The Loyal Opposition, Part 11
Title: The Loyal Opposition
Author: latetothpartyhp
Rating: PG-13
Genre: drama
Spoilers: through Pandora
Pairings: ETA: I envisioned this as mainly a Chlark confrontation, but what emerged in addition to that were some hints of Chlex friendship, mutual Chless manipulation, and some (mostly) off-screen Clana. There's also a Lexana fight for anyone who's interested. And Cless! We have added Cless!
Warnings: some violence & language - ETA: Character deaths in store.
Summary / Author's Note: Chloe's on a mission for the resistance. Could be a Supernatural crossover if you squint real hard. Thanks to go_clo for the amazing banner!
Part 1 / Part 2 / Part 3 / Part 4 / Part 5 / Part 6 / Part 7 / Part 8 / Part 9 / Part 10 / Part 11 / Part 12 / Part 13 / Part 14 / Part 15 / Part 16
Where had she heard that before? What do you say we just let bygones be bygones. Is this how it always worked? Supply a sufficient amount of pressure and then watch the dam burst?
"Are you going to stay down there all day?"
Wha---? She blinked. "Where would I go?"
"Have a seat," he said. He patted the mattress.
Bemused, she pushed back on her heels, attempted to unbend her legs, lost her balance and pitched forward unto the bed. Arms caught her, dragging her forward until she was curled up beside him like a cat. Skin pulled and she grimaced.
"Are you ok?" Was he serious? He looked serious. His face could have been a mirror of Rangi's earlier.
"No, I'm just a little sensitive right now, with the tattoo and all."
"Yeah, that'll sting."
"You got a tattoo? How -- ?" Well of course he could get a tattoo now. The pertinent question was why.
"It's a House identifier." He smiled suddenly, the way he had the day he'd shown her his Blur costume under his suit. "Didn't even need Kryptonite to do it," he said. "All it takes is a piece of paper now and I bleed. I lost a toe-nail last summer after banging my foot into a boulder. And I've had two colds now."
"That's... great?" Inside her head Rod Serling's voice told her she was traveling through another dimension, a dimension not only of sight and sound but of mind. If only Rod knew... She giggled, then froze.
"You think I'm crazy."
"No..." I think I am. She couldn't say that. He'd want to know why and -- another giggle escaped her. Tuberculosis, cholera, and typhoid were raging through the former industrialized world, and he was bragging about having a head cold. Tess must be keeping him in a bubble. "I just don't know anyone else who is as excited about clogged sinuses and hacking phlegm."
"Yeah. I guess. It's good to see you." His eyes smiled at her. "When I heard you showed up at the Metropolis station I hoped we'd have a chance to talk."
"Well, now we are. What took us so long?"
He plucked at the spread. "There are protocols. Things have to be done a certain way."
Oh, I know all about the way you get things done. She leaned forward, took his hand from the blanket. "I suppose. Don't you ever get to VIP fast-track through customs, though?"
He smiled wistfully. "That would be tempting. Run the world on a whim. Reward all my friends. Destroy all my enemies. That would be fun. But it wouldn't be justice."
She had to repress another laugh. What was with her? And what was with these people? Tess had talked about justice too. Justice for whom? For the billions being governed without their consent? That word coming out of his mouth -- it was so silly. She bit her lip and drew a fierce breath in.
"Do you disagree?"
She gaped. A little. When had he gotten observant? She couldn't be having any more of that. "No. You're right. Without rule of law it's just Lord of the Flies out there." She gave him what she hoped was a commiserating look. "That's why I turned myself in." She gave his hand a squeeze. He smiled and squeezed back. His hands were rougher than she remembered, the skin thcker and drier. She wondered if vulnerability had changed him in other ways, and where.
"'What are kingdoms without justice?'" he asked. "'They are just gangs of bandits.'"*
"That's a helluva sound-bite," she answered, channeling her sudden effervescence into her grip. She was now 85% sure she was not going to get through the conversation without losing it.
"Jor-El told me that. It stuck with me. In the past, every government on this planet was just like a street gang, run by a group of guys whose sole justification for their existence was turf wars. If we can get rid of the turf wars we can get rid of so many other problems. We don't need to print money to pay for them, we don't need to spend our time researching new ways to kill people. For the first time in Earth's history we can focus on what matters. That's the gift Krypton has given us."
Damn but he looked so sweet and earnest when he said that. It was all stuff straight from the propaganda broadcasts, but alone now here with her, she could tell he really believed it. He needed a good smack and then a kiss to make it all better. He also needed to get on topic. She didn't have all night. She brought her free hand to his.
"I heard about some of them today. Tess said you have technology now that can grow 1000 times more food than before."
"Exactly! That's exactly what I'm talking about. Lex tried those experiments with kryptonite under a yellow sun and they didn't work. Now they do, and we'll be able to feed everyone on earth with a fraction of the land we used before."
It helped that there were only a fraction of the people living as there had been before. She ran her thumbs over his palms, rubbing small circles into them. "There are other things you can do too, Tess said. The food you're growing now? She said it's all done with energy from the Fortress. How does that work? Could it be used for other things?" Weapons, maybe? What else would Tess want? He'd never mentioned anything like that, but he'd never seemed interested in Jor-El's overtures before the Doomsday fight. Afterward...
"That's one thing we're still working on. We can divert some of its energy to for food production and to maintain the spectrum signal, but we haven't been able to reverse-engineer the technology yet."
His hands encircling hers were the only thing that kept her from leaping off the bed. Of course. The signal originated from the Fortress. He had practically told her as such during that second summons. But she couldn't let him realize what he was letting slip. She squeezed his hands again. "So there's no Mr. Spock in the crew."
He chuckled. "No, these guys were all counter-terrorism operators; coding Tess' algorithms was about as much as they could handle. So unfortunately zero-carbon energy will have to wait until I complete my training." You'd think, Chloe thought, that a civilization as advanced as Krypton claimed to be would have thought to send a scientist along. Or two. Just in case the first one got killed or something.
"So, what are you waiting for?"
"Things keep coming up. I wanted to do it after the treaty was in place, but..."
He was blushing. Awwww. So cute. But he'd stopped talking. Not so cute.
"But?" She made sure to make eye contact, which he promptly broke.
"The training may take a few years to complete, and that would leave the people without a leader. Tess thinks I need... an heir."
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*This is actually from Augustine's City of God. In my mind Marlon Brando recited it to him when he received his training at the Fortress.