1

"You're late."

"Am not." Clark said, setting his backpack on top of the editor's desk in the Torch and slipping into his usual seat. Well usual since last June when Chloe had taken over the school newspaper. She'd suckered him and Pete into joining her for her second year on staff (she was the only ever eighth grader allowed to work on the publication), and part of that flimflam had included helping her renovate the office and set it up her way.

He'd spent a whole week just helping her paint the walls. Principal Kwan hadn't been thrilled that she'd insisted on a light green-blue instead of traditional Crows coloring. Chloe had countered his objections by insisting that much red and gold made her dizzy.

Idly, Clark looked down at his red t-shirt and shrugged. Apparently love of primary colors was an acquired taste. He glanced across the room to where Chloe was sifting through the file cabinet. Her blouse was a riot of colors from lime to violet to some orange color that reminded him vaguely of parking cones. Yeah, he'd never get Metropolis fashion sense either.

Still, over all, the green walls were a nice look.

"Clark?"

"Hmm?"

"You know working on the staff actually implies you do something."

"I'd do something if you'd assign it to me, oh lady editor."

She turned back to him and shook her head. "A real reporter finds their own news."

"It's the first week of school and nothing's happened at all except homework resumed. There's a headline."

"Well, there are activities starting up. Take a profile of the Chess Club or something."

"Boring." He frowned. "Actually, I was thinking about taking over the yearly football review article."

"A little late, Kent. I gave that out to Pete this morning."

He glared back at her. "Chlo, that's not fair."
"Look," she said, striding across the room and pulling out a manila folder from beside her desk, "Pete's on the team. His oldest brother was last year's starting cornerback. He knows the guys and the coach and he's going to get the better quotes."

Clark snorted and crossed his arms over his chest. "And this is my point. Pete's going to get all the football he can stand. The least I'm asking for is to get in an interview. It's not like my parents will let me near a game any other way."

"Yeah, you're really missing out on everything there. What with the two-a-day practices in the high heat of summer, the smelly pads, and the ragingly homoerotic undertones."

"You're biased."

She shrugged. "Probably, but I never found the allure of watching gorillas bash into each other."

"I'm telling Pete you said that."

"Well, he gets upgraded to chimpanzee since I know he can read."

Clark sighed and picked up tomorrow's cafeteria menu, readying himself to type it up. "I just hate that I can't play. It sucks."

Chloe sat down in the rolling chair across from his desk and sighed. "It's not that big a deal."

"You would say that. You're a girl."

"I'm saying that because, yeah, there's that football glory for maybe three or four years tops, and then you end up running the local hardware store and sitting in the Wild Coyote talking about the glory days."

"My dad played."

"Okay, so that worst case scenario is a little stereo type-y, but you're better than football and you know it. I mean, you're a really talented writer. Not as good as me of course-"

"Way to be modest, Chlo."

"Well a fact's a fact, but you are good and I could see you working at the Journal or maybe the Planet someday. I'll totally hire you once I become the youngest editor-in-chief, I promise."

"Thanks." He sighed. "It's just that no one cares about the paper."

"Ahem."

"Okay we care about the paper, but other people don't."

Chloe rolled her eyes. "By other people you mean the Pink Peep?"

"That's mean."

"It's true."

Clark sighed but didn't press it. He never understood what Chloe had against Lana. Okay, so Chloe probably didn't care about how beautiful Lana was since he was pretty sure Chloe didn't lean that way. Scratch that. He'd been forced to sit through her Christian Bale festivals enough times to know that she was straight. Still, Lana was a nice girl and she always smiled at him in the hall when she did notice him, which, granted, she rarely did. She'd always been perfectly friendly to Chloe in the classes they'd shared last year, but Chloe still avoided the other girl like the plague and kept a maximum distance away from her at all times.

He mostly put the attitude down to Chloe being jealous of Lana, not that she'd ever mentioned secret desires to be on the Homecoming Court or be a cheerleader, but, deep down, Clark suspected she wanted something a little more stereotypically high school perfect and a little less off the beaten path.

"Jeez, you don't have to be so harsh about it."

"I'm not. I just don't see the point in your football obsession. Your parents are never going to let you play, and even if they did and you were a phenom and Lana did fall for you-that's a lot of "ifs" by the way-she wouldn't be in love with you anymore than she loves Whitney. She'd just be all about being the Big Man on Campus's arm candy."

"That's double harsh."

She rolled her eyes. "It's true. Football players and cheerleaders provide mutual arm candy for each other. You're better off."

Clark had a flash of what it would be like to wear one of those leather jackets and to have Lana on his arm. Yeah right. He was so much better off just hanging around the Torch or being forced to interview the math teacher and the lunch lady. No wonder he'd never had a girlfriend. "So Pete's got football, then?"

She nodded. "Uh-huh."

"What do you have for me then? Because I am all out of Tuna Surprise and Lasagna specials."

She grinned. "Well I might have heard some rumors of mutated frogs down by Loeb Bridge. They're supposed to be the size of poodles."

"Miniature or full-sized?"

"Depends on who you ask. Come on," She urged, her eyes glittering up at him, "Aren't you ready for extracurricular Wall of Weird investigating?"

Clark sighed and looked up at the huge collection of newspaper clippings Chloe had been collecting and posting up on the Torch's far wall since before the paint had even dried. Chloe Sullivan had a passion for the bizarre that dwarfed Robert Ripley's. He remembered the second day of school in eighth grade. The first day, he'd been assigned to show her the classes and around Smallville Junior High, and then she'd invited herself over to the farm in order to "see how the Amish lived." The next day, however, she'd returned the not-quite-favor by inviting him over to see her house.

He hadn't even crossed the threshold into her bedroom before he'd seen her personal collection of clippings. Some were yellowed cut-outs from The Inquisitor, but he found a lot of articles from the more mainstream press too. Those weren't nearly as colorful but the stories reported, no matter how dryly, still didn't quite add up. All her bookshelves were crammed with books about the paranormal, urban myths and legends, and, surprisingly, a variety of record books-Guinness, Ripley's, The World Almanac.

She'd introduced him then to her Mulder-like obsession with the truth and with her pet theory that something was definitely wrong with Smallville. She claimed it had something to do with the meteor shower. He figured it actually had to do with the pollution LuthorCorp plant (after all his dad complained about it all the time), but since her dad ran the plant, it would have been a cruel thing to point out.

Besides, after running across more than one glowing green flower or chipmunk, he'd begun to think maybe Chloe was onto something with her meteor rock theory.

Eyeing the school version of the WoW, Clark could make out mostly local articles from the Ledger and a few mentions of Lowell County weirdness in the Daily Planet. Most of them involved multi-legged cows or mysterious disappearances. One of the newer clippings described a bank robbery in which the perpetrator allegedly melted himself and the money with him in order to escape down a storm drain.

Even after some of the things he'd seen over his last year as Chloe's partner (not minion, no matter what she said), he found that last one hard to believe.

He sighed again and stood up, waiting for her to follow suit. "Sure, let's go. It's a long walk and I promised Dad I'd be home in time to help with mending the corral fence."

"Yeah," she chirped, "Remind me never to be a farmgirl. I don't do manual labor."

After an hour of wading through the mud and muck under the bridge, Clark had turned up nothing. Exactly right, Clark had turned up nothing. While you could lead a Chloe to water and despite her penchant for wearing flood pants, you couldn't make her get in it. Oh well, he'd grown up on a farm. It was more unusual for him to be spotless than to be muddy from the knees down anyway.

Now they were standing on the railing by the bridge, looking down at the murky water below. Idly, Clark picked up a stone and skipped it across the water's surface. He grinned and puffed up his chest at Chloe. "See that? I got five ripples."

She shrugged, picked up a stone, and, closing her eyes, chucked it across the water's surface. It skipped ten times. Opening her eyes, she looked back up at him and smirked. "You were saying?"

"Show off." He mumbled, glancing down at his watch. "I bet practice is going well."

"Look, Clark, the Lana thing apparently was cute the first seven years or so and I am so glad I got Pete's cliff notes version of all that pining, but I think you're going to have to get over it."

"It could happen."

"Uh-huh and tomorrow I'll go flying without the plane." She sighed and put a hand on his forearm. "This isn't some stupid John Hughes movie where she'll magically realize you exist."

He flinched but didn't move her hand away. Chloe had a point, but after twelve years of crushing on his next door neighbor, he really didn't think he could just get over her. "Alright, maybe you have a point-a very small one-but who else is out there if not her."

"You do know how stupid that sounds. I mean, she's like the Cindy Crawford of Smallville. There's a whole freaking high school of other girls out there. Just because they don't have alliterative initials and flowing raven tresses," She added, mock-gagging, "doesn't mean that they aren't worth your time too."

He turned to her and was startled to find her sniffling a little. "Chlo, look-" And then everything happened at once.
Suddenly he heard the screech of tires and glanced over his shoulder to see a Porsche barreling right toward them. He had just enough time to realize that it was going to hit him and that he was going to be really most sincerely dead, when Chloe pushed him out of the way.

Way out of the way.

He must have landed twelve feet to the left of where he'd been standing. He had just enough time to roll over and watch, terrified, as the car slammed into Chloe and sent her along with itself plunging over into the river.

"Oh God!" Clark yelled, jumping to his feet, wincing a little when he realized he'd twisted his ankle in the fall. Coming to the edge of the bridge, he looked down. Bubbles were erupting over the water's surface as the car began to sink. Ignoring the pain in his ankle, Clark sprinted down the hillside and started wading into the water.

"Chloe! God, Chloe can you hear me?"

He started swimming across the water, gulping in deep breaths as his lungs closed up a little. Stupid asthma. It's not like he was trying to be an Olympic swimmer here. He just needed a few minutes to get to Chloe and to whoever was in the car. He couldn't just leave them. He paddled ineffectually through the water and finally reached the sinking mess. Pushing his head below the surface, he looked around. The water was too murky and the crashing car had kicked up too much soil. He couldn't see anything around him but opaque, muddy water.

Splashing back up and forcing air into his lungs, he called out again. "Damn it, Chloe! Where are you?" He had to yell at her, had to be mad. He just couldn't allow himself to even think that she'd been killed, no matter how logical that conclusion was.

There was a huge splash and then Chloe finally broke through the surface, dragging a bald-headed man behind her.

"Chloe!" he screamed, dog-paddling over to her.

"Not now," She gritted out, still dragging the stranger behind her. "Please help me. He's, um, he's heavy."

Wrapping one arm around the man's shoulders, he started swimming in sync with her, dragging him to the shore. They reached the bank and he hopped out first. Chloe followed after and together they managed to slide the man onto the bank.

Clark knelt down over his inert form and leaned low over his lips. "He's not breathing."

"You know CPR, don't you?"
His eyes narrowed. "We all took the class last May. Why am I elected?"

"More lung capacity."

"Asthmatic."

She frowned and looked down at her clenched fists. She'd been as collected as possible while pulling the man to shore, but she was shaking now and staring intently at her hands. "Please Clark, don't make me beg and don't let him die."

He nodded and started in with the chest compressions, praying that he'd actually learned the correct method and that he didn't accidentally crack a rib in the process. Leaning over, he gave a few large puffs into the man's lungs and then sat up again, pressing furiously against his chest. After interminable moments, the man coughed and sat up, a dazed look on his face.

"What the Hell?"

"You drove off a bridge, you moron." Chloe shouted. "Did you even think about not doing 60 in a quiet little cow town?"

"Chloe!" Clark hissed. "He almost died." He turned back to look at the stranger. "Are you okay?"

"Bruised," he said rubbing the sides of his arms. His eyes narrowed at Chloe. "I could have sworn I hit you."

Clark looked back to Chloe. He hadn't said anything out loud yet but that was exactly what he'd seen too. A Porsche had hit her at sixty miles an hour and smashed through a freaking guard rail and there wasn't a scratch on her. Chloe stilled for a second and Clark realized he'd never seen her so pale. "You missed."

The man frowned for just an instant and then gave her a smile. "My mistake then. I guess in a situation like that we just imagine the worst." He reached out to her hand and shook it. "Thank you." He then leaned over and shook Clark's hand as well. "Name's Lex Luthor."

"I know who you are." Chloe said, her tone still stiff. "You're my dad's boss now."

Lex frowned and pulled himself to his feet. "Your Gabe Sullivan's daughter, aren't you?"

"I am."

"Well," he said, shooting Chloe a glance that reminded Clark a lot of how Mr. Mann, his seventh grade biology teacher, had eyed the frogs during dissection week. "Isn't that interesting?"

It only took thirty or forty minutes for the paramedics and the rescue crews to arrive. This being Smallville, some helpful soul had seen the damage and stopped immediately to call in everything to Sheriff Ethan. Clark was sitting on one of the large rocks by the river, a warm red blanket wrapped around him like a cape. Chloe was sitting off to his right, oddly quiet for her.

Of course, he didn't much feel like talking either. It had been the most terrifying day of his life, and he hadn't even been the one to be hit.

Thinking over the accident, he turned and looked down at Chloe. Her elbows were on her knees and she was staring down at the dirt in front of her. "Chlo?"

He had to call her name a few more times before she looked up. When she did, her gaze was distracted. "What?"

"Are you okay?"

She snorted. "I'm not the one with the twisted ankle."

"Better a twisted ankle than being pavement pizza."

She chuckled a little at that. "Tell me about it."

"Chlo," he added, frowning, "I saw the accident."

"Really? How was your view from the pavement, Clark?" She snapped.

"Pretty good actually," he said, letting his voice drop low so that the rescue workers and Lex couldn't overhear them. "He hit you. I know he did."

"You don't know anything because it didn't happen." She replied, but her words came out too fast and her eyes were open too wide. He'd seen Chloe fib to her dad a bit over the last year and he knew all her tells.

Chloe Sullivan was lying through her teeth.

"Yeah, it did. I know what I saw."

Chloe gulped and ran a hand through her soaked hair. "Clark, you can't tell anybody that you saw that, not ever."

He rocked back a little somehow shocked even more than when he'd seen it. He guessed that part of him had still been insisting that his mind was playing tricks on him until she confirmed it. "I did see it?"

Chloe relaxed just a millimeter so she could roll her eyes. "Yes, you did. How many times do I have to confirm it for you?"

"Maybe forever. That was unbelievable. I thought you were dead."

"Me too."

He frowned and reached out a long arm, wrapping it around her shoulders. She was shaking beneath him but he had a feeling it had nothing to do with being soaked. Even in the cool of the setting sun and the early fall day, Chloe wasn't cold.

She was never cold come to think of it.

He sat there for a moment, squeezing her shoulder and letting his fingers stroke the back of her hair, before he spoke. "This is where the Wall of Weird comes from, isn't it? This isn't the first weird thing that's happened to you. I mean, the way you always made it first to school when you never made the bus or how ridiculously fast you were able to move all the new furniture and whatnot into the Torch office even though no one helped you."

"I said that Pete helped."

"To me and when Pete asked the same question, you told him that I'd done it."

"Maybe not my best lie ever," She conceded, sighing. "But yeah, I did start the Wall of Weird back when I was young in Metropolis because I figured if my life was too freaky to believe then someone else's had to be too. There has to be a reason for all of this." She added, her words belying her reporter mindset and need for logic, but her tone pleading.

"I'm sure there is." He said, hoping that didn't sound as stupid to her as it did to him because, seriously, he couldn't think of any reason why the accident hadn't smooshed her flat.

Chloe didn't answer but just looked up as the crane from the highway department lifted what remained of Lex's Porsche into the air. Clark looked up too and gaped at the large hole ripped through the car's roof. The impact hadn't done that and it certainly hadn't left the fist-sized hole in the windshield.

She'd done that.

"Chlo," he added, trying and failing to squelch the awe welling up in his voice. "Did you just rip the roof off of the car?"

"Maybe."

He arched an eyebrow at her. "Maybe?"

"Well it seemed like a faster option than trying to yank the door off." She griped.

He whistled. "Jeez, you're strong and how come I'm the one who always has to carry your books?"

"Because chivalry isn't dead. That's the one advantage of living in Podunk."

He looked back at the mangled remains of the roof and gulped. "You're really strong."

"I thought we established that."

"I…we did. Oh jeez."

Chloe pulled herself gently out of his embrace and looked back down at the muddy bank. "You're not afraid of me, are you?"

"Intimidated a little maybe. Holy crap. Maybe you should play for the Crows instead of me."

"Superstrong, not brain damaged." She quipped, hazarding a glance up at him. "So we're okay?"

"Yeah." He snorted, "After the melting guy and the squirrel-eating roses in the Hubbards' garden, I should have been expecting anything."

"More things in heaven and earth and all that then." She paraphrased and then focused her wide green eyes on him. "I'm serious, though, you can't tell anyone about any of this."

"Not even Pete?"

"Nobody. My dad is going to freak when he hears that you know, and Lex is already suspicious." She put her head back in her hands. "Twelve years of laying low with almost complete success and I manage to out myself in the middle of freaking Mayberry."

Almost complete success? Clark wanted to prod her about that, but he figured he'd have to wait for a more opportune time. He reached over and took her hands in his. They were so small compared to his that he had a hard time believing that they could crush metal so easily. "I promise, Chlo, I won't say anything to anybody."

She gave him a forced smile. "Thanks, I appreciate it." She frowned. "Can you do me one more favor?"

"What?"

"Take the credit. If anyone asks, you're the one who dove in after him and dragged him to shore. I mean, Hell, you're already the guy who gave him CPR. You're the hero here."

"You could have done the CPR. Probably better than me considering I was wheezing the entire time."

She shook her head. "Sometimes if I get really emotional or excited, I can't control my strength. I was so worked up that I was afraid that I'd shatter his sternum."

"Ouch."

"Yeah not so good for saving people."

"I guess not." He said, shrugging. "But don't you want any credit?"

"I want to stay off the radar. Being curious about the bizarre and unusual is one thing, being the bizarre and unusual is something else. If anyone finds out…"

He nodded. He'd read enough X-men comics to get the gist of where the rest of that statement was headed. "They're not. Lex doesn't know anything and no one would believe him anyway because it's a crazy story. Besides, even people in Smallville know his reputation. There isn't a legal or illegal drug that he hasn't been on."

"Yeah," she added hesitantly, looking back to where Lex stood.

Clark followed her gaze and found Lex staring back at only at her, that same intense curiosity gleaming in his eyes.

Maybe they weren't out of the woods yet after all.