Four beating wings, two beaks, a swirling mass tight grappling,
In tumbling turning clustering loops, straight downward falling,
Till o'er the river pois'd, the twain yet one, a moment's lull,
A motionless still balance in the air, then parting, talons loosing,
Upward again on slow-firm pinions, slanting, their separate diverse flight,
She hers, he his, pursuing.
- from "The Dalliance of the Eagles" by Walt Whitman

"Well then maybe we shouldn't be friends anymore."

Clark stared at her in shock. For as long as they had known each other, he'd had a different relationship with her than anyone else in his life. Everything about her was different. He argued with her like he argued with no one else. He couldn't help it. When Lana or Lex or Pete hurt him, it just hurt. But when Chloe hurt him, it made him want to fight back. She was the only person who had ever caused him to lash out in defensive rage. And that scared him at the same time it exhilarated him. She brought out something in him that he didn't recognize and wasn't sure he liked. It was confusing – simultaneously painful and pleasurable. In a strange way, it reminded him of the way he had felt when first discovering some of his more unusual abilities.

Yet now, for the first time, something she said had cut so deep he was unable to respond, even in anger. For the first time, he had nothing to protect him from the full force of her verbal attack. He had a hard time believing the words had actually slid from her tongue. The world slowed down around him, Chloe's face freezing in that horrible expression of bitter resentment.

He stared into her eyes, watched them blink once in agonizingly slow motion. She couldn't mean it. She couldn't want to end the friendship. They had had fights before, but even when she was mad at him or he was mad at her, they still had each other. Even when he wasn't around her, she was always there, in the back of his mind. The fact of their friendship had been with him for so long he hadn't realized how much he valued it. He just assumed it. And now she wanted to take that away. The realization of the severity of the situation hit him like a ton of Kryptonite. He felt like the earth had just decided to issue him a dispensation for the law of gravity and fling him off into space, back where he came from, careless of the fact that there was nothing left of where he came from.

"Chloe…" All the rage had drained from his tone. He could barely find his voice much less his anger. "Chloe, don't say that."

As she set her jaw and looked at him, he knew it hurt her as much to say it as it did him to hear it. But the fire in her eyes burned away the tears. She spoke with a quiet determination that was like a slow accumulation of magma finally cracking inexorably through the earth's crust.

"Clark, I know that this is partially my fault. I know that I handled this whole thing wrong. Us dating...was a mistake. I regret that, I really do."

The words came like a punch in the gut (he knew what that felt like now). He'd accepted her wishes. He'd moved on. But he certainly didn't regret what they had shared for those few short weeks. She hardly gave the words time to fully sink in before she rolled on with her speech.

"I know that things have been weird ever since, that I screwed things up for us. And I'm sorry for that. But we agreed to be friends. And you haven't been my friend since I left for Metropolis this summer. I'd like to take all the blame. I'd like to think that it was this doomed attempt at a romantic relationship that caused this…mess. I'd like to think that it's my fault, because then I might be able to do something to fix it. But we've been having these problems since before the Spring Formal. The whole dance fiasco was just an ill-timed attempt to save something that couldn't be saved. I don't know how, but something changed last year, and I lost you."

"No. You didn't. I'm right here, Chloe." Some of the anger was rekindled, but it was uncertain, aimless, and failed to strengthen his voice.

"I wish that were true. I wish that there were something keeping us apart. I wish I were just jealous of Lana, or angry about a stupid newspaper article – it would hurt less. Don't you get it? This isn't about you missing a deadline. This is about you blowing off your promises to me, breaking your word. And for what? So you could go look at a horse? And then the way you just take it for granted that I'll forgive you if you flash me a smile and half-hearted apology. The way you take me for granted.

"When was the last time we went to the movies? Or for coffee? Or the last time one of us was at the other's house for anything other than homework? Do you realize that it's been over a month since we've seen each other outside of school? Do you realize that we haven't had a phone conversation that lasted for more than five minutes since before the summer? We never talk anymore. We used to talk for hours, you and Pete and I. Now it's either me and Pete or you and Pete. Never you and me, or even the three of us. Why is that, Clark? You think I'm jealous of Lana? I guess I am. But I'm also jealous of Lex and Pete and your parents and everyone who sees more of you than I do.

"I'm not asking for a boyfriend, I'm asking for a friend. You said we'd be friends. But the only time you come to me is when you need something. The only reason you forgave me for digging into your adoption was because you needed someone to track that woman down. I'm nothing more than your own personal search engine and I'm sick of it."

I chill slithered down his spine at the incisive familiarity of those words, words she couldn't remember and that he'd thought she hadn't meant. How many emotional hand grenades did she have to chuck at him?

"I would rather you be mad at me for something I did," she continued, her façade of resolve finally beginning to break down as hot tears slid from the corners of her eyes. "I would rather have lost you because of a mistake I made. But the truth is, Clark, that you've just stopped caring. And I'm so sorry I didn't admit that to myself sooner. It would have saved us both a lot of trouble."

He stared into her broken eyes, trying to think of what he could possibly say to refute her. But the words – and the anger – wouldn't come. There had been times when he'd held his tongue out of concern that he wasn't completely justified, but he had never so fully felt that his own position was defenseless. He didn't have to bite back his angry words as he had had to do that day in the woods, when they had decided to be friends. There were no words. There was no anger. There was nothing.

"Goodbye, Clark."

The finality in her tone was heartbreaking. He saw the anguish in her eyes for a second longer, and the adrenaline (or its Kryptonian equivalent) coursing through his veins made that second last an eternity. Then she was moving, walking away from him.

He wanted more than anything in the world to say something, to grab her arm, to keep her from leaving. But he couldn't get the words out; he couldn't get his body to move. And then she was gone, and he stood in the Torch office, alone save for the lingering echo of her presence.

She'd thought she had the worse end of the deal. But in that moment, Clark realized she was wrong. Because the worst thing in the world is knowing that someone you love thinks you don't care, and fearing that they may be right.

Finis