Chapter 4

Entering The Talon, Clark went up the stairs and knocked on Lana's apartment door. When she opened the door, she was surprised to see Clark.

"Clark, you're back!" she said, hugging him.

"Yeah", said Clark uncomfortably. Then, noticing who else was in the room: "Chloe!"

"Hey, stranger." Chloe said, also hugging him. "God, where have you been?"

"It's... complicated." Lana and Chloe exchanged looks.

"A lot of things have been going on while you were gone, Clark", Lana told him.

"I know. I already talked to Lois and my parents".

"We're really sorry about that" Chloe started, "but there are other things we didn't want Lois or your mom to worry about. They had enough problems as it was. But you have to know about this."

"What is it?" Clark asked anxiously.

Lana started telling him about what happened to Jason's mom and how Lex wanted the stone for himself. Then Chloe continued, saying that when he saw the stone he had was gone, and Chloe was the only one around, he brought her to the caves and started asking questions about Clark, until they saw a white light. Clark tensed when hearing this, but Chloe said Lex only saw the blinding light when he went to have a closer look.

"And what did you see?" Clark asked, trying not to sound worried.

Chloe saw the look on his face and knew he wasn't prepared to tell her. She was tired of pretending, but she wanted him to trust her enough to tell her someday. So she said exactly what she had told Lana when she had asked the same question almost two months ago: "All I saw was a bright white light".

Clark sighed and Lana started talking again, about how Lex had arranged for a helicopter to take her to Metropolis, but that it was hit by meteor rocks and crashed still in Smallville. She said the pilot had died and when she got out of the helicopter she saw something.

"What?"

"A spaceship", Lana answered.

Clark's mind began racing. It couldn't be. He was the last survivor of his planet. Could it be somebody from a different planet?

"Was there anything inside it?" It was all he could say.

"Yeah", Lana answered. "I had never seen anything like it before. It seemed like a werewolf, with big, sharp claws, and its eyes... I didn't know if it was real or if I was hallucinating. Then it just left. It didn't even try to hurt me."

"Did it hurt anyone?" Clark asked.

"That's the weird part. Well, weirder. It hasn't been seen ever since."

"Where's the ship now?"

Chloe and Lana exchanged glances. "When Lex and I left the caves," Chloe said, "after he had tried, and failed, to discover where the light had come from, he tried to make sure Lana had gotten safely to Metropolis. When he discovered that the helicopter never got to Metropolis, he went looking for Lana in another helicopter and I came along. We found her in a short time, along with the ship. Lex soon made arrangements for what was left of the helicopter to be moved to Luthorcorp in a truck. But the crashed helicopter wasn't the only thing in that truck", Chloe finished.

Clark didn't know what to say. Lex had the ship. "And we can't even know if there was anything else inside it", Clark said, defeated.

"Well, I never said that", Chloe said smiling.

To be continued