How We Got Here (Part One)

AN: Dealing with Beast and Injustice, Doomsday (nods to Instinct, Abyss, Infamous)

December 21st, 2011

It was still dark when he opened his eyes, but that morning kind of dark when the sun isn't quite up, but the birds are chirping loudly, as if too excited for its coming to contain themselves. He wasn't excited. He couldn't think of a morning he dreaded more. He wished they'd shut up.

His ears twitched at another sound, this one behind him.

She was crying. It was soft, muffled heavily in the pillow as if she didn't want him to hear. So he decided not to hear it. Chloe never cried for long, if his memory wasn't failing him. She'd quiet down in a minute, maybe get up and start picking her way around the broken glass all around them and start sneaking out. He wondered if he should start cleaning it up. He decided not to. Most of it, damned near all of it, was her doing, anyway. The minutes ticked by, one after the other and he still heard soft sobs. He felt frozen, not sure what to do. Should he turn over? Touch her? Something told him that would do no good, either.

She was his first kiss. His best friend. How did they end up like this?

He shouldn't have touched her in the first place. Maybe that was why she was crying. Maybe she wished she hadn't touched him. Didn't seem to stop her last night. She'd touched, licked, bit, smacked, pulled, also broken nearly every breakable thing in his house. Come to think of it, she had no business crying. This was all her fault.

April 20th, 2009

Clark stared at the remains of what had once been a pink file cabinet as the shattered bits of his cell phone fell from is hand. She's gone, man. Oliver had long since left the Isis building, but he left his words behind. She doesn't want to be found. If there's anyone who can make themselves invisible, it's Chloe.

Clark, I do know what I'm doing. And I knew that if I told you any sooner that you would have found a way to stop me, so... look, everything I've ever done, right or wrong, I did for you.
.
How was this for him? If she knew him at all, she should know this was the last thing he wanted. She talked about what she did for him, but what about what he'd done for her? The countless saves, even going so far as keeping her memories of his secret away just to make her happy. And maybe it didn't stick and maybe she didn't know. But did it matter less? The things he'd done to keep her in his life, that she would throw it all away and tell him it was for him...

No. This wasn't for him, not really, because the bottom line was that she was with Davis.

Oliver's words taunted him again. She was hiding that psycho killer in the basement... You don't always choose who you fall for... she just can't resist tall, dark, and Doomsday.

He didn't want to believe him. Whatever his feelings are for her, Chloe would never care about him, he'd insisted.

He moved to the picture on the side table, the one he'd been staring at when she called, and picked it up, as if looking for reassurance, as if it could back him up. He stared at Chloe, at himself, at the two of them smiling like loons senior year.

The Chloe you're talking about does not exist, he'd said. She'd never choose Davis over her friends.

And she wouldn't. Not this girl. But maybe the Chloe he remembered didn't exist. He still saw that smiling girl in the torch office, babbling on a coffee high, bumping his shoulder and teasing him as they walked the halls, getting over-excited as she chased a story. But so many pieces of that girl had been chipped away. She wasn't chasing stories, she was hiding them, she never babbled anymore, hardly even smiled. Even without Davis... Who was she now?

The smiling girl dissolved into a sneering woman. Trust you? Clark, the only reason why you won't kill him is because you don't want blood on your hands. They were the words of a stranger, not a friend. And they hurt.

I can't believe you were willing to force him into a life of hell for all of eternity. That hurt, too. Not just the words, but the vehemence behind them, as if she chose Davis, truly chose him and his happiness over... He wouldn't say him. He and Chloe didn't enter into it. There was no them and wouldn't be and she'd made that clear even before she exchanged rings with Jimmy, when he read her letter.

Clark, that was a long time ago. Don't worry. I don't feel that way now. I just wanted you to read it so that I could finally close that chapter of my life and put it behind me.

And he did, too. Not that it was in front of him before then. He'd thought Chloe was long over her high school crush. But that letter seemed like more than a crush, more than he'd thought she'd felt and he wondered, if he'd known, really known... It was immaterial. Knowing it then or knowing it now. She wanted to be with Jimmy. She wanted a normal life with a nice, normal guy and he wanted her to have what she wanted.

He wanted it so much, he tried to give it to her in every way. And it didn't work. When the Legion extracted Brainiac, her memories were restored, all of them. Maybe they wouldn't be here now if that loss had stayed with her. Or maybe Davis would have drawn her in even more, if she didn't know what he was. It was useless to think about that, too. What happened happened.

And what had happened tonight? She'd walked away with Davis. Away from him. And he knew he had no right to feel it on this level, but he did. She chose Davis and it pissed him off. And even if she was right, even if her presence calmed the beast inside him, even if the world was now safe from Doomsday, it still pissed him off.

It was one thing to choose Jimmy. Jimmy was a nice, easy guy. Clark actually liked Jimmy. He worked with Jimmy. Being with Jimmy meant she was still around, still there for him, still in his life. But now...

His hands squeezed at the picture frame. The wood turned to dust in his hands as the remains of the frame hit the floor. He saw her smiling face again, warped and scraped under the broken glass...

December 21st, 2011

He flicked at a shard of broken glass stuck to his arm. He heard its tiny shatter against the opposite wall as it was quiet now -- inside at least. Outside, the damned birds were starting up in earnest. But she'd long since stopped crying. Maybe she was sleeping.

He sat up, figuring it was safe to leave now. Broken glass popped under his feet as he stood. He only got to his dresser, nearly torn in half, when he heard her.

"Sneaking off so soon?"

He stilled, then pulled at a drawer. It opened with a scrape and hung drunkenly, half-out. "I'm not sneaking," he said levelly. "I'm getting dressed. In my room. In my house. You know, the one you trashed."

"Really? I didn't think I had the strength to destroy a door and a railing and a dresser."

"You made me do that." He shook some splinters and broken glass off his briefs. He'd long since stopped wearing boxers. They created lines.

She chuckled, but he head the venom in it. "I make you do a lot of things, apparently. That's the way it is, right? You're just a leaf in the wind of my evil plans."

"I think we're done fighting."

"Why? Because you f*cked me? Am I supposed to dissolve into a feminine puddle and tell you how right you are now? You had no right..."

"I mean that I'm not in the mood." He moved to his closet, pulling it open with such force the door slapped into the wall and stayed. Didn't matter. The place was trashed anyway. And that was, however much of it he'd done physically, still her fault. "And I f*cked you?" He pulled out the makeshift panel in his closet, grabbing for the slippery fabric that was his second skin these days. "I think it was the other way around."

"Is that so? You were the one shoving your hard-on into me."

He stilled, but didn't turn to her. "Didn't mean I was going to do anything with it. You started this." She really did with her taunting words and hands that grasped and hips that ground into him. No. He wouldn't turn. Just the thought of it was stirring his cock and he didn't want her to see, didn't want to give her that power over him. But it had been so long... He quickly unzipped his suit and stepped in, trying to will himself under control.

"You might as well hand me some clothes since you ripped everything I was wearing."

He strode to the dresser, pulling his suit over his arms and pulled at a few more decimated drawers, tossing sweatpants and a T-shirt in her direction. "Here."

"What? No Gee, Chloe, I'm sorry for ripping the only clothes you had. Here I thought you had a reputation for being polite."

"No one told you to show up here like this," he snapped, finally turning to her. Her eyes were red-rimmed, no hint of mascara now. It was in streaks down her cheeks.

"After what you did?" She stood, clutching the sheet, wincing slightly. He knew there was broken glass, but she was the one who put it there, so he wasn't about to stop and nurse her wounds. "I had no choice. You ruined my life."

"It wasn't your life."

"It could have been. You had no... right..." Her voice broke and he clenched his jaw, turning away again. He'd done the right thing, damn it, and he had every right, as in legally.

"I'm going." He reached his hand to the side to zip.

"I won't be here when you get back," she said, her voice hardening

He moved to the door, his hand reaching out before he realized he didn't have to open it. It was laying in the hallway. "Good," he said, not looking back again.

May 1st, 2009

In these last few days, he'd forgiven all with Chloe. He'd held her as she shook, served her tea in front of the fire and thought of all their chats, their little moments, thinking it didn't mean nothing anymore. She was back. She was safe. The relief was immediately offset by his disgust at what Davis must have done to shake her up this much.

He never left me alone. There was this motel just outside Metropolis that we found, and... he wouldn't let me leave. He... I was so scared. We just hid during the day until dark, and then...

At the time, it was the and then that hurt the most. Yet was it wrong to feel validated by her obvious fear and disgust? To know that what she did really was for him and not for Davis? That she didn't have those feelings for him. That she was, in a way, still his?

As far as Davis, he wanted to kill him, and not just because Chloe said he had to, not just for the safety of the world, but for what he'd done to her. She didn't say, but Chloe was strong, too strong to be this shaken up by anything less than... violation. It was the nicest word he had for it.

Of course all that was erased now. The person he held and comforted wasn't Chloe at all, but a stranger working for Tess Mercer. He felt sorry for her death, felt sorry that he was the last person she saw when she might have liked her family with her, her real friends...

But all he could think about was Chloe now. Still out there, still with Davis. And maybe they were sharing a motel room right now. And maybe he wasn't leaving her alone.

And maybe she didn't mind at all

December 21st, 2011

Clark sped to the forest. He never liked to take off right from the house. He waited until he was past the land that had once belonged to his family, now sold off to the highest bidder just to keep him in a crumbling, and now badly damaged, house so Superman could have a place to sleep. Not Clark Kent. Not really. Clark Kent might have declared himself dead a few years back, but he really ceased to exist when Chloe Sullivan died... or claimed to.

He gave a bitter laugh as he started off with a jump. Maybe he was getting melodramatic. Maybe he'd been on his own too long. Apart from the occasional thanks of the people he saves, echoing in his ears as he flew off, he didn't spend much time speaking to anyone. It could make a person think they really didn't exist. No. Clark Kent never died, obviously. Nor did he cease to exist. Maybe he hadn't grown as much as he thought from that silly man-boy he'd been, declaring himself dead as if that made it so...

May 14th, 2009

He was dead.

Jimmy Olsen was dead. Rather, Henry James Olsen was dead, from what he heard from the minister say. And he shouldn't have been. This wasn't the way it was supposed to happen. In fact, when Clark had sped into the beast, propelling him with him to the plant, Clark was pretty sure he would be the one to die as Rokk had said. But he hadn't.

Clark walked along the water, beyond the trees, keeping an eye on the graveside service, hoping no one saw him. He'd put on his best suit, but that didn't mean he wanted to be seen. He just wanted to be there. He felt he owed it to Jimmy... or Henry... no Jimmy. Jimmy was how Clark had known him and how he'd wanted to be known. He'd grown to like Jimmy. He hadn't been madly in love with the idea of Chloe and Jimmy, but that was just... Well, they'd seemed a wrong fit. That was all. Chloe seemed so much older than Jimmy in so many ways. He supposed, growing up in Smallville and being a part of his life, she'd grown up faster than most. Jimmy seemed almost childlike compared to her... and to him.

But he'd liked Jimmy. Who couldn't? Jimmy was easy to like. His near-childlike enthusiasm was a part of that. So pleasant, so normal. He could see why Chloe wanted someone like him. Someone that wasn't a part of this mess. He'd wanted that, too, with Lana. Of course, that hadn't worked out. Not at all. He didn't know where she was or what she was doing now. He was fairly sure he could never see her again. He was amazed he could go on so easily, with how he'd felt at the time.

He supposed, with Lana, it was easier to put her out of his mind when she wasn't near. He doubted it would be so easy for Chloe to put Jimmy out of her mind. With Lana, at least he knew she was alive, okay-- more than okay in the Prometheous suit. He could even give her a call if he wanted to be sure. But Jimmy was gone. Just gone. Chloe's taste of a normal life was really gone.

Of course, so was his. Lana, God knows where in the world with superpowers was pretty far from normal. In fact, Chloe could have been closer to normal than he ever had been. Even when Jimmy found out his secret, and Chloe's keeping of it, it had been the best normal reaction he could have hoped for. He remembered Jimmy's wide smile as they stood by the roadside. No accusations, no recriminations, just that childlike joy. He'd thought of their reunion when he'd sent him off to hide her and Davis, thought it would be just as joyful, none of the tension and bitterness there had been between him and Lana, even after she knew. If Jimmy had lived, Chloe could have been luckier than he was. As nice as it seemed at the time, being the other half of what Oliver called Metropolis' power couple, he'd rather Lana had been happy being who she was, not fashioning herself into something else, something that forced them apart, in the end. Chloe had chosen better. She'd chose someone easier, the right kind of normal, the one that didn't hunger for more.

He might have had that, too, with Lois. He knew she wanted him. She was a bit like Jimmy, sort of outside of and unburdened by this secret world. He knew how she'd react if she found out, before he used the ring to fix it all. She reacted sort of like Jimmy did, smiling and uncomplicated. Maybe she could have been his right kind of normal. That person who made it easy to be with them.

It was moot now. She was gone. Decimated buildings and crumbling bullpens and there was no trace of her. He supposed he just had to get used to people being gone. Centuries from now, he might be here and no one else he knew now would exist. So what was the point in being Clark Kent?

His eyes lit on Chloe as the crowd around the grave disbanded. Dinah was leading her away and she stopped, looking around. He knew what for. She was looking for him, hoping for him, but thinking he was gone. He wanted her to keep thinking that. Because he really did want to be gone. It was supposed to be him.

He moved around the city, wishing he really was gone. He hadn't spoken to her yet and he didn't want to, but he knew what happened. His plan failed. She'd carried it out, knowing what he wanted to do without him even telling her, as usual. Exactly what you wanted, Clark. I split him.. And it didn't work. At that point, all he wanted was to make it right. Destroy the beast, let Jimmy keep her safe and help save Davis. Let her see the two of them and, please God, chooe Jimmy, the one that kept her normal and safe and as for him... it didn't matter anymore. He just wanted to know the beast was gone. Wanted to be there to see it.

And he had. He'd seen the earth and flames swallow it and he'd been almost satisfied.

He hadn't counted on surviving. And he hadn't counted on being wrong. One eventuality would have been fine without the other.

The beast wasn't the only thing burying bodies in the cornfield. Davis had a part in that, a large part, considering what he'd done to Jimmy. He found himself stepping out of the stairwell into Jimmy's "wedding present." He wanted to look around. He hadn't been here since he checked the place out with Jimmy. Jimmy wasn't going to buy it. "Too much of a fixer-upper," he thought. But Clark talked him into it. Chloe loved stained glass and high ceilings and the fact that it was near her two favorite coffee shops and, at the price, Jimmy wasn't going to do better in this city. He'd seen the potential, then. But all he could see right now was blood. A puddle of dried blood. He wasn't sure if it was Davis' or Jimmy's. It didn't matter. It might as well jump off the floor and onto his hands.

"Clark!" He winced as he turned. He didn't think she'd be here, didn't think she'd want to be after what had happened here. "You're alive," she said breathlessly from the top of the stairs before rushing down them. He looked down again, wondering if he should rush out now, but she took the choice away, rushing at him, clinging to him.

He let his arms close on her, just one last time.

"How did you survive the geothermal explosion?" she whispered, still rocking in his arms.

He pulled away. That was enough. He couldn't pretend this was just another day, just another survival anymore. "Just before Dinah pressed the button..." That must have been when he launched himself at the beast. They'd almost... flown together, right at the plant. He'd watched the earth swallow it, waiting to be swallowed as well, when the blast.... "I don't know. I got out... before the blast." He'd felt his feet leave the ground. At the time, he thought it was with the blast, but something else propelled him, something not outside of him, but in. It felt like running away, but higher. "But not fast enough to save anyone else." And he hated it, resented that it happened. That his body flew into the air and away just to save his own hide. But did it fly? Really fly? He still wasn't sure. He left it for now. "Chloe... I've searched everywhere. There's no sign of Lois."

She broke into a breathy sob. He knew she would. It hurt him, Lois being so close to his idea of normal, of easy. But for Chloe... Lois was family. "I saw someone tacking her photo on a missing-persons report. And I keep thinking that maybe, you know, maybe I haven't..."

"Lost everyone," he finished, hardly missing a beat. It was almost second nature by now, finishing her thoughts, as she did his. They'd been doing it for years now, but it suddenly felt hollow. He moved away. He could hardly look at her now. All he saw was her walking away with Davis, He suddenly wondered why he could walk her down the aisle, give her to Jimmy, yet the thought of her with Davis, even when he thought there was hope for him, made his gut clench and twist.

"You were there today, Clark, weren't you?" He heard her say behind him, cutting off his thoughts. "I really needed you." Her voice caught as she said it and it almost felt like she meant it. "Why didn't you come to me?"

Why would he come to her? She was the one who left him. "I'm the reason jimmy's dead," he said, turning back to her, trying to focus on the facts. Feelings just got in the way. "Oliver was right. I put humanity on a pedestal. It wasn't a Kryptonian beast that killed Jimmy. It was a human."

Chloe moved to the spot his eyes were still drawn to. "I was standing right here, Clark. I know full well who killed jimmy."

He supposed she did. He hadn't just put humanity on a pedestal. he put her up there. She was, he always thought, the best humanity had to offer, the best friend, helper, ally he could ask for. But she was wrong and he was wrong and, together, they f*cked it all up. Some team. He stared at the blood again. He wondered if he'd see it, even if it had been washed countless times. It didn't matter. He wouldn't see this place again. He turned away. "This place, Chloe... just get rid of it. Just walk away and don't look back." It's what he was going to do. She should, too. Or maybe he just wanted her to. If he was going to continue protecting this city, it would be easier to focus if she wasn't there. If he wasn't tempted to look in on her.

"You don't get it, Clark." He could feel her moving closer. "Jimmy is here. He's watching over me." He looked down as she moved past. "He knew me so well, he knew this place would be perfect." He turned back to her, knowing that Jimmy hadn't. That he had. "Jimmy wanted to know that no matter where I was in this city, I could look up here and see this beacon... the watchtower." He'd let her think it was Jimmy. Let Chloe have this memory of Jimmy. It was all she had left of him now. "And look -- Dinah, Oliver, and Bart all disappeared. Maybe it's up to us to bring them back home."

But us? That she couldn't have. "Home? I don't have a home."

"I don't like the way that sounds."

He didn't think she would, but he had to say it now. He had to leave... and now. "I've always tried to forget I was an alien. Or a creature. I've always tried to pretend I was human." He even felt that way with her, teasing him about his powers like they were something mundane, working by his side as if she was meant to, as if working with humans was something he was sent to do. But maybe he was never meant to get close. "I was raised to believe it was my Kryptonian part that was dangerous, Chloe, but I was wrong. It's my human side. It... it's the side that gets attached, the side that makes decisions based on emotions." Maybe he was meant to land in The Arctic alone, not Smallville. Maybe he was supposed to watch over the world, but never be a part of it. "That's my enemy. And Davis proved that to me."

"So, because of some psychopath, you're gonna cut the rest of us out of your life?" He wondered she could speak so balefully. Didn't she share Davis' room all those weeks? He wasn't naive enough to think it was all platonic. "Clark... human emotion is what made you the hero that you are today."

Not a hero. A fool who always made the wrong decision. His emotions had stopped him from doing what he was meant to be - apart. "They're what's stopping me from being the hero I could be. It's what the world needs now."

"What are you saying?" Her voice broke again and he almost responded to it, almost went to her, almost took it back. But he still saw her, walking away with Davis. He remembered a night, so long ago now, sitting by a fire with her. Professor Fine said that human beings were insignificant and couldn't be depended on. He obviously didn't know you very well. But neither did Clark. She'd left. She'd left him and for a man she called a psychopath now. Of course, he was no better. He'd thought that same "psychopath" could be saved. They'd both f*cked this up royally and he was determined not to let it happen again.

"Clark Kent is dead," he said flatly. Dead as he should have been that night. But it wasn't just about that. It was her. She made him feel. She made him weak. She made it too easy to feel human, even with all he could do. That stopped now. "Goodbye, Chloe."

December 21st, 2011

No. Clark Kent wasn't dead.

He just wasn't around much.

He used to be. He used to get his supplies in town. Months ago, he started getting them in Shelbyville. People didn't know Clark Kent there... except a few from Smallville High's away games. He took to wearing bulky sweaters and horn-rimmed glasses so people wouldn't associate his build with a jock's, so those few who might know him wouldn't associate him with Clark Kent. He just didn't want to be known.

And Smallville knew him too well, with nosy people hammering him with questions he didn't want to answer. Why did he stop working at The Daily Planet? Did he want to give the Smallville Ledger a try? Why didn't he get out of that musty, old house once in a while? Did they have to call his mother?

A few did. Leaving him frustrated, pacing the length of the kitchen, snapping back and forth until the phone cord became uncurled as he explained to his mother that he was fine. That he was eating. That he was getting out and Nina at the market didn't know anything. Hadn't his mother read what Superman did?

"Of course, Sweetie, and I'm very proud. I think it's wonderful, what you're doing. But... that can't be all there is."

But why not? He was focusing on what needed to be done. It was more important that the people of Metropolis and its surrounding areas slept soundly than if Clark Kent had a bowling night or a book club membership or a job or a girlfriend.

He didn't even need a job. The house and land had been paid off years ago by Lex in a time when they had been friends. The sale of the surrounding land was enough to keep the lights and water on and food in the pantry... for now, at least. When that ran out, he'd figure out what to do.

And he definitely didn't need a girlfriend. Or rather, his girlfriend had decided she didn't need him. That contributed to the loss of his job over a year ago now. Lois giving him the stinkeye every time he came into view made the Daily Planet a less than hospitable workplace. It was for the best, really, but she had been fun to be with and so close to normal that he'd thought of explaining the whole thing, trying to be friends at least, telling her it wasn't his doing, that it was all Chloe.

But that would have been speaking ill of the "dead." Not that Chloe really was dead. He'd been sure of it even then.

He'd quit. Both his job and trying to smooth things over with Lois, even to the point of being friends. A few months later, Superman appeared on the scene. Lois didn't give Superman the stinkeye. Far from it and it annoyed him, her constantly putting herself at risk just to try to get a quote and make eyes at him. It was a waste of his time and hers. He had other people to save, ones that were in danger through no fault of their own. He didn't have time for her.

Patrol, save, eat, sleep. That was all he had time for. But you had time to look, didn't you? a voice that sounded a lot like Chloe's sneered inside him as he flew over the city. Time to fly to London, hunt her down and ruin her wedding.

He refused to feel guilty. That wedding deserved to be ruined. What right did the supposedly late Chloe Sullivan have to marry another man?

She was his damned wife, after all.


PART TWO