Hang in there Bolo lovers! As with the show we love, there has to be some proper angst for the make-up to be that much sweeter! I'll be posting another short chapter tonight and then it's on to the good bits tomorrow!

Chapter Nine – The Passing of Time

Months had passed in the blink of an eye. How ever did she pass the time? If you guessed booze, broads and battling Under Fae, you're a winner!

It was all a blur to Bo. It felt like a day if it felt like a week and a week if it felt like a month. It was getting harder and harder to mark the passing of time. It could've been days, it could've been years, she hadn't really been sober enough to notice. She had realized something though, she was certain that this emptiness inside her was never going to go away.

She had thought deeply about what that meant for her, if this emptiness was never going to leave her without Lauren in her life, why not be together? Spend a lifetime making memories and Bo would deal with the emptiness after they'd loved each other for a lifetime. It was better than the alternative, it was better than this. Except she'd known that from the start and none of that took away the other problems, Bo really did want Lauren safe and it was obvious from the Telepath's attack that Lauren was safer away from Bo.

"Alright girlfriend, get up. We're going to drink our faces off at The Dal and we're not coming home until we're good and hammered. Let's go. You need to get out of those sad pajamas and see some real human beings."

"What're you talking about, I see you all the time. And there are rarely ever human beings at The Dal, besides you."

Kenzi laughed, "You know what I meant, okay you need to get out and see some beings then, human, Fae or otherwise… besides me."

"But whyyy Mom? I'm good right here, on the couch in my sweats where I belong. We worked hard all day, we vanquished evil and all that jazz, now leave me to mope."

"Nope," Kenzi walked over and began hitting Bo in the legs, pushing her feet off of the coffee table where they'd been resting, "Up, up, up!"

"Ow!"

"Ysabeau Dennis, if you don't get up right this instant, I'm taking your favorite katana and running it through the garbage disposal."

Bo narrowed her eyes, "You wouldn't dare."

"Wouldn't I?" Kenzi quirked her eyebrow threateningly and pulled the katana out from behind her back and motioned to Bo to bring it.

Bo rolled her eyes and huffed, getting up to get dressed. "This is low, even for you little one!"

"Hey! Don't call me little, that's derogatory! It's vertically challenged!"

The girls sat at their favorite table where they always ate breakfast, Bo was trying to hide from the main crowd at the bar, not that Bo was one who could easily hide, she tended to attract attention, especially when she was being escorted by her pink wig wearing best friend.

She noticed Piper over Kenzi's shoulder, the blonde waved to Bo and Bo waved back. The girl made no attempt to come over, having gotten the hint when Bo had slipped out in the middle of the night and never returned. The good thing about being a Succubus was that it was hard for people she'd had 'relations' with to hold grudges, even ones she'd fucked over… pun intended.

Well, it was hard for most of her ex conquests not to hold grudges, all but one… and there she was now, right on cue. "Oh fuck," Bo groaned, sliding down in her chair, ducking her head and attempting to hide her face with her hand.

Kenzi looked over her shoulder to see what the fuss was about. "Really, Bo Bo? You think the 'hand shield' is going to hide you? Neither of us are exactly dress inconspicuously, you're wearing your token leather and I'm dressed in commando boots, a skin tight dress and my neon pink wig. But sure, the hand ought to do it." Kenzi rolled her eyes and threw the lime from her drink at her best friend. "Get over it! You're going to see Doctor Hotpants out, you can't hide in the Clubhouse forever, it's been months, plural."

Bo felt her skin begin to crawl the second she'd seen Lauren walk in. It wasn't because she was disgusted or anything, it was because everything in her mind was screaming GO, RUN! Suddenly The Dal was the very last place she wanted to be, not that it was her first choice anyway, her first choice was PJ's, popcorn and Golden Girl reruns.

She realized how weak she was being in that moment. The second she saw Lauren she felt that barrier that she'd put up between her and the bad feelings, the barrier made of booze and women and endless battles, crumble in an instant. It was absolutely crazy that Lauren could make her feel so instantly weak now, when just a few months ago, being around Lauren was the thing that made her feel invincible, stronger than she could ever have imagined being.

Suddenly, Kenzi hit her in the neck with a ball of wet, wadded up tissue. "Ow!" Bo shouted and grabbed her neck. Kenzi had a straw held to her lips, Bo rolled her eyes at her friends makeshift blow dart. "Seriously, how old are you?"

"Seriously, how old are you? We promised we wouldn't go home until we were good and drunk and I for one my friend, am not drunk."

"First of all, you're rarely ever drunk because you can drink like a fish… a Russian fish." Kenzi shrugged and smiled, obviously proud. "Secondly, I didn't promise, you demanded, big difference."

"You're right. I did demand and I'm not relinquishing that request so if you really love me, you'll suck it up and stay."

Bo narrowed her eyes, wishing for a moment that her Fae gift was the ability to blow people up with her mind. "Fine, let's go to the back of the bar and play pool at least or I really am gone, I need to get up and move around or I'm going to make a run for it which would not be easy in these shoes."

"I'm down, let's go." The both took their drinks and relocated to the pool tables.

Lauren had noticed Bo the second she'd entered The Dal, it was impossible not to. She could be standing in the center of a horde of people and Lauren would still know exactly where she was, her energy was like a magnet to Lauren, maybe it always would be. Either way, they were both better off, she told herself.

"Hey Trick, one tequila please."

"Lauren, just the person I wanted to see," Trick looked up and scanned the bar to see where Bo was, noticing that she was engrossed, or at least pretending to be engrossed, in a game of pool, he continued. "Look, I need to talk to you about something, would you come downstairs with me?"

Lauren quirked an eyebrow at his obvious need for secrecy but nodded, "Of course Trick, let's go."