Fic: Crossroads 2/?
Title: Crossroads
Summary: Change one thing, change everything...
Beta: the_bluesuede
prologue,
Chapter I
“Sometimes one little thing, like a swift change of wind, can change the world,” Professor Garcia was saying while pacing back and forth along the length of the blackboard. He always looked a bit like a big bird of prey with his long black jacket, big Roman nose and nervous energy. He was one of the few teachers that Courtney actually liked and his classes were actually interesting. “Imagine if a storm had taken down Columbus ships or if Hitler had been run over when crossing a street at eight years old. Will the world be completely different? Or would others have stepped up to take on those roles in history, meaning that everything will be same just with different names in your textbooks?” Still, as interesting as the lecture was, especially for a high school class, Courtney wanted to be out there. Saving people and all that; it was who she was. But Sylvester insisted. Education: it’s important, he says. Ugh.
“Look! Out there!” one of her classmates yelled, pointing out the window. A car seemed to have gone out control, a wheel literally exploding, and it was coming right at them, through the school yard. Several police cars were chasing it, which probably explained the driver's lack of control.
“Holly Fuck! It’s coming right at us!!”
In spite the panic coursing through everyone in the class, including herself, Courtney tried to think of something, anything. A.A.A. “Assess, Address, Act,” comes Sylvester’s voice in her head, but there is no time to do anything. “Everyone, away from the windows! Now!” Her voice was strong and sure; she was just surprised she had any voice at all.
The car is stopped inches from crashing into them by a dark blur. In seconds it’s all over, and all that’s left of the mysterious blur is a scorched “S” on the wall.
“Wow.” Courtney pressed 1 on her speed dial. “Sylvester, we have to meet this guy.”
***
“And the Blur saves the day once again.” Chloe turns away from the monitor showing the news live stream and back to the one she using to hack into city’s cameras. She was going over Lois’ steps the day she disappeared one more time. There had to be something that she missed. With the mess that was that day, it had taken her a while to notice that her cousin was nowhere to be found.
After the explosion, her memories got a bit jumbled. She remembered Clark and Oliver yelling at each other, Oliver’s back, warm against the chilly wind while the lights of the city and then stars passed them by. She vaguely remembered Oliver taking out her pj’s and ordering her to take a bath. Funny how he had known that she needed that. She couldn’t take smelling like death anymore. She fell asleep pretty fast after that. It wasn't until at least twenty hours later that she was able to function enough to call her cousin and realize that she couldn’t find her anywhere.
The different cameras showed Lois going into the Daily Planet, but no matter how meticulously she went over the feeds she couldn’t see her coming out. The only explanation was that something happened inside the building. She had considered the idea of someone coming through a window and flying Lois out, but there was no evidence to support that. She had also had the team search the entire building to no avail. All Chloe knew for sure was that Lois went into the Daily Planet in the middle of the night, and so did Jimmy and Tess, but only the last two came out again. Jimmy already explained to her that Lois was there to search Tess’ files, looking for her. And questioning Tess got them nowhere. She felt like screaming. Her cousin probably stumbled into something dangerous while looking for Chloe. If it wasn’t for her, Lois would be just fine. It wasn’t fair. The entire situation wasn’t fair. “Lois, where are you?”
“Chloe? You there, Bright Eyes?” Jimmy’s voice came from the public side of Isis, and Chloe seriously considers banging her head on the table again and again. Instead she sighed, resigned, and closed the computer room.
“Jimmy.”
He smiled sweetly at her, and meanwhile something breaks inside of her. “I brought you coffee and post-its, colored ones. I know how you always round out of them when you're doing intense research.”
“That’s very sweet, Jimmy.” Lois was always first to point out all the reasons why Chimmy just wasn’t the perfect combo, but there were reasons why she hung onto him for so long. Jimmy Olsen was sweet and funny and a good person. If only she had met him in a different life, one without meteor rocks and alien best friends, he would have been perfect. He would have been the perfect boyfriend for that Chloe, both marching the beat in matching press passes. Or maybe not. Maybe that Chloe had no idea at all about what she felt either. “Thanks, but I’m kinda--"
“Busy. I know.” He crossed the room towards the wall hiding the computers. “I wanna help. I know now about Clark, about everything. I can help.”
“You already did. You told us all you knew about that night.” There was a light in his eyes that she doesn’t like.
“I can help you, Chloe. We can find Lois together.” He walked toward her and his hands go to her hands. “I understand now. You had to go with Davis for Clark. It was all to save Clark, and I understand why. I never stopped loving you.” It was the desperation in his tone that got at her. She didn't even know where to start.
“I can’t do this right now."
“Is everything all right?” Oliver walked in with two coffee cups and frowned at the scene playing out in front of him.
“Everything is good.” She made a point of walking over to the blond and taking one of the cups from him and taking a big gulp from it, ignoring Jimmy’s. It was petty and stupid, but she was so tired of always having to be in control. She wanted to scream and yell and break something. She wanted her cousin back and Davis.... ‘Don’t think about it. You won’t be able to function if you go down that road. Lois needs you functioning,’ she told herself firmly. “Jimmy just came in to offer his help searching for Lois, but as I told him while the offer is appreciated, there is nothing he can do right now.”
Oliver nodded. “We have the front under control. We’ll call you as soon as we have anything for you, Jimmy." It was clear from Chloe’s expression that what she really wanted was for Jimmy to leave.
Jimmy looked from Chloe to Oliver and sighed. “Okay, fine. I’ll go. But we need to talk, Chloe, at some point.”
They watched the photographer walk out of the office silently.
“He is right, you know. At some point you're going to have to talk to him, Sidekick. Clear the air and all that.”
She heaved a long sigh and nodded.
“I know, but right now I need to focus on finding Lois. I don’t have time for anything else.”
He watched her walk towards the false wall and open it. The tension on her shoulders was obvious, as were the bags under her normally clear green eyes.
“And when we find her, then will you talk about it? I know the reasons you ran away with Davis were more complicated than just trying to protect Clark. Not that that wasn’t a big chunk of your reasons, but there was more.” As always Oliver could see right through her. It was what made a friendship between them so easy and so hard at the same time. Neither had any illusions about the other; good and bad, they knew everything about each other and they never pulled their punches. “You need to tell him that, and you need to talk about what happened with Davis.”
“I know; just not now.” Her big green eyes filled with unshed tears and he instantly felt like an asshole. “If I stop to think about it, I’ll crash. I can’t afford that right now."
“Okay.” His eyes followed a path from a tendril of hair that was begging to be pushed behind her ear to her tensed shoulders, down her soft looking arms to her delicate hands. His hands itched but he didn't move them. That way lay madness. “I’ll back off, but when you're ready, I’ll be here for you.”
She offered him a tiny smile. “I know. Okay, and now that that soap opera moment is done with, what do you have for me? Did you question Tess again?”
“Unfortunately, yes. Besides threatening to remove certain beloved parts of my anatomy with a dull spoon and leaving frost in her wake, she had nothing to add to her previous answer.” Seeing Chloe's frown he smiled mischievously. “However, she did seem quite preoccupied with this file on her desk.” He produced a file from his back and passed it to her smirking, “So I took it.”
He looked at the file over her shoulder, eyes straying to her cleavage. He was a guy, after all. Sue him. “They look an awful like those 'S's Boy Scout has been torch-graffiting all over town, right?”
“That’s because they're in Kryptonian.” She walked to the table and took the colored post-its and a pen. “So can you read it?
She nodded. “Brainiac may be gone but the intergalactic library of info is still in here,” she tapped her temple. She started scribbling furiously. “It just takes me longer to access it, like having to go through the card catalogue instead of the search engine." She paused. "They're names. A bunch of them."
“So unless Boyscout is going around practicing his Kryptonian grammar, I’m guessing we have a problem.”
***
One moment she was seeing the world as she knew it fall to pieces and the next she was back in the past...present...whatever. She landed in a sky train of all places. Her ribs were bruised, and she was sure her ankle was twisted, not to mention the blinding headache she was currently enjoying. “I don’t care how cool David Tennant is, I’m not getting into any blue box with him. Time travel sucks.” She pushed herself up with effort. All that was on her mind was that she had to find Chloe. She had to warn her. Of course that would be a lot easier if the crazy ninja lady with the creepy eyes hadn’t followed her. The only good news was that she looked as tired as she herself felt at the moment, and there were no signs of superpowers. Unfortunately the ninja was still chasing her through the train. “Damn it!” they were getting closer to the next stop and she was making her way towards the doors stopping only to ‘borrow’ a phone from a kid.
“Hey!” the teenager yelled.
“Thanks!” she yelled back. She was already running through the doors and into the busy terminal, punching a familiar number as fast as she could.
“Pick up, pick up." It wasn’t easy running with a twisted ankle, especially through the daily mass of people using public transit in Metropolis, but she managed it, barely.
“Hello?”
“Ollie! Thank God!”
“Lois?”
“The one and only. I need you or one of your merry men to come pick me up from Town Centre station.” She ventured a back glance and confirmed her fears. The crazy bitch was gaining on her. “Preferably before I become a sword practice dummy."
“What? Stay put Lois, we're coming for you.”
“Hurry!”
***
“What’s going on?” Chloe asked anxiously.
“Lois is at Town Centre Station being chased by someone with a sword.” It said a lot about them that both took that information in stride and turned to act and deal with it.
Chloe already had her phone out, making calls.
“Hola, mamacita."
“Bart, I need you to pick up Lois from Town Centre Station. And hurry, she's in danger.”
“On it, Chloelicious."
***
“If I get out of this, I promise I’ll never wear heels again.” Lois's ankle was throbbing, and the stupid stairs were still a world away. Three steps more and it looked like her ankle had decided that that was enough and took her down at the same time the Crazy Ninja took a swipe at her. Using every self-defence lesson her father had forced on her, Lois grabbed her attacker's wrist, super-extending that arm. Immediately she got up and rammed her own shoulder upward to break said arm. She turned and uses the heel of her hand to break her assailant's nose, scratch her face and hit her on the throat with a half-fist. Her attacker stumbled backwards.
“Not so tough without those fancy red sunrays, are you?” Lois used her momentum and weight to throw her a trust kick, momentarily forgetting about her ankle, “and that’s for my cousin, you bitch!” The Kandorian grabbed her ankle and, shifting her weight, made Lois twist mid air and land on her hands and knees, hard. Lois cringed as her left wrist gave in.
“She deserved it. She'd been a collective pain in the ass for us for longer than we care to remember.” The blue-eyed soldier made her way towards her katana. “Hunting us, destroying our forts, and organizing and maintaining a rebellion by sheer determination and charisma.” There was a reluctant admiration in her voice. “It’s a shame she was human. In a way, she would have made a great Kandorian. It was an honour to kill her personally. And you should consider it an honour to die by the same sword.”
‘This is it,’ thought Lois when she saw the sword coming at her. At the last second she felt a gust of the wind and a moment later it felt like she'd just gotten on a roller coaster. When the world finally stopped spinning past in a nauseating blur, the pain of a sprained ankle and broken wrist finally got the better of Lois, making her lose the stale crackers that she had in her stomach and promptly pass out.
***
Alia swore when her sword connected with nothing but thin air. Nothing was going her way today. First she lost her last hairband and her hair had been getting in her face all day, then she had been stuck on bathroom cleaning work, and superspeed or no superspeed, it still fucking sucked. Oh, and let's not forget that Watchtower and her resistance somehow hacked into the sun towers and deactivated them, bringing down five years of hard work on this miserable planet and their last hope of making a home out of it. Then, faster than she could say, ‘Hey! What the fuck?’, Major Zod was being taken down by Kal-El and she somehow ended up in the past chasing an as of yet unidentified resistance member.
Now, if only she still had her powers, she could just go find Kal-El and kill him. Presto. Problem solved. Of course, with no red sun, there were no powers. She sighed and made her way to the stairs, her sword safely tucked away in its sheath. The passing humans looked at her funny, but like all simple forms of life the trick of fooling them consisted in acting as if there was nothing out of the ordinary. Their tiny excuses for minds tended to ignore that which they couldn’t explain. She frowned, thinking of what lay ahead. She’d have to find her comrades and somehow convince them that she was from the future where they had acquired their promised powers only to be taken down by a human resistance lead by a powerless human woman and her equally powerless human lover. Yeah, that would go oh so very well with the Major.
Summary: Change one thing, change everything...
Beta: the_bluesuede
prologue,
Chapter I
“Sometimes one little thing, like a swift change of wind, can change the world,” Professor Garcia was saying while pacing back and forth along the length of the blackboard. He always looked a bit like a big bird of prey with his long black jacket, big Roman nose and nervous energy. He was one of the few teachers that Courtney actually liked and his classes were actually interesting. “Imagine if a storm had taken down Columbus ships or if Hitler had been run over when crossing a street at eight years old. Will the world be completely different? Or would others have stepped up to take on those roles in history, meaning that everything will be same just with different names in your textbooks?” Still, as interesting as the lecture was, especially for a high school class, Courtney wanted to be out there. Saving people and all that; it was who she was. But Sylvester insisted. Education: it’s important, he says. Ugh.
“Look! Out there!” one of her classmates yelled, pointing out the window. A car seemed to have gone out control, a wheel literally exploding, and it was coming right at them, through the school yard. Several police cars were chasing it, which probably explained the driver's lack of control.
“Holly Fuck! It’s coming right at us!!”
In spite the panic coursing through everyone in the class, including herself, Courtney tried to think of something, anything. A.A.A. “Assess, Address, Act,” comes Sylvester’s voice in her head, but there is no time to do anything. “Everyone, away from the windows! Now!” Her voice was strong and sure; she was just surprised she had any voice at all.
The car is stopped inches from crashing into them by a dark blur. In seconds it’s all over, and all that’s left of the mysterious blur is a scorched “S” on the wall.
“Wow.” Courtney pressed 1 on her speed dial. “Sylvester, we have to meet this guy.”
***
“And the Blur saves the day once again.” Chloe turns away from the monitor showing the news live stream and back to the one she using to hack into city’s cameras. She was going over Lois’ steps the day she disappeared one more time. There had to be something that she missed. With the mess that was that day, it had taken her a while to notice that her cousin was nowhere to be found.
After the explosion, her memories got a bit jumbled. She remembered Clark and Oliver yelling at each other, Oliver’s back, warm against the chilly wind while the lights of the city and then stars passed them by. She vaguely remembered Oliver taking out her pj’s and ordering her to take a bath. Funny how he had known that she needed that. She couldn’t take smelling like death anymore. She fell asleep pretty fast after that. It wasn't until at least twenty hours later that she was able to function enough to call her cousin and realize that she couldn’t find her anywhere.
The different cameras showed Lois going into the Daily Planet, but no matter how meticulously she went over the feeds she couldn’t see her coming out. The only explanation was that something happened inside the building. She had considered the idea of someone coming through a window and flying Lois out, but there was no evidence to support that. She had also had the team search the entire building to no avail. All Chloe knew for sure was that Lois went into the Daily Planet in the middle of the night, and so did Jimmy and Tess, but only the last two came out again. Jimmy already explained to her that Lois was there to search Tess’ files, looking for her. And questioning Tess got them nowhere. She felt like screaming. Her cousin probably stumbled into something dangerous while looking for Chloe. If it wasn’t for her, Lois would be just fine. It wasn’t fair. The entire situation wasn’t fair. “Lois, where are you?”
“Chloe? You there, Bright Eyes?” Jimmy’s voice came from the public side of Isis, and Chloe seriously considers banging her head on the table again and again. Instead she sighed, resigned, and closed the computer room.
“Jimmy.”
He smiled sweetly at her, and meanwhile something breaks inside of her. “I brought you coffee and post-its, colored ones. I know how you always round out of them when you're doing intense research.”
“That’s very sweet, Jimmy.” Lois was always first to point out all the reasons why Chimmy just wasn’t the perfect combo, but there were reasons why she hung onto him for so long. Jimmy Olsen was sweet and funny and a good person. If only she had met him in a different life, one without meteor rocks and alien best friends, he would have been perfect. He would have been the perfect boyfriend for that Chloe, both marching the beat in matching press passes. Or maybe not. Maybe that Chloe had no idea at all about what she felt either. “Thanks, but I’m kinda--"
“Busy. I know.” He crossed the room towards the wall hiding the computers. “I wanna help. I know now about Clark, about everything. I can help.”
“You already did. You told us all you knew about that night.” There was a light in his eyes that she doesn’t like.
“I can help you, Chloe. We can find Lois together.” He walked toward her and his hands go to her hands. “I understand now. You had to go with Davis for Clark. It was all to save Clark, and I understand why. I never stopped loving you.” It was the desperation in his tone that got at her. She didn't even know where to start.
“I can’t do this right now."
“Is everything all right?” Oliver walked in with two coffee cups and frowned at the scene playing out in front of him.
“Everything is good.” She made a point of walking over to the blond and taking one of the cups from him and taking a big gulp from it, ignoring Jimmy’s. It was petty and stupid, but she was so tired of always having to be in control. She wanted to scream and yell and break something. She wanted her cousin back and Davis.... ‘Don’t think about it. You won’t be able to function if you go down that road. Lois needs you functioning,’ she told herself firmly. “Jimmy just came in to offer his help searching for Lois, but as I told him while the offer is appreciated, there is nothing he can do right now.”
Oliver nodded. “We have the front under control. We’ll call you as soon as we have anything for you, Jimmy." It was clear from Chloe’s expression that what she really wanted was for Jimmy to leave.
Jimmy looked from Chloe to Oliver and sighed. “Okay, fine. I’ll go. But we need to talk, Chloe, at some point.”
They watched the photographer walk out of the office silently.
“He is right, you know. At some point you're going to have to talk to him, Sidekick. Clear the air and all that.”
She heaved a long sigh and nodded.
“I know, but right now I need to focus on finding Lois. I don’t have time for anything else.”
He watched her walk towards the false wall and open it. The tension on her shoulders was obvious, as were the bags under her normally clear green eyes.
“And when we find her, then will you talk about it? I know the reasons you ran away with Davis were more complicated than just trying to protect Clark. Not that that wasn’t a big chunk of your reasons, but there was more.” As always Oliver could see right through her. It was what made a friendship between them so easy and so hard at the same time. Neither had any illusions about the other; good and bad, they knew everything about each other and they never pulled their punches. “You need to tell him that, and you need to talk about what happened with Davis.”
“I know; just not now.” Her big green eyes filled with unshed tears and he instantly felt like an asshole. “If I stop to think about it, I’ll crash. I can’t afford that right now."
“Okay.” His eyes followed a path from a tendril of hair that was begging to be pushed behind her ear to her tensed shoulders, down her soft looking arms to her delicate hands. His hands itched but he didn't move them. That way lay madness. “I’ll back off, but when you're ready, I’ll be here for you.”
She offered him a tiny smile. “I know. Okay, and now that that soap opera moment is done with, what do you have for me? Did you question Tess again?”
“Unfortunately, yes. Besides threatening to remove certain beloved parts of my anatomy with a dull spoon and leaving frost in her wake, she had nothing to add to her previous answer.” Seeing Chloe's frown he smiled mischievously. “However, she did seem quite preoccupied with this file on her desk.” He produced a file from his back and passed it to her smirking, “So I took it.”
He looked at the file over her shoulder, eyes straying to her cleavage. He was a guy, after all. Sue him. “They look an awful like those 'S's Boy Scout has been torch-graffiting all over town, right?”
“That’s because they're in Kryptonian.” She walked to the table and took the colored post-its and a pen. “So can you read it?
She nodded. “Brainiac may be gone but the intergalactic library of info is still in here,” she tapped her temple. She started scribbling furiously. “It just takes me longer to access it, like having to go through the card catalogue instead of the search engine." She paused. "They're names. A bunch of them."
“So unless Boyscout is going around practicing his Kryptonian grammar, I’m guessing we have a problem.”
***
One moment she was seeing the world as she knew it fall to pieces and the next she was back in the past...present...whatever. She landed in a sky train of all places. Her ribs were bruised, and she was sure her ankle was twisted, not to mention the blinding headache she was currently enjoying. “I don’t care how cool David Tennant is, I’m not getting into any blue box with him. Time travel sucks.” She pushed herself up with effort. All that was on her mind was that she had to find Chloe. She had to warn her. Of course that would be a lot easier if the crazy ninja lady with the creepy eyes hadn’t followed her. The only good news was that she looked as tired as she herself felt at the moment, and there were no signs of superpowers. Unfortunately the ninja was still chasing her through the train. “Damn it!” they were getting closer to the next stop and she was making her way towards the doors stopping only to ‘borrow’ a phone from a kid.
“Hey!” the teenager yelled.
“Thanks!” she yelled back. She was already running through the doors and into the busy terminal, punching a familiar number as fast as she could.
“Pick up, pick up." It wasn’t easy running with a twisted ankle, especially through the daily mass of people using public transit in Metropolis, but she managed it, barely.
“Hello?”
“Ollie! Thank God!”
“Lois?”
“The one and only. I need you or one of your merry men to come pick me up from Town Centre station.” She ventured a back glance and confirmed her fears. The crazy bitch was gaining on her. “Preferably before I become a sword practice dummy."
“What? Stay put Lois, we're coming for you.”
“Hurry!”
***
“What’s going on?” Chloe asked anxiously.
“Lois is at Town Centre Station being chased by someone with a sword.” It said a lot about them that both took that information in stride and turned to act and deal with it.
Chloe already had her phone out, making calls.
“Hola, mamacita."
“Bart, I need you to pick up Lois from Town Centre Station. And hurry, she's in danger.”
“On it, Chloelicious."
***
“If I get out of this, I promise I’ll never wear heels again.” Lois's ankle was throbbing, and the stupid stairs were still a world away. Three steps more and it looked like her ankle had decided that that was enough and took her down at the same time the Crazy Ninja took a swipe at her. Using every self-defence lesson her father had forced on her, Lois grabbed her attacker's wrist, super-extending that arm. Immediately she got up and rammed her own shoulder upward to break said arm. She turned and uses the heel of her hand to break her assailant's nose, scratch her face and hit her on the throat with a half-fist. Her attacker stumbled backwards.
“Not so tough without those fancy red sunrays, are you?” Lois used her momentum and weight to throw her a trust kick, momentarily forgetting about her ankle, “and that’s for my cousin, you bitch!” The Kandorian grabbed her ankle and, shifting her weight, made Lois twist mid air and land on her hands and knees, hard. Lois cringed as her left wrist gave in.
“She deserved it. She'd been a collective pain in the ass for us for longer than we care to remember.” The blue-eyed soldier made her way towards her katana. “Hunting us, destroying our forts, and organizing and maintaining a rebellion by sheer determination and charisma.” There was a reluctant admiration in her voice. “It’s a shame she was human. In a way, she would have made a great Kandorian. It was an honour to kill her personally. And you should consider it an honour to die by the same sword.”
‘This is it,’ thought Lois when she saw the sword coming at her. At the last second she felt a gust of the wind and a moment later it felt like she'd just gotten on a roller coaster. When the world finally stopped spinning past in a nauseating blur, the pain of a sprained ankle and broken wrist finally got the better of Lois, making her lose the stale crackers that she had in her stomach and promptly pass out.
***
Alia swore when her sword connected with nothing but thin air. Nothing was going her way today. First she lost her last hairband and her hair had been getting in her face all day, then she had been stuck on bathroom cleaning work, and superspeed or no superspeed, it still fucking sucked. Oh, and let's not forget that Watchtower and her resistance somehow hacked into the sun towers and deactivated them, bringing down five years of hard work on this miserable planet and their last hope of making a home out of it. Then, faster than she could say, ‘Hey! What the fuck?’, Major Zod was being taken down by Kal-El and she somehow ended up in the past chasing an as of yet unidentified resistance member.
Now, if only she still had her powers, she could just go find Kal-El and kill him. Presto. Problem solved. Of course, with no red sun, there were no powers. She sighed and made her way to the stairs, her sword safely tucked away in its sheath. The passing humans looked at her funny, but like all simple forms of life the trick of fooling them consisted in acting as if there was nothing out of the ordinary. Their tiny excuses for minds tended to ignore that which they couldn’t explain. She frowned, thinking of what lay ahead. She’d have to find her comrades and somehow convince them that she was from the future where they had acquired their promised powers only to be taken down by a human resistance lead by a powerless human woman and her equally powerless human lover. Yeah, that would go oh so very well with the Major.