Fandom: True Blood, Sookie/ Warlow

Summary: The Night after Warlow is killed, Sookie receives a vision.

Disclaimer: I do not own True Blood, or its characters. This is fan fiction.

Author's note: I haven't written anything in a few years, but this needed to get out. Please forgive how rusty I am. Hope it spreads a little love for Warlow.

The house was finally quiet. Andy had taken Adilyn home after Sookie promised the young Halfling to visit later, Jason and Violet had gone to Jason's house, and Jessica had convinced Bill to go home with her when it was obvious Bill's very presence was offensive to Sookie, last minute save or not. And though Sookie doubted Niall was in any shape to go teleporting or whatever it was that he did, he left after assuring her safety saying he needed rest and would check in on her later.

Sookie had changed from her lacy black dress into her comfortable pink pajamas and though she was a bit woozy from the blood loss and the adrenaline from the fight with Warlow, it just wasn't in her little Southern heart to leave her house a mess.

She spent a little time in the living room righting furniture and sweeping up broken glass from the foyer and then went into the kitchen to throw away the glass when she felt a strange presence behind her. Slowly she turned and let her eyes scan the corners of every wall, let her mind open up to hear anything she could, but there was nothing. She looked out the window to assure herself that she was completely alone, and she was.

She sighed, figuring it was just her body being hyperaware of everything considering not a few hours before she nearly became a fairy-vampire hybrid. She had been fighting for her life so often in the last few months that she wondered if her body could ever go back to normal, wondered if she wouldn't jump at every noise, if her heart would stop thumping so loud in her chest.

She shut off the light in the kitchen and started to make her way upstairs when she heard something, a whisper.

"Sookie…"

She stopped and her heart leapt in her throat, an unfortunate familiar feeling.

"No…" She gasped, her eyes started stinging with tears.

There, right in her living room, stood the very last person she ever expected or wanted to see. Macklyn Warlow.

He was dressed in the very same clothes he'd been in all week; the jeans, the brown button-up shirt, the boots, and that damned necklace. His shoulders were slightly hunched, his hands in his pockets and a slightly sad smile on his face.

"Y-you're supposed to be dead." She stated, finally getting control over her voice and hoping she sounded braver than she felt.

He looked down briefly, the sad quirk of his lips never leaving his face. "I am. Finally dead. Completely. Never coming back."

And then finally Sookie could see it. After the shock of seeing him standing there, after the fear had subsided slightly, she could see how thin he looked. How his body wasn't entirely whole, how he seemed to waver in front of her like a breeze only to snap back in place, like he was a spirit.

Then the anger was back. With everything that this fucking monster put her through only hours ago, and what he did years ago to her parents, plans to kill her or not, how dare he stand there in front of her? How dare he look at her like he was on the verge of crying, like he regretted everything, like he wasn't the cause of all her misery?

"How the fuck are you here?"

He didn't hesitate to answer and looked in her eyes. "When a fae dies their soul will appear to their eldest family member to say goodbye before they pass on to the Summerlands. I have no family left. So, I am here to say goodbye to you. My soul mate." He shifted slightly, as if his clinical response sounded off-putting even to himself. "I don't have much time. Then I will be gone forever. You won't see me again, Sookie."

She shook her head, the tears making their way down her cheeks. "How can you possibly think that after everything you've done that I even want to see you? That I can even care that you're here?" Her voice sounded like a pitiful high pitched thing. Pain, all consuming, suffocating was soaked in every word.

Macklyn Warlow had come into her life like a freight train on a collision course with a jet airplane. It was fast and explosive, wonderful and terrifying. He made her feel loved and cherished like no other then at the end, worthless and cheap. While her decision to marry him and be turned had been a matter of urgency, there was something there that Sookie had looked forward to. The love he seemed to show her in their short time together, she imagined being with him for eternity and always feeling loved, always feeling special and cherished and important. She imagined someone putting her first. And that was a feeling she hadn't had in a very long time.

She had wanted him. She had wanted to be with him. And that shamed her.

He was danger and violence all wrapped up in a charming dimple-cheeked package. And she was independent and strong and would bow to no one. And it shamed her that she wanted him all while knowing how dangerous he was. Just so she could feel important to someone again.

"You know when we first met and I said that no matter how hard you try to do the right thing, it just turns out wrong? I tried so hard to fight every dark thought, every dark impulse after becoming a vampire. But in living my unending life, I started sacrificing things I shouldn't have. I gave in to every dark thought and impulse because I thought the ends justified the means. I lived far longer than I should have. It changed me, and not for the better."

He stepped closer to her, but still stood far enough away so as not to scare her further. "I can't blame Lilith anymore for what happened to me, I know that now. I made those choices. I did it all to myself."

Sookie watched his face as he spoke to her, his words hitting her uncomfortably in her chest. He looked so sincere and she just wanted to believe him, to tell him that she understood. But she couldn't, wouldn't do that. After being so wonderful and then turning into a monster and hurting her just when things weren't going as quickly as he wanted. She couldn't forgive that. That was what he was here for, wasn't it? Her forgiveness?

"I didn't deserve you the way that I was. How could I deserve your light, your beauty, your essence when I was so dark and tainted? I wish you could have known me when I was this," he gestured to himself and his image flickered from his modern clothes to a cloth skirt, his hair was longer and there was a youthfulness to his face that Sookie couldn't deny. He looked… happy. Then the image flickered again and Warlow was back again looking how Sookie knew him.

"But that wouldn't have worked either," he looked chagrined. "Even if I was never turned and we had met, I would have been an old man. I was older than Niall after all. It would have been cruel for you to meet me that way, finding out we were soul mates and for me to have lived lifetimes before you."

And because she could no longer hold it back, she sobbed. She cried for what life had dealt her, she cried for the man in front of her who hurt her, she cried for him because his life was ripped away from him and he made every wrong turn. Because he wanted to do the right thing but it always turned out wrong.

And the tears fell from his eyes as he watched her, his hand hung uselessly between them. He would have gone to her, would have caressed her and held her as she cried but he was nothing more than a spirit. "My greatest wish," and his words were choked with emotion, "is that you find someone more deserving of your love than I could ever be. That you are loved the way you deserve, wholly and completely, selflessly."

Her sobs died down to hiccups as she wiped her eyes. He was closer again and she could plainly see the regret and pain in his face, she could see the tears he shed for her. She still couldn't forgive him though; she couldn't give him the absolution she thought he desired. There was too much hurt, too many lies and manipulations. But she had to be honest.

"I could have loved you." If you hadn't hurt me, if you hadn't lied to me or manipulated me, I could have loved you Warlow.

He gave that sad smile again, "it's better you didn't." He reached out his hand again, as if he could just touch her one last time, feel her skin under his fingertips. "I am sorry for every hurt I caused you, Sookie."

She nodded, just accepting his words, giving him just this. She reached out her fingers to his, and perhaps it was one last gift given to the fae who were soul mates, where their fingers would have touched a small light flickered in the air and Sookie could almost swear she felt him just for a moment. But it was gone in an instant and Warlow just gazed sadly at her hand which was slowly lowering away from him.

Their time was almost up, she could sense it. "These… Summerlands… Is it like Heaven?" She asked him.

Then he did the last thing she expected, he smiled a true smile without the regret or sadness in his eyes. "Yes. There is joy and light and happiness there. I shall get to see my family again. I hope they will forgive me for all that I've done."

And then she knew, she could tell from the way he said it. He was never there for her forgiveness. He knew she couldn't give it, so he never expected it. And for that she felt a weight lift itself from her chest that allowed her to breathe just a little easier.

"If it's like Heaven, then they'll forgive you." She stated, reminded of another vampire who worried about forgiveness just before his death.

He smiled again at her words. "Goodbye, my Sookie."

She gave a small quirk of her lips, all she could manage. "Goodbye, Warlow."

And with a whisper in the air, he was gone. Macklyn Warlow was gone from Sookie's life just as he promised.

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