A/N: Thank you all so much for all the love this story is receiving. It truly fills my heart with joy.

GIMME SYMPATHY

When I looked up I saw Sookie's eyes widen in fear. She quickly looked away. I had noticed that she did that a lot. She was shy.

"Eric, I don't know what to tell you," she took a deep shaky breath and her heartbeat picked up. She was looking at her hands but seemed to be formulating something else to say, so I did not interrupt. Finally she looked up with tears in her eyes. "What happened to me last night? Why can't I remember? What was so bad that you haven't told me? Please…" she breathed in deeply, "Please tell me. Eric?"

I fetched a box of tissues from the bathroom and sat at the foot of her bed after I handed them to her. She whispered a thank you then looked up expectantly.

"Are you sure you want me to tell you? It won't change the fact that you are now safe and among friends," I said, to give her one more chance to avoid the pain.

"I want to know," she said in a less shaky voice and for once she wasn't shy. I understood her better by that gesture. She was shy with me, but not in general, and was far more courageous than I'd given her credit.

I nodded. She needed to know. "We had a compass bewitched by Amelia to find you," I took the compass out of my pocket and handed it to her. The arrow was pointing straight at her. It still worked. She looked at it, turned it this way and that then handed it back to me.

"I know where I am," she said with a weak smile.

I smiled with her and pocketed the compass once more. "It led us past the shifter's truck on the side of the road, and Amelia recognized it. When we searched it we found you blood in it, as if someone had injured you on your head. I took the compass and followed it on foot. When I found you, you had been abducted by Weres for sale to hungry vampires. Someone was about to buy you. When I pretended to want to buy you as well, the other vampire started a fight. Rather than stick around fighting vampires, the Weres put all their stolen humans in two pickup trucks and left quickly. After I dealt with the vampire I went in search of you," I paused. Sookie was shedding tear after tear, without sobs. Just tears. This was becoming more difficult for me to tell. I could not imagine what it would have felt for her to listen. "Do you wish me to continue?"

"Yes, please," she said in a sure voice that belied her tears.

I nodded again and continued. "You were in a truck driven by an intoxicated Were. He crashed the truck against a tree, and all the humans were ejected from the bed of the truck by the force of the impact. You ended up very far from the accident. When I found you, you had several lacerations on the exposed skin of your arms, two large cuts on your head, and major internal injuries." I didn't tell her how I knew her injuries had been major, remembering how much blood had been coming out of her mouth. "I had to risk turning you to heal you."

Sookie looked down then. "Does Amelia know where my grandmother is?" she asked, fidgeting with her tissue.

"I believe she called a hospital the night we left to look for you. They told her your grandmother was in stable condition."

"They lied to cover their actions. My grandmother never went to a hospital. She was supposed to go for dialysis treatment the day after I was taken into custody. She had to go more often lately... They took her and my brother Jason to use them as leverage and make me sort between humans and shifters. At first I refused, so they simply didn't take care of my grandmother. She only lasted a few days before the toxins in her system killed her. She was already so fragile…" she shook her head and a sob escaped her finally. With a lot of effort she finished her account. "I didn't want them to harm Jason too. He's the only family I got left, so I did what they wanted. They beat me," she looked up at me, and her face turned from grief to rage. "They beat me! They threatened me and beat me!"

I got close to her and took her hands. I didn't know what to do for her grief. I felt a small amount of the emotion myself thanks to my blood inside her, so I showed her my compassion. She was in so much pain, and this seemed to be the first time she actually spoke of what had happened. I decided not to push the issue of her safety. She knew I would protect her, and right now she needed my silence. Sookie squeezed my hands, silently thanking me for listening.

"Eric… I will accept your offer of protection because I don't want to go back to a place like that, and I don't want to become another victim of this mess. Eventually I want to look for my brother. He…" she lowered her gaze, "He thought I was raped, I think, and when we escaped he stayed behind to avenge me."

"Were you raped, Sookie?" I asked, because if she had I would have forgotten myself and sought every one of her attackers.

"No. I'm sure with time they would have followed through with their threats. I would have let them kill me," she said with disdain.

We were silent for a long time. After a while her emotions settled as she continued looking down at our hands. She seemed to become more comfortable with my touch, but was still very shy. Any other woman would have already offered herself to me, but not Sookie. She was cut from a different cloth, or else I did not come across her kind very often. I found myself wanting to draw her out. We would be spending a lot of time together and I wanted to get to know her.

"What are you thinking, Sookie?"

She smiled a sad smile and sniffled. When she looked up, her red eyes were the only physical remnants of her sadness and grief. "I was thinking that it's nice to hang around you and Pam. I don't have to work so hard at blocking out thoughts, because I can't hear you."

"What about Amelia?"

Sookie laughed. It was sudden and unexpected. "You've spent some time with her," she said between chortles. "Do you think she has a censor between her brain and mouth?"

I chuckled with her. "No, I don't believe she does," I answered.

She became a little more serious and looked at me in wonder. "Hey… you have little wrinkles… when you laugh. I thought vampires didn't get wrinkles."

I laughed harder then. "I already had them," I explained. What an odd creature! Now she was trying to see if I matched what she knew about my race with what she could see in me. At least we had moved away from her pain. Or so I thought.

"You didn't ask me…" she started but stopped.

"What is it, Sookie?"

"You didn't ask me why I left on my own without Sam," she said finally.

I reluctantly withdrew one of my hands from her warm ones and took the compass from my pocket. I closed my hand around it, closed my eyes and concentrated. I could see me, through Sookie's eyes, through the eyes of a human. I even saw myself smile at her. "This compass allowed us to see some of what you saw. Your friend Amelia is very clever. She saw what Sam did to you."

I tried to hand it back to her but she pushed my hand away gently, with the compass still in it. "Keep it, please. Just in case. Eric?"

"Yes, Sookie," I said. She had a way of asking permission to ask questions.

"Where are we going? How are you going to keep me protected? What are your plans?" she asked, all of them valid questions.

"I will tell you, Sookie, but Pam and Amelia are here with clothes. I will let you change and then we will all talk about our next step. Is that agreeable?"

Sookie nodded in response and I went to get the door. I could hear the two women even before the doors to the elevator opened. They sounded like two hens.

"Bag lady!" Amelia announced and went straight to Sookie, taking out pieces of clothing and even underwear. I turned away because if Sookie had seen me looking at her new undergarments, she would have been embarrassed and become shy again.

"How did everything go?" I asked Pam as she handed me back my credit card. It was a wonder that they still worked. Automatic transactions such as those did not seem to have been affected.

"Good, but we have to watch the news. As long as we stay in or around major cities, everything seems okay. The talk of abductions by Weres is that it is only happening in rural areas where the population is sparse and there are better chances of hiding the operation." Pam moved to turn on the TV.

"I am going downstairs for a few minutes. I shall return," I said to no one in particular and left to give Sookie some room.

I needed to feed. Sookie's blood smelled delicious, and she had taken some of mine, or rather, she had taken a lot of my blood. I was thirsty and her proximity had only made it worse. The thought of her sumptuous neck made me thirsty and hard. I needed to feed.

The thirst drove me to find a room with a human in it. Only one. Perfect. I knocked and my good looks opened the door. The sight that met me was decadent: pretty brunette, early thirties, a little heavy which made her neck all the more beautiful. Soft. She was easy to glamour and allowed me entry into her room. I asked her to please take off her top, her soft breasts were full with large areolas. I took off my shirt too, to be fair. When I caressed her neck, she shivered at my touch, her nipples growing hard. I lowered my face to her neck, took in her scent of vanilla, and I slowly sank my fangs into her smooth skin. Her blood tasted like A-Negative, rare, delicious. But not as rare or delicious as Sookie's. I finished feeding quickly, sealed her wounds carefully, and asked her to put her clothes back on, thanking her for my meal. She would never remember I had been there, and I had left no trace of my visit. That was the way of the vampire.

Sookie was dressed, and she had put her beautiful blond hair into a ponytail, which did not become her as much as the wild mane she'd sported earlier. She looked more like the happy girl from the photo in my wallet than the woman I'd left in that prison. I should have taken her with me that night. Stolen her as soon as Pam told me she was a telepath. But that route, I could see in hindsight, would only have caused her pain. Not that she had not been in pain, but I had not been the culprit. Or, at least, that's what I told myself.

"I was telling the girls that our best bet is to stay in Shreveport for now. We can stop in Bon Temps and pick up their things, then continue on. Bon Temps is too far removed and might be too dangerous," Pam said.

Sookie and Amelia were watching the TV as Pam spoke. The news was grim all around, and now the whole of the human congress had been disbanded, which was no great loss in my opinion. Thankfully, the vampires in charge of the coups on Capitol Hill had been merciful and had sent all the representatives back to their homes in their various states. They still had control of the whole Senate, the Chiefs, the Vice President was missing, and the President was still in talks. I was pretty sure that the vampire regents involved in the talks with the President were from states near the District: Maryland, Virginia, Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, West Virginia, North and South Carolina, perhaps even someone from Connecticut or Georgia. I was also pretty sure that the President of the United States did not do anything under threat, or even perceived threat. Letting the representatives go would show that vampires were not the ones posing the threat.

"Eric?" Sookie's voice brought me back from my thoughts. I looked around and all three women were looking at me with puzzled expressions.

"Something wrong?" I asked. I must have missed something. It happened when I moved the chess pieces around in my head.

"I asked you the same question three times," Pam said, smirking in a strange way, and I knew why: I had not paid attention until Sookie had spoken.

"What was that Pam?" I asked, redirecting the conversation.

"Are we ready to leave? Should we check out?" she asked, enunciating every word. She really had repeated herself.

"Yes, let us leave," I declared and grabbed the keys that Pam threw at me.

Once we were on our way I knew I'd made the right decision to feed earlier. Sookie's scent filled the cabin and made my gums itch. After having just a little bit of her blood I craved more. Pam would not feel the craving like I did, which was small consolation: Sookie had only one vampire yearning to feed from her. If I had been thirsty, my control might have crumbled. I thought that the craving for blood in this way was something I had overcome.

"We'll probably make it all the way to Monroe, or near Monroe, by the time we have to stop. I would only ask you to please remain indoors during the day until we arrive in Shreveport and we have a chance to assess the danger," I said, trying to think of something other than blood.

"And tomorrow night?" Sookie asked.

"We'll stop at your houses and pick up your things. Then you are coming with me."

"Where?"

"To my house in Shreveport."

Sookie was silent for a long moment before speaking. "You trust us in your house?"

"Do you have plans of killing us during the day?" I countered.

"No! Of course not," she said quickly.

"Then I trust you in my house," I said and met her gaze in the rear view mirror. When I smiled, she smiled. "Don't worry, Sookie. My house is yours and Amelia's for as long as you need my protection. In the meantime I will help you find your brother. Maybe Amelia can work her magic so we can find him too."

"He's not a telepath," Sookie mumbled.

"But he's your family," I said, and I should have known she would cry. It had been a long time since I'd dealt with humans this closely. "I'm so sorry Sookie."

"I'm okay… it's just that you're being so nice…" she said, accepting a tissue and a hug from her friend.

"Kindness is universal. Those who sow it reap it," I said.

"I don't know how to repay you for this kindness, Eric," she said between sniffles.

"He wasn't talking about himself, silly Sookie," Amelia said. "He was talking about you."

After a few hours, Sookie and Amelia fell asleep in the backseat. Pam and I remained silent and lost in our own thoughts, until Pam decided to give voice to hers.

"Do you really think we will find her brother?" Pam asked me in the lowest whisper.

I shook my head.

TBC

A/N: People not from the U.S…. if you have any questions regarding our divisions, government, etc, please let me know. I'll ask my hubby, my source for all things that I can't understand… like our divisions, government, etc. :-)

Now I'm gonna duck for cover for having Eric feed from a pretty girl not-Sookie. Guy needs to eat!