Lana sat at her vanity table and brushed her hair roughly the next morning, feeling only slightly more clear headed than the night before.

The argument raging in her head went on nonstop as Happy Lana and Angry Lana fought continuously.

"Shut up bitch! Lex didn't fake the pregnancy, so what the hell is your deal?"

"Fuck you asshole, I can be mad if I want to!"

"At what exactly?"

"Lex still lied. He may not have faked the baby, but he didn't tell us what he was doing. We HATE that!"

"But he told us now, doesn't that count? It worked with Clark."

"No, because Lex is EVIL. It's different."

"You idiot. The only reason you thought he was evil is because of the fake baby lie."

"Nuh-uh!"

"Bitch please. You know it's true, stop being so annoying!"

"Everyone says he's evil, it's not just me."

"Everyone who? Clark? He lied too FOR YEARS!"

"But he loves us!"

"Loves us so much that we had to trick him just to find out his secret?"

"He would have told us. He was going to do it on our wedding day!"

"Lex was going to tell us his secret too. So tell me again, how is he different from Clark?"

"But we love Clark."

"Don't we love Lex too?

"No."

"No?"

"Wait, what?"

For the moment, she resigned herself to simply focus on the babies and push the Lex topic aside until later when she'd gained some perspective.

Giving herself a last glance in the mirror, she grabbed her purse and headed out to the garage for her car. Foregoing the red SUV that she usually drove, she took a blue BMW instead, labeled with the license plate heading of LUTHOR3. She supposed that was her anyway- Luthor number three.

Lex hadn't lied about the security surrounding the makeshift lab. In the daylight, she identified several cameras set up blocks away from the building and this time a guard met her at the front door. It was certainly a better way in than the window she'd crawled through before.

Eight men and women in white coats milled around in the room that held the babies, all busy with their individual tasks. They smiled at her as she passed, but otherwise ignored her intrusion. A blond woman with pointy-edged glasses leaned closely to one of the canisters (wombs, she reminded herself) and jotted down information that she read off of a digital display (that Lana hadn't noticed) near the top.

She felt two things when she saw this; one, she was curious to know what the readout said, and two, she suddenly also wanted to know what the heck this woman's credentials were giving her the ability to be so near to the babies. Perhaps feeling the invisible warning emanating from Lana, the blond woman quickly finished writing and scurried away to a desk.

Lana looked around at the other doctors to see if any were watching her (they weren't) and then walked up to read what the other woman had seen. Bright blue letters scrolled across a rectangle shaped LCD screen that said:

Temp- 99.7

BPM- 147

WBC Count- 59,800

After that came a listing of huge drug names that she didn't recognize, followed up with something she understood very well.

Health Status of 0322-58= 92%

The baby inside certainly seemed to be okay. She caught herself grinning a little as she watched him suck on his thumb, and she covered up her expression before anyone could see it. She checked the health stats of the others, who for the most part ranged between 79 and 98%.

One though, startled her. At first glance, she could tell it was sick, because it was much more inactive than the others. Its heart beat slower, and even the fluid surrounding it appeared to be a little cloudy. Its status read a miserable 56%.

"This one is sick," Lana called over her shoulder at the doctors behind her. They all stopped and looked up, as if frozen in time, silently watching her.

"She has always been weaker than the rest," one of the doctors finally said, and Lana's mouth inadvertently fell open.

"It's a girl?" she gasped. "How is that possible?"

"She's the only one. An anomaly. It happens," the doctor answered, and then they all went back to work, leaving Lana alone with her questions.

#0377-51 was currently 24 weeks old, but looked younger. She was thin, and even through the green haze, Lana could tell that her skin was paler than the rest of the babies. She was dying.

Just then one of the doctors slammed a metal filing cabinet closed, causing the baby to jump violently from the noise. She continued to shake afterwards as if frightened. Angry at the distress they were causing the baby, Lana turned around and glared at them.

"Will you keep it down?" she asked in a controlled, but lethal voice. They gave her blank stares, unsure of what to do. "You're scaring them," Lana added. She turned away from them and back to 0377-51 placing her hand against the glass, willing the baby inside to hold on just a little bit longer. Inwardly, she stamped down on the deeply buried voice that told her she was going quite insane.

"Fuck off," Happy Lana said.