The Best Policy

"Would you like some tea, Gabe?"

Still standing in the middle of the Kents' living room, Gabe Sullivan blinked and turned to look at Martha. He hadn't been able to focus on anything since Chloe and Clark had left for the barn. He didn't understand what was happening, what Chloe had done, how calm Martha could be in the face of all of this. It was as confusing as a summer dust storm, everything swirling around in front of him, and nothing tangible.

Shambling from the hall and falling into one of the sturdy wooden chairs at the kitchen table, Gabe looked back to Martha. She had just put two mugs, each speckled with Holstein black spots, into the microwave.

i Tea in thirty seconds or less, something hot to make the rest of this real /i , he thought to himself.

She turned and leaned against the island in the kitchen. "It'll be done in a minute or so. How are you doing?"

"Confused. Scared for Chloe. Confused."

"You said that twice."

"I'm doubly confused."

The microwave dinged and she opened it. A mug handle clenched in each hand, she settled herself in the chair across from him at the table. Pushing a mug toward him, she smiled. "It helps if you remember to breathe."

"I am breathing." He frowned. "At least I thought I was."

She chuckled, "Well you don't have blue lips yet, that's for sure." Her laugh was warm and deep and it reminded him just fleetingly of Moira's. He'd been able to make her laugh quite a bit, once upon a time. After a while, she regained her composure, a slight frown causing a line between her eyebrows. "Gabe, how much do you know about Smallville. Anything unusual?"

"I know the EPA was always breathing down LuthorCorp's neck and that we always averaged twice as many safety inspections as any other fertilizer plant in the country. I felt I was on a first name basis with the inspectors."

"Do you know why?"

"Health problems in Smallville. There were never any increased cancer rates, but there were a lot of reported incidents of higher than normal white blood cell counts in the population. The EPA and certain lawyers in town were planning a class action against the plant but they could never find the proof." He snorted. "We didn't do anything wrong. In fact, after Lex took over, he was extra cautious about the waste disposal at the plant and trying to not only meet but come under whatever emissions standards the EPA set."

She nodded. "But there still were the high levels of white blood cells in part of the population. Did you ever wonder why that might be if the plant wasn't responsible?"

"Honestly, Martha, Chloe and I weren't sick as far as I could tell and the plant was continually exonerated and that was all that mattered to me."

She pursed her lips. "Well, it was never the plant."

"Hah! I knew it!"

"It's the meteor rocks."

"What?"

"The meteor rocks from both showers have an unusual effect on some people, not all, but a portion of the town has been altered by them."

"Altered how?"

"Have you ever seen Chloe's Wall of Weird?"

He nodded. "I always thought it was weird when she started keeping track of all the two-headed cows, five legged frogs, and urban legends that sprouted up in this town. See, I've always loved The Inquisitor. I mean, I read Chloe's articles every day and have them all scrap booked, but it's Lois's I love poring over. Did you see her coverage of vampires in Suicide Slums? It was so interesting. Not as good as her alligators in the sewers article series but still…"

Martha laughed again. "Lois has always had an interesting perspective on the truth."

"I'm proud of Chloe. The Planet is the best paper in the country, bar none, and she's had two front page articles all ready. However, if I need entertainment, I read The Inquisitor. Don't tell Chloe, though. She hates tabloids. Still, back in high school it seemed that a lot of her stories had a tabloid flare---bug boys and sandmen. It actually fit along her original newspaper passions back when she was very little but it was never exactly Planet material."

"Except in this town it's all true."

"I never thought it would be fake. I told Principle Kwan as much when he suspended Chloe from The Torch. She doesn't lie, not when it comes to the press. Besides," he added, biting his lower lip in a gesture he knew he'd passed onto Chloe. "You used to hear things in this town, see things too. No one ever talked about it, but we all knew it was there, like the way Earl Jenkins shook so much and was able to tear apart metal. Or that Ian kid Chloe and Lana both dated. I swear, one day I left Chloe and Ian working on an article together at home and dropped by The Talon for some cappuccinos--I have a slight coffee addiction, you know----and there he was with Lana cramming for Calculus and he couldn't have beat me. It just wasn't possible." He shrugged. "But it was one of those things that you i never /i talk about here."

"Well it's all because of the way the meteor rocks change people."

"Chloe called them 'meteor freaks' in her articles."

Martha wrinkled her nose as if she'd bitten into a piece of fruit only to realize it was rotten underneath the peel. "I don't like that term. She's been using it for herself, and I've always found it derogatory."

Gabe frowned. He was not Chloe nor was he Moira. His wife had had a fabulous analytical mind before she'd gotten sick. She'd been an up and coming reporter in her own right at the Metropolis Journal instead of the Planet. Like their daughter, she had always been Sherlock Holmes-level good at piecing clues together. He was really just a lucky schlub who had managed to win her heart with a pretty sophomoric comedy routine he used to do at the Yuck Yuck Club when they were in college. Yet, while he wasn't Sherlock Holmes, he wasn't stupid either. As he sat there, the little things he'd learned about Clark over the years began to come back to him. He'd been married once, to a girl who'd tried to kill Lana----a girl who'd been able to even attempt it because, if rumors were true, she could teleport. Clark on his own had always been a weird guy: no sports of any kind (not that he could complain, the Sullivans were not athletes), mysterious disappearances, convenient timing that he'd heard Chloe speculate on more than once around the dinner table.

It all clicked and for one fleeting moment Gabe knew what it was like to be Chloe.

"Clark's been infected, too, hasn't he?"

Martha tensed for a second and he could see a myriad of emotions pass over her face. It reminded him of the press conferences she gave as senator and he had the feeling that whatever reply he was getting would be significantly edited from the complete truth. "The meteors affect Clark."

"And they affected Chloe too." He felt a sharp stab of pain in his chest. "Why didn't she tell me? She had to have known that she could come to me with all of this."

"That's what I kept telling her, but Chloe and Clark are different. The way the meteors affect people is always different, no two meteor-affected individuals have the same abilities and, according to Chloe herself, not all meteor-affected people develop abilities immediately after exposure. Clark…he's been different since we adopted him." Again her eyes clouded over with doubt, and Gabe was convinced that she was holding out on him.

"And Chloe?" He asked, afraid of the answer. It hurt that they'd apparently drifted so much since she went to Met U that she had been more comfortable confiding in the Kents than in him. Or maybe she'd been hiding it since high school. That thought hurt even worse.

Martha gave him a small, reassuring smile before taking a quick sip of her own tea. "Chloe didn't know she was infected, didn't even know she had the potential to develop an ability until about nine days ago, and that's when she manifested for the first time."

He gave a big sigh of relief. "I see, and what exactly is it that she does?

I…I don't think I've seen anything like that." He thought back to what he'd seen in the Kents' living room, how his daughter took on the appearance of some rare and fragile collectible, how her already bright eyes had shined like emeralds. She'd been beautiful, but he wasn't sure how being breathtaking was an ability.

"There are different types of meteor-infected people. Chloe has a whole classification system for them, actually, but I think there are two important different types. Each meteor-affected person only has one power."

"Like, um, Clark's wife."

Martha stilled and said nothing for a second and Gabe got that familiar feeling of having put his foot in his mouth. Now i that /i was a family specialty. "Yes, Alicia was a teleporter. The first type where there truly is only one power resulting from the exposure. But there's a second type, too. Some individuals have a power that sort of bleeds over, ends up manifesting as multiple related abilities. Do you remember Tina Greer?"

"Yeah, she tried to kill Lana and then she did murder a local marine recruiter. When it happened The Ledger ran a whole memorial issue on him and everything."

She nodded. "Her bones had been affected by the first meteor shower. It made them both super strong and allowed her to shift them so she could take on other people's appearances. So, even though the blast only affected her bones, she could do more than one thing. Chloe's the same way. She can…well, the best word Clark and she have come up with is 'crystallize' herself. When she shifts, it makes her very strong and close to invulnerable."

He nodded back, his eyes wide. "Then she is like a superhero?"

Martha arched a skeptical eyebrow. "I suppose that's a way to put it."

Gabe beat down the giddy little thrill rising up inside him. Based on Chloe's face before she fled to the security of the Kents' barn, she was not happy about how her life had changed. Still, Gabe had been a slight---okay a huge---geek in high school. Besides his obsession with SNL, he'd always enjoyed comic books. The thought of what his daughter could do was just too amazing. "Oh boy." He paused and narrowed his eyes at her. "What can Clark do?"

Martha glanced down at the table's surface before answering. "He's very strong and very fast."

He frowned. "Like increased muscle strength so even his leg muscles are so strong he runs fast."

"Something like that."

"Alright, well this isn't so bad at all. When I found the apartment locked up and couldn't get in touch with her, especially when I couldn't get in touch with her, I thought it might have been…well I don't even want to say what it might have been out loud."

"She's fine. She'll have to tell you all of it on her own, but I promise she's okay now and Clark and I are taking care of her."

"I don't like how that last part sounded, Martha."

"No one touched her like that."

"But why do I have the feeling that someone has gotten to her."

"That's between you and Chloe. There are some things that I think a daughter does have to tell her father on her own." Gabe swallowed and willed his heart to slow down. Something bad had happened to Chloe and he'd been stuck in Canada the entire time and unable to help his little girl. Martha reached out and placed a gentle hand on his wrist. "Gabe, there is one more thing I should tell you."

"Worse than what you've already alluded to?"

"I don't think it's worse because I don't think it's a possibility, not for Chloe, but it is important."

"What?"

"The meteor rocks often, not always, Clark's known quite a few meteor-infected people who weren't that way---"

"What way?"

"Some of them become mentally unstable. They hurt people, sometimes even murder them and end up in Belle Reve."

"Moira."

"Excuse me?"

"I know how Chloe got infected. She and her mother got caught up in the 1989 meteor shower. They were driving through Smallville on the way to Granville to visit Moira's parents, but then the sky started falling. The car was damaged a little and they were injured and ended up spending a night in the hospital before they were discharged. The doctors said everything was fine."

"Well no one knew then what the meteors could do, no one even suspected."

He nodded before continuing. "Everything was fine for a while, but when Chloe was about five Moira started up with this theory. I thought it was a delusion. She said that sometimes when she'd stop in Smallville on the way to visit her parents that strange things would happen. She'd be able to get the gas station attendant or the waitress to do things, whatever she asked. She even got a kid standing outside of Milt's Gas Station to hop up and down on one leg for five minutes straight. She started claiming she could control people."

"You didn't believe her."

"Of course I didn't. It sounded, well, it sounded crazy. And then a little bit after Chloe's fifth birthday, I came home and found Chloe clutching her stomach beside the sink in her bathroom. She'd drunken a whole bottle of liquid soap."

"My god."

"Moira was panicked. She was preparing dinner downstairs and Chloe said a swear word and she'd told her to wash her mouth out with soap. She didn't think anything of it. It's just a standard punishment, run a little Zest over the tongue and no more curses, but Chloe drank the whole bottle. Moira came in and witnessed her doing it and couldn't even pry her off it. She claimed it was like Chloe i had /i to finish it"

"What happened?" Martha prodded, her voice gentle.

"We got her stomach pumped. She was fine. It was traumatic, but obviously she pulled through. But it was too much for Moira. She was convinced she couldn't be around Chloe, that she'd hurt her again. Finally, she told me she was going to commit herself to a mental hospital in Granville. She didn't want to put Chloe in danger anymore and she knew that all her suspicions about her 'ability' had to be crazy. She just wanted help. So I took her. She asked and she was going with or without me, so I helped her do it." He took a deep breath before he continued. "She wasn't like the Moira I met in college toward the end. She was distant and distracted and she got to the place where she was afraid to even be in the same room as our daughter."

"So you made it look like Moira just left one day."

"Well she did. I just didn't want to tell Chloe where she'd gone. The hospital where she's staying is very nice as far as those places go, but it was no place to take a kindergartener, and Moira didn't want Chloe to remember her mother as being crazy."

"But Chloe thinks Moira abandoned her. Besides, Gabe, Chloe does know. She tracked her mom down two years ago and has been visiting her since."

"She knows?"

"Not about the meteor shower part, but she's terrified she's doubly likely to go crazy because of the schizophrenia in her family. Clark told me how rejected she's always felt because her mom abandoned her and that's not how it happened at all, is it?"

He shook his head. "No, it's not. Moira even got better for a while. Maybe it was because there was no chance of her meeting up with meteor-infected people in Granville. They let her out about a year later and things were better for a while, but then when Chloe was eight, Moira accidentally suggested something that Chloe took as an order. That time she scrubbed the skin off her own arms. Moira couldn't take the guilt and checked herself back in and then a little while after she entered the hospital, she went catatonic. She's been that way ever since."

"I'm sorry."

"So am I. I visit her every weekend. I bring her fresh tulips just like she loves and read her the newest articles from the Planet and the Journal, but it's like she's not even there." He sighed. "I miss who she used to be and at the same time, every day Chloe gets more and more like her mother. It's uncanny and it hurts."

Martha bit her lip and didn't say anything for a long moment. "Gabe, I think it's best if you don't tell Chloe about her mother, at least for a while. She already knows where Moira is, but I don't think it would be good for her to know that her mother is meteor-infected. She's already afraid of going insane---it's her greatest fear in fact. If she already knows what the meteor rocks have done to someone so closely related to her, she might just resign herself to that fate, start thinking it's inevitable."

"Is it? Oh god, I can't lose Chloe too. It was bad enough when she slit her wrists last year, and I knew it was an accident. I knew she'd never do that no matter what Lois or Lana thought."

"Clark believed her too."

"Smart boy. Well most of the time." He rolled his eyes. It was his habit and something wee Chloe had picked up on and emulated since first grade. "If he'd figured out how much he cared for my little girl earlier, my life would have been a lot simpler."

Martha gave him a wry half smile. "So you've noticed it too?"

"The way he hovered over her and wouldn't take a reassuring hand off of her shoulder the entire time? Yeah, I noticed. I used to try and posture like that for Moira. It never worked for me since I've never been tall or large, but I know the look when I see it."

Martha clutched at the simple gold band on her left finger. "Me too." Then she squeezed his hand again. "I don't think Chloe is going to become unstable. She's had a lot thrown at her over the years. She's been keeping Clark's abilities a secret since her senior year of high school, been tied up in all this mess of mutants and other things, and she's always been his rock. She's the most level-headed young woman I've ever met."

"But you still don't think I should tell her."

"I think it would upset her a lot and it might never happen to her. Like I said, there are a lot of meteor-infected people who are perfectly sane and never hurt anyone. Some who even help others."

"Like Clark?"

"In a way."

He took a final sip of his tea, letting the now lukewarm dregs slide down his throat. Everything in the last hour had been so surreal. "So our kids have superpowers, huh."

"I don't know if I'd put it that way. With Clark we always called it his 'gifts' or his 'abilities.' I never wanted anything to go to his head."

He chuckled. "I guess not. So, do you have any tips?"

She shook her head. "I'm not sure if I have anything that would help. Clark was so little when his manifested. Jonathon and I spent a lot of time teaching him how to be careful around hu…other people and how to hide. Three year olds don't understand why they can't just lift the station wagon in front of company sometimes."

"I can imagine."

"Chloe's different. She's smart and she knows how to hide what she can do. Clark's been working on helping her control it, too, since she can't do much to hurt him."

"He's stronger than her?"

"Much." Martha said, pride coloring her voice.

"We'll see." He answered. Gabe had a momentary flash of a talent show with their two children vying with one another for the most impressive superpowers. He was pretty sure Chloe'd win. Sure Clark was strong, but he didn't look ethereal when he used his "gifts."

"Clark was very lonely growing up. We wouldn't let him tell anybody what he could do. Eventually, he told Pete their sophomore year."

"I always liked that kid. He appreciated Chloe from the start." Gabe smiled, thinking of the nervous freshmen who'd shown up on his front porch with the slightly wilted corsage Homecoming night.

"And then he had Chloe during college."

"I thought you said she knew in senior year?"

"She did, but she is such a good secret keeper that she didn't tell even Clark that she knew until college. She was waiting for him to confess since she spied him using his powers when he didn't think anyone was watching."

"Oh."

Martha nodded. "Thank you."

"For what? I've been out of town the last two years for work."

"For Chloe. It's like he's a whole different person since she's known. He still persisted in moping after Lana---"

"Tell me about it." Gabe said, shaking his head. He'd loved the other girl as his own for nearly two years but it had been hard to actually like her not when she was the reason, even if she didn't mean to be, for Chloe always being so upset. He'd become less enchanted with her when she hadn't even bothered to send a flower arrangement let alone come back for their "funerals."

Gratitude was not a trait Lana Lang had.

"But now he has someone who's not me or his father whom he could confide in, who didn't care that he was different. I don't think Pete was ever quite able to accept him a hundred percent."

"I see." He sighed. "But you and Clark have known since she first manifested and now Lois and apparently the richest man in Star City know so she's got quite a few people in on her secret."

Martha gave an apologetic shrug. "I don't know what Oliver has to do with any of this actually, aside from having once dated Lois, but he and Clark apparently became friends when he was in town this fall."

"He's not going to exploit her, is he?"

Martha shook her head. "If Clark trusts him, I trust him. Besides, I know Oliver's track record. Only the Wayne family has given more to charity and spent more time and effort on non-profits than Oliver Queen and his parents. But he's not the billionaire you need to worry about."

"What do you mean?"

"I think you have to talk to Chloe to get the answer to that."

Gabe watched as Chloe opened the door to the kitchen. She slipped inside but stayed still, leaning against the back door, looking as if she were ready to bolt at any second. It broke his heart. This was his daughter, his life. She should be able to trust him. Pushing himself up from the table, he crossed the Kents' kitchen and swept her up in a hug.

" i Caoimhneil /i ," he said, using the endearment Grammy Sullivan had first given to her in the hospital and which had stuck with her far into middle school. "God, why didn't you tell me?"

"I'm sorry," She said, before breaking down into tears. It shocked him. He hadn't seen Chloe cry since the first Friday back at school senior year when she'd come up with this crazy theory that Clark and Lois were falling in love with each other. She'd grown up so much in her young life, become so tough, and he was used to her steely resolve, her no-holds-barred reporter's mentality. It had been so long since he'd held his little girl like this, felt her quivering in his arms.

He whispered softly to her and stroked her hair, pulling it further out of the hairstyle she'd worn it in for the wedding.

Finally, hiccupping a little, she pulled back from him and said, "What is with my hair today? First Clark wants to ruin it and now you. Is it really that bad?" She finished, rubbing at her eyes, her mascara blurring off on her palms

"It looked lovely, sweetheart. I just wanted to be able to stroke your hair. It usually makes you feel better."

"Then you both know me very well," She said sniffling.

He smiled and led her over to the Kents' sofa. Chloe had to be tired from wearing those high heels all day and this wasn't the kind of conversation he wanted to have across a kitchen table. Sitting down, and letting Chloe lean into him, he asked, "You still didn't answer my question: Why didn't you tell me?"

She looked down at her hands and started to pick haphazardly at the periwinkle colored polish on her nails. "I was embarrassed and scared. I thought maybe that would be it, the final straw. I was afraid you wouldn't love me anymore."

" i Caoimhneil /i , you're a very bright girl, way smarter than your old dad, but that might be the dumbest thing I've ever heard. There's nothing you could do that would make me stop doing that."

She dared to look up at him. "Come on. I got you fired, ruined your career, landed you in witness protection and almost got you blown up."

"And who was the first person to frame the DP articles about the trial? I was so proud of you. I know it didn't stick, but you took down an evil man. You made Metropolis a better place."

She snorted. "Knowing what I know now. I think I want Lionel back over Junior."

"Maybe." He conceded, still a little confused. Even if Lex hadn't offered to help him get rehired after Lionel's conviction, he'd always been a fair boss and a pretty decent guy. He couldn't quite understand Chloe's animosity, especially considering that her best friend had just married him. "Still, after living with our own secret service for a few months, there's nothing you could pull that would either surprise or upset me. Well, let me change that. As long as I don't have to hear any kind of details about James Olsen, I'm happy."

"We're not together anymore. We broke up at the wedding."

"Is there a tall, dark, and indecisive reason for that?"

"No, just a meteor-rock inspired reason." She finished. "I assumed Martha told you everything about that."

"A little. Most of it I already knew from your incredible articles back in The Torch days. I miss that journalism. Why don't you cover Bigfoot like your cousin?"

"Daddy!" She shrieked, slapping at his shoulder. "You've been buying The Inquisitor again."

"Maybe a little. Best entertainment in town, plus I need to have my horoscope on a daily basis, gotta have those lucky lotto numbers."

She giggled a little. "I still wouldn't line a bird cage with it."

"You have no sense of guilty pleasures." He said, giving her shoulder a quick squeeze. "Still, I wish you'd called me."

"I didn't tell Lois either. This whole thing," She said, gesturing to herself. "Is so weird and I'm the curator of the Wall of Weird and what I can do is a new one."

Ignoring her self deprecating tone, Gabe continued. "Do you know what I told Martha?"

"Nope."

"I said I think you're like a superhero, and I might have implied that your powers are better than Clark's. Superstrength's like a dime a dozen. I mean, you have The Hulk, and The Thing and whatever, but you, what you can do is beautiful."

Chloe hesitated. "Clark, huh? Well, it's nice our parents started comparing our superpowers. It's all like senior year when you went around telling everybody about my scholarship to Met U."

"We're competitive."

"You really think what I can do is beautiful?"

"Look, I know I'm not quite as objective as that short guy in the stained tuxedo."

"Bart."

"Yeah, him, and I'd wager that Clark's said the same thing considering he has working eyeballs."

"He did."

"You know, honey, when three people say it, it's a fact. It's a rule of three thing like the reverse of that old superstition that all deaths come in threes."

"Right."

"I'm serious. It's beautiful. It's like---"

"Please don't say an ice sculpture. That metaphor's been done to death by Clark."

"Like at the end of Edward Scissorhands?"

"I give you credit for the Johnny Depp allusions." She added.

"Your eyes are amazing too. Proves how Irish you are. I haven't seen shamrocks that green, i caoimhneil /i ."

"Laying it on thick, huh Dad?"

"Not at all." Off her frown, he added. "Maybe a bit. But this is pretty cool to me. You should see under my bed."

"I try and avoid piles of magazines read 'just for the articles.' Besides, you're a terrible house cleaner. I think there are whole colonies of mold spores grow off of old pizza boxes hiding out there."

"I am not that bad."

"You should hire a maid. I know that your job pays enough for that."

"I'll think about it. Still, you should have seen my comic book collection."

"You collect comics? Why don't I know this?"

"I never wanted to show them to you when you were little because they're collectors' items and I didn't want you to tear the pages, and then you turned eight and were officially cooler than me and I couldn't stand to be mocked by my daughter."

She brought a hand to her chest in mock horror. "I wouldn't have mocked you." Off his arched eyebrow, she added. "Much."

"My daughter---the superhero. I like that."

She snorted. "It's not exactly something you can advertise at work and it's not like I've done anything with my powers so far except accidentally break some cow mugs and indent a counter at a bowling alley."

"Well, I don't think Warrior Angel was that great when he started either."

"Thanks for the vote of confidence, Daddy, I appreciate it." She frowned and looked back down at her hands. "But that's not the only thing that's going on here."

"What?"

"I…did Martha tell you about Lex?"

"Lex? All I know is what every gossip column's been printing for months. He got Lana pregnant and they just got married and you, naturally, were the maid of honor."

"Well there is that."

"And Linda Lake had that rumor that Lana was going to refuse the proposal because of Clark."

Chloe huffed a little. "Our lives would be so much less complicated if just the four of us had a relationship." Gabe's jaw dropped open and she hurried to amend her statement. "I mean it's always been this weird trapezoid or something. I love Clark and he's loves Lana and Lex loves her and she can't even make up her mind."

"Good, that sounds much less dirty. The other way gives Daddy a heart attack."

"Sorry."

"Just think before you speak, even if that impulsivity and foot in mouth disease is a Sullivan family trait. Your Aunt Ellen had it spades."

"Daddy, she was mom's sister. That's the worst excuse for your accidental insults ever."

"I gave it a shot. Still, you had to marvel at her ability to say the wrong thing at just the wrong time."

She chuckled. "Like Lois."

"See it's a family thing. I just got it by osmosis. Nice distraction, i caoimhneil /i , but you said something about Lex?"

"He started following my articles, I think, about the Wall of Weird after Van McNulty tried to kill him. Do you remember that?"

Remember that? Lionel had only met with Gabe once in his entire twenty year history at LuthorCorp and that was to threaten him into reigning in his daughter. The mogul had been furious that Chloe's notes on Lex's health had been leaked, and that Van had used it to justify an assassination attempt. Gabe remembered that whole incident vividly. "I do."

"Well, he's been interested in people with abilities ever since. He's set up an illegal lab to experiment on them and he calls it 33.1. He found out what I could do a day after I did, and he had me abducted and experimented on."

"I'm gonna kill him." Gabe said, standing up. Chloe's hand on his forearm yanked him back down to the sofa.

"I think his security would prevent that."

"I don't care. He hurt you."

She rolled her eyes. "Daddy, you're going to have to take a number in the kicking his ass department behind me, Clark, Bart, Oliver and his friends, and Lois, who has twice the reasons to hate him since he got her kicked out of her apartment. I swear, everyone's all about violence first."

"Okay, so I couldn't take down the Keebler elves with my, ahem, mature physique, I'd still like a shot at beating Lex into a pulp."

"That's the spirit, daddy, but I called dibs on being first in that line."

"What did he do exactly?" He asked, looking her over carefully. "He didn't…he wouldn't…" He trailed off. The thought was too awful to finish.

"No, he didn't do anything like that. They strapped me down and took some blood and tissue samples, cut some off my hand when it shifted, and they implanted a GPS chip. That's all. Clark busted me out after only a few hours, so they didn't get very far, and he helped get the chip out of me. All in all, I think I'm luckier than a lot of people he's caught. I know of two people he's had tortured, and one who almost underwent medical surgery against his will." She gave a small smile to reassure him, but he could tell what a sham it was. Her genuine smiles were so wide you could see all her gums when she gave them.

He squeezed her harder to him. "I'm sorry."

"It's why I didn't call you, besides the obvious. There wasn't anything you could do and I didn't want you to worry."

"I always worry."

"Martha says that to Clark all the time."

"She's right."

She snuggled into him. "I'm sorry about everything."

"That's okay, at least you're safe right now."

"Yeah." She replied, but there's was a hollowness in her tone that worried him.

Later, he told himself. He could pressure her for more later. She's already been so open with him already. Right now he wanted to try cheering her up.

Forcing a grin, he added, "You can make it up to me by explaining just how you and Clark know the fourth richest man in the country on a first name basis, and I just know this has nothing to do with Lois."