Title: Never Attainable
Author/Artist: Apache Firecat
Rating: G/K
Warnings: None
Word Count: 880
Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction created for fun and no profit has been made. Rights belong to the respective creators.
Notes: dove_drabbles 100: Express What's In Your Heart, All Bingo: Secret Crush, and Fan FlashWorks 362: Brave
Summary: Their dreams will never be attainable.
Disclaimer: All characters within belong to DC Comics, not the author, and are used without permission.







She watches him every day. She has since they were kids. She still doesn't understand why he doesn't it except, perhaps, because he doesn't want to see it. He's too busy chasing after the Prom Queen after which everybody else is always rushing to see what's right beside him, the person who's actually loyal to him, the person who truly loves him, who would do anything for him, and only wants what's best for him.

But that's the biggest bummer, too. She does want what's best for him, and honestly, what does she have to offer him except for an endless life of nerdom? She chases after stories, yes, but all that usually ends up doing is getting her into more trouble. It does help lives get saved sometimes, but how many times has she placed her own life or, worse yet, his into jeopardy because she couldn't ignore some meteor freak? Lana's much safer for him, not to mention prettier, richer, and more popular. Lana has a great deal more to offer him than she ever will.

There are still times like now, though, when she's watching him being all cute when she really wants to say something more than anything she'll allow herself to say. She's starting to get a rumor, chasing and exposing all these kryptonite freaks. There are people who actually think she's brave. Poor soul. Express what's in your heart, Sullivan, she tries often to tell herself, but she knows she never will. She's not brave, like they think. She's not brave, like he's trying to tell her now that she was last night.

She looks away, looking to the floor from underneath her eyelashes, which she knows are nowhere near as dark, long, or pretty as Lana's. "It's not like I had much choice, Clark. It was too late for me to run by the time he attacked. I didn't know what he was, not really."

"You knew he was a killer, Chloe. You knew he was going after girls. You also knew we could stop him, together."

She looks up at him from underneath her lashes, and for a moment, their eyes lock. Thrills shoot through her. His eyes are as beautiful and sweet as they have ever been, like a cloudless blue sky. She can't help thinking that all her skies would be blue and cloudless if he loved her, no matter how bad the storm was around them, or how bad the meteor freaks were trying to kill them at the time.

Clark smiles at her, giving her one of his trademark goofy and adorable, wide-tooth grins. It takes her breath away. "You really are something, Chloe. You are brave like they say." He shakes his head. "Brave and a little crazy too. You worry me. I don't want you to get hurt."

She stares at him for a long moment, trying but unable to say the words formed now for so many years in her heart. They make it to her throat, but they won't come out. She can't voice them, no matter how hard she tries. Not today, not tomorrow, not ten years from now, for after all, they've already been waiting ten years to be spoken.

The bell rings suddenly, and Clark grins bashfully. "I've gotta go."

She nods. "We all do," she murmurs. Yet she stays, rooted to the spot, as he runs off. She knows he has his next class with Lana, and she knows that she'll be all but forgotten by him the moment he sees that pretty face.

"Hey, Chloe. Earth to Chloe -- "

She blinks and finally looks at Pete. "We've got to go too," he points out. "That was the last bell."

"Then why didn't you -- " She shakes her head and just grins, one of her own trademark grins that she doesn't realize is adorable and as characteristic of her as the smile Clark just gave her. Nor does she realize how it stirs the young man beside her, the other boy with whom she's grown up, the other one of their trio who looks after her as she does after Clark.

Express what's in your heart, Pete, he remembers her telling him last year about some girl whose name he can currently barely even recall. She wasn't Chloe, after all. Yeah, right, Chloe. "Come on," he says and leads the way, knowing she'll follow after she finally gets done, yet again, gazing after Clark. She'll never get Clark, he'll never get Lana, and Pete himself will never earn Chloe's love or even attention for more than five, absolute max, minutes. She made that pretty clear last night, when she failed to even stand up to the freak when he'd attacked Pete but had been all after him when Clark had appeared on the scene.

Ah, well, he'll just have to content himself, yet again, with being her friend. "What?" he hears her asking now as she trails behind him. "What?!"

He just shakes his head. "Nothing, Chlo." She'll never know. It's better that way, he tells himself and turns his attention after the lone cheerleader in their classroom, a target far more attainable, he knows, than Chloe Sullivan ever will be to anyone whose name doesn't rhyme with lark.


The End