Smallville: Revelations, Chapter 2
Title: Smallville: Revelations
Author: latetothpartyhp / FlyingHigh
For: mygyps17
Rating: PG-13/Teen for language, some violence, and some mentions of sexuality
Warnings: Bullying and some scenes of violence involving a child
Prompts: Summer camp, haunted cabin, jealous & spying Lana. No Clark ignoring Chloe for Lana, no Clana dating, no kryptonite.
Summary: A mysterious apparition is trying to kill a young Smallvillian and it's up to Chlark to save her! Takes place in Season 2 after Vortex and before Heat.
Author's Note: This is my first stab at a prompt, so I'm submitting this with fingers crossed. Also see my note at the end of Chapter 5 and after the Epilogue. Originally posted at the secret_chlark Summer 2012 Gift Exchange.
Table of Contents
Chloe'd gotten four hours of sleep the last night, but late night marathon research-sessions were why they'd invented the no-fat, no-foam latte, useful before, during, and after said sessions. Especially after, when she could present one to her internship adviser with a smile.
“You're here early,” said her internship adviser, one Max Taylor, Daily Planet Assistant Features Editor and the source of what sunshine there was in her summer.
“I've got a lot of miles to cover today. I've got a lead.” She couldn't help but smile as she said it. This was the best news item to have crossed her desk since … well, since her own abduction.
Taylor picked off the lid of his cup, eying the state of the foam. “Is that cinnamon sprinkled on top?”
“Yes, but listen! Yesterday a twelve-year-old girl nearly drowned at the YMCA of Kansas' premiere extended-stay summer camp, Camp Chisolm, thanks to the fact that the nineteen-year-old lifeguard-on-duty had immediately before fallen unconscious out of his guard chair.”
Taylor sipped his latte. “Does your source say why he fell unconscious?”
“No. He says the guy just fell on to the beach with a bleeding head wound. But what's more,” she added, shifting to the edge of her seat, “ is that the camper who ended up rescuing the drowning girl reported seeing a mysterious woman with an eye-patch attacking the girl in the water.”
Taylor groaned. “Chloe! This is the Daily Planet, not your little student paper.”
“Two people almost died and no one knows why!”
“Almost, but not quite.”
“We don't know that they won't. The lifeguard's condition is still unknown.”
“Okay, so if he dies, there'll be a police investigation and we may decide to cover that, but I can't print 'Pirate Invades Summer Camp'.”
“I didn't say 'pirate', I said 'woman with an eye-patch', so good job stereotyping the disabled, but even if the camper who says he saw her made that up, which I doubt, there's still the head wound. Not to mention,” she added as he sighed, “every spring the Planet prints a special section for the metro edition listing all the summer programs for children in the area as a resource for busy parents. If we are going to provide every year what is essentially an endorsement of the summer-camp industrial complex then I think we owe it to those same busy parents to report on the risks those camps pose to their children's health and well-being.”
Taylor was now staring at the ceiling. That could not be good. “The 'summer-camp industrial complex'?” he asked.
Okay. Maybe she had gone a little overboard on that one. She had to consider her audience. Most people couldn't handle the not-yet-explained, but everyone - every adult at least - shared at least one universal obsession. “They herd these kids into dorms reeking of disinfectant, force-feed them formeldafood and encourage them to court West Nile Virus in the woods at $500 a week. If you were spending that kind of money wouldn't you be concerned by passed-out lifeguards? And, speaking of parental investments, one of the purposes of this internship is to practice real-world interviewing and writing skills and I have yet to do either while helping Cyril develop his home-made Twinkie for the 'Dining In' column.”
“Do you know how many unsolicited restaurant and cookbooks reviews we get every month?” he asked, waving his latte in her general direction. “Food journalism's the wave of the future.”
“If I have to taste-test any more stabilized whipped cream the headline on the Planet's web page tomorrow will be 'Intern Bemoans Fate of Once-Prestigious Newspaper, Claims She Made Mistake Not Interviewing With The Inquisitor'.
Chloe had not idea how she'd accomplish that - yet! - but Taylor didn't have to know that. Especially now that he was pressing the hot latte to his forehead.
“You're not going to leave my office until I let you check this out, am I?”
Chloe bit her lip to keep from grinning. “Nope.”
“Okay. You have the morning to make some calls,” he sighed.
Chloe jumped up reflexively. “You're killing me here!” She would never find out the truth about anything if she had to rely on a phone interview. Chloe knew what happened on phone interviews with interns. Questions had to be pre-submitted and subjects would only answer the ones they wanted to. There was no sense of surprise, no blank stare she could offer while the subject thought frantically for an answer. Just a lot of canned P.R. Bull.
“I can't send you out there alone!” Taylor countered. “Lest you forget, we are also accountable to your father for your health and safety, and there's no one available to take you out there.”
Chloe leapt on his implied condition. “So, If I can find someone to take me, I can go?”
Taylor stared at her for a moment and then shook his head.
Chloe was going to take that as a 'yes'.
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Lana loved camp. Normally, she loved camp. In the past, she'd loved it as a chance to get away from everyone who knew her only as the little girl whose parents had been killed in the meteor shower. This year, since she'd opened the coffee shop in The Talon, she hadn't been sure she wanted to go, but Nell had insisted and once she was here Lana realized how much she had missed riding every day.
As much fun as that was, she reflected as she walked from the stables to the mess hall, the last few days at Camp Chisholm hadn't been the same carefree experience she remembered from her childhood. Clark was here too. He had been every year before, too, but for some reason they'd never spent any time together. Not that they were spending much time together now. Things had gotten so awkward between them. There was a connection between them that she knew he felt too, but there was also that huge breech of trust, and she had been lied to by so many people this year. Nell had lied to her about her mother and Whitney had lied to her about his dad, and now Clark was lying to her about what had happened during the tornado. She couldn't be with anyone who wouldn't be completely honest with her - that was why she'd decided she needed to break things off with Whitney. That and the connection she had with Clark. If only he would open up to her, she thought they could make it work.
They still had their three days in the Arkansas Ozarks coming up next week, just the L.I.T.2's, with no children to look after. She was hoping they would be able to spend some time together, just the two of them. She was sure if they could they could talk it through, away from all the pressure of local gossip and Whitney's family and … and … Chloe?
Chloe was in Metropolis, Lana though, coming to a halt as she reached the edge of the visitor's parking lot. She was in Metropolis. She couldn't be here. And yet, watching the blonde figure unfolding itself from the red Mustang in the parking lot, she couldn't think of another person in the state of Kansas who would wear a silk wrap skirt over pants. The figure waved at her. Tentatively, Lana waved back.
“Lana!” the figure called out in Chloe's voice while striding toward her. “I had no idea you were here! At Camp Chisholm,” she chirped. She had a huge smile on her face that looked like it might crack her skull open if it got any wider. “What a surprise!”
“I've come here every summer since I was five,” Lana answered. “What are you doing here?” Not that she needed to ask. Lana had a sinking feeling she knew. Clark. Why else would Chloe leave her beloved Daily Planet? The two of them had been such a mess this spring. It seemed like almost every conversation she'd had with Clark before the tornado had been about Chloe: Chloe's kidnapping, Chloe's dress for the formal, Chloe's move back to Metropolis. She'd thought that Chloe, at least, had moved on, now that she'd gone back to the city, but it appeared that had been too much to hope for.
“Following a story,” Chloe said, practically bouncing with excitement. “Word is one of your lifeguards needed some rescuing yesterday.”
Oh. Well, that made sense, Lana supposed. Except how had Chloe heard about it? Had Clark called her? “Yeah. Jake had some kind of seizure. He hit his head somehow during it and collapsed.” As she answered a dark-haired woman climbed out of the driver's side of the Mustang and walked toward them. “How did you--”
“The lifeguard had a seizure?” the woman interrupted, coming up to stand next to Chloe.
“That's what Nurse Ames said. Who are you?”
“Carrie Castle, Daily Planet.” The woman held out her hand. “What did the seizure look like? Was it a grand mal type or something less dramatic?”
Lana glanced at Chloe, who somehow managed to look seriously annoyed through her enormous smile. No help there. She turned back to Carrie Castle, Daily Planet, and shook her hand. “I don't know. I didn't see it. I was on the other side of the beach.”
Carrie Castle pulled a pack of Marlboros out of her purse and smacked it a few times against the palm of her hand. “Well, what did you see?” she asked.
“There's no smoking on camp grounds,” Lana told her.
“Out here in all this fresh air? I'm sure no one will mind,” Castle answered, pulling a cigarette out of the pack. Lana was pretty sure someone would, however, especially since someone in the form of Assistant Camp Director Olsen was heading their way.
“Ma'am?” he asked as he walked up. “Ma'am?” He smiled at her, squinting against the sun. “I'm Kendrick Olsen, I'm the assistant director here at Camp Chisholm.” He offered his hand and Castle slid the cigarette back into the pack to shake it. “We do not allow smoking in camp,” he told her. “We don't even allow campfires right now with the lack of rain we've had this month.”
Castle immediately shoved the pack back into her purse, staring at Olsen all the while. Olsen had that effect on women. And girls: half the seventh-graders in her cabin were convinced they were going to grow up to marry him. They could be excused for that, she thought; they were just seventh-graders and none of them had any idea exactly how much growing up they had yet to do. She would have thought -
“Carrie Castle, Daily Planet.”
would be a little more mature than that.
Maybe not. She was staring at Olsen with big, moony eyes.
“Daily Planet?” Olsen asked. “Really. This is a surprise. To what do we owe--” he continued, but Lana wasn't able to hear the rest. Chloe had pushed her to the side and was whispering fiercely, “Who is THAT? And is he always that ruggedly handsome?”
Lana rolled her eyes. Talk about fickle. “He's thirty, Chloe.”
“He's perfect!” Chloe breathed. “He'll keep her busy all afternoon. Now, where can I find Pete?”
Now that threw her for a loop. “Pete?”
“Yeah, Pete. He's the real story here. Where would he be?”
Lana had no idea. She didn't exactly time Pete Ross' comings and goings. But it was still the noon period. He could still be in the mess hall. “Eating lunch, I guess.”
Chloe whirled to the adults, again with that super-perky fake grin. “Ms. Castle?”
The reporter frowned at her. “Lana's gonna show me around a little bit, get some kid-in-the-camp reactions to everything.”
“Knock yourself out,” Castle told her.
Chloe whirled back to her, smiling for real this time. “Boy, am I glad I ran into you. This might not be a disaster after all.”
Of that, Lana was not so sure.