Fair warning that the next few chapters are going to be a little slow because there aren't a whole lot of places to put Emmeline.


When Lois was arrested at Met U for allegedly paralyzing another student, Emmeline couldn't believe that. Lois may be a very blunt, sassy, defiant woman, but she even she couldn't paralyze someone in just one blow.

Finding the real paralyzer was going to be a bit of a challenge.

"He was no Prince Charming, but nobody deserves to have that happen to them," Lois lamented to Chloe and Emmeline. "He can't even speak. I feel terrible."

"Lois, it doesn't take an M.D. to know that a kick to the gut is not gonna cause head-to-toe paralysis," Chloe told her cousin.

Lois took off her sunglasses, still fighting a massive hangover from the night before. "I hope the judge agrees. Otherwise, I'm gonna be the star of my very own 'woman-in-prison' movie."

"How did you post bail?"

"Four very good friends of mine. Visa, Mastercard, American Express, and Discover. Chloe, I didn't know where else to go."

"No, lucky for you, I'm on my way to Met U for my financial aid pitch. Why don't we just, um, round trip together and we'll figure this thing out."

Clark walked up behind them and joined in. "Lois, I heard what happened."

Lois gave him a thin smile. "I see news travels fast."

"The guy that you put in the hospital? It's Geoff's roommate."

Clark gestured down the hall where an older college student was speaking with some of the students from Smallville High.

"Who's Geoff?" Emmeline asked.

"He's a football player at Met U. He's going to show me around campus and introduce me to the coach and some other people."

"So you're really going to go to college for football?"

Clark smiled broadly. "Yeah."

Lois sighed heavily, bringing the conversation back to her problem. "Clark, I swear, all I did was knock the wind out of him. I couldn't have paralyzed him."

"You were drinking, right?"

"Those days are over. No more alcohol. And that includes cough syrup and rum cakes." The bell rang, and Lois groaned and put her hand to her head. "Aspirin? Anyone?"

Chloe smiled pitifully. "Torch, desk drawer on the left-hand side."

As Lois quickly went to the Torch office to ease her hangover, Clark came up to Chloe apologetically. "Listen, Chloe, I know that we were supposed to drive to Met U today, but since Geoff is here, I was just gonna—"

"Yeah. No, I understand. Star quarterback, you don't want to ride with the common folk."

"You know it's not like that."

"It's fine, Clark." Clark started to walk away, but Chloe quickly added, "Hey, uh, Clark, I'm actually kind of surprised that you took the football route."

"Why?"

"Well…I don't know, it just seems like you have kind of an unfair advantage."

Emmeline looked at her in confusion. Why would Clark have an unfair advantage over everyone else? He was human just like they were.

"What do you mean?" Clark asked, equally confused.

"Well, it's just you have all of these truly amazing talents. Um, you know, on the field."

"Well, you know, that's the way it is in sports. Some people are better than others."

"Right. I guess I just don't understand as much as I thought I did. About football."

"Chloe—"

Clark was cut off when Geoff grabbed him from behind. "Let's go, C.K. The festivities are about to begin."

The college student escorted Clark away from them.

Emmeline decided to ignore Chloe's strange behavior for the moment. "So Met U is really where you wanna go?"

Chloe smiled at her. "If I get financial aid. I'm a little short after everything that happened with my dad last year."

"Yeah, I understand that."

"Speaking of, how is your mom doing?"

"She's getting worse. It isn't completely horrible yet, but it's not good."

"I'm sorry. Do you still plan on going to college then?"

"Oh, yeah. Mom made it very clear that everything happening with her was not an excuse to not go to college. I think I'm going to go to Central Kansas though. I mean, with all the medical bills and only Dad's salary, I can't afford to go out-of-state. And this way, I can just commute and save money by not living in the dorms. Besides, I don't really want to leave Dad's side after all of this."

"Wow. Have you decided what you want to major in yet?"

Emmeline sighed. "No. I've been thinking a lot about it, but nothing has come to mind yet."

"It doesn't have to be right away. You can go in 'Undeclared'."

"Yeah, I know. But I'd like to get started as soon as I can." She smirked at her best friend. "I assume you will be majoring in Journalism?"

"What else?"

The two friends laughed together.

"You wanna come up with me and Lois to Met U? Maybe you can help us figure out who really paralyzed this guy."

"Count me in."


The first place the girls went was the hospital where Coop, Geoff's roommate, had been put after he had been discovered.

Lois leaned over the paralyzed boy. "Coop? Can you hear me? It's Lois, your, um, drinking buddy. I'm so sorry this happened to you, but I swear I didn't do it." She looked over at Chloe and Emmeline sadly. "Last night, I would've given anything to shut him up. And now…"

Chloe put her arm around her. "Come on, Lois. We gotta get out of here before someone sees you."

Lois stopped when she saw all the flowers on the table in the room. "Maybe someone close to Coop knows something we don't."

Chloe opened one of the cards. "Lois, I don't think that Grandma Betty from Topeka is gonna have the answer."

"But his girlfriend, Monique, might." She showed the two girls another card from a sorority on campus.

"How do you know it's his girlfriend?"

"When the card ends with 'I'll love you forever and ever', it's a bit of a giveaway."


Things took a turn for the worse when Coop died in the hospital. This obviously made Lois a lot more on edge because if no one proved she didn't accidentally paralyze him, she could go to jail for manslaughter.

Chloe sat in Lois's dorm room filling out her application for financial aid. Emmeline had spent a few hours with her helping her to rehearse her presentation for the board.

"Chloe, if you're trying to milk any money out of this university, you may not want to be seen within 100 feet of me," Lois told her regretfully.

"Lois, you're innocent, and this autopsy is more than likely gonna prove that," Chloe answered.

Lois looked over her shoulder at the application. "Your father's birth city? What, are you applying for financial aid or for the CIA?"

Chloe laughed. "I know."

A knock sounded on the door and Clark entered the dorm.

"Hey, Clark," Lois greeted. "Something wrong?"

"I think Geoff Johns paralyzed Coop," Clark stated bluntly.

"What?"

"He's passing his physicals by using another student's urine samples."

"Black market pee? What's he trying to cover up? Drugs?"

"I, uh, I don't think so. I think it's something else. I just saw him touch this kid, and he put him straight to the ground like he hit him with a stun gun. And the linebackers, they always say when they get stiff-armed by Geoff Johns, they don't know what hit them. They go down to the turf every time. I think he has a meteor power."

"Using your powers on the field to cheat is pathetic, but it's not paralyzing someone."

"What if he can control the intensity when he stuns someone?"

"Well, if that's true, you're gonna have to find a way to prove it because nobody outside the Smallville city limits is gonna believe the Bulldog superstar has superhuman powers."

"Unfortunately, she has a point," Emmeline told him. "Even some people in Smallville don't believe it."

"The pee peddler might know the truth about Geoff," Chloe put in.

"Can you track him down?" Clark asked.

"Yeah."

"I'm gonna go to the football dorm. I'm gonna try to find Geoff before he can hurt someone else."

Emmeline sighed. "So we can't get away from these guys even when we're not in Smallville."

While Clark tried to find Geoff, the three girls found who was dealing out Geoff's…samples and went to go find out what he knew.

They walked through the university until they found him chaining his bike up and getting ready to head to class.

"Time to see what Mr. Peebody knows," Lois said lowly.

Chloe nodded. "We're gonna go door-to-door in the dorm and see if we can get any insight into the real Geoff Johns."

Chloe and Emmeline headed inside the building, but it didn't take long for them to come to an obstacle.

When Chloe tried the door to get inside the dorms, it wouldn't open without a pass.

"Ah, crap," Chloe groaned. "Come on, we need to go grab Lois's card."

They quickly retraced their steps and went outside the building.

"Lois!" Chloe called. "We need your pass to get in the dorm! Lois?"

A black car belonging to Geoff sped off.

Lois was nowhere in sight.

"Lois!" Chloe called again.

"Chloe," Emmeline said quietly pointing to the ground.

Chloe looked at where she was pointing and knelt down. Her heart sinking, she picked up a pair of broken sunglasses.

"Lois…"


"Clark," Chloe called as he exited one of the buildings. "Clark, I think Geoff has Lois."

"Where?" Clark asked quickly.

"I don't know. But we were in the parking lot and the next I thing I knew, Geoff Johns' car is flying by and Lois is gone. Em and I tried to talk to the campus police but they weren't any help. I mean, to them, Geoff is like a hero. They worship the ground he walks on. Lois could be anywhere by now, Clark."

"No, if they're in his car, there might be a way to track them down."

"I hate to break it to you, but this is a little bit bigger city than Smallville."

"He got his car from a booster at Metropolis Motors. It's got a Trip Star system in it. If we can get the PIN number, we can use your cell phone and computer and maybe hack in and find out where they are."

"Okay, that's doable, but then how are we gonna get the PIN? I mean, they keep those things under lock and key at the dealership. What are you gonna do, break in and rip open the safe?"

Clark looked at her strangely. "Of course not."

For some reason, the tension between them increased and Emmeline didn't know the reason why.

It wasn't the first time this had happened either.


"Are we in yet?" Clark asked impatiently as Chloe attempted to hack into Geoff's car.

"Yeah," Chloe answered as she pulled up the Trip Star website up. "All we got to do is dial up, use the code, and do our best impression of Geoff Johns." She smiled a little as Clark dialed the phone. "You know, that was a pretty quick errand, Clark. I mean, Metro Motors is all the way on the other side of the city."

"…I hurried."

"Hello, Mr. Johns," a woman on the phone said. "How may I help you?"

Clark quickly put the phone to his ear. "Hello. Hi." He nervously cleared his throat and lowered his voice. "Um, I'm driving in Metropolis and I seem to have made a wrong turn. There's no street signs and my map screen is broken. Could you tell me where I am?"

"No problem, sir. One moment."

A map appeared on Chloe's screen, revealing Geoff's location.

"You're at 3rd and Grant. Have a nice day."

"Thank you."

Chloe quickly closed her laptop. "Great. All right. Let's go. I'll drive."

Emmeline went to grab her things. When she looked back up, Clark was gone.

"Clark?"

Emmeline sighed. "I'm telling you, one of these days, we are going to figure out how he does that."

Chloe smiled, and Emmeline could've sworn she looked nervous. "Uh-huh."

"You know, you've been acting really weird. Is there something you're not telling me?"

"…No."

"But if there was something, you would tell me, right?"

"Of course."

"Are…are you trying to get Clark to admit something?"

"What do you mean?"

"Well, it just feels like you've been baiting him for the past couple of days. Do you know something about him that I don't?"

"If Clark wants to tell us something, I'm sure he will when the time is right."


Geoff nearly drowned Lois after paralyzing her, but Clark managed to apprehend Geoff and pull her out of the water before too much entered her lungs.

"Hey!" Emmeline smiled as she entered Clark's loft. "How's Lois doing?"

"She's good," Clark replied. "The paralysis number Geoff did on her wore off, so she's back to her usual snarky self."

"Good to hear."

"It's hard to believe that someone as nice as Geoff could kill his own roommate just to protect his reputation."

"Some people can't handle pressure very well."

"It's made me wonder if Met U and football is the right choice for me. What do you think?"

"Well, Geoff started using his powers on people because of all the pressure he was under. He was so desperate to win all of his games that he felt he had to do whatever it took, right?"

"Yeah."

"Then you have to ask yourself, when that time comes, and it will come, are you going to want to do the same thing?"


Clark walked down the halls of Smallville High to head to his next class, a part of him wondering what the heck he was supposed to do after he graduated.

"Hey!" Chloe exclaimed as she and Emmeline started walking next to him. "Looks like you've got a carpool buddy for weekenders back to Smallville!"

"You got into Met U?" Clark asked excitedly.

"I just told Em! The financial aid guy said that it's pretty much a lock. Can you believe it? Now I don't actually have to rob banks."

"Oh, Chloe, congratulations. You deserve it."

"Thank you. You just have to promise me one thing: that once you're everybody's all-American, you will still remember your old high school buddies. I mean, you'll still say hi to me on campus and stuff."

"Yeah, um, well, I'm not going to Met U."

"What?" Chloe said in disbelief. She stepped in front of him to make him stop walking. "What happened? Did another school sweep down and give you the keys to the kingdom?"

"I'm not playing football anymore. I turned down my scholarship."

Emmeline thought back to their conversation in his loft. She had a feeling she had something to do with this decision. Maybe Clark had decided that he wouldn't be able to handle all of the pressure that came with playing football. She was impressed he had made such a difficult decision.

"Let me get this straight," Chloe continued, still confused. "You were offered a full ride with chrome wheels to play the game that you love, and you said 'Thanks, but no thanks'?"

"I don't know. I'm just not sure that football's my calling."

Chloe smiled a little. "I'm proud of you, Clark."

"You're proud of me? Why?"

"I just have a feeling that you're destined to do a lot more in this world than just score touchdowns."

"Chloe, you've been saying a lot of weird things to me lately. What makes you think I'm destined to do anything?"

"Just a hunch."