Aftermath.
"…young Clark didn't have many friends when he was growing up. His parents were always afraid that someone might find out his big secret, and he will no longer be able to pretend he was just a regular boy. But Clark did have friends, and they made up in their quality for their quantity. We've already told you that Clark was friends with Lex Luthor, after he saved him when his car crushed into the river. There was Pete Ross, who he grew up with from a very early age. There was Lana Lang, which he very much liked but was afraid to approach. And of course, there was Chloe Sullivan, who edited the school newspaper and had a wonderful "Wall of Weird" about all the weird occurrences in Smallville…"
- From A Child's History of Superman(2123), by Ross, Peter Lang III.
A dead, dark hour after midnight, when one, supposedly, could look her life in the face. Life's face was grim and disapproving at the moment, because Chloe had awakened to find herself alone in Clark's room. There was no note, but at least he had covered her with his blanket before leaving. She rose to a sitting position and tightened it around her naked body. The light was off, which suited her just fine.
'So, Chloe' she said to herself. 'Let's clear what's just happened. One: you deflowered Clark Kent. Two: he ran away like a scared rabbit. What's next?' Who would have thought that Clark, after Jessie, Kyla, his Very Special Summer Vacation in Metropolis, Alicia, and Lana (ok, that wasn't a surprise) would still be a virgin? It was her, with her limited experience on the matter, that guided him. She had to say he did rather well. In a way, she was part of the first mating experiment between humans and aliens. Then she remembered Clark's psycho of a birth father and Lana's great aunt.
In Chloe's opinion, there was a steady ground to the assumption that for generations, Kryptonians of House El were shown a picture of a relative of Lana (Clark told her that Lana's great aunt looked just like her) and were told to look her up for mating purposes when they reach that benighted planet.
She reached to the floor and felt around to find her bra, then her blouse, then found her panties and had to unwrap the blanket to put them on. If Clark wanted to avoid the aftermath, Chloe wasn't the one to force him into it. Hell, she didn't wantto have that inevitable, heart-to-heart discussion. Quite the opposite - Chloe had every intention of sparing herself Clark's lame 'I'm sorry' and/or 'I'm not over Lana,' and him looking ashamed. She knew he was going to feel guilty about the sex, even though he was the 'innocent' one before tonight.
She grabbed her pants and pulled them on. She was just going to tiptoe her way out through the hall, pray that no one would see her, and sneak back to her dorm. Next time she would see Clark, they would pretend that nothing ever happened, like they always did. It was going to be ok. Lots of best friends had sex in a moment of weakness, and managed to get things back to normal after that.
She was stuck in the position of being Clark's first, Chloe thought as she buttoned her jeans. First kiss, first he took flying, first sex. She tucked her feet into her boots, zipped them and stood up, passing her fingers through her hair and flattening it so she would be more presentable. Her bag made a dark silhouette against the floor, and she bent to pick it up.
They could still be friends, she told herself again as she shouldered the bag. Clark would want to put this unfortunate episode behind him as much as she did. It would take a week or two, but in the end, Clark would fly back to Lana, who was the Konrad Lorenz to his goose. He'd apologize for the horrible crime of being an alien, and, after a while, Lana would be kind and gracious enough to forgive him. Till next time. As much as she wanted to think that Clark deserved everything he was going to get from Lana, she still felt sorry for him, like she felt for Darwin award winners.
Careful not to run into things in the dark, Chloe made her way to the door. Her hand had almost touched the knob, when she heard Clark's "whoosh", and felt a burst of cold wind at her back. She sighed inwardly. So close and yet so far. She'd just have to stay and watch Clark staring at her with his puppy eyes. She turned around, just in time to see Clark shoving his mask inside the pocket of his black jeans. He was illuminated by the moonlight coming from the open window and, if she hadn't been so embarrassed, she would have thought he looked quite impressive.
"Um, hey," she said, carefully avoiding his eyes.
His eyebrows narrowed in a disapproving manner. "Were you just going to leave?" he asked.
"I figured it would be best for both of us," Chloe replied. "Besides, you shouldn't talk. It was you who left first." Not very mature, she thought, but true.
"I had some thinking to do," said Clark.
Thinking. How to explain the situation to Lana?
"Look, Clark, it's ok. Really. You were on the rebound, I wasn't thinking it through…we'll just call it temporary insanity. If you feel like confessing to Lana, it's ok. If not, I won't be the one to tell her." If Clark wanted to mess up his life, that was his business, even if it made Chloe sick to the stomach.
He took a step forward; she took half a step backwards, like in an old-fashioned dance. She turned away and reached for the light switch. The light helped diminish the unreal quality Clark had upon him at dark. Chloe normally didn't see the Superman in Clark, even when he wore his costume, but she did see it tonight, and she wondered why. Perhaps it was because she remembered how he looked like naked. That inhuman perfection. It was the small details, really; the lack of hair, the amazing density of his muscles.
"Chloe, we need to talk," Clark said quietly. Just like she expected, Chloe thought. He'd start with "I'm sorry", go on to "I'm not over Lana" (big surprise) and maybe "I took advantage of you" (to show he didn't think she was capable of making the decision to have casual sex herself, just like him).
Chloe sighed. She'll just listen and get it over with, she decided. She went to sit on the bed, trying not to blush when she remembered what they'd done here.
He sat on the chair next to his desk, never taking his eyes off her.
"Whatever it is, Clark, just say it," she told him. She was still trying to avoid his eyes.
"Ok…" he took a deep breath and exhaled, "Chloe Sullivan…will you marry me?"
"Are you out of your mind!" said Chloe without thinking. Then she looked at Clark's face and regretted it. She really could use a commercial break here, like the one that happened in every decent show after a marriage proposal. She closed her wide-open mouth and waited for an explanation.
"You don't have to sound so shocked," he said to her.
"I'm not supposed to sound so shocked?" asked Chloe, "Clark, you just proposed to me, out of the blue. Of course I'm supposed to sound shocked." It's the blonde hair, decided Chloe. Clark confused her with the late Alicia. Then a shocking thought came to her.
"Clark," Chloe said slowly, "Change your clothes. All of them, and toss those you're wearing to the other side of the room."
She saw the realization coming to his face. "You think I'm on Red Kryptonite." He said.
"Just do it, Clark."
"I'm not drugged, Chloe!" Clark yelled. He looked enraged.
"Prove it." Chloe crossed her hands over her chest and waited. She prayed she was wrong. She wondered if she could make it to her room, to the lead box under the bed.
"Fine," he said at last. A blur, and he was wearing his best clothes – she knew it because she picked them for him. He was wearing a tie now, for God's sake. It was a little lopsided, but she wasn't petty. The blacks he was wearing earlier were in a pile at the other corner of them room."
"Feel any different?" she asked.
"No!" he shouted.
"Shh!" she whispered. "You're going to wake the entire floor." If he wasn't drugged by that cursed rock, then what was it?
"I don't care! I can't believe you thought I was on red kryptonite."
"Clark, please. You come in and act completely out of character. Red Kryptonite was the first thing that came to my mind."
"Hmmph," said Clark, who appeared to understand the logic against his will.
"Well, I'm not on it, and I think it's a good idea." He began to pace the room, while Chloe watched him in disbelief. It wasn't Red Kryptonite, and it wasn't somebody else, (say, Lionel Luthor). She could see it in his eyes; hear it in the pattern of his words.
Good idea. Heh. Fifteen-year-old Chloe would have thought that. Even seventeen-year-old Chloe would have been excited at the idea of having Clark for as long as they both shall live – but the nineteen-year-old Chloe thought it was the worst idea she had ever heard, and that included invading Russia in winter.
"I know it's a bit sudden," Clark continued. "But last night…made a lot of things more clear."
"In what way?" asked Chloe. She was pretty sure it was the realization that he wanted sex, and that he wasn't going to get any from Lana.
"We have a great partnership," he said.
"We do," agreed Chloe.
"So why not make it permanent? For better and for worst…"
Because it wouldn't work, thought Chloe, and because Clark was obviously still on the rebound, eager for acceptance, after the blow he'd suffered from Lana. He was also trying to retcon the situation so it would fit with Jonathan and Martha Kent's strict education about out-of-marriage sex.
"Well, for starters, you broke up with Lana yesterday!" It was eight hours at most.
"I did," said Clark.
"Don't you think that waiting, say, a month, before you propose to another girl is a good idea?"
"Normally, sure, but not in our case. We've known each other for more than half a decade now, Chloe. Why wait any longer? I know it took me a long time to acknowledge it, but you and I are right for each other in a way Lana and I never were." His voice was excited. "Both of us don't have much family left, Chloe. We can create our own. I know my parents would have been happy to see us together."
Right for each other? She used to think so. That, if only Clark would open up his eyes and see her, grow into her, they could live together happily ever after. Perhaps she should take him up on his offer. He wasn't in love with her, she knew that, but they had deep affection for each other, and love tended to disappear in the course of a long marriage life anyway. Partnership, sex, and a bunch of (adopted) kids. Not a bad life, but she wanted more.
"I'm sorry, Clark," said Chloe, not unkindly. "But this is a bad idea. We have a great partnership, why ruin it? Even if you didn't just end another relationship," was it really over? She didn't think so. "I doubt this is right for us. Especially at nineteen."
"We're both old souls," Clark tried to smile. He noticed the condition of his tie for the first time and straightened it, tightening the knot at the center of his collar.
"Yours is," told him Chloe, "mine just looks mature for its age."
This time he actually smiled, and so did she. And for a moment she wondered again what-if…and dismissed it again.
His face had grown serious again. "Is it because of what I am, Chloe?" he asked "I thought that you, of all people…"
"No, Clark," Chloe said with patience. "The list of reasons for us not to get married is as long as my arm. Us being from biologically different species is pretty close to the end of that list. It's not the problem." Although, thought Chloe, Clark would have probably preferred it to be the problem. It's easier to know that a girl doesn't want you because of what you are than to know that a girl doesn't want you because of who you are.
Clark went to his chair and sat down again, facing her. "How about sharing that long list of reasons with me?" he asked. "I would have thought that the 'biologically different species' problem would be the first on the list."
Fine, thought Chloe. Give him the list of reasons. Perhaps he'd come back to his senses.
"One," she began to count on her fingers, holding one out "you broke up with Lana yesterday. You're on the rebound and not thinking straight."
"Chloe, it's just the other way around, I told you that breaking up with Lana made things a lot clearer…"
"Quiet in the crowd, please," Chloe told him, "you wanted a list, didn't you?"
"I did," said Clark.
"So let me finish. You can answer to each reason after I'm done."
"I was just trying to tell you why that reason isn't valid."
"Clark?"
"Yes?"
"Shut up."
"Fine," Clark grumbled. He leaned backwards in his chair and waited.
"Two," continued Chloe, "We're nineteen. I'm not marrying anyone at nineteen. Not even you. Marriage is a thing…a thing that grown-ups do, not us. I have a career to pursue, and so do you."
"I have a career," Clark told her, "the job description includes flying around and saving people."
"Well, a career you'll get paid for."
"Ah."
"Third…" Chloe took a breath. "You don't love me, Clark. Not in the romantic sense, anyway. And, while I was in love with you for half a decade, I'm doing my best to get over it. "
"But there's no reason for you to 'get over it', Chloe," said Clark. "Actually, it's the other way around. We'll get married and have that happy ending you once said you want."
"Are you in love with me, Clark?" asked Chloe. She knew the answer, but wanted to force him to acknowledge it.
He looked away from her for the first time. "I'm not sure," he said at last.
She knew the answer, but it still hurt. Not as much as it did two years ago, but it did.
"I rest my case." She rested her hands in her lap and swallowed. There was a lump in her throat.
"But I don't want to lose you, either." Clark said to her.
Chloe coughed to clear her throat. "You're not about to lose me, Clark. That's a stupid thing to think. I don't want to lose you, either. I told you, we'll call it temporary insanity, and move on."
"And one day you'll meet someone, fall in love, get married, have kids, and there will be no place for me in your life." Clark said bitterly. "And I'll lose the only girl who can understand me and not care where I came from or what I can do."
"Or you can meet a great girl, fall in love with her, tell her your secret, and live happily ever after. That won't happen if we get married."
Clark had on that martyr expression Chloe hated. A sad smile that didn't reach his eyes.
"Sure, Chloe. Then that great girl will get upset, because I'm never home. Or she'll believe one of those so-called articles in the Inquisitor about me - you know the ones I'm talking about - and think I've been cheating on her all along. Or that she'd just freak out one day because it would finally come to her that she's married to an alien."
Chloe nodded. The Inquisitor, and every other rag in the world, saw a duty to itself to publish women's – and sometimes men's – "confessions" about their intimate encounter with Superman. It occurred to Chloe that she had just fulfilled the fantasy of millions of people all over the world. If they only knew.
"So basically, you want to marry me because I'm easy to handle." said Chloe. " You know what? I can understand that. Your job is hard enough without the constant fear of those scenarios."
She saw Clark opening his mouth to answer, but went on. "But I'll be stuck with a husband that is not in love with me, and I'll have that constant fear that one day you'll fly away from me." The lump in her throat was back. She rose abruptly, turning her head away from him, and almost ran to the door.
Wind again, and Clark stood in front of her. She blinked hard a few times and gave him a steady look. "You know those tricks don't impress me, Clark." She told him. She wanted nothing more than to escape Clark's presence, run back to her room, and hide under the blanket.
"I had my hopes," he said. He reached out and held her gently by the shoulders. "Just promise me to think it through, ok? You'll see I'm right."
Chloe shook her head, "I doubt it." she replied. She removed his hands and went to the door. "You'll come to your senses in a few days and see I'm right"
He shook his head. "I doubt it."
Five minutes later she was climbing up the stairs to the second floor of theValenberg dorms. She tiptoed to room 101 (that number always made her think of 1984), stuck the key into its hole, and silently opened the door, only to find Naomi wide awake, reading a book.
"Chloe!" exclaimed Naomi, slamming down her book and getting out of bed, "Why didn't you call? I was about to send the campus security to look after you!"
"I was at Clark's room," began Chloe, but couldn't go on. Sobbing, she went to sit on her bed.
"Chloe?" Naomi sounded unsure and alarmed. "What happened? Did he hurt you?"
Chloe shook her head. Naomi pulled a tissue from the box on the nightstand and handed it to her.
"No," Chloe said at last, "I think we both made a pretty good job of hurting each other, for a change. A mutual effort."
Naomi didn't ask any more questions, but went to the refrigerator and produced a Mars bar, which she handed to Chloe. Chloe accepted in grateful silence, unwrapped it and took a bite.
"Naomi, remember that you said something about chocolate and bad movies?" she asked at last.
"Best way to get over someone," answered Naomi.
"I think I might have to borrow Glitters."
Author's note:
Well, I'm back! Thanks, as always, to my beta readers, Last Scorpion and The Die Hard.
The story, as you noticed, went completely AU, because of the fifth season. I hope you'll stick around, because writing this is like pulling teeth, and I need reviews to keep me going. If I won't get them, I'll realize nobody is reading, and there will be Lexana! I'm warning ya! God, Clana sex is so discouraging.
The future history part at the beginning was modeled after a similar part from Dune, btw. So if it looks a little odd, blame Frank Herbert.
