Laura was, of course, Lana, but not. She had short cropped hair and great, big, round glasses with uber-thick lenses that did indeed make her look bug-eyed. She also had a mouthful of hardware and dressed like a grunge rocker - several years out of fashion. Chloe called her over to drive them to the junkyard because Clark insisted on going with them and he didn't fit in Chloe's car. Laura told them she would, and she'd meet them shortly with their transportation.

Just after sunset Chloe, who had been invited to stay for dinner since she had canceled her movie date, helped Clark out onto the porch and down the ramp.

He put on the brakes when he saw the car.

"Oh, my God, it's a hearse."

Laura (Lana) frowned at his tone.

Clark looked up at Chloe. She shrugged and leaned over to whisper in his ear. "Humor her. She loves that car and if you dis it she won't take us anywhere."

"What makes you think I want to go anywhere in that thing!" Clark hissed back. "I'm just recovering from having one foot in the grave, I really don't want to make the powers that be think I'd rather be dead or something!"

"We don't have to you know. I could just turn around and wheel you back inside..."

"No, no!" He shuddered. Turning his head, he sighed. "It's a nice car La-Laura."

She pushed her glasses up with her index finger. "Yeah, you're lying, Kent," she said, as she opened the door to the back. "I always know when you're telling me one."

"You do?"

"Yeah, 'cause you never call me Laura unless you're feeding me a line."

"What do I normally call you?"

She grinned. Her braces flashed dully in the fading light. "Bug." From her back pocket she pulled a marker, and before they helped Clark maneuver himself into the back of the hearse, she signed his cast. She drew a little ladybug and signed it - "L."

Like Chloe, she'd done it so he could see it right side up. He looked at it. "Thanks, Bug."

"You're welcome."

Chloe cleared her throat. "Come on. Let's get this over with." She climbed into the back with Clark and the wheelchair.

After a moment she asked, "What was that all about?"

"What?"

"That look."

"What look?"

"You flirted with Bug. You never flirt with Bug."

"I did not! I was just being polite."

With a sniff, Chloe turned to look out the window. In the front seat Bug drove along singing to something on the radio. It sounded suspiciously like Dead Man's Party by Oingo Boingo.

"I can't believe you were flirting with Bug."

"What do you care? You're dating Mr. Big Jock-Strap on Campus." Clark snapped back. "I can flirt with anybody I want."

"We're on the verge of a break-up."

"Chloe, are you jealous?"

"No, just...she's not right for you."

Clark laughed. "I can't win in any universe."

Bug glanced over her shoulder. "What are you guys talking about?"

"Nothing!" They chorused.

The rest of the trip to the impound yard was uneventful. They pulled up to the big gates and Bug cut the chain with a pair of bolt cutters she seemingly produced out of nowhere. Clark didn't want to know exactly why a girl who drove a hearse kept bolt cutters in her car. Visions of Frankenstein didn't make him feel any better about where he currently found himself existing.

I'm tired of this constant headache.

He rubbed at his temples.

"You okay? You look pale." Bug whispered as she and Chloe helped him lower himself out of the car and back into his chair.

"Headache."

"That's to be expected after a brain injury," Chloe grunted as Clark's weight shifted and she got a great deal of it resting on her shoulders. "You shouldn't be here."

"Shut up and don't drop me."

"You're lucky I don't because you're being a jerk."

"Shhh." Bug bent and pulled out the leg supports on the wheelchair as Clark settled into it.. "Old man Murphy sleeps in the garage. He's hard of hearing, but he's not totally deaf!"

She dove back into the car and came back with three flashlights. Chloe looked at them suspiciously and voiced what Clark was thinking.

"You know, Laura. I really don't want to know what you do in your spare time."

Bug pushed her glasses up and sniffed. "Currently I'm studying the mating habits of the North American Brown Bat. I've set up nesting boxes in several areas around Smallville. I had to leave my ladder at home to make room for Clark."

"Bats?" Clark coughed. "You're kidding."

"Fascinating creatures." Blinking rapidly, Bug abruptly turned away and started trekking through the aisle lined with wrecked cars and piles of parts.

Chloe leaned over to Clark. "You don't want to know about the cockroach experiment," she whispered, and fell in behind her friend.

Clark brought up the rear. The only sound was the crunch of the chair's wheels and the shuffling of Bug's boots in the dirt. Bug and Chloe had started out one in front of the other but were now walking side by side. Bug, Clark noted, was still Lana underneath the ugly glasses, the weird habits and the frumpy clothes. Despite her baggy cargo pants she had Lana's pretty sway.

I don't believe I'm looking at her butt. She's not even really Lana and I'm still looking at her butt.

He stopped looking at her butt when Chloe turned around and gave him a nasty look.

"What are we looking for again?" Bug asked.

"A beat up blue Firebird with a Clark sized dent in the front end."

"Ah."

"Actually I shouldn't joke. Your legs were hamburger, Clark. You're lucky they're still attached."

Chloe shifted the beam of her flashlight around, picking up rows and rows of battered car skeletons. Crooked bumpers leered like mouths, broken headlights stared back at them like dead eyes. Clark shuddered as the light picked up one car with its hood crumpled up like a gaping maw.

"I'm quite grateful," he said. "Despite the itching."

"Itching is good," Bug replied brightly. "It means healing."

"It means my skin is crawling with filth under these casts." Clark grumbled. "I want them off."

There was a flash of blue in the beam of Bug's flashlight. They trained all three in that direction and revealed the battered hulk of a blue Pontiac. It sat alone at the edge of the wrecking yard dripping oil into the dirt beneath it. Vegetation clung to the bumper and side mirrors and it stunk of mildew. It had definitely been for a swim.

Clark examined the shattered windshield. He looked at the massive dent in the hood and the crumpled front fender and he couldn't help but wince.

"Ow."

"No kidding. You're not just lucky to have your legs, you're lucky to be alive." Chloe whispered. She gave his shoulder a squeeze. "Look at that thing."

"Pete said Lex didn't have a scratch on him."

"He didn't," Bug said.

Chloe and Clark looked at her. She pushed her glasses up her nose.

"My Aunt Nell heard it from a friend who is the wife of the county coroner," she continued. "She said Lex didn't have any visible injuries and Lionel refused to have him autopsied. Not only that, but Lionel also had him embalmed privately. I talked to Dougie and he said his dad didn't do it."

"Dougie?"

"Doug Washburn, he's Nick Washburn's son. Nick runs the Smallville Funeral Home." Chloe explained, now getting used to Clark's memory issues. "Don't ask how she knows them," she added.

"The funeral was in Metropolis," Bug said, unphased by Chloe's last comment. "Or so I assume. News about it was sketchy."

Chloe looked at Clark. "Alien?" she whispered.

"Sounds like it. They'd find out about him during either an autopsy or an embalming." Clark whispered back.

The three of them got a little closer to the car and Clark felt a profound sadness. His Lex wouldn't be caught dead driving a domestic vehicle, let alone a Pontiac Firebird. This Lex had died in one. What had he been like, Clark wondered. Had he been as different to the other Lex as Bug was to Lana? Or would he be like Pete and Chloe, only slightly altered? Clark would never find out.

"We need to search it."

Bug immediately backed up into Clark and scuttled around behind the wheelchair. "Oh, no. Not me." She waved her flashlight at the car. "Somebody died in that thing."

"You drive a hearse, Bug!" Clark craned his head around in an attempt to look at her - big mistake. His back yelled "whoohoo" and his breath caught from the pain. It took him a minute to recover.

"You shouldn't be here." Chloe chided, for about the millionth time.

"Yes but in a hearse the people in it have already died, somewhere else." Bug continued, eyeing the Firebird dubiously from behind her glasses. She paused to push them up her nose. "This is different. We knew him."

Clark ground his teeth. "Just search the car, please."

Chloe advanced on the car with a grimace. Reluctantly Bug followed, muttering something about having to appease the spirits after it was all over. Clark wondered what small animal she was going to sacrifice. He watched them poke around in the car from a distance, holding his flashlight up to help them see better. With his free hand he rubbed his temples.

I have to get this resolved tonight.

Chloe's head popped up over the top of the car from the opposite side. "What are we looking for, Clark? If you told us that would really help."

"A meteorite. Look under the seat, or in the glove compartment."

It was Bug who came up with it. It was a small fragment, not much bigger than the stone in Chloe's necklace, and it had been placed under the floor mat on the driver's side. The newspapers said Lex lost control of his car because of something that had fallen off a truck into the road, but Clark now had another theory. He was beginning to doubt Lex was even conscious when the car went off the bridge. The accident wasn't an accident at all. Someone had planted the meteorite specifically to harm Lex, this world's alien. Who?

"Who?" Clark murmured aloud, turning the rock over in his hand. "And why?"

"Someone who knew what he was?" Chloe inquired. "Or maybe it was just a coincidence that it was there, Clark. You don't know."

"No, this was definitely deliberate, Chloe. Whenever I came in contact with this stuff I was immediately sick." His fist closed around the stone as he looked up at the girls. "Someone was in that car with him. That's the only explanation, and it had to be someone who knew his secret."

Bug blinked at him from behind her thick glasses. "Knew what secret? What are you talking about?"

"It's a long story, Bug." Chloe sighed. "And pretty out of this world- literally. We'll explain on the way home."