slayers_desire | kidnapping Clark to a red-sun Earth

"Hey," he says, voice rough and feeling like he weighs a million tons, with how badly he wants to just sink into this bed and rest. "It's okay." He's still confused, and even though he knows now that he must've been really sick to see a lot of the things he saw and heard, he still isn't entirely sure how much was real and how much was just hallucinations. "What happened?"

April moves so that she can remove the ejected silver kryptonite away from him before it does more damage. She fiddles with her hair. The emotions in the room are raw and she tries not to show how it affects her.

"I believe it was Professor Fine who sent me that silver kryptonite. It infected you with paranoia. Really bad..."

"The reactions made you do and say some things. Both in Smallville and in the Nexus. We had to bring you here... to a world where your powers won't work."

"Speaking of, we should get him to a place with a yellow sun. Recharge his batteries." She's completely forgotten that just an hour or two ago she was asleep. She scratches at her scalp through that rainbow cap, plucks at the sleeves of her jacket. Her throat feels thick with the want to apologize again.

He makes an attempt to sit up, but doesn't get much further than gathering his strength for the attempt before he has to concede defeat. Fighting off the silver kryptonite has really drained him, and if it had taken a few more hours to cure him, he might genuinely not have made it.

"Did I hurt anyone?" He seems to have vague recollections of his hand around someone's throat, striking someone else, and things breaking around him.

She hates having to tell him this. Knows it will make him feel guilty. "You attacked your parents. From what I understand... Chloe showed up just in time with green kryptonite."

Moving closer, April uses her PINpoint to take all three of them to a beautiful clearing. It is a forest setting, familiar to Clark as where they went in animal form. And has a nice beautiful warm sun above.

But still gives them privacy.

Victor doesn't know much about the situation at all, so it's up to April to explain while she just nods, uncertainly.

Victor holds her bag close to her, biting down hard on the inside of her cheek, looking around the clearing with a sort of comfortable numbness. Taking deep breaths, to try to slow the thudding of her heart, even though she knows her pulse won't slow until it's darn ready to slow.

There's the guilt, just as expected, and he closes his eyes for a moment. "I'll have to thank her. And apologize. I... I think I said some awful things to her. To everyone." And if his dad's heart condition worsens because of whatever Clark did to him, he'll feel even worse.

He flinches a little when they PINpoint, because suddenly finding himself elsewhere is an uncomfortably familiar sensation right now, but when the warm sunlight hits him he takes in an audible breath, deep and steadying, as the yellow sun's rays seep into his body and push out the stored red energy, beginning the slow process of strengthening him.

He opens his eyes again, nowhere near back to normal, but more awake. Definitely more coherent than he's been since this whole crazy thing started. "Are you both okay?"

April doesn't know how to respond to that question.

She understands that the silver kryptonite poisoned his mind. But she still felt his anger at her because of the assumed betrayal. And then there is the fact there is a whole Nexus out there of people who were told that she was trying to kill him.

He was able to trust Victor. But not her. And while that helped them get him someplace safe to fix it -- she is hurt.

But not selfish. "I am worried. The rock was not sent by Lex. I think it was Brainaic."

This is all Greek to Victor, who has slipped her hand under the cuff of her sleeve and is now scratching at the scars on her arms, the way she does when she's unhappy. She's easy to read, when you know which language the book is written in.

"I'm distressed that I ended up hurtin' you to fix you. That it took me so long to find the thing that worked. But I'm glad you're okay," she says, simply, scratch-scratching away.

Clark is torn between them, not sure which to comfort first when his energy levels are so seriously low. So he reaches for April's hand, then Victor's, holding them together. "I think... I might've died if you hadn't helped me. Thanks. And I'm really sorry for putting you through this." He remembers saying some pretty bad things to both of them, and he's not sure how to deal with that, because unlike with red kryptonite, it's all really hazy and unclear.

April squeezes his hand. Her eyes still wet. But really not wanting to emotionally unload yet. "I was really scared."

Him holding her hand means she has to stop scratching, which is probably a good thing, and she squeezes his fingers. "Hon... no one thinks any differently of you for acting like you've been drugged when you were drugged. Don't worry." She is astute enough to be aware of the beginnings of a guilt-fest when she sees it, and she wants him to know that he really doesn't need to feel bad.

Victor, on the other hand, should feel bad. Victor hurt her friend, even if it was for the greater good. Victor betrayed him, even if it was for the greater good.

"But I still said and did some awful things," he insists, still lying flat on his back and wishing he could find the energy to get up and look them in the eyes. "And me being better doesn't change that. I hurt you, both of you."

"And we feel like we hurt you." April whispered. Her voice tight. Strained. Each one of them have good reason to feel guilty.

"I really want to hurt Fine for this." That is the other part of the problem.

April can vocalize what she's feeling better than Victor's usually willing to, and it relaxes her some. "You didn't hurt me. My own actions hurt me. It isn't your fault that I'm upset right now, and you don't have a thing to feel bad about."

"You didn't hurt me," he says, as firmly as he can manage it, and gives their hands a weak squeeze. He's getting stronger, slowly, recovering not only from the silver kryptonite but also the red sunlight. He still looks awful, but at least it's him in there now, and he's not seeing or hearing anything that isn't real. "You saved me."

"I shouldn't have asked you to open that box." April is really going to hate surprise packages at her door after this. Just as a side note.

"Fine wanted you to be paranoid of those closest to you. He wanted this to happen... and we just can't let him win. We just can't." She wrings her hands a little anxiously. Dealing with Fine is such a delicate balance.

"I think there were others in the Nexus that tried to help to. Fine obviously didn't know who he was dealing with. A man who has such a strength of friends. Good friends," This of course includes Victor.

Victor gets blushy, starts to squirm, the hand holding Clark's twitches hard, another one of Victor's tells that she's feeling wobbly. Gosh, it wasn't anything, she was just doing what's right, and she isn't thinking that to be modest, she just doesn't see it as anything else but What Must Happen Because I Love You So Much. A platonic love, but a very strong love.

"Box?"

And she gives Clark's hand another squeeze, looking at him, trying to think if there's anything else she can do to help.

He tries to think back, remembering being in the Nexus, but not coming up with much more than a hazy conglomeration of faces and sounds. It's rather disconcerting for a guy who normally has perfect recall. "I'm going to have to do a lot of apologizing. And thank them all for trying to help."

Clark takes another few deep breaths, just soaking in the light, gathering more energy to talk. "There was a box on April's doormat, with a note claiming it was from Lex. I opened it for her and..." He holds up his hand, the one that had the cut on his finger, now just a fine white line that's on its way to disappearing. "That when I got infected."

"Maybe Victor or I should do that. I think it might be better for you not to return to the Nexus for a little while." April caresses his hand.

Finishing the details of the story, April added, "After Clark started acting strange... I called Lex to thank him for the gift. To ask him about the rock for my geology assignment. He informed me it wasn't from him."

"I started to wonder who would try to place the blame on Clark. And I immediately thought of Professor Fine." She is not sure of how much Clark has told Victor of Fine. "I had a vision telling me that Fine is a dangerous man. And Clark was told by others that Fine is going to try to bring forth Zod, a powerful Kryptonian enemy."

"I sensed Fine once. He is not human. We believe he goes under the name Brainaic, if that is more recognizable. And when I sensed the silver Kryptonite... it felt the same as sensing Fine. Like it was a part of him."

"I believe Fine could have benefited from this. Somehow."

"Braniac... is more recognizable, yeah." She bites down on the inside of her cheek again, gives his hand another squeeze and lets it go, scratching at her scars from under her sleeve.

It's time for Victor to pull out the crisis-voice. You know the crisis-voice. Like people who talk folks down from jumping off buildings, the crisis-voice is calm, warm, certain, and without question. It's a pretty great contrast to how she can't stop messing with her arm. "You couldn't've known that the box was a trap. Even if you opened it, certainly Brainiac would've found another way to get the kryptonite into Clark. It must've been on some sort of homing system, anyway."

Clark thinks about that. "He's been trying to get me on his side. If he made me distrust everyone else, maybe he was trying to set it up so he could 'save' me. So I'd trust him more." It seems really extreme, and if it is Fine, it tells him that Brainiac doesn't care about collateral damage. Because if Chloe hadn't been there at the right time, Clark would've murdered both his parents out of terror.

He blinks up at Victor, a little disturbed that this would've happened no matter what. "Homing system? Why do you say that?"

"I wonder if there is some way to fake the paranoia... just enough so that Clark could go to him and learn what his 'rescue' act was going to be."

April added two more cents. "The meteor rock had no sharp edges. Clark. I think it was going to activate upon contact of your skin."

"Because he couldn't've known that you would've opened it. Or that you would've even touched it at all. It's a pretty ineffective plan, all things considered, if there isn't a way to guarantee it."

He shakes his head a little. "No, that's a bad idea. If he expected to get the, um, splinter back I wouldn't have it in me anymore." And he's not at all eager to touch it again. He idly wonders where it is, whether they left it at the other place where they cured him or if April PINpointed it to her safe, but decides that it ultimately isn't important so long as it isn't near him.

He's a bit disconcerted to hear that the meteor didn't have any sharp edges, because it actually hurt, like a knife slicing through his fingers. "That makes sense." He looks up at April. "It didn't hurt you? Just me." He's not surprised, because it's kryptonite, and it always acts different with him than with other people.

He finally feels he has enough energy to sit up, so he does, carefully. He feels as wobbly as a newborn calf, but he's slowly getting better the longer he sits in the sun.

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