TOUCHING

Baby D Series

Safe

I DO NOT OWN any of the characters from the show "Smallville." Only the character of Dana Wells and the traits pertaining to her... - Baby D

"You passed the front door on your way up," Dana sat at the desk, typing at super speed. Clark stepped into the room. She paused and glanced quickly up at him, waiting for her computer to catch up with what she had just typed in.

"I know, I came to see you," he watched as she looked back down at the laptop. He looked around the room at all the artefacts, then back at her, waiting for her to say something.

She looked up at him, "What?" She shook her head. Clark rolled his eyes impatiently. "You said see, not talk to."

"Come on Dana, why are you…"

"Acting like this?"

"Yes," he stepped closer to the desk as she got up, walking around to meet him. She looked him in the eyes closely.

You really wanna know don't you?" He couldn't fight the urge to touch her face as she looked at him. He brushed her cheek, and she closed her eyes, taking a deep breath in and relaxing.

"Clark," she let out as his hand met her chin. "Stop," she turned her face away, "I'll tell you." She opened her eyes reluctantly. "In the shelter, last year, there was this woman," Dana kept her head turned, finding it easier not to look at him. "She found out about me, about my powers." She walked over and sat down on the loveseat at the side of the room, just below the window. Clark followed and sat himself down beside her. "She told these researchers at a place call X² about me, and they said they'd pay her if she could get me to them." She stopped, remembering being shipped off in the middle of the night. "They took me to this, this building and sprayed me with this stuff called kryptonite."

"What's that?" Clark finally spoke up.

"It's a liquid they made our of the meteor rocks. It just immobilized you, but it hurt like hell."

"I know," Clark nodded. Dana looked up at him angrily.

"No, you don't know, you have no idea. They held me on a metal table with steel straps for almost 3 months. They did every kind of test they could think of on me." She shook furiously "They electrocuted me, drowned me, starved me, suffocated me, I almost died I don't know how many times. And when tried to escape, they would spray me with the kryptonite, I couldn't get away.

"How did you get out?"

"There was a glitch in the machines, the spray didn't work. I barely escaped."

"And you're okay now, that's over," he placed his hand on hers and a flash of two men leaning over him passed his mind. Clark shook his head to get rid of it. "You're safe."

She tore her hand away and stood up, Clark standing up with her.

"Safe? I'm not safe anywhere. You saw them; they followed me to here, to school, to your house. They're here, and if you don't want what happened to me to happen to you, you'll stay away from me, far away." Dana was almost yelling.

"Dana, I just want to help you," Clark answered back in the same tone. She just looked up at him with sadness in her eyes.

"Yeah, well, you can't." They both could hear someone walking towards the stairs on the floor below. Facing the noise, Dana stepped away form Clark and headed for the door. As she started down the dark wooden steps, Lex was on his way up. She didn't pay any attention to him. Clark stood watching her from the railing at the top.

"Dana, where are you going?" Lex stopped to ask.

"Out," she took the last step. She turned and headed for her room to get her purse and jacket.