Sorry about slow updates recently and any in the next two weeks, I'm in London again so free time is more limited than back home. I do try though

I love how interested everyone is in Eva's character and her motives, and how annoyed everyone gets at her stupidity at times. No, I really love it. I didn't want a perfect character, like in other oc stories where the characters only flaw may be their clumsiness which is intended to be endearing as a flaw (most these characters intensely based on the author). No one is so amazingly wonderful and I'm proud I've created a character with imperfections as well as good points.

Eric Northman stood on the road side. He didn't like to be kept waiting, especially for a woman. Staring absently into the darkness he contemplated the looming dangers that faced his world. With Sophie-Anne gravely injured and admittedly no defence to the state, vampire kings and queens were poised like predators for it. He wondered how long the state would really last in the hands of his current Queen.

His mind mapped out the usual things in his life, as one would survey a chess game. He was judging where to shift things, where to hide things, where to make his moves. Though it seemed all he could do was feebly attempt to hide people.

This realised dawned strangely upon him. Not the fact that he was between a rock and a hard place, he'd known that for quite some time, but the fact that his great concern was how to hide people. He wondered, in a surreal moment, whether this was because he cared for them or he was trying to hide what his enemies could use as leverage.

There was Sookie, who he very undeniably had feelings for. There was Pam, who was his child and of course he would be emotionally struck if anything we're to happen to her. Then there was Eva, his second child. His mind wandered to her often and her absence truly vexed him. He wondered where she was and often contemplated calling her. Not as in give her a bell sort of call, the mysterious vampire maker-child connection kind. He could really haunt the girl if he wished, he could summon her day and night, make shivers run down her spine as he beckoned to her, send her daily reminders of where she should be. Surprisingly, Eric wasn't that type of maker and let Eva run her path.

As to whether he was protecting these people out of emotion or out of strategic planning, he put it down to a bit of both. As he heard car tires approaching amongst the racket of the club behind him, he thought what a shock it would be to people if they realised how strongly he felt for some people.

As a much too yellow car appeared at the end of the road, he realised that for an enemy to use a person against him in blackmail, he'd have to utterly care for that person. Therefore, he was protecting the people in his life wholly out of emotion. That was a strange concept.

He turned and disappeared inside his bar for Sookie to seek him out; it wouldn't do to seem eager.

…

Eva clenched her fists on her lap and gazed out the window. The dark town rolled by, the empty streets quiet as people huddled in their pubs and clubs. If a vampire was stalking around that night, they were too graceful to let their footsteps be heard, even by a fellow vampire. It was getting colder as the year moved into fall, yet Eva felt neither chill nor breeze.

Victor drove fast and smooth, and Eva barely felt as though the car was moving. That could do to the fact her head was somewhere else though.

"Have I said something you didn't want to hear?" Victor inquired with a small taunting smile.

"Yes," Eva replied honestly.

"I am sorry,"

"No you're not," Eva sighed. She pushed the hair that had fallen in a thick curtain over her face behind her ear, and turned to give Victor a hard look. Much to her annoyance he still had a small smile apparent on his face.

"You're wrong, I am sorry. I don't want you running off home again."

Eva winced a bit at his choice of words.

"Home, hmm."

"Sorry, I'm saying all the wrong things tonight."

Eva ignored him and gazed out the window as the car turned into a wide driveway, darkened further by the archway of trees that stemmed over them, the branches woven together. Victor carried on talking to the back of her head.

"If you have the will to leave of your own accord though, your own maker, then there must be something you seek here."

"You know very well I'm here for one person," Eva suddenly stated bluntly and plainly, "He deserves to know I'm alive…sort of…"

"And then what?"

"And then I think I should go where my loyalties should have been."

"For a young girl, you've had to make a whole lot of decisions recently."

Eva was quiet and still as the car pulled up outside a tall modern house that seemed unnaturally large. As she climbed out the car she counted six floors, and wondered how many vampires resided in this one building.

"If you're thinking of going back to Mr Northman simpley to learn how to be a vampire, I assure you there's enough in our den to learn from," Victor assured creepily.

Eva imagined the incredible vampire she could learn to be amongst so many, many she imagined older than Eric, and probably less hot-headed. She caught herself, and corrected herself, all vampires we're probably hot headed, many just held an act long enough. Eva was learning to spot her naivety and tackle it. She was crawling towards being a stronger person – a stronger vampire.

"I know how to be a vampire," Eva hissed, she wouldn't have Victor Madden talking to her as she was a child. She was forgetting that to him, she was.

"You know the basics, you lack a maturity and ruthlessness required to survive."

As if to support Victor's point, she was greeted with the scent that made her tremble. The amount of blood inside the den was ridiculous; she imagined they must have barrels of the stuff alone in the cellar. She was walking into a place where human blood was poured like wine.

Her fangs protracted and Victor gave her a sideways look.

"I've not eaten in a really long time?" she hissed defensively. Victor laughed and put his hands up in show of submission.

"How long?"

"…ever…"

Victor halted abruptly and stared at her.

"Yeah, unusual I know."

"You've never fed on human blood?"

"Nope," Eva answered truthfully through her fangs.

"Did that not…send you crazy?"

"Yes," she continued truthfully. There was an awkward long silence as Victor stared at her bewildered. "You look…maddened," Eva finally chirped to break the tension.

"More amazed really."

"No…that was a joke…because your last name is Madden…" she laughed nervously

Victor raised one eyebrow.

"That's painful Eva…but atleast…you're trying to keep a sense of humour…?"

"Exactly…" Eva murmured, staring at the ground as they approached the large solid oak door. Atleast the embarrassment drew her attention somewhat from the amount of blood scent wafting in the air.

"Let me call Lucio…" Victor sighed, as he opened the door.

The flood of smells that made her knees weak poured through the open door, and Eva feared this was a test beyond all tests.

…

Somewhere in Shreveport, Louisiana, Eric and Pam murmured in old Swedish. They were discussing the state of affairs in low breath while the club swarmed with people around them.

Eric remembered teaching Pam old Swedish; he remembered teaching her many things. She was like a real child, enthusiastic and excited. She'd become incredibly cool and blazed over the years but her love of being a vampire remained. He wondered how much Eva had learnt, and if she'd warmed to being a vampire any more.

"Other states are circling like vultures," Pam hissed in the old language, "and I'm not sure there content waiting for death to come on its own any longer."

Eric scowled, they feared the worse. If another state invaded it would be every vampire for themselves. Also since the summit, Sookie was now in the vampire eye. She was now a target. Fangtasia, being the largest vampire bar in Louisiana, was also a target. That made Pam a target.

He already knew he was a target, if he was faced with another state vampire he could bargain his way into a new position. Pam, Sookie and Eva were in no position to save their skins.

Eric wanted them round him in this conflicted period. He wanted them within reach, every waking vampire hour. Of course with Pam he had this. With Sookie, she would never stay under his thumb but she was within reach. Eva, he needed her within reach even if she wouldn't stay with him.

"We need all the support we need," Eric growled more at thin air than at Pam. She nodded, with a concerned expression. Fangbangers watched them avidly from a distance, dreaming of what they might be talking about.

"You want to call the girl back."

"Not particularly," Eric lied.

"It crossed your mind, I'm sure," Pam sighed.

"No, I would like her to show me her support of her own free will, but that's not happening."

Pam's mouth curled into a small taunting smile that excited their watchers greatly.

"If others could hear you now."

"Be quiet Pam," he hissed, rising from his chair and stalking out of the limelight of the bar. Pam followed with her feminine swagger.

"Seriously though, another set of fangs would be somewhat useful right now, don't you think?"

"Be quiet Pam," he repeated grimly. Pam sighed and let him walk away, exasperated.

Eric broke the stillness of the hallway as he punched the door frame. It was drowned out by the din of the bar, but all the miscellaneous chatter in the world couldn't drown out his thoughts.

His sting of rejection and choice to give his vampire wards a choice in life. Eric had a very different attitude to his own children that to the rest of the world. While he wouldn't think twice in throwing someone who'd spoken a bad word against him in the basement as if it were the middle Ages, he wanted to see his own vampires make their own decisions, judgements and way. Pam came back to him; she showed a gratitude to his gift of new life and felt she was lucky to have him as a maker, just as Eric had with Godric. Eric couldn't understand why Eva responded differently.

…

Somewhere in the top floor of a vampire den in Reno, Victor knocked on the door of Felipe de Castro's office to inform him of their latest perk.

Somewhere in Shreveport, Eric went against his beliefs and summoned his runaway child.

Somewhere in a large domed hallway with staircases spiralling round the walls and marbled floors, Eva Hunter felt a shudder run down her spine. Her senses swirled for a fraction of a moment and she felt a tug back to Shreveport, Eric blazed through her mind. It was the strangest sensation and for a minute she felt like turning and running from the manor.

She stared at the door. It wouldn't take long to go home now. She could make it halfway by morning, sleep in the ground and be there early the next night. Or she could do what she came here to do, and leave early next night. The shiver lingered in her mind. Biting her lip in frustration, she missed the simplicity of being a waitress.