AUTHOR: Nymph Du Pave
FANDOM: Smallville
PAIRING: Lana Lang/Clark Kent.
RATING: G
SUMMARY: Character Piece: A couple of weeks after the incident with Shawn Kelvin ["Cool"], Clark's thinking of Lana.
DISCLAIMER: The WB, DC Comics, MillarGoughInk, Tolin, Robbins, and Davola [along with whomever else] own this wonderfully cute show. I am merely borrowing the characters to use in my own evil ways and will try to return them as mentally cognizant and stable as when I took them [with the exception of the incredibly handsome and elegant Michael Rosenbaum of whom I might never let go ;)], but I can't make any promises. The Muse controls these fingers.
AUTHOR'S NOTE: Quotes from "Cool". I started writing this a little after the episode aired*.
FEEDBACK: Please fill in the blank in my head :) This is my first CLana fic, and I'd love to know how it goes over.
AUTHOR'S EMAIL: nymph_du_pave@hotmail.com
For the Love of a Princess
The streets of Smallville during the night are eerily similar to those of dead towns. No lights on in the storefronts, cozy by day, cold and sterile by the nocturnal. I walk alone, darkness surrounding me, my crestfallen eyes oblivious to the celestial lights as they shine brightly. The pavement's shimmering surreally, streetlights causing imitated silver and gold to sparkle all around.
I don't notice the beauty of the night. Her face is all I see, then I hear it:
"He's there when I need him."
It's still haunting me, echoing ceaselessly throughout various chambers of my mind until I just want to scream at my surroundings. Sometimes I won't think about the words for a good full day, then I'll awake in the early morn with them hovering in my conscious, digging a painful hollow within my chest. I know they're aiming for my heart, but it's here that they will fail, for I am no longer in possession of that lifeline. My fragile goddess with her sullen mahogany eyes and her fine, silken hair… She unwittingly takes it wherever she journeys.
"I guess he makes me feel safe."
The hollow, being dug deeper. I would do anything to take those words away from her, to give them flight to another high school, to another country, another world far, far from here.
She has no idea what I'd do for her, what I've done… And what I'll continue to do, forever. Even if she never feels a kinship with me, the depth of this unilateral nexus will never vanish, the adoration I have for her will never fade because I know she will never cease to amaze. Not just me, but anyone. Everyone. She'll amaze us with her kindness, her keen comprehension of life's value and her uplifting wit. Then there are always the classics: her smile, her heart, her telling eyes…
The rain starts to fall, mocking my misery, my sorrow as I remember seeing them when I should not have: through a wall, finding comfort in each other's touches, embraces, and kisses.
I know what everyone else sees in them. She and Whitney do look good together; the cliched Prom Queen and King, teen idols to look up to, to become. The Damsel in Distress with a woeful life story and her Knight and Shining Armor who's come to take her pain away.
Whitney's not her true Knight and she's kidding herself if she thinks she's happy. It's not just that I could make her happier, even though I know, without hesitancy, without question, that I could.
It's this look she sometimes gets, a look that tells it all. It too clearly states "I'm coping with disappointment here."
The first time I saw that look was a year pre-Fordman, and about three years since my crush on her began. We were thirteen and on a field trip to the Metropolis Zoo. We'd been there about two hours and were finally coming up to her favorite animals. She'd been talking to Tina Greer and Lindsey Coleman about seeing these exotic tarsiers from the Tangkono-Duasudara nature reserve on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi. They were rain forest creatures, and she'd only seen them in National Geographic magazines and on the Discovery Channel. Lana'd said on the bus that she'd been wanting Nell to take her for two months now, begging and pleading because the tarsiers would only be there for four months total before being shipped off to London. Unfortunately for her, Valentine's Day was approaching and Nell was going to be incredibly busy with the flower shop, so her aunt wouldn't be taking her. This was Lana's last chance to see them.
The exotic, little, gremlin-like creatures were kept in a large outdoor habitat, simulating nighttime in a fabricated rain forest environment, all under glass. As we approached the labeled window it started to drizzle and the expression on Lana's face almost broke my spirit, hitting the crux of my devotion for her. Her eyes had looked up to the sky, as downcast as the deceptively blue and clear firmament should have been. Her lips had shifted from a euphonious smile of anticipation into a parted break of disbelief.
The tour guide, mumbling practiced apologies and promises of indoor spectaculars, started to usher us all into formation, geared to head back to the museum. At the last moment I pulled Lana aside and over to the fence, holding my coat over our heads. She didn't really know me that well but she knew that I noticed her immense disappointment and followed willingly. Tina and Lindsey caught up and stood next to us, trying to huddle underneath and giggling like crazy. Their closeness forced Lana and I together in the cramped space. She never noticed but the whole time she was leaning her head back onto my biceps and her soft hair was brushing against my skin.
She also never noticed my blush.
That's the closet I've ever come to Lana Lang- short of carrying her unconscious body away from danger- and I remember everything with unequivocally lucid clarity up to the point where the teacher came back, impatient and exasperated, returning to retrieve and belittle us.
We never did get to see the tarsiers, though, honestly, I wasn't even looking. I was discreetly watching Lana the whole time. I wanted her to see them because I needed her to be happy. The desire to see that smile- the glorious, brilliant grin that seems to be what I've been waiting all my life to arouse- swelled up inside me, and it was then, three years after the initial attachment transpired, that I realized I loved her, deeply and truly. At thirteen I knew that had found the person that I was meant to spend the rest of my life with.
I remember not being able to breathe.
The rain gets harder and I notice that I am drenched, completely. I can feel the rain all over my body, dripping into my underwear and socks. There's not a dry spot on me and... and I'm not sure of just where I am.
I look around seeing that I have left town and Main Street, starting on one of the paved roads leading to the outskirts of town, but the rain is falling so hard that I cannot see just which one it is. All I really know is that it's in the exact opposite direction of my house, of Lana's house, and maybe... Yes, maybe this is a good thing. I don't need to know where I'm going. Not just yet. Maybe never.
Other than that moment of remarkable comprehension, the thing I remember best about that day was how I transformed that canvas of despair into a glorious painting of hope and excitement. The look, at least as far as my thoughts go, is mine. That is the Lana I want to help her be all of the time: happy and looking forward to enchanting possibilities. I would do anything to keep her contented.
Anything.
I would give her the brightest, diamond encrusted stars, the entire moon in all of it's sheer and ample glory- though I believe it dull in comparison to her- and every extraterrestrial kingdom I could find. I would run into a field of the meteor pieces and grab the largest, shiniest one for her if that's what she truly wanted.
If I could have then, I would have taken away the rain and given her the tarsiers.
I would live my life so that her face never again had to bear the considerable weight of pure disappointment. But she's with Whitney and that has now become a tonnage that graces her daily life far too often for my tastes.
I run my fingers through my thick and sodden hair, trying to remove the black strands plastered to my forehead. Doesn't he care? Doesn't he want to make her disappointment go away? Or does he even notice?
I do.
Every time her eyes go dull, every time pain is inflicted in any way, shape or form, I feel it inside: heartsick and shattered, lost, like I'm alone in a dark and monstrous grotto and cannot find my way to the light, to safety. This feeling is not my own, for I've never been so specifically hurt, so narrowly devastated. I've never felt pain in such a clearly designated area before, but I know that desolation just the same. I sometimes have nightmares about the meteor shower, about lovely people saying goodbye and a comforting world of white sundering so close behind me that I can feel the heat almost burning me up. There is such an abstract and overwhelming feeling of immortal and immutable loss, that I wake up unable to breathe, unable to see because I don't dare to open my saline flooded eyes. I don't know what it is that I fear exactly, but I know it has to do with my new world, my home, and I don't want to fear anything that I so desperately need to love, need to believe in.
Sometimes at night this pain that is not mine resides in my chest, and is far too agonizing to tolerate. Though I'm not crying, I can feel her tears staining my cheeks, and that's what finally pushes me over the edge every time.
I sneak out of the house and run to hers, climbing silently onto the roof, and sitting above her bedroom. I don't know why, but I feel that my presence calms her. I'm only there to protect her, and if she ever cried out I would crash through her window and into her room, ready to hold her, rock her, smooth her hair and promise sanctuary until she felt at peace. I don't know how I would explain my presence, but there's always the possibility that I wouldn't have to. That she would finally grasp just what and who I am, all for her.
I observe her, a sentinel from the outskirts of her life, yet I feel her nearness every moment that I just to stop and savor my life. I wish she considered that my job. To love and protect her, for all her life and beyond. To make sure that her happiness dominated any pain that might come into being. To wake up with her delicate body wrapped tight within my arms, far away from those who would do my angel harm.
It is my job, and I'll do it just the same because I love her.
I just hope one day she'll realize why I'm living.
FIN
*It took so long because I felt that getting the right animal for Lana was important. I wanted, needed to stay true to her character and I feel that she would most definitely love little tarsiers. I mean, geez, who wouldn't?
http://www.primates.com/tarsier.htm
http://www.primates.com/primate/tarsiidae.html