(no subject)

[dovelike]

Eirene kicks at a rock, her face set in a thoughtful scowl, and watches it bounce across the dirt lane only to vanish into grazing land beyond a dilapidated fence. The last week seems to have taken its toll on Clark and she's not even sure that her reason for talking him into taking her to Smallville is valid anymore. Chloe doesn't even remember her, not as the friend Eirene had hoped she'd turned into. So many deaths in so little time, it isn't a wonder that Clark opted to hide in the loft, and she can't blame him for the desire to set things aside for a little while and just exist.

She's beginning to wonder if he even heard her come in and let him know she was going for a walk. Probably did, with that super-hearing, but he didn't seem like he was paying attention, another thing she can't fault him for.

Well, that's what this little stroll down a country lane is for: thinking. For tonight she's borrowing the guest room at the house, and tomorrow Clark will probably suggest she return to Milliways. It's not something Eirene wants to do; abandon him when he needs someone just to be around, but she's also never overstayed her welcome.

She's also not paying attention to the road behind her, so when the old Caddy veers and hits her, all Eirene feels is a sudden burst of pain across her back, and something break inside when she lands just past the base of the ancient oak a few feet away. The car, and it's elderly driver, end up ramming right into the tree trunk, its horn blaring uselessly.

Thump-thump-thump-thump, thump thump thump thump...

Comments

[eirenikos]

"Clark." She's struggling for breath, to be heard above the shouts and tersely snapped instructions coming from the ambulance crew. But if anyone can hear her, he can. "I love you." Even though he doesn't, even if he loves Lana, and Chloe, she has to tell him before they load her up into the back of the ambulance.

Then someone puts an oxygen mask over her face, obscuring almost everything from sight. Eirene can barely make out snippets of conversation, enough to learn that the driver was killed on impact, and a slew of medical terminology that boils down to the fact she's ripped up inside.

And that her bones are extrodinary light, and fragile, almost like a human bird. It makes her smile before unconsciousness claims her.

[hero_farmboy]

Clark is prevented from getting into the ambulance with her by police, who are also now on scene. They want his statement; Clark doesn't care.

"I have to go with her, please."

"Son, she'll be gone before they get there."

[eirenikos]

That's ... not entirely true. Eirene fights for her life all the way into town; her heart beat barely registering at all by the time she's put on a table in the emergency room, but still there.

By the time Clark arrives, there is a team in place already readying the paddles in case they are needed.

Thump. Pause. Thump. Pause. Thump. Pause.

Then nothing.

[hero_farmboy]

It's déjà vu all over again. Clark was just here, not three days ago, with Chloe in Eirene's place in the emergency room, with people surrounding her and machines hooked up everywhere.

And he'd had to listen to her heartbeat drain down into nothing.

So he keeps listening, because this can't be happening again.

[eirenikos]

"Clear!" Pause. "Again! Clear." Pause. They try four times, the voltage raised a little with each successive attempt, and four times her body jerks as the electricity goes through it before Eirene returns to lying there without any movement at all.

There is no heartbeat and the rest of her is shutting down. It's the last thing that she would have wanted to put Clark through.

"Enough. I'm calling time of death." One of the er doctors looks wearily at the clock and rattles off the time before exiting the room and looking for Clark.

[hero_farmboy]

Clark is waiting as close to the room as he can get. "Is she okay?"

The doctor frowns and looks around Clark to the waiting room. "Mr. Kent, we need to find any of her immediate family."

"I'm sorry, I can't share any information with you until we've notified Miss Sullivan's immediate family."

Clark pales. "No. Not again, no."

[eirenikos]

This doctor, unlike the ones who treated Chloe, is more inclined to be sympathetic. However, he does have to notify her family first.

"I'm sorry, son. Can you provide a name or a number to call?"

Behind him, in the room, monitors are tracking the last internal organs shutting down while a nurse begins to cut the clothing off the body and put it in a trash bag.

[hero_farmboy]

Clark shakes his head numbly. "She doesn't have anyone." No one but him. "Can I see her, please?"

[eirenikos]

Another minute passes before the doctor slowly nods, and motions for Clark to follow him back in. "Janice, this young man wants to say goodbye." There's a look shared between them, one in which the doctor acknowledges the debt he owes to the nurse.

"That's fine, kid. Just stay on this side of the cot. Five minutes. That's all I can spare. Bruce," this is to the doctor. "Get me a coffee. No cream."

Eirene's lying in the position they brought her in, though most of the tubes were just removed by the nurse.

[hero_farmboy]

Clark stays to the back of the room until they're gone. Once he's alone, he approaches her slowly, careful to stay on the side he was told. It isn't until he sees her face - and strains his hearing to the absolute limit searching for a faint pulse somewhere - that his resolve crumbles and he barely chokes back a sob.

"I'm sorry," he whispers, reaching a hand out to brush her hair off her face. "I should have saved you. I'm so sorry."

[eirenikos]

Silence, and the faint whoosh of the machines on the other side of the cot, are the only things that answer back. It's probably not a good idea to watch the monitors catagorizing each system as it fails, either.

Clark has to know that if she could, Eirene would have taken this opportunity to hug him tightly. It's just how she is.

Was.

[hero_farmboy]

He'll spend the rest of his time just standing by her side, stroking her face and holding her hand. And trying not to cry.

[eirenikos]

At three minutes and two seconds, something happens. It's probably not noticeable at first, a tiny spark of electricity building in the general area of her heart, then diffusing along her nervous system. Just a blip, move along. But it happens again about twenty seconds later. Then ten seconds later, there's a faint popping noise, and every single machine in the room turns off.

[hero_farmboy]

Clark's hand stills where he's wiping a smudge of dirt off her cheek. At first, he thinks it's just a trick of his mind, sensing something he wants to be there but isn't.

And then it happens again. And again.

When the lights go out, he knows it's not just him.

"Eirene?"

[eirenikos]

The lack of light makes it easy to see the lightning bolt shoot straight up out of her body, looking like nothing so much as a representation of the special effects used in movies like Clash of the Titans. This isn't FX, however, as evidenced when the bolt vanishes through the ceiling and takes out power to the entire hospital with it.

About half a minute later, Clark might hear thump thump thump thump coming from the body, right before it sits up, sneezes, and promptly falls off the other side of the cot.

[hero_farmboy]

Clark's had experience with lightning and so he steps back, arms going up defensively from the blast.

Then everything's quiet. And dark.

And then it's not so quiet.

"Eirene?" the thing about super senses is that not only can he hear her, but he can see better in the dark. He thinks. So finding her isn't a problem.

She's warm.

One more time, but much more softly, "Eirene?"

[eirenikos]

She's defintely warm, she's breathing normally, and she's glowing. Faintly. It takes a couple of extra seconds to unscramble her brain from the abrupt awakening.

"Uh, Clark? What in Tartarus are you doing in the Fields? Did Demeter bring you here? And why in Dad's name did they rearrange the entry hall to look like a damn hospital. Have I been dead so long that I missed an entire season? Great. I swear if someone dressed in a nurse's outfit, I'm gonna punch them. Okay. First thing, do not eat or drink anything down here. That only entitles you to an eternal stay down he--"

This is when the lights come back on and she stops babbling - to snap a sheet into her hands, and wrap it around herself because she's not wearing uh, anything.

"Why are you crying?"

[hero_farmboy]

There's only one proper response here: one giant bear hug, coming up.

[eirenikos]

Ok, she can handle a hug. For as long as he needs to. Even if she has to suffer her feet dangling in the air because he picked her up off the ground.

"Everything ok?" Eirene eventually inquires, her voice probably muffled againt his neck.

[hero_farmboy]

He needs to. For a while.

"You're not dead." This is, really, the only important part of any of it.

[eirenikos]

Yeah, Eirene's beginning to figure that one out for herself, arms sliding up to wrap around his neck. For balance. And possible to wiggle her fingers at the blinds so they close, giving them a little more privacy.

"I'm not dead." She's very agreeable for a goddess.

[hero_farmboy]

It's a good thing to be agreeable about.

He doesn't want to say anything else for the moment, just hold her and listen to her heart beat and smell her hair... roses and rain.

"You got your goddess back."

And so, it appears, did Clark.

[eirenikos]

A delighted smile spreads across her face when she pulls back, a little, to stare at him, and then the fingers she just used to ... do goddess-y stuff with.

"I did."

She might rest her forehead against his for a minute.

[hero_farmboy]

He takes a deep breath and starts to smile, just a little. "You guys have to stop doing this to me."

[eirenikos]

Eirene wrinkles her nose, and lifts her chin to place a brief kiss against his forehead.

"Sorry. It's not like I died on purpose."