The Gift, Chapter 2

Clark/Chloe, Clark/Lois (Chlark wins in the end), Oliver/Lois
Season 9
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: These characters belong to the CW and DC Comics, not to me.
Read Chapter 1 here.

"Um, there's this one other thing we should probably talk about." Clark hesitated, then blurted it out. "Chloe said you mentioned you were having, um, dreams. Kind of... intimate dreams. About me."

Lois looked dangerous-- a look she did well. "I'm going to kill her. Really."

"You are not. Listen, Lois, when you, um, disappeared, we think you might have gone forward in time..."

She scowled at him. "The last thing I remember clearly is picking up a ring, Smallville. Rings don't make you take a cruise through time."

"This one does, actually. It's kind of... special."

"Of course it is. Everything is special in this neck of the woods." She sighed. "Okay. So I'll admit it. I've been having these dreams of the future. In these dreams, you and I, we're, well..."

He winced, feeling his cheeks heat. "Oh, my God."

"Yeah. It's a little weird, considering I never really thought about you that way before. I mean, you're cute, for sure, but you're not..." He had the feeling she was about to say Ollie, but instead she cleared her throat. "Anyway, I thought maybe it meant I had an unconscious thing for you, but... so you're saying this has something to do with me going forward in time?"

He nodded solemnly. "Lois, I don't think they're dreams. I think they're memories of the future."

"Holy crap. So you and I are going to--"

"No." He held out his hands to stop the words. "I don't think the future is set in stone, Lois. But it sounds like for some reason, you and I got together in the future that you visited. Any ideas why?"

"Well, I am hot."

"This is true." He grinned at her, amused by her cheerful self-assurance. "But I was looking for something a little more concrete..."

She closed her eyes, frowning. He could practically see her sorting through her memories of her "dreams." "It's... bleak," she said at last, her voice a soft monotone. "Everything is red and dusty. As if the climate has changed somehow. And I see us making love, but I also see... blood."

He blinked at her. "Blood."

"Yes. Blood. Lots of it. I mean, pools of it. And..." She swallowed. "I see someone in black. I think it might be the Blur. But on his chest there's a strange symbol. Not the one he's been burning around town, not the S. It's more like a Z."

He stared at her. "Zod's symbol," he said softly.

Her eyes snapped open, and she stared back, looking shocked by the certainty in his voice. He saw sudden comprehension dawning in her gaze. "Oh, my God," she said, just as softly. "Clark. It's you. You're..."

"Lois..."

"Holy shit I guess I should have realized when I figured out you had powers, but I just couldn't see it somehow. I mean, you're just plain old Clark Kent, Martha and Jonathan's kid, and I never imagined... I just thought you were a garden variety meteor freak..."

He glanced around nervously. No one seemed to be listening to their low-pitched conversation, but still, he didn't like discussing this in a public place. "Forget that for now," he said, more harshly than he intended. "So... the Blur goes bad. He goes to the bad side."

"You know all that from a Z?"

"Yeah," he answerd. "I know all that from a Z. It's a bad symbol, Lois. Just about the worst symbol there is. So the Blur goes bad in the future. But... why?"

She swallowed audibly. "There's one other thing, Clark. I don't really like to talk about it, but..."

"What?"

She paused for a long moment. "I see Chloe running away from something. She's scared. And then-- and then--" Her voice broke, but she steadied it and went on. "She's dead, Clark. Dead on the ground. I thought it was just a dream, a dream I couldn't stop having, but if it's reality-- oh, God, Clark you have to stop it. You have to."

He reached across the table and patted her hand, a quick, affectionate gesture of comfort. "I will," he promised. "Chloe won't die, Lois. I won't let her."

"You let her die in that other world," she whispered.

"Maybe I never went back to her," he said slowly, thinking about it. "Maybe I left her alone. Maybe... maybe if you skipped ahead into the future, you weren't here to talk sense into me."

She smiled, looking as if that thought gave her hope. "Yeah. That sounds kind of logical, actually. It's just like you to be totally clueless about relationships without me here to help you out."

He grinned a little, but then grew more serious. "So. I'm not by her side to protect her, and she dies, and then I-- the Blur goes bad, and the world goes to hell? Is that pretty much what we're thinking happens?"

She nodded solemnly. "So it sounds like you better get back together with Chloe for the good of the world, Clark."

He frowned, and shook his head. "I just can't believe I... I mean the Blur..."

"Smallville," she said, soft reproof in her voice.

He sighed, knowing there was no real point in pretending any longer. "Fine. I can't believe I could go that badly astray, just because I didn't have Chloe. I mean, yeah, she matters to me..."

"Clark. You're in love with her. You have been for a long time."

"Um," he said, and felt his cheeks heat. "Maybe. Still, what does it say about me that I'd totally lose it like that, just because someone I love died?"

"I think it says that deep down, you're just like everyone else. Fragile."

He was silent for a long moment, considering that. "I don't think I like being fragile."

"No one likes being fragile, Smallville. And yeah, I bet that's another reason you've been avoiding going to Chloe and talking this whole thing out, because your feelings are so strong they scare you."

"Thank you so much, Dear Abby."

She smiled serenely at him over her glass of peppermint schnapps. "I can't help being insightful. It's just how I am."

He snorted. "Sure. Okay, so in this future, Chloe was dead, and you and I were, uh, together... why, exactly?"

She sighed. "I don't know, Clark. But I do remember there was a look in your eyes. A sad look, like you'd lost everything, but also kind of a... hard look. Like you just didn't care any more, about anything."

He lowered his gaze and stared at the table. "Are you telling me I used you? To try to forget her?"

"Yes," she said, very softly. "I think maybe you did."

He scowled, and clenched his fist on the tabletop to avoid smashing something. "I'm sorry, Lois. I'm so sorry. You're not-- I mean, you don't deserve--"

"Clark," she said, gently resting her hand on top of his. "It's silly to apologize for something you haven't done yet. Something that hopefully now you'll never do."

"Still." He growled under his breath. "It's kind of a pattern, you know? For the past month, I've been using you to forget... well, I feel like a total asshole now."

"Probably because you are one," she said perkily. "But don't worry about it. We all have our asshole moments."

"This is more than a moment. It sounds like the future me turned to the freaking Dark Side."

"Clark Kent, Sith Lord." She lifted an eyebrow and contemplated him. "Nah, can't see it."

"Except you did see it. You may not remember it, but you were there. It happened." He buried his face in his hands. "Hell. I don't know what to do now, Lois. I want... I want her, but I don't want to go to her just because the world is going to go to hell. You know? She deserves to be loved... just because."

"Smallville," she said gently. "Don't do anything for the sake of the world. Do it for yourself. Do what you most want to do."

He lifted his head and looked at her. "Channeling Dear Abby again?"

"And pretty damn well, if I do say so myself."

"You know," he said, "you could use to take some of your own advice. You and Ollie--"

"Ollie and I are ancient history, Smallville. That ship sailed a long time ago."

He cocked an eyebrow at her. "And you've never thought of trying to jump back on board?"

"Never," she said firmly, but there was a certain vulnerability in her gaze that caught at his heart. He might be stupid about women, but he wasn't that stupid. After all this time, Lois' feelings for Ollie were still written in her eyes in eighty-point type.

He'd been keeping his emotional distance from Lois, but she'd been keeping her distance from him, too. And he was pretty sure Oliver Queen was the reason.

"Lois." He tried again, but she made a shooing gesture at him.

"Go on, Smallville. Get out of here. And save a dance for me at your wedding, okay?"

"My--! Lois, earlier you said dating doesn't come with guarantees. Even if I go over to talk to Chloe, there's no guarantee that..."

"Please," she said, rolling her eyes. "The day I came to town, I realized the two of you couldn't live without each other. I remember seeing you cry over Chloe's grave..."

"I wasn't crying," he said with stiff dignity.

"Please. And then you somehow figured she wasn't in the grave... another one of your weird powers, by the way?"

He nodded. "X-ray vision."

"X-ray vision. Riiiiight. Silly of me not to realize. Anyway, you got this determined look on your face like you'd go to the ends of the earth to find her. And when you did find her... well, I still remember the way the two of you hugged. It was so sweet I think I gained weight just looking at you guys."

"That was a long time ago, Lois..."

"Yes," she agreed, nodding. "It was. That's why I agreed to go out with you, because I thought maybe the two of you were past each other. But it's obvious you're not. It's obvious you never will be. I didn't need visions of the future to figure that out, honestly. It's pretty damn hard to miss."

He lowered his head again. "Lois, I'm s--"

"If you say you're sorry again, I'm going to smack you. I mean it. Look, Smallville, the way I see it, my cousin has a prior claim on you, and therefore according to the Girl Code, you're hers."

"The Girl Code? There's a code?"

"Of course there is. And I broke it by going out with you at all. But in my defense, I really didn't realize she was still in love with you."

"Excuse me?" He blinked again.

"Oh, Smallville. I'm assuming one of your special powers is not extra brainpower."

"Uh, no."

"Look, here's the deal. You love Chloe and Chloe loves you."

"And you know this because...?"

"Because I've known Chloe for my whole life, and you for like five years now? Because I'm not totally blind? Because it doesn't take a genius to figure this out?"

He sighed. "Okay, fine. I'm not denying I luh... luh.."

"Love, Smallville. The word is love. Famed in song and story. Can you say love, boys and girls? Sure you can!"

"Shut up, Lois. I admit it. I love her. So what do I do?"

"Duh. You go tell her how you feel."

"But she knows I've been going out with you. This Girl Code thing..."

"Don't worry about that." She waved a manicured hand. "I'll fix it. Just go."

He cocked his head at her. "Like, right now? In the middle of our date?"

"Smallville," she said solemnly, "I hereby dissolve our dating relationship and declare us to be friends, and only friends, from here to the end of eternity."

He grinned, feeling a weight lift off his shoulders. "Okay."

"Now get lost. I'll make everything right, I promise. Just go talk to Chloe."

He looked at her across the table for a moment longer, then stood up and strode away.

****

She watched him go, not without regret. Clark Kent was a special guy. And not just because of his weird powers-- X-ray vision? Was he serious about that, or just pulling her leg?-- but because of who he was. Not because he was the Blur, but because he was Clark Kent.

There was a huge dearth of great guys in the world. It sucked to find one, and to have to let him go.

But she didn't mind, not really. Somewhere deep down, she'd been keeping her emotional distance from him, suspecting that he wasn't as over Chloe as he wanted to think he was. Ever since she'd known him, he'd had this kind of attachment to Chloe. Even when he'd been dating other girls, he'd spent an awful lot of time talking to Chloe, or hanging out with her.

Somehow she'd known she could never compete with that.

She picked up her cell phone and dialed Chloe's number.

"Hey, cuz," she said. "I'm sending a Christmas gift your way."

Read Chapter 3 here.