Eric Northman really didn't want to be at the bar today. Most of the time he liked Fangtasia. Not lately, not since Pam had seemed to have fallen in love with the new bartender. It wasn't that he was jealous of her. He still cared for Pam after all these years but had loved many other women himself. He was fine with letting her love someone else too. He just disliked losing all her attention so suddenly. She had barely spoken to him in six weeks. The rest of the patrons were too afraid of him to speak and the fangbangers were just annoying. He hated to admit it to himself but he was lonely.

It was pouring rain that night when She came in. She was a petite blonde haired woman wearing jeans, converse sneakers, and a short sleeve pale blue button up blouse. She looked to be about thirty years old. She was also soaking wet and the rain did little to hide the fact that she had been crying. Eric watched and listened with interest to see what she would do and where she would go.

The woman sat at a table in the corner and did her best to pull her dripping wet hair into a ponytail. A waitress came by and she asked about prices before ordering. She chose the cheapest item on the menu, a small order of french fries and ice water. The stranger was halfway through eating her food when a large man wearing a cowboy hat, jeans, and leather came through the front door. He took one look around the room and went straight to the woman's table.

"It wasn't very hard to find you, Elisabet." The man said.

"You know I hate that name, Laurence. Besides, I'm not exactly hiding anyway." She said, clearly irritated. Her accent was European, perhaps Swedish.

"You should be hiding, Elisa. I'm a lot nicer about these things than Bruce is. When he catches up to you, you'll wish you hadn't been so easy to find."

"It's not like I have any choice. I already sold the estate and paid him every cent I had. What else can I possibly do?" She said worriedly.

"I didn't tell him where I was going to look for you but he'll figure it out in the next few hours… I tell you what. I'll tell him I didn't find you anywhere and I'll head east. Hopefully that will throw him off the trail for a little while. In the meantime, you need to get as far away from here as you possibly can." Laurence told her.

"I can't Larry…" She whispered. "How far can I possibly get on foot? I sold everything to try and pay him off. I haven't got any more money…I'm tired of running, it's been two years of running and running..."

"I know you're tired of running honey, but I can't protect you if don't even try. Going back to your old house today was stupid. He knows you went there and sent me looking for you first thing… If he even knows I talked to you he'll break my arm or my fingers or something… and you… well you know he won't do anything as kind as kill you quickly…." Larry said sadly.

"I know that Larry! You think I can't imagine all the things he's going to do to me? I live with the nightmares every night from what he did the last time. The fact is, I can't run anymore...I just can't… and I knew if I went back to the house he'd send you...will you loan me a gun?"

"You can't fight him! You'd need a lot bigger gun and a lot more bullets than what I can get you."

"I only need one bullet. I don't intend to fight him." She said sadly.

"No… no I can't let you do that…"

"So you'd rather let Bruce rape and torture me and then cage me in the end?" Elisa said sarcastically.

"Of course not but…"

"There's no other way and we both know it." She said with tears in her eyes.

Larry stared at her for a moment with tears in his own eyes, then he took a gun from his pocket and placed it on the table, quickly removing his hat to set on top of it. "Okay. I can't believe I'm doing this. Try running first, please. Only use this as a last resort." Larry said as he got up and left the table and the left the bar.

Eric watched while Elisabet sat there for a while longer staring at the hat on the table. Finally she got up and took the hat and the gun underneath it. She put some money on the table and went out the front door. He got up from his chair and followed her at a distance. She went out around the back side of the bar, sat down on the ground with her back up against the building. She took out the gun and gazed at it in her hands then put the barrel to her temple.

"I can't let you do that." Eric said. He was standing directly in front of her in that instant.

"Why the hell not?" Her hands were shaking.

"Who is Bruce? Maybe I can help you…"

"No one can help me… just go please and let me die…"

Eric moved at vampire speed, tearing the gun from her hands before she could fire it.

Realizing that her only method to end it all had been taken away from her, Elisabet curled up with her arms around her knees and burst into tears. She couldn't stop sobbing and Eric didn't quite know what to do.

"Come on. Come back inside. I can help you if you just tell me what's going on." He offered.

She didn't respond, she just kept crying. Frustrated, Eric bent down and picked her up, carrying her inside. He took her to the back room and set her in a reclining chair. Then he brought her a glass of water. She drank it and still said nothing to him. She was still soaking wet from all the rain. Eric went to Pam's clothes and gave her something dry to wear. Jeans and a sleeveless blouse. Pam would be pissed but she'd get over it.

"Change and then we'll talk." Eric said gently, leaving her alone in the room. He found a place to stash the gun and gave her time to change before returning to the back room.

"You're… a vampire?" She asked tentatively, finally composed enough to speak to him.

He nodded. "I am. My name is Eric. You were aware that this is a vampire bar, right?"

"I know, I came here because Bruce doesn't like vampires. I thought it would buy me some time. But I guess you heard most of what Larry and I said." She said.

"I heard it but some points weren't quite clear. For instance, why exactly is Bruce out to get you?"

"If I tell you, then you will be as dangerous to me as Bruce is." She said sadly. "But at this point it hardly matters. Either Bruce will kill me or you could… the truth is, I'm not human." She reached up and ran her fingers through her hair nervously. "I'm half elf. Elves are related to the fae and are highly desired food for vampires. Bruce wanted my blood to sell or so he said, and my husband paid him a great deal of money to go away… it was the only thing he could do to protect me from someone as powerful as Bruce. For a while it worked, for ten years… but after my husband died I couldn't make the payments...and now when he catches me, I will be locked away as his living blood donor… unless you have other plans for me?" Elisabet looked up at him, fear in her eyes. "Though I have known a few vampires who were kind to me…" She added hopefully.

"You are from Sweden?" He asked sitting down in the chair across from her.

"Ja." She nodded. "I was born there a long time ago. I am much older than I look. You wouldn't believe how old."

"I'm a thousand and seventy two years old." Eric told her. "Nothing surprises me."

"I am a thousand and thirty two years old" She said with amazement. "I've never met anyone older than I am. There aren't many elves left in the world and I generally avoid vampires."

"There's no need to avoid me. I won't harm you. You're from my country and nearly from my time. Stay here at the bar for a while. If Bruce comes here looking for you, I'll get rid of him."

"I.. thank you." She said quietly. "I can't pay you for staying. Is there some work I can help with?"

"You can help in the kitchen if you like." He told her. "Cal will show you what to do."

She stood up to head to the kitchen and Eric got up as well. She was about to walk away but there was a question on her mind that needed asking. "Eric, were you a viking?"

"I was, why?"

"Did you know of the clan of Ulfrik? He was a king, a chieftain married to Astrid, they died before I was born."

"I know of them. How do you know of them?" He asked her.

"My mother was a servant to them and a consort of their son. She told me werewolves came and killed both the king and queen. They tried to kill her too, she was left for dead, but we elves have healing abilities and she recovered after everyone was gone… she always claimed I was the granddaughter of a king… but that can not be true, can it?"

Shocked, Eric sat back down. "Ulfrik and Astrid were my parents." He told her. "I was in bed with a servant when the werewolves came…"

Elisabet clamped a hand over her mouth and collapsed into the chair behind her.

"Is this some trick? Who told you the story of my family?" Eric asked her, growing angry.

"It's not a trick. Look." She reached for a pair of scissors on a nearby shelf and cut the palm of her hand with the blade. He watched as the skin healed up before their eyes. "I am who I say I am. The story is only what my mother told me."

"You look like her, like Ella. What happened to her?" He asked sadly, still turning over her words in his mind.

"She died. Vampires got her in the end."

"I thought your kind didn't die?" Eric asked. "But I guess you must if you were going to kill yourself."

"We are long lived. We don't die of any natural causes and we heal quickly but we can be killed."

He sat in silence for a minute. "A thousand years and I thought all of my family was gone. That I was alone in the world...if I had known I had a daughter, a daughter who needed my protection, I would have never allowed men like Bruce or any vampire to ever hurt you."

Elisabet didn't know what to say. She couldn't hold back the tears.

"Oh. My. God." Pam said from the doorway. "You guys need to at least get a DNA test before you let this dissolve into a hallmark moment."

"How much of that did you hear Pam?" Eric asked.

"Enough to know that you think she's your half elf daughter. So tell me, would that be the kind of elves who make cookies or the ones who make toys?"

"Pam." Eric said gently trying to get her to back off.

"And she's wearing my clothes." Pam said with a roll of her eyes. "If you're so eager to support a child Eric, the least you can do is buy her some of her own clothes." Pam said as she went to the closet, switched the pair of shoes she was wearing with another pair and marched back out of the room.

"That was Pam, my progeny." Eric said. "She'll get over it."

"Do you think they can even do that, a DNA test?" Elisabet asked.

Eric shrugged. "I don't see why not. But it would have to be with a lab we could trust. No one needs to be spreading the word about elves. I think I might know of a place."

Two days later they sent their blood to a lab for testing. Elisabet found that she liked staying at the bar in spite of all the attention from vampires. Eric didn't allow any of them to touch her or even so much as look at her if they seemed too interested. He even sent away a couple of human males who were hitting on her. She had never felt so safe in all her life. It was the first time she hadn't needed to look over her shoulder all the time.

They often spoke in Swedish when they talked. Though they were both very fluent in English and had been speaking it for years, there was just something better about speaking in their mother tongue.

Elisabet told him much of her history. She had been married several times but had only had three children in all that time. She'd had problems with fertility and unfortunately only one of her three children survived to adulthood in the 1950's. That child eventually had a great grandchild named Walter who currently lived in Canada as an author and a recluse. There were no other living descendants.

"Were your husbands kind to you?" Eric asked her.

She sighed. "You know as well as I do how the men of the world have viewed women for the last thousand years. I suppose they were as kind as the could be, given what they knew."

"What about the last one? You said he paid Bruce to protect you…"

"He did pay Bruce. Nate and I were married for ten years. The thing is, I stopped marrying for love five hundred years ago. I looked for men who would protect me even if they only protected me for the sake of their status. Nate was like that. He was ex-military, from a wealthy family, and he only wanted a trophy wife. He didn't love me and I didn't love him. I hadn't loved anyone in a very long time."

"I'm sorry."

"I suppose it sounds rather pathetic in this modern era and in America too. Why not just amass guns and protect myself?" She mused aloud.

"Because that would be lonely." Eric answered. He understood.

Elisabet nodded, tears in her eyes. "Yes, but it was lonely anyway. Apparently I am self destructive."

The results of the DNA test confirmed what they already knew. Eric was Elisabet's father. The results came in a letter in the mail. Eric read the letter then passed it over to Elisabet

who read it dropped it on the floor and turned to hug him.

Most nights, Elisabet stayed awake with the vampires and she slept during the day. One evening as Eric was waking up he found Elisa still asleep on the sofa. She was having a nightmare. He tried to shake her awake and she didn't respond. He had to shake her very hard before she finally did wake up with a gasp of breath.

"Fader!" She cried out and threw herself into his arms. It was the first time she had called him father and in their native language no less.

"What did you dream about?" He asked as he held her.

"It was Bruce…" She wept.

"What did he do to you?"

"Please...I don't want to talk about it." She said, and he didn't push her to tell him any more.

If he didn't know better, Eric would have believed that Pam was jealous of his relationship with Elisabet. As a progeny, Pam didn't really qualify as a daughter. Maybe some part of her had seen herself as one. Pam never said anything but sometimes she watched them laughing together or speaking Swedish or the protective way Eric kept any admirers away from Elisa. It wasn't clear how Pam felt about her maker and his daughter.

It was just a week after getting the official test results back when a strange man in a suit arrived. The man brought seven others with him, all in suits and all wearing concealed weapons. Eric was on his throne and Elisa was helping to tend the bar. The glass in Elisa's hand fell to the floor and shattered and Eric knew that the man who had just entered the bar was none other than Bruce.

Bruce went straight to the bar and spoke to Elisa. "Checkmate." He said the single word with a British accent.

"No…" She shook her head anxiously. "I'm not going anywhere with you."

"Yes you are love. Did you know that Walter has a two year old daughter now?' Bruce said.

Eric was on him in an instant. He had Bruce by the throat and several of his employees had disarmed Bruce's men. "Did you know that Elisabet is my daughter?"

Bruce was gasping for air as he tried to say no.

"Oh you can't speak?" Eric said, he nodded to one of the vampires nearby. "Tie him up. If you don't work here, get out!" Once Bruce was firmly tied and the bar was cleared of customers, Eric let go of him only to shove him roughly back against the bar. "I want to know what you did to my daughter. Tell me."

Bruce glanced around at his men as if one of them might be able to save him.

"Tell me what you did to her!" He shouted in Bruce's face.

"After her husband died we took her in to collect her blood." Bruce began, clearly shaken.

"So you took her by the hand and asked her if she would be willing to share some blood with you?" Eric said through grited teeth.

"No...no.. we went to her house with guns and brought her back to my facility against her will."

"Keep going." Eric prompted, arms crossed.

"While Larry prepped the lab, some of the guys had sex with her." Bruce told him.

"You raped her?"

Bruce nodded, shaken by the admission.

"Stop trying to make it sound pleasant. How many of you raped her?" Eric demanded.

"Thirteen of us."

"Including all the men you've brought with you today?" Eric asked almost nicely.

Bruce nodded again.

"Continue the story." Eric told him.

"After that, we set up the I.V. and started taking blood. She's an elf so if we went slowly and kept her hydrated she was able to generate new blood. It was 12 hours of taking blood followed by 10 hours of rest in the cage with food and fluids." Bruce explained nervously.

"That's two hours unaccounted for. What did you do then?"

"We… we...raped her…"

Eric was finding it difficult to control the rage building within him. "How long did this go on for? A week, a month?"

"Please...Mister...I didn't know… I didn't know…" Bruce had become incoherent with fear.

"It was nearly two years." Larry spoke up.

"Larry!" Elisabet exclaimed, happy to see him.

"She was in constant pain and she begged Bruce to stop taking blood." Larry told them. "I don't think I've ever seen anyone in so much pain. And he never kept to the schedule. Sometimes it was fourteen hours taking blood and six for rest… I wish I could have done more for her than negotiate a worthless contract…"

"If you wanted to help her, why didn't you kill him?" Eric asked Larry.

"There's a hierarchy in the group. I'd have to kill everyone…"

"Did he hurt you?" Eric asked Elisa of Larry.

"No. Never." She said.

"Let him go." Eric told the vamp holding Larry.

After Larry was gone, the violence ensued. Elisa had seen her share of violence in her thousand years of life but she had never seen so much blood spilled so quickly. Six men had their throats torn out in a matter of seconds. Bruce was saved for last.

"What would you like me to do with him?" Eric asked her.

Elisa stared at Bruce, she had never had the power of life and death like this before.

"Elisabet, I'm sorry." Bruce was sputtering. "I was too greedy. I see that now. I'll pay you, I'll compensate you for everything you've suffered… I'm sorry...I really am…"

She realized that Bruce wasn't scary anymore. He was just a pathetic frightened little man. "I don't care what you do with him." She told Eric. "I'm sure you can think of something fitting."

"I'm sure I can."

Bruce screamed for a lot longer than his men had. Eric took a lot longer to kill him, tearing off one limb at a time. It was only after, when they were cleaning up that Eric saw Larry return to the bar. From the corner of his eye he saw Elisa run to him and kiss him. He was glad she had found someone to be happy with but she would outlive Larry. At least he knew that when she outlived her next husband and when he outlived the next woman he fell in love with, they would still have each other, father and daughter, in the end.