A/N: Well, it's late in the evening, but I managed to get out the daily update. I apologize for the hour, it was a very full day for me. I proofed this as best I could, but my eyes are a bit bleary, so please forgive me any grammatical errors. Hope you enjoy! *braces for the cliffhanger lynch mob... lol*

Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters or stories from The Southern Vampire series. I can only hope that Ms. Harris does not mind me taking them out to play with.

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So, in the movies, this would be the part where the scary music begins to get louder. The camera would jump back and forth between the virginal blond and various doors. You just knew the killer was gonna pop out of that closet at any moment, and you couldn't stop yourself from screaming at the dumb heroine to get out of the house.

Luckily, this isn't the movies. Victor did not come leaping out at us in some apropos, cinematic climax to our realization. Everything was quiet and still, and after a few moments, I relaxed back into Eric's arms.

"I suppose he decided I am still... beneficial," Eric smirked.

"Nah, he probably just got held up on I-20," I quipped, forcing myself to find the humor in this insane situation.

Eric placed his hands on my cheeks, tilting my head up. His eyes were scanning my face, studying me intently. I began to squirm under the weight of his stare.

"What? What's wrong?"

"Lover, I fear we have entered the Twilight Zone. You are not crying," he grinned.

I groaned, burying my face back into his chest, but couldn't help giggling, "Damn vampires."

"Irritating telepaths," he chided, snuggling me deeper into his arms.

We settled into a comfortable silence. The way Eric stroked my hair was almost hypnotic, and I felt myself drifting into that state somewhere between being awake and asleep. I could stay here like this forever, I thought. Questions tried to nag the back of my mind, but I shoved them away. I should be frantic, I should be running about like a chicken with no head trying to figure all this out... but right now... I just don't care. The rumbling in Eric's chest seemed to echo my thoughts.

His fingertips caressed idly up and down my back beneath my shirt, each hand moving in opposing directions, leaving trails of goosebumps in their wake. I curled my fingers into his chest hair, making tiny swirling patterns across his skin, and placed a gentle kiss over his non-beating heart. The rumbling in his chest grew slightly louder, the vibrations as soothing as a purring kitten, despite him being more comparable to a sleeping lion.

We drifted together on a sea of contentment, waves of calm washing through the bond, cradling us into its cocoon. The world around us was still, soundless, not even a whisper of wind. It was as if the universe were granting us a gift, allowing us a few, precious moments of peace.

"It's so quiet..." I murmured.

Eric cupped the back of my head, his other arm encircling my lower back, cradling me against him. "We are paused at the crossroads."

"You mean, like, metaphorically?"

"The moon has not moved in the sky," he said softly. There was something haunting... and almost wistful in his tone. I felt no fear or tension from him, but rather a tug of longing. I tilted my head up, catching a far away look in his eyes before he smiled down at me. "She will be calling soon."

"She?" I said, tensing a little.

He brushed the hair from my eyes, "There is nothing to fear, Dear One. Come," he said, shifting me up to a sitting position in his lap, "We need to get ready."

I stared at him, more than a little confused, and expecting a lot more of an explanation.

Eric sighed softly, "Lover, will you ever just trust me?"

I heard the pain in his voice, and felt it through the bond. For a moment I felt guilty, but my old frustrations were rearing their ugly head. Why was I always expected to just blindly follow along?

"Eric, of course I trust you. I just... I don't understand why you can't explain things to me, sometimes. Everyone is always so cryptic with me... it makes me feel... dumb. Do you think I'm incapable of understanding?" I asked, surprised at the calmness in my tone.

"Oh, Sookie," he said gently, keeping me cuddled in his lap, "Nothing could be further from the truth. Let me ask you something. When your Gran told you as a child not to go too near the hot stove, did you listen?"

I furrowed my eyebrows, "Yes, I know... crazy Sookie... always running into danger. What's your point?"

Eric shook his head, and I felt him trying to stave off his rising annoyance. "You always think you know, don't you? You're always right. My thousand years of experience is nothing compared to all the wisdom you've gained in your twenty-eight years."

Ugh, there he goes, pulling the age card. "I hate when you do that. That's exactly what I mean when I say you make me feel dumb."

He growled a bit, plucking me from his lap and sitting me back on the couch, coming down on his haunches in front of me to catch my eyes. "Sookie, you are going to let me finish and stop assuming you already know what I am going to say. I should have earned more respect from you by now than to be constantly interrupted by your childish indignation."

Well, that effectively shut me up. Here I was, arguing about being treated like a child, and he'd made me feel like just that. What's worse is... he's right. I would never have treated my Gran with such disrespect, and certainly I had the same level of respect, though in a different way, for Eric. He had earned it... multiple times over. I looked down, feeling shamed by my behavior and the scolding, but Eric quickly tilted my head back up.

"I'm sorry..." I whispered.

Surprisingly, he kissed my cheek and smiled, "I know. However," he said, rising and extending a hand to me, "Now that you have thoroughly wasted time on a tantrum, you will just have to wait for those answers you're demanding. We need to get to Shreveport."

I tensed for just a moment, but forced myself to swallow down my natural reaction, earning me another smile from my Viking. I took his hand, following him to the back door. He made a little 'gack' type noise upon seeing my old, pre-Debbie Pelt coat hanging on the peg, and I giggled. He reluctantly slipped it over my shoulders.

"Um, Eric? Are you gonna go out in nothing but your skivvies? Not that I'm complaining..."

He gave me his glorious laugh, "Trust me, lover, it won't matter."

I arched a brow at him, but it was only a few moments after stepping outside that I understood what he meant. Eric's comment about the moon wasn't just poetic. I squinted, unsure at first that what I was seeing was real. There was a leaf hanging in mid-air, looking like it had stopped halfway on its fall from a tree. The grass was bent sideways, as it would in the wind, but there wasn't the slightest breeze. Everything literally looked frozen in time.

I turned, wide-eyed, to Eric.

He chuckled, "Don't look at me, lover. I'm not the one who caused a ball of light to explode from my hands."

"Wh... what?" I gasped. "You can't be serious. I caused this?"

He pondered a moment. "To be honest, I am not entirely certain. Call it... an educated guess."

I stood there, gaping at him, wondering if he'd lost his mind again. Eric had turned his attention to my car, which was of course my old car, before the Malibu I'd gotten from Tara. He kicked at the tires (why do men always do that?) and grumbled. "Keys?" he asked.

"Huh?" I asked, still stunned from the implication I'd... stopped the world. Not just stopped it, but spun it backward two years, and then stopped it. The absolute lunacy of that idea broke me out of my reverie, and I dug in my coat pocket, tossing Eric my car keys.

After we were seated inside I looked over at him, "Will it even... move?"

"Only one way to find out," he said, turning the ignition over, and grinning when the engine roared to life.

If I wasn't scared enough of Eric's driving under normal circumstances, I was downright terrified of it when there was no moving traffic or stoplights to slow him down. He zipped in between the paused cars on the road like they were mere construction cones, or some bizarre obstacle course. He was grinning from ear to ear, whooping and hollering like a kid on Christmas morning. My knuckles were white from gripping the overhead handle, and I stopped screaming at him when it only made him take turns faster. His only regret was that we weren't in his Corvette, and he told me again how he was going to buy me a new car. I was too busy praying to argue.

I don't think it was more than twenty minutes before we were in Shreveport, pulling into the Fangtasia parking lot. Eric was, what I could only describe as positively giddy, when he opened my door and took my hand. "Come along, lover."

I just shook my head confusedly, following along. He had seemed to get happier and happier by the minute driving here, and now was absolutely beaming. I felt little sparks of anticipation, the good kind, crackling through the bond. I'd swear that any minute I'd be following behind six foot, five inches of merrily skipping Viking.

As if things weren't strange enough, the inside of Fangtasia was downright bizarre. We weaved our way through the crowd of frozen fangbangers and vampires, Eric telling me to be careful not to touch anyone, though who knows why. They may as well have been statues for all I could tell. Into Eric's office we went, encountering a very frozen Chow and Pam, who looked like they were in the middle of an argument. This must not be long after Chow set off the 'booby-trapped' witch...

Then Eric did something I don't think I will ever erase from my mind. He walked right up in front of stone-still Pam... and stuck his tongue out at her. I wasn't sure whether to fall over laughing or call the men in white coats.

"Eric, what on Earth is with you?" I laughed.

He just smirked at me, yanking me over to the trap door closet, and down the stairs. The last time I'd been down here was the night before Eric left for the tribunal. I licked my lips, remembering the rather adult version of Marco Polo he'd teased me with.

"Lover, stop that or I'll have you face down on my bed and begging," he growled.

"And that is supposed to discourage me how?" I grinned.

He snorted, flipping on the light when we reached the bottom of the stairs. The room wasn't terribly large, but it was as swank as anything I'd expect with Eric. The color scheme mimicked the black and red of the upstairs, furnished in a sort of minimalist, modern style. Complete with a luxurious California King, lavish seating area, pool table and a bar, it could only be described as a lair of seduction.

"Eric, do you actually live here?"

He chuckled, "Certainly not."

"Oh," I said, shuffling my feet a bit. "Will I ever get to see your home?"

Eric paused his task of gathering clothes from a bureau, smiling up at me, "Of course you will, lover. I was actually hoping you would consider..." he trailed off for a moment, and I leaned forward a bit with anticipation. He eyed me with an unreadable expression, then turned his attention back to the open drawer. "We'll discuss that at a better time."

I pursed my lips, blowing out a little puff of air. So much had happened between Eric and I since the night of the ball, but we'd had no time to really discuss anything. The night he took me from the hospital we'd renewed our bond without a word. Something deep inside had compelled me to do it, and I had no shred of doubt or regret over it. It just... felt right. Well, that's an understatement really, but my word of the day calendar has never provided me the vocabulary to come anywhere close to describing the experience.

I leaned back against the wall, needing it to support my weakening knees, as I watched him slip off the red bikini briefs. "Eric..." I whimpered.

He had picked up a pair of jeans, pausing when he felt my wave of lust, flicking his gaze up to me, "Yes, lover?" Oh yes, it was that voice.

Eric glided in front of me, casually placing both hands against the wall to either side, and pressing one leg between mine so I was straddling his lower thigh. His golden hair was perfectly tousled, cascading around his bare shoulders, all the muscles in his chest tightening as he leaned his weight further into his arms. My breathing was already growing ragged as he lowered his head, taking an agonizingly slow lick along my neck, just below my ear. His lips narrowed like one would to whistle, only he inhaled, causing the moistened spot on my skin to cool, sending a wave of shivering through me. Then his mouth opened, exhaling with a blast of hot air over the same spot, and he sucked my flesh between his lips. My knees instantly gave out, and his thigh was now the only thing preventing me from crumpling to the floor.

"Lover," he murmured next to my ear, "How is it that I have been mostly to completely naked this entire night, yet you are still wearing that hideous uniform?"

I was about to rectify that situation, grasping the bottom of my shirt and lifting upwards, when a thrust of... something came through the bond, nearly knocking the wind right out of me. At the same time, Eric's head snapped up, his eyes glazing over. The sensation was overwhelming... dizzying. It was pulling at me... as if there were a giant magnet somewhere nearby and my body had turned to metal.

"Eric?" I croaked out, gasping for breath.

He looked back down to me after a moment, a child-like smile on his face, "She's calling."

TBC