Last chapter was my favorite, so I only hope that this measures up! I've been working hard to get this installment to you guys so please tell me what you think.
FLASHBACK
Chloe flitted across the sidewalk, a box swinging in her arms. "Chlo, I need to know, have you visited Stepford lately?" Lois questioned with faux urgency, but her cousin only smiled passively in return.
What's gotten into you, Sullivan?" Lois asked, amazed by her cousin's personality transformation. Chloe seemed to be floating, and Lois found it mildly annoying, not because she wasn't happy for her, she just didn't like the cause. "Never mind, don't answer that, I don't need an anatomy lesson today." She recanted, smiling as Chloe's eyebrows flew up in shock.
"Wow, you're especially vulgar today, cuz. Any reason or are you just going for the shock factor?" She inquired teasingly as the pair headed toward Lois's apartment downtown.
Lois shook her head, slightly embarassed. "No, I'm just a bitter harpy. Pay no attention to the shrew behind the curtain."
Chloe whacked her with her purse. "That's not true, you're hardly a shrew. Harpy I don't object to, though." She added smilingly.
Lois laughed, flipping her long brown hair over her shoulders. "This is exactly what I'm talking about, you are bouncing around like Snow freaking White. At any moment I expect cartoon birds to chime in and join you for a chorus."
Chloe quirked her eyebrow, a smirk still alight in her features. "Yeah, I'm happy. Very, actually, but this isn't exactly a new development. I know, I know, you might miss the old jaded Chloe, but I promise you she's still under there. I'm certain she'll make an appearance sooner or later." Chloe promised.
Her cousin nodded in agreement, "Yes, but lately it's amplifying. Is Mr. Clean to blame for your personality taking this unusually positive turn?" She asked shrewdly.
Chloe shrugged, cheeks coloring. "I don't want to give him all the credit...but some credit is due." She admitted. "But this isn't about me and Lex, this is about you and your fancy new apartment." She said, shaking the heavy box in her arms. "By the way, does there happen to be a Mr. Fancy Apartment?" She asked, trying and failing at subtlety.
Lois shook her head emphatically, insisting that this was not the case. "If I ever find a Mr. Fancy Apartment you'll be the first to know. Well, I guess the third after me and my pretend mister." She said, skipping up the main stairwell and leaning against the front door, allowing her cousin to enter first.
"Well, I can't even think of an imaginary guy could even keep up with you. This is your third apartment in nine months!" Chloe exclaimed.
"Yeah, I could've had a screaming, stinky baby by now and all I've got is this lousy, rent-controlled, utilities included, fabulous apartment. Oh, wait, did I say lousy? I meant fantastic. My hunt is over." Lois said, interrupted by Chloe's groan.
"No! You've jinxed it. Now in two weeks you'll be asking me to take a long lunch to move you out of your perfect apartment." She complained, clambering up the staircase onto the third floor.
"Lucky for me, and you're lunches, of course, I don't believe in jinxing or that sort of thing." Lois said, nudging her cousin with her hip as they approached the apartment door. "Listen, I'm gonna ask even though I'm not sure I want to know the answer. So...you and Lex?" She said as though it were a question.
"What about us?" Chloe asked warily.
Lois pushed through the door, placing her boxes onto the floor amongst the other packages. "This thing with you two...it's not just a thing. I mean, I know he...expressed interest in becoming more serious and, well, what exactly is going on with you guys? I'm sorry, I just don't really see it. I know he makes you happy, obviously, I just...is it okay that I'm asking?" Lois was embarrassed, and this was not a common occurrence.
Chloe nodded, clearly uncomfortable as well. "Yeah, of course you can. It's kind of nice to have someone to talk to and he, well, made his game plan abundantly clear." She said, pushing her hair behind her ear nervously as Lois busied herself stacking her new bookshelf. "Well, he sort of suggested that we...get married." Lois froze, book in hand, cocking her head.
"I think my awesome new apartment's acoustics must be off because I just heard something that you couldn't have possibly said. Care to repeat that?" Lois asked, voice relatively calm.
Chloe pressed her hand to her forehead, sinking into Lois's recliner. "You heard right. I mean, what am I supposed to think about that? I don't even know how I feel, well I guess I know better than anyone else how I feel, but trying to make sense of all my thoughts and, and emotions is like trying to regulate border control!"
Lois nodded, trying for understanding and compassionate but settling for secondhand fascination. "What did you say?"
Chloe threw her hands up and shrugged. "You know, the usual, not ready, blah, blah, the whole spiel. You think that I'd be more original, being a reporter and all, but I still go to the old standbys. But...I don't know, I mean I always figured he'd be a sort of...I don't know, he put across the vibe that he wasn't interested in that level of commitment and it really threw me for a loop." Chloe admitted.
Lois nodded, taking on her new role as therapist deftly. "Well, as much as I hate to admit it, it's obvious that you're crazy about him and, well, did you ever consider that maybe it's you with the committing issues?"
Chloe nodded, uncertain but honest. "I guess, but I never really saw that in myself...before now, I mean."
"Well, you've never had much of an opportunity to showcase any sort of commitment-phobia and let's be honest, you seem to be a text-book case." Chloe quirked an eyebrow but didn't interrupt. "I mean, c'mon, you pined for a guy throughout high school and into college, a guy so ridiculously unattainable and oddly mysterious that it was as good as chasing some sort of fairy tale prince! There wasn't much danger of him ever deciding to toss his eternal quest for Lana out the window, so latching on to him was a safe idea, right? I mean, I know none of this is conscious, but now you've got someone who, well, sees you as much as you see him. It's an adjustment." She qualified, studying her cousin's face as she jumped, jarred by the vibrating of Chloe's cell phone.
"Hey, you're buzzing. You're in high demand today. Is it...Lex?" She guessed, her mouth puckering as though the name tasted unpleasant in her mouth.
Chloe checked her phone and frowned. "No, it's Clark, do you mind if I take this?" She asked, barely waiting for Lois's say so before propping the box up on her hip and skipping down the hallway toward solitude.
"Hello?" She greeted conventionally, surprised by the chaos in the background.
"CHLOE! CHLOE!" Chloe jumped, pulling the phone from her ear.
"Good god, Clark, what's wrong? Where are you?" She asked, still handling her phone from a safe distance.
Clark labored breathing intensified on the other line. "I've been...I've got, someone attacked me outside the farm. I need your help. They hit me with something, like an dart but I can't find it."
Chloe began pacing, a nervous habit she was never really able to kick. "Why don't you go up, up, and away?" She said, dropping the box with reckless abandon and sprinting down the stairway.
"I don't...know what they did to me, but nothing's working." He said, confused and panicked.
Chloe ran through the front door, waving her arms desperately to catch the attention of a cab driver. "Where are you? What...where are you?"
"I'm in the barn. I have to hide...I never have to hide. I can't even...I can't move the tractor." Chloe yanked a cab door open, shouted the address and attended to the phone.
"Have you called the police?" He groaned and answered in the negative. "Why didn't...fine, I'll call."
"No, no...I don't know what they're doing...they have to know something about me. I can't..."
"Oh, so you can bring me into this but the police are just not qualified to handle some freak seekers." She sniped.
"Chlo, I...I'm really...I've never felt so...I need help. I don't know where they are, my powers aren't working." He whispered.
Chloe stared into her purse bleakly, gripping the small canister of mace that was longsince buried and forgotten. "I'll be right there, just stay hidden." She said before ordering the cabbie to floor it, but there was no response. The line was dead, Clark was gone.
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The smart ass at the front desk was more than reluctant to let Clark go. Even after he received authorization, officer Ellis continued to grill Chloe on the circumstances. "Do you know what Mr. Kent was arrested for?" He asked with extreme condescension.
Chloe rolled her eyes without abandon. "Yeah, reckless endangerment and assault of several federal officers. I know it, you know it, I'm sure Clark knows it, now the charges were dropped so if I were you I'd just get him out of the holding cell and bring him out. You have no right to hold him, and I'd appreciate it if you upheld our judicial system instead of attempting to enforce your own rules." She snapped, tapping her foot impatiently and ignoring his angry and reluctant mutterings.
When Clark shuffled out of his holding cell he looked positively awful, as though he had been held for days opposed to hours. He caught her eye and then turned away, embarrassed."Is he free to go?" Chloe asked the glorified secretary, ignoring Clark's presence entirely. When officer Ellis nodded sourly, she turned toward the door.
Clark chased after her, reaching for her sleeve. "Chlo, hey, wait up!" He exclaimed, surprised when she brushed him off. "I'm sorry, I'll pay you back for the bail. Hey, what's wrong?" He asked, fighting to match her stride.
Chloe whirled around, her brows knit in frustration and her eyes two chips of ice. "Bail? No, I just had to sell my soul to get you out of here. God, Clark! You have no idea what you did. You beat up the FBI or whatever acronym they are...you, you have absolutely..." She trailed off, turning back on her path.
Clark reached for her shoulder. "What...what are you talking about? What's going on? Is...are you okay?" He asked with completely unreserved concern that it succeeded in interrupting her righteous anger.
Chloe stopped dead in her tracks and turned to him, the coldness replaced by something foreign. "I...uh, had to go to Lex to get you out of this. Don't look at me like that. You attacked three federal officers and apparently you started a new type of bowling using an FBI agent as a ball and my neighbor as the pin...and, I mean, this whole thing just reeked of Lex. So I went to go beg him, or bribe him, whichever worked, and it turns out neither of them did because while he enjoyed the begging, the money did nothing for him." She blurted, blotting the inevitable tears welling in her eyes.
Clark approached her, hesitant and uncertain, wrapping his hand around her shoulder awkwardly. "So know...he owns me, or as good as, whatever. I've got to write some bullshit article praising him and all of his 'glory', plus I get the added bonus of forking over that frustratingly unhelpful scrap of paper."
Clark frowned but seemed determined to cheer her up. "Well, we weren't getting very far with it anyway and by now I'm sure you've got the sequence memorized..."
She sighed and laughed sarcastically. "Ha, and I didn't even get to get you the best part yet! I'm also being forced to take an unknown job for the incredibly corrupt LuthorCorp where I'll be working directly underneath Lex, no puns, please." She insisted.
Chloe considered that for a beat before revising, "Well, okay, I'll allow you one pun but that's it. And if it's a good one maybe it'll be a buy pun get pun free sort of deal..." Clark interrupted firmly, pressing a finger to her lips to ebb the mounting panic.
"How can he make you take a job? No, no way, he can't do that. He can do anything and everything in the free world except mess with you, and that's not about to change just because I did something...so obviously stupid. I'll go talk to him, or turn him upside down and shake him until he changes his mind. It's not your responsibility to clean up after me, Chlo, I can handle this." He insisted, ignoring the tell-tale eye roll.
"Really, you can handle this? You were halfway to a federal prison before I skipped work to beg the President of the US to let you go and now I'm his singing and dancing monkey. And Clark, as you are well aware, I neither sing nor dance!" She said with an edge of hysteria, brandishing her car keys like weaponry.
Clark fought a creeping smile valiantly and reached for her wrist. "Step away from the keys, Chlo. Come on, we've fought against much worse things than this, and have got through all that before. I don't see why you don't think that we can do this too."
He didn't realize how he was grouping them together, but the truth was that it had been just them for a long time. Men and women came and went through their lives as meaningless and disposable as Kleenex. It had been years since either had had a lasting relationship, Clark hadn't even exerted an effort after Lana. They were together, for better or worse, and in a way they always had been but as the years went on, they progressively moved closer together.
Slowly but surely, their sphere contracted until they were the only ones in it. Of course Chloe had Lois, but she and Clark shared a sort of solidarity that neither shared with anyone else. Chloe hadn't seen someone in a marginally romantic capacity in months, and apart from the occasional liaison Clark was very much alone since the Lana disaster. Clark's hand lingered on hers, and this time she didn't pull away.
She tried to stop thinking, stop worrying about what the future would bring and if it was wise to progress into something so scary and even unknown.
"Clark...I know this is an awful time to be thinking about...or talking about this, but what is going on here?" She asked, glancing down at their interlocked hands. He instinctively moved to pull away but made the conscious effort to remain as he was. She saw something shift in his features, his eyes hardening with determination and his mouth drawing into a line.
"I...Chlo, you...you know what you mean to me and, well, I think you know...you've got to know, that you're all there is for me." He stuttered, proving once again that articulation was not one of his many super abilities.
It was her turn to back away, but this time Clark stood firm, grasping her hands nearly to the point of pain. "How long?" She asked, and Clark started to think that her eyebrows would be permanently knit together, and he didn't care.
"I...a long time. Since Lex...before Lex, during Lex, after Lex. I didn't want to...it never seemed right, now it doesn't seem right but I'm starting to think that it would never feel right. But you have to know and I have to have you know."
Chloe raised her arms, breaking free from his hand in confusion. "All that time and you didn't say anything? I thought maybe...I was just projecting, I mean I've always, you know how I felt all throughout adolescence and up past high school. Why didn't you say anything? I mean, stuff like that doesn't just go away and...ugh. This is weird," she muttered, turning into the parking lot, and as soon as she blinked Clark was yards ahead of her, facing her as he would an enemy.
"No, no, I just...we need to talk about this, or say something. I've been walking on eggshells, not wanting to scare you off and I've been scared too, I'm not denying that. But...I really think that this could be it, for you, for me, and I don't want anybody else. What about you? Do you...wait, I don't think I want to know. Never mind, yes, I do." He said confrontationally, not sure what emotions he should be channeling, completely unsure of how to prioritize this flood of feelings.
She averted his eyes briefly before reaching her point of resolve. "No, there's no one else. But this is just...I have no idea what's going on with my life. This is just...awful timing." She stated lamely, shrugging. "And you...you know that you have a much greater calling than just being someone's boyfriend. You're going to do such amazing things, and I don't think being with me would be conducive to..." And once again she didn't see it coming. At one moment Chloe was making excuses and attempting to play the martyr and the next Clark appeared directly in front of her.
He leaned down, hesitant but not in a high-school esque manner, not fearing bad breath or rejection...well, maybe rejection a little, but instead knowing that this was 'it'. There would be no pretending, no stalemate. Clark had already decided that he wasn't going to give up, he wasn't going to just sit and wait for Chloe to make up her mind or for things to calm down. There's was a waiting game, she longed for him and he longed for her for around a decade, and enough was enough. He had waited long enough, and when they crossed that line he would not willingly back step over it.
Clark took her in his arms, sweeping her off the pavement, pressing his lips to hers gently but urgently. Her left heel clattered to the ground, followed in quick succession by her car keys. She slinked her arms around his neck uncertainly before grasping his hair and kissing him back desperately. She was tired, tired of feeling isolated, tired of not being able to find anyone to form any sort of reasonable connection with, tired of pretending that she didn't want this...that she hadn't wanted it for years.
She could have considered the repercussions, of what this would mean to their friendship, how and if they could successfully transition from best friends to something infinitely more dear. But she didn't think, Chloe found that her mind was strangely absent at the moment.
His face was unshaven, his hair unwashed and his clothes slept in and rumpled but at that moment, or any moments in which she would reflect upon this, she did not care.
Thank you so much to the people who answered my question last chapter, I think I'm going the longer route and I hope that most people approve of that course of action