Interlude I:

Silence

Day One

"Any news?" Clark, still dressed in his Superman costume, asked anxiously as he hurried through the back door to the Kent household. Seeing the expressions on the faces of his mother and Chloe, he ran a hand through his hair in agitation. Uncharacteristically tousled, it was clear from his appearance that this wasn't the first time he'd done so.

Speaking more to himself than to his companions, he murmured, "I don't understand. What could have happened to her?" as his pent-up frustration released itself in impotent pacing back and forth across the kitchen floor. It had been only a couple of hours since his last conversation with Lois, and he'd spent the intervening time scouring every inch of Lowell County before expanding his search to include the better part of the state of Kansas. Though he could swear he'd covered every inch of ground, no sign of his fiancée could be found.

"Damn it!" The expletive burst from his mouth unexpectedly, and Chloe and Martha jumped when he punctuated his words by slapping his hand suddenly against the top of the kitchen table. When the wood buckled and split in response to his gesture, the trio stood in mutual silence for a moment as they pondered the wreckage before them. "I'm sorry, Mom," he said contritely, running his fingers through his hair again.

"Don't worry about it, honey," she said reassuringly. "It's just a table."

She didn't say any more, but that could have been because it was clear that Clark was no longer listening to her. "I have to get back out there," he blurted as he made an abrupt turn towards the door.

Chloe stopped him before he'd gotten more than halfway there. "Clark," she said, reaching out and grabbing hold of his arm. She sounded so worried, he turned to offer her words of comfort he wasn't even sure he could find, but then her words made it clear she was, at least at the moment, thinking more of his safety than her cousin's inexplicable disappearance. "You look…maybe you should sit down for a few minutes. Lois isn't exactly helpless; most of the time, she can take care of herself. And, even if she does need help, you aren't going to be much use to her if you collapse before you can get to her."

Clark scowled. He didn't need a mirror to tell him that the strain of the last couple of hours was taking its toll. It wasn't just his concern for Lois's safety that was weighing on him. In a desperate attempt to find her, he'd spent a good deal of time searching the areas of Smallville notorious for being repositories of large amounts of Kryptonite, on the theory that an abductor might be aware of her frequent savior's weakness and have realized he could take advantage of it in order to prevent a superhuman rescue. In light of Chloe's concern, he said implacably, "She's got to be out there somewhere. There has to be something I overlooked. I have to go find her."

"And I'm not suggesting for a minute that you shouldn't. But this may not be the best way to go about it. For one thing, if you keep racing around, exposing yourself to Kryptonite, you're going to be too weak to help her – provided she needs help – when you do finally find her!" she argued fiercely. When he stared down at her in stony silence, she took a deep breath and said persuasively, "Look, we don't know what happened to her, or even if something did happen to her."

"You think I'm overreacting?" he accused, his eyes narrowing in anger.

Chloe frowned and shook her head slightly. "I didn't say that. I'm sure you have a good reason to be concerned that she's not here yet, but I don't understand why you're so convinced that something horrible happened to her. It's not like she's not known for her tendency to run late. It's only been a couple of hours, and we really don't have any reason to suspect that it's anything more serious than a dead battery on a cell phone and a few last-minute details she realized she hadn't yet taken care of. A million things could have happened between the Talon and this house that would explain why she's not gotten here yet."

When it was clear he wasn't convinced, she continued, "I know you're worried about her. I worry about her, too. But don't you think you're jumping the gun a little? We don't have any reason to suspect her life is in danger. And if she is in trouble," Chloe had to pause to swallow heavily at the thought, "I know that she isn't going to be helped out of it by the three of us losing our heads and running around without some sort of an idea of what we're up against.

"If the problem was going to be solved by you simply flying around Smallville in the hopes of stumbling across her, you would have found her by now. Clearly, we need to try something else." In her eyes, the complete and utter faith she had in her cousin was clear. He knew Chloe hadn't begun to panic yet because, quite simply, she believed that there were few things Lois couldn't handle.

Unable to bear seeing such hope in her eyes, the expectation that Clark was somehow overreacting and everything was going to be okay, he swallowed heavily and looked away. He knew what Chloe wanted to believe: that Lois's disappearance was probably caused by nothing more major than a breaking news story that she couldn't pass up. He knew that Chloe had faith he would always bring her cousin safely home from whatever life-threatening escapade she'd engaged in, by sheer virtue of the force of his presence and the fact he'd done that very thing hundreds of times before.

The problem was, this time, he wasn't certain he could do as she asked. "You don't understand, Chloe," he began, but then he found he couldn't speak around the lump in his throat.

His mother must have realized there was something more to the situation that he wasn't sharing, because she stepped closer to the two of them and looked into his face searchingly. "Clark. Honey, what is it?" she asked softly, her words tentative, as if she wasn't sure she wanted to know the answer.

He couldn't stop his voice from cracking as he said in a tortured voice, "I know what you're thinking. You're thinking I'm overreacting; that Lois will probably walk through that door any minute now. The problem is, I know something terrible happened to her." When Chloe opened her mouth to argue, he met her eyes again, and he knew the bleakness he felt must have been apparent in his face, because the words never made it out of her throat.

"I've spent the better part of each day over the last few years right next to her. I know Lois; I could pick her out of a hundred in a crowd, just hearing the rhythm of her heartbeat and the pattern of her breathing. It's not even something I think about, really. It's just something that's always there, and as long as it is, I know everything's okay."

Pulling away from his mother and Chloe, he turned to stare out the window. He didn't think he could face them when he imparted his next revelation. "When I heard her cry out, I raced as fast as I could to try to reach her. She was scared; I could hear it in her voice." He paused and his mouth twisted as he amended, "Her heart was pounding, and she was breathing heavily when I flew to her; I could hear it, all the way from here. And then I heard her scream my name."

When he turned back towards the women standing together, and the terror he'd been feeling for the last couple of hours was reflected on their faces. In a stark voice, he said softly, "Then I didn't hear anything."

With a ragged breath, he murmured, his eyes filling with tears, "I know something terrible happened, Chloe, because I've spent the last hour racing across the entire state, hoping for any sign of her, any reason to believe that she's okay, that she's unharmed. That she's alive. And all I hear is silence."