10

Impetus Verse-IHOW (Second Epilogue)

Gabe Sullivan had always joked with his daughter that the reason that there was an International House of Pancakes, even though waffles were clearly the superior food, was because IHOW just didn't have the same ring to it. True to form, his daughter had groaned and swatted him on the arm with the dish towel she'd been using.

While he loved his special little girl fiercely, she had one major flaw: the girl just didn't appreciate a good joke.

Waffles were a special language all their own in the Sullivan household. His mother had always made them. They weren't, of course, an Irish specialty, but they were something she'd perfected long ago in her girlhood. Instead of cake, Gabe and his six siblings had had unlimited waffles with extra whipped cream for their birthdays. When he did poorly on a test at school or when a girl dumped him, Annie Sullivan made him waffles. When he got married, he hadn't been surprised in the least to find his mother asking the caterer how many waffles he thought she'd need to prepare for the guests.

Moira'd laughed then, thinking her mother-in-law was joking.

She hadn't been laughing quite so hard when his mother showed up at the reception hall two miles from St. Patrick's with five hundred waffles in Tupperware containers.

Tradition was tradition, and so Gabe had adopted the sacred power of waffles as his own. Unfortunately, he could not cook nearly as well as his mother could. He was prone, even now and after decades of practice, to burning them. But still he carried on the tradition.

The day after Chloe'd first exhibited her phenomenal strength, he'd made Moira a fresh batch of raspberry waffles and used that very early morning breakfast (even at three Chloe had not been a morning person) to convince her that after the previous day's disaster that they could never turn their child over to Sam.

He'd made funny shaped waffles with extra strawberries and whipped cream for Chloe the morning that Moira'd left them both. His little girl hadn't touched them, far too distraught by her mother abandoning her to do anything other than cry on his lap. When Chloe'd been eleven and begged to join the cheerleading squad, insisting that there wasn't a flip she couldn't do, he'd told her no. Refused her that because she posed too big a danger for the normal girls. She'd cried for the whole weekend and had only been coaxed out of her room for the rarest of waffle treats-the kind with Toll House morsels mixed into the batter and with powdered sugar on top. Over that tooth-rotting meal, she'd come to reluctantly accept the fact that there were certain things she'd never be able to do.

Waffles were a good thing, a special treat, but they were an omen too.
Gabe remembered the surprise he'd felt when he'd woken up to find Chloe slaving over a batch of blueberry waffles one Thursday morning a little over a year ago. He'd been shocked beyond belief because, unfortunately, Chloe was an even worse cook than he was. Gabe, though he might burn things, actually could follow a recipe.

Chloe, despite her college-aged reading level and the large labels on the jars, had a tendency to confuse the sugar and the salt. And that was the most benign of her culinary indiscretions. How she'd managed to work Tabasco sauce into a simple ice cream sundae with supposedly strawberry syrup topping, Gabe would never know.

Of course, maybe her people weren't big on cooking either. For all he knew they'd evolved to Jetsons' level of high tech meals, where everything came in pellet form.

Yum.

Still, the morning he'd found Chloe actually attempting to cook waffles was the morning she'd confessed about her newest power. It had been a double blow. It wasn't just that he was upset about moving. Even then, he hadn't been upset for himself. He'd actually grown up outside of Gotham and hadn't been that attached to Metropolis since Moira'd left. He had, however, been sad for Chloe, who loved the city, especially The Daily Planet , more than anything. She was a Metropolitan girl through and through, and it had crushed her to realize that they were going to have to leave.

The far worse blow that day, however, was realizing that Chloe's abilities were just beginning to crop up. Gabe had always assumed that being a whatever she was-in addition to being the most perfect and precocious little girl in the universe-meant that she was going to be stronger than humans. He assumed she was only extraordinarily fast because her leg muscles were so strong. In that way, her gifts made sense. Each year, she got a little bit stronger and a little bit faster and that was it.

Except it wasn't. After the heat vision developed, Gabe had steeled himself for possibility that even more fantastic powers would emerge, things that weren't even remotely like other people could do. After all, humans couldn't do anything even close to shooting heat blasts with their eyes, and it had started when she'd hit puberty. He was very much afraid that as she matured more abilities were going to pop up.

Personally, he didn't care. She could have 42 different powers, and she'd still be Chloe, but it did make him worry for her. The more different she was, the more she had to hide, and, he feared, the more she'd resent herself. Gabe wasn't stupid. He knew that no matter how hard he tried to convince her otherwise and despite how fiercely he tried to show his love for her, Chloe would always blame and hate herself for scaring her mother away.

If only she'd known how much more complicated it was than that. If only he hadn't promised Moira to go along with her cover story to protect Chloe.
But he'd given his word, and Gabe Sullivan was nothing if not loyal. Besides, he knew what had come to pass, as painful as it had been, was the best thing for Chloe.

Still, he was afraid for Chloe. Afraid more powers would emerge to add to her self-loathing. Afraid that one day, his little girl wouldn't even look human.

He'd never dared to share that worry with her, but it had been in the back of his mind since the first time he'd ever seen her eyes flare red. He'd love her no matter what, but he couldn't bear the thought of her having to hide even more from the rest of society. Despite her heritage, he'd never met anyone who loved people and loved knowing everything about them than she.

But those were all worries for another day and another plate of waffles. That Thursday morning he'd sat there and made stupid knock-knock jokes, eaten truly terrible waffles (she'd mixed up the salt and sugar again), and promised her that no matter where they ended up they'd still be a family.

And that was the last time there'd been waffles at the Sullivan house.

Until this morning.

Hesitantly, Gabe eased himself down into the wooden chair at the kitchen table. "Honey, it smells great."

Chloe turned away from the stove and carried a large platter, brimming full of waffles to the table. Before he'd had the chance to object that there were far too many waffles there for both of them, even taking into account her huge appetite, she disappeared and reappeared back at the table with a ginormous bowl of homemade whipped topping and fresh picked blueberries.

Gabe's heart skipped a beat. She was going all out, putting in much more effort than she had for the heat vision. They were probably going to have to relocate to Bolivia or something this time. Or maybe he was over reacting. Perhaps something less drastic than exposure had happened like her growing a tail. A tail they could deal with. She'd just have to wear really roomy skirts from now on or something.

Chloe smiled back and settled herself across from him at the table, preparing a plate for herself or possibly for a linebacker. With her it was hard to tell. "Thanks, daddy. Now eat up. I didn't slave over a hot stove for nothing."

He frowned as he spooned out the cream and berries onto his modest portion. "You didn't just heat vision the batter?"

"I can do toast. Other stuff tends to turn to charcoal still." She shrugged. "It's a work in progress."

"I see." He said, taking a bite. After tasting the breakfast, Gabe really was scared. The waffles were actually good. No, they were better than good. They were excellent and way too edible to have been made by his daughter. "Chlo-bear?"

"Please don't call me that," She said, picking her fork up from her plate. Despite her heaping helping, Gabe noted that she hadn't actually eaten anything. Oh god, she was as nervous as he was.

"Sorry, Chloe," He conceded. "Sweetheart, what's going on?"

She dropped her fork and started pulling at her paper napkin. "What? I can't just make waffles for my favorite person?"

"Nice try. You know that no one makes waffles around here except for special occasions."

She swallowed and looked back down at her pile of napkin shreddings. "I have a lot to tell you."

He kept his voice level and as reassuring as possible when he spoke, "It's about Lex, isn't it?"

Her head shot up inhumanly fast and when she faced him, her expression was a guilty one. "Not exactly. I know he's suspicious of me, but he hasn't tried anything. Has he said anything more to you at work?"

Gabe shook his head. "No, but that doesn't mean anything. Lex is more subtle than that. He could be planning something still."

"He's always planning something."

"But this isn't some designer drug he's sneaking around and brewing in Met U's basement. This is you, sweetheart. His family is one of the most powerful in the world, and if he finds out about you, he could take you away and do God knows what."

"He's not going to find out anything." She snapped.

"We don't know that. Maybe it's time for me to quit. I can always get a job at Wayne Industries. Your Uncle Martin works in personnel for one of the bigger plants in Gotham and-"

Chloe slammed her palms down on the table and Gabe winced, anticipating the shattering of the wood. He was relieved when it didn't come. She was getting so much better at controlling her strength. "We're not moving!"

"Don't raise your voice at me, missy. If it means keeping you safe, we'll move all the way to Timbuktu."

She shook her head and let her hands slip off the table. "I'm not running."

"And I'm not letting you get hurt."

"I'm not hurt."

"Yet."

"No, I'm not hurt at all, and I don't want to pick up and leave again. I have a life here."

"Sweetie, I know how fond you are of Pete and Clark, and I know they care about you, but they don't know you like I do. If they knew how much danger you're in, then they'd tell you to run too."

"Just because Pete doesn't know my secret, doesn't mean that he doesn't know me."

"I didn't mean to dismiss your friendships and wait…" Gabe paused, replaying what she hadn't said in that sentence. He might be the manager of a crap factory (yes, he'd heard Lex use that colorful moniker when arguing with his father over the phone) but Chloe had learned her observant nature from somewhere. "What about Clark?"

Chloe didn't speak but instead stood up slowly and walked over to the padlocked door to the basement. Reaching up, she took the lock in her hand and snapped it without any effort. "I've been humoring you. I've been able to snap the lock since I was three."

"But you couldn't reach the top of the door until you were twelve." He said. "I appreciate that you respected the locked basement of secrecy."

"I thought that it was where you stashed Playboys. I was so never going down there. That would lead to therapy bills even LuthorCorp medical insurance couldn't cover."

"Not that I read that, but if I did, it's for the articles."

"Uh-huh." She said, opening the door.

"You really don't have to drag me down there, I think I remember what I've been locking up for the last twelve years."

"I'm not going to see what's down there. I'm letting something out." She finished, letting the door hang wide and calling back down the stairs, "You can come out now."
Right then Gabe felt his left arm go numb and was convinced he was having a heart attack. Taking in ragged breaths, he asked, "Are you crazy?"

Before Chloe could answer, Clark stepped out from the shadows of the basement and made his way into the middle of the kitchen. "No, she's not."

Gabe swallowed. "I think I should tell you now, Clark, that I have this bad model building habit. I've been making little spaceships ever since I saw Lilo and Stitch ."

Chloe arched an eyebrow at her dad. "Nice."

Clark wasn't appeased in this least. Calmly, he objected, "Mr. Sullivan, I know."

This could not be happening. They'd had to move when someone even suspected that Chloe was different. Now Lex was sniffing after her and Clark knew everything. He had no idea how to get Clark to forget what he'd seen, and, oh God, what if he told someone? Clark was (although reluctantly) on the school paper. What if he'd called The Inquisitor ?

Gabe took a deep breath. He would deal with this. "What do you want? I don't have much money."

Clark gaped at him and Chloe barked out a laugh. "Daddy, you can't be serious."

The boy finally got back his ability to speak. "Mr. Sullivan, I don't want anything."

"I try to be as optimistic as possible. It balances out Chloe's cynicism, but everybody wants something. I mean, you now have proof of the biggest news story ever. I find it hard to believe you aren't going to just run to the Planet or something."

Clark looked like he'd slugged him. Shaking his head, he stammered out, "I don't want anything like that ever. I'd never betray her like that."

"He wouldn't. Lex has been asking him all kinds of questions since the accident and he's been lying for me." Chloe confirmed as she shut the door and ushered Clark over to the table.

Gabe watched the kid warily as he took his seat. "If Chloe and you just jumped into the water after the fact, I don't understand how you could know everything."

Avoiding his eyes, Chloe looked back at her pile of napkins as she answered, "We didn't jump in. Lex hit me with his car and pushed me through the barrier."

He was up in an instant, rushing over toward here, and running his hands over her back and arms. "Does anything hurt? Are you okay?"

She nodded. "I was a little bruised the first day, but even those faded in about 24 hours."

He rocked back on his heels and looked up at her. Her chin was held up in that defiant way she had. He recognized the gesture from every argument they'd ever had. However, she was worrying her lower lip with her teeth just as she had when she'd told him about the heat vision.

He knew that look too.

It was the one she'd given him so many times without even realizing it since the day Moira left. That hesitant, self-conscious glance she gave him sometimes when he caught her using her powers for silly every day things like speed cleaning her room or lifting up the couch to vacuum underneath it. It was that look that always asked him if today was the today he was going to abandon her too.

Without a second thought for Clark or the rest of this mess they were in, he gathered Chloe up in his arms and hugged her. "It's alright Chlo-bear. I'm just glad you're alright. If you hadn't been invulnerable you wouldn't even be here and I don't think I can survive without you."

When he pulled back, she was sniffling a little and rubbing at her eyes. "Thanks, daddy." Then, grimacing, she added, "I told you not to call me that. It is so lame."

"But it's cute too and it worked so well when you were little and wouldn't shut up about the Care Bears."

"I should not be punished for having poor taste as a five year old."

Clark chuckled beside her. "You know, if you guys are going to argue about nicknames I can always come back later to talk about the alien stuff."

Hearing that word out loud was like having ice water poured down his pants. It switched him back into damage control mode. The funny thing was he'd never used the word out loud before, not even during his most heated arguments with Moira and not on that day-God had it only been this Thursday?-when he'd shown Chloe how she'd come into this world. Gabe hated the term, especially when it was applied to his little girl. It was its connotation, the implication that she was other and different and didn't belong.

It was an ugly term.

Standing up and taking advantage of what little height he had to lord over the sitting Clark, Gabe crossed his arms over his chest and glowered at the boy. It was a posture he'd seen Chloe mimic dozens of times as a toddler and keep as her own into adulthood. "Excuse me? What did you say?"

Straightening his glasses, Clark stammered, "I…I'm sorry. I didn't mean to insult anybody or to make you mad."

"Oh, I'm very mad but mostly at Chloe who clearly showed you her ship without my permission." He said, glaring at his daughter. "But I don't care for the term alien much either. How about a nice Intergalactic Traveler , instead."

"P.C. Nazi," Chloe quipped. "Besides, it's a mouthful."

"How about visitor ," he suggested, grinning at his daughter.

Chloe grimaced. "I do not go around planting satellites in the asses of Colorado third graders."

Gabe laughed and Clark continued to look very confused. Apparently the poor kid was really lacking on his Comedy Central education Taking a little pity on the interloper, he clarified, "It's a South Park joke, Clark."

"Oh. We don't have cable and my parents don't let me watch that kind of stuff anyway."

"It's not a big deal." Chloe said. "But I am so not using that term. How about Czechoslovakian?" When both Gabe and Clark stared blankly at her, she groused. "Oh, sure, like I'm the only one who watches the WB."

Gabe rolled his eyes and tried to steer the conversation back on track. "Semantics aside, Clark, I'm not exactly thrilled that you know everything."

"I'm not going to tell anyone." He defended, adjusting the glasses on his nose again. "I…I want to keep her safe, too, and I have been covering for her since this whole thing started. I care about her and I don't want to see Lex or anyone else hurt her." He stood up then, crossing his arms over his chest as well. "And I don't think she should have to move if she doesn't want to."

Gabe leaned in toward him. "I don't think that's your decision to make."

Suddenly, Chloe was there between them, pushing them apart. "And as cute as alpha male posturing isn't, I'm not a pet dog. In fact, I'm quite capable of making decisions for myself."

"And I'm your father." Gabe pointed out calmly.

"And my life's here in Smallville as weird as that is to admit. If you move me all the way to Gotham, I'd still come back here and you can't stop me and you know that."

"I get it, Chloe. I understand that you have your first real case of puppy love and I know how much you also wanna stick around for Pete and the paper, but you'd get over it."

"This," Chloe said, glaring up at him, her eyes taking on just the barest hint of russet. "Is not just puppy love, and I don't want to uproot my life every time someone looks at me funny. If I let you move me now, if I fall into that habit, I'll be doing it for the rest of my life."

"But-"

"No. I'm staying here and if you move me I'll just run back here and it's going to be a Hell of a lot more suspicious if a girl who lives in Gotham is always spotted in Smallville."

Gabe looked back up at Clark and to Chloe. "I don't like it."

"You don't have to like it, but I'm getting older now and I have a right to make more of my own choices. For the first time in my life I can actually make fully informed decisions because I know exactly what's at stake." She paused then and took Clark's left hand in her own. "Maybe things will get worse and I'll agree to leave-you know I can be gone in a blink if I have to-but this is my home and I want to stay."

Despite her bluster and her threats, Gabe knew she'd follow him wherever he went. She might like Clark, but he was family, and his little girl craved that more than anything. Reaching over, he stroked her choppy hair. She looked back up at him with her wide, soulful eyes, and it was he back in the middle of that Smallville highway again. He'd fallen in love with her on sight, with eyes that were so earnest that he'd had a hard time believing she was anything but human. Eyes that trusted him.

His choice.

Stay and let her have a life, a real shot at a relationship outside of the one she shared with him, to let her be as close to normal as possible. But he'd also be leaving her to face Lex's potential wrath.

Or they could run again and Gabe knew right then that she was right. If they ran now, they'd never stop. She'd never even have a pretense of normality again. She'd be a perpetual refugee, ready to run at a moment's notice. He couldn't do that to her. Once upon a time, in a cramped car outside a military base, he'd promised his daughter that he'd do anything to give her a regular life.

He'd sworn it.
Nodding, he took Chloe's other hand and squeezed it as tightly as he could. "Alright then. We'll stay, but I'm not promising anything. If it gets too dangerous, we are going to have this conversation again…with Clark, of course."

Both his daughter and Clark did a double take at that.

"With me? Are you serious?" Clark asked.

"You know everything there is to know," Gabe said, reluctantly releasing his daughter's hand and taking his seat back at the table. Taking a big forkful of waffle (he was starving by now, the stress always did that to him), he added, "That makes you as good as family in my book."

Chloe followed her father's lead and went back to her meal, this time actually eating it instead of playing with it. "Don't get too excited. Being part of the Sullivan family means you have to watch that stupid Riverdance video every year, but it's too late to back away from the horror now, Clark."

"Well, gee, I think I might want to pass on that part." Clark said, his tone completely honest. The kid couldn't do sarcasm if his life depended on it.

Gabe smiled to himself and shook his head. Forget the fact that Chloe was from another planet. She and Clark were already different species-the hard-bitten, sardonic city girl and the naïve farmboy. God, his little girl was going to eat him alive. Apparently, history had a way of repeating itself. He'd heard that Martha was not only a Metropolitan born and bred but the daughter of one of the most powerful attorneys in the city. Come to think of it, Moira'd been a handful too. That ferocious newshound (for the Journal not the Planet ) had had a certain amateur comic at her beck and call from the moment she'd met him.

His smile broadened. The kid had no idea what he was getting himself into.

"Welcome to the Sullivan side of the fence," He agreed taking another bite of waffle. "This is excellent by the way, Clark. Tell your mother she did a fantastic job teaching you everything she knows."

"Thanks. I will."

Chloe's expression soured. "I could have made it."

"No, you really couldn't have." Gabe and Clark chorused.

"Chlo, you might be able to literally walk on air, but cooking is definitely not one of your superpowers."

"Yeah, Chlo-bear, and wait…did he just imply that you can float now?"
Chloe blushed. "Maybe a little. I should have made this a larger breakfast because I think I've just disclosed a million things."

"A little?" Gabe queried, intrigued.

"Well, I've only done it the one time, and it's not like I can fly or anything."

"Can I see?"

Clark took a bite of his own confection. "She can't repeat it yet voluntarily. We're working on it."

"Oh," he replied a little disappointed. Then, brightening he added, "Can I watch you fly when you get the hang of it?"

"I still don't think I can actually fly, but if I ever learn there will be no Peter Pan jokes. That would so get old quickly." She smirked at him. "Actually, those would be just like your other jokes then."

"Ouch, hit me where I live, why don't you? Besides, it's really no problem, sweetie." He agreed, singing the line "Here I come to save the day" under his breath. Clark, apparently a classic cartoon fan, got the allusion and laughed. Gabe felt his smile widen.

Finally, a family member who appreciated his sense of humor.