1

Clark sighed and looked down at the surprise Chloe had brought him in the loft. "Uh, Chlo?"

"What?"

"Why did you set a blue and yellow rock on fire? Did it do something to you?"

Chloe glared at him. "It's not a rock!"

He squinted harder at it. Nope, it still looked like a rock." Trying to figure out this whole mess, Clark took off his glasses and rubbed them before readjusting them on his nose. "Um, is it covered in icing?"

"Yes that is icing," Chloe replied, her tone clipped. "And it's not a rock. It's a cake."

Clark leaned in closer but not too close since he didn't want to singe his eyebrows on the candles. "It's a pretty lopsided."

"I made it."

Clark gulped. Chloe had somehow gotten it into her head that she could cook. Or maybe it wasn't that she thought she could as that she believed that if she learned to do it, she'd be more like every other girl. His mom was the best baker in town and, once, Lana had had some talent for it (Nell made a nice profit selling homemade cookies at the flower shop before it had closed). Chloe mostly set stuff on fire. But she really wanted to be June Cleaver sometimes.

"Yeah, you sure did."

Chloe leaned against the loft window. "Do you want to blow out the candles or what? The cake will be on fire before you do."

Clark decided not to ask her if the cake were even flammable. That would get him turned into a pretzel. "Sure," he replied, taking a deep breath (as deep as he could considering the stupid asthma). The candles flickered and died out.

Then they sputtered back to life again.

He glared. "That's a dirty pull. I don't have enough air to keep doing this."

Chloe nodded and used her thumb and forefinger to quickly put each candle out by hand. "I thought it was kind of funny."

Clark shook his head and kissed her cheek. "I don't know why I put up with you."

"Because I'm devastatingly attractive and the best reporter in the state?"

"Nah, that's not it."

"Because I have about five incredible superpowers?" She added, setting the "cake" down on his steamer trunk and cutting into it with a knife she'd borrowed from his kitchen.

"Nope, not that either."

She grinned and leaned up to whisper into his ear. "It's because I do that thing with my-"

He blushed. "Well, there is that. You have your charms, but you also have a mean streak."

Chloe stopped cutting for a second and he swore she flinched. "I don't."

"I didn't mean literally. It's not like you drown kittens or something."

"Who does that?"

"Evil people like Lionel Luthor. He probably drowns kittens and blocks the sun and steals candy from babies like Mr. Burns or something."

"Heh," Chloe said, finishing up his slice. "Yup, I'm nothing like that."

There was a forced cheerfulness in her tone he didn't like all that much. Sometimes he got the feeling she and Lex had something going that had nothing to do with any romantic feelings (he trusted Chloe implicitly about that) or with alien research in the Von Daniken vein. There were things she'd let slip when everything with Swann had come out and he just had this feeling.

But you couldn't base things on those. He was a reporter; he knew better than that.

"So," she said, interrupting his thoughts. "Cake now?"

He gulped down at his slice as she placed the plate in his hands. "My mom makes me a chocolate one every year."

"It is chocolate."

He quirked his head at the tannish color of the slice and sniffed. It did smell vaguely like chocolate and the ocean. Clark took a tenative bite and then coughed. "Water!" The glass was in his hand like a magic trick. God, he loved superspeed.

"Clark, are you okay?"

He nodded as he gulped the water down greedily. "I will be. Chlo, don't take this the wrong way, but you mixed up the salt and the sugar again."

"Damn it!"

He set his piece back down and hugged her. "You tried. See, that's the important part and maybe for my birthday next year you can try to not try."

"Huh?"

"I like store bought cakes. Really, you have a lot of great talents, Chlo. This just isn't going to be one of them."

She frowned and sat next to him on the sofa. "Do you think it's because my mom left when I was little or because I'm not from here that I suck at cooking."

"Suck's a harsh word."

"It's appropriate," she replied. "I'm serious. Maybe Kryptonians didn't cook."

"You eat."

She shrugged. "Maybe we had like pills like in The Jetsons ."

"That's a depressing thought. I like food."

Chloe snorted. "I noticed. Sorry it went poorly. Maybe next time I could-"

"Just ask my mom. Maybe if she coached you a lot and you started out just stirring things, it would go better."

"Maybe."

"My mom's from Metropolis too. It took her a while to get the hang of it. I'm sure you might even learn to read labels."

"Very funny."

Clark gestured toward the cake. "Come on, this was pretty bad. Were you distracted?"

"Well, I might have been using my laptop to come up with the layout for tomorrow, but I was mostly paying attention."

"That might be your problem," he said, squeezing her tight. "But it was a nice thought."

"Uh-huh. I did get you something else for tomorrow, you know. It's not just about cake."

"Oh thank God, not that it wasn't nice."

"You failed that save, Clark," she said, leaning into him. "So, happy birthday. Does fifteen feel any different?"

"No. You'll let me know next November if sixteen is as awesome as it's supposed to be," he replied glumly.

Chloe looked back at him. "Alright so me and Pete tease you about being the baby. We don't mean it."

"No it's not that."

"Then what?"

"Well, I dunno. It's just that my birth certificate says I'm fifteen."

She snorted. "The one Lionel forged says I'm human. I have you beat."

He nodded. "I know and this is maybe not the best conversation ever."

"No, it's good. I didn't know you thought about stuff like that."

"Sometimes," he admitted. "I love my mom and dad."

"Mutual feeling. I'm going to steal Martha."

"Yeah right. But I wonder about my other parents a lot."

"I bet they're from Earth."

"Maybe I'm from Melmac and you don't know," he said, sighing at the bitterness in her tone.

"Maybe."

"It's just...the whole date, all of it, it's just-"

"Something your parents picked out when they adopted you."

"Exactly. It could be any day, really, and I'm really not convinced the year's right. I was really tall for a supposed eighth grader."

"I think so. Pete definitely has a vote to have you tested for growth hormones, mister."

"Jealous."

"A little. I don't even know if we had months."

"Had Dr. Crosby-" Clark started. Chloe liked her better than she liked Dr. Swann and visited the planetarium with him in tow about once a month in addition to her (encrypted) e-mails.

Chloe shrugged. "Dr. Swann and Dr. Crosby both showed me every transmission they'd gotten in the few years before the shower. It's nothing of any substance. Something vague about...I don't know what exactly."

"What do you have?"

"I don't know. There's a symbol that comes up a lot but I don't know the translation. I think it's like a proper name, but not like 'El.' It just means something."

He frowned. "That Zish thing?"

"Yeah, but it's all a font of nothing anyway. I'm at about square one with 'some Apocalypse' and that's about it. Clark?"

"Yeah?" He asked, looking down at her.

"Do you think a whole advanced civilization could just disappear? Really?"

He sighed. Somehow, the fact that he'd read a few-okay tons-of astronomy journals made him some kind of expert on the universe. "It didn't."

"I mean, besides me. There has to be something, right?"

"It seems unlikely that you're the only one."

"Like Tigger," she mused.

"Kind of, but much less bouncy," he replied. "The stuff from Lex's files didn't help either?"

"Not if you count massive world conquest as a reassuring sign. I am so sick of dead ends. It's been the same thing for months."

"Yeah, but at least you have a planet to start from. If you got this far, maybe there's someone else out there."

"I wish," she replied. "And the ship's worse. I mean, 'Go out and rule the world, Mom and Dad!'"

"To be fair, it didn't say the mom and dad part."

"Exactly," she said, sighing. "A few answers would be nice."

Clark nodded. "Trust me, I know."

"But in three years, you get your birth records opened if you want or can hire a detective or something. One of the brightest men on the planet is at a dead end with me. It sucks."

Clark sighed and kissed her. "Maybe you could stop thinking about it for a little bit."

"Are you kidding?"

"Okay, but maybe if you tried stepping back for a second, concentrated on the Planet internship this summer or wood carving or cooking or whatever. I don't know...but Einstein said that you can't solve a problem thinking at the same level you created it."

" I didn't create it. Whatever genius put me in the ship did."

"I know, but you're stuck. Either there's something we're all missing or there's another angle we aren't taking. You've been focusing the same way for months. We'll get this."

"How are you so optimistic?"

"It's my dad. You have to always believe the next harvest will be better."

"Yeah," she said, noncommittally. "But I'm not tilling stuff."

"Not exactly."

"Not at all."

"Chlo, You found a lot more than you had even last year. I mean something's gotta break."

"Like a wave."

"Huh?"

"Nothing. Risk of dating an overemotional Czechoslovakian; it all becomes shop talk. So, Clark, do you want to go to The Talon for real dessert or just zone out?"

"Oh, zoning out sounds perfect," he agreed, pulling her to his chest. "Don't apologize. You're not overemotional and these are good questions."

"But then your birthday becomes more about me and-"

"You've been a little preoccupied lately and clearly you took time out of your busy week to bake me, um, something."

"It's mostly a cake."

"Right. We're cool, Chlo. Besides, I think I know how to get your mind off of all things Kryptonian."

She rolled her eyes. "Do you at least have the fire extinguisher. I'm a great liar, but even I was stretching trying to explain the scorch marks on the rafters."

Clark grinned and opened up the steamer trunk. "Your dad's been really helpful about that."

She giggled and kissed him. "I doubt that's what he had in mind."

"Probably not, but it's my birthday and I want a two things-you and an intact barn."

Her eyes flashed for just a second. "I think I can oblige.