Title: Old Ending, New Beginnings
Author: Kerry
Email: Whatever212@yahoo.com
Disclaimer: While I love having the opportunity to take these characters
out and play with them for a while, none of them are really mine and I
promise to put them back where I found them - a little more rumpled maybe,
but definitely intact.
Couple: Lex Luthor and Chloe Sullivan.
Comments: This fic will pick up after season one - everything as you know
it in season two has never happened, and probably in this fic, will never
happen.
bPrologue/b
"Lana's there."
Reality hit like an ice cold bucket of water as Clark's words registered. I guess that is it then, Chloe Sullivan thought numbly to herself even as she tried to reassure him that Lana would be fine.
Somehow, she always managed to set herself up for some spectacular falls, and this one had to be the greatest. For an all too brief moment, she had naively thought that her friendship with Clark would be something.more. Something that burst through the confines of mere friendship, tiptoeing instead across the barrier into the zone designated "romance". Yet there she stood, staring into the blue eyes of her best friend and it was in that instant that she knew.
She had lost him. Again.
He didn't even really need say it. The mere mention of Lana Lang's name was enough to send shards of realisation down Chloe's spine and she knew then that it would be she who would be left standing alone while Clark ran to the one he truly loved, she who would suffer the pangs of dashed hopes and dreams. He didn't need to say it - it was all in the eyes that blinked at her so innocently and in a way that usually her anger had always managed to melt away.
But not this time. No way. Uh huh.
Deep inside, a spark of anger was being slowly fanned as she watched his gaze move over her shoulder to the door beyond, his stance shifting anxiously from foot to foot. A bright flush rose to her cheeks and if she didn't feel like her heart was breaking, she could have sneered.
In Clark Kent's life, Chloe never played anything more than second string. He was the guy to whom it seemed that Chloe was destined to be nothing more than a "close friend" with. A confidant, a pal. Someone who was always just ithere/i for his hormonally driven murmurings about the love of his life - and the love of his life was definitely not one Chloe Sullivan.
Bitterly, Chloe acknowledged a nagging thought that had plagued the back of her mind, a thought that had been entertained in her darkest moments - it had become obvious that the past few weeks when she had thought that it was finally her that had captured Clark's attention was nothing more than a brief pit stop on the road to Lana. Years of waiting patiently for his clouded eyes to open wide to the possibility that stood before him were years of wasted time, wasted hopes. She was finally getting the message.
They were just friends.
Blinking back the tears that were threatening to well, Chloe turned, moving towards her cell phone, before something.instinct.made her turn back to where Clark was, already knowing what she would see. Numbness overwhelmed her and she knew then that this was the price she would pay for her brief glimpse of happiness in Clark's arms as the realisation of what he was doing fully sunk in.
But for now, she just watched as her date disappeared into the crowd, running as though his life depended on it.
Running. Just running.
Away from her.
bPrologue/b
"Lana's there."
Reality hit like an ice cold bucket of water as Clark's words registered. I guess that is it then, Chloe Sullivan thought numbly to herself even as she tried to reassure him that Lana would be fine.
Somehow, she always managed to set herself up for some spectacular falls, and this one had to be the greatest. For an all too brief moment, she had naively thought that her friendship with Clark would be something.more. Something that burst through the confines of mere friendship, tiptoeing instead across the barrier into the zone designated "romance". Yet there she stood, staring into the blue eyes of her best friend and it was in that instant that she knew.
She had lost him. Again.
He didn't even really need say it. The mere mention of Lana Lang's name was enough to send shards of realisation down Chloe's spine and she knew then that it would be she who would be left standing alone while Clark ran to the one he truly loved, she who would suffer the pangs of dashed hopes and dreams. He didn't need to say it - it was all in the eyes that blinked at her so innocently and in a way that usually her anger had always managed to melt away.
But not this time. No way. Uh huh.
Deep inside, a spark of anger was being slowly fanned as she watched his gaze move over her shoulder to the door beyond, his stance shifting anxiously from foot to foot. A bright flush rose to her cheeks and if she didn't feel like her heart was breaking, she could have sneered.
In Clark Kent's life, Chloe never played anything more than second string. He was the guy to whom it seemed that Chloe was destined to be nothing more than a "close friend" with. A confidant, a pal. Someone who was always just ithere/i for his hormonally driven murmurings about the love of his life - and the love of his life was definitely not one Chloe Sullivan.
Bitterly, Chloe acknowledged a nagging thought that had plagued the back of her mind, a thought that had been entertained in her darkest moments - it had become obvious that the past few weeks when she had thought that it was finally her that had captured Clark's attention was nothing more than a brief pit stop on the road to Lana. Years of waiting patiently for his clouded eyes to open wide to the possibility that stood before him were years of wasted time, wasted hopes. She was finally getting the message.
They were just friends.
Blinking back the tears that were threatening to well, Chloe turned, moving towards her cell phone, before something.instinct.made her turn back to where Clark was, already knowing what she would see. Numbness overwhelmed her and she knew then that this was the price she would pay for her brief glimpse of happiness in Clark's arms as the realisation of what he was doing fully sunk in.
But for now, she just watched as her date disappeared into the crowd, running as though his life depended on it.
Running. Just running.
Away from her.