I'd been sleeping peacefully in Eric's arms for only an hour when the nightmares started. I had fallen asleep with no problems, snuggled next to him, and had hoped for a full night's rest, but clearly it took more than that to make my nightmares go away.

In my mind, I was back in the hut with Lochlan and Neave. My throat was hoarse from screaming and my entire body hurt. They were calling me froggy.

"Croak, froggy, croak," they taunted.

I was sitting bolt upright, screaming my head off and trying to break free with all my strength. As I began to wake, my screams became more coherent and words started to form: first "NO!" and "STOP!", then "HELP!" and "LET ME GO!" as I struggled to free myself from Eric's embrace. He pulled me in closer, stroking my arm gently.

"Lover, shh, it's OK. You're safe. I'm here, you're safe," he murmured.

"Eric?" I asked, looking in his eyes, still half asleep. "You came to rescue me!" I exclaimed as I threw my arms around him. "I knew you would. You're here."

I snuggled in closer and started to drift off to sleep again, when I heard the familiar knock on my door. I woke immediately to answer it. Eric was already starting to get up and head for the door.

"I'll get it," I insisted groggily.

He turned and curled his index fingers in front of his mouth like fangs, to tell me it was a vampire at the door.

"It's just Bill. He's heard me yelling in my sleep again."

He looked shocked and sat back down on the bed. I pulled on my robe and went out to the door.

"Hi Bill," I greeted as I opened it, "nothing to worry about, just the usual nightmares. Thanks for coming to check on me though."

"Nice socks," he smiled.

Oh no! I was still wearing those darn knee socks. I blushed bright red and a look of realization moved across Bill's face. He sniffed the air and sighed.

"I smell Eric all over you," he said coolly. "I shouldn't have intruded."

"It's OK," I maintained. "You didn't know he'd be here tonight."

"But you are OK? You don't need to talk about it?"

"No, it was one of the easy ones, I'm feeling better already."

"I could tell by the screaming," he replied, and we both grinned at the private joke. It was true, the easier nightmares were the ones where I woke screaming; the ones where I was frozen in terror and couldn't wake were far worse.

Eric wandered in then with a towel wrapped around his waist and lazily stretched his arm around me.

"Come back to bed, lover," he murmured huskily, nuzzling my hair. He was marking his territory, like a dog peeing on a fire hydrant. I smiled at the comparison.

"Eric, Bill came to check on me every single time I woke screaming, just to make sure I'm OK. Be polite," I admonished him.

"You wake up like this a lot?" he demanded, his eyes drilling into me. I wasn't really sure what to tell him.

"Only three or four times a night, now," Bill informed him. "I hear the screaming from my place."

"It was happening more?" Eric asked him, not bothering to include me in the conversation.

"A dozen times some nights at the start. She's getting much better. But that's only the screaming nightmares, the ones where she can't wake up are worse."

"She's standing right here and can speak for herself," I interrupted, stamping my foot for emphasis.

"You didn't tell me about this. Neither of you told me about this," Eric complained.

"Sookie made me promise," Bill muttered to his feet.

Eric stared at me, waiting for my explanation.

"I didn't want to bother you, Eric. I figured you were busy with important vampire stuff and Bill was right next door when I needed someone to talk to."

"You didn't feel her panic through the bond?" Bill asked him.

Eric flinched for a moment, then his game face snapped into place as he closed the door in Bill's face. "You aren't needed here, Compton," he said coldly.

Bill lingered for a few seconds, even though Eric just ordered him to leave.

"You will stay with her until dawn?" he called through the door.

"Yes. Leave." Eric replied.

With that, Bill disappeared from my porch. Eric and I wandered back to my bedroom.

"There was no need to be so rude," I complained as we walked through the hall.

"You are my bonded. You should have told me about this," he fumed.

"Right, how exactly? It's not like I could call Fangtasia a dozen times a night to say, 'I had a nightmare, send the Master to hold my hand'." I put sarcastic emphasis on the word 'Master'.

"I would have come if you summoned me." He was sad that I hadn't.

I pulled off the socks and we slid back into bed together, sitting next to one another against the headboard.

"Eric, I'm not going to ask you to come all the way here from Shreveport every time I have a nightmare. They're a normal human reaction to anything traumatic. I had them for a while after my Gran died, too. And after Dallas, and Jackson, and Rhodes. They'll stop by themselves once I work out how to deal with things. They're already much less frequent."

"So you would rather Bill help you with this?" he accused me.

"No, but you weren't here," I whispered. I stared at my hands while I continued. "I told you how I feel only a few hours ago, it's up to you what you do now. But you've never made a habit of being here in the past, and I'm not sure that's something I should ever expect from you. I think if I did expect that from you, I'd just end up being disappointed a lot."

He put his arms around me and kissed the top of my head, but he didn't comment. I knew he didn't often talk about his feelings, but I would've loved some clues.

Then something clicked. I pulled back to look him in the eye.

"Eric, you flinched before. When Bill asked if you felt my panic through the bond, you flinched. Why?"

He sighed. "I did feel it. I made it halfway here the first dozen or so times, but you always calmed down before I could get to you. I realized they were just dreams so I stopped coming. Pam found it hysterical, me rushing out of the club to go to you, then coming back half an hour later. She said I always looked like a sheep when I returned."

"Like a sheep?" I asked incredulously. "Oh, you mean sheepish!"

"Yes, sheepish."

I laughed a little. I couldn't figure out which was funnier: Eric looking sheepish, or Pam telling him so.

"I'm glad this amuses you," he said coldly. Then he added softly, "I didn't know your nightmares were so bad. I would have come if I had known. I'm sorry I wasn't here."

"Hey, you ain't seen nothing yet," I teased, trying to make light of the situation. "Those are the easy nightmares."

"Yes, Bill said you have other nightmares that are worse," he replied gravely. "You will tell me about them."

I sighed. "Eric, I really don't like talking about this."

"You told Bill all about it."

"Yes, but only because he was here when I needed to talk."

He looked so hurt that I realized I would have to continue.

"OK, OK. I have two kinds of nightmares. The ones where I wake up screaming, they're the easy ones. The ones where I'm frozen and I can't wake myself up, they're the bad ones. After a few nights of them, I was too scared to sleep. I sat up drinking coffee all night a couple times, but Bill figured out what I was doing. He hung around my house at nights for about a week – don't get mad, nothing happened, he just came in to wake me when I was stuck in one of those nightmares. I haven't been having as many of them lately and I can sometimes wake myself from them now. I think they're some fairy thing, they only started after Niall visited me."

"How do you know they're a fairy thing?"

"Well the nightmares where I scream, in them I'm just re-living what Lochlan and Neave did. Or occasionally other things, like the time I got staked, or when I got shot, or Mickey, or when that maenad scratched me, or rescuing Bill, or the night of the takeover, or Rhodes, or rescuing you and Felipe that time. You know, all my own worst nightmares."

He looked at me with the saddest expression I had ever seen on his face, and stroked my face with his thumb, picking up the couple of stray tears that had escaped while I talked about all the things I had been through. After a moment, I kept talking.

"But the other nightmares... the stuff in them is really, really horrible. I don't think my mind could just make that stuff up, it has to be coming from somewhere. Or at least, I hope there's nothing that evil in me. It's so terrible, and the worst part is, in those ones, I'm not the victim. I'm... I'm the one doing it. Maybe I just hope they're a fairy thing because I... I hope humans couldn't even think those things."

I was gasping for breath and it took me a second to realize why: I was crying so hard my nose was completely blocked. I reached for the box of tissues on my nightstand and blew my nose loudly.

"You never used to keep tissues there," he observed sadly. "These are for your nightmares?"

I nodded as I wiped my eyes. Eric seemed to be lost in thought.

"What sort of things happen in those nightmares? Do you kill things?" he asked.

I nodded.

"Animals or people?"

"Both."

"And it is not quick. You torture them or pull them apart as you kill them?"

I sobbed and nodded.

"Do you ever eat them? I mean, while they are still alive?"

I sobbed and nodded again.

"And in those dreams, is the killing... sexually arousing?"

I stared at him wide-eyed. "How did you know that?"

"I'm just going through all the things I know fairies do, that would upset you this much if you saw them."

"Oh," I gasped. "Fairies... they do all that?"

"Some do. It is part of their magic."

"I... I've also had dreams where... where I was using the weather to kill people. Using the sea to capsize boats and drown people, or sending tornadoes through towns, or creating floods by bursting dams, or making landslides bury people alive, or making earthquakes knock buildings over."

"That sounds exactly like fairies," he chuckled.

"I don't find it funny, Eric."

"So you have all these new fairy powers at the same time as you're having nightmares about things fairies do," he stated.

Suddenly, I twigged. "Yes! But the more I've been able to use the new fairy powers, the fewer of those dreams I've had. And I'm starting to be able to control them, to wake up from them or to stop doing those horrible things."

"That's a really good sign."

"Why?"

"If you can control the dreams, it's less likely your fairy nature will end up controlling you."

"Controlling me?" I puzzled. "Like... I might actually end up doing that stuff?" I whispered.

"No, if you can control the dreams, it's unlikely they'll take you over."

"I guess that's good," I wavered.

"So the dreams and your new powers all started after Niall visited?" he asked.

"Yes."

"Did he do anything while he was here? Anything that might cause this?"

"Not that I know of. Although when he kissed me goodbye, I think he might've done something then."

"What do you think he did?"

"I don't know, but I felt real good afterward. I think he healed me as much as he could, but I also felt the happiest I had for a long time, like I suddenly knew things would work out."

"Interesting. And now you want to learn to fight. You are being braver and more aggressive about getting what you want," he grinned, "and you say you feel less human now?"

"I just realized I couldn't sit around being a victim any more. That's why I want to learn to defend myself, and why I'm willing to risk my feelings getting hurt to find out where I stand with certain people." I gave him a significant look but he didn't take the bait. Darn it!

"As for feeling less human... I don't feel like I can go back to a normal life after what happened to me, but I don't think I'm any less human now than I was before. It's just... Sam and I had a long talk a few days ago and when I said something about being 'just a barmaid.' He pointed out that I've tried really hard to be a regular human for years now, but I haven't succeeded.

"He said that everyone notices how different I am, even though I try to hide it, and that maybe I should stop pretending and just face it. He said that I'm as much a Supe as he is, even though I'm physically as weak as a regular human, because I'm much stronger mentally. He said I have to find some way to use my abilities fully, and that if I do that I'll be more able to pass for human the rest of the time. He said that's how it works for shifters, too. I think he might be right; trying not to be a telepath has never worked for me, but when I have the chance to use my abilities for something useful, it's easier to keep my shields up the rest of the time.

"Amelia said something, too, about me feeling ashamed of my telepathy because it made me different, instead of being proud of it because it makes me special. She insists I'm too modest and ought to show off my powers more, but she also says I'm crap at pretending to be human and I should just stop wasting my time."

"I think they are right."

"You agree with a shifter and a witch?" I teased.

"Usually no, but I will make an exception this time."

I yawned loudly. It was 3am and I'd had only an hour's sleep all night.

"Sorry, I think I need to sleep now."

I wriggled down into bed and was sound asleep before my head hit the pillow.