"You're lost at sea, then I'll command your boat to me again."
- Mariners Apartment Complex, Lana Del Rey
4 weeks later...
"It is positive," breathless words tumbled from Bo's quaking lips as she gawked at the pregnancy test in her hands, "oh my god."
Tamsin was bound to be wondering why she had locked herself in the bathroom stall for the last ten minutes. Their little night trip to The Dal Riata was supposed to be an excuse for them to let their hair down, to let loose from all of their daily trials and tribulations. Instead, the succubus had boxed herself in the cubical, perched on the toilet, foot tapping restlessly on the floor while she chewed on the nail of her thumb. She had thought - maybe even hoped - that the fertility potion had been a fluke. A concoction that would take a couple of attempts to gain a success, not to dissimilar from natural conception. But no. Oh no, not at all. Tamsin had hit the bullseye and went straight for the top prize (without even knowing it).
She could throttle that snarky valkyrie, really, she could squeeze her pretty little neck until her face went a new shade of purple, who the HELL in their right mind chugged a random bottle of vodka?! It could have had anything in it, poison, water, freaking bodily fluids! Anything! But no, her booze hound of a girlfriend just had to let her love of anything in a glass bottle get the better of her. Bo didn't want to leave from her stall, in fact she wanted to pitch a tent, seal the door, and stay here for the rest of her life. Anything to avoid facing the outside world. Reality wasn't her friend anymore, not when she had a two little pink lines sign staring her right in the face.
You'd think that Bo may have been used to the odd pregnancy scare in the past with how well-traveled she was. However, contrary to popular belief, she had always cautioned for protection. When you were the chosen one you really couldn't afford to get knocked up. Fighting just wouldn't work if she had to handle the inconvenience of having an extra bit of baggage along for the show. She draped a hand over her eyes and hunched forward, she couldn't breathe properly, every time she tried it hurt her chest too much. Everything was so tight, her clothes felt like they were starting to suffocate her, the walls around were closing in on her.
Tamsin was going to kill her.
No, she was going to kill Tamsin.
Well, there went any of Bo's plans to drink hard tonight, or to drink at all, how was she going to get that one by the valkyrie? They always got plastered together, just for shits and giggles. Maybe she could play the designated driver card? No, they had walked all the way here, that wouldn't work either. God, she couldn't think clearly, all of her thoughts were diluting and scattering; her attention span was beyond pathetic. Her heart seized in her chest as the door to the restrooms opened, she froze like a deer in headlights, racing to the dreaded assumption that the valkyrie had come to find her.
"Bo?"
Not Tamsin's voice...thank god. She remembered to release her next breath when her lungs started to pinch painfully.
"I'm in here, Kenzi."
"Everything alright, wondercrotch?" The human girl's heeled boots clicked across the tiled floor, only stopping when she was outside of the stall. "You've been in here forever."
'It has only been ten minutes,' the succubus told herself, not wanting to become anymore paranoid than she already was, 'only ten minutes'. She weighed her options; to divulge the truth or not. Kenzi was her 'ride or die' for life, her selected sister, the only one she could confide in. Bo licked her dry lips and sprung from the seat, tugging open her door, a hand lashing out to take the girl by her long chain necklace, then she dragged her inside of the cubicle.
Kenzi was swarmed in confusion - not to mention alarm - at the sporadic actions. Being dragged into a stall by a succubus just sounded like a recipe that spiked her anxiety through the roof. "Wow, hot shot! Don't make me a snack!" She urged mercy but soon realized that the unaligned fae wasn't coming anywhere near her. In fact, it appeared as though her best friend was deathly pale and far more fidgety than she had ever seen her before. "Okay, what is going on? You look like crap."
"THIS!" Bo shoved the pregnancy test into Kenzi's hands. "This is why I look like crap!"
"Oh...shitballs..." The human's eyes went to the size of discs before frantically searching her friend's face. "What...when...WHO?!" She almost wanted to smack Bo in her pretty head with the test for getting knocked up when she had a girlfriend. "Jesus Bo-Bo, what about Tamsin?!"
"It is Tamsin's!" The succubus declared in a spill of nervous words. She was prepared for the malfunctioning look that Kenzi soon gave her, as though the girl just couldn't compute what she had been told.
Head cocking, the human looked to the test, then to Bo, then to the test again, "what?! How the hell did that happen?! Last time I checked Tamsin didn't have a-"
"HEY!" Bo whacked at the insinuation that her best friend had seen her girlfriend naked; cheeks flaring.
"Sorry," Kenzi blubbered, backtracking speedily, "I accidentally walked in on her one day when she was in the shower - it scarred us both for life. More me than her, I think. Not that she doesn't have a killer body-"
"This really isn't helping," came the fae's strained voice, "someone gave me a fertility potion, I was going to hide it, but Tamsin must have found it and chugged it."
Again, the human girl just looked so out of her depth, unable to keep up with the story she was being spoon fed, "how does that even work?"
"It was in a vodka bottle."
"Ah," Kenzi raised a finger, "now I'm up to speed! You should've learned never to keep any bottles near your booze-hounding girlfriend, that is like Tamsin 101 around here."
"Gee, thanks captain obvious." Bo huffed and let her face fall into her hand.
The human girl chewed down on the inside of her cheek, unable to take her eyes from the test between her fingers. She had a mix of feelings, ranging from shock, to worry, to some strange twinge of elation. If Bo wanted this, then she too wanted it for her. But right now she wasn't so sure that the succubus was in any condition to make those choices for herself. She reached for her friend's arm and gave her a sympathetic smile, "have you told Tamsin yet?"
Bo shook her head and rubbed her hand down the front of her face, "no," she sighed hard, "I just took the test."
"Well," Kenzi tried to search for anything more useful, continuing to rub the female's arm, "have the two of you ever, y'know, talked about having a baby together?"
"No," Bo swallowed, sounding a little scared this time, her big brown eyes were glistening dreadfully, "w-we...we never took the time to talk about it, it just always felt too soon, we really haven't been together that long."
"Want me to tell her for you?"
For the first time that in the last ten minutes, Bo cracked a smile, of course Kenzi would offer to do that for her, "I love you for saying that, but no," she squeezed at the girl's hipbone, "I have to be the one to tell her, I think hearing it from someone else will piss her off."
"True," the human's nose scrunched, nodding slowly, "she does have a bit of a temper on her. Do you want this? A kid, I mean?"
"Kenzi, I can't even decide what I want for dinner at night, nevermind having a baby."
The human gave a nod in response, but didn't push at the subject, she wasn't going to overwhelm her best friend in a bathroom stall of all places. Instead she indicated for them to leave and only opened the door after she saw Bo slipping the test into her pocket. The pair emerged from the cubicle, both now looking worse for wear than when they had first entered. Kenzi was trying to lead them back to the bar without any issues, while Bo was just trying to make sense out of everything. An obsessive urge to keep checking the pregnancy test snaked within her, just to see if she had seen the reading right, but she had to bury that compulsion down now that they were among the public. It was busy, but then it was a Friday night, most people were here to get plastered since they had the weekend off; Dyson and Tamsin included. The detectives were over by the pool tables, to no surprise, it was their favorite haunt within The Dal.
All the succubus could think about was how much fun her girlfriend was having, it felt like another lifetime ago since she had seen her laugh so hard. There was an added side of snark too, of course, but mostly she was just enjoying the thrill of beating the wolf shifter at the game. "Hey hot stuff," Tamsin waved across to the love machine, "I thought you'd gone M.I.A, get over here."
Well, Bo supposed that was her cue, she attempted a flirty grin and approached the games table at the back, with her best friend in tow. She was tackling the idea of when she could find the right time to have a word with Tamsin, announcing her pregnancy here just wasn't private enough for her liking. She came to the valkyrie's side and stroked her waist gently after watching her lower to line up her next shot. "Sorry," she kept cool, "headache."
"Nothing too bad, I hope." Tamsin held a background concern for her girlfriend as she stared down the line of the wooden rod in hands, eyeing the white ball. "I've come up with a brilliant game, every time I score you've got to throw back a shot." She explained very simplistically and tipped her head to the line of small glasses on the shelf behind Dyson's shoulder; she'd taken the liberty to order a generous amount of drinks while she had been waiting.
Horror gripped Bo, she counted over twelve shots and cast a look of pure panic to Kenzi, who met her with just as much alarm. Oh dear.
"Hey T," the succubus slipped behind her girlfriend and coiled both arms around her waist, chin lowering to sit upon her shoulder, "wouldn't it be fun if at least one of us was sober tonight?"
"I think that may be the lamest words that have ever left from your lips since we met," the valkyrie was always such a straight talker and cast a shit-eating grin at her pouting lover, "are you really wimping out on me tonight?"
"No," Bo huffed and pushed her nose against the detective's cheek, "I'd just rather not add a hangover to my headache."
The blonde, upon realizing that she wasn't going to get to take a clean shot, reared back to stand upright and soon studied the younger fae through her emerald eyes. "Okay, what's your damage tonight?"
"Excuse me?"
"You," she prodded her pool cue to Bo's chest, "you're acting weird, weren't you the one who dragged me all the way here to have a good time? Now all of a sudden you are wussing out on me?"
"I'm not...I just don't feel good, quit interrogating me!" The succubus slapped her girlfriend's bicep and then smacked the irritable cue from her chest. "I can have a good time without drinking like a sailor on shore leave, I'm not lured in by every glass bottle like you are Tamsin, maybe I just don't want to drink tonight!"
Tamsin's face drew blank, lips falling open at Bo's unexpected outburst, "babe, it is cool, just calm down, you don't have to drink-"
"YOU calm down!" The young fae was right up in the valkyrie's face; noses bumping and all. "I AM calm! You're the one who keeps prodding and poking at me! You just don't know when to leave well enough alone, you just think you can do whatever you want, whenever you want!"
"Okay," Tamsin's nose wrinkled, "not sure I deserved that one."
Kenzi wanted to sink into the wall and disappear from sight when she saw her best friend lashing out like an ill-tempered tigress. The mood swings were already in effect it seemed, did Bo even realize? Probably not. Normally she was the most cool headed fae in town, and right now she was turning all heads to the pool table. Tamsin looked confused by it all, as though she had someone shouting in her face with foreign words. Dyson didn't have any deathwish and so decided to find his place by the human's side as opposed to intervening. The scene ended abruptly when Bo turned and scuttled off to the door at the very back of The Dal, leaving a very quiet crowd behind her. The detective appeared as though she had been verbally slapped in the face, she couldn't even compute what the hell had just happened or why her girlfriend had jumped down her throat for no real reason. When she glanced to her two friends for any sort of explanation they both shrugged in unison; Kenzi seemed visibly nervous.
It was a close call by the time that Bo retreated into Trick's office (more like his underground lair) she stumbled down the steps, caught herself on the wall, and heaved breaths so sharp that it was hurting her chest. Her hands shot to her hips, she started to pace back and forth. She wasn't ready for this - for a baby - it was too much. And she was too scared to tell Tamsin. She needed space to think, and to breathe. Her brain was overloaded, a hand pressing to her stomach. Maybe the test was wrong? It could've been a simple error? The succubus tugged at the collar of her shirt now that it felt like it was choking her, she had a lump in her throat that insisted on rising every time she swallowed. Tears were stinging in her eyeballs but she fought to hold them back, she didn't even understand why she felt like crying all of a sudden. Footsteps clicked at the staircase and she turned away, rubbing at her eyelids frantically.
Tamsin was the type of woman who would chase down a problem the moment it erupted, she hadn't hesitated to follow the succubus straight into the Blood King's office. Her arms folded over her chest as she reached the ground floor, she leaned her shoulder into the wall and set a rather suspicious gaze upon the back of her lover's head. "Are you going to give me a half-baked excuse for why you jumped down my throat just now? I might rub you the wrong way sometimes but I'm pretty sure that was uncalled for."
"I'm sorry," Bo closed her eyes and held her face in her hands, "I don't know what's wrong with me," she lied boldly, "I don't know why I lashed out at you just now."
The detective held further scrutiny until she reached the point where the oncoming silence just bored her, she marched forward and took the succubus by her shoulders and then she brought her around until they were face to face, "what is going on with you, Bo? Why are you shaking so hard?"
'Because I have your child inside of me.'
Well, that was what the young fae wanted to say. Alas though, as she gazed into Tamsin's waiting eyes she just didn't have the strength for it, her stomach was all in knots, she could hardly say it out loud to herself, nevermind her girlfriend. She couldn't even say anything to her, in fact she just looked like she was ready to burst into tears.
And everyone knew that Tamsin hated crying.
As soon as the valkyrie noticed that the succubus was one push away from breaking down, she felt a flash panic and quickly held her face, massaging her thumbs into her jaw, "hey it's alright, you're just exhausted from everything," Tamsin decided to find a reason for all of this illogical behavior, "leaving the crackshack, dealing with the fae and their shit, it has just piled up on you these last few weeks, you've been overworking yourself babe."
Bo had no clue which beacon of fate had shone some mercy on her, but she'd be damned if she didn't take it! She nodded weakly at Tamsin's insinuation, needing to buy whatever time she could for herself until she found the right moment to give a straight-up confession to her partner. She still didn't say anything though, she was too busy catching her breath.
"Don't cry," Tamsin insisted and kept stroking at her girlfriend's cheeks, "screw the drinking, I'll take you back to the motel and we can just chill out, alright? You are on official valkyrie care duty starting right now."
"But...you wanted to have fun tonight."
"Not when my girlfriend is almost in tears," the valkyrie shook her head and wrapped her arm around Bo's shoulder, "come on, lets get some fresh air girly, we can walk and talk on the way home."
The pair reached Motel 6 long before midnight, making it a new record for how early they had returned after a night at The Dal. Tamsin attempted to make conversation, which wasn't her forte, but Bo was like an airtight vault, she just wouldn't fully open up at all. It was clear that something was unfurling her nerves, she kept fidgeting and spoke in short sentences, without really asking any questions of her own. The valkyrie was beginning to worry, she couldn't pinpoint what had caused such a drastic change, she hadn't been prepared for it tonight.
As they returned to their room, Bo scurried inside as fast as she could and crawled straight onto the couch, curling herself to one side of her and pulling a cushion across her stomach. Tamsin found it to be a peculiar reaction, she pushed the door shut with her fingertips and made sure to lock it.
Well, this was going to be interesting.
"So," Tamsin tossed her jacket onto the coffee table by the sofa and then planted herself beside the unaligned fae, "you weren't very talkative on the way home, that's not like you, normally you're always giving me a headache."
Still nothing.
It was becoming one hell of a challenge to squeeze anything out of her lover, she turned her head and kept her eyes fixed upon her; studying her. There was too much tension, Bo was too stiff, too rigid, as though she had been ordered not to move a single muscle. It was nearing to the point of distressing. The detective had solved murder cases that were far less intricate, she extended a hand and touched her fingertips to her girlfriend's shoulder. "Bo, did something happen tonight?" Her brows pulled into a thoughtful frown; question changing. "Did something happen to you?"
"No," Bo finally breathed and used the pad of her thumb to wipe beneath her right eye, "and yes." Her heart was stuck in her throat, she managed to twist herself on the couch until she was facing in the blonde's direction, she held onto her hands and stroked across her knuckles. "But first I need to ask you something, and I need you to be really, really honest with me, okay?"
"I'm always honest with you," Tamsin's nose wrinkled in confusion, "but whatever, ask away."
"Okay," the succubus inhaled slowly and steadied her voice as best as she could, "what do you want out of this relationship? Where do you see is going? Where do you want us to go?" Never before had she searched a person's eyes so desperately, she felt a pang of agony at the surprise in Tamsin's green hues, she looked like somebody had just trapped her in a straight jacket without warning. Not the desired result so far.
Tamsin laced her fingers with Bo's and huffed out a sigh of debacle, head very much in the clouds, "shit, I don't know," she stayed true to her word and answered as flatly as ever, "we've only been dating for a couple of months now, right? I haven't really jumped the band wagon and planned out a white picket fence for us." The valkyrie was never prone to rambling, but this time she couldn't shut herself up, she grew agitated when she thought she was messing her response up. "I guess you could say this is my first real relationship, I feel like I've still got the training wheels on," she moved one hand to scratch at her neck and took note of her girlfriend's eagle-eyed gaze, "I think we have a pretty good thing here, don't we?"
"Right," Bo answered weakly and at least tried for a smile as she nodded her head, "we do."
"And I'm guessing by your sad puppy eyes that I didn't give you the answer that you were hoping for just now?"
"It's not that," the unaligned fae stared down at Tamsin's hand and unconsciously toyed with her fingers, "we've just never really taken the time to talk about what we want, don't you ever think about the future? Settling down? Getting married someday?"
Wait for it...
"Children?"
A burst of nervous laughter erupted from Tamsin, as though the notion was too farcical, although she was soon forced to clear her throat after receiving a sore scowl from the succubus, "wait, you're serious?" All of a sudden her urge to chuckle totally abandoned her and she felt a cold sweat overcome her, Bo's hand subtly disconnecting from her own. "I...I've never really thought about it."
"Never? Not once? Haven't you been around since the dawn of time?"
"Hey, watch it," the detective cast a playful glare to her lover and nudged at her knee, "have you met me? My lifetimes have consisted of drinking, fighting, clearing battlefields...and more drinking. Marriages never last and valkyries die in childbirth, so no, I've never given it much thought." She shrugged; becoming indifferent about the whole thing.
Bo's eyebrows furrowed, a sudden sadness barreling through her, she didn't look away from Tamsin, "valkyries die in childbirth? I...I'm sorry...I had no idea..."
"Forget about it," Tamsin waved her hand, uncaring, "it is just the way the world works, hot pants, do I look like the type of woman who will die screaming as a child pops out of me?" Nope, the blonde found the strength to laugh at such a ridiculous notion. "Uh, no thanks, not for this valkyrie." She shuddered and folded her arms over her chest, eyeing the succubus without an ounce of subtlety. Then, she dared to do a little digging of her her. "Do you want to have a baby?"
"Funny you should ask," Bo finally gathered the courage to scoot in real close to the valkyrie, sometimes an opening just naturally presented itself, "I'm pregnant, Tamsin."
...and cue Tamsin's jaw dropping.
Hoorah! Finally! This has been a long time coming, I'm excited to curve onto a new path for Valkubus. Yes, I did leave it on a bit of a cliffhanger, but only because I'll have the joys of picking up on Tamsin's reaction in the next chapter! It is happening folks! We are officially going to have a Valkubus baby on the way! xD Bo is a nervous wreck, but that is to be expected, she is just going to have to wait and see how her lady love reacts to the news.
(Reviews!)
Anna Heuer - Hi there Anna! Thank you so much for your kind words, and for rejoining the story, it is good to have you back! ;) I'm thrilled that the last chapter was tasteful as opposed to explicit, I've never been comfortable just downright writing a sex scene, I prefer writing a fair amount of details whilst allowing the reader's imagination to fill in the blanks along the way. Hopefully you will enjoy some of the future chapters that are in store too! :D
ShadowedKiss - Ha ha! Fantastic! I'm glad you liked a little bit of Valkubus lovin'! I think it was something they both needed out of the system, and now they get the joys of discovering that they are going to have a baby. Bo is seriously going to have to consider putting a lock on the booze cabinet! xD
boknrd92 - Thank you so much! As much as I adore writing all of the dramatic/angsty scenes I do love putting together some classic humor scenes between Tamsin and Bo, it was one of my favorite parts about their relationship, especially in season three. :)
LittleRock17 - You read all of this over a few days?! You, my friend, deserve a lifetime award for doing that! There are so many words! I am so flattered that you put your personal time and effort into giving this fic a chance, you are a true superstar and I'm very blessed to have you on board. I promise that I will give Tamsin a better fate than the show did. xD
Guest(s) - Hi there, you're most welcome! Thank you for taking the time to read! It is going to be so much fun to see how Valkubus copes with this pregnancy! xD