Table of Contents

heartsways - The Fifteenth Way: Resolution

LOST GIRL - BO/LAUREN

“Ways To Tell You I’m Sorry” series

The Fifteenth Way: Resolution

heartsways

Title: Ways To Tell You I’m Sorry - The Fifteenth Way: Resolution

Author: heartsways

Rating: NC–17

Fandom: Lost Girl

Pairing: Bo/Lauren

Disclaimer: All television shows, movies, books, and other copyrighted material referred to in this work, and the characters, settings, and events thereof, are the properties of their respective owners. As this work is an interpretation of the original material and not for-profit, it constitutes fair use. Reference to real persons, places, or events are made in a fictional context, and are not intended to be libelous, defamatory, or in any way factual.

Summary: The ramifications of Lauren’s punishment are made clear…

Author’s Note: Here it is - the FINAL CHAPTER! I know, at last, right? Heh. Thanks for all who helped with this (you know who you are) and provided cheerleading along the way.

The Fifteenth Way: Resolution

heartsways

The Dell was an instantaneous flurry of activity from the moment Trick and Dyson burst through the door. Trick had closed the bar to any potential witnesses and it had remained eerily quiet while Kenzi and Bo waited, the former chewing at her nail and resisting the urge to break open a bottle of Buckthorn mead, the latter pacing from one side of the bar to the other in agitation and impatience, heavy booted footfalls marking time.

The first thing Bo saw was Lauren, limp and immobile in Dyson’s arms, a blanket covering her body. The second thing she saw was Lauren’s hand falling from underneath the blanket, bloodied streaks marring the porcelain skin and making it appear gray and lifeless. Her heart, almost bursting from her chest in a rush of anxious terror, pounded unforgivingly against her ribs. Exchanging an anguished glance with Kenzi, Bo followed Dyson down into the depths of Trick’s bar and watched as he tenderly lay Lauren onto the chaise longue in the basement room. He shot the doctor a sympathetic glance, touching her elbow with his hand before climbing the stairs back up to the bar above.

Trick lingered, hovering around Lauren and wiping at her nose and face with a damp cloth. Bo was struck by how attentive he was, how his mistrust of humanity and his cynicism and realism about the world seemed irrelevant now. She watched as he cleaned the blood from Lauren’s face to the best of his ability, finally laying the cloth down by the chaise longue and tucking the blanket more firmly around the doctor’s body. When he was satisfied, he straightened up and moved backwards a couple of paces, gazing down at Lauren with sorrowful eyes.

Finally, and all too soon, he turned to Bo and let out a short sigh, his eyes downcast. She could tell from his stance that the prognosis wasn’t good. And as he lifted his hands in the air and let them drop down by his sides, she felt her heart lurch in her chest.

“Trick,” she said, her tone low and concerned. “Come on, Trick. She’s okay, right? I mean, she’s going to be okay?”

She wanted platitudes. She wanted his calming smile and words that would soothe the clattering of her heart against her ribcage. But there was worry in his eyes and he hesitated before meeting her gaze. When he did, his eyes were gray with the sorrow of one who has seen everything and changed nothing. It sent a chill of fear down her spine and she lurched forwards.

“Is it… is it bad?”

He looked down at the floor again and shook his head. “I don’t know. She’s hurt, and not just physically.” He cast a look at the doctor, his face lined and carrying an expression of tempered fear. “The Ash gave her the choice to stay in this world or to leave it. But fear is a powerful and persuasive motivator and… I don’t know, Bo. We might have been too late.”

“No!” Bo pushed past the bartender and knelt down by the side of the chaise longue, reaching out and smoothing strands of hair back from Lauren’s brow. Her hands trembled as she touched the other woman and she bit at her lip, feeling a sudden rush of panic and longing clench at her chest. “Come on, Lauren,” she urged in a low voice. “It’s me, it’s Bo. Come on, wake up. Wake up!”

Trick placed his hand on Bo’s shoulder. “I'll be upstairs if you need me.”

“What?” Bo stood and spun around, eyes flashing with a powerful mixture of fear and frustration. “That’s it? You’re just going to leave her there?” Her voice rose in disbelief as her chin jutted forwards accusingly.

“Bo,” Trick said gently, feeling the guilt of thousands of lives he hadn’t saved rest on his shoulders, sagging them under its weight. “Wherever Lauren is, she’s beyond me. I'll see if I can find any information that might help, but you have to realize, the only person who can bring her back is… well, her.”

The Succubus let out a noise of frustration and flung her hands into the air. “Not helpful, Trick! What kind of power is it you have if you can’t help her?” She knew she was being ungrateful. Unreasonable, even. But the same panic that lifted her tone sat high in her chest, roiling acid in her throat and burning it with fear.

Trick hung his head for a moment. The lives he couldn’t save far outweighed the lives he could. Every face, every cry of pain was etched into his memory as clearly as the body of the doctor in front of him. And it had pained him as much then as it did now, pulling at the edges of his scars as though threatening to tear open those half-healed wounds once more.

Lifting his gaze, he frowned into the naked, raw expression on Bo’s face and shook his head. “I'll do everything I can,” he told her. It was a paltry source of comfort, barely even beginning to assuage the desperation on the Succbus’ face, but she relented, hands dropping to her sides.

“Talk to her,” Trick urged. “Let her know you’re here. Give her a reason to stay.”

His tone was low, his meaning implicit. He cast one final look at Lauren before heading towards the stairs, leaving the Succubus alone with the doctor and an overwhelming sense of futility. Turning back towards the chaise longue, Bo sat down beside Lauren and took one of the woman’s hands in her own, tracing the lines of it with her fingertips. She could feel the inherent beauty of the woman in the delicate sculpture of bone, flesh, blood. Lauren was so strong, so capable. Seeing her like this was enough to break Bo’s heart. The doctor’s skin was so pale it was almost white, her cheeks streaked with traces of blood, lips taking on an ominous darkened hue.

Pulling the blanket from the body underneath it and gently pushing aside Lauren’s jacket, Bo grimaced as she saw the patches of blood seeping through the shirt underneath. Tentatively, she undid the buttons there and parted the material, reaching for the cloth that Trick had used and pressing it against the wounds on Lauren’s stomach. They were mysterious, seemingly having no cause and no source. The blood came from nowhere that Bo could discern, but it was apparent nonetheless, droplets forming underneath her fingers as she dabbed with the cloth.

“You know,” she said softly, pressing the cloth over Lauren’s stomach and glancing up at the doctor’s face, “in these sorts of situations, the first person I’d go to would be you.” She let out a sad laugh and shook her head, trailing her fingers down Lauren’s cold cheek. “You gotta help me out here, Lauren. Come on… tell me what to do. Please… ”

Her voice left her as she felt tears prickle at the back of her eyes. Angrily, she scrubbed at them with a resentful fist, shaking them off with a defiant toss of her head. But it was to no avail. Lauren lay still beneath her, body limp and unresponsive. And Bo’s heart ached so much that the Succubus wasn’t certain that she could bring it to bear this loss. Of all the human lives she’d taken with her uncontrolled powers and insatiable appetite, none of them had ever been given freely. But this woman… her gaze drifted over Lauren’s features and she bit back a sob that rose in her throat. This woman had willingly sacrificed herself for Bo. Lauren had stepped into the mire of madness knowingly and completely aware of the consequences. And Bo had let her.

“I should have gone with you,” the Succubus muttered, her thoughts sliding from between her lips. “I should have gone with you to see The Ash. I’m sorry. God, I’m so sorry.” She patted uselessly at Lauren’s cheek once more with trembling fingers and felt the skin beneath her touch: cold and lifeless.

Her hand slipped from Lauren’s face and she curled it into a fist. If she possessed the power to fight this - if she could summon up enough strength to make this right - then she would without second thought. But her abilities were useless. All she did was take from people; all she had ever done was take from people. And she’d taken from Lauren, too, draining emotion from the doctor like it was the very energy on which her Succubus self was sustained.

Energy.

Sustinence.

Healing.

Bo’s mind was suddenly full of memories of Saskia. The other Succubus had given her own energy to a human, the life force that he needed to bring him back from the brink of death. It had been astonishing to see the transfer of chi; to know that the being who could take a life might also bestow it. Bo’s gaze travelled slowly down over Lauren’s face and she leaned in, hesitantly pressing her lips against the chilled ones beneath her.

She really wasn’t sure how this would work. If it would work. It didn’t help that, despite her desperate need to make this better - make Lauren better - her mind was unfocused, frayed by distress and panic. Closing her eyes, Bo tried to concentrate. Give Lauren what she needs, she told herself. Give her the only part of you that you can right now.

For a moment that stretched like an aching eternity there was nothing, and the heavy, choking weight of failure was just beginning to press around Bo’s heart when a thin stream of wavering energy passed from between her lips. Her heart leapt and she tried harder, feeling the spark glimmer between them for a brief, shining moment before it dissipated and vanished completely.

Jerking back, Bo stared down at the woman on the chaise longue with frightened, curious eyes. “Lauren?” she said, her voice low and intimate, thickened by the aftertaste of her own life’s essence still in her mouth. But the doctor remained beyond her reach and Bo let out a noise of utter frustration, closing her eyes and feeling despair creep towards her, enveloping hope, that last bastion of love. The Morrigan’s story about her origins may have been fabricated, but Bo was sure that deep inside she was flawed. Broken beyond repair. Because if she wasn’t evil, then how could this have possibly happened? How could the one thing she wanted more than anything else be taken from her in this way? And how could she be so powerless to do something truly good for another being?

Dropping her head into her hands, Bo cursed herself for all that she was and all that she couldn’t be. What was the use in having abilities if they failed her when she needed them the most? The simple truth was that without Lauren’s guiding force, without her care and concern and love… yes, love. Without that, Bo felt her life yawning ahead of her; empty and joyless. They’d barely begun at all and now here they were, already at the end.

A sound reached her ears and stemmed the tide of tears behind her fingers. A sharp intake of breath, rasping and uneven and a twitch from the body next to her legs. And then, her name, floating up from parched lips, almost inaudible and barely there at all.

Snatching her hands from her face, Bo’s eyes flew open and she stared down at the woman below her. Lauren’s eyes flickered, moving rapidly under their lids as though she was attempting to wrest herself from a nightmare.

“Lauren?” Bo said again, heart beginning to hammer unrelentingly in her chest. “Lauren… Lauren?” Her hands moved to either side of the blonde’s head, terrified to touch, barely able not to. She wanted to shake Lauren awake, wanted to scream and shout but dared not for fear that what she was seeing and hearing wasn’t real but instead a product of her fetid imagination. Patience, never her strong point, forcibly stayed her impulses and she caught her breath, almost afraid to even breathe lest the signs of life below her should disappear, or that patience would give way to the incessant panic pounding at the back of her brain.

Letting out a faint groan, Lauren’s eyes opened and she blinked, looking up at the hazy vision above her until it slowly came into focus. For a long moment, she simply gazed up at the Succubus, eyes clouded and distant. Then her mouth opened and she drew in a breath with some difficulty.

“Bo?” Her voice was little more than a hushed sigh.

“Yes! It’s me, I’m here!” The Succubus pressed her palm against Lauren’s cheek and leaned in closer, gulping over her sobs of joy, of pain, of thanks.

Lauren smiled, her mouth moving over the gesture slowly, as though the flesh could barely contain it. She let out a long breath that hissed over her lips and pulled them into a grimace as she gasped, pain evident in her eyes.

“Sssh,” Bo urged. “Don’t try to talk.” She patted Lauren’s cheek tentatively, holding onto the fragile splinters of hope that had begun breaking through the ice around her heart.

“I… was… ” Lauren closed her eyes briefly and sucked in a sharpened breath of pain, her hand inching over her stomach where blood had soaked through the cloth laid there by Bo only minutes before. “I… was dreaming… ” she said, her voice hoarse. “About you… ”

“Yeah?” Bo laughed, but it was strained and thickened by the swelling in her throat. “Dreaming about me? You looked like you were having a nightmare. Trying to tell me something?” Her attempt at humor sat heavy and morose on her lips, but Lauren smiled anyway and even tried to let out a laugh. As it turned into a cough and the doctor clutched at her stomach again, Bo’s face became lined with worry once more.

“Okay, no laughing,” she said sternly, frowning down at Lauren. “No - no talking, no laughing, just healing, alright? You’re going to be okay, Lauren. You’re going to be fine.” But she knew that, despite her assertions, forced out through gritted teeth, Lauren wasn’t okay. Not anywhere even in the remote vicinity of ‘okay'.

“I’m a… a doctor,” Lauren said, before her voice descended into a groan and she squeezed her eyes shut in an effort to stem the pain in her stomach that rippled out throughout her entire body. With some difficulty, she opened her eyes again and offered a conciliatory smile to the Succubus, acquiescent of her own fate and the encroaching mists of abeyance that were clouding her vision. “It’s not… not going to be fine, Bo.”

“Don’t say that!” Bo’s voice hardened, tense with anxiety that sharpened the planes of her face. “You have to stay with me, Lauren. I… I need you.”

“I’m so tired… ” Lauren breathed, her eyes glassy, becoming sightless as she looked up at the Succubus. “But I have to… have to tell you,” she began, and then stopped as a fresh wave of pain flooded her body, swelling nausea into her throat and making her gasp.

Bo shook her head and leaned down, stroking her palm down Lauren’s cold cheek. “No, you don’t have to tell me anything,” she said firmly. “It can wait. You just need to focus on getting better, okay? On staying with me. Please, Lauren.”

The doctor smiled, her hand creeping up her body to grasp at Bo’s where it lay against her face. The Succubus took it between her own and pressed against the clammy skin, as though the contact of her flesh could bring scant warmth to the chill of Lauren’s fingers.

“Listen… listen to me,” the doctor insisted, gathering strength from the furthest recesses of her entire being. Her fingertips curled around Bo’s and she almost smiled ruefully. She hadn’t anticipated this. Not any of it. Not the lengths she’d gone to, nor the dizzying heights to which she’d been propelled by allowing Bo into her life. Into her heart. Her life had always been a straight line, never deviating from her purpose or the path that she had chosen by serving The Ash. But now that line had swerved off course, and she with it, so that she was disoriented and lost. All she wanted to was to find her direction again, to make amends and follow her path into the inevitable darkness that was at her back, rolling like an endless ocean and dimming her vision with each surge towards a distant shore.

“I want you to know,” Lauren said quietly, drawing Bo down towards her with a weak tug on their joined hands. “I’m sorry - ”

“You have nothing to be sorry for.” Bo’s mouth formed a grim line below her red-rimmed eyes, tears forming anew in their corners.

“I’m sorry,” Lauren continued with a feeble smile, “that I never told you before. I was afraid.”

Shaking her head in denial, Bo was once again powerless to dam the tears that escaped from her eyes as she rubbed at Lauren’s hand with her own. “I know, I know.” She shook her head. “I was afraid too but we’re together now. You don’t have to be afraid anymore. I’m here, and you’re here and you don’t need to be scared.”

The brown eyes below her closed momentarily as Lauren clenched her teeth over another surge of pain. It brought a strangled cry from her throat and she tried - and failed - to swallow it. Bo could only watch helplessly as the doctor tensed, her body attempting to resist and finally, achingly, sinking back against the chaise longue as the pain ebbed away.

“Bo.” Lauren opened her eyes and looked up at the Succubus. “I’m not scared any more.”

All the things they’d hidden from one another, the barriers between them and the distance keeping them apart slid away. Truth, Bo realized, was contained in the eyes that stared into her own. In the fingers curled around hers and the curve of Lauren’s mouth, working over words that she needed to say. Nothing existed between them any more but this - this moment of undisguised honesty. And it was as raw and visceral as the pain etched deep onto Lauren’s face. As the sharpened edges of the emotion cutting through her heart.

“I love you,” Lauren said, sighing deeply with the relief of unburdening, with the joy of confession. “I’ve loved you for… for a long time… longer than you know.”

She pressed her lips together as another wave of pain spread through her body, face distorted into lines of agony. Gasping as the last vestiges of strength and the will to remain began to ebb from her body and mind, she shook her head and looked into the face above her. She didn’t want Bo to remember her like this, defeated and so helpless. She didn’t want Bo to hear these words from a life that was almost over, struggling to cling to the last few moments of consciousness this way. This wasn’t what she wanted at all. Despite her efforts to be strong for Bo’s sake, if not her own, a tear slipped from Lauren’s eye and began a traitorous path down her face.

In the moments between hearing and knowing, Bo’s heart leapt in her chest, heightening her senses and drawing her closer to the other woman. She leaned down, her face almost touching Lauren’s, their hands clasped between them, Bo afraid to let go lest she should lose the feeling, the moment, the words she’d longed to hear.

“Don’t you do this!” she begged. “Don’t you tell me that and then leave me! You have to fight, Lauren. Fight it! Stay with me!” Bo knew that taking up arms against this invisible opponent was a fool’s cause. Lauren’s weary, wry smile only confirmed that this particular battle had already been fought. And lost.

Lauren let out a rasping sigh, sinking back onto the chaise longue as though the effort of giving voice to her feelings had released their power over her. For a moment, she wondered in the obscurity of her mind if this was her own road’s end. If surrender had clashed with inevitability and any thoughts of battle were no more than a distant cry on the horizon. Oblivion rushed towards her, wresting her from this world and thrusting her towards the next with a dizzying sensation that she was too weak to resist. Her will, that indefinable thing that she had given freely of was fractured; she knew it in the same moment that she knew that love was the only risk she had taken. Lost in the uncertainty of emotion and the sacrifices she’d made to indulge it, Lauren felt herself drift, floating away over the threshold that would both release and claim her. A parting of the ways, in time and in her heart. She heard herself whispering goodbye as the freezing mists wrapped around her, tugging her under a wave of icy numbness and drowning her in submission. As her eyes slipped shut, bringing darkness to her world once again, she felt a fleeting regret that she hadn’t been able to see Bo smile one last time, or to feel the lurch of pleasure when they kissed, or a thousand other simple emotions that had seemed so infinitessimal at the time, and yet now seemed more important than everything.

“No… no, no, no!” Bo grabbed Lauren’s shoulders and pulled the other woman up into her arms, cradling Lauren’s head with her hand. “Don’t you dare!” she cried at the pale face beneath her. Hysteria quickened her movements and she pressed her mouth to the other woman’s in the hopes that she might respond as she had done before. But the body in her arms was lifeless, the soul that had lent it such fire shrouded in deathly white and slipping away before Bo’s very eyes. Leaning down again, Bo covered Lauren’s face in a benediction of kisses that covered eyes, brow, cheeks before she found the doctor’s mouth once more and embraced it with her own.

It felt almost too much. Too little. And the distance between not enough and more than she’d ever wanted was widening, a gaping chasm of loneliness opening up beneath her and yawning wide enough to swallow her whole, should she let it.

She wouldn’t.

She couldn’t.

It would not end like this.

And so she thought of Lauren. From the very first moment they had met, when in a room of hostile strangers the doctor had treated her with kindness, dignity and truth. She thought of enigmatic smiles and serious passion and the exquisite beauty of Lauren, open and vulnerable and glorying in Bo’s touch. And as intent began to shine blue in her eyes, Bo allowed emotion to guide her. It brought a sighing moan from her mouth and fluttered her eyes shut for a moment, her heart beginning a newer pace that strode through her whole body and brought it alive with heat and passion, surging hope into her touch and power into her kiss.

Desire flowed through her like a flame, licking at every part of her body and capturing each nerve ending, heating it and giving it life. It fled into her chest, echoing through the vast expanses of her heart, booming in the caverns of her lungs and filling them with more than she’d ever thought possible for one being to contain. Its luminosity burned in her eyes and she became a pyre of want, a conflagration of need. It consumed her, making her kiss the embers of a newer flame, catching on Lauren’s mouth and taking hold, spreading warmth where there was once only cold.

Lauren shifted underneath her, and Bo increased her grip on the other woman, fingers pressing against Lauren’s scalp with the promise of never letting go. Everything she felt poured from her into Lauren’s mouth; a shining, incandescent stream of all that had passed between them and all that ever would. Giving herself over to it, Bo opened up her heart and soul so that the restraint and caution that had darkened her feelings for so long were banished by the light that shone from her eyes. From the sheer will to keep the emotion between them alive.

In the bitter cold that called her and claimed her, Lauren felt light move across her skin. It grew, like the dawn of a newer day and brought with it a warmth that she thought she’d never feel again. Reaching over the horizons of her bleakness, it laid waste to the icy pitch and moved towards her like a brush fire set loose on the prairie. There was light everywhere, bursting with electricity across her, through her, in her. Like liquid sunlight, it flowed through every cell of her body, exploding with white sparks that blinded her and dragged her out of the mist. And with it, a honeyed sweetness that tasted of lustrous power and radiant desire.

Heart aglow, Lauren was thrown back into the waking world, her body arching like a strung bow under the hands and lips of the woman above her. As Bo drew back, Lauren gasped, breathing in the emotion that came from the Succubus, undiluted and exposed in disquiet and raw potency. Her eyes flew open, wide and astonished as reality closed in around her, dragging her towards it with fingers of unrelenting consciousness. A dizzying sensation accompanied it as Lauren spiraled back towards life, clutching at her chest and trying to define the buzzing that emanated from it.

Blinking, Lauren stared up at Bo, hovering over her with an expression of terrified delight on her features, as though the Succubus could barely believe her eyes. Her mouth opened, but the doctor said nothing, instead frowning and allowing her gaze to roam around the room, taking in her surroundings as her mind registered them, quantified them and ratified them as true. Knowledge - the one thing she had always relied upon - spilled into her brain with an uncontrolled torrent of being, of living, of life itself and she blinked rapidly as she tried to make sense of it all… of anything and everything that this moment contained.

Hand spread over her chest, Lauren felt her heart beating with renewed vigor. Blood rushed into her ears and crashed against her brain, breaking over her senses. She took in a long breath, feeling everything all at once and trembling with the immediacy of it, trying to swim against the tide enveloping her. It swelled against her ribcage, flooding into her throat and making her gasp and sit up as Bo inched backwards unwillingly. The Succubus’ hands reached out, grasping the doctor’s shoulders and holding on tight.

“Bo?” Lauren asked, her brow crinkling in confused wonder. “What did you do?”

The only answer she received was a pair of lips on her own, hot and wet and thankful. They were full of grace, yearning for confirmation that this was real, trembling with remnants of the power that had surged over them. It was only when Bo pulled away that Lauren realized the Succubus was crying, her cheeks wet with Bo’s tears.

“You’re okay!” Bo said in a broken tone. “You’re okay!”

A frown wrinkled her brow momentarily and she peered into the doctor’s eyes, searching them urgently. “You uh… you are okay, right?” she asked haltingly.

“I… ” Lauren shook her head to dispel the humming inside it and glanced down at herself, her fingers moving from her chest down to her stomach where bloodstains blackened her clothes, damp and unforgiving, a reminder of the grim reality of what had passed. But there was no pain. Only the dissipating foam of the knowledge that, although she had felt pain, it was no longer wracking her body. Instead, a faint thrumming fled through her veins, surging with new life and rediscovered energy.

Glancing up at Bo, Lauren couldn’t resist a faint grin of astonishment. “Yeah,” she laughed softly. “I think I am.”

Bo let out a gurgle of pleasure and let go of Lauren, curling her fingers into a fist and punching the air with all the grace of a linebacker. Pride slid across her features and lifted her chin, eyes flashing with a triumphant energy that both intrigued and excited Lauren.

“What did you do?” she asked again, leaning forwards and looking at Bo as though the Succubus was a creature she had never seen before, never named and never suspected even existed.

“I gave you my energy,” Bo stated. As Lauren’s head jerked back disbelievingly, she reached out and laid her hand on the doctor’s cheek, looking into her eyes. “You were dying, Lauren. I didn’t know what to do and then… I guess I figured it out.”

“But I was in The Ash’s study, and then I was… ” Lauren frowned, shaking her head. “I was in - ”

“Somewhere you’re never going back to.” Bo’s voice was hard, final. She stroked her thumb along Lauren’s cheekbone and gave a decisive nod of punctuation.

“And you brought me back.” There was an almost reverent tone to Lauren’s voice and she narrowed her eyes, looking curiously at Bo with a glimmer of her old self in pools of brown. “How did you do that?”

Bo shrugged nonchalantly, although her eyes were gleaming with self-satisfaction. “There’s this thing some Succubi can do where we give back our energy… you know, our chi?” She smiled as Lauren nodded dumbly and then drew in a short breath.

“And when did you learn to do this?” the doctor asked, in a tone reminiscent of the questions she’d asked Bo the first time they met. Intrigued, insatiable, greedy for all the things she didn’t know about the Succubus; hungry for everything she didn’t know about Bo.

Bo was almost sheepish and grinned foolishly. “Uh, just nowish?” she said as Lauren’s eyebrows rose. “Well I didn’t know I could do it until I had to,” she added, her hand trailing down Lauren’s arm until it met fingers and intertwined them with her own.

“Hm.” Lauren squeezed Bo’s fingers absent-mindedly. “So your energy helped me to heal - like it does when you take it from others?”

“I guess,” Bo shrugged again. “I was really frightened, Lauren.” She idled a thumb over the back of the doctor’s hand and looked down at it, shielding her gaze for fear the other woman would see her so exposed and raw. It sent a shiver down her back, remembering Lauren’s pale, broken body and how she had drifted away so far that Bo hadn’t been sure she would ever come back.

“I’m sorry.” Lauren put her finger under Bo’s chin and lifted the Succubus’ gaze until it met her own. “I am sorry, Bo.”

“No,” the Succubus said slowly. “I’m sorry for dragging you into my whole stupid life in the first place.” She rolled her eyes and sighed, pulling her face away from Lauren’s touch and pursing her lips. She’d felt guilt before, of course, and continued to do so for all the lives she’d taken over the last ten years. But the pang of onerous regret that clung to her conscience when she thought about Lauren would last much longer and hurt that much more. If it hadn’t been for her, then Lauren would never have betrayed The Ash and been punished. If she hadn’t wanted Lauren as much as she did, then none of this would have happened. And yet, the unmitigated joy that leapt in Bo’s chest told her that it was only because of Lauren’s actions and sacrifices - and her willingness to do so - that the Succubus had been able to understand how she felt. How she still could.

“I was hardly dragged,” Lauren said quietly, rousing Bo from her reverie. She smiled into Bo’s dark eyes in an attempt to assuage the anxiety that shadowed them. “I chose to be in your life,” she added. “I still would, if I had to do it again. I meant what I said, you know.” She tilted her head onto one side and waited almost breathlessly. It had seemed so important to tell Bo how she felt when she was falling into the void that had tried to claim her. It had been her one regret, resounding in her mind like an echo of lost chances and missed opportunities.

But now, Lauren found that she was flushing with the memory of it. With the disclosures she’d tried so hard to keep to herself and hide them under good deeds and rash actions. Saying those words made her vulnerable, especially if Bo was never going to say them back. And in her darkest moments, Lauren had very near convinced herself that Bo never would. That it was impossible for theSuccubus to love just one person, impossible for her to love Lauren. Not the way she loved Bo, anyway.

“Yeah… ” Bo’s voice was drawn out, slow and thoughtful. “About that… ”

“About what?” Lauren winced as her voice slid upwards and dipped her head so that Bo couldn’t see her eyes.

“The next time you say it, can it not be when you’re going to leave me? Or at least, if you are going to say it, can you give me a chance to say it back?”

Lauren’s head shot up and she stared at Bo, surprised pleasure and expectation racing across her features. Her mouth opened but no sound came out as a myriad of thoughts flooded her brain all at once, quite confusing it and effectively silencing her. It was a long moment before she found her voice and said Bo’s name; a statement, an entreaty, a question.

“I didn’t… I thought you were… ” Stumbling over her words, Lauren shook her head and avoided eye contact.

“Right,” Bo said, with a nod. “Honestly, Lauren. You’re supposed to be the smart one here. Get a clue.” She couldn’t resist rolling her eyes as Lauren let out a self-conscious laugh and shrugged. For a moment, it was as though they were back where they’d started, nervously circling one another and second-guessing every word, every gesture. But it was only for a moment, as Lauren’s hand slid around Bo’s neck and drew the Succubus to her until they were kissing, drinking one another in.

Breaking the embrace, Bo leant her forehead against Lauren’s for a moment. “I love you,” she whispered, reveling in the hitching breath that came from the doctor’s mouth in response, seeking purchase on Lauren’s mouth again so that words and actions became synonymous. The proof-positive that she knew Lauren sought and craved.

“I have no idea how this is going to work,” Lauren murmured, as Bo leaned away from her and traced a line down her jaw with a single finger. “Or if it’s going to work. I mean,” she frowned, “a Succubus and a human?”

“It’d work a lot better if you were… you know, alive,” Bo intoned sardonically. Lauren glowered at her and she held up her hands in mock-submission, although her gaze was serious and held traces of the fear that had gripped her before.

“Don’t ever think that leaving me is a good idea again, okay?” the Succubus whispered. “I couldn’t bear it.” Her eyes widened, sincerity pleading for forgiveness and safety. All the things Lauren made her feel and a hundred more that Bo wasn’t sure she ever could have done. Not until she’d almost lost the one thing that steadied her and allowed her lonely heart to feel comforted and nourished.

Lauren laid her hand on Bo’s shoulder and smiled, lips curving upwards in beatific recognition of what Bo was telling her - and what she wasn’t. Her heart lurched in her chest and she let out another soft laugh. The things that had once seemed so important now faded into a receding fog of worry. There was only clarity that remained, its bright colors and unremitting truth painted over the face of the Succubus and spinning breathlessly inside Lauren’s chest. Truth, and the knowledge that love, despite the adversaries that had borne down on it and reached for it with a stranglehold, had triumphed and flourished.

But those adversaries were ever-present, shadowed by the mists that surrounded them but never dissipating into its depths completely. And their memory brought a frown to Lauren’s face as she gazed at Bo.

“The Morrigan,” she said suddenly, as the Succubus eyed her with suspicion and alarm. “The Dark Fae… Bo, they'll want to come for you in the end. You know that, don’t you?” Lauren pressed her lips together and shook her head. She had passed The Ash’s test, but the trials that were in their future wouldn’t be so forgiving. She was sure of that.

“Then we'll be ready for them,” Bo answered abruptly, with determination hardening her gaze. Grasping Lauren’s hand, she squeezed it tightly and nodded. “We'll be ready. I promise.”

If there was doubt, it was periferal. If there was fear, it had no place between them in this moment. All that remained, all that was found and all that thrived was in their touch and their tacit understanding of the place they occupied and owned. Lauren had never envisaged the journey’s end; she’d only ever seen the long road ahead, stretching onwards to an invisible horizon and a destination that she wasn’t sure existed. She had trudged on in blind faith and held hope, secretive and painful, close against her so that it would complete the armor she wore. But Bo had pierced through her defenses, torn them down and replaced them. And the shield the doctor wore now surged through her veins and heated her blood, making her stronger than she’d ever felt before.

And the road ahead? It still stretched onwards but as its surface rolled and dipped in front of her, Lauren knew that she wouldn’t have to walk it alone.

THE END