Disclaimer: Smallville doesn't belong to me. I'm just playing around with the characters the original writers created :)
A/N - Combined Chapters 2 and 3 because it seemed to work better that way.
Throughout her life Lois had found there were few things as effective as throwing herself into work when it came to avoiding uncomfortable emotions and awkward situations. Unfortunately she had to share her police scanner radio with Smallville, who sat opposite her rotating his squeaky chair back and forth while smirking at her across the desks.
"We have a 10-31 at the corner of Main and 5th. I'm gonna need backup." A burglary in progress? Finally, a headline worthy crime. It was just in time too, one more squeak of Smallville's chair and she was likely to throw something at him. She didn't bother to ask if Clark wanted to come with her as she grabbed her purse and ran for the exit. He could find his own leads today, this one was hers. Main and 5th was within walking distance, and with the lunchtime traffic it would probably be faster to run there. Pulling her ballet flats out of her bag she kicked off her heels in a practiced fluid motion.
Arriving 5 minutes later at what had previously been a popular over-priced art gallery and cafe catering to the independently wealthy lunchtime crowd, all she saw was carnage. People lay strewn on the sides of the room covered in obscene amounts of blood, limbs in unnatural positions. Tables were shattered, leaving nothing but unrecognizable pieces of wood lying on the ground. And, oddly, sticking out of the brick walls like they had been thrown with enough force to break through and remain stuck there. Burglary? Clearly the police needed a wider vocabulary. This was a massacre.
Scanning the rest of the room she rolled her eyes in annoyance when she saw that Smallville had beaten her to the scene. Apparently his training as the captain of the football team in high school had really paid off. Squaring her shoulders and raising her chin stubbornly she prepared herself to face him.
"Smallville, what you doing here?" With his usual wholesome farm boy grin and a distinct sense of self-satisfaction he replied,
"Well now Lois, I can't let you go running into danger by yourself, can I?"
Glaring at him through narrowed eyes she responded acidly,
"Thanks for caring Smallville, but I'm a big girl, and I've been taking care of myself for a long time." Rolling her eyes she sighed. "Anyway, since you're here, any leads yet?"
"Judging by the strength it must have taken to make wood break through brick I'm going with definitely meteor infected."
"Well no duh Smallville, I had that figured out for myself within seconds. I meant anything the average bystander couldn't have figured out for themselves." Clark shook his head and turned his head to look at her squarely.
"Something bothering you Lane? Wanna talk about it?" Summoning all her defense mechanisms Lois slammed her emotional walls into place.
"Nothing is bothering me except your constant incompetence, Smallville. Now go find something we can actually use." With one raised eyebrow and a slightly injured expression, he nodded curtly at her and walked away.
Lois took a deep breath and tried to regain her composure. She may have crossed the line a little with that last remark. It was unnecessarily harsh. Whenever someone got too close to her she seemed to lose her filter. Part of her needed to keep him as far away from her as possible at the moment, the other part of her just wanted to run after him and apologize. She shoved that part of her firmly in a box in the corner of her mind and sealed it shut, telling herself to get it together.
"Don't be ridiculous Lane. He knows you're only sarcastic with people you care about, you aren't gonna lose him over one stray sentence. Pull yourself together!"
Before she had a chance to calm herself down fully he was beside her again. How did he keep doing that?
"I overheard people talking about a beast-like creature that appeared from out of nowhere. The injured people have claw marks on them. It sounds like the same creature responsible for the Ace of Clubs incident. But it doesn't make any sense. The police have that guy in custody." Good. Discussing work kept the conversation in her comfort zone. She could handle this.
"Better, Smallville! Okay. We need to check if he's escaped. Otherwise, there is a much bigger scoop lying in wait for us, and the police have the wrong guy in custody. The police said a burglary, we need to find out what was taken. Lets go check the police report on the Planet database." A smile made its way across her face at the thought of a front page byline. No matter what else was going on in her life, she could always count on a good story to get her mind off it.
Walking back to the Daily Planet with Clark she kept up her usual banter, throwing ideas and theories at him about the story. He didn't say much in response just nodded and agreed with her. Eventually she ran out of ways to keep a one sided conversation going. Why wasn't he holding up his end of the conversation today? They walked in silence, tension building up between them for the last few minutes of the journey. When they finally arrived at the office he turned to her and glued her to the spot with his intense gaze.
"Lois, don't you think we should talk about what happened the other night?" Mind racing she tried to find a way out of having this conversation. She decided to resort to her usual work-obsessed retort. Raising her eyebrows innocently she feigned ignorance and replied rapidly.
"Hmm? Oh I make a point of not dwelling on anything related to previous stories. I've just remembered I didn't get my mid-morning cuppa joe today. I'll see you in there Smallville!" Punching his arm and grinning at him she tried to restore the usual atmosphere of camaraderie between them, but Clark's piercing gaze made it clear that he wasn't convinced as she turned on one heel and walked briskly in the opposite direction towards Starbucks. Coffee would make everything better. It had too. She couldn't let one farm boy disrupt her usual equilibrium. Who needed a man anyway? She certainly didn't. She had her job, and achieving her goal of becoming a star reporter left no room for dating, regardless of how dizzy and weak at the knees a certain farm boy could make her feel with one glance.
Clark super-sped to Chloe's apartment to give her a more in depth scoop on what had happened at the gallery. It seemed they had been wrong to point fingers at any of Chloe's meteor-infected group. The creature wreaking havoc throughout Metropolis was something more sinister and dangerous than a human exposed to Kryptonite. He hoped Chloe was doing alright today; lately she had been more on edge than usual. He knew her Brainiac induced super-computer brain power was getting progressively worse, but he still didn't know any way to reverse the effects. In the meantime he felt responsible for her well-being, checking on her repeatedly throughout the day under the guise of asking for her help fighting alien villains.
So when he found Chloe passed out on the floor with blood streaming from her nose all his fears rose to the surface. Her skin was a sickening grey-blue color, and there were dark circles under her eyes. He had no idea how many days it had been since she last slept. Her human brain had appeared to have gone into overdrive and crashed itself in a last ditch effort at self-protection. Mercifully she still had a heartbeat, albeit a weak one. He thought about super-speeding her to a hospital but quickly dismissed that idea as he realized they would have no idea how to treat her. Instead he speed dialed Oliver, hoping that the notorious party boy in green leather would answer his phone for once. Surprisingly, he did.
"Oliver, its Clark. Chloe has passed out, I can't wake her up. I think it has to do with the Brainiac infection. Do you know of any doctors who might be able to help her?"
"I'll call someone, I'm on my way over, don't do anything I wouldn't do." *BEEP*
Oliver arrived half an hour later with Dr. Emil, the one person they all trusted enough to know the medical side of their secret identities. When the MRI's and CAT scans showed up nothing, he hooked Chloe up to a sophisticated SPEC machine and took some fMRI scans, trying to get a read on the functional damage caused in her brain. They showed a dire image. The parts of her brain which would usually show action had been taken over by a black, gooey virus-like substance, moving far faster than any normal human brain would on its own. Although she was unconscious, her brain was still processing information at an unsustainable rate.
"It doesn't look good. It is a similar process to what happens to a star before it self-destructs. The rate at which her brain is developing will result in a black-hole effect if we don't find a way to stop it. It will overload and implode, killing her. It isn't like anything I've ever seen. I can't help her, I really wish I could."
Clark took a deep, shaky breath as his mind whirred with the death sentence Dr. Emil had just pronounced. He had no way of contacting Jor-El anymore, and he had no leads on any other way to help Chloe. This time he might not be able to save her. The thought was too painful to handle. He couldn't look at her, so pale and still. It wasn't right; she was usually so vivacious and full of life. He should have tried harder to find a solution before it got to this point. How did he get so caught up in saving the world that he neglected to save the one person who had kept him sane and grounded since the 8th grade? He super sped out of the room before he lost control and started blowing things up with his heat vision as his emotions spun out of control.
Oliver had fallen to his knees on the floor next to Chloe's bed when he heard Dr. Emil's words. He had gotten so used to Chloe being there, always playing sidekick to his alter ego, that he had never considered the idea that he might one day lose her. Tears rose in his eyes as he realized he might not ever be able to tell her how much he cared about her.
A knock on the door interrupted his thoughts and he pulled it open none too gently.
"What do you want? Now really isn't a good time."
"Hi, I'm Davis. I got a call from Chloe a couple of hours ago saying that she wasn't feeling too good and asking me to come over after work? She said she had found a procedure that might be able to help her but she needed me there for it to work?"
"She found a cure? Did her message say what it entailed?" Ollie's tears threatened to spill over as the adrenaline which had been keeping him functioning streamed out of his body, only to be replaced by a bone wearying exhaustion. Davis gave him a concerned glance as he replied.
"Nope, she said she'd fill me in when I got here. Uh...don't mean to intrude, but are you okay?"
"Come in and see for yourself." He held the door open for Davis to enter. As soon as Davis saw Chloe hooked up to life support machines he went into crisis mode.
"Is there anything here which might help us? The last websites she looked at on her computer? Any other phone messages she left?"
"Let's take a look at her laptop."
Lois checked her phone for the first time in a couple of hours. There was a frantic message from Chloe.
"Lois, it's me. I don't feel so good; can you come see me on your next break?"
Chloe never admitted to feeling unwell. Lois was on her way before the message finished, and the clattering noise of her cousin dropping her phone on the ground only made her more concerned. She left the message running to see if she could pick up anything more. There was nothing for a little while, then she heard Clark's voice come through the line...apparently talking to Ollie?
"Oliver, its Clark. Chloe has passed out, I can't wake her up. I think it has to do with the Brainiac infection. Do you know of any doctors who might be able to help her?"
She stamped on the accelerator and broke at least a dozen laws driving to Chloe's apartment at 110MPH. Using her key to get in only to find Oliver and Davis sitting, staring at Chloe's laptop while her cousin lay hooked up to life support machines, Lois nearly beat them both up on the spot but instead settled for yelling at Ollie.
"What on earth is going on here Oliver?" Turning to Davis she frowned in confusion. "Really? Clark thought to call you two but didn't bother calling me?"
"Lois, calm down, please, we're trying to figure out how to save her." Eyes wide, Lois' gaze froze on Ollie.
"What do you mean save her, how bad is it?" Oliver finally tore his eyes away from the laptop and took a deep breath before walking over to her. Placing his hands on either side of her shoulders he looked her in the eyes and held her in a compassionate stare for a moment before answering her in a low, broken voice.
"It's pretty bad. We don't know how to fix it. We're trying to find out. Lois, we don't think she's gonna make it unless we find a miracle soon." No, it couldn't be true. Her cousin was the most resilient person she knew. She couldn't lose her. Head spinning, she sat down on the couch next to Davis, trying to grab the laptop out of his hands.
"Let me have that. Where did Clark go?" Davis replied to her.
"Not sure, he was gone when I got here. Lois, I'm sorry, but I can't let you see what is on the screen. Oliver and I are handling this."
Lois didn't bother listening to his words. She was fuming. How dare Clark not call her the minute he found her cousin unconscious? And then to just take off leaving Chloe to fend for herself. It was unforgivable. She knew he had a habit of disappearing at short notice, but she had always thought he would at least stick around when someone close to him really needed him. She was going to kill Smallville the next time she saw him.
Instead she shot Davis a death glare and appealed to Oliver instead.
"You know my investigative reporting skills would be helpful here. Come'on Ollie."
"Sorry Lois, but I'm gonna have to ask you to stay out of this one."
"No way. She's my cousin."
"You're too close to the situation to be able to be objective and get her the help she needs. What you can do to help us is go find Clark and tell him to get his butt back over here." He gently pushed her towards the door as he spoke, closing it firmly behind her when he was done. Lois fumed for a moment, then decided that tracking down Smallville and letting him know exactly what a terrible person he was on every level might be exactly the catharsis she needed right now.
Davis and Oliver sat down and finally read the cryptic letter on the screen which Chloe had written to him before she passed out.
"Davis, if you are reading this it means that the infection has already spread too far and my brain has begun to self-destruct. It seems when we talked about you being the beast before, we may have been right. Remember Davis, what kills you makes you stronger. That dangerous side of your genetic makeup should be able to help me, but you need to find a way to combine it with something to neutralize it enough to be safe for my body to process. Ask Oliver or Clark if they have any ideas.
Ollie and Clark, if you are reading this, don't over-react and do anything reckless to Davis. I know he has hurt a lot of people but it's not him, he isn't in control when those things happen. His genetic material contains the only way to save me. So please, find a way to help gain control over his dark side, for my sake."
Looking at each other in alarm, Davis and Oliver quickly agreed non-verbally that they would put aside their differences until they managed to heal Chloe. Then, all bets were off.