"Well. Did you have a nice time last night?"

I froze over the coffee pot in the kitchen, still wearing my pajamas. Gran stood in the doorway with her arms crossed.

"At work?" I asked, and then held my breath.

Gran snorted. "I saw Eric flying in before I fell asleep, Sookie Stackhouse."

"Oh. Yeah. He came to talk about the rogue vampires," I said. It was mostly true but even I knew that my voice was too innocent sounding.

"Bull hickey," Gran said.

I spun around and raised the coffee up to my face, as if the steam could excuse my blush, before speaking. "You told me to have fun where I could."

Gran turned a little pink in the cheeks. "That's true."

We both looked in different directions for a moment.

"Who're you worried about, exactly?" I asked her after a tense pause. "Cause I'm guessing it ain't the thousand year old vampire sherrif."

"Oh, like you ain't a handful and a half," Gran said, fighting a smile. "And lately a trouble magnet, too… He good to you?"

I thought about it and goofy smile tried to grow over my cheeks. I fought it down. "Yes ma'am."

"Is he… is he patient?"

I blushed and grumbled. "More than I am."

Gran cleared her throat and then shrugged. "Well, I guess that's alright then. S'pose I don't have to worry bout you turning up pregnant, at least."

"Gran!"

"Not that I'd look very threatening to Eric even if I did point a shotgun at him."

I laughed at the old country image in my head of Gran finding Eric and I together in the haystack of some barn, caught with our pants down. She'd be five times more embarrassed than Eric ever would. I took a nice gulp of coffee to cover my giggles.

"It doesn't bother you that I'm seeing a man that's older than you?" I teased.

Gran swatted my behind on her way to the stove. "It's funny isn't it? I know from speaking to him how old he really is, but most of the time he acts about as young as he probably was when he became a vampire. I wonder if they all do that, or if they learn it to make us more comfortable?"

I was about to say that I didn't think Eric really worried about other people's comfort too often, but then I remembered how often he had respected my comfort since I met him, so I just hummed and sat to watch Gran whip up some breakfast.

We never blamed each other for what happened next - at least not out loud - but I think we were both a little responsible. We were flying high after eliminating Longshadow and chasing the rogues away from me at Merlotte's. Eric and I were both confident in his ability to protect me from vampires. We hadn't anticipated the humans.

The next night I got home and I was giddy. My schedule gave me three evenings off in a row, even though I would be working the lunch shifts instead. In my eyes that meant Eric and I would spending that promised night alone together, and if I knew I had more than one free maybe he would share a few others with me. I was rushing into the house, headed to the kitchen, thinking about calling him at Fangtasia and giving him the good news, and it never occurred to me to wonder why I couldn't hear Gran in the back of my head. I'd always done my best to stay out of her thoughts, out of respect, maybe that's why I didn't realize something was wrong until I saw the blood on the floor.

The blood everywhere.

The cabinets, the table, the broken back door, the window, the fridge.

My first thought was that Eric should have given Gran his blood too, so maybe I did blame him a little. Then I was on my hands and knees, screaming, sliding across the floor, holding Gran - all cut up on her arms and her neck bruised by dangling rope - crying, and screaming, and screaming, and screaming.

The thing about living way out alone in the country is that you can do that, scream and scream and scream, and no one is going to hear you. Not even the redneck speeding down the road will hear you over Brad Paisley blasting on his stereo. The phone in the kitchen was ringing and ringing and I was screaming and screaming. The phone would stop ringing and I would keep screaming, and then it would start ringing again. That must have been Pam. I don't know if Eric could get signal while he was flying.

I don't know how long it took him to get to the house. I was sobbing, my face dipped in Gran's blood, my work clothes soaked in it. My throat was hoarse. I heard him shouting my name from outside, heard the front door bang open, heard his feet hit inhumanly fast against the floorboards. He stopped in the doorway of the kitchen. Maybe it was all the blood and he didn't trust himself. It occurred to me that this was not a good place for a vampire to be, but I didn't move, I didn't let go of Gran. Maybe he was just angry and heartbroken over her death like I was and he was frozen in shock.

"Sookie," he said sharply. "Sookie, are you hurt?"

I hurt so much inside that he couldn't tell the difference between my heartbreak and any possible injury.

I didn't answer, at least not fast enough. His hands were on my arms, the dry spots. He pried me away, let Gran slide off my lap, streaking me with red, to the floor again. He pulled me up and backed me out of the room. He spun me in his arms and cupped my head, but not my cheeks where I was bloody.

"Are you hurt?" he asked. This time his voice was urgent.

I shook my head no, but I think I moaned yes so slowly it wasn't even a word. His blue eyes were on me, dilated father than I had ever seen them. His fangs were down. He didn't touch the blood, not once.

"Is there another phone in the house?" he asked.

I pointed in the direction of the living room.

"You have to call the police," he ordered, already digging his phone out of his pocket. His fingers blurred over the keys. "Call them, Sookie," he snapped, making me jump.

I walked to the living room, leaving red footprints behind me. I lifted the receiver and dialed 911.

"Kevin? It's Sookie Stackhouse." I didn't recognize my own voice. "You need to come by. Gran's been killed."

That's probably not how emergency calls usually go, but I guess it's all right in a small town. I turned to go back to the kitchen but Eric called to me from the porch. He stood stiffly, a white dishcloth in his hand. I stared at it, not comprehending. He stepped forward and brushed at my cheeks with the towel softly, and then more deliberately, like he was testing himself. Looking back on it, his control probably went above and beyond anything reasonable. I didn't realize in that moment how sensitive he was being, how delicate with me, how human. He wiped the blood from every part of me but my clothes, covering every inch of the towel with red. Mostly what I saw in him was tension.

The police blamed me, not for the actual act of murdering Gran, but they thought it was my fault. Stupid Sookie getting involved with vampires while fangbangers were being murdered. It got Jason off the hook though. He'd been at the station being questioned the whole time. I got it straight from his own head that he blamed me too, but he was too scared of Eric, silent and still at my side, to do anything about it.

"Sookie, I need you to invite Pam into the house," Eric said, as Jason and the police pulled out of the drive. It was late, getting early. Eric wouldn't be able to stay much longer. He was holding the phone to my face.

"Why?" I asked, and my voice was a croak.

"She will clean the house while I clean you."

"Come on in, Pam," I said as if she was standing right in front of me. Eric took my hand and led me inside straight to my bedroom.

He knelt down and lifted my feet out of my shoes. His movements were quick but careful. Sometimes I thought he was so careful because he was calculating every action to avoid scaring me off, sometimes I thought it was because he was afraid of hurting me. He peeled my shirt and shorts off of me, somehow able to barely touch me.

"May I?" he asked, gesturing to my underwear.

I reached behind me and shrugged my bra off, and then pushed my panties down myself. He stepped forward as if to kiss me before stopping himself.

"I'm sorry," he said softly. "You smell like blood. I can only…"

He could only take so much. Later, on a different disaster, when it was less necessary to be so gentle with me I would see by comparison how much control he had really exerted that night. At the time I just walked past him and turned the water on scorching hot and stepped in. I was thinking that on Monday I'd been bitten by Longshadow, and then covered in his decaying blood. I had showered. Then the day before I had come home edgy from new vampires and self conscious about grease. I had showered. Tonight I had found Gran torn open, soaked myself in her blood. I showered. There were just things soap couldn't wash away.

It was several minutes before Eric joined me in the shower. I had thought he had been debating whether or not to leave, but actually he had just taken my shoes and clothes out to be burned along with the bloody towel and anything stained from the kitchen. His touch as he washed me was brief and efficient, as far from sensual as it could get. It wasn't till I turned and faced him that I saw the red tracks over his cheeks. It took me a minute to be shocked.

"Are those tears?" I whispered, brushing my finger over his cheekbone. He nodded and I sighed, resting my head against his chest. His arms wrapped around my back. I didn't know how Eric really felt about me but I knew in that moment that he had loved Gran as a friend. That meant a lot to me.

"Sookie," he said, his voice tight as if to keep from breaking. "You hurt so much. I cannot believe that you aren't wounded. I keep looking but…"

"I am wounded."

Since he didn't search me head to toe I think he understood what I meant. He massaged soap into my hair and I closed my eyes. I couldn't quite enjoy the feeling of being taken care of given the circumstances, but it didn't make the ache in me worse than it already was.

"I want to take you to a safe house," he said. "Until my people find the killer."

"No."

His hands stilled in my hair. "Sookie, don't be-"

"Don't say stupid," I warned in a flat tone. "I won't forgive you for it."

"Reckless," he said easily and I will never know if that was what he meant. "The killer was the one responsible for the strangled women." He made a point of not remembering their names, I thought.

"How do you know that?" I asked. The police thought it was too impossible for there to be two murderers in one town, but a vampire would never be that naïve.

"I have been investigating since you brought it to my attention," he said. "The scents are the same. A human is killing women who associate with vampires."

"Last night I said I was yours in front of a crowded bar," I said.

"Yes."

So I was at fault too. I didn't have any tears left in me so I didn't cry at Eric's confirmation.

"I can't leave. People will start showing up in the morning. They'll bring food and advice and… Lord, Maxine Fortenberry will stay for hours." A safe house was starting to sound good.

"Leave a note on the door," Eric suggested. "It can say, 'Mind your own business, human scum.'"

I kind of wanted to laugh. "Gran would never forgive me."

We were quiet for a while after that. Eric rinsed my hair so meticulously that the soap never even touched my face.

"It will make me uneasy to leave you unprotected here for the day," he said.

"I'm a human, Eric. I can't just start living at night because that's the only time you're awake to keep an eye on me."

"You could be-"

"Don't do that right now. I can't have that conversation now."

He might have been a little offended at my cutting him off in his offer of making me a vampire, but no one could say that that wasn't bad timing on his part.

"I will go to ground in the cemetery," he said. "If something harms you I may be able to wake long enough to help. Or I may burn up in the sunlight."

Geez. Was he guilt tripping me? "I'll keep my shotgun on me."

"That is reassuring." He wasn't kidding even a little bit, and it made me oddly pleased that he didn't say something about me being a girl and not being able to shoot.

"You're going to sleep in the ground?"

"It will be your turn to wash me tomorrow evening," he said and it was the first playful thing he had said since he found me with Gran.

I was about to mention that I would have the next few evenings off like I was planning on telling him earlier, but then I realized that I would have the days off too because Gran was dead now and no one would expect to see me working for awhile. I went quiet. Eric could probably feel my mood change for the worse and I hoped he didn't think it was because of what he said. We didn't speak. Eric ran conditioner through my locks, finished washing me, and dried me off. I could hear water running in another part of the house. Pam was cleaning. I wondered if she thought I was worth the trouble, and I suspected she did not.

Eric frowned to himself as I put on a sleep shorts and a tank top. I thought maybe he'd been planning on a seduction but instead he said, "Vampires have long felt vulnerable as they've gone down for the daylight. It has never been a human's safety I feared for. You should call your boss."

"Sam? Why?" I didn't have the emotional energy to be annoyed with anyone at the moment but I couldn't fathom why Eric would want me to spend the day with Sam.

"He is a Shifter," Eric said. "I hate to say it but his company would be better than none."

I sighed and sank onto my bed. "A what?"

I might have believed Eric was stirring up trouble if he hadn't looked so genuinely surprised. "I assumed you knew."

I held up my hand. "Don't tell me. I'll call Sam. He can explain it to me himself."

Eric nodded and then turned his head to he door, as if he was listening. "I need to assist Pam. I'll come back… I'll have time before sunrise. May I hold you?"

He was so formal and I suspected he was nervous about dealing with me in this state. It didn't make me feel real special.

"Sure, Eric."

I lay down over the covers because it was hot and because I didn't really give a shit, to be honest. Eric flipped the light off on his way out but I didn't close my eyes to try and sleep. I'm not even sure whether or not I blinked. There was a probably a part of me hiding itself away that was absolutely terrified that night, that could not get past the selfish thought of my own body in a puddle of my own blood.

Eric came back a bit later and watched me from the doorway. Was he planning an escape? No. He put us both under the covers and held me to his chest.

"Pam says that you are human and you should cry," he said, uncertain. It didn't matter, I had started to tear almost as soon as he put his arms around me. He realized this, and rolled us so that he was hovering over me. He leaned down as tears tracked their way over my cheeks. He sniffed once and then licked them away, his face curious.

"Wipe them with your fingers," I explained before I started sobbing, so that was what he did instead.

It was strange. In a way, it was the strangest thing that had ever happened to me. It certainly hadn't happened to anyone else I knew. It was also comforting. He probably could have said something along the lines of time healing my wounds, or that it would hurt less soon, and he'd have had the years and experience to back those sentiments up. Instead he held me and cleaned away my tears. He didn't waste one drop.

AN: I apologize for this being later than I promised, I had a bit of a conundrum. I got some absolutely wonderful feedback and some really great critiques after the last chapter about how quickly this was moving and how something questions were left unanswered. I totally agree with you! I'm primarily focusing on Eric and Sookie and rushing through the plot because it's so familiar. I did want to write a chapter to go between this one and the last one that would have a convo with Gran (which I added in) and a scene with the Disco Triplets, but in the end time was running out and I decided that no, this will not be a perfect story, but I hope you can all enjoy it anyways. Thank you again to those who were brave enough to point out flaws, I really appreciate every drop of feedback I get.