Clark's phone went off, and he breathed a sigh of relief when he saw Zatanna's name on the caller I.D. He had begun to worry after she was a few minutes late and he had half a mind to go and find her himself when a few minutes turned into half an hour. He didn't want anything to happen to his girlfriend, and he knew that the chance of something happening was almost guaranteed since she was in Smallville, never mind the fact that he seemed to have a bad habit for attracting meteor freaks. He answered his phone, trying not to let his relief at Zatanna's call be heard in his voice. He didn't want her to think he was the type of boyfriend who needed to be in control of his girlfriend's life after all.

"Zatanna is everything alright?" He asked, kicking himself for sounding worried. However, his girlfriend didn't seem to mind because she just laughed lightly before she replied.

"Everything's fine. In fact, I've got a surprise for you. It's in the barn. So what do you say Clark? Are you gonna come get it?" She asked, her tone growing lower and more seductive just before she hung up. Clark put his phone in his pocket, set money on the table to pay for the coffee and walked out of the Talon before he raced over to the barn, completely unprepared for the sight that greeted him. Zatanna was lying on his couch wearing nothing but a black lace bra and panties, smiling sensually as she looked at him, eyes filled with wanton lust.

"Z...Zatanna what the hell is going on?"

"I'm trying to seduce you Clark." She replied, walking over to him and kissing him passionately on the lips. Clark moaned into the kiss as he felt her body press against his, the desire he felt for the young woman almost completely robbing him of all reason. She turned him around and pushed him back onto the couch, before she straddled him.

"Zatanna we need to stop." He moaned as she began to place kisses on the side of his neck.

"Do you really want me to stop?" She asked, continuing her trail down his collarbone even as she began to run her hands underneath his shirt.

"There's something wrong with you. You're not yourself." He told her, and she just laughed softly in response.

"Clark, I'm more myself than I have been in a very long time. I'm finally willing to go and take what I want."

"And what exactly do you want?"

"Considering the position we are in it should be obvious. I want you. I've wanted you for years, and I'm not going to deny myself. From what I can tell, you want me too." She said, and Clark cursed as his body betrayed him, even as he wondered what Zatanna meant when she told him that she had wanted him for years; he had only met her a few weeks ago after all.

"I'd be lying if I said I didn't, but not like this." He told her, and she laughed again.

"Then how do you want it Clark? Maybe I age myself up a few years, hm? Is that how you like it? Does the thought of being with an older woman turn you on?" She asked, punctuating each word with a kiss to his lips, before forcing her tongue into his mouth. Suddenly there was a crash and Zatanna fell forward, her head falling into Clark's chest.

"Sorry to interrupt Clark, but something tells me I know what's going on with your girlfriend." Lex said, shaking his fist from the impact with the young magic user's skull.

"So, you have a thing for older women Clark? " The billionaire asked as he drove to the hospital, Zatanna's unconscious form laying in the Last Son of Krypton's arms.

"Is now really the time to be discussing that Lex?"

"I guess not, but if you ever change your mind I know a few people..." Lex let the sentence trail off and Clark shot the young Luthor heir a glare. The last thing he cared about right now was his love life. Actually, that was a lie. He only cared about the person that he now realized was the love of his life. As he looked down at her sleeping face he realized something; when he had said he wanted Zatanna it wasn't simply because of some lust or desire that he was feeling at that moment in time. No, as he looked at her face he knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that he loved her.

"Lex, what's wrong with Zatanna?" He asked as he walked into the hospital with Zatanna cradled in his arms.

"Oh no, another one." A doctor said as he met them in the hallway, motioning for Clark and Lex to follow him down a second, secluded hallway. He opened the door to a room and Clark placed her on the bed within, looking at the Doctor in confusion once he had done so.

"What do you mean another one Doctor..."

"Clark, this is Doctor Emil Hamilton. Tell Clark here what you told me Doctor."

"This woman is the seventh person we have admitted within the last twenty-four hours, and all of the stories are the same. There's some sort of overriding emotion, and then once they somehow fall into unconsciousness they slip into a coma."

"You put her in a coma?!"Clark yelled as he grabbed Lex's jacket and slammed him into a wall.

"If he hadn't the side effects would've been much worse. She would've kept on feeling whatever carnal emotion that she was experiencing at increasingly high levels. Eventually the feeling would overtake her completely and it would cause her pulse rate to increase dramatically, with her heart going faster and faster until it finally just gave out completely."

Clark took a deep breath and let Lex go, opening his mouth to apologize when a nurse came in.

"Doctor Hamilton, we...we lost one."

"What do you mean, you lost one?!"

"The person we admitted last night... he's dead. He seemed fine, then started having convulsions, there was nothing that we could do."

Clark swore before he began walking out the door, already halfway down the hall when Lex caught up to him.

"Where are you going?"

"I'm going to have Chloe pull up the GPS on Zatanna's phone. I want to know where she's been, see if I can find any clues about what's causing this."

"Clark you don't even know where to start."

"So what should I do Lex?! Sit there and watch her die? Now either help me or stay the hell out of my way." He snarled before walking out the door, and racing over to Chloe's.

"Clark, I think I found something." She asked, causing Clark to stop the pacing that he had kept up for the last hour.

"It seems Zatanna was wandering around our resident meteor freak specialist's place."

"Dr. Hamilton? What was she doing there?"

"No-" Chloe felt a gust of wind and turned around, seeing her door slam shut. "Idea." She finished.

Clark wandered around where Chloe told him Zatanna had been, but he couldn't find anything out of the ordinary. There was no meteor rock and no vegetation, not even a plant.

"Can I help you?" A man asked as he walked over to Clark.

"Dr. Hamilton?"

"Yes, and who might you be?"

"My name is Clark Kent."

"Mr. Kent, what are you doing here? This is private property after all."

"My girlfriend was just here yesterday and I think she may have been exposed to something. She's in a coma at the hospital, along with five other people. Another patient just died a little over an hour ago."

"Tell me, was she behaving differently than normal?"

"Yes."

"Like she was focused on only one thing? As though that was all that mattered? Some person or object or emotion?" He pressed and Clark nodded.

"Why do you know something? Can... Can you help her?"

"I thought I got all of it but I must have missed one. I'm afraid she and the others have been exposed to a rare plant called the Nicodemus."

"I don't care about what it's called, all I want to know is whether or not you can help her."

"I think I can Mr. Kent." he replied, walking back to his house, and gesturing for Clark to follow.

A/N: I'm going to use my own cure for this so this part will not exactly follow cannon

"I've had the same problem when I tested it on rats so I tried to find a cure."

"Did you?"

"I did. You see the Nicodemus was exposed to meteor rock, and the only way to stop it is to halt the radiation. Lead will stop most radiations but since humans obviously can't ingest lead, I made a gas compound, which had the desired effect. Use it like a smelling salt. Your friend should be fine." He said handing Clark several large pills.

"Why didn't you tell people when this started happening?"

"Honestly... I didn't know it was. No cable, you see." Clark just shook his head and walked out of the house, making sure Hamilton couldn't see him before racing back to the hospital.

"Clark! What happened?" Lex asked as he walked into the hospital.

"I found a cure." He replied, ignoring the questioning look on Lex's face and walking into Zatanna's room. He took one of the pills and broke it directly under her nose, praying that it would work. For a few moments nothing happened and then Zatanna's eyes flickered open.

"C...Clark? What happened?"

"It's a long story, but all that matters is that you're ok." He told her, handing the other pills to the doctor who quickly went to administer them to the other patients.

"I've got to go check on an employee, I'll see you two later ok?"

"Lex wait a second. How did you know about the side effects to the Nicodemus?"

"Lucky guess." He replied, and Clark shook his head as Lex walked out the door. Lex was hiding something, he just knew it.

"So what's the occasion?" Zatanna asked him as he set the picnic basket down on the side of Crater Lake.

"Well, after everything that happened I thought you could use something normal." He replied. However Zatanna heard an undercurrent in his tone and she took his hand and looked him in the eye.

"Clark did I do something when I was influenced by the Nicodemus?"

"There was one thing in particular that kind of stood out. You told me that you'd wanted me for years. What did you mean by that?"

Zatanna was silent for a minute, wondering just how much she should tell him. After several minutes, she finally spoke.

"All my life I've had strained relationships. People leave me or they die or I find out that I don't know them at all. With you it's different. I feel like I've known you my entire life, and I can't deny that I want you Clark. So that's what I meant. I feel like I've wanted you for years, and because of that I think I can wait a little longer. I want both of us to be sure that we don't rush into anything or have sex just for the physical attraction. Where we are right here, right now, that's enough for me. At least for the time being." Clark smiled, and nodded kissing her softly on the lips before they began to eat, both of them aware of the secret they were keeping from the other, both of them aware of the fact that they loved each other, but silently agreeing to keep it to themselves, and simply be content with where they were, at least for the moment.

"What the hell happened Doctor? I told you to be careful not to get people sent to the hospital!"

"I don't know Mr. Luthor, but I promise you that I've removed all traces of the Nicodemus."

"I hope so, for your sake." Lex said as he hung up the phone, his mind wandering once again to what Clark and Zatanna were hiding, promising himself that he would soon find out.

A/N: I hope you guys liked this chapter! I know some of you wanted them to have sex and tell each other the truth but I decided it was too early for that. I do have a plan for all of that so you won't be waiting too much longer. Please read and review and the next chapter will be up soon.