Disclaimer: Smallville belongs to the WB. All characters/places in the DCU belong to DC Comics. Superman was created by Jerry Siegel and Joel Schuester. Impulse/Bart Allen was created by Mark Waid and Mike Wieringo. Tl;dr – I don't own any of this.
A/N: Spoilers for Run (4x05), Scare (4x10), Unsafe (4x11), Pariah (4x12), Reckoning (5x12), Rage (6x07) and Justice (6x11).
For Amber, who brought me aboard the S.S. Faster Than You.
BBB
The first gift is a tacky bottle opener shaped like the 'Welcome to Las Vegas' sign.
Clark finds it on his desk one afternoon when he heads up to the loft after school. It's sitting on top of a crumpled receipt with the price, $3.78, circled in red pen. There's nothing else on the receipt, no messages or any indication as to whom the extremely tacky trinket is from, but Clark smiles.
(He puts the bottle opener in the top drawer of his desk and starts asking his mother to buy the old fashioned kind of bottled soda so that he has an excuse to use it.)
The second comes about a month and a half later and is carelessly tossed over the back of the couch in the loft.
If Clark hadn't noticed that some of the papers on the table were in disarray, he probably would have never noticed the shirt. It's an extra-large white t-shirt with 'I Heart GC' written across the chest. The receipt is stapled to the price tag, with $23.47 underlined in red pen. Across the bottom, scrawled in the same red is 'It was on sale.'
Clark just shakes his head and grins.
(The shirt turns out to be a little bit loose, which is a surprise. Clark takes to wearing it to bed with his red and yellow Smallville Crows sweats.)
Clark gets the third gift just before Christmas.
He's been having a rough couple of weeks, unable to sleep more than a few hours at a time. Every night is the same thing and Clark wakes up shaken as his nightmares repeat the visions brought on by LuthorCorp's fear toxin. After waking up around three in the morning on the tenth night in a row, Clark gives up on sleep and makes his way up to the loft.
There are two footprints in the snow in front of the barn door and it's not closed quite right. Clark remembers closing the door behind him after he finished his homework, so his guard goes up at the sight. As he pulls the door open, something brushes past him and Clark turns to look but there's nothing there.
Clark follows a set of wet footprints up into the loft and sighs. There's a snowglobe on his desk, holding a miniature city with a sign in front that reads 'Anchorage, Alaska'. Underneath, instead of a receipt, is a red envelope with 'Don't open 'til Christmas' written on it in big, black, block letters.
He takes the card back to his room with him, making sure to shut the barn door behind him.
(When he opens the card on Christmas morning, he finds the receipt for the snowglobe taped inside. $7.50 is circled on it, but Clark barely notices. Written in red, of course, under the generic holiday message is 'Merry Christmas, Stretch. Wish you were here.' Clark tacks the card to the cork board in his room.)
Gift number four comes on Valentine's Day, but it's not something Clark finds on his desk.
His dad takes his mom to Metropolis for the night, sweeping her off with the promise of dinner and dancing. Things are still awkward at home after the whole Vegas debacle, but Clark's grateful that his parents trust him enough to leave him alone again. His Valentine's Day is nothing special, just a dinner of leftovers and watching Casablanca on TV.
Clark knows that he could have spent the evening watching bad movies with Chloe, but he really doesn't have it in him to pretend to be happy right now. Everyone else seems to expect him to forget Alicia and move on with his life, though she's only been dead two weeks.
The movie only makes Clark feel sad, since he'd promised to watch it with her some time and he's never going to have that chance. When the credits roll, Clark turns off the TV and dresses for the weather, even though the cold doesn't actually bother him. He drives out to the cemetery and walks the now familiar path to Alicia's grave.
Resting against the newly erected tombstone is arrangement of brilliantly coloured flowers, tied with a black ribbon. The bouquet is vibrant and full of life, reminding Clark of Alicia and bringing a sad smile to his face. He spends an hour at the grave, talking about the movie and apologising to Alicia like she's actually there.
It's kind of sad, really.
When Clark gets up to leave, he leans forward and rests his hand against the headstone for a moment. He brushes against the flowers as he steps away and a little envelope flutters out. Bending down, Clark plucks it out of the snow and brushes it off so that he can tuck it back into the arrangement. As he places it back amongst the flowers, he notices that the little envelope has his name on the front.
Looking over his shoulder, Clark opens the envelope. As usual, the receipt with circled amount paid is tucked inside, this time behind the little florist's card. The card is plain white, just a rectangle of cardboard, so the red ink contrasts starkly. 'I'm sorry for your loss,' is all it says.
(Clark keeps it in the drawer in his bedside table, tucked under Alicia's wedding ring, as a reminder that there's at least one person that understands that he needs to mourn.)
Five is a children's telescope from Star City.
(He makes a little wooden stand for it and displays it on the bookshelf that holds his astronomy books.)
Six is a bright red coffee mug from Keystone City.
(His mom catches on pretty quickly that Clark prefers his hot chocolate and tea served in the violently coloured thing.)
Seven is a bag of seashells and a note that says 'These were free. Picked them out myself.'
(Clark puts the shells into the little box where he keeps smaller things, like the ticket stubs from the spring formal freshman year and photos of him, Chloe, and Pete that they took in a photo booth at a carnival in junior high. It's a place for things that Clark doesn't ever want to lose.)
It goes on like that for the better part of two years.
Every month or so, Clark will come up to the loft and find some little trinket lying on his desk. They're always left with the receipt and they are never from the same place twice.
(Though he's not sure what it means, Clark really likes having bits and pieces of Bart's travels littered all over his life. Having someone that cares enough to bring him weird sorts of treasures from all across the U.S. and Canada makes Clark feel important in a way that's both confusing and elating.)
Sometimes the gifts come with more frequency than others, like after his father dies and there are four of them left in the loft in the following month, all from cities in Kansas.
(Between the shot glass from Mapleville and the miniature Daily Planet, Clark leaves a note on his desk where he usually finds the gifts. He has trouble finding the right words to express just how thankful he is that he's not alone but can't bring himself to write 'Next time, please stay,' so he writes 'Thanks,' and leaves it behind. The miniature is in its place the next morning.)
Other times the stretch between the gifts is longer, like the six and a half nerve-wracking weeks between the film canister of sand from Coast City and the lighter from New York in the shape of the Statue of Liberty.
(He's lucky that his mom is busy with her Senatorial duties or he might have to explain why he's pacing the floors and criss-crossing the country on the nights when he can't sleep.)
The morning after Thanksgiving, when Clark is finished his chores, he goes up to the loft to relax with a book and discovers a box, wrapped in red paper and tied with a yellow ribbon. He's never had one come wrapped before, so he wonders what the occasion is. Tempted to x-ray the box but unwilling to spoil the surprise, Clark tears at the paper and opens it.
Clark laughs as he takes the gift out of the box. It's a rock about the size of his palm with a note tape to the top that says 'Break me (gently).' There's another note in the bottom of the box, labelled 'After,' so Clark ignores it and turns the stone over in his hands.
He grips it carefully, with both hands, and squeezes, increasing the pressure until a fissure opens in the center. Clark pulls the two halves apart and inspects them, brow furrowing. There are crystals within the stone, brilliant blue where they touch the rock but faded to clear toward the middle. Confused, he puts the two halves down on his desk and reaches for the other note.
'Stretch –
Found this at a dinosaur museum up in Alberta. Reminded me of you. Average on the outside but crazy extraordinary when you look past the surface.
Got a chance to do some overseas sightseeing, so I'm gonna be incommunicado for a while. Just thought you should know.
I'll bring you back something nice.
– Bart'
(It doesn't escape Clark's notice that both halves of the geode are on his desk when he goes back to the house for lunch, but that one is missing when he returns. The geode is great, really, he loves it, but he would honestly rather have Bart's company, even for just five minutes, than some nifty rock.)
There's nothing for months, not even the usual Christmas card.
(And Clark hates it. He cannot even begin to explain how much he hates the lack of contact or why the absence of Bart bothers him so much.)
The lack of having something to look forward to is difficult to get used to after almost two years of constant anticipation, but Clark soldiers on. He throws himself into hunting down Zoners, running across the continent, down through Central and South America, up to Canada. Clark tracks them down wherever they hide; mostly because he has to, since he's the one that let them out, but also because he'd rather be doing it than sitting at home in his empty farmhouse and even emptier loft.
(He'll never admit how much he wants to cross paths with Bart during his missions. Of course, Bart said he'd be travelling overseas, so the desire is unfounded but Clark can't quite quash the hope.)
He's reluctant to return home when Chloe calls him back to help out with her research into 33.1, but Clark goes. He doesn't stop in Smallville on the way back, though he should probably change. Clark goes right from Panama to the Daily Planet, arriving just in time to see Dr. Casselli hit the floor.
Chloe's okay and that's what matters at that exact moment, but there's an alarm that goes off in the back of Clark's brain. He scans the room, checking for any clues of Chloe's mysterious saviour, and a flash of red catches his eyes.
Clark is unprepared for the way his heart launches into his throat at the glimpse. The fact that the red is just a blur, too fast for even him to see, means nothing. There could be a superfast meteor-infected running around, playing hero. It could be another person with cybertronic enhancements, like Victor Stone. Just because Clark can't see Chloe's saviour, doesn't mean that it's who Clark thinks it might be.
(He wants it to be Bart so badly that it makes his fingertips throb.)
Barely hearing what Chloe says, Clark takes after the blur. He follows, close behind but not close enough to see anything but the colour red, as Chloe's saviour zips back and forth across Metropolis.
He loses his target in the middle of a pick-up basketball game, stopping for just a second to look around to try to get back on the trail. A whistle splits the air and a figure, dressed in red and yellow, waves at him from the other side of the game. Clark bolts toward the figure, reaching out to grab him so that he can hold him in place, but Chloe's saviour is too fast and sprints away.
Clark scans the area, disappointed, and turns to head back to the Planet. His heart slams against the front of his chest when he lays eyes on Bart, who pushes his hood back and smiles.
(Bart looks different than he remembers, older, obviously, but more confident and muscular too. The longer hair suits him. He looks really good.)
"Still too slow, Stretch," Bart says with lopsided grin.
(Bart's smile makes Clark dizzy in a way that reminds him of talking to Lana in high school. It's disconcerting and kind of terrifying because this is Bart. Bart that brings him little things from all sorts of places and leaves him Christmas cards and condolences and kids telescopes because he figured out more about Clark in thirty seconds than most people have in Clark's whole life. Bart that means more to him than Lana or Alicia ever did. Bart that Clark is actually sort of in love with. He's in love with Bart.)
"Bart."
Awed and dazed, Clark can't help but smile back.