A/N: Sorry about the disappearing act. I finished BSC and then kind of crashed for a bit. I had to decompress and take a few days off. But I am back again!

Chapter 14

After Pam and Eric had arrived back at his home the night before, Pam had filled him in on what else had happened in Area Five during his absence. He had spoken very little and didn't tell her what the girl had said, even when Pam had asked. He'd sat in his blood red club chair, deep in thought, with his elbows on the armrests and his fingers steepled in front of him.

Just before sunrise, he'd picked up his cell phone and went outside. After he'd returned a short time later, he'd headed straight downstairs. She'd followed. She was so curious, but he hadn't said another word before they went to their rests.

When she rose a half an hour or so before sunset the next evening, she saw that her maker was still lying next to her, deep in thought. He no longer looked angry or sullen, but the smugness was still there. There was cunning and mischief as well. She knew that he would say more if she kept her mouth shut, so she held her tongue and did some thinking of her own. The anticipation was killing her, but she could be very patient. He broke before she did.

"We need to find out who has been stealing from Fangtasia."

She looked over at him, confused. It had seemingly come from nowhere. What was a few thousand dollars in the grand scheme of things, with everything else that had happened since the beginning of the year? But this wasn't the time for confrontation.

"Of course, Eric. I will call the accountant-"

"No. I will take care of the investigation."

Pam blinked. She had done what she could, but she'd had to deal with the witches, along with running the bar and doing the mountains of paperwork that being acting sheriff required. She'd hardly had any time to spend with her pets. He had so many things that he needed to catch up on. And, as far as she was concerned, the first of which should be telling her what he'd been doing for the past three weeks, other than the girl.

When the silence had stretched until nearly first dark, she gave in and looked over at him.

"You remember nothing of your time with her?"

He gave her a sly grin. "Nothing before last night. But I was able to have her twice before she realized that I had gotten my memories back. She is an incredible lover and tastes better than any human I've ever tasted. I must have her again."

Pam rolled her eyes. "And…?"

Eric sighed. "She told me that I was running on the road in the dark. She stopped to help me and took me back to her home."

"Did she know that you are Vampire?"

"From what I understand, she didn't know when she stopped the car, but did before she took me home."

Pam raised an eyebrow. "That was brave of her. Even stopping for a strange human man in the middle of the night would be dangerous, but to bring a strange vampire home…? That takes balls."

"I can tell that she is… kind. We will be able to use that to our advantage."

Pam snorted. "Of course, her being in love with you doesn't hurt, either. Until it does. And that's even if she'll see you again... Kind or not, she's a little spitfire, isn't she?"

Eric gave her a flat look and continued his story. "She made a secure place for me to rest in her attic by painting and tarping the window and providing coverings. I looked at it right after I rose last night. It was a very effective job, especially on such short notice."

"And what happened then?"

Eric paused for a long moment. Pam raised an eyebrow at him again and he grinned. It was almost a leer. "And then we had sex. Over and over again each night. I only wish that I could remember it. I will have to make up for lost time. Soon, but I can be patient."

Pam sighed. Her maker loved the chase. And, in love with him or not, Pam didn't think that it was going to be as easy to seduce the girl — or manipulate her — as he planned. At least not in the way he was accustomed to. Of course, despite his inevitable frustration, that would make the chase even more appealing.

"It looked like a little more than lots of sex for the Stackhouse girl. And it looked like she had been expecting you to feel the same."

"Yes, according to her, we were very much in love."

Pam smirked a little at the thought. Eric shrugged.

"I was not myself. And it is of no matter. I will use it to serve my own purposes."

Of course he would.

"Did she tell you anything else?"

"No."

Pam knew that there was much more to the story, but she wasn't going to get anything more out of Eric. Knowing her maker, though, she was quite sure that she would be seeing more of this Sookie Stackhouse. Soon. And maybe she would be able to hear the other side of things. But it was time to talk business.

"There are several items at Fangtasia that need your attention. I was able to handle most of the Sheriff duties, but there were some tasks that I was unable to complete. Thalia has been causing problems again and we have lost too many vampires to cover her shifts at the bar. We lost Ginger to the witches and Belinda was hospitalized, but she is recovering. Some kind of compensation might be in order. I have sent flowers, but I wanted to defer to you for anything else. The new wait staff is not fitting in and sales are down thirty-two percent since you disappeared. You need to spend some time on the floor."

He didn't answer. Just as the sun set, he closed his eyes. He could feel her through the blood tie, all the way from Bon Temp to Shreveport. Her loneliness and grief and longing must have been overwhelming for him to be able to feel it from so far away. He smiled, thinking about how easy she would be to manipulate. Her telepathy would prove very useful and he desperately wanted her again. He ignored it when his stomach clenched and his chest felt hollow. It was a reaction to her feelings, not his.

He got up and dressed and walked upstairs, wasting no time. Pam followed him through to the living room. He put his hand on the front door handle and paused.

"I will be busy tonight. Possibly tomorrow, as well."

He went outside and took flight, heading south.

"Eric!"

But he was already out of sight. For at least the millionth time since she'd been turned nearly a century and a half before, she wished like hell that she could fly. And she had thought her maker a jackass just as many.

…

On the way to Bon Temps, Eric plotted a course of action. Before attempting anything else, he would talk to her. Turn on the charm. Endear himself to her again. Then he would have access to her body, blood, and ability, all of which were absolutely incredible.

Although he had been seething at the time, it intrigued him that she had stood up for herself like she had the night before. She had cut him with her words, rescinded their invitations and, frankly, had completely out-manoeuvred him. And he realized that, mixed in with all of her other emotions, he hadn't felt any fear. Even the fangbangers were afraid of them. The danger was part of the allure. But it wasn't like that for her.

He agreed with Pam that she had been very brave, and not just because she had stopped to help him and then taken him in. And also that she was a spitfire. There had been a real spark in her eyes when she had ordered them out of her house. He wanted to know what was behind it.

He landed on the fresh gravel just a few feet from her front porch. There was an overhead light illuminating a swing hanging from the pergola on a pair of chains. A little table beside it held a glass of white wine and there was an afghan draped over the porch rail. It was hideous. The woman… Sookie… was nowhere in sight, although he could still smell hints of her in the air.

The front door opened and she walked out, holding a book and a bowl of ice cream. Her eyes were red and puffy but he couldn't smell any tears. Strangely, she didn't look — or feel — startled or afraid or surprised to see him. Not even angry. Not really.

She exchanged the bowl and the book for the glass and took a long drink of wine before she sat down on the swing. She sighed in resignation.

"What do you want, Eric? I told you that I didn't want to see you again."

He smiled his most charming smile and leaned against the deck railing, keeping it between them to put her at ease.

"The thought of not seeing your beauty again was unacceptable."

She rolled her eyes at him and then drained her glass.

"Cut the bullshit, Eric. Why are you here?"

He had been prepared to take advantage of the emotions that she'd been feeling maybe thirty minutes before, but she'd apparently cried them all out. Mostly, he was disappointed, but she fascinated him. No human who'd known what he was had ever treated him like this before. Like just another man. Strangely, he couldn't help but take it as a compliment rather than an insult, but he couldn't parse out why. He would tuck that away for later.

"They did a very good job with the driveway. It is much improved."

He was surprised when he felt a burst of her anger. Confused. Everything about her was like a puzzle that he couldn't wait to figure out, even if it drove him crazy in the process.

She wanted to say something scathing, but Gran had raised her better than that. She kept almost all of the sarcasm out of her voice.

"Yes. Thank you so much for the lovely new gravel."

She could have led with 'Well, bless your heart,' but she hadn't. And she had thanked him, even if she hadn't completely meant it.

And, deep down, she knew — and appreciated — that it would make her life a little bit better, at least. That it was a nice gesture, even though she knew that it had been self-serving as much as it had been thoughtful. And that it didn't matter that the money could have been better spent elsewhere. She doubted that something like that would have even occurred to him. And she was too proud to accept charity anyway, but she also wouldn't look a gift horse in the mouth. And he had supported a local business. And it wasn't like she could give it back.

She closed her eyes for a moment and took a deep breath and blew it out. When she opened them again, her face had softened. He felt that her heart had a little bit, too.

"Really, though. It was a very thoughtful thing to do. So, thank you."

There was a long, awkward silence, but she held his gaze. Finally, she said, "You still haven't told me why you're here."

Once again, he didn't answer. The silence stretched on. Their eyes were still locked together. Eventually, he spoke first this time.

"Your ice cream is melting."

The day had been unseasonably warm, topping out at eighty degrees. Suddenly, though, she felt cold. Cold and alone, standing right across from the man she used to love. Or, more accurately, she'd loved the man that he used to be. It wasn't fair to him, but his very existence felt like some kind of betrayal. She knew that her Eric could be manipulative and self-centred and he sometimes lacked empathy, but she had accepted him for what he was, just as he'd accepted her.

But this Eric… This Eric was only interested in himself, playing games, and winning. Even though she had all the time in the world right then, she didn't have the energy to deal with his crap. She was finished with his obfuscation and insincerity. Her Eric, even when he'd been trying to manipulate a situation, had still respected her, at least.

Strangely, she thought that this one did, too, but he just didn't want to show it. If he really did want her, she wondered at his delivery. Did he really think that a counterfeit million dollar smile and a new driveway with a side of condescension would be more of a draw than expressing how he really felt? She wondered how much of her Eric was left in this one, burdened as he was with centuries of memories and experiences and living, so to speak, that had shaped what he'd become.

It stung that she couldn't peel those layers away. She felt guilty for even wanting to, denying him the right to exist as his true self, along with all of the baggage that came with it.

It didn't change the fact that she was exhausted and her wounds were very fresh. Especially now, looking into the familiar eyes that were so so different.

"If you aren't going to answer my question, I'm going to go inside. Good night, Eric."

She gathered up the book and the glass and the bowl, with the two soft scoops of rocky road sitting in a puddle of chocolate.

"I will tell you if you invite me in."

She narrowed her eyes and looked at him, hard. The corner of her mouth turned up a bit, but the smile was full of irony.

"You have no idea, do you? You don't know why you're here any more than I do. And did you really think that I'd fall for this? Go home, Eric. Live your life. Death. Whatever. And leave me alone. I'm never going to get over… I'm never going to heal if I have to see you all the time."

She squinted again, examining him, and then the little smile was back. But, despite how she smelled and tasted, she was bitter, and it flooded the blood tie.

"Oh. So that answers that, I suppose. What's at the heart of all of this. You don't want me to get over you. You're either here to make me miserable, to make me fall madly in love with you, or both. Well, I guess that means I'll see you again soon, whether I like it or not. But I'm telling you right now, I am not going to invite you in and I am under no obligation to come out, or even open the door." No matter how horrified Gran would have been at her poor manners.

"I can be very persuasive."

He could. She knew from experience. And she hated that she could almost see her Eric superimposed over this one. In some ways the two Erics were so much alike. In others, they couldn't be more different. This Eric would never look at her the way that hers had. Love her like he had. Her whole life felt like a cruel joke.

She turned her back to him and went inside. Somehow, she managed to slam the door, even with her hands full.

He took flight, heading towards his home in Shreveport. He was angry at her. He was also very excited. As anxious as he was to have her again, he had gotten the response that he'd really wanted, even if he wouldn't really admit it to himself. Between her feelings, her spunk, the blood that they'd shared, the thrill of the hunt, and whatever remnants of their relationship that he seemed to hold inside, he found himself wanting her for far more than just her usefulness. He wanted to fuck her. To taste her. To drain her dry and then fill her again and make her his. And, more than anything, he wanted to prove her wrong. He would not only get an invitation into her home, but into her bed as well. Winning would make her blood taste so much sweeter.

There were other things that he wanted to do to her as well. Things that he had never had any interest in before, especially with a human. He just decided to not think about them. Eventually, it worked, at least for a while.