-- Chapter 6 -- Broken Things --
Alone.
Helpless.
Scared.
Lost.
Curled up, knees pressed against her chest, Chloe rocked rhythmically. A prisoner inside herself, she couldn't seem to break out of her mind. The self-sufficient reporter who wandered into the woods hadn't vanished. She just wasn't in charge anymore. A weak, lost little girl had taken over and that little girl wasn't willing to uncurl, to move. That weak little girl wanted to hide. She wanted her daddy.
Snap out of it! the strong Chloe wanted to shout. Let me back in control, stop whimpering like an infant and stand up. Walk out of this place before that thing comes back. WALK!
Clark moved through trees at the Martin's tree farm, not a streak of color at the moment but a slow moving searcher. The tree farm hadn't been his first stop, and he wasn't sure this was the right place to find Chloe, but it seemed like a good bet when he hadn't found her at the Torch. "Chloe?" Clark called. He scanned the area using his vision to look straight through the trees and turned a circle scanning. The x-ray vision thing was a skill he had begun to really perfect. He hardly had to focus anymore. It was becoming instinctive.
Nothing was jumping out at him, well three squirrels and a deer, but no Chloe. Maybe Chloe was already on her way home? Maybe she hadn't even come out to the tree farm? Clark sucked in a deep breath scented with pine and dirt and turned for home. It was stupid really. Chloe wasn't going to be in trouble every time he turned his back. One last glance through the woods, and he'd let it rest. He'd go home and face his parents.
It was a small thing really that caught his attention, motion, back and forth but not like the trees in the wind. Clark focused his vision and his heart seemed to stop beating. A human skeleton was curled on the ground rocking. All those skills with his vision seemed to vanish in stressful situations, and instead of refocusing to check the identity of the person, Clark took off running.
"Chloe." Rocking back and forth, she hadn't even looked up when he called her name. Clark didn't know what to do. There wasn't any danger that he could see, nothing to protect her from. Dropping down to one knee, he reached out a hand. He'd barely brushed her shoulder and she started screaming. Clark jerked back. "Chloe it's me, Clark. I'm sorry...Chloe?" She looked feral, insane. Leaves clung to her hair, and her clothes were torn and filthy.
"Don't touch me. Don't touch me. Don't ever touch me again," she hissed. "Stay out of my head." Rational sensible Chloe was still far from in charge, but hiding whimpering Chloe was fast fading toward a more aggressively self-protective girl.
Clark threw his hands up and leaned back. Whatever had happened, Chloe seemed to be in some kind of shock, disoriented. "What happened, Chloe? I just want to help."
Chloe pushed herself backwards, her eyes never leaving Clark as though she suspected he might strike. "She went in my head, though everything. Every thought I ever had, she had her cold hands all over them." Chloe punctuated the statement by slapping at her forehead. Twin steams of tears coursed down her cheeks, cleaning some of the dirt caking over her skin. Like a light flashing on behind her eyes, Chloe seemed to come back to herself enough to recognize, Clark. "Help me. Don't let her hurt me. Please don't let her hurt me."
Like a vise around his heart, Clark felt familiar guilt fill his chest. This was his fault. He should have been here, should have protected his friend. Everyone would tell him how wrong it was to take responsibility for something that he couldn't possibly have prevented. None of those people understood what it was like to have so much power that it felt like you were invincible half the time. They would never understand the frustration and the guilt when despite everything...you failed someone you loved. "I'm so sorry Chloe." Clark hardly noticed when he started to cry. "You need to go to the hospital. Will you let me help you?"
The Eradicator opened her eyes, diagnostics complete, messages internalized. Her calling card had been found. The Kryptonian, her Kryptonian, was alive and identified. Clark Kent? It was almost logical. He had the look of a Kryptoniam, at least according to the being Chloe's memory.
Her Kryptonian should have stood out more among such frail slow creatures as these humans. He should have been considered elite, Godlike even. Instead he was average, a good friend, a good son, nothing more.
A choice for anonymity, it must have been a conscious choice. Hiding wasn't a very Kryptonian course of action, but some eccentricity was to be expected of a child raised among savages. She would show Clark who he was and where he belonged. There was so much to teach.
The Eradicator took flight. Above the trees, an invisible black shadow against the night sky, she sought her master.
Martha sat on her back porch steps and listened to the sounds of the night, the crickets and the bullfrogs, the wind in the drying corn. Over all the other sounds, a staccato nervous rhythm, Jonathan's boots on the porch behind her, paced incessantly. "Clark's fine," Martha said. It wasn't the first time she'd said it, but Jonathan didn't seem to want to hear her.
"I know he's fine," Jonathan said. "I just wish I understood what happened this afternoon. I wish I knew what was happening."
Martha smiled and looked over her shoulder. "We've taken a lot on faith when it comes to Clark. Why should we start understanding things now? It's a lot to ask, to understand the miracles in your life."
"God forbid, we ask too much: a child, a home, a bit of happiness. I'd hate to be greedy." Jonathan stopped pacing and took a seat next to his wife.
Martha moved closer to Jonathan and hooked her arm through his. "I've been thinking since Clark left to check on Chloe. I want you to hear me out, okay? I know every smell, every sound, every mud puddle on this farm. This is our home, the place we raised Clark. All our memories are here. But as much as this place means, our family means more."
"You think we should leave our home, just walk away." Jonathan felt a terrible tension headache building behind his eyes and he looked up at the stars.
Martha could feel the pain behind Jonathan's statement. This farm was the Kent family legacy, an inheritance passed from father to son, and she was suggesting that they scrap it. "For Clark, to keep him safe, we could get away from the meteor rocks, everything."
Let go of the farm. Keep Clark safe. Jonathan just couldn't talk about it, not yet. It felt like his heart was torn in two directions at once. "I'm going inside to call Mr. Sullivan; make sure Clark saw Chloe home."
Martha nodded and didn't let Jonathan's withdrawal hurt her feelings. He deserved a chance to think. Martha wrapped her arms around her knees and tried to memorize every scent, from the tang of her herb garden to the fresh green aroma of the ripe corn. If they left this place, she would take as much of it with her as possible. She'd dig up the herbs in her patch and pot them, and take a cutting of the butterfly bush. Even if they ended up in Metropolis with only a window-box garden, she'd keep the farm with them.
Martha ran a hand along the peeling white paint of the porch step, and started humming an old hymn her mom used to sing every morning.
"Down to the river?"
Martha jumped and turned. "Lex? You scared me to death. I didn't hear your car."
Lex smiled easily and finished rounding the house. He headed into the halo of light expanding slightly beyond the back porch. "I parked out at the barn, but Clark wasn't manning his telescope tonight. Must be tiring, harvest season and all. I guess he went to bed early."
Martha shrugged. "Clark is pretty tough, even for a farm kid. He went down to the Torch to wake Chloe up and tell her to go home. Can I help you, Lex?"
Lex shook his head, totally unaware of the charm he was oozing. "The question is, can I help you?"
