A/N: To all who read any of my fics, I need to warn you that any chapters I produce for the next couple of months are going to be short and possibly undergo some type of delay. We're in crunch time at school now, and it's a rare moment when I can squeeze in a little fun writing around massive research papers that determine the entirety of my grade for any particular class.

But now, that said, I bring you...

Practice

Clark took a deep breath and tried to think of a way to keep Chloe calm and stop her from panicking – not that he would blame her if she did. She'd had a lot to process over the past week, and everyone had their breaking point.

"It's okay," he said softly when he saw that she looked like she was about to bolt. "I'm not going to hurt you." Once the tractor was again safely back on solid ground, he scooted quickly around the side and took a slow step towards her. "I know this is a lot to take in, but it's still me."

"You…what…how…?" Chloe stuttered nervously, and with a grimace, Clark tried to figure out how to explain. Before he could find the answer, however, she swallowed heavily and said, "This is…it's like what Lois was talking about, isn't it? The Wall of Weird? The…the meteor rocks doing…that they had an effect on people in this town? I thought she was just…I never really believed…"

He winced. "It's…related to that, I suppose. Yeah." It was probably not the best time to explain that he was an alien from another planet, and those meteor rocks were tiny pieces of home.

As silence fell between them, Clark tried to be patient and allow Chloe to come to her own conclusions. As eager as he was to get started on finding his parents and Lois, he didn't want to push the woman in front of him. Finally, she sighed. "I don't really want to know more than that right now, do I?" she asked wryly, as if she was well aware that the situation was even still much more complicated than she knew.

Shaking his head, he returned the smile. "It's a long story."

He could see her visibly struggling with what he'd revealed to her and the implication that it was only the tip of the iceberg, and he held his breath as he waited to find out what she'd do next. He didn't know how he could do what needed to be done without her help, but any offer to help had to be her decision – he couldn't pressure her. Finally, she squared her shoulders and gave him a brave nod, though there was still fear behind her eyes. "O-okay," she said softly. "I think I have enough to process right now, so we'll just leave the rest for later. I…uh…so, what do we do next?"

Clark's shoulders bowed with relief. She clearly wasn't quite accepting of what he'd just revealed to her, but she was trying. He was unsurprised – and yet relieved – that Lois had been right in her assessment of her cousin's character.

"I do think we should try to make our way into town. I really do want to find out what happened to my parents, and now that I have my abilities back, it'll be even more important to find them. They've already been through this with me once, so they'll probably be able to help me get used to my abilities a little faster than I can adjust on my own. And then we're going to have to track Lois down, but I think we'll just have to tackle this one step at a time."

Nodding, Chloe looked around. "So, now that our conversation has come full circle, the question still remains. We don't seem to have a car, so how are we going to get anywhere?"

Clark cleared his throat nervously. "Well, I can run really fast. Maybe I could…er…carry you?"

He saw his companion open her mouth to protest, but then she closed it and shook her head. "I think it's best if I just don't ask too many questions right now. But you said you need to get used to your abilities again. No offense, but I'd rather not put my life in your hands while you're still feeling a little bit rusty."

She was giving him such an exaggerated look of disgruntled skepticism that he gave a tiny snort of laughter. His humor, which was possibly inappropriate under the circumstances, coaxed a mirroring smile from his companion, if the expression on her face was a little shaky. Since he was feeling a little skittish about his proposed plan himself, he didn't protest.

"Okay, I'll go practice. I'll be back in a couple of minutes," he said as he led her outside. He watched as she nodded and walked back into the house, and then he turned and looked down the road leading to town. Once upon a time, this used to be so easy. He wouldn't even have to think about the logistics of it; he would discover he was late for the bus and just take off, running so fast he was a blur, all the way to school. He'd never really had to think about what he was doing, or how. He had taken his speed, and so many of his other abilities, for granted, always thinking about how they made him different from the people around him instead of thinking about how wonderful these things he had once done had been – and how much he'd really enjoyed doing them, from time to time.

Now he was no longer so thoughtless about the abilities it seems he had regained. He was afraid of what the use of his abilities would do – not only in terms of how they may impact the people about him but also about how they would impact himself. What if he lost his abilities? What if he didn't really have his invulnerability back and he injured his leg in this test run?

Well, one thing was certain. He would never know for sure if he didn't try. With a deep breath, he shifted his weight and began to run. He had already covered at least three football fields before he realized that his attempt was successful – his speed had returned. Six football fields' worth of ground later, he realized that he wasn't experienced any pain. And after another dozen football fields of ground, he remembered just how much fun he used to have with his abilities.

Leaning forward slightly, Clark pushed himself a little harder; he had not been running as fast as he could, out of fear of what it would do to his leg. He let out an exultant cry as the wind whipped through his hair and the ground flew beneath his feet. It was the most incredible feeling in the world and, for a moment, he was convinced that if he just pushed himself a little harder, he might take off, fly up into the sky, leave the world behind.

As the thought struck, he realized that he'd completely lost track of the purpose for the exercise; he was halfway to Nebraska already. Straightening, he tried to slow down, but he tried to apply the brakes too quickly. He was still moving faster than a normal man could when he somehow tripped over his own feet and fell, plowing a small crater into the soft ground by the road as he skidded to a stop.

Laying there on the ground, Clark sucked in a deep breath and held it as the dust and dirt settled around him. Please, he prayed with heartfelt desperation. Please. Then, rolling over, he let his eyes flutter open and stared up at the fluffy white clouds in the sky as he tried to gather the will to look down. In his mind, he was remembering those first few heartbreaking days in the hospital, when he'd tried to move his leg but shattered bones prevented his body from responding. He remembered the endless hours in mindless agony, the unendurable stretch of eons spent learning how to walk again. He couldn't go through that again.

His breath caught somewhere in the back of his throat, Clark finally gained the courage to look down at his legs and then, very slowly, he wiggled his feet back and forth. Both responded, and so he heaved a heavy sigh of relief and brought himself slowly to his feet. Still, he found that his fears were not completely erased. What if the fates, who had so capriciously decided to grant him his powers, had decided to take them once more after watching him fall?

Biting his lip hard enough to turn the skin white, Clark stepped forward with his left leg and slowly, excruciatingly slowly, transferred his weight onto his once-injured leg. As he shifted his weight forward, his leg buckled underneath him, sending him almost to the ground and he let out a quiet sob of desperation and disbelief. It couldn't be…it wasn't possible! Squeezing his eyes shut, he sucked in a few deep breaths through his nose and tried to retain control over the emotions that were crashing over him in waves.

That was when he realized that, though he had almost collapsed, he had felt no pain on his trip down. In the past, when his leg would buckle beneath him, it would always send an intense shaft of agony through his body, a constant reminder that he was no longer even half the man he had once been. Straightening slowly, Clark clenched his hands into fists at his sides and resolved to try again.

This time, when he stepped forward with his previously injured leg, it held his weight, not seeming the least bit inclined to buckle under the strain, and Clark let out a relieved sigh. It had been nothing more than his fear that had caused him to buckle before; his body was still whole.

And that meant it was time to try again. He couldn't let his fear drive him, he couldn't afford to crumble under the weight of it. After jogging forward a few steps to ensure that his leg was indeed not going to collapse under him, Clark set off again. This time, he managed to put on the brakes and come to a stop only about four miles past his house, and though he still stumbled when trying to come to a complete stop, he caught himself at the last moment and didn't fall. After three more trips back and forth between the outskirts of Smallville's town proper and home, he finally felt confident enough with the handle he had on his speed that he was willing to attempt a trip with a passenger in his arms.

Returning to the farmhouse in an easy lope, Clark jogged up the porch stairs and let himself in through the front door. It never failed to unnerve him, seeing the house he had grown up in, so dilapidated and forgotten. When he looked around and didn't immediately see his unwitting companion on this journey, he called her name and heard her call out for him from the room above.

Out of habit, he approached the stairs with a distinct feeling of dread, but it turned out that he didn't have to try to breach that particular hurdle. Chloe came down to join him, a small stack of items in her arms. She was a little breathless when she hit the bottom step, and she offered him a smile that was much more genuine than she'd given him twenty minutes before.

"Hey," she said brightly. "While you were gone, I got to thinking that we're going to need to come up with some sort of disguise if we don't want to be recognized. In Smallville, I'll probably be more or less okay, but you're going to be a problem. You're not exactly the type to blend in with your surroundings, you know? There isn't much to go on here, particularly since we don't know what the Other You wears to know how to dress you differently, but I found some things that might help. And…what happened to you?"

Looking down, Clark realized with some degree of shock that he was covered in dirt. "I…uh…fell."

"I guess," she drawled with a smirk. "Well, happily for you, I found some clothes that will probably be your size, since I'm pretty sure they were yours. They were in a big box marked "Clark" and everything!" Clark gave the obligatory eye-roll at such sarcasm. Plowing ahead, she continued, "Anyway, I found a shirt and a clean pair of khakis for you, which is apparently a much better thing than I realized. Also…," whipping something out of her stack, "I found these."

"My glasses!" he cried in surprise. He hadn't seen those in years. When he saw her eyebrows arch, he explained, "I had an accident once and lost my eyesight for a while, and when I was getting it back, I had to wear these."

"Well, that's convenient, because now they can be used as part of a disguise," she said brusquely as she shoved the glasses into his hand. "And I also tracked down a couple of baseball caps for us to wear. Do you want to wear the one with the logo for the Metropolis Sharks or the Blȕdhaven Bengals?"

"The Sharks," he said quickly, as he grabbed the hat out of her hands. "I played on the team, after all."

Chloe shook her head in amusement, but she said, "Okay, well, I guess that's pretty much it. Since I don't know what the Other Me looks like in this world, I figured I'd wear this baseball cap, and I tracked down a pair of sunglasses to wear. So I think as soon as you get changed, we'll be ready to go."

Relieved that they finally seemed to be getting somewhere, Clark raced into the other room to change and then came back. "You ready to go?" he asked, and though Chloe still looked a little nervous as she clutched her cap and sunglasses to her chest, she slung her arm around his neck as he cautiously lifted her into his arms.

And then he was off, going only at about of a third his maximum speed. He didn't want to freak her out too much. Even at that speed, however, it only took a couple of minutes before he hit the outskirts of town, and then he came to a halt and lowered her gently back onto her own feet. Though as soon as he put her down, she skittered away from him a couple of feet, he pretended not to notice and she pretended not to have done so.

They walked into town in strained silence, both undoubtedly lost in their own thoughts. By tacit agreement, they made their way toward the Talon, but they hadn't even gotten halfway down the town's main strip before they realized there was a crucial flaw in their plan. They didn't find the Talon where it was supposed to be; a large parking garage was standing in its place.

Glancing up at Clark, Chloe suggested, "The Beanery?"

"I suppose so," he said with a shrug. They turned together and walked towards Smallville's other coffee house, and Clark held the door for his companion as moved to precede him inside. When she was passing by him, however, he reached out with one hand and laid it gently on her arm, pulling it away quickly when she jumped at the sudden movement and threw a startled look his way.

"I just…thank you," he said softly. "I know this is a lot…I mean, I know how hard this entire situation must be for you to deal with…everything you've had to deal with this week. But…you're here helping me, when you don't have to be. Just because you accidentally grabbed my arm at just the wrong moment, when I was being brought here. And because of what Lois had meant to you, I'm sure. I…I can't tell you how much I appreciate your help."

Chloe smiled. "Don't mention it, Clark," she said softly. "Just…bring my cousin back to me, okay?" Without waiting for his reply, she brushed past him and he followed her inside. "Come on, Clark. Let's get those answers you're looking for."