Clouds Up - Seven (7/15)
Disclaimer: ‘Smallville’ and certain characters belong to Miller-Gough et. al. No profit is gained from this writing. Only, hopefully, enjoyment.
It was cold outside. There was snow on the ground and the wind was blowing strong, more so than it ever seemed to in the city.
Must be all the. . . space.
Soon it would be the start of another new year.
Almost, in just a few minutes, it would be another year of being outside. It would be the anniversary.
The only one that truly mattered.
But being there didn't seem far back like people said it would, or told him it was.
A year. He'd been. . . for a year, he'd been free. For a year, Lionel had been dead.
Last night he'd dreamed, and could still remember all of it after waking even. He'd been back there, and when he'd opened his eyes. . .
It'd been to the sound of a phone ringing. In his dream, he'd heard Lin's voice yelling, screaming, and when Lucas had awoken it'd been the phone.
And on the other end of the line Lin had pleaded with him. "Come home," Lin had said. "Come see us.
"Come home, Lucky," Lin had asked. "I miss you. . . "
He didn't want to go. He didn't want to see Lin. He didn't want another year. Here, outside the castle, in the dark and early evening. . . in the snow and sky and trees and all this air. . .
He just wanted to go back home.
A light suddenly cut across the snow from somewhere behind him, and Lucas quickly turned around. It was a car, and he looked closely. But it wasn't Lin's, or one of Lex's. It had a local license plate.
He took a few steps farther away from the castle. Maybe if he walked into the woods, no one would find him. They couldn't see as well as he could.
No one could, except Lin, and even he had blind spots.
He took too long deciding, though. When the voice called out, it was too close, too near, too late for him to disappear.
"Lucas!" she shouted, waving one of her arms over her head. She looked silly, all wrapped up in thick clothing. She wore something on her head, and on each hand. "Lucas, what are you doing out here?! You'll freeze!" she cried, worriedly, climbing and jumping in the snow as she started coming closer.
She looked stupid. He didn't want to see her, or talk to her. Didn't want anything to do with her.
"Jesus!" Chloe hissed out, stumbling as she traipsed right into a snow drift that reached past her thighs. "Are you some kind of moron?! What are you doing out here like that? You probably have pneumonia! Come here!" she demanded, latching onto his arms and rubbing her silly wool-covered hands up and down.
"Go home, Chloe."
"What?" she asked, not pausing in her brisk movements. "We've got to get you inside. Lucas? Can you hear me? It's time to go in!" she shouted into his face.
Enough games. Lucas reached up and grabbed her by either wrist, then slowly pulled her hands away from him. Her head came up as he did this, and he smiled.
For real. Not like everyone else did. He smiled like he felt like smiling, and when Chloe's face got that look on it. . . that's when he released her wrists with a little force, and she stumbled backward a step.
"Lucas. . . " she breathed out. Scared. Uneasy.
"Go away," Lucas told her. He turned his head to look back out at the trees, trying to ignore the sound of her breathing a foot away.
"But-- what is it?" she asked quietly. "Is something wrong? Lucas," Chloe suddenly demanded, "did something happen? Something with your brothers?"
She was touching him again. Stupid girl, with her stupid coat.
He sat down, and Chloe gasped and immediately tried to pull him back up.
"What are you doing? Get up! You'll freeze!"
"I dreamed this wasn't real," he confessed, and his eyes became stuck on one tree at the edge of the line. It looked black and dead, like it'd burned, and suddenly the snow surrounding the tree looked like ash.
Like everything was ruined.
"Wh-- what?" she asked. "Lucas, I really think we should go inside. We can talk in there," she added quickly. "By the fire in your office? I can give you your present."
"My. . . present," he repeated.
"Yeah," she said, softly. He turned to look over his shoulder, up at her face. "It's Christmas Eve tomorrow. I wasn't sure you'd still be home, but I just finished it today, so. . . " Chloe's face changed. It'd been soft and. . . now it was back to worried. Scared. "Why are you out here in just sweat pants, Lucas? Is something wrong?"
She set a hand on his shoulder, and he looked away again.
"It's the anniversary. Now. I dreamed last night it wasn't real. None of this. I opened my eyes," and he looked down at himself again to make sure, "and I was wearing white. My hair was gone again. It was colorless, and-- "
He dropped his hands and turned around in the snow, climbing to his feet and grabbing hold of Chloe this time.
"I opened my eyes and it was all back, everything was. And there were footsteps," he told her. "He was coming down the hallway, and I turned to tell Lin, and-- "
"Lucas. . . who was coming?" she asked hesitantly. She reached up and touched one of her woolen hands to his face, up near his eye, and then she did the same on the other side of his face.
Tears. She was wiping his tears away. Because he was crying.
He was crying, which meant he was sad.
"Lionel," he answered, and her eyes widened. Her hand froze where she'd been pulling it back, so now it just hung there in the air. "I could almost smell his cologne, hear the sound of his shoes on the floor. . . his voice. . . I thought I was opening my eyes to here, and I woke up back there. It was a dream, though, right?" He looked into her eyes, and begged her to understand. "It wasn't real?"
"No," she said, shaking her head frantically. "No, Lucas, it was just a dream." Her hand stopped hovering near his face, instead moving to grip one of his hands. "It was a nightmare, not real. Just a bad dream."
"I thought-- I thought maybe, when I woke up that it was. . . I thought it might come true," he dared to tell her. "A year's gone by. Maybe that's all this was supposed to last for. Maybe this was the dream. Or a wish. . . and it ran out."
Now there were tears coming out of Chloe's eyes. Lots of them, slipping down her face, and her nose became wet too. Runny nose. Chloe was crying too.
"It wasn't real," she told him in a firm voice. "This is. This is reality. And it's not going away any time soon." She sniffled, and gave him a truly terrible smile. It was a very poor attempt. Lucas had given better ones even before he knew what smiles were. "You think I'm some figment of your imagination?" she tried to joke.
"Sometimes."
And Chloe laughed. Good. Much better than crying. Much better than worrying.
Much better to laugh than to be afraid, even if you were the only one who knew it was a joke.
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