the remainder

based on Moore and Gibbon's, "For the Man who has Everything."

part 1





.

How many years had it been?


I asked myself, counting the gentle footsteps that sounded so very shallow to my ears. They bounced from heel to heel, each against a damp cement stone that led me to where I had been going for a long, long time. These were the very same paths I'd taken before, in a different age and in different shoes. Mine walked slower now, for I had forgotten the way Metropolis influenced your direction. How the restless, city air sparked inspiration by moving your feet five steps with dance of busy pavement. It was blind determination that passed me by years ago. I, only now learning how to  break away  so that I could discover that I'd past up a very important thing along the way.


I walked a little bit slower, seeing and taking in all the places that I had been and where I was going. I saw everything at once, and for what it was. Defragmenting the parts of my life that were broken up and buried here.

And for everything, for everything that it was.

There wasn't anything that could take my breath away quite this place did. A living creature, a soul. Metropolis was always changing, growing, accumulating a collective wisdom that came from its living and past residents.There were the newer parts of town, those designed with the most avant garde of architects and engineers. Buildings spiraling so high, they would touch the sky if they only stretched at the end of their industrious day. I walked between them in alleys that acted as channel ways, the veins that supplied every corner with its people.There were even more than I remembered. All going somewhere. Someplace. Tracing the same paths I had traced long before.

Paths that I had searched up and down, and over again. Each and every sidewalk a channel I was crossed, and switched from, scanning through the different directions the city had taken me. I had searched for happiness inside the search for truth, but instead, had only found one. And I guess you never notice how far you've wandered until you realize how long it takes to get back home.

I walked in place, feeling as a ghost. I had lived through it all.

My eyes wandered above me to where the sky lit up with a honeycomb of amber twilight. Windows glowing with a late evening lamp. There were tiers of them, millions. So many lives huddled closely together that even the tallest skyscrapers of Metropolis leaned upon one another. My eyes glazed upon the brick and boulder, finding them alight with the strangely new, and smiling at the even stranger familiar.

But no matter the architect, no matter the age, there were windows. Windows looking towards the rest of the city.

Some high, some on the eightieth floor. Even some low, the long rectangular strip of glass that lined the basements of the very same. Small, framed opportunities that allowed even the most reclusive set of eyes to step up, and look out.

My feet crawled to a stop as I wondered,


What would they see?


I looked up at each one, waiting for someone to look back. Watching floor by floor, waiting for that one curious soul. Someone to lean down and peer out, and tell me what they saw.


Would they know this city the way I had?

Would they see everything as I had?

I turned another corner, my reflection in tinted, mirror finished glass. There, glass framed bronze, ornately covered doors, all the way up to eighty floors. It was the building where my cousin lived, and had lived for the past many years.  A type of place I thought I'd end up living the rest of my life. Where I'd have everything. A building not far from Metropolis Park, and within a few blocks from the where I had once imagined building my entire professional career.

Its crown pierced the last fading colors of sunlight. A million refractions of rose bouncing from glass to glass and then finally to me.

In the glass I saw myself.

A deep amber surrounding my small body, outlining the exact shape of everything I had ever accomplished, failed and lost inside the small flecks of golden green that looked back at me.
Behind me, I imagined the tiers of eyes that looked on like mine. Another day in the world past, a small event written in the record books, and filed away with the rest.

The sky deepened to a humble blue, a quiet sound. A final whistle called to a cab, and then I was alone. Everyone left to a place that waited for them.  The quiet stirred me, reminding me that I was late. That all of my stalling had come to an end. Eventually I'd have to go inside that building and come to face all of my, well... life.

I looked at the small gift wrapped box I held in my arms.

I looked at myself in the glass door.

I practiced my smile.


"Miss?"


I looked up, the doorman waiting for my attention. I smiled to him.

He smiled too, "Are you a guest or a resident?"

My smile broke, only for a moment. "Guest."

"Hmm." He opened the door for me, but then paused. He was a older man, no younger than his sixties. "You look very familiar."

I hid my laughter, and performed a blush.

"No really." He insisted, "I always remember a fresh, pretty face. Tell me, have you been in the papers?"

I didn't really know what to say, and looked down just in time to see the crest of the Daily Planet folded underneath his pressed uniform sleeve.

"Not in a long time." I said, patting his arm as I went past.



.



The elevators opened with only myself inside. I didn't need directions to find correct apartment door, only the same set of ears that listened to the way my heels crushed the freshly vacuumed carpet hallway, or how my evening dress whispered underneath the long coat I wore. I heard light conversation down the hallway, and the clinking of glasses.

I heard Lois' laughter.

My hands skittered across the crisps edges of the gift I had brought. I knew that I had walked far enough with it in my hands, the curbing indecision to give it away finally choosing its favored side.

I saw a last effort to ditch the silly thing, a mail drop at the very corner.

I walked to it and opened the trap--


"Chloe?"


I stilled, feeling as though caught doing something terrible. I turned ever so slightly, the trap door closing with a sound.
The young voice smiled to me, his eyes capturing mine.

"Jimmy?"

A red haired double walked towards me. "So you do remember me."

A smile broke my shock."Of course I remember you. You're a splitting image of your older brother. Right down to the dimple in your handsome smile." I reached out with a tentative hand, and patted his shoulder. Across it strung a camera.

"You still carry that old thing around?"

We exchanged a hug to which he smiled, and tilted his head in a familiar way. "Well, you know what they say, the apple doesn't fall far from the tree." He nodded to the thing I kept hidden under my coat. "What's that?"

Reluctantly, I surrendered it. "Just something I brought for the birthday boy."

"Oh." He said as he took it gently from my hands and smiled. "I'll put it with the rest. We're collecting quite a mass in there."

"I bet." I said, as I followed him to the door. It opened as we approached the threshold.

"Jimmy!" I watched Lois say between laughter, "There you are! Hurry, we're about to bring out the--"
I stood there in front of my cousin, hands in the deep pockets of my coat. "Hi, Lo."  She didn't say anything then, only wrapping her arms around me and squeezing tight. We didn't say anything at all, the lingering tenderness saying it all.
I had missed my cousin, dearly. And she had missed me.

Lois pulled us apart for only a second, revealing the newly found lines around her mischievous smile. There was slight presence of age in her brown eyes. They looked at mine closely, saddened when she didn't find the same evidence in mine.

She took my coat. "It's good to have you home."

I nodded, and blinked away the slight warmth in my eyes. I saw the faces behind my cousin, all smiling as I entered the room. I knew everyone one of them, discovered them all down the paths I had talked about before. To my left was a handsome Arthur Curry, to my right a stunningly dressed Courtney Whitmore. These were names the world would never recognize, only knowing the ones we hand picked to print on paper, the masks we wore in front of our faces.

In every face, I saw a fragment of myself.  I had drawn every corner of the room together at one point of my life, and now they had drawn me back to them.

"Welcome home." Victor Stone said beside me, the edges of his beard peppered and grey. Wordlessly, I captured him in my arms.

Behind him, I saw John Corbin grinning like the devil himself.

"Hi John."

His quiet wink surfaced the old joke between us.

"I've heard the work you're doing now is what's keeping you away." Victor said as he patted my shoulder. "I don't like it."

"Neither do I." I lied.

"Promise to visit me soon? I have new programs I've developed since we last talked. I'd like to run them past you. You might find them helpful in your research."

"I'd like that very much." I said, and skittered away.

I found myself gathered around the people who I built my life around, people who I had also helped build theirs. We greeted eachother warmly and passed around drinks. Casually, I walked around looking for some small corner to tuck myself away.

I found one, a comfortable looking chair and ottoman waiting for me.

Sitting, I enjoyed being a point detached from the rest of the party. I saw the gift I had brought  sitting ontop of the mound of other presents Jimmy had stacked on a table. There were red balloons tied to it, blue ones near the kitchen.

I didn't see any gold ones.

"Chloe!"

"Lana."

"My god," her eyes widened, "You don't look a day over twenty five!"

I buried my grimace, already expecting this from atleast one person at the gathering. I should have expected it from Lana Lang. A woman whom I had always connected with beauty, youth and elegance.

She was still beautiful even today. But like the rest of the faces in the room, she was older. Her voice, strained.

Mine still had the same peppy, sardonic cheer it always did. I was cursed with it. Cursed or blessed, I'm not sure. My dry humor had saved me before. "Speak for yourself!" I tightened my smile, "You're looking as gorgeous as ever, Lana."

I frowned when she took no notice of my words, choosing to touch my cheek with a frail finger. "Your skin, your face. You look so young."

I tried to brush it off with one of my smirking, self effacing remarks. "I don't feel young."

"But you are." Lana exclaimed, bewildered by my strange youth. She emphasised again, "You look so young."

My heart crumbled in, crushed by the pain in her creased eyes. She withdrew her hand, and we were both quiet.

"It was nice seeing you again." I said, conveniently skittering away like I was so good at. I walked slowly away, the rustle of my dress bothering me. In the room, I felt eyes watching my every move, all of them with the same questioning look Lana's had.

And again the lingering question struck me.


Did they see me, the way I saw myself?

Across the room I saw Oliver. I saw the way he looked at me. And I knew.

I looked for my coat.

"Going somewhere?" I heard a gruff voice ask. I knew who it was before I turned around.

"How are you, Bruce? " I sighed, finding it finally among the pile of coats on a random chair.

"I asked you a question first." A tall, broad shouldered man said gruffly. A man who had the darkest hair I'd ever seen, and the thickest, most stubborn personality to ever match my own. I fumbled around for the sleeves. "What?"

He stopped me, holding the shoulders so I could slip in. "You look like you're running off already."

I thanked him once I was tucked in. "No, I'm ok."

"You sure?"

"Bruce," I said holding back on a nastier comment, "I'm alright."

"You don't look 'alright'." He said, and then added. "You look, great."

I raised a brow, almost surprised to see a smile on his rough face. Bruce Wayne had a dark beauty about him. A scar for nearly every encounter he had faced in his career. A long dark mar across his jaw from one of last I had fought beside him. There was a smaller scar on the corner of his chin. That one I had done myself after a long night of drinking. I noticed Bruce was still smiling at me, so I found some words and put them together. Almost. "Thanks."


"Dick, Jason and Tim are here." He pointed out, each name accented with a finger around the room. "Everyone's here actually."

I smirked, "Well if 'everyone' is here then who's out there saving the world?"

Bruce shrugged, "We sent Bart out to patrol."

I laughed. "Seriously?"

"No." He said casually, and then smirked. "We sent Bart down the street for more ice." He jiggled his glass.

I smiled.

"We sent GLC to patrol." Bruce added stiffly.

.


"Everyone, everyone please!" Lois sang from the middle of the room. "We're about to bring out the cake!"

Bruce weaseled his arm around mine and dragged me along.

"Where is the birthday boy?" I asked casually, eyes drifting around the room.

"I'm not sure." Bruce frowned, "After Oliver and Dinah showed up I haven't seen him around."

My eyes betrayed me, stealing another look towards Oliver and Dinah standing nearby. Their young daughter swayed around Oliver's lean legs, her head of hair even brighter than her mom's.

She smiled at me.

I smiled back, and waved to her parents.

Just another path, I reminded myself. Just another path I could have walked down, but didn't. For one reason or another. Considering the circumstances now, I was thankful that I hadn't. If I could divide all of the possibilities, what was left behind was myself.

The remainder.

I felt Bruce staring at me again, but I refused to answer him. His arm gradually let loose around mine, his hand disconnecting completely by the time I had swayed away. Bruce and I had our own path a while ago, but I didn't wander too far. It was for the best, really.

We watched as Lois lit the candles on the cake. Watched as she looked around the room, filing away our faces in candle light, and frowning once she never found the exact one she was looking for.

"Where is Clark?"

Jimmy snapped a picture. "I'm not sure."

"He's probably out with the GLC." I heard someone say.

"That or Kara."

"Diana left a while ago. Maybe he snuck out with her." Bruce offered crassly.

I bumped him with my elbow.

"I mean," he corrected himself with a smirk, "There's that crisis on Themyscira. I'm sure he's covering that."

Lois frowned. "But it's his big four-oh."

Compulsively, I started counting the candles.

 They were all there.

"He hates birthdays." I said absently. Ofcourse, Lois heard me, and instantly I regretted it.
"Well," Oliver stepped in, his daughter on his shoulder. "No sense in wasting a good party."

"Or cake." His apple-eyed daughter provided.

The room rumbled in laughter, including my own. As everyone huddled around, I slipped through Bruce's supervision and found my way to the bathroom and shut the door.

In the mirror, I saw what they all saw.

Their past, their own youth, hidden within the captivity of my young appearance, a curse from my own blood. My elusive meteor infection choosing to resurface years after I believed it to be eradicated.

A younger woman peered back at me.

Short, blonde curls, full green eyes.

I looked as I always had.

The family I had built had grown, and grown older. All of them ready to pass on our traditions to the next generation after us. We had to. We wouldn't be around forever, Hawkman's death an early reminder of our mortality.

But not all of us were going down that path.

I leaned against the counter, rubbing the image of my face from my eyes.


.

I stalked out of the bathroom, finding myself bored with the idea of birthday cake. Instead I read the framed articles Lois had written over the years, hanging in the hallway next to the pictures of Superman. I imagined they were all taken by Olsen, the kid photographer that Clark gladly looked after like a little brother.

There were pictures of every one of us up there.

Even one of Jimmy.

My Jimmy.

A sound from the next room startled me. I hadn't noticed anyone come down that way, and I hadn't thought anyone had tucked themselves away like I had. I heard the noise again, and immediately my curiosity peaked. I cracked open the next room's door just enough for the crest of light to fall upon my face.

I saw Clark sitting inside, his back towards me. He was facing the window, looking out.

I smiled. Finally the curious soul I was searching for.

"Hiding out?" I said playfully, hoping to stir atleast a smile from him. "You know they've been looking for you out there. They're about to cut the cake."

He didn't say a word.

He didn't even move.

I stared at the back of his dark wavy hair, the memories of watching Clark at his parents barn reviving an old pattern of teasing. "I know you hate birthday's so I brought you a present to rub it in."

Still nothing. I saw his shoulder move, but it was slight.

I shrugged my own, making my way around the room, "C'mon, you got to give me some credit though. Superman is hard to shop for. There's only so much red underwear I can buy before--"

I saw his face.
His eyes empty and glazed.

For whatever reason, I didn't even notice the thing wrapped around his chest until I had wrapped my hands around his forehead, the coldness in his skin striking horror inside of me.

There was a black, tendril growth sprouting right from the center of Clark's chest, bursting from his dress shirt.

I shook him again.

"Clark!"

Lois ran in first, dropping whatever she had in her hands until it shattered against the floor.

I stepped back as the room filled with fellow JL, each face more confused than mine.

On the cushion beside Clark's motionless body was an box. One wrapped as delicately as I had wrapped mine.

Beside it was a note. I opened it.

I looked to Bruce, the terror resonating between us. In large, jagged cursive read:

For the man who has everything,

M.


tbc