Disclaimers: All original property is owned by Showcase, and we do not infer that any characters, creations or the concept of 'Lost Girl' are our property and the following fan fiction has been written purely for entertainment purposes only.
Time-Frame: Set directly after Episode 2:22
Rating: T
Pairing: Bo/Lauren
Missing: Part Nine
By: The RainbowWriters
The dynamic in the front room of the club house had shifted slightly after the succubus had returned from upstairs. Bo was sat on one end of the couch, a glass of red wine in one hand, her other hand stroked lightly through long black locks of hair. Resting on a cushion in her lap was Kenzi's head, the rest of the young woman's body laid out taking up the rest of the couch more or less completely, no small feat considering the small size of her slender form. One of Kenzi's hands was tucked up under her cheek, the other was draped off the side of the couch, holding onto the neck of a half empty bottle of beer.
Dyson was sat on one of the arm chairs with his feet up on the coffee table, having pulled it closer for that specific purpose. He too had a bottle of beer in his hand, but unlike Kenzi's his was more or less full, he had wanted the illusion of drinking along with her, not the reality of it. After all he wanted to be completely alert and ready just in case anything were to happen.
With the return of the succubus to the mix, Kenzi's focus had shifted. She had instantly gravitated to sit with her best friend and it hadn't taken any time at all for the young woman to assume the position she was now in. It also hadn't taken her long after she had adopted the relaxed pose for her to begin to look just a little sleepy.
"I missed this couch." The young woman announced somewhat suddenly as she took a swig from the bottle in her hand. "I'm pretty sure the bed I was in was some posture-pedic crap meant to aline my spine as they alined my soul. I never want a good mattress on my bed, ever." She shook her head on the pillow.
"Your mattress is from Bob's Discount Mattress." Bo soothed with a soft chuckle. "I'm pretty sure you don't have to worry about it being good for your back."
"Good." Kenzi summed up snuggling her head more into the cushion. "Hey wolf man do you have your boots on our table? Didn't they teach you manners in your forest?" She stretched out her leg in and attempt to poke at him with her neon sock covered toes.
Dyson chuckled at her, before very slowly and deliberately pulled his feet to the floor.
"Better." Kenzi tsked at him but as she settled down again she was further disturbed from her comfortable cuddle spot with her best friend by the sudden introduction in the background of a low ringing noise. "Okay annoying noise." She grumbled rolling dramatically onto her back flopping her arms and legs around. "Make it stop." She groaned.
"It's Lauren's phone." Bo would have found Kenzi's dramatics amusing had it not been for the fact that it was Lauren's cell phone that had caused them. Carefully she eased Kenzi's pillow off her lap and slipped sideways off the couch going over to where the blonde's jacket, that was hanging on a nail by the door. Slipping her hand into the pocket she pulled out the slender silver phone and looked at the caller ID. The screen display telling her it was Hale.
"Hello?" Bo answered the phone reluctantly wanting to make sure it was the Siren before she committed to saying who she was.
"Bo?" Hale's voice came back at her immediately. "I thought I'd called the Doc's..." He stopped himself.
"You did, she's asleep but when I saw your name I answered. What's going on? Why do you need to talk directly to Lauren?" Bo asked all of these questions while behind her Dyson sat up straighter and Kenzi frowned.
"I'd rather tell that to Lauren." Hale admitted somewhat cautiously. "Could you get her?"
"Fine." Bo's unhappiness showed through in her voice, but if the Siren thought he was getting out of explaining he was mistaken because as she walked towards the stairs to wake Lauren up she tossed the phone to Dyson. "Find out what is wrong with him that he needs Lauren." She instructed the wolf before she moved to take the stairs two at a time. "I'm going to go wake her up."
Breaching the doors into her bedroom, Bo had to frown as everything she had attempted to create here with the blonde had happened. Lauren was sprawled out in a clearly comfortable sleep, holding onto her Bo smelling pillow. The succubus moved slowly to the bed, lying herself down on it near the blonde to make her arrival as less disruptive as she could to start.
"Lauren?" She whispered the blonde's name.
"Hm mm, Kenzi's tired huh?" Lauren didn't open her eyes or pull in her sprawled limbs, she just moved slightly, making a few more warm sleepy noises. "I expected as much. I'm glad you came in even though you said you wouldn't." Slightly clumsily Lauren wiggled one hand free of the green sheet and moved it blindly towards the direction that Bo's voice had come from.
"I wish that was it but Hale is on the phone for you." Bo spoke the words softly reaching up to sweep her fingers through blonde hair to spread it off Lauren's forehead.
"What?" Lauren's voice was filled with sleepy confusion as her brown eyes fluttered open. She was about to say more when the bedroom door was pushed fully open.
"You need to take this." As if oblivious to anything, the mood, the setting or the tone of the two individuals on the bed the wolf walked in with Lauren's phone. "Now." His words weren't a statement so much as they were an order.
Bo was up and out of the bed, one hand grabbing the phone and the other coming up to his collar to push him backwards out the door. For his part the wolf made little attempt to stop her as he moved backwards with her until his back hit the wall at the other side of the hall.
"DON'T..." As Bo heard the volume in her own voice she managed to tone it down a little letting out a held breathe. "Barge in, I was just waking her up, she's coming down for the phone." She stared into the yellow eyes before her that seemed both ready to attack and unsure if there was even retreat.
"She's got nothing I've not seen before and that..." He nudged his head to the phone, "Is important."
The tiny shred of control that Bo had managed to put together, burnt off like tissue paper as her hand came up and she held his chin tightly against the wall behind him. Very slowly she leaned in close to him, her lips right to his ear.
"You will never ever know what this is like, no matter what you have seen or touched before... you will never touch her." Bo's voice was deep with power as the comment made it flare within her, as she did she wrenched the phone out of his hand. Moving back only the few short feet into the bedroom from where she had pushed him in the hall she slammed the bedroom doors closed.
"I don't even know what to say about that right now." Bo walked towards the bed to where Lauren was now sat up trying to secure the sheet around her naked body. "He is so out of line."
"No Bo, it's..." Lauren tried to brush it off, but if she was honest she had actually been quite startled, having literally been half asleep when the wolf had made his entrance. "The call must be important." She tried to focus on the phone in the succubus' hand.
"Talk to Hale." Bo nodded and held it out to the blonde to finally take the call.
The blonde took the phone and more or less instantly confirmed her identity, after that all she seemed to do for a long while was listen. As usual her 'professional' face giving nothing away as to the possible contents of what was being said.
"Of course I understand Hale." She eventually said, changing her grip on the sheet at her chest, shifting the weight of her body as she turned on her hips and eased her legs out of the side of the bed. "I can remember that." She added as she pushed up to stand letting the grip she had on the sheet release as she took steps over to collect up her clothing.
Bo waited patiently even though it was killing her not to know what was going on with Hale and Lauren during the imposing conversation. After what seemed like an age, with Lauren saying very little else, the blonde finally ended the conversation and tossed the phone at the bed.
"I have to go." She didn't meet Bo's eyes as she quickly slipped her panties on and pulled on her bra.
"Go where? Why did Hale call? Did they find something important?" Bo asked her questions but didn't stop her from getting dressed.
"They found something at the Reverend's house they need me to look at." Lauren explained quickly. "You need to stay here with Kenzi and Dyson." She added. "The Reverend and the woman from the house Tamsin found Kenzi in are MIA." She gave the run down as she pulled on her pants and pushed her arms into her shirt.
"They're not in custody and Hale wants you wandering the streets?" Bo found herself shaking her head over and over.
"No, he needs me at the Reverend's house." Lauren clarified carefully. "Believe me Bo, it's important." She stressed, her fingers nimbly working on fastening the buttons, and then flicking out her hair from where it was trapped in her collar. "Dyson has been ordered to stay here with you and Kenzi." She tucked her shirt into her pants.
"Do you promise you will explain when you come back?" Bo took a slow breath trying to push down the insane level of possessive panic she felt.
"Yes." Lauren finally paused in her manic fluttering of action and looked at Bo evenly for a moment. "But Bo..." She raised her hand to rest on the succubus' cheek. "It might be a while."
"Lauren..." Bo leaned into the blonde's hand softly. "I can't do awhile." She admitted holding her hand over Lauren's.
"Bo, I have to go to the house, identify what it is Hale and Tamsin have found, take it back to the lab..." Lauren began to explain why things might take a while.
"But we agreed you weren't going to the lab." Bo's eyes flared a little wider.
"I don't have a choice Bo. This thing with the Reverend..." She paused a frown pulling across her brow at both her lover's reaction to this and what she had just been told by the Siren. "I will come back here before I go to the lab, okay?" She offered Bo the option.
"Okay." Bo made herself focus on the alternative, made the shake in her stomach turn back into a knot. "I'll be here waiting."
-x-
It wasn't that Lauren didn't like driving the Camaro, it wasn't that at all. She wasn't sure the old car was essentially safe however; its gas consumption was horrible, the smell of gasolene that became almost overpowering over 60 was nauseating and the front breaks were grinding metal on metal, but that didn't mean she didn't like the car.
As she pulled it out of the gravel entrance to the club house parking onto the road she remembered something else she was unhappy about in the car as its rear view mirror had this habit of slipping to the oddest angle for no apparent reason. Sometimes it seemed to correspond to going over bumps, sometimes to changes in the radio station and sometimes it just suddenly fell.
There was a reason actually, not that Lauren knew it, that being that it was partially held on with chewing gum, that Kenzi's refreshed about once a month to ensure a good seal and as steady a hold as possible. The month was just about up and today the mirror wasn't staying level for love nor money.
As she pulled up to the fourth set of traffic lights after leaving the club house, she reached up and adjusted the mirror for the third time. The almost immediate fourth drop came only a moment after Lauren had fixed it and the blonde was getting close to just ignoring it and going by the wing mirrors alone when something caught her eye. It made her start to pay far more attention to the world around her and less to the state of repair the car she was driving was in.
The odd angle that the mirror had dropped to, paired with the slight turn in the roadway, had let her see a car about five cars behind her in traffic; it was slate grey in colour and no distinguishing characteristics but there was a blue fish shaped sticker in the bottom right of the windscreen that made the blonde's shoulders tense. In the centre of the fish was a star of life that made its origin unmistakable.
Flexing her hand on the steering wheel, Lauren looked down at centre console between her and the passenger seat. Sitting there where she had placed it rather haphazardly, was her small doctor's bag, her phone sticking out of the top of it.
The sudden loud blare of a car horn made Lauren start and she looked up to see that her light had changed. She continued going straight along the road she knew would lead her to the nearby address Hale had given her. Her brown eyes kept glancing off towards her phone as she very carefully kept to the speed limit through the city streets trying to decide what to do.
She kept careful glances back to the grey tail car, praying she would look to see it turning off harmlessly, the logo somehow used by something else. Yet as block after block passed and the car kept its careful watch on her, Lauren knew she had to listen to her gut and it was screaming that she needed to do something.
Should she call back to the club house? There was little point, Dyson had instructions to stay there with Bo and Kenzi and it was more important that Kenzi above all was kept safe. She could call Hale, try to have him or Tamsin drive out to meet her and stop whoever was following her? But that would mean she just had at least a few more minutes driving alone and what if that was exactly what the members of the House of Delivery wanted, to draw more tainted people out to them? Maybe if she was really lucky they were just following her to keep tabs on her and they meant her no harm.
As soon as Lauren had heard that the Reverend had a dead Fae in the freezer in his house all bets about what was really going on had been off. It was clear that they really knew very little about the true nature of the 'House of Delivery' or about their leader in particular. The only thing that was clear, or at least it seemed to be that way to Lauren, was that it had to do with the Fae and so to bring Hale or Tamsin into it would be playing right into the Reverend's hands.
Lauren took an unscheduled right turn, without signalling, that took her off her direct route towards the Reverend's house, almost to fully answer her own question of wanting to see what would happen. The grey sedan took the corner after her and with only one car in between them now, the family sedan was more clear in the Camaro's side view mirror.
Lauren took another odd turn, which was mirrored by the car behind her, making Lauren once again flex her hands on the wheel. There was no question now that she was being followed, closely. The words 'What are you doing Lewis?' went through her head as she checked the mirror again and pressed her foot down on the accelerator without any warning, the Camaro objecting slightly to the urge to put on a sudden press of speed, but responding appropriately. The sedan behind her shifted its speed to keep up with her, even as it climbed up to the speed limit and then rose past it.
Keeping one hand on the wheel, Lauren reached out to her phone. She hit the series of screen buttons to set it to speaker phone as she retrieved the internal phone book, Tamsin's number was the first to come up, having just been added that afternoon by the blonde at the police station, the phone wanting Lauren to make a decision about what 'group' to add the phone number into. Turning again, sending both her and her tail on a path out of the heart of the city Lauren hit call.
"Hello, Dr. Lewis, I was just about to call you. The crime unit is bringing..." Tamsin picked up the call and started talking, her phone programmed to tell her who was calling automatically.
"I'm not on my way." Lauren replied succinctly knowing this would get the detective's attention. "There's a problem, I... have a problem." She clarified.
"Tell me what kind of problem Doctor?" Tamsin's voice immediately was clear and succinct.
"I think the Reverend, or someone from the association was watching the club house, I've had a tail since I left." Lauren explained as she continued to drive away from her original agreed destination. "They obviously want to get Kenzi back or they want Bo, but in the darkness they didn't know it was me who was in the car." She made up her own assessment of what was going on, after all who would anyone most likely expect to be driving the yellow sports car this time of night?
"I'm already on my way to my car, what road are you on? Are you driving the succubus' car?" Tamsin began to rattle off questions as indeed she could be heard running.
"Detective no, if he's looking for a Fae and you bring him one then he gets what he wants, with me he doesn't." Lauren explained her rather crooked logic.
"Really Doctor, I need you to trust me are you driving the Camaro?" Tamsin asked the qualifying question again.
"Yes. I'm south bound out of the city on Westbury." Lauren stated having picked a road she knew on purpose.
"Stay on the line, continue on that route, what vehicle is following you?" Even as Tamsin talked the sound of her car's siren in the background could be heard for a moment before it was auto edited out by a speciality application that was installed on her phone.
"A car, four door, grey... I'm not great on cars and I can't remember what kind they had in the paperwork." Lauren admitted, as with a glance at the rear view the blonde noted that the car was getting closer. "But it has the logo, a sticker in the window and no matter how strange a route I take it follows me."
"That's fine, just drive for a moment for me..."
For Lauren the next series of words from Tamsin came like she was listening to a voice quite a distance away from the phone.
"All units we have a yellow Camaro going southbound on Westbury, priority four response, police priority civilian must be protected from following enemy target sedan, grey in colour, plate to follow. All available mobile units to intercept." The detective made the call to mobilize all the units she could in the shortest amount of time.
"Any moment now you should start hearing sirens Lauren, I don't want you to panic because I'm sending them okay?" Tamsin instructed the doctor in a controlled voice as she began to pay attention to the doctor again.
"Okay." Lauren, who hadn't realized she was sweating had to rub at her forehead to stop her vision being marred by the beads of moisture that dripped onto her cheeks from her brow, her other hand holding tightly to the wheel.
Just moments later on the quiet road that Lauren had drawn her tail onto, the night was indeed disturbed by the sound of sirens and distant flashing lights pulling onto the road a mile or so ahead of them. The idea that help was so close momentarily distracted Lauren, making her look around into her mirrors to see that more police were pulling onto the road behind her and the sedan by a few hundred yards.
It was in her brief confusion that she didn't heard the car behind her suddenly gear up but it was a point that was driven home to her the next moment when the Camaro was rammed slightly from the side by the fast moving sedan that had pulled up partially along side.
With a squeal Lauren wrenched the steering wheel into the turn the collision had caused the Camaro to begin to take, her foot sliding from the accelerator to the brake in a desperate attempt to slow herself down. The sudden change in speed was matched by the sedan and pulling in behind the Camaro, it began to accelerate and slammed into the back of Lauren's car.
Everything from that point on happened in slow motion for Lauren, though there was little she could do to stop any of it from happening. The Camaro lurched forward once from a collision and then twice, before the light back end was punched out sideways and the car started to spin down the middle of the road.
Lauren tried to control the spin and slide of the car but the worn brakes had little to no chance of doing anything at this point. Wrestling with the wheel that was just spinning the blonde tried to think but the world was going too fast.
"Tamsin!" She called out the shifter's name, suddenly remembering that the speaker phone was working. "Don't..." The blonde was stopped from continuing as the sedan hit the Camaro for the last time, this time sending both of them out of control.
The new sideways momentum flipped the yellow car when suddenly the asphalt beneath it slipped away to give way to a drainage ditch that ran parallel to the road side. With a loud crash the Camaro landed on its roof; the sedan, having been travelling at an incredible speed to preform the feat sailed over the top of crashed yellow car and bounced on the uneven surface of a field beyond. It only had a short distance to travel before it smashed head on into a tall solid oak tree.
-x-
The next thing Lauren could really focus her brain on was the sound of the cat Fae detective calling her name over and over. She opened her eyes to try to locate where the woman was calling her from, unaware of her orientation. Immediately she was flooded by confusing images and the spider web like cracks that obscured the windshield.
The blonde's head swam with pain and confusion, flashing lights filled the edges of her vision as she tried to blink some clarity into her mind.
"I..." She tried to force herself to focus as rather suddenly she realized the detective was scrambling half in the broken side window beneath her. "Tamsin?"
"Yes, Doctor." The strong woman reached up and used her claws to sever the seat belt holding Lauren upside down, and caught her before the blonde could fully fall out of her seat. With the strength only a Fae could possess, she lowered the blonde and pulled them both out of the car. "Paramedics are on the way, and you are safe; six police cars just watched the other car run you off the road so you've only been out a second or so."
"The other car?" Lauren tried to turn her head to look in the darkness, but stop as pain flared up from her shoulders.
"Is being looked after, my only concern is you." Tamsin moved Lauren out onto the ground and merely by pointing and snapping her fingers, another officer peeled off his coat and she pushed it under the blonde's head. "How are you doing Doc?"
"A little shaken." Lauren admitted her vision still hazy, the pain in her head generalized but all encompassing still. "I may have jarred my shoulder." She pulled the random diagnosis out of nowhere.
"You've dislocated it." Tamsin confirmed for her. "I just need you to stay calm and still until the paramedics get here, literally a few seconds."
"You have to call Bo." Lauren leaned back against the coat under her head. "No forget that, you have to not call Bo." She closed her eyes and tried to shake her head but it made her mind fog more.
"I will deal with Bo, right now we're all about you." Tamsin put her hand lightly on Lauren's uninjured arm, checking her heart rate.
-x-
Despite the party she had expected to be in the middle of right now, Kenzi was asleep with her head resting on Bo's legs, probably happier then she'd have been anywhere else in the world. This of course left the succubus and Dyson having to somewhat awkwardly watch something on television together. Bo's focus was really on the young woman resting on her lap and Dyson seemed to have his own focus but it most certainly wasn't the television.
Since their little disagreement upstairs over his approach to the phone call and Lauren's privacy, the pair had had very little to say to each other, and despite the fact that they were both there to look after and be there for Kenzi, the atmosphere in the room was far from calm and jovial.
After a few minutes of silence Dyson looked from his place over to where Bo and Kenzi were on the couch and gave a soft sigh.
"I'm sorry." He said suddenly, keeping his voice low and quiet so as not to disturb the sleeping young woman.
"You seem to be saying that a lot in the very recent past but consistently still being an ass hole." Bo's dark eyes moved to look at him, her own voice staying hushed so not to disturb Kenzi.
"And you're being rather over sensitive to some things." The wolf countered keeping his tone calm and even but not submissive. "I didn't do Lauren any damage, nor did I disturb her, she needed to get the information Hale had for her as quickly as she could and respond to it. She still has a job to do."
"A job the light Fae has enslaved her too." Bo clarified, moving her hand over dark hair soothingly in a long stroke. "And besides that you knew I'd gone to tell her, yelling up instructinos to move faster would have been sufficient."
"And inefficient considering I had the phone." Dyson countered. "Anyway I apologized, I forgot my place and that Lauren wasn't..." He paused. "At work."
"No, she wasn't and you are not lord of the manor here. I am." Bo pointed out the obvious fact for him just in case he had forgotten it.
"Bo please. I know who you are, what you are I just..." He stopped as the phone is his pocket began to ring noisily. He glanced apologetically at the succubus as Kenzi stirred on her lap, pushing up and answered the incoming message.
"Dyson man, it's Hale." The Siren's voice was tight and obviously agitated.
"Hi, why do you sound like that?" Dyson could hear his level of emotion easily.
"Is Bo watching you take this call? Can she over hear us?" The Siren's reply did not address any of the wolf's questions.
"Yes, of course." Dyson tried to play along even as the succubus eyeballed him.
"Then line up your best Oscar performance man because I'm about to tell you something you don't want her to hear." Hale lowered his voice so that it made it hard for even Dyson to hear him.
"Hale, I told you don't touch my gear." Dyson tried to make it seem like he was having a conversation that didn't matter to Bo with the other detective. "Did something get broken?"
"Yeah something bright yellow and something blonde." Hale replied honestly.
"Shit, not that." Dyson frowned. "How broke is it?"
"Which one, the one that can be replaced, needs replacing, the one that can't. You all need to get down to General West Hosptial." The Siren conveyed the information with a tight sigh.
"I need something to tell the Captain in order to submit a damage report." Dyson continued to try and win his Oscar.
"We kinda figured you knew her best." Hale revealed possibly one of the reasons why he sounded so agitated. "That you'd come up with a way of telling her."
Dyson didn't know what came next except for Kenzi suddenly plucked the phone out of his hand..
"If either of you think I stole wallets on the subways and couldn't hear that conversation in a silent room you're crazy." She spoke both to Hale and Dyson. "I've got Bo sitting here about to go super nova without knowing anything Hale, so just spit it out... Is Lauren okay?"
"Hey Li'l Moma." Hale instantly brightened his tone as if for a second he was about to try and bluff his way over answering. "She's okay." His tone went back to somber.
"We'll be there in ten minutes tops." Kenzi assured him and turned to look at Bo. "The most important thing to settle on is that Lauren is okay and at the hospital where other doctor types can take care of her. We have to get moving though." She handed the phone back to Dyson. "Which of you is less drunk?" She asked of them both.
"Lauren's okay? What happened that made her need to be okay?" Bo stood up even though she wasn't quite caught up to what was going on.
"I'm not drunk." Dyson reached into his pocket for his keys. "Let's go."
-x-
