Angels of the Silences

Title: Angels of the Silences
Rating/Warnings: PG-13; Character Death
Fandom: Smallville
Pairing: Chlark friendship, brief mention of Clana
Spoilers/Timeline: Post-Wrath AU; Next in the Murder of One series, following Time and Time Again.
Disclaimer: I own very little, certainly not these characters. Please don’t sue!
Author’s Notes: Another side of the story. It gets pretty dark at the end, so be warned. I already have a fourth and fifth piece in this series complete, and will be posting shortly. In keeping with the theme of Murder of One and Time and Time Again, lyrics are from “Angels Of The Silences” by The Counting Crows.

--
Well I guess you left me with some feathers in my hand
Did it make it any easier to leave me where I stand?
I guess there might not be too many who would stand beside you now
Where'd you come from? Where am I going?
Why'd you leave me 'till I'm only good for...

Waiting for you
All my sins...
I said that I would pay for them if I could come back to you
All my innocence is wasted on the dead and dreaming
--

This is insane. That crazy bitch is actually going to kill her.

She noticed the tail on the way into the office this morning. It’s tough to be subtle when you’re following someone on a state route that spans 67 miles of farmland, but she had to give the guy an “E” for effort.

Judging by the make and model, this isn’t a small-time stakeout. She found a bug in her office phone that would make her CIA contact drool, and she’d bet her scholarship that her e-mail is monitored.

She tried calling Clark three times. She doesn’t dare call Ollie directly. If Lana is as twisted as she seems, she’d have a field day with a fledgling league of superheroes.

Chloe Sullivan is nothing if not a realist. Even as she reevaluates her short list for something she missed, she’s pulling the flash drive left sticking out of Lois’ computer. Thank God her cousin happens to be the least security-conscious reporter on the planet.

She compiles everything she has and backs it up to her and her cousin’s matching drives. It’s a good thing Lois splurged on the 4GB drives to assuage her guilt over getting hired. The video file is a behemoth.

She wants to trust that Clark will understand what he’s looking at, but she has a hard time believing Lana will give him the chance. Her cousin is so technologically challenged she can’t be sure the drive won’t get deleted before she figures out how to access the files.

She settles on Jimmy. Egyptian conspiracy theories aside, he knows to look for the message beneath the obvious. She can’t give up on Clark completely, so she sends him a copy, but uses The Daily Planet address to reduce Lana’s chances of intercepting it.

She drops them in different mail stations, conscious of being followed. Once they’re off, she finishes out her story on the rash of burglaries that recently struck a northeast neighborhood.

She’s pretty sure staring into space and pondering her own mortality would be counterproductive. It would most definitely tip off whoever’s watching her to the fact that she knows, which would lead them to question her recent mail drops.

Chloe is a multitasker by nature, so it’s unsurprising that she can’t stop looking for a solution while she writes. Her mind races over possible outcomes.

…She calls Ollie. Lana bites the new league in the ass. Thousands who could have been saved aren’t.

…She calls Lois. Lois is in New York. Chloe has to sleep in the building with only the cleaning crew to protect her until she gets back. A hit man kills both her and Vinny, the janitor.

…She tells Jimmy. Jimmy does…well, she has no idea what Jimmy could do, but she has a hunch it would be the death of both of them.

…She calls Lex. He takes the opportunity to haul her off to a lab forever. Clark stays with Lana and she leads him farther down the dark path she’s already on while Lex runs inhuman tests on her till she wishes she were dead.

…She calls Lana, who promptly denies everything in a whispery voice and Chloe dies one phone call sooner.

…She lets this play out, and prays her ability to heal extends to herself, if it comes to that. It’s bound to hurt like hell, but at least Lana would leave her alone long enough to take her down. If she’s not so lucky on the meteor powered front, Jimmy and Clark get all the evidence they need in three days anyway.

She feels nauseous, but the last option is the only one that doesn’t lead to 50 dead ends.

Once she’s come to terms with it, she’s almost relieved, in a macabre sort of way. She had no idea how to break the news about Lana to Clark. At least this way, there’s a strong chance she won’t have to.

Rationalizations aside, she’s shaking as she exits the elevator into the abandoned garage. Keys carefully wedged between her fingers, she’s determined not to go peacefully into that dark night. The echo of her heels matches the staccato of her heart. There is so much she will miss if she’s right.

Click, click.

Clark Kent’s smile - shy, humble, and true.

Click, click.

Lois’ deep belly laughs.

Click, click.

Jimmy’s enamored eyes.

Click, click.

Her father’s bear hugs – clinging like he’s scared to let go.

Click, click.

Her mother’s tears.

Click…rustle.

She spins and lashes out with her keys. Her attacker mutters a curse and she makes a break for her car. Only 15 feet to go.

She makes it ten before he knocks her to the ground. She’s shaking with terror as he places the silenced muzzle to her forehead. Closing her eyes against the tears and the terror, Chloe Sullivan cries out her last hope.

“Clark!”

Silence is her answer. The world flashes red.

--
Every night these silhouettes appear above my head
Little angels of the silences that climb into my bed and whisper
Every time I fall asleep Every time I dream
"Did you come? Would you lie?
Why'd you leave us 'till we're only good for...

Waiting for you"
All my sins...
I said that I would pay for them if I could come back to you
All my innocence is wasted on the dead and dreaming
--

Waking up is disorienting enough when you don’t expect it. For Chloe, the confusion is doubled by the inky darkness and claustrophobic confines.

She’s woken to this twice before. This time, her frantic banging produces only a dull thud that’s muffled even in the tiny space. She screams until she’s out of air, and lets blessed unconsciousness draw her in.

She wakes again, curses her gift, and knows she won’t have much time. She scrambles for something, anything. Her hand closes around a smooth metal cylinder just as she’s dropping off again.

Awake again, she discovers she’s clutching a small flashlight. Twisting it frantically, she tries to scramble back in shock, away from the words it illuminates, but only manages to expend enough energy to pass out before she’s read a single line.

The next time she wakes, the flashlight is almost dead. In the gloomy light, she reads what is to become her sentence.

Dearest Chloe,

If you are reading this, I imagine things look quite grim.

Aren’t you glad I convinced the mortuary not to embalm you? I suspect that might have been too much, even for your considerable gifts.

They did remove the bullet, of course.

Yours in truth.

LL

There’s no one to judge her, so she grieves herself in stolen moments. The light is long gone, and she’s been deprived of oxygen so long she can’t be sure if she ever really read a message.

The silence breaks her. Too dehydrated to make a sound, too delirious not to try, the utter absence of noise leaves her oxygen starved brain with way too much room to play.

This is hell.

LL. Lana, Lex, Lionel. Betrayal holds infinite possibilities.

Between the fevered dreams she wakes to and death, she chooses the latter, every time. There is peace there. Understanding. She can’t see them, but she senses others comforting her, praising her bravery, her dedication. Clark’s father, her aunt. Even lost little Alicia. She wakes to the darkness for a shorter stretch every time, so she can only pray that she’ll eventually get to stay in the light of the afterlife.

She wants to analyze her life, but even with an eternity of solitude before her, there’s never enough time. All she has time for in those brief moments is hope, and love, and grief.

Chloe hopes that, one day, the world gets its hero. She knows she would have loved the man behind the symbol, and she grieves the chance to tell him that.

Her heart leads her through the darkness. It always has.

--
I dream of Michelangelo when I'm lying in my bed
Little angels hang above my head and read me like an open book
Suck my blood break my nerve offer me their arms
Well, I will not be an enemy of anything
I'll only stand here

Waiting for you
All my sins...
I said that I would pay for them if I could come back to you
All my innocence is wasted on the dead and dreaming
--

Next in the series...