Insert standard disclaimer here.

Thank you so much to all who reviewed last chapter! You guys are a huge part of my inspiration for this. As for this chapter, some more back story for Penny and she and Eric finally meet : ) Enjoy and review!

Nocturne

"You always looked so beautiful in that dress."

Penny smiled up at Sookie, thankful for the compliment. They had spent the better part of the night going through old scrapbooks their mothers had put together when they were children, mementos of the past. Penny sat with a pile of albums on her lap on the couch while, Sookie next to her, thumbed through each page, explaining who everyone was to Penny in an attempt to jog the girl's memory.

According to Sookie, the photograph in question had been taken their senior year at the school dance. Penny had dragged Sookie to all of the surrounding towns, including Monroe, searching for a dress that was unlike any of the ones that were going to be worn to the dance.

"You were so sure you were gonna find somethin' there!" Sookie said, resting her hand on the picture of Penny in a light green floor-length dress. "And you did, honey. You looked like a star in that dress."

"I wish I could remember it," Penny said quietly, her eyes glossing over with tears as she stared where Sookie pointed, at a picture that had been taken five years ago.

It had been a week since she'd woken up in the hospital at Monroe, those first few days proving to be the absolute shakiest. There was something warm, familiar and kind about Sookie – she felt naturally drawn to her and safe when she was with her, but the other constant presence in the house – Bill – she didn't know what she thought of him yet. She knew he was a vampire, and extremely dangerous, but Sookie had vouched for him. And at this point, Sookie was the only one she could really trust right now. She had no one else and, even if she did, she didn't know where they were. According to Sookie, Penny had written her a few weeks ago, telling her about possibly joining a jazz band once she finished school and that there hadn't been any indication that Penny had been in trouble at the time.

She'd met a few other people in town since Sookie had brought her home from the hospital – Arlene, Sookie's co-worker; Tara, Sookie's very good friend and Sam, Sookie and Tara's boss who owned the local bar, Merlotte's.

Apparently Penny had been friends with all of them growing up. Arlene used to babysit for her, Sookie and Tara when they were young. Sam had thrown her a huge going away party when she had left for North Carolina, pulling out all the stops to celebrate the occasion of a local girl going off to attend university. She had been told all of this, but when Sookie had brought her to Merlotte's for dinner late one night, Bill accompanying them, she saw these people and didn't recognize their faces or voices. No flashes of déjà vu, no familiarity. It had frightened her and she had begun to cry, so Sookie had taken her home and Penny had slept the rest of the night.

That was a few days ago and ever since, Sookie had decided to pull out the old photo albums to help Penny better adjust to the whole situation. Baby steps, Sookie had told her.

"When was this taken?" Penny asked, pointing to a photo in the right-hand corner of the page.

Sookie looked at the picture, and Penny saw her face immediate soften.

"About thirteen years ago. Your mama took us – you, me and Jason – to Monroe one day during the summer. She found this beautiful little park tucked away at the edge of town. She asked around, people said they liked to walk their dogs through it a lot." Sookie laughed softly at this, "So we dug in, pulled out our lunch and played for the whole afternoon. Here," she said, pointing to a little girl with dark blonde hair and pig tails, "You were tryin' to strike a pose, like a model. Jason took the picture. Here I am," Sookie said, indicating a slightly older girl with white blond hair, "tryin' to keep up with you."

"And the woman in the picture?" Penny asked, looking at Sookie. "That's my mother?"

Sookie paused for a long moment, a trace of pain striking her face as she struggled to find the right words to say to Penny, but Penny was already putting the pieces together.

"She was my mother," Penny corrected herself, her voice trailing off into the silence.

"She passed away, darlin'. Awhile back," Sookie told her quietly. She rest a hand on Penny's where it lay in her lap, squeezing gently. "You were in the fourth grade; I was just startin' junior high."

Penny wasn't sure how to react to the news. She stared hard at the woman in the picture – bright green eyes, frizzy blond hair and a wide smile. She looked like a stranger to her. A pang of frustration stabbed at her gut, and Penny tried to push it down. How was she supposed to act, finding out that her mother was dead for a second time? She couldn't ever remember knowing the woman, but she knew that was just the amnesia. She almost dreaded the moment her memories would come flooding back to her. If they ever came back…

"How did she die?" Penny asked, her throat tightening involuntarily.

"Penny, we don't have to go over this right now if you don't want to…" Sookie said, closing the photo album and placing it on the coffee table in front of them.

"No, I need to know," Penny said. "I gotta know where I came from. You've told me so much about how I grew up here. Please…tell me about my parents."

"All right, darlin'," Sookie said, squeezing Penny's hand once more. "I'll tell you."

Penny listened patiently as Sookie recounted everything she could remember about Penny's parents, Savannah and Zachary Hale. They had been high school sweethearts since sophomore year. Savannah had become pregnant three years after Sookie had been born and, three months after finding out, Savannah and Zachary had been married at a local church in town, with Sookie's mother serving as Savannah's maid of honor. They had named their daughter for Savannah's great grandmother, and her middle name after Zachary's mother. Since the Hales lived just down the street from the Stackhouses, Penny, Sookie and Jason spent a lot of time together, along with Sookie's close friend, Tara. They especially liked going to Sookie's grandmother's house.

Savannah Hale loved to sing. Whenever the family would go out to celebrate, the patrons would always call for her to sing a song to karaoke or even an original one she had written herself. Zachary worked at a factory in Monroe and was gone a lot, but he did his best to support the family. For nearly ten years, they lived and struggled to give their daughter a good life. They were on their way home from a work party hosted by Zachary's boss in Monroe when a drunk driver had crashed into them, sending their car topping over twice. Zachary, the driver and point of impact of the crash, had been killed instantly. Savannah had lay in a coma for several hours after the crash, but had been pronounced dead the next day.

Sookie and Jason had already gone to live with their grandmother after their parents had been killed in a flash flood several years earlier and, after the death of Penny's parents, Miss Stackhouse took her in as well. They called her Gran and were as much of a family as anyone brought together by tragedy could ever be.

There were tears in Sookie's eyes as she recounted the story and, after she brushed away at her eyes a couple times, Penny asked, "Where is she now?"

"She was killed," Sookie told her, the shaking in her voice betraying her calm expression. "It should have been me, but I wasn't home. She died in my place."

Oh lord, Penny thought. She wasn't sure she wanted to hear anything more.

Sookie drew her into a tight hug, saying, "I swear to God I'm gonna figure out what happened to you, honey. I've lost too much of my family already and you are not going to be added to that list…"

A few hours later, after returning to the photo albums and filling in Penny on the last twenty-two years of her life, Sookie pulled a blanket over her cousin's sleeping form on the couch, tucking it under her chin and resting a hand on her head for a moment. She heard the front door creak open and closed, and turned to see Bill enter the room. She immediately went to him, enveloping him in a fierce hug.

"I thought you'd never get back," Sookie said into his shirt.

"I've got too many reasons not to return," Bill said, his voice comforting right by her ear.

The pair pulled back from each other, Sookie keeping her hand in his as she led him out of the living room and into the kitchen. The last several hours had taken more toll on her than she cared to admit. Somehow, the sight of Bill, someone she counted on to protect her when she couldn't take care of herself, had brought her nearly to her knees after having to explain her family's painful past to Penny.

They each took a seat at the small kitchen table, Sookie keep one hand in Bill's as she let out a long, deep sigh.

"What did Eric say?" Sookie asked the inevitable question.

Bill looked down at her query, wondering how best to phrase what he had to tell Sookie next. She wasn't going to like any part of it. "He has agreed to meet with her, but under his conditions. We must bring her tomorrow night to Fangtasia, after closing hours."

"So soon?" Sookie said, suddenly distressed again. "Do you think Penny will be ready?"

"I can't answer that, Sookie," Bill told her gently, "Only you can. But I will say this – whatever trouble landed your cousin here in Bon Temps, it would be best if we had Eric on our side before any investigation were to begin…" He trailed off, not knowing how to say what he had to next.

Sookie, sensing his hesitation, squeezed his hand, forcing him to meet her eyes. "I know she had the vampire blood on her, but…what are you not telling me?"

Finally, Bill relented. "When I brought you to Fangtasia before, it was under the guise that you were mine. It kept you protected from any reprisals the vampires might have wanted to carry out against me, because it would be breaking the rules of our world if they did."

Sookie understood what Bill was implying. "But Penny doesn't have that same protection. You're worried someone might try something if we take her to the club?"

Bill shrugged, a wry smile slowly forming on his face. "I don't know if you've noticed the attention that you attract, Sookie, and I'm afraid it will be the same when we bring Penny there tomorrow night. Beauty seems to be genetic in the Stackhouse women."

Sookie almost smiled at the compliment, but it caused her too much worry in the back of her mind. She didn't want to put her cousin in danger, but waiting until something happened might be just as dangerous. And Bill couldn't be everywhere at once to protect the both of them, especially when he had Jessica to watch out for now, as much as Sookie despised how he had been roped into that situation.

"Penny doesn't have any…abilities, does she?" Bill asked after a moment.

Sookie tilted her head to one side, thinking for a moment. "I don't think so. I mean, she can't read minds, if that's what you're asking."

"But nothing else…peculiar?" Bill pressed again.

Sookie bit her lip, thinking back to several times after Penny had come to live with her, Jason and Gran that a red flag had been raised.

"When she sings," Sookie finally said. "Nobody could help but listen to her, stop everything they were doing. When we were young, after she came to live here with us, I remember this one time…"

The memory flashed before Sookie's eyes: she and Penny had been out in the driveway playing hopscotch as the sun was setting behind the horizon. Gran had been calling them to come in, but the girls had pretended not to hear her so they could have a few extra minutes of playing time. Out of nowhere, a coyote had come trotting from out behind the bushes and right onto the driveway. Both girls had been scared into a stunned silence.

"I thought we were gonna be attacked," Sookie said, coming back to the present. "But out of nowhere, Penny just started singin'. It was a lullaby, one her mother used to sing to her, and she walked right up to the coyote, and patted him on the head like he was just a stray dog. He scampered off soon after that, and Penny just smiled at me, then said we should head inside before Gran got mad at us."

Bill was quiet for a long time after that, his gaze pinned to somewhere over Sookie's shoulder as he considered her words.

"Bill?" Sookie asked, when he didn't speak. "What are you thinkin'?"

"That maybe it would be best if we kept this between us for now," he replied. "Eric is already suspicious of Penny because of her relation to you. I don't want to give him another reason to take up interest in your cousin."

That, Sookie knew, was the last thing on earth she ever wanted to have happen.

X X X X

"Thanks again," Pam said, just before she snapped her cell phone shut. If she were human, she would have heaved a long sigh, or rolled her eyes, or something equally put upon. But she wasn't human, she was vampire, and couldn't remember the last time she had felt this irritated as either of the two species.

Eric and his silly requests. Not that she'd ever tell that to his face, he'd just get his pants in a twist. He had asked a few nights ago for her to track down a singer he'd heard on the radio. Whatever it takes, he'd said. Well, it had taken much more than she thought it would. She was familiar with the station the radio had been set to – Avery kept it on the same channel every night and turned it up after closing. What she wasn't familiar with was speaking with the petty human executives in charge of the stations that set the schedules for which song played when. She'd just gotten off the phone with one of their employees just now, having finally gotten a name out of them after some bribing.

Scheming Star, that was the name of Eric's song. It had been recorded by an independent label in North Carolina and had been slowly gaining popularity and subsequently being played on some of the late night stations, as the song was primarily listed as a nocturne. It was an original piece, apparently – both the music and lyrics – by some woman named Savannah James.

She'd written the information down on one of the bar napkins and got up off of the bar stool she'd been sitting on. Fangtasia was closing in ten minutes, but the patrons had already started to filter out of the front entrance. She made her way past the empty tables and dance stages towards where Eric sat at his usual spot, and held out the napkin to him.

"Your singer," Pam said with a bored look.

Eric took the napkin, glanced at it and then slipped it inside his jacket pocket. "Thank you, Pam," he said quietly.

Pam nodded her acceptance, then turned at the sound of Avery greeting someone coming through the door. A slow smile crept over her face as she watched Bill, Sookie and a third person enter the bar, making their way slowly towards where she and Eric were. The girl, who kept a few steps behind Sookie, was also a few inches shorter than the twenty-five year-old-blond. If Pam had to guess, she would have to say the girl was no more than twenty years old, maybe twenty-one. She had dark auburn hair past her shoulders, the same pale skin as Sookie and, if her eyesight served her right in the dim light of the bar, a pair of bright hazel eyes.

"Let's greet our guests," Eric said, stepping down from his throne and holding out his hand for Pam to take. The two ancient vampires walked down the few steps before them and met Bill, Sookie and whom Pam could only assume was Sookie's cousin by one of the club's tables.

"Bill," Eric nodded, his gaze slipping easily to Sookie and then to her cousin. "Introduce us, please."

"Right," Bill said, almost to himself. Pam noted that he looked especially uncomfortable, holding Sookie's hand close to his side. "Penny," he looked to the petite brunette, "This is Eric Northman, a sheriff of our world. And Pam, his…"

"Sidekick," Pam said, an amused glint in her eye as she took in Penny's appearance. The girl was wearing a pair of dark jeans and a white blouse, no jacket because it was a humid night, or so she'd been told by some of the human patrons earlier.

"Pleasure to meet you both," Penny said, and Pam noted the slight tremor beneath her voice, even if humans couldn't catch it with their less-than average senses. There was something else familiar about her voice that Pam couldn't place her finger on as well.

Eric, not taking his eyes off of Penny for a second, said, "Shall we sit?"

"Sure," Penny said guilelessly, moving to sit down at the table.

"No," Pam said suddenly, her eyes narrowing as she studied Penny more closely. "I have a better idea."

"I don't think—" Bill began, but Eric cut him off with one silent glance.

"I want her to sing," Pam finally said.