"What we need is something that triggers a strong memory," Lois mused. She was pacing in front of the Kent couch, deep in thought. "A childhood toy, a...an activity...a place that holds some sort of sentimental memory..."

Martha just looked at Lois helplessly.

Clark dejectedly moved his gaze to the floor. He had finally found where he belonged after years of wondering, hoping, praying...And, of course, it hadn't been quite enough.

He had secretly expected that discovering his roots would be a sort of miracle cure, believing with all his heart that finding the people he had once called parents would cause all his memories to come gushing back. He had thought that he would just step easily into his old life without any problems whatsoever.

The possibility that he would never recover from his amnesia had been a fear he had just beaten back and hidden in the far corners of his mind. But warm fantasy and cold reality had recently been playing games with his mind, and the warmth of fantasy was quickly dispersing as the coldness of reality gained a foothold.

"It's no use," Clark said in a ragged voice. "Luthor's shadow will always hang over me."

Martha's heart almost broke when she heard Clark's utterance. Her poor boy...

She whispered, "Oh, honey," and rubbed his arm in an attempt at reassurance. Pleadingly, she looked to Jonathan.

Thinking quickly, the farmer suggested, "Why don't we—" he corrected himself at a sudden glint in his Martha's eyes, "—the two of you take a look around Smallville? The town's not too big, or Martha and I would show you around. Maybe that will refresh your memory. I have a little more work to do in the fields, but when you come back, your mother should have a nice country dinner ready for you. If the memory of her delicious cooking doesn't come back to you, I don't know what will," he chuckled, though he stopped abruptly at the wince from his wife. He cleared his throat as if to make up for his slight slip.

"That sounds great," Lois quickly inserted, standing up and tugging at Clark's arm. "Come on."

With the appearance of a man who wanted to do anything but move, Clark Kent followed.

Lois briefly took her gaze from the road and placed it on Clark, hoping to see a glimmer of recognition in his eyes. But there was nothing there. His face had a dullness to it she had never seen before. Clark had always radiated life, even at what she had thought had been his worst. But now...

Biting her lip, the reporter pulled the car over. She turned to her companion and spoke with a soft voice. "Clark."

Empty brown eyes were raised.

She wanted to cheer him up, to put life back in his eyes...To help him have a happier life.

Quietly, she told him, "Don't give up now. Your goal is in sight—you just have to hang on a little longer."

"Don't you understand, Lois?" Clark sighed.

At least Clark's voice had an edge to it, Lois mused. It wasn't what she had hoped for, but she would take what she could get.

Clark continued, "It's too late for me to slip back into my life. It would provide nothing but heartache for everyone. I might as well move to a different country, make a new life."

Lois stared at the man in front of her, pursing her lips. Then she did something that surprised herself more than it did Clark.

She slapped him.

This time, he stared.

"Don't you ever think about running away from your family and friends. Ever," she whispered fiercely. "Do you know what you have? You don't know how lucky you really are. You have two wonderful parents who love you and are more than willing to take you back. You have hope that things will work out...Clark, there's a chance that you will remember everything tomorrow. Don't waste your chances; you have no idea how precious they are...Do not throw this life away until you are sure that is what you want..."

Clark listened to what Lois had to say, hanging on her every word. His hand was resting on his cheek, more out of mental shock than physical shock. He didn't know what to say, and the passionate reporter was looking to him for a reply.

He wanted to run away, fly to some uninhabited island and live among the birds and away from the fear...

But he also knew that there was no way he could leave Lois.

Somehow, the headstrong woman had gotten under his skin. Perhaps it was because he knew that she had uncharacteristically slowed down and shown kindness to him in his great need...But somehow, he felt that the reason was deeper than that.

He swallowed. He would do anything to pay back Lois for all she had done for him. Even if it cost him great pain...Even if he was unable to escape the fear and it consumed him...

"I'll...stay..."

Upon hearing Clark agree to stay, Lois heaved an inward sigh of relief. Outwardly, she nodded and looked satisfied, saying, "Good."

But in actuality, her stomach was churning at the close call. She had almost lost Clark forever.

Clark, the strange man who had witnessed her going through another man's things. Clark, who had appeared with a desperate warning and broken down like a stressed out child. Clark, who had won her heart the minute she saw him smile.

She felt so many things when she was around him...She wanted to embrace him, wanted to slap him, wanted to hold his hand...She felt close to him in a way she had never felt before...

It was almost as if their situations were inverted...

She had grown up with a terrible family life, listening to her parents fight and watching her mother drink herself sick...But when she had gotten older, she had escaped all that. She had made a future for herself where she had thought there was none.

Clark seemed to have grown up with a wonderful family life, with two parents who loved him very much and what looked like a shining future ahead of him...But when he had been just about to start that shining future, he had been imprisoned by Lex Luthor's schemes. He had lost what could have been the perfect life.

In that moment, she knew she could never willingly let this man out of her life. They seemed to complement each other so well...

Could they have a future together, not that they were moving beyond their pasts?

Lois brushed the question into the back of her mind. For now, she would think about the present. More specifically, Clark's present. If she had survived life with the Lane family, she could help him survive what he had been through with Luthor.

She softened outwardly and asked Clark with a twinkle in her eye, "Wanna get some ice cream?"

Lois had the biggest ice cream cone Clark had ever seen. Granted, he had not had that much contact with ice cream—much less ice cream cones—after his amnesia, but he hadn't known that it was possible to fit that many scoops of ice cream onto such a little cone.

While she was ingesting it determinedly, he looked down at his own pathetic cone. Sulking, he sat beside the woman on a bench. He finished his rather quickly (especially since he never got "brain freeze" from anything cold) and stared at her towering creation.

"You are going to share that, right?"

"What?" she looked at Clark, then brought her cone away from him protectively. "Yeah, right. It's mine, buddy," Lois poked him in the arm with a finger.

Clark turned wide, sad brown eyes on her, and she returned his gaze with a mock-sneer, taking a slow lick of her ice cream. "Mmm," she stressed, waving the cone under his nose.

He started to make a retort, but the world around him suddenly changed.

"Mmm," he heard himself saying, his chubby fingers grasping an ice cream cone tightly.

His mother smiled at him, a small gesture that was as warm as the sun to him. "Just be careful not to drop it in the dirt."

"I amcare—oops." He looked sheepishly down at the remains of his treat. He felt his lip tremble; it had been really good, and he hadn't meant to drop it—

"Come on. We'll get you another one. Just be careful this time," Martha said, taking the boy by the hand.

"But I thought you said we couldn't afford to...to have ice cream a lot..."

"It'll be all right just this once...Just don't tell your father about it..."

He giggled. He loved his mom.

She squeezed his hand comfortingly.

Fuzz suddenly invaded his vision, and he blinked, finding Lois standing over him.

"Clark, are you all right?"

Rubbing his eyes, he nodded. "A flashback...I could actually see my mother's face this time."

"Great!" Lois smiled gently, touching his arm. "That means you're making some progress."

"Yeah..." Clark didn't sound so sure.

Lois leaned back against her chair, placing her napkin on the table and making a noise of contentment. "That was the best meal I have had since who knows when."

Martha just smiled, then glanced at Clark as if seeking his approval.

"I've had meals from some of the best chefs in the nation, but I have to say, this tops them all." Clark grinned, and his adoptive mother beamed.

"Martha hasn't made a home-cooked meal like this one since Wayne Irig came over a few months ago. I'm not someone she deems worthy of receiving the benefits of her culinary expertise," Jonathan chuckled. "In a minute, Clark, if you're up for it, I'd like to show you around the farm before it gets too dark out."

"And you can stay inside with me for a little girl talk, Lois."

The reporter met the older woman's meaningful glance.

Jonathan laughed. "It was gonna happen sooner or later, Clark. We'd better let them have their fun humiliating us now."

Clark smiled, but his blank eyes told a different tale, one of the dreaded fear.

...He feared it was all pointless.