Chlark Fanfic: Agenda, Chapter 9
Title: Agenda
Author: babydee1
Pairing: Chlark
Rating: NC-17 (mostly PG-13)
Warnings: None
Timeline: Futurefic; follows Season 8’s Injustice & Failsday Doomsday
Disclaimer: All known characters belong to the CW & DC comics.
Summary: More than a decade after the Doomsday Rampage, Clark makes a shocking discovery that changes his life forever.
Feedback: …makes me squee. :-)
Written for the 2011 smallvillebbanglong Fanfic challenge. Many thanks to twinsareinfor all her tireless organisation and support!
Beta’ed by legendarytobes& The Fallen Sky at KSite.
Art by sylvanelfmistre& go_clo.
Read previous chapter here.
Read story from the beginning here.
Chapter 9
Chloe blinked, startled. “What? No…she never asked about you, Clark, not since she was little.”
“Are you sure about that?” he challenged softly.
She nodded. “Positive. The last time she asked about you, she must have been about seven or eight. If she’d brought it up again as she got older, I’d have remembered. ”
“And what about when she was ten, when she confronted you with the yearbook?”
She gave a short laugh. “Oh, that. No, she was just curious as to who the hot best buddy in the pic---” her words cut off midstream, and Clark saw her eyes widen as large as saucers as her thoughts raced ahead and connected the dots.
“Oh, my God,” she said hollowly, and stared at him. “She knew?”
He nodded. “As soon as she saw us together in the photo.”
“She knew?” she repeated. “How did she…how could she possibly have…”
“…discovered the truth?” he finished, and smiled. “She said it was like looking in a mirror.”
“And she never told me?” she rasped angrily, her voice rising again. “How could she never tell me? She’s known who you were, and she hid it from me for three whole years? How could she?”
“You’ve known about me all her life, Chloe,” he grated. “…and you kept it from her.”
His harsh words hit her like a cold blast of icy water. Chloe closed her eyes and wrapped her arms around herself, and he could see that she was numb with shock.
“Now do you see why she was angry?” he said quietly.
Chloe shook her head sadly, still reeling with disbelief. “She could have said something…” she whispered. “Anything, to let me know she knew…” She paused and drew in a shaky breath, then ran her hands through her hair and clutched at head. “Oh God, no wonder she’s so pissed at me,” she moaned.
“She was trying to ask you without actually asking you,” he explained patiently. “And I guess she got…well, frustrated when you didn’t give her the answers she wanted.”
“Passive aggression, huh?” she drawled, staring pointedly at him. “Wonder who she got that from?”
Clark chuckled, and then shifted so that he was right next to her and wrapped an arm around her trembling shoulders, squeezing her upper arms softly. Chloe sagged against him and exhaled, and he could literally feel the weight of worry falling off her burdened shoulders. Her arms crept around his waist, and he sighed, pulling her gently up against him.
It was the warmest homecoming he’d ever experienced.
“Is she still angry with me?” she whispered, jerking him back to the present.
He shook his head. “No. She’s happy now; you’ve given her what she wanted.”
She looked up at him, unshed tears glistening in her eyes. “No; you did.”
He stared at her face for several seconds, his heart melting as a tear slid down her face. Tenderly he brushed it away with his thumb and rested his palm on her cheek.
“You did what you had to do to keep her safe,” he said quietly. “We both know that. And so does she. Alright?”
She nodded, and he smiled down at her. She managed a wan smile in return, and her fingers shifted, inadvertently stroking his belly. Automatically his body hardened in response, and he tensed, steeling himself as he tried to get his body under control. As far as he was aware, and until she informed him otherwise, she was still Bruce’s woman. And as much as he wanted her, he was no longer in the business of putting the moves on unavailable women.
Carefully he shifted away from her and put a few inches of distance between them.
“As I said, she’s fine now,” he said, his voice husky with need. “I’m sure she won’t be any more trouble once you both return to Gotham.”
Chloe frowned. “Return to…? Aaah. Actually, I er…I have an announcement for you.”
Now it was his turn to frown. “An announcement?”
“Yes, I er…well - Gabby and I won’t be going back to Gotham,” she said in a rush. “I’ve decided it’s time we moved to Metropolis.”
He stared at her, dumbfounded. “You’re kidding me.”
“I’m serious.”
“You are kidding me!”
“I, uh… is this a good thing?” she asked warily.
“Good?” he echoed, and then yanked Chloe to her feet and spun her around in the air as if she was a small child. “Chloe, that’s absolutely fantastic! I can’t tell you how thrilled I am at the prospect of having Gabby around 24/7! And to know that you’re here, too---”
“Whoa, slow down,” she said breathlessly. “Who said anything about 24/7?”
His euphoria quickly dissipated. “I…I assumed you’d be living here,” he said, deadpanned. “With me.”
“Clark, we just landed on your doorstep and turned your life around,” she pointed out. “A few weeks is one thing, but to move in with you full-time---”
“…is better than anything I could have imagined,” he finished. “Don’t you understand, Chloe? I want you here.” He paused. “Both of you.”
“But that isn’t fair to you, Clark,” she argued.
“Let me be the judge of what’s fair to me,” he said. “For starters, I think it’s fair that I get to spend every spare moment with the daughter I didn’t know I had for thirteen years---”
“Okay fine, you want Gabby with you - I get that!”
“I want you here, too!” he insisted. “Or did you miss the part where I said ‘both’ of you!?”
“But I don’t want to get in your way!” she cried, wringing her hands lightly.
“In what way?” he asked, perplexed.
She swallowed. “You and Diana…”
Finally the penny dropped. “Oh, that’s what you’ve been…” He sighed and smiled, then chuckled at the thought that Chloe had been stressing that he might still be romantically involved with Diana Prince. “Over, about a year ago. We weren’t together very long.”
“Oh,” she said lamely. “Okay.”
“And er…you and Bruce?” he queried.
“We broke up,” she confirmed softly. “It was amicable.”
He nodded, maintaining a cool exterior even as his heart was rejoicing in seven different languages. “Right.”
“That notwithstanding, I think having me and Gabby here might cramp your style,” she rushed on. “I mean, what if you wanted to have a girl over?”
He took a step forward and held out his hand to her.
“The only girls I want around,” he said, as she took his hand and got to her feet, “are in this apartment right now.”
She stared at him and he could see that he’d managed to convince her.
“We’ll stay here for now,” she said resolutely. “But only until I can sort things out in a way that’ll be beneficial to all of us. You deserve your privacy. And God knows you can’t be comfortable sleeping on that couch every night.”
“You just stop worrying about technicalities and get some rest, Chloe,” he soothed, turning her by the shoulders and pushing her in the direction of the bedroom. “Leave the logistics to me.”
She nodded and yawned. “I am pretty tired,” she admitted. “We’ll talk more tomorrow; give Gabby the good news. She’s definitely happy here, so I know your decision to keep us here will put us both in her good books.”
“I’m sure she’ll be happy,” he said warmly. “But I want you to be happy you’re here, too.”
She nodded. “I am.”
He grinned. “Good. Off to bed with you.”
She gave him her patented eye-roll and went into the bedroom, closing the door behind her. Clark smiled and grabbed his sheet, blanket and pillows, and prepped the couch for the night.
He wasn’t worried about the sleeping arrangements. Now that he knew that Bruce and Chloe were no longer an item, he wasn’t planning on staying on the couch for much longer.
***
Chapter 10…