A/N: I've altered the timeline a little, making all of Tempest and most of Vortex happen over a two-day span. Nixon's car did not end up on a tree, pretend it was somewhere around the entrance to the crypt. And let's also pretend that he had gathered much more compromising information on Clark than the tape he gave Jonathan.

***

The little bell over the door tinkled cheerfully, making Dave look up from the open newspaper on the counter.

"Oh, look! Another reporter" he greeted me with a smile.

Dave, the drugstore owner, always calls me 'his little reporter wannabe'. At first I found it patronizing, but in time I just let it slide because after all he thinks it's flattering and in a way he sometimes reminds me of my grandfather.

"Another?" I asked as I placed the bottle of Aspirin on the counter.

"Yeah. Some guy from Metropolis stopped by earlier, apparently he works for the Inquisitor. He was asking a lot of questions about the meteor shower… very much like one young lady we both know", he added with a playful smirk.

The Inquisitor was interested in Smallville's meteors? Since when?

I looked inside my purse, trying not to sound too anxious. "Did he tell you his name?" I asked nonchalantly.

"Let me think… Kennedy? No, wait. Nixon. Yes, that's it. Wrong president."

"Thanks, Dave."

"Always glad to be a useful journalistic source." He winked. "Here's you change. And have fun at your dance tonight!"

I just smiled and waved from the door.

And that was it. You would think I should have known. Or perhaps sensed it… right? But I didn't. How could I? Life is not cold war Berlin. There are no huge warning signs that read "Entering the Threshold of Disaster" to let you know you when you are about to leave the nice safe American zone. You just realize when it's too late.

The details of what followed aren't really all that interesting.

The day after I became aware of the existence of one Roger Nixon, he was dead. Shot by Lex, no less. My instinct tells me there's one hell of a story behind that, but at this point I lack the strength for any digging whatsoever. Roger Nixon has already revealed enough secrets to last me a lifetime, thank you very much.

Anyhow, I figured that maybe taking a look at the crime scene would help me keep my mind off Clark and the whole spring formal debacle. Ha. The Big Man up there has a wickedly twisted sense of humor, to say the very least.

By the time I got to the woods there was no sign of the cops, except for the proverbial bright yellow tape hanging all around the trees like a weird Christmas decoration someone had forgotten to remove.

And that's when I saw the car.

The windshield was smashed and the front wheels were almost completely sunken in mud. Not very promising I guess, but when I circled the car and saw the familiar skyline on the license plate I couldn't help but smile.

How on earth could they not think of checking the car?

A reporter from the Inquisitor dies in more than shady circumstances, there's a car with a Metropolis license plate a mere 500 feet away from the corpse and no one makes the connection. That's Smallville's sheriff office right there for you. They take incompetence to a whole new level. Only this time, most likely for the first time ever, their incompetence saved a life. Clark's, in case you were wondering.

But I digress.

Anyway, the trunk wasn't even locked. And there it was. Between an old blanket and the spare tire laid a big white box with "CK" written in black letters over the top. My hands were trembling so hard I don't even know how I managed to open it. After a quick look through its contents, instinct took over and I immediately grabbed the box and rushed to my car as fast as my fear and the heavy burden allowed me.

***

I had been sitting there for almost an hour, terrified by a perfectly innocent box lying on my coffee table. Mocking me. Tempting me. Scaring me to death. Okay, maybe perfectly innocent wasn't the right way to describe it in the first place.

The reason I was terrified was because I knew the contents of that box would change my image of Clark drastically and forever. With no turning back.

Never in my whole life have I been afraid of knowledge. Theoretically I'm one of those people who believe there's no such thing as too much information and claim they would rather know if they only had one moth left to live, or if there was a world conspiracy involving nuclear weapons or anything horrible was just around the corner, but now… now I'm starting to reconsider my beliefs.

Everyone likes to say how information is power, probably because they heard it somewhere and think it makes them sound profound or something. What they fail to mention is the fact that power comes with responsibilities. And I'm not so sure I can bear those.

It wasn't as if I had never suspected anything. I figured the speed and strength thing a long time ago, but after all this is Smallville, so I chalked it up to good genes -ironically, I was right in that part- enhanced with a little help from our old green friends the meteor rocks.

The difference was that I never had any irrefutable physical evidence to prove it. And there is a huge difference between having great faith in one of my wacky Wall of Weird theories and actually knowing it's true.

But at that moment, if I opened that box, if I read those files and watched those tapes, I wouldn't be able to hide in the shelter of denial anymore. There would be no more looking the other way, no more closing the eyes to the obvious.

And as awful as it sounds, I wasn't sure I was ready to leave that comfortable realm of ignorance I had chosen to live in.

The phone's sudden ringing made my heart skip a beat.

"H… hello?"

"Hi, pumpkin! It's me."

"Oh. Hi, Dad."

"Listen, it seems things are a little more complicated than we initially thought so there will be another meeting early in the morning. I'm sorry but I think it's best if I just spend the night in the city."

"Don't worry, Dad. I'll be fine."

"Are you sure? If you need anything, call me, okay? I'll be staying at the…"

"… Metropolis Hilton." I finished for him with a smile. "I know." I can't tell how many times we've had had this very same conversation. It's incredibly touching to know that he still worries so much about leaving me alone, even if it's just for one night. "Bye, Daddy."

"Night, sweetheart."

Usually, I don't mind being home alone. A good movie and a double chocolate ice cream feast always sound like good company for a night in. They also keep me too busy to pay attention to any kind of suspicious noises that remind me of how alone and vulnerable I feel when the house is empty.

Not that night, though. That night it was just the box and me.

I closed my eyes and tried to breathe deeply to calm myself. After a moment, I somehow found the courage and opened Pandora's box.

TBC…