Part 7 – Endgame
"Alright," Clark said, holding up a key ring in front of Jimmy. "Everything's all set up. Perry's loaned me the keys to his office and he's even left out his Pulitzer for Chloe to actually touch. Lana and my mom (Martha was home this week for Clark's and my graduation from college) have prepared the perfect romantic dinner, and this key ring contains the key up to the roof with the Planet."

Jimmy took the keys offered to him and shoved them nervously into his pocket. "I don't know, C.K., I don't think taking her to a newspaper editor's office is that romantic."

"Trust me," he replied, "It's not just any editor. Perry's the Editor-in-Chief of the DP, and we've redecorated his office just for tonight with Chloe's best articles. Lois even got back from the sign store with the engraved 'Editor-in-Chief: Chloe Sullivan' placard for the desk. She's going to love being able to pretend she's in charge for an hour or so. And then this is the key part," He said holding up a finger and forcing Jimmy to look into his eyes. "You have to make sure you take her up to the roof just as the sun sets. The way the setting sun hits the globe is beautiful and then, bam, you pull out the ring. There's no way she's going to say no."

Jimmy bit his lower lip. "I don't know. I really thought that the plan where I took her to the Wolverines' game and had the question popped on the scoreboard would work really well."

I shuddered and Clark nudged me gently on my shoulders to get me to stand up straight. Jimmy had been planning to propose to Chloe for over a year, and he'd come to Clark with his stadium-inspired plan. Then Clark had come to me and Lois, begging for our help and the feminine touch because, seriously, a stadium? There were days when both of us wondered if Jimmy had even ever met Chloe. But she loved him and he doted on her and helping him plan out the proposal (even he'd rather put an asp to his chest than ask me for help) had been fun.

Martha had cooked a strawberry pie for Chloe and I'd been in charge of the rest of the food. I'd cooked the handful of recipes I'd picked up in Paris, and Lionel had donated one of his most expensive and exquisite champagnes to the dinner. If Jimmy asked, though, it had come from Metropolis liquors. He hated being in debt to a Luthor (whether it was me or Lionel). Lois had arranged the placard for Chloe and framed her favorite articles, setting them up in Perry's office, but it was Clark who'd come up with the dream date at the Daily Planet.

He'd gone to Perry and convinced him to loan us his office for the night. Perry had handed it over without a second thought. I wasn't surprised. Clark and I had saved his life years ago, and one of his Pulitzers came from his article covering Lionel's conviction, which would never have happened without Chloe's testimony. Clark had also been the one to insist on Jimmy taking her up to the Planet to watch the sunset shining across the golden globe. Hell, he'd even picked out the ring Jimmy'd purchased. It was a very simple solitaire in a diamond-shaped cut set off by the tiniest emerald I'd ever seen. It was a nice enough ring, considering the non-budget Jimmy had been working with, but it wasn't nearly as nice as the engagement ring Clark had given to me three weeks ago.

That's right, Clark had proposed to me and I'd said yes. It made sense that Clark was helping arrange Chloe's engagement, since she'd helped to arrange ours. She'd come to me over two months ago and admitted that Clark was planning to propose at the end of the school year at the Fortress of Solitude. The wrinkling of my nose in disgust must have been enough to tip her off that I wasn't interested in having my engagement take place in an alien landscape.

Could you blame me?

We'd fought and she'd resorted to the same old tired argument urging me tell him how I really felt about his origins. I'd refused because I wanted Clark---I still wanted Clark even now---and I was going to make it work even if I had to ignore the alien part until the day I died.

Chloe stormed off, furious, but she loved Clark as much as I did (and I hated that that was true), and she wanted him to be happy as much as he wanted her to be happy. Despite how she felt about the match, she'd gotten together with him and arranged a perfect engagement, something far more romantic than that half-assed collection of candles Lex had put together. Clark had flown us to the Eiffel Tower (I'd allowed him to fly just this once because a mystery trip for an engagement was too hard to resist). Clark proposed there on bended knee and everything. He'd even presented me with a diamond that dwarfed my old ring. I know. I'd compared them, just because I was "dead" didn't mean I had to give my jewelry back to Lex, did it? I hadn't been thrilled when he'd admitted he'd made the diamond. It freaked me out to realize how strong he actually he was. I mean, lifting a tractor was one thing, but applying enough force to do what it took the Earth millions of years to do in only minutes was mind boggling.

Maybe I'd replace his ring with Lex's and hope he wouldn't notice the switch.

The cuts and sizes were close enough that he might not notice for months.

"Lana?"

"Huh?" I said, snapping back to attention.

Jimmy wiped his hands off on the front of his dress slacks. "Everything's set down in the office, right? All the food?"

"I nodded. One Kent specialty pie and some of the best cuisine Paris has to offer. It's all tre romantic." I said, slipping into an accent I hadn't used in years.

He nodded and then gulped. "Okay. Well that's it." He took about two steps to the door before he panicked and bolted back toward the park across the street from the Planet's main entrance. Clark stopped his retreat by grabbing his shoulder.

"Jimmy. It's going to be okay. I know she'll say yes." He looked down at the sidewalk when he said that part and his tone was disturbingly wistful. I didn't like it.

"I know, C.K., but I'm so nervous. If she says no, I don't know what I'll do."

"Jimmy, she's not going to say no." I offered. He stared at me like he'd prefer that I crawl back to whatever sewer I crawled out of instead of talk to him. Well that was the last time I tried to be reassuring.

He pulled at the collar of his green button down. "God, I don't think I can do this."

"Look," Clark said, placing his hands on either shoulder. "It isn't that hard. You've known Chloe for years, right?" Jimmy nodded and let him continue. "Then you just tell her how you can't live without her. How's she the most important person in your world and how you can't imagine a morning without sharing a cup of coffee with her or an afternoon without her snark. You're just promising to always be there for her, which is anticlimactic because you already are. We're…you're partners," he, said, coughing quickly to cover his mistake. Jimmy was too keyed up to notice but I wasn't. I had the sinking suspicion that the reason that Clark had been so organized when helping Jimmy was because in the back of his mind he'd planned out how he would have asked Chloe to marry him.

I was so grateful that Jimmy Olsen existed and was about to take Chloe off the market. I did not want to deal with the competition.

Jimmy nodded and gave a pained smile. "You really think that's going to work C.K.?"

He nodded. "You know, Chloe. She's all about the simple. It doesn't have to be eloquent. It just has to be true." He gave Jimmy a quick pat on the back. "Now go and get her. She's waiting for you."

"Alright," Jimmy said, straightening his lapels. "I can do this." And with that, he disappeared through the revolving door of the Planet's front lobby.

Clark wrapped an arm around my shoulder and gave me a quick peck on the cheek. "Was I that nervous?"

"You almost dropped the ring over the railing and you stuttered worse than Porky Pig." I said, standing up on tip toe to kiss him on the lips.

"But I was suave and romantic, too."

I grinned up at him. Much happier now that the focus was off of Chloe. "Sure Clark. You definitely swept me off my feet."

"Being able to defy gravity helps with that."

The phone was ringing again and this time it was four a.m. My heart raced in a way that it hadn't since I'd woken up to Clark's screams five months ago. Quickly, I jumped out of bed and lunged for my cell phone. "Hello?"

"Lana! Oh God." It was Clark and he sounded like he was going to cry.

At that point I felt like my heart was going to just explode out of my chest. "What's wrong?"

"I need you to call Jimmy and Lois and come down to Metropolis General. Chloe's been shot."

Once the three of us arrived to the hospital, we were escorted to the VIP suite of Metropolis General. Obviously that was Lionel's doing. Speaking of the maned menace, he was the first person to greet us when we walked into the private waiting room.

"Mr. Olsen, Ms. Lane, Mrs. Luthor," He said, with a curt nod of his head. Lionel still called me Mrs. Luthor when we were in private. I don't know if he just had something against calling me Lori Lemaris or if he still, after so many years, wanted to remind me of the promise I'd broken, but, either way, he never called me by anything but my married name.

"Lionel," I acknowledged, stepping ahead of the others and shaking his hand. "What's going on?"

"Clark and Chloe were on assignment," He said giving a significant look toward Jimmy and Lois. Obviously we were back to speaking in euphemisms since the other two didn't know what Clark did in his spare time. What he was even capable of. "…and she was shot. The bullet missed her heart, but only by several inches. The second one hit her left lung and caused it to collapse. I'm having the best thoracic surgeons flown in from Duke and Johns Hopkins as we speak. She'll recover, but it's going to take a while."

"Where's Clark?" Lois demanded, clenching and unclenching her fist.

"He's calling Gabe and several other close friends of Chloe's."

"Who else is there to call?" Lois demanded, her nostrils flaring.

I knew the answer, at least partially. Oliver Queen and Chloe were fairly close friends now. He'd arranged for the best private care available for Chloe's mother and paid all her traveling expenses to Star City so that she could visit her mom at least once a month. But telling Lois her ex and her cousin were that close would probably just piss her off further, and she already looked like she was about to kill someone.

"Mr. Luthor, can we see her?" Jimmy chimed in. He was sitting on one of the leather recliners with his shoulders hunched over and his body shaking with every breath.

"Soon, the doctors have to finish stabilizing her and then we'll see."

Jimmy nodded and took a shuddering breath. I walked over to him and placed a hand on his back and started rubbing wide circles in it. It was something Aunt Nell had always done to calm me. I knew he didn't like me, but we both loved Chloe and were overwhelmed with the same fear and sickness. Right now, we were on the same side. I traced geometric patterns on his back for a few more minutes until his breath evened out. Then, I stood back up and made my way over to Lois.

A few minutes later, Clark came back and Lois launched herself at him, aiming an uppercut for his jaw. Like that was going to be a good idea. Clark jumped back a little quicker than a normal human could have, but I had already intercepted Lois's punch and had her trapped in a headlock, which considering our height differences was super awkward.

"Let me go, Lana. That jerk took my baby cousin out somewhere dangerous and got her shot. I'm going to kill him." She lunged to the side and broke from my initial grasp, but I reached out and yanked her ponytail toward me. She yelled and brought back her arm to elbow me in the nose but she was too tall and I ducked under her arm easily. I grabbed the offending limb and pinned it behind her. Lois struggled in my grasp, almost pulling free of me several times, and cursing in several languages.

So being an army brat really did lead to a colorful vocabulary.

"Enough!" Lionel yelled and I think we all froze. None of us had ever heard Lionel shout in our entire lives. He was just too calm and collected to do that. Anger, after all, was a sign of weakness. Even pseudo-Luthors knew that. "You all are acting like children. Ms. Lane, you are 26 years old, I thought you'd gotten to the point where you didn't solve every problem you had with violence." He sighed. "Mrs. Luthor, let her go." He turned to Lois. "You, Ms. Lane, take Mr. Olsen here and get him a cup of coffee down the hall at the cafeteria. It's going to be a while until he can see Ms. Sullivan and he's going to need something to steal his nerves."

"The Hell I'm going to just leave Chloe like that."

"Ms. Lane, this is a private hospital and I am paying the bills here. If I ask to have you removed from the premises and forcibly kept out, they will do it for me. Please don't make me keep you from your cousin."

Lois narrowed her eyes and for a minute I was afraid she was going to deck him. However, apparently even Lois has better judgment. She walked over to Jimmy's chair and held out her hand for him to take. "Come on, Jimmy, we'll get the biggest cup of black coffee there is. Something warm in your stomach will make you feel better. Promise."

Once they were gone, Lionel turned to Clark. "Come with me, son."

Clark stiffened. He and Lionel had a worse relationship by far than I and Aunt Nell or I and, well, Lionel did. Lionel felt the need to act as a substitute father figure for Clark, and my fiancé resented the Hell out of it. After all, he already had a biological father to contend with and a very beloved adopted father. He didn't need an extra Luthor in his life. "I don't know." He said, casting a glance towards me.

"Mrs. Luthor will be fine." Lionel said stiffly. "We have things to discuss," he added giving Clark the same kind of significant look that he'd given me when we'd been working on covering for Clark. There was something about Chloe I wasn't supposed to hear. I thought back to all the things that hadn't added up about her in the last few years: the "angel" in the subway, the way she'd reminded Clark how she couldn't fix him when he was sick, how she'd been more sensitive about me using the term meteor freak.

Oh, I so had my suspicions and I wasn't about to be shut out this time.

Lionel pulled Clark into a spare exam room, but he didn't realize that there was a second door at the back separated from the other side of the room by a divider curtain. I snuck in. I wasn't worried about Clark catching me either. After three and a half years, I'd even managed to wean him off of using his superhearing. As long as I stayed quiet, neither of them would hear me.

After a few minutes, Clark began. "How is she really?"

"It's not good, Clark. She'll recover---"

"She's self-healing."

"I know and that's the problem. She'll probably be healed in 48 hours and that doesn't happen with gunshot wounds and you know that. That's why I arranged the private room and that's why I've made up the cover story about experimental surgery from Hopkins. Still, she'll have to spend at least three weeks off from work. You know better than I do that no one can know she's meta."

"I know. The keeping her home part is going to be such a pain. I mean, Jimmy and Lois will be able to help, but she hates missing the Planet."

Jimmy and Lois? And that's when I got it. It was like having a bucket of ice water poured down my shirt. Jimmy and Lois knew that Chloe was a meteor mutant who could apparently regenerate from injuries. This huge secret about Chloe, about my best friend, and no one had bothered to tell me. Clark had left me out of the loop big time and I was furious.

"She is one of his best reporters," Clark added, defensively.

"Clark, son---"

"Don't call me that."

"Right, pardon me. Clark then, you can't keep dragging Chloe out with you when you patrol. She was ridiculously lucky this time, and the damage to her left lung was extensive. If she wasn't able to self heal, she'd probably be dead."

"I know that," he said and I swear he could him ruffling his hair out of nervousness. "But you know Chloe. She never backs down from anything. She's knows she can save lives. Hell, she can bring people back from the dead. She's not going to sit at home and cuddle with Jimmy when she can keep people safe. She patrols almost twice as much as I do. Between me and the Angel of Vengeance, we have our hands full making sure Chloe doesn't get herself killed."

Oh my God. My best friend could raise the dead. Now that was a new one. Most meteor mutants were dangerous, but she had a power that could only be used to save others' lives. Still, I wondered how long it would take before she fell victim to catatonia like her mother.

I was betting not too long.

"…admirable job, Clark, but you can't keep her protected forever." Lionel countered.

"Okay, so I know Jimmy's going to kill me for this, but it was Chloe's decision to go out there. It always is. I…I can't tell her not to do it. Having someone dictate how you can use your gifts sucks. It feels like having to go around everyday with you arms tied behind your back." There was a bitterness in his tone that I'd never heard before, and for a second I got the impression that he resented me a little for convincing him to act normal.

Well screw that.

"If it's such a hardship, Clark," I said, pulling back the curtain, "then you and Chloe can run off and be superheroes together."

"Lana?" Clark asked, quirking his head toward me. "How long have you been hiding out here?"

"Long enough to know that you, Lois, Jimmy, and Chloe have been lying to me for a long time. Long enough to know that Chloe's a meteor freak."

"I think you'll find, Mrs. Luthor that the preferred terms are meteor-infected or metahuman." Lionel said stiffly. "If you'll excuse me, Martha and Gabe Sullivan should be arriving soon, and I want to greet them when they arrive."

Translation: he didn't want to be anywhere near me and Clark when we fought.

Once Lionel had slinked out the door, Clark turned back to me. "You spied on us?"

"So?" Even four years later, I had never told Clark how I knew about his powers. He assumed it came from me watching Lex fail to stab him when he was high on red meteor rock. I was never going to tell him that I'd set Chloe up to get the truth. Still, I didn't see the problem in spying, especially when people you were supposed to trust persisted in withholding the truth from you.

He threw his hands up in the air and started pacing. "Eavesdropping wasn't right. Chloe's spent a lot of time trying to keep it a secret."

"Lois and Jimmy and Lionel know." I pointed out, still furious that I wasn't in on their little secret club.

"Chloe saved Lois's life and she only told Jimmy before she agreed to marry him. She didn't feel right accepting unless he knew exactly what he was getting into."

"And he said yes?"

Clark paused and narrowed his eyes at me and I swear I saw the tiniest flash of russet in his eyes. "Why wouldn't he say yes? He loves her."

"Well she's a meteor freak and they tend to go crazy."

Clark clenched his jaw and took a deep breath. "Look, it's early and we're all stressed and scared and I'm going to pretend that I didn't hear that."

I nodded and said nothing. His eyes were still distinctly not green, and I didn't want to make him anymore upset. "And Lionel?"

He rolled his eyes. "Lionel knows everything, but he's made it his personal mission to protect Chloe by helping her fake physicals and that sort of stuff. It's weird, but he has all this respect for her. I think more since she put him in jail, actually."

"Frenemies much?"

He shrugged. "Comes in handy like today. Anyway, they're going to call Lois back in a second to see her and then it'll be Jimmy's turn. Why don't you go and get Lois and then grab some coffee. You could use it."

I nodded and made my way out of the back door, only a little upset that he hadn't bothered to ask how I was holding up with all of this going on.

"Hey," I said, sliding into the table next to Jimmy. I'd already relieved Lois of her Jimmy sitting duty, and it was just the two of us, sitting quietly and waiting to be called in to see Chloe.

"Hi yourself," he replied, taking a sip of his coffee. He looked so pale that his freckles might as well have been neon signs.

"How are you doing?"

"Not so good."

Man, he must have been feeling poorly if he didn't have the energy to snap back at me. "She's going to be fine, you know. I mean, Lionel said her lung was already knitting itself back together."

His head shot up so fast, I had to remind myself that he wasn't a meteor mutant. "You know?"

"I kind of overheard Lionel and Clark talking about her, but I'd suspected it for a while."

He nodded. "All that 'angel of the subway' stuff. That's when I started suspecting. The description sounded just like Chloe. I asked her about it. She denied it, and I let it go. I didn't want to pressure her to tell me anything she wasn't ready to share. I respected her privacy and her space too much to violate her like that."

"I totally understand."

He arched an eyebrow but said nothing for a while. When he finally spoke, his voice was very quiet. "I know about Clark, you know. He gave Chloe permission to tell me about himself when she told me about her powers. I sort of got the crash course history on their superhero antics."

I squelched the hammering of my own heart. "You've known for three weeks and you haven't tried to get a Pulitzer out of it?"

"Photojournalist. Besides," he said shrugging. "He's my best friend. I wouldn't do that to him, and Perry would never print the copy."

This time I spit out my coffee in mid-sip. "Perry knows?"

Jimmy grabbed up a bunch of napkins and started blotting his shirt, his eyes narrowed at me. "Yeah. None of us are quite sure how he figured it out, but he is the best journalist at the best paper in the world and he'd met Clark back in Smallville. Maybe it wasn't that hard."

"How long?" I said, trying to draw in deep breaths.

He shrugged. "Longer than I have. That's for sure. He'd been dropping hints to Chloe for a couple of years, but he hadn't said anything specific to Clark until he got a picture of the Savior of Metropolis and the Angel of the Subway---terrible superhero name by the way, worst ever---in action and refused to publish the exclusive. He had to cash in a gambling I.O.U. from the editor of The Inquisitor to keep the picture from being published there too."

It took a minute for me to be able to breathe again. He'd come that close to being exposed and he hadn't told me. Jimmy and Perry White both knew and he'd never bothered to tell me? What was next? Taking out a public service announcement? Maybe a nice billboard or two? "Why didn't he tell me?"

"Chloe didn't tell me either until Perry left a pretty telling message on our answering machine last week. They didn't want to worry us."

"Still, this lack of full disclosure isn't right."

Jimmy sighed and took another swig of his coffee. "I understand why Chloe didn't tell me about being a meteor mutant earlier. I'd said some things when all that stuff first happened with the moleman farmer about the weirdness of Smallville. I didn't come off as too open-minded."

Clark and I had had several conversations over the years about meteor mutants and the people from the ship before I'd ever known for a fact that he was different. I had said some things, especially about wishing the meteor shower had never happened, that had probably hurt his feelings a lot. I could almost understand why it had taken him so long to be honest with me.

Almost.

"Jimmy, can I ask you a question?"

"You just did."

"Seriously."

He nodded. "Sure."
"Why'd you still agree to marry Chloe after you found out that she wasn't normal?" He sat up and stared back at me with disdain, like I'd asked him an easy question like "Why do you breathe in oxygen?"

"I love her."

"But what she is…it doesn't freak you out?"

"I'd be lying if I said I wasn't a shocked when she told me she had superpowers, but what she can do is really amazing. She saves people's lives. How can I not love her more for that?" And judging from the genuine awe in his voice, I believed that he believed that.

"And you don't ever want her to stop, to just be normal?"

"The way I figure it, she's going to be out risking her neck anyway for the next big story because that's who Chloe is. I'm not happy she's here obviously and I'm super nauseous trying to wait for the doctors' news, but I'm not going to stop her next time. I might lock her in her room for the next month and buy her the nicest Kevlar available or, erm, convince Mrs. Kent to do it, since senators make more money than I do."

"Well that's a healthy perspective."

"I think I'm entitled to freak out a little bit, but I can't keep her home like a pet dog or something. She's too independent for that and that's part of why I fell in love with her."

I nodded. "Still it doesn't bother you that she has, um, abilities?"

He smiled ruefully up at me. "You know you're talking to a guy with an extensive X-men and Warrior Angel collection. She's going to have a hard time trying to convince me not to design a costume for her." He frowned and glanced down at my engagement ring. "What's with the twenty questions? Are you having second thoughts?"

I reached for the ring and spun it around on my finger. It suddenly felt very heavy. "No."

He took another sip of his coffee. "I think you should know that this is off the record. I promise it won't get back to C.K. or even Chloe."

"You don't even like me."

"I don't, but it's only seven a.m. and it has already been one of the longest days of my life. Maybe I'm just feeling charitable, or maybe I'd like to worry about anything other than my problems."

Well it was nice to have someone wanting to listen to my problems for a change. I couldn't talk about all my fears with Clark because I didn't want to hurt his feelings, and Chloe always eyed me like she wanted to roast me alive whenever I brought up how much the alien part of Clark bothered me.

"It's just," I said, twisting my ring again, "I love Clark."

"Well that's pretty obvious."

"But, I mean, it's just---"

"Spit it out, princess. I'm feeling charitable but I still have a hospital bed to sit sentinel over. I did it once before for Chloe and it was an experience I hoped I'd never have to repeat."

Well, Jimmy definitely wasn't getting any less cranky. Clearing my throat, I asked, "Are you going to have kids with Chloe?"

"Not until she wins her first Pulitzer, but yeah, I think I see rugrats in our future."

"But your kids would be different."

He took another sip of his coffee. "And yet they probably wouldn't be mole people, so that's all of the good."

"Jimmy, I'm serious."

"And I'm hyped up on cortisol and adrenaline. I love Chloe more than anything and I want her to be the mother of my children, even if I have a whole brood of little rascals that go around being Florence Nightingale without the nurse training." He frowned and stood up, easily tossing the empty Styrofoam cup into the garbage. "But I have a feeling that you don't really feel that way about Clark."

I crossed my arms over my chest. I was getting really tired of being accused of not loving Clark the way his friends thought I should. "What makes you say that?"

"Even before I knew, there were always these little looks you'd give him, these frowns and things. It's kind of obvious."

"I do love him. It's just I don't know if I want to have kids who can set stuff on fire just be looking at it." I frowned. "Scratch that. I know I don't want to have a bunch of little pyromaniacs running around. I mean, it's not like Chloe's powers are dangerous."

"True enough, but meteor powers often come with mental illness. It could pop back up in the next generation." He shook his head looked me square in the eyes. "But it's a chance I'm willing to take because I'd rather have Chloe in my life than not, no matter what. I think that's the same question you need to ask yourself about Clark before you two crazy kids actually tie the knot."

I spent an hour in the cafeteria sipping half-heartedly on lukewarm coffee, thinking over what Jimmy had said. It was weird, if you had told me four years ago---Hell, four hours ago---that I'd be jealous of Jimmy Olsen, I'd have called you crazy. But now I was. He was able to accept Chloe in a way that I knew, deep down, I'd never be able to accept Clark.

Of course, though mutated, Chloe was still human.

I loved Clark. I just wanted him to be normal. Was that so much to ask?

"Lana?" Clark's soft voice startled me out of my thoughts. "Lois and Jimmy have already been in to see Chloe. If you want to visit her, we can." I stood up and gave him a quick hug and peck on the cheek. He smiled and kissed me back. "Not that I don't appreciate it, but what was that for? We didn't exactly leave everything on the best of terms."

I nodded. "I know, but it's been a really long day."

"Everyone seems to be saying that lately,' Clark quipped. "I wished you hadn't snuck up on me and Lionel."

"Are you mad?"

"Mostly disappointed." I had to stop myself from laughing. It was such a typical Kent answer that I should have been expecting it. "I didn't think you'd resort to spying and I still feel lie you really violated her privacy. Chloe wanted to be able to tell you in her own way when she thought she could. Plus," he said, blushing a little. "I'm kind of embarrassed. No one's snuck up on me in years. If I'd been practicing using my superhearing…" He shook his head. "That's silly. I know I shouldn't use it, and I'm still happy just to have you around. The fact that we're getting married…" he stopped, too choked up to continue.

I smiled broadly at him. "I know, and I do appreciate everything you've done to make me happy, all the little concessions you've made."

He beamed that famous Kent smile at me, "I'd do anything for you."

I squeezed his hand. "I know. That's why I love you." And it was true. Lex had manipulated me into loving him or at least into believing I was in love with him because he'd given me everything I'd ever wanted---the answers about the black ship, honesty when Clark lied, and a plethora of extravagant gifts. I loved Clark, I think, for the same reasons. He didn't have the money to shower me with gifts, but he did anything I asked. There was something just a little intoxicating about having complete control over the most powerful person on Earth, not that I'd ever tell Chloe that.

Now, I'd been "dead" when Chloe'd been in her mysterious coma. However, since I knew about her meteor freak status, I now realized that her illness back then had been due to something that had gone wonky with her powers. She'd been in a coma then for two weeks, and I don't know how Jimmy, Clark, and Lois had survived it. Because just walking into her hospital room and seeing her in intensive care once again was gut-wrenching. The first things that caught my attention when I walked into the room were the thick breathing tube shoved down her throat and the steady drone of the respirator. She was whiter than the freshly bleached sheets covering her and her lips had just the slightest cast of blue to them.

If the heart monitors weren't beeping in the background, I would have sworn she was dead.

"My God."

"Yeah," Clark said, swallowing hard. "It's pretty overwhelming."

And when he said that, I wasn't in this cramped little room any more. No, I was sitting across from Jimmy down in the cafeteria, watching him go through life like a zombie. I was seeing the tears welling in Lois's eyes, which was beyond disturbing because Lois was far too much of a tough girl to cry about anything, and then I saw Clark sprawled out in Chloe's place. I'd watched him die once, even if it hadn't been permanent. I still remembered the shock and the numbness. I knew exactly what Jimmy was feeling right now.

There were already pictures of Clark and Chloe playing at being Warrior Angel. How much longer until even Perry couldn't keep what they'd been doing under wraps? How much longer until some lab actually did get their hands on both of them? Lionel wouldn't be so flustered---a rare occurrence for him---if they hadn't come close already.

"Clark, are you ready yet?"

"The nurse said we could have twenty more minutes."

"No," I said, turning to him. "I meant are you ready to quit all this stupidity. You can't keep running around playing superhero."

"Chloe's going to get better."

"That's not even the point." I said, gesturing to the monitors. "I know Chloe's self-healing, but what happens if she gets shot point blank in the head? Or in the heart? She's not invulnerable, and you're going to get her killed."

"I…I'm not."

"You're the one with the superhearing. Can't you hear how weak and fluttery her heart is? It's because she almost died, Clark. Gabe's rushing from Gotham City to see her. What are you going to say to him? How are you going to explain why Chloe's in the I.C.U.? And what if you two do go out there again like Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, are you going to be the one to tell Jimmy that she got killed?"

"I…well…" he floundered.

"And what about me? How do you think I'll feel when it's you?"

He threw his hands up in the air and started pacing. "We already had this conversation. I can't be hurt."

"You're wrong! We're in Metropolis, not Gotham or New York. We're close enough to Smallville for running into Kryptonite to still be a possibility---an outside one, but still---it could happen."

"You're overreacting. Chloe and I have always been careful."

"And that's why the rumors of the Subway Angel and the City Savior have been running rampant through Metropolis for so long that The Inquisitor practically has a page devoted to you two. That's why you had to have Perry call in favors to keep both of you from being exposed to a city of 10 million." He flinched, but I continued. "Yeah, I know about that but I'm willing to bet your mom and Lionel don't. Jesus, Clark. Don't you ever stop and think about anything? I am not going to lose you and I am not coming back to Metropolis General or to an evil science lab or whatever when it's your turn on the slab."

He stopped and wiped off his brow with his palm. It was a borrowed habit, he'd adopted for blending in with humans, just like his insatiable need for morning coffee. Except around Kryptonite, Clark never sweated. "Lana, I tried to explain this to you three years ago, I just can't stop saving people."

"But now you're not saving people, you're putting people in danger, yourself, Chloe."

"Mom and Dad would want me to do what I'm doing, and my…my birth parents too. I just can't turn my back on all of that completely."

I paused, genuinely shocked. Clark never talked about his birth parents if he could avoid it. He had issues with a capital "I" about his biological family. "I'm going to tell you the same thing I told Lex when he got obsessed with the disk he found from the black ship after Zod was banished. Look, I know this is a huge ego killer, but the human race survived just fine for thousands of years without you." I walked over to him and took his chin in my hands, grateful when he turned to face me because, let's be honest here, I'd have better luck jackhammering through concrete with a plastic knitting needle than moving Clark against his will. "Clark, the human race doesn't need you. But I do and Chloe does."

"I don't understand."

"If you just back off of the superhero kick, Chloe probably will too. You egg each other on, and I thought it was pretty much self-evident that I need you. No one appreciates what you do for the city anyway. It's all anonymous. But I care. Every time I fall asleep in your arms or wake up to your smile, I'm glad you're with me. I appreciate you and the rest of us don't."

"Us?"

"Other humans. Come on, just give it up. If you won't do it just for me…" I said, trying very hard not to grit my teeth. I was having a hard time coming to terms with the fact that I, alone, wasn't enough reason for Clark to do something. "…then do it for Chloe so you can keep her safe."

He bit his lip and hesitated. "I just can't stop saving people."

I walked over to the bed and smoothed Chloe's bangs away from her forehead. "And you didn't save anyone last night, Clark. Eventually, everybody fails and you failed spectacularly. Just give it up. If you don't, you're going to get Chloe killed and yourself caught. Judging by your close calls lately, you know I'm not just being paranoid."

He swallowed and leaned over Chloe's bed, placing one of his hands over hers. It was so large that it enveloped hers. He tilted his head in that special way of his and I knew that after so many months dormant he'd actually activated his superhearing. "It's so faint."

"I know."

"I didn't mean for any of this to happen."

I put one of my hands over his own. "Then make it stop."

"I don't know how."

"I do." He turned to me and his eyes were red-rimmed and glassy from crying so hard. Maybe I should have been comforting him instead of trying to drag reassurance out of Jimmy. He looked so damn broken. Over Chloe.

That hurt.

"What should I do?"

"Ben Hubbard's lease on the farm is up," I said, giving his hand a squeeze. "Let's go home."