A/N:
I got a lot of Kill Bill-requests from you guys and I must admit that I wouldn`t mind punching him in the nose myself. But Bill wasn`t killed in the books and he isn`t going to be killed here. Sorry…
Thank you for all the great reviews I got after the last chapter – and earlier on. I have not been able to answer you all (stupid shoulder problems have me limit my computer time grrr), but know that I really appreciate them.
Thank you so much to Rascalthemutant at the Alexander Skarsgård library forum for reading this and giving so many great suggestions and corrections!
Extra note: I tried all day to post this, but fanfic acted up. Grrr. I hope you can read it now…
“Sookie?” Eric’s voice was thick with worry.
I opened my eyes and saw the inside of what must have been a hospital room. Eric was holding my hand and looked me questioningly in the face.
“Are you awake? Are you in pain? Do you need something?” Eric opened his mouth to ask me more questions when he was interrupted.
“Take it easy, Eric. This isn’t the time to write her biography. Let her breathe a little.” Pam looked at me. “We were very worried about you, Sookie. You have been gone for almost 24 hours.”
Twenty-four hours? I tried to remember what had happened, but it didn’t make sense. No one hit my head and I couldn’t find any other reasons for being unconscious for that long.
Eric read my mind. “You were drugged, Sookie. The doctors found traces of some kind of date rape drug in your blood.” My eyes widened and I could feel terror wash over me. I had been drugged? That would explain why I couldn’t move when Bill… when Bill raped me. I was raped.
“Bill claims he doesn’t know anything about any drug.” Eric clearly didn’t believe Bill.
“But…” It was hard to locate my voice and it only came out as a whisper. “But why would Bill drug me?” I asked.
Eric and Pam looked at each other. One could tell that it was pretty obvious to them why Bill would have done such a thing. Then Pam gave me a motherly smile, well as motherly as Pam could smile, anyway. Pam wasn’t exactly the motherly type.
“Bill claims it must have been Debbie. He says that Debbie told him to go to your bedroom. According to him, Debbie said you wanted him back and that you went to bed early because you wanted him to come to you.” Pam paused. “Bill claims that he thought you wanted to have sex with him.” She spat out the last sentence.
Bill’s story obviously made no sense to Pam, but it did to me. As much as Bill had hurt me with Lorena and him dumping me without telling me, I really didn’t think Bill would rape me. But maybe that was what all women who were raped by their ex, would say?
“Where is Bill now?” I needed to see Bill when he told me his story. I would know if he was lying.
“He’s in police custody.” Eric smiled. He patted my hand. “Don’t worry about Bill. I’ll make sure he doesn’t bother you again. We don’t put people in jail for as long as you guys do.” I smiled a little at his use of the term “you guys”. “But Bill will definitely be deported.” Eric gritted his teeth “And if he isn’t, I’ll personally throw him out of the country.”
“But what about the job he’s doing for you? Wouldn’t Viking Games suffer if he was thrown out of the country?”
Eric rolled his eyes. “Oh, Bill finished what he was hired to do weeks ago. He just hid it from me. Probably to gain more time to…” Eric looked at me and swore in Norwegian. At least I assumed he swore because those were words we hadn’t learned in class – and probably never would.
I closed my eyes and heard Pam whisper something to Eric in Norwegian. They both became quiet and I dozed off again.
Xxxx
When I woke up, a police officer in uniform was in the room. She was talking in a very low voice with Eric. I could make out the word “Debbie”, but not what the conversation was about. When she saw me look at her, she came over to the bed.
“Hello, Sookie. I’m Kenya and I’m a police officer with the Oslo Police.”
I had to smile. I knew that Norwegians had a thing for using first names for each other, but for a police officer to introduce herself as Kenya and no last name, was just too funny. It probably spoke volumes of the state I was in, that this was the top of my humor-list. My smile died.
“Hello,” I managed to answer.
“Are you up to answering a few questions about what happened to you?”
I nodded and Kenya looked down in her papers.
“You were raped..” she half stated half asked. I nodded again. “By a Bill Compton. He used to be your boyfriend?”
“Yes.”
I told Kenya the story about `Bill and Sookie` and I felt the weight of him mentally rolling off my shoulders while talking about him. Kenya looked at me with concerned eyes. Then she spoke.
“You know you were drugged?”
“Yes, Eric and Pam told me.”
“Then you should also know that Bill claims that he wasn’t the one who drugged you.”
“Eric and Pam told me that as well.”
Kenya looked disapprovingly at Eric who just shrugged. Then she her eyes moved back to me with a silent question. I paused a little, then answered.
“I think he may be right. It doesn’t really sound like something Bill would do.”
I could see that Kenya had heard that sentence before, so I continued.
“And Bill didn’t really have any opportunity to drug me. He was at the other end of the table and was never anywhere near my glass.”
Kenya looked at Eric who was suddenly in deep thought. I could almost see him wind back the memory of the whole dinner. Then he gasped slightly. “She’s right. Bill was never close to Sookie. I actually made sure of that. And what’s more… Bill and Debbie did have a conversation alone just after Sookie had gone to bed.”
Kenya looked at me.
“Would Debbie have any reason to want to hurt you?”
I shook my head. “I don’t think she did. But I am a good friend of Alcide, her boyfriend or ex or whatever they are now. She may have been jealous of our friendship.”
“Tell her about your wrap, Sookie,” Eric said.
I told Kenya about the wrap and about everything that was said and done at the dinner party. After an hour she closed her notepad and shook my hand.
“I’m sorry for what happened to you, Sookie. We’ll do our best to find out who was responsible.” And then she was out the door.
Xxxx
The next morning, I was released from the hospital and back in Eric’s house. I went to my room, dreading to see the bed again. But before I opened the door, Eric stopped me.
“No, Sookie. I’ve taken the liberty of putting you in my room.”
I must have looked shocked.
“Well, that came out wrong. I mean, I traded rooms with you. I do have more bedrooms, but yours and mine are the largest and I didn’t want you to have a smaller room just because of that b… of what happened. And I figured you didn’t want to sleep in there just now so I just moved your things into my room and my things into yours.”
Silent tears of gratitude, fear, sadness and despair ran down my cheeks and when I felt Eric’s warm arms around me I started crying for real. I cried for a long time, having Eric’s strong arms comforting me and his mouth whispering sweet words in Norwegian. When the tears stopped, I felt a large burden having been lifted from my shoulders. I could get through this.
Xxxx
We went back to something that resembled normal. Debbie had bragged of her deeds to Alcide, apparently in the hope that he would see it as a declaration of love. Unfortunately for her, Alcide told the police and Debbie was now in prison waiting for her trial.
Charges were dropped against Bill, but he still left Norway. I wasn’t sure if he was thrown out or if Eric gave him an offer he couldn’t refuse. I didn’t miss him.
Now that Bill was gone, my initial reason for coming to Norway was gone too. I really didn’t want to leave the country. I loved my job and I wasn’t in any hurry to get home to the life I had shared with Bill.
I never asked Eric if he expected me to leave and he never told me to stay. But he treated me like an important employee at work and a good friend at home and I had no reason to think he would want me to go home.
He and I stayed home together every night, cooking, playing games or just watching something silly on the television.
Eric was full of concern and worry. He was sweet and gentle, always asking me how I felt and if I needed anything. He never asked me to yield again and I almost came to miss it. I didn’t want to be a rape-victim for the rest of my life.
I worked even harder and had almost finished planning the whole launch of the new game Viking Games was working on: Valhalla.
It was an online game and was meant to be a competitor to World of Warcraft. It used the Viking Age as the theme and all the gods and myths as important parts of the game. Eric showed me a prototype and even if I had never been a gamer, I immediately loved Valhalla. It had strong women and the game was not all about fighting, which immediately made me believe the game could penetrate a market few other games had managed to sell very well to – women.
Eric loved the idea. “If we get women to play this game, men will come jumping,” he claimed. “Men want to be where women are.”
“Not all men are called Eric Northman, Eric,” I laughed.
But I figured a game couldn’t do too badly if we managed to make it the number one online game for women all over the globe – which soon became our goal.
I finished the PR- and marketing plan, making sure everything was ready for a launch in the beginning of November. We wanted to hit the important Christmas market.
We were running out of time, but Eric assured me that the game was finished, tested and ready to be sold. He was confident nothing could go wrong.
He was so badly mistaken.
A/N:
This was a sad little chapter, but I had to move us (and Sookie) along.
I only have four words about the next chapter: Dead to the World. *whistles innocently*