Lauren. There was so much wrapped up in a single word, so much history, so much meaning, so much joy and pain, so many memories tied into the way the letters of that name moved against her mouth and tongue.

Her voice still sent shivers down Bo's back. Still sent a thrill of longing and fear and need that resonated deep in Bo's gut and warmed her from the inside out. Seeing her there, holding a book to her chest, with concern painted across her features… Bo was fighting a war, but the hardest battle she waged was the one that rose within her own breast at the mere mention of the woman standing in front of her.

She didn't have time for this. Didn't have time for the ache that spread in her chest and the hurt that constricted her spirit. There were other, bigger battles to be fought and won, and Kenzi was in so much pain. She didn't need to talk to Lauren. She needed to go home to her.

But she pushed it down, pushed it away. Because there were bigger battles, because Rainer was dying, because the Pyrippus was coming and she could feel him, could feel his power thrumming through her veins and she couldn't control it, couldn't claim it, and the one thing that scared her more than Lauren breaking her heart again was her own loss of control. She couldn't hurt the people she loved anymore. She wouldn't. So she followed Lauren out of the kitchen and up to her bedroom, incapable of banishing the memories that haunted her, of late nights steeped in sweat and love-lust and the sound of Lauren's heavy breathing, of her soft moans of pleasure and cries of ecstasy. She took the book her once-lover offered her with hands she'd once used to evoke pleasure and flipped through the crackling pages, its weight a heavy burden on her lap and the air of her room a stifling, choking field of unrequited desire. And she allowed its stories to distract her.

"Fangs, horns," Bo's voice was a little incredulous as she thumbed through the passage Lauren had pointed out to her, "obviously this Wanderer isn't the guy in my kitchen." Was it jealousy? None of them had liked Rainer, but wasn't this a little bit much? Lauren was usually so level-headed, but though the pages crackled as if they were old, the ink rubbed off on her fingertips like the spread of a fresh newspaper. Annoyance flared, they'd all warned her against Rainer from the start, but Lauren had broken Bo's heart first, and it just wasn't fair. Rainer was her destiny. Her future was intertwined with his, and Bo didn't know how; but she thought that maybe, just maybe, she could love him. And if Lauren didn't want her, couldn't she at least want her to be happy? Bo shoved the book away, back into Lauren's lap, her voice rising with her irritation and the buzzing, painful energy that crackled against her skin whenever Lauren was near. "This book doesn't even look real, is the ink still wet?"

And then Lauren leaned down and pulled it close to her, her brown eyes wide and concerned and her hair throwing shadows in beautiful lines across her face.

"That confused me too –," Lauren's voice was softer, calmer, "but, look," and then her attention was back on the book, back on the task at hand, and her voice had that unmistakable doctor-tone that got under Bo's skin, that had been getting under Bo's skin since she'd first walked into the Ash's compound and looked Bo directly in the eye the first time they'd met. "Then – I remembered. There was no memory of Rainer, right?"

Bo forced herself to remember too, and when Lauren shifted to face her a little more squarely, Bo mirrored her actions. A frown furrowed its way onto Bo's forehead, she narrowed her focus onto the task at hand, on Rainer, waiting downstairs for her to face her destiny and fight a different battle.

"Okay…?"

"Okay. When his memory returned, history's memory of him returned as well," Lauren drew in a deep, shaking breath, so like and unlike the many Bo had drawn from her under happier circumstances in this very bed, "and it's not pretty. Look."

She swept the hair from her face and tucked it behind her ear, and when she dipped her head to read, it tumbled along the side of her neck and the shadows across her face lightened a little in the dim golden glow of Bo's room.

"'The warrior shall escape his curse'."

Bo leaned in, her mouth drawing into a tight line and every muscle in her body tense and taut.

"'The Valkyrie shall be reborn'."

The pages crackled under Lauren's fingers, fingers that had traced lines along Bo's face and kissed her lips with their gentle, feather-light touch.

"'The blood of Zamora shall be spilled'," Lauren's voice rose with fear and frustration, and Bo wondered if this really was a prophecy that history had remembered or if it was just her own hope and fear that Lauren was trying take her heart and break it again, "does any of this sound familiar to you?" Lauren's tense words broke through Bo's distracted thoughts, and Bo couldn't answer her. Because it did, and Bo couldn't decide how she felt about it.

"'The Women of the Horse shall rise'," Lauren's hands went back to the book, and the strand of hair she'd pushed behind her ear fell across her face again, "I – I don't have any idea what that means," she admitted with a noncommittal wave of her hand, but her eyes never left the page and her finger was back to following the line she'd left, her lips pursed in focused thought. "'Between the Warrior and the Queen, one of the two shall die'. I haven't determined who the Queen is, but –,"

Now Bo's attention had finally been arrested by something other than the heart-breakingly beautiful woman perched perfectly on the edge of Bo's bed. This was the problem she was supposed to be solving, the riddle she needed to find the answer to. And despite the fact that Lauren had left her, Bo knew that Lauren still cared, and that Bo's thoughts on the answers to this prophecy would trouble her.

"Yeah," Bo interrupted, her words softer now, resigned, "they think it's me." She turned away, unable to look Lauren in the eye now, her stomach twisting into knots that, this time, had nothing to do with the woman that sat at arm's length from her. Lauren's outburst was immediate.

"Holy shit, Bo, then it's coming true, don't you see? We have gotta get you out of here!" Lauren stood up and drew close, then passed her. The tome dropped on the edge of the bed, forgotten, and Bo's chest felt like it would burst with the pressure of the hurt, of the memories, of the wanting and the questions that suddenly seemed vastly more important than any this grim prophesy of doom could ever present her with.

"Why are you doing this?"

But Lauren had turned her back on Bo and walked away, her voice rising in pitch with every word she spoke and sending a shock of nerves and hurt and anger rising along Bo's spine and electrifying the short hairs on the back of Bo's neck. "Something is coming for you," Lauren went on, unmindful of the curl of Bo's lip or the glare that tangled Bo's brows into a scowling line over her eyes, "the Morrigan –,"

"To get back at me?!" Bo demanded, incapable of pushing her feelings away any longer.

Bo's heart had stopped in her chest at Lauren's mention of the Queen of the Dark, and it flushed hot now like it was on fire, and she wished Lauren hadn't brought her up, knew she'd been alone in her bedroom with Lauren for too long, because her hurt and anger had seared her skin, and though her fingers hadn't burned through the Wanderer's tarot card downstairs, she thought they might smolder through the cool wood of her bedpost now.

Lauren turned smoothly to face her, her lips parted in abstract shock and her brow crumpled into an incredulous expression. Her shoulders dipped, her hand rose to grip the rising, twisting bedpost, and Bo knew she'd said the wrong thing. But her hurt and anger were a force of their own, had been a force of their own for so long that Bo had begun to recognize it as a separate entity, to blame it for everything that had gone wrong between her and Lauren, for all the pain she'd dealt her, for the love that had betrayed both of them.

"I stayed with the Dark for you," Lauren stepped back, her words hurt now and softening with outraged disbelief.

"What?" Bo managed to breathe out, her face falling into a befuddlement that was part guilty relief, part incomprehension and just a little bit angry and perturbed all at once.

"I isolated myself," Lauren drew in a short breath, as if trying to hold on to her composure, "for you." She was angry now, Bo could see it in the aggressive movement of her hands, in the nod of her head and the subtle shake of her hair. "This was all for you, everything that I do is for you!" Lauren's voice had begun to shake with intensity, her wide-eyed expression was tight with offended hurt.

Bo's heart had begun a heavy, angry beat that exploded through her veins and struggled against her skin. She jumped from the bed, every muscle in her body screaming to release the tension that had surrounded her like a cloud and clung and wouldn't let go. She couldn't believe what she was hearing – she didn't want to believe it, was scared to believe it. Because Rainer, who had been honest and straightforward with her from the beginning, needed her right now and Bo couldn't trust herself to keep her priorities straight if Lauren truly loved her. Rainer was supposed to be her destiny, but Lauren… Lauren was something else. Something more.

"So tell me your plan," Bo demanded in a voice sharp and bitter with anger, "or the truth!" Resentment boiled in Bo's blood and started a heavy churning in her gut. In that moment, Bo didn't know what she wanted. She didn't know if she wanted to kiss Lauren or walk out on her, if she wanted Lauren to kiss her or walk out on her. But in that moment, all Bo wanted was the one person she knew she couldn't have, couldn't tempt, and couldn't deserve. And if she couldn't have Lauren, then she wished, desperately, that she could at least stop wanting her.

"I had to make you believe it if I was going to make the Morrigan believe it!" there was a desperation in Lauren's words, a powerful need in the rising tone and inflection of her voice for Bo to believe her and understand. But Bo didn't have time, she didn't have time to understand, even if she did believe, and she didn't need Lauren's excuses. She never did. The tension in the room had risen to an unbearable degree, and Bo strode across the room to her, wanting, for the briefest of moments to leave and put all this drama behind her, because right now, this was too much.

"Oh, I can't even hear this right now," she breathed, and the distance between her and Lauren closed, "there's too much going on! Kenzi is hurting so badly and where were you?!" her voice rose with every word until she was almost shouting, and Lauren drew away, the tension between them live and electric and tenable with the resentment they shared.

"Playing around in the Dark Archives," Bo went on, her voice softening now with the frustrated expression Lauren returned to her, "digging up shit on the man somehow intertwined with my destiny."

Lauren's mouth stiffened, the lines across her throat tightened and tensed, and her posture became rigid.

"So that's it?" she nodded, her words soft, but still angry and hurt, and she gave a tight-lipped half-smile that didn't reach her eyes and looked more like a grimace of pain to Bo, "you choose him?"

The air left Bo's lungs. Confused, frightened, she stared at the woman she loved, trying to hold on to her anger so that the painful expression written in the lines across Lauren's face wouldn't crack the ice she'd packed around her raw, aching heart.

"It is not like that," she took a step forward, her voice low and soft, and struggling with a defensive anger that Bo hoped would at least mask the hurt she'd felt over losing Lauren. It was easier to blame her than to accept the truth – easier to believe Lauren didn't love her than to accept that it was herself who had broken Lauren's heart. "I chose you," Bo accused, "and you broke my heart."

Lauren didn't respond right away, only looked at her with beautiful, piercing tawny eyes, and Bo could feel her own eyes burn with tears she didn't want to shed. Bo's heart beat heavily in her chest, a raw, bleeding, exposed mess now, and Bo couldn't decide if the expression she saw dawning across Lauren's face was realization, or hurt, or something else entirely. She felt so small, so insignificant standing in the face of her own inadequacies as a friend, as a lover, as a Succubus.

Then Lauren drew back for an instant, drew in a breath, and stepped closer, and Bo could smell her, a warm, sweet-smelling mixture of soap, and old books and dust and the subtle, elusive breath of honeysuckle that was so uniquely Lauren. And when she swallowed Bo could see the sudden, hard contraction of the muscles of Lauren's throat, the trembling purse of her lips, the flutter of her eyelashes as Lauren blinked heavily as though coming out of a stupor. And she thought, for a moment, that Lauren might reach across the yawning chasm between them and kiss her.

"Yeah?" Lauren breathed, her voice a soft, warm gust of air against Bo's face that left her skin tingling and her heart racing, "you broke mine too." Lauren's mouth was so close Bo could feel her words as they formed on Lauren's lips. Bo's eyes slid shut against the ache of a heart shorn in two, against the exhaustion of fighting with the woman she loved so much she didn't know what to do with herself. Rainer had been the consolation, the quiet hopeless succor. He didn't challenge her, didn't disorient her, didn't terrify her or elate her. He was safe. But Lauren – Lauren was the drop at the edge of the world, the weightlessness of zero gravity.

Gentle fingers kissed Bo's cheek, brushed away long strands of dark hair from Bo's face. The pad of Lauren's trembling thumb soaked up the quiet tears that rolled down hot, flushed skin, and Bo could feel the slight, subtle sensation of Lauren's eyelashes fluttering against her own. Slowly, Bo wound her arms around her lover's waist, pulled her close, relished the familiar warmth of Lauren's body, the strong lines of her waist and hips. Lauren stiffened, and Bo hesitated, unsure of what she'd done, and would have pulled away if Lauren hadn't dipped her head then to rest her cheek on Bo's shoulder. Bo could feel her breath warm her neck, could feel Lauren's fingers fall from her cheek to her chest, could feel the beating of Lauren's heart against her own, strong and gentle, warm, close.

It was the comfort of a bed made cozy after a long night of deep, restful sleep. The first breath of fresh air, the sunlight after hours in a dark, confined space, that overwhelming sensation of finally coming home. Bo didn't want to leave the safety of Lauren's arms, to abandon her sweet smell, to lose the warmth of her skin or the gentle pulse of her heart beating against her own. But after a long moment, Lauren pulled away. Stubbornly, Bo clung to Lauren's waist, her arms locked around her back, and pushed her forehead to rest against Lauren's own and closed her eyes, unwilling to return to the reality that waited downstairs for her, to Kenzi's pain of a widow not yet married, to the uncertainty that lay outside the circle of her lover's arms.

"Bo," Lauren's whisper tickled her mouth, and Lauren's fingers caressed her cheeks again, and tilted Bo's face up so that Bo would look at her. Reluctantly, Bo opened her eyes. Lauren stared at her, her frightened and longing expression a mirror to Bo's though brighter with intensity. "Do you trust me?"

She wanted to say yes, but couldn't trust herself to speak. Lauren must have seen the answer ripple across Bo's features, and pressed a short, impulsive kiss to Bo's mouth that made Bo's heart leap and scream in her chest and her breath catch in her throat. And when Lauren pulled away again, far too soon, she looked at Bo, hard, and Bo understood what that kiss was meant to convey, and was breathless, again, for the love of the woman she held so tightly in her arms.

"Then trust me," Lauren whispered again after a moment, and, extricating herself as gently, as carefully as she could, stepped out of Bo's possessive grip and away. They both stood for a moment, hugging their arms against themselves, as though suddenly cold and lost in the absence of each other.

But suddenly, Bo understood that it wasn't only her trust Lauren had come to the clubhouse for.

Lauren trusted her too. Completely. Implicitly.