Chloe had punched him!

"Ow!" he said, part in shock and part in pain, turning back to look at her incredulously. He'd never imagined such a reaction to his story.

"Well, I guess that answers the question of if Chloe believes his story or not," Clark muttered to Victor. Victor nodded in reply, cautiously lowering his guns.

But Chloe wasn't quite done yet. "How DARE you run off and leave me thinking that he was you and you were dead! Why didn't you tell me any of what really happened? Do you have any idea what that did to me? How messed up I was after that? Then you come crawling back now?! What the hell is wrong with you?!" she screamed, her eyes spitting green fire.

"Chloe! She threatened you! Tess would have hurt you - maybe even killed you - if I didn't agree to her terms." His voice modulated. "After everything else, I couldn't let that happen."

That gave Chloe pause. Tess Mercer had proven herself more than capable of doing just about anything she thought necessary in her fanatical devotion to Clark's destiny and what she saw as saving the world. Chloe could well believe the woman would have hurt her to gain Davis' cooperation. After all, Tess had come after her here in this very room when she had figured out Chloe was the mysterious Watchtower that Checkmate had sought.

"So you ran away," Chloe said flatly, not giving any indication of her thoughts.

Davis hesitated before replying. "Yes."

"So why are you back now?"

Davis sighed. "The quakes. Doomsday is trying to rise. And one of the few things that I think Tess Mercer may have gotten right, is that my part in this isn't over. I'm here to help you against the monster."

Chloe's face had softened somewhat and that gave him hope.

"You mean with the Phantom Zone key?" Clark asked.

Davis shrugged and faced the other Kryptonian. "In whatever way I can. I have a lot to make up for." Davis' eyes cut to Chloe then back to Clark. "I felt the quake that hit today. It was pretty intense."

"Yeah, especially for a stable area like Kansas," Victor put in.

"Chloe said it will only take two or three more quakes like the one today to completely compromise the Geothermal Plant structure." Clark paused, then continued. "And it gets worse. We think Lex Luthor knows about the monster - or at least, thinks he does. Most likely he detected its Kryptonian origin - "

Davis understood instantly. "And he thinks it might be something he can use against Superman."

"Yep."

"But would he also be able to detect Davis' alien origins as well?" Victor asked.

Chloe finally jumped in. "No, I don't think so. Davis is from this planet. He was created here to be Doomsday's human counterpart. So while he may be Kryptonian in origin, he was born here."

Davis had never thought of it that way, but she was right. His creation might have been in a Kryptonian lab, but he had been formed as a man here on Earth. And since he had been split from Doomsday, did that make his humanity real? His heart raced at the thought. He would love nothing more than to be a normal human being.

"And besides, if it were that easy, surely Lex would have found him long before this, " Victor added.

The simple truth of that made Davis joy dim slightly. He wasn't a human really. Not in the way that he might have wished. But that wasn't what was needed now anyway. They needed Doomsday's weakness - the creature's other half. They needed him.

"Alright. So where does that leave us now? Where do we go from here?" Clark asked.

Chloe had an answer ready. "Well, I think for starters we should figure out what Lex has been doing that has caused Doomsday to stir. The creature had been quiescent for years before this. Maybe we can shut down whatever Baldy has going and stop this before Doomsday can get out."

"And what about him?" Victor asked, gesturing to Davis. "Should we secure him?"

Davis' mouth went dry at those words. He'd been "secured" twice before with disastrous results. The first time he had allowed himself to be caged by Chloe so they could end his life with liquid kryptonite. It hadn't gone as planned. Instead, he had suffered horrible pain and death only to be reborn with a kryptonite immunity. The second time, had been when Oliver and his team had captured him, and brought him to the Geothermal plant. That had ended even worse - with his evil sides unleashed upon the world...and the subsequent death of Jimmy Olsen.

He had a horrible fear of what may happen if he was contained again, especially when he had so clearly been drawn here for a reason.

But before he could voice a protest, Chloe's voice rang out with a ringing, "NO!" that caused everyone else in the room to look at her in surprise.

"What do you mean 'No', Chloe?" Clark asked her, obviously confused. "Clearly you would be in more danger than anyone else. Don't you want him locked up?"

"No, Clark. He's been free all this time, and if he was going to be a threat to us, it would have happened by now," she responded in a reasonable tone.

"Chloe, he's still a criminal. The murdered people in that field - those were on him," Clark pointed out. "He's not safe."

"Safe?" Chloe asked, with a pointedly arched brow. "As I recall, it wasn't that many years ago that you went all September 11th and took down the Luthorcorp Towers." Clark looked away with shamed eyes. Chloe continued. "I'm a trained Suicide Squad member, and have broken into more federal databases and secure buildings than I can count." She waved a hand at Cyborg. "Victor here still has about a two dozen weapons built in, including DNA tracking models, and doesn't need sleep." She lifted up a hand and started dropping a finger with each of her next points. "On speed dial we have the world-class archer that murdered Lex Luthor, a woman with a voice than can liquefy your brain, a boy that can nearly outrace time, and a sorceress that almost opened the gates of hell!" She gestured around the Watchtower. "None of us are SAFE people."

"But, he -" Clark started, but Chloe cut him off again.

"No, Clark! We certainly can't keep him locked up here." She waved a hand at the sensitive material and high-end equipment all over the room. "And he'd do us no good rotting in some jail cell. Assuming we could even get the police to accept he really is Davis Bloome - who I may remind you they released the dead body of to Oliver years ago. On top of that, remember how the police released that the DNA found with the field murders wasn't human? How would we go about explaining all that, huh?" She glared at Clark for a moment, but this time he didn't have a response. Seeing victory, she went on, more gently, "I'm not saying let's welcome him with open arms." She turned a cold gaze back to Davis for the first time since the argument had begun. "But I am saying let's use him. Let's give him this chance at redemption he says he wants." She turned back to Clark. "It is what we do, isn't it? Balance the scales? See justice done? So let's verify his story, and if it checks out, let's give him the chance to work on righting his wrongs."

"I agree with Chloe." Victor put in, retracting his guns. "He says he can he can help against the monster? We should let him," he paused, then added, "We can always throw him in jail after."