Thank you so much to all the people that favorite/follow this! I wouldn't be writing without you guys.

Ashies: Would you believe me if I said I actually planned on her coming back and them immediately making up? T.T Idk what happened

Ravensoul93: I feel bad for making it sad even when she came back but I swear that I think it's necessary. *crying* Next chapter will be happy though promise.

ferallahey: Oooohhh a cannibal. I like that.

Black Dragon: I'm so happy you like it! I hope you like this chapter too!


Chapter 39: Steps

My shoulder slammed into the car moments before my body followed the downward trajectory and hit the gravel drive. I groaned, letting gravity take me down and keep me there for a moment. My powers flickered on and off for a moment, lighting my blood to a dull fizzle before dying. Our long gravel walkway was dark, the streetlights still too far away to properly illuminate them. Someone had torn down that god-awful tree that Maryanne had covered in meat and carcasses and now only a stump remained. Fireflies and cicadas buzzing here and there in the humid Lousiana night. I missed Eric's cabin in the woods so acutely than that I wanted to sob. I wanted to cry like a little baby. I wanted to curl into the dirt and stay there until morning came.

"Runa?" A screen door slammed, followed by a gasp and a soft sob. "Oh my god, Runa!"

"Shit!" Feet scraped along the gravel, kicking up dirt and rock and I was being lifted, my hair pushed away from my forehead as Sookie and Jason hauled me up. "Fuck, let me get her inside."

"I - I'll start a bath-" My head spun dully at Tara's familiar voice and the glare of porchlights and lamps and the smell of a roast that had been put on the stove.

Something about it all… something about it all felt… hollow.

I pulled away, barely able to hold myself up, my nails digging into the porch siding. My hip hit the hard wood with a thunk, my eyes finally focusing enough to take in the fresh exterior. From what I could see of the stairwell in front of the door, the living room just around the bend, my sister and brother had spent a lot of time getting it back to the way it had been before. My stomach still rolled, a sense of gut-clenching dread creeping along my spine.

"What are you doing, Rune?" Jason whispered, his arms wrapping back around my waist. "Come on."

"You look starved," Sookie breathed, following behind us. "What did - what did they do to you?"

I tried not to stare too hard at the new wallpaper, fresh and white. There was new furniture too - a new couch, new lamps and tv and a new dining room table because - because the kitchen had been - it had been covered in blood. Maryann liked to cook and have people tear off limbs in there. My breath was coming too fast. I felt cold and hot all at once, shaky and feverish. I tore my eyes away from there, trying to draw in a breath and keep it down.

This had been a bad idea.

It wasn't - this didn't feel like home anymore.

I felt the sob start to clench up my organs, tearing at my lunges. She had taken that away from me too? Dammit. How the fuck had she been able to rip me apart so easily? How had she taken so much away when everyone else was able to move forward - to keep living? To clean up the mess and go back into it without a second thought?

"Oh, Runa," Sookie breathed, drawing my shaking form into her chest, crunching my taller frame down into her like a toy trying to go back into its box. I went, sobbing, hating my mind as I kept replaying it all - every wretched moment.

They drew me upstairs into the master bath like a child being taken to an unwilling dinner. Tara's eyes widened as she took me in, Sookie's hands moving around me in a gentle buzz as she stripped me down until they could see the raw flesh where the chains had been, the harsh indents of my bones sticking through my skin. Sookie looked sick, her warm face whitening to an unnatural shade.

"J - Jason, set aside some extra food," she called down the stairs before ushering me into the scalding water.

She and Tara bathed me like I was a newborn, whispering over me as I kept my legs curled up, knees slammed to my chin. In here - I couldn't remember what had happened in the master. Maryanne didn't like for me to go into her personal space, and I didn't push. I liked to be out and - and in the mix - Bile burned at my throat, the tears feeling hot and uncontrollable now like rain from clouds. Just a natural state of who I was.

"You know… you know you can talk about it." I blinked, suddenly drawn back to the present with a harshness that made me flinch. I blinked, my face feeling a little bit numb. A little bit raw.

Tara was the only one here with me now, leaning up against the long sink area beside the tub, her shoulders hunched, her face deceptively blank. But her eyes were too expressive, her lips thinning slightly like she was trying to work around the right words. Her dreads slipped forward across her forehead, swaying in the steamy air.

I didn't say anything. It was strange how words escape you in moments like these - when all you can do is feel all the emotions that you've tried to hold at bay. Her eyes took me in, her brow creasing as she watched me shivering, the bath water a muddy, murky brown from all the muck on my skin. I would need to take a shower after - sometime. But damn, I was just so tired. So fucking exhausted.

"I was under her control too," she whispered suddenly and I flinched again, unprepared for the topic even though - what the hell else would they talk to me about? "We all did - we did terrible things."

I can't help the words that tear from my throat, the feeling like knives cutting along my tongue. "Did you kill people?"

Now she's the one that flinches. "No." She gulps, glancing around quickly like she's afraid that someone might hear. "No… but… Eggs -" I can see the well of tears, the way her voice catches.

"The guy you were always talking about," I supply, interest peaked. She had talked about him a lot in those weeks before. "The one with the nice smile."

She gives a watery smile. "Yeah. Him." She can't meet my eyes anymore, her own dark gaze darting to where her hands are clenching together. "He - Maryanne used him to - to kill people. And then she used us." Her hands are shaking now. "She used us like toys. She watched us have sex. Made us -" A deep shudder runs through her body and I can feel the horror of it - can feel it rolling off of her in thick waves.

I wince, my insides rolling, tangling into a sick ball. "You don't have to-"

"I do." Her eyes meet mine, hard, unyielding. Even though her lips are shaking, she's looking at me like she needs to do this. "If I don't - don't talk about it, then it all - it builds up inside and becomes - she becomes so much more… there?" Her head tips to the side, a tear dripping down her cheeks. "You know?"

I gulp, feeling my own tears mingling with the wet remnants of my bath. My voice is pure gravel when I whisper back. "I know."

Tara's lips thin, her head nodding jerkily. She dashes at the track of tears angrily like she's tired of them and I understand that too. "That's why I said that you can talk about it. Sookie wasn't - she didn't-" She stops, shaking her head hard before she gives me a strained smile. "She doesn't understand. But I - But I get it. I get how hard it is to just come in here - walk where she told us to walk, where she made us fuck each other like animals and dance for her. I understand why you can barely look at the kitchen and not scream. I get it. And I want you to know that you don't need to make it seem like you're fine. Whatever you went through - You shouldn't have to pretend like you're okay."

Her words break me all over again. I cry harder, shaking, sobbing like I'll never be able to stop and her arms come around me, tucking me against her chest like I'm breakable and I don't know when was the last time that anyone held me like that. I don't know when anyone shushed me, rocked me like I needed to be comforted.

They cut my hair and I don't stop them, feeling a bit more of the old me slip away with it. There's nothing to be done about it, nothing that they can do to the hive that was most of my hair. So now it's running just below my jaw, curling around my ears. I don't look too long, if I'm being honest. I don't like to see myself - the harsh lines of my cheekbones and the hollowed cast of my eyes.

I look jagged - even more than I did before. Spooky, my sister giggles before stopping abruptly when I don't join. There's a lot that I don't join her with. I can't - can't find it in myself to laugh when she laughs, to joke around with her. I want to - I can feel it in my gut, the need to say something to make her feel comfortable. But I don't have the energy.

I go through the day like a ghost, half here and half somewhere else.

I want to force myself to recover. Some days I try, pushing a grating laugh from between my lips but… it's always that. Just a sound. Even I can hear the emptiness.

Tara stays with me and it's odd the sort of… attachment that snaps into place. I take to crawling onto the floor next to her bed when she stays over like a child looking for its parent. It's pathetic. It's disturbing.

But she seems to like the company, her hand reaching down so that I can press my hand into hers. She has callouses all along the slender lines of her fingers and I guess I shouldn't be surprised. She always did work ten times harder than any of us.

And out in the darkness at night, I can sense him. Him always standing just out of sight but always there.

I don't know what he's waiting for. He's always pushed his way into my life before. And now he stands watch just outside of my house - or at least, the house that I'm staying in. I can't understand. But then again, I don't understand myself either. I don't know if I want him to force me to see him again. Or if I want him to stay away so that he won't be disappointed in the person I've become.

"Runa!" Sookie's cheerful voice rouses me from my stupor, my back pressed into the too-small alcove of our window seat in the living room. I still haven't gone upstairs. I still haven't gained back most of the weight that I lost either. My sister bounds in with a bright smile, holding up a huge box with a shiny, velvety texture, a blue bow a shade darker then the rest tied neatly atop. Her smile widens, brightening the point that I wince on behalf of her facial muscles. "A present. From a secret admirer."

I stare at the outstretched item for a moment longer before taking it into my hands. Odd. My eyes drift to the inky sky outside. To the dark trees and the eyes that I can feel just beyond them. Maybe not so odd.

Inside, wrapped in delicate paper is a few pairs of the softest pajamas I've ever felt. They have to be a luxury item. And way above my pay grade.

To help you sleep.

-E

I stare at the small card a moment longer, barely hearing as my sister slings off a series of questions. My eyes drift once more to the window. He's been watching.

My fingers toy with the latch to the window before opening it. He's being so polite. I toss the letter out, watching it flutter to the ground while my sister gapes. Eric Northman isn't polite. He's a lot of things but cordial isn't one that I would give him.

I latch the window again. But I will keep the pajamas.

The next day it's a brand new duvet set, the cover buttery soft and so thick and downy that I think I might finally be able to get a nights sleep without wandering the hallways downstairs, shivering beneath the torture that I'm giving myself in each room. It's therapeutic in a really fucked up way. But this gift is even more of an illustration of what Eric knows. Or more so what he doesn't. He doesn't know that I sleep on the floor like a trained dog most nights.

Do you need anything? Give me a list and I'll give it to you.

-E

My heart squeezes. I still toss the note out the window.

The next day is an espresso machine that my sister hooks up before I even get up in the morning.

I'd like to see your skin bathed in the lights of Paris, mare. Do you like coffee?

-Eric

I don't like coffee actually. I take it outside and leave it on the porch with a small mandarin orange and my own note.

I don't. But I do like fruit.

-Mare

The next day is a bouquet of orange blossoms in a clear pitcher, the scent sharp and so beautiful that I shove my face into them. My facial muscles strain, fighting against the first real smile that I've had in weeks.

"You two make me sick," my sister sighs dramatically, flopping into the couch next to Tara, who gives me a small smile, patting the couch softly beside her. I bring my bouquet with me.

The next day is a set of the cutest nonstick pans and ceramic pots that I've ever seen. They're in jovial colors - something that I didn't expect. I stare at them a moment too long, debating calling for Sookie. These surely have to be for her. There's a vibrant orange pumpkin baking pot and a deep blue pan made for boiling. All of them robust and clean and new and in those deep fall colors.

Do you like to cook?

-Your Eric

I glance down at them once more, feeling a spark of mischief light through my chest. It feels like a breath of fresh air. It feels like the first bite of a new season. It feels… good.

Not particularly.

-Am I yours? Are you mine?

The pots and pans are still there in the morning, now wrapped up in a big expensive box.

Good. I can cook for you. Keep them in your kitchen, love.

-Always. Always to both.

I feel..so good. So warm.

I creep into my old room. Finally. Finally, after weeks of hovering in each room like a hostage in my own house. The pain has started to dull and I can't - I don't think that's - Is that the way it's supposed to be? Am I supposed to feel better? I feel like I shouldn't. I fight against it. I talk to Tara, hoping that she'll tell me the same thing. No. You stay hurt. You stay in pain.

And she does. Sort of.

"It'll always stay there," she whispers to me, my tea going cold in front of me as she gives a wan smile. She's in a cute white dress today, her hair coiled back away from her face. "It's okay for it to dull, but it'll always be there. Just below the surface. I'm sorry."

I'm not. I deserve to keep some sort of pain.

Do you want to go to Rome with me?

-Eric

I'd rather go to Sweden. Or maybe Ireland. Somewhere cold and quiet.

-Runa

Come to dinner with me first.

-Your Eric

But what would I wear? It needs to be something nice for the Sheriff.

-Your Runa

I can't accept this. I'm sending it back.

-Your Runa

My deliver service doesn't take returns. Come to dinner with me.

-Eric

I learn their names.

Sarah Jenniks

Tom Fisher

Holly Kent

Virginia Johnson

I go and find their families. Stalk them. I stalk them. I don't feel much shame if I'm being honest. I've already done so much wrong what's a little spying? I want to say that it makes me feel better. Virginia didn't even have a family. No husband. No kids. Parents had passed away. A lot of the others were the same too. It doesn't make me feel better. If anything it makes me feel worse. Maryanne was always good at digging around inside people's heads and digging up the worst.

I send them money - the family I do find. It's not much - most of my savings but what's a few thousand in comparison to having someone ripped away from you like that? The money's selfish. It's to make me feel better. I don't. Not really. But I do feel… settled. Like I finally might be okay living with some of the guilt and the pain.

Like I might be able to do what my sister's been able to do.

I sit with that for a day or two, soaking it in, collecting myself enough until I finally feel up to going into that closet filled with the too-expensive stuff - the stuff Eric left for me. The designer dresses and necklaces and red bottom shoes with purses that smell good enough to stuff my face in. It's only five dresses and shoes at the most, but its enough to probably pay off the mortgage on my house.

And in a way, it feels kind of good to be taken care of. It also helps that the material of the dress feels like I'm dressed in the clouds from the gates of Heaven and that I feel… good. Taller. Cherished in a way, I wasn't expecting.

Sookie claps, hopping up and down in her seat. "You look like a fancy city girl, Rune!"

"I wish I had a rich boyfriend," Tara sighs, giving me a grin that's all teeth, her eyes sparkling. She winks. "Have fun."

I sigh, glaring down at myself. Would it kill him to be less perfect with everything? How did he know my size? How did he guess what would look good on me? "I think I have some catching up to do."

Tara's smile is pure wicked intent. "I'm sure you can think of a few ways to make it up to him."


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