A/N: Howdy! I am still here. Bite and Switch is my current baby, but Night Shift needs some love, too. I am going through some shit (quelle surprise) but this week feels better than last. And the middle child is home from university until Sunday, so that is always a big plus. And I am also getting a new fic-writing device that day (a spanky new cell phone), so that is also exciting. And maybe even inspirational, too. Who knows? Hopefully there will be lots of writing taking place in the next while. Reviews are a really great motivator.

Chapter 3

Sookie slept through the day again and woke up screaming that evening, mid-change. It didn't hurt, but it wasn't comfortable, either. It felt… weird. It was weird, and disorienting, and scary as hell. But then Wolf-Sookie took over, and Wolf-Sookie was starving.

She hunted for a while and then stretched out in the moonlight a few miles from her home once her belly was full. Sookie took the quiet time to try to become more… present. Purposeful. She stopped hiding inside the recesses of her changed brain and took a figurative look around. She was still terrified and confused and half-convinced that she was really just out of her mind, but she was no longer in the oblivion and blind panic of the past two nights. She tried to twitch her paw and it was easy. Wolf-Sookie still held the reins but she could take control if she needed to. Theoretically, anyway, she was no longer just a passenger. At the same time, Wolf-Sookie was still a part of her. It made her brain hurt.

She stayed aware the rest of the night. She felt the excitement of the chase. The euphoria when she caught her prey. She reveled in her new speed and agility. But she didn't pick up on the fact that she was still miles from home at daybreak, when she changed back. It was past noon when she finally hobbled back inside, naked and filthy and bleeding. She was beyond exhausted and in a lot of pain. Everything hurt, and her injuries from the attack the month before ached and throbbed terribly. It was the first time she had connected them to what had been happening the past three nights.

She was too tired to stand under the shower so she sat on the floor of the tub and did her best, but she was almost too weak to hold her arms up long enough to shampoo her hair. It was full of leaves and twigs and burrs and dried blood. She stayed under the spray until the water began to run cold and then she climbed into bed and fell asleep.

"Hey, Sookie? Where you at?"

She bolted awake. It was dark and she felt her face with her hands to make sure that she was still herself. She reached under the covers and felt the rest of her, too. She was still naked and all she could feel was her own skin. There was moonlight flooding in the window and she was back to being pretty sure that none of it had happened and that she was just crazy.

She tried to call back but nearly choked on the words. She cleared her throat and tried again. "I'm here, Jason. Just hold on and I'll be right out."

He was in the kitchen. She threw on some clothes and hoped that she looked better than she felt. It quickly became clear that she didn't.

Damn. What the fuck happened to her? Does she have a mean boyfriend I don't know about?

"You ok, Sook? You're looking a little rough."

She sure felt rough. And hot. She kind of felt like she was burning up. She wondered if she was really very ill and the whole thing had been a fever dream, although she really knew better. Regardless, she wasn't in any shape to shield effectively.

"Yeah, I'm feeling kind of sick. I think I must have a touch of the flu or something."

"You sound like shit, too."

"Gee, thanks."

He shrugged. "So I guess supper is out, then? We were supposed to meet at the new bar at six. I waited for almost an hour."

He tried to sound indignant but most of the wind had gone out of his sails. He was worried about her. It made her feel good. He had been a complete jerk to her a lot of the time when they were still living under one roof but he had really stepped up since Gran had died.

"Oh, shoot. Sorry, Jason. I really do feel gross and I haven't been sleeping well. I guess I slept the whole day away."

The past few days and nights were a complete blur. She didn't remember anything clearly — or normally, at least — since she'd been so jittery on Monday, before… something had happened. She'd had plans to meet Jason at Merlotte's on Thursday evening. She'd lost almost the whole week. It was a good thing that she was still out on workers' comp.

She resolved to put the whats and the whys and the hows of the whole thing out of her head for the time being.

He rummaged through her fridge and found some fried chicken from Sunday's dinner on a plate, covered in foil. He pulled it out, grabbed a drumstick and took a big bite. He studied her as he chewed. There was something different about her. He'd thought that she had looked rough at first, and she did, but it made her seem wild, somehow. Animal.

He shook himself. That was enough of that. He took another bite.

Sookie's stomach growled — loudly — and they both laughed. He held out the plate and she helped herself to a thigh. When she took a bite, her mind flashed to tearing the raw flesh from a possum carcass, but she just chewed the chicken carefully and was able to swallow. She thought that there was a good chance that it would stay down.

Jason set the plate down on the counter and stuck his head back into the fridge.

"Hey, you got any biscuits and gravy left?"

…

They agreed that Jason would pick her up the following evening and drive her to the new bar for supper. It had only been open for a week and a half and it was her first time going. Jason was already a regular. He led her back to the pool table and put his stack of quarters on the rail. Dawn Green swayed over less than a minute later. She whispered in Jason's ear and then giggled, and then shot Sookie a dirty look.

"Can I get you something, Sookie?"

Jason smacked her ass. "A pitcher and two glasses, Dawn."

Sookie rolled her eyes a little but she was used to mean girls acting like mean girls.

Jason was trash-talking his friends Hoyt Fortenberry, who was lining up his shot, and Rene Lenier, who was chalking his cue. Sookie leaned against the wall and tried to adjust. The brains of the bar patrons were loud and she was out of practice and very much still off-kilter from her strange week. But at least she felt better. And, for the second night in a row, it was past dusk and whatever-it-was hadn't happened. She had checked the newspaper that morning and figured out that the three nights she'd lost were the night of the full moon and the two surrounding it. She wondered what, if anything, would happen the following month.

She watched Dawn twitch back to the bar and then talk to the man behind it. Sookie had heard about Sam Merlotte but this was her first time seeing him. He was a few years older than her and handsome, with crazy reddish-golden hair that stuck out all over the place and a pretty smile.

He turned to look at her, and his smile widened a little. She smiled back and even got a couple of butterflies fluttering around in her stomach. Of course, she knew better than to expect anything romantic to happen — or to even be possible— but there was nothing the matter with admiring a cute guy. And maybe even flirt with him a little bit. She looked away.

Hoyt sunk the eight ball and Jason grabbed a pool cue off of the stick holder beside her.

"Me and you against Rene and Hoyt."

"Sounds good."

He scrutinized her for several seconds.

She looks real pretty tonight. She looked beat to shit last night, though. How much makeup does she got on?

"Grab a cue stick, Sook. You can break."

She did a passable job of scattering the balls and Jason was pleased. Dawn brought the beer and Sookie sipped hers between shots. She was really glad she'd come, at least so far. The guys were all ribbing each other, but they were being nice and she was enjoying herself. She bantered with them and managed to stay out of their heads, for the most part.

She and Jason beat Rene and Hoyt twice and then they gave up the table to a couple of workers from Norcross, the lumber processing plant. The four of them moved to a booth and ordered another pitcher and some fried pickles for the table.

Sookie excused herself and went to the bathroom a couple of minutes later. She didn't usually care for beer, but she was on her third glass and was more than a little tipsy, and it was running right through her. She checked out her reflection while she washed her hands afterwards. She definitely looked much better than she had the night before. It was incredible how quickly she seemed to heal now.

She opened the ladies' room door and nearly ran into the bar's owner, just leaving the men's room. She smiled at him again.

"Oops. Sorry about that."

He smiled back. "My fault. I should have been looking where I was going. I'm Sam Merlotte, by the way. This is my place. You're Jason's sister, right?"

"That's right. I'm Sookie Stackhouse."

He was a hard read at first, but she could tell that he'd heard all about her. Fortunately, none of it had seemed to make him think less of her.

"Well, it's a pleasure to finally meet you, Sookie."

"You too." It was. She liked him already. "This place is great. Bon Temps really needed something like this."

He shrugged.

"Thanks. People seem to be enjoying it so far. I've been busier than I could have hoped for. Hey, you weren't looking for a new place to work, were you? I definitely need to hire another waitress. We aren't as glamorous as the Grabbit Kwik, but I promise the only dog that hangs out near my dumpster is a real sweetheart."

She laughed. "I guess my reputation precedes me. I would love to, just as soon as I get cleared to go back to work by the doctor. My lawyer told me not to go back to the store, anyway. Should I drop a resume by? Do I need to fill out an application?"

She heard in his thoughts that it would be just a formality, but he wouldn't mind reading her resume to find out more about her. She was flattered rather than creeped out; it was a small town and he could find out the same information by asking a few questions about her to just about anyone who came in. Besides, she really did think he was cute. And there was something about him that made her feel drawn to him, somehow. And there was something about the way he smelled…

He liked the way she smelled, too. Sweet and clean and feminine. His thought patterns were getting easier to read the more time she spent talking to him. She felt a real connection there but she didn't think she would be able to be intimate with him any easier than with anyone else. It was nearly impossible to enjoy herself and stay in the moment when she could hear everything that the other person was thinking about, especially when they were touching. She just couldn't block those thoughts out at all. And during intimate moments, it was a real turn off to hear what the other person was thinking - whether it about her or not.

And she thought it was silly to be thinking about being intimate with him a couple of minutes after meeting him, anyway.

Except that he was thinking about being intimate with her.

She blushed a little and excused herself. She was looking forward to coming back and flirting with him another time, though. And she would drop off a resume while she was at it. She was pretty sure that the doctor would sign off on her returning to work when she went to her next appointment the following week. She thought that Sam would be a good boss. And, thanks to the telepathy, she was a damn good judge of character.

At the end of the night, Sam brought their bill to the table himself so he could flirt with her again. It felt nice to be friendly back.

Jason paid. He had stayed relatively sober and drove her home, just like he'd promised. He was planning to go back after he dropped her off to find someone to hook up with. Probably Dawn.

He looked over at Sookie and smiled.

"You had a good night."

It wasn't a question. He had been really worried the night before and was relieved. She smiled back.

"I really did. Thank you for dragging me out and showing me a good time, Jason."

"You're welcome. But you gotta pay next time."

She laughed. "Of course."

She hummed along to the country song playing on the radio under her breath for the next little bit. She didn't want to expose her poor brother to her singing voice. He looked over at her again.

"Sam Merlotte sure was friendly tonight."

"He seems really sweet."

Jason snorted. "Yeah. Sweet on you."

She laughed and then shrugged. "It was just a bit of harmless flirting. I couldn't be with him any more than I could anyone else, though. You know that. He offered me a job, though."

"No shit? You gonna take it?"

She shrugged again. "Just as long as the doctor and Sid Matt give me the ok."

After he dropped her off, she drank a big glass of water and got a quick shower and then curled up in bed. She still had a pleasant buzz going on. She thought about Sam again before she fell asleep, but that night she dreamt about the strange, beautiful man she'd seen a few nights before in the woods. About him taking her over and over again, all night long, in seemingly every way she could think of.

When she woke up the next morning, she wondered if she would ever see him again. She didn't think about Sam Merlotte at all.