Author's note: I should mention that I almost have this whole story completed. (Only about 3 chapters left and working on them right now) Originally started posting it on KSite so I'll put up a number of chapters right away.

Chapter 2

Clark hadn't stayed dead.

Chloe sipped her coffee and heard that snide voice scoffing inside her head. Clark was back but their friendship remained cold as a grave. She tried not to listen to that voice; no matter how often it was right.

After Clark renounced any connection to his humanity, he returned as the Blur, leaving a calling card after each save and again that little spark of hope burned brightly for while. Maybe all was not lost. He returned, but was all business. Still, anything was better than nothing she thought and he was trying to be the hero the city needed. Watchtower was getting up and running and since supporting heroes was all she had left, she couldn't do anything but try to be supportive in what the Blur wanted.

For three weeks, she tried to contact him with no success but coincidentally the same day Lois unexpectedly came home, Chloe finally spoke to Clark. Her great joy over Lois's return clashed with confusion as she discovered Lois also was the reason for Clark resurfacing.

Clark left training, came in out of the shadows and resumed associating with humans because of some previously unknown bond he shared with Lois? Everyone else in his life he was able to cut himself off from, except Lois? Privately, Chloe couldn't deny the hurt she felt. Life didn't make sense. It seemed like because of her desire to save Davis, Jimmy died and nothing had been right since. If only that unforgivable sin could be made right, maybe she had thought, maybe then Clark could look at her without ice in his eyes.

Chloe agonized over Jimmy dying for loving her when she couldn't love him the way he deserved. Deep down she knew she could never give him what he wanted, blind faith. Her guilt was greater knowing that her weakness and longing for a brief taste of normal triggered his death.

Lois's return brought with it a solution, the Legion's time travel ring. With it, Clark could save Jimmy and at least then, Clark might be willing to remember their friendship.

Clark had refused and that reawakened all her pain and anger and she'd lashed out at him. It was inhuman of him to refuse to save Jimmy while at the same time refusing to forgive her for letting it happen. She felt betrayed and abandoned all over again, but this time she locked her grief away and harnessed the power of her anger right away. After their confrontation, she'd stayed up all night working to install and connect equipment and programs at Watchtower, passing out on her keyboard just before morning.

She dreamed.

She was back at the Fortress, this time upright and with her eyes open. Some of the pillars of the Fortress were shadowed, but most glistened and shone. Next to her was the crystal consol, the same consol where not so many weeks ago, she'd removed the key to the Phantom Zone. Maybe if she'd not interfered…no.

Chloe had relived the decision a hundred times. Based on what she had known then, she would inevitably make the same choice. She hadn't known then there would be nothing left to save of the kind man fighting against impossible choices. Sending Davis to the Phantom Zone would have been a hellish sentence far beyond death. If Clark couldn't accept the one, he'd never be able to live with the other.

The crystal used to open the Phantom Zone was gone but she noted several others in their slots. Some crystals were darkened, many remained as clear as ice, and a smallish one burned brightly in the upper right corner. It was active. Her palm itched to touch it, but no, it needed more time.

A murmured voice brushed up against her, but it was indistinct. It came again from another direction. This time she recognized the voice. It was Clark. The message came again and she picked out her name before it whisked past her ears.

"Chloe," Clark's voice called. Chloe felt her temper heat. He was cold, unreasonable. He wouldn't bring back Jimmy and he wouldn't forgive her and let things find their way back to friendship. She clenched her jaw and refused to answer him, but his voice wouldn't go away. He kept calling her name. She bit her lip and blinked back tears. The voice calling her name wasn't cold or inhuman. It entreated and rejoiced, both begging her to respond and simply happy to have her near. She couldn't stay silent.

"Clark?" She called back tentatively. His voice returned, stronger than before, swirling around and around her, repeating just one thing over and over.

"I miss you."

She awoke to find the computer screen filled with the letter C and tears pooling on her shift key. Exasperated, she swiped at her face, wiping away all trace of her weakness and then used her mouse to highlight and clear the screen. She dismissed meaning from either her keyboard or her dream. Her nose was the culprit for the one and her own longing the source of the other.

Of course she missed him. They had been friends practically since her teens began. She'd known missing him would eat her alive before she left with Davis. Had known it and had accepted that cost as a trifle if it meant keeping Clark alive.

This was different.

He was out of her life because he didn't want to be in it. The dream was just a message from her subconscious in denial. Clark didn't miss her. Being away, staying away, that was his choice. That's what she told herself as she tried to dismiss the vivid dream. She might have succeeded if she hadn't had the same dream the next five nights. She laid blame on the dream for why she couldn't stay mad at Clark, even if he no longer was interested in their former friendship.

What he was interested was the information and occasional help she and Watchtower's resources could provide. Those early weeks, with Lois's return and the Blur choosing to reestablish the existence of Clark Kent seemed a lifetime ago instead of merely six months in the past and at first, Chloe had put most of her efforts into locating the missing Justice Leaguers (as she was calling her stray heroes) and through some elaborate measures, rehabilitating Oliver. Once again, that dammed dream interfered and shifted her focus back to Clark.

Same set up as last time: at the Fortress, wanting to touch the small crystal, knowing it wasn't time, and Clark's disembodied voice calling her name.

"Chloe"

She answered immediately. "Yes Clark?"

"I miss you."

She sighed, but replied. "I miss you too." A wind blew past her, lifting a fine sifting of snow into the air. The gust changed angles and came at her from above, blasting her hair back. Alarm raced down her spine. "Jor-El, if that is you; I'd rather not be turned into a popsicle. I'm a friend of your son, remember?" To her surprise, the cold current abated. "At least somebody remembers we were friends," she grumbled.

"Chloe," Clark's voice called again.

This time, Chloe did not respond. This is ridiculous, she thought to herself, completely aware of being in the dream and not in the mood to listen to the claims of her imaginary Clark about missing her. His voice continued to call her name, more urgently than before, soft and low, loud and sharp, from above and rising from below. She sighed and played along, wishing to move things forward and wake up.

"What is it Clark?"

She felt his answer before she could audibly hear it. The loose clods of snow on the floor of the Fortress began oscillating like the player pieces on a vibrating football game. She felt a pulsating rattle, something akin to the boom of a bass speaker, travel through the soles of her shoes and tingle her skin. A low hum rose up her spine and tightened the muscles on the back of her neck. The wave of sound kept rising until it collided with the Fortress's ice quartz architecture, and like a tuning crystal, it bounced back a clear message.

"I need you."

Chloe laughed, a biting, bitter sound. "You need me? So calling Lois as the Blur, avoiding me, spending all your free time with Lois and preferring that time due to the lack of baggage was just a cover for needing me?" Her scornful disbelief was scathing.

The wave of sound rose again and broke against the crystalline ceiling. The same message floated down, but emphasis fell on the words.

"I need YOU."

"No," she said mournfully while shaking her head, "you don't."

The earth shook harder. The percussion of sound growled and then once again, his message called to her, repeating rapidly and battering at her defenses.

"I NEED you"

"I need you."

Chloe tightly wrapped her arms around her middle, biting her lip to keep from answering.

"I need YOU."

"I NEED YOU!"

She stumbled back a step, the last message a roar that tore at her heart. "I need you too," she whispered and woke in her apartment over the Talon. She buried her face in her pillow to muffle the inevitable sobs that followed. She hated herself for first conjuring up the dream and then confessing to a need she knew wouldn't be met.

Over the next few nights, the dream returned and she became resigned rather than tortured. Lying to herself was foolish. She needed Clark, needed him in her life.

Chloe put more effort toward acting as if nothing was wrong. She pasted on a smile and supported his growing romantic interest in Lois and continued to vigilantly providing intel and research. She had a place in his life, even if it was only on the periphery. Sometimes she felt like she was clinging to a ledge, ready to fall or be pushed off his radar forever, but still she held on, maybe because of the most recent version of her dream.

The dream began at the Fortress, always at the Fortress.

In this round of dreams, she spent a moment wondering how she arrived. Judging from Clark's demeanor toward her since the last time she used the portal key, she assumed he moved it from the hollowed out book kept up in his loft.

Clark no longer confided in her, though she continued to keep his secrets. So without knowing where the key was, how did she arrive in the Arctic? Her dream didn't provide an answer. She was just there, seemingly alone except for the omnipresent Jor-El and the disembodied voice of Clark Kent. Not any Clark Kent, her Clark Kent. The man who swore to keep looking for her when she left with Davis, the best friend who trusted her with all his secrets, the one person she counted on most in the world; that Clark Kent no longer existed outside of her dreams. In an absurd masochistic sense, Chloe looked forward to her dreams, even knowing they would leave her feeling gutted and floundering upon waking.

In the dream, she passed by the control consol and the small bright crystal was blazing more brilliantly then ever before. Her curiosity overcame her good sense and she reached for it. Surprisingly, though it burned like a flame, the heat did not sear her flesh. She sensed that if she wished, she could have removed the crystal.

This isn't real, she reminded herself and left that crystal in place, her attention drawn as always by Clark's voice calling her name.

"Chloe"

"Yes Clark?" She answered almost eagerly.

"I miss you."

She smiled, her expression a portrait of sorrow and regret. "I miss you too."

"Chloe"

"Yes Clark?"

"I need you."

She sighed, and felt a familiar ache in her throat. "I need you too." Speaking plainly left her vulnerable, but in her life, it was a rare treasure confined only to her dreams.

"I miss you, I need you."

She shivered and turned on her heel to face the other direction. His voice no longer sounded like a disembodied messenger. For a moment she had been certain he was right behind her. She could still feel his breath in her ear, but she was alone, only the empty fortress stretched out before her. His voice came again, from farther away.

"Chloe" Clark's voice called her name, as if he was looking for her. "Chloe" He called out as if he was lost, looking to be found.

"Clark?" She took a step toward the direction of his voice, compelled to follow. She followed his voice through a forest of ice pillars.

"Chloe I need you!"

She started running, chasing after his voice, afraid she might never hear him again. "Clark!" She called back, "What do you need?"

"Chloe!" He barked her name like a command and she froze in her tracks, only then seeing that the ground before her ended. She peered over the edge of the ice cliff, unable to see the bottom because of rising mists.

"Clark!" She called his name urgently, lost and not knowing what to do next. The wind began to stir and whistle through the cavern below like a ghostly howl. The mist at the bottom started to rotate and soon an inverted funnel hovered over the fissure of ice. Light flashed within the upside down cyclone, light as bright as the small crystal in the fortress's consol.

Her blond tresses began to whip wildly around her head, but this wasn't the icy hand of Jor-El. Strangely, she felt safe. She asked again, this time calmly and quietly, "Clark, what do you need me to do?" Her vivid dreamscape twisted and the world around her blurred and flashed past until she found herself in a familiar stone room, with the octagonal key in her hand. Clark's voice came to her, rumbling inside her mind.

"Come to me."

She shivered, looked at the key in her hand and awoke