Lana Lang felt weird. She couldn't put her finger on it, but her return from the dead made her feel, well, less like herself than she ever had. Even after the creepy tattoo.

It was a week after she had woken up inside the cave, and Lana still couldn't shake the bugging feeling that there was something a little off about her, but what, she didn't know. The morning after Lana had woken up in the cave Zatanna, along with Clark, had explained everything to her when they'd popped by her apartment to check in on her. They'd told her about being possessed by what Lana could only imagine was an evil slut, about how Zatanna had killed her (a thought that would probably never let Lana stop shuddering whenever it popped to the forefront of her mind), and how the both of them, along with Clark, had traveled over to Egypt to get what they needed to bring the young woman back to the world of the living.

To be completely honest, Lana didn't remember what being dead was like. From what she could gather it was only like being asleep. Her soul hadn't gone anywhere or anything, or if it had, she didn't remember where it had gone off to or what she had experienced when it had gone where it had. Lana's last memory, she recalled, was reading aloud an old book that she had gotten off of EBay. After that, everything was blackness.

She wasn't sure that she wanted any of the memories to return in bits and pieces, like Zatanna had hinted that they would.

After Lana's return, she had come across a very worried Jason, who said he had been looking for Lana everywhere. She, with the help of Zatanna, had convinced him that everything was okay and that she had had to run to Metropolis suddenly because something had been dangerously wrong with her Aunt Nell. Lana just hoped that he had bought her little story.

On the brighter side of things, her life did seem to be getting back on track ever since she had returned from the dead. The first few days had been weird, of course, and though she felt so incredibly different, the people around her had started treating her like she was the same old Lana, something that she felt quite blessed for.

Lana was snapped out of her reverie by a tap on her shoulder. The brunette beauty turned around, not paying attention to their English teacher go on about the fable of King Arthur anyway, and saw Zatanna sitting behind her expectantly with a note in her hand. Lana snatched it away from her as quickly and quietly as possible and turned back around, opening the note in her notebook.

'Is everything okay with you and Jason?' the note asked innocently. Lana slowly nodded her head, hoping that Zatanna was watching her. The sorceress was.

Zatanna started scribbling down another note when the bell rang, ending their English class for the day. Lana breathed a sigh of relief, since she hated English, but Zatanna inwardly moaned. English was the one subject she kicked ass in. She grabbed her books and shoved them in her tote, quietly giving the command for them to shrink as she did so, and followed Lana out of the class.

"So he's had no weird questions?" Zatanna asked as the girls walked over to their biology class.

Lana shook her head. "Nothing. Did you put some sort of spell or something on him to make him accept whatever it was I said?"

"Not a single thing," Zatanna promised. "Though I am tempted in implanting memories of you in everyone, but I'm not powerful enough to do it. In any case, it might lead to disaster. I mean, I tried getting that Theroux bitch out of you, and all I left you with were skin and bones. Thank god Clark and Bart were there to help me out."

"Yeah. Clark. Loyal as ever."

"To you more than me, Lana. He still loves you."

"That ship's sailed, Zee," Lana said, using the more intimate, shortened form of Zatanna's name for the first time. Zatanna smiled when she heard it. It showed that Lana wasn't angry with her for killing her. That was a good thing. "Yeah, but maybe only for you, sweetie. He's still digging the Lana-life. Guess he's gonna wait and see if you and Jason will ever amount to anything more than just puppy love."

Lana rolled her eyes at this comment. "Maybe first he needs to learn something about sharing his innermost secrets with those he's supposedly close to," she said as the girls walked in through the door of the biology lab. Lana and Zatanna took their seats near the front of the lab.

"Men. Who needs them?" Zatanna asked. "Oh, yeah, me."

"Speaking of which, what's the news with you and Bart?" Lana asked casually. Though Lana didn't know anything about Bart's super speed or Clark's powers, she had known that the two young men had offered Zatanna much moral support, and she had also noticed how Zatanna brightened up whenever Bart was mentioned.

"Bart's back in Central City," Zatanna said with a sigh. Truth was, she didn't know where in the world Bart Allen was, but she knew that Bart had set up a place for himself in Central City from the money he had gotten from selling a little of the Egyptian gold, so that would probably be his stationary home for awhile. "But we're doing the long distance thing."

"You know, that hardly ever works," Lana said, thinking back to her ex-boyfriend Whitney for an all-too-brief moment.

"I think that with Bart, I'll take my chances," Zatanna replied, knowing full well that a long distance relationship with Bart would never strictly be long distance. He could get anywhere in minutes, so really, the relationship had more chances of working than hers ever did with even John. Zatanna opened her mouth to say something else when she was interrupted by the sound of their biology teacher, Dr. Natalie Gregory, bring up the subject of the day – insects. "God, I hate working with insects in class," Zatanna whispered instead. "They're so tiny, and so hard to dissect and stuff."

Lana merely shrugged. "They're not that bad. Besides, you could probably go ahead and make one all Stay Puft size."

"Yes, because we really want a fifty foot insect." Zatanna barbed.

The girls quieted down as Dr. Gregory went on about insects and their usefulness in the animal kingdom. Zatanna immediately tuned out of the lecture, instead thinking about ways to find her father, a thing she had sorely been ignoring for awhile since she was all too focused trying to help Lana with her tattoo issue and trying to help bring Lana back to life after she screwed up helping Lana on the tattoo issue. Zatanna figured that she could use Smallville as her base of operations for awhile while she tried to figure out what to do about her father. Besides, she also wanted to keep an eye out on Lana and her mysterious tattoo a little bit longer.

Dr. Gregory then stopped speaking and started handing out the insects to lab partners. With Chloe having dropped out of biology after having a spat with Dr. Gregory about dissecting animals in the first place instead of using a computer program that was as detailed as the real thing, Lana's new partner had obviously become Zatanna.

Dr. Gregory placed a butterfly between Lana and Zatanna and walked away to give the rest of their class their insects.

"Poor thing," Lana whispered. "It's so sad that butterflies have such a short life span," she said.

"Yeah." Zatanna replied. "They're awfully beautiful." Zatanna studied the designs on the butterflies wing, loving the mix of black and different shades of oranges and blues.

Lana herself felt a strange kinship with the dead insect. There it lay, beautiful, delicate, lifeless, much like she had only a week ago. She reached out to touch it, and as she did so, she said, "Wish I could just bring it back to life." She felt a warm little spark between the butterfly and her, jerked her finger back for a moment, thinking it was static, and brought it close to the wings again, to caress them gently.

Zatanna smiled at Lana's sentiment, knowing exactly what Lana was thinking.

She snapped out of her reverie, though, the moment she noticed the butterfly's wings starting to jerk a little bit.

"Lana?" she asked a little uncertainly. "Are you seeing what I'm seeing?"

"What?" Lana asked, moving her finger away from the butterfly. That's when she also noticed the gentle jerking of the butterfly's wings, which soon became a harmonious fluttering of them. Lana's eyes widened in shock and Zatanna switched glances between Lana and the butterfly.

What the hell was going on? Zatanna asked herself. She got off her stool and stepped away from the butterfly, as did Lana, who gave out a little yelp as she did so.

"Girls? Girls, what's wrong," Dr. Gregory asked, turning her head at Lana's yelp.

"Umm, Dr. Gregory," Lana said, trying to keep her voice as sane as possible as she watched the butterfly help itself off of it's mat on the table and flutter into the air, hovering between Lana and Zatanna, "the butterfly you gave us? It's still alive."

Writer's Note: Hey all, thanks for the reviews and the encouragement! I really appreciate it!

Yeah, I can see why people say there're Buffy elements, though I don't think they're as garishly strong as some are making it out to be. Then again, I could be direly wrong. I guess it depends on how you look at it. :-D As for the guesses as to what's gonna happen next, well…you guys'll just have to read on, though I have to say, I'm enjoying some of the speculation. And Maddie? This definitely isn't the end. :-D Keep on r&r-ing guys, and hope you all enjoy what's to come!

Meeh.