Chapter 21 ~ All Fall Down
Chloe stared at the document in her hands, still not quite convinced that it was real.
"So, how do you feel about it?" Lois' voice wavered between curiosity and concern.
"I don't know," Chloe said slowly. "I never thought this would happen."
"Yeah, I don't think anyone did."
Chloe snorted. "Bullshit. There were plenty of people who were placing bets on how long we'd last and I know you were one of them." She wasn't really angry at Lois, but it was easier to be cold, than to let the creeping sense of loss overtake her.
"Well, yeah, but I didn't really think it would happen. That's why I never put any money down."
Chloe swallowed heavily and tightened her fingers on the flimsy piece of government issued paper. She felt like she needed to say something to make it real. "I'm…"
Her brows crinkled and she couldn't say the words. She licked her lips and opened her mouth to try again, but nothing came out.
"You're divorced," Lois said in a low voice.
Hearing her cousin say it popped something inside and all of a sudden the words spilled out.
"I'm divorced." Her voice creaked.
Tears started to stream down her face as if somebody had punched her in the gut. She started to sob uncontrollably and nearly dropped the phone in her hand as she covered her mouth with her arm to stifle a scream.
"Chloe? Chloe?!" Her cousin's voice was barely audible despite the fact that she was shouting.
Chloe felt like she was flying apart, like a part of her had been ripped out and now she was exploding into a million pieces. She couldn't breathe. She was shaking too hard. Her legs couldn't carry her.
It could have been minutes or hours later when the frantic knocking on her door pulled her out of her mind. She had stopped crying because at some point her eyes had run dry. She had stopped screaming because her voice had gone hoarse. But she hadn't stopped shaking because she still felt like a huge part of her was missing and had left a gaping hole where she was supposed to be.
Chloe shakily got up on her knees and pulled herself up off the floor. She could recognize Dan's voice overtop the sound of his fist banging against the wood by the time she was halfway towards the front door. She didn't have the energy to answer, so she just shuffled the rest of the way and unhooked the chain then opened the door.
Dan burst in so quickly he almost clocked her with the door. "Are you okay?" He grabbed her shoulders and looked her over for less than a second before he pulled her into a crushing hug.
"You had us scared to death, luv. You can't do that."
She didn't have the strength to fight his embrace, so she just turned her head to the side enough to be able to breathe. "Us?"
"Your cousin Lo called me," he explained as he kicked the door shut behind him.
"Ah." She took a deep breath and sighed.
The shaking let up a little bit, so she took another deep breath and let it go slowly. She could feel the warmth of Dan's body soaking into her and the chill of the floor under her socked feet. The ticking of the clock above the fridge was louder than usual. She wondered if this was the moment where she would discover her dormant meteor-freak powers because of the overwhelming shock.
"I'm a complete mess," she said finally.
"Yeah," Dan agreed with a huff, stroking her back in soothing circles. "But you're not screaming bloody murder or wielding a knife, so it's all good."
The non-sequitur of that statement made her chuckle despite herself. And once she started, she found that she couldn't stop. So she just laughed against Dan's shoulder like a lunatic and shook her head back and forth to show that she really didn't think it was funny.
Dan simply tightened his arms around her and started rocking her back and forth. "It'll be okay."
"You are such a bad liar," Chloe accused between sobbing breaths.
Three weeks later things seemed to have gone back to normal. Truthfully, Chloe was clinging to everyday routine and each bit of normalcy she could find to distract herself from the existence of the official piece of paperwork that sat in her desk drawer at home.
"You are such a filthy, rotten liar!" Chloe swatted Dan with the morning newspaper repeatedly.
"Oy, oy, oy! I said I could get you into the party, I never said it'd be as a guest!"
"I had to wear a stripper maid outfit!" She smacked him again for good measure.
"And you looked positively lovely." He parried the next swat of the newspaper with his arm and grabbed the offending object before she could hit him again. "It got you the story though, didn't it?"
Chloe glared heatedly. "Oh yeah, it got me that." She ripped the newspaper back out of his hand. "And it got me disgusting propositions from not one, but three men who are older than my father!" She bonked him on the head. "Bad, bad partner. Shame on you."
By this point, Dan was guffawing like a fool even as he tried to put a desk between him and Chloe's surprisingly long reach with her weapon of choice.
"Alright, alright. I surrender. No more maid outfits, got it." He held up both hands in supplication then cocked his head to the side. "How about a sexy nurse next time?" He leered playfully and waggled his brows.
Chloe made an outraged noise and hurled herself over the desk to get at him but Dan was as quick as a weasel and already halfway towards their editor's office before she made it around the desk.
"Chief, save me! I've got a mad woman after my hide!"
"And I'm sure you did something to deserve it." The chief looked completely unmoved by their antics. "Simmons, Lance, in my office. I've got a new assignment and you're wasting daylight."
It was 11 pm by the time Chloe finally got home. She was completely exhausted and didn't bother to turn the lights on or check her answering machine. It had been a long day and she was ready to take some pills, fall into bed and be unconscious for the next six or seven hours.
"Chloe, don't freak out."
She screamed and jumped about a mile in the air, at the same time grabbing for the baseball bat she kept in the umbrella stand by the door.
The next moment she was in the middle of her living room, empty handed, the lights were all on and she was looking at the large diamond shaped crest symbol with the stylized, bright red 'S' in the middle of Superman's chest.
"You jerkass!" She reflexively smacked him in the chest then pulled her hand back just as quickly to cradle it against her belly. "Ow."
"I'm sorry! Did you hurt yourself?" The moment he started talking he lost all the grace and style of Superman and turned into bumbling, klutzy Clark. "" I didn't mean to freak you out."
Chloe pulled back before he could touch her wrist. "So you waited in my apartment, with the lights off, and waited to say something til I was almost on top of you?" Her look made it perfectly clear how stupid he was.
"I…yeah, that was dumb. I'm sorry." He scuffed the toe of his ridiculous go-go boot over her parquet floors. "Can I look at your wrist? Make sure it's okay? Please"
Chloe rolled her eyes and held out her arm so he could use his x-ray vision on it. "It's fine."
Clark stared creepily at her wrist for a moment before he responded. "Yeah, it is."
"So, why the hell are you here?" Now that the shock had worn off, Chloe's intrepid nature took over. "Did something happen? If Lex sent you on another fool's…"
"It's not Lex," Clark interrupted her before she could finish the sentence. "Chloe, I'm afraid I have bad news. Why don't you…"
It was Chloe's turn to interrupt. "I swear if you tell me to sit down I will punch you again, my bones be damned."
Her heartbeat had picked up immediately. If it was bad enough that Clark had to don the costume to speed across the Atlantic, she needed to know what it was. "What's wrong?"
Part of her still wanted to ask if Lex was alright. She felt guilty, because the only reason it was easy to fight the urge was that Clark had already said it wasn't him.
"Your dad had a heart attack." Clark delivered the news with all the tact of a steam roller.
"Oh my god." Chloe felt light headed as her heart tripped over itself and her breath caught in her throat. "Is he…"
"He's stable. He's at Metropolis General right now and they're monitoring him, but he's not out of the woods."
"I have to go, I need to go." Chloe couldn't think clearly, but she needed to pack a few things and call the airport. Her feet were already moving towards the bedroom.
"I need to call Dan, and my boss, and then I need to get a cab!" She stormed into her bedroom and pulled her duffelbag from under the bed. "I need to…"
"Chloe, calm down." Clark was behind her, hovering uncomfortably.
She whipped around and nearly stumbled into him. "Don't tell me to calm down. I have to pack and get a cab and call Lois." She trailed off and felt her blood drain from her face. "Oh my god, Lois! Does she know? Is she with him?"
"Yes," Clark said calmly. "When I overheard her calling you she was on the way to the hospital, so I'm sure she's with him."
"Good, good." Chloe nodded frantically. "He shouldn't be alone. He needs to have family with him. Oh, god." She felt physically sick. If his 'family' hadn't gone and abandoned him, this would never have happened.
She pressed a hand over her mouth to keep from throwing up and brushed past Clark to get to her closet. She didn't even look at what she grabbed before she returned to shove it into the duffelbag and swung back to grab more clothes.
"Chloe, stop." Clark grabbed her by the shoulders and stopped her mid stride.
"Why can't everybody just stop grabbing me!" She threw her arms up to push Clark away.
He let her go, but stayed right in front of her. "Chloe, you're not making any sense. Please, I need you to calm down. I'm not flying with you like this."
Chloe shook her head and returned to the duffel with another handful of clothes, trying to make everything fit into the small bag. "You're not making any sense. You don't have to bother waiting around for a plane. Unlike me, you can just..." She made a vague motion with one hand indicating a plane taking off. "Up and away."
Clark rolled his eyes at her and she really wanted to punch him in the face then and there, but she had too much to do before she could get to the airport and a broken hand did not fit into that schedule.
"And I can take you with me." He enunciated each word emphatically, trying to get through to her. "But not if you're acting like a crazy person and I have to worry about you wiggling out of my grip the whole flight."
That made Chloe stop in her tracks. "What?"
"Finally." Clark exhaled. "Let me help you pack." He slowly approached the duffel and started pulling things out. "And then I will take you and your bag back to Metropolis before the sun sets over the east coast. Sound good?"
Chloe watched him pull out a silk scarf and knee high socks she didn't even remember grabbing. The fact that he did it all very calmly and methodically helped her get her act together, at least for the moment.
"Yeah, okay. Let's do that." She nodded. "I have to call…"
Clark nodded. "Go ahead and call your boss, and whoever else you need to tell. I'll take care of this."
"Okay." She nodded back, feeling like a bobble head. "Okay."
When she came back to her bedroom twenty minutes later, her bag was packed and Clark was just zipping it up.
"Did you get a hold of everybody?" Clark asked over his shoulder.
"Yeah." Chloe crossed her arms over her chest. "Dan took the longest. I had to convince him to stay put. He was ready to pack up his stuff and come with me."
Clark nodded and busied his hands with the duffel, even though it was ready to go. "You and Dan," he said slowly. "Are you two…I mean, is he your…" He trailed off uncomfortably.
"God, no." Chloe held up a hand to stop Clark's line of thought right there. "No. Dan is just a friend. A really good friend. There's nothing going on between us."
Clark huffed out an enormous breath of relief then stopped and cocked his head to the side as if he was confused. "I'm not even sure why I'm relieved to hear that."
Chloe chuckled. "It's okay." She had no interest in getting too deeply into this conversation. They had a current to catch. "Are you ready?"
Clark picked up the duffel and nodded. "Yeah, are you?"
She chuckled again nervously as she watched Clark come closer and slowly reach out his arm as if she would bite. "Ready as I'll ever be," she said with a wavering smile.
"Put your arms around my neck and hold on tight."
Chloe nodded and wrapped her arms around his neck. Things got extremely awkward for a moment when Clark pulled her into a tight hug. But the next moment the world was a blur around her and all she felt was the pressure of air rushing past her body as Clark whisked her away into the night sky.