Canon time: S4E10

[onceaviking]

They are seated on the couch.
At either end.

Sookie is picking at her nails. There are no cushions or she might have grabbed one to hold on to. This is - so awkward.
She can hardly look at him.

Eric is still in his bloody clothes. After a while, when it becomes apparent that she won't initiate the conversation, he leans forward, his massive hands loosely folded between his knees.

"I remember everything," he tells her. Softly.
"Us."

She isn't looking at him.

"Nothing's changed."

"Except you," she replies. He has. His walk. His posture. His voice. Even his gosh darn hair.

"I haven't changed," he replies. "I'm just - more.The other Eric is still here.
Sookie."

And then he reaches over and touches his fingers to her chin, making her turn her face to look at him.

"Look at me."

He needs her to see him. To understand.
"Can't you see him in my eyes?"

She hesitantly looks at him. At his eyes. And she does. She does see the new Eric. And the old one.

"Yes."

She does see it. And yet she stays at the other end of the couch.

"So, what's the problem?"

And she looks down and then back up at him again. And she says, "Bill."

He hadn't expected her to say that. She can tell. So she tries to explain, briefly entertaining the notion of telling him about her dream. The one where she realized that she cared for the both of them.
If only it hadn't turned into a sex-dream she might have.

Instead, she says,"When you were about to kill him I just couldn't bear the thought of a world without him in it."

He just looks at her with those new and old and different eyes. Eyes that seem to show her much more of what's going on inside of him than they used to.

"I think it was how I was able to stop you," she continues. Hesitantly, but determinedly.

"I love you. I don't want to lie to you but I can't help it.I love him too."

"How is that possible?"

He doesn't understand. He remembers how it felt. How she had felt.

"Sometimes I think it's because you've both given me your blood. Maybe it's just chemical."
Maybe it's just the way she is. And maybe that's okay. She doesn't see why it can't be girls who want two men and not just the other way around. But the other explanation is simpler.

"You gave yourself to me," Eric says. "Completely."

Insistently.

"You are mine!"

So old Eric is back.

"I never promised that," she says, her eyes and cheeks hearing up. And then she adds - because two can play that game - "And you gave yourself to me. Completely."

So there.

Except that instead of deflecting, or just being wildly inappropriate, he says, "Yes. I did."

She didn't expect that.
And she didn't expect the follow-up at all.

Him looking her deeply in the eye and saying, "I love you."

Comments

[lazy_but_loyal]

The front door opens exactly at that moment.

And Pam comes in, hurried and anxious. Approaching the couch, she is focused solely on Eric.

"Bill called me," she says, her voice pitched high, stripped of its Southern affectations and dry, worldly cynicism. This is the voice of a Progeny who has longed for contact with her Maker. The side of Pam that only Eric knows.

"Are you back? Is it you?"

She feels the pull of their bond again. But does he?

[onceaviking]

He gets up and steps closer to her.
Tall and pale and looming.

"Yes," he says. "It's me."
And he sounds -almost - as he used to.

[lazy_but_loyal]

She can't help but put her arms around him, embracing him, clinging to him, and leaning into his firm, broad shoulder.

"My god, I missed you," she sobs softly. The (blood) tears welling in her eyes.

"That fucking sorceress. I thought I'd lost you forever."

And that is something she had lain awake and cried about for many a day as she healed herself from that fucking sorceress's rotting spell. Now that Eric is here, she's sure that revenge is imminent.

When she reluctantly pulls back, she sweeps her hands down his arms and looks up at him. Yes, Eric is back. But he still seems a little off, as if there is somehow...more to him than she's familiar with.

"How did you get her to break the curse?"

[onceaviking]

"I didn't" he says.
"Sookie did."

Her knows how Pam feels about Sookie. And that is why he turns a little, to look back at Sookie, and to discreetly inductee to Pam that a small word of thanks might be prudent.

[lazy_but_loyal]

And that is when Pam's gaze finally slides toward the person sitting on the far end of the sofa.

"Oh."

This is awkward.

She had just nearly cried her eyes out in front of Sookie and she will never know what Eric means to her and--

She wipes a tear away and composes herself.

"Well, thanks," she says. Not exactly curt or ungrateful, but stiff. And begrudging. And awkward.

[onceaviking]

"Don't mention it," Sookie replies.
Politely.

Even if the whole thing is awkward as as everything.

Pam crying on Erica shoulder isn't something she'd want to witness. Ever.

[lazy_but_loyal]

Right. Well. Back to Eric.

"Why didn't you summon me the second you were free?" Pam asks him, her tone reverting to a soft, almost childlike plea.

She's looking at his face, trying to meet his eyes, but Eric...seems...

Distracted.

And her gaze briefly slides over to Sookie again.

She lays a hand on Eric's shoulder.

"Hey..."

[onceaviking]

Maybe it's her light. Sookie's light.
Making his heart feel - open?
Vulnerable?
Yearning?

But shouldn't she feel the same?

And then Pan talks to him and he looks at her and he sees the pain in her eyes.

So he embraces her and drops a kiss on the top of her head.

"We'll talk about it later," he tells her.
At Milliways.

Maybe his thoughts will have settled enough for him to be ready to talk with her.

[lazy_but_loyal]

It's the kind of placating kiss that Eric often gives her to reassure her, but she isn't certain if his heart is even in it.

"Sure..."

She watches Eric walk away into the other room.

"Fine," she huffs, resigned. She'll just give him his space.

But for now she's left with Sookie. It's always about Sookie, isn't it? Sookie saves the day, blah blah blah. Ugh.

In the other room, the double doors to Bill's office are flung open, and Bill and Nan storm out, having had a heated discussion (argument, really) about who to blame for the evening's disaster (Nan), and just as importantly, what to do with Antonia. Bill's plan: take her out by any means necessary.

"Fire killed her 400 years ago, we can only hope that it works again," Bill fumes as he makes his way toward the stairs, trying to get away from Nan and find some peace and quiet for a minute.

"Blowing up Moongoddess Emporium is not a twenty-first century solution!" Nan snaps, furiously dialing a number on her cell phone. "You're fucking our agenda up the ass," she hisses at him, before turning to her agent on the line and heading back into the office. "I need you to get me off the Greta Van Susteren show tomorrow...!"

Bill growls through clenched teeth, "God, I hate her."

[onceaviking]

Eric is leaning back against the wall, arms crossed.
Observing.

When Sookie hears Nan and Bill she rushes through the door. (It also means she won't have to endure Pam's sullen silence).

Blowing up The Moon Goddess Emporium? But?

"Bill, you can't do this. Tara and other humans are in there."

There's gotta be another way!
Surely, Bill will see this.

Before he can answer, Eric says, drily, "They bet on the wrong horse. It's too bad."

His side is turned to Sookie and her doesn't look at her.

He does glance at Pam though.

[lazy_but_loyal]

Pam decides to follow Sookie, just to see what the commotion is all about. Bill and Nan, of course, bickering like old marrieds.

But blowing up the witch's place? Pam's interest is piqued!

And for some reason, Eric's comment surprises her, in the best of ways. She meets his glance. And she can't help a pleased little smile. Because that's the sort of thing the real Eric Northman would say.

However, Sookie's protests are falling on Bill's deaf ears. He's just going to blatantly ignore her until he can't.

"I've summoned Jessica. We'll secure the windows, silver ourselves, and go to ground," he says, his tone firm and definitive. "Pam, you'll stay here."

Oh hell yeah.

"I'm so in," she insists.

Nobody's blowing up some witches without her.

[onceaviking]

Sookie is shocked!
(Actually, she isn't. And that in itself is just so wrong).

"If Tara hasn't earned me about the hotel,"she says, staring Bill down and ignoring there others for now, "Eric would still be a zombie and you'd be dead!"

Do you get that, Bill Compton?

[dobadthings]

Sometimes Sookie tries Bill's patience with her stubbornness.

"My kind is still in danger. I can't risk potential genocide to save one human just because she's your friend," he says coldly.

[onceaviking]

Eric shifts a little.
"Loveable, isn't he?" he says in Sookie's general direction.

Seeing as how she loves both of them, he might as well draw get attention to their similarities, right?

Fucking Compton.

Sookie glances at him and then she presses on.
"At least let me help. Last time, I-"

[dobadthings]

At this point, Bill isn't sure if Eric is actually helping or hurting his cause.

"Last time you helped, you got shot and almost died," he reminds Sookie, his voice softening slightly, as he comes down off the stairs to be closer to her. He'd given her his blood, terrified that it might have been too late. He didn't want that to ever happen again.

"Stay away from there, Sookie. Tomorrow we're gonna finish Marnie once and for all."

But when has Sookie ever listened to him?

[onceaviking]

Eric doesn't roll his eyes but it comes close.

Great strategizing there, Compton.
Telling her your plans.

That The Authority let Bill be in charge tells you all you need to know about that little outfit.

Sookie is still trying to reason with him.
"And if innocent people die?" she asks, eyes wide and beseeching.

[dobadthings]

"It's war," Bill simply says, haughty and sure of himself, sounding rather like the Confederate soldier he used to be long ago without really realizing it.

"It happens."

And he's back to cold again.

[onceaviking]

Sookie stares at him.

He is serious.

Her jaw works - and then she turns on her heel and walls out the door, slamming it after her as she leaves.

Eric looks at Bill, but doesn't say anything.

[dobadthings]

When Sookie sets her mind on something, she's going to do it. Well, they'll just have to find a way to work around her.

Bill glances back at Eric. At least they're on the same side (he thinks), for now at least.

"I'll have a cell and chains prepared," he says, then adds, because of the last time Eric and Pam were here, "for all of us. In the meantime, there's TruBlood in the kitchen. You can help yourselves."

Southern hospitality and all.

"Oh, and-- try to stay out of Nan's way."

Bill turns to go upstairs. He needs to brood.

[onceaviking]

Eric doesn't say anything.

He just watches Bill ascend the stairs with a wry look on his face. And then he turns to Pam.

[lazy_but_loyal]

Pam watches Eric watch Bill leave. And then they're alone.

Well. Not really. Nan is still yelling on the phone in the office, and Jessica is on her way over. They won't have any privacy here.

Pam lingers in the doorway, her arms crossed.

"You must've had a long night," she murmurs. "I'll give you some space."

Eric will talk when he wants to.

[onceaviking]

He glances at her briefly, his face black and unreadable.

And then he nods.

[lazy_but_loyal]

Pam nods as well, and she turns to go back into the other room.

They don't have much time here. But elsewhere they do.

She'll know where to find him.