Consequences, Chapter 1

Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8

Clark/Chloe
Season 7, MHE for "Fracture"
Rating: Adult. If you're under eighteen, please go elsewhere now.
Disclaimer: These characters belong to the CW and DC Comics, not to me.
Screencap from SVFan.

I knew it was you. It's always you.

She'd said those words to him six years ago, yet he remembered that moment as if it were yesterday. He'd realized that she'd been buried alive in a field, raced to find her, and yanked her coffin out of the ground bodily.

He'd thrown the lid of the coffin aside. Gasping for breath, she'd flung her arms around his neck and pressed her face into his shoulder, and he'd captured a fistful of her hair in his hand and held onto her for all he was worth.

He'd saved her.

He'd been awake for a long time, and he was filled with a bone-deep exhaustion, but he refused to let himself go to sleep. He had to stay awake, to maintain his vigil. To protect her.

But despite himself, his eyes fluttered shut, and his mind continued drifting through the long years of their friendship.

He remembered a meteor freak throwing her over the side of a dam, years ago. Knowing she'd die when she struck the ground far below, he'd leapt after her in a panic, and somehow managed to defy physics by falling faster than she did.

Now that he knew he was capable of flight, he suspected his fear had caused him to fly, just a little. But regardless of how he'd done it, somehow he'd crashed to the ground before she had, scrambled to his feet, and caught her in his arms.

He'd saved her.

A much more recent memory filtered through his brain. He'd been told she was dead. Stunned and shocked, he'd staggered out into the hall, barely able to keep on his feet, his inhuman abilities all spiralling out of his control. Through the wild cacaphony of out-of-control superhearing, he'd heard her voice calling for him.

Clark? Somebody help me! Help!

He'd raced to the morgue and pulled her from the refrigerated drawer she'd been placed in. If he hadn't heard her, she would have suffocated.

He'd saved her. Over and over again, he'd saved her.

He opened his eyes and looked at her. The apartment was dim, but she lay on the bed, motionless. Her skin was the color of chalk, and her chest didn't rise and fall. She wasn't breathing at all.

He strained his superhearing, but he didn't hear the sound of her heart beating, or the sound of her blood rushing through her veins. All he heard was a terrible silence.

She was dead. She'd been dead for fifteen hours.

And this time, there was nothing he could do to save her.

Read Chapter 2 here.