TITLE: Love the Way You Lie

CHARACTERS: Sookie, Eric, Quinn, Pam, Jason

DISCLAIMER: Sadly, I do not own SVM, or the rights to Eminem's musical catalogue.

PEN NAME: Seastarr08

BETA NAME: Missus T

VIRGIN WRITER : NO

Here is my entry for the I Write The Songs contest!

So, as you may have guessed, if you're familiar with the song, this fic deals with some difficult topics. If you think you may be offended, I'd advise you to stop reading now. I'd love to hear any feedback you have for me, as this was a challenge for me to write. Thanks so much for reading.

Present day:

Eric

I sighed as Detective Bellefleur's name came up on my phone. I'd been out for dinner when I got the call for a public defender. I hated going down to Bon Temps. Their police force was so Mickey Mouse, made up of useless hicks; they couldn't solve a crime if you threw a bag of evidence at them.

I held a finger up, silencing my date, as I answered. "There's no one else?"

"Nope." His gruff voice answered. "Pam's on vacation and Jason has a personal relationship with the accused. It's his sister."

I sighed, looking at my date across the table. She was all right, but I wouldn't feel too terrible about wrapping things up. She was kind of a butter face, as Pam would have said. Fucking Pam and her vacation. "Okay, I'll be there in an hour."

"She made her phone call already to Jason. I'm keeping him out. It's a conflict of interest." He sounded awfully proud of himself. I guess he'd done something right.

"Okay, fine. What's she being accused of?"

"Arson, and now murder of some degree, I suppose."

That was interesting. I thought maybe she stole something from a convenience store. That was usually the types of crime that came up in that backwater town. That or drug dealing. "Okay. I'll be there in an hour." I hung up, and looked over at Felecia. "Sorry, work calls." She had a great rack. It was unfortunate that I wouldn't get to see more of it.

She picked at her salad. "Will you call me?"

"Oh yea. Of course." Probably not. I smiled over at her. "It's just this job. It makes dating tough. You see a lot of things. Lots of distractions, and things requiring my immediate attention."

She nodded, engaged. Too bad, because that was all I was saying. "Okay, well, it was great seeing you again."

"Oh, likewise." I stood up, grabbing my coat. "Have a great night." We'd met at the restaurant. She could see herself home.

Bon Temps, Louisiana. The armpit of Shreveport. Maybe the crotch. I pulled my BMW into the parking lot of the tiny precinct, with its two squad cars, and four incompetent police officers. I was fairly certain that I could manipulate their police work to get whatever verdict I wanted for my client. For murder and arson, I certainly wasn't convinced that she should get off with nothing, but I was confident that I could help her walk if I wanted.

I was instantly met by Jason, Bon Temp's golden boy, the one who got out and made something very real of himself. He was a great lawyer and had serious scruples. He could have been a very highly paid attorney, but instead he opted to be a public defender. We all had our own reasons for doing what we did.

"I guess the case would go to you, since Pam's gone. I'm glad, because Pam's got less compassion than anyone." He looked exhausted. Ten years older overnight.

I shrugged. I wasn't far behind Pam at times. "I guess. So what's the deal? I'm assuming you already know."

He sat down. "Sookie and I haven't been close over the past few years. Her husband was in the house though, tied up, and Andy found her sitting on a swing, with a box of matches, covered in gasoline. I brought her a change of clothes." He tapped the bag beside him. "They don't even have anything for her to wear here."

"Fucking Bon Temps." I smiled slightly. Jason had grown up here, and even though it was an hour away, never came here, unless absolutely necessary. I didn't even know he had a sister, and we played poker weekly. "Why do you think she did it, if, in fact, she did?"

"Andy said she's got a lovely black eye, a few days old." He raised his eyebrows. "I should have paid more attention."

"I'm sure there's nothing you could have done."

He gave me a wry smile. "I would have done it for her."

I stood up. "I'll go see her, and take her the clothes."

Andy led me down a hallway, shaking his head. "This doesn't happen in Bon Temps."

I raised an eyebrow. "Nothing happens in Bon Temps."

He unlocked the interrogation room. I say the, because there was only one, and I sat down across from a very dirty young woman that I pegged at about twenty-eight. Her head was down. Andy spoke first.

"Sookie, this is Eric Northman. He works with your brother," He then turned to me. "She's been booked and charged. Her plea hearing is in the morning."

I nodded, and he left, closing the door behind him. I glanced at the file. "Ms. Stackhouse. You're in a heap of trouble."

She raised her face, which was actually somewhat defiant. "No shit." As Jason had indicated, her left eye was very black, as well as her opposite cheek. "I did it."

"I don't think anyone is questioning that. The real question is why?"

"Six years."

Six years before:

Sookie

We'd been married six weeks when Quinn decided to throw a Superbowl party. I smiled when he mentioned it, excited about the prospect of having friends in to show off our new house. It had all happened so quickly; his proposal, planning the wedding, buying the house. We'd barely had time to breathe. Quinn had been a bit grumpy, but he'd recently been passed over for a promotion at the high school for principal. They'd given it to Andy Bellefleur's sister, Portia, instead. She did have more experience, but Quinn thought she was a whiny bitch, and that she'd fucked the superintendent to get the job. I'd kept my mouth shut on the subject.

I'd met Quinn in high school. He was a few years older, and the captain of the football team. I thought I was so cool, dating a senior, and then a college guy, while all my friends were stuck dating pimply teenagers. I'd loved going to visit him in New Orleans, even though he usually ended up in a bar fight when we'd go out. He was very protective, and he didn't tolerate anyone disrespecting me. He'd once put a guy in the hospital for grabbing me inappropriately during a pub crawl.

We dated long distance while he was in university. When it was my turn to go away, he'd just landed a job teaching high school chemistry at Bon Temps High, and he didn't want me to go. So instead, I lived at home, took courses through LSU in Shreveport, and worked at the bank as a teller part-time. When I finished school, they offered me a full-time, salary position. I liked it, a lot, dealing with the public, and I had some fantastic friends there.

Quinn invited about six of his co-workers and a couple of his high school buddies over, and I spent the afternoon playing wife, making finger food, and freezing lots of ice. Quinn liked ice.

I spent the evening in the den, reading a John Grisham novel. I'd read every one, but I could take a hint that it was a boys only party. I'd checked on them every half hour or so, and after they'd all had a few beers, Quinn started getting mouthy. This wasn't unusual.

"Sookie, get us some more beer," he shouted. I unfolded myself from the arm chair, and brought some for everyone. "That's my girl." He winked, twisting the cap off. "Where's my ice?"

Ice with beer. Daddy would have rolled over in his grave. "Who drinks beer with ice?" I smiled.

His buddies liked that. After a serious round of poking fun at him, the halftime show was over, and they went back to the game and me to my book. I listened to them all leave a bit later, and I looked up to see Quinn, his face red, standing in the doorway.

"What the fuck Sookie? You think you can just make me look like an idiot in front of my friends?"

I shrugged. I'd grown up with Jason, so I had no difficulties rolling with the punches when it came to man humour. "I was just kidding around, baby."

"When I want your opinion, on my drink of choice, I'll fucking ask for it." This was normal behaviour for drunk Quinn. He was a typical loud, obnoxious drunk. I usually avoided him. He wasn't himself. That didn't mean I had to take it though.

I stood up. "I didn't know I wasn't allowed to speak to your company."

"Don't get mouthy with me, little girl." He was drunk, and this was ridiculous. I remember thinking how silly it was, that we'd even been having that conversation.

"You're drunk, and I'm going to bed. I'll clean up in the morning." I rolled my eyes. I never knew if it was that that set him off, or if it was bound to happen eventually. His fist connected with my cheek, making a noise that would have been comical, if it hadn't accompanied the pain that came with it. He didn't say a word, just turned around and left, leaving me there, holding my face and wondering what the hell had happened.

If I'd been smart, that would have been the end of it. I would have packed my shit up and had my brother, who had recently passed the bar exam, take him for half the house, one of the cars, and kept my dignity intact. Instead, I listened when Quinn sat me down the next evening. I listened to every word he said about how he'd made a terrible mistake and how he'd never hurt me again. How he could hardly live with himself for what he'd done. I told my co-workers that I'd hit my face in the basement in the dark. I noticed a few looks exchanged, but people forgot quickly, and before I knew it life was back to normal.

It was eight months later, two weeks after we got back from a perfect week in Hawaii, when I accidentally broke his high school football trophy while dusting, that I began to wonder how I could be so inept at the simplest tasks. Quinn agreed, this time breaking my nose.

Present day:

Eric

I leaned back in my chair. I wasn't in the mood for cryptic shit. I was hungry, and I hadn't gotten through my dinner. "Six years, what?"

She audibly sighed. "I put up with it for six years. It's our wedding anniversary today." She swallowed.

I hated this part of things. Representing petty thieves, thugs and drug dealers was much easier and more black and white. "I'm sorry, I know this is hard, but you're going to have to be more specific."

Her eyes went down to the table, and I watched her hands, as she played with her wedding rings. "He beat the living shit out of me, for six years."

"Do you have any evidence? Have you pressed charges in the past? Any pictures?" She slid the rings off, pulling at them like they were suffocating her. She slammed them down on the table, with more force than I was expecting. She had a big rock.

She looked me in the eye, and it wasn't until then that I realized how pretty she was, well would have been, if she wasn't so black and blue, and dirty. "There are pictures."

Two years before:

Sookie

"Sookie, turn your head towards me. Let's get it in the light." I groaned, knowing Amelia was good intentioned but I really just wanted to take a long nap and pretend my life hadn't happened. "Just a couple more."

"I'm done Amelia." I stood up and went in the washroom, locking the door behind me. "Give me a minute." I examined myself in the mirror. I was going to have to call in sick for work again. I'd made too many excuses lately. I could only pass myself off as a klutz for so long.

She knocked gently. "Come on, Sook. We can nail him for it this time."

"I'm not going back." I whispered, more for my own justification than anything else. I opened the door and found her there with an ice pack. "I'm not going back," I said, with a bit more determination this time.

She nodded. "And you can stay here as long as you need to."

I managed a smile over my busted lip and squeezed her tight. "Thanks, Ames."

I went back three days later. He had called and apologized, crying on the phone that he couldn't live without me. There were flowers when he picked me up. I bought it all.

Slowly, Amelia vanished from my life, the bright spot she'd provided was instead filled by a dark cloud of self-loathing and blame.

A week after I went back, the manager at the bank, Sam Merlotte, pulled me into his office a little while after we closed. "It's none of my business, Sookie, but is everything okay?" His face was concerned, as he brushed my hair out of my face, revealing the now yellowing bruise.

I nodded, fighting back the tears. "Yea, I'm good. Just a little accident."

"If you ever want to talk, I'm here to listen. I grew up with a momma that had a lot of accidents."

I backed away from him. "I don't know what you're insinuating, but it's insulting, Sam." I crossed my arms and glared at him.

He looked surprised at my reaction. "Sorry, Sookie. I didn't mean anything by it. It's just that it's not the first time."

"I'm going home." I grabbed my purse. "Have a good night, Sam."

Present day

Eric

"So we'll need your friend to bring the pictures in."

She shook her head. "We haven't talked in over a year."

"Well, I think all things considered, she'd want to hear from you. It sets a precedence, along with your face now. You have a good chance of getting off without prison time if we can prove you were under duress due to battered wives syndrome."

I hadn't noticed her hands shaking. "Fuck," She muttered, under her breath. "I don't know how this happened."

I didn't know how it ever happened. Why anyone would put up with someone treating them in that way had always blown my mind. No one deserved to be treated like that. I thought back to law school, when we'd discussed the antiquated rule of thumb, allowing men to beat their wives, as long as they didn't use a stick bigger than a thumb. There was no doubt that things had changed, but others had stayed exactly the same.

I met Pam for a beer the following week. She was glowing from her week in the Bahamas and wanted to talk about her latest string of conquests. Normally, that would have been fine, but not this week.

"Did you hear about Jason's sister?" I rested my head on my hand, exhausted from the amount of mental lifting I'd been doing, trying to figure out how to play the battered wives syndrome card to Sookie's advantage. Jason had been helping me, in his spare time.

She nodded. "We had coffee yesterday. That's a rough case."

I finished my beer. "I just don't understand how anyone would let that happen to themselves."

Pam's face turned red, and she looked like she wanted to punch me. The irony was not lost. "Are you fucking kidding me?"

"Well she could have left whenever she wanted. It's not like she didn't have a lawyer brother, and she had some friend that took pictures of her when he beat the tar out of her. I know Jason would have helped if she'd reached out a bit." I shrugged, trying to avoid her evil eye, which was out in full force.

"For someone that's so educated, you're pretty fucking stupid sometimes." She crossed her arms. "Do you think anyone would just stay for the fun of it?"

"Well, no."

"Read some fucking literature, Eric. The average woman in a situation like Jason's sister leaves seven times before they get out for good. Instead of thinking, why didn't she leave, why don't you question why he didn't stop beating her? It's a vicious cycle."

Later that night, I found myself Googling. I knew it wasn't a good thing to do, especially if I wanted to find evidence that I could use in court, but I wanted to try and understand her mindset. There were lots of flowcharts and diagrams, all explaining the cycle of abuse. It was very psychological, the ebbs and flows, and all very textbook. However, as with most things, it was the hardest to see what was right in front of you.

One year before:

Sookie

"Where have you been?" Quinn rolled his computer chair around and looked at me intensely. "It's after six."

I swallowed. "I had to work late. There was some problem with the balance at the end of the day."

"You should have called. I was worried about you." He stood up. "You could have been hurt. I don't like not knowing where you are."

"Sam asked me to stay, just to make sure there was someone else there he trusted. He thinks one of the other girls is stealing."

"Sam asked you to stay?" He went a bit red. "Did he try to get in your pants?"

I sighed. "No, Quinn. I'm the head teller. He asked me to stay and count cash."

I gasped, as he shoved me up against the wall. "I don't like the way he looks at you."

"I can't help that." I felt the tears welling up in my eyes, like they always did.

"Maybe you shouldn't wear those heels to work. Look at you. No wonder he fucking looks at you."

"I won't wear them anymore," I squeaked out, as his fist made contact with my cheek.

I called in sick for a week. When I looked in the mirror, I didn't recognize myself, and that was probably the scariest thing of all. It wasn't just the bruises; it was me as a whole. I just kept upsetting him, doing things to set him off. He said as much afterwards when he'd cry and apologize. Between work, managing our big house, and trying to get pregnant, I'd been a really shitty wife, not taking care of the things that needed doing. I'd been tired, and I'd talked back, and been rude. He didn't deserve that. He had a hard job too, dealing with all those teenagers.

He went to work, and I packed a bag and sat in my car. For six hours. I knew what I should have done, which was to run, as fast as I could, but I wasn't the wife he deserved, either. It was a lose, lose situation.

At about 4 p.m., an hour before I knew Quinn would be home, I went back inside, showered, and unpacked. He came home with dinner from Merlotte's. Chicken fried steak; my favourite.

"Sookie, I don't know what's wrong with me. I think we both need to work harder on controlling our emotions." He smiled, before wrapping his huge arms around me.

"I love you, Quinn," I said, into his chest.

"You too, Babe. We'll just both have to try a little harder."

Present day:

Eric

I spent two weeks researching battered women's syndrome, preparing for her trial. It was amazing, the things people endured before snapping and doing something like Sookie had done. She certainly wasn't alone. When I met her a month after her bail hearing, she looked resigned.

"You're not going to jail, Sookie. I'm going to get you out of this."

"Maybe I should go to jail. I did plan and execute the murder of my husband. I planned it for a week." She stared straight ahead, fidgeting with her hands.

"Shut up." I sat beside her on Jason's couch. She'd been staying with him. "Look, I'll get you off because I think you were justified, but you can't be saying things like that. We've talked about this."

"I believed him for so long. He said that he loved me, and he'd change if he could." She had a forlorn look in her eyes. She'd lost her strength. Sitting in a shitty cell in Bon Temps hadn't helped, since the idiot police hadn't filed the paperwork as quickly as they should have. She'd spent a week in there, waiting for her bail hearing.

I knew Sookie and her husband had gone to therapy, I'd seen the pictures from the case file, read the reports. If there was ever a case of battered women's syndrome that was going to get someone off, it was this one. She'd done what she should have, to fix the problem, but some things were irreparable. "Do you feel like you had a choice?"

Her answer was immediate, and jarring. "No. It never would have stopped. I had to stop it."

"Then it's not your fault."

She exhaled, her eyes on the floor. "It doesn't matter if you tell me that. I wish it did."

I tilted her chin up, so she was looking at me. She was so pretty, wholesome in a way, with her leftover summer tan, and huge blue eyes. The kind of girl you brought home to your parents, the kind of girl you married. I guess Quinn would have agreed; however, I felt like our idea of marriage would have been very different. From what Jason told me, I would have hated him. He sounded like a stupid jock, which would have put him in my bad books on its own, let alone his treatment of his wife. It was probably a good thing he wasn't part of the trial. Jason and I would have found a way to make him pay, somehow. I had no doubt about that.

"You didn't ask for this to happen. You're certainly not the first woman to fall into this cycle, and you won't be the last."

She gave a little shrug. "I used to wonder how the hell those girls let that happen to themselves. Now I know a little too well, now that I'm looking back on it all."

"Hindsight is 20/20, they say." I pulled her into my chest and squeezed. I didn't know what else to do. There was nothing else to say. She tensed up, for a minute, and then her small frame was racked with sobs, from somewhere deep inside.

Four months before:

Sookie

I spit my bloody tooth into my hand, as my lip swelled. Quinn shook his fist at met. "I don't want you having a cell phone if people are going to be calling you at all hours."

"It was Jason."

"It's 10 p.m." He walked away.

I loved Quinn, I did. We'd been married for six, and together for ten years, ten good years, punctuated by bad times, but mostly full of good. The next day, when I got back from the dentist, after a very expensive dental implant to replace the tooth I'd lost, I made dinner, and waited for him to get home. "The dentist asked what happened."

He raised his eyebrows. "What did you tell him?"

I swallowed. "I told him we'd see someone."

Quinn sighed. "Like a shrink?"

I wiped the tears away from my eyes. I'd totally broken down in front of Dr. Compton. It had been embarrassing. He'd been adamant about me reporting Quinn, but I knew there was no way I could do that. "Yea. Quinn, you keep saying you're sorry, and I keep fucking up. I think it would be good for us to talk to someone, and figure out why we're doing this."

He ate his dinner in silence. I went to bed first, and when he came in later, I could feel him watching me. "I don't like that you told some stranger our personal business."

I braced for what I thought was coming, but it never did. Instead, he rubbed my back. "I'm sorry," I whispered.

"Find your shrink. It's covered under my health insurance."

We started the next week, and for the first few sessions, he was very quiet, mostly listening to me talk about the situation as I saw it. Eventually, he started talking about his parents' relationship, and how his father would use him and his sister as a go-between, and also use them against their mother when they'd fight. He never came right out and said that his father had hit his mom, but after meeting her and his dad, and living this, I was starting to see her in me. I never wanted that. His mother was not someone I thought a lot of. I'd always thought she was weak.

I thanked God every night for my job; it was the tiny bit of independence I'd been able to retain somehow. There had been lots of talk of me leaving work when we had kids, but it was just talk so far, and he hadn't pushed the issue. We had a mortgage that needed to be paid, and I made a good salary.

Things felt like they were improving for a while, and then we'd have a setback, talk about in therapy, and move on. It felt like we were at least acknowledging that we had a problem, which Dr. Ludwig said was the first step.

I just felt like we weren't moving onto whatever step number two was. We kept repeating step number one.

Two months of therapy later, I broke the lawnmower, running it over one of his golf balls in the backyard. I'd tried to get fixed without him knowing, but the stupid shop had called his cell because they had it on file.

I didn't even hear him come up behind me. His hands were around my throat briefly, before he pulled them away, punching me instead. I guess he wanted me to live to take another beating another day.

"Quinn, get your hands off me!" I pulled myself away from him seconds before he slapped me. My hand went to my face, as tears stung my eyes. "Jesus."

He backed away, slightly, before his eyes darkened. "You brought this on yourself. I don't know how you could be so stupid."

I didn't even know what I'd done, if he was angry about the lawnmower, or something else. It didn't matter anymore.

Present day:

Eric

I sat beside Sookie and smiled over at her as her name was called. We stood for the judge, and then the charges were read and the plea was entered. After seeing the evidence, listening to her friends and her family discuss what they'd witnessed, it made me sick, knowing they'd let it happen, to a point. It was easier to turn a blind eye than to involve yourself in the personal life of someone else, even if you had a bad feeling about things, as most of them seemed to have had, at one time or another. I found myself physically wrenching over the toilet while the judge deliberated. I rarely let things affect me like this anymore. It was kind of surprising.

The expression in the judge's eyes was one of pity, so the verdict was no surprise. Therapy, probation for six years, and later today, a very lengthy press statement outlining exactly what had happened. You couldn't send a battered woman to jail. The public outcry would have been intense. The judge also made a suggestion I wasn't expecting. Looking right at Sookie, he point blank told her to go out and make a difference. It was the only thing that would make any of this right.

Two years later:

Eric

I sat in the small interview room waiting for my next client. Instead of the meek woman that I was expecting, a face from my past walked in. Sookie Stackhouse. A sight for sore eyes. She was stunning, with her hair long, and a blue sun dress that brought out the colour of her eyes.

"Mr. Northman." She smiled, that determination I'd seen in her face the night we met was even stronger.

"It's Eric." I stood up and extended my hand. Instead of shaking it, she held it. "You look good, Sookie."

"Thanks. I am good." She had a twinkle in her eye.

I leaned back in the chair, trying my hardest not to eye her up and down. It wasn't the time or the place, and she wasn't the girl."What are you doing here?"

She sat across from me. "I'm working as an advocate for battered women now. As the old saying goes, it takes one to know one."

"Ah."

"I know I said thank you, for what you did for me back then, but I don't really think you realize how much of an impact you had on me. You saved me." She sighed. "I wasn't me anymore, not really. I don't know how I ended up there."

"No one ever does." I gave her a half smile. "Who am I seeing today?"

"Her name is Thalia. Boyfriend broke her nose last week. She stole his car, and totaled it."

I nodded, as she stood up, and opened the door. "Sookie?"

She turned around. "Yea?"

I took a chance. It was too soon before, but there was something about her, her zest for life, even in the midst of all that pain that had drawn me in, and made me want to know her, without all the other stuff. I wasn't sure if that would ever be possible really, since the events of her past were a part of her, woven into her by some cruel seamstress. Still, I had to ask. I'd thought about her quite often since the trial, and my ears perked up whenever Jason mentioned her.

"Have dinner with me?"

She nodded, and then winked at me. "Get my number from Jason, and I'll have dinner with you."

The average woman in an abusive relationship will leave seven times before they get out for good.

Women are far more likely to be murdered by someone that they've been intimate with.

Half of women have experienced some type of abuse in their adult lives.

Thanks for reading. I hope I've done it justice, and if I haven't, please feel free to let me know. I hope that if you have someone in your life that is dealing with physical or mental abuse, that you will do what you can to help them, in whatever way you can.