Forfeit

Title: Forfeit
Rating: PG
Fandom: Smallville
Pairing: Chlark friendship, Chlex friendship
Spoilers/Timeline: Post-Quest (spoilers from Apocalypse and Season 8)
Disclaimer: I own very little, certainly not these characters. Please don’t sue!
Author’s Notes: Since spoilers have conclusively proven Clark has no brain to grow, I thought I’d mess with something other than Chlois or Immortal!Chloe for once. This was already disproven by more recent spoilers, but I still wanted to play. I may continue this after I get some distance from S7, depending on how much I hate what they do with Arctic.This was beyond wierd for me to write, because I love dialogue, and it's crazy-short on it. My apologies if it sucks.

Lyrics are from “Last Thing On Your Mind” by Lights, which may become my Chlark anthem.

--
Don't think too hard, if you think it hurts that bad
Don't talk about it, don't let it get you down
--

Chloe Sullivan is familiar with sacrifice. Repeatedly handing her heart to an intergalactic traveler knowing he’d trample all over it with his size fourteens was good practice.

When the DDS agents catch up with her, she has little hope of escaping a prison sentence. She’s terrified that given enough silence, enough solitude, her meteor infection might get the better of her.

Chloe will die before she’ll betray Clark. That’s why she hopes she’s found a way to save him, one last time.

Escaping custody was the easy part. The gadgets Ollie couriered over after her first run-in with the DDS are officially worth their weight in gold and probably cost more. Regardless of Jimmy’s insistence and Clark’s super-sized denial, Oliver knew it was only a matter of time.

Standing over Lana Lang’s still form, she caresses her friend’s cheek. These are probably her last moments of freedom, and she hates that she can’t even call Clark to tell him he’s loved; that she wants him to be happy and take care of her big cousin and her doofus of a boyfriend and save the world. She’s so proud of the man he’ll become.

He’s out of range. If he weren’t, he’d never let her go through with it.

None of this is fair, so she lets the tears fall in defiance. She’s not ashamed to feel this. Chloe loves her life; these people. And Braniac had no more right to hurt Lana and Kara than Lex has to control Clark.

Her life is forfeit, and her family will have to deal with the fallout of the DDS. Even if her power could do the impossible, she wouldn’t have a name to go back to. All because she chose to do the right thing.

Her uncle Sam always told her that bravery was doing what needed to be done even when you’re scared. She’s beyond terrified now, so she figures she’s on the right track.

Squaring her shoulders, she focuses her power on Lana. As the light overtakes them, her last coherent thought is for Clark. After that, the shrieks drown out everything that matters.

--
It's only one part, of the story
Just let it go, don't let this get you down now.
--

“Please…please don’t look for me. I can’t be what you need. I’m just not…I’m not strong enough to go through that again, Clark.”

He pauses the video at the same spot he has the last 27 times he watched it. He just can’t figure out how it all went so wrong. He tried so hard to be the man Lana needed. He sacrificed everything for their quiet, domestic life.

He gave it all up - everything and everyone who mattered – the whole world, really. And it wasn’t enough.

Maybe it was too much. He’s tired, and he has no idea what comes next.

God, he misses Chloe. He can’t think about her for long anymore, either. Knowing the pain she put herself in for Lana – for him, if Ollie’s right.

The archer usually is, no matter how hard Clark wants to deny it. It’s all too much.

In the days since he returned from the fortress to find Chloe’s 33.1 story published and Lana awake, he’s been forced to reassess his assumptions about a lot of things.

His best friend wasn’t a visible cornerstone in his life, but he suddenly feels like someone ripped away his foundation. He’s shocked at how much it hurts to go on.

The first time he glimpsed her still form through the hospital window, the surge of anger startled him. She looked so small; weak in a way he’d never seen her, even in death.

Damn Chloe Sullivan and her hero complex. He should have known she could never leave well enough alone. Now all she’s done is compound the tragedy.

Lana is walking around, somewhere on the other side of the world, and Chloe is never expected to wake up. The specialists have no idea how she’s even alive, but Clark has learned to expect the unexpected where his best friend is concerned.

He knew he was selfish in his desperation not to be responsible for Lana’s pain. Guilt drove him then. It’s broken him now.

Chloe Sullivan was supposed to save the world with him, not waste away in a state-run long term care facility.

When he huddles by her bedside, her tiny hand enveloped in his own and milky eyes beholding a tableau of horror that he doubts his nightmares do justice, the words finally come pouring out.

He tells her she shouldn’t have sacrificed herself that way. That he had made his choice when he didn’t ask before, and though he regretted having to choose, he didn’t regret his decision for a moment. She is true, and she is just, and she is fire, and she is love and he just can’t do this without her.

It’s all too little, and too late.

--
Sing, the last thing on your mind
The last word on your breath
I'll be the one to keep you, keep you at your best
--

She’s been here forever, long ago forgetting that the screams are her own. This cacophony has been her existence since…always.

The silence is beyond jarring; the lack of pain disorienting. She feels like she’s floating. Like she might be free.

That’s an important word, even if she doesn’t know why. It’s a word you fight the pain for. A word you hold onto when everything else is torn asunder.

She flinches at the memory teasing the edges of her consciousness.

Opening her eyes slowly, she puzzles at the darkness after a world of swirling chaos and bright lights. Something in the back of her mind screams “It’s over!” But she has no idea what an end is, so she shrugs it off. Eternity is all there is.

But eternity…it never felt like this, smelled like this. Clean and soft and…home. It never sounded like this, like quiet puffs of breath on her shoulder.

She shrinks away when she recognizes the other presence in the room. That’s what this is…another trick. Another wraith come to offer peace and deliver horrors beyond her wildest imaginings.

“N-no…” Her voice catches on the tubing and she pulls it out through her nose, oblivious to the discomfort. Desperately pulling wires and tubes from her body, she scrambles back when the wraith raises confused eyes to meet hers.

Its shock is almost convincing, but she’s no fool.

She looks around desperately, seeking some protection. Like all the times before, there's nothing. A box on stilts beeps at her. It’s light, so she throws it at the wraith.

Strangely, the box goes straight through the wall. The wraith looks even more surprised than she is. It speaks, but she isn’t interested in making sense of the gibberish. She just wants out of here.

So she runs.

--
The last thing on your mind
'Cause I don't need your mess
I'll be the one to keep you one disaster less
--

Fortune smiles on the prepared.

When the man once known as Lex Luthor finds the ghost of Chloe Sullivan wandering the streets of New York in a hospital gown, he knows enough not to gun her down on the spot.

The girl who stole his freedom is supposed to be comatose. This woman doesn’t know her name or remember a shred of her former life. She doesn’t even seem to know English.

Lex always considered her a formidable adversary. She promises to be an even more powerful ally. Even without her memory, she is cunning in ways that can’t be taught. Between their perseverence and their pursuit of truth, he wonders if they could have passed for siblings in another world.

When she clutches his hand so tightly she breaks it, he knows he has to tread carefully in building her new life. She’s worth protecting.

She might save them all one day.

Tess Meyers is born on July 5, 2008, though her papers say her birthday is October 12, 1987. She is devoted in ways Lex only ever dreamed of, and he knows then that Clark Kent poses no real threat.

The man who would take that kind of loyalty for granted deserves to lose it.

--
Straighten up your tie, take the microphone
Forget about it, don't let it get you down
Now is not the time, and you're not alone
Shut up about it, no one can bring you down now
--

Clark searches for months, but Chloe hides even more thoroughly than Lana. It’s not until Lex’s new plaything arrives in Smallville six months later that he understands how damaged everything is.

He tries to speak to her at the mansion, and she acts like he’s crazy, calling for security like she doesn’t know how useless they will be.

“Chloe wait.” She stiffens at his hand on her shoulder.

“I don’t know who you’re talking about, Mr. Kent. You obviously have me confused with someone else.”

The attack is brutal and without warning. As he brushes off bits of stained glass and grass from a quarter mile away, he has to wonder what really came back.

---

End(?)