So, um, yea. This chapter is a little silly, but, well, it's Valentines weekend, so I was feeling a bit smushy and sentimental. I hope you like. Thanks for all the love on this story so far! I hadn't realized how much I missed writing these two!

And if you're not reading White Blank Page, I hope you'll consider it! I've gotten some fantastic feedback so far, and I'd be very interested to know what you think of my step outside my comfort zone!

Also, I'd like to pimp Ethehunter's Genius and the Muse. It's a simply amazing story that everyone should check out!

I also started a playlist for this fic, which, well turned into an Iron and Wine Tribute somehow. There's some other stuff on there too. Check it out!

playlist(DOT)com(SLASH)playlist(SLASH)21434673419

Sookie

We made plans to meet Dawn at Le Florimond the next night, after a day spent walking back streets and popping into stores. I shopped a bit, but it was mostly fun just being together, losing track of time while we talked about nothing and made each other smile.

My face hurt from smiling so much.

Around lunchtime, we'd just sat down at this adorable cafe with the prettiest cakes when Eric raised an eyebrow at me and pulled out his tape recorder.

I wrinkled up my nose at him. "What's that for?"

"I think we deserve a chapter. If not, a least a prominent part in the introduction." He clicked it on. "We can both ask questions. You've read my interview transcripts."

I wrapped my legs around his under the table. "So we just talk about how we met?"

"And how we fell in love." He waggled his eyebrows. "That is of the utmost importance."

I leaned back in my chair, sipping my cafe au lait. "Well, as you know, because you were there, it was not love at first sight."

"But it was lust, for me anyway. I'd noticed you and Amelia at the top of the lecture hall when I was teaching. I actually lied about my office hours so I could go have coffee with you two, even though I disliked Amelia. Sorry, Amelia, if you're reading this. I guess you already knew how I felt though. You are a sales rep."

I grinned. "I didn't know you blew off office hours for coffee."

"I think I liked your glasses. They were chic, yet sexy, and somehow unassuming. I don't know how glasses could be all those things, but they were. I had to know more."

"And when you had me take you out for dinner? I was so nervous, because I thought you were just going to take me like you took Maudette, and I was going to have to sit there with you after you rejected my book idea. And you were so intimidatingly handsome. I was terrified of trying to make small talk with you."

"Because I was a cocky asshole?"

"Because you were you, and it was such a big project, and you'd made such a point of saying that you always said no. I had no idea how I was going to convince you otherwise. That was before I was a master of author manipulation."

He nodded, a smirk on his face. "You have gotten three editions out of me. You're pretty good."

I smiled. "You were so aggressive at first, with your questioning

"I wanted to drink you up, to know everything about you. I wasn't sure why you made me feel the way you did, and I had to know. Incidentally, I still haven't figured it out, but I decided a long time ago that it wasn't the kind of thing that there was an answer to."

"We kind of just worked, in a scratchy way. I always thought we were kind of like velcro. We sort of both just dug our heels into one another. And then there was Bill."

"Bill acknowledged at Thanksgiving that he was never a threat. He sure made things complicated though."

I nodded. "That's true. I never would have taken him back. That was a pretty major thing to leave out."

"I've never been more insecure about anything than I was about you and him in the beginning. It felt like whatever we had, which quickly became incredibly important to me was shaky, because you were still an item on paper. Every day you came over, and told me you loved me, it made it a little better, but I was still afraid for a long time that I'd wake up one morning, and you would have changed your mind, and chose your history over our present."

"I think the baby changed everything for me."

He nodded. "That changed a lot."

It still was hard to think about, eight years and two wonderful kids later. "I think when that happened, it was when I really understood our potential, and how strong we'd magically become over eight months. I didn't even notice it happening, but it had. We just kind of got each other. You knew when I didn't want to talk, and what to say, and how to love me when everything else had flaked away. When there was no sex, and no fun times. You were like my rock. And you still are, when everything threatens to sweep me away. I know I can hold onto you, and I'll be fine."

He reached across the table and pulled me to the middle, kissing me, both hands on my cheeks. "And I'll always be there, no matter what you need me for."

Only Eric could make such a sweet statement sound like something very sexy. I blushed, glancing at the barista, who was grinning at us. "I'm sure that broke all sorts of ethics rules."

"Good thing this isn't for a scholarly work then." He kissed me again, before backing away slowly, a huge smile on his face. "It always felt like we were building something, every time we marked some small milestone, like when we kissed for the first time, or when you finally stayed over and slept in my bed. I watched you for ages that morning, before you woke up. It felt like a real accomplishment."

I snorted. "Just getting you to be my boyfriend felt like an accomplishment, after that spiel you gave me about how you didn't date."

"And remember when I met your gran for the first time, and she thought we'd had an affair?"

"Why does everything think that?"

"Because I'm the kind of guy you leave your husband for."

"But you weren't."

He raised his eyebrows. "I fit the profile though."

I reached across the table ands squeezed his hand. "You don't fit any profiles."

He shut the recorder off. "There. Perfect."

I stuck my tongue out at him. "That's because we ended on a compliment for you."

"It is my book." He patted my hand. "Besides, if you're editing it, you can end it where ever you like."

I smirked at him. "I'm editing it."

"I don't trust anyone else with my words. Or the words I've carefully tape recorded. Whatever." He stuffed the recorder back in his pocket. "I guess we should get going and meet Dawn. I'll warn you Lover, she's very blunt. Perhaps even more than I am. Especially when it comes to sex."

"I didn't think was possible."

He raised an eyebrow. "Oh, it's possible. It's too bad her husband can't make it. He blushes like a schoolboy when she talks about them fucking, which she will talk about."

"We're not going to compare notes, are we?"

He shook his head. "No matter how hard she tries."

Dawn was already at the restaurant when we arrived, sitting in a corner with a paperback. She saw us, waving furiously as we walked over. "I thought y'all weren't going to be able to pull yourselves out of bed long enough to come for dinner."

Eric checked his watch. "We're only five minutes late."

She shrugged. "My mind never strays far from sex. I just assumed that's where you were."

A bottle of wine and some amazing appetizers later, I realized that Eric was right on the money with Dawn. It was kind of like listening to a train wreck. Impossible to stop.

"So we're having sex on mostly deserted beach, when we got attacked by a seagull. Who ever heard of such a thing happening?" She giggled.

Eric glanced at me, and I decided to go for a subject change. "So tell me about Eric at UCLA."

She glanced at him. "Do you really want me to do that?"

Eric shrugged. "Sookie knows, well, enough. What's a little more?"

So I sat there, blinking, as Dawn described their adventures, including their failed one in the bedroom.

"...so I thought he might have been gay, or into anal, or something." She snorted. "I had no idea what was going on. I'm really good at sex."

Eric raised an eyebrow at me, and it was not missed by Dawn.

She gasped. "You are into anal."

He shook his head. "I'm not into anal."

That wasn't true, entirely. It was a half truth. But not one I was interested in discussing over escargot, with a woman that had once had bad sex with my husband.

She rolled her eyes. "It's fine if you're into anal. I think like forty per cent of men have had it, and who wouldn't like it? It's another thing to do, and it feels amazing. There's a lot of nerve endings. It's taboo. Hoyt loves it."

Yep, I was absolutely blushing. "I love this escargot. It's so fresh." I grinned, hoping desperately to change the subject.

"You're into it, and he's not? Is that it? You've piqued my curiosity now." Her eyes twinkled. "Come on Sookie. Spill."

I shook my head. "Nope. I'm good at dodging sexpert questioning. I'm trying to change the subject."

Eric listened with amusement. "Sookie's very private when it comes to our sex life. Drop it."

But she didn't. "We're all friends here. Wait..." She looked up, thinking. "I remember now. You're large. I was so excited to find that out, and then you had no idea what to do with it. Yea, I remember wondering if I should suggest anal, and chickening out." She shrugged. "I guess we were just bad together."

I exhaled, happy that we were ending the conversation there. The night we'd attempted that was not one we spoke of, on punishment of death. "So Indira came by Eric's place last night."

Dawn tried to think about who she was, until Eric finally told her. "The grad student. You know, that was supposed to work with you, but who Victor gave to me. The one who tried to seduce me. Well, it was a rather weak attempt. The one who had the abortion."

Dawn finally nodded in recognition, furrowing her brow. "Right right. The problem causer. I didn't even give her a name in my head. She came by? I thought you sorted all that out with a lawyer."

Eric nodded. "We did, but Victor is trying to kick her out of school because she didn't help him. I don't want that to happen."

Eric

She leaned across the table. "So we need Vic gone."

Vic. He'd told me to call me Vic when I'd first arrived. I'd opted not to. "First off, then I need to oust my department head in New York. Any interest in doing a semester abroad and giving me a hand?"

She shook her head. "I only get to see my husband on weekends as it is, and I despise New York. No thanks. But I'd help from here if you needed me."

"Well, I'd like whatever we do here to make Appius nervous about me coming back, so it has to be intense."

Dawn leaned back in her chair. "I think we should harness the power of the internet. He's already creepy. I'm sure if we started a Victor Madden is creepy post on the overheard on campus website, we'd probably get some good stuff. It doesn't have to be a complicated scheme, and it doesn't have to lead back to us."

That wasn't a bad idea. "I could have Indira post something to get us started. What he did was pretty creepy with her. In fact, that alone could bring him down, if brought to the attention of the right people."

She nodded, a small smile on her face. "Well let's bring it to their attention that way, and see what else we can get too."

"And I think for saving her ass in school, Indria would own up to being the one who posted the initial post. Let's shame him first though. That will ensure he won't be able to get out of it." This was easier than I thought it was going to be. I had the feeling Appius would be more of a challenge, but Victor was a good start.

And so the three of us went back to Dawn's place, and watched online as Indira posted her item. As expected, she agreed wholeheartedly to do whatever we needed if Dawn would help her stay in school. We all grinned as we read what she'd written.

This psychology professor is a creep, straight up, with his rat-like appearance and touchy feely behavior. Earlier this fall though, he took it to a whole new level, paying for a student to have an abortion under the conditions that she pin the pregnancy on a visiting professor in the department, in order to destroy his reputation and create problems in his personal life.

Sookie giggled. "I feel like we're on Gossip Girl."

I patted her back. "This was easier than I thought. This looks terrible on the school."

Dawn nodded. "Give it a few days, let it build to a fever pitch and I'll go to the dean. We all win."

We chatted with Dawn a bit more and had a couple of glasses of wine before getting a taxi back to my apartment. Once again, we barely made it in the door, this time being interrupted by this ancient old woman who lived down the hall from me, who just tisked at us.

Sookie squealed as I pinned her against the wall. "I love when you're plotting. It's so fucking hot," she whispered, unbuttoning my shirt.

I growled, as she ran her tongue over my nipple. "I'm going to fuck you against this wall, Lover,"I whispered, growing hard as she shivered in anticipation. I went for the button on her jeans, pushing them down to her ankles, before pulling her sweater off, picked her up, and pressed her back against the wall, pushed my shorts down as she wrapped her arms around my neck and her legs around my waist. She tossed her head back as I entered her and let out the most delicious moan, crossing her ankles behind my back, which pulled us even closer together.

I loved fucking her here, in this apartment which had been without her presence for so long. I'd had an impossible time imagining her here, her smell, her smile, her underwear on the floor, her hair in my face when I woke up in the morning, the way she spit in the sink when she brushed her teeth.

And we only had two weeks apart once she went home before we could return to our perfect life.

I knew perfection was always a myth, but it was perfect for us.

I pulled out eventually, eager to make the moment last as long as possible, in this somewhat ideal situation, where there was no fear of interruption, and nothing was in danger of getting off schedule. There was nothing else ticking away at the back of our minds, as was so often the case. This was a time for her and I to plaster over seven years of cracks, so small we hadn't even seen them, and start over with a new coat of paint.

I dropped to my knees and she balanced against the wall, her hands up over her head for balance, as I pulled one leg over my shoulder, leaving her on her tiptoes on the other one.

"You're too damn tall," She giggled, before stabilizing herself against the wall.

"You're too short," I mumbled, before silencing her in a way I knew wouldn't get me smacked later. Her snarkiness was replaced by her moaning my name, one of her hands in my hair, as I moved a hand to her breast.

Sookie was great for my ego, not that my past experiences hadn't been, but I really liked getting her off, because she was her. I liked the way her brow twitched, the way her lips curled up into an almost automatic smile before she squeezed her eyes shut and just came. She always fought it for a bit, savouring the moment much like I did.

On quivering limbs, she crawled off my shoulders and grinned at me. "Against the wall, Northman."

We switched positions, but my height was a bit of an issue. Never one to be put off my a challenge, she shoved me down on the couch, and I ran my hands through her hair as she sunk to her knees again. It was really great, to be thinking about nothing besides how good it felt when she fondled my balls, the way her mouth felt around my shaft, when moved her tongue gently around the tip. I felt myself grow close, and it was apparent that she noticed as she crawled onto my lap.

"I want you to finish inside me," she whispered, her straightforward honesty making me even harder. I grunted something along the lines of 'I love you,' which probably didn't sound like much, but meant a hell of a lot, as we pressed our bodies against one another's, so close that it was indistinguishable where I ended and she began.

We finished fairly close together, our mouths pressed together, tasting each other gasps and moans, among other things, as we squeezed together even closer, tensing, before eventually relaxing.

Eventually, we pried apart from each other and crawled into bed, still grinning at each other as we had for most of the day. She wrapped her body around me, draping a leg over mine, as I turned the laptop on. We'd subscribed to Indira's thread, and we both blinked at the screen at the number of notifications we'd gotten.

Sookie looked at me curiously. "Fifty notifications? How long were we fucking for?"

I looked at the clock on the computer. "A couple of hours maybe? I'm not sure when we got home."

We sat up and read through them, some of the comments amusing, and some heartbreaking. Victor was a real asshole, and the way he'd manipulated other students was appalling.

"I guess that was effective," I sighed, closing the laptop screen and setting it on the side table.

"What a douche," Sookie whispered. "And who knew that would be so easy."

It had been really easy, and when I got an email on my Iphone from Dawn about a faculty meeting the next afternoon I couldn't help but grin. "I guess it's rare that people are only assholes with select people. This is really going to shake things up here."

Sookie nodded. "Good thing you're leaving."

I shrugged. "It was a good trial run. A lesson in self destruction, if you will."

She grinned. "Now we just need to Americanize it."

I chuckled at her enthusiasm. "Throw some stars and stripes on it? Make it more puritanical? Turn it into a hunt for WMDs?"

I roared, as she hit me with her pillow. "Hey, come on now. We live in a blue state. And I did marry a European."

When I finally got ahold of myself, I tossed her pillow on the floor. "You're right, Lover. You did. We'll just supersize it. That's how we'll make it American."

Oddly enough, that sounds like just the ticket.