The Last Daughter of Krypton - IC

[ChasNicollette]

Alexander Joseph Luthor

Buckled up, his handcuffs and blindfold removed, Lex actually looked tranquil in the darkened executive seating compartment of The Pegasus. He almost looked... serene. Very much like John Constantine had.

Though very much like John Constantine, he was a man plagued with darkness. Perhaps he only looked tranquil like this because he was so much at home in shadow. Perhaps this was his natural habitat.

But when the sonic boom hit, he stirred, and flinched, and groaned, and rocked his head from side to side as slowly, slowly, he lurched and struggled towards wakefulness. First he opened one eye, then closed it again. Then he opened the other, and this one also, in its turn, slid closed.

He opened both eyes and he straightened as best as he could, stiff and aching, punished thoroughly by the man who had been in black.

Those eyes widened a bit when he saw the monster seated across from him, and when he saw that beside the monster stood an arguably beautiful Asian woman who was-- unless Lex's eyes deceived him in the semi-dark --lugging some pretty serious firepower tucked inside that fetchingly-cut jacket. Nothing sexier than a beautiful woman with a shoulder holster.

He ran his tongue over his teeth, glancing from the woman to the monster.

He wrestled the chill that rustled up and down his spine.

"'Abraxas speaketh that hallowed and accursed word which is life and death at the same time,'" Lex murmured slowly, his gaze now unmoving from that of the monster. "'Abraxas begetteth truth and lying, good and evil, light and darkness in the same word and in the same act. Wherefore is Abraxas terrible.'"

He smiled faintly, ever-so-faintly, and explained: "Carl Jung. The Seven Sermons to The Dead."

Lex exhaled sharply, and his nostrils flared. "Are you god or are you devil, 'Abraxas?' Or are you both?"

 

[ChasNicollette]

Ted

When Sharon eventually extinguished the proverbial "Fasten Seat Belt" sign, Ted had calmed a little.

"Dane, buddy," he suggested, "try'n'get one'a those M.R.E.'s with the old-school M&Ms inside, I ain't had any of those since The Big War."

He stood, and he hovered, pacing back and forth just like the jungle-forest feline that was his namesake and, to a certain extent, his Totem. When he could, he made accommodations for Sharon, and to that end, he was fairly graceful for a man his size.

"Is this a no smokin' flight?" he wondered, absently. "'Cause if it is, my boy's gonna wake up with a nicotine fit like you wouldn't believe."

Ted glanced out one of the windows and, with a sinking realisation, noted the direction in which they flew. East.

"We're goin' to The States, aren't we?" he murmured, crestfallen, his face a little bit crumpled. "Hell. (S'pose it hadda happen eventually.)"

 

[Abraxas Winterlight]

Pegasus Med Bay

"Well, he won't wake up with a physical addiction. By now the nano's have that flushed from his bloodstream and his lungs repaired." She glanced at her watch, and up at the monitor over John Constantine's bed. "In about twenty more minutes they will go inactive, and he should wake up naturally pretty soon thereafter. He will be hungry tho. Your girl, she took some pretty good deep tissue and bone damage. I gave her a long life batch and she should sleep until we hit the states."

She then reached into a locker behind her and tossed Teddy a bag of M&M's.

"There ya go sugah, knock yourself out."

 

[Abraxas Winterlight]

Wraith

"Devil or God Luthor? Guess that would depend on your viewpoint. I myself see me as neither, but you may see me as one or the other." I said, my voice low and sibilant, sounding like a wind from across the afterworld.

I turned to Min. "Go tell her he is awake. I'll keep him company until then."

I then turned my gaze back to the serpent in the leather chair.

 

[Lunaramblings]

Edmund entered The Pegasus, head up, shoulders squared and every bit the fine Southern gentleman.

"Pleasure to meet you ma'am, I much appreciate the lift. It would be a rather long walk home." Edmund nodded politely to Becca. "Nice bird you have here."

Edmund sat in an available seat nearby. Leg crossed, hands in a steeple in his lap. Grinning that infectious Tennylson Grin.

 

[AmenRa]

He Who Waits....Again

Var-Sen, John Smith, the once-stranded Kryptonian, sat in an old wooden rocking chair in the loft of the Kent barn.

If Var-Sen, a scholar of Earth history, had known the history of the very chair he sat upon, then he could have indeed written a page of Earth's, and Krypton's, own saga.

This very chair, built by the hands of Hiram Kent so many years ago, once sat a youthful and brilliant Kryptonian scientist who had journeyed to Earth on a survey mission. This would have been in the very early 1950's, and very few people now alive remember the dark-haired stranger that had come to town.

But Var-Sen didn't know these things as he rocked ever-so-gently in the antique. But he did wonder about things, and particularly he wondered how a certain scholar and student that he had come to admire so much was doing right about now.

He wondered if she knew he was okay, alive, and returned from hell. If not, then he had to let her know.

It was he, after all, who had taught her to look deeper.

He closed his eyes, stopped the chair's movement, focused everything he had into a single, powerful thought....

Chloe...

 

[Abraxas Winterlight]

Shortly before takeoff

"My pleasure Mr. Tennylson. Please everyone, buckle up, we will be leaving shortly."
Bekka rolled her chair over to a first row seat, then levered herself out and into a aircraft chair, as a black suited man moved her chair into the other compartment.

"Oh, Mrs. McCrimmon, when things calm down a bit, we do need to talk."
And at that the engines began winding up, and The Outsiders took to the skies.

 

[AmenRa]

The Electronic World

The ones and zeros that made up the electronic code of the BRAIN InterActive Construct had reformed in etherspace, that place between cyberspace and realspace, where fictional physics existed but did not exist at all.

BRAINIAC lived.

But it had no power, no energy, no substance.

However, somewhere within the realm of the Real World, beyond the matrix of code and logic, there existed an outlet, a portal, a crossover point where it could access a physical, corporeal form.

This node was elusive now, a hidden doorway that seemed to slip and bend out of sight just as the BRAINIAC was about to grasp it.

Therefore it would keep searching until one day it found the node and slipped free to join the Real.

It might be one point forty seven nanoseconds from now when BRAINIAC found the doorway, or it might be twenty-two days, or a thousand years, but it would keep searching until it did.

 

[ChasNicollette]

Ted

Ted listened to this assessment, and smiled faintly.

John Constantine's addictions often ran deeper than the physical. And there was a lot more stuff in his bloodstream than could be scrubbed out by any mere cutting-edge nanotech super-regen-juice.

He'd believe John was free of cancer-sticks when he saw it.

Ted gazed quietly at Diana as she slept. "Dream sweet, Little Lady Di. I'll be here when ya wake up. Stateside or not."

Effortlessly, he snagged the little brown packet from the air when Sharon winged it at him. He held the packet in his hands, shaking his head as he gazed down at it.

He ripped into the package and began popping the little candies into his mouth and chewing thoughtfully.

"Civilian ones never were quite th' same," he decided, "as the originals. The stuff they gave soldiers during Double-doubleya-two, 'fore they branched out t' th' mass market in th' years followin'."

He chuckled faintly. "When I was six years old, I saw Jim J. Braddock fight pro for the first time, an' I was there two years later when he beat Tuffy Griffiths, despite bein' a total underdog. (My old man had money on Griffiths, an' he didn't like seein' his boy lose.) It was then, right then, I always knew I'd wanna stand up for lost causes, I always wanted t' stick it ta the guys what had the odds stacked in their favour. Few years later, my daddy went to Spain ta fight alongside this fascist bastard named Franco, an' soon as I was halfway old enough, I followed him, just so's I could fight against Franco and my old man."

Ted closed his eyes, kicked a few m's round his teeth with his tongue.

"Franco wound up winnin' that bout," he grunted wryly, "which made it all th' more important fer me ta stand up against the fascists again when they started throwin' their hats int' th' ring an' leavin' hats on th' ground... I wound up servin' a couple tours with a ragtag bunch called Easy Company, an' their Sarge was a tougher hard-ass bastard than even my old man, 'cept there wasn't a Nazi bone in Sarge's body. Only time Frank Rock an' me ever saw eye to eye on anythin' was when we were sittin' huddled in th' trenches, scroungin' M&M's outta dinged-up C-Ration cans an' makin' sure there was enough to go 'round the enlisted."

Ted harrumphed softly and opened his eyes.

"Listen ta me," he chuckled. "Tellin' stories 'bout ghosts. Now I know I've spent too much time 'round magicky types."

 

[ChasNicollette]

Ceri and Bruce

Ceri didn't return Bekka's greeting. She had a great deal on her mind. She had wondering about whereabouts to do, and tears to blink back.

Instead, she simply and silently nodded. Agreement.

It was going to be quite a flight. Earnest conversation would pass the time.

But then her dark eyes watched the world fall away and her heart was tied in knots.

Bruce Wayne, meanwhile, sat quietly with fingers steepled. He considered attempting meditating, but he'd not yet gotten the hang of things like za-zen, not really. He had such a hard time clearing his head. (His father's face, his mother's voice...)

Instead, he focused on the old man with the dark heart and the will of steel and the shit-eating grin.

As infectious as that grin was, Bruce Wayne had something of an immunity.

"You still have that ring I lent you?" he wondered. "I only ask because it was given to me by a new acquaintance, and I'm not entirely sure he wouldn't want it back himself."

 

[ChasNicollette]

Lex

"I've always been intrigued by the notion that The Creator and The Deceiver were one and the same," Lex mused. "Often, people are surprised that I'm a God-fearing man. But it's true, I believe. I just believe... differently."

He grinned, though his grin faded a bit when he was reminded, profoundly, how much his jaw ached.

"After all, if The Saviour and The Serpent," he pondered, "are one and the same, would not also salvation and temptation be borne in the same fruit? Makes you wonder, just a bit, doesn't it?"

Lex's lip quirked. "And what I wonder, is who this 'her' is, that a creature of such evident power as yourself would kowtow to her, keeping me 'company' on her behalf. She must be a mighty entity indeed. If I hadn't seen that bitch witch-woman die with my own eyes, I might even worry that you were taking orders from her..."

 

[ChasNicollette]

Jamie

Merick continued to explain his extraplanar mishaps, but Jamie lingered quietly, watching Damian with scrutiny.

(This promised to be a whopper of a wind-up, and Jamie wanted to hear the punchline.)

He whistled, long and low, when Damian exposed the criss-crossed cross-hatching that was his torso. A jigsaw-puzzle epidermis.

Jamie shook his head. "Blimey, Son-of-Bat," he murmured, with a touch of awe, "you've had some cowboys in here."

Absently, he tucked the stethoscope into one of his suit jacket's inner pockets, folding it carefully so it didn't jab him in the side, and he waited while Damian cleansed himself and armoured himself. When the vigilante emerged, Jamie was waiting there leaning against a console with his arms crossed over his chest, looking pensive.

"I'm afraid my assessment of your mum's Sunday Roast hasn't improved much," he mused, "what with the genetic experimentation on her own progeny, and all. Of course, I've no objection to cloning, m'self, so long as the clones in question are treated as proper forms of life rather than an Alpha Primate sort of slave race, or as incubators for countless infectious diseases."

He shrugged, and shoved his hands into his trouser pockets. "Granted, it's easy to say that when you're not the one being cloned, wot?"

"Hope I didnt keep anyone waiting."

Jamie blinked, and realised that Dale was leading the others out into the world, out onto his father's land...

"On the contrary," he blinked again, and grinned, and hurried to join the others, "seems the train's just leaving the station."

 

[Lunaramblings]

Edmund continued to grin as the world lurched and startled. As they began flying he heard Bruce's inquiry about the ring. With deft hands, and a movement so subtle and swift few would have noticed then movement. In one hand he drew out the ring, in the other an old, but intricate knife.

"Son, I have that right here. And also a gift. See, way I see it, this here knife has seen a lot of bloodshed in it's day. I carried with me when I was a boy, through my years in the service. And it has never left my side. Dale, my son, wouldn't accept it. And something tells me Merick's gifts will mean he won't be needing a simple ol' blade like this. So, Bruce Wayne, I would like to give this here trinket to you. So's it might do more good in it's future, than I have in it's past."

Edmund extended both the knife and the ring in the same long out stretched arm. Still smiling, if not a bit knowingly.

"From what I seen son, you have a future. A bright one. One that will bring you to do many a thing that other's might never know about, but will none the less sleep easier, fer yer doin'."

 

[Lunaramblings]

Dale led the rag tag group down an old deer path, and through a field. Eventually they came to a large house. Outside stood several men. All armed formidably.

"McNichol! It's just us. Don't shoot. I personally vouch for this lot. Now let us the hell in." Dale bellowed as the got close enough to be seen clearly.

From the back ranks came a man, easily six and half feet tall, probably closer to seven feet. The man was about Dale's age. His face riddled with pocks and scars. He lifted a massive right hand. And bellowed back, "Yer good ol' friend. McNichol is inside. But he tol' me I better welcome you like you were my own kin."

Dale grinned as they reached the man. "Terry ya old bastard. I didn't realize you were workin for Dad. How ya been." Dale stumbled as the mountain of a man slapped him hard on the back, and then pulled him into a tight embrace.

"Well, after that tour in Middle East and the land mine I didn't get to go to the pros. Yer ol' man showed up in the field hospital, offered me a chance to get a new life. I jumped. He had already arranged my discharge, and he got my medical taken care of by his top guys. What's not to love."

"I am glad it worked out for you. The number of times you saved my ass on the field and in the bars, well lets say I owe ya more than one. We can catch up later. These guys haven't slept in over a day now. Take care Terry."

Dale led the others into the house and pressed a series of buttons on what appeared to be an alarm box by the door. As he finished there was a slight his as a wall in the kitchen dropped into the floor and revealed an elevator.

"Let's go. All aboard." As Dale finished speaking a small man steps out of the elevator. "McNichol, you little shit. Didn't see ya there. Then again I was looking high than my boots."

"Gee, how original. Mock a midget's height. You sure you are Edmund's son? Your a bit dim witted. I set food, drink and cots in the bunker. I sent word to Wintergreen you and your guests are here. Stay in the bunker at all times unless accompanied by me or your father, who I assume is on his way. Good day."

As McNichol turned to walk away Dale reached out and ruffled his hair.

"Always a man of little conversation McNichol. Talk to you a little later. Dale looked over his shoulder and grinned, "Never was one for the small talk. Creepy little bastard. Headed the program I was in in the service. Also a top "information specialist" for a few off the books agencies. Do not give him reason to dislike you."

"One day Dale, one day. Fireplace Man. Don't you dare muck with anything. I swear. I have no patience for your puckish shit today."

Dale leads them onto the elevator and presses the sole button on the console.

 

[ChasNicollette]

Gabe, Pete, Chloe, Jamie, Alfred, and The Cat (leading into post #1839)

Merick discussed things with his parents, explaining deep and incomprehensible visions, a roller-coaster ride Beyond The Shores of Night, and with mystified looks on their faces, others followed along.

"I can't really blame him for getting wound up," Gabe admitted, frowning softly, "if half the things he saw were an eighth real."

"That's some messed up kinda fraction," Pete harrumphed. "Plus, what? How could any of that be real? Chloe, how could any of that be real?"

Chloe grinned softly as she picked her footsteps carefully, testing her legs. (She hadn't been dead long enough for anything to atrophy overmuch, thank God.)

"My question is," she smirked softly, "how come everyone remembers Death's original appearance on Family Guy was Norm MacDonald, but I'm the only one who prefers Adam Carolla's understated, self-deprecating later performances as the character?"

Gabe blinked, once twice and again. "That's. A good question."

Pete scowled, though. "Don't let her get away with that. When she's bugged by a question she can't answer, she makes all Zen master, but it's just a distraction."

"We've spent all this time, Pete," Chloe powered through, half-ignoring him and half meeting him head-on, "digging and digging into the mysteries of Smallville. What if we've just scratched the surface, and not only that, scratched only the surface of the topmost layer of a wonderment that goes down for stratum after stratum? We thought Smallville would explain everything."

She shook her head. "Turns out Smallville is just the beginning."

Dale began to lead the way, and Jamie Hamilton came jogging up. "Oi, did I miss anything?"

Alfred handed the doctor his coat and adjusted his firm but gentle grasp on the nerve-wracked cat. "Apparently," The Gentleman commented wryly, "we're just getting started."

Jamie hauled his coat on, grinning a mystified but beaming smile. "Oh. Right, then! Allons-y!"

 

[ChasNicollette]

Threshold Station

...security at Threshold Station was by very nature Spartan.

Part of this was a diminished budget.

But most of this was secrecy. The fewer knew this place even existed, the better.

Only one man was on security detail at The Station that morning, and he held his gun and his flashlight with his wrists crossed so that the light shone where he'd aimed his gun.

He edged closer to that nigh-abandoned storage bay, silently cursing his luck. He'd already checked this room, and now his superiors were going to think him slacking off in his responsibilities and he was going to be court-martialed for sure.

He whipped around the door, gun at the ready, eyes narrowed, thumbing back the hammer on his sidearm--

krekkaBOOOOM!

--he tumbled backwards and cracked his head against the hallway wall behind him on his way to the floor, gun and flashlight skittering off in opposite directions.

"What the Hell is going on here?" he mumbled, fading from consciousness.

 

[Abraxas Winterlight]

Wraith and Bekka

"I don't 'take orders', we have a agreement. I help her out when I can, she helps me sometimes. The arrangement has worked well in the past for both of us."

"Yes it has Wraith. Hello Lex, fancy meeting you here." said Bekka, her blue eyes twinkling.

 

[TearsoftheWorld]

The door to the Kent Farmhouse was usually open to anyone that wanted to come inside. The door to the Kent Farmhouse was usually closed when private matters of the family were an issue, and though Jonathan had quite a few words he wanted to say to his daughter, tonight just didn't seem to be the night to speak them.

So he opened the door and let Rose come inside.

Kara had been sitting on the couch, talking a few things over with Martha. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Rose enter frame, and before any words could be exchanged she saw Rose come at her full speed (with the limp, of course), and in a matter of seconds they were both embracing each other like long-lost friends.

Kara herself was almost at the point of getting misty-eyed, but she was more smiles than anything.

"I'm glad you're okay too," Kara said, almost at a loss for words.

Martha looked warmly at Rose, almost humorously given her attitude towards their daughter and the sincerity in her words.

"I think we might let her off with a warning this time," Martha said as she glanced at Kara first and then her husband.

"Rose we'd prefer that our daughter stay home for a bit," Jonathan said, but his wife gave him a look that made him rethink his stance.

"But... I don't think we can really keep you two apart for very long. Just don't... go to China again, alright?. Try to stay within national borders, at least," Jonathan said, relenting in his position.

Kara smiled brightly as she looked up at her father, but then she happily stood up on her feet and bent down to take hold of Rose's hands, lifting her up onto her feet as well.

"How about we go to Japan this time? Or did you have something else in mind?"

 

[ChasNicollette]

Lex

'Wraith.'

Lex tried that on for size.

He'd always envisioned wraiths as being more incorporeal creatures: at the very least skeletal and at the very most a phantasm. But perhaps the accuracy of the monster's nomenclature was the least of his concerns.

Because the woman who had spoken Wraith's nom de guerre was a formidable one after all. She was no Countess, but she was still... formidable.

He inclined his head to her in a mockery of graciousness.

"I suppose I should have seen this coming," he mused. "The darling of Homeland Security herself. How's business, Greystone?"

He then flickered his eyes to Wraith for a moment, and smiled a little demon smile.

"I was just debating the vagaries of Jungian archetypes," he suggested to Bekka, eyes glinting, "with your grumpy-guts of a valet."

 

[Abraxas Winterlight]

Wraith & Bekka

"Business is fantastic Lex, as you well know. Lionel doesn't keep you out of the loop that much. Your scotch," she said, opening up a cabinet and pulling out a glass and a decanter of amber liquid, "Three cubes, if I remember correctly."

Bekka finished pouring the drink and wheeled her way over to Lex, handing him the glass.

"Now I am not going to ask you what you were doing in China, you wouldn't give me the answer just like I won't answer you about the plane your in or why I was there. But there is no reason we can't be civil. Just keep the blind down though. Those pesky secrets I was talking about."

She smiled at Lex and wheeled herself back to the cabinet, pouring herself a glass of wine.

"So Lex, do I need to have my medical people look you over, or does some scotch and a meal all you need to get better?"


I hadn't seen my sister in her element before. This was ... interesting. I kept doing my wooden Indian imitation, my eyes never leaving the Luthor in the room.

 

[ChasNicollette]

Chloe (during post #1839)

Dale led the rag tag group down an old deer path, and through a field.

And carefully, carefully, Chloe walked.

The long grass brushed her ankles and the dawning day felt good on her achy body.

It felt good to be alive.

(What a weird thing to think about. How it felt to be alive.)

But her senses were a little bit perked up now after having been out of the loop for a few minutes and the sun felt warm and the breeze sounded welcoming and the wide wide lands looked like Paradise and the grass smelled green and good and lovely and she tasted--

She licked her lips. Ran her tongue around inside her mouth.

She hadn't noticed it before, but there was faint minty aftertaste.

It tasted like. Chewing gum. Stride?

Her eyes went way wide. Pete chews Stride.

Pete. Were you kissing me?

She opened her mouth to ask, to demand an answer to this but then a whole different sensation intruded, one not included in the original five. A sixth sensation.

'Chloe...'

And it was one she immediately recognised, and while she stumbled minutely, she managed to keep her step as her eyes widened even further.

Her brow furrowed. She pushed her brain her thoughts her mind her astral self in the direction of that sensation and while she doubted she could escape the confines of her skull she thought maybe a wisp of a tendril of a notion of a sentence might get clear...

'Professor Smith? Did... did I just imagine that?

Am I reading this right?

Where are you right now? (Or are you right here, and you're just haunting me 'cause I let you down?)'

She glanced around herself, frowning, trying to see if she could detect any spectral manifestations...

Eventually they came to a large house. Outside stood several men. All armed formidably.

 

[ChasNicollette]

Bruce

Bruce reached out and took the ring, pocketing it in Damian's lead-lined pouch.

And then, gazing hard at Slade, face utterly expressionless and eyes storm-tossed and dark, he reached out, and he wrapped his fingers 'round the handle of the knife.

"Does a person imbue an object they wield with their own nature?" he wondered, coolly, rhetorically. "Or does an object imbue the person that wields it with its nature?"

He retrieved his hand, and examined the knife with a cool hard gaze, watching the light dance upon the steel.

"Do you become a killer because you use a knife designed for killing," he contemplated. "Or do you use a knife for killing because all along you've had killing in the fibres of your flesh?"

He twirled the knife over his fingers, switching his grip to underhand for a moment, gazing across the flat of the blade at Edmund Tennylson.

"Can a man study the methods of murderers and thieves," he asked, though whether he was asking Edmund or asking no-one in particular wasn't immediately clear, "without becoming both of these himself?"

 

[Lunaramblings]

Edmund looked long at Bruce. He considered the question laid before him.

Edmund leaned forward and and put a hand on Bruce's arm.

"Son, the fact you care to ask those questions makes you a better man than me." Edmund leaned back again and closed his eyes.

 

[ChasNicollette]

Lex

"Mm," Lex murmured, sipping the Scotch with a graciousness that was not even slightly faked, letting the stuff slide down his throat before he exhaled emphatically. "Yes, I doubt I'd tell you my reasons for being in China. Do I even need a reason? It's a free country."

He paused, eyes dancing with wicked wit.

"Ah, no, I suppose China isn't a free country. Shame, really."

Lex watched the skill and agility with which Bekka Greystone had adapted to her... condition. Her arms were as elegant as they were strong; her upper-body physique was likely as not a thing to be dreaded. Lex decided he never wanted to arm-wrestle Bekka Greystone.

He sipped his Scotch again, and glanced at the blinded windows.

"I suppose I can owe you your supposed secrets," he decided, pseudo-magnanimous, gesturing with the Scotch glass so the ice-cubes clinked, "given the apparent dignity with which you're carting me about."

Lex smirked dismissively, however, at the notion that he needed medical attention.

"D'you know I haven't been sick a single time since I was a little boy?" he mused. "Had a rough start of it, but in exchange for my full head of red hair, I haven't suffered a single viral malady nor bacterial infection. Your doctors can save their medicine for more... compromised individuals."

He wondered whether or not Greystone's absurdly armoured bodyguard would possess sufficient intellect to perceive a slight against Bekka's being wheelchair-bound. He hadn't honestly meant it like that, but he worded it accordingly to see if he could get a rise out of the big guerrilla gorilla galoot.

Lex had survived a lot today, and he was feeling pretty invincible.

 

[ChasNicollette]

Rose

"I'm glad you're okay too," Kara said, almost at a loss for words.

"Me?" Rose grinned, highly ironic considering her outward condition, her physical exhaustion, copycatting something her father always said: "'I'm always okay.'"

Rose's face brightened like a sunrise when Martha suggested they might relent.

Rose's face fell like an avalanche when Jonathan back-pedaled this, grimly opposed to letting his daughter out to play when she'd just risked her life to Save The World how dare she?

But then Martha gave Jonathan that look that mothers and wives sometimes give fathers and husbands and Jonathan had to shift gears in a hurry...

...he, too, let Kara off the hook and Rose's face was free to brighten once more.

Kara helped Rose to her feet as easily as lifting a feather, and Rose couldn't help but grin sheepishly... such strength, such impossible strength, and yet Kara was still so gentle. Rose had found Kara amazing when she thought her human, but even now that Rose knew otherwise, Kara was so much more amazing... and yet, so so much more human.

"How about we go to Japan this time? Or did you have something else in mind?"

Rose's sheepish grin turned into a carnival of delight. "Holy God, that would be so cool, I've heard that Shinjuku Gyoen is absolutely gorgeous during hanami season, and I've always wanted to--"

She stopped, and blinked, and smacked herself in the forehead with one hand.

Stupid attention span!

"I mean, uh," she shook her head, "no, I was, I was thinking, if we're sight-seeing, I was thinking more closer to home. Something more Native. There are these caves over by Miller's Bend, and-and-and that's not outside national borders, that's barely testing the town boundaries. Would that be cool?"