Chloe still hadn't woken up, pale and bruised under the covers. Davis hadn't been able to sleep watching her, saying every prayer he'd ever learned in Sunday school, but Clark left the room more than once. "She'll pull through," he said, eyes sure. "She's done it before." As if he expected it.
At times like this Davis wondered just how much they shared that he had not. He wondered how much of that Clark had taken from her. He didn't feel mindless rage, but his knuckles itched with the urge to wipe that look off of Clark's face. She was close and probably dying and he could not.
Maybe Clark let him stay because he was looking pretty messed up himself, the cuts and burns the powerful side of him had left on It just starting to heal on his skin. But Clark wouldn't ever let him alone with her for two minutes even holding her hand, as if he would climb all over her like some depraved madman.
He knew what Clark thought of him. Of what they'd been. A biological drive and computer coding. A nudge, Braniac had said. Maybe a little part of her felt that attraction, but it had just been blown out of proportion. That's why she hadn't been able to stop. Chloe had probably lived a waking dream and he had just wanted to believe it was all her.
"She was alone and vulnerable and you kept her away from her friends. You might have not known about Braniac, but you used her." Clark said. Forget that those friends of hers hadn't given one thought to why she couldn't trust them enough to come back. Davis said nothing. That was Chloe's secret to keep or give away. It didn't matter about Braniac, all or any of that to him. He loved her. If he didn't, it wouldn't hurt like this.
Clark was a passive guy, but Davis didn't doubt from the look on his face that he wanted to toss him out. Physical ejection wouldn't work for long with Davis. He didn't know if he was quite human anymore. He wasn't exactly dead. Maybe it wouldn't matter if he was pounded into the dirt. Whatever had happened, whatever she thought of him now; he wouldn't abandon Chloe. If nothing else, they had been friends, real friends. She needed a friend.
"And what do you think she'll see a friend when she sees you?" Clark kept on. "She was the construct's tool to bring you into full power. She couldn't have controlled what she did with you. She betrayed the man she was going to marry and she didn't have a choice. She's strong, but she can't let all that go."
That was what Clark wanted to believe. Chloe had cared. It he had hurt her so much she just should have let him die. Davis tried to push away the thought that maybe after all this, there would be too many memories for that. If Chloe wanted him to go, he would. Not before.
Clark sat forward, looked straight at him; broad face pushing Chloe from sight. "Let me tell you about Chloe. She's always wanted to save people..."
She didn't actually have feelings for you.
Maybe it had been a bad moment, but something inside of him had broken, snapped. The idea that it wasn't just the lie, but who she was that lead her to care about making him live burned him. He could have been anyone else, Clark said, so damned reasonable, right before blocking his way back in the door. If he'd ever thought he'd loved her, he would let her go.
It all came to a head then, what Clark had done, what he had, the fact that she wasn't breathing. It was Davis who swung at him, right in the middle of a hospital hallway, blinded by something in his eyes. Clark hit back.
"She will wake up, without you." Clark said, his own mouth bloodied. "I don't want to fight you."
But Clark had already won. Maybe he was really the monster. Davis had hurt Clark because he was in pain. Chloe wouldn't have wanted him to. Chloe just wanted to save him. That's what she did, she told him once. Not even being able to know she would live hurt more than the blood in his mouth.
Davis knew about packing up and moving; efficiently and quickly; place to place when they wouldn't have you anymore.
But he couldn't leave her. She was more than a temporary resting place, she was home and every part of him rebelled against giving that up.
She hadn't been in her right mind, Clark said. It was never about him. But she had been broken and she'd trusted him, somehow. There was a world's worth of difference between relying on someone and giving them your whole heart. If she'd ever wanted it or not, she had his.
She'd needed him. They'd been standing together in that very kitchen. She hadn't known her name and he'd repeated it to her over and over and over. She couldn't expect it to be that way forever, she'd said, terrified and half afraid she was going to lose him too. She never expected it. She never thought she could deserve anything; but she did, so much. He felt like she was going to pull all the breath from his lungs. He was hers. He wanted to show her.
He'd bought her a ring the next day. It was soon, crazy timing, but then nothing about them had been normal. It shouldn't have been right to talk about engagement or marriage right after she'd called it off to another man. But he'd been sure, so sure that it was her-all her feeling something. It didn't have to mean anything more than that if she hadn't wanted it to. He'd wanted to give her something real. He'd had the ring in his hand, ready, more sure than anything in his life.
The white wrapping paper around the box crinkled in his hand. He'd been with her, holding her hand until it wasn't her there, anymore. Maybe she had loved him, a little, all on her own. Maybe she could have. Maybe they could have made it.
He put the ring there, on the table, had shaky. Maybe it was selfish to drag it all out again and she would just want to forget. He didn't want to leave her, ever. He had to, but he needed her to know what he felt, how he would always feel.
The last thing he did in Metropolis was drop his apartment key into Clark's hand. It would be hers now. It was the one thing he could do. It held his last message to her. Not his last. Not his last.
Endnotes: I couldn't end on a tragic chapter of course. This is not the end either. ;) btw, if it's unclear, Chloe healed Clark and Davis. but now, oh dear Davis, where have you gone?
