| WHAT WE HAVE LOVED |
Addendum: I changed details about how Chloe and Clark first met in Part 2. (05/18/02)
Obligatory Disclaimer: I don't own any of the Smallville characters, but, if I had the choice, I'd make Tom Welling my manservant. All events in this piece are fictional and are from the matrix of my own mind. Please don't steal. It's wrong.
Establishing Boundaries :
Clark didn't know what to make of it. He stared at the empty spaces and couldn't believe how confused he was. Words and letters became a jumble of strange symbols in his mind and he could feel his temper starting to flare. Chloe's expression of amusement was hidden behind her blonde hair.
"How in hell is anyone supposed to know who played the voice for the museum curator on The Simpsons?" Clark bellowed. He tossed the new edition of the Torch into the wastebasket, only to have its proud editor salvage it before it made contact with the gooey, undesirable contents of the trash.
"Ah, you must be talking about the infamous 33-down in the entertainment crossword," she mocked Clark. "It's Donald Sutherland."
Clark threw his arms in the air in surrender. "You see? Who else—other than the all-seeing, all-knowing media-queen Chloe Sullivan—would know something as trivial as that?" He took a seat in the school cafeteria with Chloe following after his long strides.
"Mickey Jenkins," Pete answered easily, "the boy who always constructs the entertainment crossword. He must be a hoot at Trivial Pursuit parties." He slid into the seat facing the bickering duo.
"Despite Clark's utter ineptitude regarding pop culture, that Donald Sutherland has bred a great looking son. Did you see the latest episode of 24? That Kiefer definitely needs to be making more Gap ads—yummy," Chloe marveled. She received Clark's rolling eyes at her comment.
"Is that all you think about? Guys?" Pete laughed. He exposed a white grin, creating a handsome contrast to his dark skin. " I thought you out of all people would appreciate the finer things in life, Chloe Sullivan."
"It's not my fault if some of these guys are the epitome of 'fine'," she replied. More rolling of Clark's eyes. To Chloe, that meant changing topics. "By the by, did you happen to see Lana today? I need to ask her about the article on the Geography class's field trip."
She wasn't sure why she had even said that cursed name, as she knew Clark Kent became lost in his own thoughts starring the elusive Lana Lang whenever her name entered the conversation. He raked a languid hand through his unkempt, auburn hair and didn't notice that his backpack had fallen to the dirty floor of the cafeteria, as he began his habitual staring into nowhere at the sound of Lana's name. Sometimes Chloe tried to get into Clark's mind and imagine how Lana must appear there. Would she be the shy, cute-as-a-button brunette who spouted lines like a Hallmark card or would she be the seductive temptress, which undoubtedly would be the majority of the images running through Smallville High's male population.
"Clark?" Pete called out, snapping his fingers in front of his friend's rosy face.
"I think we're losing him," Chloe muttered inaudibly to herself. Those words encapsulated her entire friendship over the years with Clark when the name Lana, and everything associated with it, competed for his undivided attention.
"Huh? Oh right," Clark finally responded. "I saw her right before lunch at the water fountain. I think she mentioned something about handing in her article to you after school." He continued to dig into his helping of strawberry Jell-O with a look of familiarity. "She was wearing a pink tank-top today. Very pretty."
Now it was Chloe's turn to roll her eyes, with Pete shaking his head and grinning. But somehow Clark never noticed to change the subject.
* * * * * * *
She was at home now, staring at her worn and scratched-up laptop as usual. Graduation was only months away and although that also meant house parties galore for the Smallville youth, Chloe intended to stay away from any distraction. She stared at her computer screen, which still remained blank. She had spent days trying to write something for her admissions piece to the Metropolis School of Journalism. The guidelines were that her piece could be based on events in her life or on current issues in the media. Her counselor had advised her to choose the latter topic; although innovative writing and style were the factors ultimately being scrutinized by the Metropolis academics, it was much more difficult to take an aspect of your life and make it something worthy of reading.
Chloe had given up. Of course, she could obviously choose to write about her experiences with the meteor shower's aftermath in Smallville. But she had already collected all of her articles from the Torch regarding such occurrences in her portfolio—most of them had already been tacked onto her "Wall of Weird" in the Torch office. No, she had to write about something new, something she had never written about throughout all of her journalistic endeavours. But what?
Finally, she turned the laptop off and glanced at the clock on her nightstand. "It's already 1:00AM?" she cried out incredulously, remembering it was a school night. How long had she been staring at her computer screen? She hardly felt tired as she made her way downstairs to the kitchen for midnight snackage. Her bare feet padded on the hardwood floor.
"Chloe!" called a voice from the window as she had just entered the unlit kitchen.
Chloe's heart almost stopped dead. The voice had come from outside of her house. She hated being scared, which was the main reason she refused to partake in Clark's Scream-fests at his house with Pete. She always tried to pass it off as an utter distaste for Wes Craven films, but her male friends were not easily fooled. They would repeatedly pull practical jokes on her, wearing Jasonesque hockey masks and other such Halloween paraphernalia.
She struggled with the light switch but finally managed it in the up-position. "Clark?" she whispered, as she peeked out the window above the kitchen sink. Sure enough, Clark was outside of her kitchen at an ungodly hour like the strange little boy he was.
"Chloe, let me in," he begged her. Without a rational thought, Chloe opened the side door for Clark and inside he came with his brown hiking boots kicking dirt into the house.
"Oops," he whispered. "I'll clean that up before I go." Chloe smirked and swaggered into the living room with Clark close behind her.
"How did I know you'd be up, too?" he asked rhetorically. He collapsed beside her on the plush sofa. "I'm sorry for coming by so late—I couldn't sleep. Right before I hit the sack, my parents were discussing colleges and universities that I should plan to attend. I started feeling really queasy with the thought of leaving this place but also with the thought of making a new life elsewhere. It was like there were a thousand possibilities running through my head and I wasn't sure which one to grab a hold of. And if I chose just one, I'd let another get away."
Chloe nodded. "I know the feeling," she replied, suddenly feeling embarrassed of her plaid, flannel pajamas with cartoon cows printed on them. She quickly tucked her knees up to her chest and wrapped her hands around her body. "But it's expected. We have only four more months left before we take off. I just hope I don't end up at Smallville Community College." Chloe stuck out her tongue in distaste.
"Can you believe we're going to graduate in June? It seems so strange to me," Clark continued, staring intently into Chloe's eyes. "I haven't even been to another country, let alone out of Kansas. Sometimes I wonder how naïve I really am when it comes to the world."
"Same here. All I've ever known was Smallville, minus the very limited vacations I've had in the past. When it all boils down, I feel like a Smallville girl at heart—'small' being the operative word."
"Nah," Clark shook his head and turned his body towards Chloe. "You'll get out of here. You have your writing and extreme potential. When I look at you, I see something great, Chloe."
Her breath caught in her lungs.
"I see us being friends for a long time, too."
Exhale.
And then: "I wonder where Lana is planning on going after high school."
Her heart felt like it imploded. Must force smile, she thought.
"I hope that if anything changes, it changes for the better."
That was what Chloe loved about Clark. He had an optimistic outlook to everything. He could point out road-kill on the side of the road and say "At least it died on an adventure across a busy highway. Cheers, little squirrel!" He saw the good in people and things. But that was all he ever saw. If he looked deeper than just "good" he might find the passion in people or, better yet, love.
Chloe had long since given up hope that Clark would turn his pristine blue eyes towards her and see the love emanating not only through her actions but also through her every word. She loved him. There was no denying it at this point. She had loved him since eighth grade when she had fallen from her bike while attempting an unorthodox trick she had seen on television. She had cut her knee very badly and Clark seemed to be the only one who had noticed her silent cries of distress and tended to her wound with his shirt. He had carried her to the nurse's office and held her hand as she squirmed with the nurse's application of a rather stinging and potent antiseptic.
The memory flooded her senses in the silence between her and Clark and quickly she reverted back to the freckled thirteen-year-old girl who melted at the sight of Clark Kent's kind blue eyes. Chloe almost forgot that they were now eighteen and on the verge of adulthood. Still, she melted.
"Er, Chloe?" Clark repeated. "Are you alright?" His hand gently clutched her shoulder.
"Oh," Chloe gasped. "Sorry. I guess I was daydreaming." She glanced out the window into the dusk. "Or just plain ol' dreaming."
Clark swiftly got up from his seat on the sofa and said, "I've been keeping you up. Sometimes I forget you have to wake up two hours earlier than Pete and I for your Torch responsibilities."
"Thanks for reminding me," Chloe grumbled. She, too, got up from her comfortable spot and led Clark to the side door.
"And thank you for listening to me," Clark told her as he kicked the dirt that he earlier brought in with him out the door. "Sometimes I forget how well you know me." He gave her a crooked grin. "Well, good night." He jammed his hands into the pockets of his thin jean jacket and, as Chloe turned away for just one moment, he was completely out of sight.
Something about Clark's last statement bothered Chloe as she closed the door behind him. For a while now, she wasn't quite sure how well she did know him. Lately he seemed to be keeping certain things from her. But as an aspiring journalist and, quite simply, a nosy friend, Chloe made a personal vow to find out just what those things were.
She shut the door and sluggishly walked up the stairs and into her room. The idea of another day at high school made her skin cringe. Soon she wouldn't feel the extreme torture of being somewhere she hated. Soon she would be working at the Daily Planet writing editorials about the travesty of the American federal government and the like. Soon she'd proudly hang her Pulitzer Prize on the wall of her cozy Metropolis abode. But first, she had to complete her admissions piece.
"Sigh" was her last thought before she fell asleep.