Chapter 2: After The Storm

Chloe Sullivan stared at the poster of the Daily Planet globe set against the Metropolis sky line. She had gotten it a few months ago on a weekend trip to the city to visit her cousin at Met U. Staring at it helped clear her mind and right now her brain was chaos. After the excitement of the tornado she had found out what happened to Clark at the Spring Formal. He had some how rescued Lana Lang from the tornado. Normally she would have asked how a 16 year old boy would be able to rescue a girl from inside a tornado but she was not really interested in the How right now. What had her in turmoil was the Why.

She had thought that after he had asked her to the dance that he was finally over Lana and had started seeing her for what she was, the girl of his dreams. She thought that maybe she would finally be able to be more then just friends with Clark Kent. But she had her doubts now. After just leaving the dance with out telling her those doubts had hit her hard. She finally though, had come to a decision. It was not an easy one to make but it was one that she felt had to be made. She didn't want to lose Clark forever, either his love or his friendship. She knew though that if she kept being his girlfriend when he finally realized that Lana was the one he wanted it would destroy both that love and friendship. So she decided to choose the certainty of his friendship over the possibility of his love. She had to end it now. Before things got any deeper. At least that was the plan.

She had tried breaking up with Clark when they were out searching for his dad. Mr. Kent had gotten lost and hurt in an underground cavern with a reporter named Nixon. That Nixon was a pompous little rodent that gave real investigative journalists a bad name. Although he was not much to worry about now seeing as he was dead. It had been a surprise when she found out it was Lex who had killed him. They had told her he went crazy at the thought of being buried alive and when he and Mr. Kent finally got out of the cavern he had tried to kill him. Lex and Clark had found them fighting and Lex had shot him in the back. It didn't sound very plausible and if she had had her faculties about her she probably would have realized that. But while she was in the midst of trying to tell Clark that they should just be friends his mother had yelled for him. He had asked her to "Hold that thought" while he went to see what she had found but she never got a chance to talk to him again. They had found his dad a few minutes later and then it had been nothing but doctors and police officers for the last three days. Three days of pure chaos for Chloe. Three days of angst and second guesses. Three days of wondering whether or not she was doing the right thing. But she had finally resolved herself.

"Its for the best" she told the poster with authority. "At least this way I get to keep him as a friend"

KNOCK KNOCK. It was her bedroom door. "Come in" she replied.

"Did you say something Sweetie?" Her dad asked sticking his head in.

"Sorry Dad, just talking to the poster again." She said, her head slowly turning to look at him.

"Ok, well you have a good nights sleep. If I don't see you in the morning have a good day back at school"

"Thanks Daddy. Goodnight."

"Goodnight to you to Sweetheart."

Yes, tomorrow after school she would tell Clark and then try and put all this behind her. It was the right thing to do after all.

She didn't ask herself though why the right thing to do made her cry herself to sleep that night.

Smallville Medical Center.

Most hospitals have the same smell. Its the smell of disinfectant and cleaner. The smell of sheets that have been cleaned with hard bleach and floors scrubbed till they gleamed. But beneath all that there was a more subtle smell something that you never really noticed unless you concentrated on it. It was the smell of death, of a lingering sadness that no matter how much they scrubbed or how much they cleaned would ever go away.

It was all these smells that woke Chris Voss. As his eyes fluttered open. He noticed that he was in a hospital bed. He didn't really know why he was in a hospital bed though. Although from the splitting pain in his head and arm he was getting a good idea. He looked around the room and took stock of where he was. He reached up to feel his head and noticed that there was a white bandage wrapped snugly around his left forearm. He continued onto his head and found another one there. He also felt some small scrapes on the side of his neck but it felt like they were mostly healed. He looked over as the door started to swing open.

"Well it looks my favorite patient has finally woken up." It was a pretty blond haired woman. He assumed that she was his nurse as she was wearing a nurses uniform and a name tag that said Becky.

"My name is Becky as I am sure the name tag will tell you" she said with a grin. "You gave a us quite a scare the last day or so. You've been unconscious for almost a whole day. The doctors were about to order another CT scan to make sure they didn't miss anything."

"Miss anything?" He said with a small groan.

"Yeah they brought you in here with pretty big knock to the head. Seems that the tornado spun your little truck all around and threw you right into a ditch. Gave you all those little scrapes and cut your left arm up pretty bad." She started checking his vitals and making sure the I.V.'s were working properly.

"Am I going to be Ok? I feel a little weird." Which he did. The pain was still there but the arm had started to itch a little bit as he became more and more awake and the lights kind of hurt his eyes.

"Oh thats probably just the pain medicine. Although the doctors were worried for awhile. You had lost a lot of blood by the time you got brought in. Plus you probably don't know this but you have a pretty rare blood type."

"No I didn't know that." He said with a shake of his head. Which turned out to be a bad idea as he suddenly got really dizzy.

"Yeah they had to give you the best match they could when you first got in here. But they finally found a donor match from another person in town with the same type as yours. There were a few bags in storage so they brought them up and hooked them right in. Problem was you went into cardiac arrest from the other blood type. It was touch and go for awhile there but your doing just fine now."

"You mean tell me I died?" A worried look on his face.

"Nothing to fret over. Your going to be fine." She said with an understanding smile. It happened a lot in the ER. Patients would come in with heart attacks or the infrequent gun shot wound and technically die on the table. But the Doctors were able to bring them back and get them all fixed up. Most of them even lived out their days none the worse for the wear.

"Where are my parents. Why aren't they here?"

"Well honey it is three o'clock in the morning. I sent them home when visiting hours ended. They were both exhausted. I'm sure they will be back first thing in the morning."

"Oh, Ok." That made sense although it did not seem like it was that late out. He thought the room would be darker.

"Why don't you lay back down and try and go back to sleep. I know it may seem silly trying to go back to sleep after being unconscious for so long but rest is really what they body needs to heal itself." She was checking the bandage on his arm now. "Well this looks like it is coming along nicely as well. Actually it looks a lot better then I would have thought it would. You must have been taking your vitamins to start healing this fast."

He looked down at the wound. It looked bad. There were probably one hundred and fifty stitches going up his arm and the cut looked swollen and evil. But it didn't look like it had just happened. In fact it looked to him like it had happened about a week ago. 'Maybe I am a fast healer' he thought.

He looked back up after Becky was done changing the bandage. She was fiddling with the last of the I.V.'s going into his arm.

"Yep by tomorrow you'll be done with all these and probably be getting released and be back in school in no time. Assuming everything is well that is." She checked the information on the bag and marked it down. "As a matter of fact it was this right here that saved your life." Giving the bag a little tap.

Chris looked up at the almost empty blood transfusion bag. It looked like any other blood bag he had seen on t.v. But for a second he thought it had a slight green tint to it, which was so odd that he didn't really even believe it when he saw it.

'Must be the concussion' he guessed. He looked up at the label that Nurse Becky had flicked.

'I wonder what 157 means?' He thought as he drifted back to sleep.