AN: First of all I want to apologize because this chapter should have been publish long time ago. This last few months have been really life changing for me and time became my enemy for awhile. That say, I want to thank to all the readers who took their time to comment, asks, favorite and followed this story. It means the world to me.
To my wonderful beta team, whom I know I can always count on: slcurwin and Aimee1985 I love this girls to pieces.
I hope you all like this chapter, because there is a lot of Eric on it!
Warnings and Disclaimer are in chapter one.
Previously: Sookie and Tara made peace with each other. Sookie had a flashback of her time in Öland when she met Eric. Jason, his newest girlfriend and Hoyt are arrest and Sookie sneaks out of her house to pay their bail. Adele finds out Jason was arrested and lost consciousness.
Sookie woke up when someone shook her. It took her a moment to realize that she wasn't in her own bed, but rather she was resting against someone's hard chest. She took a minute to bask in the feeling of comfort and security before opening her eyes and facing reality. She was in the hospital still. Her Aunt Linda, her brother Jason (along with Carla), and Calvin were there with her.
"What's going on?" she asked sleepily.
"We are going home, darling." said her aunt gently. The lines of the corner of her eyes and mouth were carved deeply. She looked like she had aged ten years in one night.
Sookie sighed and sat up straight on the plastic chair in the waiting room. When she realized she had been leaning on Calvin's chest and had, in fact, slept on him, she blushed. "How's gran?"
"She's gonna die." wailed Jason. He was slumped on the floor in front of them.
"She is certainly not going to die." Linda sent her nephew a hard glare. "They are keeping her a few more days for observation."
"But she's OK?" Sookie wasn't sure how long she had been sleeping, but the sun was already up and the hospital was bustling.
"Yes, for now. They managed to get her blood pressure down and for the moment she is out of danger." she held a hand to Sookie to help her stand up. "Come, sweetheart. Let's go make a quick stop in the lady's room before going home."
"Is Gran, really alright, Aunt Linda?" Sookie asked her aunt after using the restroom and washing her face in the sink. She could see her reflection and that of her father's sister through the mirror. They looked a lot alike. Same shade of blond hair, eye color. The same shape of their lips. Sookie resembled her aunt more than she ever did her own mother.
"Yes, I didn't want to wake you up when the doctor came the last time, but he told us she was going to be fine. I'm not saying that it wasn't serious," she was determinate not to lie to her niece. "Losing consciousness like she did, obviously is not a good thing but -"
"This is my fault, isn't it?" Sookie interrupted her. She turned away from the mirror, coming face to face with her aunt. "If I hadn't snuck out of the house this wouldn't have happened."
"If you hadn't left the house, Sookie, mom would have taken that call from Jason and the end result would have been the same." Linda blew out a breath and crossed her arms over her chest. "This was your fault and Jason's and mine only in the fact that mom's loves us and is worried about us." she softened her tone, when she saw Sookie's lowered lip quivering. It was so easy to forget that she was practically a child still. "Mom is at the wrong end of sixty, Sookie. And she has been taken care of us since forever. Now we have to do our best to take care of her. Do our best not to worry her."
"Aunt Linda, Jason is an idiot. I'm worried every day that he's going to lose a toe at work because he's more interested in checking girls out than the work he's doing. You have cancer and I have three more months until the baby comes. How exactly are we going to stop her from worrying about us?"
"I will talk with Jason. He will have to clean his act up or there will be hell to pay, believe me." she tried to give Sookie a smile, but ended up being more like a grimace. "I will take my treatment, and I'll get better. As for you..."
Sookie got the words from her aunt's mind before Linda said them out load. She closed her eyes in despair. "Marrying me off is not a solution, Aunt Linda." she shook her head in denial, her aunt's thought were bombarding her own brain. "No, things don't work like that." she answered the unspoken words. "Marrying someone is not going to magically resolve all of our problems. This is the real world, Aunt Linda."
"Listen to me, Sookie." Linda put her hands on Sookie's shoulders and shook her a little. "Mom needs to know that you are fine. That someone is taking care of you and your child. Do you think she rests easy worrying about you? Of how you would fare if something happen to her? To me? She deserves better than that. Do you think she likes how things stand now? Not even being able to go into town without having everyone looking at her, talking behind her back."
"Is that what you think? She's ashamed of me?"
"Not of you." she told her. "But certainly, of the situation."
"The situation?" Sookie felt numb. "The situation, as you call it Aunt Linda, is my baby. And I'm sorry you and Gran are ashamed of us."
"Sookie!" Linda called after her, but the teenager just kept on walking out of the restroom.
Sookie kept on walking, ignoring her aunt calling her, until she found Calvin. He was still in the waiting area and though Jason was still there too, both men were ignoring each other. "Can you take me, home?" Sookie asked the werepanther.
"Sure, I'll take you and your aunt back home."
"No. Just me." she looked back to see her aunt had already caught up with her. "She can get a ride back with Jason."
He gave her a searching look before speaking. "Come on, then." he said, taking one of her slim hands in his.
They made their way in silence. Even after they were in his truck and the hospital was shrinking away in the rear-view mirror, they didn't speak. Sookie was bursting with a mix of anger, hurt, resentment and the sneaking suspicious that her aunt was right. And that made it all the worse in her books. She was not ashamed of her child nor the circumstances of its conception. Which was none of my fault, she thought to herself tiredly. No one but her and her friends knew what really happened, and that was her decision. Her choice. So how could she blame her family for thinking she willingly sleep with a man without the benefit of marriage, when she wouldn't even gave them his name? And how could she blame her aunt and her grandmother for wanting her to get married when they were old fashioned, religious women. That was how they thought. Hell, how they felt. They just wanted what they thought was best for her, even if Sookie herself did not agree.
"Calmed down?" Calvin asked her as he parked his truck and turned off the ignition.
"I'm acting like a baby." She blew out a breath and looked at him; he was so solid and real. And safe. "I'm sorry I keep dragging you into my problems."
"Hey, look at me." he took one of her hands and sandwiched it between his. "I wouldn't be here if I didn't want to be."
His brain was buzzing around her. She could feel it, but didn't get that much from him. It was like having the radio really low in volume. It comforted her. "My aunt wants me to marry you." she blurted out, then winced at her own insensitivity.
He was quiet for several moments, before speaking to her. "And what do you think? What do you want?"
She wet her lips with her tongue, and then bent forward resting her head against the dashboard of the truck. She wasn't sure how to answer that. "I want things to be like they were before my trip. I want my aunt to be healthy, and my friends to be fighting with each other instead of not speaking to me. I want my grandmother to keep going to all of her clubs and societies without people talking of the bad job she did raising my brother and me." she gave him a challenging look. "Because she did a great job and those who say different are talking trash."
Calvin held his hands up in sign of surrender, but there was a smile tugging at the corner of his lips. "Stop there warrior princess, I'm on your side, remember?"
Sookie blushed again, but smiled at him. "I'm sorry, it just burns me when people talk about my Gran like that. She did the best she could. And everybody just focuses on the negative side of things."
"I get what you are saying, Sookie. But you can't live your life according to what other people think and say. And I bet your grandma knows that too."
"She's great, isn't she?"
"Yes, she is. And she raised an amazing grandchild too."
"I don't want all things to be like they used to." she confesses after a few seconds "I love my baby and I'm glad I'm having it." She looked at him straight in the eye. His golden, cat like eyes that reminded her he was far from human, like her baby. Like herself. "I'm glad I met you."
"I'm glad I met you, too. Come on, let's go inside."
Sookie looked for the first time at her surroundings. She wasn't at her house; instead she could see a McDonald's building. "This isn't my house."
Calvin shook his head. "You and the baby need to eat." was all he said.
"Thank you." she said softly. It wasn't such a bad deal having someone taking care of her, being there with her. Maybe her aunt was onto something, and she shouldn't cross marriage off of her list yet.
Eric walked into the restaurant, giving thanks that he didn't need to breathe. Unlike centuries ago, the aroma of food didn't bother him that much, but garlic still did and apparently it was being used in abundance that night. He followed his Hostess, a forty something red head that was trying to pass breathing off as an Olympic sport in order to get him to notice her man-made breasts. She kept giving him quick looks over her shoulder to make sure he was still behind her. Eric concentrated on the musky scent of her arousal but couldn't quiet overcome the garlic in the air.
His dinner companion was already waiting for him. As the redheaded woman took him to a small and dimly lit terrace, he gave thanks to whatever deity was looking out for him that his partner had chosen to dine alfresco that night.
"Your waitress will be with you momentarily." said the hostess in Greek. She was even more flustered when she saw the other man. Though considerably older, he was just as beautiful. She wondered if they were father and son, even though they hardly resembled each other. "If there is anything you need," she sent both men a seductive look. At that point she wasn't too particular about which of the two of them took her up on her offer. "Just let me know."
"That never gets old, does it?" said Niall sociably, to the blond vampire. "You didn't even have to glamour her."
"Neither, did you." Though fairies didn't have the same kind of glamour that vampires did, their beauty acted in practically the same way.
"My boy, if I dropped my shields I would have to protect myself from you, not the woman-folk here." he said with a smile.
The scent of fairy was, after all, intoxicating to vampires. But Niall was not worried about that particular effect right now. Unlike most fairies, he could hide his scent. As long as he was present the vampire would not detect him, once he left the restaurant though, his smell will be impregnated in everything around him. He pitied the creature who came into contact with the vampire after.
A young man came then, he was balancing various plates and drinks on a tray. "I hope you don't mind, I already ordered." Eric shook his head. He didn't need to eat. In fact his digestive system could not process human food at all. That was the only downside of playing human, to his mind.
"How long has it been this time, old friend?" asked Niall. Coming from others that might have been just polite conversation. Eric knew that wasn't the case with Niall. The fairy Prince spent some of his time in the human realm, but the bulk of it he spent in Faeryand time passed different there. Also the older man was lousy keeping time straight in his mind, though he was far from senile.
"Not that long this time." he accepted the plate without even acknowledging the young man. Humans were beneath him. "We saw each other a few months ago when I returned Brísingamen to you."
"Ah yes," he said, then took a sip from his wine glass. The white wine tasted fruity and not altogether unpleasant on his tongue. "I hope it served its purpose."
Eric thought of his child's joy when he delivered the necklace to her. Then he thought of the young model and how Brísingamen had looked cradled between her breasts. Instantaneously he felt himself go hard and his fangs go down. "Pam was very happy with it." he finally said.
Niall arched an eyebrow but didn't comment on the fangs. "I'd like to say you are more than welcome to borrow it again, but I'm afraid Brísingamen is not in my possession any longer."
"What?" Eric, conscious that he was in a human establishment, had retracted his fangs, just to have them pop again at that news. "It was stolen?" He didn't dwell too much on his past life, when he was still a human, but some things you take with you even to the undead life, and this struck a deep chord within him. Brísingamen was Freyja's most precious possession. She had lost her standing because of that necklace. As a warrior Eric had pledged himself to the Goddess and in some deep part of him his devotion to her was still present. It didn't matter that the fairy Prince had owned but a replica. What was important was the fact that it was now in unworthy hands.
But Niall merely waved his anger away. "It was not stolen." he said. "But that is part of why I wish to speak to you." He took another sip of his wine, before speaking again. Eric knew him enough to know he was not doing it for dramatic effect, though as all fairies were, he was prone to these gestures. "My son was murdered."
Niall had three sons, as far as Eric knew. Full fairy Dillon, and half breed twins: Fintan and Dermot. One he tolerated one he openly despised, and only one he loved. It didn't take a genius to know which had had been murdered. Niall wasn't just furious, he was grieving.
"Fintan was a fierce warrior." he told him for lack of better thing to say. Eric hadn't had many dealings with the half-ling, but what little there had been, both of them always parted on good terms. "Has the perpetrator being caught yet?"
"No one has come forward to claim responsibility yet. I have people working on that. There is no place, in this realm or any other, where they can hide that I will not find them."
Eric nodded, revenge was a universal sentiment. "Do you require my assistance?"
But Niall shook his head. "Not in this matter, at least not now."
"What can I do for you then?"
"Fintan left behind a family." now, he paused for dramatic effect. Eric gave him none. "They live in Louisiana. In your area to be precise."
"I wasn't aware there were fairies in my area, Niall. I could have gone to meet them long ago."
"Don't be impertinent, boy," Niall scolded him. "And they are not full fairies, either." he paused for a moment, not the least bit bothered by the vampire's comment. "What I need you to do is to keep an eye on them. I'm afraid they might be in danger from whoever murdered my son."
"Why don't you take them to Faery with you? Or assign some full fairy guards?"
"Because they are not aware of what they are." as Eric arched an eyebrow he smiled. "Hard to believe, I know, but they have been kept completely away from other supernatural beings until now. Fintan and his woman made a deal before their first child was born, and that was that as long as he lived, Fintan was not going to involve their family in the fairy world. He had complied until his death."
"You are telling me Fintan's children have no idea of what they are? Of what their father is?"
"They had no idea Fintan was their father." Niall stressed. "Fintan's woman was married at the time, and her husband was the one who raised, for the most part at least, Fintan's children."
"And now that he is dead, do you intend to tell them the truth?"
"No. Not now, at any rate. Fintan's first born, a boy, was killed a few years ago. He had two surviving children of his own. Fintan also had a second child, a daughter, who has a child as well. I intend to be part of their lives, but first I need to know two things. And that is where you come in."
"Which are?" was all the vampire asked.
"That they are safe and that they are worthy of me."
"Worthy of being claimed by Prince Charming? That might be a hard order." he wasn't sure how much truth there was to the rumors, but he had heard that it took Dillon five hundred years to be claimed by his father. "What I am supposed to do? Do I contact them?"
"No. Just observe. Maybe send someone over for protection; until Fintan's murderer is caught I cannot be sure that they are not in danger. But you don't need to have direct contact with them unless you wish to." when Eric nodded to let him know that he would comply with his task, Niall smiled brightly. That taken care of, he changed the subject. "Now, tell me how things were in Japan. I couldn't make it but I heard you came aboard on the project."
"Yes, I'm glad you invited me in. The concept is very interesting and if they are as close as they claimed to success, the world is about to change." he didn't thank the fairy Prince thought he was grateful enough to do so. The small investment he had made would turn him from a very rich man into an obscenely wealthy one. But thanking a fairy was becoming beholding to them, and that was a kind of control he would not give the Prince, friendly allies or not. It was enough, that his maker already had that power over him.
"Akira was a fool for stepping out when they are so close to finish. Taking away his contribution would have stopped the project indefinitely. But I knew once you saw the project, you would join in." he cut some of his meat and brought it to his face for examination. Like a man about to taste some exotic food for the first time, which wasn't that far off. "Synthetic blood." mused the fairy. "You are right of course. In the medical field, this is a great advancement. For the humans." he paused as he savored his dinner. "But I wonder if you have thought of the implications of this development for the vampires."
"Yes, I have." answered Eric, before he shook his head. "But it would take more than just cloned blood, for vampire to change their way of life. The way things have been as far back as everyone can remember."
"It won't be easy, I'll give you that. But you would be surprised as to how many of your people are willing to take the risk to try to change the status quo." he raised his glass and pointed with it to the other male. "And you my friend, will have, as the only vampire involved, all the power in the middle of the revolution to come, thanks to me."
"Which is why I'm looking over your hybrid family." countered Eric.
Niall, laughed. "One of these days, boy, I'm going to get that Thank You, from you." a low beeping sound from Niall's pocket interrupted their banter. "And that is my cue." said the Prince rueful.
Niall stood up from the table and start to walk away when Eric made him pause by clamping his hand on the Prince's forearm. "You didn't tell me, where exactly is your family? How I am to find them?"
The fairy looked at the vampire directly in the eye. "You always seemed to have a strange connection to the necklace." he murmured. "Follow Brísingamen." and with that he was gone.
Confused, Eric kept himself seated. He wasn't sure what Niall had meant about his connection to Freyja's necklace, but he long ago stopped trying to understand all of the old fairy's eccentricities. As he stood up from the table, the redheaded woman who greeted him at the door came up to him. She was wearing her coat and had her purse in her hands.
"I hope you had a nice dinner, sir." she said, her eyes were suspiciously bright.
"It was fine." he told her.
She didn't move. "I have a message for you. From the gentleman you were dinning with."
Eric cocked his head to the side and crossed his arms on his chest. "Yes."
"He said, to tell you 'Enjoy.'" she bit her lowered lip. "Then, he hugged me."
"Did he now?" he asked with a smirk then inhaled deeply. Immediately the scent of fairy invaded him. "Shall we, then?" he extended his arm to the woman. She blushed, but took his arm.
Though he didn't say it aloud, he did send the Prince mental Thank You's.
It was two hours short of dawn when he finally arrived at his rented house. He hadn't brought the woman to his place, because he didn't trust anyone but his vampire children with that knowledge. Though he had enjoyed himself, it had mostly been the fairy smell imbued on the woman, rather than the woman herself. Taking her blood was a letdown, because it hadn't tasted nearly as good as the Prince's scent.
Thoughts of Niall made him revise his own thoughts on the synthetic blood. After more than a millennium of living in the shadows, having to be careful when he ate so as to not attract attention to himself, he was more than ready for a change. But there were more things to be considered than just that. He really didn't think humans would just openly accept vampires if they decided to come out in the open. In fact, he would be surprised if that didn't induce a witch-hunt so to speak. Humans had the nasty habit of killing things they didn't understand, or things that scared them. He would know he was once a human.
Another thing to be considered was the other supernatural beings. Would they come out in the public if the vampires did? Though vampires were, currently, the most numerous of the supernatural community, they were hardly the only species. What would the rest do if the vampires did embrace the synthetic blood? But repercussions, whether good, bad or both, along with the ultimate decision didn't rest on him. As high as he was in the political ladder, being a sheriff, that kind of situation fell to the International Vampire Association.
Let them decided the issue. He thought firmly. Niall was right in one thing, though. As the only vampire involved so far, if they decided to utilize the cloned blood, his power within the vampire nature could only grow. And that, he liked.
Before retiring for the night, he used his laptop to check his mail. He had been gone a long time from his Area, but no one was to blame for that but his Queen. Thankfully, between Maxwell and Indira everything was running smoothly. He wished sometimes that Pam would live in his area. Her, he trusts completely. But she was content to travel the world for now and unless he really needed her, he wasn't going to force his will over her. He thought for a moment of his other child, but her, he couldn't trust with his wallet let alone with his area. It wasn't that she would hurt him, but she certainly would abuse her position as the sheriff's child to make everyone else miserable.
Shaking thoughts of his children away, Eric focused on Maxwell's latest e-mail. Salome called; she wanted to discuss a business proposition. He smiled at that, Salome's propositions were always pleasurable. Liam, Malcolm and Diane, wants to file a complaint against Thalia. If the three of them were idiots enough to pursue the matter, he was going to chain them with silver. He told them to leave the tiny woman alone. She was older than him and the oldest of the three moronic vampires wasn't even a hundred and fifty years old. The Queen was sending Bubba to the Area for the next three months. He needed to come up with easy tasks for the once larger than life now slow vampire. Bubba himself was requesting cats. Liam had gotten sloppy and was caught on video feeding. Eric scowled; Liam was the oldest of the three. Christine Larrabee was opening a youth center for supe teenagers. She was looking for sponsors and is requesting a meeting. Calvin Norris sent the invitation to his wedding. The last part of the e-mail was Maxwell asking when he was going back to the Area.
It didn't take him long to composed a response. He would call Salome as soon as he could, and he would give Bubba some busywork, but Maxwell was to round up all the cats he could find. He would deal directly with Liam, Malcolm and Diane, and he hoped that the video had been confiscated and the person that recorded it dealt with before he could talk. He would contact Christine Larrabee, directly to hear her pitch but he needed to keep the weres happy so he already decided to sponsor the center. He wasn't going to be back in time for the wedding but either Maxwell or Indira had to go in his place, offer apologies for his absent and send the new bride a gift. It wouldn't do to offend the werepanther pack-master. He finished the missive by saying that he would be back as soon as the Queen's errands had been complete.
While he was in his light-tight resting place waiting for sunrise so he would die for the day, he thought of Niall and his request, of his casual disregard of the necklace that was part of his heritage. After the sun was up and he was dead until dark, he dreamed, like he did once every few centuries. He dreamed of battlefield cries, of sweat and blood. He dreamed of his children; of their small compact bodies, following him around the village, climbing all over him like he was a toy. Calling out to him.
When he woke that night, he could feel the phantom echo of a beating heart. A heart that had been dead longer than he was ever alive.
AN(2): Starting next chapter, there is going to be a big jump in the timeline. Hope you all enjoyed this chapter.
Questions, comments, concerns are more than welcomes. Come on, I don't bite... unless you ask me nicely.
