When Chloe and Emmeline walked into the Torch office, they didn't expect to see Clark sitting at one of the computers. Nor did they expect to see him in a nice dress shirt rather than his usual plaid.
"What, is flannel too five minutes ago?" Chloe asked jokingly.
Clark didn't answer, and his face looked hard like he wanted to murder someone.
Chloe set her books down and looked at the desk Clark was sitting at. The corner had been completely broken off in a mess of wood and splinters.
"Whoa!" she exclaimed. "Who pulled a Paul Bunyon on the desk?"
"It was that way when I got here," Clark answered flatly.
"Weird."
Clark leaned back in his chair and smiled suavely. "You know, Chloe, I'm concerned about your well-being."
"Oh, yeah? Why's that?" Chloe asked from her desk.
Clark swiveled around in the chair to look at her. "If Lionel Luthor managed somehow to get out of prison, what do you suppose he'd do? About you, I mean."
Emmeline furrowed her brow and looked over at her friend at the completely out-of-the-blue question.
"Why? Has the Lionel Luthor alert suddenly been elevated to orange?" She gave him a confused glance when he didn't answer. "Do you know something I don't?"
Clark wheeled the chair over to her desk. "No. But it always pays to be cautious."
"Well, I'm not exactly shaking in my sneakers. I mean, he won't be eligible for parole until he's, like, 112 so…"
"You never know," her friend said smoothly as he stood up. "He could get out sooner than you think."
"Are you trying to get at something?" Emmeline asked. "What's all the talk about Lionel all of a sudden?"
Clark smiled at her, but she detected a certain…coldness in his eyes. Considering what she had confessed to him a couple days ago, the coldness was extremely out of character for him. His whole demeanor in the past two minutes was out of character.
"Just raising questions you both should think about."
Chloe laughed nervously as Clark walked toward her and she backed away from him. "Yeah, well, I think maybe our quarterback has been sacked one too many times."
"Maybe. I do feel as though I'm looking through a different pair of eyes. I certainly see you in a whole new light."
"Um…I think I'm going to go refill the newspaper stands," Emmeline said awkwardly, eager to get out of this increasingly tense situation.
She quickly left the room, but she stood just outside the door to listen in on what the heck was going on.
"Uh…what exactly is that supposed to mean?" Chloe asked Clark.
"I have to confess that I…I find you absolutely fascinating. It's that twinkle in your eye…your wonderfully sexy smile…and your skin is…"
"Clark, what are you doing?"
"What I've wanted to do for a very…very long time."
There was an extended pause, and Emmeline almost peeked in to see if they were kissing.
But before she could, Clark lowly said, "Don't you wish."
None of what just happened made any sense. Emmeline knew for a fact that Clark did not like Chloe in a romantic way. When she had been hit by the cheerleading love potion, Clark had confessed to her that he didn't feel the same way she did about him. She was pretty certain that his feelings hadn't changed so drastically in a matter of days.
On the unlikely chance that they had, the way he had described Chloe didn't really fit with Clark's speech. He could barely say the word 'sexy' in everyday conversation, much less say it to someone he had an attraction to.
And he would never tease someone like he had just done. He wouldn't dangle what someone wanted right in front of them and then snatch it away, especially something like Chloe's desire for him to see her as more than a friend. It wasn't who he was. It was too cruel.
"Miss Sullivan," Clark said as he headed out the door.
Miss Sullivan? Emmeline mouthed in confusion.
Why would Clark call Chloe Miss Sullivan?
Her eyes widened.
Clark exited the Torch office and without looking at Emmeline, stated, "It's rude to eavesdrop, Miss Brooks."
Emmeline attempted to quickly pull herself together. "I just wanted to ask you something," she said as she put on a small smile to mask her emotions.
"What?"
"Um…remember when we first met and I got my first taste of meteor freak? Oh, shoot…what was that guy's name? Remember? The weird one?"
Clark smiled at her again, but it didn't reach his eyes. "Earl?"
"Oh, yeah, that's right!" she said as if the memory had come back to her. "He was a weird one."
"Right."
Clark briskly walked away from her.
Emmeline couldn't calm her racing heart. While Earl had indeed been a meteor freak and was not the most normal person she had seen, he wasn't her first one.
There was no way Clark would forget his name either. Not after saving her from him and helping her through the trauma that followed.
But she had a pretty good idea of where that guess had stemmed from.
She knew where she needed to go.
Emmeline took a deep breath as she entered the visiting room of Kansas State Penitentiary. This was pretty much the last place she wanted to be. She would rather give a presentation than be here.
Well…maybe not give a presentation…
Lionel Luthor sat at one of the tables. His eyes visibly widened when he saw her.
"Em," he said quietly. Then he quickly corrected himself. "Uh…Miss Brooks."
Emmeline's heart beat faster at the slip-up. She slowly approached the table but didn't sit down.
"There's something I want to ask you," she said to him.
"Okay."
"When Clark and I first met, what did he save me from?"
There was a small pause, and then Lionel let out a small relieved sigh before answering, "Greg Arkin. He had mutated into a bug boy and went after you in order to mate with you. I found you in his treehouse and brought you back home."
Emmeline gasped quietly and took a seat across from him. "It's you."
"Yeah, it's me, Em."
"How did this happen?"
"I don't know."
"Well, do you know how to…reverse it?"
"Maybe. What's happening out there? How did you know it wasn't me?"
Emmeline sighed. "To put it simply, Lionel is ruining your life."
"What do you mean? What is he doing?" She was about to answer but he stopped her. "No, actually, maybe it's better I don't know."
"Really?"
"Really."
"Why not?"
"It will just raise too many questions that I don't know how to answer, and you know how Chloe is about that."
"Okay, well if and when you get back, just know that it's not going to be a warm welcome."
"I'll take note of that. Please be careful now. Lionel probably knows you're on to him."
"You're right. I'll watch out for him."
"Ma'am, your time's up," the guard said to Emmeline.
"Okay," she answered quietly. She turned back to Clark/Lionel. "Watch yourself in here."
"I will," he told her.
She slowly got up to leave.
"Hey, Em?"
She turned back around.
"I'm glad you realized what happened."
Emmeline smiled at him and left the prison.
Alone for once in the Torch office, Emmeline found that it was impossible for her to focus on proofreading with the fear that Lionel could still be waltzing around as Clark.
Soft footsteps approached the office. She looked up to find Clark with a plaid red shirt on. She quickly stood up.
"Em, it's me."
Lionel wouldn't know to call her Em. But it wasn't enough.
"Prove it."
Clark paused for a moment, trying to think of something that only the two of them knew.
"Remember the Nicodemus flower? After you recovered, I took you out to a cliff and helped you to live out your deepest desire. The two of us went to the edge and we just let out a scream."
Emmeline went up to him and hugged him. "Thank goodness."
"Well, you were right. I was not gratefully welcomed back."
"You could just tell them what happened."
"I can't, Em. You have to understand that this has to stay between us."
"Okay. I trust your judgment. Chloe's pretty angry, huh?"
"Not just Chloe."
"Well…if it's any consolation, I'm not mad."
"It's nice to know that at least one person isn't out for my blood." He smiled a little. "You know…you were the only to know that it was really Lionel. I mean, Lex figured it out, but only because Lionel went after him and asked him for 57 million dollars before basically telling him he was his father. But you…he didn't do that with you, and you still knew."
"You're my best friend. Of course I knew."
"You say that, but Lana and Chloe didn't figure it out."
"Well…maybe I know you better than they do. Or maybe I was just looking for the answer more than they were."
"Whatever the reason…thank you."
