- Chapter 27 - Sunrise -

The rooster crowed and Jonathan sat up in bed, confused for a moment. His alarm should have gone off well before dawn. He glared at his clock in annoyance, wondering what had happened. The time read quarter to four though. The rooster was early? Light shone through the bedroom window, too bright for dawn, impossible that it was natural. Jonathan stumbled to the window and wondered who or what had lit the farm up like noontime without making a sound.

He pushed back the curtains and in an instant, amidst the rooster's crowing, the light was gone. Jonathan blinked in the darkness, trying to see past the stars in his vision.

"What happened?" Propped up on her elbows, Martha frowned toward the window. "Is someone here?"

"I don't know."

"Well, I'm going to peek in on Clark and Luci and Ford." Martha had already rolled out of bed and was headed to the closet for her robe.

"Do you think the Eradicator is back?" Jonathan asked.

Martha shook her head. "I hope not. It doesn't seem like her style of entrance."

Jonathan wasn't surprised to find Clark's room empty. After finding Lola again, he knew better than to expect compliance or courtesy from his son. Ford and Luci's empty room was more of a surprise. Was one of the missing children responsible for the light and were they all okay?

Martha arrived at his elbow with a frown. "It looks like we're the only ones sleeping tonight." Folded on the guest room's desk a note caught her attention and Martha unfolded it. In careful, laborious blocks of printing, simple sentences explained the children's absence.

We are with Reo.

She is taking care of us.

Luci and Ford

Nothing of theirs remained behind in the room. The two children had decamped without a word of goodbye. Martha frowned in confusion. "They're with Reo at her build site. Do you think the ship Reo is building made the light?"

"It's possible." Jonathan sighed. "We'll have to talk to her about not alerting the neighbors to her project if she's responsible. Let's see if Clark left a note in the kitchen. Hopefully he didn't bunk down at Lex's again. It's hard not to worry that he's going to say something inappropriate while he's angry." Not that he had shown much anger over the death of his favorite rock. Jonathan frowned darkly, still doubtful that Lola was really and truly gone.

"There are technically worse people he could tell his secret to if it happened," Martha said. She followed Jon down the stairs and to the kitchen. "I wanted to tell Lex everything not so long ago, remember?"

"I remember. And it's as big a mistake today as it would have been then." There wasn't a note on the fridge or the counter. No sign betrayed a quick breakfast preparation. Clark hadn't bothered to leave any hints behind.

"There isn't much point in going back to bed." Martha dug out the coffee tin and Jonathan fetched the water. While the smell of Folgers filled the house, she let Jonathan wrap an arm around her and fold her close. "Good morning, by the way."


Orange juice, coffee, and a pair of soft boiled eggs sat pristine and untouched while a local newscaster for a Metropolis affiliate squawked in the background about unusually bright northern lights appearing in Kansas overnight. Lex paced his hotel room calmly with a cell phone to his ear. "I asked you what it was, exactly where it originated from, and what damage it may have done?" he asked as though the questions were obvious and easily answered. "I pay you to anticipate the unexpected, so I don't want excuses. Do you have data or don't you?"

"I expect more detail when I arrive." Lex snapped his phone shut and frowning, set out. He wasn't paying the PhDs at Cadmus labs to sit on their hands when strange happenings occurred in Smallville. His own private CSI army dedicated to discovering more about the dangerous and potentially useful mutagenic meteor rocks, they knew better than to ignore a blast of light seen as far away as Metropolis.

The early sun had only just broken over the horizon as he slid into his silver sports car and peeled out of the parking lot. If Dr. Green hadn't been able to produce a set of coordinates and inform Lex that a small team had already been dispatched, he might have really lost his cool. As it was, he just wanted to get himself to the site to oversee. He punched the GPS coordinates into his car's navigation system and it informed him that there was no public road access to the site. "Get me close." The voice activated system immediately started turn by turn directions.


Three aliens, in matching sets of blacked-out goggles trudged through the stubby carpet of Earth-grass single file. While the eyewear looked fairly normal on the older woman's face, the children following her looked rather like snorkelers who'd been fitted with the wrong size equipment.

Holding his oversized goggles in place, Ford tugged on his sister's shirtsleeve. "What do you think made that flash?"

"I really don't know," Luci said. "Not human technology according to Reo, so we might be able to scavenge something." Just thinking about the skeleton of a vessel Reo had constructed so far filled her with terror and hope. Part of her doubted that the clunky mess would ever move safely, much less get them across the galaxy. Trusting Reo and her ship was madness. Unfortunately, their other option, staying on a planet filled with a few billion aliens that might turn on them at any moment, didn't seem any saner.

Luci hissed and hopped awkwardly forward when her ankle sank into a gopher hole. "You really think there's something worth scavenging out here, just because of a brief flash of light?" she snapped at Reo.

"The flash, was spectrum three mark four mark one mark five, perfect Kryptonium blue with a halo of six mark eight mark nineteen. If it's a coincidence, it's a freakish one. We need a fuel source, a core for me to really start building around. The spectrum and power, it has to be a Kryptonian engine or at least a fuel coil."

Luci snorted, massaging her ankle. "So that heap you're welding together back there isn't an example of you 'really' building? I'm glad."

Reo shot a poisonous look over her shoulder to limited effect through the dark, protective goggles. "Just keep your eyes open. Scavenging can be taken the wrong way."

Reduced to thieves, Luci thought. She frowned and glanced at Ford with his peeling pink skin and comical goggles. He seemed mostly oblivious to the implications of the situation, but she never knew which little brother she should expect from moment to moment any more -the genius-robot who mastered English in record time or the slobbering crybaby who always wanted the last ration cube.

"Ah excrement." Reo's shoulders slumped and she threw her goggles down. Luci and Ford joined her staring forward at the source of the distinctive spectral flash they had trailed so diligently.

"It's Clark," Ford announced. "Hey Clark, are you okay?"

Lying spread eagled, face turned toward the sky, the last Kryptonian didn't move in response to his name. "Come on," Reo said. She snatched up her goggles and started back they way they'd come. "Anything here is his."

"Wait," Luci said, still staring. Her heart had jumped at the sight of him, her first real crush, though she hadn't labeled him quite that way in her own head yet, eternal soul-mate seemed appropriate to her in the moment. "I think he might be hurt."

"If he is, we don't want to be found with him. All future passengers on my ship need to move away from the Kryptonian now," Reo commanded.

Luci ignored her, heading over to Clark's side instead. She placed her ear over the center of his chest and listened until a steady thumping greeted her. "He's alive," she announced. Her cheeks burning with embarrassment and awe, she shook Clark gently, hoping to wake him. "He's out cold," she announced again, town crier style.

"Great. Leave him and let's go."

"He's one of us," Ford said. He looked up at Reo and back over at his sister. "We shouldn't leave him exposed."

"One of us?" Reo glared out at Luci and Clark, her jaw set. The pronoun us kept growing in meaning lately. As she trudged toward her newly christened comrade, Reo complained, "I should leave you all out here to scavenge with the aboriginals forever. Where this sympathetic streak is coming from in me, I could not tell you." Grunting, Reo dropped awkwardly to one knee by Luci. She slapped an antigravity tag on Clark's chest and another at his knees. "Are you going to make me do everything? Get his gear. Let's go before any natives come poking around." Gripping the control handle, Reo dialed up the antigravity device. Clark rose in the air limply until his toes and fingers barely skimmed the ground.

"Right," Luci said. She grabbed Clark's bag and started tossing crystals inside; a scattering of the blue things seemed to be the only thing Clark had brought with him. "Got it."


Chloe started her Saturday morning bright and early with her MP3 player blaring away some crisp new tunes. Still damp from the shower, she padded over to her windowsill and picked up the multifaceted red crystal Clark had entrusted to her.

It didn't look very dangerous, just shiny and inert. "Good morning," Chloe said. "You should get lots of clear strong sun today." She replaced the rock gently in a rectangle of light and shrugged. Even if the much talked about Lola was insane, it seemed rude not to at least try to communicate.

Throwing on a pair of shorts and a t-shirt, Chloe bounded downstairs to find breakfast. Without removing her earbuds, she turned on the TV and started scrounging for frozen waffles. Once a pair of Eggos were safely toasting, Chloe gave the television some attention. Instead of the usual group of Saturday morning talking heads discussing DC and politics, the local newscasters were running a breaking story. With a couple of quick clicks, Chloe silenced her music and turned up the TV.

"That's right Bob, meteorologists are now saying that last night's light show was an unusual lightning storm. We had a warm night last night and the high humidity combined to make quite an impressive flash." The grinning blond reporter was replaced by a balding middle aged man in a well-tailored grey suit.

"That's exciting Sheri. I can't wait to hear an eyewitness report on the thunder that must have come with it." He looked into a different camera and smiled winningly. "This is Bob Baxter with channel eleven. We will keep you up to date on this developing story from Smallville."

Chloe nibbled on her lower lip and frowned. Weird weather in Smallville couldn't exactly be counted on to be just weather. Between aliens and mutants, it could be anything. Deciding to call her alien connection to gauge that possibility, Chloe nabbed the phone and punched in Clark's digits from memory.


Unaware that all aliens had made a hasty retreat, a small team of scientists from Cadmus Labs combed the two square mile area in which their satellite data had placed the explosion of light from earlier in the day. Time was not on their side. The local authorities could unexpectedly find the location in question at any time, and their presence would not be appreciated. For his part, Lex was less concerned about the local sheriff than finding some information before what evidence that remained was lost or obscured.

That they were trespassing on Kent land and might run afoul of an angry Jonathan or Martha barely crossed his mind. The location was adjacent to a Luthorcorp test plot and their presence could be easily explained away.

"Mr. Luthor, we found something," a man wearing latex gloves approached with a familiar metal box.

"Hello," Lex took to box and flipped it open. "Interesting."


Author's Note:

Phaze made the comment that this fandom (really the show itself) has changed a lot since it started years ago, and I just want to say that I totally agree. Having lost touch with the series (though I've bought all the seasons as they're released with the belief that I will someday come around and watch them) the fandom is unrecognizable to me when I flip through the fiction lists. Does that make this fic dated or retro? Either way, it deserves an ending.

Anyhow, next chapter, a bit early. I'll post again next Sunday probably.

Peace,

Bridget