Wither On The Vine

Summary: This is a 'missing scenes' fic

“You know, I uh, I responded for two.”

Clark looked over at his mother, Martha Kent. She was a lovely woman, still young enough to have a lot of life ahead of her, and very beautiful. She was also understanding most of the time. That’s why he couldn’t understand why she’d respond to a costume party at Lex Luthor’s house for him.

“Thanks, Mom, but costumes really aren’t my thing. Besides, it’s not really the place for a reunion, you know?”

Martha took a seat at the counter. “How do you feel about the two of them together?”

“I don’t know,” he said honestly, looking at a newspaper that showed Lex opening the door for Lana to climb out of his car. “It’s like they’re different people.”

“We all have our own ways of moving on,” said Martha. “Whether its about growing up, or just surviving.”

She looked down, looking so dejected that he knew she was speaking of the husband she’d lost. He could relate to her.

“Mom, I’ve lost Lana, Dad, Jor-El. You don’t see me as a different person.”

“In a lot of ways I do, Clark. All of those things have shaped the person you are now, and the person you’ll become.”

He considered telling her about the developments between him and Chloe. It had only been four days since they’d spent the night in his truck out at Crater Lake, listening to the rain and taking turns pleasuring one another. He wouldn’t get into the gritty details, but he couldn’t help but notice the lack of pain in his heart, and the way his throat didn’t clench when he looked at the picture of Lana with Lex. Sure, he didn’t like it. Lana had meant a lot to him and always would, but it didn’t rip out his heart to see his worst enemy with the woman he’d once been in love with.

Once been…

Clark smiled.

“What?” Martha asked.

“Chloe and I agreed to keep it to ourselves for awhile, but I want you to know. She and I…we’re getting very close. We’re more than just friends.”

Martha beamed at Clark, and laughed. It was the sweetest, most pleasant sound, one that had been missing far too often in this house lately.

“Oh, Clark, that’s wonderful,” Martha said.

“You approve, then.”

“Of course I approve,” Martha said. “I won’t say ‘It’s about time.’”

“You kind of just did,” said Clark, grinning.

“Chloe is a good woman, Clark. She’s loved you and waited for you a very long time. I think you’ll be happy with her than you've ever been with anyone else.”

Clark could easily agree with that. Chloe was more than a lover. She was his best friend, and she knew his biggest secrets. “I don’t have to hide who I am from her.”

Martha nodded, still smiling. “You’ll soon find that your lover should be your best friend. Everything will change between you two now, yet you’ll also realize that everything is still the same.”

That, Clark thought, was something he was learning to be true with each day that passed after he and Chloe’s night at the lake.

“I'm going Chloe's. She says she needs to tell me about something that happened, something bizarre that came up.”

Martha sipped her coffee and started flipping through the paper. “Another day in Smallville.”

****

“Hey,” Chloe said, opening the door for Clark. He bent to kiss her, on the lips this time instead of on the cheek, or not at all as he would have before things had changed four nights before.

“Hey. How goes life living with Lois?”

“Closer to coffee, further from sanity,” Chloe said, shutting the door behind him. Urging him toward the couch, where her blankets were still cluttering the couch. “But you know, until Metropolis University reopens, I guess—what is it they say about a gift horse?”

Clark studied Chloe’s ass in her jeans as she walked away. Man, she had the hottest body, and now he had free access to it whenever he wanted. “Stay away from the mouth, which is difficult, because Lois uses hers so much.”

Chloe pulled the blankets on the couch away so he could sit down.

“Right,” Chloe laughed.

“So, what’s going on?”

Chloe sat down to explain the latest bit of weirdness, and Martha’s words came back to play in his mind.

Everything will change between you two now, yet you’ll also realize that everything is still the same…

That was so true, and Clark was hyper aware of it since his mother had voiced it. He knew Chloe in a way now he never had before, as a lover, and yet she was still his best friend, sitting across from him on the couch, telling him about the latest bit of weirdness in Smallville, the same old Chloe. And yet it was different, on an unnameable level, because she was more than just his friend. She was his lover. He watched her lovely, delicious lips as she talked.

“Okay, so, I found a body in the woods up at Lone Pine last night. Girl and guy decide to make like the birds and the bees, girl gets her wings cut, guy buzzes off.”

“You think he killed her?” Clark asked, struggling to think about more than the scent of her soap, her shampoo, and underneath that her skin, and her womanhood.

“I seriously doubt some freshly minted pimple popper is physically capable of doing that. I mean, the MO wasn’t exactly…normal, if you know what I mean,” she whispered.

“What do you mean?” Clark whispered back.

Chloe sighed. “Impaling people in trees in under five minutes isn’t humanly possible.”

He got what she was saying. “Unless the guy was infected with Kryptonite.”

Chloe nodded in agreement. “And that’s our only lead, and he’s still missing.”

Then something unnerving hit Clark in the pit of his stomach, hard, and made his heart race with anxiety. “What were you doing at make out point?”

Before Chloe could answer, the door opened, and Jimmy “James” Olsen came strolling in, all smiles, looking way to happy for Clark’s liking. “What’s up, CK?”

Clark looked back around at Chloe, who looked uncomfortable, and he felt his heart sink from his chest to the soles of his feet.

****

“Clark, now that Jimmy’s not here, listening to our every word, would you stop long enough to listen to me?” Chloe asked, struggling to keep up with Clark’s long, angry stride.

“I could listen to you even if you were all the way across Lowell County,” Clark said in clipped tones.

Several people turned to look at them. Chloe smiled nervously and struggled to keep up, going back to talking about all business.

“Sorry, they’d already organized a search party, and the police dogs from Granville will be here in another hour.”

“Chloe, where exactly did you find the body?”

“It was just up the road about a quarter mile.”

“Okay,” he said, brushing past her and going into super speed now that no one was looking.

“Guess I’ll meet you there,” she said, annoyed. “You know, you could have walked with me and let me explain about me and Jimmy at Lone Pine last night. It’s not what you think,” she added, knowing he could hear every word she spoke, but she couldn’t hear a reply from him, though she could imagine what he was thinking.

Oh yeah, then what was it?

“Really, Clark, it was innocent,” she added, walking along. She decided to shut up and wait until they were face to face, without prying ears, and she could hear what he had to say. Deciding to run for it, Chloe took off at a light jog.

****

“Clark, where are you?”

“Over here! He’s alive!”

Chloe entered the area where she and Jimmy had found the bodies the night before. She saw him kneeling over some bushes some distance away, digging for something. She rushed up to him, partly angry, partly anxious at what he’d found, especially when she heard him grunt in pain.

Clark never grunted in pain. Not when he had his super powers, at least. Chloe came up behind Clark. He was gazing at his hands, which were covered in small cuts.

“My God. Clark, you’re bleeding!”

Seconds later his hands healed shut, but Chloe was left wondering what could possibly cut through his flesh as though it were as soft as butter.

****

The opportunity to talk didn’t arise because they had to wait with the victim, who was conscious most of the time, for medical personnel to arrive. Clark told her about a ranger who’d been in the area, calling her beautiful, and that prickled under her skin. It was a cheap shot and it was, she thought, below him. Part of her, however, understood where he was coming from. He was hurt, and probably scared, about learning she’d gone to make out point with an ex-lover.

“Were you going to tell me?” Clark said, walking out of everyone’s earshot after giving a statement to the police, and the victim had been cut free of the vines that tangled about him, and driven off to the hospital.

“Tell you what?”

“That you’d gone to make out point with Jimmy? I mean, you just sat there, talking about business as usual—”

“Clark, I told you I’d been at Lone Pine.”

“But you neglected to mention Jimmy had been with you.”

“Zip us someplace private, please.”

Clark looked around, making sure he and Chloe were alone, and then scooped her up. A second later, they were in an area of wood that was completely deserted, and quiet.

“Jimmy asked me to drive him somewhere last night. I followed his directions up to Lone Pine, and asked him what we were doing there. He told me he’d gotten a hot tip about something weird going on up there, and then put the moves on me.”

Clark’s jaw worked angrily.

“I shot him down right away, and told him that you and I were working things out. I would never betray you.”

“You made it clear we’re together?” he said. “That I’m your boyfriend, and he never will be?”

Chloe grinned, knowing it probably looked silly, but she didn't care.

“What?”

“You said you’re my boyfriend.”

“Well…I am, aren’t I?”

“Yes. It’s just the first time you’ve said it, and it makes it feel so official, so real. And we’ve only actually spent that one night together…”

“It’s been four days since I've touched you,” said Clark, his voice going low and husky.

“Jimmy means nothing to me outside of being a friend.”

Clark sighed and leaned into her. Their foreheads touched. “We’re going to make up now, aren’t we?”

“God, I hope so,” Chloe whispered.

Clark pulled Chloe to him, lifting her off her feet and pressing her against the tree behind her. She wrapped her legs around his waist and moaned as Clark began to grind into her, kissing her deeply, and stealing her breath away. They came up for air, and Chloe looked down at him.

“I’ve never wanted anyone else like I want you, Clark. I never will.”

“I’ve never wanted anyone more than I want you now.”

“Well…except for—”

“Not even Lana. Not like this. I’ve never felt anything like this, Chloe. I feel it deep inside, in places I never knew existed. Let’s leave Jimmy here and go back to the loft,” Clark suggested, his lips curving in a smile.

“We can’t,” Chloe said regretfully.

“Why not?”

“A young man is dying. We have to try to save him.”

Clark nodded. “When that’s over?”

“The loft,” she said. “Promise.”

He kissed her deeply again, before speeding back toward the car.

****

Chloe was dead tired as she finished telling Martha Kent the events of that evening. They were sitting at the kitchen counter. Chloe had a steaming mug of coffee before her, but she was too nervous to drink.

“Clark is a resilient young man,” Martha said, patting Chloe’s hand. “He’ll bounce back from this. He always bounces back.”

“He looked dead,” Chloe said, feeling slightly sick at the thought. Things were different now. It was one thing to lose your best friend, but quite another to lose your best friend/lover.

“But he’s not. That’s the important thing to remember,” said Martha. “It’s what I hold on to every time Clark has a near miss.”

“I don’t know how you do it.”

Martha nodded in sympathy. “It’s the price you have to pay for loving Clark, keeping his secret, and being part of his life. Do you think it’s worth it?”

Chloe looked Martha Kent in the eye. She’d never been more serious in her life when she said one simple word. “Yes.”

Martha nodded. “I’m so glad you and Clark have finally worked things out, Chloe. I know how much you love him, and I know how much he loves you.”

Chloe kissed Martha on the cheek, and excused herself to the loft to wait for Clark. Right now, she imagined, Lana and Lex were probably in bed, and Lois was probably debating just how far she’d go with her date, Oliver Queen. All Chloe wanted to do was to make sure Clark was safe; to see him, and hold him in her arms.

She switched on the CD player. One of Clark’s favorite songs began to play. She listened to the lyrics.

I’m sorry but I meant to say
Many things along the way
This one’s for you.
Have I told you I ache
Have I told you I ache
Have I told you I ache
For you?

“Chloe?”

The sight of Clark, standing at the top of the loft stairs, his tee-shirt covered in filth and sticking to him because it was soaking wet was the most wonderful sight of Chloe’s life. Her heart broke, and she felt like some silly Harlequin Romance heroine as she rushed across the loft and threw herself into Clark’s arms. He held her tight, her feet dangling inches from the floor. He smelled strongly of the forest, and water soaking through to her own clothes, but Chloe didn’t care. Clark was alive, and she was in his arms.

More importantly, he was in hers, because that’s where he wanted to be.

“Chloe,” he said softly, stroking her hair.

“I keep seeing you dead,” she said shakily. “I keep imagining I got there too late, and you’re dead.”

“I didn’t die, Chloe. I’m okay.”

He took her to the couch and sat, holding her in his lap.

“You’re really shaken up this time, aren’t you?”

“It’s different now. You’re not just my best friend, you’re my boyfriend.”

“I know,” Clark said softly. “It’s going to take a lot more than some weeds to finish me off.”

“How do you feel right now?”

“A little tired,” he conceded. “How’s Jimmy?”

“Jimmy’s fine. Tired…that’s unusual for you.”

Clark shrugged. “Well, to be fair, I spent over an hour impaled by alien vines.”

“To be equally fair,” said Chloe, “I’ll let you off the hook for make up almost-sex.”

Smiling, Clark pulled off his grimy tee-shirt. “I’m not that tired.”

Chloe straddled Clark’s lap, seeing that the place where Clark had been impaled was healed completely, with no sign he’d ever been hurt, though his shirt was forever ruined.

She put such thoughts out of her mind, however, and enjoyed the feel of Clark’s hands on her body, his lips pressed to hers, as the music continued to play.

Have I told you I ache for you…