Disclaimer: don't own
AN: Real AN at the end of the chapter
Chapter4
"Nothing there was a town, or a church, or a river, or a color, or a light, or a shadow.
I kept still for a while and felt a pleasant sensation
as the indescribable great harmony
the brightness of the sky and the melancholy of the moment spread throughout my body.
It was just a dream.
I don't know what happened inside my mind
nor do I have any way of putting it in to words.
It was a moment that defied all words,
when I felt something inside me fall asleep
and something else wake up..."
-Joe Bousquet
The pale red of the sky kissed the window and provided a warm glow that played against the petals of his favorite flower. The petals, slightly unfurled, gently swayed towards the red rays. This was the perfect place to allow the flower to grow. The direct light of the noon sun would have this flower in full bloom in no time. It was difficult cultivating this particular breed, but Zor-El was nothing if not persistent. This flower needed love, but more important, it needed the initial burned petals before it would grow anew, stronger and more durable. Most of his kindred could not understand this flower. But Zor-El did. It thrived in a harsh environment, but it had to be a measured harshness: too much and the plant would wither and die, burned beyond recognition and carrying a foul odor. The odor was the true obstacle for nobody wanted to contend with the evidence of such failure.
Joy and happiness and contentment suffused him. His body and mind were languid and complacent. This feeling was as if he had been cast adrift in the clinging waters of Krypton. This was his pride. His sanctuary. It was bliss. He could not say that there only ever be these moments here, in this place, for he had a family that he adored; but he could say that it felt different than anything. There were nuances to each feeling that could never truly be replicated by different circumstances.
Zor-El reached out to stroke the resilient flower, but his hand was not his own. It was small and feminine. He furrowed his brow. What? From the corner of his eye, a soft red glow caught his attention. Glancing towards it, he saw his reflection in the glass. His eyes were green and his hair blond. Then something snapped into place and Chloe saw herself within the glass, but she still knew herself as Zor-El. The cognitive dissonance staggered her for a moment.
Before she could get her bearing, Chloe heard a familiar voice behind her and whirled to face the interloper of her sacred space. Clark?
"It has always baffled me, brother, how it is that you should have the patience for growth."
Jor-El seemed to be waiting for some kind of response, but Chloe/Zor-El could only gape. She could clearly see Clark's features, but beyond that achingly familiar face was that of Jor-El, Zor-El's brother. Immersed within the general confusion of what was going on and why it was happening now, was the hot sensation of resentment that Jor-El/Clark would come here, that he would violate this place with his presence.
Jor-El never appreciated beautiful things. Only the mechanical. Only the technological. Zor-El knew it would be his undoing some day, but not today or even tomorrow. Jor-El was in a place of power and prestige. The current golden boy of Krypton's technocratic elite, but even that would prove, in the end, to be an ephemeral honor.
He smirked and pushed past Chloe towards the flower she had been admiring and lovingly tending. "The nura flower. So exquisite. So complicated. So prickly. But in the end, discarded and poorly understood," Jor-El/Clark turned towards her, "I can see why this, above all else, has enraptured you."
Chloe/Zor-El was finally able to think and act. She grabbed Clark/Jor-El's hand before he could touch the flower and was finally able to speak, "What is it that you want? And why would you come here instead of calling for me?"
Jor-El shook Zor-El's hand off. "The biological parts of Brainiac are not interfacing with the technological. I need you to fix it."
A moment of dazzling confusion rocked Chloe. The sensation of rage and hatred and resentment at his entitlement overwhelmed her. The Brainiac project was oneZor-El did not care for. It was Jor-El's brainchild, but he could not or would not see the more radical elements of Krypton's power brokers manipulating them all. Of course, that list began and ended with Zod and his desires, but that was neither here nor there. The point was that any number of scientists could deal with this issue, tha Jor-El came to him was galling.
"These are not my emotions. This is not my life. This isn't real. It can't be."
The muscle along Chloe's jaw ticked and her head throbbed. She couldn't tell if it was because of the disorientation of living someone else's life, the irritation of the being she inhabited, or the general ambivalence she held towards both Clark and Jor-El at this point."Maybe it's all of the above."
Chloe briskly walked towards the door and past Clark. "I have no time for you, brother. I am going to spend time with my family."
She heard Jor-El snarl in anger. She had, apparently, pushed passed his limits. "Such casual entitlement to my time."
Her arm was grabbed from behind and Chloe was forced to face Clark, his beautiful face twisted in anger and impatience. Jor-El's jaw was tightly clenched, but he managed to speak anyway. "There have been promises made! And our House will keep those promises!"
Zor-El would've pushed him away, but Jor-El had size and conviction on his side.
"Your promises are yours. I told you this project would take longer than your optimism would allow. I told you and the High Council and General Zod that the improvements you need are five, maybe ten, years away! I can no more speed time than I can leap over tall buildings; and nothing you say can or will change those facts," Zor-El sneered, "Not even you, the high and mighty Jor-El, can make it so. One day you will finally have the wisdom these people attribute to you, but clearly today is not that day."
With that, Chloe jerked her arm from Clark's grasp and left the room. Her security measures would prevent any damage that Jor-El might feel the need to inflict. Chloe didn't care, but she felt the resentment and jealousy seethe in Zor-El. She had no doubt that this was the moment of the House of El's downfall and Krypton itself. "It's all over save for the explosion and mass death. Oh and also the betrayal."
Zor-El, she knew or rather felt, had every intention of going home to his family, but he was too irritated with everything in general and Jor-El and himself specifically. "I am too weak and Jor-El knows it. Everyone knows it. But I will show them. All of them."
He abruptly turned on his heel and headed towards the Science Complex, where Brainiac was housed. He had been truthful with Jor-El. Brainiac's production could not be improved until the biological components caught up with the technological and Zor-El would not work harder than he had to. He could admit that Jor-El was brilliant, but it was as much a flaw as it was a virtue because it blinded him. Of course, they were all blinded by something and no one knew what it was until the fateful moment your own hubris and ignorance folded in on itself. "The center will always be too weak. Will my time be soon?"
The Science Complex of Krypton's capitol city was vast. It was one of the crowning jewels of Krypton. Nothing was spared in its creation. The Science Complex combined a living spaces for families, high tech research labs, recreational areas, schools for children and the Science Academy for those embarking on a lifetime career. It was the marriage of Kryptonian leisure and work. The notion of "work where you play" was fulfilled here. There were other Complexes, but the Science Complex was the current hotbed of activity and productivity.
Chloe followed the route that Zor-El was taking. She knew every face and voice that called a greeting. And even though Zor-El was oblivious to the future of Krypton and even though she didn't quite understand his role in it, there was a moment of profound and overwhelming sorrow for this civilization that, in about ten years, would be destroyed and for him. She took in the beauty of her surroundings that Zor-El was oblivious to in his angst, but that she marveled at.
But all too soon, Zor-El was nearing where he wanted to go. Chloe got the distinct feeling that Zor-El saw the irony in heading to the one place his brother demanded he go. And then she was in the presence of Brainiac and she was shook to her very foundations. Nothing could possibly have prepared her for this sight…for this moment in her life. How could she ever have thought that this was anything other than a nightmare? How foolish could she have been to have just accepted being a passenger in this experience?
What confronted her was the sleeping face of her father, but underneath that image, as had been true with Jor-El/Clark, was the face of the Brainiac she had known. She wanted to smash that face. To destroy it. It wasn't her father. This couldn't be Gabriel Sullivan. It was wrong and why this was happening escaped her. It was beyond meaning or comprehension for her. Of all the people to cast as this…destructive force. All the people in the world and it was her father's face.
"Could this be because of his prominence in my life? Because no one can destroy me like he can? Does my father truly represent destruction? How is it possible? What am I missing?"
But in the end everything came to one point. "Have I really failed this hard with my father?"
Chloe was frustrated, confused, and above all else, frightened. There had to be a deeper meaning to this. To all of this. Whatever "this" actually was. And she couldn't even begin to define it. In truth, she never thought there had been a need, despite her previous hallucinations. "But what can that deeper meaning possibly be?"
The beautiful, silken tones of Lex Luthor assaulted her ears, "You can never resist his goading. I knew that all I needed to do was plant a little bug in his ear and off to you he'd go running! Run to you, the brother he can't understand, but that he needs. You two! Such complements to a problem of our own making. Oh, Jor-El! Such a fellow as had ever been, yes?"
His voice may have been Lex's, but the face, the movement, the gestures, the intonation and inflection and affectation was all General Zod. The knowledge came to Chloe fast and furious. "All actors in a play.
Chloe recalled the first time she had ever hallucinated: the day Clark had visited her and she saw Zor-El and Brainiac and Jonathan Kent. "It comes in threes. Even now."
Lex circled her. His face lost its haughty sneer and he grasped Zor-El's shoulders in a bruising grip. "When will you learn? Today maybe? Years from now?"
Chloe knew the truth, in all its horrific glory and implication: none of them would ever learn.
Somewhere, deep down, Zor-El knew that General Zod respected him and may have even liked him to a certain extent; but it would never be enough to give up whatever goals he thought he needed to accomplish. General Zod was driven. He existed on a plane not of his creation, but of his embrace. Whatever friendship they could have had was dead on the vine before it could really take hold because Zod would never be willing to tend to it as it needed.
Lex abruptly let her go. "I have plans for this wonder of ours," he turned towards Chloe, "You can be a part of those plans. There is always room and I never shut the door."
Zor-El/Chloe's eyes narrowed. "You play a dangerous game, General Zod. It will end poorly. Of this I am certain."
Zod/Lex smirked and he clapped in faux exclaim. "So the future is known to you now? What is this? Shall we go to the Ministry? Shall we tell them of your mental prowess?"
The irony was not lost on Chloe, but of course, it was lost on Zor-El, a long dead Kryptonian specter. She wished that she could see humor, but there was only tragedy and impotence as far as the eye could see.
Zor-El chuckled softly. "It doesn't take knowing the future to see how this ends. You think you will win. Jor-El thinks he will. The High Council thinks they will. And all of Krypton looks to you, to us, and we will only fail them."
Zod's mouth twisted into the semblance of a smile, but it was ugly and almost violent in its aggression. "We shall see, Zor-El. You can be assured that the time for bystanders is at an end. Five years or ten," Zod's hand made a violent downward motion, "It doesn't matter. Brainiac will be online and Krypton will be changed forever. All of us will see to that."
For the first time since this bizarre convergence happened, Chloe and Zor-El were in complete and utter agreement.
Chloe woke, gasping and with a scream stuck in her throat. All of the foreboding and sense of confusion and many other emotions tumbled down upon her in rapid succession. She couldn't process it nor could she end it. Chloe rode the turbulence of her mind until it calmed and settled.
The pervading sense that someone was in her room with her forced her to acknowledge that presence. It was Oliver. Her heart felt as if it slammed against the breastbone of her chest because Oliver was not himself. He had a long Errol Flynn goatee. His outfit had a mature edge to it and his bow and arrow looked less modern and more "days of yore", but just as deadly. He was the Green Arrow, but not as she knew him.
On the edge of her awareness was her father. "Is this the first of three?
Author's Note: In other news, I know this chapter was probably confusing in parts (or all), what with my crazy use of names and such, but I think if you reread it and maybe view it as a kind of extended, crazy, surreal metaphor for what is going on up 'til now in the story, it will add depth…at least, that's the goal and I hope I've succeeded. You guys should totes tell me if I did...Or, ya know, if I didn't; but be gentle! :)