Scrabble

Clark/Chloe
Season 7
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: These characters belong to the CW and DC Comics, not to me.

The letters spelled Dumbass. Clark leaned his elbows on the cracked and battered pine of his mother's kitchen table and contemplated the Scrabble board.

"Chloe," he said at last, slowly, "is there something you'd like to tell me?"

"Not at all." She lifted her head and smiled, very sweetly. "What on earth would give you that idea?"

"Your last three words. Moron. Idiot. Dumbass. I'm starting to sense a pattern."

"Just coincidence." Her smile grew sweeter, and he sighed.

"Out with it, Chlo. What's bugging you?"

"Nothing. Nothing at all."

"Chloe..."

At the exasperation in his tone, her chin jerked up, and she glared at him. "I just can't believe you asked me to play Scrabble tonight!" she snapped.

He frowned at her, confused. "We always play Scrabble on Friday night. It's a tradition."

"We've always played Scrabble when we were friends," she answered, her voice full of annoyance. "But now we're dating. We should be doing different things."

He thought about that for a moment. "Why?"

"Why?" Her eyebrows arched. "Things have changed, Clark."

"But we're still friends, right?"

"Well... yeah..."

"So why shouldn't we play Scrabble?"

She hesitated. "I don't know," she said at last. "I just thought maybe we'd be doing more romantic stuff on Friday nights. Because things are different between us now."

"Things aren't all that different. You know? Why shouldn't we keep doing the stuff we've always liked to do? I mean, I can take you out to dinner at fancy restaurants and buy you bouquets of tulips if you really want. But I like playing Scrabble with you, Chlo."

She blinked and frowned down at the board. "And I like playing Scrabble with you."

"So what's the problem?"

"Um..." She smiled sheepishly. "I guess there isn't one."

"Cool," he said, and smiled back at her. He contemplated the board, and added FRI to a group of letters, making the word FRIEND.

"Still buddies?" he asked.

She smiled.

"Still buddies," she answered. "Not that I'd say no to a bouquet of tulips, either."

He grinned and went into superspeed. Three seconds later he was seated at the table, offering her a bouquet of fresh-cut tulips from his mother's garden.

"That's more like it," she said.

"Do you want a fancy dinner, too?"

She thought about it, then shook her head.

"Maybe some other night," she answered, smiling at him. "But tonight... I really think I'd rather play Scrabble."

-The End-