Author's Note: Italics signify thought, emphasis or telepathic conversation. The scenes in this chapter overlap slightly. Hopefully it isn't too confusing.
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Jisin parked one of the farm's two trucks in the middle of downtown Smallville and looked over at Aen. Her cousin seemed sad. Aen was staring out the window, but Jisin doubted she was seeing anything. It had been a little over two weeks since Aen had gone to the Kent farm to watch a movie with Clark and Zoey, and she hadn't seen them since.
If it weren't for the fact that she didn't want to encourage Aen's affection for Clark Kent, Jisin would have told her to call or go over on her own instead of waiting to hear from Clark. But the fact was that Jisin knew it wouldn't be a good idea, and she was slightly relieved that Clark hadn't tried to contact Aen.
Though why he wouldn't have was beyond her. Jisin had only met him the one time at the Talon, but she had easily seen his fascination with Aen. And from what Aen had told her, Clark and Aen had gotten along very well the other times they had been together.
He hadn't seemed like the kind of person to play with another person's feelings, but then again Aen was a much better judge of people than she was, and Aen had been confused by Clark's behavior.
Aen turned her attention away from the window and to the papers in her lap, handing the hardware list to Jisin. Jisin tucked the paper into her pocket. She was going to the hardware store to place an order while Aen went to the bank to make a deposit from one of their offshore holdings. The mine was doing as well as they had expected.
"You okay, Aen?" Jisin asked softly.
Aen smiled brightly, but her green eyes didn't light up. "Right as rain."
Jisin sighed. It would probably be a better idea to confront Aen at home where she'd have the support of Zin and Sar.
"So we'll meet back at the truck when we're done, right?"
"Yes," Aen answered.
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Aen walked into Smallville Savings and Loan and went straight into the teller line. She had filled the deposit slips out before leaving the house so her bank trip would be as short as possible. It wouldn't take Jisin long to place the order at the hardware store, and they both had things to do back at the farm.
Glancing at the people at each of the teller windows, Aen spotted Martha and Zoey Kent at the exact moment that Zoey spotted her. The little girl tugged on her mother's sleeve and pointed to Aen, waving with her other arm. Martha followed her daughter's gaze and smiled at Aen. Aen smiled back, waving at Zoey at the same time.
Martha concluded her business and left the window, approaching Aen where she was waiting in line. Zoey hugged Aen's leg and beamed up at her when Aen smiled and rested a hand on the little girl's head.
"Hello, Mrs. Kent," she corrected herself when the older woman gave her a look, "uh, Martha. It's nice to see you again."
"You too, Aen," Martha smiled. "I wanted to thank you for coming over that Friday, Zoey didn't stop talking about it for four days."
Aen wanted to ask if Clark had talked about it at all, but she simply smiled and answered, "I enjoyed myself, too."
The line moved and the next open teller would be Aen's.
"I'll make this quick since it's almost your turn," Martha said. "Zoey and I are meeting Clark and Jonathan down the street for ice cream, would you like to join us?"
Aen wanted to, but she hesitated before making her decision. Unless she wanted speeches from Jisin and Zin, she couldn't seek Clark out.
"Thank you, another time maybe, but Jisin is waiting for me and we have a lot to do at the farm."
"Alright," Martha replied. "Another time. I'll hold you to it. Come on, Zoey."
"Bye, Aen!" Zoey called as she scampered after her mother.
Aen waved and moved to the now-open teller window to make the deposits.
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"Momma, did you ask Mary's mommy if I could stay at her house Thursday?" Zoey asked, bouncing up and down in front of Martha so she couldn't move more than a few steps away from the front of the bank.
"Not yet, sweetheart," Martha answered.
"Can Aen watch me 'stead?"
Martha smiled. Clark had been sullen since the night Aen had come over, and Martha knew it was because her son was once more wishing he was human and could date normally. She wanted her son to have as much of a normal life as possible. Perhaps Aen was special enough to be trusted with Clark's secret eventually. There was something about the younger woman that Martha had immediately liked.
Thursday Clark and Lex were going to a basketball game in Metropolis and she and Jonathan had a farmer's association meeting to go to. Would Aen being at their house when Clark got home from Metropolis prompt him to act?
"I guess we could ask her," she answered her hyper daughter.
"Okay!"
With that, Zoey took off, back into the bank. Laughing, Martha shook her head and turned to follow her daughter. Only to be helped along by a man pushing her roughly into the building.
"Bad mistake, letting your kid get away from you, lady," he snarled, pressing something into her back.
A gun! Zoey had just run back into the bank in front of a group of armed men.
"Everyone stay calm and no one has to get hurt," one of the robbers said as they drew near the counter.
Martha pled with her eyes for Aen to hold onto Zoey. The young woman inclined her head slightly and picked the little girl up.
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Aen was scared out of her mind. Not for herself, of course, but for the little girl in her arms and the terrified woman being held by one of the robbers. Martha had a gun pointed into her side.
Aen supposed she could use heat vision to make the robber holding Martha drop the gun, but it wouldn't do anything about the three other men. And it would probably just escalate the tension of the situation.
Zoey was trembling in her arms, and Aen stepped out of the way when one of the robbers approached the teller at the window she had just finished conducting business at. It was incredibly bad timing, because the poor woman had just finished reaching under her counter for the silent alarm button.
"Because of miss stupid here, all of you are going into the vault," the robber who appeared to be in charge shouted. "Where's the bank president?"
An older man shakily raised one arm.
"Keys," the lead robber demanded.
The bank president handed them over without a whimper. He led the way into the bank vault, which stood open for business use, the bank's customers and tellers following quietly. The one security guard had already been knocked out, and one of the robbers dragged him into the steel-reinforced room.
Using a crow bar, the robbers tore open a few of the safety deposit boxes, dumping the contents into a duffel bag.
"Any of these belong to Luthor?"
The bank president hastily pointed out two boxes. They were emptied like the others.
"And other way out of this place than the front door?"
The lead robber pointed his gun at Aen and Zoey. Zoey whimpered, and Aen shielded the little girl with her own body as best she could.
"Leave them alone," Martha cried from the back of the vault.
Aen hadn't been able to get close enough to give Zoey back to her mother.
"Shut up!" one of the other robbers yelled. "Be quick, old man, or their deaths will be on your conscience."
"Under the store room. There's an old storm shelter. It still has an exit that leads into the back alley. The key is on my key ring."
The robber who had yelled at Martha grabbed Aen's arm. "You two are coming with us. If the old man told the truth, you'll be fine."
"Please," Aen said softly. "Just take me, the little girl should stay with her mother."
"She should have thought of that before she ran to you," he snarled back.
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Clark walked down Main Street toward the bank. A redhead had come into the ice cream parlor, making him think of Aen. Unable to sit and stare at the girl, Clark had told his father he needed some fresh air and went to walk to meet his mother and sister.
In truth, he hadn't stopped thinking about Aen since the night sixteen days ago when she had come over to watch the movie with he and Zoey. It hadn't helped that Zoey had talked about Aen all the time for the first few days afterward. His sister still brought Aen up every once in awhile, but she was no longer the main topic of discussion.
He missed Aen. It was strange after knowing her for so short a time, but it was true. But Clark wasn't sure he could stand to just be friends with her, so he had kept his distance. Clark sighed. Sometimes being super-strong (among other things) really sucked.
As he walked toward the bank, he noticed Jisin sitting on the hood of a truck, a newspaper in her hands. She seemed to sense him staring, because she lifted her head and looked straight at him, smiling after a momentary hesitation. He adjusted his stride to walk toward her, smiling as he drew closer.
"Hi, Jisin, right?"
She nodded. Her jet-black hair was pulled up into a ponytail and she was wearing jeans and a t-shirt, but she still seemed on the business side of things, probably because she was once more reading the Wall Street Journal.
He hesitated for a second, but couldn't help asking, "Is Aen with you?"
"Yes, she went to the bank while I was running another errand. I'm just waiting for her so we can go back home."
Clark nodded. "That's where my mom and my sister are. Maybe they ran into each other."
His attention was suddenly caught by the distant sound of police sirens. It would be another few seconds before they would be audible to the human ear at the speed they were traveling. He didn't notice, but Jisin's head had snapped around too.
Jisin scooted off the hood of the truck, leaving her paper where it was and said, "You know, I think I'm going to go meet her, I don't know what's taking her so long and we do have a lot to do today."
"I'll come with you," he said, both of them already moving. "I was coming to find them anyway."
By the time they reached Smallville Savings and Loan, the police were already there. They were pushed back and barriers were placed around the front of the bank. A masked man could be seen through the door holding a gun to the head of a woman kneeling in front of him. Clark recognized her as Mrs. Adler, one of the bank's tellers.
Clark used his x-ray vision to note that most of the people inside were locked in the vault. He spotted his mother by the healed break in her right arm where a horse had kicked her three years ago. There was no child-size skeleton visible in the vault, though. Where was Zoey? He scanned the rest of the building, finding three armed men in a back room. A young woman was with them holding what had to be his sister. Was the young woman Aen?
He had to help them. He moved away, forgetting Jisin was beside him.
"Clark, where are you going? Your mom and sister are in there, and so is my cousin. Don't you care what happens to them?"
"Of course, I do!" he barked. "I need to go get my father, he's just down the street a few blocks."
"No, he's not," Jisin answered back. "He's right there."
Sure enough, Jonathan was running toward them. Clark quickly filled him in on the basics, unable to assure his father that their loved ones were okay in front of Jisin. At least verbally. Clark met Jonathan's eyes and gave the tiniest of nods, letting the other man know Martha and Zoey were okay so far.
The three of them kept to the front of the quickly gathering crowd. The police were trying to communicate with the visible robber through a megaphone, but he wasn't responding in any way.
Clark refocused on Zoey and what he thought was Aen. One of the robbers in the same room had his gun pointed at the pair. The man's skeleton began tossing it's head and then fired on the two females. Clark clenched his jaw to keep from yelling as the figures fell, Zoey cradled under the woman's body. Both of their hearts continued to beat, and Clark breathed out slowly through his nose, seeing red. If they died, Clark would hunt down and kill everyone involved in this.
Beside him, Jisin made a soft, nervous sound. Clark wrapped an arm around her shoulders, trying to lend support. He knew from his talks with Aen that she and Jisin were sisters more than cousins. Jisin must be scared out of her mind. She was taking the situation remarkably well.
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Aen kept herself and Zoey as far as possible from three of the robbers when they reached the storeroom. The fourth had stayed in the main room of the bank so the cops that would soon be outside would see him holding a gun to one of the hostages. The woman who had pressed the silent alarm was the chosen human shield.
Panicking when she realized that the robbers might take her and Zoey with them for safe passage, Aen reached out telepathically to the closest one.
Let them go, armed robbery is bad enough, you want to go away for kidnapping and child endangerment too?
Evidently it was the wrong tack to take. The man tossed his head a couple times as if to shake something loose, then pulled the trigger on his gun. Aen spun at super speed so that her body was between Zoey and the bullets. When the first one hit her, she fell to the ground, careful to cradle Zoey's body.
"What the hell are you doing?" the lead robber yelled.
The man hesitated, probably afraid the other man would think him crazy. "She looked at me funny."
The other robber swore colorfully and went back to trying to find the right key to get them out.
Thinking them out of the way, the one who had fired moved to join the other two in the far corner of the room.
Zoey whimpered and looked as if she might cry out, so Aen whispered, "Shh, Zo, it's okay. I'm fine, we just need to wait for the bad men to go away so they don't know we weren't hurt, okay?"
Zoey's blue eyes were wide, but she nodded.
"You're special," the youngest Kent whispered a few seconds later.
Tears came to her eyes as Aen thought of the strong possibility of never seeing the little girl in her arms again. By exposing herself this way, she had guaranteed that the Council would pull all of them out of Smallville, and perhaps even away from Earth completely.
She couldn't let Zoey get hurt when she could prevent it, though. And besides, she hadn't altered human history in any way by saving Zoey. If she hadn't been here in the first place, Zoey never would have come back in the bank.
And maybe, just maybe, the Council didn't have to find out.
"Zoey, if anyone else finds out what I did, I'll have to go away."
"I won't tell," Zoey whispered back, her arms tightening around Aen's neck. "I promise. Don't go 'way, Aen."
Even without using her mind-reading ability, Aen knew Zoey was telling the truth.
"As long as no one finds out, I can stay for awhile."
Fifteen feet away, the robber that had fired the gun was staring at them suspiciously. Aen was sure the lack of blood was confusing. The other robbers, however, didn't seem to care whether or not they had been dispatched. The leader had finally located the correct key on the bank president's key ring and was opening the hatch to the old storm cellar. They were going to get away.
Aen smiled grimly. They wouldn't get far.