Kal El froze as he realised that the words he was hearing were Kryptonian. He slowly turned to face the source and a deep frown furrowed his brow, "Chloe Sullivan? How did you get here?"

"No, Kal El." A beautiful, calm smile spread across the woman's face and she reached her hands out towards him, "I am Lara Jor El. I am your mother."

Kal El didn't move, his face falling blank. "My mother is dead."

"Yes, but like your father my memories were preserved in the ship we sent you here in. When this Earthling came across the ship and touched it, I was transferred to her. So here I am, to help you on your quest."

Kal El let a frown creep across his face, "What quest?"

"Your father and I sent you to this planet to protect it. You- "

"Protect it?" Kal El took a threatening step towards her, "I was taken, taken! and cleansed of the human nature I had been instilled with in order to make me stronger, purer, a better destroyer." He straightened, imposing in his height over her, not feeling the confidence he injected into his tone, "I was made into the ultimate purifier for Krypton. You seek to defy my father, to soften me, distract me from my true purpose."

She shook her head, "No, Kal El. We weren't cleansing you, we were educating you; your emotions were forced into a kind of stand-by so you could better absorb what you were being taught about Krypton by psionic link with the technologies within the fortress in which you stand. Your body never left Smallville, it was merely shifted slightly out of phase so your mind could be accessed by the memory banks here, and when the one with a strong destiny-pull came into the vicinity of where you were being held you were jolted back into phase with a huge energy discharge. Because your teaching was not finished, your mind's connection to your body is incomplete, that is why you feel so little."

Kal El's brow rippled, no longer attempting to cover the confusion he was feeling, "But this Lois Lane... she stirs such strong emotions in me, how can what you claim be true?"

Lara smiled, "Lois Lane is the one who disturbed your training, my son."

Kal El staggered back with shock, his eyes wide, "But that would mean..."

"That her destiny is entwined with yours. Only one with such a strong claim to your future would be able to disrupt the phase in that way."

Kal El sank down onto a crystal bench, his mind swimming with questions, "Why send me to Earth?" He looked up at her, "Is it because father..."

"Fell in love here?" Lara smiled again, "Don't be afraid to say it, my son, your father came to this planet a very long time before we met. He always held a special place in his heart for this planet and her people, so when the time came for us to send our baby boy to be protected and to in turn protect, there was really only one place we could ever send you."

Kal El scrubbed a hand through his hair, not bothering to supress the human habit this time, "Can you restore me?"

"Yes."

"I'm not... I am not sure I want to be restored." He stood again and faced his mother in the body of his associate, "Without emotions I could truly be a protector. No weakness, no doubt, complete clarity of vision."

"No happiness, no love, none of the muddle that can make life so interesting."

"I have a duty; to protect, that is why you sent me here, surely it is a small sacrifice to only live half a life in order to help so many."

"Kal El," she put a hand on his chest, "Clark. You were not sent here as punishment. If you refuse to be restored you will lose the very essence of what makes life worth living, you will never feel the joy that helping others brings, you will never feel love. You will be an automaton. Think carefully and choose wisely, my son. You must be restored within the next few days or the process will be irreversible. I shall return Chloe Sullivan to you now. Use the transport control over there to return to Smallville; I beg you not to spoil the gift of life you have been given, Kal El. Remember that your father and I sent you here in love, not sacrifice." With one last, lingering look at her son, Lara Jor El vacated the body of Chloe Sullivan and sent it pitching forwards into the arms of the Earths greatest saviour.

Lois paced Clark's loft while chewing violently on several fingernails. Kal El had been gone all day and she was starting to worry, yeah he was strong but he was also still amnesiac and she was terrified that he'd run off and left her with the seemingly insurmountable task of finding her lost cousin. Throwing herself down onto the worn sofa, she grabbed a pillow and squeezed it, wondering at her odd behaviour. What did it matter to her if Kal El had wandered off somewhere? All he did was wind her up and rub her the wrong way... And make her tummy go all funny... She thought back to the dream she'd had the night before and squirmed as it brought back the phantom sensations of the most real-feeling sex dream she'd ever had. She could still feel his hands on her body, his lips crushed against hers as they frantically made love over and over, as if the world was going to end.

She heard a sound in the main barn and jumped, embarrassment flooding her at the thought of being caught fantasising about 'Kal El the Ice King'. He came up the stairs and she shot to her feet, bravado masking the relief at seeing him safe and in one piece, "Where the hell have you been?"

He looked at her and seemed to sniff, a slight frown wrinkling his brow, "You are aroused."

"What?!" Lois clamped her thighs together and attempted to look nonchalant and angry at the same time, "I am not!"

His frown turned quizzical, "I am also aroused." He looked at her again and searched her eyes as he began to move closer to her, "Yet I should not be. How do you do this to me, Lois Lane? I feel nothing towards anyone else, but when you are near me I feel strange, like there is something missing between us. It is as if I have no control over what little emotion I have."

"R-Really?" Lois cursed her voice as it squeaked, damn, was it getting hotter in here? She moved away from him to stand by the open window where the cool night air was flooding through.

"Yes." Oh no, he was coming towards her again, "I am beginning to understand what she meant." His voice lowered to a murmur as he drew dangerously close and reached out a hand to stroke her cheek, "What is it about the women in this town that teaches Kryptonian men so much?" He leaned down and brushed a chaste kiss across her lips, "I must go, Lois Lane." He pulled back reluctantly, "Chloe Sullivan is safe so you need not worry. When I next return I will be different." He smiled with a softness she didn't understand, "I found my sign."

Lois' body was warm, flushed from the fleeting contact with his lips; her heart pounded as he drew back and told her he was leaving. As he began to turn from her, he abruptly stopped and swung back, capturing her face between his hands and crushing his lips to hers, burning the feeling of her into his memory. He pulled back enough to whisper, "Lest I forget," then kissed her again.

He left without looking back, hoping that he would remember something of what had just happened and his revelation about Lois Lane.