A/N: Ok, just to be clear, for the purposes of this story the Finale didn't happen, thus Sookie never made her choice (or opted out from making one depending on your view point). But, regardless of all that, this is a conversation that I would like to see between Eric and Sookie. My apologies if you feel differently.

"Perhaps you should just tell me whatever it is you're trying so hard not to," Sookie commented later that evening as Eric paused in his small talk. They had been chatting inanely for over an hour now and Sookie was certain there was something he wasn't telling her.

Eric shifted away from her slightly, "Pam has left."

She waited.

"You were right, I have lost her," he continued, "she didn't even say good bye."

"I'm sorry," she said, not sure what else to say.

Eric snorted quietly, "You're 'sorry'? I lost my child, my closest companion for over one hundred years, and that's all you can say?"

"What do you want from me, Eric?" she asked, striving for calm but unable to help a hint of exasperation from creeping into her tone.

"Nothing as it turns out."

"What?"

Eric sighed, "I meant what I said when I told you that I love you, but Pam…I have been through too much with her to lose her now."

"I don't understand," Sookie told him, looking suspiciously like she was holding back tears.

"I refuse to sacrifice what I have with Pam for a relationship with you," he explained slowly, "the time has come for me to choose, I choose Pam."

"Don't I even get a say in this?" Sookie demanded.

"You don't love me, Sookie, not really. You love the other Eric," he paused, "I can not be that Eric. Not even for you."

Sookie lost the battle against her tears and broke down. "But I do love you," she protested.

"And I love you."

"But not enough."

"No," he agreed, "not enough to give up Pam."

"Then this is it?"

"Yes," he stood up to leave, "please do not delude yourself that I am doing this as a Maker desperate not to lose his Child because I'm not. I am doing this because I have come to realise that I am never going to love anyone more than I love her."

Sookie nodded, in time she would appreciate his bluntness, but not tonight.

Eric left her house with only a twinge of regret: he was sure that a part of him would always love her, but that part belonged to the time when he was cursed. Another, larger part of him cried out in pain every time he thought about losing Pam.

He knew that eventually that part would sour whatever he and Sookie had, it was better to end it now before things went too far.

Before he lost any hope of repairing his relationship with Pam: because, in the end, she was the only thing that truly mattered to him.