1

"Yeah, Chlo, you say that now, but you're not the one with the B+ on his record. I mean, who cares if I have an thorough understanding of the themes of The Portrait of Dorian Gray . I mean, it's a little gay, anyway," Clark said as he pulled open the door to The Torch for her.

Chloe rolled her eyes. "Them's the ropes. I'm just smarter than you."

"And who's the one who'd fail Calculus without me?" He replied, watching as the door shut behind him. He waited a beat and then stood straighter than he had before. "I loathe that."

She shrugged. "You know you do a mean 'Clark.'"

Kal-El rolled his eyes back. "You have witnessed nothing. Make haste and find me a girl with long raven lockes. I can act moronically for you."

"Make haste?"

"I may have read a bit of Shakespeare lately," he conceded.

"You know, Clark wasn't that bad."

"You cannot lie. I was there. It was most humiliating."

Chloe laughed. "I've seen you in Mickey Mouse ears. Falling down once or twice in front of Lana can't have been that bad."

"I would prefer the felt," he groused.

Chloe sighed. "Really, you...he, never mind, you weren't so bad. Besides, all boys are idiots. It's a scientific fact."

"He was moreso."

"Well, you do have superior taste in women."

"Gentlemen prefer blondes," he riposted, grinning. "I still cannot believe this. I know that I requested the Advanced Literature class. I understand that it came with summer reading and a mandatory book report. I do not understand how I could do more poorly than some humans."

"Yes, we're morons, cockroaches before you're almighty intellect," she sing-songed, clicking on her computer. "You're just jealous because I did better."

"I am not jealous. We are not in competition."

"We're in competition, buddy. We're competing for Valedictorian. We're competing for best articles, I'll win that one. Hell, we can compete for who has better superpowers."

"I can fly."

"I can cure comas, get in line."

Kal-El crossed his arms over his chest. "I merely question the objectivity of Mrs. Miller. It was an excellent analysis."

"You're going to be Supreme Leader of Earth. Do you need that A?"

Kal-El pursed his lips. "I fail to find the humor in that."

"You know you're not really going to take anything over," she corrected. "If you're not going to joke a little about your epic destiny."

"I control nothing. You have the all the access to my weapons of mass destruction."

"Less CNN for you buddy but if you'd like to topple the current regime..."

"No, I believe in democracy," Kal-El said, chuckling. "You've made your own messes."

"Uh-huh. I don't know why you're upset. If Wilde wasn't your speed, you could have chosen to do Shelley."

Kal-El sat down across from her. "I do not care for Frankenstein ."

"What's not to like? A little windmill fire, a little grunting and bolts in the neck."

"I have read the novel several times," he corrected. "The creature is erudite, self-taught, and ruthless. Hollywood has done him a disservice."

"So no bride with Marge Simpson hair?"

"No," he replied, softly. "There was one. She also chose self-immolation rather than be with him." Kal-El said nothing for a while and skimmed through his email beside her.

Chloe sighed. Kal-El was a work in progress. She could never quite tell what she might say that would wound him. Not intentionally, of course, but just because of him being who he was. She looked back up from her work and noticed that he was staring at the watch on her wrist. He'd offered to take it back from her. Hell, he'd offered, in his overly eager way, to take her to Cartier's and get a watch suitable for her.

Chloe was also working on teaching Kal-El that she didn't want anything from him at all save his company. She still received gifts, despite the protests. This morning it had been coffee literally brought from Colombia. Still, of all her gifts, Chloe loved his watch the most. Their lives were weird, which was an understatement. As far as Smallville was concerned, Clark Kent was still the slightly bumbling, but no longer coltish, guy he'd always been. He missed Lana and he still worked with his parents on the farm. Chloe Sullivan had gotten "lucky" and was living in The Talon on her own, free from parental rules.

Chloe and Clark were still best friends. That hadn't changed. She and he had been musketeers with Pete since middle school, and that was that.

Except everything had changed. She and Kal-El kept a penthouse in Metropolis and had been living together for almost a month. They spent their time out of school in the city and, at least two nights a week, in New York, meeting with one of the most brilliant men on the planet. There were nights where Kal-El would take her to London or to Johannesburg because he could.

She tried, again, to make it once a week. She didn't want him to spoil her also because if she got used to, she might not be that trustworthy counsel he so desperately needed.

But the world saw Clark and Chloe but what there truly was was Kal-El and his lover/counsel. It was so odd. She was still the girl she'd been and she wasn't. She still wanted to make The Torch excel, still was gunning to be Valedictorian. She still fell into some of that high school bullshit, but there was a whole other level. She was trying to figure out her power, trying to figure out who she was now, who she was to Kal-El.

And she was trying to help him.

He didn't know how to do what he'd been charged with and how would he?

Who else was supposed to just save humanity.

And he was so lost sometimes. He could ape being who he'd been, but she could see the strain in him, the hunch in his shoulders at the end of the day. She wondered if Clark had always felt that way, too. If he'd always felt like his life were an act. Chloe'd seen the same slump and exhaustion on Clark's face, in his green eyes. She bet he had, although she'd never know for sure. She couldn't bear to ask Kal-El.

He talked about before often, but mostly derisively. He was still in a fierce competition with who he'd been, with the favored son.

Kal-El couldn't really travel the world, couldn't find his place in it, until he fixed his home. They were growing into each other slowly. He adored Virgil and there was that paternal affection he desperately craved there, but he needed something more.

Chloe sighed as Kal-El started typing notes for the piece she'd assigned on the new faculty. He didn't even look like Clark, not when you were looking for it. The clothes were different, darker and no longer primary. His posture was stiffer. His eyes the wrong color. But no one noticed, because no one had noticed Clark much in the first place.

The Kents had planned it that way.

"Can I help you Sull-I-Van?"

She startled and knocked her mug. It would have spilled coffee into her lap but Kal-El was already there, stopping it. She grinned. "You're so useful, ALF."

"I try," he riposted. "Are you sure you are alright? You seem off."

"I'm fine. Have you thought about maybe meeting Martha at The Talon this time?"

Kal-El narrowed his eyes. "Metropolis is far nicer. There is more to do."

"It's not home."

"Sull-I-Van, I..." Then he stopped, his head quirking stiffly, like a bird's.

"Kal-El?"

He stiffened and blurred away, his parting words sending a shiver down her spine and her hand reaching for her cell:

"I hear shots from the locker room."