Smallville: Revelations, Chapter 8
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
“Where have you three been? You haven't been climbing the Tower, have you? At night?” Lana could feel herself quivering with anger as she asked. She wasn't sure why she was angry, just that she was. “You could be sent home for this!”
Beside her, Pete sighed. “Not if no one freaks out like a freaking freaker-outer.”
She whirled on him. “We're supposed to be setting an example for these kids,” she snapped. And grow up, she added in her head.
“Nobody climbed anything,” Rose said. “I ran away and they came looking for me.”
“See? Nobody climbed anything and Clark and Chloe were just being good little boys and girls and went looking for her. Just like we went looking for them,” Pete added as if there was some kind of comparison to be made. Lana suppressed the urge to whack him over the head with his brother's $50 flashlight. Clark and Chloe were nothing like her and Pete. Any idiot would know Clark and Chloe had come out to the woods to do what everyone came out to the woods to do - and realizing that, she realized why she was so mad. She and Clark had a connection. There was something between them, and if they were just going to ignore that, coming out here like a couple of stupid kids, then they deserved everything that was rightfully going to come down on them. “If they thought Rose was missing they should have notified one of the counselors.”
“Yeah, because that's what we did when we were worried that Clark and Chloe were missing.”
“That's different. Rose has been -“
“I've been what?” Rose asked.
Lana forced herself to soften her tone. Just because Pete was an ass didn't mean she should take her frustration out on Rose. “You've been having a hard time of it lately.”
“So that makes me a special case?”
“It means we all need to make sure we're being extra-responsible,” Lana said, eying Clark. His eyes dropped as she did so, which was some satisfaction at least.
“Whatever,” Rose said. “We're all gonna get in trouble if we're caught out here.” Walking around Pete, she headed past them all toward the trail.
“Rose, you should wait for the rest of us. You don't want to go out there alone,” Lana called after her.
“I'm tired,” Rose shot back over her shoulder. “I'm going back to the cabin.”
“Pete, you should go after her.”
“And miss all the fun you'll be having here in the dark with no music and no food and no Mountain Dew?”
“Nobody's staying here,” Clark answered, finally. He hadn't said anything since they'd gotten there.
“Then let's go,” Lana agreed. Pete shrugged and followed Rose. However, in spite of his strong words Clark made no move to leave and, apparently, Chloe had decided to stay with him. Not that she could get into trouble, Lana thought, and after a few seconds of inwardly simmering and outwardly having them avoid her gaze she turned on her heel and glided after Pete.
Pete, however, had run to catch up with Rose, and soon Lana realized how much darker the trail was without Pete's light beside her. She was stumbling more often than she had on her way out, and the hits to her feet just served to stoke her anger. After the third hit to her toe she had to stop and take a few breaths to calm herself. It was just possible that she was over-reacting. It was just possible Clark and Chloe may have gone out simply to find Rose, which was stupid, but par for the course for them. In fact, the more she thought about it, the more likely it seemed that was, in fact, exactly what had happened. It didn't mean Clark still had unresolved feelings for Chloe, and it didn't mean Chloe was trying to get him back, however briefly. It just meant that they had tried to do a good thing in a very silly way. That was all. Tomorrow during the break period she would sit down with Clark and they would have a good, long talk about--
“You should get her email address and write to her after you go home,” Chloe was saying behind her, and at the sound of that Lana froze. Then she did the most inexplicable thing imaginable. She leapt behind a tree.
“... that be weird?” Clark asked as the two of them passed her hiding spot.
Yes, she was hiding. It was ridiculous, but that was what she was doing. Why, she wasn't sure, except that as much as she knew she and Clark needed to talk, there was that niggling fear inside of her that he would do what he always did and avoid the hard questions. And so, instead of calling out, “Hey guys! Stubbed my toe! Wait up!” she waited behind the tree for them to gain some distance, and, when they'd gone far enough not to notice her (she hoped) and yet were still close enough to hear (she again hoped), she slipped out from behind her tree and followed. And listened.
“--camp is over you're just two teenagers,” Chloe said. “And she really needs a friend right now. You know her dad hasn't called or written her since she's been here? The camp director made a note of it in her file.”
Who were they talking about? Lana wondered. And why would Chloe know what was in a camper's file? That was a complete violation of privacy if she'd been snooping.
“That's terrible. Why would he not want to talk to her?” Clark asked.
“Because he's an asshole, and if she ends up with him after her summer camp hell is over, she's going to need people in her life who aren't, which means you need to write her. Regularly. Not like the gun-to-the-head job you've done with me this summer.”
An inexplicably warm feeling spread down Lana's middle when she heard that.
“Hey!” Clark argued, but Chloe was already talking over him, the way she did with people. “And she's already got a crush, on you, so if you go AWOL on her now then you might as well have left her up on top of that pole.”
“I can't believe you just said that. I haven't done any of those things and I'm not going to do any of those things.”
“The History Channel documentary of this summer will suggest otherwise.”
Lana had no idea what that reference was supposed to mean, but Clark was evidently a little more used to Chloe's metaphors. “Wait, is this about me and you?”
“Well our correspondence doesn't exactly compare to Heloise and Abelard's.”
“Whoever those people are. Chloe, if you're mad I didn't email you more this summer, don't take it out on … me. Now.” His voice sounded closer than it had, which meant he must have stopped. Standing still and squinting, Lana could just make them about a dozen yards down the path.
“So what am I supposed to do? Ring your phone off the hook hoping you'll pick up? You either want to talk to me or you don't, and it's pretty obvious you didn't want to talk to me after we found your dad.”
“Well, exactly! Right before the Spring Formal you said 'if you leave me to go run after Lana I'll never forgive you' and then --” Lana gasped softly. Chloe'd said that? Her conversation with Chloe in the hospital took on a whole new light. A tiny icicle of guilt pierced her heart but was quickly suppressed by the already-present blanket of warmth spreading even further inside her. However, she was startled out of this awareness by a shout from Chloe.
“I do that a lot?”
“When have I ever said I just wanted to be friends?” Clark asked her.
“When... “ Chloe paused for a moment. “Okay, that's beside the point,” she continued. “The point is, when I say that, it means something. It means that when I came out here,” Chloe said, saving her arms around to indicate something Lana couldn't see - the camp, maybe? “I thought my life was over. Nothing interesting was ever going to happen to me again. And then... and then I met you, and I can assure you, there is no one like you in Metropolis. Trust me. I don't think there's anyone like you on the whole planet. I will always want you to be a part of my life. Always. That's what 'let's be friends' means when I say it.”
Clark didn't say anything for a minute. When he finally did speak Lana released a breath she didn't even know she was holding. “So, if that's what you meant, then why didn't you say that?”
Chloe laughed a little wildly. “If I had come out with all that when we were looking for your dad, how would you have reacted?”
“I don't know. I don't think I would have thought 'she only wants to be friends so don't ruin your friendship by asking her out again.' I mean, what was I supposed to think?”
“That I didn't want ...” Chloe said quietly, so quietly Lana couldn't hear the end.
“How would that even happen?” Clark asked her.
“Because if we dated we might break up,” Chloe answered, loudly, as if Clark was deaf and couldn't hear her.
“You don't know that,” Clark answered, a little more loudly.
“Yes, I do. Even if it weren't for Lana,” she said, and Lana felt her heart catch, as if they'd spotted her, which, if their continuing conversation was any guide, they hadn't, “that's what people do! Do you know anyone who's stayed together all through high school?”
“Pete's brother Mike's engaged to his girlfriend from high school.”
“They're the ...” Chloe said, again dropping her voice so low Lana couldn't hear. That was getting a little annoying.
“We might be an exception,” Clark argued. Lana shivered. Why would Clark want to be an exception with Chloe? Did he think he wanted to marry her? Why would he think that?
“So you're saying we'd get engaged?” Chloe asked, her voice pitched almost an entire octave higher than it usually was.
“I don't know. Not until it happens, which it won't, because you've already decided we're gonna break up.”
Which they would, Lana thought, nodding. They would never make it as a couple. Chloe was too much of a drama queen, and Clark was too noble. He'd go along with everything she wanted and be miserable doing it.
“...decided that,” Chloe said. “It's just statistically probable.”
“But it's not fated to happen.”
“No, nothing's fated. But you can't tell me there wasn't a little part of you that was relieved when I said that.”
“I wasn't relieved, I was confused!” Clark almost shouted. “I told you: before the Formal you were acting like you wanted to be with me and after the Formal you acted as if you couldn't care less. It was like you just wanted a date to the Formal and once that was done you could dump your Amish guy from the sticks and go back to Metropolis and date some someone who knows the names of all those weird bands on the Met U radio station and dresses to your standards and eats sushi and-- “
“You know that wasn't what I was thinking.”
“Now. Then I didn't.”
“Because you were too busy assuming I wanted to date a guy who likes sushi. How could you even think that that would be my priority in a boyfriend?”
“Don't you like sushi?”
“It's okay. It's not the basis of a relationship.”
“Well I wouldn't know.”
“Okay well, when you're done being brave and clean and reverent here you can come visit me for the weekend and we'll have some and you can finally be the guy who's worthy to date me,” Chloe said, and Lana was almost fooled, almost, until right at the end when Chloe's voice caught a little in what sounded like a laugh.
“It's not funny.”
“It's totally funny. But you're still going to do it.”
“Fine,” he said, as if he was mad about something.
“Clark, I would never pretend to like you just so I could get a date.”
“No, you'd just pick a fight,” he answered, and this time there was a little laugh at the end of his sentence. Some of the warmth in Lana died.
“Guilty as charged,” sighed Chloe.
“So it's a date?”
“Do you want it to be a date?”
No, Lana thought. No, he didn't. He didn't because he had a connection with her, something they both felt, something they'd shared even at Whitney's father's funeral, something that was compelling her forward up the path even as the rest of the warmth inside abandoned her and her stomach clenched in dread.
“What are you two doing out here still?” she asked. Both dark figures jumped at the same time.
“Lana!” Clark yelped just as Chloe asked “What are you doing out here? I thought you'd gone ahead.”
“I twisted my ankle,” she choked through the thickening in her throat.
“Are you alright? Can you make it back to camp?” Clark asked, instantly worried. Lana felt the warmth return to her. She blinked back the tears that had formed in her eyes.
“I could use a little help,” she said softly.
To her shock - and annoyance - it was Chloe who came forward. “Why don't you lean on me?” she suggested. “I think Clark's had enough of a work-out for one night, chasing Rose down. Which side do you need help with?”
“Aren't you tired too?” Lana asked.
“I'll manage. And we're closer in height. The jolly plaid giant over there would have to double over,” Chloe said cheerfully. “So, right or left?”
“Left,” Lana whispered, turning her gaze to Clark imploringly. Clark however, was glaring at Chloe.
“See, that's what I'm talking about,” Clark said as Chloe slipped Lana's left arm over her shoulder.
“What?” she and Chloe both asked.
“You are always making fun of my clothes.”
“I'm not always making fun of your clothes,” Chloe answered. “Just when they're awful. Ready?” she asked Lana.
“I think so,” Lana told her. “I like your clothes, Clark.”
“You just say that because you've been trained to be kind to the rabble,” Chloe said. “I, on the other hand, am the rabble, and I'm allowed to say that Clark isn't going to inspire anyone while he's wearing wearing plaid.”
“You seemed inspired earlier,” he mumbled.
“That's because I've seen what's beneath the plaid,” Chloe said blithely. Clark stumbled and she added hurriedly, “in a manner of speaking.”
“We should get back,” Clark said. His voice sounded odd. Squeaky almost, Lana thought. “Are you sure you don't need any help?”
“We're good,” said Chloe before Lana could even open her mouth. “Right, Lana?”
Lana just nodded. She'd sound worse than Clark if she tried to talk right now. In fact, she'd probably start to cry. Not that she had any reason to cry. They were just walking back to the cabins, three friends helping each other out. She could still talk to Clark tomorrow, like she'd planned. They could still sort it out like mature people. Except that somehow she knew that talk was never going to happen. Not the way she wanted it to. Ever. She didn't know how she knew, but she did.
Lana suppressed the urge to grab Chloe's flashlight and whack her over the head with it.