Chapter Text
October 07, 2006
Rin’s in the middle of writing a lab report – when suddenly – she isn’t. She’s standing in a laboratory, sure, but is positioned right at a table of ice, containing five fingers. The tips of them at least. It’s odd.
She isn’t really paying attention, for there’s a strong buzzing in her ears, and a man calls out.
It’s not her name, but she feels her body respond. It’s odd. It’s like Rin is there but is trapped in someone else’s body – it’s suffocating.
October 09, 2006
The buzzing doesn’t improve. It’s been two days now, and Rin sees everything, but can’t move her body. She speaks, but it’s like she’s not really hearing anything. Something about the woman she’s in feels memorable, but Rin can’t quite place it.
October 12, 2006
She starts to get used to it. The woman is a police officer; just transferred to homicide. Just broke up with a cheating boyfriend, too. Rin realises she can rifle through her memories, but after a day finds it hard to differentiate them. Debra. That’s her name.
October 13, 2006
Debra Morgan. The name rings a bell, but Rin still can’t place it.
Debra finishes a shift, and finally rests their head on the pillow, and suddenly, the ringing in Rin’s ears gets louder.
The noise increases until painful, and Rin begs her body to allow her hands to cover her ears. Something in them begins to shake, and as the noise continues to increase, her arms raise up, finally.
The pain is too much, and Rin passes out.
October 14, 2006
Rin wakes up and moves her arm to move some hair out of her face. And really does it.
She shoots up, and really, actually, shoots up. Rin presses her hands to her face, feeling, and she is suddenly able to control everything, and feels a clarity she hasn’t in weeks.
She’s finally free. But she wonders where Debra is. She reaches within, searching, but can’t find a trace of consciousness, only remnants of their memories.
No, Debra’s memories, Debra reminds herself.
Well.
Fuck.
Debra opens her desktop and looks up university – colleges – that are online. It’s limited, but she finds a seemingly good one, and from her work and previous study experience, it seems most of the fees could be covered by a scholarship.
From the looks of it, she would only have to go in person for the exam assessments, which were once every semester. If she took the winter classes option, that began a month ago, she could do two units if she double loaded by the end of the year.
Considering Rin-Debra had completed an equivalent to most of these classes, she wasn’t too worried, after all, she was working on her post-grad before they’d assimilated. Miami university seemed like a good fit, and if she completed extra subjects in the off terms, Debra could graduate in a year. Then for another year in post-grad, then she could quit. Be free from this. Move across the country, away from serial killers and creeps.
Because fuck Dexter, honestly. And not in the way Dabra apparently ended up wanting to.
Two years. That’s Debra’s cutoff. A part of her doesn’t want to leave, Dexter and her job, but that must be old Debra, remnants trying desperately to remain stuck to her.
Debra doesn’t like it.
An alarm blares, apparently signalling it’s time for her shift, and Debra submits her application and gets in the shower.
While drying her hair, her phone goes off, and she sees some male name saved in there.
“Hello?” She answers.
“Hello?” The voice – a man – responds, jokingly. “Is that all I am to you?”
Debra’s face contorts. “Who is this?”
“Uh, real funny Debra. Do you have any other boyfriends you know of?”
‘Ew’, Debra thinks. “Ew.”
“C’mon what’s wrong with you today?”
“Yeah, don’t call me again, I’m breaking up with you.”
“What?! Debra, be se-”
Debra cuts him off by hanging up and blocks the number.
Rin-Debra mentally tells herself to get better taste in men.
October 19, 2006
‘It’s odd’, Debra thinks. How easy it is to assimilate into another person’s life. On the surface, at least. But the cop thing must go. Debra has already completed the workload for two subjects, especially now that that’s where most of her free time goes.
Rin-Debra still gets many Debra impulses, thoughts of investigation, before stamping those down. Debra spends a lot more ‘company time’ thinking over coursework and doesn’t follow up on leads outside of her time.
Even Dexter seemed to pick up on a shift of attitude, so she replied with a “I need to make LaGuerta believe I’m not too invested, can’t have her thinking I’m a problem and being too wary of me,” and hits him lightly, before walking out.
Hopefully that’s enough to dissuade any weird thoughts. Besides, he’s likely autistic, not that people would use that term, and not that interested in anyone’s changes.
Convenient for Debra though. No one’s watching.
Some girl comes through the office, and the Debra inside her recognises her. It takes all of it in her to not straightaway tell her to fuck off, it would be too out of character for her, literally.
October 20, 2006
Smoothing out her shirt as she walks through the hospital, Debra is reminded of thankful ditching the disgusting pink shirt her hands automatically gravitated towards and braces herself to have to speak to the victim.
She doesn’t want to be involved with this case anymore. But there’s only so much Debra could do about that right now. She would have to sow seeds of doubt into
Dexter over a few months, if not a year or more, before finally freeing herself.
Debra waits for the man to wake, sitting in a spare chair outside the room, and starts re-reading her book. It’s one of her favourites, “The Periodic Table”, and luckily in this life there’s no one to see her that she must explain that, no, it’s not just a periodic table.
For that, she counts herself lucky.
An hour must have passed, and a man knocks the wall, garnering Debra’s attention. She closes her book and doesn’t see his eyes drift down to it. “I’m going to wake Mr Tucci up now, if you’re ready to question him.”
“Oh, yeah, of course.” And Debra stands up and follows after him, taking a seat next to Tucci.
It takes a few minutes, but he’s woken up, and ‘Rudy’ – because of course the two are on a first name basis – is explaining how the prosthetic limb will work.
Brian Moser glances towards Debra briefly, smiling, and Debra can admit she’s enchanted. He’s gorgeous, and she thinks it unfair, no creep killer should be that pretty.
And he is pretty, pretty and handsome and gorgeous and about another five adjectives Debra could think off all at once.
She’s disgusted.
Because this man takes advantage of his looks. His looks to kill women. How disgusting.
But then again, perhaps she should play along. Afterall, if she doesn’t play along to expectations, for now at least, she might be in more danger.
Better the devil she knows, right?
However, meeting ‘Rudy’ reminds Debra that there is indeed someone watching. His obsession with Dexter, means he’d be watching all. This would be her first death flag – so to call it – Rudy, and she must avoid any doubt of change, and to still behave in a way he wouldn’t suspect. And wouldn’t want to kill. The most important part, of course.
Debra would have to survive a few serial killers yet, if she wanted to escape from the ‘Miami Murder Madness’, as she dubbed it. Rudy, well Brian Moser, was first. Then Lila, probably.
The rest she could probably already be gone from. Surely she could disappear before the bodies hit.