.
***
Clark felt terrible that Lex had gotten hurt. Lex regained consciousness before the ambulance and police arrived, but he still insisted on going and being checked out by a doctor. That was pretty darn unsettling in itself, since Lex tried to avoid doctors ever since Helen. But Lex had passed it off lightly with a quip about just wanting to make sure he got a pain prescription, and Clark felt more assured that Lex would be okay.
Clark felt terrible that he'd hurt Chloe's feelings so badly, too. Pete had been furious at him for a couple of days when he found out, years before. Lex had been incensed for about a month when he'd found out, less than two months ago. Both of them had to almost die before they decided to forgive him. Clark didn't want Chloe to almost die; for one thing, she wasn't as reckless as the guys were. It might be a long time. Mainly, though, he just didn't want her to get hurt. He didn't want anybody to.
Dawn suggested they hide the weapons under a rock or something before the police got there. She maintained that there was "No point in unduly agitating the police." Chloe was completely silent on the issue, but Pete disagreed.
"Look," he pointed out reasonably, "I've been driving while black in Kansas for like four solid years, and I know cops. You want to be nice and polite and not make 'em think too much." He gestured towards the high-school boys they'd rescued. "Chauncey and Earl over there are just gonna tell the whole story, anyway. You don't want there to be too much discrepancy; a giant bug's weird enough by itself."
Lex roused himself enough to agree. "Pete's right," he said. "Keep it as simple and straightforward as possible."
"You *do* have a license for that piece, don't you, Luthor?" Pete asked.
"Of course. And a Concealed Carry Permit, as well. I just hope they don't become too inquisitive about the ammunition." Lex was breathing funny, and his forehead was scrunched up with the effort it took him to keep his voice cool and even. Clark x-rayed him worriedly. The Kleptes-Virgo's mandibles had bitten into Lex's collarbone, and there were little hairline fractures spreading from the tooth-marks. That had to be hurting a lot. Clark wished he'd thought of calling the ambulance, instead of making Lex think of it himself.
"What about the ammunition?" Chloe asked. It was the first word she'd spoken since she'd cut Clark dead by promising "Superman" not to reveal his secret identity. "Why did you have wooden bullets, Lex?" It was the perfect voice to use to ask the 'hard questions' of captains of industry; she'd been practicing it since she was fourteen.
Pete took pity on the bloodied and the baffled, and answered Chloe himself. "At the end of the school year, when Clark started going out with Dawn, he discovered that vampires are real. There was a bunch of them summoning something in the museum, and Superman stopped it. I'm guessing Lex Luthor, Mad Scientist, here, was doing weapons research about them and that would explain the gun."
"They work, too," Lex added threadily.
Chloe looked even angrier then, which Clark would not have, offhand, thought possible, but they were spared her wrath by the approach of sirens.
It looked like Chloe was going for some quality mad-at-Clark time. After Lex was taken away in the ambulance and the police had taken everybody's statements and said they could go, Chloe still hadn't said one more word to Clark. Pete kept giving him these meaningful looks -- Clark was sure Pete was trying to help him out or tell him what to do, but he didn't read minds, and he had no idea what he should be doing about Chloe.
"You'll give me a ride home, won't you, Pete?" Chloe said. Her tone brooked no argument. They'd come in two cars from the restaurant; Lex didn't own anything but the limo that would hold more than four people.
"Of course," Pete answered. He was still trying to give Clark telepathic advice with his eyebrows. Clark looked back at him helplessly, but Chloe stomped quickly off into the dark, and Pete had to scurry to keep up.
The two swim club kids (their names weren't actually Chauncey and Earl, but rather Tom and Bill) had been taken home to their worried families by the police, so Clark and Dawn were left alone. The wind was picking up; a storm was coming in. Clark had Lex's keys and his fervent admonition to get the Ferrari home safely.
Dawn and Clark slowly walked back to Lex's car. It was late. Clark was tired; he thought he was too tired to put on the suit and patrol tonight. Then he felt guilty because maybe people would need Superman, and he wouldn't be there, and he felt guilty about Lex, and Chloe, and Craig who had died the night before....
Dawn interrupted his train-wreck of thought by putting his arm around her shoulder, and snuggling in under it, and putting her own warm little arm around his waist. "Stop beating yourself up. You did good. Those kids would have died, and you saved them."
Clark swallowed. "You're the one who figured it all out, from the newspaper report. I was completely oblivious. *And* I was useless in the fight...."
"Hello? What fight were you at? We were getting our asses kicked! You killed it with that storage thingie."
"*And* I wandered off and didn't wait for the whole plan...."
"The Kleptes-Virgo was designed to trap young men. You can't blame yourself for being caught."
"*And* Lex got hurt. Badly. And you're all scratched up, too!" Clark suddenly realized that no one had given Dawn any first aid, and x-rayed her, and almost picked her up to carry her the rest of the way to the car, but she stopped him with her hand on his chest.
"Clark! Stop it. These are just scratches. I'll take a shower when I get home, and I'll be fine."
"I was supposed to be protecting you, in case Lionel sent any thugs, but instead I let you get all beat up by a monster that wanted me."
"Fighting monsters is part of what I do. I'm a Summers girl. This is really NOT All Beat Up. And if it makes you feel any better, you can guard the shower room back at the dorm while I'm in there. No x-ray vision, though."
Clark finally laughed. He ducked his head and rubbed his cheek against Dawn's shiny hair. She smelled nice, and he really liked her.
"Chloe's mad at me," he admitted in a small voice.
"I know," Dawn answered quietly. She gave him a squeeze, and leaned up and kissed him. "Don't worry. It probably won't help any."
"That's not all that encouraging," Clark whispered.
Dawn chuckled a little and patted him a couple of times on the shoulder. "There there."
"Yeah, that's better." They walked the rest of the way to Lex's car. It started to rain.
***
Buffy found a road at the bottom of the hill. She picked right as the direction to go because that way she wouldn't have to cross the street. If there was a drive that went up to the walled compound she'd just escaped from, it must be on the other side. Over here there was nothing but a chain-link fence posted "No Trespassing", which she climbed easily, and a rough weedy verge next to the road. There weren't many cars at two or three a.m., and Buffy threw herself flat in the scrub and hid whenever she heard one. She wished she had some sort of shoes, and that reminded her of the annoying old saying about the guy who cried because he had no shoes until he met a man who had no feet, and that reminded her of footless creeping demons she'd known, and bodies she'd discovered that had been chopped up into pieces, and generally was a bad thing all around.
Buffy kept walking until she couldn't walk anymore. By then she was in a region of cornfields, and it was pouring down rain. She didn't remember exactly when either of those things had happened, but she was grateful for the soft plowed earth and the tall plants. She crept into a field and hid among the corn.
First things first. Her outfit would have to be changed. If her two fashion choices were escaped mental patient or weird cultist, she'd take the second one. Buffy tore the sleeves off her pajama top and rolled them into ropes. She took off the pajama pants (obscurely comforted to find she still had underwear) and used Slayer-strength and precise little fingers to tear them into cut-off shorts. She put the shorts back on, and used one torn-off piece of cloth to make a head-scarf, and the other to make a belt. One sleeve-rope secured the headscarf, and the other was twisted into an arm-band. It wasn't as if the heavy drenched cotton was keeping her warm, anyway. The best she could hope for was to not be arrested.
Second things second. Buffy looked for a tree -- she needed a stake. There weren't any in the cornfield, but she had rested long enough for a person on the lam, she thought. She chose to blame lingering traces of drugs in her system rather than raw stupidity for her failure to break off a stake earlier, when there had been trees. Buffy got up and went back toward the road. She decided she'd keep the first row of plants between her and it while she walked. She was looking for wood, or a gas station, or a phone booth.
She'd work on her plan while she walked.
***
Every medical facility that accepted contributions from LuthorCorp had to paint at least one-third of its interior walls purple. Lex hated it.
He also hated the fact that his goddam father had threatened Buffy's sister, and therefore his one actual friend in this benighted city (okay, on this benighted planet) couldn't come with him to the hospital. Clark had to guard Dawn in case Luthor Hired Goons tried to kill her or something.
He hated that Buffy was *doing* what his father wanted, but lacked the wit to make his father see that, so the hairy old bastard was still trying to put pressure on her by threatening her family.
He hated the way his arm felt; he hated the way his shoulder felt; he hated the way the stitches pulled; he hated the drugs they gave him for the pain. Stupid goddam giant bugs -- this kind of thing never used to happen to him before he went to Smallville.
He hated the limo that came to take him home, because if his damn father hadn't threatened Buffy then *Clark* could have taken him home.
He hated his home. Since he'd moved back to Metropolis, he was mostly staying at the penthouse, which technically meant he was still living in his father's house. He needed a place of his own, other than the LexCorp offices. Or he could just put a cot in under his desk -- he was at the office almost all the time anyhow, and it would be a hell of a lot more comfortable than anywhere Lionel lived.
He hated Buffy. If she wasn't going to have anything to do with him anymore, why couldn't she have *told* Dad that, and spared them all this trouble?
Why didn't she ever call him back?
***
About an hour before sunrise, Buffy found a gas station. There was an unlocked restroom with a working sink. She gratefully drank as much water as she could. Thirst had been worse than hunger; try as she might, it seemed impossible to really drink rain. Then she started looking around for clues as to her whereabouts. The pay-phone was out-of-order, but it had most of a phone book still attached to its little chain. The phone book was for Metropolis, Kansas and Surrounding Communities. That answered the question of who had abducted her, and why. She owed Lionel Luthor something, now, and she'd just have to figure out a way to pay.
Unfortunately, squinting surreptitiously at the area-code maps and things in the front of the directory remnant soon convinced Buffy that she'd been walking the wrong way for the last two or three hours. That might be lucky from the point of view of evading capture, but it sucked in terms of catching up with Mr. Luthor and Making Him Regret That He Was Ever Born.
She was wet and tired, and her feet hurt. She'd stopped being hungry a while ago, and she knew from experience that that was actually a bad thing. The sun would be up in less than an hour, and that would make hiding a lot harder.
Buffy lurked in the weeds behind the gas station and tried to think of a good plan. She kept an eye on the road in case any sudden inspiration should appear.
Then it did. A white stake-bed truck with "Ranson's Gardening Service" stenciled on the door pulled into the gas station. It had been heading towards Metropolis, and maybe that meant it would be heading towards Metropolis again when it resumed its journey. Buffy crept closer and waited for her chance. The truck had a big load of something in the back, covered with a tarp. The driver went into the gas station mini-mart. Buffy hoped he was going to get a cup of coffee as well as pay for re-fueling, so she'd have time for this. She ran to the back of the truck and pulled up a corner of the blue plastic sheeting. The truck was full of rolls of sod. She squiggled under the tarp and rearranged it over her as best as she could.
By the time the driver came back out to gas up his truck, Buffy was already asleep.
***
***
Clark felt terrible that Lex had gotten hurt. Lex regained consciousness before the ambulance and police arrived, but he still insisted on going and being checked out by a doctor. That was pretty darn unsettling in itself, since Lex tried to avoid doctors ever since Helen. But Lex had passed it off lightly with a quip about just wanting to make sure he got a pain prescription, and Clark felt more assured that Lex would be okay.
Clark felt terrible that he'd hurt Chloe's feelings so badly, too. Pete had been furious at him for a couple of days when he found out, years before. Lex had been incensed for about a month when he'd found out, less than two months ago. Both of them had to almost die before they decided to forgive him. Clark didn't want Chloe to almost die; for one thing, she wasn't as reckless as the guys were. It might be a long time. Mainly, though, he just didn't want her to get hurt. He didn't want anybody to.
Dawn suggested they hide the weapons under a rock or something before the police got there. She maintained that there was "No point in unduly agitating the police." Chloe was completely silent on the issue, but Pete disagreed.
"Look," he pointed out reasonably, "I've been driving while black in Kansas for like four solid years, and I know cops. You want to be nice and polite and not make 'em think too much." He gestured towards the high-school boys they'd rescued. "Chauncey and Earl over there are just gonna tell the whole story, anyway. You don't want there to be too much discrepancy; a giant bug's weird enough by itself."
Lex roused himself enough to agree. "Pete's right," he said. "Keep it as simple and straightforward as possible."
"You *do* have a license for that piece, don't you, Luthor?" Pete asked.
"Of course. And a Concealed Carry Permit, as well. I just hope they don't become too inquisitive about the ammunition." Lex was breathing funny, and his forehead was scrunched up with the effort it took him to keep his voice cool and even. Clark x-rayed him worriedly. The Kleptes-Virgo's mandibles had bitten into Lex's collarbone, and there were little hairline fractures spreading from the tooth-marks. That had to be hurting a lot. Clark wished he'd thought of calling the ambulance, instead of making Lex think of it himself.
"What about the ammunition?" Chloe asked. It was the first word she'd spoken since she'd cut Clark dead by promising "Superman" not to reveal his secret identity. "Why did you have wooden bullets, Lex?" It was the perfect voice to use to ask the 'hard questions' of captains of industry; she'd been practicing it since she was fourteen.
Pete took pity on the bloodied and the baffled, and answered Chloe himself. "At the end of the school year, when Clark started going out with Dawn, he discovered that vampires are real. There was a bunch of them summoning something in the museum, and Superman stopped it. I'm guessing Lex Luthor, Mad Scientist, here, was doing weapons research about them and that would explain the gun."
"They work, too," Lex added threadily.
Chloe looked even angrier then, which Clark would not have, offhand, thought possible, but they were spared her wrath by the approach of sirens.
It looked like Chloe was going for some quality mad-at-Clark time. After Lex was taken away in the ambulance and the police had taken everybody's statements and said they could go, Chloe still hadn't said one more word to Clark. Pete kept giving him these meaningful looks -- Clark was sure Pete was trying to help him out or tell him what to do, but he didn't read minds, and he had no idea what he should be doing about Chloe.
"You'll give me a ride home, won't you, Pete?" Chloe said. Her tone brooked no argument. They'd come in two cars from the restaurant; Lex didn't own anything but the limo that would hold more than four people.
"Of course," Pete answered. He was still trying to give Clark telepathic advice with his eyebrows. Clark looked back at him helplessly, but Chloe stomped quickly off into the dark, and Pete had to scurry to keep up.
The two swim club kids (their names weren't actually Chauncey and Earl, but rather Tom and Bill) had been taken home to their worried families by the police, so Clark and Dawn were left alone. The wind was picking up; a storm was coming in. Clark had Lex's keys and his fervent admonition to get the Ferrari home safely.
Dawn and Clark slowly walked back to Lex's car. It was late. Clark was tired; he thought he was too tired to put on the suit and patrol tonight. Then he felt guilty because maybe people would need Superman, and he wouldn't be there, and he felt guilty about Lex, and Chloe, and Craig who had died the night before....
Dawn interrupted his train-wreck of thought by putting his arm around her shoulder, and snuggling in under it, and putting her own warm little arm around his waist. "Stop beating yourself up. You did good. Those kids would have died, and you saved them."
Clark swallowed. "You're the one who figured it all out, from the newspaper report. I was completely oblivious. *And* I was useless in the fight...."
"Hello? What fight were you at? We were getting our asses kicked! You killed it with that storage thingie."
"*And* I wandered off and didn't wait for the whole plan...."
"The Kleptes-Virgo was designed to trap young men. You can't blame yourself for being caught."
"*And* Lex got hurt. Badly. And you're all scratched up, too!" Clark suddenly realized that no one had given Dawn any first aid, and x-rayed her, and almost picked her up to carry her the rest of the way to the car, but she stopped him with her hand on his chest.
"Clark! Stop it. These are just scratches. I'll take a shower when I get home, and I'll be fine."
"I was supposed to be protecting you, in case Lionel sent any thugs, but instead I let you get all beat up by a monster that wanted me."
"Fighting monsters is part of what I do. I'm a Summers girl. This is really NOT All Beat Up. And if it makes you feel any better, you can guard the shower room back at the dorm while I'm in there. No x-ray vision, though."
Clark finally laughed. He ducked his head and rubbed his cheek against Dawn's shiny hair. She smelled nice, and he really liked her.
"Chloe's mad at me," he admitted in a small voice.
"I know," Dawn answered quietly. She gave him a squeeze, and leaned up and kissed him. "Don't worry. It probably won't help any."
"That's not all that encouraging," Clark whispered.
Dawn chuckled a little and patted him a couple of times on the shoulder. "There there."
"Yeah, that's better." They walked the rest of the way to Lex's car. It started to rain.
***
Buffy found a road at the bottom of the hill. She picked right as the direction to go because that way she wouldn't have to cross the street. If there was a drive that went up to the walled compound she'd just escaped from, it must be on the other side. Over here there was nothing but a chain-link fence posted "No Trespassing", which she climbed easily, and a rough weedy verge next to the road. There weren't many cars at two or three a.m., and Buffy threw herself flat in the scrub and hid whenever she heard one. She wished she had some sort of shoes, and that reminded her of the annoying old saying about the guy who cried because he had no shoes until he met a man who had no feet, and that reminded her of footless creeping demons she'd known, and bodies she'd discovered that had been chopped up into pieces, and generally was a bad thing all around.
Buffy kept walking until she couldn't walk anymore. By then she was in a region of cornfields, and it was pouring down rain. She didn't remember exactly when either of those things had happened, but she was grateful for the soft plowed earth and the tall plants. She crept into a field and hid among the corn.
First things first. Her outfit would have to be changed. If her two fashion choices were escaped mental patient or weird cultist, she'd take the second one. Buffy tore the sleeves off her pajama top and rolled them into ropes. She took off the pajama pants (obscurely comforted to find she still had underwear) and used Slayer-strength and precise little fingers to tear them into cut-off shorts. She put the shorts back on, and used one torn-off piece of cloth to make a head-scarf, and the other to make a belt. One sleeve-rope secured the headscarf, and the other was twisted into an arm-band. It wasn't as if the heavy drenched cotton was keeping her warm, anyway. The best she could hope for was to not be arrested.
Second things second. Buffy looked for a tree -- she needed a stake. There weren't any in the cornfield, but she had rested long enough for a person on the lam, she thought. She chose to blame lingering traces of drugs in her system rather than raw stupidity for her failure to break off a stake earlier, when there had been trees. Buffy got up and went back toward the road. She decided she'd keep the first row of plants between her and it while she walked. She was looking for wood, or a gas station, or a phone booth.
She'd work on her plan while she walked.
***
Every medical facility that accepted contributions from LuthorCorp had to paint at least one-third of its interior walls purple. Lex hated it.
He also hated the fact that his goddam father had threatened Buffy's sister, and therefore his one actual friend in this benighted city (okay, on this benighted planet) couldn't come with him to the hospital. Clark had to guard Dawn in case Luthor Hired Goons tried to kill her or something.
He hated that Buffy was *doing* what his father wanted, but lacked the wit to make his father see that, so the hairy old bastard was still trying to put pressure on her by threatening her family.
He hated the way his arm felt; he hated the way his shoulder felt; he hated the way the stitches pulled; he hated the drugs they gave him for the pain. Stupid goddam giant bugs -- this kind of thing never used to happen to him before he went to Smallville.
He hated the limo that came to take him home, because if his damn father hadn't threatened Buffy then *Clark* could have taken him home.
He hated his home. Since he'd moved back to Metropolis, he was mostly staying at the penthouse, which technically meant he was still living in his father's house. He needed a place of his own, other than the LexCorp offices. Or he could just put a cot in under his desk -- he was at the office almost all the time anyhow, and it would be a hell of a lot more comfortable than anywhere Lionel lived.
He hated Buffy. If she wasn't going to have anything to do with him anymore, why couldn't she have *told* Dad that, and spared them all this trouble?
Why didn't she ever call him back?
***
About an hour before sunrise, Buffy found a gas station. There was an unlocked restroom with a working sink. She gratefully drank as much water as she could. Thirst had been worse than hunger; try as she might, it seemed impossible to really drink rain. Then she started looking around for clues as to her whereabouts. The pay-phone was out-of-order, but it had most of a phone book still attached to its little chain. The phone book was for Metropolis, Kansas and Surrounding Communities. That answered the question of who had abducted her, and why. She owed Lionel Luthor something, now, and she'd just have to figure out a way to pay.
Unfortunately, squinting surreptitiously at the area-code maps and things in the front of the directory remnant soon convinced Buffy that she'd been walking the wrong way for the last two or three hours. That might be lucky from the point of view of evading capture, but it sucked in terms of catching up with Mr. Luthor and Making Him Regret That He Was Ever Born.
She was wet and tired, and her feet hurt. She'd stopped being hungry a while ago, and she knew from experience that that was actually a bad thing. The sun would be up in less than an hour, and that would make hiding a lot harder.
Buffy lurked in the weeds behind the gas station and tried to think of a good plan. She kept an eye on the road in case any sudden inspiration should appear.
Then it did. A white stake-bed truck with "Ranson's Gardening Service" stenciled on the door pulled into the gas station. It had been heading towards Metropolis, and maybe that meant it would be heading towards Metropolis again when it resumed its journey. Buffy crept closer and waited for her chance. The truck had a big load of something in the back, covered with a tarp. The driver went into the gas station mini-mart. Buffy hoped he was going to get a cup of coffee as well as pay for re-fueling, so she'd have time for this. She ran to the back of the truck and pulled up a corner of the blue plastic sheeting. The truck was full of rolls of sod. She squiggled under the tarp and rearranged it over her as best as she could.
By the time the driver came back out to gas up his truck, Buffy was already asleep.
***