Author's Note: I didn't mean to imply that I wanted to restrict reviewing here - I quite like it, if I must be honest - I was just saying that if you have a question, it's easier to discuss on K-site. Review away!
"I can't tell you anything you don't already know," Lois insisted as Lex stood impassively at the door of the exam room. "I wasn't at the Kents' for very long before you and your guerillas showed up."
"What were you doing there in the first place? It was a bit early for a social call."
"I was looking for Chloe, if you must know, and I've had enough of this interrogation. You can leave now, I think you know the way out."
Lex smiled indifferently. "Not quite the gracious hostess, are you, Miss Lane?"
"Oh, I'm sorry, your Grace," Lois gushed with an exaggerated curtsy. "Please accept my most humble apologies as I slam the door behind you."
"It has a tension spring, you can't slam it."
"Damn."
"Why the hostility? I just met you and I took it upon myself to make sure you hadn't suffered brain damage - although now I'm thinking that's a possibility. I'm only here for answers. I think I missed the part where I grievously wronged you."
"Your father tried to murder my cousin and my uncle. I guess I'm operating under the assumption that the "like father, like son" adage had to come from somewhere."
Lex's stoic guise dissolved without warning. "I saved their lives!" he shouted, uncharacteristically unglued. "It's my father who is dead now, and I want you to help me find out why."
Lois shook her head. "Oh, don't expect me to buy the bereaved son act. Your father was a cold fish at best, and nobody would know that better than you. I've known you all of sixty minutes and I can see that. Anyway, what could Clark possibly have to do with a helicopter explosion?"
Lex quickly regained his composure and spoke concisely. "As I said, things happen around Clark. He's unaccounted for at the time of the explosion as of yet, and he had motive."
Lois was beginning to lose the little patience she ordinarily reserved for spectacularly slow elderly people walking ridiculously tiny dogs across city streets. "And how do I fit in to this picture? If I don't get a straight answer this time I swear I'll have security escort you out."
Lex couldn't resist smiling at the forceful way she took command of the space, as if it were hers to control. "You have questions about Clark, correct?"
Lois shrugged. "What makes you think that? And that was not a straight answer, by the way."
"You've met Clark, right?"
"Well, according to you I'm the conduit to answers about him, so I must have. And again, a cryptic question does not a straight answer make."
"If you've met him, you have questions. In fact, I'd wager that's the real reason you're here."
"Care to place money on that bet? I could use a new pair of boots."
"Clark tends to leave a first impression that plants a few seeds of curiosity. I doubt that a young woman as clever as you would have missed that."
"Are you patronizing me?" Lois looked indignant, arms crossed over her chest in a defiant stance.
"Not in the least."
Lois hesitated. "What is it you want me to do?"
"I want you to come with me back to the farm."
Clark and Chloe were exiting the barn just as Jonathan pulled up, his truck screeching to a halt.
"Dad!" Clark called, jogging over to meet his father with Chloe close behind him.
"It was all the Luthors, wasn't it?" Jonathan bellowed as he stepped down from the truck. "They were probably behind it all from the beginning - this whole thing with Ripley and the baby - they had him in their back pocket, didn't they?" When he reached Clark he embraced him firmly, more for his own support that for his son's. "I should never have let this happen."
Clark pulled back and shook his head at his father. "Whoa, Dad, step back - you didn't let this happen! You can't blame yourself, it was me who decided to go, and it was Ripley who went to Lionel - "
"Was Lionel behind this from the beginning? Do you know?" Jonathan interposed.
"I - I don't think so. I don't know though. I think if he'd had any kind of association with Lionel before this happened, Dr. Swann would have found out about it. Dr. Crosby made it sound like he just took off. I'm honestly not sure though."
Jonathan stood silently for a moment, taking in the sights of his mangled home in the light of the morning sun. His fields were trampled, his barn had a new open-air ceiling, and he'd just filled his storm cellar with all the Kryptonite that had been planted in the house until he could find a better way to get rid of it. His eyes traveled over the house - the multi-generational Kent family home. The keeper of secrets.
"We need to talk to this Dr. Crosby and find out everything that's going on. But there's one thing I'm sure about." Jonathan's gaze was still fixed on the house, as if he too were able to look through its walls.
"What?" Clark asked in unison with Chloe.
"If this Ripley character was working for Lionel, then he at least knows about the baby. And I'm guessing it's a safe bet he'll be coming after it."
Clark looked as if he'd been punched in the gut hard enough to actually feel it.
"Are you okay, Clark?" Chloe prompted with concern. Jonathan's speculation would do nothing to calm the confused storm that already raged inside her friend.
"I just - I hadn't even thought of that." He ran a hand through his hair and walked over to the porch, taking a seat on the steps. "This is all… it's just way too much, way too fast." He braced his neck with his hands.
Chloe glanced from Clark to Jonathan, whose own downtrodden countenance mirrored his son's. Clark pulled at an exceptionally long blade of grass next to the bottom step, bringing it up by the root, then twisting it and tearing it into tiny shreds while he stared vacantly ahead. Jonathan took a seat next to Clark. The two sat in silence until Chloe spoke.
"Why should Lionel be interested in the baby?"
Jonathan looked up, squinting at Chloe in the light of the morning sun. "Why should Lionel be interested in Clark? Or the Kawatche caves? Why has he been stockpiling Kryptonite? Trust me, if he knows about this baby - that is if he didn't order this whole thing himself - he's a lot more than interested."
"You know what?" Clark interjected without looking up from his shredded blade of grass. "I'm really, really tired."
Before anyone could respond, they all froze at the sound of tires crunching the gravel in the driveway. Chloe spun around. "It's my dad!" She turned back to Clark. "You didn't hear him coming?"
"I wasn't listening for inbound traffic, sorry," Clark scoffed.
Chloe faced the driveway again as Gabe Sullivan brought his car to an angry stop. "If he were any more irate, I could have heard him coming." She grimaced and then adopted her most innocent expression as her father slammed the car door and stalked toward her. "Morning, Dad!" she called brightly, as if she had no idea why he might be upset.
"Do you have any idea what's been going through my mind all night?" Gabe cried.
"Dad, we were just - "
"Don't give me any 'we were just' or 'nothing happened,' excuses young lady! You are grounded!" Gabe was livid, his face reddening with each word.
"Grounded!" Chloe shouted. "I've never been grounded! Dad, I can - "
Gabe wheeled and turned on Jonathan. "And I hope you gave that boy of yours a talking to as well - "
"Now, just a minute, Gabe," Jonathan interrupted, holding up a pacifying hand. "I'd be the first person to give that talk if there was a reason to, but - "
"Are you telling me that these two slept together and there's no reason for me to be upset?"
"No, Dad, you have a right to be upset, I should have called, but we didn't 'sleep together,' we didn't even go to sleep - "
"Oh, well that's great!" Gabe grabbed Chloe by the arm. "We're leaving. Now."
"No, Dad, what I meant was… was…" Maybe my powers of snark and wit are coffee-dependent.
"Cows!" Clark shouted and rose from the steps, speaking for the first time since Gabe had arrived.
Jonathan, Gabe, and Chloe turned to him and merely blinked in response.
Clark cleared his throat. "We had a bit of a problem with the cows last night - there was sort of a stampede." Clark fervently hoped that Gabe, still being something of a city slicker despite his years in Smallville, would buy the lie.
Gabe looked around at the trampled fields and crushed fences. "It looks that way," he agreed, but with his jaw still set in a hard line. "That doesn't explain why my daughter, who has just spent three months in hiding for fear of her life, stayed out all night and didn't call me."
"I'm sorry, Mr. Sullivan, she was helping with the cows and we just lost track of time. It took all night, we just finished about ten minutes ago."
Gabe looked dubious. "Chloe was helping you with cows?"
Clark smiled, both at Gabe's disbelief and the expression of horror on Chloe's face at the thought of actually helping with farm work. "Yeah, she's quite a wrangler when she needs to be."
"Yeah!" Chloe piped up. "That's what I did! I wrangled." I'll have to find out exactly what "wrangling" is.
"Do you even keep cows here?"
"Not right here, no," Jonathan jumped in. "They're pastured a little way off. That's why it was such a big problem."
Gabe assessed his daughter's appearance - her clothes dirty and tattered, bits of hay and corn husks clinging to her hair, her face streaked with dust. Definitely not the appearance she'd have if she'd been exerting herself the way he'd feared. Clark and Jonathan were in somewhat less grimy variations of disarray. He was flooded with feelings of embarrassment and relief.
"I'm sorry about the accusations, I guess I just panicked." He hugged Chloe tightly, not minding the remains of Minnesota cornfield that still adorned her. "But if you ever scare me like that again, you will be grounded!" Chloe chuckled, plainly glad to be off the hook, and Gabe looked up at the front door. "Where's Lois?" he asked abruptly. "Is she in the house?"
"Uh, Lois?" Clark responded uncertainly. "She left a while ago. Said her shoes weren't designed for following in a cow's footsteps." Despite the gravity of the situation, he found himself smiling, She probably would say that.
"I wonder why I haven't heard from her. It's been hours since I talked to her, when she told me Chloe was here." He turned to face his daughter. "I was trying to give you the benefit of the doubt and show you that I trust you, give you a chance to come home."
"So, you don't trust me?" Chloe pouted.
"Don't push it, Chloe, you're still in trouble for not calling. Is it too much to ask that my daughter let me know where she is, so I don't have to worry that her life is being threatened again?"
"I'm sorry Dad. I'll remember next time."
"Yes, you will. Now let's go home. You must be exhausted."
Chloe smiled, silently thanking Clark for sparing her too grave a punishment, and honestly impressed that he'd managed to convince her father that she'd really done farm chores. Although the fact that I look like I've been in a stampede probably helped. "I am exhausted. 'Bye Clark, I'll see you later. 'Bye Mr. Kent. Glad I could help with the cows, but next time - I think I'll pass."
Jonathan and Clark stood side by side, watching the Sullivans as they retreated down the lane.
"You're getting to be a good liar, Clark," Jonathan commented.
"Yeah," Clark replied admittedly, sensing that his father's tone carried no pride. "I wish I didn't have to be."
Jonathan nodded. "So do I, son." He gave Clark a supportive hand on his shoulder. "So do I."