Things had been pretty tough for the Kent family after the loss of Jonathon. Clark had since dropped out of Central Kansas for the remainder of the semester and closed himself off to everyone else.

On top of all that, when Martha went to drop off some of Jonathon's old things at a shelter for the homeless in Metropolis, she was attacked by two thugs. A mysterious vigilante rescued her but not before the thugs took Jonathon's watch, something very precious to both Martha and Clark.

"I just spent half the night down at Metropolis P.D," Clark lamented to Chloe and Emmeline. "There's not one person down there who can tell me anything about who mugged my mom."

"Yeah, I've got that covered," Chloe answered. "My mole down at the precinct said he'd fax me the police report as soon as he got it. So, your mom actually saw the vigilante?"

"Barely. She left just before the police got there."

"Do you know that there have been rumors about her flying around Suicide Slums for weeks? But I couldn't get a confirmed eyewitness until your mom. Now this has 'front-page news' written all over it. The vigilante is for real."

Chloe proudly showed off her evidence on the lit table which included several police reports and sketches about the mysterious woman.

Clark picked up one of the papers. "This is great, Chloe," he said sarcastically. "I let my mom go down to Suicide Slums alone, she gets mugged, and you're cashing in on it."

Chloe frowned from her desk. "Clark, I was just trying to help. You don't have to bite my head off."

"I should have just accepted the watch, like my dad would have wanted. I couldn't even look at it. Now all I can think about is getting it back."

Clark turned to leave and plowed right into another employee, sending her stack of papers all over the floor.

"I'm sorry," the woman apologized as she and Clark quickly picked up all the papers.

"Sorry," Clark added sheepishly.

The woman turned and handed Chloe some papers. "Uh, they're today's obits."

"Thanks," Chloe smiled.

Clark handed her the rest of her papers before she quickly hurried off.

The three of them waited for the police report to come in, but Chloe was a little too excited about the newest vigilante roaming the streets and getting her name somewhere instead of Page 83.

"All right, now this is what I need, Clark: a catchy moniker for our new crime-fighter. 'Miss Death Wish'. No, that's lame. 'Dirty Harriet'. No, that's too derivative. I got it. I got it, Clark. So, your mom said that she swooped down from the heavens. So how about 'The Angel of Vengeance'?"

She eagerly typed the new name into the headline on her formatted newspaper page.

"Chloe, police report," Clark said firmly.

"Right. I'm sorry, Clark. Once I go Woodward and Bernstein, I get carried away. I'll go check the fax."

While Chloe left to retrieve the document from the fax machine, Emmeline leaned against the desk. "How are you holding up?" she asked.

Clark avoided her gaze. "I'm fine."

"I know for a fact that you are not. There is no way you've been through all five steps of the grieving process in a week."

"Not everyone goes through that process."

"Maybe not, but you would be very hard-pressed to find the people who didn't. Your dad was a huge part of your life, and it's okay to feel upset and angry and depressed. But you can't box all those emotions or you'll feel so much worse."

Their conversation was cut off when they noticed the very vigilante they had been discussing a few minutes ago holding Chloe threateningly in her arms.

Clark ran over to her. "Hey, what are you doing?!"

The woman tossed Chloe away before turning and hitting Clark on his chest. He flew across the room and crashed into one of the desks, shattering it.

She hopped up onto Chloe's desk. "Stay out of my way," she growled. "I'm one of the good guys."

"Clark!" Chloe called.

The woman flinched at the sound of her voice and zoomed out of the room.

Emmeline and Chloe quickly came to his side as Clark stood back up.

"Clark, are you all right?" Chloe asked.

"Yeah…"

All of them looked in the direction the woman had gone. She was an 'Angel of Vengeance' all right. Emphasis on the 'Vengeance'.

Chloe left the room to retrieve the papers she had spilled during her little run-in with the female vigilante.

"I guess Round One goes to the 'x' chromosomes, huh?" she smiled as she returned. "And how about that costume? How cool was that?"

"A little over the top, if you ask me," Clark said. "Police reports?"

"Oh, yeah, of course." She handed him the stack of papers. "You know, chokehold and everything aside, I've got to give the girl props for patrolling the streets. Now, I just wonder if we're dealing with natural-born-ninja territory or if she's just another garden-variety meteor freak."

"Whoever she is, she's got issues."

"Aw, come on, Clark. You can't tell me that you've never crossed any boundaries to protect your identity."

"It looks like I'm gonna have to get to know her a lot more than I wanted to. The police have no leads. Your 'Angel of Vengeance' might be the only one who can I.D. the guys who mugged my mom."

"Well, after the way she chop-sockied you tonight, I wouldn't hold out for an invitation to tea."

"I might not have to."


And that was how the three of them found themselves on an abandoned street in Metropolis.

Or more accurately, several abandoned streets.

Emmeline watched from a distance while Chloe aimlessly walked down the street, her bag over her shoulder. She approached her red car and sifted through the bag to find her keys.

Suddenly, a man in a ski mask appeared from the alley behind her and attempted to snatch the bag from her.

"No!" Chloe screamed, holding onto the bag. "No! Please, help! No, no!"

"Give me your purse!" the 'thug' ordered.

"Help! No! Help me, please! Help me!" Chloe abruptly stopped screaming and whipped off her white hat in frustration. "All right, you know what? We've taken this show on the road all over town, and this obviously isn't working."

Emmeline laughed a little as she came over the join them. They had been at this for over an hour, and still no female vigilante.

"'Cause you're not screaming loud enough," Clark told her.

"Clark! I have freaked out every alley cat within a four-block radius!"

"Look, let's just go one more time. One more, come on." He held out the strap of the bag for her. "Take it, come on."

Chloe rolled her eyes and took the bag strap.

"Ready? Go."

Clark began tugging on the strap again.

"No, help, please," Chloe screamed half-heartedly.

"Come on!"

"No. Please, help."

Clark whipped off the ski mask. "You've got to give it some feeling, some passion!"

Emmeline took the strap from Chloe. "Let me try."

Chloe raised her eyebrows in surprise and reluctantly stepped back.

Emmeline looked at Clark when he wasn't taking the strap. "Come on, try to rob me."

Clark blinked a couple times. "Uh, okay."

He began trying to steal the bag from her. Emmeline gripped the bag tightly and let an ear-shattering scream.

The female vigilante landed behind Clark. "You again."

She began fighting Clark as Chloe and Emmeline quickly moved away so as not to become collateral.

"Look, I didn't come here for a fight," Clark said quickly after catching her arm.

"Well, I'm not wearing dance shoes."

She tried to hit Clark, but he caught her elbow and tossed her into a set of pipes, removing her mask in the process.

She slowly stepped out of the resulting steam from the broken pipes and they all saw that it was Andrea from the Daily Planet.

She used her feet to once again ram Clark in the chest, sending him flying into a wire gate.

Chloe and Emmeline watched in amazement as Andrea jumped up fifty feet and landed on various objects until she reached the top of the nearest building.

Clark quickly zoomed after her to meet her.

Chloe turned and faced Emmeline. "Okay, where did that come from?"

Emmeline smiled a little. "I don't really know. I kinda just recalled how I felt every time I was at the mercy of a meteor freak and brought it here."

"You should've done this instead of me. We could've saved an hour."


While Clark was with Andrea attempting to piece together her life and how they could get his father's watch back, Chloe and Emmeline returned to the Daily Planet since there wasn't much else they could do.

They heard the doors to the room open and stepped back inside the newsroom to find a new visitor.

"Mrs. Kent, what are you doing here?" Chloe smiled.

"Looking for Clark," Martha answered. "Have either of you seen him?"

"Yeah. About an hour ago. He left us holding the bag, literally. Hey, you know, we heard what happened. It's good to see that you're okay. Don't worry about Clark. I'm sure he'll pop up again soon, or blur in, or whatever it is he does."

"He's been gone all night. He's not answering his cellphone. It's not like him."

"There's a lot that's not been like him lately."

"He's trying to find those guys, isn't he? Chloe, I know you have a lot of secrets you have to keep, but this isn't one of them."

Chloe paused for a moment, wondering if she should tell the truth or not. Finally, she said, "He feels really guilty about the watch."

"And me?"

"Well, honestly, right now, he's willing to feel anything except for the pain of saying goodbye."

Martha sighed sympathetically. "But that doesn't keep it from being real. The more he refuses to go through this, the worse it's gonna get."

"I know. I'm trying to do everything I can, but I don't think denial is that unusual."

"Yeah, it's part of the grieving process," Emmeline put in. "It's totally normal."

"Denial may be normal, but Clark isn't," Martha said. "He's got to take all those emotions out somewhere."

"Or on someone," Chloe added.

"And when he does, I'm afraid of what might happen. We all know what he's capable of."

"Yeah, but Clark's always managed to keep things in perspective."

"It's just that…Jonathan was always there. He always knew what to say."

"Mrs. Kent, I don't think that he was the only one."

"When he died…I really didn't know if I could keep the secret by myself. It's good to know the two of you are here. Thank you."

"He's gonna be okay." Chloe gently hugged Martha. "We won't let anything happen to him."

"Mrs. Kent, if you ever need someone to talk to, we're always here," Emmeline told her with a small smile.

"Thank you."


Clark sped back into the Daily Planet but with one less female.

"Where's Andrea?" Emmeline asked.

"Changing out of her outfit…in, uh, the phone booth," Clark answered, careful to keep his gaze completely away from the glass booth. He handed Chloe a phone. "This belonged the go the guy who robbed my mom. They called him 'Snake'. Can you check the last number he dialed?"

Chloe smirked as she took the phone from him. "Well, I guess my 'go-to' status has been reinstated. For a while there, I thought maybe I'd been replaced by the leather-clad version."

Andrea finished changing and stepped out of the booth with her large bag she used to store her costume.

"Do you always change in a phone booth?" Clark asked.

"The janitor was in the bathroom," she replied.

She sifted through her bag and pulled out a set of contact lenses.

"I thought the glasses were fake," Chloe said.

"Are you kidding? I'm blind as a bat. Besides, the mask doesn't look so good with glasses over it."

"Acuvue to the rescue."

Andrea smiled as she returned to the newsroom. "Those were some impressive moves you used to jack that phone. I could use a sidekick more often."

"I'm not a sidekick," Clark told her.

Emmeline and Chloe laughed a little at his offended reaction to being called a sidekick by a woman.

They all headed over to Andrea's computer.

"We should find a reverse phone list," Clark stated.

"Yeah, and then maybe we can just bypass the log-on page," Chloe added.

Andrea sat down at her desk. "Got it covered."

Chloe came up behind her. "That's why you work here, isn't it? Because nothing happens in Metropolis without going through the Daily Planet."

"Way to put the pieces together, Brenda Starr." She put the phone number into her program to find out who the owner was. "Unless Snake's real name is Beatrice Krauss, I think he's using a stolen phone."

"Can you pull up the outgoing calls?" Clark asked.

Andrea quickly pulled up the phone's call list.

"It looks like he's a proud supporter of 'Fantasy Fone'," Chloe remarked sarcastically.

"More importantly, deep-dish pizza." Clark took out the phone and called the pizza place Snake had repeatedly ordered from. "Yeah, I'd like to make an order for delivery. My number is 555-0138." He waited for the worker to reply. "1436 Stanton Street. Yes, that's my address. Thank you."

Chloe went over to her desk. "Looks like it's time to call the police."

"No," Clark and Andrea said at the same time.

Chloe turned around in surprise. "Clark, don't you think you're a little too close to this?"

"Chloe, if I don't use my abilities to stop lowlifes like this, what's the point in having them?"

"You're not in the right frame of mind," Emmeline said firmly. "It would be one thing to go after him on a normal day, but you are not feeling normal right now."

"There's no such thing as normal for me!" he snapped.

"See? You're wound tight enough to snap, and you're going to regret it if you snap while you're out hunting this guy down."

"Em's right," Chloe said. "I really don't think that you should be go—"

Clark sped off before she could finish the sentence. Chloe and Emmeline sighed heavily.

Andrea looked in the direction he had gone then at both of the girls. "Don't worry. I'll keep an eye on him."

Somehow, Emmeline didn't think Andrea would be much help.


Strike that. Emmeline knew Andrea wouldn't be any help.

Worried about Clark while in such a vulnerable state with a woman whose anger threatened to consume her, she ran after the two of them.

When she found him, he was lying on the ground with a familiar green glow about him.

"Clark!" she cried. She urgently ran over to him and tossed the green kryptonite necklace away from him so he would no longer feel the deadly effects. "Are you all right?"

She looked over and there sat a dead body with a knife sticking out of his chest. She guess it was the one called Snake since he had a tattoo of a snake on his cheek.

"Clark…"

"It wasn't me," he said quickly.

He stood up just as someone called, "Snake?"

A man with jagged scarred lines on his face walked into the alley and saw the dead body of his comrade.

Clark quickly pushed Emmeline behind him.

The man glared at Clark. "You're a dead man."

He tried to punch him, but Clark simply pushed him hard into the wire gate where he fell unconscious.

He turned to face Emmeline. "I gotta go. Andrea's going after Lionel. Get back to the Daily Planet now before something happens."

Emmeline nodded and watched Clark speed off to save Lionel. And Andrea…from herself.


After the very long night involving Andrea nearly killing Lionel, Clark managed to save the businessman but Andrea had disappeared without a trace.

Emmeline slowly climbed the stairs to the loft and saw Clark staring aimlessly into space as he sat on the floor leaning against the sofa. She smiled a little when she saw that he had gotten his father's watch back. She didn't know how that had happened, but that wasn't her main concern.

Clark's eyes glistened with unshed tears, and it was the first time she had seen him exhibit any healthy emotion since the funeral.

She wordlessly took a seat next to him. They sat in comfortable silence for several minutes.

"You know, when my mom died," she began, "I spent a lot of time feeling angry at…everyone and everything. The doctors for not doing enough for her, the other patients who took the ambulances we needed, my dad for not being more assertive about her needs, myself for making her come to my graduation in the first place, both my parents for living in a place where meteor showers happened, the meteors themselves, Mom for not being strong enough to hold on…"

Emmeline faltered a little, and it took a moment for her to continue.

"I also hated everyone I passed on the street. I hated them for acting normally. I hated them for going about their daily lives when mine had changed so much. I hated everyone, whether it be a friend or stranger, for not knowing what I was going through."

Clark remained silent, but she could see his eyes filling with more tears.

"That pain…it never really goes away. But it dulls…over time. You were there for me after I lost my mom, and I promise that I will be here for you. Clark?"

Clark turned to looked at her.

"You're going to be okay."

Two tears spilled down his cheeks. Emmeline quickly took him in her arms, and he began sobbing.

Emmeline could feel her own eyes moisten as she listened to her best friend cry in her embrace. She knew all too well the pain of losing a parent, and she would never wish that on her worst enemy.

Something about crying in Emmeline's arms brought Clark a sense of peace. Crying with his mother helped a lot, but losing a husband was a lot different than losing a father. Even Lana, his own girlfriend, couldn't completely understand what he was going through. While she had lost both of her parents and he was sure she felt the pain of that every day, she had also only been three years old at the time. Losing parents at that age was much different than losing one a lot later in life.

Emmeline was the only one who could really come close to understanding how he felt.

And he had no doubt she would come through on her promise to be there for him. It was nice to be able to depend on someone for a change rather than always be the one people depended upon.