Five Things That Never Happened to Chloe Sullivan

by legendarytobes

Five AU snippets looking at things that never happened to Chloe but could have and also could have changed her relationship to Clark.

Five Things that Never Happened to Chloe Sullivan Complete

I. Living Conditions

There were a lot of things Chloe said she would have given in order to get closer to Clark. She'd had a crush on him since she'd come to Smallville and he'd given her The Tales of the Weird and Unexplained . Since then, they'd been inseparable, closer really than even she was with Pete. He'd chosen her to for the perfect day, the dance and a kiss that would have happened if not for him ditching her. At first, she'd been so upset over it, so crushed. He'd heard about the tornado heading out toward the LuthorCorp plant and was making weak excuses to be out of the auditorium before she could ever turn around.

She hadn't understood.

Hadn't gotten why Clark Kent thought he had any ability to stop or tornado. He was a fifteen year old farm kid, except that Chloe was beginning to learn he wasn't. The weeks after the storm are fuzzy. There's Lionel's blindness sweeping the headlines, the town in shambles, and the loss of so much. The tornado did tear through the factory, crippling what was left of the town's economy as Lex worked to rebuild it. It killed over two dozen employees on duty there who hadn't been able to evacuate in time.

Her father among them.

In the blind shock after that, Chloe didn't question why Clark had ended up at the plant, not really. Her sharp mind knew that it made no sense, that he couldn't have been there in a tux no less when she had driven him herself, but her sharp mind took the months of May and June off. It was on vacation with wills and estates, removal to godparents' care, to a new home.

Clark's.

She almost understood that. Her father was an only child and he hadn't been close with her uncle since her mom had left them both when she was five. There'd been this brief glimmer of more camaraderie between them when her mom had returned for a few weeks when she was eight but that didn't last. Moira Sullivan's stability certainly hadn't lasted. They'd moved to a new town and not had that many close friends in the two years they'd gotten here but he'd surprised her. She had no idea when he and the Kents had arranged this, maybe they agreed figuring that it would be an offer they'd never follow through on. Who knew? But the Kents, her godparents in lieu of her late Aunt Ella and her Uncle Sam in Geneva.

It didn't make Clark her brother because there was so much Brady Bunch bullshit wrong with that she couldn't fathom it. It did make her his house guest until graduation and the person now living down the hall in the guest room. Maybe she should have been more specific about her wishes to the universe. She'd been thinking living with Clark around their junior year at Met U, not now and certainly not at the cost of her father.

So she'd spent the first two months in grief and tumult, going through things with Martha-thank God for her legal background-to sell the house and just get footing. The internship she'd worked hard for at the DP she hadn't taken. There was too much to do with the funeral and moving, but she had at least taken something after school ended with The Ledger , her days filled with fetching coffee and fact checking feed price hikes. It wasn't what she'd wanted but there was next year for a chance to do the DP or before her senior year and both would look good on her resume.

Slowly, she came back to herself. Slowly, she started to let the analytic part of her brain surge through the numbness. Slowly she really noticed the world around her.

And Clark Kent.

Chloe had never been a fool. Clark was a weird guy. He'd always been weird from the moment he'd magically appeared with an accompanying breeze with the exact book she'd loved. It was a book that had been out of print for five years by then.

The odds that he'd just had it lying around sucked.

As did the way he always beat them to school but he never caught the bus or the always on the spot for things since the meteor freaks had come out of the woodwork. She knew those things. However, now that it was starting to settle, now that she let her mind piece the puzzle again, there was so much more. How did he get to the plant? Why was his adoption so irregular? Hell, here was a really good one lately: other farmhands, where were they?

Chloe had never known anything about farming until she started her internship at The Ledger . Following those concerns for a while, she'd realized something she'd never gotten as a bred Metropolitan. Farms needed hand. There was no way on Earth a dairy farm the size of the Kents could operate with one full time farmer and his part-time teenage son. It did.

Her mind wasn't sure on everything but she wasn't so stupid as to think Clark was normal. She'd started assuming he was affected by the meteors back last fall when he punched through a foot of ice to save her from Sean Kelvin. Between the work of five men done by only two and the way he'd gotten to the plant the day of the tornado on freaking foot? Yeah, Clark at the very least had to be strong and fast.

When she walked into the barn one night to get him to come in for dinner after a long day for everyone, she hadn't expected for the weird to jump up a level. When she'd come to the talk of the stairs, she gasped and found him asleep yet hovering four feet above the sofa in the loft. Chloe stilled, unsure of what to say and where to go from there. She watched. Her mouth open, her eye wide, she watched her best friend for two years defy gravity in his sleep.

They might have stayed forever in that tableau if Clark hadn't tried to roll over and ended up slamming face first into steamer trunk in his fall. A steamer trunk that now was dented to Hell and where he wasn't even scratched.

"Clark?"

When he'd collected himself enough to be really awake, he gaped up at her and the expression broke her heart and not for herself. She'd never seen someone so afraid. Slowly, Chloe crossed over to the couch and sat down, giving him space if he decided to do the same. Clark stayed on the floor, long legs gathered to his chest.

"I...um."

"I saw everything, just so you know. I was only coming here because Martha said the pork chops were ready. I didn't expect that. Stupid thing to say. Who expects that."

He looked back at her and his expression became stony; Clark sat straighter. "You can't tell my parents you saw that. They'll freak out."

"Do they not know?"

"No, they can't know that you know. It'll scare them."

She blinked. "Me?"

"Yeah, you, Chloe Sullivan editor of the school paper and Ledger intern and gunning to be at The Daily Planet . Mom and dad will have heart attacks trying to figure out how to get you to stay quiet?"

"Huh?" She frowned and forced herself to swallow. "You think I'd make you a story?"

"Don't you make everyone?" He shrugged and shook his head. "I can see it now with our first issue back: 'Clark Kent-How He Really Saved Lex Luthor.'"

"I wouldn't do that."

"You dug into my adoption, Chlo."

"So I'd report you? I talk about the people who hurt others or kill other students. I have really extensive files. There are a lot of meteor freaks out there and they don't make my wall."

Clark's nostrils flared and his voice low when he spoke. "I'm not a freak."

Taking a deep breath, Chloe stopped and closed her eyes. "I didn't mean you."

"That's what you said. 'Meteor freak.' For the record, I'm not but it's mean, Chloe. It's a mean fucking term."

"I'm sorry, I never thought. Clark, calm down. I won't let your parents know I know saw this. I'll never let anyone know I saw this." Chloe reached out to pat the top of his knee, her heart full of fresh pain when he shied back from her. "I'm your friend."

"The kind who snoops and wants a famous name."

"You think that little of me."

Clark shook his head. "Chlo, you don't understand. I don't, not really. You'd go very far with me."

"Not to diminish the fact your secret is pretty intense, cause it is, but there are a lot of people affected by the meteor rocks in this town. I haven't won a Pulitzer for it yet."

"What about aliens?"

She laughed because it was the most ridiculous thing she's heard all day. "You can float and you're clearly fast and strong. I've known that for a long time even if I couldn't prove it. You're not that subtle."

"I know."

"But you're a mutant. We're the capital for the whole thing."

"I'm not though and if you weren't trying to be nice to me or weren't so shocked or maybe both, then you'd realize that I have too many powers."

"Tina could morph and was strong but it was all related back to her bones. I don't really know how to explain floating as being related to strength, no. Can you fly, by the way?"

He laughed mirthlessly. "I can't even land right. Flying isn't on my docket yet."

"You really believe you're an alien, don't you?"

"I know. My dad showed me a ship a few days after Lex hit me with his Porsche and I didn't die."

She blinked and despite herself was across the way and running her hands over his chest, trying to find damage for something over a year old. There was no way a Porsche had hit him and he hadn't broken every bone in his body.

There was a breeze and Chloe realized Clark was standing by the loft window, looking up at the stars. It was one thing to suspect he was fast but another to see him blur. She was beginning to believe him and not because she wasn't one to believe in other life out there. Of course she was, butClark? He was the most human person she knew.

"You dove in after."

"He drove me through the bridge rails at sixty miles an hour." The way he said it was so detached, without any emotion at all, as if it had happened to someone else. It scared her.

Standing, Chloe walked toward him and put her hand on his shoulder, grateful he let her. "I wish you felt you could have told me. I would have tried to make it better."

He shrugged, still staring up. She wondered if he even knew where he was from then. "Nothing makes it better. I have a ship I can't open and some sort of computer tablet I can't read with like hieroglyphics but not on it. What would you have said."

Chloe sighed and, for the first time since she'd met him, wanted something even more for Clark than for him to love her back. She wanted to make him feel more like he fit, like he was home here on this farm with her and his family, strange amalgamation that they were. "That I'm glad you came, and that we'll figure this out."

"Get me a name for what I am?"

She nodded and squeezed his shoulder. "Besides a farmboy flannel disaster? Yeah, Clark, I'm on the case and I always find my info."

II. Power Play

"That's why you faked everything?" he asked, confused.

Chloe had come back into their lives-all their lives-with the Suicide Squad under her control. She wasn't the woman who'd left but Clark hadn't really paid her enough attention last year. Then she was just gone, alive, yes, but gone where he had no idea where. Add in that Lois hadn't taken his big reveal well at all and his life was in massive flux.

Well, that wasn't entirely fair to Lois. They'd tried making it work and it wasn't the fact he was Kryptonian that had killed it, not directly. She'd been supportive of him and his mission, had even told him she knew he was the Blur after he kissed her, that she'd been the one to pull the blue K blade out and save his life. No, Lois wasn't the same woman she was three years ago when she couldn't be second to the world in Oliver's priorities. She'd matured but too far the other way for him. She never wanted to take his time, to be selfish when others needed him. He appreciated the thought. It was noble but it wasn't practical and he hadn't been able to explain to her, to have her understand that, while he was an alien, he couldn't always be a hero 24/7, that he needed a life as well.

Her guilt wouldn't let them have time together and his need to burn out wouldn't let him always deny himself. He was the Blur not a saint, and Lois couldn't understand the difference. Still, she'd integrate as well as Tess into helping Watchtower, had been with them to bury Carter and in the VRA mental hellhole.

She was in the League as much as Oliver or Dinah now.

More than Chloe had been. She'd been gone and he'd never expected to see her again.

That ate at him nights on patrol, had even before the cracks with him and Lois really solidified. Lois wasn't right in the fake Daily Planet basement. He'd been betrayed and didn't even understand why Chloe had left him behind.

Chloe nodded and he worked very hard as they sat in his living room to stare at her eyes, at her face. Hell, he tried to remember who they were when they started, just the farmboy and the city girl. Now he was still wearing his red leather jacket from a late patrol (she'd come over after giving him a few days to process everything post-rescue) and she was in something that made Dinah's look seem appropriate.

Chloe Sullivan, she of the Doc Martens and jeans and skirts as a kid and later of almost a hippie wear last year, that Chloe was wearing a short leather skirt as well as the bodice and the body armor of the Amazons of Themyscira.

She'd had enough time when they left the facility to explain about the Fate helmet showing her her real mother, a goddess-and she wasn't kidding-a goddess in a long forgotten Greek island of women warriors and didn't that just sound like Chloe come to think of it. Warrior and all. She'd gone to find her birth family and they, in turn, had given Chloe her birth right and the combat training that went with it.

She wasn't who she'd been last May but maybe he wasn't that angry, embittered vein asshole he'd been either. Maybe that dark year wouldn't be a wall between them because they had grown past it. Maybe. Except he kept coming back to everything in the illusory basement. Chloe had left him. She was the one who never would and she had.

"Clark?" she snapped, waving an arm in front of his face and the thick metal cuffs on her wrist draw his attention, her bracers.

The bands were bullet proof; they matched her upgrade with her lasso that made people tell the truth. He'd have laughed at that if she hadn't used it on the head VRA operative in front of him. Yeah the bracers to stop bullets, the lasso, the upgrade of incredible strength, speed, and flight. He wasn't a god and she wasn't Kryptonian, but they matched physically now in a way he'd never think his Chloe, that girl who never did exercise outside of forced gym at Smallville High would be.

He swallowed. "I'm sorry, I wasn't...I drifted."

There was a breeze and he saw her leave but she was back again and he knew if he were anyone else, she would have blinked in and out, like he did. Chloe was standing there again in her jeans and a flowy yellow and black top. The only thing indicating her promotion from sidekick to hero status the golden bands on her wrists.

"Sorry, the uniform is traditional but it's not very practical. Were you scoping me out?"

He blushed. "No, but I mean you're standing there in a Xena, Warrior Princess outfit almost with a lasso and it's so...new," he floundered, realizing that over the last two years, since Davis really, they haven't had easy conversations. It wasn't as bad between them as when he first found out about her Lionel deal or when he refused to save Jimmy, but it was awkward, strained. Sighing, Clark started again. "I don't know what we're supposed to say."

Chloe nodded and sat next to him on the sofa. "I came home, Clark. I was gone to see my mom, Diana, and to wait to save the rest of the League. I confess, though, I'm super confused."

"You're confused? My best friend goes away and comes back a goddess. I think I get to be ahead of you in that line."

"No, I saw it with the Fate Helmet. It told me about the fire and Olive, about my real mom and the VRA but I saw something else."

"That I was the world's hero?" he asked, gesturing to his color change. "That I didn't wear black?"

She laughed and the relaxed expression made her look younger, like early college again. "You looked like such a douchebag."

"Dusters aren't mine thing, but I think the out and about kicking as suits you better too. We were a fucking mess last year."

"And the year before that and probably forever it seems. Nothing's been really good since I got fired and then I tried to save Davis and I kept sinking. Being with my family, really getting to know my mom and grandmother...it helped. I feel connected. With dad always gone in London, I didn't feel I had family anymore."

"Lois-"

"Wasn't the same. She has my job, Clark, and I love, I really do, but it hurts. I can't be honest with her when she has the things I want."

He blinked back at her. "Like me?"

"No, not since I was a kid, but she has the great reporting career and I don't. 'Cassie Sandsmark,' as it reads now on my awesome new passport and driver's license, is going to have to start from the ground up. I went through Met U once, night classes and all. I'm working up the right paperwork and the references I need to get a job at the Journal."

"Tess will hire you at the DP in a heartbeat, a favor between Watchtowers."

"I want to make it on my own besides she's there and I'm not gonna put us head to head for the same promotions. When it's time to go back to the DP, to have my own desk under the Tiffanies, I will, but right now I want to not feel like Lois and I are head-to-head."

"You're not!"

She sighed. "I know but I felt that way. If we're not at the same paper for a while, it'll help us bond again. If she's with Tess on Watchtower relay and I'm Wondergirl, we have a lot more to talk about than before. I had so much of my life I couldn't tell her. I just...we're gonna be in a better place."

He smiled and patted her back. "I think we all are since, you know, not government property either. But you were saw something else?"

"Yeah that's where I was yesterday, I had to get the necklace I sent Lois as an engagement present. The helmet told me you two were going to be engaged by December. I saw it, but then there's no ring on her finger and you two are super awkward so I was going to take the non-engagement gift back."

Clark gaped back at her. "Why were we gonna be engaged? Even if the helmet sees the future-"

"Years ahead, Clark."

"Right, but it's a little fast to move when we had to get used to not having a love triangle with her and me and, well, me too."

"Was she mean? Lois seems to really love working at Watchtower. I think Tess is best covering your asses from a tech perspective but Lois can hold her own in a fist fight. I just...was it the Kryptonian thing?"

"Not exactly. Lois isn't mean but she didn't get it, that I need to be 'Clark Kent' too and not just the Blur. If we had stayed together, she'd feel upset every time we even watched a movie. It just didn't work."

"I'm sorry. You really loved her."

"I cared about her. I think once we gave it a shot it was healthier than Lana and I ever were, but sometimes things don't work, and I wasn't really very in the game this fall anyway."

"Cause of Darkseid being terrifying?"

"Because my best friend wasn't here. I knew you were alive but I didn't know where you were. It scared the shit out of me. I spent so much time just missing us. I took you for granted last year and then you weren't even around."

"And we needed to grow and I think we did. Your mom left for D.C. cause she had her own destiny but it didn't ruin you. I went to Themyscira and now I'm closer to being the woman I want to be."

"Mom told me she was going; you left!"

Chloe leaned back on the sofa. "If I had tried to mess with things, to explain, then you would have tried something done to counteract the VRA. We needed to take action stealthily. Tess got this when she helped me."

"You thought I was getting married to your cousin, tell me if you hadn't seen that too, you'd have at least said goodbye, Chlo."

"Cassie," she clarified. "Chloe Sullivan is dead. You'll have to practice when we're not in Watchtower or here calling me that."

"You could-"

"It's for the best. Chloe Sullivan...my dad thinks I got in trouble with another billionaire and that's why I'm underground so at least he knows I'm alive but I'm not that girl anymore. I'm an Amazon now and I just don't need this."

"Need what?"

"Drama, confusion. I came to be what the League needs, to do my part against the Darkness. You loved Lana and you loved Lois and now I think single for you is awesome. I think it's best for all of us to just take a breather."

"All of us?"

She shook her head. "Oliver wanted to get back to where we were, but it wasn't fair to him."

"I'm confused."

"I don't love him the way he loves me. I care about him. I liked seeing him, but he was so happy to see me back that he proposed."

"Fate helmet didn't broadcast that?"

"Not at all. He loves me a lot more than I love him. I'm not ready for commitment so saying no chilled that whole thing off."

"Wow the four of us swinging, single, and not looking."

"Who'd have thought?" she finished. "I'd rather not date if I don't feel the same thing back. I tried to make it work with Jimmy and I wasn't going to do that with Ollie. It never works. Besides, new me, you know? I have to figure out how to be a working girl-slash-goddess. I don't think I'm in a relationship head space."

"Cool."

"I missed you. I'm glad I'm back and Lois and I are just a blur-in away. She's letting me be her roomie. Well, half the rent, but still. New everything from outfit to name to jobs. I love doing the physical stuff." Chloe blushed, thinking about how that sounded. "I mean, not feeling like I can't contribute the muscle too sucked. Front line now."

"I've seen you trash a couple of pursuing VRA vehicles. I'd say so."

"And...I got to talk to Lois who said Kara's in Metropolis or was, even if I was too dense to see through her 'who needs a mask' non-disguise."

"She wears a brown-haired wig and glasses when not patrolling, gone back to calling herself Linda and is mainly out in Edge City."

"So Lois said and I called Ms. Danvers up and she told me someone still can't fly."

He snorted. "I made the effort! I'm terrible at it."

"Then, Blur, you're lucky Wondergirl has it down. Come fly with me."

"I'd love to."

III. Villains

When she was paired with Clark Kent for the adoption project, Chloe never realized what it would bring her. He was a weird kid, quiet, someone who only hung around with Pete. She'd found him cute at first, when she'd moved here. She knew he was bright and top of their class, had sought him out to be on the paper with her. She needed people with skills to rehab the mess the seniors left behind. Instead, he'd begged off because he had to deliver produce and help his dad on the farm.

Smallville was a small town and the honors track even smaller; she and he had all their classes together. Eventually it was how they were paired on the history project. How she figured out that not only was his adoption a sham but that things about him kept adding up wrong, starting with his spectacular save of Lex Luthor. It took a while after he'd been so reluctant but two things helped her more than anything: Pete's story of Clark shoving a kid through a door in first grade and his subsequent psych evals at Belle Reeve (hackable of course) as well as the crop duster she found last May.

A boy with no record of being born who'd exhibited inhuman strength at least once, and the crop duster who swore something came with the meteors. Add in that she noticed how sick Clark seemed to get around Lana's necklace and other meteor rocks and it was easy.

Simple.

Getting what she wanted from Lionel, more complex. He hadn't believed her at first for one. For another, when people like Lionel Luthor have you, they didn't want to let go. So she gave him all she had, slowly, deliberately, once the paper work for her own column at The Daily Planet and a promise of the exclusive when LuthorCorp was ready to unveil its newest acquisition to the world. Still, Lionel had wanted more for himself. At first she resented how she'd paid for her deal with The DP, what she'd become, but her name was in print and that's what mattered. After she finished her interview and published it, the Pulitzer would be hers.

At sixteen.

A goddamned world record. If sometimes Lionel asked for extra services, if sometimes she had to get to her knees in front of him, she had what she wanted and, yes, she had to admit, there was something intoxicating about him if you let yourself fall. She hated herself but she loved what she was doing, all of it.

Lionel smiled at her and his hand strayed over her neck. It was polite enough if a little less formal than he should be around his staff. They knew already. His secretary and assistants all knew why she came once a week, why the door stayed locked and he was unreachable without doubt for an hour. She had no illusions it was anything more than a contract but she had her name, she had her prize. It was fun while it can last.

"Miss Sullivan," he said brightly, his voice like velvet.

Chloe nodded at his greeting. "Mr. Luthor. You said you're finally ready for your exclusive. It's about time. I swear it's almost April." Her tone was harsh. She'd been promised her cut about Clark Kent by December. Chloe still hungered for the best part of her research, the true fruits of all she'd done. "You're late."

Lionel said nothing but ushered to the elevator. Taking out his key, he reached to the control panel and inserted his code key. She crossed her arms over her chest and waited for the elevator to descend; it would take a while as they headed to the bowels of LuthorCorp.

"You're touchy," he said, straightening the lapels of his sui.

"I'm more than ready. How is Mr. Kent anyway?" she asked, her heart hammering. So close to everything she ever wanted.

Lionel's team's blood work and her interview, everything she could work up at his blessing and deliver the Planet. He needed that to come out. He had access to Clark, but whatever advances Lionel had gotten from him he also wanted to advertise. High bidders for extracts from Clark's blood among other things, deals behind closed doors for the parts of the alien Lionel would spare.

"Same. For a while he was lively, but everything's inevitable. When he realized there was nothing the Lex could do to save him, he became much more compliant. It'll be interesting to see if he responds to an interview. He hasn't spoken to anyone in a month."

"A month?"

Lionel nodded. "I don't care if he talks, that's not relevant to samples and testing his powers. I just noted it would be interesting."

"I intend to get a lot out of him."

Lionel's hand is on her wrist, applying pressure, just enough to still her. "I know the feeling. Don't forget," he added as the doors opened. "We have appointment after this."

"I never do," she added, passing out of the elevator first and waiting for Lionel to lead her with his chief doctor down the main corridor and to the plan white room where Clark was kept. It shocked her when they left her there on her own. She assumed one of the doctors would sit in with her. Instead as she pulled out her ipod, she's left alone to conduct the interview at her own pace. It's not truly alone. The room has several cameras with full audio, but it just being her and Clark present affords an illusion of intimacy.

Maybe it'll coax him to give her what she needs.

She was busy adjusting her things, setting up the recording from her seat when she finally really looked to the bed where Clark lay. She barely recognized him. Clark had always been slim. Tall and gawky, but with the potential to grow more broad, Clark hadn't been overly imposing. Now though, the plain grey scrubs they had on him, draped over him like a tent. His skin was yellowed, almost jaundiced, and his eye bloodshot. His hair was gone.

It was shaved and Chloe ignored the clear scars from where he'd been cut into. Lionel had been thorough the last eleven months. Of this, she had no doubt.

"Clark?"

He blinked back at her but gave her the courtesy of pulling himself to sit up against the cinder block wall. It was then she noticed that the meteor rock band around his wrist, the one rhythmically pulsating.

"Are you happy?" the question was low and quiet, and she could hear him wheeze.

She stilled and stared back at her notes. The Clark she thought was cute when he showed her around the farm her first day in Smallville was a lie. There was the alien and nothing more. Hell, he was a classmate and a project partner (fatefully so). It didn't matter that his question made her look away.

"That's not really the point."

Slow labored breath in. "You're how this happened. Lionel told me. It fit with how much you dug into my past. He brings me your column every week."

Chloe cursed herself for swallowing, for her heart beating faster than she wanted. "I gave him the right information and he got what he wanted."

Clark snorted. "Do you like being his whore?"

"That's not what I'm here for."

Clark laughed long and louder than she thought him capable of. "You want a sound bite? You want me to talk about my great alien secrets to make your big story better. That's a laugh."

"Don't you want to tell your story?"

"My story is that the editor of the school paper ruined my life, used me as bait to get her name made."

"I don't need quotes. I just thought that my piece about you-obviously Lionel is giving me quotes."

"Oh obviously."

"The researchers. I wanted something from you. Tell us where you're from, what you want. 'Klaatu barda nikto' and all that stuff."

He blinked and quirked his head at her. "What?"

"You know? It's a quote from The Day the Earth Stood Still. I mean you've seen it, I'm sure."

"Why would I?"

"Huh?"

"My parents never let me watch that stuff, but the joke's on all of you. My parents didn't even tell me about coming from the shower until freshmen year. I don't know where I'm from. If you're looking ofr big alien revelations, then I don't have any."

Chloe cursed under her breath. "I'm not really interested in your dog on the farm or your cows."

"I never had a dog. Had some horses and barn cats though, back when I had a life."

"You're not going to make me feel guilty."

"I didn't think I could. I'm just telling you the what happened. You took everything I had and ruined my family. I hope it's worth it, when you give Lionel what he wants, when you see your name in print. I hope it makes up for the fact that I'm rotting here."

"Someone was going to make their name on you. Might as well have been me. Besides, you're a great resource."

"I'm thrilled," he replied, coughing again.

"I've seen some of the reports from here. Your blood is amazing. They've been purifying it for medicinal properties. Hell, you might cure cancer and AIDS, make a lot of diseases obsolete."

" I am not doing that. The scientists cutting into me every day," he said, running his hand over his scalp. "They found stuff. I just get cut."

"But you're helping people."

"Your justifications suck. Chloe, you want a quote? Go to Hell. That's all you'll get from me."

"Nothing else to say."

"The undercurrent is that I'll never say anything again. It's the first and only time anyone will ever hear from me. Tell them that I love my parents and I'm okay, even if it's not the case. That's okay."

"I can do that."

"My parents never deserved this. They should at least know I love them and I know it's not their fault at all."

"It's mine, right?"

"You have a lot to answer for. You can't be a good enough liar to convince yourself someone like Lionel Luthor is going to only work on using my blood for humanity. You know how strong I am without the meteor rocks."

"Yes."

"I'm sure I'm going to the highest bidder some day, maybe I'll just be Lionel's, I don't know. But someone, some day is going to ask me to kill a lot of people."

"I-"

"They'll use me for that after the medical stuff and they'll use the rocks to make me comply. If you don't care about me, if I'm not human enough," he spat. "Then I hope you care that a lot of people are going to die because of this."

She was done. Chloe clicked off her recorder and gathered her things, knocking to be let out. "People have the right to know what you are, that the truth really is out there."

"And I had a right to live my life. Sleep well, Chloe, you know I won't."

She didn't look back once as the lead doctor opened the door and ushered up toward where Lionel was waiting.

IV. Fool For Love

When he patrolled, he often kept a perch at the corner of The Daily Planet building. He did that not just for the view or even because it gave a vantage point directly across from LuthorCorp. It wasn't even because "Clark Kent" worked there and it was convenient for his alter ego. He stayed there because of her.

The guilt ate at him every day, that stupid bargain and the cruelty of it. He'd left the fortress to save Chloe's life and she was dead seven months later, a bus accident trying to follow him out to Loeb Bridge to help Lana. The first time around, it had been Lana's life in the circle, that balance. Jor-El always took, never gave.

It had been that final straw. Clark hadn't been back to the fortress. In ten years, he'd never gone back. Good riddance to it. He'd figured out how to be Superman on his own with his real parents' guidance, with eventually Oliver and the League as allies, even with his current partner in crime and wife, Lois.

She figured it out shortly after his coming out interview and he gave Lois credit for being more perceptive than he'd ever thought. It was more than he'd have expected when she first moved to Smallville or even when she dated Oliver without realizing until much later his leather clad secret. She's a good writing partner and a good wife, someone he finds comfort with after long nights and longer patrols. Lois is many things but Chloe Sullivan isn't one of them.

Clark knew that was wrong, to fall in love with Lois, to marry her, wishing she was her cousin. To close his eyes sometimes in the bull pen when Lois is talking about a story and he can pretend to hear Chloe as frustrated on a lead. He knew it wasn't what Lois deserved. There just wasn't anything fair in that but Chloe was gone and he'd done that. He'd tried anything to fix it at first. He'd begged Jor-El, the last time he'd ever seen his so-called father, but there was only one crystal. He'd had the oddest idea of flying backwards around the world to reset time. He'd learned to fly for that, worked hard until he'f finally gotten it, but that was an incredibly stupid idea and didn't come close to working.

It was just the way things were.

But she was with him. She was the reason he did what he did, the voice he heard in his head if he started to blame himself too much, if he wasn't being all he could be, if he needed a laugh, that internalized snark that he associated with her influence, even if Chloe wasn't there, would never be there again.

So he stood on the DP roof, letting his cape blow in the wind, and realizing this was the closest he'd ever be to the woman he loved again.

V. I Robot, You Jane

"You know, I think you have an unhealthy addiction to the Watchtower," Chloe snarked.

Clark rolled his eyes but set out a few things for himself at the console. Technically, you weren't supposed to eat at the monitors, at least Bruce and Oliver got on his case about it when the caught him. He didn't think the keyboards could be ruined, but, then again, he wasn't the one footing the bills for the tech either. Still, he did spend a lot of time here and, super metabolism or not, he did need to eat when he had night watch duty. Ollie and Bruce could calm down a little. As he pulled out his ham and cheese and a Coke, Chloe laughed.

"You'd think you'd get more variety than ham and cheese, ugh."

He shrugged and bit into his dinner, making sure not to lose crumbs everywhere. "It's good and I did have tuna salad yesterday. That's different."

"And it's a good thing I can't smell between tuna yesterday and Swiss cheese today."

Clark stilled but kept his expression neutral. He didn't find the joke all that funny. Five years ago, as far as official records went, Chloe Sullivan had died of a stroke a few weeks before her scheduled wedding to Jimmy Olsen. That's what everyone believed, including her father and her cousin Lois Lane. The League and Clark's mom were the only people who knew the whole truth. While the Legion had tried for a techno exorcism, they'd certainly picked the wrong place, taking her to ISIS's headquarters instead of back to the barn. Clark often wondered if they'd gone back to Kent Farm if it would have worked. All he knew was that going to ISIS had been a crippling mistake. While Chloe'd been separated from Brainiac, her memories fully restored and a bit of extra genius still mixed with her own, she hadn't truly been saved.

The most delicate way to put it was that she'd been moved. Her consciousness had been sent to the computer bank itself and her body incinerated Lightening Lad's powers accidentally. "Chloe Sullivan" didn't exist except for the consciousness that had worked first via the set up at ISIS and then been moved in a very complex way that Clark didn't know but Victor had worked out to the physical hard drive of the Watchtower satellite three years prior.

It hurt that this was what had happened to her. She'd been hurt by Brainiac trying to save him, to confront what they both that was a deranged Kara. He'd missed the warning signs with her and her memory loss, being too involved in his first few months at The Daily Planet, being too obsessed with patrolling and trying to stop Doomsday. He hadn't been there for her the right way and, in the end, he sometimes wondered if the Legion's original solution hadn't been more humane. It was a thought he buried, because he loved Chloe, she was still, no matter what she was or wasn't, his best friend. He just thought being Watchtower, literally, was a punishment and something she didn't deserve.

Though, Chloe being Chloe, it hadn't slowed her down. She'd already finished Met U early via night classes. While by default running the League's ins and outs (Chloe was among the "Big Seven" of the League along with him, Bruce, Ollie, and Diana among others.), she also submitted op-eds and interviews freelance to a variety of big papers, even the DP on occasion, albeit under a pseudonym. No one created a paper trail like she did either. She'd just gotten better with faking records over time.

Still, that shouldn't be her life. She'd been so close to the white picket fence and the kids and the husband and all that normal stuff, the things Clark had wished for her since such normalcy was beyond him.

"Hey, you still with me?" she demanded. "I didn't think making fun of your bad food tastes would make you go quiet."

Clark forced a smile and set down his sandwich on a napkin. "No, I'm good."

Reaching into his lunch bag (his uniform didn't work well for carrying anything but he had his own store of supplies in his locker), he also pulled out a small stainless steel business card carrier. He set that up on the console as well, using his X-ray vision to see inside of it. It was the other top thing besides ham and Swiss that Chloe mocked him on and he rolled with it. Inside, he'd hidden the picture of himself and Chloe from their senior year in high school. It had made it into the yearbook and been a decoration afterwards at Chloe's desk in ISIS. He had a smaller proof of it and brought it with him for long evenings at Watchtower. It might have been a bit silly and sentimental, but it gave him less cognitive dissonance to look at her image than to have a conversation with a monitor flickering between feeds from various natural disasters and emergencies in major cities.

The card case covering was so she wouldn't know or take offense at the action.

"I'm not trying to mock...much," she continued. "Still, and don't get me wrong, company's always appreciated, but you have a comm link, you can talk to me from your apartment. Besides, you're taking at least three times as many reconnaissance shifts than you have to. Instead of having off time, you're all work, patrol, recon. I mean, do you ever go home?"

"I go home. It's just not that interesting. Empty apartment, take out cartons. If I'm here, at least there's good company and someone has to watch."

"Hence the name Watchtower. Clark, "Big Sister" has it all covered. Besides that's also what shifts are for. If you weren't around, I'd always have Shayera or J'onn or Wally or-"

"I get it. I know there's a lot of other people and I know there are comm links, but it's not the same. I like coming here and having you make fun of my lack of taste in food. It's an old time's sake thing. I mean, it's like back at the DP when I'd bring you lunch."

"Except I don't eat."

"You mostly sipped coffee then anyway and typed a lot. The point is, we've been eating meals together since lunch at Smallville Middle School. Why would it be any different if I like taking dinner here?"

"Besides the thought that when you get caught getting crumbs all over me, the 'Tower, same difference." He frowned at that but let her continue. "The point is except for Batz getting on you, great plan."

"I'm not scared of Bruce."

She laughed. "Everyone's scared of Bruce. Anyway, Clark, I'm flattered, really I am but if you're not here, guess what, there are tons of other heroes to take a shift. Besides, like I said, I got this. It's not like I sleep."

"But being on permanent 24 hour shifts and watching for like tsunamis in Tapei or bank robberies in London has to be boring."

"I can hijack torrents you know. Don't let anyone know I'm also a pirate."

He chuckled. "As long as the Watchtower doesn't get a bug from you seeing the latest blockbuster, no worries."

"Never, I'm not that stupid and best tech in several galaxies. Clark, I worry about you."

He chewed back the urge to insist that he mainly worried about her. "You do?"

"Yup. Like I said, you're all work and no play, right? When do you ever relax."

"Over sandwiches with my best friend. I have a very full social life."

"With me or if Kara drags you out to go to dinner or something to make sure you leave here, the DP, or your place."

"See a best friend and an annoying cousin. That's like two whole people," he finished, taking a sip of his soda.

"You know, I do read Lois's articles."

"Lois is so obsessed with 'Superman' that it's embarrassing. On the flip side, she still thinks I'm a meek farm dork and reminds me that every day at work."

"It's probably not best to be jealous of yourself."

He snorted. "I'm not. I have zero interest in your cousin. Never have had, never will. She's just really purple when she writes about all of Superman's exploits starting with the name. It's pretty braggy."

"I called Eric 'Superboy.' It makes some sense. Still, she likes the hero side and she's more mature than with Ollie. I've read her op-eds and she's definitely more seasoned since then. She might get you."

"You're matchmaking? Just cause she has a crush on the spandex side...well, again, she's not my thing, Chlo."

"Okay, so Lois is a bust. What about Diana? She's, well, she's an acquired taste but she's pretty."

"Diana's gone on that Steve guy. He might need more rescuing than your cousin. It's kind of hilarious."

"Oh there's the Angel of Vengeance."

"She bats for the wrong team, for one. For another, again, not my type."

"Girls with super strength are completely your type. Kara says when you first met there was a look."

"She imagined said look and also my cousin, ugh."

"I'm just saying, I've listed some nice dating options. Lois we know is single and totally gone on the caped version. I didn't know Diana and Andrea were off the market. It's not like there's a ton of women in the League but there are definitely some. Shayera is, uh-"

"Bitchy?"

"Well, yeah. Back to Lois, you should ask her out. I mean Clark-you, not Superman-you. Do the big alien reveal and happily ever after."

Clark sighed and fingered the metal case that hid their picture. "I don't like Lois. When we first started at the DP, not going to lie, there were a few sparks, but she's annoying and superficial. She's better than she was but I'm not interested."

"So that brings us back to you, the twenty-five year old monk even if you know your share of even available spandex-clad superheroines." Chloe feigned a sigh for affect and waited to speak again. "I worry."

"I'm perfectly happy. Besides, okay so Diana aside or Andrea if she swung that way, I'm not exactly compatible with humans anyway. I'd break or burn or freeze something. I can't imagine just...and then killing someone. I'm never gonna get over that."

"I know, but that's still a flimsy excuse for why you're here any chance you can take a shift, just you and a computer."

"You're not."

"I'm not really real either, Clark. I'm not actually alive. You can tell by how I can't breathe or touch or move, all those little things."

"So if I quoted that 'cogito ergo,' um something or other?"

"'Sum,'" she said. "Yeah, thinking is all I can do. That's not quite a real person."

He snorted. "You're the realest person I know. If it weren't for you and a lot of planning and foresight, the League wouldn't have made it the first year. We need you."

"And I am glad you all like me and I'm useful, such as I am, but it's not...I don't need you to babysit me, Clark."

"And it's my fault that you're like this."

She groaned. "Please don't do that Atlas thing. You didn't do it. I chose to take on Kariac. I lied about my infection and memory loss problems. It's what happened, you know? In a lot of ways, I still have what I wanted. I get to contribute to the Planet regularly, even if it's not my birth name on the byline. I help save the world every day, and I have a ton of good friends. It's not a bad life at all."

"And you could be-"

"Mrs. Olsen with an albatross around my neck? Nah, I'm not the domestic type even before all this. I think I only said 'yes' because Brainiac was in my head, affecting all my choices. I'm not bitter. It's not all I wanted, no, but I'm useful and I have friends and that's a lot more than people can always say about themselves."

"Well then on that logic. I'm also extremely useful with a good job and my best friend on comm link speed dial. I'm pretty fulfilled," he countered, finishing the last of his sandwich and crumbling up the wrapping to put back in his lunch bag.

She sighed again and it sometimes surprised him the things that were done for effect in speech. "I can't have a life like that. There's nothing keeping you from taking that chance with Lois or with another Leaguer or someone else you like. I really don't think it's fair to you to spend the next decade or however long you want to bleed out your guilt hanging out with me. It makes me feel shitty."

Shaking his head, Clark did something he promised himself he wouldn't do. He opened up the card holder and held it up to the nearest camera in the 'Tower. "I'm with the woman I want to be with."

Chloe was silent for a long time, awkwardly so, but Clark knew she'd seen the image. When she spoke, her voice was quiet. "Every time? For five years?"

"Yeah, always. Chlo, God, I wanted to be the better man. When you got engaged to Jimmy, my first instinct was to beg you to say no. I wanted to, but I didn't want to hurt you. Then this happened and I didn't want to make things complicated, except now you've been dropping a lot of hints in the last six months about me needing to date till it seems like all we do is go around in circles."

"Because being in love with me is pretty insane. Also, shitty timing. What really changed your mind on that? Was it me being off the market or was it guilt about this whole mess?"

"I visited you in the hospital, when you were on the respirator. Lana was hard to see hurt by Brainiac but it was worse with you. It felt a billion times worse until a few weeks after the techno-exorcism that wasn't, when you started popping up fully in the ISIS computers. I don't want to be in a world without you in it."

She laughed but it wasn't a pleasant sound. "You're in a world where I'm only half in it. Clark, I care a lot about you and that's why you have to...I'm a girl who can't be touched; there's nothing here."

He nodded and squeezed his right hand into a fist. "And I'm a guy who would break almost anyone in a situation like that, who can't afford to touch someone. I think we're well suited."

Long silence again. "After this shift, when Dinah and Ollie get here?"

"Yeah?"

"Can you leave and not take time at the bridge for a while? I mean, I can't keep you from being on the comm link. You have to be on that so you're ready, I get that. I just...Clark, I waited for nine years for you to see me."

"And I do, have for a while."

"Except, literally, there's nothing to see."