A/N In the middle of this chapter, the timeline jumps ahead a couple of months. I needed to do this for continuaton purposes. Hope you enjoy!!

EPOV

I was elated to hear of my new parole arrangements. Not only would I be able to live in my own home again, but, I wouldn't have to avoid physical contact with Sookie. It was hard enough to stay away from her while we were staying at Hope House, but, after staying with her at the farmhouse, I knew I didn't want to spend a single night without her in my arms.

When she mentioned trying to set up a meeting with Mr. Cataliades, I tensed slightly. How was I going to accomplish this? I quickly pulled out my cell phone and hit the speed dial for Pam.

"Eric, you haven't even been gone for 45 minutes, what is it this time? I do have other things to do besides being your personal secretary." What a cordial greeting she had.

"Pam, listen, Sookie wants to go ahead and set up a meeting with Mr. Cataliades. Can you email him for me and ask him to give me a call at his earlier convenience?"

"Let's see, I'm assuming that she is there with you right now, correct?"

"Absolutely."

"So, you don't really want me to email him, I'm still to go forward with your previous decision?"

"Yes, that will work fine."

"Eric, you need to tell her about this sooner rather than later. You know it's just going to fuck everything up if you do this without her knowledge and consent."

"Yes, I am aware of that. Just do your best. Sookie and I will stop by there after we visit Quinn; I have some news to share with you."

"Yes, yes, fine, fine. May I please get back to my work, now?"

"Absolutely. Goodbye, Pam."

As Sookie and Quinn joked a little back and forth, I let my mind wander to my conversation with Pam. She was right, the longer I kept this from Sookie, the more upset she was going to be. But, I refuse to tell her anything about it until I know it will work. I don't want to give her any false hope and then have things fall through.

When Quinn asked Sookie to leave us so he could speak to me in private, I got a little nervous. I was positive he was going to bring up the fact that he'd only been shot because I let Sookie leave the bar without me that day. Well, saying I 'let' her leave isn't really accurate. More, I didn't do more to stop her. The guilt of that was already weighing heavily on me. But, when he mentioned someone giving Bill information, my mind raced back to what I heard Compton say that afternoon. Oh, yes, he said something about Quinn still being Sookie's boyfriend. Until we were able to discover who was giving Bill information about Sookie's private life, she wasn't safe on her own.

"Should we tell her about this, or try to keep it quiet?" He asked me.

"Quinn, come on, Sookie's a smart girl, if we don't tell her, she'll figure it out on her own and then be pissed that we didn't tell her."

He laughed slightly, "Yeah, that's true. Just go ahead and tell her that we know Bill was most likely buying information from someone, and that we want to keep a close eye on her until we find out who it was."

As Sookie drove us back to Hell's Inferno, I told her about what Quinn and I had discussed. She didn't seem too shocked, so I thought maybe she might've figured this all out on her own. She said that she had wondered at Bill referring to Quinn as her boyfriend also, and guessed that whoever had given Bill the information, either wasn't someone very close to them, or hadn't been in contact with them for a while, since it was obvious that they'd broken up weeks ago.

When we reached Hell's Inferno, Sookie asked if she could use the phone in my office to check the messages on her work phone, so I used that time to let Pam know that I'd be staying at my home again.

"Do you think you'll be okay to do this, Eric? I know that you're a lot stronger now than you were several years ago. I just want to make sure you're really up for this." She didn't worry often, so when she did, I knew to take it seriously.

"Yes, Pam, I'll be fine. I know that I'm not ready to go into certain rooms, yet, but, it will be nice to be able to sleep in my own bed, again."

"That's actually part of my concern, Eric. Are you going to be okay having Sookie sleeping with you in the same bed you shared with Cindy?" Wow, I hadn't actually thought of it that way. Yes, I can imagine that it will be difficult for the first few days, but, I know it will get better with time. Cindy and I had always been very straightforward with one another. She told me that if anything ever happened to her, that she didn't want me to wallow in misery, but get on with my life. And she knew I felt the same if the roles were reversed.

"You know, Pam, I'm thinking I'm just going to need to play it by ear."

That's when Sookie decided to join us again. She and went back to Hope House to get my personal belongings, and set out for my home. It was a little outside of the main area of town, and took about 20 minutes to get there. I heard Sookie suck in a deep breath when she pulled into the parking area. Perhaps this wasn't quite what she was expecting.

"Um, Eric, how many rooms does this place have?" She asked, still not allowing her gaze to leave the front of my home.

"Let's see, there's 8 bedrooms, 6 full baths, 2 half baths, a family room, living room, and dining room, and then a pool out back."

"And, exactly how many of those rooms did you actually use??" This was becoming almost comical, especially coming from someone with $80 million in the bank, so to speak!"

"Well, Cindy and I used one bedroom, Mattie's nursery used another bedroom, and Lizzie had her own room. We used one of the bedrooms as a play room, and it's where all their toys were. There's an apartment out back where you would normally see the pool house, and Pam stays there."

I took her on a tour of the house, opening the various rooms and letting her take a quick peak. However, when we passed the children's bedrooms, and their play room, I nodded to them, told her what they were, and just kept walking past them.

"Eric, since I'm going to be staying here with you for awhile, until we find out who was helping Bill, I think maybe you should tell me why you were avoiding the children's rooms."

"They're locked. They only get unlocked twice a week for the housekeeper to go in and dust and vacuum. I'm not going to leave them like that forever. I do realize that it's not good for my mental health. But, I wasn't ready for that before I went to prison, and I don't feel like I am right now, either."

"Okay. I'm sorry if I was asking something you weren't comfortable talking about, but, I needed to know so I didn't make you uncomfortable in your own home."

"Sookie, I wish that, at least for the time being, you would be able to think of this as our home." The most beautiful smile I'd ever seen lit up her face at that statement.

SPOV

Three months had passed since Eric had been granted an early release. We were no closer to figuring out who had been giving Bill information, so, I was still staying with him at his place. We often spent weekends at the farmhouse just to get away from things. We'd even discussed me moving in there with him once Bill's accomplice was finally caught.

Pam and I had become good friends. We didn't have much in common, but, our mutual desire to see Eric finally be free of his demons gave us some common ground. She confided in me that while he was in prison, she had started a small non-profit organization that tried to increase awareness of the effects of driving while impaired. They had a large fundraiser once a year, and that's where the majority of her funding came from. The closer and closer it got to this year's fundraiser, the more compelled I felt to help her out. So, that's why I found myself at my attorney's office, going over some financial information to see how much would be appropriate to donate to her cause. It was while I was going over the paperwork there that I discovered what it was that Eric had been keeping from me.

I was so angry I could've killed him. I drove to Hell's Inferno ready to tear him limb from limb. When I found him in his office, I walked in, slammed the door shut behind me, and let him have it.

"Eric Northman, of all the stupid, fucked-up, high handed shit you could've pulled, you picked the absolute worse." Clearly, he was taken aback by this.

"What the hell are you telling about, baby?"

"Oh, no, don't you dare baby me, mister. I asked for you to speak with your lawyer friend about getting Crystal off my back, and you came back and told me that he was looking into it, and would let me know when he had something worked out. I was so damned excited when Crystal stopped harassing me about the money every time I saw her, but, I should've known it would be too good to be true. How in the hell could you do this to me. You bought her off, Eric!"

In my hand, I held a settlement agreement stating that Eric had paid Crystal $750,000 to drop the suit, and never attempt to gain anything else from Gran's estate.

"Sookie, I knew it would be the easiest way to get things done."

"It wasn't your place to do anything about it, Eric. Look, I know that your intentions in this were good, and yes, I'm glad that you wanted to help me. But, you should NOT have gone over my head on this. Jason is getting ready to file for divorce. Do you have any idea how bad this will look? You've basically given her grounds to request spousal support."

Whatever response he was about to make would have to wait, because there was a knock at the door, and Pam stuck her head in. "I truly am terribly sorry to interrupt you two, but, Eric, there's some police officers out here who need to speak with you."

Eric stood up from his desk and walked towards the door, but paused for a moment when he reached me. "This isn't over. We will finish this discussion."

"You're damned right we will," I said in a huff.

He went into the reception area, where there were two uniformed officers standing with Pam.

"Officers, I'm Eric Northman, how can I help you?"

"Well, sir, we're gonna need you to come with us," one of the men said. I felt tension building in my chest when he approached Eric and took his handcuffs out. "Eric Northman, you're under arrest for parole violation." As the officer read Eric his Miranda rights, Pam came to stand next to me to keep me from falling over.

I turned to the other officer and said, "Pardon me, sir. But, I'm Mr. Northman's parole worker, and I didn't authorize any warrants. Could you please tell me what this is about?"

"I'm sorry, M'am, we don't have the specifics. All I can do is tell you what judge signed the warrant."

He took out a pad of paper and quickly wrote down the judge's name for me. I told Eric I would call Sam and that we would have all of this straightened out as soon as possible. The last thing I heard Eric say before they took him away was, "Sookie, I love you."