Now fixed. My apologies, but somehow the first chapter got reposted into the second. Sorry about that, all.

Here is the missing Chapter: with Lois and Chloe's interactions, a very messy situation and Chloe's reporter instincts.


Lois had taken the day off.
They had walked a few blocks, going in and out of stores, fussing over clothes (silky blouses for Lois, pant suits for her). They'd chatted comfortably about sale signs and pop culture, carrying bruising bags in their fingers. Chloe has missed this easiness for a while.

Now Chloe is sitting in some café or another, waiting for Lois to get her order. She sips at the ginger frappoccino and grimaces. It's not bad, not at all. But she remembers this is the drink she ordered, sitting across from Lex after releasing the story that sent his father to court.
It had been her first forage into the world of power struggles and manipulation. Her first deal with the devil. She can see white bedding and masks and needles; and thinks it never ended there.

She really loathes the ginger in the frappucino.
If she were able to do that (trace the direction) for each memory, each choice she's made, it would be so much easier. Chloe likes lists. She keeps so many in her desk she doesn't know what to do with. Each choice must have an origin, a climax, an ending.
She pulls out the napkin and starts doing this. Writing words with no connection.
Unfortunately for her, Lois has just figured the ins and outs of artichoke sandwiches.

"Yo. Earth to cuz."
She reaches across the table and pokes her with the straw.
"You're not getting all broody on me again? I might as well ask the boss out to lunch for that."

"I've never though I had a brood-able face. It must be the ginger in here. I hate the stuff.
You're aching to tell me, aren't you? I'll bite. Why is Perry broody?"

"We've got a new addition. He's not exactly the team player. Perry says he's crass and unprofessional.
He's some new kid with a pet project. Reporter, out of Yale. Thinks that he might prevent a nuclear war or something. The meteor mutants are his warheads…and … you get the picture. He's trying to find meteor infected with more than just one power.
Is that even possible?"
Lois hesitates.
"He's been annoying me to get on the project with him. It's not like I'm scared, or opposed to anything covert, but I'm not going to do a crap project."
Chloe thinks she out to be playing the protector. This guy could be the robotic arm of another Lex. He could find…too much…
She feels an ache coming on. No one person could handle more than one power. One makes basket cases enough.
"Probably crap." Chloe agrees.
Before they leave she stuffs the napkin in her pocket.


Lois has an apartment smaller than her and Jimmy's double.
It feels like there is more room, though.. Less boxes with cameras, and no photographs lining every wall.
She has a spare bed to sleep in, and it's surprisingly neat.
She could use a nap. It lasts about two minutes before she gets poked in the ear.
Don't you laze up on me.
There's Lois, with a short black skirt and a beehive on her head.
"We've got a town to hit. You're going to be gorgeous."
She can hear Love Bites cranked up to twenty.
"What about some Hairspray?"


It all would have been great, she muses, if Ollie hadn't shown up.
Lois (understandably) got sidetracked and Chloe wound up sitting at the bar, drinking a glass of water.
No friendly bartenders here, no advice for-hey my brain is freaky. Guy didn't even offer ice.
The fourth time she had to tell an overly gregarious drunk she was a Lesbian she decided it was time to move on out.
(Those two were probably going to need the apartment later anyway.)
She left a note with the dull-eyed barkeep and went for a walk.


Not a smart move, probably. Actually, a stupid move because the heels are pinching up to her ankles. She doesn't try and get the logistics of that.
It's good to know that she's not stumbling drunk despite the two beers and the water.

The problem is, seems like she's the only sober one.
Some spaces ahead of her she can hear a helpful passerby shaking some squatter awake. It's just behind some vehicle, loud enough to hear.
"I think it's illegal to sleep on public benches, man. What are you doing?
Shift's over, anyway. You alright? Are you drunk? Sick?"

"Ahm. Just a head ache. You can just go ahead without me."

"Woah there. You're in no condition to stay here. You don't look fit to drive. What's with the eyes?
I know the doc in my apartment building.
Give me your arm, easy does it."

"Keep away! Whatever you do, don't touch me. "

"Just relax. Something's hit you hard."

"I think you should get out of here." The voice sounds awfully familiar. There's something progressively weird about the vowel sounds, like the switch of a record to slow speed.

"What the hell?!"

"Please get away from me!"
There's an ambulance, the same numbers she memorized while they were watching the feed from the cameras, with the mysterious terror and the vanishing meteor freaks. She'd know Davis's numbers anywhere.

I think I might be the killer.
How can you explain the blackouts, the blood?

She's counted thirty seconds. No movement. She sighs. Maybe it's just a really bad case of the non-coffee syndrome.
She can't mistake what she hears next.

There's scrabbling. An unsettling rippling, ripping noise, a thunk….. She knows the sound of an inert body hitting pavement.
She's too close to it. If there's anymore thunking, she'll be in the thick of it.

He reporter sense urges her to stick it out. She needs to know if, it is in fact Davis, or she's going to be living with this thing handing there for the rest of her life.
One of them could be Davis. She must know for sure.
I feel like you were sent to me.

She might not be the guardian angel, but she'll be able to look him in the eyes and confirm or deny it all.
She knows why she's doing this.
She's never known what is good for her.


She's already unsteady in the heels, so she pitches herself forward, rolling into the puddle of red, feeling the warmth, the grit on her knees.
She can't find Davis right away. In the dark she can see a dark-haired man in an EMTs uniform crumpled right ahead of her.
Her stomach sinks, and she pretends its because of the nauseating smell of blood. All she can think is to roll the body.
She can see the blood gushing from the neck-that-is-not-Davis's. The man's dead.

Davis was right all along.
She wonders how this could be, that someone so fixed on being a savior can be this too. She wonders if he'll see them when he wakes up. She wonders what he'll do.
Don't look up. Don't look up. She doesn't see Davis, can't look back with her answer.

The eyes she sees are beady and red, set in a gray face, a body like a spiny hulk (the abomination, her stunned brain corrects her).
It's the meteor rocks. It's always the meteor rocks.

Large, clawing…protrusions move as it scuttles forward.
She can barely hear it.

"Chloe??"
The voice? is like a hoarse shattering of glass. It's trying to touch her face.
She clutches the bloody emts arm to her chest like a rag doll and pretends she's not crying.

"This is what it does to us."

More is dripping down her face, onto the ruined uniform and she suddenly can't open her throat.
It hurts more than the first time.