Sookie thought that she would be angry when Eric left. She thought that she wouldn't ever want to see him again, and that she would be viciously angry with the vampires in her life for a few days. She felt that her life was bound to vampire politicking in a way that wasn't fair to a human like her. It was unfair that her happiness be linked to a world she couldn't control.
But she was astonished to find that all her bitterness had coalesced into what felt like a heavy stone in the pit of her stomach, a cold thing that left her weary and physically spent, and lonely.
But the vampire world would not leave her alone. Pam was in her backyard three nights after the ceremony, and it didn't seem that she was making a beeline for the door, but that she was floundering outside. And Pam was not known for floundering.
Sookie stepped outside onto the porch. Pam looked up from the birdbath she was inspecting, it seemed, to gauge Sookie's mood. "...How do you do?" Sookie asked, not without humor.
"I'm fine," Pam said, approaching. She was moving stiffly, as though Sookie had ingested a landmine that would explode at the slightest nudge. She extended a plastic Kroger bag to Sookie, who took it, confusion etching her brow.
In the bag was a pint of Ben and Jerry's Chunky Monkey and what looked like a sympathy card.
Sookie, feeling a hysterical bout of laughter rising in her chest, looked up at Pam. "I think that human women typically resort to these, or give each other these, in such circumstances," Pam explained helpfully. "I would have us remain... friends... despite Eric's..." she trailed off, with a distinct note of disapproval coloring her speech.
The hysterical bout of laughter ripped out of Sookie's throat. The vampire child of her ex-vampire-husband had come bearing Ben and Jerry's. Perhaps later they would watch The Notebook and paint each other's toenails. They would borrow each other's clothes and gossip about—what? Southern vampire royalty?
What's more, Pam had combined the sympathetic caretaking of a best girlfriend— ice cream—with the actions of a business associate whose colleague was dying of cancer—a greeting card. Sookie hooted with laughter.
And she had been wary of approaching the door, wandering the backyard as though it were a typical course of action—it seemed that Sookie Stackhouse had almost made Pam nervous. It was ludicrous—the whole idea of Pam being here was ludicrous.
If Pam Ravenscroft could look bemused, she was doing so now.
"Thank you, Pam." Sookie said when she had calmed down a few seconds later. "They do. Human women, that is," she confirmed.
Pam nodded. "If I don't see you so often," she regained her grasp of the conversation, "I wish you well, Sookie. You're very tolerable, for a human."
Laughter bit at Sookie's throat again, despite the realization that Pam was, as ever, tied to Eric. "As are you, Pam," she said, in a facetiously stilted voice. Pam nodded. And then she was gone, slinking off into the night. The strangeness of the conversation overcame Sookie again, and she snorted. But she felt a nagging sadness to see Pam go.
But the next night, Freyda had come a-calling. Sookie had heard something in the woods and, extending her special sense, found nothing but the buzzing emptiness that signified the presence of a vampire. She was amazed and more than a little anxious to find Freyda approaching the porch. But she couldn't come inside, and moreover, there was no longer any reason for Freyda to harm her. The wards remained silent.
Sookie was inclined to ignore her and crawl into bed until daylight.
But there she was, wrenching the door open with a grim resolve, cautiously.
"I don't expect to come in," Freyda stated as a preamble. Her hands were raised, palms up, ever so slightly. The gesture was strangely suppliant for a vampire queen of Oklahoma. On a human, that posture implied vulnerability—something alien to Sookie's concept of Freyda.
"Good," Sookie said flatly. There was a smooth, cold stone in her stomach.
"I would have you as an ally," Freyda started again, more blunt than was seemly. "Not for your services. I would rather you not harbor any ill will towards us."
Sookie wondered vaguely who "us" was. She was taken aback by this speech—it seemed very odd that Freyda should care one whit for what Sookie felt about her. Regardless, a feeble indignation stirred behind her breastbone. "I don't harbor any such—"
"You are very dear to him," Freyda interjected. Her flat, icy eyes regarded Sookie with—what? Pity? "I am not so dear, of course. It matters little now. But I would have him happy, and that means your happiness, for now. It's a pity that I should require him."
Not so much a pity that she couldn't leave him alone. A tiny, bitter voice in Sookie's mind was furious.
"He chose you," Sookie heard her own bland pronouncement. "He's going to be happy with your life—the... lifestyle you offered him." The stone in her stomach was just so heavy.
Freyda nodded once.
"I don't have anything against you and yours. I'm too tired of the political—the vampire thing," Sookie finished lamely.
Another swift nod. Then, regarding Sookie as though returning from a reverie, Freyda produced an envelope from some unseen place and proffered it to Sookie. She took it, uncomprehending. And then Freyda was disappearing, into the trees, gone. She opened it at the kitchen table to find a check of considerable denomination. She blinked at it.
What was this? Was this from Freyda or from Eric himself? This could be constituted as a bribe to placate her, a severance package... alimony? Or—the stone in her stomach grew heavier—a payment. Sookie gave a weak shudder. She should be angry—she should be furious at Freyda, at Eric, for whatever this was. But instead, she simply ripped the check into four even pieces and stared at it. She should be affronted at whatever statement was being made here. But she was exhausted, and the stone in her stomach was very heavy, and so she climbed into bed and slept the sleep of the righteous.
It seemed like Sookie had but blinked, and she heard another snap, crackle and pop from outside her window. Something rustled through her woods yet again. Her eyes snapped open, bleary and confused. She stumbled downstairs, still struggling to restart the firing of her synapses.
It was almost dawn now, but the visitor was definitely a vampire, and probably that meant Eric, Sookie realized. She opened the door ready to castigate whichever vampire darkened her doorstep. The stone had grown intolerable.
She opened the door to Bill Compton. He looked pained. And vulnerable and perhaps not in charge of his senses, Sookie thought. It was another human expression on a vampire to which human expressions did not belong. She pondered rescinding his invitation, for safety's sake.
"I miss you so much," he began, in a strange, plaintive, masculine whine.
"Why are you doing this?" Sookie exhaled. In the clear light of day—no, in the... darkness of night, Sookie supposed—Bill knew how she felt and understood what stood between them, and he had only a dark little hope that she would return to him, someday. But this Bill was speaking out of fatigue, and she couldn't imagine what could fatigue Vampire Bill now. No, she could imagine it, thinking of Mississippi. She shuddered.
"I need you, Sookie," Bill said in the same tone. And Sookie suddenly recognized his expression, from when she had been covered in Long Shadow's blood years ago. His eyes were like caves again, deep dark holes haunted by ghosts, and no light could ever penetrate them, and they were endless. It had scared her before, to see this face, but there was no bloodlust in his countenance now. Only weariness, the weariness of lovelornness and unfathomable age.
"You do not," Sookie replied, but the words were as hollow as a blown egg.
"I need you," Bill insisted. "I'm so hungry, Sookie." His fervor made his speech candid and blunt.
Sookie knew on some level that she should be angry, that she should protect herself from him. He had attacked her and cheated and lied and schemed to ensnare her for his Queen. But she had killed Lorena Ball, and Sophie-Anne had suffered and died the final death, and here was Bill, on her porch, waiting for sunrise. Not waiting for sunrise, Sookie shivered. Waiting in spite of sunrise.
She looked at his face again. He was so lonely, and at that moment he was heartrendingly familiar.
"Oh, honey," she said, giving up. "Honey." She pulled him close to her. His head sagged, and his forehead rested in the crook of her neck. She stroked the back of his head. She hadn't expected him to act like this. She had an urge to hold him and comfort him and let him drink and love him until he could be happy again. But she didn't move, and she petted the back of his neck, and murmured to him. "Bill, honey."
After a moment, she felt him raise his head and press his lips gently, tentatively, to her collarbone. She didn't object, but he inhaled once, lifted his head, and stepped away. The ghosts had left his eyes.
"I'm sorry," he said as though it could not have been helped.
"It's almost dawn," Sookie said quietly, although she knew full well that vampire magic was already urging him to retreat and hide in some dark hole.
"I love you," Bill responded as though she hadn't spoken. Sookie exhaled, feeling that she was about to make some great concession that she could not afford to make.
"I forgive you, Bill, you know I do," she said, peering down at her feet. "But I think anything we do now might be... I'm in a special situation, now." What she meant to say was that she was rejected and abandoned and weaker for it, and not in a position of emotional clarity. Not in her right mind.
"I would gladly suffer whatever situation you think you're in, Sookie," Bill whispered, looking away from her to glance at the horizon. "I need you. Only you."
Sookie's stomach lurched. The rock was overturning. Oh, no.
"I will start all over again, if that is what you require, in order to love me again. Or trust me," he finished, as though the last words pained him.
Oh, no.
"Okay." Sookie said in a small voice.
They said nothing for a few seconds. It became apparent that Bill Compton had not expected this, exactly, but had simply been driven here by that tiny dark hope. He took her hand and raised it to his mouth, brushing her knuckles with his cold lips.
"Have a good morning, Miss Stackhouse," he said, and Sookie heard some sort of fire kindling in his voice.
"Go home," Sookie advised with a hint of humor, but Bill was already gone, bounding towards his house, across the cemetery, gone.
And Sookie crawled back into her bed, and as the first rays of sunshine streaked the sky, she slept the sleep of the dead.