A/N - Well, I said I was vacationing, but I had to post - maybe out of frustration. Cleaning house sucks! BTW, we're almost done. If I get enough r/r, I might just grace you with the last chapter before I leave.

Chapter 21 – All Alone

"Clark?" Chloe called out as she looked around the barn and waited to see if his head would pop out from above the loft.

"Hey, what's going on?" He asked as he came around the corner to see her. He watched as her eyes got teary again and noticed that they were already bloodshot. Taking her in his arms, he held her next to him "What's wrong?"

Through the sobs, he could only get some of the information, "He doesn't care – I thought that he was different now." Chloe backed up and started talking to herself or maybe to Clark. "You know I wasn't his perfect picture – I didn't look like his mother, but I really thought that he … you know what," she looked at Clark and wiped her face, "I should really not worry about any of this. He'll be gone in a matter of days – he remembers everything – my job is done. Besides you'll still be here."

Clark watched as Chloe put on her tirade. Pulling her into him, he hugged her, "I'm so sorry. I hate to say it but he is a Luthor and regardless of his memory, we had to know the day would arrive that he would return to himself."

Backing up where she could see Clark, she smiled. Clark walked up to the loft and sat down as Chloe followed. "I guess it's for the best. I mean I even had a hard time imagining me and billionaire, ages so far apart, his lifestyle and my job, the mix was disastrous from the beginning."

She watched as Clark scooted around the loft cleaning up and putting things away. "I know what you mean – I guess we both had that problem of picking the wrong people." He paused, thinking about what Lana could possibly be doing at the moment. "Have you heard from her?"

"No, I guess she just wanted to disappear and we weren't exactly members of her fan club the last few weeks, especially me. Too bad she left; she could have probably charmed him back." Chloe lay down on the couch and observed the intense reading and cleaning. She had never seen Clark pack away his stuff like he was doing. Maybe he was also going through some detachment issues as well.

"Hey Chloe. Clark, your father wondered if you needed any help in the house getting ready?" Martha asked as she watched her son pack things away. Chloe saw her face and realized that Clark wasn't cleaning.

"No, I've got it." Clark glanced at Chloe and gently smiled as his mom walked back down the stairs of the loft.

"Clark, what's going on?" Chloe sat up and waited for a response. Clark sat down next to her on the couch and fumbled through his thoughts. Chloe could tell he was concerned. "Clark? Believe me after the day I've had so far."

"This could make it a lot worse."

"I'm willing to make that judgment for myself."

Clark turned toward her and took her hand. "I'm leaving." He let go of her hand and walked to the other side of the loft, leaning against the banister. He saw the color, what was left, drain from Chloe's face. "My parents and I had this very long talk. Dad is busy with the government, mom's right there with him every step, Lana's gone, Lex is leaving. Chloe, I'm so sorry, but you're actually in Metropolis, not here – and I have an obligation and I promised Jor-el that I would return. I'm going back for my training – it's time."

Chloe sat stunned on the couch. She didn't cry; she understood his reasoning. "Wow, I always knew this day would come after the time you saved me from the fortress and was told to return but I never imagined the actual day that I would see you pack everything and actually leave." She raced over and wrapped her arms around Clark. She smiled up at him through her tears. She knew he was going to come back a totally different man and was willing to give him up for the world. Slapping him on the chest, she halfway laughed, "You stay warm up there." Clark held her until he could feel her quit sobbing.

Walking down the stairs in the barn, she now noticed the bags that were packed. "I don't know if I even need those, but just in case."

"You know how long you'll be gone?"

"I don't know, but you'll be the third person I look up after my parents of course." He looked over at his parents waiting in the barn door. "You go with us?" Chloe nodded her head as the three headed out to the cars.

Two cars pulled up to the entrance of the caves. No one had been there in awhile and let Clark clear the cobwebs away from the walls before following him in. He stopped in the middle of the main room and looked at his parents and Chloe. Hugging his parents, he teared up, "I love you."

Wrapping his arms around Chloe, he smiled, "Everything's going to be ok." Chloe nodded and rubbed her hand down his face. She fully expected to choke up and profess her love for him once and for all but she still couldn't get someone else's face out of her mind.

They held hands as they watched Clark disappear behind the walls and watched the blinding light come and go. They stood there for several minutes thinking he would return. Chloe let go of Martha's hand and entered the chamber, looked around, and put the key in her pocket. "I know when I see you again – you'll want this back," she said to herself. Coming back around the wall, she looked at his parents, "He's gone." They all hugged as they realized what they had let him leave for.

Chloe sat at her desk and typed up the next important lost pet ad for the Saturday paper. She sighed deeply at the intense boredom that she was now facing for who knew how many years. She stared at the screen and pulled up a randomly named file. Opening the file, she looked around the office to see what other eyes might be watching. She clicked on the first file and stared at the picture. She had for so many years stared at the prom pictures of her and Clark. She mused that the Daily Planet photos of her and Lex were so much more moving and not even as good. She clicked from one to another as she tried to keep from crying. Everyone was gone.
Lex sat at his desk and went over invoices for the different items that he had auctioned. The mansion would be occupied as early as the following weekend for a very nice couple that appreciates a good holiday, and Lex was being paid handsomely for it. Closing the folders, he got up and walked into the bedroom to pack a few last of his personal items. He stopped and looked around the room. It wasn't his anymore, so why did he feel so bad about he and Chloe having their last fight there. He sat in the lounge chair, letting his thoughts wander.

"You are such a liar – I wonder if you've ever been honest with anyone, especially yourself." He heard those words again, and they stung worse than the first time she had said them. He knew now that she actually had been awake when he cowardly professed he loved her. She had heard him and wanted him to quit hiding. He wanted so much to have stopped her from leaving and instead bring her up here to the bedroom and make love to her. Tell her how he felt. Show her how he felt. Why did his destiny have to get in the way?

Staring at the card he was going to send her to apologize, he read the eloquent yet wordy apology that she would simply put off as an excuse for covering himself up yet again. He hated no matter how his progression of his memory returned that things hadn't changed. He was still a cunning business man and so unemotionally attached personally that it was cowardice. Reading over the card again, he ripped it in half and threw it in one of the trash bags in the room.

He walked back into what used to be his office and looked at the fax he had received earlier that day. Time to turn over a new leaf, he thought as he dialed the Daily Planet.