Eveything Changes but Some Things Don't

Chapter 27

“Shit! Fuck! Why did my allergies have to act up right then, why?!” Chloe kept saying to herself as she ran through hall after hall in a dark and abandoned building. One of her sources had called and told her Lex was up to something in this abandoned building that they had seen people being hurt and Chloe wanted to check it out. See what Lex was up to this time. Ever since she had been working at the Daily Planet she had found Lex up to something just barely legal almost quarterly. He had been quiet for a while now and her instinct was saying he was up to something really bad this time. Now she knew what it was, he was starting experiments on meteor freaks and how to create meteor freaks with the talents he wanted. But as she was taking some pictures dust had been tossed up by her moving around behind the stacks of boxes where she hid which caused her to give up her spot with a sneeze or two. Now she was running for her life from two goons with guns.

Suddenly she saw a metal door and opened it shoving it quickly shut behind her but as she looked around her she found herself trapped. The room had nothing but a few boxes, a chair, a metal bar on the floor. The room was other but a metal, wood, and glass box. Her only way out if she was that desperate would be to jump out the window and she really wasn’t that desperate thank you very much.

“Fuck!” she said softly but just as she was looking around to see if there was a good place to hide the door opened to admit one of the goons.

“Your coming with me lady, now come on Ms. Lane,” the goon said brandishing his weapon.

“Do you really think that a wise thing to do? What if that thing’s loaded? You could shoot somebody,” Chloe aka Lois Lane said putting her hands up in front of her in a pacifying gesture and stepping back away from the man

“Oh it’s loaded, lady. And if you don’t come to talk to the boss I will be shooting someone, you,” he said stepping towards her

“See that really doesn’t encourage me to go with you,” she said with some sarcasm to try and cover her fear.

Just then the man leaped at her and she ducked out of the way letting him fly over her head. She quickly got up and began running away but the other goon hearing the commotion had come just in time to block her way. Chloe abruptly stopped mid run with a squeak of her heels and looked around her.

“Okay, so my only options now are to go with them or fight my way out. I guess I’m gonna be testing those fighting skills Oliver taught me,” she thought to herself weighing her options.

She quickly got herself in a position to watch both the men as they moved around. When one came at her she leaped away and grabbed the metal bar not even questioning why a metal bar was left in a room and slammed it into the side of his head with a loud and wet ‘smack’ he hit the wall and went down out cold. Before she could do anything else with the bar the other guy had fired at her with his gun. The bullet didn’t hit her but it did shatter the window a bit which when she added her weight to it on accident she fell right through. Chloe had turned sideways trying to avoid getting hit but her momentum and the bullet’s force sent her right into and through the window.

She was now falling through the night sky with lights from building windows all around her like stars screaming the only thing she could at that moment as her life, her son’s life flashed before her eyes. As she fell she screamed the one name she always had and always would when she was in danger, “Clark!”

She would be hitting the ground soon and dying from the impact of a 40 foot fall and all she saw in the back of her eyes was Clark and her son. It would always be Clark she looked too save her but if he hadn’t come when she was in other dangerous situations in the past six years why would he come now. Because he always came sooner or later, he always came. But as the ground came closer and closer it seemed she accepted that maybe she wasn’t meant to be saved this time and closed her eyes with such a calm and sincere look over coming her that it was almost frightening how calm she was as she said the only thing she could, “I’m sorry baby. Mommy will always be with you.”

But suddenly it was as if someone had hit the pause button and she wasn’t moving at all. She slowly opened her eyes and found herself looking at a wall of blue with some red and yellow. Then just as suddenly a voice she hadn’t heard in six years spoke from above her slightly, “I flew back to you like you hoped I would and just in time it seems or would have been a not-so-lovely addition to the roads below.”

Before she could think she was snarking back, “You couldn’t have caught me before I reached half way to being a pancake,” as she looked up to the cool blue eyes of her oldest and dearest friend Clark Kent.

“Yes, well I thought this would be more of dramatic return, what do you think?” Clark laughed nervously.

“Oh its dramatic alright and not that I’m not thrilled you finally got whatever counts as Kryptonian wings but could you either put me on the ground preferably on my feet or fly me home before I lose consciousness from sheer relief of actually being alive,” she said placing her face to his chest to block out that she was floating 20 feet above the ground and the only thing keeping her there were two very strong arms. Not that she was afraid of falling from his grasp she knew Clark would never drop her it was just the fact that only two arms were keeping her from falling to her death.

“I think I can handle that, what way?”

“Ohh that involves me looking around us doesn’t it? Give me and my stomach a second ok.”

“Okay,” Clark said softly.

When Chloe thought her stomach could handle it she looked around thinking over where the abandoned building was compared to her home and then pointed to her right and said, “that way until you reach the Watch Tower.”

As Clark started off towards her home going slowly as not to upset her he asked quietly, “You kept it?”

“Yep and updated it too. A couple of times,” she smirked.

“Chloe,” he said with an exasperated tone.

“Its Lois Lane now,” she commented quietly.

“I know I made it so the Fortress could get TV news reports from all over the planet. So I would know what I was coming back to when I did come back.”

“I knew you’d be back sooner or later. You couldn’t have chosen sooner? You were at the Fortress, I thought it was useless?”

“I wasn’t ready to come back before Chloe oh wait Lois now. I’m guessing because you took her name they never found Lois. It was for awhile, but I said I was going to be the hero the world needed so I began fixing it up and training like Jor-el’s AI wanted me too so long ago and now I’m back to do my duty by the world.”

“No they didn’t. I’m glad your back Clark. Down there!” She said pointing out the balcony to her upstairs living room out. As Clark softly landed and placed her on her feet she kept a firm grip on his arms to at first stead her as she got her legs under her and then because she was afraid he would disappear from her life again as quickly as he came.

“I’m not going anywhere Chloe. I’m home,” he said watching her closely like he always used to as if he read her mind and wanted to calm her fears.

“Yeah, you are.” She said as softly as she looked him up and down in his costume.

The costume was so not the Clark she used to know but it fit the new Clark, the hero Clark like a glove. It was a blue leather body suit with red boots that came to above his calves, red underwear looking covers over his…well over that area with a yellow belt, a red cape she remembered an actress he had saved once giving him and a yellow shield with red outline and a huge red S in the center of it. She knew that this symbol was his Kryptonian family’s symbol. The symbol of the El family.

Before she knew it she was touching the El family symbol above his chest and then hugging herself to him saying, “Oh, Clark I missed you so much! Please don’t ever go away again. I couldn’t stand it.”

Clark hugged her back taking her in, taking her scent in, her heartbeat. He was committing everything about this Chloe, this Lois Lane to memory. Chloe had once said her blonde hair wasn’t natural even though it worked wonderfully for her he thought, but to see her natural, natural dark brown hair finally it was breath taking. She was even more beautiful than he remembered and he never wanted to leave her again, but suddenly a slight noise from inside the apartment startled him into letting her go. He stepped away from her using his x-ray vision to see if anything was wrong in the apartment but all he could find was a little boy having a fitful sleep in his room.

This confused Clark for a moment but then it hit him like a truck Chloe and Oliver had a son. So trying to hide his pain and succeeding quite well he said softly, “Your son is having a nightmare you better go check on him Ms. Lane.”

“Ms. Lane? Is that what I am now?”

“It’s better this way. For everyone. Please Chloe don’t,” Clark said voice tight.

“Don’t. Don’t what ask why my best friend hasn’t been around for the past six years when I needed him with me? Don’t ask why you had to go, why you’ve come back now, what you’re going to do now? I think these are all very reasonable questions Clark.”

“They are, but I can’t answer them now. But I promise you I will just don’t press right now ok.”

Seeing the almost desperate look in his eyes she backed down with a soothing, “Okay Clark. I’ll wait until you’re ready to talk. You know where I am if you ever need me.”

“And if you ever need me all you have to do is say my name and I’ll be there,” but before she could reply his head swiveled to face out to sea and he got a serious look on his face.

“What?! What is it?”

“Japanese liner got caught on a sandbar.”

“Go,” she said pushing on his shoulder but when he didn’t move to go she said again, “Go, Clark! They need you,” and with that he looked at her, smiled softly and leaped into the sky and flew off in a flash of red and blue.