Entwined Destinies: The Last Son and the Slayer Part 1

Summary: After the defeat of the First and the destruction of Sunnydale Buffy needs some alone time and ends up in Smallville. After defeating Bizarro, Clark is trying to come to terms with Lana's death. There is no Kara. Lex miraculously survived (doesn't he always) the dam bursting and is away recuperating from his injuries.

Disclaimer: I don't own these characters, I just borrowed them for a while.

Author's note: I have now revised and updated the story. My thanks to those who pointed out my errors. Constructive criticism is always welcome. This is the first story I wrote for this site and I chose a Clark/Buffy pairing out of the fact I couldn't find enough of them that I liked. So to correct that fact I wrote this. Enjoy this and part 2 that I am currently in the process of writing.

Clark is sitting in the Talon with Chloe. It is the first time in weeks he has left the farm. He has spent his time working out what future he has now. Both Lois (why can't she leave him alone?) and Chloe have been trying to get him to come out. They're good friends Clark thinks even Lois. How long has it been since Lana died, 3,4 weeks. He told her his secret and she died again but this time he can't go back and change it. Last time he did that, his father died in her place. As Jor-El said one life has to be exchanged for another. If he went back again who would he lose instead, his mother, Chloe, Lois. As much as he loves, loved Lana he won't do that. He looks up from the drink he is staring into and looks at Chloe. She's the only one who sticks with him. His secret drove Pete away but Chloe stays, she came to visit him these last few weeks even when he hasn't be very accommodating. She really is a good friend. Despite her own recent death and resurrection she never stopped trying to cheer him up. A few days ago he decided she was right and that he was wallowing.

Flashback to a few days ago.

"Clark you have got to stop blaming yourself," Chloe pleads to her friend.

"Chloe, I should have protected her. I told her the truth and she died again."

"Clark, you can't save everyone and besides you were not the only one keeping secrets," she tells him.

"What are you talking about Chloe?" he asks a little puzzled.

Chloe hesitates for a moment. "After that low level employee confessed, clearing Lex, I did some investigating," she mentions.

"What did you find?" Clark enquires.

"Not much, Lana had gotten very good at covering her tracks. However, it seems she siphoned off millions of dollars from Lex into a hidden account."

"She was planning to leave Chloe," Clark says trying to justify Lana's actions.

"When did sweet, innocent Lana start stealing money that wasn't in her joint account with Lex," Chloe points out.

Clark is stumped there. Had she really changed that much without him noticing? Was Lex's darkness contagious or something? Shortly after Chloe left that day Clark took what possessions of Lana's he had left, put them a box and decided to get on with his life.

Back in the Talon Chloe is working on her laptop.

"What are you working on?" Clark asks Chloe.

Chloe somewhat surprised Clark is even aware of anything lately. "Research on Sunnydale, you know that town that mysteriously disappeared into a sink hole," Chloe says using her fingers to air-quote the word sink hole.

"Yeah I saw that on the news. Wait do you think it wasn't an act of nature?" Clark enquires.

"I've been looking at all the information I can find and on the weirdness scale it almost makes Smallville look normal," Chloe informs Clark while not looking up from her laptop.

Clark goes back to his drink. If only Smallville was normal he thinks. "Why the interest?" he asks Chloe.

Chloe looks up. "Oh the new girl that works here is from Sunnydale, we've talked a couple of times. She said she wanted to get away from weirdness for a while and I told her that she was in the wrong town for that."

Clark chuckles. Chloe smiles at his first smile in weeks. She had been hating not been able to help with his pain over Lana. Why does he always blame himself for everything she'll never understand. She notices Clark's eyes have moved towards the door as the new blond girl walks in.

Wow she's pretty, no beautiful, no stunning actually, wait Lana just died, the last thing Clark needs is another relationship but there is an indefinable something about this girl and for some reason Clark needs to find out what.

Buffy wakes up to yet another destroyed alarm clock. Sometimes this slayer strength is a pain. As she showers she remembers how she got here. She's on the bus as they travel away from Sunnydale.

Flashback

She survived again but now what, Spike is dust and she's suppose to what? Lead an army of slayers against what now. The thing that created evil challenged her and she won. She lives in the world but she's not part of it.

"I needs to go away for a while," Buffy suddenly announces.

Xander wakes up from his nap. "What?"

"I need to go away. I need time to think alone," states Buffy.

Faith never slow to add an opinion "This is because of Spike, look we've all lost someone, you just need to deal."

Willow pipes in. "What about the Slayers we need to find?"

"I'm not going away forever Will, just a few weeks to clear my head and Faith is perfectly capable of training the Slayers," Buffy says in answer to Willow's question.

Xander adds his view. "This is a bad idea Buff. Giles tell her this is bad idea."

Giles had been listening carefully. They were all certainly tired, exhausted really and Buffy most of all needed rest and a clear head. She was possibly one of the longest lived Slayers ever if you ignore her dying twice. She would be one of the leaders of this, well, army for lack of a better term. They were almost certainly hundreds worldwide, they all needed to be trained and more importantly taught to use their powers for good not evil. It occurred to him that Faith would probably be useful in that part. She had embraced darkness but had returned, if anyone knew how to avoid the darkness it was her.

Giles finally speaks up. "If Buffy feels she needs rest then she can do what she wants."

Xander is rather taken aback. "But Giles..." he begins to say before Giles cuts him off.

"Xander the time that I can tell Buffy what to do has long since passed. If this is her choice then I support it," Giles informs him.

"Thank you Giles," Buffy now wearily adds. God she needs some rest.

At the next town Buffy departs at the bus station.

Dawn and Buffy are talking. "You understand I have to do this," Buffy says to her sister really hoping that she does understand.

"I understand why you think you have to do this but don't expect me to agree," Dawn replies.

Teenagers! Buffy feels a migraine coming on. "Look Dawn I love you and always will but I need to clear my head. There's too much stuff up here," Buffy says as she points to her head.

"Too little you mean," Dawn smart-mouths back.

"Dawn please. I will come back. Giles has promised to get you into a good college and take care of you while I'm gone," Buffy almost pleads.

"Promise you'll come back and well do sisterly things together?"

"I promise."

Dawn then hugs Buffy in a complete mood change. Again Teenagers!

"You'll stay in touch. Tell us your alright," Willow asks.

"I'll see," Buffy answers rather non-commitmently.

Buffy then got on a bus at random really. When she saw the sign of Smallville, Kansas and realised she had never heard of the place she realised that this was perfect. It was basically in the middle of nowhere, as far as she knew nothing strange or supernatural happened here. She got a job in a café, really waiting tables again, oh well it pays for a roof over her head, just.

She had kept to herself really, trying not to give away too much personal information. She talked to this girl Chloe a couple of times, reminded her of Willow a little bit always on her laptop. It was funny Chloe was a reporter, the last person she should talk to considering she wanted to keep a low profile, but she just seemed trustworthy. Slayer instincts don't fail her now.

Buffy walks into the Talon and sees Chloe with like the hottest guy she had ever seen and considering who she had dated that was saying something. In a word, Wow. 'What are you thinking Summers?' she mentally reprimands herself. She is here to clear her head not fill it with yet another doomed relationship but she could ask for his name at least there was no harm in that, right?

Buffy walks over to Chloe. "Hi Chloe."

Chloe looks at her. "Oh hi Buffy."

'Buffy? What kind of name is Buffy?' Clark muses. Chloe is not introducing him so he coughs.

Chloe hears Clark coughing, looks at him and wonders how anyone who looks like him can be shy. "This is my friend Clark Kent, Clark Buffy, Buffy Clark."

Clark and Buffy both give rather awkward "Hi."

Buffy shocked at her own nervousness. "It's Buffy Summers and I've got to get started. Nice meeting you Clark."

Clark stutters his response. "Y-yeah you too."

A little time later, Buffy is working but Chloe notices the glances she keeps giving Clark and Clark is doing anything but look at Buffy. Chloe looks at her watch and starts to get up. "I've got to go Clark. I have shopping to do. That is if I plan to actually eat dinner tonight."

"Well that would be a change from the donuts you live off at the Planet," Clark quips.

"Oi! At least I don't eat enough to feed a Third World country," Chloe retorts.

Chloe picks up her bag. "Clark, you ok?" she asks genuinely concerned for his wellbeing.

"Sure Chloe, I'll see you later." Clark however is still thinking about Buffy but can't work out why. There is just something there, a sadness or maybe loneliness he saw in her eyes when she walked in that reminds him of the one he has been seeing in the mirror lately.

After Chloe leaves Buffy walks over to pick up her drinks and cleans the table. She has caught herself looking at Clark several times. The look in his eyes, the sadness, the loneliness. The same look she sees in the mirror every morning.

"I'm sorry about what happened to your home," Clark says to Buffy.

"What? Oh Sunnydale, yeah thanks." Really the only thing she misses there is her mother but Buffy decides to be polite.

"Chloe says you came here for some peace."

"That's right." And if anyone is listening that's a prayer Buffy thinks to the cosmos.

"Good luck," Clark points out. "I don't know if Chloe mentioned it but a lot of weird stuff happens here."

"Yeah she did, something about meteor rocks changing people but believe me compared to Sunnydale this place is about as normal as you can get," Buffy says not quite believing how open she was being. She had avoided at all costs talking about home to anyone. Ok well as long as she doesn't mention slayers, monsters, vampires or demons they'll be fine.

"They give people abilities, altering their DNA," Clark just sort of blurts out and then not believing he had just said that. Why doesn't he just tell her they have the power to kill him while he is at it. What was wrong with him? Why did he just blurt that out? Smallville's weirdness, while well known is just not talked about in public.

Buffy on the other hand is rather intrigued. "Like Mutants? Like in the X-Men movies?"

"Yeah, sort of," is Clark's rather lame reply.

Mutants. Buffy thought Sunnydale was weird but Mutants? Xander would love it here. He could finally use all that comic book knowledge. Giles had never mentioned Mutants could exist but then again his knowledge was about the supernatural not strange rocks from space.

"Next you'll be telling me that aliens exist," Buffy jokes.

Clark just smiles in return. Whoa! She is getting way too close. "Well I've got to go," Clark says standing up. "Like Chloe I have shopping to do." Not a complete lie he did need some things, nothing urgent but Clark needs to leave before he spills his 'I'm an intergalactic traveller' story to a virtual stranger.

As he walks past Buffy he notices actually how petite she is compared to him. Funny he didn't notice it earlier. She seems to have an aura that made her presence larger than her actual frame. She's certainly different maybe that's what caught his attention.

As Clark walks past her, Buffy suddenly notices just how tall he is. Funny she didn't notice it earlier. He seems like he wants to fade into the background and go unnoticed. She knows the feeling. His hand brushes past her and a shiver runs up her spine. There's something more to him, the slayer in her could sense it. Just don't be a demon she thinks. She really doesn't want to kill Clark because even in that rather short conversation he seemed like a nice guy.

Evening time on the farm Clark has been thinking all day about Buffy and not Lana. It bothers him. The love of his life is dead and he had spent all day thinking about another woman. Surely it's too soon. As lovely as Buffy was he knew a few things. There was more to her than met the eye, just call it a gut feeling. Around her this morning he had spilled the unspoken truth of Smallville's weirdness and he couldn't explain why. Normally it was months before he trusted someone enough to explain Smallville's secrets and years before he told them his own. If this morning was an example Buffy would know he was an alien by next week. Then there was Lana. The woman he had sacrificed his powers for and unfortunately he didn't need reminded how that ended. He died and his dads life was exchanged for his. He should really listen to Jor-El more often. Then it occurs to him, maybe now is the time to go for his training after all he did not have anything else to stay for. This was not a decision he should rush, he knew that. He should talk to Chloe and his Mum first and at all costs avoid Buffy Summers.

A few days later Clark had managed to avoid the Talon. He did not have anything against Buffy but his mouth seemed to have a mind of its own around her. He's eating breakfast and reading the paper. There had been several thefts in town by people with unnatural strength. Great Clark thinks, more meteor infected. Just once he would like to meet a nice one who would like to help him. Chloe walks in.

"Morning Clark," she says in her far too cheerful way for his mood.

"Morning Chloe," he replies. "So is Lois still hunting for Lex?" he asks in reference to Chloe's cousin whereabouts as of late.

"Yep. She says she won't rest till she finds this private medical facility he's in and exposes him for the and I quote 'bald headed megalomaniac' he really is."

Clark had to hand it to Lois. Once she was into a story she would pursue it to the bitter end or her end whatever comes first. At least this time he had avoided being dragged along.

"So reading about the thefts are you?" Chloe asks in a tone of voice he knows all to well.

"You want my help to investigate them. You believe meteor infected people are carrying them out," Clark states.

Annoyed by his tone Chloe replies "In case you forgot that includes me these days. Remember the fun day I spent in a morgue because I'm not forgetting it any time soon."

"I'm sorry Chloe," he apologises. God that was insensitive even for him. "I'll help you. Anything you want."

Chloe eyes lit up mischievously. "Anything?"

Clark knows that look. He's in trouble.