Clark, Martha noted with satisfaction and amusement, was human enough to take advantage of his status as returned prodigal son. She suspected, from the openly harried look on Lex's face, that the debate over whether he should leave before Chloe and Pete arrived was one of the hardest-driven bargains of his life. Lex might have had years of bargaining experience and known all the tricks, but he was powerless before the dreaded combination of The Pout, The Lowered Eyes, and coup de grace, The Hopeful Half-Smile. Lex had gotten Clark's agreement only by conceding that he could say that Lex had been the one who finally found him and by agreeing to stay for at least a week. Clark had had the decency to look smug when Lex pulled out his phone and canceled all his appointments for that week. But still the same old Clark--he'd wanted his friends to like Lex and wanted them to see Lex as the person who rescued him, and she suspected that his wanting Lex to stay was as much to help Lex readjust as it was for his own sake.

Pete didn't burst into rooms any more but Chloe certainly did. Martha didn't think that there was more than a second between the time when the car door slammed and Chloe was hanging from Clark's neck, squeezing him, drawing back a bit to look at him, and then back to a near-stranglehold. Clark was grinning and hugging back just as hard, then pulling Pete into the embrace as well. Yes, very much the same Clark.

Chloe released Clark and spun around and Martha realized with a gulp, that she had turned into a very graceful young woman. When Chloe threw her arms around her, too, Martha returned the hug with a pang. She'd always hoped that one day...but as Jonathan would say, no use crying over spilt milk. Not when there were good things to cry over.

"So what's been happening? Tell everything," Chloe demanded.

"Off the record or on," Clark teased, and she stuck her tongue out at him briefly. They'd slipped into the old camaraderie as comfortably as into an old shoe, Martha noted gratefully. They'd catch up.

"On, of course! Journalism student, Clark."

"Mom said you were at Met U."

"Yeah, but we want to hear about you."

Clark looked pensive. "I'm sorry, but...I really don't remember much."

Martha moved in before Chloe could throw questions at him. "Lex is still trying to trace what happened."

"Lex?" Pete asked, his face hardening. Like Jonathan, he'd found his earlier opinion of Lex more than justified by his subsequent business and personal dealings, and made no secret of his feelings.

"Yeah," Clark answered. "He didn't say anything, but he kept on looking for me. But I guess I was moving around too much or something, because they didn't track me down until I was in the hospital. I was in New York at first, then in upstate New York for a while, and then I came back to the city, they think."

"But what were you doing?" Pete frowned.

"Day labor, things like that. There's not much of a paper trail, so it was probably illegal," Clark admitted, and Martha winced inwardly at the quickly concealed expression of yearning tenderness that brushed over Chloe's face at the remark that was so utterly Clark. It looked like she wasn't the only one who had still hoped a tiny bit, she mused.

"So how did Lex hunt you down?"

Clark's eyes flickered at the tone of Pete's question, but he answered, "He just had an agency looking. They checked employment records, things like that, but also hospital admissions for anybody who looked like me. All over the country. Pete, he was really trying hard to help me."

"I guess."

Chloe moved to cover the moment. "But your mom says you're okay now."

"Yeah. They got the tumor out, said that it's a rare kind that doesn't come back often, so it's looking good." He self-consciously ran his hand over the spot where Jonathan had shaved the hair and they'd put on a thin dressing.

"How long do you have to keep wearing that?"

He grinned. "Until the hair grows back. Hiding the scar."

"Awww, c'mon, photo op," she coaxed, and Clark folded his arms and shook his head adamantly.

"So what are you guys up to?"

"Watching you change the subject," Pete answered. "I'm still making up my mind between pre-law and pre-business."

"Based on which girls are in which classes," Chloe added quickly, and he shot her a withering look.

"So what are you gonna do about the college thing, Clark?"

"Not quite sure. Take the GED and then see who'll have me, I guess." Clark looked uncomfortable and Pete looked for a change of subject.

"So you really don't remember anything? Man, that's got to be weird."

Clark nodded. "Yeah, kind of like Ryan, you know, Kasper Hauser all over again."

Chloe whistled. "You remembered that."

"Yeah."

"But nothing about what happened when..."

"Just having those headaches and then, wham...nothing until I woke up in a hospital bed and saw the calendar said 2006. I thought somebody was playing a weird joke, especially when the nurse said that Mr. Luthor was waiting to see me."

"So he was right there, huh? You know, this could make a good story..."

"What, now that it's got a celebrity?" Pete wasn't particularly amused.

"Don't you have *any* sense of drama in your entire body? Man loses his memory, wakes up without remembering anything, the billionaire friend who'd been looking for him all along is right there...Clark, you could sell the movie rights or something!"

"Nobody would *believe* that Lex Luthor would do something that wouldn't pay off," Pete muttered, and then jumped as a voice protested, firmly.

"He's done a lot of things no decent man could be proud of, but he's also the one who spent all this time and money looking for Clark. *And* he went in person to get him. We do owe him that."

Clark's jaw dropped as he stared at his father. Martha wasn't even sure who Jonathan was referring to as he concluded, "A man can change, you know."