A/N: Closer and closer…

Chapter 19

"Okay, I know what needs to be done." I nearly jumped out of my skin again at Clark's voice. But when I whirled to look at him, he wasn't smirking about startling me. He was staring at the bomb with a determined look on his face.

I wanted to deny him immediately, but I knew that he would just do what he wanted unless I at least listened to his reasoning and gave him a logical reason why he couldn't do it. I even managed to suppress the sigh I wanted to heave. "And what would that be?"

"I have to run this to a bomb shelter or into the ocean where the radiation won't hurt anyone." The confidence to accomplish this feat shone in his face. I could have groaned. Why did I have to fall for a man with a nobility complex and the ability to do most heroic deeds? I knew he was invulnerable to nearly everything, but this was really pushing it too far.

But I also knew I had to tread carefully and fast. I visually examined the bomb and noticed two things. First off, we had two minutes left. Secondly, the thing didn't look that sturdy. "I don't think we have time for that," I said slowly.

"I can run faster than you think," he said, his face mirroring his inner hurt.

"Clark, not that fast… not with the shape this bomb is in. We can't move it. I really think any jostling will set the thing off."

"Since when did you become an expert…?"

I whacked him on the shoulder to get his attention. This really wasn't the time for his whiny adolescent boy to come out. "It's unwieldy and those wires look like I could push them off with my finger. We don't know anything about bombs, so to move it could be disastrous. And we don't have time." I looked at the bomb and finally noticed the telltale green glow. I looked closer and sighed. "Plus, you're not going to be able to touch that thing. It's got kryptonite in it."

"But I don't feel anyth…" he leaned forward and I saw his veins bulging.

I pushed him back. "This isn't the time for stupid heroics. Get back…" I also needed some space so I could think. He was my kryptonite… I could hardly concentrate when he was around sometimes.

It was a subtle thing and, at first, I had written it off like I had caught some of Clark's attitude. But I felt this strong determination welling up inside of me that I knew that I was the solution. I had finally accepted the fact that I had been given powers that were the only way to handle the situation. It gave me this warm feeling to know that I actually did have an ultimate purpose… even if it meant dying in the pursuit of the safety of the world.

"Chloe… Wha…?" Clark was looking at me in shock.

I cocked an eyebrow at him, but he seemed somehow out of focus. "What's the problem? Why are you looking at me like that?" He had his hands up to shield his face and I couldn't help but feel that he was being weirdly overdramatic. "We have to be serious, Clark," I demanded, my hands automatically finding my hips.

He just shook his head for a moment and backed away a little. "Chloe, you're putting off a lot of heat here. What's going on with you?"

I looked around me and realized that I was putting off a golden glow of something. Great time for another power to rear its head, I thought sourly. I pushed my hands toward the bomb and saw the metal actually soften. I wondered how I didn't notice and I why I wasn't burning up. I tried to damp down the heat output, but nothing seemed to be working. "I don't know how to turn it off," I admitted slowly.

"We have to get you out of here!" Clark shouted over a mysterious roar. It took me a minute to realize it was the roar of a fire… caused by me.

An epiphany hit me in the face like a sledgehammer. "This is how we can stop it."

Clark just looked at me blankly until horror crossed his handsome face. "Chloe, you can't…"

I just shook my head. "Clark, I don't know how to turn it off and to run me through the city would make everything around us burst into flames." I shrugged wryly. "I guess there's a reason why I'm considered the Sun Goddess." I laughed, but it seemed strained.

"But the bomb…" He tried to reach for me, but the heat seemed too much for him. So much for invulnerability, I thought with a smile.

"The sun is a gigantic nuclear reactor. It makes sense." I smiled at him, a little sadly. He was so used to saving everyone, but now it was my turn and he didn't know how to handle it. "Besides, it's my trial… The PTB wouldn't have set it on me if they didn't think I could handle it."

"Are you f… Dam… Chloe, you can't! I won't let you!" I'd never seen Clark look quite so helpless and I found it really sad for him. I could actually feel tears coursing down my cheeks and evaporating on contact with my skin.

"There's nothing that can be done… Nothing you can do."

"I can't lose you! I lo…"

I held up my hand, wincing. If he said it now, I would never know if it was because he thought I was going to die. I wasn't sure either, but I didn't want to die wondering if Clark really meant it. "Clark, stop. You can tell me whatever you'd like after this is done, but you have a job to do."

He looked crushed, but I knew that I'd caught his attention. "What do you mean?"

"Duh! Warehouse district… Sun appearing in the middle of it… You have to make sure that Coast City doesn't burst into flames. You have to make sure that the consequences are contained in this one building."

"Are you saying I have to leave you?" He had his stubborn look on again and as much as I wanted his company and wanted to relent, he was needed. Not only to save this one city, but to save the world if this did turn out to be too much for me.

"You don't have a choice. If you're here, you're toast for sure. Besides…" I walked toward him and he stumbled away. "Exactly. And I'm kinda' holding some of it back. You can't stay here for this. You can't help me. But you can help everyone else while I'm doing my job." I turned back to the bomb knowing I couldn't look at him anymore and still stay strong. "Clark, you have to go… Now!"

It was silent for a minute and I was relieved that he stopped fighting me on this. But then I felt a hand on my shoulder and was whirled around. Clark stood before me, looking at me with a mysterious look on his face. I tried with all my might to damp down some of my heat before he was consumed in it. He cupped my face in his hands and kissed me hard. If I hadn't already been close to being in flames, this would have done it. I'd never experienced anything like this before and I could feel what Clark had been trying to say before. I kissed him back, running my fingers through his hair, and clasping him to me.

Finally he broke away… probably a darn good thing considering our timeline. "Chloe, do one thing for me," he gasped.

I saw his skin reddening and knew he had to get away from me as soon as possible. "Anything," I said with my heart in my eyes.

"Fight… Fight for me…" He backed away slowly and I could see the flames consuming his clothes. It would have been funny except for I had no desire to laugh. His skin color was turning to normal as he backed away and then he dashed out of the room.

Never before had anything been harder than it was to turn back to that bomb. Suddenly, I wanted nothing more than to hear that he loved me and to have him hear me say it as well. After all, neither of us knew what was going to happen. Sure, I'd saved him, but I didn't tell him… tell him how much he meant to me and why I'd held back for so long… But it was too late now. To even whisper it into the ether where he might hear would only distract the both of us. I walked closer to the bomb and could actually see the extraneous wiring melt away.

I let go and I could see the wood parts in the building start to catch fire. I shook my head in dismay. How could I possibly be expected to control this type of destructive power? I wasn't even certain that this would work for sure.

"Of course it won't work," that nagging voice in my head mocked me. "Why would you standing in front of a nuclear bomb before it's about to go off save the world? You're just going to get yourself killed… all for nothing."

The mental words ripped through me like a knife. "That's not true," I shouted in agony. For some reason it felt better to shout out my response rather than internalize it even further. I knew it was my nemesis, but they seemed to hold more power coming from my own mind.

"It certainly is true," he thought with a laugh that chilled me to my bones. I could feel my indecision and my confidence wavering and with it, so too were the flames receding. I tried to intensify, but it only made a minimal bit of difference. He seemed to feel my weaknesses and pressed them. "You're going to die here… Everyone that you love is going to die with your failure here. Pete… Your dad… Clark… Everyone. You should just save yourself…"

But with each word, the faces of those I loved seemed to swim before me. Pete helping me with any project that I ever needed him for, no questions asked… Dad watching his stupid football games, but putting his arm around me so we could watch them together… And Clark… Finally, I could feel my confidence returning with full force. "Get out of my mind, you leech!" I said softly and was surprised at the menace I heard. Wow! I was really getting into it. "You think you know me so well, but you don't know anything. I would rather die here than let you win… let alone let my family be hurt because I'm a pansy."

"But it's a forgone conclusion…" He sounded uncertain and with that, I knew I'd won. It didn't matter if I died here. I could stop this bomb and save the world, which would automatically defeat him.

I gathered all of my strength and imagined the hallway of doors that I had in the field just that afternoon. I could see one gaping open and saw the cloud from my last PTB dream hovering just inside of it. "You will get out of my mind," I shouted and imagined pushing the cloud back through the door. Then I slammed the door shut and set fire to it. I thought I could hear a distant screaming somewhere and felt a great deal of satisfaction when the door fell to ashes in that imagiscape.

I thought about Clark and how he was my rock. I knew that for him, I would do anything… dare anything. And then it was like a montage of Clark was passing before my eyes. Clark during our aborted Prom date… Clark bending over me to look at my computer screen… Clark during the movie on our date… Clark just before he left… With each passing image, my determination grew and I could feel a steel core develop within myself… and could actually feel the fire within getting hotter.

I was relieved and realized that I actually could do this. But then I heard the timer go off and I felt like everything tripped into slow motion. I could feel the irradiated material fighting to escape its encasement. I almost panicked because I didn't know how I was supposed to contain it. I knew that I was the personification of the power of the Sun, but what did that mean and how was I supposed to handle the energies before me?

Just as I felt myself begin to despair, a great sense of peace descended over me. I couldn't really figure out what it was from, but I suddenly had a perfect knowledge that I was loved. And how could I possibly despair knowing that? It was with that sense of peace and love that the knowledge of how to save everyone just seemed to surface in my mind.

My smile nearly busted my jaw. I had won… It was absolutely a given now. It didn't matter if I didn't survive. Everyone and everything I loved would. I stoked up my internal heat and then… Well, it would be hard to explain, really. For want of a better explanation, it was like I was breathing in the toxins… drawing it into every pore in my body. Then I imagined taking those toxins and stoking them in my internal fire to burn them up.

As "easy" as that may sound, it took all of my concentration. I was peripherally aware that the entire warehouse was in flames… that my clothes were literally burning off my body… that my skin was shining and had taken on an ethereal translucence… I could feel my heat output increasing with the additional fuel and I was struggling to contain it. I felt an indescribably pressure building and cleaning the surrounding area became more difficult as time progressed. I could see the metal girders melting and raining liquid metal down on me… but it never actually hit me. It evaporated at a certain distance where the waves of heat from me were visible. If I dwelt on the amount of heat inside and outside of me, I might have lost concentration, so I sort of ignored it.

Somehow, I was able to set my purification efforts on automatic. Then I struggled to set a limit on the destruction. My mind boggled at the thought of me saving the Northern Hemisphere, but I also knew without a shadow of a doubt that if I couldn't control the energy and destruction, I would take out Coast City… if not all of Kansas. And that wasn't even considering that the love of my life was racing around outside of the now barely recognizable warehouse. I imagined a restraining bubble to contain the heat and the toxins still left to try and protect everything. It was taking all of my efforts, but I could see the destruction lessening outside of my imagined bubble. I felt myself being lifted off the ground, but I couldn't spare the effort to imagine myself back on the ground. It felt like I was literally being pressed in on all sides with an unimaginable force but also being pulled apart. The pain was incredible and I screamed in reaction. Unfortunately, it didn't help at all… the pain just increased with every passing moment.

My mind started screaming at me to stop the madness, but I was determined. How could I leave this job of all jobs half done? I set all my powers in automatic because I wasn't sure how much I could hold out. With my last breath, I would get this job done, but I was fairly certain I would lose consciousness before that last breath. It was nice that I realized that I didn't have to be conscious to direct my powers. That early morning floating session finally showed its benefits. I couldn't explain how I told my body to shut off all my powers when all the toxins were cleared. I prayed that I would have the strength to finish the job before I joined my sisters. As if my mere thought summoned them, I thought I could see them standing transparently in front of me and I smiled… but there was no time to know for sure before everything… went… dark…

A/N: How cruel would it be to end here? Muwhahahahahaha! Nah… Not that evil. Needed at least 10 more "haha"s before I'm that evil! ;D

And did you notice that I put Coast City in Kansas… when it's a landlocked state? LOL! I think I've decided that instead of changing it, I'm going to say that it's on the coast of the Missouri river and that it was Kansas's tongue-in-cheek naming.

Tritium: That is a good thought about the plot device… I'd been considering it as well. I hope you were happy to see it included.

carcassi: I'm so glad to hear from you again! Yea! Personally, I've always liked Chloe and Clark as a team. Why they don't write more of it, I'll never understand. As it is, the exchange while they were breaking into LuthorCorp during "Mortal" – Season 5, Episode 2. The bantering between C & C were PRICELESS!

spaceboi's pixie: No worries about a sequel. I'm trying to think of a new crisis for them to deal with. This first incarnation really was about Chloe learning about her powers and such more than the end crisis. We still have to discover who the Big Bad is (which is a reason why I should do a sequel to "What's Up in Smallville"… Oh no! I'm going to be in Sequel Purgatory!) and she hasn't finished growing into her own. However, I'm right in the midst of another story, so I'll get to outlining the next incarnations as soon as I'm able.

markmark261: I'm contemplating your suggestion and it's not one I hadn't thought of before. But I'm so glad you're liking it and I LOVE that you nitpick me! ;D And "gave me a happy" is a slang term… I'm not sure where it originated, but I'm leaning towards "Buffy the Vampire Slayer." It's a sensual pleasure term.

MacGateFan: Thanks for your support… as always! ;D

iluvsmallville1: Gracias, mi amigo! Writing tips… Hmmm… Write what you love… what you're interested in. That really can give your stuff that added spark it may need. Personally, I always love to have some bit of humor. Also, write in your own voice. I know that sounds silly and that you do need to drop into character, but you also need to write like they would say it. Does that make sense? I read my stuff and sometimes I see myself yelling from the pages. It's quite funny. (I did see that you updated your HP fic. I've been intending to read it, but haven't gotten that far yet… I will, though!)

BabyC2003: My biggest fear right now is the Jimmy Olsen character they're insisting on introducing. Has no one else noticed that the actor's TWIN has already played a villain on the series? Do they really expect that Chloe's character wouldn't notice? OK, I'm done ranting… for now.