Chapter Eleven: When The Mind Is Thinking, It Is Talking To Itself

I excused myself from the group and left the church to take a breath as my mind whirled with the possibilities in front of me. Sitting on the gate of my truck, I lit a cigarette and started debating my situation with the voices in my head.

Logical Molly: "Alright, it's a 50/50 decision when it boils down to it."

Other Mollys: "Ugh... Not again!"

Logical Molly: "We can either do nothing, or do something. Doing nothing still seems like the safest bet to me. That way we're just letting fate handle it. Doing something seems like a lot of hard work just to wind up with nothing better than an even chance that everything MIGHT turning into sunshine and rainbows rather than turd blossoms and apocalypse. Besides, I don't think we have the emotional fortitude to be able to handle it well if it's the latter."

Self-Hatred Molly: "I bet it's more likely than you think that whatever we do will turn out turd-style. We fuck EVERYTHING up."

Bad-Ass Superhero Molly: "No. We need to risk it. Laci had a point that doing nothing is the coward's way out and we are NOT a coward. We are a brave, nut-punching, kick-ass chick who stands up for the underdog. Come on, we know the fucking FUTURE here! We have to do what we can to at least TRY and make this world a better place instead of just sitting around with our thumb up our collective ass."

Ethical Molly: "Theoretically, we don't HAVE to..."

Bad-Ass Superhero Molly: "How can you say that? We can make a difference! It's that Bystander Good Samaritan Law thing or whatever. If we have the chance to help people, it's our duty to try!"

Ethical Molly: "Yes, we're bound by honor to do the right thing. But only for REAL people. And every single thing in this universe but us, technically, ain't real. This is a fictional town with fictional characters. Their histories and personalities are just figments of Charlaine Harris and Alan Ball's imagination. We don't owe them in any way. We're just a little girl playing with dolls here. Why should we care if they live or die?"

Logical Molly: "Hmm, that's an interesting point. But, if they're not real people, then there are no real life repercussions in it for us. We can save them or not save them and we don't have to feel guilty either way."

Stupid Molly: "This conversation is hurting my thinky parts."

Selfish Molly: "I say we fuck with 'em then! Or we don't touch them and just watch the show! I don't know. Let's just do whatever would make us the happiest. It's all about me!"

Bad-Ass Superhero Molly: "My God, I'm disappointed in myself. Why aren't we acknowledging the fact that it doesn't matter whether they're fictional or not. They still feel love and hate and sadness and joy. They're like artificial intelligences who have passed the Turing test. And I know we've seen enough episodes of the Outer Limits to build a sympathy for robots. It doesn't matter if they're not exactly like us; they still deserve the chance for life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."

Sci-Fi Molly: "She's right. Who are we to define the idea of existence? We'll be just like the assholes in movies who wrongly think that robots or aliens are necessarily evil. We can't be the kind of person who starts picking and choosing who has the right to be helped and who doesn't."

Ethical Molly: "Fine. Fictional or not, I'll admit that we have to treat them like anything else."

Stupid Molly: "Seriously, guys... this is confusing... What's going on here?"

Logical Molly: "Stupid Molly has a point. We're getting out of control with the theorizing here and making it more complicated than it needs to be. We need to make this decision one step at a time. Are we going to help or are we going to step aside and allow fate to control the situation?"

Bad-Ass Superhero Molly: "We have to help."

Selfish Molly: "Whatever we decide, that's what I want to do."

Other Mollys: "I have no idea."

Logical Molly: "Is there any part of me that says we shouldn't try to change the timeline?"

Spiritual Molly: "Well, my gut says that fate will decide what's the right thing to do... But, since I truly believe that whatever choice we make is the one that is destined to be made, I guess I'm pretty much with Selfish Molly on this one."

Logical Molly: "Alright, then. The only part of me that has a strong feeling about this says we should help, so that's it. We have to do whatever we can. Now, how do we help?"

Bad-Ass Superhero Molly: "We have to right all the wrongs in this universe. Starting now, nobody dies."

Sci-Fi Molly: "Whoa, whoa, whoa. We can't right ALL the wrongs here. As soon as we change anything, it's game over. I'm not even sure whether what we think we know can be trusted since we've already changed things just by being here."

Logical Molly: "I don't know about that. Bill's speech was still on this day, Gran's still probably going to die tonight. We've barely talked to anyone in this town. I think it's a safe bet to assume that events are still happening the way we know them. At least for now."

Sci-Fi Molly: "That's because we really haven't talked to anyone besides Sam and some random people who don't really have anything to do with the True Blood storyline. But as soon as we make any major changes like saving someone's life, it's unlikely that we'll be able to affect anything else. It's like the continuity error of Biff and the Sports Almanac in Back to the Future 2. The writers never took into account the idea that the second that Biff started betting on sports games, him winning would have started affecting the timeline in a way that would make the rest of his knowledge of future events null and void. If we change something big enough, like saving someone's life, we can't be sure that we can depend on the Book of True Blood to be true anymore. If we're going to do this, we only have one chance."

Logical Molly: "So we need to figure out which moment to change that would do the most good, because if we started changing things willy-nilly then we wouldn't be able to be in the right place at the right time for anything else."

Ethical Molly: "I think we should determine that by how we can save the most lives. It's the only fair way. We can't just guess what would make people the happiest."

Bad-Ass Superhero Molly: "I say we kick Drew Marshall's ass and turn him into the cops. That'll save Gran and Amy."

Logical Molly: "But if we stop Mary-Ann, we can save Eggs, Daphne, Ms. Jeanette, Karl. That's four to two."

Bad-Ass Superhero Molly: "Please, no one's going to miss them, except maybe Eggs. They were bad people! Sidekicks to villains! We should be saving the people who deserve the right to live. I mean, sure, Amy was no angel, but she was on the road to change."

Ethical Molly: "If you're going to start picking and choosing whose lives are more important, we should take into account factors like how many people depended on them and how much of their lives they had to live. Like Gran was an old woman who would only be guaranteed another decade on this Earth, at most, and she just had Jason and Sookie to take care of. But Ms. Jeanette was raising a bunch of grandbabies. She should count for more."

Bad-Ass Superhero Molly: "But Gran's a good person! She was a matriarch of Bon Temps. Her family was the whole town, if you're thinking about it that way."

Ethical Molly: "Daphne and Karl might've had a family. They might've even reformed and found the cure for cancer. You don't know how much good they could've done for the world if we saved their lives. For you to think that Gran's and Amy's lives are more important than four others is just really... unethical!"

Logical Molly: "Okay, okay, listen. The only fair way to handle this is to base our decision on the numbers of deaths and facts alone. We can't let 'could be's and 'might be's effect this. Besides, you're forgetting that we can't just kill Mary-Ann. She's a god. The only way we can get rid of her is by waiting until she's had her ritual to call on Bacchus or whatever, meaning that Ms. Jeanette, Daphne and Karl MUST die in the process. So stopping Drew Marshall is still in the lead with saving the most lives. You know what? We should be writing all of this down. Just let me handle this."

The logical, list-making portion of my brain kicked into overdrive as I pulled out one of the blank notebooks from my purse. I began by writing down the name of every person who I could remember dying on the show, but I frowned when I felt like I was forgetting people. I needed the Book of True Blood to remind me of what I was missing. It really was unethical to be making this choice unless I had all the facts available to me. I checked the time on my burner cell phone and realized that I only had a little under an hour until Bill's speech, and I didn't know if I could make it home and back before it started.

My sentimental side took a longing glance at the church for a moment, desperately wanting to see one of my favorite scenes of the show. But logic and heroics took over the decision-making part of my brain and I pouted as I jumped in the truck to get going. Yes, missing Bill talk about the Civil War was a severe bummer, but this was more important. I had a responsibility now and, if I was going to choose to save Gran's life, I needed to figure out what had to be done before it was too late.

No matter how much I wanted to, I couldn't speed on the way home and it was twenty agonizing minutes before I arrived. I ran into the house and threw my purse on the couch before rushing over to the dishwasher and pulled the other notebook out of its hidey-hole.

I took a seat, indian-style, on the couch and began biting my fingernails as I compared the list I'd made earlier with the episode guide I'd made of the show. I had forgotten a significant number of moments where random guards had died here and there, and a few less-than-major characters who had passed as well. When I was done, I had a list of a little over 40 people dying during the four seasons of the series. I thought it might have been more than that, but I was pretty sure I wasn't missing anyone.

It would've been an easy choice if a lot of people had died in one big event, but there were really just a lot of little murders here and there. I categorized the names by the people who had killed them and promised myself that I would have to accept that whoever had killed the most people, that's who I would stop. All the voices in my head agreed on the fairness of that decision.

There was a tie for last place between Amy for staking Eddie and Jessica for taking too much blood from that truck driver, so I crossed both of them off the list. While there was no guilt for that truck driver dying, I did feel bad that Eddie wouldn't be able to live. But I figured it was probably a good thing since he might've killed Jason or at least gotten him into trouble if he'd survived. Sam had killed MaryAnn and his ex-girlfriend and her boyfriend, but I really couldn't stop their deaths so I counted him as only having killed one person and he was crossed off the list, too.

The next characters were Jason and Eric with two a piece. Eric had probably killed lots of people that I didn't know about, but I could only count the redneck in the basement and Talbot directly to him. Jason had killed Eggs and Franklin Mott.

I went backwards like that for a while, scratching out names, until I got to Bill which made me have to start the whole thing over again when I realized I was going to have to re-think my strategy. Bill had killed the Mexican stripper with Russell, Uncle Bartlett, at least 3 were guards when he was kidnapped, and so many others. But, most specifically and most importantly, he had killed Longshadow. I realized that if I stopped Bill from killing him when he tried to strangle Sookie, Bill wouldn't have had to go see the Magister for punishment. That meant Jessica wouldn't have had to die. If Jessica weren't turned into a vampire, the trucker would have lived as well. Three more people who could be saved were added to his list just by changing that one event.

I grunted in frustration and ripped out the piece of paper from the spiral as I started re-writing the list, this time organizing them based on the events that led to them and arranging it in chronological order. I couldn't believe how stupid I'd been before. Suddenly, the whole game was changed.

I figured if I put Drew Marshall in jail tonight, it wouldn't just save Gran's, Amy's, and his own life. Without Gran's death as a motivator, Sookie might not go back to Bill and lose her virginity to him. If they never rekindled their relationship, Sookie might not have ever went with Bill to find out who was embezzling money from Eric, saving Longshadow, the trucker and Jessica. And if they didn't have sex, Bill might never have found out about Sookie's friendly uncle and Bartlett would live.

And it was after Gran's funeral that Tara hooked up with Sam again. If they didn't, she might not have ever asked him for money for the exorcism, so MaryAnn wouldn't have been called to Bon Temps. That would save her, Daphne, Karl, Eggs and Ms. Jeanette. That's 12.

But, even though it was a bit of a longshot that everything would turn out that well and no matter how many people I thought I might be able to save by stopping Drew Marshall, it still didn't beat the number of lives lost during Russell Edgington's storyline. If I got rid of him before season three, Bill would never be kidnapped and kill all those weres and vamp guards. That Hispanic stripper would still live. Russell wouldn't kill the Magister. Bill, Sookie and Alcide wouldn't kill Lorena and Cooter and like ten guards in their escape. Eric wouldn't have killed Talbot, so Russell wouldn't kill the anchor man or the Male Hooker in his sorrow. And Franklin Mott would never come after Tara and find himself on the wrong end of a wooden bullet.

When everything was said and done, Drew Marshall's serial killing spree didn't have anything to do with Russell wanting Bill as leverage against the Queen, so it was him who had to be stopped. The numbers didn't lie.

But I couldn't kill a vampire who was like 4 millennia old. I couldn't turn him into any authorities when he hadn't done anything wrong. I just wasn't smart or strong enough to trick him into meeting the final death.

But Eric was. If I went to him and gave him Russell Edgington's name as the one who lead Operation Werewolf and caused the death of his parents, he could come up with some sort of plan to kill him. Eric was a fucking genius when it came to this stuff. I could tell him that Sookie was a fairy and we could use her to get rid of Russell and save everyone. Sure, that put Sookie in danger's way, but, since Eric was going to find out what she was anyways and didn't kill her for it then, I couldn't see a way that this would turn out differently.

Still, maybe he didn't kill her because he got to know her and liked her. If I told him that she was a fairy right now, maybe he'd kidnap her. Or even kill Bill. Maybe I could wait until after Dallas before I told him about Russell and her, and he'd have grown enough of an affection towards her that he wouldn't kill her. It didn't really matter as long as the King of Mississippi died before he kidnapped Bill.

This was all really hard to think about. I couldn't be sure of anything. There were too many pieces to move around and I wasn't good at chess. I couldn't think three moves ahead. That's why I needed Eric's help in the first place. There had to be someone as smart as him that I could talk to about this sort of thing and get advice.

Sam, Jason, Sookie, Bill. No. Tara, Arlene, Terry? No. Everyone in this town was far too stupid when it came to this sort of thing. A psychic? Where would I find a psychic?

I started banging my head with the palm of my hand and all I could think was that Eric was the only one who could untangle this Gordian Knot of timelines. Eric, Eric, Eric. And then it came to me.

Eric.

If I went to him and told him I could tell the future, tell him things that I knew about his past that no one else knew, he would have to believe that I knew things I shouldn't. I would dangle the carrot in front of him that I knew the name of the person who killed his parents, but then say I wanted something in return. I could tell him I needed help with a novel or something. Hell, I could even get him to get Bartolomeo off my ass. Or some money! Or even a new identity or something! He'd do anything I asked when I promised that he would finally get his revenge.

Logical Molly: "I think that's a great plan. I can't see any flaws in it."

Selfish Molly: "Since we had to miss Bill's speech due to stupid responsibilities, I say we go NOW. NOW NOW NOW! If we're saving the world, we deserve to be able to save this night with something interesting to do."

Logical Molly: "I don't know about this… Don't you think we should sleep on it? It doesn't matter if we put this off a few days."

Selfish Molly: "If it doesn't matter if we put it off or not, then we should go now. I want to go NOWWWWWWW."

Logical Molly: "Well, I just think if we took a little more time to plan, then…"

Selfish Molly: "NOW!"

At this point, Selfish Molly's voice became so loud that it drowned out whatever Logical Molly was saying and I decided to obey it. If only to shut up the craving of not staying cooped up in this house for one more goddamn night.

Bad-Ass Superhero Molly: "DIBS ON GETTING TO PICK OUT WHAT WE WEAR!"

The two hour drive to Shreveport was spent trying to ignore my logical side and being excited about getting my hands dirty in the True Blood universe. All I could think about was how well this would turn out for me. I decided that, along with money, a new identity, and Bartolomeo getting kicked out of Area Five, I was going to demand privileges to go to Dallas with the group. Hell, I could force Eric to keep me by his side at all times as an advisor. I held all the cards, why couldn't I get everything I ever wanted? I was going to be able to get everything I ever wanted out of this deal and be the savior of like 30 people. It was all going to my head, to be honest with you.

Still, I regretted letting my bad-ass personality choose my clothes. I mean, I wasn't dressed ridiculously or anything, just a black tee and jeans, but I couldn't stop myself from wearing the knee-high boots underneath. They just made me feel too bad-ass. My hair was pulled back in a tight pony-tail and I considered myself battle-ready.

When I pulled into Fangtasia, I sat in the car and checked myself in the rear-view mirror. The makeup that I'd worn from when I'd dressed for church was still there, but faded, so I re-applied my lipstick as I went over my plan of arrival. I was going to walk up straight to the front door like a woman on a mission and ignore the line. I'd tell Pam or whoever was manning the door that I needed to see Eric immediately, and it was very important. They'd open the door for me and I'd stalk to Eric's throne and tell him that I had valuable information for him and he'd do well to give me the time to listen to it.

But, of course, like all my excellent plans, it was ruined. Before I was even done with my lipstick, Pam was at my door and pulling me out of the truck. "Stephanie Moyer. And here I was, thinking we might just never get the chance to see you again. Silly me."

Author's Note #1: If any of you read the other chapter eleven that I posted on Wednesday, forget it. As you can tell, I decided to go in a completely different direction. I'm sorry for the late update in this case, but the tides- they are a changin'. And it's kinda insane. It required a LOT of thought and research and I'm starting to get dizzy thinking about all the effects of time travel. Seriously, my thinky parts hurt. Anyways, hope you like it! The next chapter will be a LOT of Eric and I'll get that out as soon as I can.

Author's Note #2: Comments/Critiques/Concerns go in the Reviews. Feedback makes more and better chapters. Thanks for reading!