A/N: For those of you who haven't read Dead Promises, I suggest you do before going further. I could point out a couple of key chapters that tie into the story here, but the truth is, I'm still building this story, and I have a feeling that you'll need more than just a couple of chapters to skim. Though that's entirely up to you. I hope you enjoy this one. I'm not trying for another tear jerker, but let's face it, life isn't always so awesome, so... I promise i'll give you lots of happy Sookie and Eric (That's who were visiting in this Chapter, btw) as well as out new characters!
Enjoy!
***
"What about artificial insemination?"
"No."
"Then, Lemon, I want to assist you."
"What?!"
"With an adoption, Lemon! Good Lord, with an adoption!"
I stood in my kitchen across from Eric. He was leaning back against the counter sipping his blood. Jason was in the living room with Amelia, chuckling at Alec Baldwin on the TV. Amelia actually got the humor in the show. I can't say the same for Jason. He was laughing because she was laughing. I dropped my gaze to the floor and smirked down at my bare feet, shaking my head. He was an idiot sometimes and a sex hound always, but he was my brother. I was glad to have him back in our old house, at least for a few hours at a time. Eric, of all people (well, all vampires), had encouraged this.
I saw, from the top of my vision (still looking at my feet), Eric shift his stance and begin to move across the space between us. He reached out and placed his hand on the back of my neck, rubbing small circles at the base of my spine. He was sending comfort through our bond. He was trying to stave off the inevitable. He hated tears, and I was sure to shed some once Jason left.
We had ordered pizza, and now I was waiting on the popcorn in the microwave. We had made it a ritual over the last few months. We all got together on Thursday and Saturday nights. Always at the house on Hummingbird Rd. Sometimes Bill or Sam would join us. Pam was usually covering for Eric at the bar, so he could be here with me. I hardly got to see Pam anymore and it was frustrating.
The microwave dinged. "Who wants white cheddar?"
Forty minutes later I shut the door as I watched Jason pull out of my driveway. I was leaning against the door-frame when I heard Amelia start to run her bath. She stuck her head out the door into the hallway and called out to me.
"You stayin' here tonight, Sook?"
"Not sure."
I glanced past the hall as she shut the door to the bathroom again. Eric was sitting at my little kitchen table. He looked completely out of place, and completely content to be. He sat there in down time (something I rarely saw him do these days). Talk about meticulous planning. Apparently that talent extended well beyond their tactical political motivations. Eric was being a hard ass lately. 'Scuse me, but he was. He was trying to keep me motivated and running like a well-tuned machine.
When we had visited the diagnostician in Shreveport three months ago I felt like I was a giant hot air balloon, collapsing inward on myself. I was imploding with such an awesome lack of force, there wasn't any room for anger. Confusion was all consuming. I had this crazy thought that Eric was going to rip the doctor's jugular out for making such a misdiagnosis. It was his voice that brought me back to my senses and the reality that I was, in fact, sitting in this conference room, with a panel of internists, oncologists, and the aforementioned diagnostician. Eric had his hand on my low back, rubbing small circles there, sending calm through the bond to me. He was asking questions and I had the feeling I should be listening.
"Wait, what? I'm sorry." I shook my head trying to bring some sense of balance back into my body, as I felt I would fall out of my chair at any moment. My head. I realized I'd been putting myself at a disadvantage. I tuned into what was hanging at the front of all of their minds.
Cancer.
It wasn't a mistake, as far as they believed.
A doctor was standing up, placing a film on one of those x-ray boxes and moving his hand in a circular motion around a picture of white and dark blotches. As you can see there are, well, there are a lot of them. There are 28 total tumors in your central body mass. This is indicative of end stage…
"And there are diets, experimental drugs? Chemo, that would be detrimental at this point, correct?" I was shocked. How did Eric know what to ask? The doctors seemed surprised, but encouraged and began speaking more confidently, addressing the big scary vampire next to me.
They explained that this was a typically slow moving cancer. That the sooner I began treatment of any kind, the better. Though they strongly suggested holding of on chemo and more radical, experimental treatments. With God-knows-how-many years ahead of me, they emphasized maintaining the quality of my life. That was a joke, right? Quality of my life? That had consisted of being shot at, stabbed, staked, bitten, kidnapped, raped, tortured, not to mention all the injustices I had suffered at the hands of my own community throughout my life.
My head was spinning.
I must have blacked out, because I came to in Eric's office in Fangtasia. I was lying on his couch. It was dark, the lights were out, and I could hear the bass of the music playing over KDED out on the dance floor.
Eric sat at the end of the couch, cradling my now bare feet in his lap. He was speaking softly into his phone. He quickly flipped the phone closed as my eyes settled on him.
"How did you know?" It was all I could manage, and it seemed the most important of all of my questions.
He lifted my feet from his lap and brought his knees to either side of me, leaning over me, shielding me. "I didn't know." His face was stone. No smirk, no wrinkle of his brow. He was trying so hard to look serious. Too serious. And he was blocking me through the bond.
"Yes you did. Don't lie to me, Eric." I whined and I hated myself for it. But it managed to dent his façade.
"I had an inclination." That wasn't really an answer, was it? He shut his eyes and I cold feel a low rumble. Not the same lustful rumble I usually felt coming from him. This was frustration, and he was holding back the full force of it for my benefit.
"Who were you speaking to?" I was feeling the numbness start to creep back to me. I needed to focus on something else.
Eric sat up straighter, transitioning to work mode. "That was the cancer hospital in Houston. We have arranged to have continual monitoring every three months here in Shreveport, as well as twice a year in the Houston hospital." We hadn't arranged anything, of course. Eric had. He'd taken control of the situation at the hospital today, which I have to admit I was grateful for, and he'd immediately taken on my healthcare as his personal project, which I was furiously resentful of at the moment.
I had no idea how to block my feelings through the bond, but it wouldn't have mattered if I did. I wasn't above being passive aggressive at the moment. Eric, leaned back into a neutral posture, and it made me feel like I was being handled.
"Calm down." He wasn't trying anymore either. His irritation was suddenly sweeping over me like a wet blanket on a humid night. "Someone has to be the pragmatist, my dear. I am only trying to make it easier on you.
Like hell he was! I was fuming. I was the one this was happening to – if it was really even happening! Not him. … … … That's not exactly true though, is it? I could tell that much by the constant ebb and flow of our emotions back and forth through the bond. And, as much as I wanted to pretend nothing was happening to me, the fear that my life was coming to an end was a little overwhelming. Maybe I was being melodramatic. The doctors said I could live with this kind of thing for decades. There might even be a cure for cancer in the next few years. For all I knew there already was, and Eric would move heaven and earth to find it for me. He really was the best ally I had in this. Then again, I could die in a car accident long before the creepy little tumors got me.
I must have been sitting there for a few minutes, letting my anger boil over into a mushy self-pitying fear. I felt Eric's arms wrap around me and I heard some choked sobbing sound that really was grating on my nerves. I wished whoever it was would stop. I was almost embarrassed for them. Then I realized it was me.
I collapsed into Eric's hold emitting a choking wet laughter. Oh, that Crazy Sookie.
