A/N: Happy 2010 Everyone! Hope everyone is having an excellent time celebrating, and, as always, be very safe. NEVER drink and drive. You have no idea what it's like to lose that game.

Ok. Off my Soap Box! So this POV is Ty and another old Friend from Bon Temps. It's a little short (or rather, i wanted to fill it with more, but you're getting the info at the same rate our characters are getting it), but I wanted to get my first entry of '10 out there! Enjoy the chapter, listen to Love Vigilantes (I prefer Iron and Wine, but New Order is the band in the story), and have a great New Year.

***

It is the middle of February. It's been six weeks and I'm now allowed to release my leg from the bonds of its dreaded air cast. I've been walking without crutches for the last ten days and I'm pretty steady on my feet now. The weather is turning warmer but it's still a stubborn muggy kind of cool – not warm enough for short sleeves, but too uncomfortable for sweaters. Gotta love Texas weather. So when I go up to the big house – Stella's house – to use the gym equipment for my rehab, I know I'll be coming back a sticky, sweaty, shivering mess. I grab the mail out of our box on the way back up the drive and toss it on the bathroom counter once I reach the second floor. Aus is out – not entirely sure where, but I have an idea since it's already after dark. I turn on the water and begin steaming up my bathroom as the tub fills.

Ah. Soak in lavender oil and Epsom salts. I leaned back against sloped wall of the tub and started humming the tune to New Order's Love Vigilantes. It had been stuck in my head since this morning. I'd caught a ride to work with Abel and it was in his iPod Shuffle. The steam was so soothing I was breathing in deep and letting my eyes slip closed. I hadn't had it much easier sleeping in the past few weeks. I usually had a sense of anxiety before closing my eyes as if there was some way the things I was dreaming of (and still couldn't remember) were going to cause some sort of imperceptible damage to my subconscious. For some reason, tonight, I didn't care. I was wiped. So I let the song drift with me into unconsciousness.

***

"Oh, I've just come from the land of the sun…" I chuckled to myself as I let the screen on the back door slam behind me. I hadn't listened to New Order in years and today the one line I had caught from the radio before pulling my keys out of the ignition seemed to fit the moment. It was starting to warm up a little and the sun was bright and absolutely flooding the little yard by the cemetery. The red Corvette sat in the driveway getting bird crap spattered all over it from the ancient pine tree it sat under. No doubt lover boy would be thrilled about that. He'd probably insist on having a service come out to remove it.

I shook my head as I riffled through the mail. Bill, bill, ooh, Victoria's Secret catalogue – score. Reminder postcard for Ms. Stackhouse at MD Anderson, and another bill. Sookie still carried her weight of the household expenses, though she was hardly ever in residence, but I'd always had a knack for wracking up a major tally on the MasterCard and I held the evil statement in my hands now. It was a good thing for me to be working at Merlotte's now that Sookie had quit. I enjoyed the company and it kept me away from the mall in Monroe – and it kept my mind off of other things.

Poor Trey. I could feel the tears brimming and I was too tired to suppress them running down my cheek. Amelia Broadway, snap out of it! There was nothing I could do about it, anyway. What's past is past. I sniffled one final time before setting the kettle on the stove and going in search of my prodigal roomie.

"Hey, Sook! I'm home. Thought you might wanna have cup of tea with me while you lend moral support. My credit card bill just came in the mail." I headed down the darkened hallway and knocked gently on her bedroom door. If his car was here, surely she was here too. They'd gotten in late last night and I was awake enough to get up and shut my door before I fell back to sleep. I liked giving them their privacy, even though I was pretty sure there wasn't much happening in the love department. An overprotective vamp and a sick human don't make for the hottest love scenes. I waited outside her door a few seconds before knocking again. I was pretty sure she'd left her car in Shreveport so she'd have to take Eric's if she wanted to go anywhere, and it was safely covered with bird crap in the driveway. "Sook? Sookie, I'm starting to get worried. I'm coming in in ten seconds, Sook." No response. One, two, threefourfive – oh Fuck it – ten.

The door stuck a little as I turned the knob and pushed. My heart stopped for a second then the door gave way. But not much. Sookie was folded up in a heap on the floor in front of it. She had her phone in hand and blood on her hands and lips. Holy Goddess!

"Sookie!" I fell to the floor, banging my knees hard on the way down. I grabbed her wrist, frantically trying to remember how to take a pulse, and snatched her cellular out of her hand as I pulled her into my lap. She was breathing, but just barely. My fingers had a hard time dialing.

9. 1. 1. Send.

"911. What is your emergency?"

***

I sat bolt upright in the tub, banging my injured leg against the porcelain in the process. The water was cold and I couldn't smell the lavender anymore. Corgan was curled up on the bath mat, growling softly. And my head was murder.

My heart was racing, I was sweating, dizzy and a little nauseous this time – but I remembered. I remembered everything I had seen. Seen through this girl's eyes. Amelia.

Fuck, I was shivering again. I reached up and turned on the hot water and the showerhead, pulling the drain with my toe. The hot water washed over me and spilled out onto the tile and bath mat and the little boy. He got up and shook as he walked away. It had to have been just a nightmare, stress, the subconscious mind trying to puzzle out some problem while the body slept. The issue was, it was way too linier to be a dream. Everything was very clear and very real and would have made absolute sense, if only I had known anything about who those people were, where they were, and why the hell they were invading my brain.

I stepped out of the shower, turned the water off and managed to wrap a towel around me before I realized that sickening, pit of your stomach, mouthwatering, you're-about-to-vomit-feeling was coming on. Thankfully it's a pretty small bathroom and only a quarter turn from where I was to the toilet. I slumped down on my knees and leaned my head against the cool tiled wall beside me as I gasped for breath and wondered if Aus had replenished out supply of mouthwash.

I vaguely remember hearing the door open and vividly remember Aus and her onslaught of questions. For the moment the dream was forgotten as I had to explain to my sister four or five times that I knew I wasn't pregnant, "You have to have sex to get pregnant and it's been a while for me, how 'bout you Aussie?" That shut her up.

She helped me into a t-shirt and my old robe and we ventured down the stairs to look for some saltines and ginger ale or some sufficient substitute. I curled up into the couch cushions with a tube of crackers and a bottle of purple powerade. She turned on the TV to some Family Guy marathon and sat down next to me, unpinned my hair and started combing through it with her fingers.

"Feeling any better?" she asked after about fifteen minutes.

"Yeah. Just the headache still."

"Ty. I want you to do this sleep study thing. Abel was talking about it a little when I was over there tonight."

"Hey, don't play 'mom', ok?" The words were out of my mouth before I realized how she would take them. I said a bad word – mom. I could feel her stiffen up on the cushion next to me and I fumbled to soften the blow. "Besides, I can't do anything until Stella's back on her regular schedule. She's been gone so much. When she gets back for a few weeks in a row I'll make the appointment. I promise. What's up with her, anyway?"

"Oh, just some guy." She made a face as she said it. "He never comes here. She said it's vamp politics, but he's not even in our area. 'Will Turner', like from the Pirate's movies!" She chuckled kind of wildly at that and then became really quiet. I watched her staring at the TV screen without really seeing it.

I reached my arm around her and leaned my head on her shoulder.

"I've been here for so long, Ty." She turned and looked at me, and for a moment I saw her blank, vacant face, so hard to distinguish from her signature expression. This one held the real sadness. Then she sparked, and her eyes changed, a smile spread across her face and I thought there was nothing in the world she couldn't conquer. It was that face I had looked forward to after our parents had died. That smile had gotten me through. I wondered if it worked the same way for her. "We both have... been here so long."

"I know, Sweetie." I know she wasn't talking about me. And I know she wasn't talking about Englewood. She was talking about Stella, without saying anything at all.