Fiction for bkwurm1
For: bkwurm1
From: simplytoopretty
Request: A happy ending. Clark showing his appreciation for Chloe. Clark missing Chloe.
Type: Fiction
Title: When Searching For Road Maps
Summary: What he really needs is a road map that would direct him towards the correct path to reach the desired destination.
Rating: PG
Author’s Note: set in an AU season 6
+++
The Christmas music fills the air and the mall is festively decorated. Fake trees loaded with bright ornaments can be found at every major mall junction. Santa Claus has his workshop set up and parents are already lining up with their children. Clark skirts by the exhibit, the children tugging at adult hands and their high, excited voices. There are four weeks until the twenty-fifth and Christmas has been firmly established in the mall with the music, advertisements, and decorations.
The hustle and bustle is starting. People throng through the mall with bags clutched in their hands, evidence of their success. Some shop in pairs or groups.
Amidst the music and decorations, the Christmas cheer, Clark is weighed down by feelings of being lost and uncomfortable, as if he’s adrift at sea and has no idea where he is going. The fabric of his flannel shirt feels constricting. He shifts his shoulders beneath the flannel, hoping to alleviate the strain. It doesn’t and as he continues to wander around, the uncomfortable feeling just grows.
He is not oblivious to the reason behind his discomfort. The purpose of the trip is to find a gift for Chloe, something he has done for the past half a dozen years. In previous years the task was never daunting: he generally found an adequate gift easily. This year a new pressure has attached to this annual gift exchange. Before they were merely best friends; now they’re together. It has been some three months and by Christmas it will be four months.
The changed situation calls for a different kind of gift that the ones he previously purchased. The problem is Clark has no clue what the appropriate or perfect gift is for Chloe now that they are romantically engaged. There’s no guidebook that he knows of to assist him in this task, no map to show him the way, and his attempts to generate ideas haven’t been successful. He put on this thinking gap and got nowhere.
So he feels off-kilter as he crosses the mall once, twice, waiting for a gift to call to him, to tell him this is perfect for Chloe. Nothing strikes him. He goes into stores and wanders through the aisles, rejecting offers of help from salespeople. He can’t think of words to sum Chloe up at the moment, words that would allow suggestions from others for the perfect gift, if there were such a thing.
By the time he ends up at Starbucks, ordering a grande mocha, he is no farther along than when he started two hours ago. He heads home as rain falls, matching his dreary mood.
+++
His romantic relationship with Chloe had begun somewhat bumpily three months ago. They had kissed, he supposed, in the heat of the moment, although he had thought it meant more. After he returned from saving the world, Clark had found Chloe smiling brightly at someone else. She dismissed the kiss as an end of the world kind of thing that apparently means nothing when the world doesn’t end, and went on smiling at Jimmy, the photographer. Clark was left on the outside, wandering what had happened.
Of all the scenarios he had pictured occurring the one that actually occurred had never crossed his mind.
Instead of speaking up, however, Clark smiled and nodded and accepted Chloe’s dismissal of the kiss. His mind kept turning the moment over and over again. His dreams were full of her. For the next two weeks he had been, in a word, moody. His conversations with Chloe were tense during that time.
Lois, alone with Clark for a moment while Chloe went to get coffee downstairs, told him to stop sulking.
“I’m not sulking,” Clark retorted. He crossed his arms, realized that did nothing to help his case, and uncrossed them. Lois smirked and shook her head.
“You should tell her before it gets serious,” Lois said. Her voice, often so grating on Clark’s ears, was unusually gentle. The smirk was gone, replaced by a sort of smile that Clark couldn’t place.
This time he shook his head.
“Fine. Whatever,” she said, returning to the Lois he knew.
Her words remained with him, tugging at him, adding to the images already in his head. Scenarios played out in his thoughts as to what he could do to change what was happening; he kept dismissing them. Yet, when a few days later Chloe confronted him about his recent moodiness, Clark found words he hadn’t expected to say tumbling out of his mouth.
Chloe had arrived unexpectedly, coming upon him in the barn loft. Despite having the house to himself, he still spent much of his time sitting on the old couch. Chloe had discovered him in this position, his eyes staring unseeing out of the loft window. She moved so she was standing in front of the window, in a spill of golden light. It was that late summer sun that lights everything up and softens edges.
“Spill,” Chloe said after a long speech that summarized her case against him. “I know something is up and you are going to tell me.”
“There’s nothing to tell,” Clark insisted. The lie was necessary. While he didn’t have a definite guidebook to the proper behavior for this sort of situation, he had a fairly strong inkling that he wasn’t supposed to interfere.
After all, there had been chances before to act, before anything had occurred. His happiness was irrelevant. What mattered was Chloe’s and what she deserved. If that was Jimmy then Clark knew he was supposed to be happy for her as a friend. The difficulty was in showing that, and his abilities as an actor had always been debatable. He could hide the secret of his heritage fairly successfully, but he suspected his emotions weren’t always so well hidden.
So he said nothing was wrong and hoped that would be the end of it.
Chloe continued to press, not easily fooled. Her tone remained firm, refusing to back down until she had achieved what she came to obtain. Persistence was one of Chloe’s strong suits, as Clark knew well, and she could be incredibly stubborn. The aspect of her personality might have contributed to his yielding, possibly in combination with how lovely she looked backlit by the late day sun. For whatever reason he found himself opening his mouth and revealing far more than he had intended.
What he first said was this: “I miss you.”
It was more than he had intended, hinting at something deeper in the ambiguous nature of the words. It was not a statement of denial.
“I haven’t gone anywhere, Clark.”
“You have, in a way.”
Chloe stepped forward, out of the reach of the spill of light, and closer to him in the shadows. “I’m right here.”
Clark sighed and then a tumble of words came out. “We kissed and I thought it meant something. But then you said it didn’t. You’re with Jimmy, and I miss you.”
The words were fairly simple, but what they revealed were emotions Clark knew were better concealed, at least at that time. He knew it was unfair to put what he felt on Chloe, yet that was what he did. Too much, too late, he thought in the seconds after he said the words, amidst the silence that had followed. Even without a map, he was confident this was not the direction he was supposed to go in. Directions never used to be that difficult for him.
Chloe was silent in the immediate aftermath. Her eyes had widened when he had spoken, then fallen shut for a long moment. When she opened them again, he couldn’t read her. Usually Chloe’s eyes were expressive, the trite expression of windows to the soul accurate in her case.
“I should go,” she finally said.
All he had been able to do was nod. Chloe left and, as he watched her leave, he thought about timing and missed opportunities and how he really never should listen to Lois.
Three days later Chloe knocked on his door. She stood still for about five seconds after the door was opened and then stretched on her toes to kiss him softly on the mouth. The kiss was quick and she had moved away by the time what was happening registered in Clark’s mind.
“Really?” he asked, not yet able to be more adequately verbose.
Chloe smiled, shook her head a little, and let out a tiny laugh. “That was not a ‘the world is ending’ kiss.”
“I didn’t screw it all up?”
“Not for us, at least,” she said. “I think you might have screwed it up for Jimmy.”
Clark shrugged in a not-so-apologetic way. He reached up and pulled Chloe towards him, wrapping his arms securely around his body. Pressing a kiss to her forehead, he said, “I’m glad.”
That earned him another tiny laugh. “I bet you are.”
Ultimately, when their relationship had started, Clark hadn’t really needed a guide to get there. He had fumbled along and ended up where he wanted. He suspects it might not work out the same for the Christmas gift.
+++
A week passes with only three more weeks until Christmas day. His mind turns over ideas, but he’s unable to settle on any. He makes plans to venture out on a Friday morning. The night before he talks to his mom. She suggests simply asking Chloe what she would like. Clark rejects the idea immediately.
“I want it to be a surprise,” he says, which was true. If Chloe told him what to buy then there would be nothing special about the gift. They were at the start of their relationship and he has become seized with the desire to set a good precedent.
“I’m sure Chloe will love whatever you get her,” Martha adds, derailing his thoughts, “because it will be from you.”
Clark huffs a bit in response. His mother chuckles lightly at him, wishes him luck and says she loves him. He replies in kind and hangs up. Nothing in the conversation has alleviated the pressure he feels, the pressure he knows springs internally rather than from an external source.
Clark wants the gift to come from the heart, despite how tired that expression can seem, despite how corny it may be. He wants to show his appreciation for her, his love. The difficulty boils down to the fact he doesn’t know what gift will express all that he wants to express. At the back of his mind there is an annoying thought lingering that no gift can do this.
He drives to the mall in Metropolis because driving is at times a relaxing enterprise for him. He focuses on his determination to succeed as he enters this mall, different from the other one. Time is, after all, ticking down. To bolster his spirits, Clark thinks of the foes he has defeated in the past. The success of this is debatable since lingering with him are the memories of the previous mall trip. Nevertheless he is determined and sets onwards with his mission. Perhaps his problem before was that he hadn’t clearly conceptualized the task as a mission. He hopes so.
Missions he can do. His record is clear on that. His record on relationships is far more hazy.
After three hours Clark comes to the conclusion that even characterizing the task as a mission isn’t helping. He sees a few things but nothing seems right. Apparently he’s Goldilocks in the gift-buying department. What he really needs is a road map, a guide of sorts, which would direct him towards the correct path.
He winds up in a bookstore, holding a copy of The Metamorphosis and Other Stories. An empty and curving street stares bleakly back at him from the cover.
“If my boyfriend gave me that, I’d dump him,” Lois says, coming up on his unexpectedly. Clark doesn’t think of her as belonging in bookstores.
“Chloe likes to read,” he retorts defensively. His hands involuntary clutch the paperback before remembering that he shouldn’t squeeze too tightly. Lois is an unwelcome addition. While she has at times proven helpful, generally she acts as the big sister Clark never wanted, dispensing advice he could do without.
Lois snatches the book from his hands. “Only Rory Gilmore would want Kafka for Christmas.”
“Chloe mentioned she had lost her copy,” he says. He rescues the book from Lois.
Lois glares at him. Clark sighs, but maintains possession of the book. “Do you have any suggestions?”
“I have my own shopping dilemmas,” Lois says. Her bags belie any assertion that she is having trouble buying gifts. Not that Clark would have any idea of what to buy Oliver. What could Oliver even need?
But the issue is Chloe and Lois is Chloe’s cousin and they do live together. Despite not liking it, he adds a please to his earlier request. “I want the gift to be special.”
Lois reaches over and pats him on the arm. Her bags rustle in a way that makes Clark jealous. She says, “Buck up and don’t over-think it, Farm Boy. It’s Chloe. You don’t have to impress her: she’s already accepted the flannel and the obsession with primary colors. She’ll like it because it’s from you.”
“But not the Kafka,” he says.
“Well, only if the Kafka is accompanied by something else a bit more original,” Lois says, relenting a little on the book. Not that her words of any great help: he never thought the book would be sufficient by itself. But at least he’ll have something purchased, which makes him feel better.
He’s hoping that will set him in the right direction.
Clark goes to pay with Lois following. Before she deserts the bookstore, she says, “I think you’ll know when you find the right gift.”
Unfortunately, although he spends another hour looking, he can’t find anything that would complete the gift. The mission has not been successful. He feels like he should know what the right gift is, but still comes up empty. When he drives home, dusk falling, he glances over at the lonely bag on the passenger’s seat. Kafka peaks up over the top and the sight merely makes him feel discouraged.
“Bah, humbug,” he tells the book.
+++
“You’re awfully quiet today,” Chloe says. She has been carrying the conversation since he arrived an hour ago.
It’s a few days after his second failed shopping trip. They’re drinking coffee in the apartment she shares with Lois. They’re alone, blissfully alone.
“That’s because you’re a chatterbox,” he replies. He has been quiet, concentrating on observing her rather than paying attention to the need to respond to what she has been saying.
“I could be quiet and taciturn.”
Clark smiles and pulls her into his side. Their hands meet and they tangle their fingers together. “Nah,” he says. “I like you the way you are.”
He just wishes he could think of a gift to match how much he likes Chloe the way she is.
Clark tries yet again to get inspired by shopping. He wanders through downtown Smallville. He meanders through downtown Metropolis with a light snow falling. He considers travelling farther, which he decides against unless he thinks of a specific destination. His determination to find the right gift doesn’t exactly disappear, but becomes bogged down by those familiar feelings of being lost and aimless.
Clark does think about what Lois says in the bookstore, but he still can’t think of anything good enough for Chloe. She deserves more than the Kafka book, that’s for sure, but he just can’t figure out what is right. He’s all turned around, unable to find his way to the right bowl of porridge or chair or bed. Again he thinks of how he needs a map.
He finally finds it, the gift he wants to give, a week before Christmas.
Once again he’s at the apartment Chloe shares with Lois. He’s unravelling the strings of lights while Chloe is sorting through the ornaments to be hung on the tree. In the background is some atrocious Christmas music, a Chipmunks Christmas album. Clark pauses in unravelling the lights, watching Chloe sing softly along with the music. He doesn’t think she’s even aware she’s doing it. She’s smiling and her behavior is on the silly side, and he can’t tear his eyes from her.
Then, like what Lois had said would happen, he knows what his gift will be. He feels like he has suddenly come upon a map with his end destination marked off. The idea isn’t original, nor as unique as he wanted when he started shopping, but it has the feeling of being right, like how Goldilocks must have felt at the end. Clark laughs a little at that thought, causing Chloe to glance over at him.
“What’s so funny?” she asks. Her hands are poised over a set of pink Christmas balls.
“Nothing,” he says.
“Nothing? Nothing at all is making you laugh?”
Clark grins, one of those stupid sort of grins that can’t be helped. “Yes. Nothing at all.”
Chloe shakes her head. “I think Christmas is making you loony.”
“As a toon,” Clark retorts. This time it is Chloe who laughs. He stands up and crosses the distance between them. He grabs her hand, pulls her up, and twirls her around the naked tree to the music of Alvin wishing for his two front teeth.
+++
On Christmas Eve he corrals Chloe into coming over to spend the night. He tells her Martha’s flight has been cancelled, neglecting to add that his mother agreed to fly out on Christmas day to aid her son. Lois gives a little assistance by taking herself off to Oliver’s so that Chloe won’t feel bad about leaving her cousin alone. Gabe is in Gotham, required to work Christmas day at his new job. Everything just falls into place.
Clark decorates the living room, which he had been putting off, not in the Christmas spirit until just recently. The tree is set up, the lights are strung, and he even hangs some mistletoe. He lights a fire, spreads blankets and pillows before the television, and puts out the movies he purchased for the occasion. He has plenty of desserts and a pot of Christmas Blend Starbucks’ coffee is brewing.
Chloe arrives with an apple pie in her hands, gift bags hanging off each arm. A gust of cold winter air accompanies her. “Merry Christmas,” she says in greeting. She hands the pie to him, smiling broadly. “I baked it.”
“Really?” he says before he can stop himself.
In response Chloe glares at him. She sets down her gift bags, unwinds her scarf, and shrugs off her coat. Snowflakes drift to the floor and melt quickly.
“Sorry,” Clark says. “I’m just surprised at you baking.”
She relents slightly and says, “Well, the third time proved to be the charm.” A bright smile spreads across her face. “And it is edible. I made two each time so I could test. Lois even tried it and agreed it was good.”
“You’re a regular Betty Crocker.”
“I’ll leave and take my pie with me.”
Clark pulls her towards him with his free hand. “No, don’t. I love the pie. Thank you.” He bends down to press a light kiss to her lips.
With the pie in the kitchen, Clark leads Chloe into the living room. Seeing the spread before her, she says, “You planned this.”
Clark widens his eyes, attempting to look innocent. Chloe lightly slaps his arm, before exclaiming in joy at the movies he had gathered. He may think the television specials from the 1960s corny, but she loves them, along with the classic films in black and white. They settle down with the pie and coffee and other treats, the fire warming the space, snow falling softly outside, and Rudolph on the television scene.
“This is nice,” Chloe says hours later. Jimmy Stewart is on the television now. They’re snuggled together beneath the blankets and their backs pressed against the couch.
“Just nice?”
“Maybe a bit better.”
“A lot better,” Clark insists.
“All right, dear,” Chloe says with a smile. She pats his hand beneath the blankets. “A lot better than nice.”
“Watch your movie,” Clark says. They glance at each other, smile, and then turn their attention back to Jimmy Stewart.
END
From: simplytoopretty
Request: A happy ending. Clark showing his appreciation for Chloe. Clark missing Chloe.
Type: Fiction
Title: When Searching For Road Maps
Summary: What he really needs is a road map that would direct him towards the correct path to reach the desired destination.
Rating: PG
Author’s Note: set in an AU season 6
+++
The Christmas music fills the air and the mall is festively decorated. Fake trees loaded with bright ornaments can be found at every major mall junction. Santa Claus has his workshop set up and parents are already lining up with their children. Clark skirts by the exhibit, the children tugging at adult hands and their high, excited voices. There are four weeks until the twenty-fifth and Christmas has been firmly established in the mall with the music, advertisements, and decorations.
The hustle and bustle is starting. People throng through the mall with bags clutched in their hands, evidence of their success. Some shop in pairs or groups.
Amidst the music and decorations, the Christmas cheer, Clark is weighed down by feelings of being lost and uncomfortable, as if he’s adrift at sea and has no idea where he is going. The fabric of his flannel shirt feels constricting. He shifts his shoulders beneath the flannel, hoping to alleviate the strain. It doesn’t and as he continues to wander around, the uncomfortable feeling just grows.
He is not oblivious to the reason behind his discomfort. The purpose of the trip is to find a gift for Chloe, something he has done for the past half a dozen years. In previous years the task was never daunting: he generally found an adequate gift easily. This year a new pressure has attached to this annual gift exchange. Before they were merely best friends; now they’re together. It has been some three months and by Christmas it will be four months.
The changed situation calls for a different kind of gift that the ones he previously purchased. The problem is Clark has no clue what the appropriate or perfect gift is for Chloe now that they are romantically engaged. There’s no guidebook that he knows of to assist him in this task, no map to show him the way, and his attempts to generate ideas haven’t been successful. He put on this thinking gap and got nowhere.
So he feels off-kilter as he crosses the mall once, twice, waiting for a gift to call to him, to tell him this is perfect for Chloe. Nothing strikes him. He goes into stores and wanders through the aisles, rejecting offers of help from salespeople. He can’t think of words to sum Chloe up at the moment, words that would allow suggestions from others for the perfect gift, if there were such a thing.
By the time he ends up at Starbucks, ordering a grande mocha, he is no farther along than when he started two hours ago. He heads home as rain falls, matching his dreary mood.
+++
His romantic relationship with Chloe had begun somewhat bumpily three months ago. They had kissed, he supposed, in the heat of the moment, although he had thought it meant more. After he returned from saving the world, Clark had found Chloe smiling brightly at someone else. She dismissed the kiss as an end of the world kind of thing that apparently means nothing when the world doesn’t end, and went on smiling at Jimmy, the photographer. Clark was left on the outside, wandering what had happened.
Of all the scenarios he had pictured occurring the one that actually occurred had never crossed his mind.
Instead of speaking up, however, Clark smiled and nodded and accepted Chloe’s dismissal of the kiss. His mind kept turning the moment over and over again. His dreams were full of her. For the next two weeks he had been, in a word, moody. His conversations with Chloe were tense during that time.
Lois, alone with Clark for a moment while Chloe went to get coffee downstairs, told him to stop sulking.
“I’m not sulking,” Clark retorted. He crossed his arms, realized that did nothing to help his case, and uncrossed them. Lois smirked and shook her head.
“You should tell her before it gets serious,” Lois said. Her voice, often so grating on Clark’s ears, was unusually gentle. The smirk was gone, replaced by a sort of smile that Clark couldn’t place.
This time he shook his head.
“Fine. Whatever,” she said, returning to the Lois he knew.
Her words remained with him, tugging at him, adding to the images already in his head. Scenarios played out in his thoughts as to what he could do to change what was happening; he kept dismissing them. Yet, when a few days later Chloe confronted him about his recent moodiness, Clark found words he hadn’t expected to say tumbling out of his mouth.
Chloe had arrived unexpectedly, coming upon him in the barn loft. Despite having the house to himself, he still spent much of his time sitting on the old couch. Chloe had discovered him in this position, his eyes staring unseeing out of the loft window. She moved so she was standing in front of the window, in a spill of golden light. It was that late summer sun that lights everything up and softens edges.
“Spill,” Chloe said after a long speech that summarized her case against him. “I know something is up and you are going to tell me.”
“There’s nothing to tell,” Clark insisted. The lie was necessary. While he didn’t have a definite guidebook to the proper behavior for this sort of situation, he had a fairly strong inkling that he wasn’t supposed to interfere.
After all, there had been chances before to act, before anything had occurred. His happiness was irrelevant. What mattered was Chloe’s and what she deserved. If that was Jimmy then Clark knew he was supposed to be happy for her as a friend. The difficulty was in showing that, and his abilities as an actor had always been debatable. He could hide the secret of his heritage fairly successfully, but he suspected his emotions weren’t always so well hidden.
So he said nothing was wrong and hoped that would be the end of it.
Chloe continued to press, not easily fooled. Her tone remained firm, refusing to back down until she had achieved what she came to obtain. Persistence was one of Chloe’s strong suits, as Clark knew well, and she could be incredibly stubborn. The aspect of her personality might have contributed to his yielding, possibly in combination with how lovely she looked backlit by the late day sun. For whatever reason he found himself opening his mouth and revealing far more than he had intended.
What he first said was this: “I miss you.”
It was more than he had intended, hinting at something deeper in the ambiguous nature of the words. It was not a statement of denial.
“I haven’t gone anywhere, Clark.”
“You have, in a way.”
Chloe stepped forward, out of the reach of the spill of light, and closer to him in the shadows. “I’m right here.”
Clark sighed and then a tumble of words came out. “We kissed and I thought it meant something. But then you said it didn’t. You’re with Jimmy, and I miss you.”
The words were fairly simple, but what they revealed were emotions Clark knew were better concealed, at least at that time. He knew it was unfair to put what he felt on Chloe, yet that was what he did. Too much, too late, he thought in the seconds after he said the words, amidst the silence that had followed. Even without a map, he was confident this was not the direction he was supposed to go in. Directions never used to be that difficult for him.
Chloe was silent in the immediate aftermath. Her eyes had widened when he had spoken, then fallen shut for a long moment. When she opened them again, he couldn’t read her. Usually Chloe’s eyes were expressive, the trite expression of windows to the soul accurate in her case.
“I should go,” she finally said.
All he had been able to do was nod. Chloe left and, as he watched her leave, he thought about timing and missed opportunities and how he really never should listen to Lois.
Three days later Chloe knocked on his door. She stood still for about five seconds after the door was opened and then stretched on her toes to kiss him softly on the mouth. The kiss was quick and she had moved away by the time what was happening registered in Clark’s mind.
“Really?” he asked, not yet able to be more adequately verbose.
Chloe smiled, shook her head a little, and let out a tiny laugh. “That was not a ‘the world is ending’ kiss.”
“I didn’t screw it all up?”
“Not for us, at least,” she said. “I think you might have screwed it up for Jimmy.”
Clark shrugged in a not-so-apologetic way. He reached up and pulled Chloe towards him, wrapping his arms securely around his body. Pressing a kiss to her forehead, he said, “I’m glad.”
That earned him another tiny laugh. “I bet you are.”
Ultimately, when their relationship had started, Clark hadn’t really needed a guide to get there. He had fumbled along and ended up where he wanted. He suspects it might not work out the same for the Christmas gift.
+++
A week passes with only three more weeks until Christmas day. His mind turns over ideas, but he’s unable to settle on any. He makes plans to venture out on a Friday morning. The night before he talks to his mom. She suggests simply asking Chloe what she would like. Clark rejects the idea immediately.
“I want it to be a surprise,” he says, which was true. If Chloe told him what to buy then there would be nothing special about the gift. They were at the start of their relationship and he has become seized with the desire to set a good precedent.
“I’m sure Chloe will love whatever you get her,” Martha adds, derailing his thoughts, “because it will be from you.”
Clark huffs a bit in response. His mother chuckles lightly at him, wishes him luck and says she loves him. He replies in kind and hangs up. Nothing in the conversation has alleviated the pressure he feels, the pressure he knows springs internally rather than from an external source.
Clark wants the gift to come from the heart, despite how tired that expression can seem, despite how corny it may be. He wants to show his appreciation for her, his love. The difficulty boils down to the fact he doesn’t know what gift will express all that he wants to express. At the back of his mind there is an annoying thought lingering that no gift can do this.
He drives to the mall in Metropolis because driving is at times a relaxing enterprise for him. He focuses on his determination to succeed as he enters this mall, different from the other one. Time is, after all, ticking down. To bolster his spirits, Clark thinks of the foes he has defeated in the past. The success of this is debatable since lingering with him are the memories of the previous mall trip. Nevertheless he is determined and sets onwards with his mission. Perhaps his problem before was that he hadn’t clearly conceptualized the task as a mission. He hopes so.
Missions he can do. His record is clear on that. His record on relationships is far more hazy.
After three hours Clark comes to the conclusion that even characterizing the task as a mission isn’t helping. He sees a few things but nothing seems right. Apparently he’s Goldilocks in the gift-buying department. What he really needs is a road map, a guide of sorts, which would direct him towards the correct path.
He winds up in a bookstore, holding a copy of The Metamorphosis and Other Stories. An empty and curving street stares bleakly back at him from the cover.
“If my boyfriend gave me that, I’d dump him,” Lois says, coming up on his unexpectedly. Clark doesn’t think of her as belonging in bookstores.
“Chloe likes to read,” he retorts defensively. His hands involuntary clutch the paperback before remembering that he shouldn’t squeeze too tightly. Lois is an unwelcome addition. While she has at times proven helpful, generally she acts as the big sister Clark never wanted, dispensing advice he could do without.
Lois snatches the book from his hands. “Only Rory Gilmore would want Kafka for Christmas.”
“Chloe mentioned she had lost her copy,” he says. He rescues the book from Lois.
Lois glares at him. Clark sighs, but maintains possession of the book. “Do you have any suggestions?”
“I have my own shopping dilemmas,” Lois says. Her bags belie any assertion that she is having trouble buying gifts. Not that Clark would have any idea of what to buy Oliver. What could Oliver even need?
But the issue is Chloe and Lois is Chloe’s cousin and they do live together. Despite not liking it, he adds a please to his earlier request. “I want the gift to be special.”
Lois reaches over and pats him on the arm. Her bags rustle in a way that makes Clark jealous. She says, “Buck up and don’t over-think it, Farm Boy. It’s Chloe. You don’t have to impress her: she’s already accepted the flannel and the obsession with primary colors. She’ll like it because it’s from you.”
“But not the Kafka,” he says.
“Well, only if the Kafka is accompanied by something else a bit more original,” Lois says, relenting a little on the book. Not that her words of any great help: he never thought the book would be sufficient by itself. But at least he’ll have something purchased, which makes him feel better.
He’s hoping that will set him in the right direction.
Clark goes to pay with Lois following. Before she deserts the bookstore, she says, “I think you’ll know when you find the right gift.”
Unfortunately, although he spends another hour looking, he can’t find anything that would complete the gift. The mission has not been successful. He feels like he should know what the right gift is, but still comes up empty. When he drives home, dusk falling, he glances over at the lonely bag on the passenger’s seat. Kafka peaks up over the top and the sight merely makes him feel discouraged.
“Bah, humbug,” he tells the book.
+++
“You’re awfully quiet today,” Chloe says. She has been carrying the conversation since he arrived an hour ago.
It’s a few days after his second failed shopping trip. They’re drinking coffee in the apartment she shares with Lois. They’re alone, blissfully alone.
“That’s because you’re a chatterbox,” he replies. He has been quiet, concentrating on observing her rather than paying attention to the need to respond to what she has been saying.
“I could be quiet and taciturn.”
Clark smiles and pulls her into his side. Their hands meet and they tangle their fingers together. “Nah,” he says. “I like you the way you are.”
He just wishes he could think of a gift to match how much he likes Chloe the way she is.
Clark tries yet again to get inspired by shopping. He wanders through downtown Smallville. He meanders through downtown Metropolis with a light snow falling. He considers travelling farther, which he decides against unless he thinks of a specific destination. His determination to find the right gift doesn’t exactly disappear, but becomes bogged down by those familiar feelings of being lost and aimless.
Clark does think about what Lois says in the bookstore, but he still can’t think of anything good enough for Chloe. She deserves more than the Kafka book, that’s for sure, but he just can’t figure out what is right. He’s all turned around, unable to find his way to the right bowl of porridge or chair or bed. Again he thinks of how he needs a map.
He finally finds it, the gift he wants to give, a week before Christmas.
Once again he’s at the apartment Chloe shares with Lois. He’s unravelling the strings of lights while Chloe is sorting through the ornaments to be hung on the tree. In the background is some atrocious Christmas music, a Chipmunks Christmas album. Clark pauses in unravelling the lights, watching Chloe sing softly along with the music. He doesn’t think she’s even aware she’s doing it. She’s smiling and her behavior is on the silly side, and he can’t tear his eyes from her.
Then, like what Lois had said would happen, he knows what his gift will be. He feels like he has suddenly come upon a map with his end destination marked off. The idea isn’t original, nor as unique as he wanted when he started shopping, but it has the feeling of being right, like how Goldilocks must have felt at the end. Clark laughs a little at that thought, causing Chloe to glance over at him.
“What’s so funny?” she asks. Her hands are poised over a set of pink Christmas balls.
“Nothing,” he says.
“Nothing? Nothing at all is making you laugh?”
Clark grins, one of those stupid sort of grins that can’t be helped. “Yes. Nothing at all.”
Chloe shakes her head. “I think Christmas is making you loony.”
“As a toon,” Clark retorts. This time it is Chloe who laughs. He stands up and crosses the distance between them. He grabs her hand, pulls her up, and twirls her around the naked tree to the music of Alvin wishing for his two front teeth.
+++
On Christmas Eve he corrals Chloe into coming over to spend the night. He tells her Martha’s flight has been cancelled, neglecting to add that his mother agreed to fly out on Christmas day to aid her son. Lois gives a little assistance by taking herself off to Oliver’s so that Chloe won’t feel bad about leaving her cousin alone. Gabe is in Gotham, required to work Christmas day at his new job. Everything just falls into place.
Clark decorates the living room, which he had been putting off, not in the Christmas spirit until just recently. The tree is set up, the lights are strung, and he even hangs some mistletoe. He lights a fire, spreads blankets and pillows before the television, and puts out the movies he purchased for the occasion. He has plenty of desserts and a pot of Christmas Blend Starbucks’ coffee is brewing.
Chloe arrives with an apple pie in her hands, gift bags hanging off each arm. A gust of cold winter air accompanies her. “Merry Christmas,” she says in greeting. She hands the pie to him, smiling broadly. “I baked it.”
“Really?” he says before he can stop himself.
In response Chloe glares at him. She sets down her gift bags, unwinds her scarf, and shrugs off her coat. Snowflakes drift to the floor and melt quickly.
“Sorry,” Clark says. “I’m just surprised at you baking.”
She relents slightly and says, “Well, the third time proved to be the charm.” A bright smile spreads across her face. “And it is edible. I made two each time so I could test. Lois even tried it and agreed it was good.”
“You’re a regular Betty Crocker.”
“I’ll leave and take my pie with me.”
Clark pulls her towards him with his free hand. “No, don’t. I love the pie. Thank you.” He bends down to press a light kiss to her lips.
With the pie in the kitchen, Clark leads Chloe into the living room. Seeing the spread before her, she says, “You planned this.”
Clark widens his eyes, attempting to look innocent. Chloe lightly slaps his arm, before exclaiming in joy at the movies he had gathered. He may think the television specials from the 1960s corny, but she loves them, along with the classic films in black and white. They settle down with the pie and coffee and other treats, the fire warming the space, snow falling softly outside, and Rudolph on the television scene.
“This is nice,” Chloe says hours later. Jimmy Stewart is on the television now. They’re snuggled together beneath the blankets and their backs pressed against the couch.
“Just nice?”
“Maybe a bit better.”
“A lot better,” Clark insists.
“All right, dear,” Chloe says with a smile. She pats his hand beneath the blankets. “A lot better than nice.”
“Watch your movie,” Clark says. They glance at each other, smile, and then turn their attention back to Jimmy Stewart.
END