Disclaimer: The Southern Vampires Mysteries are the property of Charlaine Harris. Death Cab for Cutie is responsible for this definition of love and the song What Sarah Said.
This story was originally inspired by the I Write the Songs Contest. It got stuck in that folder of unfinished stories when I decided to do Seasons of Love and Love Shack. I brought it out and thought it might work for the Happily (N)ever After Contest but after revision it was under the word limit (Let that serve as your angst warning. This is sad.) Thanks to all those who organize contests, because the themes inspire me and I love reading what others come up with as well. A big thanks to Bathshebarocks for reading a draft of this and giving me some great feedback. I hope you enjoy and would love to hear what you think, good or bad.
Eric had never been to a modern day human hospital before he met Sookie Stackhouse. Since the part-fae telepathic waitress had walked into his bar, he'd had occasion to visit one several times, though he never got used to the way the hallways reeked of piss and 409.
The nurses had finally given up trying to enforce visitor's hours. It had actually surprised Eric that they'd tried to argue with him on his first few visits. Humans didn't usually dare to contradict him, so he felt that Sookie was in good hands.
When he'd first learned of her condition, he'd been livid with her for concealing it for so long. In turn, she'd been frustrated with him for interfering by having her moved to the best hospital in Shreveport and arranging for her to have a single room. Time had not made Eric any less high-handed or Sookie any less stubborn.
He'd tried to get her to drink some of his blood, blood being the only way he knew to fix anything. But she'd staunchly refused so he hadn't offered again.
That first night, it had been years since he'd last laid eyes on her. Their paths had crossed from time to time, as she was inevitably drawn into yet another supernatural skirmish, but as the tumultuous years immediately following the Great Revelation passed and vampires became more normalized politically and socially, there had been less conflict and less need for Eric's world to touch Sookie's.
It hadn't happened all at once. But one day it had become permanent, real, final. They'd been unsuccessful in staying away from each other for years after that initial break up, but both had slowly recognized that they would never get what they truly wanted out of their relationship.
They'd had the best kind of love story—the ill-fated kind. It was as tragic as those of the greatest star-crossed lovers of all time: Romeo and Juliet, Newland Archer and Ellen Olenska, Buffy and Angel. Despite the depth of their love, they couldn't be together.
He arrived later than usual that last night because he'd had to take care of some unexpected business. As his shadow fell across her frail body, he realized he should have come at first dark, all else be damned. Sookie had never seemed so breakable. It had been easier to doubt her humanity when she fought beside him, but he was rudely reminded that she was, and would always be, mostly human. It still didn't seem possible that something so prosaic as disease could claim her life after all she'd survived.
"I am here," he said as he walked into her room.
"And I am here," she replied.
"You look well," he said, taking a seat in one of the uncomfortable chairs upholstered in a tacky geometric print. It certainly hadn't been designed for someone of Eric's size and Sookie smiled in amusement as she watched him scoot it up to the bed and adjust himself in it.
"You're a bad liar," she said with a laugh. The truth was, it wasn't ever the way Sookie looked that had attracted him; it was the force of her being. He reached for her hand, taking the one that didn't have needles stuck in it and tubes running out of it in between his two larger ones. Her skin had once looked so striking against his, but now the glow of her tan had faded so much that she was almost as white as him. He hair, once the same vibrant and shiny blonde as his, was now thin and drab.
"I got you to suck a bullet out of my chest once," he said.
"I was more naïve back then."
Eric smiled fondly at the memory. It hadn't taken long for Sookie to lose that innocence. Though he hadn't ever told her everything, that had been the only time he'd ever really lied to her.
"Pam sends her . . . she says hi." In fact, it was only Pam's return to Shreveport that let Eric spend these last nights with Sookie. She'd grown tired of his foul mood when his relationship with the telepath had finally ended for good and had struck out on her own again. As angry as she'd been with both of them, Eric had only to say the words and she'd returned. She'd dropped the phone after he'd whispered, "Sookie . . ."
"Tell her hi back," Sookie said. Her thumb started gently stroking the side of his hand where it gripped hers. That such a simple touch could be so satisfying still caught Eric off guard. Though he'd loved a few women over the centuries, none had been like Sookie Stackhouse. If he lived another thousand years, he still doubted he'd ever meet a woman he could compare to her.
"How was your day?" He asked conversationally. Steadily worse, by the look of her. If possible, her gaunt cheeks seemed even more sunken than they had twenty-four hours ago. Eric could feel the pain of every breath, though it had been years since they'd exchanged blood and only an echo of their bond remained.
"I've had better. You?" Eric smirked. Sookie had only become more amusingly irreverent as she'd aged. That polite charm that had always been a part of her heritage had been worn down as she'd grown up. Instead of being simply straightforward she was now almost blunt.
"I rested well," Eric replied.
"I guess some things never change. Though in some ways, you certainly have."
"For the better, I trust."
"You're more talkative now. I used to say 'we need to talk' and you would say 'no, no, no'." He'd thought being quiet on certain subjects would keep her safe and keep her with him. In retrospect, he realized it only made it more difficult for her to trust him. He'd justified it by telling himself she wasn't very forthcoming either.
"You refused to discuss a few things yourself." Eric recalled how terrified she'd been when he tried to explain that he'd recovered his memories of the time he'd spent with her when he was cursed. They'd never actually gotten around to having that talk after the first takeover—there was always something else going on, and in the end, it hadn't mattered.
"There was nothing either of us could have said that would have changed anything." The truth had been obvious, always known but only just now acknowledged. They'd been doomed from the start.
"You know I wanted you. Always." His words hung in the air, somewhere between a question and a statement.
"I didn't know," Sookie said. Even when he' remembered their dome light moment, he'd never had the courage to say always to her again until now. "But it wouldn't have changed my mind if I had."
Eric knew that too, which was why he'd never laid it out like that before. There was a reason that they hadn't worked out. A vampire with political obligations being in a relationship with a telepath whose gift was so tempting to other supernatural beings had proven too complicated. "But we had some good times. Didn't we?"
"Oh, yeah." Sookie laughed too hard then, causing her to cough and choke. It was a few minutes before she settled down. After several nights spent with her in her deteriorating condition Eric was used to these fits. When it finally passed, he smoothed her hair back from her forehead, and she sighed in contentment at his cool touch. "We did have a lot of fun," she said with a smile.
"Remember when I taught you how to use a sword?" There was no forgetting the first time that she'd decapitated a zombie. After Victor had died and they'd had peace for a brief time, except for the incident with the necromancer. That battle had paled in comparison to some of the horrors they'd endured and both remembered it fondly. Those had been the good days, when they'd felt invincible as long as they were together.
"You always did love a good fight," she said. Though they were supposedly just friends, that battle brought back memories . . . and all it had taken was one kiss.
They'd lasted a year, that time. Sookie never did quit her job, but she cut back on her hours and stayed with Eric when his business and political duties allowed. Just as he had once promised, they'd explored each other's bodies night after night. And he'd loved her.
Which in the end had been too dangerous. When they'd finally both seen the liability of their love, they'd agreed it was best to limit it.
"They're just not the same, without you," he replied. "Nothing is." His voice cracked on those last words and his eyes were rimming with pink.
"Don't be sad. It doesn't suit you."
"I can't help feeling that I've lost something. That we should have tried harder."
"None of that matters. You're here now."
"Doesn't seem to make up for it." Learning a new lesson hadn't come easy to Eric. After a thousand years, he'd lost his appreciation for time. Sookie had taught him the meaning of it again.
Sookie's grip on his hand lessened and she closed her eyes. It was only when she spoke again that Eric realized she wasn't asleep.
"I went to Sunday school as a child." Eric gave her a confused look, which she caught just as she opened her eyes. "You know, at church. Kids learn lessons about the Bible. My teacher was so nice to me. Miss Jenny was her name. She had the creamiest skin I'd ever seen."
Eric didn't understand what she was talking about, but he held her hand and listened to the rhythm of her voice. "And what makes you think of her now?" he asked. He knew talking only diminished her strength, but he still wanted to hear her speak.
"In my class there was another girl who later moved away. She was different too. Not like me, but in her own way. Everyone always thought her strange, but we got along."
"You've always been kind to those who are different," Eric observed. He counted himself among those who had benefited from her benevolent nature. She'd never faulted him for being what he was. She'd even loved him after she'd been able to feel him and knew for herself the darkness that resided within him.
"You flatter me. I can be as judgmental and spiteful as any human," she said.
"Don't act as if I do not know you; I am a part of you." She managed to roll her eyes, but then looked in his eyes and nodded in acknowledgement of the connection they shared. Once the moment has passed, she began her story again.
"One Sunday morning we were having a lesson. Miss Jenny asked everyone to say what they thought love was," Sookie said, a grim smile evident behind her pained expression. Eric returned her grin with a small, sad one of his own.
"What did you say?" Eric leaned forward and rested his elbows on the side of the bed.
"Well, since I could read her mind, I knew the answer she was looking for: God is Love." She coughed, loud and deep, and he turned to get her some water and held it to her lips. She drank deeply until the small paper cup was empty.
"But Sarah—that was her name, the girl who was different—she didn't read minds, but she saw the world differently than others, I think. Her answer left Miss Jenny speechless."
"What did Sarah say?" He was humoring her. He didn't at all appreciate the gravity of what she was trying to explain.
"Love is watching someone die," she whispered.
His lip trembled and he was silent for a moment. A single tear ran down his right cheek, staining Sookie's white sheets.
"But I could still turn you." He wasn't ready to let her go. Even though he hadn't been able to have her in the way he wanted, he had always taken comfort in knowing she was alive.
"But you promised you'd never do that," she said.
"You do not want to be like me." His back stiffened and he straightened up, but he did not move to wipe away the trail of blood his tear had left.
"No, mostly I don't want to end up like Bubba." There was a long pause as they looked one another in the eye. The steady beep of one of the machines was the only sound in the room. "I'm already too much like you."
She was breathing slow and shallow, as if she knew her breaths were numbered and she had already taken her allotment for today. With every beep on the LCD screen he felt her slip further away from him as if she was sliding further down the slope of each descending peak on the monitor. Eric realized his selfishness in holding on to her now. She had been his, and in some ways, she would always be his.
"You should sleep."
"I know. I was really just waiting for you. You'll stay with me?" Her voice quivered, unsure of his answer. As calm and nonchalant as she'd been about her impending death, now that the moment was approaching, her fear showed.
Rather than replying, he stood from his chair. He realized she could not move over herself so he lowered the railing of the bed and lifted her body to make room, and then awkwardly arranged their limbs so they were lying together.
"Tell me, was it frightening?" she asked as he nuzzled against her hair.
"Was what frightening?" he replied as he stroked her arm.
"Dying," she whispered.
Eric remembered his own death. It had been terrifying, yes, but worth it. He was sure Sookie's would be the same.
"No," he said, telling her one last lie. Her breathing and heartbeat slowed until they both stopped, and her body grew cold in his arms.
Years passed. Eric left Louisiana, wandering as he had done when his maker had first released him. Whenever Sookie crossed his mind and that familiar ache flared, he reminded himself of what Sarah said.
I also didn't think this was right for the HNA Contest because to me, it sort of is a happy ending. Whether or not you get that happily ever after is really all about where you pull the curtain, after all.