Title: Your kiss brings my (dead) heart back to life

Rating: T

Disclaimer: The usual. I don't own Lost Girl or any of these characters, so please don't sue me.

Summary: Bo meets an old friend of Lauren's and she's not sure she likes this stranger. Slightly OOC because of some modification I made to canon. Warning: bitter!Lauren in the beginning. Starts after s1x11

A/N: Hey! Another Lauren fic, I know. But I really love that character. :D This time, I'm also using an OC created by this awesome author (and my good friend) owelpost from her story: "Not this Time". Enjoy!

A/N2: Okay, so this was only supposed to be a little jealous!Bo short one shot but of course, these two have to be all dramatic and now I'm like 5,000 words over my ideal limit. I hope you'll be patient with the story and finish it to the end because it became another version of the unseen Bo and Lauren "talk".

Also, I'm trying a new thing and this will be in present tense.

Lauren is 27 when she receives the approval for the Congo study grant. It was a pipe dream, and when she first applied she never believed that she would get the opportunity. Now it's here and she's excited and terrified. She's been with Nadia for two years and she knows that her girlfriend has a great career in Toronto. Lauren can't possibly ask her to tag along with her halfway across the world. It's a wonderful, once in a lifetime opportunity but she has to decline. There's no way she'll ask Nadia to leave her job and no way she's leaving without Nadia. Case closed.

Or it should be but Nadia finds out before she can do anything and they have a terrible fight, ironically debating the other's position. Lauren is all for staying and Nadia's calling her an idiot. They fight for three days and Lauren spends two miserable nights on their lumpy couch.

They compromise.

xxx

It's Lauren's birthday and today she is 28 (Nadia is 25). They've been in the Congo for 3 months and despite her fears, they make do. Nadia find subjects for her photography in the form of African orphans and refugees that never seem to end. They're also three months happily married. It was the compromise they'd agreed on and despite the haste of it, Lauren doesn't regret anything. She's the happiest she'd ever been, even here in the heart of the jungle where the water sometimes craps out without warning (never mind hot water) and the bugs can eat you alive if you let down your guard.

She's married to the most beautiful girl and she loves her more than anything.

xxx

Lauren is 28 and a month old and she is a widow. She blinks against the insistent rain pour trying to drown her but otherwise, she doesn't move. She can only stare at her wife's tomb stone. Three weeks ago they were taking, what Nadia called a "romantic evening stroll" around the village where Lauren was based. Nadia has her camera with her and every so often, she would walk backwards and take photos of Lauren, who playfully glares at her. They were laughing and giggling and enjoying their lives.

A week later, Nadia is in bed with the flu. She says she got it from one of the kids she'd been photographing. She says that if Lauren saw that kid, she wouldn't be able to resist hugging her either. Lauren shakes her head at her, they both know that she's not the maternal type, and tells her that she better stay in bed or else. She leaves for work. It's in a small clinic/research centre outside the village, about a 10-minute drive.

She comes home to Nadia vomiting her guts out and looking so pale even with her dark skin tone. Lauren is frantic and takes her back to the clinic. By morning Nadia's gone. In another week, Lauren somehow manages to arrange for Nadia's body to be sent back to Canada for burial. She's not sure how she accomplished this. She's not sure how anything happened that week.

They buried her wife three days ago and she has been coming here every day since then to look at her tomb stone. It says Beloved Wife and Daughter. Simple and elegant.

Lauren is supposed to say goodbye. That was the whole point of coming here. She's saying goodbye because she's leaving to go back to the Congo.

Everyone thinks she's insane to do it and they tell her to stay here, for god's sake your wife just died! And she's biting her lip to keep from yelling back that she knows, goddamit, she fucking knows because her wife died in her arms from a stupid allergic reaction to a fucking bug bite and not the flu as she'd believed. But she doesn't. She doesn't really speak these days except when necessary.

(Not even to explain why she's leaving. She's not sure she can explain anyway. Nadia had died there but Nadia had lived here. Her work though, is there and she knows she can bury herself in it. Nadia joked once that... anyway, she has to go back.)

Saying goodbye is necessary but she can't speak now either. It is painful to try and she's been standing here for 3 hours now and it's been raining for the past hour. She'll get sick, Lauren thinks, and then maybe she'll die too. She can be buried right next to her wife then.

She stays for two more hours but it's only when she's about to turn away that she manages a hoarse, "Bye, babe."

She's leaves. She has a plane to catch tomorrow afternoon.

xxx

Nadia is 26 today. Or she should be if she wasn't dead for the last five months. Lauren notices the date because her phone had an alarm for it. She leaves the clinic and no one stops her. (They call her the zombie queen and think she doesn't know but she does. She just doesn't care.)

She takes a drive, going from village to village in the jeep, burning her gasoline needlessly. It's dark when she finally turns back and the next thing she knows, the jeep has hit something on the road (where did that come from? It wasn't there before!) and her head has hit the steering wheel hard. She hears a crack, sees red and there is pain pain pain pain pain and finally blessed darkness.

Lauren comes to for a little while and it's black. She realizes she's blind and that makes her panic (the first emotion she's felt other than anger and grief for the last five months.) and she thrashes a little. But a cool hand stops her, gentle but immoveable and a soft voice murmurs something.

She sees light and breathes a sigh of relief and then the pain hits her again and she makes a pitiful, keening sound. The cool hand is on her forehead, giving slight relief and she feels her head being slowly lifted. She cries again, she can't help it and then there's softness underneath her cheeks and a spicy flowery sort of scent against her nose.

She's in someone else's lap, Lauren realizes. A woman. She groans unintelligibly but the strange woman seems to understand. "Shhh, shhh. Don't move. Help is coming. This is not your time, Dr. Lewis."

Lauren struggles harder and she's finally able to see an outline of her stranger. A woman with a hood. She can't see anything, it is dark, but even in her pained and weakened state, she registers the eyes. They are black, pure black but the way they shone so brightly...

She whimpers again and again, the cool hand is there on her brow to comfort. "You will do great things yet, little one. You mustn't give up now." The voice pauses and in a whisper that Lauren almost does not hear, adds, "I promise you that she is alright."

Lauren feels something inside her unclench and she doesn't realize that she's crying. She closes her eyes and sleeps again.

xxx

It's the anniversary of her first year as the Ash's ward (servant, slave, whatever) and she's required to attend a ball as part of his entourage. Luckily there's no leash for him to drag her with but it's clear that she's being paraded as some sort of trophy.

After her accident, Lauren had struggled to pull herself together. She's certain she'd dreamed the strange woman but in the deepest part of her, she believes that it was an angel who came to tell her that Nadia was okay. (She's not the religious type really, but she has faith in the intangible things - the things that her science can't explain, she respects them even if she doesn't understand.) Anyway, it was for the better in the end. She started emailing her family and friends back and they breathe a sigh of relief that she's finally starting to move on (she isn't).

The neighbouring villages get hit by an epidemic a month after she'd fully recovered and she eagerly joins the medical team to help. There she discovers the fae. They are... strange creatures of fairy tales and folklore and Lauren finds them utterly fascinating. She helps make the cure and their leader, the Ash, offers the whole medical team a place with the fae. Except for Lauren, they all refuse. They didn't like the servitude part of the deal.

A still grateful Ash allows them to go but ensures their memories of the past week is erased. Just like that, and Lauren goes home with the Ash sporting a brand new necklace to mark her new station in life.

It's strange, maybe, that she doesn't mind being a slave. But she thinks of her life before the fae and she can imagine the emptiness of it. It's like traveling alone on a long lonely road with no end in sight. No matter what she has allowed her family to think, Lauren is not okay. Her heart was buried along with her wife and there's no going back.

The fae, at least they offer variety. A challenge to her intellect. Science is her first love and in this way she can still enjoy what is left of her life. She doesn't mind the strictures, the limited freedom. She doesn't care that the fae look down on her (but not all of them, Lauren knows. She's proved herself with the cure for the African fae) and she doesn't care if she had to re-learn a whole new way of life and its trappings.

The fae for their part, learn too. They learn not to underestimate her and they learn to respect her, even if she is only human. The ones who sought to belittle her grow ashamed and irritated when faced with her indifferent, cool expression. (The Ash once imagined that Lauren could just as easily see them as unique meat bags that she can study and dissect but there is a clear goodness in her heart - a strong morality - that still allows her to care for her patients. He thinks that this is what makes her such an excellent prize.) Her walls are impenetrable and no one can hurt her.

No one can come near either. Friendly fae are gently rebuffed and kept at arm's length. She is alone. She prefers it that way.

At the ball, Lauren endures the staring and the whispering behind her back. She's done this before at other events and by now, she's mastered the trick of looking both interested and detached. Her eyes roam over the crowds and settle on the woman with dark hair.

She blinks in confusion, certain that she knows that woman. The woman notices her and smiles. She starts walking towards Lauren and when she's near enough, Lauren feels like someone has punched her because she realizes that she recognizes those eyes.

"Angel..." Lauren breathes out.

The woman hears and grins at her. "No, Dr. Lewis. I'm not an angel."

Lauren blinks, racking her brain furiously for some sort of answer. It is hard. She is completely caught off guard by the presence of this ... fae. The woman takes pity on her and gives her another smile. "I'm a Reaper. My name is Teresa."

A new kind of shock settles over Lauren. A reaper. That certainly answers a lot. "A reaper..." she repeats dumbly.

The woman, Teresa, grabs two champagne flutes from a passing server and hands her one. Lauren takes a cautious sip while Teresa merely smiles at her. "You look like you needed that."

Lauren nods at her. "Thank you."

"No problem," Teresa says. "You know what I am?" she asks curiously, no condescension or offense in her tone.

Lauren nods again, this time more sure. "A rare fae species. Very rare. Reapers can take physical form," she waves a distracted hand to her companion, "but they are usually more comfortable in spirit form. They are attracted to the dying and although there is no definite word on this, it has been theorized that reapers feed on the energy left by the soul as it passes through... aether or the afterlife. Reapers are also said to have the power to arrest death and give people a second chance at life. Their power over death has made them a fearsome creatures to the fae," Lauren finishes.

Her companion gives her a smirk. "Full marks, Dr. Lewis. I'm impressed."

Lauren eyes her for a second, taking another sip of her champagne. She finally notices that people have given her a wide berth ever since the reaper has come to talk to her. At the corner of her eye, she can see their wary faces and their sudden defensive posture.

Teresa leans closer to her and Lauren can smell cinnamon. It is an odd scent for death to carry. "Not all of them know what I am but they can sense me," she whispers. "Even long lived fae are not immune to fear of dying. In fact, they fear it more than humans do."

Lauren thinks about that for a moment and agrees. But what she says instead is, "You saved me that one time."

Teresa looks amused. "I don't know how you can sound so sure when your head was cracked open at the time."

It is Lauren's turn to smile. Hers is not amused. It is more nostalgic, as though she is recalling a fond memory. She looks at Teresa right in the eye and says, "It's your eyes."

Teresa looks taken aback with that answer. She hasn't expected it, for sure. But then again, she hasn't expected any of this. When she came to the ball, it was only to amuse herself with scaring a few stodgy fae. She respects the Ash and the Morrigan (they are as different as night and day but both remarkable in their own right.) but the rest, she does not care about. When she saw the human she'd saved a year ago, she feels vindicated at her choice to drag her back to life.

Dr. Lewis has been correct with her general description of Reapers but she has also missed some things. Reapers feed from the energy that the dead release, but what is not known is that the more successful a person's life has been (fae or human), the greater the energy they release too. To this purpose, reapers have another "ability", a "second sight" if you will. At the moment of death, they are privileged to see the strings tying the person to life, every string from past to future. At that moment, reapers have the choice: if they feel that the person has more potential for them in store in the future, they can give some of their energy to keep the person alive. If not, they can let that person go.

She had seen Lauren's potential but she hadn't realized that it would lead the doctor to the fae.

And now the same Lauren has just identified her amongst the crowd based on her eyes. Teresa wonders if she should be impressed or annoyed that she was so easily figured out.

Lauren must have sensed her confliction because she offers another, more genuine, smile. "It was dark that night and I shouldn't have seen your black eyes but there was something... otherworldly in them. It was almost glowing, I think," she blushes suddenly, taking Teresa in surprise. "That's why I thought it was an angel. I don't know why I haven't connected you to the fae before now." Lauren continues, looking slightly irritated at her slowness.

Teresa can only laugh at that. Her laugh draws more stares and the fae surrounding them actually scoot further, as though hearing her laugh would mean their deaths. Lauren smiles shyly at her.

"I like you Dr. Lewis," Teresa states baldly.

"Call me Lauren," she offers before looking back at her. "I like you too."