Fic for deludedvision [Part 1 of 2]
For: deludedvision
From: tobywolf13
Request: (a) Chloe rediscovering Chlark's secret, reconciliation or (b) Clark and Chloe at the end of all things - for real, this time.
Type: Fic
Title: Through the Haze [Part 1]
Rating: FRT
Warning: Spoilers through Bride
Summary: Chloe tries to piece back together her life and her memories after what she believes is a massive stroke right before her wedding.
A/N: This plays fast and loose with season eight canon. Here, in Abyss, Clark manages to fully strip Chloe of the Brainiac infection. There's no Chloiac and no Doomsday invading her wedding and injuring Jimmy. But that doesn't mean that Davis Bloome still isn't a lingering threat.
My name is Chloe Sullivan. I'm almost 22 years old and...
I used to be able to add "I'm a reporter" to that sentence. I've been reporting since I was eight years old, first for the elementary school gazette, then for my baby, The Torch, over at Smallville High School. Reporting was what I'd always wanted to do. My mom was one. She worked for the Metropolis Journal in the metro section. She never made it really big, not like she had a column at the Daily Planet, but she was so into it. I guess I fell in love with it from there. Then I found my way to the Daily Planet. I actually made it to the big time. Actually, I had an internship once in high school and I had my own column as a junior too. Except that's fuzzy. I know that I got it because Lionel Luthor was interested in my work but it's confusing.
It wasn't some creepy old guy fetish. It wasn't Lolita by any means, but I can't remember what he got out of the deal. Lionel was never the type to be altruistic enough to just set up a column for me. But I can't remember.
I don't remember a lot of things these days.
That should be the other part of my disclaimer. I'm not yet 22 but I've had two strokes. I had the first one last May. I'm not completely sure why. I was under a lot of stress. My best friend, Lana, was sick in the hospital and I'd just been fired from the Daily Planet and subsequently blacklisted. No, I don't remember what I did to piss Lex Luthor off, but I know it was something substantial. It might have had to do with the terrorism charges I was arrested for. But I think my cousin's old boyfriend, Oliver Queen, hired some of the intimidating Harvard-trained lawyers to get me off. My detention only lasted the three weeks, after all.
But I can't imagine what I was up to that involved terrorism or what would make me crazy enough to try using Daily Planet servers to do it.
Like I said, everything has holes in it.
I don't know what I was involved in. I don't know how it managed to ruin my career. I don't even remember being in federal custody. It's all just so patchy. The strokes I think I do understand. I know it's not anywhere normal for a girl my age to have them, but I'm not from a normal town. In 1989, Smallville was hit with the world's largest meteor shower and my mom and I were caught in it, driving back from Granville. That might sound like something that can be an isolated incident, an "Oh God, that must have been traumatizing." Except the meteors from Smallville aren't just rocks.
They do things to people.
They did things to my mother and me.
They left my mom catatonic. She's in a hospital that Mr. Queen helped arranged for. He's still really good to me even though he and Lois had a less than acrimonious split. I appreciate that. The meteors changed me too, at least for a while they did. I used to be able to heal people. There was this one story Lois was working on for The Inquisitor and she broke into Reeve's Dam and almost died. No almost about it. She did die and I brought her back. I don't think anyone was ever meant for a power like that. I think after it started manifesting that's when I started having strokes. As I've said, there was one last May.
I'd hoped it would only be a one time thing. After I woke up, my power wasn't there anymore. No healing, no problems. But that's not how it worked out. I kept having memory lapses, maybe it was ischemic attacks, small ones, all along. Then last November I had another large stroke. That's why everything from the last four years doesn't feel real.
Jimmy, my husband, does. Most of my memories of Lois are still there, but things about Lana or Clark, things about the Daily Planet seem so far removed, like they happened to someone else. I hate feeling like that, like a fifth of my life has just been washed away, but it does feel like that most of the time.
I feel like I'm standing on the banks of a river, and the shore keeps being carried away.
I'm not even scared about another stroke. I should be, but I'm not. I'm more scared about never getting those parts of my self back. I want to know who that girl was, who that girl who hacked into government files and power plants from work was. I want to know why Lionel was interested in my work at The Torch. I want to know why when Jimmy lays down next to me at night, I don't feel anything other than trapped.
I want to be sure of something again, and I don't think I can be.
Sighing, I start collecting the folders on my desk. It's been another long day. I don't like what I do and I feel like a liar doing it. I don't know how to tell the kids---and most of them aren't that much younger than I am---coming into my office that everything's going to be fine. That's a lie. I don't know how to tell them their powers aren't anything to be ashamed of. I almost had my heart cut out trying to get rid of mine. That was before the memory loss and the strokes.
And my power was never dangerous, except to me. I have clients now who can freeze anything with a touch, who short out city blocks without meaning too, untrained telekinetics and kids who shapeshift. No, a bright smile and a 'can-do' attitude isn't going to fix that. And it's not going to keep them out of Belle Reve if the wrong person sees them use their powers.
I miss the Planet. I know how to write a story, to find the truth, or at least I did.
I don't know anything about making this life any easier, especially when none of us asked for it.
There's a knock at my door and a sigh again as I finish filing my work. "Come on in."
The knob turns and Clark enters.
It's weird for me. He's in a suit and tie and I've never seen him like that outside of graduation and his father's funeral, but he wears them every day now. He looks gorgeous, the way he I knew he would when we were both kids and he was still too gangly. He looks professional and adult. His press pass is still clipped into his pocket and my smile freezes on my face.
Somehow, somewhere along the line Clark took my life.
Literally.
He sits at my old desk, doing his time on tipline and discouraging pet obit submissions, while I sit here, pretending I have answers to dispense like some mutant Yoda.
"Chlo?"
"Huh?"
"Are you okay?"
I nod and put more effort into my smile. I'm used to faking it by now. I've spent months after a wedding I barely remember preparing for plastering on the same look for Jimmy. "Fine, long day. Lots of paperwork and insurance stuff. It's all a regular headache, you know?"
"Filing stuff, gotcha. Yeah, I bet it can be a pain. Tess has this new system in place and---"
"Right all that bureaucracy gives me a headache. So, what are you doing here?"
He stops and frowns back at me. "I wanted to know if you wanted to grab dinner. There's that hotdog stand off 23rd that you introduced me too a few years back. I thought it would hit the spot."
"Yeah, it would but I have dinner with Jimmy, that's part of the deal of be Mr. and Mrs. Besides, he made plans since it's Friday for us at Lazario's."
"Oh, right. Friday."
I breathe in deeply and lean back against my desk. Clark towers over me even more from that angle. "You do that a lot, you know."
"Do what?"
"Want to go out."
"Well we're friends. Friends hang out together."
"Not usually on Friday nights without my husband. Cause me and you out together, hate to make it awkward big boy, but that would qualify as a date."
"Would not."
I sigh and hold up my left hand. "I don't think it would make Jimmy feel all that comfortable. Clark, really, I'm flattered you keep coming by but I'm kind of confused."
"How?"
"I know we were really tight in high school, but that was almost four years ago. I've been here working late hours at the Planet and you've been back in Smallville since your dad died. I mean, now you see Lois a lot more than you ever see me. It's not like being back in 10th grade where you just stop by my locker or I have nothing else to do but hang out with you."
He stepped back a little. "Nothing else to do? Like I'm a last resort?"
"No," I replied. "It's not that at all. It's just that we're friends but it's almost like me and Pete. I mean, he and I share emails. I might even grab lunch with him next time I'm in Topeka, but we're not the type of people who see each other every day. I mean, really, you see Jimmy and Lois far more than you see me."
"But I want to see you."
"I know." I want to see him, something deep, something more emotional than rational keeps telling me this is what it's supposed to be like, except, strokes and memory loss and everything else aside, despite how I feel...felt in high school, this isn't then. I'm not some freshman anymore. I'm married and I run a clinic and there's no real pretext for me standing my husband up to grab dinner out of a cart with Clark. It's sweet that he's been so concerned with me since I got sick and it was wonderful how he offered up the farm for a wedding we never could have afforded otherwise, but it just seems that his life fits more with Lois's now, with the life I used to have.
Like this is all an artifact.
"What?"
I blanche at him. "Did I say that out loud?"
His eyes widen back and I have a feeling I was just mumbling louder than I meant to. "No, I just...you looked distracted. I tell you what, I'll pencil something in. Would it be okay to get hot dogs out of a cart next Wednesday for lunch if I ask Jimmy first?"
"Yup, clear it all with him. I don't...we're friends, Clark."
"That's what I keep saying."
"High school friends. Don't treat it like more than it is," I reply, forcing my voice to stay steady as I walk out the door.
***
"See, that's what I keep trying to explain. Men---all men, you know---are like these big slobbering St. Bernard puppies. Okay, maybe not Ollie."
I roll my eyes at that. Lois and Ollie have this on again-off again thing. From the way she was making exceptions for him again, I was beginning to bet she'd been having five martini lunches with a certain blond billionaire recently. "Fine, not Mr. Queen. But men are dogs? That's not very original."
"No," Lois replies, taking a sip of her Coke. "That's not what I mean. I said they're like slobbering little puppies. You have to train them and it has to be with a newspaper. Subtle? Men so don't do subtle."
"So they're like you?"
"Oh ha-ha. I have my moments, little cuz. But that's the gist of it. Men, like Clark, can't catch the clue bus if their life depended on it. He must be nursing some crush on you. I'd bet it's a big one. He asks about you all the time."
"Figures," I remark. "Now that I'm off the market, he wants me. Clark was never very decisive."
Lois snorts. "Unless it involved certain raven-haired princesses. Cuz, really, I think it's an alpha male thing. Next he'll want to mark territory."
I roll my eyes again and chuck a potato chip at her. Maybe girl bonding wasn't such a good idea. "It's not like that. I just...maybe I'm missing something. I feel like the last time we really hung out was freshman year of college and he was always in my dorm because he and Lana were a thing. I mean, sometimes he'd come to me if they had a fight or whatever, but that's the last time I remember being really close to him. I've just been so busy at the Planet."
"And with the Department of Domestic Security," Lois adds honestly.
"And with that. I...did we hang out a lot and I just don't remember it?"
"Smallville? He was in and out of the DP the year Jimmy started from what I've been told. He was around less last year though. Lana was living with him again---you remember?"
I frown. "Some, she had that divorce from Lex, right?"
"Yeah and his cousin was in town and crashing here. He was pretty busy. I couldn't even get him alone for five seconds."
"Oh whoa."
"No, to The Talon. He was supposed to fix our satellite but never did. Nah, I guess you two drifted a lot. He's been pretty great to me, though. I mean, sometimes Ollie's an idiot and when he is, it's good to get a guy's translation of why. Well as close as Smallville can give."
I close my eyes and try and concentrate. Lois hasn't told me anything I don't already know. Intellectually, I understand all of this. Then I got sick and taken into custody and Jimmy and I have been building something back together, even if I can't remember much between my first stroke and my second one. Then everything with Clark...maybe it was ancient history until I lost the bulk of four years of my life. But I feel like I did eight years ago. I'm still more that freshman on the dance floor than I like to admit.
I like that Clark hangs around me.
What kind of wife does that make me?
"Cuz?"
I shrug and toss another chip at her. "Moving on. Next topic---when am I getting an all expenses paid vacation to Star City?"
***
I can't help but think of Lois's metaphor when Clark meets me at the corner of 23rd and Baker Street. He's excited, not quite bouncing around, but the enthusiasm he has isn't well hidden. Maybe he feels like a freshman with me too.
Who can tell?
Clark doesn't say so many things. I know men can lean to the strong and silent type but Clark goes beyond that. I know that much. He's always been a little strange, which is the equivalent of saying Lex Luthor had a thinning hair line. Clark was always there, always at the right place at the right time back in high school. Whenever one of our classmates went rogue, whenever something went wrong with the meteor infected, he was there and things got better. Sometimes, alright, often, I entertained the idea he was one of them.
Or, I guess more accurately, that he was like me.
But that was years ago and not every strange thing leads back to Smallville, just 98% of them.
"So, you're going to show me to food that was never meat?"
Clark frowns and it's sexy. When Jimmy frowns, he sort of looks constipated. "I'm sure it was meat. I mean, it had to come from somewhere, right?"
"Grade Z is like innards and 'God no.'" I reply.
"Well it looks fine on the inside. Anything under X-ray is..." He stops and shoves his hands into his pockets.
"You put your food under an X-ray machine, must make trips to the doctor's office tricky."
Clark blushes and stammers out some nonsense as we walk down the block. "That's not what I...you see..."
I sigh. It's a wall again. Clark does that. He doesn't mean to. Hell, Lois and Jimmy don't either, although it's with Clark that things feel the most forced, like there are gaping canyons between us since the strokes. He says things, things that had to have been private jokes in whatever time we did manage to eek out over the years, and I don't know how to respond to them, what I'm supposed to say.
"It's okay, Kent. Your secret is safe with me."
He looks back at me and the expression is a mix of forlorn and nostalgic. "Not anymore."
"So I might tell Lois that you have odd hot dog preferences. But she'll only mock you a little and in the DP break room," I finish, coming to rest by the hot dog stand and holding out my palm. "One heart attack please."
Clark sighs. "No, she means two hot dogs and one with extra relish."
"Green things on a hot dog are not going to make it actual food," I reply as the cart owner shoots me a nasty glare.
"It's a balance thing."
I snort. "Be honest here. The last time you had a real vegetable was at Christmas when Martha visited."
"Maybe a little. Do french fries count?"
I snicker and pat his stomach. "A superior metabolism will only last so long, Clark."
"Right, Chlo. That's what you say now but when you---" he said, frowning when he realized we'd turned right into an alley. "Crap, I wasn't paying attention."
"And now we're in the middle of nowhere in the heart of the city because the hot dog stand on 23rd is the best, right?"
"It's not that bad. I can find the way out in a heartbeat."
"Right. Sure you can. Let me check my cell, I've got this link up to Google maps," I finish, pulling the Smart Phone out of my purse. "It's okay if you're not Magellan."
"Funny."
"Real funny," a third voice sneers and that's when I turn around and realize we're not exactly the only people in the alley. There's guy who's snuck up on both of us. I'm mad at me---I'm a reporter, I'm usually aware of my surroundings---but not surprised at Clark. He's so absent-minded. The man is facing us, standing tall over me, but not quite as tall as Clark.
He doesn't have to be.
He has a nine mil in his hands.
"Phone and wallet."
"Sure," I reply, handing them both over and waiting for Clark to do the same. He might have been practically a boy scout in Smallville but this is Metropolis now. People get shot every day and I have no interest in becoming a statistic after everything else I've survived. "Clark," I hiss.
He pauses for second looking between me and the man with the gun still trained on my head. I know he wants to do something stupid and chivalrous (they're often the same thing), but he relents and hands over his own wallet and cell.
It doesn't make our assailant happy.
He steps closer and grabs me. His hand cupping a place that's not his to touch. I shift a little and he keeps his hand firmly planted on my breast. "I could take a few other things."
I narrow my eyes at him. I find it ironic that even if I had an active ability, it wouldn't do shit to stop him. It would resuscitate me if I were shot, but it wouldn't stop him in his tracks. "You don't want to do this." I hope I sound as brave as I want to. I'm not Lois. I don't know hand to hand. I know knee to crotch, but I don't know if it'll help me now.
The Clark really does do something stupid.
He lunges for the other man and in the scuffle I'm knocked aside. Clark and the mugger are left scrabbling on the floor and the other man reaches for the gun. I scream but it's too late to warn Clark, there's a shot, a flash of the muzzle, and then the other man is off and running. Murder clearly wasn't on his agenda today and neither is the thirty to life that comes with the crime.
I'm on my hands and knees, leaning over Clark, searching desperately for where the bullet wound should be. I know he was shot. I saw it. God, and if ever I needed my stupid power in the first place. "Clark, don't move, I...fuck...he still took our phones. Just...wait." Clark starts to scramble back but my hand is already planted on his stomach. It should come back sticky with blood but it's bone dry. I pull my hand back and look at it and back to his shirt.
There's a huge hole ripped through it, powder burns staining the linen.
"What the Hell?"
"Chlo, I can explain."
"You can?"
There are people coming, beginning to fill the mouth of the alley. Clark looks between us and them and I can't identify the look in his eyes. I can't tell if it's fear or guilt. I understand the former. If anyone sees him...like my kids at ISIS. He is one of us. I stand up and offer my hand. Clark feigns pain and exhaustion and leans into me.
A few people are standing next to us, talking about ambulances and about the shot they heard. I brush them all off and insist he's fine, sprained ribs only and that I run a clinic of my own. It's a slow walk the six blocks back to ISIS and neither of us say a word.
Whatever there is to be said, it's for our ears only.
***
I let Clark lean on me for a block until the crowd is behind us. Then we walk the rest of the way. I have a million questions to ask, that's my nature after all, but I wait for a place where he can actually answer them. It's a long walk to ISIS and, despite myself, I can't help but look at his stomach. Clark's pulled his blazer closed over the hole, lucky for us he's worn one today at all.
He looks down at me and I blush. I never meant to make him uncomfortable. I'm usually more collected with my kids and I've seen some powers even I hadn't fathomed were out there. But it's different now. This is Clark.
And he's like me or how I used to be, when I had an ability and not just a mangled genetic code.
After the long walk I can't wait to shut my office door behind me and lock it down. Turning around I look back at Clark. He's taken off his blazer again and the bullet hole is as clear in front of me as an orange parking cone.
"So, do you want to go first?"
"First?"
I shake my head and walk over to lean against my desk. "I didn't take over ISIS just to do a favor to Lana while she's overseas. But you knew that, didn't you? It's one of those things I forgot, isn't it?"
Clark nods and he looks so sad, like something's crushing him down. "Yeah, I've known as long as you have. Two years ago, Tobias Rice stumbled across us and he identified you off the bat. It's how you found out since your ability hadn't manifested yet."
"But he fingered you and you weren't shocked?"
Clark pauses and I can tell he wants to lie but there's no way he can deny what I saw with my own eyes and no reason to. He's the one at the DP now, not me, as much as I wish that weren't true. My job consists of nothing but secret keeping now and I'm good at it.
"You knew about my ability before the strokes."
"But you didn't want to tell me after? Is this because you thought I'd brow beat you into talking to my kids?"
"No, I didn't. I trust you, Chloe. You never told anyone for the last two years. But it's complicated and I didn't want to be around here that much. Besides, there's my mom's career and I don't think that..."
"It would look odd. I get that. I'm not exactly out either. I can't tell everyone that I have an ability but it went away. I can't explain why it doesn't work anymore and they'd all want the cure too. Kind of hard to give all of them massive strokes, you know."
He shudders a little. "That's not funny."
"It's not supposed to be. You could have just told me."
"I know I could have, but I didn't want to add to your problems."
"What?"
"You've been sick and you're just getting your life back on track."
I snorted. This was hardly on track; it still felt seriously derailed. It didn't feel like my real life at all.
"And me getting my life back on track means that I'm not going to be there for you anymore." I frown. "Is this what I'm missing? Why you keep acting like we're closer than I remember. I mean, I lost my ability, maybe I lost a lot of my memories of using it. I just remember healing Lois and Jimmy's finger once. Did we used to Scooby together like in high school. I know what Metropolis is like. There's a lot of things lurking in the shadows here, even some of the meteor infected who can't be reached anymore. Did we...I don't know...were we doing the same things we did back when we were younger?"
"I don't think you need to worry about this."
His tone is so condescending you'd think he was my father, which would be ironic, since I haven't even seen dad since he moved to London for business a year ago.
I shake my head and I feel almost like I have teeth bared. "How do you know what I need at all? I know what I need and I'd like to be able to remember the last four years of my life."
"What are you talking about?"
"What am I talking about? Everything's patchy, Clark! I had two strokes and who knows how many little strokelets. Everything's fragmented and wrong. I remember everything with Jimmy. It's completely clear. I remember hanging out with Lois. But I don't remember much about you. Lois says it's because last year you were really busy with Kara visiting and with Lana before she left, but if we were doing all this stuff with our powers, then maybe I just lost it all when I lost my ability."
"Chlo---"
"We did though, right? I'm not making this up to justify the gap. We did a lot of things together even if Lois didn't see us doing them. It's why Jimmy's always insecure about you, right?"
Clark sighs. "I really don't want to drag you into this stuff a second time."
"But that implies there was a first time." My eyes widen and I connect the dots from one of Jimmy's more enthusiastic rants. "Oh my god."
Clark's eyes narrow and I swear it's funny to watch him back away from little five foot nothing me. "What?"
"Jimmy's not wrong. I mean, okay, so he was saved and you were standing right there and he was there too and---"
"Chloe?"
"You are the Red and Blue Blur, aren't you?"
He closes his eyes and bows his head. I've got him. "Yeah, I am. I called in a favor to fool Jimmy, but it's me."
"Wow. Lois won't shut up about getting an interview with you. I find the irony amusing."
"Yeah, cause she wants to talk to me under other circumstances. I think if I ever went public it would be a let down to her. She has all these screwy theories---mostly involving army experiments."
"So, was I the sidekick? Did I get a name?"
"No, there was no name and it's not like I dragged you out randomly with me to heal people. You were more on the investigative angle."
"Naturally. So you're saying I was the brains behind the operation."
"I'm smart!"
"Well not as smart as I am, admit it." I'm grinning now and I feel like I haven't smiled that widely in ages. Even Clark's glower is lifting. This feels right. This is what I've been missing.
"I always did think you were smarter than Kara and me put together."
"Out of the mouths of babes," I chirp. "So now that I know your secret, do I get to be your Watchtower again?"
Clark pales instantly, and I have no idea what I said.
"What?"
"Well, okay, so maybe that's all like creepy religious intonations with the Watchtower or whatever, but that just sounds like a good name to me. I don't know. I mean, I guess you could go with Oracle or something, but I just like the way Watchtower sounds."
He stares at me for a long time before saying anything and I have a feeling that Watchtower is exactly what I was when I could remember before. There has to be a reason it was on the tip of my brain.
"I think I prefer the loner bit, Chloe. Besides, you have all your work at ISIS and," he adds glaring at my rings as if he could melt them to slag. "You have other obligations."
"So we're going to make out while we Scooby?"
He goes bright red. "No, of course not. It's just that you have this whole life now and you're happy."
"I'm ragingly bored, Clark, and I can file and see clients and make some time for saving Metropolis. I'm good at multitasking."
"Chlo, I don't think so."
"Why not?"
"Because I think that you being in the thick of things led to the strokes in the first place. I don't want to do that again."
"I have no active abilities anymore. Also, I can tell Lois exactly where to get her scoop."
"You're gonna blackmail me so I'll let you be my sidekick."
"No, I think more about it as making things the way they were. Just let me Scooby a little. Bring me some clues from here in my office and I promise not to get to far out into the alleys and wherever. Clark, I want to do something like I used to do. I'm not reporting. We've seemed so strained lately. If I used to be the best sidekick in town, then let me do that."
"But I think..."
"And this is my choice, not yours. If I loved doing it before, then I want to do it again. I'm not going to be hurt again. No powers."
He sighs. "Lana got hurt with it. That's why she left."
I stop then and feel as if all the air has been forced out of me. It hurts that Lana knew too, makes it less special somehow. Of course, that's stupid. Of course Lana knew. She lived with him; she was his girlfriend. Besides, I have Jimmy.
"And you blame the strokes, which is my biology going wonky, not you, on me trying to help. I appreciate that you want to take responsibility for things, but I want to do this. I want something to do that feels like me. ISIS is something Lana started. It's good work and I do like my kids but it feels like this act I perform. I want to do this."
"Chlo---"
"Exclusive interview with Lois Lane, come on. You know you're only getting by without me."
"Blackmailer."
"Damn straight."
***
That's how it went for a while. Clark didn't come much at first but, little by little, he had clues he couldn't suss out on his own. It's not that Clark's dumb. He's not. He's one of the smartest people I know, actually. I've always thought of it more like another set of eyes. Sometimes patterns just aren't there to you but someone who hasn't been staring at it for two days picks it out faster. Even Sherlock has a Watson. I guess I got nominated to be a middle aged British doctor.
Cool.
But it's little things like that. Sometimes he didn't come, except after, and he comes beaten up and worse for wear and that makes me scared. Clark---the Red and Blue Blur---is invulnerable. He's told me as much. Bullets, knives, a regular person is no match for him. I wonder sometimes what he runs across that's as strong as he is. He keeps me away from that. I resent it, but sometimes it's impossible to work around Clark's savior complex.
Still, he comes and I like helping out. It works well. Sometimes it's regular old burglars. Sometimes, though, it's the meteor infected. The infection comes with around an 80% chance of becoming mentally unstable. I counsel the ones who haven't gone that way, but the people Clark meets up with, he brings them here first. I try to find some place preferable to Belle Reve or Arkham in Gotham.
Any place but them.
Tonight he's here for the same case we've been going over for weeks. There's been a spate of murders in Metropolis. Horrible things, starting with an attack on a convent, leading to the Ace of Clubs being demolished once to people shredded in alley ways. The evidence doesn't make sense---bony scales under the victims' finger nails. It's all confusing and the few survivors who've seen this thing...their descriptions aren't like anything I've ever heard of, even in my kids or in my files from the Wall of Weird.
I don't think it's someone who's been meteor infected.
This might even sound insane, but I don't think whatever this thing is was ever human at all.
"Okay, so we've tried looking through Suicide Slums. I mean, you've talked to everyone down there and no one offered off anything. I don't think something like this can hide in downtown. Is it possible it's coming from somewhere outside the city but just into Lowell County."
Clark frowns down at the computer read outs. "Where would something like that even hide?"
"There's that cliche of in plain sight. But I tend to think nine foot tall spikey bone monsters are going to stick out even in a city as blase as the Big Apricot."
"Pretty much, yeah."
"There's a lot to be said for hiding in plain sight," I say casually and I don't just mean me or my kids.
In the last two months we've been working together, Clark's let his guard slip quite a bit. I've seen him use more abilities than just his invulnerability or his speed. He's incredibly strong and I've jumped from suspecting he can see through things to knowing it. He helped me find my ring when it fell off (Jimmy doesn't know my ring size and it's too big) but looking right through my desk. He can set things on fire by looking at them. He came to The Talon a few weeks ago to go over the eternal mystery of Metropolis's serial killer and I couldn't get the fire going.
Just a look at it was ablaze.
It was smoking cool, pardon the pun.
I don't know exactly what Clark is---I have my theories---but he's not just meteor infected, if he was ever infected at all. He's something else too, like whatever is stalking Metropolis.
I don't think he's bony and nine feet tall, but he's an outlier, that much is clear to me.
I think I knew exactly why he can do what he does before, but it's another thing he doesn't like to talk about.
"Huh?"
"Nevermind," I reply. I know Clark well enough to know I'm not going to pry things out of him, not this time. "Okay, so what if we're thinking wrong. We're trying to find where this thing is hiding. What if it's not."
"Well it's not in a three piece suit and working down on Wall Street, Chlo."
"No, what if it's like the client I had who could shift. Instead of shadow creature, what if it shifts from an average guy into bony spiky monster?"
Clark slaps his forehead and I'm glad it's not my desk. That would have crumbled it. "I don't know why it took me six months to think of that."
"Well, it took me time too. But it's the only way. Something like that can't stay hidden. It also explains why it just doesn't rampage 24/7. It's like a werewolf; it's not dangerous all the time."
"Great so now we're just searching for one person in a city of 10 million, that should be simple."
"Whine much? We'll figure something out. And before you ask, no. None of my kids or their families even come close to this in their profiles."
"And you didn't know about the shadow walking until it happened."
I narrow my eyes at him. "You might have a baker's dozen worth of superpowers, but you're not implying what I think you are."
"I'm not saying that it is...but you have to look at the MO here."
"So you want open access to my kids's records?"
"It might help. How many times did you hack Belle Reve for me?"
"It's not the same," I finish and this argument feels familiar too, as if Clark's pressed me before, wanted me to abuse my power before.
"Why isn't it?"
"Because they're trusting me to keep their secrets, like I've kept yours from Lois and Jimmy and from everyone else. But we've done this before, haven't we?"
"Yeah."
"Then I don't know why you're surprised that I wouldn't give them up again. Don't ask me again, Clark, and don't use the fact that I have massive holes in my memory against me."
"I wasn't---"
"You were." I sigh again and push my bangs back from my face. "It's not one of mine."
"How do you know. We didn't even realize it was a person until now."
"Because I don't think this is a meteor infected individual."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
I quirk my head at him, at my best friend, at someone who has more powers than I can count. "You tell me. I don't really think you're like me either."
"What?"
"I don't think you're meteor infected either."
He's gulping and Clark was always the worst liar. "Of course I am."
"No, I don't know any meteor infected person, anywhere---not in my files, not here at ISIS, not in Belle Reve, nowhere---who has as many different abilities as you do. I haven't said anything because whatever it is, you're not comfortable sharing it, even if it really can't be anything more embarrassing than mutant."
"Chloe!"
I shake my head. I'm trying. I'm trying to give my clients something better than being afraid, but I'm not going to lie with him. If I could undo everything and make my mom well and to keep me from having had my strokes, I would in a heartbeat. "It's true. You already know what's wrong with me. I respect that you need space and that I pressed too hard sometimes in high school, but don't just assume it has to be meteor infected and that it has to lead back to ISIS because I don't think it does this time. I think this is in a whole new category, with you."
"So you think I'm spiky?"
"No, I don't, but I think you and our Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde might have more things in common than you and my kids here at ISIS. You don't trust me even now, that's fine, but don't keep hounding me for my records because the answer isn't in them."
He frowns back at me and somehow, even though he's the one asking me to violate privacy laws, I feel like the bad guy here. Clark has this puppy dog expression that gets to me every time. "I do trust you."
"Not with everything."
"No, I trust you with my life and that's the problem. I'm not letting you get really hurt again so I'm telling you as much as I can."
"I don't need to be babied. I could handle it."
"No you can't, and I'm not getting you killed because I came damn close to losing you last time. Chloe---" he says and only now do I realize how close he's standing to me, how his breath is on my cheeks. I flashback to an elevator long ago and something that could have been if a mom and her daughters hadn't interrupted us. I have to remind myself at this distance that I'm not eighteen anymore and that I'm married.
That I'll never have this.
"I get it, but I just...I want you to trust me to take care of myself."
Clark shudders. "I shouldn't have ever even let you start back with me like this. I just missed you, missed us." He blushes as if he realizes how that sounds finally. "You're a great partner but people who work with me get hurt: you, Lana, Oliver."
"Oliver knows?"
"For a while and that's his business to tell."
"I know, but how many people get hurt because they're left in the dark?"
"Less than the other way around," he says, reaching out for my shoulders. "I can't, Chlo."
"Then it's between us then," I reply, putting my left hand against his chest and pushing. I can't move him, but he'll defer to me and he does, but not before running his hand over mine, his fingers stopping over the simple gold band there.
"It's not the only thing." He replies, stepping back, letting the gulf between us expand.
"No, it's not."
***
I'm grabbing a cup at the Java Hut across from my building a week later. Clark and I haven't spoken in that time. I think he's working off of my theory that he has a "something else" to track down outside of the usual meteor infected threat. I'm not sure why he hasn't come by. I think I pushed too hard again, made him admit to more things than he wants.
Sighing, I twirl the ring on my finger and take a seat at unoccupied table on the sidewalk. The memory of my wedding isn't as clear as I'd like either. I remember the kiss and cutting the cake and the dances. I remember so much of it and yet there's some feeling there. I guess it's this flat, surreal aspect that comes from it being only a week after my other stroke. I know we could have moved everything, but it was all set and I needed something normal to counteract being so sick.
I think that's why there's such a haze there.
It doesn't seem real. It doesn't seem like I was that girl in the long white dress. It wasn't even how I pictured it. I never saw it in a barn and I definitely never saw Jimmy Olsen as that man. I know I said yes to the proposal and the "I do," but I feel like I can't even remember being proposed to, why I'd say yes when I was busy trying to salvage my career. Maybe that's it. Everything was in flux and Jimmy is safe.
Not always stable.
I know he has a wandering eye.
But he's usually sweet and it was normal and not my faded career or a life after being arrested. He was there for me both times after my strokes. He's been there through my infection.
A little voice in the back of my head reminds me that he's not the only one. Clark's been there with me, even if I don't remember all of it. He still gets me, gets, for the most part, that investigating is what I do. Jimmy's already on me again for spending too much time with Clark, and I don't even think it's that much, a few hours after work once a week or so, sometimes over lunch. But he's my best friend, my only good one outside of Lois. Sometimes I think he'd get it if I just told him what we did, but I'm not even sure he'd love the idea of me working with the Red and Blue Blur. It might make him more insecure.
He seemed happiest after the wedding, those few months after my stroke that I felt least like myself, and was most available for him.
I don't know what that says about our marriage, but I don't like it.
And then there's Davis Bloome, whom I have tried not to think about in the last few months, not since the day of my last stroke. I know he kissed me, that he didn't want me to marry Jimmy, that he was way too forward. So it's been easier to avoid him altogether. I think most of that can be written off as him being glad I wasn't dead, but whatever he wants, it's more than it should. It's more just like what I think Clark's set on is.
If I'd have known getting engaged would make the world see me as a girl, I'd have done it years ago.
But I made my choices, even if the reasons why seem as murky as my memories from before my life fell apart. If I knew more, Hell, if I'd even realized that Clark and I were more than just old friends from high school with Lois in common, I don't know what I would have done, but I don't think I'd have this ring on my finger still.
Sometimes it feels impossibly heavy for a piece of jewelry.
I'm sipping my cup when a familiar someone slips into the seat across from mine. I was hoping that it would be Clark, that if someone tall, dark, and handsome were sitting across from me I'd at least be able to make amends with my friend. That's not the case.
"Davis," I say hesitantly, making sure to rest my left hand prominently on the table between us. "Fancy meeting you here." And slightly ironic. This is the same spot where I said I couldn't see him anymore, even as a friend. I'd kept to that almost exclusively, except for him visiting my office once to ask for a favor. He'd even offered to pay for the services---and that makes it sound much dirtier than investigative work---if it made me feel better to see him as just a client.
In the chaos of my stroke and the wedding and him, well, kissing me, I'd completely forgotten about looking into his adoption.
"Chloe, hey. I didn't mean to ambush you like this but I just wanted to try and...well I saw the opportunity and wanted to take it."
I smile despite myself. Davis talks so fast sometimes that even I have trouble keeping pace with him. It might be part of his charm, but that's something I try not to notice. "I know we left things awkward between us, um, back behind The Talon."
He nods and leans in closer. "I know that, and I'm not sorry that I tried it. I was worried about you and I still think you made a mistake."
Between you and me, I think I did too, but it's too late now. I made my choices and I've had enough catechism to believe in sticking to my vows. Besides, even if given my choices between all of them---Davis, Clark, and Jimmy---I don't think it would be Davis who'd come out the winner. There's something about him and I admit I was charmed at first but there's some clarity I've gotten from my illness. And with the months between our last meeting. The things I liked about Davis---an easy first connection, his heroics, even the tall, dark and handsome cliche---they're all the things I've always loved about Clark.
And none of the things Jimmy has going for him.
I think the biggest thing Jimmy does have going for him is that he's not Clark. Oh, he has the geeky reporter bit down, but he's not the mysterious and heroic type. Maybe I'd grown out of that, but I don't think I could do it again. I like hero types. At least they let me save the city with them.
"I know you think that, but I was willing to give you space to get used to everything that happened between us, to understand that I love Jimmy. I married Jimmy."
"You don't have to love someone to marry them. It's not easy with him," he counters.
It's not easy with any of them. Jimmy's far too needy and Clark knows more than he'll tell me and maybe he always will. Davis can be scarily obsessive. There might have been some odd flash of familiarity, some connection initially, but I don't feel it anymore. I can see a Clark substitute so clearly now and that's not fair to anyone, especially to Davis.
"It's what I wanted. Friends support each other when they make decisions. If you can't do that, then maybe it isn't such a bad thing that we stopped seeing each other, as friends." I add, making sure to emphasize the last part.
Davis clenches his jaw and I can tell I'm upset him. Despite myself, my heart speeds up. There's something about him that...did I notice it before? Was he always this close to the edge, struggling so hard to stay even? Or is it because I'm denying him something he wants? "I'm waiting."
"I'm taken. Davis," I say, as I feign checking my watch. "I have to go. I'm sorry, but please don't bother me anymore."
There's money in my palm so fast that I swear I didn't notice him move. "Excuse me?"
"For my adoption records. I...something happened and I want you to look into it. I really need you to find out everything you can, more than just the basic stuff you did the first time." This time the rapidity of his speech isn't about getting my attention.
He's scared.
I narrow my eyes at him and soften my tone. "What's wrong?"
"I don't know yet. Can you please just dust off the reporter's hat one more time? I'm putting you on retainer."
I return the hundred to him. "You don't have to pay me for that."
"But I thought---"
"I investigate pro bono for friends. You look terrible. Are you sure you're okay?"
"I'm not sure of much anymore. Look, I have a shift starting soon. You have my cell, just call me if you find anything."
"Davis?"
He shakes his head as he starts down the block. "Just find what you can, okay?"
And he's gone, leaving me with another mystery in addition to the gaps in my memory and to what Clark's hiding. At this point, what's one more?
From: tobywolf13
Request: (a) Chloe rediscovering Chlark's secret, reconciliation or (b) Clark and Chloe at the end of all things - for real, this time.
Type: Fic
Title: Through the Haze [Part 1]
Rating: FRT
Warning: Spoilers through Bride
Summary: Chloe tries to piece back together her life and her memories after what she believes is a massive stroke right before her wedding.
A/N: This plays fast and loose with season eight canon. Here, in Abyss, Clark manages to fully strip Chloe of the Brainiac infection. There's no Chloiac and no Doomsday invading her wedding and injuring Jimmy. But that doesn't mean that Davis Bloome still isn't a lingering threat.
My name is Chloe Sullivan. I'm almost 22 years old and...
I used to be able to add "I'm a reporter" to that sentence. I've been reporting since I was eight years old, first for the elementary school gazette, then for my baby, The Torch, over at Smallville High School. Reporting was what I'd always wanted to do. My mom was one. She worked for the Metropolis Journal in the metro section. She never made it really big, not like she had a column at the Daily Planet, but she was so into it. I guess I fell in love with it from there. Then I found my way to the Daily Planet. I actually made it to the big time. Actually, I had an internship once in high school and I had my own column as a junior too. Except that's fuzzy. I know that I got it because Lionel Luthor was interested in my work but it's confusing.
It wasn't some creepy old guy fetish. It wasn't Lolita by any means, but I can't remember what he got out of the deal. Lionel was never the type to be altruistic enough to just set up a column for me. But I can't remember.
I don't remember a lot of things these days.
That should be the other part of my disclaimer. I'm not yet 22 but I've had two strokes. I had the first one last May. I'm not completely sure why. I was under a lot of stress. My best friend, Lana, was sick in the hospital and I'd just been fired from the Daily Planet and subsequently blacklisted. No, I don't remember what I did to piss Lex Luthor off, but I know it was something substantial. It might have had to do with the terrorism charges I was arrested for. But I think my cousin's old boyfriend, Oliver Queen, hired some of the intimidating Harvard-trained lawyers to get me off. My detention only lasted the three weeks, after all.
But I can't imagine what I was up to that involved terrorism or what would make me crazy enough to try using Daily Planet servers to do it.
Like I said, everything has holes in it.
I don't know what I was involved in. I don't know how it managed to ruin my career. I don't even remember being in federal custody. It's all just so patchy. The strokes I think I do understand. I know it's not anywhere normal for a girl my age to have them, but I'm not from a normal town. In 1989, Smallville was hit with the world's largest meteor shower and my mom and I were caught in it, driving back from Granville. That might sound like something that can be an isolated incident, an "Oh God, that must have been traumatizing." Except the meteors from Smallville aren't just rocks.
They do things to people.
They did things to my mother and me.
They left my mom catatonic. She's in a hospital that Mr. Queen helped arranged for. He's still really good to me even though he and Lois had a less than acrimonious split. I appreciate that. The meteors changed me too, at least for a while they did. I used to be able to heal people. There was this one story Lois was working on for The Inquisitor and she broke into Reeve's Dam and almost died. No almost about it. She did die and I brought her back. I don't think anyone was ever meant for a power like that. I think after it started manifesting that's when I started having strokes. As I've said, there was one last May.
I'd hoped it would only be a one time thing. After I woke up, my power wasn't there anymore. No healing, no problems. But that's not how it worked out. I kept having memory lapses, maybe it was ischemic attacks, small ones, all along. Then last November I had another large stroke. That's why everything from the last four years doesn't feel real.
Jimmy, my husband, does. Most of my memories of Lois are still there, but things about Lana or Clark, things about the Daily Planet seem so far removed, like they happened to someone else. I hate feeling like that, like a fifth of my life has just been washed away, but it does feel like that most of the time.
I feel like I'm standing on the banks of a river, and the shore keeps being carried away.
I'm not even scared about another stroke. I should be, but I'm not. I'm more scared about never getting those parts of my self back. I want to know who that girl was, who that girl who hacked into government files and power plants from work was. I want to know why Lionel was interested in my work at The Torch. I want to know why when Jimmy lays down next to me at night, I don't feel anything other than trapped.
I want to be sure of something again, and I don't think I can be.
Sighing, I start collecting the folders on my desk. It's been another long day. I don't like what I do and I feel like a liar doing it. I don't know how to tell the kids---and most of them aren't that much younger than I am---coming into my office that everything's going to be fine. That's a lie. I don't know how to tell them their powers aren't anything to be ashamed of. I almost had my heart cut out trying to get rid of mine. That was before the memory loss and the strokes.
And my power was never dangerous, except to me. I have clients now who can freeze anything with a touch, who short out city blocks without meaning too, untrained telekinetics and kids who shapeshift. No, a bright smile and a 'can-do' attitude isn't going to fix that. And it's not going to keep them out of Belle Reve if the wrong person sees them use their powers.
I miss the Planet. I know how to write a story, to find the truth, or at least I did.
I don't know anything about making this life any easier, especially when none of us asked for it.
There's a knock at my door and a sigh again as I finish filing my work. "Come on in."
The knob turns and Clark enters.
It's weird for me. He's in a suit and tie and I've never seen him like that outside of graduation and his father's funeral, but he wears them every day now. He looks gorgeous, the way he I knew he would when we were both kids and he was still too gangly. He looks professional and adult. His press pass is still clipped into his pocket and my smile freezes on my face.
Somehow, somewhere along the line Clark took my life.
Literally.
He sits at my old desk, doing his time on tipline and discouraging pet obit submissions, while I sit here, pretending I have answers to dispense like some mutant Yoda.
"Chlo?"
"Huh?"
"Are you okay?"
I nod and put more effort into my smile. I'm used to faking it by now. I've spent months after a wedding I barely remember preparing for plastering on the same look for Jimmy. "Fine, long day. Lots of paperwork and insurance stuff. It's all a regular headache, you know?"
"Filing stuff, gotcha. Yeah, I bet it can be a pain. Tess has this new system in place and---"
"Right all that bureaucracy gives me a headache. So, what are you doing here?"
He stops and frowns back at me. "I wanted to know if you wanted to grab dinner. There's that hotdog stand off 23rd that you introduced me too a few years back. I thought it would hit the spot."
"Yeah, it would but I have dinner with Jimmy, that's part of the deal of be Mr. and Mrs. Besides, he made plans since it's Friday for us at Lazario's."
"Oh, right. Friday."
I breathe in deeply and lean back against my desk. Clark towers over me even more from that angle. "You do that a lot, you know."
"Do what?"
"Want to go out."
"Well we're friends. Friends hang out together."
"Not usually on Friday nights without my husband. Cause me and you out together, hate to make it awkward big boy, but that would qualify as a date."
"Would not."
I sigh and hold up my left hand. "I don't think it would make Jimmy feel all that comfortable. Clark, really, I'm flattered you keep coming by but I'm kind of confused."
"How?"
"I know we were really tight in high school, but that was almost four years ago. I've been here working late hours at the Planet and you've been back in Smallville since your dad died. I mean, now you see Lois a lot more than you ever see me. It's not like being back in 10th grade where you just stop by my locker or I have nothing else to do but hang out with you."
He stepped back a little. "Nothing else to do? Like I'm a last resort?"
"No," I replied. "It's not that at all. It's just that we're friends but it's almost like me and Pete. I mean, he and I share emails. I might even grab lunch with him next time I'm in Topeka, but we're not the type of people who see each other every day. I mean, really, you see Jimmy and Lois far more than you see me."
"But I want to see you."
"I know." I want to see him, something deep, something more emotional than rational keeps telling me this is what it's supposed to be like, except, strokes and memory loss and everything else aside, despite how I feel...felt in high school, this isn't then. I'm not some freshman anymore. I'm married and I run a clinic and there's no real pretext for me standing my husband up to grab dinner out of a cart with Clark. It's sweet that he's been so concerned with me since I got sick and it was wonderful how he offered up the farm for a wedding we never could have afforded otherwise, but it just seems that his life fits more with Lois's now, with the life I used to have.
Like this is all an artifact.
"What?"
I blanche at him. "Did I say that out loud?"
His eyes widen back and I have a feeling I was just mumbling louder than I meant to. "No, I just...you looked distracted. I tell you what, I'll pencil something in. Would it be okay to get hot dogs out of a cart next Wednesday for lunch if I ask Jimmy first?"
"Yup, clear it all with him. I don't...we're friends, Clark."
"That's what I keep saying."
"High school friends. Don't treat it like more than it is," I reply, forcing my voice to stay steady as I walk out the door.
***
"See, that's what I keep trying to explain. Men---all men, you know---are like these big slobbering St. Bernard puppies. Okay, maybe not Ollie."
I roll my eyes at that. Lois and Ollie have this on again-off again thing. From the way she was making exceptions for him again, I was beginning to bet she'd been having five martini lunches with a certain blond billionaire recently. "Fine, not Mr. Queen. But men are dogs? That's not very original."
"No," Lois replies, taking a sip of her Coke. "That's not what I mean. I said they're like slobbering little puppies. You have to train them and it has to be with a newspaper. Subtle? Men so don't do subtle."
"So they're like you?"
"Oh ha-ha. I have my moments, little cuz. But that's the gist of it. Men, like Clark, can't catch the clue bus if their life depended on it. He must be nursing some crush on you. I'd bet it's a big one. He asks about you all the time."
"Figures," I remark. "Now that I'm off the market, he wants me. Clark was never very decisive."
Lois snorts. "Unless it involved certain raven-haired princesses. Cuz, really, I think it's an alpha male thing. Next he'll want to mark territory."
I roll my eyes again and chuck a potato chip at her. Maybe girl bonding wasn't such a good idea. "It's not like that. I just...maybe I'm missing something. I feel like the last time we really hung out was freshman year of college and he was always in my dorm because he and Lana were a thing. I mean, sometimes he'd come to me if they had a fight or whatever, but that's the last time I remember being really close to him. I've just been so busy at the Planet."
"And with the Department of Domestic Security," Lois adds honestly.
"And with that. I...did we hang out a lot and I just don't remember it?"
"Smallville? He was in and out of the DP the year Jimmy started from what I've been told. He was around less last year though. Lana was living with him again---you remember?"
I frown. "Some, she had that divorce from Lex, right?"
"Yeah and his cousin was in town and crashing here. He was pretty busy. I couldn't even get him alone for five seconds."
"Oh whoa."
"No, to The Talon. He was supposed to fix our satellite but never did. Nah, I guess you two drifted a lot. He's been pretty great to me, though. I mean, sometimes Ollie's an idiot and when he is, it's good to get a guy's translation of why. Well as close as Smallville can give."
I close my eyes and try and concentrate. Lois hasn't told me anything I don't already know. Intellectually, I understand all of this. Then I got sick and taken into custody and Jimmy and I have been building something back together, even if I can't remember much between my first stroke and my second one. Then everything with Clark...maybe it was ancient history until I lost the bulk of four years of my life. But I feel like I did eight years ago. I'm still more that freshman on the dance floor than I like to admit.
I like that Clark hangs around me.
What kind of wife does that make me?
"Cuz?"
I shrug and toss another chip at her. "Moving on. Next topic---when am I getting an all expenses paid vacation to Star City?"
***
I can't help but think of Lois's metaphor when Clark meets me at the corner of 23rd and Baker Street. He's excited, not quite bouncing around, but the enthusiasm he has isn't well hidden. Maybe he feels like a freshman with me too.
Who can tell?
Clark doesn't say so many things. I know men can lean to the strong and silent type but Clark goes beyond that. I know that much. He's always been a little strange, which is the equivalent of saying Lex Luthor had a thinning hair line. Clark was always there, always at the right place at the right time back in high school. Whenever one of our classmates went rogue, whenever something went wrong with the meteor infected, he was there and things got better. Sometimes, alright, often, I entertained the idea he was one of them.
Or, I guess more accurately, that he was like me.
But that was years ago and not every strange thing leads back to Smallville, just 98% of them.
"So, you're going to show me to food that was never meat?"
Clark frowns and it's sexy. When Jimmy frowns, he sort of looks constipated. "I'm sure it was meat. I mean, it had to come from somewhere, right?"
"Grade Z is like innards and 'God no.'" I reply.
"Well it looks fine on the inside. Anything under X-ray is..." He stops and shoves his hands into his pockets.
"You put your food under an X-ray machine, must make trips to the doctor's office tricky."
Clark blushes and stammers out some nonsense as we walk down the block. "That's not what I...you see..."
I sigh. It's a wall again. Clark does that. He doesn't mean to. Hell, Lois and Jimmy don't either, although it's with Clark that things feel the most forced, like there are gaping canyons between us since the strokes. He says things, things that had to have been private jokes in whatever time we did manage to eek out over the years, and I don't know how to respond to them, what I'm supposed to say.
"It's okay, Kent. Your secret is safe with me."
He looks back at me and the expression is a mix of forlorn and nostalgic. "Not anymore."
"So I might tell Lois that you have odd hot dog preferences. But she'll only mock you a little and in the DP break room," I finish, coming to rest by the hot dog stand and holding out my palm. "One heart attack please."
Clark sighs. "No, she means two hot dogs and one with extra relish."
"Green things on a hot dog are not going to make it actual food," I reply as the cart owner shoots me a nasty glare.
"It's a balance thing."
I snort. "Be honest here. The last time you had a real vegetable was at Christmas when Martha visited."
"Maybe a little. Do french fries count?"
I snicker and pat his stomach. "A superior metabolism will only last so long, Clark."
"Right, Chlo. That's what you say now but when you---" he said, frowning when he realized we'd turned right into an alley. "Crap, I wasn't paying attention."
"And now we're in the middle of nowhere in the heart of the city because the hot dog stand on 23rd is the best, right?"
"It's not that bad. I can find the way out in a heartbeat."
"Right. Sure you can. Let me check my cell, I've got this link up to Google maps," I finish, pulling the Smart Phone out of my purse. "It's okay if you're not Magellan."
"Funny."
"Real funny," a third voice sneers and that's when I turn around and realize we're not exactly the only people in the alley. There's guy who's snuck up on both of us. I'm mad at me---I'm a reporter, I'm usually aware of my surroundings---but not surprised at Clark. He's so absent-minded. The man is facing us, standing tall over me, but not quite as tall as Clark.
He doesn't have to be.
He has a nine mil in his hands.
"Phone and wallet."
"Sure," I reply, handing them both over and waiting for Clark to do the same. He might have been practically a boy scout in Smallville but this is Metropolis now. People get shot every day and I have no interest in becoming a statistic after everything else I've survived. "Clark," I hiss.
He pauses for second looking between me and the man with the gun still trained on my head. I know he wants to do something stupid and chivalrous (they're often the same thing), but he relents and hands over his own wallet and cell.
It doesn't make our assailant happy.
He steps closer and grabs me. His hand cupping a place that's not his to touch. I shift a little and he keeps his hand firmly planted on my breast. "I could take a few other things."
I narrow my eyes at him. I find it ironic that even if I had an active ability, it wouldn't do shit to stop him. It would resuscitate me if I were shot, but it wouldn't stop him in his tracks. "You don't want to do this." I hope I sound as brave as I want to. I'm not Lois. I don't know hand to hand. I know knee to crotch, but I don't know if it'll help me now.
The Clark really does do something stupid.
He lunges for the other man and in the scuffle I'm knocked aside. Clark and the mugger are left scrabbling on the floor and the other man reaches for the gun. I scream but it's too late to warn Clark, there's a shot, a flash of the muzzle, and then the other man is off and running. Murder clearly wasn't on his agenda today and neither is the thirty to life that comes with the crime.
I'm on my hands and knees, leaning over Clark, searching desperately for where the bullet wound should be. I know he was shot. I saw it. God, and if ever I needed my stupid power in the first place. "Clark, don't move, I...fuck...he still took our phones. Just...wait." Clark starts to scramble back but my hand is already planted on his stomach. It should come back sticky with blood but it's bone dry. I pull my hand back and look at it and back to his shirt.
There's a huge hole ripped through it, powder burns staining the linen.
"What the Hell?"
"Chlo, I can explain."
"You can?"
There are people coming, beginning to fill the mouth of the alley. Clark looks between us and them and I can't identify the look in his eyes. I can't tell if it's fear or guilt. I understand the former. If anyone sees him...like my kids at ISIS. He is one of us. I stand up and offer my hand. Clark feigns pain and exhaustion and leans into me.
A few people are standing next to us, talking about ambulances and about the shot they heard. I brush them all off and insist he's fine, sprained ribs only and that I run a clinic of my own. It's a slow walk the six blocks back to ISIS and neither of us say a word.
Whatever there is to be said, it's for our ears only.
***
I let Clark lean on me for a block until the crowd is behind us. Then we walk the rest of the way. I have a million questions to ask, that's my nature after all, but I wait for a place where he can actually answer them. It's a long walk to ISIS and, despite myself, I can't help but look at his stomach. Clark's pulled his blazer closed over the hole, lucky for us he's worn one today at all.
He looks down at me and I blush. I never meant to make him uncomfortable. I'm usually more collected with my kids and I've seen some powers even I hadn't fathomed were out there. But it's different now. This is Clark.
And he's like me or how I used to be, when I had an ability and not just a mangled genetic code.
After the long walk I can't wait to shut my office door behind me and lock it down. Turning around I look back at Clark. He's taken off his blazer again and the bullet hole is as clear in front of me as an orange parking cone.
"So, do you want to go first?"
"First?"
I shake my head and walk over to lean against my desk. "I didn't take over ISIS just to do a favor to Lana while she's overseas. But you knew that, didn't you? It's one of those things I forgot, isn't it?"
Clark nods and he looks so sad, like something's crushing him down. "Yeah, I've known as long as you have. Two years ago, Tobias Rice stumbled across us and he identified you off the bat. It's how you found out since your ability hadn't manifested yet."
"But he fingered you and you weren't shocked?"
Clark pauses and I can tell he wants to lie but there's no way he can deny what I saw with my own eyes and no reason to. He's the one at the DP now, not me, as much as I wish that weren't true. My job consists of nothing but secret keeping now and I'm good at it.
"You knew about my ability before the strokes."
"But you didn't want to tell me after? Is this because you thought I'd brow beat you into talking to my kids?"
"No, I didn't. I trust you, Chloe. You never told anyone for the last two years. But it's complicated and I didn't want to be around here that much. Besides, there's my mom's career and I don't think that..."
"It would look odd. I get that. I'm not exactly out either. I can't tell everyone that I have an ability but it went away. I can't explain why it doesn't work anymore and they'd all want the cure too. Kind of hard to give all of them massive strokes, you know."
He shudders a little. "That's not funny."
"It's not supposed to be. You could have just told me."
"I know I could have, but I didn't want to add to your problems."
"What?"
"You've been sick and you're just getting your life back on track."
I snorted. This was hardly on track; it still felt seriously derailed. It didn't feel like my real life at all.
"And me getting my life back on track means that I'm not going to be there for you anymore." I frown. "Is this what I'm missing? Why you keep acting like we're closer than I remember. I mean, I lost my ability, maybe I lost a lot of my memories of using it. I just remember healing Lois and Jimmy's finger once. Did we used to Scooby together like in high school. I know what Metropolis is like. There's a lot of things lurking in the shadows here, even some of the meteor infected who can't be reached anymore. Did we...I don't know...were we doing the same things we did back when we were younger?"
"I don't think you need to worry about this."
His tone is so condescending you'd think he was my father, which would be ironic, since I haven't even seen dad since he moved to London for business a year ago.
I shake my head and I feel almost like I have teeth bared. "How do you know what I need at all? I know what I need and I'd like to be able to remember the last four years of my life."
"What are you talking about?"
"What am I talking about? Everything's patchy, Clark! I had two strokes and who knows how many little strokelets. Everything's fragmented and wrong. I remember everything with Jimmy. It's completely clear. I remember hanging out with Lois. But I don't remember much about you. Lois says it's because last year you were really busy with Kara visiting and with Lana before she left, but if we were doing all this stuff with our powers, then maybe I just lost it all when I lost my ability."
"Chlo---"
"We did though, right? I'm not making this up to justify the gap. We did a lot of things together even if Lois didn't see us doing them. It's why Jimmy's always insecure about you, right?"
Clark sighs. "I really don't want to drag you into this stuff a second time."
"But that implies there was a first time." My eyes widen and I connect the dots from one of Jimmy's more enthusiastic rants. "Oh my god."
Clark's eyes narrow and I swear it's funny to watch him back away from little five foot nothing me. "What?"
"Jimmy's not wrong. I mean, okay, so he was saved and you were standing right there and he was there too and---"
"Chloe?"
"You are the Red and Blue Blur, aren't you?"
He closes his eyes and bows his head. I've got him. "Yeah, I am. I called in a favor to fool Jimmy, but it's me."
"Wow. Lois won't shut up about getting an interview with you. I find the irony amusing."
"Yeah, cause she wants to talk to me under other circumstances. I think if I ever went public it would be a let down to her. She has all these screwy theories---mostly involving army experiments."
"So, was I the sidekick? Did I get a name?"
"No, there was no name and it's not like I dragged you out randomly with me to heal people. You were more on the investigative angle."
"Naturally. So you're saying I was the brains behind the operation."
"I'm smart!"
"Well not as smart as I am, admit it." I'm grinning now and I feel like I haven't smiled that widely in ages. Even Clark's glower is lifting. This feels right. This is what I've been missing.
"I always did think you were smarter than Kara and me put together."
"Out of the mouths of babes," I chirp. "So now that I know your secret, do I get to be your Watchtower again?"
Clark pales instantly, and I have no idea what I said.
"What?"
"Well, okay, so maybe that's all like creepy religious intonations with the Watchtower or whatever, but that just sounds like a good name to me. I don't know. I mean, I guess you could go with Oracle or something, but I just like the way Watchtower sounds."
He stares at me for a long time before saying anything and I have a feeling that Watchtower is exactly what I was when I could remember before. There has to be a reason it was on the tip of my brain.
"I think I prefer the loner bit, Chloe. Besides, you have all your work at ISIS and," he adds glaring at my rings as if he could melt them to slag. "You have other obligations."
"So we're going to make out while we Scooby?"
He goes bright red. "No, of course not. It's just that you have this whole life now and you're happy."
"I'm ragingly bored, Clark, and I can file and see clients and make some time for saving Metropolis. I'm good at multitasking."
"Chlo, I don't think so."
"Why not?"
"Because I think that you being in the thick of things led to the strokes in the first place. I don't want to do that again."
"I have no active abilities anymore. Also, I can tell Lois exactly where to get her scoop."
"You're gonna blackmail me so I'll let you be my sidekick."
"No, I think more about it as making things the way they were. Just let me Scooby a little. Bring me some clues from here in my office and I promise not to get to far out into the alleys and wherever. Clark, I want to do something like I used to do. I'm not reporting. We've seemed so strained lately. If I used to be the best sidekick in town, then let me do that."
"But I think..."
"And this is my choice, not yours. If I loved doing it before, then I want to do it again. I'm not going to be hurt again. No powers."
He sighs. "Lana got hurt with it. That's why she left."
I stop then and feel as if all the air has been forced out of me. It hurts that Lana knew too, makes it less special somehow. Of course, that's stupid. Of course Lana knew. She lived with him; she was his girlfriend. Besides, I have Jimmy.
"And you blame the strokes, which is my biology going wonky, not you, on me trying to help. I appreciate that you want to take responsibility for things, but I want to do this. I want something to do that feels like me. ISIS is something Lana started. It's good work and I do like my kids but it feels like this act I perform. I want to do this."
"Chlo---"
"Exclusive interview with Lois Lane, come on. You know you're only getting by without me."
"Blackmailer."
"Damn straight."
***
That's how it went for a while. Clark didn't come much at first but, little by little, he had clues he couldn't suss out on his own. It's not that Clark's dumb. He's not. He's one of the smartest people I know, actually. I've always thought of it more like another set of eyes. Sometimes patterns just aren't there to you but someone who hasn't been staring at it for two days picks it out faster. Even Sherlock has a Watson. I guess I got nominated to be a middle aged British doctor.
Cool.
But it's little things like that. Sometimes he didn't come, except after, and he comes beaten up and worse for wear and that makes me scared. Clark---the Red and Blue Blur---is invulnerable. He's told me as much. Bullets, knives, a regular person is no match for him. I wonder sometimes what he runs across that's as strong as he is. He keeps me away from that. I resent it, but sometimes it's impossible to work around Clark's savior complex.
Still, he comes and I like helping out. It works well. Sometimes it's regular old burglars. Sometimes, though, it's the meteor infected. The infection comes with around an 80% chance of becoming mentally unstable. I counsel the ones who haven't gone that way, but the people Clark meets up with, he brings them here first. I try to find some place preferable to Belle Reve or Arkham in Gotham.
Any place but them.
Tonight he's here for the same case we've been going over for weeks. There's been a spate of murders in Metropolis. Horrible things, starting with an attack on a convent, leading to the Ace of Clubs being demolished once to people shredded in alley ways. The evidence doesn't make sense---bony scales under the victims' finger nails. It's all confusing and the few survivors who've seen this thing...their descriptions aren't like anything I've ever heard of, even in my kids or in my files from the Wall of Weird.
I don't think it's someone who's been meteor infected.
This might even sound insane, but I don't think whatever this thing is was ever human at all.
"Okay, so we've tried looking through Suicide Slums. I mean, you've talked to everyone down there and no one offered off anything. I don't think something like this can hide in downtown. Is it possible it's coming from somewhere outside the city but just into Lowell County."
Clark frowns down at the computer read outs. "Where would something like that even hide?"
"There's that cliche of in plain sight. But I tend to think nine foot tall spikey bone monsters are going to stick out even in a city as blase as the Big Apricot."
"Pretty much, yeah."
"There's a lot to be said for hiding in plain sight," I say casually and I don't just mean me or my kids.
In the last two months we've been working together, Clark's let his guard slip quite a bit. I've seen him use more abilities than just his invulnerability or his speed. He's incredibly strong and I've jumped from suspecting he can see through things to knowing it. He helped me find my ring when it fell off (Jimmy doesn't know my ring size and it's too big) but looking right through my desk. He can set things on fire by looking at them. He came to The Talon a few weeks ago to go over the eternal mystery of Metropolis's serial killer and I couldn't get the fire going.
Just a look at it was ablaze.
It was smoking cool, pardon the pun.
I don't know exactly what Clark is---I have my theories---but he's not just meteor infected, if he was ever infected at all. He's something else too, like whatever is stalking Metropolis.
I don't think he's bony and nine feet tall, but he's an outlier, that much is clear to me.
I think I knew exactly why he can do what he does before, but it's another thing he doesn't like to talk about.
"Huh?"
"Nevermind," I reply. I know Clark well enough to know I'm not going to pry things out of him, not this time. "Okay, so what if we're thinking wrong. We're trying to find where this thing is hiding. What if it's not."
"Well it's not in a three piece suit and working down on Wall Street, Chlo."
"No, what if it's like the client I had who could shift. Instead of shadow creature, what if it shifts from an average guy into bony spiky monster?"
Clark slaps his forehead and I'm glad it's not my desk. That would have crumbled it. "I don't know why it took me six months to think of that."
"Well, it took me time too. But it's the only way. Something like that can't stay hidden. It also explains why it just doesn't rampage 24/7. It's like a werewolf; it's not dangerous all the time."
"Great so now we're just searching for one person in a city of 10 million, that should be simple."
"Whine much? We'll figure something out. And before you ask, no. None of my kids or their families even come close to this in their profiles."
"And you didn't know about the shadow walking until it happened."
I narrow my eyes at him. "You might have a baker's dozen worth of superpowers, but you're not implying what I think you are."
"I'm not saying that it is...but you have to look at the MO here."
"So you want open access to my kids's records?"
"It might help. How many times did you hack Belle Reve for me?"
"It's not the same," I finish and this argument feels familiar too, as if Clark's pressed me before, wanted me to abuse my power before.
"Why isn't it?"
"Because they're trusting me to keep their secrets, like I've kept yours from Lois and Jimmy and from everyone else. But we've done this before, haven't we?"
"Yeah."
"Then I don't know why you're surprised that I wouldn't give them up again. Don't ask me again, Clark, and don't use the fact that I have massive holes in my memory against me."
"I wasn't---"
"You were." I sigh again and push my bangs back from my face. "It's not one of mine."
"How do you know. We didn't even realize it was a person until now."
"Because I don't think this is a meteor infected individual."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
I quirk my head at him, at my best friend, at someone who has more powers than I can count. "You tell me. I don't really think you're like me either."
"What?"
"I don't think you're meteor infected either."
He's gulping and Clark was always the worst liar. "Of course I am."
"No, I don't know any meteor infected person, anywhere---not in my files, not here at ISIS, not in Belle Reve, nowhere---who has as many different abilities as you do. I haven't said anything because whatever it is, you're not comfortable sharing it, even if it really can't be anything more embarrassing than mutant."
"Chloe!"
I shake my head. I'm trying. I'm trying to give my clients something better than being afraid, but I'm not going to lie with him. If I could undo everything and make my mom well and to keep me from having had my strokes, I would in a heartbeat. "It's true. You already know what's wrong with me. I respect that you need space and that I pressed too hard sometimes in high school, but don't just assume it has to be meteor infected and that it has to lead back to ISIS because I don't think it does this time. I think this is in a whole new category, with you."
"So you think I'm spiky?"
"No, I don't, but I think you and our Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde might have more things in common than you and my kids here at ISIS. You don't trust me even now, that's fine, but don't keep hounding me for my records because the answer isn't in them."
He frowns back at me and somehow, even though he's the one asking me to violate privacy laws, I feel like the bad guy here. Clark has this puppy dog expression that gets to me every time. "I do trust you."
"Not with everything."
"No, I trust you with my life and that's the problem. I'm not letting you get really hurt again so I'm telling you as much as I can."
"I don't need to be babied. I could handle it."
"No you can't, and I'm not getting you killed because I came damn close to losing you last time. Chloe---" he says and only now do I realize how close he's standing to me, how his breath is on my cheeks. I flashback to an elevator long ago and something that could have been if a mom and her daughters hadn't interrupted us. I have to remind myself at this distance that I'm not eighteen anymore and that I'm married.
That I'll never have this.
"I get it, but I just...I want you to trust me to take care of myself."
Clark shudders. "I shouldn't have ever even let you start back with me like this. I just missed you, missed us." He blushes as if he realizes how that sounds finally. "You're a great partner but people who work with me get hurt: you, Lana, Oliver."
"Oliver knows?"
"For a while and that's his business to tell."
"I know, but how many people get hurt because they're left in the dark?"
"Less than the other way around," he says, reaching out for my shoulders. "I can't, Chlo."
"Then it's between us then," I reply, putting my left hand against his chest and pushing. I can't move him, but he'll defer to me and he does, but not before running his hand over mine, his fingers stopping over the simple gold band there.
"It's not the only thing." He replies, stepping back, letting the gulf between us expand.
"No, it's not."
***
I'm grabbing a cup at the Java Hut across from my building a week later. Clark and I haven't spoken in that time. I think he's working off of my theory that he has a "something else" to track down outside of the usual meteor infected threat. I'm not sure why he hasn't come by. I think I pushed too hard again, made him admit to more things than he wants.
Sighing, I twirl the ring on my finger and take a seat at unoccupied table on the sidewalk. The memory of my wedding isn't as clear as I'd like either. I remember the kiss and cutting the cake and the dances. I remember so much of it and yet there's some feeling there. I guess it's this flat, surreal aspect that comes from it being only a week after my other stroke. I know we could have moved everything, but it was all set and I needed something normal to counteract being so sick.
I think that's why there's such a haze there.
It doesn't seem real. It doesn't seem like I was that girl in the long white dress. It wasn't even how I pictured it. I never saw it in a barn and I definitely never saw Jimmy Olsen as that man. I know I said yes to the proposal and the "I do," but I feel like I can't even remember being proposed to, why I'd say yes when I was busy trying to salvage my career. Maybe that's it. Everything was in flux and Jimmy is safe.
Not always stable.
I know he has a wandering eye.
But he's usually sweet and it was normal and not my faded career or a life after being arrested. He was there for me both times after my strokes. He's been there through my infection.
A little voice in the back of my head reminds me that he's not the only one. Clark's been there with me, even if I don't remember all of it. He still gets me, gets, for the most part, that investigating is what I do. Jimmy's already on me again for spending too much time with Clark, and I don't even think it's that much, a few hours after work once a week or so, sometimes over lunch. But he's my best friend, my only good one outside of Lois. Sometimes I think he'd get it if I just told him what we did, but I'm not even sure he'd love the idea of me working with the Red and Blue Blur. It might make him more insecure.
He seemed happiest after the wedding, those few months after my stroke that I felt least like myself, and was most available for him.
I don't know what that says about our marriage, but I don't like it.
And then there's Davis Bloome, whom I have tried not to think about in the last few months, not since the day of my last stroke. I know he kissed me, that he didn't want me to marry Jimmy, that he was way too forward. So it's been easier to avoid him altogether. I think most of that can be written off as him being glad I wasn't dead, but whatever he wants, it's more than it should. It's more just like what I think Clark's set on is.
If I'd have known getting engaged would make the world see me as a girl, I'd have done it years ago.
But I made my choices, even if the reasons why seem as murky as my memories from before my life fell apart. If I knew more, Hell, if I'd even realized that Clark and I were more than just old friends from high school with Lois in common, I don't know what I would have done, but I don't think I'd have this ring on my finger still.
Sometimes it feels impossibly heavy for a piece of jewelry.
I'm sipping my cup when a familiar someone slips into the seat across from mine. I was hoping that it would be Clark, that if someone tall, dark, and handsome were sitting across from me I'd at least be able to make amends with my friend. That's not the case.
"Davis," I say hesitantly, making sure to rest my left hand prominently on the table between us. "Fancy meeting you here." And slightly ironic. This is the same spot where I said I couldn't see him anymore, even as a friend. I'd kept to that almost exclusively, except for him visiting my office once to ask for a favor. He'd even offered to pay for the services---and that makes it sound much dirtier than investigative work---if it made me feel better to see him as just a client.
In the chaos of my stroke and the wedding and him, well, kissing me, I'd completely forgotten about looking into his adoption.
"Chloe, hey. I didn't mean to ambush you like this but I just wanted to try and...well I saw the opportunity and wanted to take it."
I smile despite myself. Davis talks so fast sometimes that even I have trouble keeping pace with him. It might be part of his charm, but that's something I try not to notice. "I know we left things awkward between us, um, back behind The Talon."
He nods and leans in closer. "I know that, and I'm not sorry that I tried it. I was worried about you and I still think you made a mistake."
Between you and me, I think I did too, but it's too late now. I made my choices and I've had enough catechism to believe in sticking to my vows. Besides, even if given my choices between all of them---Davis, Clark, and Jimmy---I don't think it would be Davis who'd come out the winner. There's something about him and I admit I was charmed at first but there's some clarity I've gotten from my illness. And with the months between our last meeting. The things I liked about Davis---an easy first connection, his heroics, even the tall, dark and handsome cliche---they're all the things I've always loved about Clark.
And none of the things Jimmy has going for him.
I think the biggest thing Jimmy does have going for him is that he's not Clark. Oh, he has the geeky reporter bit down, but he's not the mysterious and heroic type. Maybe I'd grown out of that, but I don't think I could do it again. I like hero types. At least they let me save the city with them.
"I know you think that, but I was willing to give you space to get used to everything that happened between us, to understand that I love Jimmy. I married Jimmy."
"You don't have to love someone to marry them. It's not easy with him," he counters.
It's not easy with any of them. Jimmy's far too needy and Clark knows more than he'll tell me and maybe he always will. Davis can be scarily obsessive. There might have been some odd flash of familiarity, some connection initially, but I don't feel it anymore. I can see a Clark substitute so clearly now and that's not fair to anyone, especially to Davis.
"It's what I wanted. Friends support each other when they make decisions. If you can't do that, then maybe it isn't such a bad thing that we stopped seeing each other, as friends." I add, making sure to emphasize the last part.
Davis clenches his jaw and I can tell I'm upset him. Despite myself, my heart speeds up. There's something about him that...did I notice it before? Was he always this close to the edge, struggling so hard to stay even? Or is it because I'm denying him something he wants? "I'm waiting."
"I'm taken. Davis," I say, as I feign checking my watch. "I have to go. I'm sorry, but please don't bother me anymore."
There's money in my palm so fast that I swear I didn't notice him move. "Excuse me?"
"For my adoption records. I...something happened and I want you to look into it. I really need you to find out everything you can, more than just the basic stuff you did the first time." This time the rapidity of his speech isn't about getting my attention.
He's scared.
I narrow my eyes at him and soften my tone. "What's wrong?"
"I don't know yet. Can you please just dust off the reporter's hat one more time? I'm putting you on retainer."
I return the hundred to him. "You don't have to pay me for that."
"But I thought---"
"I investigate pro bono for friends. You look terrible. Are you sure you're okay?"
"I'm not sure of much anymore. Look, I have a shift starting soon. You have my cell, just call me if you find anything."
"Davis?"
He shakes his head as he starts down the block. "Just find what you can, okay?"
And he's gone, leaving me with another mystery in addition to the gaps in my memory and to what Clark's hiding. At this point, what's one more?