Author's Note: I do not own the characters. This story tweaks the ending of the episode from the point Doomsday crashes the reception, after which the story goes in a completely different direction to the rest of the series. While I haven't written any of the Chloe/Brainiac aspect here, or Clark's battle with Doomsday, the reader can assume that the events of 8x11 (Legion) and the Doomsday battle still take place, only at the Fortress instead of Smallville and Metropolis. I'm concentrating on the aftermath rather than those events themselves.


MAZE OF UNCERTAINTY.


Dead ends.

It was a quiet Sunday morning, bright and sunny outside though there was a slight chill in the autumnal air. Clark stepped through the doors of the Talon with a mixture of excitement and trepidation – more of the latter than the former. The excitement came from looking forward to seeing her again, and the trepidation came from the news he was about to share. Eyeing the staircase leading up to the apartment, he knew it was a case of now or never. After everything that had happened, she deserved to know where he was at in his life. They were best friends and partners, and there was no chance he could keep it all bottled up when such a significant change was afoot. More than that though, he had to see her face just to remove the last memory he had of her before walking out of that hospital.

He knocked on the door of the apartment and took a deep breath.


One month earlier.

During Chloe and Jimmy's wedding reception, a monster had laid waste to the barn, tossing guests around like ragdolls before kidnapping the new bride. Clark could not understand at first why it would do that. It was as though this monster had turned up specifically to take Chloe away. The happy couple's perfect day had turned into their worst nightmare. Jimmy had been left with bruised ribs and a badly broken leg when trying to protect his new wife, swatted aside and into one of the barn's wooden uprights. Lana, while helping the guests to flee the barn, had suffered a deep laceration to her thigh from some falling debris. Those two were the most physically wounded but the guests had steadily been piling into Smallville Medical Center to be treated for little cuts and scrapes. For the majority, the real trauma was in seeing the silhouette of the hulking, spiny, stone-like seven foot beast that had shown up seemingly from thin air, crashing through the roof of the barn before escaping the same way under cover of darkness. The ordeal had lasted less than a minute but the psychological scars would last for years.

Neither Oliver nor Lois had been in the barn at the time of the attack, though both had leapt to the scene when they heard the massive crash and the screaming. Almost immediately, they had busied themselves with the relief effort, hailing the emergency services and helping people outside. They'd been so pre-occupied that it was several minutes before it became apparent that neither Chloe nor Jimmy, or even Clark and Lana, had made their way out of the barn. It was Lois who'd first spotted Jimmy in the gloom lying on the floor, unable to move, his tuxedo shredded in places and his face sporting a number of bruises and lacerations. Lois noticed his left leg lying at an unnatural angle, with evidence of blood staining the tears in the fabric. Despite being in total agony and breathing in ragged gasps, Jimmy's only concern was for Chloe. Lois had tried her best to reassure him but the truth was that she did not know what had happened to Chloe. She knew she had to hide her alarm from Jimmy as his own situation was serious.

Clark had first realised that something was wrong when he could feel the barn begin to shake, but the subsequent power cut and low menacing roar from somewhere outside the barn had begun to make the guests panic and scatter in all directions, desperate to escape. The loud crash after that had only brought sheer bedlam.

He had faced down the beast after seeing Lana get injured, moving through the panicked guests towards the monster. With one swipe of its huge arm, the monster had launched Clark through the loft staircase and sent him crashing into the loft. The impact of being slammed into his desk had caused the contents to spill onto the floor and over him. Amongst these contents was the lead-lined box containing a piece of green kryptonite which tumbled out on the floor in front of him. The close proximity of the dreaded meteor rock immediately incapacitated Clark as the radiation from the alien fragment got to work on his vital organs and his bloodstream. Fortunately for him, Lana had witnessed what had happened and limped up what was left of the staircase to find him. Seeing him lying there in the foetal position writhing in pain, she knew what the problem was. Scanning the floor around him, Lana spotted the green kryptonite and the lead-lined box, instantly reaching down to grab the offending item and conceal it back in its safe place.

Once clear of the radiation, Clark was able to get back up, though not without a little groan of discomfort. The force of the blow by the monster had been so powerful, he would take a moment longer than usual to heal up. Not only that, but it felt as brutal as the fight he'd had a couple of years earlier with the prisoner from the Phantom Zone, Titan. Whatever this thing was, it was not of this Earth. Had another zoner escaped from his last trip to the Phantom Zone? As far as he knew, only the spirit of Faora had made it through, and she had been dealt with already.

Later, having checked in on Lana as she was about to receive treatment for her wounds, he stepped outside the hospital room. Lana had insisted that there was nothing he could do for her, and that his priority should be finding Chloe. It was in Clark's nature to want to make sure she was alright so Lana couldn't deny him that, but her reassurance that her injuries were minor meant that he could now focus on what needed to be done. Jimmy was in surgery to repair his fractured lower leg. X-rays – both by Clark and also the hospital – had confirmed that it was a compound fracture yet relatively clean. Surgery was necessary to put it back together but the healing process could begin almost immediately. Jimmy's other injuries merely required a few stitches. Things could have been so much worse for him.

Clark was about to head right and back down the corridor when he spotted someone to his left in his peripheral vision. The figure in the burnt orange dress was unmistakable, so distinctive had she been at the wedding. Normally so confident and belligerent, right now she looked both worried and crestfallen. Lois was pacing on the spot, seemingly contemplating what she should do next. It was obvious to him that Chloe being missing or worse was at the forefront of her current fragile state, and not knowing where to begin or what to do was a situation that made her uncomfortable, on top of her worries. He approached her quietly and she didn't notice his presence until he spoke up.

"Lois, how're you holding up?" Clark gently asked.

Lois turned to face him, and for the first time he could see the redness in her eyes and the very faintest of twitches in her nose, with her face drained of both colour and strength. She had either already shed some tears or more likely, was straining to maintain her resolve and keep the tears at bay. There was no question she was hurting.

"Jimmy's in a bad way," she answered in a voice that betrayed her attempts to remain resolute.

"The nurse said they had stabilised him and that he's in surgery," Clark confirmed although he knew Lois would be aware of it.

She would almost certainly have been pushing for answers the moment she'd stepped into the hospital having arrived in the ambulance along with Jimmy. Not knowing how or even if she could help with any search for Chloe, she had taken it upon herself to make sure Jimmy would get the care he needed. None of Jimmy's family had made it to his wedding but now that he had tied the knot, Chloe was his family. By extension, that made Lois family too. She would do anything for her family, and she would go even further for Chloe – the one person to whom she felt closest.

"They've already got one of the country's top surgeons in there with him, so he's in good hands," she explained, unable to hide the sadness in her eyes.

Clark nodded. It was so obvious that she needed to be held and told everything would be alright, but she was also the type with whom you would have to tread carefully when contemplating such a gesture because she could so easily consider it to be unwelcome. Accepting such gestures showed signs of weakness and Lois could never accept being seen as weak. He couldn't be sure she would welcome it from him right now. He knew however that his presence was required elsewhere. Oliver had already made plans to bring in Bart, AC, Victor and Dinah to assist in the search for Chloe.

"Lois, Oliver has got in touch with his contacts to try and track Chloe down. I'm going to go with him," he carefully explained.

Lois raised her chin very slightly before lifting her eyes to look into his. There was so much pain behind them, and Clark found that he couldn't look away.

"I'm going to stay here with Jimmy. I'll wait until I hear from...Chloe," Lois announced, her voice now strangled by emotion as she bit her lip. The little pause in that sentence was because she couldn't bring herself to say 'you'. Waiting for Clark to call would only remind her of her heartache. No, it was best to speak to Chloe if and when she was found. Lois had to channel her focus on hearing from Chloe and no-one else.

Clark nodded wordlessly. He knew he had to leave right now but his feet would not allow him to walk away just yet. There were things they each needed to say before he could walk away.

Lois could not contain her emotions any longer. Her voice cracked as the sobs started, her shoulders shaking.

"Why did this have to happen to her?" she begin, a trace of anger beneath the words. "Why do these terrible things keep happening all around us?"

Clark knew she was right. Though she had only come to Smallville a few years ago, Lois had seen so much suffering in that time. It was absolutely true that so many terrible things had happened to the small circle of people she surrounded herself with, not least Chloe. The hard part for him was having to lie to her about his secret and how he was responsible – however indirectly – for all these terrible things she had seen.

He did the only thing he could do, pulling her in for an embrace and holding her close. As he rested his chin lightly on her shoulder, he could feel her face resting on his. She wasn't holding onto him though, numbed by all the pain.

"We have found her before, we will find her again. I promise, we're gonna get Chloe back." He hoped his words would carry with more conviction than he was feeling inside. He needed to reassure himself as much as he needed to reassure Lois.

He could hear and feel Lois begin to sniffle, and he noted the slight shiver as his hand travelled along her arm. It was intended as a comforting gesture but Lois did not sound comforted. No, she sounded broken. Defeated.

"What if we can't?" Lois croaked out, breaking from the embrace and looking him in the face, now openly tearful.

In that moment, Clark realised she was not just talking about Chloe, that there was subtext in her words. The two had shared a romantic moment on the dance floor during the reception before all hell broke loose. Lana had shown up unexpectedly at that very moment, leaving him shocked and causing Lois to back away dejectedly. Right now, he instinctively knew that Lois was also talking about their own lost moment. He had hurt her without meaning to.

He didn't know what to do or say, but Lois took matters into her own hands. She had clearly decided she needed to be away from him. She turned around and began to walk away, and with each step she would rebuild the emotional walls she had allowed Clark to knock down. Showing weakness simply would not do.

Clark did not take his eyes off her. Just before rounding the corner and disappearing from view, she turned to take one last look at him with sad eyes and silent despair, registering the look on his face and believing her chance had gone. She would keep an eye on Jimmy while he recovered. She would hope and pray that Chloe would be found safe and well. After all that, she would focus on tracking down the Red-Blue Blur and gaining that elusive and exclusive interview with Metropolis' newest saviour. Burying her heartache in her job was the tried and trusted way to move on with her life. There was no time to cry over what could have been.

Clark stood there closing his eyes, hanging his head and putting his hands in his pockets once Lois disappeared from view round the corner. The slightest bit of warmth he had felt in her embrace was now replaced by the cool breeze that filtered in through the sliding door at the end of the corridor behind him. The light floral scent of her hair he'd allowed himself to breathe in when hugging her was replaced by that peculiar smell common to hospitals all over the world – a combination of cleaning products, impatience and despair.

In the maze of uncertainty, he was now staring at a dead end.