The Boy Who Lived- Chloe Sullivan fic, Prompt #77
Title: The Boy Who Lived
Fandom: Smallville
Rating: PG
Pairing: Chloe Sullivan (Chloe/Clark Kent)
Summary: Chloe helps Clark realize he has a lot more in common with Harry Potter than he ever would have thought.
Word Count: 1,212
Author's Notes: Spoilers for the SV episode "Solitude"; slight for the movie "Harry Potter and The Goblet of Fire".
Prompt: #77- What?
“What in the hell are we doing here?” Clark muttered, gazing at the group of oddly dressed people surrounding them.
Chloe giggled. “We’re embracing the spirit of fans worldwide.”
“I’d rather embrace Bessie the cow.” He grumbled, stuffing a few kernels of popcorn into his mouth.
“Oh, please, Clark. You could relax and try to enjoy this just a little, you know.”
He shook his head. “I don’t think so.”
“Look.” She said, grabbing his arm and pulling him away from the crowd of strangely attired fans. “I know that Harry Potter isn’t exactly your thing, Clark, and I understand that. But you have got to lighten up, or I’m going to use all of the unforgivable spells on your ass. This is supposed to be my birthday present, and frankly, if you’re going to keep on being Mr. Angsty-Mc Angster Pants, we should have just gone to go see some cheesy horror movie like The Fog.”
Clark groaned. “There’s something about that movie that gives me the creeps.”
“You big baby.” Chloe swatted him on the arm. “There is, a large number of movies out there besides the Rambo movies and the Back to the Future Trilogy. It’s a wide world. I’m just trying to widen your horizons a little bit. You know, if you lived in the dorms at school? You’d be ostracized for your complete and total lack of movie trivia knowledge.”
“Hey.” Clark groaned. “I sat through all eight of the other Harry Potter movies in preparation for this one. That’s saying a lot, I think.”
“Clark.” Chloe shook her head. “There’s only three other movies. Three.”
“It felt like eight.”
“And again with the super whining.”
“Chloe?”
“What?”
“I have a full popcorn bucket in my hand, and I’m not afraid to use it.”
“You wouldn’t.”
“Are you really willing to take that chance?”
“Remind me again, Clark, why I put up with you?”
“I sprung for Goobers. That’s got to count for something.”
“Some, my friend, would argue that you are the goober.”
“Likewise. I’m just glad you’re not dressed up like the rest of the geeks here.”
“Clark!” Chloe said in a low voice. “Don’t anger the Harry Potter fans. They can be very harsh when provoked. Trust me. And besides.” She said, waving her red and gold scarf in front of him, “I am in costume. Kind of.”
“Huh?”
“Gryffindor colors. I was kind of torn between Gryffindor and Ravenclaw, but I figured I should just channel my inner Hermione and join Gryffindor.”
“O-ookay.” Clark replied, as the theatre door opened. “I’m going to pretend I understood that.” He took Chloe’s arm and they walked into the theatre, and fought to find a decent seat.
***
“So, what did you think?” The theatre lights came up, and Chloe turned to Clark. His eyes were reddened slightly around the edges, and he was looking down at his feet. “Clark, are you okay?”
“I’m fine.” His voice cracked slightly.
He wasn’t fine, and she knew it. Chloe tugged on Clark’s arm slightly. “C’mon. Let’s go.”
They walked out of the theatre silently, and climbed into Chloe’s bug.
“Tell me, Clark.”
“Tell you what?”
“What’s wrong?”
“I…I…” Clark sighed deeply. “The movie just got to me a little.”
“Wanna talk about it?” She said gently.
“It’s Jor-El. I hate living with this threat over my head. I don’t want anyone to die because of me, and they are going to. But I don’t know who, and I don’t know when, and…I never asked for any of this, Chloe. It’s like my entire life has been planned out before I’ve even gotten the chance to live it.”
“So you actually sympathize with Harry Potter a lot more than you thought you would, huh?” Chloe said, patting Clark’s shoulder. “Your life has been a pretty big pile of suck lately, with the Silver Kryptonite, and Professor Fine…It hasn’t been easy to see you going through this, I can’t even imagine….what it’s like to be you.”
“It’s not easy.” He muttered softly.
“Being the hero never is.”
“I’m not a hero, Chloe.”
“Yes, you are. You’ve saved lives, Clark. Mine, Lex’s, Lana’s, Pete’s…half of everybody in Smallville. You may not have chosen to be a hero, Clark, but you certainly have become one.”
“One with my own personal Voldemort.”
“Dr. Fine, I presume?”
Clark nodded. “I thought…I looked up to him, Chloe. I thought he was someone I could look up to, someone I could trust. He tried to kill me, he tried to kill my mom…and…I…I killed him, Chloe. I killed him. I’m a murderer.”
“Clark.” Chloe put her hand on his. “You didn’t kill him on purpose. There was a struggle, and you fought. And he died because of it. But you didn’t murder him.”
He stared at her blankly. “How do you know that?”
“I was there, Clark. I saw what happened.”
“Even if you saw it, you don’t know how it feels.”
“I do.” Chloe looked down at the floor before looking back up at Clark. Tears flowed freely down her face. “I know what it feels to replay one moment over and over in your head endlessly. It plays on a loop and you can’t stop it, no matter how hard you try. You second-guess yourself, wondering if it really was an accident, or if you’re just deluding yourself.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Gabriel.” Chloe’s voice was almost a whisper. “I was trying to keep him from launching the missile and obliterating Smallville. He had a gun. We fought. He died. If you’re going to call yourself a murderer, Clark, then so am I.”
“The police ruled his death a suicide.”
“And as far as the world knows, Professor Milton Fine is just one amongst the million of the missing.”
Clark sighed. “So where does that leave us?”
“Two college students bereft in a bug after watching Harry Potter?”
“Well, yeah.”
“So it didn’t put you to sleep, huh?”
“Not this time. I liked the dragons.”
“I’ll make a fanboy out of you yet, Clark Kent.”
“Should I be afraid?”
“Not yet.” She winked. “You will be. You know if we book it back to Smallville, we can get some coffee before Lois closes up the Talon. I’ll buy, okay, “the boy who lived”?
“Chloe, I’m not Harry Potter.”
“Well, duh. Tell me something I don’t know. But you are the boy who lived.”
“Explain. Please.”
“Your home planet…”
“Krypton..”
“…Krypton blew up, and your parents saved you by putting you in a teeny little spaceship and sent you hurtling through the cosmos. An entire world died, Clark, and you lived. That’s pretty amazing. You are the boy who lived.”
Clark mulled over her statement as Chloe backed out of her parking space in front of the Grandville Multi-Plex. With as many so called Kryptonians that he’d met lately, Clark wondered if he was the only boy who lived. It wasn’t a perfect comparison, but maybe, maybe, Chloe was a little right, and he did have something- a little something in common with Harry Potter.
“You know.” Clark remarked as Chloe pulled out onto the highway. “If I’m Harry Potter, than you’re my Hermione.”
A beaming smile graced Chloe’s face the entire trip home.