ziggystardust1994: I'm so glad you liked the scene at the thrift shop because it showed a lot between them - or at least I wanted it to. I think that might have been, at least for a second, the first scene where he was actually quite rough with her; and even then knowing who he is, she still gave him lip. And I like that phrasing, he'll snuff out her light - cause you're absolutely right, he is stealing little bits of her humanity. I've only mentioned it in a few places but she's actually quite callous to the people he kills, cause she knows that's who he is; and while I didn't say it, she does know her death will most likely come from him and yet she still can't leave him. I'm also super happy you think I'm capturing Lester's manner of speaking, cause he's difficult; but, and depending on how the show ends, it might be important that Lester is seeing first hand that Lorne did ruin her. But again, that'll depend on what direction the show takes. Thanks again for reviewing.

Bob O: thank you so much for your review, I'm really glad to hear you like it. You are right, it was pretty difficult constructing her - not only to reach the decision of making her a doctor, but also to make her so fundamentally human; I mean granted she doesn't allow herself to care that Lorne kills people, but she's still a very caring individual; which I'm trying to show through not only the patient she went to Mn for, but also with Lester. But there's still a lot about her I haven't gone into yet, and there's a part of that that Lorne has a pretty big hand in - that probably was very confusing, but I don't want to give away too much. And I'll do the same with Wrench and Numbers, I'll just say stay tuned (wink wink)

When Olivia returned to work the next day she was given the task of doing rounds, checking in on all of the patients and their vitals, catching one woman who was showing signs of septic shock. But the remainder of her day she spent researching alternative medicines for her patient, the test requiring a day or two more and she was all but certain it would come back positive.

She was sitting in the small room the hospital kept their books in, a pitiful number of books actually lining the shelves though thankfully they also had a computer, when her phone rang. "Miss me already?" she answered when she saw the number.

"Honestly? Guess who the blackmailer is?"

She smiled at the sound of Lorne's voice, hearing tires on rock salt and realizing he'd called on his way somewhere. "Who all have you met again?"

"You think it's someone I met?" he asked not admitting whether it was or not, leaving it entirely up to her to figure out; and he wished, in that moment, he was sitting next to her to watch her as she thought.

She put the book she'd been skimming on the table and sat back as she thought about it. "Well you told me to guess so it would have to be someone you told me about. So there's the supermarket king, the wife, the son, the fire hydrant, and the trainer," she said counting them off on her fingers and pondering a moment before making her guess. "My money's on the trainer."

The corner of his mouth curled as he rounded a corner, finding the van he wanted and pulling to a stop. "He's blackmailing Stavros for something without knowing what it is, to open a Turkish bath," he muttered staring out of the car window.

She smiled at the irritation in his voice, wondering how long Lorne would keep him around. "Did you call just to tell me your blackmailer was an idiot?"

"You told me to call," he reminded her, "I'm calling."

She rolled her eyes. "I told you to come by," she corrected, there being a big difference between hearing his voice and seeing his face. "But I am glad you called, I like hearing from you."

He could easily picture the way she was sitting with her legs curled under her, a soft smile on her face. "Have dinner with me," he offered knowing she'd take it without any guiling.

And she knew it too, she knew how easy she was when it came to him. "What do you get out of it?" she asked knowing he wanted something other than seeing her.

He nearly smiled as he stepped out of the car. "You'll find out," he told her. "Get on 2 and drive an hour, there's a diner right off it," he said ready to hang up now that he knew she'd come.

"Alright, I might be thirty minutes late depending on when I can get off," she told him looking at the watch for the time. "I'm getting another call, I'll see you then," she said, waiting for him to tell her goodbye before switching over. "Hello?"

"Dr. Anderson, it's Lester," he greeted, "Nygaard," he added realizing she may not know his first name.

However she did know it, she knew several names of the people she had seen Lorne steamroll over and morph into something unrecognizable. "Hello Mr. Nygaard, how's your hand?" she asked getting straight to the point. After a few conversations with him she knew eventually, after he stumbled his way over something he really didn't mean to ask, she would have to be the one to bring it up anyways – so she figured she may as well get around the bush and save the beating.

"Oh it's uh, it's not well, I guess it's, do you have any other suggestions for what to do with it?" he asked not knowing exactly what to say. Deputy Solverson had all but forced him out of the pharmacy without the ointment the doctor had told him to get, and it was now oozing pus and blood and spreading.

She sat up concerned by his stuttering. "Mr. Nygaard did you go to the pharmacy like I said?"

He hesitated for several moments pressing his lips together as he looked down at his hand. "N-no, I uh had a bit of a uh,"

"Mr. Nygaard what does your hand look like?" she asked wishing she'd just cleaned the wound for him. But if it was ever found out that she did, on top of knowing it was related to a murder investigation, she could face jail time.

He looked at his hand with his now puffy fingers and dark blood vessels, knowing there was no way she'd leave it alone – and as much as it hurt him, he didn't want to get her or himself in trouble because of it. "Oh it's not that, well it's a little sore still but I-I think it's it's uh getting better, you know."

"Lester," she said silencing his false words, "if you let the infection continue you will lose your hand, and if it gets to your bloodstream you'll go into septic shock," she explained to him, knowing it was worse than he was saying because she knew he hadn't gone to the pharmacy.

He tried to laugh away her concerns, as frightening as they sounded knowing there was nothing to do but let it try to get better – which was the exact opposite of what she was saying, and so he couldn't tell her. "Okay Dr. Anderson, I'll keep better care of it, i-it's really not so bad."

"That's not,"

"I should probably go though," he said over her, "got a, a busy day at work you know. So uh, I I guess I'll talk to you another time then. So I, I uh I'll just, just go now. Okay, goodbye."

She listened as the call ended, her mouth pulled down in a frown as she searched for the number Lorne had called her from.

He'd just stepped away from the van with the Adderall when his phone rang. "Did something happen in the past three minutes?" he asked without saying hello.

"You broke Lester Nygaard," she told him without missing a beat.

He smiled amused as he climbed back in the car, that having been the plan. "How so?" he asked, knowing she'd be offended if he didn't – she'd taken a liking to the man.

"That isn't what matters," she said. "He has an infection from the buckshot that hit his hand when you killed the police officer, and I'm pretty sure he's right around the corner from needing hospitalization. He knows your name, what are you planning to do?"

With a sigh he pulled on his seatbelt and started the car. "While you're gonna refuse to believe this, Lester's nothing to worry about," he told her hoping she'd drop the subject.

And she really wanted to, she wanted to believe him when he said there was no reason to worry, the problem was that she was worried. Lester knew his name, he knew her name, he knew Lorne cared about her; if he was pressured by the wrong people about Lorne she knew he would tell them everything, which meant she'd get caught in the crossfire. "Are you sure?"

He knew from the softness of her voice that she wasn't worried for Lester's sake. "How many times do I have to tell you, 'I won't let anything happen to you,' before you believe it?" he asked pulling onto the road as he headed back to Stavros' mansion. The sound of her sigh let him know she was giving in and he smiled. "I'll see you at dinner," he told her gently, setting her mind at ease with his words.

It wasn't a promise he would be in the position to keep; he was over a two hour drive away from her. Neither of them knew the danger that was slowly creeping their way each passing day, or that the words of one broken man would send it straight to her.

…

She had been right in her being late, and she sat down opposite him to find a glass of water at her seat and no menu in sight. "You already ordered," she said reaching for the glass. His only answer was a half smile and his hand reaching for hers, though he pulled away when the waitress set down their plates. "I'm not gonna see you for a bit, am I?" she asked.

"No," he told her, watching her sigh before she took a bite of the pasta he'd ordered her. "I can call if you'd like," he offered.

She looked up from her food to see him cutting into his steak, though he set down both fork and knife before reaching into his coat pocket for the knife he always kept on him. "If you have time."

He looked up to find her the corners of her mouth curled as she took another bite of her food. "I can make time," he told her, watching her smile as he knew she would.

They sat quietly for a few moments as they ate, the sound of them chewing and his knife scraping against his plate all the noise they made; until finally she broke the silence. "What'll you do now that you found the blackmailer?" she asked knowing he had some kind of plan if he was still working.

"Take over what he started," he answered.

Her brows raised in surprise. "So you went there to find his blackmailer and you're now gonna be the one doing the blackmailing?" she asked, to which he nodded without saying a word as he waited for what she would say. "That's genius," she said as she thought about it; the guy would never think the man he hired would be blackmailing him, there was no better cover than that. "I'm sure you'll have fun," she said meeting his stare to find him almost smiling, his hand once more covering her own on the table.

"Can I get you folks anything else?" their waitress said making him once more recoil.

"No, this'll be all," he told her, waiting as she cleared their plates before throwing down two bills and standing. "How often would you like me to call?" he asked as they walked out of the diner.

She shrugged knowing if he had it his way he'd only call if he needed something. "Whatever you feel like," she answered leaving it up to him, kissing him chastely before walking to her car and climbing in. "What are you doing?" she asked when she turned to find him settling in the passenger's seat.

He raised a shoulder. "Visiting," he answered coyly.

She laughed lightly before turning to face him. "You planning on telling me why you really asked me down here?"

His answer was to lean forward and pull her in for a kiss, moving his mouth over hers agonizingly before pulling back and looking at her warm face. "Maybe I wanted to do that," he said softly, running a hand along her cheek as he stared hard at her. "I'm quite fond of ya, don't ya know."

So surprised was she by the sound of a Minnesotan accent that she gave a short laugh. "That was good," she told him, that having not been what she expected at all. "And surprisingly, my desire to sleep with you is now gone."

He smiled briefly before sitting back, that having been half of what he needed. "Your turn," he said surprising her further.

"Is this for the phone call you're expecting?" she asked, rolling her eyes when he nodded. She tried her hand at the accent, finding it wasn't too hard if she could just get down the weird phrasings. "I'll have to remember to tell a story, can't be a Minnesotan without a story for everything," she muttered. "I swear, I spend half the time with patients just standing there listening to them blow air." She turned to see him watching her, a queer little curl of the corner of one side of his mouth; and for one of the first times she had no idea what he was thinking. "You should change your hair," she said taking him out of whatever thought he'd been lost in as she reached a hand up to brush the hair hanging over his forehead to the side. Several times she did this so that the hair would stay until finally it didn't look like someone used a bowl to cut it. "I kinda like it."

He pulled down the visor and looked at what she'd done, it felt awkward enough. "You never liked my hair," he said giving her look before turning back to his reflection; he didn't like it, but it would work.

She waited as he righted his hair was once more, which somehow took longer than her fixing it had. "Let me do it," she said before running her fingers through the front of it and smoothing it over his forehead. And then she sat back and just looked at him, wondering when his face and his god-awful hair had become attractive to her. "You should go," she said knowing he was now only staying cause she wasn't ready for him to leave, "drive the guy that hired you crazy." She knew if he didn't leave then she might not be able to let him.

He cupped the side of her face as he stared in her soft brown eyes, seeing nearly everything she was thinking. "Yeah, I got two containers of pig blood in the back of my car."

Her brows furrowed as she thought of why. "You don't need to explain," she told him making him smile.

"I wasn't going to," he responded, pulling her to him to kiss her softly before leaving her.

She started the car almost wanting to go to him and tell him she'd skip going to the hospital tomorrow, ask to stay with him the night; she had a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach that something was going to go wrong, and it all but disappeared when he was there. But she put the car into drive and turned out of the parking lot, leaving the opposite direction as him, and driving back to an empty hotel room.

And that was all of episode three. For next chapter I'm probably gonna do all of episode 4 and then part of episode 5, cause she's not very relevant in episode 4 but in like two places. And then the chapter after, stuff is gonna go down and I cannot wait.