My Rainbow, Chapter 9

Clark/Chloe, full cast
Season 5, "Reckoning"
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: These characters belong to the CW and DC Comics, not to me.
Read the previous chapter here.
Read the full story starting here.

Too late.

Those were the only words in Clark's mind as he supersped through the darkness, going so fast that snowflakes appeared frozen in time around him. He'd heard Chloe scream, heard the scream suddenly cut off, and he knew deep in his gut he couldn't get there in time to save her. Not this time.

But that didn't stop him from trying.

Just before Loeb Bridge, he paused for a microsecond, staring in shocked horror at the scene. His father's old truck had had its passenger side staved in by a big vehicle of some sort. Hit and run, he thought detachedly, seeing the other vehicle's lights disappearing rapidly down a side road. But he didn't have time to chase it right now. He had people to save.

Too late.

No, he thought angrily, blinking back tears, fighting back the panic that threatened to overwhelm him. It can't be too late.

He went toward the truck, seeing that the driver's side door was already open, and reached in to check on his father.

But his dad was motionless, his eyes open and staring at nothing. Clark listened, but couldn't hear a heartbeat.

His dad was dead.

Too late too late...

His mind reeled in horror. Based on Chloe's quick, scattered words on the phone, he suspected his dad had died of a heart attack, rather than by the impact of the accident.

But the cause of death didn't matter. What mattered was that the man he loved and admired more than any other was dead. Tears stung his eyes, but he knew he couldn't stop to indulge his grief right now.

He had to save Chloe. He had to.

He looked around frantically, spotting what looked like a crumpled heap of clothing a long ways down the road.

A body, he thought, then instantly rejected the notion. No, not a body. Chloe.

Because Chloe couldn't be lying there dead, the way his father was. It was impossible. He couldn't lose the two most important people in his life in a single moment. His anguished mind simply refused to accept it as a possibility. It just... couldn't... be.

She isn't dead. She can't be dead.

He repeated the mantra to himself, as if thinking it over and over again could make it so, and sped through the falling snow, toward her still form. She'd apparently been struck by the big vehicle, or maybe by the truck as it was hit by the vehicle. Either way, she'd been thrown a long distance, and had collided brutally hard with the asphalt.

He fell to his knees beside her, seeing her neck bent at a terrible angle, her body mangled and torn, her blood pooling on the asphalt and staining the snow by the side of the road.

Blood everywhere.

Chloe's blood.

Can't be. She can't be dead.

"No." He wrapped his arms around her and held her, barely aware that he was speaking. Her blood covered his hands and clothing, and she didn't move.

"No," he whispered again, cradling her against his shoulder. Intellectually he knew her body was far too damaged to repair, and that there was absolutely nothing medical science could do for her. There was nothing he could do to save her. But emotionally, he was still trying to deny reality.

Because reality was too terrible for him to accept.

"No, Chloe." His voice was a raw, rough whisper. "No, no, no..."

She can't be dead. Can't be can't be can't be dead.

A choked sob rose from his chest, and he held her more tightly, listening for her heartbeat.

Not her and Dad. Not both of them. No. Can't be.

No.

But her heartbeat was gone.

A long wail of anguish came from his throat, and tears streamed freely down his face as he sobbed with grief and loneliness and despair, holding Chloe's broken body in his arms.

Read Chapter 10 here.