Smallville: Revelations, Chapter 7
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
“Don't be ridiculous Clark. It'll go faster with both of us looking.” Chloe'd just scoped out the girl's latrine and no sign of anyone except one very surprised eight-year-old.
“Those shoes you're wearing aren't really meant for walking in the woods,” Clark protested. “Especially not at night. I don't want you to get hurt.”
“You don't want Rose to get hurt either,” Chloe answered.
“Yes, but...” he looked at her with that pained expression he sometimes got when he was feeling guilty. She could see it because she'd commandeered the flash-light. “I just... think … I may need to move fast.”
Great, Chloe thought. Insert your own short joke here. “Well, don't let me slow you down,” she said, and took off as fast as her little legs would carry her. Lana was short too, but she bet Clark would have never - grabbed Lana and pulled her back against him?
“Clark?”
“Do you even know where you're going?”
No, but she hadn't been about to let that stop her. “The woods?”
“You can't go out there,” Clark said. “I'll spend the rest of the evening looking for you instead of Rose.”
Chloe swallowed. “Well, then you'd better keep up,” she breathed.
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Clark of course kept up with her in spades, and after her first few stumbles against all the rocks and the strategically placed piles of horse poop on the trail she let him go ahead a bit so he wouldn't have to be witness to every single instance of her klutziness. He never tripped once, of course, which, to be fair, was a good thing. She was soon so busy watching out for her feet she wasn't able to watch for Rose at all. The only help she really did provide was to keep calling out Rose's name. Clark called it out occasionally too, but mostly he squinted at the trees on either side of the path from what she could see on her quick glances up.
After what felt like an hour of this but was likely only a few minutes she asked, “Where does this trail lead?” From what she had seen of Camp Chisholm, it was not small. If this turned out to be a trail to nowhere she was going to suggest looking somewhere else. Somewhere with a lot of grass to walk on.
“A few places,” he answered. “The lake's to the left through the trees; a little north of it there's an offshoot that curves up and loops around it. A little further on there's another spur trail that goes to the stables and horse paddocks, and, if we keep going straight, we'll end up at the Alpine Tower.”
Chloe considered their options. After Rose's near-death experience at the lake she doubted she'd be spending quality time there any time soon. She also didn't peg Rose as the kind of girl who got off on horses. Rose seemed more like the type of girl who recognized horses for the 1500-pound menaces they were. On the other hand, she had no idea what that other thing was.
“What's an 'Alpine Tower'?” she asked.
“It's like a ropes course.”
“Like that thing with the zip line we did for 8th grade Spring Fling?” Although as she recalled Clark hadn't. Something about bad egg salad and a stomachache.
“Yeah. But, uh, taller,” he said, and stumbled.
About time, she thought. “You think she might have gone there?” she asked. “I mean, don't you need ropes and clippy-things to climb something like that?”
“You're supposed to have them,” he said. “I don't know if she'd try it or not. She wasn't supposed to be out swimming where she was yesterday. She might decide to --” He broke off as, somewhere ahead of them, a girl screamed.
“Chloe--”
“Go! Go! Go!” she yelled.
He went, racing over the rocks and roots and horse poop as if it didn't exist. Chloe tried to run after him, but her shoes and the damned trees conspired against her. She was sure one of them stuck its foot out to trip her. Down she went, landing right on her coccyx. For a minute she could only wince at the pain. When she finally looked up, Clark was gone.
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The scream had come from the north, and, he had the feeling, from up high. Up the Tower, he guessed. Luckily the trail followed the curve of the lake for a few dozen yards before straightening out again and he was able to slip into his super-speed once he was no longer in Chloe's line of vision. The Tower wasn't far, however, maybe half a mile. By the time he really got going he'd reached the Tower's clearing and had to stop.
Once he did, he shifted immediately to X-ray vision. Unnervingly, no one was on the Tower or around its base. He slowly scanned the trees circling it, thinking Rose could have climbed one of them, but then she screamed again. From the sound of it, she was very much overhead. Clark's heart sank when he realized from where it came. To the east of the tower was a set of ropes called the Swing By Choice that weren't connected to anything else except a free-standing pole 30 yards away. Like the Tower, the pole was fifty feet high. Unlike the Tower, the pole had never been meant to be climbed. Yet there, at the top of the pole, clinging for dear life, sat Rose.
Clark told himself not to panic. He had never been a fan of the Tower. Over the years he'd been coming to camp he'd managed, by virtue of always being one of the biggest kids, to convince group leaders he should stay with the ground crew and anchor other climbers rather than go up himself. But this wasn't even the Tower. This was just a pole, sticking straight up like every other pole in the world, like some kind of gigantic … nightmare. And from the top of it Rose was screaming down at him again, screaming his name this time. “Claaaaaark!”
“Rose!” he yelled back, lifting up his arms as if to catch her. She would never jump of course; only a crazy person would do that and Rose was not crazy. She had definitely seen that woman and she was definitely up on top of a pole that she couldn't have been able to climb all by herself. Someone had put her there and he had to get her down. Somehow. “Rose! Just - just stay calm! I've got this! We're gonna get you down! Okay?” She started crying when he started talking, which didn't seem positive. She was getting pretty hysterical, which meant sudden surprises, like him jumping up and grabbing her, were probably not a good idea. That meant climbing, probably like he'd seen some of the hired hands around the county do with a harness. Except he didn't have a harness. Not that he needed one, and Rose wouldn't notice. Probably she wouldn't. And he'd have to do it gently, so he didn't rock the pole too much. So, slowly. Very slowly. Without a harness. And without looking down.
Clark drew a huge breath. Rose screamed his name again, as good as saying he didn't have all night. He blew the breath out. Right. He would do it.
Now.
He jumped.
It was only a few feet, but the shock of it was enough to give him the little mental momentum he needed. Unfortunately it also had more physical momentum than he would have liked. He could feel the pole swaying almost imperceptibly beneath him, but what was subtle to him must be terrifying to Rose. “Hold on!” he yelled as she shrieked. “Hold on! I'm coming! Just hold on!” He hoped hearing that would encourage her. If anything it seemed to make her cry harder, but he couldn't focus on that. He had to concentrate on getting up there, on lifting his shaking hands high above him and wrapping them around the weathered, gray wood; on hanging on while carefully lifting his legs with his belly; on then gently, gently, gently gripping the pole with them again. He had to concentrate on the pole. Concentrate on continuing yelling encouragement up to Rose while he climbed: “Don't worry, Rose! I'm on my way! I'll be up there in no time! It's gonna be okay!”
He repeated that last one a lot after he couldn't think of anything else to say. Lift hands. Shout out: “It's gonna!” Lift legs. Shout out: “Be okay!” He did not look down. He did not look up. He did not look to the right, or to the left, or in any direction other than straight at the pole.
The process was impossibly slow. It felt like he'd been up there for an hour at least. He couldn't even imagine what it felt like to Rose. He was pretty sure she was puking up there. He could hear what sounded like retching, which meant he must be getting close, although she must have been facing another direction because none of it landed on him. Thanks goodness for small favors, he though as he lifted his legs and told her it would be okay. He wondered at some point if he shouldn't have just jumped. Rose was cool She understood that you didn't just blab things like that around. And even if she was a little freaked out by him afterward, the way Lana seemed to be - so what? She'd still be alive.
That was was he was thinking as the smell of vomit suddenly washed over him and small hands began pulling at his hair, scrabbling over his shoulders and wrapping themselves around his neck.
“Claaaaark!” she screamed again, right in his ear this time. Still, it was better than being puked on. And she could only do it, he reminded himself, because he'd gotten up there in time. So he ignored the view and the brief ringing in his ears and muttered “I got you, I got you.” He pulled her off the apex and positioned her between his torso and the pole, allowing her to wrap her legs around his waist and bury her head in the crook of his neck. Another small favor, he thought; this way she wouldn't notice the lack of harness or that he was climbing down using just one still-trembling hand. The other was clutching her waist, hoisting her into place every time his legs levered down. “I've got you, I've got you,” he repeated as he lowered them even more gingerly than he'd climbed up. He could squish her so easily in this position, it wouldn't be hard to--
He cut that line of thought off. He was not going to squish her. He wasn't. They were, instead, very carefully, going to make their way down, at which point Clark would be able to give in to the same nausea that had already overwhelmed Rose. He didn't remember feeling nauseous any time other than when he was around the meteor rocks, but then he never remembered being this scared. When he'd found out he wasn't human, maybe. But that hadn't involved an eternity stuck in the air. Well, it had, but he didn't remember it. Or maybe he did. Maybe that's why he felt like hell was clutching to the top of a support pole, even though he couldn't be hurt if he fell.
But Rose could, which is why he had to stop thinking this way. He had to keep his mind on getting them down. After a few minutes he decided to try his luck at sliding. He loosened both his legs and hands a little and let gravity do the rest. He could feel the uneven surface of the pole scraping his hands but suffered none of the slivers and abrasions that would appear on anyone else. The sensation of falling made Rose cling even harder to him though, so he decided to keep it to short bursts, murmuring “I've got you, I've got you,” each time they slid. After a few slides he gathered up the courage to look down and found they weren't that far up anymore, fifteen feet at the most. The barn loft was higher than that, he thought, and laughed. They were gonna do this. They were gonna make it down. Letting out a little whoop, he slid the rest of the way down. Rose screamed again but before she could finish his feet had dug themselves into solid dirt.
“We did it!” he shouted, lifting her up. “Look Rose! We did it!”
Rose made a noise that might have been a laugh or might have been another sob. He wasn't sure. He lowered her back down and she immediately re-attached herself to him. It was starting to feel like he had a piece of human velcro attached to his belly. Then, out of nowhere, another piece attached itself to his side, this one not quite crying as she whispered “Oh my God, Clark. Oh my God. I thought -“
“Chloe?” It was hard to make out what she was babbling through Rose's crying and the fact that she was talking mostly into his t-shirt, but it sounded like good things.
“-- but you saved her! That was the most amazing - “
Clark grinned again. It had been pretty amazing, he though. And awesome. He'd climbed a fifty-foot pole. Fifty. Fucking. Feet. Without a harness, or ropes, or carabiners, or anything. Just him. That's how awesome he was. And he could do it again. Right now. He should - he should take Chloe up with him, he though. She'd love it. There was no way they'd be able to beat that rush -
Thawp. Thawp. Thawp.
Chloe's head swung in the same direction as Clark's, towards the clapping now echoing across the clearing. Walking toward the pole was a white-haired but young woman wearing something that looked as if it had been stolen out of the wardrobe department of a Star Trek series: a unitard with fish-scale armor on the shoulders and arms and shiny, high-heeled, patent leather orange boots. It was the uniform of the “ghost” from the lake and Second Quad. All that was missing was the eye patch.
“You did it,” the woman said. “I knew you would.”
Clark felt Rose's head lift from his neck and heard her soft gasp. He felt his arm around her tighten and had to force himself to relax it.
“Who are you?” he asked.
“She's the woman from the lake,” Rose answered.
The woman nodded. “I am.” She stared with curiosity both at him and Rose, and also, with some surprise, at Chloe. He thought about stepping between them but that would be putting Rose at risk, so instead he settled for more questions.
“What are you doing here? Did the military send you? Why were you attacking Rose?”
The woman shook her head, smiling a little to herself. “No one sent me. I came because I needed to learn to trust you. Now I do.”
That made no sense at all, Clark thought. “You don't know me,” he told her. “Why would you need to trust me?”
The woman's smile broadened to include him. “We've met,” she said. Clark could have sworn she was laughing. “Recently.”
Before Clark could argue that fact Rose interrupted. “What happened to your eye patch?”
The woman looked down to Rose and her face softened. One of her hands fluttered up to her face, tracking her left eye socket. “Thanks to you, I don't need it anymore.”
“I didn't do anything,” Rose snapped. “And I wouldn't for a crazy bitch like you!”
“Rose!” he gasped, and yes, he sounded like his dad, but since when did little kids start using language like that?
“Well she is!” Rose protested. “She tried to kill me! Twice!”
“She has a point, Clark,” Chloe muttered.
“That's not the point,” he began, but the woman laughed outright.
“I'd get used to it if I were you.” Her grinned broadened. “He's the Once and Future Boy Scout. That attitude won't ever change.”
“What are you talking about?” Rose yelled at her, but the woman just smiled and turned back toward the trees. “Come back here!” Rose continued yelling. “You haven't told us anything!”
“I'm going back where I belong,” the woman tossed back over her shoulder.
Which was where? Clark wondered. He was tempted to follow her but Rose was still hanging on as tightly as ever and there was Chloe to think of. Strangely, as he watched her leave, he got the sense that it didn't matter where she was going - she wouldn't be back. She had finished whatever she had come here to do.
Beside him Chloe made a strange move that looked as if it could be the hokey-pokey or an aborted attempt to follow. From the way her eyes were narrowed he thought the latter.
“Chloe...”
She glanced up. “You can't tell me that wasn't weird.”
A sudden bolt of anxiety shot through Clark's chest, the first he'd had since he'd hit the ground. He didn't know how much she'd seen or if she'd understand what she'd had seen of him bringing Rose down as unusual. Chloe's grasp of physics was pretty primitive; she seemed to think his dad's tractor ran on will power and fairy dust. He smiled weakly. “But not Wall of Weird weird, right?” he asked, mentally crossing his fingers.
“It would be if I had any evidence to print,” she grumbled. “Like an eye-witness account.” She stole a glance at Rose.
Rose chose that moment to finally slide to the ground. “But you don't,” she said, crossing her arms. “You don't have an eye-witness account.”
Chloe stared at her for a few more seconds. “No. I guess I don't,” she said.
Clark relaxed his shoulders, which, he just realized, had been hunched up practically to his ears. He smiled at Chloe and she smiled ruefully back and he was about to tell her, “Next time,” when, so help him, one of those goddamn flashlights shone straight into his eyes. Again.