Only You

Title: Only You
Rating: PG-13
Fandom: Smallville
Pairing: Chlark friendship, maybe a smidge more; mentions of Clana
Spoilers/Timeline: S7, Persona through Fracture
Disclaimer: I own very little, certainly not these characters. Please don’t sue!
Author’s Notes: Call it a character study. I needed a frame of reference for the last few eps. Lyrics are from “Only You,” by Joshua Radin.

---
Sometimes when I think of her name,
When it’s only a game,
And I need you.
Listen to the words that you say.
It’s getting harder to stay
When I need you.

All I needed was the love you gave;
All I needed for another day.
And all I ever knew;
Only you.
---

---
Homecoming Day
---

“You gave up your abilities for Grace. That must have been a difficult decision.”

“I knew in the span of a heartbeat.”

He thought that, of everyone he’d ever encountered, this man, this…Kryptonian, would understand the torment of deciding between the object of his affection and his true nature - his destiny.

Dax-Ur’s certainty horrified Clark, who had never been that sure of anything except the fact that he wanted Lana. He had no idea what to do with her once he had her, so he just kept wanting her anyway.

It was…comforting…to live that way with her. Certainly not easy.

That night, he stops and stares at the bed they must have made together. It takes every ounce of restraint he possesses not to rip the sheets and mattress to shreds. She’s relentless, and refuses to retreat to the room she slept in the last time he was here.

He wants to rage, to run, to hide in a corner and weep. He misses his mother’s hugs, misses Chloe’s understanding eyes. He even misses his cousin’s suicidal antics.

She touches him, and his skin crawls. Wanting her is a habit he never managed to break, but the genuine connection he saw in their eyes, the sadness that lingers in hers, revolts him.

He finally yields and settles in to feign sleep. She sighs prettily, and sniffles.

After weeks in an arctic fortress, he has finally learned patience. Two hours after they begin the farce, her heartbeat finally slows and her breathing shallows.

Clark is dressed and out the door in under three seconds.

Out on the porch, he draws great gulps of air as relief from the weight of her presence washes over him. When did his dreams turn into nightmares?

The rain hasn’t let up, and even with the chaos that has become his life, he can’t resist the urge to step off the sheltered porch. Cool water slides over his skin. He lets it rinse away some of the shame.

He breathes deep the mingled, earthy scent of rain and wet earth; lets the roar of thunder, wind, and driving rain reverberate through him. Until now, he never really understood the intoxicating freedom of physical sensation.

Being denied the ability to feel anything for six weeks is all the reminder he will ever need to cherish the little things.

Still relishing in the crisp winter rain, Clark runs his hands through his hair. Soaked through, he can’t very well go back inside without waking her up. He’s not sure he can go through that again right now.

It’s an hour later in Washington, so visiting his mother is out. Lois is out of town, though, and he hasn’t taken the time to tell Chloe just how much he appreciated the latest save. In a moment, he’s knocking on her door.

He hears a sniffle as she approaches the door, and takes note of the puffy eyes that greet him. His concern spikes. What happened while I was gone?

“Chlo?”

“Clark?”

“Are you okay?” They ask in unison.

“God, I missed being on the same page as you.” She sighs and gathers him into a hug, heedless of the fact that he’s soaked through.

“I missed you too, Chlo.” He whispers roughly over her shoulder, realizing this is exactly what he needed. Again.

She pulls back, grinning, and runs her fingers through his hair before cupping his cheek affectionately. The echo of her touch lingers on his skin after she bounds to the linen closet. It almost…tingles.

Returning with towels in hand, she grabs him boldly by the elbow and leads him over to the couch. She settles one towel on the bench muttering about Lois and her precious upholstery, and tugs him to sit while she dries his hair.

This? Is the essence of Chloe. Not always everything he wants, but consistently what he needs, right when he needs it. He lets her fussing wash over him like the rain, reveling in the relief and affection in her touch.

His hands cover hers as they drape the towel around his shoulders, and her bright smile trembles. They’re still dancing safely within the widening gray area they always leave undefined between friendship and…more, but it feels like he’s not the only one who could use some reassurance.

“Chlo. Talk to me.”

The illusory smile crumbles a little more, and God, does he hate seeing her cry. She wipes dismissively at the tears and shrugs noncommittally, sitting beside him so their knees touch.

“Hey. Six weeks in an ice fortress does not make me any better at telepathy. What’s going on?”

“It’s nothing, really, Clark. I just feel bad about all of this.”

“Why would you…?”

“I’ve known you forever. I should have known he wasn’t you.” She’s letting the tears flow freely now.

“But-”

“I mean, I knew something was wildly off, but I never imagined…” She looks up, pleading. “He knew a lot about you, and I was just so relieved that you were okay. I never even checked.”

He wants to hold her, but he’s nowhere near dry. He settles for grabbing her left hand between both of his. “You had no way of knowing. Even Lana didn’t know.”

She stiffens at that, and he hates that she’s pulling away over the woman who drove him to her in the first place.

“What is it?”

“Lana… God, Clark. I can’t be the one to tell you this.”

“Oh, that.” He looks down and the shame is back. “I know.”

“O-Oh.”

“Yeah.”

“Wow.”

“That about sums it up.”

“At least she came in with the save in the end?”

“I wasn’t sure which way it would go for a while there.”

“Yeah. Me neither.”

Huh? “What did you say?”

She looks caught. “Oh. Well, you never called to let me know you were okay. I knew you’d go back to get Lana first, so I…kinda accessed the clock tower monitoring system and saw the video feed.”

“There’s video feed?”

“Ollie’s a billionaire. Of course there’s video feed. There’s audio, too.”

A certain Valentines Day disaster flashes through his mind.

As if reading his thoughts, she smiles wryly. “Don’t worry. I’ve been accessing the server directly for over a year and deleting any sensitive material before the nightly backup. I got rid of tonight’s, too. We don’t need anyone knowing exactly how blue kryptonite affects you.”

He doesn’t know whether to hug her or cringe. This might just be worse than Ollie seeing it.

“Clark. Lana was confused. I’m sure she didn’t mean it.”

“She said you told her I was having memory problems.”

“I told her something wasn’t right.”

“I take it she disagreed?”

She studies her hands.

“Chloe?”

“She…She told me the only thing different was that you had finally opened up to her. That I needed to let you go.” She looks up, and the genuine hurt in her eyes makes Clark ache. “I really didn’t think I was holding on.”

“You have every right to hold on, Chlo. You’re my best friend in the world. Nothing’s going to change that.”

“That’s not what she meant and you know it. I know you guys have been down some bumpy roads before, and Lana’s never really understood our friendship. I’ve worked hard to give you both the space you need so I can be there when you do need me.

I just…I thought I was doing okay.”

Understanding dawns. “That’s why you never call me anymore?”

“Well, I did try to call you when I almost got blown up. You can thank your stand-in for that save.”

And really, is it sad that hearing that actually warms him to the phantom? He can’t imagine returning to find her dead.

Still, she’s diverting and he knows it.

“Bomb scares that I want to hear all about aside, is Lana the reason you’ve been avoiding me?”

“She’s a consideration, but I have a lot of reasons.”

“Such as?”

“Such as I have a new, not-so-cool power to figure out, the antichrist just bought The Daily Planet and fired half the staff, I’m barely maintaining my GPA, and I’m pulling side jobs whenever our mutual friends need a good hack.”

He just stares, slack-jawed.

“See? Lana’s the only you-specific reason in a sea of validity.”

He likes to think he’s a decent friend; that he doesn’t just use Chloe for her ability to sniff out the truth, or listen and really care like no one else in the world, but he can’t honestly say he’s ever felt this disconnected from her. He’s surprised at the strength of his grief at the distance.

“I…I’m sorry.”

She looks at him strangely, confused. “For what?”

“I didn’t realize… “

Her hand covers his. “Hey. It’s okay, really. Priorities change. I get that. If staying on the farm with Lana is what makes you happy, then that makes me happy. Just because we’ve both been busy, doesn’t mean we’re not friends.”

The spark of truth dances in her green depths. He’s not sure why he’s disappointed.

“You’re lying, Clark, to yourself. You’re so busy trying to do the right thing, you don’t even see it!”

And yeah, he is aware that guilt plays no small part in his determination to make things work with Lana. After all, she left the life of a billionaire bride and faked her own death to be with him.

But maybe he was premature in thinking he would never know the certainty Dax-Ur approached his decision with. Sitting beside Chloe in the softly lit apartment, he thinks back over the years of their friendship and knows, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that he would sacrifice his powers in a heartbeat if she needed him to.

The beauty of Chloe is that she would never ask, even if it cost her everything.

At that thought, he does reach around her shoulders and pull her closer, kissing her forehead. “I don’t know what I’d do without you, Chlo. And I never want to find out.”

“Well, I might be drier.” She snarks. “But life would be so much less interesting without you in the world, Clark.”

He feels the familiar magnetic urge to hold her forever, but she wiggles out of his grip a moment later and stands. Wordlessly, she rifles through her makeshift wardrobe and returns with a pair of boxers, one of his old tee shirts, and a victorious grin.

She thrusts them at him and laughs at the confusion that must be written all over his face.

“Get changed, Clark. I’m not letting you hang out in your soaked clothes all night long.”

“But what about…?” He tugs at his tee shirt to make his point.

“Hello? Heat vision?” She taps him on the head playfully.

“Oh.”

“I swear, you wouldn’t use your powers for anything useful if I wasn’t around.” She scoffs. “How do you live with these abilities every day and not think to apply them to the mundane stuff?”

“Because, that’s just not…normal.”

She laughs and tosses him a blanket followed by a pillow. “Normal is entirely subjective and highly overrated.”

“I’m pretty sure drying your clothes with heat vision falls under everyone’s definition of abnormal.” He doesn’t even try to hide the sarcasm.

“Well, there are three of you on earth we know about. If all of you do it, doesn’t that make it normal?”

He just looks at her, slightly dazed.

“I love you, Chlo.” It slips out with a hint of awe.

“Don’t sound so surprised, superboy.” She chuckles without missing a beat. “I’ve always been this great.”

His mind races over a thousand little moments. “You have.”

She watches him for a moment, her expression shifting to wary before she picks up a throw pillow, tests the weight of it in her hands, and chucks it at him.

“Go change, uber-dork.”

He catches the pillow easily, still reeling from the warmth slowly spreading over his chest.

Once they’re settled in for the night, her on her bed and him on the couch, he drifts to the lullaby of her heart and wonders what he’s supposed to do with all…this. He knows he shouldn’t rush into anything. A lot has changed, a lot hasn’t, and he needs to get it straight in his head.

When the time is right, he’ll tell her.

---
Two weeks later…
---

Lying awake next to a girl he barely knows anymore, Clark wonders how much time he really has.

It’s a little freaky, but listening to Lois pour out her heart about how hard it was to have a relationship with a hero hit Clark harder than he expected.

He has to give her credit for recognizing her own limits and being willing to voice them for both their sakes. He can’t say he’s ever had the courage to do the same.

He wants to understand Lana’s similar shortcomings, and he’s coming to grips with the idea that she might not be the one he’s destined to be with. It’s a dangerous game they play, when she knows so much about him. At the very least he has to get them back to a place where they can trust each other.

She may not be his soul mate, but he’s loved her as long as he can remember, and he’s determined to help her find a way to live with herself before he thinks about letting her go.

The strangest part of the evening was the way Lois’ outburst paralleled his concerns about Chloe. He’s never told anyone how terrified he is of losing her, so he was caught off guard hearing his own worst fears and impulses pour forth from her cousin’s lips.

He knows Oliver is right - he does put her in danger every other week. But he also knows her well enough to be certain she’d find trouble on her own if she wasn’t by his side. At least he can protect her when she’s with him.

Clark Kent has seen what his world would look like without Chloe Sullivan three times, and the last two nearly killed him. He’s not eager for a repeat.

She seems to be.

He knows, on an intellectual level, that one day he will lose everyone who matters to him. Humans are so fragile; their lives so easily snuffed out.

As teenagers in Smallville, it wasn’t hard to imagine Chloe’s swirling justice was a force of nature. Lord knows, she got herself out of almost as many pinches as he did.

By the time they hit their junior year, he began to realize that she got into twice as much trouble as she could ever get herself out of. And she showed no indication of slowing down to save her life.

Even then, it terrified him. It wasn’t until the summer he lost his powers that he was able to put the reason into words.

He can’t count the number of nights he spent awake that summer, staring at the stars and resenting her for making him question the gift of his humanity. An honest relationship with Lana was all he ever wanted, but how was he supposed to save Chloe like that?

He thought he’d found a way to deal by acting as her sidekick. It made him wonder briefly whether that was why she adopted the same role for him.

The joy was short-lived. Clark took a bullet while Chloe screamed and thrashed and cried her eyes out. When he’s honest, he admits that some part of him was glad she finally understood what he went through every time she put herself in harm’s way.

He’s not proud of the sentiment.

---

When he saw her face today, all the fears he’d buried in domestic bliss gone bad came rushing back with a vengeance. He wanted to kill Oliver for even thinking about putting his Chloe in a situation like that.

Ollie has no special abilities, so when Dinah Lance disabled his arrows, Chloe was completely defenseless. She could have been killed.

The man just didn’t think.

Chloe looks for trouble enough on her own. He’s not sure he can take it if seeking it becomes a full-time career. With Lex in charge of her precious Planet, there’s no telling what she’ll do.

In the end, that’s the crux of it. Clark Kent is no better than Lois Lane.

He loves Chloe Sullivan. That hasn’t even been a question in his mind since he found out she knew his secret. He’s pretty sure she knows their relationship is more than friendship - more than romance on some levels - but he’s not sure he’ll ever be able to tell her all of what he feels.

As scared as he is of losing her, the idea of committing his whole heart to her is overwhelming. She wouldn’t think twice about sacrificing herself to do the right thing, and where would that leave him?

He’s not sure he can share her with the world if he admits everything she means to him. He can barely manage it as friends. Losing her would break him, and he doesn’t want to know where that would leave the rest of the planet.

He rolls over, and his secrets chase him into dreams.

---
One week later…
---

Chloe Sullivan died today.

He’s spent most of the last day in denial, assuring himself that she’s come back before. But it’s been almost 18 hours, and it’s finally starting to sink in.

Clark has never been much of a praying man. After all, finding out your entire planet blew up makes it a little hard to believe in benevolent deities.

Still, he’s been praying for the last 12 hours straight. It started out as a long-winded request, detailing all the reasons that Chloe deserved to live. As the hours passed, it’s been pared down to a mantra.

Elbows planted on his knees, lips pressed to folded hands, he rocks to the rhythm of his plea.

“Please come back, please come back, please come back…”

He wasn’t wrong. He’s completely lost it twice already, and he can feel another panic attack building.

He’s a mess without Chloe.

The shaking sets in again, and the cacophony of the world takes over again. He hears everything but what he needs most…her heartbeat.

He shakes and weeps and tries to ride out the wave of terror. Only the fear of freaking her out when she wakes has kept him from crawling into bed with her and telling her every secret of his heart, until now.

He can’t imagine wanting to save a world without her in it. The secrets he kept so carefully seem stupid now that she’s gone - never knowing what she meant to him.

It’s not getting any better. Sliding under the covers, he curls around her body protectively and finally allows himself to really look. To understand.

Chloe is dead.

There will be no more secret grins, no more comfortable silences, no more intuitive leaps beyond that of mortal men. No more Chloe and Clark. Just…Clark.

He’ll have to face Lois, face Lana, face Gabe…God, his mother.

He’ll have to say goodbye. He wonders how many people will come to her funeral. It seems like Chloe knows everyone. She has a connection in every law enforcement agency he’s heard of, not to mention labs, morgues, hospitals.

How will he tell them? How can he face goodbye?

Oh God. What if they ask him to speak at her funeral? There aren’t enough words on Earth to sum up what she is…what she was. There’s so much that needs to be said, and anyone but her would miss all the important context.

Stroking her hair, he tries his voice again.

“God, Chlo. You’re meant for so much more than this. You sacrificed so much…too much, for me. I wasn’t worth it.” Tears slide silently, soaking a pillow that smells like her shampoo. He wants her back so badly that he can practically hear the cadence of her heart. He wonders if this is what it feels like to lose your mind.

“You are by far the most amazing, selfless person I will ever meet. I was always too afraid of losing you to tell you, but now…” His throat closes around the pain, and his voice cracks.

“…now, I understand. I love you Chloe Sullivan. I think I always will.”

Tears blind him for a moment, and when he opens his eyes, she’s staring back at him, startled.

He practically bursts across the room.

She is silent, her eyes wary.

For his part, Clark is just gaping like a fish. She was dead. Her heart was silent. For 18 hours.

She’s struggling to sit up and he’s an ass. He rushes to her side and tries to help. He doesn’t miss the flinch at his touch.

Unsure what’s happening here, he needs to help. “Can I get you anything?”

She nods, and speaks carefully. Her voice is low and rough. “Water?”

He rushes to the sink faster than the eye could track, if she were looking. He’s filling the glass, but isn’t taking his eyes off her. He’s terrified this is a delusion.

“Here you go.”

“Thanks.” She nods, as if still distracted. “Lois didn’t, uh, see me…you know…dead, did she?”

“No.” He wants to be surprised that her first concern is being caught dead. “She headed straight back to the planet to write a story about what happened in Detroit.”

She chuckles. “Yeah, Lex’ll kill that story in a heartbeat.” The bitterness in her voice tells, and he wonders if she’s having the same trouble he is maintaining the filters they’ve always allowed each other.

His are barely hanging on by a thread.

“Speaking of heartbeats, you didn’t have one for over 18 hours.”

“Look, I was hoping we could skip the lecture and go straight to the welcome back dinner. I’m starving!” She tries to maneuver around him, but he’s not letting this go. He can’t.

“That’s 15 hours longer than the last time, Chloe. I’ve been sitting here literally trying to think about what to say at your funeral.” She gives him an indecipherable look, and he wonders just how much she heard.

“Well let’s both be glad than I’m alive. ‘Cause I know how much you hate giving speeches.”

Why does it feel like she just let him off the hook…again?

“Chloe, I appreciate what you did for me. It goes…beyond friendship. But you can never do it again.” Please, no. Never again, Chlo.

“Clark, I have the power to save peoples lives. Now obviously, I am the last person who thought she would drag Lex back from the clutches of death, but it was my decision to make.”

He wants to scream. He wants to rail. But this is Chloe and that never works.

“Of course it was.”

“But you know you’re not wrong.” Thank God. “I mean as great as this power is, it does come with a lot of consequences. And I think that one of the responsibilities for both of us is…staying alive. Maybe I am pushing my luck with this whole death thing…I mean it is death, after all.”

“Does that mean you’re never going to use your abilities again?” Pleasepleasepleaseplease…

“It means I’m…more confused now than ever. Out of the entire catalogue of meteor abilities, why was I the one chosen to be in charge of such an amazing gift?”

Because you’re amazing. Because you do everything with your whole heart. Because you’re the only person on Earth who would use a gift like that so unselfishly that you would bring Lex Luthor back from the dead after everything he’s done to you.

He can’t voice those reasons - not so soon after getting her back - so he just stares, hoping she misses the truth in his eyes.

---
This is gonna take a long time,
And I wonder what’s mine.
Can’t take no more.

Wonder if you’ll understand
It’s just the touch of your hand
Behind a closed door.

All I needed was the love you gave;
All I needed for another day.
And all I ever knew;
Only you.
---

End