There's a new world shattering the silence. A new world I'm afraid to see.

[sendmyscourge]

One more midnight passes.

The firstborns are ripped out of their dreamworlds and dropped back into Chicago, disoriented and confused, but otherwise okay. With them, comes the return of all the tech and vehicles that were down while the plagues were going on.

As the sun rises, all that is left of the plagues are the corpses of monster and humanoid,

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[superiorspectre]

When the kiss ends, when Suzie's had time to process that partial surrender, to file away the things he's communicating and what he isn't, the things she can only guess at, she says two words.

"I know."

Those two words may be breaking her heart a bit, but she doesn't let that show as she unlocks the door, beckoning him into her room.

Once inside, she starts undressing. There's almost something ritualistic about the way she does it, stripping away protective layers, surrendering advantages. She casts a glance over her shoulder at Sark, raises an eyebrow. You're welcome to help if you like, but it doesn't matter one way or the other.

When the clothing's gone, when her hair's tumbling loose around her shoulders, the metal clip that holds it back placed on the desk, she pauses for a moment, one hand on her necklace. After a moment, she slips the cord off, letting it fall on the desk next to he clip.

She's completely naked there with him, absolutely nothing on her, nothing that could be turned against him. The conscious mind, she knows, laughs at gestures like this, but she'll give him every indication of safety she's capable of anyway. One one level or another, it'll make a difference.

[sarkraticmethod]

He doesn't help. He's not sure why, possibly it's the sick feeling in the pit of his stomach that feels like he should be getting out of here, because getting closer to people isn't going to keep Clark away from them, but maybe driving himself underground and away from everyone is exactly what Clark wants.

...He's supposed to not be thinking about that.

He undresses himself, which makes this seem somewhat more awkward and formal than it ought to be and it's aggravating enough that his fingers start shaking and getting caught in the buttons and it's a small mercy that Suzie's not looking at him, except where she probably is.

He doesn't know what the hell he's doing, why he's fumbling and acting like a scared child. It's Suzie. What he's terrified of doesn't exist here and with her. It doesn't exist with any woman. Eventually, he gets frustrated enough with the buttons that he pulls the shirt over his head and drops it unceremoniously to the floor and deals with the pants next until it's all gone, but the scars- the old ones and the new one around his neck that's somehow clearer now that there's nothing in the way.

And that simple gesture is more than he can take, for some reason. He bridges the gap between them quickly and cups her cheek in his hand and kisses her, dizzy, desperate, and not even the slightest bit awkward, as if he's trying to prove something. Like he has anything to prove that hasn't already been blatantly disproved.

And this is safety. You don't have to prove anything when you're this safe.

Still.

[superiorspectre]

Still. There's a difference between things that are known and things that are felt. There are layers of damage all the rationalization in the world can't touch.

Sark may know he's safe, but the way he's fumbling, he's not feeling it, not completely. Safer, perhaps, but not safe.

With certain lines of work, certain lives, you start to realise that the only time you're truly safe is when you're dead. She can feel that on him now more than ever.

So when he kisses her, she kisses back, matching the desperation at first, and then letting it wind down into something slow and easy. If he needs to prove something he's welcome to, but there's also this -- slow, deliberate sensuality, the process of learning him, softness of skin, the muscle underneath, the way he moves, the way he feels against her.

There's only one other person she's devoted that kind of effort to, but for different reasons. With Tosh, once upon a time, Suzie learned her body in the same way she learned a new and curious bit of technology, to make certain it was safe, to catalogue it in her own mind as something beautiful and wonderful to be explored and appreciated and seen as something other than the enemy.

With J, it was to redefine him on different terms, though she never reached the same extent with him that she did with Tosh, or that she plans to with Sark.

Where Julian is concerned, this isn't so much to reassure her as it is to remind him.

This is your body. This is the strength it contains, and these are the places that are soft and feel things more intensely, and all of this is yours.

When she finally breaks away, it's to flip the lock on the door, and then make her way silently to the bed.

"Top drawer, over there," she says, nodding at a nightstand.

Ostensibly, that's just the location of the condoms.

It also happens to be where she keeps her gun, and she suspects that, on some level, knowing that will do him good.