Final notes: The Epilogue

The course of Smallville's history changes radically and for the better after Clark and Chloe visited Another World and find each other the way they were meant to. This is a list (long list) of some of the big and little changes as a result.

A day after Chloe moved in, Clark presented her with a bracelet that the Kawatche nation had passed down with their legend. It was meant for his True One and when he placed it on her wrist, the tarnished cuff with a turquoise center stone transformed, the grey oxidation melting away leaving gleaming silver and the center stone turning translucent before settling into what looked like a large, white opal with specks of rainbow fire. They quickly realized it was another crystal like the shield that came to Clark from Jor-El. It had the special effect of allowing them to communicate anytime, anywhere in the world, something that frequently became handy in the future, especially when Clark as Superman took to wearing the very tight blue and red suit the Martha Kents from across two universes had worked on creating. There was nowhere to hide a cell phone in that thing.

In regards Jor-El, since the Fortress was now under strict control, along with Clark's continued training, Jor-El is enlisted to help Clark track the remaining Zoners and with Manhunter's help, they get to Bizarro much earlier and are able to fight him on their own terms and put him in a safe place and he stays there because months later when Kara's ship surfaces and her blue crystal calls out to Clark in his mother's voice, he discusses it with Chloe and he agrees to take it to Fortress to analyze instead of doing something stupid like answering it.

The AI scans find the programs embedded. Zor-El is neutralized without ever being released, but Jor-El uses information on the crystal to extrapolate an AI version of Lara, Clark's mother, and sets her up to exist at the Fortress as a hologram. As a more advanced AI, her independent programming quickly recognized the corrupted programming affecting Jor-El that created the erratic behavior in the past and was able to remove the corruption to his personality so Jor-El returns to more than a talking computer. Clark finally is able to discover what his birth parents really were like.

Since Zor-El never emerged and never caused the eclipse, Bizarro stays locked up and so he never tracks down Brainiac on earth, so Brainiac never is able to trick him into locating Dax-Ur, the Kryptonian that had used blue kryptonite to live as a human. Thus Dax-Ur continues to live out his life in anonymity with his family and Brainiac never finds him and remains too weak to cause problems to anything but rats. Since he stays in his weakened state, he then never alters the timeline so Doomsday was never created or sent to earth and Chloe never is taken over by Brainiac.

The Legion of Superheroes do travel back in time but they are successful in their mission to stop a rogue villain and of course, they've heard of Chloe Sullivan. Any child old enough to have heard a bedtime story knows who Chloe Sullivan-Kent was.

When Kara's ship is dislodged and she comes looking for him, Chloe encourages Clark to involve his mom. Who better to know how to help an orphaned Kryptonian? He introduces them and Martha reminds Kara of Lara and so Kara has an easier introduction to her new life. Once Clark brought Kara's blue crystal to the Fortress and the threats were neutralized, Lara established and Jor-El fixed, Clark brings Kara to the Fortress to explain to her about her crystal's true purpose. Since Jor-El isn't an asshat anymore, instead of getting her memories erased, the memories Zor-El, her father, suppressed are reawakened and his true nature is revealed. Since she accepts the truth about her father, she and the Martian Manhunter do not come into conflict and she never runs away and Lex never has a chance to make friends with her.

Kara stays around Smallville and tries to find a life of her own. She dates Jimmy Olsen much to Clark's confusion (what is the attraction anyway?) and Chloe's amusement. Eventually, Kara goes out into the world to make her own mark but stays in touch with the family she'd found waiting for her on earth.

When Dr. Swan's daughter shows up after finding her dad's journal and bringing it to Clark, thus revealing all the Traveler stuff, Lex does not kill her because Lex has been in jail ever since his secret cloning facility at Reeves Dam was exposed. Lois never is almost killed because she'd already quit the reporter biz and was safely in D.C. Chloe, on the other hand, had been following the leads from Senator Burke's death. And with Clark's ready assistance, she gets the scoop on Lex's secret cloning facility under the dam that "coincidentally" suffered a freak accidental flood (aka Clark destroying a monstrous program)

The Daily Planet did receive an application from a Gabriel Grant, but when Bruce Wayne took control, Perry White beat Grant out for the job of Chief Editor. Grant moved to Kansas City where he gave up the print newspaper biz and founded an online magazine. It's a hit with the foodie crowd. They love his editorials on steak. He looks back sometimes and wonders why Lex Luthor had wanted to meet with him, but with all of Luthor's trouble with the law and his eventual confinement to a mental institution, Grant is content to have a nice story to impress the ladies with about how close he came to Lex kidnapping him and using him for his nefarious cloning experiments. He thinks he's making a joke. Lionel never learns of his existence or Gabriel of his true origins. Lois has never heard of him either.

After the flood brought to light the truth about what Lex had been up to, Lana, already disillusioned after having found out she'd "miscarried", was further horrified and filed for divorce immediately. During the course of Lana's divorce – no prenup, oops - Lex's holding facilities of meteor-infected people in multiple secret locations are exposed. Lana had a very diligent lawyer.

Tess Mercer, who had been getting groomed as Lex's successor, is also horrified by what the man she'd come to idolize had been doing. She approached Lana and they worked together to form a support group for the meteor infected called Isis. The extensive programs have virtually ended the problem with the infected losing control of their powers or turning to crime. Lana funds it with the money she got from her divorce (half the Luthor fortune) but Tess runs it. Lana moves to Paris to put the entire mess behind her. She'd been happy in Paris once, she knows she could be again.

Lionel regained control of the floundering Luthor Corp when Lex was arrested but later was killed by a crazed man who put him through several torture tests before dropping him down an elevator shaft. Martha thinks of him with pity. Clark is relieved he offered to drive his mom that day instead of letting her get a ride with Lionel as she'd originally planned. Luthor Corp stock plummets even further and Wayne Enterprises steps in and takes the controlling interest. They are still unraveling all the off-book projects.

Lex was sentenced to life and remains locked up in the mental ward. He claims he sees angels. His also claims visits by his dead mother made him conduct all those cloning experiments. A few years later, Lex escapes the mental facility and when he's caught, he's transferred to a high-security prison. He no longer claims to see angels, but regularly is seen talking to an imaginary friend he calls Otis.

With Lex out of the way, Jor-El an actual resource, Lana not his distraction, and Clark actually listening to Chloe, Clark solves the puzzle of the Traveler and with Kara's help, finds the Orb. (Bonus, Patricia Swann gets to not die! Manhunter never loses his powers since Clark never loses his, Kent Nelson aka Dr. Fate does not die and Manhunter is able to use his mind control abilities to reestablish the man's sanity.)

They take the Orb to the Fortress, Jor-El wants it destroyed but Kara sees it as the last connection to her home. Lara intervenes and crafts a compromise that mimics in a way what Jor-El had done for her. Rather than flesh and blood, she creates a kind of virtual reality for the survivors on the Orb's "lifeboat" and sets their consciousness in a reconstructed Kandor, a sort of a bottled city where they can live out real lives. It's possible for Kara or anyone that wishes to visit the city by interfacing with the Fortress, but no one in the city can leave. So no Zod and the Kandorians problem, and in turn, no open portal that attracts Darkseid's attention.

Until Bruce builds his space station years later, Watchtower remains only a code name Chloe uses when she helps out with the Justice League. Her natural instincts for organization couldn't help appear and with the new found confidence she gains as her life gets under control, she doesn't hesitate to insist on changes to bring structure and added safety to all the heroes. Plus Bruce always sides with her, even if it's just to piss Clark off, so soon the fledgling League coordinates with each other using a centralized system and everyone takes turns looking after the database so no one gets lost in the machine.

The bunch of legal papers that Bruce had Chloe sign before Martha went to D.C. ended up being more significant than she could have imagined. One was a release to authorize repairs to her Yaris even though she'd been mostly joking when she demanded he replace the tires and the transmission. Another was the details of compensation for her acting as a headhunter and getting Hamlish and Davinhoe hired by Wayne Industries. It specified entitlement equivalent to 25% of their first year's salary if they were to remain employed more than three months and gave her a whole half percent of gross profit if any of their research projects ever generated profit during their employment at Wayne Industries. She'd been thrilled at the first year salary bonus which helped her pay for college but assumed there would never be any profit from technology designed to hop universe to universe. She'd been delighted to be wrong and a decade later, just a month's worth of dividends allowed her and Clark to purchase the spacious and charming brownstone townhome they had been renting in Metropolis.

Finishing college wasn't easy given the constant extraordinary demands in their lives, but Clark and Chloe made it a priority and both took home a journalism degree by juggling a mixture of regular, night and online courses. Since Bruce had purchased the Planet when Chloe was a freshman, by the time she graduated, it was a bastion of integrity again and a beacon to the world. Perry White hired Clark initially because he owed him one, something his top reporter who had now fought her way up from the basement wouldn't let him forget, but promoted him out of the basement around the same time based on talent, despite his inability to be anywhere on time. White pretends not to recognize the familiar face and voice belonging to that alien flying around in blue and red.

A year after they graduated, Chloe and Clark were publically married in front of all their friends and extended family. The only jewelry she wore was the most beautiful engagement ring she could have ever imagined, their new wedding bands and a pair of delicate opal earrings that matched the stone on the bracelet she always wore, the symbol of their Kryptonian bond.

They had the wedding at the farm, setting up a beautiful tent in the middle of a field (carefully cleared of any stray green rocks) rejecting Lois's suggestion they get married in the barn. (Yeah, right, like anyone would want to have a wedding next to where Clark used to muck out the horse stalls.) Lana sent a lovely punch bowl and her regrets. After the honeymoon, they moved into the townhome in Metropolis. Shelby enjoys the pampered city life and his quick access to the backyard garden. Small, but perfectly suited for the mature dog looking for easy living. They rented out the land and house in Smallville for now. Selling was out of the question.

Many of the challenges they would have faced never occur while others are only greatly delayed, like Darkseid's attention, but the extra years they have to live, learn, grow and form unshakable alliances gives them the foundation to face anything. The adventure never ends, but life is very much happily ever after.

P.S. A year after their wedding, Hamlish and Davinhoe figure out how to safely replicate the success of the AU-Ray and the Resonator Recorder, making travel to and from universes safe and easy for those in the know. Makes for some interesting Kent family reunions, but they just tell all the kids they're cousins. ;)

The End