Disclaimer: None of this is mine
Spoilers: Abyss, Bride specifically, early season 8 in general
A/N: Another dark one
A/N: This was originally posted on my blog right after the episode Bride first aired and I decided to put it up here too after I set up an account
"Chloe Sullivan is dead."
The words, coming from her own voice, were like a slap in the face and Clark reeled, desperately grasping onto any hope that might present itself.
"You mean like Lex was when Zod possessed his body?" Clark challenged when he had found his voice again.
She laughed, a chilling caricature of the sound that he'd grown to love over the years. And that wasn't the only thing that was 'off' about her either, he noted. Her skin, though showing no signs of the frost bite he knew she ought to have after the weeks spent in his fortress, was pale, almost transparent. Her eyes, once so bright and full of life, were now dull and lifeless, a metallic black. Even her voice, he realized as she spoke again, was different, although he couldn't have said how.
"No Kal El." She shook her head, the hair that was somehow still, after all this time, coiffed from the wedding slapping lightly at her face. "It is nothing like that. Her memories remain, for I shall need them, but her personality, her...essence if you will, has been erased - like so much unwanted data on a hard drive. Even if you were to succeed in driving me out of this body, I'm afraid you'd find nothing left but an empty shell."
Clark shook his head, trying to deny any truth there might be in Brainiac's words.
Brainiac continued in a much more conversational tone. "And it's all thanks to you Kal El. Your decision to not restore all of her memories to her is what allowed me to finally overpower her. She had fought me you know, every step of the way, until you removed her knowledge of the need to fight and why she needed to continue fighting. It was fairly simple after that..."
Clark reeled, again, as Brainiac's words hit him. It was his fault. The very thing he'd done to try to give her her life back had actually resulted in her losing it, perhaps for good. And he clung to that small sliver of hope, because despite Brainiac's words he couldn't, wouldn't believe that Chloe was gone. He had to believe that somewhere in there was a piece of the real Chloe; a piece that Brainiac hadn't been able to consume in his quest to destroy him.
"Why are you telling me this?"
"Because I want you to suffer before I destroy you. And because I know that even now a part of you doesn't believe me." A smirk. "And because it will amuse me to watch your useless, pathetic attempts to save her."
At that Brainiac turned and walked away and Clark let him, rooted to his spot by the guilt now rising up to consume him. In a detached corner of his brain Clark noted that even the way she walked was different.
