"Lauren! Hello?! Anyone in here?" The shouts from the lab door drew Lauren out of her office.
"Bo? What are you doing here?" Like every time that she was around her girlfriend, Lauren felt herself being drawn to the other woman, her body screeching at her to touch the brunette. No matter how hard her body was telling her to reach out, Lauren knew that she was being called on in a professional capacity, and touching was definitely not a part of that role.
"There's some fae at the Dal, and they're sick. Sick enough that they can't be moved – at least not by me and Dyson." Lauren couldn't help the way her body cringed slightly at the mention of the wolf-man. Shoving thoughts of Bo and her ex alone at the bar out of her mind, she focused in on what she was being told. "They stopped in because they aren't from around here, and Lauren, they came looking for you."
"For me?" She asked, her voice cracking slightly. She didn't really know many fae from out of town, who would be looking for her, a human?
"Yes, for you. They said something about hearing of your previous work. Please, they don't look good. Will you come?" Those words spurred her into action.
"Of course! Just let me get my bag," said the blond doctor, rushing around the lab to make sure she had everything that she could think of in her med bag. "Okay, I'm ready, let's go."
The sick fae weren't at all hard to identify when they reached the Dal Riata. They were the only people in the bar other than Dyson and Trick. As soon as the two of them walked through the door, Trick was running from out behind the bar, leading them towards the three creatures laying on tables.
"They all have fevers, high ones, too." He said, gesturing towards the patients.
"Okay. Let me examine them." As she inspected each of her new patients, Lauren fell back on her old habits, tuning out everyone else in the room, and speaking her findings out loud.
"Patient 1 is humanoid, species unknown." Pulling out her stethoscope, she checked his lungs. "Breathing is labored, and he has a high fever. Signs of some sort of virus affecting the patient. Cursory examination of the other two patients, both also humanoid, appearing to be same species, displays same symptoms. I'll take samples of saliva, and blood, to begin looking at what could be causing this."
"Do you always talk to yourself like this?" teased Bo, following her girl as she walked around the tables, doing a thorough examination of each of the patients.
"I usually have a tape recorder, but I forgot it in the rush. Notes help keep track everything you know."
"I know, I know, they help you piece together the puzzle. Mostly, I just think it's adorable." A quick peck on the lips from the doctor sated Bo temporarily.
"You like it when I geek out, I know, but I really don't have time right now. All this – it seems familiar, and not in a good way." Her words stopped Bo in her tracks.
"What do you mean familiar? You've seen this before?"
"I've seen something similar, maybe. I don't know, it's hard. For some reason I can't think of where I know this from, but it's on the tip of my tongue." If Bo said anything in reply, it was lost on the doctor. She returned to her work, diligently taking samples from her three patients, and marking them for future use. She didn't allow herself to notice anything in her surroundings until she had finished her task. "I need to get these back to the lab and get started on them."
"What do we do with them while you do that?" Dyson was finally making his presence known. Up until then he had sat quietly at the bar, letting the human do her work, and skillfully not looking when they shared their kiss.
"Call the Ash, um Hale, I mean call Hale. Have him send over a few vans, and a nurse for each van. It'll get done faster if you call then if we wait until I drive all the way back to the lab." She stopped his protests as soon as they started forming on his lips. Silently, he acquiesced with a nod of his head. "Good, you do that, and I'll get started on these."
"What about me?" Lauren and Dyson turned to look at their love, having forgotten her for a few moments.
"Go home, Bo. I need to work this out, and it'll be best if I do this by myself. Besides, I think Kenzi could use the company. She hasn't really left the clubhouse in a while."
"Fine, but Lauren, you call me if you need any help with anything. I mean it." With a final nod, Lauren was out the door, flying with efficiency into her car and away from the Dal Riata. Dyson sat looking discreetly at Bo as she watched her lover drive away.
"She'll figure it out, you know. I know that she will."
"She always does. She's brilliant." Bo sighed, pulling herself off the stool. "Alright, I'd better get back to Kenzi."
"Tell her hi for me."
"'Course."
A number of hours passed, as Lauren flitted back and forth across her lab, doing one test after another on the samples she'd taken. If anything changed with the patients on of her nurses would alert her, giving her time to further attempt to diagnose them. So far, nothing had come to fruition. She was having a hard time narrowing down the virus cells in the bloodstreams of the patients. None of them were had any clear antigens in their bodies that could point towards a specific kind of infection.
"Dr. Lewis! One of the patients stopped breathing!" The shouts came simultaneously with the sounds of the monitors going off. Quickly she hurried to the other side of the lab, rushing to join the efforts of the nurses who were trying to get the patient breathing again.
"We have to intubate, she won't live if we don't. Hook her up to a machine." The nurses followed her orders, getting a tube down the unconscious woman's throat and attaching a bag, allowing the machine to breathe for her.
"She stable, doctor."
"Please, draw some of her blood. The infection is advancing, it might show up in her blood now. And keep a close eye on the other two, they'll likely exhibit similar symptoms." The nurses responded, moving quickly to follow her orders, trying to impress her boss. Unfortunately for her, Lauren was already back in the zone, trying to come up with new tests to apply to the samples in order to get the information that she needed.
"Thank you." She muttered when the nurse brought her the new blood samples. Distracted by what she was currently working on, the new samples were forgotten until the second patient went into cardiac arrest. After making sure that care was being administered properly for him, and ordering a new set of samples to be taken from him, Lauren sat down to work on the new blood samples. Setting up the slides on the microscope didn't take long, after years of experience, she knew the exact procedure. The instant her eyes rested on the blood slides, she knew that what she was looking at, the virus cells, were something very familiar.
As soon as she realized what she was looking at, Lauren released a breath that she didn't know she'd been holding. Before anyone had the chance to ask here where she was going, Lauren had grabbed her coat and raced out the door, shouting last minute orders at the nurses for the fae's care.
When she arrived at her living quarters, Lauren didn't waste any time. She ran around the apartment frantically, doing a very good impression of a chicken with its head cut off. Everywhere she went there were open drawers and knocked over piles of books in her wake. She opened every drawer, shifted every pile, scouring every inch of her quarters. In the middle of her rampage, she hit one of the book cases, and apparently found what she was searching for in the bottom shelf. Once again, she was lost to the world and she invested herself deeply into reading her old journals. Five books that appeared to be falling apart were her treasure, pages slipping out of the edges, but she didn't care. Furiously she tore through them, not literally of course, because what kind of a person would she be if she harmed a book? But in a rapid fashion, looking for some specific piece of knowledge that would help her tie all the clues together.
After several long minutes of searching, Lauren knew that what she needed was no longer in her possession. Knowing that she didn't have access to the one journal that she needed made her make the fastest decision of her life. Normally, she liked to ponder and question everything before she acted upon it. Pro and con lists were some of her favorite things, inside her own head of course, because no one else really understood. Once again, she flew into a panic, rushing to collect all of the papers of her journals that had been spread around during her perusal, then on to her coat and once again out the door, not even bothering to lock her apartment behind her. One of the Ash's cars was waiting out front, there was always a car waiting, and the driver agreed to take her to the clubhouse.
Once she got to Bo and Kenzi's house, she didn't even bother knocking, but instead barged directly into the hall.
"Bo? Kenzi?" She called.
"Jesus, Lauren, we're both right here." Answered Kenzi from the couch, peeking her head up to take a look at the distraught doctor.
"What's going on, sweetie?" Bo's calm voice spun Lauren off kilter, everything had been so panicked for the past few hours that hearing something calm threw her off.
"Bo, I need to borrow your car. I know that you don't really like it when people borrow your car, but I think that I might have a vague idea of what's going on here. And unfortunately I don't have all the materials that I need here with me. I don't know how I could have possibly forgotten it, but I have and now I need to go get it. The Ash won't – Hale, Hale won't let me take a compound car very far away so I need to borrow yours and –"
"Woah, woah woah, calm down Lauren." Interrupted Bo. "Take a deep breath. What is it that you need, exactly?"
"A journal. An old journal." Bo placed her hands on Lauren's shoulders, hoping that some sort of contact would ground the other woman. Usually when the doctor geeked out it was cute, but right now it looked like she might pass out from lack of oxygen due to her extremely fast talking.
"Okaay, and where is this journal?"
"A few hours away. It's with an old army buddy of mine." She sagged into Bo's embrace as she spoke. But as soon as the word 'army' escaped her lips, Bo pulled away, almost causing Lauren to whine.
"Hold up, army buddy? Since when do you have an army buddy?"
"I know surprised me too, babe." Quipped Kenzi from her place on the couch.
"Hang on, you have army buddies and Kenzi knew about them and I didn't?"
"Bo, calm down. I told Kenzi once about my stint in Afghanistan. I wasn't trying to avoid telling you, it just never seemed important." Her words did the opposite of what they were intended to do, and Bo freaked out just a little bit more.
"Not only did you have army buddies but you were in Afghanistan and you didn't think that was important?"
"It doesn't have anything to do with my life now, with the fae." She could feel her body sagging, her energy all but used up in the past few hours, a fight was the last thing that she needed.
"Lauren, I'm not just interested in you now, I want to know all about you. Who you were, who you are, and who you want to be. And obviously it is connected, since we now have to go find an army buddy of yours." Lauren could hear Kenzi moving around behind them as her mouth fell open.
"We? Who is 'we' here?"
"Well I'm coming. I'm certainly not having you go out there by yourself, and maybe I'll even find out a bit about 'army' Lauren." Answered her lover with a smirk. "And Kenzi is coming too. She needs to get out of the house."
"What? No. I don't need to be privy to your little love-fest in an enclosed space for hours. No thank you." Shouted the girl in question from the kitchen, where she was bustling about doing who knows what.
"It's not a discussion, little lady. You are getting in that car. Now, let's go." Before either of the other two could respond, Bo was out the door, keys and jacket in hand. "Now!"
"Here, I thought you looked a little bit tired. Looked like you could use some energy." Said Kenzi as she pushed a sandwich and water bottle into Lauren's hands on her way out the door. "Best not keep her waiting, she can have a temper."
"Thank you, Kenzi." Replied Lauren, sincerely, as she looked down at the food she'd been given.
"Yeah yeah."
"So this friend of yours, why do they have this journal that you need?" asked Bo a few hours into their seven-hour car journey.
"I went to the Congo not long after my stint in Afghanistan, and when I was there, I kept extensive notes on what was going on with each of my patients. How the virus was affecting their cells, every symptom that popped up, and eventually, even the steps I took to create a cure. None of them worked of course- I didn't know anything about the fae at the time. When the old Ash, the one who recruited me, when he came into the Congo to talk with me, I got nervous. I mailed one of my journals who my old army friend, and told him to keep it safe, just in case." Explained Lauren, pivoting to look back and forth at Kenzi in the back seat, and Bo, as she spoke. "I never asked for it back, since most all my work started over once I learned about fae physiology. But it has some information and samples that I need, as well as the cures that I tried. One of those has got to hold the final puzzle piece. Whatever is happening to those fae, it's presenting almost exactly like the disease in the Congo. But it's different. That's why I need the journal."
"Does this guy know why he was holding on to it for you?" asked Kenzi from her lazy position in the backseat. While Lauren was sitting in the passenger seat with her back almost ram-rod straight, feet planted evenly on the floor, Kenzi was sprawled out in the back row of the car, her feet hanging lazily over the side of the car.
"Not exactly. I just told him someone I didn't know was sniffing around, and I might need it back later. I never really got the chance to talk to him afterward."
"Will he be surprised to see you?" Inquired Bo, letting her eyes stray over to her lover. Lauren looked a bit sad as she answered.
"Yes, we haven't talked since I sent him the journal. I'd say he'll be quite surprised."
True to her word, Lauren's friend, August, was incredibly surprised to see Lauren, and her friends, standing on his doorstep. In fact, he looked almost like he was seeing a ghost. Lauren, for her part, was equally surprised, August didn't look anything like she thought he would.
"August, hi. I'm sorry that we're showing up here so late, but I really need to get that journal back from you." Stated Lauren, pushing her confusion at his appearance down, what mattered was getting the journal to help her patients.
"Lauren? Lauren Lewis?" he asked, unbelieving his eyes. "What on earth-?"
"I know it's been a while, August, but I really need that journal." Behind her back, the two brunettes shared a mutual look of confusion. Something just didn't seem right with August's reaction.
"How is this possible?" asked the astounded man.
"I know, I should have called or something but-"
"But you're dead!" he exclaimed, not letting her finish her sentence. All at once silence rang out. No one spoke for a while, each of them attempting to process what was going on in front of them.
"I'm not dead, August. I'm right here." Confusion was evident on Lauren's face, as she enunciated each word carefully, not knowing why her old friend was reacting this way. Maybe it had something to do with the way that he looked – older. Not just a few years older, but much older than he used to be.
"Why don't we sit down and talk this out." Suggested Bo, pushing her way into the house past August, and dragging the doctor behind her. Kenzi followed as well, scoping the place out for anything she might be able to lift without being noticed. Obviously if the guy thought that Lauren was dead then they weren't that close, so a few things going missing shouldn't matter.
"Alright, let's lay out the facts and try to figure this all out, okay?" started Bo once the three of them were seated on the couch. Kenzi had wandered off to explore the house.
"I don't understand how this is possible. You were dead." Said August, not taking his eyes off of Lauren.
"I was never dead, August, just in the Congo. And then here, working for a private company for the past few years." Lauren brushed her hand through her hair, trying to figure out what was going on.
"But we saw the news, we saw the explosions and we got the telegram saying that you were killed." He leaned forward, resting his arms on his legs and he searched Lauren's face for any signs of deception. "And Lauren, you don't look any older."
"It hasn't been that long, August, surely you don't think I'm that old." She answered with a chuckle. "I don't know what to tell you about the rest of it. In the Congo I was recruited to work for a private company, I've been there ever since. I'm still there. And I have some patients that need the information from that journal."
"Lauren, it's been 18 years since I last saw you. You barely look two years older than you did. How the hell is that possible?" That statement left the two women flabbergasted. Neither of them could speak for a minute.
"Seventeen years? August, really, it's been about seven years, you're a bit off on your math." Again Lauren brushed her hand through her hair, trying to think of what could be causing an altered mental status in a man that was still relatively young. "The conflict in the Afghanistan only started a few years ago."
"No, Lauren, it's a different war now. When we were there, when you were our army doctor, we were there because of the civil war. Now they're fighting with the United States, not each other."
"Are you taking any medications? Or any drugs?" The question from the doctor merely angered August.
"No of course not, I saw enough guys messed up because of that shit. I never stepped close to any of it, you know that. What I'm telling you is the truth, I have the stamped envelope you sent me your precious journal in, and I have books with pictures from our time in Afghanistan together, all of us. They have dates." As he spoke August got up and began to rummage around the room, until he found a few old scrapbooks and a package. The envelope contained the journal, an object that Lauren was keen to grasp. Bo on the other hand reached for the books, looking at the dates of the pictures that clearly held a military version of her girlfriend.
"Lauren, look. He's not lying. All this was from 1996." The blond looked up from the journal, having temporarily forgotten the pressing issue in favor of the information of her old journal.
"How is that possible? I – I don't remember it clearly, I guess. Now that I think back, the dates aren't really coming to my mind. I just, it can't be from 1996, I mean, look at me! I'm not that old. I couldn't have been in Afghanistan in '96 or the Congo in '97." Bo shook her head in time with August, none of them could comprehend what was going on. For a while they sat in silence, until Kenzi interrupted.
"Hey guys, I bet you're all having fun going down memory lane. But we really gotta skedaddle. We got people dying on us remember?"
"Yes, yes, Kenzi, you're right. We need to get going. Thank you August, for keeping the journal safe for me all these years. And thank you for showing me the photos. I don't really understand, but I promise you that I was not blown up."
"Lauren, I've mourned you for 15 years, the footage we saw of the Congo was from '98. I'm just happy that you're alive, no matter how young you look. Keep the books okay, figure out where the hell your memory went. I know you can. You were always the strongest of all of us." August's words struck a chord with the three women, Bo and Kenzi looking at her in a new light, the strongest one in an army battalion. "And you, Bo. I can tell you care about her, just keep her safe, yeah?"
"I promise, August. Thank you for everything."
"So what exactly was going on back there? All of you looked like your favorite puppies had been taken away and didn't know where to find 'em." Kenzi's words broke the silence that had been looming over the car since they'd left August's house.
"Apparently my memories are lying to me. Instead of working for the fae for five years, I've been here for fifteen. I don't understand how that's possible, because I don't look like I'm fifteen years older than I was when I was in the Congo. But, according to these pictures, I am."
"Wow, that's some crazy shit. Betcha the Ash had something to do with it, that guy was crazy."
"Kenzi, not helping." Said Bo sternly from the driver's seat.
"No, no she may actually be right."
"Jeez, try to keep the surprise out of your voice, okay?"
"Sorry, it's just that the Ash did mess around with things without telling us, it would be no surprise if he'd messed around with my head as well."
"And your body? How did he get you to stay young, hmm?" asked Bo.
"I don't know." Sighed an exasperated Lauren. "I have no idea."
With the aid of the notes from her time with the disease-ridden fae in the Congo, it didn't take too long for Lauren to recreate, and alter a few of the proposed cures. Before too long, the nurses were able to be relieved from duty due to the fact that each of the three fae were responding to Lauren's cure. She was right, the symptoms, the virus, it was very closely linked with whatever it was that had been affecting the fae in the Congo. And, being brilliant as she was, her work was done in record time.
Following the end of her shift keeping watch over the patients, making sure that everything was going as it ought to, she was finally able to hand it over to some refreshed nurses.
"Doctor Lewis, you should head home for the night. You've been working for almost two straight days, you need some sleep."
"Thank you, but there's something I need to figure out first." With that, once again Lauren was flying out the door on her way away from the Lab. While she was getting a ride to the bar, she called Bo to let her know she was on her way. When she arrived, she was greeted by the sight of not just Bo, and the scrapbooks of her military time, but Kenzi, Dyson and Trick as well.
"Alright, what was so important that you had to wake us in the middle of the night?" Dyson practically growled at the doctor as she walked in.
"Well isn't wolf-boy a charm when he doesn't get his full 8 hours." Grumbled Kenzi from her seat at the bar. "Don't complain, there's alcohol here."
"Dyson, Trick. I need you two to think back to when exactly you met Lauren." Said Bo, patting the seat next to her for Lauren to sit on.
"When I got called in for a physical. Why?"
"When was that Dyson?" asked Lauren.
"A few years ago."
"No, it was 15 years ago." Both Trick and Dyson scoffed. "Do you remember now?'
"No, Lauren, I met you just a few years ago. I would remember knowing you for over a decade, okay?"
"Fine, what about you, Trick?" Lauren and Bo turned their focus to the bar's owner. Kenzi, of course, kept her focus on her beer.
"I met you a few times over the years, but nothing solid until Bo came around."
"Nothing about it being 15 years ago that we met?" Inquired Bo.
"No, nothing."
"Then take a look at these, photos from my time in Afghanistan, from seventeen years ago. I know that I spent two years in the Congo, before apparently dying and coming to work here." When Dyson and Trick looked at the book, they couldn't disagree that the figure in the photos was indeed their friend Lauren.
"How do you look the same?"
"How did we not know it's been 15 years?" asked both men simultaneously.
"I don't know. We think the Ash might have had something to do with it." Replied Lauren, trying to keep the frustration out of her voice. "I just don't understand. I don't look like it's been 15 years!"
"No you don't, but it's beginning to come back now. It's like I sort of noticed that you were supposed to be changing, but that you weren't. But I live with fae, it makes sense for people to stay the same, it just never really got brought to the forefront that you never aged." Dyson spoke slowly, letting the memories flow through him a bit.
"Call Hale." Everyone turned to look at Kenzi when she spoke. "What he's the Ash now, he should be able to clear things up for us. Even if he doesn't want to hang around us."
"She's right." Stated Bo, looking at Dyson to make the phone call. Grumbling, he agreed, forcing himself to call his old friend for the second time in two days. As he explained the situation on the phone, Lauren and Bo took swigs from their own beers, trying to sort out their thoughts about the current predicament.
"He's going to look into the old Ash's records and then head over." Dyson spoke as he hung up the phone. They didn't have too long of a wait before they heard the crunching of wheels on the gravel outside the bar.
"That was fast." Remarked Kenzi upon Hale's entrance.
"He kept a file titled "Lauren", all I had to do was grab it and come. I read it during the ride over, and you're all right." As Hale spoke he was trying to catch Kenzi's eye, but to no avail, she wouldn't deign to look at him.
"So what does it say?" Questioned Lauren, eager for answers to her past.
"Exactly what you thought it would. The Ash offered you his protection when he brought you to work here. That protection extends further than any of us thought. It extends over your being human. That necklace you wear, the one that marks you as a servant of the Ash? It has mystical properties. It stops you from aging, but more than that, it stops people from noticing that you aren't aging. That's why none of us noticed. There's some sort of a filter around it that stops you from noticing how long you've worn it. That messed with your head about the wars and timeline and everything. You've really been here 15 years, Lauren."
"Wow." Lauren leaned her head against Bo's shoulder, seeking comfort as she found out that for several years she'd been living a lie. "And my supposed death?"
"He set that up too, so that no one would come looking for you." Hale chuckled, "You must have given your old friend quite a scare."
"Yes, we did." Sighed Lauren. "Thank you for explaining."
"Do you know what this means?" Bo asked Lauren later that night, as they were snuggled into bed.
"What?" Lauren was lying comfortably in her lover's arms, there was no place that she would rather be in the world.
"Once we get Hale to fix the whole 'forgetting about years of your life' thing," Bo took a deep breath, pressed a kiss to Lauren's head and continued, "we can be together. Forever."
"Forever, huh?" When Bo hummed a reply, Lauren smiled. "I guess it's a good thing that I love you then."
"I love you too."
Thanks to the two anons and natasi who provided the inspiration (and some of the details) for this story. This is a tumblr invention.
Hope you like it, if you do, please review.
Sya.