Chapter Twenty-Three:

"What a fucking fiasco," was all Nan could say when we had finished telling her the story. I say 'we', because although I did most of the talking, Sookie, Bill, and Isabel all supplied details and information. Eric remained noticeably silent throughout. "You're lucky I don't send you all to the Magister. Godric, some to my suite and fill out the forms."

"Soon. First, I have something to say." I met my child's solemn gaze, the gaze he had bound to me when I had begun explaining to Nan about the bombing. Sookie had noticed this, too. She kept watching him as he watched me, and she understood that something more was happening. She felt the tension, which was so thick it was brushing our skin with its icy claws.

I met that gaze with equal gravity. An idea had been forming in my mind as we discussed the night's events, and with each passing minute I was more and more accepting of the path lying before me. Now...now it was time for me to make amends. "I'm sorry." It is strange how such a small word can carry so much weight and cause so much commotion, so much happiness, so much hurt. "I apologize for all the harm I've caused, for all our lost ones, human and vampire. I will rectify things. I swear it."

Sookie studied Eric, soundlessly searching. No one else but her seemed to notice the changes in Eric, the now lowering gaze, the heavy swallowing, the bowed back. He was pulling in on himself, and she saw and realized. I could see now why Eric was intrigued by her. She was intelligent, brave, and sympathetic. She was what he needed.

"Take it easy, it's just a few signatures," declared Nan, breaking the loaded silence and clapping me on the shoulder. "I'll be in my suite. Don't take too long."

Then she was gone, and everyone followed after her. Sookie lingered, though William had put an arm around her shoulder and was attempting to escort her away. I went to follow Nan as well, but Eric intercepted me; and I could see in his face that he realized what I intended to do – and it was hurting him inside.

He stooped down and laid his forehead against my own. "No." And that one word said so much.

I turned up to him. I could feel his breath on my skin, cool, carrying the scent of fresh-fallen snow. "Look in my heart."

"You have to listen to me."

"There is nothing to say."

"There is." And I could tell he wasn't going to let it go this time, not like in the car. He sensed that something was happening, that there wouldn't been another time to talk. I could feel his need within me, through our bond; and I couldn't say no to it.

I nodded. "On the roof."

Eric was a quivering mass of confusion and emotion as he shadowed me up the stairs to the roof of the Hotel Carmilla. Sunrise was not far off. There was a sliver of blackish-pink on the eastern horizon, and soon that sliver would grow wider and wider, until the edges of the sun's burning rays would rise up.

He was waiting for me to speak first, to confess and explain. I didn't know how to start.

"Tell me why," Eric demanded when he saw I wouldn't speak. "Tell me why you wanted to let yourself burn at the Fellowship of the Sun. Why you gave yourself up to them. Why do you want to die?"

"It's complicated."

"Don't fucking give me 'complicated', Godric. You tell me, and you tell me now!"

"It's punishment."

Eric pulled back, his brow knitted in wondering grooves. "Punishment? What for?"

"For everything, Eric. Everything I've ever done, and everything I will ever do."

"Godric– "

"I never told you about my Maker, did I?"

Eric paused, then shook his head. "Only little things here and there. If I ever asked, you refused to talk about him."

"I hated him," I hissed. "When he made me, he raised me to see humans not as equals, but as cattle, as sport, much as I raised you. But it was more than that. He made me afraid to care about anything, because if I did, I instantly regretted it. He moulded the psychopath I was when I met you. I killed him, you know." Eric let the hand that had been clutching my arm slip, but I reached out and caught it, holding it in my own. It felt strange to hold that hand once again after so long, but it also felt right. "But one day, things just suddenly changed, and I didn't want to be like him anymore. I couldn't do it anymore, all the killing, the torment. And I didn't want you to do it, either; I didn't want any vampire to do it. So I've spent decades trying to atone for my past, but I've done too much – we've done too much, as a species. There's no way to atone for the things we've done. Well, only one way."

"You were never like him, Godric. You taught me what I needed to learn to survive, that was all."

"Was it really? I can remember breaking a few of your toys, wanting to hurt you simply because I could. And now you break things just because you can."

"It doesn't matter, you know. And I didn't really want them; I only needed you."

"Yes. You did love me, as I could never love mine own Maker."

"But you love me."

I nodded. "It isn't enough, though. Not anymore. There has to be more."

"Don't say that. Just stay with me."

I released his hand and turned away from him. "You are very different in some ways, my child. You're more calculating, more cynical, more cautious. But in some ways you are the same."

"How so?"

I smiled a mournful smile. "You still don't want to let me go. But you have to let me go."

"No."

"Yes, Eric. It is time. Two thousand years is enough, and I don't want to do this anymore."

"No." The anger came back, and he came at me then, his whole frame tight with grim, fierce determination. "I can't accept this. It's insanity!"

"Our existence is insanity. We don't belong here. No creature that has done as I've done belongs here."

"But we are here."

"It's not right. We're not right."

"You taught me once, long ago, that there was no right or wrong," Eric insisted as he paced forward. "Only survival...or death."

And that was the lesson I had most regretted teaching him, for it was the hardest lesson for a predator to unlearn. I could still remember the moment I forced him to swallow that caveat: the ocean waves crashing around us, Eric on his knees before me, his hands on my face, tears running down my cheeks. Our first goodbye. "I told a lie, as it turns out."

"How could you have changed so much?" he whispered, almost to himself.

I stared off at the slowly widening band of light on the horizon. There wasn't much time now. "I opened my eyes to the world around me, Eric. I saw that there was more to life than basic survival, than carnal pleasures. Despite everything I had been taught and had taught to you, I began to see beauty, and happiness, and love; and I saw how vampires are determined to destroy all that for their gluttony. How I was determined to destroy it all. And I can't stand the thought." My hands curled into fists, nails biting my palms. "So I wanted to try and fix things, to show vampires that there can be more, and to show humans that we do regret the things we've done... And I want to escape what I've done."

"This is not the way to do it, Godric. It cannot be! I won't allow it." His mouth was a tight line, and hot energy fumed around him, abrasive and overwhelming. The pale light in the sky had painted him in shades of silver, and he looked so very inhuman. Never before had he looked so beautiful. "I will keep you alive by force!"

And he would try. There was no reluctance; he accepted the decision. But it was not what I wanted. "Even if you could, why would you be so cruel?"

A resounding hush.

He broke. His face crumpled, his body shivered, and he reached out. Not physically, but as if he were trying to put invisible hooks in me, to anchor me to earth, to him. I shook them off, and blood rimmed his eyes, making the blue irises more striking. And he spoke, his voice thick and gurgling, in Swedish – the language of our past, of a time before all this happened. "Godric, don't do it."

"There are centuries of faith and love between us," I responded in kind. "I know I have asked much from you during our time together, but for the love you bear me, grant me this last wish."

The tears seeped down and tracked great red runnels on his cheeks. His chest collapsed as all the breath went out of him in a desperate, silent sob. "Please, please!" He fell to his knees, so slow it was as if time itself were preparing to stop. "Please, Godric!"

There were no illusions now. No guises to hide the truth, no icy veneer to protect the warm centre. The bent head hid nothing. Eric was entirely naked before me, his heart bare to me, beating, bloody, tender. The armour he had forged over a thousand years was cast aside, exposing himself in the wild hope that I would change my mind. I wanted to. I loved him, and couldn't bear to hurt him. But there had to be more than love, and I had ruined everything else.

I touched his cheek with a cold finger. "Father...brother...child..." Eric lifted his eyes up to mine. It was the only time I was ever taller than him, when he was on his knees. "The night I turned you, I said those words to you. Do you remember?" He nodded. "That will never change. I will always be your father, your brother, and your son, as you will always be mine. But you must let me go." He was trembling. "Let me go."

The crying faltered, and Eric inhaled deeply, striving to recover some of his steely demeanor; though the effect was somewhat ruined by the tears still creeping from his eyes. He said in a steady voice, "I won't let you die alone."

"Yes, you will." I lifted my hand from his cheek, to stroke his silken hair. Another sob escaped him, and I crouched down in front of him and lightly touched my lips to his forehead. He wasn't meant for death yet. There was still so much more he needed to; so I did the only thing I could to stop Eric from following me. "As your Maker, I command you."

Eric stared at me a long time, stricken, then numb; and then he crawled unsteadily to his feet. My hand slipped from his hair, and he walked away awkwardly. He didn't want to go, but he had to. My last command, one he couldn't disobey – to let me go, and save himself.

Sookie stood by the stairwell, her manner curious and sombre. The way she studied Eric, I knew she had never seen him as she had tonight; and she wanted to see him like this, to memorize it, as if afraid she would never see this part of Eric again. Maybe she wouldn't. And seeing her, how she watched him, understood him, I felt that hope bloom once more. She was the beginning of the change. If she could care about Eric despite everything he was, there was hope for humans and vampires.

When Eric reached her, she put her hand on his arm and turned him to her. "I'll stay with him. As long as it takes." Eric said nothing, just gave me one last, heart-wrenching look...

Please don't do this. Please don't leave me.

...and then he was gone.

Sookie came to me, fragile and human. She was silent, waiting for me to speak.

"It won't take long. Not at my age," I said, turning toward the eastern sky. I could almost see the sun now, lapping at the horizon; and I was excited. I hadn't seen the sun in two thousand years.

"You know, it wasn't very smart. The Fellowship of the Sun part."

"I know." I could feel warmth beginning to dance on my skin. My heart was pounding in my chest. "I thought it would...fix everything somehow. But I don't think like a vampire anymore." Some dreadful curiosity grabbed hold of me, and I turned to look at Sookie. "Do you believe in God?"

"Yes," she answered without hesitation.

"If you're right, how will he punish me?"

"God doesn't punish." She was shaking her head. "God forgives."

The implication astounded me. That there might be someone, some eternal being, who instead of choosing hate, chose love and forgiveness. But could he forgive me my sins? Or was there a limit as to how much hatred a person could infect into the world before forgiveness was no longer an option? I had never much considered the afterlife, but now, so near the end, I wondered what was waiting for me.

"I don't deserve forgiveness, but I hope for it."

She gave me a shaky smile. "We all do."

I moved away from her and closer to the rising sun. "You will care for him?" I said to Sookie. "Eric."

"I'm not sure. You know how he is."

I had to laugh. "I can take the blame for that too." I did indeed know how he was. Although, I wondered how he would be from now on.

"Maybe not. Eric's pretty much himself."

The first golden rays of the sun crested the horizon, and my skin felt hot. Smoke smouldered from my skin, blurring the edges of me.

Behind me, Sookie asked in a soft voice, "Are you very afraid?"

"No." I smiled, astonished. "No. I am full of joy." And I was. After everything I had done, all the years of regret I'd lived, I was finally at the end. Everything was finished.

"But the pain..."

"I want to burn."

"I-I'm afraid for you." There were tears in her voice, and I turned to see tears in her eyes, too. She was crying for me. Tears, for a monster. I had received forgiveness; and I was euphoric. "A human with me at the end, and human tears. Two thousand years, and I can still be surprised. In this I see God."

I lifted my hands to unbutton my shirt, my skin scalding, the smoke thickening. It was excruciating, but it was a good pain. A pain that signified no more pain. My shirt fluttered to the concrete floor. Flashes of people appeared before my eyes, people long dead, and those still alive: my mother, my father, my Maker, Gabrielle, Damien, Sookie, William, Jason, Isabel, the god, Stan, Nan...and Eric. All of them looked at me, some with hope, some with confusion, and some with sadness. They all looked at me, and I looked at them, until the heat became too much and I had to close my eyes.

The sun rose over the tall buildings of Dallas, and I burst into flames. I could not scream from the pain – I was too happy to scream. My arms spread wide to welcome the sun into me.

I hadn't realized Sookie was still there, until she whispered, "Goodbye, Godric."

Goodbye, Eric.

I saw the sun as I hadn't seen it in two thousand years. A fat, golden orb that chased away the last recesses of the night. It was stunning, more beautiful than I could possibly have ever remembered, and–.

The End

**Yes, this truly is the end. I would like to thank everyone who's read this story, but especially the readers who waited two years for twenty-three chapters. I'm sorry it took so long. I hope you have enjoyed the story almost as much as I enjoyed writing it. And please feel free to leave comments or send me messages :)