MENTIR
Summary: Journalism was what she was born to do. It's in her blood. That's what everyone tells her.
Rating: K
Disclaimer: I don't own. Some people created Superman, some others created Smallville, and Warner Brothers is probably the ultimate owner.
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Journalism is what she was born to do. It's in her blood. That's what everyone tells her.
Her father likes to blame letting her watch Sesame Street for starting her obsession with investigative journalism. Because the show had Kermit, who moonlighted as a TV reporter/journalist and Chloe had loved Kermit. She had insisted upon having a gray trench coat and a brown fedora—originally purchased for Halloween. She had worn the outfit a lot, daily sometimes, especially after her mother left.
Chloe prefers to thank her mother for the journalist drive. Or is it blame? These days Chloe isn't sure but whether she thanks or blames Moira Sullivan for starting her on this path, it's really all the same, in the end.
When she was little, when Moira was still sane (although her mother was really always sane, for the most part, just a meteor freak but that's another story) her mother would read to her the Daily Planet. It was absurd to read a four-year old newspaper stories but Moira was never the most traditional of mothers. Chloe assumes it was because Moira thought she could handle it, even as a little girl, and there's something about that assumption that makes Chloe warm inside. Treated like an adult, a child knowing the difference between right and wrong at a tender age, and so it's no surprise that Chloe likes this version of truth.
It's not like Chloe can ask her mother, even if she wanted to. She doesn't, likes the story she concocted. Its nicer then what the real story may be. Chloe outgrew fairy tales years and years ago but a part of her is still a little girl that likes happy stories. Still likes to believe in the world being black and white, right and wrong clearly defined, truth and lies in neat little compartments, easily distinguishable.
The truth is probably a lot different. Moira was young and perhaps more than a bit unwise in the ways of children and that's likely the reason why a parent would read to a young child from a very adult newspaper, with very adult stories of murder and rape. But that's not a nice story and Chloe likes the one she made up better. So she doesn't think about what may be the truth and focuses on the lie she invented. When she does this, the lie morphs and becomes the truth, for all intents and purposes. And then everything's good.
Chloe's an investigative reporter, it's in her blood, but that doesn't mean much, not really. Not at the end of the day when she has to sleep and be satisfied with her life.
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Clark likes to say that she never gives up on a story, no matter what the consequences of that story may be.
It's a nice story but its more fairy tale than real. Clark says those things and Chloe lets him. She doesn't contradict him, doesn't correct him. She should inform him that he's put her up on to a pedestal, should remind him of what happened with Lana, when Clark placed Lana upon the pedestal, and the horrible tatters his relationship with Lana ultimately disintegrated into.
Chloe doesn't, though, because she sort of likes the fairy tale image Clark has of her, even if the image is deformed and will probably one day lead to the downfall of their own relationship. Sometimes, when it's dark and rainy, she thinks about what it means to live a lie and wonders how she got so far off course.
But that's only on rare days.
She was supposed to be the investigative reporter, the one who hounded after a story, who worked to see the truth no matter what the cost was. She masquerades as that person but she isn't that person, has never been maybe, couldn't have been that person as a result of her life experiences.
Investigator reporters are supposed to speak for the truth. Chloe knows she's never spoken for the truth.
Even when she was in high school, back when she was the editor of The Torch, back when she was investigating meteor freaks despite the principal's dislike of such an arena of pursuit, she didn't speak for the truth. She claimed to, for sure, but she didn't, never.
Clark was the reason why she couldn't claim to speak for the truth. All the weird coincidences, all the things that made her mind twitch, all the times when there were things Clark just couldn't explain. A ton of evidence, all suggesting that Clark was indeed not normal, things that would have normally made her run an article exposing the latest Smallville meteor freak but that wasn't what had happened. She had never printed an article proclaiming Clark to be anything but normal, if not perhaps a bit lucky.
There had been that one time, with Lionel Luthor, when Chloe had investigated Clark but her investigation had been cursory, not in-depth. She hadn't investigated Clark Kent in any detail since the time when she dug up his adoption records. She had done that, in pursuit of the "truth" and all it had gotten her was a hurt Clark. She had dropped the subject, because she valued their friendship over the truth.
The truth, it seemed, was only something Chloe wanted when it suited her. The truth for the sake of the truth was an illusive demand Chloe could never met. She had tried, years ago, but life had gotten in the way.
Truthfully, lies could be wholly appealing. That was why she had deleted the adoption records she had found, why she had faced the wrath of Lionel Luthor rather than expose her best friend, why she had kept Clark's secret after Alicia forced her to see with her own eyes a truth Chloe hadn't wanted to be privy to.
Lies were why she still hid Clark's secret identity. Superman saved the world, everyone wanted to know who the identity behind the superhero, and although Chloe knew everything, she told no one. She could have made a career off telling the truth about Clark Kent but she didn't, never would.
Some lies are worth it. Some lies are good. The truth can't claim the same.
Investigative journalism should stand for the truth. Chloe's an investigative reporter but she doesn't stand for the truth, not always, not when the truth might hurt, not when the truth is deadly and dangerous.
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Chloe's a journalist who lies. She's built her life on lies, in fact.
Lies are plentiful in her life. Lies about her mother, the insanity concealed because it's better that way. Lies about why her mother had read her The Daily Planet. Lies told and believed to the fullest extent possible because the truth hurts while the lie makes Chloe feel special and loved.
Lies about Clark, about who he is, about what he is. Lies told because the truth could cost Clark his life. Lies told because sometimes people don't need the truth. Sometimes the truth brings nothing but trouble.
Sometimes the truth is nothing short of painful.
A life built on lies, a career built on telling the truth. That is who she is, inherent contradictions, a liar and a truth-teller. Who she is and who she will be tomorrow because there are choices that she's made that have forever altered her life. Set her down on this path, this double life, this life of truths and lies mixing together, until Chloe isn't sure where the truth ends and the lies begin.
Journalism is in her blood, natural truth-seeker. Circumstances beyond her control made her a keeper of secrets.
That's the final lie she tells herself.
THE END