victormakesart | (no subject)

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She can't go anywhere else. It's too late at night and the kids are sleeping and she can't go to Cole like this and she wanted to go to James with this because she knows he'd let her go off the deep end. He'd let her break. He's been waiting for her to break for years. And maybe that's why she presses Clark's number and not James'. Or maybe it's because her finger slips off of James' speed dial. Either way, there she is, outside the door.

She tries to make a fist to knock, but her knuckles are bruised and her swollen fingers won't close. So she whispers, "Clark," knowing that he'll hear her.

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"You don't want him to see you like this," is his guess. It's understandable. Clark's own defense mechanism has often been isolation, even from the people he loves.

"Yeah. And the kids. The girls are big now, and Jude's old enough that he'd know something's wrong right away. I could fake it and pull it together if your little ones woke up, but I don't think I could for mine. Is that awful?"

"Well whenever I was upset in the past, I would sort of run away to the arctic... so I'd have to say no, not really. I think it's good to sometimes take the time to pull yourself back together without worrying your loved ones."

"Thanks. Sometimes I feel like a doctor on call, and I just... need a little bit of solitude. And sleep. You don't happen to have splints, do you?"

He'd been waiting for a sign from her that she'd be willing to try to patch herself up instead of hurt herself some more, so it's a welcome question. "Stay put, I'll get one of the first aid kits."

"Thanks." She keeps talking, quietly, because she knows he can still hear her even if he's not right next to her. "First time I had a broken bone, it was a guy with a bat who did it. I never thought I'd do it to myself. Lost track of how many I've had broken now."

The Kents have several medical kits stashed in the apartment, and it doesn't take him long to find one and bring it out to the living room. "At least this time it's only hairline fractures." Clark sets the kit down on the table next to the cold coffee, and opens it up to get at what he needs. "No need to set anything."

"Thank you. And thank heavens for that. Cole's gonna be grumpy, I think. He doesn't like when I'm damaged." 'Damaged.' She says it like she's mechanical.

"He's going to be worried about you." Clark knows she doesn't want Cole to worry, but she can't exactly stop that from happening. Not if she shows up at home with broken hands, splinted or not. And Clark doesn't really think that's a bad thing. Spouses should be concerned about their partners, after all.

"I'd like to be able to say that I knew I was breaking bones I woulda stopped, but...." A soft hiss of pain, she bites down on her cheek.

He tries to be careful as he tends to her hands, and gentles his touch a little more at her hiss of pain. "But you felt like you deserved it."

"Sorry, I'm bein' a baby," she mumbles. Then: "Yeah. I still do."

"I know you won't believe me, but you don't. And you didn't when you did this, either."

She gives him a small kiss on the cheek, eyelashes still wet with tears. "I don't understand what you're saying, but I appreciate your words."

One of these days, Clark still holds out hope that it'll sink in for her. It took him years to begin accepting the same sorts of things, but eventually, it was possible. "I want to help you," he tells her plainly. "Please... tell me what I can do."

"The only thing I want is for Lorne to get better. And that little demon girl who's sick, too."

He can't do anything about that, and she knows it. At least they're both helpless together to change anything for the better, here. "How's Lorne doing?"

"Not good. He's... been hearing some buzzing in his head, and that's when he feels worse. I... hear it too. The only other one in the group who does. April thinks it's 'cause we're both in a bad way healthwise."

"Like sympathetic resonance?"

"Maybe. But on a physical level, 'cause if anyone would have an empathic sympathetic reaction it would be April. But April can't get sick. And I'm the posterchild for how many things can go wrong on the human body."

"Sympathetic resonance is actually a physical thing, so it could very well be," Clark says, thinking maybe some science and logic will give her something more solid to cling to right now. "Like two tuning forks that put out the same note. Strike one and put it near the other, and they both ring."

"That's interesting. I'd never heard of it before. I'll have to do some research."

"It's the same sort of thing where an opera singer can break glass with her voice," Clark adds. This, at least, is something she can research and investigate.

"Yeah. I'm familiar with the tuning forks and the glass breaking, that's soundwaves, I can understand the mechanisms behind that. But I've never heard of that happening with... sickness, between two sick people."

"I haven't either, but from what I've seen people do over the years, it doesn't surprise me as much as it probably should.'