A/N: Ok, so I keep promising that I'm not going to take so long to update, and then I do it anyways. I'm so very sorry about that. I guess all that I can say is that I'll try to write faster. I did have an outline for the rest of the story, but unfortunately I left it at home when I moved back to school, so hopefully I can remember what was in each chapter, lol.

This chapter... well, it's a big one! Lots of very important things... it was so hard to write, though! lol. A lot of you are going to kill me, though. I made you wait so long, and then this chapter. Well all I can say is... um... plot development. There's a lot that still needs to happen in this story! Anyways, let's get to it... Here's your chapter!

Chapter 10

It had been a couple of weeks since Clark had seen Chloe, and he thought he was doing pretty well considering, but he missed her like crazy. Even before they had taken their relationship to anything resembling a romance, he was used to seeing her practically on a daily basis. Then, overnight, she just disappeared from his life, and it felt like there was a hole. Everything he did, he felt like she should be there.

The truth was, Chloe was one of the last things he had that left him with a semblance of a life. His dad was dead, Pete and Oliver had both left, Lana had Lex, and without Chloe, he'd only seen Lois a few times. Even his mom was moving on in her life with her duties as a senator, and as much as he hated it a blossoming friendship with Lionel Luthor.

So he buried himself in his chores on the farm. The farm could never leave him, no matter how horribly he mistreated it. The thought brought a bittersweet feeling as he remembered how many times he had destroyed parts of the farm, the same way he inevitably ruined every relationship he'd ever had.

After he finished the farm work, he headed back to the house to wash up. Once inside, he noted his phone on the counter. It had been there for at least a day now. It wasn't like he was exactly expecting a call from anyone. When his mom wasn't home and wanted to call, she called the house phone, and nobody else really wanted to talk to him at the moment. When he looked at it, though, he saw the red notification light flash. Someone had tried to contact him.

Without very high hopes, he checked whatever he missed. He was shocked when he saw that it was a text message from Chloe sent yesterday. Why had he left his phone downstairs, again? Hurriedly, he read the message:

Clark, I'm ready to talk. Please call me.

/

The previous night…

/

"Wow, that movie was gr-" Jimmy started.

"Incredibly stupid," Chloe finished.

Jimmy just looked at her and laughed. "Yeah, I thought so, too. I just thought you liked it, so…"

"Jimmy, you never have to pretend to like something just because I do," Chloe was more than amused. Chloe's friendship with Jimmy had been growing nicely, but he still did some things Chloe would never get over. He had a lot of great qualities, too, and Chloe definitely recognized them.

"Okay," Jimmy said, looking at the ground and then to Chloe. "So… you wanna get some ice cream?"

"Ice cream sounds great," Chloe said, and linked arms with Jimmy. The pair walked to the parking lot like this. Chloe had always been extremely close to her male friends. She just didn't need to get as close as she did Clark.

"Do you ever think of moving back to Metropolis?" Jimmy asked before looking at the ground. Sheepishly, he added, "I mean to be closer to work…"

"I don't know," Chloe answered honestly. "I kind of like not having to pay rent."

"Right," Jimmy muttered, and Chloe could sense that he was truly disappointed, even if she didn't quite understand why. She didn't quite know what to say, though. None of the guy friends she'd had in the past wore their hearts on their sleeves the way Jimmy did, and while Chloe had thought she'd had a good sense of what was going on, she later learned Clark had been keeping practically his whole life a secret from her, and Pete was in on it. With Jimmy, though, it was obvious.

"Hey, what's going on?" Chloe asked. This had never worked before, but she had already decided Jimmy was so completely different than anyone else she knew, so maybe, just maybe, he might differ in this way, too. She could hope, at least.

"It's just," Jimmy finally lifted his gaze from the ground to meet Chloe's. "Look… I know we agreed that our feelings for each other, or lack thereof, were mutual, but…"

Oh god Chloe thought. She did not like where this was headed.

Just as she had feared, Jimmy closed the gap between them, took hold of her, and kissed her. As he did, a surge of emotion she didn't expect coursed through her all at once, and, just for a second, she let her guard down, and she found herself kissing him back. When she pulled away, Jimmy had a smile on his face. It was perhaps his first genuine smile all night, and it made Chloe hate herself.

"I just realized something," she said.

She didn't get the chance to complete her thought when Jimmy said, "Shh." She could feel his hot breath on her face. "I knew," he said. "I knew all along."

"No, Jimmy," she said, pulling back completely from his embrace. When his eyebrow raised slightly, Chloe didn't want to go on, but she couldn't lie to him. Not now. Not about this. "I realized… that it's Clark. It's always been Clark."

By this point, she had closed her eyes, because she couldn't stand to see Jimmy's reaction, but she did hear him sigh. When she opened her eyes again, they boy looked downright dejected, once again wearing his heart on his sleeve, and this time it was killing Chloe. It was all she could do to keep from crying and pulling him into her arms, but that wasn't going to help anything.

"Oh," was all he said.

"Look," Chloe said. "You've been the greatest friend that I could've asked for through everything, and maybe I led you on a little by being so clingy, but I thought I was pretty honest about how I felt about you."

"Yeah," he said. "You were." Jimmy had been looking anywhere but into her eyes, and right now his chosen spot to stare out was about a foot above her head. She honestly didn't know how to get through to him. "I just thought… shit!"

"I'm sorry," Chloe practically pleaded. "It's just… I've been in love with him for so long. He was my first kiss, you know?" Jimmy looked like he couldn't care less. "It was my first day in Smallville, and I thought 'big fish, little pond, what the hell?'"

"Why are you telling me this?"

"So that you know what he means to me, Jimmy," Chloe said. "I'm not blowing you off for nothing, and who knows… if the situation were different, maybe you would be exactly the right man for me. But I have to follow my heart on this one."

For the first time since she had shut him done, Jimmy looked Chloe in the eyes. "I guess the first you shared with me just wasn't special enough," he said.

Chloe's mouth dropped open. She could not believe what he'd just said to her. "That's just the jealousy talking," she said.

Jimmy just shook his head. "He hurt you!" he screamed. Chloe was taken completely by surprise. Jimmy Olsen was easily one of the most gentle and kind-hearted people she knew, and he was screaming at her. "He hurt you, and I was left to pick up the pieces! I would never hurt you!"

"Jimmy, please stop screaming at me," she said, her voice cracking. She wanted nothing more than to be in her bed crying herself to sleep right now, but Chloe got the feeling that it would be a long night.

Jimmy visibly rolled his eyes, but Chloe could see that there were tears threatening to emerge. She felt the same thing in her eyes, though.

"I'm sorry," he whispered, as he turned around and unlocked the door to his car. Before he got in, he turned around again and faced Chloe. "You can find your own way home, right?"

Everything in her told her to tell him no. Her car was back at the Planet, and to get there she'd have to walk for a half hour alone in the streets of Metropolis at night. She did not particularly feel like getting into a car with Jimmy right now, though, so she just nodded in agreement instead. Chloe would find a way. She always did.

/

I'm going to kill him, she thought. I'm going to fucking kill him.

Lois's thoughts went along these lines for the entire drive to Metropolis. She had once threatened to break Clark's legs if he had ever hurt Chloe, and when he did, man, was she tempted to, but this…

When Chloe called her, she'd definitely been crying. Maybe when she was younger, Lois had seen her get a little emotional, but the Chloe she knew now was so much stronger. Jimmy had to have really fucked things up tonight. You mean, besides stranding my cousin in the middle of Metropolis? she thought.

Almost unconsciously, her foot pressed harder on the gas pedal. The sooner she got to Metropolis, the sooner she could make sure Chloe was ok. And as soon as she got Chloe home and calmed down, she was going to find him.

When she finally pulled up to the diner that Chloe said she would be at, it felt like she had been driving for days… which she would totally do for Chloe. It didn't take her long to spot Chloe through the window sitting at a table by herself with a cup of coffee. For the moment, all feelings of rage subsided and the only thing on her mind was to get to her cousin's side, take a hold of her, and never let her go.

She got out of her car and into the diner as fast as she could. Chloe looked up almost immediately when she got inside, and she could see her broken heart in her eyes. The sight of it nearly broke Lois's heart in two by itself. She moved as fast as she could to reach her cousin and took her into her arms, where Chloe almost immediately started crying.

"I'm going to kill that fucker," Lois said, not able to keep it in her head anymore. It was Chloe's response to this, though, that confused Lois. She was laughing. She was actually laughing. She had gone from crying to laughing in two seconds, and Lois couldn't think of anything remotely funny.

Chloe pulled away from the hug and wiped her eyes. "Lois…" she said, shaking her head.

"What?" Lois said. "I'm completely serious."

"Yeah, I know," Chloe laughed, and briefly hugged her again. "Let's go."

Lois raised an eyebrow, but she wasn't going to say no.

The two of them got in the car together and Lois noticed Chloe had taken her phone out, and was starting a new text message.

"You're not doing anything stupid, are you?" she asked.

"No," Chloe sighed. "I should've done this awhile ago."

/

Clark pulled up outside of the Talon and took a deep breath. He still had no idea what he was going to say to Chloe. He didn't even know what he wanted to hear from her. All he knew was that he missed her and that he wanted her back in his life. At whatever cost.

He was nervous as hell, though, that he was going to mess everything up yet again, and Chloe would never speak to him again. It was worst case scenario, but Clark felt like it was very plausible. He'd messed everything else in his life up already, including this. What would keep history from repeating itself now?

He made his way into the coffee shop and sighed a breath of relief that she wasn't downstairs yet. That made it so that there was more time to think about what he wanted.

Clark went to the counter and ordered himself a cup of coffee as well as Chloe's usual. Chloe's order had pretty much remained the same for the past six years, and Clark didn't exactly anticipate it having changed in the past three weeks. That would just be very un-Chloe-like.

He took a seat at a table near the stairs so that she would be able to see him when she came down. In his inactivity, though, he started to become a nervous wreck. What if Chloe wanted to tell him she had a new boyfriend, or she was moving back to Metropolis? He did not want to lose her again. He couldn't lose her again.

Clark looked up and saw Chloe starting to descend the stairs. God, she's beautiful, he thought. And in that moment, Clark knew exactly what he was going to say to her.

/

She paced the living room about a million times before finally finding the guts to go downstairs and make her move, her heart rate increasing with every moment that passed. By the time she was out the door, she could feel every pump of blood flow through her veins. When his dark hair finally came into view, though, it seemed as though her heart stopped all at once. She almost wished it would, thinking perhaps that would be easier. But when Kayla, the new waitress, arrived at the table with two coffees in tow, she realized of course Clark had already ordered her usual. This man who knew her and she knew inside and out. This man who she had been through thick and thin with. This man who she had loved until it hurt, and then who had himself hurt her at the very core. No, this was not going to be easy, but she wouldn't have it any other way.

Clark stood up as she reached the table and pulled her into a light hug. She would have preferred a stronger hug, and, quite frankly, she probably needed it, but she didn't want to delay any longer, so she just took a seat. "Hi," she said.

"Hi," he replied, a slight smile appearing. "It's good to see you."

"You, too," she said. "You have no idea."

Well, it's now or never, she told herself. They could make small talk for an hour, or they could actually discuss what they had come here to discuss.

"So, I…" she started.

"Actually," Clark interrupted. "I was wondering if I could say something first?"

Hesitantly, she said, "Sure."

"I'm sorry, that was rude," he said. "It's just… ever since I got your message I've been thinking about what I actually wanted. And the only thing that I knew I wanted was you." He took a deep breath, and then looked up at her. "I love you."

Chloe's breath caught. When Jimmy had kissed her last night, she knew that she loved Clark, and now Clark was telling her he loved her. This moment was so perfect that it made the previous night completely worth it. She didn't even know what she felt about Jimmy now, but if she could just stay here with Clark for the rest of the eternity, that didn't even matter. She was about to tell him that she loved him, too, when Clark started speaking again.

"And I never, ever want to lose you again," he said. His eyes turned down towards the table. "We had the best friendship I could have ever dreamed up. Then, we took the next step, and that was even better."

Clark was about to say "but." Chloe could feel it. Why? she asked herself. Why does there always have to be a "but?"

"But…" Clark said, and Chloe slouched into her chair, bracing herself for whatever was going to come after that word, knowing that it could not be anything good. "I mean, we had plenty of fights when we were friends, but we were always able to work through it. We always stayed friends. Then, when we started dating, I screwed up, and I'm not belittling what I did to you, but was it really worse than anything I did to you when we were just friends?"

Chloe didn't say anything, but she knew what the answer was. "Maybe I overreacted," she said, trying in vain not to sound like she was pleading.

"No, you didn't," Clark said. "That's my point. When we're… together I have so much more power to hurt you. I can't stand that I hurt you so bad that you didn't even want to see me anymore."

She felt like her world was crashing down around her. She knew that when Clark got like this, it would be near impossible to try to sway him. Her gaze turned to her coffee.

"There's nothing I want more than to pick up where we left off, but I need you in my life, Chloe, and I just know that if we do that, I'm going to screw things up so bad that we're going to ruin everything we've ever shared."

Chloe looked back up at him. "Where does that leave us, then?" she asked.

"Well, I was hoping," he muttered, "that we could go back to being very good friends."