Suzie reported into Lauren's clinic no longer floating on cloud nine, nor with that skip in her step. Before she was on top of the world but now it seems that same world just crushed her.

There with blood shot eyes and her head low, she slinked her way through the building until she reached the double glass doors to clinic.

After taking in several large breaths, she forced a smile on her face though it quickly faded away. She felt exhausted just by doing this one thing, but in any case, the show had to go on.

There she found Lauren at a microscope diligently noting her findings, but could tell she was stumped on how to interpret the results of the data as usual. The thrall had a major impact in that concern. She was no longer brilliant and was just a basic lab tech now.

Lauren just perked up noting her entrance and just started to spew out all the technical details of what she had uncovered and tried to postulate what it meant and next steps but midway through, she noted Suzie's emotional disposition. Something wasn't right.

"…. SUZIE. … Are… are you ok?" Lauren queried laying her clip board down on the table and closing the distance to her.

"Yea," Suzie just blew it off and picked up the Lauren's clip board to immerse herself in the data. Lauren did that before when she was troubled and it seemed to work. Maybe it would help now. "Let's see what we have."

Suzie began to pour over the data of the samples of Evony's blood compared to the effectiveness of their treatment. It just wasn't working as expected. Even her best efforts would only slightly weaken Evony for a short period of time. She just shook her head in dismay until Lauren circled her arms around her from behind. This was odd since Lauren always wanted to work tirelessly stopping what she created. Of course there was time to 'play' but Lauren resisted PDA at work. She knew this wasn't a thrall response so WHAT was Lauren's end game?

Lauren knew how troubled Suzie seemed and in no way did Bo's thrall prevent her from being there for her. There she just held her and whispered reassuringly, "I'll be ok Suzie. … I.. I hope this has nothing to do with me?"

Suze was swimming in the results but she needed help, from Dr. Connor, but even then, he was, as bright as he was, also at an impasse on how to reverse Lauren's original treatment. If the old Lauren couldn't make that formulation correct and she did have months of time to do it, how were they? Lauren words of comfort caught up with her and Suzie being in. If only she knew the real truth. Even armed with the entire truth, the thrall would not only slow down the processing of this new information, but blunt her response as well. There was just no use to even try to talk to her. She was on borrowed time. Unless…..

The tech sprang into action and lead Lauren over to an exam table, "Hey Lauren, there's a bad strain of flu going around and I need to give you a couple shots ok?"

Lauren just complied but remembered slowly, "I already gave myself the necessary shots …." Lauren watched intently as Suze pulled a set of injections out of a secured cabinet only used to store severely control medication and substances. As a matter of fact, it was where she kept Evony's injections which had the tightest security. She added slowly putting things together with Suze plowing forward and tearing opening the packet, "Suzie, I am sufficiently inoculated against the flu strain and practice excellent hygiene."

Suzie then set out 2 of the 4 preloaded injections. They were designed to be portable, small and light. There she just stayed on track and changed the topic rubbing alcohol on her upper arm, "Hey Lauren, I just got fired form my other job since I swapped test results with another patient's. Well that and I told off my boss afterwards."

First injection delivered.

Lauren was still catching up with as to why she needed shots but replied concentrating to adjust to the abrupt topic change, "I… I'm sorry to hear that…. I … I can talk to them if you want. I think …. I'll think of something." Lauren was still trying to be helpful but the thrall was slowing her down still. She was unsure of what to say or who to even do this.

Suze just nodded digesting this but a heartbeat later stayed on target disposing of the first spent injection, then uncapping the second. "Thanks, but I guess I was distracted since my fiancée called off our marriage the day before. Such an ass, he was sleeping with my maid of honor and they just eloped. Fuck 'em."

Second injection completed, and to that Suzie disposed of it quickly tossing it in the sharps disposal container and observed very closely.

Several thoughts occurred to Lauren and she immediately reached out and bought Suzie into a hug, "I'm so sorry about your fiancée. You never told me about him or her," Lauren mentioned empathizing with her plight and then added knowing full well that she was just spy banged too. No matter, several new ideas came to her on how to modify and engineer the treatment for Evony to bring her back to her 'normal self'. The exhaustive testing that seemed to go nowhere did yield clues and several courses of action.

Lauren gingerly kissed Suzie on the forehead with tears brimming in her eyes. The show had to go on and she needed Suze to hold it together, and offered, "The testing procedures at Lab Fae Corp, even the more automated ones are prone to human error. Heh, they are still trying to get accurate and reliable measure measurements in some cases." It was all true but joked a little to change the mood.

Suzie let out a laugh she was holding in.

That's it, Lauren mused and offered springing up from the table with new zeal, "I need help setting up a new regiment of analysis and testing for our subject. Can you help me now and I'll speak with the Director and the CEO of Lab Fae Crop on your behalf once we get started."

Suzie nodded wiping her eyes, THAT was the Lauren she knew. It was good to have her back.

Lauren continued to take notes, start tests and rattled off several hypothesis that came to mind. Suzie took note of them as requested since Lauren didn't know if those thoughts would disappear due to her being a thrall.

WAIT. Lauren thought midstream parsing the data simultaneously.

WAS SHE EVEN A THRALL right now?

What the heck was in those injections?

Lauren was quick to glance over to the the second set of 2 injections which had yet to be given to her. The label was Suzie's and the patient ID number was invalid since they had not gotten up to the sequence number yet and it wasn't for the Evony endeavor either but under the bar code the optional description on the pack was a string of base 16 hexadecimal numbers. It was HEX specifically ASCII and Lauren read it just fine since she could translate ASCII codes to text and vice versa on the fly in her normal state. That in addition she is was also fluent in javascript and Klingon as a consummate nerd.

'46726565646f6d2e 4d 736f 737279 6672677665 6d65 706c73'

'4566666374 6c7374 34 687273 6573742e'

'Freedom. M so sry frgve me pls.' it read. Then on the next line, 'Effct lst 4 hrs est.'

Lauren quickly mused while typing away to get the next set of testing started. 'Somehow Suzie was able to find a way to temporarily reverse the thrall effect which meant that she could do whatever she wanted including getting even with Tamsin who stole her Bo and even going against Bo's wishes such as slapping the living shit out of her for making her a slave. How DARE she.

She paused and waited for the thrall to punish her or redirect her thoughts.

Nope.

An evil sadistic smirk eerily crept across her face that would rival that of the Joker's.

She didn't have to do effing Bo's bidding in this state. Screw this.

Still no thrall effect.

First thing's first, she needed to find out what was in those injections since Suzie didn't put the active and inert ingredients in the database for obvious reasons. The biggest one was Evony and she was the next maybe.

Time to get the answers nicely, VERY NICELY from Suzie Lauren mused as a solid course of action. It was probably faster than reverse engineering it and all she had to do was be there for her to be her post beakup bestie. Fail that, she could probably spy bang her. Fail that, keep her from cresting until she confesses, succubus style. Torture did come to mind but she needed a backup since she had no one in her corner right about now. No are DARED to cross Bo after all. Besides if it came to that, Evony would take care of Suzie at her behest.

Now what to do about Evony? She could ask for her help, but she'd rather Fuck Tamsin up herself and then maybe teach Bo a lesson. She needed to keep her favors to a minimum.

Kill Bo? She didn't quite know. On one hand it would release her from the thrall, on the other, she still had, feelings for her. Should she even since Bo was the one who thralled her? Too many ambivalent emotions, too little time.

SUZIE and the temporary antidote first.

Lauren stealthily crept up to Suze from behind who was busy mounting a set of test tubes in the centrifuge as part of a list she was asked to execute ever unsuspecting that she was being staked like prey. Suzie was wearing under her lab coat frumpy somewhat baggy cargo pants and a tight black tee shirt. It didn't look like she wore a bra since she was poking out ever so slightly.

Time was ticking, so now was the time to romance the formula out from under her and maybe as well as her clothes.

A/N: Oh no. Lauren is back and up to no good (and all the doccubus fans go wild!). Comment fav and follow!