Author's note: I've been wanting to write this road trip fic in which Lauren explores her past and tries to reconcile herself with the present, and it's a sort of self-discovery journey. Unfortunately, I don't have the time to craft the entire story, so I thought I'd try writing 'segments' as they come instead. Might be a multi-chapter fic, but it won't be arranged chronologically until I complete it. If you have any thoughts, please share them.
Dedicated to all who love Lauren.
It's drizzling – the way it does every time a loved one is buried.
Unlike the hurried steps around her, her walk is – as always – steady, counted and methodical. A few nearly bump into her, muttering either apologies or less-than-polite words, someone offers her an umbrella, but she goes forward, oblivious to all the white noise. She vaguely hears people calling their family for lifts, hailing cabs, or getting into their cars on the sidewalk and splashing pedestrians as they leave.
She's aware that it's time to seek shelter, but instead of returning to the motel, she strides towards a phone booth. She reaches into her coat pocket for change, fills in the slot and presses the buttons for a number that she hasn't dialed in months. Even though she's had a smartphone for years, she attributes the familiarity of the number to muscle memory.
And yet, for five attempts, her finger hovers over the last number, eventually clenching her hand into a fist without completing the call. She tells herself that it's not supposed to go this way. She reminds herself that the road trip is supposed to be fulfilling, that this journey is to help her reconnect with her past, and let her find meaning in what she does now.
She should be sending postcards, letters or the occasional memento to the succubus, and sometimes help the gang to solve whatever case that needs urgent attention through emails. Before she took off, she told Bo that she needed to do this, and she's since succeeded in keeping a distance. She's even developed a nice little rhythm in the frequency of her interactions, as she is wont to do with everything else in her life – create some form of structure.
In fact, she just prided herself a week ago for faring well in her time off from the fae, and especially from Bo. Then came the incident. A drunk driver had knocked a boy off his bicycle, and she rushed to help. She was working on autopilot and did procedure after procedure to save the boy – until she couldn't.
She'd forgotten that she hadn't treated humans – especially children – for a long while, and she wasn't aware that she no longer remembered what came next. She didn't anticipate that all her knowledge of the fae would not help this boy one bit, that this time, Hale – The Ash – wasn't around to cauterize any wounds.
And so Dr Lauren Lewis froze, kneeling above the boy, until his parents pushed her aside. The paramedics then arrived and asked her for information, which she couldn't provide. She was still running the steps through her mind to find out what the next one was when the father gripped her shoulders and demanded she produce identification. She snapped back into the moment, stammered and stalled until the paramedics ignored her and carried the boy to the ambulance.
Right now, she can't recall if it had rained too on that day, but she can still hear the parents yelling that she'd killed their child before they got in the ambulance. She still sees the accusatory looks from the people around her, sharing the same thought. She can smell the scent of freshly cut grass in the graveyard, where she'd secretly watched the funeral, and she almost throws up.
Her panic sets in, and she starts to back away from the phone, just as she did on that day as soon as someone in the crowd mentioned cops. She steps into the street, convincing herself to not sabotage her progress by being needy with Bo. Her inner voice nearly wins when she sees a yellow Camaro speed past.
She halts for a second, and rushes back into the booth, inserts the coins and presses the complete number with precision.
It connects, and she stops breathing.
"Hello?"
She's about to say hi when the first sob bursts through. She is horrified – this isn't how it's supposed to go, then the second sob comes when she remembers that nothing in her life has went the way it was supposed to.
"Hello? Who is this?"
She wasn't supposed to become a fugitive, and the third sob follows.
And another, and another, and another.
She wasn't supposed to become a slave to the fae, Nadia wasn't supposed to be cursed and later used by the Garuda and be killed, Bo and her weren't supposed to have so many instances of disconnect, and she wasn't supposed to be lured and tricked by that psychotic Taft to attack the fae.
"Lauren?"
By then, the sobs have taken a life of their own, blatantly disregarding all her attempts to rein them in.
"Lauren, are you okay?" The succubus's tone goes up a pitch. "I'll come get you right now, just tell me where you are."
She immediately covers her mouth with a hand, not wanting to worry the succubus further. She forces herself to take deep breaths, and her sobs gradually turn into sniffs and hiccups.
"You've calmed down, good." She hears Bo breathing more easily. "Now tell me, are you okay? Do you need help?"
She slides down the glass wall of the phone booth and shakes her head, unable to reply just yet. She doesn't know how, but the succubus seems to understand that she's not in danger.
"Do you want to talk about it?"
Tears welling up her eyes, she shakes her head again. She knows that once she lends a voice to it, she will have announced her time of death. That the woman who goes by Lauren Lewis no longer fits in with the human world, but she's also not a fae. That she finally understands how Tarzan or Mowgli feels, that she's become one of those captive animals that do not know what to do with themselves once released.
That all those years she spent running, she was going nowhere. All those months hiding had only pushed her deeper into purgatory. All that time she worked obsessively, her drive, passion and ambition had only helped mask the fact that she was losing herself, day by day.
No. She doesn't want to tell Bo that she took this self-discovery trip only to find that she's truly and hopelessly lost.
She doesn't know how much time has passed since Bo asked her the last question, and the succubus's next sentence catches her by surprise.
"It's okay, we don't have to talk about it. We can just…stay here."
For the first time in their relationship, after all their misunderstandings and miscommunications, Bo gets her.
Smiling, she closes her eyes to the ravaging storm outside of the phone booth and stays on the ground. She lets the succubus's soft breathing ground her, and her hiccups soon stop. Since her road trip, she hasn't missed the days of being a slave, where her life was not her own, but as they stay on the line, she senses the return of normalcy.
A beeping tone drags them out of their lull, and she hesitates on what to do, when Bo calls out for her to wait.
"I uh, I got your latest postcard, thanks. Kenzi says hi too, I think she's actually missing you, and your amazing baking skills in particular." The succubus speaks quickly – a silent plea for her to stay. "We actually tried replicating them the other day, and you will not believe what came out of the girl's mouth.
"She actually reiterated your theory with the eggs, and um…something about baking soda. She and Tamsin then got into a big fight about – wait, it actually started from a case a few weeks back…"
She grins and feeds the phone with as many coins as she can find this time. She listens to Bo recount their recent adventures – and some misadventures – without interrupting; only giggling in the funny parts.
"…okay, so back to the cupcakes. They were disastrous, like really horrible, and Dyson still won't come to the clubhouse even though it's been a week now. He says he can still smell it from a mile away. Kenzi's acting like she's going through withdrawals, and Tamsin said after all that trouble that she went through, your cupcakes had better live up to the hype."
She laughs, and she hears Bo join her.
"Lauren…?" She can tell by the tone that the succubus is treading softly.
"Will you… come home soon? Come home to us…to me?"
She doesn't respond, choosing to silently admonish the succubus for making her wanting to cry again, but the word hits her. It isn't returning to the fae, or the lab, or her apartment. As a scientist, she always thought the phrase "home is where the heart is" illogical, if not corny. The succubus must be rubbing off on her, and despite her logical and rational personality, she thinks she could get used to this.
But she can't return, not yet. She has to complete the journey, and it's something she has to do on her own, or she'll be on a spiral again when the next series of unfortunate events hits.
"I gotta go." Her voice is hoarse from the crying, but she hopes that the succubus will understand. They seem to be on an excellent streak today, even though they haven't spoken verbally in months.
"Okay. I'll see you…whenever you come back, I guess. Just…call me anytime, okay? Anything you need, Lauren."
She knows she won't, but she stores the succubus's offer as backup warmth in future storms.
"Bo?" She realizes she's missed the way the name rolls off her tongue.
"Hmm?"
"Thanks."
She leaves the phone booth to see that the storm has ceased. The moon, she notices, is extra bright tonight.