spoilers: cool, hourglass, cravings

Chapter 4

Leo uncharacteristically broke from the tedium of mid-afternoon numbers-crunching at the Plant to speed off to the Kent Farm. As her silver Lamborghini tore through Smallville's backroads, she frowned over the proposal she had spent most of her afternoon crafting.

As she pulled into the Kent Farm, she quickly buried her grimace, and adopted the blank mask she assumed before business functions and focused on her two-part agenda for the visit.

Climbing out of the Lamborghini, Leo approached the backdoor of the yellow farmhouse when she heard the shrill buzzing of a saw emanating from a nearby shed beside the barn. Squaring her shoulders, she braced herself for a gruff encounter with the cantankerous Jonathan Kent. Instead, she spied the small, red-headed figure of Martha Kent with her back to Leo, hunched over a chainsaw and completely engrossed in her work.

Leo relaxed slightly, confident that Martha Kent would be more receptive to her efforts than Jonathan.

Leo stood to one side, watching Martha cutting firewood with the chainsaw. "Mrs. Kent!" She yelled.

Martha didn't seem to hear her; she just kept sawing.

"Mrs. Kent!" She yelled louder.

Still no response.

Finally, she walked quickly around Martha's other side, until she came into her line of vision. Waving her hands, she yelled, "Mrs. Kent!"

Martha nearly lost her grip on the saw as she was startled. She shut the saw down. "I'm so sorry. I didn't hear you. What brings you out here in the middle of the day?"

"I'm here to place an order. I need about thirty artichokes."

"Thirty? That's a lot of artichokes."

"I'm meeting with some local farmers about some financial options. A lot of farms in town are having money trouble."

"Most people aren't looking for more loans."

"I'm offering my role as an investor – to help people modernize and expand. This town once grew twenty percent of the corn in the state. Smallville was a heavy hitter. It just lost the drive to stay competitive." She smiled at Martha encouragingly. "I'd appreciate hearing your thoughts on my proposal, even if you're not interested."

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After thanking Martha, Leo strolled into the barn to wait for Clark's arrival after-school and curiously assessed her surroundings. She inhaled the earthy aroma, a mixture of hay, motor oil, sawdust, and manure that lingered in the air. While not Chanel, Leo was not repulsed by the odors, which weren't nearly as noxious as some of the Plant's fumes. She was oddly comforted by the quaint, Rockwellian image of simple country life that it connoted in her mind. It also reinforced her determination to preserve this small, tranquil oasis.

Briefly glancing over the menagerie of farm implements the barn contained, Leo's eyes drifted to the shaft of light flowing from the large window opening in the hayloft above. Trudging up the creaky wooden steps and crude board railing, Leo was pleasantly surprised at her discovery – with the rafters sloped toward the center of the room, the loft had a cozy feel that immediately set her at ease.

Briefly savoring the pastoral splendor from the window, she smirked at the telescope that rested beside it — or rather, at the unusually low trajectory of the device's line of sight, which was trained on the Potter-Lang house next door.

'Well, well, this does bode well for the second part of today's agenda,' Leo thought, pleased with herself.

Perusing its simple furnishings – a threadbare couch, scuffed coffee table, and a simple desk placed beneath crude bookshelves – Leo deduced the loft's function as a personal retreat for Clark. With that realization, Leo couldn't resist mining its contents for further insights into her heroic young friend. Examining the bookshelf, she was again mildly surprised and impressed at the array of advanced texts devoted to science, nature, and astronomy.

'Stephen Hawking! There is certainly more to this boy than I anticipated.'

Her eyes then flit over to a dartboard on the far wall and a small bin of cheap plastic darts underneath. It bore little resemblance to the case of sterling silver darts Leo had introduced to Clark in her game room. Perhaps she would give Clark a set for Christmas – even Mr. Kent wouldn't begrudge his son a simple Christmas present. He was obviously interested in learning.

Leo had been trying to teach him how to play, but Clark hadn't gotten the hang of it yet. After he'd drilled several holes in the oak paneling of the game room, Leo moved the dart set up to the dojo, where there were padded walls. She smirked, recalling Clark's embarrassment when Leo explained her reasoning. Clark hated damaging things. Still, he wasn't doing too bad for a beginner.

Pool was a different story though. He was getting a lot better at pool. A lot less of the balls ended up jumping off the table when he hit them now, at least compared to when Leo began his lessons in the gentile art of billiards.

Plus, he'd managed to not break the cue or tear the fabric on the table anymore. She languidly recalled their last session together, when she breathed encouraging words of instruction into Clark's ear. She guided his hand on the cue, and moved in close behind him, to adjust the angle of his elbow and hips.

Leo didn't step back immediately after Clark took that shot. Instead, she stayed put, discussing angles and tapping her fingers along the edge of the table, while she allowed the heat of her body to sink into his bones. He turned towards Leo and received a half-smile from his friend before the moment broke, and Leo finally moved away from him.

That night had led to some rather salacious dreams.

For both of them.

Her eyes rested briefly on a dog-eared copy of Nietzche's Man and Superman when Clark's voice abruptly interrupted her thoughts.

"Hey, Leo!" Clark called from below. "Mom said you wanted to see me. What's up?"

Leo looked down from the loft and frowned with puzzlement. "Clark? Where did you come from? I didn't hear the bus pull up."

As he loped up the stairs, Clark hurriedly stammered out, "Umm….it was nice out, so I walked. How 'bout you, shouldn't you be at work? Is something the matter?"

Leo quickly schooled her features to mask her confusion. It wasn't even 3:45 yet. He couldn't have gotten out of school more than a few minutes ago—unless he ditched his last class, but that didn't seem very Clark-like. And from the expression on Clark's face, Leo could discern an expression of both bewilderment and…panic?

What was going on?

This warranted further investigation.

Filing this concern for later, Leo flashed a reassuring grin and answered, "Actually, I'm rather shocked to find you here alone. I would have expected you and Lana to be inseparable by now."

Clark looked down at the ground. "We're just taking things slowly," he commented shyly, which Leo translated to mean, 'I've never had a real girlfriend before, and I'm scared shitless.'

"You know, I bet if you asked Miss Lang to go with you to the Radiohead concert in Metropolis tomorrow, she'd say yes." Leo pulled two concert tickets out of her pocket.

"And if she says yes... "

"I'll give you the tickets."

Clark's face knitted in a frown. "Why are you doing this?"

"You're like the younger brother...I never had."

"I don't know. It's just so hard."

Leo restrained from making a rude comment. Instead, she stated, "Clark, the hardest thing in the world is telling the person you love that you like them. So I'll raise the bet. You ask her before sundown, you get the tickets, and I'll throw in a round-trip limo ride, starting now." Her ice blue eyes pierced his with each word, the implicit challenge evident.

He met her gaze curiously, searching it, and Leo did her best to ignore the sudden thrill that raced through her at the contact as she forced herself to focus on waiting for his choice. To see if he would take it. Accept her help. She refused to examine why it mattered so much. It only mattered that he let her help. Why was irrelevant.

Wasn't it?

She watched a small, conspiratorial smile form on Clark's face, and with a tiny smile of her own, she handed the tickets to Clark before he raced off to borrow his mother's car. He could have simply run to town in seconds, but Leo was still watching him.

When he arrived at the Beanery, he spied Lana at a table alone and engrossed in a novel. Clearing his throat, he boldly asked, "Hey, Lana, you busy?"

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"Mr. Kent! Mrs. Kent! I'm delighted you decided to come." Leo greeted the Kents as they stepped into her study. The look of slight awe washed over them as their eyes were drawn to the two-story cathedral ceiling.

Martha answered first. "Your house it's very-"

"Large?" Leo offered.

"To put it mildly," Martha replied acceptingly.

"Well, if you're going to do something, might as well do it right, right?" Leo asked.

"I-I'm sorry, are we early?" Martha inquired politely.

Jonathan's features hardened sharply. "I think we should go."

"Wait, wait, Jonathan, just because no one else came-"

"That is, if anyone else was even invited," Jonathan spat.

"Oh, I don't think Leo would- "

"Actually, I would. I did. But only because I wanted you to have the first chance at this. I know that you're having money problems, Mr. Kent. It's a small town," Leo answered.

"So you thought you would just take advantage of my family's problems," he retorted.

"No. I thought I could help," Leo countered.

Before he could respond, Martha shot her husband a look — half pleading, half glare. To Leo's surprise, Jonathan promptly swallowed his next barb, and instead replied, "Well, then… I guess we're here to listen."

Witnessing the silent exchange, Leo vowed to learn Martha's secret, as well as Clark's.

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Clark promptly abandoned his date with Lana when he overheard a news report of Jenna Henderson's death on the news in the limo. He remembered that she had last been seen with Sean Kelvin, the very same boy Chloe was supposed to be meeting tonight.

Worried for Chloe's safety, he left the limo and Lana back at the Beanery Coffee Shop so he could assure Chloe's safety, with profuse apologies to Lana.

While waiting at the Beanery, Lana eventually offered the limo's services to Clark's friend Pete and his date. 'Hey, at least someone should enjoy this evening.' Besides, she was confident that Clark would come back for her soon enough.

But he didn't.

Lana waited several hours for Clark to return to the Beanery. Eventually, she walked home. Alone.

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The lights in the study flickered. "Guess the generator works. Power must have blown. Where were we?"

"Why are you so interested in our family, Leo?" Jonathan asked sharply.

"I told you. I want to make a business investment. I'm giving you the first chance because I care about Clark," Leo answered evenly.

Jonathan bridled at the mention of his son's name. "I don't think we're interested."

"Mr. Kent, Clark's my friend. I want him to have . . . ."

Without another word, Jonathan stood and left the room. Martha threw an apologetic look back at Leo. "I'm sorry."

Leo sighed, "So am I, Mrs. Kent."

Soon after the Kents left, the lights went out.

And stayed out.

Typical. Leo sighed and went outside to check the generator.

She soon got it started again, only to be stopped by a blue teenager. "Lovely evening, isn't it, Miss Luthor?"

"Get away from her, Sean!" Clark appeared out of nowhere, interposing himself between Leo and Sean.

"I just want to get warm. And you'll do just as well as she would." Sean advanced on Clark, grabbing his wrist. "In fact, I think you'll do even better."

"Leo, get in the house," Clark told her without breaking eye contact with Sean.

"No," Leo rested one hand tentatively on Clark's shoulder.

"I need you to call 911!"

"I'm a second-degree black belt, Clark."

"Just go. Please."

He could almost hear her cross expression and pursed lips as she left.

After she was clear, he wrenched his wrist from Sean's grasp and threw him towards a distant corner of the property. Using a burst of super-speed to catch up to him, he said, "Turn yourself in, Sean," hoping to distract him.

"For what? So I can spend the rest of my life in jail?"

"Tell them that you didn't mean to kill Jenna."

"Right. 'Cause I sucked the heat from her accidentally." Sean snarked.

As they exchanged words and blows, however, Clark was successfully steering the struggle toward his intended destination: the lake.

"You didn't know, did you?" Clark asked.

"Know what?"

"What it'd do to her."

Finally, they'd reached the place that Clark was heading for.

"Well, since I'd already killed the school nurse that way, I think I did." As Sean spoke, Clark stepped quickly out of the way, tripping him at super-speed. Sean tumbled headfirst into the lake.

The splash he left as he fell froze, even as it stretched upwards.

Clark headed back towards the house.

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"What happened?" Leo greeted anxiously as he came through the front door.

"I tricked him into falling into the lake out back. The lake froze solid around him. When'll the police get here?"

"I didn't call the police."

"What?"

They heard the sound of a siren approaching and cutting off.

"I called an ambulance. I thought you might need it."

Clark panicked, knowing that the last thing he needed was to be examined by EMTs. "I'm fine. Sean might need help though. If he's still alive out there."

"What are you doing here anyway, Clark? Shouldn't you be out on your date with Miss Lang?"

"Oh, my gosh!" Without another thought for the teenager frozen in the lake out back, Clark took off running at a fast human speed past the ambulance and out the gate. Once he was out of sight, he kicked his speed up and after a quick stop at the Beanery, was standing outside of Nell's house in ten minutes.

He knocked on the door.

"Clark! Come in," Nell said, smiling widely, as she opened the door.

"Is Lana here?"

Nell nodded, "I take it things didn't go well on your date?"

"There . . . Can I just talk to Lana?"

"She's in the kitchen."

Clark walked into the kitchen and Lana looked up from her homework, her eyes red, like she'd been crying.

"Are you all right?" He asked softly.

"Chloe must've been in some trouble."

"Nah. I mean, she was, but it's all right now. I was wondering if you'd like to come over tomorrow night. We could rent a movie or do homework or something."

"That'd be nice," she smiled weakly.

"So I'll see you then?" Clark inquired, his quivering voice brimming with hope.

Granted, it wasn't his idea for Sean Kelvin to begin his heat-sucking campaign on Smallville's teen female population that night. However, he had to leave Lana to protect Chloe and Leo from that maniac. He had to, because it was his fault — his arrival that brought the meteor rocks, his arrival that caused the mutations that plagued the town, his arrival that created the mutants that threatened his loved ones.

And his arrival that caused the death of Lana's parents.

"Yeah. Good night, Clark."

"Night."

'I am such a bastard,' he silently rebuked to himself.

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The next morning, Leo approached Jonathan as he tinkered at his workbench in the barn.

"Good morning. I heard you took out a bank loan today."

"Did you?" he remarked wryly.

"Small town," she reminded him. "Well, anyway, I'm meeting with Tom McGregor tonight. Hopefully, he'll have the good sense to let me invest in his operations."

"Tom McGregor?"

She nodded, "I told you. I want to invest in a local farm. I'm just sorry that it's not going to be yours."

Leaving Jonathan to chew on that, Leo departed.

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He was in a graveyard, surrounded by tombstones. All of the people he loved were there…his mom, his dad, Lana, Pete, Chloe. It was dark and raining and the graves just stretched on and on, endlessly...

Clark, still shaken by Cassandra's visions, was delivering Leo's produce when his friend drove up, parking in the parking circle in front of the castle. He slowed down to allow her to catch up.

"Has everything been all right?" He asked. "You haven't had any more problems with your cars or anything?"

"Why? Has something happened?" Leo asked.

"It's only been a few weeks since I fished you out of a river, Leo." Clark's comment was delivered with a smile.

"So why right now?"

Reluctantly, Clark said, "I met this woman at the retirement center, and she can kind of see the future."

"Let me guess. She told you your future," Leo said as Clark deposited the crate by the kitchen door.

"Not exactly. She said someone very close to me would-," he couldn't finish.

"Die?" Leo laughed.

"I know it sounds nuts, but when you talk to her, it's like she really knows," he replied earnestly.

"She knows, all right. She knows you'll buy it."

"I think she's for real."

"Then the question you have to ask yourself is...do you really want to know the future?"

"Don't you wish you knew how it was all gonna turn out?"

"Life's a journey, Clark. I don't want to go through it following a road map," she replied wryly, as they walked towards her study. When they arrived, she sat down on the sofa, patting the seat next to her. "Come. Sit here. We need to talk."

Clark dutifully sat on the sofa, and Leo pulled a photo from a file folder in her credenza. As she crossed her legs, her knee brushed lightly against Clark's.

"I once read about a rich man who survived a hotel fire," she began. "He hung onto the ledge for an hour before the fire department rescued him. Afterwards, he bought the hotel...always stayed in that room. When they asked him why, he said he figured fate couldn't find him twice. But every time I look at this picture, I wonder."

She held out the photo for him to see, and he gasped at the images of the raggedly-torn seat belt – a seat belt he'd ripped with his bare hands when he rescued Leo. She decided showing him the photos would be less threatening than showing him the actual car – she didn't want to scare Clark.

He quickly forced his face into an expression of innocent curiosity.

"Sheriff Waid cornered me at the Farmer's Market a couple of weeks ago," she told him. "Wanted to know how you got me out of the car."

She could see the alarm in his eyes when he asked, "What did you tell him?"

"That you had a pocket knife. One with a legal blade, of course. Don't want you getting in trouble for a pocket knife I never even saw."

Uh oh. "Of," his voice cracked, "of course I had a knife. How else could I have gotten that seatbelt open?"

"How else?" She repeated back to him slyly, clearly not buying it. It's ok. You can tell me. You can trust me.

"Maybe you lived because fate has something else in mind for you." Clark suggested.

Leo snorted at that. "Lionel Luthor has something in mind for me. And Lionel Luthor is stronger than fate." Despite her bitterness, there was still almost a bragging tone in her voice.

Clark wanted to tell her that she was more than her father's heir. She was important to him, too. Only, he'd told her the only ways he knew how, and she didn't seem to understand.

He tried again. "Leo, you're alive. The question you need to ask yourself now is, where do you go from here?" He walked out then, his head held high, leaving her alone with her photographic evidence.

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Leo made two attempts to see Cassandra. She turned tail and ran the first time.

On her second visit, she walked into the elderly woman's room, a bouquet of white roses in her hand.

"Mrs. Carver?"

"Miss Luthor! You're the last person I expected to walk through my door."

"I wanted to take you up on your offer."

"I thought you controlled your own destiny."

"I do. But certain things have happened in my life. Signs I don't want to ignore."

"What kind of signs?"

"A remarkable young man has entered my life. He saved me from drowning. I need to know if that means anything."

"Ah, yes. Young Mr. Kent," Cassandra pointed to an empty chair. "Please have a seat."

Cassandra held out her hand. Leo looked at it, reached forward, and then at the last second, snatched her hand back. "On second thought, no. I'm not going to give into this superstition."

She stood.

Cassandra spluttered, "But - you can't! You can't just give up like this! What about your friend Clark? What about your fate?"

"I don't need oracles to tell me what my future will be," she replied, putting the roses down on the bed as she left the room.

"Don't you understand!" Cassandra called out desperately as Leo walked down the hallway.

Soon, Leo ran into Clark. "I'm not sure I'd go in to see Cassandra right now. She seems a little . . . stressed."

"Stressed? Stressed how?"

"I almost gave in to your weird superstition thing, but fortunately, reason prevailed. I think it may somehow have unhinged her. She keeps yelling about my fate."

"I'd better go check on her."

"You want me to wait here?"

"No, go on home. I'll drop by later."

"All right." Leo didn't need to be told twice. She wanted to get as far from the raving old lady as she could.

Clark walked into Cassandra's room and saw the difference immediately. "Clark!" she exclaimed, her eyes focusing on his face. "You're here!"

"Yes. It's my scheduled time to visit."

"I know. But . . . give me your hand."

Clark reached out and took the woman's hand in his own.

Nothing happened.

She blinked twice and cackled with an edge of madness. "My prediction didn't come true! I'm free!"

And with that, she exhaled one last time, and the light in her eyes went out.

The first Clark noticed of the medical staff hovering behind him was when a nurse pushed him out of the way and set to work on Cassandra.

After a few minutes, one of the nurses looked up. "You can go home, son. There's nothing anyone can do for Mrs. Carver anymore."

Clark nodded and he headed for home, his mind swirling with thoughts of Cassandra, her passing having pushed all other thoughts from his head.

She saw her own death. And it didn't come true. Somehow that . . . broke the spell and she lost her 'gift' and the shock of it, he snorted mirthlessly, the shock of it killed her.

But that failed to lift the burden of his own vision of his future. Of the graveyard. Alone.

Did he, too, have the power to avert that fate? And if so, what would he have to sacrifice?

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Leo buzzed around her office at the Plant, placing books on the bookshelves, picking file folders up off of the floor, sticking a three-page letter of intent into the fax machine and storing it into the machine's memory in preparation to send it. She was interrupted by a buzz from Sylvia, the receptionist.

"Ms. Luthor, Dr. Vargas is here for your 11 o'clock."

"Very well, Sylvia. Send him in," she acknowledged.

Upon entering her office, Dr. Vargas spoke. "Miss Luthor, thank you for seeing me. We need to talk."

"Just a minute," Leo picked up the incoming faxes and began stapling them. "I'll be," staple, "all yours just as soon," staple, "as I finish this, Dr. Vargas."

Once the faxes had been stapled, Leo began to cast around for something else to do.

"Your test results came back," Vargas began, watching Leo as she sat down at her desk and began to print something out.

Not giving up, Vargas tried again. "The second batch of tests came back normal. In the high end of the range of normal, but we see a lot of that in people who've spent time in Lowell County."

"Normal," she repeated, as if the word had ceased to have meaning for her.

"Normal."

Leo grinned hugely and stood. She held out her hand to Vargas. "Thank you, Dr. Vargas. Sylvia will see you out."

As soon as the physician was gone, and the door closed, Leo allowed herself one skipping dance step back to her desk and set back to work.

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That evening, Clark dropped by the mansion to visit Leo in the study.

Clark's visits were no longer confined to the Sunday produce deliveries – he frequently stopped by in the evenings to shoot pool or darts, while trying to outwit each other with inane television trivia. Leo indulged Clark's quirky sense of humor, while Clark humored Leo's well-meaning matchmaking attempts. It was fun.

And thus was how an unlikely friendship between Smallville's only alien and the lonely billionaire heiress flourished.

Leo let Clark drive the Lamborghini.

Clark let Leo drive the tractor.

Leo talked about her shitty family life.

Clark talked about his shitty love life.

It's what friends did.

When Clark found Leo in her study this evening, she was curled up on the love seat next to the fireplace, sifting through some files. "Hey," he greeted.

Leo smiled brilliantly. "Just in time. Have a seat."

Flopping down in the love seat opposite Leo, Clark asked, "Just in time? In time for what?"

Leo picked up a piece of paper from one of her files. She got up to hand it to him before sitting down next to him. "What do you think?"

"LeoCorp?" He looked over at her.

You're alive. The question you need to ask yourself now is, where do you go from here?

Recalling Clark's words, after she had confronted him with her photo evidence from the crash, Leo had thought long and hard on them. Her entire reason in researching the accident rested on control, finding the answers to her questions.

Where do you go from here?

But when she considered the matter further, she realized just how little control over her own life she had, and how much control she had ceded to her father. As a little girl, she toiled hard in her studies to win his approval. As a teenager, much of her infamous "party girl" phase was a childish outburst of rebellion against him. Even coming to Smallville was just another exercise in proving herself to him.

Where do you go from here?

Leo finally decided she was done letting her relationship with her father govern her life. Instead of killing herself to prove her worth to that man, she would charge out into the world and make her own mark.

She had Clark to thank for inspiring her, and she was eager to share the fruits of her inspiration with her handsome young muse.

"It's going to be the name of my new company, once I've raised the start-up capital to launch it," she paused, biting her lip slightly, "you don't like it."

"No! It's fine."

She looked at him levelly, silently urging him to continue.

"Well it seems to be . . . missing something. How about 'CleoCorp'?"

"'Cleo'? Like Pinocchio's goldfish?"

"Well, technically, it was Gepetto's, but . . . . All right, no Cleo."

"Thank you," she said primly. "I have another question. A . . . personal one."

Clark flinched as if he'd been slapped. He really hoped this wasn't about the accident at the bridge again.

"I need to know if there've been any seemingly-miraculous healings in Smallville."

"Miraculous healings?"

"My doctor says that there's a high incidence of elevated white blood cell counts in Smallville, and so I was just wondering that, since these people don't seem to be sick, according to Dr. Vargas, whether they could just be really, really healthy."

Like people who can survive being run off a bridge and tear through seat belts with their bare hands.

Recovering, Clark shrugged, "I don't know. You might want to check with Chloe Sullivan. Weird things happening in Smallville is sort of her hobby.

"Or, even better," he corrected himself, "you could stop by the Torch office sometime and see her research. She calls it the Wall of Weird."

"Wall of Weird?" Leo repeated.

"Silly name, huh?"

"No! Well, maybe a little. But if it'll have the answers I need, who cares what it's called."

They laughed for a moment. Then Leo leaned forward, so close to Clark's personal space that he could smell her perfume. "So, how go things with the lovely Miss Lang?"

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"Most of my friends are trying to get out of high school," Clark remarked dryly.

Leo turned from where she was checking out the Wall of Weird and favored Clark with a smile. "I was meeting with your principal. Apparently, you guys are in dire need of a new computer lab. I figured I could help."

"And while you're at it, you thought you'd check out the Wall of Weird."

She nodded. "You were right. She is very thorough. And they all seem to tie back to the meteor shower. Though I have my doubts about the six-fingered farmer."

"Actually, that's Mr. Lincoln. He goes to my church."

"Really? Well, you know I was here. It's when I met your parents for the first time. And you, of course."

Clark barely suppressed a flinch.

Just then, they were interrupted by Chloe. "Ms. Luthor."

"Please, call me Leo," she said, extending her hand for Chloe to shake. "Clark was just telling me your meteor theory. I like it. Especially since most people think my plant is secretly behind everything that goes wrong in Smallville."

"That's the reigning theory," Chloe acknowledged, still reeling. It wasn't every day that an heiress to a billion-dollar fortune showed up in her office. Though she struggled to maintain her cool, Chloe's journalistic instincts were ablaze with curiosity.

"Are you the only one that blames the meteors instead of me?" Leo asked, breaking Chloe from her initial surprise.

"Pretty much. Well, there is Dr. Hamilton.," Chloe pointed out.

"Except most people don't have too high a regard for a guy who sells plastic meteor chips to tourists," Clark added.

"Doesn't exactly inspire confidence." Leo turned to Clark, "I'll see you tomorrow at Miss...Lana's party at the mansion."

"We're just going as friends," Clark clarified.

Leo grinned slyly, "Sure you are. Hope you got her a nice gift." With that parting shot, she left.

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"Hey, Leo," Clark said as he sat in one of her guest chairs in the study.

"What can I do for you, Clark?"

"I'm totally stumped on what to give Lana for her birthday. I can't afford much, and other than the kind of stuff that costs a lot - jewelry, perfume, that sort of thing, I can't think of a thing to give her."

"Tell me something about her. What does she like?"

"Well, she's beautiful - but you probably noticed that already," Clark ducked his head and blushed a little. "She's sad. Her parents died the day of the meteor shower. She saw it happen."

"So I've heard," came the dry response.

"Well, she likes to read. And she's lonely."

"Lonely. Why does she feel lonely? She has Nell, and you and your friends, and until recently she had the cheerleading crowd."

"That doesn't guarantee that she's not lonely."

"Point taken. So, what do you think you can do to alleviate her loneliness?"

Clark thought for a moment, then began to tell Leo the story of Lana's last happy memory with her parents…

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Later that afternoon, Leo paid Dr. Stephen Hamilton a visit.

"I want to make you an offer." She pulled an envelope out of her purse and held it out to Hamilton.

With poor grace, Hamilton took it from her and opened it. "What do you expect to get for this?" He snapped as he looked from the $100,000 check to Leo.

"You want to prove to the world you've been right all along? That check should cover your vindication."

"This sort of research could take years, Ms. Luthor."

Leo regarded him silently for a moment. "I'm a patient woman, doctor."

Hamilton nodded brusquely to accept her offer, then asked, "Tell me - why does a billionaire's daughter care so much about a bunch of rocks that fell out of the sky 12 years ago?"

Leo turned for the door, then threw back over her shoulder, "My reasons are my own, doctor."

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That evening, at the party, Lana was alone on the balcony. Soon she was joined by Leo.

"Getting some air?"

"Something like that," Lana said uncertainly.

"Waiting for Clark?" Then, answering her own question, "I know Clark. He'll be here. If he can."

Lana responded, faux-dismissively, "It's just a birthday."

Leo smiled at her a little, then headed back inside.

---------------------------------------------------------

After rescuing Pete from the fat-sucking meteor mutant Jody, he then carried both of them to the hospital for treatment before running to the mansion to find that Lana's party was long since over. He went to Lana and Nell's house and awakened Lana, throwing pebbles at her bedroom window.

When Lana finally opened her window to poke her head out, she commented, "You kind of missed cocktail hour."

"I'm sorry."

"I told you, I stopped believing in happy birthdays a long time ago."

"Well, maybe I can change that," Clark offered hopefully, "Look, I know I blew it tonight, but at least let me give you your present."

"When?"

"Now."

---------------------------------------------------------------

"Pass the popcorn," Lana requested as they sat in the cab of the Kents' truck, watching the cartoon shorts being shown on the side of the barn.

Clark handed the bag over, and they reached in for some simultaneously.

Suddenly, even the sound of their breathing stopped.

"Clark . . . I . . ." was all Lana got out, before they stared deeply into each other's eyes, pulling towards one another.

The popcorn bag fell to the floor, forgotten, as Clark raised his hands to her hair, pulling her gently to him for a kiss.