Happy Birthday, Harry Osborn.

[manorly_wayne]

What is it that they say about the quiet and the storm? It had certainly been quiet over the past week - so quiet that Vicky Vale had found herself standing in the middle of Main Street smiling at the camera and saying

Comments

[abetterlie]

"It's me" isn't really helping when Connor is convinced it's Kara anyway. As she has trapped one of his hands, he head-butts her, causing her to release his wrist and tries again. There is something odd about this whole scenario, something wrong - more wrong than Kara being a vampire - but he knows that if he gives himself time to think about it, he'll never be able to go through with it.

"I failed you all the other times," he says, as he quite often did in his dreams. "Not now."

Because that's what you do to people you love, especially if you have failed them before. You kill them. It occurs to him he hadn't told her the first part yet, and so he does, because she's going to be dust soon.

"I love you, Kara," Connor says, and half expects her to reply "then prove it", but there's no time to wait for the reply, and so he strikes... which is when he hears Cordelia scream.

It's enough to distract him and horrify him for a crucial moment, and so the stake doesn't land in Kara's heart but in the right arm she has gotten up to block his strike, tearing into her skin. Her warm, bleeding skin. Pulsating in tandem with her heart. Her beating heart.

Welcome back to reality and almost-Karacide, Connor. That scream of Cordelia's? Was real as well.

[kara_marie]

The strange thing is that when he says it Kara looks into his eyes and she realises that he means it. For the first time, perhaps, she feels genuinely sorry for Connor. The pity is short lived, however, because even if it isn't her heart, the stake through the arm still hurts. It really hurts.

As does the fact he wanted to kill her. She's surprised how much that hurts.

"Please, Connor."

And she tries to push at him with her good arm, push him off her. She's looking up at him with those blue eyes that are all filled with tears and that can't have looked this real in the dream, the details of dreams have to fall short of reality, otherwise we'd never leave them.

"Please, Connor - you're hurting me - and - "

It's with desperation that she says the rest, low so only he could hear it, not that anyone else would be listening -

"Please, Connor, I'm --- there's --- I'm going to have a baby, a little baby, and you like babies, so please --- "

Another girl pleaded with him before and he killed her anyway, does this remind him of that? But she was different, she couldn't fight for herself. This one can, of course, and having caught enough breath to try she pushes him again as hard as she can, with her arm and brings her knee up as fast and hard as she's able.

[abetterlie]

He let go of the stake as soon as the beating heart sank in, but otherwise remained in place, realities of gas, hallucination dreams and the past crashing down on him, until she says "baby", which would be enough to shock him into action at once - if Kara wasn't rescuing herself right then, with the double combination of push and bringing up her knees.

As there is no resistance from him at this point, and definitely not a hold on anything, this move throws him right into Cordelia and Clayface. Who has no idea who the blonde is, but figures if she can fight the annoying superpowered kid off, she must have superpowers herself.

Which changes the odds. Besides, are those cops he hears? Not again. This was supposed to be fun and some lucrative hustling from terrified billionaires. Clayface decides that discretion is the better part of not going back to Arkham and changes his coke-drenched frame... to look like exactly Cordelia.

Just in case either the blonde or the boy intend something like a farewell lung before he makes his exit.

[queen_c_tm]

Why do people keep getting THROWN at her tonight?

Cordelia once again finds herself being knocked to the ground, and that added to Kara's injury seems to be enough to cut through whatever's left of the toxin in her system. Angelus is gone, and her mind feels clear again.

What's important right now is that Kara is hurt. Cordelia gathers herself up and runs over to her, eyes wide with concern and a different kind of fear. A normal, un-toxiny one.

"Kara!" She cringes at the sight of her arm. It looks even worse close-up. "You need a doctor. I - I hear sirens coming. I can go get someone..."

Except that would mean leaving Kara alone with Connor, and she's not sure he isn't still under the influence of whatever drug was screwing them all up tonight.

She turns back to him and narrows her eyes.

"Are you still seeing things? Cause I need to get her help, but I'm not leaving her here with you if you're going to try to kill her again!"

Maybe not the best words to use, but she's kind of panicking here.

[abetterlie]

He nearly killed Kara. And it's not a dream, it's real. He nearly killed her, and a baby, did she just say she is pregnant, and he nearly killed her and -

... are those two Cordelias? Apparantly he does still see things. Except one is rapidly running away. He does make the connection now, Clayface, but there is too much else going on to feel anything about that. Or even to pursue the guy.

He gets up. That knee-punch of Kara's hurts where it should, so he's not exactly Mr. Elastic at once. "Go," he says, white-faced, to Cordelia. (Who did see Angelus too, didn't she? Or had that been a part of his madness? "I - it's gone."

Cordelia looks at him, and apparantly decides, based on her knowledge of him and the urgency of medical attention, that she can trust his assurance. As she heads for the sirens, Connor looks at Kara, and her bleeding arm. Sure, she has Slayer healing, but it still had to hurt like a bitch, and - he tried to kill her.

She could be dead now.

"Sorry" doesn't begin to cover it.

"I saw you with Angelus," he says, voice sounding parched. "I thought you were - "

....baby? The sirens are all around them, and he guesses that means he won't have to go after remaining bad guys, except he should, he really should, anything to get out of here, except he shouldn't, he really shouldn't, he hurt her and he tried to kill her and did she say she was expecting a baby....

"...did you say you're having a baby?" he finishes helplessly, switching topics mid-sentence. "Or was that part of...."

Him imagining things.

[kara_marie]

"Well, Connor."

She replies, a little paler than usual, but no less uppity.

"If that's an apology for trying to kill me and for STAKING me in the ARM, it's a somewhat lame one. I'm going to tell Angel about this and he's going to be SO mad. And after I tell Angel I'm telling Harry! And he'll be mad too because I was SO nice to you both. And I would tell Darla but she has a heart condition and I don't think she could take the STRESS. YOU FREAKING STAKED ME!!!"

She's clearly not impressed as she holds her good hand over her hurt arm, trying to stop the blood. Bloody Connor. Bloody arm!

"I can't believe you tried to stake me? Are you totally INSANE? I mean, I knew you had Kara!Issues but this is CRAZY! You are going to be in SO much trouble! I can't believe this! Some guy tasers me, Lex goes psycho on me, YOU STAKE ME and Peter Petrelli totally got candy cone in my HAIR. What is WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE? DOES NO ONE IN THIS WORLD HAVE PEOPLE SKILLS EXCEPT ME!?!?! I am SO MAD AT YOU RIGHT NOW, CONNOR! YOU STAKED ME!!! STAKED ME!!! YOU COULD HAVE STAKED ME DEAD YOU FREAKING IDIOT!!!!"

[abetterlie]

"I thought you were a vampire," he repeats, forgetting that people not raised by Daniel Holtz might not see this as a self evident explanation. He's also trying very hard not to think about some of the things Angelus and Kara said in what was clearly a hallucination.

Looking around, he spots a plastic bottle of mineral water among the diet cokes lying broken on the floor, picks it up and holds it out to her, crouching down beside her, careful not to touch her again.

"You should wash the wound with this," he says; he'd do it, but he doesn't think she'd let him. He's far less coherent than the sentence implies; it's just that Connor in shock resorts to basic skills and instincts, and open wound equals need to wash and if necessary burn it out.

"....did you say you're having a baby?"

And then, finally, some belated social skills kick in.

"I'm sorry. Oh Kara, I'm so sorry..."

She could be dead, and there is nothing of that sense of peace which ended his dreams of killing her at the idea, there is just the empty horror looming that was there when Jasmine died.

[kara_marie]

"Do I look like a vampire? God. I've even tanned a bit in LA, I cannot believe you're trying the old: Sorry for staking you, I thought you were a vampire routine... And, as if that is an excuse, if YOU were a vampire I wouldn't KILL you. I'd lock you in a cage with cable TV and internet and... probably with Lesley and Lex... and I'd find you a TOTALLY hot vampire girlfriend to sex up all day long in the cage! I wouldn't STAKE you. Gah! I can't believe the minute you thought I was a vampire you tried to stake me... you're just LOOKING for an excuse, aren't you?"

She takes the bottle from him, snatches it, and hits him a few times with it for good measure, not particularly hard.

"You could freaking open it, Connor --- since you've basically disabled me and all. You're such an idiot. And I'm calling Angel right now and telling him what you did - I am. Give me your cell, I lost mine back when some asshole tasered me. God. My hair. My SHIRT. LOOK at this shirt it's covered in BLOOD."

She pauses, just a moment.

"And if you tell anyone what I told you, I swear --- don't you tell anyone. If people find out, people can't find out, Connor, not until... I don't want him to know. I need to work out how I'm going to handle it. Handle him. No staking me, no hitting me and no blabbing - and give me your fucking cell phone, asshole."

[abetterlie]

In the middle of everything, he's oddly touched she says she wouldn't stake him if he was a vampire, though Stephen Holtz thinks that's stupid and will get her killed. (Connor Riley could do without Lex and Lindsey for company but is downright misty-eyed about not getting staked.)

Connor takes the bottle back after she hit him, opens it, and pours the water over her wound while she goes on about her cell and the baby. The tie, which he so wouldn't have worn if he had known Kara would come in jeans, turns out to be useful as a bandage. The Harry-approved Armani jacket, which already went through various stages carrying kids to safety before the drug took effect on him, is at least good for one thing more as well, because, miracle of miracles, it still does contain his cell phone, which he hands to her silently, while processing what she says.

Don't want him to know. Him. Lex "I'm on a path of vengeance against whoever made me into a doll/girl" Luthor. Who definitely should not touch her again in this life or the next, yes. And who happens to be the father. As Harry is to Evan.

"I won't tell anyone," he promises, and looks at her with her bloody shirt and her angry, alive face, and thinks about how little she weighs if you carry her.

[kara_marie]

"He might have been good enough for me, but he's not good enough for... it. I gave him lots of chances and he never even tried to use any of them - but I don't really care anymore. Shame on him for what he's done, but shame on me if I spend another moment crying about it."

She hands him back his cell, unopened.

"Consider this one on the tab."

She says getting to her feet. You can't keep a good, or even mediocre, slayer down.

"You got to stab me in the back and now the arm and I haven't collected on either. I'd say you owed me, Connor. And I'd say that maybe if Lex makes any trouble for me, maybe then you'll remember how much you totally do owe me. Maybe?"

[abetterlie]

Definitely not good enough, and under other circumstances Connor would feel immensely cheered that she's over Lex, but as it is he's still too much in the grateful for Kara being alive region to realize she found her inner Gloria Gaynor.

Then she makes her request. And, well. He kidnapped Lex Luthor and strongarmed him into helping to fight crime once because he was so massively ticked off the man had endangered her and a great many other people in Gotham with his goo project. If not for one circumstance, he'd have absolutely no problem doing that, or other things, again, as long as they don't involve possession spells and brain lobotomy, because he still thinks that nobody deserves that.

The circumstance is, of course, that Lex Luthor is Harry's Cordelia, and bound to react accordingly to anything that happens to Mr L. (Which is why that crime fighting in Gotham intermezzo remains a secret.)

But. He just nearly killed Kara. And he does owe her. Massively. And Lex should not come anywhere near her again. If she decides to have the child, he shouldn't come anywhere near it, either. Connor thinks of Lionel and that encounter in New York, with the man saying how like a father to Harry he has been as well, and feels like throwing up at the idea of letting a child of Kara anywhere near anyone named Luthor. So.

"Yes," he says, seriously, and aware what it means. "Yes."