Rating: T, maybe M for the vulgarity

Disclaimer: I don't own True Blood, if I did, I'd try and fling my body in front of Franklin before he exploded.

A/N: I'd first like to say a big "Fuck you" and a merry "Thank You" to the writers of True Blood for killing off the best thing to happen to season 3 (besides Russell Edgington), while also giving me complete control over him. I hate and love you guys for that. This chapter has some parts of episode 9 (Everything is Broken ) and my imagination . Some of you may not like the ending or the chapter as a whole –feel free to yell at me in the reviews- and some of you may love it. The point is, tell me what you think. =)

This is a break of the story and since this fic is somewhat following season 3 of TB, the next 2-3 chapters will use some stuff from those episodes, while making a whole storyline of my own creation that will bleed into the sequel. If you guys have suggestions or rants or praises (whether it's this chapter, future chapters, or the sequel to this story), do share them with me, I won't bite, I promise.

****Oh yeah, since I've been taking more creative licenses, the titles won't be named after episodes- I'll still give you the heads up though in the Author's Notes-

Songs that inspired me and helped me write this chapter (based on character):

Tara: Don't Believe in Love by Dido, Let's do the Things We Normally do by Dido, Everything to Lose by Dido (I'm a Dido girl okay!), Psychotic Girl by The Black Keys –for funsies-, Too Afraid to Love You by The Black Keys.

Holly: Lateralus by Tool, I Put a Spell on You- by Creedence Clearwater Revival (I feel it speaks more of Holly's character). However, the one by Nina Simone is my favorite =)

Franklin: Bound by Disturbed, Mistress by Disturbed, Devour by Disturbed –I think Franklin's a Disturbed kind of guy, haha, no pun intended ;)


Today Mourns while Tomorrow Bleeds

Why was she here? Okay, she knew why she was here. She tricked herself into coming here; well, correction, she let herself be tricked by Sam. Was it because he was a familiar man that had become someone like the old Jason? The one she could always count on? He had given her a thousand dollars for an exorcism that she didn't believe in, had given it to her so freely without asking for anything in return, but for her to feel happy. He had given her flowers when she treated him like crap every time she left his bed. He was always there to listen to her scream or rant and, very recently, cry to her heart's content on his shoulder. Sam Merlotte had become a friend…hell, he became her safety cushion. He seemed to always be there to care for anyone with a problem, and she wondered why she refused to go to him after Eggs had died. Was it because she felt guilty for having a relationship –one that was doomed from the start- with another when she said she wasn't looking for one with him? Maybe, if she would've talked to him then, camped out at his trailer, and patched whatever they had before Jackson, Mississippi she could've avoided being in this room.

She sat there amidst six others- mostly women, and a few being men-feeling as uncomfortable as all get out. This Support Group coupled with Post-Traumatic Stress, Inter-dependent and-Co dependent relationship survivors should've been more for Terry Bellefleur than herself. The only thing that was a reprieve was their policy towards privacy and to keep everyone who chose it, anonymous.

"Hey, Tara, right? From Merlotte's! I'm so glad you're here! Everybody, this is Tara from my new job!" They turned towards her, giving her fake ass smiles as if she was their best friend. She narrowed her eyes. There goes fucking anonymity. Holly, the new waitress smiled at her. She didn't know much about Holly, only the small little things based on first meetings: She was sugar sweet, which meant she couldn't be trusted, her eyebrows defied geometrical fashion and arched in 90 degrees to make her look skeptical, ALL the time, and she wore too much makeup as if the sun would melt one layer, she'd still have another for backup. She didn't know if she liked Holly and just tried to find things about her that were ridiculously flawed so that she wouldn't get attached to her and develop a rapport, but she did know that almost all the waitresses at Merlotte's ended up in shit that could kill them and she definitely didn't need to be dragged into danger…again.

She sat by Holly probably because there was some unspoken code to sit by a familiar person or a coworker out of a sea of strangers and listened as one by one told their life story. What was she supposed to say? What did Sam think she was going to say that would make her feel better? They seemed to be staring at her and Holly, wondering who was going to go next. These people looked like fucking regulars, like they circled this time slot as a mandatory event on their magnetic refrigerator calendars. Did they expect her to spill out everything, to run to them for a hug? No fucking way.

Holly stood up, smiling at everyone like the peppy woman she was. "Hey ya'll…I'm Holly. It's been a while since I spoke, but…" she breathed in, her eyes glancing in her direction maybe for a supportive smile? She shifted her gaze to the floor in reflection as Holly continued.

"I'm a rape survivor…" Her voice didn't shake as Tara thought it should…would.

Tara swallowed. She felt guilty for pushing Holly away, for creating flaws for her that shouldn't/didn't count for much. How in the world was she able to be so perky, so happy, so caring?

"It's easy for me to say now, but it took me ages to be able to put those words together… but it's people like ya'll that have helped me the whole way. Fifteen years ago I was locked in a room and raped by a fellow co-worker for five and a half hours. And every day I face not only my memory of that, but that part of me that wants to feel sorry for herself. He humiliated me and took my strength away and I didn't know how to pick up the pieces afterwards. I thought I was destroying myself reliving that hell….but" and Holly looked down at her, meeting her eyes and understood her hell too. "But speaking about it made me win, not him."

She felt tears stream down her face. No, she wasn't raped in a storage closet for five and a half hours like Holly, she wasn't even raped back in Mississippi, but the deprivation of her power…of her ability to make choices and be in control was stripped from her, leaving her just as vulnerable.

Their eyes were upon her, boring into her as if they could light her afire with those stares. She couldn't find the words to begin…could she stop after the third tying to the bed and feel better or could she tell her spectators that she had a heart-to-heart with her captor, and craved for more?

Luckily, Holly spoke for her. "Tara's new, and as we've all done in the past, I think she deserves some time to gather a voice and feel that this truly is a safe place for her. Next week we should talk about how our loved ones got us through our difficult trials."

She smiled at Holly, a tiny one to tell her thank you. Somehow her diverting the attention of the others made her feel better than her thinking about telling them about that dark time.


Holly stood there, waving at her as she watched her get into Sam's truck and drive away, probably back to work. She felt it as soon as she stepped foot into Merlotte's and was interviewed by Arlene Fowler. The darkness in Tara was overwhelming and the fact that what she was, was unknown to everyone in the town, to even the telepathic waitress and Tara herself was just fortunate. He had prophesized that there were two beings in this shit hole town and she had found one of them, probably the most powerful out of the four to be assembled.

Finding the keys to her Volkswagon Jetta, she thought about just how happy Ian would be when she told him she had found his new prodigy.


It was Day Two, and she should've been hiding out in Sam's trailer or maybe she should've been home with her mama after his words were whispered into her ear. She would've loved to believe that it was just some sick fantasy, something that was fantastical and based on some pseudo trauma she experienced, but she knew better. The scenarios that came night after night, of her witnessing horrors like a woman being burned to death as spectators screamed biblical passages of redemption and denouncement, of frantic coupling, of what he had said to her were all too real. He was coming for her, probably going to kill her for her deceit. So why was she here with a towel rag in her hand.

"Another!" someone slammed something against the bar top and she wasn't sure if it was the money under the man's large, jaundiced hand, or if it was the bottom of an empty mug that some other customer had placed down.

"I may be the bartender, but I ain't got to serve you shit, especially if you're gonna be barkin' at me as if I'm your damn slave."

"I pay your salary and if I want to….." She stared at him hard, her hand resting on her right hip, daring him to continue that statement. He swallowed and said. "Please, can I have another?" She looked at him for a few more seconds before turning around to find the almost emptied bottle of Bourbon.

Sam asked her how her meeting was as he drove to Merlotte's and she lied to him and told him it was very refreshing to be around similar people with almost similar problems. She was actually surprised that it came so easily, to lie to him without a thought. Part of her feared that she'd do it again in the future.

She noticed him as soon as she turned around with the bottle of Bourbon in her hand. She noticed her too. She felt herself going rigid, her shoulders involuntarily square as he slid in next to her in one of the few booths they had, when so many tables were available. Her heart clenched as his hand wrapped around the no-name trash's shoulder. She had no idea if she was trash or not, but Jason Stackhouse was addicted to trashy girls or skanky ones, and she had to be one of the two. She looked like a fucking drug addict with her dirty clothes hanging off kilter from her skinny frame and sunken eyes.

She breathed, averting her eyes to the man's glass as she refilled it. The door opened and there was Sam talking to two guys. She couldn't hear them with the ceiling speakers blasting some country tune and drunken men talking to each other about their shitty ass day, but she could read body language enough to sense a fight. Jason was in front of that trashy girl, looking at a man much older than him and threatening him to a fight, while Sam tried -once again- to be a calming force. But the strangest-, she clarified- the scariest thing happened, Sam, the most good-natured, simple man in Bon Temps snapped. He started hitting the man over and over until she felt herself grow uneasy, felt herself remember the back of Merlotte's when she was doing the same thing to that hick only two weeks ago. She should've pushed him off that guy, but seeing Sam break scared her. What could possibly cause him to lash out like that?

Luckily, the nurse that was responsible for her aunt, Ruby Jean's care –was it Jesus or Jessie?- and Lafayette separated them. She shouldn't have stepped close to them, shouldn't have offered to help the man into the SUV so they could rush him to the E.R. Whoever Sam beat the fuck out of, probably deserved it…


Car doors closed, she felt her breathe catch. She could feel him, feel his presence behind her back as his hand clasped over her mouth to prevent her from shouting at Jason, who ran after the car.

She was against the wooden panels of Merlotte's outer side wall, and felt fear creep inside her. He was going to kill her, he felt betrayed by her leaving, for her denouncing his love.

She felt herself hyperventilating as his right hand held her throat, not squeezing it, but showing her that he easily could.

"Everyone said that you did it and I thought why would anyone spread such vicious lies? Why would you kill someone that you loved?" He leaned in, his nose almost touching her own as she felt his madness through his stare, through his hold.

"But, I don't love you." She breathed as she quaked. How could she love a man she had known for a week and a half, a man who's personality she had only touched the surface of. She had felt attraction to him, felt drawn to him and, liked it, liked him. But ardor? No, she didn't feel that, she couldn't allow herself to feel such for a man that could kill her without a thought, a man that probably would mourn her for a day before finding another troubled soul to enrapture and manipulate.

"That's what they said too." Her bottom lip trembled, why was he taking so fucking long? The suspense and him toying with her was worst than any physical harm he could impose.

"If you're gonna kill me, then kill me!"

"Why do you want to die so much, why do you want me to kill you so badly?" He looked sorrowful, his grasp on her neck loosened to feather weight, only to bear forcefully down.

"Because I'm trouble, and I'm always gonna be." Her eyes instinctively closed as she awaited darkness to take her over. But it didn't. Her heart fluttered and stopped at the same time when she heard it: the click of a gun's safety going off. Her eyes widened with horror at him being there.

"Take your hands off her." She looked passed Franklin, staring at Jason. Don't be a fucking hero.

"This is a private conversation and it's none of your concern, run along."

"Move the fuck away."

"You're gonna shoot me now? You do realize that I'm a vampire. You can empty every round in me and I'll heal. "

As he pulled the trigger and as she felt Franklin move in time to avoid being hit, she screamed, "Jason!"


"This is Jason?" Eyebrow quirked, he looked between the man flailing as his hand tightened slowly around his neck. "This is the man you love?" He looked at his beloved, his betrayer as she began crying.

He could hear the other man gasp and make choking sounds as his larynx began to close, blocking off oxygen that he desperately needed. He stared at Jason, sizing him up. "He smells of another woman, Tara. Is this the type of man you want? A man who'll fuck anything. She smells cheap." His gaze locked onto her own, watched as she stood there, maybe in shock or in contemplation on ways to protect this man that didn't deserve her, that couldn't fit the expectations she needed to have. "Can you smell her, Tara?"

"Do you know how much she loves you…." His focus returned to Jason, lessening his hold around his neck so he wouldn't black out, not yet. "What does a man have to do to earn her favor? I have saved her, I will be there to protect her. What makes you so different? You are flawed and unbefitting. "

"Tara, run!" Jason shouted and she stood her ground. He smirked, he wasn't sure if she was suffering from fight versus flight and couldn't do either, or if she thought she could protect Jason with her being a spectator. He should kill this Jason to show her that he was the only man capable of giving her the world or destroying it for her. "Watch this, Tara. Watch how I dispel your imaginary love and the false idolatry you've created for him."

He locked his eyes on Jason's brown irises and felt him succumb to being pulled, glamoured, manipulated.


"Do you love her, Jason?" Franklin asked as Jason became silent. She felt herself floored. Her mind reeled her to move and her heart begged her to step forward to protect –or at least try to- the man she loved for as long as she could remember.

"I don't deserve her."

"And why don't you deserve her, Jason?" She felt herself looking at Jason, trying to help him gain control of the situation. She looked at the discarded shot gun, wondering how many rounds it held. She couldn't get to it fast enough though...

"I've lied to her…"

"What have you lied to her about, Jason?" Franklin was toying with her. He had claimed that he had loved her, but what being would love someone to want to inflict such agony upon them, to destroy their semblance of normalcy or happiness?

"I killed Eggs."

She felt herself dropping to her knees, hard enough for the gravel to scrape and tear skin. Her mind blanked, her heart stopped, and she felt coldness creep along her spine, making her fingers instinctively curl into balled fists.

"He was goin' to kill Andy. I saw him with a knife and I shot him… shot him in the back of the head."

She felt herself standing, walking to him, to stand by Franklin and look at him. "Why did you lie to me? Why did you have me believe it was Andy fucking Bellefleur! Why did you come to me and shout that bullshit about me being like a sister to you and always being there for me when you were fucking lying to me the entire time!" she felt angry tears roll down the side of her face.

Franklin broke the connection and looked at her as Jason regained footing of his surroundings. "He has lied to you. The man that you loved treats you like you don't exist. He moves on from women to women, has flaunted them in front of you, and pretended that he cared about you while killing the man you loved, and lied to you every time he saw you. Maybe, the old Jason wasn't the one that protected you, maybe he was a figment of your imagination."

Her mind ran through childhood flashbacks, reviewing precious memories and twisted them, making them dark, making her savior, her knight, dark, dismal, and obscure. This was the second person to have ruined her trust. Both of them being Stackhouses. Sookie didn't tell her about what she had driven Eggs to do, and Jason didn't tell her of him murdering Eggs in cold blood.

Franklin turned to her, his hand grasping the side of her jaw, tilting her head to look at him. " I won't lie to you, Tara. I won't look for others. I will protect you…." She felt herself walking beside him, feeling his hand grasp hers as Jason screamed after her, calling her name before the wind carried his voice away.

"There's only you, Tara. Only You."

To Be Continued.