Smallville: Revelations, Chapter 6
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
It had been a long night, and it still wasn't over. First Lana had come over to where she was eating dinner to ask why she wasn't sitting with the other girls and to tell her that she completely understood wanting to be alone - and then sat down across from her. Right across from her. Right after saying she understood why Rose might want to be alone. She was saying something about still needing people, still needing friends, blah blah blah. Rose needed a friend all right. She needed a friend who would help her stuff poison ivy into Misty's sleeping bag. Rose didn't know what the stuff looked like, and she felt stupid asking. Everyone else seemed to and she didn't want to look stupid. She didn't think Lana would tell her, either. Lana would ask why and that would be another trip to the nurse's station to talk to the social worker. So Rose chewed her food and grunted answers to all of Lana's questions and when they got up to dump their trays she told her she had to use the toilet and instead snuck out. They had field guides in the Nature Shed. If she could break in she could find a picture of it and then look for it in the woods tomorrow.
The only problem with her plan was that while Lana might not have noticed she was gone, Misty had. She and her little horde caught up to her down the road from the field where everyone else was playing tag and surrounded her near the Shed.
“Lana isn't your friend,” Misty told her. “She's mine. She doesn't even like you. She only sat next to you tonight because she feels sorry for you, you little loser.”
“Because you cry all the time like a baby,” said Trisha Tyler.
“Like everyone's gonna feel sorry for you, because you cry all the time,” said Christine Caleb.
“Yeah?” Rose asked. “Well the only reason Misty hangs around you is 'cuz you're so fat you make her look skinny in comparison,” she said, and then pushed her. She couldn't push her down - she was bigger than Rose - but she could push her aside, far enough so Rose could run through the hole in Misty's little line-up. She could hear Trisha running after her, but if there was one thing Rose was good at it was running. She'd beat all of the girls and most of the boys that spring running the mile at track-and-field day and Trisha was short and wearing flip-flops. She laughed a little when she heard Trisha stumble and yell “Shit!” Probably couldn't handle running barefoot on gravel. She laughed again as she veered off the road to the right and toward the hiking trail. The trail was full of stones and tree roots, so she'd have to slow down, but Trisha would never follow her down it.
It wasn't until she was a hundred yards down it herself that she realized someone else had.
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The stars were mighty bright outside the light pollution of Metropolis, Chloe thought. You could see all of them, scattered like diamonds against black velvet. She only recognized the Big Dipper - Clark had taught her that - but she still couldn't remember how to find the North Star. He had to tell her how to do it every time. She had to stop wishing he was here now to tell her how to do it again, even if she did feel as lost and out of her element as she had her first day at Smallville Middle School. She didn't recognize anyone in the dark, not that she really knew anyone except for Pete and Clark and Lana. There was no campfire that night because of the lack of rain, so everyone in the group Carrie'd shooed her out with was just sort of milling around the softball field, either playing flash-light tag or goofing off in little side groups. Not that they needed one - even now it was hot as Hades, and God knew she didn't have happy fun rainbow memories of the last time she'd been around one, but at least it would have provided a little light to see who people were.
And yes, earlier at dinner, she had imagined herself sitting next to Clark on some log not too close to the fire, watching him … watch Lana. That was the thought that had burst her little bubble, seeing the way he'd stared after her as she left his and Pete's table. And really? She had to stop doing that. She couldn't watch Clark watch Lana the rest of her high-school career, and since Clark showed no signs of ceasing to watch Lana, that meant she would need to cease watching Clark.
And start watching who? Jimmy? She asked herself as some fifth-grader nearly blinded her with his flash-light. “You're out!” the kid yelled.
“I'm not playing,” she answered, but the kid had already run on in search of another tag. Jimmy was a possibility. He was sweet, and she didn't have to explain to him why the Excellence in Journalism Conference was so important, or why she had had to break their date tonight. Jimmy understood chasing a story, even if Carrie Castle didn't. Where that woman had disappeared to was another mystery. Half-way through dinner she'd excused herself from the table and hadn't come back. Chloe'd tried to get more information about the lifeguard from the abandoned Assistant Camp Hot Stuff but he was too genial to give a decent quote, much less any real information. The lifeguard, she'd decided, was key, not to the story, but to her hook. If she could just prove somehow that he'd been hit, rather than suffering a seizure, she could start asking the more important question of who had attacked Rose and be on her way to a by-line.
With that happy thought firmly in mind, she only jumped a few feet when Clark suddenly appeared beside her. “Jesus! Clark!”
“Have you seen Rose?” he asked.
Chloe squinted into the maniacal mob of eleven-to-thirteen year olds darting around. “Um... 'Can' I see Rose would be the more appropriate question, and the answer to that would be 'no'.”
“Yeah, they're messing with my night vision,” Clark said. He sounded a little perturbed. “I was able to keep track of her through dinner, but once this started up I lost track.”
“You've been watching out for Rose?”
“Well, between this woman who's after her and the kids who've been picking on her I thought someone should.”
“Oh.” Chloe felt her cheeks blaze with all the heat of the campfire that wasn't. She wasn't sure if it was pride in Clark or embarrassment for herself. Probably embarrassment. The idea that rose might be in danger had been her idea, and all she'd done since she'd been freed from solitary confinement this afternoon had been to mope about Clark. And her story, but mostly about Clark.
Luckily Clark had poor telepathy skills to go with his bad night vision. “I'll help you look,” she said quickly. “I don't think she's gonna be in lightning bug mode here. I think she's more the get-away-from-it-all type. You saw her trying to get away at lunch.”
Clark nodded. “That's what I thought too. I just was hoping you might be able to try, um, the girl's latrine for me?”
Even in the dark he looked a little fuddled. Chloe patted his arm. “Clark, I got you covered.”
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It had been a long night for Lana Lang. Clark hadn't come to Reflection, which worried Lana a little. He might not be the most open person she'd ever met - that, undoubtedly, would have to be Pete 'Let It All Hang Out' Ross - but he was always responsible. He didn't slack off or skip activities like some of the other guys his age in Leadership-in-Training. You could trust him, if not completely, then almost completely, which was further than Lana'd been able to trust most people these days. She'd prepared a reflection to share with the group that night about how she'd learned the importance of persistence when you were trying to establish trust with someone. The experience referred to the connection she'd been building with Rose, but it applied equally to her relationship with Clark. She'd hoped that he'd hear it and understand how crucial trust was and how much it meant to her, but he hadn't shown and nobody knew where he was.
So instead of having the talk she'd been hoping for she wandered around the flash-light tag field. Everything was dark except for the occasional flares of the flash-lights, which made it impossible to make out who anyone was. Or where they were, she learned as one of them ran out of nowhere and into her.
“Hey! Lana! Didn't see you there!” Pete asked she straightened.
“I thought that was the point,” she tried to laugh. “Stay invisible so you don't get tagged.” Nell had trained her to be cordial at all times and she couldn't seem to break that training even when she wanted to.
“You playing? If not, you should be. The L.I.T.s are kickin some serious middle-school butt. You got a flash-light?”
“No, but I think I'd better skip it. I'm looking for Clark. Have you seen him? He wasn't at Reflection and I thought that he might be with you.”
“No. He was talking to Chloe a few minutes ago over by the mess-hall doors,” he said, pointing, “but they're gone now.”
She should have known. Ever since spring the two of them had been doing the same on-again, off-again dance with Chloe leading and Clark following her wherever she led. First Chloe'd been complaining he never spent any time with her, then Chloe was ignoring him and spending all her time with Justin. Then Chloe wanted to go to the spring formal with Clark, and, God knew, Lana had tried to put her feelings aside and be happy for them both when they did. Then, after all that drama, Chloe had decided they were better off as friends, a move Lana could finally applaud as in both their best interests. Chloe was leaving for Metropolis, possibly permanently, and Clark didn't need to be shackled to an emotionally confusing relationship with a girl who couldn't ever make up her mind. Chloe being here with her little story didn't change that.
Shouldn't change that.
“Lana?” Pete asked. “You okay?”
She snapped back to Pete's slightly worried, slightly confused face. “I'm fine.”
“Yeah? Cuz you looked a little glassy-eyed there for a minute.”
She eyed Pete's flash-light. “Pete, I'm worried about them. There've been so many odd things happening lately. Do you mind if I borrow this? I really think someone needs to go find them.”
“So you believe me now?”
Lana stared at him. Arguing that point would be counter-productive at the moment, so she gave him the best answer she could. “I don't know what to believe. I just know it's not like Clark to not be where he says he'll be.”
“Yeah? Tell that to Chloe. Not sure she'd be in total agreement.”
“Maybe not,” Lana conceded, more to humor him than anything. She really needed to get going. “But you know him Pete. Is that what he would do?”
Pete looked back over the dark, running bodies and the occasional flare of light in the field, as if there was any contest between their little game and what she needed to do. “Tell you what - I can't let you have the light 'cuz it cost my brother Mike like $50 and he'll kill me if it gets broken, but I will help you look. If that bitch comes back I want to her to experience the Wrath of Ross, you know what I mean?”