POSTSCRIPT

UN-DREAMS


Love has nothing to do with what you are expecting to get, it's what you are expected to give—which is everything.

~Vittorio Alfieri


She lies in his arms, searching his eyes. The coldness and hardness she'd always seen there wasn't gone, but there is something else there—deeper, sadder, almost human. The naked truth there is painful and beautiful and almost unbearable.

It shines.

Images flash behind her eyes of the beautiful man who had visited her bed in the land of her dreams, promising her the moon and the stars. His world.

She inclines her head, studying him, and he bares himself, letting his fangs drop. She can't even pretend that this is the same man of her dreams.

His skin is cold and his eyes burn.

He has fangs that could rip her to shreds, and he sheds blood tears that tear at all her soft spots.

And he is beautiful. So beautiful. It makes the world fall away.

So she reaches out a tentative hand, brushing the cool lips and just barely grazing the fangs as she meets his hungry eyes.

You're deep.

You feel.

There's love in you.

The words crash against her with their truth.

She knows this is no dream. And she knows that she needs, hungers, burns for him just as much as he does for her. So she turns, baring her neck.

She moans as he takes the offering that she has placed at his altar, the wave of lust and joy and release engulfing her as their bodies and blood entwine.

She floats up to consciousness slowly. When she breaks the surface, she takes in her surroundings in stride, with a surprising lack of terror or alarm, and then proceeds to disentangle herself from the arms that wrap around her. With reverence and tenderness, she holds his hand, brushing each finger against her lips before laying it on the bed by his side.

She buries her hand in his hair and then brushes it away from his face, allowing herself a moment to take in the perfection of his features—all the hardness dissolved with the release of rest.

Her shoulders rise and fall with a breath of resignation and longing. She brushes a goodbye on his temple just before she turns to leave.

But she can't go yet. She still has one more thing to give him. A treasure.

The white shirt remains at the edge of the room, exactly where she'd let it drop to the floor just a short while ago. She picks it up with the same veneration as when she'd picked it up from the roof a lifetime ago.

Last night, she had awakened from her dream, loathing herself and convinced that it must have been the magic of his ancient blood that had made her see Eric as anything but a cold and calculating predator; the monster which she had always known him to be. Now, she was no longer so certain.

So what could she give this man, who had seen the world rise and fall, twist and turn, live and die for an infinity of darkness? It wasn't a whole lot, in measurable terms at least, but she would give him what she could.

A piece of cloth that held the memory of love and loss.

And the reassurance that she would be death's companion. To the end. Through the dark and into the light. As long as it took.

As it turns out, life can make room for death.

She drifts back down into the semi-consciousness of sleep almost as soon as they settle into a comfortable and steady speed on the way back home.

She dreams of the beautiful and broken vampire, and almost convinces herself that it was all a dream. Because if it wasn't—well, then she would have to face the fact that this was really the beginning of a new world, and she hadn't yet mourned for the death of the world she'd left behind. With a kiss and a bite.

So when her eyes flutter open with his name almost slipping from her lips, she shakes it off.

It was a dream. Only a dream. It simply had to be.

But you can never close your eyes after you have opened them. You can try—but the truth stares at you, even behind tightly shut lids.

Her brother's words float around her as she stares out the window.

"Nothin' looks exactly the way I left it . . . know what I mean?"

She considers telling him not to speak of things he does not understand.

That knowledge is its own kind of death.

That death used to scare her.

But that was when she saw the clear outlines of right and wrong. And now—everything had changed. The world. Her world.

So she just gives him a small, encouraging smile and mutters. "I wouldn't know; I've never been away before."

Then she looks at her world as it slides by, so familiar, yet so utterly, irrevocably, jarringly changed. She whispers to no one in particular, "It sure does seem like something's different."

A/N: And thus ends my tribute to our beloved Godric. We adored you, and already miss you. May you rest in peace—loved but never forgotten :) (Oh, I know, I know. I'm such a Godric-holic!)

As a side note, I did want to say that the differences in Erics between the two dream sequences always struck me, and this just seemed like the perfect chance to explore it.

Hope you enjoyed this as much as I did writing it :) Please feed my writing soul with lots of review lurrrve! I musts eats :)

A ginormous-humongous-way-more-than-graciously-plentiful-sized thanks to my beta LanYap, who inspired this little ditty, and edited it to perfection :) *slobbery Nutella kissies forevaaah*

And a million thanks to nycsnowbird as well, for giving this a quick once-over with her hawk-beta-vision.

Any mistakes remaining are purely my own.

As always, I do not claim any rights to the Sookie Stackhouse Series or the HBO series True Blood.