Lalalaaaa last one for the day everyone! Enjoy!

"Well", Nadia lead Lauren up the all too familiar stairs leading up to their downtown condo, "welcome home, Lauren Lewis."

She unlocked and opened the door, revealing a scene Lauren feels like she had only seen in her dreams – the furniture was exactly how she remembered, everything is the same place she left it before she went to Africa, even the stained Persian rug Nadia was far too stubborn to throw out (It was expensive, after all) was still in the living room. As Lauren slowly walked into the apartment, running her fingers gently over every surface she could reach, Nadia watched her with a smile. She walked up behind Lauren after dropping her bag on the kitchen counter and wrapped her arms around Lauren's waist; the blonde hummed, trying to recommit to her memory the familiar feel of Nadia against her and the smell of her shampoo (Why does this all make me want to cry?). The dark haired woman nuzzles Lauren's neck, placing soft kisses to the joint of her neck and shoulder.

"I was thinking, when you're up to it, we could go out. There's a bar downtown that opened a while ago and I bet you would love it."

"The Dal", Lauren says immediately, her senses again being bombarded by what she can only assume as images from dreams or hallucinations she's had over the past 5 years – she see's an old wooden bar complete with pool tables and Irish folk music playing, and a small older man bartending; he looks at her and smiles, and though his face is a blur, she feels warmth emanating off of him. Nadia spins Lauren around, breaking her vision just as his face starts to clear, and eyes her.

"Yeah... how did you know?"

The blonde shrugs.

But that place is only in my dreams... right?

"Just a hunch? I must have heard someone mention it in passing."

Nadia nods, her eyebrow still raised at her, before placing a chaste kiss to her lips.

"Well, guess-master Lauren, when you're feeling up to it we should –"

"Tonight!", Lauren blurts out. "I mean, let's go tonight. I've been in a bed for 5 years, Nadia. I'll get dressed right now. I'd like to go see this place."

Eyebrow still raised, but a smile dancing at the corner of her lips, Nadia retrieves her cellphone from her jacket pocket.

"I'll call my friends from work, if that's okay? Or if you want it to just be you and I?"

Why don't I want to be alone with my girlfriend? My fiance, even?

It's been 5 years and all I can think about is ways to avoid being alone with her.

"That sounds good", Lauren forces out, pushing the thoughts down to where they hopefully won't bother her anymore. "Call them up. I'll just shower and we'll head out."

As Lauren and Nadia walked the few short blocks to the bar, Lauren couldn't help feeling as if she had walked this very path hundreds of times – every turn was like second nature, and she ended up feeling like she was leading Nadia to a place that she had never even been to.

Right?

They entered the bar, which was bustling with people, and made their way to a back table where Nadia was meeting her friends from work. They all introduced themselves as Nadia went to retrieve drinks from the bar. Nadia's friends were nice enough; they were all young, attractive people that worked at the same magazine as her girlfriend, and they were all very interested in what Lauren had to say about being in a coma.

"Was it like sleeping?"

"Could you hear people around you talking?"

"Do you even know who the minister is these days?"

It was so real, she wanted to say. I had a life outside of this one.

If only I could remember it.

I don't know how I can miss something that apparently never happened, something that I can barely even remember,

but I do.

"It was like a long nap", she settled on, thankful for Nadia returning with the drinks before too long had passed.

Nadia and her friends talked casually about work, the dark haired woman's hand never leaving Lauren's as she spoke, except to go retrieve more drinks from the bar. The blonde was disappointed when the bartender was a smiling dark skinned man in a fedora as opposed to the small older gentleman she was expecting, so she let Nadia do all the drink runs, even though she herself was on the edge of the booth. Lauren decided that she would ease herself out of the troubling thoughts that had been plaguing her, and ordered twice as many shots as any one else in her party. After the first two shots, she had closed her eyes for a second to relish the warmth, and noticed that the door obscuring one of her memories had opened just a bit further. So, she ordered another round.

It was if the more Lauren drank, the more that door in her mind opened up. She could see their face – her face, Lauren was now sure it was a woman. She was blonde, the long wavy locks cascading down over her shoulders. And she had piercing green eyes, so piercing that somehow Lauren could make them out even though the rest of the woman's features were clouded by uncertainty. She took another shot, and she could make out the woman's soft lips, curled upwards in the largest shit-eating grin Lauren had ever seen. They seemed familiar, she seemed so familiar, and Lauren is determined to finally get a look at her.

The problem Lauren was running into, however, was that the clearer the vision she had when she closed her eyes to try to catch a glimpse at the mystery woman that was plaguing her got, the more her reality became blurry and uncertain. Nadia kept tapping her shoulder and asking her if she was okay, to which the blonde would slur out reassurances and orders for more shots.

"Lauren", Nadia said gently, "I think you've had more than enough. Maybe we should just go back h –"

"No!", Lauren all but yelled, having to focus much harder than she wanted to on keeping her words even remotely understandable. "No. I'm okay. Just a few more."

Sighing in resignation, Nadia went to the bar and returned only a few short moments later with the shots Lauren had asked for. She took both of them in succession, fighting back the nausea that threatened to overwhelm her as the warmth spread. She closed her eyes, screwed them shut as tightly as she could, and finally she could see her. See her soft skin, her blonde curls, her smile, her lips, her nose, her eyes, she was so clear now that Lauren could count every single eyelash. Without meaning to, Lauren raised her hand in an attempt to touch her but only succeeded in knocking Nadia's drink over. Without opening her eyes, even when Nadia started yelling at her for not paying attention, Lauren tried even harder to reach out and touch the woman in her mind. As she got closer to her, small pieces of memories with the woman came back to her – playing pool with her at The Dal, laughing at her as she attempted (and failed) to flip a pancake in the pan, going over the newspaper crossword with her, trying her hardest to keep up with the woman as they jogged through the park. And as she got even closer, more pieces started to fall into place – kissing her in the rain outside the bar, making love tangled in purple sheets, and a single whispered 'I love you' with her head resting on the other woman's chest.

"Tamsin..."

Suddenly, everything fell in to place. With her eyes still closed, Lauren let the name fall off of her tongue. She could hear the woman's sweet honey voice saying her name, see the way she smiled at her, smell her perfume as if she was standing right in front of her.

"Tamsin."

Her eyes shot open as she heard loud and booming laughter – Lauren looked around for Nadia but she was nowhere to be found. In fact, the lively bar she was just in had been replaced by literally nothing. Save for a large man sitting quite a ways away from her, there was nothing here but darkness. Confused and scared, Lauren went to brush errant strands of her hair out of her face, but her hand hit something hard; she pulled the obstruction off her head, and found Tamsin's prized helmet in her hands. Her fear replaced with anger, and her confusion replaced with bravery as she laid her other hand on the hilt of the sword that had somehow found it's way back to her side, Lauren charged towards the only other figure in the expanse.

"That didn't take nearly as long as I expected it to, Lauren!", Odin laughs again as she approaches him, replacing the helmet on her head. "I had years of your life with your former lover planned; a wedding, even children!"

"You are a sick man", she spits at him. Her head is still spinning; she can't decide what is real or what isn't, if this is the dream or that was the dream, if she's even dreaming or just stuck in some terrible inner circle of hell.

"Bite your tongue – you are starting to sound like our beloved Tamsin, human."

They share intense eye contact, neither daring to budge or speak – Lauren holds her ground, Tamsin's sword drawn, though it is much heavier than she thought it would be; Odin with his hands behind his back, regarding the surprising human seriously. Without his throne, Lauren notes he looks old and tired, worn down by thousands of years of ruling his famous valkyrie warriors. What feels like an eternity passed (and it very well could have – the doctor doubts time exists in whatever plane she has found herself in) before Lauren's arm finally gives way to the weight of the sword and she has to sheath it. She sighs as she looks up at him.

"Now what?"

"Now", he says solemnly, "you simply have to choose."

She straightens her back and steels her jaw, already moving her hand to grab the hilt of the sword again.

"Nothing is ever as easy as choosing."

"Oh, but this is."

He raises a massive, scar-riddled hand, and snaps his fingers once. Suddenly, the black fades to a place just as familiar to her as it is now foreign – her apartment on The Light fae compound. He snaps again, and Nadia appears.

"This woman represents your past – everything in your past life that you longed and fought for. She represents everything you could have. Many years of your life were spent with her", he looks at Nadia (Or is that just the image of Nadia?; Lauren isn't sure) and let's out a heaving breath, "and from what I can see you loved her very much."

He returns her gaze to Lauren just in time to see her breath hitch in her throat. He smiles sickeningly at her as he snaps his fingers again – now, Tamsin appears. In her full valkyrie regalia, she looks as beautiful as Lauren remembers her (How long ago was it that I saw you, Tamsin? It feels like years now).

"And my daughter", he walks over to Tamsin's seemingly frozen form, placing a large hand on her unmoving shoulder, "represents the unknown. You are a human, and she is valkyrie. She is destined to live forever and serve forever, while you... you could die at any moment. For all you know, you're already dead."

"But I'm not dead. Not yet."

"No", he smiles at her again, "not yet. So, use your life. And choose."

Lauren looks back and forth between the two women, confused about what Odin is asking her to do – Nadia is dead. Nadia and her are over, they were over far before Bo stabbed her and ended the dark haired woman's life in the middle of Lauren's apartment.

"I don't understand. Nadia is dead. And even if she wasn't, I love Tamsin. I would choose her, over and over again."

"What you are failing to see her, human, that I am not simply offering you a choice between these two women. Choose Tamsin and the road will be filled with uncertainty. Choose your former lover, and I will bring her back."

Lauren's jaw dropped.

"You... you can do that?"

"I will bring her back, and you can resume your life with her from where it truly left off, before your Ash cursed her and used his trickery to enslave you to the fae."

Lauren can't seem to catch her breath – the possibility of being able to go back to her life before the fae, to be with Nadia just as she had been all of those years ago, was too much to wrap her head around. But maybe that was the point; she didn't want to wrap her head around it. Without all of the things that had happened to her after she signed her life away to the fae, she would have never met Bo, which means she would have never met Tamsin. They may not be perfect, and they may have quite a few obstacles in their way, but Lauren loves Tamsin.

Nothing is going to change that.

Not even Nadia, the doctor thinks sadly.

"No", Lauren says confidently, "I'm sorry, but no. I choose Tamsin."

Odin smiles at her, but it's different than the sickeningly sweet smile she had grown used to – it is all hatred and discontent, as if he was hoping that she would choose Tamsin over Nadia.

"Then you must kill Nadia. And I want to be clear to you, Lauren..."

He walks over to Nadia's frozen form, and wraps a massive hand around her throat. Her body suddenly becomes animated, her hands coming up to claw at his massive wrist as she struggles for air. Odin takes his free hand and brings up the woman's shirt to just above her midsection, revealing to Lauren something that made her turn and empty the contents of her stomach as soon as she realized that it meant – there, on the soft dark skin of Nadia's stomach, was the long scar from where Bo's dagger had killed her back in Lauren's apartment over a year ago.

"I have already brought her back – this is no trick, human, no illusion. You must kill her to escape."