Disclaimer: Smallville & Charmed: not mine. This story's plot: mine.

Author's note: I have a correction to make: There will only be spoilers up to Season 4 of Smallville. I haven't seen season 5.. LoL. Also, I'll try to keep the Charmed spoilers to a minimum.

Chapter Two

Chloe reluctantly got out of bed. She was exhausted even though she'd slept all night. That's weird. She took a long shower and washed her face. Then, she began her routine of picking an outfit. After picking an ouftit, she fixed her hair and applied her makeup. She was ready to start her day when the doorbell rang.

"Chlo', it's me. Let me in. I brought you coffee," her cousin said from the other side of the door.

Chloe opened the door and smiled at Lois. "Hey, cousin," she said as she took the cup of coffee. "Thanks for this."

"No problem. So, are you up for some lunch? I'm starving."

"Lunch? It's morning," Chloe said, looking at Lois with a puzzled look. "Has someone been drinking a little too much?"

"Umm, sweetie, it's almost 1:30."

"That's impossible. I just woke up."

"I guess I should be asking if you've been drinking."

Chloe heard her stomach growl. "About lunch..."

Meanwhile, it wasmorning in San Francisco. Paige was up and about, and her sisters were also. It was a weekend, and Piper and Phoebe had decided to spend the day with Paige to cheer her up. She was having a really hard time dealing with her new charge. Phoebe could feel the stress. Being an empath was annoying at times, but it helped her realize how much Paige was going through. Thinking about it, Phoebe guessed that she would be stressed, too. "Phoebe, could you please get Paige before breakfast gets cold?"

"Alright." Phoebe got up from her seat at the kitchen table and went to find her younger sister.

She found Paige on the couch with a laptop. "Hey, whatcha doin sis'?" She sat down next to her.

"Oh, just reading some of Chloe's articles."

"Why don't you stop researching your charge, and come eat breakfast with us!"

"Of course I will."

In a swirl of blue light, she was gone.

"Hey! No orbing for personal gain!"

Chloe smiled at her cousin as they sat. She took the last bite of her pancakes--Lois had been smart enough to take her to a diner--and a sip of coffee.

"So, what are you gonna do today? You've sufficiently slept in and taken in massive amounts of caffeine, so you should be all set," Lois said.

"I'm probably just going to head to Smallville and hang out with Clark,"

"What, no investigative journalism today?"

"Probably. But I just want to relax for a while. You know, do something that doesn't involve serious research."

"Well, we can take my car. I was headed there anyway."

A few hours later, they were in Smallville. They pulled up to the Talon, and Chloe walked in. "I'll meet you at the farm," Lois said. Chloe chuckled. She would never have imagined those words coming from Lois Lane.

She got herself a cup of coffee and sipped it. She was still really tired, and the coffee wasn't helping that much. She felt that she was going to fall asleep, so she got up and walked around town. A car pulled up next to her. She knew who it was. No one in this town had an Aston Martin.

"Need a ride?" Lex asked.

"Unfortunately, yes. Please take me to the Kent farm," she said. She didn't feel like walking. What was Lois thinking? How was I supposed to get there? She got in the car and slammed the door.

She was silent for the whole ride. Mostly because she was tired, but even if she wasn't, she wouldn't have said a word. She didn't trust him. When they arrived, she got out the car and threw him a $20 dollar bill. "So I don't owe you anything. Thanks for the ride." Lex looked at her for a moment, and drove off. She walked into the house, and found Lois and Mrs. Kent sitting in the kitchen. "Chloe, did you walk here?" Lois asked. "I was going to come get you. I was joking about meeting you here."

"Don't worry. I had Lex drive me here. You think $20 is enough for a ride from the Talon to here?" Lois looked puzzled. "Never mind. Is Clark around?"

"I'm right here," he said from behind her. "Can we talk?" he asked.

"Uhh, sure," she said. She had no idea what he wanted to talk about, but he was very serious.

They ascended the stairs and entered his bedroom.

Chloe yawned. "Sorry,"

"Didn't get enough sleep?" Clark asked.

"Acutally, I did. It's weird. I went to bed pretty early last night, and I overslept. Maybe I need to lay off the caffeine for a while."

Clark had been listening to her heartbeat the entire time that she was talking. There had been no change, so it was safe to assume that she was telling the truth, and that she was really Chloe.

"So, what did you need to talk to me about?"

"It's nothing, never mind. If you want to get some rest, you can sleep here. I'll take you home when you're ready."

"Superspeed?"

"No, the old fashioned way: the truck."

"You're no fun."

Clark had a feeling that something happened to Chloe. He wasn't sure what, but it had to have started in that alley. Once she had fallen asleep, Clark ran to Metropolis. He'd looked around the alley, and found nothing. He made his way to Chloe's apartment, and found the door locked. He was tempted to break the lock, but he didn't want to do that to Chloe. It was expensive to replace locks. He thought for a moment, and then ran to find the building's superintendent.

The man was lazily taking out his trash, the keys to all of the building's apartments hanging from his pants. Clark snatched them from the belt loop, hurried to find the key to Chloe's apartment, and ran back to the door. He unlocked it, and looked around. Closing the door, he looked in her bedroom. There was nothing out of the ordinary at all. He was even more confused. What the hell could explain what happened?

Three days later...

Paige was talking to Leo. He'd been a whitelighter before, so she figured that he'd be the best person to talk to about her new charge.

"She's a reporter, she's constantly snooping around places, and she constantly gets in trouble. It wasn't too bad, but for some reason there's a sudden surge in demon activity in Metropolis, and she could have gotten killed by that demon yesterday."

"No, I think the demon wanted to lure you out," Leo said. "It's happened before. Separate the Power of Three, and then attack. There could be something much bigger going on."

"Wait, what about when I first found out I was a witch? What if, her powers are going to emerge soon and evil's trying to sway her?"

"You're going to need to watch her more often," Leo said.

"As if I didn't feel like a stalker already..." she said as she orbed out.

That night...

Chloe had found another story; it was connected to the bank robbery. Apparently, there was a new crime lord in power in Metropolis, and she intended to expose him. She'd done enough research, and was now sneaking around the building that was his hideout. She couldn't wait to give the entire city his name. She'd found a way into the building and was about to enter when someone came up behind her.

"Who are you? What are you doing here?" the man said. Chloe got nervous. It was the same man who had attacked her--or so she thought. Paige was watching and knew otherwise. She hated shapeshifter demons, but this did confirm both her and Leo's suspicions. There was something greater at work, and Chloe was at the center of it. She was about to reveal herself when someone came out of the door behind Chloe. She was unsure of what she should do.

Chloe whipped around. "You again!" he exclaimed. He conjured an energy ball, and threw it. Chloe ducked, but it made contact with its intended target: the gunman behind her. It didn't kill him, however. The man was just knocked unconscious.

"Look, you need to get out of here," he said. There were more men coming out. The demon kept knocking them out one at a time until they started coming out as groups. Soon, they were surrounded.

Chloe was afraid. She was surrounded by guns and someone she wasn't sure she could trust. All of a sudden, the man grabbed her hand, and shimmered out.

Paige quickly orbed to the manor.

"Phoebe! Piper! Are you here? I need your help!"

Her sisters quickly arrived.

"Are you hurt?" Phoebe asked.

"No. It's just that my charge has been taken by a demon," Paige said.

"What! How could you let that happen!"

"I couldn't expose myself to all the thugs that were there!"

"What? Slow down! Tell us everything," Piper said.

"I don't have time. All I can tell you is that there's a demon involved."

"Why didn't you vanquish him?"

"I don't know. I hesitated!"

"Alright, we can't change the past, but we can find her. He's not going to take her to the Underworld just yet, and he's not going to take her out of Metropolis either," Phoebe said. "Paige, go get something of hers from her apartment, and then ask Billie to use her GPS scrying system."

Without a word, Paige orbed to Chloe's apartment and grabbed a hairbrush. Then, she orbed to Billie's dorm.

"Billie? Are you here?" she said, looking around. "I need your help. It's urgent."

Billie emerged from the bathroom wrapped in a towel.

"Paige, what's wrong?"

"I need you to scry for someone." She handed Billie the hairbrush.

"Why can't you do it?"

"Scry first, questions later," Paige said.

Billie took the brush and used it to scry. The computer screen showed a location in Metropolis, Kansas.

"Thanks," Paige said as she grabbed the brush and orbed out.

Chloe listened as the man, who introduced himself as Jack, apologized for throwing the fireball at her.

"I thought you were the one sent to kill me," he said. "Well, I found out otherwise when she showed up a moment later."

"Like this?" there was a pale bluish light like the one she had seen the day before and a woman suddenly appeared.

"What the--?" Chloe said.

"I know what you're doing, and you can't have her. Leave her alone," the woman said. "I won't let you get to her."

"If we can't have her, then she'll just have to die. You can't orb her out in time," he said, another sphere of electricity appearing in his hand, aimed directly at Chloe.

The woman held out her hand. "Energy ball!" Suddenly, the sphere appeared in her hand, and she threw it at Jack. He burst into flames, staring at Paige in surprise. "What? You didn't know I was a Charmed One?" she asked him just before he exploded.

Chloe was scared. First Jack tried to kill her, then he saved her, only to try to kill her again. Would this woman do the same?

"Chloe, are you okay?" the woman asked.

"How do you know my name?" She noticed that the woman had something in her other hand. "Is that my hairbrush?"

"I'll explain, but not here. Take my hand." Chloe took a step back. "If I was going to kill you, I would have done so in the alley. Please, take my hand, I'll explain everything in a minute."

Chloe took her hand and was surrounded by the strange lights. A moment later, they were in a house. "Where are we?" she asked.

"We're in my house. Well, the house that I share with my sisters," the woman said. "Hi, I'm Paige Matthews. It's nice to officially meet you."

"Officially? What do you mean?"

"Well, I've kinda been watching you for the past week," Paige said.

"Umm, why?"

Paige sighed. This was going to take a while. "Did you have any plans for tonight? If you did, you're gonna have to cancel."

Chloe looked at her watch. "It's 1am. Who makes plans for 1am?"

Paige gave Chloe a nervous grin. "Actually, it's 11 here."

"Where are we, California?"

"San Francisco, to be exact," Paige said.

To be continued.

A/N: So, what do you think? Reviews please!