AN: Sorry this took so long, I have a terrible habit of NEVER FINISHING ANYTHING, but I've made a pledge to finish this fic, no matter what it takes. Even though I can't stand to watch Smallville anymore. It's not that I don't love it anymore, it's just that I can't stand to see Lex and Clark grow apart. I've gotta say, no matter what I write in my fics, I am a hardcore Clex shipper and it hurts to watch my dreams crumble :P So this will very likely be the last and only Smallville fic I ever post. Luckily I've got a couple others on the way, in other fandoms.
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The days in Gotham are slowly getting cooler. Leaves turn and dark comes sooner every day, and Clark and Smiley live in relative peace. Smiley's golden brown roots begin to show and she doesn't dye them, and Clark takes that as a good sign. He doesn't put the ring back on; instead, it rests innocuously in a small lead box in the back of the freezer.
Clark spends a lot of time thinking about his life before and during the ring. There is a small terrace leading out from their bedroom, and he sits there. Sometimes Smiley appears with two big mugs of tea or cocoa and sits with him, but as the seasons turn the wind from the harbour brings a chill that she can't stand for long.
They talk more and fuck more, and she smiles more since Clark removed the ring. Clark hopes it was for the best, because he can see the good in Smiley, he can see the slow but steady change in her demeanour and self-esteem. But Clark remembers the rushes and highs he would get from the ring. He remembers the feeling or power and lack of guilt and tries to balance it with the good things he's experienced since he put the ring away.
He hasn't attempted to call anyone because he feels certain that he would be commanded to do the same thing by anyone he spoke to: come home immediately! He doesn't want to go home; he can feel the heavy stares and fingers of suffocating guilt straining across the country just to wrap him in their tendrils. He sometimes wonders about (notmomanddadnotmomanddad) Martha and Jonathan. When he last saw Jonathan he seemed angry with Clark, but also very sad.
I caused that, he thinks. He can almost see Martha crying in the barn, Jonathan trying his best to be strong. He knows that his hope that they will be okay is futile.
Some nights he wakes up to Smiley's gentle shaking, and her soft voice telling him he was screaming. Most nights he sleeps as little as possible. He stares into the darkness and his brain concocts vivid fantasies of monsters and demons coming out of the shadows to carry him down to hell where he belongs.
He doesn't feel sixteen.
He's stopped reading the newspapers. They don't print stories about his bank robbery or Lex's return anymore, but he can't bring himself to pick one up. He's afraid there will be something that compels him to go home. Or maybe he's afraid of seeing something to remind him he doesn't belong here. Maybe he'll see Lex's smirking face looking up from the front page. Maybe he'll see nothing at all, and that's what scares him the most.
Maybe the world will have gone on without him, and no one will remember him except to say: Clark Kent? Wasn't he the kid who ran away a while back?
He'll be a distant memory. Which is the way it should be, maybe, but not the way he wants it anymore.
Clark hates going out. Smiley is a party animal; she loves going out and dancing the night away, and most nights Clark ends up going with her, if only to make sure she gets home safe. He's made her his first priority now. She's the one he has to take care of, and most days he's up to the challenge. It's best if he has something to focus on to keep his mind off of everything else, and Smiley serves that purpose.
At times like this, when the moonlight is filtering through the curtains and Smiley is fast asleep beside him and her breathing starts to link up with his. . . There's nothing to match it.
There's something about calm, cool autumn nights that Clark never noticed before. Perhaps it's because things are so different in Gotham. In Kansas (which Clark can only bear to think about at times like this when nothing can touch him and everything seems okay) he didn't spend many nights lying awake, in fact he rarely stayed up later than 11PM. Sometimes he wishes there was someone with him to soothe away his bad dreams and fears, but he knows if there were he wouldn't be able to appreciate moments like these as much as he does.
And anyway, Clark is different in the city. In the country, if something went wrong, he knew about it right away. This meant that he could run off to save the day every time. But in the city there's something going on every minute, the sounds of the hurt and the violence could swallow him whole and spit him out and make him crazy.
The ring took all that away, unless he was really looking for trouble. The part of Clark that was filled with self-doubt and loathing, and wanted to shrivel up and die could usually be pushed aside. The part that replaced it was more confident and self-assured. The new Clark could do anything, be anything. The new Clark could launder money in seven different states without breaking a sweat. The new Clark could tune out the voices, the screaming, the crying forever, unless he was looking for trouble.
Clark remembers himself before he donned the red ring as a child. Eager to please and help others. Never serving himself. There's something about the way he was that makes Clark cringe. He hates that he was so desperate for human touch and human love that he tried to get it from everyone. He hates that the old Clark couldn't make the tough choices.
The old Clark would have gone running home the minute that ring was off, with no thought to Smiley or the trouble he put her through. He stirs restlessly at the thought of leaving her.
"Baby. . ." Smiley stirs and turns, her hand sliding over his bare chest and pulling him closer. The touch calms him instantly. "Go to sleep." Clark settles and closes his eyes, but stays awake.
There's nothing in his mind right now, and to him that's almost as good as a long and uninterrupted sleep.
When Clark wakes in the morning it is with lethargic surprise; both that he slept, and that Smiley left the bed without waking him. But he relishes the morning with unusual languor, coming to full consciousness slowly and lazily, stretching and flexing until his body feels awake enough to finally rise from the bed.
Clark finds Smiley in the kitchen. Her sunset lips are half open, and her cheeks are flushed. Her eyes are blank, and a slight frown creases her brow.
"Smiley." He says her name twice more before her eyes refocus and she swallows.
"Kal." She says. "I just saw you on TV." She gestures to the small set on the counter, where a morning talk show was just beginning. "It said you were missing. It said your name was Clark. And you're only sixteen years old." Her voice is breathy, like she's in shock.
Clark freezes, and the canned laughter from the television is directed at him, and her tears are drowning him, and the air is suffocating him and everything is ending and dammitsomeone's finally decided he just can'tignore everything anymore.