Lorne called Liv as he drove, knowing he'd wake her because it was after seven; he wasn't too concerned, she'd tiredly say hello and ask how his night had been before falling back asleep as he answered – he planned on her falling back asleep, listening to the police scanner as they gathered outside Don's house.

His thoughts were stolen from the scanner at the sound of her voicemail, not remembering a time she hadn't answered his call.

He called her hotel asking for her room and waited as it rang. "Sorry sir, no answer," the woman at the desk told him. "Would you like me to leave a message?"

"Could you go to her room and check on her?" he asked as patiently as he could.

"Sir, if she didn't answer odds are she's not there," the woman told him.

If she'd seen his face she would've paled at the sharp edge in his eye. "What if she was lying unconscious on the floor, had a heart attack or stopped breathing, what would you do if you found her dead because you refused to walk down there and open the door?" He listened as the woman sighed and told him to wait a minute, not liking that Liv hadn't answered either phone. He looked at his watch to see it was four hours after seven, there was no reason for her to still be at the hospital.

"She wasn't there, it's like I told ya she would've answered the phone if she had been. But I can still leave a message for you. Sir?"

But Lorne had hung up after hearing Liv wasn't in the room, calling the number he'd written down for the hospital. "Hi, I was looking for Dr. Anderson, I came in the other day and she told me to call her if anything else came up," he told the woman that answered.

"One moment please," she said before holding the phone against her chest. "Dr. Bakus, is Dr. Anderson still here?" he heard her muffled voice ask.

"Her shift ended hours ago."

"Yeah I didn't think she was but she didn't sign out." Lorne heard all of this as he drove, his hand tightening around the phone he held to his ear as he waited. "Sorry for the wait sir, we're paging her now," the woman said before holding the phone once more to her chest. "Maybe she forgot to sign out, might do things a bit different in Maryland?" she asked though Dr. Bakus could only shrug. "Last I saw her was close to midnight," was his only answer. "I'm pretty sure she went home."

"Sir, Dr. Anderson isn't in but I can see about answering your question. Sir?"

He tried her phone again knowing she wouldn't answer, yet trying it anyways on the chance she might; and he was surprised when he heard the sound of the call being picked up.

Numbers sat in the car driving behind him holding her phone to his ear – he'd taken it off her before he'd gotten in a different car, hoping Malvo would call. The first one he'd let pass and waited to see how long it took before he called again; a good seven minutes he'd waited, realizing Malvo had called around before trying her phone again. A shame they were just gonna kill him, she would've made good bait. He ended the call without a word, those few short seconds being all he needed to tell Malvo he had his girl.

She sat on her bed with a book in hand and an empty glass in the other as she researched a treatment plan for their dying patient – her answer was supposed to be given tomorrow but she could find nothing that might help with the cancer or even prolong the patient's life by a few months. With a sigh she set the book down and carried her glass to the kitchen, hoping for even a few seconds of a break before she returned to the book to find there was nothing; taking the time to wash out the cup before reluctantly returning to her room.

She'd crossed the living room and back into the hall when she finally realized she felt someone else in her apartment – there was no other explanation for why she felt that other than the hair on the back of her neck stood on end and she could literally feel the other person's beating heart. A thought came to her, if she could just get into her room and lock the door she could either escape through the window – though a three story jump wasn't very inviting – or call for help as she found something to arm herself with.

Before she even had the chance to take a breath a hand was over her mouth and she was pulled further into the hall; "not a sound," she heard him breathe in her ear. She looked up shocked by the sound of Lorne's voice, wondering if he'd come back to make good on his threat of taking her to whoever wanted to know about her father. She hadn't seen him in two days, had been left stuck between never wanting to see him again and wanting him to just call – and something in her, something so broken and twisted, gave a silent sigh of relief at seeing him again.

A shadow on the wall caught her attention and she turned to see someone creeping silently toward the hall, the shape of a gun clear making her heart flutter in fear. She gave no resistance as Lorne pulled her back into her room, his feet somehow avoiding every spot that creaked – as though he'd been in her apartment several times before.

She barely had time to blink after the man came around the corner before blood spattered on the wall behind him and he fell with a thump to the floor. It wasn't until the second man rushed forward with his gun drawn that she realized the horrid loud click had been from the gun in Lorne's hand, and she watched pieces of brain splatter onto a picture of her and her mother at her graduation.

He looked down at her seeing her wide eyes and her heaving chest as she stared at the two men lying dead on her floor; he took the hand from her mouth wondering if she'd scream as she turned to him.

Wrench pulled the rearview mirror down to look at the doctor lying across the backseat to see her brows knitted – the sedative was wearing off. Numbers had told him to give her another, but he wondered maybe if she might wake up and run off; and he wondered even more what it meant that he wanted her to. And so when they reached a long stretch of road Wrench left the syringe in the cup holder and instead turned the heat on full blast and grabbed his gun, waiting until Malvo was stopped by Numbers' car before climbing out already shooting.

She looked up at Lorne barely able to make sense of any of it, her mind was numb with shock and she could feel her body shaking; and yet she wasn't afraid of him. "You're cleaning that up," she said, her voice barely above a whisper before she returned to her bed – taking the weight off her quivering legs as she tried to get control of her breathing, knowing what would happen if she let herself go into shock.

He stared after her surprised by the simplicity of that statement; he'd expected her to cry, she certainly looked like she wanted to. "Olivia," he said knowing from her pale face she was heading toward hysteric, and he wouldn't hesitate to shoot her if she made to scream. "Olivia."

She blinked confused as a round of fireworks went off; she didn't remember there being any that night, they didn't even sound like fireworks – it was too loud.

"I'm fine," she said shrugging offhandedly, her voice strangely high as she tried to read the words in her book. "There're black trash bags underneath the sink, next to the bleach," she told him. The air was thin as she forced herself to breathe deeper, forced her heart to calm before she began to hyperventilate – which she could feel she was very close to doing.

"Oliv-"

"I'm fine," she interrupted quickly, not giving him a chance to question the state of her mind; she was calm, she was fine. All she had to do was breathe.

"Who?"

Lorne twisted the knife in the man's back until he cried out. "Fargo," he yelled. He cried through clenched teeth at the knife digging deeper into his back knowing what Malvo wanted. "She's in the car behind yours," he growled just wanting it to stop; his chest was on fire as he tried to breathe.

That was all he needed before he cut the man's throat and shoved him away from him, bending down to collect his gun and making his way back to the cars.

She knew what came next, this was a moment she would come back to continuously the more she was faced with the man he was. And even then, knowing him more than she knew herself at times and seeing everything he said and did was nothing more than a ruse to keep her wrapped around his finger, she didn't know if there was anything left in her that wanted this moment to change.

He returned to the room when he'd wrapped the guys that had come for her, finding their bag with rope and duct tape by the door knowing they'd meant to take her with them back to their boss – who was technically his boss in this particular job. "Olivia?" She wasn't on the bed as she'd been when he'd left her, and he'd taken her phone with him on the chance she might call someone; he honestly didn't know what to expect from her, she was so strange and new. He found her standing at the sink washing her face as she made for bed, as though this were any other night where she would go to sleep and wake up the same – as though he wasn't there having killed two men in front of her. And he found himself wondering exactly what she would do if he pushed her. "Olivia?"

"Yeah," she said patting her face dry, her heart finally settled into a soft rhythm as her breathing evened. "I'm fine," she told him again when she saw the look on his face.

His brows rose as he stepped further in the room, waiting for her body to tense yet she seemed to be calm. "I shot two men, they're laying in your living room."

She turned to him exasperated. "And I have to tell my attending that I've found nothing for this patient's cancer, except to let him die. What's your point?" she asked not seeing why he was bringing it up, she'd be much happier if he got rid of them and never spoke of it again.

"My point is," he said moving to stand in front of her, forcing her to look up at him, "you're not fine."

She held a hand up to keep him from touching her, knowing she'd cave into his touch and cry. "Of course I'm fine, I see death all the time."

"You're not fine," he repeated seeing how close she was breaking, and he stepped even closer.

She stood corned between him and the counter, her eyes wide – she was literally a deer in headlights, and she knew she was. "What do you want me to say?" she exclaimed hearing how shrill her voice was.

He stared down at her knowing this was it. "You are not fine."

"I'm not fine," she yelled. "Okay? I'm not fine. I'm not fine." She stared up at him nearly heaving as she felt her flimsy wall break and the flood of tears breach her eyes. "Don't," she whimpered feeling his arms wind around her pulling her to his chest; but the feel of his hands on her back and the nearness of him left her clinging to him as her body shook.

She only cried for a few moments, her hands flat on his chest as she breathed against him – she'd never had him this close before, the closest he came was a hand on her face. She stood wanting to flee; from him, from the two dead men, from the terrible thoughts she was thinking like how warm he was as she stood pressed against his chest or how gently he'd held her as he killed them right in front her. Those things made no sense, she should be afraid of him, she should hate him, she most certainly shouldn't be attracted to him in any way.
Oh but she was, Olivia thought, she was so very much attracted to him. She burned and she ached and she craved – this was her animal. And as she often did, she took him completely by surprise when she pulled his mouth to hers; giving in to the need she had for him, giving in to the desire he'd injected in her veins with every passing look and every simple touch.

She wouldn't dare change this moment; it didn't matter that she was ruined, that she couldn't be a person without him, it didn't matter he was a murderer. All that mattered was this – it was the first honest time he would ever hold her. He didn't need anything from her, he didn't need to console her into bending to his will; all he wanted, in that moment alone, was her.

Lorne left behind the hitmen and the cops and found his way back to the cars, grabbing his case from the car he'd taken before trudging to the one behind him, squinting against the chilled wind and the swirling snow to see the driver's door open.

If not for the syringe on the floor by her arm she would've looked like she was asleep, her head fallen to the side and her hand hanging limp off the seat – other than her knitted brows she looked as she did any night. They shouldn't have found her, which meant someone told them she was connected to him; they'd gotten too close.

He didn't waste much time with surprise at the feel of her mouth on his before her back was against the wall and her pants were in a pile at their feet; he didn't bother doing anything more than unbuttoning his own, feeling her soft gasp against his mouth and he smiled.

"Liv," she heard him say from far away and she opened her eyes to look up at him, feeling his arm around her back and his hand on her cheek. She didn't understand, he wouldn't call her Liv for another month or so, and they'd been standing against the wall only moments before. She couldn't remember a time when he'd held her like this, when his face had been so hard with anger and concern.

"Liv," he said again needing her to wake up and seeing from her fluttering lashes she was close. He waited until she could hold her eyes open, until she turned half aware to him and saw that it was in fact him who had her, before he pulled her from the car and into his arms. Her skin was ice against his cheek as he carried her around to the passenger's side, buckling the seatbelt and wrapping the blanket around her before climbing in beside her – pushing the vents so they were all aimed toward her as he drove through the blizzard back to her motel.

She sat silently beside him as he drove wondering why out of all her memories that was what she'd focused on; she'd captivated him, finding her animal hidden in a place of desire – she'd do anything for him. That's why he kept coming back to her, that's why he called her and used her, that's why he stayed; and somewhere along the way his fascination with figuring her out had turned into caring. He wouldn't have realized it, she figured he probably talked himself out of believing it because he didn't see himself as a person – she knew he saw himself as a predator, she thought of him that way too. What she'd never understood was what she was to him, or at least what he saw her as; a toy he could make dance whenever he pulled her strings, an idea of what he wanted, his mate.

He only really looked at her once the three hours it took him to drive back to Bemidji, he'd turned at the feeling of her looking up at him. She knew that look, that's why she'd remembered the day he asked about her father – he'd been prepared to kill her, letting go of any fondness he had to get the job done. Something was wrong, she'd felt it after Lester Nygaard had cried over how sorry he was; she knew his knowing about her would lead to trouble for her and she knew he was how Wrench and Numbers found her. But this, Lorne's dark eyes so heavily guarded leaving her unable to read them, this was what she'd been dreading. He thought himself above weakness, it's what he hated most in people – but he'd learned today he had allowed her to be his weakness, he realized how much of a mistake it'd been to keep her alive.

She knew him too well, knew him better than he'd let himself think she did – he was gonna leave her. With a heavy sigh she turned back to the window, pain a dull ache with every heartbeat. Any other day when he saw she knew what was coming and was unhappy with it he would've reached for her, would've reassured her with a soft touch; he did nothing more than turn back to the road because she was right, he'd realized the extent of a mistake she was.

So I finished episode six and I'm kind of in between that episode and episode 7 - so I'm sort of in episode 7, I guess; not really sure how to phrase that.