Crossfire

Disclaimer: Don't own shit…

Summary: Compassionate Sookie manages to talk Godric down from the ledge, and his presence brings great change into both Eric and Sookie's lives. Eric/Sookie/Godric.

Chapter 1:

And we're caught in the crossfire

of heaven and Hell, and we're searching for shelter. -Brandon Flowers

In her recent association with vampires, Sookie Stackhouse had become exceedingly sensitive to the coming dawn. As much as she loved the sun, she'd even come to resent it a little, knowing it would take her lover away for the duration of its long hot journey across the sky.

This night, she dreaded the rising sun more than ever.

"Bill, I have to go to him," she insisted, tugging upon her arm. "I can't let Godric die alone."

"His child is with him," protested Bill Compton. "He wouldn't want a human there. What do you possibly think you could do?"

"Be there," she retorted.

Flabbergasted by her empathy, Bill released his hold, watching Sookie dart away with sad eyes.

He wished she were not so damned good. Were she a typical mortal, he could have exploited her with little regret. Enjoyed her body, taken her blood, and basked in her love with no remorse.

As it was, he hated himself and his mission a little more with each passing night.

Perhaps he'd been sent to procure the telepath for his queen, but every night he felt himself fall deeper and deeper in love with her. He truly loved her, and for that the fate he knew awaited her pained him greatly.

But what could he do? Sophie Anne was his queen, and his elder by a century. His hands were tied.

I

Sookie hit the roof running, lack of oxygen burning in her lungs. Dawn's rosy fingers began stroking the night sky, slowly chasing twilight to the other side of the world. She could feel the heat hovering just on the other side of the horizon; a new day waiting to burst over the waiting city.

At the top of the stairs she paused at the sight before her. Eric pleaded with his maker in a language unknown to her, but she caught the gist all the same. The vampire sank from his intimidating height to his knees, blood tears filling his eyes and streaming down his cheeks. Godric fed him soothing words, but only respect kept Eric from scooping up the smaller man, and dragging him to the safety of the shadows.

Death could not sway the ancient vampire's decision to die.

Sookie hoped that life would have a better chance.

She walked slowly to the pair of vampires, and Godric's gaze turned to find her. There was surprise in his blue eyes. Bewilderment. And pain, so much pain it tore her heart in two. He held up his hand to her approach as though to ward off a blow, but Sookie did not heed him. Her feet flew without thought, and suddenly her arms clasped Godric in a fierce embrace, surprising both vampires beyond words or action.

Eric watched with an expression of horror for her audacity. How dare she touch Godric? The greatest vampire he'd ever known?

How dare she embrace his maker, the way he wished he could at that moment?

Godric froze, completely wooden beneath her grasp. When last had he been embraced so freely? With such affection? By a human, no less? These were things he had not known for centuries, and Sookie thrusting her compassion upon him unsettled him greatly.

"You can't do this, Godric," Sookie pleaded through the tears filling her own eyes. "This world needs you, more than ever."

Slowly, unsure, Godric lowered his arms to rest upon Sookie, clasping her loosely. Her life positively thrummed against him; her warmth and scent an intoxicating medley to his senses. He understood more than ever why his child desired her so.

"I must go, dear one," he tried to explain, fingers gently caressing her hair. It was golden as the sunlight about to burst upon them, and he felt fascinated by its shimmering quality, its soft texture. "I have been of this earth too long. I have done too much harm to fathom, and I can stand it no more."

Sookie shook her head against him, head snug in the bend of his neck. "You can't give up like this, Godric. It isn't the way."

"It is my choice." His voice came smooth and reasonable, and Sookie would have none of it.

"You say you have done harm to this world, but by ending yourself, the energy dies, Godric. There is no balance in quitting like this, when you could live, and spread good for another two thousand years." She leaned back slightly to gaze into his intense blue eyes, and even with her gifts she nearly lost herself within them. "Live, Godric. I beg of you. Eric needs you. We all need you."

Godric palmed Sookie's cheek, and searched her eyes for any trace of dishonesty. Any sliver of ulterior motive. But she met his gaze with her tear-filled eyes, and all he could find was compassion. "Think of everyone you could help," she urged him. "All the lessons you have learned in the course of two thousand years. Don't throw them away, when you could bring vampires and humans alike into a new era."

With a small smile, Godric shook his head sadly. "Vampires are killers at the core, Sookie. Haven't you learned this lesson yet?"

"So are humans, really. But we fight it. We work to better ourselves. We follow teachers who help us be better men and women than what we are. Why couldn't vampires?"

"I'm no Jesus, Sookie. I'm no Buddha, waiting under the bo tree for a stroke of divine genius."

"I think you've already had your stroke, Godric," Sookie shot back. "The stroke is just the beginning, but you're throwing it all away."

"You think I'm a coward."

"I think you're scared. The guilt for all you've done has finally hit you, two millenia worth, and you're trying to cope. And you're brave enough to just end it. But I wish you would chose to live instead. You aren't alone. You don't have to go through this alone."

Godric seemed amused by her rhetoric, but Sookie recognized it as a mask. Underneath, the ancient vampire felt flabbergasted that this small pretty waitress from Bontemps, Louisiana was fighting for his life.

A human, at the end.

Perhaps he could still be surprised.

"Eric has been free of me for centuries, Sookie. You think he wants to coddle me now, when he has his own affairs to attend to?"

Eric had remained silent up until this point, merely watching with a horrified fascination. But at this moment he clasped Godric's hand, pressing it to his forehead. "Come back to Louisiana with me," he pleaded, voice haggard. "I beg of you. At least take more time to think this over."

"Yes, come back with us," Sookie pleaded. She wanted to shake some sense into this vampire, but suspected it wouldn't be one of her finer ideas.

Godric paid them both a long and evaluative gaze, taking up precious seconds. The dawn was moments away; it tingled across the vampires' skins, threatening to burst into flame with the slightest encouragement.

What seemed like an eternity passed, before Godric finally nodded. "Very well. I will think it over."

As the sun peeked over the horizon, both vampires raced for the safety of the stairwell. In the shadows once more, Sookie peeled her death grip from Godric's person, his strong arm about her waist. But she found he did not seem to want to let go.

Still nervous for the proximity of fresh beams of sun, Eric ushered them down the hall, into his room. He wished there were a way he could lock Godric in the suite, just to protect him from his own worst enemy.

Himself.

"Will you stay with us?" asked Godric quietly, vulnerable, and though Bill waited just down the hall, Sookie knew she couldn't say no.

"Yes," she agreed, expecting a leer from Eric. But there was nothing. He stared at her as though she were a species he'd never beheld before on this earth. A species he couldn't quite be sure what to make of. Friend or foe? Was it poisonous, good to eat, or something to be cherished?

He suspected she was treasure, and felt all the more wary for it.

She could turn both their worlds upside down, if they let her, but maybe it was just what Godric needed.

II

Godric lay upon the center of the king sized bed in Eric's suite, staring at the ceiling contemplatively. Sookie had watched in awe as Eric stripped him of his shirt with all the care of a father with his child, and tucked him beneath the covers. Dawn pulled at both of them, and Godric's eyelids drooped, but would not find peace in the undead rest of the day.

"I am indebted to you, Sookie, after this great service you have done," said Eric, rifling through a drawer. She watched him warily; old habits die hard. "You pulled Godric back from the edge where I could not, and I will not forget it."

He produced a black t-shirt, and held it out in offering. Though it would be snug upon his impressive frame, Sookie knew it would hang to her knees. Still, she regarded it with apprehension. This new side of Eric, an Eric capable of love and honor, still seemed too strange for belief to her.

Understanding perfectly well, Eric sighed, bunching the shirt in his hands. "I still want you, Sookie. I cannot change that. But I promise to behave myself tonight, if you will stay with him. I swear it." He shot a worried glance in Godric's direction, knowing very well that his maker could hear every word.

He spoke with such conviction, that for once Sookie believed him. She accepted the shirt, and turned her back to the vampire, offering him her zipper.

This was all so strange. Godric himself was older than Christianity, the belief system she'd been brought up in that laid so much emphasis on modesty and shame.

Sookie was tired of being ashamed of things that should have been below her notice. So why couldn't she sleep in the same bed as two other male vampires, while her own lover waited up down the hall? Well…

Eric paused, not expecting to win his argument so quickly, from past experience. A hunger rose in him at the thought of undressing her that he just barely managed to hold in check. With an iron control, he clasped the zipper, carefully drawing it down. No monkey business, no stray caresses. But still a heat blushed across Sookie's skin at the feel of his fingers upon her, the cool air brushing her bare skin inch by inch. Eric felt her desire through the bond, her response to his touch, no matter how platonic.

Things could never be truly platonic between them. Emotions ran too high, somewhere between hate and lust was a line they precariously walked.

Sookie turned to meet his eyes, and the gaze held them both static in the moment. It seemed just a breath could send them over the edge, and so with a growl Eric somehow managed to walk away, leaving her to change.

Shaking slightly, Sookie slipped out of her dress, and into Eric's shirt. Though clean, it smelled ever so slightly of him, and she fought not to bury her nose in the fabric.

With heavy eyes Godric watched Sookie advance towards the bed, her hair let down from its tight ponytail, the huge t-shirt fitting her as a nightgown. Physically, she was pretty, and lithe, but her compassionate heart lent a glow that he found irresistibly compelling. He suspected he was not the only one who responded to her energy in such a way. She slipped under the covers, and Godric curled around her with a head on her breast, with an ease that could have indicated this had been their ritual for a century past.

Sookie smoothed her fingers through his hair, watching the light spilling out from the doorway of the bathroom. Eric doing whatever it is vampires do before bed. She'd never been curious enough to ask.

Godric had been young when turned. Almost painfully young, a teenage boy at the peak of physical prowess. A youthful face that did not match the ancient eyes staring out at the world he knew all too well. After two thousand years, he felt certain he knew all her tricks, but two thousand years had not prepared him for the anomaly that was Sookie Stackhouse.

"You are a rare sort of human, little one. The likes of which I have not seen in centuries," Godric sighed, his fingers convulsing in the fabric of her shirt. He inhaled her scent, and could not place her own particular flavor of sweetness. What was she?

"I'm not so special," she insisted. She'd been told so by everyone, her whole life. It was a fact she'd become used to.

"No, Sookie. You are. Eric senses this too. It is part of the reason why he wants you, though he doesn't know how to express his interest without appearing weak. So he has given in to the temptation of playing petty games and spinning intrigues. When all he would really have to do to win you, is show you his true self. Could you know the depths of his great soul as I do, you would run from him no longer."

The light shifted, and Sookie looked up to find Eric staring out from the doorway, a horrified expression flashing upon his features, before he schooled it to an amused blankness. "Giving away my secrets already?"

He attempted to sound flippant, but Sookie detected the hint of strain beneath his words. Though he addressed his maker, his penetrating gaze remained all for Sookie, and she felt pinned to the spot by twin blue orbs.

"We vampires have served mystery and deceit faithfully since the dawn of time," mused Godric sadly. "But more and more, I think truth could be the better mistress."

Bewildered by his maker, for once Eric had no reply.

Godric toyed with the very fabric of their existence. What was a vampire, without his cloak of shadows?

He was a vampire in the sunlight.

He was a pile of dust at the first break of dawn.

Godric had taught Eric this.

But the rules were changing, with the great revelation. Boundaries shifting. Black and white fading to gray. Who knew where their road could lead?

Eric only knew he felt grateful to still have his maker, and that there was not much he wouldn't do to keep Godric with him, upon this earth, in this plane of existence.

Godric held out a hand to his child, and Eric flipped the light, crossing the room in shadow. Vaguely Sookie could make out his powerful outline, black boxer briefs, and nothing else. The Viking slipped beneath the covers, spooning his maker protectively, easily engulfing the smaller man. Sookie too turned upon her side, finding herself a slice of bread in a Godric sandwich. Though the eldest vampire held her, she knew he felt comforted to be between the two of them, her small hand laced in his own. Though it wasn't exactly a thought, she could feel his relief emanating from his every pore, that he was no longer alone.

Bill would be mad as hell if he could possibly lay eyes on the scene in Eric's room, but as it was not a bone in Sookie's body at the moment felt it could be wrong to be a pillar for Godric in his time of need.

A large hand settled upon Sookie's side, completely engulfing the curve of her hip. Even that couldn't unsettle her; Eric did not grope her or even steal a caress-he simply fit, as they all did together, and comforted by the power of three, the trio fell quickly into the arms of Morpheus.

A/N: So…I felt a little guilty coming up empty handed for my fic "Don't" this week- there wasn't much Sookie/Eric action to go off of. So, this is my offering in its stead. Hopefully sufficient? Maybe worth continuing? Your feedback is golden!