"Kettle's on, Chloe!" Lois called to her cousin. "Nothing like a cup of chamomile and a hot shower to relax you!"

Emmeline smiled a little as she and Lois prepped some tea for the stressed-out reporter.

"It's nice to have a quiet night in the Talon," Emmeline remarked. "It's been a long time since we've been able to do this."

"Yeah, I just gotta help my dear old cuz take a breather," Lois replied. "I don't think I've ever seen her so tense."

"I have. This is just what she needs right now."

Suddenly, the raging storm outside struck the Talon and cut off all power in the building.

"I guess I spoke too soon."

"Crap…"

"Lois!" Chloe called from the bathroom. "Do you have a candle?"

"Look in the little cabinet, bottom drawer!" Lois turned to Emmeline. "I'm gonna go hit the breaker."

"All right. I'll finish up the tea."

Lois grabbed a flashlight and headed to the breaker to get the electricity back. While she did that, Emmeline lit a couple of candles and placed them around the room. The scents would help Chloe relax better than lighting anyway.

Both women abruptly stopped their activities when they heard Chloe scream from inside the bathroom.

"Chloe?" Lois called. She and Emmeline ran into the bathroom, shining the flashlight so they could see her. "Chloe?"

Lois shined the flashlight in front of her, and their hearts nearly stopped.

Chloe sat on the floor dripping wet. "Help me," she said tearfully as she looked up at them.

Her wrists sat on her lap, blood pouring from them. She had deeply slit them.

Emmeline quickly grabbed a towel and put them on top of Chloe's wrists to staunch the blood flow. "Lois, call an ambulance, now!" she ordered.

Lois ran down to the Talon phone and called Smallville Medical Center.

Emmeline continued to press down onto the towel. "Chloe, you're going to be okay."

"Help me," she said again.

"We're getting you help right now. You'll be fine. Just hang in there, okay?"

Tears rolled down her cheeks. "It hurts…"

"I know. Hold on for me."


Clark quickly walked into the hospital where he saw Lois and Emmeline speaking with an older official-looking gentleman.

"Lois, Em, where's Chloe?" he asked. "Is she all right?"

"Well, that's what we're just trying to determine," the man answered. "And you are?"

"Clark Kent."

"How do you do? I'm Dr. Sydell."

"He's Chloe's psychiatrist," Lois explained. "Clark, we found her on the bathroom floor. She cut her wrists."

"What?" Clark said in disbelief.

"I feel so guilty. I should've seen it coming. She-she hasn't been getting much sleep between, you know, school and her job at the Planet, and—"

"Is there any history of mental illness?" Dr. Seidel asked.

Clark and Emmeline shared a quick look. They knew the answer to that question.

"No," Lois said firmly. "I'm her cousin. I would know if there were any bats in the belfry."

Emmeline wasn't sure if Lois just didn't know about Chloe's mother or if she chose not to reveal the truth about her, but she felt it best for her to not mention it either.

"Fine," the doctor stated. "That will give us something to start with. Orderly?"

A man in scrubs came up to them.

"Would you take Miss Sullivan from the E.R. to room 258, please? Make sure she's comfortable."

"Yes, sir."

The man left to fulfill his orders.

Clark turned back to Dr. Sydell. "Doctor, I don't understand. Why would Chloe do this to herself?"

"It's a culmination of a number of factors," he told him. "Family history, stress, loss of a loved one. Sometimes a person has a secret they feel they can't share."

Emmeline looked at Clark again, but he didn't meet her gaze this time. She knew that remark made him feel responsible for Chloe's condition.

"But whatever it is, I'll uncover it, and I will treat it aggressively."

Clark and Emmeline started to head to Chloe's room.

"Clark, I know what you're thinking," Emmeline said. "This isn't your fault."

"You heard what the doctor said. She did this because she's keeping a huge secret."

"He said it was a possibility, and for some people it is, but not for Chloe. I mean, I know your secret, and I'm fine and Chloe is way mentally tougher than I am. Something just feels…really off about this whole thing."

Clark sighed heavily, not fully convinced.

He slowly opened the door to Chloe's room and they both stepped inside.

"Hey," he said gently.

"Hey," Chloe smiled weakly.

"How you doing?"

"I'm out of it…from the sedatives they gave me."

He took a seat in the chair next to the bed while Emmeline stood behind him. "So what happened?"

"I don't know."

"You know, Chloe, if you've got to talk about something—"

"Clark, really, I don't know. I mean, I was showering and then the lights went out, and…it's just all jumbled. I just woke up on the floor bleeding." Noticing his face, she added, "Clark, I'm a writer. If I was gonna kill myself, I would leave one heck of a suicide note."

Clark and Emmeline laughed lightly, mostly because it was true.

"I think there was someone else in the room with me though."

"Lois and Em didn't see anyone." After a pause, he continued, "You know, Chloe, the doctor asked if you had any history of mental illness in your family. Should we tell him about your mom?"

"No."

"Chloe, she—"

"Clark, I don't know what's happening to me, but I don't want anyone thinking I'm like my mom. So just don't say anything, all right?"

Clark gently put his hand on hers. "Yeah."

"We've dealt with teleporters and people who can turn invisible," Emmeline put in. "The whole wrist-slitting thing is new territory, but someone else being in there with you that we didn't see isn't totally out of the realm of possibility."

Chloe smiled a little. "You should've seen Em work. She really handled the whole thing so well."

Emmeline laughed awkwardly. "Well, panicking wasn't going to do much good."

"I'm glad someone kept a level head because it certainly wasn't Lois or me."


Emmeline decided to stay the night with Chloe in her hospital room to give her some peace of mind. She was really on edge after what had happened, and Emmeline didn't want to leave her alone.

She ended up falling asleep in a really uncomfortable position in the chair. She didn't hear when Chloe got up from the bed, but she did hear the door open. She looked up to find Lana walking in.

"Where's Chloe?" she asked.

Emmeline looked at the bed and saw that it was empty. She rubbed her eyes and stood up. "In the bathroom, I think."

Lana went inside the bathroom and touched Chloe's shoulder.

Chloe jumped and frantically turned around. "Lana."

"Chloe, I got here as fast as I could. Is everything okay?"

"Where is she?"

"Who?"

"The girl. She was just here." She looked down at the floor and slowly walked back over to the bed. "There's so much blood…"

Emmeline looked down at the floor. She didn't see anything.

Lana came up to her and touched her shoulder again. "Chloe…hey, we should get you back to bed, all right?"

Chloe shrugged her hand away. "No, I have to find her. I just saw her." Chloe ran out of the hospital room. "Where is she?"

Dr. Sydell quickly grabbed her when he saw she was out of the room.

"Doctor! Doctor, there was a woman that was just in my room, and she really needs your help."

"Relax, Miss Sullivan," Dr. Sydell said gently. "Orderly." He and an orderly grabbed her arms and dragged her back into the room onto her bed.

From there it was chaos. Chloe frantically tried to explain what she saw, but the doctor calmly ignored everything and talked over her.

"No, no, no, just listen to me!"

"I'm listening. I'm listening."

"There's blood all over the floor from her. Don't you see? It's going all the way down the hallway from my bathroom!"

"There's no blood. There's no blood. Please relax."

"She was in my bathroom. You're not listening to me! There is blood! There's blood everywhere! There was a woman in my room, and she needs my help! You're not listening! Please! Listen to me, please!"

"Nurse, nurse, take her arm, please."

Chloe's eyes widened when she the nurse approaching her with a needle full of clear liquid. "No! No! Please, just—you don't understand! She needs our help! No! Lana, Em, make them listen! Lana! Emmeline!"

Emmeline ran her hands through her hair. She did not believe her best friend was insane for an instant. In a town like Smallville, things were never how they seemed. She wanted to tell Chloe that she believed her because like she had told her before, people in these instances just wanted one person to believe they were telling the truth.

But if she said that in front of all these people, they would either berate her for leading on Chloe's 'fantasies' or worse, sedate her too. What help could she be then?


Emmeline sadly looked at her best friend in restraints in a solitary, locked room. This had to be her worst nightmare. In fact, she knew it was. After the whole gas that made everyone live out their worst fear, this had been Chloe's: people believing she was crazy and restraining her.

Clark came up behind her and stood next to her, looking at his friend.

"I feel awful," Emmeline said quietly. "All I did was stand there and watch as they knocked her out and tied her up."

"You couldn't have done anything," Clark answered. "Neither of us could have."

To their surprise, Lex appeared behind the both of them.

"Lex, what are you doing here?"

"Lana came to see me," he responded smoothly. "She told me what happened."

"Well, thanks for coming by, but we have it under control."

"Clark, this is a local med center. If Chloe scraped her knee, I'm sure she'd be in good hands, but something like this requires a more delicate touch. I'll make sure she gets the best care possible."

"You're gonna transfer her?"

"The helicopter's en route. She'll be in Belle Reve before she wakes up."

"Belle Reve?" Emmeline asked in horror. "Chloe doesn't belong there."

"Lana thinks so."

"She what?"

"I know how much you both care about Chloe. A close friend, someone you trust more than anyone else in the world…it's hard to see them like this. I'll take good care of her, I promise."

Lex briskly walked out of the hospital.

"Clark, we cannot let this happen," Emmeline said firmly.

"Do you believe her?" he asked.

"Yeah, I do."

"I don't know if I do, but there is no way I'm letting her get taken to Belle Reve. I'm getting her out of here."

Emmeline nodded. "Do your thing. I'll meet you at the Talon."


When Emmeline finally arrived in the apartment above the small coffee shop, Clark was just placing Chloe down on the bed.

"What are you doing?" Lois demanded. "She should be in the hospital."

"Lex wanted to transfer her to Belle Reve," Clark told her.

"Well, Clark, maybe that's what she needs right now."

"Lois, you don't know what goes on in there. And do you really want Lex and these doctors getting inside Chloe's head?"

"If it makes her feel better, I don't care if Daffy Duck whacks her with a mallet."

"What will make her feel better is someone believing her!" Emmeline insisted.

"You guys, I'm drugged, I'm not deaf," Chloe said quietly from the bed as she sat up.

Lois looked at Clark and Emmeline pointedly before awkwardly smiling at her cousin. "Hey. How you feeling?"

"I'm thirsty."

"I'll get you some water," Clark said.

"Actually, um, can I just get a cappuccino? I think it might help clear the cobwebs."

"I'll go downstairs and whip you up a double," Lois told her. She looked at Clark hardly. "Can you not do anything ridiculous for five minutes?"

Clark sighed as Lois went downstairs to make some coffee. Emmeline sat on the bed next to her best friend.

Chloe ran a hand through her hair. "Not too happy about the breakout, huh?"

Clark sat down on the bed as well. "Yeah. She's just worried about you. We all are."

"Clark, I know what I saw. I didn't imagine anything. And I didn't hurt myself. I wouldn't do that. I'm not my mother."

"I know."

Chloe suddenly sat up straighter and her eyes widened. "Did you hear that?"

"Hear what?"

Emmeline didn't like that tone. Even Clark was starting to believe something was wrong with her now. But Emmeline knew that a lot of strange things had happened to Chloe and that whatever she had been seeing was as real to her and she and Clark were.

Chloe looked at an empty space beside Clark and terror struck her face.

Clark looked at her and sighed.

Chloe bolted up and ran to the entrance to the bathroom. Then she went up to the mirror above the sink.

Both Clark and Emmeline got up and looked at Chloe from the doorway.

"Chloe, you okay?" Clark asked.

Chloe frantically turned around. "She's in the wall."

"Who?"

"The girl I keep seeing. We have to help her!"

"Chloe, look, just calm down, all right?" He came up to her and started to lead her out of the bathroom. "We'll get her out of the wall."

"No, Clark," Chloe begged. "No, Clark! Clark, I'm not crazy! She's in the wall! Please, just look! Please!"

"Do it, Clark," Emmeline insisted.

Clark sighed again but decided to just humor her. The sooner he proved her wrong, the sooner she could get some actual help. He went up to the wall and used his x-ray vision to look inside it.

To his utter shock, he saw a human skeleton.

"Holy…"

Clark punched a hole through the mirror and ripped the whole thing off the wall. What was underneath rested a dusty, cob-webbed-covered skeleton.

"Ho, man," Emmeline breathed.

A bracelet on the skeleton's wrist began glowing bright green, and Clark quickly began gasping in pain.

"Hey, hey, come here, come here." Emmeline took hold of him and quickly ushered him out of the room. "You all right?"

"Yeah, I'm fine, but I certainly believe her now." He whipped out his cell phone and dialed the police. "Hello, Smallville Police? We just found a…a skeleton inside the Talon. Yes, it was in the bathroom wall. No, I don't know how long it's been there. No, this is not a prank. Would you just send the sheriff over?"

Lois came into the room and scoffed. "The sheriff? Clark, what did you do now?"

"Lois…"

She furiously headed to the bathroom. "I can't believe this, what's—" She froze when she saw the exposed skeleton. "Holy crap." She nervously looked at her cousin standing in the middle of the bathroom. "What, uh…uh, are you all right?"

Chloe smiled eerily and looked at the full-body mirror. "Yeah. I feel much better now."


Clark and Emmeline took Chloe to the Kent farm since they figured being in the same place with the skeleton whose ghost kept appearing to her probably wasn't the best thing for her sanity.

Chloe sat in a chair in Clark's room, nervously biting her thumbnail. She had been doing that ever since they left the Talon.

Emmeline wasn't sure she had ever seen Chloe bite her nails before.

"Maybe what you saw wasn't in your head," Clark said. "Maybe it was this girl's spirit trying to contact you."

"Yeah, when the lightning hit the Talon, it must have jump-started her body," Chloe answered distractedly.

"Not to mention the kryptonite in her bracelet."

"Yeah, the 'krypto' thing."

Emmeline looked at her curiously while Clark sat on the bed.

"That poor girl, sealed up in that wall all that time, all alone."

"I just hope she didn't suffer."

"Well, I think she did…a lot." She took a sip of the tea Clark had given her and sighed quietly. "That's good."

"You should get some rest."

"No, I've slept enough. We need to find him."

"Find who?"

"The man who did this. He needs to suffer like she did."

Clark looked at her suspiciously. "Why don't you try to go to sleep? We'll talk about this in the morning."

Clark and Emmeline left the room to leave Chloe to rest.

"Clark, something's wrong," Emmeline said once they were downstairs.

"Something's been wrong for a while now, Em."

"No, I mean something isn't right with Chloe that's different from before. Haven't you seen how she's been acting?"

"And again, she's been acting weird all night."

"That's not what I mean! When all of this started a few hours ago, she was still acting like Chloe Sullivan, at least once we got her to the hospital. Right now, she's acting as if she's another person. And did you hear the way she was talking? When she said that she thought the girl in the wall suffered, the way she said it and her face made it seem like…she experienced it. And when she said that the man responsible had to suffer…it sounded personal."

"So what do you think happened?"

"When Lois and I first found her after she'd cut her wrists, she was acting differently then too. She talked like…a scared little girl rather than a scared young woman. What if…this girl has somehow merged with her or something?"

"The girl did have a kryptonite bracelet on, and we all knew what that stuff is capable of."

Lois quickly came in through the screen door.

"Come on in, Lois," Clark said sarcastically.

"Save it, Smallville," she shot back. "I got some information on the skeleton."

"Okay, let's hear it."

"Her name was Gretchen Winters."

"The police don't have any leads on who put her behind the wall?"

"The new sheriff's a little green, literally. But Gretchen is definitely not the only girl they found on the wrong side of some drywall."

Clark paused. "Chloe should hear this."

All of them went upstairs to Clark's room.

"Chloe."

The room was empty and the window was open.

"Where'd she go?" Lois asked.

Clark quickly went back down the stairs. "Lois, go back to the Talon in case she's there. Em and I will head to Met U."

"I swear, if she gets hurt, I am raining down some serious ultra pain on you."


Clark and Emmeline rounded a corner just in time to find Lex groaning in pain on the floor with Lana by his side.

"What happened?" Clark asked.

Lex looked at him hardly as he stood up. "You tell me. How did Chloe get out of her restraints at the hospital?"

"Chloe was here? Where'd she go?"

"I don't know, but she was acting like a completely different person," Lana told him.

"Now she's out there with a weapon when she should be getting the help she needs," Lex bit out. "Nice work."

Emmeline glared at Lana before quickly walking out of the dorm building.

Lana looked after her in confusion, wondering what possibly warranted such a hard glare.


Emmeline returned to the Talon while Clark went to see if Chloe was at the Daily Planet.

"Lois?" she called. "Has Clark called?"

There was no response.

"Lois?"

Emmeline headed up the stairs and into the small apartment. Her breath caught in her throat when she stumbled upon the scene.

Lois was knocked out on the ground with a very creepy male standing over her with a large dishcloth in his hand.

The man gave her a sad smile. "I'm sorry. If you'd just arrived a few minutes later, you wouldn't have to be involved."

Emmeline raced of the room and down the stairs. If she could just make it to the door and get outside, she could yell for help. Someone had to be able to hear her and see the crazy man following her.

Unfortunately, she was just a foot away from the door when the man grabbed her from behind and threw the dishcloth over her nose and mouth. She frantically tried to claw it away before she got knocked out.

"Shh, shh," the man said quietly. "It's okay. Don't fight, don't fight."

Her brain started to swim as the images around her got fuzzier and fuzzier. Finally, she completely blacked out.


"Emmeline. Emmeline."

Emmeline slowly opened her eyes and tried to clear away the fog in her mind.

When everything cleared, she saw Lois tied to chair in front of her. She tried to get up, but she realized that was tied up too. A piece of cloth had been slipped between her teeth to gag her.

"Oh, thank goodness," Lois sighed. "Are you okay?"

Emmeline nodded.

"It's-it's tied loosely. You can slip it of your mouth."

Using her tongue and her shoulder, Emmeline slipped the piece of cloth out of her mouth and gasped. "Where…where are we?"

"That freaky orderly from the hospital did this. He's the one who killed Gretchen."

"Why are we here?"

"Probably because we stumbled across something we were not supposed to."

"What's going to happen now?"

Lois's terrified look answered that question.

The two women looked up when they heard loud grunts and thuds above them.

"Help!" Lois screamed. "Is someone up there?"

"Please help us!" Emmeline cried. "Anyone?!"

After a couple minutes, Chloe appeared.

"Chloe!" Emmeline called in relief. Even if she wasn't completely Chloe at the moment, that was better than the creepy orderly.

Chloe quickly came over to Lois and began to undo the ropes tying her to the chair.

"We have to get out of here," Lois said. "The orderly from the hospital? He killed that girl you found in the wall."

"I know," Chloe replied. "It's okay. He's not gonna hurt anyone again."

"Chloe!"

The orderly appeared just in time to punch Chloe in the face, sending her to the floor.

He smiled disturbingly at Lois. "Time for your treatment, ladies."

While Chloe was unconscious, he tied her to a third chair in the room.

After a few minutes, the girl slowly began to come to.

"Does it hurt?" the orderly asked almost mockingly. "Do you feel like you want to do something wrong to yourself even though you deserve it?"

Emmeline breathed shakily. She had dealt with a lot of psychos in the past, but she was pretty certain this guy topped all of them. And as far as she knew, he didn't have any meteor powers. That was painfully ironic.

"Let the three of them go," Chloe said firmly.

"Three of them?" the orderly asked in confusion. "Disassociated, removed from what's happening. You really are sick."

"Look who's talking," Lois snapped.

The orderly knelt down in front of Chloe. "There are things that squirm just beneath the skin. But I can make them stop."

"Hey! Get away from her!"

"I'm just trying to help before she ends up in an asylum, like her mother."

Emmeline's eyes widened. How did he know that? Only she and Clark knew that! Chloe hadn't told anyone, and she most definitely would not have told a creepy orderly that she didn't even know. She hadn't even told her own cousin. As an orderly, he shouldn't have been able to find out that kind of information.

"Your mother?" Lois asked quietly.

Chloe shook with fear as she stared at the man.

The man stood up. "It's one of her squirmy things. She didn't even tell her doctor. But I get inside my girls. I find out things." He pulled a bracelet similar to the one found on the skeleton out of a toolbox. "My father used to make these. He was very good with his hands. I'd just sit for hours and watch him. And while I watched, he would tell me secrets…about my mother. She wasn't very nice. But he loved her. He helped her be at peace. So I help my girls. I take their secrets…"

Chloe whimpered and shook fiercely as he put the bracelet on her wrist.

Emmeline had never seen Chloe like this. But at this point, she was beginning to think that she was more Gretchen than Chloe. And right now, things were a little too familiar for Gretchen to handle.

"…and they take mine…forever."

Chloe spit on his face.

"You always hurt the ones you love. That's not a secret. That's just something you have to learn."

He went back to the toolbox and pulled out a dagger. Then he faced Chloe before turning to Lois.

"No, wait!" Chloe begged. "Wait! Wait, I'm sorry!"

"So am I sometimes, but we do what we have do to get better."

Lois cried out in fear as the dagger touched her wrist. The man undid the rope on one of her wrists. Then he held out the blade for her.

"Take it. Take it!"

Tears in her eyes, Lois hesitantly took the knife from him.

"Slit your wrists."

"Screw you, shorty," Lois spat.

"Open your wrists and release all your secrets. You can be at peace, just like all of them." When Lois didn't move, he retrieved a gun and pointed it at Chloe. "Or…you'll watch your cousin die. Do it! Do it or her pretty face won't be so pretty anymore."

Lois put the dagger to her wrist, then when the man looked away, she threw the knife at him. It lodged itself deep into his chest.

While Lois quickly tried to undo her restraints, the man came over to her and kicked her chair over. She hit her head on the floor and lost consciousness.

He screamed in pain as he removed the knife from his chest. For someone who worked in a hospital, he was pretty stupid about injuries. Didn't he know that if something was stuck in his body, he was supposed to leave it to stop himself from losing too much blood?

Emmeline couldn't believe she was critiquing his medical accuracy at a time like this. She supposed it was the only thing keeping her from totally losing it.

"Are all the women in your family crazy?!" he demanded of Chloe.

He went over to Lois with the bloody dagger.

"No!" Chloe and Emmeline screamed frantically.

Before he could harm her, a blast of heat caused it to get knocked out of his hand. Clark sped over to him and grabbed the front of his jacket.

"Clark!" Emmeline cried.

Suddenly, a green glow appeared on his face and he weakened considerably. This allowed the man to punch him.

"The bracelet, the bracelet!" she screamed. "Can you slip it off?"

"No, no, I can't," Chloe answered.

The man picked up the dagger again and started towards Clark.

"No, Mikey! Mikey, Mikey! Mikey, Mikey."

The man turned to look at her in disbelief. "What did you call me?"

Chloe smiled and laughed. "Mikey. It's what your dad used to call you. Little Mikey. Remember that? You hated it."

"How do you know so much?"

Chloe took some frantic deep breaths. "I know all your secrets, Mikey. It's me. It's Gretchen."

"…Gretchen?"

Emmeline looked at her best friend. She had been right. The girl in the wall had somehow not just merged with Chloe but completely taken over.

Chloe nodded and smiled as she began to cry. "I need you, Mikey. Please. I need you to take away all my secrets. Make it stop hurting just like you did before. Please?"

'Mikey' smiled sadly and tears filled his eyes. "Anything for my girl." He slowly knelt down in front of her. "Anything for my girl."

The second the rope had been untied from her wrist, Chloe/Gretchen quickly held out her hand and touched his neck with the bracelet.

Green light surrounded him as he screamed in pain. He held the dagger up to his chest.

"Oh…no. What…what are you doing? Gretchen, stop it."

He screamed again before glowing and morphing into a bright light. Then he completely disappeared. Chloe smiled at something, but whatever she was looking at, Emmeline couldn't see it.

"What…what just happened?" Emmeline gasped. "Is it over?"

"Yeah…" Chloe answered. "It's over, Em."

"Em? Does that mean you're back?"

"Yeah."

Lois regained consciousness on the floor. "Chloe!" She quickly came over to her and undid the rest of her restraints. "You okay?"

"Yeah."

Clark too stood up and went over to Emmeline to undo her ropes. When she went to stand up, her knees buckled. Clark quickly caught her before she fell.

"Sorry," Emmeline mumbled. "I guess I have jelly legs after all that."

"Understandable." While continuing to support her, he turned to Chloe. "What happened?"

Chloe stood up from the chair. "I guess Gretchen got what she came back for."


Emmeline stormed into Lana's dorm room. "You told Lex to put Chloe in Belle Reve?"

Surprised at Emmeline's sudden entrance, Lana stood up. "I had to do something."

Emmeline scoffed. "I don't even know how to feel about this right now!"

"What else was I supposed to do? I mean, you were with me. She kept saying she was seeing things that weren't really there. She was hysterical."

"Because to her, everything was very real and no one was listening to her about it. Do you even know what happens in Belle Reve, or have you forgotten what they did to Lex?"

"They helped him when he had his psychotic break."

"His psychotic break was a result of his father, and the doctors fried his brain because of it. He still can't recall six whole weeks of his life. Did you really want that to happen to your best friend?"

Lana awkwardly crossed her arms. "I was just trying to help."

"You could've helped by listening to her and trusting her! When you had visions of Chloe being kidnapped, did we think you were crazy then? Or when you saw your dead childhood friend everywhere you went, didn't Chloe believe you? Why couldn't you give her that same courtesy? I mean, we both grew up in Smallville. You should know by now that nothing is ever what it looks like."

Lana sighed in defeat and embarrassment.

"I'd tell you to apologize, but for the sake of you guys' friendship, never mention to her that it was your idea to send her there."

Emmeline whipped around and exited the dorm room leaving Lana alone in stunned and hurt silence.


Chloe smirked as she looked at the latest article in the paper. "'Smallville Serial Killer Commits Suicide', by Ted Bittleman. I can't even get a byline when I'm a part of the story."

Clark sat on the desk behind Chloe's. "Well, I'm just glad you're not part of the obituaries."

"Yeah, or wearing a straitjacket at Belle Reve."

"I'd never let that happen," he smiled comfortingly.

"You know, I…had a couple moments there where I actually thought I was losing my mind." She smiled at Emmeline. "But you never doubted me for a second."

Emmeline smiled back. "Because I know you better than you know yourself. When something's wrong, it's usually not as simple as everyone else thinks."

"I'm glad you always have my back."

"Yeah, I wish I had done that," Clark put in remorsefully.

"Don't beat yourself up, it did look pretty weird. I mean, I understand how Gretchen's spirit was released and all that, but…why was I the only one that could see her? I mean, why did she choose me?"

"Maybe because you care more about other people than anyone else I know."

Chloe shrugged her shoulders and smiled. "Or maybe there really is something wrong with me, like my mother."

"What is wrong with your mother exactly?"

"…I don't know. I mean, she left when I was 12, so that was before…I don't know."

"But you do know where she is."

"Yeah."

"Why haven't you been to see her?"

"Well, because, um…because I'm afraid. I mean, what if I look into her eyes and I see myself?"

"What if you wait too long and you never get the chance to look into her eyes again? She's your mother. She always will be. It's not gonna change, no matter what."

Chloe looked at her two best friends. "You both have lost a parent…and I can't even bring myself to see mine who's still alive."

She sadly turned back to her desk and began writing her next article.

Clark and Emmeline shared a sad look, wondering if she would ever gain the courage to see her mother.


Chloe and Emmeline walked up a flight of stairs and quickly checked in with the man at the desk.

Emmeline put her arm around her friend's shoulders. "It's going to be okay."

"I'm glad you're here, Em."

"Just like you said, I've always got your back."

Chloe looked around the room until she spotted her mother gazing out the window.

"I'll be standing right here. I promise."

Chloe nodded nervously and slowly made her way over to the woman. She paused for a second in the middle of the room before taking a deep breath and approaching her.

"Mom?" she said softly.

The woman affectionately put her hand to Chloe's cheek. Chloe tearfully wrapped her arms around her and hugged her tightly.

Emmeline smiled at the sight. While it did make her miss her own mother, she was all too happy to see Chloe reunited with her own.