Disclaimer: Do not own and all that jazz! Start the car, yo!

AN: Sorry it's been so long, but I come bearing gifts! Read and review, but most of all ENJOY!

Chapter 2

Gabe sat motionless and silent by Chloe's bedside, willing her to open her eyes, if only for a moment. He had already begun laying the foundation to make Lex Luthor, Oliver Queen, and Clark Kent's life miserable. It wouldn't really take much of a push at this point, but he didn't want it to be fast. It had to be a slow burn. They had to feel every inch of their lives crack and blacken. It had to bleed and blister. He needed their lives to scream and beg for mercy before he could find peace. When it was done, he would watch them smolder. The world didn't need them. He would render them to their base selves and everyone would see them as they were: selfish destroyers, subject to the unrelenting passions of their egos. That was the only possible outcome. The only one that could redress his injury. But even that didn't matter as he stared at his daughter's face, slack and gaunt from the passing weeks. Gabe clinched his fist until the tension left him shaking and an ache formed.

"I can be strong for you, Chloe. You just have to do one thing. Just the one thing."

He caressed her cheek. When she was younger, he could remember watching her sleep and gently caressing her face as he did now. Sometimes she woke up, irritated that her slumber had been disturbed. Gabe smiled. His little girl so grumpy in those times. But other times, she would sigh and snuggle into his caress, safe in the knowledge that he was there because he always would be. His face crumpled. Chloe did neither now. She just…lay there. Unmoving. Insensate. He wondered if she dreamed. Some part of Gabe hoped that she didn't. He hoped that there wasn't a world that she was lost in without him.

With that realization, anger devoured his grief. He was angry at her. Angry that she wasn't fighting harder. That she might have actually given in and that she couldn't will her body back to awareness. Angry that in the moment that she had to be at her strongest, she wasn't.

Something alien moved within him and it came out in his voice. He buried his face in her neck and whispered into her ear, "It's time to wake up, Chloe."

Gabe straightened in his chair, ashamed that he had been so overcome as to blame her. He was exhausted. For two months his life had been nothing but this. Endless days and hours of counting down the time until he got off work and could return to her, only to count down the hours until his body could no longer stay awake and he had to go home to rest. It was a loop that wouldn't be broken until she woke up.

But even so, what came after? Endless days of therapy. Days where she would get so frustrated in her reduced capabilities that she would be paralyzed with grief and hopelessness and give up. Days where he would have to watch her struggle and watch her decide that it wasn't worth it. Days where her progress came easy and she knew she wanted to move forward. Days that her sunny smile would greet him, but the rest of her face would be coated with sweat and effort. Days where he would have to smile back with the same amount of enthusiasm, but feeling the vaguest sense of uselessness. Would he even recognize his daughter in the person who woke up? Could she return to a semblance of normal? And if she couldn't, could she make a new normal? Would she even want to?

"Will I even be able to help her?"

A sense of hopelessness so complete, so pervading and all encompassing washed over him. This wasn't despair. It was…emptiness. It was the sense that he had failed even before he had begun. This was utterly new. Until this point, he hadn't even contemplated anything other than a successful after. Chloe would wake up and he would be there for as long as she needed him, and even after she thought she didn't need him anymore. Children always thought that. But it was never true. Until the day he died, she would need him. Just like her children would need her. The only thing that changed was the form of that need.

Gabe's voice changed. It was firmer, full of authority, "I am here, Chloe. I always will be and it is time. It is time to wake-up."

He kissed her forehead and picked up the book he was reading to her. It would be a long night and he would remain.

It was abrupt. One minute she was unaware and the next, she gasped for breath as a drowning man who had finally found purchase on shore. Her heart pounded furiously in her chest and she was bombarded with sights and sounds and smells. It was unrelenting and intense. Her body gave a violent shudder and she vomited over the side of the railing. She folded in on herself.

Chloe's body trembled and she held her stomach. Distantly, she was aware of a soothing voice and a hand caressing her hair. It felt scratchy and heavy. It was a weird sensation, but she welcomed it. For some reason she felt a keen connection to that touch, but she felt nothing else. Chloe didn't think she had ever felt this before and she didn't want to let it go. She tried to form words, but they came out as an unintelligible moan. If possible, the voice became gentler, but there was a slight echo as if the words he was saying had more meaning. As if there was another wavelength entirely that was trying to convey a message of equal importance.

There were other hands, no less gentle, but unwelcome just the same that encouraged her to roll over onto her back. Chloe instinctively, frantically grabbed at the hands that made her feel the safest. She had to decipher the other meaning. It was her life line. Those hands were her life line. The sudden wave of exhaustion defeated whatever resistance she had maintained and she was on her back, staring into a pinpoint of light. It moved back and forth and for the life of her she couldn't understand what was happening. It was all too much.

Chloe felt a pinprick in her arm and she fell asleep.

If Gabe had, at any point in the last two months felt useless and broken, it paled in comparison to watching his daughter grasp desperately for him in a way that she hadn't done even when she was a little girl. He covered his face with his hands and wiped them down his face. He wished that his body would uncoil from the tension, but it wouldn't. There was something unfinished here. At least he could take solace in the fact that she had awakened.

Gabe exited the room. He needed a break from what just happened and it he could wait for her doctor outside of the room as well as he could inside. He saw the doctor head his way and Gabe prepared himself for the worst, the best, for anything. Chloe was awake and that was all that mattered.

He was anxious and he knew it showed in his face, in his body, and his voice. Gabe didn't even try to hide it. Chloe was his daughter and the best thing in his life, "How is she?"

Kevin Masters knew that some folks liked to be eased into information, uncaring of the fact that it could be good new or bad. And then some folks were like Gabe Sullivan. "Chloe's preliminary responses are fine. Her eyes focus and adjust. Her reflexes are slower, but within normal parameters given her condition. We'll do more tests in the morning to check the extent of any brain trauma."

Gabe nodded. "Okay. She tried to talk and her words were jumbled and I don't know if she even understood me. And she woke up violently. One minute she was motionless and the next awake. Is that normal?"

"It could dysarthia, which is the inability to articulate any words, and is very normal in a recovering coma patient. Or it might be aphasia, which is the inability to sometimes use or comprehend word. It could be temporary, or it might be permanent. If it's temporary, then in a few hours or days, she'll recover. If not, she'll need therapy and she might not fully regain her normal capabilities, but it can be managed. We won't know until we have a look," Dr. Masters looked away for a moment, "No, it isn't normal. Usually patients awaken from a coma gradually, with periods of wakefulness and confusion, then sleep."

The doctor placed a comforting hand on Gabe's shoulder, "Listen, we won't know until we make a thorough examination, but she is awake, Mr. Sullivan. I won't tell you that it will be easy, but your daughter is awake and that means something. It means you have a chance."

Gabe swallowed thickly. It was the words he needed. The doctor left to continue his night's work. He would stay with her. The tears fell freely. There was a chance and that was all that he wanted. The chance to make it right for her. Taking a deep breath, he wiped the tears from his face and straightened his shoulder s and resumed his vigil. He also had to prepare for the inevitable: Clark would be here soon, as would Oliver. Gabe also knew that Lex Luthor would stop by when he thought it safe. Gabe knew the billionaire frequently visited Chloe. Getting into the hospital's surveillance network wasn't particularly difficult. But none of that mattered now. Only one thing did. Chloe. Those other things would have his attention in due time.

"Chloe, my little girl, is awake."

Chloe felt her father finally drift off to sleep. He'd been alternating between working on his laptop, reading, and simply staring at her while holding her hand. She'd been dozing throughout, but she was fully awake at the moment; but she needed a moment alone, both physically and mentally, to process. Chloe only hoped that she was strong and steady enough to walk from her bed to the restroom. All without disturbing her father. It seemed like an impossible task, but she had to try it. She needed a sense of perspective and to come to terms with whatever was happening to her.

After successfully sitting up, Chloe attempted to stand and begin her journey to the restroom, which was all of five feet. Those five feet didn't seem insurmountable; but in between her desire to be as quiet as possible coupled with her general unsteadiness, it was hell. Sweaty, muscle-shaking, tearful hell, but a hell that she had successfully navigated. Chloe could only thank her enhanced healing because she didn't think this was possible in normal coma patients, whose muscles hadn't been properly stimulated for months. She figured she had to have been in her coma for a relatively significant amount of time. It was the only thing that could really explain her father's aura of exhaustion and the impressive beard that covered his face. His hair was also shaggier than normal.

Chloe gently closed the door to the restroom and turned on the light. For a moment she was blinded, but her eyes adjusted and there was only disbelief. Intellectually, Chloe knew that the accident had probably been brutal. She knew it even as she careened wildly and finally came to an abrupt stop. She knew it as her consciousness gradually faded into the discordant tune of sirens, jargon from medical responders, and machinery. But to actually be confronted with what she knew was so much more. There was no expecting the person that looked back at her in the mirror. In part, it was because of what wasn't there.

There were no horrific scars or bruising or anything disfiguring; but there was a gauntness that bespoke of her weakness. She touched her head and watched as the person in the mirror touched hers. It was at this point that Chloe knew that there had been significant brain damage, but the shape of her skull remained intact. Despite this, there were other clues. Her hair was buzzed. Not particularly close to her skull, but shorter than Clark's head of hair. There was a long scar that even now looked better than it had any right to look. It was an odd dichotomy. Chloe knew that there was no way she should've looked this good, this healthy, after such an accident; but she also knew that she still didn't look like herself. She was still foreign in her own eyes. But in the end, she was grateful. Grateful to the meteor rocks that had clearly conferred to her a benefit.

Chloe raised her hand to the mirror and traced the outline of her face. It really was her. So wrapped up in herself and her thoughts was she, that she failed to notice the door opening. She came back to herself when she felt strong arms wrap around her waist. Focusing her eyes on the other person, Chloe saw that it was her father. And his face was lined with grief and happiness. She met his gaze in the mirror and there was a connection there that hadn't been before her coma. A phantom outlined his body so that it seemed that there were three people in the mirror and not two.

She turned and buried her face in her father's chest. It was a wealth of strength and comfort. There was no knowing when she started crying or when she heard his sobs, but she knew that those sounds of happiness entwined with an unyielding relief was theirs.

"Still trying to sneak out, Chloe?"

She chuckled softly. Humor had always been one of their go-to plays to relieve the heaviness of any given situation. "You know me, dad. There's always a story. It just happens to be me this time."

Gabe's face changed and the phantom outline darkened. He touched her face. "This shouldn't be possible."

"I know."

"Tell me, Chloe. Just tell me the truth."

He searched her face for some clue that she would tell him, but he knew that she wouldn't. Gabe couldn't really blame her. It was too fantastical; and a month before, he would've never believed it. He could accept reality now only because he had broken into her apartment and looked through her computer. Some other entity drove him forward as well. This new awareness would not let him hide. But no, he did not blame her. She was back and she was as she had always been. It was more than he had thought possible only a few moments before she had awakened, grasping for him.

"We'll talk later. But now you should get some rest," he paused for a moment, "You want to walk back or can I carry my little girl to bed?"

Chloe just wrapped her arms around him just like when she was younger. She didn't really ask to be carried. Chloe would just fling herself into his arms or onto his legs. It was his cue to pick her up. He couldn't deny that she had trained him well if even now he found himself responding to it. When he had her in bed, Gabe caressed her cheek, which she leaned into and went to sleep. He kissed her forehead.

His daughter was truly back and it would only get harder from here; but he was thankful for the opportunity.

He whispered into the darkness, "I love you, sweetheart, and it's all for you."