Chapter 39

"Kryptonite!?" Lois was seething. "What the hell is Kryptonite? And why haven't you thrown this little tidbit my way before now? Oh no! My mistake. You didn't. Chloe did. Would you even have told me about it if she hadn't let it slip?"

She was pacing with arms crossed, and Clark had taken a seat on the couch to patiently wait her out while she ranted.

"Just how long before I was going to be told about something that is deadly to you? Don't you think I deserved to know this? How many other people know about it?"

Mentally, with the new super-speed of thought that he'd begun to have, Clark did the calculations. As a result of all the testing and stretching of his mental acuity, thanks to Star Labs and the two good doctors, it was easy to come up with the exact number to answer her question. He could even catalogue them according to whether they knew the substance as Kryptonite or merely "meteor rock." But he stayed silent.

"Chloe? Your mom, well, obviously." Lois was making her own list. "This Impulse character? Whoever he is! Maybe the Mormon Tabernacle Choir? But no, not good old Lois! She's the last to know all the important stuff. You even told Chloe you were Superman before you told me!"

"Lois, that's not exactly how that hap—"

"Well, you haven't bothered with any clarification yet, have you? I've been waiting, but no, all you do is fly off to Star Labs all the time!" She stopped pacing to point at him accusingly. "Taking tests!"

"Tests that were your idea!" he said calmly, with a hint of a smile.

She ignored the comment and the smile. "You certainly didn't tell me of this Kryptonite stuff! How much of it is out there? What exactly does it do to you? What did she mean it can control you? What if they have some at Star Labs!? Who else knows—?"

As she took in a deep breath, he got up, took her flailing hands in his, and said quietly, but firmly, "Lois, I will tell you whatever it is you want to know. I promise." He pulled her into a hug, and she collapsed against him, burying her face in his chest.

"You're indestructible. You're supposed to be indestructible. If I can't…if we can't…that's all I've got. You can't not be indestructible." She let out a tiny, controlled sob, and he felt his heart melt a little. It wasn't often Lois Lane worked herself into such an emotional state; but with being shot at, seeing her own obituary in the paper, and being trapped for the second day inside the farm house, the new revelation of something others knew about him that she didn't was enough to get her there.

"Lois, we'll talk. Tonight. Anything you want to know. Okay?" She nodded against his chest and he thought it best to warn her. "But for now, mom's coming up the driveway, so how about a smile?"

Another nod. "That's my girl."

********

"So what does the green kind feel like?"

They were in the loft on the couch, and Clark was covering everything anyone ever wanted to know about Kryptonite with a much calmer Lois.

"It hurts," Clark said simply with a shrug of the shoulders. Lois was being as thorough on this subject as she had when she'd done that first interview, and, for some reason, it was making him very uncomfortable. "Just so we're clear? You're not allowed to use any kind on me, okay?"

"Ha!" Lois scoffed and rolled her eyes. "Like I'm going to agree to that one!"

"And you wonder why I haven't told you about this before?" he said sarcastically as he reached down to scratch Shelby behind the ears.

"Now, come on," she pulled her knees up underneath her and turned to face him, "describe the feeling. Is it like a stabbing pain, an aching one? Maybe dull and throbbing?"

"It feels…sort of like my blood is on fire, and like my veins… and my body are just trying to writhe away from it, but they can't…I can't, because it also—"

"Paralyzes you," she finished. Her eyes focused somewhere on a space in the air between them as a memory flooded back to her. "That time…you were shot…there was Kryptonite there, wasn't there?"

"Yes."

"Thank God I listened to you and got you away from it."

"See how sometimes it is important to listen to me?"

"Oh, hush! As I remember, you milked that for a while. Had me running for coffee for you and the like—"

"Your memory bank is a few deposits short there, young lady. That's not how it was."

"Did you not just say that if you take the Kryptonite away, the effects go away? Well, I seem to remember some groans and grimaces across my desk during that time. Now I know they were just to make me feel guilty." He started to protest again, but she shushed him. "Now the silver kind—"

"Doesn't really count because Brainiac made it. I'm not even sure if it was Kryptonite in reality. That was just scary."

"So it just made you paranoid?"

"With a capital 'P'!"

"That doesn't sound that bad though. It's not as if it really hurt you."

"Lois, with my strength, my powers, it's never good when my perception of reality is altered. You need to understand that." Especially before we get to the red variety.

"But just a little bit of it can—" She stopped. "How big a piece are we talking here? What exactly does it look like?"

He sighed. "Surely you've seen the meteor rocks before…but, I may as well show you." He got up and went over to the desk.

The sudden movement disturbed Shelby and the dog moved closer to Lois, who immediately sneezed. "Aww, come on, Shelby, give me a break!"

Clark laughed as he took out a small box from one of the drawers.

"What's that? Wait a minute! I've seen that before."

"This box is made of lead. Lead is the only thing that shields me from the effects of the Kryptonite." He handed her the box and took several steps back from her.

She looked from him to the box in her hands several times, soberly realizing the trust he had just placed in her. "Is it okay for me to open it? Are you far enough away—?"

"Yeah. Go ahead. Open it. You wanted to know how someone can control me. Nothing like a game of show and tell," he said lightly. When he saw how astonished she looked at that, he changed to a more serious tone. "You need to know."

She slowly opened the lid partially and peeked inside to see a small, greenish rock the size of a golf ball. It looked almost unimpressive to her after all she'd just learned about its origins. This couldn't be right. Something this small, this insignificant, just couldn't be what he was talking about – it just couldn't. "Smallville, I…this is…" She was lost for words.

"Go ahead. Take it out."

Her eyebrows knitted together with worry. "Are you sure?" She watched him nod determinedly, but she shook her head and closed the lid. "No. I can't.

"Lois! I'm giving you permission to hurt me, and you're not going to take it? Can we write this down on the calendar as a red letter day?"

She barred her teeth at him in frustration. "No."

"Come on, you know you're dying to see how this is going to affect me. I don't want it coming up again. I'm ready. Let's do it now." He squared his shoulders again, and she watched him flex the fingers of both hands in readiness for the pain he was anticipating.

"No! No way, Smallville. I cannot hurt you intentionally. There is just," she stood up, her voice rising to a crescendo, "no way!"

Shelby barked at the sudden yell, and jumped playfully forward, knocking the box from Lois' hands. The small, green meteorite rolled toward Clark before Lois even realized what had happened.

With the world around her seeming to slow in motion, she saw him fall to the wooden floor, an obvious expression of great pain etched on his face.

"Clark!"