Title: Where You Gonna Run To?

Pairing: Pam/Tara

Rating: T

Synopsis: At wit's end with Pam, Tara decides to take off.

Disclaimer: I don't own Tara or Pam or Ginger or Lettie Mae and her janky wigs.

Author's Note: I strongly believe everything goes better with music...and cheese. So consider this the first fic where my music preoccupation gets the best of me. Also, all of my stories will be/are from the same universe. I'm just bouncing around in time.

"Fuck this shit," Tara spat as she stormed through the door leading to Fangtasia's basement dungeon. Ignoring the stairs, Tara hopped over the railing with otherworldly grace and agility. Landing neatly on her feet, she paced the gloomy space like an injured tiger.

Her mind was racing a thousand miles a minute. Tara fought with every fiber of her being to shut it down, to calm herself, but it was no avail. She saw her life flash before her eyes, a series of unfortunate events:

Born direly premature, raised by a raging alcoholic, forced to grow up too soon, always fighting something or other, and dead before her thirtieth birthday.

Resurfacing memories sent ripples of sadness through the young vampire that quickly turned to rage. With the flick of her hand, Tara sent a solid wood coffin spiraling into the air. She paid it no heed as it smashed into pieces upon landing.

Grab your shit and go, she told herself before realizing that she had nothing to grab. All she owned was the shirt on her back and, technically, she didn't even own that.

Pam owned it, just like she owned her.

Without thinking, Tara ripped the shirt from her body and tossed it aside. Now all she wore was a white undershirt and black pants, courtesy of a care package Lafayette mailed her upon learning she was staying at the vampire bar.

"Twenty-eight years on earth and ain't shit to show for it," Tara laughed derisively at her predicament.

Lacing a shaky hand through her dark chestnut colored hair, Tara took one last look at the place she'd briefly called home.

She thought of the days she slept in the confines of the coffin she'd just destroyed, how she strange, yet surprisingly safe, she felt nestled inside of it in the beginning.

She remembered the first time she'd descended the stairs to find a menacing blonde vampire woman about to snuff the life out of the only real family she had left. And with that thought, Tara cursed herself for being stupid enough to believe that same woman could ever truly care about her.

Fighting back tears, Tara ran toward the stairs. She was going to leave this place behind her once and for all.

Emerging from the basement at lightening speed, Tara nearly collided with a bleached blonde wearing a crop top and daisy dukes.

"You all done down there?" Ginger asked helpfully. She'd always liked the newborn vampire. Even though she was young, Tara was one of the few fangers who didn't treat her like a snack machine.

"Yeah. Thanks," Tara replied hurriedly before zooming toward Fangtasia's exit.

Aside from Ginger, who checked in on things from time to time, the club was completely empty. Fangtasia had been shut down several months prior, after parish officials deemed it a health hazard for humans.

Morning was still a few hours away. But if Tara was going to get out of dodge and find a safe place to sleep, she couldn't waste any time. She nearly took the exit door off its hinges as she sped through it and made for her battered old pickup truck.

As Tara double-checked the travel coffin in the bed of the truck, she felt an unmistakable presence that stopped her dead in her tracks. Without so much as a word, Tara gruffly tightened the tarp over the travel coffin and walked toward the front of the truck.

"Tara," Pam called out in an uncharacteristically soft voice.

Tara turned around to see her maker standing before her. Dressed simply in a green cashmere sweater and dark jeans, Pam looked more human, more vulnerable than she'd ever seen her. It's too late for that, Tara told herself.

Snatching her greedy eyes away, she fumbled for her car keys.

"Wait," Pam demanded, this time in a more commanding voice.

Tara ignored her and opened the driver's side door.

"As your maker, I command you…" Pam began only to be cut off by her progeny.

"What? You command me to what? Stop? Sit? Roll over and be your pet? Or is your sex toy? Should I play dead and act like I don't have any feelings? Should I act like you?" Tara's questions landed like punches as she hurled them at Pam. "What do want from me?" she asked finally, her voice betraying the resignation she felt.

A moment passed in silence, giving Tara all the answers she felt she needed.

"Right. Look, why don't you just save us both the trouble and release me-"

Tara's question ended abruptly as she felt herself backing against her truck to get away from the sudden nearness of Pam's enticing body.

"Is that what you want?" Pam's own question was just above a whisper.

Staring back into Pam's startlingly pale blue gaze, Tara's jaw clenched as if readying for a fight. "I wanted to know I mean something to you," Tara spoke purposefully and full of resolve.

That was all Tara ever wanted or needed in life, to mean something to someone. Love in no uncertain terms; in death she thought she'd found it, but now she knew she was wrong.

In a flash, Tara slipped away from her maker, climbed into the driver's seat of her truck and drove off.

She forced her starless eyes ahead and willed them not to look back at the sight of the woman she'd come to love more fiercely and quickly than she ever thought possible.

She drove until the familiar sights and sounds of her hometown faded and nothing but dense trees and pitch-black country roads greeted her every turn.

She drove until she was lost and out of fuel.

Pulling off onto the makeshift shoulder of the dirt road, Tara breathed a long sigh and laid her head against the truck's steering wheel. She'd been so focused on getting out of Bon Temps, she hadn't once thought of stopping for gas.

Story of my life, she thought to herself, always runnin' on empty.

Grabbing her last True Blood from the glove compartment, Tara took stock of her current predicament. She was in Mississippi. Where in Mississippi? She hadn't the slightest idea. And she was out of fuel in more ways than one. Fortunately, morning was still three hours away. Tara flicked on the car radio, hoping the music would offer some reprieve from her thoughts.

"To the window, to the wall, 'til the sweat drop-"

Nope.

"Louisiana woman, Mississippi man, we get together-"

Double nope.

After a few seconds of playing with the radio dial, Tara settled on a familiar Louisiana channel, the only one she could find with clear reception. A disc jockey's disembodied voice filtered into the car:

"Alright, comin' up next, we have a song request from Lettie Mae and it's dedicated to, 'all the wayward souls out there'. Well, Amen to that, Lettie Mae! "

Tara cracked up despite herself and listened as Nina Simone's "Sinnerman" began to play. The laughter quickly faded once she caught the sight of headlights in her rearview mirror. Slouching in her seat, Tara took a swig of True Blood, watched, and waited for the truck, a shiny black F150 with tinted windows, to make its way past her.

Rather than drive past, however the truck pulled up directly in front of where Tara was parked, giving her a clear view of several confederate flag bumper stickers.

Having been born and raised in the Deep South, the rebel flag was a familiar sight to Tara. However, it was never a welcome one.

"Fuckin' rednecks," she muttered as she took another sip of True Blood.

A large man climbed out of the truck, approached her driver's side door, and tapped on the window. "Havin' some car trouble?" The sunburned man questioned, his heavily southern accented voice mostly muted by the music and the barrier between them. Tara didn't so much as glance at him. The man nodded amiably before walking back to his truck.

A moment later he emerged with a thick silver chain and four more burly good ole boys.

"Holy shit."

Tara was out of her truck in an instant. Her razor sharp fangs protracting, she let out a hiss that was drowned out by the music blearing from her truck.

"I was just tryna be polite," the sunburned man called out with a grin.

Tara stood her ground and watched as the five men began to spread out in an effort to surround her. Her dark eyes darted between each of them, all over six feet tall, as she searched for an opportunity to strike.

Smashing her bottle of True Blood along the side of the truck, she decided to take out the guy farthest from the sunburned hick with the big ass chain.

As Tara readied her attack, four of the five men transformed into wolves and charged her.

Without missing a beat, the nimble young vampire hopped onto the roof of her truck.

It was a mere second before one of the wolves jumped onto the truck's hood and took a flying leap toward her. Defensively dropping to her back, Tara thrust the broken bottle up into the belly of the hovering animal and tossed it aside before it had a chance to retake its human form in death.

Kicking her body up into a standing position, Tara immediately felt herself be bowled over by a powerful mass of muscle and fur. Landing with a thud onto the tarp covered bed of the truck, she clutched at the wolf's muzzle and lower jaw as it attempted to tear at her neck. Ignoring the pain of teeth cutting into her hands, she pulled them in opposite directions until the wolf's skull was ripped apart.

Kicking the badly mangled body away from her, Tara scrambled to her knees and dove forward out of the truck bed. Rolling out onto the dirt road, it was seconds before she felt the teeth of two more wolves sink into her calf and thigh. Releasing an almighty yowl, Tara reached down and crushed the neck of one of the wolves before hurling the other into a tree yards away.

Just as Tara was about to dart toward the animal and finish it off, she felt the familiar burn of silver wrap around her neck. The excruciating pain of the chain brought her to her knees. She clutched at the silver, burning her hands in an attempt to tear it off, but it was to no avail.

"Now why'd you have to be that way?" The sunburned man asked angrily. "All we wanted was a lil' blood."

"Fuck you," Tara shot back weakly, watching as the last of the wolves returned to its human form and limped naked toward her, a vengeful look on his face.

Tara closed her eyes and smiled grimly as she listened to the sound of the music from her truck. I guess this is where I'm supposed to start prayin', she thought.

Tara opened her eyes just in time to see her nude attacker hit the ground, his head twisted clean off his body. A split second later Tara felt the chain around her neck go slack and fall.

Crawling forward, she whirled to see Pam holding the sunburned man in the air by the neck like a trifle. Pam's fury was radiating off her in waves and Tara could tell she was thinking of all kinds of sadistic ways to prolong his suffering.

"Let him go," Tara choked out hoarsely, her neck still sore from the silver.

Pam never took her eyes off her capture.

"Let him go," Tara repeated more forcefully as she stood on shaky legs.

Pam let the man fall unceremoniously to the ground.

"Thank you," he whimpered, grateful that his victim was now playing his savior.

Tara took a step toward the sniveling man and quickly snapped his neck.

"No problem," she replied as she headed to her pickup.

Flicking off her car radio, Tara grabbed a red fuel container, and made her way to the F150 to set about pilfering its fuel. Pam watched her progeny all the while. Tara's white undershirt was now crimson with dirt and blood. Her black pants were dusty and frayed with claw and bite marks.

"Tara," Pam called out in a wounded voice as the young vampire finished collecting the fuel.

Tara pushed on. Filling her gas tank, she steeled herself to act as if she was alone and nothing that happened that night happened.

When the tank was full, Tara headed back to the driver's side door and tossed the fuel container in the passenger seat. Just as she was about to get in the truck, she felt slender arms and soft hands snake around her front to settle across her chest and stomach.

With a shaky breath, Tara tried not to give into the feel of the blonde spooning her from behind. It was all she could do to stand upright when she felt Pam press her nose to her hair and inhale the scent.

"Let me go," Tara demanded weakly.

"I can't," came Pam's honest reply.

Tara began to tremble.

Pam held her tighter.

"Tara…there isn't a language on this earth that's fit to describe just how much you mean to me," Pam affirmed with a kiss to Tara's shoulder. "…But if you give me half a chance, I'll find a way to show you just how much I love you.."

Choking back a sob, Tara's legs gave out as she crumbled beneath the weight of Pam's words and all she'd been through.

Pam held her up and continued, "How much I adore everything about you. How much I ache without you. How much I need you to stay beside me. How little this world would mean for me without you in it."

Tara cried freely now as she absorbed the reticent vampire's words.

"Will you give me that chance?" Pam asked uncertainly.

A minute passed before Tara was able to nod.

Getting the answer she'd hoped and silently prayed for, Pam spun Tara around and held her close in a boundless embrace, one from which neither would want to be released.