Title: Playing Catch Up
Chapter Completed: November 18, 2004



The Kents sat around their kitchen island; Clark and Jonathan perched on breakfast stools while Martha busied herself between the counter and sink.
“Okay son, why don’t you explain that whole mess to your mother and I,” Jonathan had waited for an explanation to the scene at the hospital between the Luthors and Anna Clarkson for three days now. It was time to spill.

Clark took a breath, “It seems Dr. Clarkson had somehow sent Anna here to work for Lionel.” He was carefully picking his words, feeling uncomfortable telling his parents this, “I think it was about money…and she had to…the arrangement included…” The Farm boy blushed and searched the top of the counter, searching the pattern with interest.
Martha dropped the plate she had been washing, causing it to clank in the sink.
Jonathan wanted to clarify, to be sure that what his son had implied and his wife had jumped to, was correct, “Clark, that’s quite an accusation, are you sure?” He knew Lionel was a horrible man, but making the girl sleep with him had to be too much for the tyrant. And what about the father who had sent his child to do this? It had to be wrong.
Clark nodded, “I saw,” she spoke quickly of the groping kiss he had seen in the mansion’s kitchen the morning he delivered produce.

His mother gasped, turning quickly to face him, “Why didn’t you tell anyone, your dad and me?”
“It was a promise, a secret she had to keep,” he shrugged half-heartedly, “It was something she had to do, and I understood that. I understand it.”
Jonathan never ceased to be amazed at how mature his son was, having been forced to be on such things as secrets and the sense of duty.
“But something good came of it,” the boy continued, “She and Lex fell in love.” He almost beamed.
And sometimes, Jonathan mused, shaking his head, he could be so naïve.
“Oh Clark,” Martha threw herself around her son’s broad shoulders, squeezing him in a hug.
“Ma,” he tried to shrugged her off, but smiled brightly.

The bright and shiny family moment was interrupted when outsiders came busting into their kitchen; Chloe and Lex pushed through the door.
Lex was greeted with looks of pity and disgust; and with that he knew Clark had told them the twist family tale. The town’s newest, dirty little secret was out. He attempted to ignore them and their higher morals.
“Have you seen Anna?” he stared directly at Clark. The fist time she had come back to Smallville, Lex had found her waiting at Clark’s – waiting for his comfort. Another thought Lex didn’t like settling in his brain. The first of his logical thoughts had been that maybe, just maybe, she had come for a comforting goodbye. A friendly farewell.
The boy shook his head, “not since the hospital, why?”
But before the question was voiced, Lex was back out the door, muttering a damn it under his breath and slamming his hand against the doorframe. Not at all the image one wants to leave in the collective Kent family brain.
That left Chloe to face the questioning eyes.
Shifting her focus between the three and choosing Martha’s soft sympathy, she replied with a simple, “She left.” Adding a sad half shrug as she turned to follow Lex out, and excuse herself.

“Chloe, wait,” Clark stood once she at her hand on the screen door.
Staring out at the farm’s road, she saw Lex’s car speed back toward the mansion. She feared that he was done following or worse, had just started.. But she stopped at Clark’s request.
“Can we talk?” he whispered to her, careful not to touch her.
Her shoulders slumped, agreeing. Pushing through the door herself, she waited for him on the porch.

Clark really didn’t know where to start with the girl who, hours ago, had cut him out of her life. Shifting from foot to foot, “Are you okay…with Anna and everything?”
Briefly Chloe worried that her eyes were red and puffy from all the crying she had done that afternoon, but realised she was through hiding her emotions. She would no longer smile when everyone expected her to, and she would not keep guarded pain, “It’s really tough loosing a best friend.”
“Don’t I know it,” he muttered, a hang-dog expression on his features.
She let out a sigh, “Clark just…this is all really hard.” She had covered her face, more tears trailing down her cheeks.
“Chloe, I’m really sorry,” he moved to put a comforting hand on her shoulder, “I want to fix everything…I don’t want to loose you too.”
She found herself turning into the embrace his body offered, feeling as though she would always be forgiving him and his annoyances – eventually.

“I don’t want to loose you either Clark, as a friend,” she turned her eyes up at him, wanting to make sure he understood.
He smiled, lopsided, “As a friend.”
The pair shared a warm, and only slightly awkward, hug.

“So,” Clark ran a hand through his hair, “Anna left?”
Chloe nodded sadly, really having no idea what else to say on the subject, but still she rambled on, “Said she needed to, to survive?” she looked up with searching eyes, “Do you think we need to leave Smallville to live, to survive?”
A dark look drifted through his eyes. He gave great thought to the question. Could this town, with all its meteors and its freaks, really suck the life out of the ones who weren’t from here? He thought of Chloe and Lex, and Anna. All their losses and unhappy moments, the way they seem to fade. The way they changed so much.
He looked into her eyes, finding the muted gleam that used to shine at him every morning, rain or shine, crush or no crush. Her eyes used to be much brighter, and he knew it wasn’t just him playing mental games on himself. “Actually, I do…for some people.” He tried to play it off with an unsure shrug, but the seriousness was clear in his eyes, “I’ll always want what’s best for my friends.”

Chloe saw her first glimpse of the man Clark Kent would become – or was that men?