More Than You Know, Chapter 2

Clark/Chloe
Season 6, end of "Labyrinth"
Rating: Adult. If you're under eighteen, please go elsewhere now.
Disclaimer: These characters belong to the CW and DC Comics, not to me.

Clark heard Chloe's sharp intake of breath, but she didn't pull away from him. He kissed the side of her throat again, because it was right there, and kissing her seemed like the natural thing to do. Her skin felt soft against his lips, and he couldn't help kissing her again.

A weird feeling of confusion, almost of vertigo, came over him, and he realized his brain was having trouble reconciling the two contradictory realities he'd experienced tonight. He'd seen her die, yet she wasn't dead. His mind was having a hard time coping.

He kissed her again, just to remind himself that she was alive. And thank God for that, because he had no idea how he'd manage to live without Chloe.

In fact, he now knew for certain that he couldn't live without her.

*****

"Chloe's not dead."

Straitjacketed, Clark stared blankly into space. Orderlies had hauled him into a large room at the Fairview mental health facility and dropped him unceremoniously into a chair. Dr. Hudson stood near him, observing him, but Clark was barely aware of his presence.

"Chloe's not dead," he repeated in a desperate mantra, shaking his head in denial. "This can't be real. Chloe's not dead. She couldn't be. No."

"I'm sorry," Dr. Hudson said gently. He was a white-haired, stately gentleman with a lined, kindly face and a British accent, who made Clark think of Obi-Wan Kenobi. He looked and sounded just as grandfatherly and wise and compassionate as Alec Guinness. "I know how much your friend meant to you, Clark."

The sound of Hudson's voice pulled Clark partway out of his inner world of grief and shock, and he managed to lift his head. He looked up at Hudson, and a vague feeling of anger sparked in him. "What the hell do you want with me?"

"I want you to have a happy, healthy life, Clark." The doctor bestowed a gentle, benevolent smile on him. "And with this treatment, that will become a reality."

He remembered Chloe telling him he wasn't crazy. He trusted Chloe, and if she said he wasn't crazy, then he wasn't crazy, damn it. It didn't matter that she'd been in this institution too, or that Lana had reminded him her family had a history of mental illness.

Chloe had believed in him. Chloe had assured him he wasn't crazy.

He remembered seeing her die, the accusation in her eyes as she struggled for breath. She'd believed in him, and he'd let her die. Agony swelled in him, but he forced it back. He wasn't going to cry in front of this doctor, no matter how kind his eyes were. Anyway, he refused to believe Chloe was really dead, even though he all too vividly remembered hearing her death rattle.

Chloe couldn't be dead. She just couldn't.

"I'm not going through with the treatment," he answered, his voice trembling. "I know... I know who I am."

The doctor shook his head, a little sadly. "I'm not sure that you do. Your name is Clark Kent, not Kal-El." He walked toward a sink and lifted a container of soap. "And Jor-El... is not your father."

Clark squinted at the container, and suddenly a feeling of shocked horror hit him with the force of a truck.

The soap container read, Jorel antibacterial soap.

Suddenly the fear that Chloe had been wrong filled him. Maybe he was crazy, after all. Maybe she'd been crazy.

What if everything he thought he knew was just a delusion?

He swallowed and pushed the terrifying idea away. It couldn't be true. Because if it was, then Chloe was really dead.

No, he thought again, but with a little less conviction. This can't be real. Chloe can't be dead.

*****

She wasn't dead. Because her skin was warm beneath his lips, and he could hear the thunder of her pulse as her heartbeat accelerated. But she lifted her hands and pressed them against his shoulders, pushing at him gently.

"Hey," she said, not unkindly. "Getting a little carried away, aren't you?"

He definitely was, because Chloe had a boyfriend, who probably wouldn't have been thrilled to find Clark nuzzling her throat. Even so, he didn't want to stop kissing her. Ever.

He reluctantly lifted his head, breathing unsteadily, and looked into her hazel eyes, which looked like molten gold in the light of the fire. His own eyes must have expressed his thoughts more clearly than he would have liked, because her forehead wrinkled in a frown.

"What aren't you telling me, Clark?"

Damn it. They'd obviously known each other too long, because she could read him as easily as she might read an eighty-point headline. He hesitated, unwilling to tell her everything, but aware that he'd already given too much away by his reaction. He knew how much she feared the hereditary mental illness that had put her mother into a psychiatric facility, so he couldn't tell her he'd dreamed she was insane. It would just freak her out too much.

But he couldn't quite stop himself from telling her the rest of it, because he badly needed to talk about it.

"In my dream," he said in a low voice, "you died."

Read Chapter 3 here.