Chapter 6: Confrontations
When I woke up that evening, the first thing I noticed was that Sookie was nervous. I could feel her anxiety percolating through the bond of my blood. Whatever caused it didn't seem to be a serious threat, but I was curious. I got up, still not entirely awake, and began climbing the ladder to the main level, listening carefully as I moved. I could hear Sookie and another woman speaking from the area of the living room.
"I told her I had a brother named Jason. Lied my ass off," said the unknown woman, emotion choking her voice.
"You know what you should do? You should go tell her. Right now," Sookie said, insistently. I could feel and hear the strain in her voice. I felt no fear from Sookie, but she was clearly eager to get the woman on her way.
"Well, I will!" the female voice answered, as if confused by Sookie's verbal push. "Crap— can I stay here tonight? I don't feel safe at Lafayette's," the stranger explained, a tone of pleading in her voice. I wondered if Lafayette was a boyfriend. Maybe the woman was being beaten by a lover?
"Actually – it's not a good night," Sookie said firmly. Sookie didn't seem the type to turn away a woman in genuine danger, and I could sense through our bond that whatever the perceived threat "at Lafayette's" was, Sookie did not feel it was serious.
"What is up wit' you," the other voice said, confounded. "You're acting really weird."
I quietly opened the doors to my hidden space and padded towards the living rom. Sookie was still trying to encourage her guest to leave, speaking in a rushed tone. "I'm sorry, you know you're always welcome here, I just don't think tonight's the best night." The woman must be a friend of Sookie's; apparently a friend in some kind of trouble
"Hey?" the visitor responded, baffled by Sookie's demeanor. Sookie was seated on the left side of the couch, with a dark-haired, dark-skinned woman beside her. I could smell the sour, yeasty smell of beer as the woman took another swallow from a brown bottle.
"It's nothing personal, I just—" Sookie glanced over her shoulder and saw me standing behind the couch and stopped speaking.
The dark woman, alerted by Sookie's silence and the direction of her gaze, turned towards me. The instant Sookie's friend saw me, she let out a terrified scream, jumped from the couch, sprang towards the fireplace nearby, and snatched up a fireplace poker, which she began to wave threateningly in my direction. I promptly lowered my fangs, prepared to defend Sookie, and continued to advance, growling ominously.
Sookie had sprung up when her guest did and stood between me and the armed woman, who had backed herself into a corner of the room.
"Tara! Calm down!" Sookie commanded. Apparently fearful the situation could escalate quickly since weapons (both human and vampire ones) were now involved, Sookie also threw up a hand as if to stop my motion. "Eric, stop it!"
"Keep the fuck away!" the woman (Tara) hissed at me, pointing the metal implement at me. Since it wasn't silver, I wasn't too concerned she could do me serious damage, but I would not have anyone act in a threatening manner in Sookie's and my home. I paced forward, intent on disarming her.
"Eric! Wait!" exclaimed Sookie, and through our bond I felt a sharp little ping of fear for Tara. Did she expect me to hurt this person? If I had wanted to hurt this Tara, she would already be dead.
As I drew closer to her, Tara began to wave the poker towards me more aggressively, shouting again, "Get the fuck away!"
"Both of you, you stop it!" Sookie shouted just before I snatched the poker out of Tara's hand and threw it aside. It clattered as it landed.
"What the hell is he doing here?" Tara demanded of Sookie in fright.
"I live here," I said coolly.
"What?" Tara was obviously shocked. "You told me he was missing," she hissed accusingly at Sookie.
"It's not what you think—" Sookie began but Tara cut her off.
"I just poured out my heart to you and you talked about telling the truth and being honest," Tara gritted out as Sookie as she began edging towards the door. "And meanwhile, you've got somebody who wants to kill me in your basement?"
Wary of what she might to do Sookie in her anger, I threw my arms out to guard Sookie in case Tara might make any sudden moves towards her.
"You're a fucking hypocrite!" Tara finally spat furiously at Sookie before she turned to run.
"Tara, wait!" Sookie exclaimed. "Something happened! He's different. He's not going to hurt you!" I could feel she really believed what she was saying about me and some of the tightness I'd been carrying in my chest since the bad dreams the night before loosened a little more. She believed in me.
"He's a psycho, murdering asshole!" Tara snarled. And just like that, the tightness was back.
"No! He's not!" Sookie countered fiercely.
"You've got a short goddamn memory," Tara snapped. "This is the fucker that sold you out to Russell Edgington!" I glanced towards Sookie questioningly, but her eyes were focused only on Tara. Suddenly I knew: Sookie didn't want to meet my eyes.
Tara continued to reel off my sins. "—He tricked you into drinking his blood—"
So the one-way blood bond I had with Sookie was formed against her will? I felt sick.
"—He locked Lafayette in a dungeon and tortured him." I felt an internal flinch from Sookie. Whoever Lafayette was, she cared about him. I had tortured someone she cared about.
Tara reached the crescendo of her rant. "You hate Eric Northman!" she concluded furiously.
Sookie hated me.
I wasn't feeling hatred from Sookie at the moment. What I felt was pity for me and embarrassment.
Which meant that what Tara was saying was probably true. Sookie felt bad to have me hear the truth.
"Tara, listen –" Sookie began in a low voice.
"Fuck the both of you!" Tara shouted and ran out Sookie's front door.
Stunned and upset, I numbly retracted my fangs.
"Eric?" Sookie said quietly, when I hadn't moved.
"Who was that?" I finally asked.
Sookie was silent for a moment, preparing her answer. "Tara is my best friend from childhood," she replied cautiously. "She had a…bad experience with a vampire last year. A very bad experience."
I could feel how bad it must have been from Sookie's emotional reaction to it.
It was harder to ask the next question. "Who is Russell Edgington?" And why had I "sold Sookie out to him"?
Apparently, it was just as painful for Sookie to answer as it was for me to ask. Whoever Russell Edgington was, Sookie hated him. "He was the king of Mississippi," she finally said bitterly.
"Was?"
"You and Bill ended him. After you and Russell drank from me."
The "fang-rape"?
At least my fellow perpetrator was dead already.
I was very reluctant to ask the next question. "Why didn't we –" I loathed the words even as I dragged them out, but I was desperate to understand. "But we didn't drain you?"
"Oh, you nearly did," Sookie said shortly. "But Bill reminded you both that if you drained me dry, that would be the last –" She stopped.
"The last what?" I frowned at her.
She was debating whether to finish the sentence. I could feel her struggling with whether or not she trusted me. Me, not the biting asshole who had fed from her with Russell Edgington.
"It would be the last fairy blood you would ever drink," she finally said.
Apparently, her struggle had come down on the side of trusting me. I didn't take it for granted.
Fairy? I knew that fairies were supposed to be delicious and I inadvertently took a deep sniff of Sookie's now familiar scent.
"You're a fairy?" I stared at Sookie, astonished. Part of my "general knowledge" seemed to be that fairies were extinct.
She sank onto the couch and patted the seat beside her in invitation. I guess this was going to be a long conversation.
"I'm only part-fairy," she explained. "That's why I –"
"—why you smell so good," I finished for her. At least that finally made sense.
"Claudine – my fairy godmother – was a full fairy," Sookie said, watching for my reaction.
I gulped. "Uh, the one I, uh—"
"The one you killed, yes." Sookie did not seem especially upset at that pronouncement. "She was trying to take me into the fairy realm with her. I didn't want to go." Sookie was quiet for a moment. "So, while I'm not usually big on the whole killing thing, I think what you did actually protected me." It was a begrudging admission, but I could feel her relief.
"Tara said I tricked you into drinking my blood. Was that when I bit you with Edgington?"
Sookie bit her lip. "No…that was in Dallas. Godric was missing, taken by a church group called The Fellowship of the Sun, a bunch of vampire haters. You asked me and Bill to go down and look for him. After we found him, a guy from the Fellowship blew up Godric's nest with body explosives." I felt her horror over the moment through our bond. "You were hit by shrapnel and told me that I needed to suck it out of you before it sealed into your body."
Even in my current state, I knew that metal would work itself out of my body, so I wasn't even able to consider the possibility that perhaps she had misunderstood my intentions. Obviously I had lied to her and taken advantage of her innocence. My opinion of myself took another dip.
I could feel her revulsion over the incident even now and I felt ashamed. "So you have never willingly taken my blood?" I asked.
"No."
I was silent for a while before finally saying roughly. "I'm sorry I forced you, Sookie."
I was surprised when she didn't feel surprised.
While she may have accepted that I was (now) the kind of person to apologize for hurting her, I wasn't quite so forgiving of my "other" self.
"So I really did all those terrible things your friend said I did." I said it; I didn't ask it.
"Yes," she agreed in a small voice. I felt a rush of pain from her, I assume from her memories of all I must have done in the past.
"Then your pain is my fault," I stated. "Why are you letting me stay with you?" I asked in a business-like tone. It was crazy for someone I had hurt so often and so much to trust me in her home.
Because there's more to you than your worst self," Sookie responded firmly. "I always knew there was –" She searched for the right word, "—decency in you even when you were a smug, sarcastic ass. I still knew it."
And I had apparently taken advantage of her decency to manipulate and use her.
I snorted. "Whether decency is in me is irrelevant," I said drily. I unhappily considered what I had learned about myself; it was painful to say it out loud, but it wasn't as if Sookie didn't already know these things about me. I was the only who had been ignorant of my true character. "I'm clearly capable of extreme cruelty," I said grimly.
"You were," Sookie agreed. "But I wouldn't be here with you now – I swear it – if I didn't know in my heart you could change." Her eyes softened as she looked at me. "I've seen you change and I like it. I like you." I could feel the waves of her liking for me flowing through the bond, but I was painfully aware of how unworthy I felt of those feelings. Sookie was too generous to me.
I thought of the long list of things I knew I had done to hurt her and wondered what else I had done that I didn't even know about yet.
I also couldn't conceive of how I could have done these things to her. The "other me" felt like a stranger; a stranger I couldn't trust because I couldn't understand his thinking. How could he have ever hurt Sookie? And what if that part of me returned? What if I turned into biting, cruel asshole when I was still alone in the house with Sookie?
I couldn't trust that he – that I – wouldn't hurt her, no matter what I felt at the moment. And I wouldn't be able to live with myself if that happened.
I looked earnestly at Sookie. "There's a light in you. It's beautiful." Not just the sunlight of her fairy blood; her generosity in taking me under her roof and taking care of me, despite what I had done to her in her past. "I couldn't bear it if I snuffed it out," I explained.
Through the bond, I felt Sookie absorbing my words, embracing what I was saying. I was glad she understood; but I knew that the only way I could be certain she wouldn't hurt would be to go, and go now.
It was hard to tear my eyes away from her face, but if I kept looking at her affectionate expression, I would never do what I needed to do. I lowered my eyes before rising from the couch and striding out of the house. It was the hardest thing I had had to do since finding myself in the dark, crowded magic shop in Shreveport.
Behind me, I felt a confusing tumble of feelings from Sookie – surprise; dismay; respect; sorrow; longing; worry for me; affection. The last emotion was almost my undoing, but I kept moving forward, focused on doing what needed to be done for her sake.
I was well down the path towards the road when she flew through the door and out onto the porch. "Eric!" What stopped me was not the way she said my name, although it was intense, frantic; it was the feelings I felt flowing towards me through our one-way bond. She didn't want me to go; she trusted me; she cared for me. Deeply. I turned and looked at her with shock.
"Please don't go." She looked at me pleadingly, and I felt her fear that I would turn again and go. I couldn't believe what I was feeling. I had been certain she would be relieved to see the last of me. Instead what I felt was her intense wish for me to come to her side, to remain with her. She wanted me with her. I didn't interpret it as desire, but as the loving comfort of a friend.
I came back slowly. I knew I should go; I knew it was the smart thing to do. But she held her arms out to me. She was not afraid of me; she trusted me; she wanted to hold me and comfort me.
I was weak. I went back.
She never wavered as I moved towards her and I felt no fear from her as I finally stepped into her waiting arms. She stood on the front steps of the porch, which made up for the normally significant differences in our heights. As her arms folded tightly around my neck and shoulders, I closed my eyes and let myself feel her heat and breathe in the sweet scent of her skin. I had been longing for this moment for days and had been certain just moments earlier that such intimacy between us would never be possible. Careful to be nothing but affectionate and gentle in the way I touched her – and still certain that she was being nothing but a friend to me – I buried the fingers of my left hand in the bundle of blond strands at the back of her head and then, lost in the feel of her, tenderly brushed the line of her back with just the fingertips of my other hand. I could feel her comfort flowing towards me through the bond and wished only that she could feel what I knew was my love for her and know that I would never hurt her, no matter what "other me" had done.
I was genuinely shocked when I felt Sookie press her lips to my jawline very softly. I drew back, slightly confused about her intent, but as her eyes met mine, she placed her hands to either side of my face. I felt the rush of desire from her just as she leaned forward to gently press her lips against mine. I wish I could say I had been a stronger man who resisted the temptation of kissing her, but it was too miraculous to me to stop. The woman I feared hated me was kissing me and I could feel her affection – and her desire –for me.
Fearful of somehow pushing her in a direction she did not want to go, I let her control the actions of our mouths. Our first kisses were tentative and soft, but as I felt the rush of passion well up between us, they grew more heated. Suddenly her hands were buried in my hair, her arms more tightly entwined around my neck, and her tongue invading my mouth.
She wanted me. As much as I wanted her.
"Inside," she whispered against my lips, and loathe to break our kisses, I edged her back towards the door of the house. I pushed open the door behind her and as we slipped over the threshold, still entwined, Sookie kicked off her shoes. Unable to pull my hands away from her curves, I pushed the door closed behind me with our combined weights.
It was amazing to finally touch her, to feel the heat of her skin and the silk of her hair as it ran between my fingers. More than that, I could feel her emotions for me and they excited as much – maybe even more – than her physical caresses. My hands slid greedily over her hips and that beautiful behind, before tangling in the tie at the back of her dress, tugging it free.
Deep inside, I felt a sensation of fear and then sorrow from Pam, but I was too dizzy with what was happening with Sookie to pay it much attention.
Sookie's dress fell to the ground around her ankles and she stood before me in just her panties and bra, her breasts surprisingly full and her skin sun-kissed in places I hadn't expected. "You're the most beautiful thing I've ever seen," I said thickly.
Sookie laughed. "Because you can't remember anything else," she responded saucily.
I pulled her hungrily into my arms again, anxious to plunder her with my lips, but she was as eager to divest me of my clothes as I had been with her, and I had to allow her to pull the sleeveless blue hoodie I wore over my head and throw it aside. We stumbled to the couch and Sookie positioned herself beneath me, our half-naked bodies entangled. I kissed and licked my way down her body, taking a savage pleasure in hearing her heart rate begin to trip faster and faster, and feeling with joy that she was aroused by what I was doing to her. I had just pressed my mouth against the lace of her panties, anxious to begin exploring her with my tongue, and with the intent of giving her as much pleasure as she would allow, when the front door flew open with a bang.
Beneath me, Sookie gasped and then sat up. "Bill!"
I whirled around, my fangs out in a flash.
It was a vampire. In a suit.
"What the hell!" Sookie stuttered behind me, trying to cover her body from the other vampire's view. I felt her embarrassment and that, along with the frustration of our moment being interrupted, made me growl at the intruder.
At vamp speed, he was on me, attempting to manhandle and punch me. He was much smaller than I was physically, however, and it took no great effort for me to grab him by the throat and casually toss him – hard – against the fireplace as Sookie pleaded with both of us to stop fighting. Before he could get up again, I grabbed the fireplace poker that Tara had threatened me with earlier and held it menacingly over him as if to stake him, although metal wouldn't have done him any fatal damage.
"Eric! Stop!" Sookie cried out. I could feel her fear and worry for the other vampire.
"Who is this vampire to you?" I ground out, one hand remaining on the smaller vampire's throat and the other holding the weapon at the ready.
"He's – he's your king," Sookie replied hesitantly.
Well, fuck.
Attacking one's monarch was punishable by death. If the king wanted to execute me, he was within his rights, regardless of the circumstances.
Shocked, I dropped the fire iron to the ground and stood up, withdrawing my fangs awkwardly. "My liege," I acknowledged. "Forgive me." I dropped to my knees and bowed my head to demonstrate my submission.
"Sheriff Northman," my king (Bill? Sookie's ex-boyfriend was my king?) said as he rose from the ground, dusting himself off. "You can rise, but don't move," he ordered me sharply before pulling out a phone and requesting two guards be sent to "Ms. Stackhouse's home" as soon as possible. I rose slowly and the king pursed his lips at me. "Do you have something more to wear?" he said with some disgust. I spotted my shirt on the other side of the room and pointed silently at it. "Don't move," he reiterated harshly before picking up my shirt himself and tossing it at me. I tugged it over my head.
Sookie was hurriedly pulling on her dress. "Bill, you can't arrest him!" she said anxiously.
"Sookie, I must. He's a threat to us all."
The guards were suddenly at the door, both humans dressed in dark clothing and I realized with only slight surprise that they were members of the guard squad I had discovered at the house beyond the cemetery previously.
"We'll be taking Sheriff Northman back to the compound," King Bill said. "Eric, I expect you to cooperate or I will ask the guards to respond to any resistance with fatal force."
One of the guards showed me that he was armed with a gun, and commented flatly. "Wooden bullets. Don't make me use them."
"Bill, this is ridiculous," Sookie spat out. "Eric is no threat to anyone in his current state."
"Sookie, he has been influenced by necromancers. At any moment, he could be used by the witches who did this to him to harm anyone around him. Including other vampires. Or you." King Bill looked pointedly at Sookie.
"He would never hurt me," Sookie said stoutly.
While part of my rejoiced that she believed that – I could feel the strength of her belief in me rushing at me through our link – another part of me took to heart what King Bill had said. If I was really controlled by the witches, couldn't I hurt Sookie no matter what my intent? Better to be taken from her house, to be locked up where I couldn't harm anyone, especially her.
The guards grabbed me by the upper arms and were about to haul me out the door when Sookie snapped, "Oh, for God's sake, can't he at least have shoes?" After a moment, my king nodded his permission and Sookie scrambled to the dining room, where my untouched box of clothes from Pam still sat on the table. Sookie pulled out the athletic shoes and hurriedly laced them for me.
The guards seemed reluctant to let me go to put them on, so Sookie gently guided the shoes onto to my bare feet and tied them.
"Thank you," I said softly, grateful for her concern. For a moment, our eyes met and I wished again she could feel my feelings as I felt hers.
"Enough," said the king, gesturing impatiently towards the door.
~*E&S*~
"You have no right to do this," Sookie snapped at the king as we entered the front lobby of the royal mansion, located, as I had guessed, just beyond the cemetery.
"I have every right! I am his king," King Bill responded irritably.
"Well, you aren't mine," Sookie answered tartly.
"Yes, you made that abundantly clear when you lied to my face," King Bill growled.
"You've got a hell of a nerve lecturing me on lying," Sookie countered. I could feel her escalating anger. While I was touched by her defense of me, I didn't feel right having her trying to defend me against what I had to assume was justice. I had heard enough about myself at this point that nothing I was accused of would surprise me; if my king had had me arrested, he was no doubt doing it with the best intentions.
"Your Majesty, whatever I am guilty of, Sookie had nothing to do with it," I stated. "She was only protecting me."
"How touching," King Bill replied sarcastically. "Silver him!"
"He isn't resisting!" Sookie protested as the guards roughly pulled my wrists behind my back. "You don't have to hurt him!" I groaned when the silver handcuffs coupled around my wrists and I instantly felt weakness spread through my body from the toxic contact.
"Where are you taking him?" Sookie demanded as the guards opened a door that revealed a stairway leading below ground.
"Sookie, stop! You don't have to do this," I said insistently. "You've done too much for me already."
"Yes, you certainly have," King Bill said acidly.
"That's what this is about?" I heard Sookie say angrily as the guards pushed me down the staircase. "You've been running around sticking your fangs and who knows what else into every girl in town, but the second I move on, you arrest him?"
King Bill's rude response made it a good thing that he had had me cuffed; despite my attempt to be a cooperative prisoner, I flinched as I faintly heard his words to Sookie. "Believe it or not, my entire existence does not revolve around what or who is between your legs."
The heavy steel door to the lower level had closed behind us, making it impossible to hear the details of what was now a shouted conversation, but I could feel Sookie's fury and hurt pulsing through our bond. As the guards walked me towards a silver-lined cell, I felt defiance and then frustration from Sookie before finally feeling her presence move away from the house. I was relieved; having her mixed up in vampire affairs worried me. The sooner she escaped from this house and from the attention of other vampires, the better. I seemed to have brought her nothing but trouble; maybe having me out from under her roof would give her some much-needed peace.
The human guards released my wrists from the silver handcuffs before placing me into my cell. As the door clanged shut in front me, I noticed an unpleasant odor. "It smells like death in here," I muttered to myself.
"That's me," a voice croaked from a far corner of the cell. I turned in surprise to see a figure, covered by a blanket, propped against a wall.
"Pam?" I could feel her through our bond. She was angry and depressed.
"Bill found you because of me," the voice confessed despondently. "I fucked up, royally. I'm sorry," she ended with a sob.
"Why are you hiding under there?" I asked inquisitively. Was I such a harsh Maker that she was afraid to face me when she'd made a mistake?
"I don't want you to see me like this," Pam responded glumly.
"Take it off," I said. I wasn't going to have a conversation with someone afraid to look me in the face. Maybe I could show Pam I wasn't the monster she appeared to be afraid of.
"No –" Pam pleaded with me.
"Sookie told me I was your Maker. I command you."
Sniffling, Pam pulled the blanket away from her head, revealing a face blood-stained with vampire tears and clotted with blackened rot. Pam appeared to be decomposing.
"Oh," I said, wishing now I hadn't forced her to reveal her infirmity. I remembered the glamorously outfitted Pam I had seen a few nights before in Sookie's living room. This wouldn't have been a pleasant situation for any vampire, but I suspected that is was especially trying for Pam.
"The witch. Lafayette. His boyfriend, his skank of a cousin – they did this to me," Pam spit out bitterly.
"Who's Lafayette?" And why did his name keep coming up?
"Forget it," Pam choked out wearily. "I can feel myself rotting." She unwrapped the blanket from around her and pushed it away on the floor. "I don't know how much time I have left."
I sank to the cot in the cell. "I'm sorry," I said sympathetically. I could feel her hurt and sorrow. "Are you afraid?" I asked gently.
"Fuck you!" Pam snarled in response. "Pieces of me are falling off. I'm pissed!"
Indeed she was; I could feel the white hot rage roil at me through our bond.
"I'm not going to die like this," Pam vowed, leaning forward intensely. "We need to get out of here and get the bitches who did this to me."
"No," I cut her off. "No, King Bill believes we are a danger to our kind." At least he thought I was. And a danger to Sookie as well.
I felt Pam's disgust and outrage before she ever opened her mouth. "Let me tell you a little something about King Bill," she began contemptuously. "He's a self-loathing, power-hungry, pompous little dork, and you hate his guts."
"That is treason," I said uncomfortably. For a moment, I wondered if Pam could be trying to trap me into saying something that would make it even easier for King Bill to execute me, but I could feel that she meant every word she had just said. If she felt this way, did Bill know? And if so, why hadn't he executed her already? Had I been protecting her from his wrath? I winced, thinking of my earlier thoughts that any vampire with an all-human guard had to be weak. Perhaps my progeny's traitorous tendencies had been picked up from me.
Pam may have been rotting, but she could still move with vampire speed. In a flash, she was kneeling beside me, looking intensely into my eyes. "Eric, snap the fuck out of it! You have no loyalty to Bill Compton! You are a Viking vampire god, and you bow to no one! If someone crosses you, you rip out their liver with one fang!"
Oh, just fucking great. Even if I could have discounted the humans' views of me as shaped by their encounters with my predatory side, how could I argue with what my own vampire child was telling me about myself? Pam probably knew me – the old me – better than anyone, and here she was telling me that all my worst fears of who I was when I was "myself" were as bad – no worse – than I already feared. Apparently smug, sarcastic ass/biting asshole me was also a traitor and brutal killer.
"No –" I choked out, in denial.
"Eric, I have been with you over 100 years," Pam said passionately. "We traveled the world together, killing and fucking and laughing –" I could feel the nostalgia for what Pam was remembering through our bond and I shifted uncomfortably.
"I don't remember that," I said faintly before standing to move away from her. And I didn't want to remember it, either.
"Oh, fucking hell," Pam cursed despondently. "You will. We'll get your life back, I swear!"
"I don't want it!" I turned and shouted furiously at her. "The things I've done – I don't want to remember." It had been bad enough hearing about it from everyone I had met – Sookie, the wolf, Tara, Bill, and now my own child. I didn't want to know more, to remember all those things that made me a monster in Sookie's – no, in my own eyes.
"You don't know what you're saying," Pam said numbly.
"I'm not the vampire you think I am," I said. "Not anymore." And I never would be again if I could help it.
I could feel Pam's shock and horror even before she began to make the strange, hitching sobs of someone whose heart has just been broken.
I lay down on the cot and turned my back to her, trying to tune out her pain. And while I found I could block the emotional sensations with some effort, I couldn't block out the sound of her weeping as she cried in her corner for the rest of the night.