My Best Friend's Girl

Notes: Happy birthday, rosenho! *hugs Hope*

Pete's trouble started one night during the fall of their junior year of high school. With a particularly troublesome meteor mutant on the loose, Clark sent Pete to barricade himself and Lana in the back office of the Talon while Clark took care of things. Pete didn't mind so much being a glorified babysitter rather than the hero of the piece. He preferred staying on the sidelines for that particular type of game.

No, the trouble presented itself in the form of his company for the evening. Keeping Lana relatively in the dark as to why Pete was playing bodyguard rather than her boyfriend filling the role didn't seem like an issue at first. Pete figured he was in for a long evening of dead silence, perhaps punctuated with the occasional vaguely worded complaint about Clark's latest disappearing act.

Instead, they played gin rummy -- during which Lana breezily kicked his ass several times, sans gloating -- and Pete told bad jokes. Strangely, Lana seemed to *like* his bad jokes, and her laughter had him smiling wider than he could remember happening in ages. The hours slipped by unnoticed until Clark arrived to fetch both of them with an assurance that Lana's latest stalker wouldn't be a problem anymore, and Pete found himself wishing it had taken Clark a little longer. When Clark's arms encircled Lana and she leaned up to meet his kiss, Pete felt a tightening in his chest.

It only took a second for Pete to identify the feeling as jealousy.

--*--

After that first night, a lot of things changed. Pete no longer felt comfortable watching Lana and Clark together, so he arranged things so he could avoid them in couple mode whenever possible.

The problem went deeper than that -- Pete didn't feel comfortable in his own skin, either. He started wondering if he had some strange psychological condition that led him to fall for girls who were in love with his best friend, or maybe it was some weird brain chemistry thing. At least those would offer the possibility of cure through therapy or medication.

He'd been through this before, and getting over Chloe had been hard enough. Pete had managed it, though -- by the time Chloe had given up on Clark, Pete had given up on her. He could do it again, he assured himself. Pete thought that spending more time with Lana might make a difference, since constant exposure had lessened the ache with Chloe. He would find out all the ways they weren't compatible, and Lana would go back to her rightful place in Pete's head as his best friend's girlfriend.

At least that was what he told himself when he started going to the Talon after school while Clark was busy with chores on the farm.

--*--

The feelings didn't go away, but Pete had patience and more than a little stubbornness on his side. When business at the Talon was slow, Pete helped Lana with her US History homework, and she reciprocated the favor in Literature Studies. He knew that he never would have managed an A on his Charles Dickens essay without her help, and he told her so. She replied that Pete held sole credit for making sense of the Acts of Confederation for her.

Pete consoled himself that getting his heart shredded on a daily basis had served some purpose at least.

One evening, they had finished homework and had moved on to just talking when Clark arrived. Pete heard his friend's voice coming from behind him and immediately sat up straight on his stool, forgoing the lean forward onto the coffee bar that had brought him closer to Lana's personal space. Lana stepped around the bar and slid naturally into the curve of Clark's arm, looking up at the wall clock with surprised eyes when Clark reminded her that closing time had passed fifteen minutes ago.

She released a shocked laugh and headed for the doors to lock them, exclaiming her disbelief that she'd so thoroughly lost track of time. Clark jovially elbowed Pete in the ribs and teased that if Pete were anyone else, Clark would be worried that he was moving in on Clark's girl. Pete had practice to fall back on and hid his reaction, laughing and rolling his eyes.

Pete didn't go to the Talon without Chloe or Clark in tow for a week after that.

--*--

Junior year passed and senior year started without any fundamental change. Pete remained infatuated, and Clark and Lana continued to be the perfect couple. While the feelings hadn't gone away like he'd hoped, Pete got better at coping with them. He spent time with them together and didn't betray a hint of the emotions he struggled with daily.

Pete wanted Lana, but what he wanted more was for her to be happy, to feel safe. Clark gave her those things, so Pete casually dated and watched the model for teenage sweethearts make everyone around them smile. Clark had always longed for normalcy, and Pete would never do anything to take that away from him now that he'd found it. Pete's own feelings were no one's problem but his own.

At least they were until Chloe and her reporter's instincts figured it out. Unable to snow her, Pete instead swore Chloe to secrecy. She hugged him and told him she knew exactly how he felt, and Pete knew it was true. She'd been there herself, so the empathy didn't come off as cloying. Chloe knew what it was like to be on the outside of the perfect couple, looking in.

Pete didn't realize at the time that there was such a thing as too much perfection.

--*--

Clark and Lana broke up the summer following senior year. Pete offered Clark his support and got a stilted explanation that clearly wasn't the whole story. Something about not harnessing Lana with another long distance relationship, but the shadows in Clark's eyes spoke volumes his words didn't.

Pete didn't press for specifics, didn't want them. Loyalty to Clark meant respecting his need to deal with the breakup in his own way, so Pete simply made it clear that if Clark wanted to talk, he was available. Besides that, he had a pretty good idea what had happened even without Clark's confirmation.

Pete didn't see much of Lana that summer. He went by the Talon a few times, but he made a habit of doing so when he knew she'd be too busy exchange more than small talk. Those occasions reaffirmed that fact that he was still in love with her, so her attachment to Clark had nothing to do with his feelings. That should have made him feel better.

It didn't.

While Pete counseled Clark that summer, Chloe took care of Lana. According to Chloe, Lana didn't seem heartbroken, more like resigned and maybe a little nostalgic. That echoed the vibe Pete got from Clark, and Pete didn't quite comprehend the reactions.

He wouldn't understand completely until that winter.

--*--

When Pete returned from UCLA for Christmas break, his first stop after home was the Kent farm. The red truck wasn't parked in the driveway, and when no one answered the doorbell, Pete assumed the Kents were picking up Clark in Metropolis. Pete knew Chloe didn't plan to be home until the following night, so that left him with one last destination.

Walking into the Talon dispelled the last of Pete's lingering homesickness. He unwound the scarf that had protected his neck from the cold and shook new fallen snow from the red knit material. He shoved it into the pocket of his jacket along with his gloves and took a seat at the bar, looking around at the lone occupied table. He offered a wave to them and turned back around, inhaling the welcome scent of fresh brewed coffee and homemade pastries.

The kitchen door swung open, and Lana walked out, a generic smile on her face that quickly widened when she recognized her new customer. "Pete, it's great to see you! When did you get home?"

Pete shrugged off his jacket as she rounded the counter, offering her a smile that probably shone a little too brightly for the occasion. He couldn't seem to control it. "My flight got in from LA at five. A few hours in the car from Metropolis and here I am."

Lana stopped a foot away from him and held up her index finger. "Just a second. Let me cash out this table and I'll close up so we can talk."

Ten minutes later, Lana threw the deadbolt on the door and turned the closed sign to face the outside of the Talon. She untied her apron as she approached him, a smile that reached her eyes and made them sparkle spreading across her lips. Pete stood still near the bar with his hands stuffed into the pockets of his jacket, fisting them there to keep them steady. She still affected him the same way she had for the past two years. The four months away hadn't changed a thing where Pete was concerned.

Lana didn't stop moving until she was right in front of him with her arms outstretched. Pete automatically opened his as well, and Lana hugged him tightly. Pete's heart thudded in his chest, and he hoped she couldn't hear it as he returned the embrace.

After a moment that seemed eternally long but didn't last nearly as long as he wanted, Lana pulled back to look at him. "How've you been, Pete?"

"Pretty good. School is hectic, but I like LA. How about you?"

Lana shrugged, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. "Good. The Talon's doing really well, and I've been taking business courses for credit over the internet. You can actually earn a degree without stepping foot on a college campus now. It's pretty amazing."

Things continued in that vein for a while. They caught each other up on family news, and Lana provided the latest in Smallville gossip. They eventually settled into a booth with mugs of hot chocolate to continue the conversation.

Lana wrapped her hands around the mug, and Pete found himself distracted by the tapping of her nails against the ceramic. "Spill, Pete. How are the California girls? Been seeing anyone special?"

Pete tugged on his t-shirt in a flagrantly boasting gesture. "This small town boy has made a big splash, as usual." The sound of Lana's laughter mingling with his own made Pete's throat tighten, and he cleared it before continuing, "A few dates here and there, strictly casual."

Lana raised a knowing brow, her laughter trailing off but lingering in her voice. "The Pete Ross standard operating procedure for romance -- 'strictly casual'."

Pete couldn't contradict that without raising questions he couldn't answer, so he volleyed back, "How about the small town girl? You still breaking hearts all over Smallville?"

He knew it was the wrong thing to say the second the words left his mouth, but it was too late to take them back. Lana's smile faded away, and she stared fixedly at her mug. "No one since Clark. I... I needed some time to myself after..." Lana lifted her eyes and met his gaze for a moment before she continued. "He told me everything. About..." she raised her eyes heavenward and gave one nod upwards, "you know."

Pete nodded, the revelation not remotely surprising him. "Is that why you broke up?"

And again, could his mouth consider checking in with his brain before operating? While Lana's confession about Clark didn't shock him, her reaction to his question did. She gave him a smile, soft and edged with sadness. "We both thought so, at first. It was an excuse, not the reason."

Pete's brow furrowed. "What do you mean?"

Lana took a sip of her cocoa and then threaded her fingers together, laying her joined hands on the table. "It was easier, I guess. The whole thing was very civilized. Clark said that he needed to figure out what kind of personal life he can have; given his powers and the responsibility he feels to use them. I told him I already knew what I wanted from life, and that worrying myself sick every night while he's out trying to save the world isn't something I could live with. We chalked the whole thing up to an accident of fate, and that was that."

Pete waited to see if she'd go on, but when she remained silently contemplative, he prompted. "If that's not the real reason it didn't work out for you, then what is? I mean... I figured you two for the long haul, regardless of Clark's circumstances. White picket fence, two point three kids, the dog, all of it."

Lana smiled at him again, tilting her head to the side. "You saw the same thing everyone else did. A perfect couple, and we were, except for the fact that it wasn't real."

What?

His expression must have asked the question for him, because Lana laughed quietly and then clarified. "I looked at Clark and saw a person who would never leave me and would always keep me safe. Clark looked at me and saw the 'normal life' he'd convinced himself he wanted. The problem was, neither of us actually looked at each other, at the people underneath the ideal. We saw what we needed, and that was enough. Finding out Clark's secret just drove home the fact that I never really knew him, and he never knew me either." Lana pulled one hand away from her mug, closing it around Pete's where it lay on the table. "Clark and I dated for over two years, and I'm positive that you know me better than he does."

Pete stared at the hand enclosing his, then met Lana's eyes again. Words tumbled around in his brain, but he couldn't push the ones he wanted to say past the tight, nervous closure of his throat. "Maybe that's true, I don't know. But I do know that Clark loved you."

Lana studied him silently for a moment before releasing his hand and sitting back. "I know he did, in his way. The same thing goes for me, it's just... it wasn't enough. I kept waiting for him to see who I really was and to love me anyway, but we never got there."

Pete could have said that he'd seen the real Lana and loved her *because* of that, but he held back. Something told him the time wasn't right, not yet.

Pete still had patience and more than a little stubbornness on his side.

--*--

The summer after Pete's freshman year at UCLA, he came home to Smallville. The first thing he did was ask Lana Lang on a date, which she accepted. Pete had never been happier in his life, and Chloe assured him that Lana was "just as stupid with the giddy" as he was. At the end of the summer, he struggled with asking Lana to wait for him.

She surprised him by asking him to wait for her.

The intervening months passed slowly with countless hours spent talking on the phone and as many trips back to Smallville as Pete's college student budget would allow. The summer after his sophomore year, Lana announced that she was turning over supervision of the Talon to her assistant manager and moving to LA to attend UCLA for the remainder of her education. A few weeks and several phone calls to apartment complexes in LA later, Pete asked Lana to live with him. They rented a small apartment within a bus ride of campus, where they stayed until graduation in the spring of 2009.

The wedding was set for June twentieth, and Pete had never been more nervous in his life than he was the weekend he flew to Metropolis to tell Clark the news, and to ask Clark to be his best man. They'd never really discussed Clark's past relationship with Lana in detail, though Clark knew that she'd told Pete the entire story about the breakup. When Pete arrived on Clark's doorstep, Clark greeted him with a crushing bear hug. Pete received another one when he told Clark about the engagement, but he had to be sure it wasn't just Clark being... well, Clark -- trying to save everyone but himself.

"Clark... about Lana-"

Clark stopped him with a firm headshake. "I know where you're going with this, Pete. I can hear it in your voice, so let's just get this out of the way. The breakup was best for both of us. Lana is happy, and now, so am I."

Pete opened his mouth to ask about that rather interesting twinkle in Clark's eyes and the self-satisfied grin on his face, but Clark shot him a look that forestalled the interrogation. "Let me finish. You're my friend, Pete. Nothing would ever change that. When I think about Lana now, she's..."

Clark hesitated as if searching for the right description, so Pete provided, "The one who got away?"

Clark shook his head and grinned. "No. She's my best friend's girl."

-- End --

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