oh mary i&#39;m not coming home too soon

Listening to Victor describe the men they passed, April was interested.

She sits quietly while Victor uses the stethoscope to listen to her heart. Right now, April does indeed have a heartbeat. It pretty much sounds like a normal human.

After Victor makes her notations on that baseline, April takes a breath. "Ready for the next baseline?" And by that, she means that by shifting to the vampire that her heart rate will be much different. As she can slow it down. And practically stop it.

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Clark sits next to her, and he can listen too without a stethoscope. He likes listening to her heartbeat, the steady thump-thump that sometimes fills his ears when she sleeps next to him, letting him know that she's okay. He likes it a little less when that sound stops, but he knows that it's okay, that she's fine, and he hasn't lost her.

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"First, I wanna get your blood pressure and your temperature," she says, thinking that switching back and forth from states of being would elevate that blood pressure. Not to a dangerous level but enough to skew their tests.

Not to worry, though, these are things that Vic will talk her through. First, that cuff. Then the squeezy-thing, then her watch, and the stethoscope. "I'm gonna squeeze this, it's going to tighten. If it's painful for you, let me know and I'll let it out right away."

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Waiting to change, April's human state reads normal in both blood pressure and temperature.

When she does change over, of course the next tests are much different. It is basically like doing tests on a dead body. There is no detectable blood pressure. And her temperature is very low.

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Clark keeps his hand on her arm throughout the tests, trying not to get worried when she goes into her vampire state. He's been learning to accept that part of her, since they've been dating, but it's still worrying to him to see her that way. And especially her vital signs dropping, with the worries he has over Jor-El's consequence for bringing Clark back to life.

"How you doing?" he asks her quietly.

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That's a little bit unnerving, and she marks it down on her list, and she gives Clark a smile that she hopes is comforting. "Perfect. Now... in this vampiric state, your vital signs drop to nothing. Which is interesting, because I'm not sure how that works. It points to something greater than the body, keeping the mind at work. Keeping you in motion, physically. Since, I mean, there's a reason we breathe and our hearts beat, and there's a reason why when they don't it's usually a problem. The speed that your body lost temperature is also fascinating, since usually it takes much longer for a body to go from normal temperature to... what yours did, and I wonder what would prompt such a drastic change in such a short time."

"May I have a swab from you, in this state, too? So I can see if there's any marked difference?"

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"Must be the Demonic blood working." April states. Her voice cool and collected in this form. "Various Demonic traits allow special traits to their possessors."

She notes Clarks concern with a small smile. Squeezing his hand to reassure him. Even as the vampire, she knows that he worries about her.

"Go ahead. Swab away."

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"Her mental state is different, too," Clark adds, because that's not something that can be measured, and it's an important change too. "I mean, it's still her, not like... with Kal. Not usually." He squeezes her hand back, rubs his thumb lightly over the backs of her fingers.

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"It doesn't make rational sense, the thermodynamic shift. That energy has to go somewhere. If anything, I'd think the temperature change would be a slow leak, eventually fading into room-temp over the course of hours." She swabs, and starts to prepare a slide, with new gloves on, goggles, under a ventilation hood.

She opens one of the laboratory refrigerators (the one for chemicals, not the one for blood). "Sorry, you two. Testing this is gonna take forever."

Thankfully, she's already mixed the fixative (formaldehyde plus glutaraldehyde in an Eppendorf tube, and it sounds made up but it really isn't). The staining solution is ready, too. Suspending. Actually, rather a lot of things are going on right now, and it's going to take more than a few minutes, so they should probably all talk while she prepares the slide.

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"Technically, my existence doesn't make rational sense. I should either be a vampire, with all the traits that comes with that mind set. Or a human."

Her eyes watch Clark's touch against her hand. And chuckles at his comparison. As they have time for idle chit-chat while Victor prepares, the vampire decides to comment. "I have not had the pleasure of meeting Kal. But from the shared memories, I would safely judge that he and I think in similar ways. Especially in doing what needs to be done to acquire our goals."

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"Yeah, you two would be scary together," he says, knowing that they've come damn close on a few occasions, like that time Alicia put that red kryptonite necklace on him and he tried to seduce her. "But your goals might not be the same, so be careful around him if you ever do, okay?" He knows that she can usually handle herself, and that her vampire side is relatively cunning, but Kal is dangerous and she's still April underneath, and he would never forgive himself if he hurt her.

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Victor wonders if she's the only one who isn't too worried about Kal. She probably is. That's probably a problem. This registers, as her hands mix, replug test tubes.

She doesn't want to mention that she doesn't have a problem with Kal and possibly hurt Clark's feelings and give him the wrong idea. If Clark and Kal had separate bodies, and Kal didn't kill people, Vic would have very little issue with him. Maybe that's the big issue. Vic is a protector of people, she cares, she'll help people, but she's so morally vague. She'd patch up a serial killer with the same tenderness that she'd patch up a friend with.

So after a while, she says, "I'd imagine so, yes." There's the scary of two people who don't care together, and then there's the scary of realizing that you don't fully care about the threat.

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In an almost callous tone, the vampire speaks. "I am well aware that my goals are much different than those of Kal's. I don't seek opportunities with him, nor do I have a reason to do so."

The only thing that saves the vampire from being offended is that she senses Clark's faith in her ability to handle herself.

She flickers a glance at Victor. "After all, it seems that he prefers the company of others over me. And I prefer being first choice."

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It's himself that Clark doesn't trust, when he's on red kryptonite. But all the same, he hates seeing April like this, and his only consolation is that it's voluntary this time.

"Are we done with the baselines?" he asks Victor.

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"Sure are," she says, using filter paper to spread the solution across the slide, a thin layer. Time for it to dry.

Victor isn't so bothered by April like this. There's contemptuous apathy, and then there's what Victor has, which is entirely the opposite. She's just unbothered. She puts the 'palpable fun' in unflappable. The only thing that really upsets her is seeing people in pain, or treated unfairly, and other than that it takes a lot to get under Victor's skin.

She cares in that she doesn't want people upset, but April is neither better nor worse for being different in this form. She's still deserving of respect, and acknowledgement, the same as anyone else is.

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If anything, it helps that Victor is unflappable. And respects the vampire side of April. The one thing that the vampire desires most of all is respect and acknowledgement.

"What is required next?"

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Clark respects her vampire side, and is doing his best to accept it. It's a part of her, whether he likes it or not, and she's not all bad. She's helped, sometimes, and he knows that without this side of her, she wouldn't be the April he knows. He just prefers her loving, human side more. It's a situation he's sure she's familiar with.

"It'll take a bit for the microscope stuff," he says, because it did for him, although that one wasn't so big or shiny-looking. He's not sure what other tests Victor has planned, because with him they tested his superhearing and that sort of thing, but she doesn't have that.

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"Yeah. At least for this one. However, fanfare and trumpets please, I do have slides prepared for April's blood, her cheek cells, and your hair. Got 'em ready before I went to bed last night slash this morning slash... time." She presents them with a tray full of neatly-labeled slides, two for each test. "Voilà!"

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"Interesting." April glanced over the slides. "You are very prepared Victor."

Victor has blood and cheek DNA from her human side from the night before, but can take the necessary blood and cheek DNA from the vampire side now.

There is a moment when the vampire gently touches Clark's side. To make sure he is okay. He seems quiet.

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Clark's quite interested to see the new slides, especially the ones of his hair that she took so long ago. He's long since known that his hair is invulnerable too, and wonders if it'll show up somehow as a physical difference.

He looks at April, when she touches him, and puts his arm around her, his hand lightly resting on the symbol on her shoulder. He wishes she would get this part over with so she can be the favored side of his girlfriend again, but if she feels it necessary to stay as the vampire now, he is okay with it. Or trying to be.

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Victor isn't planning to take April's blood like this. If she has no blood pressure, and her heart isn't beating, she would risk actually hurting her or damaging an artery. And, despite her medical knowledge, Victor is not a doctor.

"Who wants to go first?"

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"I might as well. The easier this is completed, the faster I can return to normal." April suggests. She will be fine with blood being taken, because there is no risk of being hurt, or an artery being damaged with vampire healing.

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"I'm fine with whatever you two want," Clark says neutrally. "Although if you've still got that blood slide of mine hanging around, April could get a look at what it looks like." And what she's had a taste or two of before, he adds silently, because he doesn't want to freak Victor out or anything, knowing that he's let his girlfriend do that to him.

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Victor's not going to think to ask to draw her blood. The tourniquet wouldn't do much, and it bothers her to think of blood, sluggish and unmoving, pooling in the veins. The logic behind what's feeding her brain, her muscles, upsets her a little bit, in a private way, in the way a riddle she's not smart enough to understand upsets her.

"I made another one, just in case. And if you want to change back, you can change back, since we're done testing your body and we're just lookin' at slides we've already got." She's not sure, entirely, why she's waiting, other than just plain wanting to stay in vamp-phase, which she wouldn't blame her for! She grabs an extra slide, from a separate gurney, labeled neatly as C-Blood.

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