When Emmeline pulled up to the Kent farm, she saw Martha outside completing some chores.

"Emmeline, hi!" Martha greeted with a bright smile. "Come on over here!"

"Hi, Mrs. Kent," Emmeline smiled back as she walked over.

"You know, Jonathon and I have been wanting to talk to you."

Emmeline grimaced a little. "Those are words everyone dreads hearing."

Martha laughed. "No, it's nothing bad, I promise." She stopped walking and put down the bucket she was carrying. "We heard that you found out Clark's secret."

"Oh…"

"We just wanted to make sure you know how important it is that it's kept a secret."

"Mrs. Kent, believe me, I would never break his trust like that. I'll take this secret to my grave."

"How much has he told you?"

"On the night I found out, he sat me down and basically told me everything and answered all the questions I had. I guess I always knew there was something about him, but I never knew it would be something like this. Was it ever…hard raising him?"

"Definitely. I mean, raising a child is hard enough but raising one with these kinds of abilities made it that much harder. But I've loved every second of it and wouldn't do a single thing differently."

"He's really lucky he has parents like you guys. I wish everyone who got adopted was that fortunate."

"Me, too."

"Mom!" they heard Clark call. "I have a bit of a problem." The very boy in question came out of the barn and started to walk over to her. Then he caught sight of their guest. "Oh, hey, Em."

"Hi. I'll let you guys talk."

"No, it's okay, you might wanna hear this too."

"What's up?"

"It's Lana. I knew she was never going to let go of that ship she saw in the last meteor shower, but it's gotten worse. She's been studying it. With Lex."

"Lana's helping Lex study the black ship?" Martha asked in surprise.

"She's got a detailed drawing from LuthorCorp. She's been lying to me for weeks."

"Well, you haven't exactly been honest with her, either, Clark. Sometimes, the truth isn't easy to share with the one you love, especially if you think it might hurt them."

"It's just everything was so perfect with Lana when I lost my abilities. Now that I have them back, all I do is lie to her. About the ship, about why I…I just wish I could tell her."

"Well, I'm not saying you should, but Pete found out the truth, and Chloe and Emmeline, and they accepted you for who you are."

"Yeah. I'm an alien."

"No, as their friend, whom they love very much no matter what star you were born under."

"I'm just not sure Lana's gonna feel the same way."

"Then maybe she's not the one you were meant to be with."

"Mom, I can't imagine ever loving anyone else."

Emmeline wasn't completely sure why that statement seemed to bug her. Maybe it was because she wanted so badly what Clark and Lana had. Or…could it be because she had…feelings for…?

Their conversation was cut off by the sound of a vehicle crunching on the gravel. Lois hopped out of her bright red car.

"Hey, Smallville, Mrs. Kent, Emmeline. Have you guys seen the future, uh, senator? It's 'crunch time', and we've got some billionaire butt to kick."

"I think he's in the barn, Lois," Martha answered.

"Hmm. Salt of the earth. Voters love that." She looked over at Clark and saw his incredibly forlorn look. "Turn that frown upside down, Skippy, all right? Unhappy family members reflect badly at the polls."

She roughly hit him on the arm as she headed out to the barn.

Emmeline giggled at Clark's frustrated expression.

"I'm looking forward to this campaign being over," he lamented.

Martha nodded in agreement before leaving Clark and Emmeline alone so she could finish up her chores.

Clark groaned as he leaned his head back. "Why do relationships have to be so hard?"

"In your defense, you have a bit more to worry about than the average dating person. You really don't want to tell her, do you?"

"The biggest thing I'm worried about is how she'll react. But I'm also worried about what might happen to her. Pete had to face a lot of trouble after he found out because of people who wanted to know the truth."

"Well, if he felt anything like I do, it doesn't matter. To know that you trust us enough to keep that secret feels pretty good even if it can be a burden sometimes."

"I guess. It's just…right before Pete left, he said that he was constantly worried he was going to slip up. It…was a huge part of the reason he left in the first place."

Emmeline felt her stomach flip. She really didn't want to be mad at Clark for that, but a small piece of her felt a little resentful that Pete had broken up with her because of him.

"I don't know if I could let Lana know that burden."

"Clark, I told you before that it's probably not going to be possible for you two to be together unless she knows the truth. But…I think you know that."

"I wish I had never gotten my abilities back."

Emmeline took a deep breath. "You realize that I'd be dead if you hadn't, right?"

"Em—"

"Clark, I've had your back a lot, and I've tried really hard to stay objective and give you advice, but you can only stay in a pity party for so long before it starts affecting other people. And to be honest…it's a little insulting that just because you can't have one thing because of your powers, you would sacrifice everything and everyone else for it."

Emmeline stormed off back to her car.

No, she didn't have feelings for him. Not at all.

Maybe she had been a little too harsh because she knew that it couldn't be easy for Clark to keep something so huge a secret all the time, but to hear someone she cared about all but say that her death was better than having powers sort of struck a nerve.

It probably didn't help that she had his comment about Pete added into the mix.

She just needed some time to cool off.


Emmeline went up to work on homework with Chloe since doing homework was much less hateable when another person was in the vicinity.

Plus it would do her good to get her mind off Clark for a little while.

That plan quickly failed when Clark zoomed into the dorm room, sending all their papers flying from the resulting wind.

"Clark!" Chloe groaned. "Can you at least put on the brakes before you tornado our homework?"

"Sorry," Clark apologized.

At the sight of his face, the blonde sighed and gathered her remaining papers. "All right. Dostoevsky's 'Idiot' isn't gonna get any smarter. So, come on. Miss Sullivan's advice column is open for letters."

Emmeline smiled a little at Chloe's metaphor.

"Lana and I had another fight," Clark told her.

"I know. Em told me about your conversation, not to mention she called me right after the big blowout."

"What'd she say?"

"Just the headlines: spaceship, boyfriend that always changes the subject, forced to turn to everyone's favorite villain-in-waiting."

"How long has she been working on this with Lex?"

"I don't know, actually. This is the first I've ever heard of it."

"Next time she calls, you have to find out how long they've been working together."

Chloe frowned. "Are you asking me to spy on Lana?"

"It's very important."

"I understand. And you're my friend, Clark, but so is Lana. And there is no way I'm getting in the middle of this."

Clark was certainly building up a lot of strikes against him today. First, his offhanded remark about his powers, and now he wanted Chloe to play his messenger?

He really was frustrated with this whole thing.

Chloe's cellphone started ringing, so she got up off the bed to answer it.

"Is that Lana?" Clark asked quickly.

Chloe gave him a look before answering the phone. "Hello? Yes, this is Chloe Sullivan. Where?"

Emmeline looked at her when her voice suddenly grew concerned.

"No. No, she-she hasn't been back to the dorm at all. Yeah, I will, I will. Thank you."

Chloe nervously hung up.

"What happened?" Clark asked.

"Uh, that was the Smallville sheriff's department."

"Is something wrong?"

"They found Lana's car abandoned on the side of the road."

The three in the room shared nervous glances, all anger completely replaced with frantic worry.

While Clark went to find out what the sheriff knew, Emmeline and Chloe rushed down to the Daily Planet to await his news.

When he returned, he brought with him a GPS tracker, and Chloe immediately began her thorough search on the piece of equipment.

"Why is this taking so long?" Clark asked impatiently.

"Well, getting past the server's firewall and the encryption protocol takes a little bit of time. Sorry, Clark, but I don't have a superspeed mode." She pushed him out of her desk chair. "Get out of here." She looked at her computer and smiled. "But I am the slickest blonde you'll ever meet. Okay. So it looks like the serial number for the GPS you found matches a unit sold to a Gregory Flynn."

"What have you got on him?"

"In a couple of seconds, everything."

She typed some more nonsense into the computer and it began searching for this Flynn person.

Chloe looked at Clark's worried expression. "Clark, Lana's gonna be okay. She has you, doesn't she?"

The computer beeped, indicating it had finished searching.

"Oh, here we go. 'Flynn, Gregory R.'."

To their surprise, the picture of him showed a Smallville sheriff uniform.

"He's a Smallville sheriff's officer," Clark said.

"Yeah, up until a couple of months ago. He was put on psychiatric leave because he was wounded and his entire unit was killed during the meteor shower." Chloe's eyes widened. "Clark, he was there when the spaceship landed."

"Yeah, when those Kryptonians murdered everyone."

"Yeah, but Flynn survived the attack. Man, seeing something like that, I mean, all those people you work with, your friends." She stood up from her chair and grabbed her purse. "No wonder he had a psychotic break. Let's go."

"Why would he kidnap Lana?"

"I don't know, but she was there too. So I thought maybe if we could get ahold of his psych workup, we can get in his head and figure out what it is he's up to."

"Yeah."

Emmeline sighed. If anyone should look at a psych workup, it would be her, but she wished she didn't have to keep getting this kind of unscheduled practice.


The three of them headed to the Psychiatry Wing of Smallville General. When they approached, they saw a guard sitting at a desk at the entrance to the wing.

"Okay, this is what we're gonna do," Chloe said quietly as they looked through the door. "You guys are gonna wait here. I'm gonna double back around and see if I can hack into the visitors' list to get us some passes so that then we can come back in and maybe get right by that guy right there."

"I got it," Clark stated.

He super-sped away from them and returned in less than a second.

"What did you do?"

The guard opened up his soda and the liquid inside foamed up and spilled all over him.

Chloe chuckled. "Super shake."

Sure enough, the guard left the desk unattended so he could clean himself up.

"Not bad. Not bad."

They all quietly entered the wing, making sure to keep looking around so they didn't get caught, and entered one of the offices to see what they could find.

"All right," Chloe said. "Let's look around for something on our friend, Gregory."

She, Clark, and Emmeline spread out and scanned the shelves and the desk for anything that could answer why Lana had been taken.

"Hey, hey, I found something," Emmeline said. She held up a DVD marked 'G. Flynn Session #3'. "Maybe this will help."

"Let's get it in the computer," Chloe stated as she took the DVD from her.

She inserted the DVD into the player and started up the video file.

Gregory sat in a chair with his arm bandaged up and an orderly standing behind him. A man sat in a chair across from him calmly listening to his story.

"I'm not crazy," Gregory said firmly.

"No one's saying that," the man answered.

"Then why won't you believe me? I saw a ship crash in the meteor shower. I saw what came out of it."

"Gregory."

"They hit us with some kind of heat beams from their eyes. They took out the cars and the helicopter. I was pinned. I could smell something burning. It was me. I was burning. But I didn't scream. I didn't make a sound 'cause they would have seen me."

"Who?"

"Those things from the ship. They killed everyone. Everyone except the girl. She got away."

"Lana," Clark put together.

"Gregory, we've been through this," the psychiatrist told him. "There is no ship. Your team was hit by a meteor."

"That is what he wants you to believe!" Gregory yelled. "I saw him take the ship. I am not crazy!"

He stood up in a rage and was immediately restrained by two orderlies.

"Ask Lex Luthor! He knows the truth! He has the ship!"

"Lex," Chloe exclaimed quietly. "Clark, that's where they must be."

She and Emmeline looked up to find him gone.

"Man, I wish I could do that."

Emmeline rubbed her fingers against her lips as she looked at the paused video on the screen. "It must be so difficult…seeing something so awful and having no one believe you."

"I think he had some issues before all this."

"Maybe, but this certainly didn't help. All he wanted was for someone to believe him. You know…I'm probably the best person for this kind of thing. I've seen so many things that nothing seems like a stretch anymore. People like him just need the reassurance that someone believes them. I know that sometimes when it comes to things like this, I may have to do some major damage control, but at least I'll have a better understanding of the people who see these things."

Chloe smiled a little. "You picked a good major."


"Hey, Clark!" Emmeline called as she walked on campus from her last class.

Clark turned and smiled at her. "Hey, Em."

"How's Lana doing?"

"Well…she's pulling more and more away from me and getting closer and closer to Lex. I know it's because I haven't been honest with her, but there's so many problems that could come from telling her the truth."

"Yeah, but what's worse? Her finding out or you losing her completely? Things may happen if she learns the truth, but you'll always be there for her."

"You know, I kind of wanted to talk to you. About what I said—"

Emmeline shook her head. "No, that's not on you. Clark, you have to spend all your life harboring a huge secret, and I could never begin to understand what that's like for you. You were just thinking about things in the moment, and I shouldn't have taken it all so personally."

"I just hope you know that if I had to choose between not having my powers and your life, you win by light years."

Emmeline smiled a little. "Thanks. I know you sometimes see your abilities as a hindrance, but when it comes down to it, they're a blessing in disguise."

Clark put his arm around her shoulders. "I don't know what I did to deserve you."

Emmeline's stomach flipped again. Maybe…she did have feelings…?