Four Times Chloe Said Goodbye and One Time She Didn’t
1.
The voice message on her cellphone was warm and friendly and sweetly awkward. Chloe recognized Davis’ voice at once.
“Chloe,” the voice said, “hey. I was wondering…um, this is Davis. Davis Bloome. You know, the paramedic.” She could all but picture Davis shifting from side to side as he spoke, nervousness making him light on his feet.
Davis continued. “Anyway, now that Randy Klein has confessed to the killings, I’d like to thank you for believing me. Not over the phone. I mean, I’d like to thank you in person. Whatever. Call me.”
She felt herself grinning from ear to ear. She had never received a message like that, though she may have left one for Clark all those years ago.
Second message. “Um, you can’t call me if you don’t have my phone number. Wow, I’m normally not this scattered. Okay, get a pen. I’ll wait.” He paused. “Okay, now get some paper.”
Chloe blushed. Brainiac had taken up residence in her brain and turned on the gas and electricity, so she didn’t need a pen and paper to remember numbers. She had the feeling she wouldn’t have needed Brainiac to remember anything about Davis.
The third message was from Jimmy, telling her he would be late coming home. He didn’t say why.
Chloe held out her cell phone, uncertain as to what to do. Brainiac may have made her smarter than the average bear, but it gave her no data on matters of the heart.
She should call back Jimmy, asking him if he wanted pizza or Chinese for dinner. Instead, she dialed Davis, fingers gliding over the keypad.
“Hello?”
Her mouth dried, and she swallowed hard before speaking. “Hi, Davis, it’s Chloe.”
“Chloe. Just the girl I’ve been thinking about.”
She glossed over that sentence faster than it took for Clark to traverse Smallville. Or pine over Lana.
Chloe said, “You know, thanking me isn’t necessary, really. It’s what I do.” She missed the days of telephones with cords. That way, she could wrap it around her finger nervously. Now she could only reach for strands of her blonde hair. Twist and release. Twist and release.
“Yeah,” he said, “saving my sanity is all in a day’s work for you. But I think you’ve earned yourself a present.” She could hear the smile in his voice.
She thought about the present he had already given her: Jimmy never made her feel needed, and Clark never made her feel wanted. Davis did both. Besides, after years of being the brains to Clark’s alien brawn, the words “thank you” were as good as any payment.
Still, he was a paramedic, and who knows what pittance they earned. “Davis, no!” she pleaded. “I can’t take a present for being a friend. It’s a breach of friend ethics.”
“Okay, no presents. How about coffee? Is coffee on the list of approved gifts?”
She thought about sitting at a table with him, alone together, smiling at each other over steaming mugs. It was a cozy image. Chloe relented, willingly. “Coffee it is.”
She told Davis she would write down the address of his favorite outdoor café, but she didn’t. She could remember everything he told her.
“See you then,” he said, and hung up.
With a smile so broad she felt like it would crack her face, Chloe held her cell phone to her chest, feeling her heart skip. He wanted to thank in her person. He had a present for her. He wanted to see her.
She sighed. Feeling slightly guilty, she called Jimmy and told him she would make him his favorite dinner and keep it warm for him.
--
She spotted Davis as she turned the corner. He managed to look both relaxed and tense at the same time. He was dressed in EMT finery, and the uniform made him look professional, even dignified. But Chloe had seen him at his worst, teary-eyed and rigid with fear, horrified at the thought that he could be a killer. But then she held him and felt his terror melt away.
Her meteor power vanished after Brainiac wormed its way into her skull, but she could heal Davis with her touch.
Her peripheral vision told her that next to his bottle of beer-such a guy-was a small wooden box. Necklace sized. And here he was, dressed in his uniform.
Was this a date? Was this some sort of stealth date? She was charmed. No one had tried to woo her before.
It was easy with him. In that moment, sitting back in a café, Davis smiling at her, she could picture this as normal. This could be a snapshot of the rest of their lives.
But then he mentioned Jimmy obliquely (“Have you ever felt that way about anyone before?”), and that’s when the guilt set in.
Why did he have to ask that question? She blamed herself for being defensive, but she blamed him too, for touching the sensitive spot of her psyche.
And instead of seeing what kind of present he had for her, she said, “I think it’s best if I don’t see you for a while. Sorry.”
Helping Davis, she said, wasn’t much of a sacrifice. But saying goodbye to him, and keeping her promise to Jimmy, was.
2.
Brainiac kicked in to overdrive, stripping away her memories, until there was nothing left but Davis. When he took her back to Clark and Jimmy, it felt like the ultimate betrayal. He was giving her up when she didn’t want to be let go.
Then her memory came back, and with it, an overpowering sense of shame. She had promised to marry Jimmy She loved Jimmy. And if she said it enough times, in front of a minister, she would start believing it.
Her feelings for Davis were not something that needed to be reaffirmed.
Maybe Davis took her back because he only cared for her as a friend. Perhaps whatever it was she felt for him was only one-sided.
Traces of doubt were obliterated when he confronted her with his feelings. He shared them. He voiced her hidden thoughts that they were somehow connected.
Instead of embracing his words and embracing him, Chloe backpedaled. Throw away a two-year relationship over a man she just met?
“But I love Jimmy,” she said, and the words sounded false in her ears.
Davis gave her an electrifying kiss that jolted her every nerve, and for just a moment, she leaned in, the shock of it softened by his lips. Nothing else in the world felt this good, at least nothing that she could remember.
Jimmy. She couldn’t betray him, not when he was the first man to ever look at her romantically. But he never looked at her the way Clark looked at Lana. Davis did.
Chloe pulled away.
She drove her scooter toward Metropolis, toward the florist, toward the beginning of the rest of her life with Jimmy. With each mile, she sorted through a vast and conflicting array of emotions. By the time she reached the florist, she wondered if turning away from Davis was a mistake.
When she said “I do,” she also thought, “Goodbye, and I’m sorry.”
3.
Clark told her that he had rewritten history by two days, and he spun her a tale so vivid-he really was becoming a good writer-that she dreamed about it that night.
She said goodbye to Davis in the dream, a two-part dream that could have been real, had Clark not used the Legion ring.
The first part took place at MetGen. She caught a glimpse of Davis and chased him down. She had been so happy to see him. She could use a friend after the last few weeks, and Clark had been too busy chasing Lois to give her a Kryptonian-powered hand to hold.
Those weeks she had been caring for Jimmy, watching over him either raging with pain or numbed from drugs. She had promised to love him for better and for worse, and yes, this was the worst. It would get better any day now. It had to.
But then Davis told her that they couldn’t be friends.
It was like a slap in the face. She would take him any way she could have him, and now that she was married, friendship was their only option. Leave Jimmy when he was so terribly broken? She couldn’t be so Cruella.
In the dream, Davis stood in front of her, brown eyes intense and focused. She could have loved him. In her way, she already did. Still, she said goodbye.
It was more of a nightmare than a dream, because the second part ended in terror: he chased her in his monster form. And even though she knew it couldn’t have been real, because her mere presence kept him from changing into Doomsday, the fear felt immediate. She woke up to a pounding heart and an empty bed.
This two-part dream showed her Davis as a monster and Davis gone from her life. She couldn’t decide what was worse.
But it was nothing compared to the fourth time she said goodbye.
4.
Davis had asked her to help him die. It was a kinder way of saying that he needed her to kill him.
She pulled the lever, and the liquid kryptonite showered Davis in his own death. She pulled Clark away but ran back to Davis as he slumped down to the floor of the cage. She placed her hand on the glass, and he met it on the other side. He smiled at her, even as she cried.
Then he was gone. She could not know what he was feeling when he left. Release?
All she felt was that a part of her had died too.
The next day, Clark visited. He had the nerve to lecture her about the choice she had made. If he saw how miserable she was, he chose to ignore it. But by saying goodbye to Davis, she said goodbye to a piece of her innocence, the part that trusted Clark and believed he would take care of everything.
Those days were officially over.
She had only wanted to be Clark’s friend and helper. Now she had become his hatchet man.
5.
And of course, Davis came back, because nothing was simple in Smallville, not even killing the man who begged her to end it all.
When Davis appeared, fresh as an undead daisy, he gave her a choice: he could either fulfill the purpose for which he had been created and kill Clark or stay with her so she could keep the monster at bay.
The decision of giving him over to Clark rested on her jacket-clad shoulders. Heads, she wins. Tails, the planet loses.
She was always letting him go.
She could tell herself that what she was doing protected Clark. But it would be a lie. She locked the door, locking them inside together.
She floated down the staircase like a ghost, disconnected from her own body. She had become a killer-even though her victim rose from the grave and forgave her. This is not what she had wanted to be. She wanted to be a protector, like Clark, but in smaller, more human ways.
Here was her chance to redeem herself.
Davis stood waiting for her, but not like a statue. He was trembling, still awash in the fear that she would turn him over to Clark. Or worse, that she would abandon him.
She had said goodbye four times. She put both palms on his chest, soothing his nerves, and looked up at him with green eyes that sought redemption and so much more.
She stood on her tiptoes and pulled his shoulders down to her, seeking the electricity of his lips, to bring them both to life.
It was time to say hello.
The voice message on her cellphone was warm and friendly and sweetly awkward. Chloe recognized Davis’ voice at once.
“Chloe,” the voice said, “hey. I was wondering…um, this is Davis. Davis Bloome. You know, the paramedic.” She could all but picture Davis shifting from side to side as he spoke, nervousness making him light on his feet.
Davis continued. “Anyway, now that Randy Klein has confessed to the killings, I’d like to thank you for believing me. Not over the phone. I mean, I’d like to thank you in person. Whatever. Call me.”
She felt herself grinning from ear to ear. She had never received a message like that, though she may have left one for Clark all those years ago.
Second message. “Um, you can’t call me if you don’t have my phone number. Wow, I’m normally not this scattered. Okay, get a pen. I’ll wait.” He paused. “Okay, now get some paper.”
Chloe blushed. Brainiac had taken up residence in her brain and turned on the gas and electricity, so she didn’t need a pen and paper to remember numbers. She had the feeling she wouldn’t have needed Brainiac to remember anything about Davis.
The third message was from Jimmy, telling her he would be late coming home. He didn’t say why.
Chloe held out her cell phone, uncertain as to what to do. Brainiac may have made her smarter than the average bear, but it gave her no data on matters of the heart.
She should call back Jimmy, asking him if he wanted pizza or Chinese for dinner. Instead, she dialed Davis, fingers gliding over the keypad.
“Hello?”
Her mouth dried, and she swallowed hard before speaking. “Hi, Davis, it’s Chloe.”
“Chloe. Just the girl I’ve been thinking about.”
She glossed over that sentence faster than it took for Clark to traverse Smallville. Or pine over Lana.
Chloe said, “You know, thanking me isn’t necessary, really. It’s what I do.” She missed the days of telephones with cords. That way, she could wrap it around her finger nervously. Now she could only reach for strands of her blonde hair. Twist and release. Twist and release.
“Yeah,” he said, “saving my sanity is all in a day’s work for you. But I think you’ve earned yourself a present.” She could hear the smile in his voice.
She thought about the present he had already given her: Jimmy never made her feel needed, and Clark never made her feel wanted. Davis did both. Besides, after years of being the brains to Clark’s alien brawn, the words “thank you” were as good as any payment.
Still, he was a paramedic, and who knows what pittance they earned. “Davis, no!” she pleaded. “I can’t take a present for being a friend. It’s a breach of friend ethics.”
“Okay, no presents. How about coffee? Is coffee on the list of approved gifts?”
She thought about sitting at a table with him, alone together, smiling at each other over steaming mugs. It was a cozy image. Chloe relented, willingly. “Coffee it is.”
She told Davis she would write down the address of his favorite outdoor café, but she didn’t. She could remember everything he told her.
“See you then,” he said, and hung up.
With a smile so broad she felt like it would crack her face, Chloe held her cell phone to her chest, feeling her heart skip. He wanted to thank in her person. He had a present for her. He wanted to see her.
She sighed. Feeling slightly guilty, she called Jimmy and told him she would make him his favorite dinner and keep it warm for him.
--
She spotted Davis as she turned the corner. He managed to look both relaxed and tense at the same time. He was dressed in EMT finery, and the uniform made him look professional, even dignified. But Chloe had seen him at his worst, teary-eyed and rigid with fear, horrified at the thought that he could be a killer. But then she held him and felt his terror melt away.
Her meteor power vanished after Brainiac wormed its way into her skull, but she could heal Davis with her touch.
Her peripheral vision told her that next to his bottle of beer-such a guy-was a small wooden box. Necklace sized. And here he was, dressed in his uniform.
Was this a date? Was this some sort of stealth date? She was charmed. No one had tried to woo her before.
It was easy with him. In that moment, sitting back in a café, Davis smiling at her, she could picture this as normal. This could be a snapshot of the rest of their lives.
But then he mentioned Jimmy obliquely (“Have you ever felt that way about anyone before?”), and that’s when the guilt set in.
Why did he have to ask that question? She blamed herself for being defensive, but she blamed him too, for touching the sensitive spot of her psyche.
And instead of seeing what kind of present he had for her, she said, “I think it’s best if I don’t see you for a while. Sorry.”
Helping Davis, she said, wasn’t much of a sacrifice. But saying goodbye to him, and keeping her promise to Jimmy, was.
2.
Brainiac kicked in to overdrive, stripping away her memories, until there was nothing left but Davis. When he took her back to Clark and Jimmy, it felt like the ultimate betrayal. He was giving her up when she didn’t want to be let go.
Then her memory came back, and with it, an overpowering sense of shame. She had promised to marry Jimmy She loved Jimmy. And if she said it enough times, in front of a minister, she would start believing it.
Her feelings for Davis were not something that needed to be reaffirmed.
Maybe Davis took her back because he only cared for her as a friend. Perhaps whatever it was she felt for him was only one-sided.
Traces of doubt were obliterated when he confronted her with his feelings. He shared them. He voiced her hidden thoughts that they were somehow connected.
Instead of embracing his words and embracing him, Chloe backpedaled. Throw away a two-year relationship over a man she just met?
“But I love Jimmy,” she said, and the words sounded false in her ears.
Davis gave her an electrifying kiss that jolted her every nerve, and for just a moment, she leaned in, the shock of it softened by his lips. Nothing else in the world felt this good, at least nothing that she could remember.
Jimmy. She couldn’t betray him, not when he was the first man to ever look at her romantically. But he never looked at her the way Clark looked at Lana. Davis did.
Chloe pulled away.
She drove her scooter toward Metropolis, toward the florist, toward the beginning of the rest of her life with Jimmy. With each mile, she sorted through a vast and conflicting array of emotions. By the time she reached the florist, she wondered if turning away from Davis was a mistake.
When she said “I do,” she also thought, “Goodbye, and I’m sorry.”
3.
Clark told her that he had rewritten history by two days, and he spun her a tale so vivid-he really was becoming a good writer-that she dreamed about it that night.
She said goodbye to Davis in the dream, a two-part dream that could have been real, had Clark not used the Legion ring.
The first part took place at MetGen. She caught a glimpse of Davis and chased him down. She had been so happy to see him. She could use a friend after the last few weeks, and Clark had been too busy chasing Lois to give her a Kryptonian-powered hand to hold.
Those weeks she had been caring for Jimmy, watching over him either raging with pain or numbed from drugs. She had promised to love him for better and for worse, and yes, this was the worst. It would get better any day now. It had to.
But then Davis told her that they couldn’t be friends.
It was like a slap in the face. She would take him any way she could have him, and now that she was married, friendship was their only option. Leave Jimmy when he was so terribly broken? She couldn’t be so Cruella.
In the dream, Davis stood in front of her, brown eyes intense and focused. She could have loved him. In her way, she already did. Still, she said goodbye.
It was more of a nightmare than a dream, because the second part ended in terror: he chased her in his monster form. And even though she knew it couldn’t have been real, because her mere presence kept him from changing into Doomsday, the fear felt immediate. She woke up to a pounding heart and an empty bed.
This two-part dream showed her Davis as a monster and Davis gone from her life. She couldn’t decide what was worse.
But it was nothing compared to the fourth time she said goodbye.
4.
Davis had asked her to help him die. It was a kinder way of saying that he needed her to kill him.
She pulled the lever, and the liquid kryptonite showered Davis in his own death. She pulled Clark away but ran back to Davis as he slumped down to the floor of the cage. She placed her hand on the glass, and he met it on the other side. He smiled at her, even as she cried.
Then he was gone. She could not know what he was feeling when he left. Release?
All she felt was that a part of her had died too.
The next day, Clark visited. He had the nerve to lecture her about the choice she had made. If he saw how miserable she was, he chose to ignore it. But by saying goodbye to Davis, she said goodbye to a piece of her innocence, the part that trusted Clark and believed he would take care of everything.
Those days were officially over.
She had only wanted to be Clark’s friend and helper. Now she had become his hatchet man.
5.
And of course, Davis came back, because nothing was simple in Smallville, not even killing the man who begged her to end it all.
When Davis appeared, fresh as an undead daisy, he gave her a choice: he could either fulfill the purpose for which he had been created and kill Clark or stay with her so she could keep the monster at bay.
The decision of giving him over to Clark rested on her jacket-clad shoulders. Heads, she wins. Tails, the planet loses.
She was always letting him go.
She could tell herself that what she was doing protected Clark. But it would be a lie. She locked the door, locking them inside together.
She floated down the staircase like a ghost, disconnected from her own body. She had become a killer-even though her victim rose from the grave and forgave her. This is not what she had wanted to be. She wanted to be a protector, like Clark, but in smaller, more human ways.
Here was her chance to redeem herself.
Davis stood waiting for her, but not like a statue. He was trembling, still awash in the fear that she would turn him over to Clark. Or worse, that she would abandon him.
She had said goodbye four times. She put both palms on his chest, soothing his nerves, and looked up at him with green eyes that sought redemption and so much more.
She stood on her tiptoes and pulled his shoulders down to her, seeking the electricity of his lips, to bring them both to life.
It was time to say hello.