Forget Me Not 1/3
Title: Forget Me Not
Pairing: Chlara, hinted Clark/Davis and Dinah Lance/Barbara Gordon
Rating: PG-13
Summary. Post S8 Abyss, spoilers for Bride. Kara comes home for a day to find out that Chloe has forgotten all about her. She decides to do something about it.
Author's Note: Thank you to herohunter and lexalicious
For thelittlebang
Word Count: 18115 overall
Part One
Clark should have known that when Kara said she was leaving, she wasn't going to leave completely. There was something about Kara that always made her look at Clark a little bit like a chubby baby who laughed when you tickled him in the right spots.
The dreadlocks of the Phantom Zone might have been gone, but there was a hardness to her now, even when she was helping herself to the last of Clark's Choco Puff sugar cereal. The austerity of the prison his father had created remained, even once she had cleaned and coiffed herself in that special Kara style that made her golden curls bounce in a way Clark didn't want to think too closely about on someone who was a blood relative.
So when Chloe showed up on his doorstep, Clark felt more than a bit of anxiety at the frown Kara was giving to him. His long time friend babbled on emptily about wedding plans and how light and content she felt.
"Well, aren't you going to introduce me to your friend?" Chloe finally asked with a laugh.
Clark blinked in confusion and looked around. He'd half thought that she might have been talking about J'onn, who had a bad habit of sneaking up behind him.
"The girl," Chloe clarified. Kara looked up from her bowl of puffs and milk and blinked in disbelief. Chloe came over to her and smiled warmly. "Sorry. Clark was raised on a farm, and has no manners. I'm Chloe. And you are?"
Kara wiped her mouth and cocked a brow. "I'm Kara." She paused, waiting to see a light go on in Chloe's eyes, but it seemed like the light had gone out. "Clark's cousin."
"Oh! I didn't know you had any cousins, Clark!" Chloe looked back at him and shook her head. "Well, how are you liking Smallville?"
"It… has its moments," Kara answered, letting her eyes drift questioningly to Clark, who seemed incredibly interested in dishwashing at the moment. "It's a strange place."
"It really is. Are you going to be in town for long?" Chloe pulled up a chair and sat back to talk to Kara.
"Um… for a day. Maybe a little longer. Depends."
"Aw. I would have invited you to my wedding!" Chloe said excitedly.
Kara shrugged. "I hate to crash the big day."
"Well, if you're still in town on Saturday, come by. We can squeeze one more in. We're having the wedding in Clark's barn."
"A wedding? In a barn?" Kara shook her head. "On my planet we don't have joining nuptials where animals sh-"
"Kara," Clark warned.
"Sleep," she finished.
Chloe narrowed her eyes and tilted her head at an odd angle. "We wanted to save on wedding costs. You know, save the money we would use to rent a hall for our lives." She raised her hands. "It made sense on planet Chloe. Maybe not on the planet every other girl is on."
Kara watched Chloe laugh, and stared at her in confusion. Chloe was acting funny, beyond just flat out not remembering Kara at all. For some reason that disappointed Kara more than she wanted to admit.
Chloe stood and went over to pat Clark on the back. "Take it easy. I don't want you straining yourself on this farm when I need you to give me away at my wedding."
When she had left, Kara rose slowly. "Why doesn't she remember me?" she said quietly. She dropped her bowl in the sink, giving him a hard look.
"Well, you two didn't even seem to get along that well. Maybe she's jerking you around," Clark suggested.
"We got along fine, Kal-El," Kara snapped. "Chloe was never bitter with me because Jimmy left her, and she never gave me the indication of being two-faced. She even spent time with me showing me how to find information about this planet and how people around here dress and act. That girl who was just in here was not Chloe Sullivan!"
Clark sighed heavily. "I had the Fortress remove her memories of my secret. Brainiac was taking over her mind."
Kara was silent for a long moment. "Are you kidding me? How long has she known? She doesn't seem to remember me at all."
"You two barely had a relationship," Clark argued. "It doesn't matter. All that matters is that she's safe."
"Uuuugh!" Kara groaned, turning from him roughly. "You are just like your father. You're just like my father. Taking memories from me when you think it's best! That's not right. It's not fair." She turned again and glared at him. "You don't get to decide what a girl can and can't remember, Clark!"
"That's not what I was doing. I'm her friend-"
"And friends should be able to trust their friends not to go sneaking into their head and stealing their memories!" Kara exploded. "I don't believe this. I must not know you at all, if you could do something so selfish."
"It isn't selfish," Clark snapped. "I sacrificed this for her."
"Except she's the one making the sacrifice. I don't know why you can't realize that she's the one who's had to give up however many years of her memories that she was making while she knew your secret. You've given her a lobotomy." Kara crossed her arms and looked out the window. "You've destroyed the most beautiful part of her."
"Kara-"
"I've got to go."
Kara could move faster than Clark, and she could fly like nothing he'd ever seen-not even J'onn could fly that fast when he had powers-so Clark had no chance of catching up to her. Clark leaned out of the screen door and watched the bluish trail she left in her wake. Knowing Kara, this was not going to end well.
***
Upstairs in her room, Chloe slid her garter over her sleek, muscled thigh. She remembered dropping some weight last year. She remembered wanting to be able to run faster, better, if she needed to.
She must have been training for a marathon. She didn't think that she'd actually competed, but she would have to ask Jimmy. About a week ago, she'd suffered and inexplicable stroke, and it had left her memories in shambles. She was a lucky girl, that Jimmy still wanted to marry her, even with her being so confused and dependant on him.
Chloe looked up and smiled at Jimmy's friend Colin, who was filming her as she posed, her leg up. Her mind spun a little, fleeting thoughts coming to the surface, but she couldn't formulate anything, so she simply smiled and tilted her head to the side. A few lines of symbols drifted in front of her eyes. She wasn't sure what that was.
She would have to ask Jimmy.
When the window opened, she continued to smile at the camera as Colin began to let it drop and the wind from outside whipped through. Chloe only looked back when her name was called.
"Oh! Kara!" she said excitedly, clapping her hands together as she saw the girl by the window wearing a blue tank top and short jean shorts. "I’m so glad you could come. Let me call Lois, and she'll find a seat for you, okay?"
Kara approached her and glared at Colin. "Can you go? We have some girl talk to do."
"Oh, uh, yeah. No problem." Colin held out his knuckle to her. "Ring that bell?"
Kara stared at it for a long moment, then looked up. "I don’t know what this means."
"He wants you to give him a fist bump," Chloe explained. She half-turned and touched her knuckle to Colin's. Colin nodded and looked at Kara expectantly.
With hesitation, Kara raised her hand and lightly touched her fist to his.
"Alright! Get your gab on, girls." Colin left the loft apartment with a sprightly step.
Kara watched him go, then looked over Chloe, who was wearing nothing but a white corset, garter, and sheer dressing robe. She was a stiff mannequin with a plastic smile. "Chloe, I can't let you do this. It's not right."
"Why?" Chloe asked with genuine curiosity. "I've only met you once. How can you know what's right for me?"
"You and I have met before. You just don't-"
"Remember. Oh. I'll… I'll have to ask Jimmy about that. I have a hard time remembering things these days." Her phone went off, and Chloe looked at it with irritation.
"Don't ask Jimmy. Just don't marry him today. Listen to me about this, Chloe. You don't want to regret something like this later," Kara insisted. "When my father wiped my memory, I would have defended almost anything he did. To me he seemed like a good man, but once I got my memories back, I realized he was just controlling me. I was nothing but his doll."
"I don't… I don't know what you're talking about," Chloe said softly, walking backward.
Kara stepped forward and grabbed her arms. "No, you don't. That's the problem. Go to Jimmy and tell him that you need to postpone this until you get your memory back."
"He doesn't mind that my memory is bad," Chloe protested. She felt her heart beating wildly in her chest like some kind of frantic animal. This Kara girl was scaring her. She was stronger than she looked, and something in her eyes was hard and determined.
Kara rolled her eyes. "Oh yeah? He cared when my memory was bad. He didn't even tell me that he was dumping me. He just left."
"Wait, is this because you two dated?" Chloe asked incredulously. "Get your hands off me. I'm not going to postpone my wedding because some crazy ex-girlfriend still wants him."
"Believe me, I do not want him."
Chloe struggled against Kara's iron grip.
"Stop that. Chloe, you have to listen to me. Trust me, I have very little use for men these days."
"Lois!" Chloe yelled. "Lois are you down there! Clark?"
"Oh, for the love of… Sorry." Kara tapped the side of her head, scooped Chloe into her arms, and flew out the window as fast as she could without turning the woman in her arms into jelly.
A minute later Lois came running up the stairs. "Chloe? Hey! Chloe!"
She looked around the room hysterically, turning chairs over and darting into the bathroom. After looking behind the shower curtain, she went back into the main room and looked out the open window, then down, to see if Chloe had fallen.
"Where is she?"
Jimmy came upstairs and frowned. "What's goin' on?"
"Chloe's missing. She was up here a minute ago, and then I heard her scream my name. I ran up here, and she's gone. Disappeared."
"Gone? No. No way." Jimmy ran a hand through his hair. "We… Uh… Call the police. Yeah. Dial 911!"
"The police aren't going to send someone out for a woman who's been missing for less than five minutes. They won't consider it a missing person until she's been gone twenty-four hours," Lois said abrasively. She put her hands on her hips. "Chloe's not street pizza, so she didn't jump. Let's put out a search for her. Put these guests to work."
She clapped her hands together and breezed past Jimmy, who still seemed dumbfounded.
Chloe's cell phone rang again. He ran over to answer it.
"Hey, this is Chloe's phone."
There was a long silence, and then, "So do you always have Chloe's phone, or do you occasionally let her use it?"
"Who is this?" Jimmy asked. The cell went silent, and the man on the other end hung up. With a frown, Jimmy hurried down the stairs after Lois.
***
Chloe woke in a room. It was a plain enough room with one door and blue walls. It was also unfamiliar, but these days, that wasn't saying a whole lot. She touched her head, which felt a little funny, and sat up from the mattress where she'd been laying.
Across the room, cross-legged, sat the blond-haired girl who Chloe had seen before. What was her name?
"Kara?"
Her head turned and the scant light from the window hit the girl's face, highlighting her high cheekbones and the golden sheen of her hair. Chloe thought for a moment that she'd been kidnapped by an angel. Now wasn't that silly? Where had she heard something like that before?
"Chloe?" Kara stood, carrying the dusty pile of paper that had been sitting on the floor with her. She dropped it in front of Chloe. "I've been doing some reading. Maybe something that will jog your memory."
"Kara, you don't have to do this. Please, they'll be looking for me," Chloe pleaded.
"I can't let you go through with something like that when you don't have all your faculties. Maybe they don’t care, but I do. My father erased my memories once, and I told you that, and then my uncle erased them all. I've gotten them back since, but they weren't theirs to throw away or to keep from me. It wasn't fair," Kara tried to explain to her.
Chloe twisted her fingers, then said emphatically, "All I want is to walk down the aisle with the man I-"
"Ugh." Kara sighed heavily and sat Chloe down on the mattress. "How would you like to wake up during your honeymoon with that man and remember something that ruined it? You wouldn't, would you? If Jimmy really and truly loves you for who you are, then he must be hoping that you get your memories back, too, right?"
Chloe looked down at her hands and realized she was still in her corset and garter. "He must."
"Then he would want you to try." Kara tentatively reached over to touch Chloe's hand. It seemed small and dry. Soft, with a small callous on the outside of her index finger and a few paper cuts. Kara smiled, thinking that Chloe's hand was a writer's hand. It was her wedding day, and she'd not thought to put down her pen-or her laptop-long enough to make them perfect for the big day.
"Okay," Chloe agreed. She ought to be afraid. Years in Smallville had taught her that. Still she sighed and put her hands in her lap to wait for whatever plan this crazy, lonely girl had concocted to repair her Swiss cheese memory.
It began when Kara set an old copy of The Smallville Ledger on Chloe's lap. Chloe smiled nostalgically.
"I wrote this. I wrote this article," she whispered proudly. "An insider's view of the case. The cop wanted a promotion, so he kidnapped someone who would be missed pretty quickly. Editor of the school paper. Paper has to be out every week. It was my first article published in a real paper."
Chloe put her chin in her hand. "It's no Bengal Tiger, but I thought it was pretty good. The editor of The Daily Planet at the time thought so too. I got my internship that way."
"It must have been terrifying," Kara said sympathetically. "How did you get away from him?"
"I…" Chloe paused, skimming over the paper before her. "I don't remember. My memory."
She shrugged. Kara put her hand on Chloe's shoulder and pointed to the paper. Chloe continued to read.
"Clark. It was Clark… who saved me." Chloe smiled ear to ear. "He was always so brave."
"Yeah. Clark." Kara tensed her jaw and gave Chloe several copies of The Torch. "And these?"
"That was… Sean Kelvin, Justin Gains, and… Ian Randal. He turned himself in two. The others had powers too. I wrote about them all. I don't remember much more than that."
"Read the rest," Kara urged softly.
She watched sharply as Chloe read through the countless articles she had written for The Torch, as well as the ones she'd written for The Ledger. Kara kept the ones from The Daily Planet aside, and asked a question here or there.
"I… It's like it happened to someone else," Chloe lamented. "How can Jimmy even love me? How can Clark be my friend-"
"Do you remember anything at all?" Kara asked hopefully.
"I don't remember, but… Clark saves a lot of people, doesn't he? In so many stories. How did I never notice the pattern before?"
Kara sat up straight, then she stood and paced, swishing her hips jauntily. "Didn't you?"
"Well, maybe I did. I guess. I just don't remember." Chloe spread her hands and looked up at Kara helplessly. "And I'm cold. Did I mention I'm cold?"
"No. But I can help with that. Hang on." Kara walked toward the door, then stopped and turned around. "While I'm gone, read these."
She picked up the papers from The Daily Planet that had her articles in them and dropped them in Chloe's lap.
"Um, okay." Chloe looked up at Kara and watched the girl go. The moment Kara was gone, she went to the door and tried the handle, but it was locked. She scanned the room for anything that could help her get away, but there was really nothing remotely like a weapon. Kara hadn't bothered to even threaten her with one. Chloe wasn't sure why she hadn't tried to escape before now. She slowly returned to the mattress, sat down, and began looking through the newspapers.
What she came across, it seemed, were more and more articles by herself. Her old self. The one who had written constantly. She had vague memories of some of the articles. Some of them were flat out boring, the assigned articles that every reporter has to take. Those were clear as a picture. Others, ones with more energy and life to them, she couldn't seem to bring up at all. File not found.
Chloe couldn't justify marrying anyone in this state. She hadn't lived over half her life. She was broken.
When Kara returned with a set of pajamas, Chloe had her head in her hands, and she was sobbing so hard that she could barely breathe. Kara rushed to her side and put her arms around Chloe.
"What is it? Did you remember?"
"No! I can't! I can't r-remember. I'm n-nothing," Chloe sobbed.
Kara stared on in shock. This hadn't been what she'd planned. Not at all. "No, you aren't, Chloe. You're something. You're seriously something. You're more something than most people on this planet. Believe me."
"Have you met everyone on this planet?" Chloe asked bitterly.
"No. But I've met people from other planets, and trust me, they're assholes."
Chloe sniffed, not smiling, but looking at her curiously. Kara wiped her tears away.
"You didn't learn anything?" Kara asked with a sigh. "I'm sorry, Chloe. I thought for sure that would jog your memory. Maybe I should go get Lex. He had a-"
"No! Lex Luthor is a bad man. Don't you know that? And anyway, he's probably not even alive. He disappeared last spring," Chloe informed her seriously. "Don't mess with him."
"He disappeared? I didn't know that. I wouldn't worry about him. I can handle Lex." Kara looked around at a loss for what to do. She slid her hands over Chloe's trembling arms. "You're shivering. Wear these."
"Can I take the girlie stuff off first?"
Kara laughed. "Yeah, you can."
"Well, I'm apparently talking to Miss Sweet Corn 2007. I wouldn't want to commit a fashion faux pas in front of my captor," Chloe quipped, slipping off her sheer dressing robe. Why in the world she'd been wearing it at all… She didn't understand why she did a lot of things these days.
"You wrote about that, too. Did you read it? With the Weather Girls?" Kara asked. "Front page- Chloe, you're not my captive. Do you really want go? I just… I can't let you marry a man like this. It isn't right. My father would have done that to me. I bet you anything."
Chloe slipped off her garter and began unfastening the side of her corset. "The wedding's canceled by now…"
"Yeah. It is."
"Could we just tell Clark?" Chloe suggested.
"No, we can't tell Clark. If I… Clark knows about your memory loss," Kara offered. She considered just telling Chloe everything herself, but that wouldn't help Chloe. It wouldn't erase the damage that had been done to her. Not by a long shot.
"Well, obviously. He was there when I was losing my memories. I was at The Talon, and then… I woke up." She shook her head, struggling with the corset. "In my own home. Could you help me with this?"
Kara stood again and moved to her side, slowly and carefully unfastening the side of the corset. "I don't know why you're wearing this. You look fine without whalebone poking your insides. No, Chloe, I mean, he knows why your memory loss happened."
"Jimmy said I ordered the corset… It was a stroke." Chloe half-turned as her corset dropped to the floor and she stood in front of Kara mostly naked. "Wasn't it?"
Kara said nothing. She didn't move, and she didn't speak, but Chloe and that last spark of intelligence that flickered in her green eyes saw the answer. She kicked the corset away and grabbed the light green pajamas.
***
Ever since Jimmy had come into the main room of The Talon, howling about Davis stalking his fiancée, Clark had been searching for the man. It had been officially twenty-four hours since Chloe had gone missing, and while he would like to believe that Chloe was all right, there was a good chance that she had gotten confused and wandered away, or that Davis had come and kidnapped her.
The only problem was that Davis was hard to find, the bastard, and Clark was running out of places to look. He'd looked everywhere he could think of in Smallville, including the castle, Isis, even the Daily Planet, although how she'd end up there with no car and very little recollection of her own daily life, he didn't know.
One thing that had freaked him out completely was to visit Davis' sparse, bizarro apartment. The man was strange from head to toe, no doubt about it. It was pathologically clean. There was very little food in the refrigerator, just some juice and baking soda. Rice and coffee in the cabinet. Several disposable coffee cups in the trashcan.
The man ate less than Lex had. No wonder Davis was so fit.
Worse than that, there was no furniture. Just a television in the living room, which was perfectly clean, and in the bedroom, nothing. No bed. No dresser. No mirrors. There wasn't even a mirror in the bathroom. It, in fact, looked as though it had never been used.
The new man in Chloe's life must have been spending his time elsewhere, because Clark hadn't ever found a place less lived in than this.
He turned for the door and jumped when he saw Davis right behind him.
"Couldn't make it to your own bathroom, Kent?" Davis asked dryly. He moved past Clark and began to wash some blood off of his hand.
"Guess you've had a rough day," Clark commented.
"Give me one good reason not to call the police," Davis shot back, turning his head to Clark angrily.
"Because Chloe disappeared yesterday, and you were calling her non-stop," Clark accused angrily. "If I turn her phone over to the police, they're going to be investigating you pretty closely. I don't think you want that."
Clark wished he could take the surprised look on Davis' face for what it was. Davis turned, stepping back and parting his naturally thin, bowed lips.
"For how long? I was calling her because she wasn't answering, and the last time I met her on the street, she didn't remember anything but me," Davis replied. He touched his hair, then looked toward the doorway. "I don't have her, Clark. I would never take her against her will. Surely you know that. Couldn't I have done it when her memories were shot?"
Crossing his arms, Clark eyed Davis dubiously. He had a point, though. Which made Clark angrier. "She still doesn't have all of her memories. It's… It's been worse than I thought it would be since that day."
"What did you think would happen? She had a serious mental breakdown. Either it was a stroke, or a severe blow to the head. She could even have Huntington's and not know it. There are so many problems she could have, and she should have undergone a medical examination after she got back," Davis continued firmly. "I'm guessing that didn't happen."
"No. Jimmy seemed to think she was fine."
"Jimmy is a tool. If I were Chloe's best friend, I wouldn't sit idly by while a guy who's a-okay with his girlfriend being a halfwit, as long as she's focused on him, tries to bind her to him for life," Davis snapped.
"You're not exactly unbiased, there," Clark replied, raising both of his brows and pointing at him.
"No. No, I'm not!" Davis closed his eyes and smoothed both of his palms over his head. "I'm not. We have to find her, Clark. Even if Jimmy doesn't know how precious and amazing the woman he has is, we have to bring her back."
"For once I agree with you," Clark said softly. He sighed and looked at the impeccably clean shower. "Do you ever bathe in here? I find it hard to believe that you do."
"I shower at work. It saves time." Davis frowned. "Has that been bugging you since you got in here? Did you break my lock? You'd better fix it."
"What's anyone going to steal? That old TV?"
"I like my clothes."
Clark frowned and narrowed his eyes. "You wear the same thing every day. Isn't that boring?"
Davis shrugged. "It means people can identify who you are and what you do. That's important, isn't it?"
***
Chloe woke again on the mattress and looked around sleepily. She'd spent so much time yesterday reading articles that she'd written that she had dreams of being in The Daily Planet, running back and forth from the copier to Grant Gabriel's desk, where he might or might not be boffing her cousin. Every time she warned herself not to look, but every time she rushed in and cringed at the sight.
As she rubbed her eyes, Chloe sat up and smelled pancakes. She stood, looking around for where the bathroom might be. If she weren't a prisoner, then surely the door wouldn't be locked this time. She padded in that direction tentatively and jumped when the door opened.
"Oh! I'm making you breakfast," Kara said seriously. "You haven't eaten since you've been here."
"You cook?"
"I watched the Food Network last year," she said with a nod, as though that should make her an expert. Kara moved the plate under Chloe's nose so she could smell her breakfast.
"Can I? Um." Chloe pointed out of the room. "I need to use the bathroom. On Planet Chloe, we do that sort of thing."
"Oh! Right. Go ahead. It's to the left."
Chloe looked back at Kara, who was setting the plate of pancakes and eggs on the bar in the kitchen and going back to pour the juice. Chloe shrugged, thinking she could run out the front door, which was carelessly open. Nothing between her and the outside world but the screen door.
But she had to pee, so she hustled into the bathroom. As she washed her hands, she checked out her reflection. Her makeup was smudged, and her mascara had run down her face from the crying, and the beautiful job that had been done on her hair had turned into an impressive case of bedhead. Oh well. She wouldn't be walking down the aisle today.
She lowered her head to the sink and began to wash off her face.
Suddenly Kara's voice drifted into the room. She was singing. Soft, sad, and low in a language that Chloe had never heard before.
Chloe came out of the bathroom, expecting Kara to stop singing in embarrassment, but she only looked Chloe in the eye for a moment before she went back to flipping the pancakes.
The girl finished her hymn and sat down on the stool next to her with a much larger plate of food. It must be genetic. Clark ate like that too, and Chloe very rarely saw it show on him.
"What was that song?" Chloe asked cautiously. Sometimes Kara seemed very flippant, but others she seemed very still and profound.
"It's… Well, for a translation, it's a Coluan prayer. You sing it in the morning to give thanks for the days you spent with lost loved ones."
Chloe, for the first time in a long time, felt very certain of something, and that was this girl had lost many, many loved ones.
Kara asked lightly as she cut up her pancakes, "Did you know that Clark's snob girlfriend never made me pancakes? She sneered at me once like I was this other woman when she showed up, and then she sort of ignored me like Clark's bratty little sister or something. I'm not sure if she still thought Clark was attracted to me or not, but every time I was in the room, she turned everything around to be about herself, or about how Clark always needed to be more 'honest' with her. I figured it out, anyway, and I bet mine's better. What do you think?"
"Lana? I didn't know she cooked either," Chloe said. She tossed her hands up in the air and shook her head. "Although with my memory…"
"I don't think she ever cooked for you either. I wish you could tell me what happened to her. I didn't like her much, but I couldn't let Brainiac torture her. No one deserves that." Kara took a piece of bacon. "You could never tell Clark anything about her. If you did, he'd always turn around and start fighting with you."
"That's true," Chloe agreed. "Once when we were in high school, Lana snooped through my computer and she found something that made me so embarrassed. And when Clark found out that we were fighting, he assumed it was my fault. And when he found out what had actually happened? He acted like I had no right to be angry with her for doing it. Just because I've had some problems learning what other people consider as normal boundaries, doesn't mean that Lana shouldn't know them. Everything I did was with good intentions.""
"Hey," Kara whispered, a little smile playing across her lips.
Chloe lowered her head and looked at her curiously. "What?"
"You remembered something. You remembered it clearly." Kara reached forward and touched the tip of Chloe's nose.
Chloe started to grin helplessly. "I did. Oh, wow."
"Tell me more about that. Tell me… What boundary issues did you and Clark have? When did he get mad?" Kara asked.
They spent the rest of the morning exchanging information, mostly about Clark, and although they had a few good laughs at his expense (for which Chloe would try to make it up to him later), unfortunately, there were no intense breakthroughs, just a few fond high school memories.
"It's okay," Kara explained. She held up a finger and went over to the sofa, the one piece of furniture in the whole apartment, and picked up a box sitting on it. "I have a plan."
Chloe sat down next to her patiently, hoping… she didn't know what she hoped. Her eyes drifted to Kara's legs. The girl was wearing jean cut-offs and a white t-shirt. It was certainly warmer here than it was in Smallville.
"Here. This should help." Kara pulled out a palm-sized pentagonal crystal. There was a vertical infinity sign in the middle of it. "Or I hope it does. I've been looking everywhere for it. Clark stole it from me, when there was a huge mess with my father, but I've got it back now. Clark had it under his stupid barn. He keeps all my crystals down there."
"What is it?" Chloe asked. She reached out and let her fingers trail over the edges.
"It's a Kryptonian crystal."
"What… What does that mean? Kryptonian?" Chloe frowned and looked up at Kara seriously. It sounded… important. And foreign.
"The Kryptonian race was much more advanced than the human race. They recorded all of their knowledge inside of these crystals," Kara told her, looking a bit hesitant. "There's more I could tell you, but I'm afraid that if I do this wrong, you won't remember at all."
"What can you do with that crystal?" Chloe asked. "Don't you need something to plug it into? A computer interface?"
Kara shook her head slowly. "No. Our interface is our brain."
"So… Shove it in my ear?"
"No. Just… Here." Kara arranged the crystal in her palm and held it up to Chloe's chin. "Close your eyes and concentrate. Reach out and pick up the information."
Chloe did as she was told and closed her eyes, concentrating hard. At first she tried to focus on some kind of strand of information. Then she let her mind drift. After about five minutes, she opened one eye.
"What am I doing wrong here?"
"I don’t know. Just reach out and grab the interface. You did it before with Clark's crystal," Kara said impatiently. "It can fix you."
"Um. I don't remember that." Chloe opened the other eye and sighed.
Kara raised the crystal and pressed it to Chloe's forehead. "Maybe it's broken."
"Uh…"
Then Kara held it in front of her and closed her eyes. The crystal began to glow, and translucent screen appeared in front of Kara's face with little lines of odd shapes.
"Oh my God!" Chloe exclaimed, scooting backwards on the sofa.
"Reading. I don't know why it doesn't work for you. Maybe you just forgot how when Clark erased-" Kara opened her eyes and set the crystal aside. "Chloe, it's okay."
"I've never seen anything like that!" Chloe stayed where she was, frozen for a moment, then grinned widely. "That was smokin' cool!"
Kara smiled. "I'm sorry it didn't work. I don't know what to do now."
Chloe looked down for a moment, then reached over and touched Kara's hand. It was larger than her own, rougher. Now Chloe knew that this girl had seen hard times, no matter how cavalier she occasionally seemed to be.
"Let's give it some time. We'll think of something," Chloe suggested.
Kara squeezed her hand and nodded dejectedly.
***
"You could stop staring at my rack, Jimbo. Any time now," Lois told Jimmy abrasively. She ran her hand over the side of her mussed hair and pulled at her ponytail a little. The last 48 hours or so had turned up nothing in their search for Chloe, other than the fact that a paramedic was stalking her little cousin and Clark was absolutely useless.
He had, however, managed to get the police looking for Chloe sooner than Lois had expected, so all wasn't lost.
"Sorry." Jimmy sat up and shook his head like a dog before pushing himself to his feet. "Want some breakfast? I make a mean Wholesome Olsen!"
"Stop that."
"Stop what?" Jimmy turned around, looking affronted.
"That 'I'm such a good guy' thing. It's obnoxious. Why do you name things after yourself? Do you spend all day in a fantasy world or something?" Lois griped, getting up herself and walking again to the window that had been left open when Chloe had disappeared. "Jimmy Olsen: Everyone's pal!"
"Well, excuse me if I'm nice to people," Jimmy replied sarcastically.
"You just want everyone to like you."
"You completely meant everything you said at the engagement party, didn't you?"
"What was your first clue?"
Jimmy stepped forward and pointed at her. "You know, you aren't a bowl of cherries to be around either. I mean, ripe and soft, maybe, but the personality's the pits."
"Stop making up stupid puns!" Lois shouted, turning around swiftly. "And I don't care of people don't like me, Olsen. I'm awesome."
She crossed her arms and glared at him. Jimmy mimicked her stance, but only held it for a moment. Then his eyes drifted downward.
"Stop. Staring. At my tits."
"How can I help it when they're right out there?"
"Maybe you could help it by remembering someone. Say, your fiancée? The poor girl who's been kidnapped on her wedding day? The same girl you let wander around with half her memory without telling me!"
"You'd just get upset."
"Well, duh." Lois rolled her eyes and followed Jimmy into the kitchen.
"You aren't fooling anyone with that attitude, Ms. I'm Awesome," Jimmy said as he opened the refrigerator and pulled out the eggs.
"Whatever." Lois looked around the place and sighed.
"I know you rip your articles off the interns. And Mercer only gives you raises because she likes to stare at your a-"
"Ah ah!" Lois swiveled around and pointed at him. "Shut it. How do you know how I got my raise? Huh?"
"I know how you got hired." Jimmy shook his head. "Everyone at the DP knows how you got hired, and everyone heard your 'interview' with Luthor in Grant's old office. And here I am trying to get out the shadow of the 'star' of The Daily Planet. I should go get on my knees for Mercer. It might do me some good."
"Oh, shut up." Lois walked over and leaned on the counter. "You offered. She just didn't want you."
Jimmy looked up with big eyes. "How'd you know that?"
Lois laughed and shook her head.
"It's not my fault she likes the baldies," Jimmy replied with a bit of a pout.
"I knew you were still cheating on her. You're not marrying my cousin." Lois stole a slice of cut fruit and sucked on it.
"Right now I don't think anyone's going to marry her, if we don't find her. I admit, my journalistic instincts aren't always great, but something big's been going on lately."
"With the Blur?"
"With the Blur, but that's not just it. There was Dark Thursday, remember? And then there was this woman who was beyond meteor freak." Jimmy set himself to whisking the egg whites. "Then the dam breaks for no reason, there's a sudden and unpredicted eclipse, the government is sniffing around everywhere, some cult is leaving secret messages cut up in Luthor's chest, and now there's this weirdzo serial killer and Chloe's memory just blanks out."
"What do you think's going on? The Apocalypse?" Lois asked as she chewed. Jimmy was staring at her cleavage again, but she didn't want to stop the conversation, and besides, if stupid farmboy Clark wasn't going to stare at it, it might as well not go to waste.
"Apocalypse? Must be Tuesday. I dunno. I thought Luthor was behind it at the time, but that was about two years ago and he's gone missing. I think he got on the wrong side of all this stuff."
"Could be. He's always into something. You can never pin anything on him." Lois pushed herself up to sit on the counter.
"It's got to do with those caves. I know it does. The cult had these drawings down there, and they depicted this battle huge between good and evil," Jimmy told her, getting excited.
"I know." Lois creased her brow. "Wait. Are you talking about that Nana and Ziggy drawing? That's not a battle. Well. The general always used to say that marriage is the only war where you get to sleep with the enemy."
Jimmy stared at her in confusion. "What are you talking about?"
"We're talking about the cave paintings, right? With the snake thing and the guy all wrapped up together?"
"Yeah, that's exactly it. The symbols from the cave match-"
"Look, Jimmy, take my word for it. I may not be the expert in all forms of combat, but I've seen enough to know that if two people are all intertwined like that, they aren't fighting," she informed him with a smirk.
Jimmy stared at her dumbly, trying to figure out what she meant and why she was laughing at him. "Wait…"
"Ask Colin to explain it to you."
***
"I should call home." Chloe looked over at Kara. The two of them were laying on the beach, sharing a blanket, both in swimsuits that Kara had gotten for them. Chloe moved a hand over her bare mid-drift self-consciously.
"I don't think that would be a good idea," Kara replied.
"I should tell them where I am. Tell Jimmy that I'm okay, and that we're postponing the wedding…"
Kara reached over and wrapped her fingers over Chloe's hand. She felt the rise and fall of Chloe's stomach as the woman breathed, and she listened to her heartbeat.
"Kara?"
"Yes, Chloe."
"What if I can't remember?"
Kara sighed. "Then I suppose you marry Jimmy and move on with your life without it."
"How am I supposed to do that, if I don't even know who I am?" Chloe asked, tenting her brows fretfully.
"If it makes you feel any better, you seem a lot more like yourself. Still not as strong as you were-"
"I was strong?" Chloe's lips curved slightly. "Could I lift cars? Stop speeding trains with my bare hands?"
"Not strong like that." Kara shook her head. "You had this inner strength born of having to fight for everything you wanted. Of… I'm not sure what else. But there were things that happened to you. Fire that tempered the steel. I don't think I would have understood myself what that meant, not until after I spent that time lost in the… Wilderness."
Chloe frowned. "Wilderness? Spend a few years on an island?"
"Not exactly. Where I was… Time passes strangely. You don't age, but time passes so quickly. I was gone for a little less than a year, here. But where I was? It was so much longer. We tried to count the days, or I did. She told me that there was no use. Time flies. Zoners kill. And once you're alone, it's even worse than it was before."
The corners of Chloe's eyes creased, and she blinked a little, rolling on her side to move closer to Kara.
"Hey. Whatever happened, it's over now. You don't have to live there anymore," Chloe said softly.
"Part of me will always live there," Kara replied darkly. She looked up at the sky.
Kara's story didn't make any sense, but it sounded so true. Chloe watched the young woman's despondent face as she looked up at the sky. The sunny day seemed no match for the pain coming off of this lonely, beautiful stranger. Kara had obviously tried hard to mask it, to push it aside in her quest to save Chloe from whatever Kara thought she needed saving from. Maybe from Jimmy, maybe from herself.
Chloe slipped her small fingers through Kara's and squeezed, pushing their hands up into the air together.
"How about, you be my Memento and I'll be your Leaving Las Vegas?"
Kara looked at her, wrinkling her nose in confusion. "I don't know what that means."
"You help me remember." Chloe wrote the word memory across Kara's naked thigh. "I help you forget. Only no dying."
"No dying," Kara agreed.
Kara let go of Chloe's hand and moved it against the soft skin of her waist. Their foreheads pressed together and slowly their lips met.
Think of me as the black sheep of my family, dedicated to doing good to make up for my ancestor's legacy of evil.
My decisions are based on pure logic. Pure intellect, not emotion.
I alone am… alone… I am…
Chloe pulled back and looked at Kara in surprise.
"I’m sorry, Chloe. I…" Kara sat up on the blanket and pushed her lower lip out. "I know you're with Jimmy-"
"That was… I just remembered something. And I don't think it was my memory," Chloe whispered in a small, terrified voice.
Pairing: Chlara, hinted Clark/Davis and Dinah Lance/Barbara Gordon
Rating: PG-13
Summary. Post S8 Abyss, spoilers for Bride. Kara comes home for a day to find out that Chloe has forgotten all about her. She decides to do something about it.
Author's Note: Thank you to herohunter and lexalicious
For thelittlebang
Word Count: 18115 overall
Part One
Clark should have known that when Kara said she was leaving, she wasn't going to leave completely. There was something about Kara that always made her look at Clark a little bit like a chubby baby who laughed when you tickled him in the right spots.
The dreadlocks of the Phantom Zone might have been gone, but there was a hardness to her now, even when she was helping herself to the last of Clark's Choco Puff sugar cereal. The austerity of the prison his father had created remained, even once she had cleaned and coiffed herself in that special Kara style that made her golden curls bounce in a way Clark didn't want to think too closely about on someone who was a blood relative.
So when Chloe showed up on his doorstep, Clark felt more than a bit of anxiety at the frown Kara was giving to him. His long time friend babbled on emptily about wedding plans and how light and content she felt.
"Well, aren't you going to introduce me to your friend?" Chloe finally asked with a laugh.
Clark blinked in confusion and looked around. He'd half thought that she might have been talking about J'onn, who had a bad habit of sneaking up behind him.
"The girl," Chloe clarified. Kara looked up from her bowl of puffs and milk and blinked in disbelief. Chloe came over to her and smiled warmly. "Sorry. Clark was raised on a farm, and has no manners. I'm Chloe. And you are?"
Kara wiped her mouth and cocked a brow. "I'm Kara." She paused, waiting to see a light go on in Chloe's eyes, but it seemed like the light had gone out. "Clark's cousin."
"Oh! I didn't know you had any cousins, Clark!" Chloe looked back at him and shook her head. "Well, how are you liking Smallville?"
"It… has its moments," Kara answered, letting her eyes drift questioningly to Clark, who seemed incredibly interested in dishwashing at the moment. "It's a strange place."
"It really is. Are you going to be in town for long?" Chloe pulled up a chair and sat back to talk to Kara.
"Um… for a day. Maybe a little longer. Depends."
"Aw. I would have invited you to my wedding!" Chloe said excitedly.
Kara shrugged. "I hate to crash the big day."
"Well, if you're still in town on Saturday, come by. We can squeeze one more in. We're having the wedding in Clark's barn."
"A wedding? In a barn?" Kara shook her head. "On my planet we don't have joining nuptials where animals sh-"
"Kara," Clark warned.
"Sleep," she finished.
Chloe narrowed her eyes and tilted her head at an odd angle. "We wanted to save on wedding costs. You know, save the money we would use to rent a hall for our lives." She raised her hands. "It made sense on planet Chloe. Maybe not on the planet every other girl is on."
Kara watched Chloe laugh, and stared at her in confusion. Chloe was acting funny, beyond just flat out not remembering Kara at all. For some reason that disappointed Kara more than she wanted to admit.
Chloe stood and went over to pat Clark on the back. "Take it easy. I don't want you straining yourself on this farm when I need you to give me away at my wedding."
When she had left, Kara rose slowly. "Why doesn't she remember me?" she said quietly. She dropped her bowl in the sink, giving him a hard look.
"Well, you two didn't even seem to get along that well. Maybe she's jerking you around," Clark suggested.
"We got along fine, Kal-El," Kara snapped. "Chloe was never bitter with me because Jimmy left her, and she never gave me the indication of being two-faced. She even spent time with me showing me how to find information about this planet and how people around here dress and act. That girl who was just in here was not Chloe Sullivan!"
Clark sighed heavily. "I had the Fortress remove her memories of my secret. Brainiac was taking over her mind."
Kara was silent for a long moment. "Are you kidding me? How long has she known? She doesn't seem to remember me at all."
"You two barely had a relationship," Clark argued. "It doesn't matter. All that matters is that she's safe."
"Uuuugh!" Kara groaned, turning from him roughly. "You are just like your father. You're just like my father. Taking memories from me when you think it's best! That's not right. It's not fair." She turned again and glared at him. "You don't get to decide what a girl can and can't remember, Clark!"
"That's not what I was doing. I'm her friend-"
"And friends should be able to trust their friends not to go sneaking into their head and stealing their memories!" Kara exploded. "I don't believe this. I must not know you at all, if you could do something so selfish."
"It isn't selfish," Clark snapped. "I sacrificed this for her."
"Except she's the one making the sacrifice. I don't know why you can't realize that she's the one who's had to give up however many years of her memories that she was making while she knew your secret. You've given her a lobotomy." Kara crossed her arms and looked out the window. "You've destroyed the most beautiful part of her."
"Kara-"
"I've got to go."
Kara could move faster than Clark, and she could fly like nothing he'd ever seen-not even J'onn could fly that fast when he had powers-so Clark had no chance of catching up to her. Clark leaned out of the screen door and watched the bluish trail she left in her wake. Knowing Kara, this was not going to end well.
***
Upstairs in her room, Chloe slid her garter over her sleek, muscled thigh. She remembered dropping some weight last year. She remembered wanting to be able to run faster, better, if she needed to.
She must have been training for a marathon. She didn't think that she'd actually competed, but she would have to ask Jimmy. About a week ago, she'd suffered and inexplicable stroke, and it had left her memories in shambles. She was a lucky girl, that Jimmy still wanted to marry her, even with her being so confused and dependant on him.
Chloe looked up and smiled at Jimmy's friend Colin, who was filming her as she posed, her leg up. Her mind spun a little, fleeting thoughts coming to the surface, but she couldn't formulate anything, so she simply smiled and tilted her head to the side. A few lines of symbols drifted in front of her eyes. She wasn't sure what that was.
She would have to ask Jimmy.
When the window opened, she continued to smile at the camera as Colin began to let it drop and the wind from outside whipped through. Chloe only looked back when her name was called.
"Oh! Kara!" she said excitedly, clapping her hands together as she saw the girl by the window wearing a blue tank top and short jean shorts. "I’m so glad you could come. Let me call Lois, and she'll find a seat for you, okay?"
Kara approached her and glared at Colin. "Can you go? We have some girl talk to do."
"Oh, uh, yeah. No problem." Colin held out his knuckle to her. "Ring that bell?"
Kara stared at it for a long moment, then looked up. "I don’t know what this means."
"He wants you to give him a fist bump," Chloe explained. She half-turned and touched her knuckle to Colin's. Colin nodded and looked at Kara expectantly.
With hesitation, Kara raised her hand and lightly touched her fist to his.
"Alright! Get your gab on, girls." Colin left the loft apartment with a sprightly step.
Kara watched him go, then looked over Chloe, who was wearing nothing but a white corset, garter, and sheer dressing robe. She was a stiff mannequin with a plastic smile. "Chloe, I can't let you do this. It's not right."
"Why?" Chloe asked with genuine curiosity. "I've only met you once. How can you know what's right for me?"
"You and I have met before. You just don't-"
"Remember. Oh. I'll… I'll have to ask Jimmy about that. I have a hard time remembering things these days." Her phone went off, and Chloe looked at it with irritation.
"Don't ask Jimmy. Just don't marry him today. Listen to me about this, Chloe. You don't want to regret something like this later," Kara insisted. "When my father wiped my memory, I would have defended almost anything he did. To me he seemed like a good man, but once I got my memories back, I realized he was just controlling me. I was nothing but his doll."
"I don't… I don't know what you're talking about," Chloe said softly, walking backward.
Kara stepped forward and grabbed her arms. "No, you don't. That's the problem. Go to Jimmy and tell him that you need to postpone this until you get your memory back."
"He doesn't mind that my memory is bad," Chloe protested. She felt her heart beating wildly in her chest like some kind of frantic animal. This Kara girl was scaring her. She was stronger than she looked, and something in her eyes was hard and determined.
Kara rolled her eyes. "Oh yeah? He cared when my memory was bad. He didn't even tell me that he was dumping me. He just left."
"Wait, is this because you two dated?" Chloe asked incredulously. "Get your hands off me. I'm not going to postpone my wedding because some crazy ex-girlfriend still wants him."
"Believe me, I do not want him."
Chloe struggled against Kara's iron grip.
"Stop that. Chloe, you have to listen to me. Trust me, I have very little use for men these days."
"Lois!" Chloe yelled. "Lois are you down there! Clark?"
"Oh, for the love of… Sorry." Kara tapped the side of her head, scooped Chloe into her arms, and flew out the window as fast as she could without turning the woman in her arms into jelly.
A minute later Lois came running up the stairs. "Chloe? Hey! Chloe!"
She looked around the room hysterically, turning chairs over and darting into the bathroom. After looking behind the shower curtain, she went back into the main room and looked out the open window, then down, to see if Chloe had fallen.
"Where is she?"
Jimmy came upstairs and frowned. "What's goin' on?"
"Chloe's missing. She was up here a minute ago, and then I heard her scream my name. I ran up here, and she's gone. Disappeared."
"Gone? No. No way." Jimmy ran a hand through his hair. "We… Uh… Call the police. Yeah. Dial 911!"
"The police aren't going to send someone out for a woman who's been missing for less than five minutes. They won't consider it a missing person until she's been gone twenty-four hours," Lois said abrasively. She put her hands on her hips. "Chloe's not street pizza, so she didn't jump. Let's put out a search for her. Put these guests to work."
She clapped her hands together and breezed past Jimmy, who still seemed dumbfounded.
Chloe's cell phone rang again. He ran over to answer it.
"Hey, this is Chloe's phone."
There was a long silence, and then, "So do you always have Chloe's phone, or do you occasionally let her use it?"
"Who is this?" Jimmy asked. The cell went silent, and the man on the other end hung up. With a frown, Jimmy hurried down the stairs after Lois.
***
Chloe woke in a room. It was a plain enough room with one door and blue walls. It was also unfamiliar, but these days, that wasn't saying a whole lot. She touched her head, which felt a little funny, and sat up from the mattress where she'd been laying.
Across the room, cross-legged, sat the blond-haired girl who Chloe had seen before. What was her name?
"Kara?"
Her head turned and the scant light from the window hit the girl's face, highlighting her high cheekbones and the golden sheen of her hair. Chloe thought for a moment that she'd been kidnapped by an angel. Now wasn't that silly? Where had she heard something like that before?
"Chloe?" Kara stood, carrying the dusty pile of paper that had been sitting on the floor with her. She dropped it in front of Chloe. "I've been doing some reading. Maybe something that will jog your memory."
"Kara, you don't have to do this. Please, they'll be looking for me," Chloe pleaded.
"I can't let you go through with something like that when you don't have all your faculties. Maybe they don’t care, but I do. My father erased my memories once, and I told you that, and then my uncle erased them all. I've gotten them back since, but they weren't theirs to throw away or to keep from me. It wasn't fair," Kara tried to explain to her.
Chloe twisted her fingers, then said emphatically, "All I want is to walk down the aisle with the man I-"
"Ugh." Kara sighed heavily and sat Chloe down on the mattress. "How would you like to wake up during your honeymoon with that man and remember something that ruined it? You wouldn't, would you? If Jimmy really and truly loves you for who you are, then he must be hoping that you get your memories back, too, right?"
Chloe looked down at her hands and realized she was still in her corset and garter. "He must."
"Then he would want you to try." Kara tentatively reached over to touch Chloe's hand. It seemed small and dry. Soft, with a small callous on the outside of her index finger and a few paper cuts. Kara smiled, thinking that Chloe's hand was a writer's hand. It was her wedding day, and she'd not thought to put down her pen-or her laptop-long enough to make them perfect for the big day.
"Okay," Chloe agreed. She ought to be afraid. Years in Smallville had taught her that. Still she sighed and put her hands in her lap to wait for whatever plan this crazy, lonely girl had concocted to repair her Swiss cheese memory.
It began when Kara set an old copy of The Smallville Ledger on Chloe's lap. Chloe smiled nostalgically.
"I wrote this. I wrote this article," she whispered proudly. "An insider's view of the case. The cop wanted a promotion, so he kidnapped someone who would be missed pretty quickly. Editor of the school paper. Paper has to be out every week. It was my first article published in a real paper."
Chloe put her chin in her hand. "It's no Bengal Tiger, but I thought it was pretty good. The editor of The Daily Planet at the time thought so too. I got my internship that way."
"It must have been terrifying," Kara said sympathetically. "How did you get away from him?"
"I…" Chloe paused, skimming over the paper before her. "I don't remember. My memory."
She shrugged. Kara put her hand on Chloe's shoulder and pointed to the paper. Chloe continued to read.
"Clark. It was Clark… who saved me." Chloe smiled ear to ear. "He was always so brave."
"Yeah. Clark." Kara tensed her jaw and gave Chloe several copies of The Torch. "And these?"
"That was… Sean Kelvin, Justin Gains, and… Ian Randal. He turned himself in two. The others had powers too. I wrote about them all. I don't remember much more than that."
"Read the rest," Kara urged softly.
She watched sharply as Chloe read through the countless articles she had written for The Torch, as well as the ones she'd written for The Ledger. Kara kept the ones from The Daily Planet aside, and asked a question here or there.
"I… It's like it happened to someone else," Chloe lamented. "How can Jimmy even love me? How can Clark be my friend-"
"Do you remember anything at all?" Kara asked hopefully.
"I don't remember, but… Clark saves a lot of people, doesn't he? In so many stories. How did I never notice the pattern before?"
Kara sat up straight, then she stood and paced, swishing her hips jauntily. "Didn't you?"
"Well, maybe I did. I guess. I just don't remember." Chloe spread her hands and looked up at Kara helplessly. "And I'm cold. Did I mention I'm cold?"
"No. But I can help with that. Hang on." Kara walked toward the door, then stopped and turned around. "While I'm gone, read these."
She picked up the papers from The Daily Planet that had her articles in them and dropped them in Chloe's lap.
"Um, okay." Chloe looked up at Kara and watched the girl go. The moment Kara was gone, she went to the door and tried the handle, but it was locked. She scanned the room for anything that could help her get away, but there was really nothing remotely like a weapon. Kara hadn't bothered to even threaten her with one. Chloe wasn't sure why she hadn't tried to escape before now. She slowly returned to the mattress, sat down, and began looking through the newspapers.
What she came across, it seemed, were more and more articles by herself. Her old self. The one who had written constantly. She had vague memories of some of the articles. Some of them were flat out boring, the assigned articles that every reporter has to take. Those were clear as a picture. Others, ones with more energy and life to them, she couldn't seem to bring up at all. File not found.
Chloe couldn't justify marrying anyone in this state. She hadn't lived over half her life. She was broken.
When Kara returned with a set of pajamas, Chloe had her head in her hands, and she was sobbing so hard that she could barely breathe. Kara rushed to her side and put her arms around Chloe.
"What is it? Did you remember?"
"No! I can't! I can't r-remember. I'm n-nothing," Chloe sobbed.
Kara stared on in shock. This hadn't been what she'd planned. Not at all. "No, you aren't, Chloe. You're something. You're seriously something. You're more something than most people on this planet. Believe me."
"Have you met everyone on this planet?" Chloe asked bitterly.
"No. But I've met people from other planets, and trust me, they're assholes."
Chloe sniffed, not smiling, but looking at her curiously. Kara wiped her tears away.
"You didn't learn anything?" Kara asked with a sigh. "I'm sorry, Chloe. I thought for sure that would jog your memory. Maybe I should go get Lex. He had a-"
"No! Lex Luthor is a bad man. Don't you know that? And anyway, he's probably not even alive. He disappeared last spring," Chloe informed her seriously. "Don't mess with him."
"He disappeared? I didn't know that. I wouldn't worry about him. I can handle Lex." Kara looked around at a loss for what to do. She slid her hands over Chloe's trembling arms. "You're shivering. Wear these."
"Can I take the girlie stuff off first?"
Kara laughed. "Yeah, you can."
"Well, I'm apparently talking to Miss Sweet Corn 2007. I wouldn't want to commit a fashion faux pas in front of my captor," Chloe quipped, slipping off her sheer dressing robe. Why in the world she'd been wearing it at all… She didn't understand why she did a lot of things these days.
"You wrote about that, too. Did you read it? With the Weather Girls?" Kara asked. "Front page- Chloe, you're not my captive. Do you really want go? I just… I can't let you marry a man like this. It isn't right. My father would have done that to me. I bet you anything."
Chloe slipped off her garter and began unfastening the side of her corset. "The wedding's canceled by now…"
"Yeah. It is."
"Could we just tell Clark?" Chloe suggested.
"No, we can't tell Clark. If I… Clark knows about your memory loss," Kara offered. She considered just telling Chloe everything herself, but that wouldn't help Chloe. It wouldn't erase the damage that had been done to her. Not by a long shot.
"Well, obviously. He was there when I was losing my memories. I was at The Talon, and then… I woke up." She shook her head, struggling with the corset. "In my own home. Could you help me with this?"
Kara stood again and moved to her side, slowly and carefully unfastening the side of the corset. "I don't know why you're wearing this. You look fine without whalebone poking your insides. No, Chloe, I mean, he knows why your memory loss happened."
"Jimmy said I ordered the corset… It was a stroke." Chloe half-turned as her corset dropped to the floor and she stood in front of Kara mostly naked. "Wasn't it?"
Kara said nothing. She didn't move, and she didn't speak, but Chloe and that last spark of intelligence that flickered in her green eyes saw the answer. She kicked the corset away and grabbed the light green pajamas.
***
Ever since Jimmy had come into the main room of The Talon, howling about Davis stalking his fiancée, Clark had been searching for the man. It had been officially twenty-four hours since Chloe had gone missing, and while he would like to believe that Chloe was all right, there was a good chance that she had gotten confused and wandered away, or that Davis had come and kidnapped her.
The only problem was that Davis was hard to find, the bastard, and Clark was running out of places to look. He'd looked everywhere he could think of in Smallville, including the castle, Isis, even the Daily Planet, although how she'd end up there with no car and very little recollection of her own daily life, he didn't know.
One thing that had freaked him out completely was to visit Davis' sparse, bizarro apartment. The man was strange from head to toe, no doubt about it. It was pathologically clean. There was very little food in the refrigerator, just some juice and baking soda. Rice and coffee in the cabinet. Several disposable coffee cups in the trashcan.
The man ate less than Lex had. No wonder Davis was so fit.
Worse than that, there was no furniture. Just a television in the living room, which was perfectly clean, and in the bedroom, nothing. No bed. No dresser. No mirrors. There wasn't even a mirror in the bathroom. It, in fact, looked as though it had never been used.
The new man in Chloe's life must have been spending his time elsewhere, because Clark hadn't ever found a place less lived in than this.
He turned for the door and jumped when he saw Davis right behind him.
"Couldn't make it to your own bathroom, Kent?" Davis asked dryly. He moved past Clark and began to wash some blood off of his hand.
"Guess you've had a rough day," Clark commented.
"Give me one good reason not to call the police," Davis shot back, turning his head to Clark angrily.
"Because Chloe disappeared yesterday, and you were calling her non-stop," Clark accused angrily. "If I turn her phone over to the police, they're going to be investigating you pretty closely. I don't think you want that."
Clark wished he could take the surprised look on Davis' face for what it was. Davis turned, stepping back and parting his naturally thin, bowed lips.
"For how long? I was calling her because she wasn't answering, and the last time I met her on the street, she didn't remember anything but me," Davis replied. He touched his hair, then looked toward the doorway. "I don't have her, Clark. I would never take her against her will. Surely you know that. Couldn't I have done it when her memories were shot?"
Crossing his arms, Clark eyed Davis dubiously. He had a point, though. Which made Clark angrier. "She still doesn't have all of her memories. It's… It's been worse than I thought it would be since that day."
"What did you think would happen? She had a serious mental breakdown. Either it was a stroke, or a severe blow to the head. She could even have Huntington's and not know it. There are so many problems she could have, and she should have undergone a medical examination after she got back," Davis continued firmly. "I'm guessing that didn't happen."
"No. Jimmy seemed to think she was fine."
"Jimmy is a tool. If I were Chloe's best friend, I wouldn't sit idly by while a guy who's a-okay with his girlfriend being a halfwit, as long as she's focused on him, tries to bind her to him for life," Davis snapped.
"You're not exactly unbiased, there," Clark replied, raising both of his brows and pointing at him.
"No. No, I'm not!" Davis closed his eyes and smoothed both of his palms over his head. "I'm not. We have to find her, Clark. Even if Jimmy doesn't know how precious and amazing the woman he has is, we have to bring her back."
"For once I agree with you," Clark said softly. He sighed and looked at the impeccably clean shower. "Do you ever bathe in here? I find it hard to believe that you do."
"I shower at work. It saves time." Davis frowned. "Has that been bugging you since you got in here? Did you break my lock? You'd better fix it."
"What's anyone going to steal? That old TV?"
"I like my clothes."
Clark frowned and narrowed his eyes. "You wear the same thing every day. Isn't that boring?"
Davis shrugged. "It means people can identify who you are and what you do. That's important, isn't it?"
***
Chloe woke again on the mattress and looked around sleepily. She'd spent so much time yesterday reading articles that she'd written that she had dreams of being in The Daily Planet, running back and forth from the copier to Grant Gabriel's desk, where he might or might not be boffing her cousin. Every time she warned herself not to look, but every time she rushed in and cringed at the sight.
As she rubbed her eyes, Chloe sat up and smelled pancakes. She stood, looking around for where the bathroom might be. If she weren't a prisoner, then surely the door wouldn't be locked this time. She padded in that direction tentatively and jumped when the door opened.
"Oh! I'm making you breakfast," Kara said seriously. "You haven't eaten since you've been here."
"You cook?"
"I watched the Food Network last year," she said with a nod, as though that should make her an expert. Kara moved the plate under Chloe's nose so she could smell her breakfast.
"Can I? Um." Chloe pointed out of the room. "I need to use the bathroom. On Planet Chloe, we do that sort of thing."
"Oh! Right. Go ahead. It's to the left."
Chloe looked back at Kara, who was setting the plate of pancakes and eggs on the bar in the kitchen and going back to pour the juice. Chloe shrugged, thinking she could run out the front door, which was carelessly open. Nothing between her and the outside world but the screen door.
But she had to pee, so she hustled into the bathroom. As she washed her hands, she checked out her reflection. Her makeup was smudged, and her mascara had run down her face from the crying, and the beautiful job that had been done on her hair had turned into an impressive case of bedhead. Oh well. She wouldn't be walking down the aisle today.
She lowered her head to the sink and began to wash off her face.
Suddenly Kara's voice drifted into the room. She was singing. Soft, sad, and low in a language that Chloe had never heard before.
Chloe came out of the bathroom, expecting Kara to stop singing in embarrassment, but she only looked Chloe in the eye for a moment before she went back to flipping the pancakes.
The girl finished her hymn and sat down on the stool next to her with a much larger plate of food. It must be genetic. Clark ate like that too, and Chloe very rarely saw it show on him.
"What was that song?" Chloe asked cautiously. Sometimes Kara seemed very flippant, but others she seemed very still and profound.
"It's… Well, for a translation, it's a Coluan prayer. You sing it in the morning to give thanks for the days you spent with lost loved ones."
Chloe, for the first time in a long time, felt very certain of something, and that was this girl had lost many, many loved ones.
Kara asked lightly as she cut up her pancakes, "Did you know that Clark's snob girlfriend never made me pancakes? She sneered at me once like I was this other woman when she showed up, and then she sort of ignored me like Clark's bratty little sister or something. I'm not sure if she still thought Clark was attracted to me or not, but every time I was in the room, she turned everything around to be about herself, or about how Clark always needed to be more 'honest' with her. I figured it out, anyway, and I bet mine's better. What do you think?"
"Lana? I didn't know she cooked either," Chloe said. She tossed her hands up in the air and shook her head. "Although with my memory…"
"I don't think she ever cooked for you either. I wish you could tell me what happened to her. I didn't like her much, but I couldn't let Brainiac torture her. No one deserves that." Kara took a piece of bacon. "You could never tell Clark anything about her. If you did, he'd always turn around and start fighting with you."
"That's true," Chloe agreed. "Once when we were in high school, Lana snooped through my computer and she found something that made me so embarrassed. And when Clark found out that we were fighting, he assumed it was my fault. And when he found out what had actually happened? He acted like I had no right to be angry with her for doing it. Just because I've had some problems learning what other people consider as normal boundaries, doesn't mean that Lana shouldn't know them. Everything I did was with good intentions.""
"Hey," Kara whispered, a little smile playing across her lips.
Chloe lowered her head and looked at her curiously. "What?"
"You remembered something. You remembered it clearly." Kara reached forward and touched the tip of Chloe's nose.
Chloe started to grin helplessly. "I did. Oh, wow."
"Tell me more about that. Tell me… What boundary issues did you and Clark have? When did he get mad?" Kara asked.
They spent the rest of the morning exchanging information, mostly about Clark, and although they had a few good laughs at his expense (for which Chloe would try to make it up to him later), unfortunately, there were no intense breakthroughs, just a few fond high school memories.
"It's okay," Kara explained. She held up a finger and went over to the sofa, the one piece of furniture in the whole apartment, and picked up a box sitting on it. "I have a plan."
Chloe sat down next to her patiently, hoping… she didn't know what she hoped. Her eyes drifted to Kara's legs. The girl was wearing jean cut-offs and a white t-shirt. It was certainly warmer here than it was in Smallville.
"Here. This should help." Kara pulled out a palm-sized pentagonal crystal. There was a vertical infinity sign in the middle of it. "Or I hope it does. I've been looking everywhere for it. Clark stole it from me, when there was a huge mess with my father, but I've got it back now. Clark had it under his stupid barn. He keeps all my crystals down there."
"What is it?" Chloe asked. She reached out and let her fingers trail over the edges.
"It's a Kryptonian crystal."
"What… What does that mean? Kryptonian?" Chloe frowned and looked up at Kara seriously. It sounded… important. And foreign.
"The Kryptonian race was much more advanced than the human race. They recorded all of their knowledge inside of these crystals," Kara told her, looking a bit hesitant. "There's more I could tell you, but I'm afraid that if I do this wrong, you won't remember at all."
"What can you do with that crystal?" Chloe asked. "Don't you need something to plug it into? A computer interface?"
Kara shook her head slowly. "No. Our interface is our brain."
"So… Shove it in my ear?"
"No. Just… Here." Kara arranged the crystal in her palm and held it up to Chloe's chin. "Close your eyes and concentrate. Reach out and pick up the information."
Chloe did as she was told and closed her eyes, concentrating hard. At first she tried to focus on some kind of strand of information. Then she let her mind drift. After about five minutes, she opened one eye.
"What am I doing wrong here?"
"I don’t know. Just reach out and grab the interface. You did it before with Clark's crystal," Kara said impatiently. "It can fix you."
"Um. I don't remember that." Chloe opened the other eye and sighed.
Kara raised the crystal and pressed it to Chloe's forehead. "Maybe it's broken."
"Uh…"
Then Kara held it in front of her and closed her eyes. The crystal began to glow, and translucent screen appeared in front of Kara's face with little lines of odd shapes.
"Oh my God!" Chloe exclaimed, scooting backwards on the sofa.
"Reading. I don't know why it doesn't work for you. Maybe you just forgot how when Clark erased-" Kara opened her eyes and set the crystal aside. "Chloe, it's okay."
"I've never seen anything like that!" Chloe stayed where she was, frozen for a moment, then grinned widely. "That was smokin' cool!"
Kara smiled. "I'm sorry it didn't work. I don't know what to do now."
Chloe looked down for a moment, then reached over and touched Kara's hand. It was larger than her own, rougher. Now Chloe knew that this girl had seen hard times, no matter how cavalier she occasionally seemed to be.
"Let's give it some time. We'll think of something," Chloe suggested.
Kara squeezed her hand and nodded dejectedly.
***
"You could stop staring at my rack, Jimbo. Any time now," Lois told Jimmy abrasively. She ran her hand over the side of her mussed hair and pulled at her ponytail a little. The last 48 hours or so had turned up nothing in their search for Chloe, other than the fact that a paramedic was stalking her little cousin and Clark was absolutely useless.
He had, however, managed to get the police looking for Chloe sooner than Lois had expected, so all wasn't lost.
"Sorry." Jimmy sat up and shook his head like a dog before pushing himself to his feet. "Want some breakfast? I make a mean Wholesome Olsen!"
"Stop that."
"Stop what?" Jimmy turned around, looking affronted.
"That 'I'm such a good guy' thing. It's obnoxious. Why do you name things after yourself? Do you spend all day in a fantasy world or something?" Lois griped, getting up herself and walking again to the window that had been left open when Chloe had disappeared. "Jimmy Olsen: Everyone's pal!"
"Well, excuse me if I'm nice to people," Jimmy replied sarcastically.
"You just want everyone to like you."
"You completely meant everything you said at the engagement party, didn't you?"
"What was your first clue?"
Jimmy stepped forward and pointed at her. "You know, you aren't a bowl of cherries to be around either. I mean, ripe and soft, maybe, but the personality's the pits."
"Stop making up stupid puns!" Lois shouted, turning around swiftly. "And I don't care of people don't like me, Olsen. I'm awesome."
She crossed her arms and glared at him. Jimmy mimicked her stance, but only held it for a moment. Then his eyes drifted downward.
"Stop. Staring. At my tits."
"How can I help it when they're right out there?"
"Maybe you could help it by remembering someone. Say, your fiancée? The poor girl who's been kidnapped on her wedding day? The same girl you let wander around with half her memory without telling me!"
"You'd just get upset."
"Well, duh." Lois rolled her eyes and followed Jimmy into the kitchen.
"You aren't fooling anyone with that attitude, Ms. I'm Awesome," Jimmy said as he opened the refrigerator and pulled out the eggs.
"Whatever." Lois looked around the place and sighed.
"I know you rip your articles off the interns. And Mercer only gives you raises because she likes to stare at your a-"
"Ah ah!" Lois swiveled around and pointed at him. "Shut it. How do you know how I got my raise? Huh?"
"I know how you got hired." Jimmy shook his head. "Everyone at the DP knows how you got hired, and everyone heard your 'interview' with Luthor in Grant's old office. And here I am trying to get out the shadow of the 'star' of The Daily Planet. I should go get on my knees for Mercer. It might do me some good."
"Oh, shut up." Lois walked over and leaned on the counter. "You offered. She just didn't want you."
Jimmy looked up with big eyes. "How'd you know that?"
Lois laughed and shook her head.
"It's not my fault she likes the baldies," Jimmy replied with a bit of a pout.
"I knew you were still cheating on her. You're not marrying my cousin." Lois stole a slice of cut fruit and sucked on it.
"Right now I don't think anyone's going to marry her, if we don't find her. I admit, my journalistic instincts aren't always great, but something big's been going on lately."
"With the Blur?"
"With the Blur, but that's not just it. There was Dark Thursday, remember? And then there was this woman who was beyond meteor freak." Jimmy set himself to whisking the egg whites. "Then the dam breaks for no reason, there's a sudden and unpredicted eclipse, the government is sniffing around everywhere, some cult is leaving secret messages cut up in Luthor's chest, and now there's this weirdzo serial killer and Chloe's memory just blanks out."
"What do you think's going on? The Apocalypse?" Lois asked as she chewed. Jimmy was staring at her cleavage again, but she didn't want to stop the conversation, and besides, if stupid farmboy Clark wasn't going to stare at it, it might as well not go to waste.
"Apocalypse? Must be Tuesday. I dunno. I thought Luthor was behind it at the time, but that was about two years ago and he's gone missing. I think he got on the wrong side of all this stuff."
"Could be. He's always into something. You can never pin anything on him." Lois pushed herself up to sit on the counter.
"It's got to do with those caves. I know it does. The cult had these drawings down there, and they depicted this battle huge between good and evil," Jimmy told her, getting excited.
"I know." Lois creased her brow. "Wait. Are you talking about that Nana and Ziggy drawing? That's not a battle. Well. The general always used to say that marriage is the only war where you get to sleep with the enemy."
Jimmy stared at her in confusion. "What are you talking about?"
"We're talking about the cave paintings, right? With the snake thing and the guy all wrapped up together?"
"Yeah, that's exactly it. The symbols from the cave match-"
"Look, Jimmy, take my word for it. I may not be the expert in all forms of combat, but I've seen enough to know that if two people are all intertwined like that, they aren't fighting," she informed him with a smirk.
Jimmy stared at her dumbly, trying to figure out what she meant and why she was laughing at him. "Wait…"
"Ask Colin to explain it to you."
***
"I should call home." Chloe looked over at Kara. The two of them were laying on the beach, sharing a blanket, both in swimsuits that Kara had gotten for them. Chloe moved a hand over her bare mid-drift self-consciously.
"I don't think that would be a good idea," Kara replied.
"I should tell them where I am. Tell Jimmy that I'm okay, and that we're postponing the wedding…"
Kara reached over and wrapped her fingers over Chloe's hand. She felt the rise and fall of Chloe's stomach as the woman breathed, and she listened to her heartbeat.
"Kara?"
"Yes, Chloe."
"What if I can't remember?"
Kara sighed. "Then I suppose you marry Jimmy and move on with your life without it."
"How am I supposed to do that, if I don't even know who I am?" Chloe asked, tenting her brows fretfully.
"If it makes you feel any better, you seem a lot more like yourself. Still not as strong as you were-"
"I was strong?" Chloe's lips curved slightly. "Could I lift cars? Stop speeding trains with my bare hands?"
"Not strong like that." Kara shook her head. "You had this inner strength born of having to fight for everything you wanted. Of… I'm not sure what else. But there were things that happened to you. Fire that tempered the steel. I don't think I would have understood myself what that meant, not until after I spent that time lost in the… Wilderness."
Chloe frowned. "Wilderness? Spend a few years on an island?"
"Not exactly. Where I was… Time passes strangely. You don't age, but time passes so quickly. I was gone for a little less than a year, here. But where I was? It was so much longer. We tried to count the days, or I did. She told me that there was no use. Time flies. Zoners kill. And once you're alone, it's even worse than it was before."
The corners of Chloe's eyes creased, and she blinked a little, rolling on her side to move closer to Kara.
"Hey. Whatever happened, it's over now. You don't have to live there anymore," Chloe said softly.
"Part of me will always live there," Kara replied darkly. She looked up at the sky.
Kara's story didn't make any sense, but it sounded so true. Chloe watched the young woman's despondent face as she looked up at the sky. The sunny day seemed no match for the pain coming off of this lonely, beautiful stranger. Kara had obviously tried hard to mask it, to push it aside in her quest to save Chloe from whatever Kara thought she needed saving from. Maybe from Jimmy, maybe from herself.
Chloe slipped her small fingers through Kara's and squeezed, pushing their hands up into the air together.
"How about, you be my Memento and I'll be your Leaving Las Vegas?"
Kara looked at her, wrinkling her nose in confusion. "I don't know what that means."
"You help me remember." Chloe wrote the word memory across Kara's naked thigh. "I help you forget. Only no dying."
"No dying," Kara agreed.
Kara let go of Chloe's hand and moved it against the soft skin of her waist. Their foreheads pressed together and slowly their lips met.
Think of me as the black sheep of my family, dedicated to doing good to make up for my ancestor's legacy of evil.
My decisions are based on pure logic. Pure intellect, not emotion.
I alone am… alone… I am…
Chloe pulled back and looked at Kara in surprise.
"I’m sorry, Chloe. I…" Kara sat up on the blanket and pushed her lower lip out. "I know you're with Jimmy-"
"That was… I just remembered something. And I don't think it was my memory," Chloe whispered in a small, terrified voice.