Kiss Me Chapter 5, a smallville fanfic

DISCLAIMER: NOT MINE. I OWN NOTHING.

KISS ME

oXo

CHAPTER FIVE

CLARK

Holy crap! She's awake!

She opens her mouth to scream again.

"Don't scream." I put my hand over her lips – like a kidnapper. Like that's going to make her feel safe. "I'm not going to hurt you. Please don't scream."

Not that it would matter if she did. I mean, there's no one awake to hear her.

She pushes my hand away. Then she punches me in the arm. I flinch so she doesn't break her hand.

"Explain yourself boy! Who in hellfire and brimstone are you!? And was that your tongue in my mouth!?"

"I'm Clark. You were passed out. I was giving you mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. I was… performing a mouth sweep for a piece of apple…with my tongue." I lie because I don't want her to think I was molesting her or something. Which I kinda totally was.

"Mouth to…what? What are you saying? What is that?"

Is this chick for real? She doesn't know what mouth-to-mouth resuscitation is? Beautiful, but dumb. Pity. She probably misses the obvious right in front of her face. Like she can't tell the difference when someone disguises themselves with a fake nose and mustache. Or a pair of glasses.

"Clark? You look familiar…with eyes like cornflowers mixed with grass. You were one of the dressmakers? The English apprentice. From the county in Canterbury. Kent…right?"

"How'd you know my last name?"

"What is that you are wearing?"

I look down. I have on a blue Hanes T-shirt and jeans. The shirt's all torn up from going through the bushes. At least I wore jeans instead of my swim trunks since we were heading to the beach. "It's a T-shirt."

She looks confused at the word T-shirt and squints at it. "Is that in fashion in England?"

"The United States. America. Yo soy Americano."

"Where is that?"

"Other side of the ocean? West of here? Like really west?" Maybe she hit her head.

Her eyes light up with recognition. "Oh! You mean Virgin Land?"

"You mean Virginia?"

"Is that not what I said?"

This is weird. Colonial Williamsburg is in Virginia. Maybe all these people who pretend they're historical figures know each other – like some sort of fetish club. Like Club De Sade in Metropolis. Or the Windgate – not that I would know. "Yeah…sort of. Not Virginia, exactly. Kansas. But they're both in America."

"And this is the new fashionable garment in your country? It is custom, then, to wear it tight on your chest and upper arms revealing your musculature?"

It seems kind of vain when you put it that way. "Not always."

"I see. So you have come from…?"

"Kansas. Smallville. My family has owned a large farm there with a hundred acres of land for generations, but my father is in government now."

"A large estate with one hundred acres of land? Government? A boy like you is certainly not here to show me dresses, Lord Smallville."

I'm not sure I like the way she says certainly. "A boy like me? Are you always this stuck up?"

She gets a sort of faraway look on her face, then stands.

"Now I remember, Lord Smallville of Kent."

"It's Kent of Smallville."

"Po-tay-to, po-tah-to, Smallville. Lords are always called by the name of their estate. Your family must be new money."

"That was rude."

"Before I…fainted, I suppose, I was looking at dresses in this room, such beautiful dresses, each the exact shade of green in my hazel eyes. But you convinced me to wear a different shade of green."

She looks at me, and I notice what gorgeous eyes she has. I imagine what it would be like to have those eyes focused on me.

"They are gone," she says. "What did you do with them, Smallville?"

"I didn't see any dresses here. Just you. I swear."

"Oh please, Smallville. It was just me and one other person. A boy. You. I would remember those eyes like cornflowers mixed with grass anywhere." She smiles. "That was earlier. You were with your dad – the towheaded tailor. But then there was a lady, an old woman. Singing a folk song about…kisses."

She starts to sing. "Kiss me…" She looks down at my lips. "Out of the bearded barley…" She looks back up at my eyes. "Nightly…beside the green, green grass…" She looks down at the tip of her finger which looks like it has dried blood on it. "Swing, swing, swing the spinning step…" She looks down at my Timberlands. "You'll wear those shoes and I will wear that dress…"

She smiles again – and I think my heart stopped. "It was she who brought the green dresses that matched the green in my eyes exactly. She was spinning thread. She told me I could make a wish."

She stops speaking and turns away from me, toward the window. "But why can I not remember? It just happened."

"Maybe I can help you," I say, kneeling beside her. "Close your eyes."

She gives me a look, like maybe I'm trying to trick her, but she closes them. With her eyes closed…it's like the lights have gone out…and now it's nighttime.

"Okay," I say. "Now, try to picture it. You're looking at the pretty dresses, and there's an old woman there. What does she look like?"

"I could tell she was once beautiful. She had black eyes that glittered like onyx."

"She said you could have a wish, and then what?"

She places her hand over her eyes. "Give me a minute, Smallville."

"What's the next thing you remember?"

She breathes in deeply, then sighs. Finally, she says, "A dream. It must be – for I was kissing a prince, my prince. He was telling me how beautiful I was."

"Of course you have a boyfriend."

"No! I have no friends, certainly none who are boys. I have been nowhere, met no one." She shakes her head. "It was just a dream. Then I opened my eyes, and you were searching for a piece of apple in my mouth with your tongue. Are you hungry? We have food, you know. In the kitchen – the pantry is stocked."

She looks down a moment, examining something on her skirt. It looks like a spot of blood. And suddenly, her eyes open fully, wider and greener than before.

"Son of a biscuit eating whore!"

"What?" I back away. "You don't even know my mother! And she's a fine woman with good mid-western values so I'd appreciate it if you'd keep your name calling to yourself."

"A kiss! You say I was sleeping, Smallville?"

"Yeah."

"And did you think I was quite beautiful?"

I grimace.

"Well? Waiting here."

"Are you always this bossy?"

"Oh, never mind, Smallville. Of course you did. Hello? I am me."

"Modest, too."

She ignores me. "So you saw me – and I was soooo beautiful – that you immediately fell in love with me."

Seriously? Is this chick for real? "Well, not—"

"You fell in love with me…and you leaned over and kissed me. True love's kiss. I woke immediately. Right?"

"Pretty much."

And suddenly, her eyes begin to water. "Dammit to hellfire and brimstone! I am such an idiot. Lady Lutessa was right. I am a stupid girl and never should have been trusted for even a minute on my own."

"What are you talking about?" I want to put my arm around her or something, but I get the feeling that wouldn't be a good idea. She looks like she might punch me again.

"The curse, stupid!"

"Now I'm stupid? You're stupid! You're even dumb enough to think so. And what curse?"

"The curse. The curse. Everyone knows about Maleficent's curse. Dammit! The General is going to kill me!" The tears in her eyes look about ready to spill over. Seeing that I am still not with the program, she says, "Before her sixteenth birthday, the princess shall prick her finger on a spindle and die."

"But you're not dead. Although I might knock you out again 'cause I kinda can't stand you right now."

"You and what army, Smallville? I might just have to take you down."

"I'd like to see you try."

She squints her eyes and sighs. "The fairy Merryweather changed it so I would merely sleep. The whole kingdom would sleep, to wake only when I was wakened by true love's kiss."

"Uh-huh." She's wackadoodle.

She rolls her eyes. "Do I need to spell it out for you, Smallville? The old lady was the witch Maleficent. She came with the dresses and gained my trust. She had probably been watching me all my life. She brought with her a spindle. She knew I would make a wish, and when I did…"

"You're saying she stabbed you with that spindle thing?"

"Exactly. It is the curse. I have made the curse come true."

And the tears that were threatening finally fall.

"Hey, calm down," I say. "It's going to be okay."

Now she stands and begins pacing. "I am calm! I am perfectly calm!" She screams at me. "They warned me so many times. It is practically the only subject I talked about with my parents. It was their worst fear and it has come true."

I try to think of what my parents' worst fear is—my secret being discovered, maybe. And me having to go to a lab to be experimented on. With meteor rock. They'd die. Because I would.

But I say, "Exactly. It's over. You went to sleep, and you're awake now because of me and my… magical kiss." I add under my breath, "Zatanna are you here? This isn't funny."

"Slut-tanna? Do I look like a Slut-tanna to you? "

The princess is staring at me like I'm speaking in tongues. "Anyway…I'm sure they'll just be okay with it. It's like this one time I was hit by a car at 60mph and fell off a bridge into a river. My dad came to get me and he saw the wreck. He was so happy the driver of the Porsche wasn't dead from hitting me that he just told him to drive slower…" I stop. She's still staring at me like I'm possessed. "I mean…you're their little princess, right?"

She's stopped crying, and now she nods. "Perhaps you are right."

"I know I am."

"What is the date? I need to know how long I have slept."

I check my watch's date feature. "It's June twenty-third."

"Oh, that is not so bad then. A little over a month. I missed my birthday party, which is a shame, and they will need to explain to the guests, but still…"

Her eyes fall on my watch. "What is that?"

"A watch."

She picks up my wrist, examines it, then holds it to her ear. "A clock? On your wrist? How strange." She pulls back from me, does a double take, and examines the watch closer.

"What is that?" She points to the numbers on the watch.

"The year."

"That…is…the…year?" She looks sort of sick. Her face is suddenly almost the same color green as in her hazel eyes.

"Did you hit your head—"

"That is the year! The year Smallville!"

"Yeah, I know. My year sucks, too."

She begins to shake her head back and forth and crumples back onto the floor, as she was when I first saw her. "It cannot be true. It cannot."

I kneel beside her. "What's the matter now? I thought you were fine."

She looks at me, then starts screaming. Again. "Fine!? Fine, Smallville!? I have been asleep nearly three hundred years!"

Outside on the stairs, I hear a commotion, people running, then yelling. Like her.

"Stop! Thief!"

Oliver appears at the door in a green hoodie and dark sunglasses and...holding the crowns.

"Clark, time to fly!"