Holy shit. You guys rocked it with the review love. It's Canadian Thanksgiving weekend here, and to show my thanks for you, my very wonderful readers, here's another chapter. I'm making no promises about anything, but I think you'll like what I have planned, eventually.

I decided to do song titles again and I made a playlist for them. If you're interested, check them out here:

www(DOT)playlist(DOT)com/playlist/20798585867

Thanks to Missus T for her speedy and awesome beta work!

60 years after Dead and Gone

I stepped into the shower, and found Sookie already there, lathered and soapy. She turned around to face me, with a wicked look in her eye. "Well, I don't know about you, but I'm having some serious deja vu here."

I felt my fangs drop, even though it was a dream. I wondered if they were out in reality. "Indeed. Turn around, Lover."

With a shrug, and wink, she obliged me. "I'm not scared of you anymore."

I grabbed the soap out of her hand, and began to slowly lather the soap in my hands, before running my hands over her back, along her sides. She whimpered, softly, as my fingers, which somehow, after all this time, remembered the curves of her body, covered every inch of her with suds. I didn't remember my birthday, or my mother's real name, but I remembered those curves, somehow soft, but firm, and the tan lines left behind from summers in the sunlight. I remembered the smell of the light on her skin at various times when I'd known her, and the way she glowed, which was completely different than my glow. She was warm, to my cool. "I'm still terrified of you, but don't tell anyone."

I had so many questions I wanted to ask, answers I needed from her, but I was never able to. It was like there was some sort of living in the moment rule, when it came to our dreams. No talk of the present, only of the past, and the moments we'd shared, which were few, but meaningful. "Why are you scared of me?" She cocked her head, slightly, before looking over her shoulder at me.

"Because I don't understand what this is." I grabbed the shampoo and ran my fingers through her wet hair, before lathering it up, smiling slightly at the memory of a far more real shower.

"It's just you and I. Here. Now. That's all." She leaned her head back, as I scratched her scalp. "That feels nice."

She turned around, and stepped under the spray of the shower head to rinse the shampoo out of her hair. Then she turned her attentions to me, picking up the soap from the dish, and lathering it, before running her hands over my arms, and chest, and eventually lower. I closed my eyes, and exhaled a unnecessary breath, as she wrapped her hand around me. "I wish I'd had more time, before the curse ended."

She looked up at me, her blue eyes glistening. "I wonder if things would have been different."

I shook my head. "Probably not. I would have still been me, and you would have still been you."

We rinsed off, and I grabbed a towel from her old bathroom, and wrapped it around her, before I secured one around myself. Her old bathroom, of course, looked as it always did, even though I knew the house had been burned, ironically enough, by Bill, as he met the sun on her front porch all those years ago. She wrapped her hand around mine, and l followed her into her old room. Once again, we tussled with the covers, and eventually settled underneath a blanket that I was certain that some ancestor of hers had made. She slid underneath me, and we fit together like we always had, perfectly, our matching hair covering the old feather pillows. Everything was familiar in a way, but also new and different every time we were together like this. Which wasn't as frequently as it used to be. I'd almost forgotten what the curve of her hips looked like, the way her mouth felt on mine, and then everything would come rushing back.

I rolled off of her, thinking for a minute how long this dream was lasting. It seemed longer than usual, and usually she just appeared where I was. She laid her head on my chest, and placed her hand over the place where my heart used to beat. "Everyone I know is dead now," She whispered, into my chest. "Except you." There were others, I was certain, vampires she'd known, but I knew what she meant. We didn't have a family bond, but the bond we had was akin to it, in a parallel way.

"That's a reality I've been living with for years, Lover. Present company included."

She sighed, remembering her life, I figured. "And Pam. How's Pam?"

"We went our separate ways about ten years ago. She's living in England." I was in northern Sweden, which was kind of ironic. We'd both gone home, in a sense.

"Are you happy?"

"I'm alive, well, I'm not finally dead, and I have lots of money, and women, so I suppose so." Living forever did get tedious, at times, but I'd never been one to dwell on that. "Are you happy, or at peace, or whatever humans are, when they die?" I'd been trying to get her to tell me, for decades, under no uncertain terms, that she was actually dead. Vlad's fae child, and her mention of her fae father in her dreams had struck a chord with me, for some reason, and I'd never seen a body, just Compton's ramblings of her terribly mutilated corpse, and Niall insisting on a closed casket. At the time, I'd been so caught up in my own grief that I'd accepted the answers I'd been given, but I'd never had dreams that were so vivid. Not in a thousand years, and now they were only of her.

"I'm fine." Was her response, and with that, I felt the pull of day dissipate, and my body slowly woke up. She was gone for another night, and I was left, having no idea when I'd be able to ask again.

Life in Northern Sweden, was isolated, solitary, and just what I needed, for a few decades. The technology of the modern world was, at times, somewhat overwhelming, even for the humans. I'd built myself a huge home, and entertained quite often. I'd gained a bit of a reputation as a playboy in Italy, so it was nice to be able to recreate myself into a similar version of myself that I'd been in Louisiana. I bought a small bar, and during the winters, when the nights were long, I'd get a slew of vampires in, all looking to gain a few more hours of immortality.

It was a dark afternoon, sometime in December, when in walked Corrina, Vlad's child. Without Vlad. I got up from my throne, and approached her. She was beautiful, as a vampire, and she had retained a bit of her colouring, as she'd been quite tanned when he turned her about twenty years ago. She still smelled of fae and still had those huge green eyes, that she'd always had. She was pointlessly bundled up in a massive down coat, and I wondered where her maker was. "Corrina."

She grinned, broadly. "Eric Northman. I'd heard you were roughing it, but this is absurd."

I looked past her, out the door. "Where's Vlad?"

"In Italy. I came for you. To see you." Her eyes glanced down, and then she looked me right in the eye. "You look good."

I nodded at my booth. "Sit." I had no idea why she was here, or what she wanted from me. It was nice to see a familiar face though, and she sat across from me, a determined look on her beautiful face. "What can I do for you?"

"I need to know everything you know about the fae."

I tapped the table impatiently. I didn't need to rehash any of this. "You probably know more than I do."

"I don't know nearly enough. I think something's wrong though. I haven't dreamt of my father in nearly five years." She leaned in across the table. "What about your fae?"

I'd told Corrina everything, one night, about losing Sookie, my guilt, and the dreams. I wasn't sure why I'd revealed so much of myself, to someone I hardly knew, but I did. And she'd been a wonderful listener, as parts of my story reminded me of her own. "I don't think our dreams are the same. Sookie is dead." I could tell myself that, as much as I wanted, but I didn't believe it, not most of the time. What she was, I was unsure, but I was fairly certain that she wasn't dead.

"I don't think she is. I remember you describing your dreams, before I was turned, and it was the same for me. I never dreamed, really, unless it was of him. And they were so vivid."

"I dreamt of her three months ago. In a different setting though, her old home. Usually she is wherever I am."

"I think it all means something. You know, I'm the only one of my kind I've met in decades, living or undead. I think all the fae are gone."

"Perhaps. I know that there were some issues, some factions that were not in favour of the human and fae breeding. That was what happened to my...er, Sookie. She was uncovered, and killed, because of her mixed heritage. You were lucky that your mother was intelligent enough to swear fealty to a powerful vampire."

"Who decided I was his at fifteen, after he'd cast my mother out? I don't call that luck." She crossed her arms. "I hate vampire politics. There are very few honourable vampires around, Vlad being one of them," Her hand moved across the table, and gripped mine, in a very human way. "And you being another."

"What do you want me to do?"

She shrugged. "Next time you see her, ask the questions. Ask if there's a war, if things are okay with the ones that left. She might be unable to tell you everything; Dad was like that sometimes, but have her write it down. I think it's some sort of spell. There are certain things they can't say, but they can write. I'm no longer fae, in the strictest sense of being, but they're my ancestry. I'd help in someway if something was wrong, if I could. I just have a bad feeling about my father."

I nodded. That was an interesting tidbit. Something to try, anyway, if given the opportunity. "I will try."

She looked down at my chest, before bringing her eyes up to meet mine. "Vlad and I have gone our separate ways, for a time."

"I thought as much."

"I thought, perhaps, I could stay with you, for a time. I need to become my own vampire, but Italy is too overwhelming."

I nodded. "That would be acceptable. My home is about six miles from here."

I was interested to discover that she could fly, and a few minutes later, we stomped in the front door of my house, kicking the snow from my boots.

I'd hadn't taken a vampire, or a blond, as a lover for decades, but I found myself drawn to her, and as I started a fire, I felt her eyes on me. "Vlad knows I'm here," She said, as she sat down on my couch, running her toes through my bearskin rug. "And he doesn't mind."

"Then I would be honoured." I gave her a small smile.

She stayed for about six years, until Vlad called her back. I wasn't sure it was the end of us, however, but it was for the time being. She was very young, and I was not about to interfere with Vlad's claim. I dreamt of Sookie twice, while Corrina stayed with me, but I was unable to find a pen in either dream. It was almost a lesson in torture, spending my dream time looking for writing implements, but Sookie humoured me, both times, and, perhaps because the nights were long, we still had time to explore one another, in the end. When Corrina left, the nights became unbearably long, and I plotted my next step. This time, I decided to travel to the South Pacific, over land, and see a continent that I hadn't explored for over five hundred years.

I stopped for the day in Istanbul and when I woke for the evening, I was approached by a woman with the clearest eyes. She was blind, I soon determined, and when she took my hand and led me into her shop, I realized that I was probably getting taken. "You are very old."

I nodded. "Ancient, some even say."

"And you are bonded. Not many are bonded."

I leaned back in my chair. "The one whom I had the bond with, is dead."

"You are mistaken." Her eyes widened. "She is very much alive. I can sense her with you."

"Where is she?" I figured I might as well ask, although I doubted this old human would be able to give me any information that I didn't already have.

"Somewhere else."

"Great, thanks for the help." I stood up, leaving a pile of change on the table. I was a skeptic of such things, and with good cause, as in one thousand years, I'd never seen anything especially impressive, from a psychic.

"Sookie," She said, in a whispered tone. "She still cares for you, very much."

I sat back down. "How can I reach her?"

"I don't know." She looked down at her hands. "There are many obstacles."

"Thanks." I got back up, and left. As useless as that was, in an odd way, it was reassuring to know that I wasn't the only one that felt something. If I really focused on it, the bond was still buzzing away. It had never stopped, just felt like it was a million miles away.

When I got to New Delhi, I began researching, and reading everything I could about the fae. There was little I didn't know, which wasn't surprising, since they were such a secretive race of beings. It was irritating.

Pam met me in Sydney, Australia, after I'd been there for a couple of months. She immediately noticed the huge stack of fae related notes I'd made "You just need to let her go, Eric. It's been sixty years. You only knew her for three. This is ridiculous."

I shrugged. "At worst, it gives me a purpose. At best, she may still be out there."

"And what if she is? She's just been booty calling your dreams? That seems a bit absurd."

"It's never just that. We talk, too."

"Whatever, Eric. Get over it. She was just a bloodbag."

I felt something in me snap, and I was completely unprepared for it. I slammed Pam up against the wall. "That bloodbag was my wife, and a friend to you. Did you ever think that the only person that saw her corpse was Compton? And we just took his word? This reeks of fae." I dropped her, and snorted, as she adjusted her lapels, and rolled her eyes at me.

"Fine, Eric. Keep doing your research, and wasting your eternity on some wild human chase. It's your time to kill. Your life."

It was my life, and I couldn't help but feeling like I'd been robbed of something that I had in abundance. Time. Time to make things right with Sookie. I wouldn't stop until I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that I'd lost my chance.

A couple of things of note: I'm cohosting an AH contest for newbies and AH newbies! Check it out! www(DOT)fanfiction(DOT)net/u/2507718/A_New_Chapter_Contest

I also have a blog now, and I'm planning to start posting some original fiction, which I'd be ever so grateful if you checked out in a couple of weeks. The link to my blog is on my profile page, and The Expert is hosted there exclusively now. It also includes some rambling and ranting from me, so if you're interested, check it out!