The questions are everything. A well-phrased question can cause an interviewee to open up. A non-pursued angle can leave a larger, greater story uncovered. An article taken at face-value can ruin a journalist's career, even bring down a paper. You always had the ask the questions. But Lois also knew when to shut up.

No matter what a certain copy-boy might think.

When Chloe poured her heart out to her, Lois kept her counsel and let her cousin unload her pain. She didn't give voice to any of the nagging problems she had with what Chloe was telling her.

Why had she willingly gone to Star City with a serial killer? When had she discovered that he was not just a man, but a monster too, the monster who had tried to eviscerate her husband? But most importantly, what was she hiding from her? Because she knew that Chloe was lying to her. It wasn't a rare experience. Chloe often left out some parts of the story but Lois didn't begrudge her that. Maybe because she had grown up around soldiers who loved to spin a yarn but just as often, would glance away and change the subject swiftly.

In the army you kept secrets for all kinds of reasons. Sometimes it was simply for national security or because others lives depended on it. Loose lips. But sometimes the cost was different. Sometimes it was because you didn't want to see a young girl who idolised you look at you with horror as you described the reality of the combat theatre. Or you wanted to keep her assumption alive that no one died in peace-keeping missions. Then there were the times you couldn't bear to hear the truth spoken out loud again. The shame or guilt or pain was too much and no matter how your eldest daughter begged you, you would never tell her why you had broken down in tears at the dinner table one night when she was only twelve and your wife was long gone.

People who had faced terrible things could keep the most apparently mundane facts to themselves but you might never know what simple truth resonated too powerfully for them to vocalise.

She wasn't so stupid that she didn't notice Chloe and Clark had always kept some things back. They had grown up in Smallville after all, and she'd seen some of the nightmare-ish things they'd grown up with. An army brat learnt when not to push. Friends weren't sources.

That didn't mean she didn't have questions. In the morning, after they had both slept fitfully, Chloe had some of her own, and Lois had to hold on to her resolve not to say anything. The former reporter came at her from every angle and whilst Lois was able to tell her about finding the incriminating video on Tess' desktop, and that she fought with her boss in the bullpen, she did not divulge anything in between her disappearance and when she returned.

Her pretence of ignorance was helped by the fact she didn't know a lot of the answers to her cousin's questions. She still had no idea how she had arrived in the future. She didn't understand why she had been sent there by the red-blue blur. She also knew nothing of what had happened in the last two months. Her show of dumb silence wasn't much of a show.

"You're really not going to tell me, are you?" Chloe said, temporarily at bay, as she spooned some of her soggy cereal into her mouth. Lois was tempted to say something along the lines of, not so fun is it? But she just nodded and finished off her OJ. "Well, you're going to have to say something to your dad and Lucy. They need to know you're okay."

"But I have to have something to tell them first Chlo, if they thought I was lying to them, or I'd let them suffer like this all this time…I can't do that to them." Lois couldn't allow them to doubt her explanation. The Lanes couldn't take any more hits, they were a shaky family unit as it was, and they couldn't afford to suspect she would willingly make them endure that uncertainty. Her cousin nodded thoughtfully

"We'll work something out. They'll be so relieved to have you back they won't look at it too closely."

"It needs to stand up to harder scrutiny than that Chloe. It needs to be a solid gold alibi okay? Just trust me on this. No one can have questions. The story needs to be that there is no story." Chloe was looking at her, clearly trying to hold back another round of questions herself but finally she bit her lip and sighed.

"Whatever your reasons, I know they must be good ones."

"The best."

"Okay. Then there's someone who we might have to call. We need sworn testimony, and I can't hack that. We need someone with a little cash to oil the wheels." Chloe reached for the phone base sitting on the worktop and pressed a speed dial button. Lois was a little surprised because if her cousin was calling who she thought she was, then they were a lot closer than she realised. The phone rang a few times and then a bleary and clearly irritated voice snapped over the speaker,

"Chloe, whatever this is, it had better be important. I've just fallen asleep." Lois wondered whether he'd been painting the town red or running round as the Green Arrow. Had Oliver been hit hard by Jimmy's death as well? Last year he'd hit the sauce pretty hard but then the Green Arrow started to pop up again in print and she thought he'd got a handle on whatever was disturbing him. She probably could have been a better friend to him since they had broken up and he had at least made some effort to support her.

Chloe seemed unfazed by Oliver's response and replied with a broad smile on her face.

"I've got an old friend here who you'll be glad to hear from Oliver."

There was a pause before a wary voice said, "Clark?"

Lois inhaled sharply and felt a sudden dull ache in her stomach. But though her body had already responded with blind panic, her mind refused to acknowledge that fear.

No way. It couldn't be. There couldn't be anything weird going on with Smallville, Chloe would have said. And the Legion told her he was alive. He had to be fine! He had been shot and knocked on the head countless times and still, he was there. He wasn't just small-time Smallville, he was the country town that would not, could not be beaten down. If you landed a meteor on him, he just build it all back like before.

And as for his desk, well, the Planet had just cut back on the cleaning staff since the ads had begun to tail off. She'd noticed the lighter weight of the paper she'd picked up last night. Even a great institute like the Planet wasn't safe from falling sales. His desk was dirty because they'd cut back on the Pledge.

But.

There were the questions she'd ignored. The barren appearance of his workspace, not just messy but abandoned. The fact Chloe hadn't mentioned his name since she'd crossed the threshold.

When it came to him, she often ignored those little irritating questions. Like, why does he stare at me like that sometimes if he feels nothing? Or how can he look like a man, and act like a hero but run like a little kid when things get a little tense between them?

Sometimes the questions would creep up on her as she lay in bed at night and she'd find herself curling her hands into fists as sleep evaded her. That was when the doubt would be at its worst. In the dark, there was no protection from all the things that terrified her. Things like failing in her dream to be a top reporter, someone who made an impact. Or never finding a man who didn't put her somewhere down the bottom in his list of priorities. Never being someone special.

Smallville had a whole litany of late-night questions that she'd run through because a small part of her enjoyed the pain that came with thinking of him. She never really expected answers to any of them and if she'd ever got them she was sure she wouldn't like them.

None of them truly mattered anyway. There was only one thing she really needed to ask.

"Where the hell is Smallville?"

The question was everything.