AN: Hey guys! Here's another chapter. FYI, it won't be long until Sookie gets her comeuppance. I hope you like it and enjoy!

Chapter 34

Eric and Pam stood outside the dark and empty house. Eric's brows furrowed. Nothing had changed. It looked exactly the same.

"The hell are we doin' here again?" Pam asked.

Eric didn't reply at first. He approached the house with Pam close behind. The front door was still slightly ajar.

"Go inside." He told her.

Out of the corner of his eye, he could see that she wanted to protest, but Pam said nothing. Instead, she scowled, and walked through the door without a problem. Eric assumed Maria never rescinded the blonde's invitation. He'd been right.

Eric heard Pam's footsteps as she walked through the floor plan, heard her mumble her agitation when she found something disgusting, and then watched as she reappeared down the hall directly in front of him. Pam was busy looking around, but his gaze was on the floor. Partially hidden beneath a layer of dead leaves and dust was a white, folded slip of paper. It was a note and he knew the contents. He'd been the one who left it before he fled the country.

"No one's been here in months." Pam said. She stood in the foyer with her hands on her hips as she looked at him. Her boot was directly on top of the note. She hadn't seen it. "There's movin' boxes everywhere, but everything's covered in dust. It looks like she left in a hurry."

"Why bother packing if you're just going to leave everything behind anyway?" He asked rhetorically.

"Better question," Pam exited the house and closed the door tightly behind her. "Why leave food in the fridge to rot into a mass of shit if you're movin'?"

Eric didn't like the feeling in his gut. Maria didn't seem the type to leave things undone. He'd been in her head, been with her for nearly two years. He knew that much.

If she was gone now, it wasn't because she chose to be. Someone had taken her months ago, back before he found her house empty the first time, and before he left the note. Eric felt his eyes prickle with possible tears. Maria was gone and any trail there might have been disappeared who knows how long ago. He couldn't look for her because he was running out of time, running out of life.

The very real thought that he'd never see her again hit him harder than he thought it would.

"Come on," He forced himself to speak, pushing past the lump in his throat. "Let's go see Bill."

Without a reply, Pam followed him into the air.

In Bill's house, the plan was made, though Maria hardly paid the slightest bit of attention to it. She didn't care. She hoped everyone in the room was killed. Hell, she hoped Sookie died the slowest. Everyone under that roof annoyed her, even the people she didn't know. Maria had grown to loathe humans, vampires, and fucking fairies most of all. Being around anyone at all was like red-hot pokers being dragged down her skin.

Christ, she missed Pam and Eric. She liked the two of them. They were assholes, but they were real. Maybe that was why she hated the people in the room with her the most. The ones she knew kept a mask on. They acted how they thought they were supposed to, or as though their actions were scripted. Fucking humans. Fucking vampires. Fucking faries.

Maria just wanted to go home.

A knock on the door soon diverted attention. Bill rose to answer it. Maria could hear Eric's voice and her stomach dropped. She could hear his voice and apparently so could Sookie. The blonde whipped around and stared at her.

"Don't you say a fuckin' word to Eric, you hear me?" She practically hissed. "And don't tell Pam anythin' either."

Maria stayed quiet like she'd been commanded to. Sookie rose and went to the door. Eric embraced her the moment he saw her. From her stance in the parlor, she saw the way he held her, the way his eyes drifted shut and he cradled her close.

It hurt her to see, tugged at something deep inside her that had been dormant –if not dead- for quite some time.

When they drew back, Eric held her face tenderly and smiled down at Sookie. His eyes never left hers, not even when Bill suggested they go into his office to speak. Eric never even knew Maria was there.

Not a second after Bill closed the double doors did he tell the others to begin to load the cars. Maria didn't bother helping, but she rose to her feet and approached the blonde with the ever-present look of agitation. A look that, funnily enough, actually vanished when she spotted Maria.

Pam smirked her little smirk as she strolled into the manor. Maria had to admit, she missed seeing it. There was a level of confidence behind the grin, of assuredness that humans simply couldn't possess, but something told Maria that Pam had it long before she was turned.

"Well, well, well," She cooed as her blue-eyes-tinged-violet raked over Maria. "Funny seeing you here. Figured you'd be long gone by now."

Maria glanced briefly to the doors which shielded her from Sookie. She wasn't allowed to speak where the fairy could hear her, so she kept her volume low.

"It didn't quite go according to plan." Maria replied. Hearing her own voice leave her lips sounded odd, but Maria couldn't help but smile too, until she noticed Pam looked a little pale. Her smile faded. "When was the last time you fed?"

"I topped off on the plane here. I'm fine." She said smoothly.

"Come on, Pam. You know you want to." The teasing in her voice was undeniable.

Pam's lips twisted again and she sauntered forward with her hands on her hips. She cocked a perfectly sculpted brow and looked over Maria appraisingly.

"You offerin', your majesty?" She asked sarcastically.

Maria presented Pam with her wrist and she could see the hunger flicker in the blonde's eyes.

"Remind me again," Pam said as she continued her approach. "Have I ever tasted you before?"

"Not to my knowledge."

"Hmmm," Pam cooed. She took Maria's arm into her hands and held tight. "Looks like there's a first time for everythin'."

Maria smiled and shook her head to herself. With nothing left to say, Pam dropped fang and proceeded to bite into Maria's arm. As usual, Maria felt the stab and the slight pain radiate from the bite marks, but she said nothing about it.

Pam fed for a little while, taking her fill which Maria expected her to do. When her color (or as much color as a vampire could have) returned, Pam let her go. She kept her sultry gaze on Maria, pricked her fingertip, and pressed the droplet of blood against the wounds she'd created. They'd have healed within a few minutes anyway, but Maria nodded her appreciation.

"Not bad," Pam smiled. "I can see why Eric's so taken with you."

Maria's smile faded and her gaze darted briefly to the door of Bill's office. The words bubbled within her, but they couldn't make it to the surface. Sookie had told her she couldn't tell Eric or Pam the truth.

She never said Maria couldn't show them.

"I have to show you something important." Maria said in Swedish. She didn't know if Pam could speak Russian.

Pam cocked a brow, intrigued by the dialect shift. "What's that?" She asked in English.

Instead of replying, and knowing she didn't have long, Maria yanked off her glove, took Pam's bare hand in hers and concentrated. She didn't have to worry about seeing anything from the blonde's life. That happened months ago with Eric and the witches. This time, Maria could show Pam everything.

She concentrated hard, harder than she ever had before, and did her best to block out all of the useless shit before Sookie and Eric left the office. She could hear them speaking and somehow knew the conversation was coming to an end. She had to hurry.

Seconds felt like minutes as she shoved her knowledge into Pam's mind without the vampire's permission. It must have been a flood, but a flood that Maria had hoped she relegated to the last six months or so.

When the last memory left her, Maria let go. Pam gasped for an unneeded breath and took a long step back. She stared at her hand and then at Maria, her eyes wide.

"The fuck did you just do?" Pam asked.

"Showed you what I can't say."

"The fuck does that mean?"

Maria wanted to say, she wanted to tell Pam exactly what it meant, but she couldn't. It wasn't even like she was being deliberately coy or mysterious. The words genuinely wouldn't leave her mouth. Her tongue wouldn't fucking move to form them.

The best she could do was tap the side of her head. "Just remember. See what I showed you."

"Maria," Bill's voice drew her eye away from the blonde. "Come on. Time to get ready."

She nodded. Maria glanced once more to Pam who hadn't removed the skeptical look from her face. In fact, she was looking at Maria like the brunette had gone insane over the last few months. Maybe she had.

Alongside the others, Maria began to gather up their stakes and silver to fight the vampires in Fangtasia.

Pam's mind was fuzzy, but how could it be anything else. She couldn't explain what it felt like to have information forcefully shoved into your brain. It felt like a violation. On some level, Pam wondered if it was like that for humans when vampires glamoured them.

Of course not. Humans were too stupid, and the glamour generally didn't leave a trace.

Pam stood off to the side while the others moved in and out of the house with their supplies and sifted through what Maria had shown her. It must have been the same thing she did to Eric after Antonia cursed him.

"You have to do everything I say now." Sookie's voice sort of echoed through the montage of memories.

Pam saw flashes of things, of Sookie ordering Maria to do things and Maria having no choice but to do them. Pam felt the thrope's desperation, and her helplessness. She could tell that Maria genuinely had no free will. It'd been stripped from her the second Sookie hit her with that blue ball of light.

And it wasn't even that Maria was simply being told to do things, either, not like when Eric told her to do them. Whatever Sookie had done robbed Maria of everything. Her body reacted automatically. And the worst part was, by far, that she was completely conscious of the fact that her body was no longer under her control. Pam couldn't imagine how that felt.

No. She could. She knew exactly how that felt now. Because of Maria, Pam knew how it felt to be that helpless, to be fully and completely under someone else's control, an dit made her stomach curl.

Christ. Even when a vampire glamoured someone it put them in a daze. They didn't know their free will was being taken. Maria did. She was entirely aware.

Maria was forced to stay in a steel cubbyhole for days on end. She'd been starved and left without water. She'd been forced to clean every inch of Sookie's house, to cook her meals, and tend to her whenever her boyfriend wasn't there. And when Alcide was in the house, Maria was locked in the cellar like some kind of fucking animal.

But one thing was by far the worst. Pam wouldn't have believed it if someone had told her, and honestly, if it'd happened to anyone else Pam would have been proud. As it was, she was furious.

That fucking butcher knife…

The instance right when she and Eric walked into the manor, though, that kept replaying over and over.

"Don't you say a fucking word to Eric, you hear me?" Sookie said. "And don't tell Pam a thing, either."

And seconds later, Sookie and Eric disappeared into Bill's office leaving Maria and Pam in the foyer.

She was furious on Maria's behalf. Not even Eric tortured people this way.

The congregation made their way outside and Pam felt obliged to follow. She wasn't entirely certain why, only that she did. She leaned against a pillar with her arms crossed over her chest, watching them as they worked. Her gaze lingered on Maria for a while.

So weak. So helpless. It was disgusting and turned Pam's stomach.

Without warning, Willa appeared in front of Pam.

"Where is he?" She growled.

"Inside with Sookie." Pam replied in a casual tone.

Willa was gone just as fast. Not long after, both Eric and Sookie emerged from the mansion and despite her disinterest with what was happening around her, Eric declared that he and Pam just had to get involved.

"Jesus Christ," she hissed as he held the door open for her. "She's like a fungus that just won't fuckin' die."

Eric said nothing about her cold outburst toward Sookie because it wasn't entirely uncommon, but now Pam had even more reason to hate the blonde.

As they set off down the road, Pam kept her eyes on the back of Sookie's head. She could tell the little waitress was aware because she'd shift and squirm and dare glances back, but she never said a word. Maria wasn't in the car. She was riding behind them. Pam assumed Sookie had told her to get into whichever vehicle Eric wasn't.

They were half-way to Shreveport before Eric finally spoke to her.

"We'll find Sarah Newlan later." Eric said in Swedish. "I promise. There's no reason to sulk."

"I'm not sulking." She replied. "I'm fuckin' pissed." He grinned a little, amused by her rage. It wasn't entirely uncommon. "Have you seen Maria yet?"

His smile began to dwindle. She saw him look at her so she met his gaze. Eric looked surprised.

"She's here?"

Pam nodded and motioned to the car behind them. Eric turned to look through the back window, but between the tinting and numerous people between them, she doubted he could even catch a glimpse.

"No," he said as he readjusted himself and got comfortable again. "But I'm sure I will."

"Don't count on it." Pam said with a scoff. "Your girlfriend up there made it impossible." Eric's brows creased as he eyed her curiously. "She's been the fairy's slave for the last six months. Ever since you disappeared."

"How's that even possible? I'm sure she's exagger-"

Pam abruptly cut him off. "She showed me with those freaky powers of hers."

Eric said nothing for a moment before he scoffed, shook his head, and turned his attention forward once more. He didn't believe her. Pam didn't know what she expected, but apparently that was it because she wasn't surprised.

Sookie Stackhouse can do no fucking wrong, she thought angrily to herself.

Fangtasia had been turned into a bloodbath, a beautifully violent and chaotic bloodbath.

He was weak. The virus was taking its toll, dragging him down no matter how hard he tried to avoid it. It curled his back and forced the once proud vampire to slouch and slump forward. Even standing straight hurt.

Draining the blonde helped, but only just. Eric still had to lean against the van he'd eaten her in just to stay upright. He looked around as he did and watched as the humans and vampires cleaned up his parking lot, shoveling entrails and hosing down pavement while some moved bodies inside. He could still hear Sookie gleefully crying as she held the redhead within the walls of Fangtasia.

Eric, breathing heavily and feeling his body rot, noticed Maria amongst the crowd. Everything had been such a rush that even though he smelled her earlier, he hadn't spoken to her once or even looked at her in the eye. He didn't think he could, not when he knew what he'd see.

Maria held a shovel. She was the one scraping bits off the pavement and dumping them into a black trash bag that was held open by someone he didn't recognize. Scrape, lift, smack. That was the order. The audible scrape of the shovel against asphalt, Maria lifting the spade, and then the wet smack of the bits falling together in the bag.

She never looked up, never bothered acknowledging him.

Scrape, lift, smack.

He'd been in St. Petersburg when he fed from an infected human who claimed to be clean. He'd gone there out of… who knows. Maybe it was some need to reconnect with the little Russian girl he refused to actually contact.

He Googled Maria, which was nothing short of odd, but he rationalized that no one knew, so it wouldn't matter. Everything he'd read about her felt wrong in the sense that it didn't match the woman he knew. Descriptions from friends of the family, other family members, nannies and various staff all said the same thing: The Grand Duchess Maria was a beautiful, sweet, and amiable girl. She was kind to all she met and her eyes sparkled with not only curiosity, but unfathomable gentleness. There was hardly a time when the young girl wasn't laughing, playing, and running through the halls much to the dismay of her mother, and the exasperation of her nannies. Many regarded her as an angel in human form.

None of that suited the woman he knew. The Maria he knew was harder than that, less joyful and less naïve. It was rare to see her smile genuinely and rarer still to hear her laugh with anything beyond either contempt or maliciousness. Despite the evidence, it was hard for Eric to reconcile the fact that the woman he'd met in Fangtasia and the one written about were the same.

Until he decided that they simply weren't. The press was right. Maria Nikolaevna Romanova, Grand Duchess of Russia and the third child of the tsar died that day in 1918. Whoever Godric pulled out of that pit wasn't the same young woman.

While in Russia he visited the sights. He saw everything there was to see, including the palaces where the Romanovs once lived. They were opulent to be sure.

A sick part of him took him to the field where the bodies had been dumped. It wasn't a field any longer, but in his mind's eye, that was what he saw.

Maria finished scooping up the last bits of body matter and her partner in the cleanup tied the bag shut. They set it aside, grabbed another, and alongside Maria began to scoop up another body.

There was no doubt in Eric's mind that the reason he felt even remotely nostalgic was because he was dying. Hep-V didn't have a miracle cure somewhere out there. No amount of blood would help his body heal. He was dying, and there was something freeing in that. He didn't have to care anymore. He didn't have to care about appearing cold and distant to the people closest to him. Fuck the rest of the world, though.

Eric pushed himself away from the van and slowly approached Maria. He did his best to correct his posture, to stand like the Viking he used to be. Maybe it worked, he couldn't say.

When he was near, Maria seemed to sense him. He noticed her shoulders tense ever-so-slightly before she glanced up at him through her lashes. She was still bent over, in the process of gathering more viscera onto the shovel. They glowed in the night, and not just for their brilliant color. They genuinely glowed. Maria's eyes caught the light from Fangtasia's front door just right, forcing them to give off that fluorescent sheen that cats and other animals had. It was disarming because he couldn't recall it happening before, but it suited her.

He gave her a small smile, then looked to the vampire who'd been helping her. Without a word, he jerked his head to the side, silently telling them to leave. Within an instant, he and Maria were alone.

When he looked at her again, she'd stood completely upright, but her eyes weren't on him anymore. Instead, they were focused on his chest. She was staring at the few veins that peeked out from beneath the collar of his shirt. Eric felt a small wash of embarrassment almost strong enough to make him cover them up, but he didn't.

"Lucky me, hm?" It was a joke. She didn't smile.

Somehow, Maria managed to tear her gaze away from his chest and meet his. It was then that he noticed they were glassy and tinting pink. Despite the blank expression on her face, Maria was on the verge of tears. The arrogant side of him wanted to smile out of some sick pride that she would shed tears over his condition. The other side felt guilty for pushing her to that point.

Their eyes were locked as the two of them stood in a deafening silence. Many things wanted to leave him, but at the same time he couldn't do it. There was something holding him back, some foolish thing inside him that prevented the real words from escaping.

He had to bite down, bite down on the embarrassment of exposing himself, and simply do it. He was talking to Maria, of all people. Like Pam, she'd seen him at his weakest. She was only the only person outside his family who could make that claim. Perhaps Bill could be on that list as well, given he'd been there when Nora died, but Eric didn't count Bill.

"I'm sorry." He finally said. "For what I said at Moon Goddess, for how I treated you." There was something disturbingly freeing about opening up. He hoped none of the others were eavesdropping, though. "I want you to come back to me." Her brows twitched slightly. "Not to work for me, or because of our bargain. I don't care about that anymore. I just want you at my side again. At least until I die, that is."

He tried to force the joke and the smile that followed, but as before, Maria didn't respond how he'd hoped. Instead, her brows furrowed and a look of a supreme level of sadness took her features.

Eric actually watched as her eyes filled with tears. It was so quick that she didn't even have to blink to release them. They simply fell, gliding down her pink cheeks while even more welled up in her eyes again.

But she didn't speak. She didn't say a word.

Eric's smile faltered until it disappeared completely. "Please,"

Her lips parted on a breath. So far, it'd been the only sound she made, but still Maria didn't speak. She opened her mouth as though attempting, yet nothing ever came out.

"Why won't you say anything?"

Again, it looked as though she tried, but again there was nothing. Desperation flashed in her eyes. They pleaded with him, begged him for something, but he had no idea what.

Maria seemed to struggle with it, like she was choking on the words. And yet –nothing. There was simply nothing, almost as though her voice had been stolen from her.

Or maybe she didn't have anything to say at all?

The realization that she had nothing to say hit Eric harder than he thought it might. It brought up that childish part again, the part that always wanted to throw some sort of tantrum. It always reared its ugly head when Eric felt he'd put himself out there, exposed himself, and the other party considered it trivial.

She must have seen it, too, seen the moment it happened because her shoulders slumped and her head fell. The defeated look returned to her despite the tears.

He took a partial step forward. Maria looked up through her lashes. For whatever reason, he reached for her and with the back of his curled index finger, he swept away one of the trails of tears from her cheek. Her eyes drifted shut and she moved into the action.

On reflex, Eric slid his hand to the back of her head, threading his fingers through her hair. He pulled her into a hug, surprising both himself and her at the same time. But she complied, and that was what he found the most important.

Maria's skin burned his despite the layers of fabric between them. Her hands had slipped beneath his jacket and held him close. He pressed his lips to the top of her head and let his eyes drift shut.

It felt different hugging Maria. It was hard for Eric to explain, even to himself, but it was different. When he hugged Sookie, he felt strong, like he was the protector and the Viking God he'd been since he turned. When he hugged Maria, he felt human. Eric couldn't say if that was better or worse, but he felt human. Perhaps it was because he knew how strong she was, how capable. Perhaps it was because her body burned so hot and her heartbeat so hard that he could fool himself into thinking they were his own. Whatever the real cause, the result was the same.

He was glad to linger, to stand there with her in his arms until he turned to liquid. He wanted to go back to the way things were before, not only before he was sick, but before he was cursed. He wanted to go back because he was about as happy as he rationalized he could be, but it was one of those things only obvious in hindsight.

The door to Fangtasia suddenly opened and without warning, Eric was on his own. The heat of Maria's body left him in an instant. He hadn't even felt her leave, only noticed it when the cold seeped in and he opened his eyes to see her standing more than arm's length away.

Eric looked to the door. It was Sookie and her friends, but the blonde lingered when she noticed Eric and Maria standing near one another. Her expression was odd to the vampire. She looked angry.

Sookie stared at the two of them, her face cold and her eyes the same. He saw her clenched her jaw just before tilting her head to the side, telling Maria to follow. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Maria shake her head. Sookie's agitation grew.

"Now," She growled in a stern, angry way that surprised Eric. He'd never heard that tone from her before. In truth, he hadn't thought she was capable of it, and yet, there it was.

Without another word, Sookie walked away. His attention shifted back to Maria. She was trembling, and the look on her face told Eric it had nothing to do with him. He felt the rage boiling inside her, that same anger he'd felt throughout their months apart –the anger that he couldn't even calculate.

With a growl and a roar, she spun. Maria lobbed the shovel at the wall behind her, the one made of planks. It sailed through the air and when it hit the wall, its pointed end pierced the wood with ease. It hung there, wobblingly only slightly, like some kind of exaggerated dart.

Maria was shaking more than before, breathing heavily, and walking away. She was walking away from him, following Sookie like some kind of obedient dog. She's been that fairy's slave for months. That's what Pam had told him. He didn't believe her then.

Eric reached out and grabbed Maria's arm to stop her, but she jerked it away with ease. He didn't have the strength to hold on.

Just before she disappeared, Maria cast him a sad, almost pathetic glance. He didn't know what to do.

A second later, she was gone with the others.