A/N: This would be the whiskey and kleenex chapter... Some will need one, some will need the other. Others will need both. You've been warned.

ELEVEN

Chloe felt an uneasy sense of déjà vu as she looked around the large room that they were seated in. The manor was obviously an underground lair, so to speak, but light streamed through the windows. She knew that further inspection would prove that the light was false, probably created with florescent bulbs behind Plexiglas. She felt better believing the illusion… it lessened the claustrophobia.

Chloe smiled in thanks when Karyn placed a water bottle on the table in front of her. She handed both Brynnan and Xavir water as well before moving to take a seat at the round conference table. A high-pitched tone sounded just as she was about to sit down.

"They're back," Karyn announced with a relieved smile. She bustled toward the door.

Brynnan rose and gestured for Chloe and Xavir to follow. Together, they trailed Karyn to the entrance they had come through earlier. As they arrived, a tall and distinguished-looking man who looked to be in his late 70s entered through the door. Feeling somewhat out of place, Chloe and Xavir stopped to watch the scene from the shadows of a beautiful replicated statue of Rodin's Thinker.

"Why are you alone?" Karyn asked peering into the cave behind the newcomer. "Gray?" Her voice took on a scolding tone.

"Ah, don't be so hard on my boy, Kary," he replied with a youthful grin. "I am quite capable of flying that thing by myself and you know it." He patted his chest proudly. "Refresh my memory… Who was it that taught you to fly?"

Karyn gave him a fond smile and shook her head. "You did, but that was a long time ago…"

Gray scoffed and reached out to hug Brynnan. "You hear that? I keep telling her that I'm only getting younger, but she insists on treating me like an old man."

Brynnan leaned up to kiss him on his cheek. "You are an old man. You're lucky we stopped counting at 85," she teased with a wink.

"Not you too," he complained. "I don't feel a day over 60… five."

Gray pulled back from the embrace, still holding onto Brynnan's shoulders. "It's good to see you again. Are you bringing good news or bad?"

"That depends…" Brynnan replied, turning her head to where Chloe and Xavir were standing.

Gray turned to see what she was looking at and released a slow breath. His hands slid from Brynnan's shoulders and he fell into a shocked silence.

Feeling even more uncomfortable now that she was the focus of everyone's stares, Chloe cleared her throat and stepped forward. "Hi."

Gray's piercing blue eyes grew moist as he just continued to stare. Seeing that, Karyn reached out and took his arm. "Gray," she whispered.

Gray blinked and cleared his thoughts, stepping toward Chloe. "Please forgive an old man's sentiment, would you?" He held out a hand. "It's good to see you again, too."

Chloe's brows creased in confusion as he gave her hand a brief squeeze.

Karyn turned toward the statue and beckoned for Xavir to step closer to the group. Gray reluctantly released Chloe's hand so he could face the young man.

"This is Xavir Christian," Brynnan explained. "One of the lead scientists on the Hyper Chronos project… He's also the Centre's first loose cannon. He launched the project on his own authority…" She nodded her head in Chloe's direction.

Gray studied Xavir's face for a moment before speaking. "I once took my father's car without asking…" he started. "There are some things you do out of the brashness of youth, but something this serious…" Gray shook his head.

Xavir's head dropped a bit. He didn't know why the soft admonition from this man made him feel so bad about his actions. "I'm going to do everything I can to fix it," he mumbled, although the promise sounded flat to his own ears. The truth was he didn't know what he could do.

Gray's eyes narrowed thoughtfully and he sighed. "I'm counting on that." He turned his attention back to Chloe. "You must be ready to jump out of your skin with curiosity, right now," he surmised.

Chloe nodded wordlessly and he let out a wry chuckle. "Okay. Why don't we all sit down and get everyone, myself included, up to speed on what we are dealing with here."

Chloe's eyes darted around the conference table as the story of her appearance in 2109 was explained to Gray. She noticed that during the entire conversation, Gray would spend long moments looking at her. She was no longer discomfited by his gaze, but she did wonder what was behind the wistful expression he wore when he focused on her.

Chloe had been quiet throughout the retelling, hoping that she could learn something new about her situation. She mentally went through the new facts she had gleaned from the discussion. First, she had assumed that Lois and Clark had been in the future for almost two days more than she had, but that proved to be incorrect. As it turned out, Xavir had set his padd to return a mere half-hour after the first window had sent Lois and Clark through.

There had been some major techno-babble employed to explain the time flux circumstances, so Chloe hadn't gotten the details; but she did understand that while she was stuck in 2109, the time in 2006 continued to advance at an accelerated pace. If they were to be sent back tonight, 2 days after leaving, without compensating for the difference, Chloe, Lois and Clark would reappear in their natural time years after their original disappearance.

Gray rubbed his jaw and leaned back into his chair. "There's nothing we can do from here, is there?"

Brynnan shook her head. "The command ship's Tislor core is the catalyst. Our copies of the Llecom and the Delor8 are useless without it."

Xavir's eyebrows shot up. "You have a copy? How?" His head swiveled as he looked from Brynnan to Gray and back again. "Who are you people?"

Gray steepled his long fingers under his chin. "Well, if you consider yourself working for the Agency… you would probably call us the Counter-Agency."

Xavir had a sudden flash of terror as beads of sweat began to pop up on the back of his neck. He had seen their hideout and their faces… In all the stories he had read about terrorists, those elements usually indicated that they weren't planning to let you leave alive.

Xavir cleared his throat and tried to control his shaking hands. "What are you planning on doing to me?"

Gray seemed genuinely surprised by the question. "We're going to get you to help us set things right."

"How are you going to do that?"

Gray shrugged. To him, the answer was simple. "We're going to tell you the truth. Brynnan, why don't you take him to the lab with you? See what your uplink to the Centre shows… We need to know how close they are to finding Lois and Clark."

"I'll go get the Flyer ready," Karyn offered, rising from her seat at the table. "If they've got an Away Team on the ground, we'll need to get to the city as soon as possible."

Brynnan stood and gestured for Xavir to follow. Once everyone had gone to take care of their different tasks, Chloe and Gray were left in the room alone.

"You've got a question… I can tell," Gray announced with a smile.

"More like a million of them," Chloe responded. She felt as if she were going to burst. "I want to know why there's a need for a counter-agency to this space-station Centre, and why the Centre would want to probe our minds when we don't even know anything about what we supposedly will know in the future. What is the deal with this house? It's an absolute mansion, but underground. What are the Guardians, and why did Karyn hint that it had something to do with me? What is with this command ship Tislor thing that was mentioned earlier, and how does that help me get back to 2006?"

When she finished speaking, Chloe released a deep breath as if she had just gotten a weight off of her chest.

Gray laughed. "Is that all you've got?"

"No," Chloe responded warily. "Are you making fun of me?"

"No ma'am," he retorted quickly, then seemed to catch himself. "I mean, no. You just remind me of… well, you."

"Okay… then, I guess I have one really huge question to start with, because that will determine what I ask next… When I first got to the future, I was put into quarantine because it was too dangerous for me to learn too much… but I've already seen a lot and learned a lot, and there's no doubt that Lois and Clark have too. Xavir said that it could mess up the way the future plays out if I knew about my life… is that true?"

Chloe wasn't sure what her future had turned out to be, but she would feel better knowing that she wasn't destroying it just by being there.

"Not necessarily," Gray answered. "The theory is that if you are sent back to the exact time you made the first temporal leap, the memories you created by being outside of your native time will not exist. It will be as if you never left."

"Theories again," Chloe sighed sarcastically. "If that's the case, then why does Xavir remember his time in Smallville?"

"You have to remember that his return time didn't match the exact time he left. The lapse in between the two is what allows the traveler's the ability to retain their short-term memories."

Chloe's eyebrows rose. "I guess I should feel better about not understanding any of this since I'm not going to remember it when I get home. What if that theory is wrong?"

Gray shook his head. "That's where the Rethrick Memory Sequencing Procedure comes in… a brain scan will erase the memories of the days you have spent here."

"A futuristic lobotomy," Chloe muttered. "That's great." She tapped her fingers on the table thoughtfully, freezing when another thought popped into her head. "Brynnan mentioned that the Centre wanted to probe us… wouldn't that scan allow them to…"

Gray immediately knew what she was thinking. "We have to make sure that when the scan is run, nothing is downloaded or committed to file. Brynnan was correct to bring you here until we can get you safely home without Kairo accessing your memories."

From Gray's dour expression after that statement, she got the feeling that the task was not only one of extreme importance, but also something they were unsure of how to accomplish. The problem was, in order for another time window to be activated, they needed to return to the Centre. It was one thing to sneak out of the Centre… sneaking back in would be a whole different animal.

Chloe realized that Brynnan had known all of this before-hand. That was why she had been willing to give Chloe the "flash" course in history… because she wasn't going to remember it later.

"Okay, if my knowing about the future is no big deal, why did they put me in quarantine?"

"Your memories might not cause a problem, but your actions could. This is why it is imperative that we find your cousin and friend before they get into anything serious."

Chloe nibbled on her bottom lip. One thing that her cousin was adept at was getting into things… especially the serious things. Chloe pulled out the plastic card Brynnan had given her when they were still on the space station. "I would really like to know what my connection is to the Guardians. Every time someone has started to tell me, something has come up."

Gray lifted his hands in a sweeping gesture. "You created it all…"

Chloe's expression turned into one of surprise and question. "I did?"

Gray smiled and nodded. "Let me start at the beginning."

Chloe looked at the two framed pictures she held in her hands in wonder. The first showed a dark-haired family of three: a man, a woman, and a young boy. The woman was tall and striking, sharing the same clear blue eyes that the boy had; the same blue eyes that were now watching her from across the room.

The woman had been Gray's mother, Diana. Killed when Gray was a child, Diana had once been a founding member of the Justice League; known to the world in her superhero guise as Wonder Woman. As it turned out, both of Gray's parents had been card carrying members of the esteemed league… his father was Batman.

Chloe's gaze settled on the second photo. It was another family portrait, but one of the characters had changed. Now, the dark-haired Bruce Wayne stood with one arm wrapped around the shoulders of his teen-age son; his other arm wrapped around the shoulders of a woman who looked quite familiar.

In fact, although there were a few more years added… it was the same face Chloe saw in the mirror each morning.

She swallowed and set the pictures on the table. "I… I don't understand. I thought that I died…"

Gray sighed. "You didn't die. You faked your death." He read the horror in her eyes and wished there was some way to prevent it. For a moment he wondered if he shouldn't have started this conversation in the first place.

"Why would I do that? I had a child, a marriage…" Chloe searched her mind for a logical explanation. Not able to think of one, she met his gaze. "What happened?"

"When President Styker was assassinated, Luthor started using his alliances to help the nation rebuild and heal from the tragedies of the first war. You found out that he had actually planned those things to happen in order for him to come out as a savior."

The look of horror on her face intensified. "What? He planned what things?" Tears sprang to her eyes as she tried to keep herself from thinking the worst before Gray clarified what he meant.

"The attacks on the Super class… the ones that killed my father's best friend and my mother… It was actually Lex Luthor who was advising President Stryker through his board. Luthor owned them all," Gray said sadly. "He had been studying the JLA members from the moment they appeared on the scene. I remember you telling me that the earliest version of the Centre was some hidden floor in one of his buildings. He had led you to believe that it was his father's work, and that he'd had it destroyed."

Chloe flattened her hands on the table to stop them from shaking. Something began to tickle the back of her mind.

"I confronted him…"

"What have you done?"

Lex looked up from the little table he was sitting at with his daughter. Seeing the horrific look in his wife's eyes, the eyes that were always so expressive, he set the tiny tea cup on the table and stood.

"Xandra, Daddy's going to talk to Mommy outside for a minute, okay?"

"Okay, Daddy," the little girl replied, placing another plastic scone on the plate in front of her little doll.

Lex smiled fondly at the girl and smoothed the front of his purple silk shirt. Unhooking his suit jacket from the chair, he turned to the elderly woman sitting in the corner of the nursery. "I'll be back in a minute, Edith. Make sure she doesn't eat anymore of those plastic pastries."

Lex walked over to where Chloe stood by the door and gestured for her to exit ahead of him. When they were in the hallway, he smiled. "Honey, what conspiracy theory has got you paranoid this time?"

Chloe frowned at his teasing. She had once found it endearing that they shared an inside joke about her old Smallville Meteor-Freak days. After what she had learned earlier that morning, though, she was too emotional to be swayed by his tenderness. In fact, she was too emotional to think clearly, or she would have chosen a better way to discuss this.

"I'm not crazy, Lex, but I'm starting to think that you are."

The smile on his face faltered. "Maybe if you tell me what it is that I have supposedly done, I can better defend myself of that diagnosis," he replied coolly.

Chloe scoffed and threw up her hands; she was bordering hysterical. The information she had come across revealed that her husband, the man she had trusted for so long, was really a monster. Her heart wanted to deny it but her head… it was too logical… The information she had made too much sense. "After all this time… after all the promises…" she said haltingly. She fought the sobs that threatened. "You are just like your father after all."

His eyes flashed for a moment before Lex controlled his anger. Taking Chloe's elbow, he led her toward their bedroom suite and out of Xandra's hearing distance. "I am nothing like him. Now, what the hell has gotten into you?"

Chloe wrenched her arm from his hold and darted to the other side of the couch in their sitting room. "It was you the entire time. You advised Stryker on the attacks…"

"I was Stryker's biggest adversary," Lex countered.

"Don't lie to me… Don't you respect me enough to stop the lies now that I know the truth? Trask was your man. I saw you with him. God, how did I miss that for so long? You gave the information to Trask, and he in turn relayed it to Stryker…" Chloe put a hand on her forehead and closed her eyes. Suddenly she tasted bile. "You used my research…"

Chloe felt as if a knife had been stabbed in her gut. He had been so supportive… for years… When they had started dating while she attended Met-U… When she started writing full time… Throughout her literary career… He had been using her.

"You don't understand," Lex interjected, taking the slightest step forward.

Chloe's eyes sprang open. "What is there to understand? You helped to annihilate an entire race of people… People who only wanted to help protect us."

"They weren't people," Lex muttered.

Chloe didn't register that he'd spoken and continued her rant. Now that Chloe had entered her investigative mode, she wouldn't be able to stop until the entire theory spilled out. It was both her strength and her weakness.

"Then, when Stryker was no longer of use, you had him killed, didn't you? And those convenient contacts in the European Union who helped to stop the war… I wouldn't be surprised if you planned that too."

Lex crossed his arms in front of his chest but didn't respond.

"You're not like your father. You're worse."

"You've got it wrong," Lex pressed. "I've only done what was needed to protect us all. That's all I've ever wanted to do."

"Protect?" Chloe spat incredulously.

Lex took another small step closer. "Listen… Hear me out. Don't you think that after this many years of marriage you can grant me some leeway here? You know me… inside and out."

Chloe shook her head. "I thought I did." She looked around the room as if seeing it for the first time. Her entire world was caving in on itself.

"I protect those that I love. I protect you, I protect my child, I protect my world… it's my job. It's my destiny."

Chloe looked at him as if he were insane. "You started a war, Lex… People died…" Her voice choked and she sank onto the couch. "Lois…" Silent tears began streaming down her face. The pain was too intense for her to continue speaking.

Lex's shoulders dropped and he quickly moved to kneel in front of her. "That wasn't supposed to happen," he said, genuine hurt and regret displayed on his face. "Lois and Clark were never targets. They were only meant to draw Superman out. But he never came." He finished the statement harshly, spitting the name of the Superhero with clear distaste. It was obvious that he blamed the super hero for the death of their friends.

Chloe couldn't respond. Of all the crimes she had accused Lex of in the past 20 minutes, the discovery that he had played a role in the death of her cousin, and thus, Superman's subsequent despondency, hit her harder than anything else could have.

When Lois died, Clark had given up his human identity and had gone on to exist only as Superman. Her own grief had kept her from being able to give him any comfort, and he'd slowly begun to deteriorate, showing up less and less for emergencies, and ultimately disappearing all together. Chloe's attempts to find him had been part of the reason she had been too distracted to notice her husband's treachery.

Lex reached for her hand, but she snatched it away before he could touch her. His jaw tensed and he stood, his green eyes turning cold. "It's all a bit too fresh right now, but when you think about it, you'll understand. I love you... You are the first person that I truly have loved since my mother died."

Lex rose to his feet and sighed. "I didn't think that it would ever be possible to love anyone more than I love you… but the day you gave birth to my daughter, I found out that it was."

Their eyes met, and for the first time in her life, Chloe truly saw the man in front of her for he was. She immediately understood what he was insinuating with his words.

He walked to the door stepped through, stopping just outside with his hand on the doorknob. "Get some rest. We'll talk again later."

When the door closed behind him, Chloe's mind began formulating her escape. With Stryker dead, and the vice president serving the last two years of his term, Lex was beginning to gain support for his presidential campaign. Someone had to stop him. Someone had to fight evil.

She needed to find Superman.

TBC