Overdue

Title: Overdue
Rating: PG
Fandom: Smallville
Pairing: Chimmy, Clois, Chlark
Spoilers/Timeline: Post-Series
Disclaimer: I own very little, certainly not these characters. Please don’t sue!
Author’s Notes: Scarily fluffy, by my scale. The Chimmy/Clois sucked me in after the crap of Sleeper. The way TPTB are painting the characters, it’s entirely possible Clark will need a million years to grow into Chloe, because he’s that dense, and Chloe shouldn’t wait forever. Lyrics are from Salt Point by Buddy.

--
Anyone could guess
that you'll be holding your breath
until you're blue.You won't let them look,
read you like a book
so long overdue.
--

She watched the pain in Curtis Knox’s eyes, her own wide with horror. Something about his assertion that she could grant his Sophia immortality shook her to the core.

Clark caught her gaze, and she had little doubt that the fear in his eyes was mirrored in her own. He might not have understood the synchronicity, but they were both watching their own future.

--
I won't ask for much,
I won't ask for anything.
I won't ask for much
as long as you come back
for me.
--

She’s still holding his hand when he wakes.

“Hey, Bright Eyes.” Blue eyes sparkle with utter joy. “You came back.”

Her chin trembles, and she can’t stop the tears that well and break, even as she smiles back at him. “I never left, Jimmy. I couldn’t.”

He drifts a moment before replying. “Yeah…yeah, you never could stay away long. Guess it’s my stunning good looks.” He grins ruefully, and it breaks her. She can’t imagine a world without that smile.

“No? Must be my winning personality, then.” She laughs through tears. “Not that either? Well, at least I finally know the truth.”

He’s gasping a little, and she knows well enough not to mention the tears running freely down his weathered cheeks.

“You only want me for my body.”

He laughs so hard at his own joke that he’s doubled over coughing for a good five minutes. She does her best to support his fragile frame, thinned by a valiant effort against the same stubborn monstrosity that took Lois a decade ago.

Time has become her worst enemy. Its wear is beyond even her considerable gifts, and yet it carelessly denies her the mercy it has granted everyone she loves.

The only other person exempt from time’s clutch hovers in the hallway. She threatened him with Kryptonite if he interrupted them. After all the years they spent helping him, they deserve their time.

Chloe and Jimmy, saving the world one story at a time. Even Superman couldn’t pull them apart. Lord knows he tried often enough in the ten years since Lois passed on.

She’s not sure whether he was trying to assuage his own guilt, or if he honestly had a change of heart, but it doesn’t matter. Her heart’s belonged to Jimmy far longer than it was Clark’s. She knows where she belongs.

--
It's only fear
that keeps you away from here,
keeps you from me.
You can't see the spark,
cause you're afraid of the dark
and I'm afraid of the day you leave.
--

After, she wants to hate Clark all the time. She hates him for being alive when Jimmy’s not. Hates him for living forever. She never wanted to be the Tink to his Peter.

Maybe she hates him most for being so good that she could never let go completely. For all the years she couldn’t love Jimmy with her whole heart, for looking at her grandchildren and imagining them with darker hair and fuller lips.

She doesn’t want to be petty, but Jimmy was her mooring, and she feels like she might fly off into orbit without him.

Clark moves them to Atlanta.

He could move them to Zimbabwe for all the good it will do. They’ll just have to start over again in another 10 years.

Knowing how every single person she meets will one day fade away wears at her soul. As a girl, she had an academic understanding of time, but watching it sweep by without her has given her an entirely new respect for the horror and synchronicity wrought with every tick of the clock.

--
I won't ask for much,
I won't ask for anything.
I won't ask for much
as long as you come back
for me.
--

She and Clark have given up the pretense of brother and sister by the second time they cycle through New York. Even though they never risked a romantic relationship, years of friendship without borders have left an easy partnership that’s more easily explained by marriage.

He even tries to talk her into a ceremony, but she brushes off the idea, saying her hacks are untraceable and ironclad. They don’t need an actual ceremony to pull it off, and it feels too much like betrayal to even consider it.

--
Maybe we took way too long
waiting for someone to come
look for us.
Maybe I took way too long
waiting for you to just come
back for me.
--

He sulks for almost a year afterward. It’s not until their next pilgrimage to Metropolis that she understands why.

They come here every year. She suspects he visits more often, but doesn’t want to rub in the freedom his speed and flight allow.

It’s been 15 years since she’s seen Clark weep over Lois’ tomb. His granddaughter now rests three plots down from her own. If they’re not careful, their families will spill into each others’ soon.

This time, when she wanders back from her visit with Jimmy, he’s slouched on the bench at the foot of Lois’ grave, head in his hands. It seems to be one of those rare moments when she’s snuck up on him, because he keeps talking.

His voice is gravel, and his hands shake.

“She just…she refuses to see. It’s like we’re together, but farther than we’ve ever been. I don’t know how much longer I can stand to be so close to her and have her blind to the real me. I know it’s what I deserve - I get that - but I’m not as good as her. It’s been almost a century, and it still feels like she blames me.

“I know you’re somewhere laughing your butt off at all of this, now that you know…everything.” He sighs, scrubbing his face before clasping his hands and addressing the tombstone directly.

“I am so, so sorry, Lois. I’m sorry I could never give you that last inch. I’m sorry I still wonder what Jonathan might have looked like if he was hers. What we might have been if I hadn’t let my fear rule me as a kid.

“I really did love you, in my own way. It took me forever to understand, but Chloe had me from that first day in the barn, so that last inch – the first inch, really – it wasn’t mine to give.”

--
Every day that passed,
I thought you'd never ask
and you never did.
I'm happy for your ring,
sorry for everything
I never said.
--

She brings a hand to her mouth, unable to draw a breath through the horror and replaying a thousand conversations in a new light.

Shit. She thought he was being overly dramatic with the way he brought up the ceremony, but it seems she’s officially the only girl to turn down a proposal from Superman.

That understanding sparks the startled gasp she’d suppressed, and his head spins in her direction faster than her eye can track. She has no words, so she just stumbles forward and traces his cheek with shaky fingers, finally recognizing the anguish she’s ignored for so long.

“God, Clark. Why?”

“Because I’m an idiot. I never deserved you, Chlo.” He leans into her hand, but looks down, ashamed.

“Did you ever think of what that might have done to me?”

“What?” He looks up, confused.

“Do you know why I was so angry with you when Jimmy died?”

“Because I didn’t?”

“Yes…” She feels him shrink in upon himself. “…and no. I was furious that I was never able to give him what he really deserved. I loved him, he loved me, and he gave me a beautiful life. That should have been enough. I shouldn’t have always wanted something else.”

“You…what?”

“You were always unavailable, in one way or another. I knew that from the day that I met you. I should have been able to let go and live my life. But you were always there, always fighting for what was right, and I never felt more alive than when I got to fight by your side.

“Jimmy knew that, and he told me early on that if that’s where he needed to be to love me, then that was where he would stay.”

“I hated that.”

“What?”

“He took my place as your partner, and all I could do was watch. Lois and I tried. We worked in our own way, but we were never really equals. Not before she knew, and certainly not after.”

She knows. It hurt for a long time to watch them both try so hard. Somewhere along the way she got busy with her own kids and her career and the League and a million other things, and she stopped watching.

Now, she can’t be sure whether she stopped watching because she was too busy, or whether she busied herself so she didn’t have to witness the moment they figured it out.

--
I won't ask for much,
I won't ask for anything
at all.
I won't ask for much,
as long as you come back
for me.
--

He knows all her weaknesses, save one, apparently. A triple mocha and chocolate scone can make her to forgive a late save in a heartbeat, his puppy dog eyes can get her to believe the most far-fetched observation imaginable, and a well-timed hug can turn a scream-fest into sobs.

“No one could ever take your place, Clark.” She whispers. “Never.“

He sags, pressing his tear-stained face into her shirt. “Oh Chlo. I’m so sorry.”

She sighs. “What for this time?”

“For not realizing, and not telling you when I did. We wasted so much time. We hurt them.”

“Time, we have. And they love us enough to forgive us.” She runs a hand through his hair and hugs him tight, resting her chin on his head in a familiar gesture. “I don’t know about you, but I don’t regret a day of the life that’s led me here. Well, I could have done without the karaoke incident in Barstow, and maybe the undercover prostitution sting, but really-“

“Chloe?”

“Yeah?” She looks down, still playing with his hair distractedly.

“Shut up.” His mouth covers hers and she thinks maybe she was over-qualifying.

They’re long overdue, and the years between have worn on both of them, but Chloe Sullivan doesn’t regret a second.

---

End