Disclaimer: not mine.

Warnings: language.


Lois was trying really hard not to jump and beat the crap out of Lex, and Clark tried to tune out all the murmuring voices focusing on Lois' heartbeat. Lex continued with his demagogic speech.

"I am sure everybody here remembers that. A vicious beast caused a rampage in Metropolis eleven years ago. Former Daily Planet editor, Tess Mercer, who had access to some high-classified files, reported the beast as an alien directly linked to Superman, at that time known as the Red-Blue Blur. You yourself were reported missing by your cousin, who also lost her husband. Quite tragic. Not long after that, the man originally accused of the beast's first murders, Metropolis General paramedic Davis Bloome, was briefly inhabited by an alien before he found a more suitable vessel. He called himself Zod, making his appearance in Smallville. This time your cousin wasn't lucky."

Before Lois could do or say anything, Clark stood up. "Mr. Luthor, I don't think you should be--"

"Of course not, Mr. Kent," he said, then turning his gaze to Lois. "My apologies, Miss Lane. It wasn't my intention to cause any internal turmoil by rising up painful memories. I knew Miss Sullivan for quite some time, and I respected her dearly."

Clark held Lois' hand. She was so tense he thanked she was not the one with super strength right now.

Lex continued his victorious path to their mortification, making it fit perfectly into his public political campaign so nobody suspected, thus he took his focus out of the Daily Planet couple and talked to all the audience.

"Once Zod regained his own physical appearance, he disposed of Davis. His body was found in a field and brought back to the morgue. The official reports had mentioned bipolar mental disorder and schizophrenia, if I remember correctly, but the autopsy found some disturbing evidence of a mortal wound in his abdomen: the scar tissue of a healed mortal wound to be exact."

Lois' mind wondered how had Lex known that Zod had used Davis to develop the Fort Rozz technology necessary to solidify his form on earth, but those thoughts would lead her to Chris, and she didn't have the strength for that right now.

"Where do you want to go with this, Lex?," she asked.

"Davis Bloome was already dead when he mortally wounded your cousin. He was not crazy as your paper wanted us to believe, Miss Lane: his body was possessed. His body was used by a kryptonian."

Silence had long left the room; Cat was a full Christian –orthodox, protestant and catholic altogether– by now, suddenly missing al the sanctorum she obviously ignored; Clark wanted Lex out of their lives; Lois wanted Lex impaled on a sharpened trunk; and Lex was far from having mercy.

"If there was no Superman," he continued saying, "there would've been no Doomsday. If there was no Superman, there would've been no Zod. And many people, including your beloved relatives, would still be alive. So, tell me again, Miss Lane, what's the lesser of two evils?" His attention went back to the whole room. Slightly rising the volume of his voice, he continued his speech. "Superman is a hero, my fellow Americans, but the reasons behind him? There is not a single true altruist on this earth, alien or not. We all do good for our own personal reasons, and I am guessing that Superman has an enormous amount of guilt on his back enough to make him feel he should make up for all the bad he has indirectly caused. I am sure your partner there agrees with me at some point, Miss Lane."

Lex looked directly at Clark, who had his hand clasped with Lois', keeping a blank stare.

--LetitgoLaneletitgoLane. .Go.

Another reporter raised his hand, and posed the obvious question.

"Are you saying that we should be blaming Superman and others like him instead of admiring them?"

Lex looked conveniently taken aback. "Of course not!," he exclaimed. "Superman is an institution, a symbol. I am just using him as an example to make my point properly understood. We have welcome into our planet several aliens; mostly, at least as far as we know, are driven only by good intentions. But they have brought others with them, using our world, our land as a battlefield; feeling guilty they pay their dues to us by helping fighting crime. The problem is that we rely too much on them, and that makes us careless." Lex made a new pause. "Take a look at the other candidates' programs. Their defense budgets have decreased dramatically, and as far as I know, international terrorism has not disappeared; even more, we have a new threat in this era and they're doing nothing against that. Both aliens and metahumans pose a serious threat and our recent History has proven that the heroes are not enough!" Lex raised his voice. "I say we should not stay arms-crossed and let the super powered beings solve our Earth's problems, because when they bring danger and death to our land, they make it our problem!"

"And where do your secret projects have a place in all this?," insisted Lois in an attempt to draw the audience's attention to where it should be.

"As you're probably aware of, I have diverted a fairly important amount of money to launch my pharmaceutical division," said Lex calmly. "If this new presence in our world were to bring new diseases, the human race would not stand a chance. I'm using my money to develop cures to potential mortal viruses," said Lex. "I hope that answers all your questions, Miss Lane. And now, if you can be a little generous and give the others their right to speak..."

Lois was seething and Lex saw it, and then he looked at the room: silence filled it, everybody fixed on him and Lois, maybe waiting for a come back from the feisty reporter. But nothing happened.

"No more questions?," asked Lex.s

"I have one."


Everybody turned their heads to the new voice. It didn't come from a journalist. It came from a woman standing among the citizens.

"Excuse me, but only the press is allowed to--"

"I very much appreciate your work here as a moderator, Mr. Richards, but I think we are way past due abiding to the rules," said Lex smiling to the woman. "Besides, I like spontaneity, and any concerned citizen has my most dearest respect."

"Thank you," the young woman said.

Lois Lane silenced by Lex Luthor and a stranger taking over? Cat was so religious now, Mohammad would have to make room for a new ultimate prophet; Lois hoped the woman was a hit man, armed to her teeth and ready to take the shot; Clark was confused by this impromptu appearance.

"You mentioned aliens, metahumans and Earth, to which you referred as ours, am I correct?," she asked.

"Yes, you are," responded Lex.

"What makes you think it is our earth?"

Lex smiled. By the looks of her, screaming anything but sophisticated urbanite, he should've guessed there would be some eco-activist in the room. "Well, if you have read my ecological program you'll see that I am the only candidate who--"

She cut him before he finished. "I read it, sir, it is unbelievably good. More complete and the U.S.A. flag would turn green." She recited his ecological points one by one. "Funding for several environmental organizations concerning the protection of Earth's Natural Heritage; more than 100.000 recycling and re-use locations all through the national territory plus educational programs in all schools; special investing in strategies to new alternatives to end with the never-ending carbon issue with uncanny projects towards U.S.A.'s offset of carbon emissions. It's a dream come true, Mr. Luthor. It's a pity that our global biodiversity doesn't get to vote, because I'm sure you have the resources needed to pull such a plan and become the new Al Gore. I can only guess a Nobel prize would surely be a goal for you and your meteoric career."

The woman's speech was more direct and acid than Lex would've liked. He made a mental note to find out who she was while he let her speak. Now it was too late to cut her if he wanted to keep appearances in this first public act.

"My concern," continued the woman, "is about the prize we might have to pay for that. Because if I think about the implied meaning of 'our earth' in the same sentence as 'alien' and 'metahuman' coming from the mouth of a man with the financial power to make anything possible, I suddenly want to have faith in our collective power to solve the damage we have inflicted on Earth. Ironically my discomfort towards you goes the same way yours does towards metas and others alike: why rely on just one man when we should be working together?"

Lex started to feel slightly uncomfortable, but he tried to take the conversation to his territory. "And is that such a bad thing? Fighting for our planet?"

"That's the thing, Mr. Luthor. The 'our planet' theme you keep going on," she insisted not backing off. She seemed to know the message she wanted to transmit, and was determined to do it. "Don't you think earth is also meta's homeland? Or aliens'?"

"Clark, we have to get an interview with her," whispered Lois.

"I think everyone here will want to," replied Clark.

"Don't be so sure. I fucked up so nicely that the press will also want me. You take her, I'm bait for the rest."

"Lo..."

"Now let's listen, Smallville."

Clark tuned into the collective sound of heartbeats. Lois' had calmed down a little; Lex's was strong and slightly faster than usual. Pole position for the Jane Doe's heart.

"Things on Earth have changed in the last decades," the anonymous woman said. "Now we have aliens, not born here; meteor infected people, who somehow we can consider ill because their bodies were not prepared to bear those changes, and we have metahumans, naturally born in this planet with those abilities. All that got me thinking. You talked about History, about the past, about us as humans owning the Earth." She shook her head. "I think we own nothing, Mr. Luthor, and that we can consider ourselves lucky that around sixty-five million years ago dinosaurs were wiped out from earth, because believe me, as high as we think of ourselves, we wouldn't stand a chance in front of a t-rex."

"I appreciate your enlightening Miss, but you should really get to the point. I'm afraid we're running out of time."

"Of course," she said. "After more than three million years of evolution, suddenly we stopped evolving: the Sapiens sapiens has remained the same for more than forty thousand years. My favourite explanation is the one that maintains that this is because we refused to be another one in the natural playfield of evolution so we got out of Nature to be no longer subjected to evolutionary. Then we started controlling production through domestication and the rest is, well, History." By that moment she had the room's attention. "The thing is that whatever threat we've seen to our development and our new artificial environment, we have turned it into our enemy; wolves became our enemies as soon as they found easy preys in our herds. We destroyed hunter-gatherer societies because they didn't see things like us, the Kurdistan problem had similar roots...need I continue?" Silence. "So following your theories, the new threat now would be metas and aliens; they're the ones that will eventually take our." The woman made an intentional pause.

"And your point in all this is making me the villain for wanting to protect our species?," asked Lex.

"No, sir. I do believe that metahumans are a new stage in human evolution, but as we are no longer subjected to the survival of the fittest, we can make this coexistence work."

"And I want to make it work," said Lex. "I just don't want us to take second place. I want an equal level between us, and to keep us safe from them, and them safe from us. During Prehistoric times, the main species inhabiting Eurasia disappeared, being amazingly substituted by ours. A horrible tragedy for them. There have been several causes pointed out to explain the Neanderthal extinction, one of them the diseases brought to them by our own. The European arrival to our continent proved how deadly can diseases be to a population of the same species without the antibodies. So whether they are just from a breed, a new subspecies or a different species, new diseases are a serious threat, and there, metahumans and aliens pose a real danger, and we cannot ignore it just because they're friends."

"Sir, if anybody in this room really listened to Miss Lane today, they would now what I'm talking about. We already have S.T.A.R. Labs dealing with meta and alien diseases and how can they, if they do, affect humans, or the other way around, so I still wonder why your interest. I'm guessing you would also go for crosses, right? I can't imagine how valuable it would be to have those hybrid immune systems at your disposal to play with. Pharmaceutical corporations are a very profitable business, I guess," she said making her final pause. "Thank you for letting me talk, Mr. Luthor, that is what all politicians should do."

With a kind smile, the woman sat down blending in among the rest.

Lex didn't have time to react, not before all the other reporters assaulted him with questions. The moderator tried one last time, to organize. This once, Lex let him do his job.


"Game, set and match, little woman in the back. Maybe she's not a natural blond, after all," said Lois.

Clark felt some of the pressure leaving his shoulders. Lois seemed more relieved.

On the other hand, that led to funny Lois, which in reality meant mocking Lois, him being her favourite target.

As if she had just read his thoughts, he could see her lips curving while she whispered in his ear.

"Go get her, tiger."

Clark rolled his eyes. "Lo, we talked about that--"

"You just wish I was a redhead top-model, admit it."

"As if I cared about that, having you," he said smiling.

"You get our story, Smallville, I'll deal with dearly press."

"Sure you don't want me to stay? I can tune in her now and follow her later."

"No," Lois said more serious. "We need the exclusive, and there's something I need to do afterwards. Alone." The shadow came back to her face.

"Lo, I--"

Lois didn't let him finish the sentence. She hugged him and whispered again. "Just promise me you'll be home for tonight, Clark, that's all I ask."

Taken aback by the sudden need of comfort coming from Lois in a room full of reporters, Clark returned the hug and talked in a hushed tone. His words were only for her. "I promise you. I love you so much, Lo."

Lois looked at him lovingly and kissed him. An "I love you too, Smallville" reached his ears while she turned to the press to soon become the center of the spotlight.


"So, what do you want to talk about today?"

'Why am I the one taking the pick? Do it yourself, girl. You have a whole lot of things to talk about. Whatever has happened to you lately, for example'.

"That is something I don't really want to discuss right now."

Feisty makes a pause.

'Ok, it's not as if I'm gonna make you change your mind anytime soon. Talk about today, then. Tell me about your present.'

"Present is such a relative term. It is the here and now, but it turns into the past so quickly that I'm not sure we can talk about the present per se," I deadpan.

'You need to get a life.'

"And you need to work on those listening skills."

'Ok, take your time, Socrates.'

"There is another concept of present, I guess the kind of present in which I am now. Transitional, but stationery for a while."

'And that would be...'

"The kind of present in which you find yourself after having closed certain doors. The kind of present in which you still don't know what new paths you're going to take, but you want to find out. Being aware of the change you want to implement in your life."

'Staying in a different reality?'

"Kind of. Different because you want to put the pain away, get back to one's self and recover whatever you lost on the way."

'You don't need a stone, you need a shrink, And you may not want to talk about your past, but it seems to be what you're doing.'

"Like I said, Feisty, I'm not running from who I am. I know who I am and who I want to be. But in order to do that, I had to reach this transitional present, leave regrets behind, forgive myself, come to terms and get on with it."

London, October, 2009.

Ella Hunt.



Autor's notes: this was a difficult one to write with all the rhetoric and conclusion, but making Lois 'lose' this first round was kind of necessary.

Chris as in Chris Kent.

Smallville is bringing Zod in season 9. All I know is that Zod was taken to the Phantom Zone, firstly by Jor-El and then by Clark himself in Season 6 premiere, so my logic tells me to find an explanation of having Zod in a solid body when all phantoms needed one when they came into earth. Zod is not just any phantom, so I like to think he wants his own body back, and that's where Fort Rozz comes in: it exists in comics, it's the place inside the Phantom Zone where bodies can be solid (which actually explains how Chris is conceived there).

The Jane Doe: Don't expect a Mary Sue here either. I just needed a stranger to confront Lex with his same demagogic and philosophical rhetoric skills enough to catch him unaware. And for the purposes of Parachutes Arc and me not finding a SV or comic reporter good enough to fill my needs, there she is. She won't be sticking around, but don't forget about her existence.

No music.

As usual, reviews are welcome when you feel like it deserves to be reviewed. Of course, enjoy it, that's what matters. :)