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This is a two-part fic based in part on the most recent "Promise" spoilers. It's not written to be happy...at least not the first part anyway, we'll see about the second.
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Nullification
Part 1 of 2
Two weeks…two weeks since the wedding and Clark was dead to the world. He had been ever since Lana Lang, the love of his life, had become Lana Luthor. He had waited for the odd mixture of numbness and pain to subside, but it had grown steadily day by day. Clark finally admitted to himself what he had always suspected: it was time to leave, to put as much space between himself and Smallville as he could.
As he continued to pack away the mementos of a lifetime so they could be placed into storage, Clark thought back to the events of the past two weeks and tried to make sense of them.
He had gone to Lana at the mansion one last time to keep her from marrying Lex. What hurt the most now was that he’d thought he had succeeded. Lana had decided that day to break it off with Lex because she was in love with Clark, while Lex only inspired fear and mistrust.
Lana had planned to meet Clark at the farm on the day of the supposed wedding, after breaking it off with Lex, for lunch and a long discussion. Clark was finally going to tell her everything. She already knew a lot of his secrets, but he was sure she hadn’t quite figured out the ‘My Favorite Martian’ part yet.
When she had failed to show at the appointed hour, Clark wasn’t too worried because Lana wasn’t always the most punctual of women. Besides, she had always cut him a lot of slack when it came to being on time, so he thought he’d return the favor. When an hour passed without any sign of Lana, Clark started to worry. He began to call around, finally getting a hold of someone when he called Jimmy.
“Where’s Chloe?” Clark asked.
“Duh, CK,” Jimmy replied, “she’s at ‘the wedding of the century.’”
Clark could hear the sarcasm dripping from Jimmy’s voice and smiled until he processed what Jimmy had said.
“The wedding?” Clark asked in a panic. “I thought that had been canceled.”
“We wish. And that wish includes you, me, Chloe, and even Lois.”
Frantic now, Clark asked the one thing he needed to know. “What time is the wedding supposed to start?”
Jimmy checked the time on the cell phone and said, “Twenty minutes ago.”
Clark didn’t even take the time to say goodbye, he just dropped the phone and rushed into his best dress clothes, only foregoing a tie. Without Lois or Mom here, Clark thought, it might take me a week to tie this properly…even with super-speed.
Clark raced to the chapel where the wedding was being held, hoping against hope that he’d be on time to stop it. He made it to the foyer just in time to see Lex slip the ring on Lana’s finger. Clark forgot to breathe…he forgot how to breathe…and watched with horror as Lex kissed Lana and the minister introduced them as Mr. and Mrs. Lex Luthor.
As Lana faced the crowd, tears rolled down her carefully made-up face. The onlookers thought she was overflowing with joy and universally agreed she was one of the loveliest, most radiant brides they had ever seen. Inside, however, her heart was nothing but ashes. She couldn’t bear to look at anyone in the pews and so looked over their heads and straight down the aisle…only to see a sight that took the ashes of her heart and blew them to the four winds.
It was Clark, and he was not happy.
Looking at Clark’s face, Lana couldn’t remember seeing a more painful combination of rage and betrayal in her life. To see it directed at her and not at Lex made it even worse.
He doesn’t know, she thought, and can’t be allowed to know, what I’ve had to sacrifice for him. There are some decisions that have to be made, and I gave up our life together to ensure he’d have a life at all. As much as I need Clark, the world needs him more.
Lana’s tears went from rolling down her face to flowing uncontrollably. Clark’s eyes narrowed as he turned on his heel and marched…out of the chapel and out of Lana Lang’s, no Lana Luthor’s, life.
Back at the farm, Clark sealed one more box and folded open the next one to fill it up, too. He couldn’t understand what had gone wrong. Even Chloe had been stunned into silence the day after the wedding when she had heard Clark’s account of what had happened in the mansion.
“Lana never mentioned you at all, Clark,” Chloe had finally said. “She was moving around the bride’s room like a zombie. I secretly wondered if she was expecting you to ride in on a white horse, as usual, and save her or something.” Chloe had shook her head. “But when you left the chapel, she broke down crying and Lex had to virtually drag her down the aisle.” Pointing at a wedding article on page one of the Style section of the Daily Planet, Chloe had added, “You don’t need me to tell you how long they had to delay the reception so Lana could collect herself.”
“So?” Clark had replied coldly. “What is that to me? Mrs. Luthor made her choice and I’ll thank you to never use her name in my presence ever again.”
“But Lana sti…” Chloe had seen the dangerous look in Clark’s eyes and rephrased what she had been about to say. “But, uhhh, She Who Shall Not Be Named, still loves you.”
“Some love,” Clark had said. “She loved me sooooooo much that she married my greatest enemy.”
“Yeah,” Chloe had said reluctantly, “I’m having trouble wrapping my head around that one, too.”
Soon the last of Clark’s boxes were taped shut and loaded inside the rented moving van. Next was a short drive to the storage facility where he loaded all of his boxes into a corrugated steel room. Pulling the overhead door shut and attaching a barrel lock to the door, Clark turned his back on his possessions and his old life. He had a new life waiting for him somewhere out there. There were only had a few more zoners to round up and he had decided that could be done just as easily from the Fortress as from here. Only one thing remained for him to do, saying goodbye to his mom, Chloe, and Lois.
Strangely, he found saying goodbye to his Mom to be the easiest. Upon reflection, he felt they had been growing apart ever since the death of his dad, a process that had been greatly accelerated by her growing closeness with Jonathan’s greatest enemy, Lionel Luthor. Man! Clark thought, like father, like son. The two male Luthors took the two most important women in my life away from me.
Lois, he found at the Talon apartment one day while Chloe was at work. She had been surprised by the abrupt nature of his departure, but one look at Lana Luthor in the paper told her all she needed to know. Clark needs to start over somewhere that has no reminders of her, Lois thought.
It was Lois’ emotional reaction that surprised Clark. When she discovered that he wasn’t just moving to Metropolis, but was disappearing entirely, she had begun to tear up as she punched his shoulder. “I’m gonna miss you, Smallville…though now that you’re leaving, I guess I’ll have to start calling you Clark.” They had hugged then which brought tears to his eyes, leaving Clark to wonder just when they had become so close. We fought and we fought and we fought, until one morning…we woke up as friends, Clark thought. Strange.
Chloe he saved for last.
He met her at the Planet late the next night. He had privately arranged with Jimmy for this time alone so two old friends could say goodbye. Chloe knew something was up just from the way Clark was looking at her. They hadn’t had time to speak at length since their discussion the day after the wedding, and she wondered what was wrong. At first she thought something had happened to Martha, but she knew that was wasn't it. There would have been a news bulletin about anything serious happening to a State Senator.
Clark waited patiently for Chloe to finish up her night’s work, and then took her to Denny’s, the only open-all-night restaurant he knew how to find in Metropolis. Over a very-early-morning breakfast and numerous cups of coffee, the two friends laughed and cried as first Clark told her his intentions and then they shared their memories one last time.
Chloe had suspected ever since the wedding that Clark might leave, and this time she couldn’t find it in herself to try and stop him. The wound in his heart was too deep, too fresh, and too painful for him to stay. It was close to dawn by the time they left, with Clark leaving a more than healthy tip for their long-suffering waitress.
At the end, just outside the Talon, Clark had stopped Chloe and said, “I’ll miss you the most, Chloe.”
Her reply was instantaneous. “No, Clark. You’ll miss Lana Lang the most. Lana Luthor is another story altogether.”
Clark winced upon hearing Lana’s name, especially her new one, but he didn’t say anything to Chloe about it. He knew this was the last time they’d see each other for a long time. He had some zoners to catch and then some training to complete.
“Look me up when you come back from your training, Clark,” Chloe said tearfully. “I’ll be around somewhere.”
“Will do,” Clark replied, his voice equally choked with tears.
“When are you leaving?”
“Tomorrow morning, before dawn,” Clark said. “I intend to spend today saying goodbye to a number of locations that are special to me. The Smallville High football field, Crater Lake, Chandler’s Field, the Kawatche Caves…the list goes on.”
When they split, after a kiss and a bear hug, Clark did as he said and visited the places that meant so much to him. He was disturbed when he realized just how many of those locations meant something to him because they were attached to memories of him and Lana. That made his final tour of the countryside more painful than he had counted on, but he went through with it anyway.
Chloe, on the other hand, took a two-hour nap and then called Lana to arrange a lunch meeting at a local tea house. Chloe knew Clark hadn’t talked to Lana since before the wedding, and she was determined that Lana was going to know what she was about to lose from her life.
Lana hadn’t seen much of her Maid of Honor since the wedding. The honeymoon had been two weeks spent in Fiji, and Lana had thrown herself into her new role as Lex’s wife. Part of her wedding day deal with Lionel was that she be a good and loving wife, and so she played a part, hoping Lex would never discover her absolute loathing for him. The worst part, of course, had been at night when Lex took her to his bed. She worked hard to not say anything then, because in her mind, it was always Clark that was making love to her, and one slip of the lip could mean his doom.
When she and Lex had finally made it back to Smallville, Lana had spent a jet-lagged day recuperating and then had spent a day taking charge of the household staff and making numerous changes to the way things were run. Chloe’s call had caught her early the next morning, and she had readily accepted.
Lana dressed smartly in a blouse and slacks, and headed into town in the brand-new Mercedes convertible she had found waiting for her upon her arrival home. Home, she thought, what a word for that architectural monstrosity.
Lana had two things to draw on for strength these days. One was the fact that she had saved Clark’s life and he, in turn, would save many more lives. Second was the fact that as a Luthor, she’d have many opportunities to make a difference in people’s lives.
Lana parked her car on the street, and noted with distaste that she was being discreetly followed by a pair of mansion security guards. Two spaces up was Chloe’s car.
As soon as Lana stepped inside the tea room, she was met with a full-armed slap across the face from Chloe. “You b!tch!” Chloe screamed. “You heartless b!tch!”
Lana staggered back out of the tea room, wondering briefly if she was going to need those security guards. She came to rest in the first position of her martial arts training, but Chloe just stood there with her hands on her hips and a choleric look on her face.
“You never told me what happened between you and Clark the day before the wedding!” Chloe shouted. “I can’t believe you made up with Clark and then heartlessly went ahead and married Lex. Was the money that important to you? Did you need to get revenge on Clark? What was it?”
Lana had expected some fallout from her unexplained decision to go through with the wedding, but not like this, and not from Chloe. She had expected Clark to show up one day, like magic as he always does, and demand to know why she had done it.
“I’d like to take this opportunity to thank you for driving away the best friend I’ve ever had,” Chloe said.
“Wh…what?”
“You heard me. Clark is leaving town tomorrow before dawn. Forever.”
“Oh no!” Lana said in shock.
“Oh yes!” Chloe replied. “He says everyday is worse than the day before, so he’s leaving. I personally don’t expect to see him in Smallville ever again. He’s already put his stuff in storage and bought a twenty-year lease on the place. It must have cost him every cent he had.”
Lana stood stock still on the sidewalk as she thought about what Chloe had just said. The one thing Lana had never considered was the possibility that Clark would leave town. She had counted on being able to see him on the street once in a while, to hear of people being miraculously saved, to know that he was alive and well. That was going to be her reward.
She had feared the day she’d see him with another woman, but knew in her heart it would happen. Clark would eventually get over his pain, and he was too good of a catch to stay single for long once he started dating again.
Some other woman will take my place in his heart and will reap the fruits of my labor, Lana had thought, but as long as he’s alive and well, I’ll bear it as I must.
“Umm, Chloe?” Lana said frantically, “I don’t mean to ditch you, but I gotta go…right now!”
Before Lana could move, Chloe’s arm snaked out and grabbed her. “Don’t go see Clark, Lana. He won’t thank you for coming. You made your choice on what you wanted to do for the rest of your life, please let him make his.”
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Two weeks…two weeks since the wedding and Clark was dead to the world. He had been ever since Lana Lang, the love of his life, had become Lana Luthor. He had waited for the odd mixture of numbness and pain to subside, but it had grown steadily day by day. Clark finally admitted to himself what he had always suspected: it was time to leave, to put as much space between himself and Smallville as he could.
As he continued to pack away the mementos of a lifetime so they could be placed into storage, Clark thought back to the events of the past two weeks and tried to make sense of them.
He had gone to Lana at the mansion one last time to keep her from marrying Lex. What hurt the most now was that he’d thought he had succeeded. Lana had decided that day to break it off with Lex because she was in love with Clark, while Lex only inspired fear and mistrust.
Lana had planned to meet Clark at the farm on the day of the supposed wedding, after breaking it off with Lex, for lunch and a long discussion. Clark was finally going to tell her everything. She already knew a lot of his secrets, but he was sure she hadn’t quite figured out the ‘My Favorite Martian’ part yet.
When she had failed to show at the appointed hour, Clark wasn’t too worried because Lana wasn’t always the most punctual of women. Besides, she had always cut him a lot of slack when it came to being on time, so he thought he’d return the favor. When an hour passed without any sign of Lana, Clark started to worry. He began to call around, finally getting a hold of someone when he called Jimmy.
“Where’s Chloe?” Clark asked.
“Duh, CK,” Jimmy replied, “she’s at ‘the wedding of the century.’”
Clark could hear the sarcasm dripping from Jimmy’s voice and smiled until he processed what Jimmy had said.
“The wedding?” Clark asked in a panic. “I thought that had been canceled.”
“We wish. And that wish includes you, me, Chloe, and even Lois.”
Frantic now, Clark asked the one thing he needed to know. “What time is the wedding supposed to start?”
Jimmy checked the time on the cell phone and said, “Twenty minutes ago.”
Clark didn’t even take the time to say goodbye, he just dropped the phone and rushed into his best dress clothes, only foregoing a tie. Without Lois or Mom here, Clark thought, it might take me a week to tie this properly…even with super-speed.
Clark raced to the chapel where the wedding was being held, hoping against hope that he’d be on time to stop it. He made it to the foyer just in time to see Lex slip the ring on Lana’s finger. Clark forgot to breathe…he forgot how to breathe…and watched with horror as Lex kissed Lana and the minister introduced them as Mr. and Mrs. Lex Luthor.
As Lana faced the crowd, tears rolled down her carefully made-up face. The onlookers thought she was overflowing with joy and universally agreed she was one of the loveliest, most radiant brides they had ever seen. Inside, however, her heart was nothing but ashes. She couldn’t bear to look at anyone in the pews and so looked over their heads and straight down the aisle…only to see a sight that took the ashes of her heart and blew them to the four winds.
It was Clark, and he was not happy.
Looking at Clark’s face, Lana couldn’t remember seeing a more painful combination of rage and betrayal in her life. To see it directed at her and not at Lex made it even worse.
He doesn’t know, she thought, and can’t be allowed to know, what I’ve had to sacrifice for him. There are some decisions that have to be made, and I gave up our life together to ensure he’d have a life at all. As much as I need Clark, the world needs him more.
Lana’s tears went from rolling down her face to flowing uncontrollably. Clark’s eyes narrowed as he turned on his heel and marched…out of the chapel and out of Lana Lang’s, no Lana Luthor’s, life.
Back at the farm, Clark sealed one more box and folded open the next one to fill it up, too. He couldn’t understand what had gone wrong. Even Chloe had been stunned into silence the day after the wedding when she had heard Clark’s account of what had happened in the mansion.
“Lana never mentioned you at all, Clark,” Chloe had finally said. “She was moving around the bride’s room like a zombie. I secretly wondered if she was expecting you to ride in on a white horse, as usual, and save her or something.” Chloe had shook her head. “But when you left the chapel, she broke down crying and Lex had to virtually drag her down the aisle.” Pointing at a wedding article on page one of the Style section of the Daily Planet, Chloe had added, “You don’t need me to tell you how long they had to delay the reception so Lana could collect herself.”
“So?” Clark had replied coldly. “What is that to me? Mrs. Luthor made her choice and I’ll thank you to never use her name in my presence ever again.”
“But Lana sti…” Chloe had seen the dangerous look in Clark’s eyes and rephrased what she had been about to say. “But, uhhh, She Who Shall Not Be Named, still loves you.”
“Some love,” Clark had said. “She loved me sooooooo much that she married my greatest enemy.”
“Yeah,” Chloe had said reluctantly, “I’m having trouble wrapping my head around that one, too.”
Soon the last of Clark’s boxes were taped shut and loaded inside the rented moving van. Next was a short drive to the storage facility where he loaded all of his boxes into a corrugated steel room. Pulling the overhead door shut and attaching a barrel lock to the door, Clark turned his back on his possessions and his old life. He had a new life waiting for him somewhere out there. There were only had a few more zoners to round up and he had decided that could be done just as easily from the Fortress as from here. Only one thing remained for him to do, saying goodbye to his mom, Chloe, and Lois.
Strangely, he found saying goodbye to his Mom to be the easiest. Upon reflection, he felt they had been growing apart ever since the death of his dad, a process that had been greatly accelerated by her growing closeness with Jonathan’s greatest enemy, Lionel Luthor. Man! Clark thought, like father, like son. The two male Luthors took the two most important women in my life away from me.
Lois, he found at the Talon apartment one day while Chloe was at work. She had been surprised by the abrupt nature of his departure, but one look at Lana Luthor in the paper told her all she needed to know. Clark needs to start over somewhere that has no reminders of her, Lois thought.
It was Lois’ emotional reaction that surprised Clark. When she discovered that he wasn’t just moving to Metropolis, but was disappearing entirely, she had begun to tear up as she punched his shoulder. “I’m gonna miss you, Smallville…though now that you’re leaving, I guess I’ll have to start calling you Clark.” They had hugged then which brought tears to his eyes, leaving Clark to wonder just when they had become so close. We fought and we fought and we fought, until one morning…we woke up as friends, Clark thought. Strange.
Chloe he saved for last.
He met her at the Planet late the next night. He had privately arranged with Jimmy for this time alone so two old friends could say goodbye. Chloe knew something was up just from the way Clark was looking at her. They hadn’t had time to speak at length since their discussion the day after the wedding, and she wondered what was wrong. At first she thought something had happened to Martha, but she knew that was wasn't it. There would have been a news bulletin about anything serious happening to a State Senator.
Clark waited patiently for Chloe to finish up her night’s work, and then took her to Denny’s, the only open-all-night restaurant he knew how to find in Metropolis. Over a very-early-morning breakfast and numerous cups of coffee, the two friends laughed and cried as first Clark told her his intentions and then they shared their memories one last time.
Chloe had suspected ever since the wedding that Clark might leave, and this time she couldn’t find it in herself to try and stop him. The wound in his heart was too deep, too fresh, and too painful for him to stay. It was close to dawn by the time they left, with Clark leaving a more than healthy tip for their long-suffering waitress.
At the end, just outside the Talon, Clark had stopped Chloe and said, “I’ll miss you the most, Chloe.”
Her reply was instantaneous. “No, Clark. You’ll miss Lana Lang the most. Lana Luthor is another story altogether.”
Clark winced upon hearing Lana’s name, especially her new one, but he didn’t say anything to Chloe about it. He knew this was the last time they’d see each other for a long time. He had some zoners to catch and then some training to complete.
“Look me up when you come back from your training, Clark,” Chloe said tearfully. “I’ll be around somewhere.”
“Will do,” Clark replied, his voice equally choked with tears.
“When are you leaving?”
“Tomorrow morning, before dawn,” Clark said. “I intend to spend today saying goodbye to a number of locations that are special to me. The Smallville High football field, Crater Lake, Chandler’s Field, the Kawatche Caves…the list goes on.”
When they split, after a kiss and a bear hug, Clark did as he said and visited the places that meant so much to him. He was disturbed when he realized just how many of those locations meant something to him because they were attached to memories of him and Lana. That made his final tour of the countryside more painful than he had counted on, but he went through with it anyway.
Chloe, on the other hand, took a two-hour nap and then called Lana to arrange a lunch meeting at a local tea house. Chloe knew Clark hadn’t talked to Lana since before the wedding, and she was determined that Lana was going to know what she was about to lose from her life.
Lana hadn’t seen much of her Maid of Honor since the wedding. The honeymoon had been two weeks spent in Fiji, and Lana had thrown herself into her new role as Lex’s wife. Part of her wedding day deal with Lionel was that she be a good and loving wife, and so she played a part, hoping Lex would never discover her absolute loathing for him. The worst part, of course, had been at night when Lex took her to his bed. She worked hard to not say anything then, because in her mind, it was always Clark that was making love to her, and one slip of the lip could mean his doom.
When she and Lex had finally made it back to Smallville, Lana had spent a jet-lagged day recuperating and then had spent a day taking charge of the household staff and making numerous changes to the way things were run. Chloe’s call had caught her early the next morning, and she had readily accepted.
Lana dressed smartly in a blouse and slacks, and headed into town in the brand-new Mercedes convertible she had found waiting for her upon her arrival home. Home, she thought, what a word for that architectural monstrosity.
Lana had two things to draw on for strength these days. One was the fact that she had saved Clark’s life and he, in turn, would save many more lives. Second was the fact that as a Luthor, she’d have many opportunities to make a difference in people’s lives.
Lana parked her car on the street, and noted with distaste that she was being discreetly followed by a pair of mansion security guards. Two spaces up was Chloe’s car.
As soon as Lana stepped inside the tea room, she was met with a full-armed slap across the face from Chloe. “You b!tch!” Chloe screamed. “You heartless b!tch!”
Lana staggered back out of the tea room, wondering briefly if she was going to need those security guards. She came to rest in the first position of her martial arts training, but Chloe just stood there with her hands on her hips and a choleric look on her face.
“You never told me what happened between you and Clark the day before the wedding!” Chloe shouted. “I can’t believe you made up with Clark and then heartlessly went ahead and married Lex. Was the money that important to you? Did you need to get revenge on Clark? What was it?”
Lana had expected some fallout from her unexplained decision to go through with the wedding, but not like this, and not from Chloe. She had expected Clark to show up one day, like magic as he always does, and demand to know why she had done it.
“I’d like to take this opportunity to thank you for driving away the best friend I’ve ever had,” Chloe said.
“Wh…what?”
“You heard me. Clark is leaving town tomorrow before dawn. Forever.”
“Oh no!” Lana said in shock.
“Oh yes!” Chloe replied. “He says everyday is worse than the day before, so he’s leaving. I personally don’t expect to see him in Smallville ever again. He’s already put his stuff in storage and bought a twenty-year lease on the place. It must have cost him every cent he had.”
Lana stood stock still on the sidewalk as she thought about what Chloe had just said. The one thing Lana had never considered was the possibility that Clark would leave town. She had counted on being able to see him on the street once in a while, to hear of people being miraculously saved, to know that he was alive and well. That was going to be her reward.
She had feared the day she’d see him with another woman, but knew in her heart it would happen. Clark would eventually get over his pain, and he was too good of a catch to stay single for long once he started dating again.
Some other woman will take my place in his heart and will reap the fruits of my labor, Lana had thought, but as long as he’s alive and well, I’ll bear it as I must.
“Umm, Chloe?” Lana said frantically, “I don’t mean to ditch you, but I gotta go…right now!”
Before Lana could move, Chloe’s arm snaked out and grabbed her. “Don’t go see Clark, Lana. He won’t thank you for coming. You made your choice on what you wanted to do for the rest of your life, please let him make his.”
Treker. What a harsh reaction. Yow! 
Please update soon!
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