Title: By way of repayment
Author: Candace
Disclaimer: Um, I have just enough money to pay tuition and buy books this semester, so please don't sue. I needs me an edjamacation!!
Summary: Kind of dark alternate ending to Obscura. What if Watts' plan had been less "harmless"? C/C (I don't think I can do anything else :P), if you need a ship
A/N: I am SO not an angsty person. I LOVE fluff. I don't watch the news or watch "tearjerkers" cause I have a personal belief that there's enough sadness in the world, I don't need to go looking for it. All that is to say that this really isn't my usual style. Chiri did dark and kind of inspired me to try it. If it sucks, I'd actually like to know that. I didn't get it beta'd so all booboos are mine.
Avenge (verb): To inflict punishment by way of repayment
Clark knew he wasn't supposed to be there. He knew it as he watched the nurses pass him as he crouched behind an empty bed that had been left in the hall. He knew it as he watched the curly headed nurse giggle at the person on the other end of her personal call. He knew it as he watched her duck her head in an embarrassed whisper, giving him enough time to get into the room that he had been crouched beside.
As he closed the door gently behind himself he wished that the door had a lock on it. After all, no one was supposed to be in this room at this hour. Only immediate family had been able to see its occupant at all, but even they had been forced to leave after visiting hours were over.
Clark, of course had seen her first. Seen the outline of her bones under the mound of freshly packed dirt that had been piled on top of her. Seen her mouth, cut in places, as it widened to suck air in hungry gulps after Clark had pulled her coffin from the moist earth. Seen her fingernails ragged and torn from trying to claw her way out as her hands reached up to touch his cheek and neck, reassuring herself that he was really there and she was really alive. He had seen her eyes, one more swollen than the other, as they closed when she passed out, allowing Clark to run with her to the nearest hospital.
But there was something that Clark didn't see when he had looked at Chloe. Something he didn't even see when he had x-rayed her body to check for broken bones. Something he didn't even know he had overlooked until he looked into Gabe Sullivan's eyes as the older man entered the hospital's lobby after sitting with Chloe. Even as Mr. Sullivan told Chloe's waiting friends and family that she was going to be "just fine", Clark knew there was something he wasn't saying. Lana had just smiled shakily at the news and turned to hug Whitney, clinging to him as they left the hospital together. Clark's parents had gone to comfort Gabe, sharing bits of knowledge learned from times when they had worried about their own child. Pete merely stood and squeezed Clark's shoulder before walking down the disinfectant coated corridor that led to the cool night air of the outside. But Clark had stared at Chloe's father watching his eyes dart from the walls, to his own mother's face, and then to himself. He stared into the red puffy eyes and saw something beneath the sadness.something dead on the inside of Gabe Sullivan that made Clark promise himself he would see Chloe tonight.
That promise had brought him here, looking at the small girl lying in a bed in the center of the room.
Chloe.
And just as quickly after. "Mine."
A wave of possessiveness washed over Clark as he looked at the girl who was always the first person he asked for help, the only person he took fashion advice from, and the one who made him laugh, think, and wonder.
He watched silently, holding his own breath, as he watched Chloe's chest rise and fall rhythmically. He noticed that her eye had swollen further and had turned an ugly shade of purple and that a gash across her forehead had been bandaged with gauze. As she turned slightly in her sleep the starched sheet slipped from her leg and Clark almost gasped out loud at the large bruise he saw on her thigh.
As Clark watched, Chloe stirred and then sat up slowly in her bed. Clark knew she couldn't see him as he stood in the shadows of the room, but somehow her gaze locked on him as if she had sensed him rather that seen him.
She spoke in a whisper with her voice hoarse from sleep, "Clark?"
"Yeah Chloe, I'm here," he said softly as he stepped into the light coming from a small bedside lamp.
Chloe nodded almost imperceptively as if acknowledging some inner voice that told her that Clark would come.
"Chloe?" Clark asked when Chloe's eyes never met his. He walked to the left side of her bed and sat lightly on the edge.
"Chloe? Come on, look at me. Please?" Clark begged softly as he ducked his head to Chloe's level, hoping to catch her gaze.
Chloe slowly lifted her eyes to his, tears already rolling down her face.
Clark's heart broke at the pain he saw in her face. He gathered her small frame to him gently, careful to avoid her injuries, and allowed her to sob on his shoulder. He smoothed her hair and rubbed her back as her body shook in his arms.
As the crying subsided he kissed the top of her head. Chloe pulled away enough to look at Clark's face. Clark looked at her, then brushed a falling tear from her cheek with the pad of his thumb before leaning in to place a kiss where the tear had been. Chloe leaned into his touch and he placed a second kiss at the corner of her mouth. When Chloe tilted her head back slightly, Clark hesitantly pressed his lips against hers with gentle pressure. He parted his lips slightly and ran his tongue across her lower lip tasting the faint coppery taste of her blood as he passed a small cut on her lip. Chloe opened her mouth to him and Clark deepened the kiss.
Suddenly Chloe jerked herself away with a choked cry, pushing Clark away from her.
"No!" she said in a strained whisper.
Clark jumped away from her and off the bed as if he had been burned.
"Chloe, I'm so sorry. God, I'm so stupid. I shouldn't have done that. I'll go, I'm so sorry," he stuttered looking at Chloe apologetically as he made a move to leave the room.
Chloe reached out and grabbed his wrist, "Clark, no. No! It's not you..it's just.." Chloe stared at Clark, her eyes begging him to understand what she couldn't bring herself to say.
Clark stared into her eyes as they flashed between fear, anger, and shame and he realized what Gabe Sullivan hadn't told everyone else.
"Jesus Christ," he whispered to himself. He sat quickly in an uncomfortable chair by Chloe's bed with his head bent down, feeling waves of nausea pass over him.
"God, Chloe. He...?" he couldn't say the words as he looked at Chloe.
Chloe only nodded her head and looked away.
"Jesus," he said again, running his hands through his hair while he stood.
He went to stand beside Chloe and again gathered her to him, talking into her hair, "I.I should have been there. I should have done something."
Clark paused and placed a kiss on her head before taking a step back, "Chloe, I have to go. I need to..I'll be here in the morning even if they say I can't. I promise I'll be here, but I have to."
His flat, almost mechanical, words hung in the air as he turned and left the room, leaving Chloe to cry herself back to sleep.
*** Exactly 37 seconds later Clark was banging his hand furiously on Lana Lang's front door. He saw a light come on inside as someone yelled for him to stop knocking. Seconds later, Nell Potter stepped out in a terrycloth bathrobe.
"Clark? What in God's name are you doing here in the middle of the night?" she asked with angry eyes.
"I need to speak to Lana" Clark said, seeming to rush to get the words out.
"Clark, it's too late, she's asleep. You can talk to her tomorrow."
"Please, Miss Potter. It's very important."
Nell looked at Clark for a moment, considering telling him again that whatever it was could wait, but something about Clark's eyes made her change her mind. They were pleading with her, but there was urgency in them that almost scared her.
"You have 10 minutes, Clark. I'll go get her," Nell said with a parental warning in her voice.
Clark gave her a brief "thanks" and sat down on the lowest step of the porch with his head in his hands.
Lana came down a few moments later and Clark wanted to laugh at how her cheerful pajamas contrasted with what he was feeling.
"Clark?" Lana asked worriedly, "What's wrong?"
Clark looked at her as she said down beside him, "Lana, I need you to do something for me."
"Do you need my necklace again? I have it in my."
"I need you to try to connect with the man who kidnapped Chloe. I need you to tell me where he is," he interrupted.
"Clark.I.I don't know if I can," Lana said after a brief pause.
"Lana, please?"
".But the connection has always just come in flashes. I don't know if I can just force it to." she started.
"Lana, can't you even try?"
He didn't yell or raise his voice at all, but the fierceness in which he said it made Lana jerk away.
"I'm sorry," he amended more softly, "this is just very important."
Lana nodded and her body relaxed with the softer words, "I'll try Clark."
Clark watched as Lana closed her eyes and sat perfectly still. Many minutes passed with Clark waiting and Lana sitting so still that he almost shook her to see if she was okay. Then as if she were waking from a nightmare, Lana jerked herself upright with one hand flung out to grab the stair railing as she grabbed her head with the other. Clark reached out to steady her. Then, as quickly as it started, whatever had possessed her body let it go and she slumped back to the bottom step.
She took a moment to regulate her breathing before she spoke, "He's where I saw Chloe before, the room with all the teddy bears. There was an old Ferris wheel outside. I think it's the old Carnival grounds. He's.he's trying to get rid of something he thinks he left behind."
"Thank you Lana. Really, thank you. Go try to get some sleep, ok?"
"Can't you even tell me what you're doing?"
"I'm sorry," Clark said after shaking his head.
Lana just sighed and got up to go back inside. As she reached the top step, she turned around with another question on her lips, but Clark was gone. Lana suddenly noticed how black the darkness was beyond her front porch. She shivered and went back in the house, only stopping to make a phone call first. She prayed, for Clark's sake, that the cops would get there before he did.
*** Clark stared silently as Officer Watts looked around the room. The older man was wearing latex gloves as he went about the room looking around and under objects.
"What are you looking for?" Clark asked as he moved out of the shadows and into the light in the room.
Watts' hand reflexively went to the gun on his waist at the voice, but his hand dropped from it when he saw that it was Clark.
"What are you doing here kid? Don't you have a bedtime or something?"
"I asked you what you were looking for," Clark repeated.
The officer rolled his eyes, but seemed to decide that he would humor the teen, "I'm looking for evidence for a case. Just making sure we didn't miss anything."
"You mean making sure you didn't miss anything. I guess it's true how they say that the criminal always returns to the scene of the crime."
"Look kid, I don't know what you're getting at, but I think you need to go on home now."
"Why did you do it? How could you do it? You're a cop for Christ's sake. Her name is Chloe, in case you were wondering. Chloe Elaine Sullivan. She'll be 16 in December."
"Get out of here kid, I'm warning you" Watts said, slightly less confident than before.
"She lives with her dad and stepmother; her real mom died in a car wreck when she was seven. There's a path between her house and mine; it only takes her 8 minutes to walk it. She lives to work on the school newspaper and wants to work at the Daily Planet when she's older. She's not popular, but she doesn't care. She has a tiny mole on the back of her left knee and she thinks getting hate mail means she struck a nerve."
"Shut up" Watts said almost to himself, visibly shaking.
Clark took steps towards Watts as he spoke while the older man continued to back away.
"She kissed me on the first day I met her. It was my first kiss. She's my best friend and.. more if she wants it to be. I kissed her again tonight, our third kiss, and I tasted blood from a cut on her lip. She jerked away from me. She looked at me for a second like I scared her. She was scared for me to touch her. Why do you think that is? Do you have any idea?"
Watts had been shaking while listening, but as Clark began to question him he stopped backing away from Clark and pulled out his gun, aiming it at Clark and wiping sweat from his brow with the his shoulder sleeve. Clark listened as he began to talk and only hoped that Lana was asleep and dreaming by now.
"You can say what you want, but I'm the one with the gun. Now you get out or I shoot you, it's that simple."
"Did you threaten Chloe too? Is that how you got her to stay quiet? To be still while you did what you did to her? Or is that scratch on your face proof that she fought back?"
Watts aimed the gun at Clark's chest and almost smiled in smug satisfaction as he pulled the trigger.
The bullet hit Clark's chest and fell to the ground while Clark kept talking as if nothing had happened.
"Did Chloe fight you? Did she do her best to keep you off of her even though you were bigger and stronger than she was?
Watts aimed lower, attempting to avoid the bulletproof vest that he thought Clark must have been wearing. Another bullet was deflected, this time off of Clark's right leg.
"Did she scream for you to stop? Beg for you to leave her alone? Did she cry?"
Two more bullets hit Clark before he finally stepped close enough to knock the gun from the man's hands as Watts stared at him in fear and awe. Clark grabbed him by his neck and held him in place against the wall that he had backed into, lifting his feet from the ground.
"How does it feel to be helpless? To be pinned down by someone so much stronger than you? Do feel pathetic that you can't do anything to fight back? Ashamed that I could do whatever I want to you and you couldn't stop me?" Clark taunted.
"Please" Watts choked out as he clawed at Clark's hands wrapped around his neck, hungry for air.
"Please? Please?" Clark screamed in his face, " Did Chloe say 'please' when she begged you not to touch her? Do you know how easy it would be for me to kill you right now? Don't you think my friend deserves to know that you can never hurt her again?"
Watts eyes widened in fear just before they rolled back in his head as the lack of oxygen caused him to pass out. Clark stood for a moment feeling Watts' strong pulse grow weaker under his fingers. He wondered how long it would take the pulse to stop altogether.
"I want him to die."
The thought seared through Clark's mind like a white-hot iron. He dropped Watts and stepped back, staring at his own hands in horror.
As he heard police sirens in the distance he continued to back away. Watts began to stir, but as his eyes opened he saw he was alone in the room.
***
Across town Lana woke up in a cold sweat. She couldn't remember the nightmare, but she wasn't sure she wanted to. She only remembered waking up with a desperate need for air, shaking as she breathed in lungfuls of oxygen. Suddenly she felt herself transported. She heard police sirens very close, shrilling in her head, making it hard to think. She felt the need to run, to hide. She saw through another's eyes as he found his gun only feet from where he had been lying. She saw as cops rushed in the building, tipped off by an anonymous phone call. She saw the officers slowly raise their guns, hesitant to shoot one of their own. She felt the tugging of logic telling her to put the gun down and think up an excuse, but the fear and confusion bubbled up and killed all rational thoughts, she just wanted to get out. She saw a pair of hands come up before her, hands seemingly connected to her own body, clasping a silver gun between them. She saw the bullet as it came towards her, the horror in the eyes of the fellow officer who had fired it. She saw red. Then, she saw nothing. Lana fell back in her bed, suddenly alone in her own mind.
***
Clark wordlessly entered the hospital room as the sun began to shine though the slats in the white blinds. Chloe opened her eyes and the two stared at each other in silence, Chloe understanding what Clark didn't say. Without a word, Chloe moved over in her bed and Clark came to lie beside her, wrapping a strong arm around her waist and burying his face in her shoulder. Chloe played with his hair as her tears fell onto the dark strands, feeling his body shake with his own pain. They laid together and cried for themselves and for each other; one so brutally aware of the evil living in the world, one newly aware of the evil living within himself.
***
The nurse entered the room hours later, carrying a breakfast tray. She stopped in the doorway when she saw the couple. The boy's arm was protectively draped across the girl's small waist while his other was bent and tucked under his head. The sunlight flooding the room gave a glow to the girl's blond hair, making her look like an angel despite the bruised eye that the hair failed to cover
The nurse watched as the girl stirred slightly in her sleep and the boy seemed to naturally draw her closer to him. Her blond head nestled under his chin and her breathing slowed to the deep regular rhythm that comes with restful sleep.
The nurse saw pain in the two, far past the physical pain that was evident on the small girl's frame. And yet, as their chests rose and fell together, breathing in sync with each other, she saw healing too. Healing that would come with more pain, but healing that would come.
The nurse shook her head, shaking herself from the trance that the two teens seemed to put over her. She clucked her tongue at herself, but somehow as she left the room she knew she had witnessed the first moments of something special, something beautiful.
Author: Candace
Disclaimer: Um, I have just enough money to pay tuition and buy books this semester, so please don't sue. I needs me an edjamacation!!
Summary: Kind of dark alternate ending to Obscura. What if Watts' plan had been less "harmless"? C/C (I don't think I can do anything else :P), if you need a ship
A/N: I am SO not an angsty person. I LOVE fluff. I don't watch the news or watch "tearjerkers" cause I have a personal belief that there's enough sadness in the world, I don't need to go looking for it. All that is to say that this really isn't my usual style. Chiri did dark and kind of inspired me to try it. If it sucks, I'd actually like to know that. I didn't get it beta'd so all booboos are mine.
Avenge (verb): To inflict punishment by way of repayment
Clark knew he wasn't supposed to be there. He knew it as he watched the nurses pass him as he crouched behind an empty bed that had been left in the hall. He knew it as he watched the curly headed nurse giggle at the person on the other end of her personal call. He knew it as he watched her duck her head in an embarrassed whisper, giving him enough time to get into the room that he had been crouched beside.
As he closed the door gently behind himself he wished that the door had a lock on it. After all, no one was supposed to be in this room at this hour. Only immediate family had been able to see its occupant at all, but even they had been forced to leave after visiting hours were over.
Clark, of course had seen her first. Seen the outline of her bones under the mound of freshly packed dirt that had been piled on top of her. Seen her mouth, cut in places, as it widened to suck air in hungry gulps after Clark had pulled her coffin from the moist earth. Seen her fingernails ragged and torn from trying to claw her way out as her hands reached up to touch his cheek and neck, reassuring herself that he was really there and she was really alive. He had seen her eyes, one more swollen than the other, as they closed when she passed out, allowing Clark to run with her to the nearest hospital.
But there was something that Clark didn't see when he had looked at Chloe. Something he didn't even see when he had x-rayed her body to check for broken bones. Something he didn't even know he had overlooked until he looked into Gabe Sullivan's eyes as the older man entered the hospital's lobby after sitting with Chloe. Even as Mr. Sullivan told Chloe's waiting friends and family that she was going to be "just fine", Clark knew there was something he wasn't saying. Lana had just smiled shakily at the news and turned to hug Whitney, clinging to him as they left the hospital together. Clark's parents had gone to comfort Gabe, sharing bits of knowledge learned from times when they had worried about their own child. Pete merely stood and squeezed Clark's shoulder before walking down the disinfectant coated corridor that led to the cool night air of the outside. But Clark had stared at Chloe's father watching his eyes dart from the walls, to his own mother's face, and then to himself. He stared into the red puffy eyes and saw something beneath the sadness.something dead on the inside of Gabe Sullivan that made Clark promise himself he would see Chloe tonight.
That promise had brought him here, looking at the small girl lying in a bed in the center of the room.
Chloe.
And just as quickly after. "Mine."
A wave of possessiveness washed over Clark as he looked at the girl who was always the first person he asked for help, the only person he took fashion advice from, and the one who made him laugh, think, and wonder.
He watched silently, holding his own breath, as he watched Chloe's chest rise and fall rhythmically. He noticed that her eye had swollen further and had turned an ugly shade of purple and that a gash across her forehead had been bandaged with gauze. As she turned slightly in her sleep the starched sheet slipped from her leg and Clark almost gasped out loud at the large bruise he saw on her thigh.
As Clark watched, Chloe stirred and then sat up slowly in her bed. Clark knew she couldn't see him as he stood in the shadows of the room, but somehow her gaze locked on him as if she had sensed him rather that seen him.
She spoke in a whisper with her voice hoarse from sleep, "Clark?"
"Yeah Chloe, I'm here," he said softly as he stepped into the light coming from a small bedside lamp.
Chloe nodded almost imperceptively as if acknowledging some inner voice that told her that Clark would come.
"Chloe?" Clark asked when Chloe's eyes never met his. He walked to the left side of her bed and sat lightly on the edge.
"Chloe? Come on, look at me. Please?" Clark begged softly as he ducked his head to Chloe's level, hoping to catch her gaze.
Chloe slowly lifted her eyes to his, tears already rolling down her face.
Clark's heart broke at the pain he saw in her face. He gathered her small frame to him gently, careful to avoid her injuries, and allowed her to sob on his shoulder. He smoothed her hair and rubbed her back as her body shook in his arms.
As the crying subsided he kissed the top of her head. Chloe pulled away enough to look at Clark's face. Clark looked at her, then brushed a falling tear from her cheek with the pad of his thumb before leaning in to place a kiss where the tear had been. Chloe leaned into his touch and he placed a second kiss at the corner of her mouth. When Chloe tilted her head back slightly, Clark hesitantly pressed his lips against hers with gentle pressure. He parted his lips slightly and ran his tongue across her lower lip tasting the faint coppery taste of her blood as he passed a small cut on her lip. Chloe opened her mouth to him and Clark deepened the kiss.
Suddenly Chloe jerked herself away with a choked cry, pushing Clark away from her.
"No!" she said in a strained whisper.
Clark jumped away from her and off the bed as if he had been burned.
"Chloe, I'm so sorry. God, I'm so stupid. I shouldn't have done that. I'll go, I'm so sorry," he stuttered looking at Chloe apologetically as he made a move to leave the room.
Chloe reached out and grabbed his wrist, "Clark, no. No! It's not you..it's just.." Chloe stared at Clark, her eyes begging him to understand what she couldn't bring herself to say.
Clark stared into her eyes as they flashed between fear, anger, and shame and he realized what Gabe Sullivan hadn't told everyone else.
"Jesus Christ," he whispered to himself. He sat quickly in an uncomfortable chair by Chloe's bed with his head bent down, feeling waves of nausea pass over him.
"God, Chloe. He...?" he couldn't say the words as he looked at Chloe.
Chloe only nodded her head and looked away.
"Jesus," he said again, running his hands through his hair while he stood.
He went to stand beside Chloe and again gathered her to him, talking into her hair, "I.I should have been there. I should have done something."
Clark paused and placed a kiss on her head before taking a step back, "Chloe, I have to go. I need to..I'll be here in the morning even if they say I can't. I promise I'll be here, but I have to."
His flat, almost mechanical, words hung in the air as he turned and left the room, leaving Chloe to cry herself back to sleep.
*** Exactly 37 seconds later Clark was banging his hand furiously on Lana Lang's front door. He saw a light come on inside as someone yelled for him to stop knocking. Seconds later, Nell Potter stepped out in a terrycloth bathrobe.
"Clark? What in God's name are you doing here in the middle of the night?" she asked with angry eyes.
"I need to speak to Lana" Clark said, seeming to rush to get the words out.
"Clark, it's too late, she's asleep. You can talk to her tomorrow."
"Please, Miss Potter. It's very important."
Nell looked at Clark for a moment, considering telling him again that whatever it was could wait, but something about Clark's eyes made her change her mind. They were pleading with her, but there was urgency in them that almost scared her.
"You have 10 minutes, Clark. I'll go get her," Nell said with a parental warning in her voice.
Clark gave her a brief "thanks" and sat down on the lowest step of the porch with his head in his hands.
Lana came down a few moments later and Clark wanted to laugh at how her cheerful pajamas contrasted with what he was feeling.
"Clark?" Lana asked worriedly, "What's wrong?"
Clark looked at her as she said down beside him, "Lana, I need you to do something for me."
"Do you need my necklace again? I have it in my."
"I need you to try to connect with the man who kidnapped Chloe. I need you to tell me where he is," he interrupted.
"Clark.I.I don't know if I can," Lana said after a brief pause.
"Lana, please?"
".But the connection has always just come in flashes. I don't know if I can just force it to." she started.
"Lana, can't you even try?"
He didn't yell or raise his voice at all, but the fierceness in which he said it made Lana jerk away.
"I'm sorry," he amended more softly, "this is just very important."
Lana nodded and her body relaxed with the softer words, "I'll try Clark."
Clark watched as Lana closed her eyes and sat perfectly still. Many minutes passed with Clark waiting and Lana sitting so still that he almost shook her to see if she was okay. Then as if she were waking from a nightmare, Lana jerked herself upright with one hand flung out to grab the stair railing as she grabbed her head with the other. Clark reached out to steady her. Then, as quickly as it started, whatever had possessed her body let it go and she slumped back to the bottom step.
She took a moment to regulate her breathing before she spoke, "He's where I saw Chloe before, the room with all the teddy bears. There was an old Ferris wheel outside. I think it's the old Carnival grounds. He's.he's trying to get rid of something he thinks he left behind."
"Thank you Lana. Really, thank you. Go try to get some sleep, ok?"
"Can't you even tell me what you're doing?"
"I'm sorry," Clark said after shaking his head.
Lana just sighed and got up to go back inside. As she reached the top step, she turned around with another question on her lips, but Clark was gone. Lana suddenly noticed how black the darkness was beyond her front porch. She shivered and went back in the house, only stopping to make a phone call first. She prayed, for Clark's sake, that the cops would get there before he did.
*** Clark stared silently as Officer Watts looked around the room. The older man was wearing latex gloves as he went about the room looking around and under objects.
"What are you looking for?" Clark asked as he moved out of the shadows and into the light in the room.
Watts' hand reflexively went to the gun on his waist at the voice, but his hand dropped from it when he saw that it was Clark.
"What are you doing here kid? Don't you have a bedtime or something?"
"I asked you what you were looking for," Clark repeated.
The officer rolled his eyes, but seemed to decide that he would humor the teen, "I'm looking for evidence for a case. Just making sure we didn't miss anything."
"You mean making sure you didn't miss anything. I guess it's true how they say that the criminal always returns to the scene of the crime."
"Look kid, I don't know what you're getting at, but I think you need to go on home now."
"Why did you do it? How could you do it? You're a cop for Christ's sake. Her name is Chloe, in case you were wondering. Chloe Elaine Sullivan. She'll be 16 in December."
"Get out of here kid, I'm warning you" Watts said, slightly less confident than before.
"She lives with her dad and stepmother; her real mom died in a car wreck when she was seven. There's a path between her house and mine; it only takes her 8 minutes to walk it. She lives to work on the school newspaper and wants to work at the Daily Planet when she's older. She's not popular, but she doesn't care. She has a tiny mole on the back of her left knee and she thinks getting hate mail means she struck a nerve."
"Shut up" Watts said almost to himself, visibly shaking.
Clark took steps towards Watts as he spoke while the older man continued to back away.
"She kissed me on the first day I met her. It was my first kiss. She's my best friend and.. more if she wants it to be. I kissed her again tonight, our third kiss, and I tasted blood from a cut on her lip. She jerked away from me. She looked at me for a second like I scared her. She was scared for me to touch her. Why do you think that is? Do you have any idea?"
Watts had been shaking while listening, but as Clark began to question him he stopped backing away from Clark and pulled out his gun, aiming it at Clark and wiping sweat from his brow with the his shoulder sleeve. Clark listened as he began to talk and only hoped that Lana was asleep and dreaming by now.
"You can say what you want, but I'm the one with the gun. Now you get out or I shoot you, it's that simple."
"Did you threaten Chloe too? Is that how you got her to stay quiet? To be still while you did what you did to her? Or is that scratch on your face proof that she fought back?"
Watts aimed the gun at Clark's chest and almost smiled in smug satisfaction as he pulled the trigger.
The bullet hit Clark's chest and fell to the ground while Clark kept talking as if nothing had happened.
"Did Chloe fight you? Did she do her best to keep you off of her even though you were bigger and stronger than she was?
Watts aimed lower, attempting to avoid the bulletproof vest that he thought Clark must have been wearing. Another bullet was deflected, this time off of Clark's right leg.
"Did she scream for you to stop? Beg for you to leave her alone? Did she cry?"
Two more bullets hit Clark before he finally stepped close enough to knock the gun from the man's hands as Watts stared at him in fear and awe. Clark grabbed him by his neck and held him in place against the wall that he had backed into, lifting his feet from the ground.
"How does it feel to be helpless? To be pinned down by someone so much stronger than you? Do feel pathetic that you can't do anything to fight back? Ashamed that I could do whatever I want to you and you couldn't stop me?" Clark taunted.
"Please" Watts choked out as he clawed at Clark's hands wrapped around his neck, hungry for air.
"Please? Please?" Clark screamed in his face, " Did Chloe say 'please' when she begged you not to touch her? Do you know how easy it would be for me to kill you right now? Don't you think my friend deserves to know that you can never hurt her again?"
Watts eyes widened in fear just before they rolled back in his head as the lack of oxygen caused him to pass out. Clark stood for a moment feeling Watts' strong pulse grow weaker under his fingers. He wondered how long it would take the pulse to stop altogether.
"I want him to die."
The thought seared through Clark's mind like a white-hot iron. He dropped Watts and stepped back, staring at his own hands in horror.
As he heard police sirens in the distance he continued to back away. Watts began to stir, but as his eyes opened he saw he was alone in the room.
***
Across town Lana woke up in a cold sweat. She couldn't remember the nightmare, but she wasn't sure she wanted to. She only remembered waking up with a desperate need for air, shaking as she breathed in lungfuls of oxygen. Suddenly she felt herself transported. She heard police sirens very close, shrilling in her head, making it hard to think. She felt the need to run, to hide. She saw through another's eyes as he found his gun only feet from where he had been lying. She saw as cops rushed in the building, tipped off by an anonymous phone call. She saw the officers slowly raise their guns, hesitant to shoot one of their own. She felt the tugging of logic telling her to put the gun down and think up an excuse, but the fear and confusion bubbled up and killed all rational thoughts, she just wanted to get out. She saw a pair of hands come up before her, hands seemingly connected to her own body, clasping a silver gun between them. She saw the bullet as it came towards her, the horror in the eyes of the fellow officer who had fired it. She saw red. Then, she saw nothing. Lana fell back in her bed, suddenly alone in her own mind.
***
Clark wordlessly entered the hospital room as the sun began to shine though the slats in the white blinds. Chloe opened her eyes and the two stared at each other in silence, Chloe understanding what Clark didn't say. Without a word, Chloe moved over in her bed and Clark came to lie beside her, wrapping a strong arm around her waist and burying his face in her shoulder. Chloe played with his hair as her tears fell onto the dark strands, feeling his body shake with his own pain. They laid together and cried for themselves and for each other; one so brutally aware of the evil living in the world, one newly aware of the evil living within himself.
***
The nurse entered the room hours later, carrying a breakfast tray. She stopped in the doorway when she saw the couple. The boy's arm was protectively draped across the girl's small waist while his other was bent and tucked under his head. The sunlight flooding the room gave a glow to the girl's blond hair, making her look like an angel despite the bruised eye that the hair failed to cover
The nurse watched as the girl stirred slightly in her sleep and the boy seemed to naturally draw her closer to him. Her blond head nestled under his chin and her breathing slowed to the deep regular rhythm that comes with restful sleep.
The nurse saw pain in the two, far past the physical pain that was evident on the small girl's frame. And yet, as their chests rose and fell together, breathing in sync with each other, she saw healing too. Healing that would come with more pain, but healing that would come.
The nurse shook her head, shaking herself from the trance that the two teens seemed to put over her. She clucked her tongue at herself, but somehow as she left the room she knew she had witnessed the first moments of something special, something beautiful.