Home

Title: Home
Rating: PG
Fandom: Smallville
Pairing: Chlark (in a Chlois-ish kind of way)
Spoilers/Timeline: Post-Series AU, diverges during Cure
Disclaimer: I own very little, certainly not these characters. Please don’t sue!
Author’s Note: What if Clark was too late? Lyrics from The Counting Crows.

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Take the way home, that leads back to Sullivan Street…

1938 Sullivan Place.

Their home.

The irony isn’t lost on him. She’s another story altogether.

Some days, this is enough. Fighting the good fight, side by side. Bickering like an old married couple, living and working as partners. Clark Kent and Lois Lane-Kent are unstoppable.

The fact that she knows and loves both sides makes him whole.

Other days, the fact that she knows only half of herself tears him to pieces.

Soon enough, he’ll have to explain to her that he once knew a budding young journalist in a small town. One that he couldn’t love, no matter how much she wanted him to. No matter how right he knew they were together.

He’ll have to explain that once, long ago, a friend asked him to let her go. He cared, so he did. He just didn’t realize how much he was giving up until it was too late. She was cheated out of the salvation she sought by an immortal doctor who wanted to give her gift to his beloved.

He was too late. She was dead.

It wasn’t until that moment that he allowed himself to admit the truth that had driven him to destroy his own life chasing a twisted dream. His cruelty had come full circle, and he was lost without her.

Maybe it was insanity - or perhaps, his first taste of clarity - but he intended for their journey to be his last trip to the snowy North. His last trip anywhere, really.

He failed to give himself to her in life. Everything he thought he wanted was a lie. The only desire left was to give her the devotion she deserved in death. He could think of nowhere more appropriate to rest than a recreation of the dead world that brought them together.

The platitudes of his father’s artificial intelligence went unheard as he laid her in a crystalline chamber large enough for the two of them and prepared the Kryptonian blade for himself. It was not until the cavern shook with the volume of the machine’s demands that he paused, whispering his last hope with a bowed head.

“Save her. Bring her back to me.”

He took the silence for the answer he knew it to be, and nodded. Taking a moment to gaze at her face, tears washing away the last of his reservations, he calmly took his place in the coffin that would preserve them. Holding her cool hand with his left, he brought the dagger over his heart.

“I’m sorry I lied, Chlo.” He whispered.

“WAIT, KAL-EL.”

Someday, he will have to explain that the past she remembers was woven to closely resemble a reality altered by his father’s AI; that he knowingly traded the life of another for hers. It won’t matter to her that the person he chose already owed her their life, nor will it matter that they would have willingly traded themselves, given the chance.

Fifty years down the line, he will have to explain why her face will remain unmarred. Why Jimmy Olsen and Cat Grant and The Bulldog himself will all turn to dust while the two of them are untouched by the years.

It was a reality she chose to forget trying to return to normal. One that followed her into her second life. As it turns out, it is the only reason he knows they can safely have a family.

One day, she will hate him for what he did. But it doesn’t matter.

Because even if she hates him forever, he's home today.

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End