Believe it or not, I am posting more of my story! I sure hope I haven't made you all faint from the shock. Thanks for reading, guys! You make all the writing worth while A special thanks to my friend, Dawn, for helping me with that one annoying sentence I couldn't make work. Now you are famous, and everyone wants to be like you. Yay!

Ch. 16

Clark didn't come home early from the dance. He just sat there in the dark for the longest time. He knew he only had a few hours left before his parents would expect him home, and then what? Should he just not tell them what he did? No, they'd figure it out eventually, when Chloe came over asking them a whole bunch of questions about finding their son in a spaceship. He had to tell them. He knew he'd have to tell them all along, but now that things didn't go as well as he had hoped, he was scared. Amazing, Clark thought. No matter how old you get, you're always scared of your mom… But now that Clark was home, sitting outside in his truck—well, he really wasn't sure what to do. He didn't even want to think about what will happen. But keeping secrets was what got him into this mess. His only hope of getting free was to tell the truth.

When Clark opened the door, he heard laughing. Weird, he thought. I bet that's the last time I hear laughing in this house again for a while… They were all in the living room, playing a game. Jonathan saw him first.
Clark looked down. Jonathan sounded panicky. "What's wrong?"

The laughter stopped, and everyone looked at Clark. "I told Lana and Chloe the truth tonight. I told them everything."
-

"Hey—now's it going?" Chloe asked the next morning. Chloe got her dad to call in sick for both Lana and her. Lana had stayed the night at Chloe's house. It was the only real family home she was used to, and she didn't feel like being alone the night before. Neither did Chloe.

Flashback to earlier that morning

"Something happened, Dad. Something as big as what happened this summer."

"What happened!" Chloe's dad had asked, suddenly feeling the urge to move as far away from Kansas as he could.

"Lana found out something big. As much as I would like to tell you the rest, I can't. Just trust me that we're not trying to skip out on a test or something, okay?"

Mr. Sullivan looked at Lana and immediately knew that they were telling the truth. With their lives, they deserved a break every once in a while. They're just kids… he told himself. No kid should have to go through this…

Back to present

"I'm doing okay," Lana answered, "considering I just found out the boy I was in love with is from another planet."

Chloe laughed a little sarcastically. "I wonder how that feels."

Lana looked back up at Chloe. "I'm sorry—I didn't mean…"

Chloe interrupted her. "Lana, I know what it was like to find out about my mom—why she was gone. I can't imagine how it would be to learn that someone you care about has something to do with a parent's death."

Lana looked down. "I'm…. I'm not even sure what to think. I want to be angry at him. I want to not care. I want to…" Chloe sat down and waited for her to continue. "You know what scares me?" Chloe gave her a questioning look. Unwanted tears entered Lana's eyes again. "It doesn't change anything! When I looked at him, I still just saw Clark. I saw the same boy I had known since I was 3. I still had the same feelings for him, and everything is exactly the same as it was yesterday, only now I know it's the same. Lionel Luther will still be after Clark. We'll still have to put up with Clark's disappearings, and watch our backs, and…"

Chloe tried to smile. "I thought that was the point of him telling us—it wouldn't change anything."

"But it does change things! It does and it doesn't…" Lana stopped. "I must make no sense to you at all right now."

"Actually, Lana, I know exactly what you're saying. We kept asking to know the truth, knowing that it would be dangerous, hoping that it would settle the tension between us, and now…"

"Are you scared of him?" Lana asked.

Chloe thought about that for a minute. "No." She stopped. "Part of me wishes I were, but that's not what I'm scared of."

"What are you scared of?" Lana asked again, hoping that Chloe would put into words what Lana felt, too.

"I'm scared of the situation. Just yesterday I believed that green meteor rocks mutated people, and that was as far as it went. But now I know more." Chloe tried to smile. "Why does knowing more always make it more scary?"

Lana shook thought about that and shook her head. "I don't know."

"And it is hard—because now I know that there is something going on in Smallville much bigger than the Luthors or even high school—something that we have no control over—something that even Clark can't escape." Tears started going down Chloe's eyes, now, yet Chloe smiled through her tears. "And you know the sad thing-We're 18 years old! Our life isn't supposed to start for another 7-10 years—and already we have gone through so much… What will my life look like 10 years from now? Can I even go on that long?" Chloe stopped for a second, trying to gather strength. "And the thing that really scares my gnomes underground is now that he's finally told us, I think I've known it all along. I just didn't want it to be true."

Lana nodded her head. "Yeah, I think I've known it for a while, too. Or at least suspected." Chloe look confused. Lana began explaining. "I first started feeling there was more to Clark Kent than just the meteor infection when I found out about the serum that kept Adam Knight alive."

Chloe cringed a little. "Oh yes- thanks for those memories."

"I asked Clark if he knew what was in the serum, and he said no."

"Of course."

"But how he said no. Or even after he said no—there was something. And then everything I found in the caves." Lana shook her head, trying to make sense of things. "Meteors don't write on cave walls, and they sure don't spread artifacts all over the world."

Chloe smiled. "Well, this is Smallville. I would actually believe it if the meteors came to life and grew arms and legs and started painting on cave walls."

Lana smiled a little, too. "But they didn't, Chloe. This is Clark's heritage. He's the only one…" Lana looked down. "He's the only one who's left."

Chloe suddenly understood what she was talking about. "It must be hard."

"It is. Even though you know you have others who care about you, you can never forget those who cared about you first."

They sat there for a good while before Chloe got up. "Well, I'm going to go make a miraculous recovery and sneak into the school."

"Why?"

"I want to make sure I have everything weird about Clark out of that room before the day ends. I think I got rid of everything a long time ago, but now that I know how serious it is, I want to be extra careful."

Lana looked down and nodded. Chloe realized she wasn't making her point. "Maybe you should get out of the house, too."

"I don't think I could face Clark right now, Chloe."

"Who said anything about that? Take a drive. See where it takes you. Maybe who it takes you to." Lana looked
confused. "Maybe it will take you to another woman who knows what it's like to be alone since the day of the meteor shower."
Lana knew who she was talking about, but part of her was scared to go there. "All roads eventually lead home, Lana. Go home." Chloe put her coat on, grabbed her keys, and left Lana alone to decide what to do