Okay, no more plot bunnies - this IS the last chapter of this story. Thank you all for being so supportive and for all your kind words. It really means a lot!

Thank you, Breathesgirl, for working with me on this one - not just for correcting my mistakes, but also for your input.

And despite all my irritation with them, I thank the creators of True Blood for bringing these characters to life.

Previously:

The kiss was both familiar and new, because this Eric was a slightly different person than both his amnesia and pre-amnesia self. Sookie found herself sinking into it the way you would sink into a soft cushion after a long day. There was no nervousness, only relief.

This is right – said a voice in her head.

This is wrong – said the other.

The first one sounded like Eric. The second one like Alcide.

She stilled.

"Wait," she whispered against his lips.

Eric paused and then immediately straightened his neck. The moment was broken.

He noticed the hesitant change in Sookie's stance and his hold on her loosened. She panicked when she saw the shift in his eyes, the two deep wells closing up – windows replaced with the looking glass – and she gripped his sleeve to stop him before he could step back, having the vague feeling that if she pushed him away one more time he wouldn't come back.

"No! Wait!" She called. "That's not… I didn't want you to… No, stop, that's not what I… I didn't mean… Just wait. Damn you, can you listen? I said 'wait', not 'go away'!"

The anger started to rise in her as well – at him for jumping to conclusions, and at herself for making him expect the worst.

Eric stood still.

"What do you want, Sookie?" his low voice rumbled.

She was such a mess. He must have thought she was running hot and cold on him, but she really just didn't know where they stood and how to explain everything to him.

She took a deep breath.

"I want you to stay," she said firmly.

"I'm here."

"We need to talk."

"We're talking."

She gritted her teeth. She forgot how difficult he could be.

"Why don't you tell me what's wrong?" he asked, taking pity on her.

Her glance darted toward the other side of the cemetery, where the fresh grave was.

"Ah," Eric caught on. "The wolf. You feel obligated? Guilty?"

Frankly, it made him feel better if that was the reason. It was simple, understandable… and something that would go away in its own in time.

"No."

He raised an eyebrow.

"Well, not quite," she relented. "I just… feel like I haven't grieved the many people I should have properly and I moved on too fast trying to bury my feelings along with my lost ones and I regret that. It's a mistake I don't want to repeat. Alcide was a good man – I'm not sure if we were good for each other, but he was a good man nonetheless. He was my friend too. I… feel like it's wrong to simply push his death away and pretend it didn't happen. I don't want to forget about him so easily."

Eric obviously was onto something with his assesment of the situation but it wasn't just that she felt guitly having feelings… or rather for acting on her feelings for Eric so soon. It was more like she was afraid it wouldn't be fair, not only to Alcide, but to Eric as well – he wasn't just someone to fill the void and she didn't want to use him like that.

Sookie didn't regret the time she had spent with Alcide. She didn't quite like the person she was with him, but that was as much her own fault as his. She knew there were cracks foreshadowing the fall of that relationship, but she had learned something very important from it: in a way she thought that she had to try being with someone like Alcide at least once in her life in order to see for herself that her dream of settling into a normal life had been just that – a dream.

"I'm not asking you to forget," Eric's voice rang clear in the night chasing away the ghosts of the past. "I just told you I don't forget – I couldn't ask that of you."

With that Sookie was reminded again that she should stop assuming that he would expect her to change.

"So you need space," he concluded matter-of-factly. "Do you want me to back off?"

"No," she said sharply. "I don't want you to stay away. If anything, I think we should spend more time, not less, but slow down and take one step at the time… starting with actual conversation about...well, about us.

It's not that I'm not sure about you, Eric. I am. I missed you and I've spent months wondering about what-ifs. If this is a second chance I would be stupid not to take it. I admit, it sometimes amazes me that you can still look at me this way after all the shit I… not this way, you pervert…" she glared at him when he leered at her and he smirked before mouthing 'I can'. She lost most of her steam observing his antics and she could no longer remember where she was going with her sentence – on the upside, looking down her cleavage seemed to have a blissfully pacifying effect on Eric and he no longer looked somber. Finally she settled on ending her speech with a simple: "I just… if we're doing this, I want to do it right this time."

It wasn't like she had doubts about Eric or that she was afraid she might do something she'd regret later, but she felt that jumping head on into whatever this would be and picking up where they left off as if nothing had happened in the interim might not be the best way to go.

"Wait…Are you… are you laughing at me?!" she yelled, offended when she noticed the corners of his mouth quirking suspiciously. "It's not funny, you jerk!"

A wide grin split Eric's face after she said that and he gathered her close in his arms despite the obviously displeased expression on her face.

"I'm not laughing at you," he said. He sounded awfully like he was. "I'm happy."

Sookie was still looking at him with furrowed brows – she didn't get what was so funny about what she just said, or what would make him happy - though his answer did make a warm feeling spread through her chest… His smile - his true smile - was a thing of rare beauty and it took her breath away to see it again aimed at her.

"Hold on, mister!" she protested seeing that he was leaning down again and she tried to back away a little. "Did you hear nothing of what I just said? No more kissing before we finish talking!"

"It's just a kiss," he murmured with a spark in his eye, stirring another memory.

She snorted.

"Uh-huh. We both know how that ended."

Suddenly, he turned serious again.

"Did it?" he asked.

"What?" she questioned, puzzled.

"Did it end?" Eric clarified.

Her forehead cleared of confusion and worry and unknowingly to her, her face filled with another emotion when they took a quiet moment to simply look in each other's eyes. Eric couldn't help thinking that she looked especially beautiful when her features settled into that soft expression and her eyes lit up from the inside with a warm glow. There was that Sookie-light he had been missing.

She placed her small hand on the back of his neck and raised to her tip-toes to answer him without words by doing exactly what she told him not to do.

"So?" she asked softly, almost shyly, after breaking the kiss. She rested an open palm on his chest, driven be a need to keep touching him. So close… Almost there… "What do you think?"

"What I already told you: I'm here. I'm not leaving."

"Yeah, but… are you sure about this?" she asked, because it needed to be said aloud - the remaining twinge of nervousness suddenly coming back and colouring her voice one last time. "So much happened. Things changed."

"Not for me."

She looked at him long and hard, taking in his meaning and trying to decide if she should press the matter or if that was the moment when she could let go and give in. A thought slowly formed in her mind: maybe she worried for nothing, because there was no wrong way they could do it as long as they did it together?

"Come on," she said feeling like she was waking from a long, tiring dream. "You need to clean up and then we have six months' worth of catching up to do."

THE END

So it ended... or did it? ;) to quote the show once more, I have a sneaking suspicion, that according to Eric 'this is the beginning'.

Seriously though. This is it. I know many of you wanted lemons, but in the end I didn't feel like it would fit here. I felt like Sookie needed to close a chapter in her life before starting a new one (but I have no doubt that this is where she's heading eventually...).

Maybe one day I'll write an epilogue for them, but since I don't have a clear idea what should it be like, at least for now I'm putting this story away.

Now that the story is over please share your final thoughts on it with me.