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

April closes her eyes for a moment. Her hand moving to rest on Clark. Her focus to coming back to herself. The guiding light through the darkness that the vampire sometimes can bring to the surface.

And it only takes a couple of moments before she is back to normal. At least her normal. By that time, Victor has Clark's blood on the slide. "I have often wondered what your blood looks like. How it functions."

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Clark puts his hand on hers, giving it a gentle squeeze, and he's familiar enough with her to see the subtle changes, the way her face shifts, the way she carries herself, all the tiny details that make her her. He offers her a little smile. "It's kind of cool. You know how animal and plant cells are different? I have both, kind of. Or parts of them."

When the slide is magnified, he points out his blood cells, which look mostly normal. And, of course, he has some beefed-up white blood cells too, but the most interesting feature is the chloroplasts floating around in it too.

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"He has the most gorgeous blood," she says, glad that she made these slides beforehand because it takes so long for them to set. The blood, of course, in in the regular light microscope, and she focuses it before she gestures to April. "Seriously, that blood is a work of art."

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April is enthralled by the blood. "It is beautiful. It shines with tiny little lights of your inner self. And to have both animal and plant blood cells... wow... no wonder you are so amazing."

And no wonder it gives her a powerful boost when she did drink it.

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"The power of the sun, right in my blood," he agrees. "It's how I get my abilities. It'd... be kind of interesting someday to see if there's any change if I'm full of red light instead." He hates losing his powers. Hates being subjected to that red light that steals his strength. But at the same time, it feels weirdly comforting to him. Like it's a piece of home, even though he barely remembers Krypton, mostly through the hologram that April showed him once.

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"Yeah, uh. We'll check that out sometime for sure, darlin', if you're comfortable. Plus side: it wouldn't hurt too bad when I take your blood." As she talks, she starts to set up that electron microscope, a really big and fancy piece of equipment.

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"No wonder you and your blood shine so brightly." April touches Clark's face. She wonders about her own blood. If it would be as majestic as his.

Then pauses to watch Victor set up the microscope.

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The idea that the blood draw wouldn't actually hurt is a compelling one, especially since he's going to suggest she take some more before the day is through, and that won't feel quite as nice. "Maybe not today," he says, with a small nod. "But someday. And I imagine you might be running a little low, especially if we plan to make kryptonite detectors, so... remind me later to let you poke me with needles again?"

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"We'd have to do the test on the red sun world, because I have a feeling that once you bring the blood to a yellow sun world it'll charge back up on its own. And, yeah, I'm runnin' pretty low," she says, though she makes a little frowny face at the prospect of jabbing him with a needle. She sets Clark's hair in the electron microscope. She had taken a tiny peek to make sure the follicle actually had DNA on it at all, but she wants to give Clark the first proper look.

And when April's done, she'll replace Clark's blood slide with April's blood slide, focus it up, and let her have a look, too.

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"That might be an easy way to extract blood for Kryptonite detectors, by going to a red-sun Earth for easier blood taking. Then bringing back here..." Because April would rather not have Clark exposed to green kryptonite every time they need to make a blood withdrawl.

She looks through the slide at her blood. It definitely is not as shiny as Clark's is. The vampire blood cells are like little parasites. They attach to a human blood cell and feed off it. They are dark. Depressing. And sort of scary to watch one blood cell practically kill off another.

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Clark looks a little iffy about it, because he has issues with red sunlight, mixed feelings of both dread and longing, and he'd almost rather put up with the familiar pain of green kryptonite instead. "I don't know..."

He gets a quick peek at April's blood too. It's weird, not entirely human either, but he doesn't mind the slightly creepy look to them. After all, he's the plant-boy. He can't point fingers.

Clark's hair looks normal, for a hair that's been magnified this insane amount of times, and as he looks closer, tinier and tinier, he's pleased to see that his DNA does indeed have a double helix form. It looks normal, and that thrills the bejeezus out of him.

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"No pressure, and you don't have to decide right now." She also takes a peek at April's, though she'd looked before when she was trying to focus the microscope, and nods her head. "On the plus side, we know your blood cells either heal themselves, or grow back at a high rate, if this is going on in your blood all the time. Don't fret about it. Our bodies are constantly waging tiny battles."

She grins at Clark, then, nudges him so softly. "Good news, dearie?"

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"I wager what is going on inside my body at the blood cell level would relate to the need for nourishment to replenish active human blood cells." April estimates. She gives a soft smile. She isn't scientific. But she can guess.

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"That makes sense," Clark agrees, gently rubbing her shoulder, and he's glad that they're doing this because they're learning so much, and there's no manual on how Kryptonian and vampire bodies work. "And that would definitely help to explain why my blood's so good to you." He wonders if his red blood cells are invulnerable too, at all, whether the food supply lasts longer, or whether they're just packed full of energy.

He leans forward and taps the spot he was looking at, for his hair, not zoomed in far enough for Victor to see it but with his microscopic vision, he can see it clearly, magnifying what's already been magnified. "Double helix. I can't tell the chromosomes, but it's a great sign."

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"Yeah, totally. It'd be something to look into, whether it goes via digestion or whether it bypasses straight to your bloodstream."

"Great!" She fiddles with the knobs, and with an electron microscope she should be able to hit that special magnification. "Here, let me get it focused so April can see it, too. That's a seriously fantastic sign, and I'm glad to hear it."

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"Well I don't really feel hungry. And don't really eat a lot of regular food most of the time. So maybe it goes right into my bloodstream."

Moving over to the microscope, April stares at it. Then asks, "What does it mean when it is a double helix?"

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With it blown up this big, the twisting structure of Clark's DNA is clearly visible, like a spiraling staircase. "There are two strands that connect with each other, like this, that kind of spiral around each other. All Earth organisms have DNA like this. I wasn't sure if Kryptonians would too. If I didn't, there's no way our genes could ever combine." It doesn't mean that they can have children, because he could still have a completely wrong number of chromosomes, but it means that it's at least possible.

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"Yeah, what he said," says the scientist, smiling widely. Feeling like everything is falling right into the right order. After this, all they have to do is check on April's DNA, and then check on April's as a vampire DNA (once the vampire DNA is ready, which won't be for hours).

The DNA is being sequenced as they speak, that's what the hum in the room is, but that'll be a while yet.

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"That is wonderful Clark." April moves to hug him. She knows that he had worried about this, and it is nice to hear that his DNA is similar to most humans on Earth.

It is also half of the battle to having children. Something she had worried about. And she is still nervous about seeing her own DNA. Worrying about not being the right match for Clark makes her space out slightly.

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He hugs her back enthusiastically, and he isn't worried about seeing hers at all because if vampires can be made from humans, they have to at least be very similar. So long as they both have twenty-three pairs of chromosomes apiece, things should go just dandy.

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She replaces Clark's slide with April's, spends time focusing it. It's like an art form, really. It's like tuning a piano, knowing just what needs to tighten, and loosen. Well aware that she is working with a gorgeous piece of equipment, gleaming and just about as new as they come. Crane wouldn't have it any other way.

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Giving Clark a slight hugged squeeze, April watches as Victor exchanges the slides. And nervously moves forward to look into the microscope. Her DNA appears just like a normal human would. Double helix. With a good number of chromosomes there. And only slight sighs of the vampire mutation in this slide. It makes her happy. Confident.

Of course it occurs to her that having human-like DNA doesn't necessary mean they will be able to have children fine. There are a lot of humans who are sterile. Unable to bear children.

Her thoughts provoke her voices. They start to whisper at her.

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Clark is slightly distracted in studying her slide, peering at it closely, so he doesn't notice right away that her precognition is active. This is a big deal to him, knowing if he will ever be able to have kids of his own, and while he is the last person in the world to be against adoption in any way, he doesn't want his species to die completely when he does. And raising half-Kryptonian children, kids who would share his powers, would be one of the best things in the world.

((Bedtime for me.))

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Victor doesn't quite notice, either, because she's explaining: "I have an idea of what you might be able to do, if you wanna minimize the chances of passing on vampirism, not that there's anything wrong with being a vamp at all. You could isolate the human DNA in the egg. Far as I can tell, the technology is very nearly there for it."

Victor has zero problems with vampires, but she can understand the strain of raising a vampiric child. Giving them bottles of blood, having that thing that April has where she just turns off. And this vampirism is demonic in nature if she's understanding it, so Victor wants to give her the option, if they want this option.

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