Chlark Fanfic: Agenda, Chapter 20
Runner by go_clo.
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 smallvillebbang long Fanfic challenge. Many thanks to twinsarein for 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 20
The blood instantly drained from her face. “Jor-El,” she whispered.
“I told you, she’s not in any pain or agitated---”
“He has my daughter,” she muttered, pacing with her head in her hands. “Jor-El has my daughter; your psychopath of a dad has my child!”
“Chloe---”
“Oh my God, what is he doing to her?” she cried in anguish. “She’s just a baby!”
“Gabby’s at the Fortress, but I told you - there’s no cause for concern,” he insisted. “He’s not the same as you remember---”
She ignored him completely and raised a trembling hand and shook a finger in his face. “If he lays one finger on my baby’s head, I swear to God I will rip his binary balls off!” she seethed. “I will melt every fucking crystal in that place--”
“Chloe, listen to me!”
“I mean it!” she yelled. “If he so much as barks at her, Global Warming will be a candle in the breeze compared to what I’ll do to him!”
“He wouldn’t hurt her, Chloe!” he shouted. “She’s just a kid, he’d never harm her…”
“Are you sure about that?” she said, unconvinced. “I wasn’t much older than she is now when he turned me into a popsicle. And you were barely sixteen when he branded you like an animal and brainwashed you, amongst a whole lot of other sick shit!”
Clark’s sighed warily. Without further ado he grabbed Chloe, headed for the balcony and leapt straight into the sky, heading due North.
***
They got to the Arctic within minutes.
As soon as they arrived, Chloe could see from a distance the tell-tale signs of life within the Fortress as an ethereal light glowed brightly within. The closer they got, the brighter the light got until they reached the entrance.
“Just stay calm,” Clark advised in a whisper as he set her on her feet.
He may as well not have spoken. Terror held her heart in a vice-like grip as she was confronted with the sight of her daughter sitting on the floor opposite an entity she was sure was Jor-El, with a spinning disk in the air between them.
“Gabby!” she shrieked, and bolted forward. Clark grabbed hold of her collar and jerked her back, pulling her back as her daughter cast a withering glance at them.
“Chloe, she’s fine---”
“Don’t you hurt her!” she yelled threateningly at the robed figure sitting with her child. To her complete and utter shock, Gabby raised a hand and motioned to her to be quiet, whilst plucking the spinning disk out of the air with her other hand.
“No!” Chloe screamed, and frantically tried to yank herself out of Clark’s steely grasp. “Gabby!”
Gabby said something to Jor-El and got to her feet, then jogged quickly towards them.
“Oh, my God,” Chloe breathed, grabbing her and clutching her as soon as she got close. “Oh, my God, are you okay, honey? Are you okay?”
“I’m fine, Mom,” she quickly reassured her, reaching out to also take her father’s hand. Chloe grabbed the hand out of the air and turned it over, inspecting it suspiciously.
“What did he do to you?” she asked, looking frantically over Gabby’s palm for signs of broken or frozen skin.
“Nothing, Mom; I told you, I’m fine,” she insisted.
“No, you can’t be - that’s not how he operates,” Chloe said hysterically. “Did he brand you, maim you, download something---”
“Mom!” Gabby said sternly, making her jump. “I said I’m fine,” she said, emphasising every word.
“What are you doing here, Gabby?” she wailed. “Why did you come here? This place isn’t safe!”
“It’s kinda hard to explain, but I started running and just…sorta found my way here,” she managed. “I haven’t been here that long, and I was just about making my way back home when you got here. I’m sorry if I alarmed you.”
She stared hard into her daughter’s face looking for tell-take signs of a mind-whammy or some kind of robotic influence, but found nothing.
“I told you she’d be alright at the Fortress,” Clark said, and she scowled.
“Oh, sure, yeah. Like I was, when he welcomed me with a snowstorm?” she accused, pointing a finger at the robed man patiently waiting within the chamber. “Or when he branded you, or froze you, or took away your powers?”
“Dad spent years working on modifications to the Fortress’s systems, Mom,” Gabby patiently explained. “It’s a long story, but everything’s fine here now. He isn’t going to hurt us.”
“What does he want with you, then?” Chloe asked. “To saddle you with the same training and destiny crap that he did your father?”
“He just wanted to get to know me,” Gabby said. “As for my destiny, he said it’s completely up to me what I wanted to do with my life, but he’d rather I didn’t go into the crime-fighting business as he didn’t want his only granddaughter putting herself in harm’s way.” she paused and smiled. “Apparently Krypton is just as sexist as every other planet in the universe.”
Chloe took a deep breath and sighed with relief - and then she spied the silver disk in her daughter’s hand.
“What is that?” she asked immediately. “What did he give you - some sort of mind-control device?”
Gabby and Clark exchanged a derisive look, and sighed. “This is basically a media file containing a holographic Kryptonian history lesson,” her daughter said wearily. “Think of it as the Kryptonian equivalent of an iPad for a refresher course.”
Chloe narrowed her eyes. “That’s all?”
“That’s all. And I only have to watch it if I want to, there’s no rush or no fuss.”
Chloe stared dubiously at the disk and then glared at Jor-El. He gave a sage nod, walked back into the glowing crystal chamber, and disappeared.
Clark put an arm around Gabby’s shoulders and gave her a quick squeeze. “So, what did you think?” he asked, and she smiled.
“It’s…almost unreal,” she said. “In a fun, cool sort of way. I mean…wow. That’s like my grandfather?”
Clark nodded. “Pretty much. Not him physically of course, but a cellular representation of him with all of his memories.”
“Like I said, almost unreal,” she giggled. “But amazing. He gave me a name, by the way.”
“Oh?”
“Mmm-hmm. He called me Kyana Kal-El.”
“Kyana,” Clark said, and smiled. “That’s beautiful. It suits you.”
“I love it,” she grinned. “And I get your name as my last name, how cool is that?”
“I assume it has some kind of meaning?” Chloe said scathingly, angry and feeling left out of the conversation.
“Dawn, Mom,” Gabby replied. “It means Dawn; a rebirth, an awakening…new beginning, basically.”
“I see,” she said in clipped tones. “Nice of him to go ahead and name you without my permission.”
“It’s the birthright of every child of Kryptonian descent, Mom,” Gabby said with a sigh. “And not just me; you get one too, for bringing me into the world.”
“Really? And what might my name be?”
Gabby shrugged. “No idea. He said it was Dad’s responsibility to name his mate.” She turned excitedly to her father. “So, what are you going to call her?”
Clark’s jaw hardened and he stared into the distance with a stony expression. “Let’s just go home,” he said, and held out an arm to hold both of them on either side.
Gabby’s eyes widened at the obvious frostiness in the air that had nothing to do with the arctic winds. She regarded them both with questioning glances, but said nothing as Clark tightened his arms around them and took to the skies.
Chapter 21…