20. Hera

"She had me, trapped in nightmares for months, paralyzed, she used an IV to keep me alive. But it didn't feel like months Lauren, i-it was years for me."

"What happened in the nightmares?" Lauren asked. Bo shut her eyes, shutting down, retreating into herself. She felt like she had gone crazy, like she'd been locked up in that psych ward for good reason, if she let those nightmares touch her again – she didn't know what would happen to her, she didn't know if she'd be strong enough to keep fighting her way back.

"I can't," Bo shook her head, looking like a little girl suddenly. Lauren was frightened, she'd never seen her strong, immortal, complexly powerful wife look so vulnerable and scared as she did in that moment.

Lauren took a deep breath, grasping Bo's hand in hers, willing her to look at her. "Please, Bo. It wasn't real, let me in."

Trick watched them nervously from the far corner of the room, wanting to give the couple their space but too frightened to fully leave.

Bo sobbed, trying to get the words out through her tears, "Sh-she made me live in my memories of all of my old kills, everyone I've ever murdered or even been with while they died… except their faces – it was your face and the faces of our unborn children, but they didn't feel like dreams Lo, they were real… I was there, I could feel the murders, the kills, every broken bone every stab of a sword or a knife – it was years, Lauren… I – I went mad."

Lauren's face was full of concern and heartache. No words could express the sorrow she felt at hearing what her wife would been through, so she kiss her softly. Bo accepted it eagerly and sighed, letting the stress flow from her body.

"She's coming for us, I know it. She was only happy when we were apart, she did it to avenge her lover, I killed him without meaning too when I didn't know I was Fae."

"He was human?" Trick asked.

"Yeah."

"How ironic that she killed Hercules because of Zeus's human lovers and then took one herself."

"How do I – how do I beat her Trick?" Bo was scared, she didn't want to admit it but she was.

"The amulet that I gave you to defeat Carman, theoretically, it could work to protect you from Hera's mind control abilities. But I have to tell you Bo – I'm not certain."

"How will you find her?" Lauren asked, stroking her wife's back lately.

"I know where she is," Bo said through gritted teeth. She remembered how to get back to the asylum.

"I'm coming with you, let's go," Lauren sat up and Bo shook her head immediately. She wrapped her arms around Lauren's waist, looking at her pointedly.

"You're not coming with me. You have my baby in there," Her hand trailed over Lauren's stomach and Lauren looked down at her belly, wrought with frustration. Bo lifted her chin with her hand gently, staring into her eyes, "But more importantly, you are my baby. I'm not endangering my family, besides, that's exactly what she wants. She wants to hurt you like I hurt her lover and you're staying as far away from her as humanly possible, under lock and key at The Dal with every member of my extended family standing guard at the door," Bo pressed their foreheads together, tangling her hand into the blondes hair, looking her square in the eyes, "Please don't fight me on this, it's just going to end up being a long pointless argument because I'm not taking no for answer."

Lauren hated it when the brunette made so much sense. Hormonal tears welled in Lauren's eyes again, "B-but you're my baby too and I don't – I can't lose you again Bo," Lauren's voice strained with emotion, "It almost killed me the last time," the tears fell from her eyes and down her cheeks and Bo's heart broke a little knowing how true it must've been, now that she could finally remember all the time they'd spent apart.

"Look at me, look at me," Bo pleaded and waited until Lauren lifted her head, tears still falling. "I am so sorry… so sorry I wasn't there to rub your feet and dote on you and spoil you every day for the last three months," Bo's voice caught, half brokenhearted and half enraged that someone had taken those memories from her and replaced them with a nightmare. "It's all I wanted to do, it's all I've dreamed of doing since we first started talking about having a family. Nothing could ever keep me from you again, okay? I know her game now and she's mine. She's going to pay for what she did to us and when I get back – I'm never going to leave your side until this baby is in our arms, you got that?" Bo had Lauren's palm pressed to her heart, trying to convey the heartache and anger she felt that she had been forced to abandon her wife and their unborn child.

Lauren lifted her hands to Bo's hair and ran her fingers over the silky locks she knew the feel of so well, soothing her wife and herself at the same time. She nodded, "It's not your fault, I know that now and I'm sorry I didn't believe that something had happened to you earlier… you know why I couldn't… it's her fault." Her eyes changed from broken to heated in a manner of seconds and not the heated Bo was used to seeing from her other half. She looked fiery, like the harbinger of death that she could be and that Bo would've let her be if she wasn't three months pregnant with their child. "Make her pay," Lauren said, her eyes saying everything else that she didn't need to put into words. Bo nodded, swearing it.

"I'm sorry you don't get to do it yourself, but it I'll make her pay extra just because you don't get to be there to do it yourself." Bo kissed her wife's temple and pressed her lips to her ear, whispering to her so that Trick couldn't hear, "Plus, I know you'll feel everything, you'll be right there with me."

Bo stepped back, her eyes boring into her wife as the shared raged flowed between them invisibly. You'd think the Fae would learn to stop fucking with them, nothing was ever going to break them, it was the other way around, they'd break anything and everything that threated their happiness and their family.

Lauren kissed Bo for good luck, "Don't hurry back," Lauren told her wife pointedly, speaking to her through her eyes again. Bo smiled with an evil look in her eye, winking and nodding.

Bo entered the asylum as quietly as she could, she rounded a corner, the only thing she could think about was snapping Hera's neck. She was so lost in her thoughts she barely realized Hera was waiting for her in a corridor, until she almost ran smack into her.

"Well I was just coming to see you, my naughty little Succubus, but then I realized you were coming to me, so I figured why waste my energy," Hera smiled a sick smile and Bo's nerves crackled, she wanted more than anything to kill her right then but she knew for Lauren, she had to take her time, she had to make it slow.

"You took me from my family, you made me abandon my wife and my unborn child! I might've killed your lover when I was confused and scared and alone and didn't even know what I was, but this is – what you did to me-" rage clouded Bo's mind, taking away the fear she felt at remembering the nightmares. "When I'm done with you, you'll be begging for death," Bo promised as her eyes flashed blue.

Hera just laughed, the sound made Bo feel sick, memories of the nightmares flashed through her mind but she tried to clear her thoughts. She a feeling came over her, a soothing lavender warmth, Lauren. She smiled at Hera evilly, flexing her fists.

"Enough banter, first I'm going to leave you in a heap of insane thoughts, then I'm going to drag you to your wife and make you watch as I kill her and your unborn baby – then and only then, will I put you out of your misery," Hera smiled, a sick glint in her eye.

"I agree, enough banter," Bo's eyes intensified and her body glowed, she started to feed from Hera, the Goddess seemed amused. She closed her eyes, focusing her power on Bo, she glowed red.

The amulet around Bo's neck glowed with the same light, absorbing it. Hera's eyes opened in confusion when Bo didn't stop feeding. Bo smiled, continuing to drain the mind controlling Fae until she dropped to her knees.

Bo reluctantly stopped, as much as she wanted to kill the Fae right then and there. She pulled out her knife and kicked Hera in the face, making her fall backwards, weak and already defeated. Bo pulled out her knife, showing it to her, smiling as fear finally crossed Hera's face.

"I'm going to let you die nice and slow," Bo growled, her eyes still electric blue.

She tortured Hera for hours, slicing and stabbing with her knife until her own body was covered in the other Fae's blood. Hera had slipped away once, her body giving in, she died. But Bo brought her back, "Wakey wakey, ready for round two?" She asked, Hera grabbed at her, struggling to breathe.

"P-please," Hera begged.

Bo shook her head, "I told you that I'd make you beg for death." She had grown tired of the fight, bringing Hera back to life had taken a lot out of her, her muscles strained from holding back from pummeling the woman to a pulp, so she readied herself for the finale.

She pulled out a swath of saran wrap and wrapped it around the Fae's head and mouth. Hera started to strain and twitch, her chest heaving, her face turning red as she struggled for breath, she before she passed out, Bo broke the saran wrap with her fingers, Hera gasped, blood gurgling out of her mouth.

"I'll tell you the same thing I told that bitch Carman, when you go back to Hel, tell everyone you see that if anyone, ever touches a hair on my wife's head, my children's heads, or any other member of my family, I will torture them, kill them, bring them back to life and then torture them again – and if you had any family, I'd kill them all too."

Bo gripped Hera's throat in her hands, choking her as she started to feed, just before she died with a smile on her face, Bo took her knife and drove it through her heart.