Oh. My. God. She did another chapter. Can you believe it?

What can I say, I like tying up loose ends. Thanks for all the review love, and the comments, and for STILL READING, even though I totally let you guys down and bailed for ages. You're awesome. And you don't seem to completely hate me for what I did last chapter. You must have faith in me, or in the professor and the editor. Either way, I love it.

I'm almost at 1000 reviews, so every contribution that you make to help me reach the 1000 year old Viking club with the final installment of The Expert series is uber appreciated and will get you one kiss from Eric Northman. I'm not sure how I'll deliver that, but I'll find a way.

Eric

I have to admit, when she hopped off my dick and slammed and locked the bathroom door, I felt a little used.

However, at the same time, I kind of felt like if that was the only thing I could do for her, at least it was something. I was also cavemanishly pleased that she wasn't sleeping with anyone else. I knew things hadn't gone that far, at least on my end, but it was a relief to know she hadn't given up completely either, and the way she jumped me solidified that.

Now I just needed to figure out how to get us back.

I noticed Bill's Saab still in the driveway at his mother's when I drove by, and against my better judgement, I pulled into the parking lot and called him.

"Bill Compton," he answered, his voice cold.

"Did you delete me from your cellphone?" I asked curiously, wondering why he didn't know it was me that called.

"No, I knew it was you," was his frosty reply. "What do you want?"

"To talk. I'm parked by the road outside." I really wasn't sure this was a good idea, but I'd come this far, all the way to Bridgehampton, and had just been used as a boytoy by my estranged wife, so I really had nothing left to lose. Even if that meant getting an earful from her ex-husband, which I knew was coming.

And Bill didn't disappoint. "Do you have any idea how much crap Selah is going to give me for talking to you?" He said, as he climbed in the passenger side and closed the door.

I cocked my head at him. "Why?"

"Because you're public enemy number one. We're team Sookie."

"Why? And since when are there teams?"

He snorted. "Since you were an idiot and pulled a me, ten years ago. Come on, Eric. Have you not learned from my mistakes? I know I have."

I crossed my arms. "I didn't get snipped. Well, I did, but we had a conversation about it."

"You were deceitful about your feelings. You know Sookie doesn't deal well with that. She's reverted back to Sookie ten years ago. You don't act in her best interests by skipping town in the fall, and you called her a liar. That's bad form, Northman, bad form."

Yea, that had been bad form. I hated when Bill was right. "So how do I fix this?"

Bill chuckled obnoxiously. "Remember, we got a divorce? I'm probably the wrong person to ask."

Touche. "I don't know what to do. I just want everything to go back to the way it was."

Bill raised an eyebrow. "We're adults, Eric. We're not living in the world that our children do. You can't just do the electric slide back to a year ago. But you can move forward."

I raised one back. "The electric slide? Really?"

"It's this aerobics move that Selah does to make her ass tighter or something. I have to listen to the fucking DVD five times a week. Anyway, I don't know how you fix it, but you should, and fast, so you don't get a set of separation papers in the mail and some cocky asshole jibing you at some Christmas party."

I felt like I was going to hyperventilate. It was happening. History was repeating itself. The long separation, the lack of contact on her part. I wasn't having it. We were not Sookie and Bill 2.0. We were Eric and Sookie, no version number, because we were it for one another. I looked directly at Bill. "Did she know Bones was staying in our basement?"

He rolled his eyes. "You broke his nose in two places. Do you think she knew? Do you really think she would have run the risk of that happening, if she knew? She has to deal with both of you, remember?"

"Maybe she didn't think we'd run into one another."

"Maybe with the way you feel about that guy, and hey, I'm not blaming you, that was an asshole move, kissing your wife, you should have just trusted her on that one." He opened the car door and climbed out. "Give her some space, but not too much space. That's my advice. And you have to prove to her that you're willing to change. For me, I would have probably had to have shown up with a Chinese baby, but I think you'll be able to remedy things a little easier." He chuckled. "If I'd known my life was going to turn out how it did, I never would have pulled that shit, and you never would have had a shot with her, so you better make all that shit with Mira, and the most painful time in my life count for something besides those two great kids of yours." He slammed the door, and went back inside, and left me sitting beside the road.

I needed to fix this, and fast, but I had no idea how to do that.

Sookie

"I've got the tiramisu from Via Emilia like you asked," Bones said, a grin on his face. "And I may have got us each a couple of pieces."

"This is going to be one of those meetings, huh?" I sighed, pushing the kid's drawing utensils aside as he sat down across from me.

He shook his head. "No, no. Just a lot of things for you to sign. Things are going well. Everyone is doing their jobs."

"I'm getting a lot done here too. Who knew two days in the office a week would be so productive?" I smiled as he slid a piece of tiramisu across the table. I'd been driving in on Monday and Fridays to pick up the kids and drop them off and put in some face time in the office. It was a lot of driving.

"Niall hasn't been in much either."

"I know. I ran into him last week at the market." He hadn't given any indication that he gave a shit about me working from home for a while. I guess I'd earned it, finally after all these years. "How's Cat?"

He got the shit eating grin on his face that he always did when I asked about her. "Fantastic. Wonderful. She's fucking perfect."

" My advice, from a divorcee that's estranged from husband number two? Don't do it."

"Luv, I've done it before, shacked up, had fuck buddies. There's potential for disaster in everything."

I shrugged. "I suppose so. I guess it just hurts more than I ever imagined it would. Maybe because I never imagined it would happen."

He nodded towards the door. "Get off your self-righteous high horse and go fix it then. You've got two lovely children, and for some reason, you seem awfully attached to that arrogant prick."

"He's not..." I stopped myself. "Takes one to know one."

"Are we seven?" He cocked an eyebrow. "Do you want to start over again? Share your kids with someone you're pining over while you're stuck looking for someone else that may or may not measure up?"

"Let's get this stuff signed," I said, as I reached for the envelopes. "Have you been at the house?"

"You told me not to go. Cat's been spending most nights at mine."

"Good boy." I slid my glasses on and looked at the first report, the ancillary budget for the quarter. "You don't need to aggravate him further. Your nose looks better."

"It feels better, and everyone's stopped looking at me like I'm a moron that gets drunk and walks into walls, or gets into barfights or something." He'd really been in rough shape for a while. His doctor had told him it was one of the worst breaks he'd ever seen that didn't require surgery. Eric had really done a number on him.

I gave him a half smile. "I really do appreciate you keeping quiet about that."

He raised his eyebrows. "Luv, if I didn't, the whole office would think we were snogging, and I wouldn't do that to you."

I nodded, grateful that we'd been able to rebuild our relationship like we had, after what happened. It was almost better now, because we had real boundaries, and the flirtation had ceased and developed into a stronger, more genuine relationship. I was happy that he was happy with Cat. He was a whole different person since they became involved, lighter, more relaxed.

"I miss him, Bones."

"Then do something about it. And sign here." He pointed to a contract for the big introduction to psychology text. Eric had a profile box in that book.

I lay away long after he left that night, thinking about how to fix my life. I really had no idea. It hurt like hell, sleeping in an empty house, when for so long I'd felt the familiar comfort of having the kids around every night. I'd thought time and time again about going back, for their sake, but had quickly convinced myself that they were better off having two parents that loved them to bits in person part time than two parents that were bitter and angry at each other in their presence full time. It was a hard realization to come to, but I didn't want to do any damage that way. We were both doing our darndest to make sure they enjoyed their time with each of us. Ce and Max had both gone on and on about Dad letting them make pizza for dinner, and how he met them at school almost every day. Max even leta late night McDonald's trip that he wasn't supposed to tell me about slip.

Half of marriages ended in divorce, and if done right, those kids grew up to be well functioning adults. It was the ones that were stuck in homes where the parents had pent up anger issues that probably had problems, I reasoned.

We'd been so perfect once. Not even so long ago. I wished, more than anything that we'd not spent the last four months fucking our problems away and action dug at the wound him leaving in the fall had left instead of letting it fester.

He'd been texting me for the past three nights, since he came over for what was probably our worst attempt at communicating ever. I'd been writing him back to let him know that the Hamptons strangler hadn't gotten me.

Tonight though, even though it was two in the morning, I called.

It took him a while to answer his cell, but I didn't want to wake up the kids. When he finally did, it was obvious he'd been sleeping.

"Sookie?" he grumbled. "What time is it? Are you okay?"

"I'm fine. I just wanted to let you know I was fine." He knew I was fine. I'd texted him hours earlier.

"Is there any reason you wouldn't be? Do you need me to come down there?"

I bit my lip, trying to prevent myself from sobbing into the phone. "No. I just, I wanted to hear your voice."

"That's nice to hear." He covered the phone and hushed Lil, who had been disrupted from her beauty sleep by my call and was bark-whining. "Maybe you should have Lil down there. Keep you company."

"I'm not great company."

He was quiet for a minute. "Come home, Sook. We don't have to do this."

"Nothing's changed. I can't."

"Why don't we try and change together? We were always good at working together. We can be a project. A work in progress. I'll give you free reign to edit the shit right out of me."

I rolled onto my back and looked out the window at the clear night, and the moon over the sea. "All marriages are a work in progress, Eric. We were just a particularly clean draft. I should let you get back to sleep."

"Don't," he said, in a firm tone that quickly softened. "I want to fix this, but I want to give you space, but not too much space, because I don't want you to forget how right we are."

I let out an audible, cracked sigh. "I know. Goodnight."

Eric

It was a Thursday afternoon when Bones darkened my doorway at NYU. I looked up at him, after sensing someone standing there.

"What?" I snapped, as I felt myself grow tense at his presence. I wanted to hit him again, and again, and again. But I wouldn't.

He narrowed his eyes at me. "I think it's time you and I had a bit of a chat."

"And I think I'd rather talk to anyone but you."

He shrugged and made himself at home sitting in front of me and pulling out a huge envelope. "Your pages are ready for your book. I thought I'd save us the postage and drop them off since I'm meeting Cat after her night class. We are in a recession, after all. My nose is all healed by the way, thank you for asking."

I reached for it across the table, and he held onto it, and we stared each other down momentarily, until finally he let go, and I yanked it over to my side of the desk. "Great. I'll look at it sometime."

"We wrote the acknowledgements for you in house, since you weren't replying to your editor's emails last week. Perhaps you should take a read."

"Yea, later." I glanced back down at the budget report I was making up for the summer semester, and hoped he'd leave. He didn't, and it was then that I remembered that Cat was teaching till ten. It was just after six. "I need to get home to my children." Stella was watching them. I hadn't given her a time I'd be back, since I did have some work to do, but it was a good excuse. Not that I even needed one.

"Your wife didn't know I was staying in your basement, and Cat didn't invite me. I just showed up because I was worried about her in the storm. I've taken quite a fancy to her."

I glanced up at him. "She's an idiot then."

"You know, I thought the same thing about Sookie after meeting you for the first time." He met my stare. "Funny."

"Is there a point to you being here?"

"Well, I was going to help you fix your marriage, but if you don't want my help, which clearly you don't, I guess I'll be on my way." He stood. "It's a pity. For all her intelligence and charm, she's quite hung up on you. I don't get it myself."

"How are you going to help me with anything? You're the cause of all of this."

Bones' eyes grew dark, and he moved in closer to me, planting his hands firmly on my desk. "If you think I'm the cause of your insecurities, then you're a bigger imbecile than I originally thought. A real man owns his weaknesses and overcomes them. He doesn't blame them on others."

I stood up, just barely towering over him. That was frustrating. I towered over everyone. "Get out of my office."

"Why don't you grow a pair and throw me out? I know you want to. Now, are you going to be a pussy and actually hit me on purpose this time, or are you going to listen to what I have to say?"

In a move that surprised even me, I sat down, and he did the same. "Make it quick."

"Let's not do this here. We've got to make it look real. I know a pub a couple of blocks from here that has Carlsburg on tap. You like that stuff, yes?"

"I'm Swedish, not Danish."

"Whatever." He stood again. "Come on then. First round is on the Press. Don't tell your wife we weren't talking business. She signs my expense reports."

After a tense pint, every minute threatening to erupt in violence, he finally revealed his plan, and it was stupid, idiotic, and I knew Sookie would see right through it.

However, it was all I had, and it was just ridiculous enough to work.