Chloe watched in mild amusement as her cousin paced a bald patch into their living room carpet. Lois was angrily blaming all the city's ills on Clark Kent, her hands gesticulating wildly as she sequentially questioned his heritage, his sanity and lamented the loss of a 'truly hot guy' to the ranks of scum lining the bath that was Metropolis.

"I mean why is it that all the good-looking guys are either gay, married or complete assholes? It's not fair!" She finally ran out of steam and plopped down into a chair.

Chloe tried so hard not to laugh at her poor cousins grumpy little face, "Clark really made an impact on you."

"Yeah." She heaved a world-weary sigh, "I mean it's not just his looks; out there, on the dance floor he was like this... I don't know, like this weird presence or something, I couldn't keep away from him. When I looked into his eyes, and I mean really looked, there was such a kindness there trapped behind the asshole front. God!" She surged to her feet again, "He's such an asshole!" She stomped off into the bathroom and Chloe finally gave into the urge to laugh,

"You like him!"

Lois' yelled response was muffled through the wall, "No, I really don't!"

"Lois, you only get like this when you like someone. You love the challenge!"

Lois stuck her head out of the bathroom door and moaned, "No, please, I don't want to like him, he's an asshole."

"I gathered."

Lois leaned against the door frame and bumped the back of her head repeatedly off it, "I'm so stupid, I'm so stupid, I'm so stupid."

"You're not stupid, you just have lousy timing. Clark really isn't acting like himself right now, you're best to steer well clear of him until he sorts himself out."

"But what if I can't?" She frowned hopelessly, "He gave me this line last night about there being," she rolled her eyes and mimed inverted commas, "'magnetism' between us. At the time I thought it was a load of bull, just a line to get me into bed, but now I'm not so sure." She twiddled her fingers and looked at Chloe uncertainly, "What do I do?"

Letting herself in to Kal's apartment, Chloe headed for the kitchenette to make them both a coffee. Lois' unintentional influence on Clark last night had given her new hope that her best friend could be recovered - she had resigned herself weeks ago to the fact that he was both irretrievable and unwilling to even consider returning to Smallville, until now - so here she was, ready to start again on her quest of redemption.

Turning from the counter, two steaming cups in her hands, she approached the figure sitting on the window sill, still wearing the same clothes from the night before, his gaze fixed on the Metropolis skyline. Getting to within a few feet of him, she was relieved when he didn't grab and eject her like he had the last time she'd visited; she held out the coffee to him and held her breath, waiting for him to slap it from her grasp.

"Who is she, Chloe?" He accepted the cup with a grateful nod and sipped at the bitter fluid, not bothering to pretend that it burned.

Chloe breathed a silent sigh of relief: he was talking to her again, "My cousin, Lois. I'm staying at her place during my internship, you'd have met her sooner if you'd bothered to stop over." Chloe blew at her cup, she wasn't as heat-proof as he was.

"I've never felt anything like that pull before; not even with Lana."

Raising her cup to her lips to hide her smirk - as much as she valued Lana's friendship she had always hated the way she led him on for so long - Chloe took a sip of coffee, "Well she is pretty special."

Kal surged to his feet and began pacing and Chloe had to fight back a snort of laughter at the parallel to Lois' agitated movements half an hour ago.

"She turned me down, called me names, kicked me in the balls and I still can't get her out of my head." He scrubbed his free hand through his hair, "What the hell is wrong with me? I must be insane."

"Either that or in love."

He stopped and stared at her, horror all over his face, "Don't be ridiculous."

"How is it ridiculous? All the women you've hooked up with here are superficial, they don't really care about anything except the way they look in the club and in your bed."

Kal turned to the window again and sipped more coffee. He paused for a long moment before murmuring, "They never got that far."

"What?"

Kal scowled as he turned back to her, "I'm not a slut, Chloe. It has to be right, it has to be the right person."

Chloe stood and touched his arm with a smile, "Now you're sounding like yourself, Clark."

Kal's expression suddenly darkened and he grabbed her upper arm none too gently to march her to the door, "How many times do I have to tell you people? My name is Kal!" He opened the door and shoved her outside, coffee cup still clutched tightly in her hand, "Clark Kent does not exist any more." And with that he slammed the door in her face.

"Chloe, why are we back here? Can't we go somewhere else? What if he's here? Let's go to the dans-shak instead."

Back at Atlantis for the second night running, Chloe scanned the room as Lois whined in her ear, Jimmy had already made a bee-line for the bar. "That's the whole point, Lo. You got through to him last night, I want you to see if you can do it again."

"But I don't want to! He's a pig!"

Chloe muttered so Lois couldn't hear, "Even pigs deserve to be redeemed."

"What?"

"I said there he is!" She pointed to where Kal was dancing with another blonde floozy, a drink clutched in each hand as he swayed behind her. "Are you ready?"

Lois curled her lip in a grimace, "Oh all right. But you owe me, Sullivan."

As her cousin trudged off through the crowd Chloe grinned, Lois' reward would be more than she'd ever dreamed of.

Lois muttered under her breath about evil blonde witches and how she'd love to douse said witch with really really cold water and then drop her out of a military chopper in the Arctic circle to fight with penguins and eskimos and... oh goodness...

She'd gotten close enough to her target to be able to examine him properly: he was dressed in relatively ordinary clothes, black jeans and T-shirt, but the trousers were riding low enough on his hips to give her a tantalising glimpse of a strong hip line, and the T was cut low so that she got a good eyeful of collar bone and pectorals. What the exposed flesh hinted at was further enhanced by the fact that the T-shirt was hugging his torso like a second skin, and as he turned and saw her, she could almost see his pulse jump in his throat. Swallowing back her own reaction to being this close to him again, she plastered a fake smile across her face and approached him.

"Hi! Just thought I'm come and... uh... apologise for last night. Sorry!"

He stepped close, into her personal space, and she had to swallow again as his scent drifted seductively around her. "No you're not. I was out of line. Here," he held out one of his drinks to her, "peace offering?"

She took it, raised a suspicious eyebrow, questioning whether he had an ulterior motive, and took a cautious sip. It had an unusually spicey flavour but it gave her limbs a lovely relaxed feeling and she felt her body slowly beginning to glow with subtle heat. She smirked up at him and drained the rest. Dropping the plastic glass to the ground, she looked up through her eyelashes at him, wound an arm around his waist - being sure to brush her fingertips over that delicious bit of exposed hip - and pressed her hips to his as her favourite dance track came on. As the people around them bounced and moved to the music, the fingers of her free hand went to his face and touched his wet, parted lips as his eyes darkened with desire.

Kal tried but couldn't slow his heart down. His blood pounded in his ears as Lois pressed herself into his arms. One of his hands was on her hip, the other her lower back as he pulled her even closer. He could feel his body reacting to her, he was losing control of it, and as her fingertips went to his lips, he couldn't stop himself slipping out the tip of his tongue to gently touch them. She gasped, her eyes glued to his tongue as it worked slowly with her digits. He took her hand, guided the fingers from his mouth to hers, and as she licked at his moisture left there, he could resist no longer and leaned down to capture her lips in a hungry kiss. When she moaned and grabbed at him to return the kiss with equal fervour, he swept her into his arms and made his way over to a darkened corner of the club. His sensitive nose filled with the heady smell of her excitement, making him dizzy as he set her down on her feet and pinned her to the wall, thrusting his tongue into her mouth as her hands slipped down to his buttocks to pull him even tighter against her.

"Take me, Kal."

Her heated whisper sent a pulse of heat straight to his groin which was already beyond excited, but he hesitated, the remnants of his teenage shyness peeking through the confident facade.

She seemed to understand, smirking gently up at him. She spun them so his back was to the wall and with a quick glance over each shoulder, she dropped to her knees in front of him, taking his fly with her. Kal's head slammed back hard against the wall as she went to work on him, foregoing any pleasantries and getting straight to work, making his knees buckle as her ministrations brought him close, so close; he arched, his head falling back and he cried out, the sound covered by the music as she quickly brought him to completion. He gulped down greedy lungfuls of air as Lois rose to her feet and pressed a soft, slightly salty kiss to his swollen lips.

"Lois!"

Kal turned his head to find Chloe glaring at them, her hands on her hips and he could almost see the cogs turning as she took in his flushed face as he stood slumped against the wall, and Lois' disheveled appearance as she wiped self consciously at the corners of her mouth. He could swear she was trying not to smile as she said in a semi-stern voice, "You better not let the bouncers catch you, that's all I'm saying. Lois, we need to go, Jimmy's barfing again; Kal, we'll see you later." And with that she grabbed her horny cousin by the arm and all but dragged her for the exit. Kal watched them go, still trying to catch his breath, and felt his body go warm again as Lois looked back at him over her shoulder, blatantly leered at him and licked her smirking lips.