Chapter Four

It was only after his mother had mentioned Lana's name that Clark realised that it had been over a week since their meeting at the Talon; all of his spare time had been spent at the Torch trying to break Chloe's secret story or spending time with Ashley and he immediately felt guilty. With a quick kiss on the cheek, Clark had said goodbye to Martha and headed out into town so he could catch Lana at the Talon. Sticking to the fields, he arrived in seconds and hoped that Lana wouldn't be too angry with him for being so absent lately. He walked into the coffee shop and headed for the counter where Lana was just putting the last half of an apple pie into the fridge. She turned to face him and immediately burst into a huge smile.

"Hi Clark," she said. "I was just thinking about you,"

"Good things, I hope," he smiled and she laughed softly. "Look, Lana, before you say anything I just wanted to say sorry for not being around this week. I feel like I've been ignoring you and I never meant for that to happen,"

"Clark, I've been so busy with school stuff and this place that I haven't really noticed," she smiled, Clark nodded but felt a little upset. He had hoped that Lana had missed him a little, noticed that he hadn't been there when she needed to talk but there was nothing. She had been too busy for him just as he had been too busy for her. "So, I heard on the grapevine that you and Ashley are getting quite serious. It's been a fortnight now, hasn't it? Is it serious with you two?"

"I take it that the 'grapevine' is Chloe?" asked Clark, his question being answered by Lana's laugh. "I don't know if it's serious yet, Ashley's really nice though. I just can't believe I never knew her before the accident,"

"Has she spoken to you about it?" asked Lana, wiping her hands dry on a tea-towel and grabbing a clean mug from beneath the counter.

"No. Why?"

"I just thought she would've been aching to tell someone what it was like and you'd be the perfect guy. You rescued her, you're like her personal superhero or something," she said, pouring out a cappuccino and handing it to Clark. "I know I'd want to talk to you about it,"

"Do you think I should ask her about it?" asked Clark, suddenly hyper-aware of the fact that he and Ashley were in a relationship. They spent all their time together and they got on better than he ever could have imagined, her painting was pinned to the wall in the barn and he found himself staring at it in the early hours of the morning when he was still too energised to sleep. She really had become his girlfriend.

"I think you should wait for her to come to you," advised Lana. "I've got to get back to work, can I come over tonight? We can catch up properly,"

"Yeah, that sounds great. I'll see you later," he smiled and took his drink to the quietest corner of the café, grabbing a magazine from the rack and sitting in silence. He wasn't alone for long and he didn't have to look up to know who had just joined his table. "Hey Lex,"

"How are you, Clark?" He looked up at his friend, Lex was wearing his best suit and Clark could only assume he had a meeting in Metropolis today, if it was a Smallville meeting, he would have worn one of his many suits from the everyday selection.

"I'm fine. Are you going somewhere?" he asked, closing the magazine and leaning back in his chair.

"I received a summons from my father; he's demanding I sit in on some ridiculous conference in Metropolis. He just wants me out of Smallville for a weekend; he thinks I've become too attached to this town. I just came in to tell Lana I would be out of town for a few days; she mentioned you were here,"

"Did she mention anything else?" Clark smiled; he knew Lex and his powers over Chloe and Lana. Somehow, nothing remained sacred between them, Lex just coaxed out the gossip in seconds.

"Ah yes, your new friend, Miss Robbins," Lex smiled and Clark shook his head. "It's nice to see you moving on rather than fawning over Lana,"

"Thanks Lex," said Clark sarcastically. "Why don't you get out of here?" Lex smiled and stood from the table, leaving the Talon without even saying goodbye. Clark finished his coffee and left the shop, heading over to the school in search of Chloe. There was nowhere else she would be besides the Torch; the new issue was due out on Monday which meant today was the final day she could work on it before printing on Sunday.

Chloe was flitting about the Torch office when Clark arrived, pinning photographs to her wall, dropping papers into the bin as well as her in-tray and occasionally stopping to tap a few words out on the her computer. Clark walked in silently and sat down at the computer, clicking on the minimised file and bringing up the front cover of the new issue. Right there, in full colour, was a picture of Ashley and the headline, "Lightning Girl Wakes from Coma", Clark minimised it again and glared at Chloe who stopped what she was doing and stared back.

"What?" she asked incredulously. "It's school news and it's something people are talking about, they want to know about,"

"Have you even spoken to Ashley about it? You could really hurt her feelings if you run this without asking her first, I thought the two of you were becoming friends," said Clark, stepping away from the computer.

"We are friends, Clark but the Torch is my paper and I don't need Ashley's permission to run a newsworthy story; I thought she'd be pleased,"

"Pleased about what?" asked Ashley as she stepped into the office, Clark smiled at the sight of her and walked over, putting a protective arm around her shoulders but she shrugged him off and walked to Chloe. "What's going on, Chloe? Have you been writing about me?"

"Look, Ashley, it's nothing that we haven't already talked about. I just thought people would be interested in the fact that you're back at school and especially that you're re-sitting the year. I don't know anyone who would even attempt to catch up on six months of school work," babbled Chloe. "I know you might find it a bit much to be front page material but there's nothing negative in the article at all, I promise,"

"I trust you, Chloe. You can print what you want, I know the truth and I guess that's what's important in the end, right?" said Ashley with a smile, Chloe nodded and smiled back. Disaster averted. Ashley turned back to face Clark. "It's supposed to be a beautiful night tonight; do you want to meet up later? I thought we could go for a walk or something,"

"Sorry," said Clark. "I've invited Lana over tonight, we haven't seen each other in a while and I thought it would be nice to catch up," Ashley's smile dropped; Clark was blowing her off for Lana. It was starting already; he was bored with her already.

"It's fine, Clark," she hissed. "It's just perfect, I want to spend some time with you and all you can think about is spending Saturday night with your ex-girlfriend," she spat, tears springing to her eyes before she ran out of the office. Clark was about to follow her when a huge crack of thunder filled the office followed by the brightest flash of lightning he had ever seen. Chloe stopped everything she was doing and raced to the window, rain was pouring down it as if it had been raining for hours. Clark joined her at the window and watched as Ashley ran out into the rain and into her car, he sighed loudly. He didn't mean to upset her so much but he really did want to see Lana, she was one of his best friends, surely Ashley could understand that?

"Clark," started Chloe.

"I know, I know, I need to sort this out. What am I supposed to do? I want to spend time with Ashley but Lana's my friend,"

"No, not that," sighed Chloe. "Have you noticed how weird the weather's been this week? There was that storm a couple of weeks ago when we were forecast sunshine and it's been perfect weather since; where did all this rain come from?"

"What are you getting at, Chloe?" frowned Clark, Chloe shook her head. Clark always was a little slower getting to where her mind was.

"I'm just saying that it's pretty coincidental that since you and Ashley got it together, the weather has been perfect and the second you upset her, we get a thunder storm," explained Chloe as she watched Ashley drive away. Clark looked sceptical. "Okay, think back to that Saturday, it was a perfectly fine morning and then when Ashley got upset and ran off, it started raining again,"

"So, you think the lightning strike did something to her?" asked Clark. "Do you think she has any idea she's controlling the weather?"

"I don't know, Clark but it's definitely weird, right?" Clark nodded and stared out of the window at the torrential downpour outside. He liked Ashley a lot but he couldn't walk on eggshells around her just in case she called up a storm. He sat down at the desk and sighed, he had no idea what he was supposed to do now. "You should go to her, Clark,"

"What can I do? I don't even know what to say," he mumbled.

"Maybe you should talk about the accident, find out if anything stranger than heat lightning in the middle of August happened that day," suggested Chloe. Clark nodded and stood up; he should have known it was too good to be true. Smallville just had that weird effect on people.