A/N: So... I got so busy writing that it all slipped my mind that I hadn't posted any new chapter. I was so into the end of this season. I had many thoughts on what to do at the end when Sookie does her big 'Poof'. I have come to a conclusion, with the help of a few words from people.

On another note: I am so thankful for all of the reviews and favorites! If I could, I would respond to them all. So I shall name a few JamesNorthman96, Lady Minuialwen, Lorna Roxen, ZizzyO, Pixiecropse, and BeccaRocksout. It made my day every time I looked back at those reviews. They pushed me to keep writing and by garsh did I write. You all have five chapters coming out today. Please enjoy and tell me what you all think. And, Zizzy, I am sorry if it was a 0 instead of an O. I had my phone to look at it through and it all looked the same.

To say it was easy….I would be lying. I gave myself over without fight when I got back hours after leaving Tara, Alcide, Sookie, and Bill. Talbot was livid. As were the weres…. It was stupid to come back. But I feared that Russell would come for me and find the others. I dared not bring harm to them.

It was hours after dark that my door creaked open again after another commotion. I could hear voices in the background, mainly a woman yelling. I didn't look, too tired and too much pain.

The person stopped in the doorway for a moment before stepping in and shutting the door. The light flicked on, a new groan leaving me as my eyes shut tighter. I lay on the bed where I was thrown before.

My beaten and bloodied form was pale, weak. My own healing having trouble keeping up with it all. I looked foul, I would assume. Especially after Talbot threw a hissy at the sight of me. My breath was wheezing, one eye swollen shut. I knew bones were broken.

"Katherine."

Russell. My hand twitched, trying to move it to show him I heard.

"I hear you had a full day." He stepped closer moving to the side my head was on. "I would give you blood to heal you, but you did help them escape."

I moan, eye opening to blurrily look. He didn't look happy, but he seemed fine.

"But you did come back of your own, and you didn't hurt any wolves when you got here. So I will give it to you tomorrow."
My eye closes, feeling that heavy pull from sleep. My only escape from the pain.

Russell stepped down the stairs, vampires carrying his new Queen's things. Birds squawked, Talbot seething by the settee.

"This isn't a room, it's a fucking closet." They could hear Sophie Anne yelling about her room. "Where am I supposed to put my birds? Hadley!"

Talbot met Russell at the bottom of the stairs, trying to control his anger.

"You never said she was going to live with us," Talbot seethes.

"She's my wife, Talbot," Russell says as if it should explain it. "We just acquired the state of Louisiana. I thought you would've been excited."

"Excited?" He couldn't believe Russell. His arms cross as he leans into Russell with his next words. "Franklin's brains won't wash off the guest linens…I had to bury werewolves under the gazebo….and your pet Katherine killed Lorena…the weres beat her within an inch of her life." He was near hysterics. "I've had enough excitement, thank you."

Talbot turned away, complaining and ranting in Greek. Russell just looked at the back of his head, rolling his eyes before stepping in front of his lover. He lightly clasped Talbot's upper arms, looking into his eyes.

"They made quite a mess, didn't they?" His right hand lifted to touch Talbot's face gently. "Well, at least you're safe." Russell looked lovingly at Talbot, still holding him gently. "That's what matters most to me."

Talbot give a nod. "Words."

Russell lets out a small chuckle. He pulled away with a hiss of air. "Oh, things may be getting complicated soon. I'm afraid I acted somewhat impulsively while I was gone."

"What did you do?" Russell wouldn't meet his lover's eyes. "Spit it out."

"I killed the Magister." He sounded like a guilty child. Talbot's mouth opened in shock, eyes widening. Russell shifts about. "He deserved it," he declares with force.

Talbot hunched, mouth opening wide. "Are you out of your fucking mind?! The Authority will never stand for it—"

"Fuck the Authority." The words echoed loudly in the empty room. "They won't be able to prove a thing. I made sure of that."

Talbot's hands were on his hips. "You're acting like a century-old child."

"Relax! I've already sent a half a million dollar check to the AVL in support of their foolish Vampire Rights Amendment."

"You can't buy your way out of everything," Talbot snarls.

"Of course I can. This is America."

Eric stepped out of his hiding spot then, head down a bit. "Forgive the interruption, Your Majesty."

Russell turned, frowning at Eric for the interruption, and stepping a bit away from Talbot.

"There's a were-bitch in your study."

Talbot takes in a breath, tugging at his shirt. "Go, while I babysit your wife."

He gives Russell a withering look while marching up the stairs and ranting in Greek again. Russell shakes his head as if to clear it of his thoughts before heading into the study.

Hadley, a human that belonged to the Queen, was the first person I came across the next day. Russell had been true to his word. He had given me blood, but only enough to heal a tiny bit, to jump start my own healing.

I staggered against the wall. I was starving. Hadley had been the one to bring me food yesterday, but it was due for more. Far over due.

"Crap," I hiss, holding a hand over my ribs and leaning on a wall by the Queen's rooms. I was on my way to the kitchen. So far it seemed like a very long trek.

I smiled as the door opened. Hadley stepped out in her lingerie, heels and a see-through lace robe. She smiled back, closing her robe. She stepped around me, both of us heading for the kitchen. It was day, and all the vampires were in bed.

She gasped, something cutting her off. I stayed after hearing the voice. Eric.

"I'm not gonna hurt you. I need you to deliver a message to your cousin."

"I ain't seen Sookie since—"

Eric must have cut her off some how. "Tell her exactly what I say…and nothing more."

I wait, leaning on the wall out of his sight still. He must have let her go after a moment. I hear her hurried heels going down the hall. Staying against the wall, a smirk on my lips, I turn my eyes to the floor. Eric turned to go around the corner. He stopped dead.

I slowly look up, bruised and beaten face catching his sight. He said nothing as he looked over my state. My leg had broken, where most of my body was trying to heal.

"You've got the bleeds, Northman," I state in a whisper. Neither of us wanted to alert others.

"You've seen worse."

His eyes were still roaming over all of my exposed skin, taking in my state. He could hear the small wheezes.

"Or should I say, you look worse?"

"Stuff it. It's what I get for trying to save Sookie. I deserved it." I look away, eyes closing at the thought of how close I was to being free.

"You came back."

"I know I did," I snip. "Because Russell has made it clear that he would come for me. This was the wiser choice. Less trouble from him."

"You could have gone for Godric."

My eyes are hard with anger and hurt, locked on his. "Do NOT speak of him." My fists clenched, teeth gritted. "I trusted him to keep me safe. Look where it got me. Left on my own like last week's trash."

"He-"

"He nothing, Northman," I bite out, looking way as I feel the tears in my eyes. "He never came when I needed him." I bite my lip, tasting the tears on my lips. My voice quivered, barely audible with my next sentence. "Nor did you."

I stand, pushing from the wall with a groan of pain before trying to pass him. He stood tall in my path, moving to block me.

"Did you think I came here for the fun of it?" he asks, looking over my head.

I refused to look at him. "No, Eric Northman. I know why you came. I can smell it on you, see it as you act." I lean on the wall with my good hand, not able to support my own weight for so long. "You came to save Pam. I just happened to be here. And now you play closer and closer to his side to hide some agenda that you seem to think will satisfy you."

"Katherine."

"Don't," I hiss, looking up at him with hurt eyes, anger riding on the edges. "Who are you to act so familiar with me? I don't trust a single sound that comes from you, Northman. You felt my pain and fear for more than two nights. You never came. You never did anything. Now I am fed his blood to keep me as a slave." I look away, jaw tight. "I should have gone to my own kind."

I moved to slip by him, leaning heavy on the wall. My mouth opened to yell as I hit the wall, Eric towering over me and something pushed against my open mouth. I coughed, gagging as liquid filled my mouth. That wrist stayed over my mouth, for only a moment and he was gone. …..

I stared down the hall after him. I swallowed, feeling the pain vanish and my body heal quicker still. I smiled a bit, looking down at the blood on my hand.

I woke later in the night, after the vampires had woken. It was the creak of the floor that woke me.

My eyes flashed wide, heart beating fast. Who was in here? Without my power I couldn't turn the lights on without crossing the room. Slowly, I sat up, blindly looking around the room. For a long moment only my loud breathing was the only sound. I went for another plan, my glow.

My glamour dropped, skin blazing with light. It was enough to allow sight, or as far as my eyes could see clearly. Nothing. My breathing slowed, a small breathy laugh leaving me. Just a trick of the mind. So paranoid. I let out a chuckle, eyes going to the bed.

Creak.

My neck made a cracking sound as it whipped around fast. Just out of my line of sight. I hadn't imagined it. My heart hammered my chest, threatening to choke me.

"Who's there?"

"Tell me, my dear, who it was."

Russell.

I try to jump to my feet, get out of the bed. I had one foot planted and on the other knee, ready to jump to the other side. Russell slammed into my back, hand clasping the back of my throat and slamming me against the floor with all of his weight on my back.

"AH!" I scream at the pain of it. I felt those fragile ribs that had finally minded break. A burning heat flooded from my left side, making it harder still to breath. With his weight on me, I was gasping hard, hardly able to get breath.

He lifted my head and smacked it to the floor. "Tell me, Katherine."

"I stole it!" I scream out as he lifted from me, allowing that lung full of air.

"Stole it?"

I huff, lifting slowly to roll onto my back, eyes shut tight with the pain. "I snuck in and took it during the day while they were dead to the world. It hurt too much, I couldn't take it," I gasp out, pausing for breaths where needed.

"You are mine, Katherine. I allow you to live. I tell you when you can be healed."

My head was ripped to the side and his fangs savagely tearing into my neck above the collar. The loudest scream of my life left me as my hands beat at him where they could, hardly doing anything to him. It burned like fire! My ribs were forgotten by the feel of fire in my veins, pulling hard.

It was nothing like the pleasure that usually flooded me. He knew exactly how to do it and make my natural euphoria void. He pulled back, still grasping me tight. It was so animalistic, that growling hiss that he let out as he felt my blood in his system.

I was panting, tired. I had never had that much taken from me by a vampire. My lids flutter, that heavy feeling sucking me deeper and deeper from the pain and the weight of consciousness. Nalu. Please let this be it. Don't let me suffer at the hands of another vampire such as this.

"-thy."

I sighed, looking over that field with the sun glowing down on me, not long before sunset. It felt so right, Nalu flowing through me along with that Harmony. Harmony that only came in the form or the full flow. Nalu, Nature, was not enough. I had to have the spark that is Us, Harmony.

A woman stood beside me, arms out just as mine. Her acid green hair hanging long and wild. We smile as we look to each other, just joy flooding us with the feel. Her mud brown eyes void of the black pupil, just those brown pools of mud. Her skin tan as dirty sand. Our heights almost the same.

It was the same face, aside from the stronger jaw set of the tanned woman. Both so drastically different in coloring, but physically almost exact.

"If only it could last," the woman says in a smoky voice.

"If only," I say, voice softer and pure.

Such differences between such alike women.

"Mother."

"Hm?" She didn't open her eyes as we stood there. It was one of our few trips out that we made. The last time I had seen my mother before she left me with such hate. The last time it was the mother I grew up loving.

"Thank you."

Her eyes open as they look toward me. "For what?"

I smile warmly. "For showing me what freedom was."

She smiles warmly back at me.

"Kathy."

My brow furls as I look around the field. Mother had just vanished. As had that feeling of Harmony. What?

"Kathy, wake up."

Did I know that voice? Eric? The field slipped away, darkness taking it as I realized what it was. A dream.

I could feel him grasping my forearms and shaking me.

"Kathy! Wake up!"

I wasn't on the hard floor. It was soft. What was it? My eyes blink, blurry. Unable to see what it was at first. My sight was worse than after Sookie shot me with the light. It was slowly going back to before.

"What?" I croak out, voice hoarse and groggy.

When my vision finally cleared of the sleep, one thought rang clear. I didn't hurt. Eric pulled back from me. He turned behind him to face another person.

"Where can we go?!" he pushes, frantic.

"A human home would be safest," Pam says quickly, panicky too. "We've both been invited to Sookie's."

"No!" Eric cuts, going toward his desk, unable to sit still. He had blood on him. "That's out of the question."

"You never panic. Should I be panicking?" Pam asks quickly, half dressed.

The door in the hall closed, heels rushing into the room. Blond hair, human. Ginger?

"Ginger, dear, where do you live?" Eric asks, not as panicky.

"Across the river in Bossier. Why?"

Pam was trying to dress, Eric undressing. Ginger was curious, eyes flicking to me as I gave a groan and sat up.

"We need your house. Now-ish," Pam says.

"Is it because of the V-Feds?" Ginger was wary.

Eric stops, looking up at her then. Pam tenses as I stand, stretching. What ever was going on. I just wanted to go home. Sleep in my bed. Never see a vampire again. Pam slowly turns to face Eric. Eric pulls on a shirt, using the old one to help clear the blood from himself. I glanced at them.

"Here." Eric shoved one of my spare outfits that were kept in his office at me. "Go wash and stay back here."

I stare wide eyed as he leaves the room, heading for the front. What's going on? Blinking, I decide I will find out as the night goes on. I went toward the next room, the full bathroom. It was an old thing, the glass doors attached to the tub's ledge.

I was in the middle of washing my hair, fingers tangled in the blue and purple locks. I was enjoying the feel of no collar, no holly. The door to the shower slammed open. A scream of surprise left me instantly, trying to cover myself the best I can.

A female vampire with a man in some strange SWAT gear behind her frowned at me. My wide eyes looked on in horror. Can I not shower? Her blank look turned to a sneer.

"He said nobody was here. Who are you?" she demands.

"C-can I have a t-towel?" I stammer out.

She let out a heavy sigh, snatching the small towel for my hair from the counter. I blush deeper. It would only cover my front, just hardly.

She reached around me and shut the water off, hand snatching my arm. I cried out, holding the towel the best I could to hide myself. My butt and back utterly bare to the world as she dragged my soaking form into the main of the bar. Pam smirked, eyes flashing over my form. Eric's eyes were a bit wide, fighting off a smirk. There were a lot of guards out here. Pam was leaning against the bar. Eric sitting in the middle of the room, surrounded by the guards.

"Who is this? You said there was nobody else here," she demands as she tosses me toward the floor by Eric's feet.

I squeak, face flaming red, landing on my knees, towel held tight across my front.

"She is Pam's pet, one of our workers," Eric says with little emotion.

"The basement is clean."

"Well, I told you there was nothing."

"It's been wiped," the woman puts in. Gosh she was a pissy woman.

"Well, I'm a Virgo," Eric say back. "I like to be neat." Lies.

"Your screeching fang-cushion of a barmaid who's been glamoured so much she can't even remember her own last name, does know that no one ever goes down there with so much as a mop and a promise. Suddenly It's as sterile as an operating room. "

I slid a bit back from the woman, closer to Eric, trying to keep any modesty I had left. "It doesn't prove anything," Eric says. One of his hands breaks from his lap to grip the top of my head and stop me from moving, keeping me inches from him and right next to him. "Nor does harassing my employee's help to prove."

"What of her? What does she know?" Her hard eyes went to me.

My eyes remained downcast, not looking up. The grip on my head, turned to a grip on the hair of my scalp. I yelped, head being jerked up. My eyes met the other vampire's. She was focusing on mine hard. Was she glamouring? Play it up. I tried not to blink, mimicking what I had seen happen to humans.

"Have you seen the Magister?"

"Who?" I ask in a dazed voice. She makes a noise. "That old man with the cane?"

"Yes. Have you seen him, human?"

"Long ago. When he came in with the Queen."

It was getting hard not to blink. "Have you seen anybody clean the basement?"

"Me." Her facial expression changes to a small frown. "I woke up early and was bored. I thought that since I hadn't cleaned it in a while, it was time to."

"The other barmaid said she never saw anyone clean it."

"Because she comes in after I do. I clean during the day."

She frowns looking away. I blink quickly, looking about, pretending to be wondering what happened. Her eyes turn to Eric.

"Their stories don't match."

"Katherine is in charge of the cleaning. Not Ginger," Eric says with a shrug. "Still proves that there is nothing."

"If only we had a Magister to decide that," the woman sparks back.

Eric slowly looked up at her. She gives a fake smile and small chuckle. "Relax. It's not like you killed someone. Just need your official statement." Pam looks at Eric, both of them sharing a small look. The lady passes something to one of the guards before sitting. "That's all."

Two guards bring over two cameras on tripods. Eric looks at them with a bit of surprise. I turn my eyes up to him and pat his arm. He looks down at me, spotting my still blushing cheeks, eyes not meeting his and the way I hunched upon myself.

"Webcams. For the Authority," the woman says.

"Before that, the human needs clothing," Eric says , looking back at her.

She rolls her eyes, motioning with a hand to the guards. One breaks from formation to head over to the merchandise stand, ripping a shirt from the pile. It was quickly tossed to another guard near us who threw it to Eric. Eric caught it with one hand, not looking away from the female vampire. It was moved to dangle before my face. I snatched it with one hand, pulling it on without moving the towel from my form. I rose to stand on my knees, pulling the shirt the rest of the way down. The towel slid from the shirt hardly a second after the bottom of the shirt was pulled over my butt.

With a glance at the other vampires and the guards, I stood. The Triple X shirt reached my knees without problem, hanging over my frame as if I were a child. I kept my head down as I moved to stand by Pam, standing so my hip touched hers.

The woman put a Bluetooth in her ear, and the cameras turned to face her. "Members of the Authority, it's Nan. Can you hear me?..Good. As regards to the matter of the disappearance of our Magister—Last known whereabouts, this dump in Shreveport, Louisiana. – you have before you Eric Northman, sheriff of Area Five."

I sat back listening to the story Eric told, eyes a bit wide at it. Really, it all added up now. So clear on his game.

"Yes, I understand. I'm flying immediately to Portland. Thank you."

"What? Is that is?" Eric asks, surprised.

Nan took the Bluetooth from her ear, shifting to sit lazily in her chair. "The Authority will review your statement against the, frankly, strong possibility that I've lost an entire night's worth of air time promoting the VRA in order to listen to a load of bullshit."

Eric lets out a breath, looking at Pam who was now sitting on a barstool.

"But some do believe in a fair hearing. Americans." She stands, turning to leave.

Eric stood quickly. "Ms. Flanagan."

She does an exaggerated show or turning to face him.

"Russell Edgington is a threat to our very existence."

"But he is a King. One who just donated half a million dollars to the same American Vampire League you say he's trying to bring down. Weird, huh? Bring in a couple of spare coffins for Sheriff Northman and his …" She looks toward Pam. "Whatever you are."

Pam lifts one brow and gives the slightest of mocking head movements.

"You're on lockdown till the Authority makes its ruling." Guards were leaving while a few stayed. With that, she left, all guards aside from the one at the door leaving.

I blinked, watching.

"Your human stays with you," she called before the door shut.

I blink.

"Fuck."

A/N: So I did this chapter like six times before I settled on this one. It seemed like Kathy would go back, fearing for the others more than herself. I always get this feel that Kathy really dances the line of courageous and idiotic rash decisions. I also see her as the kind to put blind trust out when she should think more on it. But, eh..