Chloe came to view him for her pleasure like he was some kind of zoo animal on display. Oliver was at her side, and she turned to him to ask, "Can you give us a minute alone?"

Queen hesitated, but then he looked at her tenderly. "Anything you want. I'll be in the next room if you need me." To the scientists, he said, "Come on. Let her have a minute to talk to him."

"Remember me?" she asked coldly once they were alone. Her hair was dark like her cousin's though slightly shorter without the wave, and she was smaller in stature. Cute maybe but not gorgeous; he didn't know why Queen had ever involved himself with her though he'd been intelligent enough to choose the better woman in the end.

He'd known her only casually. He'd seen her about town, usually at the Talon when he stopped by for for coffee, but even though they were the same age, he hadn't had much interaction with her. They ran in different circles.

The hatred for him on her face was pure, her movements wary. Whereas, Lois seemed to possess an undercurrent of sympathy and even attraction since meeting the other Clark, Chloe saw him for the threat that he still was for which he had to give her props. "I was to be your victim as one of the meteor freaks at Smallville High."

"I remember." In truth, he hadn't thought about that day in years though it had marked the first time he'd killed so many at once. He found it best not to dwell on past events too much. They couldn't be changed though sometimes when the night was particularly dark and he was alone in bed, he thought he could still hear their screams. It was a trick of the mind, he knew, a sign of weakness, but there it was.

"A green kryptonite necklace saved my life that night as I hid, and I vowed to see the end of the man, if you can be called such, who was the cause of so much death and suffering."

He could see the murder in her eyes. It was a strange thought to know he'd put it there. "Thus, death begets death; evil begets evil," he said, quoting Lloyd Alexander.

sss

Lois had forgotten to pick up her ID at the security booth. She thought she'd ask Oliver out tonight while she was here. They didn't have enough date nights and that would have to change for this marriage to work, but she stopped in the hall when she heard Chloe and Clark's voices.

"I just want to know one thing. What possible motive could you have had for killing them?"

"My father told me I was doing the poor wretches a favor. They all went unhinged sooner or later, didn't they?"

"Not all of them, and anyway, it didn't justify you mercilessly slaughtering people as if they deserved no more consideration than the dust under your feet. That was your only reason?"

"Not the only. My father also convinced me that they would eventually point back to me, and compromise my anonymity. Smallville had to be an unremarkable town to help hide my secret."

Was it only a good performance on his part, Lois wondered, the small bit of regret she detected through the arrogance. She had no doubt his father had really said those things. Lionel Luthor had been a manipulative prick, and if he never returned, it would be too soon.

"Well, in a similar vein, I'm about to do the world a favor." The click of a hammer reverberated through the room. "How funny that a simple pistol can do you in now. It won't be as painful as the way you ended lives, but poetic in a way to be just as mortal as your victims were."

Lois had run in during her speech and tackled her at the same time the gun went off.

Oliver burst in at the sound of the shot, and found them disheveled on the floor, but fortunately no one was gravely wounded though Lois' arm and hip had felt the impact of the tile floor. She'd be bruised tomorrow for sure, but that was better than how it could have turned out.

"What were you thinking, leaving her in here with him? Alone," Lois yelled at him.

"I guess I wasn't," he admitted ashamedly. Chloe had gotten to her feet and now sobbed against his chest. It wasn't something she did often anymore perhaps because it was her meteor power or more likely the girl she used to be had become too hardened by a cruel world. Maybe now she could finally start the healing process.

"No, you weren't. Get her out of here."

He complied, and she tried not to feel jealous about the way he was comforting her as they left the room.

She could feel Clark's eyes boring into the back of her head. "What?" she snapped.

"Nothing. Even I don't kick a man-or a woman as the case may be-when they're down. Thanks by the way."

"I didn't do it for you," she said, turning to face him. "I did it for her. She couldn't have lived with herself if she'd become like you, killing in cold blood."