How We Got Here (Part Three)

Dealing with Escape, mentions of Persuasion, Traveler, Zod.

PART THREE

December 21st, 2011

It was Arctic Winter, dark both day and night. The dark and the clouds blocked his vision and he looked through, relieved when he finally saw his fortress. There weren't many places he felt truly comfortable these days, but this was one of them, probably because he didn't have to deal with anyone else. Even at the farm, he felt he could jump out of his skin. Ben Hubbard would take it in his mind to bring him "a casserole from the missus" sometimes and he'd have to rush around, making sure his glasses were on and his clothes were bulky and pasting on a smile he didn't feel like giving.

He wished people could see he just wanted to be left alone.

Well, he was now. Apart from the disembodied voice of his father, an antiquated program that still tried to stupidly tell him what to do, no one bothered him here.

He landed on the crystalline floor just outside and waited for his body to unclench. It usually did. Sometimes he spent days here, just being. Sometimes he really needed to get away.

April 2nd, 2010

Some getaway this turned out to be. He thought he was getting it right, having two lives until one side decided to bleed into the other.

Now here he was, not even able to have one normal weekend away. Now he was running all over the inn and grounds, searching for Lois. And with Chloe, who was searching for Oliver. "The truck is still there. At least Lois didn't drive home," he said, not looking at her as she fell into step with him.

"Oliver's not in our room." Our room. They were sharing a room, a bed, and, from the look of them, not for the first time. "We're definitely being roasted, not toasted, over a bottle of MacDougal's finest tonight." It felt almost like old times, complete with her silly quips and it wasn't what he wanted. He didn't want old-school investigations with Chloe. He was getting it right now and didn't want to step back. He had two lives. There was the hero's life, with some help from Chloe, but not too much. Not so much that they'd fall into their old ways. Then there was his life at The Daily Planet and with Lois. As she had hers... with Oliver.

He had no right to be mad. In fact, he wasn't. He decided he wasn't. Hadn't he told her to get out more? Look at him, he was having it all. The hero's life and the normal girlfriend. He had no right to begrudge her doing it, too. Except, she wasn't, not really. Oliver was one of them. Oliver had been right there through so many skirmishes, for better or for worse and he wondered how long he'd been looking at Chloe that way. It wasn't Chloe. Unless Chloe was under the influence of something otherwordly, she wasn't what you'd call sexually aggressive. And speaking of that...

"Oh and what possessed you to come into the bathroom like that?" he asked shortly. He was about to spend a weekend with his girlfriend. His normal girlfriend. He didn't need this helper from his hero life and friend from the past bleeding into his present, his normal life.

"I don't remember," she said, sounding frustrated herself. "I just completely blanked out."

"You don't remember seeing..." He gestured to himself.

"No! God! I definitely don't remember seeing that!" He kept walking, pursing his lips. She didn't have to sound so disgusted. There was a time when she would have wanted to... "Wait a minute. Was I... Did you see..," He didn't answer, just kept walking. He saw and it was burned into him. And it pissed him off at the time that she would do this now, drop a red towell to the floor with a come hither smile f*cking now. He'd moved on. She'd moved on. He shook himself. Moved on from what? They'd never been involved that way. "Oh, God," she said, her voice even more disgusted. "This is our last couples vacation together."

"If I don't find Lois, this will be the last vacation I take with anyone," he shot back. He was f*cking done. If every life kept bleeding like this, then he could only have one. And he knew which had to be picked.

"Okay. So not that I haven't seen enough of Clark Kent's private... life tonight..."

"I don't like where this is going." He wasn't about to talk about his private... life with her. She'd made overtures in the last weeks, trying to get in, but he wouldn't let her. They weren't best friends now. He was going to keep his lives separate, if they would just get that memo.

"You took Lois on a romantic getaway to some sort of a bed and breakfast. And while I doubt the whole breakfast part poses a whole lot of problems, correct me if I'm wrong, I seem to recall you having a concern about beds and... non-powered people. And what would happen in the beds with the non-powered people if..."

"Okay. Stop." He was not not going to talk about his... sex life with her.

"Thank you."

"My training with Jor-El has helped me to manage my powers better," he said briskly, figuring he had to say something. "Let's just say that I'm in control. Of everything," he finished shortly. And he was going to try it, try to have the things every man around him did. He had every right to get away and have SEX. That's right, SEX. Chloe wasn't the only one that could have SEX, have a normal life on the side, one that apparently included lots of SEX.

But she didn't... have a normal life on the side, that is. He kept coming back to that. Oliver wasn't on the side. He was in the thick of it. Oliver was as in as it got. And how did he get her into this? Lois thought he seemed unconcerned about the whole thing. But he wasn't. He was just trying to figure it out.

The Oliver part was obvious. Oliver was in this for sex. Chloe never did anything just for... No. That wasn't true. He found himself thinking of Davis. Thinking of her dropping a towel for him in a seedy motel, stepping toward the shower, a gleam in her eye just before Lois stepped in, dressed in something out of a soft-core porn... set in Scotland, at least and...

"But you weren't," he said, unable to drop it. It kept creeping into his mind, every moment of it, "when you decided to throw me a surprise party in the shower." And it was more than he could handle. He came to this weekend thinking of sex, after a life with only a handful of sex in it. Then there's Lois in a nightie, then Chloe naked, then Lois in a tiny kilt and Chloe in a towell and... It was too much. In that bathroom, he started to wonder if he was having one of those dreams, so debauched he needed two girls. After a life that held the sex memory of only one girl, it was a sensory overload. When Lois showed up in a crazy get-up, he was almost sure it was a dream. For just a second, he forgot they were cousins and that these weren't the kind of fantasies to indulge and... "Then you passed out only to come to with no memory." And disgusted at the thought of him. Well, he was, too. Because he didn't think of Chloe that way... or he would not. Just Lois. Only Lois. "What was the last thing you do remember?" he asked, trying to get back to business. It was best that way, with him and Chloe, best to just stick to business. Because if he kept seeing her naked...

"Oliver and I were having a talk, thanks to someone's over-developed protective instincts." He wasn't being protective. He was being right. And he wished she wouldn't bring Oliver up when he was trying not to see her naked. Because now he was seeing the both of them and... "and I... decided to go for a walk."

"Where?" he asked, hoping to scrub this all from his mind.

"Over here." He followed her into the woods. Back to business. It was business with Chloe. It was business... business...

December 21st, 2011

He had business here. this wasn't a getaway. he needed to be back at some point, needed to go home to his... wife before her paragon of a fiancee swooped in, he needed to make a decision.

He'd nearly made his decision already. He'd just sign the papers. Let her go. He knew she was alive now. He'd made it known that he knew. He complicated her new, easy life. Maybe that was the only pound of flesh he could get after all this. Pound of flesh. Even the words reminded him of last night. He'd noticed Chloe was curvy, though small, but he'd never given much thought to curves and sex. There was a difference, having something to grab, pull, squeeze as he...

But that was an aberration. It shouldn't have happened. He was only trying to stop her from littering his house with debris. He wasn't supposed to like the way she wriggled against him. He wasn't supposed to...

"F*ck her," he growled, pacing to the flat mass of crystalline he'd once laid her on, tried to save her on. She threw that in his face, too. "F*ck her!" he found himself shouting.

"Human vulgarity," a voice said above and around him. "A low form of expression that masks emotions best expressed directly."

"I came here to be alone," Clark groaned, sinking to the small platform.

"Then I wonder why you come here. I am here."

"You're a f*cking program," he said on a bitter laugh. "Christ!" He buried his face in his hands. "Would you stop acting like there is a you?"

"I hold the memories of your father. I am the closest you can get to the guidance you might have had if he'd lived. Your insults are not productive in the least. They cannot change what I am or make me feel shame in doing all I can to guide your actions."

"You think you know it all," he mumbled into his hands. "Even as a program, you're a failure."

"I cannot be blamed for things done to me, but I am clear of all interference now. If you would accept my counsel..."

"Were you infected when you put me in a block of ice?" He stood, just sick of his damned "father." "Were you infected when you lured me into a cave wall and tried to erase everything the people you, the real you, entrusted me to raised me to be. Don't act like your counsel is so special."

"I have been wrong."

"Again, like there is a you..."

"There is room for error. I contain only the knowledge of your homeland. I do not know all that could or would happen on this earth."

"No sh*t," he muttered.

"I readily admit that I have failed you in the past. But I am learning, correcting."

"Really? How?" He waited. The silence grew. "Thought so. Stupid progr..."

"Perhaps I was wrong to encourage you to say goodbye to her."

He hadn't thought he'd get anything, but this threw him for a loop. Say goodbye... to Lois? "Only because I didn't do it then. I made a mistake. I stayed behind. I was stupid. I thought I could have it all..."

April 2nd, 2010

He was determined now. He would have it all. And tonight. Chloe wouldn't be here. She was, by her own words, "staying over Ollie's." And that was fine. That just meant tonight was the night.

"Well, as incredible as that R&R attempt was," Lois was babbling as they moved into the Talon's apartment. "I think we should skip the old B&B's for a while."

"Lois, for our first weekend away together, it could have been worse." And it wasn't over. He was going to do this.

"I was possessed by a three-hundred-year-old Scottish Banshee and I almost killed you, Clark." He smiled. She did tend to boil things down. It reminded him of Chloe, how she always used to... No.

"We did get to see the world's largest ball of yarn," he said, pointing out something only Lois would do. She wasn't like Chloe. Not at all. "That made the whole trip worthwhile."

"All thanks.to my stellar sense of direction. Let's face it, Clark. Without me, you'd still be lost."

He stared at her as she leaned against the counter. She really wasn't like Chloe, a few familial similarities aside. She was brash and loud with a tendency to compliment herself, but he'd decided months ago now to find her endearing. And she was. She was normal and silly and she hadn't been tainted with the knowledge of him. She was a clean slate, a chance to really have a normal life, really have it all. Maybe he'd been lost. Maybe she really was the thing that would guide him to where he should be. Balanced. Two perfect lives.

"What?" She looked confused. He supposed she should be. She didn't know that she could be the answer to everything. But she would be. And tonight.

He lifted her onto the counter, determined now, kissing her hard, ignoring the smell of Chloe that peppered this place. The smell of plain soap and dark roast coffee and... He tried to concentrate on Lois. Her hands slid to his neck. They smelled like the cherry-almond lotion she kept in her desk. He'd seen her slathering it on her hands on arms, babbling about how the women in her family had old lady hands and her hands were not going to age before their time. It smelled nice. Not like Chloe. In fact, her hands smelled like Ben Gay. He'd seen her rubbing it into her wrist, muttering about carpal tunnel. Ever since she quit investigating stories and started spending the majority of her time in front of a monitor or five, the smell almost always told him he was near her. It was even here now, probably on the doorknobs and the faucet knobs and...

Damn it.

He tore Lois' jacket off, trying to concentrate on her, her smells and the way she felt. Only her. He wanted to sense only her in this place that mingled the two of them, this woman that had a piece of... No. He would do this. Chloe didn't get to be the only one that was having sex. She wouldn't be the only one moaning and... buzzing?

"It's... my cell phone," Lois said as she broke away. "Just... just let it go to voicemail."

"Yeah. Well..." He fished it out of her pocket, glad for the interruption. He needed a second to separate things. "Why don't you answer it, Lois? What if it's important?"

"Okay." She smiled. "A little privacy, please?"

He smiled in a way he hoped could be described as rakish. He didn't want her to think he wasn't interested. "Just pretend I'm not here."

"I can't do that."

"Well, I guess I'll just have to get used to sharing you with the world."

She smiled as she hopped off the counter. He thought she'd like that. "Lois Lane, at your service," she said grinning as she turned.

He sighed and picked up a catalogue from the side table as she moved away. He could do this. He just had to get his mind straight. He had to concentrate on Lois. This had nothing at all to do with Chloe. He thumbed through the catalogue, stopping at a green, leather jacket, circled twice. He groaned as he closed it, seeing Chloe's damned name on the sticker.

He tossed it to the counter as Lois moved into the bedroom area, still on her cell. It was just this place. It was a tight place, there was too much of them intermingled here. Hadn't they all ended up at that damned B&B because he picked up Chloe's brochure? They should...

"Boy, we should call it a night," Lois said, barrelling in from the bedroom, tucking her phone in her pocket. She yawned, loud and fake. "Bet you're dying to get back to that farm with all that fresh air after all the... fresh air," she finished lamely.

The farm. Chloe had hardly been there all year. He had more memories of Lois there these days. That could work. "Well, maybe we both should," He tried for that rakish smile again, "should head to the farm. Pick up that raincheck on Clark Kent's tour of the galaxies and..."

"After that long drive?" She scoffed and started for the door. "I've seen all the starry nights I can this weekend. But definite second rain check. Okay?" She held the door open.

He found himself moving to the door, but stopped. "Lois, maybe I should be clearer. I want..."

"A good night's sleep. So do I after all that excitement. See you at work," she said brightly, closing the door as he jumped back.

He stood there, staring at the closed door, nearly knocking on it, thinking maybe he should just come out and say it. As far as things of a sexual nature, directness had never been his strong suit. But she had to know. Hadn't they just been making out? Then she shoved him out. He thought of Chloe, shoving a bottle of ltion into his chest and running away. When had he become so repellent?

December 21st, 2011

She found him absolutely repugnant these days. But, still, it was a goodbye. "I've done it now... or she has. So that's done. I've said goodbye to everyone and everything that made me weak. That was what you wanted. So get off my back."

"But I may have been mistaken in her. Not all human connections weaken you. I knew the strength in those chosen to raise you. And I knew hers. I have felt her strength many times. I even sense her strength in your anger."

"I'm not angry with her." He really didn't blame Lois. She had every right to break it off with how it looked. Hell, he'd have dumped him.

"But you are. Your use of human expletives gives you away as well as the scent of her around you."

He shuddered, looking around him. Sometimes he really wished his "father" had some kind of focal point. "What are you, a bloodhound? I haven't seen her in weeks and we certainly didn't..." He shook his head. "How would you even know her scent?"

"She has been here many times. More than any mortal."

"No, she hasn't. She..." He thought back. There was that one time. Lois had been in the hospital after the plane crash with Martha, talking about a palace of ice. "Okay, maybe, but only once. I don't get..."

"She spoke to me once, entreated me. I don't know if I would have done as she asked, but for her presence before. Yet her words may have swayed me nonetheless."

Clark groaned, his hands digging into his hair. "What the hell are you even talking ab..."

"Jor-El!"

He jumped slightly, his arms falling to his side at the voice, at her voice.

"Out of all the planets across the universe, you decided to send your only son to this one! To Earth!"

Not Lois. Chloe. Jor-El meant Chloe.

"You trusted us to protect him! Now, please, Jor-El, I need you to trust me!"

He didn't understand. When had this happened? He was in the middle of trying to figure that out when the next words sounded out around him.

"I love your son!"



PART TWO

PART FOUR