AN: I have been truly humbled by the positive responses to this story. So many of you have taken to the time to write very thoughtful comments and ask some very good questions. It makes the effort worthwhile when I realize that so many of you seem to be entertained by my efforts.
Joyindenver is my excellent beta. She pushes, nags and harangues in all the right ways to make sure I do the best work I can. For that, she has my eternal thanks. If you spot errors, please understand that they are all mine and due to revisions that I made after her first-rate beta work.
Charlaine Harris is the mother to all whose names you recognize. Emma is mine. However, Emma Rose Bennett is the name of a real girl who lived in Charleston in the 1920s. Beyond that I know nothing about her.
Previously…
"The club was in full swing," I told Sookie. "I seated Emma at one of the few remaining tables and went to the bar to get Emma's favorite drink: a gin and tonic." I registered Sookie's look of surprise at the coincidence. "I was trying to get the bartender's attention when I felt a tap on my shoulder. It was Andre; he was there with Sophie Anne."
The remembered feeling of cold dread balled my hands into fists.
Sookie's arm slide protectively over her waist at the mention of Andre's name. "What did he want?" she whispered.
"Everything," I replied.
Sookie's eyes locked on mine shining with dread. Her desire to know Emma's story warred with her fear of what she might hear. Her own history with Andre justified her fear. Even knowing that, I owed it to her and I owed it to Emma to tell her the whole story.
"Andre gripped my arm and guided me back to our table. He introduced himself and asked us to join him and Sophie Ann at their table." Andre had introduced himself as 'my good friend,' his most charming smile plastered on his face. The smile had not reached his eyes. "I had no time to warn her about who she was going to meet. I couldn't caution her to be careful about what she said about us."
A feeling of cold dread ran through me now as it had done that night.
Walking to their table I realized that I had made a huge mistake in purposefully keeping Emma out of Vampire politics. She knew almost nothing of our world let alone anything about Vampire Queens and the need to temper her comments in the Queen's presence. I told myself I did it to protect her when in reality, I didn't want her to fear and reject me for the world I was forced to inhabit.
Sookie's eyes were fixed on me, wide-eyed with fear for a woman who was now long dead. I felt certain that she too was thinking of the consequences of my poor decision.
"I walked with Emma and Andre over to Queen's table," I continued. "I prayed the whole way there that we could just make an appearance and go back to our evening. Emma felt my tension through the bond and my grip on her hand. She seemed to understand that these were influential people to whom I must defer." Emma's grip on my hand had been almost equally tight, her smile bright, but forced as we neared the table.
"When we got to the Queen's table, Emma was polite and reserved allowing me to do most of the talking." Andre had pulled Emma away from me and seated her between himself and Sophie Ann. I was left to sit nearly across the table to observe the beginning of our end. "Everything was going reasonably well until Sophie Ann asked Emma how long we had been together. In Emma's mind there was no reason to lie. She told her that we had been together for a year." She had looked at me with love in her eyes as she'd said it.
I watched as Sophie Ann raised her eyebrows at Emma's response. It was enough to let me know that whatever happiness I'd had with Emma was nearing its end.
"Was the Queen angry?" Sookie's tension was palpable.
"Any human watching the scene would probably say 'no.'"
Sophie Anne had always been master of covering her true reactions. "She laughed and told Emma that she was a lucky girl and that I was a real 'catch.' Andre had said nothing as he watched through narrowed eyes. "Andre just looked disgusted; he could smell my blood in Emma and guessed that we were regular lovers if not fully bonded."
Andre's face rose up in my memory. My gut roiled as I recalled his hateful speculative glare.
"The next night, I was summoned to appear before the Queen in her audience chamber." Even now the memory is vividly painful. "I was first on her agenda. I was forced to kneel at her feet in submission to explain why I thought having any kind of relationship with an unglamoured human was acceptable. Everything I said as I tried to explain was laughed at and ridiculed not only by the Queen and Andre, but also by the other Vampires present. She wanted to make sure that everyone knew of my 'stupidity' at endangering our kind."
"She finally released me just before dawn with one final command: end my relationship with Emma." The Queen's questioning and ridicule had gone on for hours while I remained on my knees, head bowed, to reinforce the concept of obedience to her will.
After all these years, the Queen's high-pitched, near child-like voice still rang in my ears, "If she knows about you, then she knows about us. Get rid of her or turn her. Immediately." I had been desperate hearing her command.
"I wanted to beg the Queen to let me leave the area with Emma or find some other solution, but I knew if I did, she would turn the matter over to someone else to resolve. If I tried to run with Emma, she would track us down. I didn't care about the consequences to me, but I knew Emma's life was at stake. The Queen was determined that my relationship with Emma would not continue, and I feared that Andre would get further involved. I felt, that for Emma's safety, I had no choice but to end it with her."
"Bill…" Her voice cracked with emotion as Sookie said my name; tears glistened as they slid down her face.
"Don't," I barked sharply. "This is hard enough for me. I cannot handle your tears."
Sookie got up and disappeared into the bathroom. Filled with a hollowed out and disjointed feeling, I sat there staring unwillingly into the memories of my last hours with Emma. They had been the worst of my existence to that point.
The next evening a knock on our door had had Emma running to answer it. She was smiling broadly when she came into the living room with her hand tucked in the crook of Andre's arm. 'Look who's come to visit, darling. Your friend from the other night at the club.' Her welcome of him into our home had been that of a good southern woman. She had had no idea that he was there to oversee the end our life together.
Sookie returned to her seat. Her face looked raw and her eyes were red, but the tears had stopped. "I'm sorry." She said as she waited for me to continue.
"I had been given three options: kill Emma, turn her, or send her away. I think you can surmise what I chose and why I chose it. Killing her was not an option, nor could I ever inflict this existence on another human being." The thought of stealing Emma's life, extinguishing her vibrancy had made me physically ill. "I glamoured her into forgetting me."
At the Queen's command, Andre had come to our home to watch as I glamoured Emma. While he watched, I replaced our happiness with memories of frequent fights and disagreements. I glamoured away our mutual commitment and replaced it with the belief that she had been the one to end our relationship. In her mind I had become the boyfriend that just didn't work out. Those false memories coupled with a planted general dislike of New Orleans and its atmosphere had left her glad to be returning home admitting to her parents that they had been right.
I looked at Sookie. She was biting the inside of her cheek and twisting her hands in her lap, but there were no tears. Silently I thanked her for that.
"After I had glamoured her, Andre sat with her reinforcing my glamour and her general dislike of New Orleans while I went to our bedroom and packed her things."
As I packed, I had been able to attach reminiscence to almost every item I had placed in her suitcases: the lace nightgowns I had delighted in taking off of her body, the silk underwear and stockings that she liked to wear to please me and tease me, the dresses that she had worn on our nights out. Hair brushes, a hand mirror, her make-up and night cream…more items reminding me of her that, to this day, I can close my eyes and recall. Each item had a piece of us going into a suitcase that she would carry away with her…away from me".
I had faltered when I got to her jewelry case. I had given her several small items of jewelry: a necklace of blue lapis glass beads that she had admired on one of our evening strolls, a pair of silver marcasite and garnet earrings and matching bracelet for the first sale of one her stories, a white gold filigree ring with emeralds that matched her eyes and was a token of my promise to love her forever. As I had taken each one from the jewelry case, I had felt the last tangible evidence of our love begin to erode. I had slowly, but surely excised evidence of our love from her life.
For her, these items that I'd packed as memories would simply be her things. She would not associate these things with the lovemaking, the quiet conversations, the laughter or the fun. She would not associate them with me.
Feeling my self control threatened, I cleared my throat and continued. "When I returned to the living room with Emma's suitcases, Andre introduced me to her. I played my part: I'd been 'hired' to help her pack her things and close up the house that she rented...our house."
Andre's introduction had caused a quick look to pass across Emma's face: a slight wrinkling of her brow signaling brief recognition. But the look passed quickly as she smiled and thanked me, like she would any helpful stranger. All I had been able to do was smile back and tell her she was welcome. Her beautiful face had held that vaguely blank look of one under heavy glamour and she had seemed perfectly content with the illusion that had been created for her.
"Where did she go, Bill?" Sookie's asked gently.
"I'd already bought her train tickets back to Charleston and put them in her handbag." I was on autopilot now as the scenes rolled through my mind, one right after the other. "She would have one night at her Aunt's home before the train left at 4:30 the next afternoon. She had a sleeping compartment.
Andre had called a cab, I continued. When it arrived, he and I carried her bags to the car. He helped her into the back seat as I loaded her bags in the back. When he closed her door, the cab pulled away from the curb."
Sookie gaze was fixed on my face. I turned away from her. I couldn't look at her as I struggled to finish the last part of this painful chapter; it was much easier to focus on the fireplace and on the collection of family pictures that were arranged on the mantle.
"The cab pulled away and Andre rounded on me." A matter-of-fact tone continued to color my voice. "He told me, in no uncertain terms, that the Queen was still very angry and that I had used my one and only screw up." Andre's narrow, feral face had been a mask of threat. "There would be no future liaisons beyond the feed, fuck and glamour variety."
Andre's actual words had been more genteel than what I told Sookie, but ultimately just as deadly. Andre had snarled his warning at me, 'If you ever do anything like this again…anything that could expose us, then kneeling in humiliation in the Queen's court will be the absolute least of your worries.' Having had delivered his warning, he had left me staring down the street in the direction Emma's cab had gone.
"I made sure Andre was gone and then I took off running." Sookie's hand fisted over her mouth; I knew she was fighting back tears again. "I made it to her Aunt's home just in time to see her cab pull up."
It had been late and the lights were off in her Aunt's home. I'd waited in the shadows to make sure that someone was home. After a few minutes the porch light flicked on and her Aunt opened the door. Emma's explanation was what we had planted in her memory: she had grown tired of the fighting, we had broken up and she wanted to go home. Her Aunt had taken her into the house, and I waited outside until nearly dawn.
My jaw muscles twitched as I clenched my teeth willing my tears not to fall.
"That was the last time I saw her."
That was all of it. I hadn't relived those memories of the last eighty years until now. I didn't feel better; I didn't feel worse. I was hollow. Empty.
"After that," I said. "I returned to the life I had lived until I was called to find and investigate you."
I could not explain to Sookie how desolate that life had been, so I didn't. "I returned to my books, my music, my routines and Sophie Ann's investments." It had meant that I also went back to rising alone and facing the prospect of an eternity of dull, meaningless routine.
"Do you know what happened to her?" Her question was equal parts curiosity and sympathy.
"Yes." I nodded. "Periodically, I paid private detectives to check on her. She married an old sweetheart and had three children, two boys and a girl. She died of a massive stroke at age 83 in 1987. I never knew if she continued her writing. I've visited her grave several times over the years."
The visits to her grave had allowed me to think about her freely. They had allowed me to grieve openly. They had allowed me to remember us.
Sookie moved from her chair and sat next to me on the old couch. She said nothing as she put her arm around my shoulders and held my hand, gently sweeping her thumb over my knuckles.
I could not let the comfort of her embrace sway me; I had a few more things I needed to say.
"Sookie, nothing I have told you excuses what I did to you. I made many of the same mistakes with you as I did with Emma, along with a few new ones. I don't know if you can, or should, ever truly forgive me."
Sookie continued to sit silently for a few moments before rising suddenly to move back to her chair. Her face was taut as she sat completely still, staring at some distant point in the room.
"Bill, you had many chances to bond with me." Her voice was low and anxious. "Is this the reason why you didn't?" Anguish bubbled to the surface as her old feelings of betrayal were remembered. "Was it because you knew you would have to give me over to the Queen?"
"Sookie, to my knowledge there was never any plan on the Queen's part to take you away, bind you to her, or turn you." I desperately wanted to reassure her. "It wasn't until Rhodes, when you had proved just a small portion of your real talent and value that Andre stepped in out of blind loyalty to the Queen and tried to force a bond on you. Unless the Queen forbade it, he would have taken you to New Orleans where you would have been in continuous service."
"As much as I dislike Eric and despised the fact that you were bonded to him," I swallowed hard before continuing, "I am glad that he was there to circumvent Andre's attempt to bind you to him. It really was an act of protection for you, and it was very risky for him." I never wanted Sookie to have any idea of what her life would have become…what she would have become had Eric not intervened.
I knew that she still had doubts about trusting me; it showed in her eyes as she regarded me. I had told her the truth: Sophie Ann wanted her services and her loyalty, not her blood or body. But Sookie had also been right about the other reason I never bonded with her: even after I fell in love with her, I had resisted out of fear of losing her. After Emma, I wouldn't have been able to go through it again.
"Sookie, it is only fair that you should know why I never bonded with you. For sixty-seven years, until the day she died, the faint murmur of Emma's emotions hummed in my consciousness. They reminded me of her, that what we'd had was real and because of that, I felt less alone."
Recalling the night she died, I felt like I was burning alive from the inside. My awareness of her had blipped out like lights suddenly extinguished in a lightning storm. Isolation and emptiness had blanketed me. The void left by the end of her life had been so total that I was brought to my knees, unable to connect to anything real, or good. Emma had been the slender connection that had allowed me to rise each day and eke out an existence. The pain had been so great that I had decided at that moment, that I would rather be alone for eternity than to bear that kind of loss again.
"When she died, it was loss like none I had ever experienced. Sookie, I could not go through that again. I don't want to hurt you, but that is the truth."
Rousing from the well of memories, I was shocked to see Sookie sitting rigidly in her chair with a look of wariness and dread on her face. I could hear her heart racing, her body language closed and defensive. One arm hugged her waist and the other crossed her chest, her clenched fist resting over her heart as if to keep it from beating out of her chest or from being ripped from it.
"Bill," her voice was low and strained, "did you love me when we had sex the first time?"
A cold knot of alarm formed in my stomach. Why was she asking this now?
Sookie's eyes watched me with dread as she waited for my answer. I wanted desperately to look away, but could not. I had promised her the truth, but I knew that an honest answer would hurt her beyond measure. I would lose her forever.
"Sookie, why are you asking me that now?
"Answer me, Bill." Her face was taut with dismay as if waiting a fatal diagnosis.
"I don't think I would have admitted it to myself if I did." Finding no way to soften my next words, I continued, "So, the most honest answer is probably 'no.'"
The words had barely left my mouth when Sookie shot up out of her chair snatched up her empty iced tea glass and my nearly full bottle of blood. Without a word she fled into the kitchen.
"Sookie!" I called as I leapt up to follow her. "Please believe me," I pleaded. "Our lovemaking was not part of some conscious, calculated effort to win your affections." The rigidity of her retreating back damned me with her pain.
When I reached the kitchen, she was standing in front of the sink, perfectly still, with her back to me.
"You were hurting and I was hurting for you," I said. "It just happened; I didn't plan it. Our lovemaking was not because I was sent by the Queen." I willed her to believe me.
She had leaned forward, her arms spread wide across the edge of the counter top supporting her body. Her head hung down as she shook it from side to side in a weary gesture of pain and denial.
"Sookie, look at me. Please." I needed her to see the truth of my words. "I made love to you, because it felt like the right thing to do. I would have done anything to comfort you that night."
She turned to look at me, her eyes bright with unshed tears. "You know…" her voice was low and strangled, "I wondered that night in New Orleans…" Her voice trailed off.
"Sookie. Please." What would I say? What could I say?
"Eric forced you to tell me. I wondered..." She was twisting her hands together and her breathing was rapid and shallow like she was afraid, as if she was awaiting a physical blow. "I wondered…," she paused, swallowing convulsively. "I wondered if you loved me when you took my virginity." Her voice wavered as her resigned and bitter words felled me with their pain. "I told myself that you probably didn't." I was gutted by her anguish. "I didn't want to believe that. I didn't want to believe you would do that to me."
"You used me. You took the one thing I could never give anyone ever again." Hysteria bubbled in her raised voice. "I left the hospital. I wanted to kill, and maim, and scream. If we were still a couple when I found out I would have killed you. I would have washed my hands in your blood to feel anything other than the feeling of being used; of feeling like I was nothing but a stupid, hick barmaid for believing you, for loving you. But that what I was to you isn't it Bill: a stupid…hick…barmaid."
"Sookie! No! Please don't say that. Don't think that." Her whipped across the short distance between us and flayed me raw.
Her tears came in a torrent as she screamed. "Hearing you admit it, hearing you say those words makes me feel that way again!" She took two quick steps forward and slapped me hard enough for my head to snap sideways. I stood still. My hands hung loose at my sides as she slapped me again. And again. I would stand willing to take her blows until she could no longer raise her arms. It would not have been enough.
Breathing hard and trembling, she stumbled slightly as she stepped back from me.
"Say something!" she shouted. Her face was contorted and flushed; her hair in wild disarray.
"There is nothing I can say that will change the past or excuse my offense against you." The force of her blows hadn't hurt, but I was undone by her pain. There was truly nothing that I could say.
We stood, silent, staring at one another. There was a frightening wildness in Sookie's glare.
I wanted to offer comfort, but dared not take a step in her direction. Her fists were opening and closing as if still fighting the urge to lay me out or stake me.
The shrill ring of the phone startled both of us. Sookie tore her eyes from me to stare at it as if it was an alien object. Swiping her hands roughly across her face, she strode across the kitchen to answer the shrieking phone.
"Hello?" she barked; her voice sharp and impatient with anger. Silence filled her kitchen as she listened to the voice on the other end of the line. It was Sandy Seacrest, de Castro's lieutenant.
"Miss Stackhouse? This is Sandy Seacreast calling on behalf of his majesty, Felipe de Castro."
"Yes, Ms. Seacrest, I remember you." Fighting to gain control, Sookie cleared her throat slightly before asking, "What can I do for you?" She took another angry swipe at her eyes and wiped her hand on her pajama pants
"The King has asked me to inform you that you will be receiving a formal invitation to the wedding of Freyda, Queen of Oklahoma and Eric Northman." The bright spots of angry color staining Sookie's cheeks drained away. "The King asks that you return the RSVP card promptly to indicate that you will be attending as part of his retinue."
Sandy continued to rattle off a list of "to do's" as if she was reading a grocery list. "His majesty will, of course, provide your transportation and Mr. Compton will serve as your escort while traveling to Tulsa. Please check your e-mail for information regarding your flight and the anticipated dress requirements for the wedding weekend."
I watched as the fight flowed right out of Sookie. Her legs seemed to lose their strength as if she had been sucker punched. She sat heavily on the stool positioned below the phone, her shoulders slumped and her head was supported by the hand not pressing the receiver to her ear.
I had expected that I would be required to attend the wedding, but I had no idea that de Castro would be cruel enough to expect Sookie to go. There seemed to be no end to the misery that Vampires would heap upon her small shoulders.
"Please…uh…" Sookie struggled to get the words out. "Please give my regrets to the King and thank him for thinking of me, but I will not be able to attend the wedding." She closed her eyes as if willing Sandy to say 'okay' to bring an end to this dreadful conversation.
"Yes, Miss Stackhouse. His majesty said you might say something like that." The more Sandy talked, the more panicked Sookie looked. "He asked me to remind you that you have a contract with him to provide telepathic services. He expects to do a great deal of networking among the human guests and will require your services throughout the three day event to read the humans with which he comes in contact. His request falls within the requirements of your contract, and he expects that you will honor it."
Sookie stood there gripping the telephone, her mouth was working as if to speak, but no sound came out. I was surprised to find myself standing right in front of her. I couldn't recall moving.
"Miss Stackhouse?" When Sookie didn't respond, she called out more sharply, "Miss Stackhouse! Do you understand the King's instructions? He expects me to inform him before he goes to rest that you will attend as part of his retinue." Sandy's emphasis on 'do you understand' carried the weight of the King's command.
Sounding broken, Sookie replied, "Yes…yes, I understand. " The rough animation of her anger had given way to weary despair.
"Very good, Miss Stackhouse." The ever efficient Sandy had this chore ticked off her list. The smile in her voice was evident when she said, "I will let his majesty know that you will be in attendance. Good evening."
Sookie continued her white knuckled grip on the telephone until I reached forward to pry it out of her hand. As I hung it up she looked at me with that same shell shocked look in her eyes that she'd had when Pam unceremoniously escorted her out of Fangtasia the night she went to see Eric.
"I guess Eric was wrong." she whispered.
I didn't know to what she was referring, but the alarms that had been muted throughout this long, terrible night had suddenly begun to sound their warning once again.