Here's the next chapter. I should've made note of this at the beginning (but I forgot). This fic draws heavily on the episodes Spirit, Blank, Commencement, Arrival, and Hidden. It ignores the existence of Ageless and Forever, because, well, I despise those eps. It kinda skips over Mortal, cause some things in the storyline happen differently. This is, as you may have noticed, extremely AU. Hope y'all enjoy this next bit!

Clark very much enjoyed the next several days, as he spent most of his time sending Lois lascivious looks when no one was looking. Or what he imagined to be lascivious looks. Anyway, it really seemed to shake Lois up, which was the goal and it was fun at the same time. The couple of times she tried to call him on it, he pulled out the patented 'what the heck are you talking about?' confused Clark Kent look. He was very good at that one.

Of course, he had to be very careful when they were around Chloe, because she was way sharp about that kind of stuff. It didn't lessen his enjoyment of the game, however. And he knew that no matter how she protested or sent him nasty glares, there was a part of Lois that was enjoying their banter.

Unlike Lois, Clark had x-ray vision and he had really started to like using it…a lot.

He would sometimes let his gaze follow her after she left a room, seemingly frustrated and annoyed at a 'pass' from Clark Kent, only to see a bemused, sappy little smile on her face once she thought she was out of his sight. Clark could barely hold back his own goofy smile as he watched her in those moments. He also wondered if there was maybe a little bit of his Kal personality still inside him trying to fight its way out, because he'd gotten into the habit of sneaking a peek at her in the shower every morning.

Clark always felt terribly guilty about spying on her, but he couldn't seem to stop. He tried to limit it to just a few seconds here and there, but it was such an erotic sight to see that amazing body with water cascading over it. This morning he'd caught her pleasuring herself during her shower, and Clark had almost jumped out of his skin. Thankfully, he was in the loft where his parents couldn't hear him, because he'd jerked off so hard that he'd nearly done damage to the couch.

Some time later, Clark lounged in his hammock, halfway between waking and sleeping, thoughts of Lois drifting through his mind. He really wished he could somehow find the courage to push her a little further by actually talking to her about what was happening between the two of them. Clark wasn't quite that brave yet.

Lois, for all he felt he was beginning to know her intimately, was still something of an enigma to him. She had such strength, and was yet surprisingly vulnerable. Clark wanted nothing more than to wrap his arms around her and protect her from the world, but he knew she wouldn't want that because of the fact that she was so strong.

Clark also realized that the intimacy of their flirtation was strictly one-sided. He knew a lot more about her than she knew about him, and Clark realized how unfair that was and held himself back. It was the same problem that he'd faced with Chloe and with Lana. The only girl that Clark had ever fully felt like himself with had been Alicia.

For all her instability at times, Alicia had understood him more deeply than anyone he'd known, including his parents. Clark allowed his feelings of regret and lost love to wash over him, before carefully pushing them back into that small corner of his heart where memories of Alicia stayed. A great sigh heaved his chest as Clark pondered whether or not he could have a relationship with Lois. Could he tell her who and what he really was? Would she be disgusted? Frightened? Excited? Would she be able to keep it to herself?

That was probably the main reason Clark hadn't revealed himself to Chloe or to Lex yet. He feared that Chloe would just see him as the story of the century, and Lex…

Well, Clark was a little too apprehensive to think on exactly what Lex would do with the information that an alien was living, breathing, and walking amongst humans on earth. Lex was sometimes far too curious to suit Clark's peace of mind. Would he want to know exactly how Clark worked, find out all the secrets inside of him?

Clark groaned and flung his arm up over his eyes. How had he even managed to get these thoughts running through his head anyway? As if everything in his life wasn't complicated enough, he really didn't need to start worrying about alien autopsies.

"Clark! You up there?"

He jerked in surprise at the sound of Chloe's voice drifting up towards him. Struggling out of the hammock, he was barely standing by the time she bounded up the steps. She greeted him with a sunny smile.

"Hey, Chloe."

"Hey, were you asleep?"

"Oh, no. No, just kinda daydreaming," he said with a bashful smile.

"Well, get your head outta the clouds, Kent, and take me to the Talon! I need my caffeine fix."

Clark was more than happy to head off towards the Talon. Lois was working the afternoon shift today, and now he had an ironclad excuse in the form of Chloe to be there so he could continue with his campaign to drive Lois Lane nuts. Chloe seemed a bit taken aback at the brightness of his smile, but she didn't say anything as the two of them piled into her VW bug and drove into town.

When they stepped into the Talon, Chloe immediately went to the counter and ordered whatever monstrosity of a coffee product that she was addicted to this week, and Clark tried to catch Lois's gaze. She was stubborn, though, and refused to meet his eye. Clark relented for the moment, and settled into listening to Chloe expound on the latest story for her Wall of Weird. He'd still make sure that Lois got at least one wicked grin before he left, though.

"Oh, my God. We've been robbed!" Lois said in disbelief. Clark looked up to see her staring dumbfounded at the empty till.

A movement in the corner of his eye had Clark turning towards the back exit of the coffee shop. If someone was going to try and make a quick getaway, Clark was pretty sure that'd be the way they'd go. He leapt up out of his chair and headed out that door, kicking in with a bit of super speed once he was out of view of the Talon's customers.

He skidded to a stop in the alleyway, scanning the area as quickly as he could. Sure enough, there was a guy climbing into a yellow truck with a definite air of nervousness about him. With a grim expression, Clark sped over to the truck and stood in front of it to block the guy's exit. The kid looked up and, when he saw Clark, blanched in shock. Clark was certain that he had the thief then.

He strode around to the driver's door and whipped it open, preparing to yank the guy out of the truck. Before he could even open his mouth, the young man suddenly pointed his hand at Clark and five strange little beams of greenish light shot out of his fingertips and hit Clark in the face.

Helplessly, Clark stumbled backwards, falling against a fence as hundreds of images flashed through his mind at lightspeed, one of top of another, each of them shimmering briefly before disappearing.

He blinked, opening his eyes in a daze as he sat there on the ground. As he was wondering how the hell he'd gotten to wherever he was, he almost didn't hear the girl speaking to him. Glancing up at her, he frowned in confusion.

"Clark? Clark, can you hear me? Are you all right?" she was saying, but that didn't make any sense to him at all, because…

"Who's Clark?" he asked.

The pretty blonde-haired girl gave him a worried look before she muttered, "Oh, boy."

Clark was him, as it turned out, and the girl – whose name he learned was Chloe – gave him an impromptu lecture on the life of Clark Kent as she drove him to a quaint yellow farmhouse in the middle of nowhere. Clark looked at the house with a sense of curiosity, but there was no familiarity at all. He wondered if he should be worried about that, but for some reason, he wasn't.

Chloe was still chattering on about the things she thought he should know as they walked up to the door of the house. Clark started to knock until she told him that it was his house and he didn't need to. He shrugged his shoulders, feeling like he should disagree with her on that point, but he went to open the door anyway.

He gave it a gentle turn and the doorknob didn't move, so he pulled a little harder, and then gaped as the door came flying off the hinges in his hand and went careening off into the yard behind him. Chloe barely managed to jump back out of the way in time, and they both stared at first the door lying in the middle of the yard and then turned to gaze at the big hole where the door used to be for a moment.

"I…uh…it was stuck!" Clark stammered.

Chloe gave a wry little grin and said, "Actually, I think it was locked, but no biggie, I'm sure that's happened before."

"What?" Clark said, extremely confused, because he knew he didn't remember much right now, but that certainly didn't seem normal to him.

"Never mind, let's just find your folks."

They stepped inside the house and Chloe called out for Mr. and Mrs. Kent, but there was no answer. Chloe frowned and Clark thought she looked like she was pondering their next move. He didn't know why he was so comfortable just handing over all the responsibility to this girl who was basically a stranger to him, but something about it seemed right.

"What the hell happened to the door?"

He and Chloe turned around to see a young woman standing just inside the kitchen. Clark's eyes widened just a bit as he took in the attractive picture this newcomer made.

"Well, I-" he started to explain what had happened with the door when Chloe cut him off quickly.

"It was a freak wind! The strangest things happen around here, don't they?" she said with a nervous laugh.

Clark looked at her in confusion, before his gaze was inexorably drawn back to the girl whose name he still didn't know, but God, was she ever beautiful!

"Lois, have you seen Mr. and Mrs. Kent?" Chloe asked.

Clark's befuddled mind seized on the name…Lois! Hmm, she was at his house. Clark wondered if she was his girlfriend. Clark really, really hoped she was his girlfriend.

"They're in Metropolis for those tests that Mr. Kent had to go in for. They won't be back until tomorrow. Hello, you should remember this, Smallville!" Lois said, giving him an irritated look.

Oh, she didn't seem too fond of him. Maybe she wasn't his girlfriend after all. He watched as she walked over to the sink and poured herself a glass of water from the tap, then proceeded to drink it down in one go. Clark found himself so mesmerized by the working of her throat as she swallowed that he almost didn't hear what Chloe was saying. Weirdly, his eyes starting burning. Clark blinked a couple of times, trying to make them stop.

"Clark's had a little accident and seems to have lost his memory. Is there a number where we can-"

"What, again?" Lois said, coughing a little as she set the glass down on the counter and stared at Clark.

"Again, what does that mean?" he muttered.

"It means that's becoming something of a habit with you, Smallville. But hey, at least this time you have your clothes on," she smirked.

Clark gaped at her and out of the corner of his eye, he could see Chloe doing the same.

"Okay, I think that's a story that I somehow missed out on and need to hear as soon as possible," Chloe said faintly, before shaking her head in an attempt to get back on topic. "It seems that the thief who robbed the Talon this morning has some kind of memory repo powers."

"Huh, that would explain why I zoned out on about eight coffee orders before I noticed," Lois mused. "Lucky you, Smallville, to lose everything about your boring life!" Lois teased with a wicked grin.

Clark was still caught up wondering about the naked story. As intrigued and excited as Clark was at the thought of any skin-to-skin involving him and Lois, the 'again' part of her statement worried him.

"Why do you keep calling me Smallville? My name is Clark," he said, and then sent an uncertain glance at Chloe. "Isn't it?"

Chloe reached out to pat his arm comfortingly and said, "Yeah, Smallville is just Lois's nickname for you." Chloe turned to Lois. "So, is there a number where we can get in touch with Mr. and Mrs. Kent?"

"Nope, Mr. Kent has a one-way ticket on the Ambien express and will be incommunicado until tomorrow afternoon. If you want, I can take Clarkie off your hands for a while. I'll even feed that massive appetite, but if you expect anything more than PB and J, you're SOL, Smallville," Lois said with a smirk that held a touch of evil. She was still very hot, though, and he was intrigued.

Then it occurred to him that she was very comfortable in his house, almost like she lived there. Oh, God, what if she was family? What if she was his sister or his cousin, or something like that? Chloe hadn't mentioned a sister during her lecture on Clark Kent's life on the way over here. Maybe she just hadn't had a chance to get to it yet. He watched as Lois turned to open the refrigerator and turned in a panic to Chloe.

"Please, tell me I'm not related to her!" he said, a touch of desperation in his tone.

"No, that would be me. You just live with her," Chloe said wryly.

That information set Clark back a bit and a puzzled look crossed his face. "Really? We do? Are we…I mean, do the two of us…uh…you know…" he asked as he gestured between himself and Lois.

"Do the two of you what?" Chloe asked, giving him an incredulous stare.

"Do we date?" he whispered.

Chloe's expression became even more dumbfounded and she stared at him for so long, Clark feared she wasn't going to answer the question, and he really needed to know.

"Um…no. No, you don't," she finally said.

"Bummer," Clark sighed as he turned to look at Lois once more. Now she was halfway inside the refrigerator, bending over as she searched for something to eat, still chattering on about how she'd take care of 'Clarkie' for Chloe. Man, for two people who weren't dating, Lois sure had a lot of nicknames for him.

Clark started to smile and then his gaze fell on her rear end sticking out of the fridge and wow, every bit of her was really attractive. That weird burning behind his eyes started again, only this time it wasn't letting up any. He blinked desperately, feeling like his eyeballs were going to pop right out of his head.

The next thing he knew, a bizarre kind of heat had exploded from his eyes and the centerpiece on the kitchen table was on fire. He and Chloe both gasped in shock and stood there staring for a heartbeat, before Chloe reached over to the counter and grabbed a vase full of flowers. She yanked the flowers out and dumped them on the counter before pouring the water over the flames.

"What just happened?" Lois asked and Clark looked up from the table to see her staring at the mess with the same shock that he was.

"I was trying to light a candle and I missed! Wow, I really have to be more careful. Say, why don't I take Clark out to the barn and see if anything out there will jog his memory? Come on, Clark!" she said and grabbed his arm to begin pulling him towards the door, not giving Lois a chance to protest.

Extremely bewildered, Clark allowed her to drag him across the front yard to the big, red barn that was sitting adjacent to the house. He could hear Chloe mumbling under her breath and tried to listen to what she was saying.

"Premature combustion, that's one I didn't need to know about," she muttered.

They'd taken one step inside the barn when Clark decided he'd had enough. He stopped abruptly, and then felt a little guilty as Chloe gasped from almost jerking her arm out of the socket.

"Sorry," he said quietly. "But I'm a little confused here. Just what the heck are these things I can do, Chloe?"

Chloe gave a sigh and said, "Come on, let's go up to your loft and I'll try to explain it to you."

Clark followed her up some stairs and looked around curiously at the space that was obviously his, and it looked like he must spend a lot of time up here. He sat down hesitantly on the couch and looked to Chloe expectantly.

"Okay," she said, and Clark thought it looked as though she were trying to gather her courage. "Somehow, I always pictured myself on the other end of this conversation," she said with a little laugh. "Huh, maybe a demo would be easier," muttered to herself and glanced around the loft.

She walked over to a tool box that was sitting on the floor near a desk and reached in to pull out a crowbar. She handed it to Clark and he stared at her in confusion, wondering what the heck she was up to.

"Bend that," she ordered.

Clark gave her a look of disbelief. "This is steel, I can't bend this," he said.

"Trust me, Clark. Give it a shot."

Suddenly doubting his own wisdom in choosing Chloe as his guide, Clark gave a sigh, and tried to bend the heavy crowbar. He gaped in shock as it folded in his hands as easily as clay. He glanced back up at Chloe and saw her grinning widely at him.

"How…uh…" he stammered.

"There was a meteor shower in Smallville about sixteen years ago, and apparently some people were affected by it. I think you were one of those people."

"So, I'm a freak?" Clark said in horror.

"No! No, not a freak," Chloe reassured him. "You were granted gifts. Gifts that you use to help people. You're like a superhero, Clark!"

"And everyone that I know is okay with this? They're not frightened of me?"

"Well," Chloe said, and now uncertainty was showing on her so expressive face. "Not everyone knows about your abilities, Clark. It's sort of a big secret, in fact."

"What, now I'm not only a freak, I'm a liar, too?" Clark asked angrily.

"It's not lying if you're doing it to protect yourself. There are some people who would take advantage of you if they knew what you could do, Clark. You have to be careful."

Clark gave Chloe a considering look. "But you aren't one of those people are you, Chloe? I must trust you a lot."

"I'd like to think that you do, but the truth is, you didn't tell me this. A lot of it I guessed and worked out on my own," Chloe admitted.

Clark groaned and dropped his head into his hands. "Great, so not only do I lie all the time, apparently I'm not even very good at it."

"I don't know about that. You've managed to keep your powers a secret from pretty much everyone else. I just like to think that I'm smarter than the average bear," Chloe said with a smirk.

Clark looked back up at her and smiled. "I'm really glad that you're the one helping me through this, Chloe. I probably don't deserve a friend as loyal as you."

She blushed and reached out to smack him on the arm playfully, but he could tell that she was very pleased at his words. "Aw, you big goof! C'mon, let's head back to the Talon and see if we can find out something there since we came up with a big zero on your folks."

Chloe seemed anxious to sidestep Lois. Even though Clark wasn't too happy about the plan, they piled back into her VW and headed back into town. Once there, Clark managed to freak her out again when he realized he could see through things. However, she was happy that he'd found a clue in the day-pass that was under the floor mat of the Talon.

As Chloe was inspecting the pass, pondering aloud what it could mean, Clark felt someone tap him on the arm. He turned around to see a pretty girl with long dark hair and dark eyes smiling at him. He smiled nervously back at her.

"Um, hi," he said, and wondered if this was someone he was supposed to know.

"Hello, Clark," she said softly.

Oh, apparently the answer to that was yes, he was supposed to know her. He could feel himself blushing in embarrassment as he tried to figure out a polite way to tell her that he had no idea who she was. Before he could do that, she started talking to him, still in that soft voice.

"We haven't had a chance to talk since the dance, and well, I just wanted you to know that, while I do still have some feelings for you, I'm with Jason. And I can't be with two guys at once, Clark, as special as what we had was. It just wouldn't be right, and I'm committed to Jason, so…" She paused in this little speech and looked up at him expectantly.

Clark was mortified. What was he doing, chasing after some other guy's girl? What kind of asshole was he in his normal life? Oh, God, how to get out of this supremely uncomfortable situation…

"I..uh…I…" he stammered and then blurted out, "I lost my memory and I have no clue what your name is!"

She scrunched her nose up at him in confusion and said, "What?"

"Lana!" Chloe suddenly popped up beside him and gave the dark-haired girl that overly bright grin that Clark had learned meant she was covering for him. "Hi, Lana! I guess you hadn't heard yet, but the Talon was robbed earlier today, and the culprit seems to have the ability to steal memories away. Clark here has no recollection of anything before this morning."

"Oh, Clark. That's so awful," Lana said, sympathy pouring off her. "I'm Lana Lang. I lived next door to you up until a couple of years ago and we go to Smallville High together," she said helpfully.

"And we used to date?" Clark asked, remembering what she'd said when she'd first walked up to him. She immediately dropped her gaze and a guilty look stole over her face.

"Um, yes. 'Used to' being the operative part of that phrase," she said quietly.

"Well, I, ah, hope we're still friends anyway," Clark said awkwardly, feeling the need to just make this go away. "Say, Chloe, don't we need to get going if we're going to, er, do that thing we need to do?" he said, turning to his friend with a desperate look in his eyes.

Chloe's eyebrows raised in disbelief before she slowly nodded her head and said, "Oh, yeah, that thing." Her smile became super bright again when she looked back at Lana and she said, "We'll see you around, Lana. Got to see if we can't get the farmboy's memories back in his head where they belong." She started pulling him towards the exit as she was talking, leaving Lana behind looking extremely confused.

"If there's anything I can do to help-" Lana tried to call after them.

"Oh, we're on it, no need to worry with Kent and Sullivan handling things!" Chloe yelled back as she yanked Clark out the front door.

TBC