"Do you think we broke her?" Pam asked.

Eric sat casually leant back into the car seat, his eyes lazily tracing the cityscape that flew past them. His face was as if carved in stone. It was hard to believe that his features had been completely distorted by rage just moments ago.

"If we did, there are a hundred more just like her, ready to take her place." he said, not offering Pam so much as a glance.

Pam moved her gaze from the rear view mirror, focusing instead on the brightly lit road. It was a couple of hours after sunset, and for some reason, traffic was insane. The high-octane engine hummed as she sped up in a vain attempt to avoid the jam that was likely to form as they approached the downtown areas. The two of them were on their way back to Fangtasia after visiting Ginger. It had been anything but a pleasure cruise. The night before, they had assigned the barmaid an important task. She were to store a package for them at her place, a package that contained the major part of the remaining V, thus protecting it from the raid that grew more and more imminent as the Magistrate's patience faded. The latter part of the information was however unbeknownst to Ginger, and she only knew of the package itself. She had agreed, not asking twice what it contained, seeming delighted to have some days off. They had left it at that, confident that she loved her pathetic life too much to dare screw things up. The concert that followed had kept both of them occupied, and they hadn't heard anything from Ginger that caused them to stir. Until tonight.

Fangtasia had been open for a little more than an hour when reports started reaching Eric about a frenzied party that was raging in an apartment somewhere across the river; a party fueled with massive amounts of V. They had left as soon as they could. In retrospect, Ginger was lucky that Eric had decided to bring Pam; otherwise she most likely would have been dead before she'd even had the time to scream. It was Pam who had convinced Eric that the barmaid's sudden disappearance would draw even more unwanted attention to them, increasing the damage, and slowly, he had backed down. Ginger's throat would still be badly bruised though, since Eric had lifted her by it, practically strangling her on the spot before Pam had managed to stop him. It had taken their combined efforts to collect the V and glamour the frightened vermin that crowded the apartment – mainly addicts and various lowlifes that had been drawn there by the buzz like moths to a flame. They had turned to Ginger last, and when they were through with her she had just barely been able to remember her own name. Not wanting to spend another minute in the shabby dump where she lived, they were out of there as quickly as they had come. The mess was sorted, and there really shouldn't have been anything left about the incident for Pam to dwell on. Unsettling enough though, there was.

Pam tightened her grip around the steering wheel to stop herself from throwing yet another inquiring glance at Eric. She tried to brush it off, but her thoughts wouldn't stop circling around the strange transformation that he seemed to have undergone lately. The sudden outbursts, the way he let his feelings get the best of him, his total disregard of measures he'd normally invest great care in… none of these were things that Pam attributed to her maker. It had been so hard for her to reach him back there with Ginger; his rage had been that overpowering. This new Eric was hotheaded and irrational, reckless, and it clashed so badly with her previous experiences together with him. Ever since the night he turned her, Eric had persisted to imprint Pam with the value of callousness, since emotions were human and therefore would make her a weak vampire if she couldn't control them. She had always believed that it was Eric's impervious nature that had enabled him to live for so long, to become as successful as he was, and that made the whole situation even more confusing. Although, as she looked back, Pam was now almost certain that she could pinpoint where it had began, the cause of it all. Eric was an excellent liar, but he had neither lied nor tried to hide this from her, simply because he refused to admit to himself what was going on.

They came up towards the final intersection before downtown, and not surprisingly, Pam's prediction came true. The lights in the distant turned red and they were stuck at a standstill. Almost instantly, Pam's fingers grew itchy with boredom. Time was something that she had endless amounts off, but that didn't make waiting any less annoying.

"We would have been faster on foot." she stated, holding out one of her hands to inspect her perfectly manicured nails.

"But it's such a nice car…" Eric said dully.

"True." Pam cited, watching the streetlights reflect in the varnish on the hood. It was in a deep, almost purple red, a color she had been fond of ever since she was human. Also, the interior was exquisite, and she had to admit that she didn't exactly hate being in the driver's seat with all that raw power beneath her. It was a nice car.

"Remind me again why we are giving it to the wannabe?" she said, raising an eyebrow at Eric.

"Because, pitiful as it may be, Lafayette is currently our top seller." Eric sighed. "He deserves a little encouragement. And I know that's asking a lot of you…"

Pam turned to him. Eric looked like he was about to reprimand a child for ripping the wings off a fly.

"…but could you at least try to play nice with him? The poor bastard already has nightmares about one of us."

Pam smiled wickedly. She could very well imagine those kinds of nightmares.

"I'll do my best…" she mused.

Before long, the two vampires pulled up in the driveway in front of Fangtasia. The club was dark and silent since they had closed it down before they left, and the hulking building looked if possible even tackier like this without all the neon. Eric got up and out of the car, but he didn't send Pam on her way immediately as she had expected. Instead he lingered next to the car, his gaze on a restless journey across the dark sky above them.

"There is one other thing…" he said to Pam. "I'm going to Mississippi for a night or two. To the King."

"Sounds serious." she said. "Care to share?"

"At this time, the less you know the better." Eric said, a frown settling between his brows. "But I have a suspicion, and if it proves to be grounded, things are going to get serious indeed…"

Pam watched as Eric's gaze became distant, as if he was looking at something that nobody else could see. She tilted her head. Clearly, he wasn't just leaving on some mundane duty call. A short moment passed before Eric spoke again, and when he did, it was as if he had to drag himself out of a deep well in order to do it.

"That being said, you are to remain in Bon Temps until I return." he said. "There are Jackson weres running loose in the Stackhouse backyard, looking for the right moment to abduct Sookie, for reasons I'm yet to figure out. And, since Compton is nowhere to be found, she is without protection. Throw her a slumber party, camp in one of the booths at the joint where she works – I don't care. Just don't let her out of your sight."

"Oh please, like I have nothing better to do than babysit your snack of the month." Pam snorted, half joking and half sincere.

Obviously though, Eric was in no mood for jokes. He stared her down instantly with a subzero glow in his eyes that nearly froze the air around them.

"You will not refer to her that way ever again." he said, without raising his voice, he didn't have to. "Understood?"

"Fine!" Pam replied sharply. "I'll do it, but I don't like this. It's freaking me out."

"What is?" Eric grunted.

"You are!" Pam said, locking her gaze with her maker's. "Ever since Sookie Stackhouse came along, you have not been yourself, Eric."

Eric's lips parted and for a brief moment he almost looked speechless. Then, he clenched his jaw and an odd smile twisted the left corner of his mouth.

"You'd be surprised." he said.

Pam was going to say something more but before she could come up with anything, Eric shot up into the sky, his black leather jacket flapping behind him as he soared out of sight. For a few moments Pam stared at the spot between the clouds were he had vanished. Then, she stepped on the gas, forcing the expensive car forward with a roar, out of the parking lot and onto the open road. 'Surprised' just might prove to be the understatement of the year.

-.-.-.-

Sookie suppressed a giggle. Jessica was standing over by the stairs, mop in hand, her eyes wide with amazement. The polka-dot towel she had collected her hair in made her resemble a housewife in a 1950's commercial. The two of them were in the middle of sprucing up Bill's house, a task that had proved to be more time-consuming than they had originally planned for. Sookie didn't mind though. She had stayed over with Jessica after the concert, and since neither of them felt like being alone, she had just remained. Given that they were obviously living there, they had decided to at least try and make the place more living-friendly. It was well into the night when they were finally done dusting out and could turn their attention to the floors. Even though everything inside of the house reminded Sookie of Bill, she found that having Jessica around made her feel a lot less bad about it. Over the course of a short time a friendship had formed between the two, a friendship that was liberating to Sookie due to the simple fact that Jessica was a vampire, and therefore able to comprehend aspects of Sookie's life that nobody else could. They had been talking for hours while cleaning and somewhat inevitably, Sookie's unusual abilities had come up. There were few things that didn't amaze Jessica, and this topic was certainly no exception.

"Okay, let me get this straight," she said. "Not only can you read people's minds, but you also shoot thunderbolts out of your hands!"

"I can sense what humans are thinking, yes." Sookie said, dabbing a corner with her mop. "And it's not exactly thunderbolts, more like bursts of light."

Jessica's eyes became if possible even wider.

"That is so freakin' cool!" she gasped. "Can you like, show me?"

"I can't control it." Sookie said. "It only seems to happen when something sets me off, and we wouldn't want that, would we?"

"Right…" Jessica complied, but Sookie couldn't help but notice that her gaze lingered expectantly on Sookie's hands, as if they would suddenly start glowing.

Humming softly, Sookie continued to work her way towards the door directly to the left from the entrance. They were almost finished with the hallway now and were about to move into the conjoining rooms, but even though Sookie had spent quite some time Bill's house, she couldn't seem to remember ever being behind that particular door…

"So, Eric huh?" Jessica said, a wry smile playing on her lips. "That's an upgrade if I ever saw one."

A jolt of heat flickered in the pit of Sookie's stomach, something that had become a common occurrence whenever the tall blonde vampire crossed her mind. For no obvious reason, her cheeks turned a bright shade of red. She had really tried to be rational about it, but no matter how hard she tried not to, she missed Eric, and it wasn't just physical this time around.

"I thought we agreed on not setting me off." she sniggered sheepishly, quickly turning to the door in a vain attempt to hide her reaction from Jessica.

The door slid up with a creak, and Sookie's jaw dropped at the scene in front of her, replacing her heated thoughts with bewilderment.

"Whoa, what happened in here?"

Sookie heard Jessica coming up behind her as she stared at the mess. The room behind the door was a small study, dominated by a large wooden secretaire. The front of it seemed to have been busted open by force, and the floor around it was covered in loose documents, carelessly thrown books, folders and paper clippings. Sookie shot a glance at Jessica, finding her just as confused as she was.

"I don't know…" Jessica said, shaking her head slowly. "I haven't been in here much to be honest."

"Almost looks like you had a break-in." Sookie said, her eyebrows furrowing.

Minding their steps, both of them walked into the room. Sookie looked at the window, searching for signs of a forced entry, but it seemed untouched. Why anyone would want to break into Bill's house in the first place was a mystery to her. She dropped her gaze to the floor where Jessica had bent down and was rummaging through the ravel.

"Sookie, look…!" she said, holding out a bunch of faded photographs. They were all of Sookie.

Sookie got down on her knees next to Jessica. Little by little, they started going through the mess, but it didn't take long for Sookie to realize that what was in this room was a complete directory of her life, starting even before she was born. There was a detailed chart of her ancestry, newspaper articles concerning her or her family, her parents' obituaries, photos ranging from her early years into present time… If Sookie hadn't known better, she would have guessed that this was the priced collection of a very advanced and very creepy stalker. By the time she grabbed the folder that was halfway hidden under the secretaire, her heart was pounding hard enough to hurt, but as she opened it, she suddenly felt like it had dropped into her stomach and crashed there.

"These dates…" she mumbled, frantically scanning the handwritten notes. "… they are from several months before Bill and I met."

Jessica cursed softly, but Sookie was too busy reading to hear her. What she was holding seemed to be a logbook, in which Bill described his informational finds about her and his continuing advances in order to get close to her. Most of the notes concerned her supernatural abilities, whether they where veritable, and if so how he was going to gather evidence. His words were so direct, so devoid of emotion, as if he was pursuing an object rather than something living. All over the log, at least once in each note, he mentioned the initials "S.A", as if the person behind them was of great importance. The more she read, the more troubled Sookie's breathing became. Eric had implied that Bill had a hidden agenda, that them meeting had been anything but a coincidence, and here she was sitting surrounded by more proof for that than she could have ever wished for. Bill had done all of this behind her back, and she hadn't suspected a thing. A stab of pain mixed with nausea hit Sookie somewhere below her chest.

"Sookie, you have to hear this." Jessica said.

Sookie tore her gaze away from the log. Jessica was sitting cross-legged on the floor with a heavy book bound in leather resting in her lap. She was inspecting a particular page closely.

"I thought it was a children's storybook at first, but listen to this..." she said. "'The ancient writings tell us of the 'Olde People', sometimes mentioned as 'Keepers of the Light' or simply 'fairies'. These creatures would live very long lives and could be seen dancing on the rays of the sun. They were said to be highly intelligent and able to interpret a humans' secrets just by looking at them. It was believed that their life force was made out of pure light, and that they harvested all its power to bend to their will.'"

Sookie stared at Jessica, her lips parted.

"Don't you get it?" Jessica said avidly. "It sounds almost exactly like you…!"

Although her head was spinning with all this crazy information, Sookie had to admit that it kind of did. A short time ago she hadn't believed in vampires; much less shape-shifters or werewolves, but they were all obviously very real. There was no specific reason why the creatures in the book couldn't be real as well. And ever since she was little, she had wondered what was wrong with her, why she was so different... But a fairy? A freakin' fairy?

The doorbell rang, and both of them nearly jumped a few feet into the air. After exchanging a surprised glance with Jessica, Sookie rose to her feet, her legs wobbly after sitting on them for so long. She walked out into the still damp hallway, thankful to whomever it was outside the door for offering her a break. It was just too much weirdness for her to handle in one sitting. She opened the door, watching the amber glow from the lanterns fall on the figure on the porch. It was Pam. She was dressed to kill as always, but her posture was tense and each of her features were sharp like shards of glass. She didn't look happy at all.

"Hi Pam." Sookie said, clearing her throat.

"Can I have a word with you?" Pam said callously.

Sookie threw a glance at Jessica standing in the doorway to the study, and then nodded.

"Sure…" she said, closing the door behind her.

Sookie stepped out onto the porch, next to Pam. She didn't seem very talkative though, as she only stared at her for several tense moments before Sookie decided that she'd had enough.

"So, what's up?" she asked. A totally unfounded notion made her blurt out her second question before her brain had a chance to process it. "Is Eric okay?"

"Oh, he's fine." Pam replied. "Apart from the fact that he is out of his damned mind, that is."

Sookie frowned, but Pam didn't grant her any time to ponder.

"I can't figure out how, but somehow you've managed to make him fall in love with you."

Pam pronounced 'in love' as if it was some kind of disease. Sookie's heart took a tumble to her stomach for the second time that night. If it had been anyone other than Pam suggesting this, she wouldn't have believed it. But after all, Pam knew Eric better than anyone else… Sookie was suddenly freezing and throbbing hot at the same time. Had Eric been trying to tell her this back at Fangtasia? She realized that he probably had; only she had refused to believe him… She didn't know what to say, so she stood silent as Pam went on.

"As I said; I don't know how or why. All I know is that he is emotional, and that makes him weak." she said, stepping closer to Sookie.

Sookie crossed her arms, unconsciously trying to bar herself from Pam. She reminded her of a little sister trying to protect her older brother, only much more deadly.

"I also know this," Pam added slowly. "Should you decide to somehow use this against him, I will teach you a new meaning to the word 'upset'."

A short silence fell over Bill's porch. Pam kept Sookie locked in her icy gaze for a few moments before she turned and walked over to one of the benches, taking excessive care to flatten the wrinkles in her skirt as she sat down. If Sookie's head hadn't been spinning before she opened the door, it certainly was now, and on top of it all she seemed to have lost her vocal skills.

"Where is he?" she managed, her cheeks throbbing.

"He's in Jackson, dealing with the were-situation." Pam recited in her usual, jaded tone. "And until he returns, I'm your very own personal bodyguard."

"Gee, thanks Pam…" Sookie mumbled.

Not knowing what else to do, she sat down next to the blond vampire, letting out a short sigh as her tired body slumped down on the bench like a bag of bricks. They had been sitting like that for a while, staring into the night without speaking, when Jessica cautiously opened the door.

"I making tea and heating up some Tru Bloods." she said. "Anyone?"

Sookie was dead certain that Pam would either pretend that she didn't hear her or make a disgusted face. Instead, she did none of those things.

"Yeah, why the hell not…" she mumbled, rising from the bench and following a pleasantly surprised Jessica indoors.

Sookie remained on the porch for a moment or two, her mouth slightly open in disbelief. Then, she decided that the night at least couldn't get any stranger, and returned inside.

-.-.-.-

A/N: I know, it's been FAR too long since last time. Real life can be hard work, but you can hopefully consider me back on track. The fic is still very much alive, and I have the next chapter closely planned out (it will contain lemons, yay!). If you're still there, you deserve cookies and applause. Don't give up on me yet ;) Love, EF.