Rebecca had never felt such pain in her entire life. Her body was being seared by something crawling around inside her. It twisted and turned, burning through her bones until they felt so brittle Rebecca thought they might break with the strain. She was lying in a bathtub full of water that was ice cold despite the steam she could see rising from the depths. Her clothes were sticking to her skin, cutting at it with every movement. In short, Rebecca was lying in a pool in Hell.

Someone must have heard her begin to thrash from the bedroom because a flash of blonde hair appeared in her periphery. Hands tried to steady her, forcing screams from her throat as the pain intensified. She bit at them, snarling.

"Easy," Eric murmured, reaching over to turn the hot water tap. "You're running a fever."

From the door, Luca said, "Why don't you tell her what's really happening?"

He growled softly, swirling the hotter water in with the rest and brushing his fingers across Rebecca's forehead. "Now is not the time."

Luca scoffed, "Now is the perfect time."

Behind Luca, Sookie's soft voice chimed in, "I don't think she'll be able to understand it right now. Let's just make her comfortable. We'll deal with the other stuff later."

Rebecca glanced at Luca's pretty face, contorted in frustration and not a little rage. She huffed a breath, stamped her little foot, and turned away in a swish of ire. Her form blurred with the distance and Rebecca turned her attention back to the situation at hand. Shaking and shivering, teeth chattering, she griped the edges of the tub and tried to lift her body from the water. Eric used a finger to press her back downwards, the sensation excruciating.

With another snap of her teeth, her only weapon at the time, she plopped back down into the tub and turned her back to him. The tears that had been sitting on the rims of her eyes were starting to fall and in her anger she refused to let Eric see them. She may be weak and look and feel like a drowned rat, but Rebecca still had her dignity.

With an unneeded sigh, Eric stood and looked down at her from his immense height. Rebecca could feel his gaze like a secondary burn upon her skin. She curled inwards in order to shield herself against it, upset that she was sick despite regular infusions of Eric's blood. It would only be her that was immune to the healing and regenerative properties of vampire blood and it, quite frankly, sucked. With a pathetic groan, Rebecca dropped her head beneath the icy waters and let her body relax as much as the muscles could, given that they were wont to spasm uncontrollably.

A few seconds later, she was being lifted from the bath, another scream tearing past her lips at the change in equilibrium forced the contents of her stomach outwards. Nauseated and trembling, Rebecca was stripped of her clothing and wrapped in several layers of blankets until she felt like a swaddled child. While her conscious mind railed against the comprehension of her weakness, her body nestled deeper, feeling somewhat relieved.

Eric sat next to her for a long time, brushing her hair back from her face. His expression was guarded and thoughtful. Rebecca would have teased him a little, if she had the energy to speak. Across the room, Luca sulked in a corner while Sookie paced nervously. She wrung her hands in a gesture that Rebecca had seen many times over the years. Whatever was happening to her was serious shit and Sookie was trying to think of a solution.

"How much time do we have?" Sookie asked, coming to a stop.

Eric's eyes remained on Rebecca's face, "We have time."

"Not as much as you think," Luca interjected with acidity.

"Shut. Up," Eric enunciated in a low tone, his eyes narrowing on Rebecca's jaw line. He touched the skin below her chin and turned her face to the side, examining the pulse. As he looked, Rebecca thought that she could feel her heart pound harder, working overtime just to keep the blood flowing. With every passing pulse, the muscle grew more tired, exhausted with its daily activity. It was then that Rebecca understood the gravity of her illness. It was then that Rebecca knew she was dying.

Her heart fluttered with renewed exertion, adrenaline and fear replacing her nausea and anxiety. Breathing hard, Rebecca fidgeted in her blankets, growing hot despite her earlier cold. Eric leaned away, taking in her body from top to bottom in an assessing way that made her flush with embarrassment. This only made the smile he was trying to hide burst forth and widen across his face in a bloom of amusement.

"You look terrible," he said.

Sookie gasped, "Eric! Don't be rude."

He chuckled, "Just making a statement."

With a wide gesture, Eric shuffled Rebecca more towards the side of the bed and settled in beside her, one arm wrapping her shoulders. He squeezed lightly as he got comfortable, crossing one ankle over the other.

"We have a lot to talk about, you and I."

Rebecca cast him a baleful glance tempered with anger. Her head was pounding, her body ached, and she was in no mood to have a serious conversation no matter how desperately she wanted to know what was going on. Sookie came to sit beside her, but Luca remained in place, glaring out from the shadows with eerily bright eyes.

Eric dropped his head back and lifted his gaze to the ceiling, "Matters have become complicated."

Rebecca's upper lip curled in irritation.

"Yes, I know," he said. "I have been careless. You've been ingesting large amounts of my blood for quite some time and I have allowed it."

Sookie patted her arm, as if the explanation would require Rebecca be comforted.

Eric continued, his voice lowered an octave, the sound rumbling at her side. "Your immune system is attacking your body with increasing voracity. You are rejecting yourself."

Thoroughly confused, Rebecca rolled her head on the axis of her loose muscled neck and raised a brow at Sookie.

"You're changin'," Sookie whispered, her voice hoarse. She paused for a moment, the words caught in her throat, "Into a vampire."

"Against her will," Luca added before falling silent again.

Eric stiffened at her side, "You don't know that."

The truth was, however, that Luca was right. Rebecca no more wanted to be a vampire than she wanted to go back to middle school. It was an uncomfortable idea that was fraught with half remembered terror. The thought was repugnant and vile—and inescapable. While Eric had veered away from making a child in their conversations, Brandon definitely hadn't. The process, he told her, could be done in many ways, but always ended with burial and resurrection. Brandon had failed to inform her that it would be this painful. She felt feverish, livid, exhausted, and fragile all at the same time.

As her silence wore on, the other occupants in the room began to fidget. Rebecca closed her eyes and tried to think through the pain. She needed a plan, but could only spin her wheels as her thought processes skittered sporadically across her consciousness.

Finally, she said, "Can it be reversed?"

Eric shook his head, his eyes focused on her face. "I had hoped to introduce this more gradually."

"Well, you blew it," Rebecca breathed with venom in her voice. "I don't even have a choice, do I?"

From her spot leaning against the wall, Luca pushed forward, "Not if you want to live."

Some combative part of Rebecca spit out, "And if I don't?"

Sookie's face dropped, her eyes squinting in an effort to discern whether or not Rebecca was being serious. Luca simply crossed her arms and waited. Rebecca avoided glancing at Eric, unsure of how he was going to take it and what her reaction to his reaction would be. She wanted to make this decision on her own without the influence of a lover or a friend who may have good intentions but didn't necessarily understand what becoming a vampire would mean to Rebecca. For so long she despised them because of what Brandon had done to her. And then she feared them because Eric was so demanding and intimidating. While Rebecca was more comfortable around the species as a whole, there was a huge chasm between being a human comfortable with them and actually being one of them. She would have to drink blood, hunt humans, and hide from the sun. Her life would be spent in darkness and that was something Rebecca didn't know if she could handle gracefully.

And then there was the concept of eternity. She would see those that she loved die around her. Eric would be there, but in her experience no relationship lasted forever. Rebecca would be even more alone than she was in her marriage, walking as a solitary creature of darkness. The concept was dark and not a little depressing.

Eric waved a hand, "Leave us."

Sookie made to protest, her mouth opening with indignation.

"Leave us," Eric repeated, his voice dropping dangerously low.

Reaching out, Rebecca patted Sookie's hand, saying that she would be fine. Sookie sent her a pitying look before trudging out of the room, Luca at her back. The woman sent Eric a hard look, her pink hair swinging with disdain as she closed the door behind her.

There was a long moment of nothing once they were alone. Rebecca passed the tense moments by focusing on the headache that was rapidly blurring her vision. She wanted to sleep, but feared that she might never wake up if she dared. Wrapped as she was in the blankets, she was at Eric's mercy more than ever before. Weak and tired, she could put up very little fight.

Eric adjusted his position so that he could look her squarely in the eye, "Would it be so bad to become like me?"

Rebecca sighed deeply, wincing as her lungs rebelled, "You don't understand."

"Help me, then." His eyes were narrowed, but his expression was relaxed. There was something in their depths that Rebecca couldn't quite name, an almost panic that danced near the surface but was held staunchly back.

"Would you want to become the thing that tormented you?" Rebecca asked, blinking slowly at him. She wasn't going to last long in the conversation, her consciousness slowly slipping away.

Eric leaned forward and grasped her shoulders, "You would be no such thing. You would be eternal, healthy, immortal. I will be there with you."

She tilted her head to the side, very nearly saddened, "Not always."

Angry, he shook her gently, "Yes, always. You cannot die."

"Why not?" She asked, acerbically.

"Because," he said, with another shake, "I will not let you."
With a smile, Rebecca tried a different tactic, "It's natural to die, Eric. All humans do."

He leaned further forward, until his scent surrounded Rebecca. She let her head fall forward so that their foreheads were touching, "Not you."

Rebecca repeated her question, somehow wanting to goad her despite the ever looming threat of death.

For a moment, Rebecca thought he would fling her away and damn her. She thought that he would give up and let her have her way, for once. His expression hardened so fiercely that she thought his skin might break from the pressure, releasing an ooze of his lifeblood across his cheeks. The fantasy fractures when the skin around his eyes wrinkled and his chin jutted out. He pressed his lips together, his hands tightening on her arms to the point that she knew there would be marks.

"Because I need you. Because I need you with me."

It might have been the fever. It might have been the security of his grasp and the wrap of the blankets. It might have been the slight dulling of the pain in short term relief. But, something inside Rebecca blossomed and smiled at the admission, wrenched unwillingly from his pale lips. She felt her heart pound with emotion, her eyes prick with tears. So this was what it felt like to be needed, the warmth of necessity.

"Okay," Rebecca breathed.

In a flash of movement, Eric was holding her off the mattress, pressing her to his side with surprising tenderness. He kissed her cheeks, the top of her head, and the skin left bare by the blankets. Rebecca's smile was wide as she reveled in his reaction, in his desperate joy.

"But I want to see the sun again. Just one more time."

Eric was off the bed in an instant, "Of course. Sookie will see to it."

Before she could protest, he was leaning out of the door, calling for her friend frantically. Sookie arrived, moving deftly on her heels. Rebecca grew fuzzy with the details of the conversation, her body wanting to sleep. She slipped off into unconsciousness without really knowing it, dreamless and thankfully painlessly.

Rebecca was still breathing when she woke, though the act was difficult and raspy. Every few minutes, her heart would palpitate, stuttering over the beat as it tried to keep the blood flowing. Sookie sponged the sweat from her forehead dutifully, asking if she could stand. It took both Sookie and Luca to hold her steady as she rose from the bed. Eric was in his sleeping place, having been forced from the room by Sookie's maternal nature. She had slept all night and most of the day and, likely, this would be her last chance to fulfill her wish.

The journey was slow and as they passed the bar, Rebecca made another request. Luca let her shoulders go and dipped down behind the bar to grab a six pack of beer. Since she was a dying woman, Rebecca didn't think it would hurt to have a little buzz beforehand.

Sookie had set up a couple of folding chairs not far from the front entrance of the bar, all facing the falling sun. Rebecca winced in the brightness, her skin already too sensitive to the sun's warmth to be entirely comfortable. She allowed Luca to help her sit and to hand her the coldest beer she'd ever held. It was ice in her hands, soothing and piercing all at once. Sookie had to pop the top, but Rebecca refused the straw she held out helpfully.

"I'm not going out drinking from a crazy straw," Rebecca said with a huff.

Sookie shrugged, "I don't know, it kind of suits the situation, don't you think?"

"Crazy is definitely an adjective I would use," Luca murmured to the side, sitting in her designated chair.

Releasing the tension in her neck, Rebecca sat back into the chair until she slouched gracelessly. "I take it you're not on board with this."

Luca pulled her pink hair to the side and brushed her fingers through it thoughtfully. "I would that you had a choice."

"Oh," Rebecca replied with a teasing lilt, "You would that I had a choice."

Sookie joined her in a giggle and Luca rolled her eyes.

"This isn't that way it should be done," Luca ground out in a displeased tone.
There was moment of silence that reminded Rebecca of the seriousness of her impending death and the changes that would come afterwards. She, too, wished that she had, had a choice. But, sometimes life threw you curveballs in the form of a strangely affectionate, blond haired lover that embarrassed at the faintest hint of sap or sentiment. Rebecca didn't know if she was ready for eternity—no, she knew she wasn't ready for it. She guessed that was the thing about eternity, though, there was time to adapt. Infinite time. The subject baffled her too much and she reacted by taking a swig of the beer sitting in her palms.

The drink was cool to her burning throat and oh so familiar. She wondered when the last time she simply sat in the yard and drank a beer was, pinpointing it at several years prior. Brandon had just been turned and she was, strangely enough, also contemplating eternity. This latter contemplation was much more suited to her tastes even if it was twice as unexpected.

"Ain't life a bitch?" Rebecca uttered between sips.

Sookie sighed and stretched out her long, tan legs. "You got that right."

"Eternity will be a bitch, too," Luca drawled lightly, "Mark my words."

With half a laugh, Rebecca said, "Duly noted."

Not much was said as the sun continued to sink low. More beers were passed around and Rebecca felt her body tire. Not wanting to end the camaraderie, Rebecca accepted the crazy straw with her third beer, wrapping her mouth around it ruefully and pulling a long drag. She was buzzed and well on her way to drunk, her tolerance at an all time low. The day transitioned into night and with it came the muggy dew of humidity that sat like a physical weight around her shoulders. When there was no sunlight left, Rebecca felt the swish of wind that signaled Eric was nearby.

"This is quite a sight," He said.

Rebecca didn't bother to crane her neck around to look at him, "Just getting my kicks while I can."

Despite the fact that she couldn't see his face, Rebecca knew that she had said the wrong thing. The long moment of silence stretched too long. Eventually, Eric knelt down between her chair and Sookie's.

"Are you well?"

Rebecca smiled, "As well as I can be, I think."

"Good," he replied, standing. He gingerly removed her nearly empty beer from her hands and set it on the gravel. It tilted and rolled away, but he paid it no heed. Then, Rebecca was carefully gathered up and carried back into the bar, past the dance floor and the offices, to their room. The bed was turned down and there was a fresh change of clothes next to the pillows.

Eric undressed and dressed her again as a ritual. The night gown was made of such fine material that Rebecca blushed wearing it. For Eric, however, the cut and pattern were demure. The scoop neck dipped low, yes, but her arms, legs, and torso were fully covered. In fact, the floor length hem was downright matronly compared to Rebecca's perception of Eric's fashion tastes. The way he looked at her was not demure in the least. He stared at her skin, caressed the curve of her spine and the bend of her thighs with mixture of hunger and reverence.

"Is everything ready?" He called out softly towards the door.

To Rebecca's utter surprise, Godric's face peered around the corner, looking nearly angelic in the refraction of light from the lamp on the nightstand. Rebecca hadn't seen him for quite some time, assuming that he had gone back to doing… whatever he had been doing before the church massacre. He smiled as her, but she could see some tension around his kind eyes. In the mist of her draining energy, Rebecca had the wild thought that tomorrow he would be her grandfather. It was an odd conundrum that he didn't have graying hair or wrinkles around his mouth when he smiled. She bet that he had some awesome stories despite that fact that she was more likely to be sitting across Eric's lap than on Godric's knee.

"Yes, my son," was his reply. "I have prepared the resting place."

Godric stepped inside the room and stood beside Eric, his gaze traversing Rebecca's outfit and coming to rest on her hair.

"She will need to bind her hair, I think. The rocks can catch and tear it."

Bewildered, Rebecca watched as Eric took the proffered hair tie and began to arrange her tresses into an elaborate braid. He made short work of it, tying off the ends with finality. They both helped her to stand and then she was being carried off to her death. Outside, Sookie and Luca stood next to a deep hole—her grave, she comprehended with not a little anxiety.

Eric, feeling her muscles tighten, whispered, "I will be with you."

His words allayed only a small part of the fear and her heart began to pound in her chest, aching with each passing beat. With a short hop, Eric dropped into the pit and settled her on the blanket that Godric had laid down for them. He arranged her on her back and touched her cheek.

"Okay," Rebecca hissed out of reflex, "Okay."

Eric kissed her slowly, easing over her with the minutest of movements. When he moved from her mouth to her neck, Rebecca's eyes opened to see a myriad of faces looking down at her—one with pity, one with fear, and the other with unmasked pride. She gasped as Eric's teeth tore through her skin, the pain slicing through the dull ache she'd been feeling for two days. Instinctively, she struggled, vainly trying to stop what had now become inevitable.

Drinking deeply, Eric stilled her body and ran a hand soothingly down her side until Rebecca's vision blurred and breathing became too difficult. She exhaled one last time, her eyes falling closed. Eric's was still drinking when her sight left her body and the world became distant and cold.

So, there is just one more chapter after this-and let me say, I didn't see it comin'. ;)