So I know a few people wanted to hear from Eric, but I found a more suitable narrator, who had just been dying to share with everyone how he was feeling. So without further adieu, Bones. Let me know what you think!

Thanks so much for all the love!

PS. Sorry for all the weirdness with this chapter. I don't know what FF is doing tonight, but it's making it really hard to post this.

Bones

Eric answered the door, a bit of a bemused smile on his face. Cocky bastard. "Crispin, welcome to our home."

I smiled politely, refraining myself from chuffing him in his arrogant grin. "Thanks so much for having me. I'm getting off on the right foot with your holidays, having dinner with such a lovely family."

That statement wasn't a complete lie. Sookie and the kids were lovely.

From the moment I'd set eyes on her in September, I'd know there was something special about Sookie Stackhouse. She was lovely, sure beautiful, with a certain confidence that not a lot of women her age possessed, and obviously smart, to be in such a senior position before she was even thirty-five. It was once I got to know her a bit that I really realized how incredible she actually was. There were parts of her personality that were so contradictory though, especially when it came to her pretty boy husband.

From what I'd gathered from gossip around the office, she'd left her first husband, the sullen looking philosopher for Eric and started a torrid secret love affair, which had resulted in their son, and a shotgun wedding. He was a notorious womanizer, according to Niall, who had no idea why such an intelligent woman would put up with such philandering. Sam had mentioned on more than one occasion that she'd used him to get ahead, by signing such a big project when she was a novice editor. But why then marry him? Why not just raise the child and take the bastard to town for child support payments? Especially since she seemed to be a single mother anyway.

But she wore the burden of raising her two children on her own, and was doing a wonderful job. They were well spoken and articulate for their age, even if the boy was a bit moody. It was unfortunate that they both resembled his side of the family so closely. Northman seemed to like the children, and they seemed to care for him as well, which was probably a product of them not seeing him very often. I hated the way he tried to be possessive her in front of me at lunch as well. She was a strong, independent woman. She didn't need someone pissing all over her.

I found myself fantasizing about her a little more than I probably should have, taking her over her desk and making her scream my name. I also had the odd more bizarre fantasy about coming home to her after work, eating dinner together, all of that, like out of some fifties sitcom as well. The latter one kind of baffled me, because one thing was certain there was no way Sookie was leaving her job to be a housewife, in fact, I really couldn't imagine it outside the context of that specific fantasy. I don't even know why the thought crossed my mind. I guess somewhere in the deep recesses of my brain, I liked the idea of a stable relationship, and that was what my mind cooked up.

We had a lot in common, Sookie and me, including our working class backgrounds, and a love of reading and books from an incredibly early age. It was the one thing my mother had really made an effort with, when she was between boyfriends and husbands, and lovers. Books were the best part of my life, which is why I'd gotten into what I did for employment.

I was running a bit behind, still unable to gage traffic times, so we all had a glass of wine and made our way to the dining room. Sookie greeted me with a small hug, but was careful to keep her distance with him looking on. As if we would snog in his dining room. She looked completely different after a week in his presence, pale and sickly, with dark circles under her eyes. I was seated between Eric's gorgeous daughter and Sookie's first husband. I wondered how the first husband, Bill, even tolerated being in the same room with the man that had literally stolen his wife out from under him. They seemed to have an odd relationship, which involved poking fun at one another relentlessly. Bill made a bit of small talk with me about a book project which Sookie had mentioned, which was a nice break from the rather forced conversation in the room. Sookie excused herself a few times, a weak smile on her face.

The food was wonderful, which wasn't surprising, as Sookie was an excellent cook. Eric poked fun at her a few times for the potatoes being overcooked, but she took it with grace and dignity, and a bit of cheekiness, telling him that he should have made them himself if he took issue with her cooking.

I tried making small talk with him a few times.

"So, Eric, you're heading back to Paris on the weekend?" I grinned politely.

"Yes, but I'm back in December permanently. I'm quite looking forward to it." He gave Sookie a small smile.

"That's nice then. Just in time to look at the pages for your book."

"Sookie and I always do that together," he said, quite bluntly. "We have since the first edition. I trust her judgment implicitly."

"It's become a bit of a tradition," Sookie said, more politely. "I think it gives us both a bit of peace of mind, since it was such an important project to both of us when we did the first edition."

Eric's sister, who was a bit of stuck up bitch, in a way that reminded me of Annette, piped up. "It's like foreplay for them, all that publishing speak. Font this, art program that. Don't even get me started on what a typo does for them." She chuckled. "It's obscene."

Sookie shot Pam a look. "We're very professional when we're working, Pam."

She glanced at Eric, and then back at Sookie. "Right."

Bill's wife, whose name I'd already forgotten piped up. "Sookie, do you want to come check on the kids with me?"

She smiled, and nodded. "Yea, we should do that. They're being awfully quiet." We all looked on as they made their way to the kitchen.

As soon as Sookie was gone, Stella shot Eric a look. "You two are ridiculous."

Pam shot Stella one. "What are you talking about?"

"Eric and Sookie. They both look like death. Time to grow up, don't you think? Face reality? Because this, what you're doing, isn't working for either of you. You're too old to be doing this shit."

Pam chuckled. "Burning the candle at both ends, were you? Where did you end up last night?"

"The Hudson." He said, kind of eager to change the subject. Back a week, and he was out at a hotel? What did one do at a hotel when they were married, beside meet women? No wonder Sookie looked so sick. "Had a bit too much to drink."

Bill chuckled. "Such a lightweight. Good to know some things never change."

Eric smiled. "Bill, I've been meaning to say I think your taste in wine is questionable. Why are you paying so much for sub par bottles? You can get quite decent wine for less than twenty bucks a bottle."

So he was a wine snob too.

Bill rolled his eyes. "That wine was from my cellar at the old house."

Eric nearly spat his wine across the table. "You did not bring us wine from your old cellar."

I looked between them. "Isn't aged wine preferable here? It is in the UK."

They both looked at each other, and Pam started roaring. "Not from Bill's cellar. It's been exposed to things down there that don't exactly improve the vintage."

"Like vermin?"

Eric chuckled. "Well that's not the worst thing she was ever called, God rest her soul."

Bill shushed him. "Selah doesn't like to talk about her. It makes her uncomfortable."

Pam, Eric, Stella, her boyfriend, and even Bill's mum all about pissed themselves at that comment, and when Sookie came back, she glared at Eric. "Come on now. Private jokes are a bit rude now."

Eric patted her on the back. "I'll check on them next time."

"They're actually behaving. It's a Thanksgiving miracle." She smiled, excusing herself again. "Sorry, I'll be right back."

Pam glanced at Sookie leaving the table. "She's not..."

"No," Eric snapped. "I wish everyone would stop jumping to that conclusion. We're done."

Pam put her hands up in mock surrender, as her baby dumped some peas on her lap. "Hey, I hear you there."

Her husband sat back, a smirk on his face. "So this means you don't want to start trying again?"

"Eff you," she spat, cleaning up the peas.

This was certainly dysfunction at its finest. Eric got up a minute later, and vanished to the bathroom.

After dinner, Sookie pulled me aside as everyone gathered in the living room after dinner.

"Is everything okay?" She asked, a tense grin on her face. "Sorry, my family, or whatever most of these people are are a little hard to handle sometimes. Kind of overwhelming. We all have a lot of history."

I grinned at her. "Oh, it was lovely. Are you alright, there? You look a bit peckish."

She shook her head. "I'm fine. Just not feeling quite myself. How's work been?"

I shrugged. "Not the same without you, Luv. It's been awfully quiet. I think a lot of people took holidays. We got proofs back from the biology book though, and the design is lovely."

She smiled, a genuine smile. "I can't wait to see that. It's our first intro biology book. Quite a big project."

"You're back Monday then?"

She nodded. "Once I ship that guy," she nodded at Eric in the living room, who was snickering at something Bill's mother had said, "off again for a few weeks. The kids are going to be crushed all over again."

"And you?"

She cocked her head, and looked at me curiously. "Me too, of course. I'm a bit better at handling my emotions than a three and a half year old."

"You seem to do alright without him."

She winked. "It's an elaborate act. Wine?"

I shook my head. "I should be off. I've got to finish my Christmas shopping tomorrow so I can ship it off to the motherland before it costs me a mint, and I want to get an early start. Thanks for having me though. Dinner was divine."

She laughed. "Also a rather elaborate act. I'll see you on Monday, and we'll catch up a bit more. Sorry I was so absent tonight. I'm really quite embarrassed about it."

"No need to be embarrassed at all." I grinned, as she passed me my coat. "I'll see you on Monday then."

She leaned in the doorway, as I made my exit. "Good night Bones."

I walked home, enjoying the city in a bit of a lull, since everyone was eating their dinner. The whole visit had left me quite confused. I'd used Annette to move up the social ladder, to gain advantages I wouldn't have had otherwise, but we'd never been a real couple, the kind that loved and supported each other. She was a harpy, and a wench, and we'd both used each other. Maybe that's what they were doing. I wasn't sure. Sookie didn't seem the type.

I wondered if Eric really made her happy. Fulfilled her needs. Because if he did, I wasn't seeing it.

Eric

I glanced out into the kitchen as Sookie said her goodbye to Bones. Frankly I was glad he was gone, and his obnoxious presence made me appreciate the odd peace I'd built with Bill even more.

We finished clearing the dishes from the table and threw a DVD on for the kids while we moved the adults to the living room.

Bill grinned at me broadly, as we all sat down. "You know Eric, I like him."

"You're just saying that to be an ass. He's an arrogant prick."

Sookie rolled her eyes from her position on my knee. "He was perfectly lovely today. You're not even giving him a chance."

"I don't like the way he looks at you."

"And you sound like a possessive teenager," she snapped. "We can discuss this later."

And discuss it later we did, once everyone had left for the evening and we got the kids to bed. She dragged me to the basement, where we usually had our fights, far away from the kid's sensitive ears.

"I'm tired of hearing about this," she said, hands on her hips, a truly irritated look on her face. "He and I work together, and that's it. I'm frankly a bit insulted that you'd even been concerned about how I conduct myself."

"I'm not concerned about how you conduct yourself, but I'm frustrated that you don't see that you're egging him on, with your hugs and general kindness. I'm sure he thinks you're attracted to him."

"Why would he think that?"

I shrugged. "You were the one that said he was handsome."

"I think lots of men are handsome. It doesn't mean I'm sending them mixed messages."

I groaned. I knew she wasn't sending everyone mixed messages. "Sookie, you work with him every day. I know you flirt to get what you want from time to time with professors, you've told me that, but it's you and him, every day. Going to lunch, working closely together. No offense, but you're giving him the wrong idea, especially since he just got out of a shitty relationship, and I'm sure he thinks you're in one yourself."

She sat down on the old couch and glared at me. "Why would he think that? I've never given him that impression."

"Because I took off to Europe at the same time you got a huge promotion and left you with our kids? Because we got married while you were pregnant. I'm sure your whole office gossips about that."

"I'm sure they don't," she said, clearly irritated me with me. "And I don't see that that's anyone's business."

I shrugged. "We had a shotgun wedding, in the eyes of everyone but us, and maybe Pam. It's fine, but it is what it is. No one at your work even knew we were seeing each other until you were pregnant. You and I know that we were waiting for your divorce and didn't really care if we did things out of order, but that's you and I, and it's not exactly the kind of thing you bring up at a staff meeting. Let's just call a spade a spade here, and entertain the idea for five minutes that we aren't exactly how we appear. You should be a hell of a lot madder at me for taking off than you are."

"It's not like you had much of a choice."

"You and I know that, but again, not staff meeting material. And I'm sure you're not sharing our deepest, darkest secrets and desires with him. I'm sure he doesn't know about Bill, and the baby we lost, and what we mean to each other, because it's none of his business."

She looked up, thoughtfully. "I don't think anyone thinks badly of me at work."

I shook my head. "I wish you were right, but I think people are horrible gossips, and Bones absolutely thinks I'm a douche."

Sookie sighed. "There's nothing I can do about any of that."

"I know. But just be aware of it."

"I think you're wrong, but I've heard what you said. And for the record, you've been wrong about your handling of a thing or two in the past, and I think I'm doing a really good job with all this change at once."

I sat down beside her. "And I think you are too, but I think perhaps you're not seeing the forest for the trees in the case of your executive editor. I think you're so focused on the job you're doing together that you're not seeing the way he looks at you."

"So you think I'm oblivious. That's lovely." She crossed her arms. "Eric, I'm just really tired of having this conversation. I don't know what you expect me to change. I'm not going to be an asshole to him to placate you, when we have to work together."

I crossed mine as well. "Fine. But I warned you. I just don't want you to have to clean up a big mess of broken hearts and hurt feelings. We already did that once with Bill, and I feel like he's far more rational than Bones, plus you don't have to see him every day."

She threw her hands up. "Why can't I just have a co-worker? I don't know why this has to be some huge thing."

"Because he's in love with you, Sookie, and men in love are idiots. Trust me on that one."

"He's never been anything but professional."

I snorted. "He calls you Luv. How professional is that?"

"You call me Lover."

"After we were lovers. Not before. And you like it when I call you that." I lowered my voice on the last part, wondering if I could change the subject and we could actually enjoy our second last night together for a while.

She looked at me, a small pout on her lips. "You know I do."

"And for the record, I loved our shotgun wedding," I moved a bit closer and whispered in her ear. "And I wouldn't have done it any other way. And I don't give a shit what anyone thinks of that."

"It was all very inconsequential, when you look at the rest of our life together." She smiled.

I nodded. "Exactly. You just have to be aware though that some people see things the way they want to, and even though it's wrong, you have to acknowledge that."

She pulled her hair back in a ponytail. "I still think you're wrong about him."

I shrugged. "I hope I am."

The next two days went by way too quickly, and then it was time for me to go again. This time, Sookie and the kids took me to the airport, and I got to see the sullen looks that Sookie had been subjected to for the week I left first hand.

Max was the worst. "Do you really have to go again, already?"

I nodded, kneeling down beside him. "Yea, I do. Remember though, we'll go ice fishing when I get back after New Years. Mom can mark it on the calendar for you."

"It seems like you just got here though," he said, in kind of a whine. "and I'll miss you."

"And I'll miss you too. Probably more than you'll miss me." I wrapped him up in a hug. "And I need you to take care of your mom and Ce and Lil for me, and be the man for another few weeks. And then I'll be back, and we can share man duty again."

He nodded, a smile on his face. "I can do that."

Sookie was looking on, bleary eyed with Ce in her arms. "Damnit, I wasn't going to cry again."

I wrapped them both up in a hug. "I'm going to go."

"Dad, you're going again?" Ce pouted. "I don't want you to go."

"I'll be back soon. Bye guys."

I only glanced back a couple of times, before they vanished, swept up in the Thanksgiving crowd rush at the airport.

I didn't sleep for this flight, instead subjecting myself to a series of terrible romantic comedies. My apartment was how I left it, with one exception.

A note taped to my door. I tugged it down and opened it, once I was inside, sitting down on my bed.

It's my word against yours, and I won't sell you out, but you better watch your back. Indira.

I sighed, reading it over again, before firing off an email to her, asking her to meet me for coffee in the morning. I needed to deal with this sooner than later, and being complacent wasn't getting me anywhere.

I needed a plan.