A blank face. A mad face. A sad face. Any face would have been better than Eric's "Poor Sookie, she's so adorably clueless, I'm going to indulge her with one of my devilish smirks" face. Frustrated, I appealed to Alex. He was the smarty pants.

"Go on, tell him I'm right." As soon as I had spoken it, I had known I wasn't far from the truth. These witches thought I could turn the supernatural into the perfectly, humdrum natural.

Alex's bland face faltered into something more annoying than condescension. He was pitying me. Pity. Almost worse than contempt.

"That seems very unlikely."

"Oh, and how likely is any of this?"

Onto Pam. She just shook her head.

"If Sam can come back to life for a night—why not one of you-all?"

Another quick screen of the faces in the room. Indulgence. Doubt. Alex bestowed me with a fresh look of pity—if he had the gall to say "Bless your heart," to my face, I was certain I could call up my fire and roast him like the Christmas ham (I needed to pick one of those up soon.)

"Alex you're the one prattling off about the end of days for the supernaturals—going on and on about genomes and other sciency mumbo-jumbo. What exactly did you mean about unlocking the supe world?"

"I know that in terms of my years of research, I am talking about linking the bloodlines. Finding the missing DNA. The coven leader thinks she can do this magically—which must mean blood bonds. I believe she will attempt to create a blood bond powerful enough to connect us all—killing you in the process, the bearer of all bloods—but that type of cataclysm linkage would spell our demise. Think about what your blood bond was like with my Master—if the witch succeeds and links us, the bond would drive each and every supernatural creature insane."

"Wow. Never been so eloquently mansplained to—or vampsplained, in your case."

"Sookie," Eric said, apparently he did still have a voice, "what Alex says makes sense."

Implied—what I was saying did not make sense.

"So you two have discussed this, I take it." I crossed my arms. "And when were you going to tell me?"

"Alex only revealed to me the truth and his theories earlier this evening, when I arrived with Freyda at the clinic."

When Freyda was there? Psycho Freyda? Who I trusted even less than before after her meltdown? I thought Alex and I had that tacit agreement that we couldn't confide in Miss Oklahoma. What had he shared with her and not with me? I rounded on him, latching onto the word theories. "This is only conjecture. Pure speculation."

Alex shrugged his shoulders, his blue eyes concerned. "I have said the coven leader did not divulge the steps of her plan to me—only the general hope for its success. I have made educated guesses about the ultimate shape of this goal, what is meant by a genetic connectivity between supernatural species."

"I have an idea—why don't we go and ask her instead of attending a Tim Burton version of a vampire prom?"

Pam lifted her arms in a universal gesture of surrender. "I wanted to attack tonight as well, Sookie. If we're still going to do this blood bond ceremony, let's get it done with—and then use the last couple hours for hunting."

The menacing grin on her porcelain face was jarring, but I smiled anyway. Finally someone who saw it my way—partially. "We don't have to wait for the blood bond—I'm not doing it. So let's go."

"Alexander. Pamela. Out." Eric had barely raised his voice above a whisper, but the sound pierced through the air as the north wind through cotton. His progeny immediately obeyed. "Lock the door," he said as Pam grazed a finger along my jaw on her way out of the room.

The thud of the door and the click of the latch echoed in the sudden stillness. The significance of his request to lock the door had not escaped me. Since our fraught reunion he had been so careful to guard the pretense of casual, supervised interactions between us. As recent as this evening when he had commanded Alex to exit his treatment room, he had reminded his son to leave the door ajar. Now, we were more alone than we had been in half a century. And I felt the difference.

I could sense Eric's eyes on me as mine were on the door. "Maybe it's crazy but is it really any crazier than a blood bond between all supes?" I found my courage as I had found my voice, and faced him. "You won't give my idea the consideration a bullfrog gives to a swamp fly."

As always when I used unusual colloquialisms, a furrow ruined the Vikings' flawless skin. It passed quickly, as he slowly moved towards me, his eyes unblinking. "I know why you want this theory to be real, but it won't work. It would never work."

My arms were back criss-crossed over my chest, my foot tapping impatiently—or nervously. "It might not work. It probably won't work. You don't know for certain whether it will work or not."

Eric drew up in front of me. "I do know. As much as we both want it to work—it wouldn't. We tried it. After you discovered Alex, I almost allowed myself to believe it was possible. Sookie, I desire you now more than ever—"

"Wait. What the hell are we talking about?"

He arched a single golden brow. "About a relationship between us working out. You want me to be human to be with you. This will not be, nor can it be. Do I want more from you now? I will always accept you into my bed, but I know that is not enough for you. When I first saw you and smelled you again—craving you was all I could think about. The Queen sensed my distraction from searching for my son, and came to recenter me. Freyda is a proud woman; she may have exaggerated, but she did not lie. I once sought your likeness in every woman I would bed. That has not been the case in years, but you are still the best sex I ever had."

My jaw had unhinged at some point during his speech. Words, those sounds used to communicate, abandoned me. I scratched my forehead and started to laugh, low and disbelieving. Sweet Mother! Good lord! Dammit all to hell! I cussed in my mind and laughed out loud for some minutes. I might have gone on for an hour if Eric hadn't called my name in a voice ironic with sincerity and reached out to touch me on the shoulder. That kicked me right in the butt. Growling, I smacked his hand away.

"Don't you touch me, you damn, dead egomaniac!" For a flicker, the vampire almost revealed remorse, before closing off his face. That shuttering detachment only yanked my cord harder. I had never let loose on Eric—or anyone else—like this. "Let's get this straight cowboy, you're the one who's been crossing into my territory. You're the one trying to bed me and be near me. Asking hikers and fangbangers to wear a wig! You're the one who told me you'd never doubt me."

Ooh. He didn't like that. Anger flared in his nostrils. "I am not doubting you. I'm doubting your asinine theory."

"It's not asinine. It's out of the box."

"It is out of the question. Just as is a relationship between you and me."

I flung up my arms. "I'm not trying to have a relationship with you. I didn't invite you into my home. I didn't want you in my shower! And I sure as hell didn't ask to kiss you."

"You did not initiate the kiss—but you most certainly engaged in it." He took a step closer. "Do you expect me to believe the lie that you do not want me? That you have not wanted me from the moment you saw me? And I am not talking only about sex. There is something you crave from me with the same force that pulls me to you. You have twisted logic and thrown away reason to come up with a solution where you and I could be together—together in your world, not mine. Because that is what you always wanted."

"And you always wanted me to become part of your world. You always thought I would change my mind about turning."

"Yes, I did. Just as you always thought I could behave more like a human. And now, you have deluded yourself into making that dream a reality. You would not hesitate to turn me human if given the opportunity. You would not show me the same respect I showed you. At any point, even now, I could make you vampire. Yet your humanity is preserved. By my edict, I preserved your humanity, afforded you the freedom to live your human life removed from threat, to marry the shifter, to bare his children, to exist in complete mundanity and obscurity."

"I do not owe you my life—my children's very existence. You made that edict to show Freyda how loyal you are—not to keep me safe."

"I did it for both reasons, as you well know. Do not pretend we cannot understand each other, Sookie. But that is what you have become—a great pretender. You pretend as if we were never lovers. You pretend as if you never loved me. You pretend that this absurd theory is not about us."

"My theory about what the witches want has no connection to a possible connection between us. Because there isn't any damn connection between us. There hasn't been for over fifty years!"

Eric's face showed me nothing; but in his deep blue eyes a flicker danced, a flame of tenderness or fury, or both. I had to calm myself then, or I'd burst into flames and desires myself. The faults in our relationship had not broken new ground, mirroring the issues of a couple where one wants kids and the other doesn't who decide to marry anyway, falsely believing their mate will change their minds. Only those couples divorced and never had to see each other again. After a few long breaths, I could look him in the eye once more. It was a gaze I knew but had never understood—despite his comments to the contrary.

"Eric, I know I'm onto something here with the human theory," I almost pleaded. "It's like a song I used to know by heart—but whose tune I can no longer whistle."

My turn of phrase reverberated in my mind, possessing a familiar poetry. I began to walk around the room, thinking about those harmonies playing just beyond my reach. I passed by a long mirror and paused. My hair hung wildly around my face—alert despite the hour. Perhaps I was finally adjusting to these midnight adventures. My tan skin dulled against the bulky black of Eric's jacket. I saw the vampire's pale face reflected in the mirror. He had followed me across the room, quiet as moonlight.

"Does it make you afraid that they seek to restore our bond?" he asked my reflection.

"Yes, doesn't it scare you?"

"No," he said simply. "I enjoy a good battle, especially where I am the target. Adds an element of danger."

I couldn't help but smile, a carefree smile, and he smiled one in return. Both of us seemed ready to move on from bitter accusations and useless vitriol.

"There's the Sookie I have been missing. So serious these days. So drab—funny how little words are recycled. They're like your forgotten song."

That was it! My smile widened and I spun around. "It was Alex. He told me on the first night I spoke to him in the clinic that my Fae light was like a forgotten song flowing in my veins."

"And? How do Alex's overwrought words relate to your," eye roll, "theory?"

The giddy grin took a nosedive. "I don't know. There's something here all right. Some piece to the puzzle."

"You believe music now will be a critical piece of their plan?"

"No, not music literally, but this idea about—I don't know, harmony or something, between humans and supernaturals. Alex keeps talking about connecting blood genes, about my blood containing the blood of all supernaturals—but he's a science guy." My eyes studied Eric, what would it be like if I was right? What if in order to find this, this harmony the witches planned to make the dead come alive—to make Eric truly alive? To feel his cold skin become warm? To hear his heart beat and his lungs inflate as I laid my ear to his chest? To know his thoughts? Not serpentine splashes of icy images that I had experienced from time to time over the years—but his real, undimmed mind? What would I do, even for one night, with a human Eric?

I stopped studying him and really looked at him. He had been watching me, a patience to his pose. Those eyes, those lips, that face. He'd somehow moved closer to me without my notice. My heart gave me the answer before my mind had caught up, pounding with a different kind of melody for a different kind of song. Maybe I hadn't formed the theory with this as my design, at least not consciously, but there remained little doubt now as I considered it, that a human Eric would give me permission to feel things I had believed were sealed off forever, things I had left broken, and had buried, building my life on top of the hidden ruins. These things from years ago that a healing of our bond would unearth in seconds, whether he were vampire or human. The things that scared me about as much as this coven witch.

Eric inhaled then, maybe for the first time since we had been locked up together. "Sookie, do you know what I have always wished you would stop pretending—above all else, but especially now?" He opened his gaze to me, the soft, enchanting light of last night in them. "That you would stop pretending you are in any way ordinary."

I knew it was going to happen now. And I didn't stop it. I didn't put my hand on his chest to slow his approach, or thwart his intent by moving away or quip some snarky refusal. This wasn't just about sex—although my body was responding with the usual quickening of my blood and the puddling of my desire at the base of my core. I let him kiss me because I wanted to kiss him.

No one could kiss like Eric. No one even came close. And the more I lost myself to the soft enticings of his tongue, the cool pressure of his mouth, the sweet nips of his fangs on my bottom lip, I lost control of my fire. It ignited in my veins and grew in my blood until it engulfed me, engulfing Eric. But he didn't move away, his arms held me more tightly, his kissing became more demanding, his entire body wrapped around mine, and we burned together. "Sookie," he moaned, letting out a primal, animal growl. He was tearing his clothes off with one hand, clawing into me with the other. I opened my eyes—I wasn't ready for sex. I wasn't ready for what I saw. I tried to shove him away. It was useless.

"Eric! Eric!" My pleading and beating fists did nothing, but my fire dying drew him away. It was as if he hadn't been able to feel his flesh melting and his skin blistering while he had been in my embrace. His blue eyes glowed shockingly against the red of his burned face, wide with surprise and pain. He staggered back, breaking to his knees. He whispered my name again as he collapsed flat on the floor.

No time! No time! I rushed over to those spiky, metal flowers on the coffee table—the ones I had imagined using in my hate fantasy of Freyda. I dropped beside Eric, heaved him onto his back and jammed the sharp end into my wrist. My blood dripped onto his still, charred lips.

"Drink you idiot. Damn you drink."

I shoved my wrist right onto his mouth, smearing my weeping blood across his teeth. I felt his parched tongue scratch my wrist first, relief speeding over me, then his fangs cut into my flesh. That same sensation of warmth, of the tickling of the sun's rays across chilled skin, of life somehow trapped inside a closed fist, raced alongside my blood as the vampire drank from me. Mesmerized by the feeling, as much as the miracle of healing on Eric's skin, I almost let him suck too long.

"Eric," I said weakly, the world panning in and out of focus. His hushed name on my lips had been enough and the vampire unhooked his fangs. In one swift motion, I was cradled in his arms and he was walking across the room.

I blinked up at him. "Where are you going?"

He smiled, mischief in his eye, as he read my mind. "Not to bed, Sookie. Even I'm not that horny for you. At least give me ten minutes before I am." He set me gently in a sitting position on the huge sofa. "You need to drink, too."

I knew he wasn't talking about another Diet Coke.

"I just need to go to bed." An arched brow. "My bed."

"Alex gave you your granddaughter's car key, right?"

So that's what it was. I pulled the key from my pocket and noticed for the first time that my jacket—or his jacket—was singed. I rolled my gaze once over my outfit, fairly untouched considering, and then at the stringy, charred remains of his. Fortunately (or unfortunately) the tank top he'd been wearing had taken the worst of the fire. His leather pants were more smoke damaged than burned.

"Why did Alex slip me the key—like it was a secret?"

"I hadn't planned on things going the way they did. I had intended on telling you about the witches' plot to bind us tonight, regardless of you figuring it out on your own, with the goal of persuading you to bond with Pam, or Alex. But after watching Alex drink from you, after kissing you." He groaned indecently. "Freyda was right. I grew too jealous and hoped if I said nothing of the who until the moment of bonding, I could work out a way to be the one to bond with you. There were and are too many confounding variables. As a precaution, I gave Alex the key on the drive over."

"Why Alex and not you?" I didn't know if I was asking these questions because I cared or because I wanted to keep him from trying to feed me blood—his, Pam's, any vampire's blood—I wanted none of it. It seemed to be working.

"You trust him more than me, or so it appears." Eric smiled softly. "I wanted you to have a way home if necessary. I wasn't sure how Freyda would react to you should you shine, as you did. I needed to remain by her side. All things considered, I'd say she handled it well."

"Pam and you had to hold her off."

"Yes, well, she is young by comparison. You cannot begin to appreciate the gift Alex has in keeping his desires in check."

"Pam did alright."

"Pam likes you; Freyda despises you."

"You know, I don't think that's entirely my fault. I'd despise me too if..." I didn't know how to finish the sentence, and was reluctant to delve into the personal quagmire of our relationship again, but Eric picked up the baton with ease and style.

"It wasn't as cut and dry as Freyda suggested. It's true, that up until the cartel's attempt on her life and crown, I was living a half-life of sorts. Do you know how long I looked at your wedding picture that Pam sent? Until I had it emblazoned in my memory. I had to burn it of course. But it is there still. Occasionally I call it forth and remember the white of your dress against the gold of your skin. I needed the thrill of a battle to help me remember why I loved my life as a vampire. You had changed me more than you know, Sookie, but I had truly let you go—despite my occasional dalliances into diner fantasy—for the last several decades. Freyda understands this. That is not why she despises you."

I leaned my head back—I really was drained, but the Viking was in a chatty, honest mood—I wasn't about to press the brakes on that trip. "I don't understand your marriage, Eric."

"Vampire marriages are not like human marriages. We are not driven by the same whims."

"Whatever you say."

"I tried to explain this to you the other night in the car. My relationship with the Queen is complicated—think of it like two allied nations—or even two hostile nations, but whose fates are tied to the other. Mutually assured destruction as well as mutually beneficial interests."

"It should be simpler than that."

"So should kissing, but you don't hear me complaining."

"Maybe you should be."

He sniffed me suddenly and bounced a finger on the tip of my nose. "I was becoming sensitized to your new scent, mastering my mind and desires in your presence. It was the second most significant reason I breached your home. Necessary impulses to control if I ever wish to finally untangle what I feel for you versus what I want from you."

"You don't know?" I asked, holding my breath.

"Do you?" he asked in reply. "When you are not angry with me? When you are not feeling guilty? When it is just a question of me and you—can you say how you feel and what you want?"

"Life isn't a vacuum Eric—or the Bachelor. We don't get to pause every thing else and pretend the only question that matters is who we want to choose."

"Sookie, do you know that you remain the only woman in all of my existence to choose another lover over me?" I moved my eyes to the side but not my head. "Freyda despises you for that reason."

"I didn't choose Sam—"

"We will never agree on this, but the fact is that you stole from Freyda the triumph of my choosing her out and out. No matter what happened after; no matter how devoted I am now; no matter my renewal of our vows a year and a half ago—you stole from her that first choice. She can never be certain."

"Certain of what?"

No reply. Eric kept shifting positions beside me, crossing and uncrossing his legs, wagging his foot, rapping his hands on the cushions. His eyes darting around the room. So distracted he hadn't hounded me to take vampire blood. Answering my questions as sweetly as if we discussed the weather. If I didn't know better, I'd say he was juicing.

And then I realized—he was. A giggle I could not control bubbled up from my belly, and I curled over, clutching my sides. Tears leaked from my eyes—not the painful ones of earlier when I had learned about Sam and Grace, but freely flowing happy tears.

Eric was laughing too—because that's what stoned people do when the company around them suddenly bursts into laughter. That thought just made me giggle harder. I was so spent in every which way—my body and brain and soul. I was drunk from exhaustion; he was drunk from me.

"Sookie," he whispered into my ear, "would you like to fly?"

The next moment, I was. My stomach fluttered into my diaphragm. My hair lifted up in a cloud. Eric held me flush against his body, spinning up and down the tall, arched room as a bottle rocket in motion. Screams of fear and delight rippled from my throat. The twirling ceased and I opened my eyes. We hovered high above the floor, Eric's blonde hair brushing against the ceiling. He barred me to him with one arm around my back, while the hand from his free arm combed my hair from my face and titled up my chin. He licked my face from jaw to cheek, licked my neck along the pulsating vein, slowly lowering us to the carpet.

"Drink from me, Sookie. They are going to bind us again. Let it be your choice and not theirs. Let me know whether you are safe."

Our feet landed on the ground; his hold tightened. He was licking me on the other side of my neck; the wet of his tongue a strange and sensual pleasure on my skin. "I don't even need to bite you right now. To taste your skin while your blood runs through me is already ecstasy."

Which was why I really needed to go. My choice was not to bond. My choice was to find another way. I shunned his touch, turning away from his mouth, and he immediately released me. This was not healthy. We were not good for each other. What had come over me? He was married! I wasn't that woman. I would never be that woman—no matter how weird and apparently "open" his marriage was. There had been too much—again—piled on top of me, one heaping, steaming pile of supernatural manure. And Eric had promised escape—a messy, dirty, carnal escape.

"Eric, I fried you like breaded chicken minutes ago—and you're still coming back for more?' I rubbed my eyes. "Maybe you were right. Maybe I do want you to be human. Because it's true. A relationship between us—ignoring the fact that you are married. And no, don't say that your wife gave you a green light to bed me, because I already know. I heard it myself. But a relationship between us as it stands is messed up as hell."

He shoved his hands in those tight pockets—he almost appeared sober, but for that toe of his that tapped about ten times a second. "If you refuse to bond, then I'd like you to stay. Sunrise is fast approaching. Joe has many daytime protections. I would rest knowing you were secure."

"The safest place for me to be is my home. The solstice isn't until tonight."

I walked past him, and unlocked the door. For a moment I hesitated from leaving. "Goodbye, Mrs. Merlotte," Eric said, and I yanked open the door and flew down the hall.

The other vampires and humans partied on as I emerged from the mirrored doorway; the humans' inner voices hitting me with the force of a jet stream after so many hours passed in the blissful silence of vampiric minds. I didn't see Pam or Alex—they must have called it a night. Joe came up to me as I rushed through the crowd, and offered me the same invitation that Eric had made. It was easier to deny the host his hospitality, and I politely begged him to have the valet bring Grace's car around, assuring him he would have his loaner car returned as soon as possible and handing him my granddaughter's key. Ever the gentleman, he waved at my words and kissed me silkily on the cheek. "Safe travels, darling," he whispered in my ear in that iconic, ambiguous accent.

In the drive, the enlarged umpa-lumpa arrived within minutes and I hopped into Grace's hovercar. My eyes ached with sleepiness and my heart with knowledge; my fingers fumbled as I typed in my own address, the digits newly fat and uncoordinated. The car lurched into auto mode and the giant mansion disappeared into the lightening sky. Soon the hum of the engine and the flow of the tires on pavement rocked me to sleep. The rest was dreamless and timeless; it could have been five minutes or twenty five minutes, I would never know.

The crack of the tree trunk on the hood and the scream of the glass as pine branches shattered the windshield woke me up right before the thrust of the crash pulled me back into a darker, deeper sleep. My last thought as I lost consciousness was that I still hadn't brought home a Christmas tree.

Note: Welp. I'd love to hear your thoughts and theories. Thanks for the reviews.