A Hundred Years, Chapter 1

Chapter 2
Chapter 3

Clark/Chloe future fic, angst
Spoilers for "Hourglass" but mostly set in the future
9000 words
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: These characters belong to the WB and DC Comics, not to me
The music is "100 Years," by Five for Fighting

I’m 15 for a moment
Caught in between 10 and 20
And I’m just dreaming
Counting the ways to where you are

When he was fifteen, Clark Kent saw the future, and it scared the hell out of him.

The old blind woman, Cassandra, sat next to him. Curious as to whether or not she could actually see the future, he'd come to visit her in the assisted living community she lived in. He had a difficult time believing she could really tell the future, but lately he’d seen some pretty weird things, so he was trying to maintain an open mind.

At any rate, seeing the future seemed almost normal to a kid who’d recently discovered he was an alien, a visitor from another planet who’d arrived on Earth in a little tin can twelve years ago.

Cassandra extended her frail, liver-spotted old hand, and he carefully placed his fingers into hers. At first nothing happened, but he waited patiently.

Suddenly a horrible vision flashed into his mind.

He saw himself, standing in the rain. As the relentless, cold drops beat down on him, he saw that he was surrounded by tombstones.

Hundreds and hundreds of tombstones.

There were names engraved into the stones--his parents, his friends, names he didn’t even know. They seemed to go on for miles, perhaps forever, and a feeling of cold horror flooded his veins.

“No!” he screamed into the rain. “No!”

Gasping, he yanked his hand away, and the vision faded, but the horror remained. Cassandra lifted her head, looking almost as surprised as he felt. Her wrinkled features were etched with shock.

“You saw that too?”

“No,” he whispered again, feeling stark panic as he remembered the endless field of tombstones surrounding him, stretching out for miles in all directions. His voice rose in terror, and he jerked backward, away from her. “No!”

Jumping to his feet, he fled for home.

*****

Predictably, his parents didn’t believe him.

“Clark,” his mother suggested as they walked down the stairs together. “Maybe you were just having a hallucination of some kind.”

“It wasn’t a hallucination,” he argued. “It was a vision of the future. My future.”

Behind him, his father snorted skeptically. “And you saw yourself in an endless graveyard?”

“Like I was the last person on earth.” Just the memory of the sensation he’d experienced-- a terrible aloneness, a dreadful feeling of isolation-- was enough to make him shudder. He paused in the kitchen and looked at his parents with something akin to desperation. He hoped it truly had been a hallucination, but deep down, he was bleakly certain it wasn't. “What if it really is my destiny to outlive everyone I love?”

“Clark…” his mother said gently, extending a hand to him, but he turned his back on her, blinking hard.

“I don’t want that, Mom,” he said in a whisper. “I don’t... I don't want to wind up alone.”

*****

I'm 22 for a moment
She feels better than ever
And we're on fire
Making our way back from Mars

When he was twenty-two, Clark Kent made love to Chloe Sullivan for the first time, and it scared the hell out of him.

He hadn’t meant to make love to her at all. They’d been dating for two years, but he’d always worried that with his superstrength, he could hurt a human woman, possibly even kill her, and he hadn’t been able to get past his fears. They’d kissed, touched, made out for hours at a time, but he just hadn’t been able to quite work up the nerve to take it to the next level.

But tonight his mom, a state senator, had been in Wichita, leaving him in the Kent's old farmhouse alone. He and Chloe had been sitting in front of the fire talking, and then the next thing he knew… they weren’t talking any more.

Afterward he lay flat on his back, trying to remember how to breathe. Chloe sprawled out on the carpet next to him, looking pleased with herself.

“There,” she said. “See? I didn’t break.”

He was infinitely relieved that she hadn’t, and he was pleased to realize he’d managed to control himself surprisingly well. And if they could do it once, they could do it over and over again.

That idea made him seriously happy.

“So,” he said, stretching his arms over his head. “You’re going to marry me, right?”

Silence fell in the room, broken only by the crackling of the fire. He turned his head to see her scowling at him… not exactly the reaction he’d been hoping for.

“Uh,” he said. “Is there a problem?”

“What kind of a lame-ass proposal is that?”

Clark grinned wryly at the outrage in her face. “Come on, Chlo. You’re lucky I can string any words together at all right now. Do you really want me to try to quote sonnets?”

“I don't need sonnets,” she said with annoyance. "But this is not the proper setting for a proposal."

He looked around. “What’s wrong with the setting? We’re in front of a fire…”

“What’s wrong with it,” she said stridently, “is that we’re both naked, flat on our backs, and covered with sweat.”

“Yeah, but you know, I really don’t have a problem with that.”

“Well, I do," she growled. "It’s not exactly romantic, is it?”

He sighed. Women. “So you want flowers, string quartet music, fancy French food, and all that kind of stuff?”

“You could at least say it right,” she said indignantly, sitting up with a little huff of irritation. Her breasts bounced a little, and he watched with interest. “Repeat after me. Chloe. Will. You. Marry. Me?”

“You just never quit bossing me around, do you?” He sighed again and forced himself into an upright position. “Get your clothes on, Chlo.”

She lifted her eyebrows at his abrupt change of subject, but she started yanking on her clothes. He pulled on his jeans and t-shirt, shoved his work boots onto his feet, and stood up, holding out his hand to her. “Come on. Let’s go outside. It’s hot in here.”

She took his hand, and together they walked out into the night. It was a cool spring evening, with stars scattered across the sky like diamonds over velvet. A sliver of the moon was visible near the horizon.

They were silent together for a long moment, looking up at the sky. At last he spoke. “I have something to show you.”

“I thought you already showed me that.”

Her quip pulled a deep laugh from him. “Something besides that, Chlo. Something I’ve been working on.”

She looked up at him, and he could see the glimmer of interest in her eyes. Chloe Sullivan, investigative reporter, was always interested by mysteries. “Okay,” she said. “Show me.”

He took a deep breath, then swung her up into his arms. They rose slowly into the air.

Chloe was silent for a long moment, which was a sure sign that he’d shocked the hell out of her, because Chloe never quit talking. Any other girl would have wrapped her arms around his neck and squealed with panic, or at least asked if he was sure he knew what he was doing, but Chloe trusted him. She always had. She might be shocked, but he was pretty sure she wasn't afraid, and her next words confirmed it.

“Wow,” she said at last, staring down at the ground, which was a good forty feet below them at this point. “That’s amazing, Clark.”

He grinned, unable to totally conceal his pride at this accomplishment. He could do a lot of cool things, but this was far and away the coolest, and it had taken him many long months of surreptitious practice to get to this point. “Glad you think so.”

“Can you, you know, go faster?”

He leaned forward, and suddenly they were moving through the night, the wind blowing her long blonde hair into his face. He could go a lot faster—he could even fly in superspeed—but he kept it slow, figuring she wouldn’t appreciate getting bugs blown into her teeth. Bugs in her teeth probably wouldn’t strike her as romantic.

Girls were so damn picky about that kind of thing.

They rose higher in the air as they traveled, and a companionable silence fell between them as Chloe stared around with fascinated interest. At last the lights of Metropolis appeared in the distance, and she wiggled in his arms with such excitement he almost dropped her. “Oh, Clark, look at that. It’s beautiful.”

“You’re beautiful,” he said softly.

They flew over Metropolis, and the lights of the city spread out beneath them like glittering jewels, just as the stars had been spread out above them in Smallville. “So,” he said at last. “Does this meet your criteria for a romantic setting?”

“Oh, yeah. Definitely.”

“Then let’s try this again.” He looked into her face. “Chloe Sullivan, will you marry me?”

She smiled. “Yes, Clark Kent. I’ll marry you.”

He kissed her, and they flew together through the night, the city spread out before them in a vast panorama of infinite mystery and promise... just like their future.

Read Chapter 2 here.