Well hello hello!

I'm terrible at summary's, so I hope ya'll enjoy. It's AU and OOC somewhat. I will use elements from the books and possibly a twist on some of the story lines.

Charlaine Harris owns the characters and whatnot.

Snoogans and enjoy! Let me know what you think. :)

Everyone thought I was nuts. Crazy. So when I heard the new nurse assigned to my floor thinking that I was, it was nothing new.

"I'm not crazy." I told her, and she turned to face me. She was pretty, and naive. She wouldn't last long here. She was to nice. The others here, the people who actually were crazy, would get to her, and like so many others, she would leave this place. "I'm telepathic." I didn't mind telling people about my gift. They never would admit to believing me anyway. Even though once I gave them a taste of what I could do, they couldn't deny I was telling the truth, even if they wouldn't admit it out loud.

The nurse, who's name was Penny, was a nice change of pace however. She was fresh faced, brunette, with a bob haircut and sparkling green eyes. She was slender like I was, and her uniform fit her well and showed off her slight curves. She seemed to be about my age. I was tired of having no one my age to hold a conversation with.

"I'm sorry if I scared you. I'm Sookie." I reached my hand out to shake hers, but she still just stood in the doorway to my room staring at me. I put my hand down after a moment, shrugging my shoulders and heading back to my bed. She thought about apologizing, but then decided not to, because she hadn't actually called me crazy out loud, and it was ludicrous to think that I had actually heard her. I must have suspected that one of the other nurses or doctors had warned her in advance about me.

"No, I heard you call me crazy. But don't apologize. You aren't the first to think it, and you wont be the last."

She dropped the tray that she had been holding which was full of tiny cups of water. I giggled a little and then got back off my bed to help her.

"You aren't lying are you." she whispered as I bent down to start picking up the empty paper cups. I looked up at her.

"Well obviously not."

"No one believes you?" she said as she bent down to help me with the rest of the tiny cups.

"Everyone believes me. But they won't admit it out loud." I winked at her.

"So what are you still doing here?"

"No one wants to say it out loud. It's unbelievable, so it must not be true." I stood to put the empty cups in the trash can just outside my door. "So I get written off as crazy, and I never leave this place."

"Why don't you just pretend that you can't read minds so that you can leave?" she asked as she dropped the cups she had gathered into the trash.

I leaned in close to her, so that I could whisper in her ear. "Because maybe I am crazy." She inhaled sharply and her eyes went wide, meeting my blue ones. I smiled my pearly whites at her, and she took off running down the hall. I laughed until she was out of sight.

This was nearly my every day. Wake up, get called crazy, take some pills that did who knows what to me, hang out with the other patients in my ward, scare the nurses and doctors, then go to bed and do it all again the next day.

The rest of the time I spend daydreaming about all the things that I would do when I got out of here. I was young still. I was pretty too judging by what I saw other girls my age looked like on television. I was twenty-four. I had blonde hair that went just below my shoulders thanks to a recent cut, blue eyes, and a gracious bosom. I had slight curves, but they helped fill out my hospital issued pajama pants and white v-neck shirt perfectly. Yeah, I looked good in mental hospital wear. I could just imagine what I would look like in a dress or skin tight jeans and a pretty blouse.

So since I really was telepathic, and I wasn't crazy, how exactly did I end up here?

When I was seven, my parents died in a flood. My older brother, Jason, and I were sent to live with our grandmother, Adele Stackhouse. But she was older, and when Jason reached his rebellious teen years, she just couldn't keep him under reign anymore. Fearing that I would turn out the same way, on top of the trouble I already caused (unintentionally, mind you) because of my telepathy, and dreading having to worry about two teens, she gave us up as wards of the state. I could tell from being able to read her mind that it was the hardest thing she had ever had to do, and it was the last thing that she had wanted to do, but she just couldn't handle us. Not at her age.

I had begged and pleaded with her the day that the people from the children's home came for us. I had promised that I would be good. I wouldn't act out like Jason. I would be helpful around the house, more so than I already was. But it was no use. She just kissed us both on the foreheads, tears running down her cheeks, and then waived a hand as she walked back to her porch, and kept her back to us as we drove off in the backseat of the car that had come to retrieve us.

The first few weeks had been hard. See, I still didn't know how to put up the walls in my mind to block out the thoughts that I would get from everyone. And I still had a hard time sometimes distinguishing between what someone had thought, and what they had actually said out loud. Naturally, when I had gotten to the home with Jason, he was taken away to the boys ward, and I was brought over the girls.

Right off the bad, I made a bad impression with the head mistress. She had thought I had a rotten family for giving me and Jason up like they did. She didn't have any of our history yet, but knew that we had been willingly given up. She had just assumed it was lazy parents who hadn't really wanted children in the first place, and now that we were getting older and harder to manage, they just decided to give up.

Well, given my state at the time, this wasn't what a child of eleven should or would want to hear. I laid in to her, and said my very first curse word. I instantly regretted it, and chided myself as Gran would have if she had heard my potty mouth. But it was to late. I had responded to something she had thought, and never actually said out loud. I had managed to scare the dickens out of her, and three hours that I had spent at the children's home was at an end, and I was sent off to a local hospital.

I was poked and prodded, evaluated, and interviewed by nearly every doctor there, including all the psychiatrists. I had been hooked up to every machine, and given every blood test that they could think of. I even had a few MRI's. And when it was all said and one, not a one of them was willing to admin what I heard in their head they all knew was true. So that was how I ended up where I was now. Brentwood Hospital in Shreveport, Louisiana.

I've been here since I was eleven. I've spent more than half my life here, and I was comfortable with that. It was here that I taught myself to build the walls in my mind that blocked out the other patients and doctors and nurses.

Now, I know I gave Penny a hard time, and it was true, that everyone here did think I was crazy, but there were a few of the nurses that had been here quite some time, that I had gotten close to. They genuinely liked me, believed in my ability, (although they would never admit it out loud) but still kept their distance.

All except for one, who was walking in my door just then. "Hey baby, how you doing today?" Mrs. Marie asked. She gave me a warm smile and I reciprocated it. She was an older African American woman, full figured, and had a thick skin. You had to if you had any chance of working in a place like this. But that tough exterior had a soft spot for me. I had met her during my first week at the hospital. She normally didn't work in the children's ward, but someone had called out sick, and she had been asked to fill in. We warmed up to each other almost immediately, and soon, she was making regular visits to check on me. I know I had said that everyone here thought I was crazy, but in truth, there was one person who didn't think I was, and was willing to say that out loud. She fully believed in my curse, and stood behind me in that.

"I'm alright." I said, standing so that I could give her a hug. Her embrace was warm and welcoming, and I relaxed against her, resting my head on her shoulder. I lowered my walls, listening for anyone coming, because hugging me was not normal protocol, and she could get in trouble for it, which was the last thing that I wanted.

"I heard you gave the new nurse a hard time. Baby, you can't go off scaring people like that. We've talked about this before." She wasn't mad though. I could feel her smiling over my shoulder and I smiled right back into hers.

"I know, I know." I whined, letting go of her. "Did you bring it?" I asked, standing back to stare anxiously at her.

She gave me a little smile and reached behind her to withdraw a medical magazine she had tucked into her back pocket. It was folded open already to an article that stared yours truly. About a month ago, a doctor from some hospital in California had come all the way out to Louisiana to interview and study me. After talking with him for a few hours, he was completely convinced of my ability, although, like the rest, wouldn't admit it freely. But he did say he was writing an article about it, and since the hospital was in charge of me, they gave him the consent that he needed to have it published.

I took the magazine from her and jumped onto my bed. "I'll be back for that in thirty minutes." Mrs. Marie told me, and left my room. I settled back and got to reading. I understood most of it, including the medical terms. There wasn't much to do here, so I did a lot of reading. I was smart, and I knew it, but since I was stuck in a mental hospital, it went completely to waste. At least, that's what Mrs. Marie told me.

The article basically outlined my history here at the hospital and how I ended up here. It included the results and whatnot of the tests that I was routinely given, and evidence from brain scans that he thought could prove my case. And in the end, he included the line of questioning he had given me and having me read his mind, and had indicated that I had gotten every question that he had correct. But that didn't matter, because he chalked it up to some sort of slight of hand, Houdini style magic, and that in a nut shell I was, well, nuts, for thinking that I was actually telepathic. What I was, he had said, was an excellent profiler, and could have had a lucrative career in the field if I hadn't gone around telling people I was telepathic.

"Jerk." I said as I threw the magazine to the foot of my bed. But what did I expect?

I sulked the next few days. I didn't know why I let that stupid article get to me. Oh, maybe it was because now the whole country thought I was nuts, and a liar. I wasn't even sure how many people read that magazine, but if it was even one, it was one to many.

Little did I know that my life was about to change thanks to that article.

I woke to the feeling of someone watching me. I was scared at first, and I could feel my heartbeat rising. I could hear it pounding away in my chest. I had been sleeping, so my mental walls were down, and I scanned the room to find not a single soul there. I chalked the feeling to being left over from whatever I had been dreaming about, and I fought to get my racing heart under control. I was laying on my side with my back to the door of my room, and I stretched out, turning on to my back.

"Holy hell!" I screamed. The figure standing there put their finger up over their lips to signal me to be quiet, and for some unknown reason, I obeyed. I pulled the covers up over myself so that just my head was sticking out from the covers. There was enough light coming in through the crack that my door was open and from the window in my room that I could see a tall, blonde haired man standing over me. Only I couldn't read him at all. He was like a blank spot. "And you're glowing." I whispered.

He cocked his head to the side. "You can see that?" he asked. His voice was so soothing. I simply shook my head yes in response to his question. "You don't have to be afraid of me." he said next, and I realized that my heart was back to pounding again. I could feel a slight tingle in my brain, and I quirked an eyebrow at him as he spoke again. "You wish to come with me."

"I don't know you." I replied, having found my voice again. This time, he quirked an eyebrow. He concentrated on me a little more, and then seemed to give up. "I can't read you. Who are you?"

He didn't answer me, he just stood there a moment longer, and then turned and left my room. I should have been terrified. I should have screamed even. But other than my startled reaction to finding the man standing there, I hadn't really been frightened of him. I was curious as hell though. I slid out of bed as quietly as I could, and made my way to the door of my room. I cracked it open a little further and peeked down the hallway in both directions. There was no sign of the tall blonde man. I contemplated going to the nurses station and telling them, but he would have had to have passed them to get to me. They would have seen him. And if they hadn't stopped him, then there might be something wrong. I crept out my door, and headed to my right to the nurses station. The new nurse, Penny, was sitting behind the desk.

"Can I help you Miss. Stackhouse?" she asked. I just stared at her at first. She seemed perfectly fine.

"Did you see a tall man with long blonde hair come down this way?" I asked tentatively.

"Miss. Stackhouse, no one's been by here. You should go back to your room." she said, and I reached into her mind to see if she was telling the truth. There had been someone in my room, and I was sure of it. And she should have seen him come down the hallway, and by the nurses station. When I poked around in her head, there was a blank spot. It was the strangest thing. I had never seen anything like it before. I must have been staring at her funny, because I noticed a worried look start to cross her face. I quickly tried to cover my strange behavior.

"Sorry. Must have been dreaming. You know, one of those ones that seems so real. Sorry to bother you. I'll go back to bed now." I smiled as I finished, and she nodded her head at me and smiled a little back.

"I think those happen to everyone every now and then. Have a good night Miss Stackhouse."

I turned and went back to my room. I climbed back in to bed, but I didn't go right back to sleep. My mind was racing. Who was that man? Why couldn't I read him? Why was he glowing? And most of all, I hoped above all things that he would come back.

"So what's this I hear about a tall blonde man walking around in the middle of the night?" Mrs. Marie asked as she entered my room the next morning.

"Penny tell you that?" I said as I stretched and pulled my covers back. I had stayed up until almost sunrise waiting for him to come back, and I slept the rest of the morning away.

"You know she had to log it. You want to tell me what this was all about?"

I sighed and stretched my arms above my head. "I'm not even sure it was real anymore. Maybe this place is finally getting to me." I threw my legs over the side of the bed. I looked back to Mrs. Marie, and she was standing to my right, hands on her hips, waiting expectantly for me to answer her.

"Look, I woke up and felt like someone was standing over me. I turned over in bed, and poof, someone was there. Tall, blonde, and glowing. And I couldn't read him. His mind was like… like a void. It was so strange…" I trailed off. "But Penny didn't see him. And he would have had to have gone past her. Not to mention all the other security just to get to this floor."

"I didn't hear a thing about anyone breaking in last night."

"See, so I must have been dreaming. Like I said, place is finally getting to me." I looked around for my slippers, and Mrs. Marie followed me out of my room and down the hall for lunch call. I hadn't realized I had been asleep that long.

"Don't say that baby. You're a strong girl. It was probably just a dream."

"I sure hope so." But at the same time, I thought to myself that I hoped it had been real.

That night, I had a hard time going to sleep. My mind was racing still over the man who'd been in my room. I couldn't help it. This was now the most exciting thing that had ever happened to me my entire life. And the more that I thought about it, the more sure I was that it had not been a dream.

I was partly scared to fall asleep, in fear that he would come back, and I would miss him. I had so many questions for him already. I hadn't even realized that I was dozing off, but I sure as heck knew when I woke back up.

"Shhh. Don't be frightened." the tall blonde haired man said. He was standing next to my bed this time, closer than I cared for at that moment. I did as he said however, and didn't make a peep. "You are Sookie Stackhouse, are you not?"

I nodded my head that I was.

"Do you want to leave this place Miss Stackhouse?" he asked. His smooth, cool voice sounding just like it had the night before.

I nodded my head again that I did.

"Good. Then you will come with me now." he said, and stepped aside to allow me enough room to get out of bed. But I didn't.

"Who are you?" I whispered. I was surprised that even heard me to be quite honest.

"That's not important right now. But I will explain everything. But if you want to leave, you must do so now."

"They'll notice I'm missing." I said, pulling the covers down a little, but still not getting out of bed just yet.

"I have that taken care of Miss Stackhouse. But I must insist that we hurry, we don't have much time." he said, and moved to the door, opening it the rest of the way.

I was so scared right then. My mind didn't know what to do. Did I leave with this strange man? He came into my room in the middle of the night twice now, and somehow was undetected both times. I couldn't read him at all. And he glowed. People didn't glow like that. And he seemed so old, although he looked young enough. Maybe not older than me. He could be kidnapping me, heck, he was kidnapping me. He could take me out of here, be ungentlemanly, and then kill me.

And even thinking all that, I hadn't even noticed that I had gotten out of bed, and was standing in next to him at the door to my room. I looked up into his eyes, which I could now see were the most beautiful shade of blue I had ever seen. Like an ocean blue, but almost blazing in a way. I was getting lost staring into them. And I found that I trusted him then. He wasn't going to hurt me, and he really was offering me a way out of this place.

I was scared as hell again. Not of him, but of leaving what had been the only thing that I had known for the past thirteen years. I had no money, no where to go, and I didn't know a single soul outside this place.

"Let's go." I said, and he smiled as he turned out the door and led the way down the hall.

You like? Yes, no, maybe so?

More next Sunday, if not sooner. As usual, I like to update on Sundays, and sometimes if I've written enough, during the week.

Snoogans and Snoochie Boochies!