Before Sunset (Part Thirty-Seven)

(Banner by Selene2)

And now for more of Hidden. I'm picking and choosing what might change or say the same. I still contend that a Clark with Chloe is a smarter, more proactive Clark who looks at the bigger picture, so some events will change in accordance with that as Clark did one thing in the episode that I found extremely stupid. 

Sorry for the wait on this one. It took me forever to write the last part. 

Part 37 

Clark glanced at his phone again. Still too early. She was leaving today and he was not going to let that happen until he said what he had to. But he wasn't about to wake her at the crack of dawn, pretty much insuring she'd be too ticked off to listen to his reasoning. It wasn't like he was going to take his trip to the Arctic now. He'd texted Bart to abort mission already. After all Jor-El had and hadn't done, he was just finished. There would be no more trips to the cave. But Chloe had to understand why he would have. 

This wasn't -- definitely wasn't -- like him and Lana. It was just... Damn it, it was different! He just wasn't sure exactly how. 

"Did you finish with the cows?" 

He turned to his mother in the doorway. "All done." It was about the only thing he could do about as fast as he had before. Nobody could exactly milk a cow faster. He supposed they could try, but it wouldn't make for a happy cow. "Everyone except Delilah. She's still off on her little adventure." 

"Poor thing. Probably about to calve. She never goes far. I'll tell your father to keep Doctor Rizer on stand-by." Martha sighed. "Anyway, good work. You deserve a treat." 

He cringed as she sat next to him on the steps, holding out a glass of muddy green liquid. "I wish you'd stop calling it a treat. It sends some kind of message to my brain that makes it taste even worse." He gulped down half of it before gagging. 

"Oh, it's not that bad." 

"You know, I think it would taste better if I could just hear you admit how bad it is." He held it out. "Why don't you have the rest if it's so delicious?" 

She pushed it back to him. "I already had mine, thanks." 

He held his nose and tried to get down the rest until he came to the bottom where it was especially thick and sludgy. "Is there... peanut butter in this?" 

"It's good brain food. Get you ready to start school next week." 

"I wish I didn't have to. We're already backed up on the farm. How's Dad going to..." 

"You let us worry about that," she said, squeezing his knee. "Besides, some of those classes could help out, make this the smartest farm in the county." 

"Yeah. Guess it's a good thing I didn't end up at Met U now," he said miserably. He'd actually been thinking about that a lot these last weeks, being faced with the miles between him and Chloe. "Not sure if I could have held on to that football scholarship, anyway. I don't even know if I'm any good without powers. Dad and I keep saying we're gonna test that out, throw the ball around, but there's just too many chores around here now." 

"Don't start that," his mother said softly. "Sometimes I feel bad, for all the work you had on you before. I think that was our biggest mistake." 

"It's not like I couldn't do it all in minutes." 

"Yes, but it's made you feel like you're responsible for things that are... Well, this shouldn't be your problem, Clark. You're eighteen, but it doesn't mean you have to grow up all at once. You should be having some fun, swimming, dating... in semi-public places," she added hastily. 

He turned away slightly. Both of his parents had made it fairly clear how they felt about him and Chloe and sex -- basically, that the three should never meet. And, as much as he thought it was just a little old fashioned and that they were technically adults and that his parents must barely remember being eighteen, he wasn't going to force the idea on them. He would neither confirm nor deny. "Plausible deniability,"was how Chloe put it. "They know and we know they know. But if we give them nothing to go on, then they can pretend there's nothing going on and everyone's happy." 

"Well, you don't have to worry about me and Chloe. We won't be within a mile of each other right now." 

"I knew all that pacing last night was about her." His mother groaned. "What did you do?" 

He turned to her, annoyed. "Why does it have to be something I did?" 

"Because I've seen you two fight. If it's up to you, it's over after a little screaming match. You're terrible at holding a grudge. But Chloe..." 

"She's really good at it," he muttered. "Doesn't make her right." 

"Out with it. What did you do?" 

"I didn't even do anything. I was just maybe..." He stopped, realizing that if he gave his parents even an inkling of what he was going to do, Chloe's blow-up would be like a cherry bomb compared to what they would unleash on him. "I said something that made her feel... I don't know. I guess I might have made her feel kind of brushed off." And that was probably the nicest way of putting it. He stared at his hands. He was so in the wrong. Of course, she was mad. He'd basically had a plan that put him thousands of miles away and at risk of exposure and maybe even more of Jor-El's sick brand of whimsy. Bart's secret aside, it was something that Chloe would need to know. And God help him if his parents found out. 

"Well, looks like you have a chance to apologize," she said, nudging him as she got up. 

He looked up to find Chloe's car moving down the dirt road. He stood and took a deep breath. He'd apologize. He wasn't letting her run off to school like this. 

He moved to meet her as she stopped. "Okay. I've been thinking and you were right," he said in a rush when she opened the door. 

"Clark..." 

"I mean, I still have that... anonymous source problem and all, but I was an idiot for thinking I should go without filling you in on what I could." 

"Clark, it's not..." 

He took her by the arms. "I mean, I'm not going now, but if I was... Well, maybe I should have called you at each checkpoint or something like that. So you know. Because you deserve to know. And you know what? It was hell for me to figure out just where the fortress was. I bet you would have found it on the first..." 

"Clark!" She gripped the front of his shirt. "We have less than an hour!" 

"Okay." He put his hands up. "For what?" 

"I don't know," she groaned and released him, putting a hand to her head. "Maybe I'm over-tired. Maybe I'm just imagining things. But it's really giving me the heebie-jeebies. I haven't even called him back. Maybe I should have, but I all I could think of was I had to tell you." 

"Okay," he said again, gingerly taking her shoulders. "But I can't exactly understand what you're telling me." 

"It's..." She took several deep breaths. "I think we need to talk to your parents." 

********************** 

She glanced at the clock on her dash as she took a sharp turn on Hugo Road. 

Clark caught at her stuffed cow before it flew into the street. "Slow down." 

"There's no time to slow down." There were only forty-eight minutes left till... something. Maybe nothing. She really wished she'd had a better night's sleep so she could tell if the panicky feeling was fear or just fatigue. She also wished they'd taken his truck as she might be leaving a trail of all her earthly possessions before this was over since she couldn't get her car's top up and over her stupid skis. She must have been exhausted when she tossed those in. She'd never been skiing in her life and probably never would after seeing enough snow to last a lifetime... in the summer. Sometimes her life really was surreal. 

Anyway, it didn't matter now. They had to get to Gabriel and find out what the hell he was on about. "Gabriel was never much of a prankster," she said aloud. "If anything, he was always too serious. If he's warning me to get out of town and saying Smallville's gone forever, then he has a good reason." 

"Or he created a good reason," Clark said. 

"Don't say that." Though she couldn't deny that it had gone through her mind. There was something about that call that raised her hackles enough to insist Mr. Kent see Sheriff Adams, who was unlikely to listen to the "wall of weird girl." 

"This is Gabriel. You don't know him like I do. He spent more time hammering out The Torch with me than chronically absent you." 

"I thought we agreed that you knowing my secret means a pass on some of..." 

"Yes. Fine," she said quickly. 

"Well, I did have a valid reason. You know that now." He tapped his fingers on the dash. "And Chloe, about the Arctic. I just want to make sure you know..." 

"That you aren't going. I got that." She glanced toward him, then down. "So why do you have it?" 

"Have what?" 

"Clark, there's an octagonal disk in your pocket." 

He laughed shakily. "Maybe I'm just happy to see you." 

"Oh, brother." 

"I just figured we might need a trip to the caves if worst comes to worst. And, if that happens, I will make sure you know every step of the..."

"Not now, Clark. Tell me all about it if Smallville still exists in..." She checked the clock. "Forty-one minutes. Anyway, like I said, we'll just find him and find out what he knows and maybe he'll... he'll help us fix this." Yes. Gabriel was helpful and he'd fixed many things. "This is Gabriel," she repeated. He shared a name with, though she might be biased, the nicest man in the free world -- her own father. "He's a good guy." 

"Then why haven't you just called him back?" 

She let out a shaky breath. "What?" 

"If you're so positive he's such a good guy, then why..." 

"I heard you. I just... We're here," she said, skidding to a stop in front of Gabriel's house. She hadn't called him, had she? And maybe it was because she didn't want to be sure. She didn't want to think someone she knew and trusted would do something that could hurt so many. But it had been at the back of her mind all along. His father was a high-ranking colonel. That just might provide access to something that could annihilate Smallville forever. 

Maybe his father had gone rogue. Maybe Gabriel was desperately trying to warn her so she could... 

"Chloe, you are the one person who will understand why I had to do it. You have to make people realize it wasn't my choice. It was the only way." 

Those weren't the words of an innocent man, she acknowledged as she and Clark moved up his porch steps. 

"Gabriel!" Clark knocked, then tried the door knob. "It's locked." He glared at the door. "If I had my powers, I could..." 

"Clark, it's a house, not a military base." 

"Point taken. Maybe we should break a window. This might be an emergency, after..." 

"We don't know for sure." Chloe sighed and pulled out her wallet. 

"A credit card? Isn't that a little old-fashioned?" 

"So are most of the locks in Smallville," she said, sliding it in the crack and upward. 

"I thought that only worked in... movies," he finished as she opened the door. 

"It's not exactly splintering wood with your bare hands, but it does the job," she said lightly. 

"You keep making these references to things I can't even do now. How do you think that..." 

"Can we get into this when the town still exists?" 

"Is that your new way of avoiding everything?" 

She checked her watch. "It is for the next forty-four minutes." She moved in. "Hello? Gabriel? Colonel Duncan? Is anybody here?" She stilled at some pictures of Gabriel and and his father on the mantle. One of the two of them, one of his father alone in full regalia. No proud displays of Gabriel. Her own father's mantle was littered with her, even the horrible sixth grade picture she constantly turned flat on its face. There was something rather sad about how little of Gabriel there was alone. He'd always seemed to think his father considered his pursuits less than manly, less than worthy of the son of a military man. 

"I'll show him, right?" Gabriel had often said. 

And, dear God, she hoped this wasn't now. "Find anything?" she said, trying to keep the panicked squeal out of her voice as she turned to Clark, who was rifling through documents in front of a recessed bookcase. He seemed to be more on track than she was right now, with most of those documents stamped CONFIDENTIAL. She really had to get her head in the game. 

"Does the fact that Gabriel's father was a not-so-retired military colonel count? These briefs are only a few weeks old." 

Chloe glanced at the framed degrees, feeling another small and largely unwelcome pang for Gabriel at how his father's accomplishments were displayed with barely a spelling bee ribbon for him. "A colonel with an aero-space engineering degree from Perdue? Do you think that he might be the light house keeper for the local nuclear missiles?" Because if anything could wipe Smallville off the map... 

She and Clark both moved quickly to the wooden doors on the other side of the room, sliding them open. 

"Wall of Weird times a hundred," she breathed, looking around the room, which was not just wall-to-wall news clippings, but many strung along lines that criss-crossed the room. 

"Looks like Gabriel is giving you a run for your money." 

"I'd say he lapped me a few times," she said,disturbed as she looked at the sheer number of clippings. The entire Wall of Weird had never been this big. "Why would he be so obsessed with meteor freaks?" 

Clark gave her a withering look, which really wasn't fair, considering she'd dismantled the Wall Of Weird, mostly on the mistaken assumption that Clark was a garden variety meteor freak. 

"Journalistic curiosity is one thing, but papier mache-ing your walls is another." She couldn't deny it anymore. Something was wrong with Gabriel Duncan. She'd seen it with countless other students, driven mad by meteor powers. Though Gabriel didn't go off the deep end with powers of his own. Maybe he just saw too much. And she hated, absolutely hated, the very idea that she might have contributed to this. But she felt she'd always been clear. 

She was never abjectly afraid of the meteor freaks... Well, she was, but usually it took being chased to imminent death by one to make that happen. That Wall of Weird was, to her, often a thing of wonder. It was proof that there was more to the world than they taught in science classes. Hell, her first journalistic endeavor had been in support of the Loch Ness Monster. And, deep down, she was still a believer. It didn't mean she'd want to meet the scaly beast on a misty shore. It also didn't mean she'd be hunting it down with a crossbow. There were freaks in this world and, scary as that could be, it could also be wonderful. Clark, though more of a former alien than a current one, was in this world. There had been some supposed freaks who'd had the potential to do wonderful things, even if not so many of them chose to take that path. There were probably many that chose just to live ordinary lives, like Clark claimed he wanted. Did all of them need to be destroyed, too? She couldn't have taught Gabriel this. 

"I just--if Gabriel was so determined to go atomic on the meteor epidemic, then why didn't his dad stop him?" This looked like a dining room and she knew from finger-painting experience that fathers didn't let their children do whatever they wanted to the "company" rooms. 

"Looks like he tried," Clark said, staring through a doorway. 

She moved closer to him, wincing and vaguely noting that there was a kitchen around that dead body lying on the floor. 

Gabriel. What have you done? 

*************************************** 

Clark followed Chloe to her car, frantically checking his watch. Chloe had infected him with that habit by now, counting the minutes, adding how much time was left and how much time they'd wasted. 

A panicked thirty second phone call to his father about what his visit with Sheriff Adams yielded. Apparently, there was nothing going on, nothing to see, just a routine check. "If you can believe that," his dad had said. "She'd looked pretty shook up to me." 

They were on it, that much was clear. Why they weren't telling the town to evacuate was the mystery. Maybe to prevent mass panic? He only hoped he and Chloe had enough to go on to prevent that happening with their good twenty seconds skimming the dead Duncan's confidential files. 

"So Colonel Duncan's docs listed fifteen possible silos," Chloe said, marching ahead to her car. 

"I don't know how they're going to check fifteen silos in forty minutes." He checked his watch again as he followed. Going on thirty-nine... 

"Well, neither can you anymore, Clark." She turned to him. 

"Listen, I agree that almost everything this summer would have been easier if I could do what I could before. But I can't. Besides... It never stopped you." And it never stopped amazing him, that she was always right by his side, without powers and... Hell, even without knowing, there she always was. He wondered if he'd feel this impressed if he didn't perpetually want to sleep with her. But, really, that was just Chloe. There was a reason she was voted Prom Queen and was nearly worshipped by the part-timers on the torch like... like Gabriel. 

"You know, of all people in Smallville, you are the only one he warned to get out," he said, 

"He just wants me to tell his story," she said softly. 

"Either way, he trusts you." That was another thing about Chloe. As a guy that harbored a pretty big secret, it seemed almost foolish to trust a journalist. But that was because, deep down, he knew she could be trusted to do the right thing. If this Gabriel knew her half as well as he did, then he'd trust her even now. "Maybe we don't need to search every silo." 

Five minutes later, Chloe was standing in the middle of Ridgeview Drive, right off Charlie Gibbon's barn, and he was kicking dust all over her car at the side of the road. 

"...started to leave town like you said, but then I was really freaked out when I was driving and then this dog ran out in the road and I..." She stopped the babbling, all rapid-fire like she did when she was over-caffeinated, over-tired, or flat out lying. He supposed this effort was a combination of all three. He only hoped, whatever Gabriel was saying, he didn't pick up on that last, especially with only thirty-four minutes to go. 

"I guess I must've over-corrected and I ran my car into a ditch. And I can't get it started now and I'm really scared. Can you help me?" Clark stilled as he neared her. He faintly heard Gabriel's voice. "Uh, Route 87, near the Old Mill." 

"...there as soon as I can," he heard as he stopped within inches of her. 

She snapped her phone closed. "He's coming." 

Clark nodded. "Good. You did good. Damn it," he muttered, pulling her in, meeting her lips. Even as he kissed her, he knew this was the wrong time for it. But if Gabriel really was launching a nuclear missile, then there would be no right time. No time at all. He leaned his forehead against hers as he detached. "Chloe, you have to know..." 

"I do know. But tell me again in... in thirty-one minutes." He felt her hands on the sides of his face before she pulled him down again. "By the way... Me, too." She slid her lips over his, then abruptly released him. "Now, we need a plan. We have no idea how close he is." 

"It's not like we can just ambush him, demand he tell us which," Clark muttered. "I don't think he'll pause the countdown before coming here." 

Chloe shook her head. "If he's gone this far, he won't tell us and the town will be obliterated anyway." 

"He seems to want to make sure you live. So maybe if you talk to him..." 

"Talking is going to do nothing at this point. He's gone too far to be talked down. The only thing to do is get me to the silo, then I can... I don't know. I can find a way to stop it." 

"Chloe..." 

"Clark, if I play this right, he won't even know I want to stop it. Hell, he's been there through the Wall of Weird. If he thinks I'm kind of on his side, then..." 

"Then you can get him to take you to the silo, then I follow behind in your car, maybe call my dad to tell Sheriff Adams which one." 

She sighed. "I guess that's the best we can do. And I can try text you along the way to make sure you're behind. Now, you need to hide. If he sees you, he'll know I lied and we don't know how he'll react to that." 

Clark took a shaky breath and made a run for Gibbon's barn, taking one last look at Chloe, pacing and looking up and down the road, then at her watch. He checked his, too. Thirty minutes to go. 

He caught Chloe's eyes and tried to smile. They'd gotten through worse than... No. No, they hadn't. She tried and failed to smile as well. Even aliens crash-landing with a fresh batch of meteors didn't touch nuclear destruction and the both of them knew it. He supposed he'd gotten nearly complacent all of these years. When things went south, he almost always felt they'd be okay in the end. It was kind of an edge to being invulnerable, but fear and panic had rarely had a real hold of him. Right now, they did. 

He started and ducked behind a large wood-chipper at the sound of a motor. Good. Gabriel was close. 

"Gabriel, I'm sorry! Everything happened so fast. I didn't know who else to call," Clark heard Chloe say. 

"It's alright." Gabriel, now. "You can come back with me. You'll be safe there." 

Clark swallowed hard. Good. All part of the plan. He looked around the side of the wood chipper as Gabriel revved up. Except for the part where Chloe just got on the back of a psychopath's motor cycle. He found himself feeling for the key in his pocket, wondering if, should he lose them, he'd have to use it. "I wonder if you even care that my entire town is about to turn into a radioactive hole in the ground," he whispered. "Maybe you don't." 

He put it away and crept out, saw them up the road and rushed across to Chloe's car, moving the seat as far back as it could go with a grunt. He headed north on Ridgeview, but not too fast. It wouldn't do for Gabriel to see the car they just left on the side of the road. But he wanted to stay on their tail. But how was he supposed to do that if he couldn't be seen? He could barely believe he had even let his damned girlfriend get on the back of that motorcycle. Then again, this was Chloe and there was no letting her or not. Besides that, she was the best person to have near Gabriel right now, the only one he would tolerate. But he was getting antsy the further he went, afraid of both seeing them and losing them. He knew the Ridgeview ended at the entrance to Jake Curran's Dairy Farm and then it was either... 

He jumped, hands trembling as he tried to keep the wheel straight when his phone rang. It was Chloe's ringtone. He fumbled in his pocket, nearly afraid to answer because they couldn't be there yet. There was nothing around for miles but fields. 

"Chlo..." He barely got out her name when he heard her talking loudly over the engine. 

"...just trying to understand. Did your father get some kind of classified information?" 

"Chloe... just wait till we're safely there. I'll explain everything." 

Their voices were muffled, as if this were just a pocket dial. 

"Come on, Gabriel, you know patience isn't my virtue. Hey, isn't that Old Man Garris' field we're passing?" 

Clark let out a huff of panicked laughter. A very well-timed pocket-dial. He took the next right, having some idea where they were now, but kept listening. 

"We'll be there soon," he heard Gabriel say, sounding strained. 

"I just don't get it. Shouldn't we warn the town?" 

"So they can leave? We don't know how many of them are infected. Maybe the whole town is after the new one." 

"But what about the people that aren't?" 

"They'll be better off killed quickly now than tortured by some freak. I know what I'm doing, Chloe." 

Clark winced because, really, now she couldn't play dumb, couldn't pretend this was just some bit of military intelligence he'd stumbled onto. The question was how she played it now. Would she try to talk him down? Or would she play sympathetic? Which move would keep this from happening? 

"We're almost at the Shelbyville border," she said, choosing neither. "I think I see the water tower just east. Is that where..." 

The sound of the motor grew quieter, then stopped. 

"Get off," he heard Gabriel say and his stomach dropped. 

"Is this a safe place, Gabriel? Doesn't look like there's..." 

"Hand me your phone, Chloe." 

"I..." 

He heard scuffling. Then there was nothing. 

"No," he gasped, then sped up. He didn't dare call her now. He just drove faster. Garris' field. West of the water tower, near the border.Whatever just happened, he needed to be there now. He took a sharp left. It wasn't far now, especially now that he wasn't driving at a snail's pace to keep from being seen. Maybe Gabriel was on to her, took her phone and left her there. Still, he and Chloe had something to go on. They could call his father or the Sheriff Adams, tip them off to the general area and... 

He skidded to a stop as someone, as Gabriel, stepped into the middle of the road from the woods. 

He put the car in park and glanced to the side of the road. Chloe was pressed against a tree, staring wide-eyed at him and shaking her head, nodding at Gabriel. He looked to him and saw why she was so panicked. He had a gun. 

They'd kind of run out of ways to play this. Clark raised one hand and opened the the door, putting his hands up as he stepped out. 

"I kind of figured you were in on this somewhere," Gabriel said, hand shaking a bit on the gun. "You always are right behind her." He gestured to Chloe with the gun. 

"Gabriel," Clark jumped in quickly, trying to keep attention on him. "We just... we only want to keep people safe." 

"And what do you think I want? The rest of the world needs to be saved from this town. It's always been infested with freaks and now... now there are more," he growled. "I've seen it." 

"And what about the innocent people. There are more of them." 

"Gabriel, please." Chloe took a step forward. "I know this isn't you. You think you've gone too far. But there's still time to stop this. No one knows it's you." 

"I don't want to stop this. And I don't care who knows. You can tell them all when it's over." He turned to Clark. "I only need one person to tell the story." 

"No," he heard Chloe gasp. But he kept his eyes on Gabriel. "Then maybe you should just leave him here. He can't do anything." 

"I think we both know that's not true," Gabriel said steadily. "I always liked you Clark, even if you were always conveniently around. Maybe you're one of the good ones. I'm not an idiot. I know they exist. But they're rare. I'm sorry." 

"He'll die, anyway," Clark heard Chloe say. "Please, just..." 

"It'll be less painful for him this way," he said. 

Then he fired. 

And Clark almost thought he missed for a second. He was still standing, wasn't he? 

"No! Clark!" 

Clark's hands went to his stomach, it was wet. He looked down. Gabriel hadn't missed. But it didn't hurt as much as he thought. Then again, pain -- real pain -- was new to him. He didn't have much to compare it to. He madly wondered if it hurt more than that awful stuff Chloe dabbed on his face back at the cabin as he fell to his knees. Chloe... He heard her screaming "no," screaming his name over and over until he heard the motor, heard her screams fade away. He thought of looking which way they went, thought he could grab at his phone. He even fumbled for it, but only came out with the key, slippery in his hands. He wasn't dying, was he? In movies, people were shot all the time and if it wasn't in the heart or the head... 

The motor. He fuzzily registered it coming closer again. Maybe Gabriel came back to finish him off. He looked up, eyes unfocused as he saw the tractors... no. Just the one. That came together as he hit the ground... so wet and sticky. 

"Clark? Clark Kent? I heard a shot and... Oh, my God!" 

A man's face swam over his. 

"Who did this to you?" 

He tried to answer, but his mouth felt full and wet and, really, he wouldn't have time. 

"I'll get help! Just hold on." 

He didn't think he could. This is one way they died in the movies. They bled. He closed his eyes and groped outward, feeling the spreading puddle around him. Was that all him? Didn't seem possible. He gripped the slippery key again. It felt hot. Or maybe he was just feeling colder. He did feel so cold... 

A rush of air moved over him and he tried to open his eyes. He could barely see, except a bleary man's face again. "My son..." 

Not Garris. Scraggly hair. A beard. White eyes. It almost looked like Lionel Luthor. 

Hell of a thing to see before you die... 

PREVIOUS CHAPTER
PART THIRTY-EIGHT

A crazy person has taken over a missile silo and set it to blow up your town in roughly a half hour. Obviously the best thing to do is jump out of nowhere and yell at them. Stupidest thing ever. That launch countdown is still going. Even if he had no gun, he could just refuse to tell them and let things go on. I mean, Clark still got shot. But at least he wasn't a total dumbass first. He and Chloe had an actual plan. 

You'll notice that Clark didn't exactly die here. I have my reasons.