"You should let me look at your hand," she said softly when he parked beside her car.

He looked at the dried blood on the hand he'd cut and knew she wasn't asking; and because he'd spent the last three hours preparing to deal with the weakness she'd soon show, he nodded and followed her in the room – he was giving her this one.

And she knew it. She sat beside him on the edge of the bed with her first aid kit and his hand in her lap knowing he'd leave soon – any other day he would've told her it was nothing, to not worry about it even though it needed stitches. The fact that he wasn't telling her that, that he so quickly agreed, told her everything she needed to know.

She'd barely finished taping the gauze around the stitches before he grabbed her chin and pulled her mouth to his, pushing aside her medical kit to lay her back on the bed. She should push him away tell him she didn't want this, not until he told her what would happen now – she should've at least tried to do something other than completely give in. But she didn't. Her hips rose letting him pull her pants down enough so that he only had to unbutton his own before taking her, leaving her clinging to him as her hands sought the warmth of his skin beneath his shirt. Yet even then - his mouth on her neck and his teeth in her skin, her gasping at the bucking of his hips and her nails drawing blood down his back – she knew this was goodbye. His actions told her: how close he pulled her, how tightly he held her, his frequent groans, the fact that he didn't roll off her after he'd finished – everything he did was further proof of what she already knew was coming.

He continued lying over her knowing he'd have to go before the snow got deeper; but she was so warm and soft beneath him, and he could still smell the flowers from her shampoo in her hair. She knew what he'd say when he finally moved, he was aware she'd known the moment she woke – he'd realized then at the look in her eye that she knew him too well. He'd shown her too much, he'd stayed too long; he would never make a mistake as big as her. There were two options and he could tell from her short breaths she knew which one he'd chosen. "You can't leave me," he heard her breathe, and he sighed before pulling her pants back over her hips and standing.

She was almost completely limp as he stood her on her feet, staring at him with wide eyes full of betrayal, her lungs numb with panic as she tried to breathe, watching him collect the few clothes he'd brought with him. "Lorne."

"You need to be heading home in two days, say whatever you need to you can't be here then. That car I rented for you, I lied," he said turning to her, his face bare of all feeling as he stared down at her stark pain. "I took your license and forged your signature, it's registered to you; replace the piece of crap you use as a car back home."

He couldn't possibly be leaving, she didn't know how he was so calm; his eyes were so dark, his hands so tight on her arms as he stared callously down at her. She didn't believe him, she didn't believe his cruel lack of feeling at leaving her behind – it was a mask he was wearing to hide the fact that he wanted to stay, hiding it even from himself.

"Don't," he said the moment she opened her mouth to plead with him, a hand coming up to settle beneath her chin nearly wrapping around her throat. "The other option is to kill you: don't beg, don't cry," he added seeing the tears well in her eyes. "I will leave you here for the manager to find," he warned, forcing her head back as he stepped closer. This wasn't the woman he first met, he'd weakened her made her softer, she'd lost the bitterness and strong will that had captured his interest; the woman staring back at him was sad and broken, so incredibly weak that it made him furious. "If it's any consolation, you're better than this. I wouldn't have let you live this long if you weren't," he said before releasing her and moving to the door. "You should be gone in two days, it won't be me that kills you if you're not," he told her before stepping out of the warm room into the freezing air and closing the door behind him; not casting a second glance back at her.

As much as she wanted it she knew he wouldn't come back; this wouldn't be like the movies, he wouldn't change his mind and throw the door open before pulling her into his arms and promising he'd never leave – he wasn't that kind of man and she'd never really been that kind of woman, at least not until him. The moment she heard the car start and the sound of tires on the snow she'd crumpled to her knees weeping, deep broken sobs that left a stitch in her side until she couldn't breathe. And then she simply laid on the floor wondering what she was supposed to do now, wondering how she was supposed to just go home and act like she could be fine. Nothing would ever be fine, he was gone.

"It's not my position, professionally, to get involved in squabbles. Especially not of a private nature."

"How do you know it's private?" Lorne asked staring hard at his boss, seeing nothing more than a weary man who was realizing maybe life wasn't so bad – he didn't have the patience for what he may have done, he just wanted answers.

"If people are unhappy with our services, they call. The guy screws up arrangements are made; cash settlement, if that's not enough you break a leg or an arm. No calls, not about you. Not this time. So whatever it is, it's gotta be personal."

His head had turned in interest at something the man said. "What do you mean this time?"

"Well about," Rundle trailed off not knowing the exact number of years and gestured to the filing cabinet beside the desk, "may I?" he asked waiting until Malvo nodded before standing and grabbing the key to unlock it. This particular file he had taken out several times over the years, updating it when more could be added – he knew exactly where it was, he knew exactly what it said and he had enough photographs to have the person's face etched into his mind. He returned to the chair and opened the file, staring at the same woman as he did every so often when a new picture was added to the bunch; she was young, pretty, had potential to be great – he honestly didn't know why the other man had taken such an interest in her. "About four years ago you had a client who wanted to 'teach a man a lesson', I believe. Your job was to kill his daughter a," he said turning the page to look for her name, "Ms Olivia Anderson. Well, girl's still alive today I'm well aware of that. However, you did take care of it, even though you killed his guys; you brought him the dad to do whatever they wanted saying she was off limits. I received a phone call from the man saying he was displeased with the turn of events but it got the job done, I also advocated for you here," Rundle said making sure to stress to Malvo he'd helped him out, "and said something must've happened with the daughter and that you'd taken her under your protection – any and all attempts at her life would result in the other guy's death. I made it clear to him she was not to be looked at again."

"What's your point?" Lorne asked sharply, not liking that Liv's name was on file; not liking that a clear connection to him was so easily accessible.

"My point is, I didn't get a call about you this time; whatever it is, it's personal."

…

Lorne walked out of the real estate office with the file in hand; he didn't open it until he was on a flight to North Dakota. Her last name was the label, hers had been one of the first files in the cabinet, and his was written in the details – she'd been his job and he hadn't wanted her dead yet, he hadn't had her figured out, sometimes he still didn't. For four years Rundle had known exactly what she looked like, where she lived, where her mother lived, where she worked, and the people she knew. It would've been easy for someone to be sent for her, to figure out exactly who she was attached to.

He pulled out the many photographs collected realizing someone had been watching her – had been watching him. There were at least thirty photos of the two of them: in a restaurant, a car, her house, a motel, walking, a smile on her face a smirk on his, a hand on her cheek, his mouth on hers, fuzzy pictures taken through blinds of them in bed, of her reading a medical book with him listening to his tapes beside her, one of her reading a medical book with his head on her chest, a few of them sleeping with her pressed against him, one of them having sex. The last photograph was taken three months before they'd gone to Minnesota; someone's job was to watch him with her, and the corner of his mouth curled at finding a name and address at the end of the file. Once he was done in Fargo and with the deaf guy, he'd kill this man. And then he could forget about her.

Olivia had finally picked herself up off the floor, or rather the woman that ran the hotel had knocked on her door to see if she'd come back and found her lying a foot from the bed staring blankly at the nothingness in front of her. It was nearly nightfall when she got up, taking the note from the woman who said a man called for her – had demanded she come to the room to check on her – and then brushed aside the woman's concerns before shutting the door after her.

Lorne had called the hotel looking for her, he'd probably called hospital as well; he'd been worried about her whether or not he wanted to admit it. She would have died if the two men had killed him; whoever they worked for would've told them to kill her because she was useless. He'd come so close to losing her, and now he was running away.

After nearly pushing the woman out of her room she'd crawled in the bed wondering how he thought she was better than this; she didn't feel better than this, she felt weak and used and empty. That was it, he'd taken everything from her and filled her up with bits of him – now he was gone and there was nothing left of her.

It wasn't until the woman returned to her room the next morning saying the chief at the hospital called for her that she finally got herself ready and left; tried for some sort of semblance to what life had been. The test results on her little boy had come in, and just in time too because he was now in a coma – which Numbers had had her phone when that call came. She'd put on a cold facade and went to his room, seeing his mother crying over his bed yet Olivia didn't go to her; she just stood outside of the room seeing everything was going to hell and she was lucky enough to be caught in the middle.

"Cases like Frankie's are very rare and it progresses at such a rapid rate that when it's discovered it's usually too late, and unfortunately there is no known cure for it," she said standing beside the mother who looked up at her wrecked and broken.

"So you're saying he's gonna, you're saying my son is going to," she broke off crying as she turned to the little boy lying comatose in the bed.

Olivia swallowed the suffocating knot in her throat. "Sarah,"

"You have to say it," she pleaded desperately, hoping maybe if she didn't hear it then it wouldn't be true. "Please, Dr. Anderson, I need you to say it."

Olivia looked at her hopeless face and nodded as she blinked away the warmth behind her eyes. "Frankie is going to die," she said pausing at the woman's whimper. "At this stage he has no more than twenty-four hours." She stood not knowing what to do as the woman cried; she should put her arms around her, console her, but Olivia couldn't make herself move – Lorne had taken that part of her too. And so she stood at Frankie's bedside beside his weeping mother unmoving and nearly unresponsive as she watched his heart monitor, her eyes and ears following the blips of his little heart; until hours later in the dawn of the next day he went into respiratory failure, the amoeboid excavate having eaten through the breathing center of his brain. The first time in hours she moved was to turn off the coding monitors, there was no saving him; and then she stood as a mother grieved for her child, letting Sarah hold her hand as she wept.

It wasn't fair, this beautiful little boy who'd wrapped his arms around her legs when she first met him, had asked her to try his jello because he couldn't taste it and he didn't believe his mother when she said it was good because she was trying to make him feel better, who'd done his best not to cry for all the tests and the needles, who'd tried to make his mother smile even though he was the one dying; nothing about this was fair.

It was going on noon when she left the hospital, a small talk with the chief about how a spot for her was open for when she took her boards if she was interested, and she was due back at her own hospital the following week – he'd told her own chief she was taking it hard, barely talking at all, and it'd been her chief to suggest the rest of the week off because he knew she didn't normally get like this over her patients. The extra week didn't matter to her, she just wanted to crawl in a bed and never leave – she could convince herself she didn't want to see the sun anymore.

It was then, as she walked across the street back to her motel, that he spotted her blonde her hair by a twist of fate. She looked up at the sound of tires on snow and turned to see an unfamiliar car stop only a few feet from her; and for a second, just a short second, her mind betrayed her in thinking it might be Lorne. She stared at Mr. Wrench as he got out of the car, seeing his blue hospital gown and the blood stain on his side. He stepped toward her not even really knowing what he wanted from her, and she watched him lean against the car dazedly before he slid down it into the snow. She waited for him to do something, to get back up or to pull a gun out of nowhere and kill her, but he only sat pitifully in the snow. "Okay," she muttered rolling her eyes, wondering what the hell she was supposed to do with him.

So that was all of episode seven and half of episode eight; now I'm to the point of skipping a year, except I'm not actually going to be skipping it. I will probably do what life is like for her in the beginning, now that Wrench is there and Lorne is gone, and showing her possibly getting the pieces Lorne left her in back together - which will allow me to show what she'd been like before Lorne found her - and then I'll skip a few months add in some stuff and then get to where the show picks up. And I'm actually kind of excited to write her without Lorne for a little bit and develop her more as a character because I don't think I've fully gotten the chance to do that - even in my own writing he completely overshadows her. Also I will say this, there will be nothing romantic with her and Wrench, of any sort - tumblr actually ruined me on Wrench and Numbers. But I am quite excited to have him back because I rather liked him.