I lie on my bed, irritated at being awakened by yet another odd dream. How was I supposed to heal if I couldn't sleep through the night? I sighed, and rolled myself out of bed. Pulling on my ratty old bathrobe, I made my way downstairs. A light was on in the kitchen already.

"Amelia...? Honey, you can't sleep, either?" I asked.

"Oh, hey, Sook. No, I just... no. Gave up trying and decided to try some tea instead." Ever since the Fairy War and the death of Tray, my roomie Amelia has been having a hard time of it. They hadn't been dating that long, but I guess she'd gotten pretty attached to him. 

"It's just... nights are the hardest, you know?" I nodded. "I miss him so much, holding me while I slept, and... well, you know."

"Yeah. I definitely know." 

Talk about understatement of the year. I'd made Eric - well, there is no exact human phrase for what he is, to call a 1,000 year old vampire your boyfriend seems a bit silly, but we were blood bonded, and in the vampire world pledged by the knife, which made us sort of married - leave me alone while I healed. I told him it was because I couldn't stand for him to see me like this - the body that he loved to worship so disgustingly cut, scabbed, gouged and maimed by the delighted attacks of Lochlan and Neave, the faery world's version of hitmen. But really, it was because I was hurt, so horribly hurt, that I cried out for him, over and over during my attack, and he didn't come. Eric always came to my rescue - even some times when I could've handled things just fine on my own. But this time, the time I was truly in over my head, he let my ex-boyfriend, his subordinate vamp Bill Compton, rescue me. It had hurt me to the core, and I was trying to figure out exactly what I wanted our relationship to be in the future. I knew we'd always have a blood bond, but I just didn't know how I could move forward.

The worst part was, I missed him. Horribly. Terribly. Like a missing limb (which I almost knew about from personal experience). And the nights, obviously, were the worst. I mean, you can't exactly hang out with vamps during the day, now, can you? But going from spending your nights with Eric to spending them alone, in pain, and now stuck with odd dreams, well, it was like being given the richest, most decadent chocolate on Earth, taking a bite, then being given sugar-free. You know it's probably better for you, but it still sucks. And I knew sending him away, when all he wanted was to care for me and heal me with his blood, was horribly hurtful to him as well. I just felt like I had no choice. I was sick of being manipulated by vampires though - I'd had enough of that with Bill to last me a lifetime - and if Eric was getting ready to hurt me in any way, well, I'd rather do a pre-emptive strike, save myself some heartache for once. 

"Why can't you sleep?" Amelia was asking. "Are you in pain? Do you need another pain pill?"

"No, it's not that. I just..."

"Just what? You can tell me, Sookie." 

"Well, I've been having the oddest dreams." I finally answered, feeling a little sheepish. I'm a bit past the age to be scared from nightmares, and Lord knows I've lived through worse than what most people consider nightmares, anyway.

From the look on her face, this was not the answer Amelia was expecting. "Dreams? Like, what kind of dreams?" 

I sighed. "Well, they're kinda hard to explain. I keep seeing myself, in places I've never seen before, and I think from the outfits I'm wearing different times in history. Not during my lifetime. And people keep trying to make me do things I don't want to do, and I keep getting upset and waking myself up. And..."

"And what?"

"Well, I know this is probably just my subconscious talking because I miss Eric, but I keep having one dream over and over."

"If it involves the words "Eric" and "dream," I probably do not want to know," Amelia said with the first sign of humor I'd seen since Tray's death.

"Stop!" I said, blushing. "It wasn't a dream like that. It was... well, in my dream, I'm wearing what I can tell are clothes from Viking times. And I'm kneeling at the side of a beautiful lake, picking flowers, when suddenly Eric was there. But Amelia, he was human. He had been out hunting and he came across me with my little bunch of flowers. And it was like we looked at each other and we just knew - you know how in romance novels that always happens? Two lovers see each other and it's love at first sight?" Amelia nodded. "Well, we did. And he asked me to meet him that night by the road - that we would run away together and get married."

"Eric said this? That you would get married?"

"I know, right? But here's the thing - he said it in Old Norse. And I understood. And I answered him! I mean, he's spoken that sometimes when we're..." I trailed off. "But I can't understand it, much less speak it! I told him my family would be upset, and he said he would go to them after we had married and show them what a suitable husband he would make. And, then the dream shifts, and it's night time, and I'm waiting by a road waiting for him. It's cold and clear out, and I can't see him, but I can feel him coming, and all of a sudden there's a rush of air and movement in the trees and I'm running and running and he's gone and I can't find him -" I broke off, choked up, my eyes filling with tears. 

"Shhh, it's ok, Sook. But, Sookie...." Amelia stopped, like she didn't want to go on.

"What?"

"Those aren't dreams, hon, those are visions."

"Visions? Amelia, I've told you, I can't see visions, I can only hear thoughts. Telepathic, not psychic, remember?"

"Yeah, yeah, I know. But Sookie, what you just described, knowing a language you don't speak, seeing times you didn't live through, those are not dreams. Those are visions. And those visions mean that you need to get dressed."

"Dressed? What are you talking about? Amelia, it's two o'clock in the morning!"

"Perfect!" she smiled. "Fangtasia just closed. Get dressed, Sookie, we're going to see Eric."

I said the first thing that popped into my head. "Oh, hell!"