Author's note: A, a new record for reviews! Chapter 34 garnered 21 comments, which is - a) Proof that you understand the delicate psyche of a fanfic author - b) A sign that I should have tried bribes long ago - c) A testament to the profound patience in the heart of all Chlarkers. Of course the correct answer is – d) all of the above.
As promised, we pick up right where we left off.
Chloe slid her hands up over his chest and twined them around his neck, her smile blossomed and her heart shone in her eyes, "Ok," she whispered leaning in for a kiss, "I'll jump."
Euphoria spun up from around Clark's heart. He plunged his hand deeper into her hair and tightened his hold on slender waist, meeting her advance hungrily. Her arms curled around his neck and one of her cool hands slid through the hair at his nape. Her simple caress sent him shuddering.
He craved her touch, her taste, her intrinsic citrus and Chloe scent. Clark felt unsteady. He was still reeling from the possibility of never having the chance to show Chloe the depths of his feeling, of her never believing. He had come too close. He seized his opportunity to show her now.
He told her she was beautiful by his rapidly beating heart and cherished by the kisses he dropped on each eyelid. He told her she was adored by the brush of his cheek against hers. He let her know he wouldn't let her go by the steady pressure of his are around her waist, holding her body flush to his.
"Chloe, Chloe," he murmured against her lips before leaving restraint behind. He slanted his mouth against hers and poured his heart out, never wanting to stop or let go. She responded to him eagerly and for all her earlier reticence, held nothing back. She strained in his arms trying press closer, soul-to-soul, heart to heart, body to body.
He was caught up in the chaotic whirl, but at the center of the maelstrom, there was no confusion. He'd built his emotions on a rock solid foundation. None of the insecurities he associated in the past with romance threatened. Together, he and Chloe created a haven from doubt.
Something crashed to the ground behind them. Clark whirled around, instinctively keeping Chloe shielded from a possible threat. The vase next to the dinning room doors lay shattered on the ground. Chloe, quicker to identify the cause of the broken glass, cried out, "Lois, are you alright?"
Lois froze in her tracks. There was little sense in trying to sneak back into the kitchen now. Finding Clark and Chloe finally working out their differences and finally starting a relationship wasn't a surprise to Lois, she'd suspected it was something both of them wanted, but waking in on them while they were enraptured with each other wasn't exactly what she was expecting either. She meant to give them their privacy, but she was far too shaken by her latest dream and since the moment was broken, she stopped to question Clark as she'd intended.
"Do you have any idea where Clark is right now?" When she'd fallen asleep, she'd been in his arms. Sometime during the night, he had to answer Superman's call and while normally she wouldn't begrudge the world's need of her husband, right now she didn't know if she could hold on without him.
Chloe narrowed her eyes, took in Lois's ashen complexion and noted her trembling hands. Her concern skyrocketed. "Lois, has something happened? Are Mr. and Mrs. Kent all right?"
"Their fine, still sound asleep when I passed their room."
Chloe glanced up at Clark, sharing her concern with a look. He nodded almost imperceptibly and whooshed out the door. "Clark will find him." She stepped gingerly around the brightly colored glass shards at Lois's feet and linked her arm lightly through Lois's, leading her back to the bright and cheery kitchen. "What's this all about?"
Under the bright fixtures of the kitchen, Lois looked even more haggard and strained. "Chloe, I…it's. I'm not sure. It can't be real, but, I think…" She let Chloe prod her into sitting. Normally Lois garnered great comfort from this room, but now all she could feel was cold.
"Lois, what's happening? You look like you've seen a ghost." Lois flinched; Chloe was closer to the truth than she could know.
Four hours later Lois answered the front door with her husband at her side. Chloe had stayed with her until Clark was able to find Superman. After dealing with a derailment in Spain, he went to assist with a fire down in the warehouse district. Clark slipped into his costume and the Superfriend sent Superman home.
When he arrived, Chloe left to take care of a couple errands Lois asked of her. She was gamely ready to do anything she could to help, but how picking up an assortment of sweet rolls and retrieving a shoebox from Lois's desk at the Planet was helping remained fuzzy. It was funny, while Lois was waiting, she couldn't provide a coherent reason for her requests let alone explain to Chloe what she'd discovered, but as soon as the man who'd made her Mrs. Clark Kent came through the door, she couldn't stop talking.
He gathered her close while she disgorged word upon word as if they had been threatening to bust down a door. She was almost babbling, railing against fate until she was exhausted. He listened and when her story was through, he carried her up to their master bathroom and stepped both of them into the shower. He held her tightly in the steamy heat while the emotional storm she'd fought against overtook her. Lois clung to Clark knowing she could fall to pieces because he would never let her break. When her tears ended, they decided she would keep her morning appointment with her mother and even try to move it up.
Her parents were early risers and agreed to come over at eight.
"Mom, Dad, thank you for coming by early."
"We're here," Ellen Lane said patting a hand over her carefully tinted chin length hair before unwrapping her silk scarf and removing her camel colored coat, "but I still don't understand what could possibly be so urgent that I couldn't have waited two hours and come at ten like we planned. I haven't even had any coffee and your father is going to be late for his meeting."
Used to her mother's habitual carping, Lois turned to her father, "I'm sorry Daddy, but it's important that you're here too."
"Oh, don't worry about it pumpkin," Sam Lane said dismissing his wife's complaint. He was a tall, fit, dapper man with silver tufts of hair on his balding head and a thick white mustache, "it's just an excuse for a bunch of crusty old scientists to get up on stage and feel important. Half of them are idiots and the other half is…Oh, are those raspberry tarts?" Sam Lane handed Clark his coat and made a beeline to the living room.
"Sam, you didn't even say hello to Clark," Ellen chided her husband. She shook her dark blond hair in hopeless disapproval, "After how many years and he still has the manners of a six year old, but that's okay," she held her hand up in surrender, "I didn't go to all those AA meetings and not learn to the difference between what I can and cannot change." She scowled, seeing Sam pluck a pastry off the platter and consume it in one bite. "For god's sake Sam," she barked, her hands going to her hips, "at least use a plate."
Lois tossed Clark a panicked look and started to seriously regret sending his parents, Clark and Chloe away for the morning, but while Jonathan and Martha were wonderful at distracting her mother from her constant complaining, Clark and Chloe would be too hard to explain, especially Chloe.
Clark took Ellen's arm and escorted her to the living room, "Can I get you some coffee?"
"Coffee. Yes, marvelous." She settled on the couch next to her still munching husband. "Sam, would you like a cup to go with your what, third Danish?" He nodded affably. Ellen rolled her eyes and spoke for him, "Yes, he would like a cup as well." Clark reached for the pot sitting on the table between an array of baked goods and a shoebox and poured for his in-laws, but not for Lois. Her mother noticed his oversight.
"Lois, you're not having any coffee? Are you sick? Oh, my god, you're pregnant! Sam, she's pregnant!"
"Hmm?" Sam looked up still licking white glaze off his fingers.
"No! No, no I'm not."
"You're not?" She queried clearly disappointed. "Then why on earth are you not drinking coffee? You always drink coffee. If two things could define a person, for you it's working at the Planet and drinking coffee." Ellen reached over the coffee table and patted Clarks arm, "and she's very fond of you too." Lois closed her eyes and counted to ten. It didn't do much good.
"Fine, I'll have coffee, happy?" Hot liquid sloshed around in her cup as she lifted it to take a sip. Clark reached up to steady her shaking hand and then took the rattling cup and saucer and set it back down. Lois leaned into his shoulder for a moment to steady herself.
"Ellen, our baby girl obviously has something important to tell us, maybe we should let her."
Lois lifted her head from Clark's strong shoulder. He took her hand in his and squeezed, reminding her that no matter what, she wasn't alone.
She took a deep breath and turned back to face her parents. "I found out about Chloe Sullivan." Her mother lost all her color and latched onto her husband's hand. Her father dropped his half-eaten tart and wrapped his other arm around his wife. Lois couldn't tell whom he was trying to comfort more.
"I need you to tell me about my cousin who died in the car accident." Lois paused and gathered up the courage she needed to finish what she started. "I need you to tell me about Lois."
Instead of answering, her mother – the only one she remembered- started to hyperventilate. "I can't, can't…Sam, I can't breathe."
"I'll get a bag!" He cried jumping up and dashing into the kitchen only to dash back out. "Where do you keep your bags?" Clark went to help him.
Ellen stood up gasping, "No, no, she wasn't supposed to know. Sam, you said she'd never remember." She accused her husband.
"I said there was a ninety-eight percent chance she'd never remember."
Clark returned with a small paper bag. "Here, Mrs. Lane, breathe in this." Ellen used the bag, inhaling and exhaling rapidly for a moment, before ripping it away and scowling. "I need a drink," she announced and pointed at her husband. "Sam, get me a drink."
"Ellen it's eight in the morning and you're an alcoholic."
"This," she tossed her arms up in the air in a sweeping motion, "is not covered by any of the twelve steps." Sam rubbed his hand wearily over his face, walked over to the brandy decanter in the corner, and poured a drink.
Lois gasped, "Daddy you can't give her a drink, she's an alcoholic!"
"I know she's an alcoholic, I just said that." He tipped the drink back and downed it, gasping as the brandy burned down his throat. "But I'm not."
"Sam Lane, how could you do such a cruel thing? First, you mislead me about her amnesia and now you taunt me with my weaknesses. I…I can't breathe. I'm going to faint. No, I'm probably having a heart attack, or a stroke, maybe an embolism. That's it. A blood clot is at this very moment about to burst and you deny me the last bit of earthly comfort I could have."
"Oh, mother, get a hold of yourself," Lois shouted, her mother's histrionics pushing aside any sympathy. Her mother gasped and clutched at her chest. For a second Lois wondered if she truly might be having chest pains.
"She called me mother!" Ellen's knees seemed to buckle beneath her as she sat down hard on the couch. In a softer voice she repeated, "You still called me mother," before letting her head fall forward into her hands and bursting into noisy tears. Sam came and sat beside her, pulling her into his arms as she continued to weep.
Her falling tears doused Lois's last flickering flame of hope. She no longer harbored any doubts; her interpretation of last night's dream was correct.
Last night, like every night that came since the name Chloe Sullivan gained meaning, the same plaguing dream visited Lois. Same little girls, same game, same matching pink and yellow stuffed bunnies, same heartbreak as one child was dragged from the other.
That's where all familiarity ended, because this night, the dream didn't end with the slamming of the front door. Earlier, Lois had watched scenes in her reoccurring dream unfold like some omnipotent observer, but once the door closed, she began living it.
The dream continued in a jumble of fractured moments. A heaping dose of clarity mixed with confusion and terror.
She was outside, a hand heavy on her shoulder. The sky was laden with dark clouds and the blustery wind grabbed at her light brown, shoulder length hair. It twisted and whipped stands into her eyes, momentarily blinding her. With Mo still prodding her forward, she stumbled, only keeping her balance by flailing her arms about, but in the process, her precious yellow Lois rabbit was flung to the ground. "My bunny!" She cried out.
Suddenly, she felt like she was tumbling.
Metal ground against metal and a child's scream rang over and over in her ears.
Silence.
Her world shifted. She was back outside the house. She wanted her rabbit. She wanted Lois. She wanted little Lucy and Mommy and Daddy. She wanted to be home. Why did they have to leave?
Mo shook her hard by the shoulders, "Chloe quit crying right now and get in the car." Chloe felt her lower lip quaver. Until a few weeks ago, Mo never yelled at her. She'd only started since Mommy and Daddy told her in very serious voices that she was going to stay with Mo.
Mo told her to start calling her mother and now she wanted her to leave, maybe forever.
"But, but Lois. I need to get Lois."
Mo gave her another shake. "I said quit crying and if I hear one more word out of you, you'll never see Lois again."
That tumbling sensation again.
Lights swirled. Acrid smoke smoldered.
Pain. Sharp, stinging pain, biting into her face, pounding in her head.
Rewind.
"I said quit your crying and if I hear one more word out of you, you'll never see Lois again." Fresh tears welled in her eyes, but Chloe kept silent. It wasn't fair, she thought. Mo was crying harder that she was.
"Get in the car," she told her before fishing out her keys and going behind the car to open the trunk. She started digging around for something.
Feeling pitiful and mutinous, Chloe opened the car door, but didn't get in. She stood with her arms crossed, staring mournfully at her bunny twenty feet away and at the little house they'd only recently moved into. Inside, the curtains twitched and Lois' face peeped out at her.
Another scene flashed before her.
Lois huddled at her feet, peeping up from under a green blanket. The rumble of an engine. The bump of the road. Mo fumbling with the wipers and her tears. "Sorry baby, things have changed." Her words came out muffled and distorted, as if Mo was speaking under water. "We can't come back for a long time."
Crack of lighting, crash of thunder.
Rain sheeting down. Car sliding.
Blackness, and back again.
The curtains fell back into place and a moment later, Lois silently snuck out the side door and scooped up out of the gravel the forlorn stuffed animal. Mo still searched for something in the trunk.
Not for long.
Hurry Lois, hurry, Chloe urged her, waving her arms and biting her lip. Mo slammed the trunk shut. Lois dove into the car and under a blanket. "Buckle up." Mo called over her shoulder as she slid in the front. She turned the key and started the car.
Dark. Can't see, too much rain. "Mo, I want to go home, we have to go home."
"Be quiet Chloe, I told you to be quiet!" Can't see, too fast,
Screeching brakes. Squealing tires.
Spinning, spinning.
One scream, two screams, three screams.
"LOIS!!!!"
Topsy turvy, upside down, over and over, round and round.
IMPACT!
Stillness.
Wind, rain, pain. "Lois?"
Lost. Alone. Gone.
Sharp, metallic scent. Tinkling glass. "Lois?"
Never again. Can't think, can't speak. Shame.
Hurt. Hot, sticky, wet. "Lois?"
Black. No, it's red. See red. No! No!
Won't see it! No! My fault. Can't be true. Too much red.
"Lois? Lois?" Clark cupped her face in his hands. "Lois, are you alright?"
She blinked and jolted back to the present. Clark's beautiful brown eyes studied her in concern. Love washed over her, replacing the bleak despair conjured by her memories. She covered his hand with hers and pressed a kiss to his palm. Clark wrapped his arm around her and pulled her closer to his side.
"Yeah, I will be."
Author's note: Ok, so, I'm sorry to leave this without a full explanation, but that will come in part 2. I'll admit it, the second half isn't finished yet but I started to feel pretty horrible about the delay, hence breaking it in two. Next chapter: answers to all your questions (Hey, feel free to give me all your questions), we will also check in with the other universe, and hopefully back with Chlark too. Thanks as always.