Behold, an outtake. I've been sitting on this one for a few weeks, and I've got a couple more kicking about in various stages of completion. They will be uploaded when I feel like it, and could continue indefinitely as long as I continue to have ideas.

The only eyes who saw this prior to publishing were my own, so I take full responsibility for any and all mistakes and/or crap.


I'd only ever lied to her once; there were a few instances she would probably consider lying, but really I was just being misleading, or possibly not telling her all the facts. As it turned out, though, she didn't mind that one lie. I'd only told it because I didn't want her to scare her off. Honestly, when the girl of your dreams-who has shown all signs of being romantically skeptical-asks on the first date why you bought a ridiculous American car, you do not answer with 'to remind me of you' unless your goal is to have her bolt back into her house. Instead, you lie, and hope that when she does find out the truth, she's not in a running mood.

The possibility of a running mood was a definite threat, too, since she'd done it twice already, so when the universe conspired to give me-us-a third chance, I decided that she wouldn't get the opportunity to run again. I will admit, the first time was my fault. I should have sought her out, since she had probably been too drunk to remember much and too embarrassed to find me. That mistake bothered me for the next two years; I'd felt a spark, and that was definitely something that had been missing in my life. Girls, no; sex, no; a connection, assuredly yes.

Worlds was interesting in that respect. I found out she was going to be there about a month out, and while I was careful not to actually say anything about her, I was evidently not canny enough.

"Erik, you're gushing. Stop it before your balls shrivel up and you start leaking estrogen."

I glared at her. Normally I appreciated Pam's no-nonsense, manlike approach to conversation, not to mention her complete unwillingness to be intimidated, but this was pushing the limits of my tolerance. "Pam..."

"Erik. I am completely serious. Two weeks ago you couldn't care less about Worlds. I mean, seriously, you're seeded 18th. You are going to get crushed."

"At least we're not seeded 26th."

"Fair. I, however, have not spent the last 15 minutes blathering about how excited I am to go to Prague. Why are you really so thrilled?"

"Do you remember that game we watched at Paga? The one with...Oxford, I think it was, and the blonde handler?"

"Do I. She was delicious."

"She was, and she is going to be a Worlds. Probably."

"So?"

"So?"

"Erik, please. I'm accepting for the moment that you have information which allows you to make that conclusion. What I want to know is why you care. It can't just be because she's hot, since you have never had any trouble attracting hot girls and they've never held any particular fascination after you bone them."

"I haven't 'boned' her."

"Why not?" Pam gave me a knowing look. "Should I have gone after her instead of that slutty chick in the toga?"

"No, you should not have," I fairly growled at her. Her response was to hold her palms up and look a little sheepish, appealing to me to chill out. I attempted to play it down, "You know how I am about sleeping with drunk girls."

"Right. If they're not going to remember, why bother?"

"Exactly."

"So she was smashed. That still doesn't tell me why you're all a-titter."

I glared at her some more. She glared back. I attempted to look nonchalant and took a sip of my coffee. She pointed at me, her face gleefully maniacal.

"Ha!"

"Ha?"

"She's your 'one that got away.' Normally you don't care, but clearly this one means something. I wonder what." The look she turned on me then was one I'd only seen used on women (with one notable exception). It was intense and predatory, and I did not enjoy being on the receiving end. She let me squirm until she came to a conclusion, at which point her mouth curved into a Cheshire grin. "I'll help you catch her. Which team is she on?"

~~~^v^~~~

Pam had been smirking at me almost the whole time we were in the Five tent, but she refused to tell me why. I figured it out when I passed by the couches on the way to check out the mini games. There she was, slumped against the arm and staring right at me. Or rather, the space I was currently occupying.

"Sookie?" Her reaction was hilarious: slow panning up to my face, then shock, and finally embarrassment. I felt myself smirking at how cute she was when she blushed.

"Jesus Christ, Shepherd of Judea! I did not expect to see you here, Erik."

I couldn't help myself-I laughed. It was just such an outdated, American thing for her to say, and it sounded hilarious to my very European ears. I calmed myself quickly, noting that she'd started blushing again, and that this time it wasn't cute. It was hot. She didn't look embarrassed, exactly, especially considering how she was suddenly squeezing her knees together and staring at her toes.

"Well, I did not expect to see you here, either," where 'here' was referring specifically to this tent, "but it is certainly a pleasant surprise."

"Of course! What team have you come with?"

I felt a flash of horror stab itself into my brain, demanding to know what I would do if she was a complete airhead. She hadn't seemed like it before, but then again, she'd been very drunk, and it's hard to tell at that stage. A moment later, though, reason was thankfully reestablished by reminding me that if she'd been playing with the Oxford kids, she was probably studying there, which meant she wasn't an idiot, just flustered.

"Ragnarok. And I see you've come with the Brüte Squad." Technically true, it was written right there on her jersey, just like it was on mine. She didn't need to know that I'd known that was her team since early June.

"Ah…yes. Yes, I did. Look…last time, in Italy, I was incredibly drunk."

"I noticed." And how. She hadn't been the drunkest person there by far, but she clearly hadn't been completely compos mentis, either.

"I'm sure you did. The thing is, I don't remember much of any of it…" As I'd said to Pam in the café, I'd suspected that would be the case, and told her as much. She smiled pleasantly and thanked me, and then we moved on to a series of mostly pointless and completely harmless topics. What exactly we discussed, I couldn't say; I'd put my mouth on flirting autopilot, leaving the rest of my brain free to study her.

She was absolutely gorgeous and clearly had no idea. Not in a plastic, supermodel/famous actress kind of way, more of the totally accessible, girl you grew up with and suddenly noticed had turned into total babe kind of way. She had the sort of curvy, ultra-feminine body that sent Renaissance painters into fits of creativity and made me think that no matter how great I imagined her breasts would be, I couldn't begin to comprehend their perfection until I'd actually seen them. Presumptuous, yes, but I was looking forward to being proven right.

And her smile, her fucking smile. A smile that would inspire blind men to write epic sagas that shape the entirety of Western society, and yet had this cheeky little variation where her tongue would peek out of the corner of her teeth, just begging me to come after it. Fuck, I wanted her, but I settled for telling funny stories and being as charming as I knew to be in hopes that that smile would never go away.

It did, though, turning slightly sad when Sookie's cockblocking teammates came to fetch her for dinner. Then, after a lovely night in a pub with a perfect walk through the moonlight, it went away again. And again, at the end of the week, leaving not even an email address as hope that I might be able to bring it back.

She'd gotten away a second time.

~~~^v^~~~

"You idiot."

I looked up from the dismal sea of my coffee, which today I'd taken black to match my mood. Pam had just arrived, impeccably dressed as always, and was hovering over the table for maximum effect. She'd also managed to stand with the sun almost directly behind her, so I couldn't look at her without squinting.

"You complete and utter idiot." Clearly she also wasn't satisfied with my lack of response. She glared at me for several more seconds before taking pity on my retinas and sitting in the tiny table's other chair.

"For the record, I agree with you. What, in particular, has led you to this conclusion?"

"You mean aside from the fact that you had your little blonde beauty and somehow managed to let her go again?"

"Sookie."

"What?"

"Her name is Sookie."

"Fine. Weird name. Regardless, by all reports you two seemed very cozy at the pub, and now you look like you're contemplating whether you can drown yourself in a coffee mug hardly larger than your nose. Clearly it did not go to plan."

"You could say that." I was a little surprised at how calm I sounded, considering how much of a mess I was inside.

Pam's face scrunched up a little at the thought of the distasteful direction this conversation was going. "Do you want to tell me about it?"

I smiled a tiny bit. "Thanks, Pam. I know how much it hurt you to ask that."

"It did. Don't make me ask again."

My smile grew a tiny bit more. "I won't." For several minutes, the silence was companionable as we sipped our coffees together, but then I ran out of coffee to sip. I stared at the white bottom of the tiny cup, then very deliberately returned it to the saucer, folding my hands in front of me on the table. Pam continued to regard me coolly over the lip of her own cup.

"I don't know what went wrong."

"Bullshit."

"I don't. Not for sure, anyway."

"Well, what happened? Perhaps I can tell you where you ran off the tracks."

I raised an eyebrow in inquiry. "Really? 'Cause if I didn't know those tits were real, I'd think you were a man in a lady-costume. Sympathy is not your strong suit."

"Psh. I read enough advice columns that I should be able to regurgitate something relevant at you."

I had to laugh at that. It was true-Pam loved to sit around her flat and cackle to herself over Dear Abby columns she found on the internet. "Fine, if only to hear what you think is 'relevant.' Where shall I start?"

"I hear you walked her home."

"I did."

"Start there."

I sighed, raking a hand through my hair. "It was great. She was clinging to my arm the whole time, and we just kind of wandered and enjoyed each others' company."

"But?"

"But then we got back to the dorm, and she invited me to come up, and I declined on the basis of her being drunk, which she laughed off because she'd meant to sleep, period, but I didn't think that was a good idea, either."

"Did you say so?"

"Yeah..."

"So you slept in your bed, and she in hers?" I nodded. "Stupid."

"Yes, we've established that, thanks."

"That was before you told me just how much of an idiot you've been. I thought you could use some reminding. What next?"

"There is no 'next.' We barely said six words to each other the rest of the week." She turned my own eyebrow raise on me, silently asking me why the hell that was. I shrugged. "We didn't really get a chance for much else. Busy playing and all that." She grunted, then glanced at her buzzing phone. After quickly draining her cup and dropping a few kroner on the table, she stood.

"I've got to get back to the office."

"What, no advice?"

"No. You're fucked."


I would like to thank Charlaine Harris for her unwitting allowance of me to give her characters new lives, and politely ask that she not sue me should she or her legal team find this.