Eric had gone downstairs to his office. I looked around the bedroom and thought it could use a little straightening up so I remade the bed, put Eric's cell phone on it's charger, gathered up loose change that had been left of the dresser and that sort of thing. Also, when was the last time we'd done any laundry? Before I left on my trip, I knew that. I walked into the closet and looked at the hamper, as I suspected it was overflowing and Eric hadn't bothered to use the three separate bins I had installed for sorting colors. I sighed and yanked the bins out of the closet to dump the clothes on the bed. I drifted away in this mindless task until I heard a small knock. I turned and saw Hunter peeking into the bedroom, "Hi."

I gave him a huge smile, "Hi, yourself. You want to help me." I nodded toward the clothes. He didn't exactly nod, but he did walk over and stand by the bed. When he was standing there I noticed a leopard print thong of mine and wondered if asking him to help was such a good idea, but I just kept smiling. I worked in silence for what felt like a really long time before Hunter finally spoke, "Can I ask you something?" As if that wasn't the whole reason why I had been working in silence.

"Sure," I said and kept sorting. I didn't want him to feel like anything that he had to say was a big deal.

"Who were the people that hurt you so bad?" If he had kicked me in the teeth I would not have been more surprised. I am used to being the only one privy to other people's deepest, darkest secrets and I suddenly felt the full weight of why I'd been so damn unpopular my whole life. I didn't really like having my mind read.

"You heard that from me, huh?" I tried to seem nonchalant. It wasn't going to increase his trust in me or make him feel secure if I sat down on the bed and started crying.

He nodded, "You and the other guy that was here." Other guy? What other guy? I guess I was so surprised I didn't block because Hunter answered me, "You know, the one you were so angry at. The one who brought the skin letter, which is so fucking cool!"

I glared at him, "Hunter that kind of talk is not okay in this house." And then what he said really hit me. Hunter could hear fey. Or at least he'd heard Claude. I couldn't hear them. Or at least not with any consistency. I wondered if Hunter could.

"So they're not regular people?" Crap, I needed to work on my blocking, which was a pain in the rear in my own house. Hunter looked really nervous, way more scared than I had seen him since he'd been here. I stopped sorting and sat down on the bed.

"No, they're not regular people. They're fairies. We're descended from them – that means they're our relatives. Your mom and I had the same grandfather and he was a fairy, well half, but still a fairy. But he wasn't the one who hurt me," I explained when I saw and even more nervous look on Hunter's face. "And the ones who did. They're gone. Dead."

Hunter nodded, but he didn't seem terribly relieved. I can't say that I blamed him. It didn't make me feel that much better either or at least not the way you might think that it would. He sat down on the bed, "So is that who is coming here? Your grandfather?" I could tell he was trying to make himself feel better by casting this scary person into a familiar role. I understood that. I'd made the same mistake myself and I was an adult.

"No, it's his father. My great-grandfather. He…well, he's like a king there. And he kind of watches over us even though fairies and humans aren't supposed to have contact anymore. But…" I trailed off. I didn't really know how to explain all this.

"But we shouldn't trust him?" Hunter asked.

I nodded, sad that I was ripping away another piece of his innocence, "He isn't trying to hurt us, but a lot of people want to hurt him and if it's him or us, he's going to chose him."

Hunter nodded sagely, "Most everybody is like that."

I hated that he said that. I stood up and started sorting laundry again, "Not everybody."

Hunter jumped off the bed like it had just caught fire and shouted at me, "I can hear in people's heads! I know that's what people are like."

I just looked at him, "I can hear into their heads too. And I've been listening for a lot more years than you. Not everybody thinks that way." I paused for a second, tossed a few more t-shirts into the lights pile and decided I didn't want him to see me as a liar, "But you are right, a lot of people do. And Niall – that's his name – I can't see in his head, but I know that if comes down to his power or us…he's been ruling for a lot of years and he likes it." No knight on a white horse in great-granddaddy.

I dumped the lights into a laundry basket and then did the same with the darks. There were a lot more darks. I looked at them wondering if I needed a second basket and decided I could at least make it to the laundry room. I nodded at the basket of lights, "You want to help me carry that downstairs."

Hunter chewed on his lip for a second and then picked up the basket. I was pleased that I managed to refrain from breaking out into a victory dance. I walked out the door and he followed, "Sookie, what does he want me for?"

I shook my head, "I don't know Hunter, but he isn't going to hurt you. He likes to meet his family. He likes to keep track of the ones that have magic or whatever. Fairies are big on bloodlines and this thing called a spark, I don't know what it is before you ask, but I think a lot of people think you have it."

"Because I'm a telepath," he sighed.

I shrugged, "I guess. Although they tell me that telepathy isn't a fairy trait, so I don't know why the two seem to work together."

Hunter smiled at me, "Maybe you and I are just real unlucky."

I grinned back at him, "That could be." We walked down a few more steps and he said, "Oh hey, Pam's here. And another vampire too. Super mopey."

That would probably be Bill. He was the only vampire I knew that might be described as mopey. Maybe there were others out there, but they sure as heck didn't gather around Eric, moping was not an activity that Eric found attractive or even understood. "Dark hair?" I asked Hunter. He nodded. "That's Bill. He was my neighbor when I lived in Bon Temps." And a whole lot of other things too that I was carefully blocking from Hunter.

Hunter grinned at me, "He's got a crush on you." My heart stopped for a moment as I wondered if he could hear Bill.

I lowered my voice and leaned over to whisper in Hunter's ear, not an easy trick holding a laundry basket, "You couldn't hear him could you?"

Hunter just laughed, "No, Pam's making fun of him about it. I guess he kept asking about you when he first got here. It's kind of funny."

Poor Bill. But I had to wonder why Eric thought it might be good to have back-up for a meeting with Niall. I couldn't come up with any reasons that made me feel better.

I sat in the living room, which we never used, hell we barely used any of the house, dressed casually for what felt like a formal occasion. It wasn't formal of course, seeing your great-grandfather isn't really formal unless you're royalty…so maybe it was formal. Well, if it was I wasn't dressed for it. Pam was answering the door and I felt like I'd had about two gallons of coffee, maybe not just regular coffee maybe espresso. I wanted to get it over with and at the same time I wanted the earth to swallow me up so it never happened. Eric entered from the back of the room, his office was behind us, and put his hands on my shoulders. I know his intention was to soothe me, but I almost jumped out of my skin when he first put his hands on my shoulders. I turned to look at him and could see the concern on his face. He was wondering if I couldn't handle being involved with the fey again. Pam escorted Niall into the room and gestured for him to take a seat. Niall smiled at me, "You look well child."

I nodded and smiled weakly in return. My feelings on Niall ebbed and flowed depending on the day. I didn't exactly blame him for what happened to me, but I didn't consider him blameless either. Certainly, I did not believe that my best interest was forefront in his mind.

Eric came from behind the sofa to sit next to me on the sofa and entwined my hand with his, which I was thankful for the contact was comforting. Now Niall turned to Eric, "And you look positively blooming with health. Your bond with her has caused me many issues." Well that was a bit of a conversation stopper. Niall frowned at us and I felt like my Dad had just caught me having sex with my boyfriend after school – or at least what I would imagine that might have felt like.

Eric did not smile at Niall at all, but I could feel his mood and laughing on the inside would have been an enormous understatement. "It is as though she gives me a heartbeat." And he turned to look at me mooning like a lovesick teen. I quirked an eyebrow at him with interest and amusement, "Who knew." He grinned at me amused by the whole situation.

Niall cringed slightly. I guess he didn't much like the idea of lovesick Eric feeding on me nightly, but I didn't think his concern came from any deep seeded love for me. I tore my eyes away from Eric and looked at Niall, "I think that's about enough small talk. What do you care about my bond with Eric and what do you want with Hunter?"

He smiled sadly, "How can you say this to me? I told you he was a good man. I have withstood insults over my descendant of royal blood, one who carries our very essence, being mated to a vampire. I have protected you when others would wish such an embarrassment eradicated." I felt Eric growl low in his chest, but Niall simply waved an impatient hand at him. "I am the sole-surviving prince, none shall tell me who my grand-daughter may lie with, but so much of our blood Sookie. It is a scandal. Especially when other vampires hunt us."

I had rolled my eyes several times during the course of this little speech and could not help rolling them again at the end of it. Also, the phrase, "lie with" made it hard for me to take it too seriously. Niall was starting to remind me of Lear, aging king whining about all the problems of power …bitch moan, bitch moan. Well, I was no Goneril or Regan. I had no plans to kiss his ass. He was just going to have to deal with it. I wasn't interested in anything he had to give me and I didn't care what was happening in his realm. "You need to let go of this whole essence thing," I snapped at him.

Eric grinned broadly, but did not comment. Instead, he leaned back into the sofa and put his large booted-feet on my coffee table. I shot him a look that he ignored. And then he gave Niall a rather hard look, "And it is not as though the arrangement has been without its benefits to you."

My head swung around in surprise. Not without its benefits to Niall? Excuse me? What was he talking about? Niall cleared it right up for me by snapping back, "It is of equal benefit to you to make certain the doorway in her woods remains protected! To protect other part-fey from that madman in this state. Why do you do nothing as he hunts others like her? It should be stopped." That last part seemed to be more to himself than to Eric or me. He rubbed his forehead; clearly it had been a hard four years for Niall. "You would have had your people watch the portal without my promise to leave her out of fairy politics." He looked back at Eric, "And I would have, but the situation has changed. And now, your arrangement with her has relevance to me."

Eric looked at me and could tell from the look on my face that I was less than pleased to be hearing about this now. He shrugged at me, "In my day I was very common to bargain with your wife's family regarding the terms of the marriage. A little protection for a little something else."

We would be discussing this later, in detail. For the moment I contented myself with, "You don't really think that's an acceptable line of thinking, do you? In your day, when do you ever think like that." And when I thought of all the times he had told me not to sell the farm - it was too big a part of who I was so he'd claimed conveniently forgetting to mention he was responsible for guarding some otherworldly portal -I wanted to smack him. In fact, I was going to smack him because this involved us and he wasn't supposed to hide stuff that involved us. I punched him on the arm and mimicked, "'Don't sell the farm Sookie…you grew up there'…asshole." He was trying to look like he felt bad, but it wasn't working, mostly he just looked surprised that I had punched him. He brought my hand, which I have to say kind of hurt from the punching-thing his arm was hard, up to his lips and kissed it softly and then turned his attention back to Niall.

"None of this brings us to why you want the boy," Eric said as though the whole doorway-watching thing hadn't even happened. Niall leaned forward in his armchair and snapped back, "It has everything to do with it. Everything! I cannot have another of my blood in the clutches of a vampire! Even you. Not while other vampires enslave the relatives of my people, using them. People are sneaking relatives into our realm weekly while my great-granddaughter and great-great-grandson are living with a vampire, even one once seen as a friend…" He took a deep breath and tried to gain some control over himself. He was clearly stressed out. "You must understand," he said to Eric totally ignoring me the descendant he was supposedly worried about. "I can not be seen as being weak on this issue." Freaking supernaturals, it was always about power.

Niall turned to me, "I know you do not understand any of this or see it as reasonable. But fairies are proud of their heritage, of their bloodlines, their power. That you share it so freely with an ally of this Madden's…"

For a moment, I bristled at that. How could he think we were aligned with Victor Madden? But of course, on the outside, we were. I looked at Eric who nodded at me and sighed audibly, "You know we're not really allied with Madden right?" Niall nodded. "And I'm like an eighth fairy Niall, what is the big deal?"

He was shaking his head at me now, frustrated, "Genetics are a strange thing Sookie. You may be just a fraction of fairy, but you have many of our traits. And the people do not like the idea of a part-fey vampire." Again with the snobbery.

He looked back and forth between Eric and I assessing. I suppose he could tell that we were completely unmoved by what a scandal his people thought it was that he was letting me run around with a lesser creature and bringing others of "our kind" into the fold, as in Hunter. His eyes darted back and forth in a way that I completely didn't trust and then he dropped the bomb, "But their not liking it is not even an issue, in truth, as you are sky-fairy. If you were water perhaps their distaste would be the only issue."

I felt dread rise up from Eric, a vague sense of understanding and followed by outright fear. He leaned forward on the sofa and said softly to Niall, "Explain what that means."

Niall, I had to admit, did look as if what he was about to say gave him a certain amount of pain, "You can not turn a sky fairy into a vampire, my son, they need light to live. Without sun, even as minutely sky fairy as she is, she will not survive. If you turn her, you will kill her."

The kickback from Eric's pain and rage practically knocked me off the sofa. I felt like I had doubled over, collapsed in grief. I felt as though the room was being upturned in rage, furniture destroyed, draperies shredded, Niall's head severed. But in reality, no one had moved. A muscle in Eric's jaw twitched slightly and I heard a sharp intake of breath from Pam in the other room, not that I could blame her. His pain was astounding. And yet, we sat in silence.

"Thank you Niall," I said as politely as I could manage once I thought I could open my mouth and form words as opposed to some sort of animalistic sound of pain. The amazing part was that this wasn't even my own pain. I was so overwhelmed by his I couldn't process mine. "That's important information to have."

"Yes," Eric ground out from between his teeth dropping my hand as if it was made of silver. "Just think how helpful it would have been to know that five years ago." He stood without looking at me and called out rather louder than he needed to, "Pam, bring the boy!"

Still reeling from Niall's comments, I could hardly process what Eric had just said. What the hell was he doing? "Eric," I protested. Although I wasn't really certain what I was protesting. Were we letting Niall have Hunter? When had that become the plan? He was completely shut off from me. I could sense nothing from him. And he wouldn't look at me. Why wouldn't he look at me?

I grabbed his hand, "Eric what are you doing?"

"Let him meet Hunter, Sookie." Eric sounded exhausted. "If fairies are bringing their half-breed relatives to their realm to protect them from marauding vampires, Niall can not be seen as letting his relatives be food for them. Especially those that are talented. You are known throughout the supernatural world and yet he did not protect you from me. That is how it is seen. I am no different from Victor."

I was hanging onto his hand with all my strength at this point and Eric, although not actively trying to get away from me, was clearly keeping his distance. He wanted as little contact as possible. "That's not how I see it," my voice sounded desperate and screechy. I hated the way I sounded.

Niall commented from the sofa, "It is, in truth not even how I see it, but it is a fairly accurate depiction of how my realm views it."

Eric nodded, "I understand. It is a scandal that is killing your regime. You did not think anyone would care what your bastard great grand-daughter did in her bedroom, but they do. Especially now that Sookie is so well-known and Victor is draining or caging any part-fey he can get his hands on."

Umm, ouch Eric. No reason to take it out on me. I had had enough of this. All of it. I rose on shaky legs, "Niall, can I get you a cup of tea. Eric and I need to discuss a thing or two. Please excuse us."

Niall nodded, "Take your time. I don't need any tea. Perhaps a newspaper, I am always interested in what is going on in this realm."

Pam was in the living room with three different newspapers before he even finished the sentence. And then she sat, "I'll keep him company." Good plan. Don't want Niall roaming around the house alone.

I wrapped my hand around Eric's wrist and dragged him from the room into his office, which I knew to be soundproofed and shut the door. I turned on him the moment we got inside, "What is your problem? I thought you didn't mind if I was never turned."

He sank into a guest chair, "Don't be absurd! Of course I mind!" He glared at me angrily as if this was my fault. As if I had trapped him into a marriage that was going to end up being really short, at least from his point of view. Then he reached out and grabbed my wrists, lightening fast, and pulled me onto his lap. Tears were pouring down his cheeks, which made me cry too, "In all these years, I have only chosen one wife. And you will be taken from me in almost no time. You are mine. I did not think…you are mine."

I stroked his hair and made soft, soothing sounds as though I was comforting a child. I knew what he was trying to say with the whole "mine" thing. He was trying to say that it didn't seem like I could be taken from him, we belonged to each other. How could one of us be there when the other was not? He'd thought on it but it had never really believed it was going to be like that. Not really. "I'll wait you know."

He looked at me puzzled. So I explained, "When I'm gone. I'll still be with you. Waiting for you. You'll come when you're ready and I'll be there."

He grunted, "My people believed this too. The only evidence I've seen of it is that people still seem to believe it." He looked at me, "Niall should have told me from the beginning."

I shrugged, "Would it have made a difference?"

He burrowed his face into my neck, "I would not have hoped as I did. You give me such hope. I imagined...it does not matter."

I smiled at him, "It matters to me. I know what you hoped. I thought about it too. All the time." I paused for a moment, "Are you giving him Hunter because you're angry that I'm going to grow old and die? Because you know that doesn't make sense."

Eric leaned his head back in the chair, "I'm not giving him Hunter. He has a right to meet him. And have you ever thought that maybe if you had met him younger, life would have been different for you. Niall is not inherently bad. He just thinks differently about things than a human might. Perhaps if he had been part of your life from a young age your gift would not have been so hard for you. Perhaps you would not need to be a vampire's meal ticket for protection."

I had meant to touch his face to get his attention, but my hand connected a little harded that I might have planned, possibly because I found his statement so incredibly annoying, "That's just one of those things people say when they're feeling sorry for themselves, right? You don't actually think that." And for the first time ever, I saw Eric look ashamed. It wasn't a look I liked on him. As for the part about Hunter, it wasn't a bad point. I only saw the pain that Niall had brought me, but maybe there could have been a different way. I'd never know, but maybe Hunter could. "But we're not going to let him take Hunter?"

Eric shook his head, "No one is being removed from this house by force especially not someone you value." He set me on my feet and stood, "We should get back to him." I had no desire to return to the awkward discussion or broker a meeting that could be beneficial or could be an unparalleled disaster, but there didn't seem to be any way around it.

A/N: I know I said I wasn't going to get to post this week, but that was before I found off that my office was closed, but my kids school was open! Ok, so before people get to upset…the ending to this story is already written and its happy. My whole goal in writing these stories is for Eric and Sookie to be happy.

As always, thanks to everyone that has favorited, reviewed, put on alert etc. I've almost given up on this story a couple of times, so it's always good to know that people are enjoying it.