A/N: Because it's the weekend and I'm avoiding real work, here's another, longer chapter. For those who are reading for Sookie's interactions with Eric, you won't see those again for a few chapters - she has quite a number of other important things going on in her life. I felt really strongly about not making the story focus only on her romantic partnerships. I hope you'll read and enjoy anyway. I'm really grateful for all the reviews and follows thus far.

Disclaimer: everything belongs to Charlaine Harris.

Bon Temps is small enough that our local sheriff's department has a tiny jail in the same building, mostly so they don't have to haul all the local drunks and other small town trouble over to Monroe. Because it was late Friday night, I knew I'd probably get held in one of the cells until Monday, unfortunately. When Andy started to warn me of the same thing, I interrupted him. "You know I didn't do this, Andy."

"Honestly, Sookie, it's hard to know with you. Fact is, Arlene was found at your house, with your scarf around her neck, the day after you had an altercation with her at Merlotte's. You might not have done it, but I still had to bring you in."

I really did understand. Who had more reason to have a grudge against Arlene than me? Hadn't I just been bragging to the monarchs about how much of a threat I could be? I went along with all the processing, and hoped Eric would remember to tell Karin. Surely I'd get a chance to call Jason? By the time I was stuffed into a grey cinder block cell with a very drunk Jane Bodehouse, I was able to start making a plan. I was still hurting over the Eric situation, but I was determined to get through one heartbreaking day at a time. I'd already survived so much worse.

Andy did let me call Jason, although he wouldn't be allowed to see me until morning. When he was able to come, I'd ask him to find the numbers on my fridge and contact both my human lawyer Beth Osiecki and Mr. Cataliades. I tried to remember if Mr. C. and Jason had ever met, but I didn't believe they had. I'd been told by Kenya that bail was something I needed to think about, so when I talked her into another (long distance) call, I phoned Amelia.

Truth be told, Amelia had been a pretty terrible friend more than once, owing mostly to her inability to keep her mouth shut. You'd think learning more about supernaturals would teach her some discretion, but it hadn't. We had parted on bad terms, and I didn't think I'd welcome her as a close friend anytime soon.

But one thing I'd learned from supes was how to pull rank and call in favors. From living with Amelia - and meeting her father - I knew she had access to the kind of money I'd need for bail. I didn't want to get that help from anyone more supernatural than this witch, and I knew she'd be eager to do me a favor. I shuddered to think of how my approach to getting things done now resembled Eric's, or the other vampires', or even the wolves'.

While our call connected, I held tight to the heavy beige phone, and then cut right to the chase. "Amelia. Hey, it's Sookie. Listen, I'm being held in the Bon Temps jail. I'll tell you the story later. My arraignment won't be until Monday, and then I'm gonna need some bail money. My inheritance from Claudine is tied up right now, but I'll pay you back. You think you could cover it, just temporarily?" I explained to her why I didn't want to approach someone else. The kind of favors Amelia could call in from me were much more likely to be benign than anything they'd ask.

"Of course, Sookie, whatever you need, I'll be there." Amelia assured me that she and Bob would set out right away to come join Team Sookie, and would crash at my house (her idea, which I didn't like, but at least I wouldn't be there for it). I'd see them sometime tomorrow. Amelia said she'd also add some "extras" to the protection around my house, which I was grateful for. The best I could do now was to try to get some sleep. I closed my eyes on the bare bunk and tried not to think of anything at all.

I was relieved the next morning when Jane was let go after thoroughly disgusting me with her alcohol sickness all night, although I wondered if she'd be back again by later tonight. I didn't really even want to go near the exposed metal toilet, after Jane had been hugging it all night. When Jason finally showed up, I gave him a list of things I needed done, including his fetching the numbers to call the lawyers. Somehow I'd neglected to ever program them into my phone - which was being held from me anyway. I told him how to check my house phone messages, and hoped they'd let Jason check my cell phone messages for me when he got back.

When the cell door shut behind me, I settled back onto the bed. I wasn't entirely sure how much having vampires as my alibis last night was going to help me. Would Felipe or Freyda even tell the truth about seeing me? I knew Eric, Pam, and Karin would if they could, but I had no idea how much control Freyda might have over them. Nobody else had really seen me at Fangtasia, since I'd been escorted in and out the back. I didn't know yet what time Arlene had died; if I got lucky, it would have been before I even left Merlotte's. I only spared a second of regret for my hope that Arlene's murder had happened at a time that was convenient for me.

While I waited for Jason to get back from the house, I thought about whether I should have had some trackers called in, but who would I get? Would Heidi do something like that for me? Would Alcide send me somebody? Would Calvin? Maybe I'd ask Jason what he thought when he returned, but I worried my yard would be criss-crossed with too many police scents for it to do much good, and I didn't want to owe any of the Weres.

Andy stopped by my cell to see me, and I asked him about letting Jason check my cell phone messages, which he was fine with. Andy was committed to holding me here until Monday, but he wasn't trying to make things too difficult for me. I couldn't say the same for Alcee Beck, who had always been suspicious of me and had never quite gotten over the danger his wife Barbara, the librarian, had been in because of me. That little scuffle, in which I disabled the attacker with a well-thrown library book, barely registered for me any more. Alcee would always leave me alone as soon as Andy turned up. I determined that Alcee's scowling was plain old resentment, and tried to ignore him the best I could.

I realized Andy's visit wasn't just checking on things when I noticed something in his hand, and heard him thinking that what he wanted to ask me was "foolish." "Spit it out, Andy. Whatever you've got cannot possibly be the weirdest thing I've seen or heard." Andy froze before holding up what looked like a postcard, which he'd placed in an evidence bag. The glare of the florescent bulbs against the plastic kept me from seeing it clearly.

"Sookie, this came for you yesterday. Do you know anything about this? Uh, maybe we better talk about this in a conference room...I want to ask you some questions, anyway."

Andy let me out of the holding cell and escorted me down the narrow hallway to a conference room with cheap-looking faux wood paneling and a coffee pot brewing away in the corner. The Sheriff filled paper cups for both of us and sat opposite me at the room's one table. Andy pushed the evidence bag across the table's scarred surface, and sat silently while I looked over the enclosed card. It was a cheesy tourist postcard, the kind with big blocky letters that you pick up for 50 cents from a gas station rack.

This one read: "Howdy from Dallas."

I flipped the postcard over, and noticed that it had been mailed to "Sookie Stackhouse, ℅ Sheriff Bellefleur, Renard Parish Sheriff Department, Bon Temps, LA." It had been postmarked from Dallas four days ago. I sat stunned as I realized that the sender must have been in on killing Arlene and framing me.

"Andy, how would anyone in Dallas know four days ago that I'd be here? They must have been in on Arlene's murder, this is evidence."

Andy huffed. "Yeah, Sookie, that's why it's in the evidence bag. You know anybody in Dallas? You know a psychic?" Andy tried to make his gruff voice sound confident, but he was fidgeting with the brown tie of his uniform. He sort of accepted my "gift," but the idea of real psychics seemed to bother him. I was surprised he even thought of it.

I examined the plastic bag while I considered my answer. I wasn't sure how much I should tell Andy, but I probably needed to break my general policy of hiding the extent of my involvement with supes. I did know some people in Dallas, of course, and a couple in particular with a connection to both me and Arlene.

"Andy, some of this is going to be hard for you to hear, and you might think I'm crazy, but I promise you all this is true. First, I don't know any psychics. I don't think real ones are very common." Since Eric had only "had" one in his long life, I couldn't imagine there were that many. I shook off that unpleasant thought and continued.

"I went to Dallas a couple of years ago. I can't really tell you the details, but I did some work for vampires who were missing one of their...friends. By listening in on humans, I was able to help find him. That vampire had been kidnapped by the Fellowship of the Sun church - their headquarters were there in Dallas."

"So you think a vampire had something to do with this?" Andy's furrowed brow meant I needed to help him get him to the right conclusion.

"No, Andy, I think Steve or Sarah Newlin did it, or at least planned or knew about it. You know Arlene was big into the Fellowship. Well, the Fellowship hates me, because while I was in Dallas I helped that missing vampire escape - they were going to crucify him in the sun for the whole church to watch. I and one more vampire they were holding escaped, too, with a little help. It ruined a big 'meet the sun' ceremony they had planned for the congregation to watch."

I took a breath and hoped Andy was actually absorbing this. "Then when I went to Jackson, Steve Newlin turned up at a supe bar, planning to kill vampires. I kept him and his buddy from staking anybody, but in the process I got staked myself."

Andy stared at me with disbelief. "Sookie, I know you've been hurt a few times in the last couple of years, but I think I would have heard about it if you had a stake wound in your side."

"That's because I didn't go around with a stake wound, Andy. I was healed. Supernaturally."

Andy's big palm hitting the table startled me, and he gave me an intense look. "You serious, Sookie? I don't have time for made up crap." You'd think there were more bizarre and important things to focus on in my story than "Sookie got staked," but I knew Andy was struggling with so much new information. He was afraid I might be messing with him, and angry about how little he really knew.

"I'm serious, Andy. That's not all. Did you hear about the hotel that blew up in Rhodes?" Andy nodded; the explosion had been widely publicized. "That was the Fellowship, too. I was there. I heard (I pointed to my head to indicate how I'd "heard" things) about it, and was able to evacuate a lot of people just before the explosion happened. Dozens more people would have been killed. I'm the one who stopped that."

I had help that day from my fellow telepath Barry, but thinking of all the times I'd foiled the Fellowship's violent plans made me proud. I sat up a little straighter, with as much dignity as one can summon in a 1970s era conference room while wearing orange jail-issued clothes.

I confidently told him, "Whoever sent this knew I would be arrested, and wanted me to know they had a Dallas connection. Everything between me and the Fellowship started in Dallas. Maybe they mailed this card before they left Texas and it just got here earlier than they expected. They're all linked, Andy, it's the Fellowship."

"But that's a church, Sookie, why would a church try to frame you for murder?" Andy leaned back in the squeaky old office chair and took a long, skeptical look at me. I knew thinking of me as Crazy Sookie was easier than believing all this, but that didn't mean I had a lot of patience with Andy at the moment. I'm sure he could hear it in my voice when I continued.

"Andy, Steve Newlin locked me in the church basement with his crony who tried to rape me. They pulled me down the steps by my ankle when I tried to escape. They were going to tie me to those vampires, and let us all burn to death when the sun came up. Sarah Newlin rammed me with her car as I tried to leave. I could have died then in Dallas, and again when I was staked in Jackson - it was a very close call. They say they're a church, but people who will blow up a hotel will do anything. And you know very well that Arlene and her Fellowship friends themselves tried to crucify me, not that long ago." I leaned back in my own chair and tried to untense my body.

"How do I know you didn't get so mad at Arlene that you murdered her? You had to be pretty mad she tried to kill you. I heard about the fight at Merlotte's from Kenya."

"Because, Andy, I was at Merlotte's last night too, and the whole bar saw me get picked up by a vampire and escorted out. Karin drove me to Fangtasia, where I was forcibly divorced from Eric, if you must know, in the presence of several vampire witnesses and one human. When Karin and I got home, she found Arlene's body in the yard. I called you right away. I'm the one trying to do the right thing here."

Andy had a few more questions for me, and I told him about my suspicion just the other day that someone had been in my house. I'd have to figure out how they got around the wards later. Our conversation served as one stark reminder for me: while supes had hurt me, very badly in the case of my fairy torturers, humans also had caused me fear and harm, and tried to kill me more than once. I needed to remember that during the times when I wondered if I should forget supes altogether and try to live a "normal" life. Being completely "normal" didn't seem to be in the cards for me anymore, and maybe it never was.