When Jimmy Olsen woke up, there were all manners of questions buzzing around in his head. The world was really screwed up if he could still think without his manhood. (Not that he wasn't feeling a panic attack coming onto him like he used to dream a dozen hula girls would.)
He couldn't look away from the ceiling, or down. He couldn't feel anything below the waist.
But he did know there was someone in the room with him. A girl with dark hair if corner of his eye was still seeing right.
She was drinking something perfectly -not slurping one bit. Not smiling either. All her hair in order. (Not an occasional wispy lock. No inappropriate energy lighting up her eyes.) Not dangerous. Perfect. Just like a nice girl was supposed to be.
"They've been handing out orange juice." She said. He hoped she wouldn't go on about the hospital or wallpaper or get excited about anything. His head would probably start hurting.
She didn't. She put a juice bottle right next to his hand, and when he didn't start drinking, said- "You should drink some. So you can get better."
"I don't know if I can move my hand."
"You just turned your head." She said.
"That's different."
"Come on. The sooner you're better, the sooner I can get out of here."
Jimmy-James Olsen tried. He did. He didn't want to have to uncap the bottle and look down, but his weaknesses had always been with feminine wheedling, coaxing voices.
"I'm scared."
"Don't look at the blood, then."
"I still know it's there."
The cap wouldn't come off. At just the thought, Jimmy's hands were shaking.
She didn't offer to help. Wasn't that what girls were for though, to spoon feed you your juice when you were desperately critically injured?
"Will you hold the other?" he asked hopefully.
(He knew the rules. Jimmy Olsen's rules 101. Bros before hos. Only hit on girls in love with other guys for one night stands. Don't call them in the morning. Don't date for over two weeks. Don't make the moves when at work.)
This was a hospital.
Lana looked down at his clammy hand. Saw the corners of his eyes a little red rimmed-and his eyes big and hazel and not! blue, staring at her of course. That's just what boys did.
After what seemed eternity, she held her hand delicately out. Her small fingers were limp and light. She had perfectly groomed nails. Not flat from keyboarding.
Jimmy slurped his orange juice and tried to think of a Sinatra line to give her. None of them seemed to quite fit her though. It was too soon for the 'all I long for' one. He ended up saying nothing.
After a while she asked.
"Do you want to talk about something? I've been told my presence is soothing."
Jimmy was still scared. Not smooth.
"What if I'm not a man anymore? It must be impossible to imagine-If that happened- I won't have a life after this. My life is over."
(What if he started loosing his facial hair? Grew boobs? He'd seen that on Ripley's.) Jimmy's eyes watered.
Lana looked at the blinds where the window would have been, if it wasn't apocalyptical and ashy out there.
"I think I'd understand. I lost my- my friend. And my—stalker- went on a rampage and will probably kill everyone. No one trusts me. I was the reason you got shot. "
"My parents think I'm obnoxious. I don't know where my brother is. And I have no girlfriend." Poor little Henry had been out at school.
"My parents died when I was eleven..." Lana whispered.
Jimmy didn't have anything to say to that.
The hooded man smirked and pushed up to the fence. Rattled it. Chloe could see the knife glistening in his jeans pocket.
"I take it you haven't come by for a friendly chat."
"You might be right. We have … problem. That little present of yours is going to leave a scar. No one does that to Charlie, hon."
Somehow to Chloe, his chattiness was worse than the silence. The metal jingled as he started to climb over, taking his time.
He was enjoying this.
"You attacked me!"
"I know what you are. Spotless reporter. Above all of us. Spoiled thing, crowing on about the chaos that is Metropolis when you could change that."
"Whatever you think… I have nothing to do with whatever happened to you. I was defending myself." Chloe stared at the metal barbs at the top of the fence.
"I know that. But you can fix everything for me, real good."
He had his hands at the top of the fence now. He kicked with his foot and the metal fence shuddered. One more minute. I'm coming to get you.
"What do you want?"
"Just your heart, baby." Chloe slammed the ladder on his climbing fingers. The barbs cut into his face. He dropped to the ground, cursing and covering it. He'd have scars there, too.
His voice warbled out. Childlike.
"We were having a nice talk. Now why you have to go and do that?"
Chloe heard the fence jingle again. Heard the ladder move and scrape against the floor. Heard the little singing sounds of the bricks in the wall. From his expression he could have been doing it, could have been meteor infected. Crap. Maybe she could pretend not to notice.
"Expect more where that came from if you don't stop trying to assault me."
"Now you're just being ugly. This is going to be a mess."
He scrambled up the fence like what he'd done before was all child's play.
"That wasn't nice. I mean, after all, we know each other. I might just have cut my pound of flesh out. You owe me."
Chloe pounded at the glass with her fists and yelled.
She'd researched this hospital for an article once. The glass was soundproof, super-durable. Layered. Built for invasions. Her only chance was that someone in that completely abandoned wing to hear something. Someone with really good ears.
He dropped to the ground in front of her. She backpedaled until she reached the glass door, shifted so she was out of its way.
"I don't understand why you're doing this."
She needed to delay him until she found a brick, anything. She cowered behind the ladder. It would be harder for him to stab her like that. Or do what he wanted.
He dragged her and the ladder both out. Away from the door. Away from safety.
"They NEVER understand why."
His hand with the knife cut a clean nick through the collar of her white shirt. Chloe didn't cover the spot with her hands, didn't give him another opening. Women had to know what to do in cases like this.
"Be smart this time. Don't move. You won't even know it happened. "
Chloe closed her feet over the end of the ladder and tipped over his face. The blood leaked into his eyes.
His face changed from sociopathic and faux-charming to just sociopathic. No more mister nice guy. He grabbed at her neck and squeezed. Knife right under her sternum. That's the way the Aztecs cut out their human hearts.
Chloe lunged forward, vision darkening. He was already prepared for the ladder to fall. That did nothing. She stuck slippery hands between the ladder rungs aimlessly. She didn't care if she died. She was going to claw his eyes out.
His eyes flashed white and Chloe realized that she was frozen. He was a freak too. Don't move. Telepath, whatever. She just had to break his gaze. She couldn't, but she tried.
Chloe didn't hear a pained grunt. Her hands never made contact. She didn't hear anything. One minute the knife was cutting its gouge, the next there was a crack and the knife was out of his hand, along with some of his own skin.
Davis was in front of her, holding her gun straight.
Chloe sagged to the floor and wondered if she had passed out for a moment. She hadn't heard him. Hadn't heard the door open or the skid of shoes on the pavement. She didn't remember getting from point A in the middle of the dirty pavement to inside. The blood rushed in her ears.
She could hear Davis breathe. It was fine. She was safe now.
Charlie was crushed under the ladder, fingers outstretching for the knife. She heard steps. The slide of something across the floor.
Davis walked closer, kicked the blade behind him. Crouched right in front of him.
Chloe pushed herself to her elbows. "Don't touch him!" She didn't want him getting a hold of Davis too. Davis couldn't hear her through the glass, but he turned. Chloe's heart went to her throat in fear.
But this was the thing. 'Charlie' was on the floor, breathing with a sucking wet sound. He didn't even move an inch or try to open his eyes.
When he turned back to him, Davis's voice didn't sound like the gentle paramedic's. It sounded hard. Like his.
"There are two bullets in this. Now either you get out of here and never come near this lady again or I'll shoot something else off. I won't miss."
Charlie glared without responding.
"We clear?"
"I'm not suicidal. Your girlfriend isn't worth it."
Charlie dragged himself a few inches on the ground. Was still again. The ladder came off him in twisted pieces, like something big had thrown it aside. Or Clark had.
Chloe couldn't pull her eyes away as she fumbled the lock open. She needed to get that knife. She needed to know why.
Davis's arms were like iron catching her and holding her back, completely still behind the door. It was dark.
"I need to…"
"We've got it." The knife was at her feet.
Chloe's fingers shook against his arms, adrenaline and fear.
"Shh. You're safe now." Davis whispered.
In lieu of crying. "Thank you."
Across the glass, Charlie had crawled away, a few more baby steps. He couldn't see them in here but Chloe still felt powerless.
At least that's why she told herself she pressed her face to Davis's shoulder and tried to breathe in and out. He smelled like soap and sweat and safety.
"I didn't think anyone would come. How'd you find me?"
She couldn't see Davis's face.
"I thought I heard you call me." His voice was soft and a little wondering.
"I didn't exactly pick up the phone." Chloe stopped. Her curiosity complex was acting up again but she dampened the questions—as much as she could reasonably, anyway.
"However you did it. Thank you. You saved my life." Then. "What was that about?"
Davis didn't shift his eyes, arms complete still against her hand. Chloe thought that his voice sounded about five seconds from a panic attack. What had he just done?
"I don't know if I could give a pep talk like that."
"I grew up on the streets. I've---met other people like him."
Chloe's eyes were getting accustomed to the gritty dark. His hands gently combed through the ends of her hair. Davis hadn't looked away from the window either.
Charlie was still dragging himself along and it looked like something was broken. He had those powers of his and he was hardly going to rescue cats in trees with them. He was dangerous to everybody. Were they just going to let him go? The police couldn't even get out on the streets either, and Clark was--she didn't know where.
"I won't let him hurt you." Davis said, barely audible.
Somehow Charlie was on the other side of the fence, now. He wasn't getting up. Chloe pulled back as- very slightly, he waved his hand.
"Davis---"
Ahead of them, a clear line cracked through the 'super-durable' glass. It and the bricks around them fell over them.
Chloe landed flat on her back. Completely conscious.
Davis was locked in place over her, bleeding from the mouth. The glass had him completely pinned and his eyes were closed.
Listen to yourself, Chloe. You're not scared. That's not glass poking out of his side.
"Wake up!"
Clark's conversation with Jor-El had been brief. He hadn't ever stated that all Phantom Zone possessions left an impression, a 'mark' on the host. Half of it was just Clark needing to see Lex. To confront the man he hadn't been able to kill and make some sort of peace with himself before cutting him out again.
Clark should have been glad when Lex came to the door. Not the butler or any of the assorted staff they kept around the place.
"Clark. I never thought I'd see you here again." Clark could hear the lightest slur in his voice. Not humanly possible to hear, but that's one of the few things hearing like he did was good for.
"I thought you could use a friend."
Lex didn't say those words. You said it first, Clark, remember, 'from now on we aren't friends'.
"You're violating the quarantine."
"Must be me then. The Kents are different, right?"
Lex's left hand was still on the door. For a moment Clark had a thought. He's not going to let me in this time. His other hand was behind his back. It's not like Clark would have shaken his hand, anyway.
When they had met it had been handshakes, as friends, hugs and touches in timelines Lex didn't even remember. And now they were just---nothing again.
Lex wordlessly stepped away from it, a half-empty bottle of wine in his hand. Walked back to the couch.
This was not his Lex. There were one or two creases in his ever-pressed gray shirt and slacks. He looked hollowed out-like that dark core of him was gone and Clark wasn't making another of his stupid bipolar choices again.
His eyes were red. Like they had been the first time Clark had accused him of becoming his father.
But this time it was different. He hadn't chosen to do it, completely. He was reading about what 'he'd' apparently done. Reports of destruction and ruin. A complete evil with his face. His PIs had probably dug up more.
"Have a seat." He said.
Lex pushed aside the four different newspapers spread out on his side of the couch. That was it.
Clark hated this part.
"How are you holding up?"
"Fine."
He looked anything but fine and soon enough, it was his words that confirmed it.
"Have you ever read things-known that you've done them? What you were capable of? But not why or how? Of course not. I'm drunk. How am I supposed to fix this?"
Lex pushed his hand through the pile of papers. "Did you see the Daily Planet Headline Clark? This one?"
This. And this. And This. And This. He just wouldn't stop.
"Lex. Calm down."
The papers toppled and he let them.
Lex swirled the wine in his glass, leaned over his knees toward the fire, in a move that reminded Clark of fetal position or waking up alone with no one to find him.
"I've got to start somewhere. I could give out a billion in donations. That would be a start, right?"
"You could."
"I'd be buying the city. You wouldn't approve."
Lex was a remarkable drunk. He didn't even slur. Sparring over people's lives with a megalomaniac over coffee made it necessary to keep his wits about him. Clark had known that Lex. That was the Lex he wanted to comfort.
"You say I'm becoming Lionel. I may even be him to you now. But this is what happens when I try to break free."
But right now the muscle in his back was so tense that Clark wondered at how the frail bone didn't snap out of his spine.
"I can't- not have control. "
Clark reached out to brush his sleeve with his palm. That's all he had the courage for.
"This shouldn't have happened to you."
Back when they'd started to fall apart Clark wondered what Lex would have been without the meteor shower. Still Lionel's son, using underhanded tactics for all his life. But he wouldn't have had material for his obsessive tendencies. He could have--- Clark didn't know.
His hand had lingered too long but Lex didn't shrug him away, yet. They weren't friends. Feeling foolish, Clark took it back.
Lex turned his gaze back to him by then, steel-colored eyes glowing in the firelight. Too late.
"I'm finding it a little difficult to process, Clark. You? came to be my shoulder." Clark hated this voice on Lex more than any of the others. Soft, disconnected, without nuance. Like nothing could ever touch him anymore.
"Why are you really here? You can just tell me the truth Clark. I'm not going to throw you across the room."
"I came to tell you something you've wanted to know for a while. I'm going to tell you why."
Lex's hands uncurled in his lap; he set the empty bottle on the floor. He was trying hard not to be affected. This was the secret he had destroyed their friendship over.
He looked so—beautiful; (men weren't supposed to be beautiful), Clark knew. But Lex had always had a way of making it look so natural and right, and the way of seeing Clark had known forever wrong.
It didn't mean it was.
As soon as he opened his mouth he knew he was going to make up some ridiculous lie.
"Milton Fine was training me. I knew what he was going to do to you, but I didn't stop him. I had to be at the center of this. I was trained to be in it for years. I couldn't tell you."
"Black ops?"
"Gray- bordering on illegal."
"It's hardly as if it would have ruined my spotless reputation."
"Lionel's your father… he shaped you so you would have done anything to find out. About me. If he somehow found out…"
"So… Fine brought you under his wing and revealed all the government bluebook projects to you before going power crazy. And now that I may be helping, it's easy to tell me."
"That's pretty much it." Clark tried to smile, like he used to at Lex, once upon a time.
"There wasn't ever a day that passed that I didn't want to tell you…You've got to believe me. You were still a Luthor. I knew- what you were capable of."
"I wouldn't have said anything. I wanted you to trust me."
Lex closed his eyes and Clark thought he was hurting him.
"I wanted to trust you." Clark said. He did want to be the un-self-conscious boy he used to be for now. Bring Lex back to himself. Convince him of whatever he needed to be convinced of.
"What's so different now?"
"You know the stakes. You know why the chaos has to be stopped."
Lex opened his eyes again and smiled. Clark had become acquainted with hundreds of Lex's expressions over the years. He still couldn't read this one.
"You're getting better at lying, Clark." he whispered. "You can close your door on the way out." Clark pretended for the hundredth time that he'd never heard the faintest break in his voice.
"How many fingers am I holding up?"
"Two and a half."
"Now?"
"Three."
"Now?"
"Chloe…It's all in here." Davis winced and patted the side of his head, now coated with glass fragments.
"Keep going. I was pretty much howling over your dead body an hour ago and now you're snarking me."
"Six. You're trying to trick me."
Chloe smiled. Davis figured something had to be going right.
When the asphalt crumbled in his hand as he'd dug them out, she hadn't run screaming. He thought he saw recognition in her eyes. More than that. Acceptance.
For him it was surreal, a little bit absurd, and horrifying. The glass was painted with his blood. He didn't know how he was going to explain it when they got back.
If Chloe had asked him what happened, he would have had no answers. He was lucky she was giving them to him.
"You're like he is. But. not. a killer and not crazy. Some of you are telepathic…others are just…really strong and invulnerable. You're meteor inflected, Davis."
What did that even mean? Davis caught her gaze and let out a slow breath, like he needed something- some way to know that it was alright.
(He reminded Chloe a lot of Clark. And he didn't.)
"I didn't know."
"You don't find out right away. In three fourths of the cases it until your teens, some really emotional moment for the meteor powers to manifest. Are you sure you've never been in Smallville before?"
To be exact, he wasn't. He had no records before he was three. He'd just—appeared. But she was sure she could find out.
"There is nothing wrong with you."
It was one thing to know, namelessly that you were different…and another to learn this. Maybe this was what the blackouts came from. Growing pangs. He could have imagined something worse- murderous instincts.
"It doesn't have to make you crazy or a pawn. I have a friend who--." (Not Clark's secret. Chloe's mind hissed.) "My first boyfriend Justin. He had powers too."
"Boyfriend?" Davis choked out. A little bit of Chloe thrilled at the undertone of jealousy there.
He went insane and tried to kill me. Okay, Chloe thought; that was really the wrong way to be encouraging.
"Former." Chloe concluded pathetically.
She ended up telling him the whole story, anyway.
Murderous instincts. Maybe that was in a way, what he got. Davis had studied too many statistics not to give them weight. And there were times, when he'd woken up, even as a kid. And he knew. He knew. Something dark. Something more than he was seeing now.
Chloe kept talking about free will. People choose to be monsters, Davis. Look at the crowd out there. It's night of the living dead. They're regular humans.
He didn't have to lose his mind. He was still dangerous. Remembering what he'd felt when he heard her plead for her life, he knew it. He could be a killer.
But she was alive. He couldn't bring himself to regret it.
When the nurse came in, post-procedure, Jimmy's first groggy question was 'Will they grow back?'
She didn't answer the first time. She was too absorbed with shuffling things (his papers), erasing his name from the little chalkboard on the wall.
"You can leave now. There are no chairs left and new patients are coming in. We're going to need this bed for someone else."
"Will they grow back?"
"What?"
""My— manpar---you know."
Jimmy hated talking to female nurses. They didn't get the lingo. It was just-awkward.
"Oh you mean-the testis? There's no mention of them here. According to your chart, you were treated for a minor graze wound to the illonguil nerve, you may experience loss of sensation..."
"You mean they're there? They're there."
"The bullet also scratched your inner leg. You have one stitch."
Jimmy slumped back on the bed and started to laugh hysterically. The meds made his head feel floaty and Lana ran into the room, horrified by what appeared to be loud croaking.
"I LOVE YOU!" he shouted. Not that he really was sure if he meant her or the nurse or if it all, but hey- carpe diem.
He waggled an eyebrow and wondered if she had a boyfriend. All would have been well with the world if the nurse hadn't ambushed her.
"Okay, whoever you are- All non-criticals out in five minutes. Orders."
Clark couldn't do anything to Braniac. He knew that even before he found him, before he tracked the blackouts to their source.
Clark didn't know anything about his enemy. He could do nothing to him. And as long as there was chaos like this- he couldn't be everywhere at once, couldn't save everyone at once.
Braniac had everything now; he didn't even care about him.
How could you kill a computer? Electrically fry it? He didn't have that power.
"You could kill me. But then my hold won't diminish and you'll lose every chance you have of fixing this pathetic planet of yours. That's the way it happens, Kal. You just have to watch your world burn."
Everything else had failed.
After knocking eight times at the Luthor Mansion door with no answer, Clark was pissed. He pushed it open with a finger and it slammed against the wall
"Trying to break my chandeliers?" Lex's voice wafted across the room.
Clark didn't need supervision to catch sight of the screen. The transfer of company titles, a lot of jargon. Had he expected Lex to sit around and mope? Not when Lionel was conveniently missing and there was a takeover to plan.
"Is that all you can care about even now?"
Clark would have bet he wasn't even searching for Lionel.
Lex answered without even looking up. He was supposed to look at him, dammit.
"I used to think you were the purest, most principled person I'd met. As a teenager, you had everything. You were everything I could never be, and wanted. I didn't even think you could be real. But it's not that is it?"
"People out there. You know what you did to them because you wanted the power Fine promised?"
"You're arrogant Clark. Of course I have to take control. It's chaos. I have to keep it together or people are going wind up in a whole lot of pain when this blows over."
It sounded logical. Everything about Lex sounded logical on the surface when underneath he was just a convoluted, twisting…
There were always things under the surface between them now.
"You brought those men to attack my family in my house because you thought it would blow over, Lex. It's not going to blow over. You know what you did. You don't have look much further than the page one of the Planet.
Deep down, you couldn't have done that on your own. No matter what scientists did to you or you think of yourself."
"And why are the stakes so high for you?"
"It's the world. Humanity. You used to care."
Lex watched him, gaze heavy.
"There's someone behind this. A---man." Clark almost said construct. What was he doing?
"I didn't stop him. I didn't even try. I wasn't ruthless. The end won't ever justify the means for me. I couldn't do it. Maybe I was wrong."
"I never expected you to quote the prince, even indirectly."
Ask big brother Lex to do your dirty work, why don't you?
"I'm trying to say- I can't do this without you. I can't do this without knowing what's been done and what I have to stop."
"You want to fish whatever I did-everything out of my brain for some school project. I deserve to know why first."
"I'll tell you."
Clark dug his fingers into his knees and stood up. It felt as if the secret was going tear its way out of him, too. The secret was all Lex needed to destroy him. But the alternative was worse.
And like all annihilation, the beginning was a rush.
"I am arrogant and superior, and I'm not your friend. From the moment we first met I knew I was going to lie and run and screw up your already twisted psych.
I think you're worse that I am. You're a coward."
Lex closed the laptop.
Clark had to do this. It was the only way. The end. The means.
"You wanted to find out about me, but it was never real. It was half assed. Pathetic. You could have hired more than a few thugs. You could have raised the stakes. You never did. That's why you will never get out of Lionel's shadow."
"Fucking with me again, Clark?"
Everywhere, across the walls were Katanas; Viking Broadswords hanging like child's toys. Fodder for his nightmares. Clark wondered if they ever made Lex feel protected.
"If you really hate what I represent all that so much, you could just take a swing at me, Lex. You like to keep it inside to justify being miserable."
"I'm not playing."
"Neither am I."
Clark tugged one off the wall, probably more expensive than his entire education. Slammed it right through his inexpensive suit jacket, over his heart. Pieces of the broadsword littered the polished floor like glass.
The whole blood on the shirt wouldn't be exactly easy for him to excuse away. Davis would have to do a little creeping into his pack and some bloody clothes disposal. It would look terrible to be crawling around the hospital.
Not yet though.
Chloe stayed with him, halfway in the abandoned wing. She had to be sure he was fully recovered, she said.
Davis shifted his pocket radio through the channels. No music any more. Another riot. A warning for Metropolis general. A mysterious blackout at the Pentagon.
Davis felt the change in her.
Funny how Chloe didn't really panic when it was Braniac but as soon as others started coming out of the woodwork too, she got scared. What was one hero to all that?
Clark had zipped out of there like the world was on fire. Chloe gave a watery laugh. It was.
"My friend ran into the thick of it, you know? I wanted to run after him."
"What was his name?"
"Clark."
"Clark will be fine."
Davis knew this reassurance wasn't practical and had no basis in fact whatsoever. It was a jungle out there. Chloe's nails dug little soft crescents in his shirtsleeve and wound around his neck.
The stone walls around them were weak. Davis could hear the miniscule shifts in rock. Farther away, someone was dragging himself across pavement.
"Let's get you somewhere more than borderline safe."
"Could you wait a little?" she pled. Her voice had gone on her. Chloe didn't ever cry like this. (It wasn't-the attack. It wasn't Jimmy or the gun. It wasn't Clark.)
It just caught her at a bad time. That was all.
In the hospital Davis fell back into the old patterns fairly quickly. People always needed saving. But it was in the back of his mind. When he pushed a stretcher he knew, just a little more pressure and it would twist and crack and the metal would be a useless heap.
Mostly he thought about how many more people he could help if he went all out. He didn't know how to.
And every time he thought of powers, he thought of that guy out there, how easily his bones had broken and what he'd been about to do. Davis thought of how he would do it again and wondered if this was him, losing it completely.
It would have been easy to pretend she hadn't seen what he was. Chloe never said a word. Didn't treat him any differently. 'You want to talk about what happened to us back there, freak?' never passed her lips.
But she wasn't here either. He missed her. Funny how something you had for a short time could feel like part of you.
Davis dozed against the wall. The third straight day of the schedule. Maybe, he'd thought, he could do without sleep.
When he didn't, he dreamed a lot of things that his mind classified as screwed up. Charlie dragged himself back across the floor… and he felt that rage. He'd leaned over to pull him up (cuff him for the police, something).
He was unarmed. Charlie's eyes widened and he wasn't dangerous, just sick, so sick. A jagged shadow fell along his face. The blood that speckled Davis's fingers burned at his skin.
Then, there she was. Chloe was coming. Closer and closer to him. (Closer to him and the blood.) Her face was hidden by shadows, her hair disheveled spun gold. Her heartbeat was one of the first sounds he heard, anywhere, anyplace. He knew her. It would have been impossible to explain otherwise. He recoiled in the corner so she wouldn't have to see. She looked down at his hands, into his eyes.
His head twisted at the gentle touch moving along his forehead, over his lips. He realized he was awake. Chloe was really there. She wasn't touching him, not quite, but it felt like she was.
"So are you getting real sleep any time soon?"
"This is sleep."
"I'll take that as a no and I count two hours until you start giving diabetics inhalers." Chloe was waving his work schedule under his nose.
"What?"
"You've been taking back to back shifts you're not even scheduled for the past four days."
"You found my locker?
"Broke into it, actually. It's not stalking when it's for your own good." He never figured her for the kind of girl. Driven to help people? Maybe he did.
The shyness was out of her eyes.
"More people are being wheeled in. The talk radio—there may be a mob breaking in. We have to get them treated and out of danger."
"Reporter here. Number one rule of this kind of situation is hype." From what she knew, it was the friggin apocalypse, but she wasn't going to tell him that just yet.
"I don't think I even need to sleep." He protested.
Chloe shook her head, exasperated. The slight motion teased a strand of hair over her upper lip. "I was tempted to tell your boss that you weren't coming home and the babies needed their daddy."
"I'm not married."
"You just don't know it yet. Neither does your boss." Chloe leaned back against the wall. She looked so much smaller than he did like this. "Meet mommy. I always wanted to put my aggressive reporting skills to use. And no one will get jealous."
"They would." It was impossible to think they wouldn't. Actually Clark might. Davis had heard a lot about Clark.
It looked an awful lot like Chloe was flirting with him, though. Accelerated heartbeat. Mostly she was worried.
The main doors slid open. Two patients needed him in ward one. He hated super hearing sometimes.
She put her hand on his elbow to get his attention, right under the sleeve. He could feel the blood pulsing under her skin. She had it.
"You look half-dead, Davis. You're not some sort of…super-powered robot. You're human."
"I can do more."
"Not in the middle of a mainlining hospital in Metropolis. The witch hunts start quickly here."
"You know?" Maybe she was more wrapped up in all this than he knew.
"I've seen them. That's why there are superheroes with alter-egos. I work… I worked at a newspaper. People want to be saved but they also want someone to tear down. I never want that to happen to you. You're so new… to this. Please? For me?"
"I will. Soon." Just not now.
If Chloe wanted to know the whole truth, he would have said he was afraid to stop because he couldn't sleep otherwise. He would have in a moment. The dreams, too, whatever Jung said.
"How about we meet up in an hour and you go to the ward? If…maybe, when we get out of here, you want to try helping people... If you still want to, I'll be here to help you with that. I won't tell. Anyone. Ever."
She was treading familiar territory, afraid of some sort of rejection. Her gaze slid away from his, to the floor to his shoes. She was the kind to look at life head on.
"Yes."
Davis was getting to understand impulses. Her cheek under his fingers felt warm. Warmer than he'd felt since this whole thing started. Her eyes met his as she swallowed, and her voice sounded shallower.
"Either way, you won't be getting rid of me that easy. Someone has to wing for handsome, naïve paramedics, right?"
I want to see you again.
"Thank you."
He wouldn't have heard her if he wasn't like this. "You'll make an amazing hero."
He saw jagged glass and blood and death and she trusted him. What was he supposed to do now? Leave? Pretend there was space between them? It was the way things were- safe.
"I'll see you?"
Chloe grabbed hold of his hand before he did though. "Does that mean it's a date? Or is this paramedic talk for two hours?"
He never made the logical decision to kiss her. If he had it would have involved more…speech. He would have said this wasn't about wanting a crutch or whatever she felt like so often. He felt something. (He felt a lot he was not supposed to feel especially when it came to her.)
It was her one, completely unguarded moment. Chloe hadn't been expecting that particular answer. His lips moved to form an explanation of some sort, and lost it to soft pressure.
Her eyes fluttered shut, and Davis could hear the quick staccato of her heartbeat. He hit the wall, freakish strength and all as her hands pushed against his shoulders. It seemed like all the hospital- the people were moving past them and this little space was perfectly still.
Her hands slipped lower down his back and his caught up. It was automatic, an old habit from carrying a switchblade in his pocket just in case someone tried to slit his throat in the street. But she wasn't trying to hurt him. His hand caught hers; tangled with her fingers. She made a hungry sound in her throat and tilted her nose into his cheek as her feet left the floor.
His hand slid away from her hair. When she hit the wall his hands followed and clawed grit from the wall just when his skin started to tingle with something predatory. To tear into her or get closer he wasn't quite sure. She tilted her throat up, held very still. His vision narrowed. But the small, small part of him that used to make sense was telling him to be careful and they were in a hospital hall for god's sake. He'd never done this-not publicly, not like this, when it meant…this. To someone he cared about this much.
Maybe she could know it for him-at least she seemed to, tugged at his collar, scratching.
When he put her back on her feet she was panting and he could barely see. His hand left her cheek, rubbing across the pinkish flush there. Her eyes were wide.
"Oh." She said. Her voice sounded…different. The small sense of triumph inside him cooled and dissipated. She took a step back, a small one from the corner where they'd been. Another. "Davis, I…"
Then she was halfway across the small corridor.
Dr. Jansen brushed by, jerking away at the last minute. Letting go of the stretcher behind her. "Bloome, if you're done with your extracurricular activities, I could use a hand in ward one."
The doctor kept her eyes glued to him, eyebrow raised, waiting for an affirmative sign. Blocking Chloe from view. Davis wondered if he could speed past her quick enough to talk to Chloe without getting fired.
Two hours, Chloe said quietly. Then she was gone and he could hear her footsteps moving as fast as her heart had been.
Davis ran a hand over his forehead. After he'd practically assaulted her in the hallway; he needed to explain. To try. But there was something about the way she looked. If he wanted to run her off, he just had.
Chloe nearly bowled over a couple of orderlies pushing an empty stretcher before pushing into the first door marked 'staff only' she found. Davis wasn't following, unless he'd learned stealth technique was one of his abilities too.
She slumped against the door and covered her face with her hands. Her face was burning. She didn't even try to guess at what he was thinking. There was no sign she could wear that read-caution: relationship minefield. He was probably confused out of his mind. Especially since she didn't even know what was the matter either.
Okay. She did. Part of it was being so bottled up she'd practically initiated vertical sex with him in the hallway. She was the proper friend who hugged guy friends and gave them hands up when they needed it unless it was the end of the world… but Davis had to have heroic impulses, save her, look and act like she was more than Lana to him. Her hormones did the rest. He looked good in a uniform. There was no denying where her hands had wandered for all of twenty seconds.
She didn't want to use him, not even the slightest bit. That particular quibble never seemed to have bothered her before, but it had to the first time she'd been any more than mildly curious. The skin on her neck was still tingling hot and cold just where he'd touched. She kept thinking of the way he'd looked at her and….she was tingling.
Chloe was pretty certain she wasn't thinking of Clark, but maybe it was one of those unconscious things. Maybe it was just easier to accept that it was the memory of the guy she had fantasized she was having sex with the first time rather than the fact that she'd wanted someone who saw her as first.
Her head hurt. It was all so complicated. (Simple.) The tense, turned on part of her protested that she had better darn figure it out soon so she could wait for him in an empty corner of the ward with something nice on.
Chloe pressed a hand to her still-heated face, fingertips lingering on her mouth as she breathed out. It felt right. Maybe the best plan of action was to tell Davis everything. Start from the beginning. Then kiss him again.
She was a little bit scared but mostly too giddy to breathe. (She actually had a part of her that was wired to not!Clark. Who knew?) She was also an idiot for locking herself in the storage closet.
One of Chloe's reporter rules: before the happily ever after, or the (optional) sexy times, get the apocalypse out of the way. The first thing she told Clark after he got her out of the closet was that she needed his help. And super speed and cloaking abilities.
Then he asked, "Can you give me some input?" He'd come for something about Lex again. Of course. As he recapped her on the brilliant plan to recover "Zod's" memories she wondered just why Lex was helping him. Maybe he had an attack of conscience. She had a few theories about that, but not much to add really.
At the Planet, she keyed in to the main database, overrode the code and tapped in the passwords to the pi license Perry had funded during a particularly gnarly hack into Luthorcorp files.
Chloe didn't tell him more of her reason's than she needed to. She got into a rhythm with Clark sometimes where it was just what they needed to do. Not them anymore.
"I should have been there."
"Well, I got rescued." Chloe tried to hide the catlike smile from Clark until she realized she was okay with him seeing it.
"Why are you doing this? You could just tell me where he is. We could turn him in." Clark definitely didn't think like Davis.
"This guy was no run of the mill stalker/rapist. He kept making odd references. I think he was working for somebody. And he kept acting like I knew something. Or I had something important. I want to find out that something first."
She un-wrapped the jackknife from its two plastic bags, pressed tape on one of the smudgy marks. A print.
In the very slim chance that they worked in the whole underground information database, she would have something. Chloe sighed in relief. At least the internet system was too widespread to collapse just yet. Then the world would really go insane.
"What about on your end?"
While the computer started doing its massive catalogue, she turned to see Clark crushing a paperweight in his fist. He was definitely worked up about the Lex stuff. Maybe he'd made a really dumb deal-of some kind in exchange for the help. Maybe he was just being Clark.
"You said we had to talk." She told him finally, pushing himself out of Perry's chair.
She took a step forward and another, backed Clark into the corner by the desk.
"Chloe, what are you doing?" He mumbled, blushing. He reminded her so much of high school Clark she wanted to pat him on the shoulder.
"Recreating our moment."
They were just in the same position before, minus the fear. Clark held her gaze but never lost his breath. His eyes were the way they had always been, just missing that wild animal hunger that Chloe had seen in Davis's eyes when she stepped closer.
"It was important to me." Clark said.
"But you can't do it now, can you?"
It had been a beautiful moment where they were full of adrenaline and need and fear, and after it what was there? Maybe he'd just needed to hold onto something. Maybe that's where 'they' had existed, that moment.
Clark dropped his eyes. "I do love you. It's just…"
"I understand." Her voice could have broken, but it never did. "You love everybody. Why didn't you just say it?"
"Look things are confusing now."
"And?"
"I- didn't want to make you feel used. There's the end of the world, Lex, Lana, I don't even know…This meant a lot to me anyway-you're my first real girl who's a friend and. I think, I could love you. If we try…"
"Love isn't something you try out like a pair of shoes Clark." Instead of that ugly feeling stabbing in the gut, she felt light. She hugged him and his hand awkwardly patted at her back.
"Look…Chloe. This meant..."
"We're good." She said again, strangely free.
Clark looked at her a little suspiciously but that felt just right. Agape love wasn't so bad was it?
"And for the record- I think the reason you're getting so bothered over the whole procedure with Lex is that you love him too. Clark, he's got a girlfriend. I think." She ribbed. Chloe wondered just how much Lois was rubbing off on her.
Clark didn't look up at her, this time, stumbled over his words more than she'd ever heard before. This was a whole other level than Lana. Chloe thought about it. The lengthy tie straightening sessions, the camouflaged touches, the person Clark always ran from. It reminded her of…well… her.
"When I knew he was going to tear down the world, I knew I couldn't be Jor-El's son."
In a way, this catharsis of Clark's made a lot of sense to Chloe. Helped her know him better than four years of friendship.
"That doesn't mean we're going to set up house together. Or that I even trust him not to cut me down. It's circumstances, Chloe. We have to stop this…"
Clark's ears prickled when guns started going off across the street. Chloe pulled her gun cautiously into her lap. "Go on, save the world." She told him.
As he disappeared, the smile was still on her face. She almost forgot to be scared.
Chloe got three search results for the print.
Charles Saunders alias Martie Curevo alias John Maxwell. Small time hoodlum. Gambling debts the length of her journalism resume. An enforcer for the highest bidder and a suspect in three different murders. Off for lack of evidence every time. He'd been a test subject at 33.1 once.
He took on a whole lot of assignments until a week ago, when he'd started working for Curtis Knox.
Curtis Knox was a golden boy with a dead wife, connected to the dissolved Cadmus Project. He'd used blackmail before and was looking for his own form of eternal life. He was rumored to have killed two mutants in an attempt to extract it from them. Their bodies had never been found, but their hearts had.
She'd seen him before. Just once. He was her new doctor. (If she had time she would have made a note to scratch him off her phone contacts before making sure he got his ass kicked.) As it was, Chloe didn't have time to start worrying about being infected herself.
Clark came back fifteen minutes later covered with soot and ash. It wasn't just the crowds being rough. They'd broken in somewhere, violently.
"You have to stay here now. Met Gen has been leveled." He said. "Lex and I need to get this done."
"What do you mean 'leveled'?"
It was just the beginning.
There was not much time to save everyone and recover the memories and dismantle Zod's plan in the small chance that Braniac hadn't already enacted it and was there to send them to whatever place Zod was.
So simple to forget that they were all in there.
"Will you be okay?" Chloe nodded. Once he was gone, she loaded her gun and stepped into the dark.
(Clark was the first person Chloe ever loved. He was going to attempt something so massively stupid that he and Lex could both end up dead. But the first thought in her head was "Davis is in there.")
Chloe thought she would never get used to there being no caravan of ambulances at the scene of chaos. It was so ashy, she needed someone to show up to give her directions. She got the wrong one.
Charlie stood in front of her, face considerably restructured, powers in tact.
"One thing you should know about Charlie. He never stays down." He wibbled.
Chloe aimed the gun. "I know who you're working for. I know what you've lost- the string of gambling debts from here to Havana. There are two bullets in this gun. You can walk away now. "
"Charlie's going to do this. Charlie does his jobs." He said. He wasn't talking to her. His blade flicked, shining bright orange in reflections of the banged up emergency lights outside.
Chloe wondered if Davis even had anything to defend himself with.
"You heard the screams in there. Cutting out my heart like some player in a demented Sleeping Beauty play won't help you. "
She aimed the gun carefully. "One step closer and I will shoot them both off, you hear me? "
Charlie took one step closer. And howled.
Endnotes:
1. Charlie ties into Chloe's Dr. Knox's Cure storyline. I shifted him back a few years. Since Chloe didn't know about her infection, she didn't go to him for help. He decided to get her heart with help. You didn't think Charlie was your run-of-the-mill-stalker-bastard did you?