A/N: PrettyBee, I really wished you had an account so I could PM you and I couldn't not say this. So sorry for putting you on the spot but here goes...I loved your review. It was constructive (if only a little sardonic...the portion about not being a woman until you have used those ovaries...LOL). In all seriousness though, your review was indeed very well thought out and offered great insight.

I wonder if you would consider being my critic, not to say that I felt like you were criticizing or flaming me in ANY way, let's face it flamers just don't have the brain power and yours showed the total opposite of that. You told me what you liked, didn't like and you shared your disappointment in what you feel is an overdone angle in FF as well as many predictions. I am so tempted to engage said predictions but I won't.

I will say this, I vehemently disagree that your expectations are too high. So please stick with me and keep your expectations all the way up.

Chapter 20

I'd broken down, cried, and once the tears stopped it seemed as if my ability to feel did as well. My legs had fallen asleep. That was what it felt like, except the numbness was tinged with pain and it had crept into every inch of my body. I didn't feel hunger, thirst, nor did I notice being cold or wet. Just as the numbness crept into my body, a haze had entered and shrouded my mind. The haze made it hard to form coherent thoughts while at the same time making it impossible for the thoughts of others to penetrate.

It never even registered to any of my sensibilities that Caspian shouldn't be bathing me or trying to spoon feed me sips of water. He tried to talk to me and was always there holding my hand, but I was just recording the actions. I had nothing to offer in return. It occurred to me on some level that having him gaze at me with pity should infuriate me. I felt nothing. I don't know how much time passed but I somehow became comfortable with the numbness and the all but continuous state of lethargy. I spent more time asleep than awake, and I was increasingly turning weaker maybe one of these times I wouldn't wake up anymore.

"Are you mad, Caspian?" Someone shouted. I couldn't grasp enough of my own thoughts to recognize if the voice was unknown or familiar.

"I know she would never want anyone to see her in this way." That one I knew, Caspian.

I blinked my eyes open; it took more effort than I thought possible to keep them that way.

"Do you not know what will happen to you if she dies under your care?" The unidentified voice asked.

"I know…I know but I just thought she needed time."

I heard a growl, and then footsteps. Claudine's face was over mine. She blew on my face and my eyes closed, albeit sluggishly; they reopened, and then drooped closed once again. They didn't remain open until my third attempt.

"This is very bad. Her reflexes are erratic," She murmured anxiously.

"Her body is failing, and her pulse dipped much too low this morning. I gave her my blood, but I am at a loss at what else to do. You have to help me."

Faery blood, which might explain why I was able to follow the events so clearly. If asked, I might be able to explain how Hell had taken my heart and soul just yesterday, but in some way, that did not give justice to this breakdown even to my grief-stricken mind.

"You should not have undertaken the task in the first place," She admonished firmly. "Have you tried touch and just lying with her?"

"Yes," he replied. "It has no noticeable effect. I'm not certain if it's due to her part-vampire attributes or if she may just be too far gone."

"How much blood did you give her?" She queried.

Caspian growled and it was a reaction that from him sounded positively foreign to me. I don't know why, perhaps it was solely because I've never heard it before.

"If you think your one hundred percent uncut blood will help her, then just do it already!"

I was listening though my autonomic functions were barely there. I was blinking at random and inappropriate points, thus keep me from following their faces. My mouth was pried open, and then closed. I felt the warm sugary taste of what I presumed was faery blood. Claudine and Caspian stayed, each lying on either side of me. They were waiting though I couldn't recall what for. Then I faded once more into the blackness before it came to me.

The lethargy remained, consuming as ever. The numbness would never leave me; I needed rescuing from an anguish of a torturous pain that no one should have to endure. I expected to see Claudine but when my eyes opened again she was gone. Caspian wasn't at my bedside either. The faery present was familiar at least his eyes were, much like looking in the mirror. They were the unique color and shape as mine. I knew who he was and, by the look on face, he knew I knew. The pad of his thumb was rubbing my cheek, and then he vanished! I stared at the place where he'd been but he never returned. Caspian appeared shortly afterward.

"Was that…" as he threw himself at me.

He was talking through his tears and it was only then it occurred to me that I had spoken. It was more than that; my thoughts were clear. I was still numb though it was only in body, not in spirit or mind.

"Claudine says your body has no will to live," Caspian said, pulling away, "I do not agree. I know your heart is broken, Sookie. You need something of purpose. It is not your husband or marriage, your work, you, or even me, but there needs to be something or someone for which you must endure. Anything, just one single thing that will ensure you will not wither and die this way."

I tried to nod but could only manage to make my head lull to one side. "My Dad," I croaked.

It hurt to talk.

"Fintan was just…"

"No… I want my Dad."

He pulled a phone from the pocket of his jeans. I reached for it, but all I managed was to make my hands tremble. It could be from lack of use or fear, and I didn't know. I still wasn't even convinced I wanted to live. I just knew I didn't want to hurt Caspian. He was my friend who had more than earned my loyalty and love. I rattled off the number that I had memorized since I was three. He dialed it and held the phone to my ear. It was the middle of the day, but, not surprisingly, my father answered.

"Daddy," I rasped.

"Shy…"

There was so much I needed and wanted to say. I needed to tell him he had been right and that I was so sorry. I wanted to sob; to allow the newly festering sore inside of me out but I didn't. I'd disappointed him enough for one millennium. I wasn't worthy of his forgiveness and I feared I would never be absolved. It hurt, though at this particular time it wasn't what I needed; it was his mercy for which I was begging.

"Help," was all I could force out. While I was not crying, my voice was so small and so sad and so utterly pathetic even to my own ears. It made my father pause for a second but then he took control of the situation.

"Tell me where you are," he replied.

There was no tenderness in his voice. He didn't try to placate me with empty sentiments. His question was like the orders he had always given. Strangely enough, it helped me keep it together in order to focus with the modicum of control I had left.

Though I was slow on the draw, I still attempted to answer. "Um..."

"That is not information." He snapped. "Climate, time of day, an estimate of your location; give me something useful."

"University of Florida," I said. "Faculty dorm A…A532."

"Are you safe?"

I gave a weak nod.

"I asked you a question,"

"Yes, it is safe."

"Stay where you are," He ordered. "Sai're is on his way to you." Then he hung up.

Caspian was staring at me. All I managed was a another nod. It was enough for him. He sat by my bedside and took my hand. Seconds turned to minutes or hours. I didn't know. I lost track of time again, but not my consciousness. When I looked up my shadow was throwing slightly longer reflections. I knew the instant Sai arrived on campus. The mental slap against my skull could only be one person. Sai was a subtle as a tank.

"My brother is here," I told Cas.

"He'll take care of you?" He asked. "He can save you from this?

It was clear that he didn't even know what 'this' was. I nodded.

"Anyway you can, please just let me know you are well."

"I will."

He hugged me. "Thank you," I said "For everything."

I knew what it meant to express those words of gratitude to a faery, but I couldn't help it. Caspian hadn't just kept me alive, he had kept my body clean, and he had tried to hide my shame. If the world ended tomorrow, I would have him to thank for witnessing it. He hadn't ever given up on me, even though I had and everything else.

He nodded his head at me for what had to be the first time. "You are most welcome, my friend. One day we'll laugh about how this felt worse than it actually was."

I wanted to smile too, but I felt as though my face had forgotten that simple reaction. He disappeared just as Sai was mangling the door knob to force his way into the dorm room.

"You. Little. Shit!" he growled, stalking closer. "Do you have any idea who much trouble you caused me?"

As my big brother carried me off, I spared a glance for what had been not just a place of employment, but my refuge. I didn't remember much of the trip. By dark, I was back in my childhood home, the only one I'd ever belonged in. It was the only one left in this world for me. Sai left me in the capable hands of Doctor Wexler. It said something about the state I was in because he donated blood that Genie began transfusing into my veins almost immediately. Sai lingered, and once he saw what he needed to about my health, he left. Genie tried to talk to me but I didn't have the energy.

I lay in my king-sized canopy bed and waited for the numbness or emptiness of before. No one here would allow me die, so I was able to retreat back into myself, into a place where I wasn't living in Hell. I craved that empty abyss more than my next meal, but it didn't come. Whatever the faery with eyes like mine had done wore off, but not entirely.

I didn't feel the need to eat or drink water. I felt the pangs and pains of it though. My fangs tingled with my body's need for blood, something that had never happened. My stomach cramped from hunger, but still I couldn't leave the comfort and safety of my bed. This numbness didn't come with oblivion unfortunately. I was completely conscious. Claudine was right. I was going to die a broken beaten thing except I didn't want that. I just lay there, wasting away knowing and hating the fact, but I just couldn't make myself move.

Unlike Caspian, Doctor Wexler was familiar with my physiology. When Sai's blood faded, he stuck in IV's of fluids. Then he transfused human blood into my blood for a while with small amounts of vampire blood in between. He continued trying to talk in attempt to get me to play our usual games. When that didn't work he just went on to tell me everything that he was doing as if he was waiting for me to add something. I had nothing to say.

Amelia came too. She gave up talking to me after my second week home. She just lay in bed with me whenever she was there. Zee came off his worldwide tour early. He crawled in bed beside me. He sang to me and painted my nails. I was able to keep track of time here, every day when he came to check on me Genie told me. He knew how not knowing bothered me. I wondered if he knew that, as everything else, time was meaningless to me also.

Ollie came. My brother talked to me about what was going on in the world and what he thought I could add. Nim came mostly in the dead of night and held my hand as he had done when I was clumsy three-year-old running to keep up with vampires. Sai came and glared at me. Without being able to kick my ass into submission he was at a loss. His visits were short, but oddly he was the only one who could punch through the haze if only to torment me further. In the five weeks that I'd been home, he never failed to remind me how unpleasant I looked and smelled, and today he had something much worse.

"Your father has received a wedding invitation from his old friend, the Queen of Oklahoma," He said. "She is wedding The Viking. The invitation did not say whether or not the Groom's discarded mate was invited, but I think you could attend setting a precedent for discarded mates everywhere. You do so love being a trend setter."

"Sai're," Ollie growled disgusted. "Have you no mercy, even for your only sister?"

Oliver didn't know better because Sai, in fact, had no mercy. Sai had to be the only vampire who had died twice but was still here. Eric had ended him, but I'd brought him back with the Cluviel Dor I'd gotten from Claudine. Still, he had suffered the pain of a stake to the heart. Then I'd betrayed him further by asking Eric to detain him while I betrayed my father. He had clearly been waiting to pay me back for all that.

"Mercy? Whatever for?" He sounded absolutely baffled. "Shy'ra is not the first female to be tossed aside by her husband for a more attractive woman. Ninety nine percent of men that abandon their wives do not do so for a Queen; it is no insult to her rank as Princess. Let us not forget that if she hadn't defied her father and rejected her throne, she would now be the most powerful Queen in the New World, but what does she do? She throws it all away for a pretty face and now we have to sniff her filth while she wallows in her misery? Look at her, she is an eyesore."

"Just get out," Ollie said.

"With pleasure, but first I just need to know about the gifting situation. They are registered at Morgana's Market for All. I was just wondering if we would all put our names on a single wedding gift or if Shy wanted to send her own. After all, she would know what the groom would like best."

A part of me said that Sai was trying to do what he did best, keep shit together. He was my big brother. He was only trying to anger me to rouse me and not hurt me. But his words...so full of truth were able to reach me and cut deeply when words of love and comfort hadn't.

"Leave her, big brother."

Nim and I were the only one who called Sai, 'Big Brother'. At that precise moment there was something in his tone that caused to Sai stop tormenting me. He left with a furious growl, who it was directed at I had no idea. My brothers left, though Nim was the last to go even after he was gone. He was just there on the side of my telepathy, calling out to me. His mind was peaceful but not even the rock could reach me in this sea. I was just so lost.

"There are faster and cleaner ways to die than this. Of course you know this eh, mija?"