Epilogue – Promise

"What happened to Lana after that, Uncle Errol? Did she ever get Clark back?" An adorable toe-headed girl with bright green eyes and a lumpy teddy bear clutched to her chest asked, staring up at her favorite uncle. Next to her, her younger brother, a willowy boy with bright red freckles, was sucking his thumb.

Errol shook his head and continued with his story. "Lana or, as you might remember from the beginning of the story, Lori Lemaris did not go to Metropolis that day or any other. She knew that there wasn't anything she could say to get Clark back because, deep down, she knew that she couldn't share him with the rest of the world."

"Not like Chloe." The little girl interrupted. "Did Clark and Chloe get together after he moved to the city and became Superman?"

Errol shook his head and the little girl on his lap look like she wanted to cry. "Chloe was very much in love with Jimmy, and the two of them got married." He laughed a little and gave her a quick kiss on the top of her head. "It was a very small wedding, since Clark was the best man for both sides."

"But all the superheroes came," the little boy lisped out around his thumb.

Uncle Errol nodded. "That's right. All the famous ones came: the Green Arrow, Impulse, Aquaman."

"And Batman, don't forget Batman," the little girl added.

He rolled his eyes. "Yes, the entire Justice League came because Chloe---or Watchtower as they called her---was everyone's favorite member and they wanted to see her get married, except for Batman. I think he just came to annoy Clark."

"Then what happened?" The children chorused.

"Like you two haven't heard this story a hundred times before. Jimmy and Chloe got married and lived happily ever after and had two beautiful girls, both as stubborn as their mother, and two little boys, both as loyal and, well, as nerdy as their father. And then," he said, leaning down and tickling both children under their arm pits, "…they had a gaggle of grandchildren cuter than the fluffiest of muppets."

The little boy gasped in a breath and quirked his head. "What's a muppet?"

Uncle Errol sighed. "And now you officially made me feel old."

"On that note," said the children's grandmother, a lively and spry old woman with snow white hair and green eyes as bright as her granddaughter's, "It is time for all little kids to be in bed."

"Aww, Grandma. Uncle Errol was going to tell us about the first costume Chloe ever wore." The little girl protested.

"And then he was going to tell us about why Superman is so much cooler than Batman." The little boy added.

She smirked and shook her head. "I bet he was, but you've heard those stories dozens of times, and…" she said, picking up the little boy and carrying him across the living room to a door decorated with cartoons and doodles of the flying hero in question. "…it is most definitely time for bed." She opened the door and gestured to the dark room behind her. "Come on, Moira, let's go."

Reluctantly, the little girl hopped up. She lingered for a few moments and gave her uncle a big hug, but then she hurried into her grandma's guest bedroom. The harried older woman shut the door behind them, and he could easily hear the quick succession of arguments that followed, from a not-so-gentle-reminder that, no, they could not jump on the bed to an explanation of how there still were no monsters in the closet. Finally, after every stall tactic had been exhausted, the grandmother said goodnight and slipped back through the bedroom door, crossing the room and coming to rest next to him on the sofa.

"You'd think they'd get tired of the same stories every night."

"I think the adventures of Super Chloe make a nice story."

"Thanks, Clark."

"Well it's not like you could tell the stories yourself. That would be immodest."

"And yet my virtue remains intact," Chloe deadpanned with the same dry wit she'd exhibited over the last sixty years he'd known her. "So, Uncle Errol, what did happen to Lana, besides not ever winning Clark back?"

"Oh, Chlo, drop the alias would you? It's bad enough that I let Ollie pick it. Jeez, if I'd known that he was going to set up such a goofy alias, I'd have asked Bruce for help again."

She lifted her chin toward him, feigning indignation. "I think Errol Tell is a fine alias."

"Uh-huh. I like Thomas Fox better."

"Yes, let's not forget those superfun animal names."

"Still, next time, I'm going to ask Dick for help and definitely not Connor. I don't want to be named after the most famous archers in history again." Clark, much as he suspected, had not aged the way humans did and still looked like he was about twenty-five, when in fact he was almost seventy-three years old. You know, assuming that his parents had guestimated his age right to begin with when they'd set up his (fake) birth certificate. Honestly, he wasn't sure how the Hell old he was. If you factored in the theory of relativity and all that speculation on the effects of near light speed travel on aging…well he could be really old. Still, he couldn't be a fifty year old reporter who looked like his own son. It was just a scosh suspicious. So, he'd gone to his rich friends for help. Bruce had handled the counterfeit papers the first time, and Ollie had set him up with a new identity just two years ago.

He still really hated the name.

Even though Perry had offered to conspire with Clark in order to keep him on staff at The Planet, Clark had refused. He'd had no desire to become a traveling correspondent because, at heart, he loved the hustle and bustle of the city in general and the electrifying rhythm of life in Metropolis in specific. Perry had been able to use his connections to get him, erm, Thomas Fox, a job on staff at the Gotham Gazette. Recently, Ollie'd been able to land him a column at the Star City Sentinel. Still, despite whatever city he worked in, it was Metropolis he patrolled.

It was his home and the city he loved.

"Hmm. Head in the clouds again, Boy Scout?"

"No, Watchtower." Off her eye roll, he backpedaled. "Okay, well maybe a little. Anyway, you want to hear the end of the story, don't you?"

She nodded. "I sure do. Will you let me sit on your lap to hear it?"

"Har-har, Chlo."

"Just checking. Oh, and I'm waiting."

"God, you're bossy."

"And it's a good thing I am or you never would have gotten off of your sorry ass."

"That's cold, Chlo, real cold."

"Oh you so know it's true. Anyway, whatever happened to the Pink Princess?"

"Well," he said reaching out his arms and letting her settle into his lap. "Lana or Lori, whichever you prefer, surprisingly inherited the controlling shares in Luthorcorp upon Lionel's death. However, despite her cunning instincts and penchant for manipulation, she had no business sense and Luthorcorp ended up being bought out five years later by Queen Industries."

"And then what happened?"

"Then Lana, who was left penniless, married one rich man after another, but she was never satisfied and she always divorced them and took most of their money."

"It's all about the pre-nup, baby."

"I wouldn't know." Clark had never really dated after Lana, despite Jimmy's misguided efforts to hook him up with Lois, and he'd certainly never been in a position to sign a pre-nup. Reporters just didn't make that much money. Of course, he guessed if he were from California, whomever he married and divorced would have ended up with half the Fortress of Solitude. Joint property state and all that.

"Me neither. Don't get me wrong. Jimmy and I made a nice living, but we weren't exactly the Waynes or anything."

"Right," He said, giving her a quick peck on the top of her head. He had a thing for the crowns of the Sullivan (okay Olsen now) girls. Go figure. "So Lana had five rich husbands and five messy divorces and more than her fair share of stints at Betty Ford."

"And now where is she?"

"Last time I heard she was working on husband number six. I think he's in oil."

"Sounds kind of lonely husband hopping. Do you think she loved any of them?"

Clark tried very hard not to snort. His mother, after all, had taught him to see the best in everybody. However, deep down, he believed that Lana couldn't really love anyone but herself. After some perspective and many rounds of "What the Hell Were You Thinking?" with Jimmy and Chloe, he'd realized that he'd never really loved her either. Sure he'd loved the idea of her, that perfect small town princess he'd placed on a pedestal almost as soon as he'd stepped out of his spaceship, and, moreover, he'd loved the idea of trying to be human. But he'd never loved Lana, not the self-absorbed girl who'd almost convinced him to turn his back on his destiny. And he certainly did not love the girl who manipulated him into letting people die.

"Clark!" Chloe yelled, impatient as always. "I thought we were having a conversation here."

"Oh, right." He shook his head. "I hoped she loved some of them. I didn't want her to be lonely, you know. I just didn't want her to drag me down anymore either."

She nodded. "Can't say I know the feeling. Jimmy, well, he was always supportive."

"I know." He said, giving her a fierce hug. Jimmy had died three years ago, an unexpected heart attack. Chloe'd been crushed. Clark had worried so much about her being alone in Star City that he'd moved here to be with her. It was why he'd had Oliver arrange for his new alias at the Sentinel. Living here, helped him keep an eye on Chloe who, in turn, was dedicated to training all the newbies at JLA headquarters. So the were technically living together in the same house.

And not like that, although he often wished it were that way.

In fact, he'd tried proposing to her once before. It had only been six months ago and Clark felt like he'd waited long enough, felt like his life had been on a serious detour since that terrible train wreck of a moment where he'd walked into the Daily Planet basement and Chloe had hugged him and ditched him to get some Twinkies with Jimmy.

God, he'd wanted to hate Jimmy so much and had been pretty bitter about their whole relationship for a long time. Then Chloe'd almost died after saving Lois and he'd gotten to see how much Jimmy really loved her. Damn it. It was hard to hate a guy so genuinely devoted to her and who was so sweet and, yes, goofy.

Now he knew why Chloe couldn't hold a grudge against him either.

At any rate, his proposal had been kind of half-assed, just a spur of the moment kind of thing. They'd been standing at the kitchen sink, taking turns washing and drying dishes, and he'd just suggested it. At the time it seemed like the most natural thing to say.

Chloe hadn't thought the same thing.

She'd laughed and whacked him with the dishtowel and told him to stop joking around. He hadn't brought it up since and yet…

"Chlo?"

"Mmm?" She asked, raising her head from his chest and yawning. "I know it's getting late but you're so cuddly."

"Thanks. Um," he said, fidgeting with the frayed edge of the sofa arm. "Will you come flying with me?"

She sat up and narrowed her eyes at him. "Clark, who's going to watch the rugrats?"

He gestured to the communicator in his ear. "I have Bart on speed dial."

Her eyes narrowed further. "Who's going to watch Bart?"

"Chlo, it's only going to take an hour. How much trouble can two sleeping kids be for a guy with superspeed?"

"Do you remember how much trouble you had the first time you babysat?"

"Oh, right." Who knew it only took thirty seconds for a three year old to put tin foil in the microwave? "Come on. I have absolute faith in Bart. It's going to be okay."

"Famous last words," she grumbled, standing up and heading to the hall closet to pull out her thickest down coat.

When they landed in the fortress, Chloe eyed him warily. "I thought we were just doing a night flight. I mean, the coat was for the stupid thin atmosphere, I didn't think we were vacationing up north tonight. By the way, did I mention lately that I hate that you're from an ice planet?"

"Often and loudly, Chlo," he said, rolling his eyes.

"Just saying," she said, plopping down on the large table in the center of the fortress. It was quiet in there tonight and Clark was relieved. There were a lot of days he really hated dealing with his father. After all, Jor-El was almost as bossy as Chloe, although his paternal relationship was much better now that he'd actually gone through and completed his five years of training.

Chloe had been sad to see him go, but, unlike Lana, she'd encouraged him to do it. So he'd done it. And ever since then, the fortress had felt as much like home as the Kent Farm, maybe more so during those few years when Lana had lived there and it had been too awkward to return to Smallville. When he'd come home from training, Chloe had been so overjoyed, she'd baked him a pie.

He kind of wished she hadn't.

Sullivan-Lane girls most assuredly could not cook. It was kind of a miracle her children hadn't starved to death.

"So," Chloe said, swinging her legs under her. "Why exactly are we here?"

Oh jeez. You'd think that after all these years hanging out with her, he'd be all calm and collected this one time. You'd have been wrong. He could feel his palms sweating, which was so weird because he never sweated except around Kryptonite or, apparently, when Chloe made him nervous.

Well he had to give it a try. Mostly because Bart knew exactly what he was planning to do tonight and he'd never live it down if he backed out now.

Slowly, he got down on one knee and pulled out the box he'd been keeping in his pocket for the last six months, ever since he'd decided he'd wanted to do this the right way. He opened up the velvety container and pulled out the ring.

Chloe whistled. "Wow, it's beautiful."

"It was my grandmother's, um, Grandma Kent's"

She smirked at him. "Well I didn't really think it was Kryptonian." She sighed and ran a hand through her hair. "Clark, get up. This is stupid."

Most of the time when Chloe bossed him around, she was right, but not this time. He was not going to be deterred; he'd already spent decades screwing this up. "No."

She rolled her eyes. "This is really ridiculous. Come on."

He coughed, okay, so he made himself cough for effect. "Chloe Sullivan, you've been my best friend and my partner for sixty years---"

"Way to make a girl feel wanted. You know how us girls love to be reminded of our age."

"No snark now, come on. This Barry Manilow moment time." He took a deep breath and started again. "Chloe, you've been my best friend and my partner---"

"Now when you say partner are we talking sharing a by-line, crime fighting, or for charades?"

Oh now really. "Damn it, Chlo! Will you marry me?" He snarled out.

She blinked. "Well that was certainly romantic."

"It would have been if you didn't snark your way through everything." He said, holding the ring up closer to her. "Um, technically I could stay like this forever and never have my circulation cut off or anything, but I'd really prefer it if you'd give me an answer."

She swallowed and spoke so quietly that he wouldn't have caught her reply without superhearing. "No."

The answer shocked him so much that he lost his balance and fell over onto his butt. He's proposed five times, once in an alternate time line even, and this was by far his most inauspicious start. And he meant start. He still wasn't ready to admit failure. Blinking up at her, he added, "Um, please?"

"No."

"I don't see what the problem is, Chlo. I love you, you love me. I can promise you that now finally I am not thinking about Lana. If this is about Jimmy, I…I know you miss him, but I don't think he'd mind, really. He'd want you to be happy." Could he sound more clichéd or desperate? Although it wasn't his fault, having Chloe say no had really thrown him off of his game. Tired of being laid out on the ice, he shook the snow off of him and blurred next to her on the table. Chloe didn't even blink. After almost sixty years, she was inured to superspeed.

He should have seen the contrast between her and Lana years ago. When he used his powers in front of her, she acted like it was all natural and was sometimes even awed by them. When he'd used his powers in front of Lana, she'd been afraid.

Not exactly the cornerstone for a successful relationship.

He took her hands in his and slipped the ring on the appropriate finger. She didn't resist, but he didn't take that automatically as a hopeful sign. She'd also long ago learned not to fight him on things because, honestly, it was impossible to physically stop Superman. He could tell she wasn't with him emotionally from the droop of her shoulders and the way she stared at a cropping of ice to her side like it was the most interesting thing she'd ever seen.

"Chlo?" He prodded, putting his fingers under her chin and bringing her eyes (almost) level with his. "How'd I screw it up this time?"

She giggled and the sound was achingly familiar to his ears, just like the girl she'd been. "You didn't. It was sweet bringing me out here to the fortress. I know how much this place means to you. How much it means for you to be able to share your heritage with someone."

"And yet you still said no." He sighed. "You know, after all this time with a girl best friend, you'd think I'd know the first thing about women."

She patted his shoulder sympathetically. "Well, you don't, but on the plus side no guy does. It's not an alien thing, it's a gender thing. You guys are so clueless."

"Gee thanks." He said, wrapping his arm around her shoulder and giving her a reassuring squeeze. "So if the fortress was adequately romantic, why'd you say no? It's not Jimmy is it?"

She shook her head. "No, you're right about Jimmy. I mean, about the moving on thing. Even if he could be a little possessive, I don't think he'd mind the two of us being together."

"Then what is it?"

She sighed and bit her lower lip. "I'm going to die."

"Well that's very existential of you, Chlo. We're all going to die." Off her arched eyebrow he added, "Okay, so you're going to probably die sooner than me."

"A lot sooner. I've got a good thirty years tops."

"Thirty?"

"Grandma Sullivan lived to be a hundred and seven and a half. Longevity's genetic, you know."

"Cool. So then you should definitely say yes."

"Yeah because you are really going to want to visit me in the nursing home in like fifteen years."

"Would it be the crooked kind from 'Sixty Minutes' because I love the smell of disinfectant and all you can eat Jell-O is very tempting."

"Now who's being snarky?"

"Chlo," he said, taking her left hand carefully in his and absentmindedly running his fingers over the antique ring. "I don't care. You've known me forever. How many girls have I dated since I broke up with Lana?"

"Diana did sort of flirt with you for a while, and," she added, giggling. "If Jimmy had had his way you and Lois would have been married years ago."

"Oh dear God no." After decades, he'd gotten used to Lois and even considered her one of his closest friends (eventually she, too, had been brought in on the big secret), but whenever he spent any extended amount of time with her, he wanted to strangle her. "Seriously, how many girls did I date, not almost get fixed up with?"

"Um none?"

"Did you ever wonder about that?"

"Well, I kind of figured after you broke up with your dream girl that you might have been gay."

He rolled his eyes. "No matter what the Kat Grant says about the symbolism or lack thereof of my costume, you know that's not true either. Um, not---"

"…that there's anything wrong with that." She finished, smirking. "Seinfeld, oh how we miss thee."

"Pop culture references aside, I'm trying to make a point here. I didn't date anybody else because I was waiting for you. I love you and I don't care how many neophyte superheroine wannabes come on to me at the Watchtower."

Chloe snorted. "In your dreams. You know they're all about Terry."

"What is it that Batman has that I don't?"

"It's that dark mystique. It's just sexier." She patted his shoulder again with her right hand. "Sorry, Boy Scout. You're too straight arrow."

He narrowed his eyes. "You know, I can always take the diamond back."

"No, no. I like it now." She said, winking at him.

'The point is that I want you no matter how wrinkly you get."

"Who says romance is dead?" She deadpanned. "Clark, you know that it's not going to work. We---"

He leaned down then and kissed her long and hard and with more passion than he'd ever kissed Lana, maybe with more passion than he'd kissed her with in the Daily Planet basement all those years ago. Yeah, he loved her and the kiss was romantic. However, he'd also found it was a good way to shut her up.

Pulling away from her, he said. "I. Don't. Care. So we only get twenty good years together. So I have to learn to like eating dinner at the Old County Buffet at four o'clock in the afternoon."

"Gee, you are up on your stereotypes. What about when we play bridge and knit together, too?"

Yeah right. Honestly, it took a concentrated effort by Diana and himself to keep Chloe from sneaking out and fighting crime even now, and she was still contributing on a semi-regular basis to the op-ed column of the Planet. Chloe was not going gently into that good night.

He'd have expected nothing less of her.

He leaned down and kissed her again and neither of them broke apart for a very long time. "So, is it a 'yes?'"

She nodded, grinning her patented wide grin. "It's a yes."

"So," he said, scooping her up and preparing to take off (he'd long since become a proficient enough flier that he could soar to the fortress almost as fast as the portal in the caves could teleport him), "How did the proposal rate on a scale of one to ten?"

"About an eight. I still think Jimmy's was better."

"I planned that."

"I know. At the wake, Lois told me about the jumbo-tron nightmare I just barely escaped." She quirked her head at him. "How would you rate your Paris extravaganza?"
"About a two. Lana loved it, but it just wasn't me. It was too fancy. Besides," he said looking away, "I really wanted to propose here like I did on the day of the election. It just feels right here."

Chloe nodded and clutched his shoulders tightly as he took off into the night. After a moment of getting her bearings, she continued on with the conversation as if she weren't soaring thousands of feet above the ground. That was Chloe for you. She dealt with weird as if it were an everyday occurrence, which, granted, in the League it was. It was the mundane she detested. And mocked. "You know what's funny?"

"What?"

"I planned your proposal to Lana, and you planned mine to Jimmy."

"Hey that's right."

"It's like our subconscious was already telling us to go ahead and tie the knot, but it took the rest of us too long to catch up."

"Tell me about it."

She snuggled deeper into his chest and he reveled in the feel of her body. "I really did love Jimmy, you know."

"I do and it's okay." And even now it still hurt to think about Chloe loving someone else beside him, and, yeah, he knew that made him sound egotistical, but she'd always been his girl, even if neither of them had realized it.

She sniffed a little and was quiet for part of their trip, but she finally spoke somewhere over the Dakotas, "You know what I regret?"

"That phase back in the early '10s where you died your hair red?"

"Well there is that." She sighed. "Stupid photographic memory. You never let me forget anything."

"Yeah, I know."

"Anyway, I was saying that I'm sorry you never got to have any kids of your own. I see the way you are with all of mine, and you would have been a wonderful father." God, that was one of his biggest regrets too. Not that he apparently wouldn't have plenty of time to get to it, just not with her. Echoing his thoughts, she continued, "I'm just sorry that I won't…well you know."

"It's okay. I don't think the world could take a bunch of half-Kryptonians with snark as a superpower. It would doom civilization as we know it."
She laughed. "You're probably right." And then she smirked up at him in a way that reminded him eerily of Lois and terrified him to his very core. "Speaking of snark, maybe we're jumping to the wrong conclusion. Maybe it's the guy Kryptonians who have the babies."

"Oh God. I am not hearing this."

"Seriously, we should check that out with the A.I. next time you drag me up north to freeze my ass off. I mean, who knows, maybe you could have a whole litter."

"Aw, Chlo."

Maybe asking her to marry him had been a mistake after all.