Chapter Six

Disclaimer: I do not own Smallville.

Note: Please keep in mind that most of the information comes from future Lex and he simply does not like Oliver or Jimmy (nor does Clark know them so no need to hold back because of that) and he's certainly not going to paint himself in a bad light.

"I don't really know what happened to your father after his death was faked but I know he didn't come back to Smallville," Clark said slowly. "We thought you blew up but your cousin Lois came to town looking for answers. I x-rayed your grave and found no body so I assumed you must be alive and…might have accidentally let the people who wanted you dead in on the fact you were alive so they tried to kill you. But it all worked out!"

Chloe shook her head. "I just cannot see Lois in Smallville."

"Well according to Lex, neither could Lois and she lived in Smallville for a few years. Our senior year she attended class with us for a few weeks because she hadn't officially graduated but then Lex made some calls and she went off to college," Clark explained.

Chloe shot Lex a grateful look. "That was nice of you."

"Anything to help a friend," Lex said casually.

"Um…sophomore year you let Lana live with you because her Aunt gets married and moves to Metropolis and Lana doesn't want to go," Clark informed her. "You two apparently become best friends."

"Despite the fact that this hasn't actually happened yet, I feel that I should thank you," Lana told Chloe. "That's far more than most people would do and we're not even really very close. I know that Tina randomly asked to move in with me not long ago and it sort of freaked me out."

"Well, I do seem to have a higher tolerance for the bizarre," Chloe replied, shrugging. "That's why I go chasing after it while you keep getting stalked by it."

"Who would Aunt Nell even marry, anyway?" Lana wondered. "Do I know him?"

"I'm afraid that I didn't think to ask," Clark said apologetically.

"Isn't that a good thing?" Pete asked. "I mean, her finding happiness and whatnot?"

"Oh, it is," Lana said quickly. "It's just…no one wants to be a third wheel during a couple's honeymoon phase. And what if I don't like him?"

"Well I'm glad that I'll be able to help," Chloe reiterated. "Although I don't know what you'll do when I'm supposed to be dead."

"That's probably when she's in Paris," Lex told her.

Clark nodded. "I think it is, yeah. As I might have mentioned earlier, Alicia finds out about my powers and contacts Chloe and has her hide right before calling me so that Chloe sees me use my powers. Now, while I think it would have been better to come out right then and tell me that you saw me so I would have been forced to tell you the truth, you decided to wait for me to tell you on my own."

"Which never happened, I'm guessing," Lex said, a bit cynically.

"Chloe waited for an entire year but ultimately during the second meteor shower Chloe's in the caves for whatever reason when I opened up a portal to the arctic and she followed me in there. Since it was the arctic and she wasn't nearly dressed for it, she would have died unless I took her back," Clark explained.

"Caves?" Pete asked blankly.

"Oh, right," Clark said nodding. "Apparently there are these all-important caves that the AI of my dead biological father takes refuge in after I blow up his ship."

"Where are they?" Lex asked immediately.

Clark shrugged. "Ah…I don't know," he confessed. "They weren't really important because I could fly in the future so I didn't need the caves to get to the arctic. I'm sure they'll turn up sooner or later. That reminds me, the caves have some weird legend about Naman and Sageeth or something. They were supposed to be friends before one of them turned evil and the other fought him to protect people. And there was also this girl that one of them was supposed to be with…I think."

"Could you know any less about this?" Chloe demanded.

"Well I'm sorry but the whole thing seemed kind of stupid and unlikely, not to mention a little unimportant when compared to everything else," Clark said defensively. "And Lex refused to tell me who they were or who the girl was so I had to Google it anyway."

"Why wouldn't he tell you?" Lana asked, frowning at Lex.

"I can only speculate but I believe in making my own destiny," Lex replied calmly.

Clark nodded. "Yeah, that's what he said. But it doesn't really sound very important. What was important was that there were these three stones of powers that I eventually find – or have literally handed to me, as Lex put it – and that bringing them to the caves creates a portal to the arctic where there's this giant alien fortress that's useful for…things, I guess."

"There's a giant alien fortress in the arctic?" Chloe asked, intrigued.

"Not yet, but there will be," Clark clarified. "You start working at the Daily Planet and date and even marry this guy named Jimmy Olsen. I didn't meet him because he dies in a few years but Lex didn't like him. He said that Jimmy was constantly jealous, threw you over for my cousin, ended up a drug addict, sold you out, told you that marrying you was the biggest mistake he had ever met, had raging insecurity issues, was mad at you when he found a love letter you wrote when you were sixteen…basically not worth it. And then he gets murdered by this other guy named Davis Bloome who you were apparently also involved with."

"So I do have a rather unfortunate love life as well," Chloe said after taking a moment to digest everything.

"You have a cousin?" Lana asked, surprised.

"I'll get back to Kara in a minute," Clark promised. "Davis Bloome isn't human. He's some sort of Kryptonian creation and he ends up being a very dangerous villain named Doomsday. You're going to feel very sorry for him because he can't help himself but you shouldn't. Even though he says your presence helps keep him in control, we eventually manage to separate his human half from his Kryptonian monster half and his human half goes psycho and kills Jimmy because you two appear to be working it out. And then later Doomsday gets me killed for awhile."

"Killed for awhile?" Lana repeated, stunned and horrified.

"I…don't really know all the details about that but apparently it all works out," Clark assured her. "Either way, by the time that you finally date…someone who I really shouldn't tell you since I won't tell Pete and Lana about their future spouses…but the point is that you finally do end up with a really good guy and you're happily married in the future."

"I had better be after all of that," Chloe growled.

"Jimmy is actually 'Henry James Olsen' and he has a little brother named Jimmy, too, who is also a photographer at the Daily Planet when he grows up," Clark informed them.

"Not much originality in that family," Pete noted.

"So Chloe, you and your mom drove through Smallville during the meteor shower and both became meteor mutants," Clark said bluntly, not really seeing any way of softening the blow. "Your mother committed herself to a psychiatric facility because her power is controlling other mutants. One day when you were little, your mother ordered you to scrub all the ink off of your hands and you kept washing until your hands started to bleed. She wanted to protect you from that and so she disappeared."

Chloe said nothing but her hands started trembling.

"It gets worse," Clark said softly. "At some point, she slips into a coma. It hasn't been cured."

"I-I see," Chloe said, visibly fighting to compose herself. "And as for my mutant power? I don't turn into one of the freak of the weeks, do I?"

"Oh, no," Clark was quick to assure her. "You end up getting the power to heal people. It does have a serious side-effect in that whenever you heal them, it hurts you. You healed Lex once when he had just died and you were dead for a bit. You're not happy about your powers and try to get 'cured.' The doctor who promises to cure them, Dr. Knox, really kills them so I had to save you."

"We should really look into that," Chloe said, alarmed. "Doctors killing patients? That's not right."

"I think your healing powers eventually go away after you become Braniac's vessel," Clark told her. "He masquerades as Kara at some point and then attacks you. You don't get fully possessed for awhile but you do get super-smart in the meantime."

"That's another mention of Kara," Chloe noted. "And who's Brainiac?"

"Some Kryptonian creation," Clark said apologetically.

"Clark, why did your people keep creating dangerous creatures out to kill you?" Pete demanded.

"I don't know," Clark admitted. "I really think that they might have had problems. They did end up pretty much destroying themselves, as you can imagine. Brainiac, or part of Brainiac, it's complicated, came to Earth in a ship that brought two Kryptonian disciples of Zod who are must have managed to survive Krypton's destruction. From what I understand, we didn't manage to find the ship after the meteor shower but someone named Oliver Queen did."

"Oliver Queen?" Lex asked, frowning.

"Do you know him?" Lana inquired.

Lex nodded. "We went to school together."

"What's he like?" Lana pressed.

"I haven't seen him for years but he was a brute back at Excelsior," Lex replied.

"So Oliver didn't really know any of us so he kept the ship a secret," Clark continued his narrative. "This goo thing came out of the ship and transformed into something that looked human. He called himself Milton Fine and he and Oliver were working together."

"Why would he do that?" Chloe demanded. "That seems like a really stupid idea, helping an evil alien."

"He knew that he was evil," Clark replied. "But he figured that he couldn't destroy Fine and if he didn't work with him, somebody else more gullible would. He was trying to sabotage Fine's work and protect humanity but it didn't work. In the end, Fine had him abducted and altered a bit so that he could be possessed by a notorious Kryptonian criminal called Zod. There's this other dimension called the Phantom Zone where Kryptonians used to send all of their criminals. Zod could only escape it by possessing another."

"So Oliver Queen became this Zod's vessel?" Lex asked. "With his resources and any powers that might have transferred over, that sounds disastrous."

"Zod did still have his powers," Clark confirmed. "And we ended up fighting. Eventually, I managed to banish Zod back into the Phantom Zone and Oliver was fine. He didn't even remember anything. A lot of people ended up dying and getting hurt, though. Oliver felt guilty even though it clearly wasn't his fault and so donated a lot of money to help rebuild."

"It clearly wasn't his fault?" Chloe repeated skeptically. "It sounds like he was cause in the matter."

Clark shrugged. "I wasn't there and Lex, who doesn't even like him, was very adamant about that point. Those two apparently keep coming back so if we can keep Brainiac contained in the first place and never summon Zod that should make things easier."

"If we could figure out how the Phantom Zone works, sending the ship there might be a good idea," Lex suggested. "It would be a pity to lose out on the chance to study the ship but Brainiac and Zod don't make that seem worth it and you have your own ship. And didn't you mention a cousin?"

Clark nodded. "Kara, yeah. She came with me to Earth but her ship crashed in the Reeves Dam. She's been in suspended animation since then. She's sixteen and she has no idea that Krypton has been destroyed or that she's been in suspended animation."

"How did you find her?" Pete asked.

"The dam flooded," Clark explained. "I'm really not sure how. It would be great if we could get her out now as she knows far more about Krypton than I do but I'm not really sure how that would work. She doesn't know how to use any of her powers yet because she didn't have them on Krypton, they come from the sun, but she learns them faster than I do. Maybe she could help me."

"So…what?" Chloe asked. "Was she sent as your baby-sitter?"

"A little, yeah," Clark agreed. "Though I'm a little past needing one. Her father and my father were brothers. Her father was kind of evil and wanted my mother. He sent her here with a blue crystal that can create a clone of her father and my mother."

"Meeting your mother might not be bad," Lana opined. "Assuming that she's not evil or insane like your other family members seem to be."

"From what I found out, she's not. But Kara's not bad, either. She just doesn't know that her father's evil," Clark clarified. "But the crystal has to be destroyed because to make it work it has to be connected to the Fortress and it also allows Kara's father to take control of the Fortress and is able to wipe out all of humanity…via some eclipse."

"How can an eclipse wipe out the population?" Pete demanded skeptically.

"I really don't know," Clark admitted. "But it sounds like a bad idea anyway. And to make matters worse, once the crystal is destroyed it automatically gives Kara amnesia and sends her to Detroit of all places. Fortunately, Lex eventually manages to track her down. So as nice as it would be to get to meet my mother, I think that that's something that we would really need to plan for if we ever decide to use the crystal."

"You're saying 'we'," Lex noted.

Clark blinked. "Huh? I guess I am. I mean, you guys all said that you wanted to get involved, right? Or am I misreading that?"

"No, no, we do," Chloe assured him. "It's just almost more surreal that you're willing to let us help you than that you're an alien who travelled to the future last night."

"I've got to agree with Chloe on this one," Lana admitted.

Clark cringed. "I'm sorry."

'Again?' mouthed Chloe.

"It hasn't happened, remember?" Pete reminded him, ignoring Chloe. "And now it won't."

"So I get attacked by Brainiac," Chloe prompted him.

Clark nodded. "That's right. Lana gets attacked, too, and ends up in a coma for a few weeks but she makes a full recovery."

"At least he wasn't in love with me," Lana said resignedly. She looked worried. "He wasn't, was he?"

"I don't think so," Clark replied. "Although I didn't ask. There was some other Kryptonian creature that kept jumping from host to host and who eventually used my DNA to create a body for himself – Bizarro – who was in love with you. Although I don't think he actually ended up attacking you…"

"I suppose that's something," Lana said absently. "What it is about me that drives all the meteor mutants wild? I mean, I know that I'm pretty but this is ridiculous. Absolutely ridiculous. Do I give off some kind of signal begging people to obsess over me and try to kidnap or kill me?"

"That could be your meteor power," Chloe suggested half-seriously.

Lana groaned. "I hate the meteors. I really do." She shot a quick glance at Clark who looked like he was about to apologize again. "And that is not in any way your fault."

Clark hesitated, trying to decide if he should say something about that and eventually decided to just move on. "Before Jimmy dies, he gives you a loft in the tallest building in Metropolis. It was supposed to be a wedding present but your wedding went horribly, horribly wrong and Jimmy was injured during an attack on it by Doomsday. He dumped you when you were going to finally take him home from the hospital and so he never got around to giving it to you until you two had reconciled moments before his death."

Pete growled. "Chloe, I don't know this guy but he sounds like a major asshole. You deserve better."

Chloe managed a smile. "Thank you, Pete. I don't know him, either, but I highly doubt I'll ever end up dating him after this."

"I'm sure you'll be able to find plenty of non-crazy people to date since your list is apparently only three guys long," Lana said glumly.

"You'll find someone," Chloe said encouragingly. "And hey, you're dating someone sane now."

Lana started. "You know, I'd almost forgotten that. I'm suddenly a lot more appreciative of Whitney's non-homicidal tendencies than I was before."

"Yes, a lack of homicidal tendencies in your love interests is vastly underrated," Lex agreed. "Say Clark, when was the last time you tried to kill anybody?"

"I…don't think I ever have," Clark replied. "Not really. I mean, Greg crushed himself. And Coach Arnold set himself on fire when we were fighting. I through Sean into a lake but that was self-defense and I didn't expect it to immediately freeze with him inside it. Is he dead? Harry died when he re-aged. Phelan was shot by police after robbing a museum. Kyle convinced Rickman to kill himself. Yeah, I think that's it."

Chloe let out a low whistle. "That's still a lot of death you've been involved in, even if you haven't actually been killing them."

"In my defense, these are mostly homicidal meteor mutants and it's while I'm trying to protect people," Clark said defensively.

"Oh, I know," Chloe assured him. "Wait, mostly?"

"I don't think Phelan was a mutant; I've known him for years," Lex replied. "Speaking of…does this mean that he wasblackmailing you?"

Clark nodded. "I only meant for him to get arrested but he tried to shoot his way out so…"

"That's the kind of thing they call 'suicide by cop'," Lex told him. "I wish you had come to me."

"I didn't want to get anybody else involved and I did get it handled," Clark replied. "Where was I…Ah, Watchtower. You turned the loft into a meeting place for heroes and vigilantes and outfitted it with all kinds of advanced technology so you could monitor everything. You really did spend too much time there, but ultimately you realized that and started cutting back. I think the fact your personal life was falling apart and you had just lost Jimmy to a suddenly evil Davis and blamed yourself was why you never left Watchtower."

"Not to take a page out of Clark's book and start apologizing for things that never happened but…damn, Chloe, I'm sorry. I really should have been there," Pete said, sounding guilty.

"So should I," Lana said immediately.

"The bigger question is why I wasn't there," Clark told them. "Lex said I was suffering some sort of identity crisis but I really don't feel that that's any excuse."

"It's okay, Clark, really," Chloe assured him. "It didn't happen and as long as it doesn't, you're off the hook."

"I'll make sure it doesn't," Clark promised. "Barring some unforeseen circumstance that forces my hand but really, I'll try to make sure it doesn't."

"Was there anything else?" Chloe inquired.

"Um…you take a break from journalism for awhile and run some sort of foundation for those affected by meteors," Clark said slowly. "You erase yourself from existence for awhile, Chloe Sullivan's identity, not you literally ceasing to exist, because you saw that Oliver and I were going to get kidnapped in the future and wanted to show up at the right time and you later said that that was a mistake so I'd recommend not doing that in the future. You faked your own death which I really think was kind of a jerk move since you didn't tell anyone. Oh, and while you stepped down from Watchtower you eventually go back to journalism and help discover new heroes."

"I should hope so," Chloe said, looking horrified. "I mean, Chloe Sullivan not a journalist? That just feels wrong."

"I think Lex said that Mr. Luthor had you blacklisted for awhile and by the time he died, you decided not to go back just yet," Clark confided. "So, um…any questions?"

"Are you happily married, too, Clark?" Lana inquired. "What happens to you in the future?"

"I am, yes, but I really can't tell you who I'm married to," Clark said apologetically.

"That doesn't seem fair," Chloe objected. "You know who we're all married to."

"Yeah but if I tell you then it will probably change history," Clark protested.

Lex raised an eyebrow. "Correct me if I'm wrong, Clark, but won't this information dump already change history?"

"Yes but for the better," Clark insisted. "If I tell you that, say, Lex marries Kara then suddenly when they meet it's going to be awkward and there's going to be expectations and it might never happen."

"Now that you're changing so much, the couples that you saw may not come about either way," Lex pointed out.

"Then it won't come about but I still think keeping it a secret is the best idea," Clark said stubbornly. "I know that I'm a little freaked by the fact that I'm married in the future but it's not like we're destined to be together or anything. If I like her, I'll date her and if I love her and she loves me, I'll marry her. I'm not going to go after her just because the future tells me to."

"I recommend not fighting too hard if you know that she's hot and reasonably sane," Pete advised.

Clark frowned. "Only reasonably?"

"Well, you'll have to be able to convince her to date you in the first place," Pete said innocently.

Clark rolled his eyes. "Lois Lane and I are partners at the Daily Planet and we've won Pulitzers. Perry White is the editor though I've been led to believe that he might have career problems right now?"

"My father's doing, I believe," Lex informed them. "He can get a bit…enthusiastic about squashing stories he doesn't like. Perry White seems to have integrity, though, I'll give him that."

"What does Superman look like?" Chloe asked. "Do you wear a mask? How do you disguise your voice?"

"In Warrior Angel, he uses technology to disguise his voice," Lex informed them.

"Well…I've seen footage of Superman so I think that I just use a more authoritative tone of voice," Clark replied. "And the AI has some technique built into the suit that disguises my face since I don't wear a mask. I'm not really sure how but it looks very little like me."

"And what kind of outfit are we talking about?" Lana prompted.

"Um…" Clark trailed off, trying to figure out how to describe it. "It's not spandex, exactly, because the AI made it and it's much stronger than that but it sort of looks like that."

"A grown man wearing spandex, nope nothing odd about that at all," Pete muttered.

"There isn't if you're a superhero," Clark claimed. "Most of the outfit is blue but I've got red boots, a red cape, and a red…section around my mid-section."

Pete got it first. "Oh my God, you wear underwear outside of your outfit!"

"I do not!" Clark hissed, flushing. "It doesn't look like that at all!"

"I think your denial is rather telling, Clark," Lex disagreed.

"Our new partnership is already paying off," Pete said, pleased.

Clark glared at them both. "Anyway, there's this huge diamond-shaped patch on my chest outlined with red and with a large 'S' taking up most of the room and with yellow filling in the rest of the diamond. Or rather, it looks like an 'S' and that's probably where 'Superman' came from. Actually, it's the symbol of the House of El and the AI apparently insisted."

"The House of El?" Lex queried. "Does that mean you were nobility on Krypton?"

Clark shrugged. "I guess so. It doesn't seem to matter much now, though."

"Primary colors," Chloe said, shaking her head. "That is so Clark."

"I feel like we all must have been dead or otherwise not speaking to Clark when this happened if we really let him walk around looking like that," Lana declared.

"What's wrong with it?" Clark demanded, a little hurt.

"Well…" Lana trailed off, trying to find a way to be tactful. "It's a little…loud."

"Then what do you suggest?" Clark asked her.

"Maybe…black. It's nice and solid and dignified," Lana answered slowly.

"But Batman wears black," Clark protested.

"There must be differences in your costume either way," Pete pointed out. "And are you saying nobody else wears red, blue, and yellow?"

"No they do," Clark admitted. "It's just…different. I like those colors."

"We know," Pete and Chloe said in unison.

"That's years away, though, so we do have time to discuss it in more detail when the time comes to designing your costume," Lex pointed out. "And for the record, I am in favor of the black with the El symbol in a nice, majestic purple."

"I'll keep that in mind," Clark said in a tone that indicated that it would be quite the uphill battle to get him to compromise on his chosen color scheme. "So…what now? Are we good?"

"We're good," Lana assured him. "What did your parents say about telling us?"

"They will likely not react well," Clark said, not looking at her.

"You mean you haven't told them?" Lana asked, shocked. "You really should do that immediately so they know where things stand."

"They're going to have a heart attack," Clark moaned.

"And I intend to be well off the property when they find out," Lex announced. "Just a safety precaution."

"My dad's not going to shoot you, Lex," Clark said, rolling his eyes.

"Why take that risk?" Lex asked rhetorically. "And that seems like a family discussion anyway. I'd be happy to give anyone a ride who needs one."

Lana, Pete, and Chloe exchanged a look.

"I think we all will," Chloe told him. "Thanks."

"We'll catch you later, Clark," Pete told him. "Good luck."

"Yeah," Clark said, sighing. "I'll call you guys later if I actually survive this…"

"You'll be fine," Lex assured him. "If nothing else, you're practically invincible."

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