Charlaine Harris owns this.

A/N: This began as a response to the weekly one-shot challenge # 24: I give my gun away when it's loaded. It's also in response to neosailorqueen's brilliant idea of a Turning Sookie Challenge on the Sookieverse. I initially wrote a one-shot based on the two challenges, and then couldn't resist expanding it.

This takes place in Book Four when Eric and Sookie return to her house and find Debbie Pelt sitting in Sookie's kitchen the night before Eric's curse is lifted.

When I turned on the light, Debbie Pelt was smiling at me.

She had been sitting in the dark at my kitchen table, and she had a gun in her hand.

I instinctively reached behind the water heater and grabbed the loaded shotgun. I pumped it and looked over to Eric as I tossed it to him. The second it left my hands, I realized my mistake. Eric didn't need a gun to kill anybody and in that fraction of a second that he turned his attention to me to catch the shotgun, I heard and felt Debbie's shot. The look on Eric's face went from shock and horror to consuming anger. And let me tell you, there is no scarier sight that an angry Eric.

I clutched at my chest and felt the sticky blood oozing through my shirt. Immediately, it was hard to breathe. I didn't recognize the ragged sounds coming from my mouth as I opened it wider trying to get air into my lungs. But there was no air in the room. My legs folded underneath me as I sat hard onto the floor and leaned back against the wall, but my eyes never left Eric's face. He turned from me and faced Debbie at the table. She pointed her gun at Eric, but before she could fire again, he grabbed the barrel and yanked it from her grasp. I heard it clatter to the floor as Eric pulled Debbie up from her seat by the wrist, an expression of pure fear in her eyes. She started to scream but Eric's other hand covered her mouth, pushing her face to the side as he bit into her exposed neck. I watched his jaw working, chewing through the flesh, blood messily spurting and covering both of them. Debbie's eyes went blank and I knew she was dead, but Eric kept sucking and chewing and roaring loudly into her skin. He was an absolute mindless monster. It was a terrifying sight but I'd be lying if I said that a part of me didn't enjoy watching him defend me in the only way he knew how. That's what he is, and I knew then that he did love me and that was all that mattered. I wanted to tell him so, but when I tried to speak, only an unintelligible gurgle escaped my lips. The sound caught Eric's attention and he released Debbie's throat and turned to face me. Half of Debbie's neck was missing and Eric's face was covered in blood. He dropped Debbie who fell to the floor like a rag doll, her body awkwardly hitting the table and then the chair on its way to the floor. Her unseeing eyes seemed to be fixed on her own gun which was lying on the floor at my feet, no longer of any use to her.

Eric rushed to me, sat on the floor, and pulled me into his arms, cradling me like a baby. I wanted to touch his face, still beautiful to me in spite of all the blood. I wanted to tell him that I loved him. But my body was not responding to my commands. I was a limp bloody dishrag, unable to move at all, but I could still feel with my heart and I hoped that Eric knew what I wanted to say to him. I watched him bite into his wrist and he put it to my lips. I tried to open my mouth, but it simply wouldn't work. He pushed his wrist into my mouth and I tasted the cool salty liquid on my tongue, but I couldn't swallow. Eric started to cry, big bloody tears running down his face. "Please don't leave me. Try to drink. You've got to try." I was trying, but I knew that it was too late. I could feel the room getting colder and the light getting dimmer. Eric hugged me to him tighter and kissed my forehead, my cheek, my nose, never removing his wrist from my mouth. "Don't go, Sookie. I love you. I need you." I felt his body wracked with sobs as he held me and my last thought was how sorry I was that I couldn't tell him that I loved him too, but that I hoped that he knew. And then the world just went away for me while my beautiful vampire was left behind.

I woke with the worst sore throat I'd ever felt. It felt like when I was little and I'd had my tonsils removed. Only this time it felt like they'd been removed with pliers, and then maybe somebody had poured salt down my throat. And then maybe some lemon juice. Anyway, it hurt. I tried to cry out, but my throat was just too parched. I opened my eyes and I was staring at creamy white fabric above me. The bed I was on had white silk panels draped over the canopy rails, flowing all around me. It was quite beautiful, but all I could focus on was my pain and then I realized that the pain was a thirst. I tried to sit up and that's when I saw Eric sitting in a chair by the bed with an unreadable expression on his face. My first thought was that Eric would help me. He loves me, after all. Then it came back to me that he had been holding me and crying while I was dying. Suddenly I knew that he had turned me and that my thirst was for blood.

Eric rose and reached towards the nightstand. He handed me a bottle of True Blood. I sat up, grabbing it hungrily from his hand and downed it in a few loud gulps. My throat felt instantly relieved and suddenly I had the energy to sit up fully. I was overwhelmed with a feeling of euphoria. I was a vampire, and not just any vampire, but Eric's child. I remembered all the love I'd felt for him as I was dying on my kitchen floor and knew that we would have an eternity to explore that love and I was happier than I could have ever imagined. I reached my hand out to Eric as he stood by the bed, my eyes filled with pure love and gratitude. "Eric."

"Sookie." His voice was hard and cold. Was he mad at me? "I suppose I should congratulate you on your new status. It appears that I am your maker."

I was confused and hurt. I lowered my hand. "Eric, is something wrong?"

"Yes, something is very wrong. I woke crammed into a tiny space under a closet in your house with your dead body on top of me two nights ago. I seriously considered dumping you into a swamp but decided to call Pam instead. She told me that I had been cursed by Hallow and that you had hidden me and that I owed you more than a toss in the river. She also suggested the possibility that I had turned you, but I didn't believe her. And yet, here you are. Clearly I was out of my mind while cursed to have created a child with your insolence. I believe in the last encounter we had you rescinded my invitation from your home after constantly rejecting my sexual advances. Now, can you tell me why I would want to turn such a woman and have her attached to me until the end of time? Let's face it, Sookie, when you were human, you were fun to chase, a challenge to be met, an asset to control. But there's a big difference between a casual dalliance with a human woman even if she does have perfect breasts and tying oneself eternally to another being. My judgment was severely impaired while cursed and apparently you are the miserable result. My apologies."

I felt my lower lip quiver and my eyes glisten as I was hit with the realization that my Eric was gone and in his place was the heartless vampire I had come to know before his curse. Not only was it as if our entire love affair had been erased, but now I was tied to this man forever and he seemed to feel nothing but resentment for me. I was beholden to him in every way, unable to ever be free of his control, and he might as well have hated me. When Eric's curse was lifted, mine had just begun. I was cursed to an eternity bound to a man that I loved with all my heart knowing that he felt nothing but disdain for me. I felt a heavy blood tears spill over and run down my face. "I'm sorry, too."

For an instant a flash of emotion crossed Eric's features. Was it pity? Compassion? But then it was gone and replaced by the cold stare of those piercing blue eyes. Eric turned and crossed the room. He put his hand on the doorknob, but before leaving he said in a heartless voice, his back still to me, "I hate having feelings." And then he was gone. And I was left all alone.