Part Two – Extinguished

"I still don't know how you did it." Jimmy said around a full mouth of nachos. "I swear one minute I was sneaking up on you and the next I hear my own censor going off and you're standing behind me." He shrugged and took a swig of his Coke. "I didn't even know that football prepared someone to be all sneaky like that. I mean, I'm supposed to be the creeper. I've worked under paparazzi---not one of my prouder moments---but I know a thing or two about hiding in plain sight and you still manage to outdo me, C.K. Next time, we are doing guys versus girls."

"Yeah," Clark said, shifting uncomfortably. "I guess I'm just quick that way."

"That's one way of putting it." Chloe said, taking a sip of her own soda and glaring at Clark. Apparently she wasn't any more thrilled than I was that Clark had violated the "no powers" rule.

"Still three rounds of laser tag can be tough on anyone. I took this huge diving leap trying to avoid Lana in the second round and I swore I heard something in my shoulder tear and then a few minutes later, no pain at all." He cracked his knuckles over his head. "Must be those amazingly resistant Olsen genes I've got."

"You don't say," Clark said, staring hard at Chloe. She looked back at him and once again I got that distinct feeling that the two of them were having a conversation without even saying anything. Idly, I wondered if Jimmy ever felt the way I did now, like an intruder in the middle of a scene I had nothing to do with.

After a few minutes of staring at one another, Chloe gave a slight laugh and pecked Jimmy on the cheek. "Yup, I guess we have to chalk everything up to superior breeding."

Jimmy smiled and leaned in to give her a real kiss on the lips. "Our kids are totally going to be little daredevils."

I suppressed a smirk. Jimmy was a sweet enough guy but definitely not my taste. He was far too ordinary to catch my interest. However, I just couldn't see the freckle-faced wonder being the patriarch to a line of little Evil Knievels. As for Chloe…well the girl had always been a little reckless. I could see a brood of little death defying rugrats in her future.

Clark gave Chloe a look I couldn't quite place. "Something tells me that any Olsen-Sullivan kids are going to be very resilient. Self-healing even."

Chloe gave an uncomfortable laugh. "Yeah, well, don't start picking out the cute stuffed animals yet. That's a little far down the line, don't you think? Besides, I plan to be at least a full-fledge columnist before I even consider having a kid."

Jimmy shrugged. "I'd just settle for not having to take the Kawanis Club photos or chase old guys in speedos around the country." He shivered. "Polar bear coverage should come with free eye drops. I think I need to scour out my eyeballs."

"Poor baby," Chloe said, giving his shoulder a squeeze. "At least you didn't have to cover any pigeon population dips. There are some stories too boring for even page 70 of the Planet, even if you do place the copy under the fold and the ads for spray-on hair."

"Whatever, Chlo," Clark said, stealing a nacho off her plate. "My first assignment is about the rising cost of funerals in Metropolis---boring and depressing in one fell swoop."

"At least you have a first story. Perry threw you a bone because he likes you and Kahn let him do it because she's still hoping to weasel an interview out of your mom. By all rights you should be manning the Pet Obit hotline." Chloe said, slapping his hand and getting him to drop the chip back onto her plate. I flinched a little when she did it. I'd landed on top of Clark once and it had felt like slamming on to concrete. I can't imagine slapping him would feel any better. He must be better at deflecting the blows of us mere mortals than I thought.

"If you don't like the story, I'll trade you." Jimmy offered. "I have to cover the annual Metropolis Cat Show next week and I have allergies. I'll be puffier than a blowfish by lunch and all sniffly. I hate that."

Clark grimaced. "Being sick sucks."

"Yeah but by the way you two whine about it, you'd think you were both dying. I've never met a guy that could be all stoic with a little case of the sniffles, right Clarkie?"

"I hate Lois. If I ever figure out a way to staple her mouth shut, I'm so going to do it."

"Here-here." Jimmy said, clinking his glass against Clark's.

"Hey! That's my cousin you're talking about and she's not that bad. She split the credit fair and square with you for the Green Arrow exclusive and she was really helpful to Martha as her chief of staff."

"And yet she mocks my photo taking prowess."

"And manages to use up all the hot water when she stops by still unannounced after random country runs."

"Okay, so maybe Lois over steps her bounds a little…" Chloe defended.

"All the time." Both boys chimed in simultaneously and then, true to their maturity levels, "One, two, three jinx!"

Clark, no surprise, was faster and Jimmy slumped into his seat with his arms folded over his chest glaring at him. Ah the blessed silence.

"Still, Lois means well, and she's been trying to write stories for The Inquisitor that actually make a difference. She's the only one on staff looking for political corruption stories and not just rehashing the latest gossip from E! News or the National Enquirer." She looked over to me. "Come on, Lana, back me up."

I nodded relieved to finally have something to add to the conversation since journalism didn't interest me at all. "Lois visited me every day at the hospital after I'd been shot and even brought me all the latest issues of said rag to keep me entertained." Of course, the leading headlines on The Inquisitor had been about me and Lex and the mess of our marriage, which hadn't exactly made me feel better, but the Chloe was right. Even if Lois didn't always succeed in comforting or supporting you, she was always there ready to fight it out with you. Maybe the General had trained her well in foxhole etiquette. Or maybe it was just a Sullivan-Lane family trait to dig in and get violent when the going got tough.

"See," Chloe continued. "Lois is a good person. She's just a little brash."

"And a lot critical," Clark muttered. As an after thought he added, "You can talk now, Jimmy."

"Thanks. I was tempted to just start talking anyway."

"You wouldn't have wanted the penalty punch for speaking out of turn." I quipped. "Trust me." Some days it really amazed me the talent I had for sucking all the fun out of the room. Jimmy, cutely oblivious as always, had started rambling on about another investigative snafu Lois had dragged him on. Clark, however, was studying the table cloth very intently, and Chloe was looking at me like she was the one with heat vision.

"Hey," Chloe said, regaining her composure, "Lana, can you come with me to the bathroom?"

Jimmy rolled his eyes and laughed. "Girls. Contractually obligated to pee in groups. Don't take this the wrong way, C.K., but I am not in the market for a bathroom buddy."

Clark finally rebounded from his funk and chuckled. "No problem, man. Some people can actually leave the table by themselves for five minutes without being completely lost."

Chloe threw her napkin to the table in mock indignation. "We need the break for all important gossip and note-comparing. Besides, we need time to cute ourselves up for the sexy strapping guys. You'll let us know when they get here, won't you Clark?"

"Ouch, Chlo, that's cold. You just shot down your boyfriend."

"Did not. I just implied that you weren't the sexy type. Jimmy's adorable."

"Oh well, I'm totally cool with that." Jimmy said, sticking his tongue out at Clark.

"Come on, Lana, let's get back before something shiny grabs their limited attention spans."

"Uh, sure," I said, standing up from the table and giving Clark a quick peck on the cheek. "Be right back."

"So, not that I don't enjoy applying extra lip gloss, but why are we really here?" I asked, fishing through the bottom of my purse.

"You don't think this is all about girly bonding?" Chloe deadpanned, fixing her eyeliner.

"We've never been big on the chick flick moments, the occasional Brad Pitt and Keanu Reeves movie marathons aside, so I assume that you wanted to say something that can't be brought up in front of the boys." "The Boys" was really code for Jimmy, whom I assumed didn't know the big secret. Unless things really had changed in the last six months and Clark just let anyone know.

I seriously doubted that.

Chloe didn't say anything for a few seconds but instead turned around and did a quick glance under the stalls in order to make sure we were really alone. She strode over to the main door and flipped the lock, insuring that we wouldn't be interrupted.

"You know, if anyone has to go to the bathroom, we're going to get in trouble."

"We won't be here that long, besides they owe me. I ran a story last month about the high accident record of their competition and their sales doubled."

"Power of the press."

"Has its perks," She finished, hopping up on the sink and swinging her legs back and forth under her.

"Getting comfy?"

"Maybe a little."

"I'm going to take another guess here and assume we aren't here to talk about Jimmy in private."

She shook her head. "Not that I wouldn't want someone in addition to Lois to do all the girl-talk dishing with, but it's the other boy I was more worried about."

I sighed. I loved Chloe like a sister, really I did, but the girl had a horrible habit of sticking her nose where it didn't belong. "Everything's been going fine with me and Clark. The last two months have been great."

"Uh-huh."

I put my hands on my hips. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"What have you been saying to him?"

"A lot of things, actually. It might surprise you, since you tend to dominate all our group conversations, but we manage to talk amongst ourselves just fine." Maybe I was coming out a little bit more defensive than I wanted to, but after almost three months back in Metropolis, I was developing a little complex over the little journalist cabal that Jimmy, Lois, Clark, and Chloe had established. The four of them together---no matter how much Jimmy and Clark insisted they didn't like Lois---could talk for hours and their conversations always ran the gamut from pretty insightful analyses of current events to inside jokes from various press conference goings on. Being out with them sucked a lot because I just wasn't a part of their world. Being out with just Clark and Chloe, even if it was just a picnic at the farm or something simple was even worse. I still felt that they were closer than Clark and I were, and I just didn't get how that could be.

After all, he wasn't sleeping with Chloe.

Chloe rolled her eyes. "I never said you two didn't have a fine relationship with lots of great dialogue and whatever, but some of what you're saying to him has been less than supportive."

I slammed my purse down on the counter top. "How dare you. I'm always supportive."

"Really? How come Clark won't go flying anymore?"

"Why does it matter, Chloe, looking for a free ride to New York or something?"

She reared back like I'd slapped her. "How could you even think that? I'd never take advantage of Clark like that."

"Well you were all about the amusement park aspect of it all back at the farm."

"I was not. We'd been working on it all day and he was really proud of it. He gets so excited every time he gets the hang of a new power. You should have seen the smile on his face when he got the superbreath stuff perfected."

I shook my head. "I'm surprised at you. You know how important it is for him to keep everything a secret and you're the one encouraging him to use his powers in public. He shouldn't be flying anywhere ever."

"He mentioned that you'd said that."

"Come on, Chloe, don't make me sound like the bad guy here. I just don't think that it's good for Clark to practice being so---"

"Alien." She supplied, her tone defiant.

"I didn't say that exactly."

She rolled her eyes. "Inhuman, abnormal, pick your synonym."

"Now who's being harsh?"

"I'm not harsh. I just don't believe in sugar-coating things either." She sighed and ran a hand through her bangs. "It's what he is, Lana.It not all he is and it doesn't define him, part it's a big part of the Clark package all the same. If you can't handle that, then you owe it to him to tell him that now."

"I can too handle it. I don't see how not wanting Clark to get caught and put in a lab makes me xenophobic."

"It doesn't." Chloe said, her voice softening. "But that isn't the way to keep him safe. It's just forcing him to deny part of who he is."

I shook my head. "Denial is better than being caught. He got this far by blending in, didn't he?"

"And if he hadn't been willing to risk exposure to superspeed to our rescues back in high school we wouldn't even be here having this argument."

"Moot point. This isn't Smallville and there aren't anymore meteor freak psychos running around for him to take on. It's just school and the Planet and neither of those require aerial skills."

Chloe took a deep breath before she continued and when she spoke her voice wavered. Something I'd said had upset her more beyond just her normal concern for Clark, but I couldn't figure out what. "You ride."

"I do." I answered, not sure where Chloe's argument was going. Despite the beautiful stables at the mansion, I hadn't ridden much last year before I'd learned of my "pregnancy." But Donatello and Tyson still lived at Kent Farm, and I enjoyed taking them out for a long run on the weekends when I could. I frowned. "What's your point?"

"It's a talent you have and it feels good and natural for you to do it."

"I still don't see where you're going with this."

"That's what flying is for Clark. He's good at it, and he was born to do it."

I really hated Chloe's penchant for realism. I didn't need to be reminded that flying, just like running faster than the speed of sound, was natural for him. I just wanted him to be normal and safe, like I always thought he'd been. "And this isn't Krypton so whatever he's supposed to do there doesn't matter here."

"But if you can do something and it's as natural and comfortable to you as breathing then why wouldn't you do it? Screw it. He can fly faster even than he can speed. Do you know how many people he can help with that extra speed boost?"

"But he's not in the saving people business anymore, is he?" I asked, genuinely confused. Clark hadn't mentioned anything about fighting more aliens (the evil variety, not the farmboy kind) or taking out meteor freaks. I'd just assumed he was all about being a normal college student and coffee-getting intern now. Had I been wrong? Was he saving people behind my back and cutting me yet again out of a part of his life? I wanted to know, but I'd pressure him about it later. I didn't want Chloe to get all smug about how she still knew more about Clark than I did.

Chloe hesitated and then shook her head. "No, I guess not."

"Besides, how would you know how hard it is to stop using superpowers? It's not like breathing or severing a limb. He'll get used to not doing it. He might even forget he can do it. He did before."

Chloe looked like she wanted to say something and she sat there for a while, deep in thought, her upper teeth biting into her bottom lip. When she spoke, her voice was uncharacteristically soft. "No, I guess I wouldn't know anything about having superpowers, but I still won't encourage him to ignore his heritage. Denying stuff never makes anything better."

"And I'm not going to encourage him to do anything I think is dangerous. I just couldn't do that to him." The fact that keeping him safe also meant keeping him normal was just a bonus.

Chloe sighed and hopped up from the counter. "He listens to you more than he listens to me. It's always been about you, you know---and before you start, I'm not bitter and I'm not jealous. I love Jimmy, and what I feel…felt for Clark doesn't have anything to do with this conversation." She looked back at me, earnest green eyes boring into me. "He's so afraid of scaring you away that he'll do anything to keep you. That's a lot of power to have over anyone, especially the strongest man on the planet. I just wanted you to know that."

It had been two days since our argument, and I hadn't made move one to pick up the phone to call Chloe to apologize. Honestly, I didn't see how I was in the wrong. Chloe and I just had philosophical differences over what it meant to be the Keepers of the Secret. I could already see how both of us being in on Clark's secret was going to drive us further apart and not, as I'd originally hoped, bring us closer together. It didn't matter much because Chloe and I ran in the same social circle (the one that revolved around Clark), and we'd be forced to socialize eventually. In fact, I think the boys had set up another double date for next weekend. I believed bowling was on the schedule.

Joy.

Some days I really missed the life that included VIP escorts to museum openings.

It was another lazy Saturday at the farm. We spent most weekends home there. Usually we drove out to Smallville; actually we always drove out there. Superspeeding was too disorienting for me and, honestly, there were times tooling around downtown when you just needed a truck or a jeep to help you drag home the groceries or the extra cow feed or whatever. I rolled to my left and wasn't surprised to find Clark's side of the bed empty. He always worked the farm early in the mornings and judging by how high the sun was in the sky, he'd been at it for quite a while. I took a deep breath and was enticed by the smell of frying bacon and eggs and fresh coffee.

I smiled and pulled on my bathrobe. Martha, obviously, had never had any daughters, and she'd had to have someone to pass on all her recipes and culinary expertise too. She'd tried training Lois a little, but had quit after she'd lost her third set of curtains in a suspicious stove top fire. Clark, however, was excellent at cooking just like he was at pretty much everything else he tried. Whatever he'd prepared would taste almost as good as if Martha had made it herself, except for pie. I'd never met anyone who could bake a better cherry pie than Martha Kent.

As I slipped down the back stairs to the kitchen, another aroma tickled my nose---browning toast. I frowned. We'd spent almost every weekend at the farm for three months, and I knew we didn't own a toaster. Confused, I hurried down the stairs and gasped when I reached the bottom. Clark was making the toast. And when I say making, I don't mean that he'd gotten out a baking sheet and was browning the bread slices in an oven. Oh no. Instead he was holding up a slice in front of his eyes and I watched, horrified, as twin beams of heat displaced the air and the toast began to brown and then burn.

"Crap." Clark cursed under his breath. "I haven't burned the toast in years." His expression changed from annoyance to concern and he quirked his head at an odd angle---his posture reminded me vaguely of Shelby listening for the barn cats---and then stared straight up at me.

One second he was standing behind the kitchen island and the next he'd blurred over to in front of me, a deep frown marring his features. I yelped, but managed to keep myself from bolting up the stairs. "Clark, don't do that. Do you wanna give me a heart attack?"

"No…I…I'm sorry. Your heart was beating so fast and I was worried and I didn't think and…" he trailed off lamely, shuffling his feet beneath him.

"Sorry, I just wasn't expecting you to be making breakfast that way." I reached out and brushed my hand gently against his cheek and gasped when he looked up to face me. His eyes were still glowing a bright red and it was the most alien I'd ever seen him.

Suddenly it was all too much. I couldn't smell the toast anymore. I took a deep breath, but all I could smell was burning hair and seared flesh. I closed my eyes and felt my knees buckling beneath me, but I wasn't in the Kents' kitchen anymore. I was back in the field watching the people from the black ship murder dozens of police officers. I could feel the smoke burning my eyes and the flames' heat licking at my skin.

Oh god, the burning bodies.

I turned and bolted up the stairs, slamming and locking the door to the only bathroom behind me. Leaning over the toilet, I heaved until bile burned my throat and my stomach felt like it had been turned inside out. And still the sights and sounds of my flashback were overwhelming me---the screams of the officers as they died, the acrid stench of charred flesh, the sight of burnt bones and metal strewn across the field. I wretched again and finally let myself curl into a ball on the floor.

It took a few minutes before I realized that Clark was pounding on the door. "Lana! Are you alright? Please let me in."

I groaned but my throat was too dry to answer.

"Lana!" Clark was frantic by now. "I'm coming in." There was a loud crunch and I remembered how futile it was to try and lock Clark out of anything. He could crush metal in his bare hands. (Bone too), a traitorous voice in my head sniped, but I quickly suppressed it.

I struggled up to a sitting position, and, reluctantly, let myself lean into his arms. He was pressing a cold wet wash cloth to my forehead and it felt so good against my skin. "Mm, that's nice."

He kept stroking my hair and pressing the washcloth against my forehead for a few minutes before he spoke. "Are you sick?"

"Not anymore."

"Then why did you feel the need to call Ralph on the big white phone?"

I giggled a little and burrowed into him. "That's so fifth grade."

"Classics never go out of style." He let his left hand come to rest on my shoulder. "So if you're not sick, why are we both hanging out on the oh-so-scenic tile floor?"

"I…it's stupid." I said, looking down at the bathmat.

"I thought you were the one all for honesty in a relationship."

I hated when people threw my words back at me too. Yes, I did want honesty in a relationship, but I'd realized over the years that what I really wanted was more one-sided than that. I wanted to know what everyone else was hiding for me, wanted to have full disclosure all the time, but I didn't want to have to share what was too painful and too private for me. I don't even think that it's a hypocritical position, really. I'd been lied to and messed with so many times in my life. I feel justified in wanting the truth, especially after everything that Nell, Jason, Lex and especially Clark had put me through.

"I don't want to."

"Hey," he said, taking my chin between his fingers and pulling up my face so that we could see each other eye to eye. Thankfully his eyes were their normal green color again. If I'd had to face that brimstone red again, I think I'd have fainted. "You know you can tell me anything, right?"

I nodded. He wanted that to be true, but it wasn't. Clark was very skittish in his own way, always had been. The wrong turn of phrase would set him barn moping for days. Worse yet, I suspected that if I upset him enough, I could send him running all the way to Metropolis or even farther.

"It's stupid."

"I don't think it's stupid, not if it freaked you out enough to send you here. Come on, it's alright, really."

"I…it's just that I hadn't seen you use your heat vision in a long time." I'd never told him how I'd found out that he had powers in the first place. I didn't think he'd appreciate the fact that I set Chloe up. Personally, I didn't see what the big deal was. Yes, I had locked Chloe in a wine cellar, but she'd never been in any real danger. I'd known that Clark would save her the entire time. However, I knew that Clark and Chloe were kind of funny about morality. They didn't see the world in the same Luthor grey I sometimes did. If I ever told him about what I'd done, I was afraid he'd be unjustifiably angry with me.

"Okay."

"And I've, um, never you seen you cook with it. The smell…I…"

"Not a fan of the burnt toast, huh?" He asked, laughing weakly. "For the record, the other five pieces of toast are perfect, golden and crispy."

"Well that's a ringing endorsement." I had no interest in eating anything that Clark had cooked with his eyeballs. It was nothing personal, but I didn't see why he couldn't have just bought the toaster and done it the normal way. There was no way alien made toast was good for anyone.

"I didn't know burnt toast could turn a girl's stomach so much." He added, frowning a little. I noticed he wasn't looking me in the eye anymore but was instead looking at a spot past my shoulder. He did that too, avoided eye contact when he was afraid of where a conversation was going. It was a bad habit we'd cultivated together.

"It shouldn't but sometimes I have flashbacks about what happened to all the Smallville sheriff's officers and the burnt toast just brought me back to all the carnage."

"I'm sorry. I wasn't thinking. I didn't know that just seeing me use the heat vision for something as simple as making breakfast would bring up the association." He glanced back at me and I could see the genuine worry in his eyes. It reassured me a little. I knew that above all, Clark would never hurt me.

Intentionally at least.

"Me neither. It's silly, I guess. It's just how post traumatic stress goes. Honestly, I'd blocked most of that day out. It's easier to deal with now that I know that those things from the ship won't ever be coming back."

Clark stiffened and immediately dropped his hand from my shoulder. I stopped, confused by the sharp change in his attitude. What had I done now? Wait, I reviewed my last comment and wanted to kick myself. God, and I'd been so careful in these last few months not to say anything to upset him. Chloe'd drilled that need for caution more than once during our girls' days out, and I'd gone and forgotten it in the middle of my own trauma.

Well fuck.

"Clark," I said, reaching back for his shoulder.

He pulled away and got to his feet. "It was a mistake. I shouldn't have barged in on you like this and I definitely shouldn't have been using my powers to do something as stupid as cooking. I…now that I know how badly it freaks you out, I won't do it again."

I wanted to argue that it didn't freak me out that badly, that he could still be himself---heat vision and all---and it wouldn't bother me, but I'd never been a gifted liar. So I decided to just let him bow out gracefully. "I'd appreciate that. I mean, I know sometimes you have to use the heat vision to help people, like with the speed and the strength, but if you wouldn't do it around me, I'd appreciate it. It's nothing against you. It's just that after what Zod's lieutenants---"

"You mean those 'things.'" He said, his tone sub-zero levels of cold.

I stood up too and not for the first time wished that there wasn't a foot of difference between our heights. Sometimes I envied Lois and her ability to look him right in the eye. "Clark, I didn't mean for that to apply to you." I reached out to take his hands in mine and was grateful that he didn't refuse my touch. "You're special, not like the others at all and you know it. They were murderers and you're not." Although, to be fair, he'd come pretty close to killing Lex that time he'd been high on red meteor rocks, but if I couldn't be held guilty for killing Genevieve Teague when Isobel was possessing me, I couldn't really hold it against Clark for being too far gone on red K to stop crushing my fiancé's trachea.

"Goodie for me."

I blinked. Clark wasn't sarcastic. Well that's not entirely true. He was never sarcastic around me, but the barbs often flew fast and furious between him and his journalism-loving compatriots. In fact, the levels of snark between him and Chloe often reached toxic levels. But he was always gentle and sincere around me.

"Clark, don't be like that. I didn't mean to denigrate your, um, people. It's just Zod and the others I didn't like. You can't tell me that they were your bestest friends either."

"No, not even close, but that's not what this is about." He paused and took a deep breath. "You don't think of me as a thing, do you?"

Maybe a little. Sometimes, deep down, I did see him as a thing. At least during those times when he blurred faster than I could see or when I caught him lifting the tractor without the aid of jack. Then it was easy to stop seeing Clark and only see the alien part instead. But it would crush him if I admitted that, and then Chloe would kill me, strict moral code be damned. "No, I don't."

It was only a white lie, wasn't it? And those didn't even count. I mean, every guy tells a girl that she's perfect even when she's not. Even on days when I had the flu and was coughing up a lung, Jason or Whitney would reassure me about how perfect I was. This was sort of the same thing. I was just trying to reassure Clark this time that despite the alien part he was still perfect for me.

He let out a breath I don't think either of us had realized he'd been holding. "Alright then." He gave a weak smile. "So I think my breakfast in bed plan was pretty much ruined. How about we just go to The Talon instead and try and pretend the new caterer's muffins are as good as my mom's?"

"I'd like that." I said, stepping across the bathroom and placing my hand in his.

And just like the old days, we were able to pretend that the altercation had never happened, that everything was perfectly healthy between us and not just barely spackled together, cracking under the foundation. We were exceptionally good at pretending.

I never saw him use heat vision after that day either. One more concession from him and one more oddity crossed off my list.