II.
May 2009
I sang along with the new Neko Case album on the drive back from Quantico to Alexandria. Tonight was my Irish Book Club night. We were still slogging our way through Finnegans Wake. I was trying hard to enjoy it but it was an effort. The club, however, was a delight. I was looking forward to heading to Thistle and Shamrock Booksellers and chatting with some of the people I'd grown to enjoy casual conversation with, have an Irish meal in their company and talk about books. I'd learned a lot about Irish, Scottish and Welsh history and culture. I had Irish roots, on my paternal grandfather's side of the family and of course my paternal grandmother's family was Welsh. But my actual roots had been lost in the past three years. Or more accurately, they had been buried away. Red Tide was interrupted by my cell phone ringing through Bluetooth in the car audio system, cutting off the music.
"Gordon," I said, not even able to really see the number on the caller ID on my phone as I answered, because of the late afternoon glare.
"Sasha, it's Calum. Listen we're calling everyone to let them know that we're canceling Book Club for tonight. Catriona's feeling a bit under the weather and I'm staying in to tend her. So I'm closing the bookshop for the night. But we'll hopefully be on for next week."
I sighed, disappointed. But Catriona was very ill and, of course, she should be Calum's number one priority.
"Tell Catriona I hope she feels better. I'll keep her in my thoughts, okay? Maybe I'll try to bring you an apple pie on Sunday. She loves my Gran's pie recipes."
"Sure thing, mo chuisle. Take care and see you next week if not sooner."
I guessed that it would be another quiet night, and I hadn't even left anything defrosting in the fridge, so it was likely going to be lean pickings for dinner. Oh well, I could just read further in my annotated Finnegans Wake and snack, I told myself. Finnegan was a challenging read. Ahmed, a colleague of mine, had given me the annotated version. He certainly knew what he was doing, I thought with a smile. I'd felt like I was reading so far above my head in that book I thought I'd drown. I had been reading serious literature for the past few years. I was continually aware of the fact that I lacked a formal education, but was trying to get one as I read. The same was true of my broader world experience.
Traffic was heavier than usual on the Beltway. I probably would have been late to the meeting if it had gone forward, anyway. If I'd known about the meeting being canceled just a bit earlier I'd have stayed on the 395 instead. I sighed as I saw the sun setting in my rearview mirror. I listened to the Dixie Chicks when Neko Case was finished. 'The Long Way Around' was certainly an appropriate sentiment not just for my life, but my present options for getting home. Traffic just wasn't moving at all. Finally, I got off the Beltway and just drove side streets.
I got to my apartment building at 8:40 pm. After parking my car in the garage, I buzzed into the building and caught site of Wallace, our building manager. I called out 'Good evening, Wallace' but he seemed as if he didn't hear me and just lumbered on his way toward his apartment. It seemed odd, since he was usually almost disturbingly talkative, but I could savor the silence this once. It had been a long day. I opened my mailbox and took out the two envelopes addressed to Sasha Gordon, and my new issue of The Economist, to which I had been subscribing for the past two years. Excellent foreign affairs analysis that I could actually understand. And some interesting stuff about politics and business to boot. I flipped through it. It usually took me the full week to get through a single issue. I took the stairs, instead of the elevator, up the five flights of carpeted stairs and headed down the hallway to my apartment, 5C. When I hit the fifth floor landing, I had the oddest sensation. First, I thought that I caught just a trace of a familiar scent. But it was so faint that I couldn't quite place it, though it seemed so familiar to me. And then I felt an odd sensation, like a stirring some place deep inside. It was like a sudden welling of anticipation, but also of apprehension. I just blew it off and pressed on toward my apartment. I was tired. I'd been up since 6 am.
I unlocked and opened the door and entered, locking the two locks behind me and then silencing the alarm. I tossed the mail on the table near the door. Without even bothering to put on the lights in the living room, I strode toward the open kitchen area.
"Rosie… Rosie-Cat. Elsa Rose, where are you?" It was pretty unusual not to have Rosie greeting me at the door. I joked with her all the time, telling her she was not a proper cat at all because she was so very friendly. She was really like a small dog, not at all reserved like your usual kitty.
The entire wall, from the living room to kitchen, in front of me was floor to ceiling plate glass windows. The view of the Potomac, Arlington Cemetery and the District with all its memorials, in the distance was unobstructed and totally spectacular from here in the Arlandria. It was what I loved best about my apartment, the reason why I'd chosen it of the three they'd shown me, even though it was a longer drive from Quantico. A lot of times I'd leave the lights off and spend time just looking at the view, thinking it was hard to believe that I really lived here, so close to the Capitol and to so much history.
As I moved toward the kitchen, with my back to the living room space, I suddenly became aware that something was very wrong. Someone else was in the apartment. There was actually a void spot. The someone was a vampire. The scent on the landing of the fifth floor… vampire. Following all my training, I moved no differently but when I got to the counter I dropped my purse and was able to whip my Glock 22 our of my shoulder holster and unlatch it's safety and chamber a bullet all in one move as I spun around toward the living room. My heart was already pounding but that was nothing compared to what it did when I met his glowing eyes. He was seated on the leather couch, one long leg casually crossed over the other and he appeared to have been reading a magazine in the darkness. He was dressed all in black, leather jacket, t-shirt and dark jeans, black boots. His hair was loose around his shoulders. Rosie was sitting next to him, on the quilt, kneading her paws happily as if she had been petted. A low voice broke the silent tension.
"You're early, Lover. I didn't think you'd be here until well after 10 pm. No Book Club meeting?"
I trembled as I futilely kept the gun pointed toward him and involuntarily let out a long shuddery breath. But I couldn't shoot him. Even though it might give me some chance to get out that double-locked door. I simply… couldn't. That was the realization to make me tremble. Fifteen rounds and I simply could not fire a one.
He rose and quickly covered the distance from the couch to where I stood at the kitchen entry. He loomed over me, and took gentle hold of my hand, the only part of me that was steady, and pointed my gun away toward the wall. He bent down and kissed my cheek and then looked at the gun in a mildly interested fashion.
"A Glock. Are you any good with it? I seem to remember your being a fairly good shot with a shotgun."
I looked straight at his chest and continued shaking almost uncontrollably.
"How did you get in? How did you get into my apartment uninvited?" my voice shuddered.
"I glamoured the building manager and asked him to invite me inside. Quite simple. He disarmed and then reset the alarm for me. I didn't want to chance that you'd be afraid to enter after finding it off."
I just nodded silently. Well, it was ironic that after going to all the trouble of the scar revision surgeries on my few remaining scars, I would be a reasonable looking corpse. Assuming I was ever found and that whatever was done to me wasn't too gruesome. I hoped it wouldn't be too hard on Jason. He hadn't seen me in more than three years so maybe it would be okay. He had a bit of psychological distance now. I thought all this because in those minutes I was really sure that Eric had finally come to kill me for my having walked out not just of my own life, but out of whatever the vampire marriage thing was that he had made with me. He had lost control of the situation with me and I was sure there was a price for me to pay for that fact. I continued to shake, pretty much uncontrollably. Still holding the gun in my right hand away from us with his left hand, he put his right hand at the back of my head and let it slide from the nape of my neck down to my shoulder. We probably looked as if we could be dancing I thought oddly to myself, but I audibly shivered at his touch. He leaned closer to me.
"Sookie… or should I say Sasha? Relax," he said in a low whisper above my ear, "There's no reason to be afraid. I came to talk to you. I would never harm you. Relax." He leaned back slightly. "Let me look at you… You're a feast for my eyes, Lover. I was just enjoying your scent while sitting there. What a gift to find you home a full hour and a half early. Look at you, so fair. I've never seen you so fair. And the green contacts and auburn hair." He chuckled. "So Irish looking. Niall would be very amused. You're much more slender than you were. Personally, I always enjoyed the curves."
I gasped. Omigod. What was he going to do to me? I shuddered to think about it. I felt his eyes on me, mostly on my face but also on my breasts or more accurately, my absolutely shuddering chest. I was trying to stay calm, while everything in my brain was screaming that I had to run. A ludicrous thought. There was no way, obviously, to run from Eric. Not even with the FBI helping you, evidently.
"Eric, what do you want? Why are you here? What do you want with me?" I managed to say, swallowing hard. I couldn't even look up to meet his eyes and I couldn't stop shaking. What would he do to me? I felt this jolt of panic thinking that even worse than killing me, he could turn me... My heartbeat accelerated even more at that thought.
"Lover, relax, you have absolutely no reason to be afraid" he said again, almost chuckling softly. He stroked my neck gently. "Just relax. Really, I'm just here to talk to you. I wanted to see you. See how you are doing for myself. To talk with you." He hesitated and then said quietly, "I actually want to talk to you about visiting home."
I snorted softly. "I am home. If you know my schedule so well then you must know I work for the FBI in counterterrorism, right? And it's not like if I go missing they won't go looking for me. A telepath is rather high on the list of important things not to lose now that torture is supposed to be off the table with the new administration."
As if ignoring what I was saying he gently took the Glock out of my hand and put it on the kitchen counter and then gathered me into his arms, and I could hear him inhaling the scent of my hair. He let out a soft sighing sound. I felt a rising warmth that just seemed to shimmer with happiness. I was puzzled. It was 'good' happiness, as opposed to the kind felt by someone who was planning to 'have fun with me' by cutting me up bit by bit, or even planning on just killing me outright. It wasn't happiness born of anger. He was genuinely happy. So Eric was happy in a good way, to see me three years after I took off leaving only a note on my refrigerator door that said "Live better"? With another shuddering breath and in complete defiance of everything my mind was screaming, I just relaxed into his embrace.
"How did you find me?" I whispered into his sternum.
I had been in the Federal Witness Protection Program, even though I wasn't really a witness for anything, for three years and three months. Basically, I had an entirely new identity and a new life. I was now officially Alexandra "Sasha" Marie Gordon, supposedly a graduate of William and Mary College, and a counterterrorism special agent based out of the FBI's Quantico office. After an initial interview in the New Orleans office, the FBI had wanted me so badly they waived the four year degree requirement, created my new identity and spent a year training me to work on screening suspected terrorists with interpreters that I helped select to work with. For anyone who had known me in my former life, my appearance was rather drastically changed. I had lost more than twenty pounds, at first from depression but then I'd kept it off with regular workouts and Krav Maga training. My hair was dyed dark auburn, cut into a shoulder length pageboy, and my eyes were green with the help of contact lenses. I was very fair. Even after the last of the scar revisions and some corrective surgery on my left breast, I still couldn't bear the idea of wearing a bikini to get a tan. It was easier to look like a convincing redhead if I was very fair anyway. And the paler skin made all the residual scars less apparent. They were finally fading. Even the revised ones. The mental and emotional scars… well they hadn't faded nearly as fast. Yeah, I'd have to say that they were still evident at times. What you feel is so much harder to revise.
"Bill found you. We knew you were with the FBI almost from the beginning. Bill and I went through your phone records and found that you had called an FBI agent in New Orleans right before you disappeared. We thought maybe they just took you at first. Then he talked to the agent you'd called and found out you left willingly to work for them. It took a while to find where you were since they kept moving you all over in Virginia. Bill was fairly sure he had located you in Falls Church two years ago this spring, but then I guess they sent you overseas somewhere because the trail went totally cold and Bill could find no trace of you. But after you came back, he found you again. I've known for more than a year that you worked at Quantico, that you lived here in Alexandria. I know a lot about your everyday life. You go to the gym three days a week at 6:30 am in the morning and go to an Irish book club on Thursday nights. You go to a Latin dance club most Tuesday and Saturday nights. Your dance partner, Sammy, is gay. On Saturday mornings you usually go to the National Gallery of Art or one of the other DC museums on the mall. You go sailing with friends in Chesapeake Bay every other Sunday. You attend a Quaker church on the other Sundays at 11 am. You live alone, date no one. You rent foreign films. You read a lot. You wear size six clothes and size seven shoes. And you specialize in interrogating people without hurting them. Soft interrogation, they call it? Really, I guess I know pretty much all the facts there are to know about your life now, Lover. But I was missing seeing the real thing."
The rational part of my mind still thought that Eric was here for payback. That whatever feelings he'd had for me, they were probably superseded by anger over whatever hit to his pride losing control of me had been. I had left my entire world, all my friends, what remained of my family, everyone and literally everything except my grandmother's quilt behind. Without so much as a goodbye. I hadn't even had contact with anyone supernatural, other than a few Weres at work, and my neighbor, for the past three years and three months. And those Weres? I simply pretended not to notice they were Weres. In return I had not been beaten, bitten, shot, staked, sliced with razors, raped or threatened in any way. About the most stressful thing I had to deal with was spurning the attentions of one of my colleagues at work, who seemed determined to date me, even in spite of FBI policies. He'd gotten written up for it and now he really disliked me. Yeah, that was it on the stressful front, other than my job itself and where it took me. Until I ignored my senses on the fifth floor landing telling me that I faintly smelled a vampire, a vampire I knew so well, and that sensation of a spark of life in the bond I'd tried so hard to forget. Like a fool, I'd just forged ahead, ignoring what my senses told me. And here I was. Very stressed.
"Why? Why bother? Why go to all this trouble?" I asked. I finally looked up at him in the dimly lit room and was reminded, as I met those softly glowing eyes, of everything I had ever felt about Eric. Fear mingled with happiness mingled with lust mingled with… love.
It had taken me the better part of six months after I left Louisiana to come to terms with the fact that I really loved Eric, and that my grandfather had meant that Eric, not Bill, loved me when he had commented on the vampire loving me as he departed our world for his that final time. But by then it was too late. I was a very expensive investment for the FBI. And besides, I figured that I had blown whatever I'd had with Eric by taking off as I had the day after that night he'd gone to Merlotte's to talk to me and I'd basically refused to listen to him. I felt everything you endured. His words had echoed in my mind for months after I left. I had felt abandoned by him that night I was tortured… and in return I had abandoned my entire life. Of course I had already been pushing Eric away from me for many months. And then, finally, I had just walked away from everyone. The damage of that night had swept through my life and the lives of everyone I had cared about. It was like a tidal wave that swept away everything in its path. Finally, after more than a year of beating myself up about it, I decided that if I had lived through being tortured by Neave and Lochlan that I shouldn't waste my time mourning what had been lost. Because then they would have won in the end. They would have destroyed me after all, even if I had lived. I still had my life. I had a good job, using my 'gift' for a good purpose, preventing suffering that, even though it may not have been what I had endured, was still most certainly torture in my eyes. Morally, I could deal with using my telepathy to get into the mind of a suspected terrorist, especially if it was going to spare them some far nastier and possibly less accurate methods to figure them out. And it had been a great move since so many of the suspects were clearly not exactly terrorists by design as much as by circumstance or association. Knowing that difference made a huge improvement in the outcome for everyone. Like not creating new terrorists because of mistreatment that could be advertised far and wide to recruit more terrorists. More importantly I hoped, eventually preventing the circumstances that led to terrorism being so prevalent. Poverty, hunger, and lack of a real education.
"Why did I find you? I wanted to know if you were happy. I wanted to see what your life was now. I wanted to assure you that it would be quite safe for you to come home. And I want you to come home."
I just stared up at him and shook my head in disbelief. "Still high-handed, I see. What makes you think that I would want to go back to Louisiana, Eric? Why would you think that I would give up my nice, safe life to go back there, where so many bad things happened to me?"
"Because other than your job, you have no real life here, Lover. You are totally alone. By choice, it seems. You don't even appear to have close friends other than the two people you work with, that you go sailing with sometimes. Your life may seem safe, but it really isn't if you're not even living it."
I sort of gasped at his words. "What are you implying? I'm not living my life because I'm not dating anyone? Are you actually saying that to me? I guess I'd forgotten how unsurpassably arrogant you can be, Eric. Two good friends are more than many people have and it's more than enough for me."
He had shown up, tricked his way into my apartment, in order to totally piss me off? What a long way to come and a lot of trouble to go to, just to insult me. Wow. I pulled away from him and turned on the lights in the kitchen. I picked up my Glock and put the safety back on and put it in my purse. Really, I was now more pissed off than I was scared.
"So are you any good with that thing?" Eric asked again, nodding toward the gun as I put it my purse.
I fished around in my purse and tossed out my FBI badge, which also had the card certifying my Distinguished Pistol Marksmanship Gold Badge under the photo ID.
"Under the ID."
He took out the four cards and which also included the Rifle Marksmanship Silver Badge along with my federal carry permit below that.
"Impressive, Special Agent Gordon," he said with amusement looking at the Pistol Marksmanship badge. "I guess I should be glad you didn't shoot me a few times when you had the chance. You could have made a run for it. I'm really touched. How many rounds does that thing have?"
I ignored his remarks and leaned against the counter while he examined the rifle badge.
"Rifle, too, eh?"
"I'm much better with the pistol. My shoulder's never been the same after Neave cut it with a knife. The rifle recoil hurts it a lot after about five shots. I guess there's too much scarring in the tendons or something. About the same with a Benelli when I go skeet shooting."
Eric reacted ever so slightly at the mention of Neave but said nothing. The great unspoken explanation hung in the air between us just as it had three years before.
"Do interrogators need to be marksmen?" he asked, with a raised eyebrow.
"No. But since maybe one of these days I'll open my door to find Dermot, I figure being a great shot might give me a slight advantage. If he doesn't zap me first, I'm hoping I can just shoot him. Him, I'll definitely shoot."
I turned away without waiting for a response and walked over to a corner cabinet and drew out bottles of Bombay Sapphire and Seagrams tonic water. I poured myself a generous gin and tonic. I hardly ever drank. But this drink was going to be a very generous drink. I opened the freezer and added ice to the glass and I turned back to Eric.
"I don't have any True Blood. Sorry. I don't know any vampires anymore. One of my neighbors is a Were, though. I just pretend not to notice."
"5A across the hall. His name is Ben Stephens? Pet sits the cat? Not bad for a Were."
I froze, mid-sip. "Did you even talk to my neighbors?"
"Many times. He keeps an eye on you. He'll even keep you safe in a pinch. You said Weres were good for that," he said with a wry tone.
"Please tell me you're joking, Eric." How he could have someone watching me when I was in the WPP was beyond me. People living in these buildings were screened very carefully and many worked for other agencies or the bureau. Ben actually worked for the State Department.
"I promised you I wouldn't lie to you, remember?" he said while fiddling around with my ID and the marksmanship certifications, to put them back in place. He folded the case closed and handing it back to me with a smile. "He's been on the watch for the past eleven months."
"You'd better be lying. He's got federal clearance and if he's two timing on it to give out information on a federal agent, he better have a mighty interesting explanation."
As I angrily took the badge from him and I dropped it back into my purse, I noticed the skin on his right hand looked odd. It was a slightly different color than the rest of his skin. I moved closer and in an almost absurdly proprietary fashion took up his hand and turned it over and then back. Then I reached for his left hand and put them side by side and then turned both palm side up then back to look at the skin on the top of the hands. The left hand had the same smooth skin as the rest of him. I looked up at him.
"What happened to your hand? The skin is different… it's like it's kind of pinker, almost like…" I tried to think of what it reminded me of. "It's like a baby's skin, like new or something. Why?" I looked up at him and his eyes, blue as cornflowers, gazed down with a very remote look. He didn't reply and he looked as if he was ever so slightly uncomfortable.
I looked more closely at the right hand and noticed the fingernails looked a little odd. And his right wrist had a clean line around it separating his smooth light skin and the tauter, pinker skin on his hand, almost as if… I dropped his hand and pulled back with a small gasp. His hand had been cut off and had regrown. I knew this as surely as if he'd said it, as surely as if I'd pulled the information out of his head the way I did with people every day. My hand flew to my mouth and I felt queasy.
"Was it in a fight?" I asked, remembering Eric wielding his short sword.
"No." He hesitated as if thinking cautiously about something for a full minute. "Well, you have managed to catch me off guard as much as I caught you. I should have known... you were always so observant. I guess it is better to just tell you straight out rather than risk having you come home and hearing it from someone else. The hand was a penalty. The skin will be back to normal soon. Probably another few months. But the hand is fine." He moved his fingers nimbly as if to reassure me on that point.
I dropped my hand from my face. My eyes were riveted to his hand for a moment and then I looked up and met his eyes.
"A penalty? A penalty for what?" I asked in a whisper. I cringed inwardly.
"A discussion for another time, Lover. I'm glad to finally visit you. To be able to spend time talking with you. We have all missed you. I have missed you. And I'm serious when I say that I'd like to persuade you to take some of your vacation time to visit home. I promise you the highest level of security that I can possibly offer you. I would just like to spend time with you."
I looked down at his hand, which was back at his side. I was not dissuaded.
"A penalty for what, Eric?" There was only one person I could think of that would have the authority to penalize Eric for anything and that would have been his King, Felipe.
His jaw gnashed a bit. I glanced back up at his face. He seemed to stall in responding. I'd never seen Eric behave so oddly. He really didn't want to tell me, whatever it was. I could feel his… Resistance? Distaste? Finally,
"For disobedience," was his quiet reply. He said the words with a slight accent, which I knew from before meant he was talking about it was something that really affected him.
I swallowed hard looking down at his hand. I suddenly felt quite nauseated.
"For disobedience," I whispered, repeating his words. My mind flashed back to that night in Merlotte's and Eric saying that he had defied orders to go after me and defend me against Breandan and his people. It took a long time to regrow appendages for a vampire. And for something delicate and extensively jointed like a hand? It was more than just the length, it was the complexity of the appendage. How long would that take? Perhaps a year or two? Or three. I clapped my hand over my mouth, again.
"Omigod. I… I think I'm going to be sick…" I turned quickly and made it to my bathroom before vomiting up gin and tonic, and the remnants of my late lunch. Afterwards, I sat on the bathroom floor, hand clapped over my mouth, half heaving, half breathing heavily. Tears started slowly running down my cheeks. It couldn't be. It couldn't be. It could not be.
Eric appeared next to me, squatting down with one knee bent toward the floor. He brushed the auburn hair away from my face, and stroked the tears off my cheeks. But the tears kept flowing. I knew the truth. His hand…
"Really Lover, it was nothing in comparison to what it felt like knowing what was happening to you that night." As his words confirmed it, I sobbed out loud. He continued softly "Absolutely no comparison. I'd have taken it a thousand times over having lost you… Bill and I never hesitated to do what we needed to do to keep you safe. I'd do it again. So would he."
I turned to him wide-eyed. "He did this to Bill, too?" I squeaked.
Eric met my gaze and just nodded silently.
"Omigod. Omigod…"
I gripped the edge of the toilet to steady myself. I closed my eyes and just rocked, crying softly. I envisioned that night like a train wreck, where it seemed my life had derailed and the consequences just seemed to pile up one after another like cars off the tracks, long after I had stopped moving. Would the fallout of that night ever end? Finally, some minutes later, I could compose myself enough to say,
"How could you even defend yourself if you would need to afterwards? And Bill, he was so injured already. Felipe didn't do anything to Pam or to Maxwell, too, did he?" I asked, looking up at him with dread.
"No. Pam and Maxwell merely followed my orders. Pam took care of me. Bill was home for sometime recovering from the silver poisoning. We sent several people to help take care of him. He has recovered very well. He found you after all. Several times."
"But why were you punished for protecting someone that Felipe had conferred protection upon? Why? What did you or Bill do wrong? It's totally unfair that he punished you both for trying to protect me. You were supposed to protect me. He had decreed it. I don't understand…" I was fighting more waves of nausea.
"Bill acted of his own accord after Victor Madden directly forbad him doing it. I told Bill where to meet Niall and he did. I was told I could not act to defend you because it would be getting involved in a Fae internal problem. That it could draw vampires into their war. It was strictly a political decision on Felipe's part. He still didn't know that you were Niall Brigant's great-granddaughter but even had he known, I doubt it would have made a difference because Breandan could have won and gone after us. I was charged with inciting insurrection because I recruited Pam, Clancy and Maxwell to go against his decree. I was extremely lucky to remain Sheriff. Although I think he rather enjoyed the aspect of my obvious state of punishment. And of course, if someone did go after me and kill me, it removed the difficulty of his having something to do with it directly. In a way, it is perhaps better that you were gone, because he might have tried to claim you as part of the punishment as well, though that is seldom done in present times. But still, it was better you weren't there, all the way around."
"Insurrection? Insurrections go directly against leadership. You were fighting fairies. You defended your wife!" I felt so sick at the thought that someone had harmed him, harmed Bill, and all because of me.
I had the sense that something in his entire aspect changed subtly when I said the word 'wife', but he just responded to my comments.
"There was the matter of incapacitating Victor Madden and Sandy Sechrest in silver mesh nets. I ordered Clancy, Pam and Maxwell to help me do it. Some of the others in my service were balky and that further delayed my departure. Felipe took it all as a direct and violent challenge to his authority. Of course, Madden and Sechrest recovered. No lasting harm. But we were made example of, Bill and I. I cannot say I would have done any different had I been King. Although, perhaps… too much division of loyalties is never a good thing. There were better ways to handle the problem at its inception."
I reached out and took up his right hand and turned it over in my hands looking at it. I felt so deeply ashamed to think that he had literally been mutilated because of me, and I couldn't imagine the pain of it growing back. I knew what it felt like to regrow flesh and couldn't imagine what it would be like to regrow bone and sinew. Three years ago I hadn't understood what it had cost him to do what he had done, because I was so upset about what he hadn't. The tears started flowing again. I put his hand against my chest, just crying quietly again, rocking.
"I'm so sorry Eric. I'm just…" I shuddered. "It just horrifies me. I can hardly stand the thought." I kept seeing a horrible image of it in my mind and imagining his pain. I cringed, feeling so sick at the idea. Really, I could hardly bear it.
He withdrew his hand and sat down on the floor next to me, putting his arm around me and stroking my shoulder and finally pulling my head to his lips.
"It's over, Lover. Over and in the past. It can't hurt either one of us further unless we let it."
Over or not, he'd been punished for helping me and I'd taken off, not even realizing what he'd sacrificed. About the best I could see was that unlike Claudine, Tray and Clancy, Eric wasn't dead for helping protect me. He continued to stroke my shoulder and even tried to make soothing sounds while I just cried for quite some time. After a while I said,
"I don't understand how you don't hate me and blame me. You and Bill both…" I gasped, "I just can't believe anyone could do something so despicable to you." I whispered, grinding my teeth. If I hadn't much liked him before, I now hated Felipe de Castro with every fiber of my being. But maybe part of it was that I felt so despicable myself for having left them the way I did.
"We are both fine now, Lover. Bill helped me find you, when I couldn't really get away to look for you myself. I didn't come here to make you feel bad about what happened. I came here because I wanted to see you, because I want you to come home."
Part of me just couldn't believe the savagery of the supernatural world. Although, I'd have to say that at various points in the past two years, I'd not been too impressed with human world, either. Stints questioning 'enemy combatants' in Guantánamo, Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Sudan, and a slew of places had not left me with an especially great feeling about humanity at times. But still, the supernatural world could be so incredibly savage. And Eric had come here to ask me to come back to that world to 'visit'? He was actually suggesting that I 'come home' to it? Could he really mean that? And… why?
He had come all this way to speak to me. Had evidently used all kinds of resources to find out information about me, keep tabs on me. The effort he put into finding info about me seemed nothing short of amazing if he wasn't interested in getting back at me for what had happened to him. He wanted me to come home? He went to all this trouble to get a human to come back 'home'? Why?
"I don't understand why I would be important enough for you to go to all this trouble, Eric. Really. I just don't get it. And won't it just cause more trouble with Felipe if I come back? Won't it just irk him that I'm there, even to visit? I don't want to cause you or Bill or any of you any more problems. It seems like it would be better to just stay away from you both. Far away."
He stood up and pulled me to my feet. He picked up a hand towel and wet it and wiped my face. He filled my glass that I kept by the sink with water and handed it to me. I rinsed my mouth several times and then rinsed out the cup. I placed it back on the bathroom counter and looked up at him, meeting his eyes in the bathroom mirror.
"Why?" I asked again. "Why are you really here?"
"Why? You are mine. You will always be mine," he said in the voice that just resonated somewhere inside me as he looked at me intently, his eyes glowed as he looked at my reflection.
I shook my head looking at his reflection. I couldn't help chortling.
"Because I'm yours? That's the explanation? Did you ever see The Princess Bride?"
Still looking at our reflection, he silently shook his head as if puzzled by the question.
"It's a movie. No? 'Cause there's this character that keeps repeating a phrase again and again to himself and well… eventually he actually gets what he wants, but I guess the point is that the whole mine thing is a little like that to me. You keep saying again and again, for years at this point, that I'm yours. Even if you can set aside the fact that something totally horrible was done to you because of me, what's the deal, Eric? We haven't seen each other in a longer time than we actually knew each other. We were friends, in a way. Sure, we really cared for each other. We had sex a few times. Really great sex, I'm more than willing to admit. We definitely had fun for a while, when you weren't having to keep me from getting killed. You were usually very nice to me. We could even say I took care of you once or twice. But that was all years ago. So now, what is the deal with the mine thing? What does that mean to you? What is that supposed to mean to me at this point, after years apart? What does it translate into in 'human'? Yours. Your happy meal? Your friend? Your wife? Your highly useful telepathic asset? You waltz into my new life and want me to go back, even if only to visit, to a life in which all kinds of terrible things happened to me. And apparently also happened to you, because of me. You're here because I'm 'yours'? Well, excuse the language, but what the fuck? Surely you can get pretty much anyone you want who will be 'yours'. Why me? What do you really want Eric? Why are you really here?"
I felt so guarded. Did he need a telepath? Did he want to make a statement to his minions or to Felipe that he could get me back as an asset, or that he still had control of the situation? His eyes met mine in the reflection and he smiled and the smile grew broader and broader over the course of a minute and his eyes began to sparkle merrily as he looked at me. Then he turned and practically picked me up as he hugged me.
"Well, you really haven't changed much at all, Lover," he said with a rumbling laugh. He grasped my hair at the back of my head gently and pulled my head back and kissed me, literally taking my breath away. I felt dizzy from it, as all the warm and fuzzy feelings that I remembered from three and a half years before just seemed to percolate throughout my consciousness. He paused and said,
"Brush your teeth and I'll kiss you some more. What ever you had to eat earlier had an absolutely inordinate amount of garlic in it," he said laughing. "You could knock over a horse, Lover."
"Middle Eastern food. Kind of a passion of mine now," I said softly, thinking of the garlic hummus and kibbeh that I'd had at 4 pm.
I pointedly did not reach for my toothbrush. So Eric picked it up and handed it to me. I squirmed slightly. Kissing Eric was swell but I wasn't so sure that I thought it was such a great idea. In my experience with Eric, kissing, with rare exception led to much more than kissing. I wanted answers, not kisses. What was he doing here? Really.
Reading my hesitation Eric said,
"Not interested? You certainly seemed interested moments ago…"
"I just don't know that I think that's such a good idea," I said quietly. It might be a very tempting idea, but it probably was not a good one. Answers on the other hand were a very good idea.
He raised an eyebrow.
"Afraid you won't be able to stop yourself, eh? Don't worry Lover. I have you, I won't let you get too carried away," he said with wink and an amused smile. He handed me the toothpaste.
"You didn't answer my question," I said firmly, looking at his reflection without smiling.
He moved to stand behind me and, reaching around me, tugged the toothbrush out of my right hand and placed it in my left hand. Then he opened the toothpaste in my right hand. He smiled mischievously at my reflection. He waited. Finally, with a sigh, he guided my right hand to put the toothpaste on the toothbrush. Then he recapped the toothpaste, put it back where it had been and switched the toothbrush back to my right hand. He rested his chin on the top of my head and placed his hands at my waist. He looked at me, waiting expectantly. He was so tall. Had I forgotten how tall he was? How blue his eyes were? Rubbing his chin on my head for a moment he locked his eyes onto my eyes in the reflection. I felt like I had been plugged into an electrical outlet. He sighed again and said,
"Why am I really here? You are mine. Mine alone. I still love you. You, yourself, pointed out that you are my wife. It is, therefore, hardly surprising that I want you back. And I can assure you, you will be safe if you come home, Sookie. I am here because I want you to come home. I want you with me. I realize that will take time. But it's what I want and why I'm here."
Still… I was stuck on still and the part that followed it.
I didn't even breathe. The silence was deafening. It felt like hours passed with us just standing there, staring into each other's eyes in reflection.
Finally, I wet my toothbrush and started brushing.