What Light From Yonder Window Breaks (Multi!)

[Eric Northman]

Eric fought to take in the overload of information he was now gifted with. He had thought that gentle prompting on his part would tempt Sookie to stay out of the painkiller haze that she'd soon start to swim in, but he was wrong. He was hit with a barrage of fairy knowledge, about their liking dancing and Claudine and a recap of what had happened in their lives recently. He listened to it all and filed away the things he didn't know so that he could piece them together later with the things he was aware of already.

She couldn't sleep in his office. The desk was no place for her, nor was the couch, which would have been too small to be effectual for a sleeping place. Pam was more than capable of running the bar without him, and so he made his preparations to depart. Grabbing a set of car keys from the top drawer of the desk he turned to Sookie, sliding one arm under her legs and the other around her waist before he lifted her, with effortless care and began to make his way out of the office and through the corridors to the back staff door of the establishment.

He wasn't about to take no for an answer. His place was more secure than Fort Knox on a good day, and he would have people there during the day – people he trusted who could look after her. He pondered her question even as he opened the door to his black BMW convertible, sliding her onto the cream leather seat gingerly. Once installed in the driver's seat, the road flew away beneath the tyres. “It matters,” he said then, whether she would remember her question of or not, “Because Claudine might not be who she claims to be.”

The roads were quiet and uncluttered, and Eric was glad to use the travel time to think on what Sookie had told him. All too soon, though, they were at his place. He hit the button on his keys to open the security gate, and the Beamer purred into the garage happily before he cut the ignition. “I think it's best if you stay here for a couple of days,” he stated. “I'll have some of your things fetched.”

[sookiestackhouse]

There was no arguing with Eric at this point and to be quite honest, Sookie didn’t want to argue with him anyway. Had she not just been injured, again, by some supernatural force (which was seeming less and less super and more just natural as her own life continued to intertwine with that of the darker nightlife) she might have protested against his picking her up. But right now she was exhausted from a mixture of confusion, pain, pain killers, vampire blood, conflicting emotions for both Eric and Bill, and the disorientation that comes with waking up from being passed out for any length of time. So instead of resisting, she just leaned her head against Eric’s chest, holding her little bottle of pills to her own as the tall blonde and handsome carried her to the car. She probably could have walked. It wouldn’t have been painless, but she could have done it. This was preferable at the moment.

She also wasn’t really paying attention to where they were going and just about everything she’d said in the bar was fading into a distant memory as exhaustion began to take over as the dominant feeling in her body. Maybe it was the pain killers. In any case, when Eric spoke as he drove, her eyes were closed and she was barely registering words, but she was able to get the just of what was being said. “I’m pretty sure she’s a fairy.” Her voice was mumbled from being tired and even if she had wanted to open her eyes she probably couldn’t have. The woman was already half asleep.

But when the car slowed down and Eric began talking again, she noticed it was too soon to be in Bon Temps already. Her eyes shot open and she looked around, expecting to see her own little house despite the fact that she knew they weren’t going to be there. Eric had just said it would be better if she stayed with him. She felt like she should tell him she’d be fine at home, the only vampires with access to her house were him, Bill, Jessica, and Pam. Sookie hadn’t wanted Chow inside her little house, she didn’t trust the guy, and she wasn’t about to invite any other vampires into her home. Werewolves were another story but she didn’t think she’d have any problem with them. Tara and Jason could check on her, Jessica could come over at night or Eric could send Pam over to make sure everything was fine if he was that worried about it.

Valid reasons to be taken back to Bon Temps, but having Eric that close was just too tempting. She wanted to stay with him, whether that was against her better judgment or not. She couldn’t help that she still had feelings for Bill, but right now, she couldn’t see any reason for going back to someone who had manipulated her so much, and Eric didn’t hold anything back from her, aside from emotions maybe but he was a thousand year old vampire and Sookie supposed she couldn’t expect much in the way of feelings from him so quick. Besides, as far as she knew, everything he felt for her was purely physical.

Still, she wanted to stay, so she didn’t put up a fight. Instead she just nodded and opened the door as soon as the car was stopped. Eric was beyond confusing. What did it mean that he wanted her to stay with him? Was it just that close to dawn that he didn’t want to risk taking her back to Bon Temps. Sookie could understand that, but it wouldn’t require her to be here for more than a day and this was Eric - he could just get someone to take her home. She couldn’t think straight though, so she was stuck with assuming he either just didn’t trust Bill around her, which he would have to be since he lived across the graveyard from her, or he really thought it was better if she stayed there for now.

“That’s very nice of you, Eric.” She forced a tired smile, there was no excuse for being rude, especially to someone taking care of you, at least that’s what Gran would have told her. She wished Gran was here to tell her what exactly you said to a vampire who quite possibly had just saved your life.