I disclaim. I own nothing.
AN: This is just a short one-short on Chloe's thought process after Davis' death. And maybe what lead to the decision she made later.
"....he wasn't much of a challenge."
Chloe thought that in that moment she could hate Clark. As usual he barged into her home uninvited, ruined something without so much as a thought to her. Took the picture from her hand, burned it, and at no point made reference to what she was going through. Didn't even seem to be considering it. No, once again it was brought back to Clark. Clark's nightmares. Clark's fears. His nightmares had been Davis' life. Her solitude, her grief, her anger, her tears had been for Davis. And he took all of it and made it about Clark.
How could he not see that she was hurting? More so than when she came back to herself and found out that Jimmy was in a coma. More so than when she stood helpless while Jimmy berated and belittled her in public. And he was making jokes. She could only imagine the hell she would have paid had she made some quip about how absolutely batshit Lana was with her delusions of being a superhero. Actually she was pretty sure if she said the wrong thing about Lois' abilities as a journalist she'd never hear the end of it.
She thought it wouldn't hurt so much if she got to touch Davis one last time. If the last time she felt him, touched him, hadn't been done with angry words between them. And she thought maybe she hated Davis for that. Why did he feel the need to lie to her? He'd always been honest with her, surprisingly, disturbingly, from the moment they met. Hadn't she more than proved that there was nothing he could say to her that would cause her feelings for him to change.
That's not entirely true, a voice that sounded freakishly like Lois' whispered. Once he admitted his feelings she couldn't get away from him fast enough. Didn't stop her from thinking about him, from wanting him. And when she couldn't stay away from him any longer she chased him down, tried to force a friendship on him she knew could not work.
Chloe didn't know how this got to be her life. She was at the bad end of a marriage she couldn't remember agreeing to. Killed for a man who was becoming increasingly difficult to tolerate. And none of that was as horrible as knowing she killed the man she couldn't even admit to loving. She wanted to throw-up, again. Cry, some more. And scream until it stopped hurting. But she couldn't do none of that with Clark around acting as if her whole world hadn't crumbled.
She couldn't even hold him as he died. Couldn't shake the thought that he left the world the same way he came in: alone and afraid. But Clark had nightmares about something he wasn't aware of until he was thirteen. And at that moment it did slip. The anger she was feeling-at him, herself, the world in general-spewing forth in a single venomous sentence. He hadn't noticed. She didn't expect him to.
And Oliver was handling everything. Everything. It. Not even 'the body', a term she hated but would have accepted to the alternative. Which was treating Davis as if he was something that had to be handled. And by Oliver. Who Chloe, unkindly or not, felt had all the sensitivity of a nineteen year old frat boy. What could he have done? Where was Davis' body? She hoped Victor had been with him, Victor would have behaved in respectful manner. The more she thought about it, the more upset she became. Maybe she hated Oliver, too.
Clark was her best friend, he was suppose to know her better than anyone. Yet he didn't see. She didn't know how he couldn't see that she was dying. It hurt everywhere. And nowhere. Like she had a bleeding, throbbing wound somewhere she couldn't find, nor did she care to. The pain was unbearable but the pain was for Davis. So she prayed to God to make it stop, even as she held tightly to even that much of him.
She just wanted go back. Even if just to the other night, to get back that feeling of peace and rightness she had setting the table while Davis cooked. She wanted it back- his laugh, his smile, the sound of his voice-she wanted the single moment back. Clark hadn't taken her hint. Her fault really, with the subtle nod, she knew Clark didn't do subtle. Then again she probably could have been laid out naked on her bed with Davis taking her half-way to heaven and Clark still would have stood there waiting for her to give him her undivided attention. And maybe that wasn't fair, but Davis was gone and she didn't feel like being fair. What about anything that happened was fair?
Clark stayed longer than she wanted him to. Which wasn't saying much because she didn't want him here at all. She wanted Davis. Just one minute more with Davis.
Maybe this was all her fault. She should have called off the wedding after Davis kissed her, called it off during that brief moment of clarity when none of the decisions she'd made were making any sense. But then she got swept up in the wedding and couldn't bring herself to admit the mistakes she made, embarrassed that her life took such a tailspin, embarrassed that she didn't know where she was or why. But that only allowed things to get worse, because there was a crashed wedding she couldn't remember, a comatose husband she was responsible for, and a feeling of dread she couldn't escape from.
How could he tell her he loved and then just leave her? How could he be in her life one minute and then gone the next? This was all his fault. What right did he have to just waltz into her life, all sad brown eyes and dimpled smile, and turn everything on its head? What right did he have to look at her with those eyes, openly loving her in a way no one ever had? How dare he continue to look at her that way, knowing she was the cause of the pain he was in, until the life had gone out of his eyes? She thought maybe she could hate Davis: for existing, for loving her, for making her love him in return.
For leaving her.