Note: This chapter takes place during and around the Smallville, Season Four, episode 12, "Pariah". It's a fairly important episode for the development of the series because Chloe learns something important. If you aren't familiar with the Smallville series, this episode is gonna be spoiled, but it was broadcast four years ago, so I don't think that matters are going to be that awful.

Chapter Five

Mara knew that she'd emerged too early almost before she reached the Talon with Chloe and Lois. She tried to turn back, but the two other girls wouldn't let her. Lois insisted that she needed the fun. Chloe only hooked her arm in Mara's, offering support and a smile.

She should never have let them talk her into going to the Talon for karaoke night.

She managed to hold herself together until Clark and Alicia entered. Lois's snide comment about the Vegas incident threw her over the edge. Her own grief was still too fresh in her mind, especially since the dreams hadn't stopped once she escaped the cavern.

She turned on Lois. "You leave him alone! You are so damned frightened of the hero you see in your dreams, the hero who will never let you fall, that you lose yourself in relationships that are wrong for you. Guess what, Lois Lane? That hero will find you, and he will save you, even from yourself and your own stubborn independence. You'll have him, even if you will never be able to see him for the mask he wears for the world around us. You'll have him and . . . and I'll still be alone!" She turned and ran for the door to the alley outside, letting it slam behind her while she collapsed against the wall and cried so hard that the coughing made her throw up.

Chloe found her at that point, and saved her questions long enough to help Mara pull her hair away from her face and wipe her mouth with a handy tissue. "Are you alright?"

Mara nodded, and then shook her head. "I don't know," she admitted, still catching her breath with sobs, just short of hiccups.

"You know, you just managed to reopen the book on whether or not you're a 'meteor freak'." Unspoken was the question asking whether or not she was one of those changed by the meteor storm that had made Smallville so unusual.

Mara shook her head. "No, the meteors have nothing to do with me." She sighed. "It doesn't matter what they say about me, anyway. People have been whispering about me behind my back for most of my life anyway." She didn't say just how long that life had been. She didn't think Chloe needed to be burdened by more than she already had.

"What happened to you?" Her voice was full of concern, a healthy dose of curiosity, but still, concern.

Mara shook her head. "I'd rather not talk about it."

Chloe sighed, then. "You never date. You never go out. You never even dance with anyone at the dances. And now you complain about being alone?"

Mara started crying again. "It didn't matter before." She caught her breath, but it took some effort. "Did Clark ask you to find out what happened?"

Chloe actually felt the question sting. "No, he didn't. Am I not allowed to care about my friends? Am I not allowed to simply be a listening ear?"

Mara shook her head. "I'm not an idiot, Chloe. You're a journalist, curiosity incarnate. The only one worse about needing to know all the secrets in the area is Lex and you're potentially more dangerous with it because you have the resources to out all those secrets you learn. Have you ever once been given a secret to hold, and didn't then shout it to the world?"

Chloe's hurt quickly became anger. "I would never take advantage of my friends. How can you even think that?" She stood quickly. "Fine, don't trust me. I was just trying to help." She turned and walked back into the Talon, leaving Mara to her tears and grief.

They didn't talk again all evening.

--

Several days later Mara found herself standing outside the office of the Torch, trying not to talk herself out of going in. Alicia had died, killed by another of the "meteor freaks" that infested the small town and the surrounding area. Mara knew that she had to heal the breech between herself and Chloe; she needed the female companionship. Most of all, perhaps, she needed to talk to someone.

Maybe Chloe could be trusted.

She just hoped this wasn't as big a mistake as trusting Lex.

She forced herself to enter the office and found Chloe dismantling her "Wall of Weird", sort of. "Chloe? What are you doing?"

Chloe looked at her and Mara could see the tearstreaks on her face. Goodness knew they were still on Mara's face more often than not. "What does it look like? Not that it matters."

"Of course it matters." She took Chloe's hands in her own and looked down, trying to form the words she wanted to say. "I – I wanted to apologize . . ." She looked at the article that Chloe was holding and then looked at the folder where she was putting all the articles she was taking down from the wall. "Chloe, why are you pulling down all the articles about Clark?" Chloe wouldn't meet her eyes and Mara sighed. "How did you find out?" She paused for a moment. "And what are you going to do?"

Chloe pulled her hands away and put the article in the folder, returning to her task. "I don't know what to do. Why couldn't you trust me? Why did you keep this from me all this time?"

Mara sighed and sat down on the edge of a desk. Depression was still making her very tired all the time. "Clark never . . . he never liked keeping this from anyone. Most especially he didn't like keeping this from you or Lana. Lex was a matter of mixed emotions."

"So why did he not trust me? Why did you not trust me?"

"Pete found out and keeping the secret almost took more strength than he had. He told Clark that he wished he had never been told. Clark didn't want you to regret knowing. How – how did you find out? He didn't tell you, did he?"

Chloe shook her head. "No, he didn't tell me. I found out through other sources."

Mara frowned. "It wouldn't have been Pete. He's been away a while and he would not have had any reason. The only other ones who know . . ." She paused, her eyes growing wide. "Alicia."

"It doesn't matter, Mara." Chloe interrupted her. "It just . . . doesn't matter. I know now. I just . . ." She sighed and put a bundle of cut out articles in the folder she was rapidly filling. "I won't tell anyone. I can keep the secret, you'll see."

Mara looked away from Chloe. "Thank you." Her lip trembled.

Chloe looked up at her and sighed. Yes, she was angry, but she knew that her friend was hurting. More than anything she was a friend to the Kent siblings. "That goes for you, too, Mara. If you ever choose to trust me then I will keep your secrets."

Mara laughed once, a weary sound. "Some secrets are meant to be kept. Others must be told. Clark's secret must be kept. So must mine, contrary to the fears of those around us." She looked up and met Chloe's eyes with her unnatural metallic ones. "I came here to talk to you, because I think I have to talk to someone."

Chloe set the folder down on the desk and walked over to stand beside Mara. "What is it?" she asked. "What happened?"

Tears started to silently fall down Mara's face. "I met the most wonderful man in the world. He was my Knight in Shining Armor, a true hero in the flesh. Honorable and true and faithful, he was everything I'd ever dreamed of and more. He wasn't like Clark, but he was mine."

Chloe had a bad feeling and it tightened her stomach into a nest of frozen thorns. "What happened, Mara?"

Mara closed her eyes and the tears fell faster. "I woke up. I woke up and I was alone again and trapped in a cavern that was slowly killing me day by day because a brother I could not redeem had caught me unaware and vulnerable. I managed to break out, but barely, and now I cannot stop grieving for the hero I lost because I cannot seem to stop dreaming about him."

For a moment Chloe thought she had missed something. "You're all torn up about a dream?"

Mara nodded. "Dreams have power, Chloe, a power all their own. This one will not leave me. As I dream it feels real and the grief that tears at me is real. I think . . . I think I am going mad again and Clark isn't ready to stop me from untold destruction if that were to happen."

Chloe tried to wrap her mind around what she was hearing. The fears of madness . . . Mara had no idea that she was talking to the one person in all Smallville who could understand her there. "I need you to start at the beginning, Mara."

Mara sighed. "I'm not like Clark, and I'm not a 'meteor freak' either. I'm something completely different. I'm not immortal, not like Clark is, or rather, will be one day, but I'm not the average teenager either. I've lived several hundred years all told and I went mad once." She reached out and took Chloe's hands in hers. "I went mad and should have turned into destruction incarnate, but for some reason I didn't. I thought I had found a true love. I thought we were going to have a child. The lover wasn't real. The child I carried was the creation of my own madness. I lost both when I was healed of it." She shook from holding in the sobs that threatened to overwhelm her voice. "I'm so scared, Chloe."

Chloe didn't know what to say and the only thing she thought she could do was the only thing she knew how to do. She reached her arms around Mara and just let her friend cry.

Much later, and several boxes of tissues, Mara had finally calmed down to the point that Chloe could smile and ask a question that had been bugging her. "So, what is it that you can do? Other than know more than you should about my cousin's future?"

Mara chuckled. "There's a reason I always said that Alicia was a poseur." She reached out to take hold of Chloe's hand and teleported the two of them Elsewhere. It was a small spot of light in a very dark time for her to show a friend the wonders of Traveling, and it could be wondrous indeed at times.

Well? What did you think? I'll try to get back to the world of Ivalice and the events there soon, but there may or may not be more Smallville first. I don't know yet. Original tales beckon and November (NaNoWriMo) is fast approaching.

Mrs. Grizzley