Lana had expected to feel light-headed or dizzy when she teleported back to Smallville, but when she landed on her bed in Chloe's house, she found that she felt perfectly fine.

It was peaceful and quiet. The only noise was the tick-tocking of her clock. She looked over at it and noticed it was two minutes until midnight. Scanning the rest of her room, she noticed it looked exactly as it had when she left to go talk to Clark. She looked down at herself - happy bunny pajama pants and a cozy black sweater she'd bought in Paris. She had been wearing the exact same thing before she changed into something to wear over to Clark's house.

"It wasn't a dream…I know it wasn't…" She reached up and rubbed her forehead, "…was it?"

Lana got close to two hours of sleep that night, but it didn't stop her from going to school the next day. She had to see if Clark was there. If he was, then Sogni Dromen was just an incredibly intense dream that she would never speak of again as long as she lived. But if he wasn't…well…she wasn't exactly sure what she'd do…

She got to school just as the bell rang for first hour, which made it impossible to stop by the Torch, where Clark usually hung out before class.

'No biggie. I have first hour Spanish with him…he'll be there. He hasn't missed a day all year,' Lana told herself optimistically. She had to be optimistic. It was the only thing stopping her from dropping into the abyss of a life with no Clark.

She eagerly rushed into the room…and stopped when she pasted the threshold.

There was her desk - empty. And there was Clark's desk behind hers - also empty.

"Excuse me," a boy said from behind her, trying to get past.

"Oh, sorry," Lana moved out of the doorway and quickly sat down in her seat.

'Okay…it's not like he's always the first one in the classroom, Lana. The Torch is clear on the other side of the school. It might take him a few - '

DING DING DING

Her string of optimism snapped and she fell down to reality with a harsh, painful smack.

Clark was never, ever late to his first hour class.

As Mrs. Davis began the day's lesson, Lana stared at her grammar book, her mind not even remotely near the subject of irregular verbs. She almost wanted to drop down and cry that very second. What could she possibly tell the Kents? They would never believe that their son was lost in an imaginary world!

Lana's depression lasted all the way through the day. She politely asked people to leave her alone, letting them use their own imagination for the reason why. She didn't laugh at the jokes the other guys made in class. She didn't smile when she passed her friends. The cloud of black depression continued to cover her all day until eighth hour.

AP English. One of Lana's favorite classes because Mr. Stein, the coolest English teacher ever, taught it. She came in and sat down in her usual seat in the front.

Mr. Stein was at his desk, hands folded in front of him, glasses pushed up against the bridge of his nose. Although he was almost fifty, he still dressed like a teenager and surprisingly still looked good in it. Lana supposed that was why he was considered everyone's favorite - it seemed as though the bridge between student and teacher wasn't quite so creepy and long when it came to Mr. Stein and his zany, yet original antics.

"Good Morning, Lana," Mr. Stein stated in his usual happy mood.

"Hey," Lana said, not even trying to hide her grief.

"Something wrong?"

"Yeah…but if I told you, you'd think I was crazy." She smirked as she dug around in her book bag for her English book.

"Right…women stuff, I suppose?"

She looked up at him, noticing he was wearing that Mr. Stein grin that was only second to Clark's cute, puppy dog one.

She raised her eyebrows and smiled. "No! Not even close."

He laughed a little and then began to write down something in his planner. As the rest of the class came filing in, Lana heard part of one of the football player's conversations.

" - and Kent's got himself five extra laps to run tomorrow at practice." Jeff the lanky quarterback said as he slid into his desk.

"Why?" Kaitlin, one of the cheerleaders, asked as she too sat down.

"Cause he wouldn't run today in P.E. Said he wasn't feeling good and hadn't slept all night. The coach told him if he wanted to sit on his lazy ass all day, he should've stayed home."

"That's so mean! Clark is the nicest guy in the world," Kaitlin complained before her friend poked her on the shoulder and whispered a new subject of conversation into her ear.

Jeff went back to copying Kaitlin's English homework.

"Mr. Stein?" Lana acknowledged with bewilderment.

He looked up at her, adjusting his glasses. "Yes, Lana?"

"Do you have a list of all the people who are absent today?"

Mr. Stein searched through a pile of papers on his desk and then pulled one out.

"Is Clark Kent there?"

He gave her a quick glance as if to say, "A-ha! You have guy problems…" and quickly searched for Clark's name, muttering it a few times as if to give him luck in finding it quicker.

"Mmm…well, he was put down as absent, but it says he signed in at the office during lunch."

And, as if on cue, Clark shuffled into the room, hair a mess and large bags under his eyes. He looked extremely tired, but to Lana he looked perfect.

"Wow…and look what the cat dragged in," Mr. Stein exclaimed as Clark plopped down in a desk in the last row next to Jeff.

"Did you sleep at all, dude?" Jeff asked, almost laughing at how terrible he looked.

"Like two minutes," Clark admitted truthfully, letting his head hit his desktop.

"Well, I'm afraid you're going to have to stay awake for forty more minutes, Clark, because today we are going to learn about the ever exciting…." Mr. Stein jumped up from his desk and began to write on the board, "…1900's American Poetry!"

A few kids grumbled and Mr. Stein whipped around, glaring at them. They're groans morphed into silence in a matter of a few seconds and Mr. Stein nodded at them, satisfied.

"As I was saying, the next forty minutes I guarantee will be chalk-full of non-stop American poetry nirvana! Who's excited!" Mr. Stein exclaimed in his over dramatic tone that made a few kids smirk.

"Wahoo! Poetry!" Jeff shrieked from the back of the room as he clapped stupidly. The other jocks joined in while everyone else laughed and shook their heads.

Everyone except Clark and Lana.

Twenty minutes later, Jeff was slumped over his desk asleep, drool slipping out of his open mouth. Kaitlin was laughing at something her friend had just wrote in a note to her. The rest of the class was either zoned out or acting as decoys - actually paying attention so Mr. Stein wouldn't get too suspicious.

"So, why would Faulkner go to all that trouble to create this metaphor?" Mr. Stein scanned the room, trying to pick the most unsuspecting student to answer. "Clark?"

"What!" His head shot up in surprise and a few of the decoys laughed at his stupidity. He had been scribbling something down, lost in thought and had only heard his name.

"Too busy taking down notes?"

"Uh…y-yeah."

"That's funny," Mr. Stein stated with a smirk, "because I haven't given any yet."

Clark opened his mouth to say something, but couldn't think of anything. He looked back down at the paper he'd been writing on.

"What is it that you're doing, Clark?"

"J-just…um…something…"

"Poetry?"

Clark's head jolted back at Mr. Stein in surprise. "A-actually it is, but - "

"Oh, really?" Mr. Stein's expression turned into one of interest. Torturing unsuspecting students was a fun, exciting game to him. Each time he played, it was something new. "Why don't you come up here and read it to the class? Everyone would like to listen to it I'm sure."

Lana looked on helplessly. This kind of humility was only reserved for troublemakers. It was somewhat sad to see it happen to Clark.

"Um…it's kind of suppose to be read only by this other person - "

"Clark," Mr. Stein said sternly, "read it, sit down, and you won't have a detention for not following my directions. It's as simple as that."

Sighing, Clark stood and came to the front of the class. He put the paper on the podium and took another breath. He didn't look up at anyone as he spoke.

"Uh…I-it really doesn't have an actual title yet…but um…w-well I guess it's called 'The Dream' by…well, you know - me."

Jeff and a few others stifled a laughter and were immediately hushed by Mr. Stein's glare.

Clark coughed weakly before beginning:

"I started out completely alone
Even in a dream such as this I had no one to turn to
Nothing but a film of misleading lies to hide behind
Nothing but an empty life

"Then she came to me
On a sturdy black stallion
A horse of nobility, for she was so noble
So royal in my eyes

"All I could see was her heart
And hope
And pray
It was beating just for me

"She noticed me from a distance
And I looked into her eyes
Her Soul's Delicate Windows
And I knew she could see my heart, too

"And suddenly our hearts connected
Two beings who had once felt so alone
Now embrace each other wholeheartedly
The facade washed away
Like a dolphin crashing through the water to free itself into the sky

"We, us
I'd never seen so much beauty in those words before her
We accepted each other
Our faults
Our pasts
All was happily lost
All was joyously forgotten

"Then, and only then
I looked at her face
It was captivating
It was breath taking
And it was perfect

"But a face was not what I longed for
Beauty was not what I longed for
The only thing I longed for
Was the thing I'd already found

"Love
The love of the girl on her stallion
In this wonderful dream
It was enough to overflow my once love-deprived heart
I was, at last, truly satisfied
For forever, I was truly satisfied

"Let me dream of this girl
Until I can dream no more."

There was a long, quiet pause in which it seemed like time had stopped. No one knew what to say or do. Clark remained at the podium, his eyes darting from Mr. Stein to the paper - to the classroom, and then the paper. He swallowed a few times and muttered, "Um…that's it," and then nervously walked back to his seat.

Jeff was once again the first one to clap. Except this time, everyone, including Mr. Stein and Lana, joined in.

Lana watched Clark, who sat down and quickly hid the poem in his notebook modestly, cheeks turning bright red. Her mind was still trying to comprehend what he'd just told to everyone. Although he didn't once look at her as he read the poem, she knew it was for her. And she knew it was meant to serve a few things: an apology, an admittance to his love for her, and most of all - a confirmation that Sogni Dromen and everything in it was real. Both Clark and her had really experienced it.

And that was all Lana needed to know.

DING DING DING

"Clark, could I see you up here for a sec?" Mr. Stein asked, waving the still shook up teenager to the front.

Everyone else filed out and made their way to their lockers hurriedly.

"That was an exceptionally written poem."

"Thanks."

"Truly. You have talent. Have you ever thought of taking my journalism class?" Mr. Stein wondered.

Clark's mouth fell slightly. Mr. Stein only allowed the best writers into his journalism class. Had he really written that great of a poem?

"Wow…um…thanks, but…well, like I said, this was kinda suppose to be a one-time thing for someone…" Clark mumbled, rubbing the back of his neck nervously.

"Right…right…" The teacher nodded and scratched his mustache tenderly, then crossing his legs in the brown leather chair at his desk. "Well…that female Smallville High student you're giving that poem to is damn lucky."

Clark's eyebrows raised partly because Mr. Stein had just openly cussed, and partly because of what he had just implied.

"What makes you think I wrote it for a girl who goes here?"

Mr. Stein couldn't help but let out a laugh. "Educated guess."

Smiling stupidly, Clark looked down from the binder in which he had the poem, back to Mr. Stein. His face scrunched up into an unsure look.

"Do you think it was a dumb I idea?"

"If it came from the heart, no I most certainly don't." He beckoned Clark to move closer and then whispered, "The honest truth is that it doesn't matter if you wrote her a poem or spent a few seconds decorating a freakin' twenty-five cent birthday card. If what you've done came directly from the place inside you that you want her to be in, it's guaranteed to work. Just watch."

Clark nodded and then headed for the door.

"And Clark?"

He stopped and looked back.

"The offer for journalism is still going to be open tomorrow."

"I'll think about it."

And with that, Clark smiled and exited the room.

It was incredibly hard to describe how Clark felt as he sped home. He felt regret, embarrassment, excitement, and joy all at the same time. So many more questions popped into his head and they were bugging him more with each moment he thought about them. Most of the annoyance came from the fact that it would be impossible for him to find the answers to ones like:

What had Lana thought about his poem?

Did Lana even remember Sogni Dromen?

Would she ever speak to him again?

Did she even realize he wrote it for her?

Countless more questions like this filled his head as he crashed through the screen door of his house.

Then he came to a sudden halt when he noticed who was in his living room. All his original thoughts scrambled anyway from his mind like a dropped box of marbles. His backpack slid off his shoulder and landed on the carpet with a thud.

"Wa-Wakanda!"

"Hello again, Clark. I'm glad you remember me." The old lady smiled brightly as she sat between Jonathan and Martha Kent on the couch, sipping from a teacup Clark didn't remember his mother ever owning. "We certainly have a lot to talk about, don't we?"