The Loyal Opposition, Part 22
Title: The Loyal Opposition
Author: latetothpartyhp
Rating: PG-13
Genre: drama
Spoilers: through Pandora
Pairings: ETA: I envisioned this as mainly a Chlark confrontation, but what emerged in addition to that were some hints of Chlex friendship, mutual Chless manipulation, and some (mostly) off-screen Clana. There's also a Lexana fight for anyone who's interested. And Cless! We have added Cless!
Warnings: some violence & language - ETA: Character deaths in store.
Summary / Author's Note: Chloe's on a mission for the resistance. Could be a Supernatural crossover if you squint real hard.
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Author's note for Part 22: And now, the conclusion of this fic. To everyone who has kept up with this and commented, thank you so much. Every story I write is a big learning experience, but this was my first & so it was the steepest and hardest. Extra thanks to elliottxoxo. ALSO - I just realized there's a fairly large spoiler for Abandoned in this part.
Part 1 / Part 2 / Part 3 / Part 4 / Part 5 / Part 6 / Part 7 / Part 8 / Part 9 / Part 10 / Part 11 / Part 12 / Part 13 / Part 14 / Part 15 / Part 16 / Part 17 / Part 18 / Part 19 / Part 20 / Part 21
“There's your rainbow,” Tess panted, and Chloe heard herself giggle. Then her body straightened and kicked Tess in the head.
There were no other sounds from her, although it was impossible for Chloe to tell if she'd been knocked unconscious, since Madelyn did not linger to check. Instead she lifted Chloe's leg over Tess' still form and walked a few more paces to where Clark lay, breathing quick, choppy breaths and looking at her with clear, worried eyes. Madelyn did not bend to look at him, but Chloe felt her smile again, and then the tightening of her belly and the tickle in her throat that was Madelyn's giggle. Clark frowned and Madelyn giggled again. Then she raised Chloe's toe to the edge of his belly wound and dug it in.
Clark grunted and rolled away. His movement was weak, though; it was a reasonable guess there'd been kryptonite coating the bullets in Tess' gun. Not that there was anything she could do about it. Madelyn matched his pace along the ground, kicking Chloe's foot into the wounds whenever she got an opening. Clark grimaced every time and Chloe felt herself clawing against the wall that separated her mind from her body, scratching with phantom nails and yelling with phantom lungs as Madelyn giggled and chased. As she did Madelyn giggled harder and bent over Clark, touching her borrowed fingers to the hole in his chest.
“I remember you,” she said, and licked the blood off Chloe's fingers. Clark's face twisted in confusion. “Poor little boy,” she said, stroking the hair back from his forehead. “I know from my … hostess … that you cannot die as long as the sun shines yellow, and I've made it so the sun will always shine yellow now.” She bounced up, apparently excited, and clapped her hands. “We are going to have so much fun together!”
As she clapped a noise sounded deeper in the Fortress, as of rocks tumbling down, and Madelyn turned. As she turned there was a whooshing sound that caused Madelyn to flinch and jerk Chloe's head around wildly. It was difficult for Chloe to make out anything through her movements, but she think she saw something in the corner of her eye -
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Lex fingered the gun in his hand. Nadia had come and gone. Chloe had gone to the Fortress, ostensibly to heal Clark, who had been shot by Tess. It would be over quickly now. Pamela would send word soon. She'd asked for closure once it came, and he'd promised it. He wished he could find someone to do the same for him, but there was no one he trusted. Chloe, perhaps, but she would not be available. Nadia, sadly, could not; that had been a key aspect of the conditioning to which she'd been subjected. Lana would never do it. Neither would Oliver. At each of their few meetings over the last year, he had seen the revulsion in Oliver's eyes, then the realization, and then the triumph. The man would want him to live.
So be it. In the end the only person you could ever really rely on was yourself. Everyone else had their own agendas. Occasionally their agendas meshed with his, bringing the illusion of trust, but not even the two billion dead, the millions more dying slowly of starvation, had truly brought them together. He would not mourn that, any more than he would wallow in self-recrimination. They had all known what he knew, but they had chosen to ignore it. They were all culpable.
He examined the gun again. It had belonged to his father. Chloe had recognized it, had told him Lionel had lent it to her on Black Thursday, the day of the first invasion. It was right that it had been brought out again for this fight. He had been surprised to realize he regretted the fate their mission had forced on her. Of them all, she was the only one who seemed to understand. He hoped, for many reasons, Oliver didn't fuck that up. The man had insisted on doing the job himself; at the very least he could have the decency to do it properly. Especially since he, Lex, wouldn't be around to mop up.
The gun was heavy in his hand. The early Stoics had said that when a sage could no longer live virtuously within his society, that man should have the privilege of choosing his own death. He, however, was hardly a sage and had long since given up on being able to live virtuously, so in his case there was no justifiable rationale for suicide. Clearly there was work yet to be done. Society did not tolerate a vacuum any better than nature did; there would be war and chaos and famine before humanity re-established self-government. Many would say that he was the man for the job, but the truth was he simply didn't want to be the one to do it. Let Lana finally have her day in the sun; he thought. It would be his guilt offering to her for not keeping her updated on current events. She wouldn't be any worse than Clark had been.
Than Clark had been. I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him. The evil that men do lives after them; the good is oft interred with their bones. He should do it quickly, before Nadia returned. Nadia, his perfect creation. His hope. If his sister hadn't succeeded, Nadia surely would. Either way, he thought, Clark Kent was dead.