Disclaimer: Unfortunately, playing on Charlaine Harris' playground does not give me ownership rights. Rated M for language and lemons.

AN: All of my medical knowledge comes from Wikipedia and Grey's Anatomy. Anyone who knows better, please forgive me!

4. Into the Light…

This blackness was empty and cold. It even had an echo. I almost preferred it to the other periods of bright light and pain. Unfortunately, those were increasing in frequency and length. The only thing that kept me fighting for them was the brief instant I thought I heard Sookie's voice. The blackness couldn't be as good as advertised if Sookie was elsewhere.

It's hard to find your way in a sea of nothingness. There wasn't a single thing to anchor me or give me a sense of direction. I could have been walking in circles for all I know. Every step became shorter and more sluggish until I was sure I wasn't making much progress at all. I was moving through slowly drying concrete and I could not muster the strength or energy needed to maintain a grip on myself.

It was just so exhausting. Eventually I had to let the darkness take control once more.

Fuck. I promise, here and now, to never drink so much again. This hangover's hardly worth any hours of blissful ignorance there may have been.

Where the hell am I and whose car alarm keeps going off? I tried opening one eye and immediately regretted it. You know when you first wake up from a deep sleep and that first jolt of reality is literally painful? Multiply that by 20. I felt like someone used my head as a bowling ball. I lifted my hand to scratch the sleep from my eyes. It felt like I was moving through mud. Unfortunately, the feeling was familiar. Shit. Jason had better not have convinced my drunktarded ass to camp in the swamp behind his house. AGAIN. I still have nightmares about those fist-sized vampires they call mosquitoes down here. How could I have let myself drink enough to I forgot the number one rule of hanging with my asshat brother-in-law? Never NEVER consume enough to take his suggestions. I took another shot at opening my eyes when something on the back of my hand scratched me.

What the hell?

I stared at the IV stuck in me for what felt like hours. And, apparently, that car alarm was actually a heart monitor. It was like floating, suspended in water, then being jerked under. Once I resurfaced, all my senses returned in force. The smell was overpowering. Everything had been scrubbed and bleached until not even the cheery yellow walls could compensate for the dissociation I felt in this environment. The hollowness ensured nothing could distract from your grief and worry. I was in one of those crappy paper-y hospital gowns on crappy hospital sheets. I could almost feel myself starting to itch.

"If you wanted some time off, you could have just asked." Oh goody. Pam's here.

"Pa-" I couldn't even finish that thought without coughing. And my whole body wracked with pain when I did. Pam got out of her chair in the corner and moved to hold a cup of water to my lips. She even did it without an eye roll too. Score.

"Pam, what the hell?" I guess this raspy voice is as good as it's gonna get for now. "Why am I in the hospital?"

A strange look crossed her face. "You don't remember?"

"No Pam. What. Happened."

She put her hand on mine and, if I didn't know any better, she might have been trying to give me a sympathetic look. Shit. Maybe I'm dying.

"Eric, you were in a car accident. I'll page the nurse…"

"In a minute. Tell me what happened."

"The police haven't been by with details on the accident yet. I don't really know what happened. They should be on their way. Your leg's broken and you have a concussion but the doctor can explain better than me. Let me find her."

"Pam, where's Sookie? She wasn't in the car with me, was she?"

There's that strange look again. "… No."

"Is she on her way?"

"No, Eric," she paused. "I don't think so." The wariness in her voice elongated all her words.

If I didn't need the information she seemed reluctant to give, I would have snarled at her.

"You are wearing my patience, Pamela." I shot her a look that hopefully conveyed my annoyance. "Why isn't she coming? Have you called her?"

"She knows. I guess she just isn't sure you would want to see her."

"Why the hell wouldn't I want to see my wife?"

"Your wife?"

I felt like I was speaking to an exceptionally slow child.

"Yes, my wife. Did you hit your head too?"

"Eric," she practically whispered. "You don't remember signing your divorce papers this morning either?"

"WHAT?" I barely waited a second before yelling again, not leaving her any time to even try to respond. "Fuck Pam! Does now seem like the right time for one of your little jokes?"

I watched her face ping-pong between dread and horror. My outburst must have caught the attention of the nurse's station since one timidly popped her head into the room. Once seeing me awake she entered fully and smiled calmly.

"Mr. Northman, please relax. You've just been through a traumatic accident. You don't want to excite yourself so soon."

I barely registered her words and couldn't care less when she adjusted my IV and wrote on the chart at the foot of my bed. Nothing mattered beyond watching the tears fill my sister's eyes. Pam thought her own jokes were HI-larious. But she'd never crossed the line like this before. My mind screamed "LIAR". The mere thought that I would divorce Sookie was preposterous. But that nagging feeling in my gut told me Pam would never joke about this. She might poke at the line repeatedly, like you aren't supposed to do with a sleeping bear, but she'd never seriously contemplate crossing it. Thoughts raced through my consciousness faster than I could follow, making my head throb even harder. The only discernable feelings were confusion and fear. The pounding in my ears drowned out the escalating rhythm of the heart monitor. A lesser man probably would have hyperventilated.

I searched my brain for anything that indicated which alternate universe I'd been dropped into. I searched all through the nurse's check-up. I was still searching while Pam interrogated her, demanding to know why I had no recollection of the day. I was still searching when the nurse left to page the doctor, her face a little more agitated than when she came in. The longer I searched and came up empty, the more aggravated I became. Pam watched me like falling prices at a shoe sale but, thankfully, didn't say a word. I can't be sure how long it took for the doctor to appear. She pushed the door open with authority. That authority was undermined when she needed to use a step stool to be bed-level.

"Good. You're awake."

She introduced herself as Dr. Ludwig while she checked my vitals and shined her penlight in my eyes.

"Alright. Can you tell me your full name?"

"Eric Northman."

"Do you know your father's name?"

"Appius."

"What's the last thing you remember?"

The smallest bits and pieces started to orient themselves by then.

"I was… in my office at Loki's," I said hesitantly. "The last thing I remember is checking the liquor order."

"And what is today's date?"

"The order's due on the 15th so the 13th. November 13th."

My first sign that was the wrong answer was the gasp heard from the far corner where Pam was. The second clue was the subtle knit of the doctor's eyebrows.

"And what year is it?"

"2007."

Her brows furrowed deeper and she began to write an epic poem on my chart. She pushed the call button near my head and looked me in the eyes. In what I assumed was her "gentle" voice she started speaking.

"Mr. Northman, when we did you initial MRI we detected some swelling near the temporal lobe of your brain. In a small amount of trauma cases like this, one of the results is memory loss. There is no easy way to hear this so I'm going to tell it to you straight. It is not 2007. Today is February 17th, 2011…"

Everything fell away but that date. I didn't hear anything else the doctor said. I didn't see a nurse, different from the one who'd checked me before, come in and be told to order a repeat MRI. I didn't see Pam's mouth gape open or the tears on her cheeks. '2011' flashed repeatedly in my head like neon lights on the Vegas strip.

There are 3 years I have no memory of.

Well, shit.

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