Chapter Text
AN: I recently rewatched Smallville, and obviously, I decided to Go Down With This Ship.
Anyway, I hope this feeds some shippers, though it's only pain, sorry.
If he had seen me
Chapter 1: Letting Go
There it was, this was the moment …he wanted to talk about it, the kiss. What was she supposed to say? Clark, I have loved you since before I even knew what it meant? She knew how that would end; she had tried and tried and tried again, and he had never looked at her the way she looked at him.
What was returned was a gentle smile and kindness; she sometimes hated that he had always been kind about her feelings. His kindness was sometimes the cruellest part.
She couldn’t be angry at him for it.
He loves her, just never in the way she had wanted.
Always the first call, always the constant, always the friend.
She had finally made some peace with that. Love was meant to be felt, not always reciprocated, and she knew that. She knew the sting, could feel the familiar sinking in her stomach at the idea of reopening old wounds.
Chloe realised a long time ago that loving him was hopeless. Even so, some pain leaves scars, and she could never regret the scar she carried for him. A part of her would always be his, truly unconditionally, till her last breath. It didn’t bother her, though at times she felt utterly pathetic for it sometimes.
They were best friends; through everything, they were always there for each other. She was always by his side, holding his secrets, being his sidekick.
She remembers the first time he thanked her for being his friend, how much it meant to him that she was always there.
Chloe and Clark, Clark and Chloe … almost inseparable. He was always there to save her, to save the day, to drag her into his orbit no matter how willing she was. It always felt like he was dragging her, by force, a force of nature. She was the Earth, and Clark was her sun, something life-sustaining. How do you ask anyone to live without the sun? You don’t, it’s not liveable, but she did it, does it, will always do it. Unfortunately, it was the Earth that rotated around the Sun; The Earth needed the Sun; the Sun never needed the Earth.
She would die protecting him, and she knows, or she hopes, he would burn the city down for her. How does she explain that they could talk for hours and never get bored? How does she explain the way they fell in sync during a mission felt as easy as breathing? That at the very thought of her death, she would want him to be one of the last faces she would glance upon. She admits that, just to herself. She has so many near-death and life-changing experiences that she carried just by being near him. But she would never change it. A life without Clark, without her best friend, was almost unthinkable.
A small smile lifts her lips at each memory she shared with him. From chasing meteor freaks and adding to the wall of weird, to him saving her time and time again, to something as normal as the spring formal dance. She held it all, and a part of her still lingered, whispering that the shared moments, the hugs and banter, meant a little more. The hugs she remembers them well after each death-defying incident, after each rescue, he would wrap his arms around her and there in that moment she could pretend that his love meant a little more than it really did. Still searching for something… She breaths in and breathes out, a little shaky but there. She wasn’t that girl from high school anymore. Though she loves him, she made space for more. More space for others to reach her, where once only he could glance at her. They were friends, right?
Friends who had built and destroyed each other in equal measure, he had forgiven her for a lot she had done the same. It wasn’t always perfect, but they showed up when called. That was what was important: that they showed up. Every time. Chloe and Clark, Clark and Chloe, the inseparable pair …almost.
So, when she sees him after the end of the world, she is determined to keep him where they had always been.
“Clark, I knew it was you, it’s always you,”
Those words ring in her head; nothing much has changed since she uttered them.
For her, for him, to be Chloe and Clark.
However when faced directly with her own mortality all she wanted was for him to see her before the world ended. He kissed her back … he held her like there was something more, and she could die with that hope. But now, now was different; they had survived. So, she had to continue moving too.
‘So, about that moment … we shared,” he starts awkwardly, smiling kindly, and a part of her almost remembered she was supposed to be sad. But she smiles brightly, blames it on the end of the world and all that. He accepts, although it is different from all the other times they had dismissed this; he lingers.
His eyes seek her out, his lips part, and no words come out; the silence lingers. She lets it … He wants to continue this, and for a moment, Chloe wants to let him. But she can’t. It had to come from him this time; she was not going to step into the firing line. Not again. Never again, then as quickly as she hoped, she stops. Clark was her friend, her best friend, and she never wanted to lose that. So, she introduces Jimmy, and she tries not to pay attention to his face and the way several different emotions pass through it. His eyes dimmed slightly, and his smile faltered at the introduction. Different, it was different this time, but she couldn’t. She could no longer hope, so she made a quick exit, knowing this way she would remain in his life. She closed the door before he could even knock.
Clark had recently shown her that she was important to him, just never his first choice, even when he was hers. She was just the best friend, and so she understood she fit into the place he made for her. Never with words but with actions, important enough to keep, not to risk losing, but not enough to be everything.
When she walks away, she knows she can feel his eyes follow her despite her acted indifference, and she wishes it were enough like it used to be once upon a time.