A/N: Just so you know chapters 5, 6, 7, 8 & maybe 9 are really just one huge chapter I broke up cause it's the biggest exposition scene in my story, and really, it's just one long ass scene anyway. I'll return to switching POV once I finish this scene.
A/N: Again thoughts are in italics. REPEAT: I have no beta, all mistakes are mine, but some grammar mistakes are intentional.
ALSO THANK YOU TO everyone who put this story on Alert and who Favorite'd it and Favorite'd me. It's the only reason why I'd try to write this thing over again. So please continue to review.
Also I KNOW ITS Annoying that I am not answering certain questions and that it is a little confusing...but I figure I'm tackling the headache that is time travel and therefore deserve slack.
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Recap:
Eric was confused by Sookie's body language as it read despair and told him she needed comfort, news of his continued existence shouldn't inspire such a response from his beloved. Unless somehow I am the villain of her story? I know that if I were the villain, I would like to be referred to as the #1 Villain rather than just the generic 'bad guy'. Perhaps...NO. Impossible...unless I am once again under a spell of some kind...
Sookie spoke with a lilt in her voice. "You used to tell me, to wish you were, is a waste of time, as one must be productive, if one is to stand, the test of time. Wow that rhymed." And then she giggled a bit madly.
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Chapter 7: Exposition!
With great power comes great responsibility.
-Ben Parker, Spiderman
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Rather than let the tension in the room suffocate them all to annoyance (because they were already dead), Pam decided to just change the subject. "So what exactly does a 'telepathic upgrade' mean? Will you be able to read the mind of Were's and other Supe's more clearly? Or will you move on from humanoid's and be like that man Dr. Dolittle?"
Sookie immediately perked up at the chance to escape answering a question she obviously didn't want to answer. "No, I will still not be able to read real animals, although that would be cool...not as cool as having laser eyes, but cool."
Pam watched with interest as Sookie reached out once again to take comfort in Eric's touch. This time she sought to cradle one of his large hands in between her two tiny ones. "So anyway, like I said, in my past, today, is the day the dam in my head broke…metaphorically speaking."
"Get literal." Pam retorted.
"Okay, literally my mental shields broke down due to a massive power surge of unknown in origin. It's my belief that my telepathy just grew organically. That or aliens did it." Sookie gave Pam a wink to indicate that she was joking. Pam smiled in response, glad to know that all was not lost of her telepathic friends humor.
"...Sam and Amelia are all in the camp of suspecting someone nefarious was behind the increase in my power. Even though its a mystery as to what caused the power surge, I do know that it was so massive that my mental shields were torn to pieces and I went into a coma for a couple hours and woke up with a new ability. And a massive hangover. And a degenerative telepathic ability. And a itchy nose."
Pam leaned forward crowding Eric's back, "What new ability?"
Just as Eric leaned in closer to ask, "What's wrong with your telepathy?"
Sookie smiled wryly, "My new ability...well, I kinda want that to be a surprise," Sookie winked twice, teasing Pam and causing her to frown. Sookie's enjoying holding all the cards a little too much.
And just like that Sookie was once again staring into Eric's eyes as if she were begging him for something or perhaps she was looking for something in him that she just couldn't find. Understanding maybe? Well, if Sookie's looking so hard for understanding she should get better at weaving a tale composed mostly of exposition and trivial tangents.
"Constant white noise was the world I lived in. I used to think of my telepathy as having a volume button, one I could lower or raise in volume. One that allowed me to selectively listen to each thought within my vicinity. But ultimately forced me to live with constant white noise humming in the background, ever-present but ultimately ignorable." Sookie suddenly stood up and went to the first locker and ripped it open and began examining the contents inside before she shut the door and moved on to the next one.
"Now, I don't have that static in my head, it's more like classical music that plays in the background at a party. You know it's on cause it contributes to the ambience but you don't really listen each song as it plays, you know unless you were making a concentrated effort to do so." Sookie looked in the next locker, shut the door and opened the next one.
"Just like before my mind is filled with the thoughts of everyone around me, all the time, but now I deal with more thoughts and greater visual representation of thoughts, not just word thoughts." Open. Look. Shut.
"Except with vampires."
Sookie smiled genuinely, "Yes. Except with vampires who I couldn't hear at all, which was awesome cause you guys just gave my head the rest it needed. Unfortunately now I hear everything all the time I can't ignore it. My hearing range is twice what it used to be. And I can read further into human minds without physical contact." Sookie opened the last locker looked inside and pulled a little baggie before shutting it.
"Your waitress Dina is a drug dealer. She's got a narcotic's cop on her ass and she's using this place to peddle low level sedative's. You should probably look into that." Sookie threw the drugs at Pam who caught them easily. Sookie slid onto the bench next to Eric as if she had never gotten up in the first place.
"When my power increased and I woke up from my little coma I had lost the ability to shut everyone out, I needed to completely rebuild my mental shields from scratch...it was a lot harder to do the second time than it was when I was growing up. I don't know why that is...it got so bad at one point that I had to go into isolation for several months to get the white noise/classical music experience back."
Pam really wanted to what kind of incident could lead the stubborn southern bell to even consider cutting herself from all her little friends and the shambles of normalcy she so desperately tried to maintain in her life. She must have 'cracked up' as they say, in a spectacular meltdown of craziness. Next year I'll buy her that movie Girl, Interrupted for Christmas, or maybe One Flew Over the Cookoo's Nest.
Eric proved that he was much more adept than Pam at processing everything Sookie was and wasn't saying when he astutely asked, "Except with vampires whom you COULD not hear, as in past tense?"
Uh oh.
Sookie smiled slowly then, letting her fangs down as she turned to Pam and said, "I'm partial to Girl, Interrupted myself, I've always been a fan of Winona." Oh crap stop think-
"It won't help you Pam, no matter how hard you try you can't stop thinking." Pam just stared blankly at the wall above Sookie's head, avoiding her eyes, and trying to quiet her mind. Well this is an unsettling turn of events.
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Sometimes the questions are complicated and the answers are simple.
-Dr. Seuss
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Eric cupped Sookie's cheek turning her gloating face away from his progeny, back to meet his gaze as he searched her face for any signs of deceit. "Lover why do I get the feeling that you still cannot read my thoughts?"
"Because your a highly intuitive man Eric." Eric let his had fall away from Sookie's porcelain skin.
"Explain." Sookie raised an eyebrow at him in a near perfect imitation of Pam. "Please." He added.
"My ability on who I can hear increased so much that I can now hear vampire thoughts, my ability to hear other Supe's more clearly also increased, my ability to hear you became as easy as breathing. We were-ARE so connected by the blood bond that I could hardly remember who was who and when I was me. Regrettably, the ability to read your mind proved to be too much for me to handle and drove me insane. Hence time away in isolation." Sookie looked away and then back at him.
"Even more regrettably, my absence combined with the strength of our bond which despite vast distances still transmitted our thoughts to one another, also drove you insane." Eric opened his mouth to speak but Sookie held up a hand silencing him.
"Please hold all questions till the end of my elucidation, that's my word of the day by the way." Eric heard Pam chuckle over his shoulder but his eyes never left Sookie's face.
"Right now, I can hear everyone in the bar. Everyone on line outside the club waiting to get in. I can hear all the people in the parking lot. And if I concentrate I can sift through them and pick out individual people, thoughts, creatures, and I can do all that without leaving this room. But, If I open up our blood bond again. And yes, Eric, " She grabbed both his hands then. "I am the one who has severed the tie between us, because if I open you up to me, to my feelings, to my mind, my power, it will overcome us and all will be lost."
Eric was so pained. He squeezed Sookie's hands so hard that if she were human he would have broken bone. He could feel the tear sliding down his cheek. It was a cruel fate to have her power increase only to damn the connection they both coveted so much.
"I'm so sorry Eric, I know you must have thought I was dead or something but when I went crazy and lashed out at people, I screamed at them to shut up, I talked to people who weren't there, I went catatonic. But you? You could feel my insanity, my pain, but as soon as you did, it became your own. And the more my instability affected you, the worse I got, then the worse you got, then me then you and blah blah and so forth etcetera.
"You see? Our bond just perpetuated this cycle of sharing pain and insanity. Which is bad. Obviously. Cause crazy Sookie is bad, but crazy Viking is homicidal. Ultimately you went on a killing spree so massive that the public noticed and Felipe DeCastro had to step in to save face for the VRA."
Eric was in shock.
"It took Felipe, Pam, Bill, Sam, Bubba, Jason and a couple panthers from Hotshot and my cousin Claude as bait to finally immobilize you enough to sedate you."
"Sedate me? Felipe didn't have me killed?" Sookie shook her head.
"I made a deal with some head honcho's, got us whisked off to Alaska for some R&R. We got some much needed alone time. Away from people, isolated by nature, and the ocean, it was really fun vacation."
Pam spoke up then, reminding Eric that his progeny was still in the room. "Why aren't you more incoherent now, I mean, you know from my thoughts that I think your off like Bubba is, but I want to know if that is because of your increased telepathy or because of how you were turned, or is this new ability you gain that you think I've forgotten about the culprit?"
Sookie's expression was somber, "I won't lie, my turning wasn't ideal, but that was something that just exacerbated the symptoms of our insanity."
Eric was puzzled by Pam who was inching closer to the door so slowly that it was even hard for Eric to see what she was doing. Sookie following his gaze turned to look at Pam over her shoulder, "If you feel more comfortable by the door just walk over to it Pam. I'm not an animal in the woods, you don't have to worry about spooking me and you never worried about offending me before so why start now?"
Eric glared at his progeny, disappointed that she would fear Sookie's ability just like the humans did. Or perhaps she could be trying to get a away from me. After all it apparently took 5 vampires, a handful of were panthers and a fairy to take me down.
"I've got a lot of control over my mind just not enough for the amount of power that I now wield...Eric and I, back in Alaska. would camp or rent houses closer and closer to towns, allowing me to practice my ability from a distance and slowly increase the difficulty over time until I could fully integrate myself back into society as a not so crazy person."
Eric smiled at Sookie and then pulled her in for a kiss. He bit her bottom lip and gripped the back of her head tightly as he poured his passion for her into her mouth. Hopefully proving that even if Pam didn't trust her, he did. And he always would. As they broke apart, he noticed Pam had taken a few steps away from the door and towards them. Baby steps maybe, but progress is progress.
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To Be Continued…Next week sometime before Friday
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QUOTES IN CHAPTER:
With great power comes great responsibility.
-Ben Parker, Spiderman
Sometimes the questions are complicated and the answers are simple.
-Dr. Seuss