A/N: This is the short sequel to A Change of Worlds. If you haven't read ACOW yet... Then this story won't make a lick of sense to you and the world it's set it in will be pretty confusing too. So I encourage you to read it if you haven't done so already.
This won't be very long. I expect it to be no more than 10 chapters. Majority already written.
Chapter 1
"What about Sadie?" I held the small yellow-paged book above my head, the sky behind it stretching across blue and endless.
"No. Too American," Claudine replied and I turned my head to poke my tongue out at her. The grass tickled my cheek.
"Okay…" I flicked through the pages at random before opening the book again. "What about Estelle? Or Evelyn?"
There was a shriek, and I lifted my head off the grass to see Hunter darting around the trees, Dermot and Colman popping back and forth away from him. I couldn't help but smile at the joy on his face, how it flooded his thoughts as he tried his hardest to use his telepathy to locate the fairies popping out of sight through the forest.
I heard Claudine's sharp intake of breath beside me and when I looked to her, she grabbed my arm excitedly. She was on her side facing me, the both of us laying in the sunny grass outside the old farmhouse in Bon Temps.
"Quickly, cousin, feel this," she said. She lifted her flowy blouse and placed my hand on her warm, round stomach. I felt a soft thudding and rolling against my hand.
"Wow…" I breathed, not daring to move my hand even as I turned on my side to face her too. I eventually lifted my hand up to watch as a round lump moved and poked out from below her rib cage. Her stomach shifted and the lump disappeared.
"Was that an elbow?" I asked.
"Maybe," she smiled. She rubbed her stomach contentedly. I could feel the gentle pulse of the two little minds growing inside her. There were no discernable thoughts; just a steady thrum of needs met, of warmth and comfort.
Dermot popped beside us, his face lit up as brightly as daylight. "He's getting better!"
Hunter ran across the grass towards us and Dermot popped right in front of him, sweeping him up into his arms. They both laughed uproariously and took off for the trees again.
"He's so much like Jason," I said watching Dermot. It made my heart hurt. Dermot and Jason could have almost passed for twins.
"I wish for you that he could be here," Claudine said, patting my hand sympathetically.
"He would've made a great uncle."
My stomach grumbled loudly and we laughed, the sad moment dissolving. We were being lazy laying in the grass anyway, it was way past lunch time. At least Claudine had an excuse. I could see the way the weariness of late pregnancy was drawing around her features. Her brown eyes still held their customary twinkle, but the slight circles under her eyes revealed the extent of her weariness. I helped Claudine to her feet and we headed inside to the kitchen.
Gran's house was restored again to its former pre-apocalypse glory. In fact, it looked even better now. The boards were pulled off the windows, the hardwood floors buffed and waxed, and Dermot, Claude and Colman had just finished repainting the outside a week earlier. The garden had taken off as well; everything that had been planted seemed to have grown by a foot between each visit. Niall had blessed the grounds, Claudine told me, and everything here would now and forever grow with abundance. I loved seeing the life being breathed back into my childhood home.
For lunch that day, Dermot had brought through a basket laden with fresh salad greens and vegetables from Faerie, and so Claudine and I sat at the kitchen table, slicing tomatoes and some exotic variety of cucumber for a salad.
"So…?" Claudine asked with an inquiring smile. She scraped the sliced tomatoes from the chopping board into the bowl and set her knife down on top of the board.
"What?"
"I wish to know how it's going with your vampire." She leaned an elbow onto the table, resting her chin on her hand, brown eyes sparkling.
I finished slicing the cucumbers and added them to the bowl.
"I – well…" I trailed off, reaching out with mental feelers to check on Hunter, now a nervous habit of mine. He was still playing in the yard. "Things are… good."
"Good?" She scrunched the tip of her nose. "Of all the descriptors you could pick, you simply choose 'good'?"
"Well, things are. I'm not sure what else you want me to say." I grabbed a bunch of chives and stood to rinse them under the faucet.
"How about, he loves me passionately with every last one of his undying breaths and my life now has meaning with him by my side?"
I shot her a look from over my shoulder. "Claudine, does that sound like the sort of thing I'd say?"
Claudine laughed melodiously. "True, cousin. I might be inclined to check your temperature if you'd said that."
I returned with the washed chives and sat back down.
"If you must know, things are great between us. When we're together… I don't know, it's like life seems in technicolor."
Claudine looked at me blankly.
"You know," I paused my chopping to gesture with the knife, "things seem brighter, life feels happier. It's just all the other stuff."
"Mmhmm…" she said encouragingly.
I sighed and set the knife down. "Do you really want to hear this?"
She nodded eagerly and I narrowed my eyes.
"Why?"
Pam was always hounding me for details if only to satisfy her irrepressible curiosity and to find details to needle Eric with. Not that I thought Claudine was doing the same, but then again, who really knew with fairies.
"You are family; I care for you, Sookie. I simply wish to know how your life is."
She took my hand, instilling it with her fairy warmth, the kind that makes you overflow with feelings of wellness.
"Okay," I sighed, relenting as I enjoyed the warm of her touch. "What I mean by 'other stuff' is… is the difficulties of a long distance relationship, and how tricky it is to even have a relationship while sharing a house with another telepath. I feel like I'm constantly on guard, like I have to either mentally check on Hunter every few minutes to make sure he's still there, and still sleeping, slash not listening in when we… You know." My cheeks prickled, turning red. "Otherwise, I'm just struggling with keeping my shields up for when it counts - if you catch my drift. Then there's the whole issue of having a vampire for a boyfriend - when the last vampires to roll through town killed two of its citizens and kidnapped another. I've been a hot topic of debate at more than one town meeting." I exhaled heavily with the end of my spiel.
"That's a lot to deal with."
"You're telling me." I picked up the knife and resumed chopping. I was just waiting for the citizens of River Rock to start calling me Crazy Sookie behind my back. Or maybe take it one step further and drive me out with pitchforks.
"I might be able to help with the shielding issue."
"Really?" I asked, hope flaring. Claudine smiled gently and leaned forward on the table resting her chin on her fist.
"Let me talk to Dermot and I'll get back to you on that."
"No!" I yelped, feeling my cheeks turn completely beet red. "Don't tell him what I said. It's so embarrassing." Last thing I wanted was my great-uncle knowing I needed any sort of help in the sex department.
"Oh, Sookie," she said with an airy laugh. "You're not the only person in a household with telepaths that's encountered this problem. Granted, your breed of telepathy is quite different to fae telepathy, but there are still things in Faerie that can help with it… And as well, you also know Colman and I would be thrilled to have Hunter for the night here in your family home."
"I know, I know," I sighed. She had offered often enough. "But you understand... It's hard for me to let go of him for the night when you're all the way here and I'm still back in South Carolina. It's not like I pop in to check on him."
I could barely let Hunter out of my sight in the evenings, let alone for a whole night states away with an otherworldly family I was still getting to know.
After Claudine and I had first met on the morning of that fateful night I rescued Hunter, she had become a fixture in my life. She, like Pam, visited frequently. Colman, Claudine's fairy husband, accompanied her often too. It was hard not to love Claudine. And Colman, who I was initially distrustful of, I was also slowly warming to. It was mostly because I saw the way he looked at Claudine when she wasn't watching. He was devoted.
I was thrilled when Claudine announced her pregnancy. In fact, we danced around my kitchen in much the same way as we had in the farmhouse attic when I'd found the cluviel dor. But it was Colman who approached me alone one morning to speak to me about it privately.
I had returned home from bike riding with Hunter, and we sat in the front garden of my house at River Rock sharing a pitcher of sweet tea, watching as Hunter searched for frogs in the low reeds surrounding the small fish pond we'd dug out front.
Fighting between fairy factions continued, he had told me, and with the fairy's dreadfully low birth rates, he didn't feel it was safe for her to carry a pregnancy in Faerie. He was mostly concerned about her stress levels, and he confided that she had suffered through several miscarriages before finally conceiving the twins. This was her longest pregnancy so far. When he asked me about letting him restore my old family home for them to live in during the duration of the pregnancy, I had simply hugged him and told him it was theirs if they wanted it.
Hunter and I began spending days with our fairy brethren in Bon Temps, Colman popping Hunter and I back and forth between South Carolina and Louisiana. Niall sometimes joined in on our family get-togethers too, and I eventually came to know more of my kin, Claude and Dermot. Some of my wariness for fairies remained, but ultimately what swayed me was how deeply they valued family. That and the fact my family were part of the Sky clan, a faction of fairies who were in deep opposition to the Water clan - the clan who brought about the end of the world. Maybe not literally, but they'd certainly brought about the end to humanity.
My fairy kin's family values ended up being a quality that resonated with me. They considered me and Hunter family and so cared for us implicitly. I found it hard not to care for them in return.
"And all else is good with you and Eric?" Claudine continued. "He treats you well? Niall says he has long carried a reputation as an amazing lover."
"Oh my god," I muttered, my blush deepening for a whole list of different reasons. That was the other thing about fairies. They had absolutely no understanding of normal human boundaries. I'd woken one morning after spending the night in Bon Temps to find Claude, completely in the nude and frying up eggs on Gran's favorite cast iron pan.
"Just don't forget about my offer," she whispered as Hunter came clattering into the kitchen, declaring fatal levels of hunger at the top of his lungs. I told her I'd consider it, as my mind thought of another similar solution.
I opened my front door after the first knock and dragged Eric in off the porch by his jacket. His face lit up and he kicked the door shut behind him, backing me up against the wall.
"Miss me?" he murmured, blazing a trail of kisses along my neck and clavicle.
"What do you think?" I half panted, half whispered the words, tugging at the zip of his leather jacket. My mouth finally found his and we kissed passionately. Eric growled and picked me up, my legs wrapping around him. Our mouths parted long enough for him to throw off his jacket and for me pull his t-shirt over his head. He began down the hall to the bedroom.
"No," I said in between reacquainting my lips with his amazing pecs. "The living room."
Eric's footsteps faltered.
"Really? What if Hunter…?"
"He's not here," I said, grazing my teeth over his nipple. "Having a sleepover with Bec and Abby for the night."
I pulled away and grinned at the way his expression changed upon learning that tidbit. We zipped into the living room where I had earlier dragged my mattress in front of the fireplace.
I landed back onto the mattress with a bounce and a giggle. I hurried to pull my white sundress up and over my head while Eric kneeled at the foot of the bed, watching with unrestrained hunger. I crawled to him and kissed my way slowly up his abs, using my tongue and teeth on his nipples in the way I knew made him go crazy. He grunted my name and I pulled myself all the way up to stand on my knees, finally drawing his mouth back down to mine.
"Do you have any idea how fucking sexy you are?" he growled, hands roaming up my hips and over the front of my lacy white bra.
"Look who's talking, buddy," I said, removing the band holding his hair back and curling my fingers through his braid, loosening it.
"Buddy? I think I'm more than just your buddy." His hand traveled under the thin fabric of my lace thong, stroking me gently. "Wouldn't you agree?"
I moaned, pressing another hard kiss against his lips and reached back to pull my hair out of its bun too; my small gift to him. I felt the growl reverberate through him as my hair fell loose, and we landed back on the bed, his heavy frame pressed against mine.
"I thought you might like that." I felt my laughter bubble up. I always made a point to shower thoroughly after returning from seeing Claudine in order to get the scent of fae off me, but today I opted to keep my hair in a shower cap while bathing and skip washing it for his benefit.
"My devious little fairy," he said. I felt his smile and fangs at my neck as he breathed me in, sending my lady parts into overdrive. It made me wonder if I had finally lost all sense of survival instinct. At that moment, the possibility was quite distinct. Clothing rapidly vanished, Eric's fingers at the juncture between my thighs, stroking me, racing me to the brink while I clung onto him, waiting to be launched over the edge.
"Now," I panted, "I need you now…"
I hooked my leg up over his hip and he guided the hard tip of himself to my entrance, gently teasing me there up and down, his thumb running light circles over my clit. I whimpered both in pleasure and in torment from the denial, urging him on with breathy pleas.
He teased me still and I held back my climax until I could no longer, until it was too late to turn around and backtrack. I dug my nails into his shoulders, crying out in abandon and he finally entered me with one smooth thrust as my orgasm hit. His name burst from my lips with a loud exclamation, my hands continuing to explore the hard muscles and ridges of his back. He kissed me deeply as my walls clenched around him, and in that moment the only things in this world that existed was us, and this bed and the sensation of him moving inside me.
I rolled him onto his back and rode him on top, our eyes locked, and his hands on my breasts, caressing me, bringing me rapidly close to the edge of another steep climax. I leaned over and pressed my neck to him. His fangs grazed against my pulse point, his hands moving to guide my hips up and down against him. We really were getting this down to a fine art.
"Sweet Sookie…" he groaned and he bit me, his movements turning jerky and deep as he came inside me. I followed a moment after, lost in another round of good feeling. He fed lazily then, his arms enveloping me, holding me close to his chest.
We lay quietly, my head resting on his shoulder, his hand absently stroking my back. I focused on catching my breath while brushing away the strands of my hair from his face. Eric pricked his fingertip against a fang and rubbed the blood that welled there against the bite marks on my neck.
I'd never asked him to heal his bite marks on my neck, but somehow he'd seemed to sense it was necessary with all the discontent I was facing from townsfolk. And anyway, there were usually bite marks hidden in other locations that he never bothered with healing, and those I quite liked catching the odd glimpse of as I undressed on the nights he wasn't visiting. A little thrill to remind me of him when he was back in Atlanta.
Lord help me, I was turning into a hussy.
"I like your wood fire," he said, after reality returned to us both. I poked his ribs in response.
"It's too warm to light the fire," I groused. "The candles work just as well." I'd set a line of candles on the hearth before his arrival and lit them trying to set the right mood. We had never spent a night without Hunter since Eric and I rekindled our... Our whatever we were.
"Don't tell me you're getting romantic on me, lover. Trying to recreate the moment?" He rolled over on top of me, boxing me in with his arms.
I froze, deer caught in the headlights. Wasn't that exactly what I was doing? Trying to recapture how it was on those nights in Tennessee? Judging by the smug look on his face he wanted me to spell it out for him. Dammit. Sneaky vampire. It had only been a few weeks. I was so not going there yet and I would definitely not be the one to reveal my feelings first. We weren't Define The Relationship point, or the Define The Anything, really. Taking it as it came was the theme I was working with when it came to Eric Northman.
"I, uh…"
He gave me a shit-eating grin, and I cursed inwardly. Not answering was as good as a yes. He told me not to move, blurring from the bed and out of the room. I heard the faucet running in the bathroom and he was back a moment later, with a washcloth in one hand and my book in the other. We cleaned up and he reclaimed his position next to me in bed.
"How has your week been?" I asked once he'd trapped me under his limbs again.
"Uneventful, until now." He kissed me. "The city is having troubles regulating the bacteria levels of the drinking water in the water reservoir, so I've been tasked with helping them all week."
"What does that involve?"
"Diving into the reservoir and checking for contaminants."
I tried to picture Eric in diving gear and couldn't quite manage. Who was I kidding? He probably did it naked.
"Any luck with that?"
"Found some dead cattle, strangely enough. I retrieved the carcasses. I'm confident that will resolve the issue."
"And how's Pam?"
"Bored of Atlanta; she has become incorrigible. I was tempted to restrain her just so that I could leave for South Carolina alone. She was determined to come along."
"She's finally sucked and fucked her way through every available woman in Atlanta, then?"
Eric gave me a somewhat surprised look at my words and called me a minx.
"Those were her words, not mine!" I protested.
Eric chuckled and asked after my week. I kept it light, telling him about my day with Hunter in Bon Temps, working in my garden and out at the farm earlier in the week. I shared how I tagged along with Owen and the engineer, Nick, the day before as they performed maintenance on the power poles. Nick let me climb up alongside him in the harness and we replaced some of the ceramic insulators, he'd also shown me inside some of the tin teapot-looking transformer canisters. I asked Eric if he knew they were filled with gallons of mineral oil.
"No, lover, I did not. Is that safe?"
"Completely. The power is down during daylight hours."
"And climbing that high?" He sounded dubious.
"I'd like you to recall that I escaped off the third-floor balcony of a certain someone's suite in Florida perfectly unharmed and unharnessed."
"You never did tell me how you managed that." His eyes narrowed. I smiled sweetly. Oh, I bet that had been niggling him for a good long while.
"…You know, I was raised to believe every woman should always leave a little to mystery."
"Do I need to remind you, that for all your gymnastic feats you still managed to slip and fall on a fence paling?"
I decided I had enough talk of the past and tried to distract him by sliding between his legs, kissing my way down his cool body until my mouth found someplace that brought all conversation to a halt and began much more enjoyable endeavors within the present.
I curled to Eric's side a little while later, trying to focus as Eric read from another chapter of The Long Home, a novel which had been gripping and demanding of my attention when we'd read it together on previous nights, but not this evening. I found my mind wandering, pensive.
"Sookie…" he said, for the third time since he'd begun reading.
"Sorry. Keep going," I murmured into his chest. "I'm listening."
He read another paragraph before closing the book. He slid out from under me and got up off the mattress. I propped myself on one elbow, watching as he dressed.
"What are you doing?"
He picked up my dress and handed it to me.
"We're going for a walk," he said. I frowned at him but got out of bed. I lifted the blankets and looked under the sofa trying to locate my underthings but only managed to find my underpants, not my bra. I gave up on the bra, and just wriggled back into my dress and panties.
"And why are we going for a walk?" I asked, pulling my hair up into a messy bun.
"Because you can't relax." He looked down at me, his brows lifting in a way that dared me to defy his statement. I frowned deeper back at him. I'd just relaxed with him… Twice in a row, thank you very much. I bit back my knee-jerk retort and huffed instead.
So, okay, maybe he had a point.
I pulled on my vans and grabbed my cardigan from beside the door on the way out. We walked alongside one another through the quiet streets. I eventually reached out and took his hand, looping my fingers through his. I quickly cottoned on to where he was taking me.
The night was cooling now but still pleasant. It had rained earlier in the day, so the air smelled fresh and dewy, the crickets out in full force. As we walked closer towards the center of town, I could sense the minds around us were slowing with the day's end or simply sleeping.
My shields weren't as great as they were back in their hey-day when I worked at Merlotte's, I was out of practice in many ways, but having Eric beside me tempered any stray thoughts. Holding his hand, I had to mentally reach out with my mind to actually listen in. He was like a brain buffer for me.
My home was on the outskirts of River Rock, more or less isolated with no one living in the surrounding streets. I'd told Jessup when Hunter and I first came to town that it was important to have somewhere isolated to live, that I suffered extreme migraines and needed the quiet. So he'd shown me the street, with the large properties and modestly sized homes hidden down long driveways. The isolation was essential - for me and especially for Hunter. We couldn't have any people living around us. Not if we wanted it to be a place to relax mentally.
We walked in companionable silence for the ten-minute walk until we arrived at Bec's clapboard home. He sat me down on the curb opposite and settled beside me. A dim light illuminated Bec's sitting room where a white lacy privacy curtain covered the window, though I could still see the back of her head from where she sat in her favorite recliner. She was sewing.
I felt for Hunter's mind inside, he was resting peacefully. He was within a cycle of deep sleep; his mind empty of dreams. I rested my head against Eric's shoulder, sinking back into his enveloping silence.
"He's safe," I whispered. Eric moved to stand up, but I grasped his hand. "Wait. Just a little longer."
My ass was getting wet on the nature strip and I felt practically indecent being in public without a bra on and with only a thong under my dress, but right at that moment, I felt like I could let my heart breathe again.
"This is ridiculous," Eric muttered to himself after the minutes crept by. He stood and zipped up to Bec's door before I could stop him. He knocked three times.
"What are you doing?" I hissed and I jogged across to him. Too late, the door swung open.
"Oh - hey Sookie. Hi Eric." Bec held the quilt she was working on over her arm, the needle still tucked into the edge of a large daisy she'd been appliquéing into the corner of the blanket.
"We're here for the boy," Eric said flatly.
Bec's brow pinched together and she looked to me. "He's fine. He settled fine without you, Sook. The kids had a great evening together."
"I know," I said, giving her a helpless smile. I was less than thrilled Eric took the initiative without asking, but I wasn't too proud to admit to myself that I was glad he did. Bec eyes softened in sympathy and she stepped back, opening the door a little wider.
"Come in, then. The both of you."
Eric collected Hunter from the mattress on the floor of Abby's room where he was sleeping. Hunter barely stirred, still lost within the deep confines of slumber. I slipped off my cardigan and tucked it around his shoulders. Seeing him nestled in Eric's arms made me appreciate how small he really was. Maybe it was still a little early for him to be having sleepovers.
I watched Eric from my periphery as we walked back home together. He kept a human pace beside me, a sort of soft resolve in his gaze as he looked straight ahead. His arms were cradling Hunter's form securely and Hunter's face, slack with sleep, was resting against his shoulder. It occurred to me that Eric collecting Hunter hadn't just been solely for my benefit.
We'd made it nearly all the way home when Eric's head shifted slightly, scenting the air. I reached out with mental feelers.
"It's Jessup," I whispered. "And Mike."
They emerged from the shadows of the street before us. Mike had a rifle on his shoulders.
"Evening, Sookie," Jessup nodded. "Eric."
Eric replied with a single neutral nod. Mike, a short ruddy-faced human with golden hair who'd lived in town since the early days, echoed the greeting to both of us.
"A bit late for an evening walk," I said, smiling politely and trying to look casual as I crossed my arms over my chest. Of course we'd come across company the one time I leave the house looking indecent.
"Just patrolling," Mike replied.
"Patrolling?" I echoed.
"It makes folks feel safe," Jessup said, his eyes darting to Eric. I felt my hackles rise.
Eric snorted derisively.
"It makes folk feel safe when you patrol the empty streets near my home?" I questioned. "And let me guess, you only do that on the nights my… my…" I searched for the right word.
"Lover," Eric supplied helpfully. I shot him a look that communicated in no uncertain terms to zip-it.
"Only on the nights Eric visits?" I finished.
"You're bringing a vampire into our community. People ain't happy," Mike shrugged, his fingers drumming against the butt of the rifle he was resting against his shoulder. I began to see red.
"You of all people can understand that," Jessup said coolly, and I could feel the righteous anger he was restraining. He was thinking about Donna. About that night she died. "The community agreed it was a measure that made good sense."
"Did they just?" I hissed between gritted teeth. And there it was. 'The community'. He may not have phrased it like that intentionally, but the implicit meaning was still couched under the term. I was an 'other' now. They were the community and I was Sookie, who just lived there next to them.
A feeling returned, one I hadn't experienced for a long time – the undercurrent of inferiority I experienced growing up in Bon Temps. I was a part of the town, but I wasn't a part of it, not really. I was different. Crazy Sookie. It made me an outsider.
I'd struggled my whole life in Bon Temps trying to fit in… Attending church, working at the local watering hole, participating in working bees, cheering on the Hawks at every high school game, helping out with Sunday school. All that and it was still never enough. Like now.
"I come to South Carolina only to visit Sookie," Eric said. "I have no intentions of… Fraternizing with other locals."
"Don't bother, Eric," I said, stepping between Mike and Jessup to continue walking down the street. "There's no use talking to brick walls. They're incapable of seeing sense."
A/N: I'll be honest - I'm not a huge fan of kid-oriented stories. Especially when they're the main focus and drag attention away from favorite characters. I think some of you are probably of the same opinion.
Obviously, Sookie being a single mother and in a world where she is more or less isolated with Hunter, this story will feature Hunter to some extent... but I can promise you the majority of the scenes/focus will be on adult interaction, even if it involves Sookie's life with her boy.
