2

Lex's tail lights barely winked out of sight on the horizon before her father opened up the front door. He was wearing a pair of sweat pants so long they pooled at his ankles and a simple t-shirt that said "College" on the front of it. Despite his Belushi-inspired wardrobe, her father's mood was anything but mirthful.

"Chloe Maureen Sullivan, you get in this house right now!"

As quickly as humanly possible (Although it was a real struggle not to slip into superspeed at the moment, whatever she had that analoged adrenaline had started pumping through her the minute her father yelled), she hurried into the house, listening for the door as it slammed shut behind her.

She was only moderately surprised to find a bleary-eyed Clark, his glasses tilted unevenly on his nose, half-dozing on the living room sofa. The bang of the door awoke him fully, and he bolted upright in his seat. "Chlo?"

"I'm here. Jeez, guys, no need to go to Defcon 1 or anything." And the words were no sooner out of her mouth than Clark was at her side, wrapping her up in a fierce hug. She could hear his heart hammering in his chest. and she bet that if she strained her senses hard enough, she could her a similar staccatto rhythm coming from her father.

Reluctantly, Clark pulled away, but he still kept both arms wrapped loosely around her waist. "God, we were so worried. Your dad noticed you were gone about an hour ago and he called me. We thought that..." He trailed off not even able to voice the rest of it.

She knew what he was thinking. The threat of low men in yellow coats and lab experimentations was always present in her life. It was a worry that plagued her every day, especially after she'd learned everything about herself, and it was the thing her father worked hardest to prevent.

She swallowed and leaned into his embrace. "I know, but I'm okay, really."

"We were still so freaked, though, we were just about to head out to The Torch-you know me and my spare keys-and then to the Rosses."

Chloe winced a little at the thought of poor Judge Ross being awakened before sunrise just so the men in her life could ensure that she was still in Smallville. Hell, knowing her father and his overprotective streak, he'd have insisted to speak with both Pete and Lana and end up dragging the other girl over to The Talon just in case. And even though she wanted to launch right into that old argument that she was old enough and (obviously) strong enough to take care of herself, that they were being paranoid, she couldn't quite do it. Not with their heartbeats reverberating in her ears and Clark's big earnest eyes staring back at her.

"I'm so sorry."

"Good. Just don't do that again." Clark said, giving her midsection a squeeze. "You're lucky I had my stupid phone on vibrate and don't even get me started on trying to sneak off the farm. Bicycle riding is not fun at night, stupid noisy truck motors."

Despite herself, Chloe giggled. "Sorry about that, but I'd love to have seen the huffing and puffing just a little."

Clark snorted. "Even Elliot got a boost from his alien friend. You're the worst Czechoslovakian ever."

"I'll keep that in mind," She replied, pulling herself away from him. It wasn't that she didn't want the comfort. In fact, after tonight with Lex's prying and the blind panic of waking up in the highway, she very much wanted his warmth. She was also incredibly touched that he'd come. Not surprised, Clark was nothing if not loyal, but touched all the same. She'd put a lot on him in the last year and a half. He'd had a lot of her emergencies to cover for. Threats in a corn field and covert spaceship recovery missions came to mind.

And the amazing thing, the thing she couldn't quite believe, was that he stayed. She'd never allowed herself the luxury of believing anyone outside of her father would ever love her. She'd come to that conclusion back when she'd merely been weird. After those twelve hours spent in her darkened basement, staring at her ship, and the bitter, lonely day after that, she hadn't even dared to dream that any human boy would love all of her. But Clark did, and he always had her back. Of course, when her dad had given Clark the top secret cell phone of emergencies (the Kents could never have afforded the luxury on their own and Clark asking for one would have raised questions), she was pretty sure Clark hadn't anticipated panicked 3 AM phone calls either.

She was just fun that way.

Still, she knew there was going to be an argument-considering how upset her father was how could there not be-and she needed to stand on her own two feet in order to state her side.

Leaning against the table in her family's foyer, Chloe eyed her father. He, too, leaned, but this time against the stairway banister. Their postures were identical and the confluence gave her idle thoughts about how powerful nurturing really was. All her tells were his, all her postures, and her habits right down to her coffee addiction.

Correction.

Most of her habits.

Her father didn't sleep on asphalt.

Finally, her father spoke, his voice steady yet loud. "Where were you?"

"Out."

"That's not good enough. I peaked out the window when I heard a car pull into the driveway. There's only one person in town who owns a Maserati."

Beside her, Clark's eyes grew even wider. "Did Lex hurt you?"

That was why she loved Clark. Even knowing what he did, even after dealing with the likes of Hamilton and Nixon, he was still blessedly naive. Other boyfriends would have assumed the worst of her or started up with some pig-headed display of jealousy. He was just worried that her greatest enemy (and paradoxically one of her closest friends) had finally figured out her weakness.

She shook her head. "It's not like that. Lex is still in the dark." Which, of course, was a half truth. Lex suspected a lot. God bless America and all that burden of proof stuff or maybe just the good old fashioned scientific method. Lex wouldn't move on her, wouldn't even voice his theories, until he had proof. That wasn't happening. she could play the shell game with him for forever if she had to.

"But you were still out with him." Her father continued, his speech beginning to speed up a little with his distress.

"It was an accident. He found me and I couldn't just speed off in front of him so I took the ride he offered. I don't know if you've noticed, but it's real nippy out there."

Okay, so maybe sarcasm was not the best idea right then, but she couldn't help that either.

Her father shook his head. "As if that ever bothered you before. What were you doing outside?"

Chloe had to give her dad credit. He cross-examined as well as Matlock. Maybe Moira hadn't been the only natural born investigator in her family. "This morning, I woke up in the middle of the highway about a mile from the Kawatchee caves."

"You what?" Clark asked, his eyes so wide that this time she thought they'd pop right out of his head.

"Just what I said. I woke up in the middle of the asphalt with Lex's car barreling down on me. FYI, this time it actually stopped before impact."

"Not funny, Chlo."

"Agreed," her dad said. "I can't believe you went out there after everything we decided on after your fever. You promised me, Chloe, that you were going to wait and really think about putting the key in those caves."

"I didn't do anything with the key."

"Don't lie, not to me."

Chloe refrained from rolling her eyes. She didn't lie to her father, much, and it was a little hypocritical of him to call her on being such a talented liar now. He'd been the one to teach her the art of it since she'd been too little to even understand English. "I'm not. I'm saying that I woke up there. I didn't mean to go."

Beside her Clark frowned, and she had a feeling he was doing that analytical stuff he did so well (and so conveniently when she needed Algebra II tutoring). "You slept walked, didn't you? When you mentioned all that vivid dreaming I was sort of worried it'd end up like that."

She blushed and looked away, concentrating very hard on the ground. "I think I slept-flew actually."

Her father blanched at that. "Come again?"

She could feel her cheeks flaring hotter with every second that ticked by. "I told you that I'd been dreaming of flying over Smallville lately and I think tonight I did a lot more than just dream about it."

"But you can't fly."

That was supposed to be true. She could float and often, to her annoyance, woke up several feet above her mattress before crashing down onto it. The crashing part was the reason she'd long ago abandoned the traditional bed frame. Her old bed frame had been cracked to pieces after an especially hard landing over a year ago. She also managed to get air borne when she and Clark were, ahem, distracted with things. It wasn't exactly a sore point in their love life, but it was very awkward. Even if she never got more than a few feet off the ground, Clark still had that whole fear of heights thing he was working on. Besides, it was annoying to have to interrupt making out just to ensure they were still planted on the sofa in the loft.

Clark might have a coronary if his mom walked in on them inflagrante, but his mother and her father (once he heard of it) would fall down dead if Mrs. Kent caught them breaking the laws of gravity.

It sort defeated her whole incognito policy.

However, even though she was an apt floater, she still, and much to her perfectionist frustration, could not make herself float consciously. She'd certainly never flown before.

Finally, she looked back at her father. "I think there's a first time for everything."

Her father paled. She knew that look too. She'd seen it a lot especially after the heat vision incident. Clark might calculate figures in his head, but her father calculated scenarios. Idly, she wondered what he really would have done with his life if he and Moira had adopted a normal-correction-a human child. She'd met a few of her dad's fraternity brothers over the years, heard the stories of the house's resident clown and jokester, and she knew the demeanor he presented to the world.

While her dad really was fond of the stupid knock-knock jokes and was a genuinely sweet guy, he was also a lot more. He was a man who'd learned and excelled in the covert arts, who could be C.I.A if he wanted, someone shrewd and incredibly determined. It didn't really gel with being manager of some crap factory in a no-name town in Kansas. Chloe had the sinking suspicion that if he'd had a child without the "special needs" he'd have been on the board of something by now.

But executives were high profile and nothing was worse in the Sullivan household than being conspicuous, even for good things.

He sighed and ran a hand through thinning hair. "We're really going to have to think about this one. I'd lock your windows at night, maybe even make up some bogus story about burglars and get bars on the windows, but I might as well be stringing up Play Dough and we know it."

Clark gulped. "Huh?"

Chloe shook her head. Her boyfriend was still so new at the covert ops stuff that trying to cover exposure wasn't his default setting. "Daddy wants to make sure I don't go all Mighty Mouse in public. Even if this is Smallville, public flying is going to make it obvious how big of a freak I truly am."

"Chlo-" Clark started.

"Not now, Clark." She said stridently. Clark was very PC Nazi and he had this whole thing about the F-word, um, the other F-word. He copy edited her stuff and made her take the phrase "meteor freak" out of every article she wrote. He also always called her on it when she used it in reference to herself.

Yeah, like sleep-flying was so normal.

"Besides," she continued. "I don't think this is a permanent thing. It only started once I got the key back. I think that it and the caves are calling to me. They're not controlling me or mind whammying me or anything but I think the nocturnal flights of fancy are related. If I just put the key in, they'll stop."

She didn't say "I think they'll stop." She knew they would. She could feel it, just in the same way she could feel her connection to the caves themselves.

"I'm not sure that's such a good idea." Clark said, shuffling his feet a little. It had come out as helpful suggestion, even though he was as against her going to the caves as her father was.

God, he was always so polite, must have been a farmboy thing.

Her father, on the other hand, was much more vocal in his protest. "We already had this conversation and we agreed-"

"No," She shouted, throwing her hands in the air and stalking toward him. "We didn't decide anything. You threw out an edict and I had to follow it. I don't see why I have to do that this time. If I'd listened to you about hiding my secrets, then Lex might be dead, and I certainly wouldn't be with Clark. You're not always right."

"But I'm right this time. We don't even know what the caves would do to you. You just keep saying you think there'll be a flash of light. What then? What if it's a trick or what if it hurts you?"

"Why would my...they try and set me up to be hurt? That doesn't make a lot of sense."

"That's true." Clark interjected.

She nodded a little but kept her focus on her dad. This was really a Sullivan argument.

Her dad shook his head. "And we don't know anything about who sent you here. Who puts a three year old in a spaceship and abandons them? It doesn't seem to me that they ever had your best interest in mind. Hell, for all we know this is all some sort of experiment."

Chloe rocked back a little at that. She and Clark talked a lot and most of the time they stuck to more mundane things like The Torch or his chores or the latest DP Headlines, sometimes it got more serious and there'd be discussions over how to best thwart the latest meteor mutant. Sometimes he'd even get her to open up about the alien stuff. But there were certain things she never brought up, even with him.

She never, under any circumstance, talked about Moira, not since that morning in front of her ship. And she didn't talk much about her birth parents.

She wasn't sure which upset her more, Moira or them.

She was pretty sure it was them.

She'd broken her own rule just once with him. When Rachel Dunleavy had shown up so convinced that Chloe was the lost Luthor heiress, it had brought up a lot of questions about her adoption. She still couldn't understand how Lionel, of all people, had been involved with it, and she didn't want to know the price her father had paid for that bargain because surely there'd been a terrible one. Lionel always collected in the end.

That night Clark had surprised her as she was locking up The Torch and driven them both out to Crater Lake just to talk. She'd clammed up the minute he even mentioned Rachel and Metropolis United Charities, but he hadn't pushed. Had he been Lex, he would have. Hell, Lex had, even as she'd ridden with him in the ambulance to Smallville Medical Center. But Clark didn't interrogate.

He gave.

She'd never asked him about being adopted (nor Lana for that matter). It wasn't like that revelation had opened her up to some super secret club or that she'd even thought of it as another thing she and he had in common. Honestly, she'd never given his own experiences with it much thought. Compared to her trans-species adoption, she'd always assumed his had been a breeze.

Chloe'd been wrong.

Clark hadn't been adopted until he was almost four, and he'd been moved through at least (as far as he could remember) three different foster homes before the Kents had found him. Though the memories were sketchy, he'd painted quite the picture for her, nothing as over dramatic as an Oliver Twist tale, but it hadn't been pretty either. While her writing strength lay more with coaxing out the most revealing interviews, Clark's lay with human interest pieces. So she'd sat and listened to him tell his tale. He'd been so talented at bringing her into that part of his life that she'd actually felt the disappointment sharply in her chest each time he told her about another family abandoning him.

When he'd finished, he finally looked away at the moon rising over the lake (he hadn't taken his eyes off hers throughout his entire narration), and they'd sat in silence for quite some time.

Finally, she'd broken the pall by reaching over and placing her hand over his forearm. "I'm sorry."

"It's okay now. Like I said, a lot of it is still fuzzy and it's not like the other families had burned out cigarette butts on me or anything. I don't think the back and forth had that much to do with me. It was more like 'wrong place, wrong time' stuff with families trying to take on more financial responsibilities than they could handle. It wasn't personal."

His voice wavered as he finished, and she'd wondered if he was consciously aware of how he was Polly Anna-ing everything.

"You were very lucky, like me. Your parents now are amazing."

"I know." He said, giving a small smile. "But I still wonder about my real parents. Maybe they're out there somewhere, and they loved me a lot. Maybe they just couldn't take care of me. I mean, it's not their fault they couldn't afford to keep me, you know?"

She nodded. "And maybe we're just better off without both of them. Yours are about as likely as mine to show up, and if they did, it wouldn't be some long lost happy reunion. Hell, look at Rachel and her search for Lucille. You think that girl will be happy to find out her birth mother's psychotic?"

"Chlo-"

"No, it's not a fairy tale for either of us, and I'm glad they're gone. If they didn't need me then I sure as Hell don't need them."

And he'd let it drop, left it there, but he'd been subdued when he'd dropped her off at her house. Clark needed to believe that his birth family had loved him, had been good people. She wasn't sure what she needed. But she wasn't going to let herself be hopelessly optimistic about it, except, deep down she did feel the exact same way. She had some stupid Little Orphan Annie fantasy where her biological parents had only been forced to send her away.

They'd been wonderful and kind and loving, and they hadn't wanted to send her away. Maybe they were still looking for her even.

She'd never seriously considered any other alternative, but apparently her father had.

It made sense. He'd had a lot longer to consider all the angles than she had What if he were right? What if she were her by design? Hell, what if her people sent all their offspring off to colonize (fat chance there, she was probably a few chromosomes short) other planets? What if it were all some sort of survivalist experiment? Ah Hell, what if she'd been bred to be abandoned? No one ever said she hadn't come from a test tube.

That last thought made her more nauseous than the meteor rocks.

Maybe she was as sentimental as Clark but that scenario didn't feel right. She just couldn't believe that the caves were a trick or a trial. They were her haven, the place she fit better than even a ratty loft sofa, and they'd give her her answers.

They had to.

Taking in a deep breath, she answered. "It's not. I know it's not. I want to do this. Daddy, please."

"And I can't let that happen."

"Can't or won't. Admit it. You're terrified. Terrified that I'll find out that they're coming back for me and I can go home." He staggered at that, but she continued. She had a mean streak in her and when pushed, she attacked, drove the insults deep. "Hell, maybe we just got separated on the landing, and they're here right now, hiding just like I am, waiting for me." She squared her chin up at her father, trying to be as close to his height as she could. "Is that it then? You have to hold onto me so tight that you can't let me find my realfamily. Are you afraid I'll love them more than you?"

He reached out for her, and, despite how much she wanted to speed away, she let him touch her. When he spoke, his voice was low and quavered slightly. "Chlo-bear, that's not it."

And the slip into the childhood pet name let her know that he was afraid of being replaced. It wasn't entirely about keeping her safe this time.

It was about keeping her.

"Then what is it about, daddy?" She asked, her words coming out quick and clipped." Is all this because you need to keep pretending that I'm human?"

"We're not pretending anything."

"The Hell we're not. You never told me. I know you couldn't have when I was little and talked too much, but after the heat vision, after I had to uproot my whole life because of this you should have. If Lex hadn't hit me, would you have ever said anything?"

"Chlo," Clark prodded from across the room.

She turned to face him. "No, I need to know. Maybe if I'd known earlier...I don't know...maybe it would have been less scary."

"Chlo-bear, I couldn't. I didn't know how."

She spun on her heels back to him. "That's crap. You were just trying to ignore it. What? Did you think it would go away? Would you just have swept the floating under the rug too? How about the invulnerability? What if I had grown a tail or a third eye or something, would that have all just been a mystery ability too?"

"Don't be silly, Chlo, none of that's going to happen." Clark said, coming over to her and placing a hand on her shoulder.

This time she did slip into superspeed and was at the top of the stairs so fast that it left both of them with their mouths wide open in shock and confusion.

They just wanted to stop her from questioning. Clark, the eternal optimist, wanted to believe that everything was fine. He probably did think that. While her father wanted to ignore it.

This family always ignored everything, always hid and cowered in corners.

She was fucking sick of it.

The Pit Bull never would have backed down and neither would she.

Putting her hands on her hips, she glared back at both of them and shouted, "We don't know that for sure! Fuck, we don't know anything about me. I mean, just two years ago, if you'd said I'd be able to fly, I'd have laughed in your face. Three years ago, I wouldn't have been able to turn a school gym to cinders just by staring at it. What happens tomorrow or next year or ten years from now? What if I stop even looking human?"

"You won't." Clark declared and she knew that he believed that in that same sincere way he still believed in America and apple pie and probably even Santa. It was that black and white in him again, and he just couldn't see all the angles.

"He's right, sweetheart." He dad added, his tone gentle, but she knew that he didn't believe it. She could hear the way his heart hammered in his chest as he lied.

He was a Sullivan, after all, and they always saw everything.

She was sure he'd been worried about that very thing since the day he'd brought her home, and it had only gotten worse since the heat vision.

The way her eyes glowed...well that was anything but human.

"No one knows anything." She continued, her voice racing so fast that even she could barely make out her words. "I don't know what I am. Not who, what. Every other person you've ever met at least knows their species. I don't even have a word for what I'm supposed to be, and I am sick to death of it. Ever since I saw my ship, I've been obsessing over this, over all those answers, and I can finally have them. I'll finally have a clue about what's happening to me because it's not stopping. It's not getting better or slowing down."

"Chloe-bear-"

"No daddy. You don't understand, you couldn't possibly. I can feel it. Every day, I'm a little stronger and a little faster and every day even going outside feels different. Every time the sunrises I get a little less human. I'm a reporter. That's the only what I've got so far, and we always need answers. No matter how ugly they are, even if we're both right after all."

"I don't know what you mean, sweetie." Beside her father, Clark just frowned in confusion.

She shook her head. "I know you've been worrying about this two. I see the way you look at me sometimes, the way you worry your bottom lip. You're afraid it'll happen to." Her voice hitched as she finished and she could already feel those stupid tears welling up in her eyes.

Clark, finally getting it, started up the stairs towards her with his arms out stretched. When he spoke, it was in that same gentle tone he used with the more skittish horses on the farm. "Chlo, maybe right now isn't a good time to talk about this."

She backed up against the wall of the stairwell landing, once again denying his warmth. "It's never a good time, Clark, because you and my dad are scared for me. That's not going to change. You don't want to take the risk that the caves could hurt me. I don't know, maybe you don't even want to admit there's anything different about me to begin with."

That was unfair and she knew it, but it didn't stop her from saying it, but it did cause guilt to well up in the pit of her stomach when she saw how Clark flinched at her words. He never forgot what she was. He didn't think less of her for it, quite the opposite. He'd fallen into the role of her sidekick and accomplice and quite possibly the first member of her fan club. He was the one who was trying to help her learn to fly, even if it wasn't going so well, the one that tried to get her to open up about what she remembered from Before.

She'd been saying a lot of things this morning she was going to regret later.

Sighing, she flattened her palms on her forehead and shook head. "I'm tired."

"I know it's hard." Her dad said.

"No, I didn't mean it like that. I'm physically tired." She ran a hand through her bangs and gave a bitter laugh. "Obviously, I didn't get great sleep last night, and I can squeeze in a few hours before school, so we'll just let this drop until this afternoon. Okay?"

She didn't even wait for an answer as she sped off to her room.