Note*** I know I'm going to be in trouble when everyone reads the end, but the scene was jamming on me and I just couldn't push through. There will be one more chapter after this one, and this this particular story is over. I AM planning a bit of a spin-off though, which hopefully should start rolling out next week.

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A lot of people didn't make it to the bar. Some stayed at the surgery with the injured, other's had crashed out, still more had gotten straight into their cars and headed to Shreveport to help ferry back the families and see their loved ones before dawn. Nan and the magister were gone, their respective goon squads were either cleaning or holding the masses of North American media at bay. Sam fussed around behind the bar, Eric and Isabel had assured him that the tab would be covered by the nests. No one could be expected to remember their wallets tonight.

Bill was sitting at one end of the bar. To say that he was being shunned wouldn't be fair, but he hadn't been there, and the others all had and the camaraderie was a physical thing that bound them all together, and didn't include him. Someone punched him hard in the back of the shoulder, nearly sending his true blood flying. He turned in irritation and found Bo, she'd found time to change out of her ruined tunic and was wearing a dark purple dress that touched the floor and fell away from her arms in massive bell sleeves. Over her shoulder was a heavy black canvas bag and she gave him a smile that might almost have been sympathetic.

"Suck it up, cup cake." She said, "you're going to live a long time, and this will not be the last night someone rips it out and stomps on it. Learn. Be better."

Bill rattled that around in his head for a long time, but couldn't find anything comforting in it. Across the room, Bo gently put the bag down on the table in front of Eric. He glanced up at her and then opened it sadly. Inside, the great iron head of Godric's axe lay, along with the haft, shattered into three smaller pieces. "So you'll remember what all this cost," she said simply, then patted his shoulder and turned away.

Sookie reached out and covered Eric's hand with her own. She was still tingling and a little high, but for some reason it didn't seem to make her as loo-loo as it did everyone else.

"I'm sorry, Eric..."

"It isn't him," The viking said softly, though the fingers of his free hand traced over the iron gently. "It's just a tool... a crude one at that. But... Godric cared for it very much."

"Do you think there's any chance Godric wouldn't have given this axe, to save your life?"

Eric smiled and closed the bag gently before tucking it away under the table. "How do you do that?" He asked, turning to face her. "He would have said something similar..."

"He was very wise... and he loved you very much." She bit her bottom lip and plucked up the courage to look him in the eye, "People with stuff in common tend to think alike."

His chest rumbled deeply as he lent in to capture her mouth, his fingers easing into her hair, massaging her scalp, he seemed to really like doing that. She'd never thought of it as being a particularly erotic thing to do... of course somehow when it was Eric Northman doing it, it seemed totally inappropriate to do in a bar! Some low, thrumming music came out through the speakers and Sookie groaned against Eric's mouth. "Christ, who is it this time?" She shook her head and looked up at him apologetically, "This song on Karaoke is always death."

Mississippi in the middle of a dry spell
Jimmy Rogers on the Victrola up high

Sookie blinked and clambered up to kneel on the seat and look over the back of the booth. At the machine, Bo stood with the mic cord wrapped around her forearm, her long brown hair free but for the thin warriors brains which kept it back from her face. As she sang, her hips moved and her chest heaved as though she gave all her breath to the song and kept none for herself.

Mamma's dancin' with baby on her shoulder

the sun is settin' like molasses in the sky

Everyone cheered, and humans and vampires headed for the dance floor. Sookie looked at Eric in astonishment, but he just shrugged. "She likes the attention... and she knows how to work a crowd. If you give her unrestricted access to that, that thing, she'll keep these hicks here for days." Sookie giggled and lent back against him.

Black velvet and that little boy's smile

black velvet in that slow southern style

a new religion that'll bring ya all to your knees

Black velvet if you please

Beer glasses where being banged on tables, feet tapped and inevitably, lips kissed until at last the bar opened up with a hundred people all singing the chorus. The affect the beat was having on everyone was painfully noticeable and Sookie felt it, would have even if she couldn't hear it. Everyone who could pair off, did, and Sookie found herself drawing little circles on Eric's arm with her fingertip.

"You're playing with fire, lover..." He rumbled at her.

"I wanna go home..." she mumbled, only half aware of the implication of her words, but half was enough. "I jus' wanna sleep in my own bed, one night, without somethin' goin' wrong."

"I'll fly you," He said, grabbing the bag from under the table and offering her his hand to help her out.

"Everyone! It looks like the masterminds of the battle of Bon Temps are leaving," Bo called into the mic. "An appropriate southern send off, if you would?"

Everyone roared, stomped their feet, cat called and generally make a raucous. Sookie blushed and hid a little behind Eric who, completely un-phased, saluted his sister with a grin. "Don't stay up to early."

"Yes daddy," She laughed. "Now, request's are welcomed, I can do anything this machine can!" Another cheer went up and the lovers slipped out unmolested.

Eric landed softly and let her walk up the steps to her front door by herself. She push the door open and then stepped aside for him to enter. "You got the blood out of the rug," Eric noticed.

"And didn' it half take some effort!", she giggled softly, remembering Jason's questions that morning. "Eric, is Santa real?"

"What? No, not that I'm aware of." He looked at her curiously, "though I believe Godric had taken to gifting orphanages at Christmas towards the end... He thought no one noticed."

"Am I still high?" She asked suddenly.

"It is possible," Eric said, following her into the living room. "Does it matter?"

"I kinda jus' wanted to see if you'd say so..." She looked up at him, eyes round and saucers. "I don't know what to do now..."

"Traditionally..."

"Will you stop saying that!" She huffed, stomping her foot, which Eric found painfully endearing. "Please. Just... just stop joking about my life... about my feelings. Tell me somethin' true!"

"I dreamed of you," He said, meeting her eyes. "The night before I saved you in Jackson." He lent against the wall, his shoulders hunched in slightly and his hands shoved in his pockets. "I'd come to see you. You let me in, without reservation... You said Bill hadn't been who you were looking for, and then you touched me. You weren't afraid at all. You said you could smell my memories, you knew things about me no living person could..." He looked up at her somewhat ruefully, all she could do was stare at him open mouthed. "You could see all my secrets, and I liked it..." He pushed off the wall and moved towards her slowly, "That is what I want. For you to know all my secrets..."

Sookie had tears in her eyes when he put his hands on her shoulders, let them slip down her arms then pulled them back, his cool caress making her shiver. "What do you want, Sookie?" He asked, his face dangerously close to hers, robbing her of thought.

"I..." Her bottom lip quivered pitiably, she was overwrought and strung out and everything always moved so fast! Why couldn't things go slowly, like they used to in a tiny little town in the middle of a back water. "I want you to not treat me like I'm the prize in your stupid competition with Bill. I want you not to keep people locked up in your basement! I want you to be like this, like you are sometimes when there isn't anyone else around, only I want you to be like that all the time! I want you..." She coughed a little and choked on her own emotion. "God help me, I want you..."

His hands were back at her neck, his fingertips cool and tickling and sweet merciful lord what had she just said, what would he say? Fuck, she was so stupid... "Then take me," he breathed against her lips, "and I will try to give you what you want."

She whimpered and darted forward, kissing him desperately, grasping at his jacket and clumsily trying to get it off. He rolled his shoulders back and the offending garment fell away, Sookie moaned at being presented with the smooth, marble skin of his shoulders and pushed at them, hard. Eric let himself be shoved back onto the couch, then held his arms up when she growled at him so she could haul his singlet off over his head. As she sank down, straddling his lap, his fingers dove into her hair again and she wondered if there would ever be a point in doing anything with it ever again?

His hips rolled up and she could feel him through their jeans. "Eric," she moaned against his neck, pressing her cheek against it so she could nip at his skin with her blunt little teeth.

"Tease," He purred, his hands slipping down her back lightly before coming to rest on her hips, encouraging hers to roll in time, grinding them together. "You're magnificent..." Sookie hid her face in his shoulder to hide her blush and shook her head, but Eric would have none of it. He lent back and gently turned her face to look at him. "You still wont believe it?" She asked softly, "You have just saved everyone you love, you averted a war, you have probably done more for vampire/human relations in two days than Nan Flanagan has in two years. You are one of the most valuable humans in the world."

"I didn't really do anythin'..." she said quietly, "the plan was mostly Jason and the organizin' was mostly Terry,"

"Horse shit. Without you to focus him, your brother would have driven in, guns blazing, and gotten himself killed, achieving nothing. From what I've seen, that soldier wasn't exactly operating on a full clip before you, either. Why can't you accept that you led these people?"

"I... I'm just a waitress." She stammered, only to look shocked when Eric growled and hit his head against the back of the couch.

"You have been feeding everyone that line to protect yourself for so long, you can't think to say anything else!" He growled. "Serving beer to red-necks at a bar is hardly the limit of what you do! You have hidden behind this mask of mediocrity your entire life because you were the most outlandish thing those simpletons had ever seen." Eric's fangs descended and he stared at her intently. "A telepath they have known since childhood is nothing compared to what they have seen now. You're not the scariest monster in the yard any more, not by a long shot. Stop hiding! From them and from me,"

More than anything she wanted to argue with him, slap him, tell him to get the hell out of her house. He didn't know anything about her and he had no right to talk to her that way! Instead, unable to stop herself, she looked tired and ashamed, "I don't know how..."

Eric's fangs went away and he cupped her cheek, smiling when she turned her face into hit hand. "Just stop trying," he said with a small smirk, mirroring her earlier words.