Hi! My first idea was to end the story with this chapter (hence its title). But because the feedback I've been getting is much more that I had antecipated, I felt bold enough to put in that little "twist" at the end and add a few more chapters to this story. I hope you won't mind! :)

Anyway, here you have it: another Pam's POV. As I've said in the past, I find it difficult to speak through Pam's voice. So please review and tell me if you thought this was character-like – I'd hate to misrepresent her because Pam is definitively one of my favorites character! And the disclaimer is the same: these are Ms C. Harris' characters, not mine. Enjoy the chapter, Célia

Pam "Welcome to the Good Times"

It had been almost a year since Sookie had came back to Louisiana and everything had changed. And Sookie had changed too.

An example? There was this night when Eric was giving me a bad time because I had been dating and fucking a 17-year-old girl for the past couple of weeks. He was saying how I could have serious problems because she was underage. And I... Well, I knew that he was right. But com'on. Carrie was just less than a month away from her 18th birthday, and she had been the one to come after me. She had practically thrown herself (and almost naked!) at me. And then, suddenly, and I didn't know how or why, I found myself screaming at Eric that he had nothing to do with who I bedded. "Your own sexual partners have been pretty strange for the last decade. You've even fucked me, remember?"

Sookie's gasp stopped our discussion and I felt terrible that she had found out about me and Eric. But I was just so mad at Eric… And I had just wanted to shut him up. I had never thought that Sookie would hear us. Besides, Eric and I… It had just been something physical. Nothing more. Just "bang-bang; orgasm; you're done". We were way past something sexual between us. We were so much more than that.

Eric immediately ran to her, grabbed her hands and started talking: "Sookie, lover, let me expla…"

"No," she interrupted him, taking her hands from his, "there's no need. What you did back then doesn't concern me," she added. But her voice didn't sound as secure as her words. And then she crossed her arms at her chest. Uh-oh. That was some bad body language!

"Sookie, I'm sorry," I managed to say.

She left Eric's side, uncrossed her arms and moved towards me: "Are… Do you… Do you want Eric like that again?" she almost whispered. It didn't matter that she had said the minute before that what we had done didn't concern her – she was as deeply worried about it as you could get.

"I don't," I answered her, "I love him, but we are not a couple. He's my maker and my best friend. And that's it. He was missing you and I gave him some comfort. That's all."

"You sure?"

"I am," and then I repeated my previous statement, "Eric's my maker and my best friend, but nothing more."

And as soon as I spoke my words, I saw her smile just a little bit and Eric started smiling as well. I could feel such relief from him through our maker-child bond…

"All right," Sookie said, "so there won't be any more talk about this matter." She moved her head from between me and Eric and then she added: "I'll deal with it on my own. We're all adults here. You guys had sex. You had had sex before too and it hadn't matter to me." She paused for a few seconds and then asked, almost as an after-thought: "You won't have sex again now, will you?"

"No." Both Eric and I answered at the same time and with the same certainty.

So, she just smiled at our answer and we hadn't talked about that ever since. I'm not sure if Sookie and Eric talked about it between them, but I'd say that they hadn't.

And on that same night I ended my "thing" with Carrie. But just until a month later when she became 18 and we then started dating again. However, it only lasted for a couple of months because Carrie was way too jealous and she didn't like when I drank from other women. But it was an easy fix: just an effortless glamour for her to leave me the hell alone and off she went never to be seen in my bars again.

Yes, it had been almost a year since Sookie had came back to Louisiana and everything had changed. And Sookie had obviously changed too. She was perceptibly more mature and she hardly ever freaked like before. Back then, she'd probably leave again if she had found out about me and Eric. But now, she understood that some things were important enough to fight over them. And others just… weren't. And sex between me and Eric? It just didn't matter. Yes, Sookie understood that now. She really was different from before.

And Eric was different too. It was like he was… well… happy. Don't get me wrong: Eric had always had a great joi de vivre, he had always met people, went to places, did crazy things… But now it was more than that. He was not just having a nice time in a great place. It was really more than that. Now he really was happy. He was always happy. All the time. And it was strange. It was a good thing, for sure, but it was definitely strange. And odd.

I mean: I had known the guy for more than 200 years and I swear that I had seen more smiles that year than on all others combined. And when I said smile, it was not the "I'm so going to kill/fuck you" smile, neither the "I have to kiss your ass so I am smiling" smile. It was the "I can't prevent my lips from smiling because I'm so freakishly happy" smile.

Like I said: strange. And odd.

-x-

When Sookie had left 11 years ago, Eric had freaked out. After he came back from Europe, he calmed down. Then there was the whole fairy war and he ran to save her in hopes that they would be together again. But she was pregnant and Eric freaked again. A little quicker and lighter "freakishness" but a "freakishness" nonetheless.

And then he seemed to be Eric again. But I knew better. And how I teased him! It was great. He'd always answer something like "I'm beyond Sookie". But it was a lie. I told you: I've known the guy for 200+ years.

Either way, he was recovering (kind of) and was focused again on his work and his fan base (he always had the prettiest girls always at his feet. Arght!) But then that fucking fairy-vamp Gilbert told Eric that the fucking full-fairies were up to no good again. And, as before, off he went running to see Sookie… again. He met her, they talked (and obviously fucked) and, strangely, he came back home without her for a second time.

Back then, I wondered why he hadn't stayed there. I had talked to Sookie on the phone and she had told me that she and Eric had gotten along well and that she and the bear were already separated (and they had been so for over half a year even though she hadn't told me about it). But hey… Who was I to talk about it? I had never really understood the whole Sookie&Eric dynamics… How had they both been so into each other after just a week together? And don't tell me it was the blood bond, because the fucking blood bond had been broken for over a decade and they were still completely caught up with each other. Again: they both were. But they talked between them and they must have thought that it would be better if he came back to Louisiana again – and so he did.

And then, they just kept talking on the phone for a while. And let me tell you: Eric sounded like a freaking thirteen year-old girl talking with her junior-high girl friend, or rather, her "BFF", as teens say today. Jesus!

Anyway, after two or three weeks, and for some unknown reason, he just suddenly decided she wasn't well protected or some shit like that and he decided to go back to Tennessee again. Tennessee! It's just as Louisiana. Why wouldn't she run to New York or California instead? Or Europe… She could have run away to Rome or Vienna. I'd definitively run to Europe if I'd ever had to run.

Well, either way, he went back there. I mocked and I told him he had work here (we were opening the first Deadliest franchise by then and the Arkansas' construction permits for our first Fangtasia there were turning out to be a nightmare), but he just didn't care. He was Batman or The Hulk. He was Captain America or fucking Robin Hood. He was whatever comic book hero who runs to save the lady. Hey… just a thought: maybe the one who saves the princess in distress is just a regular prince charming and not a Marvel comic hero? Can it be? Well, it doesn't matter. The truth is that off he went to Tennessee (while Pam here kept working like a slave).

A few weeks later, I felt his bloodlust amazingly high and I called him. As usual, he didn't pick up the phone right then but after a while he send me something like "It's all over, I'm okay" though our maker-child bond.

Four or five hours later, he called me back and told me about killing five fairies for Sookie. Okay. Nothing new there. Sookie being in trouble? Happened before. Someone tried to kill Sookie? Happened before too. Eric killed that someone to protect her? Happened before as well.

But the next night however, something new happened. Apparently, Sookie appreciated (for the first time ever) what Eric did for her. And my only thought was: "wow!" But it wasn't just that: she actually told him she wanted to come back to Louisiana. With him. But wait, there was more: she would also bring her kid and the three of them would play fucking house together at Eric's. My jaw dropped in awe. Big time. I was completely shocked. I was like: WTF? Eric? Playing house? With a half were child? And Sookie would never let him feed or fuck any other. Had he even considered that? Was he willing to? I couldn't fucking believe that my badass motherfucker maker wanted that kind of fucking "white picket fence" bullshit life. But he did.

And you know what? It actually suited him! And everything had been working just fine for the last year.

They had been living together with Elizabeth at Eric's. But the house was much different now: totally new furniture (kids' safe furniture), human food in the fridge, a usable kitchen, a toy room and a slide (yes, I swear, there was a fucking colorful slide) in Eric's garden. And I just have this to say: thank God Eric's planned housing community didn't allow the building of picket-fences (including white picket-fences). Because if they ever built one (and I'm really not sure that they wouldn't have, given the chance), I'd definitively run away (to Rome or Vienna) and I'd feel myself an orphan vampire.

Anyway, Eric was also back to work full force. The Area 5 issues were very few now (Eric had been the Sheriff there for over 20 years now) but the bars franchise still took a lot of time (and made us a lot of money). And Eric had been traveling a lot for the past year. He usually spent at least one or two nights a week outside our area visiting our franchised bars.

The thing was: without Eric and other really old-timers, the franchised bars were only bars that looked like Bloodbath or Fangtasia or Deadliest. So Eric had to visit them quite often and he had to make sure other old vamps did it as well. You know: authenticity! But Eric was always complaining that he traveled too much… However, Sookie was on my side in this matter. And she was always telling him that they had to spend a couple of nights a week apart so they would miss each other.

Jesus! It was cheesy. It was hard-core cheesy. It was cheesy as never-before-seen-cheesy. And I knew it. This was such a great teasing material… But I always shut up because that was the reason why he kept traveling and making us the big bucks.

Anyway, for the pat year, Sookie had also been helping us with the bars, mainly with the human staff. For some unknown reason, they were still afraid of me and Eric (would they ever stop fearing us?) and so she helped us dealing with them. Besides, there was also her telepathy: and it was still handy to know what other people were thinking. You know what I'm saying?

And then, there was the child. Elizabeth. And she was un-fucking-believable. Liz was absolutely great. She had one problem: the faintest were smell. But you just had to spend five minutes with her to forget all about the were smell and just focus on the kid. Lizzie was funny (hell, she was hilarious), gorgeous and super intelligent. And you know what was one of the best things about her? She was only six years old now but she was already teasing Eric almost as well as I did. And I had had decades to learn how to do that! And the best part was that she was also the ultimate teaser because Eric melted whenever she wanted. She just had to kiss his cheek or give him any awful drawing (that she had done in like two minutes) and he was putty in her hands!

You don't believe me? Well, let me just tell you this: last Halloween, Eric dressed as a... ta-dah!... banana. Yes, I said correctly. A banana. He went "trick or treating" with her (Lizzie was dressed as a strawberry), in a banana costume. A fucking banana. Of course, he didn't allow anyone to see him like that, just Liz, Sookie, me and the humans whose houses they went. But I got a picture. And I stored it and I kept it like people keep water in the desert. A banana. A fucking banana! Can you believe it? Hah! Hah!

And you know what else about Liz? She loved to shop and try new clothes. Unlike Eric and unlike Sookie. And so it has been "our thing", mine and Lizzie's, for the last year, to go to the mall to buy clothes. And we usually also bought stuff for Sookie and Eric. And it was much easier to make them dress in something that I bought with Liz than something I bought just by myself.

So: Sookie was back and she had Lizzie, Eric was finally happy and I was making lots of cash with the bars' franchising. Everything changed. But those changes were for the better and everything was all right now.

There was just one problem. Once or twice a month, David would come to Shreveport to spend the weekend with Liz. And whenever he was around, Sookie would get mad and Eric would be tense, or maybe he would get mad and she'd be tense or… hell, whatever, they'd both become mad and tense. But he was Elizabeth's father and it was a good thing that he visited her often because the kid really liked him.

But the worst time? It had been the four weeks Lizzie spent in Tennessee last summer. Both Sookie and Eric were just out of their minds, always worrying about Lizzie. But as the great kid she was, she behaved and there was no problem. Lizzie was already scheduled to visit her dad soon again. I hope Sookie will stay calmer this time.

And, at any rate, the "one pair of eyes" that Eric kept on David (he received a once-a-month report about the bear's doings, both regarding his restaurant and his pack) just turned into three or four around the clock (but extremely discreet) bodyguards checking Lizzie whenever she was with her father. I didn't know why, but Eric really didn't trust him. Not even the guy's own daughter. Something had definitively happened there (it was as if Eric was afraid he'd hurt Elizabeth or something…), but I never commented on the subject. And especially because Sookie didn't know about it.

-x-

I was in my office in Bloodlust, waiting for Eric, and in front of a mirror experimenting the possible new shorts and t-shirts of the Summer line of Fangtasia products (we had been using the brand recently in lots of merchandising products and so far it was a success). But I didn't like it. They were too red. And yes, people dressed in red, but not all that "blood red" in their everyday clothes. We'd have to change the color, or, at least, change it to a darker red. But the cut was good and the way the back pockets of the shorts were made, would favor most butts. And the hats were cool too. They'd sell well. We'd have to go into foot-wear too. Maybe even a partnership with Nike, Reebok or Adidas? They could have a Fangtasia/Bloodbath line…

I made a note in my PC to remind me to check that possibility later and then I changed back to my normal clothes and got back to work. In the last few years, I had moved from being the manager of one bar, to being responsible for two really successful brands (and Deadliest would soon be a third), and it meant much more work. But the money was much more too, so I didn't mind. Thank God for capitalism and vampire rights in America.

Besides, we now had a manager in each bar, and both Eric and Sookie worked hard too. So yeah, everything was good in the work area. Now, I just needed someone I could share my success with. Someone special.

Well, of course I was dating people (I had even dated a beautiful were-swan – Helen had such a lovely hair and a great pair of legs). But I hardly ever managed to stay for more than a couple of months with each person. Three or four months at most. However, I'd wait. And eventually the right person would show up. Hell, it had taken Eric more than a thousand years to find Sookie, so I knew that I had to be patient. And, for the time being, I was happy just concentrating on my work and my bars.

I had just started to work on the previous month's numbers when I felt that Eric was almost there. And so I printed the budget that I had just received on my e-mail for our original Bloodlust and Fangtasia's parking lots, kitchens and bathrooms' renovation. It was way more than we had expected to spend and I wanted him to approve it. Both Eric and I had completely autonomy with everything regarding the bars. But whenever such an expense was needed, we both usually checked with the other.

"Guess what? Guess what?" he said as soon as he got inside my office. Eric. He was just like a kid these days. And it was all Elizabeth's influence… She was the one who used to say "guess what? guess what?" and now he was mimicking a 6-years-old.

"What?"

"Ocella's coming to visit. He called me and said that he's coming in three weeks, on the 12th. And it's great."

"It is?" I knew Eric liked his maker. Absolutely every vampire that loves being a vampire likes his or her maker as well because they were the ones who gave them the vampiric gift. But after 400 hundred years together on and off, they both preferred to spend time apart, except for quick visits once in a while (like every four or five decades). And I also knew that Eric much rather be the one visiting than the one being visited. And besides, I was also sure that even though now, seven or eight hundred years after Ocella's attitude-change towards Eric, he and his maker got along okay, deep down, Eric would never forgive Appius for his first couple of centuries as a vampire.

"Well, it's not great that he's coming. I actually hate the fact that he' coming and he wouldn't even get more than 500 miles close to Shreveport if I had a saying on it. But I don't. And he wants to visit me. And so he will. And if he has to come here, if he must, then he chose the best time. Lizzie will be in Tennessee with her father then. She won't even have to meet Ocella. And he said he's just staying for a week."

Eric, always the pragmatic. "And why is he coming here? Why now?" I asked.

"He's meeting Adelaide in Canada and he decided to travel through here." Adelaide was Ocella's "baby sister". And by "baby sister", I meant: she was more or less 1200 years old.

Adelaide was great. And again I wondered how was Ocella's maker able to turn two people as different as Ocella (always an egoistic bastard) and Adelaide (such a caring and devoted vampire). Adelaide had been married to an Iberic count, Vimara Peres, who had reconquered and governed what is now the north of Portugal from the Islamic Moors from North Africa. She was first seen by her maker on the same night that Portugal gained de facto independence from the Leonesse reign (what is now Spain) for the first time. It would take Adelaide, her husband and the fellow supporters of independence several other attempts and feudal struggles before they were completely separated from the Kingdom of Galicia. But they did it. And Adelaide had been right in the middle of everything, first as a human (the wife of a prominent man) and then as a vampire. She had, in fact, helped to create a whole new country. Wasn't it awesome? I just loved her stories.

But, back to the present. So, Eric was telling me how Ocella would be visiting Adelaide. But that he had also decided that he'd just travel from Lisbon to Vancouver trough Shreveport and meet us too. Okay. So that didn't sound like a forced meeting. Not at all. Louisiana was obviously in the way between Europe and Canada… Hell! What a stupid explanation. Okay, so Ocella wanted to visit. He was Eric's maker – he just had to say that he did want to visit. He didn't have to say that stupid and totally unbelievable explanation.

Jeez. Would Eric never be free from this frecko? But Eric was reacting somewhat well to this news… Why would that be?

"So, it's okay then? That Ocella's visiting?"

"It is not okay. I'd rather that he would not. I actually hate that he's coming. But I like that Lizzie is not here."

"What about Sookie?"

"Ocella will want to meet the bars and my friends. And someone will talk or ask about Sookie. If my human companion isn't here, then he'll wonder why that was, and he'll want to meet her. It's easier if she's on plain sight and if he meets her right away. Then he won't be curious about her."

"Ohh…" Of course. That actually made total sense. Sookie worked at the bars too and everyone now knew how Eric just drank from Sookie and that he was now off-limits to all fangbangers (and this was especially known and grieved over by the female gender). Ocella would see, for sure, that something was amiss… And Eric was obviously correct: his maker's curiosity would rise after that. But keeping Sookie "hidden on plain sight" might do the trick and keep Ocella's interest in Sookie just marginal. "I guess you're right."

"Of course I am right. I know that Lizzie will be away and he won't even know about her. But, on the other hand, I wouldn't be able to do the same about my exclusive human. And so, I won't even talk about Liz to Ocella. But he will have to meet Sookie. So, I'll just introduce her to him and then keep Sookie as under the radar as I can."

Yeah. This sounded more like Eric. He had always been practical if nothing else. And he'd, of course, stop fretting. To Eric, things he couldn't fix were really never a problem. And instead he'd always think of those that he could fix. And Ocella was coming – and Eric couldn't do anything about it. Now, he was only reacting to it the best way he could.

But Eric's pragmatism, however, didn't mean that he didn't have a back-up plan. Eric always had a back-up plan, even in situations when most people wouldn't even think about having a first plan – let alone a back-up one. Yes, Eric was always two steps ahead of everyone. And the fact that he would try to hide Liz and Sookie (I heard Eric's voice "keep Sookie as under the radar as I can" all over again in my mind), well, it bothered me.

"Why? Are you expecting trouble?" I asked.

"Pam, it's Ocella." He answered me.

Not "yes, I do". Not "no, I don't". Just "it's Ocella".

But the problem was: Ocella meant trouble.

I know, I know… We all hate Ocella. And that's why I'm bringing him back – so eventually Eric will be free from him. Anyway, what did you think about this new acquisition to the story? And Pam and Eric's interaction? And the time-jump? I had to at least give them some time before bringing Ocella back, right? And how would you rather Ocella react to Sookie? Will he like her (more like Godric) or hate her (in true Ocella's form)? Or something in between?

"Welcome to the Good Times" in an outtake from Bon Jovi's "Crush" album. "I'm always the one on the outside looking inside / Always the bridesmaid, never been the new bride / Sometimes I feel like a canary in a coal mine / It's hard to breathe but somehow it's got to stay in flight / Waiting for the dice to roll our way / We've been waiting for someone somewhere to say / / Hey, welcome, welcome to the good times"