Delicate Little Things [Smallville, PG]
Title: Delicate Little Things
Author: all_you_wanted
Pairing: Chloe/Clark
Fandom: Smallville
Rating: PG
Challenge: 30_Kisses; 5/30
Prompt: #7 / superstar
Disclaimer: I own nothing, please don’t sue.
A/N: Inspired by real events.
Spoilers: None.
Summary: Chloe's pregnancy isn't going well.
------------------------------------------
Chloe had a seizure in the middle of the Daily Planet newsroom and was rushed to the hospital.
Her body was shutting down, system by system. Liver, lungs, brain. Her blood pressure was rocketing and her kidney weren't fuctioning properly. She was becoming septic and was a risk for a heart attack.
The baby was perfectly fine.
Chloe was in a chemical coma.
Clark watched as the doctors worked on his wife and child. Helpless for the first time in years.
* * *
Kristina Joy Kent was born at 3:46 am on January 22nd.
She was 3 months early. They had taken her by c-section.
Her tiny body was so small, you could have fit her in the palm of your hand. And not just Clark's huge hand, she would have fit in Chloe's small feminine hand just as easily.
Her cry was small and pitiful. Like a newborn kitten.
Clark only got a glimpse of his daughter before she was wisked away inside an incubator to the NICU. Her lungs were under developed and the risk of infection was too great for her to be anywhere but a clean and sterile environment.
He never even got to hold her.
* * *
Chloe didn't even know she was a mother yet.
She woke up confused and scared. The doctors told Clark that with the seizures Chloe was having when she came in, there would probably be memory loss.
When Clark told her they had taken Kristina from her, Chloe had cried. She had missed out on the most important part of pregnancy. She knew it was suppose to be painful, child labor, but she didn't care.
Sometimes it is the most painful things that give you the greatest memories.
* * *
Chloe's pregnancy up until that day had been picture perfect.
It had been normal. Normal and human.
Clark knew it had to have been him. His alien DNA inside of Chloe that had caused this. He has almost lost her. And their child.
It turned out Clark's being from another galaxy had nothing to do with Chloe's problems.
She had suffered from a complication called 'preclampsia'. A very common, very [i]human[/i] pregnancy risk. It was hard to diagnosis because usually it happened to women with a history of certain health problems, but every once in a while it went after the 'healthier' mothers.
The doctors gave Chloe a good prognosis on a full recovery. They even said she should be able to have more children. She would just need to be monitored carefully to keep it from happening again.
Chloe sat beside Kristina's little plastic box for hours on end. Her hand resting on it.
It killed her that should couldn't touch her own baby.
Clark watched from outside the NICU doors. Afraid to go in.
Afraid of what he almost lost. Of what he still could lose.
* * *
Kristina turned out to be a fighter, just like her momma. She gained in weight and strength like a superstar. She was off her primary ventilator after 3 weeks and had gained 3.1 pounds by the end of the first month to be at a much more healthier 4.2 pounds.
The doctors said she was a 'miracle baby' and if she kept up like this she would be able to go home in another 5-6 weeks. Almost a full month a head of schedule.
Chloe cried the first time she got to hold her. Kristina was still so tiny. She was swallowed up whole by her mother's embrace. A small wiggly thing in a bundle of fabric.
Clark stood just inside the NICU doors. He was still a good 10 feet away from them. It was the closest he had come to his baby girl since the day she was she born.
His fear paralyzed him.
He was a father. A daddy.
He had a little girl. A very tiny and delicate little girl.
A little girl he could break with his pinky if he wasn't careful.
Clark had never been allowed around the baby animals on the farm much when he had been younger. His parents fearful of his strength and now their fears had transfered on to him.
He remembered that pitiful little cry.
"Clark?", Chloe called after him, expecting him to want to hold her next, but her call was met with an empty space.
He had left.
* * *
Late at night, when Clark couldn't sleep, he would run. He ran all over.
Sometimes he would run to the coast and watch the sunrise over the ocean, speeding back home in time to help feed the cows.
Other times he would travel down south, bringing home the freshest and richest java beans for his coffee addicted bride.
Lately he seemed to be ending up at the same place, night after night.
Just outside the doors of NICU at Metropolis General.
The nurses all knew him and let him stay way past visiting hours. He was the 'paranoid' new father, afraid to touch his premie. Some of the nurses understood his fears. They had seen it happen in new fathers, especially the fathers of premies all the time. That fear that they will drop them. Break them. Make their children more sick than they were when they first arrived.
It wasn't that uncommon.
Still there were a few of the nurses that treated him like crap. He probably deserved it.
His baby girl was now 5 weeks old and he still hadn't even touched her.
Tonight, he wasn't alone in his late night visit. Chloe was there too, sitting beside the crib. He didn't notice Kristina in the clear box and saw Chloe had a towel over her shoulder. He guessed Kristina was under it. That Chloe was attempting to feed her again.
It was suppose to be this bonding experience between mother and child. Chloe had been looking forward to it the whole pregnancy.
"Plus my rack will get huge." She had told him, laughing when he told her she had his whole support behind anything that made her chest bigger.
Chloe saw Clark out the corner of her eye and startled at being caught, he was about to leave when he heard her say softly under her breath so only he could hear it. "Clark Kent, if you leave again, I will never forgive you."
Chloe didn't give ultimatums often. She also didn't lie when she said she wouldn't forgive a person. She had her strengths and loyalties, but when Chloe told a person that was it, that was it.
There were no second chances beyond that point.
Clark slowly opened the NICU doors and took his normal place, just inside the doors. From here he was far enough away that he couldn't do any damage.
"Come here please." She asked him, her eyes now drawn down to the tiny thing in her arms, under the towel. He did as she asked and stood behind her. Looking down he could see her, his little girl, Kristina, suckling at her mother's breast. It really was a beautiful sight and not just because he enjoyed every chance he got to see his wife's chest.
This was his. His woman, his child, his family.
Through the good times and bad.
"Clark, can you take her? Chloe asked him after she had finished feeding Kristina, fixing her blouse, holding their daughter out to him.
He stood there frozen to the spot. Not moving.
"Clark?" she said to him again.
"What if I break her?" He voiced his fear to her for the first time out loud.
She sighed at him. "You never broke me."
"You were never that delicate."
"Clark, quit being a wuss and hold your daughter." Having enough with him and his issues, she pushed the squimy blanket at his chest.
He gently took it from her, the fear so evident on his face he actually broke out into a sweat. Kristina immediately stopped moving and looked up at him. He remembered reading in one of Chloe's pregnancy books that a baby's eyes rarely stay the color they are at birth. Clark could tell in the dark depths that she would end up having bright green eyes.
Just like her momma's.
He could also see in her mouth, a hint of himself in her smile.
"She smiled at me." He beamed at Chloe.
Chloe leaned down over her child resting in her husband's arms and placed a gentle kiss on Kristina's head. Her baby fine black hair, already starting to wave at the presence of the double crown she seemed to also get from him.
It was probably gas that made Kristina smile, but Chloe didn't want to burst his bubble.
Raising up on her tip toes and kissed his cheek just like she had kiss their daughter's.
"Of course she did. She's daddy's little girl."
• • •