XIII.
Late September 2009
I love you.
I pressed send, waited a few seconds to see it go and then tossed the phone away, out onto the tarmac at Risalpur PAFB. I could now legitimately say to Manny that I had misplaced my phone.
First Lieutenant Luke Birch of the 82nd Airborne Division, US Army, looked down at me, the extra gear in his hands. He shouted over the sound of the chopper blades,
"Are you absolutely sure, ma'am?"
I studied him. He'd just lost seven men an hour ago and he didn't want to be the one that allowed the FBI's prize interrogator to get killed. On the other hand, I'd be about the only chance of getting those people out of that building. And I was an extra pair of trained hands, since I'd demanded additional weapons and he knew I definitely had experience according to what he'd heard from the embassy staff. He'd seen me with my Glock at my back and I'd been in his face for more than twenty minutes insisting I would go back. I'd said the wound was only a flesh wound and batted away the medic after it had been cleaned up and bandaged. Well, if I was willing then he'd take me up on it. Because frankly, there was no point in going back if they didn't even know where they were looking.
I grabbed the submachine gun out of his hands and pocketed extra cartridges, pointed toward the chopper and we trotted forward and got in. The guy on the comm shouted over the rotor noise,
"We've got twenty minutes!"
We were at least eight minutes out from the embassy compound. I shuddered. Really, it was so little time…
[playlist suggestion: Jigsaw Falling into Place, Radiohead, followed by Timeworm, Kula Shaker]
Pam burst into the audience room.
"Eric, where is Sookie?" Eric looked up at her, startled. "Where is she? Tell me she isn't still in Islamabad?" She sounded so upset and looked almost wild-eyed.
He froze.
"Why?"
She beckoned and he rose, indicating to the guests that they should stay put with Markus. He, Andor and Stefan went into the sitting room where Rasul stood, looking at the TV, which was tuned to CNN. It was a gray morning in Islamabad. Smoke filled the air. At a distance there was a building in flames, its exterior pocked with what appeared to be extensive damage. He looked at the crawling captions in disbelief:
… reportedly, a US counterterrorism team and some US Embassy personnel are still trapped… evacuation helicopter lost to anti-aircraft fire… Situation in Islamabad devolved over the past eight hours with Taliban forces overrunning the local Punjabi Army forces spread thin because of simultaneous assassination attempts on President Asif Ali Zardari and General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani... Midnight attack on compound caught Embassy personnel off-guard in spite of heightened threat status…
They broke away from the scene at the Embassy to show a downed helicopter, still in flames, in what appeared to be a nearby residential area.
With a sense of dread he took out his phone intending to scroll through his messages and stiffened. A new message. He opened it.
I love you.
Sent 8:52 pm CDT
Ten minutes ago? He stood there just staring at the phone. Thursday. She was coming on Thursday for a week. He looked up at the TV, at the US Embassy in Islamabad partially engulfed in flames, windows shot out. Portions of the exterior edifice were blasted away.
'Embassies don't make you safe. They're actually a great target….' she had said with a cool tone that night in June, he remembered.
Pam asked again, "Was she still in Islamabad? You said she had been staying in the Embassy, right?"
He silently nodded to them, staring back at the TV in utter disbelief.
"Maybe I can get more info if we try Al Jazeera," Rasul said to Pam. "Sometimes they won't show as much on a American news outlets because they don't want to scare people or get them riled up here in the States. I can translate."
Pam nodded. Stefan and Andor seemed rooted in place, glancing at one another with concern. But no one dared look at Eric at all.
Rasul flipped through the channels on the satellite finally arriving at one that had grainier video footage, but from a much closer vantage point. What it showed was even more frightening. The US Embassy compound was in flames, with spent artillery all over the garden areas and dead bodies strewn across the entry areas of the compound. The gates to the Embassy had been driven through by a massive truck that was now on fire in the front drive area. Half of the building was totally engulfed in flames. Scrolling Arabic captions appeared across the bottom of the screen. The narration was in rapid Arabic. The cameraman appeared to be on some structure close enough to allow a zoom lens to be used to capture much closer video footage than CNN. Then coverage cut away to footage of the Presidential Palace in the distance, with tanks rolling through the wide boulevard.
"Part of an FBI team is out they say. They saw someone in FBI gear get out on the first round of evacuations with the Ambassador. Maybe she's okay. They say that the helicopter that was shot down had no civilians. The Taliban have held the Embassy for more than an hour. Hold on… they say they see more incoming helicopters…"
The image on the screen shifted to five helicopters, Black Hawks, approaching and firing at the US Embassy building and a neighboring high-rise structure outside the compound walls. One helicopter landed on the pad on top of the Embassy building and a crew of nine heavily armed men got out. Then a smaller figure got out as well. Obviously a woman. As she turned her bulletproof vest could easily be seen even at the distance from the roof to be emblazoned 'FBI'.
"Tell me I'm not seeing this?" Pam said in alarm. "She got out and she went back? Is she insane?"
"You said part of the team was left behind?" Eric asked soberly.
Rasul nodded. They all turned to Eric.
"They're her team. I think there are two to three others that usually go. At least two are good friends, her interpreters. She wouldn't leave them if they were still there. One of them is Iranian and a woman. The other is a Saudi guy. I think he's gay on top of it. She would never leave them... considering what the Taliban might do to them, just even for collaborating with the US." He looked away, shaking his head.
The group spread out across the roof of the Embassy. She was lost for a time behind something obstructing the view, but then emerged pointing to a region of the building below her. It looked like she was signaling numbers and delineating locations. Suddenly she dodged back, yanking the nearest soldier back by his vest and started shooting with a handgun, appearing to hit two men with rifles coming out of a stairwell onto the roof directly in their heads.
"Whoa…" said Rasul. The shock of Sookie actually shooting people rocked the room. Pam gasped.
More men started coming out of the stairwell. She and a soldier at her side started shooting with what appeared to be submachine guns, while the eight others set up and rappelled down off the roof and in through the windows two floors below. The team still on the roof, including someone firing from the helicopter, started to take fire from some neighboring area and they started to shift position on the roof to gain more cover. Pam gasped again and walked to the screen and pointed at the small frame that was obviously Sookie. She wore light colored slacks that appeared to have a dark stain trailing down the back. It was hard to see clearly because of the distance and the graininess of the video. The firefight on the roof continued. One of the helicopters hovering nearby suddenly exploded into a fireball and two of the others hovering around shifted position and began to fire intensely at a neighboring building, collapsing an entire wall. Suddenly weapons fire seemed to erupt from within the stairwell leading to the roof and she and the other soldier near her fell back, closer to the waiting helicopter. They could see that she and the soldier nearest her appeared to be glancing at something as if agitated. It looked like the soldier next to her was shouting something. Four soldiers with what looked like civilians at their sides appeared began to emerge from the stairwell at a fast clip, and a second helicopter landed on the roof precariously. Civilians were literally jumping into the second helicopter, urged on by the soldiers. It departed and was replaced by another helicopter. The man at her side pointed back at their helicopter as if urging her to get in, but the she didn't budge and kept firing at a neighboring rooftop. Finally, a two more soldiers came out, one with a woman slung over his shoulder advancing toward the first helicopter. He was followed by a tall, slender man in blood spattered civilian clothes, to whom Sookie tossed another machine gun. He ducked down near her, firing as well, to give the others additional cover. Seven additional people came running out of the stairwell with the last two soldiers but then more of the rebel fighters appeared to be working their way up the stairs as well. On the roof, the teams held off the fighters' advance while the last civilians were loaded on the helicopters. One soldier was hit and had to be pulled into the third helicopter, which immediately took off. Finally the remaining soldier near her threw something toward the stairwell while the others kept shooting and then the three figures piled into their helicopter, which pulled off the roof at a very sharp angle as if to pull away from the structure as fast as possible, as soon as they were in. Explosions visibly rocked the upper part of the building. Seconds later the screen switched to show incoming two F-15 fighter jets overhead, pulling up sharply. The reporter began shouting in Arabic. Suddenly the camera shifted focus just in time to show missiles slamming into the Embassy compound, destroying the entire structure, collapsing it in flames and a cloud of debris The Al Jazeera cameraman was rocked backwards by the blast, his camera knocked out of focus and up toward the sky. After a moment, the reporter continued to speak in agitated Arabic and the camera was eventually refocused on the former United States Embassy in Islamabad.
Pam stood with her hand over her mouth. They were all just speechless just watching the burning rubble of the US Embassy. The last helicopter had barely gotten away.
Finally, Stefan spoke. "They were just going to blow up the whole compound, even if they still had people inside. Even if there were still people on the roof. They made her go back?"
Eric shook his head.
"They would never have risked sending her back. She's too valuable. She must have gone because she wanted to. To get them out."
Pam looked away from the TV. "It was like what she did in Rhodes, finding people. She told them where they all were… She saved her friends." she said in a whisper.
Rasul held up a hand for silence. "They say that another one of the helicopters may have been shot down by anti-aircraft fire." He shook his head soberly, not even looking at the screen as he listened to the reporter. "They don't have any information about which one."
The camera cut away to show smoke pluming into the air some distance away from the compound.
Pam looked at Eric questioningly. He shook his head tensely.
"I don't know. It's on the other side of the world, Pam. I don't feel anything. I didn't even know what was happening. I never have when she's gone on these trips." He shook his head. He sat silently, not joining further in the discussion, just looking almost vacantly at the TV. If she died, could he not feel it?
Pam told Stefan and Andor all about Rhodes. How Sookie had saved their lives and the lives of a lot of other people. But not with people shooting at her and on a schedule limited by missile deployment. Andor was silent but looked over at Eric, shaking his head.
They sat watching the TV for another twenty minutes. There was little or no further information. Every once in a while Rasul would translate some of the reporters comments. It seemed that much of Pakistan had fallen into total chaos. There was no further information about the helicopter that had been shot down. Two of the five had been lost.
Eric's phone vibrated in his hand. He looked at the caller ID, which said Restricted. He answered in a strained voice.
"Hello?"
"Please hold for a satellite connection. You will hear clicking and then silence as the connections are made," said a male voice.
He waited for almost half a minute as a series of connections seemed to be made. Finally, a haggard sounding voice, with a great deal of static and background noise came across the phone.
"Eric?"
He closed his eyes. After a second he opened them and said, "Sookie, how are you, my Lover?" with his voice sounding ever so slightly tight. "It is good to hear your voice."
Pam whipped her head around, eyes wide. They all did.
"I'm fine. Right now I'm on my way to an aircraft carrier in the Arabian Sea. Um, listen, things kind of went south in Islamabad. I didn't want you to be alarmed when you heard about it. I think that what you're going to see if you watch TV probably looks pretty… bad. But I'm fine."
"Really. Well, actually I was just watching Al Jazeera with Rasul, Stefan, Andor and Pam. Quite an adventure. It gives reality TV new meaning. We could see you. Pam actually thought it looked like you were injured."
"Well, I got shot earlier today but I'm fine. It went clean through, right between my hip and ribcage. Probably didn't hit anything important because I'm still moving just fine. I have a pressure bandage on it. It's really nothing serious. But I honestly don't think I can make it home on Thursday. Tomorrow I'll be at Ramstein Air Force Base in Germany. I'll be there a day or two. I should be in DC by Thursday. I'll come home on Friday or at the latest, Saturday. You'll be happy to know that I think I'm going to be fired. But if they don't fire me, I'm quitting. I promise you. I'll quit and come home. I can't do this anymore. Not another day. I have to let you go, okay? We want to call Mercan and Ahmed needs to call his brother. I'll call you from Germany. I love you."
"The same," he said softly. The connection ended.
Home. She didn't think she could make it home on Thursday. As bad as the past half-hour had been, he could almost smile. This was home in her mind. Finally. And it only took almost dying on a rooftop halfway around the world. But, however, she got there, that was fine. That was Sookie for you. Thankfully, the fucking FBI job hadn't gotten her killed… She had promised to quit and come home. And he would make sure she kept her word to him. He was totally done with being patient. It was more than enough already. She would come home and do something much less likely to get her killed. Like work for him. Or whatever the hell she wanted to do that didn't involve her almost getting killed. But she would quit.
"Well?" said Pam, looking exasperated.
"She says that she is fine, she was shot but that it was nothing serious and that she'll be here on Friday or Saturday. She'll be in Germany tomorrow. She must have done it against orders. She said they're going to fire her or that she's quitting. Maybe she's finally had enough." He rose from the couch and signaled to Stefan and Andor that they should head back to business. He glanced back at Pam. "Let's hope so, right?"
Very shortly after sunset the following day he was at his desk in his private library to check his email and Skype account when after barely a knock on the door Pam and Stefan entered and handed him a cordless phone. Pam looked distraught.
"Talk to her," was all she said.
"Hello?" said Eric, with puzzlement as he spoke into the receiver.
"Mr. Northman? Mr. Eric Northman?" said a woman's voice. Her accent was unusual to his ear. She sounded very stressed.
"Yes," said Eric.
"This is Alla, a friend of your… wife's. We work together. I … I… " her voice cracked and then in the background a clipped British accented voice said "Give it to me. I'll talk to him, he's not going to care if it's proper or not, Alla."
"Eric? Eric Northman?" said the man with the British accent.
"Ahmed?" asked Eric cautiously.
"Yes. Look, Sasha got shot. We were in Islamabad... well you already know all that... of course... she told you when we got out. Well, she was badly shot and has had a lot of internal bleeding. She collapsed yesterday when we got to the aircraft carrier. We're calling you from Germany. She's going to be back in the States today if they can stabilize her after surgery she's just had. She's in very serious shape. Alla's husband got this number for us. We called as soon as I could figure the sun had set for you. We wanted you to know how she was and where she'll be. We'll stay with her when she's transported. I guess to Walter Reed. It may be later tonight your time. It's 2:30 am here and they're talking about leaving around 6 am if she's stable enough."
Eric was silent for a moment and then said coolly, "How serious is her condition?"
Ahmed paused and then actually sounded choked as he said, "Well, she's almost gone and died. She lost a huge amount of blood. She's got some kind of serious infection from the open wound. They say she'll likely lose her spleen and a kidney. They were trying to be conservative by just controlling the bleeding first. They've got that under control for now but she's listed as critical. They can't do more surgery until the infection is better controlled. Our boss wants her flown back to the States."
"Back to DC tonight, then. How can I reach you for further information?"
"We've lost our cell phones and I really don't trust the bloody wankers in Quantico to tell you a damn thing. We couldn't even get their cooperation to get your phone numbers. The only way we got a hold of you was because of Alla's husband's assistance. Do we call you at this number when we know more?"
Eric gave him his cell phone number and his day assistant's number.
"Thank you, Ahmed. And to Alla, too. Thank you."
"She wanted us to call you. She was so worried about you. The only time she was lucid, she made me promise to call you. We just can't believe what happened. She'd been talking about quitting for over a month. She said this rubbish that at least if she got killed at home, she'd be dying happy. I had teased her about it, that she thought of dying at all. We wouldn't be alive without her having gone back. And she went back shot. Now I wonder if she saw something like this would happen, even if she says she doesn't do that. We just hope…" his voice trailed off. He sounded little better than Alla at that point.
"She's very strong," said Eric firmly. "She's always been very strong…"
She'd been talking about quitting for over a month? And the rest of what he said? Better to be home, she'd said?
When I woke up in the hospital bed and saw Eric reading, I really thought I must be having a dream. Maybe it was a weird flashback dream from one of the times he'd been there when I'd been in a hospital before? But he hadn't been reading those other times. Besides the room didn't look right. As I blinked into more awareness he glanced up and smiled.
"Nice to see you awake again, Miss I'm Fine and It's Nothing Serious."
I felt disoriented. My last clear memory was holding Alla's hand as we arrived on the aircraft carrier. She was on a stretcher because she had been beaten and could not sit up easily. We landed and I stood up and… I'd heard Ahmed's voice, saying my name. I'd turned and looked up at him. Then I remembered hearing Lt. Birch talking to me, and an arm supporting me, cursing in Arabic and then… nothing. I blinked again, slowly, and looked around to see Markus leaning against the wall, evidently on downtime.
"Where am I?" I asked finally in a whisper.
"Bethesda. Walter Reed."
I shook my head as if to get some sense into it. "How long have I been here? What day is it?"
"It's Sunday night, around 9 pm. You've been here since Wednesday morning. Alla and Ahmed called me from Germany on Tuesday. To tell me how you were fine except for all the internal bleeding."
I tried to assess how I felt now. I didn't feel bad or in pain or anything.
"But I feel pretty much fine."
He put the book down in his lap and crossed his arms.
"I gave you blood."
"What?" I still felt slightly disoriented. I had definitely had some sort of opiate or something. I recognized the scrambled thinking from the time I'd had the surgery on my breast. And the headache. But I didn't see anything other than IV fluids hanging and something that looked like one of those smaller bags for antibiotics. No pump for pain medication. But I still felt out of it. Anyway, I looked over at Eric. I was happy just seeing him. I smiled at him. But then I grasped what he was saying: he had given me still more blood. "You're serious? More blood? Again?"
He looked at me levelly and said, "You're fine. It wasn't a lot. And now you're fine."
I took a moment to absorb his words and then felt a jolt as I absorbed what he was telling me. Was he basically saying that I'd almost died and he gave me his blood after promising me years before that he'd never turn me if I was dying? Well, I hadn't turned, but…
"Bill told me once that sometimes people turn later, with no warning, Eric," I said with alarm.
"Well, I've never seen that happen with anyone, Lover. I gave you my word. They'd given you a lot of whole blood. It wasn't as if you were drained and I gave it to you. I keep telling you that you can trust me to know what I'm doing. I was thinking you might like hanging on to the spare kidney. You kept the kidney but lost the spleen. The first surgery was in Germany on Tuesday. You had the second surgery to remove the damaged spleen on Friday in the morning. You had a bad infection from the open wound. They thought they'd have to go back yesterday to take the kidney. That's when I finally just gave you blood, early in the morning yesterday. They took out the drains this afternoon. They finally cut the morphine after that. You really don't remember anything since you arrived?"
"How long have you been here?" I asked, kind of dazed.
"At night, since you arrived on Wednesday at 5 am. I only saw you briefly and then had to leave. Alla stays with you during the day. Or Ahmed. You really don't remember anything? You were sort of awake sometimes. You could talk a bit after they took out the tube for the respirator," he said shaking his head with an uncertain smile.
I shook my head. I really didn't remember anything. It was incredible to me that I'd been out of it for almost a week.
"Most unfortunate."
"Why? What should I remember?"
"Well, for one thing, you said you'd marry me. You were so very agreeable. You were really delightful. I really could have asked you for anything and you'd have agreed. I should have asked for a lot more," he said with a playful look, eyebrow raised. "But I do have witnesses," he said nodding toward Markus.
I just sniggered.
"We will talk about that when I'm fully lucid, thank you. I have a sense that an answer when I'm not high on morphine is probably more meaningful to you, anyway. Is Alla really okay? And Ahmed? They both weren't in good shape when we got them."
"They are both recovering just fine. They have been very worried about you. And Manny is still not recovered, Lover. It has been interesting to talk to him. You cannot imagine how upset he was with what happened."
"Well, excuse my crocodile tears. He had them pull me and leave Alla and Ahmed, Eric. Evidently our interpreters are just expendable. And all those other people left in that building? The army guys would have had to just give up and take off again without them. An empty gesture, futilely risking more people's lives by even trying to fly back there to rescue people they had no intention of helping them find? Well, screw them. It was obvious that the best way to rescue them was for me to go back. It was the only way it was worth the risk of asking them to fly back in there."
"You have to understand that from their perspective you are irreplaceable, Sookie."
"Yes, Eric, I'm a very special asset. I get that. I've been somebody's asset for five fucking years and I'm done with being seen that way by anyone. And I'm not cut out to deal with people according to how much they're 'worth' to the FBI or our government. Am I worth more than a woman with an infant to raise? A man who is so highly educated? And all those other people that got left behind? They were just doing their job. How can one person be worth more than another? It's a shitty and disgusting concept. I won't be part of it."
Eric looked at me like he was siding with Manny on this one, but not going to argue with me at the moment.
"Well, you'll have your wish, one way or another, Lover. If they don't fire you, you've already given me your word you'll quit and I have every intention of holding you to your word. But perhaps you should talk to your boss before you condemn him. It was evident to me that he found the situation with respect to Ahmed and Alla very distasteful. It did not seem to me that it was his idea. But no matter what the source of the problem was, you have given me your word. I will not accept anything less that what you promised me. You're done here."
He looked at me with very cold eyes as he said it. I could definitely see that he was not kidding. I might be barely awake but I was awake enough to know that I was not changing my mind, anyway.
"Well, don't worry. I give you my word again, Eric. I'm done."
There was a knock on the open door and I glanced over to see, much to my surprise, Barry Horowitz.
"Hey, kiddo. How are you doing?" Barry asked.
Even Eric looked surprised and Markus moved to blocked Barry's path. Barry looked apprehensively at Markus and then at me.
"We know him, Markus. It's fine," said Eric.
Markus leaned back against the wall, but indicated that Barry should stand on the other side of the bed from where Eric was sitting.
What are you doing here? I asked Barry.
What are you doing here? I heard you're in a bundle of trouble, as usual. Are you feeling better? Recovering?
What do you mean you 'heard'? How did you even know I was here? Why are you in the DC area?
He smiled.
You didn't figure out that I was your NSA counterpart, eh? Well, I guess I was more careful than I thought.
You're kidding me. I heard a rumor that NSA had a telepath. I never thought it was you.
He offered me his hand with a smile.
Hi, I'm the NSA telepath, nice to meet you. You must be that Bureau telepath, right? You look mighty familiar. And you, my friend, never told the Bureau where to look for me. You never even told them where I had lived or who I'd worked for in the past. No matter how they cajoled you, you kept my information away from them. You were a loyal friend, Sookie.
I thought you didn't want to be found if they couldn't find you. How long have you been NSA?
I started a few months before you signed with the Bureau. But it seems like you've logged a lot more hours in the field than I have.
Eric continued to look back and forth between the two of us as if he was at a tennis match. Suddenly I realized how rude we were being.
"Eric, I'm so sorry… We got carried away. Eric, I'm sure you remember Barry from Rhodes. Barry, you remember Eric, my… husband."
I figured since the last time that Eric had seen Barry he was very angry about how I was dancing with him that I could clearly define things for Barry in a way that would make Eric quite happy. Plus, if Barry was here on some little fact finding mission, maybe thinking I was securely attached to my vampire was safer.
Barry looked stunned. Eric looked more than a little pleased.
"You're married? Wow. I didn't know you were married at all? That's a real lapse on my part. Actually, I always figured you'd end up with a Were or were or something. My girlfriend is a Were. I can read her a bit. I know you could read Weres and weres before. Can you read vampires at all now?" he asked, looking quite interested.
"Very seldom. Maybe once in a great while, I get a flash or something but it's fleeting and it gets me so freaked out that it's pretty much useless." Then I immediately regretted saying it. Opiates could really erode your judgment.
Eric turned slowly and looked at me with a surprised, dark look. I tried to brush the whole thing off and continued,
"Being with a vampire is more like things are for everyone else in that I have to figure things out the old fashioned way. You know talking and reading body language. I'm really bad at it though, aren't I?" I chuckled at Eric.
"Only bad about discussing the important things, Lover…" he said, glowering a bit.
"So, I heard through the grapevine that you might be leaving the Bureau. Is that true?"
I looked at Barry circumspectly, puzzled. If I'd been out for days, then only Eric, Ahmed, Alla and the soldiers on that helicopter knew I was planning to leave unless I'd been talking about it when I was delirious or something.
"Where did you hear that, Barry?"
"Um, the transmission recordings of your calls when you were out over the Arabian Sea. You know, we hear everything to be heard. I think you said you were either going to be fired or that you'd quit? I hear the Bureau is rather ticked, in spite of the fact that you basically helped save fourteen people. State's certainly happy with you. And I think Ahmed said he was going to quit, too? He's your Urdu guy, right? Can't see him going to the private sector, frankly."
I didn't like where this was going.
"Um, Barry, just so we're clear, if I'm leaving, I'm leaving, period. Not making a lateral move. I can't speak for Ahmed, or for Alla, but if I leave, I'm gone. And Ahmed is not 'my Urdu guy'. He's a linguist. He speaks five languages and he's probably the best-educated person I've ever met. Oxford and Harvard and he has a whole library in his head. Reading his mind is like accessing an encyclopedia. So don't you dare call Ahmed 'my Urdu guy'. It's totally insulting. Plus, if you'd done your research, you'd know that he's Al Saud and can pretty much write his own ticket to do whatever the hell he wants to do." I was really offended by his offhand manner about Ahmed, as if he was my minion or something.
Barry seemed a little bit chastened by my attitude. He had also planned to ask about Alla but decided quickly to hold off based on my reaction to his little misstep with Ahmed. He knew that Alla and I were friends, too. He had come on a little recruiting mission. He wanted to put together an intelligence team that relied on telepathic abilities. And I had field experience he couldn't even begin to dream of.
"I wasn't thinking about a lateral move for you. It would definitely be a promotion."
"I'm really not interested. I appreciate the thought, your confidence in my abilities, everything. But really, I just don't feel I can do this type of work any longer."
Then I tried to be very careful to empty my mind of every thought so that he would have nothing to latch onto. Just to be on the safe side. He could tell. Repeating 'empty, empty, empty' is a kind of telling to a telepath. He stared at me as if surprised that I wasn't interested and that wouldn't let him hear my thoughts any longer. Just before he me cut off his, I heard him wondering if I'd suffered PTSD from the whole thing in Islamabad. I could have laughed at him at that point. He thought I was afraid of the Taliban and the terrorists. I was really afraid of not being able to make my own decisions and choices.
"Well, I'll leave you my card. You know, you could work pretty much from anywhere but of course you would have to come into Fort Meade for meetings and such. Just… keep us in mind. And if your people ask about me, put in a good word. Both your interpreters seem to have been excellent selections. I hope you recover well, okay? And thanks again for the privacy stuff." He nodded to Eric. "Mr. Northman. Good night."
Eric waited until Barry was well out the door and then turned to me and said in a low voice,
"Since when do you get flashes into vampire minds, Lover? Since when?"
"Occasionally. It's totally unpredictable."
"Have you ever read me?"
"That I'm really sure of, only a couple of times in the entire time I've known you," I said quietly.
He crossed his arms over his chest. "When?"
"I don't know Eric. I guess the one I remember most is the first time, in Fangtasia when you had me come to interview people because Long Shadow had stolen your money."
"You read me back then?" He looked genuinely shocked.
"Yeah. It was the first time I've gotten anything from a vampire, actually. I was really afraid of you back then. I thought your mind was all cold and slithery. It scared me. But I was already afraid of you. It wasn't your thoughts that scared me."
"And now?"
"Now I'm only scared of you when you say we need to talk." I said with a chuckle.
"But what about now? Do you still get these 'flashes' now?" he pressed.
I thought about it. I really wasn't sure what to say. And I wasn't too sure I wanted to be talking about it in front of Markus. There were so many times recently where I thought I might have been hearing his thoughts. But we'd become so much closer that I really couldn't say for certain that it was that I was telepathically reading him. Maybe it was just knowing him or feeling him through the bond? I frankly couldn't tell sometimes. Some of it felt more subtle than the way I normally read people.
"To be perfectly honest, sometimes I don't even know, Eric. Maybe we can talk about it later," said casting my eyes in Markus' direction for Eric's benefit. "Did they say anything about when I can be discharged?"
He raised an eyebrow as if he didn't quite buy it that I didn't know, but he got my point about Markus. At least he didn't really look or feel upset from what I could see.
"Maybe in a day or two, Lover."
"Where are you staying?" I asked warily. I didn't want to think about him in some vampire hotel room, especially if only Markus was with him. I had no idea who the King of Maryland might be or if he was friendly. "Is Markus the only one with you?"
"Someplace safe. Don't worry. And Andor is here, too. He's outside. There are only supposed to be two people in the room at a time, so they have been alternating. The hospital has been interesting in response to having vampires in your room. After you lived through the first few nights, however, they have been a little more... gracious," he said with a sour expression on his face.
"You've really been here since Wednesday?" I asked kind of incredulous. That was a long time for him to be away from Louisiana. And a long time to put up with people being unpleasant and acting like you were going to drain their patient.
"You almost died, Sookie. I really think it would be better if we could have a long period of time where nothing happens to you. Maybe a few decades. Would that be possible?"
I wanted to have a long period of quiet, too. I would be happy to move back to Louisiana and have just that. Although…
"Eric, when I move back, would you mind if I lived on my own?" I said quietly.
His expression darkened. He snapped his fingers and signaled to Markus to leave and waited until he did so.
"Why would you suggest such a thing to me? Especially in front of Markus?"
"You just discussed asking me to marry you in front of Markus. You asked me about reading you. In front of Markus. That's all okay but my asking a question isn't? What's the deal?"
He stared at me with ice cold eyes. His face looked like it could have been carved from marble or alabaster, cold as stone. Finally he spit out his reply.
"I have been here for five nights watching over you and you're telling me that you want to move back to Louisiana to live on your own? You are trying my patience and tolerance to an extreme. I let you have your way, the freedom to do your horrible job, take all the crap you have put me, put us, through while you try to figure things out. I have turned my life inside out for you for years now, while you slapped me with attitude and coldness time and again. I thought we finally were past that. And now you'll try it in front of subordinates? Well, there is a limit to what I'll take from you and you're rapidly approaching it," he said in a low but very cutting voice. He looked, and acted, very angry but what I felt was his being hurt again. My heart lurched. He didn't understand me. I struggled to think of how to explain it.
He looked away from me and said after a moment, "We shouldn't even be having this discussion now. You haven't been well. Just forget it. But no more discussion in front of Markus or even in front of Andor."
"Eric, I don't mean it the way you think I mean it. It came out wrong. I just… I need the daylight, okay? To look out the windows and see the blue sky or the sunsets. I'll come back home. I'll marry you, if you want to get married. I will. I do see what you've done to be with me. And what you've been through because of me, some of which is so God awful that I still can't stomach it. But how much am I supposed to concede to in order to be with you? Do you ever think about what I'm giving up? Is it even on the radar for you? I'll never be able to talk to you except during the nighttime when there are already all these other demands on your attention and time. Nighttime for other people is family time but it's never going to be that way for me. Ever. There's a whole long list of things that I grew up thinking were just part of a normal everyday relationship that I'm never going to have if I'm with you. That's fine. I can accept it. All the political bullshit that I always just hated, that I'm even afraid of, fine. It's you and it's what you want and who you are. Well, this is me: I want daylight. And I want Rosie. And I have to work. Or I'll literally go insane. I need to live somewhere where I can have those things. I'll give up all the rest. But not those." My eyes just filled with tears. I was mad I'd hurt his feelings and wondered if I'd ever be anything other than inept at handling things in relationships. Maybe Pam was right and I was just damaged.
Eric listened to my whole speech, then finally rose and came over to sit on the edge of the bed, next to me. I had had this sense that he was holding himself apart from me since I awoke and I worried that he was also angry with me for having gone back to help rescue all those people and my friends. He stroked my hair back behind my ear and wiped away a tear that streaked down my cheek. Then the floodgate seemed to break and I was crying and mad that I was crying. My head hurt and I didn't know why I was having an argument when I just woke up and had been so injured. After a minute he said,
"Honestly Sookie, sometimes your communication skills just leave me in disbelief. Had it ever occurred to you to tell me any of this, other than the job issue, before? Of course, I took it the wrong way. I thought it was just more of the usual. In front of Markus, no less. Sunlight? Your problem is sunlight? I can provide sunlight for Pam's orchids but not for you? And how much of my time would you have if you lived elsewhere? I don't even understand how you think of this stuff sometimes."
I just leaned over and cried on him. Cried because I'd been so scared. Cried because I'd been afraid he'd never forgive me for going back to the embassy. Cried because I just wanted to go home.
"I thought you'd hate me for going back… And I was so worried you could feel it." I said, sniffling and shaking my head. Eric just stroked my hair. I felt so soothed by his touch.
After a while, when I was calmer, he said,
"It will all be fine, Lover. I understand your need to work. But remember, if they don't fire you, you promised me you would quit. Whatever the work is, it will be a different job and in New Orleans." He shifted closer to me and kissed the top of my head. He just held me. "As for the rest, we'll find a way to make it work. You will have your sunlight, and the cat. Just…" he sighed heavily, "rest." I leaned my head against his chest and put my arm around his waist. I could feel him shaking his head and feel more than a bit of frustration on his part. But not anger anymore. He just held me for a while and we were silent.
Andor came in and leaned against the wall where Markus had been standing. I glanced over at him and he nodded his head at a bit of an angle and smiled to say hello to me.
"Var försiktig när du kämpar med den modiga flickan," Andor said to Eric in a low voice, with a wry smile.
"Dra åt helvete," Eric said in a harsh tone, shaking his head as if in disgust.
I lifted my head and looked over at Andor who looked quite amused and then up to Eric and asked, "What exactly was the comment?" All I knew was that 'flicka' was girl. Stefan had been teaching me some Swedish on each of my visits since June. And of course I was learning more from my birthday present from Ahmed, too. Andor spoke Norse, Norwegian, Swedish, German and a smattering of other things like Dutch and French. But he was using Swedish, so I could only assume that if he was teasing Eric in Swedish, he wanted me to know he was teasing him because they usually just fell back into Norse.
"Andor's just looking for his one way ticket to Svalbard, Lover," said Eric acerbically.
I looked back at Andor. Andor crossed his arms over his chest and looked very pleased with himself. He was clearly teasing Eric. He met my eye and nodded, saying,
"I told him to be careful fighting with the brave girl," with a snort. "He could get injured."
I stifled a laugh. I seriously wondered whether even Pam would have been able to get away with that one.
"Skitstövel," was Eric's reply. I had the feeling that he really wasn't paying Andor a compliment. Andor just cracked up.
Markus entered the room with a sack that contained a six pack of True Blood and the three of them drank several and appeared to bandy about insults in various languages. They seemed to be enjoying themselves. Eric stayed sitting on the bed with me. A nurse came to check on me and looked as if she thought about asking one of them to leave but appeared to think better of it.
I was discharged the following evening, with my doctors proclaiming that it was a miracle that I'd kept my left kidney and that I had recovered so quickly. Even the scarring looked like it would be minimal. The scars were already mostly healed from Eric's having me ingest his blood. The attending physician looked puzzled but said little. Even the bullet entry and exit wounds looked like they wouldn't scar badly at this point. On the other hand, I had achieved a soft glow in the dark that had me totally worried. Eric told me again that it was fine and that he knew what he was doing. Since the daylight didn't seem to bother me, I figured he was right.
When Eric came back that evening to collect me he paused as he entered the room to look at Ahmed, Alla and me, playing Hokm on my hospital bed. The three of us were erupting in laughter over the game as Eric entered the room. Ahmed had just returned that afternoon from NYU, where had accepted a lecturer position in the Linguistics Department. He was going to teach for a year. Alla had tendered her resignation that morning to Manny, after confirming with me that I was really leaving the Bureau. She was going to take a break and was considering interviewing at the State Department or NSA. Mercan wanted her to teach Farsi. A nice safe job, she said. The sparkle in her eyes made it clear that was far too boring a prospect for her.
Early in the morning I got a delivery from a courier with my new cell phone, new passport, various documents lost in the embassy and my badge and a notice that my service weapon was with my unit in Quantico. As I had checked my email with my new phone that morning I was amused by the collection in my Inbox. First, I was informed by personnel that I was being docked five days of salary for insubordination. I requested an explanation and was told they would forward the documentation. The personnel email was followed by an email copy of an official letter received in my office, stating that I was receiving an award from the State Department for valor, along with the info from our unit's secretary that I had received a handwritten note of thanks from the US Ambassador to Pakistan. While the State Department seemed to appreciate me, my employer, the Justice Department, didn't seem to feel the same way. But that seemed to change because several hours later, I received a phone call from the Assistant Attorney General's office informing me that I was receiving an award for heroism. Ironically, at the time I received that call I was reading a faxed copy of the letter Manny's boss, Chuck Powell, the head of the FBI's Counterterrorism Unit, had written assailing my unprofessionalism and insubordination. That letter led to my salary being docked and was now in my permanent personnel file, along with the award letters from the State and Justice Departments. I had to laugh at the absurdity of it. I emailed my resignation a short time later to Manny and copied Chuck, since it appeared that even defying orders wasn't going to be enough to make them fire their only telepath. Manny called me right away. He asked me what I was going to do. I said I was going home and planning to rest for a while. I'd think about long term plans later. I got this really odd feeling that he was relieved that I was leaving. Not because he didn't like me or like working with me, but precisely because he did like me. It was hard to read a person over the phone, but I really thought that he hadn't argued about Powell's letter precisely because it paved the way for me to leave, and for the Bureau not to fuss as much about my leaving. The perception left by Chuck's letter was that I was just too difficult and could be unmanageable. I was grateful. He was making it easy for me with his silence. Before he said he'd talk to me later, he told me my vampire was a very interesting guy.
In the afternoon I sat watching the limited TV news coverage I could find of the total chaos in Pakistan. It really looked like just as the US was pulling out of Iraq that we were going to be entering a far more dangerous and frightening war. It was, thinking of everything I knew about the region, a very auspicious moment to leave the fray. I was glad that Alla, Ahmed and I were getting out when we were. We had served a good purpose, we all agreed while we visited that evening. But we were done. I was haunted by the ten minutes that I had spent on that embassy rooftop. I wondered how many people I'd killed. People's sons, fathers, husbands, brothers. Of course, I realized that I'd have to let it go. They had attacked us. Self-defense was justifiable, I told myself. Perhaps I'd finally learn to be at peace with that concept. But I hadn't. Not quite yet… I knew what it was to lose people you loved.
In the evening I called Remy and Hunter from Eric's cell phone. Hunter sounded very happy when we spoke. He was excited that I was going back to New Orleans and that I was moving back home. I promised to come and see him when I was more settled. But we could Skype until then. He enjoyed that. Then I called Jason. Eric had called him several times, to keep him posted about me. Jason sounded relieved to hear my voice and told me that he was getting pretty sick of my getting so injured all the time. I had to agree with him. I asked him to tell Sam I said hi. I wanted to go up and visit my house in Bon Temps in a few weeks.
After signing my discharge papers I sat waiting while Eric and Andor made arrangements for us to depart. Markus was arranging the flight, which Eric said was a private one from Dulles. Eric had Ben packing up Rosie's things and we were going to stop by my apartment so that I could pick her up and collect enough belongings for an extended stay in New Orleans. I'd come back to Alexandria and pack up in a few weeks when I was fully recovered.
I had hugged Alla and Ahmed goodbye for now. After they left, I remembered how I felt when I was pulled from the Embassy and they were left behind, to be beaten and possibly much worse. The look on Ahmed's face when he came out of that stairwell and saw me would stay with me forever. And the tears in Alla's eyes as she grasped my hand and whispered her raspy thanks for coming back for them. I reflected on how it felt during that long hour while I argued my way back to the embassy. The utter anguish of knowing that my friends were trapped in that place and there was so little I could do to help them as the minutes ticked by. As I wondered what was happening to them and if they would even be alive when I got back there. I remembered the relief I felt, up on that rooftop, when I caught their thought signatures as I locked on to that familiar sarcastic voice in Ahmed's head and felt the chill of the first time I had ever heard real fear in Alla's mind. It couldn't help but lead me to imagine Eric, and what he might have thought and felt when I was with Neave and Lochlan. It was bad enough thinking about that but I tried to imagine feeling it, knowing something unspeakably horrible was happening to the person you were in love with, feeling the terror and pain of it. All while having to deal with political bullshit and the people who work for you possibly rebelling because of your choices. I quickly came to the conclusion that I really couldn't imagine it. As I listened to him on the phone talking to Stefan in Swedish, I thought about how much he must have loved me to put up with all the stuff he'd had to take not just from me, but from the people around him for his loving me. And I'd questioned his saying he loved me after everything he went through?
He really deserved a better me.