It was the perfect weather for a funeral.

The rain beat heavily upon the small group of black clad mourners clustered about the gravesite. They were huddled under umbrellas which afforded them scant protection from the wind swept rain. The sky was dark and overcast, and the faint rumble of thunder in the distance promised more bad weather to come. A somber priest intoned the funeral rite for the graveside service, his voice almost drowned out by the patter of the rain and his shimmering white vestments drenched. The wind whipped the rain like sharp daggers against the faces of the mourners, causing many to shiver and cough hoarsely from the cold.

Chloe Sullivan stood numb, not even noticing the chill of the ice cold rain against her skin.

She stared down at the open grave, her mind unable to register what she was looking at. Dumbly, her eyes rose to the small group of mourners gathered around the grave. Gabe Sullivan stood grimly beside his daughter, his head bowed and his hands clasped loosely together. The Kents stood off to one side, their faces pale and sad in the gloomy light of the darkening day. Jonathan's hand lay loosely upon his son's shoulder, but Clark didn't even seem to notice it. His face was absolutely expressionless as he stared at the open grave, but Chloe noticed that his eyes were bright with tears. She looked away quickly, once again feeling the numb blankness and guilt that she had carried around with her since hearing the news.

She knew she shouldn't feel guilty, that it wasn't her fault that she couldn't feel as much sorrow as Clark did. She couldn't help wondering though what sort of person she was not to feel any more sorrow than she did feel. There were excuses she told herself. They had never really been close friends, although they had once pretended to be. The past lay too heavy between the two of them, like a millstone wearing both of them down. The tension and the resentment burned like a fiery bush when they were together, and now Chloe shook her head dolefully, wondering why she was thinking in such religious metaphors. But it still made her feel guilty, the fact that she didn't feel as sad as she should that someone she had once called a friend was now dead.

"Because I couldn't trust you"

Chloe shook her head again, trying to forget the past and not wanting to think ill of the dead. But it still whispered in her head, the same charge over and over again,

"Because I couldn't trust you"

"Oh god, why did she have to die! Why did Lana have to die? She was so young!"

Chloe's head shot up. The former Nell Potter, who was now Nell Winters, was clinging tearfully to her husband Dean Winter's arm, harsh sobs escaping her throat as she stared down at the grave of her dead niece. "Why did she have to die!" Nell cried out again, her sobs becoming even more violent as Dean awkwardly patted her back.

"Because I couldn't trust you"

It had been like a slap in the face when, under the effects of the truth serum, Lana had told Chloe this. Chloe had tried and tried to be friends with Lana, had even opened up her house to her when she needed a place to stay. It was in that second though that Chloe had realized a truth that she had been too deliberately blind to see.

They were never going to be friends.

And she had also realized something else, something that had made her feel free and light for the first time in a long while. It had dawned on her like a revelation. It was the fact that she didn't particularly want to be friends with Lana. She had always thought that she should, because of Clark, but at that second she knew that not only would they never be true friends, but that she didn't really care.

Lana had gone off to Paris and hadn't even bothered to attend Chloe's own funeral when everyone had believed her to be dead. Chloe though had been okay with this. For Clark's sake the two girls had made a feeble attempt at pretending to be friends when Lana returned from Paris, but neither of their hearts was really into it. And then last week Lana had been found brutally murdered at her apartment at the Talon. Chloe still couldn't get over the chilling shock of Lana's death. She would forget about it for a few minutes, and then suddenly remember it with a start, flowing like cold water through her veins. She may not have been friends with Lana, but she still couldn't help sympathizing with the girl who had died in such a brutal fashion.

The rest of the service passed in a blur. Rain, tears, thunder, ashes to ashes, dust to dust. Clark laying a wreath of lilies gently on Lana's headstone, Nell throwing herself onto the grave and sobbing her heart out. Chloe watched this blankly, numbly wondering why on earth Nell was so heartbroken since she hadn't seen her niece in years. Then they were walking through the squelching mud of the cemetery, the rain beating down even harder upon their umbrellas. Chloe turned for a last look at the gravesite and it was at that second that her umbrella got blown out of her hands by the high winds and went soaring across the cemetery lawns. Chloe could only stare after it. Sighing, she walked through the pouring rain over to her car and wearily got in. Gabe would be driving the station wagon over to the Kent farm to stay with them for a few hours. Chloe only wanted to get home and take a long, hot shower and then go to bed. Some of her numbness seemed to be fading and she found herself feeling weary and in need of a good long nap.

Chloe had just turned the engine on when she noticed the folded piece of paper on the passenger seat. She stared down at it blankly, much as she had stared at her umbrella when it had flown away. The paper looked as if it had been folded over and over in order to make it as small as possible. Chloe calmly turned off the engine and very gingerly picked up the note. For a second she had the wildest feeling that it would burn her fingers when she touched it, but of course it didn't. It felt like a regular piece of folded up paper. She carefully unfolded it, and then her heart skipped a beat when she saw the words that were written upon it:

Luthor knows more than he's telling.

Her hands shaking, Chloe slipped the paper into the pocket of her jacket and then turned on the engine once more. But instead of going home she determinedly drove past her turn and headed on to the road that would take her to the Luthor mansion. She had no idea who had left the note for her to find, or what it meant, but there was one thing she did know.

It was Lex who had discovered Lana's body the day she was murdered.