"Clark, keep an eye", Chloe ordered as she laid back down on the couch.

"OK", Clark said. Dutifully he switched back to the aura-detecting mode. He watched as Chloe and Mike practiced over and over, the purple pulling the blue behind it out of Chloe's body, the blue staying out for a longer time at each repetition, then falling back into the body.

Clark yawned; he'd had a full day of farm chores too. The quiet stillness of the barn loft had already lulled Shelby to sleep; the old retriever lay flat on the rug, giving a tiny snore. Clark leaned back in his chair; his heavy eyelids fell; gently he slipped into a tiny doze. Next to him, the dance of the auras continued.

Clark felt a tingling. Half asleep, he tried to ignore it.

"Clark? Clark?" Chloe called him. With a jerk, he awoke, looked for her. To his surprise, Chloe still lay quietly on the couch. He'd have sworn she was calling his name right next to him.

"Clark?" Again he heard his name. The metaphorical light bulb went off and he switched vision spectra. Scanning the dark barn loft for the complex patterns only he could see, he felt another tingle on his right hand. Clark sat up in surprise as he saw Chloe's aura superimposed upon his own. Instinctively he pulled his hand back; pulled it back, in fact, faster than the human eye could see. The blue aura, after a moment of hesitation, followed his hand.

Clark forced himself to stay still and looked again. Chloe's blue aura was still connected with Mike's purple; she touched his hand again. Once again he felt the eerie tingle and heard her say, "Clark." It wasn't till now that he realized he didn't hear Chloe with his ears.

He extended his hand again. "Chloe?" he asked wonderingly. Clark had assumed, after Mike's failed attempts, that Clark's alien heritage precluded the visiting of an astral projector. Frankly, he'd been just as happy about that. But obviously, Clark was wrong in his assumption.

Again he heard Chloe's voice. He spent a moment wondering whether he was picking up aura electromagnetic vibrations and his brain was interpreting them as sound, or whether the Chloe aura in his body enabled telepathic communication between them. Whichever, they could communicate.

"Chloe?" Clark asked again.

"Clark, it's working! Mike said we couldn't do it but I think we can!" Despite her current non-material status, Chloe's enthusiasm came through as clearly as ever.

"What can we do?" Clark asked.

"Teach you how to astral project too. Clark, you have to try this!"

He carefully didn't pull away again from her touch. "I don't think I can", he said, almost regretfully. At first he'd been weirded out by the idea of an astral bodysnatcher, but seeing how Mike dealt with Chloe, and learning more about Mike's limitations, had eased that fear. Then, seeing Chloe and Mike soar about the barn loft, apparently untrammeled by gravity…that was fascinating. He thought about adding, "You know I'm not exactly a normal guy", but thought better of it.

"Of course you can, Clark!" Chloe said chidingly. She'd never been one to put up with excuses. He felt, rather than saw, her grin. "If I can get this far in, then I can get in enough to teach you. Or have Mike teach you."

Whoa. Momentary creepiness again. Chloe must have felt his reluctance, for she added, "Don't worry, Clark. You have to agree every step of the way." He could almost see her, with the open smile that dared him to do more, to be better than he was. "Please?"

Clark could never resist her. "OK", he said. He relaxed in the chair as much as possible. "Let's go ahead."

"Yay!" Chloe said. Then she turned to business. "OK, the first thing I do is overlay my aura." Clark saw her suit the deed to the word; felt the tingling throughout his frame.

"Then Mike came and showed me how to… how to untie the strings. I don't know if I can show you what he did. Let's try this." Indescribable sensation, centered over his left hand.

"Not helping, Chloe", Clark said.

"OK, let's try this now." Whatever it was that she was doing differently, it got Clark no further ahead.

"I need Mike!" Chloe said, exasperation leaking into her inaudible voice. "Mike!" It was the astral equivalent of Martha Kent yelling for Clark to come to dinner, a piercing call that could be heard all over the farm.

The purple aura surged after the blue. But when it met Clark's red, it bounced off painfully.

"This is what happened before?" Chloe asked, figuring it out.

"Yeah. That's why Mike had to visit Shelby", Clark said sourly.

"Sorry, Clark", Chloe said with an immaterial smile. "I thought you were just a wuss."

"Chloe!" he protested.

"Just kidding." Now she sounded distracted. "If we can just figure this out, I know there's a way…"

"I hope so." Clark agreed with her. At first he'd been a little leery, but now they'd gotten far enough that stopping here would be a disappointment.

Clark sat patiently while Chloe tried various aura manipulations. No help; whether it was Mike's and Clark's abilities in conflict, or if it was just because Clark was of non-Earthly origin, Mike could not "get in." Chloe seemed the bridge between the two men. Clark was willing to bet that if Mike's physical body had been present, Chloe could have reversed her present host-guest situation.

"Let me try this now", Chloe said, breaking Clark from his thoughts. Clark, looking down, saw a tendril of the purple extended, then entirely wrapped in the blue. Interestingly, the blue had a tinge of meteor green around its edges. God alone knew how it felt to the participants; that's what it lookedlike to Clark.

"Clark?"Chloe chided him. "Pay attention here now. I think we've got it."

And indeed they had. This time when Chloe reached for his aura, Clark could actually feel what he needed to do. Clark got a sense of Mike guiding Chloe's hands as she directed Clark, the way a parent might steady the pencil grip of a child just learning to write.

Detaching himself from his body was at once the most fascinating and the most horrifying thing Clark had ever done. Deep inside, something cried out, urging him to re-attach, not to do this. But another part of him wanted to be free, to fly. Carefully, at Chloe's and Mike's direction, Clark undid the bindings. His hand hung limply as the newly freed aura withdrew, joined the larger part of the aura centered in the chest. Clark could feel the emptiness, the need to slip back in, as if re-donning a glove; he knew he could go back at any time and he would reattach.

"You've go it, Clark!" Chloe sounded exultant. "That's what it's like!"

"Other hand next", Clark said, almost breathlessly. For something that involved no physical activity other than sitting in a chair, this was exhausting.

"OK."Clark turned his attention on his other hand and arm. Knowing what to do this time, the process went faster. Then the legs – the red left his limbs, as the aura in the chest grew brighter and more complex.

"Clark, this is the tough part", Chloe warned. "You have to pull away from your senses."

"?" Clark thought an unvoiced query at her.

"You have to pull away from your head. You lose sight, hearing, smell, your voice. Try to do it fast, and coalesce into the center. Then Mike and I will be with you, and we'll pull you on out."

Clark gulped. He hoped she was right about that. Then he straightened in the chair. Nothing ventured, nothing gained, he thought. He took a deep breath and called, "Chloe?"

"I'm here."

"Guide me through it." Not waiting for her acknowledgement, he felt the ties that connected him to his physical form. Going through four limbs had taught him that. Deliberately, he detached the hearing first. The soft susurrus of the evening breeze coming in through the loft window, Shelby's tiny snores, the occasional creak of the wooden boards, all became silent.

Going quickly, not wanting to think about it, Clark detached the smell and touch. He'd never realized till now how much he depended on smell; the hay and manure on the lower floor fought against the oil and gas of the machines. Chloe's unique scent, more noticeable now after her day of working hard at the Daily Planet. All gone now. Then the voice; he could no longer feel the air moving in his throat.

Finally, after one last look around the dark loft lit only by a small table lamp, its golden pool barely extending to Chloe's form on the couch, Clark detached his sight. Fear struck him as he fell into an endless silent dark. He tumbled down, senseless but aware, into the void of his own self.

But Chloe caught him. As he'd caught her many a time, stopping her from falling to her death, she caught him. He opened his metaphorical eyes (How am I doing this anyway?) and saw her. It was only her aura, not her true body, but Clark saw her as the Chloe he knew. Or sometimes he saw her like that, other times as the blue aura of constantly changing shape.

"You made it!" Chloe exclaimed. There was just enough of a note of relief in her voice for Clark to realize that she hadn't been 100 confident. "I knew you could!"

Clark "looked" at her, saw what appeared to be a purple talisman held in her hand. Chloe perceived him looking at it. "Mike", she said. "Ready to go?"

She reached out her hand. Clark took it. Chloe held up the purple talisman in her other hand. Slowly, defying gravity, the two rose up. A slight resistance at the formerly unbreakable borders of his physical form; then, with almost a slight "pop" they were through. Clark looked around. His grin almost split his face as he realized he'd just become Clark Kent, Astral Projector.

Chloe was right; this was cool.

"Clark?"he turned to face the voice. His eyebrows raised as he saw Mike. Just as he saw Chloe as the blue aura and as herself, he saw Mike now, one moment as the purple complexity, one moment as the man he must be. A small but muscular, broad-shouldered man, about five and a half feet tall or so, who stood lithely on the balls of his feet, straight posture. Close-cropped hair did little to conceal the tanned face, whose lines told the story of care and responsibility.

"Mike!"Clark said. "So that's what you look like!"

"And that's what you look like." Mike returned.

"We did it!" Clark said triumphantly, advancing towards Mike, raising his hand to give him a triumphant slap. But as the two men neared, Clark found that he could not touch Mike, could not even approach closely. An invisible force pushed them apart. Clark was reminded of physics class where they investigated magnetic poles; joining the magnets a certain way made them "click" together. When put the other way, the magnets repelled each other, the force preventing closeness. It felt that way now.

"Do you feel that?" he asked Mike. The other man nodded.

"Chloe?"Clark asked.

"Right here, Clark, still holding your hand," she said snarkily.

"Chloe, you can touch Mike, right?" Clark asked.

Without answering, she opened her hand holding the purple talisman. Clark now saw it as part of Mike's aura, connected to him by a thin tendril. Chloe kept hold of it as it contracted back towards Mike. As it reeled in, she followed it, till she stood between Clark and the other man, holding one of their hands in each of hers.

"How can you do that?" Clark asked her curiously. "Mike and I can't touch each other."

Startled, Chloe looked at Mike. He nodded in confirmation.

"I don't know," she replied, turning her attention to Mike. "How is that you do what you do? And how could you take us along?"

"Yeah, I'd like to know that too," Clark said. "Chloe, when you were teaching me, it felt like Mike was guiding you?"

"Right, Clark," she said. "I can see what he does, but I just can't do it myself. Do you think you can?" That was Chloe. If she were kidnapped and tied up, she'd be investigating where her captors got the rope. She went on, repeating her motto in a sprightly tone, "This calls for further investigation!"

Clark and Mike looked at each other and sighed. They were in for a long night.