Summer this year is the slowest she can remember it being.

There's Chloe, who isn't speaking to her, and the Kents, who won't look at her, and Clark, who isn't there at all.

She's fine, she tells herself, a little bored, maybe, but it could be worse. She's trying not to miss him, because, she always thinks, he might not come back. People had a habit of doing that to her.

She works long hours and comes home late, but Chloe is always later. "I haven't talked to her lately, Mr. Sullivan."

"Let me know if she says anything to you. And please, it's Gabe. You're practically my daughter now, Lana," Chloe's father says, beaming, and Lana feels a rush of emotion so strong that the actual content is lost. It's a jumble of fear, longing, guilt that she smiles through with difficulty.

She had a mother, who's dead. She has a father, who doesn't want her. She's sure Chloe doesn't think of her as a sister anymore, either, and that was a term that always left her as confused as this did now. Closeness isn't something she relishes--she isn't an easy person to get close *to,* she assumes--and Chloe's friendship caught her off-guard. She always liked Chloe, even before they met and she was just reading the Torch, but Clark was always between them, just like he is now.

*

"I don't miss him," Chloe says conversationally. It's a few days after Lana's talk with Mr. Sullivan, and the first time Chloe has said anything to her in months. Perched on the counter of the kitchen, she's digging into an open carton of ice cream like she doesn't have a care in the world. "I thought I would, but I don't." Her voice is a little harsh, bitter, because she's never been all that good at hiding her feelings.

"Really," Lana says, with caution.

"I'll tell you what--I miss the *idea* of him. A white knight. Of course, now that I've given it some thought" --she smiles like she's thinking of a private joke-- "I realize that he was never really like that in the first place."

"Chloe, I'm sorry," Lana blurts, miserably, barely even listening. Right now the ache of missing Chloe is so strong that she can't stand it; she wants to make things better.

She wants things to go back to the way they were.

"No, you're not," Chloe says, gesticulating sharply with her spoon. "But it's nice of you to say so. Even if 'sorry' isn't really going to cut it, when the two of your closest friends are too scared to tell you something you already knew--"

"I'm sorry."

"You'd probably do the same thing again," Chloe muses, cooling a little. "I don't think people really *can* change, it's a nice idea and all, but deep down you'll always be afraid."

It's nothing anyone's ever said to her before, and Lana reels. Her face feels tight and loose at the same time.

"What's wrong, Lana? How's it feel to have someone treat you like something other than a porcelain figurine?" Chloe's eyes are hungry and vicious.

"Shut *up,*" Lana sobs. "You don't even know--"

"Of course I know," says Chloe, "I was there, wasn't I? Even if you don't tell me, I know when you're upset because we're friends, and I wish you'd tell me things instead of making me figure them out for myself. Suffering in silence isn't really a look that suits anyone, especially you."

"I hear you crying at night, screaming in your sleep. I hear you--and you know I do and you expect me to treat you like you're made of glass, but I'm sick of it. I hate that you always tell me nothing's wrong, and that you act like you've never had an impure thought in your life when I can hear your bed bouncing against the wall every night, how's that?"

Lana's mind is a circle of shamed heat. "What--" Her heart is a frantic bird trapped in her chest.

"Just admit it. Tell me one of those secrets you've decided are too precious for mere mortals to comprehend, and I'll consider talking to you again." It's a deal, hard and cold, not something the Chloe she remembers would have done. People can change, she thinks, because her betrayal and Clark's have made Chloe into a completely different person.

"A secret."

"Yep." Chloe swings down from the counter top, moving into Lana's space. "Come on."

"I don't--you *know* all of my secrets, Chloe," she says as lightly as she can manage. Like glass, Chloe said she was, and suddenly she hates Chloe more than she's ever hated anyone. It's the feeling she fears and never looks for, and she's shaking with it, with helpless rage that someone might know her like she wanted Clark to know her, and not like her.

"I dream about you," she says fiercely, angrily. "I dream about you and I wake up and I..." She still can't say it, even with the fire of revenge in her. "I'm going to bed," she finishes; it's weak and pathetic but she can't stand to look into Chloe's eyes anymore, to have living proof of the knowledge that she's unloveable.

Chloe is flushed, confused, thrown for the first time since she started speaking to Lana again. "Wait. You--you *want* me?" Her voice is almost laughing and Lana curdles inside to hear it. "That's just..." Then she sighs. "Lana, I'm sorry. I didn't know."

"I thought you did. I thought you were--"

"No. Trust me, this is the last thing I thought--geez. Why didn't you tell me?"

"I didn't think it was any of your business," Lana says stiffly. Chloe isn't doing any of the things she expected, and she's completely lost her edge. Even her hate has faded to a dull sense of envy of all the people Chloe is going to be nice to for the rest of her life, now that Lana's made sure she won't be one of them.

"Well, that's an interesting point of view," Chloe snipes, and her hands land on Lana's hips, her breath hot on Lana's cheek.

Her "don't!" is spoken into lips that taste like cherry gloss, and ravelled around a tongue that soothes instead of cuts.

"God," Lana gasps. The she smiles, one of the real ones that always feel strange. Chloe grins, a slightly goofy grin that Lana has sorely missed.

"Here." She presses Lana back against the counter, considering her. "You look like you need ice cream."

"What makes you say that?"

"Uh, everyone needs ice cream?" Chloe suggests, and brings the spoon to Lana's mouth. It's stupid, Lana thinks, she can feed herself, she's sixteen years old and she doesn't need...she closes her mouth around the spoon, with difficulty because she can't stop smiling. Drops fall onto her chin, her neck, her chest, and Chloe's tongue follows them, heating every cooled spot.

Lana squirms. "I've never done this before."

Chloe shrugs, suddenly adventurous. "Neither have I. We'll figure it out." Her tongue fills the space between Lana's breasts. Lana's hands--which have been hanging awkwardly through all this--grip Chloe's back of their own volition, and she's still wondering if this is all right when Chloe locks into her, leg pressing up between her thighs. Lana moans out loud, and she can't feel any shame for it with Chloe's fingers on her nipples, the persistent grind of her jeans against her crotch.

She almost isn't prepared when Chloe finally unzips her fly, yanks her clothes off and actually touches her there, sucking hungrily at Lana's neck as she rolls her fingers back and forth, in and out. Lana can't breathe and she can't speak; her head is back and her body sings with something that she doesn't often admit to feeling. After a few minutes Chloe bites down and twists up and Lana comes, breathing Chloe's name, revelling in the perfect feeling that lasts until she remembers the rest of her body--her cramped hands and aching back.

"I'm still mad, you know," Chloe says, and Lana hangs her head, hiding behind her hair. Chloe brushes it out of the way. "Of course, I'll be madder if you don't come upstairs with me."

Lana follows, lucky and nervous. "I don't know how to do this" is met with "just try" and then "mmm," "yes, that's--" "fuck, Lana, oh!" and she treasures every word because Chloe is hers, now, for at least a little while.

"What about Clark?" Chloe says sleepily, her leg still entwined with Lana's.

"Wow, you're on a roll tonight, aren't you?" Lana snaps.

"You could say that," Chloe yawns, and squeezes Lana's shoulder comfortingly.

"Well, now that I think about it. I don't really miss him much either." She stares at the ceiling. "And I am sorry. I don't...I don't know how to talk to people."

Chloe smiles wolfishly. "You can learn," she murmurs into Lana's breast, and Lana surprises her, for the second time that night, by saying "I love you."

When she looks up a few seconds later, Chloe's face is strangely blotchy. Then she circles the love-bite on Lana's neck with her tongue and whispers huskily, "Say it again."