"Christ on a cracker Eric! Don't just sneak up on me like that!"

I'd been back from Fae a little more than an hour, had just retrieved my mail from the end of the driveway, and was about to walk up the stairs to my porch when he just appeared.

"Sookie…I felt your return…I came to check myself that you arrived …intact." Eric seemed unsettled tonight, apprehensive even. Of course I'd forgotten he would know I had come back through the blood tie he had with me.

"Right…ok…well as you can see, I'm …intact Eric."

I wasn't even sure how long I'd been away for. I'd just been pottering around the house doing odd jobs and hadn't even thought to check a newspaper. I'd been in Fae for around four weeks, healing and resting. I was trying to find a semblance of the old Sookie without vampire politics getting in the way. Claudine had told me that being in Fae for a week would mean being away from the human world for a month. So I could only guess I had been away for four months. At some point I'm sure Eric would give me a definite answer on this. With it being my first visit to Fae I wasn't sure if it would work out that way or not.

"Well…it has been a while Sookie…I...I just wanted to make sure everything was ok?" Eric was definitely up to something. Either he was planning something, or he had already done it and was waiting for me to find it and blow my stack.

"Eric, what's wrong? Or should I ask what have you done? You don't seem to be acting like yourself" I started to walk into my house, stopping at the door to invite him in.

"Would you like to come in Eric?"

"Yes, of course. I have some things I need to discuss with you"

This didn't sound good at all and I was beginning to worry. I walked through to the kitchen and placed my mail, which mostly consisted of junk and bills, onto the kitchen worktop. Eric moved silently into my living room.

It hadn't escaped my noticed that my house had been cleaned and repainted on the outside. Fabrics and furniture had been reupholstered inside, and my kitchen held no traces that a Maenad had visited at all. I had a feeling Eric had arranged it all whilst I had been in Fae, I would have gotten around to asking him about it when he arrived but it didn't seem I was going to get the chance.

I moved into the living room, where Eric had already taken a seat. If my nerves weren't so shot I would have laughed at how ridiculous the large Viking Sheriff of Area 5 looked sitting on my considerably smaller sofa. I wasn't entirely sure why but I felt drawn to sit near him, so I positioned myself at the other end to where he was sitting and waited for him to start whatever it was he seemed to be preparing himself to say to me.

"Sookie, I know you have been back here a very short time, so I most clarify a few things first before we talk about what I need you to know. Do you know how long you have been away for? You know that time is different between our world and Fae"

"Claudine told me that I would be gone for a lot long than it would seem to me in Fae. I know I was in Fae for four weeks, and from what she has told me I think I've been gone for roughly four months, does that work out right? Have I been gone for that long?"

"You are correct. It has been four months since you left for Fae. There have been some changes during your time away and it is those things I have come inform you of"

I had to interrupt him before he went any further. It seemed to me that I was going to get news that affected me in one way or another and that only set off alarm bells.

"Sorry Eric, do you mind if I just get myself a drink before you continue, Would you like a True Blood whilst I'm in the kitchen? I'm not sure if there are still any here but I can check"

"Yes I would like that Sookie"

I pushed myself up off the sofa and walked into the kitchen. I think at this point a sweet tea would go down ok for bad news, so that's what I prepared for myself. When I opened the refrigerator to get the tea, there was still some True Blood sitting on the middle shelf, but they had gone off. I had been away for four months after all.

I really had no idea what Eric was preparing to tell me. Four months ago I had run blindly from my house after rescinding the invitations to my house from Eric and Bill. Bill was my lying cheating, treacherous ex boyfriend who had been sent to Bon Temps to procure me for the Vampire Queen of Louisiana. After everything I had been through in such a short time my visit to Fae was just what I needed. I could never really forgive Bill for his deceit but I was able to move on from it. I had come to terms with my otherness during my time in Fae. I needed to try and embrace my Fae abilities in this world and find a place to fit in within the supernatural communities.

I took my sweet tea through to the living room and took my place back on the sofa, apologising to Eric for lack of blood.

"Ok Eric, lay it on me" I was ready to rip this band aid off and get whatever he had to say out of the way so we could just go ahead and deal with it. I saw his mouth curl up into a slight smirk. Trust Eric to have his mind in the gutter when he was trying to deliver what could possibly be life changing news.

"Well, a few things have changed since you left for Fae as I have said. One of those things being that Queen Sophie Anne is no longer Queen of Louisiana and is currently imprisoned in a coffin bound in silver for 10 years"

He stopped there looking at me with something in his eyes that I just couldn't decipher. I nodded my head, encouraging him to continue.

"Well, the week that followed your departure to Fae, there were some upheavals within our Vampire structure. We are unaware at the moment as to how this information got in the hands of The Council or the AVL, but they are aware of your Fae birth line. Sookie they know you are a Brigant."

Well hell, this wasn't good at all. I had learnt whilst in Fae that Claudine was not only my Fairy Godmother, but my cousin too. My Great Grandfather, Niall Brigant is the ruling Crown Prince of the Sky Fae. Niall didn't tell me specifically that I shouldn't tell anyone about this but I had decided that I would keep my royal connection under wraps. Well that was taken out of my hands for now.

I roughly picked myself up off the sofa and started pacing in what space there was in my living room.

"Oh Sweet Jesus, this was not what I want to get out at all Eric! What the hell am I going to do now? I've only known this for a short time myself and now every damn Supe is going to know!" My eyes were wide with the beginnings of total panic, and Eric shot off the sofa in a second, put his hands softly on my upper arms and looked directly at me, stopping me in my tracks.

"Sookie, it will be ok, I swear to you everything is going to be ok."

At his words I tried to calm myself. Something about the way he was looking at me told me he was being honest and I could trust that it would be alright.

I let out an exaggerated breath.

"Ok, so… most everyone who I didn't want to know about my Royal connection knows about it…" Then I put the two pieces of information together and was confused. "So The Council and the AVL know I'm a Brigant, what does this have to do with Sophie Anne being held in a coffin prison?"

I'm sure I was not only looking at him confused but no doubt he felt it through the damn blood tie as well.

"The Council and the AVL were made aware of what Sophie Anne had been up to trying to procure you, sending Bill to get you, and the subsequent shit storm that followed. Selling her own blood, being in financial ruin, all that hell we went through getting rid of Russell Edgington. To top off all her indiscretions she tried to have a Brigant Princess kidnapped into her Vampire Royal court. Well, The Council were not happy with her at all Sookie"

"Well when you lay it all out like that it makes her sound a little nut's"

"Sophie Anne was removed from her position and put in front of the Magister on charges of inciting hostilities with a Royal House of the Fae. If it had all played out the way Sophie Anne had intended, it could have taken us to war with your Great Grandfather Niall, The Council will prevent that under all circumstances. The last Fae war was not pleasant for anyone of us."

I couldn't believe what I was hearing, and was lost for words. War? My Great Grandfather would have gone to war for me?

"Sookie, I have more to tell you and the news I have will be unpleasant to say the least for you. I know that this is all a lot to take in on the very night of your return. There is a new Monarch in place but we can discuss that another time. There was an…incident…that set the ball rolling for all of this to have happened, and ultimately Sophie's downfall."

I had been looking down at my hands in my lap trying to make sense of the information Eric was giving me. When he told me he had unpleasant news for me I snapped my eyes up to his. He took both my hands in his large cool ones in an attempt to soothe me before he dealt the blow.

"Sookie…The night you left for Fae, Bill had called Sophie Anne to his house under the pretence that he had you there ready to hand over. Of course you weren't there; you were already on your way to Fae. Bill took it upon himself to try to bring the final death on Sophie Anne and engaged her in combat in an attempt to end her. It did not go the way he intended…Sookie…Bill is no longer with us. He met his final death the night you left."

All of a sudden I started to feel weightless, like I wasn't even really in my own body. The sounds I was hearing became muffled and dull the way things sound if you put your ears under the water in the bath. I guess I must have started to sag because the next thing I knew I had two muscular arms cradle me into the strong solid form that is the Viking. As sobs wracked throughout me at the loss of what my heart thought of as my first love, Eric murmured words to me that I didn't understand but still they eased me, and he caressed my hair the way a mother would comfort her child.

A/N

Ok so I'm not really sure where I'll be going with this. I had thought I'd be leaving it as this, it start off as a drabble attempt but as you can see it's a lot longer than 100 words!

I'm not going to set a dead line or anything for the next chapter but hopefully I'll be a once a week publisher. As of tonight im working on an outline for this story and beginning the next chapter!