Disclaimer: All Sookie Stackhouse, Southern Vampire Mysteries characters belong to Charlaine Harris.
***
Sookie Stackhouse melted into the plane's seat material as the plane wheels left Louisiana, Shreveport's tarmac runway.
It had been a rollercoaster the past six months, under the Stackhouse roof. Her Gran fell ill, then funeral arrangements.
If her three best friends hadn't been there, she didn't think she would have been able to keep her head above water. Amelia Broadway, Tara Thornton and Lafayette Reynolds are true life savers and saints in her book. They'd been best friends since first grade and jointed at the hip for a long time.
It was a sad day when Amelia announced her father had accepted some business deal in the United Kingdom, a deal he couldn't say no to, which they all knew meant big money was involved.
Luckily they'd kept in contact over the years since the summer after their high-school days ended. Amelia came over for a brief visit for her Gran's funeral and offered the three of them a place to stay if they ever ventured over to her side of the pond.
It took her three months to decide to take Amelia up on her offer, in those three months, she had taken the time to sort everything out. The old farm house, in her family for decades upon decades, needed a new lick of paint, and upgrading somewhat.
Her Gran bless her, left her a comfortable sum of money, enough that she didn't have to work for a couple of decades if she didn't want. This shocked her to the bone when the family lawyer told her. She also left Jason a handsome sum and told him to use it wisely in her will.
That is what set the fuel burning in the pit of her stomach and pushed her to book the flight to Amelia's current location of Stockholm, Sweden. Why Sweden, she had no idea, but from what Amelia's said about the place, it's her favourite place to be to wind down and relax when she gets a holiday period from University.
She knew this because she contacted Amelia a couple of weeks ago after the Jason incident. She would have come sooner but Sam Merlotte, her boss at Merlotte's Bar and Grill, just up the road from where she lives, said he needed a two week notice so he could cover shifts or work out a shift pattern change for the other bar-maids to cover her shifts.
Not wishing to get into detail at the moment regarding the Jason incident, knowing she'd already promised Amelia she'll tell her about it when she saw her as it was hard enough seeing Jason's face every day and that new erotic dancer of a not-so-nice woman he calls a wife he'd hooked up with in Vegas, where he went with his buddy Rene on his stag-do, who is her fellow waitress, Arlene's latest husband-to-be.
The sound of wheels turning and rustling brought Sookie out of her line of thoughts and noticed it was one of the air hostesses, who is actually a male flight attendant, and gave her a list of choices available from the food trolly. She chose the beef dish with the mini fruit tart and two cans of coke.
It is a long flight from Shreveport, Louisiana to Stockholm, Sweden and she'd need all the energy she could get, just to keep herself from crawling up the walls or trying to break free from this claustrophobic, small space.
Having never been on the inside of a plane before she didn't realise just how small and confined the inner space and lay out was. Being used to the open countryside of Bon Temps, Louisiana and never really venturing much further than Shreveport or Monroe for clothes, it suddenly dawned on her there was a lot more to the world than Louisiana and her farm house.
It was a really big wake up call, as she hadn't really thought about it before. She'd had a nice routine, a roof over her head and a nice group of friends and a job that paid the bills. She'd never given much thought to life outside of Bon Temps, Louisiana. Till now!
Sookie closed her eyes and let her head fall back against the back of the plane seat and tried stretching her feet out a little. She ended up scrunched up in a ball with her feet - no shoes, just socks on resting against the little radiator and that was her last thought before she fell into a deep sleep.
The next thing she knew, she was woken up, well shaken, gently awake.
'Miss?' 'Miss?' The same soft tone came again and again until her eyes flew open. She felt disorientated and disappointed. That had been a really good dream, though she couldn't remember a thing which was weird as she was usually pretty good at remembering them.
'Huh?' She said again, blinking and gazing into wise old eyes.
'We are about to arrive in Stockholm, Miss. The staff are asking everyone to put their seatbelts back on and prepare for landing.' He said gently.
'We're here all ready?' Sookie asked, shocked.
'Yes, Miss. You slept most of the flight.'
'WoW!' Sookie thought, as she straightened herself out, ignoring her groaning muscles and joints, in the process.
'Thank you for waking me.' Sookie said, her southern belle manors kicking in.
'You're welcome, Miss.' He replied.
The man then turned his gaze ahead of them and Sookie lifted the blind that covered the little plane window to see blue sky and white clouds. Her flight was eight o'clock in the morning and it should be, eight o'clock at night. It is the beginning of summer, June and so the nights are much lighter. Her favourite time of year, is when the sun is shining brightly in the sky for longer.
She started to feel more and more excited, rather than a little nervous, like she was when the plane first started rolling back in Shreveport. Amelia was due to meet her in the arrival lounge after she's navigated her way through customs and finding her suitcase.
Amelia said the airport is relatively easy to find your way around and has signs in various different languages including English so she shouldn't find herself lost at all and if she does the staff are very friendly and always willing to help and not to be afraid to ask, as English is most foreign European's second or third language so basically nearly everyone knew at least a little English, whether they chose to speak it or not.
True to Amelia's word, Sookie found her way through the airport with ease and little hassle. She didn't have to wait long in the arrival lounge. Pretty much as soon as she stepped out into the arrivals area, she was attacked in a massive hug and her vision blurred by a sea of hair and her ears burst by a loud excited squeal 'SOOKIE!'
- I swear upon the fan fiction, writer's bible that the chapters will get LONGER! I promise. I kicked myself for writing something this short but alas, we can't force the flow of words to continue when it's being stubborn to budge past its point of completion.
Next chapter WILL be up soon :D