Sookie Stackhouse

Words from weeks ago continued to ring in the back of Sookie's mind as she rushed through the whole of London, a heavy woolen cape wrapped closely around her shoulders as she suppressed a shiver. Already, she was beginning to regret the hasty decision she'd made to rush out into the streets directly after having stopped to visit Nina and George at the clinic, her skirt hardly long enough to block the sudden gusts of sharp wintry air— but at the very least, she reminded herself, it allowed for the ease of movement that she needed now, wandering the city with nothing more than a tiny map clutched in her hands. She hadn't the slightest idea where Mitchell was staying, only that she needed to find him. For all that George had kept his lips pressed shut on the matter, the birth of a child was an event that should have been shared with family.

And no matter what had happened, Sookie was sure that Mitchell was still that to George.

With a slight yelp as her heel slid on the street, Sookie quickly gripped the nearest lamp post, avoiding the questioning gazes of passerby before she turned down the block to hear to the nearest pub. For hours, she'd been checking every drinking establishment she could find, one after the other, to the point where when she spotted that familiar mass of curls at last, nothing seemed to outweigh the sudden sense of relief. Sighing heavily, she slid onto the empty stool next to Mitchell, quickly directing a sharp gaze at the tender.

"Coffee, please, in... whatever the biggest size you have is. And sugar, if you have it," she instructed with a quick smile. "I don't care if it's coffee that you usually only share with employees, I just need something warm and nonalcoholic. Thanks."

Turning her gaze to Mitchell, Sookie steeled her nerves as best she could, smoothing her knit brow with the pad of her thumb. "I know I'm probably the last person that you wanna see right now, and I promise I'll get out of your hair soon, but you need to head on over to the clinic tonight. Because Nina's had her baby. And I think George could really use his best friend."

When the last, lingering traces of sleep were reluctantly tugged away in the morning, Sookie's first instinct was no longer to pull the sheets over her head, or to stubbornly bury her nose into her pillow. Instead, she reached over to the other side of the bed, feeling around with her hands as her eyes remained tightly shut. On luckier days, she'd find Mitchell there and allow herself to sleep in an extra fifteen minutes, only to wind up late for her first class, or for a shift at the office, stumbling out of the hut with flyaway hair and shoes hooked on her fingers as she ran barefoot through the grass. That morning, Sookie found herself pressing a faint smile against Mitchell's shoulder, dropping a kiss as she snuck her arm around his waist, pulling herself closer to him.

"Think we should get up?" she asked, voice hoarse with sleep as she opened a single eye. When met with indistinct mumbling as ever, Sookie huffed a laugh, shaking her head and yawning. "Didn't think so."

Rolling over, Sookie allowed her arm to hang limp for a moment before pushing herself up to lean against the headboard, yawning again and running her fingers through her hair absently as she peered over at her nightstand. Next to the usual glass of water was a folder that she couldn't remember having ever seen before, dark in color, deeper than any of the Council records. Glancing over at Mitchell again, Sookie pursed her lips before reaching out to haul the folder onto her lap, shifting and beginning to flip through its contents. Slowly, the furrow under her brow began to grow deeper as she rifled through photographs, receipts, newspaper clippings— everything, it seemed, centering around her as its subject.

Normally, she might have assumed that it was the workings of a memoir compiled by her grandmother, but it was the neat scrawl of Bill's handwriting that told her otherwise, one which laid out her family tree as far back as Sookie herself knew, and then some. Occasional relatives were marked, as was her own name. Photographs of her at Merlotte's were scattered. Even contact information from the Rattrays was hidden among everything else. Sookie felt her face blanch, her cheeks tingling, and she shot Mitchell a worried look, wondering if it would be best if she kept it to— no. She shook her head to herself, sighing through her teeth. No, she'd continue sitting in bed until he woke, with the folder in her hands, see what he had to make of it.

And until he woke up, she could spend an hour or so alone with the folder, trying to make out the purpose of it before handing it off to anyone else.

When Sookie opened her eyes, she couldn't remember where she was. Couldn't remember what had brought her to that very point in time, laying on that very bed, staring at the perforated texture of the ceiling. Her heart was racing, her body ached, but her mind was a blissful silence as Sookie found herself with absolutely nothing but her senses to anchor her, hands balling into fists around corners of a soft blanket pulled up to her shoulders.

Slowly, the memories trickled back in, as they always did. She was on an island, one that had become a home of sorts over the past couple of months. The room was the clinic of a building called the Compound, one that most residents wove in and out of, because it contained most of the conveniences they were accustomed to from home. She was laying in the clinic after having spent a few days out in the open, exposed to the elements all while wearing very little, having relinquished her clothes to help someone more in need of it. It was with two other people, the sudden move out into the territory roamed by dinosaurs, all areas drenched by rain and there being no real way to navigate out of the area. What had been more terrifying than any of the details, however, was the sudden nature of it all, no warning or force for Sookie to grapple with, just something larger and more powerful than her that brought everyone to their knees. Made Sookie feel small, weak in ways she had long since vowed not to be, again.

But there she was, safe and warm in a bed, and what right did she have to complain about a nice ending like that?

She remembered other things, too, vague hints of murmurs passing through the clinic, people talking about the miraculous end of the rain, suggesting that the island had ceased its activity for now, letting people enjoy the status quo. Seeing no gazes lingering on her person, Sookie slowly sat up on the bed, wrapping the blanket tightly around herself and slipping to the floor, padding slowly out of the room. She didn't like hospitals. And she hated rain of the sort the island had gone through in the past month— Sookie didn't like rain to begin with, but being stuck in the thick of it reminded her of the weather those twenty years ago, the flash floods that led to the death of her parents. Rather than moping, what she wanted was the sun, to feel the rays on her face and maybe even find Jason just to enjoy it with him, the new weather that would hopefully help to push everything else out of her mind and place it solidly in the past. Sookie took to the sides of the hallways, one hand carefully lingering on the wall to keep herself steady as she made her way to the front entrance of the Compound, hoping no one would haul her back before she could take a breath of fresh air and enjoy it in full.