Claire Martha Kent Part I

By Arica, Princess of Rivendell

Summary: AU. What if Clark had never been born? What if the Els had given birth to a daughter instead? This is the life and times of Kaila El or Claire Martha Kent. NOT SLASH! NEVER INTENDED TO BE TAKEN AS SLASH!

Disclaimer: I own NEITHER "Smallville," NOR "Lois and Clark the New Adventures of Superman." I do NOT own any of the D.C. Comic Books or their characters. All of the characters mentioned belong to each of their own creators.

Warnings: Later on, there will be some torture, domestic abuse, some child abuse, and infidelity.

A/N: Thank you Serena85 for being the first one to review since my return to ff . net. Thank you AnmialsRainbows and ShapeofRainbows for coming back to read this after all these years. I also thank Guest #1, Guest #2, and Belluda57 for their kind reviews. Thank you Angelvan105 for taking the time to PM your review and to ask questions. Thank you .Winchester.17 for letting me know how much you like the story and are interested in it. Thank you also to all those whom have either added this story to your Favorites List, or to your Following List.

To the Guest whom asked about Male!Lois and Fem!Clark, I have to say that won't be in this story as Claire isn't a female version of Clark; but instead, Clark's twin sister; and Lois is definitely female.

To anyone wondering if this is going to be slash or femslash, no it will not have either of those pairings.

For those wondering how often I update, I generally update once a week. If something comes up and I'm aware of an issue ahead of time, I try to update the day before my next update is expected. If something unexpected comes up, I try to update no later than two days late; however, life does sometimes get in the way of this; and it ends up being three or more days late. In which case there will be two updates that week instead of just one.

And here is Chapter 10; as promised. Also, I wanted to let everyone know that my cited works are listed on my Author's Page. The corresponding numbers should all line up; if someone at some point notices something is missing, or doesn't quite align, please let me know. Thank you all again for your patience and support.

Pairings:

Hints/mentions of past Claire/Lex

Will at some point have Claire/Oliver

Will have Kara/Jimmy

Will have Bruce/Chloe

Will have Dinah Lance/AC

Will have Victor Stone/Diana Prince

Bart Allen/Linda Park (Thank you, Kairan1979.)

Also Lana/Lex will be present at different intervals

After many years of working on this story, this will most likely not have Lex/Lois (but my characters may yet pull a rabbit out of their hats).

Casting:

Claire Kent—Michelle Trachtenberg

Oliver Queen—Justin Hartley

Lex Luthor— Michael Rosenbaum

Lana Lang—Kristin Kreuk

Chloe Sullivan—Alison Mack

Bruce Wayne—Christian Bale

Kara Kent—Laura Vandervoot

Jimmy Olson—Aaron Ashmore

Dinah Lance—Alaina Kalanj

Arthur Curry—Alan Ritchson

Victor Stone—Lee Thompson Young

Diana Prince—Tia Mowry

Lois Lane—Erica Durance (But a mixture of Smallville Lois and the Lois from L&C: NAS personalities).

Bart Allen—Kyle Gallner

Linda Park—Linda Park (was in Jurassic Park III)

Cat Grant—Tracy Scoggins

Perry White—Lane Smith

Chapter Ten

The Act

Lana Lang sat in a booth in the back of the Talon with the Daily Planet Newspaper, her lips were pressed together and she found herself wishing she could ignore the headline on page 6. She couldn't though. Lex had made a move on Claire, a reporter had heard it all, and printed it in the paper. Lana had entered the Talon with the paper and everyone she had seen in Smallville had given her looks of pity. Lana had known Lex's feelings from the beginning; but for him to do this; she shook her head and tried to dismiss the thoughts. The thoughts, however, refused to leave. She had always hoped that Lex's feelings for her would change.

Lana had always assumed that once Lex and Claire were broken up and he had a taste of what being with her was like, he would realize just how wrong Claire was for a man like him.

The bell above to door dinged, Lana turned to look, and in stepped Claire Kent.

Claire ordered a Hot Chocolate, went to the back of the Talon where she saw Lana sitting, and immediately joined her.

"Thank you, Claire, for coming to see me. I just wanted to talk to you."

"Look, Lana if this is about today's paper—"

"Claire, I know you didn't have anything to do with that. The reporter admitted to you guys not knowing she was there in the article and I know that you would never do something so callous as to hurt Lex, no matter how strong your feelings of dislike are towards the man. The reason I asked you here, was because, I wanted to apologize. Last night at the Plaza, I realized some things."

Claire opened her mouth to talk but Lana held up a hand, "Please don't interrupt until I'm finished. This is hard enough for me as it is."

Claire scowled but nodded her head in acceptance. And Lana began, "I've had a crush on him for just as long as he and you had one on each other. I really liked him and I wanted to get to know him better. That's why when he asked me out, I jumped at the chance.

"And then I remembered that you and I were supposed to be friends and I knew that as your friend I would have to say. 'no.' So, I broke off our friendship but there was another reason for that too.

"I was jealous, up until last night I was jealous of you because you have had Lex's attention since the two of you met. And I can't compete with you. But last night I saw something I never thought I would see. You blatantly ignored Lex. He had to seek you out and even when he did that, you tried to send him away.

"Then I saw the way you looked at Mr. Queen and I knew that you were moving on and from the look in Mr. Queen's eyes, I could tell that if Lex tried to come between the two of you, he would put up a fight. I realized last night that you aren't a threat to me; because you don't want Lex. And I realized I had given up my friendship for no reason at all. So I want to apologize for the way I hurt you and I've realized this past year, I miss my friend."

"Look, Lana, I'm not sure what to think right now. I mean this is a shock to me. And, you did hurt me very badly."

Lana opened her mouth to speak but this time Claire stopped her and said, "Please you had your turn, now please let me have mine."

Lana nodded and Claire continued, "It wasn't just Lex that broke my heart, he was most of it; but when you betrayed me too, what small piece was left was destroyed as well. I don't know if I could ever trust you enough to call you my friend again. All I do know is that you were one of my friends; Lex was my boyfriend, now you two are dating. I know that I'm getting over Lex; I don't know if I could ever love again, but I just don't know."

Lana had tears in her eyes, "Give me a chance. I know I messed up; but I will try to make it up to you."

Claire closed her eyes and took a breath. When she opened them, again she looked down and focused on her Hot Chocolate. Lana watched Claire closely and finally Claire spoke, "We can be acquaintances and we can be on friendly terms; but we will have to see about being friends again. I don't know if I can trust you enough to be my friend, I want to, but for right now I can't."

"And I completely understand that; which is why I'll agree to the friendly acquaintance instead of not even being able to talk to you."

Claire nodded and said, "Truce?"

"Truce," Lana said placing her right hand out in front of herself showing she wanted a handshake.

Claire shook Lana's hand and said, "Ceasefire has commenced."

Lana laughed and then her cell phone went off. Lana sighed and said, "Well I should probably get going before Lex sends out a search party."

Claire nodded; "Yeah, I know what you mean, only in my case it would be Chloe and Kara and those two are quite protective; and the first person they'd call is Ollie."

Lana inwardly smiled at Claire's use of the nickname and wondered how Claire could still claim Mr. Queen as just a friend. "Well they'd have good reason to," Lana said, "The two of you have been attached at the hip since he helped support your mom financially."

"Yes, well," Claire cleared her throat and said, "He's a friend."

"Uh-hu, you know most people think the two of you would make a cute couple."

"A couple, Oliver and I; you must be joking!"

"Why what's wrong with it?"

"It's Oliver! He and I are just friends."

Lana smiled as she thought, "I think the Lady doth protest too much." So she said, "Claire, what does Oliver call you?"

"What do you mean?"

"Well, you call him Ollie, so what does he call you?"

Claire rolled her eyes and said, "He calls me Claire, the same as everyone else calls me Claire. Honestly, we don't have pet names for each other. We're just friends."

Lana's phone went off again and she said, "I really should get going."

"Yeah," Claire said, "I'll see you later."

"Yup," Lana replied, "Most likely at Lex's party tonight."

Claire asked, "Trying to save face?"

"Oh, you know it. But, don't tell him I said that."

"He won't hear it from me." Claire replied and then got up to leave.

After the other woman was gone, Lana smiled to herself. She had learned a long time ago, the art to manipulation was to make sure her heartbeat and thoughts were all in sync as she gave performance upon performance.

It was how she had managed to talk Lex into making her the manager of the Talon, how she had convinced her aunt on many occasions that "No, I haven't been with Whitney, I was at Jenna's house studying;" and how she had fooled Claire so many times into taking her back as a friend as she assured the other woman she hadn't wanted Whitney to say or do the things he had done to hurt her.

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