A/N: Well, howdy! I have been a planning machine, and have honest-to-goodness vague outline-type-things laid out! For everything! I have 800 words written of both BSC 15 and SE 25, 455 of CTD 35, and 1300 of BAS 3 or 4. My muse is being lovely, and I REALLY hope that it will happily go along with my evening plans of writing in the tub with a glass of wine and a not insignificant amount of weed.

Chapter 2

Sookie pulled around back and parked the car. She looked over and noticed that he was still glowing. It hadn't just been the headlights reflecting on his pale skin.

She plucked at the blanket. "Come on. Let's get inside where it's warm and we can figure out what to do next."

He followed her up to the back porch, but couldn't go any farther.

"Huh. I'm sorry. I guess I wasn't specific enough. Please, come in."

He was a little hesitant, but he followed her into the kitchen.

She noticed that he was walking a little gingerly, and she saw a spot of blood on the old linoleum in the middle of a dirty footprint. The cuffs of his jeans were wet and frayed and coated with mud.

She frowned and pulled a kitchen chair out from the table. "You're hurt. Please. Sit down and I'll get you all fixed up." She hesitated for a second or two and then sighed, blushing. "And your pants are filthy. I can wash them for you, if you like."

She'd heard that vampires were all really into sex. Hell, she had seen it herself in several girls' thoughts at work. And a couple of guys', too. But he just slid off his jeans and handed them to her. He wasn't remotely modest, standing there in nothing but a tiny pair of stretchy red briefs, wrapped in an old afghan, but he still just looked apprehensive. Not like he was thinking about sex at all.

She couldn't really say the same.

She pulled out a pan and put it in the kitchen sink and ran the tap until it got hot. She adjusted the temperature and started filling it up. While she waited, she went out onto the back porch and threw his jeans in the washer. She would make sure that they were clean and dry before sunset, just in case.

He was sitting down when she went back into the kitchen. She turned off the sink and placed the pan of water on the floor next to his feet and sat down beside it. She picked up his left foot and winced. It was large and so pale that it was almost white, and ice cold. He had gravel embedded in the skin and a dirty cut that looked very deep. She placed that foot in the water, and then the other. It didn't look much better.

She wanted to let them soak, at least for a minute or two, and she looked up at him. He had his eyes closed and he seemed to be enjoying the feeling of the hot water on his feet very much. He kind of looked like how she felt when she slid into a bubble bath after a long shift at work.

She picked up one foot and gently cleared away the stones and debris from his sole. The deep cut had gravel and dirt embedded in it, and it looked really nasty.

"I'm sorry. This is probably going to hurt, but I really need to get this cleaned out."

She was as gentle as she could be. She heard him make a bit of a short gasp through his teeth when she had to dig a little deeper to make sure it was clean, but he didn't pull away, or even flinch.

As soon as she had it all rinsed out, she watched the cut heal, fascinated. She gently placed that foot back in the water and pulled out the other. There was a layer of stones and sediment in the bottom of the pot.

She cleaned his other foot and then patted them both dry with the dishtowel she'd thrown over her shoulder. When she glanced up at him, he was looking down at her, and she wasn't sure what the look on his face meant. At least he no longer looked afraid of her, but whatever it was, it made her feel… some kind of way. She blushed and stood up and dumped out the pan and quickly washed it and put it upside down in the dish drainer. Better to be busy than to think too hard about that.

She stuck her tongue out and looked at it in her reflection in the window over the sink. She couldn't see much detail, but it looked bad enough without it , and it hurt like hell. It was still trickling blood now and again, and the cut was really deep. She shuddered and pushed the thoughts about it aside. This wasn't the time. She turned around and leaned against the counter.

"A vampire lived next door for about a week before he went missing or moved on a few months back." Or, more likely, he was drained and killed by a couple of scuzzbuckets. But this wasn't the time for that, either. "Maybe he's got someplace safe to sleep in there. Or there's a graveyard in between the two houses, if you want to sleep underground…"

His eyes dropped and he looked apprehensive again. She thought for a couple of minutes, sighed, and then went outside to the shed. The vampire followed her, still wrapped in her old blanket. She winced at his poor bare feet on the gravel again, not to mention his lack of clothes, but he didn't seem to want to be left alone, and she didn't have any shoes big enough for him to wear.

She was glad that Gran had hounded Jason into running electricity out to the toolshed. She found everything that she was looking for easily and handed the vampire a cordless drill and a box of three inch screws. The wall would need to be patched down the road, but she didn't want to take any chances. She gathered up a couple more things and carried them inside and upstairs to the attic. She set it down and went right back downstairs again for some more stuff. She knew that if she stopped to rest, even for five minutes, her back would stiffen up and her feet would start to throb and she would remember just exactly how exhausted she was. Worse, there would be nothing to distract her from how painful and swollen her tongue was.

He had been three steps behind her the whole time. He no longer looked frightened, or even really needy, but he still seemed to want to stick close to her.

The attic was next to Jason's old bedroom upstairs, and it was full of old furniture and cast offs from who knew how many Stackhouses down the line. There was only one window, and she wiped the cobwebs out as best she could with a rag she found on an old sideboard. She shook the can of spray paint she'd brought in from the shed and popped off the cap. She sprayed a heavy coat of black enamel paint, completely covering the bottom pane and trim, making sure to get it in all the grooves and corners. She shook the can again and handed it to him, gesturing at the top pane with her chin. When he finished, there didn't look to be any gaps or holes. She nodded, pleased.

She set up the step ladder from the kitchen, stuck a few screws in her mouth, very careful not to touch her tongue, and grabbed the cordless drill. She climbed up and gestured at the bunch of things on the floor that she'd gathered together.

"Hen eh hf de pup, peth?"

Between the screws and the tongue, he couldn't understand a thing she said. He raised an eyebrow, the corner of his lip twitching. "Excuse me?"

She sighed in exasperation, but couldn't help but think just how ridiculous this situation was. All of it. She started to giggle, but the pain put a quick end to that. She winced, and then tried again. Slower, this time.

"Fem ah hef fa thop, pwee?"

He still looked confused. She raised her eyebrows, pleading a little, and pointed a bit more emphatically. "Faahp?"

He grinned and picked up the blue tarp. He raised his eyebrows, too, in question. She nodded in relief. He shook it out and held it in place while she sunk screws every couple of inches around the window frame, making sure to pull it tight as she went to avoid any gaps.

She climbed down and went over to the far corner where she dug around a little bit, looking through the camping supplies. She shoved a bedroll under her arm and grabbed a sleeping bag in each hand and carried them to an old dining room table. She laid out the pad underneath and unrolled the sleeping bags.

She pulled two quilts and an old wool blanket out of a cedar chest and then went next door into Jason's old room and rummaged around in his closet. Finally, she thought that she had everything that she needed to get this taken care of. The exhaustion was really catching up to her now, but she just had to keep pushing through until everything that needed doing got done. Even if it was making her run around like a chicken with her head cut off in the meantime.

"Ok, I really hope this works. I put two sleeping bags in there so you can pull one up the regular way and the other down over top so there aren't any gaps. It'll be hot and stuffy, but at least you don't have to breathe. You can drape these quilts over the table so they hang down to block out more light, and you can shove this blanket against the gap under the door. It isn't fancy, but I think it will all keep you safe, at least for today."

She sounded terrible and hurt worse, but there was nothing to be done for it. She pointed to an old pair of sweatpants, a ratty t-shirt, and a pair of socks on her grandfather's old desk.

"I left you some clothes. I know they aren't fancy, and they're my brother's, so they're going to be way too small, but it's all I've got. I'll run into Clarice tomorrow for some synthetic blood and clothes and shoes and things, and then we'll figure out what to do next. Hopefully Walmart will be open, even if it's a holiday."

If this vampire kept wearing nothing but a skimpy pair of underwear around the house, she was afraid that she might jump him in desperation. He was almost as beautiful as his quiet mind, and a million times more sexy. And she wasn't a twenty-six-and-a-half year old virgin because she wanted to be.

The vampire's smile looked absolutely genuine, even though his eyes still looked vulnerable. But she thought that he trusted her, even after such a short time. It reminded her a little of how baby ducks imprinted on the first person they saw, whether it was their real mother or not. But her feelings sure as hell didn't feel motherly, although she did kind of want to take care of him.

"Thank you, Sookie. For everything."

The adrenaline that had been pushing her to push herself was all used up, the sun would be rising soon enough, and her bed was calling her name. She couldn't help but yawn, and then moaned in pain before she pulled herself together.

"I'll just be downstairs if you need me. I'm the first bedroom down the hall, across from the bathroom. I really hope that I did enough to keep the sun…"

"Please. Do not worry. It will do perfectly."

She was very glad. It wasn't like she had the time or energy to do any more. "Well, good night. Or good day? Good morning?"

He smiled. "Good rest."

God, he was gorgeous. Her heart did a weird kind of thump. Her smile was shy, all of a sudden. "Oh. Well, good rest, then." She bit her lip and waved a little and reminded him not to forget the crack under the door.

It had been one hell of a crazy night, and she was just too beat to shower, even if she did smell like old beer and spray paint and fried food and attic dust. She let her hair down and scrubbed off her makeup and very gingerly brushed her teeth and took some Tylenol for her head and her tongue. She changed into her Tweety Bird nightie, but then she changed her mind and tried the old cream flannel with the faded blue flowers and fraying ribbons instead. That wasn't right, either.

This was ridiculous. She rolled her eyes at her presumption. It wasn't like he would see her in it anyway. He was upstairs in the attic for the day, and she wasn't going to stay in her nightie until sunset. And why should she care if he did see her? She was going to call the vampire bar the next evening and he would likely be gone shortly thereafter. She would probably never see him again.

She didn't like the way that that made her stomach clench. She'd lost Gran and Jason and Sam, all in different ways, and all in the past year. She had been so incredibly lonely and she didn't want it to make her weak. She didn't want to want him. She didn't want to get attached and lose him, too. She changed into the other nightdress anyhow.

There was nothing overtly sexual about it. In fact, it was loose and old-fashioned and practically covered her from neck to ankle. But it was also pretty and soft and flowy with only a few embellishments that kept it from being plain. It was white cotton with a ribbon gently gathering the wide square neck, and a small, gauzy flounce at the hem and wrists. Very Victorian. Romantic, almost. The kind of dress a maiden would wear in one of her more risque romance novels, right before she was deflowered by the rakish stranger. And here, there was a rakish stranger right upstairs, and she was ripe for deflowering. She rolled her eyes at herself again, but she didn't change. She climbed into bed and closed her eyes and tried to just concentrate on nothing.

It didn't work. Her tongue was damn near screaming at her, she was stiff and sore, her head ached, there was a strange man in her attic (who just happened to be a heart-stoppingly gorgeous vampire amnesiac), her best friend was moving away in just a couple of hours, she still wasn't speaking to her brother, who was the only family she had left, and she was almost certainly going to be out of a job sooner than later. She tried to just not give a shit about any of it tonight, and to pack up her pain and fear and worry (and, apparently, horniness) into a box so she could fall asleep. She tossed and turned and sighed and flipped over her pillow, but nothing was working. She curled up into a ball and decided to just feel sorry for herself for a little while, and maybe the poor pitiful Pearl routine would tire her out enough to get to sleep.

A few minutes later, she felt the covers lifting up and a cool body slid into the bed behind her. She hadn't even heard him come into the room. Her body stiffened. His did, too.

"Please. Do not be afraid. I promise that I will not harm you, or touch you if you do not want to be touched. It's just that I hate that you are in so much pain and unable to sleep. And…" He sighed, a little embarrassed. "And because I do not want to be alone, at least for a little while longer. You make me feel safe."

A vampire had just crawled into bed with her. A huge and powerful stranger whom she had foolishly let into her home of her own free will. He was next door to naked and one scootch away from being the big spoon. If he wanted to hurt her or rape her or kill her, she wouldn't be able to do one thing about it. She was scared to death. But, God help her, not in the way that she should be.

She turned over to look at him. There was vulnerability in his eyes, and it softened her heart and made her almost forget about how freaked out she was. His smile was so sincere that she couldn't help but smile back. And the idea that little old her could do anything to protect this huge superhuman hunk of (dead) man was ridiculous, but he still looked like he was expecting the sky to start falling any minute, and that she was somehow the only one who could keep the damn thing in place. And she kind of wanted to be the one to protect him and keep him safe.

He brushed a piece of hair out of her face. "You have done so much for me. Please. Let me do something for you."

He leaned forward, and she meant to pull away. She didn't know this guy. He could be a predator. Well, scratch that. Of course he was a predator. That fact wasn't even in question. But he could so easily hurt her. This could all be some sort of trick or con. He could break her heart, or worse. Despite her brain trying hard to slam on the brakes and pull on the reins and shift hard into reverse, she closed her eyes and leaned forward, too.

He kissed her then, softly, but soon deepened it, his tongue caressing hers. His mouth tasted good. It was cool, and both salty and sweet at the same time. She gently cupped his cheek with the hand that wasn't pinned underneath her and kissed him back.

She had only kissed a handful of guys, but it had never been pleasant. Even with Sam, who was cute and sweet and hard to read and one of her very favourite people. But this vampire was a masterful kisser. And, for the first kiss ever, the only thoughts in her head were her own. Her body turned to jello, but with a hot and throbbing core.

He pulled away and she was frozen in place with her eyes closed and her mouth soft, her lips slightly parted.

He slid back out of bed. "There. Your tongue should feel much better now. It is nearly dawn, and I must go to my rest."

She opened her eyes. He smiled sweetly at her and left the room to go back up to the attic. She was kind of in a daze, and blinked several times. She touched her lips with her fingers, almost like she couldn't believe that it had happened. But he was right. Her tongue felt perfectly fine.