Evelyn was so embarrassed.
She was sat there in her little apartment, curled up on her comfy deep sofa that same evening. Her knees were drawn to her chest as the TV flickered away, although muted, right in front of her.
She had suffered quite the panic attack back in the cafe, but what was more concerning to her was that she couldn't even remember half of it actually taking place. It was as if she'd blacked out halfway through, and the last memory that she was unable to shake was Clark's steady, warm hands fixed firmly on her cheeks as he stared at her in worry. She definitely remembered Martha fanning her out and calming her down as clear as day as Clark freaked out beside her - but that was pretty much it.
From what she could tell, it was a pretty bad one.
On the other hand, Evelyn vaguely remembered Martha closing up shop whilst instructing her to go home and get some rest, before pretty much shipping her off in a random taxi. Fast forward few hours later, and now here she was, snuggled up on her sofa with Martha on the phone. She'd called Evelyn to see how she was doing, still feeling incredibly concerned over what she had witnessed earlier that day. "Evelyn, are you sure you got home okay?" Martha was asking her worriedly.
Evelyn smiled to herself, hearing the motherly angst lingering in her boss' voice - but even that was so much more endearing than her own mother.
"Yeah, the taxi driver was singing to me the whole way home - he was a pretty happy go lucky guy," she let out a shy giggle back.
"Bless him. It's good to hear people are still…somewhat joyous around here," Martha chuckled back in relief. Evelyn took a deep breath and shook her head.
"Martha, I'm so sorry for freaking out like that. I am usually so much better when it comes to holding my emotions. I promise I've been cleared fit to work by my therapist, it just…sometimes it randomly wallops me out of nowhere," she explained hurriedly, anxiously awaiting her response.
But of course, she was talking to Martha Kent - meaning Evelyn's crippling insecurities didn't even matter.
"I'm not firing you, Evelyn," Martha laughed lightly. "I do want you to get some serious rest, though. It's pretty obvious that you're feeling overworked, so take a couple of days off and you can come back when you're ready. I'll get Clark to help out in the cafe until then."
Evelyn could barely believe her ears.
"Thank you Martha," she finally breathed out.
"…you did quite like my son, didn't you?" Martha couldn't help herself but ask as any embarrassing mother would. Evelyn rolled her eyes and gave another amused giggle back.
There was no denying that Clark was beautifully sculpted, and his calming and peaceful demeanour was so endearing. But Evelyn really wasn't interested in dating anyone right now. There was still a whole mountain of other elements that she had to sort out within herself before she could be in a relationship of any kind, or even try and entertain one. More to the point, the sudden panic attack at the mere mention of The Incident, a conversation that she'd actually initially initiated herself, was proof that she was more emotionally wonky than she'd thought.
Still, deep down she knew that if the opportunity to date Clark was right there in front of her - she wouldn't exactly decline-
"Oop, your silence speaks volumes, my dear! No need to answer. And honestly if you ask me, I think that you two would make an absolutely adorable couple," Martha quietly pointed out with a small smile as she sat down on her own bed.
"Martha, you're not about to try and set me up with your son," Evelyn drawled tiredly. "You cannot. I won't let you, in fact!"
"And why on earth not?" Martha gasped mock-innocently.
"Honestly, you're as bad as Lois!" Evelyn shot back smoothly. Martha simply laughed again, making Evelyn giggle once more.
"I mean look, I can't help what Clark feels," she hummed.
"You have no idea what he feels after his grand thirty seconds of speaking to me before I ended up bawling in his arms over something that happened three months ago," Evelyn drawled back.
"I kinda do - I trust my judgement as a mother! He's a good man, and the way he cared for you in that moment spoke volumes to me - even if you couldn't see what those volumes were," Martha smirked. Evelyn rolled her eyes and shook her head, knowing that she was just enjoying teasing her at this point.
"Oh would you look at that - my dinner is ready!" she gasped back jokingly. "But Martha, I will leave you with the awesome far fetched fantasy of your son and I getting married in a couple of years. Thank you for calling-"
"Oh, I can imagine the beautiful grandchildren already," Martha grinned back. "Take care, sweetie - let me know when you feel up for coming back to work."
"I will do. Goodnight Martha, and thank you so much again," Evelyn laughed before hanging up and rushing to take her dinner out of the oven.
…
The next morning was hardly any better than the last one.
Evelyn opened her eyes in time to see her sweet Siamese cat make his way over to her, his tired blue eyes blinking at her lazily. He came over to bother her every single morning, without fail, to remind her that it was time for his breakfast. "Hey Brucie Bruce," Evelyn cooed down to him tiredly. Bruce stretched his back before casually lying down in front of her as a welcome greeting, knowing that this food was pending. and she smiled at him as she carefully swung her legs over the bed so that she could make her way into her kitchen.
She whistled a little tune as she walked over to the stove to turn on the kettle, and flicked the television on so that she could have some gentle noise playing in the background, which was how she commonly liked to start her days.
But she definitely wasn't expecting for the TV channel to be left on the news from last night, which put her off slightly. Of course, the news anchors were addressing 'The Incident' yet again, with the gravest looks they could muster plastered on their faces.
Another day, another death toll raise.
Evelyn knew she should've turned it over, but found that she couldn't, as much as she tried to. Her eyes were pretty much glued to the screen.
"And the death toll for The Metropolis Incident has officially hit eight hundred, with an unconfirmed number still missing and critically ill receiving care," the reporter spoke carefully, looking dead into the camera and seemingly into Evelyn's eyes through the TV screen.
That was when Evelyn felt her heart plummet. The walls of her sweet kitchen were suddenly getting too small again, and she heard that same, painful, awful white noise ringing in her ears. She distantly heard her breath hitch in her throat and found that her hand, which was on the handle of the now freshly boiled kettle, was for some reason trembling involuntarily.
Deep breaths, deep breaths, deep breaths just like her therapist told her to - but it wasn't working this time.
It, wasn't, working.
Then it all got that much worse, because she remembered the lasers.
Those blasted, evil red lasers. Flaming hot. Fiery in heat. They nearly hurt her, they nearly sliced her in half, they were coming towards her, they-
Suddenly, within a millisecond, Evelyn startled herself as she let out a piercing scream and felt something scalding hot slap onto her wrist. She let out a strangled cry before she gasped for air in shock, unable to fathom what had just happened to her.
Taking deep breaths and trying to stop further shrill wails of pain emitting from her throat, she forced herself to look down to the source of her pain, being her slender wrist. Her skin was raw red and seemed to be bubbling and blistering up, leaving her to stagger backwards in surprise.
She was far too stunned to even comprehend what had happened.
Trying to make sense of it all, Evelyn glanced at her right hand and saw the kettle still there, with steaming hot water sloshed over the side. Her bloodshot eyes darted back from the TV screen, to her wrist, and back again, quickly connecting the dots.
Then, she realised – she was shaking so much during her panic attack, that she'd accidentally burnt herself with the boiling hot water.
Then, the pain really kicked in.
…
"Evelyn? Ev!" Lois panted once she had skidded across the polished hospital floors to where her best friend was getting bandaged up by her worried looking mother.
Evelyn looked up with a small forced smile before looking back down at the floor again, preparing herself for Lois' scolds. She was still in her pyjamas and her hair was in a messy topknot. Her eyes were rimmed red, and her face was stained with tears of pure angst and pain from when she had first arrived.
She looked so dishevelled.
"Hey Lo. What are you doing here?" she hummed blandly, barely in the mood to make anymore of a scene.
"I called her here, Ev. She's your friend, she deserves to know when you're in trouble and clearly not doing well," Katherine told her abruptly before Lois could even think about answering. Evelyn simply rolled her eyes and said nothing further, whilst Lois took a closer look at the blistering burn that her mother was tending to. It was now covered in a soothing cooling gel, and Evelyn had been administered medications to keep her pain levels down.
"What the…how the hell did you do this, Ev? That looks so freaking painful," Lois breathed, placing a hand over her mouth in horror.
"It is painful. She burnt her wrist with boiling hot water - she's lucky to only have the minor burns that she has and only in a localised area. This could've been so much uglier if that kettle was filled up any more than it was," Katherine told Lois slowly, as if Evelyn wasn't sitting right there in front of her.
"No but how did she do it?" Lois frowned back to Katherine over Evelyn's head. "Was it an accident at the cafe, or-"
"Oh I am sitting RIGHT HERE?!" Evelyn suddenly snapped, abruptly breaking them out of their differential.
"Well why don't you tell us how you did it then!" Katherine exclaimed in exasperation as she finally finished dressing the burn. Evelyn rolled her eyes and smothered her face with her hands.
"It was just a little accident with the kettle, like I said. No it didn't happen at the cafe, it happened in my own kitchen," Evelyn shrugged them both off, standing up and grabbing her coat with her good hand. "I know - scandal!"
"What, this morning? Wait, why were you in your kitchen so late? You should've been working today, no?" Lois frowned, her little journalistic brain not making sense of it - as Evelyn should've expected.
"I…had some time off," Evelyn smiled shortly instead of explaining. "Thanks for this, Ma." It was clear that she really didn't want everyone making a fuss over something that she knew was her fault. If she told them how this injury happened, and that she actually had a day off from work because it had also happened to her the day before, they would both try and get her help - and she certainly didn't want that.
She just wanted to deal with this trauma on her own - which is the exact opposite of what Martha had told her to do.
But Martha didn't need to know that.
"Not so fast, because now I'm concerned too, Evelyn," Katherine cut her off abruptly. "You come to me in floods of tears, fresh off having a panic attack with a huge sticky burn on your wrist and then brush it off as if it's nothing - and it just happens to be when you have a day off? You can't pretend that you're okay, when you're clearly anything but!" Lois raised her perfectly shaped eyebrows as soon as the words 'panic attack'' left Katherine's mouth.
"You're still having panic attacks, Ev?" she murmured, and not very discretely, either. In fact, it was so grossly obvious that Evelyn could only groan, and Katherine's eyes narrowed in surprise.
"Still?" she repeated suspiciously. "Why still? When did you start having panic attacks and why the hell didn't you tell me?"
"She's been having them like crazy ever since those two flying disasters caused The Incident, she just refused to acknowledge it in time and it got kinda bad," Lois explained to Evelyn's mother under her breath, once again ignoring the fact that Evelyn was there and could hear everything. Katherine's eyes narrowed as she spun around to her anxiously awaiting daughter, looking absolutely distraught.
"Evelyn…? Do you…still see the red lasers at night-"
"ALRIGHT, I'm going home. I genuinely don't have time for this shit. Thanks again Ma, but I gotta go and get some sleep - you know, it's been a long morning for me! Lois, you can come and see me before you fly out tomorrow - but we're not having anymore conversations about this situation today," Evelyn trilled, already letting herself out of the hospital doors so that the women couldn't dare say anything else.
Before she knew it, she was already back outside in the pouring rain with an aching bandaged arm and an uncomfortable disposition. She bit down on her lip at the constant pain shooting through her, trying not to cry at the dull but prickly, burning ache that was slicing through her veins.
Whoever the flying man was and whatever he wanted didn't even matter…she never, ever wanted to see or even talk about him again. Look at what he'd done to her?
But oddly enough, she still found herself daydreaming about Clark, as much as she thought she wouldn't. She hated herself for admitting it, but she most definitely wanted to see him again.
Above all, she wanted to prove that she was normal enough for him to actually like.
