AN: True Blood one-shot with some gratuitously borrowed (key) elements from SVM…

…

Pam's heels clacked loudly as she sped down the piss and chemical reeking hall, barely restraining herself from running at vamp speed. She made it to her car before the tears began to plop from her face, splattering blood tracks onto her new silk blouse. Cursing under her breath as she swiped at her eyes, she took several breaths to calm herself and reached into her purse to retrieve her cellphone.

Steeling herself, she pulled up her contact list and touched the screen.

He answered immediately. He had been waiting.

"Talk."

"Eric," she began, her voice wavering despite her best efforts.

There was a prolonged silence, and then, hoarsely, he prompted, "It's time, then?"

Pam swallowed, her throat constricting. "Yes, master, it's time."

She hung up after his end went dead.

…..

Eric had glamoured the night staff to stay away from her room. It was his time, his last and final chance to see her, and he'd be damned if he'd tolerate any interruptions tonight.

He'd opened up the blinds to allow the moonlight to filter in after he'd doused the overhead light mounted over her bed. She had seemed to relax infinitesimally once the harsh florescent glare was no longer bearing into her eyes.

He stared at her. Her blonde hair had long since turned to silver-white, though she'd kept it long like her Gran for the duration of her long life. While the ravishes of time and disease had stolen the smoothness of her skin, wasted her voluptuousness to a frailty that was frightening to behold, she still was beautiful to him.

Pulling up one of the visitor chairs to the edge of the bed, he sat as close as he could to her side. Reaching out a shaking hand, he caressed the web-thin wisps of hair that escaped her braid back from her head. As she slept, her breath rattled in her chest. Death waited impatiently in the wings, and he knew with a hard stab to his heart that she had not much time left in this world.

He allowed his fangs to snick down and punctured the large vein in his wrist, allowing a couple of drops to fall in her mouth. He wanted her to be lucid, here at the end of her life, to be able to give his final goodbye.

A small smile erupted on her wizened face as she swallowed and opened her blue eyes, which although were still a brilliant blue were bleary from the painkillers.

Coughing softly, she reached for his hand. He allowed her to pull it to her lips, assisting her to minimize the burden of lifting his massive arm. She was far too weak to do it on her own. He smiled softly when she kissed the small wound on his wrist, realizing that she knew what he had just done.

As her eyes locked with his, they experienced electric jolts as their thoughts merged, her ability to read minds suddenly and inexplicably able to scan him as easily as a large print book. Perhaps it was the blood, or that the thin veil between her and death was so diffuse, but there it was, a startling, vivid, meta-awareness between the two of them. A linking of souls…

Eric heartbroken but graciously bowing out, accepting her rejection and allowing her to go instead to Compton. Agreeing to talk to Bill for her, to encourage him to get the treatment for Hep V, despite not giving half a fuck whether the waste of space lived or died, doing it only for Sookie, only for her…always for her...

And then later, her return to heartbreak after Bill's betrayal and his weakness, Bill ever selfish even to the end, wanting her to end his unlife when he was too big of a coward to do it on his own. Sookie, stumbling blindly back to her home to wash his splattered remains off as she sobbed angrily, and then returning weeks later to Eric, seeking his comfort, and yet him turning her away, finally strengthening himself to no longer allow her to trample on him. Telling her he'd always love her, but knowing he would never come first in her heart. Sookie feeling humiliated, insulting him, railing at him…and then, him keeping tabs on her from afar, having Pam report on her doings, her well-being. Knowing she had eventually married a shifter who had moved into town and joined the Bon Temps police department. Eric checking into the shifter's background history and finding him harmless, a simpleton perhaps, and not worthy of his love's attentions, but one who would treat her well enough.

Eric, sneaking into the hospital late at night to check on her after the births of her two children, trying to ensure her and her offspring's safety throughout the years, though he was not able to stop her son's sudden death from heart attack or her daughter's fatal car accident. Always keeping tabs, watching from afar, but not too far...even in the shadows of her property, while she stood on the porch, eyes trying to penetrate the deepening dark as she could feel the presence of his mind's void but unable to see him. Never returning her calls and having Pam turn her away over the years when she sought him out, until one day, she stopped trying, even before the death of her husband and later, her children….

And now, at the end, having known of her failing health and Pam's report that the time was near, here he was.

As one, both their eyes brimmed with tears. The overwhelming yearning and sadness, deep regret and undiluted love they both felt for one another undeniable in the rawness of their stares.

Smiling a small, pained smile, she was the first to break the silence.

"I'm so glad you came, Eric."

Unable to return her smile, his blue eyes glowed with an intensity that belied his grief as he kissed her frail, bruise-covered hand. He stared at the marks, so common in the elderly, her thin skin barely covering the skeletal bones and congealed pools of blood. Underneath the smell of lavender lotion, the sour scent of death was so close, so close…

She coughed softly and continued, stating the obvious. "I don't have much time Eric. This is it for the old girl." She chuckled as if telling a tried but true joke but soon sobered. "I can't tell you how sorry I am, how many times I wanted to tell you…"

A large, calloused finger was held up to her lips, gently silencing her. He finally spoke.

"Shh, lover. No need for that, now. We have decades of regret that can't be erased, and I do not wish to spend our last few minutes wasted on what can't be changed…"

Sookie nodded her head imperceptibly and kissed his finger before reaching up to thread her thin fingers through his.

They continued to gaze into the others eyes, their thoughts comingling, memories of their passionate love making, their feelings for each other, events in their lives finally unveiled to the other in naked truth.

Until finally, at the zenith of her energy, she broke their bond by closing her eyes as she gasped for air. Her breaths soon turned to a coughing fit, which began wracking her thin chest in a manner that was painful to behold. Eric watched helplessly until finally, she quieted. In the moonlight, with her eyes closed, anyone but a supe would have thought that death had stolen upon her, but he could hear the faint, albeit erratic beating of her heart and shaky, nearly imperceptible breathing.

With great effort, she rasped, "In the bottom drawer, on the left-hand side…wrapped in an old velvet bag…"

Eric frowned, momentarily puzzled by her request, though he quickly obeyed. In the back of the small dresser's bottom drawer, he found a bag, so old that much of the velvet had been worn away from time. He quickly returned to her side, holding up the bag with a curious look on his face.

She smiled and weakly motioned to him, "Open it."

He obeyed and slowly withdrew a light robin egg blue, rounded object bound with the purest gold. His eyes widened as he recognized it for what it was: a fae talisman.

"Sookie…is this what I think…?" His voice trailed as he turned the small object in his palm.

"Yes," she whispered, her eyes glinting mischievously.

"But I thought-"

"Niall came to me several years ago. He was disappointed I had "wasted" my grandmother's cluviel dor on a "mere shifter's life." He gave me his cluviel dor that had belonged to his mother.

Eric's eyes widened in shock. The mere existence of one cluviel dor, let alone two, was something rare indeed. That the fae prince had bestowed it upon Sookie was mind boggling.

Sookie continued, "He told me that the only stipulation was that I had to give 'great thought and discretion' as to how I'd use it, since I wouldn't ever be able to get another one."

Eric was silent, but Sookie could see the wheels turning in his sharp mind as his eyes drifted between the cluviel dor and her face.

"Sookie?" he began, "What…?"

"Eric, let's just say that I've given this a lot of thought through the years. I've lived a long, full life. I was able to marry and have children, even though God saw it fit to make me outlive them. I cared about Jim, and he was good to me and the kids, and I suppose I loved him in a way, but I never felt…I never had what we had, what I felt for you." She panted for breath, her admission having taken the remains of her failing energy from her. She closed her eyes again and he saw the tears slowly leaking down her face.

He reached out and brushed them away, whispering, "What is it you are thinking, Sookie?"

She opened her eyes and a fierce clarity shown from them. "I want you, Eric, if you'll have me."

Blinking his surprise, Eric was stunned into silence. "What do you mean, Sookie?"

She licked her dry lips and continued, "This is it Eric. This is the end for me. But it really is up to you. If you don't want me, I'll accept it and move on…it is my time, after all. But if you do, oh dear God, all you have to do is say the word and I can make it so."

Eric was stunned. Here in front of him was the summation of all he had wanted for decades. His lover, finally returned to him.

Sookie mistook his silence for rejection. Turning her head away from the moonlit window, she whispered, "It's okay, really. I'm so sorry I put you on the spot like that-pressured you when I had no right to ask…I don't deserve-"

He reached and turned her face firmly but gently back to him, bending over to feather his lips against hers.

Bloody tears trailed down his face. "Of course I want you, lover. But how could I knowing I would just have to let you go again some day, relive this goodbye again?"

Sookie chuckled. "Viking, I never thought I'd accuse you of lack of imagination. Believe me, I've thought this through. Just say the word, love, and leave the rest to me."

Eric spoke the word, softly but audibly. "Yes."

She sighed, smiling, and took the cluviel dor from his hand. "Ok, close your eyes. And keep them closed. No peeking, you hear?"

Eric obeyed, chuckling softly.

"Put your hand in my mine, Eric."

His hand sought hers unerringly, clasping her withered, stick-thin fingers through his.

Eric heard her whispered wish and could barely keep his eyes closed as a strange whirring noise came from the bed and blinding light filled the room.

Without opening his eyes, he could feel the change in her skin, the suppleness of her fingers. Even her scent had changed, the taint of death no longer staining her luscious fae essence.

He breathed deeply.

"Lover, don't keep me waiting."

He heard a girlish giggle. "Okay, you can open your eyes."

Eric opened his eyes.

He smiled, matching the one that beamed from the young woman's face.

…

Thanks for reading.