Sookie's mental link with Bill not doing the trick, she tries the cell but just gets voicemail: "Damn it, Bill... Bill, this is the third time I've called. A lynch mob is going after those vampires. You gotta get out of there. Call me back. Now." Not after this new country he showed her, not on the morning of the first day in this new world. Not after all the journeying they have yet to do, across those landscapes and in those depths.

Jason sits on his bed, with his shirt off, looking at his hand. The mirror on the closet door is made for visions and for dreams: he sits in a forest, dappled with sunlight, in a Heaven he can reach any time; no division between inside and outside. He is lit by the sun: Pluto, coming home. His amazed face as he whirls around to see if it's real, to get the real deal, to leapfrog the metaphor and catch a ride with angels, but it's just a bedroom. Authentic, unself-conscious. She climbs onto the bed behind him; her hand on his shoulder feels like heaven. She kisses his neck and he falls back into it, then onto his back. This is the first time Jason Stackhouse has ever had sex. The body, the skin, the way it doesn't constrict itself down to one point -- that you talk to like it's a person -- he never knew that. Not even on V with Randi Sue behind Merlotte's, it was still about fucking. But this is something different. And again: no matter how it goes south, I think it's great he's finally getting properly laid. It's Pluto, coming home to new territory he never knew he had. He can feel his body. She holds out one hand, and he meets it, and where they touch there is pleasure, and light. It's no time for war: just sparks flying out between them. He breathes with wonder. "I know, right?" she says, and they stare at themselves in the mirror, the sparks running all along their skin, meeting at everyplace. He runs a hand down her arm: it isn't Jason watching Jason anymore, in the mirror. It's only Jason.