"Okay, don't tell me I'm crazy, and don't say I've got brain damage." Clark said.

"You do have brain damage."

They stood (or in Clark's case - sat) in the middle of the barn floor beneath Clark's loft. (He'd been extremely pleased that it, at least, was exactly the same if just inaccessible at the moment.) Clark hadn't wanted anyone to overhear their conversation, particularly his parents.

"What? I do not!"

"You were in a coma for weeks, Clark. You suffered a fractured skull and swelling of the brain. The damage may not be permanent but you can't possibly be fully recovered yet."

"Chloe just listen."

She laughed. "Okay, okay. Shoot. What is so grave that you begged me to come over here during the Torch deadline crunch?"

"Is Smallville still weird?"

Chloe replied without a beat, deadpan. "You certainly are."

Clark glared at her. "Was there a meteor shower twelve years ago?"

"Yes. You don't remember that?" Her expression took on a worry line between her brows. "Clark..."

"Yes, I remember, but - well never mind that yet. Are there still mutations, from the meteor rocks?"

With a sigh, Chloe crossed her arms over her chest. "I don't know about the meteorites, but the fertilizer plant is another story. Last year Luthor Corp. was fined for having disregarded environmental codes for years. They traced the high rate of birth defects in livestock and cancer among the residents to the fertilizer plant. Clark you should know this! You've been going on and on about it ever since Corbin died."

Clark looked at her blankly. "Who?"

"You're kidding, right?" The worry line reappeared. "Clark," she whispered. "You don't remember your brother?"

Her words hit him with as much force as the car that had broken both his legs. He could only stare at her for several heartbeats, his mind frantically trying to assess this new bit of information.

"A broth...I'm adopted, Chloe."

"Yes, I know that." Chloe said patiently. Her worry line got a little deeper as if she were debating whether or not to call his parents, or better yet, a doctor. "You really don't remember Corbin?"

Clark felt ill, decidedly ill.

"No," he whispered.

"You were twins. The Kents adopted both of you rather than have you be separated. He got sick two years ago." Her face fell a little. "He was really sick, Clark. I overheard my dad telling someone that it was almost a blessing when he died."

Closing his eyes, Clark rubbed at his temples. The headache was always there, sometimes to a lesser degree, but always there, along with the memories that seemed to be false. He didn't have a brother. His adoption had been a sham, concocted to hide the fact he was found in a cornfield after falling out of the sky to land on Earth. He. Wasn't. Human.

"Have you told your doctor about your memory loss?" Chloe asked quietly.

He shook his head. The headache was particularly fierce, and was getting worse the harder he tried to understand what was going on in his mind.

"Chloe, I swear I am not going crazy, and I'm not brain damaged." Clark glanced up at her. "I've not lost my memory. I just have a different one. I don't think I'm in the right place."

"What are you talking about? Of course you're in the right place."

"Do you know about parallel universes?"

She frowned. "Science fiction stuff? Like Dinotopia, The Wizard of Oz, Narnia..."

"Sort of, yes. Only more similar to our own, where people are almost the same but not. "Like that episode of Star Trek when the transporter malfunctioned and Kirk and Spock switched places with their not-so-nice dopplegangers from another universe."

Chloe grinned. "And Spock had a goatee. I think I get your meaning. So what you're saying is that you aren'tour Clark, right?"

"Physically, yes. Mentally, no, because where I come from the accident didn't turn out like this. I didn't get hurt, and Lex didn't die. I never had a brother either and..."

"And what?" Chloe prompted.

Clark hesitated, reluctant even here to divulge his secret. "You'll think I'm crazy."

"I don't think this story can get any crazier, Clark, so you might as well tell me."

He bit his lip. "In that other place, I wasn't human."

She had the courtesy of waiting a beat before busting up laughing.

"Chloe, I'm serious. What I remember is totally different. Lex hit me with his car all right, but he didn't hurt me. He couldn't hurt me. I swam around under the water until I found the car, ripped open the roof..."

"With what? Your teeth?"

"No! With my hands. I ripped open the roof, pulled him out, gave him CPR and both of us were okay. We're friends in fact."

"Can he collaborate your story? I have a Ouiji board at home..."

"Chloe!"

She walked over to him and crouched down beside his chair, putting her hand gently upon his arm. "Clark, look. You have to admit this is pretty far fetched, and considering you have been very, very ill, you can't blame anyone for not believing what you're saying. It's all in your head."

Clark looked down at the casts, and Chloe's hand on his. "It's not all in my head. I swear. It's so clear..."

"The mind is a funny thing, Clark. People still don't know how it works." Standing, she squeezed his shoulder. "Yours is still healing. You'll forget all about this in a few weeks. I promise."

"I don't want to forget it." Clark murmured. "I want to get back to it."

Her worry line staged an encore. "Clark, please tell your doctors, or at least your parents about this. Please?"

He spoke only to appease her, and he had a feeling she knew it. "Yeah, yeah, okay."

She gave him another pat. "Good. Now I have to run. I've got a newspaper to get to the printer and I've got a date tonight."

Clark looked up at her. "A date? With who?" Given Chloe's luck with boyfriends in his world Clark wasn't about to let her get in trouble in this one. Even if he hadn't been a beaten and battered mess, he didn't have any of his abilities, although he suspected he wouldn't let that stop him if she did get into trouble.

Chloe shook her head sadly. Obviously this was something else Clark was supposed to know and didn't. "Whitney of course."

"Whitney! Fordman? Since when are you dating Whitney?"

"Since he broke up with Jodie Melville last spring. Come on, Clark. You don't remember that?"

"I...no. But what about Lana?"

"Lana? Lana who?"

Clark stopped, pole-axed. "Lana Lang?"

"Oh, let me guess, someone from that other universe?" Chloe shook her head again. "Clark, seriously. Don't get yourself worked up over this. The mind can play funny tricks on you, particularly if it got a little mangled on its way through a car windshield."

"I guess." Clark said morosely.

No abilities, no Lex, and now no Lana either. What next?

Chloe gave him a quick peck on the cheek. "Get better, CK. We miss you at the Torch." She moved off toward the door, but stopped halfway there, turning back to him with a grin. "By the way, if you aren't human, what are you?"

"Why should I tell you?" Clark grumbled. "You don't believe me anyway."

"Humor me."

He sighed. "An alien. My ship came down with the meteor shower."

Her reaction was not what he'd expected. She didn't laugh, but instead looked at him quite gravely.

"That's very interesting," she said quietly, coming back up the step she had descended.

Clark raised an eyebrow. "Why?"

"Because there have been rumors that something else i did /i come down with the meteors. Lionel Luthor was in town sealing the deal on the property he turned into the fertilizer plant. He was dropped off by helicopter. On his way back out of town the pilot swore he saw something just miss him and it wasn't a meteor."

"Really? Did anyone ever confirm this? How did you find out about it?" Clark leaned forward slightly, his interest piqued.

"I found out from Daddy, who told me it was a bunch of nonsense. But the interesting thing is that Lionel Luthor took great pains to make sure that man told as few people as possible."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean the guy told Dad, and a few other people at Luthor Corp. and then Mr. Luthor had the whole thing suppressed. He told everyone that if they repeated it they would lose their jobs. Right after that the pilot went AWOL."

Clark scowled. "Why would Lionel care? I don't get it. Was there a ship? If so, who was in it?"

"Certainly not you." Chloe chuckled. "Come on, Clark, you don't believe this do you?"

Chewing on his lip, Clark thought hard, then snapped his fingers. "Chloe! Who else was adopted that year? Can you find out? Check the adoption records for Lowell and surrounding counties?"

Chloe shrugged and pushed her purse further back onto her shoulder. "Sure. Might take me a day or two." Suddenly her brows dipped, and she cocked her head, staring at Clark with an odd expression . "But I can tell you right off the top of my head one person besides you and Corbin who were adopted that year," she said thoughtfully.

"Who?"

"Alexander J. Luthor."

Clark's mouth fell open. "Chloe," he said when he recovered. "You have got to do some digging for me."

He and Corbin had been identical twins.

Clark sat in the living room with a photo album open across his lap. His parents had taken down the pictures on the walls in their grief, but the photo album was still full of pictures of the four of them. It was weird to see himself staring up from glossy photographs with the person he looked like now standing next to him. Corbin lacked the scars left behind on "Clark" by the bull incident. He had looked like Clark should look.

He turned the pages, looking at memories he didn't have. What had it been like growing up normal, with a normal family, with a brother? He ran his fingers over the surface of the photographs, touching laughter and sunshine. What had it been like to lose him? Was it like the ache he felt now, knowing that if he were to go up to the mansion, nobody would invite him in for a game of pool? He touched a picture of two identical small boys, spread out on the floor reading comic books.

Warrior Angel. God. Lex. What is going on here?

"Do you miss him?"

Clark started. He'd not heard her come in. He hastily shut the album. "Mom. When did you get home?"

"Just a few minutes ago. I was outside talking to your father." She looked at him sympathetically. "It's okay to miss him," she said softly. "I do, every day."

"Yeah. I know." Clark said. He put the album down on the coffee table. How could he tell her he didn't even remember Corbin, and that who he missed was the person who had put him in the hospital?

Martha smiled a little. "Hungry?"

"Yeah, but mostly tired."

"Dinner is going to be a while. Why don't you have a nap first?"

Clark rubbed at his temples. A nap and some Darvocet sounded exceptionally tempting and he said so. His head was pounding as usual and his back ached right between the shoulder blades.

Martha rolled him into his temporary bedroom and helped him get from the chair into the bed, tucking him in as if he were a child, and planting a kiss on his forehead. As she started to move away, he took her by the hand.

"Mom?"

"Yes, sweetie?"

"I'm sorry about Corbin. I know you miss him too."

She came back to him with a faint smile on her lips. Her hand was light against the short spikes of his hair. "I'm just happy we didn't lose you too. It was so hard to see you lying there in that hospital bed. It was like going through Corbin's illness all over again. I kept thinking I'd come in and you'd be gone."

Clark squeezed her hand. "I'm okay, Mom."

"I know." Martha kissed him again. "I love you."

"I love you too."

At least some things were the same.

As he settled into his pillow, staring up at the ceiling from the only position available to him - flat on his back - Clark sighed deeply.

"Man, you won't believe the stuff I dug up on Lex," Chloe announced, as she burst into Clark's bedroom and flopped down into a chair beside the bed. He was just coming around from his nap, and yawned hugely as he watched her dig around in her bag.

"Like what?" Clark struggled to sit up. Chloe paused in her rummaging to help him, propping his pillows carefully behind his sore back. "Like what?" he repeated.

"Well, he was adopted through an agency called..."

They spoke in tandem.

"Metropolis United Charities."

Chloe scowled. "Right."

"And he was the only adoption they processed."

"Right. If you knew all this, Clark, why did you have me research it?"

"Just keep going. What else did you find out?"

"Well, he showed up after the meteor shower. Lionel found him lying in a field, sans clothes and parents, and when nobody turned up to claim him, Lionel took the kid in, and eventually adopted him. That's the official story. But here's the weird part. There are no medical records on Lex anywhere. There is no record of him spending any time in any hospitals or foster programs prior to the time Lionel adopted him or, for that matter, afterward. Metropolis United Charities went under right after the adoption, or so the records say. Lex was tutored at home. He never attended school."

"Yeah but wouldn't it make sense to keep him secluded given the Luthors economic status? Someone could kidnap him, blackmail Lionel."

Chloe cocked her head at him. "What?"

Clark stared back, then frowned. "Don't tell me they don't have money."

"No, not anymore," Chloe said, giving him a small half smile as if humoring him. "They had some, but in the early nineties Luthor Corp. stock started falling. They ended up with nothing but the plant here in Smallville, and after the environmental issues cropped up, Lionel filed for bankruptcy. Lex poured what little money he had left into a new corporation, LexCorp. going into partnership with Daddy. That's why he was here the day of the accident, he was meeting with the inspectors from the EPA to go over the new pollution control measures they'd had initiated."

"So Lionel isn't a billionaire?"

The laugh answered his question.

"No. He never was, nor a millionaire or any sort of "aire" at all. He had a few fertilizer plants around the Midwest, but one by one they started failing. He always blamed your father and what he called hippy farmers pushing the organic craze."

"It wasn't a Porsche." Clark murmured.

"That Lex ran you over with? Huh-uh. It was a beat up Firebird with more rust on it than paint. The first thing they probably did when they brought you to the hospital was give you a tetanus shot."

"So, Lionel would have no real reason to keep Lex so isolated, unless he wasn't what he appeared to be."

Chloe snickered. She leaned back in her chair and rested her feet on the edge of Clark's bed. "I can believe that. Lex always was pretty odd. But you know, he sure pulled some people's fat out of the fire, including mine once. He always seemed to be around when someone got in trouble."

"Exactly. That proves it. Lex is him, then. Or me, I guess." Scowling, Clark poked a finger under the top of his left cast and scratched his leg. Stupid casts. "But if Lex was me, then how come he died? He should have been able to free himself. I know I can - could - hold my breath for almost an hour."

"I don't know why you're so worried about that, you have more important concerns. Your brains are scrambled eggs, Clark, and Lex is gone. If you figure out the mystery, it still isn't going to bring him back."

"But it may help me get back to where I belong! Maybe if that happens, Lex wouldn't be dead here." He scowled. "But I don't know what affect me leaving would have on this world. Would your Clark die? Or would Lex be able to save him?"

Chloe grew very quiet. Her eyes met his. "Not that I believe any of this, Clark, but I don't want you to go back. I don't want to lose you too. You're one of my closest friends."

He attempted a smile. "What about Whitney?"

She shrugged. "We've been having problems lately. He was pretty pissed when I stood him up to come here. He didn't like the time I spent at the hospital when you were there, either."

"You were there?"

"As much as I could be. I used to read to you."

"Thanks."

Smiling shyly, Chloe shrugged again. Nervously she fingered at her necklace, pulling it out from the neck of her sweater and toying with the stone. It was identical to Lana's meteor rock necklace, but this rock was darker, nearly black.

Clark frowned. "Chloe, where did you get that?"

She glanced down at the necklace. "Oh, this? Laura made it for me for my birthday last year." Her eyes narrowed when he looked at her blankly. "Laura, my geeky friend Laura Potter? She lives next door Clark, you call her Bug because of her glasses."

"Her name is Laura?"

"Uh-huh."

"Not Lana?"

"No, Clark. I think I can be counted on to know my best friend's name. I'm not the one with a brain injury." Chloe laughed. "What's with you and this Lana person?"

He put his head in his hands, suddenly feeling exceptionally overwhelmed by it all. "I want to go home," he moaned.

A second later he was staring intently at Chloe once again.

"Chloe! Where is Lex's car now?"