Author's note: This has a lot of dialogue in it. Sorry, but I just love to talk.

The sun had set hours ago and Chloe was still in front of her teal I-Mac, typing furiously away, as was the norm for the day before the Torch was printed. She was scrambling to edit and layout the paper before her deadline passed when her cell phone rang. She jumped about a foot in the air. Her nerves were on end and she was chock-full of caffeine -she had been up late last night working on the Torch too- and that was never a good combination. She reached over and pulled a tiny orange phone out of her purse.

"What?" She snapped impatiently.

"Is that how you usually answer your cell, or do you save the pleasantries just for me?"

"Lex? Why are you calling me?"

"How very nice to hear from you, too. If you must know, I wanted to speak with Clark. I called his house, but his parents said that they didn't know where he was. I just assumed he was with you."

"And you jumped to this assumption because?"

"Because he's been with you for the past month straight. So can I talk to him or not?"

"I'm sorry, Mr. Luthor, but I haven't seen him since school let out. Why don't you get into a life-threatening situation? He's bound to show up then."

"I think I'll save that as my last resort, but thank you anyway, Miss Sullivan."

"Anytime." And with that she continued typing. But now that she thought about it, where was Clark? If he wasn't home yet, where could he be? Maybe she'd just make a few calls, just to set her mind at ease.

"Hello?"

"Pete, have you seen Clark?"

"Nope, he pulled another one of his famous disappearing acts. I swear he's going to be the next Houdini."

"Do you have any clue where he would be?"

"None whatsoever. Sorry I wasn't more help."

"That's okay, bye."

She dialed Lana's number and received basically the same answers. Where was that boy? Now she was getting nervous. She shut off her computer and grabbed her purse. She was going to pay a little visit to the Kent farm. Hopefully, Clark was home by now.

Chloe's little orange Volkswagon beetle pulled in front of the pleasant little two-story home where her best friend lived. She got out of the car and walked up the front steps and onto the porch and was just about to ring the bell when she heard two voices -Mr. and Mrs. Kent- arguing.

"Clark's a good boy, he'll be home soon." That was Mrs. Kent. Chloe loved Martha; she had been more of a mother to her than her real mother ever was.

"What if he's in trouble?" Chloe knew that it was wrong to eavesdrop, but she just couldn't help it. She blamed it on those damn reporter instincts.

"You know as well as I do that he can't get hurt." Huh? How was that? Now she was confused; she knew Clark was strong, but it's not like he's invincible. She pressed her ear against the door; she just had to figure this out.

"Not if there are meteor rocks, you know what those do to him." Was Clark a meteor freak? No, not her Clark, he couldn't be.

"Maybe we should look for him, then." Uh-oh, the voices were getting closer to the door; time to pretend that she hadn't been standing there the whole time, listening to their conversation. She backed down the steps, and then walked right back up them. Just as she neared the door, the Kent's popped out.

"Hi!" She said, trying to sound as cheery as possible. She needed to seem clueless as to what was going on. "Is Clark home? I had to ask him something."

Jonathan was the one to answer. "No, not yet. We were just on our way to pick him up." That wasn't an outright lie, but that wasn't entirely the truth either. What were they hiding? She needed to pry a little more to find out.

"Oh really? Where is he? I haven't seen him in a while." Let's see what they say to that.

"He's at Lex's." Jonathan replied with little hesitation. Now THAT was an utter lie. Now she had to know what they were keeping from her.

Chloe shot them a sunny smile "Oh, okay. Just tell him I want to see him." She then strolled happily down to her car and drove away.

Once she was done, Jonathan heaved a sigh of relief. He felt bad lying to the little blonde girl, but what she doesn't know, won't hurt her. He turned to face his wife. "I think it's about time we started looking."

Chloe pulled her bug into the woods a little bit away from the exit of the farm and turned the lights off. Her mind was spinning; why were the Kent's lying to her about Clark? She of all people might have been the best one to find him. Now she had to do this the hard way.