Please forgive me, I know it has been awhile since I have added a chapter, but I am just coming out of my 1st Trimester of pregnancy and the last few months have really kicked my butt. I actually wrote this chapter a little while back, but have not been on here to post it until now. I am working on Chapter 11 as I type this, so hopefully it will not be too long before I post it.

Thanks for sticking around and hope you like how the rest of this story goes...

Bill had heard Sookie's car arrive home not long after midnight from what he assumed was her evening of watching Coby and Lisa. Though he knew he should not just show up unannounced, if only because he did want to anger her by startling her, he could not help his overwhelming need to just lay his eyes upon her. It had barely been 24 hours since he last left her, but to Bill it seemed like days had gone by. He convinced himself that going to see that she was safe would not be wrong or improper…'Would it?'

Sookie sat on her porch swing with one leg tucked under her while the other one dangled over the edge, so she could use her big toe to push her as she closed her eyes to focus on the sounds of the night, the warm breeze that would rustle the leaves on the trees nearby, and the slow creak of the swing's rusted chain. After the night spent with the kids and their nonstop energy, she was enjoying the calm quiet her home offered. It was such a stark difference from the seemingly manic world Terry and Arlene seem to live in. She just did not know how Arlene did it sometimes and now with another baby on the way? Sookie could not help but worry about her friend and all the stress she must be under. As much as she loved Coby and Lisa, she was not sure she could handle their energy and bickering on a daily basis; but she supposed the saying that it is different when they are your own must be true.

Soon something in the still of the night caught her attention and with her eyes still closed she smiled to herself. "Hi, Bill."

Bill suddenly felt like a child caught with his hand in the cookie jar. He had come to a stop by the tree in front of Sookie's house, captivated by the sight before him. Sookie had looked so peaceful and content that he found he did not want to disturb her now that he was here. Some how though, she knew he was there even if her eyes still remained shut.

"Evening." He replied as he took a step toward her and away from his cover. "I apologize for showing up unannounced; I only wanted to insure you made it home safely…well, that, and I wanted to see you." He said apologetically.

With her eyes still shut and quietness about her as if she was meditating, she asked. "Would you like to join me?"

"Yes. Please." Bill made his way up to the porch and took a seat next to Sookie on the swing.

If it were not for her hyperawareness of his body being so close to her own she would have never known he was there until she felt the gentle shift of the swing and groan of the chains under the added weight. She turned toward him and opened her eyes. A sigh escaped her as she focused on the handsome man before her and basked in the tranquility she felt immediately. She had wondered to herself on more than one occasion how the mere proximity to him could affect her so, bringing her peace the likes of which she had never achieved on her own no matter how hard she had tried. Though the why or how it happened was a mystery, she was grateful for it.

"Are you sure I am not disturbing you?"

"Of course not, I'm glad to see you."

"You looked as though you were having a moment for yourself though, I truly did not mean to interrupt."

"Oh…Well, I was just trying to quiet my head is all. I was a little frazzled when I got home."

"Did things not go well with Coby and Lisa?"

"No, everything was great! We had a lot of fun together. I really do not get to see them enough, but they can be a bit much sometimes."

Bill laughed. "Yes, children can be quite a handful from what I remember, but they are well worth the trouble."

Sookie looked at Bill thoughtfully. "May I ask you something personal?"

"Sure, be my guest."

"You still remember them after all these years? Your children I mean?"

"Yes I do. Even though several lifetimes have passed since I last saw them, I have realized recently that my memories are as though I last laid my eyes upon them yesterday. "

"Has it been hard being back in your home? I mean…has it been difficult to come back to where you had a life with your family…"

"…and have it be a harsh reminder of what I had lost so long ago?" He finished.

Sookie gasped suddenly ashamed to ask him such a thing. "I'm sorry! I did not mean to be insensitive."

"It is alright, really. Yes, it was very difficult. I am not sure what I was expecting to feel in doing so, but I was not prepared for the memories that came back to me, ones that I had pushed to the back of my mind so long ago." Bill's body noticeably stiffened a little. "When I first arrived and found myself standing inside of the entry way it was as if a flood gate had been released. No longer did I see the house as it is today, but instead it looked the same as it had when I built it." Bill looked out into the yard before him, eyes distant as he continued. "In those first nights, after I returned, I would find myself enter a particular room and these memories of the life I once lived would play before me, as if I was watching a movie."

Sookie's brows knit together with concern. "Are you doing okay with this, now?" 'Oh, Geeze!' she thought. 'That certainly did not come out right.'

Bill thought about that for a moment before he answered. "Yes, I am. I will not lie, it has been difficult, but the longer I am back here I find it to be less so." Bill silently shook his head. "Being back has forced me to come full circle."

"What do you mean?"

Bill looked over to Sookie. "It has pushed me to remember who I once was, the life I had, the heartache I felt from the loss of it. All the things I forced myself to forget, or at least tried to as it were, could no longer be ignored. It actually has been more of a blessing than a curse really."

Sookie looked at him questionably. "Why do you say that?"

Bill stared at Sookie and smiled. "Because, in remembering what I had lost I now know what has been missing in my lonely existence. And, in remembering the man I once was, I now know who I must strive to be again."

"You said you had purposefully tried to forget those things? "

Bill looked down to his hands no longer able to meet her gaze. "There was no other way that I knew of to reconcile what I had become. I had tried to hold onto my memories as some form of solace, but those that I had once thought of as joyful, soon began to haunt me, and eventually became more of a means to torture myself with. I loathed what I had become, what I had unknowingly allowed to happen to me. I felt nothing but shame and disgust for myself when the very memories that I had held dear of my wife and children, the same ones that had seen me through the long war and drove me to survive, began to come to mind after I had fed, as if I needed a reminder of the monster I had become. If I could have I would have met the sun several times over to be free of the Godless existence I found myself in, but I was not permitted to. So, instead I did the only thing I could. I came to terms with what I am and did not allow myself to dwell any longer on my past life. That existence was dead and gone, and if I was going to survive I had to forget about it and move on." Bill paused as he gathered himself. "The moment I made that conscious decision, was the moment I gave up my humanity."

"But, Bill…"

He held up his hand to stop Sookie and looked at her once more. "I know what you are going to say. I did eventually acknowledge that I just could not be in that darkness any longer. My conscience began to get the better of me, I suppose you could say. I realized that I could not deny the fact that inside I was not the vampire I seemingly was on the outside. It was as if I had put a mask on to hid from myself, and for a long time I bought the lie of my reflection. By the time I took it off, so to speak, I was so jaded to the world that there was only the shadow of my former self that I could recognize. I have spent the last 80 years trying to get back what I had been, once upon a time."

Bill reached toward Sookie and with nothing but reverence he placed a fingertip to her temple, let it glide down over her check and across her jaw. "It had not occurred to me until I was back in my ancestral home, having met a waitress that turned out to be my neighbor, that I might find what I had been missing…to make me whole."

Sookie found she could no longer speak as her vision blurred from the tears that threatened to spill down her cheeks. Bill wiped them just as they did then the both of them remained silent for sometime. His thoughts returned to Caroline and his children again, all the memories he had relived since his return and how though it made his dead heart ache to see the visions of them, he remembered the love and happiness that was once in his heart because of them. And then he considered Sookie's love of life and her caring, nurturing personality. Though it was not the first time he had thought about it, he was struck with the realization that if she stayed with him, Sookie would never know the joy of having any children of her own to create memories of her own with, and the thought saddened him beyond measure.
Sookie noticed his demeanor change as he pulled his hand away from her only to let it dangle toward the inside of his knee along with the other as his forearms rested on his thighs and his gaze fell to the floor boards between them.

"Bill, what's wrong?" She asked with alarm evident in her voice.

Bill did not answer right away as he had trouble getting the words to come out. "Sookie, do you want children?"

Her chest tightened at the inquiry. She knew exactly where he was going with this; he had told her once that he wanted her to have a life in the sun, with a family of her own and someone she could grow old with. With
bloody tears streaming down his face, he told her she deserved those things and that he could not give them to her just before he left at what she thought was the end of their relationship. She remembered how much the thought of them not being together hurt. Over the past weeks she had considered this very thing while she tried to re-evaluate her life. She knew she had always wanted children and that she would be a good mother, but logically she never saw it happening due to her not so little problem. If she was never able to successfully date a guy, how would she have ever made it all the way to marriage and motherhood? She was still a virgin at 25 years old for goodness sake, with no prospect of changing that anytime soon. That was until Bill came into her life. He had told her once that she could never be herself with a human man, and though she would not admit it at the time, she knew he was right. Sure, she now knew that there are other supes in the world that might be able to give her as close to that 'fairytale', no pun intended, as she could hope for; a slightly more normal life that took place in the sunlight instead of darkness, and that included children of her own…everything she would think she wanted for herself. And she knew that Sam would be more than willing to make it all a reality if she wished. The problem was, her heart belonged to only one man. And if it were even possible, she knew that she loved him more now than she did before things seemed to have fallen apart. To not have him in her life now would be like her trying to live with out air.

"Bill, look at me." As he did, she could see the redness that had formed along the rims of his beautiful blue eyes. "I can understand why you would want to know, and if you would have asked me when I was younger my answer would have been 'Yes'. Just as every little girl dreams of her wedding day, so did she dream of being a mother one day. That however, would be the fantasy of a child that does not know anything about being in a relationship, what it means to be married or what it takes to have children. I had resigned myself to what I believed my fate to be, that of a woman that could not even get through one date with a man, let alone hope to eventually marry and have children. That, I believed, was never in the cards for me, and I was okay with that. I have my few good friends I could live vicariously through, as Aunt Sookie after all, and what I had of my family, which was enough for me." She smiled. "That was until I met you." She said with a certainty that Bill shook his head at.

"Sookie…"

"Before you say anything…and though I may be a bit presumptuous, I know vampires can not have children of their own, that marriage between a human and vampire is not legal in 49 of 50 states, and that living life during daylight hours is not an option; but not one of those things cannot be overcome. As far as I'm concerned, to concede to any of these things would not mean my life has been diminished in some way. I already live a good
majority of my life's waking hours after the sun goes down because of the shift I usually work. If I was ever to be asked…just because a marriage would not be recognized here legally does not mean I wouldn't be just as faithful and committed in my heart, and as far as children are concerned…there are far too many unwanted in the world. Adoption would give a chance for a child to be loved as part of a real family. The dynamics might not be the norm, but that doesn't mean it wouldn't work."

Bill searched Sookie's eyes for any sign that she was just saying this to seem strong, but he found nothing but genuine conviction. "You are an amazing woman, Miss. Stackhouse."

"And you are an amazing 'MAN', Mr. Compton." She made sure to put extra emphasis on the word 'man' to drive home that he was more human than he acknowledged.

The both of them felt as though a weight had been lifted, one they were not even aware had been there. They looked out over the yard in front of them, and once again took notice of the serenity the night offered as the warm breeze gently stirred the trees. As if it had been planned, both Bill and Sookie slid their hands over the weather beaten wood slats of the swing until they met in the middle, interlaced their fingers and sat holding hands in silence as they looked ahead and Bill gently pushed them to and fro. When Sookie began to yawn, Bill bid her good night and left her with a gentle kiss upon her lips.