Disclaimer: Smallville is not mine.
I didn't stop to think. There are times when thinking is highly overrated and swooshing is what needs to happen. This was one of those times. In retrospect, I maybe should have done just a little more thinking - like about where it was that we should be going. That, of course, didn't occur to me until I was standing in an alley with an armful of Chloe in nothing but a hospital gown. She took a few seconds to get her bearings (heavy meds do not contribute to a functional Chloe) before she started squirming. I let her legs drop to the ground so that she could stand on her own for a moment.
"Didn't think it all the way through, did you?" She asked managing to look awkwardly cute as she futilely pulled at the hem in an attempt to lengthen it. Thoughts of her chronic adorableness needed to be saved for another time, however, as there were more pressing matters.
"They were gearing up to move you somewhere you shouldn't be going," I replied trying for a nonchalant shrug of my shoulders. (I'm never really sure how well that particular move works, but it seemed like an appropriate moment.) Like I said, there are times when action needs to come before the discussing things to death. I may not be from Smallville, but I've been around. I've heard things about that place they call an asylum. What I can't figure out is why it's still a thing.
"Swooshing then," she muttered nodding her head as if something had just become clear to her. My girl knows me well. I also know her.
"You haven't asked," she said looking at me with eyes that were ready to shutter down on her emotions if she thought that she needed to keep them hidden. I hate that look. I hated more that I had thought that we were beyond that look and this situation was bringing it back.
"Don't need to," I told her. "Where do we want to go?"
There was a half-smile fighting for control of her expression with something that looked like disappointment. I didn't need to bother to think about why that was there. I knew that it wasn't directed at me. I'll never figure out why other people find it so easy to think less of and dismiss Chloe. It totally works in my favor, but I would give that up in a heartbeat to not have to watch her pretend that it doesn't get to her.
"I need clothes," Chloe announced as she broke me out of my thoughts.
"But that's really working for you," I tossed back as natural as breathing. She rolled her eyes, but I could see the start of a grin that was hiding behind her pretend dismissal. I could have added some more commentary - it was helping bring the situation back to our normal (which probably says something about us and our sense of normal) - but we did need to get going. It was just an alley, and it was kind of grimy. It wasn't the kind of place that you left your girl standing around without any shoes.
"I've got stuff you can borrow," I told her wanting to put off the inevitable (inevitable because I know Chloe and know that she would never agree to just stay low and leave people hanging until things calmed down).
"I need to go home, Bart," she told me like I should know that already (which, as previously stated, I did).
We made a quick stop at her dorm room for her to get dressed (I made her hang back until I did a sweep to make sure that the brunette roommate with a history of biting tendencies wasn't around). Then, she insisted that she needed to get back to her cousin's apartment. She explained what she had been seeing, and it sounded to me like some more of that meteor rock causing trouble for people (somehow, that usually seems to be the reason that stuff goes down around that place). Chloe wanted to head back to where the whole thing had started to see if she could get any clues to what had happened to her.
"Where did you take her?" A loud voice was demanding as we paused outside the door. "She needs to be in the hospital."
The voice that replied was soft enough that the words weren't distinguishable, but I could tell that it was Clark. Chloe was giving me a look like she was offering me a final chance to take off and let her enter alone. It wasn't going to happen. I wasn't letting her out of my sight when whatever Smallville creepiness that had cropped up this time was specifically targeting her - again. I had already been put over my close call quota for the next several years with the whole blood sucking thing. I was not going to let whatever was trying to hurt her this time have a chance to get near her without going through me first. Besides, I was kind of sick of all of the he knows/she knows/we can't let on that someone knows back and forth we had going on between us. If Chloe was going in that apartment, then I was going in that apartment. We could sort out the rest of it when there wasn't an immediate safety hazard (because it's Chloe and there's always going to be some sort of a safety hazard).
"Wow," Chloe stumbled over her feet a bit as she pushed the door open and lost her balance as she tried to step forward. "I'm clearly still a bit under the influence here. Those were some serious sedatives."
I slid my arm around her to keep her steady. She tried to wave me off, but it wasn't like I was going to drop the chance of a little touching. The looks on the faces of the room's occupants were pretty entertaining, but neither of them got the chance to comment before my girl was issuing marching orders.
"Caffeine," she told her cousin with pleading eyes. "I desperately need caffeine to chase the rest of this out of my system."
"Where have . . .," she started.
"Artificial stimulants first and explanations later."
"I'll whip you up something, but you better still be here when I get back - with an introduction to pipsqueak there."
Yeah, that was a little insulting, but I was willing to allow some slack for worried over Chloe snappishness. I've been known to suffer from it myself. We actually never made it to the official introductions part (or the part where we dealt with Clark's etched into place frowny face in our direction) because that is the point where things got seriously creepy.
Chloe started insisting that she was hearing voices and there was something (someone really) inside the wall. I may have had no idea what was going on, but if Chloe says that there are voices or someone in a wall, then there are voices or someone in a wall. Yeah, there was someone in the wall. I'm not going to pretend it wasn't disturbing - dead bodies are not pleasant things to find.
There was some talky talky and some reporting to the proper authorities (and some Chloe cousin demanding of answers that none of us had). I was a little bit distracted because something was seriously going haywire on my Chloe radar. I would have thought that it was stress or something, but let's be honest - stress doesn't really touch Chloe. It's her natural state of being. Just look how she takes all the power stuff in stride. She was just off; something wasn't right.
I tailed her when she headed out (yeah, a little irked that the other two were too busy to notice that she was giving them the slip). That's when I was really sure that we were still in the middle of our little green rock created adventure of the week. Chloe should have just asked me to take her where she wanted to go. Instead, she was looking all focused and distant like she had forgotten that any of the rest of us were around. I stayed back and watched trying to figure out what was up.
Not going to lie - I could have intervened when she buzzed Baldy, but I didn't really feel like it (yeah, someone can lecture me about how that wasn't very heroic of me later - I don't care). It was actually pretty great to watch.
Short version of the story - possessed Chloe (totally not cool), creepy killer dude with daddy issues (totally not cool), thing possessing Chloe trying to walk her right into creepy killer dude's lair (epically not cool).
I can't tell you what all went down. All I know is that when the rocks start glowing nothing seems to have to make sense any more. There was a lot of glowing. Thing possessing Chloe jumped hosts. Creepy killer dude died. I let Chloe do the Lois rescuing. We have enough heavy, unfun conversations in our future without adding Miss Mouthy to the mix.
Clark's been dogging me for an explanation, but I'm still faster than he is (and he's been busy being all involved with and angsty over the reformed blood sucking roommate that I'm still not taking off of my watch list).
We'll talk. I've just got other responsibilities first. Like now, I'm occupying this bench until Chloe comes back. She may have needed to make the actual visit on her own, but I wasn't about to let her do this whole trip all by herself. I'll be waiting when she's finished. If she wants to talk, then we'll talk. If she doesn't, then we won't.
Then, we'll deal with the Clark and secrets drama.