TITLE: As It Is Only[3/6]
AUTHOR: Nymph Du Pave
FANDOM: Smallville
PAIRING: Lex Luthor/Clark Kent.
RATING: R
AUTHOR'S EMAIL: nymph_du_pave@hotmail.com


As It Is Only
By Nymph Du Pave

"Do you think I'll ever find her?" I asked, holding a picture of me, Pete and Chloe. We were all twelve at the time and Chloe had not yet gotten into the habit of making her own clothes. It was also before she had cut her hair in the style of Ellen DeGeneres, so it was long and in a ponytail, her mud-smeared white clingy-tee and stained short-shorts reflecting what had once been a tom-boyish streak.

"I think you'll find you're one and only," Chloe returned in a guarded tone. I looked up to catch a look that matched her voice. "As long as you don't get too heavily interested in labels and keeping them politically correct."

I rolled my eyes. "And what does this newest Chloe Codicil mean?"

She grinned and went back to packing the last of her bric-a-brac. "Oh, I think you will, in time, find out, love."

I sighed a big, heavy, 'the-world-will-never-understand-me' sigh and tossed myself dramatically onto her bed. I remember the one time I had turned to her for console for I had been in such a depressed state but had not been able to pinpoint the exact cause. I just knew it wasn't Lana, and when it wasn't Lana that depressed me, Chloe was the cure.

That night we had gotten drunk, and confessions were uttered that, in the light of the bright, much too cheery hangover sunlight, had been flushed from memory. I've always felt such a loss at that. It had been a good night, an important night and I can't help but think that Lana, Pete and... and Lex were involved somehow. Unwittingly, unknowingly, but still involved.

Still integral.

"I'll miss you, Clark," and before I could look up at her there was a weight on the bed beside me that belied her new position. I automatically embraced her lying form next to mine, not yet opening my eyes. "Then don't go."

She laughed, but I heard the tears she forced her will to hide. "Then I wouldn't grow. We all need to grow, Clark. My growth is Metropolis. Yours is- is here. Right now anyway."

I opened my eyes, suddenly gripped with the need to be reassured. "How can you know that?" My hand tightened on her waist. "How can you possibly-"

"Just trust me, Clark," she whispered and that was all I needed. Because I did. And even if she was wrong, she thought she was right.

For some reason, so did I.



To be continuted tomorrow.