How We Got Here (Part Nine)

PART NINE

December 22nd 2011

"Would you have ever told me, Clark?"

"No. I don't think I would have."

She lifted the bottle and he stiffened, but she didn't throw it. She moved away, pacing toward the dining room window and took another drink. "F*ck you, Clark," she said, her back to him.

"You wanted the truth," he said miserably.

"Well, there's about a billion cautionary platitudes about getting what you want," she said, her back stiffening.

"Yeah. I've probably heard them all," he said, thinking of his dad and what his dad would have said about what he did. He'd always go to him or his mom for advice. But he'd been dead and he didn't want to drag his mother into his troubles when she was so busy in Washington. Really, the only one to talk to about it was Chloe in those days. And she'd been unconscious on a slab below him. "I thought I was helping you," he said dully. "I thought you'd be better off."

"Better off blind?" Her back was still to him and she was shaking just a little. "How the hell do you think things would have turned out, Clark, with me being romanced by the man with the double life and none the wiser on how dangerous it was?"

"I wasn't thinking about that. I just wanted you to be happy."

"You know what? Let's put your noble intentions aside for a second..." She shuddered and her hand hit the windowsill. "You could have told me after."

"No," he said softly. "I couldn't."

"Why not?" She whirled on him and he saw tears in her eyes.

His stomach twisted at the sight of them, but he kept going. "Because you'd have left me as soon as you knew. Which you did."

"So you didn't want to lose me? Am I really supposed to believe that after you tossed me aside for a year?"

"You did your share of pushing me away."

"Oh, no. You had the bigger share. I tried."

"To what? Shut me out? If you want to talk about lies, let's talk about the chips in the IDs and the weapons and the monitoring..."

"I was flying blind and the world was coming to a f*cking end and my damned time was running out! What the hell was I supposed to do? I did everything I could to survive, to make sure we all could. But that," she sneered, "doesn't compare to what you did. You betrayed me on a whole other level. You decided what I could and could not have of my own f*cking life."

"And it didn't stick," he pointed out.

"Some of it did, Clark. Some of it stuck. It had consequences. But you... You didn't think about that. You just played God and smiled benevolently while you let me walk down the aisle like some clueless baby. Hell, you even marched me down it yourself!"

June 2nd, 2010

They'd be walking down the aisle any second now. They probably needed something old and new and... some other somethings. They should probably go and get them... if he could just stop kissing her.

That was the thing about kissing Chloe. It was hard to stop without a reason. There'd been a handful of kisses, all stopped when they'd hardly even started and all for very good reasons. Reasons like red rocks, mind control, the end of the world, or doctors that just barged in before he could do more than grasp the fact that he was being kissed. There'd always been a perfectly good reason to stop. That was the problem here. There was no reason to stop.

In the back of his mind, something was trying to tell him Oliver might be a good reason. Maybe even a perfect reason. But, considering they were off to get married right now and he'd be her husband, a mere boyfriend didn't seem like much of a reason. Not a perfect reason. Not even a good one, he thought as he explored the inside of her mouth. It suddenly pushed all possible reasons away because he'd never been here before. Those damned kisses, even the ones tinted on the red side, weren't deep, wet, slow uninterrupted kisses.

This one was and, if this was his last free night, he wanted to explore new places. Like the inside of her bottom lip where the texture went from dry and firm to wet and pliant or the underside of her tongue where it was smoother and softer. He let his own tongue slide against that as found other ways to explore. He used his hands now. He'd touched Chloe many times. His hands had been on her back, her waist, her shoulders, under her knees as he carried her. It seemed safe to touch her there, allowed. His hands visited that familiar territory again. They slid over her shoulders, down her back, to her waist. He stopped, hands hovering over her hips and thighs. That would be new.

He skipped it for now and put his hands on her knees, on either side of him as she was still planted in that potted palm. He slipped his fingers under, meaning only to explore some familiar territory. He was as surprised as she was when he jerked them upward, pulling them over his hips.

She gasped, grabbing onto his shoulders as she was dangling off him now.

"Sorry." He slid his hands to her back to keep her from hitting the floor. "Just a little... carried away."

She closed her eyes. "Yeah. I can feel that. I mean... see... I mean... Let me down?"

He felt a flush creeping up his neck as he loosened his hold. He didn't know how far this night would go, but parts of him were very obviously hoping for all the way.

She slid down his body and backed away, looking resolutely at his forehead... mostly. "We should just... do it," she said as her eyes slid down then quickly up.

His eyes widened and the rest of him joined in on that hope. "If you really... I mean... It wasn't something I was thinking you would... Not that I don't want to, because I do. A lot."

She nodded. "Good. Then we should get ready."

"Uh... You mean like protection? If you think you need to, but..." He trailed off because she was squinting at him, tilting her head. "You mean to get married," he said, letting a mad kind of giggle escape him. "Because we're getting married." And we're not having sex... except if we are. "Yeah. We need to get ready." For a wedding. Not a honeymoon. He had to stop thinking there'd be a honeymoon... unless there would be. "So we need a dress and..."

"I'm fine as I am," she cut in quickly. "Besides, I've seen the price tags in that place they call a bridal shop while you were off on your slots bender, so..."

"If you let me keep playing..."

"Are we still not dropping that?"

He shrugged. "Guess you're right. I didn't have that problem last time. We just stole a bunch of stuff because she could just..." He trailed off, suddenly feeling this pinching kind of sadness. That was the thing about tonight. He seemed to go from crazily happily to unbelievably horny to sad in no time. He wasn't sure he liked it, at least not the sad part.

"You mean Alicia?"

He closed his eyes, wishing she hadn't said her name. It just made it worse.

"Well, we're definitely not stealing anything."

"No. I don't wanna steal stuff," he said, even hearing a stupid tremor in his voice.

"Clark?"

"Uh-huh?" He opened his eyes wide, really wide, because he was not going to cry. He hated crying. That's why he hardly ever did it.

She moved toward him. "Clark, it wasn't your fault."

"If she'd never met me..."

Her hands moved to his arms, rubbing lightly. "If she'd never met you, she might have ended up in Belle Reve to stay."

"Better than being d-d-d..."

"Or she might have hurt more people." She wrapped her arms around his waist. "You know as well as I do that certain powers can damage people. Did you ever think that meeting you made her a better person?"

"But it's because of me, anyway," he mumbled into her hair. "If my ship never..."

"Clark." She drew back and grasped his arms again. "For how many years are we going to go over this? You are going to do so much good in this world. More than enough to make up for everything in the past, most of which was way beyond your control." She searched his eyes. "Okay?"

He sniffled and ducked his head. "How come you always know what to say?"

She chuckled and rubbed his arms again, which felt nice. "Years of dealing with you, you big dumb spaceman."

He drew her in, his chin finding its old place on the top of her head. He'd missed touching her. He didn't even realize how.much. They'd done more touching tonight than they had all year. It only added to that feeling, that tonight was more than some last hurrah for two old friends. It was like everything they were or could ever be was on the table.

December 22nd, 2011

She slapped her bottle on the table, as if for emphasis. He didn't flinch. "I thought you didn't remember the wedding."

"I don't," she said softly. "I saw the video. That week before was... so full of holes. I thought I was having some kind of PTSD reaction and that was why, but then I'd remember pieces, times when I said things or did things that didn't make any sense." He heard her draw in a harsh breath. "It didn't come together till... It all made sense after I learned, not from you, again, what you did to me."

"It didn't stick," he said again, staring at the table. Because that seemed to be something she kept forgetting. "Brainiac still took you over. It didn't work."

"It sure as hell didn't," she said with a bitter laugh. "In fact, you probably sped things up."

He looked up at that. "How do you figure..."

"I've had distance and a year and a half to mull it over, Clark. Everything changed because of what you did."

"What?"

"You took my memories and..."

"And you got them back," he said, "so stop throwing it in my face."

"Oh, my God!" She stared hard at him. "You wish I hadn't."

He stood, his chair clattering to the floor behind him. "Well, you'd have been happier. Even after, if it just stuck..."

"You son of a..." She stopped. "Scratch that," she said through clenched teeth. "Your mother doesn't deserve that."

"If you didn't know, you could have been happy."

"I'll just stick to assh*le," she muttered.

"Think about it, Chloe." he moved toward her. "If you hadn't known after, you could have just had a normal life like any..."

"Clark, I was running a foundation for the meteor infected. How the f*ck do you think that would have gone considering half of my knowledge on that came form you?"

"Well, maybe it wasn't good for that, but you wouldn't have wanted to protect me and..."

"And you'd be f*cking dead," she said, eyes snapping to his.

"Maybe not. If I'd found another way... If I'd just left you out of it..."

"Clark, I would have been in it no matter what. Brainiac made sure Davis felt connected to me and me to him."

"But without Brainiac..."

"Without Brainiac pulling my strings, I might have lost that lovin' feeling, okay? But Davis didn't. Jesus, Clark! He was shifted from foster home to foster home and had no one. Even a hint of... of anything, any kind of feeling from another human being and he was gone, Brainiac or no. And if I didn't have this history with you and didn't know what he was, I don't know how I would have reacted. Maybe with more fear, maybe I'd have run and maybe I wouldn't have gotten away when the beast took over and maybe..."

He shuddered. It wasn't a scenario he wanted to entertain in any way. "The beast wasn't the only monster. It was the man that..."

"It was the man that lived with that beast. It was the man that was poisoned by it. He wanted to be good." She leaned against the table. "I still believe that, even now. Or maybe I just want to," she said softly.

He stepped away, turned to his fallen chair, needing something to do, just anything to get away from the idea that she'd had a plan, a plan to run away with Davis and, even now that he knew nothing had happened, it didn't change that it could have. Maybe down the line, if he'd gone a month without transforming into a monster and slaughtering anyone in whatever town they landed in, what would she have done to... reward him for good behavior? It was stupid and petty and accomplished nothing, but he was so damned used to feeling this way, it was hard to snap out of.

"You were going to marry Jimmy, anyway," he said levelly as he righted his chair, running his hands over the top as if it would make it stay like a dog. "That's all that happened that week. So saying I sped things up is..."

"Oh, I'm right about that," she cut in, moving toward him. "I told you, I've had a lot of time to think about it."

"Nothing changed."

"Nothing changed because it went the way it went! How the hell do you know what would have happened if I knew who the hell I really was and what was really going on?"

"And what would you have done? Run off with him earlier instead of being taken or..."

"Why do you keep making this about Davis? This is about you." She moved closer to him. "If I came back, knowing what Brainiac was doing, I would have been suspicious of Davis and I sure as hell would have postponed that wedding."

"What? You had that date set for..."

"And do you think it would have mattered, Clark? Would it have meant anything that I had some date marked on a calendar if I had even an inkling that you were in danger? You come first! You always d... did," she finished, backing away. "At least then."

He stared at her hard. "You would have married no matter..."

"Not if I knew." She inhaled sharply and strode away, moving to the table. He watched her pick up her bottle, take another swig before he spoke.

"You loved Jimmy," he said, wondering if he was stating it or asking it.

"I... Jimmy seemed very easy to love." She was silent, her back to him and he waited. "Who couldn't love a guy like him? He was sweet and good and normal and... it was like a sin not to love him. I wish I did. I wished it so hard, I think I damned near spoke it into being, like all that crap about The Secret and the power of positive thinking." She gave a watery sort of chuckle and turned. "I told you I did a lot of soul searching with my time away. I must have mainlined every self-help, self-actualization book there is. From Stephen Covey to Doctor f*cking Laura. All I've done is think about myself and why things went the way they did and wonder how it all could have changed if I'd... just been honest."

A tear slid down her cheek and she rolled her eyes, swiping it away impatiently.

"I lost the truth," she said softly. "My new tendency to throw things at you aside, you're not the only one to blame. Those last two years... I don't know who the f*ck I was. Not the person I set out to be. But I lost the one thing that had been the -- I dont know -- the cornerstone of my existence." She gave another sniffling sort of laugh. "I should have warned you. I'm a philosophical drunk. I lost the truth. Somewhere along the way, the truth stopped mattering. I went from uncovering it to hiding it and..."

"Because of me," Clark found himself cutting in. He wanted to go to her, maybe just touch her arm and see if she crumbled into him like she once did. He even moved her way. "Because you found out about me. That started all th..."

"God, Clark!" She pushed off the table and paced away, taking the bottle with her. "This isn't all about you. Not everything is. This is about me. This is about me thinking I was supposed to save the world just because I happened to be friends with a few heroes. In case you haven't noticed, it was a little much to take on. It changed everything about me. I went from a girl who had a way with effective search engine use to hacking into government servers nearly overnight. And why? Because I thought it was what was needed. It wasn't what I wanted. What I wanted stopped mattering and that just fed into Jimmy." She leaned against the china cabinet, shaking her head. "His name wasn't even Jimmy. You know that?"

"Well, I heard the reverend say Henry James Olsen, but I never knew before that."

"I did. I found out after our engagement party. He told me about his family, about his drunk father, about how he never wanted to be called by his father's name, how he worried about his brother, still stuck with him. He... told me a lot that night. And I remember thinking that he'd been through so much that he never told me and how I'd been through so much I never told him and I thought about coming clean that night. But I didn't."

Clark nodded. "Because it wasn't yours to tell."

"No," she said softly. "Because I was selfish. Because I didn't want to give him all of me. Even though he gave me everything he'd been holding back that night, I couldn't. And I knew why. But I refused to be honest about it, even with myself. And he loved me so much," she said haltingly, "that I thought if I just married him, gave him what I could of me, then it would even out in the end. I could have something normal and... and..."

"Easy," Clark finished, nodding to himself. He'd wanted something easy, too. Someone simple and carefree and easy to love. He wondered if it would have worked out if...

"Easy," she said derisively. He looked up at that. "Is that what you think it was?"

"Well, he was out of our..."

"It wasn't easy with Jimmy, Clark. It was pleasant and normal when I could just push away everything else in my life and maybe that's supposed to mean it's easy, but... that doesn't exactly translate to easy. I had to hide who I am and what I do." She looked at him sharply. "And before you make that all about you. It wasn't. I needed to keep some of myself for... just me." She moved away from the china cabinet and he felt himself relax just a hair. She seemed to be done throwing things, but he never knew. "Even though he gave me everything about him. He didn't need to keep things. I did. And I know why now. Even after he knew, in that split second when I thought about our life together, I didn't think it would be easy. Because he can be let in, sure. and maybe that would have cured all the mistrust between us, but the bottom line was that he wouldn't come first and I don't think him knowing why would have been a good thing."

"I think Jimmy would have understood if the fate of the world..."

"I'm not talking about the world. I'm talking ab..." She turned away, stared at the bottle dangling from her hand, then placed it on the table, pushed it away. "Never mind. Just... Easy isn't always a good thing," she said softly. "Easy isn't even easy. Anyway, I... I wouldn't have gone through with it. Not if I knew all the reasons I shouldn't. Not in the end. I never felt what I should, that... connection, that pull, that thing that tells you don't have to hide a thing. It was never right and marrying him only made it more wrong." She speared him with her gaze again. "And after it was done, I knew it was wrong, but I kept trying to make it right, make it fit, and I wouldn't have had to go through it if that wedding hadn't happened. I wouldn't have done it if I just knew why not to. It didn't have to be that way. Do you get that now?"

June 2nd, 2010

"You okay now?" she asked, her words kind of muffled. And no wonder. He was kind of smothering her against him.

"In a second," he said, letting up, but not letting her go just yet. It felt good. Maybe a little too good. He was fading out of sad and working his way up to horny again. He released her quickly and stepped back. "I don't know what's wrong with me."

"It's just the drinking," she sighed. "It brings up old wounds."

"Huh?" He shook himself. "Oh, you mean Alicia." He really had to get a handle on things. "I was fine, like more than fine and then... I haven't even thought about Alicia in years, then I was..."

She chuckled. "Like I said -- old wounds." She squeezed his arm. "I never drank much, but for a while, every time I did, I spent hours weeping over," she dropped her hand from his arm, "stuff," she finished abruptly.

"I wonder why people even do it."

"Because it's not all misery. It takes you on ride and... It helps you let loose." She drew back, clapping her hands together. "Speaking of that... Let's do this! It's gonna be hilarious. Best night ever. I wonder if we can even get an Elvis impersonator to perform the ceremony. Wouldn't that be awesome?"

He found himself grinning. "That would be pretty frickin cool. Or, like, one of those blue man guys." He was finding his way to excitement again.

Chloe looked around. "Yeah. I think this place is a little low rent for them. But it's fine. We'll get some cheap rings and..."

"And something borrowed and old and blue or..."

"Oh, we don't need all that. Come on."

He dug in his heels as she pulled at his wrist. "We have to. Or it's bad luck."

"Clark, that's just a superstition. Now..."

"Me and Alicia didn't and..." He could feel his smile disappearing. "And..."

"You know what?" Chloe let his hand go and slapped her hands together again. "You're right. What am I thinking? We need all the luck we can get on our last night ever and..." She smiled widely. "And we're nearly there. My jeans are blue."

He considered it for a minute. They were blue. And tight. "And that shirt is really, really old."

She glanced down. "You said you liked this shirt."

"I do." He drew a little closer, tugging at the end of it. "But it's really old and faded and... thinning. It's practically see-through in some spots." He could see dimly where her bra met her skin and, sweet Jesus, he was finding his way to horny again.

Her eyes closed as his index finger brushed her stomach. "I wore it to pieces. It was my..."

"Your favorite, I noticed." He leaned down. "It was mine, too. But I guess you knew that." It was a thought that came up before, but it was creeping in again. Of all the clothes in her closet, she chose his favorite colors. And of all the red shirts, she picked this. "Chloe?"

Her eyes opened, but only barely. "Uh-huh?"

"Why all this?"

She opened her eyes wider now. "What do you mean? It's our last night. Isn't it?"

"Well, yeah." It was kind of a buzzkill, remembering that part of it, but it was true. "But all this and... the way you are. It's like... a flashback to before everything went so wrong."

"And that's a bad thing why?" She tilted her head and gave him a small smile. "Well, maybe this is how I want you to remember me, whatever goes down. This is about me and you."

"You're sure this is what you wanna do with our last night?"

Her smile dropped. "You still want to turn yourself in?"

"Not exactly. But if they question me, I'm not going to avoid them. I'll tell the truth."

"And you still want me to tell the truth?"

"We've had enough lies, Chloe."

Her smile reappeared, though just barely. "Then this is what I want to do." Her smile widened as she looped her arms around his neck. "If this is your last night, then I want it be worth remembering."

And, God help him, it may have been the return of those delicious floaty, horny feelings, but he was leaning into her, securing his arms around her waist, meeting her lips for the second time tonight and the eighth time in his life. "How worth remembering?" he said against her lips. It sounded husky and demanding and he didn't mean to say it. He meant to say something profound about the years they'd spent discovering each other or something sweet about how she always took care of him, even when he disagreed with how she did it. But something about this night made all that melt away, leaving these hellish years behind and all that was left was them: a farmboy with superpowers and a girl that was too smart for her own good. How it ended up didn't matter now. Tonight seemed like a rewind, full of possibility. All he wanted was to be that guy and share this night with that girl. So he kissed her again, for the ninth time now, thinking of the first time they kissed and how young they were and how curious he'd been about her. He was still curious about her. More than a decade later and he still didn't have her figured out, at least not enough to satisfy him.

He traced his tongue over her bottom lip, again tracing that line where it became soft and wet. So many new things about her to discover. He wondered why they hadn't kissed like this before. Not the first time, obviously. At that age, a tongue in his mouth might have had him running through the fields, spitting and wiping his mouth, but after... He supposed each kiss after was too short. He'd lamented that before, but he was done lamenting. This kiss was getting somewhere. This was getting longer and wetter and closer.

By the time her fingers dug into his neck and he lifted her off the floor, it had become their longest kiss ever. Maybe even his, maybe even hers. He wasn't about to stop and ask about any other kisses. He was just fine with keeping this only to them, like this night. It was theirs. Their last night and he was sure exactly how she wanted to remember it now.

"You planned this," he said, barely breaking the kiss.


PART EIGHT

PART TEN