-- Chapter 8 -- A Semblance of the Truth --

"Your dad told you to move the truck, and?" Chloe took her eyes off the road for a second to find out why Clark had stopped telling his why-I-picked-up-the-truck story. His face had gone pale and he was breathing shallowly. "Are you okay? What's wrong?"

"I can't feel her. Chloe, she's gone," Clark whispered. "Pull over. I have to find her." Since his fight with his parents, Lola had withdrawn. She hadn't spoken or responded to him, but she was there, a quiet blue presence. Now she wasn't anything or anywhere. "I said pull over," Clark snapped.

"Who's gone? What happened?" Chloe pulled over and laid a hand on Clark shoulder before he could bail out. "What?"

"Lola, my friend, the piece of Kryptonium who's been helping me..." Clark waved his hands as though he couldn't find the words. "...she was a light. I could feel her all the time, but something snuffed her out."

With a rush of breeze that pulled her hair into her face, Clark was gone. Chloe stared at the empty seat where her suddenly distraught friend had been and shook her head in disbelief. Where? Chloe twisted so she could see the trail of dust Clark had left in passing. The discussion they'd had about speed had been amusing and unreal, but her friend had just run away faster than she could even see. The door swung shut with a click, but Chloe couldn't look away from the road. It was unexpected and inhuman and...frightening. No, it wasn't frightening. It was just...Clark wasn't standing by her side, smiling, and drawing cute diagrams. He just was everything he said, and maybe she hadn't come to complete terms with what that meant.


Jonathan settled the lead box containing Lola into the bed of his truck and covered it with an old saddle blanket. With perfect clarity of purpose, Jonathan pulled the door to cab open. "Next stop, Miller's Creek."

He never saw Clark coming.

Something grabbed Jonathan's shirt-back and lifted him into the air. It was an odd feeling, his shirt digging into his neck, cutting off his breath. In a single motion, whatever had grabbed him turned him and now had him from the front. "Jesus," Jonathan gasped. It was Clark, not the quiet polite stranger they'd dealt with all summer. Martha said she wanted Clark to exploded, well here it was.

Clark was careful when he lifted Jonathan from the ground. He had to keep telling himself that humans were delicate, breakable. He was just so angry. "What did you do to Lola? If I thought you could hurt her, I never would have abandoned her. Why would you hurt her?"

"Calm down," Jonathan gasped. "You're not thinking clearly, son. No one hurt anyone."

"Don't call me son," Clark said. "I'm hardly your son, not the one you want. You're afraid of me, aren't you? Be afraid, and tell me what you did to her."

Shaking his head stubbornly, Jonathan wished that he weren't at such a physical disadvantage here. Clark was trying to be hurtful and intimidating, but he just looked scared. Setting boundaries meant standing up to teenagers, but how was he supposed to assert any authority over his child who could punt him to Metropolis? "I didn't hurt her. I swear to you."

Only a few steps away, Martha witnessed a sight she never dreamed she would see. Her son had her husband suspended in the air like it was nothing. The lack of effort wasn't shocking, but the act was almost horrifying. Without thinking, Martha let instinct carry her off the porch and to the confrontation playing between father and son. "Clark Kent, put your father down, now!" It was the same shrill maternal scold she used whenever Clark had stepped out of line growing up. When he didn't respond immediately, she kept going. "Did you hear me? I said, put your father down."

Clark wasn't sure why his mother's words made him feel ashamed, but he had to fight to hold onto his righteous anger on Lola's behalf. Yes, it was wrong to be shaking his father around like a rag doll, but his father started it. He hurt Lola. Hadn't he? "I'm not putting him down until he tells me what he did to Lola. She's gone."

Martha caught Jonathan's eye, but she couldn't read him. Had he done something to Lola? She'd left them together in the kitchen. No. He would have consulted her first. He wouldn't make a decision like that for the both of them. Continuing in a more soothing tone, Martha did her best to diffuse the situation. "Clark, didn't Lola say she was going to leave you alone for a while? She was planning to remove herself as a tension between you and your life here. Think about this. Your father and I wouldn't even know how to hurt your friend if we wanted to." Martha saw Clark's posture change after her assurances had a chance to sink in. His shoulders drooped and he lowered Jonathan to the ground.

Lola just left me? Oh...right. Clark's righteous anger died and he had to face the truth, Lola abandoned him. It was humbling and painful. Clark hadn't believed Lola would ever leave him so completely alone. He thought she needed him a little too. He thought they were a team. Clark couldn't meet his father's eyes. "I'm sorry," he managed to whisper. "I just didn't know she was going to cut me off so completely. It scared me." She didn't even say goodbye.

"It's okay, son," Jonathan said. He rubbed at his throat where his shirt had been choking him. With Lola gone, things could get back to normal. Clark would forget about that manipulative rock soon enough.

"No it isn't okay," Martha said. "Jerking your father around like that isn't exactly acceptable-son-behavior. I can understand that you haven't felt very much like our son this summer, and that's partly our fault. Well I'm through coddling you and treating you like glass. Go to your room. You're father and I will decide an appropriate punishment for this outburst." It was a battle to keep her expression stern, but Martha managed it until her baby made his silent walk to the house.

"What was that?" Jonathan said. His voice was a little rough, and his hand kept straying to the red wheal rising on his throat. "You were kind of hard on him."

"No I wasn't. I was exactly as stern as he deserved. He knows better than to man-handle you, or anyone. If he forgot, he has to remember," Martha said. Tears choked her voice off for a second, but she continued more firmly. Pity and grief wasn't going to help anyone. "We have to start acting like his parents again, if we want him to be our son."

"Maybe you're right." Jonathan let down the tailgate of the truck with a squeak and a bang. He gestured to Martha as though he'd just pulled out a chair in a gentlemanly fashion. She slid onto the seat with Jonathan and let him hold her close.

"Maybe I'm right?" Martha smiled tiredly up at the sky. She replayed the entire confrontation between Jonathan and Clark in her head. "The only way I could imagine that was too stern would be if you did kill Lola. You didn't do anything to his rock, did you?"

"I did not kill his rock," Jonathan answered. He hardly felt a twinge of conscience at the omission of his actual actions. The damn rock was fine, and safely out of his son's head. "How do you kill a rock?"

"If you're us, you don't. I know you think Lola has been messing with Clark's head. Maybe she has, but he thinks that she's his friend, and I don't think we can argue with that. I mean what case do we have? Clark Lola can't be your friend because we don't understand her. She's an alien rock that we don't know anything about, so leave her alone." Martha sighed and leaned heavily into her husband. "I mean, look what happened when you told him to avoid Lex Luthor."

"He did exactly the opposite." Jonathan laughed and shook his head at Martha. "You know, I think Clark must remember more than he lets on, or he couldn't act so much like himself."

"He picks his own friends. That's for sure." Martha slipped out of Jonathan's arms and cut a path through the blanket of dew that had fallen on their lawn. "I'm tired, and it's way past our bedtime. I just have one question. What is the appropriate punishment for lifting your father into the air and accusing him of murdering your alien-rock-friend?'


"Dad, I'm home," Chloe called. It was almost twelve thirty and the kitchen light was still on. Her dad was either working or waiting up or both. Preparing herself for the long knowing stare her father always gave her when he was curious about her life, Chloe poked her head through the swinging door to their kitchen.

Instead of the watchful parent she'd been expecting, Gabe Sullivan was asleep and drooling onto a stack of spreadsheets. Chloe smiled and shook her head lovingly. "Dad? Wake up. If you sleep like that, you won't be able to move your neck in the morning."

With a groan, Gabe slowly lifted his head and winced. "I don't think I can move my neck now."

"What were you thinking?" Chloe walked around and tried to knead some of the tension out of her dad's neck. "You shouldn't work so late."

"Well you weren't home to send me to bed, so I tried to get a few things done."

The knowing stare Chloe had been expecting came after she abandoned the neck-rub to take a seat opposite her dad. "What? I went for a drive...with a friend. He needed to talk."

"I hear that from you a lot. This friend needed to talk. That friend needed to talk. Do you need to talk? I happen to be a great listener. It's where you get it from." Gabe smiled at his girl and waited. They had always had a great relationship. He loved it when she opened up and gave him a glimpse of her life.

Chloe sighed and shrugged. This boy I like is an alien, and I'm trying not to let it freak me out too much. He recently forgot that he's in love with the resident-goddess, Lana Lang, but he'll probably remember eventually, so I'm not going to make my move. I'm a coward, and he's an alien. It could work, right? "Everything in my life's pretty tame right now. It's all on track, you know. The Daily Planet was a dream, and I really can't wait to put out that first new issue of the Torch."

"So is your friend who needed to talk okay?" Gabe had a strong suspicion about the identity of this talkative friend. He would have to be blind to miss his daughter's ongoing obsession with Clark Kent, the farm-kid from down the street. She practically put her life on hold to try and find him when he disappeared. And now she seemed to have become his chief confidant? Gabe just hoped Clark didn't hurt her. His girl wanted everyone to think she was tough as nails. It was her way of keeping emotionally safe. Under the hard-hitting nothing-gets-me-down journalist, she was all mushy-insecure-heart, another trait she had inherited from her old man. "I mean is there anything I can do to help?"

"Don't worry. We aren't dealing with adult-intervention type problems. No drugs, alcohol, and no teen pregnancy." Chloe ticked the major teen-problem categories off with a droll grin on her face. "Me and my friend aren't going to make a Lifetime sap-fest movie of the week." We might make the cover of the Inquisitor though: Aliens and the Women Who Love Them.


And in another corner of the Galaxy...

"I told you. I will not be taking care of any kids. I don't like them, don't understand them, and I won't deal with them."

Luci hadn't expected to ever awaken when she fell asleep holding her little brother. The air had been so thick and her lungs just felt heavy and wet. Every gasp was an agony of cracks and bubbles that left her dreading her next breath. When she became aware of the world around her again, the voice grumbling in the background hardly warranted notice. The clean rich air expanding her lungs was enough to mesmerize her.

"Are they even alive? They look dead. I'm not going to nurse them. I'm not a nurse. I told you I didn't like kids. You can't leave me with them. It wasn't part of our deal."

Someone settled her gently onto a soft bed, and Luci cracked her eyes open just enough to see the world without exposing herself as conscious. She could see her brother sleeping a couple of feet away. His pale complexion was a little gray, but not nearly as mottled as it had been. Satisfied that she hadn't lost Ford, Luci redirected her attention to the voice that had been whining since she'd awoken.

Two women were standing at the foot of the beds. They were different, practically opposites. The whiner wasn't really standing up straight. She had a bowed look to her, and she was old, gray and fat. The other woman was tall and straight and pretty and quiet. Luci opened her mouth to try and speak, but she couldn't even make a squeak.

"Silence, Reo-Ra. I will say this once," the pretty woman said. "You belong to me and my mission until I release you. You are being compensated well, and some small amount of flexibility on your part is required. You will care for these children as though your life depended on it. You will feed them, clean them, and do whatever else is required to keep them healthy until my return. If any harm has come to them by your hand or by neglect, the reprimand will be severe."

Something about the way the pretty woman spoke caused Luci to shiver. She wanted to ask the woman why she'd come for Ford and her. She wanted to thank the woman who saved them and seemed to care about what happened to them. Luci wanted someone to acknowledge her and speak to her. She needed someone to take charge and tell her what to do right now. She needed someone to tell her everything was okay. As if she could sense Luci's distress, the pretty woman turned and stared at her.

"I hear your heart little one," the pretty woman said. She walked to Luci's bedside and dropped down to eye level. "There is no reason to fear. You are safe here, as is your brother. My associate Reo is going to protect you until I can return."

Luci couldn't help herself; she started to cry. Someone was taking care of her, and she wasn't dead, but everyone else was. Of all the questions running through her head, she managed to whisper one in husky rasp. "Who are you?"

"You may call me Onlea," the pretty woman said after a long pause. "Now you will rest."

Luci nodded obediently and squeezed her eyes shut. She mouthed the words thank you over and over until the lights dimmed and she heard the door open and close.

Reo could barely contain her disbelief until the Eradicator had her new charges sealed in for the evening. "Did you just threaten my life? I didn't sign on to this madness to be threatened. You can drop me off at the nearest commerce world. I don't need the money that bad, and I won't take care of those children." Making demands and ultimatums to a supposedly sentient Eradicator was suicidal, but Reo couldn't quite contain her panic. She couldn't live like this.

"You're mistaken, Reo. While I might find you as an individual distasteful, I would never kill you." Stepping into Reo's personal space aggressively, the Eradicator pushed the woman into one of the walls, and caressed her abdomen possessively. "You have biologic components of value. Just remember, death is not the worst reprimand I have in my repertoire. You will care for these children, and you will not abandon this quest. In addition you will not refer to my quest as madness, and you will not refer to me as the Eradicator in front of those children. The title will only further distress them."

Reo folded her arms over her chest defensively, her breaths coming in short gasps. She'd been afraid the Eradicator was going to issue her a more physical reprimand on the spot, but the machine backed away.

"In this thing, do not disappoint me," the Eradicator said. Her voice was quieter than a normal speaking voice, and it carried a threat in its clipped even rhythm. "Of all the emotions I have come to feel, disappointment is my least favorite thus far."