Slightly extreme AU of Season 2. Lila doesn't exist, Doakes doesn't come close to being a suspect in the BHB investigation, everything's just...

Mom dropped us off at Dexter's apartment because she got called in to work today and she figured that Dexter doesn't have work today so he can look after Cody and me. She woke us up at 7 am and we ate cheerios with the skim milk Dexter brought over for us to have for dinner last night. Cody doesn't like skim milk much and I don't either but Dexter says we'll get really tall if we drink it. Cody wants to be tall so that he can beat up the Bay Harbor Butcher. I want to be tall so that I can be taller than Cody. I think Mom's just happy that we're drinking milk because she says it gives us nutrients and calcium and everything. The science teacher at school says that too.

Cody's class doesn't give him any homework on the weekends but mine does. Last year we didn't get any homework on Saturdays. I keep telling Cody that he better enjoy the freedom while it lasts. We both sit on the couch and watch the Saturday morning cartoons anyway. I have my homework on my lap anyway though. I'm doing my homework and watching TV. Dexter walks into the room. He was in the bathroom brushing his teeth. He smiles at me and tells me I'm being really productive. He says I'm a good multitasker.

The cartoon we were just watching just finished so now Cody's flipping through the channels looking for something good to watch. Usually Mom's in charge of the remote because she thinks we're going to find something bad to watch, but Mom's not here and Dexter doesn't know he's supposed to do that I think. Dexter sits down at his desk and opens his laptop. He's really quiet. He's not like Mom. Mom's always trying to make sure we're doing good and everything but I like Dexter's way of doing things too. He lets us have fun. Mom doesn't. Mom's always scared now because of dad and how he hit her and how he died. I miss dad. But I like Dexter better now.

Cody goes to Channel 31 and now we're watching the news. The news is boring. I ask him for the remote, all calmly and all, and he says no and throws it across the room. Dexter looks up when he hears it hit the ground. He tells us to play nice before standing up and picking it up. Cody jumps up from the couch and points at me and says it's all my fault. I shout that no it isn't. Dexter tells us to play nice again. Cody says sorry and Dexter gives him the remote back. We go back to sitting on the couch and Cody's about to change the channel when we see Dexter's face on the screen.

"Look, Dexter, it's you!" Cody says. Dexter just stands there and I feel something bad. It's the same feeling I had whenever dad used to come home before going back to jail. There's text on the screen but it's going too quickly. We just listen to the news reporter instead. She seems to be saying all the important things but in big words. Big words that we don't like.

"Bay Harbor Butcher" is one of them. She talks about how Dexter's a "prime suspect". Cody and I don't know what that means. We're not used to words like those because we don't read much about the police cases that Dexter's station takes care of because Mom doesn't want us to read about those types of things. So we don't know what the phrase "prime suspect" means. We just know it's bad. So we turn to Dexter. Cody asks him what "prime suspect" means. We didn't see it before and I don't think Cody sees it now but Dexter looks really pale. I ask him if he wants to sit down. He looks really sick. I feel bad for him. People are talking bad about him on the news. I always wished that I was on the news but if people said bad things about me I think I would get really sad.

Dexter says he's fine but he also says that "prime suspect" means that the police are looking for him. I ask him why they're looking for him. He says that he thinks they think he's the Bay Harbor Butcher. And then he laughs. He doesn't look so sick anymore. I look back at the news to see if they're saying anything different. They're not. I look back at him. I don't know why he's suddenly not sad anymore. And then he says to pack up our stuff and that we're going to just take a quick ride over to his station to clear things up. Cody packs up really quickly but I don't because I have a ton of homework out and I need to pack it all up into my backpack. Dexter kneels down to help me. He zips up the bag and puts it on his shoulder. He leads us out the door in less than a minute.

Dexter has us play a game where we run and see who can reach the car the quickest. It's Cody versus me and I'm not going to lose against Cody so I run as fast as I can. Dexter catches up to us quickly and we all hop into the car. As Dexter starts the car, Cody says he hears something that sounds like an ambulance. I try to listen too but Dexter tells us that it's probably nothing and we pull out of the parking lot faster than I think we should be going. Once we're on the road Dexter says to tell him if we hear anything else but we don't. We're too far away from whatever car was making that noise I guess. We keep driving.

But then we hear a siren, a loud siren, right behind us, and Dexter looks really alarmed but not exactly scared. I'm scared though. I don't really know what's going on but it doesn't feel right. The siren is right behind us right now. I tell Dexter that I think it's meant for us and we should probably pull over because I think he was speeding. We speed up though. I ask him what he's doing and he says that it's just a game and tells us not to worry about it. Cody and I turn around and make funny faces at the car behind us. I think Dexter catches us in the mirror and he tells us to stop. He sounds really angry when he says that. Cody and I sit quietly for the next couple minutes.

Finally we turn off the highway onto some road we've never seen before. It looks really spooky, like nobody's even awake or even lives on this road. Dexter pulls over and the car pulls over behind him. Dexter turns to the seat next to him and mumbles something, which is kind of weird because nobody's sitting to him. The driver of the other car gets out and it's a policeman. He starts walking towards us. Dexter opens the car door and starts to get out. The officer tells him to stay where he is. Dexter doesn't listen. He closes the door behind him and we can't hear much of what they're saying. We just see hand motions. Dexter motions to his wheels and the front of the car and then says something that sounds like "brakes aren't working" and then the police officer starts looking really curious and Dexter leads him around to the back of the car. The officer motions to the trunk and says something and then Dexter opens the trunk. We can't see anything through the back window now because the trunk is blocking our view. We can hear better, but we can't see. We hear some shuffling and a quiet voice. Dexter closes the trunk and then runs over to my door and opens it. He tells us to get out and follow him. He leads us into the police officer's car and says that the officer is going to let us use his car because Dexter's car is a little low on gas. I think that's a little funny because Dexter's car is almost full on gas. I was looking at the meter when Dexter was driving because I was trying to see what all the numbers meant and I remembered the tour Dexter had given us of the car when he first bought it. He showed us where the gas meter was and where the speedometer was and everything.

Anyway, we get in the police car, but the police man isn't in the car with us. I ask Dexter about it but he doesn't respond. Instead, we start driving off, away from our car. We watch it become smaller through the back window. I tell Dexter that I forgot to close the door. Dexter says don't worry about it. But I do.

We're back on the highway, and Cody and I are starting to think something's a little more than up. We've been driving for ten minutes in the cop car now and we still haven't reached Dexter's station. I ask Dexter how much longer and he says not much. The roads don't look familiar at all. We've been to Dexter's station before but we never took this path. I tell Dexter that he's going the wrong way. I hope he doesn't know that already. He says he's taking a better route. We don't believe him. And then the police radio that's built into the car starts talking and Dexter picks it up and starts answering it as if he's not Dexter anymore. Cody looks scared and I know that I probably look that way too. Everything just seems so wrong now.

We start yelling at Dexter to turn around, but he ignores us. I don't think he's said anything to us in fifteen minutes. Mom always warned us about strangers and kidnappers and she always talked about the situations to avoid and we watched all the videos about stranger danger that told us what would happen if we got in a car with a kidnapper and this situation now feels so much like those videos, except Dexter's not a stranger and he's not a kidnapper but we don't exactly trust him right now. He was a stranger to us ten months ago. What if he's...?

Cody and I start to formulate a plan. We do it without talking loudly, and we use lots of hand motions that we make sure Dexter can't see. We basically agree to unbuckle our seat belts and jump out of the car at the next stoplight. I'm scared but I know Cody is too and I know this is the only way so I try to pretend I know this is going to work because I can see Cody trusts me as his big sister to know what to do in this situation. We watch the road. We see a stoplight coming. It's red. Dexter starts slowing down, and we press the latch on our seat belts. We take a breath together. The light turns green. We take another breath. Dexter returns to his previous speed. We don't stop.

It goes like that for a couple more minutes. Each time we think we're going to stop, we don't. We get less and less scared as the drive goes on, though. We start to wonder what it was we were so nervous about. And then we make a sudden turn down a street, and we see a palm tree in a yard that we recognize. We keep driving until we reach the house. Dexter pulls off to the left side of the road and unlocks the doors. We jump out and slam our doors closed. We run to the middle of our driveway. Dexter rolls his window down and says a quick goodbye. And then he's gone.

We stand in the driveway until Mom comes home. We don't have a key for the house, and it take longer for Mom to get home than usual because she was looking for us at Dexter's apartment. She doesn't know that we're safe until she pulls up and sees us. We tell her about everything that's happened. She looks terrible after we finish our story but she pretends she's okay and leads us inside the house. She scoops us some ice cream from the freezer and tells us to sit at the table with her, but Cody and I don't want to eat ice cream though because we have sore throats from this cold going around at school. So Cody and I talk and she doesn't, she just listens and it looks like she's trying to put something out of her mind.

It'll be months before we finally understand. The news report, the car chase, the police officer. We didn't know the half of it.

But now, Mom just looks so happy to see us, so happy to know that we're alive, that we eat the ice cream anyway. It's the best any of us can do.