Title/Link: Defining Moments
Author: devilneedsaride
Pairing: Chloe and offscreen Clark
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Angst, character death
Spoilers: Up to Pariah
Short summary: Set in a slightly AU late season four, between Forever and Commencement.

It's in the moments that really matter that you find out who you are. You don't know anything until then. People like to think they do. They like to think they would do the right thing if it came down to it, but you never know. You never know until you're facing down the barrel of a gun what you'll do to save yourself, your friends, your family.

I'd like to think that I'd do the right thing. I'd like to think that when it all really comes down to it I'm a good person. I'd also like to think that my old golden retriever, Shep, just went to live on a farm and that all politicians are trustworthy, but that doesn't do me a whole lot of good, does it? If wishes were horses, right?

You know, that phrase never made a whole lot of sense to me. "If wishes were horses we'd all be eating steak." Doesn't steak come from cows? What do you call what comes from horses? Even if you still call it steak, wouldn't it make more sense to say "If wishes were cows"? I guess it's not that important, but the reporter in me can't help but pick out these things.

I don't know who they are or how they found out. I guess maybe somebody saw Clark do something but couldn't get the proof they needed without me. They could have been federal agents or crime lords or fucking door-to-door salesmen for all they told me. What I know is that they came and dragged me out of my bed in the middle of the night only a couple of days before my high school graduation. I was still in my pajamas, and I would have screamed my head off if they hadn't knocked me out with some sort of chemical first. I would have said it was chloroform, but it's not like I can confirm that or anything. They just put a rag over my face and the next thing I know I'm in a dark tunnel that smells like ass, with my hands cuffed behind me and some mean-looking guy crouching in front of my face with a gun dangling from one hand.

He grinned at me. "Hey, sweetie."

I coughed. "Hey." I would have liked to have been more eloquent, but it's not like I had anything better to say. I was under pressure, so sue me.

He stood up and stuck the gun in his belt somewhere. "Look, honeybun, I know you don't wanna be here. I don't wanna be here. But we both gotta be here, so let's try and make our time together as pleasant as possible, okay?"

I awkwardly shoved myself up into a sitting position. "Okay." I sounded dubious and I knew it. It made sense. I was dubious.

He walked over and leaned casually against the far wall, and it suddenly struck me how neat his clothes were. He was wearing a fucking tailored suit in what looked to be a sewer pipe, and it wasn't even rumpled. That threw me more than almost anything else, honestly. I mean, who the heck goes to a mob-style interrogation in a four hundred dollar suit?

He pulled out a cigarette and lit it, puffing a few times before turning to look at me again. "Okay, here's how this is gonna go. I'm gonna ask you some questions. You answer me honestly and all quick-like, and nobody's gotta get hurt. You cooperate, you get to go home and tell yourself this was all a bad dream. You don't," he bobbed his head. "and they're gonna be sending out search dogs for your body. We clear?"

I gulped. I was starting to have a clue as to what this was all about, and I didn't like it one bit. Clark didn't know that I knew his secret, but somehow these guys seemed to. I hadn't even had time to come up with a good lie, and it looked like I was gonna need one. I seriously didn't wanna piss off this suit-clad interrogator.

"We're clear." I hated how my voice shook. I wanted to look stronger than I felt.

He smiled briefly and nastily. "Okay. That's good. That's very good." He put out his cigarette on the moisture-ridden wall and walked closer to me, crossing his arms over his chest. "Who is Clark Kent?"

So this was about him. "Uhh, he's one of my best friends."

The interrogator gave me a disappointed look for a second before softening his expression. "Okay. Okay, that's good. How long have you known him?"

Easy so far, but I didn't expect it to stay that way. "S-Since we were thirteen. No! Fourteen. We met in the eighth grade."

"Do you know who his parents are?"

"Umm, Jonathan and Martha Kent." I figured this was some sort of weird interrogation tactic. I mean, why would anyone kidnap someone just to ask something they could find out in any library or set of school records?

The man sighed. "Don't disappoint me now, kid. I mean his real parents."

What? Oh, right. "Oh, I forgot he was adopted. Uhh, I don't know who his birth parents are. I don't think he even knows."

He spit on the ground and walked right up to smack me across the face. Hard. It hurt. "Don't be stupid! Of course he knows." He walked back towards the other wall. "Kids always know."

Okay, I was really starting to suspect that maybe this guy had a few screws loose. Well, obviously, since kidnapping teenagers and interrogating them in dank sewer pipes in the middle of the night isn't exactly a time-honored American pastime, but I really couldn't see why he'd think Clark would know his birth parents.

He turned back to me. "That's okay, kid. I don't think you know. I believe you." He said it like it was the most important thing in the world. I guess, for me, it was.

"So here's the question for the big bucks, blondie." He pointed a finger at me. "You screw this one up and I swear I will put you in the ground, okay?"

I nodded and swallowed hard.

"Does Clark Kent have any kind of special powers that you know about?"

I coughed. "No." I didn't even sound convincing to myself, and the next thing I knew the man had pulled out his gun and hit me across the face with it. The taste of copper filled my mouth and I tried to launch myself up at him, since this was the first time he'd gotten close enough and I'm not the type to go down without a fight. I didn't quite have purchase with my legs, though, and I slipped on the wet concrete of the tunnel. I fell on my side and felt a sharp pain in my hip as I tried to kick the gun out of his hands, but it was no use. He grabbed my leg and flipped me onto my back, pointing the barrel of the gun at me with his free hand.

"Last chance, kid."

And there it was. My choice. I knew what I told myself when I imagined something like this, but nothing prepares you for the real thing. Nothing. You can't know until you're there. You can't know until it's really the end of the line how far you'll go. What you can live with, so long as you get to live.

I stared at the gun. I could see the tip of the bullet, dark and shiny and poised to be the thing that snuffed out my life and sent me into whatever the hell was on the other side. I was too young to die. I wasn't ready. I was only eighteen and I hadn't gotten to do any of the things I wanted to in life. I hadn't made a name for myself at the Daily Planet. I hadn't found out what it was like to kiss Clark, really kiss him, and have him kiss me back. I hadn't taken a trip around the world. I hadn't exposed Lex Luthor for who he really was. I hadn't gotten to say goodbye to my friends, to my dad, to Lois. I couldn't die. I wasn't ready.

I looked at the gun, and I looked at the man's face. I didn't have time to think about this. I only had time to choose. In that moment, in that split second when everything was hanging in the balance, I found out who I really was.

"Go to hell!"

I spit some of my own blood at the man, even though I knew it could never reach him. It's the thought that counts, I guess. I took a deep breath, I closed my eyes, and I heard the bang.

Clark will never know why I died, alone in a dark tunnel in the middle of the night. He never even knew that I'd found out his secret. He will never know about those last few moments of my life when, in an instant, I had a choice and I chose him. He never knew who I really was.

But for the half of a second I had between making that decision and slumping lifelessly against the cold concrete floor, I knew.

And that's all that matters in the end.

The End