Fic: Moments In Time
Title: Moments In Time
Characters/Pairing: Chlollie
Spoilers: Pretty much everything up till Salvation (9.22)
A/N: A companion piece to Next Time and follows the same canon.
***
They were friends (well almost friends) before they were anything else. Before they were more. Before she was everything. And maybe that made all the difference.
***
Chloe Sullivan. Clark Kent's best friend. Lois Lane's cousin.
The first time he met her in Clark's dusty barn, she was bright and blonde and she’d flashed him a wide open smile. The kind that had him wondering just what Lois had told her about him. He found himself returning it anyway, grinning back without reserve. It would be impossible not to. The mention of her article, the one Clark had said she was working on, sparked a different smile and a not so subtle glance at Clark and something clicked and he wondered what she really wanted the satellite images for.
Secrets. The damn town was drowning in them. He should fit right in.
Chloe Sullivan. Bright smiles and tangled sentences. Knee deep in the business of exposing the truth and who leaped from fact to fact as if they were stepping stones to her destiny.
The first time she worked with the Justice league, he gave her the codename Watchtower, still a little bewildered at how she came to be standing in the Clocktower privy to all their secrets. As he walked away with AC and Victor, leaving her with a headset, standing in front of a screen flashing green, and firmly in charge of seeing them in and out of the Ridge Facility safely, he hoped she knew what the hell she was doing.
She did. Enough for him to want her on his team.
Chloe Sullivan, a flurry of motion, a stream of words. Green eyes sparking bright with mischief and pop culture references dancing on her tongue.
The first time she visited her mother, he went with her. She turned up at his apartment in Star City unannounced and apologetic. The ride to the hospital was quiet. The walk to Moira Sullivan’s room even more so, the sound of their footsteps echoing in the hallway unnaturally loud.
Unsure of what was expected of him, he hung around outside, waiting for her to finish and resisting the urge to call Clark and ask him to take over. This wasn’t the Chloe he was used to. A feathery shadow of the girl he barely knew.
There was a vending machine down the hall. Coffee. He’d get her coffee. Not the good stuff she was used to but it would do. For now. And then he’d bully her into accepting his offer of taking his private jet back to Metropolis. But not before he offered a job working for the Justice League.
Part time work. Work she could fit in around the Daily Planet and college. Work to keep him out of trouble.
Chloe Sullivan. Bright and brave and broken. Reckless in a way she had never been. But smiling. And for the first time in a long while it held the promise of the girl he had known. Of dusty barns and blue Kansas skies. Of something new. Of beginnings.
Hope. He felt it like a burst of static shock when his fingers closed around her hand, engulfing it. Saw it reflected in her eyes. This, and he looked around at the uncharacteristically quiet Metropolis street, could almost pass for normal. Or as close to normal as they would ever get.
As normal as a green leather costume and split personalities and the need to risk your life to save others on a daily basis. To the point of obsession. To the brink of failure. And beyond.
And nothing about that, he acknowledged with a grim smile, was normal. Or even healthy. Heroes, and the word made him grimace, rarely were. All noble intentions aside. He’d never strove for normality. Not like Clark. Or even Victor. But it didn’t mean he didn’t crave it. Sometimes it was all he craved.
But he knew what drove him. Barely. But it was there. Even as it struggled with the price of failure, it was there. And she was right. A pep talk wouldn’t have done the job of reminding him why the Green Arrow existed.
He knew enough about himself to acknowledge that. And enough about her to know that in saving him, she was saving herself.
***
His hand brushed hers, the briefest of touches, and it was only imagination that warmth lingered on his skin. Imagination and exhaustion laced with alcohol.
***
“Four packets.He ate four packets.”
He was aware he sounded faintly ludicrous but the need to keep talking was overwhelming. Even so, five more minutes discussing Jonn’s Oreo intake (which let’s face it was astonishing) and Chloe would start thinking he’d hurt more than his ego when Carter threw him through a window. She probably already was.
And maybe he had. Because this was suddenly awkward. If Jonn had noticed the weird vibe that had sprung up between him and Chloe halfway through dinner, he’d done a good job of hiding it. Good enough to casually mention that Oliver be a gentleman and walk Chloe home.
He sneaked a glance at her, careful not to catch her eye, to read between blinks and find unfamiliar worlds. That only led to trouble. Apparently. And touching. Touching was problematic too. It hadn’t been up till recently. But now it was.
“Well, he’s got years of catching up to do.”
Brief smile, only mouth and no eyes, barely visible in the streetlights that illuminated their path and he felt something tighten inside him. An echo of the ache that had taken him by surprise when she had talked of giving up on the team.
Concussion, he decided there and then fighting the urge to examine the situation further. He was going to file tonight away under concussion and tomorrow Chloe would be mild all exasperation and biting snark and he would have the presence of mind to respond in kind.
And it would all be blissfully normal. Relatively speaking. This was Metropolis after all.
***
Lois, the Lois, he wanted (until quite recently anyway) existed only in his memories. Memories shaped by nostalgia and smoothed by a burning desire for simpler times.
***
"You, buddy, may be bulletproof, but you may wanna duck and cover in there. Good luck.”
His smile and parting shot as he left Clark to face the music was entirely and almost surprisingly genuine. Nothing forced. No residual bitterness at the man who had held on to what he had let go. No words that hung too heavy and hinged on resentment. There was an almost skip in his step at the realization and he felt absurd. Like a walking cliche.
Something he thought, with a roll of his shoulders, he could live with all things considered.
Of everything he regretted, letting Lois go didn’t weigh as heavy on his conscious or his heart as some. The realization had come at a cost. An almost healed scar he had picked at in his despair until it bled anew.
Like ghosts, the memories of his love for Lois had come back to haunt him when there was nothing else to cling to. A safe footing in his unstable world. An illusion of a future that was never his. Time, long coffee breaks peppered with bright chatter and her dogged refusal to let go of their relationship and they were almost back to the easy friendship they had slipped into over the last year.
And he was grateful.
***
One hour and two drinks later, he reluctantly admitted he was waiting for her. Two hours and three drinks later, he felt like he’d been waiting forever.
***
Breath held, one hand fitted over her left hand on the bow and the other trailed down her right arm, lifting it at the right angle, fingers coming to rest over hers and he gently nudged them into place. So close his breath stirred her hair and tickled his nose. Was this what he had been waiting for?
No answer to his question but the beating of his heart in his ears, thundering almost and then her voice, a new tone unlike Chloe but one he could come to appreciate.
“How do I know when to let go?”
He didn’t take his eyes off the target, fingers move over hers and and he pressed closer, "It's all about your heart. Just listen, right there in between the beats.”
He registered the turn of head, heard her swallow and wondered if she would put a stop to this now. Because they both knew this wasn’t about archery anymore. Had it ever been?
“That’s when you let go.”
For what felt like an interminably long moment they didn’t move. He let his right hand drop to her hip leaving her to guide the arrow alone and exhaled softly in something like relief when facing forward again, she loosed the arrow.
It whistled through the air and he knew before it hit that it would hit the mark.
***
Not quite uncomplicated desire or the sweet, soft caress of love. It was harder. Deeper. It was whispered words against her ear, slick skin sliding together and his own hiss of pleasure as she arched against him.
***
He woke up to dawn. The first rays of sunlight filtering in through the large windows. It danced on the walls and along the ground where they lay and painted the world around them in shimmering hues of gold and green and he closed his eyes as memories of last night came flooding back.
The feel of her lips beneath his, pulse thrumming under his fingers and the sweet slide of her skin against his. Desperate need mingling with pleasure and exploding in shards of colour behind closed eyes. Silence punctured only by her breath matching his in a weird staccato tempo. The wait for awkwardness to set in and the surprise when it didn’t.
He glanced to his right. She was curled up beside him, one hand tucked beneath her cheek and the other one flung out, eyelids fluttering gently in sleep.
The morning after the night before. His had a pattern. And this one didn’t fit.
Not quite as simple as lust. Or love. This was...new. Uncharted territory made up of desire and want and a flare of new feelings tangling with the old. Of losing yourself in familiar worlds rendered new and of a sharp biting need to forget everything but the here and now.
Memories flashed and he gave in this time. She had pressed her mouth hard against his swallowing his words when he had told her she was beautiful. Wide open eyes betrayed a vulnerability her flippancy couldn’t quite mask and something more than pleasure had caught at his breath.
“Actions speak louder than words,” she’d whispered.
And with one smooth movement and she’d been above him. Her mouth on his and he’d relinquished control easily. No words now and none were needed. He told her things with every touch that had never needed words leaving a trail of marks against her skin.
Marks he had traced again and again. Like reading braille. An imprint of a language only he understood.
***
Blind faith. he had always questioned hers. Her trust in Clark’s ability to keep her safe, to keep them all safe, a rare chink in her armour. Both intriguing and oddly touching. Broken now. Like so much else.
****
The money wasn’t the issue. He had enough of it. More than enough. The lying. The deceit. Hearing it from Tess. Even what she had used it for. It had shaken him in a way he had never expected.
The weapons were safe now. Beyond Tess’ reach. Beyond Chloe’s reach. And he sighed. Maybe she didn’t trust him but quite evidently he didn’t trust her either. In trying to save the world, they had both fucked up enough to doubt the power of their own convictions. And each others.
She had had too much faith (in Davies. In her belief she could save him. And Clark). And he not enough. Somewhere along the way on the road to making amends for the past, they had switched roles. She couldn’t believe and he wanted to. Desperately. It was lonely fighting on your own. It wore you down. And you made mistakes.
Strength in pain only got you so far on it’s own before it clouded your judgement and he knew there was nothing she wouldn’t do to avoid another Doomsday. But despite the misgivings, the uncertainty, despite being battle weary and sore they were still fighting. And that had to count for something. Snatched moments between missions and long nights in the watchtower. They had to count for something.
Bringing him back from the brink. That had to count for something.
And he didn’t believe she was using him for his money. He hadn’t believed it even as he said the words. Seen the hurt flash in her eyes and knew it mirrored his own and wondered at the small stab of satisfaction at getting a response from her. Any response. And he kept pushing. Heard the hardness in his voice, saw the plea in her eyes grow cold. And couldn’t stop.
She had lied. And he wanted her trust. It all came back to that.
He fished a key out of his pocket and stared at it. Upside down. Inside out. Nothing about what they were doing was the right way around. She had given him a key to the apartment. To make it easier for him to sneak in and out without Lois knowing. A landmark in any other relationship. It had been a means to an end in theirs.
A car alarm wailed in the distance, drawing him out of his thoughts and he contemplated turning around and walking away. But he knew he wouldn’t. What they had, whatever it was, was too fragile to survive silent recriminations and reproach. And he wanted it to survive. God, he wanted it to survive.
He slipped the key into the lock and silently clicked it open hoping she was still awake.
***
Nothing was ever planned beyond the next time they would meet so when she suggested a weekend getaway, he took a moment to mentally thank the paparazzi for driving them out of town.
***
As gifts go it wasn’t much despite being the least offensive thing the hotel’s small gift shop had to offer. Even in the thought department it failed miserably in hindsight. A cheap memento of a weekend getaway gone horribly wrong.
He had once joked that Metropolis was a hotbed of the strange and all too weird and easily explained if you knew what you were dealing with. Which, they did more often than not and that was creepy more than comforting.
But trouble found them wherever they went.
And Lois and Clark too apparently but he couldn’t be too disappointed on that count. One less secret despite Clark's less than enthusiastic reaction was a relief especially if it meant no longer making hasty escapes if he turned up at the Talon apartment unannounced. Which he did. Often. At least Lois was on board. A little too on board for it to be entirely comfortable but then she didn’t do anything half heartedly.
But evil banshees and unexpected run-ins aside not everything had gone wrong.
So much had gone right.
They had talked. Beyond the banter in the Watchtower and the teasing at night. Beyond whispered words of want and the silences which followed. He had approached cautiously, when he found her on he porch, words laced with humour that couldn’t quite disguise the weight they carried but she didn’t run away. Not from it. Whatever ‘it’ was. Not from him.
Something like hope had ignited when she opened up about Clark. By the time she asked about Lois (jealousy subduing her words) he had had to work to keep his smile under control.
As far as relationship history went, theirs was a little more complicated than most. Downright messy if he was honest and he rarely chose to be. About this particular topic anyway. Clark, Lois and the respective baggage they came with had become been a virtual no man’s land between them. If it was never discussed it didn’t exist. A theory that didn’t work in practice but neither of them challenged it.
And underneath it all, there was the fear that she didn’t care. About any of it.
But he’d been wrong. Because, and he remembered the look on her face as they talked, she did. She did care. And it was enough. For now.
***
“If you want normal then Smallville isn’t for you. Neither is Metropolis. In fact you should give Kansas a miss altogether.”
***
She was brilliant and brave and beautiful. And all too vulnerable. Vulnerable in way that terrified him.But currently, despite the day from hell, she was seemingly unfazed by her close brush with death.
He felt the weight of her overnight bag in one hand and the warmth of her hand in the other and bit back a grin. Maybe not completely unfazed. He hadn’t had to resort to threats to cajole her into staying at his place tonight.
And she’d been the first to reach for his hand three times. In one day. That had to be a record. Not that he was keeping count or anything.
They were almost at his door when the realization hit. Hard. Suddenly. They had made it through another day despite it all and he tugged at her hand. She stumbled, falling against him and swooping down, he brushed her lips in swift hard kiss before she had the chance to recover.
He pulled back and watched as she blinked, a slow sweet smile curving her lips, before she snapped her eyes open fully, “what was that for?”
“To celebrate neither of us being dead.”
She scrunched up her face thoughtfully and made a great show of pondering his words, “being alive is a plus, yes.”
Smiling, she reached up to stroke his face, fingers trailing heat across his skin and his eyes caught on the angry red marks on her wrists. Any remaining trace of humour vanished and for a few moments it was hard to breathe. Turning his head he kissed the soft skin of the underside of her wrist.
First one and then the other before pulling her into his arms.
Yes. Being alive was a plus.
***
Her fascination for words hadn’t died with her dreams of reporting.
***
Her emails and text messages every time he was called away from Metropolis on business (which was too often for his liking) almost made up for being away and he was reminded of a time when almost all their communication had been cross country.
A different kind of relationship carried out in secret. One made up of covert missions and secret meetings, of growing mutual respect and teamwork. He wondered at the parallel. At it all coming back full circle and at the differences wrought by time.
At the changes that created a new landscape and time wasted and of beginnings that hinted at a future unthinkable only a few years ago.
He didn’t believe in destiny. A path laid out by fate. But if it did exist, it had a sense of humour. A sick one but a sense of humour all the same.
***
She was everywhere at once in those few days. With him at the hospital. At the Watchtower with Victor. A whirlwind of activity to match any superpower.
****
The night that she almost broke was no different to the rest. Emil left just as she came in bearing food and a smile that was just ever so slightly frayed at the edges. A sign of exhaustion he would have missed a few months ago. Before he learned the language of her body.
She was breathing hard as she dumped the food on a small tale and pulled a chair up to his bed. Deep breaths and eyes suspiciously bright and he thought for a horrible moment she was crying. She wasn’t. She was trying her hardest not to and he was lost. Gut-wrenchingly lost.
“Hey,” taking her hand he pulled her to him, up on to bed, shifted so she could curl herself into him and held her close. Pressed her against him as hard he dared.
She was so fragile in his arms and he had never thought of her as breakable. So incredibly strong in front of the others. Weakness, any weakness carefully hidden away in the creases of her being and he couldn’t remember the last time she let her facade drop. Was he the only one who saw the cracks? He felt proud then. Proud of that trust.
“Shh,” he breathed into her hair, “it’s going to be fine. We’re going to be fine.”
She pulled back, breathing easier now but voice raw, “is it? Are we”
He thought of Tess, party to all their secrets, of Zod hellbent on creating Krypton on Earth and of Watchtower slowly being pieced together again. Of waking up in hospital bed to find her watching him.
“Yes!” And it was only half bravado. The other half faith. In her. In them.
She smiled then, the slow sweet smile that lit up her face. The one reserved only for him and he returned it as her fingers tangled in his and squeezed. And just before she leaned in to kiss him, he caught a tenderness in her eyes. Directed at him and it stole his breath. Then she blinked and it was swept away by desire as their lips met.
***
She was gone. He loved her and she was gone.
***
He could think of her only in moments, in flashes of time suspended, of memories held together and worlds created by his will power alone. Stitched together, the whole was too much. Too much to bear.
He’d find her he promised himself. He’d find her and bring her home.
Before the memories faded.
***
Comments would be adored :)
Characters/Pairing: Chlollie
Spoilers: Pretty much everything up till Salvation (9.22)
A/N: A companion piece to Next Time and follows the same canon.
***
They were friends (well almost friends) before they were anything else. Before they were more. Before she was everything. And maybe that made all the difference.
***
Chloe Sullivan. Clark Kent's best friend. Lois Lane's cousin.
The first time he met her in Clark's dusty barn, she was bright and blonde and she’d flashed him a wide open smile. The kind that had him wondering just what Lois had told her about him. He found himself returning it anyway, grinning back without reserve. It would be impossible not to. The mention of her article, the one Clark had said she was working on, sparked a different smile and a not so subtle glance at Clark and something clicked and he wondered what she really wanted the satellite images for.
Secrets. The damn town was drowning in them. He should fit right in.
Chloe Sullivan. Bright smiles and tangled sentences. Knee deep in the business of exposing the truth and who leaped from fact to fact as if they were stepping stones to her destiny.
The first time she worked with the Justice league, he gave her the codename Watchtower, still a little bewildered at how she came to be standing in the Clocktower privy to all their secrets. As he walked away with AC and Victor, leaving her with a headset, standing in front of a screen flashing green, and firmly in charge of seeing them in and out of the Ridge Facility safely, he hoped she knew what the hell she was doing.
She did. Enough for him to want her on his team.
Chloe Sullivan, a flurry of motion, a stream of words. Green eyes sparking bright with mischief and pop culture references dancing on her tongue.
The first time she visited her mother, he went with her. She turned up at his apartment in Star City unannounced and apologetic. The ride to the hospital was quiet. The walk to Moira Sullivan’s room even more so, the sound of their footsteps echoing in the hallway unnaturally loud.
Unsure of what was expected of him, he hung around outside, waiting for her to finish and resisting the urge to call Clark and ask him to take over. This wasn’t the Chloe he was used to. A feathery shadow of the girl he barely knew.
There was a vending machine down the hall. Coffee. He’d get her coffee. Not the good stuff she was used to but it would do. For now. And then he’d bully her into accepting his offer of taking his private jet back to Metropolis. But not before he offered a job working for the Justice League.
Part time work. Work she could fit in around the Daily Planet and college. Work to keep him out of trouble.
Chloe Sullivan. Bright and brave and broken. Reckless in a way she had never been. But smiling. And for the first time in a long while it held the promise of the girl he had known. Of dusty barns and blue Kansas skies. Of something new. Of beginnings.
Hope. He felt it like a burst of static shock when his fingers closed around her hand, engulfing it. Saw it reflected in her eyes. This, and he looked around at the uncharacteristically quiet Metropolis street, could almost pass for normal. Or as close to normal as they would ever get.
As normal as a green leather costume and split personalities and the need to risk your life to save others on a daily basis. To the point of obsession. To the brink of failure. And beyond.
And nothing about that, he acknowledged with a grim smile, was normal. Or even healthy. Heroes, and the word made him grimace, rarely were. All noble intentions aside. He’d never strove for normality. Not like Clark. Or even Victor. But it didn’t mean he didn’t crave it. Sometimes it was all he craved.
But he knew what drove him. Barely. But it was there. Even as it struggled with the price of failure, it was there. And she was right. A pep talk wouldn’t have done the job of reminding him why the Green Arrow existed.
He knew enough about himself to acknowledge that. And enough about her to know that in saving him, she was saving herself.
***
His hand brushed hers, the briefest of touches, and it was only imagination that warmth lingered on his skin. Imagination and exhaustion laced with alcohol.
***
“Four packets.He ate four packets.”
He was aware he sounded faintly ludicrous but the need to keep talking was overwhelming. Even so, five more minutes discussing Jonn’s Oreo intake (which let’s face it was astonishing) and Chloe would start thinking he’d hurt more than his ego when Carter threw him through a window. She probably already was.
And maybe he had. Because this was suddenly awkward. If Jonn had noticed the weird vibe that had sprung up between him and Chloe halfway through dinner, he’d done a good job of hiding it. Good enough to casually mention that Oliver be a gentleman and walk Chloe home.
He sneaked a glance at her, careful not to catch her eye, to read between blinks and find unfamiliar worlds. That only led to trouble. Apparently. And touching. Touching was problematic too. It hadn’t been up till recently. But now it was.
“Well, he’s got years of catching up to do.”
Brief smile, only mouth and no eyes, barely visible in the streetlights that illuminated their path and he felt something tighten inside him. An echo of the ache that had taken him by surprise when she had talked of giving up on the team.
Concussion, he decided there and then fighting the urge to examine the situation further. He was going to file tonight away under concussion and tomorrow Chloe would be mild all exasperation and biting snark and he would have the presence of mind to respond in kind.
And it would all be blissfully normal. Relatively speaking. This was Metropolis after all.
***
Lois, the Lois, he wanted (until quite recently anyway) existed only in his memories. Memories shaped by nostalgia and smoothed by a burning desire for simpler times.
***
"You, buddy, may be bulletproof, but you may wanna duck and cover in there. Good luck.”
His smile and parting shot as he left Clark to face the music was entirely and almost surprisingly genuine. Nothing forced. No residual bitterness at the man who had held on to what he had let go. No words that hung too heavy and hinged on resentment. There was an almost skip in his step at the realization and he felt absurd. Like a walking cliche.
Something he thought, with a roll of his shoulders, he could live with all things considered.
Of everything he regretted, letting Lois go didn’t weigh as heavy on his conscious or his heart as some. The realization had come at a cost. An almost healed scar he had picked at in his despair until it bled anew.
Like ghosts, the memories of his love for Lois had come back to haunt him when there was nothing else to cling to. A safe footing in his unstable world. An illusion of a future that was never his. Time, long coffee breaks peppered with bright chatter and her dogged refusal to let go of their relationship and they were almost back to the easy friendship they had slipped into over the last year.
And he was grateful.
***
One hour and two drinks later, he reluctantly admitted he was waiting for her. Two hours and three drinks later, he felt like he’d been waiting forever.
***
Breath held, one hand fitted over her left hand on the bow and the other trailed down her right arm, lifting it at the right angle, fingers coming to rest over hers and he gently nudged them into place. So close his breath stirred her hair and tickled his nose. Was this what he had been waiting for?
No answer to his question but the beating of his heart in his ears, thundering almost and then her voice, a new tone unlike Chloe but one he could come to appreciate.
“How do I know when to let go?”
He didn’t take his eyes off the target, fingers move over hers and and he pressed closer, "It's all about your heart. Just listen, right there in between the beats.”
He registered the turn of head, heard her swallow and wondered if she would put a stop to this now. Because they both knew this wasn’t about archery anymore. Had it ever been?
“That’s when you let go.”
For what felt like an interminably long moment they didn’t move. He let his right hand drop to her hip leaving her to guide the arrow alone and exhaled softly in something like relief when facing forward again, she loosed the arrow.
It whistled through the air and he knew before it hit that it would hit the mark.
***
Not quite uncomplicated desire or the sweet, soft caress of love. It was harder. Deeper. It was whispered words against her ear, slick skin sliding together and his own hiss of pleasure as she arched against him.
***
He woke up to dawn. The first rays of sunlight filtering in through the large windows. It danced on the walls and along the ground where they lay and painted the world around them in shimmering hues of gold and green and he closed his eyes as memories of last night came flooding back.
The feel of her lips beneath his, pulse thrumming under his fingers and the sweet slide of her skin against his. Desperate need mingling with pleasure and exploding in shards of colour behind closed eyes. Silence punctured only by her breath matching his in a weird staccato tempo. The wait for awkwardness to set in and the surprise when it didn’t.
He glanced to his right. She was curled up beside him, one hand tucked beneath her cheek and the other one flung out, eyelids fluttering gently in sleep.
The morning after the night before. His had a pattern. And this one didn’t fit.
Not quite as simple as lust. Or love. This was...new. Uncharted territory made up of desire and want and a flare of new feelings tangling with the old. Of losing yourself in familiar worlds rendered new and of a sharp biting need to forget everything but the here and now.
Memories flashed and he gave in this time. She had pressed her mouth hard against his swallowing his words when he had told her she was beautiful. Wide open eyes betrayed a vulnerability her flippancy couldn’t quite mask and something more than pleasure had caught at his breath.
“Actions speak louder than words,” she’d whispered.
And with one smooth movement and she’d been above him. Her mouth on his and he’d relinquished control easily. No words now and none were needed. He told her things with every touch that had never needed words leaving a trail of marks against her skin.
Marks he had traced again and again. Like reading braille. An imprint of a language only he understood.
***
Blind faith. he had always questioned hers. Her trust in Clark’s ability to keep her safe, to keep them all safe, a rare chink in her armour. Both intriguing and oddly touching. Broken now. Like so much else.
****
The money wasn’t the issue. He had enough of it. More than enough. The lying. The deceit. Hearing it from Tess. Even what she had used it for. It had shaken him in a way he had never expected.
The weapons were safe now. Beyond Tess’ reach. Beyond Chloe’s reach. And he sighed. Maybe she didn’t trust him but quite evidently he didn’t trust her either. In trying to save the world, they had both fucked up enough to doubt the power of their own convictions. And each others.
She had had too much faith (in Davies. In her belief she could save him. And Clark). And he not enough. Somewhere along the way on the road to making amends for the past, they had switched roles. She couldn’t believe and he wanted to. Desperately. It was lonely fighting on your own. It wore you down. And you made mistakes.
Strength in pain only got you so far on it’s own before it clouded your judgement and he knew there was nothing she wouldn’t do to avoid another Doomsday. But despite the misgivings, the uncertainty, despite being battle weary and sore they were still fighting. And that had to count for something. Snatched moments between missions and long nights in the watchtower. They had to count for something.
Bringing him back from the brink. That had to count for something.
And he didn’t believe she was using him for his money. He hadn’t believed it even as he said the words. Seen the hurt flash in her eyes and knew it mirrored his own and wondered at the small stab of satisfaction at getting a response from her. Any response. And he kept pushing. Heard the hardness in his voice, saw the plea in her eyes grow cold. And couldn’t stop.
She had lied. And he wanted her trust. It all came back to that.
He fished a key out of his pocket and stared at it. Upside down. Inside out. Nothing about what they were doing was the right way around. She had given him a key to the apartment. To make it easier for him to sneak in and out without Lois knowing. A landmark in any other relationship. It had been a means to an end in theirs.
A car alarm wailed in the distance, drawing him out of his thoughts and he contemplated turning around and walking away. But he knew he wouldn’t. What they had, whatever it was, was too fragile to survive silent recriminations and reproach. And he wanted it to survive. God, he wanted it to survive.
He slipped the key into the lock and silently clicked it open hoping she was still awake.
***
Nothing was ever planned beyond the next time they would meet so when she suggested a weekend getaway, he took a moment to mentally thank the paparazzi for driving them out of town.
***
As gifts go it wasn’t much despite being the least offensive thing the hotel’s small gift shop had to offer. Even in the thought department it failed miserably in hindsight. A cheap memento of a weekend getaway gone horribly wrong.
He had once joked that Metropolis was a hotbed of the strange and all too weird and easily explained if you knew what you were dealing with. Which, they did more often than not and that was creepy more than comforting.
But trouble found them wherever they went.
And Lois and Clark too apparently but he couldn’t be too disappointed on that count. One less secret despite Clark's less than enthusiastic reaction was a relief especially if it meant no longer making hasty escapes if he turned up at the Talon apartment unannounced. Which he did. Often. At least Lois was on board. A little too on board for it to be entirely comfortable but then she didn’t do anything half heartedly.
But evil banshees and unexpected run-ins aside not everything had gone wrong.
So much had gone right.
They had talked. Beyond the banter in the Watchtower and the teasing at night. Beyond whispered words of want and the silences which followed. He had approached cautiously, when he found her on he porch, words laced with humour that couldn’t quite disguise the weight they carried but she didn’t run away. Not from it. Whatever ‘it’ was. Not from him.
Something like hope had ignited when she opened up about Clark. By the time she asked about Lois (jealousy subduing her words) he had had to work to keep his smile under control.
As far as relationship history went, theirs was a little more complicated than most. Downright messy if he was honest and he rarely chose to be. About this particular topic anyway. Clark, Lois and the respective baggage they came with had become been a virtual no man’s land between them. If it was never discussed it didn’t exist. A theory that didn’t work in practice but neither of them challenged it.
And underneath it all, there was the fear that she didn’t care. About any of it.
But he’d been wrong. Because, and he remembered the look on her face as they talked, she did. She did care. And it was enough. For now.
***
“If you want normal then Smallville isn’t for you. Neither is Metropolis. In fact you should give Kansas a miss altogether.”
***
She was brilliant and brave and beautiful. And all too vulnerable. Vulnerable in way that terrified him.But currently, despite the day from hell, she was seemingly unfazed by her close brush with death.
He felt the weight of her overnight bag in one hand and the warmth of her hand in the other and bit back a grin. Maybe not completely unfazed. He hadn’t had to resort to threats to cajole her into staying at his place tonight.
And she’d been the first to reach for his hand three times. In one day. That had to be a record. Not that he was keeping count or anything.
They were almost at his door when the realization hit. Hard. Suddenly. They had made it through another day despite it all and he tugged at her hand. She stumbled, falling against him and swooping down, he brushed her lips in swift hard kiss before she had the chance to recover.
He pulled back and watched as she blinked, a slow sweet smile curving her lips, before she snapped her eyes open fully, “what was that for?”
“To celebrate neither of us being dead.”
She scrunched up her face thoughtfully and made a great show of pondering his words, “being alive is a plus, yes.”
Smiling, she reached up to stroke his face, fingers trailing heat across his skin and his eyes caught on the angry red marks on her wrists. Any remaining trace of humour vanished and for a few moments it was hard to breathe. Turning his head he kissed the soft skin of the underside of her wrist.
First one and then the other before pulling her into his arms.
Yes. Being alive was a plus.
***
Her fascination for words hadn’t died with her dreams of reporting.
***
Her emails and text messages every time he was called away from Metropolis on business (which was too often for his liking) almost made up for being away and he was reminded of a time when almost all their communication had been cross country.
A different kind of relationship carried out in secret. One made up of covert missions and secret meetings, of growing mutual respect and teamwork. He wondered at the parallel. At it all coming back full circle and at the differences wrought by time.
At the changes that created a new landscape and time wasted and of beginnings that hinted at a future unthinkable only a few years ago.
He didn’t believe in destiny. A path laid out by fate. But if it did exist, it had a sense of humour. A sick one but a sense of humour all the same.
***
She was everywhere at once in those few days. With him at the hospital. At the Watchtower with Victor. A whirlwind of activity to match any superpower.
****
The night that she almost broke was no different to the rest. Emil left just as she came in bearing food and a smile that was just ever so slightly frayed at the edges. A sign of exhaustion he would have missed a few months ago. Before he learned the language of her body.
She was breathing hard as she dumped the food on a small tale and pulled a chair up to his bed. Deep breaths and eyes suspiciously bright and he thought for a horrible moment she was crying. She wasn’t. She was trying her hardest not to and he was lost. Gut-wrenchingly lost.
“Hey,” taking her hand he pulled her to him, up on to bed, shifted so she could curl herself into him and held her close. Pressed her against him as hard he dared.
She was so fragile in his arms and he had never thought of her as breakable. So incredibly strong in front of the others. Weakness, any weakness carefully hidden away in the creases of her being and he couldn’t remember the last time she let her facade drop. Was he the only one who saw the cracks? He felt proud then. Proud of that trust.
“Shh,” he breathed into her hair, “it’s going to be fine. We’re going to be fine.”
She pulled back, breathing easier now but voice raw, “is it? Are we”
He thought of Tess, party to all their secrets, of Zod hellbent on creating Krypton on Earth and of Watchtower slowly being pieced together again. Of waking up in hospital bed to find her watching him.
“Yes!” And it was only half bravado. The other half faith. In her. In them.
She smiled then, the slow sweet smile that lit up her face. The one reserved only for him and he returned it as her fingers tangled in his and squeezed. And just before she leaned in to kiss him, he caught a tenderness in her eyes. Directed at him and it stole his breath. Then she blinked and it was swept away by desire as their lips met.
***
She was gone. He loved her and she was gone.
***
He could think of her only in moments, in flashes of time suspended, of memories held together and worlds created by his will power alone. Stitched together, the whole was too much. Too much to bear.
He’d find her he promised himself. He’d find her and bring her home.
Before the memories faded.
***
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