Part 2

The wheels spun for a second in the gravel driveway. When all four wheels found traction, the truck shot a head with a jolt toppling Lois backward to land on top of Clark. With the back window open Chloe clearly heard Lois's screech of horror and her muttered cursings as she scooted away.

"Chloe, slow down! Where are you going?"

Chloe answered but didn't slow down. "I told you, the Kawatche caves." She turned onto a back street and drove the familiar gravel road. Too many times, she'd taken this route with panic welling up and fear ripping at her gut, but this was the worst. This time she wasn't racing to expose a brain interactive construct posing as a mentor or hurrying to save Clark from a rash judgment that would have haunted and eaten away at his soul. This time she didn't just suspect Clark was in trouble or know he was going to need saving soon, no, this time he was already lost and only Jor-El could find him.

The drive went by in a blur, with Lois screeching questions and crying hysterically. Chloe mostly tuned her out, concentrating on getting to her destination. She parked away from the official entrance. She used a side tunnel just for this purpose; one Clark had shown her long ago. She put the truck in park, turned it off leaving the keys in the ignition and reached for the glove box. Clark always kept a couple flashlights in there despite his lack of need, a habit his father had instilled in him and one that was handy for her now.

"Where are we? What are we doing out in the middle of nowhere?" Panic was making Lois louder and more shrill than usual.

"Lois, keep your voice down. Here." She handed her a flashlight and then lowered the tailgate with a squeak and a clank. She pulled aside the canvas that still partially concealed Clark and grabbed the slick red material bunched next to him. She spread it out on the rocky ground like a picnic blanket. Lois dropped softly to the ground, her light bobbing in the night.

Chloe hesitated, there was no easy way to get Clark on the blanket. She grabbed his leg and tugged at his dead weight.

"What are you doing with him?" Lois sounded horrified.

"Lois, I told you," she snapped, her fears for Clark leaving her on edge, "if I can get him inside these caves there is a place I can take him that can help him."

"I don't understand." Lois shook her head and whimpered.

Chloe stopped what she was doing, closed her eyes and forced herself to take a deep breath. If she didn't manage to keep calm then there wasn't any hope for Lois. She pulled Lois into a brief hug and then spoke in a calm, conciliatory tone. "I know, this is hard and I know you don't understand and I don't have time to explain everything, but I know you want to help Clark." Lois stiffened in her arms.

"The Blur is a hero, but…but Clark lied to me. He's not who he pretended to be. I don't know who he is."

Chloe shined her light in Lois's face. Her pupils were dilated and she sounded off, as if she had already forgotten that Clark was the Blur. The shock of the evening was getting to her, but Chloe needed her help. "Fine, don't think about Clark," she continued, using the same placating pitch and rhythm as before, "think about the Blur. You would do anything to help the Blur, right?"

Lois nodded. "Yes, that's right. He makes me feel special. Like I'm helping to save the world."

"Yes, that's what you are doing now. You're helping the Blur. The world needs him." I need him, she said silently to herself. "Look at me Lois." She shook her a little and the focus came back into her cousin's eyes. "Can you do this?"

Lois blinked a few times and then nodded. "Yes. Yes, I can do this. You grab his legs and I'll take his shoulders." Her voice gained strength as she spoke. They tugged and pulled. He was heavier than Lois expected and he landed roughly on the ground. Chloe dropped to her knees to brush away the dirt clinging to his cheek, cupping the side of his face briefly before she tugged him to the right and adjusted his body so he was lying on the material she'd brought along for dragging. It was an incredibly tough new polymer Oliver's company was testing, slick, flexible, and breathed like cotton.

Oliver.

She hadn't had a chance to think about him since she left Watchtower. She hoped the team was successful, hoped he was all right but when push came to shove, she knew now, Clark still came first. Her wounds may have scarred over, but sometimes the healing was deceptive. Her scars may have been thick, they were also her greatest point of weakness and in the face of this new horror, they ripped wide open.

Wounded or not, she needed to stick to the plan and that didn't include time for self-pity. She pulled out a couple old work jackets she found stuffed behind the bench seat in the truck and dropped them on top of Clark. Then she directed Lois to grab two corners and they half dragged, half-carried Clark's body into the caves.

"I can't see anything."

"Wedge your flashlight under your arm."

"I don't like this. I didn't like the Marvel Caves in Branson, Missouri; I didn't like the Jewel Caves in South Dakota and I don't like it here. This is just creepy. What are we doing here?" Lois implored again.

"Keep walking. This place is more than what it seems."

"I know Clark once was fascinated by these dusty caverns but its ancient history. I can't make sense of us being here, but you keep saying this place is important so why don't you spell it out for me?"

"Lois, I don't have time…"

"Don't give me that. We're moving as fast as we can. Multitask. I know you can do it. Now as politically correct as I'd like to be, I don't give a damm about preserving the history of some centuries old native cave paintings, so tell me, why would the Blur?" Lois stopped moving. "Tell me or I won't budge."

"I'll tell you, just keep moving. The caves are important for two reasons. The cave paintings tell the story of…"

Lois interrupted and recited "The Kawatche First Nation coming into contact with a mysterious man from the stars as well as an ancient prophecy about two who were as brothers turning into the bitterest of enemies." At Chloe's surprised look, Lois shrugged. "What? Just because I don't care about them doesn't mean I don't know the story. Olsen left behind some research at the Planet. I read his notes, but I can't see any connection between old Indian legends and the Blur."

Chloe bit her lip, uncertain how to answer. "The Kawatche people believe that it was Clark's ancestor who came to them hundreds of years earlier."

"What? So they think that Clark has an alien for an ancestor. Please." She scoffed. "What's the other reason the cave is important?"

Since they were going to be there in a matter of minutes, Chloe couldn't see the harm in telling her. "There is a room that can be used as a portal to another place. That other place is where I need to take Clark." Lois stopped moving.

"Lois, come on, we need to keep going."

She shook her head and dropped her corners of the red, make shift stretcher. "This is insane. There can't be portals to other dimensions here in Smallville. It's Smallville! We're in Kansas for Pete's sake!"

"I never said to another dimension."

"Then to where?" She demanded with her hands stuck on her hips.

"The arctic."

She chocked back a laugh. "What are you planning to do? Cryogenically freeze Clark until someday they find a cure for stab wounds? Oh god, what am I doing?" Lois threw her hands up in the air.

"Please, we have to keep moving." The summer after her senior year when Clark was shot and died in the hospital, his body went missing from the morgue within an hour. Chloe didn't know how significant that timeline was, but she was racing against that clock. The drive from Metropolis ate away a half-hour and she used up too much time trying to convince Lois to get out of her way. Time was slipping past. She could feel it.

Lois took a step back and held up her hands. "I can't do this anymore. This is crazy. Clark's related to some alien and you want dump his body in the arctic."

"You asked and I told you," she ground out between her teeth.

"Chloe, this can't be right. You have to stop. Look at him!"

Chloe's eye followed where Lois pointed. In the dim lighting, Clark's paleness seemed to glow and for as often as she had teased him about only having one expression, now she saw what blank really looked like.

"Admit it Chloe, there isn't anything, anyone can do to help him. He's dead. The Blur's dead and Zod is still out there using the Book of Rao for he and his evil alien cohorts."

Chloe shook her head. "No, we're sure Clark took care of him and the Book transported the Kandorians to a safe new planet."

"How can you know that?" Lois demanded belligerently.

Chloe clenched her fists and shouted, "Because Clark was sacrificing himself to take them away when Zod tried to kill him!"

"He didn't just try, he's succeeded, remember? Zod killed the Blur and he's gone. Dead is as good as zapped to another planet." Lois blinked and remembered her conversation with Clark in the barn. "He knew he was going away, that had to be why he wanted me to take the African job." Her lower lip quivered. "He didn't even say goodbye."

"He didn't say goodbye to me either but he's still here and I'm not about to quit on him now. Now either help me or get out of my way," she growled.

"Chloe you are not being rational."

"I mean it Lo, get out of my way or so help me, I will take you down," she vowed in a low even tone. All the anger, fear, and frustration she felt vibrating through her body focused into a savage promise. Lois shrank back and swallowed hard. Still, instead of just moving to the side, Lois bent and picked up her corners and they continued silently down the corridor.

A minute later, they were at the chamber. Chloe rushed ahead to prop up a flashlight in the corner. Its light bounced off the stone ceiling and provided enough illumination for her to see the symbols inscribed on the stone altar.

"Help me get Clark in here."

"Is it safe?"

"Nothing will happen until I use the key." She fished the grey disk out of a pocket and held it up briefly.

"Those markings, they're like the ones on the Book of Rao."

"Same manufacture." She tucked the key away while they dragged Clark the remaining few feet. Chloe picked up one of the work coats she'd found in the truck and put it on. It was only a little large, probably Martha's.

She lifted the second jacket, also sized to fit Martha, and held it out to Lois. Neither work coat was winter ware but, Chloe figured, they should bring some protection from the frozen world they were about to enter. They were fortunate springtime had come to the arctic. The long days and short nights allowed the temperatures to rise to near the freezing point, balmy by arctic standards.

"Lois, come on." Chloe shook the jacket at Lois, but Lois was busy backing out of the stone room.

"Get my molecules scrambled? I don't think that's for me." Lois's eyes were wide with lots of white showing, like a terrified horse on the verge of panic.

Chloe stepped to the edge of the chamber and tried to soothe her. "I'm sorry I snapped at you. I know everything is happening fast and I know it is a lot to ask of you, to just trust me, but I think that Jor-El, that's a super advanced computer program on the other side of the portal, I think it responds to deep emotion."

Chloe thought back to when she'd stumbled into the Fortress the first time, Clark had to beg Jor-El to let him leave. Clark told stories of both his parents imploring Jor-El for help when they were at the end of their rope and receiving it. When Chloe brought Kara to the Fortress, simple logic hadn't swayed the impassive AI; the power of the fortress activated only after her final impassioned appeal. This, this was asking for so much more. "You love Clark. I could really use you there."

"Love him?" Lois took another step back, shaking her head. "I don't know; I don't even know him. I thought I was planning a future with the most normal guy in the world: steady, just ambitious enough, looked good in a suit and someone happy to be there to support me and what I want. I already stated questioning just how supportive he was capable of being. Why do you think we broke up? Now I find out he lied to me the whole time about who he really is."

"But you know now." Chloe's throat tightened just a bit. "You get to have the whole package. The regular guy you love and the superhero."

Lois wrapped her arms around her middle and shook her head. "It won't work. The regular guy is a lie. As for the Blur, he's a fantasy. Like a celebrity crush. I figured that out a month into therapy. Talking to him was exciting. Helping him made me feel important."

Lois looked up and closed her eyes. "What the Blur does IS important. He might someday save the world, but I can't be the one wondering if he's coming home afterwards." She opened her eyes and looked at her cousin. "I can't do it. I know what I need and he isn't it. I spent my entire childhood knowing I would never be on top of the list, that I would never be the most important thing to the most important man in my life. I can't spend the rest of my life that way."

"But you love him. He…he loves you. Nothing else matters."

"It matters to me. I can't…he's not…" She shook her head sorrowfully. "The worst thing about it is he knows how I feel. I told him years ago when I broke up with Oliver for the final time. He knew and didn't care. How is that love?"

"Lois, you're not thinking clearly."

"No." She raised a hand to ward off any further persuasion. "My mind has never been clearer. I'm wondering if you're the one not thinking straight. Even if I believe this ancient relic will transport you to see Jor-El the Wizard, don't try to tell me it's safe. Do you really thing Clark would want you to take the risk?"

"I'm going Lois." Chloe's voice went hard. "There isn't anything you can do to stop me, so don't even try."

Lois said nothing more, recognizing a tone Chloe rarely used, but one that always meant back off.

Chloe quickly changed the subject. "In case…in case this takes a while, do you remember how to get back to the truck?" She couldn't quite bring herself to say aloud what had been running through her mind. Lois was right; the trip wasn't without danger. Perhaps it was best that Lois refused to go. Chloe knew Jor-El was capable of bringing Clark back; but there was always a cost.

"Yes, follow the corridor back, two lefts and a right and I'm out."

"Good. I'm going to give you an address to remember." She rattled off the location of Watchtower. "Take the elevator all the way to the top. Let them know I sent you." She gave Lois a quick hug.

Lois clung to her. "Chloe, you're acting like this is goodbye. Don't do this, whatever it is you're planning to do. If you're doing this for me, stop. I won't trade you for anyone and the Blur would never want you to sacrifice your self for him either."

"I have to do this Lois."

Lois pulled back. "Why? To save the world? Leave that to the likes of the Green Arrow."

"I'm not trying to be a hero Lois; I just have to do this."

Lois studied the determination in Chloe's stance. She sighed and nodded with unshed tears brimming in her eyes. "If you're right about this Jor-El character responding to emotion, you don't need me. I should have seen it. That mad crush, all that crazy love you had for Kent years ago; nothing's changed, has it?"

Chloe didn't know what to say. Lois was wrong; everything had changed. "I've had to learn a long time ago how to let Clark go, but not like this. I can't do it like this."

"What about Oliver? Do care how he feels?" She asked without any real accusation.

"I do. I never wanted to hurt him, and I hope he'll be ok, but,…it's Clark," Chloe finished simply, his name the answer to every question. She stepped away from Lois who watched with a mixture of emotions on her face, the most important being understanding. Her brash, older cousin had been her only confidant to how deeply she cared for Clark as a young teen and she stood witness now. Lois was right after all; nothing really had changed.

Chloe went to the stone altar in the center of the room, pulled the disk from her pocket, glanced at Clark's unnaturally still form on the floor and inserted the key.