Everything In This World

By Viv

*~*~ Part Twenty-One ~*~*

Chloe walked determinedly along the road.

She was faintly aware that to passers-by with only a modicum of interest, she would have looked like a slightly deranged blonde walking along the side of the road, a goofy grin plastered permanently on her face for no sane person reason at all.

But what those perfect strangers would not have known was the reason for that said smile, the reason - or rather, the person, who just happened to be a certain rich, bald-headed individual who had achieved what no male had ever achieved before. That was, made Chloe ridiculously, cliche-droppingly happy, so much so that even her almost infinite capacity for snark and sarcasm had been overcome - with some very interesting results.

One such result was the complete disregard Chloe now had towards anything that resembled rational thought. Where before she might have been compelled to analyse and turn over anything and everything that had been said by Lex during their conversation in her mind and extrapolate all possible reasons and or motivations, she just couldn't be bothered right now. It was almost as if her somewhat giddy happiness had succeeded in crowding out any semblance of what Chloe would call her normal self.

In short, she was slightly tipsy with happiness - which was so far off the scale of the normal Chloe spectrum she might as well be in an alternate dimension.

She wasn't even all that perturbed about her upcoming conversation with Lana about a certain cute but occasionally mopey farm boy. Chloe knew she should have been worried; if not for the whole Lex happiness that was crowding out rational thought thing, she would probably still be reeling from her conversation with Clark earlier in the day.

Even now as her mind reluctantly touched on the thought, it succeeded in dragging her down from cloud 347 back to cloud 9. It was probably a good thing, Chloe thought. She was getting a bit too bloated from all the floating around in the stratosphere of emotions like some giant insanely happy Chloe-balloon.

It was certainly sobering to think that Clark and Lana, whose relationship Chloe had always thought so impenetrable given the whole Clark worship slash Lana in danger moments, could actually fall apart due to something as mundane and ordinary as a slight Chloe infatuation. It was just incredible - like she had just witnessed something akin to a miracle, except of the bad variety.

So now she was trudging faithfully to Lana's house, ostensibly to grab the assignments that she had missed yesterday, but in reality trying to do her part for the good of freakishly good looking couples everywhere and her sanity. Because what kind of world would make sense if Clark and Lana weren't together but she and Lex were?

It was a scary, scary thought.

At last Chloe reached Lana's house. All seemed still and quiet as she trotted up to the front door, rapping loudly against the frame. A languorous half-drowsiness seemed to pervade the still air around her as Chloe waited for an answer, absently scratching her shoulder and running her hands through her hair.

Chloe looked around, squinting at the fresh brightness from the sun. She couldn't be sure whether she had left Clark enough time to talk to Lana; even more uncertain was the reception that Chloe was going to get from the ex-fairy princess herself. After all, Chloe wouldn't exactly count it insanity if Lana decided to stab Chloe in the back with a very thick ice pick - it was probably what Chloe would want to do in Lana's place.

The desired nervousness and anxiety came flowing back as she turned her attention more fully onto the issue at hand. Chloe obviously had not deliberated enough as to what exactly she was going to say to Lana. She had this funny feeling that 'Clark's totally not into me, so you guys deal, okay' wasn't going to repair the damage that had been done to Lana's feelings. And to add guilt to already heaped layers of guilt, Chloe was feeling such a state of contented happiness that she had physical trouble wiping that silly grin off her face, which was a huge deal, since the last time a silly grin like that had graced Chloe's not-so-angelic visage was the day after never.

A slight rustling brought her attention back onto the present. The door opened, revealing Lana in all her rumpled glory. The normally perfectly groomed ex-cheerleader looked somewhat frazzled, and even to Chloe's untrained eyes, she didn't look like she had spent too much time on her appearance. Her usually lustrous hair looked dull, although it still managed to fall about her shoulders artfully. Her large eyes seemed tired and inert, and upon closer examination, they also seemed to rimmed with a suspicious redness. If Chloe hadn't known better she would have guessed that Lana had been crying.

This was definitely a sign of the bad.

"Oh ... hi Chloe." Lana greeted her pleasantly, although Lana's trademark freakishly nice smile was definitely missing in action. Maybe it was hiding, Chloe thought desperately. She stuck her hands in her pockets.

"Hey Lana." Chloe replied, her nervousness coming to the fore. Non-smiling Lana signalled a very serious turn of events. It was like Armageddon, except more improbable and scary.

She hated to think what Lana thought of her right now. Hopefully not murdering Chloe thoughts, although that would have been her best guess. "I ah ... I just wanted to pick up the assignments. I mean, for school. The ones I missed out on yesterday."

"Oh." Lana looked slightly taken aback before she motioned for Chloe to come into the house. Immediately the cool darkness of the air soothed her heated skin, although it did nothing to calm the torrent of guilt rising up in her gut. For Lana to have looked this glum and relatively unpleasant meant that the Clark grovelling might not have actually worked, which meant that Chloe was a horrible person who had succeeded in breaking up Clark and Lana before attaining happiness of giddy proportions with Lex. All of which made her a bad, bad person and -

Okay, she should really shut up now.

Lana rummaged around the stack of papers on the table while Chloe looked on awkwardly. She was desperate to say something about the Clark situation, but didn't quite know how to begin. Obviously girlie small talk wasn't going to cut it, nor would a corker starting with 'So Clark tells me you two broke up, what's up with that' wasn't going to cut it either.

"So ... how are you?" She casually asked, hoping that her ulterior concern was better hidden than it normally was. Sometimes she had the vaguely unpleasant suspicion that she was almost as transparent as Clark.

Lana looked up from the table, startled by the seriousness in Chloe's voice. "What do you mean?" She scrutinised Chloe carefully, clearly puzzled by the desperate undercurrent that must have been emanating from her.

"You know ... life. How is life going for you?" Chloe inwardly rolled her eyes at her transparent awkwardness, but resolved to plod on regardless. If she was dipping her oar into the murky sea of romantic guidance of her best friends' relationship, she might as well go the whole way. So what if it involved falling in and dying a horrible, watery death? She took a deep breath. "I talked to Clark today."

A single brow arched elegantly upwards as Lana looked on expectantly, although her expression remained carefully closed.

Lana's expression almost made Chloe tremble. This was definitely something that she had not witnessed before - this other Lana who didn't give anything way, who didn't smile or frown or do anything that might have been construed as human emotion. She looked like a statue - a very blank looking statue. "This is probably none of my business and normal people would just butt out because it's not any of their business and they would know it. But you know me better than that." She plonked herself down onto a seat by the table, sprawling awkwardly over the edge of the table. She continued. "Lana, I know you guys have been having the issues. But you know every relationship has their issues, and if there weren't any issues then it wouldn't be a relationship and it wouldn't make sense and it wouldn't mean anything." She looked up at Lana intently, willing the other girl to understand the sincerity in her voice. "I mean, I've known Clark for so long - he's one of my best friends and there's almost nothing that we haven't been able to say to each other. And as one half of his official best friend committee I'd like to inform you that if there's one thing that Clark wanted and loved and craved most in this world - is you. Just ask Pete. We've been putting up with the constant exposition about your perfection for so long we even have a code for it. It's like ... it's like a part of Clark, this part where he just totally and completely is in love with you and so what if he experiences what I like to call as a moment of insanity by admitting his slight Chloe-crush because let's face it, you're the one he always loved and probably always will and if you don't recognise that then you just probably don't deserve a guy like Clark. And even though I just said that I hope we're still friends."

Chloe abruptly stopped. She was actually out of breath, a condition that she had only experienced while being forced to run for her life from some evil Smallville-bred meteor freak. The feeling was almost as unpleasant as the one she was feeling right now, waiting in breathless anticipation for Lana's reaction. As best as her confused brain could figure, there was about a fifty-fifty possibility between Lana throwing Chloe out of the house and Lana bitch-slapping her and then throwing her out of her house.

With these thoughts running rampantly through her head, Chloe was taken completely by surprise as warmth and humour diffused over Lana's slightly pale face.

Lana actually laughed, a uniquely fervent laugh that seemed to bubble up from some unfathomable depth and becoming exposed to the light of day. Her eyes shone with something like wicked humour and it took Chloe a few seconds to work out that Lana was actually laughing at her.

Finally her laughter subsided into barely tolerant giggles. "I ... I'm sorry Chloe." She wiped the tears of merriment that were streaming out of her eyes. "Clark came over this morning and told me that he'd talked to you. We ... kind of worked out our issues. At least, I think we're going to get through them." She smiled self-deprecatingly. "I was jealous. I mean you and Clark have this great friendship and in so many ways you know him better than I do. And ... when he admitted that he still had feelings for you it all just came tumbling out. It was like - all those years we lived less than a mile from each other and I never knew what was right there in front of me, you know? I guess I was more jealous because you had the good sense to really see what a great person Clark is and I didn't, and look at all the stuff I missed out on." She smiled sheepishly. "So I think I kind of ... overreacted."

"Oh." Chloe leaned back, stills stunned by the obvious lack of any ill-feeling that Lana had towards her. She knew she had said it before, but Lana was just so unendurably nice. She also felt strangely relieved that she wasn't one friend short today, which explained her notable lack of articulating anything that resembled a complete sentence.

Lana sniffled and cleared her throat, coughing raggedly. "Sorry, I'm just slightly sick." She let out several more coughs as she reached for the box of Kleenex beside Chloe. "Scratch that, I'm really sick. I'm sorry if I gave you the impression that I was mad at you or anything." Her eyes twinkled as she grabbed a nearby shawl, wrapping it around her slim frame.

"Oh. No big." It was about all Chloe could manage. It kind of felt strange to have said all those things to Lana, that was, besides the obvious strangeness about being Clark's ambassador to Lana. It somehow served to put some sort of final closure on the whole her being in love with Clark thing. It was like a box had been closed in her mind, that no matter what happened between her and Lex in future, she would never again fall under the spell of the unique Kent charm. It was kind of scary and exhilarating at the same time. "Well, it's good that you're not mad at me. I was kind of worried there for a while." She ventured. "So you and Clark are back together?"

Lana grinned between racking coughs. "Why do I get the feeling that you're relieved?"

"Oh ... no reason." Chloe said, feigning innocence. "Just glad that there isn't any badness on my account, you know."

Lana nodded thoughtfully. "So did you enjoy yourself with Lex at Metropolis yesterday?" She asked slyly.

"How did you know that I went to Metropolis?" Chloe asked, uncomfortably aware that Lana was trying to pry something out of her. Being Lana's friend had increased Chloe's perception about the former cheerleader, and while Lana was one of the nicest people she had ever met, there was also the side of her that wasn't above a little friendly manipulation in order to get the information that she wanted.

"Clark told me he saw you buying coffee at the Talon yesterday morning with Lex." She paused, chewing on a strand of hair. "So what was it like spending the entire day with him?" She prodded, her eyes holding a world of conjecture as they stared intently at Chloe's.

At the mention of Lex's name, Chloe couldn't help but break out into an irrepressible grin. It was all very well for Chloe to keep Lana's curiosity at bay when it came to more mundane matters like her job interview, but it was an entirely different matter when she oh-so-skilfully threw Lex into the equation. It was almost as if the other girl could sense her innermost thoughts and feelings.

Although judging by the insane grin that had been in evidence on her face since leaving Lex's place, it probably hadn't taken that much of Lana's sixth sense to tell that something of the good had happened.

"It was ... good." Despite her best efforts Chloe could not stop her grin widening to gigantic proportions. This was so not a good thing for a future reporter in the making.

Lana looked on expectantly, leaning forward in obvious anticipation.

"Okay it was great." Chloe finally exploded. "For no sane person reason, Lex likes me, which is - and I'll say it again - insane. But this ... I've never felt like this before." She sighed dreamily, grasping for the right superlatives. "It's like, I feel so comfortable and natural around him and even though we verbally spar a lot, that just adds to the fun, you know? It's different but good ... I don't know. It's great and it's new so I don't really know what's going to happen. He's so gentle and sweet even though he doesn't look like it and let's face it, kind of sexy, don't you think?"

Lana nodded sagely before she broke out into a smile. "So would this be a good time to say 'I told you so'?" Lana asked cheekily.

Chloe's eyes narrowed, before she giggled insanely. "Don't think I won't get you back for that." She joked, grabbing a wad of tissues from the box and throwing them towards Lana, who skilfully dodged the flowery missiles, cracking a smile between sniffles.

The two girls looked haplessly at each other before collapsing into hopeless giggles. For Chloe, the day could almost have been described as perfect. First she had cleared things up with Clark and now she knew that she and Lana were going to be okay. And of course, the sweet chocolate-y icing on her already really very yummy cake - she had Lex.

And the day wasn't even over yet.

(c) August 2002