Restless Nights (Chapter One)

"When the evening is spread out against the sky
Like a patient etherized upon a table..." 

Chapter One 

Maybe it was the littered train yard, the run-down car, the seedy decay that seemed to personify Edge City. But even the stars seemed malevolent tonight and Chloe squinted at them, trying to see something less ominous as Davis pointed out constellations, told the stories behind them. 

Of course, she knew them. With her childhood hunger for Greek mythology and her time scouring the skies side kicking for an alien, she knew the constellations and the stories behind them as well as some astronomers. But she let him tell her anyway. She needed the distraction. 

They were running out of options... and money soon enough. Even with Chloe's savings emptied and what little Davis had, they could go for maybe a week more without touching the money Chloe had set aside for wherever they settled... if they ever did. They'd traded the SUV they'd started off in to a salvage yard for one-fifty cash and this mustard-yellow heap they were lying on, thinking it might burn through less fuel. That was dead wrong. Stopping here was less about gulping down takeout and star gazing than it was letting the thing cool off. At least the hood was warm. 

"Maybe it's sleep deprivation, but I can't exactly see a toga-clad woman in the stars up there," she said lightly, encouraging him to keep talking, keep telling her things she already knew. This was the kind of thing that kept him calm, gave him that feeling of control and contentment. It had been days now, since the Beast had appeared, even tried to. not even a sign of him as long as she kept this up, kept him complacent. 

"It's Demeter," Davis said lowly. "And her daughter, Persephone, was taken by Hades to the underworld." 

She glanced at him, then frowned up at the stars, knowing where this was going. 

"And Demeter -- she enlisted the gods' help to find her daughter, but when Hades offered Persephone her chance at freedom, to everyone's surprise, Persephone chose to live underground with the dark prince." 

Chloe supposed that was up for interpretation, though she saw the parallels Davis seemed to be drawing with his more romantic view. Some would say Hades tricked her into eating a pomegranate seed, knowing that anyone who ate the fruits of the Underworld could never truly leave, that it was just enough to force her to return to him every winter. Others say she chose to eat it, forcing a compromise between Demeter and Hades. If she was Persephone in his mind, then she did choose it, chose to go away with him. But, in her case, there was no compromise, no springtime return to the world above. And she supposed, like Persephone, she would have to make the best of her Hell. She glanced at him, noting that it didn't have to be hell. 

There were times, these last days, when she could look at it differently, as if this was the romantic runaway story Davis wanted to see. If she could take everything before this away, all the reasons why, keep the beast at bay forever, then what was she? She was a woman, running off with a handsome man who seemed to love her beyond reason. 

Davis chuckled softly. "We're actually gonna pull this off, aren't we? Find someplace to...slow down, build a life together." 

She turned more fully to him, forced a smile. "As long as we can keep the gods from hunting us." She let it drop as he stared back into the sky, knowing Clark would never stop. He'd said as much. So she would just have to count on that, keep one eye open for the rest of her life, hiding from him, from Clark, of all people. It still hurt like hell. 

And slowing down? Settling somewhere? The more she thought about it, the more impossible it seemed. She definitely couldn't see them cozying up in some sweet, picket fence neighborhood with happy families and unlocked doors. It would ratchet up her fear of the Beast coming out to play even more. Maybe they'd settle somewhere like this. Somewhere just terrible enough that hardly anyone wanted to live there. 

"We should stay here tonight," she said, trying to wipe off her frown. 

"In a train yard?" Davis chuckled. 

"Why not? It's a warm night. It's quiet here, seems relatively safe. I don't mind a little car camping if it saves some of that motel money for if we settle down." 

He turned his head to her and smiled. "You mean when we settle down." 

"Yes. Of course." She smiled... or tried to. 

Davis' hand slid to hers and she shivered just a little as his thumb made circles on her palm. She had to keep telling herself there was no shame in it. Wasn't she simply making the best of her hell? There was no shame in the harsh gasps she failed to keep in that first night, the quickening of her blood when he drew her to him in the nights since. There was just no room for shame. He was all she had now. And maybe she hadn't meant to feel anything as he moved inside her, hadn't wanted to, but she had. A physical release to replace the emotional release she couldn't allow herself -- and couldn't allow him to see for fear of upsetting him. Because she knew what upsetting him led to. 

He tugged on her hand and she slid closer to him. If tonight, she came undone again, that was for the best. Maybe she needed that to make this easier. 

*********************** 

Tess Mercer never had it easy. Just never. 

While other children played and laughed, she taught herself to read to get out of a squalid swamp house in the bayou, knocked around at every turn, in and out of hospitals and free clinics. While other teenagers partied, she was working her way through Harvard while still wearing braces to be damned sure she never went back there. While other young adults took post-grad trips backpacking across Europe and experimenting with legal drugs in Amsterdam, her vacay fun was being kidnapped on an island, watching her friend die, meeting Oliver Queen, who turned out to be her first and worst and last relationship. Of course, that didn't compare to the outright stupidity and hero worship that was her fixation on Lex Luthor when she started up with Luthorcorp. Sure, the man saved her life, gave her money and power beyond what she ever dreamed of. But he also implanted fucking spyware in her eyes. If that hadn't fixed her little crush, his later attempt to kill her would have polished it off. 

Yet all that was almost nothing to the rest of this year in Smallville. She truly understood how this place could fuck a person up irrevocably. Her Luthorcorp predecessors were a testament to that. She was hard pressed to even understand how she got here. She started out with control of Luthorcorp, now she was sharing it with Oliver Queen, of all people, who she still fairly despised. 

She started out trying to find Lex. Now Lex was dead, not that she was mourning the bastard, though she was starting to understand exactly how he became such a megalomaniacal snake. Her attempts to get Clark Kent to trust her with the worst-kept secret in history kept proving unsuccessful. That might be the thing that made her almost -- just almost -- understand Lex, to talk to someone over and over and know that they're lying so baldly and badly. It was downright insulting and never failed to make her blood boil. 

There was also the fact that aliens existed. That was something she spent many sleepless nights trying to wrap her head around as the ramifications of that seemed both horrifying and wonderful. Obviously, the man-creature that was Davis Bloome was horrifying and she'd done everything in her power to destroy him as Clark was about as ready to do something about that reign of destruction as he was to admit what he was. And that, perhaps, made her angriest. Because Clark could be something so wonderful. He could save this dying hole of a planet. He'd almost made her feel like that girl again, over-educated and hopelessly idealistic, bent on saving the world in a lab coat. 

But Clark... She was starting to think that Clark just a passive fool. When it came down to it, she supposed Clark could be counted on to save the odd life, then lie horribly about it. But that seemed about all there was to him. He had no vision. He had no drive. He had no purpose. She had all of those things, but not a damned place to put them, especially now. Because now... She hadn't just lost the hellbeast in man's clothing, having only traces of radiation to possibly track him, but the Orb. The very thing that gave her hope in this mess. 

"The orb," she breathed, staring at the bent case in the middle of her ruined vault, torn open as if the metal were paper. "Someone stole the orb." 

"No one could have broken in here without..." 

"You just said that the system went down," she snapped, tossing the case down. It was this X, whoever that was. The one who took the crystal, with a cryptic email telling her she wasn't ready yet. She wondered why X didn't take the Orb as well, at the time, had gone to check on it, but found it still there... though useless. She'd salvaged both in the Arctic in her search for Lex. But the Orb had been nothing more than a mysterious bauble at the time. Until it started speaking and glowing, that is. 

"Only for a few seconds," Rogers was saying. 

That could be enough, couldn't it? Whoever X was, they got the crystal from under lock and key. But she looked at the debris. It seemed as if... 

And then Rogers said it. "But, Miss mercer, you should know that our security believes the door was blown off from the inside." 

Somehow, that seemed worse. The orb... It had made her think, at first, she was crazy, hearing voices from a glowing ball. And while the obvious comparisons to Horton Hears a Who were fitting,this was no child's tale. There was a darkness to it, but also hope. It called her the savior of Kandor and promised to change the world. This Kandor could, she believed, with her help. She'd done her part. She'd destroyed the black crystal that would have sent the Beast away. It said Clark, or Kal-El, must fulfill a prophecy and destroy the Beast himself. But he'd done nothing that she could see. It didn't matter how she tried to push him. That orb was to be the world's only hope with Clark proving so useless. 

She turned to Rogers, glaring. "You have no idea how many lives are at stake. Find that orb." 

She glanced over her ruined safe as he moved out. The orb... it wouldn't abandon her, not after all she'd done in its service. Somehow, someone had done this. She just had to figure out who, on top of every other fucking thing. 

No. Tess Mercer never had it easy. And that didn't look likely to change any time soon. 

****************************** 

Chloe perched on the bumper, staring into the open trunk of the car, assessing the food and supplies. She wasn't sure they'd be able to keep buying takeout if they wanted to have any money to settle with... if that happened. 

She took a deep breath and kept her mind on the practicalities of the moment. They had a half-case of water, some apples and oranges still, peanut butter crackers, cheese crackers, pop-top cans of tuna salad, and those awful Chef Boyardee meals in plastic containers, which were all for Davis as he seemed unreasonably thrilled to eat them, even cold. Her dad's cooking skills, or lack thereof, had her eating the horrible stuff for most meals, growing up, so much that she couldn't stomach it now. If she ever doubted Davis had a rough childhood, him calling Chef Boyardee the "good stuff" sealed it. 

He'd shared some of that childhood with her on their long drives, though she often interrupted to change the subject, touch him, or make jokes, trying to keep his mood steady. She didn't want him looking back, getting angry, and... what might follow. But she'd taken it in -- the homes with padlocked refrigerators and pantries, the homes with older boys or foster fathers who asserted themselves by beating him or worse, the disinterested and neglectful or harsh and overly religious parents, and, of course, the black-outs that followed the beatings, the touchings, and the hungry nights. 

Knowing all this only affirmed her resolve to make this work. She could keep Clark safe, keep the world safe, and, as for Davis, give him the things he never had. That made this easier, too, how much he needed someone to care even a little. And she'd always been an outright sucker for being needed. 

"You better not be eyeing my beefaroni." 

"I am," she said, closing the trunk, "with deep disgust." She turned and leaned on it. "What's the diagnosis?" 

He swiped at his cheek with a rag, but only seemed to make it dirtier. "I think we got screwed on our trade in. There's not a fluid this thing won't leak." 

They'd spent not only the night, but all day in the train yard now. Luckily, no one had been around save a gang of punks drinking beer three tracks over as they tried to sleep, curled up in the back. Some cops busted up the party, but left them alone as this car was just ugly enough to be passed over as abandoned. She supposed that was one upside to the car. It didn't balance out the gigantic down-side of it heating up the minute they tried to drive ten feet. Davis had been under the hood all day while she'd been organizing their supplies. "Can you fix it?" 

"Not without a new engine and years of training I don't have." He looked frustrated. She couldn't have that. 

She tried for a smile. "Look at you. You're filthy." She opened the trunk and pulled out a box of wet wipes. They'd certainly come in handy with no shower to be had. She moved closer and wiped his face. "Maybe that can be your new trade once we get to Nowheresville, USA." 

"Might bring in more money than being an EMT." He chuckled. "I don't know. I know very little. But it was bone dry, so I filled the oil and coolant and, I think, if we keep replacing both as we go, we can nudge this heap along a little longer." 

She tossed the dirty wipe back in the trunk, though she might as well throw it to the ground amid the broken bottles and cigarette butts, and started on his hands. "Well, we'll grab some spares at the next gas station, then, and maybe a room tonight. You're definitely going to need a real shower." 

He pressed his lips to her forehead as she wiped the grease from his knuckles. "That a proposition?" 

She checked her slight stiffening and relaxed against him. "A horribly indecent one," she said, keeping her tone playful. They hadn't slept together last night, or they had, but with nothing but sleeping. The backseat and semi public place didn't exactly set the mood, even for Davis. As for her, she'd been relieved for the respite. Though she'd been telling herself there was no shame, the nights since the first had left her so confused and she spent last night wide awake with him wrapped around her, doing the very thing she'd been avoiding -- thinking about it. In the weeks since she left, she'd largely avoided stewing on her situation as it would drive her to tears or outright insanity. But when the punks and the cops had gone and Davis had quieted into deep, even breaths behind her, she'd been unable to avoid it. 

She'd never call herself sexually experienced, even after more than two years, on and off, with Jimmy. She couldn't say Jimmy made her see stars, but she'd always figured that was all hype, anyway. Building a relationship had been more important to her. That was what bothered her here. As much as she refused to beat herself up for slipping into these nights with Davis, as much as she told herself it was forgivable and even necessary, there was this piece of her that wondered if she was truly a good person, had been a good fiancee or, briefly, a good wife. She'd felt pleasure sometimes. With this situation, with this man always on the verge of becoming a monster... This is what it took? She'd always looked at those people that could only get off in public or by being whipped or bound or humiliated as somehow sick. So what was she now, joining the ranks of sexual deviants? 

She had to stop doing that -- thinking, that is. An entire life of over-analyzing was hard to turn off. But it was a good thing she was getting used to touching him, being touched by him. Really, it wasn't as hard as she thought. Maybe it was made easier by genuine sympathy, by the necessity of it, or, she had to admit, the attraction that had been there from the start. As much as Brainiac had a part in drawing them together, the fact that she was a red blooded woman and he was a rather gorgeous man didn't hurt then or now. 

None of this was what she saw when she dreamed of her future. But she'd adjusted her expectations all her life. She'd accepted that her mother was never coming back at the age of eight, when she made her first badly cooked dinner. She'd respected her father's decision to move to the relative safety and quiet of Rhode Island when she started college, even though it had him missing every event in her life, even her literal disaster of a wedding. She'd made her peace with the idea that Clark would never see her the way she wanted him to years ago now. She'd swallowed her bitterness when Lex took over the Daily Planet in the hopes he'd someday relinquish control. She'd adapted when he snapped her dreams in two and it became clear the Daily Planet would never be free of Luthor influence, with Mercer still there and still so uncannily similar to Lex. She'd accustomed herself to Jimmy's need to constantly be bolstered to be sure she kept him as he was the only thing in her life that qualified as normal and safe. And, months ago now, she'd reconciled herself to the idea that she didn't do enough to hold on to him and decided that she never could have. Maybe that was for the best. He was probably safer addicted to painkillers than in her life. Maybe she wasn't meant to have anything normal. 

So now she was reinventing herself, readjusting her dreams, all over again. She had to let go of those last three things she thought she could have: the city she'd always loved and never wanted to leave, the cousin who was really the last bit of family that remained available to her, and Clark in her life, always in her life. None of that now. It was a good thing she was used to letting things go after all these years. 

"Sun's down." She patted his hand, trying to cheer herself up. She could do this. She could keep moving on. "We should get moving if we want to find a motel that's even a little safe in this city." 

He sighed and squeezed her before pulling her to the passenger side door, opening it for her. At least, with Davis around, she'd never open a door for the rest of her life. If you looked past all the other horrors, he was insanely well-mannered. Maybe that was what attracted her to him as well, how kind he could be, how gentlemanly at times. It made her think of Clark when they were... She cut that off abruptly. She'd resolved not to think of Clark unless he appeared before her. It just made every step away from him harder. 

She tossed Davis a smile as she got in... or began to. The both of them froze at the metallic thunk of something hitting the hood. She barely had time to register that it was an arrow before it drew back slightly as if clinging to the inside of the hood as a dark wire attached to it grew taut. Her eyes followed the line to the trestle and the shadowy figure perched on it, but were drawn quickly back to the car as a pair of fishnet-clad legs landed hard on the roof, shattering the windshield. 

"Wait! No!" It all happened so fast then. Davis tried to push her away, as if anyone there would hurt her, but Dinah only had eyes for him, jumping down from the roof and flattening him to the ground. Chloe had landed there as well and looked up in horror as Oliver zipped down the line. "Don't!" She could see Davis' eyes reddening now as he grunted, spat out a mouthful of gravel. "Stop!" She scrambled to her feet, tried to move toward him, just touch him, but Oliver gripped her around the waist, pulled her back. "Please!" 

Davis met her eyes then, veins standing out on his neck as he stood and tossed Dinah off him like a ragdoll. "Chloe!" 

She struggled in Oliver's grip. She could stop it. It wasn't too late. "Davis!" She ripped free and almost made it when she felt a sharp sting on the back of her neck. She barely registered a flash of red before her body went limp. She swayed, ready to meet the gravel when she felt arms again and Davis... 

The last thing she saw was Davis crumpling to the ground. 

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CHAPTER TWO

And yes, as the show has it, Chloe and Davis did stay in a train yard for two nights. Heh. I think there must have been an editing mistake and the first scene with them was supposed to come later. Anyway, I went with it. That heap car they were on didn't look like it had much going for it.

Just want to add that I spent 2 years in foster care and my foster parents were wonderful, caring people. My aunt has foster parented three sets of kids and loved them all. You do hear horror stories and some people are in it for the money, but don't let that have you thinking all foster parents are evil. But Davis' obviously were or he wouldn't be such a broken man, even beast aside.