Eirene

The Fourth of July, just a date on a calender everywhere but America, dawns with a warm, brilliant light that promised a nice holiday for pretty much everyone in the country.

Except the Kent household, contained on the back forty of the Kent farm, wherein one small blond is too busy cursing whoever happens to come in a twenty foot radius of the bed she's currently stuck in. Her mother, also blond but tall and elegant as well, is there, playing referee between the woman currently trying to give birth and the man who got her pregnant in the first place.

This has been going on since an hour before sunrise. The ease of Eirene's first pregnancy is just a distant memory now, this second baby is apparently larger and more energetic than the first, and determined to announce its presence in the most dramatic way possible.

Another hour passes, with the paternal grandmother now there and distracting the maternal grandmother in the kitchen with a basic lesson in making muffins, while the maternal grandfather has, unusually for him, taken over as the other birthing coach - apparently he was paying attention through some of the births of his many children.

Eirene is grateful for the support of both men.

And, finally, at 9:10 AM, four hours after she went into serious labor, her second child is born.

A boy, promptly named Jon Galen Kent.

Clark finally has his son.

Go here.

Click here to suggest pairings and enjoy the lulz.

1. Think of the first word that comes to mind when you think of me.
2. Go to http://images.google.com and search for that word.
3. Reply to this post with one of the pictures on the first page of results -- don't tell me the word.
4. Put this in your own blog so that I can do the same.

It's been a very long week.

Eirene left Kansas about two hours after the quake struck Haiti, and she's been there ever since, trying to help anyway she can; whether it's healing the wounded, searching for victims, soothing children whose parents cannot be found in the chaos - anything. She is stronger than any human, despite her small stature, and spends each night picking through the rubble for survivors and victims alike.

Everyone is devastated. So many people were left without homes, countless others missing family members, that the entire area could be the poster child for ground zero in a war zone. Aid is now arriving slowly, but pledges and promises are still coming in from many parts of the world. She's lost count of the death toll so far, more interested in trying to keep people alive by providing magic-ed up food and water for ever small group of refugees she can locate in the areas not so easily accessible by mortal means. Even then she knows it's probably already too late for some of them.

By Friday morning the goddess is so exhausted, mentally and emotionally, that she finds herself wading out into the water near Port-au-Prince and watching the horizon. Waiting for the ships to arrive with emergency supplies and food. An American carrier is slowly chugging its way in, and from her vantage point, Eirene can see the sheer amount of space available across its surface. It's when she realizes she's crying, that she knows its time to go home.

She'll return in the days and weeks ahead - it's not within her to ignore so much suffering and misery, but curling up in an empty bed, knowing her husband and daughter are alive, and at work or with grandparents respectively, that allows her to get the first taste of -- well, peace in three days.

But it still won't erase the devastated condition of her heart.

Aerosmith - Love In An Elevator

Workin' like a dog for the boss man
Workin' for the company
I'm bettin' on the dice I'm tossin'
I'm gonna have a fantasy

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