A/N: Last chapter. Please review. Hope ya'll enjoyed it. I don't own anything, really. Even though I would love to own Bill.

Chapter 10- Atonement

Meet Your Maker

Epigraph:

But suddenly an angel has smiled at me
And kissed my cheek without a trace of fright
I dare to dream that she
Might even care for me

…I swear it must be heaven's light

- 'Heaven's Light' from Hunchback of Notre Dame

“It’s been a while.” Bill watched as Lorena tiptoed her way out of the shadows. She smiled devilishly. He just nodded solemnly in response, his face made of marble. She walked right up to him and played with the lapel of his jacket, still grinning. He didn’t push her away.

“My, my, you haven’t lost an inch of your handsomeness.”

“We don’t age, Lorena.”

“Good thing for you, then.” Bill ignored her touch by closing his eyes and turning his head away. His every movement was filled with sadness and self-pity. He clasped his hands together behind his back and took a step away from Lorena’s caresses. She tilted her head in the way she had always done and blinked at him, her lips forming a tight grimace. She spoke in her thickest Southern drawl.

“There was nothin’ you could have done, sweetheart.”

His next words were a ton of a bricks, heaved from his chest, sounding too much like an accusation rather than a fact. Oh hell, he already blamed everyone else in the world, why not blame her, too? “Sookie is dead.”

“It is not my fault. You did not turn her, and besides,” she raised a brow in his direction, “she was gettin’ mighty old.”

“Do not speak of her that way ever again.” He released his hands and clenched them into fists. His sight was becoming clouded with spots. Lorena’s porcelain features were blurring as tears bubbled to the surface. Damn. He watched her smile blur completely, and he was reminded of all the times he’d caught Sookie’s hidden smiles. But he quickly squashed that thought: he would not soil her memory by comparing her to Lorena; no matter if she came out so clearly. In spite of that, though, all of his precious times with her rose to the surface. He could not force them down. He cast his gaze in another direction, to the West this time, as his memory was clouded with moments and his eyes filled with tears again.

Bill, grinning from ear to ear at Sookie, when Eric had told them that her services were no longer needed. They could live a next to normal life. They could move on.

Sookie’s shock and unadulterated happiness when he knelt down on one knee and pulled a gold ring from his pocket and told her how much he loved her and asked her to be his wife. “Yes,” she had said, quietly at first. Then: “Yes! Yes. I will marry you Bill Compton. I love you.” He had lifted her up then, and spun her around the yard like a child, Sookie’s grin burning a mark into his shoulder. “So much.” She had muttered.

The day of their wedding, Bill glancing out at everyone in the party: His groomsman – Eric Northman, Sam Merlotte and Hoyt Fortenberry; Sookie’s Maid of Honor Tara Thornton, along with a barely showing Arlene and a pouting Jessica for bridesmaids. Jessica didn’t like the cranberry color of her dress. He held his breath (a habit he’ garnered from mainstreaming) as the doors opened. On Sookie’s tanned arm was Jason, who was looking out at everyone as well. Bill’s eyes fell on Sookie, who looked stunning in her long, pristinely white (strapless) gown and flowing veil, walking down the aisle. Cello music played softly in the background. She had kept her gaze trained on him the whole time.

Bill comforting her in the waning hours of the night when she burst out crying over the dismay of not being able to have children. Her eyes twinkling when he’d broached the topic of adoption … and the same shine in her eyes when they signed the papers: Eleanor Lilac Stackhouse Compton.

Eleanor growing up. Learning to live at all hours of the night and day. Bill bending down and Eleanor throwing herself into his arms when he came home from business ventures. Sookie sitting in the kitchen and playing board games with Eleanor during the sunlit hours, Bill telling her about his family, as he tucked her into bed.

And Sookie.

They stood in silence for quite some time, Bill slowly losing all semblance of feeling. No, not of feeling, he realized with a shutter, of humanity. Without Sookie to ground him, he just drifted back into his former self. And Lorena knew that – hence the summons. He almost found himself laughing: Lorena would forever be more than him.

“Where are your daughters?” Lorena probed him, pulling him from his reveries.

“I do not speak to them anymore. They live their own lives.”

“You knew this would happen. You knew everyone would leave you – just like you left me.”

“Lorena, please just shut up. Can’t you see that I …” he could not finish his own sentence. He bared his fangs at her in distaste but she only roared with laughter. Cold hearted, unfeeling… what he was becoming.

“Oh, Bill.” She shook her head in dismay. “Always the sensitive type. I am truly sorry for your loss.” She stared at him, unsure of what to say. He wet his dry lips and chewed his tongue for a moment. Sookie was dead and any way he looked at it, it was his own fault. He, of all people, could have prevented it and he didn’t. He was a monster.

He took a good, long lookat the woman before him. He had betrayed her, too – the only woman who had ever loved him unconditionally. She just asked for that in return, and how could he blame her? She had given him everything, even when he had not asked for it. She’d provided him with the tools he’d needed to survive as long as he had. She was, after all, his Maker. Bill heaved a wave of breath through his dead lungs and knelt before Lorena.

“Forgive me, for I have sinned.”

Lorena took one tentative step toward him; as if afraid he might run. He did not. She leaned down; arms extended, and cradled his face in her palms. She gently shook his head and kissed him lightly on the lips.

“I forgive you.”

He swallowed his penance and pulled her to him. Lorena fell against his chest and he caught her mouth with his. He kissed her with every fiber that made up his solid self, all the while gripping her forearms tightly. The taste of blood trickled into his mouth and he discovered they were both crying. He licked the tears from her cheeks and kissed his way down her neck, pulling her even closer. The straps of her dress leaned off her shoulders and fell completely away as he gently slid her backwards to the floor. He was looming above her, slowly peeling away the indigo evening gown. She tore at the buttons on his shirt and the clasps of his pants. All the while, as his hands moved over her, he felt nothing. He did not feel hot or cold in any way. He threw himself into Lorena and rocked against her, hoping that would spark some life into him. It did not. He bit her on the neck – once, then again, hoping to recall an ounce of passion. Nothing. She made primitive noises and whispered his name, but it did not sway him.

When she lay curled beneath him, he brought his lips to her ear and spoke – it was nothing more than a breeze rifling the trees in springtime: “You’re making love to someone already dead.”

“I know.” She said.