Bo's inner animal is rattling at the bars of her cage. Violently. She can feel the build-up of pressure, of time and space closing in, bones shifting, fluid heat licking at her heels; she knows she can't keep the lid on her for much longer. And the way today's going, she's not all that sure she wants to. Too many of her people are in danger or missing or hurt; she's quickly shedding her qualms over inflicting a little of the same in retaliation. Her hunger is changing, her animal has a different appetite, but she's not all the way there yet. Those she longs to avenge are the reasons she won't relinquish herself, the reasons she continues to guard the cage.

'I've had enough anti-human bullshit in the last few days to last me two lifetimes,' she grinds. 'Do you not know me at all?'

'I know you better than I know myself, apparently,' Tamsin mutters, attention glued to the rigidity of Bo's jawline, convinced it's going to fracture right through her perfect skin in a bloody, protruding mess if it tightens any further.

'What?' Though the roar of the Camaro is her own doing, Bo's pretty sure Tamsin is being evasively quiet on purpose, which just pisses her off more.

As does the blasé way in which the blonde ignores her and continues.

'The humans were spirited and progressive, bright – for the most part – and an excruciating pain in the ass for those who benefited from the conservative way of life. They were smart and creative, imaginative and open, and they scared the living shit out of the Fae Gods.'

The shift in Bo's mood is slight but instantly palpable, swelling with an edgy, hesitant kind of pride. She winds her open window the whole way down, not really expecting much but grateful for whatever additional comfort the warm breeze can offer her hot face.

'The Gods were afraid of the humans?'

'No, they were afraid of their questioning, their passion and pushing for a different kind of life.' Tamsin sighs, accepting there's no point in not getting to the point. 'They were afraid of having their crap exposed and causing a veritable shit-storm of rebellion amongst the Fae. The humans were questioning everything we'd ever known in pursuit of their enlightenment, and FYI, this stuff all happened long before the version in their history books; they just didn't get all that far first time around. The Fae weren't ready for it; the humans were toying with things they didn't understand.'

'They were right,' Bo states, unable to fully abate her niggling frustration.

'Yeah, and they started the worst damn war in history.' Tamsin is almost surprised by the bitterness in her own voice; war is supposed to be her thing – it is her thing and she's thrived through many – but the carnage and aftermath of every other battle combined cannot touch what she saw in the Fae War, or what she's been made to do since. She watches Bo again briefly, commits her obvious pain to memory as further evidence, and forces herself to face forward.

'How are humans responsible for the actions of the Fae?' Bo's voice is some place between yelling and straight out guffawing at the incredulity. 'They don't even know we exist, not to mention, historically – and for some, presently – we feed off them, we use them. If they had such power and influence – '

'Why do you think we go to such lengths to keep our existence a secret from them? The Fae know what they're capable of – their questions, their religions, their philosophies and science are a threat to us; they always have been. For all our claims to superiority and transcendence, the Fae are fundamentally archaic, inept at adaptation beyond our basic biology, and ultimately at human mercy.' Tamsin shakes her head, dispersing the misplaced anger before it can be misdirected too. 'You rally against the systems we have now because you think they're brutally outdated, but they are nothing compared to what we were and it took hundreds of years - and millions of dead - to get us here. Despite how it might seem, the majority of Fae don't want to go through all that again; the occasionally disturbed and closely-policed peace is favourable because it protects us. We're the original and ultimate chameleons because we have to be, because exposing ourselves exposes our weakness.'

'Oh come on, I'm not exactly number one fangirl when it comes to the Fae but that's laying it on a bit thick don't you think?'

'You still don't get it do you? Your allegiance with the humans is what makes you such a risk; it's why those in power have wanted you dead from day one. You trust humans implicitly, carry this ideal of mutual harmonious existence around like it's the most natural thing in the world – '

'Isn't it?'

Tamsin half-smiles at the side of Bo's face, feeling a now familiar warmth humming around her insides. 'Not even you are that naïve. That doesn't work within a species, never mind between. Priorities, morals, goals – even when they're the same, they're different. The humans chased knowledge and progress, and the Fae followed suit, but our methods and intentions and limits rarely matched up, and so mostly, this "commonality" led us into nothing but conflict.'

'So knowledge and progress are bad things?'

'Not in themselves…' Tamsin answers slowly, already sensing that Bo – in typical Bo style - is leading her into some kind of indisputable realisation. '…but the pursuit and possession of them? Aren't they arguably the most dangerous thing in the world?'

'It's not about pursuit or possession,' Bo counters without missing a beat. 'It's the reluctance to embrace, the unwillingness to change, to trust, to relinquish control. It's being "fundamentally archaic and inept at adaptation." Human ways didn't cause the war, the Fae ways did.'

Tamsin opens her mouth to retort but the words are halted before they can become sounds. Even battle and worry-worn, Bo is striking – possibly the most beautiful thing she's ever seen – but she's also the biggest contradiction. Her strength and vibrancy are all the more apparent as they wilt, as though even in winning this argument, she's losing. And so Tamsin is no longer sure if she should be fighting with her, for her, or at all.

Bo sighs, tired of what feels like going around in circles, not just today – in this car, this conversation – but for over a decade now. She's been lost in space, orbiting the truth for too long, and every time she thinks she's found a tether, one way or another she gets cut loose again and drifts even further away.

'What does any of this have to do with me?'

'It's where you came from,' Tamsin says softly. 'You were born from this war. Your…father was created by what came next.' She nudges Bo's arm with her fist, an awkward attempt at being playful that elicits a bemused frown rather than a smile, but she'll take it. 'If you'd stop interrupting with questions – stopped being so human – I'd be done with the story by now.'

'Haha.'

Tamsin watches the colour rush back into Bo's relaxing knuckles, resists the urge to place a hand over them and stroke along her fingers. The Succubus, who she sensed so strongly just minutes ago – who she can always sense, even when Bo is in full control – is just a flicker in the background now, and Tamsin realises that despite what she'd always thought, it's not the Fae in Bo that draws her.

'When the humans questioned the system, they were really questioning the Gods and royals, even if they didn't quite know it. The Gods and royals were panicked but divided on how to handle what were, at first anyway, just rumblings, slight deviations – a late food payment, a challenged order. Over time that divide grew and factions became more defined as they grasped at further control – land, titles, that sort of thing – in order to hold onto what they had and better control the human influence.'

'They started back-biting and fighting amongst themselves like little bitches,' Bo clarifies.

'Basically. The Gods split into what would eventually become light and dark, and the Fae began to pick sides. The light wanted to live symbiotically, embrace the humans in order to rule them. The dark wanted to beat them back down.'

'Not much change there then.'

'Do you even know what unaligned means?'

Bo doesn't need to look at Tamsin to know she's rolling her eyes – her inflections and associated mannerisms are comfortingly familiar - but she finds herself glancing and smiling anyway.

'So where are the Gods and monarchs now?'

'The Gods wiped themselves out, the pathetic power-mad little bastards; a mixed blessing though because with them gone and things so uncertain, the monarchs tried to step up by stomping down and seizing control, which is when the war broke out proper.'

'And my father - the 'Wanderer'?'

'The Valkyries went as one to team dark when the Gods perished; we were one of the things he claimed in the ensuing power-play and he took the name along with us…' She trails off, gazing pensively at her own hands and seeing nothing. 'Bo, I swear I didn't know who you were.'

'But you knew who he was. You knew he wanted me.' She's not angry; her animal remains caged, perhaps slumbering. But this remarkable calm is almost as disconcerting as the earlier rage.

'He's my boss,' Tamsin offers weakly, more for something to say than a defence.

'So was the Morrigan when you disobeyed and lied to her.'

'I'm not trying to make excuses; there are none for what I've done. I'm just trying to do what you asked, to explain what I know.' She turns back to the passenger window, eyes narrowed and nostrils flared against the onslaught of unprecedented emotion.

Bo gets it, and though she'd like to have a real – non-parasite-induced – talk, with actual feelings laid out on the table, she accepts that Tamsin isn't ready, that now isn't the time, and moves on.

'So the Wanderer, my father, he's not a God?'

'He believed claiming the Valkyries from our original father made them kin, but he's no God. He's a crazy, heartless bastard with real power and a shitload of riches; I don't know what that makes me but it's how I came to be here. He charged me with finding you, only he didn't exactly know who you were; I'm not even sure he knew what you were. As far as I was concerned I was looking for an impossible mark; I never dreamed that I'd find you, but he paid me a shitload to take the job, and he continued to pay year on year so – '

'Wait.' Bo's brow is crinkled in consternation but she doesn't dare turn her eyes from the upcoming bend in the road. 'How long have you been looking for me?'

'That's the thing – the reason I never believed it could be real, could be you – '

'Oh my God,' Bo chokes, slamming the brakes down so hard that they're both forced to brace themselves against the dash.

The lights and the metal carcass and the bloodied, blanketed, wired-up figure being stretchered into the back of an ambulance almost stop Tamsin from stopping the Succubus emerging but she grabs a hold of her senses – and Bo's arm – just in time, and doesn't flinch when the raging hot blue turns on her.

'What are you planning to do? Suck Toronto's finest dry then feed him their chi right in front of them and that camera crew over there? Dyson's tough, Bo; he's survived worse.' She believes it, she knows it to be true, but she can't bring herself to look back at him. 'Let them do their jobs; we'll meet them at the hospital.'

Bo's eyes continue to burn, her veins bulging beneath Tamsin's grip, but she's still in the car and she hasn't tried to drain her to death yet so Tamsin's taking it as a good sign.

Bo doesn't park in an official space, display a ticket or even lock the car. She just about turns off the engine, almost snapping the key in the ignition in one hasty, less than graceful, movement before rocketing through the emergency room doors and pounding her way down the corridor as though she instinctively knows where he is, can sniff him out as he would her.

Impressive, Tamsin thinks as she tries to keep up without making too much of a scene. Almost as impressive as how quickly she can run – and looks - in those heels. She swerves to avoid a wheelchair that probably should have been scrapped – along with its withered and pungent occupant – in the eighties, and runs, literally, into a still suited and booted, albeit slightly blood-spattered, Hale.

'What the – '

'Tamsin? What are you – '

'Never mind that,' Tamsin dismisses, shoving him away and turning him to face her intended destination in the process. 'Catch her before she does something her-like!'

Hale doesn't need further explanation or encouragement; Bo's turmoil rolls over him like a thrash metal gig with no regard for decibel regulations, and they may not be the closest members of their little group but he knows well enough to not leave this alone. He takes off after her – cursing himself for going with Kenzi's toe-pinching shoe choice - and catches Bo's elbow just as she rounds into an already overcrowded cubicle. Tamsin crashes in behind them causing a domino-effect crush that would be comedic if not for the dangerous flash of blue and the fact that Dyson is a small, pale stillness amidst a growing storm. Bo pulls her arm from Hale's grip and drops her destructive urges with it, limp between them, when she sees the look of utter devastation on his face.

'I can help him, Hale,' she whispers firmly, snapping him out of his hopeless horror. 'Help me help him.'

The nearest nurse turns to usher them out and Hale nods at Bo, seizing his chance. He concentrates a smooth, low whistle, not wanting to overdo it and take out the room but also signalling the Valkyrie as subtly as possible to be his back up in case it fails. The nurse sways and drops in seconds, attracting the attention of one side of Dyson's gurney and opening up a path for Bo. The medical staff that remain working on Dyson barely have time to register before – what Tamsin assumes they assume to be – his girlfriend launches herself across him and covers his mouth with her own. That commotion combined with the one Hale has created on the floor stuns them enough to allow Bo the few seconds she needs to breathe the odds back into Dyson's favour. She feels the life begin to drain into him, feels his essence flicker in waking and knows that – though the Docs still need to do their bit and he's gonna hurt like hell when he comes round – he'll be okay now.

'Miss…' The middle-aged woman in dark scrubs is first to react, gently coercing Bo off her patient. 'I'm Doctor Pask, the trauma surgeon on duty. You really need to let us work. He's –'

The panicked machines are calming, their flashing and beeps less frantic and end of the worldy, and the Doctor takes a few seconds to stare at them in wonder before snapping back into action.

'He's stabilising. Okay, let's move him while we can, people.' She doesn't wait for a response; she's moving and taking the gurney along with her as though it's just an extra, weightless limb even as two junior Doctors hook and toss equipment onto its bars. 'Someone get patient history from his friends. And someone scrape Michael up off the floor – he's a trip hazard.'

Bo, Hale and Tamsin follow them out into the corridor and watch as the battered and bloodied image of Dyson disappears behind the elevator doors. They keep watching in silence until one of the nurses - following Dr Pask's orders - comes looking to them for information. She aims her questions at Bo but Bo's mind is already onto the next crisis, the need to keep going before all of this catches up on her.

'Hale, could you – will you stay with him and call me as soon as he wakes up?'

'I need to check on Kenzi, I – '

'Kenzi's fine.' Bo smiles, a hint of hope for them all sparking in her chest in response to his sincerity; the wholly unguarded way in which he cares. 'She's at The Dal. I really need you to be here when Dyson wakes up; we have to regroup, sort this mess out, so I need you guys to find Trick and – '

'Trick's in Scotland.'

'What? He decided now was the time for a Highland holiday?'

'Not exactly…' Hale tries for an innocent 'not my fault' grin, but in the face of the ultimate charmer it fails him. 'I kind of Kingnapped and made him go. With Stella.'

'We're on the verge of Fae Wars: The Sequel, our people are all scattered and car-crashy, and you sent my all-powerful, wise old Grandfather on a dirty weekend away?'

'No, I….I didn't know about D, and it's Wednesday so strictly speaking…'

'Wait,' Tamsin cuts through the time-wasting, semi-serious banter. 'If you didn't know about the crash, what are you doing here? Who's blood is all over your shirt?'

'That would be down to the aforementioned Fae War sequel. Well, the rumblings anyway. I left the Dal to seek my family's help in calming the other clans and elders but The Morrigan has already managed to stir up the unsavouries and too-stupid-to-think-beyond-their-fists-and-feet. Rebel factions have already started to hit the streets.'

'Let me guess, against the human terrorists?' Bo asks, more in disgust than concern just yet.

'And the Light Fae who are seen to harbour them or fight by their side. Val and I were attacked near my father's office; his guards managed to take them out but one was hurt pretty bad by a Liger shifter.'

'They attacked Zamorans? And on your own turf?' Tamsin is ambiguously wide-eyed, unsure herself whether to be fearful of, or impressed by, their moxy.

'Not to mention the current Ash,' Bo states pointedly, chastising the blonde with her glare.

'Former, acting.' Tamsin smirks, one eyebrow playfully raised in challenge. She may as well be sticking her tongue out at them both. 'No offence, dude.'

'Ah don't sweat it; I don't think politics was ever gonna be my thing for long.'

'You were good,' Bo assures him.

'No, I was better than my predecessors, which aint saying a whole lot.'

'It's saying enough.' Bo places a hand on his folded forearm, suddenly overwhelmed with admiration for Hale as his own person, as an individual man rather than Dyson's partner or Kenzi's other drinking buddy.

'Well who knows – if we can get this mess under control, maybe I'll get another shot. But first things first -'

'There's more going on than rebel – '

'Hale's right, Tamsin.' Bo turns to give the blonde an indisputable 'stop talking, right now' look. 'First things first – we find our own people and make them safe. The rest of the world can wait for now; we're no good to them dead.'

'You know she's just one person, right? She may have multiple identities but she's not actually plural.'

'What?' Bo crunches into the next gear. Man, this poor car is getting it today.

'The "people" you're so insistent we find, they're just one, just her. The Doc. We know where everyone else is now.'

'Don't start with me on this again. She might just be one, but just like the others, if we don't have this one, we may as well have none.'

'And if you waste time trying to find her there's an excellent chance we'll end up with none. The world is bigger than Dr Doable and your achy-breaky heart, Bo; there are Fae gone wild, your humans as a whole are being hunted like witches, and what we really need to deal with right now is your daddy issue.'

'What I need is for you to shut up. I need you to stop whining and pissing me off so that I might hold onto the tiny fraying string of control I have left. I need you to let me believe that everything is going to be okay. I need us to not run out of gas in the next few seconds. I need to not think about smoke and pockets and Gods and all things otherworldly because as you so eloquently pointed out, there is more than enough shit to deal with in this one. And what I really need to deal with right now is finding my girlfriend. I need to find her, and if you want me to deal with the other stuff, you need me to find her too, which means you need to stop standing in my way and help me.'

Bo pulls up to the Light Fae compound, as close to Lauren's apartment as she's able and jumps out of the car before Tamsin can respond. Not that Tamsin has a response. Other than maybe screaming in frustration. She unbuckles her seatbelt, pushing open the passenger door and standing to face Bo across the Camaro's roof.

'I can't go in there,' she protests, though lacking her earlier conviction.

'Oh come on, don't be chicken.' Bo is bitter rather than playful, not even the hint of a smirk on her lips. 'Rebel a little – it seems like the day for it.'

'Or y'know, get back in the car and live.'

Five – no, six – leather-clad and weapon-wielding Fae circle slowly towards them, fanning around both sides from the back of the Camaro.

'Shit,' Tamsin mutters, briefly closing her eyes against what can only be the worst luck and timing in the modern frickin world. 'Loney, long time no see.'

'Yeah, but I don't really have time for a catch up right now, Tamsin, so run along while I take care of this human-loving whore.'

'Excuse me?' Bo bites out each syllable, slamming the driver side door shut to punctuate her own question and dismiss any notion of them leaving. She coils her fingers around the dagger strapped to her thigh, quickly casting a glance at Geraldine on the backseat and concluding that she'd never reach through the window before Big Boy and his crew reached her. And just to prove the point, his hands are around her neck and lifting her off the ground within seconds.

'I'm going to make you watch,' he whispers against her ear. 'As I eat them. As I suck on the bones of your human pets.'

'Not really the spectator type,' Bo croaks, giving up on trying to pry his grip away and pushing her thumbs into his eyeballs – mentally noting the predictable "Eww" she'd get from Kenzi upon recounting the tale later – until he drops her to her knees and stumbles back, growling. 'And now neither are you.'

'Bitch!'

'Oh no, the pleasure is all mine.' Bo gets back to her feet, one hand gently coaxing normal sensation back into her raw skin of her neck. 'Loney, was it?' she calls across the roof to Tamsin, mostly to check she's okay without looking.

'Yeah. The Liger,' Tamsin replies pointedly.

Bo feels her Succubus stirring, the rage on a slow burn within. She delivers a sharp elbow to the throat of the twig-thin and excessively hairy guy not so stealthily approaching from her left. Something cracks and he goes down, choking and clasping at his sunken Adam's Apple.

'Wait,' Bo smirks, as it dawns on her. 'Loney the Liger? Are you shitting me?' She unsheathes her blade and lifts it in one fluid movement to the jugular of the other Fae flanking her side of the car. 'And I thought my parents did a number on me.'

Loney's eyes are bloodshot and streaming but he's readying himself for another attack. Trusting that Tamsin has her three handled, Bo turns to more permanently incapacitate Chokey-Joe and the bitch at the end of her knife. She smiles sweetly at the woman, distracting her with the unexpected faux-nicety so she can raise her free hand and use it to slam her head against the car. What's another dent? By the time she hits the floor, out cold, Chokey-Joe has figured out what's coming and is reaching – still gasping through the partially crushed windpipe – for the throwing stars attached to his belt. Bo introduces her foot to his face, twice, before he can do much more than caress their shiny surfaces. Her adrenaline is pumping full throttle, her mouth twitching in a smile at her own killer moves, and it's that fraction of overconfidence that allows Loney to tackle her from behind. They tumble against the Camaro, all breath knocked out of Bo on impact, her head colliding with the framework and her reaction further stalled by the image of Tamsin and her three would-be assailants standing perfectly still and silent on the other side of the car. Her eyes are dragged away – literally – with the rest of her body as the Liger shifter roars, heaving her backwards and across the concrete on her stomach. The leather saves the skin on her torso but she can feel the blood, warm and sticky on her swelling face before she even comes to a stop about fifteen feet away. Already he's advancing, his irises glowing molten gold, his incisors elongating in his snarling mouth. She needs to move and it needs to be now, but she feels somehow hollow and weightless, solid and heavy, and her mind is racing with tactical intention that her body just won't follow. Loney is a giant hazy impending darkness. Bo's thoughts move to Kenzi and Trick, Hale and Dyson. To Lauren. And she knows as she pictures her face that it's all over.