Kaleidoscope
by Lener
Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters in Smallville.
Chapter One
Chloe dialed the combination of her school locker, then with a forceful pull she yanked the door open and began to pull out the textbooks that she needed.
Sensing movement behind her, Chloe whirled around to find herself face to face with a medium-built, cocoa-skinned boy.
"Whoa," Pete (short for Peter) Ross, her friend, said, "how did you know I was coming?"
Chloe smiled at her friend, "Paranoid, I guess. After I've been dragged into the weirdness of all things Smallville, I've become more alert, I guess." Chloe stepped away from her locker as she closed it, then headed down the corridor. Pete fell into a step beside her.
"Doing a lot of guessing today, eh?" Pete grinned, revealing pearly white teeth.
"A lot on my mind, I…" Chloe caught herself just in time a Pete laughed again. She stuck her tongue out at him.
"Hey… where's Clark?" Chloe asked, secretly proud that she could say his name out loud without a waver in her voice. She'd gotten to school early so she could work on an article for The Torch, and so she had assumed that Pete would arrive together with Clark.
"I don't know, he stopped by at Lana's locker to talk to her about something," Pete stared at Chloe with eyes that seemed to hold pity.
Chloe's heart thumped faster. Did Pete know? Was it that obvious? Did he suspect anything? I don't need his pity. Chloe thought bitterly, then stopped herself. She was being paranoid- again. But still she could not help but wonder if she had seen the pity in Pete's eyes.
"Come on, let's go or we'll be late for class," Chloe said, finally finding her voice.
"All right. I hope Clark survives his encounter with Lana," Pete smiled. Chloe playfully swatted his arm and sighed.
"You make her sound like Godzilla," Chloe said as they walked to class.
*
Clark watched until Pete rounded the corner, then slowly advanced to Lana Lang's locker. Whitney was nowhere in sight, which was a good sign.
Feeling a little like a stalker, Clark watched as Lana pulled out the books from her locker. A sliver of sunlight caught her silky brown hair and it shone bronze in the hallway. It's so bright, Clark thought as he gazed at the girl. But not as bright as Chloe's, another voice in his head piped up. Clark started. Where had that thought come from?
Just at that moment, however, a few books slid off the tower of books that Lana had been trying to carry. Without thinking, Clark jumped up and seized a book before it hit the floor. Lana's head snapped up in surprise.
"Clark," she gave him her dazzling smile, making him feel as if his heart had stopped beating.
"Hey Lana. You trying to break the world record for holding the most number of books?" Clark grinned as he placed the textbook on top of her pile. Stay calm… don't forget to breathe in and out deeply, he had to remember to tell himself as he stared down at her.
"No, I just decided to clean out my locker," Lana tossed her hair over her shoulder and shrugged. "You never know what sort of old junk you'll find in it," she added.
Just then, Clark caught sight of Whitney's blond hair down the hallway. It was time to avoid a stare fest with the captain of the Smallville High football team.
"I'd better go. Bye, Lana," Clark gave her one last grin and dashed away towards his first class of the day.
The bell rang just as Clark burst through the doors. He had just enough time to nod at Pete and take his seat next to Chloe before their English teacher stepped in.
'Where were you?' Chloe mouthed to him as they flipped open their texts. 'Lana,' Clark mouthed back, and Chloe gave him a coy smile.
*
The last bell rang, and Chloe stuffed her books into her bag before heading out of the classroom and straight to the Young Authors' Club meeting that was held every Thursday.
Chloe's first love had always been writing and journalism. Since she was about 6 or 7 years old, she had been going around and checking out the "scoop" on her family members and relatives. They had all nicknamed her "little reporter" since she was small. That was probably why she had signed up (almost immediately) for Journalism club, Young Authors' Club and Computer club.
Chloe was the fastest typist in Computer club, excluding Clark, of course. Chloe had been amazed at his typing skills when he handed in a report just 30 seconds after she had asked him to copy it out. After that he'd gone to watch the football game and Lana, of course.
Well, love made you do crazy things.
Chloe understood that.
Chloe was not sure if Clark "loved" Lana, but from her point of view, it seemed like a pretty bad infatuation. Deep down inside Chloe had wondered if she ever stood a chance next to pretty and famous Lana Lang the cheerleader. All the beautiful, popular and sweet girls always seemed to be the lucky ones in Smallville High. Chloe had always wished that perhaps one day Clark would learn to see people for who they really were, and like them for that one sole reason.
But perhaps for now, these feelings for her best friend would have to go.
She reached the room a minute later and pushed the door open, then lost herself in the ongoing meeting.
*
Clark reached for the old books in his locker and began to pile them up in his hands. It was amazing what things he found in the locker, almost smothered in a layer of dust.
He had stayed back after the school bell rang, eaten a quick lunch and now was taking to the task of cleaning out his locker, just like what Lana had been doing in the morning.
He stuck his hand inside the dark compartment and felt around. The edge of a paper met his fingertips, and Clark pulled out a photograph of him, Chloe and Pete. Chloe was standing in the middle, with Pete on her right and Clark on her left.
Clark smiled. He'd never realize how pretty Chloe looked. She was beautiful in her own way. Somehow, he had always thought of her as a tomboy, but only recently Chloe herself had snappily reminded both Clark and Pete that she was not a boy.
Just then, the door to his left burst open, and a stream of students filed out into the hallway, chattering away. Startled by the sudden outburst, Clark felt some books slid from his grasp. Someone dashed up to him to help, and their fingers met as the person caught the books before they hit the floor. The person quickly withdrew her fingers.
"Clark!" Chloe's voice sounded.
Clark looked up and found himself staring into Chloe's mint green eyes.
"You trying to break the world record for holding the most number of books?" Chloe grinned.
Struck by the sudden similarity between the both of them, Clark gazed at Chloe.
He's doing that intense gaze routine, but I'm not letting that get to me. Chloe bit her lip and sucked in a deep breath, trying to block out the mental image of Clark's mesmerizing green eyes.
"Hello? Earth to Clark, what's the matter?" Chloe tried, waving her hand in front of Clark's face. It seemed that after she'd made the comment he stalled. Had she said something wrong? Darn it… she always seemed to make the wrong impression in front of him.
Finally Clark seemed to snap out of his daze. He focused in Chloe and said, "Oh, hey, Chloe. I was just cleaning out my locker. Anyway, you said exactly the same thing as I said to Lana while I was talking to her this morning."
Chloe's heart sank and she watched Clark close the door to his locker. Right… Lana. That was all Clark had been talking about for the past few weeks. Of course, she was his best friend and she really did not mind helping him with his problems. But Lana was a different situation.
"Are you leaving now?" Clark asked, and Chloe nodded.
"So, what happened between you and Lana this morning?" Chloe asked as both of them walked down the almost empty hallway. Chloe tried very hard to listen to what Clark was saying about Lana, but somehow being so close to him and having him pour out all his feelings to her was unnerving. It felt so… nice.
The only bad thing was that he was talking about his feelings for Lana.
*
The man waited in the shadows…
He waited until one by one the lights on the street of the quiet part of Smallville went off. Silence lingered about the air that night. The brilliant ivory orb hung high in the sky, but it barely illuminated the lane of houses.
Now was the perfect time to strike.
But he had to choose his victim carefully…
Not all the citizens of this city would know who he was looking for…
Clark Kent…
Author's Note: Okay so this is my first try at writing a fic for the Smallville category. I just LOVE the show and I really think that Clark should be with Chloe, but right now I'm trying to take things slow and easy with their relationship. I'm going to develop on the plot about the villain, so tell me what you think in a review!