This currently is a one-shot that I wrote for the Secret Santa Fic Exchange. The person I was writing for was PFloogs72.

This idea was something that wouldn't leave me alone. The way I wrote it was basically as an epilogue to something bigger. I have plans to continue this in a major multi-chapter fic. A number of things were purposely left vague to not give too much away. It's both AH and AU but I attempt to stick to the personalities and characteristics of the characters the way Charlaine Harris wrote them, just in human world. If there are questions or comments feel free to ask. This is also available on my wordpress account. finiteanarchy . wordpress . com

Summary: Eric and Sookie have a messy past. One that keeps trying to catch up to them. How far they get is anyone's guess. AH/AU

~xx~

Note: Any words in other languages are phonetic translations.

Nearly a year. That's how long we'd been apart.

Vanished. Nothing left but note on a cold pillow. How he'd managed to sneak off, like a thief in the night all those times without so much as banging a toe in the darkness I'd never know. I wasn't even a heavy sleeper. Yet somehow, he had perfected the art of being quieter than a church mouse. I knew it was a skill I would never master. In the beginning, when he'd done it, I thought, maybe he didn't want to be around me, that he really had chased me around just for one thing and when he got it, he lost interest. I found out later, that wasn't the case at all.

We were in Amsterdam together. The year before he'd gone had been good. It wasn't perfect and we had a few knock-down-drag-out fights every now and then when we would be reminded of something from our pasts but for where we were, it had been as good as it could be. We picked Amsterdam because the two of us could blend with the population more than anywhere else. The Dutch population was one of the tallest in the world. And with Eric's six-foot-four-inch frame, he blended. He didn't think he would, but he did. Initially, he had wanted to go to Oslo but I put my foot down.

Too cold, I had said. I didn't want to deal with a lot of snow. Though, Amsterdam did get rather cold in winter, the sea level climate and general marsh-like land kept Holland from falling victim to terrible winter storms like its German neighbor.

Before Amsterdam, we'd been moving from place to place every couple of weeks.

"How are you feeling?" He asked quietly, leaning an elbow on the bed.

"Like death warmed over," I mumbled, removing the compress from my forehead.

Eric and I were being shuffled from hotel to motel, to hotel ad nauseam. There was a mole in the organized crime task force. Whoever they were reported our safe house to Viktor, leading me to nearly getting killed. Ever since then, the agents had been extremely tight lipped about every place we moved to. Usually the only time we ever got to leave our cushioned prisons was when we were being moved to a new location.

The stress of it all made me sick and with the constant fluctuations, I caught the flu.

"You shouldn't stay too close," I croaked. My voice went the day before yesterday.

"I don't care if I get sick." And just to prove his point, he snuggled up next to me and wrapped an arm around my waist.

I sighed and curled into him. "Okay," I said, "but don't blame me if you do." I picked up his hand from my waist and kissed the joints of his fingers.

"Would I do that?" He kissed the crook of my neck.

"Yes," I whispered. I don't think he heard me because he continued to kiss me lightly and his hand moved under my shirt and up. "That feels nice."

I don't remember falling asleep but when I woke, the room was dark and I could hear him outside, talking quietly to Agents Kolias and Granger.

He was arguing with them. It felt rude listening in on them initially but when you've been cooped up for as long as we have, nothing really gets to stay private. He wanted to go out. Neither of us had left our hotel room in more than four days. We both had a serious case of cabin fever.

As I listened, Eric only got louder, until he was yelling. His accent came out fully, as it always did whenever he felt strongly about something. He wanted to take me to a doctor. They'd have to get clearance. Until that happened, Eric was stuck doing nothing but pacing a hole in the carpet and watching crappy daytime TV.

The next day my fever spiked and Eric tried to make a break for it with me. I tried to tell him I was fine but he'd stopped listening. He waited until they were asleep, which I thought was odd. One of them was always supposed to be awake. I thought maybe he drugged them. But with what, I didn't know. The strongest thing we had was Advil PM. He crawled out the window in the bedroom and waited for me to do the same. I did, and he grabbed me around the waist to help me down.

Unfortunately, Eric didn't account for the extra eyes watching us from across the lot. It took two guys and a stun gun to subdue him. After stunning him, they practically had to carry him back to the room.

It was two more days before I could go to the doctor. Eric became perpetually foul-tempered until the trial. When he gave his statement to the police, it made some very serious waves. The cops started rounding up a lot of people. Some of the ones in the lower ranks, they confessed too, in an effort to get reduced sentences.

Only they didn't quite make it so far. One was found strangled in his holding cell. It looked like he hung himself but the police were skeptical. Another one overdosed. He'd been clean for two years. A third guy just went missing.

They'd tried for Eric too, once outside his house and once in his bar. They tried to use me, but I got away. Months later, I still had the occasional nightmare about it.

With evidence going missing and witnesses ending up dead, the trial suffered delay after delay. Then, after they caught the mole, things started running more smoothly and the trial finally had a set date. Eric testified, as did I, even though my knowledge of events had been limited. The both of us were happy to put everything behind us and start out life again. Happy just to be able to go home. The prosecutor thought it was a slam dunk. We'd given out testimonies and petitioned the prosecutor to get us released from protective custody now that the hard part was over. All we had to do now was wait for the jury to come back with their decision.

I was looking forward to spending Christmas with Jason and his new wife, Michele and to go visit Tara and J.B. We missed the birth of their twins. Christmas was supposed to be a time for families. Since my Gran died, Christmas just hadn't been quite the same. I missed us singing holiday songs together in the kitchen while I helped her prep dinner. No one in her little circle of friends could make better Yorkshire pudding. Last Christmas Eric stayed with me and gorged himself on two days of cooking. Apparently, Christmas wasn't a big deal in his culture. New Year's was when they exchanged gifts and had a big dinner and party.

My friend, Amelia, whom I'd known for a few years, had been at the trial. We'd met when she came into the bar Sam and I owned and struck up a conversation. She was a chatterbox. She had little in the way of tact and was born with a sliver spoon in her mouth but our personalities had clicked instantly and we talked most of the night. While I was in witness protection with Eric, Amelia had stayed at my apartment. She joined us for the cab ride back, thrilled that we would actually be home in time for Thanksgiving. She bought everything telling us about Thanksgiving in New Orleans and how she still couldn't perfect her grandmother's stuffing recipe. She opened the door first.

The last thing she said was, "I can never get her ginger snaps right."

The force of the blast blew both of us back. I had been standing in front of Eric, off to the side, leaning back on him waiting for Amelia to stop talking and just open the door. I woke up some time later to paramedics lifting me onto a stretcher.

I screamed.

There was a model in a blue hat suddenly in my line of sight. A model? That wasn't right. He started to make shushing sounds. "It's okay Miss. You're going to be alright." He shined a light in my eyes. "Can you hear me?"

That was when I realized the ringing and everything sounded like I had cotton in my ears. I tried to nod but I couldn't. Something kept my head from moving.

"Miss?" The model. He looked far too young to be a paramedic. He had dark hair and looked like he should be inside the pages of Men's Health or GQ. He had a name tag on his jacket. C. Barnes.

"Yes." My voice cracked. "Yes." I was being carried outside.

"Good. Can you tell me what day it is?"

"Tuesday."

"Okay, can you tell me the date?" He asked as I was loaded into an ambulance. He got in and someone closed the doors behind him.

What the hell. "What is this, twenty questions?" I tried to move but that wasn't happening. "Where are you taking me? Where's Eric? Is Amelia okay?"

Something crossed Barnes' face. "Easy, there. We're taking you to Maimonides Medical. You've got some minor burns and a possible concussion." He attached a bag with clear liquid to a metal rod on my left.

I tried to grab him and get his attention back but my arm felt funny. "What about Amelia? And Eric?" Eric was behind me so he had to be okay. If I was okay, he had to be okay.

"Eric, I suppose that was the big guy behind you?" He looked at me. "He was slammed hard onto the floor behind you. He hasn't regained consciousness yet."

"Is he going to be okay?" I felt tears spill over. Everything was starting to go a bit fuzzy.

The last think I heard him say was, "Let's just worry about you."

I woke hours later. It was dark and the room was chilly. There was a brace around my neck. Whiplash, they told me later. Some strong first degree burns. Slight concussion. The coat had protected me. That and the sprinklers. Smoke inhalation. Eric had a severe concussion from hitting his head on the tile floor, hairline fractures in his left shoulder and one rib where my head hit him. Doctors had to go in to reduce the swelling.

Amelia didn't make it. When the police explained it to me, it didn't feel real. I guess they were expecting Eric and me to open the door first. It would have been if we hadn't hung back for a kiss. If we had been standing behind Amelia, instead of off to the side, we wouldn't have been talking at all.

We were under guard in the hospital. When Eric regained consciousness, he wasn't happy about that.

"They won't stop trying," he said. "Not until we're either in the ground or a pile of ash."

I agreed.

"We're not going into witness protection again." They had shaved his head when he went in for surgery. Eric had beautiful long, blond locks. He had a bandage wrapped around his head and looked surprisingly vulnerable.

"Oh, we're not, are we?" I raised an eyebrow .Mr. High Handed.

Eric raised an eyebrow back. The one that wasn't covered by the bandage. "Don't tell me you want to repeat all that?"

"No, of course not. But I don't want to come home to any more bombs at my front door either."

We never did get to Thanksgiving that year. It took a lot of coercing and some very heated dialogue between us before deciding to go it on our own. I didn't want to risk my brother or anyone else by staying with them while we figured out what to do. I didn't want them used against us either. We waited until Eric got the all clear from the doctors.

It was a couple of days before Christmas when we'd gotten to Amsterdam.

Two years. That's how long we stayed there. It's a beautiful little city. Eric and I both had insurance money from our bars but we both decided to keep things modest. There was just no telling when we might really need it.

On Christmas morning, Eric surprised me by having room service send up a Dutch specialty bread for breakfast with stroopwafel, strawberry preserves and whip cream. Eric knew I loved Christmas, even though he himself couldn't have cared less about the holiday. I loved all the special holiday food.

Hey, you only got to eat it once a year, so why not indulge. After Eric tried my gingerbread the first Christmas after we met, he quietly acquiesced that, yes, Christmas could be fun.

For all our talk of cabin fever under witness protection – we didn't go out much the first few days. And even if we had wanted to, I don't think our legs would have accommodated. Eventually, I did get out though, which was how I was able to pick up Eric's Christmas present, a well decorated blue pair of Dutch clogs from the Waterlooplien outdoor market.

"What do I do with them?" He asked, skeptically. "They're made of wood." He peered into one, as if he could spot a splinter.

"Well, they're shoes." I tried to stifle my laughter. It was working fairly well with a mouthful of waffle. "You wear them."

"Hmm." He put them down. "Outside?"

"I guess you can. Or inside. The guy I bought them from said they are kind of universal."

We rented a nice flat on Geleenstraat Street, near the Maasstraat tram stop, under assumed names. Well, Eric was common enough in Dutch; he only changed the spelling to a K, with a different last name. My name was too unique to keep. I didn't like the idea of having to live like this but there weren't a lot of options. I went with Selene.

We both got bicycles. Neither one of us had ever ridden before. The first few times we both suffered numerous scraped knees.

"Fiet!" was one of the first Dutch words we learned. That meant bicycle.

"Car, train, airplane," he said, "being run over by a bicycle was not on my list of ways to die." Eric said, lying on his back on one of the stone bridges. The cyclist he collided with was on his side.

Their clothes took most of the damage. Eric had a scrape on his forehead. The other guy was being looked at by someone in the crowd. His mouth was bleeding.

"Well, I guess you can add it," I said giving him a little half smile. "At least you didn't end up in the canal."

He looked at me from his position on the ground. Then he looked at the icy water in the canal. "You wouldn't let me live it down," he said, turning back to me.

"Eh." It was kind of funny. After you got over how painful it was. "Maybe."

We were drawing a crowd. Eventually we got ourselves over to one of Amsterdam's medical clinics and got him patched up.

Eric got a job at a hostel's bar near the Van Gogh museum. He was quite the crowd pleaser. Everyone wanted to talk to him. Or hit on him. It helped that most of the people in hostels were young. He didn't stick out and with all the mixed accents in a hostel, no one questioned him beyond "where are you from" and "what brought you here;" two questions we both perfected answering. When they asked how we met, since I sounded American and he didn't, we both agreed to say in Amsterdam. We both loved it so much that we decided to stay.

Since I owned a bar with Sam, I took a bartending job as well, closer to the city center. We did okay. I made a few new friends. Eric didn't try to make friends. Though he did seem to accrue a following. Mostly of women. Eventually we both worked up to managerial positions in different places. Neither one of us really liked not having our own places. If things worked out well here and we could stay, in a couple of years we decided, we might be able to open a place together.

Of course, working in a bar brought with it a lot of memories. Sometimes when I'd pick up a glass or go to fill a particular drink order, I'd remember one of our old regulars, or something funny Sam would say about people who ordered rum and cokes with lime but called them cuba libres. That was its name, sure, but who ever called it that? Those memories usually brought me down. It brought Eric down too. I knew he thought about Pam more than he wanted to admit, but he had a lot more practice at hiding his feelings and keeping his emotions off his face. When we met, I thought it was just him being cold. Eric had a lot of demons in his closet. What we were dealing with now was only part of it. Often I thought of Niall, my great grandfather, and his role in all of it and if anything could have been done differently.

I tried not to think about everyone back home but it was really, really hard sometimes. I learned when I was younger ruminating on the "what-ifs" didn't get you anywhere and most of the time I was really good at just being in the now and going from day to day. Every once in a while though, I'd have a day where it hit me and I needed a good cry about it.

If Eric caught it he often thought it was me having second thoughts about everything. He'd go into attack mode any time he thought I might reject him. After a screaming match he'd storm out and disappear for a few hours. He'd come back, usually after he cooled down – still huffy and tense but there was a distinct lack of steam coming from his ears.

"I'm not going anywhere," I would say.

"I don't want you to," he would say.

"Sometimes, I need to think about them."

Eric looked at me, bewildered. "There's no point. Going home will only put them in danger as long as the same people run the organization." His organization. It should have been, anyway, as he told me. Eric didn't want to run things completely. But it should have stayed with his "family."

"At least Brenadan is dead." Brenadan was Niall's nephew. He wanted to take over Niall's enterprises but Niall was reluctant to step aside. Brenadan thought he would push Niall into either retirement or death. His plan of action involved killing me to weaken Niall and make him more vulnerable. It didn't work and Brenadan was now somewhere deep in the Atlantic. One less threat.

The following Christmas, after we'd been in Amsterdam a whole year, Eric did something unexpected. I'd gotten up to start breakfast when I noticed a number of small things under our little three-foot tree. I tried to convince Eric that wearing a Helmet with his bicycle would be safer but he just looked at me, as if to say, "Do you honestly think something as trivial as a bicycle accident would be my undoing?" I reminded him of his last bicycle collision.

"They did not see me," he said. Yeah, the guy with shoulders nearly as wide as a doorframe wasn't visible.

So I scratched that off the Christmas list. It would just end up in the closet. I bought him a book on sex practices through the ages that I found in an English bookshop. I suppose that was really a gift for both of us. There were also train tickets for us to spend New Year's in Brussels with a lot of chocolate, wine and his book on sex practices. There was one other thing I bought, but he wouldn't get to see it until we were in Brussels.

A pair of arms wrapped around me as I set out some jams. "So," he whispered in my ear, "what did Santa bring me?" He felt around until he grasped the tie to my robe.

I bumped him back with my butt. He groaned while I spun around. No shirt. Just boxers. His hands went back to untying my robe. I grabbed them and pushed them away.

"There are no presents under my robe."

"Says you." He went back to trying to get his fingers between the fabric. "Your breasts are a wonderful present. I enjoy them on a daily basis."

I blushed. "Quit it."

"No." He made another attempt.

I wriggled out of his grasp and made a run for the living room. I made it a few steps before he caught my arm and lifted me in a fireman's carry over his shoulder.

"Eric!" I yelled. "Put me down! Right now!"

"No." Then he smacked my butt lightly. "You're mine."

"That does not mean you get to carry me around like a sack of potatoes," I said into his back. He continued to walk toward the living room. So I smacked his butt to emphasize my point. That made him stop.

"Are we really going to play that game, my lover?" I could hear the amusement in his voice.

Hmm. Maybe.

He set me down in front of our little Christmas tree. There were two additional boxes there than I hadn't put there before.

"Eager?" I asked.

He looked down at the gifts under the tree. "Are these for me?"

I sat down on my knees. I grabbed his hand and pulled him down with me. Hmm, should I go with least impressive or most impressive, first?

Least. Definitely. I gave him the sex book first.

He handed me a medium sized package. We both opened our presents at the same time. Inside were to mobile phones. One for each of us. Fancy.

"Just in case," he said.

I wasn't the only one who bought a self-serving gift.

If Eric wasn't in the giving spirit before, he certainly was now. He flipped through the book. "We can try all these positions?" He asked, looking up. He had a very mischievous glint in his eye.

"You didn't think I bought that just for you, did you?"

He looked down at the book. Flipped a page. Looked some more.

Then he attacked.

Yes, Eric was definitely in the giving spirit. Christmas was so our time.

After we were both spent and laying naked on the living room carpet he leaned over and kissed me. One of those all-consuming kisses that you can feel everywhere. When we broke, he was holding a smaller box in front of me.

"Here," he said. It was wrapped in shiny silver paper.

I sat up to open it and grabbed his as well. I handed it to him but he didn't open it.

"Go on," he said.

I looked at him skeptically. Under the paper was a black box. I opened it.

My mouth dropped. I looked at him.

He was leaning back on his haunches in front of me. "Marry me, Sookie."

Inside the box was a diamond solitaire in a round cut, with a white-gold band. I took the ring out, as if to make sure it was really there and tangible.

Loving Eric was no easy thing. But there wasn't anyone else quite like him. Not for me, anyway. "Yes," I said.

He kissed me again and slipped the ring on my finger.

Brussels was amazing. And we may have eaten our weight in chocolate that New Year's.

It wasn't until the following year that things took a turn. It was the second week of December and Eric and I were both working at our respective bars. It was after I boarded the tram that I first noticed someone staring at me. I caught him in the reflection of the glass. At first I thought he was just checking me out; then I got a glimpse of something bulky in his coat.

Careless on his part. Maybe someone upstairs was looking out for me.

I got off the tram one stop early and started walking. He followed.

I ducked into a bar at the end of the block. Nothing else would be open. It was dark, which was good, and it was crowded. There were a lot of loud Dutch people in the bar. I wasn't short, but being five-six and blonde in a sea of tall blond Dutch people, I was lost to my stalker. I watched him from a dark corner trying to scan for me. The bathroom would be too obvious. He didn't think so because that's exactly where he went. I took the opportunity to skedaddle.

I ran with a speed I didn't think myself capable of back to the apartment. Eric was already there, working closer to home than I did. I told him what happened.

His face settled into a grim line. "Start packing." He started to walk into the bedroom.

"What?"

"Start packing," he repeated. "It isn't safe here anymore."

"But we have a new life here. We can't just go."

"We can." He pulled down two suitcases from the top of the closet.

"So, what then? Every time your past catches up to us we pick up and move? Keep sleeping with a knife in the nightstand? What kind of life is that?"

He started pulling things off hangers and folding them. He moved the wardrobe slightly and pulled a very intimidating looking knife out from behind it. "It's survival."

"Survival? We're not wolves in the wild, Eric. I don't want to leave." I wanted to walk out of the bedroom but I was too distracted by the knife I hadn't known was in our bedroom. "Why was that there?"

"Just in case," he said. There was another one under the bed, smaller. That one I knew about it.

"I don't want to leave, Eric."

"You want to wait until the next person follows you home?" His voice kicked up a notch. "It was chance you spotted this one. You might miss the next time." He threw a few pairs of shoes in the suitcase.

"There has to be something we can do."

"Like what?"

"I don't know. If the same guy tries again, maybe we can grab him. We know he's coming."

The idea made Eric pause. After a minute, he said, "It's worth a shot, as they say." We refined the idea and waited. With any luck, we'd get the drop on this mystery man. Eric kept packing though, as a precaution. Reluctantly, I packed too. We each brought a suitcase to the Central Station to keep in one of their storage lockers and we locked our bikes to a post outside.

It didn't quite work out the way we planned. Mystery man did follow me from work again, two days later. I called Eric at work to let him know. He'd be waiting across the street from our apartment. I let him follow me to our building. Eric tasered him when he got close. A small pocket knife fell from the man's hand. Eric brought him upstairs. I took the knife. Thankfully, at that time of night, there weren't usually people wandering the halls of the building.

I knew what was coming and I didn't like it one little bit. We secured him to one of our kitchen chairs. There was plastic under the chair. The license in his wallet said Sasha Stolyshsvek, resident of Kings County, New York. He was on a work visa.

"Nebrezhnyĭ," Eric said. Careless. "Stupid. Bringing his wallet with him like this."

I agreed. "I guess he didn't think the night would end badly for him."

"Arrogant of him," Eric said. Ha.

"Are you sure you want to be here for this?" He asked as he placed another chair in front of Mr. Stolyshsvek.

"It was my idea." I should see it through.

Eric popped him on the nose with his wallet to wake him up. "Dobroe utro." Good morning, he said.

It took some convincing but eventually, Mr. Stolyshsvek talked. After Eric was done I threw up in the bathroom. I couldn't watch Eric bagging up the body. It was too much. Eric said nothing while he worked. Carefully, we left with the bags and disposed of them, weighing them down with stones and slipping them into one of the nearby canals.

"You know," I said, "I kind of miss going to the movies at night."

"Are you telling me you don't enjoy the places I take you?" He asked; as he lowered the body down to avoid a splash.

"Don't get me wrong, the night is beautiful," I told him. "It's just…I don't think I'll be able to look at this canal quite the same way again."

"I think I can keep you distracted the next time we cross it," he said. "You want to go to Ghent tomorrow? We can make a day of it."

I thought about it for a moment as we started the walk back. "Yeah, okay."

Afterward, I couldn't sleep. Not that night, or the night after. Eric was dead to the world. In retrospect it was a good thing I was awake. Otherwise, I wouldn't have heard someone trying to jimmy the lock open.

I woke him up. Eric grabbed for the night stand. We pushed the pillows under the blanket then Eric pushed me into the closet. I still had the pocket knife. Whoever they were, they were still working the lock. We had a deadbolt.

I left the closet door open a crack and I could see Eric slip through the darkness; it embraced him like a glove. The shades were closed and if you didn't know what to look for, you wouldn't see it. He had a large knife in each hand.

When they finally got in, Eric was ready. Even in the darkness he moved with grace, using the dark to his advantage. Neither of them was ready. He shoved the blades into the backs of their necks to the hilt. The only sound they made was a low gurgling.

We moved quickly. They bled out on the floor while Eric checked them for weapons. They each had a gun with a silencer. I got out the garbage bags. We worked quickly and quietly in the still darkness. There was a part of me that was very not okay with doing this. But they were there to kill us. I had the right to defend myself.

They didn't have wallets with them. I guess that made them more professional than Sasha. We bagged them then scrubbed the floor where the blood pooled. By the time we were done, clean and dressed, there wasn't much left of the night. Two hours maybe.

Creativity dawned. "The garbage bins."

"What?"

"They collect trash this morning. The garbage bins will be out," I told him. "We take out the garbage from them, put dumb and dumber in and drag them somewhere less conspicuous."

Eric stared at me for a moment. "Clever." So that's what we did. I ran downstairs and emptied two of the bins, bringing them inside the lobby. They each had a set of two wheels on the back.

Thank God for small favors. If someone had asked me a couple of years ago if I had ever seen a dead body, I would have said no. If they had asked me if I'd ever seen someone killed, I would have said no. Hell, the number of life or death situations I'd been in could have been limited to a bad car accident years ago before meeting Eric. There were a lot of firsts with him.

Eric brought the bodies down. They were too big to fit them both in one bin. It was a good thing though that they were taller rather than broad. The legs could be bunched up but you just couldn't do anything with broad shoulders.

He loaded one in each and quickly, we started walking. Our street never saw tourists and most people were still asleep. We were in those golden hours between when people came home from a night of work or revelry and getting up to go to work. There was a large park a few blocks away. We left the bodies there, took the garbage bags off and brought the bins back. When we got to our building, we reloaded the trash we left outside into the bins and walked upstairs in silence.

"So," he asked, "you still want to stay?"

"We're alive, aren't we?"

"They know where we live. More will come. "

I sighed. "Yeah."

I started gathering a few more things I wanted to take with me. Nothing big. I had enough clothes in the suitcase stored at Amsterdam Centraal. Just some of the small things we bought here. A tiny Delft vase. Some jewelry. The sex book. I looked at our tree in the corner of the living room. We got a bigger one this year. Six Feet. There weren't any presents under it yet. I'd been keeping it hidden; a men's version of the ring he bought me. We hadn't actually gotten to a church yet. I think we were both waiting for the right moment when things were settled.

Eric went over the floor again, not wanting to leave any blood behind. When we were done we took our bikes and suitcases from the station and bought two tickets on the first available departing train. Four hours later we were in Frankfurt.

"Do you ever wish you were someone else?" I asked him, after we'd been on the train an hour.

"Like who?"

"I don't know. Someone who didn't have such a dangerous life." I tried to think of an example. "Like, um…Max. You remember him, right?"

"Max?" He asked, incredulously. "The accountant who couldn't stop talking about variable annuities? Why would you ever want me to be like him?"

"That's not what I mean," I said, "Not him, exactly…just someone else." This wasn't coming out right. "With a different life," I paused, "something simpler."

Eric sat back in his seat. He seemed to really be thinking about it. "No," he said after a few moments. "No, I can't see myself being anyone other than who I am."

I wanted to ask, "Even if who you are lead us to moving from place to place?" But I held my tongue. Playing the blame game didn't do anything make us both angry. There was no point in rehashing.

"Do you wish I was someone else?" He asked nonchalantly, like he was inquiring about the weather. But I knew otherwise. As brave a front as Eric displayed for the rest of the world, deep down he couldn't stand anyone who rejected his affection. And if he thought someone did, he'd lash out. It would hurt too. Not physically, not usually, but there were other ways to hurt someone. It seemed strange really, someone as handsome as Eric needing so much reassurance. But then, of course, he was used to people wanting him because he was good looking. It was all the other stuff that might have given pause or made someone else run screaming into the night.

I took his arm and wrapped both mine around it. "No," I said. And I meant it. "If you were any different – if I was any different, who's to say we'd be compatible at all?" And that was it, really. We each had a lot of bad things heaped on us. Things that would have made others run for cover. But it brought us closer.

The answer seemed to satisfy him because he took his arm out from mine and wrapped it around my shoulder. I felt asleep against him for the rest of the trip.

We spent a quiet Christmas in Frankfurt that year, holed up mostly in a hotel. I debated for a while on giving him the ring or not. It just didn't seem like the right time anymore. On the day itself, we decided to try having a nice dinner out. We had a traditional German meal of roast goose, potatoes and cabbage. We were so full that we fell asleep almost the minute we got back to the hotel. The next day we didn't do much outside of sleeping and screwing, keeping up with last year's tradition.

At the end of the day, I gave him the ring. He slipped it on his finger and looked at it for a long time. I wondered if maybe there was something else behind what I'd just done that I didn't realize.

Neither of us knew how we were found. It started to make Eric very paranoid. Soon I was seeing bad guys in every shadow too. After the New Year we decided to keep moving.

It had to be somewhere we could, more or less, blend, first physically, and second with the language issue. That meant the Mediterranean countries were out. Eric also pointed out there was a significant Russian presence in Madrid that wouldn't be good for us. Neither one of us spoke French. And the French weren't always so inclined to work at their English. I didn't want to go anywhere where it snowed eight or nine months out of the year. We both picked up a bit of German in Amsterdam but I think staying in Frankfurt worried Eric. It was too easy to follow.

Eventually, we settled on Zurich. Close enough that you wouldn't think of looking so close but far enough away to feel comfortable.

Readjusting was tough. The city was different. The language was different. The people were different. By February I was tired. Tired of feeling like I was under a microscope, tired of thinking if we were safe, tired of watching what I said because I knew Eric was tired too. And the more tired I got, the more Eric and I got on each other's nerves.

Bartending wasn't working for me here. After a month of not working I looked into a TEFL certification course; Teaching English as a foreign language. The course lasted for about four weeks, five days a week and it was close to 800 Swiss Francs. The course left me drained by the end of the day but at least they helped me look for a job at the end of it. I'd asked Eric if he wanted to get the certification as well but the idea of teaching others didn't exactly thrill him. From what I understood, Eric didn't really have to work. He had made enough money from his earlier work that he could probably live comfortably for the rest of his life.

One night in early March I came home from work to find Eric in a horrible mood about something. He wouldn't tell me what.

"Will you talk to me?" I asked.

"This isn't working," he said, pausing in mid pace to run a hand through his hair. He had grown it out again.

I froze. "What isn't?"

"This," he said, drawing a circle in front of him with his finger. "This. Us. What we are doing. This is not how I was raised. Not how I was trained."

Trained? "What were you trained for?" I'd save the other statements for later.

He looked at me, his eyes an icy shade of blue; cold. "Horrible things."

I had seen a few of what Eric thought were "horrible things." But to have been trained for it?

"Put me in the middle of a fight. Give me a weapon. I know what to do," he said. "Ask me how to get to a man's heart, what he wants most. I know how to manipulate it." He sat down on the couch that was too small for him. "But this…this sitting around. This waiting. This I cannot do."

I sighed and moved to sit next to him. "So, what's the plan then?"

He leaned back in to the couch and looked out the window, into the night. "I don't know."

"Oh, come on, Eric. What's the plan?"

He shook his head. "I don't know."

I smacked him. It took him completely by surprise. "Listen up! This is not self-pity time. Get up and let's think of what to do." I told him. "You don't want to sit around anymore? Fine. You don't want to wait for them. Fine. Maybe you need to go on the offensive."

Eric locked eyes with me and it was like he had seen something there he hadn't before and he was just now noticing it. Or maybe there was something new there, something in me that was different. Maybe there was.

We made love that night; a passionate, frenzied kind of love, over and over again. Eric was a wonderful lover, attentive and eager. Always eager. The way he kissed me that night, I should have known something was different.

When I woke up the next morning, he was gone and his pillow was cold. The note said:

I'm sorry, forgive me.

You're right.

I need to take the offensive. It's me they want.

You should be safe.

– E

I must have read it ten times before the shock sank in. I laid back. Gone. Eric was gone.

I'm not sure how long I laid there, my eyes wide, staring at the ceiling. I got up and checked the closet. Neither of us had bought much since we moved, in case we had to again. Eric picked up a few extra sweaters, t-shirts and another pair of jeans. That was about the extent of it. Most of them were still here. Eric had packed light.

I didn't know if that meant he planned on coming back soon or if he'd gone military utilitarian.

The apartment suddenly felt empty. It wasn't a big place. The living space was one of those remodeled types where you could see the kitchen from the living room. There was a kitchen bar that separated the actual cooking space from the living room. We had two bar stools on one side of it and a small dining table nearby. The couch that came with the apartment that Eric always seemed to dwarf whenever he sat in it was, all at once, huge. I sat down on it and reread the note he left.

That was when I noticed the ring on my finger. I slipped it off and stared at it for a long while. Distantly, I heard the alarm clock in the bedroom go off. I walked over and turned it off. I left the ring on the nightstand and went to get dressed. As I slipped my coat on to leave for work, I noticed it again. I didn't know what to do with it now.

Were we still engaged, I wondered. Would I ever see him again was my next thought. He could die somewhere, cold and alone and no one would ever know how or why.

I slipped the ring on a gold chain and placed it around my neck. Then I went to work. If any of my students noticed the displacement of the ring, they were polite enough not to say anything.

When I got home that night I was reminded again of how empty it was. It was a strange feeling, suddenly coming home to an empty house. I didn't even realize when I took down two plates instead of one when I was making dinner until I looked down at the table, it was that automatic.

A week past. Nothing happened. I went to work, did the weekly chores of shopping and cleaning up and came home. There was no word from Eric.

A month later and I started to think that I wouldn't hear from him at all. I had to decide if I wanted to stay here or move on. I had a good job here. The city was beautiful and the climate was moderate. Every now and then I missed home, Jason and Tara mostly. It had been over two years since I'd spoken with anyone from the neighborhood.

I made some new friends through a couple of events my company organized for all its teachers. It was easy to make friends when you were in a new place and didn't know anybody. We all looked to each other for company. Most of the teachers were Americans, like me or came from Great Britain. There were a handful of people from France and Spain.

By the second month I had started to carve out a life that didn't have Eric in it. I tried keeping my mind off him and whatever he was doing by going on weekend trips to different places. I went with a few other teachers to some of the small towns that surrounded Zurich and when we had time off we took longer trips to other big cities. I tried to act like I wasn't playing the same waiting game that made Eric leave.

Before I knew it, summer had arrived and most schools were on break. At the end of June, right before my birthday I had a good long think about the strange and bumpy road that brought me here. Life wasn't very exciting before meeting Eric. Things were pretty simple with Gran and Jason. I liked it that way after everything that happened with Uncle Bartlett and my parents. I got a Pell Grant to attend one of the CUNYs and I worked my way through a degree in business management. Sam and I were partners in our bar. It was a good, steady business. Then I met Eric. It was a rocky start, to say the least. But he got me. Unlike Quinn and Bill and even that brief stint with Alcide, Eric understood. And he didn't judge the way Alcide did. He didn't get over protective the way Quinn did and he never tried to make me into something I wasn't the way Bill did.

And I loved him for that. That and other reasons.

Of course, not all the bad things were on Eric. Once I found out about Niall, that part of my extended family took some of the blame as well.

One of the French teachers, Collette, invited me to spend August with her family at their villa in Nice. It was a wonderful month, filled with food and wine and days on the beach. Collette taught me how to windsurf. I kept myself busy enough that I hardly had the time to think about what Eric was doing except in the few minutes before going to sleep.

When I got back to Zurich, I found a letter waiting for me in my mailbox.

My Lover,

I am taking the chance you are still there. I could not continue what we were doing, trying to move on but not. Waiting for the next bad thing to happen. I don't want any more to happen to you because of me.

I am trying to finish this.

I love you.

When it is over I hope we can be together again.

Be safe.

-E

That was the only correspondence from Eric in five months. I sat on the couch and read it again. Then I got angry. I crumpled it up and threw it across the room.

That presumptuous asshole.

Taking off in the middle of the night for my safety? Not a word in months? To what, hunt down unknown boogeymen who knows where until he felt it was all good? I knew Eric was not one to naturally share what he was planning but we had been working as a team these last few years. It irked me that he didn't trust me with this. Did he think I would try to stop him?

And then he'd finish up whatever he was doing and come back like the last few months were nothing?

Maybe he just didn't want me following him around while he worked through his own dirty laundry. Did I want to be around for that? I wasn't so sure.

I let out a cry of frustration. I wanted to bang my head against the table, not like it would do any good.

Instead, I went back to work in September. Months passed and nothing else came from Eric. Before I realized it, it was Thanksgiving. And then, soon enough, it was December. Nearly a year.

It had become our time. I had clung to that; us being together at Christmas seemed to make things okay somehow. We became close not long after my grandmother's death and he filled the void she left in me. I think I had filled a void for him too, something that he had been missing but he never told me what.

I bought a tree and things to decorate it with. I wasn't about to let my own traditions be forgotten just because I was alone for the first time at Christmas. I didn't buy anything though. Instead, I did something else. I called Jason.

"Hey Big Brother," I said. It was around dinner time there.

There was a long pause. "Sookie?"

"Of course. You got any other siblings I don't know about?"

"I…We thought…" his voice trailed off. "We all thought you were dead."

That brought me up short. "We who?"

"Um, well, I thought you'd run off at first, with that Russian of yours. Tara too. But then I didn't hear from you." I could hear him breathing through the phone. "Jesus, Sook. Three years. I should beat the living shit outta you."

That made me smile. "You'd have to catch me first," I said. "I was always faster than you."

He chuckled. "Yeah. Unless I got you cornered," he answered. "Fuck, Tara's gonna flip. You didn't even meet her twins."

"I know. I had planned to. Right after the trail I was going to go see her." We both got quite then.

"Kennedy and Danny got married."

"Really? Good for them." I smiled. "They were always so cute together."

"What about you. What's kept you so busy you couldn't pick up a phone, huh?"

Way to lay on the guilt, brother, I thought. "Um, things have been a bit hectic, you know, since everything with the trail. It wasn't safe for me to be there anymore."

"Because of Big Blonde." He made it a statement. It took some time for Jason to warm up to Eric. Eventually he did and it wasn't long after that a whole lot of bad things started to happen. Jason blamed Eric for a lot of that.

"Not all of it," I said.

"Enough," he said, and paused. "Are you okay? Now, I mean."

I thought about it. "Yeah, Jase. I'm okay."

"Good."

"Things were…they were a bit unstable before. But I think it's alright now." Weren't they, I thought. It had been nine months and nothing else seemed to be waiting in the wings. Of course, two years had gone by without a peep.

"That mean you can come home?"

I sighed. "I don't know. Maybe." Was there still a threat toward me?

"You know how pissed Gran would be if she knew you've been gone all this time without a word?"

"Yeah, I know, Jase. You remember our last Christmas together? You thought you could catch a pheasant yourself, upstate."

Jason laughed. "No kidding. I think I'll stick to the supermarket." I could imagine him running his hand through his hair. "Maybe you could meet your nephew for his first Christmas."

"My….I have a nephew?" I'm an aunt? "You have a son?"

"Mitchell James Stackhouse, born August 18th."

"Wow, Jason. You're a dad."

"I know. Can you believe it? Me. Responsible for this tiny little person."

"Congratulations, Jase." Mitchell, after our Grandad. I smiled.

"Thanks, sis. He's got our hair; it's all light and whispy and Michele's eyes."

"He'll take after his dad soon enough with the girls."

"One can hope," he said.

"Jason!"

"What? "'Sides, you know Michelle knocked that right outta me."

We talked for a few more minutes before eventually saying our goodbyes. I promised not to wait so long before calling again.

A few days passed but my mind kept going back to Jason. What else had I missed? Everyone was moving on with their lives. Wasn't that supposed to be the goal? Grow up, meet someone, get married, have kids and then they had grandkids. At least that's how I imagined things would go when I talked to Gran.

Somehow my happily ever after got seriously fucked up.

I started to think that I should try my luck going back. My insurance money from the bar only had a small dent in it. I could start something new, in a different neighborhood.

A week before Christmas, a letter came. Inside was a one way plane ticket to JFK. Aside from the utility companies, Eric was the only one with this address.

Maybe he could feel what I wanted long distance because in that moment, there was nothing I wanted to do more than to go home. It wasn't because I was hoping for some romantic reunion in the airport like in a John Hughes movie; no, I needed to go home, back to the family I had left. And Eric or not, this was a free ticket. First class.

Damn right, first class.

I started packing. There wasn't much, not really. After having to leave behind so many things in Amsterdam, I didn't put any effort into buying anything that wasn't absolutely essential for this apartment. Clothes, shoes, a few books and my computer. I would need to find a gift for Mitchell. My nephew.

Just the thought of Jason being a dad sent me into a fit of laughter.

December twenty-third was the last day of classes. I said goodbye to my fellow teachers and I informed my supervisors that I wouldn't be back in January. I did some souvenir shopping, for the first time really enjoying it, and then headed back to the apartment.

What I wasn't expecting, was for someone to be pacing the floor when I walked up the stairs. I had met every one of my neighbors. Not all of them had been formal introductions but I knew everyone's face. He stopped when heard me push the door to the stair case open and looked at me, like Tina when I would catch her on the kitchen table.

"Sorry," I said. "Wrong floor." I backed out and started running down the stairs. I took them two at a time which I never did, always being afraid I'd trip. I heard footsteps following me.

I could hear the guy behind me. He yelled something that sounded like "Derr'mo." I didn't stop to think about what it meant. I was nearly to the lobby when the door on the second floor landing opened suddenly, slamming right into me.

It knocked me back, my head hitting the wall. It took the wind right out of me and I slid to the floor. There were spots in my vision and I had just enough time to see dark hair leaning over me and a long nose.

I opened my eyes slowly. My head was pounding. I started to panic and it took me a moment to realize I was in my apartment, lying face down on the bed. There were voices, off in the distance. They weren't trying to be quiet, but then they didn't need to be because they weren't speaking English.

How had they found me? Even if I asked, I didn't think they'd tell me.

I tried to move but my hands and feet were bound. It felt like tape. I rolled over onto my side. I still had the pocket knife from last year. It maintained permanent residence in my nightstand. The same place Eric had kept his before he left. I managed to get myself into a standing position. Not so easy when your balance is off.

Slowly, I bent my knees forward as if I were squatting and opened the night stand drawer by touch. I had to stop every few seconds because if I lost my balance, I would fall and it would all be over. I bent backward so that I could dip my hands into the drawer. My legs were starting to shake. This was not an easy position. A cramp was forming in my left shoulder.

I started to sweat. Finally, I felt the hilt of the knife in the drawer. I clutched it in my hands and slowly rose back up. I had to ease the drawer closed before I could stand strait and give my legs a rest. Every sound felt horribly loud, even the sliding of the drawer into place.

Sweat trickled down my brow and I slowly moved myself back onto the bed, this time face up. The men – there were two of them were still talking. I was about to start trying to cut the tape on my wrists when they stopped. I froze, trying to listen.

Footsteps. They were coming toward the door. I had enough time to shove the knife into my back pocket before they walked in. The bed was not directly in front of the door. You had to turn right and either open the door all the way so that it was flat against the wall or close it to see the entire right side of the room unless you stepped past the entrance. They closed the door.

I swallowed. The two men in front of me both wore expressions of cold stone. One of them had sandy colored hair and grey eyes. He looked like he was average height, as much as I could tell from the bed. Five-nine, maybe. Or Five-ten. He was wide in the shoulders and he filled the doorway when he passed through it. He was the one in the hallway. The other had a thinner build. His hair was dark and in need of a cut. He had a long nose that looked like it had been broken more than once. He was slightly taller than the other one, not six feet but close. They wore suit jackets but I could make out the edges of tattoos along their wrists.

Sandy Hair sat down on the bed. I gave myself a silent pat on the back for not flinching.

"Where is he?"

"Gone," I said, looking into his eyes.

"Where?" He asked. His voiced was accented and rolled on the W's.

"I don't know," I said. My heart was thudding in my chest. I had a hunch where he was now.

"Where?" He asked again, lower.

"I don't know," I told him again. "He's been gone since March."

He looked to his partner with the dark hair. "Dimitry," he said and motioned his head toward the closet.

Dimitry opened the closet.

"Nichego," he said. I assumed that was Russian for nothing. "Net muzhskoĭ odezhdy."

The confusion must have shown on my face because Sandy hair spoke. "He said there's no men's clothing in there."

"Oh," I said. "Well, I told you he wasn't here." Two months without a word from Eric made me fold up all the clothes he had in our closet and stick them in the bottom drawer of the dresser. I should have thrown them out. Still, hope remained they wouldn't go looking for further proof in the clothing.

"When did you hear from him?"

I thought too long on how to answer and he grabbed my left arm and pulled me to him. "When," he asked again. His hand gripped my arm like a vice. If I made it to tomorrow, I'd have a big hand shaped bruise.

I didn't say anything. His other hand came around to grip my right shoulder hard and crushing.

"August!" I blurted. "He sent me a letter."

"Where is it?"

"I don't have it anymore."

Dimitry watched from the doorway. My guess was that he didn't speak much English.

Sandy Hair gripped me tighter. "Where is it?" I don't think he believed me.

"I threw it away!" I cried. "Please. My arm." I had started to lose feeling in it.

He loosened his grip but didn't let go. He moved his other hand from my shoulder to my chin, gripping it and forced me to look at him. "What did it say?" He asked softly, looking right into my eyes.

"It said," I strained trying to remember, "he was tired of waiting and that he was going to finish this. Until that was done, he didn't think it was safe to be near each other."

"That's it?"

"Yes," I said. I didn't feel the need to add the bit about being together when it was over. Who knows how they'd try to use it.

He loosened my chin and gave me a light slap on the cheek. He smiled. "We'll see."

He said something to Dimitry in Russian and he disappeared. Sandy hair sat back from me and I scooted myself up on the bed, bringing my legs to me and trying to put as much space between me and him as possible. So far, things weren't too bad, and I really didn't want them to get any worse.

Dimitry came back with an envelope. My envelope. The one with my flight ticket.

"Going somewhere?" Sandy Hair asked.

"Home," I said. My heard rate kicked up a notch.

"Three years, you're gone. You have a sudden itch for bagels?"

"Funny," I said. "I miss my family." It was true. And there was no need to say who the ticket came from.

Sandy Hair smiled. "Beautiful ring," he said.

I looked down and saw the ring Eric had given me had spilled out from my shirt. I looked back at him and said, "Thanks."

He took it between his thumb and forefinger and pulled it away from my neck slightly, forcing me to move with it.

"Where is Eric?" He asked when our noses were almost touching.

I closed my eyes and breathed for a moment. I opened them again and said, "I don't know."

"Is he in New York?"

"I don't know."

"I don't believe you."

"I haven't seen him in months. How would I know where he is?" I didn't have to fake the tears that were coming down slowly. I wanted to wipe them away but I couldn't. My arm ached where he'd squeezed it.

He pushed me back on the bed suddenly and stood up. He said something that sounded like a curse in Russian before he and Dimitry left the room, closing the door behind them.

I let out a long low breath, then I got the pocket knife out and started cutting. There was no telling how long I had before they came back. I managed to get my hands free with only minimal cuts to my skin. They took my flight ticket with them out of the room. My purse wasn't in here either and if I had to guess, it was probably in the main room with them.

I cut my ankles free and put the pocket knife into my side pocket, then crept off the bed. The "blade if intimidation" as I had come to call it when Eric first showed it to me was right where he left it under the bed. I pulled it out and slowly crept over to the window. There were two windows, one on the left side of the bed and one on the right. I opened the one on the right. It was too high to jump and there was no fire escape. Then I put my back flat against the wall next to the door.

Waiting felt like an eternity. My heart never slowed down and my hands were shaky. But if I had any hope of getting out of here, I had to get through the Bobsy Twins. I took a deep breath and gave myself a mental pep talk.

Glancing at the clock on the nightstand, it had only been seven minutes since they left the room. It felt much longer.

I heard one of them coming closer. The door opened. My heart sped up and I thought it would beat right out of my chest. I flattened myself as much as I could against the wall. He didn't push the door up against it.

"Derr'mo," he said. It was Sandy Hair. He spotted the empty bed. I still had cover from the door. He moved to the right, toward the open window.

He past where I was hidden and I crept out behind him. I stabbed him in the back of the neck, the way Eric had shown me years ago. He was short enough that I didn't have to reach much and the knife was long enough that it pierced through the other side.

He tried to scream but nothing came out. I'd punctured his vocal cords. Just what I was hoping for. He sank to his knees and tried to grab me. I was still holding the knife in him from behind. If I left him, he would probably choke on his own blood eventually. I wasn't that cruel. I pulled the knife out and he made a harsh gurgling sound. I shoved it into him again, aiming for where I thought the heart should be. It had been a while since biology class but I knew it was on the upper left.

Sandy Hair collapsed, taking the knife with him. I had a moment to realize that I just killed a man without hesitation before taking the knife out of him. I swallowed. Blood pooled around him in a dark mass.

Worry about going to hell later, I said to myself. Survive now.

A second set of footsteps were approaching the bedroom and I had just enough time to slink back behind the door when Dimitry entered. He pushed the door closer to me but he didn't try to push it flush against the wall.

He said something in Russian. I suspected a swear. He moved toward Sandy Hair's body and I moved to get behind him and raise the knife. Dimitry caught me by surprise. He swung around and grabbed the arm with the knife, back handing me with his free hand. I stumbled. He pushed me down to the floor and squeezed my wrist, hitting it into the floor over and over until I let go of the knife. I let go before he could break my wrist.

"Sooka," he said. I knew what that meant.

He straddled my waist and put both hands around my neck, squeezing, suffocating. His eyes were filled with a dark rage and I had enough time to think he didn't care if he got the information they wanted anymore.

I tried to pry his fingers off my neck but he was too strong. I was starting to see spots. He leaned in to me, watching my eyes. It took the pressure off my lower body and I reached down. His legs weren't tight against my hips anymore and I pulled the pocket knife out of my pants, shoving it into his side. I pulled it out, quick and did it again.

His grip on my neck loosened. I started coughing.

I pulled the knife out again and this time stuck it in his stomach. He stopped trying to strangle me and moved to protect himself, cradling his bleeding stomach. He grabbed the small pocket knife and my hand. I wouldn't let go and he pulled it out with my hand still attached to it.

He kept trying to pull the knife from me. He started to turn it to face me. All he'd have to do was fall into in and I'd be the one getting stabbed.

I let go so suddenly the knife fell from both our hands. I pushed out from under him with my feet, scrambling over on my belly and crawled away.

He grabbed my ankle and I kicked at him as hard as I could. I felt his nose crunch. He still had a strong grip and bloody hand or not, he wasn't slipping.

In my periphery was the larger blade, the one he'd forced me to let go of, nearly breaking my wrist in the process.

I grabbed it and sat up, shoving it into his chest with both hands.

He stopped struggling and looked down at the metal protruding from his chest. Slowly, he slumped down on the floor on his side. Blood soaked into the carpet.

There was a high gasping sound. Like someone wasn't getting enough air. I realized after a moment that it was me.

I got up quickly. My head still hurt from earlier and I was sure my neck would start to ache soon to add in with the injuries to my arm and shoulder.

I watched them for movement. Nothing. I inched closer to Dimitry and kicked him. His body fell back. I kicked him again. I leaned over and felt for a pulse. Dimitry was definitely dead.

I moved over to Sandy Hair. Dead as a doornail.

I let out a ragged breath and brushed the hair out of my face. My hair stuck to my hand and I looked at it. There was blood covering it.

Dropping the knife, I went to the bathroom. Blood covered the bottom of my shirt and the top of my jeans. It was on my hands and in my hair. I started to scrub in the sink but it was futile. Turning the shower on as hot as I could stand it I stripped and jumped in. I scrubbed and scrubbed. I got the nail brush and lathered it with soap over and over again. I couldn't get the blood out of my fingernails. I scrubbed my face and down my neck. It was tender already. I scrubbed down my torso and legs, getting every spot I could physically reach. I shampooed my hair three times and conditioned.

When I determined myself clean, I got out and wrapped myself in a towel. Wiping the mirror down, I looked at my reflection.

"Hello," I said. I was never one to talk out loud to myself. Doing it now made me realize just how silent the apartment was. I stared at myself in the mirror. My eyes were wide and bright and my neck and arm had just started to turn color.

Steam wafted out of the bathroom when I opened the door. The two dead men were still lying where I left them, like gruesome Halloween decorations.

I went to the closet and pulled out a turtleneck sweater and a fresh pair of jeans. Dressing quickly, I grabbed the two knives I used and brought them into the bathroom, scrubbing them clean with bleach. Once I dried them, I put them next to the suitcase I had packed. It was a mess. They two men had gone through everything and tossed all the clothes on the floor. I folded everything as quickly as I could, putting the knives in between some of the clothes. My purse and the souvenirs I bought were sitting on the couch. The souvenirs had been taken out of their wrapping. And my purse had been rifled through. Nothing was missing. I put everything back in. My plane ticket was on the coffee table and I grabbed that too. I closed up the suitcase and wheeled it to the door.

Sparing one look back at the bedroom, you could see Dimitry's legs from near the entrance. I sighed and opened the door. Before leaving I switched off the lights and turned the heat off. I spared a passing thought for whoever was unlucky enough to find them.

I grabbed the first cab I saw for the airport. I must have unnerved the driver because I didn't move a single inch during the ride.

"Grüezi," he said I don't know how many times before I heard him. "Frau…"

"Ja," I said. I looked out. "Oh." The airport.

I walked through the airport and up to the check-in counter. I was flying Air Berlin and there was a connection in Dusseldorf. The walk to the counter felt like it was a mile long. I kept expecting someone to try to grab me and drag me off somewhere. Sandy Hair and Dimitry could have called someone while they were talking and told them about the flight.

But there was nothing. I checked my bag, went through security and waited for my flight. My flight wasn't technically until tomorrow morning. Christmas Eve. I checked the clock overhead.

Impossible, I thought. Less than six hours had passed since I finished my shopping. It wasn't even midnight.

My first class ticket gave me access to Air Berlin's private lounge for frequent flyers.

Might as well make the most of it, I thought. I have ten hours before I have to be on a plane. The lounge was nice. I didn't even realize airports had these. It was like a little cornered off section for all the rich people.

No mingling with the little people, I thought, then sniggered.

Some of the couches were concealed by curtains. I sat down on one of the free ones and looked. The lounge was dimly lit and decorated in hues of grey and purple. A few people were at the bar chatting away. Probably about business or holidays or family, I thought.

Someone touched my shoulder and I jumped.

"Miss," asked a young woman. Her hands were up in one of those "I surrender" positions.

"Sorry," I said.

"Are you alright?" She asked.

"Um… How did you know I spoke English?"

"I called you in German and French. You didn't answer. You don't look Italian."

"Oh." I sat back down.

"Are you alright?" She repeated.

"Of course."

She gave me a look, as if to say, "yeah, right," but she didn't ask again. "Would you like something to drink?" She had an accent, I realized. German. She had spikey blonde hair and pale eyes like mine. But her face was pale and her cheeks were spotted with freckles.

And yes, I decided. I really wanted a drink. "A gin and tonic, please."

"Any particular type of gin?

"Um. Bombay will be fine."

She went off to make my drink and I sat back. There was a curtain around my couch too. I closed it. After the drink I laid back on the couch with my head on purse.

It wasn't just that I'd killed two men in the span of a few minutes. I didn't feel guilty that they were dead and I was alive.

Survival, right?

It was that I'd survived with barely a scratch. What were the odds? Slim, very slim.

I must have dozed off because the next thing I realized was that the bar was almost completely silent. I glanced at my watch; just after three. I sat up and peeked my head out from behind the curtain. There was a new person tending bar and most of the people who had been there drinking were gone. Though more couches were now occupied.

Eventually I fell back asleep. I must have been tired because I didn't wake back up until I smelled coffee brewing. The bartender from the early morning was still there and offered me a fresh cup when I went up to him.

After freshening up in the bathroom and getting some food, I got in line to board. I'd never flown first class before. It's going to really hard going back to coach after this.

With the stop over, the flight was around twelve hours. With the time difference, it put me in New York around four-thirty in the afternoon.

I thought the feeling of safety would increase once I got on the plane – and it did, until I landed and now I couldn't help feeling like everything was just a big set up and Dimitry and Sandy Hair were just the first act.

What I didn't expect, and wouldn't have believed had I not seen it with my own two eyes, was Jason waiting for me at the arrivals exit.

"Jason?" I question-yelled.

"Hey, Sis." Jason grabbed me around the waist and lifted in a big bear hug. I tried really hard not to flinch in pain.

"How did you know I'd be here?" There's no way Jason would have mailed me a first class ticket home. Especially without an address it mail it to.

Jason pulled back and looked at me. "You look terrible."

That was the Jason I knew. "You would too if you'd just spent twelve hours on a plane and another ten in an airport," I said.

"I'd be okay," he said.

"Uh huh." Jason would look rumpled but still handsome. That was his charm. Me? Not so much. "So how did you know I'd be here?

Jason grabbed my suitcase and we moved past the crowd. "Eric called me," he said. "Not two days after you did." Oh. I could imagine all the colorful language that passed during that conversation.

I was a little miffed at that. "He was so sure I'd come back?"

"No," he said. "He didn't even know if you'd gotten anything he sent or if you moved somewhere else." He was silent until we hit the parking lot. "He told me that he hoped you were still there and that you'd come back."

"Is that all?" There is much to be desired from Eric when you're trying to get a full story out of him.

"I'm thinking," he said as he opened the driver's side door, "that he was maybe scared to be the one to pick you up."

That brought me up short. "It's not that I'm not glad to see you Jason, but I did wonder why you were here and not Eric."

"I'm guessin' he didn't want to be the one waiting for you and have you, you know, not show up," he said. "Bruises a man's pride."

I raised an eyebrow at him. "Wow, Jason. When did you become Dr. Phil?"

He laughed. "It's Michelle. She's rubbed off on me."

"Is she okay with this? Me?"

"I didn't tell her much. She's been too busy with Mitch to notice much else these days, anyway."

"Mitch. Right. I'm an Aunt. It's all a bit surreal."

"Yep, you are. And yes it is," he said.

"The spare room, well, that's Mitch's nursery now but the basement's been winterized and it's a good size. I've been using it as a sort of, den, I guess. So you got a TV down there and a couch. The bed's a Queen, in case you were wondering." He gave me a very presumptuous look. "And we just put down a carpet last year."

"It sounds great, Jason." I couldn't wait to see it.

We drove in silence for a while before Jason said, "He didn't tell me why he wasn't with you, you know. I figured you two weren't together when he called."

"Oh," I said. "Why are you telling me?"

He shrugged. "Thought you'd want to know."

"Did he sound okay?" I asked.

"As far as I could tell."

"Did he say he's coming by?"

"Nope."

I don't know what I would have done if it had been Eric waiting for me at the airport. I spent a good portion of the flight being distracted by it. Should I hug him? Slap him? Yell at him? Jump him? I had no idea. I debated for a while that first I would hug him because I was glad he was okay. Then I'd hit him for being an asshole and leaving in the middle of the night.

It took forty minutes to get from JFK to Jason's house.

Michele looked completely changed. Pregnancy did that sometimes, I heard. Her brown hair had grown out and she looked great.

"And this is Mitchel," she said.

I smiled at him. He was so tiny. He had the same hair as all the Stackhouses. Only the eyes were different.

"He's beautiful," I said.

Their house was fully decorated for Christmas with the tree in corner and an angel on top. Presents were already stacked up underneath. Lights and garlands were everywhere. I knew immediately that Jason would never have put in this much effort without coercion.

Michele had been cooking all day and tomorrow her family was expected to come over. They were all celebrating Mitchel's first Christmas.

"You're a wonderful cook," I said to Michele over dinner.

"Thank you, Sookie," she said. Then she looked pointedly at Jason who wasn't even looking up from his plate. "It's not often I get compliments on the cooking around here."

At that Jason stopped. "What? You see how fast I eat it. I think it's enough of a hint I like your food." Then he went back to eating.

Michele let out a sigh. "I know you're Jason's only family," she said, turning her head back to me. "So I'm glad you could be here with us to celebrate."

"I am too." I went to bed that night feeling, for the first time since Gran died, that I was part of a family again.

Christmas morning was awash with activity. I had to ninja my way into the shower, not wanting anyone to see the bruises on my neck or arm and shoulder. It was a different turtleneck today and I only had two left.

Coffee and biscuits were on the agenda when I got out. And presents. I watched my little nephew (with help) tear open a heap of new toys. Rocking chair, games, stuffed animals. The kid was in heaven. Jason gave Michele some new earrings and a blender for the kitchen. One of those pricey steel ones from Macy's. Michele got Jason some new shirts and a pair of nice leather boots.

I was surprised there were gifts for me.

"We saved them," Jason said, "from before you left."

One was a wood carving Jason had made in remembrance of Gran and our parents. The other was a painting Michele had done.

"I love them," I said. I gave them the things I bought from Zurich.

That night, after Michelle's family had arrived and we'd all eaten and they'd passed gifts around, there was a knock at the door. Jason answered it.

"Uh, Sookie?"

"Yeah?" I asked, hesitantly.

"Can you come to the door?"

When I got there, I took a deep breath in. "Hello," I said.

"Hello," Eric said. He looked awful. Eric's handsome face was sporting a horrible black eye. His cheek was swollen and he had stiches in his forehead. "Can I come in?"

I stepped aside. When we got to the living room, everyone went silent. Eric said nothing.

"We're going to go downstairs," I said quietly to Jason.

He nodded.

"Come on," I said leading Eric downstairs.

Once we were safely ensconced, Eric grabbed my face with both his hands.

I pushed him away. He winced. "Eric, what the hell? I have a million questions but right now I'll settle for 'What happened to you?'"

He moved to the couch and sat down. Even that small activity looked like it hurt. "Everyone in the old vorovskoi mir is dead," he said.

"You killed them all?" Then who were those two guys working for? "When?" I sat down next to him.

"Last night finished it." He looked like he was having a hard time breathing.

I moved to him and lifted up his shirt. "Jesus, Eric." There were horrible, fist shaped bruises littering his torso. Part of it was taped tight. "You broke a rib?"

"I did not break it," he clarified.

I rolled my eyes. "Of course not. You just landed on someone's fist."

He narrowed his eyes. "Do you want me to continue?"

I made a "go on" motion with my hand.

"You remember Stanislaw?"

"The nerdy, looking guy? From Jersey? Yeah," I said.

"He and his people backed me. We took them all down. Everyone involved in the takeover." Eric smiled. A beatific, serene smile that I hadn't seen on him in a long time; a weight had been lifted off his shoulders.

"They didn't know where you were."

"No one knew, except Stan."

"They were still looking for you in Europe," I said and pulled down the sweater to expose my neck.

I felt his fingertips caress the bruises. "How many?" I shivered. No matter what I did or what my mind said, his hands on me never ceased to turn me on.

"Two."

"Tell me."

I told him everything, from the stairs to the airport. I showed him my arm and shoulder too. They really were nothing compared to the state Eric was in.

"You handled it well," he said. I think he was proud that I got to put a few of the defensive skills he taught me to use. "They were the last, then. Stan's giving the orders now."

I let that sink in for a minute. "What does Stan expect from you?"

"He's content to let me be," Eric said. "He doesn't see me as a threat."

"What did you do to give that impression?"

"I explained what happened with Viktor," he said "and I have to give him a small cut of my profits when I open a new bar. Stan's known me for a long time. He knows I have no ambition higher than where I am now. I'm content to be where I am."

"So that means no more looking over our shoulders?"

"That is the idea."

I looked at his badly beaten face and hands. He was still wearing the ring I gave him. "Why aren't you at the hospital?"

"I have better places to be on Christmas," he said and took my hand. He moved his fingers over mine and then looked down. "You took it off."

I reached down the turtleneck and pulled out the chain I kept it on. "Not entirely," I said.

He touched the ring I was holding out. "Does this mean you are still with me," he asked, "after all this."

I sighed and looked down for a minute. "Eric, you can't expect to just show up here and have everything be just fine," I said. When I looked back up Eric was concentrating very hard on my face.

"Why not? We're safe now." There was a yearning in Eric's voice.

"You left, Eric. You left in the middle of the night. You didn't," and I stopped there to gather my thoughts. "You didn't even try to explain what you were thinking or what you wanted to do. You left me out of the loop. Again."

"Sookie, you know in the beginning that was…" he started.

"I know what it was. I know why you did it. But what about later? What about in Zurich? How do I know you won't do it again?"

"You don't," he said and he moved so that our knees were touching. "What I have with you, Sookie, it's different and I'm not used to sharing my secrets with anyone else. Give me some credit."

"I do," I said, touching his arm. "I don't know if I can go back to the way things were between us. And I don't know if I want to. Do you?"

"I think that depends on what you mean by 'going back'," he stated.

"I wouldn't still have this ring on if I didn't love you," I said, as he watched me. "But I need to know if you can be honest with me."

"I can't change who I am," he said. Then he leaned over and kissed me lightly on the lips. "But I can learn new things."

"New things are good," I said as he kissed me again.

A few minutes later, as kissing seemed to be the only thing he could do that didn't cause any pain, he asked, "So, how was your Christmas?"

"Oh, you know, not bad, actually. Being chased around every Christmas keeps the pounds off."

He chuckled. "So, next year I can chase you around?"

"Maybe," I said. "If you're up to it."

It would never be smooth sailing with Eric. I didn't know what would happen between Eric and me in the future, but we were both willing to explore the options.

Fin.

~xx~

A/N: Grüezi is a formal hello in Swiss German.

Derr'mo is a swear word in Russian – like shit.

Sooka – bitch.

vorovskoi mir – one of the names of the underground Russian mob organization. Roughly translated to "Thieves world."

Amsterdam really is wonderful at Christmas. I loved it there. Stroopwafel is what it sounds like, a waffle, though thinner and usually there may be something inside, like caramel or chocolate. There's also bitterballen, which is a Dutch snack and not very healthy. Usually it's a fried dough sprinkled with powdered sugar.

Clogs are worn still in the Netherlands. I know for a fact that farmers wear them regularly, though the adornments are more for tourists. I personally know a dairy farmer who lives outside Amsterdam and wears the plain wooden ones when he's working. They are also quite warm, from what I understand.

If anyone is curious to see the hostel I had in mind where Eric worked, it really is there and it's near the Van Gogh museum. Here's a link: http : / / www . flyingpig . nl/hostels/flyingpiguptown . php