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The Door opens onto the terrain at the base of Olympus, as always, but this second visit is slightly different than the first. They won't be hiking up the sacred mountain, not unless Clark wants to see it again, and the landscape is ordinary. Aside from being gorgeous and Mediterranean, anyway.

"Come on, my house isn't too far from here."

Eirene's smile isn't quite as blissful now, and the totally euphoric feeling has -- actually not disappeared, just lessened slightly.

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And that will serve nicely as a tiny diversion, enough to still her hands just above his stomach, and her lips perhaps half an inch below his pulse.

"Clark..."

"Eirene, I..." And there's a sigh that should signal he's starting to think again.

After a moment, he lifts her chin to meet his gaze. "You make me happy."

It does, which means her hands are slowly sliding down towards the hem area of his shirt in preparation for not touching bare skin anymore.

But the light in her eyes cannot be ignored, nor the literal soft glow his words produce.

"You make me happy too, Clark."

"Good." Eirene will get a soft smile back.

He caresses her cheek for a moment. "We should probably get some sleep."

It may take a minute to reply, and then she just nods at first.

Softly. "You're probably right. Do you want me to tuck you in?"

Teasing. Mostly.

His smile gets a little wider, and possibly a little more mischievous than it should with a woman straddling him on a bed. But it is.

"I wouldn't say no if you offered."

"Then I'm offering. You get your pajamas on and I'll get things settled downstairs."

Eirene is as good as her word, sliding off of him, and the bed, to pad barefoot out of the room and head to the ground floor to make sure everything is put away for the night. She makes a stop in her room to toss on a large t-shirt borrowed from her legendary half-brother, and then wanders back into Clark's guest room about ten minutes later.

"Are we doing bedtime stories too?"

It might take Clark the better part of that ten minutes to work out what just happened and deal with it as best he can. So when Eirene returns, he'll not be as ready as he should be - the t-shirt is still in his hands - and he seems to be caught up looking out one of the attic windows to the garden.

"If I remember right that usually goes with the territory."

"Okay. I'll let you pick what story you want to hear and why aren't you dressed?"

Eirene would normally turn around and walk right back out so he could change, but now she's wondering what he's staring at outside.

So naturally she'll sidle up to the same window and peer out.

She probably won't see it; it's just that it's not Kansas. And he's wondering if he should be getting used to this view.

"I am." Well, he will be in a minute when he pulls the shirt over his head. "Tell me one of your stories. A Greek one."

"Alright."

Eirene settles down at the foot of his bed, back braced against the wall, and stares off into space for a few minutes, rifling through the massive amount of tales about her family. When she speaks again, her voice is very soft.

"Alright. One of my nephews has recently found the Bar, so I will tell you his story, in case you ever meet him. His name is Aeneas, and he is the son of my sister Aphrodite, and the mortal ruler Anchises. He fought with King Priam during teh Trojan conflict."

Pause.

"He's a good man, puts his people above himself, performs his duties to the gods perfectly, and while I don't like it, he does train as a soldier for the day he is called on to lead his warriors into that battle. Of course, here in this world, in this time, he is thousands of years dead. But he acquitted himself honorably on the fields before Troy, and he is the one who led the survivors across the sea, and across the Hellenes to safety in Italy."

Eirene glanced up finally.

"Do you know what my nephew did? He married a local, and he founded a dynasty, a bloodline that resulted in the foundation of Rome."

Somewhere during all that, Clark has managed to stretch out on the bed, under the covers, and possibly tugged her down beside him.

"He founded Rome, huh? I forget, sometimes, that you all were around long before they were. We hear so much about the Roman Empire, it's easy to forget the Greeks were all civilized and stuff first."

If Eirene wasn't under the covers a minute ago, she is now, once she realizes exactly what he did while she was distracted with storytelling. Hey, he's comfortable, and warm, and so obviously needs a Greek body pillow.

Mostly.

"His descendents did, yeah. And that's absolutely right. We Greeks were there first - excepting of course the Eastern empires like China, or Egypt's seriously long history.

And if you actually want to sleep by yourself, better tell me now, because otherwise I'm too comfortable to move."

A Greek body pillow isn't a bad idea after all. Clark slides an arm underneath her, hand curling around her waist and pulling her against him, her head on his shoulder.

"Then don't move."

Well, after a shifting around to adjust herself better against him, and smother a yawn that goddesses aren't supposed to let slip.

"Mmmkay." Yep, that's a drowsy tone. "Tomorrow we go find furniture."

"Yep." Clark snuggles down further, starting to drift off himself. "And a puppy, since the yard's too small for an elephant."

"I want an elephant for the yard." Or, at least, that's what she was supposed to have said, but Clark's arms are just too cozy, and he's warm, and Eirene is asleep halfway through that sentence, one hand settled just above his heart.

Clark gets the gist of it and just smiles, kisses the top of her head, and then shifts around one last time before falling asleep himself.

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