Disclaimer: The shows are not mine.
Summary: Smallville xover! When Sam meets Lex Luthor at Stanford, normalcy and safety become a dream.
Twelve-year-old Chloe Sullivan tapped pen on paper with increasing agitation. It was a stupid school assignment. Give three words that describe you. She'd much rather give three words that described the other people lounging around in the bus station. Some of them seemed a lot more interesting. Besides, she wanted to be a journalist. If she wanted to write about herself, she'd come up with an autobiography.
She looked at the women two seats to the left of her. Bitter, irritable, and ugly. The women caught her eye. "What are you staring at?" Yup, she's bitter, irritable, and the ugly parts a given and highly visual.
Then, there was the sweeping man. Does a phrase count? Everybody's favorite doormat. A group of three children were turned around in their seat and shooting spitballs at him. The parents were too heavily ensconced in their argument to notice. He wiped off the ones sticking to his clothes and gave the kids an unsure smile. They ducked beneath their chairs. He turned to sweep and they started up again.
A younger man took the seat opposite her, dropping his baggage at the feet. Ooh, here's an interesting one. He was tall with a blue beanie covering his head, worn blue jeans, and layers of shirts in varying degrees of brown. He was holding his arm stiffly. There was a patchwork of cuts and bruises across his face. He slouched in the chair. Depressed, delinquent, runaway.
Next, the guy on the - .
A women juggling a baby, a large suitcase, and a diaper bag struggled past them while digging in the bag for a bottle. The baby was wriggling in her arms. It made a particular jerky move. She hurriedly brought her hand up to prevent it from shooting backwards. She landed up smacking the upper contents of her diaper bag onto the floor. The guy in the beanie quickly got up from his seat and moved forward to help. He put it all back for her and handed her the bottle. She gave him a relieved thank-you to which he replied, "It was no problem, ma'am."
Okay, maybe he's not a delinquent. Trouble magnet, maybe. Runaway, trouble magnet.
He pulled a pamphlet from his bag. Stanford it was printed on the back. He was going to college. He isn't a runaway. Scholarly, trouble magnet? His eyes were going over the page with complete concentration. He moved the page down as he repositioned himself on the chair and Chloe saw what he was looking at. He was enthralled with the map of the campus. OCD, trouble magnet? She bit her lip and looked up in thought. Does OCD count as one word? When she brought her eyes back down, he was looking at her with one eyebrow raised.
"What are you doing?" he asked, looking to where her pen was poised on the page. She must have been staring at him and writing. Okay, she was a little freaky.
The top of the page had random words that were supposed to start off her assignment; reporter, sarcastic, reporter, daughter, reporter, cousin, reporter…Underneath that were things she had jotted down as she thought; bitter, doormat, runaway, trouble, OCD…
"I'm trying to determine if OCD can be counted as one word," she replied. Nobody had ever called her subtle.
"School assignment?" She nodded. It started out as one. "Then, it probably won't work. Teachers are picky."
"Tell me about it. Are you OCD?" Hit the nail right on the head, why don't you? This is what comes from spending a week at Lois'. He laughed lightly before answering in the negative. "Oh, cool…not that I have anything against people with OCD or anything."
"What else did you describe me as? That the one-sentence description assignment isn't it?"
She shrugged sheepishly. "It's three words actually."
"I had the one sentence in ninth grade. They believed that coming into high school meant needing to know yourself. I spent most of the assignment time psychoanalyzing my dad and brother. They hated it." He sounded happy and slightly reminiscent.
"What did you say about yourself?"
He was definitely reminiscent now. "I said I am a Winchester." She was confused and it must have shown on her face because he elaborated. "Winchester is my last name. It's also a rifle."
"Smart," she allowed. "I don't think Sullivan can be used as one of my descriptive words though. No double-meanings." She studied him again. Gun loving trouble? "I was going to put reporter three times in a row but you did say teachers are picky."
"There's something for you; teacher hating mongrel." Winchester looked around. He gestured to a group of musicians by the entrance. There were nodding enthusiastically at each offbeat note they played. "What are they?"
"Poor starving artists. What about him?"
Winchester looked at the man; cigar, receding hairline, oversized glasses, beard, and a cheap suit. "Groucho Marx reborn."
Chloe laughed. Fun loving trouble? "What was your family?"
He grew serious. "My dad was a – an obsessive game hunter. My brother was a parent's worst nightmare. It's actually a lot harder than you think to describe someone. They can be jackals to some and gems to another." He smiled. "In most places we went, people thought we were going to attack them or rob them blind but, when they got into trouble, we were first to help out. It sucks, you know, trying so hard to do good things and never getting credit for any of it. It feels like you're doing it for nothing."
Chloe tried to lighten the mood. "That's why I plan to get mucho credit."
"You said reporter, right?"
"Yes, a journalist."
"You sound sure."
"If I want to be a journalist, I have to be confident. The mark of a great journalist is a steady supply of hate mail." Sam stared at her. "Perry White said that. In order to not be taken down by hostility, I have to have confidence in my journalistic ability. Perry White's the best out there."
"What if all you get is hostility?"
"Then you better have an extra supply of confidence or, at least, a stubborn streak a mile wide." The arrival of her bus was announced over the intercom. "That's me. It was nice meeting you Winchester."
"It's Sam," he corrected. "Thanks. I think I just might have a stubborn streak a mile wide."
"Yeah, me too. We're heading for the top." Tenacious trouble magnet?
"Ill look for you there."
No, it was astutely tenacious trouble. Perfect.
Two days later, a teacher would receive a three-word assignment saying 'teacher hating mongrel'.
Sam Winchester's first journal entry
I'm on a bus that's heading to California. My whole body hurts whenever we hit a bump and my head hurts even when we don't. There's an old women next to me who snores and is beginning to drool all over herself. I got disowned, did something stupid that could've killed me, and left without a goodbye. It took me until now to realize what that meant.
I'm alone and it isn't a wonderful feeling of independence. It's just lonely.
I never expected that I would be leaving this soon so I have five hundred bucks in my pocket to make it through the summer. I have no place to stay. I have no job but I know it's going to be okay because I'm John Winchester's son and Dean Winchester's brother. We do what it takes to survive. That's our legacy.
I'll be fine no matter how lonely I get. According to Sullivan, a stubborn ass like me can make it through. I suppose Perry White could show me the way.
Nobody should ever doubt that I love my family but this is my life. I'll live it the way I want. I won't let them tell me otherwise, bring me down, or make my regret what I did. Mom died on that ceiling and I think a big part of dad went with her. I'm not dead though.
I'm a Winchester and that has a dozen different meanings.
How's it coming?
