A/N: Hiyas!

First onto the usual business: thank you to Charlaine Harris for her characters. And thank you to you guys! I was really crunched for time writing this, and I figured that you'd appreciate to see a new chapter alert in your inbox than a review reply. But seriously, your reviews are inspiring and great for letting me know how I'm doing. Like I wrote last chapter, I had a tough time plotting out the Ratray line, and it helped that a lot of the reviews agreed with my decision! So THANK YOU ALL.

Now the fun stuff:

Thank you (and hugs!) to my beta chiisai-kitty not only for combing through this, but also for doing it the same day she posted my favorite story of hers, Backbeat. If you're following me on twitter (and if you aren't you totally should!) then you know I work at a record store and am a huge music geek, so it's so good to have a music/band E/S story that works, big time! here's the link, with some additional spacings you can take out:

http:/www. fanfiction. net/s/5790195/1/

And also, this chapter is for NorthmanMaille (or AlisonbyNumbers on twitter) who's been a good follower and, more importantly, an even better friend to me. And she's had a bit of rough luck recently, so here's hoping that this little ditty will be able to put a smile on her face!

The next thing I knew I was under the covers of my bed. I checked to see what I was wearing—my Merlotte's uniform from last night. I even had my socks still on. I groggily tried to blink myself awake, and when I was done with that I sat up straight. Whaa? How did I get up here? The last thing I remembered was watching that sea video with Eric. ERIC!

I looked around wildly and … didn't see him anywhere. Because it wasn't until now that I realized that it was morning, because of the sun that was coming in through the windows and onto the bed. I crawled over to the side of the bed that was closest to the closet (Eric's old side) so I could see if he was in his little hidey hole, which he probably was.

What I wasn't expecting was that when I swung my feet over the side of the bed and stepped onto the floor, Eric's old blanket would be there; instead of landing on wood, I landed on blanket. And that made me even more confused.

I immediately looked down—not only was Eric's "blanket" there, but everything else that I had stuffed into the hidey hole was there too: his old Walmart clothes. His old flip flops. And now, the maroon shirt he wore last night and his black boots—crap, I had forgotten to ask him if he wanted to take his shoes off last night! I'm an awful hostess!—were on top of that pile.

Holy shit. I wondered what Eric was thinking when he opened that trap door and looked in to see a blanket and some clothes—that probably still smelled like him—where he was supposed to sleep. And he would have gone through that alone, since I had been sleeping during that time. In fact, I was sleeping the whole damn time he carried me up the stairs, opened the closet door, and then did God knows what while he waited for the sun to come up.

Did he stay with me in the bedroom? Did he lie down next to me, snuggle with me under the covers, and watch me sleep? Or did he simply put me on the bed on a commercial break, and then vampire-run down the stairs so he wouldn't miss anything on the program?

I wished I could have vampire smell, so I could track Eric's scent.

Well, we probably wouldn't run out of things to talk about later while we did God knows what on my night off.

Even though it was daytime—ten in the morning, now that I looked back at my clock—I still tiptoed out of the room, as if there was any chance of waking Eric up. And it was because I was being so quiet that I was able to hear the thoughts of whoever was in my living room right now. He or she was thinking exactly what I was thinking: "."

I quietly tiptoed back into the closest room—Gran's. Shit. Shit. Shit. What do I do? I wished it was night time so Eric would be up. But I didn't need him! I didn't need him last night when I fought the Ratrays! Think, Sookie, think!

Out of the corner of my eye I spotted the broom I had used a long time ago to clean up Gran's room. There. That would do the trick. I grabbed it and quietly made my way down the stairs, to whoever was now thinking, "What the fuck happened last night?"

Hold up, I wasn't reading my own thoughts, was I? Did my telepathy backfire on me or something? 'Purple lettuce. Forest fires. Trolls. Sodium.'

Nope, now the person downstairs was thinking about food, wondering what I had in my fridge. What a crappy burglar.

Anyways, so it wasn't me. Who was it?

I silently crept down the stairs, trying not to hit the ceiling with the broom that I was holding like a baseball bat, and found—Jason! Jason was the person downstairs with the thoughts!

"Holy shit, Jason!" I cried out as soon as I saw him, in an old 'Bon Temps Football' shirt and torn jeans. "I almost hit you with the broom!"

"Really? You heard someone creeping around in your house and you pick up a broom to hit them with? Even after last night?" Jason retorted.

I thwacked him over the head with the broom before resting it on the staircase. "I was improvising, you big doofus. What are you doing here anyway? And what do you mean, 'even after last night?'"

Now that I thought about it, this was the second time in two days that Jason had woke me up, all before noontime. Ugh. Now I didn't want to think about that at all.

"Well, I'll tell ya this, Rene Lenier couldn't wait to tell me that you beat up the Ratrays last night outside of Merlotte's. He went over to their trailer to buy some weed, and Denise drove up like she was ready to kill someone … which I guess she was. You."

"Yeah, I kinda got that last night," I replied dryly.

"So anyway," Jason said, not sounding too pleased with my interrupting, "the only way she would sell anything to Rene was if he drove Mack to the hospital in Monroe, which he did." He narrowed his eyes at me accusingly.

"Yeah, well, did Rene tell you that Mack came at me with a knife?" I asked. That would probably distract Jason from wondering what the hell I was doing fighting the Rats anyways. And it worked.

"What? Hell no. If Denise told Rene that, he didn't tell me." He paused. "A knife?"

"Yeah. But I found this chain outside in the parking lot, and I somehow managed to get it tight around his neck, and then the Rats left after that."

"Good," Jason said, mulling this in his head. He had relaxed a little, and I could tell he was accepting this. Which really was "good." Now, all I had to do was offer him breakfast, and then he probably wouldn't even question why I was outside when I was supposed to be working, and why I was outside fighting the Rats.

"You hungry?" I asked quickly, turning to walk into the kitchen.

"Sure am. What the heck were you doing in the parking lot anyways?" Jason replied, walking behind me.

Damn. I stopped at that, and Jason walked into my back. "Sorry," he mumbled.

"Did you know that in addition to being drug dealers, the Ratrays are also vampire drainers?" I asked, turning around to face him.

"What? No! Wait, what does that have to do with anything?"

Relieved that Jason didn't answer with, "Good for them!" or "Someone has to!" I replied, "Well, one of my customers last night was a vampire, and they were trying to drain him in the parking lot, so I had to stop them!"

"There was a vampire in Bon Temps last night?"

I nodded.

"Sookie, you do not want to get mixed up with vampires. Trust me, I know," Jason said, trying on his big brother pants for the first time. It was cute, but it was a little too late for that.

"Yeah. Well. Even though you might not want to be buddies with vampires, there's no excuse for letting no-good trash like the Rats torture and drain and maybe even kill someone who didn't do anything to them."

"A vampire in Bon Temps. Who'd have thunk?" Jason asked, scratching his head. "Homulka doesn't have a vampire, you know."

I turned to walk back into the kitchen, so Jason wouldn't see my dopey grin. Homulka was our town's rival, not just for football but for life, really. And Jason, always the jock he was in high school, would think that. Right now I didn't care what he was thinking, as long as it wasn't about the vampire.

"Yeah. Well, I don't know if Bon Temps has a vampire either. He never said what he was doing here, you know." Well, I could have guessed. But Jason didn't need to know that.

"Sookie … what did the vampire look like?" Jason asked.

What the hell? Where did that come from? "I don't know … brown hair, brown eyes."

"So he wasn't bald-headed? No tattoos neither?"

I stared. "Nope."

Jason was thinking that since Dawn had told him what Eric looked like, he wanted to know if that vampire came into Merlotte's to see Dawn.

"Wait, why did you just ask me that?" He didn't answer. "Jason?"

Jason didn't say anything for a while. "Maudette showed me a video last night … a home sex video of her and some freaky-eyed motherfucking vampire who was bald and had all these tattoos on his body," he finally replied, very reluctantly.

I immediately put my shields up, not wanting to get any mental pictures from Jason

And who was this vampire? Well, it definitely wasn't Eric, or Bill, and I couldn't remember any vampire from Fangtasia that would fit that description. Maybe I'd ask Eric about him. I mean, how many bald, tattooed vampires were out there, anyway? Eric would know.

"It's just like, every time I find a girl, some vampire's already gotten to her first!" Jason complained, running his hands through his hair.

Boy oh boy, he didn't even know the half of it. But I kept my mouth shut.

"I mean, first it was Dawn, now it's Maudette. Who's next?"

Uh, me.

I treated that like a rhetorical question and got to work on scrambling some eggs for us. After some more fidgeting, Jason started toasting some bread and setting the table. When breakfast was all ready, he started telling me some town gossip, which he had a lot of today. Apparently Rene Lenier was quite the little busybody today, if Jason had all these bits to tell me. They worked on the road crew together, which sounds taxing but all they really did was drive around in state pickup trucks and wear tee shirts with the sleeves cut off. The two guys went to high school together, along with the last musketeer, Hoyt Foytenberry. And with the way all three of them acted, especially around women or beer, you'd think they still were in high school.

Jason finished his meal in record speed, and he looked at his watch once he put down his fork. "Well, I really oughta get going now. Thanks for breakfast," he said distractedly, getting up to clear his plate. "It's been real." He bent down and kissed me on the top of my head before walking out the front door.

I just sat there stunned, not knowing what surprised me more: Jason kissing me, or Jason cleaning up. Maybe it was just a mixture of both.

I cleaned up the rest of breakfast and got ready to go to the grocery store. I was out of bacon, bread, and Tru Blood.

I saw that this grocery store only had the Tru Blood brand of synthetic blood, which I picked up a 4-pack of. And, I also saw Arlene at the deli counter.

"Hey girl!" I said, pushing my shopping cart next to hers. "How you've been since I saw you last?"

"Hi there, Sookie! I'm good," Arlene replied, a little awkwardly.

"Good. That's good." I smiled. Arlene tried to do the same. I was going to ask her if everything was okay, but then the deli guy behind the counter gave her the quarter pound of turkey she wanted, and Arlene took it and all but ran off, calling out goodbye over her shoulder. Huh. Weird.

I finished doing my shopping, and it wasn't until I was home unloading groceries that it occurred to me that Arlene might have seen my Tru Blood, and that's why she was acting so funny. Shit. That was the last thing I needed, having the town gossip catching me buying Tru Blood. And I wasn't even working tonight, so she'd probably be running her mouth to anyone at Merlotte's who'd listen. Double shit.

Oh well. Maybe she didn't see the blood. Yeah. Maybe she was worried about Rene, her boyfriend, or her kids or something. Maybe she was just having a bad day. Or maybe I was just imagining things. Yeah, it was probably that.

After I finished having my mini panic-attack, I picked up a book (this one a mystery) and curled up on the swing outside, comfortable with the irony of reading a mystery novel about a serial killer while living in the house that was the closest to the local cemetery, besides the old Compton house.

Wait.

Shit.

Not good. NOT GOOD.

FUCK!

Across the cemetery is the old Compton house. The old COMPTON house. The one that had been in the Compton family for generations. The one that old Jesse Compton had been living in until he died about three months ago. The one that was the closest house to mine, just separated by the cemetery and a small patch of trees.

Oh my God. Oh. My God.

THAT'S why Bill's scent went into the graveyard—he was going back home! And Eric didn't bother following him because, hey, what are the chances that the vampire would live RIGHT NEXT DOOR TO ME? I know this is all guess work, but isn't it a little too convenient that Jesse Compton dies, after living for eighty-something years, and Vampire Bill, whoever he is, gets to move in to the house right next door to me? How long had Bill been living in that house—if he even was living in that house? Jesse Compton didn't have any kin that I knew of—and if he did I probably would, since this is such a small town that everyone knows everything about everyone—so Bill would be able to just move on in and no one would even know. No one would even know.

Shit.

I forgot all about the book and sprinted over to the graveyard. The Comptons were an old Bon Temps family—I think they were one of the founders, maybe. They'd definitely been around here for as long as the Stackhouses, maybe even later. So Bill was a Compton—and with his Southern accent I'd say he was. Although you'd think with at least—wait, when was the last time Eric saw him? Eighty years ago? Whatever, you'd think that after eighty-plus years he'd be able to get rid of that ridiculous Southern accent. But if he was a Compton, he'd probably be buried in the Compton plot at the cemetery

I had attended Jesse's funeral and kind of remembered the general area where he was buried. It was right by that funny-looking tree … that had just popped up over there, to my right! I skidded to a halt. Okay. It was around here somewhere, the headstone. I went over to where the smallest and dirtiest headstones were, figuring that if he was at least eighty years ago his headstone would be looking kind of rough, and started reading names and dates. Boy there were a lot of Comptons—but there weren't any Bill Comptons.

Then I saw one for a William Thomas Compton, born April 9, 1840 and died 1868.

Bing-fucking-o.

Bill was a nickname for William. This gravestone was at least eighty years old. And even though I thought Bill looked older than twenty-eight years old, I'm sure life was harder back then. Plus, judging from his tombstone, he had been a Confederate soldier—the Descendents of the Glorious Dead always placed Confederate flags next to the graves of Confederate soldiers, and there was one planted firmly next to his name.

Looked like I definitely wouldn't be running out of things to talk to Eric about while we did God knows what on my night off.

A/N: It's all coming together now, isn't it? I know this was a baby chapter, but the next chapter will be a "night" chapter with lots o' Eric!

Oh, and you've probably noticed this, but I'm kind of blending True Blood/SVM for Jason (in the books, he was off with some chick named Dee Anne, instead of hooking up with Maudette) but that's because I liked the TB plot line better than the SVM plot line (IKR!) ... but ONLY for Jason! LOL.