Mercy

Chapter Twelve

Her heart was beating steadily in her chest as she carefully moved the small piece of Kryptonite underneath the microscope. Over the past few days, she had been setting up her experiments based largely on the research already done by the DEO, and surprisingly by Maxwell Lord (she may have taken a peek into his servers as well, just to confirm her information). And had started to set up for the basic tests she wanted to run, yes she already had the answers, but she wanted to get them herself, if you want something done right and all.

She had been in her warehouse since dawn, going over her findings and comparing them with what the DEO had, and made a mental note to return home and go over Lex's own notes on the radioactive rock.

It was nearing twelve o'clock when she finally moved away from her computer and stretched, she was going to be late if she didn't leave now. She had a notepad to her right and had made a few observations and jotted down a few questions she wanted to answer, and to her left, there was a large tray of the radioactive rock. She had taken it out to look at it closer, and may have been enjoying the color— yes she was aware it was radiation but she knew that she'd be dead long before any of the radiation damaged her cells enough to kill or change her, so she felt safe looking at it from a distance for a few hours.

There was an almost empty bottle of water next to her notepad; she'd been having sharp headaches lately and had taken to drinking more water than normal to try to combat it; it hadn't worked, neither had the aspirin she'd been taking. She was almost ready to go to the doctor and then remembered that Dr. Alan was dead so she'd have to find another one.

She had planned to meet Kara in half an hour at Noonan's near CatCo, so she'd need to leave soon if she wanted to get there on time.

It was as she was rising that a bout of nausea hit her and her hand turned white on the edge of the table for a moment until it vanished, and she idly considered the thought she could be pregnant, but she hadn't had sex in at least six months, and the last person she'd been with was a woman, so no baby for her. Breathing heavily she straightened and took a step forward when her headache roared with a vengeance and she brought her hands to her head at the pain.

"Argh," she groaned and stumbled against the table. To its credit it held fast under her weight, barely sliding at all.

Shaking her head she felt her heart rate increase as she realized her vision was slowly turning grey and she jerked her head around for her cell phone, before remembering it was over by her bike because she had purposely had this place built so that there wasn't any reception unless you connected to the private Wi-fi which would act as a signal tower.

She fell to the ground with a cry tearing its way from her lips, her chest was aching and contracting as though she had run a great marathon and she swore her ribs were trying to crush her. Tears were streaming down her face and she was thankful for her waterproof mascara, appearances were everything.

Panting she tried to rise to her feet, only to have them collapse underneath her, the chair rolling out of her reach. Her skull was pounding, increasing in tempo with her heart rate until it blurred into a solid sound and she screamed again, forcing herself upright, hands grabbing for something, anything.

One of her arms was half over the table, holding the rest of her weight up as her vision went black and she fumbled around. Her grasping fingers caught the tray of Kryptonite and she fell back with a scream, giving in to the pain as though someone was trying to crush her skull in their hands. The Kryptonite tipped on her and it was heavy on her body, weighing her down even though it wasn't physically heavy, and the small sharp edges were digging into her skin, she wondered if it was drawing blood.

She had never been in so much pain in her entire life, not even when she had fallen from a tree and broken her leg, it was like that pain only in every bone in her body, and all at once, and she couldn't take it anymore. There was a roaring in her head getting louder of the steady drum of her heartbeat and she reached for it, anything to end the pain. Her vision turned to white, blinding white like the sun and then there was nothing.