𝐃𝐑𝐄𝐀𝐃𝐅𝐔𝐋 𝐍𝐈𝐆𝐇𝐓
the worst day of loving someone is the day that you lose them

THE NEXT MORNING, both Sookie and Victoria ventured into the kitchen, both still on their pajama's, and they saw Gran making eggs and on talking on the phone.

"Well...I will be at the church early," Gran said into the phone, making both girls glance to her. Victoria's mouth watered when she saw a plate of eggs and sausage patties, beside them a carafe of orange juice. "If you would like to like to stop by and say hi. Mr. Compton's talk starts at eight." There was a slight pause. "All right! Same to you! Bye now!" She quickly hung up, making both girl raise eyebrows.

"Phone's been ringin' early today," Sookie commented, sipping some orange juice as Gran brought the food to the table. Almost immefoatly, Victoria dug in.

Gran took a seat at the table, holding the phone to her chest. "Everyone is excited about meetin' the town vampire tonight." She then smiled at the girls. "I didn't hear ya come in last night."

Sookie shrugged. "You went to bed early. You didn't wanna hear us come in."

"Well..." Gran chuckled, looking to the blonde. "I just thought I'd give you guys a little privacy, is all."

Victoria rose an amused eyebrow. "Nothing would have happened since I was there with them," she commented. "Anyway, is she really that much of a lost cause that you gotta pin all your hopes for her on a vampire?"

Gran furrowed her eyebrows. "But he really seems like a very nice man."

"Well, he's not," Snookie snapped.

Gran tilted her head. "He's not nice?"

"Or a man," Sookie hissed.

"Oh, goodness!" Gran exclaimed. "Did you two have a fight?"

"A fight?" Victoria chuckled, amused. "They had a quarrel," She said, gulping down her orange juice. "They argue like a fuc--fudging couple," She quickly changed her wording, not wanting to get yelled out by Gran.

Sookie crossed her arms, growing defensive. "I don't think Bill and I have very much in common. He doesn't think like we do, he doesn't the way we do, if he...feels at all." She pierced a piece of sausage and ate it.

Gran sighed. "Well, I know that, if I had a chance to know somebody who'd experienced the world differently, I'd see it as a blessing and not somethin' to be scared of. Or hate." The phone she was holding began to ring and she didn't move to answer it.

Sookie shook her head. "I don't hate him. I just don't want to be his girlfriend."

The phone continued to ring which made Victoria look at her Gran's in worry. "Erm, Gran, the phone is ringing."

Gran made a face. "Machine'll pick it up." She smiled broadly at the girls who glanced to eachother.

THE CHURCH WAS dark and people started crowding into it when the clock truck eight.

Victoria stood by her Gran and greeted those who entered.

Arlene, a fiesty red head who Victoria and Sookie works with, entered with René her boyfriend, and her two children Lisa and Coby.

Victoria looked at the little kids and smiled. She had always loved children and she can't wait to have them when she's older. "Hey, kiddo's, I got some chocolate, want some?" She then looked up at Arlene and René. "If that's okay with you guys?"

René smiled. "Of course," He said before Arlene could say anything.

Victoria smiled and reached into her purse, grabbing out two small Hershey bars, and handed it to them. "Go crazy, munchkins." She laughed as the siblings ran off.

Mayor Norris then approached the women. "Well, hello there, Mayor Norris."

He smiled. "Evenin', Adele, Victoria. Quite a turnout."

Mayor Norris's wife, Myra, joined them and she doesn't look happy as she looked at her husband, her arms crossed. "Isn't it?"

"Good thing Myra made extra ambrosia," the mayor stated, chuckling lightly.

Gran turned to Myra. "Oh...Andy Bellefleur will like that. He's with the Dearbornes." Gran pointed to her left, and they saw Sheriff Dearborne taking a chair beside Andy Bellefleur. "Look, Lord know why Bud insisted on wearing his uniform."

"Is our vampire friend here?"

"In the kitchen waitin'," Gran replied, smiling. "I left him with a bottle of that Tru:Blood they like."

Victoria made a face. For some reason, Type B vampires have trouble swallowing the synthetic blood.

"Adele?" Victoria looked back to the Mayor. "Do you think we've taken enough precautions?"

"Against what?" Victoria questioned, growing defensive. Bill was too kind and in-control to hurt anybody here. Though, deep down, she knew that everyone, especially vampire's are able to kill.

"Well, to make sure...everybody's safe." He sighed, looking at the brunette. "Ordinarily I wouldn't pay no mind, but there's young folks here."

Gran's smile disappeared and Victoria knew that she rarely ever drops her smile. "Sterling, we don't have anythin' to be frightened of, Mr. Compton...is a perfect gentleman." She handed out flyers to incoming attendees. "Frankly I am more worried about what we might do to him." Gran patted Mayor Norris on the back of his shoulders as he and Myra walked further into the church.

Victoria turned around to see Hoyt and his mother trying to rip out the cross that was on the stage, and she chuckled.

Sookie, her hair worn down, entered the church with Sam right behind her. Victoria smiled and hugged her cousin first before pulling her friend into a hug. "Wow! Look at all the people!" Sookie gave their Gran a hug and a kiss on the cheek.

"Isn't it excitin'?" She smiled at Sam. "Well, Sam Merlotte, what a nice surprise."

Sam smiled and wrapped an arm around Sookie. "When she told me she was comin' here alone tonight, I thought it would be a shame if she came without an escort."

"How very gentlemanly of you."

Sam laughed and Sookie grabbed his arm. "Okay, we're sittin' down now."

Everyone began to take their seats. Sam had Tara to his right, Sookie to his left, and Victoria sat beside her cousin.

Moments later, Jason walked over to Tara and stared at her for a good minute before sitting down.

Victoria ignored them as she looked forehead, chuckling in amusement when she saw that Hoyt and his mother draped a flag over the cross.

Gran walked to the front of the nave and addressed everyone. "Welcome. It certainly is a pleasure to see so many new faces here this month. But Mayor Norris assures me that there will be enough ambrosia and tipsy cake for everyone." The crowd gave a collective, polite laugh. "Now, our guest tonight is a gentleman who, despite what you might have heard, is one of us. His family was among the first to settle in Bon Temps and he bravely fought for Louisiana in the war for Southern independence. Let us welcome one of the original sons of Bon Temps back to the town that he helped build. I give you First Lieutenant William Thomas Compton."

Gran stepped aside and Bill opened a door near the pulpit, entering to some scattered applause. The door closed behind him and he stepped up to the pulpit and looked at the crowd. "Thank you, Mrs. Stackhouse. If you'll pardon me for a moment..." Bill stepped down from the pulpit and walked to the flag-covered cross and removed the flag from it.

Victoria couldn't help but let out a laugh as most people gasped.

Bill took a flagpole from the altar and reattached the flag to it. Upon finishing, Bill looked up at the flag, then at the crowd. "As a patriot of this great nation, I wouldn't dream of puttin' myself before Old Glory." He placed the flag and flagpole in a pedestal stand beside the altar, returned to the pulpit, and spoke into the microphone, smiling lightly. "As you can see, I did not burst into flames."

Bill's smile broadened, and some laughter is heard from the crowd, Victoria's being one of them.

"We vampires are not minions of the Devil. We can stand before a cross, or a Bible, or in a church, just as readily as any other creature of God. Mrs. Fortenberry." Everyone turned to the clearly embarrassed woman. "I am honored to stand before you tonight. Vampires have traditionally been very private, perhaps to our detriment. But I believe, if we reach out to one another, that we can coexist--" He glanced at Sookie, something Victoria and Sam noticed. "--and even thrive together.

Sookie looked down at the floor and Victoria grabbed her hand in comfort.

"I served in the 28th Louisiana infantry, formed in Monroe in 1862, under Colonel Henry Gray. It was there that we learned the value of human life, and the ease with which it can be extinguished." Bill looked around the room of humans. "Uneducated as we were, we knew little of the political or ideological conflicts that had led to this point."

"But goin' to war was not a choice for us. We believed to a man that we had a calling to fulfill. A destiny handed down to us from above. God forbid should any of our men become wounded or injured. Often the only recourse for a serious injury was amputation." Bill paused before continuing. "More times than I care to remember, I had to hold down one of my fellow soldiers while the medic took a saw to his arm or leg. We had no anesthesia at the time. Apart from a bit of whiskey. It often seemed that the man bein' operated upon suffered more from his surgery than he did from his original wound. Even if he survived the amputation, the chance of subsequent infection was high."

Victoria clenched her jaw when some stupid rednecks held up a garlic press and squeezed it, garlic coming out through the tiny holes. "Fucker!" He whisper shouted.

After that, Victoria tried so hard to continue to listen to Bill, but she kept glancing at those rednecks, wanting to wring their necks for being disrespectful.

An old man stood up, making Victoria look to him. "My great-grandfather was in the 28th. I wonder if you might have known him. His name was Tolliver Humphries."

"Tolliver Humphries," Bill repeated. "Yes. I knew him very well. We fought together. Tolliver Humphries was my friend. He was a brave man, perhaps to a fault. I dare say it contributed to his death."

"What happened? Were you there?"

"I was." Bill nodded. "We were about 20 miles north of where I stand now. The Federals outnumbered us five to one. And they had better firepower as well. We'd spent much of the afternoon recovering the bodies of those we'd lost. There was a boy in our troop, no more than 13 or 14, who lay wounded in the middle of a field under poor cover."

Bill continued, swallowing thickly. "He called to us all day. He begged us to help him. He knew he would die if we didn't. I admit I considered shootin' the boy myself just to shut him up. But Tolliver convinced me that would be an act of murder, not war. He told me God wanted him to rescue that boy. I pleaded with him not to go. To think of his wife and children back home. He ran into that field like it was a cool spring day. They shot him just as he reached the boy. It was obvious to us that he was beyond help. And then, after a while, the boy started screamin' again."

"What happened to the boy?"

"He lived. He survived the day," Bill told her, a small smile displayed across his face. "And then under cover of darkness we retrieved him later that night, along with the body of Tolliver Humphries. But it seems that Tolliver was right. God did look after his descendants."

Mayor Norris stood up with the aid of a cane, and he slowly walked up to Bill. "I've been digging in the archives this week... and I found this old tintype." He held up a tintype, in a folding picture frame, to Bill. "The inscription on the back says, "Mr. W.T. Compton and family." Can you tell us if this is a picture of you?"

Bill took the tintype from Mayor Norris, opened the frame, and looked at it, an emotion Victoria knew well was starting to display on his face. Grief, loss, pain.

Bill looked up, trying to not look emotional. "This... this is a remarkable photograph. I remember the day we gathered to have this taken."

"When was the last time you were with them?"

"When I..I went to war in 1862. I...my human life ended before I had a chance to come back home," Bill stuttered out, trying to contain himself.

"But'choo became a...a vampire after that, right? Couldn'tcha go back to your family then?" René asked, looking up at the vampire in curiosity.

Bill shook his head. "No. No. That wouldn't have been possible." He closed the picture frame and dabbed his eyes with a handkerchief. "I apologize. This is not a subject I'm very comfortable speaking about. But thank you for the photograph, Mayor. Brings back many memories for me." The Mayor returned to his seat as Bill returned to the pulpit. "Any other questions?"

The night continued on, soon ending which made Victoria more relieved and happy than she would like to admit to finally get up and stretch her legs.

WHILE SAM AND SOOKIE went out on a little date thing, Victoria went on a walk through the woods. Everything was happy and carefree for a little. But, that soon ended when she got home.

She had gotten there just as Sookie did.

They both entered the house at the same time, taking off their shoes knowing Gran wouldn't like it if they tredded mud everywhere.

But, then, they both slid on something on the floor. They didn't think much and Sookie flipped on the light to the kitchen. They turned their heads and saw Gran's mutilated body on the floor, surrounded by a huge pool of blood.

Both Sookie and Victoria fell to the floor. While Sookie sat there in shock, Victoria felt her chest tighten and her throat constrict. One tear soon fell from her eyes and then another, and another until she couldn't stop. She let out a loud cry, covering her mouth, but it didn't quite her sob, no, it made it louder.

Reaching over, without thinking, she grabbed her Gran's dead body, and cried into her chest. "No. No, please, no. Not you! No!" She looked up at the ceiling, tears falling down her cheeks one after another. "Why does this keep happening to me?!"