Tamsin awoke with a start, letting out an almost pained yelp and instinctively reaching for the gun on her nightstand.
"Another bad dream, baby?"
Still panting, the valkyrie looked for the voice; her tired eyes found Lauren sitting cross-legged on the floor next to the bed with her computer in her lap. She offers her girlfriend a half-hearted smile and replaces her gun. She stretches and yawns, suddenly noticing the cold night air on her naked body and quickly pulling the duvet up.
"Yeah...", she yawns again, "yeah I guess."
Wearing nothing but a pair of thin cotton panties and a worried frown, Lauren sets her computer on top of the piles of books settled next to her on the floor and makes her way to Tamsin. She sits next to her on the bed and kisses her sweetly.
"I'm sorry. I've been trying to find some research on what it could all be, but all I can really find is all this badly translated information on Mares. And I doubt that's what has been troubling you..."
Tamsin eyes Lauren seriously, noticing for the first time tonight that her doctor was looking rather weary these days. Much like Tamsin, she hadn't been sleeping well – she's either up with the valkyrie to sooth her after these nightmares that have been plaguing her for 2 weeks now, or trying to find ways to stop them. She takes a deep breath to clear her mind and turns all the focus her tired mind can muster on Lauren. Adjusting her position so that she is sitting behind Lauren with her arms wrapped around the doctor's taut stomach, Tamsin places gentle kisses on her shoulders and the back of her neck.
"Lauren. You're exhausted. Give it a rest. Just come to bed with me already."
"Oh?", the doctor laughs, "And what makes you think that's such a good idea? I just spent 2 hours in this bed with you and not very much resting got done."
Tamsin smirks against Lauren's neck, recalling the wonderful evening they'd just shared (they thought it would be a good idea to walk to the theater to catch the new science-fiction movie Lauren has been begging Tamsin to take her to, but ended up caught in the rain about a third of the way there; they decided to head back and take a nice hot shower to warm up before hopping in the valkyrie's Jeep and driving there instead – of course, once they were in the shower, the movie was forgotten rather quickly).
"Well this time, rest. I'm fucking exhausted."
Lauren yawns, and that's all the valkyrie needs to affirm the doctor is as tired as she looks. She uses the arms still wrapped around Lauren's waist to pull her into the bed with her. They settle into their usual position – Lauren curled up against Tamsin's unnaturally warm body – and the valkyrie reaches out to flick on the lamp on her nightstand.
"You know", Lauren starts quietly to the darkness, her breath ghosting Tamsin's neck, "I wonder if I could convince Hale to let me into the archives. I'm sure I could cross reference nightmares and valkyries there and find-"
Tamsin tips her head to capture Lauren's lips in a kiss to quiet her.
"Just... just close your eyes, Lewis. Jeez."
The doctor sighed contentedly as she scoots further into the crook of Tamsin's neck, giving up on talking for the night and finally letting her exhaustion take hold. Tamsin closes her eyes – she was far too wound up from the nightmare to get any good sleep tonight but at the very she was comfortable with her girlfriend snuggled up against her on the bed.
Just as the valkyrie was finally about to drift off into a albeit fitful sleep, she felt Lauren stir next to her. Reluctantly opening her eyes, she looked over to the doctor and caught her sleepy gaze.
"Everything okay, Lauren?"
"I just...", she pauses for a moment, the familiar look of her gears spinning falling over her tired features, "I don't expect anything from you. I want you to know that. I want you to know that I am happy with anything you can give me, Tamsin."
Tamsin raises an eyebrow at her, the way Lauren is speaking causing her tired mind to pull together some sort of focus.
"Lauren..."
"Just... I just want you to be happy. I love you. "
They share a look, the valkyrie's mouth open and Lauren's worried eyes darting between her girlfriend's bewildered eyes. Lauren knows suddenly that her exhaustion has taken a hold of her in the worst way – the way that causes her already not communicating thoughts and spoken words to communicate even less, leaving her a mumbling and uncensored mess. She laughs at herself in that characteristically Lauren way and rolls her eyes to the ceiling.
"Can we just pretend that I ended that sentence at the word 'happy'?"
Tamsin forces a smile, and swallows down the lump in her throat. Not trusting herself to speak, she presses a lingering kiss to Lauren's forehead and settles both of them back down. Lauren, who has not been able to get a good night's sleep in days, falls asleep quickly in the valkyrie's arms. As if sleep wasn't going to be allusive enough, now Tamsin finds it hard to believe she was ever tired in the first place. Staring at her ceiling, she is filled with far too many emotions at once – she's angry, she's thrilled, part of her wants to jump up and down and sing and dance and be filled with the purest kind of joy, and the other part of her just wants to curl up into a ball and cry. It's too much for her to handle, too much for her to process, and it means far too much for her to think about right now. The doctor let's out a soft murmur in her sleep, signaling to Tamsin that there is no waking her poor exhausted girlfriend at this point, so she carefully slips out of the bed and makes a bee-line for her kitchen after quietly pulling on some yoga pants and a tank top She pulls the unopened bottle of gin out of the freezer and practically rips it open, not bothering to grab a glass and instead puts it to her lips and takes a greedy sip. She starts to think about what she's going to say when Lauren wakes up; she knows the doctor will want to talk about what she said, and she is far too panicked to think of where that conversation might lead. Without thinking much, she throws on a pullover and carefully shuts her apartment door behind her.
Tamsin drove as fast as she could to the only place she didn't think Lauren wouldn't look for her - the police precinct. The bottle of gin in hand, she picks the lock on side door and goes straight to her desk. Before sitting down, she remembers the commemorative shot glass Dyson has hidden away in his bottom desk drawer - she breaks the drawer open and smirks despite herself as she pulls the three glasses out. Lining them up neatly on her own desk she fills each one before taking a seat and throwing them all back in succession. The alcohol warms her body and cools her nerves immediately - she fills all three glasses again and takes the shots without a second thought.
She is so engrossed in filling her 13th, 14th, and 15th shots (many many years of drinking has given her quite the tolerance - not to say that she isn't incredibly drunk right now, but a human would have probably already died of alcohol poisoning by now) that she doesn't notice when Dyson fills the doorway of the squad room. He walks towards her slowly, not sure how to approach her and definitely not ready to startle an angry valkyrie. She finally notices him when he accidentally kicks a desk-side trashcan, however, but doesn't bother to look up.
"You win the scavenger hunt", she sing-songs at him in a slur before downing her last shot and slamming the glass down on the desk with a satisfying clank. She wants to mock him, the incredible hunter, for tripping over a trashcan, but is far too drunk at this point to formulate a good insult.
He speaks slowly, continuing his cautious approach.
"Lauren called me. She said she woke up and you were gone – she sounded pretty worried, Tamsin." A looked down at her and the valkyrie was almost shocked at the almost undetectable note of care in his voice – she would have to try to remember later (when she was sober, of course) to mock him for letting the adorable little human grow on him a bit. "I figured you'd be here."
The valkyrie looks up from her desk, tears in her eyes but her lips pulled tight into a contradicting smile. Dyson seems almost taken back at first, until he recognizes the look - he's seen it in the mirror staring back at him more times than he can count. Nodding slightly, he grabs the chair from behind his own desk and wheels it next to Tamsin's. Taking a seat, he reaches across the valkyrie to grab the now half empty bottle of gin she's been drinking from and takes a big swig from it.
"Lay it on me, Slamsin."
She looks back down at her empty shots and drums her fingers on one of the glasses. Taking a steadying breath, she begins to speak, having to really concentrate to not slur her words too badly.
"Do you know what it's like to love someone and not be able to do anything about it?"
Dyson crosses his arms and raises an eyebrow at her. Tamsin looks up at him after an awkward silence and realizes, of course he does.
"...Right."
"But it's different for me Tamsin", he begins slowly, "I only get to love one mate. I gave that love to Bo. And I don't regret that. If you love Lauren, if that's what has you here drinking yourself to oblivion, just tell-"
"Everyone dotes on you, Dyson, because Bo is your only love and you only get one mate. Boo fucking hoo. Do you know what happens to me when I fall in love? Do you know what happens to a valkyrie when she falls in love?" She stands, the alcohol suddenly fueling her rage, every word dripping with venom, "I only get two options here, wolfman. I tell her and I get called to... to him... Or I don't. And she leaves me anyway."
"Him?", Dyson questions, having no idea who she could be referring to. He of course has no idea what has brought Tamsin here – what Lauren said to her before she stayed in bed staring at the ceiling in a panic, her has no idea about the nightmares, the messages, the terrifying realization that there was no avoiding what was going to come next. He has no idea Odin is her father, or what that means for her. More importantly, what this all could mean for Lauren.
Tamsin paces the squad room and sends him a worried look, as if merely saying his name is a terrifying prospect. Dyson wonders who in the world could invoke such fear in this otherwise fearless woman. He stands, and pulls her into a tight hug (just sitting there watching his partner, his friend, pace the room in a panic was going to drive him insane; he had to do something). She tries to pull away at first, but is far too drunk and too tired to fight him. Giving up, she buries her face in his broad chest and sobs.