A/N: This chapter contains my description of Godric's history. It contains mentions of both sexual and physical abuse, and while they are not graphic, if these might bother you in any way please DO NOT read. I'm also still looking for a beta, if anyone is interested please PM me. Thanks for reading!

Chapter 4

Sookie POV

Time slipped away from them quickly as they lay simply holding hands in the lush, fragrant grass. So many thoughts fluttered in and out of her mind, but Sookie found that any serious or sad thought never stayed for long. She wondered if it was possible to just stay right where she was forever. She knew that her friends and Jason must be sick with worry, questioning where she'd gone off to, but this was the first place she'd ever really felt at peace. She enjoyed the way the sun warmed her down to her very soul, as though it could chase the darkness of her memories away. It had been so long since she'd indulged in her one and only vice. She had gotten so wrapped up in her relationship with Bill, that before she knew it she had found herself keeping vampire hours in order to spend all her free time with him. Up until this moment she hadn't realized how much she missed the sun.

She recalled the first dream she'd ever had after Eric had tricked her into taking his blood. What had he said? That she could trade the sun for the moon and stars, and hadn't that been what she'd been doing with Bill? So gradually it was barely noticeable, she'd allowed her whole life to revolve around him. His world becoming hers. Maybe that dream was more than just Eric's blood talkin', and I was trying to warn myself. She sighed, how was I so blind? I don't want to only live in the dark. Her head rolled to the side, her eyes dancing over Godric's profile. What must have it been like, never feeling the sun's warmth for over 2000 years? Sweet Lord! You really are stupid sometimes Sookie Stackhouse. How have I become so self involved, that I didn't realize. . . Sookie rolled onto her side staring down into Godric's upturned face.

"Godric the sun. . .how?" And for the first time ever Sookie heard Godric laugh. It was so magical, Sookie's inner scolding was instantly forgotten. The millennia of suffering vanished from his features, and finally she could see just a young man who looked to be no more than twenty.

"I was curious as to when you would notice Sookie, the sun has been shining on us the entire time we've been here!" She smiled indulgently in return, he was just too adorable with his eyes lit up with genuine mirth, and a goofy smile gracing his lips.

"Well excuse me mister! I've had a bit on my mind." She teased unable to suppress her own fit of giggles. Godric's happiness was contagious, and Sookie couldn't help but lose herself to it.

"The truth is I do not know, when I felt the sun on my skin in Dallas it did not hurt, and even though I wanted to burn, I was afraid of what lie in store for me. I prayed that God would forgive me, and allow me into Heaven. I pictured my home the way I remembered it before the Romans. The light grew hot, and then that memory became reality, and I stood in the sun without fear for the first time in so long." Sookie eyes welled with happy tears and she smiled mischievously.

"Well it would be a shame to waste it then huh? Wanna play in the sun with me? That is if you think you can keep up old man." Sookie quickly wiped away her tears and scrambled to her feet. She took off at a dead sprint toward the far off ocean. She knew that if Godric wanted he could catch her with no effort on his part at all, but it seemed that for now at least, he was playing fair and only running at a human speed. She had some difficulty in making her way over the rocky border that edged along the beach, but Godric was a true gentleman, and didn't tease her for it. The sand was warm under her bare feet, and she scrunched in her toes, enjoying the sensation. "This place really is amazing, I can't even begin to imagine what it was like to grow up here." When she heard no response she turned to see that Godric's sorrow was again written all over his young face.

"My very best memories are of this place, but still I do not find happiness here."

"Why? Have you been lonely here all this time all by yourself?" Sookie mused aloud.

"You are more right than you know. I have felt loneliness for most of my existence. I turned Eric trying to fill that void, and while he was and is my greatest achievement, it still plagued me. There has always been this sense that a piece of myself was missing. I believed that as an immortal one day I would find it, but in the last decade or so I have come to understand that for more than two thousand years, I have loved a dream." His eyes screamed at a brokenness that surpassed anything Sookie could fathom.

"I've always felt alone; isolated from everyone else. I guess, even when I was with Bill." She paused as a thought tickled at the edges of her subconscious. "Ya know ever since I've been here, I've been wondering why I felt so comfortable here, but now I don't think its the place at all. Somehow it's like this curtain was removed from my eyes. I was searching so desperately for someone to love and accept me that I couldn't see Bill for who he really was. It didn't matter that he was a vampire, our relationship was built on secrets and lies." Sookie rubbed at her temples. "I was so desperate to be loved that I didn't care if it was real. What is it you've been searchin' for Godric?"

"I wished to be loved Sookie, unconditionally loved in spite of what I am." He murmured sadly. "I'm loved by my child, but it is not a romantic love. I have come to accept that, because of what I've done in my past, I should not even hope for it. Yet still, I would endure an eternity of torture, if only to experience it for just a single moment." Sookie grasped his hand in hers tightly.

"I know exactly how you feel." Even with all the years Godric had roamed this planet, he was just as lost and desolate as she was. Sookie led Godric to where they were up to their ankles in the icy water and began splashing him enthusiastically. He made a half-hearted attempt to reciprocate, but neither was able to let themselves go completely again.

Sookie was shivering slightly when the two of them made their way back out onto the beach some time later. For the entirety of the day the sun had remained centered high in the sky, and while Sookie couldn't be sure how much time had passed, it had to of been at least a few hours since she had first arrived. "Does the sun ever go down here?"

"Not that I have ever seen."

"Does that make you sleepy all the time?"

"I have never felt the pull of the sun as other vampires do, I do sleep, but I am not forced to like the rest of my kind."

"Always? What did your maker think?" Godric looked down at his feet.

"I do not know, when I awoke my first night as a vampire he was gone." Sookie placed her hand under his chin, and tilted his head up so she could look into his eyes.

"Godric there's nothin' for you to be ashamed of, he is the one who did something wrong." Godric shook his he vehemently.

"You do not understand, my maker was not like so many others, he rescued me and he gave me a choice before I entered this life." Sookie's arms crossed in front of her and she blew a quick exhale through her nose. Godric placed his hand on her arm, as though accepting her doubt. "When my village was conquered by the Roman's the old and feeble were killed, but the young were taken as slaves. We were branded and traded like cattle, and I endured many years of cruelty at the hands of my masters, but I did not know true savagery until I was sold to what would be my final owner. As slaves we became accustomed to certain inhumanities," Sookie sucked in a breath fully prepared to rally against such treatment of anyone let alone, someone as kind and sensitive Godric.

"How could anyone. . ."

"Hush do not worry for me, I have accepted my past as it was many, many years ago. I will not taint you with the specifics of the atrocities that occurred at the hands of our masters. I will only say that Appipius, had a penchant for sexual sadism, and a special liking for young men. I was stubborn in my youth and refused to be broken, and found small ways to hold onto the tatters of what remained of my dignity. He took great pleasure in the challenge I presented, and as it turned out, my refusal to let go of my unbending need for self-respect was my downfall. In the end, I had simply pushed him too far. When he was done with me I prayed that oblivion would take me, but I suffered on for days. Having lost the tenacity and fight that my master had so reveled in, I was tossed out into the stable like a lame animal to die. I lay there waiting for death, ready to fall into its arms willingly, but when it finally came it was not in the form I expected. Nearly a week passed when suddenly a man just appeared, looking no more than a few years older than myself. He soothed me and wondered after the monster who had harmed me. I'd not had water in many days so I was unable to tell him, but it didn't matter as in the blink of an eye he was gone and back, my master dragging along behind him. I remember speculating that he had been able to see my thoughts. He ranted at Appipius about how only someone soulless could do such things to a child." Godric chuckled. "It's humorous that even now two millennium later, how it still chafes at me to be considered a child. He tore my master apart with no more difficulty than one pulls the wings off a fly, and afterward offered me a choice, the power to never again be a victim or death. You know what my choice was, but as I drifted away in the last moments of my human life I remember the palpable sorrow in his voice as he apologized." Godric shrugged his shoulders. "So you see my maker was honorable, I've come to believe he simply found something lacking in me."

"It's so unchristian of me, but I'm glad that, whoever your maker was, he killed that monster. And I'm sure that your maker wouldn't have left you unless he absolutely had to, like maybe he was hurt or something." Godric gave her a knowing smile.

"Thank you for that. That's what I'd like to believe as well."

"Thank you for telling me your history. You are far better than me Godric, I don't know that I would ever have had it in me to let it go. What Bill did seems so minor in comparison, and yet I'm just so. . . ugh I don't even have words!" She exclaimed stomping her foot. "I just . . . I . . .I want to drive a stake through his heart!

"Sookie I did not tell you my story to make any less of what happened to you. Your feelings are valid, violation comes in many forms one no more grievous than another. The pain is the same." Sookie brought her hand up to rest gently on his face, swiping her thumb back and forth against his proud cheekbone.

"You really are the most. . ." she whispered her face moving closer to his, "awe-inspiring person, I think I will ever know." she lowered her lips to kiss the corner of his mouth. "You are all heart and spirit, there's so much goodness in you, it makes me so sad that you can't see it."

"Sookie . . .?" He asked as he brought his lips just a breath away from hers, leaving her to close the distance between them. Their kiss was chaste, and yet brimming with reverence. Godric's lips moved from her mouth to trail sweet fluttering kisses across her cheeks and forehead. Sookie felt the love he had harbored for thousands of years in each brush of his lips, like it had been there waiting all this time just for her. It was crazy, and oh so fast, but she wasn't scared like she had been with Bill. She searched her heart and mind for a single hesitation, but found none. Their foreheads pressed together as their hands roamed each other's bodies, and while there was passion in their touches, it was more than that. It was like finding the rarest treasure, and needing to hold it in your hands to feel its weight, so you know that it really exists. Godric's fingers tickled over her bare shoulders and clavicles, while her own found purpose in sliding down his chest, and across his stomach along the sparse dusting of hair she found there. Her fingers skimmed to just above were his pants had come to rest, she watched as Godric's eyes slammed closed and his mouth opened with a pant. Sookie allowed her fingernails to scape lightly over his skin, dragging them back and forth, before trailing up again. He cupped her cheek in his palm, his fingers stroking against the sensitive skin behind her ear. Sookie leaned into the touch, as they stared into each others eyes.

"Godric. . ." She sighed, but was cut off as white hot pain scorched through her chest, like a hand was clenching around her heart, and pulling. She screamed in agony, and Godric's arms tightened around her.

"What is it? What is wrong?" Before she could answer, there was another pull, this time nearly completely bending her backward. Bloody tears ran down Godric's face. "Have I found you after all this time only to lose you?" Sookie brought her shaking hand up to Godric's face clumsily smearing his tears across his cheek.

"No!" She wailed, but she knew it was a lie as her light poured from her chest, and she felt herself slipping out of Godric's embrace as again her world went dark