CHAPTER 22

Clark sat out on the porch of Chloe's old house, uncomfortable with the strange empty feeling it now seemed to emanate. A flustered Lana stood out front in the yard, surrounded by furniture, rugs, and small bric-a-brac as the majority of Smallville buzzed around her excitedly. Nothing like a garage sale to bring in the crowds. He knew Chloe was in the house somewhere, but he couldn't quite bring himself to go inside. Everything had happened so quickly, the changes sneaking in so inconspicuously that he had only blinked before Chloe had somehow been separated from him. He didn't know how to speak to the mourning girl inside the house. She wasn't even Chloe anymore.

Lana escaped the crowd and managed to make her way over to Clark, resting a small hand on his shoulder.

"She's in the kitchen." She whispered into his ear, squeezing his shoulder gently before slipping back into the chaos. How did he ever get so lucky? Smiling with newfound confidence, he stood up and walked into the house.

Sure enough, Chloe was in the kitchen, leaning against the window as she watched Lana handle the masses. He didn't say anything, but she seemed to recognize his presence.

"I really want to help." She said quietly. "I just don't know how. I feel like I keep getting in the way."

He stepped forward to put his arm around her, but she trembled slightly as he reached out so he just let his arm drop to his side. "It's okay, Chlo."

She finally turned to look at him, her face striking him as perhaps one of the saddest things he had ever seen- dull, gray, and utterly hopeless. "You shouldn't trust me as much as you do."

"What do you mean?"

She just shook her head. "I guess it shouldn't matter. Nothing really happened. But...it almost did. It would have. I would have sold you out to save my father. In a heartbeat."

Clark stared at her, betrayal written into every feature as he tried to decipher what she was saying. "And Clark? If I had to do the whole thing over, I think I'd do it again."

His eyes on her made Chloe squirm. "I'm leaving and I'm not coming back to Smallville. So can you please just give me my fucking reprimand, tell me how disappointed you are, how I took advantage of your trust, put you in serious danger? Give me the perfect view from your moral high ground and remind me of what a terrible friend I am."

"Chloe...you said nothing really happened." He looked so innocent and forgiving that Chloe's stomach began to churn. "And you're only going to Metropolis. You know I can make that trip in minutes."

"No Clark." She said forcefully. "I need you to hate me."

"What do you mean?"

"I need you to hate me so I can leave! Don't you understand that as long as you're here, I'll never go anywhere? You trap me into this role that I can't get out of. I'm your friend, your own personal search engine, your practically asexual sidekick. But I can't do that now." She took a breath and continued quietly. "My father's gone and I don't even know who I am anymore. But I do know that I can't pretend to still be whoever it is you thought I was before."

Clark stood still, shocked into silence. He had no idea how straining their friendship had been on Chloe. No concept of her ever wanting more from him, nothing except for that brief, awkward stage of their relationship around the time of the school dance, and that was years ago. "Chloe... I'm sorry. I wish you had told me how you felt. But I couldn't ever hate you."

Chloe stood straight, back to the calm, lifeless energy he had witnessed upon entering the room. Cold and unreachable on so many levels. "I'm still going to leave. And Clark? Lex knows more than you think he does. So just...be careful."

"Lex?" Clark's eyes narrowed angrily as he put the information together. "What did Lex do to you, Chloe?"

"Clark, have you listened to a thing that I've said? Nobody has forced me to do anything I didn't make a conscious decision to do. If you're angry, for God's sake be angry at me. But did you really think all of those cover-up lies were going to slip by him? He's upset that you won't tell him the truth. He wants answers. So either give them to him or be prepared to deal with the consequences." Clark bit his tongue and forced himself to nod in understanding. "I'm going to go try and help Lana out there." Chloe swallowed her almost goodbye and walked away.

Chloe joined Lana in the center of the madness as Clark watched through the window, a mix of emotions and thoughts whirling through him. He was sorry he had hurt Chloe, but he was sure that whatever Lex had done, it was done intentionally and done because of him. Despite Chloe's protests, it was obvious that Lex had damaged her in some way. He had always known Lex wouldn't stop his fanatical research on the caves or on him, no matter how many heartfelt promises he made. Now Lex had gone after Chloe for the answers he couldn't get from his expensive team of scientists. Lex's power over this town had gotten out of hand, and Clark knew then that if it took him his entire life, Lex would pay for his actions.