A/N: Howdy! I have SE22 done and CTD10 getting there. I will update later this week, probably Thursday. If CTD is done and betaed, I will post that. Otherwise, Chapter 22. Which I think is kinda fun. :P Thanks to ilovemysteries for betaing! She's swell.

Chapter 21

Eric and Sookie moved back to their bedroom. They made love again, and then lay in each other's arms. Sookie sighed.

"I want you all the time. It just doesn't stop."

"I would say that that's because you're so young, but I feel the same way."

He kissed her again. He had lost yet another night's work the evening before, but he was reluctant to get up yet. Everything felt so tenuous. He couldn't lose her, too. But he had so much to do.

"Bobby will be arriving in a little over an hour. I will need to glamour him to forget. Maybe a shower, first…?"

They managed to get clean in the time allotted. Barely. And she was curled up in Eric's chair with a dreamy smile on her face when Bobby arrived.

Eric walked into the living room and headed for his dayman. He planned to glamour him and get it over with. He didn't like having Bobby in the house. Or even knowing where it was.

"Eric. Wait."

He paused, and Sookie got hold of Bobby's mind first. What do you know about the wrinkled man?

There was nothing.

Bobby, who told you to set the fire?

Nothing but a hole where the memory should have been.

Why did you set it?

It was the same question she'd asked last time. She expected the same answer — nothing but emptiness, a feeling of revulsion, and a thought about someone's skin. Presumably Waldo's, according to Eric.

Instead, she got a faint, watery picture of a wrinkled and gaunt man with snow white hair. But that was where the resemblance to her great-grandfather ended. He was ghoulish. As much as she could see of his skin, it looked almost like her fingertips did after a really long soak in the tub, only so much worse. Something about the image niggled at her brain, but she couldn't place why.

Sookie was really confused. Why hadn't this memory come up before? Could she even trust it? Where did it come from? Or where had it gone the evening before when she'd read his mind?

What did you do before you set the fire?

Bobby was in his car. She recognized Eric's neighbourhood.

What did you do before that?

He was at a convenience store. There was a bottle of Jack Daniels and a newspaper in front of him on the counter. He asked the cashier for a book of matches.

Before that, Bobby.

They went backwards through time, watching snippets of that day and the night before, all in reverse order. He went to the bank. He drank some coffee and ate a piece of toast. He brushed his teeth and his hair. He used the bathroom. He got out of bed. He got back in and closed his eyes. He got in the car somewhere else and drove home. He was at a restaurant, on a date. He excused himself and went to the bathroom. And then nothing. Just a big blank nothing at all.

Bobby, what happened in the restaurant bathroom?

The image of the same wrinkled vampire. So much more elusive and hard to see than his other memories. Again, something nagged at her brain, but she couldn't catch hold. She also heard a voice. It was rough and raspy. It said, "It is done, your majesty." And then a click, like a cell phone closing.

Before that was only the conversation at the restaurant and then arriving separately. Sookie changed course a little.

What did you do before you came here tonight, Bobby?

They relived Bobby's comings and goings from earlier that day, forward but in reverse order once again. Arriving here, the police station, errands, phone calls, lunch, Eric's insurance agent, a coffee shop. She decided to change course. And direction.

Bobby, think about what happened after you left here last night.

This time, it all played out like a movie or a tv show. He got in his car, made some notes on a legal pad, and drove away. A few miles down the road, he saw flashing red and blue lights in his rearview. "Shit." He put on his signal light and pulled over. He took a gun out his pants at the small of his back and shoved it in a hidden compartment under his console, careful not to lean over or move his head and arouse suspicion. And he was really fucking glad that he'd left his vial of coke at home.

He looked in the rearview mirror again, but the cop was backlit by the police car's headlights. He could only see a silhouette walking towards him. He thought that it might be a woman, but it was really hard to tell. Sookie couldn't, either.

And then, nothing. Sookie tried to go at it from several different angles. She tried to reword the questions and then made him think about different parts of the memory. Could you tell what the cop was wearing? Did you hear anything? Smell anything? Do you remember how you felt? What happened next? What did they look like?

Finally, Sookie asked, Do you remember anything they said?

Bobby thought of a woman's voice. She had just a bit of an accent that Sookie couldn't quite place. She was almost sure that it was the same woman who'd spoken to Hadley, but it didn't sound exactly the same. And it still didn't sound like Sophie-Anne to her, either. But that sort of thing depended so much on the hearer's memory, along with the physiological factors and tastes and feelings and experiences and prejudices that affect the way a person hears and processes different sounds. Or the way they see and process different images, for that matter. And the finer the detail, the more unreliable the memory.

Besides, she was a vampire and Hadley and Bobby weren't. Their memories were shaped by the limitations of their bodies and minds, so that was all that she could see and hear when she was in their heads. She wondered if the lack of those complexities and nuances that she'd heard in the queen's voice, along with the flawed nature of human memories in general, wasn't masking the similarities between their memories, each other's, and hers.

The voice said, "...and then stake the telepath."

What did she say before that?

But no matter how she worded it or what she asked, she couldn't get anything else. Sookie finally spoke out loud. "Do you have a stake, Bobby?"

He nodded.

"Is it here?"

He shook his head.

"When were you supposed to stake me?"

"Tomorrow. During the day. After you had a chance to talk to Eric tonight."

Eric, wound up like a spring, started growling deep in his throat. He looked like he was a moment away from ripping Bobby apart. She got up and took Eric's hand.

"I know you set the fire, Bobby. I knew last night. If she knows that I'm a telepath, she should have figured that out, too. What if Eric fired you and took your key?"

"Then I was to break in tomorrow afternoon. If I couldn't turn off the alarm, wait for security. Tell them it was an emergency and I didn't have my keys and forgot my passcode. They all know me. If they turned off the alarm and left, I would stake you. If they got suspicious and kicked me out, I would leave and wait for further instructions."

It was all right there in his head, but his marching orders had no sounds or images to go with them.

"What if Eric just killed you instead?"

Bobby shrugged.

"We're going to glamour away your memories. She would know that we would. How would you even know where to find us?"

Bobby thought of pulling back out onto the street, the blue and red flashers still in his rearview mirror. He drove home and went inside. He sat down at a desk and took paper and a pen out of a drawer and wrote something down.

"What does it say, Bobby?"

It was Pam's address. And, underneath, Stake the blonde bitch in the heart. Leave the big guy. He took the stake out of his pocket and set it on top.

She wished she knew just exactly what to ask to get whatever was left, hiding amongst the empty spaces where his memories should have been. She glamoured away his orders to kill her, and gave instructions to destroy the paper and stake.

She sighed and pulled out of his brain. She would let Eric do the final glamour. She looked up at him and squeezed his hand. His rage didn't scare her tonight. "I think I got all I can. It still isn't his fault, Eric. He isn't going to kill me now."

"And what about next time?"

She shrugged. "He isn't useful any longer. She might kill him, but I doubt she'd use him again."

"But someone wants to kill you. I can protect you against other vampires, but not during the day." Whomever it was had already ended one of his children. They would not get another.

She laughed a little. "Look on the bright side, baby. A couple of days ago, they wanted to kill both of us."

When Eric took hold of Bobby's mind, before he started erasing his memories, Sookie again yelled, "Wait!"

She walked over to Bobby and pulled the collar of his shirt away from his neck. He hadn't been bitten, but he had been bruised.

"Who choked you, Bobby?"

The red and blue lights in the rearview mirror.

"Why did she hurt you?"

"You lived. She couldn't figure out how you both survived."

"What did you tell her?"

"Nothing. I don't know how you did it, either."

She asked everything she could think of, but couldn't get anything else. She wondered if all glamour left pieces behind for her to find. She wondered how much she was missing. Eric made Bobby forget, took his key, and sent him home with instructions to destroy anything pertaining to his employment.

She took Eric's hand again and dragged him over to the oversized chair. He sat down and she sat on his lap and put her head on his shoulder and told him everything that she'd found out.

She looked up at him. "I don't understand how she knew you wouldn't just kill him tonight."

"I don't think that she did. But he left unscathed last night. I'm sure she felt it was worth a try. And I'm sure she wasn't counting on you being able to see any of what she'd glamoured away. I wouldn't have." She was extraordinary. And his.

"Do you think it's the queen?"

He sighed. "I don't know. I still hope it isn't.

"She knows I'm a telepath."

He laughed a little. "Everyone knows you're a telepath, Sookie. Sophie-Anne announced it in court with a dozen vampires hanging on her every word. News like that would have spread like wildfire. I'm sure every vampire in Louisiana has heard of you by now. And many more from elsewhere.

She'd tried to keep it a secret all her life, at least from most people. Now, apparently, everyone knew. And at least one vampire wanted her dead.

He kissed her. Now that he'd calmed down, he had everything under control. "I will keep you safe, Sookie. And, speaking of which, our location has been compromised. Go and pack your things."