A/N: An unsuspecting Clark enters the story…..

Chapter Two

Dressed in his usual jeans, flannel and work boots, Clark Kent emerged from the kitchen at first light and set off toward the cow pasture to start the day's chores. A muffled bark from the direction of the barn brought him up short; what was wrong with Shelby? When it was followed by a second, more insistent, bark, he changed course to investigate.

The big Golden Retriever was hunkered down just outside the barn, snout between his paws, intently studying a freshly-dug hole in front of him. At the sound of his approach, Shelby's head popped up and tilted in that funny way that always made Clark smile. Obviously, he wanted to show Clark something.

"Hey, boy," Clark murmured, kneeling by his pet and scratching behind his ears. Shelby's tail pounded the beaten earth enthusiastically. "What do you have for me?"

At the bottom of the small hole was a slim metal box. The box was open, and it was empty. Clark blanched, suddenly jolted wide awake, even at this hour.

"The octagonal disk," he breathed, clutching Shelby's neck a shade too hard. At the protesting yelp, he released it immediately. "It's gone."

He looked down at his pet gratefully. "Thanks for showing me this, buddy." He stared, unseeing, across the misty fields, wondering uncomfortably who might have taken the last remaining piece of his destroyed spaceship, which was now the key to his Arctic Fortress.

Could it have been Lex? Wincing inwardly he remembered the last time he'd seen his former friend, driving away from the church with his new bride, Lana. Clark winced inwardly, and felt his teeth clench, as they had so many times since that wedding. It had been, he felt sure, the most painful day of his life.

Except, of course, for his father's funeral, he reminded himself quickly.

And, oh yes, except for his wife Alicia's death. That had been bad, too.

But this was LANA. The girl he'd always worshiped, from the time he'd first seen her in kindergarten. And now she was gone forever. He sighed loudly, whispering her name, one hand still stroking his pet's head.

A low growl rose up from Shelby's direction, and when Clark glanced downwards, startled out of his reverie, he saw that the dog was scratching frantically at the hole.

The reminder brought Clark back to the problem at hand. He cleared away his memories and considered his options.

"Lex," he breathed, resentfully. "It's got to be him."

Shelby whined softly. Clark resumed petting him, thinking out loud. "But how could he have known where this was hidden?"

No one, not even his mother or Chloe, had known about this hiding place. And he'd been very careful to avoid drawing attention to it, except for that one time….

With an unpleasant twinge in the pit of his stomach, he remembered a recent visit of Lana's to the farm, when she'd dropped by to pick up some muffins his mother had made for the Talon. He'd stayed in the barn, hoping to avoid seeing her, but, for some strange reason, Shelby, who was normally very well-behaved, had started raising an unholy ruckus right over the disk's hiding spot, puzzling both Lana and his mother. The dog kept on barking and scratching at the dirt until Clark ran out to drag him away.

He'd tried to laugh it off as a buried bone, but from the suspicious look on her face, it was clear that Lana wasn't entirely convinced by his story. He wondered if she'd put two and two together. Not about the disk, of course, but she might easily have thought that he was hiding something important.

Surely, though, Lana wouldn't betray him to Lex,……would she?

If only he'd thought to change the disk's hiding place.

He frowned at his pet, who'd risen to all fours, looking up at him with a hopeful expression and a wagging tail. "Shelby, you don't know it, but you might have caused me a major headache. I wish I knew what to do about it."

Almost by instinct, he found himself reaching into his pocket for his cell phone and hitting Chloe's speed-dial, in spite of the early hour. It had become almost second nature for him to rely on her opinion, and he needed it now. He hoped she wouldn't be too angry about the early wake-up call.