Role Reversal

The last time Chloe had been out to this part of the Kent's back forty, she'd been watching Clark test out his superbreath. Not that flying a kite with a gust of wind was that heroic an action, but sometimes superpowers could be used for the more mundane stuff, such as boring farm chores or convenient midnight runs into Metropolis for slices of her favorite pizza. The irony that they were now in the same location to test out her superpower was not lost on her.

Stupid irony.

"So, are you ready to try this out?" Clark asked. He was standing under the willow tree with her, his hands thrust deep into the pockets of his red jacket. Somehow the stance made him loom even larger, his broad chest becoming the center of the foreground. He was well over six feet tall, had been a quarterback, and looked every inch the superhero he was. Chloe, on the other hand, still had to be tested with the yard sticks at the county fair to make sure she was tall enough for the rides. If there was a height limit for superheroes she was so screwed. Of course, so was Bart. "Chlo?"

"Oh, sorry," she added blinking up at him. "I was just thinking."

"Are you going to go all mopey on me?"

She lifted her chin higher and put her hands on her hips in an unconscious mirroring of his stance. "I do not mope."

"Existential wondering? Brooding? Contemplating your navel?" He offered. "I'm sure you can find a synonym."

"Funny." She riposted, feeling a little off. Their relationship usually worked the other way around. Even when Clark was comforting, he was usually one hundred percent serious. Hearing snark from him was just weird.

He swayed forward a little onto the balls of his feet and then landed back onto his heels. "Are you going to start or what?"

"You know I have no idea how to do this."

"Well not consciously at least."

"And silly me here I thought voluntary control was what we were going for."

He sighed. "Look it's like your body already knows what it's supposed to do. The rest of it is just finding the on switch. It's an introspection thing."

"Fine, oh great and powerful Yoda, but I swear if you start rearranging syntax, I'm going back inside." She was snapping at him already. Mostly, she was trying to stall for time because she didn't want to practice anything. What she wanted to do was go to her dad's apartment in Metropolis, pull the covers over her head, and never come back out. Maybe if she ignored her power long enough it would go away again. It's not like she'd noticed it the other seven years she'd lived in Smallville (or whenever the Hell she'd been infected).

"You're stalling." Clark added, his tone stern but his expression calm.

"Am not."

"Are too and it's pretty obvious. Alright, so the wise alien schtick isn't helping…"

She rolled her eyes. "'Wise?' Who tutored whom through AP English."

"No fair. That was British lit and it was too boring to stay awake through. Besides, we're sort of even. I'm the one who got you through Chemistry." He was almost pouting.

That was just doubly weird because for a second they'd fallen back into the routine of two friends just reminiscing about high school, except that's not what they were here for. Not even close. Shaking her head, Chloe took a deep breath and tried to get rid of the cognitive dissonance. "Maybe the Mr. Miyagi deal isn't so bad. If we let ourselves fall back into the bantering I'll never be able to concentrate."

He nodded. "Okay. Give it a shot."

She took another deep breath and closed her eyes, concentrating at first on the feeling of the air leaving her lungs. Breath in, breath out. Wax on, wax off. Whatever. Opening her eyes, she held out her right hand and concentrated. After a few minutes of looking at it and having absolutely nothing happen, she felt like a complete idiot. "Damn it. This isn't going to work."

"That's the spirit," Clark said dryly. "It's gonna take a little longer than that." Walking over to her, he pulled his hands out of his pockets and placed them on her shoulders. "Alright, how many times has it happened accidentally?"

"Just once."

He nodded again. "We can work with that. Okay, what were you doing when it happened?"

Chloe bit her lower lip and thought back about it. It wasn't too hard to call up the memory. Something that bizarre even for the keeper of the Wall of Weird ended up branded into one's brain. "It was at the bowling alley. Lana and I were returning our rental shoes after Dan got abducted---"

"You should have called me right after that happened. We might have been able to find him before the chipping." Clark said, frowning.

"Yeah, well I had to go back and be the happy bridesmaid for Lana. It's not like I could just up and leave and give my excuse as 'your evil meglomanical fiancé just kidnapped someone KGB style for medical experimentation. I gotta go.'"

"Fair enough. So what happened while you were returning your shoes?"

"You know this is oddly like that time last month when I lost my flash drive and you helped me think up all the places it could have gone to."

Clark clenched his jaw. "On topic Chloe. You promised no distractions."

Damn him and his intimate knowledge of her avoidance of reality through sarcasm. Maybe she needed a Yoda that didn't know her as well. "Alright. So we were just waiting for the guy to come back with our shoes and I had my hand on top of the counter. I was talking to Lana about something pointless like bouquets or something, and I grazed over this sticky patch on the counter."

"A sticky patch?"

She rolled her eyes. "The story isn't going to get finished if you keep interrupting me. I was standing there, kind of nodding in agreement to whatever Lana was rambling on about, and all I was really thinking was how gross this was and how I had no idea what kind of germs and whatever else had ended up on this stupid counter. I mean, public bowling alley. If it's just dried nacho cheese, it would be a blessing. And then my ability just popped up."

"So hypochrondria makes you…" Clark trailed off, not exactly sure of the correct term to describe what she could do.

"I don't think it was hypochondria exactly. I mean, sort of. I guess I just wished my hand was protected and then boom, bona fide meteor freak activity."

"And what happened then?"

"Twenty questions much." She sighed, running her left hand through her hair and quickly dropping it to her side. "At first my hand just felt all tingly and I thought maybe I'd been leaning on it too much and it'd fallen asleep, but then I looked down and I freaked."

"Okay, now not to detract the focus from you or anything, but do you think Lana saw?"

Chloe fought the urge to roll her eyes when he mentioned the Pink Princess. In this particular case, Clark wasn't bringing up Lana as part of his contractual obligation to pay lip service to her. This was a formality of a different kind. There was no one who had more experience with avoiding public exposure than he did, and he was trying to make sure she hadn't tipped Lana off. Witnesses were so of the bad. "I don't know. She stopped talking when I yelped and looked down at the counter, but I'm not sure whether she saw anything or not. Once I realized what had happened everything snapped back to normal." She laughed bitterly. "Not that it matters. Lex has my whole examination on video. I think I'm exposed."

"Good thing you have an over protective alien boy…best friend and your own billionaire at your beck and call." He took a breath and squeezed her shoulders. "We'll worry about Lana and Lex later. Can you try it one more time, except this time think about protection?"

Chloe snickered a little but sobered quickly. He was trying and she needed to focus or this would never work. She took one more deep breath and stared down at her right hand and concentrated, deep in thought about keeping her hand protected, encased. After a few seconds, she was afraid that she'd failed again, but then she felt the tingling sensation start up at her wrist and begin to slide down her hand. At first, the skin began to tighten and become rigid. The lines and creases disappeared and her freckles faded into nothing. For a few seconds, it looked like a mannequin's hand, something plasticine and artificial, but then it changed again and hardened further. The skin grew pale and finally translucent and the bones and muscles underneath hardened into stone. No, that wasn't quite right. When everything finally finished, her hand looked like it had been carved out of ice.

When the tingling subsided, Chloe flexed her fingers and breathed out a sigh of relief when she realized she could actually move it. In fact, except for the abating tingles, it didn't feel much different than normal. The only difference was that it wasn't bothered by the cold winter wind the way her reddened nose and ears were. Experimentally, she touched each finger to her thumb. They wiggled just as easily as they always had, and she suspected that if she wanted to, she could type her next story like this and no one would notice a difference in her typing prowess. She could still feel everything, feel the chill smoothness of her fingers as they ran over one another.

It was just different.

She just stood there, wiggling her fingers and staring at them like they were the most interesting thing in the world. She didn't want to look at Clark just then, didn't want to see his reaction. Intellectually she got that that her insecurity was beyond stupid. Clark had shown off every ability he'd ever had (minus the floating) for her and she'd never even flinched. A guy who could shoot fire out of his eyes, after all, really wasn't a position to judge her. Not that he would ever do that even if he'd been a just a normal human guy. He loved her too much for that, maybe not yet like a girlfriend, but deeply nevertheless.

Still, with the exception of his heat vision, Clark never looked weird when he used his powers.

"Wow."

Chloe kept looking at her hand, barely acknowledging his response. "Yeah, nifty."

"Can you look up at me or are you going to lose the concentration?"

"At you?" Chloe squeaked.

"Yeah or do you have to look at your hand in order to keep it that way?" He didn't sound freaked out, which was good. In fact, his tone reminded her a lot of the investigative journalist he'd once been.

Experimentally, Chloe turned her head away and looked toward the far field, at the blanket of snow covering the green pastures. Pointedly not looking at him, she asked, "Is it still the same."

"Yes."

"Good."

"Are you still concentrating?"

"Not as hard. To be honest, it sort of feels like it always does. Um, a little tingly maybe, but otherwise I wouldn't really know the difference."

"Makes sense," he said and she could hear the rustle of his jacket as he nodded his head. "I mean, you didn't even know anything was different at the bowling alley until you looked down. So," he added, giving her shoulder a quick squeeze. "Were you thinking of looking up at me?"

"At you?" This time she put field mice to shame with the squeak.

"Uh-huh. Chlo, I'm not going to have a conversation with you while you're staring into space." Sighing, she turned back and looked up at him. She could feel her heart pounding and knew that he'd be able to hear it to, to sense how nervous she was. He reached up with his right hand and held her chin in place. Great, now she couldn't even appease him with a quick look up. Sometimes having an alien best friend sucked.

Now was one of those times.

"You're nervous."

"And a cupie doll for the Kryptonian."

"Huh?"

His brow furrowed in confusion but Chloe was in no mood to explain the allusion. "Nothing. Of course, I'm nervous. I'm still not sure how long I can hold it like this and if I can even make it change back and…"

"You're afraid of my reaction."

"I am not."

"You know I can hear how fast your heart is going right now, don't you?"

"Stupid, lie detecting skills. I'm going to learn some yoga master techniques to keep me calm from now on so you won't have the unfair advantage."

"It makes us even. You're usually a really good liar and you can read every facial expression I have like a 14 point Daily Planet headline." He dropped his hand from her face, apparently content that she wasn't going to turn away and then started stroking her hair. "Do you remember when you first found out I was an alien?"

"You mean the fun part where I almost froze to death in the Arctic and I had to get my medicine via dog sled?"

"Yeah, that was probably a stupid question, but I suck at segues."

"I always said your transition sentences needed work." Chloe deadpanned.

He laughed a little and continued stroking her hair. "Anyway, do you remember what you said?"

"There might have been something about sinking flotillas."

"Try again."

She rolled her eyes. "I said that I thought you were amazing."

"Yup."

"Now you just want me to remind you so that you can have that little ego boost."

"Right. That's all that I'm about---the ego trip. No, seriously, Chlo, same thing applies here. I think you're amazing. Well, the hacking skills always appealed to me before and the snark and the writing and the---"

"We get the picture." Chloe said, blushing a little. She'd had fantasies that had started out this way although she really doubted there'd be naked frolicking in the snow. She'd still get frostbite. Well most of her anyway. She wasn't exactly sure what would happen with her right hand.

"Same thing applies here," He added, unperturbed. "Now I think you're just more amazing."

"You can't modify amazing. It's like unique, no gradations."

"Thanks oh lady editor."

"Besides," she said, laying her right hand over top of the impossibly large mitt covering her shoulder, "I really don't think this is amazing. They're…we're called meteor freaks for a reason."

Clark dropped his other hand down and she was about to whine in protest at the end of the hair stroking, when he grabbed her right hand in between both of his own. If she'd been worried about a lack of feeling in the transformed appendage, she needn't have bothered. She could feel everything, maybe more than usual, for while Clark was always unusually warm to the touch, now the heat was overwhelming. It wasn't burning. It was just a deep, flush heat like the glare of the sun on a summer's day at Crater Lake, and it spread through her whole palm. It was the best thing she'd ever felt.

He held her like that for a few minutes before he spoke again. "I thought you weren't going to use the term anymore."

"Well if the shoe fits…"

"Cliché," he mock-accused, calling back to a game they'd been playing all fall and winter when reading through Lois's writing. Whoever counted up the most cliches in an article got treated to a cappuccino by the other.

"Fine. Still, this" she pointed to their clasp hands, "is really weird."

"And I thought you weren't going to mope either."

"Oh, so you get to be all broody and I still have to be resigned to the sassy territory. That's a double standard."

"I'm a better moper."

"I'm still entitled to a pity party."

"But those are so boring."

"Do you know how many times I've had to suffer through yours up in the loft?"

"Okay," he said shrugging his shoulders slightly but never breaking off contact with her hand, "so I'm boring, but you're not."

"No, I think we've clearly discovered that I am just leaps and bounds beyond interesting. In fact I think Lex has a whole fabulous vacation and luxury apartment picked out just for me because of how interesting I am."

"Well, if it makes you feel any better, he's been preparing my accommodations in some way or another since the day we met. You'll be in good company. Good, freaky company." He added and she was about to chastise him, call him on his own stupid rule about not saying that word anymore when his irises changed color, the deep russet indicating that he'd activated his heat vision.

"Now you're going to set me on fire?" She asked, feeling a little of her own humor return.

He shook his head. "Low level, just enough to warm up my mom's hands when they get cold from working outside in the winter."

"Gloves much?"

He shrugged, "Gives me practice."

"So are you saying you want to warm my forehead or areas further south," she added, smirking a little for effect.

He took her right hand and put it against his cheek. She was free to drop it any time she wanted to, but she kept it there, curious to see where he was going with this. The sun was setting and the dimming light emphasized the glowing of his eyes. He turned his head down a little and she could feel the heat of his gaze, surprised that he had enough control over it so that it wasn't any stronger than the ambient heat of a light bulb. His eyes trailed over her hand, their glow reflecting in the crystalline surface, making it look alternately orange and gold.

It was beautiful.

Reaching up, he stroked the edge of her wrist with his left forefinger. "We match."

"Not exactly---" She started, turning for her self-defense snark as fast as she could.

Clark knew her too well for that little trick to work. Instead he shook his head and brought his other hand to her lips. "No, we fit and this is going to work." She moved her jaw about to say something and he cut her off. "I know, not right this second because of Jimmy and Lana and 33.1, but it's going to work."

She could feel the tears sliding down her cheeks and she felt so stupid. She'd cried all day on that fucking table, she'd sobbed like an infant in Mrs. Kents arms, and she'd wept alone in Clark's room and hoped no one would notice. She'd been stupid and girly and weak, and she hated that more than anything. Hated that she wasn't done yet. Hated that she was getting everything she'd ever wanted and all she'd had to do for it was give up her humanity.

As much as she loved him, she wasn't quite sure he was worth the price. Not a hundred percent anyway.

He brought his hand up from her lips and wiped the tears from her cheeks. Bent low, with an expectant gleam in his flaming demon eyes, he kissed her. It was soft and sweet like from earlier in his bedroom and, to be honest, Chloe wasn't ready for anything more. She was too tired and too strung out to be looking for anything other than comfort. She leaned into the kiss and let him hold her there until her sobs stopped and the tingling in her hand flared up. When they finally broke apart, his eyes were as green as they'd always been and her hand, fleshy and pink, was already smarting from the cold.

He wrapped his arm around her shoulders and they walked back in the dusk to the little yellow farm house, just Clark and Chloe again.

But at the same time so much more.