Title: Second Act

Author: Clannadlvr

Fandom: Smallville/DC

Pairing: Chimmy

Spoilers: Up through the current episodes of SV. This takes place about 7 years in the future.

A/N: Thanks to Slodwick for giving me the inspiration to write this pairing. I read her fantastic Chimmy stories and got a spark for my own.

repost This is the correct copy. Thanks to phoenix922 for pointing it out!

Prologue:

Lois Lane was smiling.

Ok, she was snarling. But that was close enough.

Jimmy Olsen grinned in spite of his current predicament, i.e. being on the receiving end of one of Lois' rants. Six months ago, Lois calling him "Jimbo" and verbally abusing him for an unfocused foreground would have made him nervous and angry all at once. Nervous because Lois could be downright scary when she went on a tear and angry because he knew, just as well as Lois did, that he was the best photographer at The Planet. It wasn't luck or even fate's cruel joke that had given him the job as Lois and Clark' sidekick and occasional whipping boy. It was his talent, pure and simple.

Jimmy didn't consider himself an arrogant guy. Sure, he'd always come off as cocky, but that was more to do with covering up his former life as teen geek, joke of the locker room and recipient of more than one towel snap or wet willy, than with being an asshole. He'd been intimidated as hell when he started working with The Daily Planet's up and coming cub reporter team, so, he over compensated. A lot.

That first day, Lois had called him on the carpet, told him to stop smirking like a sideshow barker, to get his head in the game, and to lose that ridiculous bow tie.

He'd taken all of her advice except the last. He refused to take wardrobe criticism from a woman who allowed her reporting partner to wear too-big suits, dorky glasses, and a corn pone smile.

Still, in the past few months he would have loved to have heard the sweet sounds of Lois haranguing him about one of his clip-ons. That's what made today so special; not only had Lois barked at him after she saw the latest front page spread, but she'd also told him he looked like Krusty the Clown crossed with Ronald McDonald.

It looked like the old Lois Lane was putting in an appearance. Jimmy recognized her by the powerful stride, clear eyes, and determined expression. For six months all he'd seen was someone going through the motions like a bull terrier, as feisty as ever when it came to reporting a story, but silent and cold when talking to friends or interacting with co-workers.

Not that he could blame her, though. Seven months ago, things had been fine. Better than fine, actually. Jimmy, sporting his not-so-insignificant crush on Lois, had been on top of the world when he and Lois went on a date. Ok, well, it wasn't really a date. But Lois had asked him to go out. Well, not really asked, sort of demanded that he take her drinking after a long day of fighting with Mr. White about a retraction. Still, the result was that the two of them had ended up at an all night pizza place downtown, drinking beer and trading stories. Well, Lois did most of the talking, of course. For all that she was a great reporter, off the record she tended to be a bit self-involved. But that could be ignored considering the "self" was so fine. So Jimmy had grabbed his bottle of beer, having the time of his life as he sat back and listened to Lois' life story. And since she'd had a six pack in her by that point, Jimmy was by no means getting the abridged version.

They'd gone through her childhood years, her time as a military brat, all the way through the first time she'd met Clark Kent in Smallville. But as she started to talk about that time, Jimmy found himself wanting to hear about one person in particular.

Lois' cousin, Chloe.

Knowing that Lois was too drunk to realize that he was steering the conversation, Jimmy asked her a few pointed questions about why she'd come to Smallville, how she'd met Clark, and what, or who, had made her stay as long as she had. Never let it be said that the photographer couldn't learn a few tricks from his reporters.

It worked like a charm and Jimmy began to hear things about that time that he'd never known. He'd heard from Clark that Chloe had gone up against Lionel Luthor, her death faked by Lex Luthor so that she could testify against Metropolis' devil incarnate. But Kent was pretty close lipped when it came to that part of his time in Smallville- he seemed to focus on his friendship with Chloe in the present rather than the trials of the past, even though she'd been overseas working ever since Jimmy had started at The Planet. So he'd never heard about Lois and Clark being chased down by choppers in a corn field, Lois digging up Chloe's coffin to play a hunch, or Chloe being held captive in an old metal refinery by a sociopath. The more he asked questions, the more he found out. He needed Lois to explain how she'd been saved, the ins and outs of the trial beyond what he'd found in The Planet's microfiche files, and even the way Chloe had finally realized that Clark was never going to be in her future. Too little, too late, but he still wanted to hear it all.

So he sat there tearing the label off the bottle of Harp in his hands as Lois painted a sharp picture, as only a true reporter could, of a smart, loving, spitfire of a cousin. As she spoke, Jimmy watched the recent professional rivalry that had erupted between Chloe and Lois melt away as Lois shared the horror of almost losing the person who meant more to her than all her future Pulitzers put together. Lois told him about the fear, the grief, and the joy of finding her cousin again and Jimmy couldn't help but get the complete picture of Chloe Sullivan.

Because there were certain things that Lois didn't have to describe or explain. Like the way Chloe's lips quirked up at the sides when she tried to hold back a laugh. Or the small moan that came from somewhere deep inside when she took the first sip of coffee in the morning. How her hair glinted in the sun, rays seeming to refract through her singular beauty. Or how her skin felt like soft suede when uncovered. And, god, how it felt to be inside her, fully and completely, even if the way to heaven had been a fumbling, stumbling journey.

Jimmy didn't need any of those descriptives because he already knew. And because of his damned photographic memory, each of those sensations had distilled into images that had stayed with him since that summer when he was 17 years old. He pulled them out occasionally, flipping through them to remind himself what it had felt like to be so completely knocked over the head by a woman. And how it had felt to have her slip away because he hadn't been the one she'd really wanted in the first place.

But as Jimmy listened to Lois talk about Chloe's life now, about how she'd moved on and she and Clark were just friends, how her job kept her so busy that Lois doubted she'd even had a date in a year, a different picture began to form in his mind. A snapshot of what could maybe, possibly, somehow be if Jimmy got off his ass, put his fear in his back pocket, and picked up the phone. Sure, she lived over the ocean, but what did that really matter to someone whose career made him pretty much a nomad? Even if contacting her was just of way of getting her out of his head- he'd realized long ago that he'd compared every woman he'd ever dated since to Chloe and had pretty much wrecked every relationship because of it- making a move would be worth it.

So as he dropped a very drunk Lois off that night, who still thought that she'd told the life history of a woman Jimmy had never met, the crush he thought he had on Lois began to make sense and just as quickly faded into nothing. He wouldn't be looking for a Chloe substitute any more. He'd get a hold of the real thing, see if there was still a spark between them, and deal with his feelings once and for all. He'd either be deliriously happy or he'd move on.

When he walked into The Daily Planet the next day with a spring in his step, his mind had been made up. Walk right up to Lois, admit to her what he hadn't before, that not only did he know Chloe but that he'd actually been involved with her, and demand her phone number. Ten to one Lois would knee him in the balls for his relationship with Chloe- even though Chloe had broken things off with him, he had no illusions that Lois would see it that way- but it would be worth it. And if Lois refused, then he'd just go to Clark. Or maybe he could go to Clark first, tell him the truth and…

All thoughts of Operation: Find Chloe Sullivan flew out of his mind when he saw the unflappable Lois Lane sitting at her desk, staring at her computer screen, tears streaming down her face. He walked toward her, about to ask her what was wrong when Kent pulled him aside with a grief-stricken look on his face and told him the heart-stopping truth:

"Jimmy, it's my friend…Lois' cousin, Chloe. She went on a story in Namibia two weeks ago and her news organization hasn't heard from her since. They think she's…"

At that point, Clark had seemed ready to break down so Jimmy did the only thing he could. He packed away the man who was still infatuated with the girl he'd met at age 17 and brought out the caring compassionate friend who didn't know Chloe Sullivan but would be there for his friends and coworkers in their grief.

Seven months on, he was still playing that role of the go-to guy, even though it looked like Lois was finally coming out of her grief and worry induced haze. The bite, or as Mr. White would say, the bitch was back. Sharper than ever and Jimmy couldn't help but smile while Lois went on and on about his photograph. Even the fact that Lois knew next to nothing about the technical side of photography didn't faze him a bit- having Lois back in action was well worth it. And since Clark had seemed to bounce back rather suddenly two months ago, now the team of Lois and Clark, with Jimmy at their side, would be truly back in action.

But just as quickly as Jimmy let the grin begin to spread across his face, he felt a deep pang in his heart, a delayed reaction from seven months before. If Clark had given up the search for Chloe…and now Lois as well, did that mean she was really lost…dead? Before he could stop it, grief trickled into his heart like Freon, paralyzing the beats.

"Jimmy, hey Jimmy. I'm talkin' to you, Jimbo."

Jimmy snapped his head up, dazed, and found Lois looking at him with an expression equal parts concern and exasperation.

"You ok, kid?"

And just like that, Jimmy realized he wasn't ok. He was angry and hurt and just beginning to grieve for someone he wasn't even sure he had a right to grieve. He'd had her, he'd lost her, and the chance for anything else had been snatched away. The worst part was, he couldn't share it with anyone. Lois and Clark wouldn't understand why he'd kept his connection with Chloe a secret for so long and would probably be hurt by it. And he didn't want to risk bringing Chloe up to Lois and having her slide back down into grief. So he did what he always did and pushed the feelings down, giving himself and extra incentive by making a promise that he could dive into that bottle of scotch he'd gotten for his birthday as soon as he got home.

"Yeah, Lois. I'm fine. So, why don't you tell me more about why the Chief is giving you such a hard time lately, huh?"