A/N: Oh yikes, three months? That's procrastination at its finest (or worst, really), even by my v lax standards....er, is anyone out there still reading this? .....I hope so!!! :D Unfortunately, more angst ahead in this chapter. Fortunately, I'm planning on wrapping this story up within the next five chappies.....and of course it will have a satisfactory ending. ***clumsily dodges questions about the meaning of "satisfactory" vs. "happy"***

Disclaimer: All these awesome characters belong to the equal awesome Charlaine Harris.

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Sookie POV

Somehow I made through the day at school, and then the week. I saw Eric briefly, only twice, and both times I had to keep myself from trying to catch his eye.

Instead, I forced myself to close my eyes without really ever sleeping, forced myself to chew the tasteless food I shoved into my mouth, forced myself to memorize notes and hold empty conversations. Amelia chattered to me about her new boyfriend, (Bob was out; junior Tray Dawson, from the wrestling team, was in). Jason tried joking with me at the dinner table the night before their big playoff game. Ms. Ravenscroft subtly, but with noticeable concern, held me after class on Tuesday, but I distantly informed her that I was fine, just fine.

The only person I couldn't avoid, maybe because subconsciously, I hadn't wanted to, was my Gran. She watched me cautiously throughout the week but never asked how I was doing. I think it was because she knew that I wasn't fine, just fine, and Gran wasn't a person who would waste time or words or effort. So when I arrived home on Friday afternoon, Gran was waiting with a fresh batch of homemade chocolate chip cookies and glass of ice cold milk. I sat down, and as the delicious smell wafted under my nose, it was like a spell was broken. I looked up at her and my eyes welled with tears.

I gasped out, "Oh, Gran..." before totally losing control. She moved to hug me; my arms encircled her soft, fragile waist and I buried my head in her side. As I sobbed, she stroked my hair and made soothing, maternal sounds. Finally, as my tears subsided, I pulled away and reached for a napkin to blow my nose.

Gran sat in the chair next to me. "It's a boy, isn't it?"

A tiny laugh escaped and almost instantly turned into a sob.

Gran surreptitiously slid the cookie plate towards me so I grabbed one and stuffed it in my mouth. The chocolate and sugar were the first things my taste buds had acknowledge in a week, and they tasted good. I concentrated on that instead of the sick feeling buried deep in my chest.

"Sookie, you are such a wonderful young lady, and I am so proud of your kind nature and generous spirit. But I did not raise you to be deceitful or manipulative, even indirectly, and I know that you have been hiding something these past few months. I respect your privacy, partly because I know that you're incredibly mature for someone so young. But when I see that this secret is hurting you, that's when I, as your grandmother, have to be nosy. Honey, tell me everything. I want...no, I need to know everything. And then we'll see what we can do to fix it."

So, heartsick and hopeless, I munched away on those cookies and confided in my grandmother. The only other person who knew about us, to a degree of relative certainty, was Ms. Ravenscroft, and that had only been up until the episode with Coach Quinn. She knew nothing except what Eric had told her about his ex-wife, if indeed he had told her anything. But with my grandmother, my narrations could be as biased as I wanted, and I held nothing back (except for details about our intimacy, of course, because hello, its still my grandmother).

It was akin to riding a rollercoaster, albeit a therapeutic one; I felt happy when I thought of the beginning, a sense of dread when I related the middle, and a deflated exhaustion when I described the latest events.

Gran took it all in, with surprisingly little emotion. Many parents or guardians would have flown off the handle at the first mention of their daughter engaging in a relationship with her high school teacher, and rightly so. But I also did my best to impress upon her the sense that he never took advantage of me or forced me into anything...and that for the most part, the opposite was true, that I had been the one who was desperate to continue our relationship at whatever cost, mindless of whatever terrible consequences.

Finally, I finished my story and about a baker's dozen of cookies.

Gran took both of my hands in hers and very seriously and thoughtfully looked at me.

"I want you to listen to me, Susannah Stackhouse, and do exactly as I say."

I leaned forward eagerly, anticipating some kind of magical advice that would have Eric rushing back into my arms and away from the evil ex.

"Let him go."

I fell back against my chair, disappointed, as Gran continued in a gentle yet firm voice.

"It's not so much about age, or even about you two being in completely different places in life. It's that he may be starting a family with this woman, whether or not you want to acknowledge it, and you absolutely cannot get in the way of that. If there's even a chance they can work it out, for the sake of that child, they have to try. I have never met this man, and quite honestly, after hearing how he's treated you, I don't think I want to. But I can agree with him on this point: you have a bright future, and his situation is too complicated for you to be involved in."

I opened my mouth to object, but Gran cut me off. "Sookie, do you trust my judgment? Do you trust me, hon?"

I sighed but didn't answer. She raised her eyebrows, waiting until I nodded reluctantly.

"I know it'll be almost impossible at times to go on. I believe that you are old enough to appreciate what true love is, and when you lose that person..." her voice faded as her eyes seemed to wander far away for a long moment. And then they snapped back to mine, filled again with a strong sense of purpose and clarity.

"It feels like the end of the world, but it isn't. Time and distance will help you realize that. I want you to be happy, and it doesn't seem like this, this...Eric...possesses the ability to make you so, for many, many reasons."

She paused. "I want you to be happy, Sookie. That's all I've ever wanted for you and Jason."

I contemplated her advice for a moment, but couldn't give a definitive response.

"You don't have to promise anything at the moment, or even agree. Just think about it, honey." And with that she patted the top of my hand gently and left me alone with the cookies.

I grabbed another one, stuffed it into my mouth, and stared at my half-empty glass of milk. That's odd, I thought randomly, because before this week, I probably would have described it as half-full.

Maybe Gran was right.

Maybe it was time to let go.

That night, I drove two hours south with Amelia and Tray to cheer Jason and the Eagles (our football team, not the band, obviously) to victory in their first playoff game. At first, I hadn't wanted to go, but Amelia refused to take no for an answer, and even Gran was slightly pushier than normal when it came to my social life.

So I begrudgingly accepted. As the trip progressed, I realized how much I had been missing of my senior year. I had skipped the football games and so many other events to be with Eric on the weekends. A tiny part of my brain suggested that Gran's way of thinking may have had some merit.

Amelia and Tray were also fantastically amusing traveling companions. When they weren't arguing over the radio stations (Ames wanted alternative rock, Tray wanted country, but ultimately Sookie the Driver wanted, and got, the pop music station and Ke$ha), they were arguing over everything else. I thought for certain that they wouldn't last as a couple for the game, or even the car-ride, but as we parked and Tray jumped out to grab Amelia's door, she leaned over and whispered, with her face-flushed from all their arguing, that she thought she was in love.

I shook my head ruefully, but didn't dream of resenting her happiness. She was my best friend, and no matter how disappointed by love I had been, she deserved every second of joy and excitement.

After the game, and the trip back, I was ready to crash. I wasn't happy but it was definitely a relief to be distracted, even if only for a few brief hours.

It was a little past midnight when I pulled up to the house. I was still distracted by the game, replaying and storing Jason's victorious moments as starting quarterback in my head so I could tell Gran all about it the next morning. It didn't strike me as odd that the living room lights were still on, but it should have. Gran was consistent in her routine; early to bed and early to rise.

I let myself in through the back, walking through the kitchen and setting down my stuff on the table before becoming aware of the living room lights being on.

I called out, "Gran? We won! Jason was amazing; I wish you could have seen it!!!"

I walked into the living room and the first thing I registered was Gran lying on the sofa. She was in her dressing gown, with a book in her lap. Her head was tilted back slightly, and her eyes were wide open, staring unblinkingly up at the ceiling.

I stopped short. My brain was working furiously to process what I was seeing.

"Gran?"

"Gran?"

"Granny?"

My voice seemed small and far away.

I tried saying her name again, but my voice was even smaller this time. It was almost like it was floating away, a balloon without a string.

I rushed over and started CPR. After a moment or so, she miraculously came to. I called an ambulance and gave her aspirin while we waited together. On the way to the hospital, she thanked me weakly but profusely, saying that I had saved her life.

I blinked.

I hadn't started CPR.

She hadn't come to.

And she wasn't going to thank me. Or talk, ever again. I reached out and touched her cheek.

Gran was cold. She was dead.

Gran was buried on a bright, sunny, cold December day. Her tombstone read:

Adele Joann Stackhouse

Beloved Wife, Mother, Grandmother

1932-2009

It was the largest funeral Bon Temps had ever witnessed. Our church was overflowing with people. They offered their condolences and I automatically accepted them. Jason was stoic and unaffected throughout the service, but as soon as the first clump of dirt was thrown on Gran's grave, he escaped to drink with his buddies. He couldn't handle it, and quite frankly, I couldn't blame him. I wanted to escape too, but I was his legal guardian now, and I couldn't escape anything anymore.

I had new financial issues to deal with, like electric bills and loans and car payments; I'd never realized how much of a burden Gran had shouldered before, and I felt even guiltier for adding to her problems with my stupid, pointless romantic anxieties. As I stared deep into Gran's grave, I tried to continue thinking practically, about selling our parents' house to keep Gran's, and how I was going to put Jason through college (...because it was pretty much out of the question for me now- I couldn't afford it and Jason needed a legal guardian).

When I was finally able to process that Gran was...gone...

...my body instinctively prepared to drop to my chair, or the ground, or whatever made contact with it first. I expected to feel the soft, humid-smelling earth beneath me, but instead I was confronted with a firm, hard, masculine body.

Thinking it was Eric, praying it was Eric, and finally thanking God that it was Eric, I allowed myself to sink into him and cry.

I succumbed to this huge loss and allowed myself to grieve. It was the heaviest few moments of my entire life as I felt, deep in my gut, every single wrong that had happened to me, beginning with my parents' deaths, and continuing with Bill's and Eric's abandonment of me, and my grandmother's death, and ultimately the indisputable knowledge that I was alone.

Incredibly, undeniably, unwillingly alone.

To his credit, he said nothing, and only held me closely. Once, I tried to say something (most likely something meaningless and nonsensical) but he calmed me and stroked my hair soothingly.

After an interminable amount of time, I forced myself to stop crying and I pushed away from him.

Still he didn't say anything. At least he knew he wasn't in a position to give an opinion.

It was never so easy to walk away.

Somehow I ended up at a dive bar downtown. If I took a cab or a bus, I honestly couldn't remember it.

The broken neon light halfheartedly flashed with the name "Willy's," and I stumbled passed the bouncer, who, with an equally halfhearted effort, tried to ask for my ID. Sliding into a dirty, ripped bar stool, I ordered a whiskey on the rocks, the "good stuff."

When I had sipped my way past drink number three, I registered a presence on my left. Supposing it to be Eric again, I turned, agitatedly, and was about to give him a piece of my mind when I realized it was Bill.

In my drunken, sloppy, sentimental state, I considered him to be the one that got away, (through no fault of his or my own). So when he leaned in to kiss me, I eagerly accepted and returned his embrace.

If I had been sober, I would have noticed that his lips and movements were dry and robotic, nothing like Eric's warm, passionate kiss and inflammatory touch. I would have noticed that Bill smelled like cigarette smoke and weed and beer, and been repulsed. But the alcohol provided an unfamiliar point of view, and I noticed none of these things.

Instead, I followed my pressing need to be close to another human being after a personal tragedy. I followed my most disgusting and base instincts. I slept with him and abused intimacy in every way that it could be abused. And in the morning, he slipped out of my room as silently as he had the year before.

Later, when I stumbled into my bathroom, I paused and looked at my reflection. My eyes were black and stained with make-up. My face was pale and drawn. My hair was greasy and dirty.

I couldn't believe the mistake I had just made. I immediately moved to the toilet, only to dry-heave several teams before breaking into intermittent sobs.

Blindly, I turned the shower on and stripped. Hot, hot steam escaped from the curtain as I stepped into the tub. The water pounded against my back and I pressed my hands against the cool tile, sobbing into the scorching water.

Coming up: I decided not to allow Pot-Head!Bill to stay. He's so annoying to write, even without dialogue, so I can't even imagine how dull he is to read!!! Anyway, the next few months (rest of December, January, February) will positively fly by, and we'll find out the baby's paternity in March. Another major event will happen in April (YEEEESH, not only prom, lolz :D) and then "all's well that ends well" in May.

Questions, comments, and suggestions are all super welcome. I have a good idea of how to end this, but it's definitely not set in stone!!!! Thx, as always, for any reviewer love/criticism, even tho I've been a bad girl lately.....it really makes my day :)