Full Circle

Title: Full Circle
Rating: PG-13
Fandom: Smallville
Pairing: Chlark, mentions of Clana and Clois
Spoilers/Timeline: Post-Fracture AU
Disclaimer: I own very little, certainly not these characters. Please don’t sue!
Author’s Notes: I blame the show for this mess. Nonsensical episodes force me to give characters back key traits (like self respect). This could technically be post-Stri…er…Hero, since the episode contained zero story progression.

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“The wheel is come full circle.”
- William Shakespeare (Edmund in King Lear) -
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Her heart.

Of course it’s her heart that’s infected; forever changed by the fire that fell from the sky. The symbolism had her crying herself to sleep for a week after Knox and Jimmy.

Chloe Sullivan has given everything. Every single piece of herself has been sacrificed in one way or another. Now, she hardly knows how to get through a conversation without handing out another piece of herself; her soul.

She once entertained the idea that her infection is what ties her stubborn heart to a man who will never see her the way she sees him. Maybe loving him hopelessly is coded into her DNA.

Never one for delusions, she dismisses the idea as the excuse it is.

He has Lana now, and seems to revel in her company even more since his return from the fortress. Maybe the distance that grew between them in his absence is exactly what she needs to start living beyond his orbit.

It’s passed time to move on, and she’s so very tired of playing the third wheel.

The dorm fees are paid up at NYU, and there’s already a desk waiting for her on the second floor of The Times. She wasn’t above letting Ollie place a call. Metropolis is stifling, and she needs to breathe soon.

Doesn’t it just figure that Clark and Lana beat her in announcing their plans to move on? Knowing those two, they probably decided that morning over breakfast in bed.

Still, it hurts to hear - especially when Clark’s acting like a pod person and Lana thinks she’s jealous. She just can’t win.

When the real Clark shows up, she’s tempted to cancel her plans. Predictably enough, after a week of making sense, he jumps right back into domestic bliss and begins blaming himself for everything.

It’s not hard to give up on him then.

She spends most of a day dead, and decides waiting is overrated. Her bags are packed and her bulkier stuff is in storage less than two weeks later.

She knows she’s on Lex Luthor’s list of soon-to-be-unemployed, and Clark screwed any chance she had of working full-time with Ollie. This will be her last night in Smallville.

She wants to laugh when Clark drops by and asks what they’re doing to the floors of the apartment. Most of the furniture is staying with Lois, so it’s funny that the absence of her “flair” makes the place seem empty enough to comment on.

No wonder Lana can’t find her way. For all his talk of openness and honesty, Clark manages to lie for all of them.

She shrugs noncommittally, and pats herself on the back for letting him do what he does best. He talks about his fear that he and Lana won’t be able to find a way to trust each other again and mopes at the way a science project gone wrong made a better boyfriend than he did.

True to her nature, Chloe gives him what’s left of her forgiveness and understanding. She crosses her fingers that she won’t need it where she’s going.

She queues up her favorite playlist and takes off into the pre-dawn haze shortly after he leaves the apartment. Better not to linger. Insomnia without consequences is just about the only cool side effect of her infection.

She drives straight through, and holds her breath for the first few days in the Big Apple. Three weeks on, and she almost stops jumping at the breeze.

Which makes sense, because he’s in her apartment when she trudges home that night.

She looks up, unimpressed. She knew she only delayed the inevitable when she left without the dramatic goodbye. Maybe she’ll get lucky and he can make this a monologue. Or better yet, he could brood silently while she takes a long soak in the tub.

“Hi, Clark.” She drops her coat and purse in the foyer and toes off her heels.

He’s staring at her like she’s lost her mind when she sinks gratefully into the couch. He has no idea what it’s like to tail a source on foot wearing three inch heels. She’d love an ounce of that invulnerability he whines about so much.

She knows on some level she doesn’t need it, but sleep beckons more out of habit than anything else. She’s almost drifted off when she hears him speak.

“Lana’s gone.”

“Okay.” Big shock.

“I asked her to leave.”

Huh? “You…what?”

“I asked her to move out. I just couldn’t take it anymore.”

“Huh.” She knows she’s capable of waxing poetic, especially on this topic, but she’s out of words.

He kneels in front of her, his face coming into view. It’s strange that he looks more grown up than the last time she saw him.

Must be a trick of light.

“Chlo. Come home.”

“I did.” She says quietly, without malice. “Welcome to my new home.”

“You belong in Smallville.”

She smiles sadly at that. “I never belonged in Smallville, Clark.”

He looks down. “Yeah, well Smallville isn’t the same without you.”

“This is how it’s supposed to be.”

“You don’t believe that.”

“Yes, I do.” She wants it to be true so badly.

He sets his jaw. “Well I don’t.”

“Are you planning to drag me back against my will? Threaten my boss like you did Oliver?”

“That’s not fair.”

“No. It wasn’t.”

He looks a little wild; a little desperate. “I only wanted to keep you safe, Chlo. I just…I can’t stand the idea of you getting hurt.”

Ah, so that explains it. She can’t help the patronizing smile. “Perfect. You don’t have to worry.”

“How can you say that? I can’t protect you here.”

“I resent the insinuation that I need your protection. Even if I get hurt, nothing’s going to stick, Clark.”

“But Chloe, how can you know-“

She holds up a hand to silence him. “I know more than you think, Clark. I’m fine. I’ll stay fine, and this is where I need to be right now.”

He swallows whatever he was about to say, and she knows from the determination in his eyes that this won’t be the last time she sees him.

She gives him what little patience she can scrape up, and sends him on his way with a hug. No tears.

They were Woodward and Bernstein, Truth and Justice, laughter and brooding.

They should have been epic; should have blazed a trail across history that no one would ever forget.

Instead, they just kind of…faded away.

Half a century later, word reaches her at The Post that Lois Lane is retiring from The Daily Planet.

It’s the end of an era.

She can’t congratulate her cousin in person. They drifted apart decades ago, when she decided not to share her infected status.

It wasn’t that she didn’t trust her cousin – she knew Lois would never betray her on purpose. It was just that she already had, in all the ways that mattered, and Chloe couldn’t bear to be that close to her anymore.

Besides, Chloe Sullivan is long gone now, replaced thirty years ago with a new label and another start.

She hangs back at the retirement party, which turned out to be a roast, letting her auburn locks fall across her gaze and laughing till she aches. Oh, the stories she could tell.

Seeing Jimmy Olsen take the podium is a bit of a shock. If anything, he seems sweeter now than the day she met him. Tears cloud her vision and she has to retreat to one of the service entrances before she draws attention to herself.

Jimmy is imitating Lois’ reaction the first time she was rescued by Superman, and she pauses at the door to capture the moment. Laughter and happiness are all too fleeting in her experience, and she suspects this will be the last time she’ll watch Jimmy’s eyes crinkle with delight or hear Lois’ deep belly laughs.

The end of an era, indeed.

When an immovable hand falls to her shoulder, she curses under her breath. She knew better than to linger.

She can’t very well move until he lets her, so she simply turns. Dana Charles has nothing to be ashamed of, and Chloe Sullivan is tired of running.

It’s hard not to give in to the tug of a smile at his gasp. His face drains of color as he shakes his head in denial.

“You…you…how can this…?”

She smiles, tries to soften the blow because she’s gotten better at holding onto the pieces of herself and she’s never been good at cruelty.

“I told you a long time ago. Nothing sticks.” She steps around him and he’s obviously too shocked to hold on. She pauses halfway down the hall, and looks back. “See you around.”

If there is one thing she’s learned in all her long life, it’s that, eventually, everything comes full circle.

She leaves Clark Kent, or whatever he’s called these days, gaping at the door to his wife’s retirement party. The echo of laughter is an odd soundtrack for the shame on his face.

It’s a pity that it takes leaving him behind twice to live without the what-ifs for the first time since she was a girl. The upside is that she still has plenty of life left to enjoy.

She hasn’t aged a day past 20.

Sometimes she regrets that; wishes fate had seen fit to leave her at a more ambiguous age. Even with makeup, she hasn’t managed to keep an identity for more than 15 years. She’s never entirely sure what to call herself anymore.

Chloe was a foolish girl who chased her dreams only to watch her cousin live them.

Amelia may have been one of the most prolific war correspondents of her time, but she was haunted by her own ghost.

Avery was a careless lover and a completely unremarkable novelist.

Breanne spent a decade as a Peace Corp. volunteer who lost it a little in the end and blew up the home of an especially ruthless dictator in western Africa.

Dana rediscovered her love of truth. She freed herself and spent a decade exposing the ugly underbelly of American politics.

Emily was a business owner and freelance PR guru. She was engaged once, but she couldn’t bear to watch him waste away like everyone else, so she left.

Today, she’s Fiona. While she’s enjoying this quasi-retirement of a life she’s allowed herself, the peace she garners working in her garden is fleeting.

Only recently did she overcome enough of her old resentment to consider applying for the JLU. Meta is downright vogue, and it is so tempting not to constantly play the wide-eyed girl when she has amassed two lifetimes of wisdom.

Fiona finds herself weary of the world. Does it really warrant saving anymore?

She finally understands why Grandpa Sullivan had to be kept away from the newspaper at all costs. It’s hard to fight the urge to rail when you see humanity struggling with the same problems, on a bigger scale, again and again.

When news of Luthor’s latest political coup reaches her rural community, she quietly packs up, transfers her assets, and leaves the property to a local charity.

Unlike her, Lex never let go of his first identity. It’s a shame, really. He might have been so much more if he had.

When she hacks the JLU mainframe with a coded message, she starts counting. She doesn’t make it to twenty before he’s standing before her, resplendent in blue, red and gold.

The shock is still there. The guilt is, too.

There’s a lot to be said. For now, she just wraps him in a hug. It’s awkward, since he’s as big as a freaking house these days, but she pretends not to notice the sniffles.

She’s Chloe again, for the first time in over 80 years, and it’s the strangest thing. Dying on almost a weekly basis is the only thing that’s made her feel alive in the better part of a century.

Superman can be an even bigger ass than he was as a boy sometimes, and she gains the respect of some key members when she calls him on his shit from day one. She never once flinches when he goes into self-righteous speech mode.

The prevalence of psychic powers among the League caught her off guard, but Clark’s embarrassment at the blackmail material they seem to have lifted from her brain is so worth it. She gets all the entertainment, and none of the guilt.

Clark himself is a strange combination of the strong leader she always knew he could be and the moping barn-dweller of days long past. Chloe lets him introduce her to his world, reminded of the first time he helped her adapt to an alien environment.

The Watchtower – and the irony of the name isn’t lost on her – is a far cry from a hick town in Kansas, but it’s hard not to get nostalgic.

Regardless of the return to her old name, she is not the girl she once was. Never is that more apparent than the night Clark shows up looking almost feral, his eyes flashing crimson.

She uses tricks gained over most of a century spent unattached and unhindered by mortal concerns of heaven and hell to get him right where she wants him – over her, under her, pinning her to the wall. He’s Superman, and she’s no fool.

It’s not till he’s drifting, lazy and satisfied, that she opens the box and lets him sweat out the rest of Lex’s poison.

He’s sputtering apologies in classic Kent style, but she merely places a silent finger to his lips and hands him his clothes.

He dresses half in a daze as she tidies up her quarters, unconcerned with her nakedness.

After avoiding her for three days, he practically bowls her over in the cafeteria.

“Chloe, we need to talk.”

She looks up from her meal and tilts her head curiously. “About what?”

“About…the other night.” He’s practically squirming and she can’t suppress the chuckle.

“No, Clark. We don’t.”

“But-”

“Really, it’s okay.”

“But Chloe, we…”

“…had a lot of fun, but that was it. I’m a big girl now, no matter what I look like.”

“You…” He runs a hand through his hair. “Of course you are.”

“So, we’re good?”

He looks strangely sad. “We’re good.”

Good or not, he’s back at her door less than a week later. This time his eyes are a Caribbean sea.

It’s gentler than she’s become accustomed to, but it’s nice, not to mention convenient. Neither has to pretend it’s something it isn’t.

She doesn’t recognize her folly for almost a year. Like most things, it hits her over coffee.

Clark sits across from her, talking about this new restaurant in Metropolis he wants to take her to, and she cracks a joke about them needing to be careful.

“After all, we don’t want people getting the wrong idea about us.”

She says it lightly, because they’ve finally gotten back to a place where teasing is okay, but Clark looks like she just slapped him.

She takes a moment to count the nights they’ve spent together over the last month in her head, and stops when she reaches 30.

Shit. They live together.

She should have known that even after hitting the century mark, Clark Kent would never be able to deal with a strictly sexual relationship.

She knows herself well enough to question whether she did it on purpose, but the honest answer is that she grew out of revenge a long time ago. Clark never hurt her on purpose, any more than Lois did.

A week later, he’s begging her not to leave the Watchtower.

“Clark, this can’t work.”

“Why not? We’ve always worked well together.”

“Yes, but we never worked well.”

“Why? Why are you always leaving me? Why am I never good enough?”

His voice cracks and it’s enough to stop her in her tracks. She turns slowly. “You don’t know?”

He looks so lost when he shakes his head slowly.

She covers his huge hand with her tiny ones. “I loved you. I loved you so much I gave up everything because I couldn’t watch any more, and I didn’t want to stand in your way.”

She didn’t think it was possible, but his face falls even further. “Loved?”

“You know I love you as a friend, so shut up. I finally get why you never saw me that way.”

“Obviously. That’s why I spend so much time at my place.” He deadpans.

“Bitter doesn’t become you, Supes.” She sighs. “That ship sailed forever ago.”

“Aren’t you the one who told me that everything comes full circle?”

She shrugs. “Maybe that’s what this is. Clark, no matter what, there was always someone – Lana, Alicia, Lori, Lois. Don’t think I haven’t noticed how you are with Diana.”

“Diana has been a good friend, for a long time. She reminds me of your mother, for Rao’s sake!” His nostrils flare, and he reigns himself in a bit. “You’re right. I was always chasing someone. Lois hated that more than anything. I really did love her, but...”

“But?” She breathes, incredulous.

“But the things I loved most about her were the ones that reminded me of you. I didn’t even understand it myself until I saw you at the party. I think she always knew.”

She deflates a little at the honest grief in his voice. “Lo always was better at being me. She was amazing.”

“Yeah, she was.” His nostalgic smile fades a little as he meets her gaze again. “Didn’t you ever wonder why I stopped chasing love after she died?”

“I hoped it was because you’d already found it.”

“I did.” His reply is enigmatic, at best. He steps closer. “In you.”

“What? Clark, Lois has been gone for 20 years.”

“And you weren’t ready. I figured, maybe…it was my turn to wait.” He bows his head and it’s beyond strange to see the most powerful man in the world reduced to begging. “Don’t go, Chlo. I’ll wait as long as you need. I’ll be your friend – with or without benefits, but don’t leave. Please, not again.”

Damn. She doesn’t want to hurt him, but that’s exactly what she’s afraid will happen if she lets this farce continue.

“I can’t, Clark. I can’t do that to you.” She tries to pour all of her affection for him into the words.

“What if I need you to?” He practically whispers. “I know I hurt you before, but I was never you, and neither of us is the same person we were back then. I need you. Any way I can get you.”

She hates that after 20 years of freedom, her chest still aches at the raw honesty in his eyes. She only ever managed to say no to him once, and she doesn’t think today will see a repeat performance.

Not for the first time, she acknowledges the quiet comfort in knowing that the universe almost always presents another chance.

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“Perchance we may,
Where now this night is day,
And even through faith of still averted feet,
Making full circle of our banishment,
Amazed meet”
- Coventry Kersey Dighton Patmore -
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End