I saw that everyone was kind of confused about if Clark knew about the stones or not. The answer to that is that, yes, he does. He knows everything that he knew at that point in commencement, except where the stone in Lex's office is.

------------------------

Lex had wanted to come home to a quiet house where he could take some more time to find Clark. Instead, he had to deal with Lana. The girl was either in shock, or the meteor shower had made her crazy. All her talk about ships and aliens was not what Lex needed right then. Lex was leaning towards the former, since Lana really didn't strike him as crazy, no matter what the circumstance.

"I-what about Jason?"

The words made Lex cringe. If there was one thing he didn't need right then, it was more talk about Jason. "Trust me, Lana," he said tiredly "Jason is not interested in you at the moment."

"I murdered his mother, Lex!"

"But he doesn't know that."

"But she was his mother! We've got to tell him."

Lex was loosing patience fast. Her failure to think outside her own problems had always been her flaw. Now, granted, killing someone was enough to make anyone hysterical, but she hadn't even inquired about anyone else in the meteor shower. In fact, she hadn't really asked about Jason, she'd just gone on and on about how she'd killed his mother.

Lex gently took her hands and sat her down on the couch. "Do not worry about Jason. He can more than take care of himself right now."

"Is there something you're not telling me?" she asked, her eyes narrowing suspiciously.

Lex thought there ought to have been some kind of flashing lights; a courteously paid to those who didn't noticed the obvious. "Nothing you need to worry yourself with right now, Lana."

"It's about Jason, isn't it? Has something happened to him?"

"Let's just say he's not himself," Lex replied, getting up from the couch and going to his desk.

"Is he alright?" she asked, concerned.

Lex couldn't take it anymore. Jason had betrayed her in so many ways and yet, here she was, all worried about him and not at all about those who really cared for her. "Look, Lana," he finally said impatiently. "Jason was more obsessed with those stones than you ever knew. Right before the meteor shower, he kidnapped me and my father and tortured us for information. He'll stop at nothing to get what he wants."

Lana put a hand to her mouth as her eyes became wide with shock. "No, no, he wouldn't do that."

Lex didn't feel he had time to play this game. "Yes, he would, and he did. He also betrayed you. He was the one who sent his mother after you. He was how she knew you had the stone. He wasn't the man you thought he was."

Tears clouded her eyes. "I thought he really cared about me."

Lex gave her a sympathetic look, because he sincerely felt bad for her. She did seem to have an issue with people she cared about either dieing or betraying her. "Maybe he did, but sometimes the thirst for power clouds our vision of everything else."

She nodded as she began to cry. "W-where is he n-now?" she managed to choke out.

If there was one thing he didn't need, it was Lana pining about Clark, whom, since she was now no longer interested in Jason, she would undoubtedly return to. He was her safety net. Clark deserved better, Lex thought.

"I don't know," he said, and it really wasn't a lie. He knew what Jason was doing, but not where he was doing it. "Look, it's getting late. Why don't you head to bed? The defense attorney should be here in a day or two."

Lana nodded, still sniffling. "Thanks, Lex," she said as she left the room.

Lex did not reply. Instead he went back to his paperwork.

-----------------------

"Hungry, Clark?" Jason asked, striding into the room with a bowl of what looked to be chicken noodle soup in his hand.

Clark raised his head and looked at him weakly. "It's been days since you've eaten," Jason told him, his tone mildly deriding as he walked behind Clark's chair and un-cuffed his hands. He left on the chains that kept Clark's ankles secured to the chair and placed the bowl of soup in Clark's lap.

Clark looked at it, the smell drifting up towards him. It had been days since he'd eaten and he was so incredibly hungry. The soup smelled so good. Surely eating wasn't bad? He had to eat if he wanted any hope of getting out of here. Timidly, he brought the spoon to his mouth. The warm, soupy mixture filled his mouth and he thought he might never have tasted anything so good. When he swallowed it was like a warmth was spreading through him.

Once he started he couldn't help but begin to gulp it down, being too hungry to make it last. Jason laughed at the spectacle before him. "Guess you were hungry," he chuckled as Clark finished the soup off. "How about you tell me where that stone is and I'll get you some more?"

"You've injected me with painful drugs, beaten me, and physically hurt me in just about every way possible, and you think that offering me food is going to make me lie and tell you something I know nothing about?" The lie could have been pulled off seamlessly but for the slight tightening of his jaw.

Jason caught the gesture and shook his head. "I can read people well, Kent. I can do it almost as well as your buddy, Lex Luthor. We were both raised by parents who wanted us to be strong and to come out on top. I can tell that you're lying to me."

"I'm not. I don't know anything about the stones."

Abruptly Jason grabbed the bowl off of Clark's lap and then pulled back and hurled it at the wall. "You know something; you're just not talking!" He reared his fist back and slammed it into Clark's face, starting a flow of blood from his nose. "And you'll tell me soon."

He walked around behind Clark's chair and chained his hands securely behind him once again. As he headed towards the door he turned and glared. "I will find what I'm after." He slammed the door after him, leaving Clark to try to fight his way through the violent nosebleed that had started.

----------------------------

Lex sat at his desk going over the evidence from the Kent farm again. There had to be something he'd missed, he reasoned. Boys didn't just disappear and Jason wasn't that skilled a criminal. Or maybe desperation had made him skilled?

The papers and his own visual perusal told him that there had been some sort of struggle or forced abduction, seeing as traces of Clark's blood could be found all the way out into the driveway where they just...stopped. That led the detectives and Lex to believe that Clark had been taken by car, and when it had been found that the Kent's truck was gone their suspicions were confirmed.

Why the Kents had been left unscathed by anything other than the meteor shower was a mystery. The only clear assumption that Lex could make was that Jason clearly thought that Clark was the one with the knowledge.

But what had Jason wanted? The stones was the theory that Lex was currently nursing, but somewhere in the back of his brain he believed that there was more to Clark than that-and that worried him. What if Jason found out that Clark wasn't normal, as in un-normal in the ways Lex suspected him to be. If and when that happened Clark would end up in a lab somewhere, his body in Petri dishes.

The blood.

The wave of terror washed over Lex. Clark's blood. The blood on the ground. The blood that would most likely flow from Clark because of Jason. His blood was an open book and if Jason had a stroke of brilliance and used it, Clark would be done for.

Lex immediately stood up from his desk and headed for his garage. Sometimes the only way to beat the enemy was to be a step ahead of them in the game. It sure was a good thing he knew how to analyze blood, he reflected.

----------------------------

"Are you sure there's nothing you'd like to tell me about Clark, Mr. Kent?"

Jonathan groaned when he saw it was Lex at the hospital door again. "Didn't you just ask me that yesterday? Surely you don't think it could have changed that quickly?"

"You weren't being honest with me yesterday, and you're not being honest with me now."

"Lex, I've already told you: Stay out of our family's business!" Jonathan ordered, his voice rising.

Lex could feel his anger mounting as well as the level of his voice. This man's pride made him foolish. "And what if it costs Clark his life? Can you live with that? Is spiting me worth your son's life?"

"There is nothing you can do for Clark," Jonathan shot back.

"I had the blood on the ground tested," Lex said simply.

"You son of a bitch! How dare you pry into something like that!" His voice was a full out holler now.

"I dare, because I know that Jason Teague will dare to as well. If he finds out just what your son is than Clark's going to end up in a lab somewhere."

Jonathan paled slightly. "And just what are you suggesting that he is?"

"Clark? He's certainly not human. His blood cell make up was like nothing that I've ever seen and I doubt that I'm the only one who would say that. In fact I don't think anyone has seen anything like Clark. I think he came down in the meteor shower and I also think that it was his blood that was Helen's office a few years ago. It was his blood that resurrected the dead."

"It was not your place to pry into that!"

"And do you think Jason Teague will care about that? Clark's blood has the power to resurrect the dead! Jason's mother just died! Surely you can make the connection!"

Jonathan's face finally fell. "And what do you suggest that I do?"

Lex smiled grimly. "Let me help. This is far more of a complicated situation than you may realize."

"What do you mean?" Jonathan asked, exasperation beginning to show on the lines of his face-lines that seemed to have gotten a lot deeper in the passed few days.

"I mean that Jason knows Clark is different. Who knows how much he knows, but any knowledge is dangerous. If he tells the world about Clark..."

"Then people will remember all that Clark had done and they'll make the connections and..." His voice trailed off and he had the good grace to look stricken.

"Exactly. I need to talk with Mrs. Kent about this as well, but I think the best course of action is to find out just what Jason knows."

"And how do you propose we do that?"

"I've played the double agent before. I think the only shot we have is for me to masquerade as Jason's partner."

"How are you going to let Clark now that you're doing that? And what even makes you think Jason will accept your help?"

"Jason will accept my help because I suspect that he's going to need some cash to pull off this operation. Now granted he will try to double-cross me, but I think that in a battle of deceit I'll come out on top."

"You didn't answer my first question-how are you going to let Clark know?"

Lex dropped his eyes to the floor. "Clark isn't the best of actors. The plan may work best if he thinks that I truly am against him."

Jonathan looked furious. "You can't do that to him!"

"If it's between his life and his momentary peace of mind, well, I've already made my decision. You've got to make yours."

Jonathan took a deep breath and then exhaled slowly, his stress evident. "His life."

Lex only nodded. "Let me go talk to Mrs. Kent and then I'll see about getting in contact with Jason." Jonathan nodded slightly and Lex left the room. Once he was gone, Jonathan slumped against his pillows. What was his son about to go through?