I lied, I know I said I would be posting every night and the next night I didn't. But yesterday was my anniversary (26th) and I didn't get a chance.

Again, these characters and the world belong to Charlaine Harris.

Chapter 18 – Prep work

Sookie had fallen asleep almost immediately. But now she realized the light in the bathroom was on and the door was open, bathing her in soft light. Then she heard a soft scratching noise she couldn't place, wary she opened her eyes the slightest crack and looked out through her lashes, if there was an intruder she didn't want to reveal that she was awake until she could formulate a plan. What she saw was Eric, he had moved the desk chair closer to the bed and was sitting there drawing her.

Without stirring, because she didn't want to ruin his work, she asked softly, "Can I move?"

"Just another minute." he requested. A slight smile on his face.

"Okay." She stayed as still as she could, although now she was extremely self-conscious. Was her hair a mess? Did she have pillow creases across her face? Please, don't let there be drool. His minute seemed longer than that, or maybe it was just how anxious she was, fighting the desire to stretch or scratch her nose, which of course started to itch almost immediately. Finally, the faint scratching stopped.

"There." he said and shifted in his chair, handing her the sketchbook. She stretched and moved into a sitting position so she could look at it better. Turning on the sidetable light so she could see.

If she was a mess, as she had worried, it didn't show in the drawing, She looked peaceful, maybe even blissful, as her mouth was curled into a slight smile. "It's beautiful." she sighed leaning to him for a light kiss.

"Of course, it's you." he murmured against her lips. "I'd like to draw you." He asked, studying her reaction.

Which was confused at first, "You just did..." she began and then she realized he meant nude. "Oh."

"You don't have to decide now. But since it won't be on my phone there is little chance it will get on the internet. In fact, I will hang it in my bedroom, so no one will see it except me, and when you decide to accept my invitation, you."

"I'll think about it." She knew from his other drawings that he could now just draw her from memory, and maybe he would if she said no, but it was nice of him to ask. She wasn't sure about posing for him, a few quick photos were one thing, but sitting naked with him staring at her for long enough for him to complete a drawing made her a little uncomfortable. She decided on a topic change. "How's Thalia doing?"

"Physically, she's better. All of her wounds have healed." He shook his head, "But mentally, she still seems to be in shock. I'm not sure. She has never been fond of humans, almost to the point of being dangerous, so we aren't sure what effect this will have. If she goes feral, we'll have to keep her locked up." He looked grim.

"That's awful. Isn't there anything that can be done for her? Some sort of counseling?" She was sad to think that she saved Thalia, just so she could spend eternity in captivity.

"Traditionally we have not used counseling. Dangerous vampires who drew attention to us, or through their actions risked revealing our existence were brought down. In Thalia's case we would need to find a counsellor who is a vampire, since she is unlikely to listen to a human." He ran his hand through his hair in a gesture of frustration. "The old way may have been better."

"I'll keep her in my prayers." Sookie said softly, as she would if she heard any of her friends were sick. Eric raised an eyebrow. She shrugged, "It couldn't hurt." Whether he agreed, or just didn't want to discuss theology, she didn't know, but he let it drop.

"Bobby will be bringing your ID badge over tomorrow, about noon."

"Great. I think I'll get enough sleep that I'll be functional by then." She turned to look at the clock on the nightstand. "What time is it anyway?" The glowing clock face read 4:36.

"You don't need to go back to sleep now, do you?" He smiled as if she already said no, and stood, he started to undress.

Smiling, Sookie got out of bed and headed into the bathroom. "I'll be right back." After taking care of her basic needs, she quickly brushed her teeth before returning to the bedroom. She was surprised when she didn't see him. "Eric?"

He came up behind her silently and wrapped his arms around her. She jumped and gave a startled little cry. "I didn't mean to frighten you. I was putting my clothes in the closet." A hand shifted to cover her heart. "It's beating so fast. I can feel it, hear the blood coursing through your veins," He nuzzled her neck and she was sure he was going to bite her despite what he had said earlier about her needing her strength. "Damn, you are too tempting." He said against her neck, his teeth lightly scraping her skin.

She made as if to pull away. "Should I remove temptation?" she asked coyly.

His arms tightened, "No, let me impress you with my self-control."

They spent the rest of the night giving in to other temptations.

Her alarm went off at nine and she felt surprisingly well-rested. She had gotten close to eight hours of sleep and hadn't slept herself out to the point that she felt sluggish. Extricating herself from Eric's arms, she padded to the bathroom, despite the earlier shower she felt the need for another quick one. She pinned her hair up, the wig would be hot enough without damp hair under it. Under the warm spray she formulated a plan for the day.

She had to be at the apartment to meet Bobby at noon, by the time she dressed, ate and was ready to go it would be close to ten. That should give her plenty of time to run to the store and pick up a set of "teacher's clothes". Since the only conservative top she had packed was the one that she wore for the ID picture, which she thought might look a little suspicious.

Of course, since she was doing something covert, she felt everything seemed suspicious and mentally shook herself to emphasize that most people are not expecting this type of deception in their day-to-day lives. That was her best ally in this situation. On the other hand, if they were involved in the nefarious cosmetics, then they might be paranoid enough to be suspicious. So in short, she had nothing to worry about - unless she had something to worry about. She smiled wryly at her own circular logic. Okay, what she needed to do was go in there and look and sound like she knew what she was doing. Then it occurred to her that she should be carrying something, a notebook or binder of some type, preferably something that looked like it was well-used. But where could she get something like that so soon.

As much as she hated to do it, since they weren't each other's favorite people, she ended up calling Bobby as soon as she was dressed.

"I told Eric I would have the ID to you by noon." was how he answered the phone.

Biting back a sarcastic reply since she was about to ask for a favor, she overlooked his rudeness. "Hi Bobby, yes he told me, thanks. I was hoping you could help me with something else."

"Why?" she expected 'what' not 'why'.

"Why what?"

"Why should I do something else for you? I don't work for you." My, he was in a fine mood this morning.

"Because I am doing this for Eric and you do work for him." Why couldn't he just be helpful and courteous?

"Tell me what you need." he grumbled.

"Well, you know I'm posing as a teacher, so I thought it might be good if I were carrying a notebook or binder or something, but it has to look well-worn and maybe have some printed pages in it. Do you have anything I can use?"

"I'll look and see what I can find." he said grudgingly.

"I need to run some other errands anyway, would it help if I came to you to pick the ID and binder up?" She hoped that would appease him a little.

"No, I'll bring it to you." He sounded very put out, but she thought he wanted to feel that way. There's no pleasing some people.

"Thanks so much Bobby." she gushed before hanging up. She would be sure to be here when Bobby arrived, no sense adding fuel to the fire of his dislike of her.

She fixed herself a quick breakfast, savoring her first cup of coffee.

Remembering her promise to call Sam, she poured herself another cup of coffee before doing so,

"Hey Sookie." Sam answered.

"Hi Sam." It was nice to hear a voice that was happy it was her. "My check-in call as promised." she said cheerfully, so it wouldn't sound like a bother.

"Just looking out for my best waitress, who I want back." Emphasizing the final clause.

"I should be back in a few days if my lead pans out."

"You're being careful, right? No unnecessary risks."

"No unnecessary risks, I'm going to a place of business in the middle of the day. I should be fine." she assured him.

"You better be. Any fallout from the attack?"

"No, at least not that I know of. Eric went in to the bar last night, but he didn't mention anything." She would have to remember to ask him tonight. "Was there something else in the paper?"

"No, just curious." he didn't sound overly concerned, so she took him at his word.

"Well, I have to go to the store before I go on my covert op this afternoon." She said with a chuckle.

"Okay, I'll hear from you tomorrow?" he made it a question.

"Yes, I will call you after breakfast. Bye Sam." Genuine warmth in her voice.

"Bye Sook, see you soon."

She washed her dishes, then put on some light make-up. Making sure her keys were in her purse she headed for the elevator, planning to check in with Claudine before picking up a teacher's outfit. However, when she got to the customer service counter Claudine was not there. A brief exchange with the grumpy woman, who had been there the other day, let her know it was Claudine's day off. Sookie contemplated calling her, but she really had nothing new to report and figured that if Claudine did, she would call.

Finding an outfit was harder than she had guessed. She had to fight the impulse to buy a very old-fashioned dress. She opted instead for navy slacks, which she knew she had a belt that would work with them, and a yellow, long-sleeved oxford shirt that buttoned up the front. She rarely wore yellow, but she thought with her brunette wig it might look nice. She would wear the shirt buttoned high, but could loosen a button if she wanted to be more distracting. Satisfied with her outfit, she contemplated picking up a new purse, she thought maybe a large, shapeless bag that she could hide stuff in. Either stashing something that might be evidence, or smuggling in a weapon. Not that she had one. She went over to sporting goods and picked up a large Swiss army knife. That seemed like a fairly practical thing that a teacher might carry. To fill up the purse she picked up sample sizes hand lotion, hand sanitizer, some band-aids, antibiotic ointment, and tissue pack. She got a little clear pouch to put some of it in so the contents wouldn't be too much of a mess.

Happy with her purchases she glanced at her watch, she was going to be hard-pressed to get back to the apartment to meet up with Bobby. Fortunately, she was now familiar enough with the route from the mall to the apartment that the trip back didn't take too long. She might have been in the apartment for all of two minutes before her phone rang. The caller ID told her it was Eric's day man.

"Hi Bobby." She answered brightly.

"I just wanted to warn you, I'm coming up."

"Oh." She hadn't realized he had a key, but thought she probably should have. "Okay, come on ... up." The elevator doors had opened midsentence. Not much warning, she thought. Good thing I don't walk around naked.

"Here." He shoved a binder and an envelope in her general direction, not bothering to leave the elevator.

She hurried across the room, wondering if his mother had tried to teach him common courtesy or if he was raised by gibbons. "Thanks, Bobby." She offered as she took the items.

"Yeah, just remember that I don't work for you. I take my orders from Eric." He moved his foot so the elevator doors would close.

"You have a nice day too Bobby." she supplied sarcastically as the doors closed. She had a brief urge to tell Eric what a jerk he was being, knowing it would get Bobby fired, but told herself she was a better person than that. Not that he wouldn't try to undermine her, if he thought he could get away with it, but she wouldn't sink to his level.

She made a half a sandwich, she was nervous and didn't think she could eat more than that but knew an empty stomach wasn't a happy stomach.

The binder that Bobby had brought looked used and was full of various papers. There were no empty sheets so she would have to pick up some paper if she wanted to write notes. It had no outer label so she didn't have to worry about removing that. Flipping quickly through the pages she made sure on casual glance that nothing would ring any alarm bells or be obviously not teacher-related.

She wanted to "age" her other recent purchases. Feeling wasteful, she squeezed out a little from each little jar or tube. But she thought they still looked too new, she hurried back to the bathroom and fished her nail file out of her cosmetic bag. Going back to the living area she used it to rub off parts of the label and scuff up the containers. She also scuffed up the swiss army knife. Not completely satisfied, but again reminding herself that no one was going to be inspecting her that closely, she decided it was good enough. After all, if they were really suspicious it would just take one good yank on her wig to give her away.

Packing her purse, she tried to decide if she should bring her wallet with her real ID and decided that she didn't want to risk getting pulled over without it.

Okay, her props were ready, now she had to be. She got out her new clothes and went through them carefully to get all the tags off. She would really have liked to have a chance to iron them, but they would have to do. She got dressed quickly, then started pinning her hair up to hide it under the wig. Finally she was able to fit the wig on, making sure none of her blond hair poked through. She applied her makeup lightly, as she thought a school teacher should, whether they do or not she didn't know. Gathering all her props, she looked at herself in the mirror. While it was not as complete a disguise as Desirée, she was pretty sure that someone who didn't know her well or who had just seen her photo wouldn't recognize her.

It was now close to 2:30, which should get her to the factory by 3:00. Leaving a quick note for Eric telling him what time she left, she headed for the elevator. The drive there was fairly direct, but she was concentrating on the directions so much that she almost forgot that she needed to stop and get paper until she was passing a big office supply place. Turning on the next street, she went around the block to get back to it. Once she bought the paper, she took the time to put some in her binder, writing on a few sheets and softening the edges.

Before restarting the car she practiced out loud, what she had said in her head a hundred times. "Hi, I'm Christie Hampton, I teach science at Caddo Middle School." Taking a deep breath she started the car. "Alright Christie, let's go arrange a field trip."