Season Four

[onceaviking]

She opens the door behind her and walk him back inside with her, still kissing him.

She is kissing him.

Just one kiss and he promised her that he would be happy. And now they are raining down on him like the sweetest dew and she is moving back toward the couch (kicking off her slippers on the way) and his hand is touching the soft fabric of her dress and - yes. Yes he is happy.

They settle on the couch and he touches her, almost hesitantly.
Sookie is far more resolute, as she grabs hold of the hem of his top and pulls it off him, grinning a little.

It's the sweetest thing he has ever seen.

Her dress goes too and she lies there in her underwear, all beautiful and radiant and warm and alive.

He leans down and kisses her rib cage.
Then her belly.

Sookie lets her head fall back and moans -

Comments

[dobadthings]

Well...that's a good point.

Pam had lied to Bill to protect Eric, but she would have done anything, treasonous or not. As Eric's progeny, that's where her loyalty lies first.

Besides, she's been suffering enough.

So he'll grant it.

"Anything else?"

[onceaviking]

"Sookie."

This is important.

"Tell her I was born the night she found me. And because of her, I went to my true death knowing what it means to love.
Tell her, "Thank you."

He isn't crying. His voice isn't shaking.

If this is it, do be it.

But he needs to know that Sookie will know what she means to him.
Meant to him.


And he knows this cannot be easy to listen to. With things being what they are. So he continues,"She still cares for you. I saw it last night."

There is a second part to this request. A wish. A hope.

"After I'm gone, I hope you'll find your way back to each other."

[dobadthings]

Eric's sincerity is becoming uncomfortable. Even...moving. His words prick Bill's conscience, making him unable to meet Eric's eyes for too long, to see his pale, earnest face in the moonlight. Eric has changed. Has truly changed, and-- it seems, for the better.

Better than Bill had ever been, though he'd tried. For Sookie.

Indeed, none of this is easy to listen to, especially when Bill can still hear Sookie's pleading voice:

If you ever loved me, you won't hurt him.

He turns away for a moment, nodding to the guard holding the long box. The guard opens it, revealing a relic, a gilded, ceremonial wooden stake on a bed of purple velvet, smoothly carved, and tipped with silver. Bill carefully picks it up.

this is wrong

and you know it

Eric continues to speak of Sookie with such hope even now, and Bill cannot help but ask him, incredulous, "Why would you hope for that?"

[onceaviking]

Isn't it obvious?

"Cause she deserves happiness," Eric replies. Sincerely and selflessly.

"With whoever can give it to her."

And surely the King of Louisiana and Mississippi can give her that?
Surely he will want to.

For Sookie's sake.

[dobadthings]

For Sookie. Always for Sookie. Even in his last moments, Eric only wants the best for Sookie. If he could bring her the moon, he would try.

Bill knows. Her happiness was all he ever wanted, too, even if it meant giving her up.

if you ever loved me

He sets his jaw and tightens his grip on the stake.

Stepping closer to Eric, standing above him--

this is wrong

He swiftly raises the stake--

[onceaviking]

Eric lifts his eyes to the sky.
Looking at the vast darkness. The stars. The moon.

He has already hair one more look at the sun that was rightly his.
He has known love.
Now he can see the lights of night (you still have the stars. And the moon ) one final time.

The movement bares his neck and raises his chest.

He is ready.

[dobadthings]

Bill aims for Eric's heart.

His heart.

Eric...has a heart.

That's what it is. That's what's different.

That's what Sookie has found in him.

With a sharp but silent intake of breath, Bill abruptly steps back, away from Eric, and lowers his hand. His knuckles are white as he still grips the stake, his lips a thin, pale line.

For a moment, Eric may not be able to tell whether or not Bill still intends to execute him.

[onceaviking]

He waits for the stake - but it doesn't come.

He blinks and shifts his gaze to Bill. And the lowered stake.

And then back to Bill's face.

His eyes are wide and uncertain.

[dobadthings]

Bill tries to keep his expression neutral and remain impassive, but he is clearly struggling.

He lays the stake down in the box and shuts the lid. With this, his decision is final.

"Release him," he tells the guards.

One of the two guards holding Eric unlocks the silver handcuffs and removes them, slipping them off his burned wrists. They then are suddenly almost benign, helping Eric to his feet.

Bill looks at him, still struggling with his own compassion. Will he regret this? Maybe. But ultimately, he's doing this for Sookie.

"You can tell Sookie everything yourself," he says to Eric, an uneasy kindness in his voice. "You are free to go."

[onceaviking]

Eric rubs his wrists. Then he looks at Bill.

Confused.

Grateful.

"My liege. Am I not still a threat?"
He doesn't quite understand what happened.

[dobadthings]

Bill hesitates, but only slightly. As King he will always have an answer for everything.

"What matters is that you are not a threat now," he replies. "As long as I have the witch in custody, we all should be safe."

He signals to one the guards. "Release his Progeny."

The guard wordlessly heads off into the mansion.

For vampires, doing the right thing or the wrong thing is irrelevant. They do whatever is best for vampires as a whole, or for themselves as an individual. Morality has nothing to do with practicality.

But Bill will never forget that being with Sookie helped him reclaim his humanity.

He looks at Eric, and glances away toward Sookie's house, beyond the darkness, and back up at him.

"Go," he says with a faint nod.

[onceaviking]

He sees the glance.

And so he sinks down again, to one knee, and bows his head.

"Thank you."

He looks up at him, the light of the moon reflecting in his eyes.

"Thank yiu."

And then he gets to his feet and runs off, headed for Sookie's house.

[lazy_but_loyal]

Pam has been sitting on the bed, waiting for that moment of anguish, when Eric is ripped from her.

She waits, and waits. But it doesn't come.

At the sound of footsteps in the hall, she stands up, anxious.

It's a guard. He unlocks the cell door and slides it open, stepping back to let her through.

"The King has released both you and Eric Northman."

Pam...is dumbstruck.

Moving slowly, as if this were a dream, she steps out of the cell. She turns to look at the guard once, who nods, and gestures for her to continue on her way.

Eric is alive. Eric is alive.

This is all that matters.

She rushes up the stairs into the main room of the mansion and out the front doors.

Bill is standing on the porch, alone with a snifter of blood in his hand, forlornly looking up at the full moon. When Pam appears, he turns his head to look at her. His face is now the mask of vampire impassiveness.

Without a word, Pam gives him a curtsey. Grateful and polite, slow and graceful. She is an old world Victorian after all.

And then she takes off at vampire speed into the darkness, into the heart of Bon Temps, determined to hunt down every last bitch in that witch's circle.

Thanks, Bill.

[onceaviking]

Sookie is walking among the trees.

As if the whole - vampire thing wasn't bad enough, Jason has gotten into his dumb head that he is somehow becoming a werepanther and has gone running in the darkness to prepare for the change.
Or whatever.

She has no time for this.

But he is her brother and so she is here, walking through the undergrowth. Brandishing Grandpa's old shotgun.

"Jason? Come on!" she yells.
"I love you, but my feet hurt, mosquitoes are eatin' me alive, and you ain't even gonna turn into a werepanther."

The night air is heavy. Oppressive.

She is doing her level best not to think about Bill.
Or Eric.

"Can you hear me? You ain't gonna be a werepanther!"

A branch breaks.
She spins, raising the gun, her hands damp with sweat.

And there he is.

Big, floppy haired Eric in her brother's old clothes. Pale and - Well, not alive but not dead-dead.

"How?" she asks, hardly able to believe her eyes.

"The king set me free," he answers, his voice so soft as to be almost inaudible.

Afterwards, neither will be able to say who took the first step, who leaned in.
Who initiated the kiss.

But afterwards he will remember her lips moving against his skin, soft as flower petals. The scent of her skin, honey-golden and full of light. The light of the moon painting them both with light and shadow.