#cliffie

[starryeyesxx]

Galaxy Sub with Pepper Jack. Does that mean anything to you?

[isqbelevans]

Michael & Isabel

[lena-in-a-red-dress]

Crisis Redo Pt 15

Lena tries to take Kara's words to heart. She truly does. When they return home that morning, she gives her mom a long, fierce hug-- but it's silent. She can't find a lie to tell in place of the truth that's been weighing on her, so she says nothing at all, hoping that her mother will feel her love and be comforted by it.

She suspects it doesn't assuage her mother's worry, but her mom only kisses her forehead and makes her favorite comfort food for lunch.  Neither of them mention the silence.

In the days and weeks that follow, Lena makes an effort to remain upbeat. She forces smiles until they eventually feel natural again, and when Lillian doesn't make another appearance, they do come easier. She relies on her routine-- her morning jogs, her stop by the bakery truck on her way to work, and the comfort of seeing her patients every day.

She finds escape in the sniffles Rosemary reports, and the resurgence of Mr. Gibbens corns. A prenatal visit here, a follow up there. Nothing that Lillian Luthor would ever find pride in, but Lena takes solace in the mundane, knowing that she's making her small differences with every patient she sees.

Kara visits every weekend as she has been, and for a while, it feels like things might just be okay. For good.

One night, Lena wraps up her final patient visit a little later than usual, caught up in friendly chit chat on Frances' way out. When the woman finally leaves, Lena goes about her routine of refreshing the exam room for the next morning. She wipes down the exam table, straightens the visitor chair, and double checks the stock.

It's simple, familiar work, and she lets her mind drift as she does it.

What Lena doesn't hear is the sound of the front door quietly opening, or the unfamiliar steps of a stranger walking through the waiting room.

It's not until a floorboard creaks behind her that Lena snaps back into her senses. Too late, she registers the click of a gun cocking.

Before she even has time to turn, something punches her in the back, sending her stumbling into the exam table. Blood splatters across the freshly cleaned vinyl, and Lena stares in shock as it glistens in the overhead light.

Lena collapses then, crumpling to the ground. When she remembers to breathe, the pain hits, hot and searing across her back and chest. Coughing, she struggles to inhale again, but the breath drags in her chest, scraping against her ribs, and she knows at least one of her lungs is damaged.

Ears ringing, Lena struggles to focus.

Her phone is in her desk, where she'd left it after resonding to Kara's text on her last break. The rolling cabinet to her left holds bandages-- in its top two drawers, which she has little hope of reaching. There are even tampons in the bathroom, if she could manage to crawl that far and use them to plug the hole in her back.

Cabinet. It's the closest-- she'll deal with reaching the top drawer when she gets there.

But Lena's limbs don't work right. They're thick, heavy, unwieldy. Her head is pointed away from the cabinet, and she can barely muster the strength to push onto her hands and knees, let alone turn around.

Still, she tries.

She gets halfway, and freezes when heavy boots step into her line of vision. Realization dawns slowly, her unvoiced plea for help dying in her throat: the shooter hasn't left.

Lena lifts her head, straight into the barrel of the gun that's already shot her. The face beyond is blurry and indistinct, but she sees the shape of a smirk as a thumb pulls the hammer back a second time.

---

Lillian scowls out the window, resentful of the night that comes so swiftly in winter. She sighs-- at least it spares her the sight of the outskirts of Willow Creek.

This time, she comes to visit her daughter with a peace offering: a job offer, at National City Trauma Center as their head of surgery.

Lena's history in a metropolitan hospital before coming to Willow Creek and her occasional assists around National City was enough to get Lena's name on the table-- Lillian's sizeable donation to the children's ward will be enough to clinch the board's decision.

The position is close to Lena's... friends, Lillian allows, and remains close enough to Willow Creek that Lena will be able to visit her birth mother whenever she pleases. But most importantly, it will bring Lena closer to her, giving them a chance to repair their fractured relationship.

Lillian knows she's made mistakes, especially with Lena. Having memories of a life devoid of Lena has been enough to confirm her world is lesser for it. She wants to make things right, and this is how it starts.

But when the towncar parks in front of Lena's practice, Lillian's confidence is replaced with a sense of wrongness-- theirs is the only car in the lot, after business hours... yet the inlaid front door stands ajar, spilling warm light onto the dark porch.

"Stay here," Lillian tells her driver, climbing out of the vehicle. She crosses the walk and porch steps in swift strides, bursting through the front door with alarm high in her chest.

"Lena?"

She wills her daughter to call out, from her exam room, or her office deeper in the house. But when Lillian turns into the patient waiting room, her entire world comes screeching to a halt.

"LENA!"

[ssfoc]

I love watching Louis talk about Clifford. He is so full of love and pride - you can just hear it in his voice and see it in his body language. Then I watch him talk about his supposed ‘child’ and he’s totally robotic. It’s quite telling.

At the end of the day, you love who you love, there ain’t no other way.

[animalsarepeople2]

*cackles*

[starryeyesxx]

[starryeyesxx]

[starryeyesxx]