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Disclaimer: Smallville and all related elements, characters and indicia © Tollin-Robbins Productions and Warner Bros. Television, 2002. All Rights Reserved. All characters and situations—save those created by the authors for use solely on this website—are copyright Tollin-Robbins Productions and Warner Bros. Television. Superman created by Jerry Siegel and Joe Schuster.

Author's Note: A missing scene sometime after "Dichotic." This fic is not beta'd. Standard "not my characters, but totally my story" fanfic disclaimers apply. Feedback highly appreciated. My ego will love you for it.

Hanging Out
by Sullivan Lane

Clark swung from side to side in his hammock, tossing the basketball in the air ten feet so that it almost touched the ceiling, and timing his swing so that it landed squarely in his hands again. He almost had the timing right with the swinging and the tossing, and it kept his mind off other things that were, frankly, more complicated to deal with. Earlier, he had lighted a row of candles on the railing with his heat vision, and it provided the only light in the barn. And now, he was tired.

Clark rarely got tired even as a child, but today, he was feeling down. Not his physical body, but his mind and his heart. He didn't want to deal with anyone tonight. Through the open window the sounds of his parents cooking dinner in the house were comforting, but otherwise, he wanted to be alone. It made him feel better about wallowing in his weariness. The feeling of solitude was more prominent than usual because the air was cold and still, a sign of the impending winter.

So the sound of the barn door being kicked open surprised Clark so much that he dropped the ball, and it bounced down the stairs.

"Who's there?" he called.

The sound of women's high-heeled boots clicking on the stairs told him that it was Chloe, and the sight of her, wearing a heavy fur-trimmed coat, with hat and gloves and holding his basketball, confirmed it.

"How could you be sitting there in jeans and a T-shirt in this weather?" Chloe said, chucking the ball at Clark. He caught it deftly and continued with his swinging and tossing.

"It's a long-sleeved shirt," Clark said, shrugging as best as he could given he was laying down in a hammock. "What are you doing all the way out here in the first place, anyway? I thought you'd be at home with Lana." Clark chuckled. "I heard 'Speed' is showing on HBO."

Chloe snorted as she sat down on the steamer trunk across from Clark, dropping her messenger bag beside her. "Very funny. Actually, my dad is at the factory working overtime, and Lana's at her house with my car collecting more stuff. I've never seen so many pink sweaters in my life," Chloe added with glee.

"Again, doesn't explain why you're here," Clark pointed out.

Chloe sighed. "Look, Clark, ever since the school year started, for some inexplicable reason, it's been boys versus girls. You and Pete, Lana and me. You and I haven't had that much time together, and I thought I'd make up for some lost time." Chloe frowned slightly, frustrated that he was concentrating on the ball above him. "Or, you know. Something like that. I mean, if you haven't got the time." Chloe got up and headed for the stairs.

Clark caught the ball, placed it on his torso and turned to look at Chloe. "Wait. Sorry," he said. "I wasn't expecting anyone up here. I didn't think anyone would be out and about in the cold weather and all."

"Oh. Okay." Chloe sat back down on the steamer trunk and stared at Clark. The two sat in an uncomfortable silence for awhile before Chloe spoke up again. "So, you know, tell me something: How is it that you and Lana are always able to hang out in here and talk each other's ears off, and you and Pete are always able to shoot hoops outside and pour your hearts out, but you and I can't sit and talk unless it's about Smallville's weekly freak?"

Clark frowned and sat a little straighter. "That's not true."

Chloe nodded slightly and then said, "Okay. The other subjects that you and I are able to converse on are Lana and whatever guy happens to be interested in me. Who are usually freaks, so they may fall in the first category anyway."

"What brought this on?" Clark asked, shifting so that he was now sitting sideways on the hammock like a chair, his feet on the ground, and facing Chloe.

Chloe shrugged. "I don't know," she said sincerely. "I just know that Lana talks a lot about you, that you open up to her and tell her things. While most of the things I know about you, we experience together or things that I observe about you. You don't voluntarily give up information to me like you do to her. Or to Pete, even."

Clark frowned. "What makes you think I tell things to Pete?" Another shrug. "I never thought about not telling you things. I always assumed you figured things out all the time. I mean, let's face it, Chloe: You're scarily informed about pretty much every person in this town."

Chloe's eyes narrowed. "Is that why you wouldn't talk to me when we were doing that interviewing project for English class? Because you thought I knew everything already?"

Clark looked embarrassed. "No. I don't know. Maybe." He looked up at Chloe. "I mean, it's not like you tell me stuff about you."

"That's different. You never ask me. You ask Lana stuff about herself all the time."

Clark allowed that sentiment to hang in the air for a moment, and then he frowned again, laying back down in the hammock.

"Okay, then, can I ask you stuff right now?"

"Sure," Chloe said, pulling her legs up and sitting cross-legged atop the steamer trunk. "My life is an open book. Or a Francine Pascal paperback. Something like that."

"Okay. Let's start with something small. Why did you make such a big deal out of the Spring Formal and then pretty much bag the whole situation afterward?"

Chloe raised her eyebrows. "You call that starting small?"

Clark's expression turned incredulous. "Yeah, compared to your dating, in turn, a heat-sucker, a telekinetic and a self-replicator, and oh yeah, digging into my adoption without asking, yes, I think this is starting small."

Chloe couldn't help herself and giggled. "Okay, you got me." Chloe thought for a moment. "Do you want the truth, or the sugar-coated version of it? Because I'm ready to lay it all out here."

"The truth."

"Honestly?"

"Yeah. Come on, Chloe, to me, you're an enigma. You're this well-educated city girl with interesting clothes, eclectic interests and friends that aren't even in high school anymore, half of whom I've never met. So, yes, I really would like the truth from you because I really don't know what to expect. Please."

Chloe sighed and picked at the shoelace on her boot, avoiding Clark's gaze. "Okay, here it is. When I told you that I just wanted to be friends ... that was me, taking the easy way out. You know, you really almost made the formal perfect. Almost. And then when you ran off, I realized that no matter what, I would always feel like second best compared to however you felt about Lana."

Clark thought for a moment before answering. "Chloe, you know, you really aren't. The ways I feel about you and about Lana are totally different. And I really wanted to be with you that night. And the next day when you sort of just blew it off ... well, I didn't know what to think."

"You were supposed to think, 'Chloe is upset. Let me make it up to her by showing her that she was worth fighting for,'" Chloe said bitterly. "Apparently, I wasn't."

"No," Clark said, "that's not what I thought. You said you wanted to be friends; I didn't want to screw up anything between us. I thought I was giving you what you wanted. All I ever want is to make you happy."

"Wow, Clark," Chloe said, throwing her hands up in the air. "You really are the personification of naïveté. When a girl pulls out the friends card, you're supposed to fight the friends card."

"I didn't know that!"

"Well, now you know."

"And now you know that I don't take hints very well. Straightforward, that's what I need."

"Point taken," Chloe said, nodding definitively.

There was another uncomfortable silence before Clark said, "So what did you expect me to do?" he said. "As long as we're being straightforward and honest today."

"I don't know. I guess I expected you to argue with me and kiss me like you were supposed to do at the dance." Clark nodded slowly, and when Chloe noticed him, she said quickly, "Not that I still feel that way."

"Right." Clark looked at her. She was sitting on the steamer trunk, shivering just a little bit in the cool evening air. "Come here."

Chloe looked at him sideways with a suspicious glint in her eyes. "Why?"

"You're shivering, and it is cold. Sit here with me. We'll share the body heat."

Chloe stood up reluctantly and sat sideways next to Clark in the hammock as he pushed off slightly with his feet, swinging gently for a full minute. He placed his arm around Chloe and she instinctively curled into him, placing her head on his chest. They stared at the dark ceiling of the barn as shadows from the burning candles danced over the wooden planks and beams.

"Chloe?"

"Yeah?"

"I really wanted to kiss you at the dance. If there hadn't been a tornado, I would have."

"I know." But she still seemed unconvinced.

"When you told me the next day that you wanted to be friends, I didn't pursue it because I thought it would be easier not to; focusing my attention on Lana again ... that was easier than dealing with the possibility that I might have been falling for my best friend. You know?"

"I guess. It's still pretty cowardly of you. About as cowardly as my pulling the friends card, but still."

"You're right. But I'm still new to all this girl stuff. You're the first female I've been close to in my whole life, other than my mom. I don't know how these male-female relationships are supposed to work."

Chloe lifted her head to look at him. "Are you asking me?"

"I think I am."

"You're supposed to go for it, Clark."

Clark's eyes searched her face, barely visible in the shadows of the candlelight and the porch light outside. "Okay," he whispered, leaning in toward her face.

"What are you doing?" she whispered, backing away slightly.

"Kissing you. I wanted to, and now I'm going to go for it."

There was a slight hesitation from Chloe before she whispered back, "Okay."

Clark leaned in to kiss Chloe slowly, just resting his lips firmly on hers, and then moving his lower lip slowly to caress her top one. He pulled away and tightened his grip around her shoulders.

Suddenly Chloe sat up.

"What?"

"Nothing," Chloe said, picking up her messenger bag and heading down the stairs.

"Chloe!" Clark ran to the railing, watching as Chloe headed for the door.

"Thanks, Clark," she said, smiling. "I'm going to leave now."

"But ... but ...we just ..." Clark didn't know how to say it out loud, or if he even should.

Chloe smiled. "I know. I just don't want to ruin it. I'll see you at school tomorrow."

Clark opened his mouth, but before he could think of something to say, she was out the door.

"Let's hang out again soon," he said to the closed barn door.