"Not strange, I'd say, so much as just... different," Sookie concludes with a firm nod. Although all of the families in the area had a tendency to be more loud and boisterous than the ones Sookie had met on the island, she wouldn't have said that all of the families in Bon Temps were similar, necessarily. Each one still had its idiosyncrasies. Each one had its weaknesses and flaws. And as far as she was concerned, something had clearly worked out in the right way for Mathias to be so kind, understanding, supportive in a way that Sookie didn't often see.

"But it's funny to hear that there was a black sheep, so to speak, in your family. I don't think we really had the same," laughs Sookie, starting to doodle in the margins of her page. "All of us Stackhouses were pretty clearly cut from the same cloth. Though I'd like to think I don't give into whims as often as my brother. And neither of us is as smart as our gran was."