Chlark Fanfic: Wounded Heart, Chapter 1
Now, this is what really should have happened after Legion!
Banner by the lovely ctbn60. Thanks, Carol! :-)
Title: Wounded Heart
Author: BabyDee
Rating: PG13 (for now)
Pairing: Chlark
Warnings: some indications of torture, angst
Timeline: Post-‘Legion
Disclaimer: I don’t own the characters (wish I did, though.)
(Read previous chapter here)
Chapter 1
November 2008
“Anything you wanna tell me, Clark?”
Clark looked at Chloe, her words echoing those spoken by Lex years ago. Lex had unearthed incriminating evidence against Lionel Luthor, his father, which implicated him in the murder of his own parents several years earlier. Not to be outdone, Lionel had orchestrated a series of events that resulted in controversial electric shock therapy being carried out on Lex against his will. Lex had survived, but his knowledge of his father’s crimes had been wiped from his memory - along with Lex’s knowledge of Clark’s secret. Clark had gone to see Lex at the mansion to surreptitiously see what, if anything, he remembered about Clark’s abilities. Unfortunately, Clark possessed the world’s worst poker face, and Lex had wondered what he had been hiding.
As he faced Chloe, her eyes inquiring, Clark was faced with a familiar decision: to tell the truth, or a lie. Chloe had recently been taken over by the Brain Interactive Construct, otherwise known as Brainiac, a Kryptonian supercomputer. It had taken a team of intergalactic time travellers with some pretty impressive abilities to collectively rid her of the Brainiac infection and preserve her life. Before this, Clark had made the decision to try and save Chloe himself by taking her to the rebuilt Fortress of Solitude and beseeching Jor-El, his biological father, to erase all Chloe’s memories of his Kryptonian heritage from her brain. Now that she was back to normal, all her knowledge of his abilities appeared intact, but he knew he’d be in serious trouble if she ever found out how he’d tinkered with her memories.
Now they were standing in the loft of Clark’s barn where not too long ago Chloe had pledged her hand to Jimmy Olsen, right before a huge monster had crashed the wedding and literally ripped Jimmy’s guts out before abducting the bride. With the help of the Legion, Clark had cleaned the place up and made all the necessary repairs. As he faced Chloe, he was fully aware that if she ever knew he’d messed with her mind, their friendship would be damaged almost irreparably. Still, a small voice in the back of his brain nagged him to be honest with her. This is your chance to confess, buddy, he told himself. Do the right thing.
Clark finally spoke. “I’m just glad that you’re okay,” he said hesitantly. “We were all worried about you.”
Coward, he heard the voice in his head jeer.
Chloe raised an eyebrow and regarded him coolly. “That’s it?”
Clark nodded. “That’s it.”
“Uh-huh,” she nodded slowly, a resolute expression on her face. Suddenly she smiled sweetly. “Could you excuse me for a second?”
Chloe turned on her heel and strode purposefully towards the chest of drawers in the corner of the loft. Clark watched as she riffled through the top drawer and carefully removed an object which she cradled in her palm. Fascinated, he watched as she turned around and walked toward him, that serene smile still on her face.
And before he could blink, she pulled her arm back, swung it in an arc and whacked him across his face with all the might her tiny five-foot-three frame could muster.
To Clark’s utter surprise and shock, his head reeled and stars flashed behind his closed eyelids as his head reverberated in pain. He staggered and fell backward, convinced his jaw had become unhinged. Unused to the unpleasant sensation of pain, he howled, raising his hand to cradle the side of his smarting face.
“Dammit, Chloe!” he roared, blinking at where she stood glaring at him wringing her arm to try and shake off the pain of the impact. “What the hell did you do that for?”
She scowled at him coldly. “I believe that’s my line,” she growled, still rubbing her wrist.
“Could you quit being cryptic for a second?” he complained as he gingerly prodded his throbbing jaw. “It may have escaped your notice, but I’m in pain here.”
“Only half as much pain as you should be in,” she retorted. “I originally planned on kicking you in the short and curlies, so thank your lucky stars my better nature prevailed.”
By now, a familiar sting of nausea had started to wash through his limbs in addition to the ache in his abused jaw. “Chloe,” he pleaded, “Could you put the GreenK away now…please?”
Chloe regarded him stonily for a second, and then turned back toward the dresser and replaced the glowing meteor rock back in its lead-lined box and snapped the lid shut. Relief flooded through Clark as the nausea subsided and the sting in his jaw eased. He slowly rose to his feet.
“Thank you. Now can you please tell me what this is about?”
Chloe glared at him, a steely expression in her hazel eyes that scared the bejeezus out of him. If he didn’t know better, he’d swear Brainiac was still in there.
She shook her head slightly, as if in disbelief. “How could you?” she asked hoarsely.
Clark, free of the pain, started to get annoyed. “I’m not a mind-reader, Chloe!” he yelled. “How could I what?”
Some of her fury dimmed, and he noticed a flash of hurt in here eyes. “How could you erase my knowledge of your secret?” she said in a low voice.
His eyes widened as realisation dawned. “Oh, shit…” he murmured.
“Not a mind-reader, but a mind-rapist, is that it, Clark?” she continued in a threatening tone.
He was dead. So, so dead.
“How did you know?” he said, glumly.
“Brainiac kindly filled me in, thanks for asking,” she coldly.
“Brainiac?” he said, puzzled. “But when I asked you earlier…you said you couldn’t remember-”
“I was giving you a chance to tell me the truth and explain yourself, you idiot!” she raged. “Why am I not surprised you decided to try and take the coward’s way out?”
“Chloe, it’s not what you think…” he began, hesitant.
“Oh - I’m sorry, Clark - did you say ‘think’?” She said, her voice rising dangerously. “I’m lucky to be able to ‘think’ at all, what with golf course you left in my head! What the hell were you thinking?”
“I was trying to protect you-”
“Protect me?” she said, her voice rising further till she sounded shrill. “Protect me?!” She advanced toward him. “Clark, I ended up with ‘Swiss-cheese-for-brains’ because of your bone-headed attempt to ‘save’ me!”
Clark started backing off. Chloe kept advancing, making a show of ticking the items off on her palm. “I ended up marrying a man I didn’t love. In a barn. A barn, Clark! I got kidnapped on my freaking Wedding Day by a monster. I’m indirectly responsible for the all the death and destruction it caused. So I ask again: in what universe did you think mind-raping me was a good idea?”
“Please don’t use that word,” he pleaded. “It wasn’t like that…at all.”
“So how was it, then?” she queried, her voice dropping dangerously. “Because I am seriously considering finishing off what I started with the GreenK, so get talking!”
By now she’d backed him into a wall, and with the way her eyes were blazing he was sure she really would make good on her promise to kick him in the nuts. He gulped and started speaking.
“Chloe, all the horrible things that have happened to you recently are my fault. Not yours - mine,” he explained. “I thought that if you didn’t know about my abilities, or about anything Kryptonian that you’d be free, and…”
“…and you wouldn’t have to worry about me,” she realised, horrified.
Clark saw the look on her face and hurried to correct her perception. “Chloe, no - not exactly-”
“Yeah, it is ‘that exactly’,” she breathed, her eyes wide with disbelief. “You didn’t do this for me at all, Clark. You did this for yourself!”
“I didn’t!” he said frantically. “I thought Brainiac had been destroyed, and I honestly thought you’d be safer if you didn’t know my secret.”
“Except I specifically told you that knowing your secret had changed my life for the better!” she blazed. “I also said that because of you, I’d made an impact on the world, and that I wouldn’t change that for anything. Am I getting warm?”
“I remember,” he said glumly.
“So why the ‘control-alt-delete,’ Clark?” She challenged. “What did I do to deserve that? I mean, why did you feel it completely necessary to completely re-write who I am? Didn’t you realise you’d be erasing a significant portion of the last four years of my life?”
Clark knew he was fighting a losing battle. “I didn’t realise the effects would be so far-reaching,” he said warily.
“You didn’t think this through at all, did you?” she said scathingly. “I mean, what, were you planning to call your Mom, Lana, Kara, Pete, Ollie and the rest of the guys and halfway through the conversation just casually say, ‘Oh, by the way, don’t mention anything about my abilities or Krypton to Chloe, would you? See, Jor-El and I played Russian roulette with her brain, and now she’s a complete ignoramus with half a head!’?”
Clark inwardly groaned. She was not going to let him off easy on this one. “Chloe, I keep putting you in danger-”
“Or were you planning to brain-drain all of us who know who you really are?” she yelled. “Because it’s ‘too dangerous’ for us? What, do you have us all scheduled at The House of El: Selective Mindwipe Salon?”
“Of course not!” he said, irritated. He completely understood her point; erasing her memories had been a dick-headed move, and she had every right to be mad at him, but he hadn’t meant to hurt her in any way. Unfortunately she was in no mood to cut him any slack.
“Chloe,” he began again, “Pete got tortured by people who wanted to find out the truth about me. It was so bad that he didn’t feel safe in Smallville anymore. He had to abandon everything he called home because of my stupid secret.”
Chloe shrugged. “So what does that have to do with me, Clark? Last time I checked, I wasn’t Pete. Have I ever said or done anything to make you feel I couldn’t roll with the punches of your life?”
“Chloe, you don’t understand,” he sighed. “If what happened to Pete happened to you…Chloe, I can’t bear the thought of you being beaten, or tortured, or being in any kind of pain because you know all about me.”
“But I’d never give you away, Clark! You know that!”
“Of course I know that,” he replied softly. “You’d sit there and take whatever they threw at you, and not say a thing. Chloe, I know you’d die to protect me. And that’s why I did what I did. It was a difficult choice, but it was the only way I could think of to protect you.”
Chloe pondered that for a moment, and then spoke quietly. “Do you even realise what you took away from me?” she said softly. “Clark, my knowing your secret doesn’t have an impact on just you and me. I know Ollie as the Green Arrow through my interactions with you. I serve as Watchtower because I’m privy to your secret and the secrets of all the guys on the squad. I would have heard of Krypton with or without you - remember the ship from the second meteor shower? Zod’s possession of Lex? Speaking of Lex, even he knows your secret now, and he’s still out there. You think if he somehow got hold of me and pressed me for information that he’d believe me if I genuinely said all you were was a simple Kansas farmboy?”
Clark blanched. He hadn’t thought that far ahead.
“Selectively erasing my memories achieved nothing,” she continued. “If anything, you left me more vulnerable to attack with no means of defending myself.” She laughed cruelly. “Some best friend you’ve turned out to be.”
Clark felt like he was being gutted with a dull knife. He held his hands up in surrender. “I was trying to protect you the only way I knew how,” he said brokenly. “Brainiac was taking you over. I thought that with no knowledge of me in your head, he’d leave you alone.”
Clark though he saw Chloe’s eyes soften briefly, but then she pursed her lips and the steely gaze returned. “I wish I could forgive you, Clark,” she said evenly, “but I don’t know if we can ever come back from this. You were never even going to tell me, were you?”
He cursed inwardly. “Chloe, I couldn’t have foreseen what Brainiac was planning to do. I would never do anything to hurt you, I swear-”
“No?” she said softly. “Clark, has it occurred to you that you did the exact same thing to me that Brainiac did? You altered my memories, and essentially changed who I was. You had no right to do that,” she finished.
Clark ran his hand through his hair. “Chloe - I had to make a choice…”
“Messing with my mind wasn’t your choice to make.”
“Chloe, I was desperate!” he pleaded. “I had to do something!”
“You did the wrong thing,” she said simply. “Stripping my memories…that wasn’t part of the bargain, that was your specific little suggestion. I still can’t believe you did that to me, Clark. I thought I meant more than that to you.”
“Of course you do!” he said, wounded that she could think so poorly of him.
“Yeah?” she mused. “Well, you have a funny way of showing it.”
Clark could only stare brokenly as she slid her forefinger and thumb into the left cup of her bra and pulled out something carefully. He flinched, expecting her to extract a sliver of GreenK and make good on her promise to give him a good whalloping, but relaxed when he didn’t feel the mind-numbing nausea. Instead, his eyes opened in surprise as she revealed the pressed white rose boutonnière he’d given her on the morning of her wedding as her ‘something borrowed’, the same one she’d pinned onto him all those years ago as they prepared to attend the spring formal together.
She looked down at the preserved flower in her hand, and he could see different emotions chase themselves across her face.
“’I never throw away good memories,’” she said quietly, and Clark winced and squeezed his eyes shut has he heard his own words to her echoed back to him. She snorted. “Yeah, right,” she finished, turning her palm over so that the rose dropped to the floor softly.
She spun on her heel and headed toward the loft steps. “I’m outta here,” she announced.
***
Present Day - July 2009
“We need a name, Miss Sullivan.”
Chloe lay on her back, pain lacing through her veins like shards of glass. She shivered and gritted her teeth, tears stinging her eyes as she fought an inner battle with the hurt coursing through her. No matter what happened, no matter what she had to endure, there was only one rule for her: keep Clark Kent out of this room, whatever it took.
“Miss Sullivan?” the voice inquired again.
“Leave me alone,” she said in the most threatening voice she could muster through the torture her body was being subjected to.
The uniformed figure glanced up unconcernedly from the clipboard she was studying. “We can do this any way you want, Miss Sullivan - you can tell me now, or you can tell me later - it’s your choice,” she said dryly. “But be aware that if another hour passes and we’ve had no progress, things are going to get a lot hairier than they are now. If you tell me the name now, it will be one less thing for you to worry about.”
Chloe opened heavy-lidded, pain-filled eyes and looked at her head on. The woman smiled irritatingly. “Well?” she said with mock sweetness.
Chloe’s eyes blazed. “Go to hell!” she hissed.
The uniformed woman didn’t flinch. “Very well,” she said briskly. “I have to give a status report to my superiors, so I’ll leave you alone to think about this for a while.”
She turned and walked smartly out of the room, shutting the door behind her. Chloe stared up at the harsh fluorescent lighting in the sparse confines, her heart full of despair.
As always, Clark came to her mind. She wanted nothing more than to hold him, have him spirit her away from her torture chamber and tell her that everything would be okay…but that was not an option for her. She just couldn’t give him another thing to feel guilty for. So she lay there, miserable, loving him for everything he was, hating him for being the cause of all this immeasurable pain.
She could get through this. She would get through this. As long as she could keep from calling out Clark’s name, she would handle whatever pain was thrown at her.
***
Chapter 2...