---- Chapter 4: E Re Nata

Eyes wide, Chloe couldn't blink as she watched Clark collapse onto the ground. Her mouth slightly open, she simply stared at the sight of Clark unconscious on the floor, blood quickly pooling beneath him. She sucked in some air as she saw something move out of the corner of her eye, but she couldn't make herself look away from him.

Wanting to move, her body seemed unable to respond to her mind's desperate requests to help him. The only motion she managed was the gun falling out of her hands and onto the floor, a quiet thump she couldn't pay attention to.

---

Tears stinging her eyes as Clark tumbled to the ground, Lois saw Lex making a move towards Chloe. Running past her cousin, she dove over her fallen husband and tackled Lex. They tumbled to the ground, Lois landing on top of him. Without thought Lois pulled back her hand, already balled into a fist, and punched Lex across the jaw twice. Seeing his head loll to the side as she prepared to punch him a third time, she stopped herself and got up.

She took a few steps back to Clark, kneeling next to him. He looked over at her weakly, blood still trickling from his mouth. It looked like he attempted to smile for a second before his face contorted with pain once again.

Lois looked up at Chloe, who was still just standing there and staring in shock. "Chloe!"

---

She'd have sworn she heard he name called, but it didn't register in her mind. How had she shot him? He was invulnerable. It couldn't be done with the simple lead of a bullet. How? It didn't make any sense! He shouldn't be there on the ground, his life oozing out of him. He should be standing there, having crushed the bullets and telling her that murder was never the answer.

When she heard her name again, Chloe blinked, but could still only focus on Clark's body. This had to be some sort of dream. Even with the way things in her life went now, this couldn't have happened. She couldn't have shot Clark.

---

Getting up, Lois moved over in front of Chloe and grasped her by the arms, shaking her a couple times until her eyes finally focused on her face instead of on Clark. "Chloe, you have to focus! Come on! Are you with me?"

Teary eyes blinked a couple times and she nodded. "Y-Yeah, I-I'm fine."

Lois nodded. "Good. You have to heal Clark."

Chloe's eyes narrowed. "What?"

"Your meteor power, Chloe. You need to heal him with your meteor power."

---

Taking a moment to breathe, Chloe closed her still open mouth and nodded once more, her brain finally kicking into gear. "Ok, yeah. You, um, you need to dig the bullets out of him." Wiping away a tear, Chloe ran a hand back through her hair. "I don't think healing him would do any good with them in there, so you do that."

"Why can't you help me?"

"Lex has a personal video system in here that's only accessible from his computer. I'm going to destroy it."

Lois looked at her for a second before nodding her ascent and moving back to Clark. Chloe heard her murmur something to him before there was a cry of pain, causing Chloe to wince and shrink away for a second. Gathering herself again, she picked up the gun and walked over to Lex's computer. Without hesitation, she fired off the rest of the clip into the computer, riddling it with holes. If that didn't do the trick, it would take Clark's powers to finish it. She tossed the empty gun on the desk.

Turning back to face Lois and Clark, she saw her cousin working her fingers around in one of the holes in Clark's chest. She pulled out a bullet and looked at it for a second. "Kryptonite. Lex lines his bullets with kryptonite, the bastard."

Chloe kneeled down on the other side of Clark, looking at Lois. "Is that both of them?" When Lois nodded, Chloe took a deep breath and readied herself for what was to come. "You're going to have to carry me out of here."

"I know. Clark will be able to carry us both."

"I'm so sorry, Lois." Chloe swallowed and shook her head. "Will you tell him that for me?"

"You can tell him yourself, when you recover."

Nodding, Chloe sucked in one last deep breath and focused her mind at the task at hand.

---

Lois rose up and took a step back as a glow enveloped Clark and Chloe. It brightened with each second and Lois shielded her eyes as it flashed for a long second before the room returned to normal lighting. Looking down, Chloe was collapsed in a heap on top of Clark, whose eyes were blinking open.

Blinking back tears, Lois moved back to where she'd been by his side, smiling as she cupped his face in her hands. "Are you all right?"

"Yeah," he breathed. He sat up, gently cradling Chloe's body against his chest. "Did she heal me?" Lois nodded and leaned forward, kissing him gently and resting her forehead against his. "Where's the kryptonite that weakened me?"

"It was lining the bullets. It wasn't a lot, but it as enough to make the bullets deadly to you. Keep that in mind next time you're around here."

"I will. Is Lex ok?"

"Yeah, but he's going to wake up with a sore jaw tomorrow. He was trying to take advantage of the situation so I had to tackle him and knock him out."

Clark stood up, holding Chloe's limp form in his arms. Lois got up and stood next to him. "We should take her home. How long do you think it will take for her to recover from this?"

"I don't know. There's never been a uniform time for her recovery from the serious injuries she's healed." Looking around, she found Lex's gun on the desk. Grabbing it, she walked over and stuffed it from the messenger bag that was barely hanging from Chloe's shoulder. Taking it off her cousin, she draped it over herself. "Fly her home. I'm going to drive my car home."

"Why don't you..."

She cut him off. "I need the drive home to think, Clark. It's not a long drive, but hopefully it'll help me get some things straight in my head."

"All right. Be safe."

As he flew off, Lois moved to leave but caught sight of the unconscious Lex in her peripheral vision. Frowning, she looked at him a moment and noticed that his arm was still bleeding. She pulled the bag around in front of her and opened it, hoping to find something to staunch the flow. The only thing that could be construed as useful was the duct tape. She pulled it out and took a knee next to him.

Sticking an end of the tape over the wound, Lois lifted his arm and started wrapping it tightly around the bleeding area. After six or seven circles, she tore the tape and got the other end stuck to the rest of it. Stuffing the roll back in the bag, she walked out of his office. With nobody around, she made her way to the elevator and pushed the button. It opened a minute later, and after a couple stops, she was on the ground floor and walking out of the building through the main doors.

Running a hand through her hair, Lois kept a casual pace as she made her way along the sidewalk and across the intersections. She was soon making her way into the parking garage and stepping into her car. She tossed he bag in the passenger seat and stared straight ahead for a moment. Feeling tears start to stream down her face, she couldn't hold back the sobs that tore through her.

Hands clutching at the back of her head, Lois rocked back and forth as she let the tears flow, not really having any choice in the matter.

Chloe had wanted to die. She hadn't cared about her own life. She'd gone in there thinking that she was going to die, ready to kill Lex. Her cousin had been ready to commit murder. The sobs kept racking her body, Lois being unable to get what had just happened.

When she thought about seeing Clark appear there and his face pale as blood oozed down his body, fresh tears sprang to her eyes. She'd almost lost him. How much of her life was dependent on him being there, of what she would have lost if Chloe didn't have the ability to heal, was abundantly clear to her now. Not having Clark in her life was one of the scariest things she'd ever had to face.

A few minutes later, after copious amounts of tears, Lois finally pulled herself together enough to sit up straight and start the car. Taking a tremulous breath in, she looked at herself in the rearview mirror and felt like she could almost laugh. She looked awful. Rubbing at her eyes a moment, she sighed and backed out of the parking spot and drove out of the garage.

Letting her eyes focus on the road, Lois tried to figure out what they were going to do about Chloe. It was abundantly clear that if she took the hands off approach now, bad things could happen. Chloe was going to be guilt ridden when she woke up. She'd shot Clark. It was going to tear her up inside.

In a way, Lois was grateful that Clark had arrived there to get shot by Chloe. As much as it had hurt to see Clark like that, and the thought of it brought tears to her eyes, she didn't want Chloe to have to live with blood on her hands. She'd shot Lex in the arm, which was something that she was going to have to deal with at some point, and Lois hoped that Chloe would at least feel guilty about that.

Would she, though? Would her cousin be sorry about anything that happened to Lex? Would she simply laugh about it now? Lois sniffled a bit as she wondered if anything was left of the Chloe she'd grown up knowing, the bright eyed girl curious about life's unexplainable events. All she ever saw now was a woman torn down by life, feeling that she had nothing left and a life not worth living anymore.

Blinking, Lois found herself closer to home than she expected. Turning into the neighborhood, Lois did her best to make her brain relax as she drove slowly through the streets, finally pulling into the driveway of their house.

Releasing a breath she didn't know she was holding, Lois got out of the car, pulling the bag with her. She closed the car door with her foot and walked up to the house, heading inside. Heading down into the basement, she found Clark sitting on the couch, leaning forward with his face resting in his hands. Steeling herself, Lois walked down and sat down next to him, running a hand over his back.

"Are you all right?"

He took a long breath in before looking over at her, smiling softly. "Yeah. I was just thinking about everything that happened tonight. I was only there for the tail end, and it was pretty intense. I'd show you the evidence, but I am happily without."

Lois sighed and rested her head on Clark's shoulder. "I don't know that I've ever been that scared before. You almost died. I almost lost you..." She trailed off as she felt the tears start again, and Clark turned and wrapped her in a hug. A few tears got free, but nothing close to what she'd done in the car. His arms felt like a really good, safe place to be, though.

"You didn't lose me, Lo. You saw me in a mind numbing amount of pain, yes, but I didn't die. You'll have to work a whole lot harder than that to get rid of me."

Lois adjusted her position a bit so that she was lying down, her head resting on his leg. "You're lucky that I'm feeling lazy, Smallville, not too mention that you're comfy."

"Good to know." There was a pause, then he spoke again. "As much as I would like to just sit here with you, I'm curious as to what happened before I got there."

Lois closed her eyes, covering her face with her hands for a moment before removing them. "The short version is I walked into Lex's office, where I found Chloe with a gun pulled on Lex. There was talk, where I told Chloe about our findings, then she shot Lex in the arm and he dropped a gun that I hadn't seen. She grabbed that gun, putting the other in her bag, and after confessing she feels her life is no longer worth living shot at Lex. The rest you were a part of."

Clark gently ran a hand through her hair a couple times, and Lois let her eyes slide shut as he did so once more. "She feels that her life is no longer worth living?"

"She thought that if she killed Lex and went to jail for it she'd be unburdening us. She didn't give me a chance to refute that thought because that was right before everything went to hell."

"How can we help her?"

"I think she needs more than we can offer, Smallville."

---

Gasping in a deep breath, Chloe's eyes flew open. Sitting up, she looked around and found herself in her room, on her bed. Swallowing, she looked at the clock on her bedside table, and found that it was not long after ten in the morning. Rubbing at her eyes, she cracked her neck and swung her legs off the side of the bed.

Sitting there, the events that had played out ran through her mind. Grimacing as the image of a bloody Clark popped into her mind, Chloe let her head drp and her chin rest against her chest. Scratching at an ear, she chewed on her lip for a moment before standing up.

Walking to the bathroom, Chloe stripped off her clothes as she started the shower. Waiting a moment for the water to heat up and bouncing on the balls of her feet a bit to keep them from freezing on the cold floor, she got in the shower and let the water pour over her face. She stood there a moment, the soon scalding water flowing over her, but she didn't move. Standing there, she let the water burn her, making herself feel something other than self loathing for what she'd done.

Finally taking a step back a moment later when she couldn't take the heat anymore, Chloe adjusted the water temperature and proceeded to take a shower, trying to wash the memories of shooting Lex from her mind. She'd actually shot him. How could she do that? She'd wanted to kill him, and had tried to, nearly killing Clark instead. How could she have let herself do something like that?

She'd never thought that she'd be capable of killing another person, not in cold blood. When it came to fighting for her life, well, if the person trying to kill her ended up dead that was unfortunate. But trying to take justice into her own hands, trying to end Lex's vile life? How had it come to that? How had she let herself get there?

Finished with her shower, Chloe got out and dried herself off before wrapping up in the towel and walking to her room. Getting dressed, she thought about what she had to do. She needed help. She knew that now, especially considering that she still wanted Lex dead. She wanted to see him die and...

Stopping her thoughts, Chloe pulled on a sweater and pulled her hair out from inside it. Rubbing the spot between her eyes, she knew that she had to find a way to stop being so angry. Well, considering the fact that she'd shot Lex in the arm last night and was very likely to be arrested sometime soon, she might get a court mandated therapy session every week.

Composing herself for what was to come, Chloe walked out of her room and through the basement to the stairs, heading up to get some food and probably yelled at by Lois. As she opened the door, she was greeted by the sound of nothing going on. Closing the door behind her, she walked through the bottom floor of the house, finding nobody there. Going to the stairs, she stopped at the base. "Anybody up there?"

When she didn't get an answer, Chloe shrugged and walked into the kitchen. Grabbing a bagel from the bread box, she split it in half and tossed it in the toaster. While it toasted she walked over to the fridge and pulled out the apple juice, pouring herself a glass. She took a sip of that and looked over as the bagel popped up. Grabbing a plate, she tossed each half on it before walking into the living room.

Placing everything on the coffee table, she took a bite of the bagel before slouching back into the couch. She decided that when the police did come for her, she wasn't going to fight any of the charges. She was guilty of them all; what would the point be?

This was all assuming that Lex actually reported her. He was an awful excuse for a human being, but he was rarely predictable. He was as likely to report getting shot as he was to just forget about it until two years down the line and try to take her out with a hitman that would never be traced to him, if he was even found.

Chloe heard the front door open, along with the sound of a laughing baby. Readying herself for what was to come, she leaned back a little and looked towards the front door, she spotted Lois and Clark walking towards her, Lois playing with Jacob as they got into the living room. "Hey, guys."

Both Lois and Clark seemed to notice her for the first time. Clark smiled at her. "Morning, Chloe. How are you feeling?"

She shrugged. "Fine. No ill effects. You?"

"The same." He placed a hand on her shoulder, smiling at her before he took Jacob from Lois and headed upstairs.

Gulping, Chloe looked away from her cousin, not able to meet her eyes. Grabbing her bagel, she tore off a piece and stuffed it into her mouth, swallowing before taking a long drink of her apple juice.

"How are you, Chlo? Really?"

"I tried to kill somebody last night Lo, and nearly killed my oldest friend. Considering all that, I think the fact that I'm not curled into a ball of guilt is pretty good. Of course, it could also be a sign that I'm lacking guilt I should probably feel."

Lois sat down beside her and wrapped an arm around her shoulders, gently pulling her close. "I love you, Chloe. Nothing will ever change that. You're not a burden to us, nor will you ever be. Your life is worth living. You have me; how can you not want to stick around for it?"

Chloe smiled through the tears she felt forming. "I must have been crazy to think a life with you in it wasn't worth living. Unfortunately, that hasn't changed. My life has nothing in it. I don't have the job I love anymore, or even a job I hate to fall back on. I don't have a family to fall back on for comfort or support."

"You have us, Chloe."

"I know, and I love you even more for it, but you know what I mean. My dream is gone and the future I thought I would have a mere six and a half months ago is a big gaping hole now. Were it actually real, I think I'd take the opportunity to jump into said hole."

"I hate to say this, Chlo, but you need more help than I can give you."

Chloe pulled away from Lois' arm that was around her shoulders and raised an eyebrow. "Lois Lane admitting defeat? Wow, I really must be a lost cause."

"Not a lost cause, just somebody in need of help that I don't have the experience to provide."

Chloe grabbed her bagel and sat back, taking a large bite. She spoke around it. "This all may be moot, you know. Lex may be talking to the cops right now."

"He hasn't yet."

Chloe looked over at Lois. "How do you know that?"

"Clark and I have a contact high up in the Metropolis P.D. that told us he would let us know if a call comes in from Lex. So far, nothing."

"All right," Chloe breathed. "What do you have planned to help me?"

"Well, we have this friend in Gotham that we think can help you with your anger, and what you do with it."

"What's his name?"

"Bruce Wayne."