She had the heart in the little pair of tweezers. She slowly and carefully lifted it higher and higher until…

"You better be careful."

buzzzzzzzz

"That's it, Smallville!!!"

Chloe quickly grabbed the tweezers and held it against the metal edge of the chest cavity to drown out the expletives that poured forth from Lois to Clark. If this poor fictional man had been a real person, he would have died many times over, especially with Clark and Lois as his doctors. She rolled her eyes. She didn't know why she had agreed to this game of Operation.

Lois had insisted that she come to game night. Game night was a longstanding tradition between Clark and Lois, dating back to when Lois still lived at the Kent farm, and this was the first time she had been invited to one. She wasn't really sure why. Maybe things were awkward between them and they felt they needed a third party since their unintended separation, when Lois had gone somewhere in the future, heaven only knows where, with the Legion ring and Clark had decided to fulfill his Kryptonian destiny, which hadn't quite worked out like he'd planned. Maybe they wanted to coddle her because of her recent loss. Whatever it was, she had finally attended the infamous game night and she never would again.

Guitar Hero was their usual preferred game, but since they both knew that it wasn't really her thing, they had been kind enough to accommodate her. She wished they'd gone with Guitar Hero.

Clark was smiling when Lois got done. Apparently he was used to being cussed out on game night. "Lois, we have a guest."

"Well, then don't be a freaking cheater."

Chloe snorted. Guest? She wondered if they knew how much they sounded like an old married couple.

Lois snatched the tweezers back from Chloe. "I get a second turn for that and this time I want silence. You don't hear nurses gabbing in the operating room with stupid remarks and there's a reason for that. You so much as breathe heavily, Clark, and you'll find these tweezers rammed in your throat."

There was complete silence this time as Lois carefully and successfully extracted the heart.

Lois won Operation. And Scrabble. And Crazy Eights. And Life.

Chloe had to leave early. Clark walked her out to the car, while Lois stayed in to get a fresh bowl of chips.

"I guess we'll be playing at least 5 rounds of Guitar Hero now. Maybe more," he said with a groan that belied the smile on his face.

"Isn't she showing signs of slowing down, yet?" Chloe laughed.

"No, she's just getting warmed up. Competition is what she thrives on. She may yell at me, but she loves it when I make it harder for her. I don't really cheat you know. Silence isn't a rule in Operation, is it?"

"I don't think so. It's just good manners, but I don't think it'd matter if you played fair or cheated, she'd still con her way into second chances."

"Yeah," he said, staring toward the house like a man in love.

Chloe had a feeling that Lois had already extracted Clark's heart and she hadn't hit the edge doing it.

The End