(in which I start a fanfic to fulfill my need for closure after that giant emotional cliffhanger - Where Dexter's season 6 finale left off from Debra's POV)

"What the fuck, Dex?" Debra stumbled back, her body slamming into the rough stone of the church's walls. "I mean, what the fucking fuck? Jesus Christ, Dexter!" She steeled herself and started walking forward, her eyes darting back and forth from her brother to the dead man bleeding out on the table. "Is-Is that DDK? Is that Travis fuckin' Marshall wrapped up in plastic like some fuckin' deli meat? Jesus!"

"Deb -" Dexter began. Debra held up a hand to silence him.

"Don't even fucking start. Jesus pissin' Christ, I thought I knew my own brother but..." she tugged at her collar, unbuttoning one of the buttons. "This isn't the first time you've fuckin' done this, is it? Killed someone? Oh goddammit, I can't breathe," she sputtered, doubling over and gasping for breath through her panic. Dexter rushed to her but she jerked away from him.

"Who are you?" she asked, staring into Dexter's face. She wished that she could say she didn't recognize the man before her, that the person she thought she'd known so well was gone. But the truth was, her brother was right there - his eyes filled with concern for her yet the rest of his face was blank, just a firmly set jaw and an indecipherable expression that she'd seen from him millions of times before.

"Deb, please -"

"Don't. Speak. Please, Dex, I just gotta think. I can't think right now." She wanted to run to him, confide in him but this time, he was the monster she was afraid of. It wasn't who he had killed, because she wasn't spilling any tears for the Doomsday Killer, but that smile on Dexter's face as he shoved his knife into Marshall's chest... it wasn't human. It couldn't be the brother she loved, the man she thought she was in love with. She spun away from him, yanking her hair out of her face just in time as she retched onto the stone floor.

She straightened up, wiping her mouth and groaning. She turned back to her brother, staring at him, unable to speak anymore. She took a deep breath and walked over to the altar of plastic her brother had erected to trap Travis Marshall, like a fly tightly wrapped in a spider's web. "Dex... what is this?" Debra whimpered, hating herself for the weakness in her voice and the tears blurring her vision.

"Uh... He kidnapped Harrison. My son was going to be his sacrificial lamb on top of that tower."

Debra jerked her gaze away from the dead body before her. She locked eyes with her brother. "He tried to hurt Harrison?" Dexter nodded. A surge of protectiveness for her nephew moved through her before fading and leaving her with an empty numbness. "But, Dex, this... I could maybe understand if it was self defense or even if you killed him in a fit of fuckin' rage - some heat of the moment kind of deal but this... This is cold and fuckin' calculated and..." She couldn't clear her head of the buzzing that seemed to be filling it, growing louder and louder and drowning out all reasonable thought. But how could she even begin to think reasonably with everything she had just learned?

Her breathing was becoming irregular again and she leaned a hand against the table to steady herself. She quickly pulled her hand away at the feel of the warm plastic. Looking down she understood why it had been so warm - fresh blood was trapped under the plastic. She studied her hand but it was clean.

Debra could see Dexter moving towards her out of the corner of her eye. "Stop. Stop where you are!" she yelled at him, pulling her gun and training it on his chest. He held up his hands, dropping the bloody knife that had still been clutched in his gloved fist.

"Are you gonna shoot me, Deb?" Dexter asked, still walking towards her slowly.

She cocked the gun. "S-Stop, Dex!" Debra shouted, her voice shaking. She gripped the gun tighter in her trembling hands. "I don't wanna shoot you, goddammit. You're my fuckin' brother but, but... I-I gotta, I gotta take you in, Dex. I have to."

"What about Harrison?" Dexter questioned softly, still walking closer in slow, measured steps.

"I can't be your sister right now. I can't let something like this slide. I'm lieutenant. I'm the fuckin' lieutenant and I can't, I can't let you get away with this." Her voice was shaking even harder than before, as was the gun in her hands. She shut her eyes tightly for a second. Her defenses were down for one second but that was enough time for Dexter to lunge at her and grab the gun from her hand. He disarmed it, emptying the bullets from the clip. They clattered to the floor, rolling in all directions. Dexter cast the gun aside and Debra watched, frozen, as it skidded across the flagstone floor.

Dexter grabbed her in his arms, she struggled against him but he was so much stronger than she was, much stronger than she expected him to be. He clutched her tightly against him. "Listen to me." She fought against him but he wouldn't let go. "Listen to me, Deb! Please! I can't leave Harrison without a mother and a father. Just go. I'll take care of this. You were never here. You didn't see this. Please, Deb, please. You have to let me go." He whispered the last bit into her hair, making her shiver against him.

"What, What would you do if I didn't let you go?" Her voice was small and scared. Would her brother be willing to kill her to keep his secret? She couldn't voice that question out loud.

"I'd never hurt you," Dexter said quietly, as if he could read her mind. "But Harrison is my son, my number one priority, and if you take me away from him... I don't want to hurt you."

"But you could hurt me... you could kill me if it meant keeping this a secret?"

"No!" Dexter finally released her. His face was contorted with frustration and anger as he paced back and forth. For the first time Debra didn't recognize her brother. "I wouldn't kill you! I don't know what I'd do, Deb! I don't know!" He pounded against his head with both fists and grunted.

"Jesus! Stop!" Debra grabbed his hands to stop him from hurting himself. "Dex! Dex! I'll leave. I'll leave. You take care of this however you have to. Alright? Call it in as a suicide or something so we can close the case, okay? Just... just you handle it. I can't stay here. I can't know how you fuckin' do whatever it is you're gonna do, alright?" Dexter stared blankly into her face. "Alright?" she pressed. He blinked and nodded. "Okay, I'm, I'm gonna go. I'm gonna go back to the station and do some paperwork or whatever and pretend I never saw any of this. Okay?" Dexter nodded again. "Good," Deb whispered softly, releasing his hands and half-running to the door. She slammed it behind her and bolted to her car, not stopping until she had slammed herself into the driver's seat and locked the doors.

Debra buckled herself in, barely managing it with how badly her hands were shaking. She started up the car and grasped the wheel tightly, taking a minute to brace herself before taking off. The shock had kicked her into autopilot, so when she was parking in front of the station with no memory of getting there, she was surprised and impressed that she hadn't gotten into a car accident on the way. She took an extra minute to compose herself, turning the rearview mirror and carefully dabbing at her messy eye makeup with her fingers.

"Pfft, okay, you got this. If you can keep it cool for a couple of hours you can handle any fuckin' shit storm that comes flying at you from here on out," she muttered to herself as she slammed her car door shut and walked into the building.

She headed straight for her office with a determined purpose that no one disrupted. Clutching both hands on the doorknob to keep from slamming it, she gently shut her door. Her eyes peered at her fellow officers through the blinds. Everyone was consumed with finding DDK, completely unaware of the secret weighing in the pit of her stomach like a pound of maggots wriggling inside her. DDK was Dead. Dexter was a killer. She flipped the blinds shut and took a seat behind her desk, clenching and unclenching her fists in her lap.

The ticking of the second hand on the little watch on her wrist became the most fascinating thing, distracting her from the files she attempted to pore over while waiting for a call to come in. Debra slammed her head down on the pile of cases on her desk and groaned but her door bursting open a second later made her jump out of her seat.

"Sorry, ma'am," Detective Anderson apologized. "But your brother's called in DDK's apparent suicide at the abandoned church." Deb nodded mutely. "Lieutenant Morgan?" Anderson asked, clearly expecting something more from her minimal reaction.

"Fuckin' A, yeah! Let's get everyone over at the scene right the fuck n-now," Debra said, trying to channel her usual self. Anderson nodded and strode out of her office, rounding up Masuka and some officers to head over to the scene. She followed after the quickly-assembled team, getting in her car and chasing after the lights and sirens that guided her way back to the church.

A/N: Please review to let me know what you think. I don't have a lot of free time so I can't promise that I'll be able to update regularly but I'll do my best to get more chapters out to y'all when I can.

~aep