See Disclaimers and Spoiler Notes added to Part 1.
Space Cases 'r' Us: I forgot to thank Perri & Dee & Tina and the Horsechicks for beta'ing and feedback, Perri for some of the better lines, and The Calling for the mental soundtrack (Camino Palermo).
Runaway Trains at 3 A.M. (2/7)
Clark was attempting to project cool, which wasn't the easiest thing to do
under the circumstances. Nobody ever looked cool sitting in a traffic-cone
orange bowl seat, even if they weren't too tall and too clumsy to
comfortably manage normal chairs. Add in trying to maintain some semblance
of calm while talking to a cute girl who'd just decided you were a superhero,
when you weren't feeling particularly heroic at all, and cool was as far away as the North Pole.
Actually, given the way the last couple weeks had gone, he was just happy
she didn't think he was a hopeless dork. Although as nervous as he felt
right now, that was only a matter of time.
"So, how long have you been a superhero?"
"Could you keep it down?" he hissed at Dawn, glancing around them anxiously.
"I'm not a superhero. I can just... do stuff."
"Oh, you totally are. Trust me, I know about this kinda thing. Rescuing
people in bus stations automatically puts you on the list. Plus, you got us
chocolate!"
She gave a little bounce and poured more M&M's into her hand,
throwing one up in the air and catching it in her mouth. "Don't be so jumpy,
Clark. Nobody's paying attention anyway," she added, lowering her voice slightly and gesturing at the sleeping and grumpy-looking passengers in the next row of chairs over. "Plus, they'd never take it seriously even if they were. It's not like anyone would *believe* me if I told them what you did. They're just gonna think that guy was stoned when he wakes up and spills the details."
"Yeah?" Clark shifted nervously in his chair. "So... how do you know so much about this? How come *you* take it seriously?"
"'Cuz my sister's a superhero too." Clark's eyes widened as he chewed on his
Crunch bar, and Dawn nodded nonchalantly at his reaction. "Oh, yeah. Six
years running, fighting bad guys and killing monsters. I'm pretty much used
to the whole super-strength and invincibility riff. Can you do any other
cool stuff?"
Clark was still stuck back on 'killing monsters,' but he managed to blink and
answer as he broke off a piece of the Crunch bar and offered it to her. "Umm, I
can run really fast," he said cautiously, watching for her reaction. "And sometimes I can see things that are really far away." He decided to leave out
the part about the X-ray vision, for now; you never knew how a girl would take
that kind of information.
"You don't grow fangs or anything, do you?" she asked, her eyes narrowing in
sudden suspicion. Before he could even process that, she relaxed, taking the
chocolate from him. "Wait, never mind. I can see your reflection in that
mirror over there. False alarm."
"O-kaay...."
"Hey, it was a reasonable question," she said, looking insulted. "You don't
even want to know what the *last* guy I went out with was like. A girl has
to be careful. But you never answered my first question. How long have you
been like this?"
Clark shrugged uneasily, and stared down at the M&M packet before taking a
few out of the bag. "Kind of always... I mean, I never got hurt or sick or
anything, growing up. It's been getting worse this last year, but I've never
really been... normal."
"Cool."
He glanced at her sideways, looking for any of the reactions he'd always
expected to see when he finally told someone about this--- envy, fear,
suspicion, disbelief, nosiness, even fascination or wonder. It was kind of
deflating that this complete stranger was taking the biggest secret of his
life in stride. Dawn's attitude reminded him of Lex or Chloe that way: seen
it all, done it all, impressed by none of it. He wasn't sure whether he was
disappointed or relieved.
Except, she *had* been impressed, for a minute there, when he'd stopped that
guy from bothering her... but it had only been for a minute. He couldn't
believe he'd been that obvious, and somewhere underneath the nerves he was
freaking out, but he'd never expected her to call him on the strength thing straight out like that. Most people wouldn't have caught it, and they would never have asked him about it. It was just too strange for them to handle. His
dad would have a cow if he knew that Clark had gotten caught being different so
easily.
Then again, Dawn didn't seem inclined to tell anyone; she was coping with the
whole 'secret' part with the same unnerving ease as the rest of it. Maybe her
sister really *was* a superhero.
"I can do other weird stuff, sometimes... How'd your sister get to be a
superhero?"
Dawn rolled her eyes and flipped her hair over her shoulder before stealing
part of the Hershey bar from his arm rest. "She got chosen by some mystic
powers when she was my age. The last girl they'd picked died, and they just
went on to their next selection. They've got a system. Kind of like Miss
America. 'If you can not fulfill your duties as the protector of humanity,
the runner-up will be called to kick ass and take names and save the
world.'" She ducked her head and her long chocolate-brown hair fell into her
face like a veil, shielding her expression from him. Her voice sounded odd,
half-bitter and half-proud. "She's really good at it."
"Wow."
"Yeah." Dawn straightened and brushed her hair out of her face, a look of
would-be boredom in her eyes, but Clark thought she mostly looked unhappy.
"It's a pain, really. And I don't mean only for me, having a sister who's
always getting in trouble and getting all the attention. She has the worst
time keeping a boyfriend or doing anything non-heroic because she's got this
sacred mission going. It's a total time-suck."
"Sounds rough." Clark shook his head and stretched his legs out to prop them
on the empty seat opposite him, then let them drop. "Is that why you ran
away?"
Dawn glared at him. "Who says I ran away?" He cocked his head at her and
raised his eyebrows, and she huffed. "Okay, so what if I did? It's not like
they're even going to notice I'm gone. And I did *not* run away 'cause
Buffy's a superhero. That would be _lame_. I ran away because everyone I
know has gone crazy, and I don't want to put up with it anymore."
"Crazy how?"
"Oh, just... everything." She waved a hand dismissively. "One of my friends
is trying to do rehab by herself, and she broke up with her girlfriend, so
she's massively bummed. Tara was totally cool, and she still visits us, but
I don't see her as much now and that bites --- and two of my other friends
are getting married and don't have time for anything else --- and Giles went
back to England, of all places, which is beyond stupid. And Buffy's got this
post-traumatic-stress from some stuff that happened last spring, so she's
freaking about everything when she can even remember to deal, and Spike is
just... *Spike*." She made a frustrated noise and bit off more of the Almond
Joy, blue eyes snapping with fury.
Clark wasn't following even half of this, but it all sounded pretty intense, and
he was kind of afraid of what she'd do if he tried to interrupt her. Dawn made
Chloe's rants seem like a freshman debate team practice.
"And school is moronic, and my dad's _still_ not back from Spain, and I just
realized, hey! I can have a life somewhere else! Somewhere way cooler than
stupid Sunnydale with its monster crime rate and criminal monsters, and...
and...."
Dawn seemed to notice his fascinated attention for the first time
and trailed off, turning bright pink and ducking her head again. "And,
uhh... um. Anyway." She shrugged again. "I'm going to New York City. Or
maybe Gotham. Somewhere big. Where they have lots of stuff to do, and see,
and none of it has a thing to do with destiny or fate or dead things."
"Hunh." There wasn't really a lot he could say to that, and Clark felt like
there should be. Telling her to go home would be hypocritical to the nth
degree, but it was still what came out of his mouth first. "You don't think
they might be worried about you?"
Dawn snorted and didn't look up from dividing the last of the M&M's between them. "No. They don't know I'm gone yet. I'm not stupid, you know. I'm supposed to be on a campout with some friends for a week. I just cancelled at the last second, and told them I was sick so no one would miss me until I was supposed to
be back. By the time they figure out the truth, I'll be gone long enough that
they can't come get me right away. I'm not having them take me back until I'm
done having fun." She looked up at him shrewdly, and popped a piece of candy in
her mouth. "'Sides. I'm not the only one worrying someone; you're doing the
same thing. You *so* can't talk, Mr. Boy Scout."
He opened his mouth to protest, then slumped back in the seat, studying
the tips of his shoes again. "It wasn't... I'm not running away. Exactly."
Dawn nodded sympathetically, clearly not buying a word. "Right. So, your
parents are just taking a nap over there behind the luggage counter. Not."
"No, I mean..." Clark ran a hand through his hair, frustrated, then closed
his eyes as he let his hand drop. "I just needed a break. A lot of... stuff,
happened... and...." He squeezed his eyes shut harder, trying to block out
the images, but couldn't. He shuddered, crossing his arms reflexively. The
smell of smoke was in his imagination, he knew that, he *knew* that, but....
"Clark? Hey, I didn't mean to... Are you all right?"
He nodded, licked his lips, and leaned his head back on the hard edge of the
bowl chair. "I'm okay."
"Liar." Dawn's voice sounded sharp but concerned. "Just breathe, okay? I
don't know how long you can hold your breath, but that hyperventilating is
pretty scary."
"Mmm." He let out a breath real fast, took another one, and then slowly
released it. He still didn't open his eyes, too embarassed to face Dawn's
expression.
"Bad scene, hunh."
"Yeah," he sighed and swallowed hard. "It was just--- I tried, I really did, to
save everybody and *still* people got hurt, and Pete's still in the
hospital, and I can't even tell him it's my fault, and..." He jerked his
shoulders in an attempt to shrug, but he was too tense for it to work. "I
didn't want them to worry. I've been calling them. My parents know I'm okay,
honest. And it's not like I can get hurt or anything, so...."
"You *know* it wasn't your fault. Whatever it was."
"It was my fault." Clark opened his eyes and turned his head toward her, met
her sardonic gaze with his own. "I wasn't fast enough. I didn't think of
everything, and it's... All this stuff in Smallville, it's always partly my
fault, and... it's complicated."
He shook his head and glanced away. "And then all these reporters from
Metropolis showed up and started asking questions, and half of them were
calling me 'hero' like you did, and the other ones wanted to know all the
details of how I did what I did, and everything else about me, and I just... I
couldn't take it. I had to get away." Clark scuffed at the linoleum, feeling really, really tired. "Forget it. You had to be there."
"No, I get it."
"You think so?" He rolled his head toward Dawn listlessly and raised his
eyebrows again, studying her. She reminded him a little of Lana; mostly that
was the straight dark hair, although she was definitely as pretty as Lana.
But the confidence, the know-it-all air--- that reminded him of Chloe, a
little bit, and so did the freckles. Chloe was never this matter-of-fact, though. Not about weird stuff. Dawn seemed a lot older than him, in some ways, and he wondered what grade she was in at school, or if she was just smart and cynical for her age, like Lex.
"Buffy does this too. Thinks that just because she's the Chosen One, she can
stop all the bad things from ever happening. Bzzzzt! Sorry, you're
*completely* incorrect." She raised one eyebrow at him and smirked a little.
"Nobody's *that* invincible. I mean, how could it be your fault unless you
knew what was going to happen, and didn't even try to stop it? You're not
psychic." Dawn frowned, scrunching up her forehead. "You're *not* psychic,
right?"
"Not as far as I know." Clark blinked at her, a little confused.
"See? And you tried. So stop blaming yourself, it's boring and stupid."
"Oh, thank you very much."
"No, *really*, I mean, c'mon, Clark." Dawn shook her head and blew out her
breath in a sigh. "Look. Buffy's junior year, a lot of bad stuff happened,
and she ran away too. She was gone for the whole summer." She glanced down
at the last of the candy, and picked out a piece of Almond Joy for him,
putting it in his hand. "I really missed her. But I kind of got it, later,
why she had to bail... It was just all this overwhelming crap that made her
think stuff she didn't even *do* was her fault, and that we were better off
without her. She was wrong. Way wrong."
"I don't think that." Clark straightened a bit, then paused, thinking of the
meteorite shower, and some of its effects on Smallville. "Much."
"Uh-hunh." Dawn rolled her eyes again, and Clark glared at her; he
was getting a little too familiar with that expression. "Look, getting away
from it all for a little while --- that's cool. That's not so bad. But
thinking it's your fault that you couldn't help everybody--- I don't know
what happened, but think about it. How many people didn't even have the guts to try and help?"
Clark opened his mouth, then shut it slowly. "Yeah, okay, but... I have to.
I can do all these things that no one else can, and I---"
"Did anybody tell you that you *had* to? I mean, did some funky British guys
show up and tell you that you had a Destiny?"
He blinked. "That... would be a no."
"There you go," Dawn said with a definite air of satisfaction, and a beaming
smile. "That's *so* cool. You decided to help people and be a hero all by
yourself. That's like, automatic good guy status. Even if you screw it up.
And it means it can't ever be all your fault if you can't pull it off."
Clark stared at her a moment longer, then grinned. "You realize you're
making no sense, right?"
"It's three-thirty in the morning here, that's two-thirty in California, I've slept maybe eight hours in the last three days on that bus, I'm tired, I'm
wired, and I'm still right, even if it doesn't make sense. Just accept it,
Clark. I know everything. Eat your candy."
"Yes, O Omniscent and Crazy one. Hearing and obeying." His grin widened as
Dawn started giggling and let him have the last of the Crunch bar.
**
Chris Kiki Chaos }|{
Kikimariposa@prodigy.net
Space Cases 'r' Us: I forgot to thank Perri & Dee & Tina and the Horsechicks for beta'ing and feedback, Perri for some of the better lines, and The Calling for the mental soundtrack (Camino Palermo).
Runaway Trains at 3 A.M. (2/7)
Clark was attempting to project cool, which wasn't the easiest thing to do
under the circumstances. Nobody ever looked cool sitting in a traffic-cone
orange bowl seat, even if they weren't too tall and too clumsy to
comfortably manage normal chairs. Add in trying to maintain some semblance
of calm while talking to a cute girl who'd just decided you were a superhero,
when you weren't feeling particularly heroic at all, and cool was as far away as the North Pole.
Actually, given the way the last couple weeks had gone, he was just happy
she didn't think he was a hopeless dork. Although as nervous as he felt
right now, that was only a matter of time.
"So, how long have you been a superhero?"
"Could you keep it down?" he hissed at Dawn, glancing around them anxiously.
"I'm not a superhero. I can just... do stuff."
"Oh, you totally are. Trust me, I know about this kinda thing. Rescuing
people in bus stations automatically puts you on the list. Plus, you got us
chocolate!"
She gave a little bounce and poured more M&M's into her hand,
throwing one up in the air and catching it in her mouth. "Don't be so jumpy,
Clark. Nobody's paying attention anyway," she added, lowering her voice slightly and gesturing at the sleeping and grumpy-looking passengers in the next row of chairs over. "Plus, they'd never take it seriously even if they were. It's not like anyone would *believe* me if I told them what you did. They're just gonna think that guy was stoned when he wakes up and spills the details."
"Yeah?" Clark shifted nervously in his chair. "So... how do you know so much about this? How come *you* take it seriously?"
"'Cuz my sister's a superhero too." Clark's eyes widened as he chewed on his
Crunch bar, and Dawn nodded nonchalantly at his reaction. "Oh, yeah. Six
years running, fighting bad guys and killing monsters. I'm pretty much used
to the whole super-strength and invincibility riff. Can you do any other
cool stuff?"
Clark was still stuck back on 'killing monsters,' but he managed to blink and
answer as he broke off a piece of the Crunch bar and offered it to her. "Umm, I
can run really fast," he said cautiously, watching for her reaction. "And sometimes I can see things that are really far away." He decided to leave out
the part about the X-ray vision, for now; you never knew how a girl would take
that kind of information.
"You don't grow fangs or anything, do you?" she asked, her eyes narrowing in
sudden suspicion. Before he could even process that, she relaxed, taking the
chocolate from him. "Wait, never mind. I can see your reflection in that
mirror over there. False alarm."
"O-kaay...."
"Hey, it was a reasonable question," she said, looking insulted. "You don't
even want to know what the *last* guy I went out with was like. A girl has
to be careful. But you never answered my first question. How long have you
been like this?"
Clark shrugged uneasily, and stared down at the M&M packet before taking a
few out of the bag. "Kind of always... I mean, I never got hurt or sick or
anything, growing up. It's been getting worse this last year, but I've never
really been... normal."
"Cool."
He glanced at her sideways, looking for any of the reactions he'd always
expected to see when he finally told someone about this--- envy, fear,
suspicion, disbelief, nosiness, even fascination or wonder. It was kind of
deflating that this complete stranger was taking the biggest secret of his
life in stride. Dawn's attitude reminded him of Lex or Chloe that way: seen
it all, done it all, impressed by none of it. He wasn't sure whether he was
disappointed or relieved.
Except, she *had* been impressed, for a minute there, when he'd stopped that
guy from bothering her... but it had only been for a minute. He couldn't
believe he'd been that obvious, and somewhere underneath the nerves he was
freaking out, but he'd never expected her to call him on the strength thing straight out like that. Most people wouldn't have caught it, and they would never have asked him about it. It was just too strange for them to handle. His
dad would have a cow if he knew that Clark had gotten caught being different so
easily.
Then again, Dawn didn't seem inclined to tell anyone; she was coping with the
whole 'secret' part with the same unnerving ease as the rest of it. Maybe her
sister really *was* a superhero.
"I can do other weird stuff, sometimes... How'd your sister get to be a
superhero?"
Dawn rolled her eyes and flipped her hair over her shoulder before stealing
part of the Hershey bar from his arm rest. "She got chosen by some mystic
powers when she was my age. The last girl they'd picked died, and they just
went on to their next selection. They've got a system. Kind of like Miss
America. 'If you can not fulfill your duties as the protector of humanity,
the runner-up will be called to kick ass and take names and save the
world.'" She ducked her head and her long chocolate-brown hair fell into her
face like a veil, shielding her expression from him. Her voice sounded odd,
half-bitter and half-proud. "She's really good at it."
"Wow."
"Yeah." Dawn straightened and brushed her hair out of her face, a look of
would-be boredom in her eyes, but Clark thought she mostly looked unhappy.
"It's a pain, really. And I don't mean only for me, having a sister who's
always getting in trouble and getting all the attention. She has the worst
time keeping a boyfriend or doing anything non-heroic because she's got this
sacred mission going. It's a total time-suck."
"Sounds rough." Clark shook his head and stretched his legs out to prop them
on the empty seat opposite him, then let them drop. "Is that why you ran
away?"
Dawn glared at him. "Who says I ran away?" He cocked his head at her and
raised his eyebrows, and she huffed. "Okay, so what if I did? It's not like
they're even going to notice I'm gone. And I did *not* run away 'cause
Buffy's a superhero. That would be _lame_. I ran away because everyone I
know has gone crazy, and I don't want to put up with it anymore."
"Crazy how?"
"Oh, just... everything." She waved a hand dismissively. "One of my friends
is trying to do rehab by herself, and she broke up with her girlfriend, so
she's massively bummed. Tara was totally cool, and she still visits us, but
I don't see her as much now and that bites --- and two of my other friends
are getting married and don't have time for anything else --- and Giles went
back to England, of all places, which is beyond stupid. And Buffy's got this
post-traumatic-stress from some stuff that happened last spring, so she's
freaking about everything when she can even remember to deal, and Spike is
just... *Spike*." She made a frustrated noise and bit off more of the Almond
Joy, blue eyes snapping with fury.
Clark wasn't following even half of this, but it all sounded pretty intense, and
he was kind of afraid of what she'd do if he tried to interrupt her. Dawn made
Chloe's rants seem like a freshman debate team practice.
"And school is moronic, and my dad's _still_ not back from Spain, and I just
realized, hey! I can have a life somewhere else! Somewhere way cooler than
stupid Sunnydale with its monster crime rate and criminal monsters, and...
and...."
Dawn seemed to notice his fascinated attention for the first time
and trailed off, turning bright pink and ducking her head again. "And,
uhh... um. Anyway." She shrugged again. "I'm going to New York City. Or
maybe Gotham. Somewhere big. Where they have lots of stuff to do, and see,
and none of it has a thing to do with destiny or fate or dead things."
"Hunh." There wasn't really a lot he could say to that, and Clark felt like
there should be. Telling her to go home would be hypocritical to the nth
degree, but it was still what came out of his mouth first. "You don't think
they might be worried about you?"
Dawn snorted and didn't look up from dividing the last of the M&M's between them. "No. They don't know I'm gone yet. I'm not stupid, you know. I'm supposed to be on a campout with some friends for a week. I just cancelled at the last second, and told them I was sick so no one would miss me until I was supposed to
be back. By the time they figure out the truth, I'll be gone long enough that
they can't come get me right away. I'm not having them take me back until I'm
done having fun." She looked up at him shrewdly, and popped a piece of candy in
her mouth. "'Sides. I'm not the only one worrying someone; you're doing the
same thing. You *so* can't talk, Mr. Boy Scout."
He opened his mouth to protest, then slumped back in the seat, studying
the tips of his shoes again. "It wasn't... I'm not running away. Exactly."
Dawn nodded sympathetically, clearly not buying a word. "Right. So, your
parents are just taking a nap over there behind the luggage counter. Not."
"No, I mean..." Clark ran a hand through his hair, frustrated, then closed
his eyes as he let his hand drop. "I just needed a break. A lot of... stuff,
happened... and...." He squeezed his eyes shut harder, trying to block out
the images, but couldn't. He shuddered, crossing his arms reflexively. The
smell of smoke was in his imagination, he knew that, he *knew* that, but....
"Clark? Hey, I didn't mean to... Are you all right?"
He nodded, licked his lips, and leaned his head back on the hard edge of the
bowl chair. "I'm okay."
"Liar." Dawn's voice sounded sharp but concerned. "Just breathe, okay? I
don't know how long you can hold your breath, but that hyperventilating is
pretty scary."
"Mmm." He let out a breath real fast, took another one, and then slowly
released it. He still didn't open his eyes, too embarassed to face Dawn's
expression.
"Bad scene, hunh."
"Yeah," he sighed and swallowed hard. "It was just--- I tried, I really did, to
save everybody and *still* people got hurt, and Pete's still in the
hospital, and I can't even tell him it's my fault, and..." He jerked his
shoulders in an attempt to shrug, but he was too tense for it to work. "I
didn't want them to worry. I've been calling them. My parents know I'm okay,
honest. And it's not like I can get hurt or anything, so...."
"You *know* it wasn't your fault. Whatever it was."
"It was my fault." Clark opened his eyes and turned his head toward her, met
her sardonic gaze with his own. "I wasn't fast enough. I didn't think of
everything, and it's... All this stuff in Smallville, it's always partly my
fault, and... it's complicated."
He shook his head and glanced away. "And then all these reporters from
Metropolis showed up and started asking questions, and half of them were
calling me 'hero' like you did, and the other ones wanted to know all the
details of how I did what I did, and everything else about me, and I just... I
couldn't take it. I had to get away." Clark scuffed at the linoleum, feeling really, really tired. "Forget it. You had to be there."
"No, I get it."
"You think so?" He rolled his head toward Dawn listlessly and raised his
eyebrows again, studying her. She reminded him a little of Lana; mostly that
was the straight dark hair, although she was definitely as pretty as Lana.
But the confidence, the know-it-all air--- that reminded him of Chloe, a
little bit, and so did the freckles. Chloe was never this matter-of-fact, though. Not about weird stuff. Dawn seemed a lot older than him, in some ways, and he wondered what grade she was in at school, or if she was just smart and cynical for her age, like Lex.
"Buffy does this too. Thinks that just because she's the Chosen One, she can
stop all the bad things from ever happening. Bzzzzt! Sorry, you're
*completely* incorrect." She raised one eyebrow at him and smirked a little.
"Nobody's *that* invincible. I mean, how could it be your fault unless you
knew what was going to happen, and didn't even try to stop it? You're not
psychic." Dawn frowned, scrunching up her forehead. "You're *not* psychic,
right?"
"Not as far as I know." Clark blinked at her, a little confused.
"See? And you tried. So stop blaming yourself, it's boring and stupid."
"Oh, thank you very much."
"No, *really*, I mean, c'mon, Clark." Dawn shook her head and blew out her
breath in a sigh. "Look. Buffy's junior year, a lot of bad stuff happened,
and she ran away too. She was gone for the whole summer." She glanced down
at the last of the candy, and picked out a piece of Almond Joy for him,
putting it in his hand. "I really missed her. But I kind of got it, later,
why she had to bail... It was just all this overwhelming crap that made her
think stuff she didn't even *do* was her fault, and that we were better off
without her. She was wrong. Way wrong."
"I don't think that." Clark straightened a bit, then paused, thinking of the
meteorite shower, and some of its effects on Smallville. "Much."
"Uh-hunh." Dawn rolled her eyes again, and Clark glared at her; he
was getting a little too familiar with that expression. "Look, getting away
from it all for a little while --- that's cool. That's not so bad. But
thinking it's your fault that you couldn't help everybody--- I don't know
what happened, but think about it. How many people didn't even have the guts to try and help?"
Clark opened his mouth, then shut it slowly. "Yeah, okay, but... I have to.
I can do all these things that no one else can, and I---"
"Did anybody tell you that you *had* to? I mean, did some funky British guys
show up and tell you that you had a Destiny?"
He blinked. "That... would be a no."
"There you go," Dawn said with a definite air of satisfaction, and a beaming
smile. "That's *so* cool. You decided to help people and be a hero all by
yourself. That's like, automatic good guy status. Even if you screw it up.
And it means it can't ever be all your fault if you can't pull it off."
Clark stared at her a moment longer, then grinned. "You realize you're
making no sense, right?"
"It's three-thirty in the morning here, that's two-thirty in California, I've slept maybe eight hours in the last three days on that bus, I'm tired, I'm
wired, and I'm still right, even if it doesn't make sense. Just accept it,
Clark. I know everything. Eat your candy."
"Yes, O Omniscent and Crazy one. Hearing and obeying." His grin widened as
Dawn started giggling and let him have the last of the Crunch bar.
**
Chris Kiki Chaos }|{
Kikimariposa@prodigy.net
