Shadows : Chapter 5b (last part)
Chloe fought to keep her eyes open but it was hard, really hard. In a single moment she had transitioned from stillness to movement in a way no person was ever meant to and the shear pressures involved had combined to push her back towards darkness. It was the more comforting darkness of sleep and unconsciousness that called her, but it didn't matter, she had no intention of giving in.
Chloe tried to watch, to understand what was moving before her eyes but it was too fast, too much to comprehend. Buildings, a field, a road, trees, all were individual snapshots extracted from an unfathomable kaleidoscope. Almost as soon as the journey had begun, it ended, the world slowly moving back into focus. When normality reasserted itself she found herself held in Clark's arms, surrounded by a cornfield, staring up once again into two concerned blue eyes.
She was alive.
So was Clark.
Nearly getting killed was a really bad habit, maybe they had rehab centers for it.
She had too many questions and all of them were fighting inside her head and begging to be asked. Taking a deep breath she pushed them aside, reached her arms around Clark's neck and simply held him. From somewhere far off the sound of sobbing found her ears. It took a while before Chloe realized it was her, crying softly and quietly into the neck of his jacket. Slowly he lowered her legs to the ground, but he didn't try to break the embrace. His arms slipped around her waste and she felt herself pulled tight against him.
They stayed that way for several moments before she finally noticed that Clark was saying her name. "Chloe? Chloe are you ok?" He sounded worried, really worried. She nodded before remembering that he couldn't see it.
Words, she could do words. You simply inhaled air, opened your mouth like so and then exhaled…
A muffled whimper issued from some where in the vicinity of Clark's collar and she felt disgust with herself. One of his hands had reached up to slowly begin stroking her hair and then he was calling her name again. Now he sounded terrified.
Once again, she was a journalist and, damn it, she knew how to talk. Chloe breathed deeply several times before trying again to force her voice into coherency.
"I'm ok."
There, it wasn't so hard after all. Good for her. Chloe gets the 'not a mute' award.
Stepping back a little, but keeping a loose grip on him because she just couldn't stand the idea of letting go, she leaned back until she could make out all of his features. He looked extremely relieved and she got the distinct impression that he'd thought that he broke her. She was about to try and say something else, anything, when all of the sudden he turned his head in the direction of Smallville. She turned to look as well, but there was nothing but fields surrounded by more fields with even more beyond that. "It's coming Chloe, following."
The pronouncement held the same finality as a death sentence and she took several more deep breaths. Was that how someone reached a state of hyperventilation? One deep breath at a time…?
"Do you trust me?" He was looking at her as if he was afraid something had changed. The fear in his eyes said that he thought a single revelation might be able to wipe out every smile, every goofy moment, every link that had been built between them over the years since they first met.
Typical Clark.
"Don't be silly." She smiled, trying to tell him without words that everything was going to be ok. All things considered she hoped he believed her because if they really were being followed, she didn't want to be there when the creature arrived. There were two black eyes that she never, ever, ever, wanted to see again as long as she lived.
"Hold on."
Chloe closed her eyes as he leaned forward, waiting for him to do whatever he was about to do. Her legs were once again lifted from the ground, which was good because they'd been a bit too shaky to be considered entirely functional, and his arms held her tightly against his chest, which was also good for entirely different reasons. She snuggled into the crook of his neck and wrapped her arms around him, waiting.
Waiting for… what?
She opened her eyes and took the briefest of peeks before closing them again, the accelerating blur of the cornfields having caused a queasy sensation in her stomach. Of course, waiting for Clark to remind her that he must be a long lost sibling of Speedy Gonzalez, now she remembered.
The back door at Lex's mansion opened with a single sharp twist of Clark's wrist, permanently destroying the lock and allowing them entrance to the interior.
"Wow." Chloe sounded impressed, normally he would have hid something like that but…
But it didn't matter anymore. She knew.
"That's how you got us in to see the body at animal control, isn't it?"
"Sort of." He moved aside to let Chloe into the building, taking the time for one last searching gaze out into the night before he followed.
The room lit up when Chloe flicked a switch on the wall. The interior, like the majority of the Luthor mansion, was filled primarily with warm hard woods and a bright white ceiling. The few pieces of furniture in the sparsely populated entranceway, two tables, a mirror, a bookshelf, were ornately carved antiques.
"Clark, we need to turn on all the lights." Chloe looked mostly recovered from the ordeal and ready to get down to the very serious business of survival.
"What?"
"Do you remember the lamps?"
"He broke the ones near your car."
She nodded. "Maybe he did that for more than just scare tactics."
Clark remembered the thing, moving as if it was a part of the darkness, its black eyes filled with the same shadows that it used like a cloak. No matter how hard he tried he couldn't imagine that face revealed in the dimmest of lights. "What if he needed the darkness for some reason… he almost looked like he was part of it."
"Exactly, did you see how he just appeared like that? One second we were alone and in the next he just… broke away like he was… " She shook her head, unable to finish.
Chloe moved to head up the stairs and he frowned. They shouldn't separate; it wouldn't be safe. "Chloe, where are you going?"
"Upstairs, to turn on more lights."
"Wait." Clark took one of her hands in his own. "Lets just stay together, ok? Isn't that what always happens in those Halloween movies of Pete's? The two teenagers split up…"
"And someone comes along and cuts the girl into pieces." She squeezed his hand in acknowledgement.
Together, they proceeded upwards.
Several minutes later they felt much safer, and the house was consuming more electricity than some small communities. Clark stared out the window while several feet away, Chloe talked to her father on the phone in Lex's office.
"No dad, I'm fine it was just… I'm not alone, Clark is here and we're perfectly safe. No we didn't, well yes I guess we did break in but Clark is Lex's favorite person, he won't mind. No! Don't come to get me." Clark could hear the frustration in her voice. They'd agreed that if they were being followed, the last thing either of them wanted to do was lead it back to other people. "Just trust me, please, I promise that I'll explain everything tomorrow. Ok, yes, I love you too."
Relief. He must have agreed to stay home.
"Dad this is Clark we're talking about, remember? Yes, exactly. I'll tell you tomorrow. Bye." The receiver clicked and she stepped back from the phone and looked out the window. "We could always keep running."
"No, I think you're right. It won't come after us as long as we stay inside." It wasn't so much a statement of logic, as it was a statement of instinct.
"Why here?" She turned to look at him, arms wrapped around herself.
She looked cold.
"Lex is in Metropolis this week, his new staff lives in town." Clark shrugged. "I knew there wouldn't be anybody here."
"Makes sense."
Awkward silence filled the air and Clark simply waited. He knew that sooner or later the questions would come but he hadn't yet figured out how to answer them.
"I'm tired." Was she pouting? Her lower lip was protruding ever so slightly as if to say 'pity me'.
"Then we'll sleep."
"There's no way you're leaving me alone in one of those guest rooms."
The thought had never occurred to him. Taking her hand he led her out into the hall. Clark wondered briefly if there were any horror movies set in mansions.
Probably
The guestroom was easily three times the size of Clark's bedroom at home and the bed, an ornate wooden canopy structure, maintained a similar ratio where it sat in the middle of one wall, enveloped in thick dark blue covers. A bedside table sat on either side of it and a reading area took up one of the far corners of the room. Everything was clean and fresh in a way that suggested it was kept constantly ready for visitors. Clark couldn't imagine why, he doubted Lex had very many, certainly not enough to fill even a fraction of the mansion.
Letting go of Chloe he took the chairs from the reading area and propped them against the closed door. She looked confused at the action, it obviously wouldn't stop a person much less what was chasing them. He simply smiled. "Noise. I don't want to let it sneak up on us."
Without any further discussion they collapsed on opposite sides of the bed, taking the time to drop their jackets on the floor their only concession to comfort. Neither of them even considered taking off their shoes. Lying on top of the soft covers, looking up at the blue canopy, Clark wondered how he was ever going to fall asleep.
He could still see it, one moment the thing had been staring at him, the next it had been flowing towards her and if he'd taken even the smallest fraction of an instant before reacting…
"Clark?"
But he hadn't.
"Yah?"
"You have allot of explaining to do."
He wondered if she'd want to see the spaceship.
"I know."
"Tomorrow." He heard her start moving around on the other side of the bed, shifting as if she couldn't get comfortable. Then a hand was pulling at his arm, lifting it out and away from his body. Chloe pressed herself against his side, laying her head on his chest as if it were a pillow. Moving his other arm, the one she wasn't lying on, Clark took hold of the hand that she'd spread on top of his shoulder and laced his fingers between hers.
Closing his eyes he briefly resisted the urge to bury his face in her hair before realizing that, really, there was no reason not to. A murmur of approval issued from her throat and he inhaled deeply through his nose.
She still smelled like raspberries. Maybe he'd be able to sleep after all.
Chloe fought to keep her eyes open but it was hard, really hard. In a single moment she had transitioned from stillness to movement in a way no person was ever meant to and the shear pressures involved had combined to push her back towards darkness. It was the more comforting darkness of sleep and unconsciousness that called her, but it didn't matter, she had no intention of giving in.
Chloe tried to watch, to understand what was moving before her eyes but it was too fast, too much to comprehend. Buildings, a field, a road, trees, all were individual snapshots extracted from an unfathomable kaleidoscope. Almost as soon as the journey had begun, it ended, the world slowly moving back into focus. When normality reasserted itself she found herself held in Clark's arms, surrounded by a cornfield, staring up once again into two concerned blue eyes.
She was alive.
So was Clark.
Nearly getting killed was a really bad habit, maybe they had rehab centers for it.
She had too many questions and all of them were fighting inside her head and begging to be asked. Taking a deep breath she pushed them aside, reached her arms around Clark's neck and simply held him. From somewhere far off the sound of sobbing found her ears. It took a while before Chloe realized it was her, crying softly and quietly into the neck of his jacket. Slowly he lowered her legs to the ground, but he didn't try to break the embrace. His arms slipped around her waste and she felt herself pulled tight against him.
They stayed that way for several moments before she finally noticed that Clark was saying her name. "Chloe? Chloe are you ok?" He sounded worried, really worried. She nodded before remembering that he couldn't see it.
Words, she could do words. You simply inhaled air, opened your mouth like so and then exhaled…
A muffled whimper issued from some where in the vicinity of Clark's collar and she felt disgust with herself. One of his hands had reached up to slowly begin stroking her hair and then he was calling her name again. Now he sounded terrified.
Once again, she was a journalist and, damn it, she knew how to talk. Chloe breathed deeply several times before trying again to force her voice into coherency.
"I'm ok."
There, it wasn't so hard after all. Good for her. Chloe gets the 'not a mute' award.
Stepping back a little, but keeping a loose grip on him because she just couldn't stand the idea of letting go, she leaned back until she could make out all of his features. He looked extremely relieved and she got the distinct impression that he'd thought that he broke her. She was about to try and say something else, anything, when all of the sudden he turned his head in the direction of Smallville. She turned to look as well, but there was nothing but fields surrounded by more fields with even more beyond that. "It's coming Chloe, following."
The pronouncement held the same finality as a death sentence and she took several more deep breaths. Was that how someone reached a state of hyperventilation? One deep breath at a time…?
"Do you trust me?" He was looking at her as if he was afraid something had changed. The fear in his eyes said that he thought a single revelation might be able to wipe out every smile, every goofy moment, every link that had been built between them over the years since they first met.
Typical Clark.
"Don't be silly." She smiled, trying to tell him without words that everything was going to be ok. All things considered she hoped he believed her because if they really were being followed, she didn't want to be there when the creature arrived. There were two black eyes that she never, ever, ever, wanted to see again as long as she lived.
"Hold on."
Chloe closed her eyes as he leaned forward, waiting for him to do whatever he was about to do. Her legs were once again lifted from the ground, which was good because they'd been a bit too shaky to be considered entirely functional, and his arms held her tightly against his chest, which was also good for entirely different reasons. She snuggled into the crook of his neck and wrapped her arms around him, waiting.
Waiting for… what?
She opened her eyes and took the briefest of peeks before closing them again, the accelerating blur of the cornfields having caused a queasy sensation in her stomach. Of course, waiting for Clark to remind her that he must be a long lost sibling of Speedy Gonzalez, now she remembered.
The back door at Lex's mansion opened with a single sharp twist of Clark's wrist, permanently destroying the lock and allowing them entrance to the interior.
"Wow." Chloe sounded impressed, normally he would have hid something like that but…
But it didn't matter anymore. She knew.
"That's how you got us in to see the body at animal control, isn't it?"
"Sort of." He moved aside to let Chloe into the building, taking the time for one last searching gaze out into the night before he followed.
The room lit up when Chloe flicked a switch on the wall. The interior, like the majority of the Luthor mansion, was filled primarily with warm hard woods and a bright white ceiling. The few pieces of furniture in the sparsely populated entranceway, two tables, a mirror, a bookshelf, were ornately carved antiques.
"Clark, we need to turn on all the lights." Chloe looked mostly recovered from the ordeal and ready to get down to the very serious business of survival.
"What?"
"Do you remember the lamps?"
"He broke the ones near your car."
She nodded. "Maybe he did that for more than just scare tactics."
Clark remembered the thing, moving as if it was a part of the darkness, its black eyes filled with the same shadows that it used like a cloak. No matter how hard he tried he couldn't imagine that face revealed in the dimmest of lights. "What if he needed the darkness for some reason… he almost looked like he was part of it."
"Exactly, did you see how he just appeared like that? One second we were alone and in the next he just… broke away like he was… " She shook her head, unable to finish.
Chloe moved to head up the stairs and he frowned. They shouldn't separate; it wouldn't be safe. "Chloe, where are you going?"
"Upstairs, to turn on more lights."
"Wait." Clark took one of her hands in his own. "Lets just stay together, ok? Isn't that what always happens in those Halloween movies of Pete's? The two teenagers split up…"
"And someone comes along and cuts the girl into pieces." She squeezed his hand in acknowledgement.
Together, they proceeded upwards.
Several minutes later they felt much safer, and the house was consuming more electricity than some small communities. Clark stared out the window while several feet away, Chloe talked to her father on the phone in Lex's office.
"No dad, I'm fine it was just… I'm not alone, Clark is here and we're perfectly safe. No we didn't, well yes I guess we did break in but Clark is Lex's favorite person, he won't mind. No! Don't come to get me." Clark could hear the frustration in her voice. They'd agreed that if they were being followed, the last thing either of them wanted to do was lead it back to other people. "Just trust me, please, I promise that I'll explain everything tomorrow. Ok, yes, I love you too."
Relief. He must have agreed to stay home.
"Dad this is Clark we're talking about, remember? Yes, exactly. I'll tell you tomorrow. Bye." The receiver clicked and she stepped back from the phone and looked out the window. "We could always keep running."
"No, I think you're right. It won't come after us as long as we stay inside." It wasn't so much a statement of logic, as it was a statement of instinct.
"Why here?" She turned to look at him, arms wrapped around herself.
She looked cold.
"Lex is in Metropolis this week, his new staff lives in town." Clark shrugged. "I knew there wouldn't be anybody here."
"Makes sense."
Awkward silence filled the air and Clark simply waited. He knew that sooner or later the questions would come but he hadn't yet figured out how to answer them.
"I'm tired." Was she pouting? Her lower lip was protruding ever so slightly as if to say 'pity me'.
"Then we'll sleep."
"There's no way you're leaving me alone in one of those guest rooms."
The thought had never occurred to him. Taking her hand he led her out into the hall. Clark wondered briefly if there were any horror movies set in mansions.
Probably
The guestroom was easily three times the size of Clark's bedroom at home and the bed, an ornate wooden canopy structure, maintained a similar ratio where it sat in the middle of one wall, enveloped in thick dark blue covers. A bedside table sat on either side of it and a reading area took up one of the far corners of the room. Everything was clean and fresh in a way that suggested it was kept constantly ready for visitors. Clark couldn't imagine why, he doubted Lex had very many, certainly not enough to fill even a fraction of the mansion.
Letting go of Chloe he took the chairs from the reading area and propped them against the closed door. She looked confused at the action, it obviously wouldn't stop a person much less what was chasing them. He simply smiled. "Noise. I don't want to let it sneak up on us."
Without any further discussion they collapsed on opposite sides of the bed, taking the time to drop their jackets on the floor their only concession to comfort. Neither of them even considered taking off their shoes. Lying on top of the soft covers, looking up at the blue canopy, Clark wondered how he was ever going to fall asleep.
He could still see it, one moment the thing had been staring at him, the next it had been flowing towards her and if he'd taken even the smallest fraction of an instant before reacting…
"Clark?"
But he hadn't.
"Yah?"
"You have allot of explaining to do."
He wondered if she'd want to see the spaceship.
"I know."
"Tomorrow." He heard her start moving around on the other side of the bed, shifting as if she couldn't get comfortable. Then a hand was pulling at his arm, lifting it out and away from his body. Chloe pressed herself against his side, laying her head on his chest as if it were a pillow. Moving his other arm, the one she wasn't lying on, Clark took hold of the hand that she'd spread on top of his shoulder and laced his fingers between hers.
Closing his eyes he briefly resisted the urge to bury his face in her hair before realizing that, really, there was no reason not to. A murmur of approval issued from her throat and he inhaled deeply through his nose.
She still smelled like raspberries. Maybe he'd be able to sleep after all.
