Flame Red, Chapter 10

Kal/Chloe
Season 2, "Rush"
Rating: Adult. If you're under eighteen, please go elsewhere now.
Disclaimer: These characters belong to the CW and DC Comics, not to me.
Read the previous chapter here.
Read the story from the beginning here.

When Clark walks into Chloe's hospital room, he finds Lana sitting by her bed. Lana turns her head and glares, looking at him like he's something gross and smelly that needs to be cleaned out of a horse stall. He hesitates at the door, suddenly self-conscious and uncomfortable.

"Uh... I can come back later."

"I was just leaving," Lana says with dignity. "Good-bye, Chloe." She gets to her feet and stalks past him.

He stifles a sigh, figuring he doesn't want Lana to keep glaring at him like he's a serial killer. "Lana..."

She lifts her chin and stiffens her spine. She's a beautiful girl, but right now she looks a lot like she just bit down on a lemon. He's surprised to realize he's seen that expression on her face before, quite a lot. "I didn't come here to see you, Clark. I came to see my roommate. She's been ill."

She stalks out of the room without another glance, leaving him alone with Chloe.

He turns toward her. She smiles, a little hesitantly, and an answering smile spreads across his face. It's an involuntary reaction. When she smiles, he smiles back. No matter what, the sight of her smile makes him happy.

"Hey," she says, the short, casual syllable they typically greet each other with.

"Hey," he answers, and walks across the room, sitting down next to her. "How are you feeling?"

She shrugs and smiles. "I finally made the Wall of Weird."

He can't help but laugh at her wry expression. "Congratulations."

She tilts her head, and he sees the investigative reporter reflected in her eyes. "I heard about that thing they extracted from me. Did they get a picture I can see?"

"You do not want to see it. Trust me."

She makes a comical little face, wrinkling her nose. "Gross?"

"Pretty bad, yeah." He thinks about everything that happened, and reminds himself it was all due to the parasite. She didn't want any of it.

She didn't want him.

He tries really hard to forget about everything they did together. Because none of it mattered, really. It wasn't her. It was just the parasite, encouraging her to do wilder and wilder things so it could feed off her adrenaline. Everything they did together was meaningless, really.

That thought depresses the hell out of him.

She breaks into his introspection before he can reach a fullscale mope. "So how's Pete?"

He remembers that she was willing to go off with Pete instead of him, and a dark, hot stab of jealousy strikes into his heart. He ignores it and smiles reassuringly. "He's okay. He'll be fine."

"Good," she says, beaming.

He looks at her sweet, innocent smile and wonders if she remembers any of it. He isn't sure what would be worse-- her remembering all the crazy things they did together under the influence, or her forgetting it all.

"So," he says uncomfortably. "What do you remember about what happened?"

"Well... we were in the caves, talking to that obnoxious professor, and then... well... it's all kind of a blur."

He holds his breath. "Do you remember anything?"

She looks at him steadily. "This might sound crazy, but I have this idea that I kissed you."

His eyes go wide with shock, and she instantly holds out a hand, looking embarrassed. "I know I was under the influence. I guess maybe a lot of what I remember is just... dreams, or something. Hallucinations, maybe. I had this crazy idea that you were some sort of, I don't know, superman. Like you could run really fast. Like you weren't even human."

She looks at him, and he stares back, unable to speak. She drops her gaze, her mouth twisting in a humorless smile.

"But that's crazy, I guess," she says. "Almost as crazy as the idea that you and I might have kissed."

It's all kind of a blur.

It occurs to him he can get out of this whole situation with a few easy lies. None of that actually happened, Chloe. Yeah, it was all in your head, a side effect of the parasite. Of course I can't run faster than a car-- hell, you know me, I can't even walk without tripping.

Lana didn't see much, and he was pretty sure she wouldn't hurt Chloe by talking, anyway. Pete will back him up in a heartbeat, and between the two of them, they can easily convince her it was all a hallucination. She might wonder about it for the rest of her life, but she'll never know for sure.

But looking at her bowed head, he knows he can't do that to her. She deserves to know what happened. She deserves to know just how intimate they were.

The only problem is that if he tells her that, she'll know that everything she remembers is true-- and she'll know he's an alien.

But he can't lie about it. He can't pretend he never kissed her, that they never touched each other and licked each other and came within minutes of sex. She needs to know.

And the truth is, he wants her to know.

"Chloe," he says, very softly. "Everything you remember is true."

Read Chapter 11 here.