31
"I've done something."
Clark startled awake in bed, shocked to see Chloe, still dressed in her clothes from this morning, standing in the corner of his room. Glancing at the clock, he frowned. It was one a.m. He'd never thought of the ramifications of having a best friend who could be anywhere she wanted in a blink. It made stalking easier. He wasn't amused.
"Chlo?" he hissed. "It's late. My dad can't find you here. He'll kill me."
She laughed and it was bitter. "I'm not here for that."
"No, you wouldn't be," he replied, evenly. "What's wrong?"
She didn't say anything but sat on the edge of his bed. Reaching into her pocket, she pulled out a small lead case. "I made a deal."
Clark nodded. "I had superhearing for a few hours. I heard that Morgan Edge wanted a deal with you, but I wasn't sure the terms."
"They involved a lot of money. Millions of dollars. I could steal it, make a diamond like the Hope if I really wanted to, you know?"
"It crossed my mind," he replied, tone uncertain. He was tired already of the back and forth with her.
"But the money with Morgan was easy and I could have had it fast and be ready to run."
"Run?"
She traced her fingers over the cool metal of the box. "You found me. Lana knew where I was. I needed a clean break or I thought I did. So I made a deal."
"I know what it's like to make desperate deals," he replied. "I've had my back against the wall."
"With my father," she spat. "If that thing...if it hurts you, I don't know what I'll do."
"Get branded or brainwashed," he riposted, touching her hand. "Chlo, I did it for you and I'm fine. If you made a deal while not thinking clearly, believe me, I'm the last person in the world who can hate you for that."
She squinted at him in the dark. "What happened with your farm?"
"I don't want to talk about it. Bad debts, people collect." And that was true, but it wasn't his family's finances that had been wrong. This time it had been his naivete and his need to save Chloe. He'd been so stupid to tangle with Lionel and now his father was paying for it.
"Clark?"
"I can't. It's personal."
"We're best friends."
"Are we?"
She rocked back. "What?"
"Are we really best friends? You say that, but best friends don't accuse each other of being freaks."
"Card carrying alien, right here. And you said it doesn't matter."
"It doesn't, for you," he countered. "You know who you are. You know you're not like your ancestors."
"I don't. I did a pretty good job in Metropolis."
"If you'd wanted to take over the world, you'd have gone with Jor-El. If you really cared about the money, you'd have spent it and not made a point of hitting banks Edge's thugs were hitting first. You could have anything you wanted, Chloe, right now. You think I don't get that but I do. I don't know what it's like to have that kind of power, but I do know that you could. What do you do? You come home, take care of your dad, and worry about me and my family. You're a good person."
"If you let the definition of person be really broad," she countered. "And good include a lot of robbery."
"Chlo-"
"You're not a freak. I just said you might be infected."
"Good, so in a year or two I can develop telekinetic powers and try and impale people with farm instruments or burn the school down with a thought. That sounds great!"
"You'd be you, if it were true." And her hand was on his then and it was as soft and warm as it had ever been. God, he wanted her.
"You made the wall. There's an 80% chance I wouldn't be. I can't deal with that. I won't."
"But Jor-El-"
"Is in a cave and trapped there. He can't touch me and he can't have you and that's just the way it is and I'm not some monster."
"Not all the meteor mutants are. Not Cassandra Carver or Kyle Tippet. You could be okay."
He turned to her then, finally looking her in the eye. "Or I could be sick-possibly-and I could kill people. I can't have that on my shoulders. I just can't."
"But you might be sick. We should..."
"My family's about to move, Chlo. Your dad is still recovering. Hell, you stole for Morgan Edge. We have other problems that do not include me."
" We ?"
"Yeah, we . I...I'm sorry I snapped about the meteor mutant thing. Not that I believe you, cause I don't." Except for where he was terrified she was right because they'd left him. Four or five families and they'd just given him back. He'd done something, hadn't he? There had to be some reason why so many people hadn't wanted him.
Why his birth mother hadn't.
Maybe he was broken.
"Clark?"
"I...nothing. It's late and my mind wanders," he side-stepped. "We're friends and I don't want that to change. I know what happened. I know what happened with Lex and those men at Atlantis . I know that maybe I'm not...you don't love me anymore and that's...I have to learn to live with that."
"You dumped me," she countered.
"I don't want to go through who did what to whom," he finished. "Somehow, I'm not enough and I lost you because of that, but I can't not have you in my life."
"Clark, I do love you."
"You don't sleep around on someone you love."
"You do if you don't want to put him in fucking traction."
He clamped his hand over her mouth so fast, you'd have thought he had the superspeed. "My dad."
She nodded and he released his hand. "It was for you."
"No, Chloe. I don't know what all of it was about and I know you were really, really high when it all happened, but it wasn't about me. It was about you and whatever fears you have. I'm sickly. I get that. I'm not some hulking football guy. I have bad vision and a wicked case of asthma and I can't self heal like Lex, but I've never been tissue paper."
Chloe looked up at him and, without a word, tore the lid off of the box. "But you are ."
"We're never really gonna be equal unless you trust me to take care of myself."
"Then we can't be because we didn't really even know each other until I saved your life."
"Um, best friends," he countered. Hurt that she'd say anything like that.
"I knew you and I liked you, more than Pete or anyone I'd ever met at St. Catherine's in Metropolis, but you didn't know me."
"Your powers aren't all you are."
"No, but the secrets and the loneliness and the fear are . I'm glad I had someone to share that with, but you didn't really know me until I showed you my abilities."
"I don't think that's true."
"I do. I'm sorry, but I don't want anything to hurt you. I'm scared of it every day with you and I can't even explain it. Every time we touched, I just wanted more and I saw you shatter and I couldn't."
"But Lex is okay?"
"Was," she added, bitterly. "I don't know anymore. I just can't hurt you."
"Too late," he replied sadly, reaching over and wrapping an arm around her shoulder, sighing when she went stiff as always in his grasp. "But I can't let you go. If we can't...I know we can't, but your problems are my problems."
He felt like a hypocrite for saying that because whatever he owed Lionel and Jor-El was his alone to pay. He wasn't going to put her in that, not ever. Hell, she'd never understand him crawling to Lionel and the "spying," never at all.
"I missed you."
"Every day?"
"Every day," she said, leaning into him.
"I was right here. Swear I didn't leave." He couldn't stop himself from reaching over to stroke her hair, but he stopped, when he noticed what was in the box.
"Clark?"
"Chlo, is that blood?"
Clark blinked. Being Chloe's friend entailed a lot of sleepless nights. It was why he was standing in the middle of The Talon apartment with Chloe on the far end, by the fire place, and her dad and him by the bed. Clark had the rock in his hands. He'd used it a few times on Chloe, usually when she was high out of her mind on Red K. He hated having them, but they were necessary. Mr. Sullivan, his mom, they all had a lead box and a green rock.
When he brought it to the vial, the blood boiled, just like he'd known it would.
"Clark?"
"It's yours, Chlo. Where the Hell did you steal this from?" He asked, as he locked the rock back in its case.
"Chloe?" Gabe countered.
She eyed the lead box and stepped closer. He could see her flinch a little as she did it, almost as if she half expected the box not to work. "Morgan asked me to steal it from Lionel Luthor's office. The money was so good that I said yes without hesitating. Besides, Lionel's an ass and he's ruined so much. It sounded fun to me as I was." She looked away and he shrugged back at her.
So much had gone wrong for both of them that it wasn't his place to judge.
"You stole a vial of your blood from Lionel's office," Gabe repeated, as if he couldn't quite believe it.
"I didn't know what was in the package until I opened it and saw a vial. I definitely wasn't sure it was my blood until the boiling."
"How did Lionel get it?"
Chloe swallowed. "Only Helen had the blood. If Lionel had it, she had to sell it to him, but he can't know the source."
"That's a wide logic leap," Gabe said.
Clark adjusted his glasses. "No, actually it's not. Chlo, you said that Morgan asked for it back."
"In so many words. That and his wonderful threats on Kent Farm."
Clark shuddered at the thought of the Metropolis kingpin in his home. "Exactly, so why does he need it?"
"Cause he ripped Lionel off and crime boss or no, Lionel will find a way to have him killed over it," Chloe replied.
"But why? If Lionel knows you're the source and that you're back at The Talon-"
Gabe frowned. "Lionel knows we moved?"
"Um, he could find it out," Clark hedged.
Chloe and Gabe both paused a beat and looked at him and he tried not to squirm. He had to be more careful around the Sullivans, they were smart.
"That's not the point," Chloe said, still quirking her head at him. "Lionel knows how to get to me. He knows how to press my buttons. He threatened you, dad, and I'd turn myself over in a heartbeat. He had that blood in a vault for months. He scared Morgan so badly he was desperate to get to me. I saw the fear in his eyes. And it wasn't about me. He's terrified about what Lionel will do to get it back. If he had access directly to me, Morgan would be an afterthought."
"That's something to be relieved over, but if Helen sold him the anonymous supply, then he has had it analyzed. He knows what he lost," Gabe said.
"But why need it?" Clark asked.
"Alien blood. Hello, holy grail!" Chloe snarked.
"No, I mean, scientific advancements aside. It's just blood. It can't do anything but prove that the owner isn't...oh jeez." He paused then. It sounded ugly to say "alien" and cutting to remind her she wasn't human, as if it were some prize.
Chloe smiled and reached up to squeeze his shoulder. "Human? Newsflash, I think I knew that."
"Chlo, I-"
"You didn't mean it badly. I know. It's a small sample. Without me, I don't know why it matters so much."
Gabe looked at both of them and Clark gulped under the scrutiny. "It's the code maybe? Clark had powers. It's possible somehow to give them to humans."
"If Jor-El does it," Chloe groused.
"Well, what if he doesn't know that? What if he thinks he can synthesize abilities from it. Invulnerability, speed, strength, maybe all of them. If his scientists think they can use it to make...I dunno what," Gabe trailed off.
Chloe clenched her jaw. "You do know what. An army. You have five people all like me in one spot, you could rule the world, highest bidder. Clark, give me the damn vial."
"Aren't we supposed to be brainstorming ways to get this back to Morgan in one piece?"
Chloe blurred and a small part of him wished he still had her abilities. He wanted to be even with her, to show her that he wasn't breakable. She had the vial in her hand and then she crunched it, the small rivulet of her own blood running down her fist.
"No blood, no army. Fuck Lionel."
Clark's eyes widened. Chloe hadn't talked like that before, but maybe he didn't know her as well as he thought, not this new post Metropolis version.
"Chlo-bear, that wasn't smart."
"Lionel can't have the sample."
"What if he puts pressure on Helen to tell him whose it is?" Gabe countered.
"He must have already. Helen's not talking. She's not stupid. She's hoping to pressure me one day into coming for her. She wants the credit for herself and I'd bet she like the power she has over him. She's not going to talk."
"That's a blatant assumption. You need to be smarter. If Lionel makes an army, he makes an army. I'm worried about you in a cage."
Clark stepped back and let Chloe go toe to crutches with her father. "It's never going to happen, but I can't let him use my powers for something evil. It moots everything we suffered through this summer if he gets his own pseudo-Kryptonians together."
"I don't care about the world, Chlo-bear. I care about you."
"Doesn't matter now. Morgan's not getting his package back."
"Then you're very foolish cause he and Lionel aren't going to forget it."
"I threatened him pretty badly," she countered weakly.
"Lionel threatens worse and he means it, Chlo-bear. We have to think of something else."
"How about a way to get to Helen Bryce," she replied and Clark was a little put off by the vehemence in her tone.
He yawned his way through the morning meeting at The Torch. He and Chloe had arrived early but Pete and Lana would be in soon. They could actually put a decent issue out with their lead reporter and real editor back in the saddle. Clark was drinking through about his eighth cup of coffee. He never usually drank it, not more than one cappuccino at The Talon in the afternoon.
But he'd had three hours of sleep and his mind was full of what-ifs. The biggest of which was exactly what Lionel was playing at. He wanted to use Clark to get to Chloe, that much was obvious, but he was willing to move on and try other methods. He had her blood but clearly didn't know to whom it belonged. He was obsessed with Chloe, the caves, and anything Kryptonian.
There were angles here that he couldn't see and that he couldn't understand, but it scared him.
Knowing they had to deal with Jor-El and Morgan Edge didn't make him feel any better.
"So, I think that Helen murdered Lex."
Clark choked on his coffee. "What?"
"That's what I think," she replied. "I know we have more villains right now than an X-Men comic and I'd love to see like Magneto compared to the fucking AI."
"Tell me about it," Clark muttered.
"Exactly, but I know Helen murdered Lex."
Clark shifted in his seat, unsure of how to deal with everything. Lex had been his best friend outside of Pete, and he'd really enjoyed the other man's company. Then everything had fallen apart with him over Chloe and the pain was fresh. Every time he thought of it, it was still fresh. But if someone had murdered him, then that couldn't stand.
Not ever.
"I'd been thinking the same thing."
"You had?"
"Lionel or Helen, but the scene at the funeral? Helen wasn't very upset. Lionel's the best liar out there, but I still bought he was upset, that even if he pushed Lex, he didn't want him dead. Helen seemed perky."
"I was in New York yesterday to see Dr. Crosby."
"You were?"
"Sometimes we girl talk. It's fun," she quipped.
Clark went with Chloe sometimes to New York. He liked talking with Dr. Swann. It wasn't every kid who got access to a physics legend and, yes, Clark really was a complete nerd. However, he'd noticed that Chloe went to New York more often than he did and it wasn't Dr. Swann whom she spent most of her time with. Clark wondered if she were trying to make something mother and daughter with Dr. Crosby. He hoped she was. He knew how deeply Moira leaving her had wounded Chloe and he understood it more than he'd like to admit.
"Oh."
"Yeah," she replied leaning against the layout table. "I was on Fifth Avenue and I bumped into the wealthiest 'grieving' widow in the country. She didn't confess, but the shopping backs, the bright red outfit, the threatening to expose me if I dug any deeper-Helen Bryce is hiding something big. I...when I met Morgan on your property, I was coming out to see you about this."
"So, you want the amazing team of Kent and Sullivan to prove Helen sabotaged a jet. Something that a pretty large inquest couldn't prove?" He asked and he liked that flutter in his stomach. Reporting, ever since Chloe had introduced it to him, was something he'd grown to love. It was the career he wanted, so much more than the farm.
"Well they don't have the best thief with X-ray vision and supersenses working for them. There has to be something somewhere. Helen can't get away with it." She was shaking as she spoke. He could feel the anger coming off of her.
Maybe it's not in trying to find the wreckage, which I know you're amazing, but you can't fly and it could be off the coast of Fiji somewhere by now. Paper trails. Helen's good, but I bet someone somewhere got a large payoff to get the plane to go down." He shrugged. "It's all in the math, follow the numbers-"
"I knew I liked you and that math crap."
"It's not crap!"
"So says the kid with the three digit geometry average," she chirped and it was easy then. That tension between them was gone for a moment and he knew most of that was they could work a case together, that investigating was simple and familiar and what they did.
Even if it was over something as serious as murder, there was a lightness there, something not nearly as terrifying as Lionel's potential army or Jor-El's edicts or Edge's threats. Even if they were just sixteen-despite Chloe's fearsome abilities-it felt like they could take on anything.
Maybe even the chasm between them.
"But we can start going through the records. I figure it'll take you a while to hack them but then we can start backtracking from there. We could also start looking into hospital records. Could be Helen's not just been selling your blood work. There are a lot of special patients at Smallville Medical Center. She could have been supplying Level Three with a lot of options. And that's federal violations too."
Chloe's eyes flashed and Clark took it in stride. "That's like how Capone went to jail for tax evasion. I want proof that Helen murdered Lex. He trusted her and she betrayed him."
Clark bit back the instinct, perhaps the petty one, to mention that he knew how that felt. Instead he leaned forward and patted Chloe on the hand. "Anything to get her behind bars and off your trail. She knows, Chlo, and that makes her more dangerous than anyone but Jor-El."
"You sound like my dad. I'm going to be fine."
"You shouldn't have gotten rid of the blood sample."
"Like I said, you sound like my dad," Chloe replied, forcing the biggest Sullivan fake smile.
"Someone should," a third voice called out and Clark turned to look at Pete, who stood by the door. His friend eased it shut and locked it. "Lana's got an emergency at The Talon. Something with the refrigeration and helping Mrs. Kent fix it. She'll be here for second period."
"Pete," Clark said. "Hey, I guess there's a surprise! Chloe's home."
"I saw her Beetle in the parking lot. I was a little surprised," Pete replied coldly.
Clark didn't like the tension. The last time Pete had spoken with Chloe, she'd run away to Metropolis for months. Based on the way Chloe'd forgotten to breathe (and she was good at remembering cause she honestly didn't need it more than once every few minutes), he wasn't the only one feeling the animosity.
"Pete, so, hey," Clark parrotted. He'd never been good with awkward situations.
"Said that," Chloe said, her tone strained. "Clark, look, I think that you should go to The Talon. I mean, without one reporter/cartoonist, we can't do much on the issue. You should check and make sure your mom's doing okay and even see if my dad actually did like he promised and got some sleep."
"Mom can handle it and Lana's pretty smart."
"But strapping farmboys and spoiling produce. You should be there."
Clark stood but didn't go to the door. "But, Chlo-"
"I think Pete and I have some things to talk about. I'll even blur by there before English, make sure it's all good. I mean, times like these, why can't I just have ice vision too?"
"Nah, don't be ridiculous. Ice vision? You're a swiss army knife already," he joked. "So, huh, I'll just leave you two alone."
"That's the idea," she replied, and she gave him a crooked smile. "It'll be fine, Clark."
He wasn't so sure about that as he left.
