A/N: Thank you ever so much for the lovely responses, my dear readers. They feed the muse! So keep them coming :) And a special load of gratitude goes to Kristen, my beta extraordinaire, for her support, nudging, hand-holding and virtual back-rubbing. Here's the next chapter, where there's no one but our favourite couple. Enjoy! And please, tell me what you think.

~oOo~

"Hypnotizing the woods outside won't get us anywhere, Eric," I said to the vampire's straight, lean back.

He was standing at the window, arms folded and head hung. Looking unintentionally gorgeous, of course. He had yet to say something. A small eternity passed, and I was getting agitated.

I gave him another minute and he still hadn't stirred from his self-imposed wood-watching. The air between us crackled with tense, thick unease. I had a fleeting impulse to wave my hands to chase it off,, as if I were swimming underwater and something elusive and nasty, like one of those cuttlefish, spattered ink right before my eyes.

"I wouldn't have pegged Bill for someone with a vindictive streak so wide," he finally said, his voice devoid of all emotions. This hollowness in him scared me more than his spitting anger ever would.

"Bill has nothing to do with this," I said, infuriated that he'd try to shift the weight of blame in order to escape the outright confrontation.

"Doesn't he?" Eric asked pointlessly, and turned around. His face was dead. Really dead. For someone who had been dead for so long, Eric had always been one of the liveliest, vivacious creatures I'd seen. And I've seen a lot of creatures. If any vampire could pull off being a human with ease, that vampire was Eric. And here he was, standing with a face so dead, so far from anything even remotely humanlike that my entire house felt like an ancient, long-sealed vault.

I told him that I went to Bill to look for stuff up on Victor. I explained that I needed to protect Hunter and was ready to go far. I blabbed about my fears of Victor turning Hunter while he's still so young, and I mused out loud about what was it about turning a child that Victor would stoop so low. I finally checked myself when I realized that Eric had been standing still the whole time I was walking around and wringing my hands. It was like he'd succumbed to one of those vampire slumbering moments.

I started telling him, man up and just goddamn talk to me, but remembered that vampires often did wicked things just for the sport of it, and with Eric's being unpredictable in our best moments, who knew what he was capable of in this state. Then, I just about started to tell him, how very, very afraid of him I was at the moment, but again, stopped right about when the words were ready to tumble out of my often-too-big mouth. Eric hated it that he scared me sometimes. He thought it stood in the way of me trusting him, accepting him into my life completely. I didn't want to stab him where it hurt.

Biting the inside of my lower lip in nervous tumult, I stared. And stared. And stared some more.

"So, Pam has two sisters?" someone croaked, breaking the unbearable silence. It took me a second to catch up with the fact that it was me.

"Had. Pam had two… sisters, as you put it," Eric whispered back with all the conviction of a skilled liar.

"Had? Isn't one of them just missing?" I asked shrilly.

"So, you did read Bill's file. He should have told you that not all of his information is factual."

"Are you telling that it's a fact that both of them are dead?" I questioned further, knowing that as a maker, Eric would know this.

"No," he said after a very long pause, during which he was obviously considering whether to lie to me or not. He knew he could pull it off. And I would believe him, too. "But not because both my other children are not dead," he added, and I didn't like the somber under tone in his voice.

"Then why?" I asked, my voice trembling.

"My second child… was different. I can't feel her. Never could. She may as well be dead," Eric answered with a caution of a cat stepping into a water puddle.

"Is this because she was a fairy?"

"Perhaps. I'm not sure at this point," he replied, looking slightly more collected.

"Why did you keep something so important from me? How did you even manage to turn a fairy?" I fired off, back on track with my anger, kick-started by his quick recovery.

"It's a long conversation, and I'd rather have it with you when you're not bursting at the seams with fury, Sookie," Eric answered cautiously, and something in his tone made my ears prick. And then it clicked.

"Is this why you wanted to renew the bond?" I asked, my breath lagging behind me. I practically suffocated in indignation. Eric flinched away: my eyes were probably shooting stakes. But I was definitely past caring about how I made him feel right now. "So, how were you planning to go about it, huh? Pump me full of your blood, screw me into being pliable and then say 'Oh, by the way Sookie, I once turned a fairy, wasn't that fun!' Some pillow talk that would have been!" I raged.

"My desire to renew our bond is independent from the necessity of having this talk," Eric answered briskly. He gave me a long, calculating look and continued, "but I won't lie to you, Sookie, having it after we have renewed our bond would have been… preferable and… beneficial." He said beneficial in a voice spoilt, errant children ask their indulgent parents for extra money after they have spent their monthly allowance on trifles in one day.

His honesty was brutal, but disarming, really. It had always been this way with Eric. The way he laid out even the most clandestine intentions which concerned my person out in the open and was not ashamed about it was uniquely appealing and very Eric.

"You kept something so big from me. It could have helped, this knowledge, you know? The timing when this all comes out is just too fishy for me not to think things. How do I even know you have nothing to do with Dermot's turning?" The minute the accusation flew out of my mouth I felt sorry I even allowed myself to entertain such a thought.

Eric moved with vampire speed and a split second later, I was pressed against the wall with a painful thud. His hands were fisted and most probably leaving indents on the wall on both sided of my head, and if the fire in his eyes were any hotter, my face would have turned to ashes then and there.

"I may have done many things, but I have never lied to you," he whispered with such deadly coldness, one could never mistake his voice for something even remotely human. All the words that were crowding to jump off my tongue, were effectively jammed by a wave of fear. Eric must have sensed it, because his face relaxed minutely, and the cold ice in his voice was melting with sadness. Like I said before, he hated it when he scared me.

"You told me that turning a fairy is a feat no vampire could achieve and yet you forgot to mention that you yourself did it. And at a young age, at that. How is that not a lie, Eric?" I asked softly, trying to quell the conflicting desires to either pound my fists at him or jump his bones.

"I simply haven't told you all of it." He said, as if it was the rightest thing in the world to do on a regular basis.

"You seem to do that a lot." I answered laying it thick with reproach.

"I am vampire. That is our modus operandi."

I had no idea what that meant, but I was dead sure that the no small amount of pride that was infusing his voice had nothing to do with the ability to stick a quaint piece of Latin into a conversation. The gall of that vampire.

"That you are. Then I guess my not telling you all of it about Hunter doesn't count as a lie, either? Or is telling half-truths a strictly vampire prerogative? " I asked, and batted my eyelashes a few times for a good measure. There, let no one think Sookie Stackhouse couldn't use a bit of her own fancy language.

Eric narrowed his eyes at me.

"Touché," he said with an unreadable expression and released me from the little prison made of the wall, his limbs and his body. A prison I didn't care to leave too soon in fact.

He turned away, swift as a gust of wind and took his former position at the window. I, however, was so not finished.

"Uh-uh, Eric Northman, you don't get to say 'touché' and strike another brooding pose at the window!" I said loud enough to be counted as yelling. "If you say it wasn't a lie in your book for me not to tell you about Hunter's little quirk, then why the hell did you get so pissed at me? Or are double standards another one of these vampire modus whatever fuckery?"

He turned around immediately and strode to me slowly, while I was standing, hands balled, chest heaving, eyes swimming with anger, and wrapped his big, big tender hands about the half-globes of my shoulders. His lips opened slightly and then stretched into a thin line and there was evident torture in his features, as if he were trying to say something very painful or self-disparaging. I realized that the occasion was so rare he could probably count similar ones on the fingers of one hand throughout his thousand years of life, and my breath hitched with anticipation.

"I want you to tell me, Sookie, that you completely and utterly believe me when I say that all the recent events, all the things that you and I have found out about each other have nothing to do with one another. It is not me plotting, it is just bad, ridiculously unfortunate timing and coincidence. I have nothing to do with turning Dermot, and though I admit that I thought telling you about my other children would have been easier once our bond is renewed, I want to renew our blood tie for entirely different reasons." Eric's eyes stared into me, like two tiny pieces of sky, searching for answers into my very soul.

"I believe you," I whispered hesitantly, "But it doesn't mean I follow and accept your behavior and reactions, Eric. It also doesn't mean that you didn't hurt me, and it doesn't take away that hurt either."

"Yes, that is another thing," Eric said, his voice resigned. He took a deep, unnecessary breath. I was sure he was putting a veritable show for my sake and felt a tiny explosion of gratitude.

I looked at him expectantly. Was he about to apologize?

After what seemed to be a little eternity of mental preparation, Eric spoke.

"I screwed up," He said, his face barely holding from contorting into a mask of distaste. Eric 'Perfection Personified' Northman never, ever screwed up. But he sounded so serious and he so certainly meant it.

Whoa, that was most certainly Big with a capital B.

"What?" I asked in a startled, chocked whisper, still not believing such words actually found a way out from his mouth. A flicker of irritation passed through his face. He was probably thinking I was acting dumb to have the pleasure of hearing him say those words again.

"Alright, Pam's wording was that I fucked up," he said, looking deliciously riled up.

The unreality of the situation finally caught up with me, and I gave into a fit of laughter.

After the peals of silly giggles subsided enough for me to judge the world clearly, I saw that Eric was hurt a good bit.

"Well, I'm happy to be a source of such a tremendous entertainment for you," he said venomously and turned for the door.

The very thought that he was leaving sobered me up immediately. All laughter forgotten, I ran after him and grabbed his hand. Seeing his retreating back just reminded me how important he was to me.

"No, don't leave, please," I said, turning him to look at me. "Eric," I whispered, sliding my hand up his arm, enjoying the supple feel of his ivory-smooth, cool skin. "It's just that your… admission caught me off guard. I wasn't making fun of you. But you so rarely, if ever, say something so—"

"Human?" he interrupted me, but did nothing to stop the crawl of my hand to his shoulder and neck.

"Yes, human."

I looked at him from under my lashes. The perfect bow of his upper lip trembled and curved into a tiny smile.

"I actually asked Pam what Dear Abby thought about fixing things between… lovers," he whispered huskily, taking my hand that was now browsing the strong curve of his shoulder, and kissing the blue vein that was beating on the inside of my wrist.

"Did Pam give you a nice grilling?" I chuckled, trying to sound nonchalant and failing miserably, because the feeling of butterfly wings beating against my insides was intensifying exponentially with every peck of his lips to my wrist. And when I felt the slightest scrape of a fang, I barely managed to remain standing because my knees wobbled so much. My anger was quickly fleeing.

"No, she actually didn't. But she did tell me, 'Go tell her you've fucked up, Eric, for Christ's sake,' he said in such a perfect imitation of his beloved child, topping it with an absolutely Pam-like eye-roll, that I could help but let another bubbly giggle escape. This time, however, Eric was obviously aiming at making me laugh.

"Pam told me I was pussyfooting," I said between chuckles as Eric's other hand found the dip of my waist.

Eric's golden-brown eyebrows shot up in amusement, and the corner of his mouth twitched.

"That sounds much kinkier than I've known you to be, Miss Stackhouse," Eric purred, and yet another particle of anger shriveled up and died inside me at the sound of his positively bedroom voice. Soon enough I would not be remembering why I was mad at my vampire to begin with.

"It means I'm walking about the issue being indecisive," I said with a superiority his spotty knowledge of modern lingo always gave me.

"Pam certainly has a way with words," he answered with a broad smile.

"Just so you know, I'm still mad at you," I whispered, feeling anything but.

"I know. And I intend to apologize… profusely," he made it sound as full of obscene promise as a gallon of Ben and Jerry's Rocky Road waiting to be eaten all by yourself. I felt my heartbeat accelerate and knew that Eric would pick up on the slightest signs of my excitement before even I was able to register them.

He took in a whiff of air noisily and looked at me like he had just won a million dollar bet.

"I'm happy to know I'm still capable of making you aroused with just words," he murmured into the skin of my cheek.

Arrogant bastard. I smiled despite the sentiment. He was dead on, after all.

"We are going to talk about your… progeny, right? I have too many… things to tell. Questions to ask," I mumbled, barely able to string words into sentences because his cool, moist tongue was tracing patterns of sheer distraction on the side of my neck.

"Rest assured, we will. But I want to make amends first."

The prospect was heady. The depth of how much I actually missed Eric, how big a void in my life would have been, were he to leave it somehow, only became clearer as his fingers gathered around my face and pulled me in for a kiss.

One kiss was all it took for the rest of the world to remove itself from my head and narrow down to my living room, a roaring fire and a Viking whose lips were currently roaming over my face and neck. Eric truly was the ultimate kisser. I couldn't tell how the dimensions shifted, but suddenly the ceiling that used to be above me was right in front of me. I took it to mean that somehow Eric guided us both down to the floor, and I hadn't even noticed. Kind of like one of those drunks who walk home and suddenly 'the roads rises up to meet them and hits them square in the face', as Jason would describe the experience. I giggled at the untimely ridiculousness of the thought.

"Is something funny?" Eric asked, raising his face from where it was currently getting reacquainted with the tops of my very eager and very waiting breasts which, if they could talk, would scream in frustration of being abandoned right about now.

"No, no," I panted, taken away for a second with the sight of his beautiful face, hovering over mine in a halo of golden hair. Nothing was funny at that moment. "I just… I'm just so happy now, I think. And it's funny how this morning everything was just so horrible and now everything is just… so right. I'm so easy," I babbled, trying desperately not to let my eyes roll to the top of my head and moan, because while I was delivering my little speech, Eric's hands… well, they went exploring.

"Lover," Eric said, punctuating the endearment with a sensual nip to my lower lip. "This sentence has a flaw of having entirely too many justs."

Only Eric 'Sex on Stick' Northman could make such out-of-place, random statement sound like a promise of the most incredible sex to come.

Something very happy inside me curled and purred like a well-fed and well-petted kitten at the long-awaited word finally being said. I ran my hands up his back, enjoying the play of muscle and sinew under my fingers.

"And you have flaw of wearing entirely too much clothes," I said to my vampire and tugged at his shirt suggestively.

A challenging raise of an eyebrow was all the warning I got before Eric divested both of us with vampire speed. Faintly registering that my bra was currently decorating the ceiling fan, I reveled in the exquisite feeling of skin on skin. White on tanned. Cool on heated. I knew soon enough Eric's skin would soak up some of my heat as we made love. I also knew he loved the feeling of this proxy warmth. He'd told me once that this alone could outweigh his desire to make me vampire and keep me forever.

When he was poised to enter me, Eric took my chin in his hands, bringing my eyes to meet his in a direct headlock.

"I was a fool to let anything come in between you and me," he said raggedly and drove into me with a welcome force. "This is how we should be, Sookie." Thrust in. "Just like this." Pull out almost all the way. "We should be one, my lover." Thrust back. "As long as we have, we should be one." Twist of hips.

When he hooked his elbow under my knees to change the angle and leaned close to whisper shameless, explicit, decadent things into my ear, telling me what he was planning to do to me and have me to do him, I came undone, shattering into a thousand little pieces of bliss and ecstasy.

For a few sparkling hours, the world was made whole and right again.