The summer surprisingly was quite uneventful in Smallville. Chloe stayed in Metropolis for her Daily Planet internship program. Emmeline visited her several times, and true to her words, she practically lived up there with Chloe. When she wasn't with her, she was usually found in her house reading. Occasionally, Pete and Clark took her out of the house and they all went to the Talon or to a movie.
Finally, it was time for the school year to start. Conveniently, on the hottest day of the year…
"Em!" she heard as she walked into the building for the first time in three months. She turned to find Pete coming up to her. He wrapped her up in a huge hug. "Great to see you again!"
"You too, Pete! And to think that this time last year, I avoided human contact at all cost."
"Well, I couldn't be more happier that that's not the case anymore."
"You and me both."
They both walked in and found Lana filming Clark.
"Em!" Clark said as he hugged her. "Good to see you!"
"What's with Clark Kent, movie star?" Pete asked.
"Well, Lana's making a video letter for Whitney overseas."
"Thought it was the least I could do," Lana smiled. She held up the camera. "Hey, do you wanna give it a shot?"
"Watch how the pros do it," Pete laughed. He turned to the camera and said, "The town's still rebuilding after the storm, the first week of school is a bear, and you're missing the worst heat wave in 25 years. Bottom line, stay safe and come home soon. P.S., the football team's toast without Fordman on offense."
"That was perfect, Pete."
"Yeah, super," Clark said dryly.
"Try not to choke this time," Pete joked. He patted Clark and Emmeline on the shoulder before taking off.
"How about it, Clark?" Lana said. "Do you wanna try take two?"
"How about a rain check?
"Sure. Um, why don't you come by the Talon later?"
"All right."
"All right. Em, how about you?"
Emmeline laughed shyly. "Well, I didn't know Whitney very well. What should I even say?"
"You don't have to. It's just to give him a little something from home."
"I'll just give a quick something." Lana smiled and turned the camera on. "Hey, Whitney. Hope everything's going good. Thanks so much for what you're doing. Be safe out there and remember that Smallville will be waiting for you."
"That was wonderful, Emmeline. Thanks so much."
"No problem."
"See ya," she said as she waved and left. Clark stared after her as she walked away from them.
"It's good to see some things never change," a voice said beside them.
"Chloe!" Clark exclaimed as he hugged her tightly.
"Hi."
"Hey, you're back!"
Chloe hugged him and then hugged Emmeline. "Yeah!" she said with a fake smile. "Yeah, fresh from the wilds of Metropolis and the Daily Planet internship program."
"Well, Pete and Em say you were a big hit. I thought we had lost you for good."
"Yeah, well my dad decided to give LexCorp another shot, so here I am, back in the boonies."
Clark happily put his arm around her. "Well, I'm glad you're staying. I really missed you this summer."
"Yeah, I could tell by the voluminous emails you sent."
"Yeah, sorry, with the farm, and I…"
"Don't worry about it, Clark. It's not a big deal," she said flatly.
There was an awkward pause before Clark continued, "Well…well, I'm really excited to hear all your stories."
"Yeah, actually, you know what? There aren't any stories. Oh, except that I did meet this really hot young intern from Metropolis High. It was great! Made me forget all about Smallville for three whole months."
Chloe walked off with Emmeline, leaving Clark in a state of confusion. Chloe turned around for a second, but turned back when she saw that what she said had no effect on Clark.
"Okay, what was up with that?" Emmeline asked.
"What are you talking about?"
"There was no hot intern. If there was, I would've been the first to know."
Chloe sighed. "I wanted to see how he'd react. I mean, he said he missed me, but I barely heard anything from him all summer. It's Lana, isn't it?"
"I know you don't want to hear it, but yeah, it probably is. I'm sorry."
"Whatever."
The two of them went to their Biology class and took a seat in the middle with Clark and Pete across from them.
A woman walked in wearing a blue sundress that revealed way more than a teacher should ever show.
"Good morning," the woman said. "I'm Miss Atkins. I'll be your new biology teacher on health and human development." Chloe and Emmeline looked at each other with surprised and equally disgusted expressions. "I'm really sorry about the air conditioning in here, but it looks like we're going to have to suffer through this together. Let's get ready for a movie. All right. Everybody try to stay awake."
The film started and it showed animals doing things that Emmeline really didn't want to see in her lifetime. The man narrating it had the most monotone voice and between that and the heat, she direly wanted to go to sleep. She began drawing little doodles in her notebook in an attempt to stay awake. At one point, she saw Chloe looking over at Clark and she saw him staring at Miss Atkins. Emmeline rolled her eyes and Chloe laughed at his pathetic behavior.
Suddenly, the screen the film was on caught on fire and began burning before their eyes. Everyone bolted up and ran out of the room as fast as they could.
The fire department came and fixed up the room. Lex's car pulled up soon after.
"I came as soon as I heard," he said. He rushed up and kissed Miss Atkins to the shock of everyone around them.
"Are you alright?" he asked.
"I'm fine," she answered before looking at Clark. "Thanks to this young man right here. Clark, come here for a second. He was the only one that kept a cool head during the entire thing. He actually put the fire out."
"Why am I not surprised? Clark, once again, I'm grateful."
"And I'm confused," Clark said with a smile.
"You're right, and I'm sorry. I'd like you to meet Desiree Atkins. My fiancée."
Pete, Clark, and Emmeline all traded looks of utter confusion.
The fireman cleared the building and students began to trickle back in. Pete and Emmeline left Clark with Lex.
"Fiancée?" Emmeline asked in disbelief.
"I guess so…" Pete said.
That evening, Chloe came over to Emmeline's house, insisting that she accompany her to the wedding. She wasn't about to be in that kind of place without her best friend.
Emmeline dressed in a casual summer dress that wouldn't be too hot in the middle of such a heat wave.
The ceremony was rather quick and short and the reception started not long after they arrived. Soon Clark walked over to them.
"Hey, Chloe, Em. I've been looking all over for you guys."
"Really? We're not that hard to find, Clark," Chloe laughed. She looked around at all the decorations. "Only Lex Luthor could put together a fairly tale wedding in less than 48 hours."
"Look, you seemed a little distant this morning. I wanna make sure everything's okay between us."
"Yeah, it's hunky-dory!"
Clark stopped and turned to face her. "Wait. Now I know something's wrong. The only person who says 'hunky-dory' is my father."
"Look, Clark, I…I guess I just let my feelings get the better of me, but, you know, we made a decision and I'm perfectly fine with it."
"Me too."
"Great!" Chloe said with obvious false cheeriness in her voice. Clark didn't seem to notice. Shocker. Chloe looked at the couple. "But I still don't know how I feel about taking sex-ed from Mrs. Luthor. I can't believe Lex is married."
Clark looked at them also. "He says he really loves her."
"You don't think so?" Emmeline asked hearing the tone of his voice.
"Well love is rarely, if ever, logical," Chloe said. "Maybe they just have the right pheromones."
"Hmm?" Clark asked, a look of confusion on his face.
"It's chemistry, Clark. Some people have it…others don't."
Chloe took Emmeline's hand and walked off.
"Chloe…" Emmeline sighed. "We both know you're still in love with Clark. Why won't you just tell him?"
"I…can't compete with his feelings for Lana."
"That's ridiculous."
"Is it? He left me at the dance for her."
"Chloe, he was saving her from the twisters. You know as well as I do that he would've done the exact same thing for you."
"I know, Em. It's just that…I can't get hurt again."
"You're already hurting yourself by trying to deny what you feel."
"I'd rather have that kind of hurt than the other."
Emmeline looked at her friend sadly. What else could she say to her?
A couple days later, after Clark was a no-show at school, he came into the Torch office asking Chloe to dig up something on Lex's new wife. Always the best friend, she did so.
"Oh, so the new Mrs. Luthor has an alias," Chloe said, finding a profile on the woman. "That's interesting."
Clark pulled a copy of the paper out of the printer. "You know…what would you say…if I told you Miss Atkins, a.k.a. Alison Sanders, showed up at my loft last night and…tried to seduce me?"
Chloe and Emmeline looked at each other disbelievingly.
"I'd say you were living the voyeuristic fantasy of every male student in this school," Chloe said. "Clark, she just married Lex. Why would she possibly be interested in you?"
"Thanks," Clark said sarcastically.
"That's not what she meant," Emmeline told him. "Married women, especially newlyweds, tend to not go after other guys so soon."
"Look, she was dissing Lex," Clark explained with a sigh. "Saying he was the only thing standing between her being with me."
"Okay, you know, this is quickly going from merely nauseating to genuinely disturbing," Chloe said.
"Chloe, I'm not making this up. She's got some strange hold on Lex."
Chloe scoffed. "Gee, I wonder what that could be."
"I'm serious. It's more than the fact that she's hot."
"Clark, this is Lex Luthor we're talking about. Don't you think he considered all the unfortunate possibilities before saying 'I do'?"
"I don't know. But I'm gonna find out. I'm gonna go talk to him. Will you keep digging?"
"Yeah, sure. Where there's smoke, there's fire, excuse the aphorism."
They worked on Clark's request and the next issue for the next few hours until words were swimming before Emmeline's eyes from all the proofreading.
"Hey, Em, wanna grab a coffee or something from the Talon? Lana wants me to record Whitney's video."
"Sure!"
The two girls headed over, happy to get a break from the work.
"So remember, keep your head down. I'm counting on an exclusive interview from you when you get back," Chloe finished recording.
"That was great, Chloe," Lana smiled as she closed the camera.
"Thank you. Oh, yeah, and thanks for the quid pro quo. Now Em and I can move the 'Library Gets a New Paint Job' spread to page two."
Lana laughed as Chloe got up and went over to the counter. "So that must have been fun. Spending the entire summer in Metropolis."
"Yeah, it was really nice to get away. Sometimes, a little distance can just give you a new perspective on things you've done, you know? Mistakes you've made."
"Going to the spring formal with Clark was not a mistake."
"That's what I keep telling her," Emmeline put in.
"Yeah, it was," Chloe said. "I let myself indulge in my feelings for him and I ended up getting hurt."
Lana and Emmeline got up and joined her at the counter. "At least you were brave enough to take the risk," Lana told her.
"Oh yeah, that's me. Cupid's cannon fodder. Ugh, three months. I thought I'd be over it by now. But when I saw him in the hall, all those feelings just came back. I even made up some lame story about meeting a guy in Metropolis to try and get a rise out of him."
"Clark still really cares about you, Chloe."
"I know. But he cares about you more."
"I don't want Clark to come between our friendships," Lana said, including Emmeline.
"Me neither. So what are we gonna do about that?"
"Let's define ourselves by what we do, not who we date. Or don't date."
"Cool."
"Let's shake on it," Emmeline smiled.
The girls nodded and all three of them shook hands, silently sealing the deal of their friendship.
"Lana. We need to talk." They all looked over to find Lex having just entered the Talon. He sounded pretty serious.
"Um…we have to get some work done at the Torch," Chloe said.
"Alright. See ya."
Chloe and Emmeline quickly left to leave Lana and Lex with their business talk.
"You handled that very maturely," Emmeline told Chloe as they walk back to school.
"Thanks. I think I did too. Maybe Lana isn't as bad as we think."
"We know she's not. Come on, we always have."
"Well, now our deal goes three-ways. None of us can get mad at the other for dating Clark."
"If only Clark knew how many girls craved his affections!"
Chloe giggled at her remark and continued walking to the Torch.
When news hit that Clark was in jail after being accused of the fires, the girls wasted no time in going to see him.
"Sorry we didn't have time to bake a file into a cake," Chloe said when they were let in.
"How you holding up?" Lana asked.
Clark walked over to them. "Besides being accused of being a serial arsonist and trying to sleep with my best friend's wife, I'm great."
"We've got some good news. Chloe followed up on your Alison Sanders clue." She handed him a newspaper through the bars.
"Apparently our vixen formerly known as Alison was popular with the Smallville boys even as a teenager," Chloe explained.
"She was with her boyfriend when the meteors hit."
"The Ledger article doesn't cover it, but I'll let your mind wander as to what they were doing in the truck by the lake."
"Couple of weeks later, he lost it and murdered her parents. Desiree inherited everything."
"Fast forward five years. Desiree is now a teacher. She marries a wealthy shipping executive, only to see him offed by one of her moonstruck high school students."
"Same confession, same denial six hours later."
"It's the classic black widow scenario. Only after murder number two, this black widow had the misfortune of being heavily invested in dot coms. After she lost all the money, she decided to go after Lex."
"So she tried to seduce me to kill him," Clark put together. "Why'd she think I'd do it?"
"Pheromones!"
"Chloe…"
"Clark, she was in the throes of major passion when the meteors hit! If her pheromone levels were enhanced, she could get a guy to do whatever she wants! Lucky for us, Clark Kent seems to be immune to some members of the opposite sex."
The tension became quite thick at Chloe's words as everyone met eyes with one another, clearly getting her real meaning.
"Time's up, girls!" Sheriff Ethan said, breaking the awkward silence.
"Okay…" Chloe sighed.
"Hey, my dad went to go see Desiree!" Clark said out of earshot of Ethan. "I gotta get out of here!"
Emmeline put her hand on his. "Just hang in there," she said with a comforting smile.
Emmeline walked up to find Clark in the loft. "Hey," she said with a smile.
"Hey," he smiled back.
"So you saved the day again. No more Desiree?"
"No more Desiree."
"Thank goodness. To be able to take away someone's free will like that just…ugh."
Clark laughed lightly. "So…about Chloe…"
"What about Chloe?"
"Why has she been acting so weird lately?"
Emmeline paused, trying to think of the right words to say. "I think that you already know the answer to that."
"So what am I supposed to do?"
"If you want my opinion, both of you need to lay your cards on the table. And I mean really. Because so far, every time I've seen you guys talk about what's going on with you, you both look like you're lying."
"Really?"
"Really." She started for the stairs, but just before she left, she said to him, "You didn't hear this from me, but…there was no intern."
She walked down the stairs and exited the loft, leaving Clark to ponder over what she had left him with.
