Ch. 11
As Clark sat down after grabbing a bite to eat and a glass of something that tasted like strawberries when he drank it but the aftertaste was more like lemons. He found the combination to be strange but not unpleasant. As he watched the next fight he thought about Chloe. He had seen the way she had looked at him, but had turned away before she could react to seeing him look at her. He didn't want her to give anything away that might make someone suspicious of their relationship. He didn't know what they would do if they found out what he was really doing here, but he doubted it would be pleasant for him or for the girls. After all, this was a rescue attempt, and the Ish-nith killed slaves if anyone attempted a rescue.
Clark's train of thought stopped as the last fight of this round began. The eighteenth fight was between a new fighter and the mysterious alien that Clark had first seen when he arrived at the trough. Clark heard the announcer call him Kronus. The name niggled at Clark's memory but he couldn't quite place it. The fight was over very quickly. The new fighter came at Kronus with a war cry. Kronus simply stood still and let the new comer run to him. Clark blinked just as the new fighter was about to hit Kronus and the fight was over. Kronus was standing just were he was before Clark had blinked but the new comer was flat on his back with a massive hole in his chest about twice the size of Clark's fist. Apparently the rest of the audience had seen it clearly enough that the announcer didn't say that there would be a replay. Clark wondered exactly what had happened but wasn't able to do anything about it because a break was called. All of the fighters would get a small break before the second round would begin.
Clark decided to use this time to check up on the girls. What he had in mind would be a little tricky, but he was sure that he could pull it off. He grabbed a couple of pieces of food that were similar to candy bars in shape and wrapping, but were actually some kind of breaded meat. He hid them on his person, figuring that the girls were probably starving by now.
Walking out of the Trough, Clark climbed the stairs until he reached the level where the girls were being kept. It was an open aired box with doors to either side. It wasn't guarded, but the guards from three levels above, where The Owner sat, were keeping a close eye on them. Plus all entrances and exits to the coliseum had several guards, not to mention that fact that they were on a ship floating over the Earth. The guards had little reason to worry about any escape attempt. However, they were just out of earshot if Clark kept his voice at a normal tone of conversation.
"So what did you think of my victory" said Clark in an arrogant tone of voice as he approached their box. He was careful to be just loud enough for The Owner and his guards to hear.
"Pretty impressive huh?" Clark continued.
As both sets of eyes shifted to him he made a motion with his eyes towards the box above them.
Chloe immediately understood his meaning and Lana wasn't far behind. Lana immediately scrunched up into a ball and started rocking back and forth. Clark could tell somehow that she was faking it and that she had apparently gotten over the trauma of the last couple of days, more or less. Clark wondered why he wasn't happier at the prospect of Lana no longer being afraid of him. In fact, he felt kind of disappointed. Not that she wasn't afraid of him any more, but that she might want to pick up where they had left off. Not that that was likely or anything, but the very thought of it was almost repulsive to him now. He wondered when this had happened. A month ago he had thought that he was still in love with Lana but what about two weeks ago? What about one week ago? What about when the meteor shower hit? Was he still in love with her then or had he stopped long before that and had simply been acting out of habit more than true feelings? Had it taken this much to finally make him realize that he hadn't really been in love with Lana for quite a while?
He cleared his head of the troubling thoughts when he realized that Chloe had just spoken to him. He reviewed the last few moments in his head and made the best reply that he could. Apparently it was satisfactory because Chloe didn't look upset. He drew closer to them and lowered his voice so that they could talk without being overheard. However, he made sure to continue to look as arrogant as ever. His tone of voice and the words that he spoke were another matter entirely.
"How are you? They didn't hurt you did they?" Clark said in a concerned voice.
"We're fine, and no they didn't hurt us. Are you ok? I saw that hit you took during the fight on the reruns." Chloe asked, concerned.
"I'm fine now. Fast healing is another trick that I have. Although at the time it hurt a lot. I've never been hit that hard before. It was a real lesson to me to be more careful. I do not want to be hit like that ever again." Clark said, only half joking.
Chloe was vastly amused by the way Clark's voice and his expressions were total opposites of each other. He kept changing his face into all of these different reactions, acting like he was holding a completely different conversation with her. For some reason it struck her as being absolutely hilarious and it was all that she could do not to laugh.
Clark saw the amused look on Chloe's face and didn't understand what was so funny about him being hit.
"What, exactly, is so funny Chloe?" Clark said in a low voice.
"The way you can look one way and speak another at the same time is hilarious. You could give acting lessons when we get back home."
"Not likely. Do you remember what happened the last time I tried to act in a school play?"
"How could I forget? It was the first time you saved my life, although I'm still not sure that it counts since you were the one that endangered my life in the first place."
"Hey, if you'll remember, you were the one who ran over that trip wire coming after me. I may have run off after the curtain fell because I messed up my only scene of the play, but that doesn't mean it was my fault that you ran over that trip wire coming after me."
"Yes it does."
"No, it doesn't. Not that that's the point. The point is that I stink at acting."
Both of them heard something coming from Lana that sounded suspiciously like "Bull foot."
Chloe backed her up. "Clark, she's right, when you have to be, you are one of the best actors in the world. You stink at lying to your friends and family, but when it comes to protecting that secret of yours or to protecting someone you care about you can act with the best of them."
Clark quirked his head to the side for a moment as he processed this and then grinned.
"Well, maybe." He admitted sheepishly.
"Maybe! There's no maybe to it. If you couldn't act better than the best you would have been found out a long time ago. When I think of some of the lame excuses and half truths that I've bought over the years it nearly kills me. It is so obvious now that I know the truth, but you did such a good job of obscuring the truth that everyone bought your stories."
"Ok, so I'm good at obscuring the truth and even at flat out lying some times. That isn't something that I'm proud of. I hate lying to people, especially to people that I care about. You know how Lois always accuses me of brooding or sulking, well a lot of the time that I brood is spent that way is because I've had to lie to someone recently when I really didn't want to. Lying to people hurts them. Sooner or later they find out and get hurt or they never find out and get hurt even worse by their ignorance. You've had both experiences with me and I hate the fact that I've caused you so much pain over the years. In the end there were two things that kept me from telling you the truth about me. One is safety. Yours, mine, my families, and my friends. Even the person walking down the street next to me is at risk if some loon or a person like Lionel finds out about me and try to take me out. Even with all of my abilities I can't be on alert twenty four seven. I have to sleep some time. I have to be able to unwind at times or I'll go insane. There is no way that I can protect everyone all of the time. No matter what I do, people around me are always going to be in danger and those who know about me will be first in line to be hurt. I don't know if I could live with myself if you got hurt because of me."
Clark paused for a moment to clear the images of Chloe getting hurt from his mind and then continued.
"The other reason is simple and very selfish. I didn't want to risk rejection. When Pete first found out he looked at me like he'd never seen me before and we've been good friends for most of our lives. He came around, but it took some pretty incredible circumstances to get him to come around. When he first found out it was like every nightmare I've ever had came true in that one instant. It spooked me for a while and showed me exactly why my parents had always told me never to tell anyone. After a couple of months I went back to normal for the most part. Having Pete know was one of the best things that had ever happened to me. However, I also saw something else in that time. Pete had to cover for me, lie for me, even to you. It was a real burden that I'd placed on him, and after a while it became too much for him. He moved to Wichita because of me and my secret. This reinforced my resolution never to tell anyone about me. I wasn't willing to put anyone else into that position."
"What about those who wanted to be in that position, who wanted to know about you, no matter what?" Chloe asked.
"They didn't know what they were getting into. They couldn't make an informed decision about it. Everyone always assumed that I was a meteor freak, which does have some small element of danger, but nothing compared to the dangers of the truth. They all thought that they were signing on to hide a motor boat when they were actually going to have to hide an oil tanker and because of that I couldn't allow them to make that kind of a decision." Clark said, looking directly into Chloe's eyes.
"Clark, it wouldn't have mattered to me. I would have chosen to know everything, even with the risks. I've been covering for you over the last month or so, so I know what I'm talking about. I would have chosen to know about all of this, even knowing the risks and the burden. I care about you enough to want to know everything about you, no matter the risks. I want you to promise me that you won't hide things from me anymore. I need to know that you trust me, especially with the things that can potentially hurt me. I need to know what I'm facing so that I can be prepared to help you and to defend myself. Please promise me that you'll be honest with me about EVERYTHING from now on." Chloe asked softly.
Clark paused for a moment before answering.
"You don't know what you're asking of me." said Clark with an almost haunted look.
"Yes, I do. I know what it will mean and I'm willing to live with it. In fact I want to live with it. I know that it won't be easy for you to tell me things that you think might put me in harm's way, but I need you to be honest with me at all times. Will you do that?"
Clark looked pained. He fought with himself, warred with himself, both sides of him fighting for dominance. The protective side of him wanted to protect her no matter the cost, but the other side of him realized that she was right. They would never truly be able to trust one another unless they both were completely honest about everything. Finally one side won, and he determined that he would tell her everything from now on, even if it hurt to do so, but he also intended to extract a promise of his own from her.
"All right, but I will need to have the favor returned if I'm going to be totally honest with you. Can you do that? Expose everything to me?" Clark asked very seriously.
All of the sudden Chloe was waging her own war. Could she tell Clark the truth from now on? It could easily mean her heart getting stomped on again. She though about it for a while and finally came to the conclusion that she could and would be honest with him from now on.
"All right, from now on we're totally honest with one another." Chloe stated.
Clark was mildly surprised that Chloe would agree to this, but he was determined to hold up his end of their new deal.
Suddenly both of them jumped as the announcer came on and told all of the contestants to go back to the trough as the next round was about to begin. Clark looked at Chloe and decided to start their deal here and now.
"Chloe, do me a favor and keep an eye on the guy they call Kronus. I have a bad feeling about him and to be honest you're more observant than me most of the time. I'll come back later and see if you've seen anything that I haven't, ok?"
"Ok." Chloe said.
"No heroics or anything, just a simple surveillance job from where you're sitting, ok?" Clark said.
Chloe immediately agreed, eager to help Clark, even in this small way.
Clark remembered the food he had brought for them and covertly snuck them to Chloe by pretending to try and grope her. Fortunately for him he had warned her ahead of time about what he was about to do so she cleverly slid away at the last moment and reached out to catch the food as he dropped it into her lap.
"Thanks." Chloe said, touched by his thoughtfulness.
"Not a problem. I'll see you soon."
Clark turned away and headed back to the Trough at a relatively fast pace. He had taken a little longer to leave Chloe than he had meant to. He was in enough of a rush that he didn't look up at The Owner. If he had, he would have seen curiosity gleaming in The Owner's eyes at what he had just seen.
One moment Kal-el had been acting like the boastful Kryptonian he knew him to be, and the next he had been acting completely different. This aroused his curiosity enough so that he told one of his guards to discreetly inquire about what Kal-el had been talking about so earnestly with those slaves. He authorized the guard to make whatever payments or threats he needed to so that he could get the information from the audience surrounding their booth. The Owner smelled the chance for profit in the air and was smart enough to know that he should look into whatever the Kryptonian was hiding. The strange way he acted around those two slaves told him that not everything was as it seemed. He told another guard to back track the Kryptonian's movements, starting with how he got on board and then he told him to track the Kryptonian's movements all the way back to Krypton if he could.
He smiled as he thought of how the multitude of ways he could use the Kryptonian. All he needed was the right amount of leverage.
TBC
