Title: MOVING ON--CHLOE'S MIND
Author: smlvlchk

It was another windy day in Smallville, surprise surprise. The weatherman held a secure job in his department at the Daily Planet. It seemed that he was able to predict the weather legitimately every day for the last several months. As long as he included 'windy' in the forecast, he could never be wrong. They did, after all, live in Kansas.

Another phenomenon similar to that of the weatherman was that of Chloe Sullivan’s presence in the Torch offices. It was a blank Tuesday afternoon; the building was empty with the exception of the football players, cheerleaders and select amount of teachers. Chloe, surprise surprise, was sitting at her computer and eating away at the latest article for the Torch.

This day started off as no different from any other. She started by checking her mail, looking through the Daily Planet and then writing to the different members of her crew on the Torch who hadn’t shown up in a while. She hoped for some answers, and, if she was lucky, a story that would prevent her from blowing up the lunch menu to a size seventy-two font, again. That had happened a couple times recently and she had the impression that the student body was beginning to catch on.

Chloe skimmed through her file and browsed for the latest article she was working on. She found it, it was a story about the principle’s new plan for tardiness. "Yippee," Chloe muttered out loud. She double clicked and waited for the document to load. As she was doing so, her cursor brushed over a familiar file. It was the file that contained the pictures of her and Clark at the spring formal almost two years ago.

Letting out a groan, Chloe kicked herself for letting her mind wander to the occasion. But the longer she stared at it, the bigger the temptation was to open it. Without thinking twice she opened it and her gaze fell upon the very handsome boy in a tux who was dancing with her. Clark. The day had nearly been perfect, with the exception of running off to save Lana. Chloe didn’t know if Clark knew how bad he had hurt her feelings, but she was afraid that if she said anything she would push him away further or force him into a relationship because of guilt. That she did not want. If it had happened like that it would have caused them to be in a worse situation than they already were.

It was comforting for her to think that at one point Clark really did have feelings for her like she did, at least she thought he did. It was hard for her to tell with Clark. He was annoyingly secretive and very cautious with his feelings, at least he was with Chloe. Chloe knew through Lana that Clark sent her enough mixed signals to blow a fuse in the basement, and also that he wouldn’t let her in no matter how hard she tried. If Clark didn’t let Lana in, then it was close to impossible for Chloe. At least she knew she wasn’t the only one.

Clark’s secretiveness was a mystery to Chloe. Whenever she found herself talking to the air where Clark once stood it always made her stop and think harder and her suspicions about Clark that much greater. She linked his secrets to the mysterious disappearances.

She also thought it was weird how Clark was always in the right time right when you needed him. Whenever she or Lana were in trouble, Clark always seemed to show up and save the day and bail them out of the trouble they had no doubt gotten themselves into. Like the time Tina Greer had locked Lana in tomb like structure in the cemetery, an above the ground coffin, Clark had rescued her and turned in the shape shifting Tina. She found police reports the next week that reported vandalized coffins at the cemetery. Some headstones had broken off and crumbled, an entire gate was ripped off its hinges to a small hut where a coffin, built of cement about seven inches thick, was crushed to pieces. Coincidence? Maybe, but not likely.

Then there was the time that Ian had forced both her and Lana into his car and drove to the dam where he prepared to kill them. I was the most terrifying moment of her life, well, one of them at least. She had seemed to get into a lot of life threatening circumstances. The funny thing about the whole Ian incident was that Chloe and Lana were verbally angry with Clark and Clark knew it. They realized their mistake, but not soon enough to confront Clark about it. When Clark appeared out of nowhere, as Lana put it, he still assumed that they were upset with him. He didn’t have to go looking for them but he did, he had come to their rescue without question. Chloe wasn’t complaining, but the incident proved some kind of addiction Clark had to saving people.

Over the last couple months, Chloe had been keeping track of police reports though a connection she had inside the offices. She found it interesting that Clark was a witness at over half of the cases, almost two thirds. He had a knack for being in the right place at the right time.

Chloe had done a little research on Clark as a school project and discovered that his family had more secrets than the Al-Qaida. She could only find that his adoption papers had been processed through an agency that had only done one, his. It was an agency sponsored by Lionel Luthor himself. That hit Chloe as very strange, as far as she knew, and it was no secret, Jonathan Kent would never take anything from a Luthor. But was Clark offered for adoption through this agency? If so, Lionel would not have asked her to a complete investigative report on him. So that meant the Kent’s had to have obtained Clark another way and ask this agency to finance it.

However Clark’s adoption went down, it confused Chloe to pieces.

It did, however, explain Lionel’s curiosity. Obviously the mystery of his adoption was as confusing to him as it was to her. Even though he processed the adoption he didn’t know anything about him?

Chloe knew Clark was 'special', but that was from personal experience. Had Lionel had a personal experience with Clark? Had Clark somehow shown himself as a bigger picture to Lionel in someway that would make his interest in him so great?

Looking back, the decision she had made to 'betray' Clark was irrational. She had simply inquired if there was anything he was trying to tell her, which she already knew but was hoping he would tell her to her face. He had lied about him and Lana, or rather, was not upfront about their current status. Chloe remembered being so upset with him that she drove straight to the Luthor mansion and confronted Lionel. She announced she changed her mind about Clark and she was willing to accept an offer she now regretted. She knew that when she was angry or upset she would behave irrationally, but this! This was pure disappointment to her entire soul! Everything she had worked so hard to gain in Clark’s life could be stripped away with this one decision. If she could, obviously, she could take it all back, and not just because of how she’d betrayed Clark but because of how Lionel liked to play dirty and use blackmail. It was really starting to scare her.

The more she thought about it, the more she realized that Lionel wasn’t the only one interested in Clark. It seemed like every newcomer interest in Smallville was sparked by Clark. Roger Nixon had approached her several times and had even gone to the Kent farm trying to dig up information from the spectacles he had seen. It was rumored that he was working for Lex, but Lex had shot him when he was about to kill Jonathan so it wasn’t likely that he was working for him, Lex would have wanted the information out of him. Perry White had just shown up last week and had the same interest in Clark, his interest had sparked the first day he arrived in Smallville. Then again, he thought the Kent tractor had fallen out of the sky. Maybe he wasn’t such a reliable source. Regardless, it was the very idea that he had even was interested in Clark that made Chloe’s circuits start working again.

Every time someone came to Smallville, such as Perry or Nixon, they had left either dead or convinced otherwise. Chloe knew that Clark had probably convinced Perry he was drunk, which he was, when he was claiming the wondrous things about Clark, but Chloe still had to wonder; was it because there was nothing going on or because there was a secret that Clark was trying to hide that was bigger than any of them?

Chloe thought long and hard about everything, and no matter what conclusion she came to, none made sense. They did, however, live in Smallville and it would make sense just because of that. But as her title of "girl reporter" she had no background information to back up her hypothesis which made her investigation for Lionel worthless. She did not put her heart into the investigation as she had done in the past for freak issues. Every single time a new freak of the week came along she would push the information until she found out the source. Why were they like that and what could they do? She had not done that for Clark.

She knew that it was probably because she still cared about Clark. Not probably, it was because she still cared about Clark. It was just her irrational behavior during a vulnerable point in her life that made her regret her actions.

Maybe, Chloe thought, I should just be honest with Clark. About my suspicions, about my job with Lionel, about everything. Except my feelings.

Her feelings no longer mattered, she realized. During the course of the summer and beginning of the year she had came to the conclusion that no matter what Clark did, or didn’t, do, no matter what he said, or didn’t, say, it would not change the way she felt about him inside. She realized that Clark’s friendship meant more to her than any love relationship would. Maybe just from seeing his and Lana’s relationship deteriorate made her realize that being the his friend would be the safest thing to do, for anyone. Clark has more issues than he knows what to do with and she fully comprehended that when he and Lana split.

Half conscious at this point, Chloe jumped when she looked at her computer screen and saw Clark. She laughed nervously to herself and clicked on the next photo, then the next. And the next. She rambled through the remainder of the twenty six pictures she had of Clark and herself from the dance. It really was an incredible night, while it lasted. But now, for some strange reason, she no longer felt attached to the pictures like they were a struggling attempt to hang on to something that had only brazed the tips of her fingers.

She no longer felt the same attraction to Clark that she had felt for as long as she knew him. She felt the love for him as he felt for her: a true friend.

One by one she deleted them. She deleted them all.

No sooner had she emptied the recycle bin than the door swung open and there stood a boy who she had only been thinking about for the past hour.

"Hey," Clark flashed his famous Kent shine. He held up two mochas in his hands and asked, "Care for a coffee break?"