Ch 14: Back to the Begining

Sookie

 

“Where are we, Sookie?” Alia asked.

 

I stood on the familiar concrete roof atop Hotel Carmilla, frozen in utter shock as the morning sun warmed my face. Somehow, someway… I had been transported back to the future, to the very place this adventure had started. It seemed so long ago and I felt completely out of place.

 

“What is this alien place? Have we died and ascended to the Otherworld?”

 

I smiled and looked back at Alia, fully expecting Godric to be standing beside her. When I didn’t see him I quickly looked around turning in every direction in a desperate attempt to locate him. Finally my eyes fell on her confused face and her brow creased when she saw the panic in my eyes.

 

“Sookie?”

 

“Where’s Godric?” I said, dreading the answer. When she didn’t respond I looked around again only to find Godric’s white shirt lying on the ground. It seemed that I had been transported to the very morning I had left. Not even one day or night had passed. The sight of the shirt sent a shock of anguish through my system. I didn’t understand, and the uncertainty of Godric’s fate only heightened the panic that wracked my emotions.

 

I rushed to the shirt and picked it up. Sinking to the ground and holding it to my chest, I looked towards the horizon at the morning sun. “I couldn’t have been gone more than an hour. How is that possible? What happened to Godric?”

 

I knew how it was possible but I was in denial. I had lived for weeks in the past but I had been returned to the same point in which I left. My mind was reeling with the implications.

 

“When I was pulled to the past Godric was touching me and when I was pulled to the future you were touching me.” I looked up at Alia and my eyes welled with tears. “No,” I sobbed, a surge of horror rushing through my body. “Godric is stuck in the past and… and Titus was killing him.”

 

I put my face in my hands and started sobbing uncontrollably. I sensed Alia approaching and she sat down beside me. Putting her hand on my arm she said, “All will be well Sookie. Do not cry.”

 

I looked at her, my face contorted in pain. “You don’t understand, Alia. Godric is dead. The Wraith and vampires had just woken up and Titus was draining him. Even if by some miracle he managed to survive, he’s a human. He would have died of old age long ago.”

 

I knew she couldn’t possibly understand what I was saying as I hiccuped in English. Her language skills had improved a great deal but I could barely understand myself as I rambled in a shrill voice, so I was surprised when she responded.

 

“My brother has perished…” her broken voice trailed off into a quiet cry. “He died well, fighting for what he loved.”

 

We soon found our arms around one another, as we comforted each other in our shared grief. Both of us were crying for what seemed like forever. I was drowning with sorrow, the guilt of what happened nearly suffocating me. After all, it was me that had brought him to the past in the first place. It was true that he was about to meet the sun, but I couldn’t help but think that there was some other way, some other thing I could have done to prevent his demise. I had fallen in love with Godric, only to lose him in the worst way possible. I had left him by himself in the past when he needed me the most. I had abandoned him. I had failed him and I would have to live with that for the rest of my life.

 

I suddenly realized that without Godric ever becoming a vampire that Eric would have never been made. Eric would have never turned Pam and Fangtasia wouldn’t even exist. This made me wonder about another strange conundrum. If Godric never became a vampire then how was I holding his shirt. It was the only thing I had of him. The only proof that he ever walked the Earth, and it continued to gnaw at me in the back of my mind. I was no physicist, but if Godric didn’t become a vampire then how is it possible that he was on the rooftop with me. When we went to the past and he died wouldn’t it have become impossible for him to stand on the roof with me? And if he did survive and become a vampire wouldn’t he remember his past… that I was in it with him? I pondered what this could mean and I couldn’t wrap my mind around it.

 

Godric

 

“Godric, we must go to rest or we will lose too much blood from the bleeds,” Eric said desperately.

 

I reached up and wiped the blood away from my ears.  “Go, I will stay here,” I said staring at the door to the roof.

 

“My grand-child is correct, Godric. We must go to rest, the pull of the sun is too strong,” the Pythia said. “If Sookie returns she will be waiting when we rise.”

 

“Judas,” I mumbled under my breath. “Do not speak to me. You have done enough.”

 

She looked at me with sorrow in her eyes. “Godric, if I did not take your memories we would all be overrun with Wraith. I made that choice for all of us.”

 

“You had no right to take my memories.” My steely eyes settled on her as hurt and pain dripped from my deceptively quiet voice.

 

“And my child, when I turned you all those centuries ago, you gave me your word that you would not prevent Sookie from going to the past. You betrayed your word to me. You left me no choice and I was forced to take action. I warned you that there would be consequences if you chose this path.”

 

I frowned as I felt my anger for her waiver. “Maker, I could not let her die.”

 

“I know,” she said touching my arm. “Love is the strongest force in the universe. I should have known you would try to prevent it. Though I have no vision to foretell her fate, my heart speaks to me. It tells me that we have not seen the last of my daughter.”

 

“Your heart?” I said shaking my head in disdain.

 

“Yes, my child.” She said weakly. My maker had been bleeding profusely as she waited with me and her face was sunken. “The heart is often more powerful than the mind.”

 

“Our hearts do not even beat. They lie motionless and dead within our chests.”

 

“No child. Our hearts hold our soul. How do you explain that it is the only way to kill us? The vampire heart is a wondrous thing. It is the key to our immortal life.”

 

My eyes widened in realization as I looked at her.

 

“You see my child, I can still teach a 4000 year old progeny a new lesson,” she said smiling, deepening the wrinkles around her milky eyes.

 

“And your heart speaks to you?” I asked curiously.

 

“Often. Right now my heart tells me that you must go to rest or we shall all die. How would Sookie feel if she came through those doors and found us bled out on the floor of this passageway?”

 

“I do not know if she will return. Should she not return the moment she left?”

 

“I know not, my child.”

 

“Let’s go to rest, Godric.” Eric coaxed with caution. “You look awful. You can rise and take a shower and look well for Sookie as she awaits you.”

 

“Do not coddle me, Eric,” I sighed. “But you are right. We must rest.”

 

“Tomorrow will be a new night,” Eric said. “If Sookie returns she is not going anywhere. Now come.”

 

“Did you procure a new hotel room? I do not want Bill Compton troubling us when he rises if Sookie should be missing. I will take care of him later.”

 

“Of course. And as always I used an alias so he will not know which room we are in.”

 

I nodded as I got up from the floor where I had been sitting. “Very well, my child. Let us be done with this dreadful day.”

 

We walked down the hallway towards the hotel room that Eric had procured for us. I gave the doors to the roof one last longing glance before we turned the corner.

 

 

Sookie

 

I burst through the doors of the hallway that led onto the rooftop. “Come on Alia!”

 

“Where are we going?” She said rushing after me.

 

“If Godric truly did survive Titus in the past and he became a vampire again then he would have made Eric.” I turned to her. “Don’t you see! Godric loved Eric so much. There is no way he didn’t turn Eric!”

 

“The Viking?”

 

“Yes, the intolerable Viking would have gotten a hotel room here after the bomb destroyed the Dallas nest,” I said with a giggle. I looked around, trying to remember the direction of the elevator. “If he exists that is. And if Godric never became a vampire he would have never made Eric therefore Eric wouldn’t have a hotel room here. Don’t you get it, Alia?” I said excitedly.

 

“Sookie, wait! Why is there fur on the ground of this tunnel? And there is blood over here.”

 

“Furry ground? Tunnel?” I said turning around. “Oh the carpet, the hall. That’s weird.” I walked over and knelt down to look at the blood. “This is a vampire hotel. Someone must have fed here. We don’t have time for this.” I stood back up and scratched my head as I tried to think. “If I remember right, Eric’s hotel room is on the fourth floor. Next door to mine… uh, mine and Bill’s.” I curled my lip angrily as I walked towards the elevator.

 

“Bill Cock-ton?”

 

I laughed. “Cock-ton? I suppose he is a cock! A big nasty cock.”

 

“What is a cock, Sookie?”

 

My face flushed red. “Here’s the elevator. Now this may be a little disorienting for you.”

 

I watched Alia gaze around in wonderment as the doors to the elevator opened and closed again after we stepped inside. When they opened back up after we got to the fourth floor, she screamed.

 

“What sort of magic is this? We have been teleported to another place!”

 

“No,” I said gesturing in the air with my hand. “You see the elevator is high in the air, then it goes down.” I made little legs with two fingers go in one hand. Then I moved my hand down and walked my two fingers out.

 

She nodded but she still looked confused. “It doesn’t matter. I’ll teach you about it later. I have so much to teach you.”

 

A pair of humans, a man and woman, walked up to the elevator as we exited. The man did a double take as he approached. They must have thought we looked strange. I still had on my fancy Roman dress, although it was dirty now, and Alia still wore her dress that looked nothing like any dress anyone would ever wear nowadays. We probably looked crazy but I was no stranger to people thinking I was loony.

 

“Excuse me,” I said to the man. He stopped and looked at me. “Do you have the time?”

 

“Sure,” he said cautiously. He looked at his watch. “It’s 2:21”

 

“We must have been up there for hours.”

 

“Pardon?” He had a confused expression on his face.

 

“Thanks,” I said, grabbing Alia’s hand and rushing down the hall. “Bill once told me the older a vampire is the earlier they wake up. I have no idea if Godric would be awake yet, but we can knock on the door. With any luck he’s staying with Eric. Bill was like 150 or so and he woke up about 30 minutes before the sun set and it’ll set in about 4 hours.”

 

Hope filled me and I moved forward with purpose and conviction emanating from every fiber of my being.

 

>>><<<

 

We had exhausted every outlet possible. We had knocked on Eric’s hotel room, there was no answer. We even had gone down to the front desk and the receptionist told us they had no record of Eric Northman or Godric staying at the hotel nor had they ever had any record of either. It had taken a lot of talking and a bit of reading her mind to get that information too. I was back at square one and feeling like my heart weighed a ton. The more and more we investigated the more it started to look like there was no Eric Northman or Godric. Hell, I had even told the receptionist I wanted to rent Eric’s hotel room when she said it was available and when we went in it was completely empty. The evidence was piling up and shattering my hope that somehow Godric had survived the impossible and become a vampire again. That slim hope was all that had kept me going all afternoon and suddenly I felt like a broken woman.

 

In all the rushing around all day, it was apparent to me that Jason had caught a flight and headed back to Bon Temps. I tried his cell phone but it went straight to voice mail. I felt completely cut off from everything and out of my element. I had spent so long in an archaic age fighting for survival every moment that my system was in complete shock. I stared at myself in the mirror of the empty hotel room bathroom.

 

I looked different. Harder, tougher, but utterly and completely devastated. My eyes were swollen and red and my face was covered in grime and dirt. There were streaks of clean skin down my cheeks where my tears had fallen. I didn’t even know the woman who stared back at me anymore. Everything I thought I knew about myself had been turned upside down by the revelations I had discovered in the past. The Ancient Pythoness was my mother. Jason was apparently my long lost cousin, not my brother and I was actually born 3000 years ago in Delphi, Greece, only to be sold to slave traders by my own grandfather and rescued by my great fairy grandfather Niall Brigant. Then I was deposited in modern day America with relatives who were enchanted to believe they were my parents.

 

I had fallen in love with the most amazing man I had ever known only to watch him dying in the grip of a sadistic monster, unable to do a thing because I was whisked back to Dallas.

 

I could barely comprehend everything that had happened.

 

And despite everything I had learned about myself, finally learning who I was and why I was so different than everyone else, and what that all meant, despite all of that, all I could feel was… nothing. Because if I allowed myself to ‘feel’ I feared I would die of sadness at what I had lost. I couldn’t let myself think about Godric because if I did I would wonder how he felt as he died, when Titus was draining him and when I left him to his fate. He must have felt completely betrayed.

 

My face fell and I tried as best I could to push it from my thoughts. I couldn’t even think about the love we shared, how it felt to fall in love with him because it would destroy me.

 

“Sookie?” I heard a light knock on the bathroom door. “Are you well?”

 

“Yes,” I called. “I’m just going to take a shower and change my clothes. I’ll be out in a few minutes.”

 

We had gone to my old hotel room, the one where Bill was sleeping, and gotten all my things. The sight of him laying there on the bed sleeping made me sick and I had half a mind to stake him right there. I hadn’t forgotten what Godric had revealed to me about why Bill had come to Bon Temps, sent by the Queen to procure me as her pet.

 

 

48 hours later

 

“We can’t stay here anymore,” I said staring out of the window at the starlit sky. “We’re out of money and can’t afford another night. We barely have enough left to catch a flight back to Bon Temps.”

 

I looked over at Alia. She was sitting on the bed in a pair of gray yoga pants and a t-shirt that had ‘Bon Temps High School’ printed on it. They were clothes of mine that I had given her from my suitcase to wear, the suitcase we had retrieved from the hotel room where I had been staying with Bill. I had no idea where he was, or what he was thinking and frankly I didn’t care. I thought when he rose the night before he would have immediately came to Eric’s empty hotel room which was right next door, finding me from the blood tie I shared with him, but strangely he didn’t, and I couldn’t help but wonder if I no longer had a connection with him. Maybe it had worn off by now or maybe the magic that had taken me to the past had somehow broken that connection I had with him.

 

In any case, I was grateful that I didn’t have to deal with him.

 

Alia paused the TV with the remote and looked over at me curiously when I spoke.

 

“It’s time to go home,” I said bitterly. “There’s no reason for us to stay here.”

 

She lifted her eyebrows in concern and brushed her sandy curls out of her face, exposing more of her facial tattoos. “You no longer believe that perhaps Godric is within the walls of this fortress?” she said in almost near perfect English. She had spent a great deal of time watching TV and it had progressed her language skills quite a bit. I was amazed at the speed in which she learned, but I always knew how intelligent she was. If she had been born in this time she would probably even be considered a genius.

 

“It was a long shot, Alia. There’s no sign of Eric or Godric anywhere and with Bill lurking around it’s too risky to stay here. There’s no telling what sort of plans he has for me. There’s one thing for sure, he does exist and I should have staked him in his sleep.”

 

Her face showed her compassion as she turned to look at blank space but I knew she was hurting too. She missed her brother and was just as devastated as me at his fate.

 

I knew it would be a very long time before either of us would be able to move on.

 

I heard a crash in the next hotel room, the one where I knew Bill was and it made me shudder. He must be livid that I hadn’t returned.

 

“At daybreak, we leave.”

 

Godric

 

“I can smell her,” I said sadly as I stood in her old hotel room, the one she shared with Compton.

 

“Her scent still lingers from the morning she went to the past,” Eric tried to reason.

 

“Every where I go in this hotel I smell her, especially when we come here.”

 

“She spent most of her time here,” Eric whispered, looking at the ground.

 

“It is as if she is here,” I sighed heavily. “It is almost as if I can sense her. Where are her things? Why weren’t they here when we took Compton away in silver?”

 

“Bill claims he doesn’t know,” Eric said, disdain dripping from his voice. “But we’ll find out what he did with her things.”

 

“Eric,” I muttered facing my child. “You are hiding something from me.”

 

He looked at the ground and fidgeted on his feet. “Please, do not force me to say it. It will only sadden you further.”

 

I stepped closer to him, not showing a hint of emotion on my face. “As your maker, I command you to tell me everything.” I knew that it was unnecessary to command him. He would tell me whatever I wanted to know, but I wanted my words to signify the severity of my conviction and determination.

 

His eyes rose to mine and I had a consuming urge to take back my command because the look on his face confirmed to me that whatever he was about to reveal would end me.

 

“The Pythia revealed to me…” he took a deep unnecessary breath as his voice cracked. “She revealed to me that Sookie was pregnant with… with your child. It happened 2000 years ago.”

 

My eyes widened and I backed away from him until my legs hit the bed. I fell into a sitting position and my vision blurred red, literally red with my blood tears. “A child,” I whispered as I remembered making love to Sookie during the brief time I was human. I recalled the long lost yearning I had to live a human life with her, to have children with her from my human seed. My sister’s words echoed in my mind, her words that I had the chance to live a life with Sookie and have children with her. “I have lost not only Sookie, but a child born of both our flesh?”

 

I looked up at him in disbelief and an anguish tore at my heart so fiercely that I was sure all that was left was a hollow void in my chest. I saw the fear in Eric’s eyes as he averted his gaze to the ground. Even my own child was frightened that my mind might go black with rage and my heart go dark with loss.

 

“How can whatever power that created us be so cruel,” I hissed through gritted teeth. I rarely showed emotion but found that not even 4000 years of practiced control could hold back the onslaught of feelings that poured through me. “How can they make me the champion to help stop the Wraith only to destroy me?”

 

“I do not claim to know the purpose of the gods,” Eric offered resolutely.

 

I stood up. “Gods, or devils, and the wills of men. I vowed to walk this Earth, worthy of Sookie and still they deny her to me. 2000 years and I have not shed the blood of one innocent and yet the winds laugh at me.” I looked away from him, my entire body shaking, my fangs elongating with rage, my blood boiling with the fires of wrath. “No more shall I be a pawn to the universe which can only be born of cruelty and mockery.”

 

I walked to the door and tore it from the frame. Tossing it against the wall of the hotel room with a loud crash, I rushed out and into the dark and pathetic world for which I was forced to endure.

 

Shortly Before Daybreak

 

“Both of you must leave me,” I said, all emotion devoid from my voice.

 

My maker and child stood behind me as I found myself back where all this had begun, staring across the cityscape of Dallas as the first hints of blue streaked the black horizon. The bittersweet irony was not lost on me.

 

“Command him!” Eric pleaded to my maker. “Command him to stop this insanity!”

 

“No,” I said turning to both of them. “I have endured 2000 years without her, waiting for her. I can not bear to endure one more night. Do not force such a cruel injustice upon me.”

 

“Your will is your own, my child,” she said looking down. “I release you.”

 

“No!” Eric yelled, snapping his fangs out and growling at her. “Do you care nothing for your own child?”

 

She looked at him sadly. “My love for Godric is the reason I cannot command him to do what you wish, Eric. If you love him too, you will let him go.”

 

“You knew,” he said in disbelief and horror. “You knew he’d kill himself if Sookie went to the past.”

 

She sighed. “I knew that it might come to this if she failed to return.”

 

“And still you let her go?”

 

“The Wraith…”

 

“Fuck the Wraith!” He hissed. “You are both insane!”

 

He walked up behind me as I gazed at the horizon and I heard his sobbing voice. “I can feel her. My blood,” he said desperately. “I can feel her. She has returned!”

 

“Do not lie to me, Eric. She is gone.” I looked at him as he sank to his knees. “You do not feel her.”

 

He looked down sobbing and shook his head as his blood tears dripped on the ground.

 

“Even Compton cannot feel her and she had massive amounts of his blood. I doubt he was lying after the torture we put him through.”

 

“Do you not want to see him dead? You yourself said you would deliver him the true death.”

 

“It does not matter anymore,” I said in defeat. “Let the bastard go. None of it matters.”

 

“Please, Godric. I beg you. Do not leave me.” Eric pleaded as he lowered his head in reverence, his body shaking with sobs. I looked down at him and put my hand on top of his head.

 

“My child, we have shared a thousand years of love and faith but I have walked this Earth for 4000 years. It is my time to go and it is your time to live your own life. Too long have we fought together through the millennium to see my agenda to fruition.”

 

“I failed you, Fader,” he cried.

 

“No,” I said, my eyes softening. “You have been my greatest accomplishment.”

 

He looked up at me, a calm and dark expression shading his face. “I will stay with you.”

 

I shook my head. “You must go. It is not your time. As your maker, I command it.”

 

He stood up and slowly backed away towards the steps that led down to the upper floor of the hotel. I looked over at the Pythia, who had tears in her eyes.

 

“You must go as well. He will need you.”

 

She gave me one sad nod. “I hope you find happiness in the afterlife. Tell my daughter I love her.”

 

I smiled as I watched her leave. Turning around I looked back towards the horizon as it began to brighten with each passing minute. Soon I would be with Sookie and our unborn child. She awaited me along with my sister Alia. The thought of being reunited with Sookie sent a great peace through me, a peace that I have not felt since I held her in my arms so long ago.

 

I stood alone… waiting for the inevitable. Waiting for my true death and I welcomed it with all that I was.