Chloe slapped her alarm clock so hard it flew off the night stand and bounced off the facing wall before rebounding and rolling under the bed. Groaning as she clambered out of bed, she grabbed her dressing gown, put it on upside down, cursed grumpily and tried again. Once she'd managed to get it on right and found her slippers, she staggered into the kitchen, shouting to Lois to get up. When she got no response, she growled, picked a cushion off the sofa with which to smite her lazy room mate and stomped into Lois' room.

Lois wasn't there. Her bed looked like it had been slept in, but it was cold and there was no sign of her. Yawning, Chloe wandered back into the living room and rang her cousin's mobile.

"Hello?"

"Lois, where are you?"

"Oh hey, cuz. I woke up early and came over to see Kal." She lowered her voice to throaty whisper, "You should see him in his- hey!"

There was the sound of rustling on the line and a girly squeal as the phone changed hands, "Sorry, Chloe, Lois can't come to phone right now, we'll see you later!" A click and the line went dead. Chloe frowned at the handset, concerned; what had gotten into her cynical cousin? First she couldn't stand Clark, then Chloe caught her down on him, and now she was at his apartment? Grabbing a handful of clothes she headed for the bathroom, something was not right here.

Lois was having the time of her life. Kal was a complete asshole and she loved it! He had a blatant disregard for other people's feelings and didn't give a crap what anyone thought of him; he did what he wanted when he wanted, he was exactly the kind of guy she usually steered clear of. But when he looked at her, a light lit up his whole face, making him appear innocent, as if being with her cleaned him of his sins. She walked out of the bathroom and leaned against the door frame, "What do you think?" He turned from his desk and she could have sworn that his eyes flashed red as a bolt of hunger raced across his face. Without uttering a word, he crossed the room to her and ran gentle fingers through her freshly dyed black and red hair before tangling them in the nape of her head and pulling her to him for a searing kiss. Drawing back to give them both chance to breathe, he whispered in her ear everything he intended to do to her and she giggled, feeling lightheaded yet heavy at the same time. Holding his gaze, she felt the mood shift as that innocence flooded his face with light again.

"I think I love you, Lois Lane."

Lois smirked dangerously, "No you don't, but you get ten points and a bonus for effort."

The innocence drained from his face to be replaced by dark, smirking hunger, "Bonus?"

When Chloe arrived at Clark's the door was locked. Pulling out her key she let herself in and headed for the sounds of giggled, murmured conversation; what she found almost made her lower jaw fall clean from her face. Clark and Lois were tangled in each other's arms in his bedroom, she was in her bra and jeans and he was in only the back trousers he'd been wearing the previous night. Lois' hair had been dyed black with a violent shade of red shooting back from her hairline into the dark mass, Chloe's eyes went to the door of Clark's en-suite to discover the dye bottles on the floor. Still in shock at the scene before her, Chloe's eyes swept the room and rested on a small, clear bottle sitting innocently on the night stand. Tearing her eyes away from the oblivious couple engaged in a fierce lip-lock, she tip-toed to the night stand to take a closer look at the suspiciously red fluid inside. It glowed as she got close and her eyes shot open as she realised what was in it.

Chloe had worked out Clark's secret within a few days of being in Metropolis, she didn't know why it had taken her so long, maybe the city had a clearing effect on her but she was now well aware of Clark's abilities and the effects of both green and red meteor rock on him. It would appear that Kal had drugged Lois with the same rock he was using to dampen his own inhibitions; Chloe whirled on the two, fire burning in her eyes at what he had done, but before she could even open her mouth to yell, a man-shaped blur slammed into the apartment, snagged Kal from Lois' arms and sent himself and Kal smashing through the tenth-storey apartment window. As Lois blinked in dumb shock, Chloe raced for the destroyed window and just managed to catch a glimpse of the two men fighting on their way to the ground. Whoever this newcomer was, he had Clark's speed; he'd better have Clark's invulnerability or he'd be pavement-pizza on impact.

Not wasting another precious second, Chloe ran from the window, grabbed Lois, thrust a T-shirt at her and dragged her from the apartment, taking care to smash the bottle of Red-K serum on her way out.

THREE MONTHS LATER

Chloe stepped out of her Beetle and took a long, deep lungful of clean, Kansas air; it felt like so long since she'd been home.

Kal had vanished after the incident in his apartment and once the Red-K was out of Lois' system she had no memory of what had happened or of even meeting Kal. Deciding that it would raise too many awkward questions to tell her cousin everything, Chloe had to satisfy herself with giving Lois some bull story about forty eight hour flu wiping out her short term memory; the drastic hair-dye job took a little more explaining. Scratching her head in confusion, Lois had accepted the answer to her questions and did the difficult thing for her of taking it easy for a few days. When Chloe had informed her of her decision of returning to Smallville once her internship was up in a few days, Lois had agreed to go with her for a few weeks to help her find her feet without her dad - Mr. Sullivan had decided to stay in a Metropolis suburb with his new girlfriend now that the drama with Lionel Luthor was over.

Chloe smiled as her mobile vibrated in her pocket - she'd barely been home a few hours and it was already ringing. Fishing it out, she pressed the accept button.

"Chloe, it's Lois. Man you weren't wrong, this town is so weird; I found a naked, crazy man who'd been hit by lightning or something in a field and took him to the hospital. He kept muttering about waiting for the sign, must be some religious nut, anyway I'm on my way over with the rest of the stuff, see you soon!"

Chloe grinned as Lois hung up without even waiting for a response, it was great to have her back to her usual, grouchy self. Opening the boot of her car her thoughts wandered over what Lois had said about the man she ran into, she had missed her wall of weird and this certainly seemed to qualify. Speaking of weird, as soon as she'd unpacked she'd go and see the Kents, see if they'd heard anything from or about Clark.