inalienable rights CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Marin left her door open. There was no purpose now in keeping up any pretense of privacy, not when even the most sacred pieces of herself and her life had been so deeply violated. Her heart had been poured out, her body stolen, and her broken spirit was left to mourn for the shell that remained. Her retreat from the world was meant to restore her, to guard her while she rebuilt herself. But her haven became her prison, where she was locked in an anguish so brutal and crushing that she almost couldn't feel it. She became numb, despondent, her soul writhing and seething against what had taken root inside her. She was suffocated by the residue of memories that almost happened, those she couldn't grasp, and of the sound of hesitant knocking on doors in the early morning. The weight of consequences that should not have been hers filled the space around her, pressing against the walls and the delicate membrane of her sanity.
So the door stood open.
Arms clutched around her knees, Marin was huddled in the corner between the wall and her desk, out of sight from the door except for the toes of her shoes. She wasn't trying to hide, she merely feared the open spaces, heavy as they were - she needed the solid reassurance of a wall at her back to keep herself from imagining that the empty air behind her was twisting into a malicious specter, sent to deal her yet another merciless blow.
Lost as she was in her misery, she only vaguely recognized that an anxious voice was calling down the hall, something like a name. As the voice and the accompanying pounding of footsteps drew closer, she distantly realized the name was hers. It didn't alarm her that the voice and the feet that carried it clamored into the room without hesitation, as she'd come to expect lately that things would happen to her with or without her consent.
"Marin!" Dr. Prescott cried, her tone a fusion of concern and anxiety. "Marin, we found something - you won't believe - you'd better come to the hub!"
Marin gazed up through the fog that clouded her senses. "Andrea?"
Dr. Prescott knelt and tugged at Marin's hand. "Come on, Marin, come to the hub," she implored tenderly. "It might be good news."
The uncertainty in Dr. Prescott's voice forced Marin's analytical nature to take back control from her emotions. "Might be good news? You don't know what it is yet?"
Dr. Prescott averted her eyes and bit her lip before responding. "Well, I do, but - you just have to come and see for yourself. In one way it's good, in that it's not… well… Dr. Crosby's waiting."
With a great effort Marin hoisted herself off of the floor and away from the safety of the wall, but trailed closely behind Dr. Prescott as she followed her to the hub. She idly peered through open doors as they passed through the halls, noting in bewilderment the state of mayhem in which Drs. Crosby and Prescott had left the labs in their search for evidence of Dr. Ripley's deviance.
"Is she coming, Andrea?" Dr. Crosby called when she heard them approaching.
"She's right behind me," Dr Prescott answered and turned to Marin with a sympathetic smile.
Dr. Crosby crossed over to Marin and braced her shoulders with a gently supportive arm. "How are you feeling?"
Marin shrugged. "How should I feel?" she countered tearfully.
Dr. Crosby glanced at Dr. Prescott, and neither knew what to say. Finally, after a decidedly uncomfortable interlude, Dr. Crosby decided to move on. "When I called Dr. Swann to alert him of the situation, he told me something that even I didn't know - the entire substructure of the building, with the exception of the bunkers, is equipped with hidden surveillance - far beyond the standard visual security system that we all knew about. I shouldn't have been surprised, given Dr. Swann's eccentricities - but anyway, the system includes the hub, the labs, the elevators, the hallways - and the exam rooms."
Marin raised an eyebrow. "You said 'exam rooms' like it means something."
"Well, it does. After reviewing some of the footage I came across something that may or may not ease your mind - but it definitely gives us a whole new problem."
Marin started to become agitated. "Can we stop being cryptic, please? I want to see the video."
Dr. Prescott looked ill at ease. "Maybe we should just tell her."
Dr. Crosby shook her head. "No, she has the right to see this. She needs to know." She turned to Marin. "Do you want us to leave?"
Marin stared at the blank monitor, privately assessing her strength. She wasn't sure she had any left. "Do you mind staying?"
"No, we can stay," Dr. Prescott lulled, taking up her post next to Marin, opposite Dr. Crosby.
Flanked by her colleagues, Marin feebly reached out to press "play." When the image of Dr. Ripley pressing her against the wall and leering wickedly appeared on the screen, Marin released a choked sob and collapsed to her knees, one hand over her mouth and the other clutching her stomach. She watched the tape in horror through burning tears, as everything in her screamed in denial of its truth.
I need your baby. Yours and Clark's.
Clark stumbled only slightly as he landed, but after a few misplaced steps in a flattened field of harvested corn, he regained his footing and stopped to observe his surroundings. He'd turned three full circles, scanning everything he could see and listening for the slightest hint of danger, before he looked down to see Chloe - still gathered like a child in his arms - shivering and staring at him in unveiled awe.
"Chloe!" he exclaimed suddenly, as if he'd forgotten he'd been holding her. He gingerly set her on the ground. "You're freezing," he said apologetically, taking off his jacket and wrapping it around her shoulders. "I need to find you someplace warm."
Chloe remained speechless and immobile, finding herself filled with new questions while so many of her old queries were suddenly answered, in some vague manner. Her eyes were wide, as if seeing Clark for the first time - seeing things that she now realized were always there, but she'd been blind to them.
Clark was starting to panic. "Chloe! Are you okay? Chloe, say something! Nod if you can hear me, or - something! Chloe?" He pulled her close again. She's so cold.
The air around Chloe was so thick with her epiphany that Clark's voice couldn't fully penetrate it. She could only watch him while his eyes darted over her, checking for injuries, begging her for any sign that she could understand him - but it was understanding that bound her tongue. While she still didn't really have answers to all of her years of curiosities about Clark, she had one pure, undeniable experience to decode - at least for herself - the tangled web of mystery that had always been Clark Kent.
"Chloe, please. You have to say something," Clark whispered against her ear. "I don't know what to do. I'm so, so sorry about all the lies I told you, I promise I'll never lie to you again if you just say something! Please, Chloe…" The tears that had been collected in the corners of his eyes spilled down over his ruddy cheeks, and in the cold autumn air his breath mingled with Chloe's in a sweet, white mist. He slumped over her as he cradled her in his lap, and for the first time he could remember in years, allowed himself to really cry - for Chloe, for his parents, for all the turmoil he felt responsible for since before he even knew what made him different. "I'm lost, Chloe," he breathed against her forehead. "Being me has cost the people I love everything, and it's cost me the people I love. Please, please don't be one of those people."
To Chloe, everything still looked and sounded as if it were underwater, but some determined thread of Clark's plea wove its way through the gentle shroud that covered her, and she raised a finger to touch his moonlit cheek. "Clark?"
Relief flooded Clark like a tidal wave and he tightened his embrace. "Oh, thank God, Chloe!" he cried. "I thought I'd lost you."
Chloe smiled brilliantly as she let her head fall back, the harvest moon caressing her face with ethereal fingers of light. "I'm here."
Clark cupped her face in one hand. "Yes you are," he smiled, not even trying to pretend he hadn't cried. Renewed with a sense of purpose now that he knew Chloe was unharmed, he stood and lifted Chloe with him. "We need to find someplace warm."
"I think I can walk," Chloe said, her lucidity returning.
"Are you sure?"
"I think so," Chloe nodded, then looked around. "Something tells me we're not in Kansas anymore, Toto."
Clark laughed, perhaps harder than he would have normally, but to hear her voice with her usual wit was immensely reassuring - even with all the questions that must be swimming through her mind, she could make light of the situation. "Ah, no - we're - I think we're in Minnesota?"
"Minnesota!" Chloe chuckled. "We're in a different state, but we still manage to end up in a corn field. Why Minnesota?"
Clark shrugged, finally setting Chloe down so she could stand. "I was just trying to get away - I didn't really care where - and I didn't really have control over the, uh… flying… thing." Clark ducked his head sheepishly, thinking how ludicrous it must sound.
Chloe drew in her breath sharply as they began walking out of the field, arms intertwined. "Flying… wow." She knew they'd flown, she could feel the memory of whipping through the atmosphere with nothing around her but Clark's arms and the night sky - but saying it out loud made it seem incomprehensible.
"Yeah," Clark answered absently as he looked up at the sky. Chloe was notably silent as he surveyed the cosmos, so he looked down again into her quizzical eyes. "You want answers?"
"At some point," she affirmed with a sweet smile. "I can be patient for a little while."
"Patient? You? The air must have been really thin up there," Clark teased.
"Are you seriously teasing me? I just had an out-of-body experience, except my body was still with me. Don't be so inhuman." Chloe had expected at least a smile in return for her jest, and was surprised when Clark's jaw set in a grim line. "What is it? Did I say something?"
Clark knew it was time to tell her - there was no way to deny his identity to her now, and he didn't want to anymore. But this wasn't like telling Pete. In some ways it was easier, because he was certain that Chloe wouldn't respond by pushing him away as Pete had, but in another way - some disarming way that he couldn't define - it terrified him. Clark closed his eyes and held Chloe by the shoulders, looking down at her shining face, open and accepting. "Inhuman."
"Inhuman…" Chloe repeated, prompting Clark to continue.
"That's what I am."