Again: Chapter One (1/?)
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Chapter One
It started with a simple phone call, formal. Jimmy and Davis were dead and she needed somebody to help her get rid Davis' body. She wanted a proper funeral for Jimmy. She figured that Oliver could help, since he had buried Davis' body last time. It seemed fitting.
That was the last time he had answered the phone. He rushed over as fast as he could, a cut still on his cheek and the Green Arrow suit still on. He was quiet on the phone, and even quieter in person. He barely addressed her and couldn't look at Jimmy's body. He grabbed Davis and rushed out of there. He said that he would be back to clean up the mess on the floor. He never did.
When the rest of the team showed up to pay their respects at Jimmy's funeral, Chloe hadn't asked him where he put the body. She was too terrified that Davis' death wouldn't be real. It had been enough that the beast took Clark, probably killed him. If Davis rose up from the dead again, she had no idea what she would do. She was completely powerless.
She was going to call Jimmy's parents, his little brother. She sat down with her cell phone in hand, trying to think of something to say. She married Jimmy without ever meeting his family. She didn't want this to be the first time she met them, it wasn't right like this.
When she finally summoned up the courage to call Jimmy's family, they weren't home. They arrived in Metropolis a day later in a Queen Industries jet.
She called Oliver, wanting to thank him. The call rang and rang before being forwarded to voicemail. She spoke her gratitude softly and hung up before the tears started to come again.
Chloe went upstairs at the Watchtower, where Jimmy was living, his things still scattered in boxes. It wasn't fair that he was mixed up in all of this. They broke up time and again because she wanted to keep him from being mixed up in this life. It was her fault for marrying him, her fault for him wanting to divorce her, her fault for letting him and Davis be in the same room, her fault for sleeping with him in high school.
She picked up a strip of pictures of the two of them. "Another one for the J-Chlo team", she remembered saying.
She looked off in the distance as she remembered Jimmy's words from later that day. "If I did the things he did, you'd never even talk to me again, and don't deny that."
She put the strip of pictures in her pocket and held her head as another memory rushed to her mind. "Home? We have no home, Chloe. I have put up with years of you taking someone else's side over mine- first Clark, and now Davis? I realize now that you just don't trust me. You never have."
She curled up in a fetal position as the tears spilled over. "Marrying you was the biggest mistake of my life", she remembered him say.
And now that Jimmy was dead, she couldn't argue that fact. She knew Clark's secret, knew that she helped him, but it was just so much more than that. She never trusted him enough to let every detail loose. She always kept her guard up around him, terrified that she would slip up on something and that Clark or Oliver would wind up on the front page of the Daily Planet.
She told herself for years that the lies were an act of love- that she lied to Jimmy and Lois in order to protect them, to keep them away from this life. But Lois was missing and Jimmy was dead. Chloe did this all wrong, and now she couldn't take any of it back.
They were all gone, every single one of them. It had been a long time since she had lived her life for her- she spent years living it to help Clark, and now he was gone too.
What was next for her? The Isis foundation had been trashed a while ago, she could assume that someone had cleaned the place up, but she hadn't spoken to her clients in a while. Many of them were already borderline unstable, without regular appointments with her, they might have felt that she abandoned them. And she couldn't blame them.
The Isis foundation wasn't even her project to begin with. And now, she had destroyed it. The Justice League wasn't her project to begin with either, and she had no idea if she was going to see any of them again. They all hated her now. They must have. Especially Oliver.
Her phone started to ring. Without even looking at the number, she pressed the accept button. "Clark?"
But the phone continued to ring. It wasn't a call, voicemail, or even a text. Just an alarm. That the funeral proceedings were going to start in thirty minutes. She wiped her tears, grabbed her black jacket along with Jimmy's Nikon camera to help her get through this shitty day, and headed out the door.
***
Chloe knew that there were words being said right now. A man was standing there in front of the coffin, his lips were moving, but she couldn't hear any words coming out. There was a roaring noise in her ears as she looked down at the coffin, trying not to make eye contact with Jimmy's parents.
But she couldn't help but stare at the little boy in front of her. Jimmy's brother. She suddenly felt anger towards Jimmy- this was the first time she was meeting the kid, and she knew that his parents were alcoholics. How could Jimmy leave this cute, adorable kid behind in that environment? Jimmy might have been this boy's only way out from all of the stress and emotional torture.
What was this boy going to do now? She reached in a jacket pocket and wrapped a gloved hand around the camera. She had a feeling that with his parents in their state and Jimmy being gone, the boy would need the camera more than she ever would.
She reached for the strip of photos in her pocket and put it down on the coffin, trying to control the tears. Her and Jimmy, they were happy sometimes. Glimmers of happiness that seemed faded now.
Chloe felt Clark's presence unexpectedly, just like she always had whenever something went wrong. She and Jimmy would break it off sometimes, and she allowed herself to cry for a couple of minutes before getting herself back together and helping Clark with a project of some sort.
She wished that it was the case now, that Clark would come to her with a project or a story. But she looked around, and he was nowhere to be found. She did see Oliver there. Chloe was sure that he was wearing the sunglasses so that nobody would see how troubled he was.
She didn't know if she was losing her mind, but she swore that she saw a single tear fall down his cheek. She looked down before looking over to him again, but it was gone before she could confirm it. Dinah placed a hand on her back and guided her away, Bart standing right next to her. Chloe didn't think that she had ever seen Bart look so serious, or in clothes that didn't resemble his usual jeans and red hoodie. And she couldn't remember the last time she saw Canary's black wig in for such a long period of time.
They donned the suits and disguises for her sake. Chloe didn't have a disguise, never suited up for the job. But she plastered a small smile on her face before approaching Jimmy's brother. That would be her disguise.
"Hey. You must be Jimmy's little brother", she said, trying to be friendly. What was she possibly going to say to him? I'm sorry that my messes stole him from you? I'm sorry that you're going to feel alone now? She couldn't talk to him, or even strike up a friendship with the boy. They were never really introduced, it would be speaking with a stranger.
She reached in her pocket and pulled out the camera. "Well, I think that this belongs to you." She said, placing the camera around his neck. Maybe if the boy had a piece of Jimmy, he wouldn't be alone. "He would have wanted you to have it", she said, trying again to force a smile and strong voice.
"Thanks", the boy mumbled. She didn't expect much else. He had no idea who she was.
"Who knows?" she smiled again "Maybe someday, you'll follow in his footsteps."
As the boy walked away, she wished with all her might that she had given him the one thing that felt so far away for her, even as she looked into the distance in search for it and came up empty- hope.
Bart and Dinah walked with Chloe until they reached her car. She wanted to stay behind, to break down and cry at Jimmy's grave, to apologize to Oliver who had stayed. They walked the entire way in silence. Bart hadn't cracked a single joke to cheer her up, and Dinah hadn't rolled her eyes and told him to grow up. There was nothing.
It was better than what Chloe had expected. She wanted them to kill her, to take a life that was meant to be taken. She wanted Bart to be mad at her, for Dinah to tell her that this was all her fault, that if she hadn't split the man from the beast, Jimmy would be alive right now.
She wanted them to tell her that she had ruined the lives of a mother, a father, and a brother. That nobody's lives on the team would be the same again, not even Victor or AC once they heard what happened.
But there was nothing. Dinah got in her car and drove off without offering Chloe a ride home. Where was home, anyway? She had no home, not anymore. Bart turned one last time to look at her. He opened his mouth for a split second before closing it again. He gave her a sad look before speeding away, leaving a streak of black behind before even that disappeared completely.
Chloe had sold her car to pay for the funeral before Oliver could beat her to the punch. The rest of the money going into the funeral came from the paychecks she earned from playing Watchtower anyway.
She had a feeling, a very faint feeling that Oliver wasn't any better off than she was right now. She wanted to apologize to him, needed to apologize to him. She grabbed her cell phone instead of heading back, and called him. But he hadn't picked up.
"You have reached the voice mailbox of..." There was a slight pause before she heard his voice. "Oliver Queen."
She remembered holding charged paddles in her hands. "God, please don't let me kill him", she thought before placing them on Jimmy. Turns out she did after all.
"Oliver, it's Chloe", she said, wiping a tear that she hadn't realized had fallen. "It's all my fault. I'm so sorry."
She disconnected the call before walking back to the Watchtower with no destiny, no family, and no team. She stopped by a nearby coffee shop on her way, hoping that the familiar smell would comfort her. She realized when she saw a man posting Lois Lane's picture under the missing person's section that she was wrong.
She had no idea where Lois was. Chloe had been the one to run away, and now Lois Lane was missing. Lois, the one person who could understand her without knowing the specifics. Lois, the one person who told her time and again that she could do anything. Lois, the one person who told her that all she had ever done was follow in Chloe's footsteps. And now, she was gone too.
When she made it back, she sat on the floor upstairs, looking at the boxes in front of her, not daring to touch anything, and willing herself to stop crying.
She sat there for what felt like hours, just staring at the cardboard until she heard a door open. She rushed over to the stairs when she saw him. "Clark! You're alive!" It was really him, maybe everything now would be okay. It had to be if he was alive.
She ran down the stairs as quickly as her feet would allow and ran over to him "Hey", she said before wrapping her arms around him. She took a deep breath, trying to feel a sense of normality, a sense of calm. "How did you survive the geothermal explosion?" She asked, not really caring for the answer at this point.
Clark grabbed her arms, unwrapped her, and pushed her away a little bit. "Just before Dinah pressed the button, I...I don't know. I got out before the blast, but not fast enough to save anyone else."
She nodded her head. It was all going to be okay now, it was all going to be fine. It had to be.
"Chloe", he said, grabbing her attention again. "I've searched everywhere- there's no sign of Lois."
A tear fell at the mention of the name. She could tell Clark anything, always could. Maybe it was time to talk now. "I saw someone tagging her photo on a missing person's board. And I keep thinking that maybe, you know, maybe I haven't..." she trailed off
"Lost everyone", he finished.
But that was before she knew that Clark was alive. He looked for Lois before on his own, that's why he couldn't find her. If they looked together, then they could definitely find her. They always could before. Lois was as attached to her cell phone as Chloe was, maybe she could track her last call, see what happened there. Maybe even track the phone itself.
Clark walked past her, and looked out in the distance. If there was a chance that he was at the funeral, then he would have looked out too.
"You were there today, Clark, weren't you?" He didn't confirm or deny it. It was a good enough answer for her. "I really needed you", she continued. "Why didn't you come to me?"
"I'm the reason Jimmy's dead." Clark said in a level voice
But he wasn't, she was, she knew it, she could feel it. It wasn't Clark at all, he was fighting Doomsday, he hadn't split Davis. He wasn't here at Watchtower as the human side killed Jimmy. It was all her.
"Oliver was right", Clark continued, turning around. "I put humanity on a pedestal."
Both of the men were right, they were knew of the extremes of humanity. Chloe was the one in the wrong. Why weren't they blaming her?
"It wasn't the Kryptonian beast that killed Jimmy", he said. "It was the human."
"I was standing right here, Clark", she said, walking over to the blood that was still on the ground. She was right there, and she couldn't do anything to stop it. She wasn't fast enough, wasn't smart enough to see it."I know fool well who killed Jimmy."
Clark looked around the Watchtower. "This place, Chloe. Just get rid of it. Just walk away and don't look back."
Like Dinah and Bart were able to do. No, this was all her fault. She had to fix it somehow. That was what she had to do.
For some reason, there was a memory that flew to her mind, a voice that she hadn't heard in a long time. "Isn't that what we all want? A chance to repent?"
She gave Jimmy's brother the camera and Jimmy had given the Watchtower to her. "You don't get it", she told Clark. "Clark, Jimmy is here", she said, walking over to the window. "He's watching over me. He knew me so well, he knew this place would be perfect. Jimmy wanted me to know that no matter where I was in the city, I could look up here and see this beacon. The Watchtower", she said, using both the name she had given the building and the name given to her.
She walked over to Clark. They had work to do, but they had to act fast before the rest of the team lost themselves. "Now look. Dinah, Oliver, and Bart all disappeared. Maybe it's up to us to bring them back home."
"Home?" Clark asked "They don't have a home."
What was he talking about? "I don't like the way that sounds."
"I've always tried to forget I was an alien", he said. "A creature. I've always tried to pretend I was human."
And this planet welcomed him home with open arms. The Kents took him in, he had a good childhood, a good home. Friends and family.
"I was raised to believe that it was my Kryptonian part that was dangerous, Chloe, but I was wrong. It's my human side. It's the side that gets attached, the side that makes decisions based on emotions, that's my enemy. Davis proved that to me."
No, that wasn't true. Looking at him putting humanity on a pedestal pushed her every single day to be a better person, to look for the good in others. That wasn't what went wrong here, it was her splitting Davis. That's all it was. And what kind of helper would she be if she let Clark convince himself into thinking otherwise?
"So because of some psychopath, you're going to cut the rest of us out of your life?" She couldn't let him do that, not today. She needed somebody to still be here, she needed the person that she had destroyed everything in her life for to still be here. To prove that it was all for something good, that it was worth every sacrifice. "Clark, human emotion is what made you the hero you are today."
"They're what's stopping me from being the hero I could be. It's what the world needs now."
She was having trouble wrapping her head around this. "What are you saying?"
There was a silence before he answered. "Clark Kent is dead. Goodbye, Chloe."
She wanted to call out to him, to beg him to stop as he walked away, but her throat started to constrict. There was a sinking feeling in her stomach, and she put her hands there to attempt to calm it down.
The tears were free flowing. She was a sidekick without a superhero. She was lost and alone, and there was a goddamn blood stain on the floor. She walked over the bathroom, still in a daze with everything that had just happened and grabbed some ammonia, a bucket, and a sponge.
She was going to get this fucking blood stain off and purge this place from the smell of blood if it killed her. She kneeled down, and started scrubbing.