Now And Then

Prologue
May, 1983

1.
Chloe Sullivan died a lovely death, in a beautiful display of light that blossomed between her tearstained face and Clark’s bloodstained one. She never made a sound. She didn’t whisper sweet last words, though she thought them. Beautiful words that Clark could hear and that he would never forget.

I love you. I always have. I always will...

When the light faded, Clark’s broken body was whole again. He suffered no physical pain, though his heart was in agony. He’d lost his best friend.

Clark wasn’t sure how he knew, but when he held Chloe in his arms that night he knew she’d never come back. He wasn’t human, and he was sure it had taken every bit of her power to save him.

It had taken her very life.

He flew her back to the farm, though, and laid her on his bed, where he waited in vain hope that she’d do the impossible and come back from the dead. Forty-eight hours went by before Oliver Queen, eyes red and wet with tears, told him it was time to give up. She wasn’t coming back. Jor-El said he couldn’t save Chloe. He said that humans died, and it was something Clark would have to accept.

When the funeral was over Clark remained in the cemetery, mere feet from where his father was interred. The idea of leaving her in the cold ground, all alone in the dark, was more than he could handle, so he decided to stay with her while everyone else left. He envisioned her rotting there, and he felt sick.

His father may not be able to save Chloe, but he could certainly keep her from decay. Seconds later Clark had Chloe’s body back in his arms, his suit covered in dirt, and he was flying with her one last time, to the Fortress of Solitude. The first time he’d flown it had been to save her life, just as she’d predicted in a love letter she’d written years before. In the end, though, he’d taken her life in exchange for his and the guilt burned like lava in his veins.

“Why do you bring her here, my son?” the A.I. asked.

“She’s special to me…I can’t leave her to rot in a grave. Keep her. Don’t let her…”

Jor-El was silent for almost five solid seconds. That was quite a long time for one of the most advanced computers in existence.

“Bring her.”

A corridor that Clark had never noticed before began glowing faintly and he followed it, surprised by how deep it went.

“This is the heart of the Fortress, Kal-El. She will be safe here, from all harm.”

There was a dress lying on a slab of ice at the rear of the room, which pulsed and glowed with crystals, visible manifestations of the artificial intelligence at work. It had created a dress for Chloe, and a place for her body to rest as Clark had carried her from the main entrance.

He dressed her in the traditional Kryptonian garb, a gauzy white and silver gown that clung to her body. He took her hair from the clip that held it up and arranged it around her head. He stood for quite some time, gazing down at Chloe. She would remain this way, beautiful and young, for many decades, long after anyone who knew her had died away. Except for Clark, of course.

Now he was ready to say goodbye. Now he could bear to leave her, knowing the A.I. would take care of her.

“Goodbye, Chloe.”

He kissed her forehead softly, and then stepped back. Glass formed around, smooth and clear. She looked peaceful, as though she were napping.

“As long as I have power, she will be preserved,” Jor-El’s voice intoned morosely.

“Thank you.”

Clark looked up and saw an opening had formed, allowing moonlight to spill in. It was just large enough for him to fly through, and would close again when he was gone. He took flight, leaving behind his best friend to head back to Metropolis, and to his destiny as the greatest hero the world would ever know. He would visit many times in the first few months after her secret interment at the Fortress, but as he came to accept her death, and his destiny, the visits came fewer and farther between. Days between visits became weeks, weeks became months, and months became years.

Clark never knew that to keep his promise to preserve Chloe, Jor-El drained the formaldehyde from her body and replaced it with blood he cloned from her bone marrow. In essence he put her on a low-level life support to keep her body from succumbing to the natural process of death, though the possibility of her coming back to life was so infinitesimal as to be impossible.

Even with all his intelligence foresight, though, Jor-El had no way of knowing that his actions would one day give his son’s arch nemesis, Lex Luthor, a chance to nearly destroy the world.

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