BLUE SKIES

Summary: She should walk away, but she doesn't. Post Obscura.

Rating: K

Disclaimer: I don't own.

The rain falls down in sheets, soaking her despite the umbrella she has. She shivers as the rain rolls off her black umbrella. She should walk away, but she doesn't.

Everyone speaks of rain as if it cleanses. The rain washes over her but it doesn't cleanse her. It comes down and the puddles grow and the fragments she's become slowly float away, leaving her a broken doll.

She watches Clark and Lana, watches how the two can't keep their eyes off each other. Watches how at the funeral for Whitney's father, it's like they're in their own little world. Their room might aptly be called heartbreak center because their gazes are simply heartbreaking.

And, at the same time eerily sad. This is a funeral, not of Clark and Lana's relationship but it feels like that to her. It feels like she's an interloper, a voyeur when she shouldn't be. She came to the funeral to offer up moral support but now she wishes she hadn't ventured past the cemetery gates.

A better person than she is would just walk away. A better person would accept defeat, would admit that Clark will never love her like he does Lana. A better person would help Clark find a way to make it with Lana. A better person would do everything she's not willing to do.

A saying passes through her mind. If you love someone, set them free.

She loves Clark but she's not willing to set him free. Not that he's her, not yet, but they're in the process of evolving their relationship from friendship to romance. It's a gradual thing but Clark's already committed to it, despite the fact that he still clearly loves Lana.

Second choice is never what a person wants to be but she's willing to be this if it means having Clark to herself. She's selfish that way. She wants to have Clark's love. She loves him but if she did let him go then there's no doubt in her mind that he'd never fly back to her. Because in this world Lana's the one Clark loves and she's just the one who loves Clark.

(And that's not the ending to the story that she wants. It's not the ending she's willing to accept.)

If she succeeds in getting Clark, though, she thinks he might be able to fall in love with her. If she manages to tear him away from Lana long enough then there's a chance. Maybe if he visits her in Metropolis, far from Smallville and Lana, during the summer while she interns at The Daily Planet, then it might work. She might be able to make him forget about Lana long enough for him to realize that there's a wonderful girl in front of him.

This all makes her pathetically dependent on Clark. She knows this and doesn't care, doesn't care if it means that her love might not really be real but just some teenage girl crush thing that's been blown out of proportions. She doesn't really care. She loves Clark and that's who she wants. She sets goals and she achieves them.

(She won't go back to be the girl her mother left behind. She won't be the one left behind.)

She should walk away from the funeral and from Clark but she can only walk away from the funeral. She can't walk away from Clark. She loves him and while he doesn't love her yet, one day he will. He has to because this story is going to end with a happy ending. She needs that happy ending; otherwise she might go simply insane.

It's going to be Clark and Chloe, not Clark and Lana. She's sure of that ending. It's the right ending, the fitting ending. It's the ending that should happen.

But, as the rain soaks her to the skin as she walks home from the funeral, alone, and she thinks that she won't get the ending she wants. And for a brief moment she wonders if maybe she's being delusional and if maybe she shouldn't just let Clark go. Let him be free. But then the moment passes and Clark catches up to her, just as soaked as she is, in a million fragments too. He takes her hand and it's like the bird that flew back, only not because she never really let Clark go.

There are always exceptions to the rule and so she accepts his hand and the moment of doubt passes and she thinks that she will get her happy ending afterall. It should be hers, anyways, and she'll do just about anything to get it.

She isn't as pure as Lana but that's okay. She'll get what she wants in the end and Lana will be left out in the cold, and that's just fine with her.

Afterall, don't they also say that all's fair in love and war. Lana may have Clark's love now, but Chloe intends to win the war.

The End