A/N: My dear readers! I know I promised to update at the end of last week, but RL has been less than stellar of late. It seems, every single patch of wood and peat bog is on fire around. The city I live in is all smoked up, you can't open the window and go outside without a mask. And on Friday I we were evacuated from my mom's summer house in the country. Not the way I wanted my first time flying a helicopter to go :) My little daughter is feeling sick because of all the smoke, and we're all kinda stressed. Not even mentioning the horrible heat. So, forgive me, please, I hope it gets better soon (and my posting speed, too). Love you all, thank you for lovely reviews and encouragement. Kristen, my beta is a blast!

~oOo~

"Hello, Sookie!" Judith greeted me rather gleefully from Bill's front porch way before I was even close to entering the house.

"Judith! Nice to see you. I hope you're enjoying your stay in Bon Temps," I blathered on cheerfully, plastering my crazy grin over my face with so much force it left me wondering whether I looked like my ponytail was a little too tight to be comfortable.

"Oh, it's a lovely little town. And Bill is a wonderful host," Judith gushed.

You bet. Bill could be one hell of a charming southern gentleman when he wanted to be.

Hopping off the porch gracefully, Judith hurried to meet me. She took both of my hands in hers and looked at me like I was a sprinkling of manna in the Arabian Desert.

"I never thanked you properly for bringing me over here," she whispered very, very quietly, and I ffrealized whatever she wanted to tell me was not intended for Bill's acute hearing. I didn't have anything against Judith, in fact, she was quite likeable. But, standing there with her cool, dry hands clasping mine, I felt uneasy.

"It's nothing, Judith. Bill is… Bill is my friend, and I only wish to see him well and happy," I answered with as much sincerity as I could muster.

"Really?"

No. Jesus, Mary and Joseph, was she really asking me that?

I smiled lamely, playing a little dumb. I really hoped it was a rhetorical question.

"You know it's just that I would really, really like to see him well and happy too," Judith breathed out in tiniest of whispers. Tiny though it was, boy was it also loaded. For a little while I stood there, grinning madly, while the little gears turned in my head, and tried to figure out what the implication was.

And then it hit me.

"Is this your way of asking me to stay away from Bill?" I asked, in the same sweet voice and with the same 'let-me-take-your-order' expression on my face.

"Sookie, I have absolutely nothing, nothing against you." Surprisingly, she sounded sincere and even a tad wistful. I immediately relaxed. "I care for him. He needs to—"

"Move on," we said in perfect unison, and her eyes shone with understanding.

Suddenly, her pretty chestnut head whipped around back to the house.

"Let's go," she said, and together we went.

When Bill entered the parlor, he looked even better than the last time I had seen him at Merlotte's. His dark hair, brushed with stylish negligence, a set of dark khakis, a button-down shirt and a guarded half-smile made him look like the Bill of two years ago.

"Sookie, it's good to see you," he said with a slight lift of his eyebrows, which meant he was surprised but too polite to ask me what I wanted right away.

"Bill, Judith. I'm sorry to disrupt your evening. I will only need fifteen minutes or so of your time. Bill, if I could use your database to look something up, I'd be much obliged," I shot out like a rusty gun and cringed inwardly. Since when was I so jumpy and uncomfortable around Bill? Since he's not visibly pining for you, a nasty little voice said inside my mind, and I smacked it upside the imaginary head. I was just shaken and weak with all the recent events. I was no dog in the manger.

"Of course, Sookie," Bill's cool, lilting drawl interrupted my little self-pep-talk. "If you'll follow me to my study."

The smile he gave Judith when leaving the room did not sail by me.

"What can I do for you?" Bill asked as his computer buzzed to life.

"I want to look up Victor Madden. I need to know about him. It's one of those 'warned equals armed' cases," I said, hoping Bill would not press.

"Are you looking for anything… specific?" Bill was launching his database and made a point of not looking me in the eye. Thank you, Bill.

"Not really. I'll take all you got."

"All right. Here's what I have for Victor." Bill got up from the chair in front of the computer screen and motioned for me to sit.

I wasn't very computer-savvy, so I felt doubly uncomfortable as I scrolled through Victor's page. Born… Maker… known progeny, pictures of said progeny… owed fealty to this, that and those… participated in Massacre of New Dehli in 1823, takeover London's East End in 1940, was known under the pseudonym of Marquis du Plessis at Louis 14th court, blah, blah. Dry, faceless facts. I was completely underwhelmed.

Bill caught on my feelings of disappointment pretty quickly.

"Not what you expected?" He asked carefully.

"Not really. This is so… brushed up. Knowing Victor…it's hard to believe."

Bill peered at me, as if he were making a decision, and then clicked on something in his program and a password window appeared. He typed in something in vampire speed, and we were taken to another file on Victor. This one was much, much longer.

"We are now in protected mode. This information is highly classified even for vampires. I don't sell it with my regular database. Only few know it exists and fewer even have access to it." He said in the same, measured tone. Nothing in his demeanor betrayed how he felt about sharing something so dangerous with me. I, however, was totally humbled. When Bill and I were close, he shared as little of vampire world with me as it was vampirely possible.

"Woah, Bill. Are you sure about that?" I asked, trying my damnedest not to look at the screen, lest Bill changed his mind, and I needed to pretend like I hadn't seen anything. In this case, it would be safer if I really didn't.

"Your safety is crucial. If this is the information that will help you to survive whatever is going on with Victor, you need to have it.

Well, I'll be damned, who are you and what have you done with Bill?

"Thank you. I'll only take a minute, if you don't mind," I said meekly.

"Take all the time you need, sweetheart."

So, I did.

Victor was indeed, quite the character.

After wadding through lists upon lists of slaughters, murders, intricate intrigues which resulted in major power shifts, plots, conspiracies and a whole lot of other things Victor had been involved throughout his lifetime, I soon quit being impressed with Mr. Victor Madden. Born an English aristocrat during the time when being close to royalty meant choosing loyalties and ultimately sides in wars, he was raised and honed to be a consummate manipulator. I felt like I was a dry twig trying to withstand a brush fire.

Then my eyes slipped over what I was looking for – 'baby napper'. His nickname during his time with the French court. The story behind it was macabre. Apparently, Victor bought (as in purchased) royal bastards off their unfortunate mothers – the favorites of the amorous Louis—and sold them to high-standing vampires throughout Europe as rare delicacies. Most of them were freshly out of their mothers' wombs. I shuddered, reading about it, and felt bile rise in my throat.

Judith chose this moment to call out to Bill for something or other. Looking at me intently, my ex boyfriend said, "I'll be right back, Sookie," and slipped out of the room, leaving the door slightly ajar.

I kept reading. The most dreadful surprise was still ahead. Victor's list of progeny was now extended by two. There were no pictures and both the additions were listed as currently dead, but when I saw the values of 'turned at the age of' columns, I gasped. Victor had turned children. At least twice. Both were under eight years old. I didn't even want to think what their story and final death entailed. I wondered if Eric knew.

Eric. The thought of him pierced my mind, and before it knew what it was doing, my hands that were, obviously, disconnected from my brain at the moment, were typing the words 'Eric Northman' in the query box right next to the one that stated 'protected mode'. Well, hell. If Eric got pissed at me for keeping one lousy little secret from him, I had all the right in the world to stay mad for years to come. Eric's closet was chock full of skeletons.

I hurriedly scrolled down Eric's trivia, noticing with amusement that he was quite diverse in his occupations. Once he was even heading a sect during the twenties in Nice, which many Bohemian folks favored. The sect was summoning various devils and practicing blood rituals. I snickered and almost flipped through the progeny tab. I couldn't think of what I could find there, apart from, maybe, a few tacky facts about Pam that I could use to tease her to hell later.

But then I noticed two more discreet entries. Eric had two more vampire children. The first one, a female, he had made in Greece, roughly seventy years after his own turning. There was no name, no picture, nothing on her, apart from the statement that she was finally dead and the eerie notion that for some reason, that information was pertinent for being available only in protected mode. I hated to even think of that possible reason.

However, it was the second entry that stopped me dead in my tracks. Again, no picture, no name, nothing apart from a brief notice that she (again, a female) was turned in Ireland in early fifteen hundreds. And she was a fairy, at least for the most part. Her father was a full-blooded water fairy and her mother was a half-blood. My hand covered my mouth in utter shock. Of course, I didn't expect Eric's thousand years worth of living to be boring and uneventful. But it was the first time I fully realized the extent of my ignorance when it came to his past. I knew a little of his human life, first-hand, and somehow, our connection was always too preoccupying, to say nothing of all the situations my dealings with vampires put me in. In short, his life 'before' I came along was always a little pot somewhere on the backburner of my mind that I never expected to touch.

And now it came around and bit me in the ass.

Somewhere, along his life course, Eric had managed to turn a fairy. Someone who was more of a fairy than my uncle Dermot. If I was going by Eric's own words, it was basically beyond any vampire to achieve that feat. And yet, Eric had this little trophy stashed away in his sleeve.

A dreadful, mind-boggling suspicion started creeping on me with the inevitability of night and I brushed it away, having to physically wave a hand in front of my face. Surely, Eric couldn't… No, no. I couldn't even think of allowing myself to entertain this idea. I skimmed the page for more information, trying to avert my thoughts from the path they wanted to take.

This mysterious fairy-vampire gal had mysteriously fallen out of history and vampire records as of the early eighteen hundreds, according to Bill's data. I started feeling slightly queasy with unease. Fortunately, Bill chose this moment to come back, and I was lucky that he had made himself heard before appearing suddenly behind my back like he most certainly could.

I quickly hit the back button, and it had taken be to Victor's page and all his slimy deeds. I must have looked really stricken, because Bill's Roman eyebrows knit together in concern when he saw the expression on my face.

"I assume you have found what you were looking for," he said, with tenderness and peculiar sadness. I wondered how much Bill himself knew.

"Ye—yes," my mouth said, as if it had a life of its own.

"Some consider Victor an abomination even to our kind," Bill said solemnly, and I knew for sure that those some included him. Oh, if he only knew how far Victor was from my thoughts right now. But thinking of him was safe, if that word could even be used in this situation. So, I tried to ponder all I learned about Victor instead of fretting over Eric and his fairy progeny.

"Thank you. Thank you for doing this for me. I think I'll be on my way now." Words stumbled out of me like uncouth little animals. I got up and brushed Bill's cheek with my lips and hurried outside. Suddenly, his old house felt stuffy and crammed: with vampires, with memories, with bad associations.

A gentle yet heavy hand stopped me.

"Won't you stay a little longer? I will brew some coffee. I have your favorite blend. And Judith would love to—"

I jumped around. For someone almost two hundred years old, Bill could be so clueless.

"What Judith would love it is to be alone with you, Bill, and fuck your brains out."

Shock is a good attack and aversion tactic. I learned that a long time ago. If you want to throw someone off you back, shock them. And Bill was surely flabbergasted to hear me cuss and speak in such a straight-forward way. I took the leeway his three seconds of catching up with the world gave me, and snuck out, waving a hasty goodbye to Judith.

I ran to my house as fast as my feet would carry me, as if it would be any help from the stifling uncertainty I was feeling. As I could see my house's old white porch gleaming in the dark, I felt something else creep into the array of emotions. A longing of sorts, and a bit of anxiety.

Sure enough, the source of it was sitting on my Gran's porch swing, dangling an empty bottle of True Blood in his long fingers. Fingers I had fantasies about on better days. His flashy car was nowhere to be seen. That meant he'd flown. Something urgent, then.

I felt a rush of the same longing, this time my own, at the sight of him in jeans and a tight black V-neck t-shirt with an elaborate print. He looked… so well-placed, for lack of better word. Night truly did become him.

"Eric," I sighed with a bit more feeling than I'd have liked to show. "Is anything wrong?"

"Do I need something wrong to happen to come see you?" he answered simply, without reproach.

"No, I just thought… that after yesterday…" I couldn't finish the sentence, because I really did not want to think how his feelings about me could change after yesterday.

He looked at me with unsettling scrutiny for some time.

"Actually, something did happen. I called the shifter to clear out your schedule for the weekend and he told me something I had always thought I would like to hear, but instead it left me concerned, and not in a good way."

"Oh, so he told you that I, ah… left, I guess." I said, and, despite his detached tone and outward coldness, flushed with warmth at the thought that he'd fly up here because of this.

"He wasn't even that wordy, so I thought I'd ask you myself," Eric said, all casual politeness and icy good will.

"I guess I just walked out, and he didn't have reason enough to stop me," I answered, hoping I didn't sound as bitter as I felt about the whole job situation.

"You didn't tell me about it," he stated, but in a way that obliged to an explanation. Still no accusation in his voice.

"I thought you had a lot on your mind to bother you with my job problems," I mumbled.

"You thought I would neglect something like this?" Still calm, collected, casual. Damn vampires.

"I didn't say that," I bristled.

"What happened? I got a guilty vibe from the shifter. What did he do?" Apparently, Eric let go of the 'why didn't you tell me' branch and grabbed onto the 'give me a reason to lash at Sam' one.

"He didn't do a damn thing. I just caught something in his brain and… acted hastily. It wasn't Sam's fault. He can't stop himself from thinking things, you know," I said, getting on defensive. This cold shoulder thing was really getting old. I averted my eyes and stared out into the woods.

"What was it that made you leave, Sookie?" his voice suddenly sounded right into my ear, a gentle rustle, barely discernable from the whispering of the tree leaves outside, and I started, scared by his sudden appearance right at my shoulder.

"Please, don't do this, Eric, you know I hate it," I said, still jumpy and more than a bit annoyed. "And why are you doing all this seductive whispering in my ear anyway?"

I felt tears. I was sick of crying, but my eyes were in complete disagreement.

"Are you telling me you're surprised that I'd be concerned about you losing your job? You've been talking my ear off about how precious it is to you," Eric murmured, still standing so close to me, I couldn't help but feel the tiny hairs at the back of my neck stand on end.

This was torture, and a devious one at that. Not knowing whether he meant to be sweet and calming or whether he was just being a vampire on the hunt for information. Did he want to know about my job? Did he, maybe, pick up that I knew something important about him and didn't like it? The bond sill felt hollow and numb, so how was I to know what Eric felt through it?

"Pam told me," I started breathily, wanting to finally clear the air between us once and for all and not knowing how do it so that the outcome would not be a disaster.

"What did she tell you?" Eric asked in whisper, though somehow I could still sense a hint of anxiety.

"She told me that now is the safest time to… break things." My voice trembled treacherously.

"Is that what you want? To break things?"

I felt anger rushing through my blood, setting it on fire. It was definitely my own.

"Don't you dare to pull a Sam on me, Eric Northman," I hissed, sticking my index finger into his controlled, perfect, beloved face. "Don't you even try to sit around on your pretty ass and leave me to do all the decision-making and take full responsibility for what has happened to us."

Very slowly, his large white hand wrapped around my wrist and pulled my finger away from his face. I knew it would get a reaction, anger maybe. Eric didn't like to be spoken to in such a manner, I knew it from experience. Yet, he remained unperturbed. Leaning closer to me, he said barely above a breath, "Explain."

"Sam had been thinking I was bad for business. You know, with all those minions of Felipe's coming around to look at me, scaring away the paying human customers. His girlfriend threw some logs in that fire, too. Sam didn't say a damn word to me until one day I heard it in his head," I said with a defensive shrug. "He didn't want to be the one to deliver the blow. But he let me go without so much as a phone call later. And if I hadn't left things would have just gotten worse. Now, look at you! How am I supposed to answer to your question? How do I even know you're not prompting me to do something you want done, but don't want to be the one doing it?"

"And you are comparing me with the shifter?" Eric asked, but there was no usual disdain in his voice as he spoke about Sam. He was just asking me to confirm or deny a fact.

"Maybe I am," I answered and stuck my chin out with a challenge. "You've left me hanging here, Eric, can't you see that?"

"Answer my question, Sookie." Ok, patience definitely running thin.

"No, I don't to break up. Though I probably should!" I spat out angrily and felt a fresh flood of tears threatening to overtake.

"Thank you," He said simply. It had its effect. I felt stunned enough for my eyes to dry instantly.

"What for?" I asked, in a daze.

"For answering."

"So, I answered it, now what?" I stared at him like he was a Virgin Mary apparition.

"I want to renew our bond."

What?

"What?" I felt like a had just been slapped. Just like that? Was he serious? "You've gotta be bullshitting me! After you've been throwing your holier-than-thou attitude at me about Appius?"

"I've thought about it, and the desire to have you in my life prevailed." He answered, and I sensed a wave of hurt. He was standing really close, and at such a short distance some things slowly seeped in through the bond.

"Don't speak of me like I'm just one of your assets," I gritted out, lacing my voice with as much hate I had for the very concept of being an asset to the Sherriff of Area Five or the King of Nevada or the Pope of Rome as possible.

Suddenly, I noticed that Eric looked lost. That big, tough, ruthless Viking, who could snap almost anyone in this world with a tiniest flick of his pinky—looked lost. The realization struck me with a force of a lightning bolt in a Texan storm. He didn't know how to go about this any more than I did. It had probably been one hell of a long time since he'd had anything even remotely close to an emotional relationship. And a twenty-first century woman is not your meek medieval gal born to be a mother and a wife and trained to obey men.

Speaking of relationships, there was something else in Eric's general offness. He basically smacked of reserved anticipation, so I decided to dive for the jugular here.

"You tried to make me feel like I'd done something horrible, when all I've ever done was try to protect you from someone who hurt you!" It came out as a rather pathetic whimper and I turned around.

Large hands snaked around my waist and hugged me close to the familiar magnificent frame I fit so well into. Immediately, I felt a strong urge to just let go and forget everything and seek solace and relief in my lover's arms, even if it were for a couple of hours, even if when I came down from a sexual high, all the things, all the secrets that currently stood between us would press on me with a renewed force.

"I acted on emotion, Sookie. I seem to do that a lot when you are concerned," Eric breathed into my ear as one of his hands moved the hair over to one side and ran a tender trail along my hairline.

"You got so pissed at me for not telling you about Hunter. And yet you kept something huge from me. Something that could have helped with finding out what happened with Dermot," I whispered, not moving.

He tensed immediately. The gentle embrace turned into a grip and the caressing hand dropped to clutch my arm.

Oh shit. I frantically thought if I had just made my situation a hundred times worse.