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9

　

Through miniblinds, Chloe's eyes absorbed the scene inside the ICU. She watched as Clark leaned over Lois' bedside and rubbed her hand. It was how a gentle husband looked after an ill wife. And as she watched, Chloe knew there were eyes watching her.

She took a step back and slowly paced the hallway outside. The Smallville General Hospital hadn't changed much since the last time she visited. It was ten years ago, she thought, when she caught a mysterious virus and laid bedridden for three months. It was all a plot back in Lionel's day to get rid of excess, to get rid of her.

But she remembered how Clark protested, how he stationed himself next to her bedside those many days. Her mysterious sickness cleared up on its own eventually, and that was the end to that. Another Luthor plot foiled and tossed onto the pile, like an architect scrapping drawing paper. But for many years the creators kept Clark and Chloe apart with injected drama, and instigated dissoultions. But she didn't go away like they intended. Those in power never could agree on a suitable resolution for her role in Clark's life. A primordial push and pull.

Most of her childhood felt the same, a invisible hand pushing and pulling her through this world. She'd been recruited at a middle school age, a stand in was what she signed up for. She was told that the boy was special, and was not to be spoken to. She was to sit beside the boy and say nothing.

She was hired to say nothing.

But Clark turned to her in that classroom, smiled, and rewrote all of what was to be.

She didn't know why she was drawn... so inclined to smile back. One conversation led to her sitting next to him at lunch for six straight years. Her life entangled with the boy she was instructed to never speak to. With all the experimentation implemented in Clark's sheltered life, she admired how completely genuine and unchanged he had remained, like a boy trapped inside of a capsule. His ability to withstand all the manipulations set like traps by animals who sniffed out greater prey.

The door opened, Clark sliding out and nodding to her.

"How is she?" Chloe stepped to his side.

"She's still asleep. Doctor said she needs as much rest as we can give her. Seeing how the paper burned down, I don't see her rushing back to work any time soon anyway."

Chloe looked through him, swallowing her first words and deciding on another, "This wasn't your fault. You know that, right?"

He glanced at her and then smiled, partially bitter, partially guilty. "I can't help but think someone is baiting me. Lois was tied up in that fire. Why? Who would have done this to her?"

Chloe looked over her shoulder to where Lois rested. Above her were monitors, gauges, wires. Fascades for the many cameras hidden among the clutter. It was a familiar scene to Chloe. She could almost see the invisible hand pushing Lois away. Pushing, shoving, forcing into obscurity. From what little Emil Hamilton disclosed to her, the project's efforts to keep Clark contained in their mini-world facility was waning. They'd do anything to keep Clark occupied.

Anything, Chloe thought. She looked up, realizing Clark was waiting for her answer. A suggestion or idea to who would have done this to Lois. Would he believe the size of such a lie? So many deceptions around the single most honest of Men.

Why were they all afraid of him?

"Clark," Chloe said as she walked him down the hallway, "We will find out who's behind this. You can count on it." The words felt so empty as she said it. As empty as the voice in her ear piece.

"One thing is for sure," Clark drew his brows decisively, "This proves that Perry White is not the arsonist the authorities were looking for."

"That or he isn't working alone..." Chloe suggested.

Clark didn't seem to like that scenario, his conviction in believing on White's innocence so strong, it caused him the bitterest resolutions, "I can't believe something like this has happened here, in Smallville, of all places, "he said, recounting the events, " It's like nothings sacred anymore."

All she could do was nod and stand beside him. Just being near him was enough to make her uncomfortable. There were so many words that she was restricted to say. Again, she was back to the girl who ws instructed to just sit beside the boy, and say nothing.

"I'm glad you're here." Clark said after several moments of quiet, "You can help me find who did this. I doubt the Sheriff will be much help."

She nodded, and remained at his side. It was at that moment when they heard Lois screaming from her bed. Clark rushed in first, catching Lois as she flailed herself to the floor.

"They're going to kill me!" Lois screamed, fighting against Clark's help.

"Shhhh!" Clark calmed, "Lois, you're safe now. You're okay!"

"Don't touch me!" She screamed hysterically, pushing herself away from him and everyone else in the room. "Don't touch me, please! Please help me!"

Clark watched as she burrowed herself in the corner of the room. He turned to the nurses who had also rushed to the room, and then to Chloe. "What's wrong with her?"

Chloe shook her head, "I- I don't know. Possibly post traumatic stress?"

Clark turned back to his wife and tried calming her again, but she wouldn't let him touch her. She seemed the most afraid of him. "Lois, it's me, Clark. I'm here. I wont let anything happen to you again, I promise it. I promise!"

"Lois," Chloe knelt down, her voice like cool water, "Lois, it's me. Chloe... Your cousin?"

Lois turned towards her, eyes bulging and red, she coughed terribly before she cried, "I've never seen you before in my life! I want to see Lex Luthor! I know that bastard is listening to me, I know he's here! I want my lawyers!"

That's when two male nurses swooped into the scene, one carrying a hypodermic needle. With one stab, Lois went lights out.

Clark pushed them out of the way, hysterical himself.

"Clark!" Chloe held him back, "It's ok. They just gave her a sedative. She's going through some sort of psychological episode."

"Lois doesn't have episodes!" Clark shouted back, nerves still amped, "She knows! She's knows whos done this!"

"Shhh!" Chloe whispered, taking him back into the hall.

He followed her, but continued to look on into Lois' room. The nurses lifted her back onto the bed and strapped her in. "What, what did she say... Lex.. Luthor? Is that what she said, Lex Luthor?"

"Clark..."

"Who is he? No, nevermind. It doesn't matter who he is, I'm going to find him."

"Clark!" Chloe shouted after him as he stormed down the hall. "Where are you going?"

"To find LEX LUTHOR!"

*

Chloe stood patiently with a subtle breeze lifting the strands of her hair. They were blonde, again. Freshly dyed, and straigthened, positioned. Looking in the mirror was like looking back ten years.

She watched as Clark studied the ground, looking for who knows what. They'd been out there in the boonies of town for two hours now. There wasn't a soul out there other than them. Well, other than the lone, oblique satellite rising in the east.

"Clark," Chloe called after him, "What are we looking for again?"

"Traces!" Clark huffed, crawling on his hands and knees like a mad man, "Traces of diesel fuel. The same used in the school fire was used in the paper fire."

She nodded slowly, and turned over a rock with her shoe. "Why would it be way out here?"

"I have reason to suspect the arsonist has been using these old cut through paths to transport the fuel. Should be easy enough to track down..." He tested the soil again, his instrument coming up negative. It seemed like a moot strategy, but they had eliminated all other pursuits. Consequently, there were no other witnesses to the paper fire, nor was there footage, or any successful retrievals on the name, Lex Luthor, or any type of variation of it.

Lex was a ghost in this world, or more like, a ghost in the machine.

Chloe looked on over Clark, her eyes moistened by watching his repetitive, obsessive attempts. He wanted to know, but he had no idea.

No idea at all.

Meanwhile, she listened in on her ear pieces as the support channels wined with the many crew members behind the scenes. The crews had already transported Lois to another facility back stage. It was unknown if she would return today or not. That part of Lex's plan was unexpected and potentially fatal for them all.

It was all laid on her now to fix it.

"Aha!"

"Clark!" She watched him dart off, his strong stride taking her aback. All she could do was follow behind.

The red sun was rising behind their backs, their shadows dancing before them. Their direction led them farther into the mountainous terrain, their dark, ominous soil so contrasted with everything else Smallville. The mountains had a mysterious allure to them, an alien, dark presence. These dark faces were not friendly. They were the same sharp intrusions that took Jonathan Kent crashed his plane.

Chloe had never been this far. As she watched Clark slow his pace, he bent down and tested the soil again. Panting, she caught up with him, blocking the sun from her eyes. It was unusually strong this morning. "Find anything?"

With an echoing grunt of frustration, he took the hand held instrument and threw it upwards, sending it sailing into the mountain tops. That seemed to answer her question.

"Don't give up," she said, walking towards him.

"I'm not!" Clark growled, and then calmed himself. "I'm just, frustrated. Everything leads to a dead end. It's like..." His growling ended with a exhausted sigh.

"Like you're spinning in circles."

"Exactly!" Clark kicked more rocks up ahead the trail, "Only, it's like some one is spinning them for me."

The rocks, Chloe noticed, were different here. Jagged, dark, and microscopically tinged with a bit of green; they glinted in the red sunlight as Clark's boots disturbed them with his frustrated kicking. Dust also kicked upwards, and swirled. Chloe let the dark parts of air bounce and flow, watching as it settled amongst them and on their clothes. It was a fine, black dust with the same greenish specks of minerals. Powered versions of the strange rocks.

She gasped as she realized, they were the same as from Emil's cave.

"I need you to take Lois home, Chloe." Clark spoke, his back turned from her, his eyes peering into the sunrise. "Not her home here, but back to Metropolis. She's not safe here. From who ever did this."

"Why do you think Lois will be safer in the city?"

"Because who ever is doing this is after me, not her. They're only using her to get to me."

"How do you know that?"

"Call it a journalist hunch."

When he continued to face the mighty red sun, she asked, "What makes you stay? Why not leave this place. You and Lois could leave together."

He then turned to her, backlight from a ominous ruby light, the blue spheres of his irises even mightier than it. Inside them was his answer. Only, he chose not to. Instead, he turned back towards the east, not knowing that he was facing the man whom he sought after. The man who held all the answers. The man who spun him in circles and controlled all of their lives.

Chloe faced the red sun along with Clark. She found herself asking the same question. Why was it that she never moved far from this place. That she chose to live in the city, as if waiting to be invited back. And now that she was here, she asked herself why she would choose to stay.

She hiked up the foot hills in the direction of where Clark had thrown it. It was the excuse for her to really poke around without seeming to suspicious. Because, she was.

The soil was so much richer here, the gorges of rock obstructing and warning her not to go further. They became sharper the farther the range went, even more dangerous if you dared to climb it.

She looked over her shoulder to see if Clark had moved, but he hadn't. He was preoccupied with the red sphere. So she climbed farther until she found a plateau, a break in the ridges. It was there that she peered over the last boulder and saw something that was even more startling than what was in Emil's cave.

Green. Total, solid green.

"Chloe, come down from there!"

She spun around, unsure of what to say. "I'm fine, I--"

"What is it? What's up there?"

The girl wasn't to speak to the boy. "Nothing. Just.." she spotted the tossed soil instrument and waved it in the air, "This. I found it."

Gently, he smiled first with his eyes.

She tried not to be captivated by it, but she was. She smiled too.

He helped her down, but she noticed that he did not attempt to climb after her.

"Thank you." He said, after she gave him back his instrument.

"No problem."

"No, thank you." This, the second time was emphasized much differently. His eyes held hers for a moment before she found the strength to tear them away. The red sun was still rising steadily, and if there were ever daylight hours to burn, they would burn the fastest that day. She knew that if Clark ventured any closer to the truth, Lex would create another rabbit hole for him to become lost.

"I guess we have a long day."

She turned, nodded, "Yes. Where to next? What other leads do you have?"

"None," Clark admitted, "At the moment, of course. I'll find something.. But first--"

"First?"

"First," Clark sighed, scratched his head and then smiled again, "I need coffee, don't you?"

"Yes," she found herself agreeing happily, "Coffee is always a good lead to start with."



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