Pam nearly fell out of her shoes when Eric came rushing into the room, scaring the hell out of her. Before she could ask him what he was doing, he crushed her to him in a tight hug.
"Uh, hi," she said, hugging him back. She was just glad she had put the hair straightener down for the moment when he rushed in.
"Hi," he said, cradling her head and stroking her back.
"So… what's up?" If she needed to breathe she was pretty sure she'd be suffocating by now with how tightly he was holding her.
Finally he pulled away only to take her face in his hands. "Are you okay?" he asked, looking at her as if he was trying to read her mind.
"Are you okay? What the hell is up with you?" He was being incredibly strange, even for him.
He sighed and pulled back from her completely. "When Tara died, what did it feel like?" he asked.
"Is this therapy?" she responded.
"No, what did it physically feel like?" he clarified.
Realization began to dawn. Between the two of them she was the only one who had ever lost a progeny and so he was asking her for verification.
"Kinda like taking an ice sword to the chest," she tried to explain. "The first time it was more like getting drenched with a bucket of icewater, though." She'd lost both her progeny, not that she had really been close to either of them, especially the first. "Willa?" she asked.
"I think so," he said, moving to sit in the chair behind the desk.
"I'll call Jessica," Pam said. Jessica was really the only person she kept in contact with, though technically Willa was her sister. She had spent a good deal of time with Jessica in the past and felt bad for her for having such a boring, horrible maker. Well, now he was dead. She felt even worse for her that her useless waste of a maker had pussed out and ended it when Jessica was still so young because even though he was boring and useless, Jessica could never replace him.
Pam sifted through the drawer of the desk Eric occupied to find her phone. Scrolling through, she eventually found her number. The phone rang and rang, but Jessica never answered.
"Jessica," she said to the voicemail. "What's happened to Willa? Let us know if you know anything." She hung up and tossed the phone down.
"What do you want to do?" she asked Eric.
"We'll just wait to hear anything. There's nothing we can do now anyway."
Pam nodded and moved back to the mirror where she had been straightening her hair for the evening. She brushed the slightly tangled hair that had not yet been straightened before beginning to section a piece off.
"Are you okay?" she asked, not really knowing what to do. When Godric and Nora had died Eric had been devastated, but he had been much closer to them than he had been to Willa.
Eric was suddenly behind her taking the hair from her hands. Picking up the straightener from where it balanced precariously on the filing cabinet, he continued straightening her hair.
"I was afraid it was you," he admitted. "I liked Willa, but she made it clear she wanted nothing to do with me."
Pam watched him continue his work in the mirror. "I liked her too," she said. At Eric's doubtful glance, she added, "I did! I mean, I'd have liked her better if she'd had a different maker," she admitted, "but she was sassy. I could appreciate that."
They lapsed into silence and pretty soon Eric finished Pam's hair. She couldn't say he'd ever done this before, but she supposed if losing one progeny made him wish to be closer to the other, she wouldn't stop him. It was even a little sweet.
"You do good work," Pam admired, checking her hair. "You're hired."
He gave her a slight smile and suddenly her phone rang. Snatching it up, she answered, "What?"
"She's dead," Jessica said. "I'm sorry."
"What happened?" Pam asked. "Isn't Bon Temps supposed to be all peace on Earth now?"
"We weren't in Bon Temps. We were in Baton Rouge for a concert. Some anti-vampire dickhead snuck up behind her and staked her before we even knew what happened."
Pam absorbed this information. She looked at Eric but couldn't tell what he was thinking.
"What happened to him?" Pam asked.
"I followed him home and ripped his fucking head off," Jessica said.
"Nicely done," Pam complimented. "Thanks for letting us know. I'll talk to you later," she got off the phone. Hanging up, she gave Eric a concerned glance.
"I'm fine, Pam," he said.
"It's not your fault she didn't want your protection," Pam said.
"I know."
She sensed that he needed some time on his own. "I'm gonna go make sure no one is getting killed out there."
Eric nodded. Pam lingered for a few seconds before apparently determining that he would be fine and that it was okay to leave him.
He really was okay. He had tried to reach out to Willa, but she wanted nothing to do with them. He was sorry he wasn't there to save her, but he couldn't have done any more than he had when she didn't want it.
Mostly he just felt guilty that he had felt so much relief that it wasn't Pam he'd felt die. But that would fade in time.