mutters, kneeling on the bed to kiss his shoulder, one hand roughly jerking his belt open as if it's done her a personal disservice.
He eases out of his shoes, considering telling her to breathe and relax and take things slowly… but he's sure he'd rapidly fail to take his own advice. "Yes," he agrees, and drops the rest of his clothes to the floor. There'll be plenty of time to tidy up tomorrow.
"Fuck, two years…"
She's a warm place in what he's quickly realizing is a fairly chilly room at night, and he presses her down amid crumpled sheets, finding her mouth with his own and closing his eyes, relying only on the touch and taste of her to guide him.
Her hips buck up into his stomach, and the sheer heat of her is so tempting as to be irresistible. He lets himself fall to one side, stroking fingertips down her chest as he kisses her, reawakening every dormant memory he's ever had of the curve of her breasts, the sweet firmness of her nipples under his tongue, the fluid warmth between her legs that makes him ache with need.
"We wasted so much time," she's saying, one hand light on his erection, stroking, gently squeezing, making him harder than he can bear.
"Mm, not so much…"
"Fuck yes so much." She nudges her head against his chest, curling up against him. "How old are you now, anyway?"
"Sixty."
"Jesus… Do anything nice for your birthday?"
He takes a breath. "I went fishing."
"Of course you went fishing. Get laid?"
"Almost."
She looks up at him. "Almost? What the fuck? Were you getting all hot 'n' heavy and then you launched into one of your 'woe is me, I am totally too old for you and would, like, besmirch your honor by fucking you' speeches?"
"Yes, 'besmirch' is absolutely my go-to word when I'm picking up women." It feels so good to laugh with her skin flush with his, as warmth spreads throughout every inch of flesh and his fingers dip down, moving over her clit, gently parting her thighs to feel her wet for him.
"Knowing you, it probably is…" Her voice might seem calm, with a hint of laughter, but her breath is catching now, her hand involuntarily tight around him as she nudges closer, making him touch her.
He twists his wrist around and slides his index finger up inside her, all the way, and her moan of appreciation twinned with an ever-growing need for more only echoes his own.
"We could've been doing this… for years," she gasps out between increasingly violent kisses, but he can hear the anger and sadness in her voice.
“We weren’t ready… I wasn’t ready." She'd been right, years ago. When it comes to matters of the heart, she really is the more experienced one. He just needs to shut up and close his eyes and go with the flow. "Everything's going to be okay."
After all they've been through, he honestly believes it now, with her cursing a blue streak, squirming against his hand, and finally just grabbing his hip. "Fuck, just... Fuck. I need you."
He moves back over her, pressing his palm to her cheek as he kisses her. "Should I…"
"Yeah. Fuck. Do you…?"
"I do." He has condoms in his suitcase, right next to nail clippers and extra toothpaste, but given that the suitcase is now on the floor, in the dark… Well, he's not winning any awards for suaveness tonight anyway.
"We'll figure it out for next time," Deb is saying when he's done, curling a foot around his thigh and pulling him into her.
"Mm, I hope we won't have the chance…"
There are really very few things better than making a beautiful woman laugh. He's missed it. Deb's fingers lace into his hair as they kiss. "Well, play your cards right…"
The first time they'd made love, after one passionate date amid a serial killer investigation, he'd taken things deliberately slowly, afraid of hurting her or inexplicably somehow getting it all wrong, as if sex might have been completely redefined during the thirty years he was with his wife. Now he just wants her, all of her, all at once, secure in the knowledge that she'll still be here in the morning, and tomorrow night, and every morning and night he'll ever have.
Or is that too much to ask?
She's wet enough that he doesn't have to revisit his suitcase in search of sex aids he hasn't seriously needed since the last time he was in Miami. Her body, young and lithe and burning for him, is everything any part of him needs as he moves inside her, and she answers with a rhythm that's a little slower, a little less desperate than her heartbeat.
"Just… gotta get used to you again," she explains with a smile caught in streetlight.
He backs off, planting on hand hard in the mattress so he can use the other to stroke over her stomach, up along the curves of her breasts, feeling nipples hot and hard under his fingertips. His cock throbs inside her as he leans in to kiss her left breast, taking the nipple between his lips to lick and suck until Debra stirs and moans underneath him and reaches around to give him a hearty smack on the ass. "Okay, cowboy. You better start actually fuckin' fucking me…"
A solitary finger drifts down to dip into the wetness of her, rubbing over her clit before he lifts his head and decides that yes, they're both in need of some actual fucking, and him most of all.
He presses her legs up and back – she's a flexible one, Debra – going deeper, trusting her to tell him if it's ever too much. She just flings her head back, hair a black stain on his pillows in the darkness, and he can feel each stuttering breath she takes.
His hips rocking back and forth as he figures out both the rhythm they need and the rhythm they can both stand, he's several levels more aroused than he can bear, than he ever thought he could be again. But he's in love, he reasons with more thought than he should be able to muster, given the situation. He's in love and, for once, he knows it.
He lets one of her calves go so he can return his fingers to that tempting wet heat between them, and she braces her foot against his shoulder instead. "Fuck…" she's murmuring, body shivering with tension and pleasure intertwined. "Frank?"
"Mm?"
"Don't fucking stop."
She's so tight and good around him, so obviously wanting him with every fiber of her being, that it almost hurts just to breathe and swallow back on his rising arousal, and concentrate on guiding her to her release with the strokes of his fingers and the insistent pressure of his cock still deep inside.
It should be an ego rush more than anything, not even the way it's his body making her moan and push and roll against him, but just having her, this beautiful woman decades younger than himself, pressed naked to his bare skin. Hell, having her in the room would be a pretty impressive achievement. But it's never been about ego between them. More or less the opposite – protestations on either side about not being good enough, about being too foulmouthed, too old, too damaged…
She's right, he knows. They were both idiots for the longest time. But now, her eyes wide, breath hot on his face as she comes, everything feels as perfectly right as it had that first date in his kitchen, when he'd closed his eyes and kissed her and locked up all of his doubts and insecurities for the night.
Deb pulls him down into her, frantic to kiss him. "Mm, you feel good…" she murmurs, laughing against his lips. "Feel free to besmirch my honor anytime, Agent Lundy."
"I'll keep that in mind."
He doesn't need light to see her smirk. "Now what's it going to take to make you feel even better?"
Not much, especially when he combines just how good she feels with how long it's been since anyone made him feel this way. It doesn't even take much honesty to know that no one has since her, since a long, lazy morning fuck when they hadn't been too worried about showing up late for work, when even the idea of spending weeks filing had been undeniably sexy. They'd had no idea it would be their last morning together for years.
He leans in, deepening the kiss, tongue on hers, and pushes inside her hard enough to elicit an answering moan that's just the right side of pain. "Fuck," Debra breathes, her hips moving to meet his.
Frank gathers her up in his arms, his movements as forceful as he dares, his body just as desperate for this as his heart is for her warmth and love and reassurance. "Debra…"
Once even moments like this had been carefully measured, just to make sure he never said anything he might regret, something that might give her the wrong – or right – impression, while caught up in all her beauty and pleasure.
Now he just lets go.
He’s laughing before he can breathe, his body gradually coming back to him in perceptions of sheets roped around his ankles, sweat through hair, breath on skin, and a light level just good enough to see Debra Morgan’s eyes.
“You’re right,” he says, dropping down hard to the mattress and rolling over to strip off the condom. “We’ve got two whole years to make up for. Good thing we started tonight.”
He hasn’t gone to sleep with anyone since her, and he’s missed that badly, maybe even more than the sex. There’s a certain timelessness in just having her in his arms, blankets pulled up around them, while she strokes his cheek.
“Mmm… Too soon to go again, huh?”
“Mm.” His lips find hers with his eyes closed. “Too soon for quite a while. But I don’t have to be hard to make love to you.”
She wriggles, getting comfortable. “I can wait. Missed having you inside me.”
“Me too.”
Drifting off to sleep with her now would be perfect, and he’s almost there, almost gone, when she wriggles again and sighs a breath. He opens his eyes. “Debra?”
“Shit. I… I have to call Anton.”
Five words, and they fill him with such dread it’s almost sickening. But before he can ask, she’s touching a hand to his arm. “I just… He’ll be waiting for me, and I can’t… I can’t fuck things up more than they are fucked up.”
He’s reasonably sure he couldn’t follow that even if he were wide awake. “You didn’t tell him?”
Another sigh. “I… I didn’t know what I was going to do till I got here. Till you fucking answered the door.”
It almost hurts to ask, panic threatening to rise, but he does his best to keep his breaths level as he says: “Debra, if you’re not sure…”
“Fuck you, of course I’m sure.” She sits up, pushing the sheets back angrily, sweeping hair out of her eyes. “But I have to tell him, and I should’ve told him before. Should’ve told him the instant you showed up again, because I sure as shit knew, and he did too. So there’s no way I can make him sit up all night worrying about me when I’ve already fucked him over.”
She smacks the mattress. “Fuck! How’d I ever wind up with two good men?”
“Not such a bad problem to have.”
“Yeah?” Deb leans over the edge of the bed, looking for her pants. “Maybe you should call him. Try some diabolical laughter. That’ll help.”
The phone rings.
“Oh fuck.”
He’s seen her conduct herself around crime scenes and morgues with complete (or near-complete) composure and professionalism. She’s survived some of the most horrific things any human could endure. But he’d swear she goes white at the sound of that phone.
He sits up. “Do you want me to-”
“No, no…” She finds the phone, the glow lighting up her frown. “Dexter? What the fuck? Dex? Yeah, I… Wait, what? Seriously?... Isn't there anyone…" She casts a glance over at him as he reaches to switch on the lamp by the bed. "Well. Fuck. Okay. I guess I'll be there in ten."
"Trinity?" he asks when she's snapped the phone closed.
"Ha. I wish." She steps out of bed, piling clothes up on the bed. "Rita's got some kind of family emergency. Someone's in the hospital. Cousin. Aunt. Some shit. They need a babysitter. And that's what sisters are for, right? As if I don't have enough to worry about."
He runs a hand over his hair, a little lost. "So…"
A shirt flung around her shoulders, and she's stepping into her pants. "I have to go. Um. Coffee? Tomorrow? We can meet before work. Then we can catch Trinity and-"
"I'll come with you."
Deb blinks at him. "Uh… Well, really? Because we're talking three kids here and absolutely zero sex. You might get some grape juice if you're lucky."
He smiles. "I like grape juice."
On the elevator ride down to the lobby, she reminds him of the kids' names and ages between kisses and worries about whether they look too post-coital for their own good. Frank just kisses her again, and doesn't stop when the doors open.
Deb's about to head out the front exit, but he catches her wrist and gives her a tug in the opposite direction. "Got a rental out back. I'll drive." He's reasonably convinced that she'll steer them into a tree if her phone rings again.
"You hate driving in Miami," she reminds him, but follows anyway.
"I like it well enough when you're with me."
The drive isn't long, with little traffic at this time of night. Debra sits slouched in the passenger seat, giving directions, but mostly just looking at him or gazing off into space. Sometimes both. He can almost see the words she's rehearsing appearing in the air. They have a lot to talk about, much more than she needs to say to Anton, but it'll all wait until later. Until after Dexter's kids are safely in bed, after Deb's free to be with him, hell, after Trinity's caught... He can wait. For once in their lives, the two of them actually have time.
"Okay, it's just a left here and then next right, and..." Deb's looking at him. "What's wrong?"
He makes the turn, checking the rear-view mirror again. "Mm... nothing. Thought someone was following us."
Deb twists round in her seat. "Seriously?"
"Probably nothing." Given that the only person on his radar is Trinity, and stalking FBI agents would be a serious breach of his profile…
"Trinity knows who you are, doesn't he?" Predictably, Deb's right behind him. "Stop right here."
He pulls over, checking the mirror again. "He must, especially since I've been in the newspapers… But it would be far too dangerous for him to approach a cop. I doubt it's even possible, given his psychological makeup. He kills three people. Three very precise people in very precise ways. Everyone else… Murder would seem as abhorrent to him as it does to you and me."
"Uh huh." Deb gets out, looking back down the street. "We all thought the Ice Truck Killer was really precise too."
But this suburban street is about as quiet as one ever gets this time of night, so he simply locks up the car, swings an arm around her, and makes her look at him rather than worry about strangers lurking just out of sight. "So. Genuine picket fences."
"I know. Scary as fuck, isn't it? I've got a Stepford brother." Deb knocks.
There's a rush of noise behind the door like a pack of dogs clamoring to get out. But when it opens, it's nothing more than two children in pajamas, with the kind of look Frank hasn't seen in a long time - that bright eagerness caused largely by being up far too late. Despite working with Dexter for weeks on the Bay Harbor Butcher case, they'd never really ventured into personal matters, but he seems to recall that the two older children are from his wife's previous marriage… Still, they fall on Deb as if they've known her all their lives.
"Aunt Deb, are you staying?" The boy, with a toothy smile and mop of dark hair, could well be Dexter's own, except Frank's never seen Dexter grin quite so enthusiastically. Never seen him enthusiastic about anything… But then he has a new baby. Simply staying awake must take inhuman willpower.
"You're supposed to be in bed, both of you." Deb might laugh at the idea of having any sort of parental instinct, but he's seen plenty of people freeze up around children. She seems to do precisely the opposite. "Oh, this is my friend Frank. Say hi."
They say it, but have absolutely no interest in him until, a moment later, Dexter appears with a, "Oh, hi Agent Lundy", and then they start demanding to see his badge and gun. Doubtless on any other occasion there would be awkward explanations about his presence, but Dexter and his wife are far too eager to get out of the door to hear any of it. Half an hour later, after detailed examination of his badge and a couple of quick stories about his younger days chasing criminals across America, the older kids are finally convinced to go to bed and stay there.
Which leaves Deb looking at the baby, Harrison, with some mystification. "Seriously," she says. "Dexter's always on about how this kid never sleeps. Did you feed him scotch when I wasn't looking?"
He tugs at her shoulder with a smile. "Don't question it. Just back away slowly. I promise we'll hear him if he wakes up."
The couch is pretty comfy once they've extracted all the toys from between the cushions, and Deb delivers the promised grape juice before flopping down with her head in his lap. "Okay. Worst night, but best boyfriend ever."
"Boyfriend?" he asks, stroking her hair.
She looks up at him, frowning. "It sounds weird, doesn't it?"
"Sounds perfect."
But she's already remembered one of her other sources of panic this evening. "Shit…" She sits up, patting herself down for her phone. "I have to talk to Anton. I mean, I really do this time." Her thumb hovers over the 'call' button next to his name on the screen. "Fuck. What do I say?"
Both of them have far too much experience in dealing with impossible situations – cracking killers in interrogation rooms, breaking the news about the loss of a loved one to distraught parents and spouses – but he's never found a good answer to this one. "Honestly? I don't think it matters. He's only going to hear one thing, and nothing's going to make it better. You just have to say it, and then both of you can move on with your lives."
She eyes him doubtfully. "Anyone ever broken up with you?"
"Not in a while," he admits. "But I struck out a lot in college, if that's any help."
Her responding eyeroll says different. "Not really, when you've had since before I was born to get over it." But she kisses his cheek and gets up, clearing her throat and finally putting the phone to her ear.
He only hears the opening words, and then a door swings closed out of sight, and he's alone. Alone in a family house for the first time in years, with kids sleeping soundly in their beds, his girlfriend - girlfriend - coming back in a few minutes…
He tips his head back against the couch and closes his eyes, letting himself imagine, if just for a moment, what might-
The doorknob rattles.
His eyes snap open, hand immediately slapping against his hip, reaching for the gun that isn't there. The door is silent, steady as he watches it. Perhaps he'd only imagined the noise? But he's seen enough home invasion crime scenes not to let it go.
He gets up carefully, hearing the buzz of Deb's conversation in the other room, and glances around at the windows. Nothing. And yet - there. A flicker of a shadow. Could be a tree, could be...
"Okay." Deb's voice is deliberately carefree as she walks back into the living room. "Done and fucking done. And I am a fuckwad, so don't you even-"
"Does Dexter keep a gun in the house?"
She stops. "Dexter?" It's as if he's suggested that her brother might keep corpses in the basement. "I mean, maybe a water pistol… What's wrong?"
The kitchen knife slides easily out of its countertop holder. Good quality steel. Blade as sharp as any he's going to find... "I think someone did follow us. Take the baby. Go upstairs. Call the cops." He's not sure how much he can trust his instincts after two years of fishing and travel and absolutely no one pulling a gun on him, but it's better to be embarrassed than dead.
Deb's eyes are wide. "What? No way. You take the baby."
"I'm the expendable one." He grabs the phone from her, dials 911, and shoves it back into her hands as the door rattles again. "Go."
The one tiny hint of relief in this entire situation is that she goes, without waiting to argue and protest, leaving him with a knife, his training, and the sort of fear and self-doubt he hasn't experienced since he was a young kid running around with a rifle in a foreign land he could barely locate on a map.
Time has taught him experience and confidence, but he's sixty now, old and out of practice, and if there really is more than a shadow outside, if-
The shot is so sudden he has no time to process it before he's reflexively on the ground, the splintered door blown wide with its lock smashed. Maybe he is old, but at least he's not imagining things.
A gun comes through the doorway before any person, and he grabs the wrist with one hand, smashing his other elbow back and up into where a head should be… The intruder is much smaller than he'd expected, much more lightweight, but the gun fires again anyway, down into the floor, before he can twist the wrist, making the fingers let go as they crash to the ground together.
It's a woman, he realizes. Not Trinity. Too young, too female, with a face he knows he's seen but can't quite place… She's screaming, frustrated, angry, scared, lashing out with fists and feet and catching him enough by surprise that the knife is forced down, slashing over his own knuckles before he gets a better hold on her, blade to her throat.
"Just stop," he says, and his voice is less than commanding, breathless and hoarse with dust, his ears still ringing from the shot. But she glares up at him and gives in just as he begins to see red and blue flashes at the end of the street. If only he had some handcuffs.
Deb finds him minutes later, in the middle of trying to explain the situation to the first officer on the scene, and drags him away to get his hand seen to by a paramedic. "He's a Fed," she says, flashing her detective's badge. "You can get a report in the morning. Fuck me, ten reports." And then she rounds on him. "Don't you ever do that to me again." She gives him a shove to make him sit down at the back of the ambulance, but punctuates it with a kiss.
"How're the kids?"
"I don't know. Left them with a neighbor. I guess somewhere between freaking the fuck out and really looking forward to telling their friends tomorrow? What the hell, Frank? I'm the cop here. There is no fucking way..." She angrily blinks back tears as a paramedic takes his hand. "You are not the expendable one. I need you."
I need you too, he wants to say, but alcohol is being daubed into his wounded knuckles and that instant of pain makes him take that perilous step of thinking the words over before he says them. "Debra..." He catches hold of her hand. "Deb... This isn't as simple as you'd like it to be. As I'd like it to be. I'm fine now, but it won't always be like that."
"Unless you really plan on having fuckass reporters trying to kill you regularly, I think you'll be just peachy."
Reporter. Of course. But while part of his brain is busy reasoning out why Christine Hill might possibly have stalked and tried to kill him, he can't help but focus on the bigger picture while the paramedic binds up his hand and mutters something about not needing stitches.
There's a fear that's driven him away from her once already, had made him hang back and only reluctantly return her affections. There's a fear, rooted in the fact that the last time he was in an ambulance it wasn't for anything as simple, and the last time he was in hospital, he was…
"Debra." It hurts, but he takes both her hands in his regardless, looking in eyes he can tell are straining to hold back tears. "I don't want you to watch me die."
She blinks and no tears fall. "Shut up."
"Deb…"
"I mean it. Shut up." She pulls her hands away, roughly wiping her eyes. "You think I haven't thought about this? It wasn't fucking fun hanging around the hospital, watching my mom slip away. I know it must've been a horrible thing to go through with your wife. But we could both have been killed in the blink of an eye tonight. No one knows what's going to happen ten years from now, or even tomorrow. I just know I want to be with you."
He bites his lip, a nervous gesture he never can seem to lose. "You're not scared?"
"Course I'm scared. We'll do it anyway."
There's so much they should both be dealing with – their attacker, Dexter's kids, calling Dexter himself, planning how to corner Trinity, filling out police reports, going to get checked out in the ER… But for the moment he just wants to kiss her, to not only push his thoughts of noble sacrifice away but eliminate them completely. All he needs are her mouth on his, her body warm in the cool night air, and for the rest of the world, with all its sirens and flashing lights, to disappear forever.
"So," he says, bandaged fingers stroking her cheek, adrenaline jitters slowly being replaced by something that feels much, much better. "We talk to this reporter. We catch Trinity..."
"We go to a luxury hotel on a tropical island and don't come back for at least two weeks." The way she says it allows no room for objections. "Because we're both morons."
She really should do more thinking for the both of them. "And then?"
"Fuck if I know. Four kids and a picket fence? We'll find another bad guy to catch. We're good at that."
He's about to say something more, to mention the dangers and the problems, or perhaps even how on earth they're going to explain to her brother why his sedate suburban house now has bulletholes in the front door.
But all he really wants to do is nod, and grin, and kiss his girlfriend again.
And, for the first time in years, he does exactly what he wants.