Part One: And the heart is hard to translate

Tamsin woke up from another nightmare the same way she did every night; sweat dripping down her back and gasping for breath. Every night it was the same. She dreamed about Valhalla. She dreamed about dying again, about dying for Bo; the woman she was still pathetically in love with. Bo had ruined her life, but she had also saved her.

Before Bo, her life was simple. There was Valhalla, her sisters and then there was Odin. Odin gave the orders; she followed them, simple as that. This assignment supposed to be no different than others. What she hadn't counted on was Bo and her subsequent feelings for the succubus. She had wanted to hate Bo. Really, she had, but Bo made her feel things that she had forgotten many lifetimes ago: love, happiness, hope. Until Bo she had forgotten that there was still joy left in this world.

Tamsin had lived for a long time, a very long time, and it was easy for her to slip back into that warrior who killed without hesitation or mercy. It was easy for her to shed the trappings of her humanity, but throughout her various life cycles shreds of humanity had remained. She had needs she couldn't quite understand: a need to do good, a need to be loved, a need to be happy. Needs that were so human.

It was Bo and her compassion and her friends that made her realize this. She was tired of being alone, tired of this unbearable ache she felt in her heart and she was so done with taking orders from Odin and the Morrigan. She hated to admit it, but more than anything she wanted to be part of Bo's stupid happy sunshine gang.

She huffed and tugged at the puke green blanket that Dyson had given her the first day after her death. Her truck was long gone by now. Crashed in an effort to either take out Odin, her boss and Bo's long lost evil father, or at least take her to Valhalla. At that point all she knew was that Bo was in danger and she needed to do something fast. Her only regret was that she involved Dyson in the whole ordeal. The wolf had survived and without sustaining much damage, but the situation could have turned sour fast.

She remembered plummeting off the cliff and then waking up in the shining halls of Valhalla. From her position on the floor she had seen Bo being restrained magically by her father and all around them were her sisters filling up the great hall. The thing about Valhalla was that if you weren't a valkyrie or like Odin, you had to be dead to stay in these sacred halls permanently. Odin was going to kill Bo to keep her there forever. Tamsin had only seconds to make a decision.

So, she stood and walked slowly to the group letting her power build up and crash against the edges of her mind. Her eyes grew large and became black as coal. Her face turned skeletal and her blood ran black with power, showing through her translucent skin. She looked at her sisters and her lips curled up in a feral grin.

She sent out only one thought and in the next moment every single warrior was down.

Tamsin felt clumps and strands of her hair falling from her head and brushing against her skin like petals on their way down. She was dying, but she fought through it. She couldn't remember much about her fight with Odin, but she remembered that she had failed Bo. The shame of her failure burned hot within her still. Her last act was to throw herself in front of Bo and protect her against a blast of angry red energy that would have killed the succubus.

The next thing Tamsin remembered was waking up to Bo and Dyson standing over her looking both worried and relieved. She had been reborn. She was young again and at the start of a new life cycle. Tamsin wondered if this would be her last cycle.

She lived with Dyson now. If she was able to work, she would be saving up for a place of her own or at least a new truck. She slept on Dyson's couch with his scratchy blankets and lumpy pillows. She didn't mind much because it was still a step up from sleeping in the bed of her truck and the company wasn't bad either.

Living with Dyson wasn't as shitty as she thought it was going to be. He supplied her with food and beer and occasionally growled at her to rest. Not that she needed anyone taking care of her. She didn't have much to give the wolf in return, but she tried to keep her snark at a minimum. Try being the key word.

It had been a couple of weeks now since Valhalla and her rebirth. She got tired easily and ate twice as much food as she had before. Her powers weren't very strong at the moment, but she knew they would be strong as ever in a few months. Bo and Dyson knew this too, but continued to fuss over her.

She grumbled about it, but otherwise let them take care of her. And to be honest, while she was getting stronger, she still needed someone to watch her back. Normally, she would just hang out in Valhalla for a few months after her rebirth, but Valhalla was gone now and so were Odin and all the valkyries that were in the hall at the time. She wondered what her other sisters were doing now, the ones that were left on earth.

She sighed and turned over. She needed to stop thinking about Valhalla and her sisters. She didn't belong with them anymore. She didn't even know if she was a real valkyrie anymore. She didn't feel like one. She punched the lumps in her pillow, then screwed her eyes shut.

She woke up to the smell of bacon the next day. Dyson was cooking breakfast in the kitchen in just his boxers. Still bangable as ever. She might be head over heels in love with Bo, but that didn't mean she couldn't appreciate Dyson from afar. She dragged herself from the couch and took a seat at the kitchen table.

Dyson split the eggs and bacon into two portions and gave her the bigger one. She gave a grunt of thanks and then dug into her food without even looking at the wolf. Dyson smiled amusedly and took a seat across from her.

"I have to be at the station by ten," Dyson said in between bites of egg. "You want anything when I come back?"

She chewed and then swallowed before answering. "A life outside of this apartment would be great. I am going to shrivel up and die of boredom."

Dyson put his fork down. "Look, I know it sucks being stuck here, but Trick said it would be safer for you to stay inside while you're…recovering."

"I'm fine," she gritted out. "It's been a month."

Dyson sighed. "I'll bring you back some files. You can do some paperwork. Make yourself useful."

"Fine," she managed to get out around mouthful of bacon. Dyson changed the topic a second later to acquiring a real bed for her to sleep in. She wouldn't mind having a real bed, but she wasn't sure if that meant she was living with Dyson for good now. She wasn't the best roommate.

Dyson left for the station half an hour later, leaving Tamsin alone again. She didn't have a lot to do. She watched TV mostly, surfed the web and played the video games that Kenzi had brought over for her. She also napped a lot. When Dyson was gone she would just sink into his mattress. Yeah, a bed would be good she thought to herself.

This morning she settled for searching online for a new truck. The ones that caught her eye got written down on a piece of scrap paper. An hour into the search, she shivered and rubbed her hands over her arms.

Since she died, Tamsin still had trouble regulating her own body temperature. Sometimes she was too hot, other times like now, she was too cold. She rummaged through Dyson's closet and threw on one of his hoodies. It was large and comfy, but not warm enough. A minute later, Tamsin had on the white knitted cap and the matching mittens Dyson had bought her. She could do without the mittens, but apparently they kept your hands warmer than the regular gloves. Whatever. Finally feeling warmer, she grabbed a beer out of the fridge and settled herself on the couch to watch some TV.

Twenty minutes later she heard a key turn in the front door and her shoulders grew tense out of habit, but relaxed again once she saw it was just Bo. Bo visited her a couple times a week to babysit her and make sure she didn't burn down the house while Dyson was at work. She tried to keep some distance between Bo and herself. After all, it was her stupid feelings for the succubus that got her killed in the first place. Not to mention Bo was still obsessing over Lauren. The good doctor had up and disappeared after Valhalla and the whole crazy fae-hybrid thing.

Bo looked for her every day, following leads that took her to all corners of Canada and sometimes out of the country. Dyson had helped her the first couple of weeks, driving around with her and searching, but after awhile he had to return to work. She remembered Bo and Dyson fighting in the kitchen last week while she was drifting in and out of sleep. He told Bo exactly what she didn't want to hear. Maybe Lauren didn't want to be found. Tamsin agreed with him and so had Kenzi and Hale. The light fae weren't going to welcome Lauren back with open arms and the dark fae wouldn't want her either. She was a traitor to all fae as far as anyone was concerned.

She didn't really know if the doc actually went off the deep end and believed everything that Taft had told her. Tamsin thought the doc just saw an opportunity to get away from the fae and took it. Still, Bo was desperate to find her and now with no one helping, the succubus was running herself into the ground.

Bo placed two takeout boxes of Chinese food on the coffee table before her. Bless her. Tamsin picked up the box closest to her along with a pair of chopsticks. She was starving.

Bo took in her hat and mittens and smiled at her in a way that let her know the succubus thought she was being cute. She scowled and turned her attention back to the television.

Bo flopped down next to her. "What are you watching?"

She shrugged. "Some weird ass show with magic artifacts called Warehouse something. Whatever, the British chick is hot."

Bo glanced at the screen and then nodded in agreement.

She leaned forward to grab her beer with her mittened hands, but the bottle was snatched away from her before it could even reach lips.

"Hey!" She exclaimed.

"You shouldn't be drinking, you know." Bo took a sip and then smiled at her. "Beer is not good for growing valkyries."

She glared at Bo and the succubus just proceeded to finish off her beer. She crossed her arms over her chest like an angry child and tried to focus on the program. Somehow, she found that she couldn't. She was strangely hyperaware of everything. Like how her heart was beating too fast and how her palms were getting sweaty. She could smell whatever fruity shampoo Bo used and she could feel Bo's eyes on her and wished the succubus would just leave. It was too hard to have her so close, yet not have her at all.

Bo scooted closer to her, but she squirmed away trying to keep the distance between them. She couldn't deal with Bo. She knew that she had been more than a little mopey and quiet since Valhalla, even Dyson had commented on it once. She told him it was part of her rebirth. In reality she was just miserable. Trying to get over someone was a lot harder when her alcohol intake was restricted to the six-pack Dyson snuck in for her every week.

For most of Bo's visits she had been asleep, but now as she found herself awake for longer periods of time, she had to endure Bo's visits.

"Tamsin," the succubus said, breaking her out of her thoughts. She glanced up at chocolate brown eyes and for a moment forgot how to breathe.

She cleared her throat. "Yes?"

"You know-." Bo paused to take a breath. "I'm glad you didn't die back there."

Tamsin snorted. "I'm glad too, hotpants."

"No, I mean….I never thanked you for saving my life."

The succubus scooted even closer to her and she soon found herself with her back up against the arm of the couch, nowhere left to go. Bo reached out and took her hand.

"We haven't talked, Tamsin, about any of the stuff that happened in Valhalla or even what happened before all that. The bathtub?" Bo said softly.

Tamsin stiffened and pulled her hand out of the Bo's. She did not want to get into this. Not now, not ever.

"Can we not-." She stood abruptly and nearly fell back onto the coffee table. "Can we not talk about this?"

"Tamsin," Bo whispered, looking at her with worried eyes. The succubus reached a hand out towards her and she backed up even further out of reach.

"Shouldn't you be looking for Lauren or something?!" She blurted out and then cringed.

She watched Bo's face crumble at the mention of Lauren's name and immediately felt ashamed. "I mean… you don't want the trail to go cold," she finished lamely.

Bo said nothing for a while, just looked at her with searching eyes.

She coughed awkwardly and looked anywhere that wasn't gorgeous succubus.

"You're right," Bo finally said while standing up. "I'll, uh, see you later then."

Later that night, she lay on Dyson's couch thinking about Bo and Lauren and all the stupid feelings she had. A lot of her problems would be solved in they found Lauren. If Bo and Lauren were together again, then maybe that would give her an incentive to stop being such a sap and get over the succubus. She was sure the happy sunshine gang would find a way to keep the good doc safe. Of course she'd have to make a few calls. She had friends, well she wouldn't call them friends exactly, but people owed her favors and she was going to call them in.