A/N - For Spyklv - sorry, not exactly what you were after. I hit a wall.
Do you believe in fate? Do believe that there is a uniformitarianism that makes all things of the past, all things of the future? That we are tethered together by unseen binds that stretch across lives and lifetimes? Tamsin does. She's lived enough days to forge a beat out of the repetition of it all. Infinite time matched with finite events. If you live long enough and across enough lives you'll soon see; all tyrants eventually succumb and love will seek you out, one way or another. It always does.
That was how she came to be with Bo, in spite of Lauren, or maybe for a brief instant just to spite her. Tamsin often reflects on just how much her relationship with Bo began like the forging of mountains. They were continents colliding, fighting each other and their nature until they stilled and set hard and sometimes violently against one another.
It was a silly thing really, something so mundane and ordinary in the weeks after they got Kenzi back. It was in those days when she noticed that her eyes began to linger and she'd caught the edges of Bo's glances too. They'd look away too quickly and then find ways back to each other for no reason at all. At first she denied herself, not really wanting to force a wedge into a space that Lauren already occupied. So instead, she'd sit at the bar at the Dal and focus on the conversation at hand with Dyson, on Kenzi's shoes or on the rim of her whiskey glass. But for all the posturing and all the avoidance they'd always reconnect, eyes first and then bodies, colliding hard but always willingly.
Even on the warmest days mountains cast shadows and Lauren had felt the cool of that shade set across her relationship with Bo. She was no fool, she'd caught the change in atmosphere between the two Fae and watched as they stood in opposite corners of the room. She'd study them in their awkward avoidance, watching them as only a scientist and pragmatist could.
In the end she simply asked and Bo didn't deny it. There were feelings there but it changed nothing she said and Lauren believed her. She believed because as a doctor she knew the nature of the Succubus and as a lover she knew the heart of Bo. When they lay together Bo's fingers still felt charged on her skin and when she said I love you the whole earth seemed to devour them, if only to keep them safe from the mischief of the world outside.
Lauren was a woman of logic and she wielded it like the weapon of a Celtic queen. She and Tamsin would need time. Time to get used to each other and time to learn how to share Bo.
So, she tried to make small talk and Tamsin tried to seem interested. They were clumsy with each other and even more so when Bo was nearby. Something was going to give. The pressure was building and everyone around them could see the bubbling and boiling that was happening just below the crust.
"Do you want me to end things with Tamsin?"
A part of Lauren wished it were in her to say yes but that wasn't who she was.
"No. You're happy. I want to be with the you who is happy."
When Bo was with Tamsin it was different, they were different. No better, no worse. The light and the dark of her nature serviced exclusively by neither but by both simultaneously. A Succubus with a human's heart finally indulging in a glutton's fill. She'd never been happier or healthier and wanted to secure that future for herself.
"What are you asking for?"
Bo shifted on her toes. "I want you both to get along."
Tamsin just shrugged.
In the end the Valkyrie suggested drinking and the Doctor suggested fishing. They compromised and Tamsin brought enough whiskey on their trip away alone together to pollute the river. They stayed in separate rooms and in separate minds for most of the weekend, but they talked. They found a common interest in the past, in mythology and the burdens of war. They discussed history and avoided conversations about the future. They warmed to each other.
When they returned Bo noticed a very subtle shift, things felt slightly easier and became easier still as the months passed. Where once she'd look away, Tamsin would now smile when she saw Lauren walk into the Dal. The three of them would occasionally share a drink. Things carried on. Bo was happy, Lauren was happy. Tamsin denied caring either way, but she was happy too.
If Bo and Tamsin's relationship felt like the making of mountains then Tamsin and Lauren's was more akin to the fashioning of diamonds. It took pressure, time and an unexpected eruption. Once forged, they were unbreakable.
Bo can pinpoint it, that moment she realized that maybe Lauren and Tamsin could love each other and that maybe they already did in their own way. It was the day she received a phone call from Dyson, there had been a shooting at the lab. Details were sketchy and Lauren wasn't answering her phone.
In moments of sheer panic everything moves more quickly, everything that is but time. Your heart beats faster, blood rushes more swiftly and synapses fire with explosive intent. But time lingers, it dilates and stalls and Bo felt every second of the journey to the compound like it was a millennia.
When she finally made it into the lab and searched the crowds and chaos, she found Lauren in the safety of Tamsin's arms. The two of them held tightly to each other like they'd saved something that might have been lost. Lauren was safe, she was unharmed, Tamsin had her. They had each other.
The first night the three of them spent together caught each of them unawares, even though it shouldn't have. Slowly over a period of weeks Tamsin had taken to having one night with Bo at Lauren's for dinner. Each of them had noticed how a one-off had somehow become a once-weekly and none of them had any complaints about it.
It was a dinner just like any other in the weeks before, filled with the noises of them interrupting each other, chewing with mouths open and breathing in food as they laughed. It all seemed so natural. Bo complemented Lauren's cooking as Tamsin slumped on the couch rubbing her belly contented.
For her part, Lauren was always surprised by how good both of their reactions made her feel, especially that satisfied look on Tamsin's face as she brought a cold beer to her lips after dinner, or the wide smile Bo would wear as she watched her potter about the kitchen.
Late into the night, with wine bottles emptied and laughter waning, Tamsin made to leave. On her feet and pulling her jacket on, Lauren simply looked at her and said, "don't".
There was an agreement made in the silent conversations that pass with looks across a room, where eyes meet and intentions become known. Bo looked to Lauren and then to Tamsin, expectant but apprehensive. Tamsin looked at Lauren and smirked like she'd won a bet, but in truth it felt like she'd won the lottery.
In the end it felt sudden and slow all at the same time, on those evenings where Bo lay pressed into Lauren's back as she caught her breath, placing wet kisses on her neck and jaw. On her other side, Lauren would always respond when Tamsin was pressed flush against her chest, with callused fingers and warm lips, whispering words so tenderly that there were moments where she doubted herself worthy of feeling as wanted as they both made her feel.
When it was the three of them were together it felt as though the earth had finally settled and the seas has risen. They became an island continent, complete and self-sufficient, protected from wilds of world around them. There were tremors and aftershocks but nothing that could not be endured.
Tamsin knew a thing or two about time and had seen her share of tyrants fall. She never believed she wanted or would find love the way other did, but that was before Bo. Even then she wondered whether she'd ever have the patience required to sustain love, but that was before Lauren. The Valkyrie had found the warrior's mix; in Bo she had a woman she would die for and in Lauren, one she'd kill to protect. Not that either of them needed that from her and in fact, both would offer her the same.
In her last lifetime, in Lauren short one and in Bo's only one, Tamsin felt sure she'd found and realized a destiny she never knew was hers. They were three of them, fated and fulfilled.