A/N: It's finally here! Hope you enjoy because this is my favorite chapter thus far- even though it doesn't mean much as the entire story is quickly becoming one of my favorites. Enjoy! And comments of what you enjoy, or not so much, would be greatly appreciated.

Lauren's mind had slowly, like molasses, moved away from the valkyrie and onto better things. Better things primarily being what kind of poison could have possibly infected the boy. He had been sliced on the back of his arm, just along the radius, as if he had been running away. And she doubted he even felt the wound until he was safely back in his neighborhood. The poison had acted quickly, probably the cause of his rapidly beating heart and pumping blood, and the sixteen year old barely could make it back to the confines of his home before passing out on the street. It was lucky for them, Lauren thought sadly, for if he had gotten into his home she doubted they would ever know of him. From what she could decipher from the other part of the case file, the mother was never home- working herself to the bone- while the father was completely out of the picture. She briefly wondered how long it would take the mother, or the police force being called in from the smell, to find the dead boy in his bed; vomit and urine beside and on him from his slow and painful death.

Shaking such a thought away, Lauren's actions were further hurried by the call from the light fae facility the patient was housed in. It seemed that the poison had a built in chemical agent, similar to hemotoxins, and the boy's red blood cell count had gone through the floor over night. Did that mean the poison was not poison at all, but a venom dipped in some type of reptile saliva or gland and not fae synthesized? It puzzled the good doctor and she had been working on sampling the destroyed blood cells that she had cultivated upon visiting the patient.

When she had arrived, the boy's foot and part of his leg were blackened by dead tissue, along with black grotesque lines following that of his veins marking his skin, and she knew even if they saved his life, the boy would have to have multiple amputations. However, being a double amputee would be more useful than being dead, and Lauren ceased to think of it and had gotten back to her apartment in little time after receiving the sample. She knew if she did not hurry, there would be a chance the poison would spread to other parts of his system. If it was a reptile based venom, there could be a chance of neurotoxic properties in the wound sight and while that would kill the boy slower than the hemotoxin, it still did not bode well for the him.

Extreme pain, muscle tissue break down, possible suffocation and thrombogenesis. None of them was a nice way to go, and Lauren would do anything in her power to stop it. She just had to find out what the damn poison was made out of. Maybe then she could synthesize an antivenom.

She had just been looking over and taking notes of the blood cells when a flutter of knocks resounded on her apartment door. Looking up slowly, after tearing her eyes away from the microscope, her brown orbs flitted across the door in wonderment. It took a lot to knock on her door instead of just barging in, and she wondered who would give her such an honor. She was a human after all, who worked for the Light- a slave of it, she thought. They never gave her the right to knock, just barged in, and the thought was refreshing.

Making sure her cultivation wouldn't suddenly show new test results, Lauren excused herself from her steel table and medical supplies, and sauntered to the door. Without looking at who it could have been, she opened the door slowly and was relieved when she saw a wave of brunette locks falling over partially revealed collarbones.

"Hey there, my doctor," Bo's sultry voice rang through the room.

A sigh of content escaped Lauren's mouth and she ushered the succubus inside. "Bo, how are-" she was cut off by a rumbling growl escaping her belly. Placing a hand on the taught muscles, Lauren smiled apologetically.

"I thought you might be hungry," the succubus said as she winked.

Brown eyes widened with happiness as, the reason for her growling stomach, Bo raised her hand and a delicious smelling brown bag came into view. There was a smiling face that was associated with many a Chinese restaurant and Lauren's lips curled with mirth.

"Come on, sit down," Lauren urged, lightly touching her girlfriend's wrist as she moved past her.

"Thought you'd never ask."

While Bo made her way to the island, placing the Chinese food onto the marble counter, Lauren detoured from the route and eyed her samples before she walked into the kitchen. "Would you like a plate?"

"No, we won't need them," Bo whispered, directly behind Lauren.

The succubus had moved so fast that the doctor didn't even hear her coming, and her warm breath was on the nape of her neck. Closing her eyes and sighing with content, Lauren slowly turned around and looked into her girlfriend's eyes.

"Bo..." Lauren started, "I'm sorry about-"

"Hey, it's okay," Bo cut her off and placed a hand on her cheek. It slid down slowly to the woman's collarbones, and then dropped entirely until they picked up the woman's hands in hers. "I trust you and if you didn't tell me about Tamsin, there had to have been a reason. I mean," Bo continued, "it's not like we have to go through all our exes because I think that'd take little under five seconds to explain on my side."

The desired reaction was brought forth from Lauren by Bo's joke, a smile and an eye flick to the ceiling, and the succubus grinned.

Lauren still owed it to Bo. Still wanted to tell the woman that she loved why they had to be thrown from one another by a random blonde fae. "I didn't think she would do that... I mean, I never thought she would come back. She left a long time ago, and I'm different now."

"We don't have to talk about this," Bo whispered, her eyes darting down to Lauren's lips and back to her eyes.

"Just let me, okay?"

There was a pause before the succubus nodded her head and stepped away from the blonde. She slowly sat onto the stool that was placed by the island and her undivided attention was on her girlfriend.

Lauren wrung her fingers together before she spoke, "I was a slave, Bo. I was indoctrinated into this," there was a laugh that escaped her throat, "insanity. After Nadia fell into her coma, I was always trying to find a cure. Trying to do anything to get her out of it. It was so hard by myself in this new world, Bo. But I could deal with it. Tamsin... she made it slightly better for me; on occasion. She'd use her connections as the Morrigan's right hand to put pressure on the Ash at the time; to help me whenever I needed to get out of the compound and away for awhile. She did so much for me. In a sick way she even made me feel like I was..." There was another feigned smile and she looked into brown eyes. "I love you, Bo. You know that, right, baby?"

"Hey, I know. I know, Lauren." Bo immediately stood from her seat and walked the small space to her girlfriend. "I'm glad you had someone back then; to help you," Bo reiterated as she looked into brown eyes.

There was a soft smile, that turned into warm lips crashing together, and Lauren sighed with content as she parted her lips for the succubus' tongue languid access inside. A warm feeling encompassed her, the fact Bo had been okay with her explanation of Tamsin, that she was holding her waist like that, pressing them further together... Lauren knew she had been right to tell her girlfriend about the valkyrie and she smiled, her eyes closed, when Bo pulled away from her and she licked her lips, tasting her lover.

Opening her eyes slowly, oh so slowly, Lauren's heart skipped a beat when she looked straight into electric blue eyes and not their chocolate brown abode. A wicked smile was playing on the succubus' lips as she looked down toward her girlfriend's body, and she looked back into Lauren's eyes with a seductive glance. Her hands, that were still holding the doctor close to her, keeping their pelvises connected, were trying to get under the blonde's shirt to scramble across skin.

Why would she try to touch her skin?

Eyes blue...

She would try to get her clothes off first, not try to run her fingers under clothes.

Yes she would, the doctor challenged her mind, she did it before.

Were her eyes blue before?

"Bo?" Lauren hesitantly asked, a chill going through her body at the realization that had just dawned on her.

"Mmm-" Bo hummed, her eyes slightly closed in that so familiar seductive look, her lips pulled into a grin. Her hands still tried to come in contact with flesh, slowly pulling up the doctor's pink cardigan.

She had to stop her before she reached warm skin. For some reason Lauren could not fathom, she had to stop her girlfriend before those delicate fingers brushed up her spine.

"I'm busy, Bo," Lauren said more definitely. Her hands went up and pressed down the succubus' and she smiled kindly.

Bo's voice was deathly, "Is there a problem here?"

Taken aback, Lauren replied, "No, babe. I'm just really busy with my science. The boy is dying and-"

"Oh," a sudden gasp escaped her girlfriend as blue eyes disappeared into brown, "yeah, the boy." A soft hand left Lauren's back, that had just reached skin, and it went to her lips as she swallowed hard. "I need to find Dyson and-" cutting over the valkyrie's name, Bo continued, "he thinks we've found some leads on the case."

"That's great," Lauren pressed, her hands going down to her wardrobe to straighten it out. "Just be careful, okay?"

Bo smiled and gave a peck on the doctor's lips, "I'm always careful.

It took a moment for the succubus to leave after that, her head was not held low but Lauren could feel a certain energy coming off of her. As the doctor sat back down on her stool, facing her microscope but not looking into it, her emotions roiled inside of her along with her rapid thoughts.

Was there something wrong with Bo? Is that why Tamsin, the damn protective Tamsin, had pulled Bo away and said such profane questions? Was she still, after all these years, trying to protect her?

No, she decided. There would be no reason. She trusted Bo, there was nothing wrong with Bo, and if there was someone- if not Bo herself- would tell her.

Her standing in the fae crept up into her mind and she placed a hand on her forehead in thought.

Would they?

Across town, maybe forty-five minutes or an hour- the amount of time it took from the creaking warehouse back to the doctor's establishment was still up for debate- two new partners were sitting in their police cruiser looking out to the wood and steel of the storehouse. The silence that descended upon them was not unexpected, more like thankfully gracious, and the valkyrie had no intention of interrupting it.

They had gotten a lead from the nurses at the light fae compound, when she thought we, Tamsin meant Dyson, saying the boy was mumbling about a warehouse off of Mulberry and Pike in the business section of the pier. Deciding to check it out, Dyson had called Tamsin the moment he found out the news and there they were. Sitting in an uncomfortable silence while they scanned the perimeter. Dyson no doubt thinking of why Bo was at Lauren's, and Tamsin thinking about solely the doctor.

She looked out the window after she had looked down to a vibrating phone, saw the succubus' name, and heard her partner pick up and speak. They were talking about the case, something Tamsin didn't think the succubus need know as she wasn't a real detective anyways- not like the valkyrie had really taken a full course on it, but rather had it given to her since the higher ups thought she had the standing for it. She was a detective in the 19th century looking for Jack the Ripper for gods' sake, and she was still looking out the window when her partner's irritating grumbling voice broke through the car.

"Bo will be here in thirty."

"Guess there's no longer a reason to debate," Tamsin sighed as she mentally scratched out the forty minutes it would take to get to the warehouse in her mind. So the doctor's was thirty minutes away from there...

"What?"

Tamsin shook her head and said, "Nothing," before continuing her scan of outside. It wasn't like she was really looking for any disruption of the vicinity, the people that had killed the boy were far more intelligent than that, and she was more so making a show of it so her partner wouldn't continue the conversation that had been shut down quickly on the ride over here.

It did not work, however.

"You can't take Kenzi like that again," the man said gruffly, his voice low and threatening.

It annoyed her. "She was drunk off her ass and she needed to get out of there," Tamsin defended herself, if not for the first time that day. It was one thing to care enough, and it was another to simply not want further argument. "It was a halfway bar on neutral territory. Did you think a human would be safe even there?"

"Trick knew to take care of her when Bo isn't around. You're Dark and-"

"And how would I have known, wolf? I'm new in town, remember."

Dyson's cornflower blue eyes turned on pale green. "We all know you would have gotten intel off the Morrigan before being put with us. So what's her endgame?"

Tamsin sighed and looked back outside. "Contrary to popular believe, Dyson, I don't care what the Morrigan wants me to do."

The detective's voice was hesitant but he still pressed, "Thought you were all for pledging fealty to someone."

"Like you, wolf?"

Silence enveloped the car again and Dyson smiled halfheartedly. "I still don't trust you."

Tamsin shrugged and said, "You never will. But we can still be partners."

"You won't try to stab me in the back when I'm not looking?"

"Not part of the plan," Tamsin confirmed.

A chuckle escaped him and he looked out the driver's side window. A moment passed until he asked, "Did the Morrigan put you here to harm Bo?"

What is it with them and the succubus! "Yes," Tamsin spoke calmly, "but you haven't been listening."

"What are you-" Dyson cut off when he saw something moving in his peripheral. "A man moving at ten o' clock into the warehouse. Doesn't seem to be carrying anything."

Tamsin saw his eyes turn back to normal from their black and gold abode, and she straightened up in her seat. "We gonna wait or move in now?"

"If there's something going down and this guy was stupid enough to come to the front, we'll miss the meeting if we wait. But Bo..."

"So we go now," Tamsin confirmed as she got out of the car, her holstered glock strapped to her hip. It was a different issue than she was naturally supposed to have, but no one in the precinct really cared about it to ask- it wasn't like they would have enough courage to step up to Tamsin anyways.

Dyson sighed, he would have rather waited for backup being in the form of a voluptuous brunette, but he softly closed his car door along with Tamsin and walked to the building.

They did not pull out their weapons, they rarely needed to, and the new partners cautiously made their way to the warehouse door they had watched the man walk through. It was more like a sheet of jagged metal in front of a gaping hole than a door, and Dyson carefully moved it slightly to the side so that they could squeeze inside.

A wave of warm air hit them upon entering, and they wondered how hot it had to be in such a place without all of the heavy machinery they could see on and creating friction. It looked as if the suspended giant brown bowls, that would pour out molten hot liquid it seemed, had been in disuse for centuries and Tamsin briefly wondered what they could have been building in that place. Forgetting about it, she watched her partner's hand raise up in a halting gesture, and she stood behind him as he listened. She wondered if he focused hard enough if he could hear her rolling her eyes.

When he moved his hand to the side, Tamsin knew he was motioning to get her moving. The warehouse opened into a large room with conveyer belts and large spaces in between the lanes. It was not easy to hide behind anything, but there were large crates that were unmarked and out of place of the olden and rusted building, and Tamsin instantly knew that they could be used for hiding purposes. She wondered what could have been inside them, maybe the objects the man was here to buy, and she briefly thought of the one thing that had not crossed her mind since starting the case.

The kid could have been in on it.

It would have been simple, something so minute that they wouldn't pick up on until this very moment. The man could have been there to buy something- anything, really. And that left conjecture for the kid to have been as well.

I mean, Tamsin thought, what good would it be to come to a warehouse at night with no one else around? A secret evil henchman club?

She heard faint whispers from across the large room, decidedly away and out of sight of the containers, and she took the opportunity to begin to find a loose crevice to dig her fingers into and pry.

She had to know what was inside the crates. If not for the opinion she had formed of the kid with her spinning thoughts, for at least herself and the item she was made to find.

Tamsin had to know if what she was in the right place. If what she had been looking for for years was in her vicinity.

As she tried to pry open the crate, as she had found a loosened plank to begin to pull at, the hair on the back of Tamsin's neck began to raise along with the ones on her arm. She didn't have to turn, she didn't need to, for her long training and days as a warrior already told her that she had been spotted by some type of patrol- and that the thing behind her wasn't quite human. She felt it's stinking breath on the nape of her neck and she looked to her left, even if she wouldn't see the creature as it was directly behind her.

She had no weapon, no real weapon Tamsin thought as her gun was not there for using, but because the humans required every detective to wear one. She was still too weak to use her valkyrie powers, and Dyson was on the other side of the room, most likely closer to the whispering voices and away from Tamsin to do any good.

Regardless, she had to act now, or it would first.

Spinning around, Tamsin's left arm swinging behind her more to distract her enemy than to really wound him, and her plan worked perfectly when a rough hand clamped down on the flesh before her elbow. Quickly achieving her circle, her left foot planted firmly in the ground as the ball of her right foot left the cement and she was standing on her toes. The usable momentum from the spin was cultivated firmly into her right arm, and Tamsin knew her swing was fast and sound.

If it were a cartoon, air would have displaced around them at how hard the valkyrie hit her mark- the left cheek- and she would have smiled for the man's eyes were closed and his head tilted to the side. But there was no room for such antics as the man's face was not contorted into that of pain, but annoyance. Opening his brown eyes slowly, he turned his head much faster, knocking Tamsin's hand aside with the movement, and his forehead came bolting into the valkyrie's.

Before she could curse at the blunt force, she felt herself being picked off of the ground and her body soaring through the air. Tamsin's right shoulder hit the ground hard and her teeth clenched as she skidded with still unused momentum. Finally coming to a stop, she got to her feet instantly and looked back at her attacker.

Her heart almost stopped in her chest when she realized what kind of aura she was seeing around him.

"So you're a troll," she said, trying to make her voice sound nonchalant and somewhat succeeding. "Seem a bit big though. Half giant parents?"

Instead of answering, the troll moved much more quickly than Tamsin would have thought, his giant's blood having the more prominent genes. That was impossible, the valkyrie knew, but it was being defied right in front of her eyes.

Blocking the hit was much harder than Tamsin initially thought. She had raised both of her hands in a cross like fashion in front of her face, making sure her left would take the hit more than her right, and when the troll punched her, she felt her feet skidding in the cement. Tamsin knew if they fought on the hard packed earth, her feet would go straight through and into the dirt with the force.

Letting her left arm take more of the damage, Tamsin quickly sidestepped with her right as the troll was still not able to dodge quickly enough from his own move, and she reacquainted her right fist back into the troll's cheek. This time, however, Tamsin did not stop there and she removed her left arm from underneath the man's fist and brought it firmly into his stomach. He was stunned, she saw as she moved her face back into view of his, and she quickly grabbed his shoulders and kneed him just below his ribs.

If she was going to lose, she wasn't going down without a fight.

She cursed herself for not bringing along some type of knife, or spinning blades she had acquired over the centuries, and she wondered how she had been so stupid as to not. Tamsin was always ready for a fight, a battle, this just so happened to be the moment that she was not.

Tamsin was doing well, her darting movements getting the better of her opponent, but the initial shock had worn off just as fast as it was enacted.

The troll caught her fist with ease. It had been about to connect with his face, it would have broken his nose and one of his eye sockets, but a hand went up just as quickly and encompassed the fist. He moved it to his right, so that his eyes could bore into Tamsin's, and he must have been satisfied when he put his left hand to the valkyrie's ball socket of her arm and pushed hard, for he smiled in amusement at the woman's brief cry of pain.

Tamsin tried to step away from her opponent, her left arm hanging uselessly and dislocated by her side- it was most likely broken or a hair-line fracture from her block earlier as she felt resonating pain all along it- but the troll quickly grabbed her throat and kneed her in the stomach. Revenge, she thought as she sputtered out a cough, her right hand going to his wrist in protest. She would have tried to kick him, maybe even a punch with her good arm, but going against a troll with no weapon to speak of was almost assuredly death.

And that death was fast approaching her.

When he brought her back to face him fully, his yellow smile had not left his lips, and the hand that the valkyrie clutched released itself from her throat. The troll's right hand held the valkyrie's face as his left began to mercilessly punch the woman over and over in varying spots across her body.

But most importantly- her face.

With more and more wailing punches, the less heat the valkyrie felt coursing through her body to the areas of the assault. Her cheek was cut and bleeding, the only wound that would most likely be on her face even though for a human it would swell up with tissue fluid or whatever science mumbo jumbo she wasn't thinking about at the moment. She was more worried about her stomach and her ribs as she felt most of them bruised or on their way to being broken already and some type of internal bleed that could have been caused.

Tamsin wasn't a wilting flower, but damn was her body going through the abuse for the century. If she didn't stop it soon, there would be real damage to her, rather than something she could heal from in a little over a weeks time.

Weakness pushed against the valkyrie's shoulders like an old familiar and tattered cloak. Her translucent green eyes sunk into her skull and was replaced with blackness, her full lips giving way to cracked lines that of which an old doll would sport.

"You weren't ordered to be in this area," she breathed, her right cheek hurting and stinging against the trickling blood.

All too quickly the man stopped. His balled fist was near his face as he had reared it back to deliver another punch. His eyes were wide and they were visibly trying to tear themselves away from the valkyrie's. Tamsin knew if she wanted to, blood would trickle from his nose as his brain tried to override the doubt and misconceptions the valkyrie was seeping into that meaty gray matter. She wouldn't be so cruel... would she?

"I wasn't ordered to be here," the man repeated dumbly. His voice sounded like nails against chalkboard and it was gruff and scared.

"You were going to jump off the pier when you got into work."

"I was..."

"Yeah, and you were going to let yourself sink to the very bottom. The little fishies will get their fill."

A tear rolled down the muscular man's face. "Get their fill."

The moral line of right and wrong blurred before her as she looked into the troll's eyes. She was telling him to kill himself. Telling him to die. She was a valkyrie. A Maiden of Death. But not this kind.

The troll slowly released her, and if it was not for her dwindling strength, she would have face planted straight into the ground. The man slowly turned, beginning to walk out of the door as her doubt fully took hold of him.

No. Not like this.

"Hey," Tamsin called as he was only mere inches from the door; knowing all too well that the group of people in the far room wouldn't hear her. When the man turned, his eyes filled with tears, she spoke more kindly, "You weren't supposed to come to work today; or ever. Go home."

The man's voice sounded relieved, his stricken voice-box scratching against unshed tears, "Go... home."

He left the building.

And Tamsin collapsed.