Disclaimer: I don't own any part of Dexter and I am making no money or profit from this story. This is set after 8X05.

PART OF THE CODE

Miami was never really dark or quiet. The lighted windows of the skyscrapers in the distance led me to believe that people were going about their lives as if nothing had changed tonight. I had just watched my brother pierce another man's chest with a fucking curtain rod and I was good with it. He looked me right in the eyes after he did it and I knew that I could accept him for what he was. I knew that I wanted to hunt with him again if it meant saving lives. Sure as shit he was one fucked individual, but if he could harness his needs this way, I wanted to be part of that part of his life. I never thought that I would want that, but that was before I saw him almost die as the air in his lungs bubbled out of the car as is sank. Vogel said I hit rock bottom. That may be and it changed something in me. It changed something with us. He had never been so open with me. Never been so angry in my presence. It was terrifying to think that he might have hated me.

Now as Dexter's SUV cut through the night, I found that his eyes would catch mine over and over from his rear view mirror. After disposing of the evidence, we were taking Vogel home. She rode shotgun and I sat behind Dexter, next to Harrison's car seat. As the lights from the oncoming cars threw light onto his face, again and again I would catch him looking at me like he did in Vogel's house or on his boat when he said he wanted to be with family. His eyes, framed in the black rectangle of the rear view mirror, burned into me. I could tell that he wanted something but didn't have the words or the ability to say what he needed. If it didn't sound so fucking corny, I say he was longing for something.

He walked Vogel into her house and I went to sit in front so he could take me home. Even though I had only been splashed a little, I could smell the scent of the ocean clinging to my hair and clothes. I could almost still feel Dexter's hand in mine as he helped us off the boat. When we arrived back at the marina, he jumped onto the pier and tied the boat to the cleat. He came back and took Vogel's hand to steady her and she stepped onto the pier. But surprisingly he did the same for me. I'd gotten off his boat a hundred times before, but this time he reached for me. He still wore his gloves and the thought of touching the black leather excited me, and scared me that it excited me. I could feel the strength in his arms as he steadied me on the dock. With his other had he touched my waist until I was on both feet. We looked at each other for just a few seconds until he cleared his throat and went to do a final lockup of the boat. Vogel was farther down the dock, watching me, wearing an enigmatic smile.

Sitting in the car, I looked at my hands. Even though they put powder in the gloves, my fingertips were still wrinkled. It was just another physical reminder, along with the ocean scent that clung to my clothes, that I just watched him kill another person right in front of me. This time I knew it was going to happen. I watched him silently move to the drapes, pull down the rod and pounce on the bed. He took my breath away with his stealth and self-assuredness. I knew it was going to happen and I wanted it to happen. Fuck, I was the bait to keep him under the bed as Dexter got into place. Maybe I am resilient, because for the first time since Speltzer this felt like the right thing to do.

The dome light flooded the interior of the car as he entered the driver's side door.

"She's safe inside", he said as he pulled the door shut. He looked down at my hands as I was fidgeting by rubbing my fingertips together, feeling the ridges and valleys of my pruned skin. The dome light slowly dimmed and the darkness returned. I felt stupid for being so restless and put my hands down and rubbed them up and down my thighs to see if I could warm them up a little.

He looked at me again as if he didn't know how to say what he wanted to say. "Deb, I want to be with you and Harrison tonight. Can you stay with me tonight?"

He took my hand as it rested on my thigh. He fingers slipped over the back of my hand and curled around to my palm, then entwined our fingers. In the last few months, the only times we've touched was when one of us was unconscious. But aside from getting off the boat, he touched me of his own free will now and the weight of his absence these past few months pushed at my chest and sped my heart rate. I could feel the heat creep up my chest and into my face. His hand was warm and his skin felt perfect against mine.

He started slowly sliding our fingers against each other and I grew uncomfortable. Uncomfortable in the sense that this was not right. It was too personal for us to do if he didn't feel the same way I did. I wanted it, I wanted him to touch me, but I knew I had to stop feeling what I was feeling. I couldn't help it but I had to try. "Will you come home with me?" he said as he watched our fingers play against each other.

I took a long breath and said "Yeah, but I need a fucking shower. It's been a long time since I stayed over at your place. Do I still have a drawer there?"

"Yes. Everything is how you left it." He seemed to remember himself, pulled his hand away slowly as if he was moving in a fog, and started the car.

We didn't talk much on the ride to his place. He parked, and I followed him to his door.

"Dexter, Jamie's got it in her head that Quinn and I are… She's jealous. It might be better if she doesn't see me."

He nodded and unlocked his door. I went straight to the bedroom to grab my stash of clothes in his bottom drawer. I kept just a few shirts and shorts at his place for times like this. All my clothes were neatly folded and freshly washed from the smell of them. I hadn't seen my favorite MMPD T-shirt in months but it didn't seem like the right time to wear it tonight. Plain white v-neck t-shirt and sweat shorts it was.

I stood up, turned around, and he was right there. Suddenly he hugged me, one arm over my shoulder and one underneath my arm. It was so unexpected and at first I didn't hug him back, my arms so close to almost completing the embrace, but I was frozen in place. He held me so tightly. His fingertips dug into my skin and one of his hands slid up my spine to the back of my neck. When he threaded his fingers underneath my hair and cupped the back of my head, I closed the circle between us, hugging him back, mostly so that I wouldn't fall down.

"Thank you for being here." he said into the curve between my shoulder and neck. His breath caressed my skin, raising the hair on my arms and tightened my nipples to desperately hard points. Desire, like a live wire rippled through my lower abdomen. I rode the feeling until reality came back to me as I heard Jamie from Harrison's side of the apartment. I tried to push him away, but he held me tight.

"Dexter, I can't. I want to try to be what we were, and what you want me to be, but I…fuck. I can't be near you like this yet. Not if we want to get back to what we were. I know you don't feel the same."

He stepped back, but didn't let me go. He looked down between us.

"I'm not blind, Debra. I never have been. I want to explain. Let me check on Harrison and let Jamie know that she can go for the night." He released me without looking at me at all and called out to Jamie as he left the bedroom.

I snuck into the kitchen, grabbed a beer, and downed half right away. Motherfuck, that was good.

After the quickest shower in the world, I sat on his bar stool, sipping from the rest of the bottle as he walked in. He saw that I'd already started and grabbed a bottle of his own. I took another sip.

"Deb, I want to sleep with you tonight." And I nearly spit all over the front of his shirt.

"Dexter, what the fuck?!"

"No, no, I don't mean I want to fuck you…I mean, I do… but not tonight… oh what the fu… I just need to be close to you. You don't know what it mean to be with you again and for you to still want to be with me after I killed Yates right in front of you."

"Dex, you know what I'm struggling with here… I can stay on the couch, but..."

He raised his voice. "Deb, you were part of the code!" He ran his hands through his hair in frustration. He started pacing back and forth. He was a predator backed into a corner of his own making.

"Ok…You were never "officially" part of the code. How Harry made me understand that is between Harry and me, but he made it very clear to me what you were to be in my life, and no more than that." He looked right at me. "Every time you told me, in one way or in another, that you were in love with me, I just couldn't understand it. It didn't make sense because of the code."

He stopped in front of me, but just out of reach. "You're stunning, you know that? Don't you think *I* know that? You're absolutely irresistible. But you were to be my sister, someone to lean on when I started slipping, and I was never to fall in love with you. Never supposed to want to fuck you."

His voice became much quieter. "But I have. And I do. But in as much as 'Don't get caught' and 'Only kill bad people' have been so ingrained in me, so has his rules with you been etched in my brain."

He stood in front of me. I reached for his hand and he let me take it.

"Vogel's right. My brain works differently and I can't express why this is so difficult for me, but even though I want you so fucking bad, we have to go slow. I love you, you know Deb. I really really love you."

I stood and closed the distance between us. I touched his cheek and he touched me around the waist. Even though I wanted to tackle him and make him fuck me against the refrigerator, I slowly came closer and closer to his face and carefully captured his lower lip between my own. It was sweet and made me burn wickedly hot in an entirely different way than the heated rush of other first kisses.

He pulled away. "I don't want to hurt you. And I don't want you to pull away from me because you're scared of me. Of what I want to do to you, and do with you."

A completely inappropriate laugh erupted out of me. "Sorry Dex, but really? You're a serial killer and you think I'll be scared of you during sex? Really? You'd never scare me or hurt me. I know that. At least no more than I want you to scare me or hurt me." I smiled as the shock of my words settled over his face. "You should know I have a very filthy mind."

He looked down, embarrassed. "All I know is that tonight I need to hold you. That's all I know."

"Ok Dex, sorry… I want that too. And I'm really fuckin' beat. Are you going to shower?"

He looked down at his clothes. "Uhh, yeah."

"Go on then. I want to look in on Harrison and I'll see you in a few." He shot me one last look and headed to the bathroom.

After making sure Harrison was sleeping, I went back to Dexter's bedroom and crawled under the covers. It was totally unreal that just this morning we were in a completely different place and now I was waiting for him to come to bed. The thought of him next to me made me squirm and I knew that I had to keep myself in check if this really was a struggle for him.

He came into the bedroom only wearing pajama bottoms and walked toward the bed. His hair was damp from the shower and spiky. A few beads of water were dripping down his chest and shoulders. It made me want to lick him clean. "Jesus Fucking Christ Dexter, this is pretty fucked up right here."

"Yeah", The bed dipped as he sat down. "Roll over. I want to hold you."

"Is that how it's going to be? Is that some kind of preview, Dex?" I asked with a smile, and did what I was told.

"Maybe." He spooned up behind me and held me very close, his bare chest against my back.

He curled his arm around my waist sneaking his hand under my shirt to rest on my stomach and buried his face in my hair. He was right; this is what we needed. To touch. To be together.