Lois and Chloe arrived back in Smallville. They were closer to the answers and yet it felt further than ever to Lois. It hurt to think of him being all cozy with his pretend family. "How are we going to draw that villain out into the open?"

"It would be easier if we had Clark helping us," Chloe pointed out.

"It would be, but I don't think he's going to buy it. Oh, by the way, Smallville, that baby you just had isn't yours. He might not even be real, but I am carrying your baby. And there's this crazy alien guy from another dimension trying to make us believe we're married to other people even though we're really married to each other."

"Not if you say it like that, but if you can convince me, you can convince him," she assured her.

So Lois used the police scanner to get a location on him because she wanted to try and catch him alone rather than at the farmhouse. He was out on surveillance.

Clark was so intent in his thoughts, he didn't hear her until she had opened the passenger side of his unmarked vehicle. "You really ought to lock your car door," she warned. "Just anybody could come right in."

"I'll keep that in mind," he said dryly, but she could see he was happy to have the company.

Even though he'd obviously seen the cardboard box she held, she said, "I come bearing gifts. You can't have a stakeout without doughnuts."

"Is that a cop joke?"

"No, it's just a well-known fact," she said as she pulled out one of the raspberry-filled for herself. "So what's the scoop?"

"I really shouldn't be telling you this, but we suspect the owner of this house might be running a meth lab in his basement," he told her as he selected a plain, glazed doughnut from the proffered box.

"Well, is he?" she asked, wondering why he didn't just x-ray the house unless it was an older home with lead paint.

"That's why I'm here. To find out."

"He's going to know you're sitting out here. He'll probably recognize you and your car."

"Why do you say that?"

"Smallville is the place where everybody knows your name," she said as she flashed him a grin.

"This isn't Cheers. I actually don't know every single person in Smallville town limits."

"I see. You're just being annoyingly you and doing everything by the book no matter how slow it makes you at your job."

"That is the way the law works. I can't go busting into an alleged suspect's house without good cause. I suppose you'd just rush in there headlong? Oh, look who I'm talking to. Of course, you would."

"Probably why I'm a reporter and not a cop. So why aren't you still at the hospital with your family. How is the baby?" she asked the questions with a strained voice almost choking on her words.

"Work doesn't stop because I had a baby." He gave her a funny look when she stole a sip of his coffee to wash down her doughnut, but he didn't say anything about it. "He cries. A lot."

"Most babies do."

"You want to know what the terrible part is?" He took a long time wiping the glaze covering his hands off on a napkin, stalling, as if he believed it was too horrible to say out loud. "I don't feel an attachment to him. How can I not have formed a bond with my own son?"

She tried hard not to let him know how joyful she was that a part of him knew something wasn't right. "Don't beat yourself up. It makes perfect sense to me. I've been to the doctor twice now. Heck, I've even had confirmation from my father-in-law kind of, sort of, and I still don't believe I'm going to be a mother."

"Your father-in-law?" he asked, looking thoroughly confused.

"It's a long story."

"Well, you haven't held your child in your arms, so it's not quite the same. It doesn't feel real somehow. Sometimes nothing about my life feels real."

Thrilled and encouraged, she leaned forward to kiss him, hoping to give him a dose of reality. He didn't resist as she claimed his lips. If he had any hesitance in returning her embrace, it didn't show in the way he explored with mouth and hand like a starving man who had finally found sustenance.

When they pulled away though, she knew at once it was a mistake. It had left her with lovey-dovey feelings, but he just looked compounded with guilt. "Clark, I can explain."

"I have to go," he said, and he got out though it was his car and took off.

This wasn't a fairy tale where a simple kiss was going to wake him from the witch's curse. "Great, Lane. Way to play right into this bozo's hands," she muttered. "That's not your name is it? Bozo?"

Her attempt to draw him out into revealing himself didn't work, but she would win if only by dogged determination.