"How Did You Think This Was Gonna End?"

Author: Mari2Anne

Disclaimer: none of the characters are mine; I do not own them or Smallville.

Pairing: Will only say this belongs in the Chloe/Clark threads

Spoilers: Season 8, especially Beast. My idea of what happens after Chloe and Davis leave the gas station.

Status: Completed/One shot. PG/PG-13. Angsty.

Warnings: Just possible apologies in advance to Chlavis fans.

Hope you enjoy; please forgive any grammatical errors.

Feedback is wonderful. But mostly, thank you, thank you so much for reading.

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"How did you think this was gonna end, Chloe?"

With the end of the world! With the end of everything! With the end of Clark; the end of the hero who was meant to save us all!

She knew…but had hidden that thought so deep in her heart, somewhere far below the only thought that kept her going these days; so busy planning, but never more aware that she was only moving one step at a time, side-stepping mostly. Keeping Davis hidden and away from Clark until a real solution for stopping the Beast could be found had been her only goal.

And she had failed, blindly thinking she had things under control; an illusive control that had almost cost the lives of Jimmy and Oliver.

She could feel the panic start to dull her mind; for just a moment she wished for the Brainiac knowledge to guide her; wished there had been a way to download all the information he'd filled her head with… She remembered a lot, but not what she needed most at the moment: an alien computer's input for an alien-created evil…there just might have been a solution. Emil had dashed her last hope of an earthly scientific solution…

She babbled on to Oliver, knowing his brand of justice was one Clark could not live with.

Why had Clark tried to do it Oliver's way? To save Jimmy and Oliver?

Her fault! Again!

She should have left with Davis the moment he'd showed up in her basement.

Oliver didn't understand; the Beast was as good as immortal, unkillable!!! They had tried the Kryptonite, the only hope for killing the Beast, and it hadn't worked. But the Beast could still kill Clark, using Kryptonite if necessary, if his strength wasn't enough. At this stage any battle between the two of them would ultimately end in Clark's death.

She couldn't live with that. She had to keep them apart, keep the Beast from emerging for as long as she could…until someday, maybe, a way could be found to stop him. But for right now she had no clue how to do that, her brain was too fried with all the spur-of-the-moment decisions she'd made without thinking since Davis had returned from the death she had helped him find.

She had to get away from Oliver before he made good on his threat to call the police because she knew he wouldn't comprehend her reasoning behind anything she had done lately. She just couldn't live with the thought that she could be responsible for Clark's death; and she knew Clark wouldn't be able to live with the only other option of condemning Davis to an eternity of living hell in the Phantom Zone. And she knew that Clark wouldn't hesitate to let himself get sucked into the Phantom Zone if that was the only way to trap Davis. She had to stop him.

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The tears stung at the back of her throat as she focused on the chocolate heart Davis had bought her at the gas station they'd stopped to refuel at. Clark's anger and pleading had almost broken her. Oh, God, she had wanted so much to just beg him to come and get her. She suppressed an insane chuckle at Clark's assumption that she was doing this because she had feelings for Davis. She had set him straight.

She had feared it might be the last time she would be able to tell Clark that everything had been for him. Always! From Day One! It had never been a sacrifice. It had always been love. Every kind of love one human being could feel for another hu…being, human or…not so human. She had always loved him, even when she was angriest at him. Always loved him enough to put his safety, his happiness, his secret, before anything else in her life. It had been time to tell him that. Being judged as selfish, murderous or crazy by Oliver was one thing; to have Clark think it, was unbearable. If it made him feel guilty; well that was a small price he'd have to pay. And anyway, guilt was second nature to him…loading one more guilt trip on his baggage cart probably wouldn't even register enough to slow him down.

She denied that thought as quickly as it came to her; she knew him well enough to know her happiness and safety were a very heavy weight on his soul. He would do everything he could to find her and save her; she'd had to discourage him.

She stole a glance at Davis as he concentrated on driving with only the headlights to guide him in the dark through back roads that were mostly unpaved. Did she have feelings for him? Sorrow at his plight of being the murderous creature that lived beneath the phony human disguise he'd needed to exist on this planet long enough to become its ultimate destroyer? A disguise that she somehow had an influence over; possibly because of Brainiac's interference in using her as a vessel to bring the creature to the surface. Maybe sorrow was the right description of the emotion she felt for him.

Sorrow that the human disguise of a caring, life-saving paramedic wasn't real. She knew there had been nothing else. Any attraction had been Brainiac-induced because he needed her to bring out the creature; specifically used her to also keep Clark close to the creature. Brainiac had known the lengths to which Clark would go to keep her safe.

Fear.

Fear was what she felt above, and beneath, all else. Fear for Clark. Fear for the rest of the world. Fear that the small amount of control she had over the creature would break and she would pay the ultimate price for her arrogance.

Arrogance?

Yeah, that was a good word. It sounded so much more noble than stupid. Stupid…er, arrogant for even thinking she could control a serial killer. An alien monster for which there was no weapon on Earth strong enough to slow it down, let alone destroy it. Who was she? A very small dumb Earthling! Okay, so maybe, just for now, she was enough of a weapon to slow the creature down long enough for a more powerful weapon to be found. It was her only prayer as she tried to concentrate on that, lest her fear become too apparent to Davis.

She had to remind herself to think of him only as Davis. Keep the picture in her head of the kind paramedic who helped save lives that day she met him after the bus "accident" outside of the Daily Planet building. It would keep the fear hidden.

But she couldn't help seeing the selfish human disguise who felt he deserved a chance at happiness with her, even after so viscously murdering so many people. Her brain couldn't help but think that if he truly cared for her, he wouldn't subject her to this fugitive way of life they would be forced to follow for as long as she lived. If he felt true remorse for the creature's killings, he would have let Clark send him to the Phantom Zone. If he cared for her at all or for any of the lives on this planet that his existence threatened he would not have let her run away with him. No matter how much he thought she loved him or was doing this of any free will.

Clark had been willing to spend eternity in the Phantom Zone hell to keep the creature from destroying the world and he hadn't murdered anyone. Clark didn't often tell people he cared for them or their happiness and safety; his actions showed them. It was one of the main reasons she had always loved him.

It was the main reason she couldn't love Davis. After trying to kill himself had failed, he wasn't willing to try any other solution. He was only thinking of his own happiness; not of the lives he'd destroyed; nor of the fugitive life of crime Chloe would have to pursue in order for them to survive. Looking at him and seeing only the handsome exterior, it was hard to imagine the horrific creature that he actually was. The truth in some of Oliver's words seemed to ring in her ears. She would have to learn to ignore that ringing.

She had made her choice. There hadn't been time to do a lot of thinking about it; her time had been spent planning the best escape, the best way to disappear. Thinking about the future would have to reside on the back burner for now. She needed all her wits about her to keep the Beast calm; to not anger him with her regrets; to not bring up a conscience he did not have; and, to keep him as far away from Clark as possible for as long as possible.

And, as they continued quietly along the endless stretches of Kansas back roads, as she tried to plan stops that would keep them under the police and Clark's radar, Chloe's heart found a second of happiness as a possible solution occurred to her.

It had destroyed Bizarro. Would it contain the Beast? Keep it in its human disguise; maybe at least long enough to find a way to destroy the creature? Or, would it be just one more thing to make it stronger? One more thing that then subsequently could not destroy it?

A smile crept across her lips for the first time in ages; she wouldn't think about any negative outcomes yet. For now, she needed hope. So as she stole another glance at Davis, she opened the chocolate heart and with the first bite, she started planning how to secretly get in touch with Clark again and have him find all the information he could. Was it possible, she wondered, that there was still an answer at the re-built Fortress; did the AI still exist there somewhere? Was there actually any Blue Kryptonite left on the planet? Would Clark be able to find it? Would it work?

So many questions she tried to ignore before they sent her into a depression she didn't need right at the moment. The only question she wanted to answer right now was Oliver's "How did you think this was gonna end, Chloe?"

She hoped that now she could answer it, "Without the world ending, Oliver!"

****** the end *********