There was something familiar about the movement, the sort of action that gran would have taken, back in the day. Sookie allowed herself some amount of comfort over that, though it was difficult not to lose herself in it, to allow those tears to spiill over again and to remain the clueless little girl who needed to be protected by others. The want to simply buckle under the pressure was enormous.

"They always are," she answered instead, a touch of a wry smile upon her lips. "You think you've seen all there is, you think that you've been adequately warned of a person's past and know what to expect, and then something like this happens, and then you realize that you've underestimated life's ability to completely screw people over."