Fic: Last
Title: Last
Rating: PG-13
Fandom: Smallville
Pairing: Chlark
Spoilers/Timeline: Post-Series, references Fierce
Disclaimer: I own very little, certainly not these characters. Please don’t sue!
Author’s Note: So I was struck by the aging reference by Kara in Fierce, and wondered how that might play out in the really long run. Most of the story takes place 300+ years in the future.
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Clark Kent and Chloe Sullivan parted ways shortly after her cousin joined The Daily Planet. Over the years, he often wished that their epic friendship had ended with a bang, instead of a whimper.
She was worth fighting for, but by the time he thought to try, she was gone. The only trace was a note.
Clark,
I can’t stay. If our friendship means anything to you, let me be.
You don’t remember it, but I once told you that you were worth the wait. I don’t regret a second of watching you grow into the man you are today. I know you’ll only get better with age, and I’m sorry I can’t wait any more.
Marry Lana, have babies. Do whatever makes you happy. That’s all I hope for you.
Oh, and keep those cousins of ours out of trouble.
I love you, always.
Chloe
The paper has long since faded to dust, but his photographic memory allows him to call it up at will. Strange, that things ended so badly with Lana and that it was the cousin he was supposed to watch over for her, who turned out to be the love of his first lifetime. Some part of him still wonders how his childhood friend got so smart.
Lois was left in Chloe’s shadow, and became an amazing woman trying to live up to the standard her younger cousin set. She eventually stood for the very truth and justice that was missing from her early work, and she always credited Chloe for her growth.
They had as many ups and downs as he did with Lana, but they figured it out in the end.
After Lois died, he went through the toughest decades of his life. He needed a mooring, so he sought her out. It took years of tracking down leads as both Superman and Clark Kent, Jr., but he found her.
Crouching over a faded headstone in Maine, he had never felt so alone. The world went on for the better part of a century, completely oblivious that one of the key players in its salvation from an alien general had crossed the veil at the tender age of 28.
The records said it was cancer. She refused treatment at the end, spending her days in a beachfront property owned by Queen Industries instead.
In death, Clark Kent has little choice but to forgive his old friend and fellow hero.
What breaks his heart is that the life he’d imagined for her falls to dust. She was supposed to be happy, whole - writing books under a pseudonym in some far-off place, with a loving husband and adoring kids.
Not dying alone in an Indian Summer when he had the power to find her; to be there.
Clark Kent has lived two lifetimes since he found that place. He goes back to visit every year, and replaces the stone twice a century.
The world is less of a scary place for unusual people, so the latest stone actually bears the symbol of his house. It is a fitting tribute to a hero taken before her time.
He visited just one month ago, so his shock is complete when he spies the eyes of Chloe Sullivan on the outskirts of a Bedouin camp in war-ravaged former Jordan. The rest of the face is hidden carefully beneath a veil, but the shimmer of green is enough to send his mind into a tailspin.
She hovers over the sick and dying. Offering her tears for the dead, comforting with prayers in the native tongue.
He speeds through the rest of the search and rescue so quickly that he is in local clothes and at her side in minutes. She doesn’t look up as her tears fall freely over the body of a broken child.
She looks spent as she straightens, sitting on her knees. He is too terrified to speak.
“It’s a sad testament to mankind, you know.” Her voice is low and steady and so achingly familiar Clark wants to curl up in it. “Three hundred years and I cry the same tears, in the same places. Death and destruction is never visited upon the deserving. I’ve come to believe they don’t exist.”
It’s true. He was here two centuries ago, cleaning up the aftermath of a dirty bomb that went off in the old city center. They are a few miles off course, and the old city is a cursed place, as this will be one day.
She finally looks to him, veil still firmly in place. “Do you think they will ever figure it out?”
He doesn’t miss her use of “they”. Life has somehow passed her by much the same as him. There are no wrinkles marring her eyes. The voice hasn’t faded in the least.
Suddenly, he can’t fight the numb fingers that flutter to her cheek and loosen the veil. He has to know; has to see.
He has been so alone for so long.
The gauzy material falls away and he is met with the soft smile that still haunts his dreams from time to time. Her eyes glitter with unshed tears.
“Oh, Clark.” He doesn’t know who moves first, but they meet in the most meaningful hug of his long life.
“Chloe. How is this…?” Another glance confirms his suspicions. She doesn’t look a day older than the last time he saw her.
He is interrupted when the child she wept over coughs and begins crying for her mother. She turns and takes his hands gently.
“Later, I promise, Clark. I need to finish this.” The old fire in her eyes is what he believes in.
He nods mutely and sits back to watch the miracle unfold. Chloe speaks to the child in her native tongue, and the girl leads her to another body. She kneels again, and weeps. This time he doesn’t miss the sparkle, the shudder.
She speaks to the girl again and leaves her to watch over the body as she picks her way through the remaining victims.
The old and infirm she leaves with a comforting word. She keeps her focus on the children and their caregivers. She whispers something to each of them in their native tongue after they awaken, and her simple words are a beacon to these shattered people; more so to his weathered soul.
Translated roughly, it means, “Welcome back. I love you.”
Once she has worked her way back through a crowd shocked to be alive, the children begin flocking after her, praising Allah and calling her a Jinn.
“This is the embarrassing part.” She whispers as she draws near. “I know I owe you some answers, but is there any chance you could lend me a hand with the exit first?”
He scoops her up and they’re 1000 feet in the air before she registers the change.
“Whoa, there. I…uh…thanks?” She grips him a little tighter and he becomes uncomfortably aware of how long it has been since he has held anyone he cared about. “This is silly. I’ve died dozens of times, and nothing has stuck, but here I am scared of a little gravity.”
She laughs nervously and shifts, obviously as aware as Clark of their proximity.
“Where to?” He asks. He honestly hadn’t thought about it.
She looks thoughtful, then answers softly. “Home.”
In seconds, they touch down at the old Kent farm, maintained in zealous dedication to the old way of things. The house and barn are still made of wood, despite the polymetallic construction standards adopted long ago, and a small garden around the side still houses his mother’s favorite variety of sweet tomatoes.
It is a bubble of yesterday within sight of the sprawling cityscape of East Metropolis.
“Wow.” She whispers reverently as she looks around. All of the equipment had to be replaced at one point or another over the centuries, but he’s managed to make or find reasonable approximations to replace the furniture and fixtures.
He lives in the city most of the time, but this is still where his heart is. He bought it back from Ben Hubbard’s great-grandson a century ago, and has been carefully restoring it ever since.
She wanders into the barn and up the new loft stairs. Clark hangs back, watching her take in the view. It’s nearly sunset, so her tears shimmer like diamonds as she turns back toward him.
“Oh, Clark. This might be the most beautiful thing I’ve seen in 300 years.”
He doesn’t know what her reasons are, but he knows he just witnessed a miracle on a mass scale, and he doesn’t feel like his musty old barn is anywhere near worthy of tears that can return life where it had been snuffed out.
“Don’t cry, Chlo.” His arms are around her before he knows what he’s doing. She fits as well as ever just under his chin and suddenly this place is more home than it has been since before his mother left the first time.
They sway in the afternoon light, tears running wild down both their faces. The overwhelming peace becomes that much stronger when she pulls back to look him in the eyes.
By unspoken agreement, they sit next to each other on the new couch. She begins methodically unraveling her veil with well-practiced hands.
“I can’t believe I’m back here. The one place I knew I would never see again.” She chuckles at some memory only visible to her. “I was such a child back then.”
She looks up guiltily. “I’m sorry for what I did to you, Clark; what I did to everyone, really. It’s just…when I understood what it meant, I couldn’t put everyone through that.”
She sniffs, and studies the veil folded in her lap. “But I couldn’t ignore it either. It took a long time to grow to a place where I wasn’t sick or dying myself. Like I said, I’ve died more than a few times.”
“If I’m honest, though, that’s not why I left.” She wipes furiously at her eyes. “I left because once I realized, I knew I couldn’t watch everyone I ever loved pass without trying to save them, and that wasn’t my right.”
She’s looking him in the eye now and, from the jut of her jaw, obviously expecting some disagreement. He may not have a wrinkle on him either, but that doesn’t mean he hasn’t grown from the boy he was.
“Chloe, I can’t judge you. I still try to save everyone, and I can’t imagine being given the choice you are. Knowing the world needs to go on as it should, but that some tragedies are beyond the natural order.”
He grabs her clenched hands and slides his own between.
“I do know that if there is one person I trust with that, it’s you. Whatever higher power is looking after us, those children were right.
“It must have been hard hiding from Superman.”
“Damned near impossible, once you started looking, actually. I knew where your head was at the time and finding me sacrificing myself again and again wouldn’t have helped. I finally realized you weren’t going to give up and put Maine together to give you some closure.”
She squeezes his hands and her green eyes bore into his soul. “I’m sorry for the deceit. I saw the shield this time, and I don’t deserve it.”
“Of course you do.” He says with conviction. “You did long before you were meteor infected.”
The smile is the same, but the eyes are a shade of wise he hasn’t seen since J’onn. She leans up and places a chaste kiss on his lips. It’s been so long that the jolt of electricity catches him off guard and he deepens the kiss without thinking, sliding his tongue past soft lips and pulling her flush against him.
His heart pounds and he’s out of breath when they finally pull back. Sunset in her hair becomes a golden halo as he gazes into familiar emerald depths.
“What was that for?”
The quirky smile reminds him of a girl he knew. “I know you’ve been thinking about kissing me for centuries, so I thought we could get it over with and look into being more than friends this time around.”
There's no denying it, so he settles for kissing her breathless again.
---End---