fic: the other side of sunset
the other side of sunset
It was late summer when she told him it was easy with him. Chloe/Davis. Pg. 2725 words. AUish.
a/n: This is what the muse wanted me to write.
It’s easy with you: this is what Chloe said to Davis. Months ago. She said those words months ago.
It was late summer and the leaves on the trees were starting to change colors, green turning to gold and red and brown. The air was still warm, but contained a cool breeze unlike the hot wind that characterizes the height of summer.
Easy, she said. Emphasis on the easy and all that implied.
Then she confessed she had felt this sort of ease once before. Just once. Davis assumed she meant Jimmy and his comment reflected this assumption. His assumption was logical given the circumstances. Chloe was, after all, engaged to Jimmy. A big plastic ring adorned her finger and proclaimed that status of her relationship to the world.
But, regardless, Davis’s assumption was miles off-track. The assumption was, plainly put, wrong despite the logical behind it.
She shook her head, glanced down at the shining tabletop. Her reflection stared unforgivably back at her. No, not Jimmy.
Chloe didn’t say who the person was, keeping it secret. That information was tucked away and hidden behind the layers she had woven around her heart. It was the way she protected her heart from further heartbreaks since she had experienced one too many already. And she wasn’t even past her early twenties.
Oh, Davis said in reply. His eyes were wide. Oh.
The wind ruffled her hair. Chloe stood and ran away from Davis, not yet ready. Not ready for him, not at this moment with warm, late summer air surrounding them. So she fled, feet carrying her far away.
There would be time yet.
&
Later Chloe would run away with him. It was still winter then, though spring was closing in. The snow from the most recent storm had faded. While the days were still short they were growing longer each day. The air still possessed a chill that zipped at the cheeks during the day and turned a person’s breath white. The sun, when it shone, was wane during the daylight hours. The sun had faded hours ago on this particular night. The sky was a dark plum shade, hazy in parts due to clouds that had rolled in as the sun set. In her purple jacket Chloe was cold as she stood outside in the night air and talked to Clark on her cell phone.
Everything I have done, right or wrong, I did for you, Chloe told Clark. Her voice was littered with sound of the tears she was barely holding back. She claimed her actions weren’t for Davis, the one she had chosen to run away with.
As if life was that simple. As if everything could be boiled down to a motivation to save Clark. If only. The words were part lies and the lies were a comfort, an escape from reality. The reality as cold as the night air on her skin, a bitter sting in truth.
Her cheeks were damp at the end of the phone call. The exact reason for the tears she didn’t want to name. She wasn’t even sure if the tears were for her or for Clark or for Davis. The tears might have been for them all. Useless tears that substituted for useless prayers she didn’t give to an entity she hadn’t believed in for years.
Davis exited the gas station store. Chloe reached up and hastily wiped at her cheeks to get rid of the tears. Tears wouldn’t help Davis keep the beast under control.
You okay?
I’m fine. Just something in my eye. Some dirt, I think, from a car flying past.
Davis nodded and accepted the words. They were what he wanted to hear anyways. He asked, Ready?
Maybe she wasn’t ready. It didn’t matter. She was on this path for better or for worse. So she said, Yes. Let’s go.
So they went, driving into the inky blackness, letting the night swallow the vehicle and hide them. On the open road the headlights hit the concrete and made the street reflectors flash orange one by one as the car sped down the highway. The highway unfolded before them.
Their bags were in the trunk. They had other baggage but it wasn’t the physical sort. It was Davis and Chloe and all their baggage, physical and emotional. Chloe wanted to believe she had made the right decision.
Was it the simple decision? Was the situation ever simple? No. Never.
And so they drove through the night.
&
Before Davis her choices were simple. Everything started, for the two of them, the day of the bus accident. On that day they met and life began to alter. Before that day Chloe knew where her heart lay and she knew how her heart had ranked the people in her life according to their importance. She was sure of her choices she made, never hesitated.
The black kryptonite was in her hands. A choice was about to be made, and Chloe hesitated.
Truth: she wanted to save Clark, her best friend. She had known him for some ten years and had loved him since the beginning. Her love for him had evolved over the years, changing in form and in intensity several times. Nevertheless, her love for Clark was and had been a constant in her life. It was only logical for her to want to save him.
Truth: she wanted to save Davis, the man she had only met mere months ago. She had met him in late summer and now it was early spring, the trees sprouting cherry blossoms. In the short amount of time she had known Davis she had come to care for him. Maybe she loved him, although what she felt for Davis wasn’t what she felt for Clark. She felt something though, something strong; she knew that much.
Chloe wanted to save both men. The problem was she didn’t know if that outcome would be accomplished if she made the choice she had told Oliver she would. Fear of the future flooded through her. Her hesitation was the product of this fear as she fretted over potential outcomes.
The hesitation lasted only a moment. Then she made the choice, had to in fact, and slapped the black rock onto his desk and hoped for the desired outcome. She didn’t pray. She did whisper, Please.
Please, please, please.
&
Jimmy asked, Do you love him?
They stood in a sunlit-filled room. Supposedly this apartment had been meant as her wedding present. The light fell in large panels, golden and clear.
Chloe remembered loving Jimmy, although these memories were fading. She remembered those days but that love she had felt was gone. Chased away by life’s circumstances. Now Jimmy was demanding she reveal her feelings for Davis, who lay not three feet away on the hardwood floor. He was unconscious but alive and freedom of the monster that had been sharing his body.
Everything had changed.
Do you love him?
I, she started to say before she paused.
Her gaze drifted over to where Davis lay, her eyes landing on his face. The sunlight pouring in illuminated the planes of his face. His skin glowed and Chloe remembered the night they had spent on top of their rented car just days before. The stars had been bright studs in the dark sky that stretched far above their heads. He had told her stories about the stars in a soft, lulling voice. There had been a glow visible in his eyes despite the blackness of the night. His eyes were full of emotion that night. In the darkness penetrated by the nearby streetlights Chloe had seen everything Davis was when he wasn’t the beast, and now she saw it again in the bright light of morning.
Chloe had told Clark her actions had been for him alone. That wasn’t the whole truth, just a fragment of it, a mere parcel of reality. Self-interest played a role in her choices. This self-interest was inspired by what she felt. What she felt had altered since the day she first met Davis. The additional knowledge that Davis could fight the monster inside him for her also played a role. Davis loved her and Chloe had the feeling that she was falling in love. It was a heady sensation and influenced her decisions.
It wasn’t all about Clark. It simply wasn’t.
I think I might, Chloe said. Love him, that is.
You think?
I’m pretty sure. We just need…
Need what? Jimmy demanded. He needed to know the truth and Chloe gave it to him.
Time. We need time. Him and me.
I guess you’ll have it now.
Bitterness and regret lay in Jimmy’s tone, along with a longing for this situation to be different, the past to be altered. The angry said words taken back. But no do-over was offered. There was no fairy godmother to wave a wand and grant a wish for time to be reversed, allowing other choices to be made. It wasn’t what Chloe wanted anyways.
A wish had already been granted, Chloe thought to herself.
On the floor Davis started to wake, groaning softly. She turned and hurried towards him, forgetting Jimmy. She knelt, hand cupping his head, the fingers of her other hand stroking his cheek.
The door to the apartment opened. Then it closed.
One chapter in a life ended. Another started.
&
Another chapter ended the next day. Life works in this way sometimes.
I can’t, not anymore, Clark said.
I don’t understand, Chloe replied. Or, more accurately, she didn’t want to understand. She wanted her friendship with Clark and she wanted Davis.
They were standing in the park near where the explosion had occurred the afternoon before. It was the explosion that had killed Doomsday, ending that reign of torture. Chloe had thought they were free. Then Clark called her this morning and said they needed to talk.
I was worried about you, she told him on the phone. Dinah said she didn’t think anyone survived.
Let’s talk later. Alone.
It was later. Clark had suggested this park and it was to this park they had come. Beneath their feet was grass wet and dark from the rain the sky had shed in the morning. Yesterday the sun had been shining while today it had rained in the morning. The sky was a thick spread of clouds still although the rain had stopped some time ago. The air was cool, the weather more late winter than early spring.
I don’t understand, Chloe said again.
All those people died. Those deaths could have been prevented.
It would have killed Davis if you had sent him to the Phantom Zone.
Sometimes there are sacrifices, Clark said in defense. His voice was collected, calm. The greater good should prevail.
Clark’s words, in particular the greater good, conveyed an accusation. Chloe felt it and it stung. This accusation seemed to imply she didn’t care about the individuals who had lost their lives the day before. Chloe had chosen as wisely as she could have given the circumstances. Each time a choice is made a consequence follows. This is another part of life. Chloe knew this when she chose to save Davis.
So this is it? No more us? Ten years of friendship over? Just like that?
Try to understand.
No, she said. No.
Chloe wanted to scream, No, no, no, nooooo, nooooo, noooooo. She wanted to scream this until her voice was hoarse. In the end she didn’t. She couldn’t because of the way Clark looked, the way he carried himself this afternoon.
His shoulders hung lower then usual, his body slouched slightly. His face was set, the line of his mouth firm. He had made his decision, just as she had made her own decisions in the past. There was a sadness in his eyes, and a sharpness that made her stomach hurt. This wasn’t how she envisioned them, not at all.
The signs of the future were present and she saw them clearly. The signs were as bright and understandable as red stop signs on the road. She saw them and understood what they meant. There was no going back. Her protests ceased.
Chloe wiped at the tears collecting in the corner of her eyes. I’m going to miss you, she said.
Clark didn’t say I’ll miss you too or Goodbye or even I’m sorry it’s this way. Instead he turned from her and walked away, his gait slow and steady, sure. Chloe couldn’t turn away and so she watched him walk away. Clark never paused and never looked back. There was no regret evident. It wasn’t visible but her heart felt cut up at this moment.
Her heart would heal, though. It would.
Chloe had wanted to save Clark. She had wanted to save Davis. Davis was saved and, as a consequence, she lost Clark.
Goodbye, she whispered to the air. Maybe Clark heard her. It didn’t make a difference if he had.
Her cell phone vibrated in her pocket. At the sound Chloe knew it was time to leave, time for her to turn around and walk in the opposition direction of Clark. It was time for her to return to what was shaping up to be her future. At the very least Davis was her present and she felt the pull to return to it.
Clark was going to be in her past now. She wasn’t okay with this yet but she would become okay. She had no choice.
Chloe walked away from the spot where she had been standing for the past fifteen minutes. Fifteen minutes for a friendship to have its final conversation. She thought it would rain as she headed through the park, and she thought it would be a fitting ending.
The sky proved her wrong. The sun begun to break through the cloud cover as she drove back to Smallville. By the time she reached the Talon apartment whitish sunlight was making itself visible. The sunlight was pale but it was sunlight nevertheless. Chloe left the car and the clouds high above her head were lightening.
I missed you, Davis said after she unlocked the front door and entered her apartment. He was there to greet her in the entry hallway. He wore jeans and a blue shirt and he looked at home.
I’m back now.
He nodded but worry filled his eyes. The eyes are the windows to the soul, her grandmother once said.
Chloe lifted a shoulder then let it drop. It’s over, Chloe told him. She didn’t expand on what she meant, but Davis knew.
You okay?
I am. She smiled and moved closer to Davis, letting him wrap his arms around her. He was warm and real and solid beneath the cheek she laid on his chest. His heart thumped against her ear. It was a comforting sound.
Her friendship with Clark was over for all intents and purposes. But she had a future with Davis and she felt it acutely in Davis’s embrace. It felt good.
&
Her hand is in his, their fingers laced. Swinging clasped hands between their bodies as they walk down a nameless street. The air smells of ozone: it’s summer and hot and the formerly bright blue sky is growing hazy.
Davis says, It’s going to storm.
Chloe breathes in, inhaling the smell. She breathes out and says, Yes.
They continue to walk. Feet against pavement, the sound of shoes slapping the cement tuned out. The sky above their heads turns dark, the clouds gathering. The people on the streets scatter, leaving them alone as they walk, hand in hand, as the rain starts to fall. The wind accompanying the rain pushes through their hair, against their clothes.
Her fingers squeeze his. There’s an answering squeeze back.
Rain splatters his cheeks, his clothing. Not the heavy rain of a storm yet, the light rain that precedes the large, heavy rain. The rain that will fall in sheets, just not yet. Coming, it’s coming.
Chloe leans into him, pressing. Let’s get inside before you catch a cold, she says.
Wait. Just wait.
Looking at Davis, seeing it all, Chloe nods. Okay, we’ll wait.
The sky is turquoise-gray. The streets are empty. The wind surrounds them. The rain descends heavier and heavier. They walk.
&
End.
It was late summer when she told him it was easy with him. Chloe/Davis. Pg. 2725 words. AUish.
a/n: This is what the muse wanted me to write.
It’s easy with you: this is what Chloe said to Davis. Months ago. She said those words months ago.
It was late summer and the leaves on the trees were starting to change colors, green turning to gold and red and brown. The air was still warm, but contained a cool breeze unlike the hot wind that characterizes the height of summer.
Easy, she said. Emphasis on the easy and all that implied.
Then she confessed she had felt this sort of ease once before. Just once. Davis assumed she meant Jimmy and his comment reflected this assumption. His assumption was logical given the circumstances. Chloe was, after all, engaged to Jimmy. A big plastic ring adorned her finger and proclaimed that status of her relationship to the world.
But, regardless, Davis’s assumption was miles off-track. The assumption was, plainly put, wrong despite the logical behind it.
She shook her head, glanced down at the shining tabletop. Her reflection stared unforgivably back at her. No, not Jimmy.
Chloe didn’t say who the person was, keeping it secret. That information was tucked away and hidden behind the layers she had woven around her heart. It was the way she protected her heart from further heartbreaks since she had experienced one too many already. And she wasn’t even past her early twenties.
Oh, Davis said in reply. His eyes were wide. Oh.
The wind ruffled her hair. Chloe stood and ran away from Davis, not yet ready. Not ready for him, not at this moment with warm, late summer air surrounding them. So she fled, feet carrying her far away.
There would be time yet.
&
Later Chloe would run away with him. It was still winter then, though spring was closing in. The snow from the most recent storm had faded. While the days were still short they were growing longer each day. The air still possessed a chill that zipped at the cheeks during the day and turned a person’s breath white. The sun, when it shone, was wane during the daylight hours. The sun had faded hours ago on this particular night. The sky was a dark plum shade, hazy in parts due to clouds that had rolled in as the sun set. In her purple jacket Chloe was cold as she stood outside in the night air and talked to Clark on her cell phone.
Everything I have done, right or wrong, I did for you, Chloe told Clark. Her voice was littered with sound of the tears she was barely holding back. She claimed her actions weren’t for Davis, the one she had chosen to run away with.
As if life was that simple. As if everything could be boiled down to a motivation to save Clark. If only. The words were part lies and the lies were a comfort, an escape from reality. The reality as cold as the night air on her skin, a bitter sting in truth.
Her cheeks were damp at the end of the phone call. The exact reason for the tears she didn’t want to name. She wasn’t even sure if the tears were for her or for Clark or for Davis. The tears might have been for them all. Useless tears that substituted for useless prayers she didn’t give to an entity she hadn’t believed in for years.
Davis exited the gas station store. Chloe reached up and hastily wiped at her cheeks to get rid of the tears. Tears wouldn’t help Davis keep the beast under control.
You okay?
I’m fine. Just something in my eye. Some dirt, I think, from a car flying past.
Davis nodded and accepted the words. They were what he wanted to hear anyways. He asked, Ready?
Maybe she wasn’t ready. It didn’t matter. She was on this path for better or for worse. So she said, Yes. Let’s go.
So they went, driving into the inky blackness, letting the night swallow the vehicle and hide them. On the open road the headlights hit the concrete and made the street reflectors flash orange one by one as the car sped down the highway. The highway unfolded before them.
Their bags were in the trunk. They had other baggage but it wasn’t the physical sort. It was Davis and Chloe and all their baggage, physical and emotional. Chloe wanted to believe she had made the right decision.
Was it the simple decision? Was the situation ever simple? No. Never.
And so they drove through the night.
&
Before Davis her choices were simple. Everything started, for the two of them, the day of the bus accident. On that day they met and life began to alter. Before that day Chloe knew where her heart lay and she knew how her heart had ranked the people in her life according to their importance. She was sure of her choices she made, never hesitated.
The black kryptonite was in her hands. A choice was about to be made, and Chloe hesitated.
Truth: she wanted to save Clark, her best friend. She had known him for some ten years and had loved him since the beginning. Her love for him had evolved over the years, changing in form and in intensity several times. Nevertheless, her love for Clark was and had been a constant in her life. It was only logical for her to want to save him.
Truth: she wanted to save Davis, the man she had only met mere months ago. She had met him in late summer and now it was early spring, the trees sprouting cherry blossoms. In the short amount of time she had known Davis she had come to care for him. Maybe she loved him, although what she felt for Davis wasn’t what she felt for Clark. She felt something though, something strong; she knew that much.
Chloe wanted to save both men. The problem was she didn’t know if that outcome would be accomplished if she made the choice she had told Oliver she would. Fear of the future flooded through her. Her hesitation was the product of this fear as she fretted over potential outcomes.
The hesitation lasted only a moment. Then she made the choice, had to in fact, and slapped the black rock onto his desk and hoped for the desired outcome. She didn’t pray. She did whisper, Please.
Please, please, please.
&
Jimmy asked, Do you love him?
They stood in a sunlit-filled room. Supposedly this apartment had been meant as her wedding present. The light fell in large panels, golden and clear.
Chloe remembered loving Jimmy, although these memories were fading. She remembered those days but that love she had felt was gone. Chased away by life’s circumstances. Now Jimmy was demanding she reveal her feelings for Davis, who lay not three feet away on the hardwood floor. He was unconscious but alive and freedom of the monster that had been sharing his body.
Everything had changed.
Do you love him?
I, she started to say before she paused.
Her gaze drifted over to where Davis lay, her eyes landing on his face. The sunlight pouring in illuminated the planes of his face. His skin glowed and Chloe remembered the night they had spent on top of their rented car just days before. The stars had been bright studs in the dark sky that stretched far above their heads. He had told her stories about the stars in a soft, lulling voice. There had been a glow visible in his eyes despite the blackness of the night. His eyes were full of emotion that night. In the darkness penetrated by the nearby streetlights Chloe had seen everything Davis was when he wasn’t the beast, and now she saw it again in the bright light of morning.
Chloe had told Clark her actions had been for him alone. That wasn’t the whole truth, just a fragment of it, a mere parcel of reality. Self-interest played a role in her choices. This self-interest was inspired by what she felt. What she felt had altered since the day she first met Davis. The additional knowledge that Davis could fight the monster inside him for her also played a role. Davis loved her and Chloe had the feeling that she was falling in love. It was a heady sensation and influenced her decisions.
It wasn’t all about Clark. It simply wasn’t.
I think I might, Chloe said. Love him, that is.
You think?
I’m pretty sure. We just need…
Need what? Jimmy demanded. He needed to know the truth and Chloe gave it to him.
Time. We need time. Him and me.
I guess you’ll have it now.
Bitterness and regret lay in Jimmy’s tone, along with a longing for this situation to be different, the past to be altered. The angry said words taken back. But no do-over was offered. There was no fairy godmother to wave a wand and grant a wish for time to be reversed, allowing other choices to be made. It wasn’t what Chloe wanted anyways.
A wish had already been granted, Chloe thought to herself.
On the floor Davis started to wake, groaning softly. She turned and hurried towards him, forgetting Jimmy. She knelt, hand cupping his head, the fingers of her other hand stroking his cheek.
The door to the apartment opened. Then it closed.
One chapter in a life ended. Another started.
&
Another chapter ended the next day. Life works in this way sometimes.
I can’t, not anymore, Clark said.
I don’t understand, Chloe replied. Or, more accurately, she didn’t want to understand. She wanted her friendship with Clark and she wanted Davis.
They were standing in the park near where the explosion had occurred the afternoon before. It was the explosion that had killed Doomsday, ending that reign of torture. Chloe had thought they were free. Then Clark called her this morning and said they needed to talk.
I was worried about you, she told him on the phone. Dinah said she didn’t think anyone survived.
Let’s talk later. Alone.
It was later. Clark had suggested this park and it was to this park they had come. Beneath their feet was grass wet and dark from the rain the sky had shed in the morning. Yesterday the sun had been shining while today it had rained in the morning. The sky was a thick spread of clouds still although the rain had stopped some time ago. The air was cool, the weather more late winter than early spring.
I don’t understand, Chloe said again.
All those people died. Those deaths could have been prevented.
It would have killed Davis if you had sent him to the Phantom Zone.
Sometimes there are sacrifices, Clark said in defense. His voice was collected, calm. The greater good should prevail.
Clark’s words, in particular the greater good, conveyed an accusation. Chloe felt it and it stung. This accusation seemed to imply she didn’t care about the individuals who had lost their lives the day before. Chloe had chosen as wisely as she could have given the circumstances. Each time a choice is made a consequence follows. This is another part of life. Chloe knew this when she chose to save Davis.
So this is it? No more us? Ten years of friendship over? Just like that?
Try to understand.
No, she said. No.
Chloe wanted to scream, No, no, no, nooooo, nooooo, noooooo. She wanted to scream this until her voice was hoarse. In the end she didn’t. She couldn’t because of the way Clark looked, the way he carried himself this afternoon.
His shoulders hung lower then usual, his body slouched slightly. His face was set, the line of his mouth firm. He had made his decision, just as she had made her own decisions in the past. There was a sadness in his eyes, and a sharpness that made her stomach hurt. This wasn’t how she envisioned them, not at all.
The signs of the future were present and she saw them clearly. The signs were as bright and understandable as red stop signs on the road. She saw them and understood what they meant. There was no going back. Her protests ceased.
Chloe wiped at the tears collecting in the corner of her eyes. I’m going to miss you, she said.
Clark didn’t say I’ll miss you too or Goodbye or even I’m sorry it’s this way. Instead he turned from her and walked away, his gait slow and steady, sure. Chloe couldn’t turn away and so she watched him walk away. Clark never paused and never looked back. There was no regret evident. It wasn’t visible but her heart felt cut up at this moment.
Her heart would heal, though. It would.
Chloe had wanted to save Clark. She had wanted to save Davis. Davis was saved and, as a consequence, she lost Clark.
Goodbye, she whispered to the air. Maybe Clark heard her. It didn’t make a difference if he had.
Her cell phone vibrated in her pocket. At the sound Chloe knew it was time to leave, time for her to turn around and walk in the opposition direction of Clark. It was time for her to return to what was shaping up to be her future. At the very least Davis was her present and she felt the pull to return to it.
Clark was going to be in her past now. She wasn’t okay with this yet but she would become okay. She had no choice.
Chloe walked away from the spot where she had been standing for the past fifteen minutes. Fifteen minutes for a friendship to have its final conversation. She thought it would rain as she headed through the park, and she thought it would be a fitting ending.
The sky proved her wrong. The sun begun to break through the cloud cover as she drove back to Smallville. By the time she reached the Talon apartment whitish sunlight was making itself visible. The sunlight was pale but it was sunlight nevertheless. Chloe left the car and the clouds high above her head were lightening.
I missed you, Davis said after she unlocked the front door and entered her apartment. He was there to greet her in the entry hallway. He wore jeans and a blue shirt and he looked at home.
I’m back now.
He nodded but worry filled his eyes. The eyes are the windows to the soul, her grandmother once said.
Chloe lifted a shoulder then let it drop. It’s over, Chloe told him. She didn’t expand on what she meant, but Davis knew.
You okay?
I am. She smiled and moved closer to Davis, letting him wrap his arms around her. He was warm and real and solid beneath the cheek she laid on his chest. His heart thumped against her ear. It was a comforting sound.
Her friendship with Clark was over for all intents and purposes. But she had a future with Davis and she felt it acutely in Davis’s embrace. It felt good.
&
Her hand is in his, their fingers laced. Swinging clasped hands between their bodies as they walk down a nameless street. The air smells of ozone: it’s summer and hot and the formerly bright blue sky is growing hazy.
Davis says, It’s going to storm.
Chloe breathes in, inhaling the smell. She breathes out and says, Yes.
They continue to walk. Feet against pavement, the sound of shoes slapping the cement tuned out. The sky above their heads turns dark, the clouds gathering. The people on the streets scatter, leaving them alone as they walk, hand in hand, as the rain starts to fall. The wind accompanying the rain pushes through their hair, against their clothes.
Her fingers squeeze his. There’s an answering squeeze back.
Rain splatters his cheeks, his clothing. Not the heavy rain of a storm yet, the light rain that precedes the large, heavy rain. The rain that will fall in sheets, just not yet. Coming, it’s coming.
Chloe leans into him, pressing. Let’s get inside before you catch a cold, she says.
Wait. Just wait.
Looking at Davis, seeing it all, Chloe nods. Okay, we’ll wait.
The sky is turquoise-gray. The streets are empty. The wind surrounds them. The rain descends heavier and heavier. They walk.
&
End.