Hi, hi, hi. So this is a new Doccubus fic I have been working on this last while, it's taken me a long time to get to posting it but that's because again I wanted to have it mostly done before I started putting it out there. I'll post as I get final edits done. I hope you enjoy :)

Some of the ideas for this were sparked by the spoilers coming out about Tamsin. I ended up pinching the idea of Dyson having a new partner who shakes things up, but I changed her name seeing as being a 'new partner who shakes things up' is pretty much all I think she'll have in common with the real Tamsin. If you know what I mean. I hope she'd not too cringey as an original character but Bo/Lauren will always be the main focus.

Oh and P.S. to anyone who has reviewed my other long one (Those Memories Of You) since I posted it, thanks very much, you are rad.

Chapter One

You are so beautiful. Bo had whispered the sentence as she pushed the shirt off Lauren's shoulders to kiss her neck. She'd led her by the hand to her bed; treating her like a precious object that she might break as she'd laid Lauren down. Then Lauren had pushed Bo over onto her back, enjoying the look of surprise and then total surrender on her features.

When Lauren was alone and not absorbed in her work, all she could think about was the contrast between the perfect moments during and the awful moments after.

It had been such a long time since she'd been touched, and she'd never been touched like that. She could read Bo's trepidation and the care she took with every movement. It made it all the sweeter. Lauren had never seen anything as beautiful as Bo underneath her, brown eyes looking upwards into her own. Then there was Bo's heartbreaking naivete when she had ripped the chain of her necklace. The look in her eyes made Lauren believe that Bo could - and should - rescue her from this life. She wished so much that it were true; Bo's words had made it seem like it could be.

Those thoughts always competed with the memory of the aftermath. The bad parts always won and made her face sting hot with shame. Words had never been her strength, especially when it came to the way she felt. She was a blurter and a stumbler. If Bo had just stopped and waited she might have been able to get her point across. She'd wanted to make her understand that she hadn't slept with Bo just because The Ash had ordered her. It had just as much to do with protection as all that, and even more to do with her own desires.

It all hung on the moment she'd first kissed Bo, when she'd finally given herself permission to do what she'd been dreaming about for months. If she could express what she'd felt in that moment, then things might never have come to this.

When she'd woken up and seen Bo dressing she was seized with panic. A quieter voice inside her just wanted to know, how can she leave me? Bo wouldn't be Bo if she didn't want to run off and save the world, but still she wished they'd had a few more hours of bliss before it had all come crashing down.

After Bo had left she'd scrambled to get dressed, and made the first of many desperate and unanswered calls to Bo's cell. It was difficult to go to Dyson but she didn't consider any other option, not when Bo's safety was at risk. She'd returned to the compound for an anxious wait punctuated by more calls to Bo and then to Dyson. To Bo she said - Please call me back when you can.

She begged - I just need to know if you're safe, and then I'll leave you alone.

Finally she'd received a short text message from Bo that had flooded her body with relief. Then she'd heard parts of the story via overheard gossip and through a conversation with The Ash. And that had been it from Bo – all of Lauren's calls unanswered, her apologies unheeded.

Ever since that night she'd felt coiled tight and awakened from a long sleep. Being with Bo had helped her realise how much it was time to move on. It had been four years since Nadia had been freed – years rendered even longer by the sterile and lonely world she was forced to live in.

For a long time after Nadia she hadn't been able to even imagine being with anyone else. All of her love had been used up, it would be greedy to have another relationship like that in a lifetime. But she knew in her heart now that the time had come, that it was okay to fall in love again and that Nadia would not want her to be alone forever. Nadia had probably already moved on, and in fact Lauren hoped that she had. She liked to imagine her happy and in love – it would never occur to her to feel pain at that thought.

So she was ready, but there was nowhere to put the feelings that had started to fill her once more.

Whenever she saw Bo she felt shaken up in an entirely different way that she had been before. The way Bo looked at her now was hard and accusing and cold. It defied belief that they had been so intimate – that their connection had felt so intense for that brief time.

When she'd gathered that Bo and Dyson were a couple she'd had to harden herself at the news. She had no claim on Bo and never had. Still the idea of them together made her feel small, as though she'd been nothing to Bo. Perhaps it had been foolish to think that she'd ever really been in competition with him in the first place.

She wanted to be content with being Bo's friend again – with the idea of them helping one another and looking out for each other like they had before. It seemed that Bo only saw her as a source of information and as someone to go to as a last resort when she couldn't solve a case any other way. If it was the only role she could have in Bo's life, then she had no choice but to take it.

X X X

Bo's expectations were having a fistfight with reality, and reality was really losing. Having fantasised about being in a relationship for so long she now found that it wasn't what she had always imagined it would be.

It was dawning on her that she couldn't just be happy with being with someone whose main appeal was that they wanted to be with her. In all of her years of being alone she'd missed the vital facts that everyone else must figure out early on – that there were other things that were important. Like feeling listened to, like being with someone who didn't make you feel lonesome, like having freedom.

At first she'd just been so happy that Dyson had committed to her. Simply, easily happy, like she could lay down the sick feeling that had followed her for so long.

She hadn't noticed the flaws until it was too late, but now that she was in so deep she couldn't imagine doing anything about it. Breaking up was out of the question. Dyson was everything that she had always wanted. He protected her, made her feel special. She needed for this to work.

The catastrophe with Lauren had only made her feel surer that Dyson was the one she was supposed to be with. Kenzi had kept trying to warn her about Lauren and she hadn't wanted to listen. Another reason why there was cause for Bo to doubt her instincts when it came to love. Everyone else had seen it coming, everyone that is but her.

She missed Lauren, and it required some effort to keep her at a distance. She missed the person that she'd believed Lauren to be. That version of Lauren made her feel good about herself, that Lauren helped her at all costs and made her laugh. She didn't know the person that Lauren had turned out to be - and she didn't want to know her. Sometimes she found herself weakening and wanting to talk to her again.

All that she had to do was remind herself of what Lauren had done and life could become simple again.

X X X

She'd been called to The Ash, and so she went, it was nothing more than a reflex by now. He was standing in the lobby with a small group and she was disappointed to see that Dyson was amongst their numbers. He glanced at her, displaying that cool look that he reserved for her. She wondered how much he might know – it made her feel terribly exposed to think that Bo might have told him everything.

It wasn't difficult to keep her impassive mask in place, the one that she always wore around the fae. They weren't interested in her as a person with opinions and feelings; they were only interested in her insofar as they could use her. Her limited power came from her work and so she made sure that was all that she presented of herself.

"Dyson has just been assigned a new partner. This is Detective Green. Can you do her physical immediately?" The Ash ordered.

He gestured towards a tall woman that was standing to Dyson's right. Lauren's eyes darted towards her appraisingly. If she were human she would guess her age to be in her early 30s.

"Of course. Come this way please?" Lauren asked politely. She felt Dyson's eyes on her as she guided the taller woman towards her lab. They walked there in silence. Most Light fae treated her well, but she'd found that very few of them bothered to talk to her much unless they needed something.

"Sit please?" Lauren said as she began setting up, then asked one of her assistants to make up a file. "So detective, I take it if I haven't examined you before that you're new in town?

"You can call me Ava. And yes, I'm new here, I just transferred," she answered, her voice clear and confident.

"And were you doing some other kind of work before?" Lauren asked patiently. This was the part of the dance where she pretended to not be asking exactly what type of fae she was examining. She was given more leeway due to her status as a doctor but she still had to tread carefully.

Ava watched as Lauren's assistant left the room in deference to the subject. "I was working for the coast guard upstate. I can breathe underwater. Comes in handy in that line of work," Ava said matter-of-factly.

"Oh. Are you a shapeshifter?" Lauren asked, her curiosity piqued. Ava clearly didn't mind her questions, so she might as well be direct.

"I can show you if you like," Ava said. Lauren nodded and turned away as she heard Ava moving on the table, disrobing. When Ava said that it was okay she turned and watched in wonder as Ava's legs transformed into one singular fin, shaping themselves slowly and appearing to melt together. It was rare for a fae to show themselves to her in such an unguarded way and Lauren struggled to not react too strongly.

"Mermaid," Lauren whispered to herself.

Ava looked like something out of a fairytale. Her long red hair was covering her chest, and Lauren would not have been shocked if it turned out that she was wearing clam shells over her breasts instead of her bra. For the first time she really noticed how beautiful Ava was and she cleared her throat, looking back down at her clipboard.

"Wow. That certainly would come in handy," Lauren said. "How does it work, your breathing underwater?" She had read about mermaids but had never studied them in any real depth.

"That's like asking how you breathe air, my dear," Ava replied. Lauren heard the rustling of fabric as she dressed herself again.

"This is always delicate, but do you think you'd ever be willing to come and swim in one of the pools we have here? I'd love to do some tests. The Ash always likes me to archive as much research material as I can," Lauren said.

"Of course, anything for The Ash," Ava agreed, but she was looking at Lauren brashly. If Lauren didn't know any better she would swear that Ava was flirting with her.

Aside from Bo, very few of the fae had ever taken an interest in her. Although a lot of them liked sleeping with humans for various reasons, getting hit on was not something that happened very often. Not that she minded – it just wasn't the done thing to feed on The Ash's property.

"Thanks. I just need to ask you a few more questions, take an imprint of your markings if that's okay?"

"Sure, I'm game."

X X X

"Went to see Lauren today," Dyson said as they lay side-by-side. Bo stiffened at the sound of her name.

"Oh yeah?" she said neutrally. Dyson had always been jealous over Lauren; there was no need to give him any ammunition.

"Yep. Took Ava to go get checked out."

"Right," Bo answered. They'd joked about him having a new female partner and she'd already sized up the new detective. She wasn't sure that she liked Ava as much as Hale but she didn't much care one way or the other. Hale had been transferred over to work in another division; apparently the higher-ups had decided that his family connections would be of more use there. Bo knew that Hale would spend as much time outside of work with them as he always had, so it was no big deal to her.

"She's so . . . officious," Dyson said through gritted teeth.

"Who, Ava?" Bo said, nuzzling into his chest.

"No, Lauren. I just don't understand why you ever liked her," Dyson said, managing to laugh and sound pissed at the same time.

Bo sighed. She spent half of her waking hours trying to get Dyson to communicate but honestly now she just wished he'd be quiet and go to sleep. Lauren was still in her bad books but he'd always picked at her for no reason, and it irritated her.

She rolled away from him. "I'm sure she was just doing her job."

"Why are you still defending her?" he challenged.

"Just don't talk about her like that, okay? It's in the past," Bo said tiredly.

"Fine," Dyson agreed.

When Dyson put his hand possessively on her hip a moment later Bo fought to not shake it off. She didn't want to think about Lauren or about why she still felt so protective of her. But when she was sliding into sleep, Lauren was all she thought about. Without her daytime filter to shut out the thoughts she dreamt that it was Lauren's warm body holding her from behind, and that Lauren had never hurt her.