Chapter Twenty-Eight - Honesty

An hour or so had passed since Clark's rescue of Lex, and Chloe was now alone with Lex.

"So, are you feeling better now?" she asked.

"Much better," he admitted.

"So, I hate to sound suspicious Lex," Chloe said, not caring if she sounded the least bit suspicious, "but why did you dive in after him?"

"He's my past self," explained Lex. "If he'd have died then I'd have ceased to exist."

"But if you were him then wouldn't you have remembered that you didn't die?"

Lex smiled (his usual tactic when being asked questions by reporters that he didn't want to answer). "Maybe I saved him and he doesn't realize it yet. Flying didn't come easy to me you know - not like that other Superman we came across."

"But if that was the case," continued Chloe, starting to rile Lex, though he didn't let it show, "then you only exist in the first place because you saved your past self from dying. That just doesn't make sense."

"Okay, Chloe, it's time to be honest. You really want to know why I leapt after him?"

Chloe nodded, wanting so much to believe that Lex was telling the truth and wanting so much not to have been made a fool of.

"I don't know," replied Lex. "Maybe I thought it was the only way, outside of telling Clark the truth, that I could get him to trust me. Maybe it's just because I remember Lex doing the same when I was Clark, as I plummeted through the ground, seeing you up there with my X-ray vision, your tears following me down - they were the only things I could feel as I flew up."

"So, you know whether Clark gets to trust you eventually."

Lex nodded. "He never does. But that's me - always hoping I can change my past."

"There's nothing you need to change, Clark," Chloe said, inching towards Lex.

Lex retreated. "There's still things about me you don't know."

"What? You mean that thing in your chest?"

"Oh, that. Ursa put it in there. She uses it to control me. Now that I've told you, she'll no doubt kill me."

"Hey, look on the bright side. It'll stop you dying of lead poisoning."

"Oh, yes. Now I remember. I saw it as Clark," he lied, as he figured out what Chloe's words meant . "It's made of lead so I can't see into it with my X-ray vision. Can't deactivate it." Lex had to hand it to Ursa. She'd obviously put some thought into things. "But there's still something else you don't know," replied Lex, reasonably sure that Chloe had yet to find out Clark's big secret.

"Well, I'll find out everything about you soon," she said, looking at her watch. "It's the Tardis' enforced honesty period in five minutes."

"That's something to look forward to," said Lex. "Trust me, I remember it."

"Actually, I'm dreading it," confessed Chloe. "I'm an onlooker, a reporter. I talk about other people, not about me. Never been big on small talk and as for revealing my feelings - well, I'm like the rest of Smallville in that respect - I love keeping my secrets."

"What feelings are these?" asked Lex, wondering if there was anything his investigators hadn't told him about Chloe over the years.

"Unrequited love means never having to say your feelings," replied Chloe.

"Unrequited love?" asked Lex, with mock innocence. "Let me guess. Jimmy?"

"How could I have ever doubted you were Clark?" asked Chloe, taking Lex's arm and leading him towards the others. "Oh, wait, I'm sorry," she said. "I'm being insensitive."

Lex didn't know what she was talking about, so looked at her silently, unemotionally, waiting for her to continue.

"You're just putting on a brave face, aren't you? I can't imagine what this honesty thing must have been like for you the first time through. It must have seemed interminable."

Lex nodded, still not sure what Lana was talking about. Obviously she knew something he didn't and he wasn't going to jeopardize his subterfuge by attempting to second guess her.

Chloe, always happiest while talking, continued. "Just imagine, being stuck in there, pouring out your feelings, knowing that Lana's out there dying, and the Tardis will only finish materializing in Smallville when it's happy with us."

"You're right, Chloe. It was agony. Still is. You know me so well."


Chloe and Lex were the last to make it to the console room. A lack of chairs meant that everybody was sat around on the floor in what approximated a circle. Chloe and Lex sat down between Rose and Clark. Clark, the real Clark, took hold lightly of Chloe's hand. "I'm sorry," he said to her, before releasing it. Chloe looked at Clark with surprise - she'd been convinced that he was never going to forgive her for her memorial service faux pas.

Suddenly The Doctor stood up. "All I, and the Tardis, ask of you now is complete honesty. The Tardis feels that such a thing is imperative if it's to continue to cater for your variant psyches. Now, who wants to go first?"

"I'll be last," moaned Zod to Ursa. "I'm always last."

"You always come first with me," whispered back Ursa, remembering the list she'd given Lex.

"I'll go first," said Clark, standing up. "Maybe it will take my mind off Lana, although I don't think anything will ever take my mind off Lana."

Ursa, sat on the other side of Clark from Chloe, was about to laugh, thinking that Clark was joking about that worthless pink human, but then relented when she looked at the others and realized that his melodramatic sentence was intended to be taken seriously.

"First of all, I've got to be completely honest. My name's Clark Kent and I'm a Kryptonian."

Chloe's eyes widened. How stupid could Clark Kent be? "No, Clark. That was the Superman from that other reality that I read about," she said slowly (well, slowly for Chloe, which was quickly for most Smallville residents). "That Superman was Kryptonian. He even had your same aversion to meteor rocks. But it was the meteor rocks that gave you your powers. Looks like they messed with your mind as well."

"No, Chloe. I'm an alien," Clark said, looking down straight into Chloe's eyes.

"No, it can't be," she said, turning to Lex. "Tell him that's not true."

Lex looked back at Chloe. "It's true," was all he said.

Suddenly Chloe became angry. "You're from the planet Krypton? Those rocks - they're from Krypton?"

Clark nodded, immeasurable sadness in his eyes. "They came at the same time as me. I was in a spaceship."

"And that was just a coincidence? All those rocks followed your spaceship at the exact same speed and trajectory."

Clark nodded.

"What were they? Fuel for your ship, or just a distraction? Is that why they've been mutating my friends? Trying to make them like you?"

"I don't know. I just don't know," mumbled Clark, all the guilt that he thought he'd gotten ridden of over the years suddenly returning.

"I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness," howled Chloe hysterically, "and it's all because of you."

"I'm sorry," said Clark, visibly broken, tears in his eyes.

Lex looked at Chloe and tried to avoid smiling. This honesty period had been going on for less than five minutes and it was already the most fun he'd had in ages. It might even have taken Clark's mind off Lana.


Lana Lang was drinking a glass of orange juice, when she looked out of the window and saw Louise McCallum, now conversant in all things Lana Lang, walking on the street behind the house, heading to the Tardis. Louise turned towards Lana, giving her a wave, and then General Zod leapt out from behind a tree and grabbed Louise. Lana dropped her glass of orange juice, leaving it to fall and smash against the linoleum floor while she ran to the back door. By the time she was outside, she saw General Zod talking, but she couldn't hear what he saying. She couldn't see Louise, but as she ran closer, she saw her there, on her knees in front of Zod, tears running down her cheeks.

Finally she got close enough to Zod to hear his words: "Goodbye, Lana."

And then there was the sickening sound of a neck being broken.

As he held Louise in front of him, like a rag doll, he suddenly noticed Lana's footsteps running towards him and turned to face her.

"You? You're dead?" he said, unable to believe his eyes.

Lana stood there, tears streaking her mascara, her body shaking. "No, Zod. You! You're dead!"