"Claudine, I can't wear this, I'm suppose to be saving a bunch of vampires tonight," I huffed. "My boobs may look great but this is so impractical."
Claudine and I had made it back to Gran's farmhouse, where I still had plenty of clothes. She had gotten me to put on one of my old favorites–a white dress patterned with red cherries bunches. Not the garish, Lolita-kind, but a subdued, almost botanical book pattern. It was tight through the chest and waist, pushing the girls togethers and popping them up quite a bit but flared out at my hips for some modest covering through the legs. Totally Gran-approved, but still.
"There is no way I am popping into a vampire prison looking like that," I said pointedly.
Claudine rolled her eyes. "I know. We will pack you a change of clothes for the rescue."
Not waiting for my answer, she grabbed a tote bag and stuffed in dark wash jeans, a black top and a black beanie I didn't get much chance to use in the mild Louisiana winters.
"There," she said, pushing the bag into my arms. "That is something you can change into after you've kissed and made up."
My heart jumped up to my throat. I was getting nervous and it was only noon.
"Since we have some time, do you want to have lunch?" I asked.
"Sure, let's pop over to the store and grab something to make," she said. "I still want to see your new skill, anyway."
We popped over to the local grocery, making sure to go to a secluded area behind the store where we would not be spotted.
"No fatigue?" Claudine asked, looking me over as we entered the store, no one any the wiser.
"Nope, I'm tired from being up all night and not sleeping right now like I have been the past week, but I feel the same as I did before the jump," I answered, grabbing a cart, making my way to the expensive vegetables aisle. Claudine ate organic when she was in this world, apparently there was a huge difference in taste between earth and the fae's produce. I haven't notice.
"You will have to take a nap if you are going to go on this mission tonight," Claudine said, picking up a lettuce mix.
I nodded, uneasily. A nap will make the apology time come that much sooner.
Claudine collected the rest of the mix for her salad while I grabbed some chicken. I needed something of substance to make it through the evening. We bought our groceries and walked towards the back of the store again and popped home.
We chatted about light-hearted things while we cooked. I had just taken the last bite of my chicken when Claudine stood up.
"Why don't I clean up these dishes so you can go lay down?" she said.
"I'll do them, you must need to run off to go save the others," I said.
"Nonsense," she responded evenly. "I'll do the dishes, go run my errands, and come back to make sure you wake up in time."
"Your errands?" I asked skeptically. The fae could really talk down about humans. I liked to point out the errors of Claudine's ways since we were close enough for her to handle my spunk.
She nodded. "I didn't call THEM the errands, I said I needed to go run errands," she said.
"So saving four people is an errand for you?" I pushed.
"Sookie, quit stalling," she said. "Go to bed. I'll be back a bit before dark."
She turned to leave but stopped in her tracks, pivoting back to me.
"Oh, but your vampire is very old isn't he?" She said. "How much earlier does he get up before sunset?"
I thought on it briefly. "Whenever he woke up, we were pretty much ready to go outside to train," I said.
Claudine's eyebrow went up. "Really? He should be getting up at least an hour before sunrise. You would have to spend some time inside."
I started to shrug before I froze, thinking what I was doing the hour before sunset.
Claudine's expression turned wicked. "Oh, that's just too much. What were YOU up to in the hour before 'he woke up?'" she said, doing air quotes for the last bit.
My face turned bright red. "I...was sleeping," I said, hoping that would be enough but I could tell by Claudine's face I was going to have to own up. "It's true! But, we shared a bed. There was only one! And, I just, would wake up clutching Eric, who slept naked."
I was not sure I had ever felt so mortified in my life.
"I blame the time in fae for making me all touchy feely-like," I said, desperate to wipe the look off Claudine's face.
"Sookie," she said, trying to will the wicked smile off her face. "I think he let you wake up naturally and was awake for a lot of that clutching."
Ok, now I KNOW I had never felt more embarrassed.
"No way," I said weakly.
"I think it's cute," Claudine said. "But ask if you don't believe me."
She smirked at me for a moment longer and walked over to the sink. She started the dishes and started humming, effectively dismissing me.
I still felt a little bowled over by Claudine's hypothesis but I dragged myself upstairs, to my old room. I pulled off my shoes and got under the sheet in bed. I stared at the ceiling, not sure sleep was going to come, despite how tired I had felt a few minutes ago.
Could Eric really have been awake for my unconscious clinging? I had seen no signs of it but Eric could have just been playing dead. I huffed at my own stupid joke.
My thoughts turned to what I would say to Eric when I got back to the cabin. Should I open with a sorry? Or about being a Brigant? Or if things look bad, could I find the courage to stop the conversation with a persuasive kiss?
Suddenly, I was jolted awake. I rubbed my eyes and sat up. I turned my head sharply at a muffled noise. Eric was in bed with me, lying on his side, his head propped up on his hand, a small smile on his face. He was naked, at least from the waist up.
"You are especially cute when you are just waking up," he said.
"What are you doing here?" I asked, my eyes widening as I took in the sunny room. "How are you not burning up?"
Eric's smile grew even smaller as he reached out and grabbed a piece of hair that escaped my ponytail. He played with the strand for a moment, before putting it behind my ear.
"I wanted to say goodbye," he said.
"But I was going to come to apologize to you," I said.
Eric shook his head. "There is nothing to apologize for," he said. "I should have not treated you that way. But you leaving is for the best."
I must have looked as stricken as I felt because Eric reached out his hand around my neck pulling me down so we were forehead to forehead.
"I hate to give you up, my feisty fairy," he whispered. "I have never met anyone like you in my thousand years. It is necessary, however."
"But why," I said, coming out more emotional than I had meant.
Eric rubbed his nose against mine, breathing in as he did so.
"I want you to be mine," he said. "And that puts you in danger. You are going to be too tempting to too many vampires for me to keep you safe as this war is fought."
I opened my mouth to argue that I could take care of myself, thank-you-very-much, but Eric swooped in and swallowed my protests with a kiss. He pulled me on top of him, circling his strong arms around my back and wrapping his hands into my hair. I desperately grabbed onto him. He sucked on my bottom lip, before switching to my upper lip and then going back to exploring my mouth with his tongue. As passionate as it was, it felt like he was pushing everything into this kiss. I clung tighter to him and closed my eyes, trying to record the details of him.
I opened my eyes to Claudine gently shaking me awake. I looked around, confused when Eric wasn't there. I quickly put together that I had fallen asleep by the changed light in the room, now slanting in with pre-dusk light. I realized I had had another dream. It was such a different dream then last time. It was still a little sexy, but also sad. What did it mean? I also realized with foreboding I would soon be seeing Eric for real and I had settled on nothing before I fell asleep.
"Because I know you are worried about them, yes, the others are safe and in fae," Claudine said, as she stood up from the side of my bed. She walked over and grabbed a towel from the linen closet. "And yes, I woke you up with a enough time to shower, so scoot."
She handed me the towel and I walked to the bathroom on autopilot. I continued to mechanically undress and get in the shower, staring into space as I washed my hair.
Next thing I knew Claudine was zipping up the dress that somehow had gotten on my body. I was sitting in front of my vanity mirror and Claudine had the hair curler headed up, putting a big, loose curl in my hair.
"If I thought it would help, I'd make inane chatter to calm you down," Claudine said, concentrating on putting a large, loose curl in my hair.
"So, uh, you know how their blood works right?" I asked. "With the dreams, and the enthralling."
Claudine nodded, concentrating on my hair still. She was doing good, making it look nice without looking like I had tried to make it look nice.
"I just had a dream with Eric," I said. "But it felt more real than the last one. More like real life, not like enthralling or particularly sexy."
Claudine looked up and met my eyes at that. She pursed her lips for a moment, releasing a curl as she did so.
"I wonder," she started. "If your telepathy and fae-ness combined with his very old blood let you visit him in his dreams."
My eyebrows shot up at that.
"Why do you look so surprised?" Claudine asked. "You are such a wonderfully interesting creature. Not human, not fae. The telepathy is so powerful, even among us. And it seems to me that you two love birds are drawn together by something. I have seen far stranger things."
"Claudine, you freak me out when you talk about Eric and I," I said frankly.
"The world does not work in mysterious ways," she said. "It works in very logical ways, if you know what to look for."
She looked out the window, where the light had started taking on its golden hour coloring.
"Time to get you going," she said. "Are you ready."
I stood, taking a deep breath. "As ready as I will be."
I turned to Claudine, giving her a hug.
"Thanks for the hair help," I said. "Are you going to be around, just in case?"
She nodded and turned to her purse that was sitting at the door. She pulled a cellphone out and handed it to me.
"I forgot to tell you I got you this," she said. "Call me for anything. I'm going to stay here for the next couple days if you don't mind."
"Sure," I said. I walked over to the bag of clothes on the bed, stuffing the phone in a side pocket.
I took one last breath and put a smile on my face. Gran always told me going into a trial with a smile was a head start.
And then, channeling a little Eric magic, I turned to Claudine and winked before imagining his little room in his cabin and popped away.