It seemed like hours before Clark could draw breath again and not feel a twisting pain in his chest. He had left the farmhouse, determined to find whoever had his son. He was horrified to be confronted with no clues, no real trace of anyone that he could follow.
His helpless little boy had simply disappeared.
He couldn’t face Lois, not after the way she had blamed him. He simply couldn’t go back to her with no evidence, no lead to follow-up on.
He would stay away until something turned up. Anything.
Surely, they couldn’t hide from him forever…
But as the days went by, the trail grew colder. It was almost as if Joel had vanished off the planet. Even all of Watchtower’s technology couldn’t bring him any closer to finding his son.
And Lois…
Clark would go to the farmhouse, needing to see her, wanting to hold her. But he would feel rebuked by the memory of his failure, of the absolute torture he saw in Lois’ face when he had given her the horrible news…
He longed to hold her, and to work this out together. But he wasn’t sure he would be welcome. He needed a lead, something to prove to her that he had this under control.
But that didn’t mean he stayed away entirely… he would blur into the farmhouse, to watch her sleep or to see how she was getting on. At times, it appeared that she didn’t need him. And he knew she had Chloe…at other times, her vulnerability cut him to his heart.
But the guilt and shame for having failed to protect his son would wash over him, and he’d simply whoosh away, and vanish in the night… searching ever desperately for a trace of his son.
~L&C~
Lois had been to Watchtower a lot over the last few months, up until the wedding. Even when she had been exhausted from work, she had always been happy to see Joel. Picking up her son was usually the highlight of her day, seeing his smile would always make whatever concerns she had that day vanish.
But now, he was out there somewhere… a defenseless baby. Who knew what whoever took him wanted with him? She hoped they didn’t know about his true origins, as Tess had at hinted earlier. Who knows what kind of experiments they would do on her poor, innocent boy…
Lois pulled herself out of her darker thoughts to give her passcode to Watchtower’s security system. The elevator moved up a few more floors and then opened.
Lois fought the sadness coming over her, knowing she’d see the little baby corner Chloe had set up for Joel. She braced herself as she opened the doors—
Chloe was standing in front of the main computer, but stopped what she was doing when she heard Lois come in.
“Lois! How are you holding up?” her cousin asked, giving her a hug.
Lois’ eyes fell on the little baby corner, and she found that she couldn’t speak a moment. Chloe moved into her line of sight and met her gaze. “Lois, I left it all there on purpose. Because we’re going to get Joel back, okay? It’s there for when we get him back,” she reiterated, smoothing her hand down Lois’ arm.
“So, any progress?” Lois asked, her eyes still bright with unshed tears.
“Um, no, not really,” Chloe said sadly. “How about on your end?”
Lois nodded, clearing her throat. “Yeah, kinda. I—went to see the General.”
Chloe appeared speechless a moment. “After what happened? Why?”
“Because… “ Lois braced herself to continue. “Because the General is a supporter of the VRA. The—“
“—Vigilante Registration Act. I’ve done my homework on that front, too,” Chloe sighed. “So? Was he any help?”
“No,” Lois shook her head. “Chloe, he even had Clark investigated. I need to find Clark. We need to get that folder. If they know the truth about him—What if it was someone tied to the VRA who took Joel?”
A sudden whoosh of wind shifted focus to the nearby doors. “Chloe, I’ve looked into that—“ Clark began, but then paused when he saw Lois.
She felt like her jacket was all that was holding her together in that moment. Her eyes met Clark’s and his gaze slammed into hers, hitting her in the chest. “Hi, Smallville,” she got out in an airy whisper.
“Lois, I—“ he began, the guilt and hurt all over his face. “I still haven’t found him,” he admitted softly.
Lois’ eyes welled up with tears. “I’m so sorry, Clark,” she said, stepping a little closer to him.
“Lois, it was my fault. I should have—“
She shook her head, moving towards him as he stepped closer to her. And suddenly, they were like magnets and in each other’s arms.
Lois held him to her, sobs muffled in his shirt. “I’m sorry, Clark. I shouldn’t have said—“
“It doesn’t matter, Lois. I’m here. It doesn’t matter,” he said soothingly, relief evident in his voice.
Eventually, she pulled slightly out of his embrace to look at him and wipe her eyes.
“I have so much to tell you and I don’t know where to begin,” Lois said, her hands resting on Clark’s biceps. “I was just so afraid that I had said too much. And I never meant for you to go away—“
“Lois, I’m at fault too.” He sighed. “Let’s just put it behind us and focus on what happened to our son.”
Lois nodded and stepped out of his embrace, wiping her eyes. “Right. Well, before you whooshed in here, I was telling Chloe what I found out…Clark, I went to the General. I didn’t know who else to turn to, and Tess gave me a lead—“
“Tess?” Clark asked curiously, ignoring the fact that Lois had gone to see General Lane.
“Clark, my dad had you investigated by the Pentagon,” Lois admitted. “And I fear how much he knows about you.”
“All right, well, we knew he wasn’t exactly a fan of mine,” Clark said testily. “But what does that have to do with Joel?”
“Depending on how deep he dug… Clark, he seemed to believe that you are a vigilante. And who knows what else he knows… I think someone involved with the VRA learned something about you through my father’s investigation, and that someone may have Joel,” Lois finally got out, her arms crossed as she waited for Clark’s reaction.
He sighed heavily. “You think your father knows I’m the Blur?”
“I’m not sure how much he knows. But Clark, we need to get that folder. We need to know what he knows, what the government knows about you.”
Chloe suddenly turned back to her computer. “I can try and hack into some government computers and see if I can pull anything up on you, Clark. But Lois is right. We need to see that folder.”
~L&C~
Clark glanced sidelong at Lois as they headed to her car. He felt an apology welling up inside him again, but suppressed it. Instead, he sighed heavily.
She seemed focused on getting into the car, and avoided looking at him. “You don’t have to ride with me, you know. I can just meet you back at the farm,” she suggested.
“I think the ride will do us some good, Lois. Besides, I’ve missed you.”
She flashed him a tremulous smile, which just as quickly disappeared as she ducked into the driver’s seat. She waited until he was seated next to her before she said, “I’ve missed you, too, Smallville.”
They were silent while she drove out of the parking garage and onto Metropolis’ busy streets. Lois glanced down at the radio, biting her lip, and Clark wondered if she was tempted to turn it on to break the awkward silence in the car.
“Do you really think the VRA has Joel?” Clark asked eventually, mainly to end the silence, but also because it was the fear weighing heaviest on his heart.
“I don’t know for sure. But I do know that he disappeared without a trace, which sounds like special ops, military. Clark, he could be anywhere…” she said forlornly.
He reached for her free hand, relieved when she didn’t pull away.
“We will find him, Lois. We just need to first figure out how much your father knows about me… and if anyone else knows anything. It’s the only lead that makes any sense.”
Lois nodded, pulling out onto the highway and settling back into her seat. “Yeah. And that’s what worries me.”
Another long pause in the car, as guilt settled over Clark once more. “Do you regret it at all, Lois? I mean, I know you don’t remember it all, but do you regret it?”
His question was ambiguous enough – she could include everything from meeting him to having Joel in that question if she wanted to.
“Not a minute of it, Clark. Not one,” she said in a low voice, reaching across to squeeze his hand.
“I’m sorry I stayed away—“
“Shh… enough apologies, okay? We both made our mistakes… what we need now is each other. So let’s find him and bring him home. What do you say, partner?”
God, he loved her... She glanced at him, and he got only a glimpse of those soft hazel eyes that enchanted him, that read him like a book and slammed him in the chest on a daily basis. She wouldn’t give up on him… and he was deeply thankful.
“Let’s find our son.”
~L&C~
“Why do I always get the stealth jobs in places where I can get shot?” Oliver complained into his walkie talkie.
Chloe laughed lightly on the other end. “You know you got good back-up… But seriously, be careful, Ollie.”
“I’d prefer it if this was the last military facility I break into for a while… I have a feeling that Uncle Sam is not going to look kindly on us if the VRA passes,” Oliver said, glancing around a corner. “You’re sure you disarmed the cameras up here?”
“Yes, but you don’t have much time. About thirty seconds to cross the hall into General Lane’s office.”
“Got it,” Oliver said, making his way down the darkened hallway.
Suddenly he heard a whoosh beside him.
“Oliver? What are you doing here?” Clark asked.
“I thought I was doing you a favor… or at least doing Chloe one. But since you’re here—you wanna do the honors?” Oliver asked, gesturing towards the locked door. “Just don’t leave fingerprints.”
Clark nodded and used his shirt tail to grasp the handle.
“Oh no,” Chloe said, on the other end at Watchtower.
“What?” Oliver asked, with a heavy note of dread.
“I didn’t know General Lane’s door had a security alarm on it. You guys have less than twenty seconds to get the hell out of there!”
Clark nodded, and whooshed around to the filing cabinet, where Lois had told him General Lane had placed his folder.
He was careful not to touch anything else, and sped over to Oliver with the folder in hand. “You want to come with me or chance it?” Clark asked.
“Fine. Get me out of here. Just don’t carry me like a girl,” Oliver said. Clark smirked just before he whisked them away, back to Watchtower.
Oliver stumbled out of Clark’s grasp, looking vaguely uncomfortable with the fact that he had to be ‘rescued.’
“All right, so what did we get?” Chloe asked.
Clark gestured to a camera shot on Watchtower’s computer of General Lane’s office. “Were there cameras running in there?” he asked worriedly.
Chloe’s brow was wrinkled in concern. “I’m honestly not sure. It seemed to be a passive program, not recording anything, but I can’t be positive. We have enough to worry about though, besides whether your pretty mug shots were captured just now.”
Clark laid out the contents of the folder, surprised by how much material there was on him.
“They have pictures with me and Kara, in her costume…” he said in dismay, shuffling through the documents.
Lois stepped in just then, rushing over to where they were standing over Clark’s folder. “What did I miss? I swear it took forever to cross three blocks of traffic…”
“We got the folder,” Chloe said, sliding over so Lois could have a look.
Lois’ fingers lightly tapped the contents, one by one, as they were splayed across the table. “I still can’t believe the General went behind my back this way,” she said sadly.
“There doesn’t seem to be much here that’s all that incriminating, but I suppose you could draw the right conclusion if you wanted to,” Oliver observed. “Maybe the VRA isn’t after you, Clark. I know that could mean that Joel—“
“Wait,” Lois said, grabbing a thin piece of paper slipped in between two pictures. “This is a request for the file to be taken up with the Department of Domestic Security. And it’s signed by my dad and… General Slade Wilson.”
“Who’s General Wilson?” Chloe asked, even though she simply turned to her computer and typed in the name.
A profile came up almost immediately. Lois listed the highlights from memory. “He’s been in the Service almost ten years longer than my dad. He’s seriously decorated -- if a little unconventional -- and would probably be the most privy to classified information about the VRA. But what I don’t get is why Dad wanted to dig deeper… There’s nothing in this file that shows you’ve done anything wrong, Clark.”
Clark looked at the paper Lois was holding, and pointed to the top line. “Look at the date, Lois. Do you recognize it?”
She gasped slightly. “Oh no… when I was in the hospital, when Zod came to see me. But… why?”
“Something must have tipped them off about the baby – and the fact that it was Clark’s. There’s apparently been a deeper investigation, if that slip about General Wade is any indication,” Chloe interjected practically. “And it also points to the VRA being the most likely candidates to having Joel.”
“God, if he’s in a military facility somewhere, how will we ever find him?” Lois sighed heavily, falling into a nearby chair.
“What are they doing with a baby in a military compound anyway?” Oliver asked.
“I don’t think we want to know,” Chloe said in a low tone, gesturing with her chin towards Lois.
“Yeah…. Sorry,” Oliver apologized, regretting his remark.
Clark stood next to Lois, resting his hand on her shoulder as he thought what to do. Lois glanced up, looking more determined than worried. “I can go and meet with Slade. I’m a military brat. He’ll see me,” she said with sudden clarity.
“Lois, is that such a good idea?” Clark cautioned.
“If he has our son, I will find out, Clark. Give me five minutes with him.”
~L&C~
Clark and Lois had left almost an hour ago, still arguing over the merits of Lois confronting Slade in person.
Chloe continued to do research on Slade, waiting for Oliver to get back on some Green Arrow business. After her experiences with the Luthors, she knew it was best to know your enemy inside and out. Lois was willing to jump into the water without checking the levels, but Chloe wanted to know how deep they were in it.
All through his military career, Slade had appeared a hero, seeming to stand for what was best about serving the red, white, and blue – at least on the surface. When she dug a bit deeper, Chloe uncovered rumors of war crimes, though he was never charged. Within the last ten months, he seemed to have gotten more radicalized, more vitriolic towards heroes that didn’t wear a military uniform. Around six months ago, he appeared on a conservative talk show, and labeled people like Oliver and Clark vigilantes, and the term seemed to stick. All across the media, those who were once called heroes a short while ago, were now deemed as dangerous vigilantes.
And then, the Vigilante Registration Act was born.
But there seemed to be something sinister underlying it all, that Chloe couldn’t quite put her finger on. Partly due to Wilson’s shady history, but it was more than that. More than just the fact that the Act would ask people like Oliver to reveal who they really were. Gordon Godfrey was another one who had recently turned against the heroes. And Slade Wilson had appeared on his radio talk show just a few months ago.
Chloe searched for a clip of the broadcast.
“Something has to be done about this hero menace,” Godfrey said decisively. “They don’t know what true heroes are, do they General?”
“No, they simply terrorize our cities, while the real heroes go unnoticed.”
“Which is why you are supporting the Vigilante Registration Act, correct? To see who is behind these masks.”
“Indeed,” said Slade. “We don’t know what they are capable of. But they are dangerous and must be stopped!”
The insults thrown at heroes got worse from there… but there seemed to be something – dark and evil underlying the tone of everything they said.
Sitting alone in Watchtower, and having observed all kinds of weird phenomena in her day, Chloe suddenly had goose bumps, and it was from something that they said in their short exchange.
She heard something, darker, deeper… Chloe sat up in her chair, her analytical brain going into overdrive while she sent the clip to a sound analyzer on Watchtower’s hard drive. She separated out the levels, and noticed in one particular part of the conversation, there was almost a demonic low tone that registered.
The doors of Watchtower swung open, and Chloe nearly fell out of her chair, she was so spooked.
“Whoa, it’s just me,” Oliver said with a debonair smile, heading over to her. “Hey, what’s that look for?”
Chloe backed up the track she had been listening to, and played it, with the levels split so the deeper tone came through. “Did you hear that? Or have I just been playing around with this too long?”
“Yeah, that’s definitely weird… but couldn’t it just be a sound glitch?”
Chloe nodded. “You would think… but I’ve been around too long and seen too much weird stuff to just brush it off… there’s something… I don’t know---unnatural about that sound.” Chloe did some more typing, and brought up a map which showed energy spikes around the US. “I know this is going to sound a bit out there, but General Wilson started really harping on heroes about ten months ago… and how old is Joel?”
“Eight months?” Oliver guessed.
“Yes. And two months before he was born—“ Chloe did some more typing, bringing up a map of Metropolis with the energy spikes around ten months ago. “Clark sent the Kandorians to another plane of existence… It’s happened before, when Clark has opened portals to other worlds -- he has let phantoms into ours… But this time, I have a feeling we’re dealing with more than just a phantom. Because it’s apparently affecting more than one person, and the dark sentiments seem to be spreading,” she said, pulling up half a dozen hero-hater websites.
“Look, Chloe, it’s late. Maybe you’re over thinking this,” Oliver said, pulling her around to face him. “Look at it again in the daylight, and if you still think there’s something to it, tell Clark in the morning.”
Chloe nodded, stepping around Oliver to close the computer windows. “I suppose you’re right… I’m just looking out for Clark and Lois… I mean, there’s a helpless baby somewhere out there, and I’m just trying to figure out what we’re dealing with.”
Oliver shed his Green Arrow leather hoodie, leaving him in a tight, black tank top. He turned on the radio, and Maroon 5 came on, singing ‘The Way You Look Tonight.’ Oliver held out his hand to Chloe with a smile, nodding his head in encouragement to dance with him.
“Come on. Let’s forget about life’s troubles for a few minutes. What do you say?” he prodded.
After just a moment’s hesitation and a small laugh, Chloe rolled her eyes and fell into step with Oliver. “You are a ridiculous romantic, you know that?” she teased.
“I like to think it’s one of my finer qualities,” he answered, in mock seriousness. He pulled her closer, his smile fading as he stared down at her lips. “I just want you to know I think you’re amazing, Chloe Sullivan.”
She seemed breathless a moment, allowing herself to get caught up in Oliver’s gaze. “You’re not so bad either, Mr. Queen,” she flirted back, unconsciously biting her lip.
He leaned in, and whispered against her temple. “I know you probably don’t want to hear it, but, well, with the business we’re in, and not knowing how many tomorrows we may have—“
She pulled back and looked at him, shaking her head. “Ollie, please—“
“Chloe, I never got to tell my parents good-bye. Or say often enough how much I love them… Please, let me have this?”
She eventually settled back into his embrace, slowing down to the smooth tones of the song, laying her head on his shoulder. Chloe allowed herself to close her eyes, and drift with him and the music.
“I love you,” was whispered somewhere between the beats of the song, and when it was over, they looked at each other, not sure if or when the other had said it. Yet love was found in each other’s eyes. Oliver bent down, ever so slowly, until his lips met hers, just as the song was ending.
“What do you say we head to my place?” he asked, still holding her, still breathless from the kiss.
She nodded, for once, letting caution fly in the wind – and letting herself fall in love.
He was right.
They didn’t know how long any of them had…
