A/N: It's taken me a century, but there is finally a conclusion to this saga! Sorry for taking so long, just was having a hard time finding an ending that I felt fit. Or even finding the time to think about an ending that worked :) Thanks as always for reading and reviewing. And there might be some new stuff coming soon too

Dexter watches his prey closely. It had taken him much longer than he would have liked, but as always he was successful in his endeavors-at least these types of endeavors. The curtains are drawn on the little window that faces the street, but he can see the shadows play from the bottom edge where it doesn't quite meet the windowsill.

He had followed for hours now, was quickly losing tolerance for waiting any longer than he already had. Seven weeks it had taken him. Deb had done an excellent job.

He knocks on the shabby door, hears the footsteps move towards it within seconds, but is left waiting for several minutes, listening to her breathing on the other side. Finally the tumbler turns, the latch squeaks and the door slowly cracks open.

If she was surprised to see him through the peephole, it doesn't show now. She looks resigned, almost hopeless. She could have run, they both know she could have tried, but what would be the point? He's followed this far, tracked her. He's ignored her implied request to leave her alone. Running would just delay the inevitable.

It is a few more minutes before she pulls the door open the rest of the way, allows him to slip inside. She closes it behind him, composes herself before turning back to face him, her back pressed against the door.

She's not happy to see him, she's angry and bitter. But he can't help smiling, seeing her face after far too long. Whatever urgency he has felt apart from her, whatever desperation, is dissipating. Already he feels able to breathe more freely, the weight of her absence lifting away.

He steps into her space, ignores how she flattens herself against the door to avoid his touch. He leans forward until their bodies touch, until he can brush his nose into her hair. He inhales deeply, comforted by that familiar scent of Marlboro Lights and Suave. He drops his head into the crook of her neck, his lips skittering along her skin.

"I thought disappearing would give you a hint." Deb mutters, irritated.

Reluctantly, Dexter pulls away. "You should know better by now." Dexter half jokes.

His amusement is lost on Deb, who goes to her fridge, pulls out a beer for herself. She doesn't bother to offer him anything, instead tosses him a look that makes it clear he is an intruder inside her new home.

"You didn't really think I'd leave you alone?" Dexter genuinely questions. He follows Deb over to her couch, sits closer to her than she'd like, but she leaves it.

"I had hoped." Deb takes a long drink and considers him. "How did you find me? I was careful."

"I found your id guy. I…persuaded him."

Deb pales at his comment.

"He's alive." Dexter hurriedly adds. "Just easily bought."

Deb scowls. "I still forget you're a fucking serial killer and you have no fucking morals."

"But it's ok for you to change your identity and go on the run?" Dexter replies sarcastically. Without warning she punches him, her fist making contact with the side of his head. Dex holds onto his aching head and scoots away from her. It wasn't worth starting a fight.

"Fucktard." Deb glowers at him, shakes her hand out slightly.

"I think it's perfectly acceptable to not want to have anything to do with you ever again." Deb cruelly tells him. She wants to hurt him in all the ways he has hurt her. But she thinks this is useless. He will never feel the things she has felt. He isn't capable of understanding the pain he has inflicted on her.

"We only have each other." Dexter pleads.

She looks away from him, chews on her lip. She's known this longer than he has. She was the one who wanted him to open up to her. Now look what she's got. But he is still her only family, one of the very few people in the world she loves. The person she loves the most to be precise. And despite how angry she feels in his presence, a part of her is still glad to see him.

This has been the battle she's fought with herself for weeks now. How can she still love him when she only now knows what he is? How is it possible to love someone who is everything she despises? And why is this happening all over again?

There are still raw, gaping holes in her soul from Rudy... Brian... Whoever the fuck he was. Now whatever was left, Dexter seems determined to shred.

Deb fixes her eyes back on him, tries to understand who the man in front of her is. "What the fuck do you want from me?" He seems surprised by her question so she presses on. "Do you want your adoring sister back? Because I'm pretty fucking sure she's gone."

Dexter cocks his head at her uncertainly. "I want…whatever you're willing to give me." It's an honest answer. And he waits apprehensively as she considers this. "I just need you in my life. In some way…"

"Which way?" Deb asks, her voice husky. Her eyes shine in a familiar way as she turns her gaze back to him. He watches as she slides towards him. Her hand is on his knee, her fingers gripping on to him and he leans back as she gets closer. Straddling his lap, her hands glide over his chest. Her lips brush against his earlobe and he fights the urge to buck into her. "This way?" The seductive edge to her whisper makes him groan.

He wraps his hands around her arms, pulls her away slightly. "That's not what I came here for." Deb stares down at him defiantly but doesn't try to pull away or reach forward to touch him. "Deb…I love you…"

There is a flicker across her face and he thinks for just a moment she may tell him the same. Instead she pushes away from him, picks up the packet of cigarettes from the coffee table and settles herself into a chair across from him, out of reach.

She eyes him as she pulls one out of the pack and lights up. She takes a deep breath in, tilts her head back and blows the smoke upwards before she meets his gaze again.

"You love me?" Her gaze gives nothing away as he watches her thumb fiddle with the end of her cigarette.

He leans forward onto his knees, looks deeply into her eyes. "Yes." He wants to make sure she understands this, but her expression doesn't change.

"What makes you think you're capable of love?"

Dexter furrows his brow. He had thought this was a good thing. The fact that he had realized he was capable of really feeling something for her seemed important. He had thought she would accept this from him. After all, hadn't she believed that he felt this way before she knew everything?

"You don't believe me?"

"Why should I?" She's playing the hardnosed, skeptical cop, he realizes. But how much of it is a test and what does she really think, he can't say for sure. All he knows is that she is as good as he expected, as natural as she would hope.

He shakes his head, stares down at his hands and wonders where to start. "Maybe I'm not." He looks back to her, seeking her confirmation, but gets a rigid stare in return. "I used to think that I didn't have any feelings. I used to think I wasn't able to feel anything at all. Maybe back then I didn't. But now…" He trails off, rubs his hands over his face.

"Now what?" Deb presses before taking another drag.

"Things are different." He looks at her earnestly, but Deb rolls her eyes and looks away.

"When my brother came back…it's the closest I ever felt to being understood."

"Your brother, the Ice Truck Killer." Deb's tone is snide.

Dex runs his fingers through his hair and abruptly gets up. Maybe she will never be able to accept what he is. He hadn't allowed himself to worry about that all this time. He had thought it was enough that she hadn't turned against him, hadn't turned him in. But now he thinks for the first time that maybe it wasn't enough to save them. Maybe she would only be able to hate him now. Maybe she would never be able to look past his monster and see him.

They had spent so many years with her believing the best of him. Believing all the things that he didn't deserve and hadn't earned. Now that she saw the darkness of his truth, he understood she could never believe those things again. So where did that leave them?

"He was the first person besides Harry who knew. He was the only one who really accepted it."

"Yeah Dex. He accepted you as a fucking serial killer because he was A FUCKING SERIAL KILLER!" Her anger burns brightly as he looks at her and he feels a pang of guilt for what Brian did, for what he is doing now.

"So Dexter, if he was so fucking accepting, why did you kill him instead of me?" Deb challenges.

"Because I couldn't lose you." She sighs at his response and he comes closer, kneels down in front of her. "It didn't matter that he could accept the darkness when he couldn't see whatever small bit of light I have in me. The part of me that is you."

She looks at him and he can see her uncertainty, her discomfort. She gets up, moves away from him, paces across the small living room floor before she leans against the wall and looks back him.

Dexter gets up, takes her chair and watches her. "I've always wanted to be different than this. I didn't want to be this monster. You always thought I was better than I really am. And even though I know I can't be…I still like that you make it feel possible."

Deb's expression changes, softens slightly. "Have you tried?" Her voice is soft, nearly hopeful.

Dexter looks at her troubled. "I can't change what I am." He tells her quietly.

"How do you know? How the fuck do you know if you haven't tried?!" She looks at him desperately.

"I need it, Deb. I can't…I can't ignore the desire…"

She shakes her head and crumbles to the floor. She stabs her cigarette into the shabby carpet and runs her fingers into her hair, bows her head to her knees, hiding. When she looks up her face is tear streaked, more falling as she looks at him, lost and sad. "So that's it?"

"I never hurt anyone that doesn't deserve it." He offers.

"You keep saying that like it makes everything all fucking better. It doesn't!"

"Then what do you want me to say?" He asks her urgently.

"I don't fucking know! Okay?" Her burst of frustration deflates quickly and he watches her pick at her jeans as she thinks. "You were the only thing I had. The only thing I could count on. And it's all just a fucking lie. You're nothing like what you pretended to be. So how can I ever trust you again?"

"I might have been pretending then. But I'm not now. I'm telling you the truth. I love you. And no, I can't stop the rest of it, but at least you know now."

She looks up at his earnest expression and laughs softly. "Do you have any idea how fucked that is? Telling the truth now, telling me you love me, it doesn't change anything." Deb's voice is rusty as she continues. "I still hate what you are."

"But you love me." Dex states, nearly demands.

Her voice is hushed as she responds. "With everything I have in me."

He closes the distance between them, sits down on the carpet with her, presses a kiss to her temple and slides his hand down her thigh. She turns towards him, her eyes boring into his before she leans in and kisses him. Her hands take hold of his neck as she climbs into his lap and leans him back against the wall, never breaking the kiss.

His hands sweep over her back then grab onto the end of her tshirt and pull it upwards and off of her. He leaves her lips to taste her skin as she removes his tshirt and scrapes her nails against his shoulders. Her hands slide lower until she reaches the waist band of his jeans, flicks open the button and slides down the zipper. He groans and lets his head fall back against the wall as her hand wraps around his cock and her thumb brushes the head. He realizes suddenly that this is the first time she has touched him like this and he can't believe he has been missing this.

He opens his eyes to catch her staring at him and he can't help but think how vulnerable she seems. For once he lets her take the lead and watches as she unhooks her bra, stands up to remove her jeans and panties. He stops her only once, to press a kiss to her hipbone, which leads to trail across her thigh, to her center. She stops him before he can get started, grabbing a fistful of hair and pulling him away so she can settle back down on the floor.

She drags his jeans off with a little help and he feels nearly helpless when she takes him in her mouth. He calls her name, wants to stop her before he loses all control, but she pauses only to shush him and he obeys, letting her have her way. Suddenly her warm mouth leaves his length and he finds her straddling him once more, taking him in her hand. Slowly she guides him into her, stopping when she has taken all of him and he stares at her as her breath slides past his cheek.

He's not sure how much longer he can relinquish his control to her, and he finds himself grabbing onto her, kissing her ferociously. She responds and starts to move, slowly at first. Her nails scratch him and he can hear her moan as she breaks the kiss and throws her head back, picking up speed.

He forces her chin down. "Look at me." He demands. She obliges, her eyes a pleasing shade of emerald as they lock onto his own dark gaze.

It feels right to Dexter as he holds onto Deb, moves with her. This is the consummation of so much more than sex. She knows everything about him, she sees into every part of his darkness. And this was the final piece in having every part of her. Finally they are one, mentally, physically. She is the completion of everything he lacks, the yin to his yang, the yang to his yin, the Dr. Jekyll to his Mr. Hyde. This was their destiny, to be united as one.

He comes hard, banging his head against the wall as he feels Deb contract around him, her own orgasm causing her to call out his name. She groans a final time, lets her head fall into the crook of his shoulder as she comes down, her hands wrapping around him. He kisses her cheek and her shoulder, let's his hands meander across her bare back.

She's quiet for a long time and he is scared to break this truce, afraid that at any moment she may move away from him, tell him again to leave her alone. Even with her in his arms, the certainty of the union he felt as they made love is fading. He knows he needs her to be whole, but does she really need him? Can she accept him in her life? Or maybe she really is better off without him.

"Are you always going to be this way?" Deb's voice breaks through his thoughts.

He can hear the twinge of sadness in her tone and wishes once again that things could be different for her. But he needs to be honest now. "Yes. Can you accept that?"

Deb sighs, resigned. "I don't have a choice."

He tightens his grip on her, as he tells her "I love you."

She looks up at him, smiles softly. "I know."