Always

Disclaimer: if they belonged to me, Blana would never get more than three seconds per hour on screen (and that only to keep the others from looking like they were talking to thin air).

Takes place (potential spoiler): immediately after Chloe's last line in "Scare," which would have been a damn sight better episode with no Blana in it at all.

Why: because I'm sick and tired of the writers treating us like cat toys.

A/N: your fault for bringing it up in the first place, LaCasta.

"If you can't tell your best friend, then who can you tell?"

Clark wasn't quite sure what to make of her tone. Not exactly hopeful. Maybe a little wistful. More like she didn't really expect an answer. As if -- despite her brave words -- she'd already resigned herself to being separated, by her own secret as well as his. To being alone again.

"Right, Clark?"

And this time there was no mistaking the stoic surrender. She had offered him a chance to lighten his own load, for his own sake, rather than for her innate curiosity, or even out of her desire to learn why her best friend didn't seem to trust her. She was simply trying to reach out to him the best way she knew how, by offering to share the burden of secrets.

/ I can't imagine living my whole life like that./

That was a little more blatant than a hint. She knew SOMEthing of what he was hiding, then. Yet she still wanted to be there for him, to be able to return a little of what she believed he had just given her, just by listening and accepting -- if not always, then at least for now.

She wanted him to feel as if she still had her own strength to offer.

She hadn't really expected him to take her up on it.

He looked up at her from under his bangs, an unconscious gesture from when he was small and trying to be apologetic for having broken something that mere human strength could not have endangered. "Would it help if I said I appreciate that?" He hoped that she would understand that the lack of force in his voice was from sympathy for her distress, from walking-on-eggs carefulness in trying not to hurt her any more by accident, not from any lack of conviction. "It's just.... Some of the things about me are things no one really wants to know. I wouldn't be doing you any favors to unload on you, Chloe. Especially not right now."

Anger flared in the emotions warring for control of her, anger that she all too obviously tamped down the same way she was holding terror and grief in rein. / You don't trust me./ He could read it as easily as he could the slight tightening on his parents' face when he told them a little lie, to try to spare them any more burdens from their strange son.

/ You don't trust me to be able to deal with whatever you're going through. You think I can't handle it./

/ You don't believe in me./

"You might," she forced out, "try me. I might appreciate the distraction."

Chloe's pain cut into Clark worse than the green rocks had ever been able to do. His own nightmare, he was realizing, had been mercifully brief -- and relatively trivial. It was a generic and abstract summation of fears, nothing based in reality.

Chloe's was one she had to live with in the waking world as well.

He did not, after all, believe any more -- not consciously, at least -- that he was responsible for all the destruction done by the meteor shower, or all the problems it had caused since. If it had been up to him, the damn rocks would all have headed straight for the sun, himself included, and let Krypton's plans for Earth die once and for all.

Nor was he really afraid that any of his friends would actually betray him, except by accident (and he still owed Pete a heartfelt thanks, on a regular basis, for keeping him from making a really stupid mistake in putting such a burden on Lana, when she was so obviously unequipped to deal with it. It had been a thoughtless childish selfish impulse to try to make her -- what? Love him?)

He certainly didn't think it realistic that anyone he trusted would try to kill him, with malice aforethought and true wholehearted intent, much less be successful at it, barring some kind of mind control more effective than any of the variety they'd been subjected to so far. He seemed destined to lose the battles but win the wars.

That his subconscious had dredged up Lana to represent the faceless generic "they," the ones his parents had raised him to be fearful of being discovered by, might have been just because she had been in his arms right before he slipped from waking reality to fugue state.

(Though it begged the question of why Lex hadn't then figured more prominently, and at just what point he had collapsed himself. Lex in the real-life version had been nothing like the Lex he thought he would have to distrust and fear.)

That was, all else being equally suspect, the charitable explanation, anyway. It might also be because he actually WAS, more and more, seeing Lana as just another face in the crowd.

(Or maybe the worst part of his nightmare, radiation poisoning as just a sadistic garnish aside, was being stuck listening to her pity-me speech again. He was so fed up with hearing her replay her fifteen-year-old tragedy, as if she were the only one in the history of the world who had ever lost parents, that he was about ready to give her another kryptonite necklace just to remind him to keep his distance.)

But what Chloe had been subjected to, without even having the warning that chemically-induced nightmares were waiting to snag them out of unwary wakefulness, was the reality she had already secretly been facing made brutally into flesh: the morbid knowledge that she, too, might be susceptible to incurable insanity.

For someone who lived by her wits and intuition, whose most powerful weapon was her honed intelligence and will, there couldn't possibly be anything worse than the threat that it would slip away.

His own hand seemed to weigh more than a tractor. It took a determined physical effort to lift it and let it rest, feather-light, on her shoulder. "This isn't about trying, or trusting, Chloe," he said, as firmly as he could manage, which wasn't very. "This is about something all too real." Harsh, but better than nothing. Better than saccharine reassurances. Better than pity.

Better than lies.

"I can't tell you there's nothing to be afraid of. I can tell you that my bet is on you, any day. I know as well as anyone how strong you are. And how determined. I've seen you dig up resources no one else knew existed, just to follow a story."

(Some of them quite a bit less than legal, and Clark was torn between the horrified disapproval he'd been taught to feel for that, and rebellious pride in her for being able to do it.)

"Most of all, Chloe, you've never failed when it comes to helping a friend. I have to believe in you. You've earned that. And I believe that nothing can beat you, no matter what the odds. If there's a way out, you'll always find it."

This time the other hand wasn't quite so much of an effort. He took both her shoulders, gently (always gently, so very carefully!) but not with any hint of hesitation. He wanted her to accept this, to believe solidly that he meant this, and he was willing to do whatever it took to convince her.

Absolutely anything, he realized suddenly, not really even surprised at himself for once. Chloe, herself, was worth anything.

"I can't promise I'll always be there for you, either. But I can promise that I'll try. No matter what it takes. I won't let you down if I can possibly help it. If it's the last thing I can do."

Chloe's smile was tiny through the incipient tears, and the hand she laid on top of his trembled. He saw the determination come back into her eyes, though, and realized a second later that she was not only facing her fear, but looking past it. Looking for a big picture, for the pieces that fit, for the truth behind the tapestry. Building a foundation to work from, for herself and for him both.

Like Sagan, she didn't want to 'believe.' She wanted to KNOW.

"That's a pretty big promise, coming from you, Clark." Soft. Her voice was accepting, not pushing. But still asking, maybe even pleading, for him to give her something to base her confidence on, to justify the trust she was willing to offer him if he would only encourage just it a little.

Still offering to let him share. Still wanting to prove that she could at least give him that.

Clark bit back his automatic reaction of ingrained denial. Chloe made him want to hide even when she wasn't pushing.

He was afraid of Chloe, he realized -- afraid of her bold leaps, afraid of her penetrating insights.

He'd lashed back at her too many times, the reflexive defensiveness of fear, even knowing it would hurt her, without realizing that it wasn't just because he was annoyed at her probing. Chloe embodied the fear that his parents had ingrained in him since before he could understand English.

/ Always hide yourself, son./

Chloe frightened him. If she had been the one torturing him in his nightmare, it might have sent him deeper into despair instead of snapping him out of it when it got too stupid to sustain.

Except, he realized, that even in his deepest subconscious, he didn't believe Chloe would ever dream of doing such a thing.

/ Can you imagine being from another planet? The experiences you could share? -- I think aliens would be a step up./

He had treasured that little revelation for years now, even while forbidding himself to do anything about it. But he knew, without question, that Chloe would never have put that terrible inflection on "You're not even human" that his nightmare Lana, and a drugged-to-desperation Lex, had burned him so deeply with.

/ People are afraid of what they don't understand./

He was afraid of Chloe. But Chloe wasn't afraid of him.

"Not really." He let out a breath that he literally did not realize he'd been holding. (And for how long? Someone with Chloe's powers of observation, even in her distraught state, might have made a mental note that someone wasn't breathing if it went on for more than half a minute.) He smiled a little. "You're a lot more amazing than I am."

Chloe snorted, dashing the trembling tears. "I'm not the one who flips over trailers and does four-second miles, Clark."

Wha -- ! Oh, lordy. Why had he ever bothered to think he could fool Chloe? Of course she had seen the wreckage of the trailer he had pushed over to get his dad out, after having seen it sitting squarely upright when they were searching for him the first time.

Everyone else had been buzzing about Lex shooting Nixon. Chloe had taken THAT for granted. ("So Lex carries, what else is new? What I really want to see is Lex brain someone with one of those weapons he keeps all over his walls.")

"I don't -- " he froze, catching himself halfway into the act of automatically dismissing any such thing, of standing and turning away.

Froze at the automatic easiness of his reflex hiding, his default resorting to prevarication. Froze at the sudden tension in the tiny muscles around Chloe's eyes, bracing herself for another lie. Another rejection. Froze, realizing that he was about to drive her back into herself, take away the helping hand he had just offered, deny all that he had just promised about not letting her face her fears alone.

She had given him every opening, every possible way to ease him into letting go. It would be, well, unforgivably stupid, to go to so much effort to avoid her again, and waste the opportunity.

"I don't," he settled back and started again, with a casualness that took more of an effort than staying upright when Lionel had shoved his kryptonite key right into his face, "Usually flip over trailers for the fun of it, Chloe. I was just really worried about my dad. And I don't --" he did the math in his head, and blinked, her toss-off analogous figure was closer than she knew. "Well, yeah, I have done a four-second mile, but dad got all over my case about the sonic boom. It wasn't very big, but the broken windows came out of my allowance."

Forcing himself to treat it lightly actually physically hurt, and he could barely hide the embarrassment behind wryness, but he owed her this. "I usually hold it down to five-second miles."

"You -- " Chloe's mouth dropped open, but the look in her eyes wasn't shock. Astonishment, maybe, but there was dawning joy in the way the corners turned up. He got the distinct impression that what she was about to say wasn't at all related to disbelief, except that he was finally admitting it out loud to her.

"Yeah, me." He managed a lopsided smile, thoroughly aware of the fear still coiling in his gut. "It's not much, compared to what you're facing -- what you've faced. But if it's all I can offer, it's yours. If I can be there for you."

Chloe's hand came back up, to touch his face this time, tracing his cheek, cupping his chin wonderingly, as if to make sure he was real. Her forefinger pushed lightly, impudently, at his nose. "Was this part of your greatest fear, Clark? That you'd rather be alone, hiding everything, than come right out and tell someone about yourself? Including me?"

He swallowed. Tearing away at the web of lies actually felt exhilarating, like running at full speed, but maybe he shouldn't carry it too far. No, there were some things in that nightmare better left unsaid to anyone. "Yes, and no." Deep breath. Plunge in. "Yes, you scare me, Chloe. You've scared the pants off me ever since eighth grade, the way you always go rushing into things. You're like a force of nature.

"Yes, I've always been afraid of being, well, found out. I've spent so long hiding, it's almost as hard to figure out how to say anything as it is not to. You can understand why, can't you?"

He'd meant it rhetorically, but she gave a firm nod, even though her hand never left his face. "But afraid of you, personally, finding out? No ... not really, Chloe. If there were ever anyone that I thought I could trust -- that I hoped I could trust -- it was you."

If he'd thought that would distract her, he'd misjudged Chloe yet again. Her intent expression did not change. "And Pete?" she prompted gently.

"Uh -- yes, and Pete. I was sort of -- I had to tell him, when he found the spaceship. I'm not sure he was ever really happy about it afterwards, though."

Chloe's eyes did a little dance. She let her hand drop long enough to scrub her arm across her face, snuffling, but reached for his hand again immediately. Making sure, Clark realized, that he didn't think she was rejecting him. "Spaceship," she repeated encouragingly.

"Oh. Um. Darn it, I didn't mean to throw it all at you at once. Yeah, spaceship. I'm -- I'm not human."

Chloe stopped breathing herself for a few seconds, going very still. / Now I've done it for sure./

Then her hand tightened on his. "Says who?" she demanded.

"Says who? Chloe, I was born on another planet. I wasn't mutated by the meteor fall. I came here with it."

To his astonishment, all Chloe gave was a little laugh, wiping at her eyes again. "Well, that's a relief. Most of the meteor freaks go crazy. I was afraid maybe both of us were heading for the nuthouse together. Hell, Lex could come visit and it would be old home week." Her voice broke. "Clark.... Are you really telling me this? I'm not going crazy already, am I?"

Clark said a word in his head that would have gotten his mouth washed out with soap at home, superhuman strength notwithstanding. "No! Oh, Chloe.... I'm sorry. I wasn't thinking. It was really stupid of me to -- " to give in, and do what I'd always fantasized about -- "lay all this on you. Especially right now, with all you're going through. I was," his own voice wavered, "I thought I was ... that you ... really, it sounded like you already knew. That you only wanted me to ... admit it."

"Stop." Chloe's voice was soft, but brooked no argument. "I did want you to, Clark. I'm glad -- you don't know how glad -- that you finally decided to trust me. It makes me think, maybe, that I can trust you about the rest, too. That I can -- that you really will be there when I need you."

It was like sunlight, restoring him, relieving him. "I'll be there." His hand tightened on hers (carefully, carefully!) in return. "Even if Lionel locks me up in a kryptonite cell, I'll find some way to be there." He met her eyes, unreservedly now, unguardedly, and saw the look returned. Hope struggled its way upright. "I meant what I said to begin with. If I possibly can ... I will always be there."

She searched his eyes for a long, quiet moment, and seemed to be satisfied with what she found. The rigidly concealed fear in her own expression began to fade. "Then -- I will be, too. Whatever it takes -- if I possibly can, I'll be there for you. Always."

It was a promise no one had even tried to make for him before. His parents, his only real lifeline, had delicately but firmly reminded him on a regular basis that they wouldn't always be there for him.

/ I wish I could say that I'll always be there for you. But somehow I get the feeling that may not be a promise I can keep./

Chloe, young and small and vibrant in her innocence; Chloe, facing a trauma that would have paralyzed some people, Chloe, holding hands with an alien, had fought through her own worst fear and promised to put herself on the line for him -- not just in spite of the fact that he was Other, but because of it.

He swallowed, telling himself resolutely that his eyes were invulnerable, they didn't need to leak extra fluid.

"Kryptonite?"

He flinched at her unexpected change of subject; even the thought of the stuff made his gut tighten. It certainly didn't fit into the train of thought he'd been pursuing. "What?"

"I got the gist of the problem from words like 'Lionel' and 'locked up in a cell,' but what on Earth is kryptonite?"

"Oh." Clark fought down the reflexive willies. "Um, that was another thing I didn't mean to dump on you. The meteorites that trashed the town and caused all the mutation problems are pieces of the planet where I was born. It was called Krypton. It blew up, I think. The pieces that are left -- the ones that came with me, anyway -- well, you know how dangerous they are." He shrugged, embarrassed. "They're even worse for me."

"Oh." Chloe blinked, twice, then again to make sure he was still standing in front of her.

/ Pieces that are left? Blew up? Clark. God. What do I say to that?/

"Like Lana's necklace? Is that why you always looked like you'd been into the corn squeezings whenever you came near her? And here I thought it was just her sparkling personality wearing on you." Chloe gave a small giggle, just short of hysteria. "I'm sorry, that wasn't funny. But what I said, about what on Earth, and they're not from Earth at all. But then, neither are you. And then there's Lana...."

She threw her arms out, pseudo-dramatically, making sounds that should have been amusing but weren't. "And Mr. Kent would shoot me, twice, if he heard me thinking that you made corn shine on your farm. But I'm not crazy, really I'm not. I'm just ... I'm best friends with the greatest guy on Earth, even if he isn't from Earth. Hah! Clark?" The giggly tone died. "Am I babbling?"

"You're making perfect sense to me." He smiled. "But then, I've had a lot of practice in trying to keep up with the editor of the Torch when she goes off on six different tangents. If you didn't babble when someone dropped the story of the year on you, I'd think you'd been, well, replaced by a pod person. Which, around here, isn't all that unlikely, come to think of it."

Chloe laughed, and then sobered, faster than Clark could adjust even at superhuman speed. "Story?" She frowned. "Who said anything about a story? Clark, you don't think I would -- ? I think I've just been insulted. You wouldn't write up what I told you about my mother for a story. Would you?"

"Wha-? Of course not! Oh." Ow. Chloe could still leave him light-years behind. "Yeah, I guess that was pretty rude of me. I should have known better -- I should have known you better -- than to even think something like that." Indignation and apology played tug-of-war with Clark's precarious balance. He lost.

/ I did just tell Chloe what I was. I did just screw over everything I've ever been taught about hiding. Dad is going to throw things for sure. Maybe even mom will./

"I just ... sometimes I fantasize about what it would be like, to admit what I am to my friends. You know, the daydreams you know are never going to come true. It's never -- it doesn't match the real thing."

"Admit...?" Chloe's expression softened. "Yeah.... Yeah, that's kind of what I've been feeling. That I can't admit to a secret family shame. It would, it would change the way people thought of me. They'd look at me different."

"What...? Chloe, it isn't your fault! How could it change the way people think about you? You're, you're -- you're still, well, you!"

Chloe touched his face again, a wistful caress. "And you're still Clark, the kid I set my sights on back in eighth grade. Only now, I guess I can't set my sights on anybody, huh? It wouldn't be ... fair to them. Not knowing what they might be getting into."

He took her hand and stilled it. (Carefully, carefully!) "That's, well, my mom doesn't let me say things like that. But now maybe you understand why I could never get serious with you. It wouldn't be fair to you to lead you on, not knowing I wasn't human."

Chloe slapped at his hand. "That's...! Well, my dad does say things like that! But only after a really bad day. Clark, where you come from doesn't change how I feel about you. How any of us feel about you. I mean, it could be way worse; you could come from a bunch of morons or dictator wanna-bes like the major-league a-holes in charge right now. I mean, your people -- uh, that is, the planet you came from, they had star travel, they had to have something going on in the brain department, you know? And if you're any kind of example, they were good and decent and kind people. You're one of the best people I know, along with your parents and my dad. Don't ever let anyone say you're not human."

The shot cut deeper than she could imagine, but a smile touched his face anyway at Chloe's wonderfully typical venting. / You've only ever seen me drugged on red kryptonite. I hope you never have to come face to face with Kal-El./

/ Then again, if anyone would would dare to team up with Kal-El against an even worse enemy, it would be you./

"There's another long story there, but we can skip it for today. In fact -- " seeing her reflexive protest start up, he held up a hand in placation -- "We can skip it for a really long time, would be my preference. But I'll make you a promise to tell you all about it after your first Pulitzer. We'll probably both be ready for some corn squeezings by then."

Chloe snorted at the thought; Clark sounded an awful lot like her dad proclaiming that something or other called for a beer. Then reality tightened around her again. "Clark, I want to, but I -- I may not have -- that kind of time."

"You will." He summoned conviction to his voice, and suddenly he did believe it himself. The answer was there, to everything. Maybe it was his unwanted heritage coming to some good use after all -- wasn't Jor-El supposed to be some kind of mad scientist? Why else send an infant to a planet where he'd be a freak, if not for some kind of weird experiment?

/ If anyone can take on that kind of enemy, it would be Chloe./

"Think of it, Chloe: what's the one thing you do best? Besides hound people," he added, to see if it would lighten her mood.

It did, a little. "Be a reporter, you mean? That's kind of the same thing, anyway, isn't it? Finding out things, putting things together. That's all I've ever wanted to do."

"That's the good part. It could be worse, you could be secretive as well as nosy, like Lex. Or you could be an engineer, and only want to take things apart. Seriously, Chloe. What is it you mostly investigate?"

She stiffened. "Freaks, you mean?"

/ My best friend included?/

"No." To her immense relief, Clark didn't even seem to be paying attention to that. He was on a roll, and not easily distracted, even by his own habitual mopery.

And he never thought he'd be so completely grateful for Chloe's incessant curiosity about all things unusual. But it wasn't all that big a leap at all to see that putting her on the track of a problem to be solved was right up her alley.

"The reasons for the freaks. The causes, Chloe, the scientific causes. And what to do about them." He paused, as if offering a gift he wasn't sure would be welcomed. "Research. Science. Discoveries."

The gift took root. Chloe was not slow on the uptake -- she was only afraid to let herself believe. "You mean like .. maybe cures?"

"Yes!" Forgetting himself, he lifted Chloe and swung her around. It was, after all, easier than picking up a kitten for him.

"Hey!" Despite herself, Chloe giggled as she batted at his hands. No one had done that to her since she was a very small child.

It made her feel young again. Safe. Secure in the arms of someone stronger.

"Whoops." He put her down (gently, gently!) and looked up at her from under his disordered bangs. "Sorry. Um. It could have been worse, you know."

"How, you spin my car around like a top? Never mind," she added hastily, at his not-at-all surprised raised eyebrow. "So I should become a scientist?" She made a face. "After the mess I made in the chemistry lab? And I refuse to dissect frogs."

"No, no, not a scientist." He waved his hands dismissively. If there's one thing he couldn't see Chloe in, it was a long white lab coat. "A science REPORTER."

"Ah!" Chloe's eyes lit up. "You mean chasing down the Dr. Hamiltons and Dr. Tangs and digging out their skeletons. Uck, actually, anybody like the originals probably does have skeletons hidden away. Not such a great idea, that part. But I get your drift. Find out who might be working on treatments for, well, things, and maybe prod them along a little."

"And get people together who are working along the same lines, get them to share their findings. I mean, if you can get Lex motivated to move on something, you can get ANYONE to cooperate."

"I like it." Chloe's expression went far away, pensively, and Clark mentally gave himself two points. Chloe, herself, was back. If it took kicking down his own internal walls to get her attention, to earn her trust and belief, he would just have to live with the nightmares. Chloe was worth it.

"Maybe most scientists won't be dangerous nutcases, either," he encouraged, though not very optimistically.

Chloe scoffed. "Don't take all the fun out of it, Clark. Making science reporting interesting to the general public is hard work. You're not going to get a Howard Trevor Jacobs every day. Who's going to buy my pieces, much less read them, if I don't have my life threatened by some of them?"

Heh, and if anyone would bring the mad scientists out of the woodwork, it would be Chloe. "Now you sound like your cousin," he teased.

"Now you're getting insulting." Chloe cuffed at him. "Don't make me write a piece on the secret life of farmboys lusting after coffee shop waitresses."

And Clark was surprised (though not astonished) to feel no twinge at all at the thought of relegating Lana to the background. "It could be worse," he said seriously, managing a straight face only with long practice at hiding himself.

"Oh yeah? How?" And her eyes were dangerous with a speculative glint.

"You could have called me 'superboy.'"

Chloe's laughter warmed him inside the way even sunlight never had.