Five More Things that Still Never Happened to Chloe Sullivan

by legendarytobes

Five elseworlds of things that never happened to Chloe Sullivan, some dark, some happy, and some in between. Includes more of Amazon!Chloe and LiteralWatchtower!Chloe. Chlark centric

Five More Things that Still Never Happened to Chloe Sullivan

In the Blood

"You should leave," Chloe said, her voice sharp and shrill.

That wasn't like her. Yes, she'd had her moments, especially after she'd found out about her mother's madness, where she'd break down and cry. She'd even had panic on the run from Lionel, especially in that factory when she thought for sure the metallic meteor freak would impale her. Clark had stopped that.

She knew that now.

He'd saved her just as he'd done a dozen other times before.

A bitter, angry part of herself was screaming inside, screaming that he hadn't saved her when it really mattered. Buffy Saunders had done her worst, and now everything Chloe had ever wanted had been torn away from her. She was far more abnormal than even Clark had ever been. Hell, she wasn't even fucking alive anymore and it was beyond bizarre to sit quietly and to realize that she no longer needed to breathe, not if she weren't actively talking.

Clark shook his head and held up his hands, as if he could placate her. She frowned up at him, quirking her head just enough to angle her ears toward him. In the week since the other vampires had been slain and she'd been on the run, she'd learned a lot about what she was or wasn't. Undead was one of them, also cursed with an all-consuming hunger for blood that kept her up days. She was fast and strong, not nearly as much as Clark, but she was no slouch either. And her senses were almost unparalleled. She saw through the darkest night as if it were noon, could hear the mice scrabbling in the fields around her, and, of course, she could hear Clark's heart hammering away even as he neared her.

Chloe couldn't blame him. She'd bitten him last time, almost killed him, but he wasn't like her. He was Kryptonian, and he healed. After besting Buffy and the rest of her minions, after some time off to soak up the sun and heal, Clark was as normal as ever.

She hated him for that. Hated Clark for not being able to save her, and she almost hated him more for being able to be (relatively) normal again, to be able to walk in the sun, when she no longer could. The krypto-rabies she contracted was more than thorough, and, unfortunately the tradeoff for the strength and resilience was that her skin cells were badly altered, stripped of the melanin they needed, and fried inhumanly fast in direct light.

Chloe'd learned that her first day on the run and she still had the massive burn on her face and neck to show for it. That much was healing, becoming less red and angry as the days progressed but it was enough of a lesson to teach her that she no longer wanted to risk being out in the daylight. Was that ironic? Clark had mentioned during their long, surreal summer, that his body basically ran off sunlight. Hers? Well, to hers it was poison.

They were opposites now, and she didn't even know why he'd bothered to track her down at all.

"Chloe, you can't just live here."

She shook her head and gestured to the crypt around her. It was the biggest of the collected marble family crypts in the largest cemetery in the city. The mausoleum was even more ornate than what Lionel had arranged for Lillian Luthor. She hadn't yet figured out how to steal internet and cable signals to here, but she could manage. It kept her away from the light, and it was filled with rats. Something she could eat. It was like a human living on rice cakes. Didn't do a damn thing for her, but it kept her alive and from hurting others. Goddamn, it kept her from making more like her.

Something she wished to Hell had bothered Buffy more.

She sighed and glared up at him, and he held his ground. She was impressed. Anyone else, when faced with the feral glint of her red eyes would have shied away. Then again, Clark was, of course, packing abilities and strengths all his own.

"I don't have anywhere else to go. Dad's in London and stopped speaking to me after the safe house explosion. I can't go back to the damn dorms because Lana thinks I'm dead…the school and The Planet both do, just another casualty of a Halloween sorority initiation gone wrong. It's better that way."

Clark took another step toward her but she jumped, landing a few yards away nimbly on the top of a coffin. "I know you're here. I…you can't stay here."

"You think I can go to the farm? Jesus, Clark, don't you get it?" she said, gesturing to the wounded flesh of her neck. "I don't do sunlight anymore."

"I…that's from the fire."

"No, it's really not. I'm no more human than you are," she said pointedly, feeling marginally bad at the way Clark shrunk in on himself at her words. "But you're a fucking lot better at 'passing' than I am. I'm cold to the touch because I'm dead. My heart doesn't beat, and I don't breathe except to talk. Sunlight…the kind of wide open expanses like at Kent Farm would leave me fried to nothing. Besides, there are other concerns."

He blinked, still struggling, she was sure, for the right platitude to say. "Why can't you? I don't care what happened."

She gestured to the left side of his throat, at the two obvious puncture wounds there. "You should. If you were human, I'd have killed you or worse."

"What's worse?" he asked, his voice wavering.

Chloe sighed and shifted her position a bit on the casket. She'd loved him once, a part of her still did, but Clark was all goodness and sunshine, the sweet farmboy and everyone's savior. She didn't match him now, maybe she never had, but he had no business running around with something practically demonic. And damn it catechism for playing with her mind and her guilt.

"If you were like me. I could have made you just like me if you were human."

"But I'm not and, yeah, it scarred but I'm fine. I'm right here, Chlo."

"Your parents," she countered. "I'd hurt them."

"No, you love my parents."

She shook her head and leapt back from her place, landing easily in front of her former friend. "I did, that's true. But it doesn't matter. Your mom, Lois, Lana? Whoever? I'd tear through them like a starving dog on a t-bone. You don't understand how fucking hungry I am. How could you?"

"I…" and for the first time, his resolve failed, and he looked at her with the wide scared eyes of the boy she'd always known and not the reassurance of the hero he was growing into. "Give me a few days. Please. Come back with me to the farm and we'll put you in the storm cellar. I…let me talk to the Fortress and maybe it can help you."

"Do you even know how it works?" she hissed, her temper flaring even as her hunger bore into her. Rat was repulsive, and she'd avoided it for nearly two days. She was painfully hungry, and if Clark were human, she'd have torn him apart by now.

"No, but it can do a lot, like change me enough to make me mortal or bring me back from the dead. Give me a week to talk things out with Jor-El, I…if he can't fix you then we'll do something else, but after five years of friendship, you owe me."

"What about your mom and dad?" she demanded and now it was her resolve weakening. She didn't want to spend her time huddling in a dank crypt, cut off from everyone. Chloe had always loved Clark more than anyone, and now he was the only person on Earth she was even remotely safe around, the only being she knew she couldn't hurt in her thirst and rage. "I couldn't live with myself if I bit into them."

Clark sighed and reached out to stroke her cheek. She jumped away from him and hissed back at him from a shadowy corner of the mausoleum. Most days, she felt more feral than human, and, even if she couldn't control the instincts, it embarrassed her to be that animal-like before her best friend.

And the boy she still loved.

"Chlo, I promise. I'm still stronger than you are, and I'll make sure the chains and things we put on the cellar, well, I'll make sure only I can undo them."

She nodded and licked her lips, her tongue caught on a corner of her fangs and the blood was cold and putrid on her tongue. She couldn't recycle that way either; Chloe'd tried that the second night. Live blood was what she needed and animal would do but it wouldn't ever truly satiate her.

"Prisoner then."

He shook his head and held out his arms. She'd seen the gesture a hundred times, thrown herself into his embrace more times than she could count. It took almost ten minutes before she trusted herself enough near him. His blood was the most potent thing she'd ever tasted, and she figured it was due to the power he had. She'd even inherited his fantastic speed and heat vision for hours after she'd drained him. Part of Chloe would always want that experience again. Still, he was the only friend she had and the only comfort she might ever feel again. If Jor-El couldn't fix her, well, it wasn't fair to keep that guilt on Clark's head, especially when the investigation had been her harebrained idea. This might be one of the last hugs they ever shared.

He set his chin on the top of her head, and Chloe slammed her eyes shut. For just a moment, she could pretend that nothing had changed between them, but then the hunger took control of her again and her mouth watered even as her hearing picked up the beat of his heart.

"Never, Chlo. I'd never do that to you."

She sighed and burrowed into him, clinging to what little sanity she had left. "Maybe you should. I'm going to ruin both of us."

Weapon

"Hey, Chlo, how are you?"

Clark thought it was a stupid question to ask. He didn't know what to say to her, what he could do to make any of this better, not anymore. The best he could do was come every day and to stay as long as he could. It was why he'd moved to Star City, after all. Why, even though it had eaten into him, he'd gotten a job at Ollie's company and let the farm stop being a working farm. Four generations of birth right for his family paled in comparison to what his other obligations were.

After all, no matter how impossible it would have been to stop it, to blame a small child for what had happened, the shower was his fault, had accompanied the pull of his ship. He'd spent almost six years in Smallville and Metropolis cleaning the detritus his shower had left behind (both of them, technically), and now he could do no less for his best friend. She'd supported him for almost two years since she'd found out his secret and been his partner in crime since middle school.

He couldn't leave her, not now.

Chloe blinked back at him, and he hated coming here, fucking loathed it. Her hazel eyes were dull and blank, nothing like the incisive, sharp intelligence that had shone through them for years.

"Hey, Clark. Did you bring what I asked?"

He nodded and handed her a fresh notebook and a set of crayons. "It's Thursday, right? I know how fast you go through paper and things. I wouldn't forget."

She frowned and took them. Then there was just the tiniest flash of herself again, a self-awareness and that made her blush and rake a hand through her hair. It was kept short, like it had been back in junior year. Oliver provided the best stylists for it and Clark, frankly, had suggested it. When she kept it long, well, she forgot to shower a lot these days and it tangled like a rat's nest. Right now it was messy, probably hadn't been brushed in a few days, but it was neat enough.

"Yeah, Thursday, you're good at remembering."

He sighed and sat down on the chair by her desk. Chloe was going to start into writing again now that he was here. What she wrote, though, was far from coherent, just the ravings and scribblings that only made sense to her, in her tiny, agitated scrawl. The Wall of Weird had migrated to an endless series of journals that made no damn sense. What he'd read once or twice (using X-ray vision to peer through the covers) was no more than paranoid rantings. Granted, she was hospitalized and Lex Luthor and 33.1 were painfully real, but it spun off from even the truth of the meteor mutant experiments.

She was everything he'd seen in the Phantom's vision, and it was all his damn fault.

Well, and Moira's.

He wasn't sure why Moira using Chloe as a weapon had finally jump started her own mutation, and even less idea why Chloe's version of madness was a schizophrenia that left her looking for even more conspiracies than the alien one she was already involved in. But Chloe was almost exactly like her mother-the same infection, the same ability to control other Smallville mutants, and the same madness bleeding through her mind.

In the year since Moira had played her Chloe, things had spiraled out of control. Her mother was somewhere being held by Lex, and Clark was scared what would happen once Lex finally figured out the best way to use her to control the meteor affected. So far, that hadn't been some massive army uprising and none of Ollie's Pentagon contacts had any information about special military offers from LuthorCorp but with Moira had his command, Lex would find a way.

It was a matter of time.

But when he'd broken into the lab, he'd had a choice. He could grab Chloe or Moira, and he'd taken his friend, not even realizing that part of her was already gone. Now she was locked away in her own hospital room and extended quarters in Queen Tower, nestled close to the JLA headquarters a floor above her. Watched constantly because she was their friend and had been one of them, but also because she was the only one like her mother in the world. If Lex ever did lead an army, Chloe was the only person who might be able to undo that thrall.

An antidote.

Clark really could give a damn about that, but they couldn't let her free. Not only would she hurt herself or wander off and get confused, be left vulnerable, but Lex would want her. What was that saying Oliver had? The heir and the spare. Chloe was better than that, second generation of a sort. After all, hadn't Maddie and Evan both had more spectacular concentration of powers than their parents?

Lex could not have her.

Clark would never allow it, no matter what he had to do.

But Chloe…wasn't Chloe anymore either.

"You never let me see what you write," he said, sighing.

She didn't even look at him, just kept scribbling away on something only she could hope to understand. "You know it's for Bernstein at The Planet. My editor always has me on a tight leash and I have so much to say about Lex."

"I know, Chlo."

"I miss the paper. I don't like being on assignment here in Star City."

He swallowed. It was a cover he'd gotten her fractured mind to understand, the lie that made her cooperative in the tower. "I know, but some day you won't have to be a correspondent. You just finish and on Wednesday I'll deliver it like always."

Clark swallowed hard at that, glad in one regard that Chloe was so different. Before, she'd have seen through every transparent lie he ever told. Now she didn't even question it. Every Wednesday he took her finished manuscript and every Thursday he brought her a new one because it made her happy. Manageable. After the first few times trying to spy and understand her work, he never read it, just burned it. If only the actual madness were easier to burn out than the signs of it.

"Good, that's good. I think I have a lead on this death ray thing and never mind, I shouldn't say too much."

He nodded and squeezed her shoulder. "That's good. I…you look thinner, are you eating?"

"I'm not hungry much," she said, setting down her blue crayon and looking back at him. They'd let her have a pencil the first week and Oliver and his hand had lived to regret that decision. When she got her most confused, Chloe got violent. It didn't really affect most of the League because they were faster or stronger than she, but she'd gotten Ollie by surprise and crayons were just safer for her too. "The medicine makes that hard."

"I know, but the food is good?"

Those same blank eyes focused on him as best they could, but it took her a long time to answer. That wasn't unusual either, her treating basic questions like they were a MENSA test. Her mind was just so clouded these days. She shrugged and her voice was so flat and lifeless when she answered.

Clark couldn't even remember a day that he'd seen her smile, not since they'd moved here. She never cried, never showed much of anything going on. It was nothing like the girl he'd known. Only when she got agitated and on an especially vivid paranoid rant did she even vaguely resemble the Chloe he'd grown up with.

The one he loved and ached for.

"I…yeah, it's fine."

Clark nodded. "If there's anything you want me to get you? I can be in China pretty fast. Bart taught me to run over water. Or maybe pizza from Italy? I can do that."

"I guess."

He sighed as she settled back to writing. She'd be at it for hours. Clark worked the bare minimum of hours in Ollie's PR department and patrolled his share with the League at night, but, mostly, he stayed here, lingering mostly in silence and paying his penance.

Chloe shocked him a bit by setting down her book and coming to sit on the foot of the bed. He frowned, not sure if she wanted a hug. Chloe was vague often, but occasionally could be physically affectionate. He hugged her whenever she asked, wished that just holding her tight like the bomb squad he was supposed to be would fix this.

"I've been thinking," she said, her voice still monotone.

"About Lex?" he asked, hoping he could get her into something that at least made her talk more. He missed even a facsimile of the old rhythm between them.

She shook her head and looked at him, eyes clearer than usual and, for just an instant, he was back in a penthouse in Metropolis from that summer and she was ready to scream at him. "About me. I appreciate what you do."

"I don't understand. We're hanging out. We always do that."

"No, all of you. I know I'm just like my mom, okay?"

He schooled his expression to neutral and forced his voice to be level, even. "No, you're not."

"Well Mom's catatonic."

"See, not alike."

She frowned and quirked her head at him. He wasn't sure how long she'd be this lucid. "I remember back at Lex's compound. I did something. I…some of his guards were meteor freaks and they were going to hit me when Mom and I tried to escape. I screamed at them to stop and they did, just stared at me like they were waiting."

"Lucky, huh."

"No, I know that's…everything's fuzzy, but that's a memory not a dream, right?"

He swallowed. "Chlo-"

"No, that's my power. I control everyone else like me, like Mom did to me too. That's why you guard me so hard." For the first time in months, Chloe started to cry.

Clark blurred over and swept her up in a hug, holding her close and rocking her, wishing there was anything he could do to help her, and, not for the first time, wishing he'd never come to Earth at all.

"I don't guard you. Yes, you can control the meteor affected."

"Freaks," she said, staring back at him. "The ones like me."

"You're not a freak."

She snorted. "If my brain were clear enough, and even I get it's not…that I'm not who I was."

"I wouldn't say it like that."

"I am," she corrected. "I'm saying it. I could have a whole army at my command, and that meant Lex or the government or anyone else who had me would have the same thing. I get that. You and the Justice Bros have to take care of me."

"Uh, Oliver vetoed that name. We're the 'Justice League' now."

She snorted and just the tiniest hint of her old fire was there. "You're bros, just a boys' club."

"Sure, whatever, Chlo," he said, grinning genuinely. He could enjoy this glimpse of her while she lasted, however that was. "We protect you because you're our friend, and we all know what Luthors are like, what labs are like. Okay? I come because where else would I go. You're my best friend."

"I'm crazy."

"Well, if it helps, I swear I really am an alien superhero and there really are mutants out there. So you're not that…you know what, that's a mean term too."

"Maybe I should keep a list."

"This is the most lucid I've seen you since Moira hurt you," he said, and he couldn't help his eyes from going russet. He was so angry. Maybe it was stupid, maybe Chloe would have changed anyway, but Moira certainly didn't do her any favors. "I don't understand."

Chloe's tears slid slowly down her cheeks, even as he rubbed wide circles over her shoulders. "I know."

"You're getting better, you think? That's great. We can maybe lessen your meds and-"

She cut him off, her face still scrunched up with tears. "I have a new nurse, did you know?"

"Tammy, right? Yeah, I talked to her two days ago. She was top of her class at Met U. Oliver and Bart both loved her."

"She's from Lowell County."

"Okay, that's cool."

"No, Clark, you're not listening to me, and I don't know how much longer I have to make you understand before it's all fuzzy again and I'm not me."

He hugged her again and kissed her temple, well aware he'd never do this for Victor or A.C. Screw it. This was what felt right. "You're always you. I…no matter what, you're my best friend."

"I'm not," she said, her eyes finally shining with their former sharpness. "You're…" she stood up and pulled away from him. "You never held me like that before, not with a kiss like that."

"People change."

"You're in love with me? Oh, Clark, that's so pathetic. This isn't real," she said, pointing to herself. "When this wears off, I'm going to be foggy and incoherent and writing in a damn notebook for hours as if I actually were a reporter."

"What?"

"I know that I don't work for the Planet. I know that. They don't publish notebooks of scribble. I know that now because it would be nuts, but in a few hours or less I know I won't."

"I'm sorry. I didn't want to make you feel badly. I didn't know how to tell you, and you seemed happy and I don't understand any of this," he said, leaning against the headboard. "You're better, but Ollie's doctors didn't change a thing."

"Tammy did."

"Well she's officially the best nurse of all time."

Chloe shook her head and stopped pacing. "She's a mutant, must have been in one of the showers. About an hour before you came, she brought me lunch and told me a joke that was pretty bad, some pun thing, but she was trying to be nice. And I said 'don't say another word.'"

"So?"

"She couldn't until I said it was okay. She tried to talk to me again and it was like she had damn laryngitis."

"Oh, but she's fine now?"

"Yes, I said she could talk again and she just stared at me like I was the biggest monster she'd ever seen and rushed out. I, oh God. Do you know what this means?"

"That you're getting better and, uh, maybe Oliver needs to background checks better?"

"No, it means," she said, twirling around like the first time she'd ever shown him the real Wall of Weird. "That I get clearer-better-but only if I control other people. Mom was more lucid with me and then she'd get less clear till she gave a new order. I'm like a damn parasite!"

Clark didn't know what to say to any of this, but her theory wasn't nuts, and it made some modicum of sense. The longer Moira had been around Chloe, the more lucid Moira had seemed. Besides, no matter what antipsychotic had been tried, nothing had pierced the fog around Chloe's mind before.

"What do you want to do?" he asked, standing and walking toward her, placing a hand on her shoulder. "How can I help you?"

"I don't know," she said, and he could hear the monotone creeping back, the dullness moving over her eyes. "If I order other meteor mutants around all day, I can be me."

"Maybe, it's just a theory."

"It's a good one," she said. "But I can't do that."

"You could," he said, his heart suddenly racing and the excitement eating through him. He could help her, really help her. If he took her home, then there were hundreds of the affected in Smallville alone. She could…maybe?

He could fix it, make up for the damage he'd done to her.

"I can't. That's cruel, Clark. You don't know how scary it is to literally be unable to do anything to stop your body. Mom had me freaking driving and digging things up at night and I didn't even remember. I just…" she shocked him more by kissing him, and he held her for a long time, flashing back to Dark Thursday and wishing to God he'd never let her slip away.

But he hadn't known how little time they'd had left.

She pulled away and rubbed his cheek. "I love you. You understand that, right? I tried to fight it and I couldn't and I don't know if you…but I'm going to be her again, and not know anything just like Mom goes back to catatonic. I love you, but you don't have to come every day. You don't have to humor me or hurt yourself like that. I know you care about me."

He kissed her again and held her close to him, even as her eyes grew dimmer and more wild. "I love you too."

"I…it's okay, Clark. You can take care of me and move on, alright?"

"I couldn't."

"Don't spend your life cooped up in a hospital because of the shower. You didn't do this so don't even try and be Hamlet, okay? I love you, and I want you to know that, but I can't…Mom doesn't mind hurting people, hurting even me, but I do. Don't even think of 'feeding' people to me like this."

"But Tammy got better, right?"

"Sure, but I'm not going to live by violating people's minds and free will. I can't."

"And we're not going to talk about this?"

"I…" she blinked again and shook her head. "Clark, I have a deadline."

His heart fell as she went back to her desk and started scribbling again, a crayon in each hand. "Chlo, wait we were talking."

She blinked back at him and her speech was slow again, stunted. "Busy, like I said."

"I…"

"Deadline, Clark, come on."

He nodded and gave her a quick, perfunctory hug before heading out of her door. He had so much to tell the others, especially Oliver and the team's personal physician, Emil. He just had to figure out what to do, how to make Chloe see she was being stubborn.

He needed her back, after all, and now he knew how to get it.

But as he hurried to the Watchtower part of the complex, he stilled, a horrible thought lancing through him. Lex would want Moira as incisive and stable as possible to lead whatever 33.1 army he was creating. He would want her to leech and use the other mutants around her. If she'd been doing that for a year, how strong was she now, and how would they ever stop what Lex was creating?

Like the Corners of My Mind

"You didn't have to," Chloe said, blushing brightly as Clark handed her the colorful bouquet of red and yellow tulips. "It's not that big a deal."

Her friend grinned and it was still the cutest sight, maybe more handsome on him now that they were adults. Chloe felt trapped in that regard. Ever since her procedure with Curtis Knox, her life was all over the place. She'd woken up on the table when the last thing she remembered was eighth grade graduation. To say she'd been confused as Hell to wake up in a hospital room to see her dad with grey hair, Lois in a business suit and a redheaded dweeb who claimed to be her boyfriend was an understatement.

Worst of all was when Clark had come in because, to her, he'd grown a foot and turned into possibly the hottest guy she'd ever seen.

Not that he hadn't always been cute, but they boy she knew had been replaced with a guy who, frankly, never seemed to smile much, not the way he'd used to. The first six months had been just devoted to relearning things. She was still smart, still could write well, but she'd lost six years of her life. Instead of it being 2001, she'd woken up at Christmas time in 2007. She didn't remember how to drive, didn't remember getting her job (!) at The Daily Planet, didn't even know the basics like who the president was or what date it had been. So learning adult skills and catching up with the computer tech of basically The Future had taken some time. Lois had been great and somehow talked Grant Gabriel into giving her a second chance, and she'd done well enough to start back in the basement and work from there.

She'd been there for two years so far, but Chloe had just been promoted to the fifth floor under Perry White as her editor. It was everything she'd ever dreamed.

Made up for the mess her social life was.

Waking up with a steady boyfriend was not her thing. She'd felt bad about everything, even if she didn't know Jimmy from Adam. She'd tried for a few weeks to date, but she didn't remember him and, frankly, didn't like his impatience. He wanted to go back to everything as it had been, just as hot and heavy, and Chloe didn't even remember having sex. It certainly wasn't something she'd felt comfortable relearning, and Jimmy hadn't wanted to work through with her. It fizzled out fast, and Chloe figured out that just because she was no longer a meteor freak herself, well, it didn't mean that it would make the rest of her life better. Lois and she were not as close either, not with seven years of inside jokes and life history just gone, and, frankly, Lois was being secretive and odd at work and that just confused her more.

Clark was mostly her lifeline. That easy rhythm they'd had even with years gone from her mind and him being so different physically now still maintained. It sucked in a huge way, though, because Chloe still had the biggest crush on him. It was one of the reasons she'd not cared much when Jimmy threw in the towel. Clark still invaded her thoughts, was still the only kiss she remembered (only one she wanted to), and she wished she could repeat that. But they were friends. He was the one person in her world, including her father, who'd done the best with her starting out from carrot or fourteen and just rolled with it.

She just wished it could be more.

At least he was kind enough to celebrate her promotion. That was a blessing. She loved Lois so much, but her cousin with Inquisitor training and no high school degree (at least she had that and an associate's, just didn't remember getting them) was already Gabriel's star reporter. You know that kind, the one with her name above the fold.

Lois wasn't on City Hall minutia, to say the least.

It would have felt stupid for Lois to take the elevator down to congratulate Chloe on resurrecting her stalled career. Even her cousin, bless her obtuseness, understood that. They were going out for drinks at the Ace of Clubs instead.

"Chlo? Hey, you sort of wandered off there."

She grinned and set the flowers down on her desk. "They're sweet. I just…I know it's under Perry, and he's the best even with all the past problems, but I also know it's not that special. Lois is far more important here than I am. So's Jimmy. I, uh, might have been lapped a little."

Clark's smile fell, and he looked away. He did that always whenever she alluded to her surgery or her memory loss. Chloe was sad she'd lost time, that she'd have to make it up. On the other hand, that was a million times better than ending up in Belle Reeve or like her mother. From what Clark had told her of her former ability, it certainly was better than waking up in a damn morgue drawer as well. But he always acted saddest about what had happened, as if he'd done it to her, and that made zero sense. She'd signed the papers, she'd consented. It was what she'd wanted, and no one could help that the town had gone schizo. That was just bad luck.

But he always felt acted like he could have changed it.

"You deserve it. This is your dream, and I was there when you got on the tipline and for your first every byline on like page fifty."

She nodded and stepped around the desk to hug him, wishing like every time he'd hold her just a little longer. "Maybe I don't miss memories of the tip line."

"Oh you don't," he replied, chuckling. "Do you want to do dinner to celebrate?"

She frowned, sorry then she had plans with Lois. He and her cousin went together like, as Lois called it, "hot fudge and halibut." He always declined if it was going to be the three of them unless it was a Holidays thing. "Can't. Going to the Ace with Lois. Besides, the farm is three hours from here. You can't tell me you still don't have a ton of chores you're missing to do this for me."

"True but you know I can finish them fast and-" Clark stopped then and looked away.

He did that a lot, too. It wasn't just his nonsensical martyr complex about the shower she couldn't understand. It was the things he'd say about them. There'd been a ton when she'd first woken up, and she'd been so overwhelmed that she hadn't had time to process them, but now that she was back to her senses, well, even if Kara helped on the farm (and talk about a cousin from nowhere), he spent a lot of time in a city that was a six hour round trip from his home.

"No, it's fine. I tell you what. We can do a movie in Smallville on Friday and then just hang. And I mean a real movie, not your VCR."

"DVD player now," he corrected, blushing. "I just…great. Then it's a date."

Her jaw dropped. Clark Kent was not asking her out. Okay, logically there was no reason why he couldn't and they weren't fourteen anymore, and it's not like he dated as far as she knew. Hell, Lana had been living on the farm when she'd had her surgery but the other girl hadn't stayed long. Chloe never knew much about the why of it, just that she'd ended up living in Metropolis and running some foundation for mutant research. Osiris or Isis.

And even then, even if they'd been best friends, Chloe couldn't recall it. Just that she'd been the cheerleader and the girl that, okay, out of a ton of jealousy she'd snarked on back in school.

Still, a date?

She hadn't dated since she'd recovered. Not anyone. She didn't even know how, and that was the hard part. Chloe was twenty-three and explaining to any date that she was a blank on how all of that went because high school and college were just missing from her brain was just too hard to explain.

But Clark knew and…

"A date?"

"Yeah, you know. Two people go out, the guy pays for stuff-"

"That's an archaic tradition. We could go Dutch."

He laughed again, and she wished he did it more often. "No, Chlo, for the first time, I have you covered. We'll talk financials on the second. I asked, my treat."

She swallowed hard at that. "Okay, I just, huh, I should have gotten promoted sooner if that's what it took."

He grinned and kissed her cheek softly, a promise of what was to come. "Then you should see what I'll do for you when you finally land under the Tiffanies."

"Thanks," she said, clutching his hand as they strolled down Main Street. "You really didn't have to go see the foreign film night at The Talon for my sake. We could have done an action flick at the multiplex in Granville."

"You like that kind of thing. I can deal with black and white."

She frowned and quirked her head at him. "But reading subtitles is a bore." Chloe left it at that. Clark actually seemed not to be too bothered with it, as if Russian was just something he spoke.

"What?"

"Nothing, but maybe next time a better movie. I just…what are we doing here?" she asked, leading him to the side in an alley. "You don't have to date me because you feel sorry for me."

Clark's eyes were wide and he clenched his jaw. "You're kidding me. You can't honestly think that."

"Well, I know I'm not normal."

Clark shook his head. "You don't even know what that's like."

"I could raise the dead, clearly I was pretty freaksome and sometimes I still feel like a high school kid at best maturity wise."

"You were clearly about forty-five when I met you," he corrected. "This is real. I'd have asked earlier, but I promised myself I wouldn't until your career was back on the track it should be. The shower robbed you so badly, and I wanted you to recoup that."

"The shower isn't your fault. I'm one of hundreds who got changed and, thanks to Dr. Knox, I'm one of a growing group of people who made that trade. It's okay. I just…I don't know. I feel like 'just Chloe.'"

He leaned down and kissed her. It was a soft kiss at first, gentle and chaste. It reminded her of the one in the loft, and she was eternally grateful the surgery hadn't taken that from her. Clark didn't feel the same, was so huge now, but he was her Clark, clearly always had been. Emboldened, it was Chloe who stuck out her tongue, exploring his own with it. They could have stayed like that forever, embracing each other.

But there was a loud cough.

She broke apart and spun around, figuring some store owner had seen them and was clucking at PDA.

Instead, she was shocked when Clark shoved her behind him. Around him, she could make out the person who'd come into the alley. It was a kid from their school, actually, once upon a time. Jason Miller maybe? He hadn't been in their classes, one of the lower tracked kids.

"You fucked my life up, Clark," he said, and she gasped as a bright red glow arced between his fingers. "You do know that."

"What's he talking about?" she asked, slipping around from behind him and coming to stand shoulder to shoulder. She couldn't completely explain the impulse, but knew this posture felt right.

Clark's jaw was clenched again and, oddly, Chloe swore his eyes looked red. "Nothing. Look, Jason, we'll do this somewhere else and not with her here. She has no part of it."

The red light grew brighter and she blinked against the onslaught. "I think we do it now. What, Clark? She doesn't know what you do?"

"Huh?" she asked but it was too late. Whatever energy he'd been holding back, Jason shot across the alley in a bright crimson blast. It was coming so fast for her that there was no way to jump away.

Except she didn't have to.

Clark jumped in front of her, so fast she didn't even see him move.

Chloe ran to him after the blast sent Clark tumbling into a brick wall. "Clark?"

He shook himself off and blurred-that was the only word for it and then she knew exactly who he was-back to Jason and knocked him unconscious with a tap of his finger. One finger.

She looked up at him, and it was then that her heart broke. Clark was staring back at her with wide, scared eyes, and Chloe couldn't understand why. So he was a meteor freak. She'd been one too. Apparently, Clark wasn't big on surgery and had kept what seemed to be incredible speed, strength, and resilience to say the least secret from her for two years.

"Clark, look, we can talk about this. You know I'm as weird as you."

He sighed and shook his head. "I have to go before the cops come. They can't know. I…no one knows anymore but Mom and Kara. Chloe, let's just go back to the farm and then you can drive home, okay?"

She was already standing back at the Kent drive way before she could object.

"Clark, you can't do this," she said to his damn voicemail. God, she hated cell phones. Now everyone had them and, while cool in theory, she fucking hated being screened. "I've called seven times. I've sent ten emails. I'm going to call D.C. Is that what you want? Do you want me to just go talk to Mrs. Kent? I…just call me, okay, I promise I don't care."

Sighing, she hung up her phone and leaned back at the diner. She and Lois shared an apartment on eighth, but she just needed out. Lois had never cared much for Clark, and she didn't get why Chloe was so hung up on him. Trying to call him there just felt awkward. Her cousin meant well but she didn't want to get drunk and curse Clark's name, she just wanted him to talk to her.

The last thing she expected was his cousin, Kara, to come up to her table.

"Hey," she said, sitting up straighter and looking around the diner for Clark. "Where's Clark?"

The other girl shook her head and sat down at the table. "Kal's not coming."

Chloe sighed and nodded. Kara was odd. Her favorite so-called actual family nickname for Clark was the least of it. She was supposedly from Minnesota and had tracked Clark down through a lot of detective work since they were biological cousins. But nothing about her was quite typical. She was supposed to be an American born and bred, but she mixed up most euphemisms as if English weren't her native language. She was clearly some freak math prodigy but preferred to work as a model in the city, and sometimes she swore she'd catch the other girl speaking in a foreign language to Clark, just what sounded by tone like snark under her breath.

They'd never really gotten along, at least not any better than Lois and Clark did.

So her being here made zero sense.

"Then why are you here?"

"Kal's an idiot," Kara continued, as she drummed her fingers on the formica. "He's just always been dense."

"Okay? Look, Kara, I feel really bad about saying this, but I think that what happened between us is pretty private."

"I know that Kal has powers. You think I'm stupid?"

Chloe shrugged. "I'm not dumb, and I didn't know until Friday. Look, Clark's always been weird. I know there was no way he just had the right book in his loft even ten years ago, but there was a breeze and there it was. I get that he makes terrible excuses and dashes off and I just never said anything cause I figured it might make him run. I didn't have a lot of friends so I didn't want to risk it. I mean, he's The Blur, has to be."

Kara nodded. "Yes, that's true."

Chloe arched an eyebrow at her. "So, 'Maid of Might,' I don't suppose I could get you to give me a quote?"

"Nope," Kara said, shaking her head. "So you got it in two."

"One," Chloe corrected. "I figured biological cousins…it seemed obvious from that angle that you two were related." She whistled a bit as she let herself think that over. "So Clark can fly, huh?"

"Hardly. He can't seem to master that one. Anyway, the point is that there's a lot going on here, and it has to do with the meteor shower sure, but it's not how you think. Kal didn't tell you for good reasons."

"Cause he thinks I'm some bigot and would have hated him?"

Kara sighed and stopped drumming. "He's afraid you'll hate him but for a very different reason. He's at the farm right now. Would you like a ride over?"

"I thought you hated me."

"I don't think I understand what Kal sees in you."

"Gee, thanks."

"No, I'm serious. You're smart, definitely for a hu…compared to most people. I get that part. I guess I just liked Lana better."

Chloe swallowed and it felt like shattered glass in her throat. "Oh."

"But Kal is miserable without you, and I think you deserve to know the truth."

"About Clark? Because I got it. It's a mutation."

Kara shook her head, "And since it could take decades for Kal to tell you himself, I'm going to let you know that we're not related to the meteor shower that way."

"Then what way are you?"

"So, someone at least thinks screening me sucks," she said, hesitating on his porch and opting instead to sit on the swing.

Clark glared at Kara who just said something terse in that strange language of hers before blurring away. Chloe's eyes widened at the sight and she couldn't help but smile at the way her hair blew in the air she displaced.

Just like Clark and The Tales of the Weird and Unexplained.

"She wasn't supposed to do that."

"Well it's dumb. I was a mutant. I still say there's nothing you can tell me that's weirder than literally raising the dead and waking up in a morgue."

Clark sighed and leaned against the porch railing. It was so weird, even after the last two years, Chloe would think of Clark and still expect the sweet boy in the loft. On some level, she would never fully adjust to the shock of seeing that man there instead. No, the freaking Blur. The rumor whispered throughout Metropolis that Gabriel was desperate to get a story about.

"You were busy growing up," she said. "I'm really proud of you. The Blur thing? That's amazing."

"I didn't start it all alone. I mean, for a while it was me just trying to stop the dangerous meteor mutants in town, but it got into more than that. There was over two years where you knew and you helped me a lot. Frankly, I had some close calls and I wouldn't even be alive without you."

She blinked trying to understand any of this. Her best friend was a superhero, and here he was telling her that she'd been his sidekick. And she didn't remember a damn minute of it. Dying was a terrible thing, and the fear of madness worse, but she suddenly missed those six years more than she ever had even the first day in the hospital when she'd cried buckets.

"I did?"

Clark nodded. "I didn't want to talk about it at first because you had to relearn so much and get used to life again, then you needed your career back. Then, well, it's safer not running around with The Blur or Maid of Might. You're normal now, fragile, and I didn't want to out you through it. Frankly," he said, his tone chillier than she'd ever heard it. "You made that choice. I begged you not to do it, Chloe." He sighed and started to pace. "I guess you didn't mind forgetting me or us."

"We dated?"

"No, but we saved the world a few times, went to Hell and back. I knew you were scared, but you'd only had the powers a few months. We could have worked on it, and I hated what you did, but it was so hard because you didn't do it. I mean not the you here. I can't hold it against you, but I guess I do against her."

"That's extremely confusing."

He stopped and sighed and it dispelled enough air to make the porch chimes ring. Chloe shook her head, apparently there was no end of the surprises to her friend or to whom she'd actually been. "I have three identities; I'm used to confusing. There was Chloe before and there's you now and I still don't know why you did what you did."

"My mom's in Fairview. You really think I want to end up there? Every time it's hard, every time I feel confused or don't know a joke or a current event as well as I should, I tell myself that at least I'm not there!"

"I know, but I just…we lost so much, and I don't know how to explain that."

"You could try, actually use some words. Christ, Clark, you hid being The Blur from me for over two years. You hid that I was in on it with you, so what else aren't you saying?"

He stilled then and she knew she'd hit pay dirt. People always got more deliberate with their words when they were cornered; Clark had always been a shit liar anyway. "I don't know what you mean."

"You're not a mutant. Kara said as much, so you aren't like me. Hell, I had my files even in middle school. I know meteor mutants don't get like five powers. Hell, Kara can fly and she's from Minnesota, never was near the showers."

Clark swallowed hard and looked out at the fields. "I don't want to do this. Can't we just pretend you don't know?"

"I can't unsee something a second time around."

"Then it just gets worse from here."

"Define worse?"

"There's always criminals out to get me and my friends or Mom and Kara. There's always billionaires and intrigue and labs."

"Lex Luthor did shitty things to me and my mom, I get that. I know I made some crazy deal with Lionel, but I don't know why. I get those things happened even if Lois had to explain what she knew and Dad too. Maybe I can be smarter this time."

Clark's shoulders slumped and he looked back to her, his eyes hidden by his bangs. "Maybe I just don't want you to hate me then."

"Like I could do that. Dad and Lois have been great, really tried, but you're the only person I still feel normal with."

"Relative term," he huffed.

"No, it's really not. I just…why would I blame you for anything? Clark, please. I love you, and I'm sorry that maybe I saw your secret earlier than you wanted me to, but, come on. I'm a reporter and you're a weird guy. I never asked because it would have hurt your feelings, and I wanted to keep my friend, but I knew things weren't adding up."

"I'm not that weird."

"You're terrible at making excuses for your disappearances. I just stopped even bothering to ask questions because I hated being lied to," she countered. "There's nothing worse than doomed to go crazy, just not."

"Then how do you feel about me being literally responsible for your mutation in the first place?"

"I don't see how that's possible."

Clark shook his head and looked back out to the fields. "Damn Kara for doing this. We aren't mutants, that's true, but we are related to fall out from the shower."

"Except if you were the freaking shower, I don't see how that's possible," she said, laughing a bit at her own joke.

Clark didn't laugh with her.

It took long, agonizing minutes before he looked at her, and when he did, his eyes were so wide and scared, like they were just begging her to understand him.

Holy shit.

"You're an alien?"

"Kryptonian. That's the word," he said. "My birth parents sent me here to save my life and my ship carried the meteor rocks with it, like a pull. If I hadn't landed here, you never would have been mutated. You and you mom would have always been normal."

"I…" she floundered not sure how to take any of this.

"See, I knew this was going to happen. Every person in Belle Reeve is my fault because I brought the rocks here whether I meant to or not. So I'm not a hero at all. I spend most of my life, even now, cleaning up Krypton's messes." He surprised her then by walking over and sitting next to her on the swing. "I'd give anything if I hadn't come."

"I wouldn't," she said, looking up at him, hoping he'd understand. "You're my best friend and both the Blur and Maid are heroes. Metropolis needs you, even if you're not exactly public yet or people still call it Urban Legends." Reaching up, she stroked his cheek and was just glad he let her. "I need you, you know? Who else would ever have tolerated me? I was so weird. I never fit in in Metropolis and I fit in worse in Cow Town, USA."

"You'd have found Pete."

"Eventually," she replied, chuckling. "But don't talk like that. If you hadn't come here, I know my life would have been worse for it, your parents' too."

"Dad died because of me."

Chloe frowned but didn't ask how. That was one of the bigger shocks of waking up, to realize that Pete was on the road with a band and that Mr. Kent was dead, that most of the staples of her childhood were gone when it felt, to her, as if she'd just seen them. Clark never talked about his dad. Never. The few times she'd tried, he'd clammed up and made excuses to leave.

"I don't understand."

"Alien bullshit is the short answer. The long one hurts too much to explain tonight, but I don't know if any of you are actually better off. I'm so sorry. I'll understand if you don't want to be my friend anymore, Chlo."

She reached her hand lower and cupped his chin, grateful when he looked at her finally. "I still love you."

"I ruined your life."

"You were a child when you got here and you can't help what followed you. Try again."

"I'm not human," he said, his tone bitter. "I'm not good enough for anyone."

She frowned, not sure what had happened between him and Lana, but sad for him because it clearly hadn't ended well. "I was never into normal anyway," she finished, kissing him, grateful as his tension ebbed and he kissed her back.

They stayed like that for a long time, until he pulled back himself. When he did, she was startled to see that his eyes were glowing red like embers. "I can't."

She blinked. "Can't what?"

"Anything," he said morosely, standing up and walking to the other side of the porch. "I can't get too excited about things."

"Oh!"

"Yeah, I just…not that we were going to."

She rolled her eyes. "I've known you however you figure it for ten years, but we weren't going that far in one day, no."

"But that's just it, even kissing I get worked up and there's the heat vision," he said, gesturing to his red eyes. "And I'm so strong, Chlo, and you deserve better than me."

She nodded but kept swinging. "I don't even remember how. Part of me feels still bumbling and about sixteen years old. I still feel weird because this isn't the body I had, wasn't like this before, and it was like I was fourteen one day and now I'm twenty four."

"That's really not helping," he said, his eyes green again.

"No, not like that, but you're not…maybe we're just good at being a mess together," she offered, standing up and walking back toward him, glad when he let her touch his forearm. "Believe me when I say that I'm glad you came and that I'd rather have had a weird life than one without you, and I want to continue just like we are."

"Exactly like it?" he asked, voice hoarse.

She shook her head and kissed his cheek. "No, but the rest we'll figure out. I promise you that. Besides, have you met me? I always find the right information."

He laughed and hugged her close, and she remembered the loft long ago, and it all seemed inevitable didn't it? "That's true, Chloe, very true."

Desperate Times…

"Clark, I don't want to talk," Chloe said, crossing her arms over her chest.

He shrugged and stood under the globe on the Planet's roof. It was his stake out spot first, and she worked for the damn Journal now. Okay, well "Cassie Sandsmark," Chloe's permanent alias after she'd returned from abroad worked there. "Chloe Sullivan" was dead, and only her immediate friends and family (read basically the Justice League) knew any differently. Clark couldn't say he was thrilled with that, and he didn't, even now, see why she had to go that far. It didn't matter what had happened with the VRA or the Legion last year. There had to be another way for her to survive than to bury everything she'd been for over twenty years.

Of course, Chloe was very different from whom she'd been before, wasn't she?

He eyed her bracers and the leather of her skirt and breast plate. If he lived a thousand years, and he probably would, he would never get used to seeing Chloe as an Amazon. It floored him to think she might be as strong as at least Kara, and more to see her dressed up like a cross between a gladiator and a dominatrix.

Never catch him in something that revealing, thank you very much.

"You are not just digging in, are you?"

"You can't make me leave," he replied, his tone petulant and suddenly he felt like they were back in high school.

She rolled her eyes, which clinched the déjà vu. "Fine, then you can do whatever you want. It's not that interesting out here tonight anyway. I've pretty much got it handled. Hell, I thought tomorrow was Oliver and you were Friday."

"Well, I was, but flying lessons didn't go so well."

She froze at that and she damn well should have. Chloe had promised to take him flying herself, to teach him what she'd learned from her birth mother, Diana. Then he'd kissed her, overcome by all the realizations he'd made after spending six months without her, and she'd shut down. Chloe was convinced he was only in love with her for the upgrades. Because she was a woman he couldn't hurt. He'd tried to make her see things his way, and she'd just thrown his alien nature in his face.

That still burned.

Of course he knew painfully well that outside of his cousin there was no one like him anywhere. He just never expected Chloe to use that against him. Maybe it was more than her name and abilities that had changed.

"I'm sorry. I thought J'onn could help since Kara's teaching style is basically Momma Bird shoving you off a branch."

"Chandler's Windmill, actually, and we quit because I was leaving a noticeable crater," he finished, sitting down next to her on the balustrade. If she didn't want him there, she was going to have to move him. Not that she probably couldn't, but he was banking she wouldn't. "I'm never going to get it. I don't know why. Clearly Kara can, and I could when I was brainwashed, but I can't do it as myself."

Sharp green eyes regarded his and his heart constricted. He'd missed her so much, every day. Before he hadn't thought of her at all, spent a year up his own ass and burning everything in sight. Things had started to change when she'd confessed to him in tears how terrible it had been to be losing herself to the Watchtower. Then he'd swept into the JSA's hall and seen her passed out from the Fate Helmet, scared she'd fried her brain or left herself as fragile as Dr. Fate had been.

The thought of her like that had terrified him, and before he'd been able to speak about anything of it with her, she'd just been gone.

"I'm sorry," she said.

"Don't be sorry. You can fly, well, now," he said, blushing a little. "Kara's just shove me approach sucks, and J'onn gets all metaphysical about some mind-body synthesis thing I don't get."

"Sometimes, Clark, you're too Kansas for your own good."

"Maybe," he replied, chuckling a little. "I…how do you do it?"

"J'onn's not wrong. It's as mental as it is physical. I have to focus on my body, take deep breaths, almost feel the ability switching on so I can pull away from gravity. I don't know how to teach someone to perceive that. Maybe you need to learn meditation techniques. I have this associate in Gotham. I've held off on calling him because he's not big on working with others."

Clark narrowed his eyes, there were even weirder things they said popping up in Gotham than him and Chloe combined. Men that could change their appearance, women who controlled plants, and an Urban Legend at the heart of it who half swore was a man and the other half were convinced was part bat. "The Bat-Man?"

"Yeah, I didn't just meet my mom while I was gone," she said, shrugging.

"Is he really a giant bat?"

"Yeah, sure, and I'm a vulture. No, that's just stupid. The Bat's just very theatrical. He uses some tricks to make himself seem more fearsome than he is. Actually, he's no more gifted than Oliver."

"No way! He is not human. They say he just appears from nowhere."

"Ninja training," she corrected. "The rest is smoke bombs and timing and a hell of a costume. You could think that one over."

"I'm not going to be Xena: Warrior Princess."

Chloe rolled her eyes again, and he remembered how terrible sophomore year was. She was very pissed about the kiss he'd, okay, taken from her earlier. Still, the brittle tone wasn't what he'd hoped for after so long apart. "It's ceremonial, and you get used to it. You look like the damn Fonz or a Greaser."

"Sure, keep saying that, Athena."

"Stay gold, Ponyboy," she countered, smirking back at him. "I said 'red and blue,' but I didn't say be part of Grease 2."

"There was a second one?"

"Your outfit doesn't merit an original cast slot," she said, looking back out on the night's sky. "Again," she said, squinting down below. "It's quiet."

"Like you could tell," he countered, gesturing to his ear. Chloe had the strength, speed and flight (damn it), but she had none of his senses.

"I have Tess in my ear. If something fucked up were happening, she'd have told me. Clark, we shouldn't be out here together."

"Because Darkseid or the tons of Omega'ed out there couldn't decide to go from zero to full mob scene any day, yeah right."

"I get it. Even if you factor in J'onn and Kara, we're heavy hitters."

He shook his head. "I refuse to believe you're as strong as me."

Sure, where she'd pushed him last week was bruised a bit, but he wasn't about to let her know that. First, she was new to her strength and hadn't realized the extent of what she'd done. Second, she was still not stronger than him. They'd not sparred yet, but there was no way she could take him.

Nope, not possible.

She was Chloe, for Chrissakes.

"I bet I am, but we'll table that until after we kick The Darkness's incorporeal ass."

"Chloe, we have to talk about things eventually. I…look, I know that there's no one else on Earth like me, okay? I know that you're literally a goddess, and I'm just an alien. You think I don't understand that? That there's no one in the whole fucking universe outside of Kara and the Kandorians in the Zone who are like me. They're either related or psychopaths. It sucks."

Chloe sighed but didn't look at him, kept her concentration on the cars and people beneath them. "But just because I have powers, doesn't mean we're compatible now."

"You had powers before," he countered. "There was something there when you were on the run with Davis and on Dark Thursday and at Spring Formal and so many other times. I'd just hug you or catch you and I'd think…"

"That I was a back pocket girl," she replied, finally regarding him and he hated how her eyes were already shiny from unshed tears. He'd done that to her, scarred her so much that, even now, she couldn't believe him. "It's okay, Clark. I get that you've been attracted to me. You said as much high as a damn kite at the engagement dinner."

"I'm an ass on the red K."

"You're you," she pointed out. "You were you that night and you were you when you shoved my desk away and threatened me. That was terrifying, and I kind of hate you for that."

He frowned. "You never said anything."

She stood then, which was extremely distracting because she was actually just floating out of reach and over the roof's edge. No fair. "What would have been the point? You weren't listening to me last year worth a damn, and I did do things wrong. I embezzled, and I hid things from you."

"You couldn't be sure I wouldn't have tipped the Kandorians off," he countered, knowing damn well how badly he'd cozied up to Zod. He thought a slightly different man deserved a chance. He'd been wrong. "You weren't wrong and look how much damage they did before we stopped them!"

"Sure, but you menaced me, Clark." And as she spoke her fists were balled back at her sides. He wondered if she even knew that. "I've known you were different for a fact since senior year, and an alien not much longer after that."

He flinched, sick of that between them. It never had been before. "I know."

"And not once in all those years, never even when you were high as a kite on Silver K or brainwashed by that hypno-mutant or any other time…I've never been scared of you. That day in the Watchtower? You left me in tears. I hated that, that you took that from both of us."

He frowned and stood as well, still tethered to the roof. If he didn't approach this right, she'd fly off on him and she was faster in the air than he was on foot, just as Kara and J'onn were. He didn't need her scurrying off to Bora Bora or Japan to avoid him. Not tonight. "Are you scared of me now?"

"No."

Clark didn't like the hesitation in her voice. "Is that because you trust me again or because you're almost as strong as I am?"

"Oh, I'm sure I'm about as strong."

"That's not the answer I asked for."

She bit her lip, and her speech came out way too fast. "I know you wouldn't do that again, that there's no Red K around and that you're not so angry and violent anymore. I know that even if it did happen, I can take care of myself now."

Clark swallowed and it felt like eating a chunk of Kryptonite. Of all the people he'd ever known, Chloe believed in him more than anyone, maybe even his mom. Save for last year, she'd always looked at him with awe, and since she'd been back, it had mostly been friendly again. Could she really be scared of him? Maybe she'd really meant it when she'd called him just an alien, lesser than what she was now.

They could certainly add "thug" to his list after tonight. How could he have been so dense as to never notice how much it affected her?

She rubbed at her eyes. "I shouldn't…if we're vulnerable and angry then Darkseid can make us corrupted. You made a mistake, it scared me, but I know you're a good man."

"I'm not a man at all."

"I shouldn't have said that back at the farm. I just wanted to hurt you," she said, and she surprised him by landing again and curling up into him.

Clark decided to see where this was going and took her hand in his. "Mission accomplished."

"It wasn't fair, but if I'm not enough for you just as a mortal, Clark, then I don't want to have a farce, pretend things are there that weren't before or to realize you only care because I'm invulnerable too. That's incredibly unfair to me."

Sighing, he kissed her temple. Chloe stiffened but didn't fly off. He took that as a good sign. "That's not what this is. I missed you. I looked up and first we thought you were dead and that was cruel, and then you looked like you weren't coming back. We've had really shitty spots together-Lionel, Davis, even with me being so awful last year."

"I sucked as Big Sister. Tess is better."

"Maybe you we both got carried away, but you've been my best friend so long you know every thought I have before I have it, and then you weren't there and it was like a gaping hole in my damn chest."

Chloe quirked her head at him, and her eyes weren't shiny anymore. Her tears had already started. "I want to believe that, but it's so hard, Clark. Besides, I was so mean. If you used your powers against me, then I used the things you let me know against you. I never should have cut you like that, thrown being Kryptonian in your face."

He shrugged, forcing himself to keep his voice even. "Well, you're a goddess so that's definitely better. There's a pantheon and stories and are you related to Zeus? Wait? Does he exist?"

She nodded. "I've not met all my great grandparents, so to speak, but they're real so mind, officially blown. It's killing my catechism upbringing, I'm telling you."

"So you are literally related to Hera and Apollo and the list goes on?" he asked, and boy if he didn't feel oddly inadequate.

"Please, I'm still Chloe, okay? Well 'Cassie' at work, but you know what I mean. Besides, mom and I are a little different than that."

"Okay, so following."

"Hippolyta, my grandmother, is a priestess and she made mom with a ritual."

"So is this a sex thing?" he asked, ducking his head when she slapped it. "Okay, so not a sex thing, gotcha."

"No, it was sort of like Pygmalion. She took the clay of the Earth and said a spell and poof, Diana. Mom and Grandmother did the same thing to make me."

Clark blinked. He really wasn't sure what the appropriate reaction to this was. He was an alien, his mentor was a Martian, and he knew cyborgs, Hawkpeople reincarnated from ancient Egypt, and a half fish. He'd never heard anything like that before. He really needed to stop assuming he'd seen everything, even in his life. Clearly, he hadn't.

"Huh?"

Great, Kent, that's smart

"I...yeah, so I think I when weirder origin story. Mom and Grandmother are great, and I really respect them and it's nice to have a family again since I pretty much ruined my adopted family's everything. I can understand why Daddy…maybe he had buyers' remorse after I ruined everything with Lionel."

He squeezed her hard in a hug that would have broken the bones of a mortal. She could take it. "Then he's stupid. Him and Jimmy and me most of the time were all stupid."

"Maybe, but, yeah, I'm pretty freaking not normal. Sort of funny in hindsight I was freaking out about just the meteor mutant part. When war broke out between the Themyscirans and others, they couldn't take care of me too. My grandmother muted my actual powers and literally just put me in a basket at a local Catholic church in Metropolis. That's how the Sullivan actually found me. The meteor shower…all of that only got so bad for me at least cause I wasn't what I was supposed to be."

"I see the Fate Helmet and some magic fixed that right up. You're amazing to watch, Chlo. I see you on patrol now or like a few days ago with Metallo trouble again and it was like you were born to do this."

She shrugged. "Maybe I was drawn to the strange and unusual-

"-because you were the strange and unusual." He said.

Chloe nodded and he realized how close she was now, the nearness of her lips. He wanted to kiss her so badly, to make her understand, but she hadn't before. "Aren't we a pair? We're so messed up."

"Maybe, maybe not," he countered, his breath coming in ragged gasps. He felt like he'd gone three rounds with Bizarro, that was how worked up he was. "But we work together great."

"I…yeah," and then her lips were on his, and her hands were digging into his shoulders and it was a good thing that she and Oliver weren't together anymore.

For more than one reason. Clark could tell she was holding him with a force that would crush granite. They matched so well and it had to mean something. Maybe some small parts of them had always known, sensed the weirdness in themselves and in each other. Kindred, right?

Clark felt a sensation spread then through him that he'd never quite had before. It wasn't the usual heat or itch of his eyes that he had to keep so carefully clamped shut. No. It was a lightness, a slight tingle in his limbs, as if everything were simply falling away from him.

It was Chloe who broke the mood first by shouting.

"Whoa!"

He frowned and opened his own eyes, shocked when he realized they were floating over the city a good hundred yards already from the Planet's roof. "Are you doing this?"

Chloe shook her head, her green eyes glittering and her smirk wide. "No, I'm really not. Congratulations, Blur, you're airborne."

Clark shook his head and kissed her again before answering, even doing that much made them lift further into the sky. "It's just Clark here, always."

"I get that," she said, still grinning. "Then I'll stop harassing you about 'Chloe' and 'Cassie' in private. This? Now this is smoking cool."
**

Ghost out of the Machine

Chloe had been screening him out for two days. Clark wasn't even sure how that was possible. Watchtower wasn't ever supposed to be offline from the Big Seven of the League ever. But he wasn't being routed into her. Sometimes, if he was needed, Diana or Bruce would contact him directly over the Commlink. Words couldn't express the disappointment he'd felt when the feminine voice on the other end had been Diana, her tone serious when she commanded him not to come back to Watchtower until specifically instructed to do so.

Now, he was just moping around his apartment, not feeling up to patrolling Metropolis. Unless Metallo or Brainiac were on the loose, the cops would have to do for the time being. Sighing, he pulled out his stack of photos from over the course of his life. His favorite was still probably the old yearbook photo in his card holder. They'd been so full of promise then, and Chloe had been so happy. All the possibilities in the world, and now she was trapped in a tower, like some damsel in distress, but there was no way for him to rescue her.

God he wanted to.

It was only his planet's fault she'd ended up as she had. How could she not have understood? He loved her. Maybe he always had even if he'd been so dumb about Lana first. There wasn't anyone else for him, no one who understood him, and no one he'd be interested in getting to know. Chloe knew every thought he had before he even thought it. Well, almost. She clearly had been blind to how deeply he'd fallen for her. If they could never…he didn't care. He loved talking with her, just being near her even if that was only a bank of monitors now. She was his first thought in the morning and the last at night.

No one could compete, body or not, and, besides, he would kill anyone else. He knew it.

Sighing, Clark turned on the TV and put on a Sharks game. He wasn't paying much attention, but at least it was background noise. Everything was too silent. Chloe had been his constant companion, the voice in his ear over commlink since they'd been constructed over four years ago. Hell, even if it was abuse of League resources, he'd sometimes talk to her at work, ask her for help with leads and angles, gossip about the annoyance that was Cat Grant.

Normal, silly things.

So the silence without her was deafening.

Then came a knock at the door. Curious, Clark walked over and opened it, assuming it was Kara with another pep talk or, worse, another blind date suggestion. He was over that. He didn't need anything but for Chloe to understand. Instead, he was beyond confused to find Bart standing there with a huge cardboard box in his hands.

"Hey, Stretch, special delivery from Batz."

"He hates when people say that."

Bart smirked. "Oh I know."

Clark frowned. "Why didn't Bruce just deliver it himself?"

"His orders expressly, some prototype thing Lucius had collecting dust in a corner. He's already done the calibration part, just turn it on, dude."

"I don't…what does it do? Hell, have you talked to Chloe lately?" He sounded like a thirteen year old girl, and he knew it. Clark really didn't give a damn.

Bart tensed. It was awkward to speak with the other guy about Chloe. Bart had never made his crush on Chloe a secret, not from the day he'd first met her or the first time Justice had worked together. He certainly didn't now, and was the second most likely person to be on duty with her. Clark had never before been so public about his affections for her either, but since they'd all heard him begging her over the Commlink, everyone knew. Bart included. He wasn't sure how Bart was taking it. Still, the other man probably wasn't being screened by Chloe, and Clark just needed to know.

Was she okay? Why was she so mad? How could he get her to talk to him?

"I'm delivering this to you because I love Chloelicious an awful lot."

Clark blinked. "I thought Bruce asked a favor."

"He did, but I'm just saying. You treat her right from now on. You're not the only JLA member who could give a shit if she were still human. She deserves better than being harassed until she had to shut some functions down."

"So you have talked to her?"

"Yeah, I have, and Bruce too."

Clark frowned again. "I'm confused."

Bart rolled his eyes. "You always are. My point is that Chloerita and I had a long talk today, after Bruce visited with her."

Clark let out a low whistle, despite himself. Bruce wasn't due for Tower duty for another four days. He'd made the trip special to talk to Chloe on her own turf, but he could quite understand why. "Now I'm very lost."

"Always, Stretch," Bart grouched, shoving the box into his arms. "That's freaking heavy. My point is Chloe's amazing and if she ever even talked about me once the way she talks about you, then I'd die a happy man. The League needs Superman and Watchtower to be able to work together. So I'm here as Impulse, asking you to figure this out. As Bart? I just want her happy, Stretch, so turn that thing on and you figure it out."

Clark wanted to ask more but Bart was gone in a flash before he'd had the chance.

Confused, he shut the door and walked over to a clear corner of his apartment. The device before him was huge and unwieldy, and Clark could understand how it was just a prototype currently. Still, he figured out enough to set it flat and the on button, thank you Lucius, was made with the same universal on signal on any appliance. Pressing it to start, Clark stared as bright light collected and flared up from its base. It was intense enough that if he'd been mortal, he'd have needed to look away.

He wasn't.

So he was able to watch as the light twisted and bent, eventually forming into the shape of a person, and then someone achingly familiar.

Chloe.

She was standing there and it was a perfect hologram of her. She looked just as she had in the weeks leading up to her wedding, even the projected hair the same length. It was funny a bit to him that she was in just jeans and a simple purple tee-shirt. He had no idea what type of clothes were customary for holograms, to be honest. The few hollows in the Fortress had his birth parents and Kara's in flowing garb. Maybe he'd expected to see that too, but that wasn't an Earth thing.

"So Bruce is cruel, perfect."

The hologram quirked its head at him and snorted. "No, Bruce isn't that mean."

"Chlo?"

"Yes, it's me. You think that Batman and Impulse went out of their way to basically make you feel worse?"

"I don't know what to think," he said, circling her and amused when "she" put her hands on her hips and rolled her eyes. "Wow."

She nodded and gestured down to the pedestal projecting her. "It's linked in already to the Watchtower. It's a little better than a Commlink. I…Bart stole some things from Lois's apartment, stuff she had related to the wedding I never had and old photos. She had the pictures and, well, my measurements for when I was getting my wedding dress. It was the easiest and fastest way to reconstruct me from reference, so to speak."

Clark beamed at her and, stupidly, reached out to hug her, embarrassed when he went right through her.

Right, light, unlike what Hal could do, not actually green or moldable here.

Chloe's face when the hologram re-established itself cut him. Her lib wobbled a bit and he remembered in a way, why it was easier just to hear her voice than see her. She'd always been so expressive, so it hurt fresh to see her face fall like that.

"It's not perfect. I mean, it's as much an illusion as my voice. I can't…I'm tethered to the platform for now but Lucius is working on it, and of course I'm not corporeal. That's not something even Lucius could figure out. I just…we thought it would be better if we could see each other."

"Did you tell me three days ago that there was nothing to see, that you were just the monitors and the tower now?"

She sighed, well made the motion of it and Clark was impressed. The motion even worked to displace a bit of bang from overhanging her eye. Lucius had gone all out already in retooling the interface. "I don't know what I am. Clark, it's so hard, and I stay sane by not thinking about it and just ploughing ahead. I can't touch anything. I don't remember how things even feel. I think so much about Dark Thursday, and it hurts because these are circuits I'm running on. I don't think I even remember that kiss right, and it was the best thing that ever happened to me."

"It was?"

She nodded and the damn hologram even blushed for her. Amazing. "It's the last memory I had when Brainiac ate through my mind. I worked so hard to keep it, even more than my family, more than anything."

"So you went from not speaking to me to this?" he asked, and Clark wasn't sure what the Hell was going on.

She shook her head and held up her hands in a placating gesture. "Bruce and I had a long talk."

"I heard."

"Yeah, and he made some points that maybe I couldn't deny."

Clark crossed his arms over his chest and even if he hadn't meant to, assumed the booming bass that was his "Superman" voice. Oddly, this was more than he could have hoped for, a huge olive branch, and he was walling himself off from her. Invoking a persona. "That it's mean to shut me out."

"It was mean to abuse that feed for a week. Clark, I feel some days like I did die."

"You didn't."

"I feel like it. I'm still a ghost, and it's because of circuits and not ectoplasm or some other crap, but I'm not real either. I'm so sorry that this is what happened, if I'd just said something sooner…but I was scared for you to go to the Fortress. It could have hurt you."

Clark swallowed hard. He'd gone to the Fortress anyway and taken her memories of him to boot. He wondered if he hadn't done that if Brainiac could have finally consumed her. It ate at him the same way he wished he'd picked anywhere but ISIS to do the techno-exorcism. He'd done this to her, and he needed to save her.

So how could she possibly blame herself?

"It's alright, Chloe, really. Brainiac only hurt you because of me."

"And it's pointless to think about what happened. We can't undo it and this is what I am now. We can't date, we can't have sex. Hell, I can't even leave this corner of the room for right now. It's not real, Clark, and I want better for you, but Bruce said I had to let you choose."

"I said that. Why is it better coming from him?"

She hiccupped a little and it cut him worse the damn projection could simulate crying. "Because he let me realize how hard it was for you the month before Victor figured out I was buried in the coding at ISIS. I was sort of there, but like a coma or something. I wasn't aware of where I was, but then I was online fully at ISIS and it was like to me the stuff with the Legion was just yesterday. I forget you had a month between."

"It was Hell," he said, pacing as he spoke. "You were dead, Chlo. We had a funeral, and I gave the eulogy just like I worried I'd always have to with your healing. I didn't eat, I barely slept, and I quit the DP. By the end of the month, I was seriously thinking of just running again, slipping Red K on and going across the Pacific."

She blinked back at him, false eyes wide. "No, you wouldn't ever do that. You love Metropolis. Hell, the League needed you even then."

"They'd have managed. Besides, Metropolis was always your city first. It was like a slap in the damn face. So I left the Planet and just was at home, existing. Hell, I was even forgetting to feed Shelby sometimes. It was bad. And then you weren't dead. It was the best feeling I'd ever had, like I got a second shot, and I didn't care what happened to you or what was different. You were back, and it was like I could breathe again."

"That's what Bruce said. He said that if Rachel hadn't…if she'd ended up like me, he'd never leave the Tower either. That's when everything clicked. I think this is a terrible idea, and it's not fair to you because I can't give you a real relationship."

"I can't give anyone a real one either," he said glumly. "You saw how badly Lana and I fell apart." Clark held out his hand to her, and even with his reach wasn't actually close enough to touch her, not close enough to pass through the light. "I'd kill someone. I wasn't kidding when I said we're suited to each other, even like this."

"But you could figure it out, talk to Jor-El or practice or date Diana."

"Like I said, she and Bruce have this thing going on."

"Wow, I can't imagine how they'd flirt."

"No one really gets it," he said, laughing. "I…Bart loves you too, you know. Apparently, Chlo, just your mind captivates a lot of people."

"Oh."

"Yeah, so he basically as silly as it was threatened me and said I had to treat you right. All I know is that I can't live in a world without you even partly in it, and if this is what we have, then we have something more than me on a bender or staring out at nothing in the Loft. I…just come here when you have down time or are running side programs, you know? We can watch TV and talk. I'll even set out a coffee for you."

"I can't drink."

"It's traditional," he said, waving his hand. "I love you," he said, stepping as close as he could without stumbling into her. He wished that he could actually kiss her-Chloe wasn't wrong about that-but he just needed her to understand. "Don't shut me out again, please."

She sighed or affected one, same difference for her, and reached out and passed her hand over his cheek. He felt nothing there, and it hit him again how much knowing him had robbed her of anything real and good for her life. "I won't, and I love you too, but I won't try this unless you promise me one thing."

"Anything."

She laughed. "You want to hear the condition first."

"Anything. I just want you back, Chlo."

"So to speak" she muttered. "I mean that you have to promise me if this is too much and you miss real relationships, you know with living, breathing people, you can let me go. I'd understand and Watchtower will still work with Superman, I promise."

"Then I'm not going to get sick of this," he said, not ever. "In fact-"

She rolled her eyes and looked back over her shoulder. "Sorry, I…there's a flood in Patagonia. They need me to coordinate clean-up."

"Do they need me?"

"Nah, Diana, Shayera, and J'onn are already there. Take the night, Clark, and just think of the caveat. I love you so much it hurts, but I won't bind you to me, and I won't ruin you. So please, you have to promise me you'll leave if you want, let yourself stop feeling guilty. I…just I'll pop back in tomorrow if you keep this on and we'll talk terms then."

He sighed and leaned into the hand against his cheek. Nothing was there, not the softness of her skin or the slight vanilla scent she'd had before. But he could close his eyes and pretend just a bit. "Alright, go be a hero."

"Wasn't that my line?" she joked uneasily before flickering out.

Clark was going to hate this arrangement already. His apartment seemed even smaller and more desolate than it already was when she wasn't there. Still, he'd done this, and he'd clearly stopped thinking outside of the box long ago. Lucius and Bruce had unearthed tech to at least give Chloe a face of a sort again, a body.

Maybe Clark could do better. Blurring into his suit, he set off for LuthorCorp Towers. He only went there to posture with Lex after one of their latest battles. Clark wasn't even sure if Lex knew who he actually was. He assumed that the other man didn't. If he did, Clark should have been in a lab by now. But sometimes…sometimes there were barbs that only would land as harshly if he were speaking to Clark Kent, so he just wasn't sure either way. But he needed to be there now and not to posture.

This wasn't between Superman and Luthor, not tonight.

If Chloe figured out what he was doing before he finished, she'd never forgive him. But he didn't care. He didn't care if it landed him in a lab for himself, guest of LuthorCorp forever. He was going to set this right, and he was going to do it by bargaining with Lex over the one thing he knew the other man wanted.

His secret.

Because nothing mattered, if he couldn't save the girl from the tower, and the only way to do that was to give her a body. Clark was going to do that, no matter what else it cost. He loved her after all, what other choice did he have?