Thank you for your patience, guys. I needed to reread my story and get a little freetime alone to write, and I finally did. Sorry about the long wait.

NOTICE: For those of you who haven't visited my profile page in a while, SOME of my stories have been moved to a new account under the penname "Tlingit Storyteller." These stories are ALL of the ones free of controversial material, including Promise Me You'll Never Give Up and Community Service, etc. Future controversial fics will be posted here under Kari Anna, and non-controversial stories will be posted under Tlingit Storyteller. If you click on the homepage link in the Kari Anna profile it will take you to the other account.

DISCLAIMER:Choked sob: I-it's a t-t-tragedy. :sniffle:

Chapter Seven

"What do you mean she's in Paris?" Lex demanded. "I saw her with my own eyes last night! She had thugs with her in the middle of my apartment! She had them attack Clark with kryptonite for God's sake!"

Martha waited patiently for Lex to give her a chance to answer, keeping a hand on the shoulder of her hotheaded husband who was all too ready to argue with the young man.She shook her head. "I saw her off myself. I helped her pack. That wasn't her." She paused, then said, "Maybe we need to talk to Chloe. No one's better than her at solving a mystery, and if someone is posing as Lana maybe she can track them down."

"Tina's dead, Mom," Clark pointed out.

"How do we know there weren't more like her, Son?" Jonathan replied."The meteor shower changed a lot of people."

"I've got my people on it, but I'll get ahold of Chloe and see if we can get her help,"Lex said, pulling his cellphone out of his jacket pocket. He paused. "What's her number?"

Suppressing a grin, Martha replied, "Just use our home phone, sweetie, we have her on speed dial."

Chloe arrived nearly four hours later, without any other announcement of her presence than a slam of the old farmhouse's front door and a shout of, "Sorry I'm late! Got any coffee?"

Jonathan chuckled. "Never changes." Louder, "In the kitchen, fresh brewed!"

She popped into the kitchen no more than two seconds later. "Thank you for my caffeine," she said, snagging a mug and and quickly filling it. The caffeine-addicted reporter added milk, cocoa, sugar, and cinnamon, all of which were stored in decorative jars next to the coffeemaker. "Now, what's the deal here? 'Nother meteor freak or-- Hey! Clark, I haven't seen you in forever! And what the hell? I thought you and Lex had called your friendship quits a couple years ago?"

The young men in question exchanged glances. Seeing Clark's hesitation, Lex returned his gaze to Chloe and did the talking. "Well, certain circumstances have brought us back together."

Something was off. Chloe could feel it. Reporter instincts were almost never wrong, and she faithfully followed hers, as she always had. "Yeah, I noticed the rags saying you guys were a couple. What the hell is that about? And I checked with MetU, and according to their records you two are living together, so don't you dare deny it."

"Clark was attacked. He came to me for help, and we've been working on it. It's a repeated threat. We thought the attacker was Lana."

"Waiiiiit a sec. The pom pom princess, little Miss Perfect in Pink... attacked someone? Maybe I should buy a lottery ticket. My odds of winning would be better than that," Chloe interrupted. She snatched a seat between Martha and Lex, obviously hooked.

Ignoring the suggestion of impossibility, Lex continued, "So I brought Clark here and--"

"Why? Your penthouse should be pretty safe," the blonde persisted.

Anger swirled in Lex's mind, spreading red tentacles of violent thought. Lana or not, whoever had attacked Clark would be within Hell's gates when Lex got through with her. "I thought it was. Apparently not though, because one of the attacks occurred there. Whoever she was, she knew what she was doing, and she brought hired muscle with her."

"What made you think she was Lana?" At this point, Chloe was taking notes.

"She looked like her, and the voice was the same." Heads turned. Everyone was a little surprised that Clark had finally given some input. "But it can't be, because Mom shipped her off to Paris eight months ago."

"So you think it was a meteor freak? This one's really gonna take some explaining, because I thought Tina was the only one who could change into other people, and--"

It was Lex's turn to interrupt. "I know, she's been dead for years. What do you suggest then? That it was all a figment of my imagination, and Clark's?" He paused. Then rubbed at his head in a futile attempt to banish a headache and said, "I'm sorry. I'm angry someone would do this, that's all."

Martha reached across the table to put a reassuring hand on Lex's. "I know, but we'll get through this. We always do."

True enough, they'd all faced more than their share of the abnormal, and of violence. "What amazes me is that someone could get past the doorman, two security people, three of your goons," pointing to the bald man, "then keep you and Clark from doing anything about the attack. I mean, it's pretty hard just to get past the doorman. I know for a fact every doorman that has ever worked at that building is either an ex-bouncer, or an ex-pro martial artist of some sort and can lift at least two or three hundred pounds dead on his feet."

Lex shook his head. "She had three goons with her that we saw, but maybe she brought more. Or maybe how she got in had to do with how she made herself seem to be Lana."

"Well, getting her profile won't do me any good, since you already said she was Lana's doppelganger, but maybe I can find something if you give me the profiles of the thugs?" Chloe offered, looking up from the notepad she'd been using. After getting that, she asked, "Now when you say 'attacked,' in reference to what the Lana look-alike and her thugs did to Clark, what do you mean? And I want specific details for both attacks."

Clark paled. Memories rippled, threatening to splash over him. Lex must have noticed,because heplaced a hand on Clark's arm under the table. It calmed him a little. Even over several weeksLex hadn't been able to coax any more information from Clark about the first attack. Most of what he knew about it came from what Clark did and said on nights when he had nightmares about it.

"What'd I say?" came Chloe's bewildered voice.

When Clark and Lex shot their frienda strange look, Martha said, "You two got so quiet. What did the girl do?"

Clark swallowed hard. Leave it to Chloe to make me admit what happened. Her and that reporter's instinct, he thought somewhat bitterly. Then, in a very small voice, he answered the question.

"She raped me."