Quietly Devoured

Quietly Devoured: The sequel to The Making of a Monster

Paring: Chloe/Clark Luthor (UltraMan)

Spoilers: Set after Doomsday (between Seasons 8 and 9)

Chapter One

Chloe sighed, pushed back her covers and got up, deftly slipping her feet into her slippers. She made herself a coffee then padded to the window to look down on the city. Most of the building lights were off as families, husbands, wives, sons and daughters, all slept soundly in their beds.

Chloe wondered how many of them realised how easily everything could be ripped away from them. Would they sleep so easily if they knew?

She turned around and looked at the apartment Jimmy had bought for her as a wedding gift. The apartment they had never got to share. Her gaze was drawn to the long gone but never forgotten blood stain, the one that cost Jimmy his life.

This place was beautiful and Chloe could easily have turned it into a wonderful home. The problem was that no matter what she did to it now, it would never be a home. Jimmy was dead, Clark had abandoned her, Lois was missing and Oliver, Bart and Dinah were off the grid.

Chloe reasoned that she would probably find it easier to sleep if she bought an actual bed instead of sleeping on a cot but she couldn't bring herself to furnish it properly. The monastic feel to the loft apartment felt right; she deserved to be doing penance for what she had done to Jimmy.

She sighed heavily and, resigned to another sleepless night, she got dressed in jeans, a warm sweater and black boots. Even though the worst thing she could imagine had already come to pass, she could never shake the feeling that something awful was about to happen so she preferred to stay fully dressed and alert, just in case. That was also why she'd bought the gun. Clark would never approve but then again, Clark wasn't here.

For lack of anything better to do, she headed to the boxes that Martha Kent had sent over. It was a collection of Kryptonian artefacts that Lionel had collected during his life and left to Martha in his will. Martha thought they might be useful to Clark but was unwilling to send it to the farm since Clark was away so she had sent them to Chloe for safekeeping, or at least until Clark returned.

The thing was though, Clark wasn't away, not really. Every morning the news covered another miraculous rescue with a new House of El symbol burned into the wall. Clark was in Metropolis, he just didn't want anything to do with to her.

It hurt.

She knew that compared to the myriad of other losses she was feeling right now, she shouldn't be this upset but Clark was her best friend. They had been through so much together and Chloe had always stood by his side, even when that meant denying her own needs. The one time she needed him, really needed him, he was out rescuing strangers instead.

She tried to push those thought aside since they only served to depress her, and concentrate on cataloguing the artefacts.

As the sun rose, casting beautiful patterns through the stained glass windows, she was on the third box. She didn't know what to call most of the objects so she simply described them, figuring that if and when something was needed, it would be easier to find. She picked up a silver octahedron with a Kryptonian symbol engraved upon it. It looked familiar but she wasn't sure where from. The symbol looked to be off centre and Chloe noticed that the artefact was hinged in the middle. She realised that if it were twisted, the symbol should line up, so she did so.

Chloe was suddenly overtaken by a bright, blinding light and the next thing she knew, she was waking up on the apartment floor.

As she sat up she realised that she'd been robbed. The boxes and the few pieces of furniture she'd bought were gone. She wondered how long she'd been out and checked her watch, only to discover that she'd been out for just a few minutes.