Title: At The Bottom

Genre: Movies/TV

Series: Trueblood/X-Men

Characters: Rogue, Eric Northman

Spoilers: season 3, all the movies

Rating: PG

Summary: She came home because for a brief time she was the girl she used to be; but the world down South isn't the same as it once was.

Author's Note: This was written for comeon_eileen, who desperately wanted a crossover with Anna Paquin!Rogue running around the Trueblood-verse. This is what came of that request.

Meridian, Mississippi

She couldn't make herself walk into the house; instead she stood hidden in the shadows of the trees and watched as evening grew darker and the family inside gradually turned off the lights and went to bed. Rogue could go into the house without fear of discovery at that point, she could satisfy the curiosity and the yearning that had plagued her since she'd removed the shackles of her mutation. She wondered if they'd packed up her room and hidden away the remnants of her first life like a dirty secret in the attic. Was her map still there on the wall, carefully marked with the journey she wanted to make? It was far from the journey she'd actually embarked on, and where she ended up had been somewhere she hadn't even know she could be.

The trees rustled with noise as the wind grew stronger and the night wore on, and still she couldn't take a single step towards the house. Rogue almost wished that she had Bobby with her, just because he would hold her hand and would babble on without really saying anything but would fill the silence of this terrible night. Rogue smiled at the thought because it was another fantasy to join the one that had brought her here. The idea that her old life would be unchanged was as unlikely as the dream that her new life would go on the same.

The sound of leaves rubbing harshly against leaves continued as static in the background, but the sudden cessation of bird and insect noise was startling enough that Rogue immediately went on edge. Her hands clenched at her sides and her eyes slanted as she studied the dark shadows that surrounded her. She'd endured rigid training at Logan's hands, she knew when she was being hunted and she could feel eyes on her now that raised the tiny hairs on the back of her neck.

"Well, this is new," a voice came from the trees to her right, and she spun towards it only to find herself staring at a swath of expensive blue cloth, stretched taut across an impressive chest. Stepping back into the harsh bark of the tree behind her instinctively, Rogue shifted her gaze upward and found herself staring into a grinning face of pale skin and sharp teeth, attractively arranged around high cheekbones and icy blue eyes. "I have to say that I prefer you as a blonde, though. Tell me, Sookie, just what does Bill think of this neo-goth look? He was always so blandly vanilla and this is a bit spicy for him, though I do appreciate a little bite to my snacks."

Rogue opened her mouth to speak, shocked beyond imagining by the gorgeous man standing so closely to her. "I'm not-"

He interrupted, his head tilting to the side and stepping close enough that the folds of her trench coat brushed against the pleats of his pants. He breathed deeply, barely centimeters from burying his nose in her neck and Rogue was inordinately saddened when he didn't. "No, of course you're not. The resemblance is uncanny, however." He stepped back, his face shifting from the barely concealed lust and hunger to a cold regard as he studied her face more intensely. "Your coloring is off, your scent rather...conflicted, but you look just like her."

"Like...Sookie?" Rogue asked, boggled over the idea that there was someone wandering the world who looked like her twin.

"My name is Eric Northman," the man replied instead of answering her question. He pulled a card from his wallet in a maneuver so fast that her eyes couldn't follow. It set her on edge immediately, as the sense that he was more than he seemed prevailed over the sense of wonder just looking into his eyes had clouded over her mind. "Are you alone?"

"Yes," she answered because she couldn't stop herself, not while he was looking at her that way. The compulsion he forced on her, however, didn't stop her from adding, "but not defenseless." Her hand slid into her pocket and grasped the switchblade hidden there. Logan hadn't been happy that she intended to come back to Mississippi, and he wouldn't let her leave without gifting her with a small token of protection.

That small token was a very sharp sterling silver knife, one that clicked open with a small noise that she knew Eric heard by the way his eyes flickered down to where her hand was hidden in her pockets.

"I have no interest in hurting you..." his voice trailed off as he silently asked for her name.

"Rogue." Again, she couldn't resist answering his question.

"Rogue? Is that your real name?" She could see his amusement in his face, his eyes crinkling as his grin became a full-blown smile. The impact of it hit her low in the stomach and without realizing it she stepped forward, into his personal space until she smell the soft trace of a scent that seemed to surround him.

"No," she supplied, breathing deeply. "You smell cold."

"I am cold," he glibly replied, amused the way she slowly raised her hand and let it hover over the bare skin of his forearms.

"I could hurt you," Rogue offered quietly, her voice barely strong enough to reach her own ears, but somehow he still heard.

"I doubt that."

"I could hurt you," Rogue repeated strongly, her eyes meeting his. Eric quirked an eyebrow, but nodded as if to acknowledge the fact though it clearly surprised him.

"You believe you could hurt me," he acquiesced.

"They say it fades in time, the cure they gave me. At any moment it could come back. I could touch you and have every memory, every thought, everything that makes you who you are. I touch you and I become you," Rogue explained. "Do you want me to touch you?"

"Very much so," Eric answered with a smirk that made Rogue's fingers tingle pleasantly.

"Shall I, then? Do you like taking risks? Chancing it?"

Rogue watched as he paused to think, his mouth opening and closing, before he began to speak again. "In the true sense of the word, no, I'm not a gambler. I hedge my bets and cheat and manipulate to get the outcome I want."

Rogue pulled her hand back to her side and said nothing.

"My number is on that card," Eric started, "I run a club in Shreveport. I have errands to run for my King, but I'd like to see you again. You intrigue me, much as Sookie does." A lascivious grin crossed his face and his thoughts clearly took a far lustier turn. "If I could get the two of you in the same room, I believe I'd have a very good night, worthy of taking a few risks for."

Rogue watched as Eric turned and disappeared into the night, launching into the air and flying away.

She looked down at the card and read the the letters expensively embossed in a dark blood red ink. Her thumb rubbed over the card, feeling the heavy stock of the paper and the slick smoothness of the writing. On the back was a phone number written in pen, the handwriting smooth but clearly masculine.

Her skin still tingled from where she'd almost touched him, but Rogue knew that her mutation had twisted her DNA once more, creating a predator from the weak human who had just stood there and exchanged pleasantries with the thing that hunted her. She pulled a pair of gloves from her pocket mindlessly and slipped them on with the ease of having done so a thousand times before.

She left the card where it fell, in the tall grass that surrounded the home she could never return to.

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