The Moon, Ch. 9

♦

**A/N: So you may need a toothbrush and some toothpaste after this chapter…and maybe a hanky…and although I don’t remember Eric ever calling Sookie “Lover” on TB, Imma use it here anyway cause I like it.**

♦

♦

“Missed you?” Eric’s voice was just short of incredulous. He rearranged their position on the couch so that he and Sookie, who was still sitting on his lap, were facing each other a bit more.  He had missed her face too much to not look at it every chance he could.

The decision to no longer fight his feelings for the lady in his lap gave Eric a curious sense of freedom. Now he was able to give voice to the intense love and passion he held for his Sookie without feeling as though he had to bite his tongue. With an even lighter heart, he spoke the words he wished he could have spoken so long ago.

“Sookie, I have wanted you since that first night I met you. I have been falling in love with you since that first night I met you, and” he paused to cup her cheek in the palm of his hand, “I have needed you since that first night I met you.” His eyes almost glowed with the strength of his emotions.

“Of course I have missed you. For the longest time now I’ve simply been going through the motions. Yes, I’ve been busy with the businesses, especially so just after…we routed the Yakuza,” he said, abruptly changing his words. His eyes darkened for a moment as he thought about the pain his Sookie must have felt over fucking Compton’s cowardly death.  That one died as he lived – determined to wring every ounce of useless angst and unnecessary drama he could from those he supposedly loved.

He hated thinking about those times, and not just because of her pain, but because once again she had chosen Compton over him, but no more. If she truly had reached out to him, and he had no reason to doubt her word…

“But even so, of course I have missed you, Sookie. No matter how busy I was, no matter what fucking continent I was on, I never stopped caring about you, never stopped thinking about you.”

Eric sighed as he took advantage of their position to place the lightest of kisses on her forehead near her hairline, then leaned back to meet her tear-filled gaze.

“Life without you has been…surprisingly empty,” he smiled sadly. “Every night without you has been darker than the one before. No,” he softly admonished when Sookie’s lips started trembling and more tears spilled from her eyes. He quickly wiped the tears away – the damn things would always slash at his heart. “No crying, Lover. If I have my way, the time for tears is over.”

Determined to be honest with the love of his unlife now secure in his arms, he took a steadying breath before assuring, “Never again doubt my feelings for you, Sookie. Never again. At first I did just lust for you,” he grinned and wiggled his brows in a successful bid to make her laugh, “but that lust very quickly turned into a genuine liking, and by the time the events of Dallas had taken place, even I had to admit that you already owned a piece of my heart. But the way you stayed with Godric…the way you stood by him when I could not…” Eric broke off, his eyes brimming with red tears as he remembered the pain and heartbreak of that night

He remembered the consideration Sookie had shown to both himself and Godric when she had offered to stand with his Maker during his final moments on this Earth. Granted Godric had saved her from a horrible situation, but it was a kindness that Eric knew he himself hadn’t deserved – especially after tricking her into taking his blood. Nothing he could do would ever be enough to repay her for that act of compassion toward his beloved Master.

But damn’d if he wouldn’t try now that she might finally let him.

Eric cleared his throat and blinked away the evidence of his memories. “When you stayed with Godric during his final moments on this Earth, that sealed it for me. My whole world was reeling, but the one thing I eventually took from that most horrible night was that I loved you, and that I always would.”

Already close to emotional overload, the solemn tone of his voice, the fiery look in his eyes, the tender way he held her…it was too much for Sookie. Great gasping sobs worked their way up as she leaned fully into his broad chest and brought her hands up to cover her face, still sore from the slowly fading bruising.

“Shh…shh…shh…I’ve got you…I’ve got you,” he whispered as he stroked his hand up and down her back.  He tried hard to calm her tears, but to no avail.  In fact, his attempts seemed to make it worse. Not only did he hate when she cried, but now he was also concerned about the baby daughter held sweetly within her body. Surely crying so hard wasn’t good for either of his girls!

A vague memory suggesting that pregnant women were naturally more likely to have emotional outbursts wasn’t very reassuring, but helped Eric to make a decision.

As if she weighed nothing, he scooped her up into his arms and took her back to her bedroom. He eased her down onto the bed, climbed in with her, then covered her with the comforter before taking her back into his arms. With a heartrending patience he hadn’t known he possessed, he simply let her cry herself out in the comfort and security of his embrace, and allowed himself the solace of rubbing her back as best he could while quietly murmuring reassurances and sweet endearments into her ear.

Finally calming down to the occasional sniffle, Sookie rubbed her forehead along the soft cotton of his shirt as she breathed in his achingly familiar scent, and savored the feeling of his strong arms holding her close. She was vaguely surprised to find herself back in her bed, too emotionally overwrought before to notice the movement earlier, but had absolutely no intentions of leaving that small cocoon of very welcome comfort after suffering its absence for so many months and years.

The warmth of the soft bedding, the strong safety and support of Eric’s arms after being without him for far too long, and the exhaustion that comes after a hard cry soon took their toll, and before long Sookie was sound asleep.

Eric sighed in relief as he felt the tension leave her tired body as she drifted off into her slumber, but he remained in place – he was exactly where he wanted to be with no desire whatsoever to leave his beloved’s bed.

While he held his sleeping heart close, his mind raced. The problem of Steve fucking Campbell nagged at him and he had already mentally outlined what steps to take in that direction, but currently he focused on the problem of Pamela…fucking Pamela who was soon to have a very, very bad life.  Every tear his Sookie had shed this night, and any other since the night of her call, was coming out of Pam’s hide.

It took quite a few deep inhalations of Sookie’s beloved scent before he could retract his fangs and think clearly once again.

He also needed to get his blood into Sookie to heal those damn bruises, but was unsure as to what effect it might have on the child growing within her.  After all she’d been through, a visit with that troll of a doctor certainly wouldn’t hurt, he decided, and she could surely answer his questions about the blood, too.

Decisions for their immediate future made, Eric minutely adjusted his hold on Sookie, and allowed himself to fully relax for the first time in recent memory.

♦

♦

♦

**A/N:  Well, I did say it was sweet…  (In future chapters we’ll learn more about why Sookie didn’t repeatedly try to contact him…or did she?  Guess you’ll have to hang with me to find out, eh?  And yes, I am giggling evilly.)  So, what’d ja think? You know how I love your pretty, pretty words…**

♦

♦

♦

♦

♦

♦

♦

♦

♦

♦