A/N Thanks so much for all the replies on this story and the last chapter. I have to say I was really hoping for more Chlark moments during the season finale but their last scene was amazing. I love the Chlark relationship! So here is the next chapter. I hope you enjoy!

It's all in the Timing

Chapter Eight: Everyone Must Play their Part…

I know you've got a little life in you left

I know you've got a lot of strength left

She could feel the cement of the wall as she slumped against it. Her whole body felt so heavy and she was so tired. She was calling for him and in her mind she was screaming, yelling his name. She wanted him to come to her. She wanted to say good-bye but she was just too weak. The sounds were fading. The screams of those in harm's way were becoming a faint whisper. The shots being fired in the streets below, the crash of metal against brick… it was all fading. Soon there would be silence, golden silence and as she felt the chill run up her inner core she exhaled a deep breath begging for Clark… begging for just one moment more. She wanted to tell him, wanted him to know… it was okay. It wasn't his fault and that this… this was meant to be.

I should be crying but I just can't let it show

I should be hoping but I can't stop thinking…

She hoped that he understood what she had done… why she had done it. She had always known of his destiny and it wasn't until about two days ago that she finally understood hers. They all had their parts to play, there roads to travel. His had always seemed very clear to her. She had always believed that there would come a day that he would have to save the world and she had prayed and hoped that she would get to be apart of it. She wanted to stand beside him and do her part. Perhaps even save him for a change. Men like him didn't usually need to be saved but she hoped… Men like him also didn't come along everyday and there had to be a reason why he was chosen… chosen to come to Earth… chosen to have the powers that he had… chosen to live. She always knew that he was meant to do great things, even before she knew of his special abilities. He had always seemed to be cut from a different mold than the rest of the world…always seemed to be just a little bit more than the rest of them…

"I always knew there was something special about you Clark Kent…"

Her voice echoed in her mind's eye but the time and place eluded her. The reminiscent words sounded familiar even if she couldn't remember the circumstances in which they were uttered. A fleeting image of falling, arms catching her… his scent, his body solid; oh how she longed for warmth.

All the things we should've said that I never said

All the things we should've done that we never did…

"Clark…" She gasped out. Her voice was so breathy that she could hardly recognize it as her own. She closed her eyes straining her ears but nothing… she couldn't hear anything anymore… just the faint sound of her own heartbeat thumping slowly in her ears.

And as her head slumped to the left she watched something streak across the image of the full moon and then watched as the sky went up in a blaze of orange and red… the world was on fire… the world was on fire and she was dying. She had played her part…

36 hours earlier…

He was straining to hear her voice amidst the masses of people not even sure he would be able to. He didn't know where she was… he had no idea if she were even in range and he felt himself running out of time. Looking down at the ring in his palm he stared. Perhaps he could go back… perhaps he could go back to right before she left… do things differently, stop her from going. But then what? Would that provoke Davis; turn him into Doomsday? If that were true than everything would still end the same. He would fight him, he would die and the world would come to an end. There had to be another way.

"You're meant to save him…"

Her voice kept echoing in his ears like a damn prophecy. If it were true, if her words were right the question still remained… how? How could he save him? Doomsday was inside of him, apart of him. How could he save him and keep her alive too? Because that was his mission… that was the only way he could do this. He had to believe that there was a way to keep her alive… to have her in his life when all was said and done.

"Clark…" He turned seeing his mother coming up the steps. There was a sadness in her eyes as she came to stand before him and suddenly he knew that she knew. "Lois called me this morning. She said Chloe was abducted and… Oh Clark…" She reached out for him and suddenly he was in her arms and the tears were on his cheeks and falling onto his mother's shoulder. She stroked his hair and he felt the weight of the world truly fall upon him as he gave into his grief.

"I can't find her… I don't even know where to start… I don't know how to save her." He whispered softly.

It was the first time he had allowed himself this moment to truly feel the lost of her presence and God it hurt. It hurt like hell.

"Come on…let's go downstairs. I'll get us some tea and you can tell me what happened." She whispered in his ear.

Meanwhile…

Breaking and entering had never been her strong suit. She left things like that up to Chloe. Ironic that she was breaking into her own job and somehow she was still having a hard time; she swore softly as her credit card broke in half in the jam of the door. She exhaled deeply feeling as though she had somehow once again failed her cousin. Leaning into the metal door she began to slide to her knees in utter defeat, keeping her balance by holding onto the handle and feeling it give way and open. She pulled fiercely and watched as the back door to the Daily Planet gave way and suddenly she was staring into a dark unlit corridor that went straight to the basement!

Not wasting anytime she crossed over and made her way inside. When she heard Tess Mercer on the phone earlier talking about tracking Davis Bloom she knew that she had to do something. If Tess Mercer was looking for Davis that meant she was also looking for Chloe and she would be damned if she allowed that bitch to get her clutches on one of the last few family members she had. Whomever was out looking for that murderous bastard was probably out to seek and kill which meant Chloe was in danger and since Clark was too wrapped up in his own guilt to do anything that left the snooping and hacking up to her. Except there was a slight hole in her plan… actually it was a major hole. Lois couldn't hack her way out of a paperbag! Hell she had just recently discovered that just because you put your document through a spell check did not make it proofed… just because the word wasn't spelled wrong didn't mean it had been used correctly.

But that was neither here nor there at this point. First she had to get to Tess's office and get inside. From there she could figure out her next move. As she climbed the steps, taking them two at a time and came out on the very top floor she felt a surge of pride in herself for getting this far. As she pressed herself against the far wall and rounded the corner she knelt so she was nose to nose with the knob beginning to tamper with the lock. It only took her a second to realize that it wasn't locked and that there was someone already sitting behind her boss's desk. Standing straight she could see his blond hair shining off the light of the moon. "Jimmy Olsen! What the hell are you doing in here?" She asked walking across the threshold and standing in front of the desk, hands on her hips.

"Lois?" He asked completely startled.

"I thought you left town!" She remarked accusingly.

"I did... I was halfway across the country when I saw the news… Mass murderer abducts young blond female." He recited the headline as if it were ingrained in his brain. "I came back." He stated going back to typing.

She stared at him for a moment seeing something behind the blueness of his eyes. He cared… he cared very deeply for Chloe despite their ending. "What are you doing?" She asked coming around to his side.

"I'm doing what you probably were going to attempt… hack into Tess's Satellite program… see how close she is to closing in on Davis and Chloe…" He stated allowing his fingers to move across the keyboard as though it were second nature.

She looked at his profile and then back to the screen. "You do know that hacking into classified information is illegal, right?" She joked darkly.

"Yeah… so is breaking and entering." He shot back.

"Hey I work here!"

"Not on this floor." He smiled.

She sighed. "So… how did you know about the satellites?" She asked.

"Oliver told me." He looked up briefly seeing the questions in her eyes. "I went to him first… I told him that I wanted to help. He said that he could use me. He needed someone to get into Tess's files… see what she knew… I remembered the satellites from dealing with Lex. He had been using them to track down those that were meteor infected. I had a feeling that Tess may have been using them… I told him that I would find out what she knew. So here I am." He finished with a soft sigh turning back to the screen. "I'm going to find her… I'm going to bring her home." He stated with such conviction that it almost brought a smile to her face.

Placing her hand on his shoulder she gave it a reassuring squeeze. "We'll find her! We'll bring her home."

Meanwhile…

45 miles outside of Edge City

She sighed placing her money onto the counter and taking the bag of 'groceries'. Looking into the plastic bag she sighed making sure she didn't forget the essentials as she emerged from the convienent store. She had a few bottles of water, some chips, a few candy bars and of course the pills… the pills that helped with his anxiety. Ever since they had left she watched him go through box after box. He had been taking two every hour and now they were up to four every forty-five minutes. She wasn't sure how much longer they had. They both knew that whatever calming presence she was having on him was starting to ware off. Neither of them spoke of it but they both knew. It was in the look he gave her when she would hand him the pills and a glass of water. It was in the sad smile that graced his lips as he thanked her… but they never spoke of it. There was no need.

So here she was heading back to the small motel where he waited for her. Coming around the corner she sighed seeing the silhouette of the motel in the pale light of the moon and for a moment she stopped. She could run for it. She could simply just turn around and make a break for it. By the time he realized she wasn't coming back she could be halfway back to Smallville. She could find Clark… and then what? She exhaled a breath. She couldn't go back… she couldn't run. She was the last barrier between Davis and the Beast. She was only thing that was buying Clark and the League time to figure out a way to save him. She couldn't run and they both knew it. There was too much at stake… too much to lose. That's the reason he wasn't keeping her under lock and key or under constant watch. He knew that she understood what would happen if she tried to leave and there was no way she would risk that.

None of them would…

"Chloe Sullivan…"

She turned hearing the sound of her name and only barely recognizing the voice. Rokk seemed to emerge from the shadows.

"I… know you. What are you doing here?" She asked softly taking a few steps in his direction and then stopped. "Are you here with Clark?" She looked around as if expecting to be ambushed.

"No. Kal-El has no idea that I am here. He has no idea that I have found you and I do not believe that he should know." He sighed. "I'm here to see you. There is much I need to discuss and we are running out of time… Ms. Sullivan in two days everything that you have done will be for nothing… unless you listen to me right now and do exactly what I say." He stared into her green eyes realizing that he was about to ask more of her than Kal-El could ever forgive him for. He just hoped that after it was all said and done he would understand.

Kent Farm…

She watched him as he sat practically motionless at the kitchen table. His hands wrapped tightly around the mug she had given him she could see the heat coming from the liquid inside. He had told her of Davis… or the beast that was Davis. How he had come to Earth that fateful day when she and her husband had found Clark.

"So there were two of you in that field… how could we have not known? How come we didn't see him?" She asked mainly to herself.

Clark looked up hearing the pain in her voice. "Mom… this isn't… I mean this isn't happening because you and dad didn't take two boys home with you that day… it's happening because of Zod and his wife. They created him… they made him this way and sent him here. They planned on making him the Ultimate Killing Machine… they just never factored in what being raised among humans for most of his life would do to him."

"But he wasn't raised by humans. From what you're telling me Lionel took him in… experimented on him and then threw him out when he thought he was of no use. He wasn't raised by us… he was abandoned by the only humans that he came in contact with… tortured and abandoned. I can't imagine what something like that could do to a person… to anyone." She stated softly.

"Chloe thinks that I should save him." He suddenly felt the urge to tell her. He wanted to look into her eyes… see what she thought.

She looked up sharply and there was doubt but there was also something else… something like expectation. Did she expect him to save the person that killed more than fifty people? The same person that abducted Chloe and put her directly in harm's way; the same person that was sent to Earth to kill him?

"What do you think?" She asked.

"I think I want her back." He replied.

"Then how are you going to make that happen?"

He sighed taking a stand and walking to the kitchen window staring out at the night. There were storm clouds moving in and he could smell the rain in the air. There was definitely a storm coming their way… in more ways than one. "I don't know… I just… I can hear her voice in my head… I can feel the beat of her heart." To emphasize his point he let his hand run over his chest feeling his own heartbeat. "I have to find her first." He remarked. "I just don't know what will happen once I do."

"You can't fight him Clark. You told me that if you do then…"

"Maybe that's my destiny." He stated softly.

"No! I don't believe that. I don't believe that that is how you leave this world. A mother should never outlive her son… there has to be another way… another way for you to save the man and defeat the beast… wait!" She remarked suddenly, a thought coming to her.

"What?"

"You said that the beast… this thing was inside him… it was created by Kryptonians right and that when he was sent here he took on a human form?" She asked and he nodded. "Well what if you could separate him from the Kryptonian beast? What if you could take the part of Davis that is human and pull it from the beast? That would be saving him."

He stared at her wanting to grasp onto this. "But there's no telling if Davis is even part human."

"He has to be… at least there must be some part of him that wants to be human… otherwise being with Chloe wouldn't calm him down. It wouldn't relax him enough to keep this thing inside him contained. He wants to be good… and that can't come from this beast that you're telling me about. It has to be something human… something filled with more than just hate." She pointed out.

"But how would I do it? How could I separate them… Black Kryptonite!" He shouted and was in the barn and back in the kitchen in under a second holding the lead-lined box in between his hands. "I could pull them apart and then send the beast to the Phantom Zone." He remarked. He looked up seeing the apprehension in her eyes at the mention of the Phantom Zone. "Mom it has to be me. I'm the only one strong enough to get him back to the Fortress where that crystal is." He remarked.

She nodded. "I know… I just… Clark I love you. I'm your mother and I love you more than anything in this world but trust me when I say this… if it comes down to a choice of sending him to the Phantom Zone or having to kill him to save yourself… I want you to choose you! Do you hear me?" There were tears in her eyes as she reached and grabbed both of his hands.

"Mom I can't…"

"Listen to me! Listen. I know how you feel about taking a life. I know that it is the last thing that you would ever want to do but Clark… you are meant to do so much for this world… Don't rob us of the hero that you could be just to sacrifice the man that you are now."

He stared into her eyes seeing years of his past within them. Days spent helping his father with the farm, nights in the kitchen with her… all those precious moments wrapped inside this woman who loved him better than any other mother could have. He nodded unable to answer her… unable to vocalize what she meant to him. She patted his hands and it was the sound of the phone that broke the moment.

"Hello?"

"Clark… it's Oliver… we found them… we found Chloe and Davis."