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lady_bug_kayAuthor: ladybugkay
Fandom: Smallville
Pairing: Clark/Oliver (pre-slash)
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 1492
Spoilers/Warnings: post 8x09 "Abyss." Shameless wallowing and angst, because Clark is just so pretty like that.
Summary: Clark is brooding again, but he's doing it somewhere new. Change is come at last.
Disclaimer: DC, Gough & Millar, whoever the new producers are, and who knows how many others own the rights and make the money.
A/N: Title from the song "Pick Yourself Up," with lyrics by Dorothy Fields and music by Jerome Kern.
A/N2: Written way too quickly and not very well at all, but it's the first thing I've had time to write in ages, and I'm posting the damned thing anyway. I'm not saying I agree with Clark's decision with regard to Chloe, but I've long been fascinated by Superman's ability to make people forget.
Pick Yourself Up; Dust Yourself Off; Start All Over Again
Only yesterday, he would have gone to the loft. From the time he was five, it was where he went when the world seemed too big—and later too small—for him. His father was the one who dubbed it his Fortress of Solitude, but after a few years, it became the one place those closest to him always knew they could find him. It was where Chloe kissed him the first time they met; where he had the best and most devastating moments of confession with Lex; where he yearned after Lana and comforted Lois, and it was so inextricably intertwined with his childhood that it felt more like home to him than the yellow house that was so terribly empty now.
But that was yesterday. That was before he lost his best friend, the oldest and best of the best. Before he offered up yet another sacrifice on the altar of everything that made him who he was while making sure everyone he loved was always in danger.
In the end, it made them all turn away. First, Pete, who left by choice; then, over and over, Lex, who was maybe pushed and maybe walked away in disgust; then his mother who moved away to live her own life and was so busy doing so they almost never spoke; then Lana, who left reluctantly and with good intentions, but who left all the same.
And now Chloe.
What made it better and worse, simultaneously, was that she was still there, still in his life and smiling at him and giving him hugs that would squeeze the breath out of an ordinary person. But he was lying to her again, and he’d almost forgotten how horrible it felt to lie to his best friend. Now he wasn’t just lying to Lois, but to Chloe, too, and although he knew it was for their own safety and happiness, it stung like hell.
So yesterday he might have gone to the barn, to his loft, but today he came here. Not that there was anything particularly comforting about here, exactly, just that it represented the only bit of truth in his life—though for how much longer, he didn’t want to consider. Everyone walked away, but until they did, he wouldn’t let himself think about how soon it might happen. Denial had always been his friend.
“Clark?”
He turned his head toward the voice without standing up. “Oliver.”
Standing a few steps away from the door of the plane, Oliver shook his head at him, clearly confused. “What are you doing here, Clark? Is something wrong?”
He should tell Oliver about Chloe. Oliver had lost something, too, in all this: his computer hacker and partner in vigilante justice. A friend who knew as much about him as she knew about Clark. But Clark didn’t want to say it all out loud, not yet, and he didn’t want to admit that he came here because Oliver was officially the last person still in his life who knew the truth about him. It was a selfish thought, the plaintive and grasping neediness of a child, and it invited a self-pitying depression in which he didn’t want to wallow anymore.
But he didn’t want to say anything about what had happened, all the same.
He could tell the truth tomorrow, Clark decided. That was the thing about truth, good or bad: it didn’t go anywhere. Truth waited. It stuck around or it hid until it came back to bite you in the ass, but it never went away.
So, “No,” Clark said. A pause and then he said, again, “No, nothing’s wrong.”
And there was the other thing about truth, or at least about the truth and Clark Kent: judging by the expression on Oliver’s face, it was apparent yet again that Clark had been absent the day they handed out the ability to lie convincingly. Probably because he was still traveling here in his space ship, which was a valid excuse, if somewhat unconventional and unlikely to be believed.
“What,” Oliver said, “so, you felt like going for a quick flight, even though you can run a hell of a lot faster than any machine known to man?”
Clark smiled a little. “Not exactly.” Yeah, Chloe didn’t remember the truth about him, anymore, but Oliver did, and the relief at being reminded of that fact was nearly overwhelming. He had Oliver, still, and that counted for a lot. Maybe if he offered up a few more secrets, Oliver would stay longer—that seemed to be the currency for friendship, in Clark’s experience. Deciding to give it a shot, he confessed, “I used to be afraid to fly, you know.”
“Really.”
Clark’s smile grew bigger. Maybe it wasn’t the whole truth, because he was still a little afraid of heights, but it wasn’t a lie, and he was telling it of his own volition. It felt good.
“I know how ridiculous it sounds,” he said. “I’m indestructible under normal circumstances, but we don’t seem to have any shortage of abnormal circumstances around here. And I can’t fly, so I could still fall. Falling is a legitimate fear for me.”
Oliver laid his coat on the table and dropped into the seat next to Clark. “Have you ever considered that’s because you fell out of the sky the first time you traveled in any kind of non-ground transportation?”
“Maybe,” Clark agreed, the urge to laugh competing with an unexpected feeling in his stomach at the sight of Oliver’s teasing grin.
“Well, I can almost guarantee that we won’t crash if you do want me to fly you somewhere.” Oliver cocked his head to one side and gave Clark a considering look. “I bet you haven’t been to Italy.”
Italy.
Given all his experience with billionaires and their indulgence of their own expensive whims, Clark knew he should be used to this kind of proposed expedition, but it shocked him every single time. What a life it must be to take vacations to Europe without a second thought or even the hint of a plan.
Still, it was exhilarating, that kind of freedom and spontaneity. If there were any red kryptonite around, Clark knew he’d have agreed to go on the spot. Anything to run away from real life.
Instead, without any chemical enhancement in the vicinity, Clark thought about the story he was supposed to be researching, about the chores at the farm that needed to be done because he was the only one there to do them, about all the anonymous people who would need his help in Metropolis while he was gone, and finally about a twelve-year-old girl with blond hair and lips that tasted of strawberry who became the best friend anyone could ever have. And then he looked Oliver in the eye and said, “Get me back by Monday and you’ve got yourself a passenger.”
Strangely, Oliver didn’t look surprised. Pleased, maybe—a spark igniting somewhere behind his eyes—but not surprised. “Well, alright. Italy it is.”
“But back by Monday,” Clark insisted, the demon of responsibility shouting loudly in his ear.
Oliver nodded solemnly. “Monday. Cross my heart.” He stood to go call the pilot and have a flight plan filed, and Clark watched him as he walked away, taking long, confident strides even within the confines of the plane.
On Monday, he would tell Oliver about Chloe and how she was safe, now, from the dangers and pain of his damned secret. She wouldn’t remember what she’d lost. There was something indescribably horrifying about having the power to take away someone’s memories, and Clark had had to face too many people who had suddenly forgotten what they knew about him for him ever to feel comfortable using a power like that. He knew what it was like to lose the memory of something and someone, and it made his skin crawl to do that to someone else. He hoped he’d never have to do it again. But Chloe would be out of harm’s way, and Clark would let Oliver know that she was out, no longer a part of any secret league of justice, and that no one was to tell her anything about it..
Chloe would be safe. She would be free.
And Clark would admit all of that on Monday.
But not yet. First, he would take the first real vacation of his life—a spur-of-the-moment one, no less, and with Oliver Queen, of all people—and maybe he would even try to decipher that spark in Oliver’s eyes and see if he could make it appear again. Maybe he would learn some Italian and eat too much gelato and do crazy, stupid things just to make Oliver smile and himself laugh, because he couldn’t remember the last time something made him laugh.
Monday and hard truths and unflinching reality would come soon enough.
None of it ever stopped.
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Re: Good Luck
Date: 2009-11-04 01:49 pm (UTC)And I agree with you 100% about the dragging on of the Clark/Lana. Clark would get over her, things would be fine, and then it was like the writers didn't have any other ideas so they'd drag out that old, tired storyline and suddenly Clark would be pining again. Enough, already. And the show's worship of Lana Lang, when she wasn't even that interesting a character after a few years, irritated me to no end. As for Chloe, I like her a lot, but now they've got Lois to fill the role of Lois (the way Chloe used to), and they don't seem to know what to do with Chloe anymore.