Note*** For ericsmine, I know I wouldn't have any love left for Bill (seems you agree with me there), but Sookie's a tender heart. Part of her still really believes that he'll have an explanation, if not something to make her forgive him, at least something she'll understand. I should point out I don't actually see Bill as the 'bad guy', I just think he's got a different set of values, and in the end, even though I do believe he loves her, that's not going to be enough.

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During the night, Eric had thought to send for Jessica, though the plan was to keep her as far from the fighting as possible to avoid having Bill do anything stupid. He'd woken Sookie at dawn, gently shaking her shoulder, his face heading towards the unhealthy pallor of vampires during the day. She'd kissed his cheek and hurried outside as the hall had filled with corpses.

"Sam say's they're 'bout an hour out," Terry told her breathlessly, having double-timed it up the grassy embankment to where she stood. "You ride in with us?"

"Yeah, Jason called, he's all set so... I was hopin' they'd come later, you know? That we wouldn't have to hold 'em off all day..."

"Yeah, me too, but then that's why they're here now, ain't it? Just to make things hard." He patted her shoulder and gestured to Andy's cop car. "C'mon, General. Time to light 'er up."

Everything was ready, she told herself repeatedly. Her violently trembling hand played with the vial of blood around her neck... She'd sort all that crap out somehow. Isabel had assured her that she'd made enough noise that Flanagan had to be on her way, especially considering all the little tid bits she'd slipped the media. Chow, similarly, was convinced the magister would arrive in fairly short order once the sun was down. You can't move that many vampires quietly, if nothing else he'd probably be of the opinion Eric was planning a coup of some sort.

The only wild card now was Bill... what the fuck was he doing? Why had he left? Betrayed them... damn him, he was born in Bon Temps too! He should have been here with them, what could possibly have convinced him to leave? To leave her? She shook her head and wrapped her fingers around the vial. It didn't matter any more, even the most innocent explanation showed him to not be who she thought he was...

"Sookie!" Jason called from the flatbed of a Ute parked beside the bank. "Mornin'!"

"You sleep at all?" She called back.

"'Bout three hours," he admitted. "Don' worry 'bout me. Everyone else all tucked up safe?"

"Yeah, looks like it. Sam got his family out, they ran screamin' past the wolves 'bout some bitch readin' their minds." She shrugged, "no goin' back now."

"Well we're all set! I got the back end o' this street pretty well blocked off, had to set a few cars on fire, but we tried jus' to use insured ones." He was grinning as he jumped down, "an' I had the crew crakin' open some little runnels in the road... we're gonna set this bitch on fire!"

Sookie sighed as she looked at all the damage, the fight hadn't even started yet and it already looked like it'd take the rest of their lives to get the town back the way it was. "Nothin' for it, I guess. Keep the gun's covered up... don't wanna bring 'em out till we have too. Any luck we can give 'em enough to think about that they'll back up and wait for night when their vampire back-up can come in."

"Yeah, not knowin' we got our own dead guys!" Jason looked over her shoulder ans swore, "Damn it! Guys!" He yelled at a group of young men who were moving the hoplite's sarissa in bundles to the prearranged hiding spots. "Dudes! You damage those thing's we gonna have a inter-species incident! Easy with the stick's man!" He was shaking his head when he looked back at his sister, who was smiling at him. "Can't leave some folks alone for a minute!"

She hugged him tight, "just be careful, OK?"

"You too..." Jason held her tightly, blinking to keep his tears in check. "I love you."

"I love you too, Jason. You know what to do..." she hated that he was the one to do it, but it was his plan and he wouldn't let anyone else take the responsibility from him.

Jason nodded seriously and nodded towards the blow torch sitting beside the bundle of rifles and side arms in the flatbed. "I know... you can count on me Sookie."

"I know I can..." She sniffed a little and then forced herself to stand up straighter. "I gotta check on everyone else..."

"At'ta girl, Sook. Oh, Mrs Arteman said she was getting' sick from the smell, so she went into her restaurant along about 1am and started cookin', said it took her mind off stuff. There's a ton of food in there. Might wonna let everyone know."

"Thanks, that's a good idea."

Inside the police station, Andy, Terry and Sam were staring down at the crudely drawn map of the town. They all looked up as she came in and wordlessly made room for her around the table. Sookie felt their acceptance and affection like a bizarre cross between a warm blanket and a slap in the face. How could they still care about her right now?

"I think we've covered everythin' cher." Sam said, putting an arm around her shoulder. "I hate to say it, but Jason might just have saved all our bacon... how'd he come up with that idea anyway?"

"He accidentally set his car on fire once, made a big impression on him." Sookie said with a laugh.

"Jesus," Andy grunted, "our fuckin' saviour..."

"He don't mean nothin' by it, Sookie," Terry told her quietly. "He just aint had a drink this mornin'. Said he wants to be clear headed."

"Well I sure as hell don't," she huffed back but accepted the coffee Sam handed her. "Thanks... I can't believe we're doin' this..."

"Don't tell them that, cher." Sam advised. "They're getting' all their balls from you right now." He nodded towards the door, through which they could see people making the last minute preparations and scarfing down Mrs Ateman's greasy Italian food. "You done good, Sookie. Unbelievably good for two days notice!"

"I jus..."

She never got to tell them that she hated the idea of her brother knowing what feels like to kill someone, having no idea of course that he already did. She never got to say how scared she was... "Head's up mother fuckers!" They heard Jason scream from down the street and the unmistakable sound of twelve, sixty gallon barrels of gasoline and washing powder exploding and flinging sticky, burning gunk all over the south end of the street.

The four of them hurried out to see the damage. Jason was still crowing from the top of his truck's cab, the blow torch he'd used to light the fuse still lit in his hand. Over his voice and the roar of the flames, everyone could hear the yelping and howling of burnt, confused and angry wolves. "Run on back to yer master, you mangy muts!" He screamed at them through the flames.

"Jason, get the hell down! They decide to start usin' guns, you're the only one they can see!" Sookie yelled at him.

Flipping the roaring fire the bird one last time, Jason jumped down and hurried over to her. "It worked, huh?"

"Yeah... how come you put washin' up powder in it?"

"Oh, Isabel told me too. See, apparently washin' powder got a lot 'a oxygen in it. Who knew air cleaned clothes? Anyway, makes the fire hotter, aaaand makes the oil into a jelly so's it sticks to stuff. She said she'd seen it used on tanks before, worked real good." Jason was looking at the fire proudly.

"How long will it last?" Sookie asked.

"We'll need to roll some more barrel's down 'er every couple a hours. Don' worry though Sook, we been at it all night, I got shit loads o' this crap!" He looked down at her proudly. "I do good?"

"Yeah, Jason," She put her arms around his waist and held on tightly for a while, before finally letting go. "Keep an eye on them, and make sure everyone's keepin' their eyes open. They can't give up that easy, sure as shit they'll try'n get in somewhere else."

Jason nodded, "No worries. Other street's are already blocked off and there are backup barrels all over the damn place. It's... eleven now. So like, seven hours to go." He patted her on the shoulder. "No worries."

To Sookie's surprise, it turned out werewolves just weren't very smart, or at least they weren't when they were full of vampire blood and half crazed. They howled and ran at the flames a few times then, at about one o'clock they started yelling demands. 'Hand over the telepath' and various deviations on the theme. Jason, Hoyt and Terry calmly rolled out more barrels and waited until the wolves started trying to get forward through the dying flames.

"This is almost too easy," Jason commented, putting his foot up on one of the barrels and kicked it off to roll down the street. Terry and Hoyt did likewise and six impressive explosions followed, with more howling and yelping from the wolves on the other side.

"I seen it in Iraq..." Terry said sadly as he lent back against a lamp post and listened to the wolves screaming in pain and anger. "Fanatics is all the same... Religion or drugs or power, it's all poison, an' 'em stupid muts'll throw 'emselves at us till they're all dead. Once that madness has you... fuckin' miracle if you can shake it."

Hoyt had un-shed tears blurring his vision. "I feel dirty..." he mumbled.

"Y'are..." Terry said softly. "But them what's clean are cowards... kept 'emselves clean by abandonin' their home, their history, their family... Love makes you dirty, boy. You'll do anythin' for it, an' all you can hope for in tha end is to be able ta look yourself in tha eye." He lent forward and put his hand on Hoyt's shoulder. "You c'n cry later... I'll join you... right now, you gotta check the barrels an' go check in wi' Sookie."

Jason watched Hoyt nod and straighten his shoulders before trotting off up the street towards the police station where Sookie, Sam and Andy were still coordinating everything. "He gonna be OK, you think?"

"Yeah...jus' need's a distraction. He'll do better'n we did..." Jason looked at Terry in confusion, "When I got back, y'all thought I was mad... everyone knows Hoyt's just gentle."

"I'm sorry man," Jason mimicked Terry's earlier gesture, putting him hand on the older man's shoulder.

"Maybe I was...maybe I still am... but I know how't do this. So's least I can make myself useful."

The process repeated itself pretty closely at three thirty... more demands, more swearing and Jason managed to send even more were wolves limping away. "I can keep this up all day, fuckers!"

"Day's all you got, bi-ped!" Someone snarled from beyond the renewed flames.

Jason grinned and had to stomp down hard on the urge to spill the beans about their back-up. All he wanted was to call back that they had two area's worth of vampires just waiting to swoop in when the sun went down and that a load of other higher-ups were coming to witness this whole cluster-fuck! He contented himself with swearing at them some more and rolling down another barrel for good measure.

"How're we doin?" Sookie asked from behind him.

"AH! Damn it Sook, don't sneak up on a guy when he's bein' incendiary!" He huffed and gave her a cheeky, boyish look. "Well, it's comin' up on four, an so far the worst 'ats happened was when they threw some vodka bottles through the fire... Cracked Hoyt right in the head, but he's gonna be fine. They just keep goin' on that they got back-up comin', like that's meant to scare us."

"It does scare us, Jason. 'Member?"

"Oh... right... yeah."

"It's OK," She looked around at everyone, their spirits still seemed pretty high. "They've pretty well proved they aren't smart enough to work out a way through... we were watchin' 'em from the roof of the bank before, I think they're all stoned on V, or somethin'. It's like they can't think right."

"Isabel said "give me a stupid enemy every time"," Jason said with a grin, "I kinda like that."

"You mean you kinda like her..."

"Well... yeah, I guess I kinda do... is that nuts?" He asked with a confused expression.

"Probably, but I got a kiss from Eric Northman when I woke up this morning..." she threw out as off-handed as she could to try to make it sound normal.

"At least you seem to have calmed him down some..." Jason looked at her carefully, "You sure you know what you're doin' Sook?"

"No, not really. It's hard to keep hatin' someone who makes a habit of savin' your life, though... even if he is a big A-hole sometimes."

"What about vampire Bill?"

"He's out there somewhere... Eric said he's sure Bill'll have an explanation, he don't think it'll be a good one but... in his own mind I think Bill thinks he's doin' the right thing. He's probably tryin' to protect me in his way..."

"Well then why aint he here? If he want's ta protect ya he should be here with us!" Jason said emphatically.

"I know..."

"I aint sayin' I like Eric, he's been a big fat jerk-face a bunch o' times but... he's here. I been a pretty big dick at times too... That's all I'm sayin'."