A/N: The penultimate chapter already. They grow up so fast. Thanks a zillion to ilovemysteries and Leave Sookie Alone for helping me spiff it up.
Chapter 36
When they were well away from the church compound and could no longer hear the sirens or see the flashing red, white, and blue lights, Eric slowed down. He was holding Sookie bridal style, skimming the roofs of the Dallas skyline. He leaned down and kissed her forehead.
"We will go to Stan's nest. I will find you some clothes and you can take a hot shower. They were planning a raid on the church when I felt your pain and went to you. I would like to see if there is any news."
The wind was at his back and his body shielded her from the worst of it. She was shaky, from both the cold and the shock, and she burrowed into him a little bit closer and tightened her arm around his neck. He was only as warm as she was where they were touching but that was significantly warmer than the air.
Soon, they were out of the city and into the suburbs. Eric touched down in the small yard behind Stan's mansion, in the middle of a neighborhood full of huge houses and tiny lawns.
"Can you find something to cover me up? I'm cold. And I've had enough people looking at me naked today."
He grinned. "I am lucky that I got to be one of them."
She smiled and squeezed his neck a little tighter. She pulled his head down and kissed him. When they pulled apart, they both tried to speak at the same time.
"Why are you in Dallas?"
"How come you're in Dallas, anyway?"
They both laughed a little, even though it felt off. He smiled at her.
"Let me go and find something for you to wear. We can talk about everything inside."
Sookie stood in the shadows until Eric came back out holding a thick blanket. He wrapped it around her shoulders and then picked her up again.
"I can walk, Eric."
He ignored her. He knew best. He carried her through the dark, quiet house to an empty bedroom with an attached bath. There was a large walk-in shower and he set her down and turned the water on to get hot. He stripped off his clothes and unwrapped Sookie from the blanket and guided her under the spray.
They were both silent. He carefully washed the blood out of her hair, rinsed it, and then washed it again. He knelt down and cleaned the blood from her body. Eventually, the water pooling at the drain stayed clear with no traces of pink. He had come so close to losing her again. She had been near death over and over again since he'd come into her life. He couldn't let her go but he vowed that he would do a better job protecting her.
He touched the side of her face, trying to forget how it had looked barely more than an hour before, swollen and disfigured and covered in blood. The human who had hurt her between her legs. Ready to…
He clenched his jaw and wrapped his arms around her, burying his nose in her hair. Trying to calm himself with her scent. He needed to be able to take care of her.
After a couple of minutes, she pulled away and looked up at him.
"You know, the shower is one of my favourite places to make love to you."
He didn't know if he could trust himself. He didn't think she was ready. He looked concerned but she shook her head.
"No, Eric. You stopped him in time. Yes, I want to say thank you, but that isn't what this is."
She picked up his hand and placed it on her breast. "I have missed your touch more than you can imagine. I want to be able to feel your hands on my body instead of his."
She reached down and grabbed his cock and stroked him.
"I need you. I nearly died tonight and I didn't. I'm alive. I want you to make me feel alive."
There was also his blood and the bond that were crying out to both of them to come together. He tilted her head up and kissed her gently. She deepened it almost immediately. He supposed that it wasn't much different than needing a good hard fuck after a dangerous battle.
"I can't promise that I will be gentle."
She smiled at him. "Me either."
He kissed her hard and then picked her up and pushed her against the bathroom wall and took her. She had her teeth buried in his shoulder, dimpling the skin, and her nails dug into his back. She was bucking against him and moaning and he was nailing her hard and fast and deep as they fucked out their feelings.
There was a strategically-placed mirror hung across from her on the shower door and she watched his incredible ass flexing as he pounded her. She let go of his shoulder and then kissed his throat and gave it a sucking bite. He moaned and started fucking her even harder. She knew that he loved it when she bit him and she wanted to muffle the screams that were threatening to slip out. She latched onto his shoulder again, even harder this time, breaking the skin and making him bleed. She sucked hard on the wound and swallowed. He bit her too and when she came down, he was placing light kisses on her neck and shoulder. She pulled him tighter against her and spoke into his ear.
"I love you."
"And I love you."
"Thank you for saving me."
He smiled and kissed her.
"My lover, it was my pleasure."
He dried them both and she took his hand and led him to bed. They had released Stan and the others, created several diversions and, he was sure, drastically reduced the number of armed men guarding the complex. He was laying claim to this room for the day, whosever it was.
They made love slowly and gently the next time. Eric heard the house filling back up when he had had his head buried between her thighs a little while later. He wanted to go and find out what had happened. He also wanted to find out from Sookie how in the hell she'd wound up in the basement being beaten and almost raped in the Fellowship church in Dallas. But he wanted to hold her in his arms and have her over and over again more. He found that he wanted her to make him feel alive, too.
Shortly before sunrise, she slid off him and lay pressed up against his side with her leg thrown over his. She kissed his shoulder and he kissed her head and wrapped his arm around her.
"You remember before? How it felt when we were together?"
She was playing with the hair on his chest. He kissed her head again.
"Yes."
She looked up at him.
"Do you feel the same way now?"
He thought for a few moments.
"No…" Her shoulders fell but he pressed on.
"It is more complex but just as deep. Just as pure. I am glad that we had that time together, just the two of us, without any boundaries or barriers or distractions. I don't think that I would feel this strongly for you if I hadn't shown you so much of what is inside, buried under a thousand years of existence."
She nodded. "And I don't think that I would love you like I do if you hadn't shown me the man you are underneath it all." She sighed. "But I guess we can't always be together, just the two of us, locked away somewhere. As much as it would be nice sometimes."
He chuckled. "We will need to make that happen now and again."
He squeezed her tight.
"But I also loved you before I got those memories back, with all of the layers put back in place and through the lens of a millennium of lived experience."
She grinned. "And I loved you even though I discovered that you're a much bigger jackass than I initially realized."
They both laughed a little and then just held each other for a while. There was a celebration going on in the rest of the house but the mood in the room had grown serious. Sookie started to talk.
"Shortly after dawn on Sunday, my brother snuck into my house and was going to kill me. He was glamoured to do it."
Eric stiffened. She kept going.
"I didn't know what to do. I grabbed my keys and jumped out the window and got away. Sam moved back to Texas, so that's where I went. I had an open invitation to come and stay with him in Wright, so I did."
His body hadn't relaxed. He remembered the scent of Vampire at her accident scene. Who wanted her dead, and why?
And had she slept with the shifter?
"We went back to Bon Temps during the day to get some stuff. We fought most of the way there and all the way back. We got back to his folks' place and he went inside and slammed the door and that's the last thing I remember until I woke up in that cell in a whole lot of pain, and then…"
He held her for a couple of minutes while she got herself pulled back together. She looked up at him.
"What about you? How did you know I was hurt? How did you find me?"
"Isobel Beaumont of Texas's Area Nine called me at sunset to tell me that Stan had been taken by the FOTS. Pam and I drove here. There were vampires and shifters gathered to plan the attack."
"Shifters?"
Shit. He had forgotten that she didn't even know about shifters and weres yet.
"People who can turn into other creatures. Werewolves, were panthers, were dogs, and the like. Plus true shifters, who can turn into any animal."
She lay stunned for a few moments. "Okaaaay..."
He smiled a little. "As I said, there were vampires and shifters gathered to plan the attack. The shifters are spies; they either belong to the church or are employed by it and then report back to Stan. One of the shifters smelled like you. I suddenly felt your pain through the bond and knew you were close. I killed her and then followed our connection to you."
They both lay there for a few minutes, wondering who had betrayed her and why. Sookie broke the silence first.
"What did she look like?"
"Hm? Oh. Short, dark hair, cut at the chin, slim, with a pretty face."
Sookie swallowed. "Jesus Christ, Shepherd of Judea. I think that's Sam's girlfriend. She pretty much hates me. Sam made it known that she was the consolation prize, I guess. No matter how many times I tell him that I won't sleep with him and that I'm not in love with him and never will be."
Something in his chest loosened. He couldn't stand the thought of her with the shifter and he was relieved that it wasn't the case. She was his.
Sookie took a shuddering breath and then blew it out.
"So, she's some kind of were person? Did she know what would happen to me?"
"She knew that something terrible would happen, yes. A spy told Stan that they were planning to strap fangbangers to the vampires they forced to meet the sun so they could burn together. Word definitely got around."
Sookie shivered. "And she's dead?"
He kissed her forehead.
"Yes, my lover, she is."
"Good."
She was surprised that she meant it. She drifted off to sleep a few minutes later. He thought about going out to the party but decided that he just wanted to hold her. He called Pam to him instead. A minute later, she walked through the door. He smiled at her.
"The rescue went well?"
She laughed. "It was such a disappointment. There were so few of them! Apparently, they turned on each other. There were only a handful left alive."
"Well, wasn't that convenient?"
"Yes. It was. I wonder what could have made them do such a thing..."
They smiled at each other.
Pam said, "The police arrived before we did and we had to turn back. There were two snipers on the roof and everyone else outside was dead. The police took them out and found a few more bodies and survivors in the church. They also found a dungeon in the basement with three starving vampires locked up inside. A nameless, faceless one was able to get away through the skylight after fighting off her rapist."
Eric laughed. Pam continued.
"They didn't even have to use their glamour. They just went back into their cells when they heard the police coming and closed the doors."
Eric laughed again. "Good for Stan."
"Good for all of us. Vampires come out of this with our hands clean while the Fellowship takes a major hit."
She smiled and touched his arm. "He told me what happened, or at least as much as he knows. He told me to thank you."
Eric nodded. Pam looked down at Sookie
"And I'm glad that you made it in time."
He nodded again.
"I did. Barely, but she is safe."
He thought again about the mysterious vampire.
Pam handed him his phone.
"This was in the Corvette. The damn thing wouldn't stop ringing so I turned it off."
"Do you have somewhere to rest for the night?"
Pam grinned. "As a matter of fact, yes. I will be spending the day with Stan. Speaking of which…"
She grinned and went back out to the celebration.
He turned on his phone and saw that his mailbox was full. He sighed and punched in his pin code and listened to the first message, sent shortly after they'd arrived in Dallas. There was a brief pause and then a hang up. And then there were two more. There was another long pause on the fourth, but then he spoke.
"Eric. This is Sam Merlotte. I'm looking for Sookie. Call me if you know where she is, or tell her to call me."
There was another series of disconnects and then the escalation as he really started to panic.
"I need to talk to Sookie, dammit."
"I know you have her, Northman. Let her go or I'm gonna call the cops."
"Where is she? Where in the fuck is she?"
"What in the fuck have you done with her, you blood-sucking son of a bitch? I will end you, do you hear me? You're a dead man."
The phone started to ring in his hand and he turned it off. Let Sam Merlotte worry. They would go to Wright after he rose to collect her things and finish piecing together the puzzle. He was quite sure now that Sam wasn't directly responsible for Sookie being given to the Fellowship, but he was certainly involved. And he was going to be hearing about it. And he would learn to leave Sookie alone.
Sookie had woken up and heard the messages that Sam had left for Eric. It was the last straw. She sobbed into his chest until she fell asleep again sometime after dawn. He stroked her hair, glad that he could go to his rest for the first time with her in his arms.
…
Sookie woke up late that afternoon. She put on Eric's bloody True Blood shirt and padded out to look for a television. She found one in an empty bedroom down the hall. She grabbed the remote off the dresser, sat on the bed, and turned it on. She found a news station in the guide and changed the channel.
There were news copters circling the church and emergency vehicles parked all around. The chyron at the bottom of the screen screamed Fellowship of the Sun Massacre. The ticker scrolling below announced that the FBI and the ATF were conducting a raid of the church in Dallas, where a gunfight had occurred the night before. It detailed illegal firearms and money laundering and drugs and three vampire captives in poor condition. There were rumours of human captives as well. It looked like the media was coming down on the same side as the vampires. She hoped that the narrative wouldn't change.
She turned off the TV and helped herself to a pair of plaid flannel pants and a t-shirt out of the closet. She hoped whoever-it-was wouldn't mind. She carried them back to their room and undressed and slid back into bed beside Eric.
He rose an hour before sunset. They made love quietly for hours before sneaking out a back door. He stopped at a drive through for a cup of coffee before she'd even had to ask and then held her hand as soon as they got on the highway. She smiled a little, despite herself, and looked out the window as he drove. It didn't take them long to get to Wright. Sam's truck was the only vehicle in the driveway but Eric still parked on the street out front. Sookie climbed out of the sports car and Eric was already beside her, taking her hand again. They headed for the house.
Sam burst out the door yelling.
"Where in the fuck have you been, Sookie? I have been worried sick. And why the hell didn't you answer your fucking phone, vampire?"
He got right in their faces. Eric grinned, showing the shifter that his fangs had run down. He grabbed Sam's neck and picked him up.
"I was too busy saving her from the Fellowship of the Sun after your girlfriend gave her to them to beat and rape and murder."
Sam's eyes widened. He had heard about the shooting the night before but had been too upset to pay much attention. And he remembered that Angela had mentioned visiting the church a couple of times. Infiltrating it. She'd said something about knowing thine enemy. But maybe her enemy was also her friend.
Eric's smile got a little darker.
"Fortunately, your girlfriend is dead."
Sookie let go of Eric's hand and walked over to Sam's truck and pulled her bag out of the back. When she threw it over her shoulder, she felt something hard poking her through the fabric. She dropped it on the ground and unzipped it. There, right on top, was the word of the day calendar. She picked it up.
The first page still said purloin. She could hardly believe that it hadn't even been thirty-six hours since she'd uncovered it back in her kitchen in Bon Temps. That felt like a lifetime ago.
She figured that the next word was going to be a doozy. The day had certainly started out with a bang, right to the ribs. She was almost scared to look. She shook her head and ripped it off.
Havoc.
Sounded about right.
It wasn't quite midnight but it was close enough. She swallowed and then held her breath and closed her eyes. She cursed herself for being so silly and tore off the page. She made herself look.
Denouement.
She smiled. It felt like a weight had been lifted off her shoulders. Everything was going to be ok. She put the calendar back in the bag and carried it over to Eric. She took his free hand again and gave it a bit of a tug.
"Take me home, Eric. I want to go home."
He paused for a moment and then set Sam down. He dusted off the shifter's shoulder and then punched him in the jaw. Fortunately for Sam, he pulled it at the last moment. It still knocked the shifter on his ass. Eric let Sookie lead him back to the Corvette and he kissed her before she climbed in. Once he got back on the highway, he held her hand all the way to Bon Temps.