Recap of previous chapter: Sookie recalls fireworks and other explosions from her night in P-town with Eric.

A/N: Stay tuned for a note about my plans for the rest of this story. (See you at the bottom?)

Quid Pro Quo

The chatter in my head couldn't be stopped.

Memories from last summer, ones I had wound up for nearly nine months, had fully unscrolled themselves. Loosened, they had slipped free bit by bit, until finally letting go with a pattering rattle. I tried to coil them back into a tight, neat bind, but they wouldn't be contained. The images and jabbering ran in an endless loop. Relentlessly.

When I couldn't get the thoughts to stop, I took a dip in and listened. Looked for clues. I replayed that night on the porch with Eric. What had I missed? Why had he encouraged me to call Pamela Ravenscroft? And why had L.L. warned me not to? I went over and over that long, strange evening in P-town. I even pulled the brooch out, felt its cold, hard weight in my hands. This was real.

So was the chatter. It was driving me crazy.

Lafayette arrived early that night with dinner from the diner. As soon as he walked through the door, I passed E.J. off to him, saying, "Tag, you're it," and headed straight for the shower.

Squirting a big blob of shampoo into my hand, a song from the musical South Pacific popped into my head. I remembered watching it with Gran one night when we'd both stayed up late looking for old movies. "I'm gonna wash that man right outta my hair." I sang under my breath. It needed to be out loud, not just in my head, even if it was quiet, for only me to hear. Then, because I wasn't sure which man I should sing about most, I changed the words. "I'm gonna wash those men right outta my hair." If I could have poured shampoo inside my brain, I would have scrubbed there too, but the song worked well enough.

Lafayette banged on the door.

"E.J. giving you a hard time?" I asked, wondering why he'd cut my shower so short.

"I was getting worried about you. Forty-five minutes seemed like a long time to be in there."

Time was seriously playing tricks on me. Wondering how I hadn't run out of hot water, I came to realize I already had. The temperature was tepid at best.

"Some days will flow like molasses, dear."

The grandmotherly figure, a complete stranger, had approached me on the street and patted my belly. I held still, imagining she was Gran.

"But catch those years before they're gone. They'll slip by like quicksilver."

I laughed, and then stopped myself, catching her somber gaze. I'd wanted her to hug me.

I think I was starting to understand what she had meant.

"Lafayette, what day is it?"

"April 5."

"So this is only my second night home from the hospital?"

"Yep."

"I need to go to bed."

"Oh, no you don't. Not until you've had dinner."

We did just what I needed most at that moment, aside from more sleep. We ate our meals atop Gran's folding tin trays and watched mindless TV. I didn't even give Lafayette grief for choosing one of those shows where the poor fool gets picked on for her fashion blunders. Frankly, anything with a plot would have fried my brain.

At the end of the show, my new mommy emotions came flooding back. "Lafayette, I'm really lucky to have you as a friend." I blinked back weepy tears.

He rolled his eyes, cursed female hormones, and then told me I'd stayed up too late.

In spite of my exhaustion, that night I once again slept fitfully, bothered by doubts about Eric and L.L.'s warnings. In between Lafayette's waking up E.J. and me every two hours, snippets from the past scrambled my thoughts and merged together in a crazy way.

I have… obligations...a pulled taffy kiss...Is that all?...I didn't miss anything...the curl of lips around oysters...the hard, cool glint of a sapphire sunburst...

And then L.L.'s face would appear, either lit up from the glow of fireworks, or at other times, freakish and splotchy, like that day he'd applied his sunscreen unevenly and fell asleep facing the sun on a blazing summer day.

In the end, it all came back to that day after I had said goodbye to Eric...

I'd gone out to pick rose hips on the bank leading down to the beach. Gran would have said it was too early, but not knowing what else to do with myself, I decided to make rose hip jam.

I sliced open the colorful rose hips, in shades of orange-red-pink, and painstakingly scraped away all the furry seeds from inside. Next, as Gran had shown me, I cooked the fruit down with water, sugar, and some green apple to thicken it. It cooked and bubbled and boiled while I stirred and waited. Then it cooked and bubbled and boiled some more. Time and again, I dipped a wooden spoon into the pot, pulled it out, and drew a line through it with my finger, watching for it to gel.

It never did.

Eventually, the heat from the kitchen and the sour smell wafting up from the pot started to make me feel woozy. I turned down the flame and escaped outside to the front walkway. Here, the massive, electric blue blooms of Gran's hydrangea bushes tumbled and spilled in a playful, clown-like way, teasing me. On a whim, I walked toward L.L.'s house, wondering whether he had an another apple I could use. Or maybe I just wanted to be near someone. In any case, I made it all the way over to the flower garden at the side of his house when a strong ocean breeze wafted the smell of rotten fish in my direction.

Can you guess what that smell does to a pregnant woman? Right.

I threw up, right into L.L.'s garden, the one he'd carefully designed and grown for its colors. One afternoon, he'd proudly shown me the beautiful green Bells of Ireland mixing with the blue Platycodons and Bachelor's Buttons and the pale yellow petunias and yarrow. Here is where I bent over and spilled my guts.

I caught my breath, finally, and smelled a hint of something pleasant…what was it…mint? Mint! Crawling on all fours, I scuttled around sniffing out the mint. L.L. had put it in for its color, but when it started to spread invasively, he tried to get rid of it without luck. Now, finding the patch, I took a big old whiff and considered myself quite lucky. I have no idea why it helped. It just did, which was good enough for me. So I lay down—right there in the mint—rolling around like a cat in a patch of catnip. Warm in the sun. I don't think too much time passed before I fell asleep like some drunken garden fairy.

L.L. found me about an hour later.

"Sookie!" He shook my shoulder, alarm sounding in his voice. "Sookie!"

Bolting upright, disoriented, I immediately blurted out a confession, "I threw up in your Alchemilla!"

"It's okay. They're not in bloom now."

"I know how much you hate this mint, but it smelled so good I just had to rest here." I realized how crazy I sounded even as the words were coming out of my mouth.

He had kneeled down in front of me, absentmindedly plucking out a few stray weeds while I rubbed my eyes, still waking up.

"Oh, my gosh! The jam!"

"The jam?"

"Yes, the jam! I came over here to see if you had an apple because it wasn't thickening."

"It's too early for rose hip jam!"

I had already stood up and was starting to sprint back to my house. "It's still on the stove!"

He ran behind me, catching up by the time we reached the house. Luckily, because I had turned the heat on low, the only thing damaged was my pot, its bottom ruined with a thick coat of black crust. Stirring it, the acrid smell of burned sugar overwhelmed me, and before I knew what was happening, I heaved again right there in the kitchen, all over the floor and L.L.'s Topsiders.

Without saying a word, he grabbed a towel, handed it to me, and led me over to a kitchen stool before stooping down to clean up my mess. Then he methodically wiped off my cutting board, loaded up my dishwasher, tossed all of the discarded seeds and stems into the compost, and put away my sugar canister. Finally, he sat down next to me.

"Did I ever tell you about the first time I made rose hip jam?"

I shook my head no.

"I didn't bother to take out the hairy seeds."

I winced, remembering Gran's warnings. "Is that true?" I asked. I'd thought it was an old wives' tale. "Itchy bottom syndrome?"

He nodded somberly as I laughed quietly.

"You're pregnant, aren't you?"

There it was. Right out in the open. There was no use denying it. I nodded, tears slipping down my cheeks still puffed by a smile. Just like that, quid pro quo, we'd swapped personal anatomical stories—his itchy bottom for my pregnant womb. He hugged me close.

"It'll be all right. You made a mistake, but I'm here for you now."

The next day, there was a new pan on my doorstep—not a fancy one like I knew L.L. could afford, but the kind Gran used, black enamel with white freckles.

I woke up feeling vulnerable and exposed and even more confused about what to do and who to trust. Laf stayed a little extra time with me in the morning, cooked me breakfast, and teased me that my color didn't look right.

I convinced him I was fine, though he only agreed to leave once he knew the visiting nurse would be stopping by for E.J.'s heel stick, and that Sam would be coming early for the night to help Amelia move in.

To be brutally honest, E.J. exhausted me so much that sometimes I just wanted to put him back. And yet he thrilled me all the same. I'd eat him up for breakfast, lunch, and dinner if I could. I loved looking at the way his whole body folded up as though he were still inside of me. Every now and then, he'd startle, flailing his arms and legs out wide, before refolding himself, just the way he was. He reminded me of one of those little party favor blowers that unroll and then curl back up.

I spoke with Octavia, and after getting a good first impression, jotted down a few references and set up a time for her to come to the house. Around noon, the visiting nurse came by to weigh E.J. and draw blood. She said his skin tone looked good and that he was gaining weight nicely, but that we'd have to wait for the official bilirubin count before we could try to stretch out his feedings.

Sam and Amelia showed up late in the afternoon. Sam took one look at me and said, "Sookie, you don't look so good."

"I'm so glad everyone feels comfortable enough around me to basically tell me I look like shit."

"You don't look like shit. You just look…tired."

"The visiting nurse was just here today."

It had only been for E.J.'s jaundice check, but that seemed to settle everyone enough to put the focus on unloading Sam's truck full of Amelia's belongings.

"Are you hungry?" Sam asked when they were finished. It took me a minute to think about it. Laf's breakfast had been the last food I remembered eating. Sometimes, frankly, I was too tired to eat or care about it. "Sure."

We settled around the kitchen table while Sam reheated some clam chowder and unpacked some sandwiches. With Sam and Amelia there, my kitchen took on a familial, albeit untraditional kind of atmosphere, one I was happy I could share with E.J.. I took a big bite of my sandwich and chewed fast, knowing how my little chowhound had the uncanny habit of waking up and wanting a piece of the action as soon as I tried to eat anything.

"Where does your property end?" Amelia asked, pointing out toward the pond.

Sam jumped in to answer. "Back by that tree line on the other side of the pond..."

That morning, I woke up with his feet next to my face. Disoriented, it took me a moment to remember how we'd ended up this way. I crawled back up to the top of the bed to curl against his body.

The day was warming, its tendril-like strands of heat just barely grasping.

"Where did you park your car?"

"Hmm?" He kissed the top of my head.

"Your car." Though normally he drove his Jeep to navigate the dunes, he'd had to make a trip into Boston and would be returning in another day, so he'd brought his Corvette for a change.

"In the driveway."

"On the side of the house facing L.L.'s house?"

"That's where your driveway is, right?"

I sighed heavily, wondering what kind of drama his red Corvette parked overnight in my driveway would bring. L.L. normally kept to himself, but parking a red Corvette outside my house was like waving a red cape at him.

Sure enough, at 9 am, L.L. came knocking on my door. Wrapping myself up in a robe, I opened the door to find him standing there in his swim trunks and rash guard with stripes of zinc oxide down his nose and across his cheeks.

L.L.'s eyes scanned over me before glancing into my house. "Oh, I thought you'd be up by now." Clearly, he was looking for any other sign of life.

"I am," I said cheerfully. Eric had seen to that.

"May I borrow one of your flotation devices?"

"My what?"

"One of your flotation devices. I want to go out on the pond."

"Like one of my rafts?"

He nodded.

"L.L., you know where I keep them, and you know I said you could borrow them any time. Go help yourself."

"Oh. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to disturb you if you have company."

"It's no problem," I said in my most upbeat voice and then moved to close the door.

I didn't know whether L.L. would actually get in the water. I knew he preferred fresh water over the ocean, but most of all, he liked dry land, which made me really wonder why he'd bought a house on the ocean. But sure enough, he followed through with his plan. From the back upstairs bedroom, I watched him make his way down to the pond with one of my inflatable rafts in one hand and a book in the other.

I returned to the front bedroom, where Eric was patting the empty spot next to him. "Come back to bed."

"I told you we were asking for trouble."

"William?"

"Yeah."

"What's he doing?"

"He asked to borrow one of my rafts for the pond."

Eric snorted.

"Mark my words. That won't be the end of it." I'm sure he wanted to know who was hanging out the bottom of my dress on Independence Day.

"Lover, come back to bed."

I climbed up to straddle his hips and looked down to admire his blond hair, spread across the pillow.

He pulled my robe over my thighs and smoothed it. Then, seemingly out of the blue, he said, "You don't have a Boston accent."

"Neither do you."

"But I didn't grow up around here."

"Right, but you grew up in the south," I teased, "so where's your sexy southern drawl?"

"Philadelphia is not the south!"

"Anything below New England is southern." I shifted my hips to grind against him.

He held still.

I started to bend down to nip at his earlobe, but got caught under his discerning gaze, stalling me in place for a moment. Straightening up, I considered carefully. Since that night in the bar in P-town, Eric had backed off, not pressing hard. Whether he would push this morning, I could only guess. But if I took charge of the conversation now, I could dole out the details on my own terms. My choice.

He stirred, his hands once again smoothing my robe over my thighs. I liked the weight of them there, holding secure, but not binding. He swallowed and took a breath, as if he were about to speak, but the words came out of my mouth instead.

"I think I read somewhere that you pick up your accent from your friends."

I barely had a peer group that I could call my own. But this news was too raw and personal and verged on other stuff I didn't want to touch. So I continued.

"Out in western Massachusetts, where I spent my early childhood, not as many people have the Boston accent. I didn't move here until I was seven, after my parents were killed in a car accident."

I half expected him to pull me down for one of his placating kisses, but what he said next would surprise me.

"My parents died when I was young too."

I felt myself stiffen, the cadence of my heart quickening in its telltale way. Without seeming indifferent, I didn't want to say anything to encourage any big revelations. That badass side of Eric couldn't have come out of nowhere, and I'd figured a lot of it was better left unsaid if we were in this for a summer fling. It seemed to have suited him just fine. Until now. I looked to his face for a clue, frustratingly silent, wiped clean of any betraying emotion.

In the fraction of a second that it took me to respond, Eric's fingers started traveling beneath my robe, stroking inside my thighs. I relaxed again.

His point had already been made.

He'd offered up his tidbit, laid it out in front of me, and had ducked back. That itself was the point. A peace offering of sorts. A show of good faith. Now he was ready to play. We were like two little kids behind a garden shed, flashing our private parts to each other.

I leaned down to kiss him, and then whispered in his ear, "If you show me yours, I'll show you mine."

He was on me in a flash, flipping me over and growling into my neck.

Something that sounded like a high-pitched girly noise came out of me. Immediately, I clamped my hands over my mouth.

He threw his head back, his booming laughter rumbling the bed. "Was that a squeal?"

"Well, what the hell was that? A roar?"

"I wanna hear it again." He came back for my neck.

"No way. I'm not a squealer."

"Aaaah! Aaaah!"

The shouts sounded from the back of the house, bolting the two of us immediately upright like someone had dumped a bucket of the frothing winter sea on us.

"What the…?"

I grabbed my robe and ran toward the back bedroom. Looking out the window, I saw L.L. flapping his arms wildly, ripping off his goggles and then laboring to lift his wet rash guard over his head. At the same time, he was trying to wade out of the pond, his legs lifting high up out of the water and bounding forward. His shirt over his head, he stumbled, falling flat on his chest as he worked to disentangle his arms from his shirt and push himself upward again.

Obviously he hadn't drowned or broken any limbs, so my concern for him was quelled.

"What's he doing?" Eric was now next to me.

"I'll go check on him. You wait here." I tied my robe around me.

By the time I got down to the pond, L.L. had managed to fully remove his rash guard. Covered in streaks of mud, his arms were spastically trying to swipe across his back.

"What's wrong, L.L.?"

"Leeches! God, Sookie, I'm covered in leeches. I can't reach 'em!" He wasn't getting any calmer, only worse.

"Calm down. Let me look. You're covered in mud."

Even with all of the mud, it didn't take me long to find the first one. "Holy shit, L.L.!" I couldn't help myself. It was the biggest freaking leech I had seen in my whole life. "It's huge!"

He leaped again, flapping his arms. "Is it off? Am I bleeding?"

I gathered myself and shifted into fix-it gear. "Shhh. All right now. Hold still." I peeled the first bloodsucker off of him. It was a good six inches in length. L.L.'s back was toward the house, giving me an opportunity to dangle the leech into the air, holding it up so Eric could see it from the window. No one else but L.L. would believe how big it was. I turned back to L.L. and swiped at the thin trickle of blood running down his back. I found another one. And then a third. I tossed them back into the pond.

"Check your legs under your swim trunks and under your waistband."

He pulled at the front of his waistband and then pointed his backside at me.

I shrugged at Eric, still watching from the window, and then pulled at the back of L.L.'s trunks. Luckily there was only one more critter under there, at the top of his left ass cheek.

"Okay. I think you're good to go."

"You didn't tell me there were leeches in there!"

"I had no idea. You know I like the ocean. Gran taught me how to swim in the pond, but that was twenty years ago."

He calmed down. "I'm sorry. It's not your fault." Then he finally looked at me. "You're still in your robe," he said, noticing it for the second time that day. "I'm sorry I got it muddy."

"It's okay. Go take a shower now. You'll feel better."

"Thanks again."

We went our separate ways toward our respective houses. By the time I got back up to Eric, I was practically bursting.

"Oh my god, Eric. I've never seen leeches that big in my entire life. And they were green. With orange dots. Really hideous." We both doubled over in laughter.

I squirmed and wriggled my shoulders to escape my muddy robe as he pushed me up against the wall in the hallway. "You were brave handling those bloodsuckers!" He kissed me dramatically, as though I were a long-lost warrior returned from battle.

"Come on." I prodded. "It's time for some mind-blowing shower sex."

"Sookie?"

"Wha?" I realized they were all looking at me.

"Amelia was wondering whether you ever swim in there."

"Ah, no," I chuckled. "I wouldn't recommend it."

E.J. started to fuss. Looking down at him, he suddenly seemed miles away.

Amelia offered, "May I hand him to you?"

"Thanks. By the way, I want you to know I don't expect you to handle any childcare responsibilities as my roommate."

"That's great, but I hope you'll share him with me." She scooped him out of his carrier, lingering for a moment before handing him to me. I grabbed the sling off the back of my chair.

"I'm heading over to the 'Smaht Maht' tonight," Amelia joked. The Smart Mart was our local big box kind of store that everyone, whether he had an accent or not, called the 'Smaht Maht' just because it was too hard to resist. "Anyone need anything?"

I glanced over at Sam, who was still studiously avoiding looking in my direction. "Yeah. Could you get me a piece of paper? I'll write a few things down, if you don't mind." I jotted her a note, not wanting to embarrass Sam with my female needs.

She grabbed the paper from me. "Five?" She quirked an eyebrow.

"Yeah. Get whatever's on sale. I'm stocking up."

She looked a bit confused, but then dropped the matter. As soon as Amelia was gone, Sam started in with me. "Sookie—really—are you okay with everything?"

I rubbed my forehead. "I'm really tired and confused right now, Sam. Just when I think I have everything figured out, something changes or I remember something else and I start to question myself. Nothing seems to be making sense anymore."

He reached across to clasp my hand, looking me in the eye intently, as though he were grappling for my full attention.

"You've been a good friend to me. I want you to know I'll help you with anything you need."

Quid pro quo.

What I really needed, I couldn't get right now. I'd given home to my memories of last summer, stored them away for safekeeping, but ultimately, in exchange, they weren't offering the answers I was seeking. The truth could not be wrangled from them, no matter how hard I looked.

"How about you help E.J. and me up to bed?"

Tomorrow would be a new day with new possibilities. I would sleep and clear away the foggy murk addling my thoughts.

~Thanks for reading!~

A/N: It's Patriots' Day here in New England, and since I'm not running the Boston marathon this year, lol, I have plenty of time to post this chapter and update you on some story housekeeping stuff.

So here's the scoop on the flashbacks. To varying degrees, this story has always been about Sookie's "unpacking" her memories from last summer. She does it bit by bit in the beginning, but now her thoughts & memories are starting to flood her. Things are heating up—she's working things out w/ E.J. & all of her new mother feelings, her hormones are plummeting post partum, she's sleep-deprived, physically she's not up to snuff, and she's starting to question what was up w/ Eric. She's in a vulnerable spot. (It's a little bit like when she's tired or otherwise taxed in the books and she has a harder time controlling her telepathy.)

I promise those are real memories she's recalling. (I promise Sookie won't wake up in a Vermont Inn with Bob Newhart.) I'm going to condense and collapse a few upcoming chapters to keep things moving along. Sookie will get herself more out of her head and into action mode next chapter. Amelia will be there with a steaming mug of coffee, almost as energizing as vamp blood without the nasty side effects.

~Thanks, makesmyheadspin & peppermintyrose.~

Disclaimer: All SVM characters belong to Charlaine Harris. I'm just taking them on a tour of New England.