If Tamsin was in any mood to laugh, she'd have to admire the sheer shittiness of the bind she's caught herself in. Lauren Lewis in the most un-doctorly capacity Tamsin can imagine, Tamsin's own gun clutched in her hand as they crash awkwardly together through the underbrush. She's supposed to be the goddamn Valkyrie, and now she's the one who's being hunted, captured, dragged back, like she's used to doing to so many others.

Talk about a reality check.

Lauren keeps the barrel aimed at Tamsin's head all the way back to the car, stopping only to bark out directions (as Tamsin has no fucking idea where they are) and once to toss Tamsin's cell phone into a muddy creek. She steps down hard and Tamsin hears the screen crack under Lauren's boot.

"I hope you memorized Dyson's number."

"Okay, now you're just being a bitch."

Tamsin's rage is rapidly cooling into something more like resentment, an icy sharpness in her stomach that fine-tunes all her senses to possibilities of escape. Escape, then revenge. Tamsin doesn't need to take the doctor out, not until she's gotten everything she needs from her, and right now she's in no position to get back to Dyson alone. She was planning on bringing the doctor in with less of a struggle, but the Fae won't be disappointed; Tamsin will deliver the doctor to their fucking doorstep.

Lauren must have the sixth sense of a pointer because Tamsin trips over a branch and kicks the car square in the bumper before she realizes they've found the car they've abandoned, and then has to stand the indignity of having her arms shackled behind the headrest of the passenger seat. Lauren makes sure she's secure with a hard tug on her arms.

"Jesus-take it easy."

Lauren wiggles her hand into the front pocket of Tamsin's jeans and she yelps, thrashing from side to side and . Lauren's hand grazes the inner part of her thigh and Tamsin flushes in indignation.

"Christ- get your fucking hand out of my pants, you perv!"

Lauren rolls her eyes and fishes out Tamsin's car keys from her pocket. The ignition takes, surprisingly, on the first try.

"Shut up. As if I had any interest at all in-"

"That's your explanation?! What am I supposed to think when you put your hand down my pants without even asking first?"

"Fine, I'm sorry, but shut up already."

Tamsin rams her shoulder against the side of the door in a vain attempt to lower the window. Lauren must feel at least a little embarrassed, because she lets the window down and the stale air in the car begins to recirculate as Lauren maneuvers them out of the woods and onto what resembles a road.

Tamsin spits out into the open and Lauren makes a distinctly disgusted noise in the back of her throat.

"My nose fucking hurts."

"Quit being such a baby." Lauren scoffs, as she steers the car through a corridor in the forest about a foot wide. The sun's setting rays paint stripes of light across their bodies and Tamsin squints through the window in sullen silence. "Fae blood contains opioid-like proteins, you're just in temporary withdrawal since you're feeling genuine pain for the first time in your life. It's not going to kill you. A broken nose is the least of your problems."

"Well, I wouldn't have it if you didn't slam your fist into my face." Tamsin snarls. "How do you know all this anyway?"

Lauren shrugs.

"The Ash had me doing research on pain reduction among Fae species when I first started working for him, something about needing an analgesic in the field. And then I wanted to find a cure for Bo."

She falls suddenly silent, and Tamsin gets a funny feeling in the pit of her stomach.

"Bo was sick? Why did I never know about this?"

"It was years ago. She wasn't physically sick, but she was raised human so she had no idea how to control her powers with no one to help her. The Ash at the time thought he could sway Bo over to his side if she had someone show her the ropes. I thought I'd try-"

"Wait- you volunteered yourself to help a girl you didn't know, a baby succubus at that, who could have drained you dry in a split second? I've had my dealings with succubi before, none of them were experts at self-control."

"Bo didn't hurt me. Not back then."

Lauren refuses to look at her.

Tamsin clears her throat and bucks fruitlessly at the cuffs, a little relieved when there's no response from the woman beside her. They drive in silence for another hour, and then Lauren visibly relaxes as they pull into what looks like a clearing. Tamsin sees past the tangled trees and ivy to see a small cottage tucked away, with only a rough driveway to indicate that anyone is there at all.

Their wheels have barely hit gravel before a woman emerges from the tangled underbrush with a very large, very loaded shotgun. Tamsin automatically makes herself smaller in her seat.

"Hands off the wheel or I open fire!"

She thinks that Lauren's lost her capacity to shock anymore, after the events of the day, but Tamsin still gasps when Lauren nonchalantly exits the car and the blonde, panicked woman swings to her with alarming speed.

"Crystal, it's okay. It's me."

It's like watching someone get a thousand volts to the face, minus the pain. Crystal drops the gun like a live piranha and launches herself at Lauren, who catches her around the waist and brings her down to earth. Crystal is crying and laughing at the same time, and as they spin in joyful circles Tamsin sees the doctor break into the happiest smile Tamsin's seen in months.

She ducks her head, embarrassed. She feels like she's eavesdropping on a private moment, intruding somewhere she's not supposed to be. Which is ridiculous, because her life is still in danger and she should be finding weaknesses that she can use against Lauren. This Crystal woman appears to be her best bet.

Tamsin stares intently at Crystal's face and wills herself to remember it, see it beyond the joy and the relief and the longing so she can turn it to her advantage. But she can't.

Crystal appears to be talking much more than Lauren, her hands flying about now that they're not preoccupied with the shotgun. Snatches of their conversation float to Tamsin on the wind, but her name never comes up. Not in so many words, anyway.

"But you just got here!"

"I have to leave immediately, this one-" Lauren gesticulates back at Tamsin, "-found me and wants to turn me back in to the Fae. It doesn't change the plan, but I'm going to have to disappear right now and I can't tell you for how long. You may not see me again before I turn myself in."

"So don't do it."

Lauren cocks her head with an indulgent sigh.

"We've talked about this, Crystal. I have to."

"No, you don't. Lauren, please, you don't know what they'll do to you and we can fight them, we can hide so they'll never find us."

"They already have."

Crystal eyes Tamsin with a look that just drips with contempt.

"She's one person. Give me a minute with her and I'll put her out of the picture if you won't, just don't yourself up for her- she's not worth it." Tamsin bristles at that, but stills when Crystal continues. A slow sort of ache rises in her chest, a burning like embarrassment and a guilt that hurts worse than her aching nose. Shame. That's the word for it.

"You know how the Fae fucked both of us over for years. They killed people we both care about, they took my home and my livelihood and they'll take you too if I don't fight for you."

"Crystal, we've had this conversation a million times. I'll set forth my terms, force them to pick one or the other. And believe me, they'll pick correctly. I promise, I'll do everything in my power to protect you if they come knocking, and this is the only way to ensure that you'll be safe."

"You can't possibly think-"

Lauren cuts her off.

"Can't I just enjoy seeing you again? You won't change my mind, but I'd prefer our last meeting be a good one. Please."

Crystal looks like she might argue, but turns her attention back to Lauren after glaring at Tamsin for a full ten additional seconds. Tamsin has no doubt that if Crystal could douse her in lighter fluid and set her on fire right now, she would.

"Okay. Okay, what do you need?"

"Gas and supplies. And pocket money if you have it- no doubt the Fae know all my bank accounts by now. I don't want to put you out so we're going to drive as far back there as possible, it will take a couple of days. I have a few stops I need to make along the way."

Crystal nods, and then the two of them disappear into the ramshackle little house, leaving Tamsin still handcuffed to the seat and unable to move. She curses under her breath and wiggles her foot up and down as it begins to fall asleep. Nothing for it.

Tamsin closes her eyes and dozes. The day is approaching late afternoon and the sun has reached that hot-but-not-too-hot level that settles agreeably on her skin. It's a beautiful day.

When the door bangs open again, it rouses her. She sits up straighter, blinking groggily as Crystal and Lauren emerge with a duffle bag each of supplies. The shotgun is picked back up, offered to Lauren, but she refuses. This time, Lauren piles the bags in the backseat and turns back to Crystal, not looking at Tamsin even once. She might as well be invisible.

"This is so generous of you, I appreciate it. I will find a way to pay you back for this at the nearest opportunity, I swear.

"Or you could stay." Crystal's voice barely reaches Tamsin with its softness. "For just a night?"

Lauren shakes her head.

"I wish I could, but we've got to get moving before more of the Fae show up. Thank you so much, Crystal, for being as wonderful as you are. I'm so glad- so glad- you happened to me."

Then Lauren leans in and kisses her deep, pulling Crystal forward a full half-step and dropping her hands to the woman's hips. Tamsin watches, eyes lidded, as Crystal's expression of surprise slowly melts away to one of contentment, and she adjusts to the doctor's lips, her hand coming up to cup the curve of Lauren's elbow. The connection breaks and Tamsin sees tears running down Crystal's cheeks.

"I'm coming back someday. You'll see me again."

"Alive?"

"Alive."

"Promise?"

Lauren looks her in the eyes.

"I promise. "

Tamsin sees a strange look, an unnaturally dreamy veil of unknowing, pass over Crystal's face. The woman blinks once, twice, and then her eyes lose their glazed appearance long enough to fix on Lauren one last time.

They hug, tightly, and Crystal abruptly turns her head away when Lauren breaks contact and heads to the car with Tamsin in it. They get into the car in silence, but as Lauren again makes sure Tamsin can't move more than a few necessary muscles and turns the key in the ignition, Crystal waves to them and Lauren smiles.

They pull out with Crystal resting her shotgun on her hip, fingers tapping restlessly against her thigh as if she's about to break and follow the two people rapidly disappearing from view.

The roads are still treacherous in the darkness, at least from Tamsin's view, and she sits with teeth as Lauren steers their clunker of a car through roads littered with gravel and potholes full of water, never mind debris from the woods around them. Forget tracking the place; Tamsin doesn't even know if they're on dry land at this point. Lauren doesn't seem to be having the same dilemma; she doesn't stop once to look at anything other than the road in front of them. Tamsin looks around, stops, and curses.

"Shit, my GPS was in my phone. I have literally no clue where the Dal is from here."

Lauren shakes her head.

"Forget it, we'll get a map at a gas station or something. I'm not stopping."

"But-"

"I don't need a fucking GPS. I know where we're going."

Not three seconds later, they hit a dead end and Tamsin snorts.

"You sure about that, doc? If you don't want to get us both lost, swallow your goddamn pride and let me try to find out where we are. What about Crystal- she's bound to know how to get out of this fucking forest."

Lauren's jaw is set, eyes narrowed at the road illuminated in front of them.

Tamsin takes the time to look at Lauren then, her face a mess of shadow in the darkness, and suddenly understands that this isn't about pride. Lauren pulls away from the wall of trees before them and heads back down the road they came from.

"We can't go back there. She- Crystal isn't going to welcome us back."

"What?"

"I said, we're not welcome there anymore."

"I'm just going to go ahead and repeat myself- what?"

Lauren refuses to say anything more. Tamsin has to think for a second more before she understands.

"You mean- she doesn't recognize us. She won't know who we are."

Lauren stays silent, but her hands tighten on the wheel. Tamsin hears the plastic creak under the pressure, and imagines Lauren's chest constricting the same way.

"A mind-altering serum." she notes, emotionless. "You wiped her memory."

Somehow she can generate a spark of pity for the poor woman, and slumps back into her seat.

If she could look back, she has no doubt she'd see Crystal, confused as to why she has a shotgun in her hand and two missing bags from her home. There will be strange tire tracks in her driveway and charges she doesn't remember making on her credit card. Maybe she'll call the police, or maybe she'll chalk the whole thing up to forgetfulness and never question it again. Either way, Crystal will eventually forget anything ever happened, and return to whatever life she had before Lauren (and the Fae) entered it, and perhaps that's for the better.

That doesn't make Tamsin hate the doctor any less.

"You promised her she'd see you again." She accuses.

"I promised her I would protect her." Lauren hisses, turning a corner with such viciousness that Tamsin is thrown back against her door. "Besides, I know the kind of hell you'd bring upon her if you thought she had any connection to me."

Tamsin looks down at her hands, uncertainty roiling in her stomach. The bags of food still sits like stone in her lap.

"I wouldn't have hurt her."

"Yeah? And what about the rest of the Fae?"

"They wouldn't have known where to find her. You hid the location well enough."

Lauren grunts but doesn't reply for a good minute as she backs them up and down an alternate road, biting down on her lip as they finally make it out of a tangle of paths to the bright lights of the freeway. Freedom. They're on their way.

"Well, I'm not willing to take that chance."

Tamsin's handcuffs itch. She scratches at them, absentmindedly, as Lauren refuses to speak another word. The strips of yellow on black blend into one continuous border, the streetlamps all alike in their stark whiteness. There are few other cars to break the monotony. Lauren's quiet breathing somehow grates on Tamsin's ears, as she continues to worry at the indents the handcuffs have made on her skin, and before too long Tamsin feels a sting, cranes her neck to look back, and realizes that there is blood under her fingernails.

Ouch.

They keep going until Lauren starts to fidget. The fidgets turn into sighs, and the sighs turn into yawns, and Tamsin stops trying to stay awake at about the same time Lauren gives up trying to hide her frustration. She wakes with a start outside of a motel, from the sound of Lauren unceremoniously slamming the trunk closed with more force than necessary. Her scowl doesn't do Tamsin any favors as she yanks the passenger side door open.

Only the seatbelt and the cuffs prevent Tamsin from falling face-first on the pavement. Not that getting her arms yanked halfway out of their sockets is any more appealing.

"Ow, you fucking-"

"We're stopping here for the night, I've already booked a room. Get up."

Tamsin's suddenly alert, prepared for any weakness she can exploit from a tired, weakened Lauren to get out of her shitty situation.

Lauren eyes her warily.

"Don't get any ideas, you're not getting out of those handcuffs."

"What if I have to go to the bathroom?"

"Well, you're just going to have to figure that out yourself. I'm not wiping your ass for you."

Tamsin growls, literally growls in a way that would make Dyson turn his head in curiosity, but Lauren just slings another bag over her shoulder and looks up the stairs to their room.

"You first."

Lauren's not actually that cruel- she lets Tamsin use the bathroom with one hand free and the other cuffed to the sink handle, Tamsin's pistol still in her possession. The second all Tamsin's bodily needs are accounted for, though, she's re-shackled to the headboard of the bed and no amount of Tamsin's threats or incessant coughing will get her to let go.

Tamsin groans and rubs at her stomach with her free hand. An empty ache claws at her from the inside out, burning all the way up to her chest. Is this what being human feels like?

"My stomach hurts."

Lauren smirks.

"You're just hungry. Starving someone in a dungeon isn't all fun and games anymore, is it?"

Tamsin glares until Lauren relents, cuts open a box of cereal and tosses it to her. Tamsin wolfs down what she can, spilling cornflakes everywhere, and tries her hardest not to choke. This is made more difficult when she begins to get drowsy again, and has to make the choice between food and sleep.

Lauren pulls out Tamsin's gun and dismantles it in front of her, pulling a cloth from her pocket to clean the slide.

"Why aren't you sleeping?"

"You first."

Tamsin is getting damn tired of those words.

But she's also damn tired in general, with the chaos of the day settling like solid metal into her bones and her situation a little less grim now that they have a plan. Lauren won't stop staring at her- there is no chance of escape tonight. She promises herself to try again tomorrow, and as soon as she closes her eyes, just for a second, Tamsin falls asleep.